The Avenger guide for V1.11.

[Norrit]

Lofi:

When I talk about 4k damage, it's the near maximum (it's actually something like 4235 maxium damage or so). And that's naked, with no other gear except the runemaster. But alas, I forgot that you were playing on single player, and I believe that those ladder-only items don't show up in SP (unlike some horadric cube recipes, which are both ladder and sp only). I may be mistaken, though, so if you can verify on this beforehand.

If you want ladder runewords with decent damage, I can point you to oath (made on berserker axe). The runes aren't that impossible to get in SP (Shael + Pul + Mal + Lum) except for Mal, but since I got a Mal playing my zon in SP (the Mal dropped on the hellforge quest on Hell dificulty), i'd say that is quite doable. the stats are:

30% Chance To Cast Level 20 Bone Spirit On Striking
Indestructible
+50% Increased Attack Speed
+210-340% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+75% Damage To Demons
+100 To Attack Rating Against Demons
Prevent Monster Heal
+10 To Energy
+10-15 Magic Absorb (varies)
Level 16 Heart Of Wolverine (20 Charges)
Level 17 Iron Golem (14 Charges)

the hardest part is to find a 4os zerker. You may be tempted to do it in an eth axe, but keep in mind that ethereal weapons can't be repaired (duh!) and Heart of Wolverine is a useful skill that you might want to use, but in an ethereal oath you won't be able to regain the charges by repairing the weapon. I also quite like Iron Golem, but i'm not sure if it follows you through games. If it does, you may consider using this as well, making the golem based on a good item (Ik maul comes to mind, being a good weapon and not that hard to find).

 

[stfrn]

The ladder-only limitation is for online only- those items do drop in single player. Runewords are slightly different, but you can get a simple mod to enable all runewords on single player. You can find about all this and more, in the single player section

An eth oath would have 50% more base dmg, which would be multiplied by all sources of ed%, and would add to vengence dmg. HoW is nice, but is just another source of off-weapon ed.

 

[Norrit]

ah, thanks for the insight stfrn, I didn't knew that eth weapons came with that much extra base damage (+50%!), so it is much better to make eth oath, even if you lose the ability to play those skills that come with it.

Also, I found on the Arreat Summit FAQ confirmation that you can indeed find ladder-only items in single player, just as stfrn said. the link is:

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/faq/d2guide.shtml#3

so the runemaster is still an option, but finding 5 (!) 40% enhanced damage jewels is going to be very very hard.

 

[Asmodeous1]

You don't need 5 x 40% ed jewels. I have done the in game testing myself with rune master using 5 x 30 something ed jewels and was able to achieve a 4.5 kay average damage avenger which is enough to solo single player to end game quite easily.

I should have made it much clearer when I wrote this guide that I an a single player as well as the research that went into it came from in game testing using my own legit items or from other members of these forums who did in game testing using items that I don't possess, such as grief rune word.

Another nice little known weapon that works well on avengers (for single players who don't have high level runes etc) are the two elite sceptres, heavens light and redeemer. Both are fairly quick with skill level boosters making it very easy to reach level 25 conviction and can be further socketed with damage.

Are you part of the SPF trading forum? Trading for a rune master and some reasonable ed jewels for it shouldn't be that expensive, just a few pgems or low end runes such as NTPP types.

 

[lumpor]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Should you really get holy shield to a higher level than 1? This is one of the most skill-point demanding classes I've seen. Shouldn't you spare almost every single point when you can and put the rest into salvation? Also, do you recommend gore riders or war travellers? And should I fill my inventory with skillers or max damage sc's?

Oh, and how would Ormus's robes be for this build?

 

[ULAMSS5]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Why War travellers? is the small damage it gives really worth the lack of defence compared to upped marrowalk or sharkskin?

 

[lumpor]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Defence doesn't do much in d2

 

[ULAMSS5]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

hmm asmodeous can you retest/recalculate all the things that gives damage to vengeance? i have 2 avengers currently, 1 on battle.net ladder, the other is on singleplayer, using Udie Too(something like hero editor). i used downloaded weapons and armor and my stats are 1010 all(edited), with 20 skill points into EVERYTHING, then after i get my gear, my skill points would be around 30. i noticed that my dmg is 5k-15k. while in the ladder character, when i leveld up, i put my attack to vengeance. i noticed that everytime i add 2-3 points into str, the damage goes up by 1.
I'm using v1.12 so there might be differences to all these calculations.

