Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by xxnothing on Jun 29, 2010:

Patriarch Spammydin: Holy Shock + Zeal Paladin

EDIT: Yes, the thread title says "Spammydin" but the character's name is Zippydin. Sorry for the mix-up. :) Spammy was my previous Pally build, my hammerdin.

One more "good old standard" build done! Amazing I've been playing off and on for around 10 years and I still have PLENTY of common builds to try!

Everyone's seen the Holy Shock build a zillion times, so I'll just hit the high-lights...

Skills:

20 Resist Lightning
6 Salvation
1 Prayer, Cleansing, Defiance, Vigor (I like Cleansing and Vigor as utility skills)

20 Holy Shock
1 in each prerequisite

20 Zeal
14 Sacrifice
1 Holy Shield
1 each prerequisite to get HS

1 unspent point. Future points to Holy Shield and/or Sacrifice

Stats

STR 91
DEX 133
VIT 255
ENR 20

11 unspent points. Future points to DEX or VIT.

Reists in Hell after Anya quest were 90/90/95/90.

The LCS

Gear

Kira's Guardian
Guardian Angel socketed w/ 15 resist-all jewel
Herald of Zakarum socketed w/ pDiamond
Nosferatu's Coil
Dracul's Grasp
Gore Riders
Raven Frost
Rare ring (resists, AR, mana leech)
Rare Amulet (nice ammy, worth listing below)
Code:
Viper Necklace
Amulet
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xa9751e07
+17 to Strength
+25 to Life
+22 to Mana
All Resistances +20
Replenish Life +7
+2 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)

And the key to Holy Shock/Zeal fun times, a Crescent Moon Phase Blade
Code:
Crescent Moon
Zippydin's Phase Blade
'ShaelUmTir'
One-Hand Damage: 96 to 108
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 54
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7d78c6a6
+211% Enhanced Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
+10 Magic Absorb
10% Chance to cast Level 17 Chain Lightning on striking
7% Chance to cast Level 13 Static Field on striking
Level 18 Summon Spirit Wolf (30/30 Charges)
-35% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Charms were mostly dedicated to Attack Rating, with a smattering of resists. One Lion Branded and one Captain's grand charms.


As you can see, the AR on this build was abysmal. I used Demon Limb when things got too crazy, though most of the time it was bearable without the AR boost. Just took some patience. I could have gotten more AR somewhere, but I didn't like giving up certain items, such as the Drac's, which in fast-attacking melee builds are also known as "Gloves of Immortality". ;) I just couldn't figure out how to have everything I wanted... the crazy resists, Life Tap, etc and still have big AR, so I gave up the AR.

For the final Act, I lent him my Hammerdin's CtA, which was nice!

I had originally planned this to be a Holy Shock/Holy Freeze hybrid, using Voice of Reason on switch, but I respec'd him to go full HS. Partly this was because I didn't have a second HoZ for his switch, and partly because I liked the more focused approach. With a Might merc and some CB from the Gores, LI monsters went down reasonably fast.

Speaking of the Moron, he's a Might Merc wearing Leviathan, Vampire's Gaze and wielding a Hone Sundan (Shael, Shael, Amn). I considered a Blessed Aim guy to solve my AR problems, but I liked that Might aura too much to give it up.

Notable finds were an Um while questing (pre 1.13).

Hellforge was a Lum :(


Final Thought

The one thing I REALLY liked about this guy is how fast he can melt a single, high-hit-point target. Diablo and Baal both went down fast, thanks to the Static from Crescent Moon and all the CB from Gores and the merc's Hone Sundan.

Future Plans
Now that he's a Pat, I'm going to consider how best to gear him up for some Baal runs. Not that he's an optimal runner, it's just nice to have some variety.

Thanks for reading. :)
 
Originally posted by zaphodbrx on Nov 3, 2012:

Patriarch Asmodean- Holy bolting zealot

Asmodean is my fourth paladin, and became patriarch at level 87.

LCS (holy bolt)
LCS ( zeal )

Skills

1(17) Zeal
20(27) Fanaticism
20(38) Holy bolt
20(36) Fist of Heavens
20 B.hammer ( synergy )
4 sacrifice
1 sanctuary, holy shield, vengeance and all pre reqs.

Gear

Code:
Asmodean's The Redeemer
Mighty Scepter
One-Hand Damage: 171 to 222
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Dexterity: 26
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 72
Mace Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xd884f52d
+8 to Energy
+328% Enhanced Damage
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
+3 to Light Radius
Requirements -60%
+2 to Holy Bolt (Paladin Only)
+3 to Redemption (Paladin Only)
Adds +115 Damage
-33% Target Defense
225% Damage to Demons
150% Damage to Undead
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Ruby Jewel of Knowledge
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x231ee394
+8 to Energy
+33% Enhanced Damage

Spirit
Protector Shield
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 144
Chance to Block:  50%
Smite Damage: 18 to 24
Durability: 40 of 40
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 69
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x1de7bce5
+22 to Vitality
+112 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Fire Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +80%
Cold Resist +80%
Poison Resist +80%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+4 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Fortitude
Wire Fleece
'ElSolDolLo'
Defense: 1455
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Strength: 111
Required Level: 59
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x8dd50047
+200% Enhanced Defense
+300% Enhanced Damage
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 7
Fire Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +25%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Cold Resist +25%
Poison Resist +25%
Replenish Life +7
+1 to Light Radius
25% Faster Cast Rate
12% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Chance to cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+87 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Asmodean's Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 85
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x3132591b
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
Defense: 336
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 83
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xf3ed9339
+30 to Strength
+117% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist -5%
Poison Resist +70%
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
10% Life stolen per hit
35% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to All Skill Levels
15% Chance to cast Level 15 Poison Nova when struck
Level 3 Venom (20/20 Charges)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Ruby Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x236fdfe9
Fire Resist +25%
15% Increased Attack Speed

Grim Emblem
Amulet
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 91
Fingerprint: 0x3b5feae
+13 to Energy
+19 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 8%
All Resistances +20
5% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Charged Bolt when struck

Wraith Spiral
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x52cbbca9
+13 to Attack Rating
Poison Resist +18%
7% Life stolen per hit
5% Mana stolen per hit
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Cast Rate

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0x80dcdd18
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+177 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Nosferatu's Coil
Vampirefang Belt
Defense: 63
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x33e599d5
+15 to Strength
7% Life stolen per hit
-3 to Light Radius
10% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Slows Target by 10%

Birgitte's Blood Blazer
Greaves
Defense: 20
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xed3dae56
+27% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +29%
19% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Faster Run/Walk
Poison Length Reduced by 25%

Switch

Code:
Call to Arms
Phase Blade
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 117 to 133
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x7e9a6f1e
+280% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+4 to Battle Orders
+1 to Battle Cry
+2 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Spirit
Superior Akaran Targe
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 117
Chance to Block:  40%
Smite Damage: 12 to 16
Durability: 22 of 22
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 44
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 71
Fingerprint: 0xf33c44d8
+22 to Vitality
+92 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Fire Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +80%
Cold Resist +80%
Poison Resist +80%
Increase Maximum Durability 12%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
30% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+6 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Inventory: 7 Lion Branded skillers, small charms of vita.

Merc: Act 2 might merc

Merc gear

Code:
Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 23 of 40
Required Strength: 115
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: **
Fingerprint: 0xa2fd9ab1
+15 to Strength
+120% Enhanced Defense
30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike

2: Fortitude
Kraken Shell
'ElSolDolLo'
Defense: 3429
Durability: 25 of 25
Required Strength: 164
Required Level: 61
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x787cc800
+200% Enhanced Defense
+300% Enhanced Damage
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 7
Fire Resist +29%
Lightning Resist +29%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Cold Resist +29%
Poison Resist +29%
Replenish Life +7
+1 to Light Radius
25% Faster Cast Rate
12% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Chance to cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+119 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

3: Breath of the Dying
War Pike
'VexHelElEldZodEth'
Two-Hand Damage: 240 to 1308
Required Dexterity: 75
Required Strength: 122
Required Level: 69
Spear Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xd4897d05
+30 to Strength
+30 to Energy
+30 to Dexterity
+30 to Vitality
+390% Enhanced Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
15% Life stolen per hit
7% Mana stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -20%
60% Increased Attack Speed
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
200% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
Indestructible
50% Chance to cast Level 20 Poison Nova When You Kill an Enemy
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (6: 6 used)

Introduction

I've wanted to create a caster paladin for a while, but my attempts at making blessed hammer work had come up a cropper. The thing is just so weird and clumsy. It's thematically absurd- hammers flying out from the shield ( not even weapon ), and then moving in a spiral? I had concluded that it needs enigma to even work at all and had lost motivation in that build. Someone at Blizzard must have been seriously drunk to think that silly little hammers flying around in circles is a fitting spell for a warrior monk.

So, holy bolt/Fist of heavens. They're okay spells, but they really only damage undeads. Holy bolts are a very unique ability in the sense that it's 'immunes' comprise two thirds of the monsters in the game, and start out right at the gate, rather than something in remote corners of hell. So I knew I was going to need a backup attack. FoH's lightning damage is laughable, unsynergized hammers are terrible and not thematic. Really the only good option was zeal, with a decent weapon and fanaticism maxed.

After playing TL2 for a while I realized that the thing I like most about D2 is itemization. One is not looking for a random rare or unique with 'good stats'. Instead, one looks for a gear set that fits the character in question, such as +skills, damage, off weapon damage, fcr, fhr breakpoints, attack speed breakpoints and other good stuff. And one can actually plan out a build based on certain items that do certain things than random items that have some 'good stats' and not much care about the gear.

For this build, 'The Redeemer' struck me as a very interesting item, with +4 to holy bolts and 315 base damage. It also had a big boost towards demons (some of the non undeads ), -target def, light radius and free redemption, which saved me 5 skill points in a surprisingly tight build. I decided to get fortitude, not only for the off weapon ED boost, but also for the fcr- something which is almost never used, and I don't know why they put that mod on fortitude but it was helpful here.

Once those two slots were decided, the whole build fell together. Spirit was needed for +2 skills, fcr and resistance boost. Nos coil for ias and leech, LoH for some more demon damage, a ring/ammy combo to hit the 75 fcr breakpoint. Of course I had wanted to use this

Raven Talisman
Amulet
Required Level: 89
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 92
Fingerprint: 0x1b8f1912
+13 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 7%
Poison Resist +31%
Replenish Life +9
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
16% Faster Cast Rate

But yeah, look at that level requirement and weep.

The final piece of the puzzle, Andariel's visage, came online at level 83 just after finishing A2 hell. This was needed to hit the 4 frame zeal and provide +2 skills and some leech.

I was actually not going for max block at first but later decided to do it anyway, cause I had no steel GCs and my attack rating was going to be abysmal without those points in dexterity. Block rate was 75%.

The journey

This character was started off as a classic holy fire/freeze zealot, but after act 1 I decided that classic mode was just not for me and I respeced to a holy fire ranger with raven claw. Man that is just such a boring build. After finishing normal at lvl 47 I threw all the holy fire junk out and went back to what palas do best - hitting things with big sticks. Equipped an eth Hone sundan, treachery armor and max fanaticism owned everything with occassionally casting holy bolts on switch with spirit+spirit. At level 60 or so he got a major upgrade with a death colossus sword, fortitude, CtA, LoH, etc, and those served me well until I could equip my final items.

Normal and nightmare were played on p8, Hell on p5 for the most part but I lowered it to p3 for the latter part of A5 ( after Nihl ) and also to p1 for bosses/ancients. No rerunning of areas.
I had the most fun in A2, because there are tons of undead everywhere. A3 is very boring and has almost no undeads except for dolls/mummies/skels in the sewers and the vampire dudes. A4 has plenty of undeads, but they're all of three types - finger mages, gloams, undead knights. Chaos sanctuary was a blast. De Seis was one of the biggest walkovers I have seen in the making of any mat/pat - holy bolt with sanctuary means you can kill them with ease before they can touch you.

In act 5, the glacial trail spawned undead only, and so did WSK 3 ( doom/OKs, wraiths, skeletons ). otherwise nothing notable. Random non-undead PIs bugged me throughout but it was more noticeable in A5 as I didn't have reapers and 1 point vengeance was totally not up to the task. Ancients were cursed but I brazened it out anyway cause zealots are baller like that. Baal fell easily and my journey was complete.

Finds were terrible. Forge was Lum/Ko or such and a plain chilling skiller was about the most exciting thing I found.
No deaths as far as I remember. Atleast none in hell mode. Some NDEs with gloams and when BO ran out.

Thoughts

Holy bolts are okay. They only damage undeads of course, but also they are a single target attack and that is noticeable compared to say undeads. what is infuriating is that the bolts don't 'pass through' the merc, they heal him and that absorbs the bolts. So you always have to take an angle to the merc and ensure that the bolts are hitting the monsters and not the merc. It's easy to see a big damage number in the LCS but it's actual effect in the game is not as good. FoH is okay, but its damage really falls off later on and the timer ruins any fun this skill may have had )

With four active skills ( zeal, fana, holy bolt, FoH ), three prebuffs ( BC,BO, holy shield ), and some situational skills ( sanctuary, charge, redemption ), it proved to be a lot more hectic than a normal paladin and I enjoyed it. I also had salvation, holy freeze and vengeance hotkeyed but rarely used them. The skill build was completed at level 85. Was unsure of what to do with the remaining points, could have worked towards vigor but knew that four extra points was not going to happen before Pat, so put them in sacrifice for some zeal synergy.

The merc also really helped out and did some really good damage specially against the non undeads. He was geared for it but still. He didn't die much either.

Overall I think he was okay. The redeemer is certainly a very viable weapon ( range issues aside ) and I'm surprised more people don't use it for paladins.
 
