avenger

[MeaningOfLife]

avenger

Started an avenger (paladin) a few weeks ago. He's in act 1 hell and it's a lot of fun. The real test (melee is so hard in hell) is just starting but it's a lot of fun. I have a holy shock zealot and a bowazon but they are too weak to proceed.

I imbued an ornate and ended up with good mods (something like 700+ def and dual 20+ fire & lightn resists). It'll be interesting to see how my char holds up. Since I went for strength, my health is low. But to compensate for that I'm going high resists (using iratha set + paladin resist passives)...

Mana is a huge problem so I"m not sure how to proceed on that front. Basically vengence is a mana hog, and with mana leech being very weak (vengence dmg is elemental so physical dmg to leech off of is low), I'm basically drinking one mana potion for every monster (yikes! )...

How many of you play melee chars in hell difficulty (Hammerdins and WW barbs don't count)? I'm wondering how your char is doing and what your set up is...

 

[Sebbie]

I fiddled quite a bit with paladins and problem I see with the avenger is that when he gets swarmed he can't do anything as he is stuck in block/stun lock. With Zeal at least you are uninterrupable. You deal damage and in the end you can get out of those messy spots.

The way I see it for a melee character you need the following things (especially if you solo) :
1. handle being swarmed
2. have humongous resists
3. have enough life leech to survive
4. deal enough damage to actually kill. This includes having enough attack rating to actually hit

So the char I was thinking about for a while was the following. And it's a avenger with actually only 1 point in vengence!

SKILLS
20 holy shield
20 defiance
20 conviction
4 zeal
1 vengence
sink the rest in fire resist aura

STATS
high power (125 to 170?), no dex and rest to vitality

GEAR (affordable gear!)
huge 1 handed dmg weapon. Like a 150% battle hammer with some attack speed on it. This is of course the most important part... How much is that worth anyway?
buy like a 800+ defense ornate plate from a npc!
sigon helm + glove + belt. Death sash if you can afford... how much is it worth anyway?
goblin toe
3 perfect diamond shield (a high defense version)
rings + ammys with resists, attack rating and and some mana leech in there

Be warned though this build is not tested! But I think it could work. It's a slow and steady approach to dealing damage. Having a huge defense enables you to actually get your vengence hits away. I can only think of thoses hideous swarms of ghosts in the arcane sanctuary where they leech away all your mana. Awfull. That's why high block and defense might work.

By the way conviction helps both zeal and vengence. You destroy your enemy's defense where he is left with something like 200 defense and you hit him with like 1000 attack rating and connect at high percentage. And I personnaly think it's one of the best party aura. Leveling up with sorceress should go well

Tell me what you think about it

 

[MeaningOfLife]

I fiddled quite a bit with paladins and problem I see with the avenger is that when he gets swarmed he can't do anything as he is stuck in block/stun lock. With Zeal at least you are uninterrupable. You deal damage and in the end you can get out of those messy spots.

Yeah, avengers have no crowd control whatsoever. Even back in the old days when melee chars were viable, avengers had difficulties (unless they went for holy freeze). The way I'm going to be playing is to use tactics and lots of micromanaging to overcome those problems (eg. advance a little at a time, attack at doorways, etc). Even zealots nowadays have crowd control problems (back in the old days they would use iceblink for instance).

I see people trying some interesting stuff now though. For instance, I just saw a martyr (sacrifice) with holy shock yesterday. Not sure how viable that is but it must do massive damage.

The way I see it for a melee character you need the following things (especially if you solo) :
1. handle being swarmed
2. have humongous resists
3. have enough life leech to survive
4. deal enough damage to actually kill. This includes having enough attack rating to actually hit

Pretty much covers the key requirements for good melee chars... I'm new to the new version of diablo (I'm a old time expert though) and based on my experience so far, I would put less weight on #3 and the AR part of #4. I could be mistaken but I think life leech is next to useless now. I haven't seen anyone have enough leech to make THAT much of a difference. For avengers life leech is even more useless since most of the damage is (non-leechable) elemental damage.

Part of what I'm doing is a bit of a test but right now I'm going for resists #1, shield blocking #2, and life #3.

I don't know if it's worth the trade-off (since it takes a lot of item slots) but I'm using iratha set. With resist lightn and fire, my resists are something like 90/70/90/75 right now. The set may not be viable later on (not sure yet) and if so I might switch to higher def items with more defense and life.

So the char I was thinking about for a while was the following. And it's a avenger with actually only 1 point in vengence!

SKILLS
20 holy shield
20 defiance
20 conviction
4 zeal
1 vengence
sink the rest in fire resist aura

Is the level 4 zeal for leeching back mana? It seems like a waste to me...

