Difference between revisions of "Barbarian Warcries"

Revision as of 16:23, 16 October 2009

The Barbarian's Warcries are among the most powerful support skills in the game. Virtually all Barbarians max our Battle Orders for the huge hit point bonus, and Shout is very useful as well. Warcries can be used as attacks as well, either to damage monsters or to weaken them.

Howl

Prerequisites: None
Details: "Frighten nearby monsters". Howling will cause affected monsters to cease attacking and retreat as a green 'rain' drizzles down on them. The effect of this skill is the same thing as "Hit Causes Monster to Flee" and the Necromancer's Terror curse, though the odds of it working are different.

Howl is most useful with a new character. Put a point into it and if you get swarmed in Act One send most of your attackers running off in terror.

This skill works by comparing your Clvl to the Mlvl of the monsters, factoring in the Slvl or the skill, and usually by late Normal this one becomes non-functional, when no monsters will run away at all. More points in the skill would help, but they are better spent elsewhere.

Monsters hit with this run in the opposite direction, and often very fast, faster than their normal movement rate. Monsters that are blocked from running will fight even with the green squiggles over their heads, so if you want to get away, cast it, run a step, and cast again. One Howl will cover most of the screen.

Howl does not work on other characters, Act Bosses, or most SuperUniques. One point is required as a pre-req for other more useful Warcries, and that's plenty.

Find Potion

Prerequisites: None
Details: "Find Potion". Formerly "Find Health Potion", this skill now finds health, mana, and rejuvenation potions. A corpse that has had Find Potion used on it can not be raised by a Shaman. Like Find Item, the Barbarian must stand nearly on top of the corpse to use this skill. It can't be targeted at any corpse anywhere, like the Necro's corpse skills. If you target a monster across the screen, the Barbarian will run over and execute the skill standing on top of the targeted corpse.

Find Item is very good to get potions with also, especially when used on bosses and champions, since they'll pop another full drop, usually 4 potions from a Boss, and often full purples from Champions.

Potion odds are 60% Healing, 30% Mana, and 10% Rejuvenation.

• Act One: Minor/Light Healing/Mana, Rejuves
• Act Two: Healing/Mana, Rejuves
• Act Three: Greater Healing/Mana, Full Rejuves
• Act Four: Greater/Super Healing/Mana, Full Rejuves
• Act Five: Super Healing/Mana, Full Rejuves

Potions are dropped based on the Act you are in, and difficulty level is not a factor. So you can get full purples in Normal/Act 5, but only partial purples in Hell/Act 1. No, it's not fair.

This is not a skill a Barbarian needs to use that often, if he has decent equipment and leech, but it can be nice to keep full of purples, and others in your party might appreciate it. One point is generally enough, especially if you have the normal Echoing weapons on your switch.

Taunt

Prerequisites: Howl
Details:Taunt is set up to get those pesky fleeing monsters to come to you. I don't know the details of levels but believe only one skill point is all that's needed. When you have a monster strike and flee, instead of chasing, use taunt and they will walk directly to you for killing. This works even on those monsters that strike and knock you back.

• Taunt will not work on Berserk, Possessed, Fanatic, or other creatures immune to Terror or Confuse, nor SuperUniques, Champions, or Bosses.

Shout

Prerequisites: Howl
Synergies: Shout receives bonuses from:

• Battle Orders: +5 Seconds Per Level
• Battle Command: +5 Seconds Per Level

Details: "Alert your party of impending danger, raising your and their defense ratings". This war cry provides an Aura-like defense bonus to any friendly character or minion in range. The bonus is to a character's total Defense, so if you had 1200 Defense and Slvl 14 Shout adding 230%, you'd go to 2760 Defense.

This works well with Iron Skin, and has 70% more defense per Slvl. However Iron Skin is passive and works all the time, so whether you should max that, or this, or which first depends on how good you are at remembering to always keep this Warcry active. If you can remember, then Shout provides a bigger bonus, and with points in it this lasts quite a while.

Find Item

Prerequisites: Find Potion
Details: "Target corpses to find hidden treasures". Operates like Find Potion but will harvest an item of some sort from a corpse. An extremely powerful skill, especially with good Magic Find on the Barbarian, and half a dozen or more points in this skill. Due to the sound it makes, this skill is often referred to as "Hork". Plus it's fun to say, "Pindleskin just horked up an Eaglehorn!"

