Sullla: Bearlin_Wall

My goal for Bearlin_Wall was to build a character that would be able to "post up" against mobs for as long as possible, defending the casting druids that I knew from the very beginning would ultimately end up doing the vast majority of the team's damage. Bearlin_Wall was forbidden from investing in Dexterity, and I had no desire ever to place any points into Energy. That just left Strength and Vitality - or, more accurately, the question of how much Strength to target, after which everything would be dumped into Vitality. Looking over the list of requirements for various weapons and armor, I saw that the Ancient Axe exceptional weapon had a Strength requirement of 125, and no Dex requirement at all. We had turned up the unique version of that weapon (the Minotaur) in Rogue Revival, and it seemed like a good enough fit for this character. Later we turned up the unique Maul, Bonesnap, and that meant taking Strength up to 130 to use the exceptional upgraded version of the same weapon. So that's where Strength stayed, with every other stat point throughout the game going into Vitality.

Bearlin_Wall thus ended up with a lot of life. Like... a LOT of life! This picture doesn't even tell the real story, since we had high-level Oak Sage running in the background at all times, which ran his life up to 4650 in actual combat. You'd think that this would make for a virtually unkillable character - and you'd pretty much be right. Even the biggest, baddest opponents in D2X don't do much more than 1000 damage per hit, so you've got plenty of time to reach up and hit the button for a full rejuv and instant recovery. At the same time, I was still surprised at just how much damage Bearlin_Wall ended up taking in Hell. While he was able to fight on the front lines for long periods of times, there were still many times where I had to retreat because the pounding was just too great. Bearlin_Wall also had, by far, the biggest red potion habit of any character I've ever played. By the time we reached Hell, I was leaving town on every trip with a character screen of 16 reds, plus snapping up every single healing potion that hit the ground, and still needed to return for more in an endless succession. In the later stages of Hell, I was completely ignoring item drops, and picking up nothing BUT red potions. Bet you won't see that too often in public BNet games!

I expected that resists would be a big problem for Bearlin_Wall, since he lacked a shield for additional affixes. Instead, he managed to solve this problem pretty easily, thanks to some very nice charms and runes: two different resist all charms (total 21%) and a socketed Um rune (15% all) added to his armor. An Ort rune added to helm at the end of Act V Hell completed Bearlin_Wall's resists, but they had been in rather good shape all throughout Hell. That was a pleasant surprise.

Bonesnap did a LOT of damage, although Bearlin_Wall's to-hit ratio wasn't particularly impressive. He could get up to about 40% with Maul, which was "good enough" for a character that didn't need to get kills himself. Most of the damage output was coming from the casting druids anyway. The big contribution of Bearlin_Wall was his large chance to deal a Crushing Blow, which was independent of damage anyway. Bonesnap turned my character from a completely feeble blocking dummy (as I had planned) into merely an underpowered offensive build. Another pleasant surprise.

Bearlin_Wall's extremely simple skill tree. I maxed Lycanthropy, Werebear, Maul, and Shockwave, then added points to Fire Claws since there was nothing else to put them in. Shockwave was the first skill that I maxed, then went back to take Lycanthropy and Werebear to 20 as well (both skills adding to Bearlin_Wall's life total). I put a few points into Maul early on, but it wasn't completely maxed until the end of Nightmare. Fire Claws was almost never used, except on a couple of occasions against Physical Immune foes. Everything else was an important part of Bearlin_Wall's build. All skills of course had +3 (from equipment) in this picture: +2 from normal equipment and another +1 from Bearlin_Wall's Annihilus Charm (not used in battle).

Equipment
Bonesnap War Club: 197-290 dam, 40% chance crushing blow, 30% fire resist, 30% cold resist, +150 AR (socketed Perfect Amethyst)
Rockfleece Sharktooth Armor: 543 def, +5 strength, 10% physical resist, -5 dam, 15% resist all (socketed Um rune)
Rare Hunter's Guise: +2 druid skills, +2 energy, +2 life, 13% poison resist, 30% lightning resist (socketed Ort rune)
Crafted Blood Heavy Gloves: 3% mana steal, 1% life steal, 7% chance crushing blow, +10 life, 8% lightning resist
Immortal King's Pillar War Boots: 40% faster run, +110 AR, +75 def, +44 life
Cobalt Plated Belt of the Whale: +91 life, 30% cold resist
Rare Ring: +107 AR, 6% life steal, 24% cold resist, 7% fire resist, +50 poison damage
Rare Ring: +48 AR, +3 energy, +10 life, +11 resist all/18% poison resist, half freeze duration
Chromatic Amulet of the Jackal: 25% resist all, +3 life
Annihilus Charm: +1 skills, +11 all attributes, 16% resist all, 7% experience gain (unused)

