The Immortal King

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OK, I lied, the new-and-improved-but-yet-to-be-properly-named "Unusual Amazon Build" is not going to get done anytime soon. Instead, I've had a friend donate a slightly used Immortal King Set to me, so now that is my character of choice. I'll post updates when I start gaining the ability to use equipment, but right now, there isn't much to report as I'm still in Act I normal. My stash is filled to bursting with all of my IK gear, none of which I am of sufficient level to currently wear.

 

What's the Immortal King set's powers?

 

IK is a good set, the elemental damage it will give you with the full set means that you will be able to grind physical immunes, as such the IK set is one of the best kits to solo hell with. Not to mention the immunity and defense it will give you. For what you get the set is very cheap aswell, the only upgrades are the high end runewords which are much more pricey. Be careful not to put too much put too many points into strength, I think the highest you need is 225 for all the IK stuff but some of the items in the set give you a strength bonus, so you can save points for vitality there.

 

With the bonus strength you get from the set items, the most strength you would ever need is 189 points. Since you start with 30, it means you need to invest approximately 159 points into strength at the most. You will have tons of life with this character as well, as there is no dexterity requirement for any item in this set. I'm currently level 30 now, and I haven't added a single point into dex yet. Also, since I plan on using leech for all of my mana needs, nothing is going into energy either. All strength and vitality, and once I hit the target value for strength, everything will go into vitality.

Clixby, here are the items, stats on the IK set:

Helm: IK's Will
Defense 160
+4 light radius
+125 defense
37% gold find
25% magic find
+2 warcries
Socketed (2)
Only item that does not receive partial set bonuses

Weapon: IK's Stone Crusher
Damage 231-318 (base - see below)
200% enhanced damage
200% enhanced damage to demons
250% enhanced damage to undead
40% increased attack speed
Indestructible
35%-40% chance of crushing blow
Socketed (2)

Bonus modifiers (cumulative):

Add 211-397 fire damage (with 2 set items)
Add 7-477 lightning damage (3 set items)
Add 127-364 cold damage (4 set items)
Add +204 poison damage over 6 seconds (5 set items)
Add 250-361 magic damage (Complete set)

Since all of the above are cumulative, the total damage is MUCH bigger than the listed base damage once the set is completed.

Armor: IK's Soul Cage
Defense 1301
+400 defense
5% chance to cast level 5 Enchant when struck
Poison Resist +50%
+2 to combat skills

Bonus Modifiers (again cumulative):

25% faster recovery rate (2 items)
Cold resist +40% (3 items)
Fire resist +40% (4 items)
Lightning resist +40% (5 items)
+50% enhanced defense (complete set)

Belt: IK's Detail

Defense 89 base, increases to 247 with complete set
+36 defense
Lightning Resist 31%
Fire Resist 28%
+25 strength

Bonus Modifiers:

+105 defense (2 items)
25% faster hit recovery (3 items)
100% enhanced defense (4 items)
Damage reduced by 25% (5 items)
+2 Masteries (complete set)

Gloves: IK's Forge
Defense 108 base, increases to 228
+65 defense
12% chance to cast level 4 charged bolt when hit (definitely the biggest wtf? modifier on the set - what good is a lvl 4 charged bolt?)
+20 Dexterity
+20 Strength

Bonus Modifiers:

+25% increase attack Speed (2 items)
+120 defense (3 items)
10% life leech (4 items)
10% mana leech (5 items)
Hit Freezes Target (Complete set)

Boots: IK's Pillar
Defense 118 base, increases to 278
+75 defense
40% faster run/walk speed
+110 Attack Rating
+44 life

Bonus Modifiers:
25% magic find (2 items)
+2 combat skills (3 items)
+160 defense (4 itmes)
Half freeze duration (5 Items)
(Strangely, nothing extra on this item for completing the set)

Complete Set Bonus Modifiers:

+3 to all barbarian skill levels
+450 attack rating
+150 life
All Resistances +50%
Magic Damge Reduced by 10

Highlights:

+7 combat skills
+5 masteries
+5 warcries

Assuming you do anya's quest in act 5 in both normal and nightmare difficulty, and you spend just one point in natural resistances, when you start hell difficulty, with just the items from the set you resistances will look like this:

Fire: Max
Cold: 57%
Lightning: Max
Poison: 67%

 

OK, time for an update. As it currently stands, I'm level 48 in Act I Nightmare at the moment.