One point in vengence may not be viable. My level 60ish(?) avenger in act1/hell just does enough damage with level 20 vegence + level 10 resist lighn + level 10 resist fire (res are synergies) (weapon is max 100 dmg naga). Single player games are ok but 4+ player games just does enough damage so far. But I should note that I have massive mana problems and literally drink one potion per monster

My impression is that damage is more important than defense in hell difficulty. My holy shock zealot wasn't doing enough damage and that is something I want to avoid. So I think it is more preferable to pump up vengence and the synergies (res fire/lightn/etc) than to go for defiance and holy shield. However, as a tank-type avenger, your set up can work (especially in team games) but I'm not sure if you can do enough damage.

I would also prefer resist lightning to resist fire. Personally I'm going with 10 points in each but it's really up to you (initially I was going to go 4 points in fire, cold, and lightn but changed my mind).

STATS
high power (125 to 170?), no dex and rest to vitality

I am going with 170 strength (ornate; also like the extra physical dmg) at the expense of health. If you are going for defense then high strength is a must (unless you can find a godly ornate with good mods and -requirements or something).

For my char I might have made a mistake with dex. I put something like 20 or 30 points into dex even though conviction is my main aura. I did this because I thought I wouldn't have enough AR (I wasn't planning to take conviction to 20 but now I think I will go as high as I can). If I restart my char, I would probably go with what you are saying (base dex).

All of the rest of my attribute points are going into vitality.

GEAR (affordable gear!)
huge 1 handed dmg weapon. Like a 150% battle hammer with some attack speed on it. This is of course the most important part... How much is that worth anyway?

I think it starts getting pricy past 100% enhanced damage. But some items are not as popular (some swords, axes, etc) so I guess one can find it. In the worst case you can always attempt to imbue. I'm using something like a 30-100 dmg naga. Unless I can trade for something better, I will likely end up with this weapon as my final weapon. One thing to note is that axes (eg. naga) don't have dex requirement (in contrast, swords do so stuff like ancient/rune swords are out of the question).

buy like a 800+ defense ornate plate from a npc!

I imbued mine with a good result. I would imbue and go with that (assuming it's not horrible) because even if you get a slightly lower def (say 700+), you might have resists or +life mods on that. Even though your build would be defensive, I would probably pick 30+ life, or 15%+ resists, over 100 more defense. But Iwould want to do a simple calculation first though (how much holy shield and defiance boost 100 def vs the resists/other potential mods).

sigon helm + glove + belt. Death sash if you can afford... how much is it worth anyway?

Set items are kind of cheap (there doesn't a day go by without someone offering a sigon item; death sash is harder to find though) so it is viable. I'm playing without "cannot be frozen" and it sucks badly but I'm going with that (since I'm weariing the full iratha; also don't want to give up armour for hawkmail or something like that).

goblin toe

Gob toe may not be worth it. Crushing blow is really good if you strike a lot of times (eg. zealots, ww barbs, etc) or against physically immune (not a problem for avengers) but otherwise I'm not sold on it. If I can get a moderately good boot (say 30%+ resist or something) then I would prefer that.

3 perfect diamond shield (a high defense version)

Right now I'm using 3 pdiamond tower shield but now that holy shield is fairly high, I will probably dumb that and go for 3pdiamond ancient shield or pavise. If you are going for defense, you would want grim shield but that only has max 2 sockets.

rings + ammys with resists, attack rating and and some mana leech in there

Yep...

Be warned though this build is not tested! But I think it could work. It's a slow and steady approach to dealing damage. Having a huge defense enables you to actually get your vengence hits away. I can only think of thoses hideous swarms of ghosts in the arcane sanctuary where they leech away all your mana. Awfull. That's why high block and defense might work.

The problem is that you probably wont' do much damage. I just can't see level 1 vengence being viable (even if you play 1 player games, I'm not sure you can kill act4 monsters).

By the way conviction helps both zeal and vengence. You destroy your enemy's defense where he is left with something like 200 defense and you hit him with like 1000 attack rating and connect at high percentage. And I personnaly think it's one of the best party aura. Leveling up with sorceress should go well

I made some mistakes with my char; one of them being conviction. Initially I was going to take it to 20 (like in the old days). Then I fell love with resist lightning and fire and though conviction wasn't worth it because it only lowers def by like 1% and resist by 5% (after the first 5 or 6 points). So I only put in like 5 or 6 points. Why put a point here when I can boost vengence dmg by 10% for each point in resist fire/lighn/cold? But I didn't realize that I made a mistake with my calculation. Since conviction lowers enemy res by 5% for each point, and since vengence does fire, lightn, AND cold damage, you actually end up doing 15% more dmg per point (roughly). So I sort of regret not maxing conviction before going crazy with res fire/lightning. If I were to re-do my char, I would max conviction before putting too many points into res fire/lightn or even holy shield (I'm taking Holy Shield to something like 6 or 7).