 

[ScarletPinata]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Just curious, I'd want to make the glass-cannon variant of the vengeance paladin, ie two handed weapon, no points into holy shield so more into the synergies for vengeance. Is an eth glorious axe the only real option here? Could a two handed sword work as well (tbh, i had my heart set on a crazy pally with a gigantic flaming sparkling....freezing sword :jig And if (or up until) i can afford oath, is there anything else that'd work?

thanks in advance

 

[lumpor]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Ulamms, yes strength boosts you PHYSICAL damage, but not the elemental vengeance damage.


Yay for the two-handed avenger! Vengeance is so skill-intensive (max main skill + aura + 4 synergies), so getting a good excuse to skip holy shield (5 points) is awesome!

In my eyes, it seems like two-handed axes, polearms or mauls are the best. Those are the two-handed weapons that the paladin is the fastest with.

If you take a look at the wsm 20 weapons among two-handed axes, polearms and mauls, there's only one: The thunder maul. Not that I mind that there's only one, because it does the job. The highest damage weapon in the game. 106,5 average

If you look at 10, the decapitator is the best. An axe. 93 average damage
If you want to make botd, decapitators won't do, since they can't have 6 sockets. You'll have to use a glorius axe, 92 average damage

0: Great poleaxe. 86,5
-10: Giant thresher. 77


So basically:

20: Thunder maul
10: Decapitator (glorious axe if botd)
0: Great poleaxe
-10: Giant thresher

If using an item with high requirements, the death runeword can be good, since it has a hel rune in the word. Problem is, death has no ias. Ouch.

I think you'll have to use botd, for the ias. Unless you have a faith merc, then things change dramatically.

Your attack speed will be quite slow no matter what you do. 10 frames is max, compared to a 8 frame ezerker. Also easier to reach a 8 frame attack for a zerkerdin, since it's both only 142% ias required, and you can get ias from a shield.

I think you should use a faith merc. Then you can swing that thunder maul at a 10 frame attack, doing twice the damage of zerkerdins, although zerkers attack 25% faster, so it's actually 60% more damage from a thunder maul. Of course, that merc could've provided a might aura and decrep. Hmm, I don't know. Even though I like it, seems like the two-handed avenger isn't such a good idea after all. Still, the two-handed one will do more damage, but not so much actually

Anyway, it's still a variant. Don't have time to write more now, but maybe later

 

[dryzalizer]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Asmo, I have seen elsewhere that you resocketed your Griz avenger for more dmg. Would you be able to list your jewels and new dmg totals, or have they already been edited into the guide? My head starts to hurt when I try to figure out how to make the best min dmg avenger. :scratchchin: Thanks.

 

[ScarletPinata]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

what if Botd is unavailable cos you're incredibly poor? ie, what's the alternative to botd?

 

[lumpor]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Oath


10 chars

 

[Asmodeous1]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Asmo, I have seen elsewhere that you resocketed your Griz avenger for more dmg. Would you be able to list your jewels and new dmg totals, or have they already been edited into the guide? My head starts to hurt when I try to figure out how to make the best min dmg avenger. :scratchchin: Thanks.

Sure, no problem.

Caddy = 2 x Ohm runes. 2 x 40% enhanced damage both with secondry mods. Total listed damage 210-261 including full set bonus.
Armor = 2 x 8 min damage, 1 x 6 min damage jewels of Fervor. total 22 min damage 45% IAS.
Helm = Unchanged. 1 x 9-14 damage + 29 max damage. Total 9-43 damage.
Shield. 1 x 17 minimum damage. 1 x 14 max damage + 15% resist all. 1 x 15 max damage + 15% IAS. Total 17-29 damage, 15% resist all/IAS.

The shield and armor is where all the changes where made. I also changed a ring to a dual leech with min damage and some resists.

Total damage of all items equipped = 281-358 effective weapon damage.

ScarletPinata

Oath as Lumpor said, but also rune master, heavens light and redeemer.

 

[pongie]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

My avenger I equiped with (almost) full ik set and a kira's gaurdian. Jewellry are all dual leech. I currently have a defiance aura act 2 merc with a reapers toll and was wondering would I be better off with a holy freeze merc with a plague runeword weapon? 20% ctc lower resist is tempting and the holy freeze should substitute the decrepify curse from the reapers toll.

