Skill census/analysis of the SPF Mat/Pat/Guardian build compilation

Dec 2022 Update: There was a slight adjustment to Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master in the D2R 2.4 patch, so that you no longer need to wait six seconds to recast one.

Shadow Warrior
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For most players, the Shadow Warrior was just a prerequisite to Shadow Master, but there were a handful that used it as a one-point wonder for quick scouting or distraction. Assassins that maxed their Shadow Warrior summon were
When summoned, the Shadow Warrior comes equipped with a pair of claws (magic blade talons and cestus), and a magic copy of whatever headgear and body armor the summoning assassin is wearing.

In battle she enjoys a defense bonus that is just slightly higher than that of a Shadow Master at the same skill level. Also while fighting, she chooses either normal attack or one of the skills configured on the left or right mouse buttons (with a few exceptions - for example, she won't summon another shadow, nor will she use Blade Fury or Cobra Strike). Some players prefer the warrior over the master, to better control the skills the shadow uses. Here's how Desrok assessed this skill:

"Previous sins of mine have used Shadow Master and I haven't like their tendency to use Dragon Flight to zip around all the nearby monster packs and drag them all into an ongoing battle, so I thought I'd give the Shadow Warrior a go and control what skills it could use. Maxed SW with Fade active was pretty hard to kill. Something like 47% pdr and 100% res all with almost 1500 life and often some form of life leech from gear. Doesn't hurt anything but can tank most things indefinitely. When it did go poof, I knew something bad was in the fray somewhere and needed to pay extra attention to what was going on. Kinda like a canary that way. Only drawback was that I wanted to have Dragon Claw on RMB, which meant there really wasn't an alternative skill to put on LMB, so SW tended to only have access to DC, somewhat limiting its usefulness. Overall though I was much happier with the Warrior than previous Masters."

Dec 2022 Update: ffs maxed Shadow Warrior on the werebear assassin ZodSin.

Shadow Master
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When summoned, the Shadow Master gets a magic version of the same armor and helm equipped as the summoner, as does the Shadow Warrior; however, she also gets other random equipment such as elite claw weapons, gloves, and jewelry, which can get magic/rare mods on them at higher skill levels. Some players are content to bring this skill just up to level 17 with +skills, because she gets all of the rare equipment she will ever have at that level.

She also enjoys generally higher resistance bonuses than those of a Shadow Warrior at the same skill level, except at skill level 19 - by freak arithmetic formulae computations, the warrior actually out-resists the master at only that level!

In battle, she chooses among almost every possible skill available to any assassin. She seems to select her skills completely on her own, outside of the player's control. Upon encountering an enemy, even one that might be off-screen, she might happily Mind Blast, or Dragon Flight kick it, or hit it to build some martial arts charge-ups, or drop various fire or lighting traps. Even when she's not in battle, she usually prepares by buffing up with Fade or Burst of Speed, Venom, and a Blade Shield.

(Update: some players have suggested that, if you spend more skill points in a skill that a Shadow Master might use, the higher investment will increase the chances that the shadow clone will choose to cast that skill whenever she must choose what it will do next. My own experiments with Shadow Masters seem to support this claim, at least in the cases of Mind Blast and Death Sentry.)

Thirty-four players in the collection maxed their Shadow Masters with 20 hard skill points. Of these, I found seven write-ups whose authors included experiences and opinions specifically about their SMs: Kseniya by Oakbrain, Hypatia by winmar, Leitha by Milb, Araya by Nightfish, Randa by EasyG, Linuviel by Maltatai, and Buakaw by Vulpine.
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Psychic Hammer
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The first skill so far in this study that had absolutely no investment beyond "one point wonder" status. When Blizzard introduced skill synergies, they ignored this skill, and I think that's a shamefully missed opportunity. When patch 1.13 added new synergies for some skills, I was surprised and disappointed that assassin skills like Psychic Hammer were not considered. For example, I thought they might have given Mind Blast additional damage for each point invested in PH. What other assassin skill do you think should have received additional synergy bonuses for hard Psychic Hammer skill points?

I admit that I actually tried maxing this skill, and I have even defeated normal difficulty Diablo using only a 20-point Psychic Hammer. It required a lot of mana potions and a long time - I can't remember for sure, but more than ten minutes I think? I believe I deleted that character not long afterward.

EasyG's write-up of Randa discussed this skill as a one-point wonder:

"Knocks back monsters, damage is very low and slvl should be kept as low as possible, so it uses less mana.

"I used this skill a lot, especially in hell, it could be used to knock back CI monsters, so that my merc hits other monsters, or to knock monsters in line so that my sentinels hit them nicely... All monsters have 100% knock back, except actbosses.

"In chaos sanctuary this skill was very important. OK's were cold immune and kept running away, so i couldn't kill them and at a moment I clusterd like 10 OK's, which were very dangerous, they spammed my shadow with IM and they spammed me with LR and magical attacks, and I had no clue about how to kill them, since they kept runing away. Then I hammered one of them out of the group into a corner where I could kill it."

You may also read advice and affection for Psychic Hammer lovingly expressed in Maltatai's report of Linuviel.

Cloak of Shadows
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It's interesting to compare Cloak of Shadows to the Amazon's Inner Sight skill. They both soften enemy defense, but unlike IS, which brightens enemies with a mild sparkling graphic effect, CoS blinds enemies with clouds about their heads, and darkens everything about as thoroughly as the claw vipers' eclipses. It also improves the caster's defense.

I noticed that the casting delay for CoS increases at higher skill levels; the assassin needs to wait until the darkness dissipates before casting it again. I have never witnessed a Shadow Master use this spell, but it's pretty easy to get a Shadow Warrior to cast it. Furthermore, the assassins casting delay is unaffected by the shadow's cloak - it's possible to get continuous darkness by overlapping cloak cast durations between the assassin and her shadow.

Four M/Gs had maxed CoS: Enrico's Annabel, Maltatai's Linuviel, poopie_pants' Mulan, and Peytron's Shadow-Dancer. Also, getting close to maxing the skill, Blacklotus by corax achieved Guardian with sixteen hard CoS skill points.

(Update: I learned recently that there's a risk of a game crash when Cloak of Shadows is cast at the same time that certain monsters generate a new minion, such as a Foul Crow's Next spewing out a Foul Crow.)

