Diablo II & me
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MageBarb-ofJANG
You knew it would happen. You didn't know when and you didn't know by whom, but you knew that some spellcasting fanatic was going to get his/her hands on a fresh barb and try to make a sorc out of him. Oh, a little extra mana here. Oh, a little fast cast there. Continue with this theme until you narrowly pass the outer boundary of the realm of reasonability, and you have MageBarb-ofJANG.
Born November 17, 2000, MageBarb is the most far-fetched experiment in the history of the -ofJANG series, and much to everyone's surprise, he's actually working out.
History
MageBarb started with unquestionably the strangest Barbarian item configuration of all time:
- Stone of Jordan (2)
- Biggin's Bonnet (+15 life/mana)
- Twitchthroe (for its increased blocking %)
- Ume's Lament (for the +40 mana and faster cast rate)
- Treads of Cthon
- Bladebuckle
- Wall of the Eyeless (shield, faster cast rate and 3% mana steal)
- Bloodfist (+40 life, fastest hit recovery)
- Mahim-Oak Curio (+20 life/mana, +5 dex/str)
Early on, he invested as much into life and mana as he could while slowly building up the strength he would need to eventually don a divine scepter. Ume's Lament was actually ditched pretty quickly as its "Hit causes monster to flee" attribute was quite annoying for a character with no area effect attack. A mace sufficed with Bash until he found an enhanced damage magical war scepter. Surprisingly, the leech attribute in Wall of the Eyeless was enough to keep this uncanny barb's mana well-stocked.
Once MageBarb's natural life was high enough, he switched out Biggin's Bonnet for a Tarnhelm (+1 skill) and replaced Bloodfist with Magefists. The cast rate boost of Magefists afforded a delightful boost to killing speed, as he was using Taunt (which only affects one enemy at a time) to draw together many monsters before systematically hammering them down like keys on a xylophone. As an added bonus, the unique light gauntlets' +25% mana regen. helped immensely to offset the ever-increasing mana drain as the mage-barb relied more heavily on spells.
Eighteenth was a very useful level for MageBarb, as this was when he learned Battlecry, the area effect curse that both reduces enemies' ability to inflict damage, but also increases one's own ability to damage them (by negating a percentage of their defense). Now MageBarb's routine switched to one of taunting monsters into a small area, then circling them while casting BattleCry until most (if not all) were weakened, followed by a devastating flurry of Bashes and Leap Attacks. Think about it... (Warning: oxymoronic suggestion follows) a Barbarian... using skill to defeat his foes!
At lvl 30, of course, MageBarb got WarCry, and the rest was history. His 3x stacked fastest/faster cast allows him to keep enemies stunlocked in Nightmare, and he will add up to two pieces of fast cast jewelry (one +1 barb/mana steal amulet and one ring) if necessary to inflict stunlock in Hell difficulty. He will never put a single point into Whirlwind, sticking instead with Bash and Leap Attack for mana steal. He has no lifesteal items at this point, but like his female counterpart, the Sorceress, he doesn't need to use potions very often. Besides, all of that fast cast works wonders when using the "Find Potion" skill!
Perhaps a bit prematurely, MageBarb burst through Nightmare level Diablo at the aggressively low level of 37. Things were getting a big difficult at this point, however, and he actually switched out one Stone of Jordan for a nice 7% mana steal ring to keep his blue orb filled more presistently.
Stats
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