Best PvM Team?

[uHHwateVa]

Best PvM Team?

Yeah, as the title suggests, me and a friend are starting up a game of D2LOD, and we were wondering what would the best PvM team be, to beat the game, as well as eventually run Uber Trist... All suggestions are welcomed, but I'd really prefer if you could use two melee chars (e.x. smiter and werewolf)... Thanks in advance to all

 

[minamo]

Re: Best PvM Team?

2 smiters would work... one with conviction aura one with fanactism

 

[sweetalmonds]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Smiter+Summoner(nec) for trist

1point smite hdin instead of pure smiter would work much better for mobs and still be effective in ut.

 

[krischan]

Re: Best PvM Team?

I assume this is about being able to kill everything without help, not just selected targets. Smiters are bad in PvM, they cannot deal well with crowds and a pair of them will not do well versus PIs. You only need smite for tough bosses and übers and 1 point in it is enough, together with about 50% CB, lifetap (and massive excess res when fighting Über Meph). Also, two smiters don't benefit from the -res of conviction (except to counter Über Meph's aura, but that applies only to the one who uses it) and as smite always hits, they don't need the -%def effect from the aura as well. Even when using zeal versus crowds, they probably use Grief (by far the best smiter weapon) which has ITD and in that case, a L80+ character hits hit all regular enemies at the maximum of 95% of the time. That's before considering blocking, but the conviction bonus doesn't help at that as well.

All you have to do is covering 3 damage types (fire, cold, lightning, poison, magical, physical). Two of them should work well versus crowds and if the Ãœbers are involved, one of them should not be elemental.

A fana-zealot can do alone in Ãœber Tristram (his 1 point investment in smite is enough). In fact, it's easier if he is alone because no coordination between the players is needed then.

 

[NASE]

Re: Best PvM Team?

if you want to two melle characters that can do ubertrist. Your options are limited.
You need that paladin with smite. As it needs to be melle, you want a fanatic zealalot as that's by far the best in pvm.

Your second character need a non-physical, preferably without danger of taking the good weapons of your paladin - I'm assuming your aren't over twinked right? So i'd say you have these option:
Martial art asssasin possibly with some venom/other shadow skills.
Fire claw druid with a few summons - fire claw can use those many synergies.
Lightning amazon. has the advantage of being very strong at range too.

Most of the other characters don't really seem that interesting. If I had to chose, I'd go for the druid. It combines good extra tankability through oak, possibly grizzly and shockwave with decent damage from fire claw. And it doesn't need a good weapon, just give him the fastest stick you can find.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Fana zealot (1-point in smith handles uber) with Conv aura as backup.
Conv aura is juste to cancel uber meph aura and help against psysical immunes and of course help other char.
Zeal(20),Fana(20),Conv(10...20),Shield(10...20) and rest those one points wonders, and resist auras. And rest points goes to Sacrifice.
And get that Vigor too quite soon, helps a lot too, when no tele around.

Second melee char, kicker assa, can handle uberland alone too if needed, but good as team member for pala. Death sentry as backup. Very good backup and great group killers. Handles also all knights (so iron maiden is not problem for that melee team). Conv aura and trap backup handles all PI too.
With Dtalon(10...20),DeathSentry(20),LightningS(20) you have enough points to make great tank, ShadowMaster(10...20).

You need just medium items for this kind of team and both can solo all areas in game if needed when you got good items.

No resist problem, or immune problems for this kind of team. Both are fun to play and work nicely as team. Both are easy to start, and you don't need good items to start with if you play as team.
Both are little hard to start alone, but together they kill nicely all difficult levels, even without any starting items, aka untwinked.


Read Warrior-Monk guide in assa forum . Just made death sentry one, as its much faster lvl that way.
For Pala, check use Lawbringer, Gimmershred etc.. keyword to hunt conv aura builds. Its Fana zealot build that uses conv aura to handle PI and iron maiden areas. Both Gimmershred (throwing) or hitting with Lawbringer using Conv aura are good solution for Pala while in chaos.