Tell me what you think about it

It's an interesting build. You will probably be one of the best tanks (if you can also get high resists somehow). You might even end up having more defense than a typical barbarian (never thought it was possible in the old days). BUT your damage will be HORRIBLE--I think.

Your build will probably be much tougher to play than mine since, even though I will get hit more, it doesn't matter if one in two attacks are interrupted if I can do 2x your damage (just as an example).

 

[goomba1]

*snip*
I could be mistaken but I think life leech is next to useless now. I haven't seen anyone have enough leech to make THAT much of a difference.
*snip*

on my WW barb, with angellic armor, one angellic ring, and ammy, life leach has kept me alive, and/or restored that red life bulb many times in herds of cows, or against the council's in travincal/durance.

you are mostly right tho, most people will just juv/red pot if they see their life falling too quickly.

 

[Monzee]

I have to agree with you on that Goomba. My barb uses a similar setup: 2angelic rings, amulet, armor, 272% bonesnap, 3Ptopaz grand crown, dual leech gloves with low FR+CR +33mana (only source of leech) and 30% frw 2*25+ res boots (LR+FR). Obviously my res isnt the best. As the matter of fact it is 75%FR 36%CR 25%LR -X%PSN res :undecided: Anyhow, I still manage to do travi, the battlemaid, stormtree, fire eye, + sometimes cs runs solo.. all while only being lvl 76 so I hope that my res will go up as I reach the higher lvls :wink3:

 

[MeaningOfLife]

on my WW barb, with angellic armor, one angellic ring, and ammy, life leach has kept me alive, and/or restored that red life bulb many times in herds of cows, or against the council's in travincal/durance.

you are mostly right tho, most people will just juv/red pot if they see their life falling too quickly.

I should have narrowed down my comment. You are right in saying that life leech helps. However, I think it is not that useful for melee chars. There are two big reasons life leech works on WW barbs but not for typical melee chars. First of all, WW does multiple hits in a short period of time so you can leech back quite a bit. Secondly, WW with a 2h weapon does huge physical damage. This basically means that even if you only have 5% life leech, it may be noticeable. In contrast, most melee chars use 1 handed weapons and the damage is low (hence the life leech is quite low). I am open to being wrong but I have tested around 6% to 10% life leech on my melee chars and I don't find it that useful.

BTW, how much leech do you guys have?

 

[Sebbie]

In reply to KoalaBearThirtyThree:

Yep not doing enough damage is a concern for sure! Maybe you are right what I described was more a tank more then anything.

But I personnaly think Zeal is superior to Vengence and see Vengence as a way to deal with physical immunes. And Zeal and cb is gravy. Maybe am wrong but I want cb on all my melee chars. And Vengence is so fricking mana hungry. I mean you sink skills points in there and it gets worst. And when you are interrupted swinging you loose mana while not dealing damage at all. Think about those hords of ghost in act2 seriously. That's part of the theory for the huge defense.

With high defense and high conviction you raise your connects so you mana leech and crushing blow more often while spending less mana. Raising vengence is a double edged sword.

But I must admit now I may have to build this thing after all Perhaps to see it go horribly wrong! Maybe I'll need some prevent monster heal if the damage output is too low. Or sink even more points in power to deal more physical damage... But for sure you should not compare with the damage a uninteruppable WW does. That's how it goes. And I personnaly get swarmed pretty fast in 1.11. I wan't my character to be able to handle those bad spots at the expense of being slow at the easier spots of the game.

my 2 cents

 

[MeaningOfLife]

In reply to KoalaBearThirtyThree:
But I personnaly think Zeal is superior to Vengence and see Vengence as a way to deal with physical immunes. And Zeal and cb is gravy. Maybe am wrong but I want cb on all my melee chars. And Vengence is so fricking mana hungry. I mean you sink skills points in there and it gets worst. And when you are interrupted swinging you loose mana while not dealing damage at all.

I think you are more of a zealot than an avenger. Is the 20 points in resist fire for vengence synergy? Not sure what your resist points are for.


In the old days (say before 1.09), zealots were far superior to avengers. But I'm not too sure anymore. I haven't done any calculations but avengers may actually do more damage now that there are resist synergies (not sure though; zeal has some good aura combos too) and physically immune monsters.

I have max vengence right now and, yes, mana is a huge problem. The worst of all are mana burn unique monsters. Even those little Carvers are a nightmare if they have mana burn. I have historically played zealots over avengers and mana burn monsters were never my public enemy #1 (Even if my mana goes to zero, I usually get it back within 2 swings with zeal). I basically drink one mana potion per monster right now I can live with it but it requires way too much micromanaging (literally have to have half the inventory with mana potions, which cost 900(?) per potion; constantly drink; etc). I'll looking into solutions but I'm limited due to me wearing the full iratha set. My choices now are to look for mana leech rings or weapon.

Think about those hords of ghost in act2 seriously. That's part of the theory for the huge defense.

