Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc. <

[lingpanda]

Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

What is the fastest PvM build for clearing out groups of monsters? For a person with so-so items. Nothing godly like those super runewords.

WW Barb? Frenzy Barb? Zealot? Wolf Druid? Zon Multishot/Strafe? I know Bow isn't melee, but same idea. I'm looking for the fastest, strongest physical damage PvM build.

Basically, which of these can clear a Hell Cow level the fastest?

 

[Corrupted]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Basically, depends on what items you have and the amount of (simulated) players in the game.

Obviously, the class with the better AoE attack has the most potential.

 

[Rhyme]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

It's all about your weapon. Items in general, but weapon specifically. Elemental skills are boosted by synergies and +skills, which allows people with so-so items to succeed. If what you want is physical damage, and enough physical damage to kill cows safely, you're going to need a very good weapon.

Assuming you can find a decent weapon, my choice would be an Amazon, either strafe or multishot, but probably multishot so that you have total freedom to get the hell out of the way ASAP. A WW Barb might be okay too. Corrupted is right though, it's all about AoE if you're dealing with massive packs.

Good luck. You'll need it.

 

[DZJB]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

I'm sure Asmo would say the Schaeferdin . I've got some experience with mine as well, and they are indeed quite powerful. It's the ctc static that's so awesome.

 

[UllaV]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

If you are looking melee builds I say freezealot. They can live off the land quite well.

Ulla

 

[elevenlang]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

frosty (freezealot) is good. not so depends on weapons and can slow enimies, can deal with IM, which is nightmare for almost all melee build

 

[pharaoh1]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

I'm sure Asmo would say the Schaeferdin . I've got some experience with mine as well, and they are indeed quite powerful. It's the ctc static that's so awesome.

The only problem with that is the OP said he's not that rich, so that rules out Schaefer's.

@OP: If you have an Um rune, you can make Crescent Moon (Shael Um tir), which has a chance to cast Static Field. It also reduces enemy lightning resistance, and is pretty fast, which makes it perfect for a Holy Shock/Zeal paladin. The SF will go off fairly often (good for big mobs, like cows), and huge lightning damage and decent physical damage means you tear through stuff. The rest of the gear for this build is standard melee pally stuff.

A paladin using Holy Freeze is also a good choice. The runeword Voice of Reason (Lem Ko El Eld) is affordable, but you'll need the runeword mod (or a realm ladder character) for that. It reduces enemy cold resistance and has some chance to cast effects. The great thing about a HF paladin is the monsters will be moving so slowly that you tend to be very safe. There are a few monsters in the game who are immune to the slowing effect from HF, but simply being immune to cold doesn't prevent the slow (though it will remove most of your damage). You can even do a hybrid between the two builds, switching between Holy Shock and Holy Freeze as needed to handle immunes.

If you're willing to bend the definition of 'melee' to include bows, why not make a Lightning Fury amazon? Nothing clears out the cows faster than LF. Just grab a set of javelins, max LF, put some points in Pierce (the unique belt Razortail helps, too), and you're set against anything that's not LI.

All of these builds have the benefit that they're not too dependent upon the weapon damage. With limited gear selection, you're simply not going to have some uber weapon that can quickly clear huge mobs with pure physical damage.

 

[jdkerr]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

I'm sure Asmo would say the Schaeferdin . I've got some experience with mine as well, and they are indeed quite powerful. It's the ctc static that's so awesome.

Schaefer's Hammer
Req: 189 str
Range: 1
Speed: 20 BWS, 20% IAS
Static Field: 20% ctc lvl 10
Damage: ~200 average
+50-200 lightning damage

'Crescent Moon' Runeword (Berserker Axe)
Req: 138 str
Range: 3
Speed: 0 BWS, 20% IAS
Static Field: 20% ctc lvl13 (beta)
Damage: ~160 average
Ignore Target Defense
-35% enemy lightning resistance
25% chance open wounds

I just picked Berserker Axe because it seems a lot of people use them. There are certainly advantages to using Schaefer's Hammer, but unless I am missing something I would prefer 'Crescent Moon' in most circumstances. (Then again, it is pretty likely that I am missing something.) The latter can be equipped at a much lower level, too.

EDIT: +1 Ninja credit to Pharaoh.

 

[San]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Sure Frost Zealots are safe and easy to manage, but they're far from the fastest builds to take out masses with.