Originally posted by zaphodbrx on Jul 9, 2013:

Patriarch Griswold - Auradin ( paladin sept complete )

This is the last of my sept characters. Griswold was originally planned to be a Griswold set paladin with a bunch of Sol's in his equipment for mass iDR and max prayer aura for healing up. This build is sometimes called an abbot. However by the time he got to hell, I realized this wasn't going to work because griswold set does almost no damage. So instead I made it into an auradin, which is much cooler, though much more expensive as well. At this time my ATMA had broken down so I had no way to rename the character, so he kept the name 'Griswold'.

A twist that I wanted to put on the typical auradin was to use all three auras - holy fire, shock and freeze. Thus I had fire and shock from equipment, and used holy freeze as the main aura ( conviction merc ). This sort of worked - I finished the game with it ( final LCS ), but it's definitely not as good. I respec'ed to the standard build maxing conviction in order to run WSK a bit and level to 90. This also uses a faith merc for fanaticism and also Dracs which are very important.

A quick word about my base for 'Hand of Justice'. It's really boring to make runewords in phase blades, not to mention it looks awful. Longsword looks awesome in a paladin's hand, and using a fanaticism merc it is 4fpa the same as it would be in a phase blade ( you can't reach 4fpa without fanaticism with HoJ pb either, unless you want to give up dracs ). About the only complaint I have is that it breaks. Also the looks are slightly ruined by the green effect from venom - which comes from the chance to cast on Dragon armor, which I had totally forgotten about.

Final build, gear, skills

LCS

max block with holy shield, 15% dr, pulse damage not shown on screen

Skills

20 Conviction
20 Resist fire
20 Resist lightning
20 Salvation
3 Zeal ( 5 with skills )
1 vigor, redemption ( always get these )
remaining in holy shield ( 2 or 3 )

Gear

'Hand of Justice' cryptic sword
'Dragon' sharktooth armor
'Dream' crown
'Dream' hyperion
Raven frost
Rare dual leech ring
40/15 verdungo's
Highlord's wrath
Dracul's grasp

CTA-spirit switch

Inventory full of resist/life charms

A1 cold rogue with faith greatbow, fortitude, Andariel's visage

Thoughts

Auradins are pretty good. They may not be the fastest killers but they don't care much about immunities ( even fire/lightning dual immunes are often broken by high level conviction or dispatched through physical damage ). Confuse from dreams provides excellent crowd control, and lifetap from dracs helps a lot as well. I played the entire game at p8 and then a bunch of worldstone keep runs as well, while not being the best type of paladin to do such, it is certainly doable and quite good. There was one death to Hepasto in act 4 due to carelessness. Otherwise no problems.

And.. here's the pic for the Paladin's hall of fame

Patriarch Victarion- Avenger. I finished this guy months ago but didn't post a thread due to how absolutely boring he was. He is like this character in the sense that he does multiple types of damage with conviction. That's where it ends though, as vengeance is about 100 times worse than zeal. Click on a unit and it will eventually die, do that for all the monsters in the game. Played through the game at p8 though but really. I have no idea how WoRG made a 99er out of this, it has to be the slowest Baal runner I have ever seen.
Items: Ebotd zerker, Exile , Forti sacred, Nightwing's veil, Dracs, dungo's, RF, bkwb, mara's
Merc: Faith merc with delirium for crowd control.
Apparently I can't find an LCS pic for this guy. It was around 3k-12k with max resists.

Patriarch Robinhood- Fanatic zealot with dream. I use him as a p8 worldstone keep paladin and he is the best that regard. More on that later, I will explain it in my ultimate characters thread.

Patriarch Dastan- Teslot. He has an absurd amount of lightning damage from holy shock ( around 1-16k ) but other than that nothing very special. LCS
Items: Griffon's ( +20/-25), JSToD ( +20/-16), Grief pb, CoH, highlords, inventory full of captain's grand charms, etc.

Patriarch Oberyn - renamed from 'Little John', he used to be my Travincal runner, but is also decent in most other areas with some resistance equipment. Two handed zealots rock!

Patriarch Asmodean - Holy bolting zealot.

Patriarch Arthas - Hammerdin. Chaos runs, nuff said. Also vid.

Patriarch Griswold - Auradin ( this one ).
 
Originally posted by Zylo on Sep 29, 2009:

Patriarch Kabal

News has reached my ears that a mortal is on his way to defeat me…*chuckle* Perhaps this one will make it to my throne room, before being destroyed before my very eyes. (Minion screams in the distance) Yes he has reached my level. Soon enough and I can gaze upon this weak adversary. (A hero appears in the distance) A paladin eh? In Harragoth? Those silly barbarians will accept help from anyone. Very well Paladin, your end is near. (Casts Colenzo the Annihilator) Hrmm, that wave was dispatched rather quickly, but Colenzo and his minions are the first wave for a reason. Perhaps a taste of poison is in order. (Casts Achmel the Cursed) Poisoned, but still eager to fight eh? (Casts Bartuc the Bloody) Hrmm, he lured that group out of my decrepify range and destroyed them in seconds. (Casts Ventar the Unholy) Ugh… that wave was rather disappointing. (Casts Lister the Tormentor) *Hearty chuckle* No one has ever defeated the mighty Lister. (The hero is overwhelmed and surrounded by the creatures) For a minute there, I was beginning to worry. What?! (Lister and his mob hit the ground lifeless) Oh no, no, no. This isn’t happening, I must retreat quickly to the Woldstone Chamber. (Hero enters the Chamber with vigor, and is upon me quickly) His attacks fall hard, crushing muscle and bone beneath it. Life is steadily escaping me until I can stand no longer, in a matter of seconds this Hero has brought me, the mighty Lord of Destruction, to my knees. The Hero says something to me, couldn’t catch what it was. So tired… though I wonder what he said.


Why a Zealot?
My first high level character was a zealot. So I’ve just had a fondness for them ever since. I made a pally not to long ago using Stormlash(Thanks Schmaleop), and I had a lot of fun with him. So I started looking how other people set up their zealots, and I found/heard of Ray Patean’s. A zealot that uses 100% CB and 100% DS, sounded pretty gg. So I give you Kabal.

Skill Points:
20-Zeal
20-Fanatiscm
20-Sacrifice
20-Holy Shield
13-Defiance (Rest go here)
Prerequisites
-Prayer
-Cleansing
-Vigor
-Might
-Blessed Aim
-Concentration
-Smite
-Charge
-Holy Bolt
-Blessed Hammer

Gear
Guillaume's Face (Jewel- 15 IAS, +99 AR)
Highlord’s Wrath
"Death”
“Fortitude”
“Exile”
Laying on Hands
Nosferatu’s Coil
Gore Rider
Raven Frost
Rare ring

Switch
Beta CtA
Spirit

Charms
.07 Dmg charms
+Resist charms
+AR charms

Character Stats
-Dmg: 2615-10k
-Attack Rating: 10,324
-Life: 2,001
-Resists: 80fire, 23cold, 80lightning, 23poison
I shot for 80 resists in fire and lightning, because those are the resist I find most important. I didn't intend for cold and poison to end up with the same resist, but it's kinda cool that it played out that way.
(100% Crushing Blow, 100% Deadly Strike, 10% Open Wounds, 10% Slow Target, all while swinging a 4 fpa Zeal)

Might Merc's Setup
-Delirium
-Treachery
-Eth amn'd Reaper's
(He had pretty decent survivability. Delirium was to help speed up my baal times.)

Why’d you name your guy after an old Diii.net player?
Just to set the record straight, I actually named him after the Mortal Kombat player Kabal. The diii Kabal was before my time.

Problems?
He’s a zealot, so only one minor problem stands out in my mind. IM… I tend to get Iron Maiden’d in the middle of my zeal attack. No way of stopping, no way of surviving…. Other than that, he had no problem tanking baal’s minions on /p8, or charging into a group of Souls.

Enjoy this character?
Indeed I did. It was fun being able to tank and do an exceptional amount of damage. But, my favorite part of the whole character, was "Death's" chance to cast glacial spike. Idk, to me there was something thoroughly gratifying about freezing a pack of monsters and then proceeding to shatter them. I tried to show it here on some hell cows.

Would I make another Zealot?
I think it would be fun to make one around a grief. Or I might try my luck with a 2h zealot.

Hellforge:
NM: Io
Hell: Um

Finds:
I did manage to pick up a +69 res. Kira's off Baal. That's about it.

Thanks to-
Liquid_Evil (Being able to bounce gear and skill ideas off you, it helped a ton.)
Smilts and NagisaFurukawa (For being awesome 👍)
Urkel for the Beta CtA (Wasn't going to do writeup until I had one :alright:)
Everyone I MP’d with.
Everyone that read this.
 
Originally posted by Zylo on Jan 7, 2010:

Patriarch Khas

Are you ready for the longest write-up known to man? Okay it's not that long, so here we go!

Why a Tesladin?
I'm all about pallies I've decided, and further more, all about the ridiculously over powered pallies. So it should come as no surprise that I whipped up a Tesladin, perhaps just to get some more pally pwnage under my belt. This said, I bring you Khas.

"Khas", which means "he who brings order".

Stats and Skills
LCS
Defensive
Offensive
Combat

Gear
Guillaume's Face (Jewel- 14max dmg, +12 all resist)
Crescent Moon
HoZ (Jewel- +15% IAS, +47 defense)
"Treachery" (Wyrmhide)
Highlord's Wrath
Dracul's Grasp
Arachnid Mesh
Gore Rider
Raven Frost
Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band

Switch
Beta CtA (This was really handy, since I didn't have to drop any hard points into Holy Shield.)
Sacred Targe Spirit

Merc
Maeko
-Duress
-Giant Skull
-Windforce

This guy would have rocked with any merc, so I decided to spice him up with a sweet rogue. She did pretty decent damage and had innersight to boot.

Problems?
He actually did quite well. All the builds I looked at all incorperated either an "Infinity" or a high physical dmg switch. Since I don't have an "Infinity" and my weapon switch is a CtA, I had to set him up a bit differently. I put more points into Zeal and Sacrifice, rather then straight up pumping ele dmg. When I ran into a pack of LI's, I'd just zeal them until they went down. With merc up 90% of the time, LI packs really weren't that big of a problem.

Enjoy the character?
Indeed I did. I would probably recommend this to anyone who is just starting out. A tesladin can be made around any budget, I think one using a Light Sabre and Guardian Angel would even rip hell /p8 up. Zeal imo, has to be one of the most fun moves in the game, combine that with some heavy electric dmg, and you've got a beast on your hands. Whoa, not that kind of beast, just a plain gg beast.

Finds
None that I can recall.

HF
NM: Lum
Hell: Mal


Thanks to-
Everyone I MP'd with.
Urkel for letting me borrow his beta CM (Static pwns so hard.)
Everyone that read this. (That's you!)

Bai bai!
 
Originally posted by adeadrat on Jun 30, 2005:

Patriarch Saterkias

This is my fourth mat/pat.
Saterkias, an avenger, was a great character to play. Very fun watching weaker mosters smash into tiny bits (when i used nord's), then being able to absorb almost any elemental attack with ease. Encountered some difficulty along the way, mostly having to do with his lack of crowd control, until lvl 82. THen he became invincible as you will see. 95% resists helped too. Mr. Gloam? were you shooting me? i didnt notice. *smack* There that put you in your place. :D

Oh, and zeal was a great backup tool.

Stats:

Strength: 115
Dexterity: 110
Vitality: 265
Energy: base

5 remaining points

Resists: 95/95/95/90
Life:

Skills:

20 Vengeance
20 Conviction
10 Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning
6 Holy Shield (rest of points here)
1 redemption, salvation, meditation, pre-req's

End Gear

Saterkias's Stormlash
Scourge
One-Hand Damage: 12 to 331
Durability: 64 of 65
Required Dexterity: 77
Required Strength: 125
Required Level: 82
Mace Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x394a868c
+314% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-473 lightning damage
45% Increased Attack Speed
150% Damage to Undead
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 30
33% Chance of Crushing Blow
+5 Lightning Absorb
20% Chance to cast Level 18 Tornado on striking
15% Chance to cast Level 10 Static Field on striking
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Ruby Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x3c766840
+39% Enhanced Damage
15% Increased Attack Speed

I would like to thank Holy_Pade for the jewel. 👍

Once i was able to equip it, it was death for anything that came near me.

Rest of gear:
Highlord's Wrath
Kira's Guardian (61%)
Guardian Angel
Herald of Zakarum (pdiamond)
Gore Riders
Dracul's Grasp
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Raven Frost
Manald Heal

for a total of:
48% CB, 46% DS, 35% OW :D
~1200 life
~250 mana
 
Originally posted by AJK on Oct 1, 2006:

My latest pat: HurtyStick the Avenger

Today I trampled over Baal's squishy behind in the last difficulty level, making my avenger Patriarch.

This build immediately followed my E-lot, (elemental zealot).
That character played quite well, but I was still curious about a classic Stick-O-Hurt 2-handed pain-delevering device, AKA an Avenger.
I browsed through Asmodeous' avenger bible, and decided that I'd like a 2-hander with ~400 avg. damage at least. Coincidentally, I also had a 290%ED ribby gathering dust in my stash, which I've always wanted to try.

Putting one and one together (three, I think), I present to ye:

HurtyStick, lvl. 83, Avenger.

Vengeance without prebuffing:
Damage --> 3902 - 6311
AR --> 1677 (Boo! Hiss!)

Vengeance with a little sprinkle of demon limb:
Damage --> 3989 - 6422
AR --> 2856 (More than enough)

My gear and merc are a little bit out-of-the-ordinary, because I couldn't help iincluding a few experiments in this build. I wanted to test two things:
- The usefulness of a Cold Wolf.
- The usefulness of PMDR, or magic damage reduced by X.

A few conclusions:
- I want to wrap my merc's sword around his neck and kill him to death. Then I want to throw his corpse to a bunch of foul beasts and pour his half-digested remains in concrete, and then cast the concrete block into the fiery lava below Diablo's domain. Bastard. Well, he's not entirely useless, I mean, he freezes stuff, but apart from that he sucks harder than a tornado.
Damage: low, survivability: low, intelligence: low.