Find Item works just like killing the monster again. They re-roll what they can drop, and if you are successful, they'll cough up a full item drop. This is especially good on Bosses and Champions, who have a much higher chance of dropping something magical or better. Find Item finds potions, as well as gold and every type of item. Uniques, Runes, Jewels, etc, if a monster can drop it, Find Item can find it.

This skill does not work on Act Bosses, some SuperUniques (Shenk) or monsters that don't leave a corpse, such as ones that die frozen, or Frozen Horrors in Act Five's Ice Caves. Also bodies can only have one corpse skill used on them, so you'll be competing with the Druid's Vines, Necromancer skills, Paladins with Redemption, and more. Fire Enchanted bosses can be Horked upon just fine, even though they are just a puddle of blood.

Find Item should be used on all dead bosses and champions, especially if you have a good MF% and/or GF%. The gold from champions can be quite huge, doubled. It's very useful when in parties, since you can stop a few seconds to use this, recharge your BO and other warcries at the same time, and still get exp as the others in your party keep killing.

It's easiest to Hork a lot of targets by holding down the right click while pointing at nothing, then keeping it down as the Barbarian runs around. He'll stop and hork any corpse he encounters, usually doing the animation twice per corpse, though only the first one checks to drop anything. It's easier to keep it depressed than clicking every single monster individually, and often it's hard to even see a target, with so many items on the ground. You can keep the "show items" button depressed as you Hork, so if anything good pops up you'll snatch it quickly, though you need to not point at the hover tag of anything, or you'll stop Horking. Often on big mobs you'll have to run around and pick up all of the gold, or even all of the potions (and drink them) to see all of the items, there will be so much stuff.

Horking in bigger games gets more drops, though your % Find Item is factored in. Playing solo you can get many more items with Hork than you can killing the monsters in the first place, if you have a good % in the skill. On big mobs you'll often run out of mana doing this, but you should hork up quite a few blue and purple potions, so it's easy to drink a purple to refill. Or you can Hork a pack, kill the next and leech full, hork them, etc. Corpses left too long or ones you leave the screen or level from often vanish, so it needs to be done quickly.

The greedy Barbarian will have around 11 (44%) points in this, though diminishing returns hit hard after Slvl 4 or 6. It's not hard to add 5 or 8 to all of your Warcries though, especially with an Echoing sword, to get this to a useful level. If you are looking for big Find Item, a three-socket (Topaz) Barbarian helm with +3 Find Item is a great hat for riches. Many Barbs add points to this once they have good points in Natural Resistance, and have maxed out their weapon mastery, WW, and BO, which comes around Clvl 70-75.

• Drop odds depend on the skill level, not the number of players in the game. (As the odds of an initial drop do.)
• Item quality is determined just as usual, with the Barbarian's Magic Find factored in. It's therefore ideal to cast Find Item after weapon switching to higher MF% equipment.
• Find Item works on all corpses except for Act Bosses and a few SuperUniques. Regular boss monsters, champions, and other bonus types are the best targets, for their higher quality drops. When a second drop is triggered, it acts just like the first drop: i.e. bosses drop 4 potions and an item, champions usually drop 2 potions and a large stack of gold, etc.
• Find Item can not be used on monsters that shatter and leave no corpse.
• Once Find Potion has been used on a corpse, no other corpse skills will work on it, including Find Item or Corpse Explosion. Monster shamans will not be able to resurrect it either.

Battle Cry

Prerequisites: Howl, Taunt.
Details: "Fearsome cry reduces enemy effectiveness". This one frightens nearby monster reducing their AC and damage. A skill not used much in the later game, but one that's very good in situations. This warcry substantially lowers the target's defense and damage for the duration, and for a very low mana cost. The radius of the Warcry is small, so it's not of much use to WW Barbarians, but Dual Wielders often use this to practically guarantee they'll hit their target, and take much less damage during the fight. It can be very useful for WW barbs from Slvl 18 to 30, as they'll often have just Bash for an attack at that point.

Battle Orders

Prerequisites: Howl, Shout
Synergies: Battle Orders is granted bonuses from:

• Shout: +5 Seconds Per Level
• Battle Command: +5 Seconds Per Level

Details: "Improve party members' life, mana and stamina". The most popular party skill in the entire game, virtually no Barbarian is satisfied with less than 20 base points in this skill. It works on the Barbarian and all friendly players and their minions, increasing everyone's maximum hit points, stamina, and mana by a percentage.

