Lacking the option of PoE, I digged up this. Not that I'm so excited about it, but whatever, it tends to crawl back.
Funny, but true: still the game with the longest buglist I've ever seen. And despite "patch releases" they don't fix ANY from the list, only do crap like "german language version's grammar improved" or shit.
Either way, this'll be a baba with berserk. Well, in time, as I'll use the respec option, and until that comes around, Bash will be the prime attack skill. WhenI have the mana. Which I usualy lack. Imagine.
I'm in Act 2, going in the snake temple. The merc did not die yet (A1 fire, it was free, so what). It has a bow with cold + poison dmg gems. Didn't find any quality bow, and won't use "extended stash".
For storing some items on the ground I lost a couple of goodies
Had a good rare baba helmet for warcrying, and a helm for switching the merc to A2. Whatever.
Also, seems I wasted 3 PSkulls in my +2 BO helmet. They don't realy give the expected mana. Should have used Ith rune(s). Oh well, worst case scenario I'll run for a Hel rune or sg.
The merc first died in A3, and because of Cow Level had to buy tp-scrolls the first time.
On weapons:
- started with club
- switched to scepter (it's fast, and deals best early damage, every character ends up with 'em for melee)
- for a short time used a short sword
- switched to bardiche (was slow, but basicaly doubled my damage)
- then came an twohanded axe
- now using a war specter, along Stormshield. Found in Act2 too, first unique. Aside that found Cleglaw's shield 3 times as set, nothing else.
- back to polearms: found a volgue with manaleach. While its speed is less, the dmg is around the same, and allows to use Bash continuously. Its range also helps a bit.
- brandistock: strange name, and in spear category. It has manasteal, and ca. the same dmg as the volgue had, but a category faster. Too bad there are no ias runes. And that gem-shrines can't improve runes, at least in single player. Would switch to hammers.
- that holy fire pala sword
- steeldriver (yeah(
the stupidity of barbarian synergies
Barb is mostly uneffected by this crippling feature, but where it has it, it sucks as usual.
First: the entire Combat Mastery tab has no synergies at all.
Second: from War Cries only the middle tree has synergies. Shout-Battle Orders-Battle Command are a closed circle for some reason, but at least they are all useful (if no other factor is considered). Actualy, Battle Command does so little in itself usualy don't get any hard point in itself, so this actualy is a bad thing.
The main problem on this tree is War Cry. I understand by sinergy you make this a prime attack spell by concept. Whatever. But then, why synergie an AI-disabling ability with AI-modifying abilities? And as it is an AoE-spell, why combine it with a single-target spell? And if WC will be your prime damage spell, why bother with stat-lowering spell? If it'd get extended duration by it, I'd get it, but this why?
The most messed up of course is the Combat Skills tree. Well, the left side don't use the synergie-system either...
Bash gets bonuses from Stun and Concentrate, but both of those skills outshine Bash by several milestones, so why would you use Bash any time after you getaccess to those? Sure, it has more dmg than Stun, but while Stun disables the target, Bash simply has this annoying knockback effect. Concentrate simply puts Bash to shame in any department (AR, dmg, lack of knockback). And for the cost of the same 2 mana. They case is even worse, because this proves you won't use Bash either way if you have Concentration, and if you have, you won't put points into Bash, because how the synergie-system works!
Stun gets bnuses from Bash, Concentrate, and War Cry. The problem is obvious: why War Cry? Why the need of another stun-ability to your already existing stun-ability?
When it cmes to Concentrate, you'll have to realise you'll use either, not both. So, as you must choose,which is the superior skill in the synergie-system, which should make all/prior skill more available, aka. equal to later skills? Well, Stun though disables it target, it lacks the AR to land a hit, compared to Concentrate, which gives youdefense to keep you safe, and that works against all enemy around you, not just the one you hit. So this means you WON'T use Stun, which on top costs a lot more to use than Concentrate.
Concentrate though a nice ability, has its fair share of problems considering synergies, like:
why bother putting point in Bash, when thatonly gives half the bonuses as Battle Orders, which the same time gives me insane advantages by itself (not being anattack spell, and being the strongest melee/party skill in the game). Beserk works thugh, but serves only to slightly lessen the exclusivity of Berserk. Actualy the point it'd count (physical immun monsters) the 1% bonus is so weak, like it wouldn't even exist as magical dmg, could all go into physical, thus the traditional barserk-concentrate pointsink won't change.
talking about pointsink: the amount of skillpoint being limited as such, you won't have point to sink into the Bash-syn anyway, so there that goes.
Lastly,
Berserk-syns suck too. You get bonuses from Howl, which is a viable concept I give you that, but why Shout? Berserk disables the defense stat, so why'd you want to sink points into anability which buffs defense which you won't have? At the very least they should have chosen Battle Command (wishing for Battle Orders would be obvious powergaming).
If you are interrested in the bugs-list,
here is a good list. On the other hand if you
check the patch-notes, you'll see they don't actualy patch ANY of them since 1.13... maybe d.
The list is actualy not complete, missingeg. the asheara-bug, who is an NPC in Act 3, missnamed in the files, so every item it sells is an ilvl 1 item, which can be a problem if you plan on shopping -> crafting form there.