- With a total PMDR of 71, HurtyStick could tank every bolt/blob/laser beam of elemental damage tossed at him. Gloam champion packs could zap all day long, and he only needed a red potion every once in a while. I went this route in response to the poor elemental tankability of my previous project.

- I will not likely play a two-handed paladin, or similar low-HP character again. He tanked his elements well, but he died so many times to physical harm, that I'm not going to touch a shieldless melee-er with a ten-foot pole(arm) for a long time. These glass cannon melee builds just go against my playing style.
I must say, he performed splendidly when going against single foes, or small packs, but when HurtyStick got surrounded, the Grim Reaper LOL'ed.
I guess a holy freeze merc would have eased my pain.

- I liked my previous zeal-based conviction pally much better. The damage/second ratio was the same, but zealing uninterruptably at 5FPA is superior crowd control to hitting one foe at a time.

Gear:
Head: Kira's guardian, pimped. 80 all res, +7 to dex.
Neck: Crescent moon, 6%LL, 13%ML [10 PMDR]
Weapon: Upped ribby, listed damage 322-482 (yeah!), 290%ED, Shael'ed
Armor: Eth bugz0red 'Prudence' Wyrmhide, 2589 defence, +29 res all [17 PMDR]
Rings: 2 Dwarf Stars [30 PMDR]
Belt: String of Ears, 8%LL, 15%DR [14 PMDR]
Boots: War Traveler (50%MF, not very relevant to build, but quite nice nonetheless)
Gloves: Something I plopped on in NM and never bothered to take off since, it has light res. and 20% IAS, needed for the 10FPA breakpoint.

Merc's gear: Eth Spirit monarch, spirit crystal sword, eth Shako+PAmethyst.
Merc's total FCR: 95%.

Charms: 44 res all (3 GC), Sharp/fine charms (+38 max damage, +240 AR), and 12% FHR which brings the total to 87% (ribby, prudence, charm), or 4 frames hit recovery.

Oh, Hellforge gave: NM --> Hel, Hell --> Hel.
 
Originally posted by AJK on Jun 5, 2007:

Patriarch Booger, Griswold's avenger.

I promised Asmodeous that I'd write a pat thread for my Griswold's avenger. I actually patriarched him in an MP game a few months ago, but I wanted to solo him through a few tough spots in Hell in order to write something sensible about him *yeah right*. So here he is:

Patriarch Booger, lvl. 86, Griswold's Avenger
This patriarch is actually the third conviction based paladin I've made. I guess that means that I like toons :)p) that walk like they've got a war pike wedged up their behinds. Funnily enough, they also appear to hump an invisible pony on the character screen when they're HC and wear no weapon/shield. Er, where was I. Oh yes, Griswold's set.

The great thing about this set is that it comes with 12 sockets* to customize the hell out of your char. I spent almost as much time on a plan for the sockets as I spent actually playing him. Both parts of the process have been great fun. I even wrote a detailed spreadsheet-like something to simulate various socket options.

My first plan of attack was to build something like Disco-neck Ted's min. damage avenger. The appealing aspect of his build was that once your +min. damage exceeds your max. damage, each point in +min adds a whole point to your average weapon damage, doubling the efficiency of +min gear/charms. Gris' set is awesome for this approach because a caduceus has a very tight damage range [37-43], placing the min. damage quite close to max. This means that only a small part of one's +min collection is needed to plug the gap and everything added beyond that is gg.

The bad news about this approach is that
- The set boni themselves add 40 points to max damage.
- The avenger staple war travelers add another 25 to max.
- The enhanced damage on the caddy pushes max and min even further apart.
- +min damage prefixes on charms are pathetic in 1.11.
- +min damage on jewels is generally less than +max.
- You're wasting at least 45 points of damage from the set+boot bonus.

My simulations yielded the sad conclusion that unless I had some sick +min charms from 1.07, a socket strategy containing +max damage would still beat a possible +min setup in terms of average damage. I went hybrid. I already possessed a handful of nice damage dealer jewels. I traded for a few more ones, and this is what ended up in my sockets:

- Weapon: 135% ED, +42 max damage
- Armor: +20 min damage, 45% IAS
- Shield: +59 max damage, 15% IAS
- Hat: +9 min damage, +39 max

These items boosted my damage further:
- War Travs: +15 min, +25 max
- Set bonus: +20 min, +40 max
- Rings: +10 min, and 16% life leech, stats, and a bit of res.
- Charms: three sharp GC's for +32 max (one had maiming)
- Switch: The redeemer + HoZ. I loved the redemption on switch very much. Especially after a battle with undead and/or other unleechables.

The hurt:
Base total weapon damage not including str/might: 247-438.
Vengeance LCS damage without might merc: 3467-6181**
Vengeance LCS damage with might merc: 4011-7147

More LCS info:
Res: 85/77/85/75
Str: 176, Dex: 147, Vit: 293, Ene: XXV
Life: 1305 (The best I ever had on a paladin)
Mana: 241 (More than enough, considering leech and redemption)

Complementary gear:
- Crescent Moon amulet. The mana leech is appreciated much more than +skills. The one I have has 6%LL/13%ML.
- Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth. CBF is very much needed, and I wanted two free ring slots for customing my leech/res/damage.
- Gloves: 3%LL / 29%FR / 29%CR / 15%PR / 20%IAS
- Rings: combined 16% LL, strength, AR (not really needed, but still nice), mana, a few resists and +10 min. damage.
- Charms: +37% res. all (shimmering SC's+1 GC). +2 PCombat skills, +32 max damage and even more AR.

Merc: Might
- Weapon: The Reaper's Toll.
I don't think I will ever consider another merc stick for any melee build. Heck, even for casters I'd probably keep the Reaper's. I could probably fill half a guide with reasons why this weapon is so good, but I'll save that for later.
- Armor: Treachery. I always try to hit 45%IAS on a reaper's merc. The possibility of fade and the 15% damage reduction that goes with it is sweet, sweet gravy.
- Helmet: Delirium. It's worth the runes. The great thing about confuse is that it triggers quite often with the merc jabbing away, and its radius is so large that the decrep from the reaper's only overwrites the inner circle. See this example. The decrep on the inside keeps the ADD trees meek, while the confused flayers on the outside spitball each other. Especially since vengeance is still a one-hit attack, I can use all the help I can get in keeping mobs off my back.

Playing experience:
Short version:
I had to regularly check whether /P5 hadn't tumbled out of the console window.

Slightly longer version:
I liked playing this one very much. Not only did he apply very hurty amounts of damage, he did it at 8FPA and under the effect of a high level conviction too. I always like playing builds that aren't bothered with trivial things like immunity to [something]. Too bad that he can only attack one critter at a time.

He can still put himself in danger though, because a 1.3k life pool is still not enough to flip the bird to cursed/extra strong archers, or those awful PI red ball slingers. Getting surrounded is still dangerous too, but once decrep kicks in that possible doom scenario is quickly defused. Another great advantage over my 2H ribby avenger is his 75% block. In short, he's quite safe but still no auto-pilot char. This is a good thing though. If you fall asleep playing a game, you should really take a good look at that game again and find a good reason to keep playing it.

Finds: A drood elemental skiller, I guess. Can't really remember, and I keep forgetting to write down these finds. I shall spank myself and repent. *grabs fleshrender*

Thank you:
- My mom and pop, for creating the most awesome thing in this universe, me. You may applaud now.
- Asmodeous, for a nice conversation about my avenger and for trading a few nice jewels.
- Vang, for donating the most awesome jewel in my caduceus.
- Zhao, for trading a 4os +234%ED green caddy to me.
- Several others over at the SPTF that helped me gather the stuff I needed. You know who you are, and if you don't, look at your birth certificates.

____________
*: Assuming a 4os caduceus. It's also a crying shame that three out of four set parts are horribly rare...
**: My ribcracker avenger has a base vengeance damage of ~3.8k-6.9k. I'm amazed that this one-hander comes so close to that.
 
Originally posted by AJK on Apr 2, 2010:

Taste the rainbow! A min-damage avenger.

Forgive me, SPF, for I have sinned. After a year of away, I got lured back to the SPF by that shiny new 1.13 patch, which apparently isn't such an unlucky number.
Since I'm about as creative as a piece of navel lint, I decided to stick to something that I've done three times already. An avenger.

I present to thee Patriarch RainbowWarrior, lvl 87 min-damage avenger.
Here's the slightly untruthful character screen.

Skills:
Since I used a 1.07 holy shield scepter on switch, I could spend all points in vengeance related skills:
- Vengeance 20 (24)
- Resist fire 18, cold 16, lightning 20
- Conviction 17 (20) --> -120% resists (20% extra for the non-immune resists every Hell monster has)
- Prerequisites: 1 each

------
Theory
------
I always wanted to make a min-damage avenger after reading Disco-neck Ted's pat thread. I happen to like avengers and especially the great amount of pre-planning joy that they provide. I had a lot of numbers to crunch for this one, but it wasn't as difficult as my previous Beast wielding pat. That's because some build choices really restricted my options. Which is good, because the longer I spend time in writing avenger calculator scripts, the longer it takes to actually start playing the damn game already.

The concept is rather elegant and simple. When a weapon's minimum damage exceeds it's max damage, the max damage adjusts to min damage + 1. Yeah, cool, whatever. Why is this good? Usually, when you add one point to a weapon's minimum damage, the average damage increases by 0.5. But when you have min>max, each point to the lower end of the weapon's damage pushes the max up as well, so each min damage point adds a whole point to the average. When you build an avenger, damage counts, so if I can make my +damage trinkets count double towards the average then, yes please.

I already had a full Griswold's set that would be great for this experiment, but I didn't want to kick my previous project's hard to get damage jewels out. I decided to throw some numbers at my plan and gathered a few facts:

- I wanted 8 FPA, the fastest single-handed sword attack speed. Should I get surrounded by flayers, I'd better deal with them as quickly as possible.
- I needed lots of +min damage, so that's not a lot of room left for gear with IAS to get to 8fpa.
- Damage-wise, fortitude was the best option, so that's even less IAS available. Only if I managed to score more than 300% off-weapon ED from other sources would an armor stuffed with +14 min jewels outdamage it. That's how powerful Fortitude is. Once upon a time I decided to make Grief with my first Lo, but seeing this armor get recycled through lots of other chars, I think that if I had to spend a first Lo again, I'd have made Fortitude first.
- Conclusion: I needed a fast weapon (I mean FAST) with high min damage. Only a phase blade would be fast enough, but the damage isn't great.

Solution: an ethereal phase blade with a high damage multiplier. Hax? Not really. It was only a question of putting lots of my previous mats/pats to work and use up their imbue quests on ethereal crystal swords and dimensional blades. I didn't really expect to get a good imbue, but still hoped for the best. Now this is what a nice ethereal imbued dimensional blade looks like when it's upgraded:

Code:
Corpse Scratch
Phase Blade
One-Hand Damage: 210 to 210
Required Dexterity: 126
Required Strength: 15
Required Level: 68
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 93
Fingerprint: 0xb04fb7
+304% Enhanced Damage
+70 to Attack Rating
+25 to Minimum Damage
9% Life stolen per hit
Required Level +7
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (1: 1 used)

Yup, etherealness stays under an imbue. This weapon actually spawned with all mods relevant to my build:
- highish damage multiplier (270% ED + 34% ED from ruby jewel of bliss)
- +25 min damage (+16 min +9 min damage from that same jewel)
- life leech
- AR (ok, this one isn't very relevant for a conviction build, but still nice)
You can see the min>max principle in action here, though ATMA doesn't show that max becomes min+1.

When I worked the numbers, I calculated that my end-game paladin's damage would multiply each added +min point by 20.2. Even a +2 skills circlet would only add 150-ish damage whereas a +10 min damage circlet would add 200. Now I could see that +min damage would take priority over almost anything on my gear. The only non-damage things that I needed was CBF and 55% IAS for the 8 frame attack breakpoint (only 55%. That's peanuts for an avenger build).

I decided to get the Immortal King's gloves and belt for 25% IAS and socket a +11 min damage circlet for another 30% IAS.
That meant that I had some space left for added damage: boots (War traveler +15min), amulet (+2 pala skills +10min), and shield (+57 min)

On leech: since I decided to boost the physical part of my attacks by Might merc and Fortitude, I could skimp on the leech a bit. I went with a 3%LL/6%ML rare I had. The mana leech was sufficient for leechable enemies and the sword already had a hefty life leech, so ring and potato peeler provided enough leech together. I carried a 1.07 redemption/holy shield scepter on switch, so I could eat some souls between fights for life and mana as well.

Readouts:
Rich (BB code):
Hat:
Chromatic Coronet of Performance
Defense: 39
Durability: 24 of 30
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 96
Fingerprint: 0xa8735bcc
+15% Enhanced Damage
+11 to Minimum Damage
All Resistances +22
30% Increased Attack Speed
10% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Amulet:
Priest's Amulet of Performance
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 96
Fingerprint: 0x179ee5ff
+10 to Minimum Damage
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels

Rare ring:
Bone Circle
Ring
Required Level: 74
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x9a80f8e9
+60 to Attack Rating
+5 to Minimum Damage
Fire Resist +11%
Lightning Resist +31%
Cold Resist +11%
Poison Resist +11%
3% Life stolen per hit
6% Mana stolen per hit

Obligatory raven frost:
Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x47cd8ac
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+241 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Socketed pala shield:
Gemmed Superior Sacred Targe
Defense: 176
Chance to Block:  60%
Smite Damage: 22 to 70
Durability: 41 of 45
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 86
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xb0773244
+23 to Maximum Stamina
+6% Enhanced Defense
+57 to Minimum Damage
+8 Defense
Fire Resist +66%
Lightning Resist +45%
Cold Resist +45%
Poison Resist +73%
Adds 15-58 fire damage
Replenish Life +4
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Charms
+1 offensive skiller
+2 combat skillers
+some resists
+25 min from 1.07 damage charms (and +2 from a 1.10 grand charm :P)

My might merc got a Reaper's Toll weapon, a Delirium hat, and a Treachery armor.

