Caverns of Ice - MMAgCh's Barbarian Guide

Yes, I had too much time at my hands...been playing my HF Barbarian and came up with the incredibly inventive idea to write up a guide for all those wanna-be demon slayers out there. Always remember: if it moves, hack away. If it still moves, hack away some more. If it doesn’t move anymore, just hack a bit more to be on the safe side. If you can resurrect it - it was your co-op partner! So, here comes my nifty Barbarian guide!

- Jarulf (as usual <g>) for his guide from which I C&P’ed all formulas and quite some other stuff as well
- Braedon because he managed to light the HHellfire in me once again >)
- HowGozit for doing the same thing as Braeedon AND helping me sort out errors and for additional ideas.
- Moriah for reminding (well, not really reeminding, but...ok, reminding) me of the nifty-nice "evil shrine"-trick

Oh, and you can’t say „this belongs to the Hellfire forum"...after all you got to have a Diablo CD spinnin‘ in yer drive! :P

The Barbarian, being a hidden character in Hellfire, is only available after you upgraded to the 1.01 patch. To have him work, place a text file called "command.txt" in your hellfire directory. The file must include this (without the quotes: "barbariantest" Basically, that's it. I recommend it includes this (w/o quotes):

If you wish, you can seperate the words (bardtest, barbariantest, multitest, cowquest, theoquest, nestart) by semicolons ( ; <-- those nifty-nice thingies), but it is not necessary.

This way, you get the Bard and the Barbarian character, the Theodore-quest and the Cow-Quest. "nestart" just sets a certain palette when playing the Hive and doesn't affect gameplay. The multiplayer option is deactivated in the 1.01 patch; you need a hacked hellfrui.dll in order to reactivate it. V&K's HF-Mod includes such a hacked file; it can be downloaded at http://diablomods.diabloii.net . It also includes the command.txt, so you needn't do it yourself (in case you're lazy). If you done everything right, you should be able to create a hero using the Barbarian character class. Go for it!

Let's go on to the not-so-technical facts. Like, the Barbarian's stats (taken from JG's):

The Barbarian gets 2 hit points each level-up, along with 1% resist all. He gets NO mana, so his max mana is always as high as his magic stat (like the warrior, he gets 1 mana point for each magic point).

Strength is only of semi-importance for the Barbarian. While its max value is a tiny bit higher than the warrior's (war: 250, bar: 255), it doesn't affect damage as much. Check chapter III for "good" distribution of points.

Magic starts at zero and goes gold at zero. Period. As I already said, this means the Barbarian's max mana is always as high as his magic stat. That also means he sucks at magic, plain and simple. His spell casting speed is 0.70, that's as slow as the warrior. So, just forget about magic. You won't need it.

Dexterity is very important in the beginning. Max 55 means your ToHit% without any assistance by magical or unique items sucks just as bad. You won't get much AC out of it either. So, should a Barbarian go for perfection/+tohit% items? We'll see...

Vitality. Now that's something to live for. You get 2 hp for each vit point AND it increases your damage. Note this damage increase only applies when you're NOT using a shield/staff. You do more melee damage when using an axe/club than with other weapons (say: swords). See chapter IV for more info.

The Barbarian's starting skill is "Rage", and it works this way (taken from JG's):

1. For 12 seconds it adds: 2*clvl to Strength and Vitality and 1.5*clvl to Dexterity.

2. For 12 more seconds, during a lethargy phase, it decreases Strength, Dexterity and Vitality by the same amount (counted from normal values).

3. Afterwards you lose 2*Vit life. There is a bug however so if you click on any item in your inventory your life is restored.

If you don't like melee, forget about playing the Barbarian. It's safe to say he sucks at anything but melee. His damage and firing speed with the bow is horrible, and so is his spell casting speed. Of course, the Barbarian can get all spells to L15, thanks to the Enchanted shrine, but the main problem is, his mana will always be very low. He would have to wear only +magic items. When taking into account only non-unique items, his max mana would be around 165. To that, you add any +mana prefixes. But remember, you're sacrificing pretty much everything for that; no Zodiac suffix, no haste on your weapons...AND, you can't wear an axe that way, since you need sword + shield for magic (sword of sorcery, +20 MAG, shield of brilliance, +15 MAG). Ok, you're still capable of wielding a club, but remember, your "no-shield"-bonus doesn't count then.

When relying on +all suffixes, you'd have a total of 104 MAG and mana. Even less, eh?

The Barbarian is the exact opposite of the Sorceror. While the mage doesn't need to care about melee because his immense magical abilities blow anything away, the Barbarian kicks serious demon butt with his axe without ever casting one single spell. Want to see the damage capabilites of a Barbarian? Here ya go!

The Barbarian's melee damage when using an axe is Str * clvl / 75, the bonus for "no-shield" is Vit * clvl / 100. That means, a naked L50 barbarian with maxed Str and Vit does the following melee damage: 255 * 50 / 75 = 170 ; to that, we add the "no-shield" bonus: 150 * 50 / 100 = 75 ; so his total melee damage is 170 + 75 = 245 WITHOUT the axe yet. Just imagine a Great Axe with +150% Damage (that's about the worst case of a King's Axe; King's +damage% starts at +151%)...base damage is 12-30; with the damage adder, you get 30-75 damage...now add your 245 points of raw melee damage, maybe "haste" it, and...voil�, a killing machine! Which you should expect when being L50, of course(?). By the way, the melee damage for a Barbarian NOT using an axe/club is Str * clvl / 100.

While we're at weapon speeds, the Barbarian's swinging speed with axe/club is 0.40 without modified swinging speed, 0.35 with "of Swiftness" and 0.30 with "of Speed/Haste". He's always 0.05 slower with swords. Attack speed with bows is 0.55. (note that ‚of swiftness‘ increases the arrow flying speed in HF, *not* the speed with which you fire the bow) Spells are 0.70, bare hands 0.45 . As you can see, the Barbarian is 0.05 faster with a "hasted" axe/club than a warrior with a hasted sword/club.

