Boeroer

Rofl You have to use [spo!ler] and [/spo!ler] tags. But obviously you should use the word "spoiler" with an "i", not an "!".

For HoF it's best to use dual annihilating sabres (even in 3.04), The Merciless Hand, lashes, Vulnerable Attack and Frenzy as well as One Stands Alone and combine that with a Ring of Searing Flames. Before triggering HoF debuff the bunch of enemies so that crits become more likely. Everything that survives the HoF itself and is not immune to burn dies after a few seconds from the quadrizillion combusting wounds. At least that was the setup that worked best when I did the last PotD solo run with a dual wielding meatshield barb. As you said: you can just use the 2. weapon slot for this and use the other one for your auto attacks. Sabre + bash from Badgradr's or Dragon's Maw is also great. Their special effects work perfectly well woth HoF. The thing about Bloodlust is that that it usually starts working when Frenzy wears off - so I woudn't say that it's useless even if you can get to 0 recovery with dualwielding + Frenzy. And if that wears off Blood Thirst can kick in. But this is only really useful when you solo. In parties the fights are normally over while Frenzy is still on and it might be ok to skip both if you're already fast. By the way: all jumping spells stop when the actual target dies. Mind Blades do it as well as Bounding Missiles and Chaotic Orb (as far as I know) - so Firebug is no exception. But even if it only hits one enemy the damage is quite good. With a burning lash in the other hand an Scion of Flame as well as decent MIG it shouldwork well. It should also wirk with Deathblows - now that might be a weapon that could make a rogue interesting again, since it's a way to deal kinda AoE damage. Steadfast + Unlabored Blade: Champion's Boon and Deathblows + Scion of Flame applied on Firebug. Second Weapon set is dual Flames of Fair Rhian for 6 Fireballs... nice?

So - in this game you shouldn't cut corners, right?

Patch 3.04 should go live next week - it's currently in beta.

Or kinda... boooring?

Ok - but the thread opener meant "best party for plot" - not for steamrolling.

No. Diablo III is so boring. Hell is it boring. It's so boring it even bores me to tell folks how boring it is.

Oh, that's good to know! Didn't use a wounding weapon with Blood Thirst that much and didn't realize this.

Paladins are better at healing than priests or druids in my opinion. Priests are more about buffing - and are really awesome at it. Druids have some healing spells, but you should cast them in advance since they are not made for the "oh crap" moment when you see that one of your chars is in trouble. Paladins are good at saving a friend from getting knocked out. You will have Pallegina - so you're good. And there's always potions - they work pretty well if you manage to gulp them down in time. Generally said: if you combine a buffer with a debuffer (for example wizard, druid, cipher...) things get pretty easy. You don'r even need a dps character then. The whole game is about hitting the enemy - the more you hit the better. High damage is useless if you can't hit (or are k.o. all the time). So try to keep the difference between your ACC and the enemies' defenses as high as possible while doing it the other way round with the enemy. I's always skip rogue - even in a party of six. I would let Aloth do the mechanics. If he's in the back line he doesn't need tons of survival bonuses or athletics. Stealth is useless anyways. Go for 4 survival in order to get the +10 ACC bonus and the rest you can put into mechanics. I also don't think that the companions are inferior to hirelings. At the beginning of the game they are one level above hirelings which is a tremendous advantage. And later on, when hirelings catch up with exp the game becomes so easy anyways that their non-min-maxing doesn't matter. In fact, some of their special abilites or talents are very nice and totally make up for a few "suboptimal" stats points here and there. For example Pallegina's Wrath of the Five Suns is so nice it's totally worth to build a whole character concept around it.

Your game is totally messed up. I never heard of this - but some of it sounds like fun. I mean getting Argwe's Adra twice and looting the Battery for durgan steel twice. You should clear your game chache and see it this helps. Sometimes it produces hickups.

Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger for the win! Fulmineo knew it all along! Belfetto *in a galvino-ish voice*!

It's a shame that all the good morning stars either come WAY to late or you have to be lucky to get them. I mean a unique weapon in the pit of no return, come on... Acuan Giamas is one of the best weapons in the game. It is so much fun to use it with a rogue: escape to a backline caster, hit him and eventually steal spells. If you do, stop hitting the guy (because if he dies your spells will be gone) and cast damaging spells nonstop with Deathblows. If you can't steal, the wounding makes short work of any enemy anyway. Also works very well on a fighter with Charge & Disciplined Barrage: crits with spell guaranteed. Imagine this weapon against the Hunting Lodge bounty. Mabec's is also very nice - but I did a TON of playthroughs and got it only twice. Pikes: besides Tall Grass the assortment is quite meh. But Tall Grass is great and it can be obtained early, so ok. Estocs: all unique estocs are great in some way. The Blade is obviously good, Drake's Bell can be brought to insane DR bypass per hit and has an unusual burn DR bonus that stacks with everything and The White Spire has Spell Bindings (which is always good) and Disorienting. And it looks so good! Pollaxes: I agree. Although there are some nice specimen they also come too late. Wind's Arm is good if you have an interrupting barb and/or a blast wizard in the party and stand by their side. A chanter with "The Champion braved the Horde alone" and the "Thick grew their Tongues" phrase combined with this and most enemies ate interrupt-locked in an AoE. Quarterstaffs: also really sad. Llawran's Stick is ok because it comes early and Durance's Staff is also nice because of the two damage types and the lash it comes with. But then it's over. No overbearing staff (would have been fitting), no interfering staff (dito) only that really lame Wendwalker. It's the opposite as with Morning Stars: the good ones come very early and then there's nothing.