--------
Practice
--------
One doesn't simply walk into Mordor, I mean Hell. It takes practice. Something the kind designers reminded us of by having to work through two whole difficulty levels to get to the relevant part of the game. I played through as follows:

Normal (P8):
+poison damage low-level twinking gear until lvl 15. Grab a raven claw at 15, wear twitchthroe, and call an enchantress for help. End the rest of normal.

Nightmare (P8):
I wanted to have some fun here, so I punched my way through Act I and Act II? It worked well. So well, in fact, that I now believe a min-damage punchadin to be actually viable through Hell as well. *gasp!*

To finish the rest of Nightmare, I used Voice of Reason. This sword shoots frozen orbs on striking sometimes. That and conviction meant that act III was actually fun this time. Not so fun was getting instagibbed by an exploding undead doll. Paladins aren't barbs, and can (in my case, will) get one-shotted.

Hell (Act I-III P8, Act IV-V P3):
I started Hell in my low seventies. I had to get to 75 for my endgame weapon, so for leveling I went two-handed with an eth Oath balrog blade. That's one-hit killing stuff when you're an avenger. That's also a lot of corpse runs, because you don't have a third hand for a shield to block with.
When I got my endgame phaser, stuff died. I couldn't reproduce my Beast wielding avenger's damage potential, but got close enough with an average total damage of 6.7k.

Unleechable skeletons and ghosts weren't that annoying, because I managed 22% damage to mana on my gear. Mana burn unleechables were annoying, but not too dangerous. The biggest danger of all was getting surrounded. With a single-target 8frame attack and moderate leech, it simply wasn't possible to handle a crowd of admirers. That's why I gave my merc a Delirium hat. With lots of chances to proc Confuse, monsters around me started to leak brain and attack each other. That resulted in useful situations where evil little demons were fighting each other while I turned them inside out with my sword.

Also not nice:
- charging snakes/undead: they suck when you have 1k life.
- stygian furies/witches that shoot with physical damage. I could tank elemental damage well (80+resists), but lots of there flying red balls meant death. The only tactic to win was to hit and run and pray that the merc could proc decrepify or confuse.
- undead dolls. Their death explosions that don't get blocked kinda sting.
- gloams. Even with 90 light res, you don't want five of those crossing their streams to fry you. Blizzard should patch and replace them with harmless kittens instead.

The fights with the prime evils were mostly a matter of time, not skill. Their huge mountain of hitpoints would only go down 6.7k damage at a time, since I had no crushing blow whatsoever. The ancients were harder. The first time I tried to fight them I thought I was doing OK, until I just exploded on the spot. Maybe I should have read their mods before swinging like mad. The next fight I did manage to read mods, and was able to make myself scarce before the might enhanced extra strong leaper got to me. The final fight: no nasty mods, merely mana burn which I could leech back.

-----
Finds
-----
Prime evils dropped colored squat and Hellforge gave me Lum and Hel.

I did find something unexpected from a crypt in the dungeon. At first I thought it was another manald heal, but it was a BKWB. A grailer! Only 18 left to go. That'll only take me a small handful of eons to complete.
Another surprise random find was a random Gul rune from a random urn in a random Snake temple level 2 dungeon in act II.

----------------
Parting thoughts
----------------
* There's always a surprise around the corner. And, no, I didn't.
* 20 measly life is actually a lot when you're a low life melee fighter.
* A Paladin's weaponless idle animation looks funny.
* Somehow, eating dead demons' souls doesn't sound like a very holy-knightish thing to do.
* Confusion keeps you safe, but stay away from the shrooms!
* Easter egg! Patch 1.13 introduced the hidden Undead Chihuahua merc. All you have to do is chase a rabbit through the bloody foothills. Then, Shenk's death explosion will turn it into a see-through skeleton dog.
* This is my 10th Paladin Patriarch. Can I get help for that? I think this will be my last avenger (but that's what I thought the previous times as well).
 
Originally posted by Alfonso the Great on Jul 1, 2010:

Patriarch UncleRuckus, Untwinked SC Avenger

After languishing for over two years and seeing more than a few Mats/Pats pass him by, UncleRuckus, my Avenger, finally trudged his way to Baal and slew him in epic combat.

Code:
Name:       UncleRuckus
Class:      Paladin
Experience: 1016861140
Level:      84

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   70/84
Dexterity:  150/151
Vitality:   179/194
Energy:     15/15
HP:         743/842
Mana:       139/139
Stamina:    326/366
Defense:    37/557
AR:         735/810

Fire:       143/103/43
Cold:       180/140/80
Lightning:  179/139/79
Poison:     55/15/-45

MF:         96       Block:      56 (75 with Holy Shield active)
GF:         157
FR/W:       20
FHR:        35
IAS:        75
FCR:        0

Sacrifice: 1/1
Smite: 1/2
Holy Bolt: 1/1
Zeal: 1/1
Charge: 1/1
Vengeance: 3/3
Blessed Hammer: 1/1
Holy Shield: 4/4

Might: 1/1
Holy Fire: 1/1
Thorns: 1/1
Holy Freeze: 1/1
Sanctuary: 1/1
Conviction: 20/20

Prayer: 1/1
Resist Fire: 17/17
Defiance: 1/1
Resist Cold: 17/17
Cleansing: 1/1
Resist Lightning: 18/18
Vigor: 1/1
Redemption: 1/1

Equipment:
Helm: Rockstopper

Body: Sigon's Shelter

Gloves: Sigon's Gage

Boots: Sigon's Sabot

Belt: Shadow Lock
[SPOILER]Mesh Belt
Defense: 50
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x9b7407ec
Item Level: 72
Version: Expansion 1.10+
2% Life stolen per hit
7% Chance of Open Wounds
+22% Enhanced Defense
+44 to Life
Cold Resist +14%
Lightning Resist +8%[/SPOILER]

Rings: [SPOILER] Russet Ring of Fortune
Ring
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x72d37e3b
Item Level: 43
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +11%
21% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Dwarf Star
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0xc1eab689
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40 to Life
+40 Maximum Stamina
Heal Stamina Plus 15%
Fire Absorb 15%
Magic Damage Reduced by 13
100% Extra Gold from Monsters [/spoiler]

Amulet: The Rising Sun
[SPOILER]
The Rising Sun
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x1ed3f9d3
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
2% Chance to cast level 16 Meteor when struck
+2 to Fire Skills
Adds 24 - 48 Fire Damage
Replenish Life +10
+63 Absorbs Fire Damage (Based on Character Level)
+4 to Light Radius[/SPOILER]

Weapon: Aldur's Rhythm
[SPOILER]
Aldur's Rhythm
Jagged Star
One Hand Damage: 121 - 189
Durability: 72 of 72
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 74
Fingerprint: 0x3f66f141
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+45% Increased Attack Speed
26% Enhanced Damage
Adds 40 - 62 Damage
+200% Damage to Demons
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 50 - 75 Lightning Damage
Adds 20 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
5% Mana stolen per hit
10% Life stolen per hit
Set (2 items): +15 to Strength
Set (3 items): +15 to Strength
Set (4 items): +15 to Strength
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Rusty Jewel
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor
Socketed: Rusty Jewel of Envy


Rusty Jewel
Jewel
Required Level: 9
Fingerprint: 0xf669600e
Item Level: 19
Version: Expansion 1.10+
15% Enhanced Damage

Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x3a442859
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed

Rusty Jewel of Envy
Jewel
Required Level: 9
Fingerprint: 0x63592cec
Item Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
11% Enhanced Damage
Adds 20 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)[/spoiler]

Shield: Rhyme Bone Shield

Merc: Act 2 Defensive
Weapon: Bonehew
Armor: Rattlecage
Helm: Rare coronet [SPOILER]
Eagle Circlet
Coronet
Defense: 80
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0x6f39c24
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Martial Art Skills (Assassin Only)
7% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+96% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Strength
All Resistances +14[/SPOILER]

Play was untwinked single-pass fullclear, with Normal and Nightmare done on p8 and Hell on p1. Mostly v1.12, though I broke down and upgraded to 1.13 at the very end of Act 4 Hell.

Things were easy-peasy up through NM Act 5. I made a Steel flail early on and that plus Vengeance plus Conviction saw me chewing up things like no other. NM Act 2 slowed me up, but also saw Hellplague fall into my hands, and the bonus Fire damage was more than welcome and helped to grind onwards. Then Act 5 rolled around and the odd immunes coupled with lagging damage saw me slowly grind to a halt. UncleRuckus sat there for months turned to years before I worked up the gumption to continue onward. Luck was my lady when Aldur's Rhythm dropped in the Frozen Tundra, and that served as my weapon the rest of the game.

Hell was easier than NM for the most part, up through Act 5. The Act 2 tombs dropped Bonehew, which replaced the merc's Malice lance, only kept to that point for the OW. The merc was suddenly capable again! With his now absurd damage output, he was able to wear a 3 pTopaz ancient armor even through the fight with Diablo (though his flagging resists required me to throw on that beast of a coronet I gambled), and I only swapped that out for Rattlecage in Act 5 to make the killing go even more swiftly. The monster flee effect helped keep from getting mobbed by horrible things like frenzytaurs and reanimated corpses too much, but it was OH such a pain against ghosts and succubi in the underground river sections. The merc would scatter them and then death would come from a billion directions instead of just mainly one. He died a lot--A LOT--down there.

The monsters I drew were delightful. No archers or quill beasts in the Foothills (vulture demons!), no Fallen anywhere, Frenzytaurs only one time, in the WSK; reanimated corpses and the low-health dark spearwomen up the wazoo. Immunes were a joke because I could hit 4 of the 5 damage types, and break a good chunk of them anyway.

Notable Finds: Ist off some random mob in Act 2 Hell. A number of grailers, the most salient of which is The Rising Sun. A 5os phase blade, and that amazing circlet described above.

HF: Fal. Aghbablble.

Stupidest death: Deciding to help the merc kill some dolls in the Kurast Sewers in Hell. Not usually a facemeltingly dumb idea, I found, because it seems I can block the explosion and I had health and potions to spare. That is not the case when a Cursed, Fire Enchanted member of the species skitters out of the shadows and is two-shotted by my merc before I could even see what was happening.

Thanks for reading! Now, to twink out as much as possible and mess around with True Ultimate Power(tm), and then onto a build that isn't nearly as weapon-damage-dependent as poor UncleRuckus. For once, I don't have any characters languishing!
 
Originally posted by Asmodeous on Jul 31, 2009:

Timorn. Justiciar. Patriarch.

You may remember my previous post regarding the Justiciar that compared Vengeance and Fanatism to the traditional Vengeance and Conviction combinations.
Off course, that was all in theory. Naturally I had to back up my findings with an actual character.
So I present to you, Timorn the Justiciar.

LCS

Equipment set up

The Redeemer.
Upped Steal skull Helm c/w poison resist jewel of Fervor.
Highlords amulet.
Herald of Zakarum shield c/w Um rune.
String of Ears belt.
Fortitude armor.
Raven frost ring.
Rare life leech/resists/AR/max damage ring.
Gore rider boots.
Ghoul hide gloves.

Magical sceptre with +3 to Holy shield + Herald of Zakarum weapon switch.

Mercenary.

Harlequin crest helm.
The reapers toll polearm.
Leviathan armor.

Notes about the equipment.

I decided to use the redeemer over other weapons such as Death BA, Oath CS, Stone crusher and Schaefers hammer etc mainly because of the attributes that the redeemer had to offer the Justiciar such as the redemption aura, negative to targets defence and extra damage. In game trials the redeemer kept up with the oath for killing speed quite easily.
The deciding factor however was the extra damage versus Demons which I thought was A very fitting attribute for a Justiciar. In keeping with that theme I added the Ghoul hide gloves for the ED versus undead and the mana leech helped run Vengeance.
The only other item that isn't run of the mill for me on my pallies was the Steal skull. I needed 45% IAS in total for a 8 frame attack speed. A jewel of fervor in steal skull paired perfectly with Highlords in that regard and I prefered the look of the character with Steal skull over other dual leech helms such as vampire gaze.

Game play notes.

One thing that was blatently obvious with this build was the reliance of the Justiciars killing speed on The reapers toll CTC decrepify. This was partially because the redeemers added damage does not calculate for Vengeance so my Justiciars physical damage was quite high compared to his elemental damage component. The negative 50% to monsters physical damage had a hugh impact on killing speed and I found myself changing tactics with this character. In essense, I became my very own Merc's accomplice following my merc around and fighting alongside him to reap (pun intended) the benefits of his reapers toll.

As far as character deaths went, well there was the usual multiple deaths in Diablo's sanctuary to oblivion knights and their stinking curse. I did try to play the area without dying and got as far as one seal but then after the first death, I gave up trying so numerous deaths followed.
There was one other death worth speaking off. Pindle and his cronies. Three of pindles buddies all charged my pally simutaneously with each hit putting the pally in hit recovery and between all three hits, they managed to get thru 1,000 odd hit points. Rather annoying. Still, not to far to run back from town to the pindle garden.

Apart from that, there wasn't much to note about the Justiciar. I maintained a reasonably high /players 8 setting for my Justiciar. dropping only to /players 1 for diablo's chaos sanctuary and Baal himself. all other area's varied between 3-5 players for all of Hell difficulty.

Oh, I forgot. Notable finds. Ist rune from the Hell difficulty hellforge. A couple of nice skillers, a necro skiller and a nice magic find SC. A few unique and set items, mostly exceptional and left on the ground. The highlight probably being yet another Bone hew polearm.

The avenger versus the Justiciar.

