avenger

[MeaningOfLife]

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.

How much dmg does bleeding do? Is that really sufficient?

One idea is to use a socketed naga. I have a 6 socket naga I found and I can put 6 perfect topaz for around 120 average lightning damage (could also place perfect emerald for poison dmg if hitting multiple monsters). The problem though is that none of the Martyr's skills will amplify this damage (actually can someone confirm that sacrifice and fanatism only boost physical dmg and not elemental dmg on weapons?). Unless the weapon elemental dmg can be boosted in some manner, this likely isn't enough.

What are the physically immune monsters in the game? Ghost class... fire tower(??)... hmm... what else...

 

[WarlockCC]

The Ghost class are undead, 1 point Sanctuary and you can take care of them with sacrifice.
hmmm, other PI, we'll, there's almost allways at least 1 of the Kurast council is PI. There's the Itchies(swarms of little flies), which are not undead, so you need some kind of elemental damage against them. Fortunately, they have very low life, so any little amount of elemental damage will do them in. Bleeding will also clean them out.
Speaking of which, I think you can bleed out about 700-ish life at level 80 (I don't have the exact calculations here, some of the more litterate people on this site should be able to provide those), so yeah, I would think bleeding worth it.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

The Ghost class are undead, 1 point Sanctuary and you can take care of them with sacrifice.

Unfortunately that may not be ideal for my martyr. The problem is that I am not even touching that side of the aura tree so even 1 point in sanctuary requires 4 pre-requisite points. Given that only some monsters are undead, and I'm not even sure if sanctuary will do sufficient damage (I'll basically lose fanatism while using it), I probably won't pursue this unless as a last resort.

hmmm, other PI, we'll, there's almost allways at least 1 of the Kurast council is PI. There's the Itchies(swarms of little flies), which are not undead, so you need some kind of elemental damage against them. Fortunately, they have very low life, so any little amount of elemental damage will do them in. Bleeding will also clean them out.

Does the Kurast council "members" count as undead? Swarms definitely need to be dealt with given that you can't do maggot lair. Also, the swarms are somewhat common in act2 and act3 (kurast bazzar, etc) so I would like to take them out...

Speaking of which, I think you can bleed out about 700-ish life at level 80 (I don't have the exact calculations here, some of the more litterate people on this site should be able to provide those), so yeah, I would think bleeding worth it.

If open wounds is the way to go then would boneflesh unique armour (25% open wounds) be sufficient? It also has 5% life leech so it would sort of fit the martyr theme. I would, however, be giving up resists, life, and defense on that armour (I was thinking of wearing ornate otherwise).




On another note, I have started building my martyr. There are still a bunch of questions to consider. The key ones are:

(i) how many points should I put into dex?
(ii) should I take strength to 170 and wear ornate armour, or leave it close to 100 (whatever weapon requires)?
(iii) should I wear the iratha set and leave life leech low (full set takes up too many item slots)? I just love iratha but not sure how it helps a martyr...

 

[WarlockCC]

Unfortunately that may not be ideal for my martyr. The problem is that I am not even touching that side of the aura tree so even 1 point in sanctuary requires 4 pre-requisite points. Given that only some monsters are undead, and I'm not even sure if sanctuary will do sufficient damage (I'll basically lose fanatism while using it), I probably won't pursue this unless as a last resort.

Or, you could buy yourself a Divine Scepter or Holy Water Sprinkler wich has Sanctuary and some ED on it.
You'll lose fana, but Sanctuary boosts damage to undead, which should more then make up for the lack of Fana.
Level 9 Sanctuary does more damage to undead then a level 20 fana boosts damage. It also gives almost 4 times more ar to hit undead. level 20 fana gives 373ed and 135% ar while level 9 Sanctuary gives 390ed and 500% ar.

Does the Kurast council "members" count as undead? Swarms definitely need to be dealt with given that you can't do maggot lair. Also, the swarms are somewhat common in act2 and act3 (kurast bazzar, etc) so I would like to take them out...

Well, I put them into the 'other' catagory, where the first mentioned was the undead catagory. Though you are free to test if they are undead.
Falls under the header of 'Freedom of religion' I think.

If open wounds is the way to go then would boneflesh unique armour (25% open wounds) be sufficient? It also has 5% life leech so it would sort of fit the martyr theme. I would, however, be giving up resists, life, and defense on that armour (I was thinking of wearing ornate otherwise).