The warcry lasts for a good amount of time, longer with every skill point in it, and most Barbs max this one out quickly, and try to find bonus Warcries equipment to add even more to it. A good Barbarian helm with bonus to Battle Orders is a very nice find.

This skill doesn't add anything to your current hit points, mana, and stamina, it just increases the maximum possible number. So if you are at 800/1000 hit points, 200 from max, and you get 100% Battle Orders cast, you'll go to 800/2000 hps. This looks like you're half dead suddenly, and can be scary to characters who don't expect it. You need to drink potions or leech to fill up from there.

You need to keep Battle Orders on, refreshing it before the duration runs out, or you'll drop back to your normal max hit points, and then have to leech or potion them full again, to get any benefit from BO. After all, more potential hit points are useless if you don't actually fill them up.

This is complicated when there are multiple Barbarians in the same party. The Barb with the highest level BO should be the only one to cast it, since if a lower level of it is cast, it resets everyone to their normal level of hit points, then ups their maximum by whatever % of BO they have. And you'll need to leech or potion to fill up again. You can reset your own BO if you forget to cast Battle Command first, or if you get a Skill Shrine and cast BO at the +2, then cast it again once the Skill Shrine wears off. In parties discuss who has the higher level, and let that Barb cast it. They need to be responsible for keeping everyone else refreshed though. If other players are nearby, BO them to keep the duration up, if you are letting them run out all the time, especially if there is another Barbarian around, you can't complain if they cast it themselves, no matter their Slvl. Other players should learn that when you cast it they need to hold still a minute, since most Barbs cast Battle Orders (and often Shout) first.

Once you've played a Barbarian for a bit, you'll develop a timer in your head for how long since you last cast BO, and will learn to cast it again before then. BO lasts from 2.5-3 minutes at the level most Barbarians have in it. The mana cost is very low, so it's best to cast it any time you have a moment, even it's only been 30 seconds or so. It's possible to forget or not be able to stop for it during heated battles, and if you run out in the middle of a mob, it can be fatal.

It's always good to cast it before you go to town, so you'll ideally get back to the dungeon and recast to reset the duration before it runs out. Before battling a nasty boss it's a good idea to take a waypoint, BO up, go to town for a quick heal from the NPC, then go through your portal to the boss.

Most Barbs max out Battle Orders. It's a good idea to get it to at least Slvl 6 or 8 immediately, so you'll have enough duration on it that you aren't always running dry and having to leech full again.

Grim Ward

Prerequisites: Find Potion, Find Item
Details: This skill erects a gruesome, bone and gristle scarecrow from the corpse of a targeted monster, that casts the Terror curse on any monsters that draw near it, causing them to run away. This is one of the coolest and most clever skills in the game, but has hardly any practical use since few Barbarians are weak enough to want monsters to run away from them. Has some corpse-recovery utility, but few players will spend a skill point in it for just that purpose.

• Grim Ward will not work against Super Unique Monsters and Bosses.

War Cry

Prerequisites: Howl, Taunt, Shout, Battle Cry, Battle Orders.
Synergies: War Cry receives the following synergistic bonuses:

• Howl: +6% Damage Per Level
• Taunt: +6% Damage Per Level
• Battle Cry: +6% Damage Per Level

Details: Damages and stuns all monsters in range.

• The stunning effect of this skill, especially at higher durations, is extremely useful.
• With the addition of the Synergies in patch 1.10 this skill became more used as the damaging skill in the Singing Barbarian build. With level 20 in the skill and all it's synergies, the Barbarian has a damage of 690-736 per cast. The skill also works well with fast cast, especially since all the enemies in mêlée distance around him stay stunned for as long as he uses it, and may be weakened by his Battle Cry/Taunt as well.
• War Cry has a rather small radius, much smaller than any of the other War Cries.

Battle Command

Prerequisites: Howl, Shout, Battle Orders.
Synergies: Battle Command is boosted by the following skills:

• Shout: +5 Seconds Per Level
• Battle Orders: +5 Seconds Per Level

Details: Battle Command adds a +1 to all of the Barbarian's skills, and does the same for all characters and minions in his party.

• Higher levels are useful for the longer duration.
• This warcry should always be cast first, before Battle Orders or Shout, so those skills will be cast at +1.