Mind Blast
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AoE damage, knock-back, stun, and conversion. Mind Blast is simultaneously an awesome name for a shadow discipline assassin skill, a decent name for a talented metal rock band, and a disturbing way to describe the results of a stupid cocktail of addictive drugs.

I found five maxed-MB assassins: Nuts by EasyG, Trinity (re-built) and Karina by maxicek, Naywia by Kefir-Tribe, and Artemis by Gripphon, who reasoned that "to maximize Mind Blast to have a useful [shadow] master who will spam it more frequently the higher level it is" was a natural idea for her build plan.
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Now we come to the first column of the "traps" skill tree, the lightning traps.

Dec 2022 Update: After the D2R 2.4 patch, Death Sentry no longer synergizes any other traps, and the other existing trap synergies were boosted to rebalance them.

Shock Web
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One of two "grenadier" trap skills, Shock Web scatters a bunch of electrically charged caltrops on the ground. I like to make my assassin move between throws, so that the area-of-effect pattern changes every time she tosses her sparklies. In normal difficulty, I sometimes role-play "urban riot policewoman" by hurling choking gas potions (tear gas) and shock webs (tasers). Next time I do that, I should also make her carry an ethereal tower shield, to look kind of like those transparent square shields I notice the police using in news videos.

More skill levels, along with synergy points in Fire Blast, increase the number of caltrops lobbed per cast. More skill levels also increase their lightning damage, as do synergy points in the other three lightning traps.

Apparently, most of the eighteen assassins that maxed Shock Web did so mainly for its synergy boost to other lightning traps, except for sirpoopsalot's lilMissMolotov, who maxed it solely to boost Fire Blast's damage. I didn't notice any assassin use shock webs late game or as a featured or themed skill. That makes sense: the sentry trap skills that synergize Shock Web's damage are themselves more consistent and more powerful damage dealers. Furthermore, if the assassin uses it together with any of the lightning sentries, the traps scattered by Shock Web will often neuter nearby sentries' damage, because the caltrops trigger a "NextDelay" damage timer. Still, it would be a fun novelty to see someone defeat hell Baal with a "flinging" trapper that focused on attacking with throwing traps, Fire Blast and Shock Web, instead of casting fixed sentry traps.

Charged Bolt Sentry
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Two assassins reported using Charged Bolt Sentry as a primary skill throughout the game: Guardian Sia by okey, and Matriarch SizzlingSally by Grape.

I have a CBS trapper myself, she was a lot of fun. I just checked - back when I played her, she made it as far as defeating hell Ancients and getting to the last waypoint in the Worldstone Keep, but for some reason I never finished her off.

Careful synergy planning is recommended for this skill, because there are three different ways to improve it (increase the number of shots per trap, increase the number of charged bolts per shot, and increase the maximum damage per charged bolt), and different synergy skills improve different aspects.
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I sometimes role-play "urban riot policewoman" by hurling choking gas potions (tear gas) and shock webs (tasers). Next time I do that, I should also make her carry an ethereal tower shield, to look kind of like those transparent square shields I notice the police using in news videos.

Not sure this is advisable in the current climate...
 
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I think I have four Assassins with max MB, all PvP characters. My trapper, Zhora, maxed MB at the expense of LS synergies, it is a fairly standard approach.
 
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Will the next delay nonsense mean that more shock webs on top of each other are useless?

I just noticed that you mention Linuviel no less than four times in a row now. Not complaining of course, she was totally awesome to play. I may or may not once have decided that if I could ever afford a trimaran sailing boat I would have it painted in black and white and named after someone with such a colour theme and exceptional speed...

Psychic hammer is indeed a great complement to cloaking, since the blinding doesn't stop monsters that were on their way to your last location. After being hammered back they won't continue to pursue you when blinded.
 
Lightning Sentry
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This seems to be our quintessential trap. If an assassin is described as a "trapper," without a qualifying adjective (such as "fire trapper" or "blade trapper"), chances are high that she uses Lightning Sentry to fry anything not immune to it.

In contrast to other lightning traps' complex synergy effects, those for Lightning Sentry are pretty straightforward: each point in any other lightning trap increases LS's damage. Nine M/Gs spent 80 skill points to max LS along with each of its synergies: Crazy Runner Guy's DarkCloak, maxicek's Katinka, Zhora, and Ultraviolet, Nano's Izuna, Neksja's Nnenna, EasyG's Krift, DarkChaos's Mave-II, and Kitteh's Impulsa.

GooberGrape's Gangnam Style, TheNix's Earwing_O, krovak's Scotia, and aduckduckgoose's Shael are just a few examples of dozens of trappers that maxed Lightning Sentry, maxed Fire Blast to have a decent back-up attack against lightning immunes, and then boosted both of these skills by spending remaining skill points in lightning trap synergies.

Most Lightning Sentry users also maxed Death Sentry, but three unique and interesting builds featured partially synergized LS, but without any investment in Death Sentry: chumley669's PeltHunter, maareek's Kerrigan, and naranjadita's Shmassassin.

Natalya by sequana maxed Lightning Sentry with a few synergy points, and used these traps to supplement venom-enhanced whirlwind attacks.

Dec 2022 Update: Two players have now given us D2R Lightning Trappers: Dudzy's Moonbiter and TheNix's SoItBeginsAgain.

Death Sentry
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This trap is the most popular of all assassin skills. It looks like a lightning sentry, and it even behaves like a lightning sentry trap, right up until a monster falls dead on the battlefield, and then SPLAT - its next shot instead triggers a corpse explosion.

Death Sentry has just two synergy skills. One of them is Lightning Sentry: each point in LS boosts damage of DS's lightning missiles. As mentioned above, most Lightning Sentry users also maxed Death Sentry. At equal skill levels and with no further investment in the other lightning traps, the damage per shot of LS is only slightly higher than that of DS. The dancer (kicker/trapper) that I made recently has 20 points in both LS and DS, but just one point in the prerequisite lightning skills; the LCS says that her Lightning Sentry does 1-1142 lightning damage and Death Sentry does 1-1040 lightning damage per shot. When I play with her, I really don't notice much difference during battles between LS and DS lightning attacks. I found more than twenty M/Gs in the compilation with this same 40-point LS/DS investment. Of these, a couple of my favorite reads were ZoZo by Milb and Natalya by PandadudeSP.