You will only need to put it on when you face PI's and you could also opt for a Swordback Hold. Wearing it continually would give you an excuse to shout "Thou shalt bleed for the cause !" or "Thy blood is fuel for the cause !" every now and then.

On another note, I have started building my martyr. There are still a bunch of questions to consider. The key ones are:

(i) how many points should I put into dex?

I guess how much your gear requires minus what you get from your gear.

(ii) should I take strength to 170 and wear ornate armour, or leave it close to 100 (whatever weapon requires)?
(iii) should I wear the iratha set and leave life leech low (full set takes up too many item slots)? I just love iratha but not sure how it helps a martyr...

Iirc the Hell leech penalty is 3/4th, so you need 8%(damage of Sacrifice) times 4 = 32% ll to make up for the Sanctuary in Hell. Or mebbe it was 1/3rd in which case you need 24% ll.
on your rings you can get 6% ll (Cathans for example) and you can get up to 11 ll on your weapon when it's socketed with a PS. which is 23% ll in total. If you wear Iratha's and the almost obligated hawkmail with it, you won't break even. Personally I would want cbf on such a character. So I guess, even though it's a very nice set, it is not for a Martyr I guess. Did you check the speedcalc to see how much ias you will need for your weapon ?


Oh, and do you happen to know if you need to use a sharp metal object to use sacrifice, or will a blunt object also suffice(Club, Maul, Wirts leg or Desk) ?

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Or, you could buy yourself a Divine Scepter or Holy Water Sprinkler wich has Sanctuary and some ED on it.
You'll lose fana, but Sanctuary boosts damage to undead, which should more then make up for the lack of Fana.
Level 9 Sanctuary does more damage to undead then a level 20 fana boosts damage. It also gives almost 4 times more ar to hit undead. level 20 fana gives 373ed and 135% ar while level 9 Sanctuary gives 390ed and 500% ar.

I can try looking for a scepter with that... I was also thinking of something which may or may not work. How about conversion or conversion+thorns? I think I'm going to put 4 points into conversion for crowd control and I was wondering if I can use that against physical immmunes. The two questions I have are:

(i) Are physically immune monsters immune to their fellow brethern with physical attacks ?
(ii) Does thorns ignore physical immunity?

It's just a tought I had. I'm guessing none of these work (i.e. monsters are immune to other monster attacks (physical) and to thorns) but can someone comment...

You will only need to put it on when you face PI's and you could also opt for a Swordback Hold. Wearing it continually would give you an excuse to shout "Thou shalt bleed for the cause !" or "Thy blood is fuel for the cause !" every now and then.

If I'm switching, I lose nothing by trying to get these items... I'll look into them...

I guess how much your gear requires minus what you get from your gear.

You are not a fan of boosting strength for defense and extra dmg huh? I think I agree with you and I'm going to do what I typically do (take strength to low 90's to almost 100)... still not sure about dex though...

Iirc the Hell leech penalty is 3/4th, so you need 8%(damage of Sacrifice) times 4 = 32% ll to make up for the Sanctuary in Hell. Or mebbe it was 1/3rd in which case you need 24% ll.

Leech cut is 1/3 AFAIK so I need 24... If I don't go for an irtha set or some other demanding item combo, I'm thinking I'll have 5% from a 100 dmg naga (already have; my avenger's weapon), 5% on each ring (these rings suck; don't have any good mods) for a total of 10%, and some other combo (simplest choice is to use eye of etlich amulet (I have one with 7% LL I think) and 10% LL from 2 sigon items (helm and boot or helm and glove)).

If leech was my objective, I can hit 32% life leech with affordable items without sacrificing too much (weapon+2 rings+amulet+sigon combo). But if I just wanted 24ish, then I can probably wear iratha too (eg. weapon+2 rings+[life leech armour (not sure I can get) OR (sigon armour+boot)]=5+12(best case ring)+5=22). I just love iratha on melee chars but it takes up item slots and your defense is lower than it can be. As much as I love iratha, I might dump it for this char but we'll see. One of the reasons I like iratha is that I generally max resists easily with a paladin (due to diamond shield) so taking it 10% higher is worthwhile...

If you wear Iratha's and the almost obligated hawkmail with it, you won't break even. Personally I would want cbf on such a character. So I guess, even though it's a very nice set, it is not for a Martyr I guess.

