LLD30 Build Guides Collection

maxicek

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This is a collection of guides for level 30 duelling. I am not making any claims for how good the builds are, or if they are up to date. If you are using them for SPF duelling, check the LLD30 rules first as not everything may be allowed.

More info can be found and questions asked in the LLD Nursery:
 
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The level 30 caster mini-guide (LLD)
Originally posted by crawlingdeadman, Jan 22, 2012


i have typed this all out a few times, but can never find it so i'm making it into a half-assed guide.

In my opinion the best beginner LLD is a 30 caster. they start out cheap, can be very effective, are tons of fun to duel with, and are probably the most common level/build. also, they all essentially have the same gear so when you get the gear, you can make one and if you don't like it, make a different one instead.

Gear:

Beginner Gear:

peasant crown
telling of beads or eye of etlich
spirit crystal sword
vipermagi
rhyme bone shield, spirit pally shield (pally), rhyme head (necro), viscertuant (sorc), or whitstan's guard
magefists, bloodfists, or frosties depending upon your fcr needs
2x 10fcr/mana/life rings
string of ears, crafted 10fcr belt (if needed), nightsmoke, or rare with fhr/life/replenish
sander's boots

insight in a staff on switch

Advanced Gear:
2tree/20fcr/30frw/2os/life/mana circlet (if you don't need fcr, pcrown wins out over most rares)
2tree/10fcr/replenish/life/mana ammy
35%/100+ mana spirit sword
vipermagi
same shield selection as above
same gloves
2x sojs (rarely will the stats of a rare beat out sojs)
string of ears
sander's boots

insight staff on switch

Note: helms and ammies are probably the most expensive single items of this type of build. a good helm or ammy can be worth several high runes. i personally paid between 10 and 15 high runes for an amulet for a hammerdin and considered it worth every penny. before trying to get the really good helm/ammy combo, do yourself a favor and invest in a pair of sojs. they will take your builds further for less than either helm or ammy could. as i said before pcrown is very tough to beat. imo, a helm has to have 2tree/20fcr/30frw before i'll even consider it. the mana, life, frw, and replenish on pcrown are unbeatable unless you have those.

Inventory/Stash:
fill your inventory with any charms you can get ahold of until you can switch them with 15 life small charms. some builds cannot get enough frw so you may want to put a few frw/mana charms instead of lifers. res is rarely a problem with this level, but if you need some, fill it out here.

a beginner would do well to socket helm and body armor with perfect rubies to start with. the gain in life will keep you alive through your beginner mistakes. After you start living longer and duels go on longer, switch the sockets to perfect skulls. the amount of life you'll replenish over a longer duel is not to be ignored. in longer duels you can gain back as much as 200-300 life depending on the situation. replenish is great, get it where you can! if you cannot make a hit recovery breakpoint easily with charms, you can also socket helm/armor with shaels, but this isn't the best solution as you cannot get replenish on charms, but you can get fhr, life, mana, res, etc.

stash items should be kept to a minimum. there are items of sorb for most of the damage types in this level, but it's generally frowned upon to sorb someone. one thing I nearly always have handy, however, is death's belt for the cannot be frozen.

Builds:
first of all check here. There are several in-depth guides for the main builds. speaking of which, top builds tend to be (in no particular order) hammerdin, fireball sorc, and bone necro. These are the top three, but they do have good competition with lightning trapper, blizz sorc, fissure druid, and poison zon. i'd also put bowazon into the top echelon, but they use entirely different gear so i wont touch on them here. windy is a do-able build, but the range limitations coupled with no easy movement skill like charge or teleport make them less common and easier to beat with the top builds. fire trappers work well in teams, but just don't put out the damage needed to go 1 on 1 (they are a ton of fun to play though).

I was going to do a quick summary of some builds' skill placement, but not now, maybe some other time.
 
LLD Fury druid guide
Originally posted by Zangeif, Sep 7, 2007


I figured I would post this since there have been a lot of LLD related threads lately. I currently own the top fury druid on any server.

Fury druids are the most versatile melee characters at level 30. They hold their own against barbs and paladins, and they are much better against casters than either of the two. While a barb or paladin's high defense is worthless in a duel vs a caster, a druid is just as effective since he will have low defense. He will also use a range 5 weapon which makes casters much easier to hit, and can run faster by charging up Feral Rage. However, a Fury druid is a very expensive character to make, and it is not recommended for those who are not willing to spend a lot on an LLD. It's fairly cheap to make a mediocre zealot or conc barb with an honor and rhyme, but a druid's damage is all coming from his charms and jewels, which can be very costly..

Gear:

Level 30 melee jewels:
The standard godly melee jewel is the 24 maxer. This jewel has 2 perfect mods; a 9 max prefix and a 15 max suffix. These should be the staple of any level 30 melee character. A 24 max jewel may be very hard to find, so substitute jewels as close to 24 max as possible. Min-Max jewels are also good LLD jewels, and have the possibility to do higher average damage than 24 maxers. However, in order to do more average damage than a 24 max, you need a rare jewel with 3 near perfect mods. I personally have the only jewel I have ever seen that does more damage than a 24 maxer - a perfect 3 mod 8-18 damage jewel. However, a perfect 4 mod min-max jewel would do a whopping 12-18 damage. I doubt this jewel will ever turn up though.

Max/AR jewels could be useful to keep in your stash for dueling conc barbs; the kings of all melee. a 15max/60AR jewel is a perfect 2 mod jewel, and 18/60AR would be a perfect 3 mod jewel. I've been toying with the idea of making a max/AR helm for my Fury druid, but I can't seem to spare the 4 extra stash slots to store it.

