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[Ling203]

1.11 BvC Guide, Version 1.1

So...yeah...welcome to the world of the barb versus caster.

Skills

The basic skills are as follows:
Battle Orders - 20
Battle Command - 1
Axe Mastery - 20
Whirlwind - 20
These skills cannot be compromised, and are the backbone of the BvC build.

Suggested Skills:
Leap - 14+
After you land a leap, any hostiles in a radius defined by 1.98 + (Leap slvl * 0.66) yards will be put into double faster hit recovery animation, and also become knocked back. The benefits of this skill are obvious. The absolute minimum skill level of leap is 19 after your + skill items. This provides a knockback radius of about the entire visible screen, minus the corners. Level 22-24 leap will cover the corners, and a bit beyond. Leap has no diminishing returns, and is one of the dumps for any extra skill points you find yourself with.
Natural Resistance - 1-4+
One point into this skill is a must, and I recommend putting at least 2 points into natural resistance. A big downside is that diminishing returns set in fast.
Increased Speed - 4+
Diminishing returns also set in quickly for this skill too. Increased speed allows you to do several things. Firstly, it makes your whirlwinds more desynced. This will be explained later. Secondly, it enables to outrun bone spirits while golem slowed, which is key. Finally, it makings chasing things do easier, be it your next victim, or Akara.
Shout - 5+
Arbitrary number of points here. It boosts the defense of you and your teammates, and also synergizes berserk at 10% enhanced berserk damage per point.
This isn't a key skill and putting over 10 points into shout becomes a waste.
Beserk - 1+
Magic damage is sexy, and if you learn how to land teleport-zerks, it can be useful versus non-blocking casters.

Prerequisites:
Bash
Concentrate
Leap attack
Increased stamina
Iron skin
Howl - This is useful for scattering summons. It doesn't work on valkyries or shadows.

[Ling203]

Items

The BvC is not a poor man's build. It requires a certain level of wealth, and if you cannot obtain these items, your chances of success sink rapidly. Another build would probably be better for you.

Helmets:
A BvC uses two main helmets. Arreat's Face, and Crown of Ages, in addition to Kira's Guardian when stacking resistances is needed. Arreat's Face should be ideally socketed with a 40% enhanced damage, 15% jewel, while the CoA should be socket with ber runes. Perfect damage reduction comes first on the CoA, while life leech comes first on an Arreats.
Arreat's is a common item, and if you are unable to obtain it, you should stop reading here. As a alternative to a CoA, a single ber runed CoA still works, and comes for much cheaper than a dual socketed one. Vampire Gazes, whether the 08 version of it or not, are viable alternatives, and if you choose to use them, socket them with a ber rune.
Armor:
Enigma is the core armor of the BvC, and is a common these days. Since I added strength (to be explained later), I chose a Scarab Husk Enigma for the looks and defense. With the advent of the Hellfire torch, wearing an enigma with over 1 000 defense is very possible with base.
Fortitude and Duress are two armors that are used in special situations. Versus hammerdins, melee, charged strike amazons, and some wind druids in a 1 versus 1 duel. To use this typically demands pumping strength a bit.
Weapons:
The best weapons are Grief (on the glove side) and Beast beserker axes. The +damage on Grief is added to your base weapon damage, providing consistent pain for your victims. Your Grief should have at least 34% increased attack speed to hit the last whirlwind breakpoint. Try to get as high of a strength on your beast as possible (prioritize it over the enhanced damage roll).
Breath of the Dying as a viable alternative, but your damage will be less consistent due to its ~1-5k range.
On switch, I believe dual doom beserker axes are the best choice. They provide a holy freeze aura, and -resistance, which is very useful. If you'd rather not use dual dooms, Hoto + Hoto, or Hoto + 3BO Call to Arms are good battle orders switchs.
Amulets/Rings:
Highlords Wrath is a superior amulet any duped amulet due its deadly strike outweighing all other factors. When dueling higher defense characters in a 1v1 situation, Angelics set should be used. Fcr rings with mana and resistances are also useful.
Gloves:
Dracul's Grasp is a staple, providing open wounds and strength boost. It is better than steelrends in every possible way, except for defense, which does not have much impact on a BvC. The strength boost on Dracul's actually allows you to benefit from its low strength requirement. Also, the chance of triggering open wounds far outweighs the measly damage boots that the steelrends gives.
Trang-Oul's claws are also useful, providing 20% faster cast rate, and some cold resistance. However, it's 25% increased poison damage will boost the venom from grief twice. Once on its cast, and a second time upon application.
Boots:
Boots such as Rune Slippers or Soul Shanks provide needed resistance and strength bonuses. The most important types of resistances are is fire, followed by lightning.
Gore riders can be viable, but your resistances may suffer.
Misc:
Widowmaker - Its +3-5 guided arrow will allow you to annoy various other characters as well as force them to play offensive.
Demon Limb - Semi-useful for attack rating, and killing the physical immune oak sage in nightmare dueling games.
Treachery - Fade prebuff
Thundergod's Vigor - Killing trappers, as well as providing a str bonus that will be explained later.

