Mauler used to be one of my favs in Legacy D2. An otherwise obsolete non-ethereal Bonehew with 2 Shaels, IK gloves+boots give you a 8-frame slap. What Werebear lacks is AR, so I prefer A1 merc: her Inner sight will stay on monsters even if she dies, allowing you to clear the scene. But behind you and Grizzly, she is more safe than ever. Also, imho HoW instead of Oak, at least on HC. I generally find its mechanics too anti-safe to be used solo: when you need Oak the most, it usually has just died, and recasting may be difficult in such scenarios. I don't know why you didn't put ~5 SP in Shock wave and didn't use Crows. Life is good when your life is good (c), but even better with long-range crowd control. For SSF, indeed, Savage recipe ftw, as mentioned in the comments. 3 Blue Cruel weapon recipes (actually, 4) may also help, although with new RWs I don't know anymore if they are worth the time. If it gets 2 sockets, you usually can get around 9-frame attack with some +%IAS gloves. In earlier Legacy, Mauler could even survive Iron maiden. When Damage returned from your slap drops your HP to 0 in one swing, you don't die, but turn into human with 1HP. But your Life leech is delayed, so you almost immediately heal to full bulb from your previous slaps, and usually can transform back to Bear. Since everything around is stunned/blinded, you don't get a heart attack every time this happens. Not terribly funny on HC, though. What really wasn't funny - unique LE+XE bug and its interaction with monster hit recovery. Even a single Beetleburst's minion was a trouble.
Act 1 merc is a really good idea for this! I probably should have put a couple of points into shock wave, but that is just me figuring things out. Oh yeah oldskool iron maiden Chaos Sanctuary is definitely a build your own adventure kind of thing haha
Thank you! I do a little bit of endgame but mostly ssf. I am working on a different kind of video but that'll take a while to get done. I do like trying new content :)
In normal act 1, you can gamble a maul at level 17, this will carry you to normal pretty easily. On act 4, you can buy a brutal (50% damage) maul which will give you enough damage to go through normal. On act 5 and if you have an amn rune, you can gamble a rare maul and upgrade it to a war club. It will carry you through the rest of normal to make it a bit easier.
Normally unless your speed running no point of staying in act 1 that long. But a maul weapon helps a lot. Personally I just reroll mauls or make savage polearm until I get insight. If I’ve already farmed the gear then I just use LLD Paladin gear and you have bear fortitude damage ed
As someone who just beat hardcore on single player, I have so much respect for that grind. I got lucky a few times, found a guardian angel on my way to baal n was using 1 to skills 30 res armor before mixed with trading it out for hustle. Upoed my bonesap to the last level. N went to town with a pally. I made a delirium. So building n finding stuff feels so great. But you did fantastic. Sigons gloves n belt combo are slept on. Great gear for melee
Upgrading stuff when your finding gear is amazing for sufe, the whole reason to do runs like this. Oh man I can't do Delirium with the stupid doll trigger. Drives me nuts. Thank you!
Gamble a battle axe at lvl 13. Gamble a maul at level 17. Socket with 3 chipped gems, do skulls or ith. Never ever go 1 handed with bear. For hell you just do elder staff/shilelagh (4socket larzuk) insight, its 350 average damage with ar and ds like crazy, elite staffs are very strong but nobody seems to know. And ofc you mix maul+fireclaw the same way you charge up feral rage, people seem to miss that one, you outpsd a grief zealot, while doing fire+phys dmg so no immunes and full leech. No enigma, so low tier for mobility, but dps? Way more than most can tell.
Going for an insight staff is really smart. I'm definitely keeping that in mind next time I record a bear. I didn't mix it with fire claws cause this was a pure Maul playthrough :) thx for watching and for the tips!
I'm sorry. The current waiting time for requests is over a year so I don't really take them anymore. Enchantress is already on the list so I could bump it up a few slots
leveling up as bear is just awful, i had a maul build 3 ladders ago and i had to level as zoo up until ~lvl 70, else i would just punch a hole in my display.
No, I just use the shared stash. I've filled up multiple accounts that I can't mule in between as well. For ssf it's fine but I would just go to pc if I wanted to do endgame stuff
Maul really should come with splash/cleave damage,without fury wbear as it is just has no hope against wolves. My online maul bear is one of my fave builds of all time,but hed take a million actual years to build like this in ssf lol. Dual phoenix was made viable by the 2.4 ias changes and all the aoe from the synergized firestorms,infinity merc and geddon made him alot of fun to play.