The other synergy is Fire Blast. Without this synergy, Death Sentry only shoots five times, but every three points in FB adds enough fuel for another shot. Thus, the maximum synergy of eighteen FB points puts eleven shots into each new DS trap; the nineteenth or twentieth point in Fire Blast do not provide any additional benefit to Death Sentry. Lots of assassins spent three FB skill points to get six-shooter Death Sentries. Those that achieved eleven DS shots with exactly eighteen hard points in FB included FML and Slash by ffs , Tezaera by Low Key, and KickKoala by KoalaBear.
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[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, matriarchs]
 
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Now we have come to the middle column of the traps skill tree, the fire traps.

Fire Blast
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The other "grenadier" trap skill. Fire Blasts have a similar gameplay mechanic to throwing fulminating potions, but as long as the assassin can keep regenerating her mana, she never runs out of ammunition. Also, they appear to have a larger blast radius than fulminating or exploding potions. (I haven't measured them carefully, but I think oil potions' area-of-effect might be just slightly larger.)

FB gets a damage synergy bonus from each of the other six lightning and fire trap skill, so only a level 99 assassin could possibly fully synergize their damage. As a synergy skill, every three hard points in Fire Blast boosts Death Sentry and Shock Web; therefore it wasn't surprising to see lots of "multiples of three" in this skill.

I'd like to note these Fire Blast specialists in our compilation, definitely not a complete list: Reborn2k's Guile, sirpoopsalot's lilMissMolotov, Caralis's Keyra, Ohomemgrande's Claire, Tupsi's Bombazine_Doll, PhineasB's Karma, and Luhkoh's Mavra.

For the SPF MPG Compendium's "tersest skill recommendation" award, I nominate Toppo's Selene: "Fire Blast is fun ."

Wake of Fire
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Wake of Fire reminds me of Diablo 1's Flame Wave spell - only better! From what I have read, this skill seems to be quite popular with players that want to engage player-versus-player contests. It only features prominently on just a few of our matriarchs and guardians; regardless, I don't believe there is any skill more effective than Wake of Fire if you want to rapidly level an assassin through normal difficulty.

NagisaFurukawa reported that Wake of Fire was Nagato's featured skill; maxicek said the same for Blaze, skoolbus the same for Brutus, and Evah the same for Firelizard. Corax 's Isabella combined Wake of Fire traps with Fire Blast grenades; so did Gripphon's Artemis. Other assassins with maxed WoF did so to synergize Fire Blast's damage, or Wake of Inferno's damage and range, or both.

In his report about Guardian Melisandre, crawlingdeadman included a link to a nice action screenshot showing Diablo bathing in a spa of WoF waves.

Wake of Inferno
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Before discussing Wake of Inferno, let me briefly address its namesake sorceress spell. Inferno has a diminished reputation, partly because its damage is only half of what is displayed on the "lying character screen." (From what I have read, the developer that programmed the LCS wrongly calculated that Inferno applies damage every frame, but in actual gameplay it only causes fire damage every two animation frames.) Regrettably, it seems that name association has also blighted the reputation of our assassin's WoI trap. Yet, as far as I can determine, the LCS and skill descriptions of WoI accurately display their damage per shot.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to compare Wake of Inferno and Lightning Sentry, partially synergizing both skills equally with maxed Death Sentry. In general, I observed that her LS traps defeated non-lightning-immunes with about the same killing speed that her WoI traps dispatched non-fire-immunes. AlterEgo's Guardian Sammy also maxed these exact same traps, but complained that WoI was weaker - I claim he's wrong.

A couple of our other Wake of Inferno specialists are NagisaFurukawa's Satoko and zaphodbrx's Blaise.
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Now for the blade traps, the last column in the trap skills.

Dec 2022 Update: as of D2R patch 2.4, each of the blade skills now synergize each other. Blade Sentinels patrol faster and do more damage, Blade Fury gets additional attack rating, and Blade Shield does more damage and lasts longer.

Blade Sentinel
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(Oops, please forgive another inaccuracy - it looks like I called it "Sentry" instead of "Sentinel" in the spreadsheet.)

Just one matriarch and one guardian maxed this skill: EasyG's Randa and HappeningKT's KTsin.

None of the three blade skills have direct synergy skill boosts. Venom can add a little bit of poison damage, and if the assassin uses a claw weapon, Claw Mastery also improves blade traps' damage. But more significant are the roles that the assassin's weapon and other equipment can play in boosting the effectiveness of all three blade trap skills.

Blade Sentinel summons a spinning disc that keeps floating to a targeted location and back for a while, attacking whatever enemies happen to cross its path. The time it stays aloft increases with skill level. At level one, the sentinel floats for four seconds before it collapses; at level 20, its float time has increased to thirteen seconds. (There's also a one-second "NextDelay" damage timer, which means that when a disc hurts a monster, it won't hurt it again until at least 25 animation frames later.) It adds a damage bonus to a fraction of her weapon damage: 37.5% of her one-handed weapon, or 18.75% if she uses a two-handed weapon. That damage bonus climbs from 6-10 at skill level one to 79-83 at skill level 20. It also adds a small attack rating bonus to each disc, five per skill level. Unlike the other blade traps, Blade Sentinel has a fixed mana cost - 7 per disc, regardless of skill level.

Successful blade trappers search for and equip damage enhancing gear. For example, KTsin's "Fortitude" runeword armor quadrupled her sentinels' damage - not just the "fraction of weapon damage," but the skill-based damage bonus as well. Apparently, the "fraction of weapon damage" also includes fractions of other damage mods as well, such as crushing blow, deadly strike, elemental damage, etc. Perhaps we may yet witness more creative "frisbee assassin" matriarchs or guardians in our compilation someday. (I'm reminded that "Frisbee" is a registered trademark of the Wham-O toy company. Hopefully they don't send me a cease-and-desist letter...)

Blade Fury
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Blade Fury is a problematic skill to analyze by skill point investment. We have quite a few Blade Fury matriarchs and guardians in our collection, and I noticed that we have many more "one-point-wonder" BF M/Gs than maxed-BF M/Gs. I can think of four reasons why many players would rather use a one-point BF as their assassin's primary skill. It's a simple and easy-to-use trap that turns any weapon, melee or otherwise, into an effective ranged attack; that simplicity is one reason. Another reason is because BF's mana cost increases noticeably with skill level, and lower mana costs make it easier to manage the level of the blue bulb. A third reason: it seems easier to use equipment rather than skill points to enhance a BF attack. Compared to the other blade skills, BF incorporates the largest fraction of weapon damage: 75% for one-handed weapons, 37.5% for two-handed weapons. The skill-based damage is only 8-10 at skill level one, 101-103 at skill level twenty. A fourth reason: leaving BF at one hard skill point frees up skill points to be invested creatively elsewhere.