Statistics
Strength: Base or Custom Amount
Dexterity: Base or Custom Amount
Vitality: The rest
THERE ARE NO OTHER STATS AVAILABLE FOR YOU.

Regarding strength and dexterity levels, it is recommended that you have enough dexterity to use a hel’d widowmaker with Ravens and charms alone. The most dex you will need to put would be for using widowmaker in conjunction with arreats and angelics.
The most strength you need would be for using CoA with fort, resistance boots, and a +strength ow belts/tgods. With my barb, this came out to 55/41 base strength/dexterity.
If this is your first BvC, or you have never used widowmaker and Fortitude, go with base strength/dexterity.

[Ling203]

Dueling Strategies

"The player in a public game aims to achieve the goals of raising his pride by dominating large amounts of people, making fun of n00bs in the most entertaining and efficient way possible, increasing dueling skill when good 1v1 games are not available (4-5 pubbies is about equivalent to 1 good dueler), entertain oneself by winning, and minimizing the negative feelings on oneself in order that the player is left with the positive feelings only."
~Blobs

You will need to understand why specific items are used. CoA is used to reduce physical damage, so if a game contains a wind druid, you should wear CoA. Similarly, if you are in a game with all sorceresses, then switch to Arreats for more damage and resistance.

Only worthwhile builds discussed.

Sorceresses:
Every good sorceress will have energy shield. Grief allows you to break their energy, expect in cases where they play defensive, have good fhr/block, or stack integer damage reduction.
Orb:
Arreats, and res boots if you feel their mastery will not bring you down to -100, gores if they will. Widowmaker if they play overly defensive.
Most orb sorceresses are jumpy, and will teleport alot. Therefore you should namelock teleport whirlwind them. Leap will allow you to dodge the shards with ease. If you do a long leap, you should have a chance to unsummon lock them, allowing you to teleport + whirlwind them. If they are not on your screen, you should be leaping in place.
Blizzard:
Arreats, and res boots if you feel their mastery will not bring you down to -100, gores if they will. Widowmaker if they play overly defensive and Trang's gloves if they cannot tank your whirlwind.
If they are skilled, this is a hard duel. If they are block, or have a strong energy shield, you must play hit and run, either with Beast primary's open wounds, or with 290 poison damage small charms. Either way, if you can teleport beside them and whirlwind, do so. Versus defensive ones, use widowmaker to apply open wounds/poison. If they blizzard themselves, leap, then teleport beside them and begin triangle whirlwinds. Use medium leaps and unsummon to get a lock.
Fireball/Lightning:
Use Trang's/Ravens, or Dracul's/Fcr rings, depending on how much they can tank.
If they spam, leap once and teleport beside them and begin triangle whirls.
If they teleport alot, leap, namelock teleport, and begin triangle whirls. Alternately, (leap) namelock, and move your mouse to the centre of the screen, and left click. You should be able to pull off teleport beserk with practice.

Amazons:
A good barb should beat any amazon. If you fail, it was probably lag, or a lack of skill/mana.
Charged Strike:
Arreats, and tgods if needed.
Charged Strike is flawed versus whirlwind. As long as you continuously whirlwind correctly, the bolts should miss you. Put on Fortitude to completely win. Doom in place of beast if you want to do unspeakable things to them.
Bow:
Use Trangs/Ravens or Dracs/Fcr at your discretion, but maintain a 10 frame teleport. Approach in a curve, and name lock whirlwind, since most good amazons will desync while walking. Hide your approach direction until the last minute by letting the amazon see you on your minimap, and then approach from another direction. If at anytime you are hit, whirlwind or leap away to a safe place.