Helm:
+2 shapeshift, +3 fury 2os helm, with suffix if possible - VERY hard to find.
+3 fury 3os helm, with +HoW if possible - Use this if you can't find the helm listed above.
Fill sockets with 24 max jewels
You may want to make a second +3 Fury helm with 3x 15max/15res all jewels to use against casters.

Armor:
Peace runeword - I considered this armor to be overpowered and I didn't use it for a long time because a 72/80 armor is so much sexier. However, as the melee competition got better on USEast, I finally made one of these to use in most duels. When wearing 2 sojs, this armor will give +4 to critical strike, or a 38% chance to do double damage.
Artisans light armor of the squid (80 life is perfect). This armor will be better in duels vs high def barbs and paladins, where you will wear angelics instead of SoJs
Fill sockets with 24 max jewels

Shield:
Artisans tower Shield of deflecting - 3x 24max: 6 frame blocking
Artisans Tower Shield of Deflecting - 2x 24max 1x shael: 5 frame blocking
Artisans Tower Shield of Deflecting - 3x shael: 4 frame blocking (I've never tested this but some people say it's helpful - It doesn't seem worth it to me)

Rings:
SoJs vs. all low defense characters
Angelics vs. high defense barbs and paladins
Str/Dex/AR ring. Use this in duels when you will want to wear Goblin Toes and need to make up for the stat loss of Sander's

Amulet:
+2 Shapehift/life amulet (80 is perfect)
+2 Shapeshift/life/resist amulet (higher cold resist is very important due to cold mastery) 60 life will be perfect for this amulet.
Angelics vs. high defense barbs and paladins
Nokazoan vs. fire sorcs or fire trappers

Boots:
Sanders for most duels
Goblin Toe vs. low def/high life melee. Goblin Toes are great when dueling other Fury druids.

Belt:
String of Ears (15dr/15mdr is perfect)
Deaths Sash when you need CBF
10%OW/Life belt vs some casters

Gloves:
Bloodfists - feel free to upgrade once if you're a perfectionist

Weapon:
6 x Shael superior Naga - 6/4 frame attack, range 3. Use this weapon vs. melee.
4 x Shael 2 x Hel superior Grim Scythe - 6/4 frame attack, range 5. You can use 20ED/-req jewels instead of Hels if you want to switch in your str/dex ring to equip the weapon. I would rather use Hels, and receive an extra +1 to all skills (including crit strike) Use this weapon vs. casters and smiters.
If you want to make a pure melee Fury, a 100+ED 30ias 2 socket Cinquendas or Cutlass would be a great choice. This would save you a lot of points in str, while still hitting 7/4 Fury when socketed with 2 Shaels. However, these are hard to find, and your low str would mean that you could not equip a Grim Scythe for dueling casters.

Charms
40 x Fine small charms of sustenance (3/20/15 is perfect)
1 x Fine grand charm of balance (10/76/fhr is perfect) - use this when you wear your jeweled Light Plate in order to hit the 4 frame fhr exactly.
10 x 3/20/5frws in stash to use vs. casters. I would keep more but I don't have room.

Switch:
Spirit Sword and Sigons Shield for prebuff. I personally hate prebuffing with gear from the stash, so I don't do it (I also have no room)

Skills:
20 Lycanthropy
5 Werewolf
1 Oak Sage
12 Heart of Wolverine
1 Feral Rage
1 Rabies
1 Fury

Some people like putting points into Oak Sage, but most LLDers go with HoW. When Sage dies, your life decreases to stay at the same percentage it was at with Sage. Since Sage dies early in most duels (and it's unwise to recast in melee duels) the amount of actual extra damage your Sage lets you take will be small. Your life will be scaled down to remain at the same percentage early in the duel. However, when using HoW, even if it dies early, you get 100% of that extra damage done.

Others like to put some points into summons. While this is extremely beneficial in Fury vs. Fury due to an interruptible attack, many consider it BM to use summons in melee duels.

Stats:
Str - enough for gear (121)
Dex - enough for gear (86)
Vitality - everything else (won't be much left)
Energy - none

My Druid's final stats with no prebuff gear:

Damage: 2226 max
Life: 2723
Attack rating: 7241
4 frame attack
4 frame fhr
With Angelics I have more life and over 11K AR, but my damage is lower.
 
Woodzmans Basic LLD Bone Necro Revised
Originally posted by Woodzmans, revised by CryP. Dec 30, 2007


As I have had several pm's from people here as well as many msg'es on Bnet from people interested in how I built my lvl 30 PnB necro I decided to type out this little build sheet. It seems in the last few weeks more and more people are getting interested in lld. We can always use more people to duel and I hope this information, while not intended as a comprehensive guide, will help some of the newcomers get off to a good start.

First off, while you can start just about any character and equip it for the price of a few pgems, lld gear can get extremely expensive. And top end lld gear can be unbelievably expensive...be prepared. That being said you don't need perfect gear to be a good dueler. If you are just starting out just put one together as best you can and play it alot, decide if you like the build and learn to use it in a way that plays to its strengths and minimizes its weaknesses. Then as you become more experienced and familiar with the build you can add improvements and refinements....this can lead to several re-builds.

Most of the information here I got from fellow lld'ers or off the web in various spots so be aware I'm not trying to take credit for anyone else's efforts. This is just my version of the lld bone necro so don't feel you have to follow this guide to the letter. In fact it would be better to improvise and experiment with different ways to improve it. Now for the build.

