Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by @maareek on August 6, 2014

Matriarch Bowlette, WWS Strafer (Exceptional Sept)

I had originally expected to do a javazon here, but I haven’t found a pair of Titan’s since my restart and I was itching to get going so meh. Had never played a bowazon before (the Vengeance Zon was my only one of the class, in fact) so I definitely found the playthrough interesting.

The Character
Code:
Name:  Bowlette
Class:  Amazon
Level:  84

Strength:    65
Dexterity:  410 (459)
Vitality:    20

Resists:
Fire:       45
Cold:       60
Lightning:  86 (75)
Poison:      8

HP:    276 (467)
AR:  11771
FHR:    10
IAS:    65

Strafe damage, with Might: 261-698
Guided Arrow damage, with Might: 336-892
Multiple Shot damage, with Might: 237-625

Total time to reach Matriarch: 30 hours, 25 minutes and 8 seconds. I would assume ~5 hours or so of that was fighting act bosses.

Skills:
Code:
Strafe, Penetrate: 20
Decoy: 19 (22)
Guided Arrow: 13
Pierce: 9
Critical Strike, Multiple Shot: 5

Level 22 maxes out the decoy’s resistances. More points in critical strike would provide a very marginal benefit (at 90% chance to double damage already).


Gear:
Code:
Witchwild String
Short Siege Bow
Two Hand Damage: 33 - 76
Durability: 33 of 40
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 65
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc050a74f
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
+40% Increased Attack Speed
Fires Magic Arrows
154% Enhanced Damage
84% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune

Stealskull
Casque
Defense: 222
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 59
Fingerprint: 0x32df5fe2
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Increased Attack Speed
+10% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Mana stolen per hit
5% Life stolen per hit
+205% Enhanced Defense
46% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor

Angelic Wings
Amulet
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x4d255d0e
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+3 to Light Radius
Set (2 items): +75 to Life
Set (3 items): +1 to All Skills
(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Boneflesh
Plate Mail
Defense: 251
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Level: 26
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xb87d0c85
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+35 to Attack Rating
5% Life stolen per hit
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+115% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +30%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Angelic Halo
Ring
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x612d350
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +6
Set (2 items): +1008 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
Set (3 items): 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x3f4393f1
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+221 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

Razortail
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 104
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 32
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xe77cac3b
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Piercing Attack
+10 to Maximum Damage
+143% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
Attacker Takes Damage of (Based on Character Level) 84

Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 134
Durability: 66 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x39b36fcb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+97 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +21%
Cold Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +21%
+50 Maximum Durability

Cleglaw's Pincers
Chain Gloves
Defense: 9
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 4
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x4d134eee
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Slows Target by 25%
Knockback
Set (2 items): +840 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)

Spirit (on switch)
Broad Sword
TalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 7 - 14
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb2c78034
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+32% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+93 to Mana
+8 Magic Absorb
4 Sockets (4 used)

Lidless Wall (on switch)
Grim Shield
Defense: 312
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0xdcd2c075
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+107% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Energy
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
+3 to Mana after each Kill
+1 to Light Radius

Charms:
Code:
Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xd229a880
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Fine Small Charm of Anthrax
Small Charm
Required Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0xaa2505a7
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Maximum Damage
+18 to Attack Rating
Adds 50 Poison Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)

Iron Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xf420ad78
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+24 to Attack Rating
+14 to Life

Emerald Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xe3f7eeae
Item Level: 63
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+17 to Life
Poison Resist +11%

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x1acc77bc
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +13

Ruby Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 22
Fingerprint: 0xd264290a
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +30%

Garnet Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x30c547a7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+18 to Life
Fire Resist +8%

Amber Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0xf526be2e
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+27 to Life
Lightning Resist +28%

Amber Small Charm of Shock
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0xbb415646
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 1 - 3 Lightning Damage
Lightning Resist +10%

Cobalt Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x2c4a747e
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Cold Resist +9%

Cobalt Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0xf75d2e46
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +9%

Ruby Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x89643c2a
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +10%

Sapphire Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0xa9022160
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +11%

Cobalt Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0xda40df14
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +9%

Sharp Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x6e89899a
Item Level: 64
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+51 to Attack Rating
+4 to Dexterity


Razan, level 84 Might merc
Code:
Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 661
Durability: 38 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x5d039965
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+174% Enhanced Defense
+105 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+84 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Undead Crown
Crown
Defense: 113
Durability: 38 of 50
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0xd8e35535
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50% Damage to Undead
+100 to Attack Rating against Undead
5% Life stolen per hit
+3 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+59% Enhanced Defense
+40 Defense
Poison Resist +50%
Half Freeze Duration

Kelpie Snare
Fuscina
Two Hand Damage: 104 - 195
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 33
Required Strength: 67
Required Dexterity: 15
Fingerprint: 0x98592aea
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
165% Enhanced Damage
Adds 30 - 50 Damage
Slows Target by 75%
+10 to Strength
+105 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Fire Resist +50%
Ethereal

Playthrough
Twinking gear :
Full Arctic + Hsarus boots. Vidala’s boots and ammy when available. Full Iratha’s, Twitchthroe and treads. Wizendraw at level 26. No early S/U bows compare with just twinking something up, but that’s not exactly news. But then you hit Skystrike, and the world is full of rainbows, unicorns, and explosive falling rocks of death. It’s a good thing.

Did p8 until Hell. Normal Bremm and Mephisto each took forever, hadn't gotten Skystrike yet, but rest of the difficulty was easy enough. Did wave (no Baal) runs until exp slowed down. Moved on to NM at 54.

NM Frozen River had snakes + skeleton casters + gloams. NM Ancient Way had a pack of cursed/magic resistant frenzytaurs very close to the entrance. They tore through the merc and decoy once, but a quick trip back up the stairs and into town let us come back down and finish them off. NM Ancients were EF, CE and LE. No real danger, but took awhile. WSK level 2 had gloams, guardians and skeletons. Finished NM at level 73 and proceeded on to Hell, no extra runs.

Ran the Pits from level 73 to 81, mostly at p5 as p7 was just too slow. Note that p5 was only tolerable, itself. Leveling took 4 hours, then I proceeded onward at p1.

Flayer Dungeon level 2 included such hits as a corner with 2 unique flayer shamen and a unique doll pack and a hallway opening into a room with 2 more doll bosspacks. Pewpew that pricelss porcelain. When walking in to said room I tripped a single doll that ran around my decoy and follwed me back into the hallway. I attempted to display the impressive micro of running through the opposite doorway and dropping a decoy behind me, blocking in the poor doll. Instead I trapped myself in the hallway with him, with the merc closing in quickly. Knockback is pretty good, though. All skill; no luck.

Bremm (fanat/CE/stuff) and co were at the doorway along with a champ pack of vampires and chased me back to almost the stairs. Seeing things weren’t going to work out as I wanted I pulled a Barry Sanders right through their midst (and by that I mean led them all to one side then sprinted, screaming, around the other wall) and off to the other side of the room, separating them enough to whittle them down. Meph did peg me with one ice ball, but was otherwise tame.

Hephasto was PI. Tame otherwise, but took a long time to bring down. Had to go back to town once for blues against Diablo.

Frigid Highlands had slingers, rogues and imps. Frozen River was shambling dead, snakes and skelly mages. First try on the ancients the merc died right off. Tried to finish solo but Stone Skin thrower took whole quiver of arrows and then couldn’t separate Extra Fast whirler from the leaper so rerolled. Managed to separate the thrower and pin him in a corner with the merc. ES/EF whirler got stuck on decoys while I tanked the leaper (port/LE). Much better.

Three steps into WSK level 2 I went to no red showing on health. Gloams. Danced around, cleared out that room, then got shot at by a champ pack of snakes. A little more juking and they went down as well. Threw a decoy down one of the corridors and ate some more lightning for the trouble. Another unique, and he came out to play, bringing along his little conviction aura to the party. Level 3 also held a welcoming party: a Conviction/LE Frenzytaur pack. Gosh, Baal, you didn’t have to go all out, I’d have been happy with random affix boars or the like. They convinced the merc to take a nap in short order, but the zon steeled herself against the somniferous swirl of spark and spray. Knockback, you da real MVP. No issues with the waves. Baal took half of forever (which is now defined as roughly 20 minutes.)

Thoughts: The damage was fine, considering, and the pace was just fine at p1 throughout the first 3 acts of Hell and against non-physical resistant monsters past that point. Bosses sucked all game, but that’s not exactly news with a bowazon. The merc’s ridiculous squishyness irked me – and earned him the new title “Sir Squishy von Squisherson” – but flows mostly from the gear limitations. Any CB at all between the two of us would’ve made bosses roughly eleventy bajillion times easier, obviously, but that just wasn’t really in the cards. Except for Baal (on all difficulties) it wasn’t really bad.


Deaths: Yeah, two. First one in Hell Barracks, I opened a door, saw a group of rogues so I threw down a decoy, stepped back aways and started strafing. I didn’t even realize there was a unique in the mass and was standing on the inner edge of the CE explosion’s radius. Instagib. Muled on the plain res charms after that death, CR was at 21 before. Second one in Hell Frigid Highlands, caught a stray javelin from an ES/FE slinger way off screen. Another instagib. I was actually trying to not die this time around, so both were highly aggravating. Oh well.

Finds:
-Forges: Hel/Ko
-Gull Dagger outside Andariel’s room, normal.
-Ko rune from NM Andariel
-Lum rune in NM Tal’s Tomb
-Lidless Wall in NM River of Flame
-Skin of the Vipermagi (25/10) in NM Chaos Sanctuary
-Ko rune in NM Frigid Highlands
-Witchwild String (154%; same as the one I had for the disappoint) in Hell Dark Marsh.
-The Rising Sun from Hell Duriel

Just for comparison's sake I took the WWS I found and upped it. Had to toss on some strength charms, but nothing meaningful changed. Damage numbers are as follows:

Code:
Strafe, with Might: 583-858
Guided Arrow, with Might: 745-1097
Multiple Shot, with Might: 521-767

Thanks for reading. Normally I would insert a pun here, but I couldn't come up with one suitably amazong.
 
Originally posted by @maareek on September 15, 2014

Patriarch BurritoofFury (Exceptional Sept)

I'd never done a shifted druid, though I had done a wolfbarb, so that seemed simple enough here and I didn't really find a bear build I really wanted to do with the gear limitation plus I really like Feral Rage, leading to a fairly straightforward decision.

As a reminder: the rules for the sept are cookie cutters with gear "easily" obtainable from NM Mephisto. Easily in this case being arbitrarily set at 1:3000 odds at 0MF which translates to a little over 1:1000 at 250 MF. Low-level runewords are allowed, and I reserved the right to allow exceptions if I so chose. Spoiler: there's an exception made on this char.

The Character:

Name: BurritoofFury
Class: Druid
Level: 83
Code:
Strength:  115/135 <--whoops
Dexterity: 80/132
Vitality:  290

Fire:       ** (85)
Cold:       76 (75)
Lightning:  83 (75)
Poison:     23

HP:   842 (2189)
FHR:   50 (4 frames)
IAS:  120 (5/5/5/5/8)

Feral Rage damage: 626-2249 (with HoW); AR: 11560
Fury damage:       959-3577 (with HoW); AR: 12114
He reached patriarch in 23 hours, 47 minutes and 16 seconds.

Skills
Werewolf, Lycanthropy, Fury: 20 (24)
Heart of Wolverine: 20 (22)
Feral Rage: 12 (16)

At various points in planning I considered both ravens and solar creeper, but never for long.

Gear
Code:
Buriza-Do Kyanon
Ballista
Two Hand Damage: 91 - 358
Durability: 34 of 50
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 110
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0x6019cb9e
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+100% Increased Attack Speed
Piercing Attack
176% Enhanced Damage
+207 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
Adds 32 - 196 Cold Damage Over 8 Secs (200 Frames)
Freezes target +3
+109 Defense
+35 to Dexterity
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Jalal's Mane
Totemic Mask
Defense: 251
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xa47c2d25
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Shape-Shifting Skills (Druid Only)
+2 to Druid Skill Levels
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+154% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Strength
+20 to Energy
All Resistances +30
Lightning Resist +30%
+5 to Mana after each Kill
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Nokozan Relic
Amulet
Required Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x8a700978
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 3 - 6 Fire Damage
+10% to Maximum Fire Resist
Fire Resist +50%
+3 to Light Radius

Goldskin
Full Plate Mail
Defense: 387
Durability: 68 of 70
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 80
Fingerprint: 0xec3293ad
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+139% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +35
Lightning Resist +30%
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
100% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Light Radius
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Manald Heal
Ring
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0x4141e8eb
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Mana stolen per hit
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +8
Regenerate Mana 20%

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0xc4e540c4
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+250 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 108
Durability: 21 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x3b50ac24
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
8% Life stolen per hit
+167% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
+10 Maximum Durability

Goblin Toe
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 33
Durability: 16 of 18
Required Level: 22
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x29c92a18
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
+58% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 1
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
-1 to Light Radius

Magnus' Skin
Sharkskin Gloves
Defense: 60
Durability: 11 of 14
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x259deb99
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+100 to Attack Rating
+50% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +15%
+3 to Light Radius

Coldsteel Eye (on switch)
Cutlass
One Hand Damage: 27 - 72
Durability: 72 of 72
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 25
Required Dexterity: 52
Fingerprint: 0x41b08448
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Increased Attack Speed
243% Enhanced Damage
6% Mana stolen per hit
50% Deadly Strike
Hit Blinds Target +1
Slows Target by 30%
+50 Maximum Durability

Tiamat's Rebuke (on switch)
Dragon Shield
Defense: 184
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 114 of 116
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 91
Fingerprint: 0xeb33e9ee
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
3% Chance to cast level 6 Hydra when struck
5% Chance to cast level 7 Nova when struck
5% Chance to cast level 9 Frost Nova when struck
Adds 35 - 95 Fire Damage
Adds 1 - 120 Lightning Damage
Adds 27 - 53 Cold Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)
+172% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +34
+40 Maximum Durability

Charms
Code:
Sapphire Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0xe5db6ef4
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+34 to Life
Cold Resist +26%

Steel Grand Charm of Inertia
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0x46629f45
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+7% Faster Run/Walk
+126 to Attack Rating

Cobalt Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xebd119f0
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
Cold Resist +8%

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xa0fa5e9
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Steel Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xa5a0b93d
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+131 to Attack Rating

Steel Small Charm of Anthrax
Small Charm
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x42b9e9d3
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+36 to Attack Rating
Adds 50 Poison Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)

Fine Small Charm of Anthrax
Small Charm
Required Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0xaa2505a7
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Maximum Damage
+18 to Attack Rating
Adds 50 Poison Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)

Iron Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xf420ad78
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+24 to Attack Rating
+14 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Life
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x1213537
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+14 to Attack Rating
+6 to Life

Fine Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xbc2f9e81
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating

Cobalt Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x81fb0327
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
Cold Resist +8%

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xd229a880
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Sapphire Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0xc74ee4f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
Cold Resist +11%

Klaudia, Fire Rogue
Code:
Wormskull
Bone Helm
Defense: 35
Durability: 27 of 40
Required Level: 21
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0xe1f28141
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Necromancer Skill Levels
Adds 80 Poison Damage Over 8 Secs (200 Frames)
5% Life stolen per hit
+10 to Mana
Poison Resist +25%

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 659
Durability: 38 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x5d039965
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+174% Enhanced Defense
+103 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+83 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Harmony
Superior Short Siege Bow
TirIthSolKo
Two Hand Damage: 57 - 120
Durability: 22 of 40
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 65
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0xb0da0864
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 10 Vigor Aura When Equipped
270% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Fire Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Lightning Damage
Adds 55 - 160 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (85 Frames)
+5 to Valkyrie
+10 to Dexterity
Regenerate Mana 20%
+2 to Mana after each Kill
+2 to Light Radius
Level 20 Revive (25/25 Charges)
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Ko Rune

Playthrough:
Clearly my gear stipulations didn’t really change this guy a ton from a stock buriza fury wolf, though the rogue is obviously a deviation. Harmony’s a bit of a stretch on the ruleset, but I felt like it was reasonable and I liked the plan of switch + merc for a PI solution with the char’s boots for a boss solution as opposed to just weapon switch for PIs and a desert merc for bosses, even though Holy Freeze would've been nice. PIs were certainly still a pain, but ones that weren’t mana burn were definitely doable. Ghosts sort of weren’t, and, beyond keeping me from doing leveling runs on the countess, warranted some serious avoidance technology, including the good old drop a TP here while I run back plan in the Arcane Sanctuary. I never actually had to go all the way back to the waypoint to give the ghosts the slip, though.

