Sebbie said:
Ah yeah conviction is truely an incredible aura man. With 1000 attack rating and max conviction you will hit at about 80%. Even for a zealot I would consider it.
As Warlock points out, fanatism is a natural fit for a zealot (speed + damage). But it all comes down to the % to hit. If the % to hit is pretty bad with fanat then conviction may be better. Regardless of what it is, I am pretty certain that the avenger is the most powerful melee char (probably including barbarians--but I don't count WW as true melee) right now.
On another note, the hammerdin is the most powerful char in the game IMO. I guess you guys already realize this but I finally came around to this conclusion. The fact that the hammerdin is a powerful spellcaster with no immunities against him (not entirely sure about magical immunes but most of them are undead (zombies in act 2)) and the fact that he gets 3 health for every vit makes him untouchable IMO.
Lately I played alot with my hammerdin and he is level 83 and he has found numerous helpfull gear for my other characters. With 0 or 72 mf might I add! Mf is overrated in my opinion.
Yeah, magic find is kind of overrated. It still helps but it isn't THAT big of a deal. I think magic find mattered a lot years ago when very few monsters dropped rares and chests were next to useless. Nowadays I find that rare drops are more often, along with better drops from chests/stash/etc. Good luck with your hammerdin--it should make up for all the difficulties with all the other types of paladins
I don't really have a magic find char in hell. I presently use my strafer amazon (level 71) with something like 235% magic find on nightmare diablo. This means I find a ton of normal uniques but few exceptional items
Now got a 38-98 bow (not a gothic) for my strafer which is a blast to play by the way. That bow has both poison and cold damage. Has also life leech. It's really neat. Act 2 now. Level 60. She pretty much dies in 1 hit! But she uses rattle and face of horror with a valk so in theory if I play smart she doesn't get hit :thumbsup:
My amazon has low vitality too. I think mine is higher cuz I have some points in vitality while, if I remember, you have base vitality. I think health is overrated for amazons. I have slvl 20 valkyrie and as long as you strategically place yourself behind the valk, you are fine. I don't need monster flee (I can't remember if you have a valk or not; if you have one, dump the monster flee and try playing). The only big problem (note that I'm not in act4/hell yet) are the gloams (one hit and I'm toast
). If you don't have a valk and ever rebuild an amazon, try the valk; she's great...
My bow is something like a 110 or 120 dmg long siege bow (?)--same speed as gothic bow--with cold dmg and poison (no leech though). But she still sucks. My average damage is something like 250 (I think it's 100-400).
BTW, I'm building a low dex amazon (frost maiden, with freezing arrow). Have you ever used freezing arrow? You think it's viable? I thought strafer was better than a frost maiden but I'm not so sure anymore. I totally forgot about the splash damage. I don't know. It'll be an interesting build... it'll follow the path of my avenger, with massive mana problems (likely have to drink one mana potion every couple of monsters) but she may turn out to be the best amazon...
Also got a 118 damage naga for my frost zealot but in the end its a 125% ED crowbill with 20% IAS that he uses. Coupled with twich and sig glove he has reached that frightning attack rate that zealots are so reknown for. His resists are weak but now he kills at a acceptable rate. He uses goblin toe and snakecord if I am not mistaken. With angi amu and 1 ring... Yeah attack rating is so complicated for Paladins.
How are you finding hell? Is holy freeze worth it? I know damagewise it sucks but the slowdown effect should help...
If I would redo a melee din I would try this one :
conviction 20, sacrifice 20, zeal 20, vengence 1, holy shield 20, defiance rest
That way with basicly minimum attack rating from gear the to hit would be really high. That would leave room to wearning neat peace of equipment. Resist gear with low attack rating. Or gear that gives you a big return but lacks attack rating. Like rattlecage or eye of etlitch for example. Perhaps even full iratha.
I think an avenger would sitll do more damage (but with big mana problems). According to my calculations, my martyr will end up with similar damage as my avenger (remember that sacrifice as a main skill plus synergies gives high damage). One of the reasons an avenger holds up is beause the minus resists from conviction should be multiplied by 3 to get the real damage (since vengence does all 3 elements). The avenger also gets the neat benefit of having resist lightn/fire/cold as synergies, which means +max resistence
If you want a fun build, try an avenger. Mana will drive you insane but he'll survive...
Also played a bit with the beserker. I maxed mastery at first to level up faster and now I got beserk but I am now pouring all the points in howl. It's that good. Problem I had b4 raising howl was that he would get into block lock quickly. I use twich + 3dt as usual. So I tried steeldriver and he was getting beat up pretty badly although he would kill fast too. That was a bit better. So I decided to proceed in maxing out howl first since if it was too low level to work. It's truely a amazing crowd control spell. Incredible. He basicly beats on fleeing monsters! It's like cheating.
Sounds fun... Does that war cry depend on monster level? In other words, would high level monsters (in hell) also flee? If I had to build a barb, I would probably try to use the totem pole (or whatever that's called). No one uses it but it sounds strategic
rop: 