SKILLS:

1 teeth
1 bone armor
1 corpse explosion
13 bone spear max for lvl
1 bone spirit max for lvl
17 bonewall
7 bone prison

I don't recommend spending any points in the summoning or curse tree. As I see it a golem won't do any good against a decent opponent and if you have to you can get curses on your head or a switch wand.
The points in bonewall and bone prison can be played with a little bit but I prefer this setup as it serves to synergize my damage skills as well as give me a little better shield vs. ranged chars and charges with bw.

STATS:

The usual of course,
strength just enough for your gear
dex enough for max block with your head
vit everything else
energy none

My final stats are:
str 40
dex 97
vit 78
energy 25

I recommend getting max block with any pvp char, I know you can get more life without it but I tried it several times with bone builds and didn't care for it at all. Your best bet is to find the desired mods on a head with better base block...demon head and unraveler are the best choices.

THE GEAR

A good starter setup would look like:

pcrown socketed with pruby sheal or pskull
vmagi socketed with pruby sheal or pskull
magefist
sanders boots
spirit in a low req sword, any fcr will work as long as you hit 75 including your other gear.
2x rings with good mods; looking for life, mana, rep life, stats. fcr, res ect
ammy with +skill(s) and mods similar to the rings
rhyme made in a head with good staff mods; looking for spear, spirit, bw, a useful curse ect.
string or any belt with useful mods; fhr, life, mana res, ect. at this stage the belt is a good place to shore up any weaknesses
your gear may have.

The breakpoints you will need to be aware of are:


Faster Hit Recovery
Frames FHR Needed
13 - 0
12 - 5
11 - 10
10 - 16
9 - 26
8 - 39
7 - 56
6 - 86
5 - 152

Faster Cast Rate
Frames FCR Needed
15 - 0
14 - 9
13 - 18
12 - 30
11 - 48
10 - 75
9 - 125


The breakpoints work like this: Think of the game as a series of still pictures that when displayed one after the other create the motion of everything you see...like a cartoon. Each picture is called a frame, now according to the table if we have 75 fcr it takes us 10 frames to cast a bonespear. If we have 85 fcr it still takes us 10 frames to cast and doesn't get any better until we hit 125 fcr. Fhr works the same way. So we need to get just enough of each to hit our desired breakpoints and use the remaining space for other things like life, mana, res, ect.

A well tricked out setup would look something like:

+2 PnB 20 fcr 30 frw circlet with good mods like mana, life, res, stats. life rep, ect
+2 PnB 10 fcr ammy with good mods
35 fcr spirit sword
2x soj
perfect vmagi
crafted 10 fcr belt with good mods
sanders boots
magefists
a +3 spear +3 spirit + to skill-of-your-choice rhyme head or a +2 pnb +more skills deflecting mod rare

There are many options for your switch gear, most of the time I use a lvl 17 meditation insight in a low req polearm or staff. Keep a few other goodies in the stash. I have a wand or 2 with useful curses, a couple different heads for situational use, a nice 10fcr ring and a 15/15 string for when i need dr or mdr.

For your charms you will want to look for life, mana, frw, and res. I recommend you get the best charm set you can afford. Try not to worry too much about having perfect gear. In my experience a well played char is > well equipped lesser skilled char.

Frw is also important to the lld nec, how much to get really depends on your play style and your other gear. I usually have about 80 but will switch some in or out depending on the situation, sometimes I go as high as 120. Just experiment and see what works best for you.

There are a lot of choices and combinations that will work, just try to make your gear work together as a system. I would recommend at least 75 fcr and 56 fhr and max all res. before you start dueling.Your gear can mean the difference between winning and losing and small adjustments can sometimes make a big difference. In your optimal gear try to get 125 fcr, 86 fhr. stacked res, and as much frw as you can squeeze in.

As far as dueling strategy goes I'm going to leave that pretty open. I will say that to make any build work you need to play to its strengths. You have great range with spirit, a nice fast attack in spear, good physical damage absorb in bone armor, and a very versatile tool in bonewall. BW can be a shield, a trap or an obstacle...pop one in front of a person with a spirit chain on their tail, when they hit the wall and start getting slammed with the spirits see how many times you can spear them before they can get away. Just try to play smart and use what you have, If things aren't working out switch things up, change out some gear, try to duel them at a different range, ect.

Getting Started
Starting lld can be frustrating especially in pubs where your only competition is likely to be poorly built/played chars or chars far above your lvl. Try to get to know some people who lld as they can help you alot.

Getting the gear is another stumbling block you will have to get past. Basically the choices are; find it, craft/roll it, gamble/shop it, or trade for it. Make sure you are gambling, shopping, or crafting at the correct lvl...there is a lot of info about this on the net, a little research here is well worth the time spent. Gambling is very time consuming but will eventually pay off. Crafting can take a long time to get the mods you want and can get pretty expensive, but again it will pay off eventually. Re-rolling rares and magics in the cube has had good results for me. In the end you will probably end up trading for some of the gear you need, just be patient and be prepared to pay for it when you do find it. I use 2 high lvl chars to help support my lld habit; a mf loaded sorc that plays almost exclusively in NM, and a GF barb that almost exclusively runs hell trav.

That should be enough to get you off to a good start. This build is a lot of fun and very competitive. I hope this guide helps.


Special thanks to:
inanefedaykin
newforumbloke
smittysixten
and especially crawlingdeadman

all of whom were a big help to me getting started in lld.
 