I had to abandon the first attempt on the ancients despite fairly quickly dispatching the leaper because the other two, both Stone Skin, managed to hit hard enough to burn through the cube full of potions I had brought along. It’s possible I may have gone overboard on the next try. Korlic was the lone Stone Skin this time, and was served up on a platter by his friends so the second time around was something of a breeze.

I took a left when I got into the throne, seeing a bosspack of greater mummies as I got to the corner. “This doesn’t look goo – oh shhhhhhh!” Upon rounding said corner and starting the previous statement a bosspack of extra fast + conviction dolls sprints down at me, prompting the final part of that statement and a hasty retreat to the bottom right corner and a TP out, partly to formulate a plan but mostly to write this. Separated the doll pack and downed them easily, finding out the mummy was cursed the hey-cool-I-didn’t-die way. First intersection also brought a cursed doll bosspack chase, but I was able to separate him as well. Just his explosion still took over half the bulb away, though. Third monster type was gloams, as you’d expect, but no ridiculous packs of those. No real issues with the waves, and, despite getting off a clone, Baal was kept pretty well in check by occasional applications of the Coldsteel Eye.

Finds
Forges: Ral/Sol/Gul
-Pluckeye in Normal Spider Forest
-Fal rune in NM Viper Temple
-Fleshripper in the Pits
-Arioc’s Needle in the Pits
-33% Chancies in the Spider Forest

Deaths
14. I really wasn’t feeling this playthrough until like halfway through leveling in the Pits, so most of the way up to there was just hold down the right mouse button like he was a generic overpowered wrecking ball. Which he was most of the time, except when surrounded and amped and/or stunned, which accounted for 11 of the 14 deaths. The other three stemmed from me being too apathetic to drink a potion despite watching his health drop steadily (ES archers in the Pits, Fana/LE Devilkin in the Pits, Conviction Bremm.)

Thanks for your time and remember: you don't have to be in London to be a werewolf. A-hoo!
 
Originally posted by @maareek on September 26, 2014

Patriarch Poy_Zen, Poison/Skeleton Necromaner (Exceptional Sept)

I really like poisonmancers, so I never had any question about what I was going to do here, especially since this gave me a chance to try one without Death's Web, which I had never done before. Obviously the lack of that wand makes an enormous difference, in oh so many ways, but I expected to have a blast playing this guy regardless.

As a reminder: the rules for the sept are cookie cutters with gear "easily" obtainable from NM Mephisto. Easily in this case being arbitrarily set at 1:3000 odds at 0MF which translates to a little over 1:1000 at 250 MF. Low-level runewords are allowed, and I reserved the right to allow exceptions if I so chose.

The Character
Code:
Name:  Poy_Zen
Class: Necromancer
Level: 86

Strength:   65/67
Dexterity:  25
Vitality:   405/447
Energy:     25/65
HP:         1173
Mana:       546

Fire:        96 (85)
Cold:       101 (75)
Lightning:   78 (75)
Poison:      46

MF:     0
FR/W:  55
FHR:   87 (6 frames)
FCR:   82 (10 frames)

Poison Nova damage: 3945-4199

The trip from start to Patriarch took 22 hours, 53 minutes, 15 seconds.

Skills:
Code:
Raise Skeleton, Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion, Poison Nova: 20 (26)
Skeleton Mastery: 4 (10)
Summon Resist, Corpse Explosion: 1 (7)
All Curses except Attract and Confuse: 1 (11)

Skeletons gave him a strong early strategy as well as a way of dealing with immunes later on. I've used the style before, and I like it a good bit for questing. Full on CE + Iron Golem is clearly better for Pit running, though.

Gear
Code:
Spirit
Broad Sword
TalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 7 - 14
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb2c78034
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+32% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+93 to Mana
+8 Magic Absorb
4 Sockets (4 used)

Homunculus
Hierophant Trophy
Defense: 190
Chance to Block: 52
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x86345ec2
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Curses (Necromancer only)
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
+30% Faster Block Rate
40% Increased Chance of Blocking
+168% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Energy
Regenerate Mana 33%
All Resistances +59
+5 to Mana after each Kill
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Diamond

Manald Heal
Ring
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0x4efb6b3d
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
6% Mana stolen per hit
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +8
Regenerate Mana 20%

Manald Heal
Ring
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0x107d7b1e
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
6% Mana stolen per hit
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +7
Regenerate Mana 20%

Peasant Crown
War Hat
Defense: 108
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x7182eb83
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+15% Faster Run/Walk
+100% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Vitality
+20 to Energy
Replenish Life +8

Nightsmoke
Mesh Belt
Defense: 67
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x54327df5
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+45% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+20 to Mana
All Resistances +10
Damage Reduced by 2
50% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
Required Level +5

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 74
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x2167c4ed
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Curses (Necromancer only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+25% to Poison Skill Damage
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%

Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 134
Durability: 66 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x39b36fcb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+97 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +21%
Cold Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +21%
+50 Maximum Durability

Nokozan Relic
Amulet
Required Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x960aa295
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 3 - 6 Fire Damage
+10% to Maximum Fire Resist
Fire Resist +50%
+3 to Light Radius

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xe31b431c
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Cast Rate
+120% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +33
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
+2 to Mana after each Kill
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Tir Rune

Spellsteel (on switch)
Bearded Axe
Two Hand Damage: 55 - 129
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 37
Fingerprint: 0xa468f75e
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Cast Rate
165% Enhanced Damage
+100 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 25%
Magic Damage Reduced by 13
Level 12 Firestorm (60/60 Charges)
Level 10 Holy Bolt (100/100 Charges)
Level 3 Decrepify (30/30 Charges)
Level 1 Teleport (13/20 Charges)
Requirements -60%

My original planning started with using Arm of King Leoric, but it exceeded my rarity criterion and Spirit just worked better in the build.

Charms
Code:
Serpent's Grand Charm of Life
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xa8bf8778
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+12 to Life
+55 to Mana

Serpent's Small Charm of Burning
Small Charm
Required Level: 40
Fingerprint: 0x606c1fe4
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 3 - 6 Fire Damage
+17 to Mana

Snake's Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 24
Fingerprint: 0xa4311463
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+12 to Life
+12 to Mana

Serpent's Grand Charm of Balance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xddf9f0bb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+12% Faster Hit Recovery
+58 to Mana

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xd229a880
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Serpent's Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 40
Fingerprint: 0x7c225f73
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+13 to Life
+16 to Mana

Amber Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0xda370647
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Strength
Lightning Resist +11%

Neeraj, Might Mercenary
Code:
Hone Sundan
Yari
Two Hand Damage: 106 - 215
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 101
Fingerprint: 0xd5fbe4da
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Increased Attack Speed
197% Enhanced Damage
Adds 20 - 40 Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
45% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 Durability in 10 Seconds
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 663
Durability: 38 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x5d039965
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+174% Enhanced Defense
+107 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+86 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 115
Fingerprint: 0xb5fa83ca
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength

Playthrough
As I said he started out mostly like a fishymancer, so it took awhile for poison nova to take center stage. That said, by the end of Nightmare it had taken over as the primary damage dealer. I leveled up to 85 in the Pits, partially because that would let Radament's quest reward complete the build so I could do the rest of the game at full strength, but mostly I was just having fun. I did most of the runs on p5, but I tried some at p7, as well, with times of 7-8 minutes for p5 and ~12 for p7. The p7 runs felt really rough, and most of them I ended up having to TP out to ress the merc and pick up more skeletons at some point.

As far as notable points, there weren't many as I quested through Hell at p1, p3 for Act bosses, and he's pretty damn strong for that. I did see a set of champ wasp nests, which is always nice. The only difficult area I ran into was Hell Frozen River, which spawned with witches, gloams (poison immune) and ghosts (poison immune.) A bosspack of ghosts spawned near the stairs and tore through my minions. After a quick trip back to town to resurrect the merc and regroup, I decided to try to tele-run through the area, but ended up S&Eing after emptying the belt of rejuvs. The new roll included no poison immunes and proved no problem. Beyond that, WSK level 3 had a pair of Frenzytaur bosspacks waiting in the room next to the stairs. Amp and Fanaticism were present, and again the whole crew of minions were struck down, but a TP out and a second attempt won the day. Fanatic Ventar was handled by the merc + CE, with no huge issues.

Finds
Forges: Hel/Hel
-Biggin’s Bonnet in Normal Flayer Jungle
-The 16mana/13life SC he’s using.
-14ED 4os Great Bow in the Den of Evil
-+3/-4 cold/level facet in the Pits
-A horribly rolled (25/8) Andariel’s in the Pits
-An eth 0os Berserker Axe in the Pits
-The Amber of Strength SC he’s using.

Deaths
Nope. To be fair, though, he most likely would have died in the Frozen River if I hadn't S&Eed, if you want to count that as a death. A few other close calls, such as taking a prowling dead charge to the face while amped in the Glacial Trail or an arrow from a CE/cursed archer in the Pits, but he never went belly up. I didn't teleport all that much but I'm still quite surprised that when I did (such as in the Maggot Lair, Arcane Sanctuary, Durance, and Frozen River) I didn't end up in hairier situations.

Thanks for reading! I had written an awful and awkward sign-off involving the puns of "skill a ton" and "poise in" but decided to spare you. Allow me to speak my apology by way of kpop.

* * *

Since I was talking about it I decided I could just show a video of the character, so I recorded a p5 Pit run (what he was doing for leveling.) Also went ahead and did one with the best gear I could give him for comparison's sake. I haven't found a Death's Web since my restart, or I'd have done one with that, but I figured I'd go ahead and include a vid from someone else using one. Not a scientific comparison, clearly, but still interesting.

Same gear as listed above. I teleport more in this than I ever did while leveling, but still. Normally there would be a bosspack in the room(s) with the devilkin shamen, which is why I hit them.

I swapped gear around to: Harley (PTopaz), Mara's, HoTO, Enigma, Homunculus (PDiamond), Trang's gloves, Arachnid Mesh, SoJ, BKWB (only have 1 SoJ), and War Trav's with CtA and Lidless Wall on switch. No skillers, I only have 1 anyway, since I wasn't using them before. Had changed my lower resist hotkey from before to teleport here, which caused a couple of bad teleports.

Not me, in fact someone significantly better than me. Mind you this video is almost 6 years old now, and Corr doubtless can do better now, but still shows how powerful the poisonmancer can be.
 
Originally posted by @maareek on September 26, 2014

Matriarch Lilietta, TS/DC/DS Assassin (Exceptional Sept)

I originally wanted to make a straight fishysin, but it fairly quickly became apparent that if I wasn’t going to upgrade the Ribcracker Bartuc’s would just perform better. Instead of dumping the Ribcracker entirely, I decided to leave it on switch in order to have a source of Crushing Blow available for Act Bosses. Clearly that caused a change in the projected skill layout and a little bit of a change in expectation of the build. Before I had wanted to present a version of the original with just lower tier gear and while I’m sure that works just fine it’s not exactly an accomplishment that carries much information given that the likelihood of anyone wanting to do the build without being able to upgrade their Ribcracker – especially with 1.13’s rune rates – seems very low and the source of doing it with an upgraded Ribcracker already exists, so what I’ve aimed for instead is taking the TS/DS shell and trying to get as much out of it in terms of power/efficiency as I could for the gear level. Surely my choices are debatable, but they represent both what I thought was strongest overall for questing and things I wanted to examine, as I have precious little experience with Assassins.

My original planning for the build finished up at 82, which I’m okay with, whereas this version completes at **, which I don’t really like. Of course, as I’ve done, you can just finish up without finishing the synergy and it’s not the biggest deal ever. You can save points on Shadow Master and Dragon Flight, the first of which I wanted for a variety of reasons ranging from never tried it before to filling in as something of a PI solution and the second of which I wanted for the mobility and the positioning. Neither of them are required, and those 5 points could either save leveling time or be dumped somewhere else (venom, DC, fire blast) depending on what you wanted.

As a reminder: the rules for the sept are cookie cutters with gear "easily" obtainable from NM Mephisto. Easily in this case being arbitrarily set at 1:3000 odds at 0MF which translates to a little over 1:1000 at 250 MF. Low-level runewords are allowed, and I reserved the right to allow exceptions if I so chose.

The Character

Name: Lilietta
Class: Assassin
Level: 82
Code:
Naked/Gear
Strength:   100/143
Dexterity:  100/161 (171)
Vitality:   280/295
HP:         1052/1166 (1211)
Mana:       146/186

Fire:       ** (75)
Cold:       60
Lightning:  84 (75)
Poison:     21

Block:  44
FHR:    90 (4 frames)
IAS:    40 (7 frames Tiger Strike, 9 frames Traps, 5 frames Dragon Claw)

Tiger Strike damage: 555-1020.  AR: 21403; 12872 (Ribby)
Dragon Claw damage (uncharged):  625-1160 (main), 619-1160 (secondary).  AR: 21403
Dragon Claw damage (charged): 2191-4328, 2167-4328.  AR: 28459
Ribby damage (uncharged; charged):  261-543; 1251-3585.  AR: 9576; 16257

It took 21 hours, 10 minutes and 18 seconds to complete her journey. Normal and Nightmare were fairly quick, but Hell was quite slow, but a good portion of that was me choosing to fight instead of run past in most areas, which is to say I was enjoying actually playing her.

Skills
Code:
Tiger Strike, Death Sentry, Claw Mastery: 20 (26/24/25)
Lightning Sentry: 14(18)
Fire Blast: 3(7)
Cobra Strike, Dragon Flight: 1 (7)
Shadow Master, Venom, Mind Blast: 1 (6)
Required skills: 1

So like I said I wanted to try out Shadow Master and on the whole I'm glad I had her for this character, but I really hated Claw Block. I was pretty sure that was going to be the case coming in, and tried to rationalize it to myself as "if she weren't in claw block she'd be in hit recovery" but I wouldn't say that helped. I could've pumped the Master instead of lightning sentry, but I doubt that would've helped her tankiness in the situations I would've liked her to be sturdier and the extra trap damage was quite nice.

