The Brawler - Topic

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Sep 12 2009 11:00pm

The Brawler
nn cry, bawlers

1) What is a Brawler?
The Brawler is a Barb vs Caster build (BvC) who is modified to use Throwing Weapons on his secondary; he is both a Thrower and a BvC, who's two primary attacks are Whirlwind and Double Throw. The Brawler is also a very complicated build, more design intensive than a regular BvC, and requires a deep understanding of D2 mechanics and glitches to properly make. The Brawler is not a build just made to be funny or anything, but instead was designed to directly address the weakness of a BvC; range. Many opponents in duels can abuse the fact that a regular BvC must get in close to shut him down by being defensive; Blizzard sorcs spam at their feet, Hammerdins desync around spaming, Smiters love to shiftsmite (baddies) or telesmite. Without a strong ranged attack, BvC's can have difficulties against these builds. Some use Widowmakers to try to address this issue, but the arrows deal so little damage it hardly works. But overall, a BvC can handle himself against almost every build (Except BvB). The difference here is that a Brawler can handle himself better; the usage of throwing makes some duels easier, such as Wind Druids, Smiters, Hammerdins, etc.
"Brawler" is just a name I came up with 10 minutes ago. I'm aware some people already use it to describe weaponless punching builds. Screw those people.

2) Why a Brawler?
A Brawler has easier duels against many matchups, while slightly harder duels against a handful, compared to a regular BvC. You trade off a small amount of Whirlwind damage, attack rating, a very small amount of life, and a few points leap, in exchange for an extremely strong ranged attack. The key to a Brawler is the %CTC Amplify Damage on lacerators. Once this has kicked in, you easily, easily do more damage in a whirlwind than a pure BvC would do. The bit that makes this work is that the tradeoff is small; you lose whirlwind damage, but you retain plenty of it. You lose attack rating, but only a small amount. You lose life, but barely any. You lose leap, but you still get enough to cover a screen. The BvC you are left with is already fully competent, you are merely adding the thrower on right on top of him. This is a Hybrid build that sacrifices very little, but gains very much.

3) Does it work?
Yes, magnificently. Duels that could be very difficult on a BvC are rendered trivial, and you'll gain a tactical advantage even in the normal duels; theres only one or two matchups where you won't be using your lacerators at all, and those tend to be easy anyway (bowazons, for example). It is hard to say if the build is better or worse than a pure BvC. Both are definitely extremely competent. Yet the advantages you gain, the pure fun of the playstyle, the skill and intensiveness, uniqueness, and the general hilariousness, makes it easily a better build to play. You'll get accusations of being a hacker in pub games, you'll get people asking you what gear you use, what your build is. At least, I have.

The other advantage of a Brawler is psychological. It is next to impossible for your opponents to tell if you have lacerators or grief/beast out at a time, their only clues being sounds & the aura rotating in any out with shout/bo/bc. Hence a smiter does not know when to charge you, and when to shift smite. Because your projectiles are invisible, your opponent cannot dodge them. Because you blink in and out, you are tough to namelock, tough to aim at (you are unclickable for a split second).

4) The Gear
A Brawler's gear is almost exactly identical to a BvC. I will name the standard setup, and then the swap gear.

Weapon Set 1:
Grief Berserker Axe (34%+ IAS) & Beast Berserker Axe
-This is the best setup for whirlwind. It is wellknown and works great, giving you the highest damage & attack rating, at the highest speed.

Weapon Set 2:
Ethereal Lacerator & Ethereal Lacerator
-These are the crux of your build. They are hard to come across, and expensive, but worth it. You won't have issues with quantity, so don't worry about the ethereal; the extra damage is easily worth it.

