Constructive discussion is appreciated.
I would want people with my quote in their signature to stay out of the thread. Any such posts are considered spam and pm is sent to moderators since i specifically ask these users not to post in this thread.Gear:Dual ali baba
Crown of thieves (nm) or maybe kira's guardian (to guard against high elemental damage spikes in hell)
Wealth runeword armor
Dual dwarf star (nm) or maybe 1 x frost raven (to guard again frost nova)
Chance guards
Rare goldfind or resists amulet
Rare goldfind boots or infernostride
Goldwrap
Gheeds charm
~40% egold grand charms
%egold, frw or resist charms
Stick Lem runes in everything to increase goldfind% even higher.
Merc:Crown of thieves ethereal (nm and/or hell) or kira's guardian um (hell, you may use this to boost fire rest to 85 in unison with guardian angel armor to guard against hydra)
Wealth ethereal (nm) or guardian angel eth (maybe in hell, if you find he is dying a lot to hydras, this makes him almost impervious to them.
Bonehew eth, very high damage
or
Ebotd war pike, this one will really wreck them fast, even in multiplayer hell games.
Or any high level high damage polearm can do it, but it will be slower and he may not steal enough life to survive.
Use lvl 21 enchant from demon limb on your merc, so he hits more often.
Skills:Max battle orders, shout and battle cry
Max find item
Natural resistance 1 pt
As many in war cry as possible, or leap. I myself like war cry, described in the strategy below.
About leap: Some users argue that leap is superior, because it works at a much greater range, and it pushes the members against the wall, keeping them permanently stunned. I for one thinks this is a little tedious, you will have to hop around until they are dead, giving no freedom to move around. You will have to figure this out for yourself what works best.
Strategy:I play hardcore, so i play in nightmare until i get solid. I suggest you do too, in hell mode the council members can deal very high damage and it may be discouraging until you get the routine down.
The goal is to have your mercenary deal with them. But you can run in and use war cry occasionally, if 1) You consider it safe, and 2) If it is necessary. If your merc can deal with 2-3 members alone, it is strictly not necessary. But, if he gets surrounded, you can do this to keep 80% of the members permanently stunned. Max level war cry has a 5 second stun, and it works instantly when cast, in a pretty useful area. So the best way to use it, especially in hell, is to run in, use war cry, then run out again, so that the member's that don't get stunned (usually some of the bosses) don't target you.
When they are all dead, you use find item on all of them, which is a pretty quick process. One tip here, is to not run too far away from corpses (outside screen-ish), because they will disappear and you will not be able to "hork" them. The loot from the kill will not disappear though.
The aggressive way to use war cry, is this: Run to the stairs, but don't run down the stairs, -until- you have gathered most or all the members in pretty close vicinity, but not close enough so that you get body blocked, or killed when you go back up the stairs. Then go down the stairs. Heal up, and head back up. Cast war cry instantly, 2-3 times. Run 3-4 steps away, then keep running back into their midst and cast war cry once every 3-4 seconds. This way, your merc will deal with them very effectively, and when you get this routine down, you can speed up runs immensely. It is risky, especially in hardcore, but when you get training, you can make it work.
The last piece of the puzzle, is to use Gavel of pain on switch
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/exceptional/umaces.shtml. This item has amplify damage charges on it, although only 3/3, but they are level 8, and last for a pretty long time (29 seconds). Now, when you have stunned the council member with war cry, and stepped away from them, you press W and having already switched the right hand skill to amplify damage, cast this -once- on the member pack. Then switch back to ali baba blades.
When they are amp'd, they will die so fast due to your merc's high damage. He will slay 1 boss member in 1-3 swipes. It will be a very fast process, you will laugh more than a few times ^^
Another great side effect by using the charges, is that some times, one boss member becomes physical immune. The problem with this is that your merc stops dealing damage, and thus stops leeching life, and dies pretty much instantly. When amp'd, the immunity is broken, and although this one boss monster will not die as fast, he will at least deal damage, leech life and not die, speeding up runs a lot again.
So that is something nobody ever mention, but i find it very useful.
You -can- use a shopped wand with Life tap charges, this will make your merc leech a lot of life and stay alive longer, usually. But you will have to work around eventual physical immunes in hell mode.
In nightmare, you will find about 300 000 - 500 000 from each run, lucky runs may give upwards to 800 000.
In hell, you will be unlucky to find less than 700 000 from one run. Lucky runs are 1 500 000 - 2 000 000. At the end, i didn't even bother picking up armors, wands, staves and such to sell for 35 000 gold, which i do in nightmare.
Another tip, is that a big part of doing these runs, is learning to control your merc's running pattern. When or if he faces 8 members before you manage to get inside the temple, you are sometimes forced to run away, to make him follow you. Also if he faces 8 hydra heads in one place, that's 24 or more fire bolts every second, dealing incredible damage due to this calculation:
https://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/fire-damage-of-hydras-from-council.781940/unless you use, the aforementioned gear options, that makes him almost immune to fire damage. He can at least survive a lot longer against them, even sometimes during conviction aura from one of the bosses.
It is actually not always fire damage from hydras that is the big merc killer, it is physical damage from the council members. You will notice this when one of them has might aura. They will slap him to death fast then, so it is important to stun them, but this can also be risky for you in hardcore! So then you must evaluate if you should restart the game.
For that reason, i tried equipping an ethereal gladiator's bane, with high dr and mdr points, which are variable. This is actually a damn good armor for gold find barb merc. It is not as effective as guardian angel and kira's but, you can then unequip kira's and use crown of thieves, which has some fire resist, and then you get more gold and life leech too. But he will take a little more fire damage again, so this is a toss up which you must figure out for yourself. Therefore i suggest you start in nightmare to feel out how things work.
Newb strategy: Lure the members 1 or 2 at a time out from their hideout, and deal with them a few at a time. Very safe strategy. Sometimes you are unlucky and the whole lot follows you, and if you struggle and die, you should restart. Sometimes you encounter a particularly difficult pack too, then it is usually better to restart. Maybe 1/20 runs you get this.
This is just about all i know from goldfind barb. I found probably 500 million gold last season. The usual thing to do is to gamble, which you can skim through this guide to learn about quickly:
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36678247The other thing to do is to open a gold trade thread. This will require you to have multiple characters in game with preferably about level 30-50+, to hold more gold at one time. Your stash can only hold 2 500 000 gold at one character, and you can only pick up gold equal to your character level times 10 000. So a level 30 character can pick up 300 000 gold. So when you trade like this, it becomes tedious and time consuming to transfer 10 000 gold one million times. I had upwards to 20 million at one time to sell last season, this is attractive to gambling personalities. I sold them for about 40-50 fg a pack.
I probably gambled a couple of hundred million too, but it is hard to get something worthwhile. But you can gamble pretty godly stuff, so it is fun to do. Just read that guide first.
You will also find a -lot- of jewels, charms, gems, sets, uniques, and the possibility for high runes is the highest in the game. It is so easy to run, no seeking out passages underground, very easy on the psyche. And so fun to watch all the gold just puke out of them ^^
I think hell goldfind barb runs is just about the most fun thing to do in the game. You learn a lot about magic and rare items too, if you bother to take the time to do research on them. The problem is that people that know which items are worth a lot of fg, usually keep it to themselves, because it is very lucrative with these items. So you may regret not doing proper research on items you find. Make price check threads on every single item you're just the slightest bit unsure of ^^ Don't care if people get harassing, they should just be happy someone shows interest.
This post was edited by Taurean on Dec 24 2018 05:21pm