And you just need to make couple corpses there as Death sentry deals rest, so Chaos runs are very fast. Proceed to next boss (baal) when got tired of milking Q drop bug from dia.

Main target for this kind of team is act4 and act5 bosses and travi. No tele needed for those and as both river and chaos and wsk2 and 3 are tc85 areas (all items can drop there), so getting decent items shouldn't be too hard.
Rince and repeat 1st in nmare then go right away to act4 and 5 in hell.

And as you play as team, milk that Q drop bug as much as possible along the way to get good items. Both dia and baal in nmare and hell are good targets for Q bug.

 

[helvete1]

Re: Best PvM Team?

I'd vote for fanatic zealot with 1pt smite and a berzerk barb. Warcries will make your lives so much easier, and the barb will benefit from fanat. Also, their gear won't necessarily be the same pieces, as could happen with two paladins.

 

[krischan]

Re: Best PvM Team?

In Tristram, the barb is just useful for warcries. Maybe he can zerk the PIs there (if he has a shield, else the ghosts will drain his mana all the time), but it's usually enough to BO the zealer and then do something more useful, like a Baal run while the zealer cares about Ãœber Tristam on his own, without having to care about rescuing party members :whistling:

 

[snickersnack]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Conv aura is juste to cancel uber meph aura and help against psysical immunes and of course help other char.

How does a conviction aura help a zealer with PIs?

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Best PvM Team?

How does a conviction aura help a zealer with PIs?

Of course it does nothing if zero elemental damage from items. But quite easy to get around 300-2000 elemental from items, then there is huge difference with Fana/Conv aura.
And conv aura helps a little against Iron maiden too, as no damage boost, so its little easier to pickup low damage weapon, that don't kill you. For example Lawbringer weapon is good enough for PI, if used with Conv aura.

Try difference with Gimmershred or any elemental damage weapon with Fana aura and Conv aura. And char is more party friendly if can use 2 auras.

For example I have made build that used Stormlash+Fana as main source of damage and then switch to Conv aura when PI are around. Duress, Ravens etc... all get boost from Conv aura, so it kill almost as fast PI as other monsters.

One good thing about Conv is that it cancels monsters own conv aura, so stacked resist are not needed. Works nicely against council members or later in uberland. Some bug still as that conv aura don't cancel those rare bosses conv aura all the time, but in 99% cases it does. Its bug or maybe some rare monsters have over lvl30 conv aura.

 

[Scudstorm]

Re: Best PvM Team?

over lvl30 conv aura.

How expensive is your build?

OP is just starting D2.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Best PvM Team?

How expensive is your build?

OP is just starting D2.

Conv aura is much cheaper than getting stacked resist for uberland. And its very good party aura too. And holy freeze merc with conv aura around gives nice safety. Imo its easier to start with conv aura than with Fana.
Conv aura takes only that 20...25 skill points, so building full fana zealot at same build is possible.

Conv zealot is quite good even those Nord's, Baranar's, Demon's, Djinn, Lightsabre, Gimmershred, Kuko etc... those drop quite often, much harder to get good Fana weapon.

Lvl 21 or 22 (get boosted later to lvl25) is enough after +skills, so around 15...18 hard points for starting char.


With that lvl30 I just tested that bug, but couldn't cancel aura. With Fight gear was only that lvl25.

But that fana/conv zealot wasn't expensive. Duress, Guillaume, Stormlash(selffound,Gimmershred as good). Duress,Gaze,Obedience merc. Just lots of crush and elemental damage.
That setup was for soloing full games, much much less needed for 2-player game, where other char is helping too.

But starting as untwinked, its hard way if both pure melee chars, as first Raven drop around lvl80. And you both need those.

 

[MYK]

Re: Best PvM Team?