Level 30 Hammerdin Guide
Originally posted by crawlingdeadman, Dec 31, 2007


woodz's rewrite of his guide has inspired me to finish my own. feel free to post suggestions on improvements. some info about my experience; i've been playing this build for well over a year now. i've remade my hammerdin several times and while i haven't tried everything that i possibly could, i have dabbled with skill placement and gear enough that i feel i'll hit the high points. this guide is written from the perspective of East Ladder, if you're NL and cannot get a couple spirits, you're on your own for gear selection though much of it will be the same. also i believe Europe goes to lvl 29 instead of 30 for their duelers. if that's the case then you'll look for +1 pally ammy and circlet instead of +2 combat. all other gear should be nearly identical unless they have some other standards i've not heard about.

low level dueling (lld) like high level dueling (hld) isn't cheap. However, an overall "good" character can be started and be very effective in public duel games with fairly inexpensive gear. That's what first attracted me to lld. you can hold your own with gear you find or trade pgems/mid runes to get. tricking out your character will take a lot of time, effort, and hrs just like hld.

There are several possible combinations of gear and skill placements, but stats are pretty much generic so i'll start with those.

Stats:
str: enough for gear. it should be either 45 for mages, 50 for eth frosties, 60 for non eth frosties, or enough for whatever pole you're using if you decide to use one.

dex: if you're going to be pubing it up or plan on dueling in a league that has chargers and bowazons, get max block with holy shield. If you plan on only dueling casters then you can skip the dex as well as the holy shield.

vit: all the rest

energy: none

paladins have many things going for them in pvp, one is they get 3 life per vitality spent. Another is holy shield making max block easy to hit even with a low blocking shield such as spirit. with that in mind you should aim for 850+ life after charms and gear are taken into account. over 1000 life isn't hard to hit, however so shoot for that. mana is very gear dependent, but when you're dueling with good people your duels will last longer and to keep charging and spamming hammers you need as much as you can get. 500+ mana is a good starting point, but you should aim for 700 or more.

Gear Basics:
what you need is as many +skills as you can get. try to save stat points wherever possible by getting them on gear. res isn't as big a deal on a pally as it is on other builds because you can make spirit in a pally shield with resists. i don't recommend any other fcr bp other than 125%. someone on a budget will be able to get 125% easily since you probably won't be using sojs right off the bat and the pro will have access to a 20fcr circlet. you don't need to worry about fhr at all with 2x spirits since 110 is way over the 86% bp and the next one is 200 and not worth shooting for.

hat: peasant crown, not much can top this, if you're on a budget and cant get this for pgems try tarnhelm or lore. if you have either of those though you can trade for a pcrown.

ammy: eye of etlich, telling of beads, or 1pally/mods

weapon: spirit sword (low reqs are alright, but if you opt for a high damage pole insight on switch you may as well use a higher req one, i recommend battle sword)

armor: vipermagi (spirit shroud and stealth are good alternatives, but if you're not picky then a low viper should be cheap)

shield: spirit in a 30+res pally shield (try to get one that has str req comparable to the rest of your gear. if you use mage fists 45 str will be your heaviest item and therefore a heraldic is your best str:block ratio shield)

gloves: magefists (if you don't need the fcr then frostburns are what i'd use. bloodfists and sanders have life but you'll need mana more)

rings: 10fcr rings (good mods are more mana, life, res, and stats)

belt: string of ears is the go to belt here any stats will do 15%dr/15mdr is perfect (other perfectly good options are nightsmoke (mana, res, damage to mana), deaths (if you feel you need it. note: being frozen doesnt slow down your primary means of movement, charge so cbf is something you can do without), also a good rare can be nice but would wind up being harder to find and more expensive than a simple string of ears).

boots: sanders are easy to find and cheap. alternatives are ck boots (more stats), good tri res boots (really shouldn't need the resists), or crafted blood boots with 10 life replen/20life and other good mods. if you're going for the maximum damage hammers can produce as you can then you should use tearhaunch.

switch: when i first started i used an insight in a partizan it made fast work via charge of many pub idiots. i then switched to rune staff insight for the lower req and therefore more life. Another option is a foh/convic scepter + spirit you're then considered a mage. I've run into a couple hammerdins that use a scepter with +meditation coupled with another spirit. This allows them to regenerate mana and still be able to block arrows as well as gives you that absorb from spirit vs bone necs while you're regenerating mana (it's a small amount but every little bit helps). I have never personally tried this, but I thought I should include it for completeness sake. Another possible switch is a +holy shield scepter which would save you a skill point into it.

Starter gear set up:
pcrown
eye of etlich
spirit crystal sword
vipermagi
spirit heraldic shield
magefists
2x fcr ring
string of ears
sanders boots

switch insight in whatever

put pskulls in helm and armor. If you find your duels lasting less than 2 min then sub in prubies but at around the two min mark a skull will have replenished your life more than a ruby adds to your base life (assuming you're not at full life for that two minutes. it also regenerates mana as well. stash is filled with as many life/man charms of any size as you can fit. don't use stat charms (str or dex) as they will paint you into a corner and as you slowly get better charms you'll have to remake your character just because you had a 2 str sc.

as long as your spirits add up to 55% fcr, you have the 125% bp.

Advanced gear set up:
2pcombat/20fcr/life/mana circlet socketed with a pskull
2pcombat/10fcr/life/mana/replen ammy
33%/100+mana spirit long sword
35/13 vipermagi socketed with pskull
33%/100+mana/45res aerin shield
frostburns (eth if you can to save 10 str)
2x sojs
15%/15mdr string of ears
cow king's boots (for vs melee then 10replen/20life blood boots vs casters)

stash filled with 40x 15life/mana scs. depending on how many stats you place and your charm quality you will have well over 1k life. my current hammerdin has 1213 life with max block.

make sure your spirits add up to 65% fcr then you're hitting 125%

Skills
There are a couple ways to go with this build. I'm assuming and recommending you get hell rushed. i have a norm only character that can see games for me. if you don't want to go to the trouble you can do just fine on a normal only rushed pally, just take 8 skills away from a synergy. alternately you could just make games instead of trying to see ones already in progress. This also allows you to set any level restrictions you want.