Now that I have finally made a Justiciar it's time for a proper hands on comparision between the two.
Firstly, I thought that my justiciar was never going to keep up with my Griswald's equipped avenger. Mainly because my avenger is 9 levels higher and his set up is worth far more than the HoZ/Fortitude/Redeemer/etc of my justiciar.
But at the end of the day, both characters would have been roughly equal. It was easier with the Avenger as the avenger is not relying on what the merc is doing and waiting for the decrep curse to maintain a strong killing speed. But if your prepared to change tactics and target foes that the merc has decrepped, then the killing speed of the Justiciar was more than satisfactory. While my Justiciar was "hobbled" somewhat with my choice of end game weapon, testing with a death eth berserker axe (expansion) or a eth Oath conquest sword (287%) showed that the Justiciar had a very respectable killing speed, if you compare killing decrepped targets only.

Ultimately, I think the Justiciar is a build that is just asking for a mercenary armed with an Infinity polearm. Again though you could also start dreaming about a bow merc armed with a Faith for an Avenger. Somehow I think the Justiciar and Infinity merc would win that comparison with the mercs might aura pipping the post there.

So does that mean that the Justiciar is the better avenger? No, I don't think so. The Justiciar is a more versatile Avenger. The Fantism aura means that the Justiciar can use any weapon and achieve A viable attack speed which is something that the Avenger cannot do being limited to fast weapons such as phase blades and cadacaus's. This factor alone opens the justiciar more to all players. Find a decent one handed weapon and a few basics and you have everything you need to play a justiciar.
Avenger's require specific and often expensive items to be viable putting making them better suited to wealther players who have had time to accumilate the specific items that Avengers require.
In that regard, the Avenger pales against the Justiciar.

For me, I'm glad to have a Justiciar in my collection. It was fun building one and I'm sure I'll enjoy playing the Justiciar some more in the future.
 
Originally posted by BlizzBallerSorc on Aug 18, 2014:

Patriarch Lemuel, The Orphan's Avenger (Orphan's Call Set Paladin)

The Story:
Lemuel gazed into the predawn haze surrounding the small abbey. The children would be waking soon.

He took an armful of firewood in his sinewy arms and walked through the open door of the dining hall. It had been decades since he had trained as a Paladin, and despite the streaks of gray in his beard, his strength remained. The seasoned Paladin had no place for the misbegotten crusades of the Church's second campaign, and so he had given up his arms in favor of a peaceful role as protector and guide, presiding over the small Zakarum chapel in his hometown. When the mysterious tides of evil began to sweep the land, Lemuel's abbey became a refuge for the few who escaped from the ravaged villages. The Paladin's prayers helped heal the bodies and calm the spirits the survivors, and for the orphans who had no place to go, the abbey became a home.

Lemuel heaved the wood into the dining hall's massive fire place and went about starting the fire. He scanned the line of memorials the children had made to their slain parents, some of the men and women great warriors in their own right.

Today he was leaving the abbey--and might never return. When the troubles had begun, he felt called to care for the orphaned. But as he tended to their wounds, comforted them after their midnight nightmares of the undead, he felt another call: vengeance. Though the children now slept well under the sanctuary of the abbey, Lemuel lay awake at night, his anger rising. Like his father Baranar, he was not generally a volatile man, but rather known for his gentleness. Yet over the weeks his silent rage grew to the point that even the children could see something was wrong. One morning they came to him, led by Anstan, son of Whitstan. Anstan asked Lemuel to avenge the memory of their parents--the boy was eighteen, and claimed he and a few of the older children could run the abbey in the Paladin's absence.

Lemuel knew the boy was right, and so he accepted. He knew what it was like to lose a parent. His mother had been murdered by a band of robbers when he was only eight years old. His father Baranar had sought out the murderers and killed them, his vengeance so great that it permanently imbued his mace with elemental powers. The weapon now hung from Lemuel's belt, gleaming deep red in the light of the roaring flames. Turning from the fire, Lemuel again passed his eyes over the shrines to the fallen: most of them were composed of a single artifact surrounded by candles lit in the memory of the hero. Though Lemuel had given up his arms years ago, the children had offered him the relics of their slain parents to aid him in his quest for vengeance. He picked his items carefully: a shield from Whitstan, another Paladin once known for his amazing blocking skills. From Guillaume's shrine he took a helm, from Wilhem's, a belt. Lastly, he took some gloves from Magnus's shrine--a blacksmith-turned-warrior known for the strength of his hands.

Breakfast that morning was unusually silent. Afterward, Lemuel packed for his journey. When the time came for him to leave, the children gathered at the abbey's gate and said their farewells to grizzled Paladin. Mayda, the daughter of Magnus and the smallest of all the children, was particularly grave. She extended her arm to Lemuel in a warrior's handshake; her tiny hand grasped her father's glove in an iron grip. Lemuel smiled and rose to leave.

The children watched as he disappeared in the morning fog.

The Concept:

Create a Paladin Avenger with the Orphan's Call set. The OC set struck me as strange because of its name and assortment of items, so I decided to develop a back story that accounted for this. Once I developed the back story of the set, it seemed that Vengeance was the only sensible skill that fit with the back story. Baranar's Star was a weapon I already had, which also seemed to mimic the Vengeance aura itself, and thus would be a good choice for this build, capitalizing on the Conviction as well. And though elemental weapon damage isn't multiplied for vengeance damage, Baranar's actually dealt more physical damage than any other one-handed weapon I had when I began the character. I knew that once committed to the set, I'd have to become a much better planner than I have been, and I'd have to get more familiar with how skills and gear work together in D2.

The Character:
1587411632691.png

Stats:
Level 83
Strength: 112/168
Dexterity: 88/122
Vitality: 295/295
Energy: 15/25
AR: 425/129645
Resists in Hell: 95/95/95/90
Maxed IAS
Max Block @ 68% Block Rate Breakpoint

Gear:
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath
Helm: Guillaume's Face, socketed with IAS/Enhanced Defense Jewel
Armor: Guardian Angel, socketed with Ral
Weapon: Baranar's Star, socketed with Shael
Shield: Whitstan's Guard, socketed with PDiamond
Belt: Wilhem's Pride
Gloves: Magnus's Skin
Boots: Natalya's Soul
Rings: Rare Rings with Resists, Mana Steal, Etc.

Skill Points: (hard points only)
Pre-reqs: 1 each
Vengeance: 20
Synergies for Vengeance: Resist Fire (16), Resist Cold (16), Resist Lightning (15)
Conviction: 20
(You'll notice this is according to Asmodeus's build guide.)

Merc: Gulzar, Holy Freeze Merc
Helm: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Armor: Gloom Kraken Shell
Weapon: Insight Great Poleaxe

Gameplay:
Not much to report other than that this guy was a tank! He is only my second character, and my first was a sorceress, so perhaps he just felt tanky in comparison, but with 95/95/95/90 resists and max block he almost seemed invincible at times. The Ancients were a breeze! They couldn't seem to hit me, and when they did, it didn't really do any damage. Andariel, Mephisto, Diablo, Duriel, etc., and Baal all went down easily.
The Orphan's Call set actually has some pretty great bonuses, and while nothing compared to the top runewords/uniques/sets, I enjoyed playing with the set. Only having a few slots available to change did end up making me a better planner. For much of the game I used the Smoke runeword, which is really great, especially with the charges of Weaken, which I used a lot. Once I had Guardian's Angel, however, my resists could really be cranked up, and it made gameplay a little less worrisome. It was nice not having to worry about any immunes--though I didn't have enough +skill items to pump my Conviction up to the level that it could break any immunity, it didn't really matter since Vengeance covers all the bases anyway--I didn't have trouble killing anything, and it was nice not to have to worry about any sort of immunes.
The 1.7-2.7k damage didn't look like much on the LCS, but with Conviction and maxed IAS it took the monsters out very quickly. I was worried that gameplay would feel slow compared to a Zealot, but I was happy to find that wasn't the case.

Note: I've seen people talk about mana problems with Avengers, and I was thinking I need a lot of Mana Steal. I only used 6% mana steal plus Insight from the merc and I was absolutely fine. The only time I remember using a potion was if my merc died and once after hacking Korlic for about 90 seconds straight.

Hellforge drop was just a Lem, and nothing particularly remarkable item-wise or rune-wise. I didn't realize how lucky I was to have an Ohm and some Ums randomly drop on my first Mat/Pat!

Anyway, I really enjoyed playing and planning this character. My only complaint is that it was almost too easy: the gameplay wasn't quite as adrenaline-filled as it was with my more fragile sorceress.
 
Originally posted by Chain of Strength on Jul 24, 2006:

Patriarch JuliusCaesar

Character Name: Julius Caesar
Type: Paladin
Level: 83
Build: Avenger

Skills Distribution:

Vengeance: 20
Conviction: 11
Holy Shield: 20
Resist Lightning/Cold/Fire: 14 a peice
Salvation: a few
Defiance: a few
Zeal: a few

Stats: (no gear/gear)

Strength: 93/177
Dexterity: 87/104
Vitality: 307/337
Energy: 23/23

Damage:
Vengeance: 2316-3162
Zeal: 808-1237

Life: 1233 (w/ gear)
Defence: 12,567!
Mana: 190 (w/gear)

Resistances in Hell:
60/75/88/91


Equipment:
Andariel's Visage
Guardian Angel
Herald of Zakarum
Nord's Tenderizer
War Traveler
Soul Drainer
Immortal King's Detail
Nagelring
Raven Frost
+ 3 Combat Skills Ammy

Charms:
2 plain Lion Branded
Gheeds
Coral/Shappire/Ruby Grand Charms
Shimmering/Ruby Large Charms
Shappire/ Ocher/Tangerine/Russet/Amber/Emerald Small Charms
Beryl Small Charm of Vita
Tome of Town Portal


I had some trouble with the Ancients. The damage output, although fair, didn't quite cut it. I never had any difficulty blocking. If I was ever low on a resistance I'd just switch to Salvation or that resistance. All-in-all this was one fun build to play. I reccommend it to ayone.

Special Thanks:

This strategy guide.
Wilypueo for trading me most of my equipment.
Everyone that had giveaways or traded with me. Thanks.
And I can't forget Noodle and DontFret for getting me to Baal. They helped a lot. And for DontFret teaching me how to host.

I finally beat the game!Peace!:afro:
 
Originally posted by Colorless Green on Dec 30, 2007:

Patriarch Tuck, Charger Abbot

Patriarch Tuck
Level 83 Paladin

Str: 60 (65)
Dex: 20 (25)
Vit: 375 (380)
Ene: 15 (20)
Unspent Stats: 40

Life: 1460
Mana: 145
Resists: 73/75/73/29
PDR: 71
Charge AR: 5511
Charge Damage without (with) might: 4740-5521 (5435-6328)

Charge: 20
Zeal: 1
Might: 20
Blessed Aim: 1
Sanctuary: 1
Prayer: 20
Vigor: 20
Redemption: 1
Unspent: 3

Equipment:
Kira's Guardian (Sol)
Iron Pelt (Sol)
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
Natalya's Soul
Cobalt Amulet of Life Everlasting (30CR/25PDR)
Nature's Peace
Ghoul Knot ring (16FR, 7LR, 21CR, 7PR, 2PDR, 5%ML)
Insight Archon Staff (254% ED, +243% AR, +5 Critical Strike, L17 Meditation)
Charms: Assorted dual modded steel GCs and resist SCs
Ice Rogue Merc: Harmony Hydra Bow (270% ED), Tal's Mask (IAS Jewel), Treachery Dusk Shroud



Well, this is another char that I'm not sad to finish. He was a novelty char in every way - I actually built him with the goal of satisfying as many different novelty urges as I could at once. I took care of abbot, charger, extremely high vitality, staff wielding, two handed paladin, non-act two merc, and nearly immortal all in one char. However, the drawback to this is that he wasn't exactly a lot of fun to play. Sure, charge is a good deal of fun in the correct situations, but they're few and far between. In anything but prime circumstances, a (relatively) low damage charger is something like a buggy conc barb. Almost the entire way through hell was spent running back a bit, charging, running back a bit, charging, running back a bit, charging, etc. On the plus side, he was extremely hard to kill, to the point that I was able to get a glass of water without pausing during the ancients (which I needed to given how long of a fight it was - one spawned stone skin and another was mana burn, both of which are capable of making a fight about ten times longer than it needs to be). Baal wasn't any more difficult. The only real challenge at any point would be boredom, I have to say.

Sanctuary, as it turns out, is probably the coolest one point wonder I've seen since taunt. From now on, every physical paladin build I make will have a point. It takes care of some PI's, but it really shines by effectively doubling damage on any of the non-immunes. Nearly every undead went down in one hit when I had sanctuary running.

Speaking of which: auras. This char didn't need any aura, and therefore I switched them almost constantly. I used cleansing most of the time because, well, why not? In most situations, though, I wasn't taking any damage anyways so it didn't really add much. I switched to might at times, but in that might aura %ed is calculated at the same time as skill %ed and charge has a huge amount of skill %ed, it didn't make that much of a difference. I also used vigor a lot, just because my slvl 20 beat my merc's slvl 10, but not by so much that it was a big difference. Meh.

I was rewarded by some reasonably good drops, however. Um/Pul from NM/Hell forges (not bad I suppose), an eth cerebus bite, and best of all, the highest rune drop I've yet seen. So all in all, despite being a single target melee'er, it was worth it.

Speedy retirement ftw.


-CG
 
Originally posted by Colorless Green on Jul 2, 2008:

Patriarch Fawkes, Griswold's Avenger (last of the class-specific octumvirate)

Well, I've finally finished my class-specific set octumvirate. Presenting...

