Build Help (Fortress Barbarian)

Hello everybody. Its been a while since i've played MedianXL but i wanted to look at it again after playing through regular Lord of Destruction with a friend who hadn't played Diablo 2 before. I loaded back my old character. He's currently a level 92 Fortress Barbarian who has up to the Arcane Sanctuary Waypoint of Terror. When i tried the first few low level skills of all the characters i enjoyed Fortress enough to think i could make a decent character with one. I think one of the reasons i quit for a while is because i was getting walled by some stuff in extra zones. He has level challenges 0/1/2 done as well as Ennead skill. I've also done the Countess and Witch minigames. I didn't do any research when making this build ( i like to see where i can get before needing optimizations), so I'm not really sure where to progress from here.

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These are my stats. i put a lot into strength because based on the wording of fortress i think it scales with it due to my weapon damage increasing with strength.

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These are my skills. I've been using lion stance for the massive increase in physical damage. The one point in guardian spirit was just so i could lure away Witches.

warning: My Mystic Orb usage must have had been kind of weird, I'm guessing i was capping resistances. I think i started putting Crushing Blow on my weapon thinking it worked with Fortress.

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My Weapon, i leveled this one for the increased exp as well as skill points.

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My Shield, probably picked this one up due to the increase in Lion Stance's power. Lum Runes for magic find, i guess.

Continued in next post.

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This gives me extra lightning damage as well as a castable lightning shield. The diamonds are for massive strength gain.

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Massive Strength and increase ratio on strength to weapon damage. If there is a diminishing return, i am not aware of it.

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Open Wounds and more damage. (if these modifiers don't work with fortress, I'm an idiot)

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Fire damage, Attack speed to keep up Titan Strike, Stun attack. i like it.

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Cold damage to round off the other 2 elemental things as well as resists. More strength and magic find from gems and runes.

Continue next post

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These are pretty much filler because i don't have anything good to use. My normal game plan is activate Nephalem weapons as well as Lightning shield. Afterwards, use fortress, then switch to lion stance during the cooldown period and use titan strike to keep up the bonuses.

The only thing i really know is something about a Kracken Stance, but i don't know how to get it.

check the first miniguide in my compilation for a fortress build . you will find some tips there :

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=491&p=18660#p18660

Kraken stance is an old barbarian uberskill that adds fire/lightning/cold damage to weapon , damage that gets boosted by hard points into other stances (they work as sinergies) - more points invested into other stances = more kraken stance damage . you can find it on rare/crafted barbarian helms

Question, do fortress bolts apply things such as Crushing Blow, deadly strike, Open Wounds, and the slow from Snake Stance?

of course they do . they deal weapon damage

Oh wow, then that sounds pretty powerful. Any other tips you can give me to help me out? I'll probably look at crafting in the morning. Thanks for your help

get lots of "on striking" and "after kill" procs . if you choose to go for snake stance and slow target you got all you need in the miniguide i was talking about above . just make the adjustments according to your needs . i went for Hawk Talons but there are many other options to go for

Good luck !

@Epzilon, you should know that chuckie's guides aren't meant for players who don't have most of the charms already. Even with them, the guide is poorly optimized for several reasons.

for a cool fortress build, keep in mind:

1. You cannot control fortress (they determine their target on their own)
2. You can only cast one every 2 seconds (or 3 i do not remember right now)
3. Fortress arrow range is ~35 Yards if i remember right, therefore you should not max wolfes just to gain more range (however invest enough points for the arrowrange)

Thats why, when i tried fortress i found it to be a support skill and not really a main skill, what i did then:

Focus on REANIMATES (Necrobot as a start), get the reanimate chain started with your own fortress. Support your reanimates with stances such as kraken stance.
If you can get your hands on the secret scythe rw you will find a significant increase in killspeed with your barb, and the best part is that you dont even need to do that much. Gallowlaugh to assure you can farm areas like sewers which do not allow corpses.
Have fun!