Battlerager Build for HELL

[PotsNPans]

Waht do you think would be a good build that would survive hell tank and still put out decent damage. I was looking at the tin can and decided that it nice to have 100 fire but losing out on 16 lvls instead of 10 could be better i saw the steel wall build and was thinking do you really need that much physical damge reduction. I mean ther egreat builds and from what i hear really hold up and can take a beating. I guess what im getting at is what would be a good build for a dd with a full decked out hell party. Take in to account the cleric druid and bard being there. And if there is no solution to the build which build betwen the two above would you pick?

[thedomicron]

i might try something with monk fighter dd, or monk wm dd so you can get improved evasion as well as some good saves. take all the monk levels pre-epic, saving one for level 37 or higher to dump points into tumble

[hiryuu]

Glad to see its not just my dexer bend talking. I was thinking rogue, monk, sd. A tank that reads scrolls has proven very useful to me. Plus there's native tumble, for an extra 4 ac.

[borges]

This shouldn't be a hypothetical discussion, as Yomi's Battlerager build of the Dwarf of Steel was among the first crop of demi-gods.

[archmage]

My battlerager RDD whom does not folow either build, yet marches to the tune of his own drum, is tagged thru Maladomini. Battlerager is a great subrace, there are plenty of hells capable builds you can use it for.

[PotsNPans]

Yeah, I would just like to know with the hell penalties whats a good build with battlerager. I want to have a reasonable good defense with a decent output. I remember reading that on eof the too didnt have a great damage out put but since the whole point of going through hell is do as a team then wall of steel would be a great choice as you are the tank and the focus of the monsters. ;D

[chainlink]

As a Tin Can version has successfully completed the Hells you could probably assume that kitted out with the right gear its going to be OK. Total fire immunity takes a lot of pressure off the build.

[thedomicron]

my battlerager also uses rdd to (in part) provide some help in the immunities department. i WILL say though that i think its not as important as it used to be, what with the rings out now (i built mine when the UR rings were just coming out) still, with a dd or barbarian, the bonus to str from rdd really pays off.

[archmage]

I made a 5 Bard / 7 DD / 28 RDD and he does just fine using Battlerager.

[Yomi]

borges said:

This shouldn't be a hypothetical discussion, as Yomi's Battlerager build of the Dwarf of Steel was among the first crop of demi-gods.

Actually the two str tanks who finished Nessus were a Planewalker Tin Can-like build and a Kurai RDD/WM. Dwarf of Steel has WM levels (higher damage output) but gives lower AC and has no RDD levels. I'm not sure the lower ab with DoS is a good combination with WM (where you want ab as high as possible for frequent crits, especially in Hells where it keeps getting lowered).

For any build you're going to want to get saves in the high 50s if not 60s or you're going to be cursing the saves all the time in Hells. I'm making an RDD/WM and without a BUR race like Howler or Salamander the saves are a little under what I'd like to see. I gave up some Great Strength feats on my DD to get some extra save feats just for the Hells.

Tin Can is a pretty easy build (I made posts on the Tin Can thread about it). An RDD/WM is worse on defense (loses out on a lot of physical immunity) and saves but significantly better offense on anything that can be critted. AC is actually pretty close (should be about 129 after Girding using UR gear vs. 130 for Tin Can).

I didn't notice that lacking evasion was a real problem with my DD. Yes, the Pit Fiends do MS but it doesn't hurt much given your decent reflex save. Of course I'd like evasion but with the saves, immunities, and hp of the DD it's not nearly as bad as some other characters I've played (e.g. my pure wizard who without MS immunity is pretty much instantly killed by MS spams).

I'll also agree with hiryuu that the ability to read scrolls is very nice. Doubly or more so in the Hells.

[tyranlthixis]

The Tin Can is the superior build for that particular race in almost any circumstance...hells included. First of all you really can't afford 13 intelligence for weapon master on a race that penalizes your intelligence. You end up cheaping out your strength and constitution and in the end have a character that is, for a DD, fragile. Tin Can gives you access to UMD, decent AB, large amounts of HP, extra ac and fire immunity. Plus, imo a monk/wm/dd is the superior route for would be DD weapon master anyhow. Having said that I wouldn't attempt to build a wm/dd of any sort unless you had howler or malephant.

Only thing the Tin Can doesn't have is evasion. Which is a big problem in certain areas of the game, but in the hells its not much of a consideration. There are a few monsters that meteor storm, but all in all its mostly beatdown... I'm thinking about making a Howler version of the Tin Can soon for the hells, and maybe putting my current general purpose monk/wm/dd on the back burner for a bit.

Tyran

[PotsNPans]

Thanks for all the input, Im going with the tin can you are right with that race being a superior build. Its good to hear that a kurai rdd/wm build was the first to finish the hells. I kinda had to discuss the build with the maker to get kurai as a viable option. Good to see that it is Viable ;D

[zerragon]

My battlerager Tin-can is now tagged through Malbolge and has performed good I think.
The cons is not the best damage output, but the pro is superior staying power.

I have also completed several pyramid runs with this toon, as its easy to get 100/- (in combo of resist and immunity) covered in all elements.
I ended up with 63 to all saves, which is just whats needed with -5 to saves from the lowest layers of Hells.

With claus new updated version, you can get even higher saves and 1 more ac.

Highly recommended.