Taking damage (or, better said, having enough hitpoints to do so) is also something the Barbarian is good at. His life is calculated with this formula:

So, taking our naked, maxed out L50-Barbarian: 18 + 2*150 + 2*50. Brings us to 418 Life. If all of your items would be adding 10 to vitality, you could add 7 * (2.5 * 10) = 175 points to that, so you've got 593 hit points. Not too bad, eh? The maximal possible amount of hit points is 1091, almost as much as a sorceror's maximal mana points (1216, 1196 in Diablo).

But as I said, dexterity is one of the Barbarian's weak spots. +Dex/+ToHit% items are very important. As someone once said, "what's the point of doing incredible damage when you don't hit anything?". But do not fear, it's really not that difficult to get a good ToHit%. A naked L50-Barbarian's ToHit% (given he has maxed Dex) is 127.5%. To that, you add any +tohit% adders from items. As you see, it's not that difficult to get 200% ToHit, you only need a good axe (preferably King's or Strange/Weird).

If you want to calculate your very own, personal ToHit%, the formula is 50 + Dex/2 + clvl + ToHit% from items.

AC...yep, you need AC. Taking our L50-Barbarian-With-Maxed-Stats again, his AC when naked is 36. That's it. Not much, and that's why you need good items. The formula for your AC is Dex/5 + clvl/4 + AC from items. Note that shields only give half AC (rounded up). You should be able to reach around 250 AC with good items (and that's without shield).

The Barbarian's hit recovery...he's got built-in "of Stability" (0.20) when using axe/club, unless he's got an item "of Harmony" (0.10). His recovery item when naked/using no axe/club is 0.30 (unless you've got an item that affects hit recovery, of course).

Also, the Barbarian has the ability to score a critical hit, just like the warrior does; the chance for doing so is clvl%, and the effect is doubled damage.

The Barbarian needs only one hand for two-handed swords, great swords and mauls, so he can equip a shield at the same time; this is still not a good idea (remember the "no-shield"-bonus or, better yet, the "shield"-penalty"?). As long as he's using axes, two-handes swords or mauls (without shield in the last two cases), he can hit up to three enemies at once (the three guys in front of him); that's called quarter damage.

Quarter damage, also referred to as sweep attack...see below for a small diagram. It is basically a penalty, because:

1) The ToHit% you get from the formula further down is subtracted from your actual character ToHit%, this ToHit% is then applied to the targets which are affected by the sweep attack

2) Damage for sweep attack is 1/4th of your normal damage. The quarter damage ToHit penalty is 70 - 2*clvl, with a minimum ToHit%-penalty of 30%. That's still not much, and you will find you hit all three guys in most cases (unless there are only two). That check is applied to the two squares to the left and to the right of the square you attack (left and right from your Barbarian's point of view). The Monk (when wielding a staff) and the Bard (when wielding two weapons at the same time) can deal out quarter damage too. It doesn't matter if your target square (M in the diagram) is occupied by a valid target; the quarter damage ToHit-check is always done, so it can sometimes be more effective to swing at an empty square (remember, your SHIFT-key...) when the squares to your left and right are occupied by enemies.

Of course, the preferred items for your Barbarian depend on what style of play you have. In case you go after melee only (my way), you can safely ignore +mag items and go after +dex, +vit and +all items. If you want to try and go with magic, +mag and +all stuff is your choice. For now, let's assume you got the melee way of life. And when talking about melee, we have to start with your weapon. Instead of discussing all possible effects, I'll just give you a selection of choices and explain why they are so good (or not). When I list non-unique items, of course you should try to get the best base item (Great Axe, Full Plate Mail etc.) as well as best prefix/suffix (Lord's Axe of Speed is of course also nice); what I give here are mostly "dream items".

- King's Axe of Haste ; not much to say here, eh? Gives ToHit%, does MUCH damage and deals it at an incredible speed.

- Axe of Devastation ; well...+200% *total* damage on occassion...need I say more? There’s no real +ToHit%-adder available on such an axe, tho (only „bronze" prefix - up to +5%...wooow!)

- Jester's Axe ; sometimes 0 damage...sometimes six times the damage...average is two times the damage (and, always total damage). Any good Barbaran can deal 900 points o‘ damage with a single blow, but again, no +ToHit%. Does not work against Diablo or unique monsters. Dunno why. Jarulf says it doesn’t work against those duded, so it’s gotta be right. Duh.

- Axe of Peril ; double total damage to monsters, weapon and character damage to you...masochist's axe.

- Messerschmidt's Reaver ; if you don't care about -50 hp and got enough +ToHit% on your jewelry, go on. This one's a bomb.

- BloodSlayer ; see Ring of Engagement (chapter IVc) for an explanation why this one could rock hell.

I bought a King's Great Axe of Haste at Griswold...costs over 180000, so you gotta have the Auric Amulet (turn the Cow Quest off for this one) in order to carry enough gold. >)

- Godly Helm of the Whale ; try and get one from Wirt, as it boosts both your AC and HP.

- The Undead Crown ; you can actually recover life faster than you lose it with this one. Has low AC, tho. (SP only)

- Helm of Sprits ; MP replacement for the Undead Crown. Pretty much the same advantages and disadvantages.

- Veil of Steel ; very nice. Much resists, +15 Str and Vit, -20% Light Radius, nice AC (around 30). Luckily, -30 mana shouldn't interest you at all.

- Royal Circlet ; may also be interesting; nice AC too, +10 all; +40 mana shouldn't interest you much either, +10% Light Radius can be annoying on witch levels. This helm is the best one for tele-killing, though.

- Gotterdamerung: unID'd if possible, provides you with 60 AC; that's almost impossible to top. If ID'd, still nice on melee-only levels.

- Holy FPM ; probably your best choice, AC-wise; Wirt sells those, and they're not even too expensive. Godly FPMs are possible too, but have fun getting one. ;)

- Bovine Plate ; may look nice at first, but the only real advantage are +30% Resist All; AC 150 isn't much, any good Saintly FPM easily beats that, and +50% LR is a real bitch on any levels featuring ranged attackers. The decreases in mana/spells shouldn't interest you at all. May be useful until clvl 25; you should have at least Saintly FPM then (which is better in terms of AC; and that’s more important than resists)

- Armor of Gloom ; if you ever manage to find this one, melee levels are no problem. Is as good as a perfect Godly FPM. Don't identify it, else its "all resists = zero"-effect applies. Remove it from your inventory before touching a cauldron/goat shrine, since it may be a Glimmering Shrine the game chooses.