 

[TopHatCat64]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

My avenger I equiped with (almost) full ik set and a kira's gaurdian. Jewellry are all dual leech. I currently have a defiance aura act 2 merc with a reapers toll and was wondering would I be better off with a holy freeze merc with a plague runeword weapon? 20% ctc lower resist is tempting and the holy freeze should substitute the decrepify curse from the reapers toll.

The Plague runeword was never activated - that is unless you're playing a Single Player mod...

 

[pongie]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Just googled ctc lower resist and that came up, so what else has ctc lower resist?

 

[Robobaby]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

I recently just built an Avenger/Auradin Hybrid that looks a bit like this:

Stats:

20 Vengeance
20 Resist Fire
20 Resist Lightning
20 Conviction
10 Resist Cold
1 Salvation
1 Holy Shield

all prereqs

Gear:

Eth Breath of the Dying Berserker Axe
Dragon Mage Plate
Dream Diadem
Dream Sacred Targe
Highlord's Wrath
Raven Frost
Rare Stat/Leech/Res ring
War Travs
Verdungos (switch TGods makes you immune to basically everything that shoots lightning)
Lava Gouts (switch for Dracs if feeling fragile)

I've also got 3x pcombs and a a1 Faith merc.

Aura pulse kills everything in normal instantly and almost everything in nightmare too.

In hell the auras add enough elemental damage to your weapon that you can Charge for ~10k damage, Vengeance for ~15k and Zeal for ~9k so you aren't just stuck with one slow attack.

Resist Fire and Resist Lightning are both synergies of Holy Shock and Holy Fire as well as Vengeance so nothing is really lost or compromised by maxing both of them.

You could go 1 point Vengeance and max Resist Cold and dump the remaining in Salvation if you want since that is also a synergy of Vengeance, Holy Shock and Holy Fire but I don't know how this would compare to a max Vengeance build.

You could even 1 point Vengeance as a secondary attack and max Zeal or something (although I've been using 1 point Zeal quite alot and it destroys pretty much everything). Zeal is much better to use for proccing CTC effects like Enchant from Lave Gout and Life Tap from dracs but you could switch back to Vengeance if you wanted to once they are up. I don't really notice things dying any faster if I do that though.

It can be played more like a Savior in groups and I sometimes just flick between Resist Fire/Lightning Auras to help my homies whilst browsing firefox.

 

[sah]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

My Avenger is now 78 and is doing relatively well in Hell. This is the farthest I was able to get in D2 on my own. I play SP so I'm only using the items I've found with this char and my other chars. I was able to solo NM on players8, so that was exciting.

 

[mouseman1]

Re: The Avenger guide for V1.11.

Thanks for the great guide. The only thing missing for me is the MF options. I imagine an avenger would be quite good running pindle/nithla or the pits? Any other places? And where do you get your MF? War travelers and Gheed's? Well.. the first 100% is vastly the most important one.

You get some MF from Dream helm, which would give your avenger a good lightning damage boost, also.

Helm/Shield - Io Jah Pul

10% Chance To Cast Level 15 Confuse When Struck
Level 15 Holy Shock Aura When Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense
+10 To Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5% (Helms Only)
+50 To Life (Shields Only)
+0.625-61.875 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
All Resistances +5-20
12-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

I know that the Holy Shock aura gets synergies from Resist Lightning but are auras/skills from items affected by +skills? So if I have +10 to all skills and I equip a Dream helm do I actually get lvl 25 Holy Shock synergized with Resist Lightning? :O

I just figured that this piece of equipment would add a lot of damage to your attack and also some area damage this build is missing. I wouldn't go all out with double dreams and what not, but maybe more balanced.

And what's this I hear about avenger conviction countering ubermeph's conviction? I don't really get it because my own conviction doesn't apply to me so.. But afaik ubermeph is the real bad guy in ubertristram so if avenger's are able to counter that nasty conviction shouldn't it give them an advantage? Maybe have a stormlash on switch and zeal most of the ubers' health away since you are relatively safe (going with Guardian Angel and Holy Shield you'll have 95/95/95/90 res, high defense, fast max block) and finish with vengeance?