Throw Barb 2017?

You don't have to use crane stance, it is just an option. 1pt wolf works too.
Single target, either ancients hand oskill from hlem, or 1pt iceburst, these skills don't require investing points to be good single target.
As for mercs, bloodmage is way tankier earlier on when your gear isn't optimized yet. Abjurer has superior aoe damage.
But overall for throw barb I wouldn't focus on mercs killing speed, because your aoe/damage is already good, and you don't need that.

One question, is there a way to reliably deal with physical immunes (necrobots/necromorbs)? Outside of going full snake build that is.

Lion Stance does magic damage based on strength, however that makes you take more damage. Kraken Stance also dealt with PIs easier, but it's very hard to get even in XVI, much less in 2017 since rares can't be rerolled

Lion stance is not enough.
Kraken stance is also pretty weak, and you need invest points into other stances to boosts its damage, and finally to boost if even further you need "-enemy all resist" which is very difficult to stack on gear.

One option is to use rebound, it has 50% conversion to magic. But it can be annoying to use, for someone used to stampede.
Another option is.. merc. Abjurer kills immunes really fast, even if you don't support him with protectors or/and elemental totem, as on more merc support dedicated build.
But to make abjurer good, you need to optimize its gear.
- get him to energy factor bonus cap (calculate based on energy/ef, all info is in docs)
- stack -135% enemy lightning resist
- Make sure all items that can have +skills (crystal sword +3, chest +2, amulet black dwarf with extra +supernova and so on)
- reach last 5fpa cast speed superbeast breakpoint (requires quite lot of fcr)
- rest - focus on buff duration to extend superbeast, you can fit about 200% buff, on top of stats mentioned above

With these stats, merc becomes true beast, and it can literally solo ubers at decent speed, if you just spirit walk around with no minions and never even use your own throwing skills.

What rune to use for jewelcrafting? They all look a bit rubbish tbh.

I used On rune in the end for +4 LAK but I have the feeling I may be missing something. Shame there's no rune that gives Indestructible

For thrower, life leech.

Ah ok thanks - I thought leech was heavily dumbed down in Dest (I read somewhere it was 1/25th of its face value in dest?).
But if it does work, great

Shade wrote:Ah ok thanks - I thought leech was heavily dumbed down in Dest (I read somewhere it was 1/25th of its face value in dest?).
But if it does work, great

Even if it's 1/25th, by the time you'll be farming and such, you'll likely have a lot of physical damage and many hits per attack to be able to leech from. It feels like it leeches less than previous patches, but it's still sustainable.

any of you guys encounter a bug where throw skills aren't usable? i can overkill just fine but when i try to use any others, the projectile doesn't move. I know its an active projectile because i can kite enemies into it and they take damage. It just sits where I was standing when I threw it.

pokiedude wrote:any of you guys encounter a bug where throw skills aren't usable? i can overkill just fine but when i try to use any others, the projectile doesn't move. I know its an active projectile because i can kite enemies into it and they take damage. It just sits where I was standing when I threw it.

You're using Lightning Arena