I got that Holy FPM (base 75, +151%...prefix is bad. Compared to a perfect Holy FPM, you lose about 13 AC)

Your personal decision. Along with 1% resist all per clvl, one perfect Obsidian Amulet/Ring does the job from clvl ~30 on. Remember, ToHit% (and thus Dexterity) along with vitality are most important. If you have to choose between a perfect ring of Life and a perfect ring of the Lion, use the "Life"-ring; not only does it give you the same amount of hit point, but it also boosts your damage. My barbarian uses a Obsidian Amulet, a Gold Ring of Giants and a Zod Ring. Karik's Ring, along with Ring of Engagement, would be PERFECT here; check chapter IVd for more info.

The first thing you should do when arriving on a level, find out which kind of enemies inhabit it. An Infravision scroll can be nice there. Once you know what to expect (all melee, mixed melee/ranged, all ranged), plan your further steps. If it's all melee, no big deal. If your equipment's good (mainly AC and ToHit%, damage is usually no problem) for this one), go ahead and charge right into the bad boys. They won't live long enough to deal out much damage, unlike you. Make use of your quarter hit effect, it's more effective than attacking the monsters seperately. If you find yourself overwhelmed, retreat a few steps and deliver mayhem while your foes are still busy walking up to you. Likewise, any other choke points (doors!) are very nice to decimate your enemies one after the other. Drink potions as needed (belt should always be filled with full reds); in case you're wearing the Undead Crown, Helm of Sprits or any Leech/Blood weapon, you shouldn't need many potions at all.

You've got ranged attackers as well? Now it depends on whetever they're "dumb" (skeleton archers; don't follow you when you leave line of sight to them) or "smart" (pretty much all other ranged attackers, including, but not limited to goat archers, witches, psychorbs and so on). When you're up to "dumb" enemies, it may be wise to first attract the melee attackers' attention, lure them to a safe place where you can't be hit by the arrows, then take care of them. With the infantry out of the way, go for the artillery! Since they're dumb, they won't run away in most cases, even if you stand right next to them, so it should be no big problem to depose of them.

But when the ranged attackers follow you, well, I'd still suggest to get rid of the melee enemies first. After that, when it's just you and the artillery, you're going to have to use some small tactics in order to get rid of them. First, there's the cornering method. It's one of the most popular ones out there. It works like this:

You just need to make sure the monster's standing in the corner and you're in front of it, not to the left or right. The pictures' b characters show you where NOT to stand. G is fine. Cornering is also a nice opportunity to deal some quarter damage (like when both the M and the two b's are occupied by monsters).

Another one is "bring them round the corner", as I call it. (Some people call this one „cornering" too, and others call it „Peekaboo"; it doesn’t matter as long as you know WHAT you are talking about) It's a tiny bit more difficult and requires good timing, but effective too. Here is it:

Basically, you hide behind a corner, and the monster runs up to you along the wall. You walk up to the corner as well, and ideally you end up in the "<" and the monster ends up in the "V" at the same time. Now hack away; hopefully you kill your foe immediately or keep him/she/it in stunlock until he/she/it dies. You may want to practice this technique with unique monsters (L15 is nice; Blackjade, Red Vex and Bloodlust make excellent, umm, training partners) first; their "glow" will help you to learn the right timing. Note that you can pull off this stunt also with doors; in that case, V is the doorway. The rest is similar, except the other monsters can't hit you as easily through the door. If you're so lucky as to have an obstacle one square away from the corner (as shown in the picture with the letter O), it will protect you from being hit by other monsters (unless they line up with you and get a free line of fire, as shown in the picture with the letter L). A spike can replace the corner too; step behind it. As soon as the witch finds out she can’t hit you because the spike (and the poor, dead lad on it) deflects her blood stars, she’ll close in and veer around the spike to get a line of fire. That’s when you hit!

For this to work, you need to be close up to the monster (one square is already too far away) and you need to walk straight up to the wall (figure 1). Walking in diagonal angles CAN work at times, but NOT always. The following happens when you do it right: the monster runs up into the wall and then turns left or right (sometimes it just stops and fires at you, which makes it even easier for you), but by the time it walking along the wall, you'll be one square away from the wall and have the baddy in one of your adjacent squares, as shown in figure 2. In figure 3 and 4, you see what would happen if you were two squares away from the monster you chase instead of one square. However, you can go on chasing it down the wall and may be able to corner it.

Note that those tactics are only necessary for the more intelligent ranged attackers (in most cases, stronger subtypes are also smarter; e.g. a Soul Burner will never stop while running away from you. A simple Succubus will stop often and shouldn't prove to be a problem).

Of course, you should avoid chasing enemies further down into unknown territory; you could activate more foes than you can handle. Also be careful with your light radius; if possible, it should be = 0 or even negative (if that is the case, use Infravision scrolls) so you don't get fired at without knowing who exactly is doing so, because the arrows/blood stars/whatever are coming from off-screen. Especially if your resistances are not so high yet (<50 IMO), advance slowly and lure activated ranged attackers back into known territory.

Yes, I know I said Barbarians suck with spells and can't even learn most without extensive reading glasses, but then again, some spells are for free. Yes, they are. All scrolls without magic requirement are free, to be exact:

- Identify
- Town Portal
- Healing
- Search
- Lightning
- Mana Shield (I always forget this one...))

The following spells are free too, as they exist on unique staves (and those never have magic requirements). I added some comments to each as well:

- Golem (Rod of Onan)...a Barbarian's golem will almost always suck, because its HP, damage and other factors are being affected by the caster's max mana, and...take a guess. Its other effects are not bad (+5 to all Attributes, +100% Damage, meaning the staff alone does about 20-35 damage when counting in +5 all), but still not useful enough, seeing as how the axe should be the Barbarian's primary weapon...

