Berserker Bob
(normal difficulty)
(normal difficulty)
[Berserker Bob was the first of my characters built around one of the Diablo II sets, in this case the Berserker's Arsenal. After literally seconds of thought, I came upon the idea of a Berserk-specialised barbarian to use the Berserker's Arsenal (also, I had been wanting to try out the Berserk skill anyway :) Clearly he would have to dual-wield, since the pitiful damage from the Berserker's Hatchet just wasn't going to cut it in higher difficulties, so I studied the skill trees and picked out Frenzy as another skill that I hadn't tried and looked kind of interesting. And so Berserker Bob was born.]
The Berserker's Arsenal has a level requirement of 3, almost the lowest of any of the sets [only Arctic Gear is lower, with a level 2 requirement], and so it was that as he hit level 3, Bob rushed back from killing zombies on the Blood Moor to put on his shiny new gear. He managed to get the helm on, but the hatchet was just a little too heavy to wield comfortably, and he almost put his back out trying to lift the hauberk out of his stash. Even a barbarian doesn't have enough strength to wear splint mail at level 3. Bob had to wait a few more levels before he was able to equip the entire Arsenal.
Duel-wielding his hatchet and an axe of flame, Bob strolled through the first two acts. Somewhere in act 2 he reached level 24, and put his first point into Frenzy, and from that point on his strolling days were over. Now Bob sprinted like a man possessed, thanks to the entirely unadvertised bonus Frenzy gives to movement speed, as well as to attack speed. Bob had vague thoughts about dumping some points into Increased Speed and teaming up with a Vigor-Paladin. He was sure he could set some sort of Diablo land-speed record :)
On landing at the Kurast Docks, Bob sold his faithful axe, which was starting to wear out with alarming frequency, and bought himself a nice massive war axe. He switched to using the Berserker's Hatchet in his left hand, and the more powerful war axe in his right, and stormed through the jungles in fine style. Somewhere in the Kurast sewers he found a rare war axe, which would last him through the rest of normal difficulty.
Starting in the Kurast jungles, Bob began using Grim Ward with increasing frequency for crowd control and to break up mobs. He was particularly pleased with his handling of the Gidbinn boss, setting up a small cluster of Grim Wards before he disturbed the Gidbinn shrine. The boss and his minions appeared, yelled their fierce ratman warcries, and charged at Bob. Moments later the minions noticed the wards, squeaked pitifully, and fled, leaving the boss alone and undefended, an easy kill for Bob's axes.
Through act 4, Bob used Grim Ward extensively. There were blood maggots on the River of Flame, which slowed him down somewhat. Grim Ward was less useful here, as the blood maggot young would pack together so tight they were unable to flee. Instead he used the knockback effect of Leap to break up the swarms and to get at the mothers. With the mothers gone, dealing with the mobs of young was just a tedious mopping up operation.
Bob killed Diablo with Frenzy and level 2 Bash, not having got his Berserk skill yet.
Berserker Bob killed Diablo for the first time at level 28
with the stats shown. Skills at this point (with +1 bonus
from Berserker's Hauberk) :
Skills taken as prerequisites but mostly unused: Stun, Concentrate, Double Swing, Double Throw.
Deaths so far: none that I recall. [Certainly none since act 2, but I wasn't specifically making sure to keep track of deaths at the time Bob went through act 1.] One failed PK attempt.
Normal equipment setup:
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