Gear
Code:
Rockstopper
Sallet
Defense: 194
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xf85ed930
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+208% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Vitality
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +33%
Fire Resist +73%
Damage Reduced by 10%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune

Angelic Wings
Amulet
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x4d255d0e
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+3 to Light Radius
Set (2 items): +75 to Life
Set (3 items): +1 to All Skills
(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Goldskin
Full Plate Mail
Defense: 387
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 80
Fingerprint: 0xec3293ad
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+139% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +35
Lightning Resist +30%
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
100% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Light Radius
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Bartuc's Cut-Throat
Greater Talons
One Hand Damage: 87 - 153
Durability: 69 of 69
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 79
Required Dexterity: 79
Fingerprint: 0xc5c638be
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Martial Art Skills (Assassin Only)
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
197% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25 - 50 Damage
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
8% Life stolen per hit
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Bartuc's Cut-Throat
Greater Talons
One Hand Damage: 86 - 153
Durability: 69 of 69
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 79
Required Dexterity: 79
Fingerprint: 0x468f727a
Item Level: 76
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Martial Art Skills (Assassin Only)
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
195% Enhanced Damage
Adds 25 - 50 Damage
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
9% Life stolen per hit
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity

Angelic Halo
Ring
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x612d350
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +6
Set (2 items): +984 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
Set (3 items): 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0xc4e540c4
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+250 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 107
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xf759eb56
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Life stolen per hit
+163% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 14
+10 Maximum Durability

Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 134
Durability: 66 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x39b36fcb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+97 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +20%
Cold Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +21%
+50 Maximum Durability

Magnus' Skin
Sharkskin Gloves
Defense: 60
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x259deb99
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+100 to Attack Rating
+50% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +15%
+3 to Light Radius

Ribcracker (on switch)
Quarterstaff
Two Hand Damage: 55 - 146
Durability: 130 of 130
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x8bf5dd1f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50% Increased Attack Speed
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
215% Enhanced Damage
Adds 30 - 65 Damage
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
+100% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense
+15 to Dexterity
+100 Maximum Durability

Charms
Code:
Iron Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xf420ad78
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+24 to Attack Rating
+14 to Life

Fine Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xbc2f9e81
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xa0fa5e9
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Sharp Grand Charm of Quality
Grand Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x6dfe0f2e
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+71 to Attack Rating

Emerald Small Charm of Fortune
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x601dba95
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Poison Resist +11%
3% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Emerald Small Charm of Life
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x512f1da1
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5 to Life
Poison Resist +10%

Sharp Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x6e89899a
Item Level: 64
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+51 to Attack Rating
+4 to Dexterity

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x69e6436a
Item Level: 58
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Shimmering Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 25
Fingerprint: 0xcdfbfa9f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +4

Mentalist's Grand Charm of Strength
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x23cf79bf
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Shadow Discipline Skills (Assassin Only)
+3 to Strength

Fine Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xd4925bd5
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+17 to Attack Rating

Shimmering Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 25
Fingerprint: 0x2dbf64c7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +3

Skiller let me hit level 6 Shadow Master.

Haseen, Blessed Aim Mercenary
Code:
Undead Crown
Crown
Defense: 113
Durability: 38 of 50
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0xd8e35535
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+50% Damage to Undead
+100 to Attack Rating against Undead
5% Life stolen per hit
+3 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+59% Enhanced Defense
+40 Defense
Poison Resist +50%
Half Freeze Duration

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 702
Durability: 45 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x451407f7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+196% Enhanced Defense
+102 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+82 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Insight
Superior Partizan
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 178 - 372
Durability: 37 of 37
Required Level: 27
Required Strength: 103
Required Dexterity: 57
Fingerprint: 0x889cfa1a
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 12 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
233% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
232% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+4 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Increase Maximum Durability 15%
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Playthrough
One day I'll learn to not be an idiot on camera. Or off camera. Maybe.

I didn't want to spend a lot of time leveling her, so I moved on from the p3 Countess + Pits runs at level 79. I expected she'd be fine at hitting things even at a fairly low level with the BA merc, and was mostly right in as far as Claw Block seemed much more of the problem when there were any issues. Apart from trying to hit Diablo and Baal with the Ribby (which wasn't that bad) few things were particularly rough save for Griwold, Hephasto and Lister each of which were problematic in their own way. Griswold just took forever to die, Hephasto (who had Conviction) melted either the merc or the master basically upon contact and packed a hell of a punch on the char as well, while Lister was very difficult to get separated from his buddies.

One moment does sort of stand out from the experience, though. Heading down from the entrance of the Flayer Dungeon a couple regular ghosts amble my way, starting off with a Might aura and losing it as they come close. After dealing with them I walk down and see a hallway to the right and absolutely nothing below me, so I assume there's a bosspack in the hallway or just in the next room (it's a short hall) and make the right, but before the merc and master join me I see dolls running at me from the next room; plans for a hasty retreat are immediately hatched but, prior to execution, derailed by the might-enchanted bosspack of regular flayers bowling out of the bottom of the room I just left, not only cutting the assassin off from escaping but making sure the followers are nice and separated. I give dashing forward a try, but Doll City's borders are shut down tight. Dragon Flighting on the edge of the flayers in the previous room reunites the band and gives ample time to hammer out a new single titled "Boom Goes the Flayermite."

Finds
Forges: Sol/Pul
-Felloak from Normal Blood Raven
-Pelta Lunata in Normal Durance level 2
-The ilvl58 Shimmering GC she’s using
-A 12 mana, 6 life SC
-Failed set Scourge in Maggot Lair
-A 2strength, 95AR, 25cold res, 8% life leech, 6% mana leech ring in the Maggot Lair.

Deaths
Seven. A pack in NM Andariel's room was cursed...tanking the Maiden of Anguish didn't end well. Wasn't paying close attention while leveling on the Countess and dropped to a PI/ES/FE goatman pack. I tried to run past an Extra Fast/Cursed pack of ghosts in Tal's Tomb and didn't succeed. Cursed/ES Frenzytaur pack in the Ancient Way likewise. First two tries on the Ancients inolved separating each of them, getting down to just Cursed/ES Talic and then dying while tanking him - the first time he was around half life, the second time he was slivered. The last death was while trying to run through WSK level 2's spawn of beetles, suicide boars and gloams. All of them could've been avoided by not being an idiot, but if I didn't have my idiocy I'd have nothing.

Thank you for your time, and for reading. I've decided I prefer the kpop link over the horrible pun as my signoff of choice, so please enjoy (or don't, I'm not here to order you around) some Davichi.
 
Originally posted by @maareek on October 24, 2014

Patriarch Dervish, Whirlwind Barbarian (Exceptional Sept)

From the beginning I knew the barb for the sept would be a dual-Butcher’s Pupil whirler. I’ve said multiple times in the past the character could finish the game just fine with un-upped Butcher’s Pupils, so it seemed like the perfect time to make sure I wasn’t just full of hot air before.

After reading the necromancer’s pat thread Nagisa approached me, pointing out plenty of good rare jewelry could be had within the terms of my sept’s ruleset. I explained that my goal had been to focus on the set and unique rings as more of a proof of concept, in so far as they tend to be inferior to using rares. It did leave me thinking about doing a little something extra later on, though. Since Whirlwind is such a known entity – and since I didn’t expect to be proven wrong about the Pupils – I figured adding the element of some fairly high-end rare items within the rules would at least give something of interest to the process and writeup.

As a reminder: the rules for the sept are cookie cutters with gear "easily" obtainable from NM Mephisto. Easily in this case being arbitrarily set at 1:3000 odds at 0MF which translates to a little over 1:1000 at 250 MF. Low-level runewords are allowed, and I reserved the right to allow exceptions if I so chose.

The Character

Name: Dervish
Class: Barbarian
Level: 84

Code:
Naked/Gear
Strength:   170/208
Dexterity:  65/107
Vitality:   70/270
HP:         1261/1345 (2807)
Mana:       93/93 (200)

Fire:       18 (75)
Cold:       67 (75)
Lightning:  26 (75)
Poison:     17 (80)

FHR:  30 (6 frames)
IAS:  50/50 (4frames each weapon)
FCR:   0 (65 on switch; 9 frames)

Concentrate: 522-1343; 9189AR
Whirlwind:   427-1084, 421-1078; 9247AR
Berserk:     567-1468; 11380AR

Gomule doesn't count in Natural Resistance, so add 64 to the raw numbers above. Start to finish took
17 hours, 45 minutes and 43 seconds. I've done several WW barbs before, so there wasn't much dallying with this guy.

Skills
Code:
Whirlwind: 20 (25)
Axe Mastery: 20 (23)
Battle Orders: 20 (27)
Natural Resistance: 13 (16)
Berserk: 9 (14)
Increased Speed, Battle Cry, Battle Command, required skills: 1

Above is without point from Battle Command. I went over on Natural Resistance by one, but meh.

Gear
Code:
Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
Defense: 323
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 118
Fingerprint: 0x60cda0a5
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
6% Life stolen per hit
+167% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
All Resistances +30

Dread Necklace
Amulet
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x6b6b31a1
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+1 to Maximum Damage
Adds 1 - 14 Lightning Damage
Cold Resist +33%
Fire Resist +31%
11% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 703
Durability: 150 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x1a11f1dc
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+195% Enhanced Defense
+105 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+84 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Lightning Resist +30%
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ort Rune

Butcher's Pupil
Cleaver
One Hand Damage: 57 - 139
Indestructible
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 68
Fingerprint: 0x32b6c79b
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+50% Increased Attack Speed
170% Enhanced Damage
Adds 30 - 50 Damage
35% Deadly Strike
25% Chance of Open Wounds
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Butcher's Pupil
Cleaver
One Hand Damage: 56 - 138
Indestructible
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 68
Fingerprint: 0xfb4b8756
Item Level: 78
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+50% Increased Attack Speed
168% Enhanced Damage
Adds 30 - 50 Damage
35% Deadly Strike
25% Chance of Open Wounds
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Blood Turn
Ring
Required Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0x1c3b60f7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+114 to Attack Rating
5% Mana stolen per hit
+15 to Dexterity
Cold Resist +17%
All Resistances +7

Death Loop
Ring
Required Level: 46
Fingerprint: 0x4b765200
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+4 to Minimum Damage
+22 to Attack Rating
5% Mana stolen per hit
Replenish Life +3
Lightning Resist +9%
5% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 107
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xf759eb56
Item Level: 55
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Life stolen per hit
+163% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 14
+10 Maximum Durability

Goblin Toe
Battle Boots
Defense: 78
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0x29c92a18
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
+58% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 1
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
-1 to Light Radius
Required Level +5

Venom Grip
Demonhide Gloves
Defense: 118
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xd4dbb7fb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 60 Poison Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
5% Life stolen per hit
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
+159% Enhanced Defense
+25 Defense
+5% to Maximum Poison Resist
Poison Resist +30%

Spirit (on switch)
Superior Broad Sword
TalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 7 - 14
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0x202a66bb
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+33% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+1 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+98 to Mana
+8 Magic Absorb
Increase Maximum Durability 15%
4 Sockets (4 used)

Spirit (on switch)
Broad Sword
TalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 7 - 14
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb2c78034
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+32% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+93 to Mana
+8 Magic Absorb
4 Sockets (4 used)

Charms
Code:
Steel Grand Charm of Inertia
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0x46629f45
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+7% Faster Run/Walk
+126 to Attack Rating

Steel Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xa5a0b93d
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+131 to Attack Rating

Sharp Grand Charm of Quality
Grand Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x6dfe0f2e
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+71 to Attack Rating

Steel Small Charm of Dexterity
Small Charm
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0xc40c77cb
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+34 to Attack Rating
+1 to Dexterity

Fine Small Charm of Dexterity
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x625d5382
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+14 to Attack Rating
+2 to Dexterity

Steel Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x21d9dc33
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+34 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength

Sharp Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x6e89899a
Item Level: 64
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+51 to Attack Rating
+4 to Dexterity

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xd6b24454
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating
+1 to Strength

Fine Small Charm of Lightning
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x8e364669
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+16 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 8 Lightning Damage

Leharas, Blessed Aim Mercenary
Code:
Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 661
Durability: 38 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x5d039965
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+174% Enhanced Defense
+105 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+84 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 115
Fingerprint: 0xb5fa83ca
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength

Hone Sundan
Yari
Two Hand Damage: 106 - 215
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 101
Fingerprint: 0xd5fbe4da
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Increased Attack Speed
197% Enhanced Damage
Adds 20 - 40 Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
45% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 Durability in 10 Seconds
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Playthrough

You can see the moment when I realize I misplaced the skill point.

I had expected his damage to be fairly paltry. It was not. Such is the power of whirlwind, though. In hindsight I wish I had trimmed a few more points from vitality, but oh well. Additionally I felt like Goblin Toe worked just fine, much better than my first thought for the slot - Sander's - since keeping foot speed was very helpful to the lower damage output from the weapons. Would rather not use 0FRW boots, of course, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Clearly the jewelry is pretty decent (and Blood Turn more than that) but at the same time the Nokozan, Manald, Ravenfrost setup would give more AR and only leave lightning resistance to shore up with charms. As far as that goes, I left 4x4 inventory spaces empty, and would've broken roughly even on AR with swapping out one of the Steel GCs for a res one, if I didn't want to go down to 3x4 free with the unique jewelry.

Took a few action shots along the way, but unfortunately Hell didn’t really cooperate for good pictures. Only saw Frenzytaurs in the Throne, and whirling around through 3 bosspacks of devilkin or flayers isn’t exactly on the same level.

Found the waypoint before the forge in Nightmare, so I backtracked to a fork I hadn’t explored before which turned out to be a dead end, but from the edge I could see a spit of land across the lava, so I instructed the barb to make a leap of faith (reenactment), and discovered the forge, immediately beneath the waypoint. They don’t call me maar “wrong way” eek for nothing, or at all.

Throne had gloams + OKs + Frenzytaurs. A bosspack of gloams + pack of OKs greeted me at the stairs, which prompted some "hey come around the corner, I got something to show you" action, and a Extra Fast Frenzytaur pack awaited just outside the archway into the throne chamber. Everywhere I went that could spawn gloams, did.

Finds
Forges: Um/Lem
-Pluckeye in Normal Chaos Sanctuary
-Sapphire (10) SC of Balance
-Hand of Broc in the Pits
-Pul in the Tamoe Highlands
-The Fine SC of Lightning he’s using
-Realgar (22) Jewel of Strength (8) in the Pits
-Horizon’s Tornado in Tal’s Tomb
-Arctic Furs from a normal monster in the Ruined Temple
-Iron (24) SC of Vita (19)

Deaths
One. I wish I could tell you it was something interesting, but it'd be a lie. I was fighting an ES/Holy Fire/Stone Skin archer pack combined with a Holy Lightning/Cursed/Mana Burn skeleton pack in the Pits - actually the run after I recorded though several hours later - and just refused to do any of the dozen things (including just drinking some potions) I could've done to not just slowly die. Barbs are pretty sturdy, even with someone fairly inept at the controls, not that this is news.

Thanks for reading. Well, the character may not have been flashy, but at least the thread gets its own f(x).
 
Originally posted by @maareek on October 30, 2014

Matriarch FBTheI, Blizzball Sorceress (Exceptional Sept)

Sorceresses are my favorite characters, and as soon as I came up with the idea of the sept I knew the sorc would come last, as a reward. The first sorceress I ever made was a Blizzballer, with a barb merc, so it seemed a good time to revisit the build. Doesn't hurt that none of the other Blizzard hybrids do particularly well under the sept conditions, or that I dislike Frozen Orb.