Here are my top ten one-point-wonder Blade Fury assassins: Mari by Cormallon, Koga_Ichiban by crazymatt1, ninja by fredsta54, Alecto by purplelocust, Myshella by maxicek , RabbitKick by Skinnyy, Mulan by poopiepants, Ladybullet by DeathMaster, Phusis by Jdkerr, and Araya by Nightfish.

Nevertheless, with careful gear selection, the skill based damage of a maxed Blade Fury skill can get magnified enough to make its mana cost and skill-point cost worth the effort. Here are our maxed Blade Fury assassins: Orphan and Cat by PhineasB , Leitha by Milb, Shmassassin by naranjadita, Curry by scrcrw, Progne_Subis by bcoe, Leona by humbuggerer, Shredder by MukTuk, and Qiwi by sirpoopsalot.

My favorite feature of Blade Fury is that it never reduces weapon durability. Thus the easiest way to get a big damage boost out of BF is to use an ethereal weapon, which will never break as long as it's only used with BF attacks.

Dec 2022 update: Shiv by Vang, another Blade Fury guardian.

Blade Shield
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I found five assassins that chose to max Blade Shield, and all five are captivating reads: EasyG's Randa, Dezrok's Kwika, Solar Ice's Selenia, RobbyD's Osterizer, and NagisaFurukawa's Fishysin.

Blade Shield has lots of strange quirks. It needs to be recast frequently (every two minutes at skill level 21), and it costs quite a chunk of mana to cast it. It attacks once per second, but only when monsters are close enough to hug and smooch. The assassin can often get that close with claw weapons, but with big two-handed weapons, an assassin might be in melee range but still not be close enough to trigger blade shield attacks.

Another quirk: it delivers 25% of the assassins weapon damage, plus a damage bonus that increases with skill level (1-30 at skill level one, 77-141 at skill level twenty) - but unfortunately, that damage bonus is also reduced in combat to 25% (thus 1-7 at skill level one, 19-35 at skill level 20). Again, carefully equipped gear can compensate and bring damage back up considerably.

Possibly the weirdest quirk: if the assassins gear has "chance to cast on striking" mods, Blade Shield never casts those spells, but if the gear has "chance to cast on attack" mods, then Blade Shield will cast those, but not once per second - instead, it treats them as if they were "on striking" instead of "on attack."

Dec 2022 update: ZodSin by ffs, another Blade Shield matriarch.

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Okay, there's my tribute to all 30 assassin skills, and to all of the assassins that used them to defeat hell Baal. Next time I post here, the subject will be Barbarian skill tallies, starting with his active combat warcry skills. Thanks again to all of you that keep reading and enjoying these!
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Howl
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Howl is a prerequisite to every other offensive and defensive warcry skill, so with two exceptions, every single barbarian put at least one point here (the exceptions were bcoe's Telemachus and friedbananazzzz's Sazabi). It's also adds synergy damage to two other skills, War Cry and Berzerk, and every barbarian that maxed Howl also maxed one of those two. Grape's Axl and Dezrok's Zach took full advantage of both co-synergies, maxing all three of Howl, War Cry, and Berzerk. The eponymous guardian by crawlingdeadman wasn't far behind; he maxed Berzerk and Howl, but stopped just short of maxing War Cry.

Howlers must consider the relative difference between the barbarian's level and monsters' levels. The formula works like this: add the character level and the Howl skill level, and if that sum is lower than the enemy's level, then the enemy won't run away. Regardless, unique and champion enemies never flee from a Howl. Also, I have noticed that a fleeing foe that bumps into an obstacle usually doesn't continue to flee, but instead returns to attack my barbarian. In these cases, the green "running away" animation above its head doesn't go away, and subsequent Howls don't affect it until after the first Howl's duration expires.

I liked the report for Patriarch Silumgar, in which SunsetVista wrote detailed advice about how he used Howl, Taunt, and many other barbarian skills.

Taunt
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Taunt makes any single monster fight kind-of like a zombie, regardless of whatever attack behavior was coded for it. Hopping monsters jumping about? No more leaping, just slow zombie-style regular "walking" speed shambling straight at you. Ranged attacker? No more, just slow zombie-style regular speed closing to melee range. Fetishes bobbing and weaving? No more, just regular speed walking toward you. Taunt's doesn't actually slow monsters, so it's not quite as dramatic as the necromancer's Clay Golem, or Decrepify curse, or the slowing caused by cold damage, or by certain unique weapons such as The General's Tan Do Li Ga. But the way it prevents monsters from running, and instead makes them just walk, is still noticeable and effective.

Most that maxed Taunt used either War Cry or Frenzy as a primary skill, both of which receive a damage synergy bonus from Taunt. A notable exception was Sledge by TopHatCat64, who focused on Taunt as the primary skill, using it to set up monsters to then be dispatched with Concentrate.
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RE: Taunt

I do enjoy singers, and have used my fair share of Taunt. Does this skill actually slow? I've never noticed. I'm pretty sure it removes any "move fast" from their A.I. parameters, but does it actually slow? This is news to me!
 
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RE: Taunt

I do enjoy singers, and have used my fair share of Taunt. Does this skill actually slow? I've never noticed. I'm pretty sure it removes any "move fast" from their A.I. parameters, but does it actually slow? This is news to me!
Taunt doesn't actually slow, but it prevents monsters from using any animations that would normally speed up their approach. For example, blood hawks usually charge at you when you enter their threat radius, but, when Taunted, they fly towards you at their default "I don't see any heroes" speed.
 
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Thanks, @logoutzero and @TopHatCat64. I'm glad you both made the effort to clarifiy and correct my claims about the Taunt skill. (y)

Battle Cry
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Battle Cry has a limited range (just over three yards), and "curses" all nearby foes in that range by reducing their defense and their damage. I have yet to find a single enemy unaffected by Battle Cry. Stationary gargoyle traps, uniques, superuniques, act bosses, and even possessed champions are all affected. At skill level one, it cuts an enemy's defense number in half and cuts their damage by one-fourth. At skill level 21, those reductions are improved to -90% defense and -45% damage.

