I know, I know: a D2 guide in 2020? Why?
Well, for starters there has been a recent uptick in LLD activity over the past year. And when TvTs become more common, the viability of support chars increase.
Support chars are the reason I enjoy playing D2, and to be honest, I started a lvl 18 leap barb prototype in 2009 and never finished him. You won't be forgotten xxLeapxx i swear, but you have been officially replaced by:






The role of a support char in TVT:
Let’s be real. Most people want to play the DPS char and get all of the kills for their team. But if played correctly, support chars are the unsung heroes of TvT.
They are the chars that protect the DPS players on your team, or slow down the DPS players on the opposing team.

Strengths of the lvl 18 leap barb:
The leap skill doesn’t require increased attack speed, faster run walk, or faster cast rate to work. Not having to conform to those parameters allows for a fairly flexible build gear wise.
Leap allows you to do both “offensive” and “defensive” plays and can prove to be a solid counter against traditionally stong TvT chars (i.e. a charger for example).
The leap barb can soak up a lot of damage from the opposing team. He is designed to love pain, and he can eat a lot of arrows so that your zon doesn't have to.
Leap is an aoe attack, so he can be an effective crowd control char vs an entire team....

Weaknesses of the leap barb:
A pure leaper cannot do damage on its own. Maybe a hybrid is viable, but I could not get one to work. Feel free to build a mock up version in Hero Editor and blow my mind. I’m always down to theory craft.
A Leaper is not as effective at chasing down zons as other builds may be. He can take a lot of zon abuse though and break name locks if he can get close enough to an opposing zon.



Effectiveness in TvT

A support char is effective in TvT if they are worth replacing an additional DPS char in your specific team comp or if they are particularly strong against the opposing team's composition.
The rule of thumb is, the more ranged chars present in an opposing team comp, the less effective a leaper will be.

If for example the opposing team is comprised of 4x Bowas, the leap barb won't be a very solid choice in this matchup because he struggles with chasing down runners, and he would essentially do nothing for your team.
The leap barb is however, very strong vs chargers. So if your team's bowa is struggling vs a charger, you may consider teaming up with a leaper for protection.



Leap mechanics and nerd math:

Leap has two components
1. a leap distance i.e. how far you can jump in the air
2. a kockback radius i.e. a ring around the barb that forces fhr frames to chars inside of it (when the barbarian lands from his leap)

The first point isn’t very interesting. With higher skill levels, you can leap farther, but the additional leap distance gained isn’t a big deal. Most of your leaps will be small hops, and you can achieve this by aiming at your own char’s feet and holding down the mouse.

The formula for leap radius is ( 1.98 + ( leap lvl * 0.66) ) radius in yards

So for example at lvl 18, max leap without gear would be lvl 13 or 10.56 yards.
Adding gorefoot boots (+2 leap) and a +1 combat weapon would boost you to lvl 16 or 12.54 yards (a 23% increase from base leap radius)
The max you can get at lvl 18 is lvl 22 leap (assuming eye of etlich ammy), which would have a leap radius of 16.5 yards (a 69.2% increase over the base leap radius)

Realistically though, you will probably cap out at lvl 21, since the loss of stats on etlich ammy isnt worth the +1 skill.



The good, the bad, the charsi: Best in slot gear breakdowns

Helmet
The best in slot helm would ideally look like this: +1 combat skills/+3 leap, 2 sockets from Larzuk and filled with 2x skulls. The following hats also work, but remember that +leap is usually worth more than life rep with this build, and if you can get both, you are livin’ the dream homie.
1. +1-3 leap white helm socketed with 3x skulls
2. +1 combat/20 frw circlet socketed with 2x skulls
3a. 3 socket mask or crown with 3x skulls
3b. Tarnhelm. Hopefully, you won’t be using this very long.

Special mention: high defence eth rep crown for beast mode.

Ammy
Since you can’t get a +1 combat ammy, best in slot is just a rare amulet with high stats. The amulet slot is a good opportunity to pack on that sweet, sweet life rep.


Shield
Best in slot is fairly open here. You could use a rare bone shield with 17 fhr/deflect mods/2 sockets/ and either DR or MDR. Alternatively, a vulpine bone shield of deflect could be used. I personally use a sigons shield with a -15% req /6dex jewel. I like my leap radius.

Weapon (main)
This slot would be ideally filled with a +1 combat weapon. It is fairly easy to gamble/shop a combat kris or a military pick. If you get 2 sockets from Larzuk, fill this with stats jewels so that you can dump more hard points into vitality.


