Herr_Limburger - Smells Like Feet (Champion thread)
I'm still having fun killing Diablo with him, so it's going to be a while (if ever) before he kills The Ancients and Baal. So I'll do the writeup now.
He's a pretty run-of-the-mill BNet-style Hammerdin.
LCS
Skills:
20 (40) Blessed Hammer
20 (34) Concentration
20 Blessed Aim
20 Vigor
10 Resist Lightning
2+ Resist Fire
1 (15) Redemption
1 prereq's
[20] Holy Shield from CtA Caduceus
Gear:
Heart of the Oak flail (33)
Enigma Light Plate
Spirit Sacred Targe (45@ base resists, 35 FCR)
Arachnid's Mesh
Magefists
Mara's Kaleidoscope (29)
Harlequin Crest (PTopaz)
Wartravellers (50%)
Stone of Jordan
Shadow Band (rare ring: 10 FCR, 6 @resist, 74 mana, 17 life, 89 AR)
Switch:
beta-CtA Caduceus + Spirit Sacred Targe
Charms:
Gheeds (40%)
6x Lionbranded grand charms (+15 life, 8 dex, 37% GF)
4x Fire resists small charms (15 MF, 14 life)
1x Shimmering SC of Fortune (4/5)
4x Mana + Life SC's (53m, 54l)
TP Tome
2x4 empty
Merc #1: Haseen, Prayer (Act2 Normal)
Insight (Cryptic Axe) + Fortitude + VampGaze (IAS)
Merc #2: Flux, IronWolf (Cold, Normal)
Azurewrath (Hel) + Steelshade (30/3 FireResist Jewel of Virility) + Vipermagi (50@ resists) + eth Spirit Monarch (34 FCR)
Edit: Swapped in a Stormshield later on.
Finds:
Hellforge: Hel/Gul
some decent-but-not-great charms & other stuff
Notes:
1. As you can see, the build is a pretty typical hammerdin with ridiculous items and a decent amount of MF (~260). After making Enigma, I was bound to revisit the build at some point.
2. My first hammerdin was named señor_queso, and the 2nd was Monterey_Jack, so of course I stuck with the cheese theme this time. And since he was a stereotype of overpowering cheese, I choose to name him after the stinkiest cheese I've smelled: Limburger cheese (fyi, a malaria mosquito is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and human feet... that oughta give you an idea of the company it keeps
).
3. I have to say that the Enigma adds a whole new element to playing the build. I'm not referring purely to his improved speed (though it's an obvious step up), but a couple of more subtle nuances. The first was the ability to position myself and my merc so that I'd have maximum power and merc-tanking (when I was using the Act2 merc). With a teleport-less hammerdin, getting a good angle of attack can be a real pain in the butt - not so with this guy.
The 2nd thing that the enigma adds is the rapidity of hot-key usage. Usually a hammerdin will swap between Vigor & Concentrate and keep the spam flowing at a somewhat leasurely pace. But adding teleport to this guy (and the ability to position myself) into the mix makes it much more common to reposition often, so the spam-casting factor is cut back and the mobility is enhanced.
4. While questing through the game (/players8 all the way) I used the Insight merc, but once I got to level85 and had rescued Anya, I switched over to the Act3 merc for doing Diablo runs.
5. Right now I'm enjoying some /players3 Diablo runs. He teleports past everything and stands in the midst of big packs of Venom Lords & Oblivion Knights and kills what he wants with ease. Sometimes he looses as much as ~80% of his 3000 life before flashing Redemption, so although it looks overpowered & super-safe it feels more hectic and complicated than that.
6. However, he pretty much is super-safe. I didn't really have any difficulties surviving, except for my one & only death at Hephasto. ~1500 damage per hit will do that do you sometimes.
7. ~1000 mana is about the right point for me on keeping teleport + hammers going full time. The mana-draining Finger Mages in the Chaos Sanctuary can empty my pool sometimes, but by the time it's empty I can flash Redemption and get my mana back that way. That helps with the life pool too, though the +14 life per kill on Enigma is often enough to break even.
8. For future skillpoints he'll put 8 more into Resist Fire to get his max resist up to 80. Without swapping charms he currently has 82 resists, so 80 max resists is as high as he'll go and I'm not sure where extra points would go. But at that point he'll be level ~95, and I'll likely be bored with him well before then.
Overall:
I'm trying to think of an Achilles Heel to this build. Even other overpowered builds like an Infinity+Lightning sorceress has some headaches like mana or getting a good amount of MF or fighting the occasional unbreakable immunity. Not that those can't be overcome, but they're semi-persistent problems.
But with this guy, I can't really think of anything that causes problems on any consistent basis. The Maggot Lair was a breeze, and retrieving the Tome in Act3 (his one area facing unbreakable Magic Immunes) was no worse. Everything else just dies, and his resists & life can handle a prolonged fight with ease (the merc is a little more fragile at this point - I'm hoping that changes).