- Guardian (Mindcry)...this spell can occassionally be useful to clean out rooms. The staff has kind of many charges (69), as well as useful magical effects (+15 Magic, +15% Res All, All Spells +1 Level), in case you decide to make a mini-mini-mini-mini-(repeat ten times)-mage out of your Barbarian.

- Healing (The Protector)...86 charges. Keeps you from touching your belt for a LONG time, as long as you don't need to replenish your hit points in mid-battle. AC 40 is also nice, and even +5 Vit is not bad. Staves should never be a Barbarian's main weapon, tho.

- Lightning (Thundercall)...76 charges, maybe, but simple lightning brings you nowhere, especially on deeper levels (hell on NM/hell diff).

- Phasing (Gleamsong)...hmm, if you want to use spells to move, better go with Naj's Puzzler. Gleamsong's other effects are Barbarian-hostile anyway (+25 mana, -3 Str, -3 Vit)

- Teleport (Naj's Puzzler)...allows you to teleport around 57 times before you need to recharge it. Its other effects are not so nice, tho. (+10 Dex, not much. +20 Mag, who cares? -25 Life, bah! +20% Res All is not that bad.)

Summa summarum, only the Protector and maybe Mindcry/Naj's Puzzler are something you would maybe like to have in your inventory.

Of course, even a Barbarian can get all spells to max level. Just make sure you know every spell with at least level 1, and then go'n'hunt Enchanted shrines. In my opinion, you don't need such high level spells, just because...well, you don't need 'em. You want to crush your enemies' bones and tear their flesh apart with your mighty axe, not scorch them with puny spells!

And while we are at L15 spells, you can get Holy-, Charged- and Firebolt to L15 sans problems. Yep, it's time for the evil shrines! Fascinating, Sacred and Ornate Shrines, to be exact. Go ahead and touch them, it won't matter to you! Those shrines decrease your base mana. But what is your base mana? Yep, the mana gained by your magic stat...so just remove all items that add to magic/mana after you touched such a shrine and re-equip them. Voil�, you gained two levels for that certain spell and still have the same mana count. Nice, eh? Thanks to Moriah for pointing that out on the DSF. (Personal Note, I touched such a shrine with my Barbarian and it seems like I didn't get any mana decrease at all...but oh well. In case you DO get your mana reduced, just do as Moriah said and you’re fine)

Last but not least, you CAN telekill with a Barbarian. What you need is enough magic to read a Book of Teleport (req. 105 Mag; reading glasses!!) and after that, go hunting Enchanted Shrines.

You only need to get Teleport to slvl 8; you have reached its minimum mana cost (15) then. After that, your equipment should provide you with as much magic (and therefor mana) as possible. A Royal Circlet would thus be a nice helm. Remember, it is really only optional to try and telekill...you don’t really need it. It can speed up things, that’s it.

Here, I'd like to point out a few items that you may want to know about, just because they are interesting (or not) for Barbarians.

- Amulet of Warding: Amulet, qlvl 12. Stats: -100 Life, +40% Resist All. If you need to use this one in order to get resistances, I feel sorry for ya. Really.

- Auric Amulet: Amulet, qlvl n/a. You get it as reward for solving the "Farmer's Orchard"-quest. It allows you to carry 10000 gold in one slot instead of 5000. Just as crappy as the Amulet of Warding, you say? That's what I thought too, until Griswold offered me that King's Great Axe of Haste for about 185000. Problem is, you can't fit as much gold into your inventory. You can carry only up to 180000 while still being able to buy an item that takes up six slots (armor, axes, etc.). This is most likely a design flaw, I think. The game checks for the required inventory place to put the item in BEFORE it takes your gold, not afterwards. Anyway, with the Auric Amulet, you can carry the double amount of gold (360000) in your inventory and still have enough room for any big item. So: get this one. Of course, you shouldn't wear it in the dungeon, especially not in combat, but it's nice when you plan to do some hours of shopping. Just blaze through hell/church. No big deal, but you won't want to have that axe offered to you and you can't afford it because you have got that gold problem...

- Bashing, of: this effect and its "brethren" (of piercing/puncturing) are way more useful in Hellfire than they are in Diablo. In the original game by Blizzard, they add 8-24 (piercing: 2-6, puncturing: 4-12) to ToHit%. That's not much. In the add-on however, they decrease any target's AC (not against players) by 75% (piercing: 25%, puncturing: 50%). And, if those effects are used by a Barbarian, you can add 12.5% to the percentage. So an axe of bashing can be very efficient in the hands of any Barbarian, as it decreases your targets' AC by 87.5% . Now, get a nice suffix for that axe (Savage should be possible; Massive IS possible) and you are ready for slaying dudes. Check the Ring of Engagement in this chaptor for other useful information on the "penetrates/damages target's AC"-effect.

- BloodSlayer: Broad Axe, qlvl 3, can only be found on nightmare/hell diff in church (maybe catacombs.) Stats: -5 to all attributes, +100% Damage (raising its raw damage to 16-40), +200% Damage vs. Demons, all spells are decreased one level. Now what is so nice about this baby? Well, you certainly know the "+200% Dam. vs. Demons"-effect affects your total character damage. That means, your total damage against any demons is TRIPLED. Any high-level (about L35) Barbarian can do about 400 points of damage against demons with this axe. Amazing, eh? Only problem is, the BloodSlayer doesn't have any +ToHit%-modifier. Even worse, it reduces ToHit% a bit (-5 all, thus -5 dex). So you say now, "why use this when I don't hit", right? Well, check the Ring of Engagement a bit further down to see why this axe could be so great. Or of course, arm yourself with +tohit%/+dex items and go hunt some demons. The advantage of this axe over Civerb's Cudgel is, since it's an axe, you needn't fear dogs because axes hurt all kinds of critters the same (while CC, being a mace, scores 1.5x the damage against Undead, but only 0.5x against animals...dogs are animals...wasn’t that one obvious).