At various points I had thought about naming this char “Antipode,” “Dissonance” and “Paradox.” Consider yourselves spared. My previous blizzballer was named "Coldfire" and I did like the idea of playing on the theme, but I decided on the horrible pun in the end.

As a reminder: the rules for the sept are cookie cutters with gear "easily" obtainable from NM Mephisto. Easily in this case being arbitrarily set at 1:3000 odds at 0MF which translates to a little over 1:1000 at 250 MF. Low-level runewords are allowed, and I reserved the right to allow exceptions if I so chose.

The Character

Name: FBtheI
Class: Sorceress
Level: 82
Code:
Naked/Gear
Strength:   65/67
Dexterity:  25/27
Vitality:   375/415
Energy:     35/96
HP:         911/941 (1021)
Mana:       197/419 (582)

Fire:       96 (85)
Cold:       68
Lightning:  101 (75)
Poison:     51

MF:    69
FR/W:  55
FHR:   60 (8 frames)
FCR:   110 (8 frames)

Blizzard:   1936-2057
Fireball:   1564-1736
Ice Blast:  1155-1202

Considering she's a sorceress I took this time around kind of leisurely. Don't be confused, I still largely teleported through, but I stopped to kill random packs way more than I usually would. Whole process took 9 hours, 48 minutes and 37 seconds.

Skills
Code:
Fireball: 20(27)
Blizzard, Ice Blast: 20(26)
Fire Bolt: 13(20)
Cold Mastery: 11(17)
Ice Bolt: 3(9)
Fire Mastery: 1(8)
1 in required skills

Dumping five to six more points in Fire Bolt would hit the synergy sweet spot, but I found myself mostly teleporting past CIs so I boosted the cold damage for slightly faster boss fights.

Gear
Code:
Peasant Crown
War Hat
Defense: 108
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 28
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x7182eb83
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+15% Faster Run/Walk
+100% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Vitality
+20 to Energy
Replenish Life +8

Nokozan Relic
Amulet
Required Level: 10
Fingerprint: 0x960aa295
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 3 - 6 Fire Damage
+10% to Maximum Fire Resist
Fire Resist +50%
+3 to Light Radius

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xe31b431c
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+30% Faster Cast Rate
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+120% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +33
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

The Oculus
Swirling Crystal
One Hand Damage: 18 - 42
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x2b6fc7cd
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
25% Chance to cast level 1 Teleport when struck
+3 to Sorceress Skill Levels
+30% Faster Cast Rate
+20% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Vitality
+20 to Energy
All Resistances +20
+5 to Mana after each Kill
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Lidless Wall
Grim Shield
Defense: 338
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 68 of 70
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0xb0dcdba
Item Level: 57
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+124% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Energy
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
All Resistances +19
+5 to Mana after each Kill
+1 to Light Radius
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Diamond

Ghoul Circle
Ring
Required Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xd4513448
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+11 to Energy
+5 to Life
+60 to Mana
+18 Maximum Stamina
All Resistances +10

Entropy Grasp
Ring
Required Level: 22
Fingerprint: 0x5f7280f3
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+39 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength
+2 to Dexterity
+41 to Mana
Lightning Resist +19%

Nightsmoke
Mesh Belt
Defense: 67
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x54327df5
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+45% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+20 to Mana
All Resistances +10
Damage Reduced by 2
50% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
Required Level +5

Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 134
Durability: 64 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x39b36fcb
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+97 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +20%
Cold Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +21%
+50 Maximum Durability

Magefist
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 24
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 23
Required Strength: 45
Fingerprint: 0x2a24d13c
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Fire Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Adds 1 - 6 Fire Damage
+20% Enhanced Defense
+10 Defense
Regenerate Mana 25%

Insight (on switch)
Battle Staff
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 27 - 40
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x14205047
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 14 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
213% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
198% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+1 to Blizzard (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Nova (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Charms
Code:
Jade Large Charm of Balance
Large Charm
Required Level: 18
Fingerprint: 0xcce65fb6
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+8% Faster Hit Recovery
Poison Resist +12%

Lapis Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x32e87f7d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Cold Resist +7%
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Beryl Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xf27cccc4
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Poison Resist +3%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Serpent's Grand Charm of Life
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0xa8bf8778
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+12 to Life
+55 to Mana

Ruby Small Charm of Good Luck
Small Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0xde0d2f8
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +10%
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Serpent's Grand Charm of Life
Grand Charm
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0x47ee9526
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+13 to Life
+46 to Mana

Coral Grand Charm of Balance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0xbebb9e9f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+12% Faster Hit Recovery
Lightning Resist +25%

Shimmering Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xa0fa5e9
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +14

Mizan, Might Mercenary
Code:
Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 702
Durability: 45 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x451407f7
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+196% Enhanced Defense
+102 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+82 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability

Stealskull
Casque
Defense: 222
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 59
Fingerprint: 0x32df5fe2
Item Level: **
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+25% Increased Attack Speed
+10% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Mana stolen per hit
5% Life stolen per hit
+205% Enhanced Defense
46% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor

Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x4dd34d19
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed

Insight
Superior Partizan
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 178 - 372
Durability: 37 of 37
Required Level: 27
Required Strength: 103
Required Dexterity: 57
Fingerprint: 0x889cfa1a
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 12 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
233% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
232% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+4 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Increase Maximum Durability 15%
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Playthrough
I say Hoarfrost when I actually mean Mana Rift during the Baal fight. They're both pretty annoying, in all fairness.

Not many screenshots, since most of them would just look like this, but I did grab a shot of one of the few FI/CIs I saw. Dual immunes were the reason I decided to give the third socket slot to the merc instead of the char (where it would've gone for a Shael in the Peasant Crown to open up using a rare amulet.)

Finds
Forges: Um/Ko
-Hand of Broc from Normal Duriel
-Pul from NM Pindle
-Gheed’s Fortune (117/34/14) from AT
-36% Chancies from AT
-Demon Limb from Pindle

Deaths
Two. Both while leveling in AT. First one happened right before I recorded and being on tilt from it is why I didn't talk. I thought I had gotten all the bosspacks but was circling through to make sure, picked my left hand up to scratch my nose and ended up dying in the middle of a not remotely scary seeming zombie bosspack. Second one I got cursed outside the tunnels, teleported on top of a might-enchanted invader when I got inside. I had told myself I wanted to not die with her, but when you play badly you get what you deserve.

Well, that finishes up the sept. I'll probably make a wrapup thread in the next day or two, but thanks to everyone who read through one or more of these and good luck with whatever projects you may be working on. For now, it's time to Kill Bill.
 
Originally posted by AJK on Sep 11, 2008:

Frozen balls and a patriarch.

I've been away for a while and since I got back a few weeks ago I started up a new project totally ripped off from, er.., inspired by jjscud's riftadin. Let me tell you a bit more about

Patriarch Celsius, lvl. 80, Riftadin and master of frozen balls.

Warning, technical stuff and unstructured rambling below. Summary/stats at the end.

This character can be considered a variation on the elemental zealot theme. He uses conviction as main aura but instead of vengeance he uses Zeal in combination with great balls of fir.. nope.. wrong element.. earth? nope.. wrong druid. water? almost, another phase. Great balls of ice. Enter 'Rift':

Rift
Divine Scepter
'HelKoLemGul'
One-Hand Damage: 16 to 38
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 82
Required Level: 53
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0x3c8ad24
+7 to Strength
+7 to Energy
+17 to Dexterity
+7 to Vitality
Adds 60-180 fire damage
Adds 160-250 magic damage
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Requirements -20%
+2 to Holy Freeze (Paladin Only)
38% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
16% Chance to cast Level 21 Frozen Orb on attack
20% Chance to cast Level 16 Tornado on striking
Level 15 Iron Maiden (40/40 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

As you can see this weapon is rather mediocre and meh for the Gul that lives inside except for one small detail: lvl 21 frozen orbs shooting out 1 out of 6 times you hit something. RTB once remarked that 'on attack' is misleading in 1.10+. You need to treat 'on attack' as 'on hit', so the goal of this build is to get AR high enough to obtain a 95% chance to hit.

And that, my friends, is where conviction comes in handy. As it reduces enemies' defense to 9%, hitting stuff becomes easy. Pushing 3000 AR, even stone skin uniques get a taste of pain. I haven't figured out if blocked hits trigger procs as well. If they do I should have memorized Arreat Summit's monster block% tables and acted accordingly. But then again, that sounds like work. Work sounds like no. I get enough of that in real life already.

Let's get back to the focus of this build: snowballs, lots of them, and as fast as possible. I will make sure that Hell freezes over this time. Teaching pigs how to fly will have to wait. Lots of snowballs require lots of hits, so before even pushing the 'Create Character' button I decided that a 28-frame zeal cycle be a requirement. That's 142% IAS. Not a single percent available from the runeword. Excrement...

A itam-by-itam list of gear will show you how I got my 142% IAS anyway and more.

  • Helmet: Nightwing's Veil with a +5/-3 facet.
    Free 18% boost to cold damage? Sign me up! And +2 all skills? Sign me up again!
  • Amulet: Highlord's
    20% IAS. Wait? More +skill? Go Speed Zealer, go!
  • Weapon: a cracked sash?
  • Shield: A +45 res. all sacred targe.
    Filled with jewels of fervor, two of which packing fire/poison resists. That's 60% IAS.
  • Weapon switch: the Redeemer.
  • Shield switch: no paladin leaves home without one. By the Zakarum company.
  • Armor: Treachery.
    45%IAS. That's all I care about. I've seen the fade trigger only a handful of times so I didn't choose the armor for the ethereal appearance.
  • Gloves: blood craft. 10% crush, 20% IAS, +30% cold res, and a bit of life and leech.
    They also repair themselves, so with the repair costs I saved that way I can buy myself and island now. An island the size of a dime...
  • Belt: Nosferatu's Coil.
    10% IAS, unneeded. 10% slow, nice.
  • Boots: Gore Rider
    Crushing blow for president!
  • Rings: Raven Frost and Wisp Projector.
    Sounds like how Hollywood celebrities would name their children.
    Ring 1 for not freezing your own balls off and ring 2 just because I have one and it looks cool.
  • Charms:
    A mix of shimmering and shocking/arcing charms.

The strong points
  • Conviction + frozen orbs lay waste to lots of small critters at a time. That takes care of the most annoying thing about melee fighters. Finding yourself surrounded by zillions of baby seals, er.., larvae and having to club your way through. This really is combining a caster's area of effect strengths with a melee'ers single-target skills.

    From time to time I managed to bowl three Frozen Orbs through the packs in one zeal cycle. Frozen shards everywhere. Proof. Pudding.
  • I added 1-500 lightning damage to my hits by charms, so even while I lack any reasonable amount of physical damage, the elements cut through enemies like a frozen stick of butter through a molten chainsaw.
  • Crushing blow. I lied about lacking physical damage. 25% crushing blow takes care of that for me. Doesn't leech tough.
  • Immunities. *points and laughs* Even act 5 posed no problems.
The weak points
  • No leech.
  • Low life.
The solution to these two problems is easy: don't get hit (often). Don't get hit: 75% block. Don't get hit often: slow the dorks you hit (nos' coil), slow the dorks around you (HFreeze merc), slow them even more (merc + Reaper's), and confuse the rest (merc + Delirium). I must say that I was amazed by the safety this combination provides. I lol'd through Hell at /players3 until act IV and lol'd onwards at /players1 only reaching lvl80 at the ancients.

Any amount of life/mana lost got flashed back by redemption on switch.

The ancients were annoying because they were having one of those no mana days, but since they weren't having one of those curse/might/fanaticism days they didn't have a chance to deliver any amount of hurt. Frozen, slowed, and/or decrepified they fell.

I'm probably not making a point, so here are some more:
- My forge drops suckety-sucked. Lem+Ko IIRC.

- My questing drops ruledy-ruled. SoJ from normal Diablo.
Windforce from something stuck under my boot in act IV, city of the damned.

- Night lords are rather harsh on this char. The firewalls and meteors can't be blocked and packs of fire spamming skeletons caused a few deaths. Guess my theory of 'you don't need more than 50% fire res. in Hell' didn't hold. Fixed that, but any magic missile/spell spam still creates the most dangerous situations for this build.

- Delirium pretty much ensures that you'll live through Hell. No matter how high you rank on the noob-o-meter.

- I didn't encounter any gloams in Hell. I'm really liking patch 1.12 thus far.

- People who complain about DIII being too colorful really ought to try this build. The CtC's will send them straight into a severe color shock.

- Belching out writeups always takes longer than anticipated.

----
Tl;dr version, or summary: Zeals at 4FPA, shoots lots of frozen orbs, kills stuff rather quickly. Is one of the most fun characters I've played. And I've played more than two handfuls.

Stats:
Str: 81 (104)
Dex: 136 (189) <-- oops. Got sloppy there. Forgot about gear bonuses.
Vit: 263 (270)
Ene: during D2 development, coding in this stat must have seemed to be a good idea.

Skills:
Conviction: 20 (23)
Zeal: 10 (13) <-- Got sloppy again. The bare minimum already yields enough AR. 9 points of these should have gone to holy shield's defiance synergy.
Defiance: 11 (14)
Holy Shield: 20 (23, 29 switch)
Lighting Resistance: 20 (23) <-- for the Gloams I never saw.

Thanks:
jjscud, for making me eager to try a riftadin myself.
 
Originally posted by AJK on Oct 13, 2007:

A pat you can pet.

With great power comes great responsibility. I call it 'the Axe effect'. You may have noticed my previous pat threads built around the 'Beast' zerker I got from colony. Well, this is my third and last one:

Patriarch Frosticles, lvl. 84, Polar Bear.

My previous builds didn't use the shapeshifting ability of the weapon so I felt I had to build something that did. I decided to throw a frost zealot and winnie the pooh in the telepod and out came the polar bear, combining a bunch of sub-zero punishment with the ability to take it too. Having almost 2.4k life and 33k defense essentially took the defensive characteristics of a paladin more than a few steps further.

In order to stay true to the idea of a zealous bear, he had to be able to attack at 4 FPA. I also wanted to be able to block at 75%, since the usage of holy shield makes a bear block at a comfy 5 frames instead of the usual horrible bear block of around half a second.

Offense:
I wanted damage and speed. Not just any speed, but loads of speed was required to hit 4FPA. This also meant that I could forget about high damage and corresponding leech effectiveness. Ouch.

I originally planned to go for a 55% IAS phase blade, but browsing through the AS I came across a weapon that dealt quite a lot more damage and was actually fast enough to hit 4FPA: a triple-Shaeled Griswold's Redemption:
Code:
Griswold's Redemption
Caduceus
'ShaelShaelShael'
One-Hand Damage: 129 to 159
Durability: 35 of 70
Required Dexterity: 56
Required Strength: 78
Required Level: 66
Mace Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xbe2cb2d9
+224% Enhanced Damage
Requirements -20%
100% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Undead
Socketed (3: 3 used) [size=1]Partial set bonuses left out.[/size]
The physical damage is still too low to leech effectively in Hell, so that had to be dealt with in another way. Hint: little red popping bubbles may have had something to do with it.

The great thing about this palabear is of course his aura. I went for frost because slowing stuff is fun and it fits comfortably into my masterplan of building the ultimate tank. A total of +11 to holy freeze was reached, so wherever he went you could hear the *bumpity crackle plonk* of the monster's nuts collectively freezing of and shattering on the rocks.