I am not one of those who believes 'cannot be frozen' is mandatory for melee chars. It helps a lot and makes life easier but I usually play without it. My avenger (act4/hell; level 70ish) played the whole game without it. Cold attacks become one of your big enemies (similar to how lightning enchanted is a nightmare for many melee chars) but you learn to anticipate being slowed. It's almost like facing iron maiden: problem but can live with it...

Did you check the speedcalc to see how much ias you will need for your weapon ?

I checked a while ago but need to do it now that I'm sure I'm going with a naga. I wasn't paying much attention to it because I can get 20 IAS with some of the potential combos I have in mind (iratha set gives 20IAS; sigon glove + helm gives 30IAS).

Oh, and do you happen to know if you need to use a sharp metal object to use sacrifice, or will a blunt object also suffice(Club, Maul, Wirts leg or Desk) ?

Heh Maybe I"ll lose less health if using a blunt object


So far here is my plan...


20 sacrifice
20 redemption
20 fanatism (max last)
3 Holy Shield
4 Conversion

Strength: 90-100 (will know once I finalize items)
dex: probably around 70 to 90 (this is a huge question mark)
vitality: rest (put points here before taking dex past 50)
mana: base

weapon: 100 dmg 5% life leech naga (already have; will imbue 2 nagas)
shield: 3 pdiamond tower shield
rings: 6% life leech

other items: not sure yet

special stuff: will try to get some open wounds items, darkglow armour (5% mroe max resist), and life leech armour

 

[Sebbie]

About DEX I think you should not touch this. It's usefull if you wanna lift a specific sword but both Battle Hammers and Naga deal just as much damage if not more then swords. It's way better to spend 100 or 127 str to lift those then to spend something like 180 points in dex/str to lift the swords. The dex you invest barely helps your attack rating. I don't understand why you don't wanna leave it to base?

Plus having more hp helps both against elemental/magical/physical attack while having more strength to lift the biggest armor only helps against physical attack by improving your defense against them. If you don't invest alot in holy shield the defense boost of the bigger armor is not worth it at all.

I am currently building up 2 melee paladin. One is a smiter and the other a frost zealot. The frost zealot is in my opinion a good all around character. The aura takes care of defense by slowing the mob while taking care of Immunes to physical while zeal provides quick uninterrupable attacks.

The gear i wanna use might somehow inspire your build:
helm : i wanna find a helm with lr 30 and cr 30 OR helm lr30 fr30
armor : angelic OR twitch
amulet: found a 4% ml 20 prismatic + 20 pr OR angelic
rings: 2 angelic or maybe when I'm more high level some other ring
glove: death
belt: death
boots: goblin toes
shield: 3dt
weapon: need to find some naga or bh with ias. Would love prevent monster heal

death provides both life leech, attack speed, resist all and cannot be frozen. It rocks!

I really would like to use twitchtro so that I could ignore holy shield and put more skill points into doing more damage.

Building the paladin's melee gear is so complicated as you know.
You need to take care of leeching, cannot be frozen, attack speed, blocking, resists and crushing blow. On my barb I just used dual leech gloves. Being frozen means more WW damage! With a javason you ignore attack rating. Same with a smiter. That opens up so much more gear choices. And I did not see any rare glove with 20 ias they seem to not be spawning anymore. So the way I see it we are left with very little choices!

 

[MeaningOfLife]

About DEX I think you should not touch this. It's usefull if you wanna lift a specific sword but both Battle Hammers and Naga deal just as much damage if not more then swords. It's way better to spend 100 or 127 str to lift those then to spend something like 180 points in dex/str to lift the swords. The dex you invest barely helps your attack rating. I don't understand why you don't wanna leave it to base?

How am I going to get my AR? I agree that dex doesn't boost % to hit that much (even spending 50 points is not enough, depending on your skills). I notice that you are getting your AR via the angelic combo (angelic amulet+ring). Without some high AR boosting item, I think I need points in dex. What do you think is a good AR value to aim for? If I can hit that with items, may be dex isn't needed but I just don't see it (without using angelic combo).

One of my choices is to use 2 sigon items: helm and glove. Helm gives up to 700-something AR based on clvl so that's something to consider.

Plus having more hp helps both against elemental/magical/physical attack while having more strength to lift the biggest armor only helps against physical attack by improving your defense against them. If you don't invest alot in holy shield the defense boost of the bigger armor is not worth it at all.

yeah... strength also boosts dmg (50 more points=50% more base dmg).. but... one of the reasons high def armour works with my avenger is because I put way more points into holy shield (but I can't do that with my martyr--mostly because I want around 4 points in conversion). Right now I'm leaning towards your view (i.e. just enough strength for weapon).