That bowazon you were thinking about could be good, but relies on a strong bow, so it could be really hard without loads of equipment readily available. WW barbs are really strong too, and handle packs well.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

@jdkerr, the physical damage of Scaeffer's is much higher when you start adding more damage boosters elsewhere and the +2 max damage per level that you ignored. The scaling AR works against everything too (ITD doesn't), and gets boosted by fanaticism nicely. There's also the instant-respectability of 75% Lightning resists.

Also, a Berzerker axe would also need to be repaired very, very often (while the Schaeffer's is indestructible), so a Phase Blade would be a more natural choice for CM (but that would lower the physical damage to about ~half of what the Scaeffers does).

So I'd say Schaeffers "wins", but CM is an adequate alternative (and much easier to make).


To answer the main question, I would suspect a dual-wielding whirlwind barbarian would be fastest/strongest, simply because of their elevated number of attacks per second. They need good weapons to excel though, while a zealot-variant is much less item-dependent. So it depends a lot on what you have available for your budget.

 

[soulmanz]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

edge bows are pretty strong for just tir tal amn, if you consider bowazons with strafe

you get cruel damage against most things (daemons especially - up to 380%!), IAS, LL and PMH

a lot of the gimped tournie characters are strafezons (well, with FA as well) so it can obviously be done untwinked. id contend that a character that is safe to play HC could also do runs pretty well SC, and you avoid the 1.12 issue of IM

it wont be fast, but for bang for buck edge beats a lot out of the melee-ers. and you get lowered vendor prices to gamble nice gloves/boots/circlets etc

obviously requires rwm

 

[jdkerr]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

@sirpoopsalot:

That makes sense, especially if your zealot is more interested in physical damage than elemental damage (so the -35% ELR matters less and the physical matters more).

 

[thefranklin]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Kicksin is the best pvm melee build. No one else has Death Sentry.

If you don't think Death Sentry is Melee enough, I would vote WW, big hurty pointy things are easier to get than big hurty bows.

 

[Pijus1]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Somewhat OT: I thought damage to demons/undead is always off-weapon ED? Even if it is on the weapon, like Edge...

 

[EatSleepDiablo1]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Zealot was my first build after a long layoff. He was studly in Norm/NM, but struggled in hell because he lacked a high damage weapon and a good backup elemental attack for PIs. Even with Sanctuary, undead are slow going with so-so gear.

Furyzon has no such limitations. LF decimates nearly everything and she can hold her own tanking LIs. The Crypt on players 8 was the only place she really struggled for me.

WW Barb was my next favorite (with IK gear). Rarely got into trouble. Few things were a bother.

My suggestion: Level up a dual tree sorc and MF with her. She can run pretty much everything, especially Hell Meph. I am in the midst of running him now with this setup and have 195 S/U drops in 150 runs. Best way to get rich fast.

 

[UllaV]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Zealot was my first build after a long layoff. He was studly in Norm/NM, but struggled in hell because he lacked a high damage weapon and a good backup elemental attack for PIs. Even with Sanctuary, undead are slow going with so-so gear.

That's why freezealot is better. The maxed holy freeze adds oodles of cold damage and with crushing blow you don't need super damage weapons. I've seen on bnet ladder freezealots using the Crushflange in hell to mow monsters down.

Other low level good weapons for freezealot are The General's Tan Do Li Ga, Black runeword in a knout and the Zakarum's Hand. Exceptionally good shield is Spirit in a high res-all pally shield.

Ulla

 

[lingpanda]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Thanks. I'm going to use this character as kind of a gem collector. So I want to run through cows and other mobs quickly. But I was wondering why you would use a holy freeze pally over a holy shock pally? Wouldn't holy shock clear cows faster?

 

[TurtleBay]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

A lightning fury javazon would run cows much much much faster than any pally since the lightning trigger spells all jump from monster to monster.

Also lightning builds are best for cows because the cow king in hell is always lightning immune.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

Somewhat OT: I thought damage to demons/undead is always off-weapon ED? Even if it is on the weapon, like Edge...

You thought correctly.


@lingpanda, I haven't properly tried either one, but I would think you're correct that HolyShock is faster than HolyFreeze. Maybe not as safe though, which can be important for cows.

 

[Dolera]

Re: Best PvM Melee Build? For Cows, Chaos Sanctuary, Pit, Etc.

I second the LF zon, u will never see anything kill cows as fast and u dont need uber javs, u can even go to charsi and get a set of normal javs and still tear the cows a new one