The not so great thing plagueing every oskill shapeshifter is that he was only able to use his regular attack, so no AR and %ED. For this reason I went with a blessed aim merc. For a change the desert dweller had to be kept alive because this bear is meant to go *thwack*, not *whoosh*. Luckily, keeping the moron in one piece wasn't too difficult considering that he had ample time to land a few blows in the time it took a random frozen critter to raise its arm to strike.

The combo blessed aim + a few charms and jewels put the bear's AR at 7k+, which was more than enough.

Defense:
Staying with the theme of heavy thick-furred lycanpooh I wanted defense, and rediculously unneccesary overkill amount at that. My sources defense were the following:
- 20 pts. in Holy Shield.
- 8 pts. in Defiance. (that's where my spare points went)
- Fortitudes' chilling armor.
- Exile's lvl. 16 Defiance.
- Loads of dex to reach 75% block. [159 total]
- Slowing stuff by 57%.
- All adds up to a total defense of: 33537. Scary.

Needless to say, he tanked rather well.

I already listed some stuff, but for completeness' sake:
----
Gear
----
  • Head: 9% Nightwing's Veil socketed with +90AR/15% IAS (thanks, asmo!).
    Nice boost to cold damage and the +2 to all skills boosts the bear shift.
  • Neck: +28 Mara's
    Resists, but more importantly the only way of boosting his inner bear.
  • Left paw: Gris' caddy.
    Speed and damage. The bonus %ED against undead worked great against those pesky CI zombies and skeletons.
  • Right paw: 'Exile' +45 res/lvl. 16 defiance/1102 def Gilded Shield.
    Yup, overkill. My moron liked the defiance a lot as well. Well, not really overkill because the life tap was the only way to leech back life reliably because of the lowish damage on the weapon and no spare equipment slots for more leech. I would have used Dracul's otherwise.
  • Both paws: Brimstone Claw, craft.
    10% IAS, 10% CB, and 18% cold resistance. And some javelin skills too. I can explain. He once sat on an amazon by accident in a crowded bus and these gloves were the only useful things left in the puddle of bones, goop and bear hairs.
  • Bear waist: Immortal King's Detail
    Resists, defense and strength. Still beats any rare belts I have.
  • Hind paws: Gore Rider
    What kind of bear doesn't have crushing blow?
  • Spare paws: 'Beast' + 'Spirit' Akaran Rondache
    Again, +all skills on the spirit boost the bear.
  • Bear fingers: dual raven frosts:
    The bear freezes, but that doesn't mean he likes to be frozen. +40 dex & +467 AR total.
  • Bear pet: Tal's mask, Treachery, and a Crescent Moon cryptic axe.
------------
Skills 'n stats
------------
Holy Shield: 20 (+ a few prereqs)
Holy Freeze: 20
Resist Cold: 20
Salvation: 20
Defiance: 8
Blessed Aim: 1

Strength: 154 [197] (I put leftover points here after hitting 2.2k life)
Dexterity: 101 [159]
Vitality: 245 [250]
Energy: Misclick trap. Didn't fall for it though. 15 [20]

Damage: 3499-3762, mostly frost
AR: 7391

--------------------
Random observations
--------------------
As usual, gaining shift at lvl. 67 meant a long road ahead. My enchantress fell in love with his overly hairy back and offered to fire him up through normal. Easy.

In Nightmare his frosty powers were developed enough to take on the role of a frost ranger. It was fun to put a buriza in his hands and seeing how often I could score the max of 5 consecutive hits. Act III was still skipped though. He entered Travincal yelling 'Hey look! It's elvis on a flying hippopotamus'. Confused and bewildered the council knocked the compelling orb off the pedestal. Somewhere in the jungle, parts of Khalim danced in their graves.

Goofing around with a bow lost its charm somewhere when he decided that spraying snowballs of destruction with 'Voice of Reason' was lots more fun. He entered Hell at lv. 67.

Ouch. The bear didn't really mind being low-level, but the merc kinda did. Result: poor Frosticles had to fight creatures like this one on his own. The bastard out-regenerated the open wounds, but a quick trip back to raise the merc did the trick thanks to the added lightning damage and static field on his weapon.

Speaking of which, I really liked the static field when dealing with mobs of cold immunes. Having most of them at 50% already drastically cut down the time needed to waste them with crushing blow and lowish physical damage. Lowish considering that I played through acts I-III at /players 5. Life tap also triggered often enough to stay alive during these fights. Looking back, 'Duress' might have been a better option because the rate I gained life with Tap active didn't need Forti's added damage.

But then again, 'Duress' didn't have that nifty chilling armor that nearly killed my PC in act V. This is what happened. You can't really tell, but on that picture, there's a bunch of those act V freeze-breathers giving my bear a hard time. Apparently every frame of freeze breath cloud triggered my chilling armor sending out lots and lots of bolts causing my PC to freeze as well. If I hadn't stepped out of their breath in time, I might have had to redo that section after killing the D2 process manually.

Ancients spawned cursed, mana burn, and stone skin. I yawned.
Baal's minions? I yawned.
Baal? I yawned.
Conclusion: maybe he was a bit too safe. But not safe enough to guard against stupendous amounts of noob from his creator:
- Death 1: CI snakes in the snake temple killing the merc and ignoring my defense. When, oh when will I learn to split when the merc goes poof in under two seconds. Probably never, I'm afraid.
- Deaths 2-4: Iron Maiden. Who would have guessed that life tap active and a lowish damage weapon could kill a 2.3k life bear? I wouldn't, but the added damage from fortitude probably swayed the balance from somewhat safe around OK's to not really safe around OK's.

Thanks for reading!
 
Originally posted by Arfurala on Jul 29, 2006:

Finally... Patriarch Kaboom

First of all, I have to thank Sir Lanksalot for bringing out this thread and everyone who posted in it. That was the first time I ever heard of Holy Fire Rangers and it really inspired me to build one myself.

After 2 weeks of struggling, I gladly present to you, Patriarch Kaboom, the HF/HS Ranger.

Current Level: 85

Gears:
Imp Horn
Circlet
Defense: 29
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa0a08f8c
+20 to Strength
All Resistances +15
6% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
Level 2 Confuse (25/25 Charges)


Rune Beads
Amulet
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x72711e9d
+63 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
All Resistances +13
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
Level 2 Frost Nova (25/25 Charges)


Demon Machine
Duriel's Shell
Lava Gout
Credendum
Scintillating Rings x2
Tearhaunch
Offensive Aura skiller
Scintillating Charms x2

Weapon Switch:
War Scepter
One-Hand Damage: 10 to 17
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 30
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xb41e2005
+1 to Meditation (Paladin Only)
+3 to Redemption (Paladin Only)
+1 to Blessed Hammer (Paladin Only)
150% Damage to Undead
Socketed (1: 0 used)


Rune Badge
Round Shield

Defense: 75
Chance to Block: 42%
Smite Damage: 7 to 14
Durability: 64 of 64
Required Strength: 53
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xf7477333
+8 to Strength
+35% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +9

+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
Half Freeze Duration

Stats:
S:80
D:95
V:330 (rest goes here)
E:15

Skills:
Holy Fire 20
Holy Shock 20
Resist Fire 20
Salvation 20
Resist Lightning 14 <-- will max
Might 1 (prereq)
Holy Freeze 1 (prereq)

After maxing RL I might start to build up the redemption tree and finally put all remaining points into redemption.

Damage:
Holy Fire Attack: 1031-1388
Holy Shock Attack: 110-4573
Attack Rating: 6727

Merc:
Aura: Blessed Aim
Guillaume's Face
The Reaper's Toll
The Gladiator's Bane

This is my first ever (probably the last as well) character that doesn't require any mana during the whole course of playing, all those mana burn/drain/whatever monsters just get lost!

Normal and NM were /p8 all the way, /p1 all the way in Hell. Except that I sometimes had to run Pindle at /p3 for exp.

Holy Fire is great, 1.3k damage doesn't look cool on paper, but the 66% pierce on Demon Machine makes a huge splash damage applying the damage several times and kills non-FI bosspacks in no time! Holy shock was wonderful against all the FIs the BA merc makes every shot hit and damage, I regret not to max RL before salvation. In case of LI+FI, merc does the job pretty fast, as Decerpify increases the damage done by crushing blow.

The ancients were tough, it took me more than an hour to roll for mod combinations of mana burn, spectral hit, extra fast, holy fire aura... that doesn't damage my merc faster than he could leech. I pretty much left the work to himself and threw him full rejuvs, while myself hiding behind the pillars and occasionally running in circles to avoid Krolic's leap attack. Madawc was stone skin (PI), so we picked him off last. I just let my merc stand between him and I, and holy shock attacked him to death.

Lister&Co. didn't cause much trouble, I thought I would need to use the "Fool Baal that all his minions were dead" trick, but I end up killing them all one by one in the hallways.

Baal himself was disappointingly easy, I put on Riphook and Nosferatu's coil, used holy shock attack to kill him while he was constantly decerpified by the merc, we didn't even need to drink a potion.
 
Originally posted by Asmodeous on Jan 16, 2008:

Patriarch Saint_Cuthbert - Elemental Templar.

Some time ago, I posted a poll thread to help decide the next Uberdin pally I would make next.
Essentially, the elemental zealot Saint Cuthbert was chosen. That thread rests here.

https://diabloii.net/forums/threads/573434

6 odd months pass and it that time I started planning. As with my other uberdins, I remade both of them refining their stat and skill point allocations and decided that Saint Cuthbert would be no different.
The first version had 180 or so strength and 20 skill points in zeal and sacrifice. I couldn’t think of anything else really to do with the skill points apart from bolstering his physical damage for the sake of leeching. The high strength was to use a Duress laquared plate armor I had at the time.

This time however, things where much different. With some thought, I decided why not Fist of the Heavens? I was running Conviction and had over 40 spare skill points. If ever a PvM fist of the heavens build was going to work, it would have to be something like this. A hybrid with another effective method of dealing with the masses. In this case, the elemental zealot.
As I was building the character, the realization that this hybrid worked, and worked well began to emerge. I searched the forums for an equivalent guide or build and found next to nothing. Surely I haven’t discovered a new character build variant? In this day and age? In any case, I’m bringing this build back into the limelight. This is the characters patriarch thread, at level 88 and I have also posted a quick form guide for the build.

https://diabloii.net/forums/threads/625840

Name Saint Cuthbert. Named after a DnD role playing game deity. Fitting for a FoH build.
Class Elemental Templar.
Strength 140 (200)
Dexterity 125 (170)
Vitality 255 (280)
Energy 15 (20)
Life 1,028 (1,103)
Stamina 394 (419)
Mana 134 (192)
Resistances 60/75/85/75

Zeal damage 1,468 – 3,141 (250-500 magic, 306-684 cold, 275 – 467 fire, 15 – 766 light)
Zeal attack rating1,446/3,698
Fist of the heavens lightning Damage 2,768 – 2,881
Fist of the heavens holy bolt damage 1,692 – 1,723
Attack speed. 8/4 frames.

Equipment

Azurewrath sword c/w jade jewel of thunder. (1-100 lighting damage + poison resistance)
Dragon scale shield c/w Um rune.
Crown of ages helm c/w 2 x resistance jewels of IAS. (fire and lighting)
Highlords amulet.
Duress kraken shell armor. (same strength req as crown of ages.)
Thundergods vigor belt.
Raven frost ring.
Rare mana leech resistances ring.
Dracul’s grasp gloves.
Cow kings hooves boots.
Hand of blessed light scepter & Herald of zakarum c/w Um rune weapon switch.

Mercenary

Might aura.
Tal rasha’s horadric crest helm.
The gladiators bane c/w Sol rune.
Cresent moon cryptic axe.

SKILLS

20 points.
Fist of the heavens, Conviction.
18 points. Holy shock.
14 points. Holy bolt.
10 points. Holy shield.
1 points. Sacrifice, Zeal, smite, Charge, blessed hammers, vengeance, conversion, might, holy fire, thorns, holy freeze, sanctuary, prayer, defiance, cleansing, vigor, redemption.

game play comments

Overall I was very pleased with the remade version of Saint Cuthbert. Despite the lower physical damage from the 1 point zeal/sacrifice, his killing speed lacked for nothing in comparison, able to kill quickly on players 4-5 settings. Players 8 was still possible, but was quite a lot slower. The problem with using the higher players settings came with using FoH. On players 1 it was nasty. Any regular monster died from one blast and most uniques went down in 2-3 blasts. Where there was undead present, the holy bolts tore them to shreds. A little known fact with the skill is that the primary bolt releases one holy bolt for every target on screen meaning that undead at close range to the initial target would take multiple hits. Most undead boss packs where taken out with 3-4 castings.
As the players setting went up, the more FoH would take to kill anything and with only 190 odd mana, I could only cast a handful of bolts before needing a blue pot, redemption or switch back to zeal for some mana leech which didn’t really work. 5% mana leech ran zeal ok, but took several hits to fully replenish his mana after emptying from fisting thanks to the low physical damage.

Saint Cuthbert was able to dish it out. But could he withstand the rigors of Hell? Easily. His voyage to Patriarch was a deathless one. A high defense and shield blocking combined with excellent resistances as you’d expect. But Saint Cuthbert also had triple elemental absorbs. Raven frost, Thundergods and dragon scale. He laughed at elemental damage. His only fear was magical damage or poison. Life tap was active regularly thanks to the frequency of 8/4 fps zeal meaning that saint Cuthbert was constantly leeching back life at a huge rate of knots. I can honestly say that this character, drank more mana pots than life pots.
Usually, Iron maiden curse casting oblivion knights are the bane of any melee class. Not so with Saint Cuthbert. He was their hunter and executioner.
Azurewrath has the sanctuary aura. Some players dislike it’s knock back effect, I used to be one of them. Most of the undead where bypassed because of it when playing the first version of the character. But I quickly learnt how to use this knock back to my advantage. Herding. I used the knock back to herd the undead against walls and corners while Saint Cuthbert dealt with the living monsters. Then, he turned the fist of the heavens onto those groups of tightly packed undead, where the holy bolts tore thru their ranks. It was a undead massacre.
Suddenly, years of having my melee characters dropped to the ground time and time again by these accursed oblivion knights and their foul spell, Suddenly I was able to have my revenge. I hunted them down, hurled them back against wall and pillars and tore them to shreds with divines most powerful fury. Chaos sanctuary? Ha. More like barrel shoot sanctuary. I so thoroughly enjoyed the sanctuary, I ran it twice over, relishing the massed of oblivion knights falling by the dozens at my feet. All I needed was an abundant supply of blue mana pots. I was so safe here in the sanctuary, I ran a dozen of them in the belt and still returned to town regularly to buy more. Oh it was good. Mind you, they did manage to tear my mercenary down. But That 50,000gp was well worth it.

I have to wonder why this build isn’t popular. Why somebody else hasn’t made it, wrote about it, named it.
I took myself a while to figure out why the average battle.netter wouldn’t play an elemental templar.
Bosses. Mephisto. Duriel, Baal, Diablo. You’d think that conviction and a couple of thousand points of lightning bolt would soon have these champions of evil laying at your feet. Not so. Bosses seem almost immune to FoH, leaving saint Cuthbert to use zeal against them, and against a boss, the elemental zealot lacks crushing blow, deadly strike, open wounds and other factors often used to take down these corner stones of hell. The elemental templar is a solo, monster smashing champion bought to a screaming halt with every act ending boss.
Shame really. Still. It is a viable PvM character. Damn good fun. Well worth the effort and writing about.