Patriarch Fawkes, level 83 Griswold's Avenger

Str: 98 (152)
Dex: 94 (140)
Vit: 303 (313)
Ene: 15 (15)

Life: 1315
Mana: 216
Resists: 85/73/85/75
Damage (per LCS, including might): 3327-5753
AR (per LCS): 4828

Equipment (readouts of gris' below):
Griswold's Redemption (ed% jewels)
Griswold's Valor (IAS jewels)
Griswold's Heart (+max jewels)
Griswold's Honor (+max jewels)
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
War Traveller
Highlord's Wrath
Raven Frost
Bone Whorl Ring (+min, res all, dual leech)
Charms: 4 Skillers (should've switched out to +dmg, but meh), resists, +dmg

Skills:
Vengeance: 18 (24)
Holy Shield: 1 (7)
Conviction: 19 (25)
Redemption: 1 (7)
Resist Fire: 20 (26)
Resist Lightning: 20 (26)

Might merc: Insight, Treachery, Vampire Gaze

Code:
Griswold's Redemption
Caduceus
One-Hand Damage: 184 to 222
Durability: 25 of 70
Required Dexterity: 56
Required Strength: 78
Required Level: 66
Mace Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x432597fe
+6 to Life
+371% Enhanced Damage
Requirements -20%
40% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Undead

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+2 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)
+10 to Minimum Damage
+20 to Maximum Damage
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (4: 4 used)


Griswold's Valor
Corona
Defense: 268
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Strength: 104
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xcd283fb5
+62% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +5
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -40%
30% Increased Attack Speed
+20 to Cold Absorb (Based on Character Level)

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+2 to Offensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (2: 2 used)


Griswold's Heart
Ornate Plate
Defense: 949
Durability: 56 of 60
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xa6ec226d
+20 to Strength
+8 to Mana
+44 to Maximum Damage
+500 Defense
Requirements -40%
+2 to Defensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
Socketed (3: 3 used)


Griswold's Honor
Vortex Shield
Defense: 303
Chance to Block:  69%
Smite Damage: 5 to 87
Durability: 89 of 90
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 148
Required Level: 68
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x936db620
+30 to Mana
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
+36 to Maximum Damage
+108 Defense
Fire Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +45%
Cold Resist +45%
Poison Resist +57%
65% Faster Block Rate
Socketed (3: 3 used)


Well, this one was somewhat underwhelming. I don't really know what I expected, since every single thing I read about avengers before starting this char, and every similar char I've ever played has mentioned the fact that single-target attackers at low fpa are boooring. Unsurprisingly, so was this char. It was at no point ever particularly dangerous (max block, high life, max resists, with 85 FR/LR make it pretty hard to actually die), but it was just tedious. Stuff usually died within a couple hits, so it's not actually any slower than a lot of chars I've played, but it just seemed to take forever. The average fight consisted of picking the closest monster in any given pack and namelocking it to death, then reclicking and trying not to forget I'm actually playing a game while waiting for things to die.

I also get the impression that the game was screwing with me, in that pretty much every difficult fight spawned not with dangerous mods that would possibly make it interesting, but with ones that drew out the fight even longer. Ancients? mana burn and an instapwned merc. Throne room? dolls, OK's, gloams (okay, this should have been dangerous, but instead it just involved going even slower than normal to watch for IM). Lister? mana burn/stone skin.

Only decent find would be the 15/5 scintillating jewel of bliss I posted in the IFT earlier. Ko/Pul from hellforges, which isn't too bad I suppose. Speedy retirement for this char, without a doubt.


On the posative side, I've now completed a char for every class-specific set, something I've wanted to do for quite some time. For those of you who are just tuning in, here they are:

Ktulu, Immortal King's Whirlwinder (never made a pat thread)
Katya, Natalya's CoT/FoF/PS Assassin
Daph, Bul-Kathos' Frenzier
Kakistos, Trang-Oul's Venomancer
Petra, M'Avina's FA/Strafezon
Isoce, Tal-Rasha's Tri-elementalist
Danson, Aldur's Fire Claws Summoner


And, that's that. With the exception of Isoce (who's gonna be a LK runner or HF redeemer or something like that - can never have too many sorcs), and maaaaybe Ktulu (who is a fairly good char, but I'm prejudiced against the IK set), I hope to never touch another full class-specific set again. :crazyeyes:

-CG
 
Originally posted by Disco-neck Ted on Jun 5, 2006:

The Pure Avenger: Lord_Forwhyllin

Max Vengeance and synergies. 8k avg dam. Your basic 2h Avenger? Nope.

That's 8k average one-hand damage at 9 frames, with max blocking, level 25 conviction after +skills, 5 frame FHR and 85% resists (except 75% poison), making for a pally that is both hard-hitting and durable. A lengthy write-up below if you are in a reading mood, but if not, please take a moment to glance at the acknowledgements at the end since some good folks helped out a lot in making this guy possible.

The premise:

I've always wanted to do a +min damage character. With enough additions to the bottom number, it shoots past the top and any additional +min adds straight to the average damage.

That's the theory, anyway. But Blizzard has been very careful to make sure that +min affixes on jewels, charms and weapons are much inferior to their +max counterparts. For a while it looked as if 1.07 was the place to try this scheme, with the burly damage charms, but again, the max damage equivalents are more common and far more potent. And elite weapons are terrible in 1.07, suffering most at the minimum damage end, so the idea went on the shelf for a long while.

Changes in 1.10 to the way some skills interact with off-weapon damage re-awakened interest in this plan. After a second look at +minimum damage on jewels, the idea grabbed hold of my brain and would not let go.

The plan:

1. Start with a weapon with decent minimum damage and a tight overall damage range. The less investment spent catching up to the top end damage, the better. Surprisingly, two-hand weapons are not well suited for this, plus a shield can have up to 4 sockets for +min damage jewels.

2. Add big skill-based damage multipliers to take full advantage of the min-over-max effect. Berserk, Tiger Strike, and Vengeance all came to mind.

3. Sockets! As many as possible. With jewels to put in them.

That's pretty much it. Gear turned out to be an interesting combination of sought-after items and stuff people throw away. Full Griz set socketed with plain +min jewels. Pal combat skillers mingled with +1 min small charms.

The execution:

Vengeance won out over the other skills because of its kill-all nature, with berserk a close second. After Gengis Chuck posted his Griswold avenger, that set was considered, then discarded. The search commenced for a nice rare ethereal Dimensional blade, self-repairing mythical sword, caduceus, or legendary mallet, plus jeweller's shield and armor. After weighing the details that go into making a viable pure damage paladin, such as +skills, IAS, resists, life, blocking, FHR, etc. etc., the Gris set was suddenly back in again since it fits so many of the above criteria. (Who cares about the total absence of leech, pdr, mdr, and so forth? Aieee!)

The +5 to skills from the set was the deciding factor, allowing Lord_F to be completed at an acceptable level.

And here is the result:

Character name : Lord_Forwhyllin
Character type : Paladin
Character level : 93

Life: 1321
Vengeance damage: 7068-7069
Vengeance damage (with might): 8076-8077
Vengeance AR: 3890
Defense: 6185

Stats (after gear):
Strength : 187
Energy : 15
Dexterity : 140
Vitality : 220
Stat Points Remaining: 140

Skills already listed (no points in anything not directly Avenger-specific). Redemption and Holy Shield came from this scepter on switch:

Priest's War Scepter of Revivification
One-Hand Damage: 10 to 17
Replenish Life +15
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
+3 to Redemption (Paladin Only)
+1 to Holy Shield (Paladin Only)
150% Damage to Undead

Gameplay:

Getting through the game was neither a cakewalk nor too difficult. NM went by at a good clip, mostly done at p8. How amusing to be able to use the full set before stepping into Hell (completely the opposite of my 1.07 Gris pally who couldn't don the last pieces of the set until moments before making pat). The Ancients gave no problems at all, but the Balrog lord in the CS was a sunny beach!

The final leech rates of 6% mana and 14% life were adequate, but regaining red stuff at a ~17% rate or higher was definitely preferable, if hard to accomplish.

Crowd control had me concerned at first, and the plan was to use a delirium helm on the merc. But with very few exceptions, decrep from Reaper's Toll was sufficient. The mobility that goes along with fast attacks made crowds a lot less problematic, and the high damage quickly reduced monster numbers to manageable levels.

The most interesting battle was while rescuing Anya. The screen was whited out with gloam lightning and the merc went up like a roman candle. But with a speedy attack and good resists, the intrepid avenger was able to shuck and jive, jive and shuck, crushing one enemy here, then sidestepping and interring another there. Whack! Bam! Slowly, the attackers dwindled until there was nothing left to kill.

Hell was largely done at p3, but after getting his title (and after the MFO), numerous p8 Eldritch/WSK runs were made for levelling. Lister on p8 was doable, but when he spawned extra fast plus any other bad mod (cursed, PI, fanatical etc.) it made things so tough for my merc that I began setting it down to p3 or even p1 for him. Then laziness set in and it was p3 for the throne room all the way through. Eldritch, WSK 2 and 3 stopped giving as much experience at lvl 92 (iirc) so Lord_F shifted into boring mode and just stuck to the throne room and Baal after that.

In the middle of putting this guy together, before making the final push to 93, the MFO suddenly arose. As is my usual practice, I converted an existing char for MFing rather than having an MFer already built. Forwhyllin took first in the Baal comp with a Windforce and some other junk and made several levels in the process. Can't honestly advise people to MF with a melee build, but if you must, this is a pretty good one.

This is what the set weapon looks like socketed for +min damage and after the full set bonus:

Griswold's Redemption
Caduceus
One-Hand Damage: 235 to 239
+365% Enhanced Damage
+43 to Minimum Damage
Cold Resist +20%
Requirements -20%
40% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Undead

The other sockets in the set added 130 to minimum damage and some odd lightning damage, resists, FHR, life, etc. No damage-to-mana, alas, but it wasn't really necessary.

Depending on mood, other gear included any of:

Nosferatu's Coil/Trang's Belt/Tal's Belt
BK Band/Ravenfrost/Rare life-leech +min damage ring
LoH/Crafted Blood Gloves with 20% IAS and 3% life-leech
Crafted Blood amulet with +2 skills, resists/Crafted +2 ammy with teleport

Also worn were War Travellers and a 6% mana-leech ring with +9 min damage and big resists.

HUGE thanks to the following people:

-Mattis~ (AKA Mattisthebastard): when I first started to assemble gear, Matt shipped over two mules of jewels and said, "take what you need and send the rest back." My first Griz pally was a (pale) homage to his 1.09 Griswold zealot. Helluva deal!

-SideShowBob: Bob has always been a standup guy in all regards. When I finally made up my mind to go with the Gris set, he provided the Corona and a Nos Coil, among other things. After losing my mind during the MFO and thinking to Ptopaz a griz helm (and make a 4 Isted pal shield for switch), he humored me with a second corona. It never got used, and the shield idea never got out of the planning stage (whew!), but it was nice to have my insanity indulged for a bit. Plus, Bob has helped in countless other times and places. You rock!

-Dust: What to say about this guy? Dust provided the Gris shield with a laconic remark about "trading something for it later". When the call went out for ED% / +min jewels, he threw one in the pot that made my jaw drop, and said he just wanted to see that someone put it to good use. Jewels for the weapon were the hardest items to acquire, and that one is in the scepter now. Salud!

-Stony: The master storyteller shipped some very nice and helpful items over from his Grand Tour giveaway. Thank you sir, and best of luck with your grail!

A number of other people traded goods that may or may not have been used:

RTB (teleport amulet for MFO)
maxgerin
Silo (Traded the SWEET caddy and threw in his highest def griz heart for free)
Dodgeydave
TheNix
Zhao Yue (+17min 30% poison resist jewel)
Nikstone
Genghis Chuck

Apologies to anyone left off the list. The project has been in the works for a long time, so a name or two may have fallen through the cracks.

Final thoughts:

Some damage might have been left on the table here, compared to jeweller's armor/shield and a massive self-repairing ethereal weapon. With gear other than the Griz set, resists from charms could free up item slots/sockets for more damage. The tradeoff would be in finding enough +skills to get Conviction to 25, but it could be done.

But this was a very fun run, and I'm satisfied where things stand now. Whack! Bam!
 
Originally posted by Doctor Clock on May 11, 2010:

Patriarch Amarth: 2-handed Fanatic Avenger

"He's a lumberjack and he's ok," Monty Python.

Patriarch Amarth

Two Handed Fanatic Avenger

Level 89 Paladin

Stats:

Strength: 143
Dexterity: 71
Vitality: 347
Energy: 17

Vengeance damage: 8180-15k (9128-16k with Might)

Life: 1595

Resistances: 84/56/90/33

50% CB // 77% Deadly Strike



Defensive Auras:

Resist Fire: 18
Resist Cold: 8
Resist Lightning: 20
Salvation: 1
Prayer: 1
Cleansing: 1

Offensive Auras:

1point Pre-reqs
Fanaticism: 20

Combat Skills:

Vengenace: 20
Conversion: 4
Charge: 1



Items:

Head: Vampire Gaze (Um)
Neck: Highlord's Wrath
Weapon 1: Death Silver Edged Axe
Weapon 2: Lawbringer Caduceus
Shield: Gerke's Sanctuary (Sol)
Chest: Fortitude Wire Fleece
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Ring 1: Ravenfrost
Belt: String of Ears
Ring 2: Rare (6% LL//9 resist all)
Boots: War Traveler's

Backpack: Resistance, life, and FHR charms.

Mercenary:

Hazade Act 2 Offensive

Head: Andariel's Visage (Ral)
Weapon: Infinity Thresher
Chest: Treachery Archon Plate

Ramblings:

This was an fun character for me in a few ways. First, it was my first Avenger. For whatever reason, I've never gotten around to making one. He had been sitting at level 58 for about two years, so I decided it was time to finish him. Second, I've now used every Paladin combat skill to make a Patriarch. Technically, I haven't made a pure Smiter, but my Martyr had maxed Smite and used it fairly extensively, so I think that counts. Lastly, this was actually the most powerful character I think I have ever made. /players 8 full clears the whole way through. No deaths in Hell, either. One in Nightmare, though. I suffer from the delusion that cursed and fanatacism boss packs won't hurt you until you enter Hell.