The IK armor and weapon both have character level requirements of 76, but the other four items have level requirements between 29-47. So at this point I'm actually wearing a decent amount of the total set - the boots, gloves, belt, and helm. With four equipped items of the set, the partial set bonuses and bonus abilities are really starting to stack up, and I'm really not having too much trouble in nightmare at all.

My damage is pretty good as well. I gambled a good maul in Act V normal, which I've since cubed to a war club. Most of the stuff I run across can be one-hit killed, except for champs and such which take a few whacks. About the only downside is my whirlwind isn't as good as it could be because a maul is not a fast attack weapon.

My armor is currently shaftstop, and it will probably stay that way until I'm ready for the IK armor. My rings are currently Raven Frost (which I'll probably wear for the rest of the game) and Manald Heald (which I'm only using because it's my sole source of mana leech at the moment). Manald will eventually be replaced by Dwarf Star, but that won't happen until I complete the set at which point I get +10% mana leech.

As for skills, I have battle orders maxed, and whirlwind is close to max. (I save a bunch of my skill points from early on, so when I hit level 30 I was able to place a point into both battle orders and whirlwind every level, which is how I managed to get two high-level skills nearly maxed this early. After that I'll go with shout, as I will pick up a might mercenary when I hit Act II, and I will need that extra defense come hell difficulty. My last max skill, which won't be maxed until I'm well into the 70s, will be mace mastery. After that, I'll have a choice with what to do with my remaining skill points. The obvious options are to invest more heavily into iron skin, or more heavily into concentrate (both of which currently have only one point spent in them).

As for what I'm planning on doing, other than leveling between now and when the full set comes on line, there are a few things that would greatly improve my character. I haven't used my normal socket quest at this point, but as soon as I get my hands on a shael rune, I'll shael my war club. That will allow me to hit the next breakpoint in whirlwind swing speed, which should increase the number of hits I get by 33%. If I can't get by with my current war club until level 76, I could up it in the cube again to an ogre maul, although that will have a level requirement of 67, so that would be a rather short time that I'd be using it, and I'm not sure it would be worth two high level runes. I'd like to find some better equipment for my merc as well, especially since I'll be ditching the defiance merc come Act II.

Other than that though, I do not foresee any major problems in nightmare. I do plan on levelling to 76 in nightmare though - I want to be able to wear the set by the start of hell difficulty. (Similarly I also leveled in normal until level 47 to be able to get the bonuses from the helm before moving onto nightmare.

 

OK, it took the better part of a month, but finally the IK is born! I hit level 76 last night, which is the earliest level you can use the final two pieces of the set. I had met the other requirement (strength at least 232) considerably earler.

The complete set rocks, and looks really cool to boot with the shimmering aura that surrounds your character. The character is only in Act I hell at the moment, so my current equipment is so good at the moment that I'm unstoppable. However, I'll need the benefits the set offers in later acts.

 

I've never completed a set. The closest I've ever come was 4 of the six pieces of Saigon's complete Steel with help from a buddy of mine on Battle Net...

 

I don't think you get the cool shimmering effect from all the sets - although I could be wrong. I think it's only the 7 sets that are specific to each character class that give the shimmer effect. I also have not had much success in completing sets. I'm sure that I have completed sets in my time playing but until now they have all been low level sets that were no longer useful by the time I got all of the pieces.

 

That's why I'd like to play with a network in my home. A former Roomate and I did that and could hand down outdated items to lower characters on the totem pole...

 

I'm on Act IV of Hell now. The IK set is still very good, but during whirlwinds I'm not the lawnmower I used to be, simply because monsters have so much life now. Still, my whirls do over 5k damage per hit, and most monsters are hit more than once during a whirl. The thing that is so good with this set is that you get 6 different types of damages (physical, fire, cold, lightning, poison, and magic) so nothing is immune to your whirlwind attack. As far as I know, the most anything can be immune to is two different things, meaning they still take boatloads of damage, unless they are immune to physical, and even then the damage is decent.

The only skill I have any real need for other than whirlwind is an occassional berserk. At this stage champs and bosses who are physical immune do take quite a while to take out, seeing as how the vast majority of damage I do is physical. Despite all the elemental and magic damage I deal, that only makes up a little over 1k of the 5k total damage. My stength alone gives me a 255% damage bonus, plus my whirlwind is level 29, and mace mastery is at level 26. But all those bonuses only apply to the physical damage. The crushing blow also only deal physical damage, and critical strike also only doubles the physical damage inflicted.