Most maxed Battle Cry patriarchs and guardians were singers; they maxed BCry to synergize War Cry's damage. Since War Cry causes only physical damage, singers generally need an alternative attack to use against physical immunes. This is usually a melee attack, either with a weapon that provides elemental damage, or a point in the Berzerk skill to get magic damage. In either case, Battle Cry sufficiently reduces enemy defense to the point that the barbarian shouldn't need to worry as much about his attack rating. I found interesting comments about Battle Cry tactical usage in the write-ups for Drystan's Trol_Hellscream, Pyrotechnician's JeanValjean, zaphodbrx's HearMeRoar, zerth's ScroogeMcDuckII, purplelocust's Iakhe, and Tupsi's Echo.

I found just one delightfully unconventional maxed-Battle-Cry guardian that was not a singer, and that was Maltatai's Izzor.

War Cry
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I saw lots of interest in the War Cry skill all over the compilation. Twenty-seven barbarians made it a one-point-wonder, and twenty-seven singers maxed the skill, but another twenty-nine barbarians chose to invest somewhere in-between. War Cry has several synergy skills that boost its damage (Howl, Taunt, and Battle Cry), but if a barbarian already has some other reliable skill for dealing damage, he may still want to boost War Cry just for its stun duration, without regard to its damage. Hrrrrrrrgh by Nibiru and Ninefingers by maxicek were two examples of melee fighters that used War Cry to immobilize monsters, then used other skills to defeat them.

Here are some of the players that said they really enjoyed playing their synergized War Cry singer: Jules_Winnfield by FredOfErik, Intangerine by Kestegs, Sammy_Hagar by SkaMan, and Caruso by xALT. Another fascinating but gear-dependent singer/spellcaster was LaTiFrigginDa by sirpoopsalot.

War Cry is itself a synergy to the Stun skill, but I found no guardian nor patriarch in the compilation that combined these particular skills to get longer lasting paralysis from melee attacks with Stun. Would you like to be the first to do so?

Dec 2022 Update: I just couldn't wait. I made a maxed Stun/War Cry build myself, Koine the stunner/paralyzer. Also, there's a quotable parting shot for Ketto, a recent singer by Pb_pal: "The Baal fight took 62 minutes. SIXTY TWO. On /p1." o_O -- In the new D2R Patch 2.4, War Cry's damage was significantly increased, and its mana cost grows more slowly per skill level.
[Update: new histograms, language fixes]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, war cry builds, D2R patch note]
 
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The left column's warcry spells, mentioned previously, each adversely affect monsters in some way. In contrast, the middle column provides warcries that strengthen the barbarian and his confederates. Each of these three skills synergize each other by extending the duration of their bonus effects.

Dec 2022 Update: The D2R 2.4 patch increased durations for Shout and Battle Command, so that they now track with Battle Order's durations.

Shout
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This warcry spell magnifies defense ratings. At skill level 1, Shout doubles base defense for 20 seconds. At skill level 21, it quadruples base defense numbers, for almost four minutes. With high-defense equipment, some of the patriarchs and guardians in the compilation were able to boast five-digit defense ratings when Shout was active. For example, robdylan reported that his patriarch Taz achieved almost 18000 defense. What's the highest Shout-influenced defense rating you have witnessed?

Ninety-eight barbarians maxed Shout, and there were others that came close, and announced that they intended to max the skill with any future levels' skill points. One such was GooberGrape's Halciet.

There were many whirlwinders, such as SkaMan's Deckard_Pain, that maxed Shout for enhanced defense, but also to get longer lasting Battle Orders and Battle Command.

Many berzerkers, such as HolyPade's Killeri, maxed Shout for its magic damage synergy.

Concentrate and Iron Skin are other skills that boost defense (although Concentrate only magnifies defense during attack animations). Therefore, Shout serves as an indirect synergy to these. DeathMaster's Conan is an example of Concentrate and Shout both maxed. Pyrotechnician 's Gossamer is just one of several that maxed both Shout and Iron Skin.

Battle Orders
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It looks like Battle Orders may be the most popular skill in the compilation, not just of barbarian players, but of every skill of any class. Two hundred forty four patriarchs and guardians maxed their BO. It magnifies life, stamina, and mana. I'll just point to a few interesting build write-ups. Brak pointed out that Sneezy "was far more sturdy, partly due to his large life pool." Vox Dei's Sigrim-Kathos maxed Battle Orders, but maxed no other skill at all; the same was true for TedDeeBoy's patch 1.00 Baron TheHoundIOO. Two members that played "base vitality" (stat points spent in dexterity and strength only, none in vitality or energy) were uglyfred's Navajas and allenive's Elder. BO helps to make these base vitality builds easier to accomplish. On the other hand, "lots-of-vitality" turns Battle Orders into big boosts in life. zitcazzy's Perkele achieved 3460 life under BO's spell.

Battle Command
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Battle Command buffs up the barbarian and his allies with a temporary +1 bonus to all skill levels.

The only barbarian to max Battle Command was purplelocust's BeauBeau, who wasn't strictly a single player patriarch, but was used in a multiplayer fashion to boost and help out with other purplelocust single-player projects. He was decked out in so much +skills gear, that when BeauBeau used Battle Command, Battle Orders, and Shout, the resulting defense/life/mana/stamina/skill boosts lasted twelve minutes!

Almost all players are unwilling to invest in Battle Command beyond one point. This leads me to speculate: in order to entice players to put more points in it, should it have provided some kind of useful synergy bonus to some other skill, in addition to the duration synergies it gives to Shout and Battle Orders? A couple of candidate synergies I dreamed about: points in Battle Command should provide a magic damage synergy to War Cry, or points in Battle Command should provide boosts to "chance of getting magic item" when Find Item is used.

Coming up next are the right column's corpse-disposal warcry spells.
[Update: spelling and other corrections, new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: D2R note, new histograms]
 
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Gasp! @Swamigoon tagged me in his statistics thread. I feel famous!

Gossamer was a wolf barb so I had little options for skill investments outside of passives and war cries so I had a lot of skill points to burn. With shout/iron skin/gear/transformation my defense reached 23,545 according to a really old screenshot. I also used fortitude and it doesn't look like chilling armor was active so I'm sure it could be higher, although at some point it doesn't really make much difference.
 