One final thought I have about the elemental templar. PvP. Now it has been some years since I was a regular on the moor *cough v1.09 cough* and that was not with a pally. Still. Saint Cuthbert has Physical, magical, fire, cold and lightning damage. That would be a tough combination to defend against. Converting Saint Cuthbert to a viable PvP build would not be hard. Swap the duress for shaft stop, empty the lightning damage charms for life/frw and ditch the HoBL for a CoA. Should be able to reach 1,500 hit points before buffs, 40 odd percent PDR, blocking, good resists, absorb all and the mandatory amounts of frw.
I think I might have to invite a few players to the moor one day to test my theory out. All in the name of fun, and ear cutting off course.

In the mean time, I have another worthy uberdin for the stable. A hybrid. A build I never expected. Yet thoroughly enjoying to play and that, is why I like my uberdins. They are tough, fun to play, and kill monsters with reckless abandon. Sweet.
 
Originally posted by Asmodeous on Feb 2, 2009:

Heironeous, Griefadin. A Patriarch Thread.

How about this? Old asmo is still making Paladins?! So, what is the latest pally and what the heck is it??

Well, yeah. What can I say? For many years my primary and only single handed melee damage Zealot is a Schaeferdin, a built that goes way back to V1.09 which I remade for V1.10 synergies. During this time I have convinced myself that the Schaeferdin is the best single handed Zealot in the game for PvM. I’ve done the maths and crunched the figures and then I tossed in a couple of handfuls of personal preference to naturally to tip the scales Schaefer’s way.

But, how can I be totally convinced that Schaefer’s is the number one zealot weapon unless I have actually tried the opposition? According to other players, Grief Phase blade is the number one zealot beat stick. There are quite a few players here on the forums who own Grief’s and played Zealots with the weapon however, few if any have ever tried a Schaeferdin to compare. How can anybody make a fair comparison unless they have played both?

This is one reason why I figured I’d give it a go and build a Zealot built around Grief. During the characters game play, I decided to spice things up a bit. It would have been a bit boring to play a uber equipped zealot thru the game. Even on ‘players 8’ most monsters would offer little resistance to a fully tweaked up grief zealot. So, I decided to use a number of alternative items. Items that I’d never used before or always wanted to use but lacked a character to use them on. While doing so left a fair amount of damage on the table but the abundant damage that grief had to offer still made the game on players 8 very beatable.

Character Stats (data in brackets is equipped/weapon switch)

Strength 170 (226)
Dexterity 130 (151)
Vitality 210 (290)
Energy 20 (20)
Life 1,165
Mana 192
Resistances 80/80/75/75
Defence 13,814/31,729 | 3,650/18,797
Zeal attack rating and damage 7,004 = 1,401-1,454 | 8,260 = 761 – 4,655
Sacrifice attack rating and damage 6,186 = 1,510 – 1,552 | 7,359 = 815 – 5,502
Smite damage 902 – 1,386 | 1,136 – 1,391

Skills

Skills with 20 points spent (skill level with items)

Zeal (26), Sacrifice (26), Fanatism (25), Holy Shield (26)

Skills with 7 points spent (skill level with items)

Smite (13)

Skills with 1 points spent

Holy Bolt, Charge Blessed Hammer, Might, Blessed Aim, Concentrate, Prayer, Defiance, Cleansing, Vigor, Redemption.

Equipment

Helm
Veil of steel c/w cold resist jewel of freedom.
Amulet Metal Grid.
Weapons Grief phase blade & Storm lash switch.
Shields E-bugged sacred targe Exile & Alma negra c/w Um rune.
Armor Templar’s might c/w cold resist jewel of freedom.
Belt Verdungo’s hearty cord.
Gloves Steel rend.
Boots Sandstorm Trek.
Rings Raven frost & rare mana leech resist all.

These where the characters final items. During levelling I used many more Items that I’d never used before on a Paladin such as Guilliame’s Face, Guardian Angel, Grave palm, Pompeii’s wrath and Naj’s light plate just to name a few.

Code:
Grief
Superior Phase Blade
'EthTirLoMalRal'
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 59
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc71959b6
+1 to Attack Rating
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+11 Life after each Kill
39% Increased Attack Speed
Adds +396 Damage
Ignore Target Defense
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
20% Deadly Strike
35% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
163% Damage to Demons (Based on Character Level)
-21% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Exile
Sacred Targe
'VexOhmIstDol'
Defense: 1155
Chance to Block:  60%
Smite Damage: 22 to 70
Durability: 23 of 23
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 76
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x2661c013
+243% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +39%
+5% to Maximum Fire Resist
Lightning Resist +39%
Cold Resist +39%
+5% to Maximum Cold Resist
Poison Resist +39%
Replenish Life +7
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Faster Block Rate
Freezes Target +1
Level 16 Defiance Aura When Equipped
+2 to Offensive Aura Skills (Paladin Only)
15% Chance to cast Level 5 Life Tap on striking
Repairs 1 durability in 4 seconds
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

Back pack.

A mixture of skill charms, resistance/life and 5 toxic small charms (100 poison damage) with second mods, mostly strength and dexterity. Coupled with Grief’s Venom’s O skill and reduction of targets poison resistance, I thought I’d be different in using poison on a melee build for physical immunes. Combined with Static field from the lash, it worked rather nicely.

Mercenary

I even decided to avoid the traditional Might aura mercenary opting for a cold arrow act one bowie armed with a Harmony rune word bow, smoke armor and vampire gaze. The harmony bow’s elemental damage also helped out against Physical immunes.

Game play

Not a lot to note here, just a standard Zealot smashing everything in his path to goo with grief. The character had quite a number of deaths, far more than I’d expect for an “uberdin”. These deaths where attributed to;-

*Bugged poison damage from the vipers in Nilathak’s lair.
*Chaos sanctuary Iron maiden curse. (five deaths in total)
*Lack of life leech before CTC life tap went off.

The chaos sanctuary was quite funny. Initially I tried to avoid dying by switching to a normal attack to avoid being IM’ed mid Zeal. But twice the pally was hit with IM mid swing which sucked what little xp I had from the level advancement which is when I said to hell with pussy footing thru this place, so I loaded up the DS/CB/damage gear and went ballistic. Character died another three times as a result before the sanctuary was clear. I took my revenge on Diablo, who went down in 14 seconds on players 8 to grief smite.
The other way I discovered to get a character killed was charging into a group of high damage aura packs and relying on high levels of leech to survive, just like I do with my Schaeferdin. Problem is, CTC life tap was my only form of life leech apart from Grief’s + xx to life after kill and a paultry 5% on a rare ring. While I’m waiting for life tap to go off, I’d see the health orb dimish rapidly and decide to suck down a red potion when I should be sucking a purple thinking a red pot will get me thru until life tap goes off. Silly me.
After two character deaths occurred before I learnt the hard way to suck a purple when the going gets tough Pre life tap.

I found the combo of smite/zeal and sacrifice an odd one. With zeal being so powerful thanks to the grief and waiting for life tap to go off before I could use sacrifice, in any case smite hit harder than sacrifice did anyway. Against the likes of Duriel, Diablo and Baal, you’d be mad not to use Smite. Sacrifice is much better suited to a non smiting paladin with high amounts of life leech. A better combo would be Zeal, Charge and smite. Zeal for crowd control, charge for the initial “greeting” and smite for single hard target destruction. Find wise, well this character did rather well. A Vex rune popped out of a chest in the black marsh and a Rare dual leech ring with other cool mods. Hell forge rune was a Ko.

The future.

I have a couple of idea’s for this character. Doing Hell difficulty players 8 Baal runs twinked up the wazza is a must so the set up will be changed to Highlords/gores/guilly face/fortitude/etc then tweaked further as required. Apart from that, I also would like to try some of the alternate sets on this character such as Sazabi’s, Heaven’s Brethern and the Disiple. Sets that usually sit somewhere at the back of our collections* collecting pixel dust. As for the Baal run results, well I’m thinking of a thread comparing him to my Schaeferdin so there’s something for all you Griefalot players out there to look out for!
 
Originally posted by balluga08 on Jul 20, 2006:

Patriarch Loki

Let me introduce Patriarch Loki, my 11th Pat/Mat. Loki is not a standard Paladin, but more of a fusion of builds. I Patted a zealot after I found a Stormlash off of Pindy and he was fun to play for a while, but for Loki I wanted something different, I wanted a zealot without Fanaticism, or any other damage increasing aura at all. As you will see, the result was quite powerful and fun to play.

Character name: Loki - patch 1.10 no mods
Character type: Paladin
Character level: 80 /Hit at Baal
Character exp: 682226008

Strength: 110
Energy: 15
Dexterity: 115 / 75% chance to block with Holy Shield
Vitality: 240
Attack Rating: 2400 / didn’t really notice it
Stat Points Rem: 15

Life: 943 / 943
Mana: 175 / 175

Resists:
Fire: 83%
Cold: ~53%
Lightning: 90%
Poison: Doesn’t matter

Skills of Note:
Zeal 4
Holy Shield 20
Defiance 20
Conviction 20
Skill Points Rem: 17

Gear:

Helm: Vampire Gaze w/ 15% IAS jewel
Weapon: Gimmershred
Shield: Lava Gout
Armor: Guardian Angel w/ 15% IAS jewel
Gloves: Tiamat's Rebuke w/ P Diamond
Belt: Immortal King's Detail
Boots: Gore Rider / was Natalya's Soul until Ancients
Ring1: Raven Frost
Ring2: Rare ring with Lightning/Cold resist and LL
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath

Charms giving:
Cold resist +50, Fire resist +46, Lightning damage 4-83 and fire damage 24-44

Mercenary: Act 2 Holy Frost Aura
Mercenary Gear:
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll
Armor: Ethereal Black Hades w/ 3 Sol runes
Helm: Blackhorn's Face

Loki is a cross between a zealot and a vengance/Conviction Paladin. I wanted to combine attack speed and elemental damage/Conviction aura in one build. In essence I created a fast attacker that didn't care about immunities.

With this gear Loki hits the 5 fpa breakpoint with Conviction. The choice between Tiamat’s Rebuke and HoZ was not that difficult. I didn’t need the increased chance of blocking or the skills, and the resists are about the same so I went with the elemental damage and everything worked out fine.


Final breakdown of damage:

Physical: 51-196
Fire: 290-669
Lightning: 35-734
Cold: 231-517
Total: 607-2116

This was a very fun character to plan out and play through the game. He flew through Normal and Nightmare, but it was slower going through Hell. One reason was that I started Hell at around Level 70 and didn’t go back to level up. There were quite a few deaths in Hell, mostly me trying to take on too many enemies at once. The Ancients were easy as long as one wasn’t Fire Enchanted and I had enough potions to make it through. One NDE after the Ancients; I was surrounded by Flayers and had a Black Soul Boss pack around me. My bulb went down quickly, and filled up just as fast. Baal was easy with the slow and decreptify from the merc. The only bad thing would be the range of the weapon. With such a short range, zeal wouldn’t kick in sometimes and I would just attack normally.
 
Originally posted by bcoe on Mar 1, 2010:

Patriarch Pharomachrus (embarassment of riches - 1.13b dual dream/doom pally)

Patriarch Pharomachrus


This is my first 1.13b patriarch, and the runes are pretty absurd. Some of his rune-wealth comes from 1.12, but whatever. I remember reading “auradin” or “dreamer” guides in the past and snorting at the silliness of duping runes. Well, here’s a legit (well, 1.13b) version. He’s as powerful as you’d think he is…

He is named after the Resplendent Quetzal, a spectacular trogon (bird) of the central American rain forest. Its pretty over-the-top with its plumage, and so I thought it fit.

STATS:
Name: Pharomachrus
Level: 82
Strength: 32 (120)
Dexterity: 137 (160)
Vitality: 321 (346)
Energy: 15 (20)

Life: 1575
Mana: 286


Skills (after + skills):
Defensive Auras tree:
Resist Cold: 20 (26)
Resist Lightning: 20 (26)
Salvation: 20 (26)

Offensive Auras tree:
Conviction: 19 (25)
Prerequisites: 1 (7)

Combat Skills tree:
Sacrifice: 3 (9)
Zeal: 1 (7)
Holy Shield: 1 (7)
Prerequisites: 1 (7)

LCS:
LCS
Zeal damage: 1196-9963

How I got there:

I leveled him up to 67 as a standard holy-shock pally, with spirit shield giving way to HoZ, weapons were angelic set to coldsteel eye to crescent moon. Very easy through normal and nightmare. Once I got to 67, I equipped his end-game gear and respecced and then cruised through hell. Most of hell was on /p8. I switched down to /p1 in late act3, just to make it a bit faster.

On to equipment….

Equipment:
Head: Dream Bone Visage
Amulet: Mara’s (+30 resists)
Armor: Enigma BP
Weapon: Doom Berzerker axe (eth-bugged)
Shield: Dream Sacred Rondache
Switch: nothing
Belt: Nosferatu’s Coil
Gloves: Cruel Fist (awesome crafted gloves)
Rings: Ravenfrost (18 dex/ 242 AR) and a dual-leech rare
Boots: Gore riders

Charms:
2 shimmering GCs of sustenance
A few resists SCs, rest a mix of elemental damage, etc.

Resists: 75/85/85/75

Merc: Fire rogue with Faith, Fortitude, Crown of thieves

Finds:
Hellforge: Lum/Pul
Not much else, yet.

Thoughts:

First, some rune history. The Jahs (and Ohm and Ber) in the enigma and faith were found in 1.11 or 1.12. They represent the highest rune finds of the first 6 years of D2 for me. One of the dream jahs, and the Doom (cham, ohm and lo) were 1.13a, the last jah was 1.13b.

This guy is VERY powerful, as you’d expect with a cham, 3 jahs, 1 ber, 1 lo, 2 ohms. The conviction is crazy – its basically ITD against anyone, and it doubles the cold/lite damage he’s doing.

Dream is a great runeword – its definitely more than just an aura. The boosts to FHR and MF are nice, and the resists are decent. The CTC confuse is very nice for crowd control. You also get nice bonuses to mana and life. Overall, a lot of power, befitting the expense. I thought about building one in a troll nest instead of a pally shield, but the extra resists were appealing. Certainly if runes weren’t now as common as they are, I’d have made it in a troll nest. I’ll do that with my next jah….

Doom is an interesting weapon. Certainly the damage is nice, and the HF aura is cool. It also adds +skills, freezes targets, and DS and OW. The coolest thing though (IMO), is the CTC volcano. It goes off a LOT, making me daydream about using it on a fury-wolf with the volcano synergized. The faith was needed to get to 4-frame zeal.

The doom was very nice for crowd-control, but I wonder if a grief would be even better, for more leech. A good alternative, I think, would be dual-dream running fanaticism (grief, death, or something else for weapon) with an infinity merc. I don’t have infinity (I seem to find more Jahs than bers), or I’d go for it. If I were re-building with this gear, I’m not sure I would have synergized the HF on the doom. Those points in sacrifice would have boosted the physical damage a ton, and might have been a better use.