I already mentioned how Bonesnap was a significant find in terms of changing this character build. When playing in pure fashion, you can't count on having access to certain uniques, so this really was a big deal. Bearlin_Wall would have been doing vastly less damage in Hell without turning up that particular item. Since AR was the biggest hole in this character build, I opted to socket a Perfect Amethyst into the weapon, which helped out significantly. No Shael rune because it was forbidden by variant rule to have anything that increased weapon speed, remember. Rockfleece armor was another very nice unique that we turned up, and particularly attractive to Bearlin_Wall because of the 10% physical resist. After being upgraded to the exceptional Sharktooth Armor version, it proved to be very serviceable. Ironically, my Rogue character Svava ended up with much higher Defense rating, due to all of her Dexterity and Shiver Armor. Of course, Svava also only had 617 life at the end of Hell difficulty - and that made a difference!

I didn't turn up the helmet until fairly late in Hell, Bearlin_Wall making due most of the time with a druid pelt that added +2 to Shockwave. That was pretty much the last piece in the puzzle as far as equipment went. Bearlin_Wall came up a little short on lightning resistance, so I added an Ort run there to top him off. (He came out at something like 77% resist, so just barely crossed over into max range!) The gloves were a keeper because of the 7% addition to Crushing Blow, which was added to the 40% on Bonesnap. That meant that Bearlin_Wall did a Crushing Blow on essentially every other hit that landed, very nice! It was always noticeable when that happened against bosses or champs. The boots were just a great find for this character: 40% faster run along with a boost to AR (just what I needed!) and even more life. It was kind of funny that the Bearly in Motion character ended up having more foot speed than pretty much anyone else. That was handy when running for waypoints/stairs.

Any time you can get 91 life on a belt AND plug a hole in your resist setup, that's a great find there. This was another relatively late find, but it was so much better than the previous rare belts that Bearlin_Wall was using, I had to make the swap. Both of the rings that turned up came out pretty good, adding much-needed AR and some life steal on the one hand, resist all and half freeze duration on the other. The amulet was garbage, frankly, but Bearlin_Wall needed the resists. The +3 life on there from the jackal mod was almost comical. And although the Annihilus charm was unused during the game, it's such a cool item that I just had to list it here anyway!

Bearlin_Wall had three total deaths during the variant run: dying against Fire Eye and Bremm Sparkfist in Nightmare (both due to a buggy FEB/LEB death explosion) and running for the stairs in Worldstone 2 in Hell against a very large mob. All were avoidable... but I'm not a perfect player, and a misstep is inevitable at some point. I'm pretty happy overall with one total death per difficulty level. That was infinitely better than the experience with Rogue Revival!

No writeup is complete without commentary on the individual players, so here they are in alphabetical order. (This is the fun part of writing the after-action report!)

Dathon (DrDolittle): My friend from Rogue Revival, who was much appreciated in this return stint together. Dathon had what was probably the single most underpowered character build in this variant, yet he managed to find all sorts of ways to make himself indispensible to the team. Clever use of Spirit Wolves managed to pull the team out of all manner of dangerous situations, whether it was serving as meat shields, or scouting ahead, or distracting a nasty boss for a few minutes while a ranged spell did its work. And that doesn't even begin to touch on dathon's role as our "junior necromancer", as he pulled out curse after curse in Hell difficulty to deal with various perplexing situations. Lower Resist and Weaken were the main curses of choice, with occasional contributions from other spells (OK, maybe the Teeth charges didn't help that much! ) One of the nice things about living in the same area as dathon and Namarie is the chance to meet them on several occasions - including the two cats that rudely interrupted so many of our gaming sessions!

Jaffa (jt-Cujo): The other veteran of Rogue Revival, and my partner in crime on the front lines. I knew that Jaffa had played a number of werewolf characters in the past (mentioned on his old geocities website), so he was a perfect fit for our Rabbid Clubber variant build. Together we were the two "were-" characters, usually engaged against the same foes along with Viking's Teddy and dathon's wolves. Unlike some of the other members of this team, Jaffa didn't talk a tremendous amount over voice chat, which I think befits the personality of the characters he plays. Actions speak louder than words, and I can definitely attest to Jaffa's skills as a D2 player after many, many hours spent on these variant teams.