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Thanks for the follow-up about Gossamer. I predict more comments about Wolfhowl barbarians when I get to writing about the Iron Skin mastery skill... :)

Find Potion
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Another rather underrepresented skill in the compilation. Perhaps the patch developers should have made Find Potion provide a synergy with another skill, to entice some players to put more points into it. Maybe a small (1%?) bonus to Whirlwind damage for each point in Find Potion would have done the trick? (Dec 2022 Update: As of the 2.4 patch (D2R), synergy points in Find Potion now improve one of Grim Ward's new effects; see below.)

Find Potion is occasionally useful for corpse disposal, to keep "leechables" such as fallen demons from getting raised back up, but it doesn't work on "unleechables" such as slain skeletal undead monsters. At skill level 1, Find Potion has a 15% chance of producing a health, mana, or rejuvenation potion; the other 85% of the time, it just disposes of the corpse. At skill level 21, those odds are reversed: 85% chance of success, 15% chance of corpse disposal only. I like this skill just for the convenience of not having to go back to town to shop for potions when the barbarian's belt slots become empty. I have had pretty good results with this skill by carrying a couple of Heart Carver unique rondels on weapon switch - with enough +skills, these knives can get a potion production rate of over 70%.

Since this skill seems to merely be a prerequisite to Find Item for almost all of our patriarch and guardian barbarians, I will instead link to a few of the exceptions: PestinReace's Thorgal, lionheartthebrave's Mutation, Indemaijinj's Rockstar, and kannonfutter's Kroth each used a point in Find Potion, but not Find Item.

Find Item
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Here's the warcry skill beloved by magic and gold finders. I had always thought that our term "hork" was just supposed to describe the noise accompanying the Find Item skill, which to me sounds more like a war-grunt than a war-cry. But did you know that horking carries much deeper and richer semantic and literary meaning? Seldom can I recommend in good conscience the Urban Dictionary as a reputable reference, but in this case, several of its contributed entries for hork actually fit this skill rather well.

Unlike Find Potion, Find Item works to dispose of almost every corpse. I notice leaping monsters are just about the only ones that seem hork-proof. At skill level 1, Find Item has a 13% success rate, and the success rate grows slowly with diminishing returns at higher skill levels - at level 20 and beyond, the chances to get another dropped item grow slowly above fifty percent. But even with no investment at all in this skill, we can still get over 40% chances for horked items with a pair of Heart Carvers on weapon switch and an active Battle Command. Whenever a champion or unique corpse is successfully horked, it always yields more potions in addition to an item - this is probably another reason we haven't seen anyone pump Find Potion, because Find Item often seems to produce more potions.

Some edifying reads about max-horking: Telemachus by bcoe, Insane by janooo, Blood_Reaver by JihadJesus, Igor_Horkov by sirpoopsalot, Silumgar by SunsetVista, LeapOffFaith by Cyrax , and GrishKnakh by Gripphon.

Grim Ward
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Dec 2022 Update: Lots of Grim Ward changes in the D2R 2.4 patch: area of effect radius boost, slows affected enemies, and amplifies damage taken by affected enemies. With maxed synergy Find Potion, I anticipate Grim Ward's amplified damage percentage might surpass even the necromancer's Amplify Damage curse, and thus could possibly break previously unbreakable physical immunities! Can anyone confirm?

Grim ward is possibly the least respected skill of them all. It shares the same corpse disposal limitations as Find Potion, in that it doesn't work on "unleechable" corpses like skeletons or insect swarms. Once a Grim Ward totem is lifted from a corpse, it causes nearby monsters to flee for a short time, and since the totem remains for 40 seconds, it will keep affecting monsters that come back into range. In the presence of obstacles, or in confined spaces such as caves, I have witnessed many monsters just stand still against a wall or object, with their "fleeing" green curse animations continually refreshed, waiting patiently for me to visit them and harvest whatever experience points they have to offer. If any players actually invested more skill points, the radius of their totems' influences would increase.

Enjoy the two barbarians that put a point in Grim Ward: Madawc by roninDOG and Izzor by Maltatai, who helped me notice that Grim Wards can be effective against Nihlathak, because they not only rob him of corpses to 'splode, but they also move other monsters out of the way so that closing to melee range can happen more quickly.

Would anyone like to accept the challenge of making a maxed Grim Ward build, so you can then tell the rest of us what fun we're missing?
(edit: grammar)
[Update: new histograms, corrections]
[2022 Dec update: new histograms, D2R notes]
 
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Now for the passive mastery skills. Unlike all of the other skill trees, Combat Masteries don't naturally organize into thematic columns. Let's start with the six weapon mastery skills.

Dec 2022 Update: in the D2R 2.4 patch, all six barbarian weapon masteries received attack rating boosts.

Most players invested in a single chosen weapon mastery exclusively, but there were a few noteworthy heroes that invested points in more than one mastery. HolyPade's Hulkster, Jaago's Panzerkampfer, and AJK's Splat dual-wielded an axe class and a sword class weapon simultaneously, and benefited from points in both axe and sword mastery. Bul-Kathos by PhineasB, Nekratam by DundeeKahn, and RobbyD by RobbyD each invested in all three of sword, axe, and mace mastery, and in doing so, leveraged a great deal of flexibility in weapon choices. RobbyD distributed more than thirty of his skill points among those three mastery skills, and offered some advice based on his experience: "If you go untwinked, you don’t know what weapons the game will give you for NM and Hell questing, so I would suggest SAVING points you plan for masteries until that’s established – put one into each for the CS and initial damage/AR bonus, but save points for when you get a really [usable] weapon."

Sword Mastery
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Over a hundred barbarians chose Sword Mastery, making it the most popular weapon mastery of all. I suspect this is because barbarians enjoy great flexibility with swords. They may swing a two-handed sword with just one hand. As they may also dual-wield, they can carry two two-handed swords (or a one-handed weapon and a two-handed sword) simultaneously. None of the two-handed weapons of other weapon classes enjoy this flexibility.

I found interesting variety among the 66 patriarchs and guardians that maxed Sword Mastery. Sixteen of them fought using Whirlwind. MuddyWaters' Muddy and SunsetVista's Trogdor both shared quite a bit of information about various swords they used as they progressed through the game.