Overall, this guy is extremely powerful, and I’m confident he could run baal easily. I didn’t think he was overly fun, though. I certainly enjoyed planning, building, and patting him, I just am not sure how much running I want to do with him…The constant left-clicking was a bit monotonous, and there wasn’t much variety or strategy in his gameplay. I have relatively little melee experience, so I’m sure I could find some nuances to master if I really pushed it, but I’m not sure he’s fun enough to be worth it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this ridiculous embarrassment of riches. He was fun to build, plan, and bring through hell.
 
Originally posted by BobTheWarrior on Mar 22, 2009:

Patriarch Palabob - Rift-a-din

I'm a sucker for CtC effects, so Rift is exactly the kind of thing I like. I loved playing this character the whole way through. I will probably be making more zealot variants in the future. I had planned on making a separate paladin for Stormlash, and may still do so, but required level 82, sheesh!

Character name : Palabob
Character type : Paladin
Character level : 82
Character exp : 873545475

Strength : 104
Energy : 15
Dexterity : 120
Vitality : 211
Stat Points Rem : 55
Skill Points Rem: 2

Gear:
Rift + 4x fervor jewel Sacred Rondache
Stormlash + HoZ (Fleshrender until level 82)
Nightwings (5/3 facet)
Treachery Scarab Husk
Highlords
Raven frost + dual leech ring
IK Forge and Detail
Gores

Backpack includes various resistance charms.

Full gear code:
Code:
Nightwing's Veil
Spired Helm
Defense: 336
Durability: 36 of 40
Required Strength: 96
Required Level: 67
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x87424e8
+12 to Dexterity
+110% Enhanced Defense
Adds 24-38 cold damage over 0 seconds
Requirements -50%
Half Freeze Duration
+2 to All Skill Levels
+8 Cold Absorb
100% Chance to cast Level 37 Blizzard When You Die
+18% to Cold Skill Damage
-3% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc9dfd340
Adds 24-38 cold damage over 0 seconds
100% Chance to cast Level 37 Blizzard When You Die
+5% to Cold Skill Damage
-3% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xd5f64dc4
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
30% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

 Treachery
Scarab Husk
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 384
Durability: 15 of 28
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xecb3734
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fade when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)

 Eagle Master
Ring
Required Level: 74
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x7dcae940
+49 to Mana
+9 to Maximum Stamina
+12 to Attack Rating
Damage Reduced by 1
6% Life stolen per hit
6% Mana stolen per hit

g
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xb262507
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+227 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Immortal King's Detail
War Belt
Defense: 142
Durability: 19 of 24
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xa0e95ecb
+25 to Strength
+36 Defense
Fire Resist +28%
Lightning Resist +31%

Immortal King's Forge
War Gauntlets
Defense: 116
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 30
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe5655489
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
+65 Defense
12% Chance to cast Level 4 Charged Bolt when struck

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
25% Increased Attack Speed
+120 Defense
+105 Defense
25% Faster Hit Recovery

 Gore Rider
War Boots
Defense: 145
Durability: 30 of 34
Required Strength: 94
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xb39977bf
+20 to Maximum Stamina
+169% Enhanced Defense
+10 Maximum Durability
Requirements -25%
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike

 Rift
War Scepter
'HelKoLemGul'
One-Hand Damage: 10 to 17
Durability: 51 of 70
Required Strength: 44
Required Level: 53
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xc3d0c3b
+6 to Strength
+6 to Energy
+16 to Dexterity
+6 to Vitality
Adds 60-180 fire damage
Adds 160-250 magic damage
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Requirements -20%
+3 to Holy Shock (Paladin Only)
+2 to Conviction (Paladin Only)
38% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
16% Chance to cast Level 21 Frozen Orb on attack
20% Chance to cast Level 16 Tornado on striking
Level 15 Iron Maiden (40/40 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

 Gemmed Akaran Rondache
Defense: 131
Chance to Block:  45%
Smite Damage: 15 to 20
Durability: 18 of 30
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 59
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x17fcce9a
+7 to Maximum Damage
Heal Stamina Plus 14%
All Resistances +34
60% Increased Attack Speed
Socketed (4: 4 used)

 Stormlash
Scourge
One-Hand Damage: 10 to 286
Durability: 28 of 65
Required Dexterity: 77
Required Strength: 125
Required Level: 82
Mace Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x7c35ba84
+258% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-473 lightning damage
30% Increased Attack Speed
150% Damage to Undead
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 30
33% Chance of Crushing Blow
+6 Lightning Absorb
20% Chance to cast Level 18 Tornado on striking
15% Chance to cast Level 10 Static Field on striking

 Herald of Zakarum
Gilded Shield
Defense: 496
Chance to Block:  82%
Smite Damage: 20 to 28
Durability: 48 of 50
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 89
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xaa43aa09
+20 to Strength
+20 to Vitality
+194% Enhanced Defense
+30% Increased Chance of Blocking
All Resistances +69
+2 to Paladin Skill Levels
30% Faster Block Rate
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Combat Skills (Paladin Only)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Merc -- Might
Duress
Tal's helm
Reapers

Skills:
20 Conviction
20 Sacrifice
20 Zeal
20 Fanaticism
1 in all prereqs

Everything went pretty much as expected, I MP'd almost the whole character. No deaths that I remember, but many NDE's.

Normal -- Twink gear: 2x Berserkers 2x Death 2x Hsarus and a backpack full of stamina and strength charms until 15, then full Iratha + Twitchthroe + Treads + 1.09 RC until level 38. At 38 switch to Fleshrender and .... some shield, don't remember what. Played entirely MP.

Nightmare -- I think I played acts I -- III solo up to LK. This took me several weeks, didn't have much play time, and during that time I read over some of the mat threads, Xdeathfire's which gave me the idea to use IK Forge + Detail, the other from AJK gave me the idea to go for the 142 IAS breakpoint using a 4x fervor jewel shield. Max zeal speed + Conviction = win. I was close to that breakpoint with my original gear, but I don't remember my original gear layout. 20 points had already been committed to Fanaticism at this point, and it still came in handy. MP'd the rest of the way through with Tanksaabas' avenger, so I was able to utilize fanaticism to help both our IAS and damage while he rocked Conviciton. Rift was equipped sometime in Act II, NM I think. It's been awhile.

Hell -- again played entirely MP, and entirely with Tanksaabas' avenger. With the help of my trusty CTA, I don't remember any deaths. The fight with Diablo was paticularly memorable, as both of us were using Treachery and neither of our Fade had triggered. Lot of running, used most of the sanctuary in the process. Good times. Ancients went down without much of a fight.

Thoughts -- I loved this character. I didn't run into anything I couldn't kill, especially with Conviction and Decrep from Reapers. Once level 82 came about, killing went even faster, especially for unbreakable cold immunes. I highly recommend this character to anyone even remotely interested. I mat'd at level 79, so Stormlash didn't come into play during questing, just doing baal runs and going back for my forges.

The repair costs for my Rift scepter were astronomical. AJK surmised that he repaired his weapon once every other waypoint, and I think that's about accurate. Starting to use it in Act II Nightmare means it needed repair at least 20 times before I killed baal. I would've gone broke 10x over paying gold for repairs, so I muled on Orts and cube repaired it whenever it needed it.

Finds -- Uh. . . nothing that I can remember. Forges were Lum and Pul, not bad but not great.

Future -- maybe some MP baal runs, otherwise retirement.

Thanks to Xdeathfire and AJK for their pat threads
Thanks to omgwtfbbqpwnd for buying my Ber rune and providing the Gul in this scepter
Thanks to Tanksaabas and everyone else I MP'd with along the way.
Thanks to the SPF
Thanks to you, the reader.

TL;DR
Riftadin's rock!

Next projects-
Multizon -- Trapper -- Wereform druid - Possibly another zeal variant.
 
Originally posted by Cattleya on Aug 2, 2006:

Patriarch Alexander (Look ma, no offensive auras!)

Not too long ago, I read through Sir Dante's PvP Ambulancedin guide, I wondered how a PvM Zeal based variant would work out. Patriarch Alexander is the result. 😃 I've done some MP with him, so some of you might have seen him in games.

The Ancients weren't too much of a problem. He rerolled the first two times when he got cursed immediately. The third try was much better, with no cursed, no scary auras. The worst of them was Korlic, who was FE Stone Skin, and the last to fall.

The biggest problem he ran into the entire time was the Thone room. On his first try, a door trap of champion succubi-type monsters drove him back. I exited and tried again, this time to be met with a boss pack of Frenzytaurs and dolls. That one caused a death, with no reasonable hope of recovering the body. Part of the problem was fatigue, since he I had been playing a good part of the day with him and just wanted to get that last little bit done. The third try was a charm. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see Souls and OKs. 😁 Baals minions all went down easily.

Baal himself was a pain in the butt, mostly because he was hard to hit. He also had an unnatural preoccupation with my mercenary, which was bad, since I really needed the Inner Sight to keep my chance to hit up.

This was a fun build to play. It's certainly not a power build, but it does pretty well in /p1 hell. If I were to build him again, I would have tried to get some DR gear for him. Without a shield or high defense, he needed something to let him absorb hits better. It wasn't just a run up and hit the monster build, as I had to plan my attacks. I got to discover what a cool skill conversion is. It's too bad it doesn't come with an AR boost. Vengence was a nice one point wonder to take care of the non-undead PI monsters in the game.

I got the Prayer to the level where it was healing 37 life every 2 seconds (x2 as the synergy for Meditation and Cleansing.) This did help buy time to chug potions and get to safety when he got into trouble. It would be interesting to see what would have happened with some more +skills gear.

His best drop was an Ist off of the hellforge.

Stats and Equipment

Resistances in Hell:
75/72/75/75

Stats (With Equipment)
Strength: 110 (160)
Dexterity: 35 (75)
Vitality: 355 (360) [Life: 1417]
Energy: 15 (20) [Mana: 150]

Damage (With Demon Limb Enchant)
Zeal: 1507-2375 AR: 5447
Vengence: 1462-2303 AR: 4826
Holy Bolt: 3048-3432 (Heals 188-392)
Fist of the Heavens: 875-925 Lighting / 875-925 Holy Bolt damage

Skill Point Allocation (with + skills)

Combat Skills
Sacrifice: 20
Zeal: 10 (14)
Vengence: 1 (5)
Conversion: 1 (5)
Holy Bolt: 20 (24)
Blessed Hammer: 2
Fist of the Heavens: 20 (24)

Defensive Auras
Prayer: 20 (26)
Cleansing: 1(7) <---- Active Aura

Offensive Auras 😁

Equipment
Kira's Guardian Tiara
Upgraded Skin of the Vipermagi with IAS Jewel
IK Gloves and Belt
Gore Rider Boots
Nature's Peace Ring
Rare Ring (119 AR, 15 Dex, 10 Resist All, 6% LL, other pointless mods)
Seraph's Hymn (+2 Defensive Auras)

Insight
Shillelagh
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 239 to 382
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Dexterity: 27
Required Strength: 52
Required Level: 62
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x165b49f3
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+254% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Nova (Sorceress Only)
244% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 15 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Weapon Switch: Demon Limb

Charms: One Pally Combat Skiller, One Defensive Auras Skiller, various charms with AR, resists, and life

Equipment - Mercenary
Harmony Diamond Bow
Treachery Dusk Shroud
A 2-socked Helm with 2 +4 minimum damage jewels that was her starting gear that I apparently forgot to swap out for something better. :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Cormallon on May 26, 2007:

Patriarch Nusilis, the Abbot (Gris' set)

Here he is, my latest patriarch: Nusilis, the abbot. Equipped with the full Griswold set and accompanied by his prayer mercenary,he faced two deaths, both caused by a lack of patience. The first occured in NM A3 when he totally underestimated the drowned carcasses. He ran into a boss pack just like he always did, and was dead a few seconds later. The second death happened in A3 hell, where I wanted to pass the spider forest as fast as possible, didn't pay attention and got stuck. Something was able to drain his life there... oh well.

In hell, this death incident really was one of the rare situations where something was able to hurt him at all. Like SSoG promises in his abbot guide, he is almost unkillable. Of course conviction and amplify damage are the worst dangers, and OKs and frenzytaurs... but besides that, he could stand inmidst heavy combat and doesn't take noticable damage. Unfortunately, this is not the case for his merc. I am not satisfied with the merc setup at all. Treachery helped a bit, but still I spend a lot of money (and time) on resurrects.

Skill distribution... in this department I decided to go the vengeance / max damage route quite early on. SSog suggests conviction as an alternate approach. While playing, I learned some things... and now I have to disagree with that guide. First of all, against most enemies I use zeal much more than vengeance. Zeal, with just one hard point, is enough to hit FAST and multiple targets. When surrounded, which is the usual combat scenario, zeal keeps most mobs in hit recovery, a poison sc prevents regeneration, and the mob dies. I used vengeance against single targets or PIs or other foes that didn't respond fast enough to zeal. Quite late, around clvl 75, I decided to get conviction as well. I can survive well without cleansing for a moment, and putting points into the resists doesn't give too much of a benefit to vengeance anymore. Conviction on the other hand, with all these +skills, lowers enemy resistance by quite some amount, and speeds up killing with vengeance significantly. If a foe dies fast, it doesn't matter how much damage he would deal over time ...

There was this competition about melee Baal runs ... I think I'll reroll maps until I find a decent one, and time some runs with this char. He doesn't have much MF, but doing some runs may produce a lucky drop here and there ;)

Character name : Nusilis
Character type : Paladin
Character level : 81
Character exp : 769960663

Strength : 110 / 172
Energy : 15 / 23
Dexterity : 125 / 156
Vitality : 250 / 270
Stat Points Rem : 0
Skill Points Rem: 0

Life : 1210 / 950
Mana : 205 / 135
Stamina : 431 / 394

Resists in hell:
95 / 79 / 91 / 54

Skills (hard / w.+skills)

Combat:
Vengeance 20 (28)
Zeal 1 (9)
Holy shield 1 (9)
5 prereqs 1 (9)

Offensive auras:
Conviction 1 (8)
5 prereqs 1 (8)

Defensive Auras:
Prayer 20 (30)
Cleansing 1 (11)
Resist fire 13 (23)
Resist cold 13 (23)
Resist lightning 12 (22)

Equip:


Griswold's Valor - Corona 'SolSol'
Griswold's Heart - Ornate Plate 'SolSolSol'
Griswold's Honor - Vortex Shield 'SolSolSol'
Griswold's Redemption - Caduceus

Socketed with:
Dread Gyre
Jewel
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x7f22eee1
+8 to Energy
+17 to Maximum Stamina
+28% Enhanced Damage
+2 to Minimum Damage

Jewel of Carnage
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xc6205909
+15 to Maximum Damage

Realgar Jewel
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x45a8840
+29% Enhanced Damage

Realgar Jewel
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x261e0c4
+26% Enhanced Damage


Highlord's Wrath - Amulet
Nature's Peace - Ring
The Stone of Jordan - Ring
Thundergod's Vigor - War Belt
Hotspur - Boots
Lava Gout - Battle Gauntlets
Buriza-Do Kyanon - Ballista (on switch)

Charms:

Lion Branded Grand Charm of Sustenance
Preserver's Grand Charm
Preserver's Grand Charm
Preserver's Grand Charm of Maiming
plus some resists/AR/poison charms


Mercenary (A2 Prayer) Items :

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest - Death Mask
Treachery - Great Hauberk
Hone Sundan - Yari 'ShaelShaelAmn'
 
Originally posted by Crazy Runner Guy on Nov 15, 2005:

Arreat-Slayer, the anti-TUB PvP'er

As ususal, a little story first.