Vigor build:
defensive auras:
1 prayer, defiance, cleansing
13 vigor (i choose to max vigor over blessed aim as i tend to charge idiots w/o block and the extra damage for charge is easy enough to get here)

offensive auras:
1 might
6 blessed aim
1 conc (only half the listed damage increase gets added to hammers so no more than one point goes into conc. blessed aim and vigor add more damage).

combat skills:
1smite, charge, holy shield, holy bolt
13 blessed hammer (maxed for the lvl)

with this skill placement and either of the gear selections i mentioned you'll be doing 1.4-1.6 k hammer damage.

i don't recommend going without vigor. you may think that putting the points you'd put into it into BA/conc would get you greater hammer damage and you'd be right, but not having vigor makes basic desync more difficult. oh since i brought it up desync; it happens. it's not bm (in fact i've had fewer people complain about it in lld than in hld). it takes a lot of practice to do it on command and requires more skill to master than teleporting around. it's the way a paladin gets around, it can be countered with basic knowledge of it and so i don't see it as bm. other people disagree, but if desync didn't exist at all, i'd still use charge to move around.

That being said there is a way to get around placing skills in vigor and that is the unique tearhaunch greaves. i've not personally used them as i see the 70 str req and low amount of useful stats as not being worth the amount of life you lose nor the smattering of hammer damage you gain. my first hammerdin didn't have vigor (nor did i use tearhaunch) i've long since become a vigor addict and i'm listing these from memory and math.

Vigorless build:
defensive auras:
none

offensive auras:
1 might
19 blessed aim
4 conc (this time you're going to dump the rest of the points into conc since you've maxed the only synergy you can.)

combat skills:
1smite, charge, holy shield, holy bolt
13 blessed hammer (maxed for the lvl)

i believe that 1.8-1.9k hammer damage is what this one works out to be (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong). if you want to further increase your damage you can either skip holy shield or get it off of a scepter thereby saving yourself a point that you could then place in conc.


Strategy and matchups:
as in many other guides i've read i'm only going to hit on the basics. desync takes tons of practice and i still don't believe i've mastered it as well as many i've faced. charge around with vigor on, switch to hammer/concentration and make some hammers, switch back charge/vigor, switch... rinse wash repeat. The difficulty is knowing when you're most likely desynced and knowing what kind of patterns to use vs various builds and when to not use a discernible pattern. during long duels whenever you get a breather or need to regen mana switch to insight and put cleansing on (assuming you have it). you'll regen your mana very fast and the cleansing will replen your life as well.

tough matchups:
pretty much anything with a decent amount of frw and a ranged attack (especially the homing attacks). the skill of the opponent plays a huge factor. tough matchups include; bowazon, bone mancer, light trapper, poison zon. if they run around don't complain, they have to dodge invisible hammers so learn to get ahead of them and try to predict their movements (for the open field ones like the zons). bone mancers are probably the toughest to duel vs if they know how to use bone walls to funnel you and also when to run out of the area away from you.

edit: forgot to give thanks to all the guys i've dueled with and learned from, destructionjoe (wouldn't have known any of this without his guide), woodzman, pallyanderson, smitty, junkie, cokey, and many others i've forgotten (sorry). big thanks to unkie mike for being a good mod even if you are going senile.
 
King Shango's LLD Plaguezon Guide
Originally posted by King Shango, Jun 9, 2010


I figured I would post this since I've had people ask me for my build and I was too lazy to explain it at the time so I told them to find a guide somewhere (but after some searching I discovered there isn't one). So let's jump into this.

This is for a level 30 hellrushed Amazon with all skill and stat quests done (I don't bother with Anya due it's resis being bugged).

We'll be using the 86% fhr bp (gives us 5 frame recovery) at all times, 30 IAS BP for javs (9 frame throws), and 65% IAS BP for our bow (9 frame attacks).


SKILLS

Poison Javelin - 20
Lightning Bolt - 1
Plague Javelin - 13

Dodge - 1
Avoid - 1
Evade - 1

Magic Arrow - 1
Multiple Shot - 1
Cold Arrow - 1
Guided Arrow - 1


STATS

Str - Enough for gear
Dex - Enough for max block with your Rhyme
Vita - All other stat points go here
Energy - none


GEAR

I'll list ideal gear then substitute gear (subs in italics)


Helm

1 zon, 30 frw, xx life, and 2 sockets are what you want (any other mods are icing on the cake) socket it with str/dex/@res jewels

Peasant Crown - socket it with a str/dex/@res jewel

Armour

Peace runeword (either MP or BP)

Some people consider the slow missiles proc on Peace to be BM so if you can find the space (I don't have any available slots so I tell those people to wipe up their tears) in your stash have a Vipermagi or Spirit Shroud to swap.

Belt

String of Ears - Be sure it its 15% damage reduction and 15 magic damage reduction, the other stats on it don't matter.

24 fhr, xx life, life rep, res belt - I use this for lit stack vs FoHers

Gloves

2 jav&spear along with 10 ias (these are the minimum mods they should have, try to find ones with life rep and resis)

Bloodfists

Boots

Sanders Riprap

30 frw, 10 fhr, tri res boots - I use these for cold stack vs sorcs

Rings

2x Stone of Jordan

Amulet

1 zon, xx life, xx mana, life rep, @ res - Try your best to find one with these mods, at minimum find one with 1 zon xx life.