It's truly a (cheesily) overpowered build.
I'm still having fun killing Diablo with him, so it's going to be a while (if ever) before he kills The Ancients and Baal. So I'll do the writeup now.
He's a pretty run-of-the-mill BNet-style Hammerdin.
LCS
Skills:
20 (40) Blessed Hammer
20 (34) Concentration
20 Blessed Aim
20 Vigor
10 Resist Lightning
2+ Resist Fire
1 (15) Redemption
1 prereq's
[20] Holy Shield from CtA Caduceus
Gear:
Heart of the Oak flail (33)
Enigma Light Plate
Spirit Sacred Targe (45@ base resists, 35 FCR)
Arachnid's Mesh
Magefists
Mara's Kaleidoscope (29)
Harlequin Crest (PTopaz)
Wartravellers (50%)
Stone of Jordan
Shadow Band (rare ring: 10 FCR, 6 @resist, 74 mana, 17 life, 89 AR)
Switch:
beta-CtA Caduceus + Spirit Sacred Targe
Charms:
Gheeds (40%)
6x Lionbranded grand charms (+15 life, 8 dex, 37% GF)
4x Fire resists small charms (15 MF, 14 life)
1x Shimmering SC of Fortune (4/5)
4x Mana + Life SC's (53m, 54l)
TP Tome
2x4 empty
Merc #1: Haseen, Prayer (Act2 Normal)
Insight (Cryptic Axe) + Fortitude + VampGaze (IAS)
Merc #2: Flux, IronWolf (Cold, Normal)
Azurewrath (Hel) + Steelshade (30/3 FireResist Jewel of Virility) + Vipermagi (50@ resists) + eth Spirit Monarch (34 FCR)
Edit: Swapped in a Stormshield later on.
Finds:
Hellforge: Hel/Gul
some decent-but-not-great charms & other stuff
Notes:
1. As you can see, the build is a pretty typical hammerdin with ridiculous items and a decent amount of MF (~260). After making Enigma, I was bound to revisit the build at some point.
2. My first hammerdin was named señor_queso, and the 2nd was Monterey_Jack, so of course I stuck with the cheese theme this time. And since he was a stereotype of overpowering cheese, I choose to name him after the stinkiest cheese I've smelled: Limburger cheese (fyi, a malaria mosquito is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and human feet... that oughta give you an idea of the company it keeps
).3. I have to say that the Enigma adds a whole new element to playing the build. I'm not referring purely to his improved speed (though it's an obvious step up), but a couple of more subtle nuances. The first was the ability to position myself and my merc so that I'd have maximum power and merc-tanking (when I was using the Act2 merc). With a teleport-less hammerdin, getting a good angle of attack can be a real pain in the butt - not so with this guy.
The 2nd thing that the enigma adds is the rapidity of hot-key usage. Usually a hammerdin will swap between Vigor & Concentrate and keep the spam flowing at a somewhat leasurely pace. But adding teleport to this guy (and the ability to position myself) into the mix makes it much more common to reposition often, so the spam-casting factor is cut back and the mobility is enhanced.
4. While questing through the game (/players8 all the way) I used the Insight merc, but once I got to level85 and had rescued Anya, I switched over to the Act3 merc for doing Diablo runs.
5. Right now I'm enjoying some /players3 Diablo runs. He teleports past everything and stands in the midst of big packs of Venom Lords & Oblivion Knights and kills what he wants with ease. Sometimes he looses as much as ~80% of his 3000 life before flashing Redemption, so although it looks overpowered & super-safe it feels more hectic and complicated than that.
6. However, he pretty much is super-safe. I didn't really have any difficulties surviving, except for my one & only death at Hephasto. ~1500 damage per hit will do that do you sometimes.
7. ~1000 mana is about the right point for me on keeping teleport + hammers going full time. The mana-draining Finger Mages in the Chaos Sanctuary can empty my pool sometimes, but by the time it's empty I can flash Redemption and get my mana back that way. That helps with the life pool too, though the +14 life per kill on Enigma is often enough to break even.
8. For future skillpoints he'll put 8 more into Resist Fire to get his max resist up to 80. Without swapping charms he currently has 82 resists, so 80 max resists is as high as he'll go and I'm not sure where extra points would go. But at that point he'll be level ~95, and I'll likely be bored with him well before then.
Overall:
I'm trying to think of an Achilles Heel to this build. Even other overpowered builds like an Infinity+Lightning sorceress has some headaches like mana or getting a good amount of MF or fighting the occasional unbreakable immunity. Not that those can't be overcome, but they're semi-persistent problems.
But with this guy, I can't really think of anything that causes problems on any consistent basis. The Maggot Lair was a breeze, and retrieving the Tome in Act3 (his one area facing unbreakable Magic Immunes) was no worse. Everything else just dies, and his resists & life can handle a prolonged fight with ease (the merc is a little more fragile at this point - I'm hoping that changes).
It's truly a (cheesily) overpowered build.
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