He was originally a standard 1h Avenger with Conviction. Shields bore me, though, and I like wasting runes. Fanatic Avenger sounds cooler anyways.

Nothing particularly exciting about him. He runs up and hits things with a big axe. Kills most stuff in a couple of hits, too. I didn't realize Death had ctc Glacial Spike. Gives great crowd control. Ruins my plans of ever using it for a Charger weapon, though.

I usually use Conversion a lot on my 2h Paladins. However, his Convserion damage was so high that he was killing things rather than converting them so there wasn't much strategy to him. Just switched to Lawbringer/Smite if I wanted Decripify up.

Things went pretty smoothly until latter Act 5 Hell. Act 3 gave me one nasty surprise but that wasn't too bad. The Icy Cellar was a real nightmare. Had a standoff with a big pack of Might enchanted Hell Witches that lasted for several minutes. I don't know what kind of damage they do but they do too much of it. Finally shopped for a wand with Attract charges and was able to take them out. Got stuck on a bridge between three Frozen Horrors while I was wearing Fortitude. For those who don't know, the Chilling Armor from Fortitude can cause a lot of lag, especially if you are getting hit by a per frame attack, like Arctic Blast. Took a while to get out of that.

Ancients were easy on the first roll. WSK was kind of tough. Witches on levels one and three. Mostly, they just kill my merc way too fast and I couldn't hit anything without his Conviction aura. Baal was easy of course. Did a few runs after Patting him and got him up to 90. Makes a decent boss runner.

He did pretty well in the item department, too. Found a Vex rune, a -5//+4 Lightning Facet, Widowmaker, Shadow Killer, and Gladiator's Bane. Mal from Hellforge.

Had lots of fun playing him. Pretty fragile, as 2h Paladins usually are, but does a lot of damage. Just have to stay on your toes and not get sloppy.

Thanks for reading.
 
Originally posted by Doctor Clock on Jun 28, 2006:

Patriarch Lightbringer

Patriarch Lightbringer
Level 86 Elemental Zealot/Converter/Holy Bolter

Stats: without items/with
Strength: 98/118
Dexterity: 98/126
Vitality: 314/319

Zeal Damage: 663-2119
Holy Bolt damage: 5720-6440
Life: 1299
Resists: 90/80/90/53

Skills:
Zeal: 2/5
Holy Shield: 5/8
Holy Bolt: 20/23
Blessed Hammer: 20/23
Fist of the Heavens: 18/21
Conviction: 20/23
1 in pre reqs. and Cleansing

Gear:
Guillaume?s Face socketed with a Thul rune
Mara?s Kaleidoscope
Gimmershred
Personalized Guardian Angel socketed with a p ruby
Moser?s Blessed Circle with 2 p diamonds
Personalized Laying of Hands
Rare 3ml/8ll ring
String of Ears
Raven Frost
Gore Rider

On switch:
Wizardpsike
Rose Branded buckler (+3 to pally combat skills)

Charms:
Lightbringer carried various resistance and life charms, along with a Gheeds Fortune. As is my wont, his back pack was full to the brim.

Merc gear:

Merc I: Act 3 cold merc
Peasant Crown
Skin of the Viper Magi
Blade of Ali Baba
Sigon?s shield

Merc II: Act 2 Holy Freeze
Tal?s mask
3 shael Hone Sundan
Gloom

The reason for two mercs will be explained later

Finds: Nothing exceptional comes to mind. A few uniques here and there, some nice charms, but nothing worth remembering I suppose.

NM Hellforge: Um
Hell Hellforge: Ko

Progress:
Normal: Players 8
Nightmare: Players 8
Hell: Players 8/5/3/1 (Players 8 through act 1 and 2, Players 5 in act 3, Players 3 in act 4, and Players 1 for the latter part of act 5)

Normal: From early on, my basic strategy was established for this character. I engaged all non-undead foes melee, and unleashed burning Holy Bolts upon all undead who had the misfortune of encountering Lightbringer. Or as AJK once stated,
AJK said:
OMG! Undead thread! :shocked:
Holy bolt! Holy bolt! Holy bolt! Holy bolt! Holy bolt!
Hellplague was my weapon of choice through Normal. Its fiery essence scorched my foes, and Conviction made them more susceptible to the burning flames. An Act 3 Cold merc accompanied me through normal as well as Nightmare, freezing my enemies. I originally used an Act 2 merc, but he had the bothersome habit of impeding the path of my Holy Bolts. Twinking was kept to a minimum in normal.

Nightmare: Twinked to the teeth. Lightbringer was given most of his end-game gear at this point, save a few items. Aldur?s Rhythm with 2 Rals and 1 Ort thwarted my foes, and the righteous power of Holy Bolts smote the undead from the mortal plane. Progress was fast through Nightmare, and I?ve never enjoyed Act 2 so much.

Hell: Lightbringer finally equipped Gimmershred. Conviction weakening the constitution of his foes, the elementally charged axe tore through demons, and the blinding power of the Light dispatched the undead. Act 3 was a rather arduous task, and Lightbringer resided there for many weeks while I was busy writing a paper and studying for finals. Act 4 was a breeze, and I ran through most of Act 5, just wanting to finish the character. The Ancients were difficult. I had to reroll them many times, and died a few times as well. Low physical damage means low leach; so keeping my health up was quite a task. I hired an Act 2 Merc to help, but he died frequently as well. I finally landed some manageable mods and used a wand with life tap charges to finish the deed. Baal?s minions were laughable, and Baal himself posed little challenge. I Zealed him to a fraction of life left, then switched to Wizardspike, and smote him with the Fist of the Heavens, besting my final foe with the holy justice. The power of Light compels you! The power of Light compels you!

Memorable moments: In the Chaos Sanctuary, I made liberal use of Holy Bolt, and had my Wizardspike out more often than Gimmershred. I had just opened the last seal and defeated Lord de Seis. I suppose the shaking and the ominous voice thundering in that unholy place distracted me, because I forgot to switch back to Gimmershred. I recast Holy Shield, turned on Conviction (I used Sanctuary when going against undead, and Holy Freeze before that was available), and stabbed Diablo to death with my Wizardspike. Lord of Terror indeed.

Thoughts: Overall, a very fun build. I stole the idea from someone else?s (Frostburn I believe, but I can?t be certain) Paladin; a Fanatic Zealot with an interest in Conviction. I was surprised that a mage/melee hybrid would work so well. I had misgivings about this character in Hell, seeing as he would be leeching so little. The + damage to demons from Laying of Hands helped significantly, and Conversion provided plenty of meat shields. Maxing Zeal, Sacrifice and Holy Shield would have made this character a much more effective melee fighter, but such was not my desire.

In Act 3 my strategy changed a bit. Lightbringer?s Act 3 merc was no longer effective. He died frequently, and unbreakable cold immunes became common. So Lightbringer ceased hiring him. Instead, he relied on Conversion to provide crowd control. I have never experimented with Conversion before, but it is an incredibly useful form of crowd control. That skill alone kept me alive through many trying fights, and became an integral part of my combat strategy. I would usually convert a large foe that doesn?t run away, then step away from the group, forcing all the monsters to attack the converted monster, and then return to the fight, decimating my distracted foes.

While Holy Bolt can only damage undead, it is incredibly effective against undead. Even on higher player settings, just a few Holy Bolts dispatched most undead, of which there are many. Unfortunately, Holy Bolt requires 60 skill points to fully synergize, so it is not a realistic utility skill. However, never having to engage an undead, nor having to worry about Iron Maiden is nice. Cast curses all you like, Oblivion Knight. They will aid you not. You will meet the same fate as the rest of your foul kind.

My favorite part about this build is that I never had to engage with Ghosts. I hate Ghosts. I really do. They are fast, they do large amounts of damage, they steal all my mana, they chase me through solid objects, and they stack up on top of each other like some bizarre ectoplasmic orgy. I hate them and I shoot them in the face with Holy Bolts because I hate them so. I hope it burns and the memory of the pain never fades from their ethereal minds as they swirl in that black abyss into which I cast them. Nullifying Gloams is cool as well, but I don?t care too much about Gloams. Only Ghosts. Die Ghosts die.

Conclusion:
Having defeated the Prime Evils, Lightbringer has dedicated his life to purging the world of any lingering undead. In particular, Pindleskin. He just keeps coming back, no matter how many times Lightbringer slays the shambling corpse. Lightbringer has decided to put on lots of magic find gear when killing Pindleskin, just to see what happens, and can kill him in a manner of seconds. In fact, he kills Pindleskin so quickly and efficiently; one might imagine that such was Lightbringer?s explicit purpose.

Up next: More Paladins.
 
Originally posted by esd on Jun 9, 2004:

Patriarch Roland

Here's my newest patriarch - Roland.
Twinked, softcore char.
Class - Paladin
Build - Avenger
Level - 82
Stats without items:
Str - 144
Dex - 89
Vit - 252
Energy - 20
Skills without items:
Resist fire/cold/lightning - 10
Conviction - 20
Vengeance - 20
Holy shield - 12
perequisites - 1
Redemption was used often as well but I gained it from items (first a scepter on switch later from redeemer) because I didn't want to waste 4 skill points in prereqs for a 1 point wonder.

Gear:
Helm - Crown of Ages (with 1 pRuby)
Weapon - The Redeemer (with shael)
Armor - Guardian Angel
Boots - Sandstorm Trek (ethereal)
Gloves - Soul Drainer
Belt - Thundergod's Vigor
Shield - 'Sanctuary' in a Zakarum shield (102 res all! 🤤 )
Amulet - rare with 20 res all, +2 to offensive auras and other less significant mods
Ring1 - Raven Frost
Ring2 - Manald Heal

Merc: None !

Notes: The Hell Ancients were hard to defeat (I wonder if I could introduce some pigeons to arreat summit), however I noticed that Madawc (thrower) is a bit stupid - if you hide from him behind a pillar he often stays on the other side and tries to throw his axes at you through the pillar. Baal was easy but dropped crap. Hell hellforge dropped Mal. Mana burn monsters were a major pain, mana potions were often used throughout the game. Questing was done solo, used only p1 in Hell. I did do some MP Pit runs to get the last three levels so I could wear Crown of Ages (thanks usamahanas for hosting!). I'll probably retire him now and play some of my other chars.
 
Originally posted by friedbananazzzz on Jan 11, 2008:

My First Pat - Base Dex/Max Block Avenger, Inigo_Montoya

My First Patriarch - Base Dex/Max Block Avenger: Inigo_Montoya

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

I've loved the movie since I first saw it as a kid, but I couldn't figure out what to name the Avenger I was about to build. I had recently read SSoG's Abbot guide, and this is what he titled his section for a Vengeance Abbot. I knew that it was a perfect fit (though I suppose not entirely perfect, as I didn't use a sword).

My inspiration for making an Avenger was seeing the Guardian Angel armor (armour, eh?), and how if the Resist Auras were invested in, I could achieve 95% to all resists (okay, 90% poison). An Avenger is one of the builds that benefit from investing in them, so that was what I went with. Seeing the + blocking% on GA made me think that I could still get max block without pumping dex, though after doing some paper calcs I realized this wasn't possible. Then thought, why not? Wear some dex charms/gear, get a decent level Holy Shield, and I should still be able to pull it off. And I did, though it meant a slight sacrifice in speed & power. Here's what I ended up with: (and even though no one asked for it, LOTS of screenies... :shocked: My apologies for the length, this is as long as some guides!)

Inigo_Montoya (Final LCS)

Strength : 125 (160)
Dexterity : 20 (109)
Vitality : 300 (335)
Energy : 15 (20)

Stat Points Rem : 50
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life : 1347 / 1104
Mana : 257 / 138
Defense : 10750
Block : 75%

Resists:
Fire - 95 (111)
Cold - 73 (73)
Light - 95 (114)
Pois - 90 (91)

Vengeance:
Damage - 2134-3212
AR - 4530

Block % Progress: (and boss drops)
You can see that a couple times I let it slide a little, and I'm missing the block %s for Normal Andy and Duriel (which was 75% for both), and for some strange reason I have no SS of NM Meph...