Fifteen used two swords with Frenzy. Swiller's Pretzel and Narcala's Bul-Kathos used the Bul-Kathos set sword pair. Many, including Grape's Citius and Antonio's Uggh fought with unique swords, and many others, including CorruptedMollusk's TwoHand_Touch and Neksja's Grohl, frenzied with runeworded swords. Pijus shared some nice details about various swords used to level up Mirabel. Regulus_Satrapa was an interesting project by bcoe to outfit a barbarian with as many of the highest TC (treasure class) items as he could, including a pair of TC87 unique swords.

A few more interesting swordfighters: Warm_Soup by Tom_S and Aether by Grape fought with rare sword weapons. Triton by TopHatCat64 successfully exploited every feature of the exceptional Swordguard unique sword to achieve patriarch. Bain by okey fought with a Lightsabre and a Lawbringer runeword sword; however, to be consistent with his detailed role-playing scenario, he asked Anya to personalize a Gavel of Pain hammer and a shrunken head, rather than personalize his swords!

At one time, I thought Sword Mastery also advertised that it gave its damage, attack rating, and critical strike bonuses to dagger class weapons in addition to swords. I don't know if that was true then, and I don't know for certain whether it's true now. [Update: in the current patch, Sword Mastery does not apply to daggers. I still don't know whether this was true for earlier patches.] Dec 2022 Update: the D2R 2.4 patch renamed this skill as Blade Mastery, and extended its benefits to daggers. One of our new D2R Blade Mastery maxers is EighttotheBar by TheNix, a Bul-Kathos set frenzier.

Axe Mastery
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Of the thirty-two barbarians that maxed Axe Mastery, eleven were whirlwinders. Most used superlative runewords, such as maxicek 's Bane or Gripphon 's Vegeta, but others, such as Dervish by maareek and Axe by scrcrw, used unique axes. I enjoyed the story zticazzy shared about Perkele's untwinked epic journey to find materials to craft and dual-wield Breath of the Dying runeword axes, patiently waiting to obtaining them before finally using them in his Whirlwind fight against hell Baal.

Five used two axes with Frenzy: BloodyCraftsman by Cyrax , Gamaliel by Mammon, Dimitrios by Pugmh, Shagga by zaphodbrx, and Toimli by Milb.

Other interesting "Axe-barb" exhibits: drmalawi's double-swinger Dougal, snickersnack 's zealer Cauchy, Pyrohemia 's FluffyKitten, and maareek 's GibCouncilGrief. There was also a nice write-up by jonny5 about various axes progressively carried by berzerker Jeremy.

Mace Mastery
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Mace Mastery is the second most popular of the barbarians' passive weapon skills, and I noticed three particular blunt weapons served in general as tools of choice: Immortal King's Stone Crusher, Ribcracker, and Griswold's Redemption.

A couple of good representatives of the 21 blunt weapon whirlwinders are xxnothing's Hopnut and maareek 's Fabian. Of the eleven mace-class Frenzy fighters, some interesting reads are Liquid_Evil's Slagape, Ana's Kurzon, Cormallon's Colus, and javcek's Daelan. A few other notable write-ups with maxed Mace Mastery: LoudestHeard by TheNix, FenRiR by saracen85 , Warren_Zevon by maareek, Freddie by Grape, and Agnasi by Colorless Green. But I think the most unique blunt weapon warrior in the compilation might be zaphodbrx's Drummer.

Dec 2022 Update: a couple of new Mace Mastery whirlwinders: 2009 titan patriarch Snoeihard by Arkardo and tournament guardian BobTheSlob by Vang.
[Update: new histograms, corrections]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, builds, D2R changes]
 
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Polearm Mastery
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Eighteen barbarians chose to invest in this passive enhancement to melee with pole arm class weapons.

Of those that maxed Polearm Mastery, four were whirlwinders. D2DC's Leichenbombe and Arfurala's DeathSpinner whirled Bonehews. Are's Hercules used a Tomb Reaver, and scrcrw's ww spun with an ethereal Breath of the Dying great poleaxe.

Other nifty pole arm specialists include sevenofDiamonds' Eiger, who concentrated with an Obedience runeword giant thresher, and HolyPade's Killeri, whose Bonehew helped him go berzerk. I felt delightfully entertained by Cyrax's EmperorMoo, who clothed himself in all of the Cow King's finest wardrobe to deftly swing a very nice rare partizan weapon.

You might also like to read the adventures of four Wolfhowl shapeshifter barbarians, who all took advantage of the nice speed breakpoints that wereforms get from pole arms: Bill by Thirty-Thirty, WrongTurn by sirpoopsalot, Lycan by strijdje, and Awwwrrooo by Jaedhann.y

Throwing Mastery
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Stacked ranged weapons may be used by any hero class, but only the barbarian gets a passive mastery skill that boosts their effectiveness. There are throwable weapons in the dagger, axe, and javelin weapon categories, and Throwing Mastery enhances all of them, but only when they're actually thrown. If a throwable weapon is instead used for melee, then only the regular weapon mastery skill applies (Spear Mastery for melee with javelins, Axe Mastery for melee with stacked axes, and presumably, Sword Mastery for melee knives - but I am still not completely certain whether Sword Mastery improves dagger-class weapons. [Update: Sword Mastery does not benefit melee attacks with throwing knives.][Dec 2022 Update: as of the D2R 2.4 patch, Blade Mastery does benefit melee attacks with throwable daggers.]

Crawlingdeadman invested Guardian LamontCranston's skill points in all of these masteries: twenty in Throwing Mastery and a point in each of Sword, Axe, and Spear mastery. This gave him great flexibility to either Double Throw or Double Swing with a lot of different stacks of weapons, and he kept a big arsenal in his pack and stash - Warshrikes, Lacerators, Demon's Arches, and a variety of rare flying knives, winged axes, harpoons, etc. I'm sure he still needed to visit towns often for repairs, but they did help him keep fighting even when weapon stacks ran low. He also shared some advice to other throwing barbarians: "Everyone who says that you shouldn't use eth/repair weapons on a thrower is right. You are constantly in town to repair; he goes through them that fast. Eth repair may be okay for a boss, showing off max damage, or if you find yourself double swinging a lot, but skip them for actual play."