It might be really neat to have a Fanatic Zealot and a Conviction Zeal/Avenger.

They both can switch between a big heavy hitter and a high elemental/low physical damage weapon. Both will have nice attack speeds Via Fanaticism.

That way you don't end up with a lame combination like Zon/Paladin or Hammerdin/Skelly Nec. Those builds are powerful, but pretty skewed as far as damage and involvement of one of the characters go.

 

[mephiztophelez]

Re: Best PvM Team?

You need that paladin with smite.

there are plenty of other builds capable of solo uber'in besides just smiters. don't get sucked into the belief that only smiters can do the ubers, it's just not true (although, i will concede that smiters have an easier time of things than most others)

if we're talking a team effort, the numbers of cheap and viable builds skyrockets.


my $0.02: a skelly'nec (with a point in all curses) and a kick/trap'sin is a pretty nice combo.

another combo is a Singer barb and a Kicker/Fury wolf/frenzy baba.

if you simply must use a smiter, i rekon a smealot*/necro combo can blat through pretty much everything.

*smealot: smiter/zealot hybrid, basically the 1pt smiter build in the pally forum.

 

[zionhuyga]

Re: Best PvM Team?

For mass destruction, Conviction Zealot with some kind of Sorc (Lightning best). Zealot tanks and provides aura (kinda like a merc) while Sorc blows through everything not unbreakable immune. In Ubers, Meph's Convic is canceled out and you can turn the Zealot into a 1-point Smiter. The Sorc will tele to the mini-ubers and life-tap ubers while keeping the minions down with lightning. Need to be careful with those Pit Lords though.

 

[Scudstorm]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Conv aura is much cheaper than getting stacked resist for uberland.

Weapon: Black, Thul + Io + Nef in 3o's flail.
Armor: Smoke, Nef + Lum in 2o's armor.
Shield: High res white pally shield socketed with 4 PDiamonds. Or PDiamond'ed Gris shield.
Helm: Guillaum's face, Tal's helm, Vamp gaze, whatever...
Gloves: Dracs if possible, if not Laying of hands (Tap will come from charges then)
Belt: Credenium, string of ears, whatever...
Boots: Gores if possible, or Goblin toe, Marrowwalk (life tap charges without weapon switch)
Jewlery: Rare and magic ones with res and probably leech. Easy to find.

CBF will come from either raven frost or death set's belt.

And, of course, 1 pt salvation when meph's aura is on.

Now tell me your "over lvl30 conv aura" gears that's cheaper than this

Ubers can be done dirt cheap, no matter what people tell you.

Also, as krischan said, when you cancel meph's conviction, it only helps the guy running conviction. So the other guy is still getting eaten alive.

On a less relevant note, you mention self-found stuff like Lightsabre and Stormlash... Bof. I can tell you I never found any of these for the first year and a half on bnet. Counting on finding the elite unique gear you want wouldn't get you anywhere. Trading is key

As for the best team, there are quite a few setups... one that would work for trist would be fana zealot with fishymancer. In general PvM, the Zealot will provide the first corpse real quick and BOOM!

 

[theBanger]

Re: Best PvM Team?

HoW fury wolf + cold hybrid multi zon sounds like it might be fun.

 

[NASE]

Re: Best PvM Team?

there are plenty of other builds capable of solo uber'in besides just smiters. don't get sucked into the belief that only smiters can do the ubers, it's just not true (although, i will concede that smiters have an easier time of things than most others).

I'm note, though smiters are a lot easier and much cheaper. And that's what they are after. Alone the huge ar some other builds makes smiting that much more interesting as it autohit.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Now tell me your "over lvl30 conv aura" gears that's cheaper than this

Ubers can be done dirt cheap, no matter what people tell you.

Also, as krischan said, when you cancel meph's conviction, it only helps the guy running conviction. So the other guy is still getting eaten alive.