I also like Boreal Dwarves a lot with barbs because of the inherent +15 ACC against two creature groups which can lead to easy fights because carnage crits all the time when fighting those. And at the beginning of the game (which is the hardest part of all, esp. for a barb) it's a huge boost. Then I would aim for 4 and then 10 survival asap to add +10 / +15 ACC. THis way your barb will not miss all the time. If you plan to take Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst (which I'd do) then you really don't need 20 DEX. 10 CON can work, but without a shield I'd give a barb more CON. On a barb CON pays off because his base vaules of endurance and health (as well as the higer values at level up) work really good wtih the +5% per point of CON. After some levels they turn from squishies in meat shields because of that. At level 16 you can around 500 endurance which is twice the endurance your other chars have and around 6000(!) health. As long as your healing is good this guy won't go down easily. But you can't feel that in the first few levels. I wouldn't leave PER at 10 - carnage already has lower ACC than your normal attack - and one of the best things that you can do with carnage is to apply AoE interrupts and AoE on-crit effects. If you take Veteran's Recovery (which I would do asap) you want high MIG and INT (doesnt need to be maxed). Watch out for Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvano's Amulet: they are great together with Veteran's Recovery. If you feel that you ACC is high enough you can also use the survival bonus for healing which also really boosts your survivability. At the beginning of the game high DR is very effective and high endurance is not. But during the game thios drastically changes. Because DR doesn't scale as much as enemies' damage which on the other hand doesn't scale as much as endurance. So as the others said, you can start with heavy armor and then - with each level up, you can choose lighter armor if you feel like it.

Funny how different things can be perceived - I think it's one of the lamest fights in the game. Gather in a niche and cast all your Chillfogs in front of you while the Dragon Thrashes - done. There are no ranged enemies so they have to stand in the fog in order to reach you.

Hm... that's hefty difference. What class was it? Certain circumstancial dmg mods like Sneak Attack don't get listed on the char sheet. Also, Confident Aim is bugged and it's damage gets piled up on save/realod.

Then it's Shatterstar. Thanks!

I like Hours of St. Rumbalt a lot. The combination of annihilation and overbearing and the high ACC makes it one of the best weapons for crit based builds. But Tidefall is also very nice. WF Soldier has all the good stuff: Tall Grass, Godansthunyr, Shatterstar, Strike Hard - even The Temparacl is good. You can easily equip a party with soldier weapons only and will not gimp yourself in any way.

Actually I don't really know. It's hard to determine. But based on my experience it seems to me that something is not workig properly, because when I use Drawn in Spring vs. a simple exceptional sabre with HoF the sabre leads to better results (= more foes dead). Or maybe it's just because with high INT wounding DoT takes some time - but you want your foes dead at once with HoF - and not 10 secs later.

Why? War hammers already have two damage types: pierce and crush. Actually now I have doubts if it was Shatterstar or Strike Hard... I guess Shatterstar. It's one of them.

Yarp Have a look at the ingame weapon description.

It's a spear - Vile Loner's Lance is just the name. In my opinion it's the best one handed interrupt weapon for a barb. If you want to dual wield and not duplicate Vile Loner's I would use Shatterstar (1 sec) + Godansthunyr (0.75). Both have higher interrupts as the usual war hammer (0.5), and have great enchantments like Annihilating and Stunning. It's the best dual wielding interrupt setup for me because it also has two damage types. Vile Loner's is so nice for a barb because it has +10 ACC compared to other weapons which is great with carnage and also crit-interrupts. Maybe it's even better when wielded single handedly because of more crits - never tested that. Mosquito is a rapier by the way.

Use Durance to cast a protecting spell against paralyze. That's mainly it. If you don't have lvl 5 spells yet use Circle of Defense - that can also help. Then wear items that protect you from paralyze - like Fenwalker Boots and the Wayfarer's Hide. And/or use the chanter's +10 to fortitude/will phrase and build up for "Shatter their Shackles", then you can switch to Dragon Thrashed.

Firebrand doesnt target reflex anymore, that was changed in 2.03 or so.

I meant the famous musketeers from literature and movies by the way - not the historical ones. And I know they are French.

The Vailian Republics have that italian/renaissance flavour, the italian-like lingo and also the fashion. Darcozzis seem to be inspired by the musketeers - so rapier + dagger would totally fit.