I'm not in act2 with my avenger yet. But I don't anticipate much problem because vengence does massive elemental damage and I can probably kill them in a reasonable amount of time (note that the ghosts are physically immune so if you were a zealot you would probably have more problems). My enemies are going to be mana burn monsters and ranged mana leeching monsters (act4).

With high defense and high conviction you raise your connects so you mana leech and crushing blow more often while spending less mana. Raising vengence is a double edged sword.

It's a tough call. Gob toe gives, what, 25% probability crushing blow. A reasonably good alternative boot would give, say, dual 20%+ resist or one 30%+ life, with some other mods. CB is good for zealots but I wonder how much it helps avengers. I might test this out but so far I'm attempting to get some good rare boots.

But I must admit now I may have to build this thing after all Perhaps to see it go horribly wrong! Maybe I'll need some prevent monster heal if the damage output is too low. Or sink even more points in power to deal more physical damage... But for sure you should not compare with the damage a uninteruppable WW does. That's how it goes. And I personnaly get swarmed pretty fast in 1.11. I wan't my character to be able to handle those bad spots at the expense of being slow at the easier spots of the game.

It's an interesting build. I think it will be fun but I'm just concerned that you won't do enough damage. Maybe you should try a defensive zealot and see how that goes. Instead of 20 points into resist fire, you can probably put that into something that boosts zeal (sacrifice?). You won't be able to handle physically immune monsters though...

Another alternative is to go purely defensive by going for holy freeze. Max holy freeze, along with super-high defense, and max blocking will almost mean that you will probably take half to 1/3 the damage of a typical melee paladin. You won't have conviction as your main aura so you have to get your AR up somehow. Perhaps the best attack skill in this case is smite. I'm not sure what the max smite dmg is but it may be viable.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Life leech...

I tested some life leech with my avenger and it is useless to me. I have around 10% life leech (something like 6% from weapon and 3% from each ring) and it is negligible. Note that avengers' damage is mostly eleemental so it may work for zealots and others but my avenger sees no benefit.


Mana leech on the other hand may work. I'm not sure yet but with around 3% mana leech, I actually notice some difference. If I can boost it to around 8%, I wonder if it will help my mana problems.

 

[Sebbie]

Yah on that build I was talking about it would probably deal dismal damage. And yeah fire resist aura was for synergy for vengence as well as giving a bonus to max resist fire resist. Basicly using Zeal most of the time and vengence to kill off PI. But too little damage so forgot about it.

I really think maxing conviction is important though. Regardless of the build we are talking about. Per point you basicly boost 15% damage to vengence and raise your connects on top of it at no extra cost of mana. Monsters have like 2500 defense in hell and are often higher level then you. Don't know if you are familiar with the to hit calculation but lowering their defense as most as you can is really good. Awesome party aura too.

But for your mana problem it looks pretty hectic. Vengence cost like 10 mana per swing? Pretty impossible to leech that back. Monster block some of your attack, some of your swing miss, they resist physical and some have some leech resist if am not mistaken... And your physical damage is about 3 times your weapon damage so it's not enough.

Maybe redemption or damage goes to mana? Mana regen with loads of mana items. I dunno. Just some ideas. That's a bit the idea with zeal and leech you zeal your mana back and vengence away afterword. Just some thoughts! Those are not precise solutions but just some ideas floating around :smiley:

 

[Fearlessone]

Started an avenger (paladin) a few weeks ago. He's in act 1 hell and it's a lot of fun. The real test (melee is so hard in hell) is just starting but it's a lot of fun. I have a holy shock zealot and a bowazon but they are too weak to proceed.
How many of you play melee chars in hell difficulty? I'm wondering how your char is doing and what your set up is...

You only have 11 posts? But your name is awfully familiar, from one or another of the forums. I think you posted tons over on the pally forum years ago. I used to do that on the barb forum, but after the expansion, I became almost completely obsolete. Items took over, pushing aside any info about quests or strategy or gameplay tactics.

I recently finally made my first paladin in classic in 4 years. 1.10 ruined most classic builds. I had noticed that some smiters seemed to do well even in the cs, they were in the early lvl 80's. So the smiter it was!

He is full smite/HS/fan. Also lots in cleansing to clear decrep curse in less than 3 seconds (69% time redux). Some in conversion and a good bit in Holy Freeze for crowd control when swarmed. These short-lived converts allow me to make perhaps a kill, and they usually are the ones cursed too. I always attack the most annoying monsters first, either the oblivions or some reviver or mana burning mage. Battle orders in the cs is a must.

He uses either the Generals flail or clegs gloves for slowdown effect. This seems to be absolutely essential to maintain an aggressive stance in cs games, where the 2-6 mages onscreen MUST be slowed down and/or stunned at all times to avoid repeated IronMaiden. Then I make a few converts to divert their attention, and begin to work on killing them consecutively. I also use twitch and perhaps sigons gloves for ias, goblin toes which seem to work quite well with bosses, perhaps a grim helm with resists (wormskull for poison didnt seem to work with smite).