Druids:
Druids have terrible faster hit recovery in human form, and leap will fully exploit this.
Wind Druid:
Use CoA, enchant to kill oak, gore riders, ow belt with strength/tgods, and dracs. Possibly 8/15 string of ears if they play overly defensive.
If they go with the wolves, use dual dooms, and enigma.
Switch to dooms, and leap. The aura pulses should kill the wolves in 2-4 pulses. If they continue to stay in your screen, leap, and teleport beside them, and triangle whirl them.
If they run, either namelock teleport and come out whirling; this should at least trigger block animation, since he only has an oak. If you hit, they should go into fhr, or delay namelock the druid, and teleport onto him when his namebar stops moving around.
If they use bear, go with fortitude and widowmaker.
Widowmaker ensures that he has to play offensive, or give you leech off his bear. You both have to be close to each other to do damage, take advantage of this. Whenever them come close to you leap, and ww towards them if you believe you will catch them. If not, walk or whirlwind away. Or, you could fuck the whole Fortitude thing, and follow the wolves strategy after the dooms kill them.

Paladins:
They will have high defense, so you're going to end up using enchant and/or angelics. Not that this is an and/or situation.
Smiters:
Use CoA, possible angelics/fortitude, enchant, and switch in gores.
Whirl to their sides, which should result in 1 or no hits for them. If they catch wind of how ww mechanics work, then whirl farther off to the side so that if they walk towards you, you will clip them.
If you are ever lifetapped, whirl away and wait. If they become offensive, then ww away. If they begin to desync or teleport + smite, do medium length whirls in random directions. If they become bm, use doom offhand for an easy win.
Hammerdins:
Use Arreats, possible angelics/fortitude, enchant, and switch in gores. Have widowmaker on switch.
Use widow to make them play offensive.
Aim for their left foot to hit the blind spot.
With enigma, you can use two strategies. One is predicting the charge of the
Hdin, and whirling there. The other which is also the fortitude setup strategy, is to whirl long, predicting where they are. Try to cut them off, and use widow only when you can get free hits or they are playing defensive.
Vindicator/Templar:
You must stack enough resistance to negate their conviction enough so that you can out damage them with your widowmaker. Use CoA, dracs, widow, and Fort.
Duel them like a smiter. If they foh, fire 1 or 2 arrows, then switch back.

Necromancers:
Block necromancers are probably the most difficult opponents a BvC has.
Bone:
Use Ravens/Trangs or Fcr Rings/Dracs, enchant, and gores.
If they summon oak, press w for a doom switch. When the oak is hit by an aura ping, it will die.
Try not to chase across large, wide open spaces, as they tend to contain ibs. Leap when you catch up, and nl teleport + whirlwind if they are teleport-prone. You need good triangle whirlwinds (ie, less thank 2 inches on your screen) for this to work. If there are alot of spirits following you at any time (upwards of 4-5), break off your attack by walking/leaping/whirling away, then teleporting through some walls to lose the spirits.

[Ling203]

Closing Notes and Miscellanious Facts:

Teleporting:
Whenever possible, teleport beside your target instead of namelocking. This will increase your whirl's effectiveness as you start out slightly in front of them, as opposed to right on top of them.

Teleport + Whirlwind:
As soon as you intend to target someone and teleport onto/beside them, move your cursor to the centre of screen (but offset it a bit), switch from your teleport hotkey to your whirlwind hotkey, which insures you come out of your teleport triangle whirling.

Teleport + Beserk
Namelock teleport your target. Once you teleport, move your cursor to the exact centre of the screen and begin beserking.

Unsummon + Teleport + Attack Sequences:
Namelock your target with unsummon. You can now switch teleport and whirl/zerk them. Be sure to reposition your cursor before teleporting

Speed:
You should be faster than any caster; only 200 fcr fireball sorcs can match your speed. A BvC normally teleports at 11 or 10 frames. With a 4 fpa ww, the BvC's attack sequence (teleport + whirlwing) is 15/14 frames. Take for example, a 125 fcr nec. Their tele and spells are both casting at 9 frames. This gives them a tele + attack sequence of 18 frames.

Doom for BO Weapons:
For the cost of 2 levels of battle orders, you get:
The ability to kill multiple bm bowazons.
Minor minions, such a wovles, and oak sage charges.
You can naked kill easier.
Pinging the enemy if they have low life. This is especially useful for bone necromancers, since their bone armor makes going for another whirlwind pass risky when you both have low life.