I am currently building up 2 melee paladin. One is a smiter and the other a frost zealot. The frost zealot is in my opinion a good all around character. The aura takes care of defense by slowing the mob while taking care of Immunes to physical while zeal provides quick uninterrupable attacks.

My martyr will be my 3rd melee paladin since I started playing again. I built a holy shock zealot but that was a failure. I was frustrated by all the lightning immunes (I hope I don't get the same feeling with my martyr against physically immunes--but therea re less of these). Then I built an avenger who is perhaps the best melee class right now (not sure about frentic barbs).

Frost zealot looks interesting but I'm not sure how much dmg he'll do. Keep me posted on how he turns out. I just don't like the amount of cold damage that holy freeze gives you.

helm : i wanna find a helm with lr 30 and cr 30 OR helm lr30 fr30

Iratha set helm gives 30/30 but I think a rare one would be better.

boots: goblin toes

I'm still not sure if I want to wear gob toe... Post patch1.10, I haven't liked gob toe but maybe a fast swinging fanatic paladin may notice a difference. I tested goblin toe to some degree with my holy shock zealot and avenger, and I wasn't impressed...

I really would like to use twitchtro so that I could ignore holy shield and put more skill points into doing more damage.

My first paladin (holy shock zealot) went with twitch but I didn't like it much. One of the key reasons I go for holy shield nowadays is the super-fast blocking speed. I actually notice the blocking speed with melee chars. But Holy Shield is kind of expensive in terms of points (espeically if you are not touching anything on that side of the tree).

Building the paladin's melee gear is so complicated as you know.
You need to take care of leeching, cannot be frozen, attack speed, blocking, resists and crushing blow. On my barb I just used dual leech gloves. Being frozen means more WW damage! With a javason you ignore attack rating. Same with a smiter. That opens up so much more gear choices. And I did not see any rare glove with 20 ias they seem to not be spawning anymore. So the way I see it we are left with very little choices!

Yeah... paladins have more choices and more complications. Playing a pure melee barbarian (if even feasible now) is also complicated but barbs (and others) have passive skills which makes it easier. This is also one of the reasons I have always played paladins (more choices and interesting possibilities).

I think gloves only spawn with 10IAS. You are pretty much left with set item combos for faster speed gloves (2 item death set; 2 item iratha; 2 item sigon).

For my martyr, I have to go for life leech so that's the main direction. If I keep strength aroudn 100 then I don't care about defense. I really would love to get resists past 75 but it may not be feasible with a martyr (another reason an avenger is perhaps the best melee char is because all of his synergies (resist lightning, fire, etc) also give a passive +max resist. Along with the iratha set, my avenger's resists are something like 92/85/90/75. Even those avengers not wearing the iratha set will easily hit 80 resist in at least 2 elements).

 

[Sebbie]

Yeah I agree with all your views! It's also nice to find somebody else passionnate about that character.

For Crushing blow I'm pretty sure it helps alot. The proof I had for this was the other day I was mfing and I did not unedrstand why the creatures were dropping so slowly. Turns out that my goblin toe were in my cube as I had duelled before and needed faster run walk.

For Holy freeze damage it will be 185-190 damage level 20. With max resist cold it's 740 damage. If I also max salvation it will be 1000 damage. At lot less then holy shock but you also slow everything 50% and when you hit 'em they freeze so... We'll see. That's why I must stay away from holy shield. All points should go in salvation and sacrifice instead.

I am now at hell and I had to reajust my gear. I was using cleglaw's set and the blocking and resistance were just too crappy. The killing was ok but the not getting killed was not! I am gathering up the above gear and am still stacking up point to perhaps holy shield or not. I love twitchtro.

MATHS !

The calculation of to hit in regards to defense and attack rating (omitting character levels):
to hit = attack rating / (attack rating + defense)

Monsters typicly have 2000 to 2500 defense in hell. So if you have 5000 attack rating your to hit is 5000/7000 = 71 %. if you have 7000 it's 7000/9000 = 77%. Now if you have a puny 1500 attack rate you would get 1500/3500 = 43 %. 3000 would give you 3000/5000 = 60% which is not that sexy either. Less connects basicly means less crushing blow, less freezing and well less damage!