@@thenuclearrabbit I designed before sunder charms came out,the idea was to have a better fireclaw than fireclaw,while doing physical damage against unbreakable fire immunes. His base max physical is 8k with 70%ds, and firestorm damage is alot more difficult to calculate than people realize. The screen damage is completely wrong. Depending on the size of the mob, and how many of the streams hit them,they're taking around 8-16k fire damage per proc at -100 fire immunity which many monsters are with dual phoenix and infi. Add about that much damage again from geddon going off all around you all the time and you end up with a build so good no one wants to play with me because the whole screen is dead haha The destruction/phoenix fury wolf version is even better,and with flickering flame,metamorphosis and sunders can be optimized more than I had
@24:42 is this your defence in Werebear form? If so no wonder you were struggling. I've never played a werebear before but with that low a defence you'd be getting hit almost constantly outside of a shockwave stunlock. Probably would have been worth upgrading your gear to at least exceptional. Seeing your gear I'm not surprised you were struggling as well. HC ssf is absurd sometimes. Some builds you can finish the game naked or with really crap gear. This isn't one of them lol
That is in werebear form with fade from treachery. My problem was my damage being low, so no leeching and no items from drops. Defense is not a thing I care about at all in diablo 2. The gear was pretty bad on this one. But it's a direct result of not being able to properly kill stuff for loot
WOOOW this Bear game was rly HARD... And nightmare souls?? how many spawn??.....As kid in D2LOD me wosrt killing time Diablo took me more as 2 hours :DDD
I got them on every possible spot in nightmare and then never saw them again in hell. I was too busy not dying to keep count. 2 hour diablo fight? What? How?
Play as sorrceres with lightning and fire, i dont remember my skill poits its 20 years before, but was 1 point in one skill i think :DD.... Yea old good days play as kiddo :D @@thenuclearrabbit
Man! Thank you so much for the video! I've made it too on ladder HC. It actually was not that bad. Maul Bear have about 1k+ ED total so it punches so damn hard. It's kinda slow and hit only one target. It will be nice if they can make Maul work more like Fury, that you can hit 2-3 targets in one click. What do you think?
Maul like fury could be fun but I would like to see a bigger difference between the two. I would give it crushing blow via a synergy or something, your literally a bear punching something in the face, crushing blow feels fitting. I miss the old turbo bears with 6 shael phase blades. I would like it if Bear just had more to work with, you have maul and shockwave now and it's just not really worth it. Maybe more damage after every kill and more added runspeed like frenzy or something. They should go full nuts with it. Edit: they should give bears 1 handed frenzy skill. That's my answer
A maul bear is the first character I ever played, wayyy back in the day 1.08 I think it was.I don't remember what lvl I played it to, or whatnot. Currently playing a Dragon Tail Asn. (which is awesome!) But running into the first problem, which is fire Immunes popping up in NM already. Enjoy your vids, and playing the less common builds. Recently made Summoner Druid, then Plague Javazon, still want to do a Chaos WW Sin after this Kicksin. Other than that... Poison Nova Necro, maybe a Shifter Druid of some sort... but it really doesn't offer anything interesting. Fire Claws, Fury, or Maul. Maybe Spearzon, and I want to roll a Barb too, but there's so little build variety on Barb, I'm not sure I will.
You can either run past them or get a merc to deal with them Thank you! Oh those are some sweet builds. I want to retry the Spearzon sometime as well. I'm trying out some barb stuff right now to find some more builds. But it's still in the recording phase so gonna be weeks if not months before it gets out into the wild
Just started my ssf adventure and my internet has been out all day and I’ve got no other single player games. Though not using a hardcore character playing on players 8 is much better then p1 online
i've been slowly making progress with this same build myself i'm only barely in hell so far. as far as weapons went, i was mostly just finding higher quality 2 handed axes to make Steel in. early game, i leveled maul up to 8 for 20ish% attack speed and decent damage, enough lycanthropy to stay in bear for 2 minutes and then i maxed out heart of the wolverine first. had a act 3 merc for enchant. after i maxed out my spirit, i started maxing out wearbear, then lycanthropy, and maul. my damage has been alright (i guess) with only my attack rating being something i'd like to be better. making a Black runeword also helped. i'm really just keeping the maul buff up at all times and then using basic attack. it's a pretty boring playstyle honestly. nightmare actually wasn't bad at all, but hell is... kinda hell lol
The enchant merc should fix your ar on it's own. You could also try hustle armor on him as well for the fana aura for some damage. Yeah the playstyle really leaves you wishing for more. Hell is named correctly yeah. Some builds can barely get through it. Good luck on the rest of your run!
"He really needs to stop with the fucking lightning..." XD lol I love it. Keep it up! Im doing a melee SSF HC Barb run because of you! It's awesome! This run was hilarious because of the challenge XD Your suffering ended being excellent content :P
my frenzy barb died, on NM Ancients. I was like 30% HP and didn't realize one of them was fire enchanted and blew up and killed me :( @@thenuclearrabbit
Riphook is actually a p good ssf druid leveling weapon that seems to drop alot for me,i remember it saving my first lod bear from muledom back in the day.
@@thenuclearrabbit it's really interesting how the rng hits for different people,playing solo p1 online I seem to get a riphook usually in nightmare worldstone every other character playthrough. I feel like everyone has that item that seems to follow them.