There were a dozen other throwers that maxed Throwing Mastery, and they all looked fun and challenging. Here are links to six of them. Instead of muling elite gear, SaladShooter by OldSoldier actually shopped and purchased his own thrown weapons. Belkar by Nightfish hurled Gimmershreds, and Chuck by sirpoopsalot, Roman by Neksja, Jayne_Cobb by zaphodbrx, and Sting by ffs each lobbed (and at times frenzied with) Lacerators and Warshrikes.

Dec 2022 Update: many improvements to Throwing Mastery in D2R patch 2.4: higher attack rating, chance to throw without depleting the weapon stack, chance to pierce, and each critical strike also replenishes one quantity to the stack. Also, another thrower in the compilation: BAZ, by LouB, his third.

Spear Mastery
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Only six barbarians bothered to do anything with Spear Mastery. When I think about it, I suppose it makes sense that spear and javelin class weapons get more affection from amazon adventurers than from barbarian builders.

Here are our four Spear Mastery maxers. Harrid's Whirlybird used Whirlwind with Arioc's Needle. SafetyCraftsman by Cyrax used Whirlwind with a crafted ghost spear. A pre-LOD whirlwinder, TeeDeeBoy's Baron TheHoundIOO, fought with a rare pike. And finally, stephan's Dozer put a Passion runeword into a stygian pike, then used leaping attacks to drop into battles and then zeal attacks to finish those fights.

One benefit of both Spear Mastery and Polearm Mastery involves Act 2 town guards. Depending on his stats, the barbarian and mercenary may swap weapons to suit different situations, without having to go back to town to rummage in a stash. Trading with the mercenary this way can be almost like having a third weapon switch. (I suppose the same could be claimed regarding Sword Mastery/Blade Mastery and Act 5 mercenaries.)
[Update: corrections, updated histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, builds, D2R notes]
 
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Increased Stamina
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I think the patch designers/developers really dropped the ball on this one. There isn't any sensible reason to pump Increased Stamina in the game, especially since Battle Orders already amply supplements stamina. It doesn't synergize anything, so there's no reason to use it for anything other than a one-point prerequisite. I think there's a clear synergy that should have been implemented here. Frenzy has a couple of synergies that boost damage, but its movement and attack speed bonuses always expire after six seconds. I think it would have been so very satisfying to have each point in Increased Stamina extend Frenzy duration by, say, 0.6 seconds (fifteen animation frames). With 20 synergy points, this would have lengthened Frenzy duration up to 18 seconds. Does anyone influential at Blizzard read this forum? Please, implement another patch, and make this happen! [Dec 2022 Update: The D2R 2.4 patch made this happen! At 0.4 seconds (ten animation frames) per synergy point, maxed Increased Stamina now makes Frenzy last 14 seconds.]

I didn't even try look for any patriarch/guardian that would spotlight this skill.

[Update, August 2021: I'm currently having a great time playing a Wolfhowl barbarian. I'm convinced that a stamina focused "wolf-barb" could actually be a hell-viable novelty build. The Werewolf 0skill already gives a hefty stamina bonus. Combine that with maxed Battle Orders, maxed Increased Stamina, and some rugged charms or other stamina-boosting equipment, and a wolf-barb player could feasibly compete for the "patriarch or guardian with highest stamina" record.]

Increased Speed
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I notice the wide variety of Increased Speed investment levels. This is another tricky skill to optimize, because fast run/walk speed only increases at discrete "breakpoints." With diminishing returns at higher skill investments, it may require several skill points to reach a breakpoint and thus actually increase speed, depending on whatever FRW mods are provided by equipment.

Regardless, we have a handful of barbarians that maxed or nearly maxed Increased Speed: Telemachus by bcoe, Eogan by Neksja, LeapOffFaith by Cyrax, and LuckyLuke by sirpoopsalot.

Money quotes:
  • "The 20 in Increased Speed is worth it for this application, I think. Extra FRW is a problem with WW in general, but not for Pindling. I think that being confined in such a tight space, you have much less likelihood of WW’ing way beyond where you want to be just because you have too much FRW to control it well." - bcoe
  • "I was thinking I'd [lose] a lot of time running through town. My resists were decent enough with 5 hard points. So I went for reducing running time and thus speeding up my future runs." - Cyrax
  • "He can run almost as fast as he can teleport." -sirpoopsalot
  • "This character (Mr_H) only had one major goal: get through the game as fast as possible. So I also put a point into Increased Speed and ran through the game, only doing the necessary and/or useful quests, and mainly killing boss packs only." - T72on1

Iron Skin
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Iron Skin seems like the defensive counterpart to the amazon's Penetrate offensive passive skill. Bonus: a defiance aura shouldn't affect Iron Skin, except to just make it stronger!

Tank by Jason Maher and Stormsteel by Liquid_Evil were maxed Iron Skin concentrate fighters. In patch version 1.07, nermind made an iron skinned frenzy-barb, VA. Jason Maher also made the bow-specialist Kyne with maxed Iron Skin. The rest were all 0-Skill wereforms: guardians Drystan's ThodaDragnsBne, Milb's Bearbehind, Pyrotechnician's Gossamer, Vulpine's Gilgamesh, and a passel of patriarchs: Spot by AJK, Fuzzball by Crazy Runner Guy, Malkuth by Dagaz , BigBadWolf by domac, Mutation by lionheartthebrave, FenRiR by saracen85 , WrongTurn by sirpoopsalot, Lycan by strijdje, Bill by Thirty-Thirty, Champ (twice!) by TopHatCat64 , and Banehallow by zaphodbrx.

Dec 2022 Update: maxicek gave us Messremb, a new defense-focused shapeshifting Barbarian with maxed Iron Skin. Also, LouB made a very nice write-up for his Sword Mastery/Iron Skin wolfbarb ARGH, which is kind of a complete wolfbarb build review and guide.

Natural Resists
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Natural Resistance reduces cold, fire, lightning, and poison damage. The only other damage types are physical or magic, but there are equipment mods that can reduce those. Many players (117+) left this as a one-point-wonder, but even more players (121+) put two or more points into it!

Despite its decreasing returns at higher skill point investment levels, we had several that put the maximum twenty points into Natural Resistance: Grape's double-swinger Freddie, Neksja's 0-skill-zealot Eogan, Jason Maher's Ice-runeword-superstar Kyne, TopHatCat64's wolfbarb-redux Champ, and crawlingdeadman's wolfbarb YoungBull.

Coming up next: the first column in the combat skill tree.
[Update: stamina commentary, new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: D2R patch, new histograms, build]
 
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