Wait, you say, something is missing?
Oh right, a paint brush picture of shocked public duelers being slain my. Unlike Kuskid, I choose to go with a manly blue background. I have realm down at the moment, so this is sparse.
To conclude:

[Ling203]

Wow, that was pretty lame. Now I have your post smack in the middle of my guide.
Hopefully that can be fixed.

Edited by Ling203, 31 March 2006 - 10:46 PM.

[kaerrevival]

note on druids...fhr doesnt affect leap recovery

ps: Overrule was slain by FriggenPro

ps #2: Basing your entire druid strat around leaching off wolves is pretty lame lol, i'd just go afk before tele'ing into a leaping barb

Edited by kaerrevival, 01 April 2006 - 02:23 AM.

[samsung]

gg

[African]

Ling203, on Mar 31 2006, 10:36 PM, said:

The best weapons are Grief (on the glove side) and Beast beserker axes.

the weapon that you put on 1st is the one thats on the 1st hand, doesnt matter what side x.x

[Ling203]

Kaer, better druids learn that can't outtank a barb, and start playing defensive. If they don't play lamely then just duel them like a standard caster.
And that's happened to alot of peopke. =|

Kelly: if you press w, the order fucks up. Best to just keep grief on the glove side.

[Augusto]

Quote

Hoto + Hoto, or Hoto + 3BO Call to Arms are good battle orders switchs.
Amulets/Rings:

if you use a +1bo CTA it will still give you +3BO ...

nice guide ... usually i never lose to barbs with my necro ... if they use widow i simply teleport next to them and wait for a second to they switch weps .. they will try to tele next to me but i'm far and already casting spears O_O

we should duel some time .. whenever i get my inv full of nice gcs i'll pm you

[Frepontaine]

Augusto, on Apr 1 2006, 04:57 PM, said:

Quote

Hoto + Hoto, or Hoto + 3BO Call to Arms are good battle orders switchs.
Amulets/Rings:

if you use a +1bo CTA it will still give you +3BO ...

nice guide ... usually i never lose to barbs with my necro ... if they use widow i simply teleport next to them and wait for a second to they switch weps .. they will try to tele next to me but i'm far and already casting spears O_O

we should duel some time .. whenever i get my inv full of nice gcs i'll pm you

As a bvc you would never use widow vs a necro. Ever.

[Ling203]

Yeah, I'm not sure where you got the idea to use widow vs necs.

[Augusto]

Ling203, on Apr 1 2006, 07:21 PM, said:

Yeah, I'm not sure where you got the idea to use widow vs necs.

i don't ... i'm saying that some barbs used against me

[Frepontaine]

those barbs were very stupid then, unless they were fucking around, becuase that is about the dumbest nec strat ever.

[kaerrevival]

Ling203, on Apr 1 2006, 12:49 PM, said:

Kaer, better druids learn that can't outtank a barb, and start playing defensive. If they don't play lamely then just duel them like a standard caster.
And that's happened to alot of peopke. =|

Kelly: if you press w, the order fucks up. Best to just keep grief on the glove side.

druids kinda have to play defensive vs barbs

if you start using widow we can have an afk duel, i go afk while you shoot your widow to leech off wolves

[Ling203]

Yeah, I don't see too many good druids. Most do the team dueling thing.
But the point is, I can play offensive, and regain life off your summons.

[African]

frepontaine, on Apr 1 2006, 09:25 PM, said:

those barbs were very stupid then, unless they were fucking around, becuase that is about the dumbest nec strat ever.

i use widows vs necros...

in norm low lvl duel games where im the only high level k
its where i practice tele/zerk

and i still cant decide to switch back to 2x dooms or stick with hotos, i fricken loved aurapk

[luis19]

widow sucks vs necro

[Herald_]

This guide is still great, same as the first version. The only nitpick I have is with the layout. It kinda feels like the gear section and the dueling section all run together; they almost look like one big paragraph. More the gear section than the dueling section anyhow. Maybe bolding the headers or something would help. Great guide otherwise.

edit: Also, I was browsing another d2 site and read a post by mcm mentioning the "potion drill" (for learning tight tri-whirls I think). Do you know what this is/ could you explain or show a diagram? Thanks.

Edited by Herald_, 03 April 2006 - 01:54 PM.