1 Dexterity gives 5 attack rating if am not mistaken. If you sink 5 dex per level like I did with my bowazon at level 55 you end up with 275 dex. 275 * 5 = 1375 attack rating. By maxing penetrate you multiply that by 3.25 to get 4468 attack rating which means that you will hit pretty nicely without using angelic or Hsaru or Sigon. But I sunk 275 dex in there and I did so only because it boosted the damage too. In LOD you have to boost dex to block but that's another story.

With fanastism and sacrifice maxed you'll mutiply your attack rating by 388 %. Say you wanna reach 5000 attack rating you would need 5000/3.88 = 1288 base attack rating. 1288 / 5 = 257 dexterity.

1 Angi ring at level 70 : 70*12 = 840 attack rating
Cleg glove + sword or Hsaru boots and belt : 700 attack rating
Sigon helm : 560 attack rating

So take sigon helm for example you would need 560/5 = 112 dex to reach the same attack rating. Those 112 in vitality would give you 336 hp. If there's a barb around you multiply that number again. So that's what I know in regards to dex and attack rating. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions :thumbsup:

PS Yes I love numbers!

 

[purplelocust]

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.

Oops, sorry- my mistake! That was a thought experiment anyway but I think the point is sound- that the leech penalty makes Martyrdom very expensive these 1.10+ days...

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Hard to argue against the numbers... I guess it's best to go with low dex and rely on items. I guess this means I should go for hte sigon helm+gloves since that gives the life leech I need for my martyr. Hsaur belt+boot is also something I will think about (although I really don't like the mods with that combo). Angelic combo (along iwth the armour) is not a bad choice but I can't use it since I need leech from rings...

 

[Sebbie]

Inspired by this digussion I played and traded to get my holy freezer running more nicely. He is level 51 now. After juggling with all the mentionned attack rating gear I ended up with this:

Twitchtro
3dt
amu 4ml 20 priz with poison resist
ring 30 lr 6 ll
ring 30 fr 5 ll
cleglaw tooth + glove
hsaru belt + boot
Face of horror ( name says it all mask are butt ugly)

Attack speed is not impressive. Cold immune are really really annoying. The lack of crushing blow hurts badly here. Cleglaw's tooth damage is peaky. Knockback and monster flee are most of the time annoying while being awesome when you get crowded. Lack of cannot be frozen is also painfull. But the character performs a million time better then he did before twitch and 3dt.

So I have 800 life almost max resist all and I will pump power at least until I reach 127 in the hope of getting a good naga and to deal more physic damage. I will also ignore holy shield entirely and probably pump sacrifice before salvation. What I need to do now is find better rings with dual resists and perhaps attack rating. Putting Goblin Toe on the sideline was painful but had to be done otherwize the attack rating and the resist were just too low otherwize.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

Inspired by this digussion I played and traded to get my holy freezer running more nicely. He is level 51 now. After juggling with all the mentionned attack rating gear I ended up with this:

Twitchtro
3dt
amu 4ml 20 priz with poison resist
ring 30 lr 6 ll
ring 30 fr 5 ll
cleglaw tooth + glove
hsaru belt + boot
Face of horror ( name says it all mask are butt ugly)

Attack speed is not impressive. Cold immune are really really annoying. The lack of crushing blow hurts badly here. Cleglaw's tooth damage is peaky. Knockback and monster flee are most of the time annoying while being awesome when you get crowded. Lack of cannot be frozen is also painfull. But the character performs a million time better then he did before twitch and 3dt.

So I have 800 life almost max resist all and I will pump power at least until I reach 127 in the hope of getting a good naga and to deal more physic damage. I will also ignore holy shield entirely and probably pump sacrifice before salvation. What I need to do now is find better rings with dual resists and perhaps attack rating. Putting Goblin Toe on the sideline was painful but had to be done otherwize the attack rating and the resist were just too low otherwize.

Not a bad set up.

Initially I thought cleglaw's sword isn't viable but when I do a quick check, it actually is comparable to a decent rare weapon. The 50% deadly strike is basically like 100% more damage so the weapon is viable. But you won't leech off that dmg though. It also gives you massive AR (via the glove) so if you drop that you will give up AR.

I'm not sure why you are pumping salvation. Is that your main aura? I don't see salvation providing any synergy to you (you don't use vengence right?) so I'm not sure why you are going for that. This is especially true if you are already near max resist with your equipment.

