Diablo 2: The Brother (And Sister)hood of EoFF

[SeeDRankLou]

No one is posting. So here is a random update on my Diablo II experience.

I have one of the two high runes I will use for a Grief for my SRLlycan. However, I recently saw something on attack speed and found that a druid will swing a Berserker Axe faster than an Ettin Axe, and with the slower attack speed of a werewolf, my druid needs all the attack speed he can get. And thus I will not be using my Ettin Axe for the Grief and instead will be looking for a Berserker Axe. So if anyone stumbles upon a Berserker Axe, either with five or no sockets, would you mind holding onto it for me, I can use the nightmare socketing quest to give it five sockets. And I almost have another keyset, so that's a second high rune. Also, I would suggest to any shape shifting Druid that when you get Lycanthropy to high enough enough levels that you switch to Heart of Wolverine. Especially in hell, Oak Sage dieing can kill you.

DrSRL can finally damage everything now, although the animation for Fists of Heaven is terribly long for just hitting one target if you aren't in a group of undead monsters. And I was going to put points into Sanctuary for the undead aspect of my character, but I recently came across a few runewords that I had previously overlooked because this is only my second Paladin and I wasn't familiar with all of their skills. Lawbringer gives a lv 16-18 Sanctuary aura when equipped, and it's pretty dirt cheap to make. So say hello to a decently powerful Conviction aura when this build gets further along. And I also read somewhere that on my Prayer merc, if I give him an Insight, his Prayer will synergize with the Mediation aura of the Insight. If I give him a +2 to skills helm/armor, that will max his prayer at level 75. With my Cleansing synergized by my own maxed Prayer, it will be the equivalent of 3 maxed Prayers going on at the same time when I have Cleansing going (which is usually).

With the addition of a Crown of Thieves for SRLmartyr, he now has enough life leech to survive the life leech restriction in hell. If I come across Griswold's weapon, I can socket that with three or four Amn runes and free up some of my other items with life leech for something better. If I get it with four I can free up most everything else.

So, I am making a singing Barb. Actually I already made a singing Barb, but I fudged him up (luckily he's only at lv 12) and I am making another one. If I can delete the character and remake him with the same name, then his name will stay SRLtroubadour, but if not then I have to think of a new one. My strategy with this barb was to use Leap Attack to position myself in the middle of monsters, which would nudge them a bit away from where I landed, and then spam War Cry until they die. For physical immunes, I was going to put a point into Berserk, and rely on +skills and the synergy of a maxed Howl for semi-decent magic damage. However, that would have gone something like this:

+20 Howl, Taunt, Battle Cry, War Cry, Battle Orders
+1 Shout, Battle Command, Find Potion, Find Item, Weapon Master of choice, Increase Stamina, Increase Speed, Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Leap, Leap Attack, Bash, Stun, Concentrate, Berserk

If you were counting, that is 115 skill points, which is not possible. And thus I would have to sacrifice either four synergy points to War Cry or have a level 16 Battle Orders (at level 99 that is, but lets be optimistic). Yeah, I could give up the Find abilities and a few of the Increases, but why? That's kind of like a Sorc giving up Warmth and Teleport, it's just not right. And I have found that with this game, a lot of things are possible with the right set up, and I came across a way to be able to have everything I want maxed and still have Berserk. While noticing the Lawbringer runeword, I also noticed the Passion runeword, which grants +1 to Berserk, and again is dirt cheap to make. Only +1 to Berserk never really interested me so I always overlooked it, but since that is what I'm doing with this build anyway it's perfect. If I were to equip this, I would save myself 4 skill points, which is just enough for this build. Also, while reviewing the effect of Sanctuary, I realize that it lets the user ignore the phyical immunity of undead monster, and about 85% of physical immunes are undead. There is one none-undead in act 2, and like 4 or 5 in act 5. Not to mention decent elemental damage on the Lawbringer. So on weapon switch I could duel wield a Lawbringer and Passion swords, and there would be nothing immune to me in the game at all. I've never come up with a build like that before, I'm a little proud of myself. So my build now looks like so:

+20 Howl, Taunt, Battle Cry, War Cry, Battle Orders
+1 Shout, Battle Command, Find Potion, Find Item, Sword Master, Increase Stamina, Increase Speed, Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Leap, Leap Attack

The skill quests will take care of all of the one pointers. So at level 80 I can have maxed War Cry, Battle Cry, Howl, and 10 to Taunt and Battle Orders (or 15 and 5 one way or the other, not sure yet). Then I would max Taunt and finally Battle Orders. I'm thinking this would make a rather decent MFer too. I've never really played with a Barb past level 40, I kind of get bored with them. But I think this one will work for me, there are a lot of interesting things to play with here.

So as you can tell I'm bored at work. If someone could give me an xfer to strip the barb I fudged up, that would be cool. Also, apb for a berserker axe, SRLlycan is so close to being perfect.