[Mr.Mad]

Mind if I just suggest some other stashed gear? I find the following useful:

Heart Carver (for easy finding mana pots)
Life tap wand (for smiters, or other barbs)
Clegs gloves (great for smiters)
Imp Brow (I use base dex/str, so for rings I have 2x runemasters and ammy is gale shell. In order to use widowmaker, I need dex from both Imp and Arreats, and in order to use Fort, I need imp, so I'll include this if somebody doesn't know where to get stats from)
Dungos (again, good for vs smiters and ww barbs)

Sorb really isn't needed on this char. With (pre death) about 80 over max res without kiras, and 7.6k life, there is no need for even tgods. If you have the room, put some of the jewelery, but treachery and kiras is plenty to get by ele duelers. I have never needed sorb on my barb ''

[Tom]

Herald_, on Apr 3 2006, 01:12 PM, said:

This guide is still great, same as the first version. The only nitpick I have is with the layout. It kinda feels like the gear section and the dueling section all run together; they almost look like one big paragraph. More the gear section than the dueling section anyhow. Maybe bolding the headers or something would help. Great guide otherwise.

edit: Also, I was browsing another d2 site and read a post by mcm mentioning the "potion drill" (for learning tight tri-whirls I think). Do you know what this is/ could you explain or show a diagram? Thanks.

Quote

You have to learn to instantly re-center the cursor as the teleport ends in order to do small, triangular whirls. It is easy to end up whirling long using this technique. Long whirls usually get you killed. This skill takes lots and lots of practice. Go out on the blood moor, get a potion (or whatever is useful) and drop it. Move so the potion is at the edge of your screen. Lock it, MB it, then tele/WW on top of it with tight triangles. Drop a pair of potions and just go back and forth. Do that for 30 minutes every night for a few weeks and you WILL get better.

This is the drill for wwsins, should be similar to wwbarbs. I got it from Speederlander's PvP Fast-cast WW/Kick/Stun Assassin Guide.

[Ling203]

WW barb adaptation would involve leaping in place, then doing a bigger TW.

Herald: The dueling section outlines how specific items will give you an edge when facing specific chars.

I've never seen the need to to use cegs glove. I have a tap wand, but I hardly ever use it.

[luis19]

barb drill, by Blobs (not mcm):

Quote

How to get better with tele and triangle whirls: Set out a ring of 8 potions around 1 central potion. Use default gear. Teleport from middle potion to one of the outer potions, and perform 1 complete triangle whirl. The whirl should be short enough to always be in range and long enough to only cost 3 whirls per triangle. Teleport back to the middle and go to the next potion position. When you can go around all 8 potions without pausing or suddenly losing all your mana due to bad whirls, then you can say you're good. I havent been able to do this yet

mr. mad:
your suggestions are horrible. they cripple your dmg (not using highlrods?) and cripple your skill with a barb

[Frepontaine]

Mr.Mad, on Apr 3 2006, 12:48 PM, said:

Mind if I just suggest some other stashed gear? I find the following useful:

Heart Carver (for easy finding mana pots)
Life tap wand (for smiters, or other barbs)
Clegs gloves (great for smiters)
Imp Brow (I use base dex/str, so for rings I have 2x runemasters and ammy is gale shell. In order to use widowmaker, I need dex from both Imp and Arreats, and in order to use Fort, I need imp, so I'll include this if somebody doesn't know where to get stats from)
Dungos (again, good for vs smiters and ww barbs)

Sorb really isn't needed on this char. With (pre death) about 80 over max res without kiras, and 7.6k life, there is no need for even tgods. If you have the room, put some of the jewelery, but treachery and kiras is plenty to get by ele duelers. I have never needed sorb on my barb ''

The only time you would use a lt wand is vs necros who have summons and IM you.

Clegs gloves...no just use dooms

Imp Brow...no situation where this is better than highlords, just use the 20 stat points.

Fade is just as Bm as sorbing, + it takes longer to equip, + everyone knows your faded, and assume your sorbing anyway. A good blizz will still have tons of damage even with your shitty 140 res stack.

[Herald_]

Ling203, on Apr 3 2006, 03:46 PM, said:

Herald: The dueling section outlines how specific items will give you an edge when facing specific chars.

I wasn't commenting on the content of the guide; I was commenting on the layout of the guide. The content is great, I just think that visually the gear and dueling sections each look like 1 big blob of text (gear moreso than dueling). Some bolding or spacing or something would probably take care of it.

Thanks for the info on the potion drill, that's what I was looking for.

Edited by Herald_, 03 April 2006 - 09:54 PM.