Also I'm not sure about your mask. I can't remember the full mods off the top of my head but that wasn't a great mask. Is that for monster flee only? If resists are your concern, I would probalby dumb that mask and go with a better rare one.
----

I played my martyr a bit and I'm planning to go with sigon helm+sigon glove, and hsaru belt+hsaru boots. I just hope that gives enough AR. I'm also going with 4 points in conversion (my crowd control).

While I'm on the topic of conversion, can someone tell me how it works? I forget the details and I'm not sure if anything has changed. In particular, I am wondering if converted monsters always end up with 1 hp after the revert back? I can't remember the mechanics of when that happens. If all converted monsters come back with 1 hp then it will obviously be a powerful solution to physically immune monsters.

 

[WarlockCC]

I don't think it changed much trough the ages I use it quite a bit on my Healer.
Some info here :
http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=437107&page=2

 

[Sebbie]

On Conversion:
Did a quick search and it seems like the conversion bug now "works" pretty randomly :
http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=420748

About Salvation:
it gives 7% synergy bonus to holy freeze. It also gives synergy bonus to holy shock, holy fire and vengence. I already put 1 point there and used the aura a couple of times when facing conviction. There is also blessed aim that has a hidden passive bonus as you might know: 5% bonus to attack rating per point. That could be interesting too.

On Face of Horror:
I actually tried to trade for Isaru's helm only to be faced a bunch of dumb traders that refused my offers. I always overpay my trades yet they were too stupid to realize that. So I just transfered Face of Horror instead. It gives 20 strength, 10 resist all, 50% monster flee and makes your character look incredibly ugly. Yet I was impressed at the help that monster flee offered. Slowed down fleeing monster are pretty easy targets to kill.

Better Gear:
My equipment is not final for sure. I still wan't cannot be frozen, more damage, more attack speed and crushing blow. It really points out to using Death Sash + Death Glove but I can only do that if I can get a hold of really nice weapon. And if I do that my attack rating will drop. So I'll probably need to use angi. Then my resists will drop. It's pretty messy. If I was rich I would see something like this:

* rare resist helm
* angi amulet
* angi ring
* resist ring with ml and attack rating
* 130 damage naga with 40 ias, attack rating + p-amethyst
* death sash and glove
* twitch/goldskin/godly ornate with p-ruby
* +2 priz shield with resist stacked + p-diamond
* high resist boot/goblin toe

Enough crazy talk though as of now my char is level 59 has 75 fr, 5x cr, 6x lr, 800 life, 4500 attack rating (to hit < 70%) and deals about 650 to 1075 damage. 60% of that is cold damage. Maggot lair was easy. Claw viper was incredibly tough. Those snakes are cold immune and deal big damage. Monster flee flat out saved me numerous times! At Fangris I acutally needed to buy a merc to act as a decoy to get my body... It's fun to play a iffy char though. Makes the game tough and well... more fun !

 

[MeaningOfLife]

I don't think it changed much trough the ages I use it quite a bit on my Healer.
Some info here :
http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=437107&page=2

Do you know what the deal is with the 1hp monster life? Is that a bug or is it intended? If it is intended then do you know what triggers it?

If I remember clearly, the 1hp "feature" was there from day one (someone confirm?). The fact that Blizzard hasn't removed it makes me think it is either a feature or a bug that Blizz wants to keep (to help missionaries). So the question is to figure out how to get monster hp to 1 on a consistent basis. Clearly it doesn't happen all the time (although I notice it happening most of the time)...

 

[Sebbie]

I see that as a bug for sure. Simply because it's not documented anywhere and simply does not make any sens at all.

As a programmer I can think of how they messed up the unconverting code. The behavior is similar to the necros raised monster. Perhaps a timer set the life of the monster to 0. They probably had alot of shared code for both necros and din converts. Maybe they simply forgot to not set the hp of the unconverts to 0 when the timer expired in the case of the din converts.

After all very little people used that skill if I am not mistaken. It's probably why it took so much time to adress the issue. I discovered it back then because my bro was getting pissed dying to my thorned/fanatism unconverts. When I saw I could do level 1 holy shock kills I stopped playing that char. It was cheating to my eye. Perhaps alot of people thought that too and did the same thing as I did while not complaining to Blizz.

From what I understand by reading the link I posted it seem to only work against certain minions. Normal monster seems to be fixed...