Normal: Andy - Duriel - Meph - Diablo - Baal
NM: Andy - Duriel - Diablo - Baal
Hell: Andy - Duriel - Meph - Diablo - Baal

Gear:
Tal's Mask - (for the dual leech)
Mara's Amy - (22 res all)
Nord's Tenderizer - (see code)
Inigo_Montoya's Guardian Angel - (+183% ED, 778 Def, s/w rare jool: Havoc Talisman)
Herald of Zakarum - (+174% ED, 463 Def, s/w PDiamond - 69 Res all)
Imp Grasp - (rare, upped to exceptional, see code) dropped in Hell A1 Catacombs
Raven Frost - (20 Dex, 151 AR)
Tal's Belt - (15% MF, for the dex)
Raven Band - (rare, see code)
War Traveler - (+157% ED, 123 Def, 49% MF)

Switch: (see code)
Demon's Arch
Rhyme Sacred Targe - (69% Res all)

Merc Gear: (see code) (pic also proof of weird 0hps possibility)
Defiance
Eth Crown of Thieves
Duriel's Shell
Insight Great Poleaxe - 249 to 663 damage, +4 CS, lvl15 Aura
(Insight all the way through the game)

Code:
Socketed in GA:
Havoc Talisman
Jewel
Required Level: 37
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0xe8987f16
+9 to Dexterity
+26% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-11 fire damage
Attacker Takes Damage of 2
 
Nord's Tenderizer
Truncheon
One-Hand Damage: 137 to 169
Durability: 51 of 55
Required Dexterity: 43
Required Strength: 88
Required Level: 68
Mace Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc2915527
+294% Enhanced Damage
Adds 205-455 cold damage over 5 seconds
25% Increased Attack Speed
168% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
Freezes Target +4
7% Cold Absorb
Level 16 Blizzard (12/12 Charges)
 
Raven Band
Ring
Required Level: 46
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0x310d5ac0
+28 to Life
Fire Resist +7%
Lightning Resist +36%
Cold Resist +7%
Poison Resist +24%
4% Mana stolen per hit
Level 3 Dim Vision (27/27 Charges) (never used these)
 
Imp Grasp
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 84
Durability: 14 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 48
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xa696358d
+13 to Dexterity
+100% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +26%
Poison Resist +10%
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Required Level +5
20% Increased Attack Speed
 
Demon's Arch
Balrog Spear
Throw Damage: 122 to 190
One-Hand Damage: 101 to 193
Quantity: 80
Required Dexterity: 95
Required Strength: 127
Required Level: 68
Javelin Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3dcefbb5
+207% Enhanced Damage
Adds 232-323 fire damage
Adds 23-333 lightning damage
11% Life stolen per hit
30% Increased Attack Speed
Replenishes Quantity
 
Rhyme
Sacred Targe
'ShaelEth'
Defense: 139
Chance to Block:  80%
Smite Damage: 22 to 70
Durability: 45 of 45
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 86
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x830fc691
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 15%
Fire Resist +25%
Fire Resist +44%
Lightning Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +44%
Cold Resist +44%
Cold Resist +25%
Poison Resist +44%
Poison Resist +25%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Faster Block Rate
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (2: 2 used)
 
Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
Defense: 466
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Strength: 93
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xbad949d3
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
+173% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +33%
12% Life stolen per hit
92% Extra Gold from Monsters
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
 
Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 655
Durability: 29 of 150
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0xd57d8d08
+15 to Strength
+172% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+103 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+83 to Life (Based on Character Level)
 
Insight
Great Poleaxe
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 249 to 663
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 169
Required Level: 63
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xe1ae9133
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+249% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
233% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 15 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

Charms:
+25 dex
1-20 min-max damage
+131 AR
15% FR/W
21% AllRes/ 27% FR/ 21% CR/ 18% LR/ 7% PR
+111 Life/ +12 Mana
+57 Defense
+1 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)
2-45 Lightning Damage / 3-5 Cold
100/5 sec, 15/3 sec Poison


The Skills:
Vengeance 18 (26) will max next
Conviction 20 (25)
Holy Shield 10 (18)
Resist Fire 10 (15) remainder of points, if any, to these 3
Resist Cold 10 (15)
Resist Lightning 10 (15)
+1 in 11 pre-reqs
+1 in Prayer, Defiance, Cleansing, Vigor, Redemption
0 in FoH, BA, Conc, Fanat, Holy Shock, Meditation, Salvation


Hellforge:
Normal: Ral
NM: Sol
Hell: Pul
Best non-HF rune: Dol


Finds:
Even though I never had more than 100% MF on, I found over 50 S/U items, though most of them were Normal quality. Still, I was quite pleased with his drops, got a few self-grailers (Boneflesh, Demon Machine). Also, it seemed that if one S/U dropped, another dropped within 2 minutes. EVERY. TIME. It was uncanny.

-ED jool of Fervor (NM), too bad about the damage roll
-Gold would have been nicer, but it's still a self-found grailer for me.
-Eth Diggler and Eth Rockfleece (RF from Hell Baal)
-WOOT! Even though I just auctioned one with better life, this is still pretty awesome. Got it from a Ghost in the Hell Frozen River, but died right around the corner. Karma?
-Another great charm, was perfect for my build (Normal Throne)
-TC3 in Hell (always find that funny), this is up for freebie to the first who wants it from my 'Thanks' section
-I had really wanted Crown of Thieves for this guy, but didn't get one in time (I've got one now though, thanks Ribs!), so I was pretty pissed when this dropped
-If this had been untwinked-singlepass, I would have been pretty happy with this luck
And you can never go wrong with another T-god's or Skullder's.


Deaths: (the part you all love to read...)
No deaths up until Hell, late A3, but then...
1: Bremm and co. Got careless, watching Futurama and merc's health instead of my own.
2: De Seis spawned with Fanat, so I figured I'd get off a quick zeal to freeze everyone, but mid-swing the SoB IM'd me.
3: Just got back to my body, tried to run away so I could recompose myself, but they still got me.
At least when I came back his aura had changed. Once I strung them out it was no problem.
4: I don't really remember what went wrong here, but after this I dropped down to p1.
5: This is what happens when you forget to refresh Holy Shield. (stupid curse)
NDE: Got my body back after Death5, but barely got away in time...
6: Charged by Pindle's goonies. Those bastards, 2-3 consecutive hits, no chance in Hell.


Progress:
Normal, all done at p8 (of course). I'd never used Isenhart's or Iratha's sets before, but I'll use them on everybody now (don't mind seeing those green breast plates anymore). Lvl8 used Isenhart's full set with Sigon's GBB, great combination (Isen full set bonus comes with extra block %). Better than full Sigon's by a long shot. Then at lvl15 with full Isenhart's, partial Iratha's, and Treads of Cthon, I had 70%FR/W. LOVED IT. I hate running slow, and at such a low level, this was great. Lvl25-29 came with a BIG change: Twitch (for the blocking & IAS), full Iratha's, Ryhme ATarge, 2xSpirit on switch for casting HSheild, and dug up a 'Honor' Divine Scepter (+3 Sanct) from 1.09 for awesome damage.

Lvls42-45 came with another full gear switch (before and after), for Combat skiller, GA, Raven(s), War Trav's, Lava Gouts, Hoz, Hand of Blessed Might, Gloom's/Mav's belt (manaleech), and Peasant Crown (caps are ugly). Around the early 50's, I tried out IK gloves/belt/VampGaze, and liked it better, so stuck with that. Used The General's Knout a bit too.

Also dug out this puppy (if TopHatCat64 hadn't asked for Paly amys in my trade thread, I might not have noticed this in my collection):
Eagle Noose
Amulet
Required Level: 53
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 95
Fingerprint: 0x6c9d7f5b
+38 to Life
+2 to Minimum Damage
All Resistances +17
3% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
9% Faster Run/Walk

Entered NM at lvl50, Hell at 76. Both times I did a few Baal runs to get that extra exp before moving on, otherwise I didn't really re-run any areas (so it was mostly single-pass, though definitely not full clear).

NM A1-2 p8, A3 p3 up to Tranvincal (I ran straight through, I don't care much for the jungle...), Durance to Outer Steppes p8, Izual and City of the Damned p3 (I didn't want to spend 5 mins on his massive p8 health), River of Flame, CS and A5 all at p8. Nothing special about NM, twinking made it a breeze.

Hell was p3 all the way up to the Frozen River, where I had some nasty witches, so I dropped it down to p1 for the rest of A5. Ran into my first bit of trouble in Tal's Tomb, by the sheer number of enemies, and poison killing my merc. Stringing them out back across the last few cleared rooms solved that though. Next bit of trouble wasn't until A4, where this guy was a pain, as they kept making more minions, and I couldn't break their CI to freeze them. Izual went surprisingly quick, I used an elastic around the mouse and walked away to get a drink. Was a little worried about Haphesto, but then got a look at his mods, and the guy turned out to be a pushover, only hit me twice. Also expected more trouble from Hell Diablo, but he was also a breeze that went down quickly. The short range weapon meant I didn't get hit by his LBoD, he only melee hit me twice for little damage, and his 2-3 Firestorms didn't bother me, though I had to feed the merc a couple potions each time.

Got really lucky rolls all the way from the Frozen Tundra to the Throne (except WSK1), could probably have bumped it back up to p3, but was too excited to Pat him that I wanted it to be fast. Ancients were a breeze (less than 2 mins). Korlic's ManaBurn wasn't too bad, with Insight and 14% ml, and ES Talic only had one whirl land, though it took about 1/3 of my health. Madawc was a joke, I don't even know what his aura was. WSK1 gave me Soul killers, Vile Witches and Death Lords, but being constantly Amped with Frenzytaurs around meant I vigor'd through most of this level. WSK2 was a joke, more Killers, some kind of lightning bats, and poison Horror Mages. WSK3 gave me some teleporters (95% Fire Res meant I could completely ignore these idiots), Fire Boars/Blood Boss, and lightning Horror Mages... another cakewalk. Throne gave Assailants, Dark Lords (vampires), and Serpent Magus, but for some reason was nearly deserted. They must have known I was coming. :evil: All but WSK1 got full clears.

Baal's waves were pretty standard, Bartuc and his goons were dead before I realized I was still running Cleansing to cure my merc from the last wave. Lister ended up cursed, so bye-bye merc, but +4 freeze meant they weren't much trouble for me.

Technically I Pat'd him before doing Nihlathak's quest. I completed that after I killed Baal, and I had never seen for myself the annoying Viper cloud bug. Terrible. Killed my merc once, and almost took out me, but hiding around a corner and waiting for them to come into melee range took care of that. Still, it was a pain in the ***. I also still have to do the Blood Raven and Countess quests in A1, I didn't realize until after I started to write this that I had missed them. I'll do it some time this weekend.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Random Thoughts:this part's pretty long, you can skip it if you want...
- IM was something that I should've feared, but other than that one death (which was with Zeal), I never had a problem with it. The only OKs were in CS, so I never had to worry about it in A5. If I got cursed, I usually still got 1-2 hits in before I realized, but as most of my damage is elemental, I never got lower than 1/3 of my total health. Most of the time, I would run up, aggro a few demons, and make them follow me a bit until I was out of the curse range. Cleansing took care of any curse I did get. IM problem solved. It's a decent strategy that will come in handy for the rest of my melee chars.

- Demon's arch was pretty decent as a switch, if there was a lot of small CIs, I'd zeal them for the decent F/L damage, and while I had only considered throwing them as an IM solution (which I never did), it was fun to occasionally toss them around.

- Zeal + Freeze +4 = AWESOME. Any opportunity I had to use zeal against a bunch of small freezables, I did. *SHATTER*SHATTER*SHATTER*SHATTER*SHATTER* Which brings me to my next point:

- I love Maggot babies. If you're patient, there can be an unlimited supply, and they go down in 1 hit of Vengeance, or 1-2 hits of Zeal.

- I ended up with enough dex to use some swords that might have given me better damage, but I loved the *thwack* of using a club, very satisfying.

- I considered Safety Amulets for their chance to spawn with 1-10% blocking, but my ~10 attempts to make some were pretty futile (freebies if anyone wants 'em, none were +paly). With HS and GA, even with a 10% roll, it only gave me 2% in total block %. So I stuck with the Blood amy.

- Other than making sure I had at least 20% IAS on my gloves (I am in love with those rare gloves), I pretty much ignored this mod. I may change this in the future, but I was content with whatever speed he had while questing.

- Just about every time I hit an Exp Shrine, it was guaranteed that the first boss pack I met would be cursed, but this was ridiculous. 15 feet from the shrine, I run over and 1HK a quill rat, and it turned out to be a CE Cursed boss, but I killed him before I got a look at his mods. ARGH!

- There were some nasty boss packs of Ghosts in the Jails, but Sanctuary made them totally manageable. Loved the aura. Saved me from many undead deaths. Except one time it backfired on me, and ended up stacking a boss pack with some champions into one giant solid white ghost that I couldn't handle. Too busy running away to get a screenie.

- I've never used Tal's mask on a char before, and dear lord, you people are right, that thing is hideous. I can't wait to take it off.

- I am in love with the AT. I don't think I've stepped inside of them since my first Necro back in Classic (back in highschool :shocked:) discovered that they didn't lead anywhere. First: Waypoint. AWESOME. Second: within 3 minutes, only 86% MF: boom and boom (dwarfstar though, but at least the other was a self-grailer) Also, no skellies on that roll.

- While I didn't technically rerun any areas besides Baal, I think I cleared the River of Flame between the WP and CS about 3-4 times, as several times I started to play him, then realized I was falling asleep, and didn't have the extra hour of consciousness required to kill Diablo.

- Redemption didn't get anywhere near as much use as I thought it would, only used it to keep those A5 undead from getting back up from the dead. Cleansing actually got a lot of use, everytime I got cursed or poisoned I threw it on before I ran over to the next skirmish.

- Tried out Demon Limb > Horizon's Tornado > Baranar's Star > Nord's as they became available, each one got better. I'm quite happy with Nord's, the big % bonus to AR, IAS, the Freezes Target, great damage, HUGE cold damage and decent duration. The next step up would be Stormlash, but I don't have one of those...

- Weird well placement... I took the screenie because of the odd placement, then looking at the pic later realized it looked like a face. :badteeth:

- THIS is why I never bother with the Gidbinn quest. I only did it in Hell this time because I stumbled upon it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Future Plans:
Those 50 unspent points will go into dex, so I can swap out all the dex gear for MF gear. Especially for running AT, with that fantastic WP. Definitely do some more Baal runs too. Just not sure which helm to wear now, as I have the Crown of Thieves I so desperately craved, but now I'm also high enough to wear Andy's, or maybe go with Stealskull for the MF. Might also switch the merc for a HF one.


Special Thanks:
zarirazz - for the Guardian Angel and Horizon's
Heskla - for the Nord's and HoZ
omgwtfbbqpwned - Eth Cryptic Axe and Mara's
Ravenlord - Duriel's
Neksja - Demon's Arch
Colorless Green - IK Belt
Darkoooo - Demon Limb
Sirpoops - Sacred Targe for Rhyme
crazymatt1 - Baranar's
Solens - Lava Gout
Asmodeous and Cyrus - for their very helpful Avenger guides.
SSoG - for the Abbot guide, inspiration
Smips, Sirpoops, CG, TopHatCat64, Butzull, o1d_dude, and Xdeathfire for the advice in the Ancients thread a couple days ago
And the rest of the forum for the everyday chatter/advice.

And my apologies for making this much longer than it needed to be, and adding way more screenies than necessary, but it was my first thread... I doubt the next one will be as in-depth.
 
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