As for the best team, there are quite a few setups... one that would work for trist would be fana zealot with fishymancer. In general PvM, the Zealot will provide the first corpse real quick and BOOM!

You mentioned good options, you can go even cheaper.
Wizpike, Guillaume, Pdiamond shield,Rare amu,Gore Boots,+1CBF armor and Conv aura, and life tap wand, those are enough. Why over 30, as lvl21 or 22 is enough to cancel aura. You can use spirit for lvl25 aura for normal play.

And for 30, then HeavenLight and 1-3 skiller are needed, but why over 22 in tristram, when using smith anyway, not zeal. Surely can get it over 40, but whats the points, its like having 300 stacked resist, no point in pvm.

I agree, uber is easy for smither. One crush source, open wounds source, resist and life tap wand. Getting keys and bodyparts is much harder for new team.

And those cheap ones I mentioned, those drop often and Lightsabre is maybe rarest in those and that is dropped over 20 for me along the years.
Stormlash is very rare only 1-2 of those and it wasn't in cheap option.
Odd that you haven't found any of those 6-8 items, those should drop quite often.

I stand corrected if that conv aura only works with char, not party. At least merc gets that bonus, but only usefull outside tristram. Then its not party friendly aura.

And surely fishy works with fana pala. 2-4 skeletons (high lvl, not those lvl4 ones) should be enough. So pala can at least see something. But not a real melee team member. And melee necro is quite hard to make.

 

[PFSS]

Re: Best PvM Team?

Yeah, as the title suggests, me and a friend are starting up a game of D2LOD, and we were wondering what would the best PvM team be, to beat the game, as well as eventually run Uber Trist... All suggestions are welcomed, but I'd really prefer if you could use two melee chars (e.x. smiter and werewolf)... Thanks in advance to all

If you're just starting out then I would recommend having two chars for regular game play and then having a third char for Uber Trist. Once you get two hell ready PvM chars you'll be able to glitch rush a third Uber Killing Smiter without any trouble at all.

I would strongly recommend having a Sorceress for your PvM team (unless you have access to an Enigma) as Teleport will add so much to your speed.

A team I reckon would work well (assuming a budget build):

Frozen Orb Sorc (Max Orb, Ice Bolt, Enchant, Warmth - 1 point in tele+static, fire mastery, cold armor of choice, rest into cold mastery)
+
Summon Necro

This is a great combo for several reasons:

Both characters can start pumping in skills right away - from Level 1 the necro just pumps RS and SM while the Sorc just pumps Ice Bolt.
You can quickly shop +1/2/3 wands/staves with these killing skills when starting out.
Great safety with the army you will have
Good safety with the "Slow" on all monsters that are not Cold Immune
You get good Cold, Physical and Fire damage
You both end up with spammable "Kill Everything on the Screen at Once" Skills
Gear is pretty cheap
Good combination of offensive vs defensive
Great Crowd control
Both Characters are Active


Other good, cheap, combinations:

Any other Sorc + Summon Necro
Met-Orb Sorc + Light Sorc
Cold / Fire Sorc (with a point in Enchant) + Multishot Zon with LF/CS on switch.
Cold / Fire Sorc + Light Zon
Light/Fire Sorc + Conviction Pally (kinda dull for the pally)
Any Sorc + Barb with BO
Any Sorc + Bone Necro
Any Sorc + Hammerdin (Boooooo!)
Sorc + Zealot/Frost Zealot


Mercs:

1 Prayer merc with Insight, 1 might Merc with Obedience for Summon Necro / Physical Damage char combinations.
or
1 Prayer merc with Insight, 1 HF Merc with Reapers Toll/Obedience for others.

The thing is, most melee characters are pretty gear dependent. If you must go melee/melee I would suggest:

Smite + Fanaticism with Zealot + Concentration
Smite + Fanaticism with Frost Zealot
Smite + Fanatacism + Frenzy Barb

One should have a Might Merc with reapers toll and the other should have a prayer merc with insight.