A (very) belated Guardian post - Calabi the Passion-wielding Passive Zon

[Pb_pal]

Well, this is a little embarassing.

Calabi was my very first Guardian, and she actually killed Baal back in 2015 but.... I never did a proper writeup for her. Bit of a blast from the past, but better late than never, right?

She was my entrant in the Passive Aggressive Tournament and was played as a prototypical Passivezon. The original plan was to use swords, but she swtiched to 2-h axes later on, and then a fortunate drop allowed her a nice end-game weapon in Passion. If you want to read her entire journey, @Grisu has migrated the whole thing in the link above, but I took the liberty of parsing out her Hell journey. Here it is for those interested:

Act 1:

Spoiler

Update 1
Update 2
Update 3
Update 4

Act 2:

Spoiler

Update 1
Update 2
Update 3

Act 3:

Spoiler

Update 1
Update 2

Act 4:

Spoiler

Update 1

Act 5:

Spoiler

Update 1
Update 2
Update 3

That's a lot of reading, so let's summarize shall we? First, some gear and info:

Main Switch

* Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Death Mask (Socketed with a Perfect Ruby)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate
* Chromatic (26@res) Amulet of Luck (30% MF)
* Rare rings with various resists/AR/PDR/MDR
* 100% monster flee Balanced Knife (this has gotten me out of more trouble than I care to admit)
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield
* Athletic (+3 P/M skills) Light Gauntlets of Readiness (10%ias)
* Russet (16%FR) War Belt of the Squid (+72 life)
* Gore Rider War Boots

Fighting switch:

* 'Passion' Feral Axe

A bunch of life/res charms

Summary of Bonuses:
- 10% OW
- 15% CB
- 15% Deadly Strike
- 62% Critical Strike
- 54% Dodge
- 60% Avoid
- Maxed resistances on shield switch, 69/70/73/51 on axe switch
- 3510 AR with Kasim's Aura (76% cth Hell Bovine)
- 38% chance to block with 'Rhyme'
- 55% MF on Shield switch (30% with the axe)
- 12FPA with Berserk, 8/9/9/9/14 with Zeal
- +3 Passive and Magic Skills

Merc:
Blessed Aim Town Guard
* Tal Rasha's Crest (Guillaume's Face for boss fights)
* 'Lionheart' Gothic Plate
* 'Insight' Colossus Voulge

Areas skipped: 0
Monsters parked: 0

And some of my favourite gameplay screenies of her adventure:

A fully synergized Valk maked an excellent door stop. A merc does not (here he is on his way to a dirt nap)

Some fun with Slow Missiles in the Drifter Cavern. What a great skill for these areas!

Poison Vipers are usually a ticket right out of Nihl's floor, but with an apparently poison-immune Valk, her full-clear remained intact:

Don't forget about CE though. How's this for a NDE?

Did I mention the Valk was strong?

Baal's last stand:

Some thoughts
- I love Passive Zons, they are super durable and it's an interesting style to play. Top-tier choice for tournament characters, at least in terms of survivability. If you can find a decent weapon, you're golden.
- The Valk. It simply wouldn't have been possible without her. A maxed valk is essentially unkillable, and beign recastable on a whim makes her an absolutely invaluable resource.
- She managed a full-clear of the game, and is currently my only character to ever accomplish that, so that's cool.
- The axe was awesome, I was lucky to find the ingredients for it and it certainly was worth the wait. She was by no means a fast killer, but she was consistent.


Thanks for reading! I'll try to be a bit more prompt next time.

 

[maxicek]

Congratulations, very cool Guardian. Passive Zons are great, especially with Berserk, Zeal (or Vengeance BC.)

Did you mainly Zerk or Zeal?

 

[Pb_pal]

Almost only Zerk. I'm not an enormous fan of Zeal in HC situations (he says as he's currently running a zealot in a HC tournament) and I liked the stability for Zerk for the 'get-out-whenever-you-can' aspect.

I will need to try a zon zealot at some point though, they do look fun...

 

[maxicek]

I’m planning a Zealazon at the moment, trouble is they seem to be quite slow with Zeal. Faith helps hugely though.

Good choice for Berserk, it almost fits too well for the passivezon.

 

[Nona]

What a great character and the first one is always special. Congrats!

 

[DaveWThe2nd]

Nice job pb_pal, but that Halls of Vaught screenie is too cray cray for HC! lol I may try one of these based on your write up and that you said the char is quite durable which is a must in HC!

 

[Zyr]

Calabi was my very first Guardian, and she actually killed Baal back in 2015 but.... I never did a proper writeup for her. Bit of a blast from the past, but better late than never, right?

AFAIC, your timing was perfect. It came at exactly the right time to nudge me into re-examining my long-stagnant Passionately Berserk Lancer and make some changes, with promising results.

Spoiler: Wall o' text re only tangentially related, totally twinked battle.net character

After rereading about Calabi (I had previously read all of the Passive Aggressive Tournament thread: Great concept, great adventures!), I was inspired to take Victor_Victoria into Hell Act I. I was not happy. Both Berserk and Lightning damage seemed adequate, but she was OUCHY! I was swilling potions constantly even when not Berserking, and constantly aware that a single hot key mistake could easily lose her again. This was not fun.

I recently found myself in a position to respec one of my Barbs into a "Grief" PB-wielding Zerker with 91 iDR, and while it's early days yet (he's 76), he has had no such difficulty. As advised by several players in the P/M/G compendium, he's accompanied by a Combat "Insight" toter. Victor's merc was of the Might persuasion, and was wielding an eth "Passion" CV. I thanked him for his service, made a Normal game, and hired Emilio, one of Fara's Prayerful disciples, to whom I gave a "Lionheart"Great Hauberk, Guillaume's Face, and a non-eth "Insight" CV. Then I replaced Victor's existing amulet (+1 Zon skills, 20@, 25 LR) with a Chromatic (21) Amulet of Life Everlasting (20) and juggled a few charms. Venturing back into Hell Act I, I found I was now MUCH more comfortable playing her. Depending on how things go, I could double her iDR simply by sticking a Thul in the Iron Pelt personalized for her predecessor, at the cost of two levels of LS and CS. So I'm now cautiously optimistic about Victor's future.

So thanks for taking your time posting the writeup. BTW, I'm not seeing a skill point allocation. I'm wondering why Victor's Berserk AR is so much higher than Calabi's.

 

[Pb_pal]

So thanks for taking your time posting the writeup. BTW, I'm not seeing a skill point allocation. I'm wondering why Victor's Berserk AR is so much higher than Calabi's.

Glad she could provide some inspiration!

Skills are fairly straightforward.
20 Valk, Decoy, Penetrate
11 Critical Strike
14 Dodge
10 Avoid
1 in the rest of the PM tree

As for the AR difference, better gear maybe? Calabi didn't have much gear focused on AR as I relied on the aura from the merc to get me connecting hits.

 

[Grisu]

Don't forget about CE though. How's this for a NDE?

Maybe pressing 2,3, or 4 instead of Print button would have been wiser? Well, at least safer...

Well, congratulations are a bit belated, too, I guess? But great writeup! Good to see that BA merc was enough! Often the huge +% isn't enough if you don't find enough hard points, but you obviously got there! And yes, Valkyrie is aweseome and one of the best tournament skills.