Vengence/fan to kill a physical immune pretty much requires a weapon switch to a stronger weapon.

There is usually a conc pally near, and often a decrep or amp'ing necro. My necro usually casts lower resists for his pnova spell. That would be wonderful to have for a vengence pally, but its rare to see. Also, fan pallys late in hell are rare too.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

You only have 11 posts? But your name is awfully familiar, from one or another of the forums. I think you posted tons over on the pally forum years ago.

Yes, I used to post a lot a few years ago. I was even a minor administrator of the paladin forum. So you are an old timer eh? Nice to meet you. So how are things? I don't recall your name but I'm sure I would have read one of your mesages on the barbarian forum...

I used to do that on the barb forum...

A dumb barb huh? just/kidding I remember when barbs used to rule... those spear-wielding barbs with massive damage... paladins came nowhere near the barbarians and the only thing paladins can say was that the barbs were a dumb class and we were the smart class ahh the memories...

...but after the expansion, I became almost completely obsolete. Items took over, pushing aside any info about quests or strategy or gameplay tactics.

I sort of stopped playing around the time the expansion came out. Not because of the game but because of personal reasons (graduated from unviersity and didn't have free time to play on bnet). So I never really played the expansion (one of my friends had it and I played it a bit but not an expert by any means). I started Diablo II a few months ago for nostalgic reasons I guess. I never played patch 1.10+ before so it is a totally different game now.

I recently finally made my first paladin in classic in 4 years. 1.10 ruined most classic builds. I had noticed that some smiters seemed to do well even in the cs, they were in the early lvl 80's. So the smiter it was!

It looks like only power builds (hammerdins, certain sorcs, WW barbs with good equip, etc) can solo hell difficulty. The traditional builds are very difficult to play. THe worst end of the stick seems to have gone to the amazon. Since you were a barbarian expert, I'm curious whether a frenzy barb is feasible nowadays? How difficult is that?

He is full smite/HS/fan. Also lots in cleansing to clear decrep curse in less than 3 seconds (69% time redux). Some in conversion and a good bit in Holy Freeze for crowd control when swarmed. These short-lived converts allow me to make perhaps a kill, and they usually are the ones cursed too. I always attack the most annoying monsters first, either the oblivions or some reviver or mana burning mage. Battle orders in the cs is a must.

I would like to try a smiter at some point. The fact that holy shield gives a big defense boost (a noticeable one at that) makes this fun. What's the max damage with smite?

He uses either the Generals flail or clegs gloves for slowdown effect. This seems to be absolutely essential to maintain an aggressive stance in cs games, where the 2-6 mages onscreen MUST be slowed down and/or stunned at all times to avoid repeated IronMaiden. Then I make a few converts to divert their attention, and begin to work on killing them consecutively. I also use twitch and perhaps sigons gloves for ias, goblin toes which seem to work quite well with bosses, perhaps a grim helm with resists (wormskull for poison didnt seem to work with smite).

I haven't used converts but I think that is a good strategy. Maybe that's the solution to the crowd control problems for the melee styles... I think the flail is probably one of the best choices for the smiter.

What is your main aura for smite? It's not clear to me if it's holy shock or fanatism? In other words, where would you put most of your points (in terms of aura)?



I think a smiter will be fun to try. My avenger is in a3/hell and once I get bored with him, I'll probably build a conventional zealot or a smiter (or a zealot/smiter if that looks like a good combo). So far my avenger is a lot of fun (except for the mana problems). Sebbie (above) was concerned about ghosts but they are not too bad for my avenger. I haven't checked their stats but I think they probably have low elemental resistance (either that or low health) because I kill the wraiths more easily than, say, skeletons (in act 2). If you guys want to try something fun, I suggest trying to use the full iratha set. I find it helps significantly with my avenger. It uses up a lot of item slots and gives relatively low defense but the resistance is amazing (+10 max res).

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Some thoughts on my avenger... after having played quite a bit... all the way to hell/hell.

* I only do enough damage in 1-3 player games. Anything more than that is next to impossible to solo. I haven't soloed River of Flame or Chaos Sanctuary yet so I'm not sure how I'll do against Oblivion Knights..

* Crowd control is still a problem but isn't much of a deal if you advance a bit at a time (i.e. draw only one pack of monsters)...

* Mana is a problem but I'm living with it. I basically use 1 potion per monster so I spend a lot of money on mana (900 a pop). I only have 3 flexible item slots (2 rings, boots) but I'll try to see if I can improve the mana situation.