Armor:
Enigma
-Enigma is a given. What is not, is the base armor. You should pick your base armor wisely. Gothic armor looks the best, but if you strength glitch your armor, your FRW will cause desync, which is a nice bonus

Helm:
Crown of Ages or Arreat's Face
-Both are viable standard helms. Arreats gives you more offensive capabilitys, and is far better against casters, CoA more defensive.
-Even if you choose one, you should keep the other around for the rest of the matchups. CoA is only really better against Wind Druids
-Either way, at least ONE socket must have a 15% IAS jewel in it to reach the breakpoint; 40/15 arreats or 40/15 & ber CoA

Gloves:
Trang Oul's Claws
-You need the FCR. You do not need Drac's gloves. FCR is far better than open wounds here, and tap would mess with your amp damage, which is bad

Belt:
Arachnid Mesh
-The FCR easily outweighs the bonuses of Dungos, which is only useful, again, against windy druids

Boots:
Rare Resistance Boots
-Gore Riders & Treks are perfectly viable options here, but BvC's need to stack their resistances as much as they can.

Amulet:
Highlord's Wrath
-You need the IAS, and the deadly strike is what makes this the best BvC ammy

Rings:
2x Ravenfrosts
-The attack rating boots, the mana, the CBF, and dexterity are all invaluable. You need to be careful with the dexterity to maintain your str glitch with angelics on, as explained later.

Charms:
Charms are a tricky subject. There is no *one* best setup for a BvC's charms. There have been whole debates on the best setups. Max/ar/life grand charms are a good option, but you need to get a lot of resistances from your charms, in order to stack up at least 30 fire & 100 cold / light resistances above the maximum, at the least. 20/5 charms, 20/11 charms are good options. Opt for 3/20/20's and 36/20's where you can, but budget characters should know that resistance grand charms & life small charms works just fine. You will not need skillers on this build.
And of course, a torch & anni.

Swap Gear:
You need so much swap gear I will rattle it off, some of it is explained later:
Angelics rings / ammy
Demon Limb
Cleglaw's Pincers
Arreats/CoA (the other one)
Kira's
Hotspurs
Tgod
Dwarf Stars
Wisp Projectors
Rising Sun
Widowmaker (hel'd)
Storm Shield (hel'd)
+3 bo sticks
+5 bo delirium
Dungos

Choose as you see fit what to include, it all comes in handy

5) The Skills
A brawler suffers from having too many skills to max. However, as explained later on, some of these, like double throw, do not need to be maxed due to glitches. Still, the skill setup listed here comes after extensive testing of various setups to see what is the best. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat, but this is the best one. The tradeoffs have been made to maximize efficiency, damage, ar, life, etc. Thus it took a while to figure out exactly what should be maxed and what should be left at level 1, etc.

Battle Orders: 20 points
This is the staple barbarian skill, no need to explain
Axe Mastery: 20 points
Axe mastery will apply to your whirlwind & berserk (and frenzy), and even the lacerators when swung in melee. It will not apply to your thrown damage. We opt to max this over whirlwind because you gain approximately the same bonuses; slightly less damage, but slightly more AR, but more critical strike & less mana cost. When you add in the fact it applys to berserk, the choice is obvious.
Throwing Mastery: 20 points
This is the primary means for pimping up your throw damage/ar/etc. It is more important than the double swing synergy to double throw. This will only apply to your thrown attacks.
Double Swing: 20 points
This provides damage to double throw, and that is it. The synergy bonus is all you will use it for; you never use the skill itself, ever.
Whirlwind: 1 point
Despite being your primary attack, you only need 1 point in it. This is the tradeoff compared to a pure BvC, but the points into axe mastery are better.
Double Throw: 1 point
As the glitch prevents double throw from adding %AR, you only need 1 point. You'd probably only do 1 point anyway even if it worked
This is your secondary attack.
Berserk: 1 point
This is used against some necromancers and other stuff. Will normally be your left-click skill
Frenzy: (Optional) 1 point
This is an incredibly good skill for PvM, way better than whirlwind, and only takes 1 point.
It is still great for messing around, as you can charge up frenzy on a quill rat and surprise someone with batman speed.
Can have a niche use in a few duels like against bowazons or during lag spikes, where it can be better than berserk by block/dodge locking someone.
Battle Command: 1 point
All barbarians should have this.
Battle Cry: (Optional) 1 point
This is significantly useful against smiters/hammerdins, where it can shave off a little damage/defense. Great for making them easier to hit with lacerators out
IMO, all barbs should have it. Taunt, the prerequisite, is probably the funniest skill in all of D2. Hotkey taunt and have fun going "NYAH NYAH" in people's faces
Most fun 'messing around' skill in d2, is a good reason to invest 2 skill points that would otherwise just go into leap.
Increased Speed: 1 point
Standard passive for all barbs.
Natural Resistance: 1 point
You don't have enough points to spare to invest more into it, but the diminishing returns kick in fast anyway.
Find Potion (Very optional): 1 point
For those who love to BM with full rejuvs, this creates a huge supply of them, for 1 skill point.
Leap: All the rest of your leftover skill points (~4 at level 90)
This is a BvC's means of stunning people to set up chainlocks and stop fast teleporters to whirlwind them, etc.