- Bovine Plate: n/a, n/a. Stats: AC 150, indestructible, +50% Light Radius, +30% Resist All, all spells reduced by two levels, -50 Mana. Looks nice, doesn’t it? Big AC, resists, and, as usual, we Barbarians don’t care ‚bout those freakin‘ magic penalties. So why don’t you wear it? First of all, you can. Second, don’t ID it. You’ll like the resists, you’ll like the AC, you’ll probably also like the fact it’s indestructible. What you won’t like? +50% Light Radius. It makes you shine like a light house. Enemies spot you from off-screen, and you’ll feel like a Golem: Blood Stars fly after you without you know who’s firing. If you insist to go with it, try it. If you find you can live with it, even better. I for one don’t want to try. Just wear it unID’d, and everything will be fine. Sounds a bit like Gotter, doesn’t it? Bovine Plate is just fine until you got that Holy Full Plate Mail.

- Eater of Souls: Two-Handed Sword, qlvl 23. Stats: Hit steals 5% Life, Hit steals 5% Mana, constantly lose hitpoints (1.25 HP/sec), Indestructible, +50 Life. This one may also be a choice to consider in case you’ve got no good axe. Since it’s two-handed, the sweep attack still applies (you lose your built-in „stability", though). „of Blood" is nice, but I doubt you’ll find „of Vampires" handy (Hmm...did someone mention Telekilling?). +50 HP is a nice bonus, the fact it’s indestructible is only interesting for LoL-characters IMO.

- Karik's Ring: Ring, qlvl 8. Stats: +60 Vitality, -30 Magic. Is really tough to find (SP only). But if you do, well, it makes your day. Worship it. This is definitely one of the best rings for any Barbarian. +150 Life and adds much damage. Who cares about magic? Own this, and the world is (almost) yours! Problem is, you got to have at least 30 Magic...check OverLord’s Helm further down for a reason.

- Messerschmidt's Reaver: Great Axe, qlvl 25. Stats: +5 to all attributes, -50 Life, +15 Damage (raw damage now is 17-45), +200% Damage (so: raw weapon damage is 51-135), 2-12 Fire Damage (the bug with elemental weapon effects can cause this to deal out extensive damage sometimes). You could call this BloodSlayer's big (or maybe little?) brother. All in all, the things I said about BloodSlayer apply here to: get nice tohit%, and go crush all opposition. Oh, and some nice Life jewelry or Lion stuff would help against -50 life here.

- OverLord's Helm: Helm, qlvl 7. Stats: +20 Str, +15 Dex, +5 Vit, -20 Mag, altered durabilty (15). Is nothing more and nothing less than a nice helm for any Barbarian as long as you haven't got any of the advanced helms (Undead Crown, Veil of Steel...) and got at least 20 Mag...yep, you’ll soon find out that if any of your stats go negative, some of your stuff will turn red (even jewelry can do that; the item doesn’t need to be affected by the stat to turn red) This a problem with all items that decrease stats, not just with this helm.

- Ring of Engagement: Ring, qlvl 11. Stats: AC 5, -1 or -2 damage from enemies, 1-3 damage to attackers, damages target's armor. Puny, you think? Not in Hellfire and definitely not for Barbarians. Wanna know why? Forgot about all stats except the last one: "damages target's armor". In Diablo, it would add 4-12 to ToHit% in Diablo. Forget about it. In Hellfire, however, it reduces the target's AC by 87.5%. Big, eh? It gets even better! When used by a Barbarian, add 12.5% to that percentage. Now, that means...reduces target's AC by 100%. Any monster's AC equals zero. Null. None. Forget about ToHit%, because there's just the 5% of AutoMiss left. Do you now know why BloodSlayer or Messerschmidt's Reaver are so great when used with this one? Worship this one too. Add Karik's Ring, and you cut through any legion of enemies like a lightsabre through warm butter. One problem there, though: it seems RoE is not findable in HF. Yep, that’s right. Bosses that should drop RoE according to the rules (rules are, always drop highest [highest in terms of qlvl] available unique that fits the base item type). For example, Blackskull (Balrog boss on L13) should drop RoE (qlvl 11). What does he drop instead? Gladiator’s Ring (qlvl 10). Strange. If anybody has an explanation, provide me with it.

Now, a good way of distributing your level-up points. I'm the type of player who always puts all points into one stat, so if you prefer to really "distribute" your points, this may not completely apply, but you should still get the idea. It's easy:

1. Dexterity is to be maxed first. Put all points you get into dexterity until it goes gold. Takes exactly seven level-ups.

2. Then, raise Strength to 90 (base Str, in case you get rid of items that add to Str), so you can use/wear all important (FPM, axes, etc.) items. Put points into vitality now and then, but concentrate on Str.

3. Once Strength is at 90, concentrate on Vitality. You get just as much damage from it as from Strength, plus you get life out of it. Much life. If you're very lucky with elixirs, Vit can be gold at clvl 30 (max vit is 150).

4. From now on, Strength. Level-ups get rarer anyway as your clvls increase, so elixirs should be the major contributor to strength. It goes gold at 255, that's quite much, and you'll also get quite some damage points out of.

Some thoughts about this: in case you should manage to get some really good +Vit items (like, three perfect Life pieces o‘ jewelry), you could go for Strength a bit more, since your HP bonus from +Vit on items is larger than the one from your raw stat (raw stat: +2HP/1 Life, from items: +2.5HP/1 Life).

With that out of the way, let's see which items a Barbarian can possess during his career (SP here).

Clvl 1: starts with club and shield. Get ANY axe as soon as possible, even a plain small axe is better!