* My current build is pretty much a tank. I think it's the most powerful tank I have ever played. My paladin is still weak due to somewhat average health but his high resists and max blocking enables me to live quite a bit long (even without good fast hit recovery)

* I'm like level 70 now (I think) so I don't have much more room to go. I'll probably play him until level 80 (that will take a long time I think0. The rest of my attribute points are going into vitality; rest of the skill points into fire resist.

* I have two more imbues left and I'm goign to try imbuing nagas (axe). My current one does around 30-100 dmg (I think 110% enhanced dmg) but would like to see how my char will be if I can get higher damage or more importantly mana leech on the weapon.

* The most surprising thing to me are my biggest enemies. It's surprising to me that my biggest threat are the gloams (the lightning monsters). I have 90% lightn res yet they can kill me if 3 or 4 of them hit me. I was thinking it would be the Stygian Dogs but I guess max block with high defense helps. Still haven't faced the Oblivion Knights in Chaos Sanctuary alone so I'm curious to see how I'll stack up against them...

I still want to play a pure zealot before saying this, but based on my experience so far, an avenger might be the best melee Paladin... nothing is immune to me... I probably have 95% to hit on non-bosses (due to conviction aura)... reasonable killing speed (for a melee char)...

 

[Fearlessone]

Yes, I used to post a lot a few years ago. I was even a minor administrator of the paladin forum. So you are an old timer eh? Nice to meet you. So how are things? I don't recall your name but I'm sure I would have read one of your mesages on the barbarian forum...

Yes, I remember you now. Like I said, used to post a good bit over there, and why not, cuz I had and still have the highest paladin ever on uswest classic and even made a high lvl ranger for cs runs, he was quite good at taking out mages there. There were a few old timers there: Jeb90, Alastor and a few others I cant seem to recall anymore. I probably havent posted on the barb forum in several years...

The traditional builds are very difficult to play. The worst end of the stick seems to have gone to the amazon. Since you were a barbarian expert, I'm curious whether a frenzy barb is feasible nowadays? How difficult is that?

And that was your first foray into the barb forum that I remember. You were building a frenzy barb because you heard they were fun and not so overpowered. I think you said something in your planned build description that violated the char build limitations, like you wanted to frenzy with a shield or such. I was the one who clarified that.

Who has made a frenzy barb here in 1.10 and taken them to lvl 90? I dont know. But I do know that a few days after 1.10, that the frenzy barb of mine and those of my friends stopped playing. It wasnt fun anymore and was fairly ineffective. My frenzy barb was noticeably slower to get his frenzy going. I think what happened is that they brought the classic frenzy in-line with the LoD frenzy which had probably been slowed down to provide for all the ias items over there: shaels and such. Unless you have both 30-40% ias weapons, and weapons that are normally around [-10] speed, it wont be fun.

Also, IronMaiden in the cs will kill all frenzy barbs: the two hit attack with good damage wont be offset by any lifeleech items and probably not by even a life tap necro to boot. This reflects the vile leech nerf of 3/4 in hell, which we have no way to compensate for as in LoD, especially since our end game is in the cs, not actV where oblivions can be largely avoided.

I would like to try a smiter at some point. The fact that holy shield gives a big defense boost (a noticeable one at that) makes this fun. What's the max damage with smite?

The defense boost needs something to get it going, I use a grim helm, lol. My armor is twitch, but I guess there is some def off the barbed shield. I just avoid getting surrounded and use my shield for vending off attacks. Max dmg from smite can be high 800's to 1100, mine is low 900's with 4 hits per second.

I haven't used converts but I think that is a good strategy. Maybe that's the solution to the crowd control problems for the melee styles... I think the flail is probably one of the best choices for the smiter.

Crowd control for melee builds: kill or stun everything or do more than 1/12 their hitpoints so they go into hit recovery, or chase them away or make them your friends or slow them down. I try a few of these: make a few friends, use HF aura, smite the most important of these in a short period of time which slows them down for a long time, and then choose one to kill. The unique flail is nice for the slowdown, which allows me to be very aggressive in the party. I guess clegs gloves and a high ias/dmg fast exceptional weapon could be better, esp encountering phys immunes and needing to use vengence. That way i could dump the sigons. I would never consider deaths - lots of pots are needed for this build, so I just swallow tons of thawing pots at the beginning of every 10 minute run and keep a couple extra in my inventory after a cold blows does his death frost nova.

What is your main aura for smite? It's not clear to me if it's holy shock or fanatism? In other words, where would you put most of your points (in terms of aura)?

Fan of course, HF only in really bad situations, esp when i convert. Smite is only about 1/2 to 1/3 as effective as it was before 1.10, which was adequate to good then. So you need as much damage as possible not to suck. I see some holy shockers around, they dont seem to be as effective as foh'ers, and most foh'ers are dissatisfied with their builds results.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Yes, I remember you now. Like I said, used to post a good bit over there, and why not, cuz I had and still have the highest paladin ever on uswest classic and even made a high lvl ranger for cs runs, he was quite good at taking out mages there. There were a few old timers there: Jeb90, Alastor and a few others I cant seem to recall anymore. I probably havent posted on the barb forum in several years...