6) Explanation of the Mechanics / Glitches
There are many glitches for a BvC/Thrower that you need to know to build it right, so lets get those out of the way first.

Grief's +damage is not displayed on the character screen.
It is added exactly like min/max damage to the weapon of that amount, and thus your damage is much higher than you see.

Double Throw doesn't do anything
There is a glitch in the d2 code that causes any missile skill not to add its +% AR bonus, it simply doesnt do anything.
This doesn't just apply to double throw, but also all the zon arrow skills, plague javelin, etc.
Since all the skill gives is +% AR, skill points beyond the first are not needed

Throw Mastery makes the game lie about your damage
When using double throw, the game will incorrectly display your damage. It will multiply your entire physical damage by the % on throwing mastery. For example, if throwing mastery gave a +100% bonus, you need to halve your damage to see what it really deals. So when throwing mastery gives +150%, and you have 4500 displayed damage, you really only do 1800 thrown damage. However, once Amplify Damage lands on someone, this is really a LOT of damage to be had; amp damage will triple your damage.

Amplify Damage can more than double (up to triple) your damage
Amp damage does not double your damage, but instead gives the enemy -100% physical resistance. If they had 0% to start out with, this brings them to -100%, doubling your damage. BUT, if they had 50% DR, this brings them to -50% DR. Thats triple the damage; 0.5 vs 1.5. Hence once amp damage lands against a 50% dr character, you'll slice straight through them with 3x the damage.

Knockback always puts an opponent into FHR
When using clegs, your thrown axes, when they knockback (its a % chance) will always put your opponent into FHR.
Normally, an attack has a % chance of putting someone into fhr;
if it deals 1/16 of their max hp, 37.5% chance
if it deals 1/8 of their max hp, 75% chance
if it deals 1/4 of their max hp, 100% chance

Strength Glitching Enigma for frw desync
If you strength glitch your enigma, you will appear to have 45% less frw on other people's computers, making you run/whirl slower than you actually are on the server.
To strength glitch an item, you must have enough strength to equip it (duh), but have less than the required strength if you subtract your bonus from charms.
Charms are not displayed on other people's computers, so they don't *see* your bonuses to stats from them, and when it appears that you can't wear an item, you'll not have it equipped
because its not equipped, you don't get the FRW on their computer. But on the server, and your computer, you really are wearing it.

Dexterity Glitching your Lacerators
This is the more difficult thing to understand. When your lacerators are strength glitched, like the armor, they will be invisible to enemy players.
Not only will they not see the animation of you throwing (you'll "blink" in and out), the projectiles themselves won't be visible, causing even further desync
As I said, this occurs when you have enough requirements to wear it, but not when you subtract your bonus from charms.
However, the tricky part here is getting your lacerators to be dex glitched with all your setups. You must do it with 2x ravenfrosts, angelics, arreats, etc.
Say your charms give +40. You need to hit between 112-151 dexterity with all your setups.
Use less than perfect dexterity ravenfrosts to accomplish this, and count the +10 dexterity from angelics to land you exactly at 112 dexterity, and you'll be golden.