Clvl~5: time to beat the Butcher! Just make sure you got your belt full of healing potions, then activate your Rage skill, open the door to him and slay away! If you're playing SP, you'll get his cleaver, a very nice weapon. In MP, it's indeed a bit soon to attempt and slay him; wait until you're level ~13 and have a good axe (of Bashing!) that allows you to stunlock him (damage is not the problem; you just need to keep hitting, and for that you need ToHit%)

Clvl~7: kick Leoric's butt! Same procedure as always...rage skill on, kill him. In SP, you'll get the Undead Crown. Keep it, you won't want to live without it. In MP, you may want to lead him to a choke point where you can eliminate each of his minions after the other, rather than be swarmed by them (which can be dangerous, even with your quarter damage, as your AC will still be low) and finally kill the King himself. (No, all you Elvis fans, I'm referring to Leoric!) If you find that archers are his servants, better start a new game, the hail of arrows will probably kill you. It's probably a good idea to wait with killing the King until you got a good axe (or, club, since it multiplies your total damage by 1.5 because Leo’s an undead dude; just don’t use a shield so you still get both axe/club bonus and avoid the shield-penalty (same like Butcher: bashing!). Also, some more damage would be nice as stunning Leoric CAN be a problem...he can drop good stuff, though. (Like Chain mail of the moon...nice when that soon)

Clvl 10-25: no big problems here. Get some more stuff (preferably an axe that either adds to Dex or to Tohit+Damage; Doppelganger's Axe of Anything is nice here, as it occassionally "dupes" a monster, which is good for your XP. Or how about bashing!). While venturing through catacombs/caves, finding a suffixed Gold ring would be nice (my L33 Barbarian still wears that Gold Ring of Giants). A +resist all%-item is recommended as well, so is a good piece of armor (Glorious Splint Mail or similar Heavy Plate) If you're playing SP, make sure to check the Slain Hero on dlvl 9, he'll drop you a magical Battle Axe. It may actually be Hellslayer, a nice unique axe. Good luck! Bovine Plate would also be a good choice until you got a plate mail that exceeds BP's AC of 150. Remember to train your ranged-attacker-hunting-skills, you'll need it.

Clvl 26-35: by now, it's very possible to possess a really good axe (e.g. Master's Battle Axe of Speed). High-level armor is also preferable (Blessed/Saintly/Holy FPM, or Armor of Gloom if you're so lucky as to find it), so is maybe an Obsidian Ring/Amulet (suffixed if possible, e.g. "of perfection/life). King's Axe of Haste can also be yours now (bought one at Griswold at clvl 32 for 185000...remember the Auric Amulet!). Your helm is probably still the Undead Crown, at least it's mine; remember to raise its durability with blacksmith oils, oils of fortitude or Hidden shrines; unlike other changes, dur changes carry over to new game. Same goes for all other items, you'll especially want to raise your most expensive items' durability so you need to repair them less often. Making them indestructibe would be very nice.

Clvl 36-50: not much to do anymore...dream equipment should be yours (or at least close to), all that's left to do is max Str (Vit *should* already be maxed), raise your items' dur and maybe hunt Enchanted shrines. That's it, basically.

Do shopping always on hell difficulty. Why? Now, imagine that King's Axe of Haste pops up at Griswold's, but you're short by 150000. Uh-Oh! On normal difficulty, it's almost impossible to get that much gold in one session, but it is on hell (or even nightmare)! Just clean church and there go 80000. Clear two or three more catacomb levels, and you're there. Don't forget you'll likely want to sell your previous axe too.

Killing Na-Krul is only of secondary importance to you. He drops nothing you could really use (Long Battle/War Bow; Book of Apocalypse; War Staff; and finally, Great Sword, but you know axes are better). Crypt level 4 will be a b!tch anyway, with those Arch Liches and other evil guys.

You can enter the hive with clvl 15, and that's just about the time to go there; have a look, it should be quite doable (more difficult in MP than SP, but possible). Against the Hork Demon and the Defiler, use your Rage skill if necessary. The Hork Demon will always drop an amulet with an ilvl of 26. If you're activated the Theo-quest, the demon will instead drop a...well, see it for yourself. Anyway, bring the thing he dropped to the person standing at the tree near to one of the bridges which lead to Adria's island, and you get an amulet from that person as well (ilvl 26 too). Be careful about those Psychorbs down in the hive, their blasts hurt without resists. You'll already have at least 15% Resist All, which helps to cut down the damage at least a bit.

Squirt sells Holy FPMs for 90000 (IIRC)! Go and get one! Also, Griz sells Awesome/Lion FPMs for about 190000, so get one if you want the HPs! Also, you could try and go for a stars/precision/vigor suffix on those plates. Never saw one of those, but who knows?

In case you were wondering, of course you cannot get both Auric Amulet and Bovine Plate in the same game. Cow-Quest turned off allows you to get the amulet, Cow-quest turned on allows you to get the plate. You have to judge which one you want. Of course, you can get the amulet, start a new game and then switch to the plate, it won't cause any problems to change the quest even when in game. Just make sure you and your multiplayer-partners have the same settings when playing; if you don't do so, either the game crashes or it goes out of sync. I wouldn’t try it anyway; sometimes nobody can get the rune bomb, sometimes only one person can get it...and so on.

This originally belonged to chapter IVg), but after it started growing like this, I decided to give it an own sub-chapter. If you're playing MP, the Undead Crown will not be an option for you. Instead (and if you can afford the AC loss), go after the Helm of Sprits. It is an unique helm that looks like the Undead Crown (looks like crown on the floor) and can be found on nightmare/hell diff.

From all normal monsters you can find in church, the following can NOT drop Helm of Sprits (OverLord’s Helm instead):
- Bone Gasher
- Blink
- Burning Dead Archer
- Dark One
- Flesh Clan
- Flesh Clan Archer
- Gloom
- Horror Archer
- Horror Captain

The following normal monsters in church can drop Helm of Sprits (there is no difference between Fallen one w/Sword and w/Spear):
- Black Death
- Burning Dead
- Burning Dead Captain
- Carver
- Corpse Axe
- Corpse Bow
- Corpse Captain
- Devil Kin
- Fallen One
- Ghoul
- Hidden
- Horror
- Plague Eater
- Rotting Carcass
- Scavenger
- Shadow Beast
- Skeleton
- Skeleton Archer
- Skeleton Captain
- Winged Fiend
- Zombie