Eye of Etlich

Telling of Beads


Shield

Rhyme runeword in a Bone Shield

Javelins

Maiden Javs with 4 jav&spear and either 20 or 30 IAS (you'll be using the 30 IAS bp so the 10 IAS on your gloves will let you hit it with 20 IAS on jav), either rep quantity or increased stack size is a highly desirable mod (if you can't find a set with it you'll just have to be more conservative with how you throw) any other mods after that are a boon.

Bow

3 skill 15%ed 5os Ashwood Bow (socket it with 3 Shaels, a Nef, and the highest dmg jewel you can find)

Upped Rogues Bow - I'm not a fan of this option since it limits your socketing options (you can't socket it with anything with a level requirement over 25), it's damage is very low (it sort of makes up for this with it's high DS), and it requires 2 more str than an Ashwood.

Godly Duped Bow - If you have no scruples you can use one these

Inventory

You end up doing a lot of charm swaps on this char

There's no cut and dry setup for how you have your inventory since a lot of it is personal preference (I probably use more frw than most people so my invent setup would look strange to them).

You want a mix of;

life/mana scs (15/12s are perfect)
frw/@res scs (3/5s are perf on ladder on nl you can find 5/5s)
5fhr/5@res scs
3 max dmg, xx ar, frw
3 max dmg, xx ar, fhr
life res scs (either 15/5s or 15/9s, 5s are @res 9s are single resis)





Strategy


With the skill layout listed and the ideal gear your plague jav dmg will be 11458-11635 over 12.6 seconds, have 42% dodge, 50% avoid, 42% evade and 51% chance of crit strike. Your life, mana and bow dmg will change depending on what gear and charms you're using. Ideally you want to shoot for 1k+ life, 300+ mana, and 110+ frw with all your swaps. The 3 max dmg with mods scs are there to help your bow dmg while also covering other areas (frw and fhr) so try not to skimp on those.



Now you've got your character built and geared, your stash is set up nicely and you want to kill some people.




The first thing you should know about a plaguezon is that they're a defensive build (there are few situations where being offensive will benefit you) but they kill fast. You'll spend most of your time running away from and in circles around your opponent. Also your bow damage will never be anything to write home about but it's mainly there to keep people off balance and sometimes to deliver the coup de grace. You match up well vs most builds and by being a bit of an oddball character you can surprise people since they're not used to dueling a plaguezon.

Now onto the strategy section


Assassins


Kickers - Die. This is one of your worst matchups, not entirely a lost cause but it's an uphill battle from the get go.

If they're pure kicker (no MB and traps to stunlock) you stand a much better chance vs them, they'll either throw on BoS and try to run you down or they'll DF on top of you. Lure them into a plague cloud (be ready to WSG like you never have before if they catch up to you) wait for it to do its thing then finish them off with another cloud or a GA to the face.

If it's a kicker with MB and traps your only chance is to hope they make a bad mistake, they should end you quickly but don't feel bad every build has its counter and kickers aren't seen much nowadays.

Trappers - Either die in an ugly manner, duel to a stalemate or kill them and make them very angry.

Those 3 ways are how every duel I've had with a trapper has turned out. They dictate the fight and it's up to you to try to turn it in your favour. Be very careful around these guys since they can MB and lay traps on you from farther out than you realize.

A lot of trappers will be lame and just sit in a field of traps and wait for you to come to them. When faced with this situation you have 2 options; plink away at them with your GAs from offscreen (be careful, traps shoot pretty far) until either they get bored and move out of the trapfield or you get bored of dueling someone who doesn't want to do much of anything, or you can try to rush them and dodge their traps blasts and MB and land a plague cloud on them.

An aggressive trapper (using either DF or a tele staff) is a whole different ball game and normally doesn't end well for you. Try to get them to land in a plague cloud and do your best to avoid getting locked up.





Amazons


Bowzon - Die. Seriously, you have virtually no chance against a good bowa.


CSer- They have to close the gap to you to be able to do damage, aim your jav well and have them looking greener than the Hulk before this happens.

Plaguezon - Whoever lands the first plague usually wins, dart in and out and try to hit with a cloud.




Barbarians


Whirlwind - As long as you fight sensibly you can make short work of these guys. Avoid their whirls, hope they try to leap at you and have a plague cloud waiting for them. Just be sure to have good frw and watch for desync from NL whirlwinds.

Conc - Free kill! One of your easiest duels, Concers are meant to be easymode melee so as long as you don't stand toe to toe with them they're no threat to you.

Singer - The biggest barb threat to you. Their damage might be even more laughable than your bow damage but they can easily get you in dodgelock if you let them get in range.




Druids


Fissure - One of the most fun duels you will have. Stay on the move but keep an eye out so you don't run into a fissure or get trapped in by well placed fissures. Use your bow to poke at them every now and then, I tend to circle around them in concentric circles (don't be obvious about it or you'll eat a fissure) until I spot an opening to rush in and plague them.


Windies - A boring but easy duel. If they're lame they'll sit back in a pack of summons with Hurricane, if they do this you can launch some GAs/Multis at them to kill their army then come in for the kill. If they try to telestomp you it becomes even easier, just have a plague cloud waiting for them and get out of the Hurricane, their health will drop in no time then you can finish them off easily.

Maulers - Free kill, easily the worst LLD char.

Fury - Watch for them to desync from high frw. They cannot damage you from range so you just have to kite them around until you can lure them into a plague cloud. Do not ever try to tank one of these unless you want a free ride back to town.




Necromancer



Bone necro - These make for very interesting duels. Watch out for Bone Spirits while you dodge spears, do your best not to get walled in (you're dead if you do thanks to dodgelock) and close the distance to them until you can plague them.