Highest level paladin on West? Congrats... I lost all my chars (I was like one of the first Hammerdins back in the old day) but the game is interesting now.

And that was your first foray into the barb forum that I remember. You were building a frenzy barb because you heard they were fun and not so overpowered. I think you said something in your planned build description that violated the char build limitations, like you wanted to frenzy with a shield or such. I was the one who clarified that.

All I remember was that the last character I was building was a frenzy barb. I basically quit playing while I was building him...

Who has made a frenzy barb here in 1.10 and taken them to lvl 90? I dont know. But I do know that a few days after 1.10, that the frenzy barb of mine and those of my friends stopped playing. It wasnt fun anymore and was fairly ineffective. My frenzy barb was noticeably slower to get his frenzy going. I think what happened is that they brought the classic frenzy in-line with the LoD frenzy which had probably been slowed down to provide for all the ias items over there: shaels and such. Unless you have both 30-40% ias weapons, and weapons that are normally around [-10] speed, it wont be fun.

Yep... It really looks like the game was balanced for the expansion. I'm really dissapointed with what happened to the amazon (she was my #2 after the paladin). I find it impossible to play an amazon (unless you are a javazon).

The defense boost needs something to get it going, I use a grim helm, lol. My armor is twitch, but I guess there is some def off the barbed shield. I just avoid getting surrounded and use my shield for vending off attacks. Max dmg from smite can be high 800's to 1100, mine is low 900's with 4 hits per second.

Are you a pure smiter? The reason I'm asking is, wouldn't you be better off with some other armour other than twitch (since you will have holy shield)? Or do you need that for IAS?

Back in the old days, I used to only wear light, low def, armour (twitch, iceblink, etc) but nowadays I'm more partial to the heavy ones. My Avenger really works well with a rare ornate. The boost in def from holy shield really makes a difference.



I also have a crazy idea in mind: martyr. You know, paladins using sacrifice. Of all the popular Paladin builds, martyrs were the most difficult in the old days. I'm wondering if they can do better now (relatively speaking; they will still suck compared to power builds like Hammerdins). Since life and mana leech is nerfed big time, the advantage that other melee builds had over martyrs is less--I'm thinking. Since monsters have higher life and are harder to kill now, I'm also wondering if the excess life loss problem (ie. do more damage than is needed and end up losing life) is less of an issue now... I don't know... just a thought...

 

[WarlockCC]

Level 20 Sacrifice, Redemption and Fana.
Sacrifice :
Attack Rating: +153%
Damage: +865%
Damage to self: 8%
[Synergy] Redemption: +300% Damage (15% / Lvl)
[Synergy] Fanaticism: +100% Damage (5% / Lvl)

Fana :
Range: 20 Yards
Attack Rating: +135%
Damage: +373%
Party damage: +186%
Attack Speed: +35%

Redemption :
Range: 10.6 Yards
Chance to redeem: 86% Every 2 Seconds
Hit Point/Mana recovery: 120

Might be a lot of fun. Perhaps I will just add the max redemption to my martel de fer Zealer to make him a semi-martyr for testing.
I should get 10 frames per attack since the mart has 40ias and the pal is wearing twitch deaths iirc.

 

[purplelocust]

Damage to self: 8%

My understanding is that you'll need 24% life leech in Hell to stay even. That's a lot of life leech- 10% from 2 Sigons items, 7% max from a rare or magic weapon, 6% max from each ring gives 29% which isn't much about 24%. Redemption works well but it's only after you've killed something and doesn't work well versus bosses, for example.

It would be possible to get more leech, but with serious limitations on gear and killing speed. By my count, the max possible would be:

5% from helm (Undead Crown)
5% from armor (Boneflesh or Greyform)
7% from amulet (Eye of Elitch)
6% from each ring (Cathan's or magic or rares)
15% from weapon (Blood Crescent! - not much to leech from)
or 12% from weapon (Bloodthief)
or 7% rare + 4% from PSkull socket = 11%
10% from Sigon's boots and belt

gives 50% (59% with Blood Crescent socketed with a PSkull, no thank you!) which would reduce to 16% in hell, enough to give the same recovery of life with Sacrifice as 8% life leech in normal does, ouch.

FWIW, I haven't made a martyr since 1.09, mainly since I'm worried about the leech penalty...

