Immortal King WW Marauder [tanking merciless Kole and Vaal]

This is a build for a marauder based on the Diablo 2's Immortal King WW Barbarian using cyclone (Whirlwind), two-handed maul (Immortal King's Stone Crusher), stuns (crushing blow), and Immortal Call!

If you have forgotten what it looks like, here is a reminder :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7mlKuxauazM

The hero was made in hardcore and beat act 3 merciless without help and without much difficulty by lvl 68 :) After that he died to a phone call and now rests in default :(

As you can see from a gameplay video in the link below, he has 3000 hp, 850 armor, 420 evasion, 82% all resists and about 3% chaos resist.

Because we use immortal call for the tough mob packs, we do not invest into armor passives and armor-based items. That leaves us more skillpoints to invest into damage so we get enough to stun everybody. Because we can stun everybody, they do not hit us and we do not need armor.

Mobility provided by cyclone's ability to deal damage on the move and pass through packs of monsters is key. You don't have to stop and facetank archers or mages while you cleave or sweep them - you can approach them from the side, moving diagonally, and cylcone through them without taking a lot of arrows. You can place yourself in the middle of the pack and hit a lot with a sweep or two and keep moving.

Stuns, and the delivery of damage to stun the mobs by the approaching cyclone of hits is the second key to the build. Because cyclone hits so often and on the move, you will always land the first hit on the mobs as you make contact with the pack. With other skills you have to stop and then swing - compared to the nearly instant hits of cyclone as at gradually comes into range, this is very slow. Without dedicated attack speed passives and without faster attacks gem, my slow maul hits every 0.35 seconds in cyclone. Because I have a lot of stun passives and mods on gear, whatever mob I touch with cyclone becomes stunned for a little while (over 100% increased stun duration), and in my spins I am able to hit all other mobs and come back to it before it can finish it's attack and stun it again, or kill it.

If the mob pack is too large to stun this way with the comparatively slow cyclone of a two-handed mace, you do a single sweep and stun everybody around you. Repeat to kill.

A technique tip: The important thing is to keep moving while the pack is dangerous. However, cyclone sometimes stops on top of the mob when you click to attack the mob instead of beyond the mob. To avoid this sudden stop that will probably leave you with 10 arrows and 5 hits landing on you at the same time, keep left mouse button (movement) pressed while you cyclone (and bind cyclone to one of the keyboard keys), so that when it stops you keep running and are ready to start another whirl.

He is able to kill packs with a combination of cyclone and sweep, and stunlock all bosses with heavy strike. Even Merciless Vaal and Piety are stunlocked, unless they manage to teleport or go underground. I might make a video of that if there is interest.

A short gameplay video killing merciless Kole and farming Lunaris:
http://youtu.be/lp_8NDFRAGA

Killing Merciless Vaal:
http://youtu.be/tB565AwoWkE

Here is the passive tree


Some leveling information: You do not need ground slam, you can use sweep+heavy strike to level quickly from the start. After getting the few marauder starting life and damage nodes, go for the Resolute technique AND mace damage passives near it from the start. This will allow you to play the build from the start, the damage and stun from mace passives will allow you to roll through normal and cruel without problems. Easiest thing is to buy Geofri's Baptism maul (its around 2-4 chaos), it will take you all the way up to first act of Merciless. You can start using cyclone once you get some mana leech (try the unique dual leech belt or gloves, the gloves are great because they give you the dexterity to level cyclone), or if you use Warlord's Mark curse.

After the Resolute Technique and Mace talents go up to the Templar area to get more life and damage and resists. Only then should you go for the Blood Drinker, exstra stun life nodes there because you will by now have a lot of damage and 2% leech will become significant.

For Bandit quest rewards I recommend extra life, melee damage, and endurance charge - saving Oak each time.

Here is the gear he was using, nothing amazingly expensive as you can see. The weapon cost me 15 chaos, the rest of the stuff is much less expensive. An 18% quality Immortal Call cost 5 gcp, but you can make up for the lack of quality with the three passive skills for buff duration near Resolute Technique - you will just have slightly less damage until you get a quality Immortal Call, and it will help your curse duration as well.