Sorceress



Blizzard - One of your hardest duels, these can easily dodgelock (using Telekinesis to get you into FHR animation, then teleing on you and spamming Frost Nova or Ice Blast) you and they kill extremely fast. Do your best to avoid being telestomped and get them to land in a plague cloud.

Lightning - These can kill you ridiculously easily, they're also almost non-existent in LLDing. Same as a blizz sorc just TStorm makes them lock you up and kill you faster.

Fireball - Widely regarded as the top lvl 30 dueler and for good reason. Extremely high damage output coupled with high mobility makes them a huge threat. A good one will try the same thing as Blizz or Lit sorcs so try to keep standing in your poison clouds when they tele on/near you.

Firewall - Arguably the strongest sorc variant at lvl 30 also can be considered one of the top duelers period in LLD and MLD (I haven't gotten to test a high level one yet so I can't comment on that). Against a good one this will be one of your hardest duels, their mobility combined with the ridiculously high dmg of firewall will make things very tough for you. On the flipside you're also a very tough matchup for them and as long as you can keep pressure on them while avoiding FWs you can emerge victorious.




Paladins



Smiter, Charger (and its variants), Liberator, V/T, T/V, Hammer, Zeal - They will try to desync using charge leaving you with three options; you can use WSGing to desync yourself until you both get bored, you can tell them to stop using flaws in the game and have a real duel, or you put your back to a wall (this can end badly vs smiters though) and keep a poison cloud around you to catch them when they get close.
 
BLoke's Guide to the World of the Lvl 30 FB Sorc!
Originally posted by NewForumBloke, Apr 3, 2008


Bloke’s LLD Level 30 FB Sorc Quick Guide


Ok, so I’ve been meaning to write up an lld guide for a while now and I might as well start it now, no time like the present right? I’ll just give a quick overview of the skills, items, and stats/charms that will be needed in your new character to be an effective dueler in both lld games/tourneys as well as pubs.

Main BP’s to aim for:
105 fcr
86 fhr
75 res on everything with available stack on Cold and Lightning
Max Block at all times
600+ life
400+ mana

Stats:

Str: enough to wear your heaviest piece of gear.
Dex: enough to obtain max block with your shield (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND GETTING MAX BLOCK, otherwise the chargers and hammerdins and barbs and fury druids, etc are going to LOVE beating the crap outta ya)
Vita: Everything you can OR enough to obtain your goal life, usually 800+ is good to aim for (this is only for ES variants)
Ene: Nothing OR Rest of your stats once you can obtain 800+ life. Make sure if you do decide for ES which I DO NOT RECOMMEND TO BEGINNERS is to have at least 1.2k+ mana pool.


Skills:


Lightning Tree:

Tk
- 0-1 Pt Pre-req for Teleport as well as a fun skill for annoying pubs

Tele 0-1 Pt Now, depending on where you duel, you may or may not want a pt into teleport. Usually from what I’ve learned is that against prisioning necros and charging hammerdins, teleport is fine. Against any other char though it’s considered bm, since you have a strong moving advantage over other llds (and a very, very strong advantage against melee which I'll talk about later)


Cold Tree: ***Only invest points into the cold tree for the armor if you cannot get the armors on your insight switch***

Ice Bolt
- 0-1 Pt Pre-req

Ice Blast- 0-1 Pt Pre-req

Frozen Armor- 0-1 Pt Pre-req

Shiver Armor- 0-1 Pt Great protection against melee chars.


Fire Tree:

Fire Bolt
- Max Many synergy to your main attack and a great
secondary attack for when you’re recharging up your mana.

Fire Ball- Max Your main attack obviously.

Warmth- 1+ Pt If you don’t use teleport and have means to cast the cold armors, then adding your remaining points here is your best bet imho. Meteor just isn’t worth the pre-reqs or the dmg.

Fire Mastery- Max for level a.k.a. 1 pt don’t think this skill needs explaining lol.


Items:
***Something that can be applied to ANY build or dueling tier in my opinion is this: “Start with the basic gear. Don’t go out and trade for the top items only to find that the build is terrible, doesn’t work, or you don’t like it. Getting down the basics before getting the ‘GG’ gear is a concept that really works well. I’ve dueled with crap gear in lld and I’ve come out on top where the other had all the top items, but didn’t know how to use the character.***


Helm

Peasant Crown:
This is your best choice for starting out learning your new char. It has Skills, Frw, Life rep, even some life and energy on it. Socketing it with a Pskull for more rep and regen or Sheal if you need the fhr.

2 Fire/20 fcr 1-2 os Magic circ: It’s a bit more ‘advanced’ gear wise, and costs a lot more than a pcrown, but the 20 fcr really frees up a couple slots, and the available sockets for sheal’s are hard to beat sometimes.
The best/ top choice will usually be a 2/20/2 os circ with Mana/Life/Resist and is most commonly socketed with Sheal’s or Stat/Res jewels. THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR BEGINNERS (just too pricey to start with imo)



Armor

Vipermagi:
This armor seriously has practically everything you’re looking for, skills, fcr, resist, some def, even mdr on it. Socketing is usually Pskulls, but stat/res jewels work, as well as sheal’s for more fhr.
Stealth BP/LP: Doesn’t have the skills and not as much fcr as viper, but it does come with fhr, frw, and 9 dex (which can help with blocking).

Other options: Spirit Shroud, Blink bat


Shield

Viscerataunt:
the top tier choice and used by all. It’s easily able to obtain max block with this shield as well. The cheapest thing to socket into this that is the most beneficial is an eld for the extra block as it saves you some dex to spend. The top choice would be a 9 dex/res/etc jewel, but they can be very pricy…

Other choices: Whistans, Rhyme Bonesheild, xxx of deflecting


Weapon

There are about 3 choices here.