Namarie (ViolentVertigo): As a newcomer to Diablo roped into the venture by dathon (or so I presume), Namarie had a large learning curve to negotiate for this endeavor. I think it's to her extreme credit that she not only handled this in stride, but became one of the most exacting killers I've ever seen by the end of the game. Tornado wasn't just "a" weapon, it was THE weapon of choice in Hell difficulty against all manner of foes. I probably paid closer attention to Namarie while playing than just about any other character, after seeing how Tornado (for all its damage) requires the player to get VERY close to the enemy to ensure hits... and that's a major problem for a build with negative 80% lightning resistance! Any such effort was repaid a thousandfold on the innumerable occasions when a barrage of wind gusts sliced apart an enemy mob that had been beating Bearlin_Wall to a pulp. Anyone who can put up with dathon on a permanent basis deserves more credit than I can express in words.

ShadowHM (BowlingBeyond): Although forced to bow out due to a family tragedy, Shadow was with us in spirit at the end of our journey. Already a replacement player (the Boulder variant just seemed to be unlucky), Shadow quickly caught up to the rest of the team and was a valuable contributor for many months on end. It was always a hoot to watch her Boulders push the enemies backwards across the screen with their knockback effect. On the occasions where T-Hawk or Namarie were missing, Boulder helped pick up the slack and add some real punch to the mix. Thanks for keeping an eye on our progress in the forums after having to leave, I hope you get a chance to read this at some point!

T-Hawk (Fissure_Fisher): I've known T-Hawk for many years now, but only in the context of Civ3/Civ4. Even though this was a different context, why was I not surprised to find that our expert micromanager and finder of loopholes managed to end up playing the character with the strongest offensive power on the team? Needless to say, I think this was a perfect match of variant build and temperament - no one knows how to optimize performance better than T-Hawk, and Fissure was unparalleled in raw power throughout the entire three-dot run. Throughout Normal and Nightmare difficulties, Fissure_Fisher was so powerful that T-hawk could and did solo entire mobs in players 8. Widespread fire resistance and fire immunities reigned in Fissure a bit in Hell, but it was still the skill of choice against the bulk of enemies in the game. I also must say that I thoroughly enjoyed T-Hawk's imitation of Deckard Cain ("you have QUITE a treasure there in that Horadric Cube!"), AMP energy drink, and all sorts of other obscure references. We have to run another venture down the road at some point, in Civ, Diablo, or whatever.

WildViking (Benetnasch): I worried early on in Normal that the Ursa Major character might prove to be too boring, and that we'd lose one of our players before even reaching clvl 30 and Summon Grizzly. That never seemed to bother Viking, a patient, veteran player who knows this game inside and out. Viking's grizzly bear (affectionately named "Teddy") eventually grew into an extremely potent offensive force, doing more damage than either Bearlin_Wall or Jaffa's werewolf and with something like 6000 life to boot! While Teddy couldn't shield off as many enemies at a time as dathon's wolves, Teddy could actually HURT them with his attacks. Viking knew exactly where to place the bear to maximum effect, herding the enemies in the direction we wanted them to go over and over again. After saying relatively little early on, Viking also opened up more with time and shared some very amusing ancedotes. I just feel bad that he had to stay up into the middle of the night, to make our American-focused start times in Germany...

Zed-F (ZedF-FroznOdin): Our resident cold druid, Zed had to miss more time than any of the other team members, and we always missed the chilling effect of his Arctic Blast. One unfortunate part of Sirian's original design is that the Cold Turkey character was nerfed at some point in the patching process and ended up doing far less damage than anticipated. I'm sure Zed felt as though his character was superfluous some of the time, and wish that there was more that we could have done about that. Still, Zed managed to find many different ways to contribute, and his bird pets were always good for a laugh. "Go RAVEN!" Thanks for sticking it out, we were happy to have you.

And that brings this writeup to a close. Major thanks go out to everyone who participated in this venture and helped to make it happen, including our temporary Boulder players BWardly and sunrise089. Until the next time we're reunited in some other online venture, I bid you farewell.

- Sullla