 

[MeaningOfLife]

I see that as a bug for sure. Simply because it's not documented anywhere and simply does not make any sens at all.

As a programmer I can think of how they messed up the unconverting code. The behavior is similar to the necros raised monster. Perhaps a timer set the life of the monster to 0. They probably had alot of shared code for both necros and din converts. Maybe they simply forgot to not set the hp of the unconverts to 0 when the timer expired in the case of the din converts.

After all very little people used that skill if I am not mistaken. It's probably why it took so much time to adress the issue. I discovered it back then because my bro was getting pissed dying to my thorned/fanatism unconverts. When I saw I could do level 1 holy shock kills I stopped playing that char. It was cheating to my eye. Perhaps alot of people thought that too and did the same thing as I did while not complaining to Blizz.

From what I understand by reading the link I posted it seem to only work against certain minions. Normal monster seems to be fixed...

If I'm not mistaken that "feature" has been known for a long time. I can't remember very well though, since so many things have changed over so many patches. I could be wrong but I think this problem existed even during the days of the super-powerful conversion+thorns combo in the early versions. I could be wrong though since my memory is so confused with all the versions and the changes

If I feel like it, I'll spend some time testing it. My martyr is actually using conversion for crowd control (I have 4 points in it) so I encounter the 1hp thing on a regular basis. I never really thought much about it until we had the physically immune monster discussion. From my limited experience I don't think your quoted post seems true (I really don't think Blizz patched it since I encounter these monsters on a regular basis). I have had all sorts of monsters die with 1 hit and some not die. I wasn't paying attention so I can't say for sure if it had anything to do with minions, uniques, or stuff like that. But it seemed random and I was thinking of using it against physical immunes.

 

[MeaningOfLife]

I'm going to post some of the stuff I'm discovering as I build my martyr. Some of you will be bored and know all this but it's new for me (since I just started up a few months ago)...

I did some normal diablo run with my magic find amazon and, lo and behold, he drops boneflesh armour (5% life leech, 25% open wounds). Of all the stuff I need, that is perhaps the best strategic choice for my marytr. How interesting the world works However, my quest for locating a 3 socket tower or pavise shield has been in vain. Cleared act3 and nothing

Anyway, I noticed something bizarre (or maybe normal) with my amazon. I found a 5 socket bow and I put 5 ptopaz into it and was testing it. The screen damage that is shown is worse than my 100 dmg bow but I was curious to see how it would perform. Well, for some bizarre reason, nightmare Diablo ignores my valkyrie if I am wiedling the gemmed bow, but it attacks the valkyrie if I'm using the rare bow. I kept swapping it and trying it over several games and that seems to be consistent. I can't recall seeing something like that ever before. Does this mean that Diablo (at least the nightmare one) targets based on your weapon capability? It just seemed so odd that a bow would make such a big difference...


I did some rough testing with conversion. It's a true test in the sense that I was marking down exactly what I was converting and trying to keep the conditions the same. Instead, it was pretty much just some observations during my normal playing with my martyr (mostly act3/nightmare). Also, I would really want at least several full weekends of playing time (one night may not mean anything). Based on what I have done, I can definitely say that the 1hp "feature" has not been patched. I tried it against different monsters and I don't notice anything being different (a non-minion seems to behave just like a minion). I can also say that some monsters don't end up with 1hp after conversion wears off. I think you guys already knew all this. I'm trying to develop some theories on what causes the 1hp. Based on my limited experience, I have a theory that the converted monster may need to be physically hit. It's just a wild hypothesis right now but I noticed that the ghoul lords didn't seem to end up with 1hp (they have ranged fire attack). I don't know if this is fluke or not so I will keep you guys posted.

 

[Sebbie]

Very interesting stuff. Maybe the ghoul lords heal themselves? I know I had to bring in Goblin Toe and Wormskull in to be able to deal with these guys because of their healing capability. Needless to say that I got a huge attack rating drop. Would never had notice that stuff when playaing my sorceress/hammerdin/barb.

Maybe I should use the conversion bug myself! My frost zealot is quite weak he could use any extra help he could get. Beginning of Act3 seems easier then Act2 though.

I think open wounds prevent monster healing so boneflesh is not that bad of an armor you know.

 

[WarlockCC]

Personally, I've allways liked BoneFlesh, but more for it's decorative value.
Flayer laid crimson carpets in the Great Marsh.