 

[WarlockCC]

Small question, how does one socket a Blood Crescent in classic ?
I think it is feasable. I'll have to check what gear my martel zealer is using to see if my leech outdoes the damage done. Can't do that right now though, since I am not at home.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Level 20 Sacrifice, Redemption and Fana.
Sacrifice :
Attack Rating: +153%
Damage: +865%
Damage to self: 8%
[Synergy] Redemption: +300% Damage (15% / Lvl)
[Synergy] Fanaticism: +100% Damage (5% / Lvl)

Fana :
Range: 20 Yards
Attack Rating: +135%
Damage: +373%
Party damage: +186%
Attack Speed: +35%

Redemption :
Range: 10.6 Yards
Chance to redeem: 86% Every 2 Seconds
Hit Point/Mana recovery: 120

Might be a lot of fun. Perhaps I will just add the max redemption to my martel de fer Zealer to make him a semi-martyr for testing.
I should get 10 frames per attack since the mart has 40ias and the pal is wearing twitch deaths iirc.

Yep...intersting on paper... just not sure how feasible it will be in the real game... I think I'm just going to start one--at least to see how he comapres against an avenger...obviously useless against physically immunes

How about something like this?


SKILLS

20 sacrifice
20 redemption
20 fanatism
4 or 5 Holy Shield? (depends on whether going with twitch or high def armour)



ATTRIBUTES (not counting +attributes from items)

str: either around 120's (for naga/ancient sword) or 170* (for ornate plate)
dex: 88 (ancient sword requires 88 and I probaby need a sufficiently high #)
vital: rest (target 600 life without items)
energy: base


(* I really don't like giving up around 150 health (3*50 points) for strength but high defense seems to make a difference in this game. 150 health vs higher def & 50% more base damage? hmm).

EQUIPMENT
(target 20% leech)

naga or ancient sword (need 20IAS)


twitch OR rare ornate (extreme leech alternatives: boneflesh or greyform unique armour (5% life leech) but I'm not sure if it's worth sacrificing def and resists for these (although I must note that greyform is a good armour (20% to two resists and +10 dex))

3pdiamond shield

Depending on AR, life leech, or speed requirements, we have soem choices:

angelic amulet+ring (likely not a good combo; only if I don't put many points into dex and isntead into vitality)
sigon glove + belt (10% life leech+30IAS)
death's sash+glove (8% life leech + 30IAS)
rare leech amulet (amulet have leech right?) or eye of etlich
undead crown (5% life leech) (not a good choice)
two 5%+ life leech rings (more the better)

If my target is 20% (not sure if that's enough), then two rare rings+sigon combo will hit that. I haven't played a martyr in a long long time but I'm thinking I would rather sacrifice leeching ability for higher resists (for example, increasing fire resistance by 15% is probably worth more than 1% life leech). I would rather go a bit low on the leech front, while maximizing resistance, blocking, and defense. I don't know. what do you guys think?

20%.. hmm... That's equivalent to around 6% life leech in hell (cut 1/3 if I'm not mistaken) so you'll be losing 2% in hell. You will actually lose more due to overkill and stuff liek that so let's say you are losing 4%. If your damage is, say, 1000, then you will lose 40 health per hit. If you swing 2.5 times per second (haven't done the calculation) then that's like 90 per second. If my total health is 700 (guess) then I think I can live with that (if I drink potions and flash redemption in the middle or something). But this is almost a worst case scenario. If I can manage to get a weapon with life leech on it (say 5% or 6%) or boost +health from items then the numbers can improve--slightly.


CHALLENGES:

* what about physically immune monsters?
* might not have enough AR without putting a lot of points into dex.. but if you put points into dex then you will give up life
* life leech... I'm not sure you need to balance your loss... not sure though... I' mthinking a small loss should be ok. For example, how about around 20% life leech (which is like 6% with 1/3 nerf in hell)?
* I think the key strategy will be to use redemption during combat and then quickly switch back to fanat (it's almost like how old school Paladins used to flash conviction on to monsters and swap to fanatism). Lots of micromanaging but I think this is what needs to be done if you are playing a martyr.

Whatever the case, this will be a challenging build... based on some quick calculations I think a martyr also does similar damage as an avenger so it won't be anything out of this world...

 

[WarlockCC]

Melee paladins can actually take down physically immune undead with 1 point in Sanctuary. Sanctuary completely negates the physical immunity of undead monsters. Downside is that you would not have your normal aura, so probably less damage, even though Sanctuary does add damage to undead. (Note that any damage bonus you get from Sanctuary doesn't show on your char stats and also will not get returned to you trough IM. Unlike Fana, where you get the full amplified damage back in your face)

The others(probably only boss/uniques), you will have to bleed.
Make sure you are wearing a source of open wounds and elemental damage, hit them and then run around for 10 secs or so while they bleed.
I haven't actually tested this under many circumstances, I just know that my Woestave barb can make physical immunes bleed and I think it is because of the elemental damage, which is on the woestave in the form of Freezes enemies +3.
If that turns out to be a dud, make lots of elemental monsters your friend(conversion) and they will attack him for you, perhaps even kill him.
If possible just leave the monster.