That playthrough kindly reminds me of my craft-only-playthrough. (Well, from the point I had perfect gems...before I just played with gear from stash). I tried to beat the game as a werewolf because of the potentially high weapon damage. And though I did do enough damage after crafting 15 elite Axes and Mauls, the Werewolf was too fragile to beat act4. So I respecced into Bear and used shockwave. Now the game was easier, but very slow. Attacking one monster at a time is slow, doing it at bear speed is even slower. However, I managed to beat the game, I learned a lot about possible affixes, affice levels and all that stuff. And that crafted helmets and body armors just suck.
I played a bear to the end of normal in D2L. HC players 8. It was not bad actually. Steel Large Axe carried me all the way to act4. I found Bloodfist and a min damage ring, so my damage was 95-99 or something. Also made a savage polearm at some point. Beat Diablo without losing my rogue mercenary. In D2L non-weapon IAS does increase your attack speed, but you can only get 1-2 frames from it. If your weapon IAS is low, Bloodfist actually speeds you up.
@@thenuclearrabbit P8 for melee builds is easier. You get more chance to hit, more items, and more stats to equip good weapons. I hate playing melee on bnet, but I rather enjoy it in single player.
@@thenuclearrabbit Yeah just by leveling up. To equip a halberd and survive you need at least level 27. Maybe 29 for a druid. I typically reach Diablo at 32.
@@thenuclearrabbit what a slog man. I am the type that enjoys playing through the game more so than playing post game. So I tend to judge builds on how well they perform SSF. And Maul looks BAD.
I can't 'bear' it....I bet this run would make anyone 'paws' for thought before trying it....I know I know....'pelt'ers incoming for all the terrible puns....
Bear with me though. I'll maul my way through this comment. These puns have me howling like the heart of a wolverine. But it would be wise if I thought like an Oak sage and looked at all the available options from the sky like a raven so this armageddon of tragedies could be stopped from being a thorn in my existence. I remember how I threw myself to the dire wolves with this one but luckily I ended up arctic blasting my way through in the end. Fur real though, I like puns haha
When I saw the build I was hoping you would find Bonesnap or Ribcracker. Bonesnap can help any melee build through Hell with boss fights, ty for suffering through this build for us lol
Bonesnap is ok. But I was glad to upgrade away from it. I would have loved better gear for most of it though. The bad damage resulted in less kills and worse gear and it just snowballed into a worse and worse situation. No problem haha part of the job
I had to get all my wisdom teeth get drilled to bits after 1 had grown in the wrong direction and the others were at risk of doing the same. I'd rather hurl myself of the stairs than relive that. But yeah the build aint great
They pretty much broke the bear with the ias changes. It made the bear worse because even though its easier to hit mid-range fpa breakpoints, getting past 10 frame attacks is almost impossible without good gear. Before 2.4 there were less viable weapons but they could get you to 5-6 frame attacks like the tomb reaver or buriza. Now both weapons are unviable on the bear. So they nerfed bear dps by like 50% for the mid game/lategame and you now need like a lvl 40 maul and metamorphosis to get back to similar attack frames an ik maul would give you pre 2.4. It means hustle, even though it sucks is mandatory on a bear. You run hustle and your merc needs to run hustle as well. Because of AR and the fact that a lot of crap blocks. The "slow chungus, big bonkus" doesn't work.
The best thing to do might just be to craft some gloves with CB and get a 6x Shael sword and an act 3 enchant merc and hope to do it the old fireclaw way. But yeah that is rough for sure. I don't like Buri and Tomb Reaver not being the best weapons anymore, it was so cool to finally have a build that actually played really different. Yeah new runewords make every build good for sure. Hustle is doable in SSF but Metamorphosis isn't happening. If you get Angelic ring+ammy you could save the attack rating. But if we would like to make this spec work for ssf we really need to get creative and come up with some good ideas.
Dude, I have so much fun listening to you narrate your playthrough. You sound like a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger - I wish you named your maul druid the Bearminator!!🐻
This is the greatest comment I have ever gotten. I am a huge Schwarzenegger fan. I wish I looked like a younger Schwarzenegger. And I don't really think I sound like him but I'll take the compliment. Bearminator is a sweet name if I ever play a bear again
@@hispls Lol, I didn't even grow up on the same side of europe. But I have always sounded weird to people haha. I get comments about how I talk my native language as well. I also literally just finished up editing a bear run and this comment just reminded me that the run is invalid because I didn't name it bearminator. Gonna write that down this time.
@@thenuclearrabbit Bear is pretty awful even with BIS gear and Metamorphosis. Thanks for doing these challenge builds so the rest of us don't have to. Also you have inspired me to finally try HC (on ladder with a friend). Got level 43 summon necro and level 64 FotH paladin at the moment. Since I've got your attention, have you done poison druid yet? Creeper and Rabies? Creeper is EZ mode through normal, not sure how rabies hangs beyond that.
Poison druid has been recorded but I haven't edited it yet. I ended up having to incorporate fury as well into the build cause the damage was just too low but I won't spoil more than that :)I've been working on doing my recordings more efficient. So I have like 10 runs fully recorded right now (not all D2, a couple of D4 runs in there as well) that I still need to edit.