BvB Bow/Amp Hunting
Against other barbarians, you have a special tactic that other BvC's lack; the hyper widowmaker. Go to your stash, and equip your gear like this:
Switch 1: Widowmaker / Arrows
Switch 2: Lacerator / Stormshield
Now, you can duel like a crappy bvc would, teleport around other barbarians and shooping out arrows. BUT, before the arrows hit your opponent, switch to lacerator. The %ctc amplify damage will kick in on the guided arrows, making them do a respectable amount of damage, enough to actually kill other Barbarians. This can let you actually murder other BvB's, BvA's, BvC's, the one thing that normal BvC's struggle with. You'll get maybe 50% blocking on your stormshield, which isn't shabby if you screw up somehow. Make sure to activate your venom from grief beforehand, with trang's gloves to boost it. That will seriously help your damage.
Its still a duel of patience, and you'll widdle them down, but you'll actually deal enough damage to make it worthwhile, unlike a BvC, who is really just screwed vs barbs.

Chainlock
Some people still don't understand this, so I'll spell it out.
During a duel, namelock someone with either Unsummon or Taunt (hotkey either). Then, after they have teleported offscreen, switch to teleport. Then whirlwind around
Voila, you just teleported 2 screens away, when they didn't expect it, and killed them. Use taunt for awesome points, use unsummon for lame points.

7) Stats:
Enough strength for gear
Enough dexterity to glitch your lacerators exactly (102 before rings/ammys, 141 or less afterwards)
Rest vitality
Energy is for sorcs.

8) Credits:
Me.

9) Extra Tibits:
Weapon Type Glitching:

Quote

If you attack at 5.5 FPA with 2 different kinds of weapons, (axes/javas), both will spawn with the same type/range as your non-primary one (right side in inventory, left hand)
so with a javelin secondary, you can throw lacerators at javelin range.

However, javas don't have very great range anyway, so its not worth the bother; you'd lose half your throw damage & chance to amp.

Gore Riders vs Trav's:

Quote

War travs certainly add good damage, but you wouldn't want to build around the strength, and gore riders would actually add more damage overall.
With 35% ds from highlords, and 22% critical on your mastery, you'd have:
49.3% DS with travs
61.0% DS with gores

now, +20 average damage on a 150 average damage lacerator means +13% overall damage
compared to gore riders 1.61 vs 1.493 = +8% overall damage.

The issue is, the more +max damage you get from charms, the more effective deadly strike is, and thus the two even out rather quickly.
Furthermore, the deadly strike helps your whirlwind more than +20 average damage does, and the crushing blow / open wounds add a serious amount.

SO gores are better than travs

Widowmaker damage with amp:

Quote

But really. Lets say your arrows do 200-550 physical damage with 50% deadly strike, 400 poison damage, 60 cold damage, and 1/2 open wounds.
Add amp damage on top of it, and thats like a 1360-3000 damage attack against a 50% dr character. Thats as much as ~250 hp lost per arrow.
but yes its a HELL of a lot less damage than just lacerators, so its not like you use it for other duels. But I've killed BvB's by just widdling down with garrows.

oh yeah one thing I didn't mention
the amp damage lasts 14 seconds, so you must make the most of it rather quickly

this is good to keep in mind in duels where you see your opponent little due to desync/l8z/etc, and even more important in bvb when you snipe; it tells you when to do the switch trick and when to just widdle away with arrows. Even if the curse effect happens offscreen, you will always hear the sound effect of it being cast, which tells you when it has happened. And I hope you guys already know this, but: Amp (or any other %ctc) will not proc with whirlwind. Some people ask me dumb questions about that is why i say

More on widowmaker:

Quote

The difference in damage between widowmaker & lacerators is on an order of magnitude
Though your damage throwing isn't spectacular, once you kick in amplify, it is. 1500 becomes '4500' after amp, becomes 9000 after deadly strike.
Likewise, the amplify damage boosts your whirlwind so severely it is like cutting through butter.