The following bosses in church can’t drop Helm of Sprits (OverLord’s Helm instead):
- Blackash the Burning (Burning Dead Archerr, dlvl 4)
- Bongo (Devil Kin w/Spear, dlvl 3)
- Brokenhead Bangshield (Corpse Captain, dllvl 3)
- Deadeye (Skeleton Bow, dlvl 2)
- El Chupacabras (Plague Eater, dlvl 3)
> - Gharbad the Weak (Flesh Clan, dlvl 4, SP--only quest)
- Goretongue (Rotting Carcass, dlvl 3)
- Gutshank the Quick (Carver w/Sword, dlvl 3)
- Madeye the Dead (Burning Dead w/Axe, dlvll 4)
- Moonbender (Blink, dlvl 4)
- Pulsecrawler (Shadow Beast, dlvl 4)
- Skeleton King (dlvl 3; in SP, drops Undeaad Crown...duh)
- Skullfire (Corpse Bow, dlvl 3)
- Snotspill (Dark One w/Spear, dlvl 4, SP-oonly quest)
- Spineeater (Bone Gasher, dlvl 4)
- Warpskull (Hidden, dlvl 3)

This means that the following bosses in church can drop Helm of Sprits:
- Bladeskin the Slasher (Fallen one w/Swordd, dlvl 2)
- Boneripper (Skeleton w/Axe, dlvl 2)
- Bonehead Keenaxe (Corpse Axe, dlvl 2)
> - Butcher, The (dlvl 2; in SP, drops his clleaver...duh)
- Pukerat the Unclean (Fallen One w/Spear, dlvl 2)
- Rotcarnage (Ghoul, dlvl 3)
- Rotfeast the Hungry (Zombie, dlvl 2)
- Shadowbite (Scavenger, dlvl 2)
- Soulpus (Zombie, dlvl 2)

It's not really a disadvantage to wear Helm of Sprits instead of Undead Crown (except the helm's AC is slightly lower); while the Undead Crown is Life Stealing (that means 0%-12.5% per hit), the Helm of Sprits steals 5% Life per hit. Note I do not know if the Undead Crown's stealing effect has an average alue; if anybody knows, please reply.

As for Helm of Sprits being dropped by barrels/chests, I think it would only be possible on dlvl 1-3, with chests that have ilvl = dlvl*2 (on dlvl 4, the item would be ilvl 8, which would result in OverLord’s Helm). Please note I’m not sure if this is true and I therefor appreciate any comments on this topic.

Just some quick notes on beating the Butcher, Leoric and Diablo. They all work the same: as soon as they manage to hit you, it’s likely you’ll be put into stunlock (low AC!). Therefor, you’ve got to stunlock *them* before they can stunlock *you*. One thing is important for that: ToHit%. Damage is usually not an issue to the Barbarian (axe!). I recommend an axe of bashing in order to take on Butcher and King Leoric; attack them when they try to move on the square next to you. If you hit them (and do enough damage), they will be stunned and ‚returned‘ to their previous square. Rinse and repeat. In case you miss and they end up in an adjacent square, you may still be able to hit them before they hit you, so you can still stunlock them. Another option - axe of the bear. You may not hit always, but if you do, they’ll be knocked back. The Fat One (speak: Butcher) will immediately try to close up on you again, Leoric may do so as well or just stand in his square, wondering what the hell just happened. Wait for him to come - if you try to close up, he may very well swing at you, and then *you* are the one who can’t get close.

Diablo. This one is a bit tougher. You should try to take on him when he’s alone (maybe use Holy Bolt to lure him out?), he’s a PITA anyway, even without his friends. Unlike the Butcher and the Skeleton King, he’s got a distance attack, and you’ll feel it soon enough. The attack is physical, so resists don’t matter. Wait until he’s closed up enough and hack away. You’ll probably want to have him standing next to you; if you knock him back, he may use his ranged attack instead of closing up again, and you don’t want that. Here, use your Rage skill - unlike fighting the Butcher and Leoric, you won’t drop your stuff when you die, but that can happen quickly if you use the skill and don’t look for the different phases of the skill (see chapter IIIb for more info). An axe of haste would come very handy here...you can’t stunlock Big D in Hellfire anyway (hit recovery: 0.10) but an Axe of Haste allows you to deal out damage faster, so Diablo dies faster, and you’ll like that.

Na-Krul. Pretty much same deal as with Diablo, except you can lose your stuff down in the Crypt. You can’t stunlock this guy either (hit recovery: 0.15), but you can use the „dude-stay-in-yer-own-square"-trick here since Na-Krul hasn’t got a ranged attack. So: Axe of Haste, Axe of Bashing, Axe of the Bear - you know, the usual option. Or, just read the books in front of his lair in the correct order - boom, he’s not so tough anymore.

In case you’ve got Cow-quest turned on and are strong enough to survive at least 25 seconds against Na-Krul...listen to his speech. Nice reward, eh? <grins>

All other boss monsters (be it „real bosses" like the Defiler or standard unique monsters) are not much different too. Use choke points, don’t get yourself surrounded (but if you do, let ‚em feel your sweep attack), the usual stuff. Don’t use the Rage skill too often...the bonus is high, but so is the penalty. If you feel like it, you can exploit the bug mentioned in chapter IIIb; that’s up to you.

Here are some links to other sites/pages where you can find more information about meleeing, Diablo in general etc.

Freshman Diablo
Has many excellent guides, including, but not limited to Leoric 101, Butcher Bashing 101 and (of course!) Melee Tactics 101 by Charles Warren, something you don’t want to miss!

Jarulf’s Guide to Diablo and Hellfire
Also referred to as „The Diablo Bible". You can actually find out more about D and HF here than you ever wanted to there.

Diablo Strategy Forum
The place to go to if you got questions to ask and/or even hell became too boring for you. Meet our beloved bot L.A.N.D.R.U. (Legendary, Artificially Named, Dread Robot Undercover - at least that’s my guess), get flamed to death and just be there to hear Cat‘s legendary „walk in the park"!