Thank you for your attention, I will be glad to answer questions :)

Can you translate the guide m8? Currently I'm a Cyclone Mara as well. Not sure how you survive wearing armor like that is Immortal Call that beast?!

"

xstylenx wrote:

Can you translate the guide m8? Currently I'm a Cyclone Mara as well. Not sure how you survive wearing armor like that is Immortal Call that beast?!

Immortal Call is great, but eventually you will only have to use it on about 10% of the packs, 30% of the packs you can kill with endurance charges up, and most of them you can just faceroll even without enfeeble.

I updated the first post with more details.

edit: added a video killing Merciless Vaal: http://youtu.be/tB565AwoWkE

Cool video.

Any chance of us getting a Normal/Cruel/Merciless breakdown of the tree? Just wondering how you leveled, or is it the usual 'GS to victory'? It seems like one would have some issue staying alive before the build really ramps up once you get the Mace passives near RT, especially since Blood Drinker is on a totally different path.

"

maliciel wrote:

Cool video.

Any chance of us getting a Normal/Cruel/Merciless breakdown of the tree? Just wondering how you leveled, or is it the usual 'GS to victory'? It seems like one would have some issue staying alive before the build really ramps up once you get the Mace passives near RT, especially since Blood Drinker is on a totally different path.

I can do a more detailed write up of the leveling later, but here is a short version:

You do not need ground slam, you can use sweep+heavy strike to level quickly from the start. After getting the few marauder starting life and damage nodes, go for the Resolute technique AND mace damage passives near it from the start. This will allow you to play the build from the start, the damage and stun from mace passives will allow you to roll through normal and cruel without problems. Easiest thing is to buy Geofri's Baptism maul (its around 2-4 chaos), it will take you all the way up to first act of Merciless. You can start using cyclone once you get some mana leech (try the unique dual leech belt or gloves, the gloves are great because they give you the dexterity to level cyclone), or if you use Warlord's Mark curse.

After the Resolute Technique and Mace talents go up to the Templar area to get more life and damage and resists. Only then should you go for the Blood Drinker, exstra stun life nodes there because you will by now have a lot of damage and 2% leech will become significant.

Been playing this for a bit, in Cruel now. Aside from silly deaths due to unfamiliarity with 2h build playstyle and general tomfoolery, it's been going well. Have you ever given thought to what would make a good 5L chain for Heavy Strike? I was wondering if Melee Splash would work well with it at all? Sweep seems to almost require to be in the center and to me that seems a bit too dangerous..

Seems pretty bad at first glance to me. You seem speced in to physical damage with an attack that has 35% damage effectiveness. You know how armor works right?

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Katrex wrote:

Seems pretty bad at first glance to me. You seem speced in to physical damage with an attack that has 35% damage effectiveness. You know how armor works right?

Sure I know :) but do you know how much armor mobs have? Not a lot. The 40% damage effectiveness of cyclone is plenty to punch through the mob's armor with a two-handed weapon, and having played through to the end of merciless, and now with similar build (except axes and crits instead of maces and resolute technique) to maps (lvl 74 and alive in hardcore) I can says its not bad at all.

The idea that physical damage is bad with cyclone and cleave is a misconception throughout a lot of the community who are not willing to try things themselves and repeat what others say. Physical damage is actually better than elemental if you begin to get a lot of it, because it begins to overcome armor better and better, unlike elemental damage which has a flat reduction percentage.

Heavy strike in a 5-link would benefit most from faster attacks gem. I tried it with melee splash too, that is a good aoe option, but with access to sweep you don't really need it and its better to leave heavy strike strictly single-target stun-kill skill.

Both your builds seem great.
Especially the one with the Axe passives seems quite original also.
Good job !

"

Slagmaur wrote:

Both your builds seem great.
Especially the one with the Axe passives seems quite original also.
Good job !

Hey man, thanks!