Widowmaker has many disadvantages on a BvC that a brawler avoids. You cannot whirlwind with widowmaker out. If you are against a paladin, you can throw axes right at his face. If he tries to charge you, you can whirlwind out. But when a barbarian starts shooting arrows, everyone can SEE he is using widowmaker, since the arrows are very visible, and everyone KNOWS he can't defense himself with it out. And they WILL telestomp you and ruin your shit. Widowmaker attacks much more slowly, with an animation that puts you at risk. Most d2 'pros' already know that using widowmaker on a barb, while it sounds great, puts down your guard in a lot of duels. This is not the case with your lacerators.

On warshrikes, cat's eye, and statting your dexterity:

Quote (deathwinger @ Tue, Sep 8 2009, 10:11am)

Cat's eye is not really needed here. The dext means you'd have to build around it, which means no angelics.
And warshrikes are a PvM weapon. Using them would half your chance to amplify damage, and this build THRIVES on amplify damage. The ias difference is negligible, the damage difference is not.
They're used for PvM because once you've amped them, shrikes deal more damage than lacerators. But in duels, you're just praying on amping them every time you hit.
Luckily 2x lacerators means 33%, which is a huge chance. But with shrikes/lacerators, you get only a 16.6% chance...

You'll need angelics against all paladins. Yah you don't need them against other builds (what good is AR against a barbarian? you can't kill them in melee), but paladins are PLENTY right now.
So its worthwhile to stat around angelics like I did. It more than doubles your throw attack rating. I can actually hit smiters when they shift smite, which certainly makes them budge up. And thats without demon limb (yet, i need one). So think of it this way: You'll use angelics against all smiters & hammerdins. Maybe only against smiters and hammerdins. And yes, thats only 2 character builds. But they're also the most popular, overplayed character builds, so its something you should definitely have available to you. Higher AR means not just a chance to hit them with throwing axes and amp them, but also to ruin them with whirlwind as you angle away when they try to charge or smite or telesmite or whatever.

On whirlwind damage comparison:

Quote

Anyway, though I'd do a quick damage comparison:

Whirlwind
Pure BvC gets +206% whirlwind
Brawler gets +54% whirlwind
both get ~175% strength
both get +178% axe mastery
both get +186% fanaticism
and lets throw in 40% from jewels

now deadly stroooooke is the same on both so ill ignore it for now.
with 450 damage grief:
pure bvc: 3982 damage
brawler: 3298 damage
brawler after amplify damage vs 50% dr: 9895 damage

^___^

Anyway yeah, you get about 83% of a pure BvC's total damage, on normal whirlwind.

On football, american vs european (world):

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A PUSSY GAME

I still say soccer (or futbol as they say in Costa Rica) is a pussy game. No hands, no hitting and not a lot happening on the field except a bunch of running around for an hour or so. But it's DANGEROUS TO BE A SPECTATOR.
This kind of crap happens all the time at soccer games, all over the world. I don't understand it. I think soccer SUCKS and the only reason I would ever watch a game is because my son is playing in it or I am in Costa Rica. The idea of pitching a riot over that pussy game just doesn't enter into my head.
I can understand wanting to kick somebody's ass at a University of Georgia football game, especially if they're playing Auburn or Georgia Tech. But SOCCER?
Gimme a break.
.....
I'd rather watch grass grow than sit through a freakin' soccer match.
One of my best friends willnot let his sons play soccer. He says it is part of the "feminization of America". I tend to agree.

o sissies can run a long time. Who the fuck wants to watch a buncha Fabio's run around for 90 min only to have the end score 1-0 after overtime. The crowd is much more entertaining than the game. I think they have violent fans because its the only outlet the poor masses have. Say what you want dude, Europeans have sissy games. Not saying there's no talent in twinkle toeing a ball down the field passed a bunch of other sissies. But there's talent in weaving baskets. That don't mean I want to watch it.....SISSIES!

Another Damage Comparison:

Quote

By the way, this is a nice damage comparison for the unconvinced.

Against a 50% dr character, a BvC will have 4000 max damage whirlwind, with 61% deadly strike, which deals 540 damage on average
Eth lacerators might have 1800 max damage, with 61% deadly strike, but at -50% dr, it would deal 725 damage on average

in other words, once amp kicks in, your throwing weapons deal as much damage as a normal whirlwind barb's whirlwind.