Weapon (switch)
On swap, I like to dual wield scepters of regrowth. These allow me to gain +20 life rep in times when I don’t need a shield (i.e. vs a caster or when I’m trying to leap my way back into the action)
You can shop these from Drognan in act 3 and they can have mods like +mana or res.

Armor
This slot is fairly flexible. Good options include:
Twitchroe armor — 20% Faster hit recovery, 10 str, 10 dex, extra block percentage
Stealth armor — 25% Faster hit recovery, 6 dex, 25 frw for positioning in tvt
Rare Breast plate — 24% faster hit recovery, 30-40 life, 2 sockets for skulls, etc

Special mention: Eth/rep Ancient armor — could be an option paired with that sweet eth rep crown you’ve been hoarding for the past 3 seasons and had no idea to use it on.


Belt
Ideally you want a 24 faster hit recovery belt with life and life rep. Bonus points if you also get light or fire res on it.

Gloves
Bloodfists. Life + faster hit recovery is delicious.

Rings
This slot is fairly open. You can go use 2x manald rings for the extra life and mana rep, or you can go rares to boost overall stats and res. If you really wanted, you could even craft safety rings for the DR/MDR stack. 2x safety rings could be 8 DR and 4 MDR, which would be a fairly decent damage reduction vs players using CK boots…


Boots
I've tried:

10 life rep crafted blood boots
Cow kings boots (CKS)
Glitched Treads of Cthon
Gorefoot boots

All of these boots have their uses, but gorefoots are better in most situations. Stacking that leap radius makes you a much better defender vs melee characters and chargers. However, if you need to chase down (and take abuse from) ranged chars, crafted blood boots may be the better option.


How much life rep?
The max life rep you can possibly get on a lvl 18 barb is 96, which is roughly 9,6 life rep per second.
96 is an insanely high amount of life rep, but it isn't practical as it assumes you aren't using a shield. Been there, done that.

Rules of thumb:
75% block is worth more than +10 life rep unless opponents are pure casters or if you are out of the fray
+leap radius is typically worth more than +10 life rep. But as with everything else, that "depends"
Hitting the 86 fhr bp is worth more than stacking life rep. If you keep getting stunned, you can't be effectively stunning others.

So realistically, you will be hitting 30-50 ish life rep, which is still high, but i feel this is number justified based on a build that cannot damage by itself.
Typically when i join TvTs with a leaper, i say that if my team dies, i automatically forfeit since i cannot win on my own.


Inventory
The build's inventory is flexible, and really depends on the rest of the chars gear. If you build the char without rare rings, perhaps you will need life/res small charms for survivability.
You may also need 15 life/5+ mana scs to pad your manapool if you aren't getting enough from the rest of your gear.
Items and charms with faster run walk may also be considered. As stated before, Faster run walk does not impact leap, but it could help you achieve better positioning and to keep up with the rest of your team.


Wrap up
The TvT leaper is a fun char, designed to shake up traditional team compositions.
If you have any thoughts, questions or comments, leave a reply and i will get back to you

This post was edited by lld_mayhem on Jan 5 2020 05:15am

first
what?

What specifically are you confused about?

dunno shit about lld.
im just confused about "leaper" still not being used in lld tvts considering it's a character we can find in every hld camp tvt comp since 2005^

hehe finally he revealed gd

He has a long way to go, but he is slowly getting stronger



I think the problem @lvl 18 is that there is a real struggle with whether your char is a DPS char or a support char. You really gotta pick a lane.
In HLD, combat charms/skills boost leap, but they also boost Whirlwind damage. So you can get a decent leap knockback radius without investing too many points into the leap skill itself.

This post was edited by lld_mayhem on Jan 5 2020 05:31am

nerd mathing some damage ontu the build is still on my to-do list

On my old leap barb (Leaper), in tvt id get kills for leap kb ( im assuming it was a glitch & not leap attack ). Have you had the same pk? Maybe they've patched it?

Also what would a perfect crafted ring look like?

I don't have leap attack skilled. I tried using it before and it was almost impossible to hand hits with it.



Id have to do some math, but do to the way the craft calculation is works, the lowest lvl craft possible is clvl 14. Adding an additional mod to a base ring would likely put it over 18 unless it was a minor mod.

Base is:

1-5 vitality, 1-2 MDR, 1-4 DR. If you could still hit 35+ life rep and have max fire/light res with 2x crafted rings, the char would be fairly beefy

This post was edited by lld_mayhem on Jan 5 2020 06:18am