Mainly here for your pleasure, to see how I changed my opinion based on experience and its like, and to make this post even longer: here’s my old Barbarian guide I wrote about ten months ago. It’s not debugged either. :)

<start repost>

I decided to write something about the barbarian which appears in hellfire only. so let's start :-) first, you need the hellfire V1.01 patch (from the sierra HP) the V&K hellfire mod may also be helpful because some items mentioned in this text appear in V2 only.
to activate him, place a text file named command.txt in your hellfire directory. it should contain the word barbariantest.
this file is included in V&K hellfire (or you can do it yourself)

the barbarian is the worst ranged fighter you can name, as he is slow with the bow and practically useless for magic purposes. that's because his initial magic stat is zero and can't be raised when you have a lvl-up, and he gets no mana points at a lvl-up, so his mana is always as high as his magic. let's do a little calculation, assuming the best non-unique magic granting items available:

3 jewels of wizardry (+30 mag each)
helm, plate, sword and shield of sorcery (+20 mag each)
3*30 = 90 + 4*20 = 170 mag and 170 mana

there are uniques items that push mana and magic higher (dreamflange for example), but even if magic and mana are at usable numbers, his slow spell casting level still make him a horrible mage.

another try would be to outfit him with +x all items:

3 jewels of the zodiac (+20 all each)
helm, plate, sword and shield of stars/heavens (let's take +13 all as average)
3*20 = 60 + 4*13 = 112 mag and mana

but here are also the other attributes boosted. but have you ever be able to find two rings and one amulet of the zodiac? probably not in MP. You could try that in SP. so concentrate on his advantages: the melee combat. equipped with a good axe, he can do LOTS of damage. and the quarter damage also doesn't hurt, but there are other problems...

- ranged attacking monsters
the greatest painintheass for barbarians. enemies like succubi, magi or even archers can get very dangerous because they flee when you get too close. best countermeasure: do it like a wolf attacking a group of sheep. burst into the crowd so that they all run away. while they run, they can't attack you, so hunt them down until they run into a corner or a small room and finish them off.

- large groups of monsters
because the barbarian should wield an axe and thus can't have a shield, it can get dangerous if you get surrounded by melee fighters. a high AC is important for the barbarian as he always gets into big monster crowds. this brings us to...

the barbarian's dream setup
not all of the following items are available in MP, but you needn't play the barbarian in MP. single player also works fine.

- helm: veil of steel or undead crown
has all you need: boosts str and vit. the -mana is not important.
or overlord's helm, increases all important stats, of course not magic

- armor: bovine plate
in normal HF, you can get this. it's just perfect because of the high AC and the resist all +50%. again, don't care about the spell level loss. and it eliminates the -20% light of the veil because it has +50%. when playing V2, the bovine plate will not be available (because the nest is practically not available. try, but...) so in V&K V2, the Battleplate would be good. I never saw it, though.

- weapon: now that's a little bit tricky. in V&K HF, The Warbringer is just fine because it's got high damage (50-150), occasional triple damage and has fastest attack, which rocks. -200 mana? you know...
in normal HF, a king's axe is fine, along with either of blood or of haste. in SP, even the butcher's cleaver is good because you can get it kinda early in the game.
You could also try a axe of peril with any prefix, but be aware that you take damage yourself if you hit an enemy.

- jewels: i suggest a ring of precision (+30 dex), a ring of life (+30 vit) and either a ring of titans or of zodiac. Any prefix should do it (obsidian would be fine)

other special things
the barbarian gets 1% resist all with each level. so he doesn't need as much resist-items as other chars. it's enough when you are L25 and have the bovine plate, as it does +50% resist all, so you have all resists maxed out.

if you have points to distribute on your atts, it's a little bit difficult.

magic can't be raised, so only str, dex and vit stay.

raise str until it's at 90 (which is the max. str requirement for items)

don't forget to boost dex, as it increases the tohit which is very important. unfortunately, the barbarian's dex limit is kinda low (55) so your tohit will not be very high. items which raise dex or tohit come in handy, so that ring of perfection mentioned above has its advantages. on the other hand, if you have an axe of haste, to-hit is not that important because you can attack more often and faster and the to-hit is going up this way (not really, but if you attack faster your chance to hit is more likely).

but vitality is possibly the most important stat, because if you increase it, both hit points (2 HP each vit point)AND damage will go up.

even with magic at zero, the barbarian can use the basic spells: identify, townportal, lightning and search, which are all useful. spells on unique staffs have no magic requirement, so he could use the following spells when having the right staffs:

teleport (naj's puzzler)
golem (rod of onan) (not available in V&K V2 as far as i know)
lightning (thundercall)
guardian (mindcry) (n/a in V2 as far as i know)
phasing (gleamsong)
healing (the protector)

the rage skill is useful when fighting single, strong enemies such as butcher, leoric or diablo himself. it increases all stats for about 12 seconds (and damage, to-hit, HP and so on with them). after that, they sink and drop below normal, also reducing HP and probably killing the barbarian, so it's important to use a potion of full healing at the right time. oh, potions: of course only full healings should be used, as rejuvenations or mana potions are wasted.

that's all i can think of right now. i hope you find it interesting.

-MMAgCh
"That's my first real strategy post! I'm so happy!"

<end repost>

Ok, that’s it. We’re done. Mail comments (I prefer non-flammable ones) to me or just reply; now go on and...enjoy.

- MMAgCh
And, to quote Herbert Goergens: „Komm ich jetzt ins Fernsehen?"
„Am I gonna be on TV?"

It’s just not the same spirit when translated...right? Armin? Cat? Anyone? Don’t leave me alone out here...

1. -------------- / � \ / M \ / B \ .	- = Wall M = Monster B = You � = The direction you're walking / = at which angle you should not be walking \ = at which angle you should not be walking" H = The square in which you should have been (fig. 4)
2. --------------- M <=== monster tries to run B <=== you can hit it because it's in adjacent square .
3. --------------- M <=== monster runs along B <=== you're "too late" .
4. --------------- M <=== there it goes HB <=== go on chasing

AC	= Armor Class
clvl	= Character Level
dlvl	= Dungeon Level
Str	= Strength
Mag	= Magic
Dex	= Dexterity
Vit	= Vitality
hp	= Hit Points
Life	= Hit Points too
SP	= Single-player (mode)
MP	= Multi-player (mode)
XP	= Experience Points
Stats	= a) the player's attributes (Str, Mag, Dex, Vit) b) an item's magical effects

Stats	Initial Value	Max Value
Strength	40	255
Magic	0	0
Dexterity	20	55
Vitality	25	150