Build in progress
Thumpinskull. Formerly known as Kol Thumpinskull a hero of Sanctuary who rose to near godly power in his youth. When his kinsman Dan the Dangerous of clan McGrew presented him with the lost armor of the Immortal King he knew he was bound for great deeds. He foresaw all of the Children of Bul Kathos united under his banner, known and accepted by the rest of the world for the stalwart guardians they were. Alas when he struck down Baal, The Lord of Destruction, that vision fell too. The loss of the world stone and the scattering of his kind shattered his dream. To make matters worse his family, cherished siblings, also fell. His twin brother Lok the Silent was taken by a horrid undead beast called a Dracolitch, and as for his younger brother and sister, Zin and Eva they vanished into portals and never came out. Now as the last of his line he has forsaken his given name. He is Thumpinskull, and that is all. Following these multifold tragedies Thumpinskull buried his sacred armor and weapon on the remains of Mount Arreat. For many years he made his way through mercenary work until the rumors began to spread that the lords of hell were not all defeated. Thumpinskull returned to where he cached his legendary battle dress to discover that something had already taken it. He began to seek the missing pieces and his searching led him back to Tristram where he saw a star fall to the earth. He knew then that with or without his mighty regalia his job begun twenty years before was not yet done.
Character page:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Fogtreadder-1202/hero/18031571Skills
Primary : Bash / Punish (up to 24% damage bonus)
Secondary: Whirlwind / Blood Funnel
Leap / Iron impact (defensive boost)
Hammer of Ancients / Smash (406% damage)
Battle Rage / Marauders Rage (30% damage boost)
Wrath of the Berzerker / Insainty (100% damage boost)
Passives: Nerves of steel, Weapons Master, Superstition
Preferred weapon: The biggest badest 2 handed monstrosity possible. The IK is ideal; otherwise a mace class is preferred over swords or polearms.
The idea behind Thumpinskull is he is the One Hit Wonder. Jump into the fray with a defensive boost and start hitting things one at a time until the 54% damage bonus from Battle rage and Bash is built up. Then finish off whatever might be left with devastating hits from HoA. Speed is not a factor for this build since every hit should bring a kill. Currently this is working. I have WW on this guy for when he goes up against especially large mobs. HoA is the skill Thump is built around for the largest possible single hit damage.
Perhaps the greatest weakness to this build may end up being a substandard defense and life. So I am thinking that in regards to how I gear him up I should focus on items with vitality and resists. A hit vita will of course improve defense through Nerves of steel. Of course this may compromise the One Hit Wonder effect in inferno. I foresee a tricky damage / defense balancing act in the near future. Also his life on hit potential right now is pretty much zero. So I will need to try and get more of that in the future.
Skills that may be changed out in the future are Whirlwind, Leap, and Weapons master.
WW has not been a favorite skill, but after I began trying it out again after the last major patch it does not seem to leech fury quite as fast as it used to. I may put HoA in the secondary position in time, but I would rather not since it is on the same key as my other Barb and I have become accustomed to it. WW is also my best escape skill if I get trapped by monsters. I may try other forms of it as they unlock to me.
Leap is kinda nice as it can be used to travel across different levels quickly. The iron impact boost is very short so I may replace this with a buffing skill and keep him as ground assault.
Weapons master is really only useful to me as long as I have a mace class weapon for the 10% crit. If I get the IK weapon for him and indeed the whole set I will want to replace this.
A bit of history behind the Thumpinskull Clan. Lok was my first D2 barb. Mace class based and I did not use any warcries. Naturally this build could not hack it in Hell level. The account Lok was on was full of first time chars all who just didnt have the stones for Hell. So as I had another account full of better builds I announced on the chat board that the first one to whisper me would get my old account. A guy by the name of Dracolitch was the winner. Zin and Eva were mace class builds on Guild Wars and Hellgate London respectively. Both used the smallest body size available on those games and so they are the little bother and sister. Kol came about when my D2 finder barb, DangerDanMcGrew found the IK armor and I was at last able to bring the complete set together. So Kol named after Lok as a twin *cough Tomax Xamot* was built specifically for the IK set focused on Whirlwind and Berserk. I would have put the first name Kol in the name in D3 but there were just enough spaces for the last name.