Spirit Crystal/Broad/Long Sword
(preferable eth if you can as it saves some stats and adds style lol): This is the ultimate weapon to use. Before this an fb sorc’s wep was ridiculously expensive and hard to find. With this now, it’s the standard staple in most lld’s now. Fcr, Mass fhr, Mass mana, vita, skills, even some magic sorb that helps reduce down dmg (though not by much lol). This baby has it all. Try your best for 35 fcr if you can.

The magic 2 fire/3 fire ball/1+mastery/20 fcr/1-2 os:
This will yield the most dmg in the end, and it also has the most potential for +stats/res with the possible sockets. Now these things are very expensive to get hold of, and even then, you have a lot of fhr to make up for with the lack of spirit, not to mention you’re out a good 90+ mana. They work, but if your other gear cannot make up those gaps, it’s not worth it.

The last option is a Spectral Shard. It has a lot of the mods you want to look for, though they aren’t huge, and it does free up space where fcr would have been needed. But honestly it should be a very last resort. You can’t get 200 fcr on a lld fb sorc anyways so please, don’t use this thinking you can lol.


Belt

String of Ears:
Great belt period for its DR% as well as the mdr, which stacked with your viper and anything else you may have mdr wise from you gear, can really reduce a lot of the elemental/magical dmg that other chars might deal towards you. (One reason Orb lld sorc’s are rather useless…)

10 fcr/17+fhr/mana/life/stat/res Belt:
One of the best belts you can get will have all of those req’s. Now you don’t have to have all the ones I mentioned, but imo, I’ve mentioned the order of importance of mods to look out for. Just beware, 10 fcr belts with high fhr are expensive by themselves. With other mods they’re astronomical.

24 Fhr/40+life/30+mana/stat/res Belt:
Doesn’t have the fcr portion, but one of these can really increase your fhr and life, maybe even make it easier to equip your gear.

Bladebuckle: 30 fhr, 5 str, 10 dex, it’s a very nice starting belt.


Gloves

Magefists:
Imo, every fire sorc should be using these since it’s another +skill towards your damage. The fcr and regen are big gravy mods for sure.

Bloodfists: If you feel you don’t need the extra skill and/or fcr, bfists are a great way to go for extra fhr and life.

Frosties: Nice option for those ES users, though the str to use them is a bit high and it doesn’t come with the skill or fcr that mage’s has.


Amulet

Magic +2 Fire 20-80 life:
I personally prefer this ammy over a fcr rare, mainly b/c unlike a rare, magic ammy’s can have up to 80 life. If you don’t need the fcr or extra mana, I recommend this.

Magic/Rare +2 Fire 10 fcr:
Good for starters until you get a rare that has extra stats.

Rare +2 Fire/20-60 life/20-85 mana/10 fcr/stat/res: This is the ammy most vets aim to get when they start perfecting out their gear. Very expensive and very hard to find.

Other amulets: Telling of Beads, Eye of Etlich, Mahim-Oak


Rings

Stones of Jordan (SoJ):
If you don’t need fcr and can afford it, grab one of these.

10 fcr/mana/life/stat/res:
For the rest of us, these can potentially out-do a SoJ with the right mods and such. But those are few and very expensive.


Boots

Sanders:
5 str, 10 dex, 40 frw. Just great boots all around, specially for non-tele sorc’s.

Cow Kings:
20 dex 30 frw. Pretty much if Sander’s boots had a rival, these would be it. If you feel you don’t want the 5 str for gear and can deal with 10 less frw, these are your boots for sure.

30 rw/10 fhr/(High Dual res)(Tri res)/stat :
Potentially the greatest boots you will ever own. I've seen some legit ones that were 30 frw/10 fhr/30+ fire/cold/lite res/9 dex and they were absolutely sexy. I care not to mention the duped ones, as I do not approve of their use really.

Caster Boots: For a ES variant, these might be your best friend. +max mana, mana regen, mana, fhr, very nice boots to have imo if you can get a good pair.


Switch Item

Insight Staff:
First thing you want to obtain with an insight staff imo is to get +skills that will help you in your buff and such. Main ones to look for are +1-3 Shiver armor, +1-3 Chilling armor, +3 ES, +3 Warmth, +3 Fireball, +3 Fire Bolt. Obviously they can’t all be on one staff, but those are the main ones imo to look out for, for a fb sorc. After that, THEN roll the crap out of it to try for 17 medi, or as close as I can.
Now, from what i've been told, it is NOT worth it to have a ES prebuff. Most of the stuff I’ve seen is that you should stay around lvl 7-10. NOW I COULD BE WRONG, hopefully someone can clarify that when I get this posted.


Charms

OK, this is probably the easiest section to handle really. The best life/mana sc is a 15 life/12 mana sc, very expensive. Life mana GC’s are also used on ES variants, I do believe their best is 35 life/50 mana? Might need correcting on that one. Don’t forget to make sure you hit 86 fhr with all your gear and charms, as well you should have some stack ready for blizz sorc’s and foh, v/t’s, mage builds that can reduce down your res to the red. For starters plain 10-15 lifers are usually enough to get you started.


Last words…

For God sake, have fun with this build. I find them to be a blast. Play GM with other llds, and however you want against higher lvl pubs. LLD community is (or was) relatively small. If you play BM in one game, chances are word may get around about how you are with your dueling manners and they WILL BM you back. Nothing is harder to kill than a lvl 30 mass regen, charging switch, desynching hammerdin. When I get back to my home computer I’ll post up my Sorc’s gear for everyone to see, maybe later I’ll write a dueling strat section.

Hope you all enjoy!

-BLoke :smug:
 
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