Kab's BvA, (barb versus all) dueler, TUB, is pretty scary. Pretty damn scary. Equipped with Enigma, BotD, Beast and other goodies (especially charms), that creature of a PvP'er is scary. My wolfbarb can take him occasionally when he's dual-weilding, but my win/loss ration plummets when he throws on his SS.

So I examined why I couldn't kill him, or at least put up a reasonable fight.

Although my wolfie rocks lots of life (5.7k, I think), 20k+ AR, 20K def and plenty of footspeed, I was at a loss to why I was getting smoked.

Then it hit me. I was getting outranged. I was using a Griz Caddy (at 4 fpa), was having trouble hitting without getting hit myself. Add in the fact that WW is the best melee skill out there (area covering while moving), and my blocking speed was horrendous (even with a shael'd SS, it's still damn slow).

And so I began reading guides, and trying to relate them to my gear. Then I thought of my hammerdin, who had 7 combat skillers sitting on him. Now while I hated the thought of dueling with a hammerdin, I could make a smiter, which I have a little experience in (more of a V/T).

And so the idea sprung up. How could I compete with WW? Well, aside from my better block speed, I could get max PDR, decent FHR, plenty of life, and get range 3.

My last smiter used a Kingslayer Phase. Range 2. I have a Kingslayer Berserker Axe, range 3. Bingo, I thought, I have a weapon. Now I only had to build around that.

Now, how not to get hit? The answer was a defiant smiter with upgraded high defense items. Here's to you Kab, you guessed it right when I slipped you some info.

So below is my build, first optimized for PvM, then lvled a bit and in PvP gear:

clvl 84

Listed stats (char screen):
str: 192
dex: 120
vita: 296
nrg: 17
50 extra

17746 def
1456 life
77/75/75/75 res
2573-2619 smite /w might merc

20 HS (+850% def), Smite (36)
20 fanat (28)
20 defiance
6 vigor (14, 40% fr/w)
1 unused point

Stormlash
Chains of Honor archon
up'd HoZ
Harle
highlords (Why, I'm not sure for PvM)
244/20 raven
37/10 dungo's
5% bkwb
drac
+64 life Water walks

Might merc
Guillaume's face
Duriel's
Reapers

Arreat-Slayer did not die during questing, or leveling. He was pretty pwnage throughout. Stun just pwns everything.

Now, for PvP

clvl 85
Kingslayer Zerker
Up'd 208% Shaft (11% res jool)
Up'd 187% HoZ p diamond
Harle (13% res jewel)
Highlord's Wrath
up'd Bloodfists (sharkskin)
5% BKWB
37/10 dungo's
244/20 raven
64 life waterwalks
8 pally combat skillers
16 sc's of vita

23302 def /w fanat
31153 def /w defiance
2142-2181 smite
1866 life
1339-3774 charge

AFter testing tonight, I beat Kab three (out of many, many games), twicetimes because he went into small triangles (the "dance of death") and I just stood there swinging with Defiance/Smite going, and once on a charge-only kill when his BO ran out.

I will not be discouraged though, and I will get to 50/50 against him. I just need more practice using the dude.

Also, I found out (via testing) that blocking is reduced (to 1/3?) and defence goes to zero (or otherwise very low) when charging, even if your character is selected to walk.

Also, when dueling, when Kab whirled at me, I could take a hit (at range 3, supposedly) before I could hit and swing, and it appeared like WW had a range advantage. This was not so, and I attributed it to reaction time, as I had to swing when I percieved him in range, whereas he would automatically "swing" i.e. attack, when he was in range. Weird.

crg
 
Originally posted by Crazy Runner Guy on Jun 12, 2017:

Introducing HolyHighlander, brought to you by the offspring of the Black Knight, the King Arthur and the Knights of the Round whilst attacking the White Rabbit, the Knights who say "Nee!" and Connor MacLeod.

He charges with great strength and aim. He zeals with less strength and worse aim. And that's about all he does. His crowd control skills are next to zilch. He is F*R*A*G*I*L*E. And he was a hell of a lot of fun.

He was fueled by my precious, the first character that I have actually used it with:

1588002407107.png

HH was pushed into existence by this thread, with his OHKO of Hell Big D. A pure charger had been on my bucket list for a long time, and why not now.

How did he play? He's great if you like:
  • One-hit kills in hell WSK.
  • Want to go through the entire game on /p8, which he did.
  • Really big swords and other hurty sticks.
  • Huge damage on your LCS.
  • The look of a paladin zealing with said really big sword (he swings it up over head his and straight down, like an executioner would in medieval times, say).
  • Being a glass cannon.
  • Lacking crowd control skills.
  • Killing first, asking questions later.
  • Rushing into a melee without a real plan of attack.
  • Running everywhere.
  • Long walks on the beach, and other wide-open areas.
He's not for you if you...
  • Prefer subtly.
  • Enjoy playing in the Arcane Sanctuary, Maggot Lair, Flayer Dungeon, and other cramped areas.
  • Prefer playing in the Flayer Jungle, and other areas of fast, itty bitty creatures that are hard to click on to charge at.
  • Prefer teleport to vigor + charge.
  • Play HC.
  • Would rather use a shield.
  • Require crowd control skills (and if so, why did you play a paladin?)
  • Enjoy having tea with Undead Stygian Dolls
  • Are accustomed to having all of the +skills of a Hammerdin, and the longer BO time, better Redemption, e.g. that comes with those boosts.
  • Are Nightfish, who famously hated Paladins and everything left click.

Final gear:
370% v1.07 Death Colossus Sword
Kira's (69 res; plain fervor jewel) or CoA 30 res/15 PDR (plain IAS jewel)
Fort, AP
LoH
7%/14%/15 MDR SOE
244/20 Raven
Rare Ring, 8% LL/70 AR/10% all/30% PR
198% non-up'd Gores
HW
CtA +6 BO/Spirit switch
6x Sharp GC's of Life
1x Sharp GC's of Dex
1x Sharp GC of STR
6x Fine SC's of life
3x Fine SC's of STR (3/XX/2)
1x 11 life/8% LR SC

Might Merc:
Eth Reapers, Ber'd
GF, Cham'd
Eth Fort, AP

Stats: 279/71/202/15

/w CoA
Charge:
12K-29K; 9295 AR
Zeal: 5,794-14K; 5088 AR
Res: 48/-2/41/28
Life/Mana: 1960/309
Stats: 279/71/202/15
Def: 5065

/w Kira's
Charge:
11K-29K; 9024 AR
Zeal: 4756K-12k; 4611 AR
Res: 75/37/80/67
Life/Mana: 1928/303 (b/c of lack of CoA's +1 all)
Def: 5065

Other big hurty sticks used, in order of appearance:

Bramble Blow (clvl 11-23)
Maul
Two Hand Damage: 70 - 103
Durability: 30 of 31
Required Level: 11
Required Strength: 59
Fingerprint: 0xec82e269
Item Level: 26
Version: Expansion 1.10+
57% Enhanced Damage
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
+266% Damage to Undead
+132 to Attack Rating against Undead
Adds 1 - 4 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Repairs 1 Durability in 33 Seconds
Ethereal


Bonesnap (clvl 24-28)
Maul
Two Hand Damage: 119 - 171
Durability: 51 of 60
Required Level: 24
Required Strength: 69
Fingerprint: 0xe9462289
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
299% Enhanced Damage
+200% Damage to Undead
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Cold Resist +30%
Fire Resist +30%

Steeldriver (clvl 29-33)
Great Maul
Two Hand Damage: 133 - 203
Durability: 54 of 60
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x5470cc5c
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+60% Increased Attack Speed
250% Enhanced Damage
+150% Damage to Undead
Heal Stamina Plus 25%
Requirements -50%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Steeldriver (clvl 34-54)
Martel de Fer
Two Hand Damage: 204 - 332
Durability: 40 of 60
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 85
Fingerprint: 0xe8ac8548
Item Level: 62
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+60% Increased Attack Speed
236% Enhanced Damage
+150% Damage to Undead
Heal Stamina Plus 25%
Required Level +5
Requirements -50%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Oath (clvl 54-59)
Decapitator
ShaelPulMalLum
Two Hand Damage: 314 - 883
Durability: 21 of 21
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 179
Required Dexterity: 23
Fingerprint: 0xe25df075
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
30% Chance to cast level 20 Bone Spirit on striking
Indestructible
+50% Increased Attack Speed
331% Enhanced Damage
+75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Prevent Monster Heal
+10 to Energy
+14 Magic Absorb
Level 16 Heart of Wolverine (20/20 Charges)
Level 17 Iron Golem (14/14 Charges)
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Pul Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune

As noted, he was difficult to play with all of his running around - I imagine perhaps only a Leap Attack barb is more tedious. Tight corridors or even open areas with lots of obstructions that could stop a Charge were a pain, and he used Zeal more than I would have liked him to. And his AR for Zeal was half of what it Charge was. If his damage wasn't so high, it would have been painful. But he was incredibly fun as a result of his huge damage.

Basic strategy was to Charge in, and and then if there was a baddie far enough away, ping-pong between the two until both area dead. Other times, charge in, back out (causing me to take damage), and then repeat. Other times, charge in, then start zealing away. In any case, the Glacial Spike from Death did a decent job freezing monsters, and it is the only thing that could be called crowd control. I could have put a Delerium on my merc, but I decided against it because I needed the Decrep to deal with PI's. They were few and in select areas, so perhaps it was unnecessary.

Lister was the hardest individual fight, as he spawned Mana Burn and Fanat. He crushed the merc almost instantly, I had to draw them out almost to the stairs and tank lister one-on-one via the Charge!/Run away! strategy noted above, finally zealing him to death adjacent to the Throne's stairs. Ancients spawned with benign mods - I was only worried about Might/Fanat/Cursed, and none of those spawned.

Some areas were of particular difficulty, as noted in the list above. PI's were a problem due to the /p setting (8, the whole way) and anything that was immune to knock-back was tedious and turned me to a zealot on steroids but without the finesse. With limitations: Act bosses; Griswold; Ancients; Izual. That said, the CB in NM from clvl 60 on (100%) or even in hell (65% CB) from the equipment cut down most act bosses very, very, quickly.

As noted, he was extremely fragile even with 1,900 life. No deaths in Durance, but I had to run and run and run while the merc picked off the Dolls. I don't ever recall seeing the Chilling Armor from Fort kicking out so many ice bolts back at baddies. Elemental damage from archers took a toll, and heavy hitting melee monsters caused the life bulb to bounce up and down. Playing the Tunnels in A5 Hell was a lesson is "go slow, one step at a time, not too many baddies at once." Thankfully, I never met a boss pack of Frenytaurs. It just was a nice reminder of how much harder Hell was made post v1.10.

Only one death, in A1 Hell in the Smith's area to some goatmen that cursed me and then whack whack whack "you have died."

I had planned to use the eDeath on a 2H Zealot, but after experiencing this, I'll pass; I've had enough of zealots w/o shields (and I'm not going to re-make this guy or run WSK/Baal/etc. just to prove I could with same skill set, but using Grief PB + Phoenix), and so he is going to be put out to pasture and used for his socket quests, and then retired. I never re-spec'd him, so he has those three as well.

Full dump:

Name: HolyHighlander
Class: Paladin
Experience: 1293119842
Level: 87

Naked/Gear
Strength: 267/279
Dexterity: 46/71
Vitality: 202/202
Energy: 15/15
HP: 818/1215
Mana: 144/184
Stamina: 352/372
Defense: 11/2284
AR: 215/28497

Fire: 157/117/57
Cold: 107/67/7
Lightning: 150/110/50
Poison: 137/97/37

MF: 0 Block: 9
GF: 0
FR/W: 30
FHR: 20
IAS: 55
FCR: 25

Sacrifice: 1/2
Smite: 1/2
Holy Bolt: 0/0
Zeal: 4/5
Charge: 20/21
Vengeance: 0/0
Blessed Hammer: 0/0
Conversion: 0/0
Holy Shield: 0/0
Fist of the Heavens: 0/0

Might: 20/21
Holy Fire: 0/0
Thorns: 0/0
Blessed Aim: 7/8
Concentration: 1/2
Holy Freeze: 0/0
Holy Shock: 0/0
Sanctuary: 0/0
Fanaticism: 20/21
Conviction: 0/0

Prayer: 1/2
Resist Fire: 0/0
Defiance: 1/2
Resist Cold: 0/0
Cleansing: 1/2
Resist Lightning: 0/0
Vigor: 20/21
Meditation: 0/0
Redemption: 1/2
Salvation: 0/0

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x29040225
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+15 to Attack Rating
+20 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x2adffbc1
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating
+15 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x9c65ab04
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+11 to Attack Rating
+13 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x8ebc4cd0
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+12 to Attack Rating
+13 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Life
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x5cfa71bb
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
+10 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Life
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x6230a5bd
Item Level: 47
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+15 to Attack Rating
+10 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x9dcdc3e6
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+7 to Maximum Damage
+72 to Attack Rating
+33 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x4488f121
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+66 to Attack Rating
+27 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0xf25337f1
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+56 to Attack Rating
+29 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x21438d05
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+69 to Attack Rating
+31 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0xa33918cf
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+55 to Attack Rating
+33 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x33f50bdc
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+66 to Attack Rating
+33 to Life

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x9848b7c9
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Increased Attack Speed
Adds 1 - 30 Lightning Damage
32% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
Lightning Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x2a632a50
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+244 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 103
Durability: 16 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x5fb3c8c
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Life stolen per hit
+153% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 14%
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
+10 Maximum Durability

Gore Rider
War Boots
Defense: 160
Durability: 26 of 34
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 94
Fingerprint: 0x6efef228
Item Level: 99
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Run/Walk
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
10% Chance of Open Wounds
+198% Enhanced Defense
+20 Maximum Stamina
Requirements -25%
+10 Maximum Durability

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 87
Durability: 3 of 12
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x94a3793
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 3 Holy Bolt on striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+350% Damage to Demons
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%

Order Band
Ring
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0xcfd0f0a5
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+70 to Attack Rating
8% Life stolen per hit
All Resistances +10
Poison Resist +30%
Damage Reduced by 1
Magic Damage Reduced by 2

Sharp Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xa91174d8
Item Level: 53
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+61 to Attack Rating
+5 to Dexterity

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x1678c0d0
Item Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x92c901b2
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength

Sharp Grand Charm of Strength
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x9428e978
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+60 to Attack Rating
+6 to Strength

Fortitude
Superior Archon Plate
ElSolDolLo
Defense: 1626
Durability: 68 of 69
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0x7fa9bdd0
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Chance to cast level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
300% Enhanced Damage
+207% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+119 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +28
Damage Reduced by 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 to Light Radius
Increase Maximum Durability 15%
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Lo Rune

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x1f699748
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+17 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength

Coral Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x57dfb81b
Item Level: 66
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+11 to Life
Lightning Resist +8%

Kira's Guardian
Tiara
Defense: 152
Durability: 14 of 25
Required Level: 77
Fingerprint: 0xc7b99e5
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+108 Defense
All Resistances +69
Cannot Be Frozen
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor

Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xc9d51cd8
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed

Crown of Ages
Corona
Defense: 363
Durability: 31 of 50
Required Level: 82
Required Strength: 174
Fingerprint: 0x63f4dac3
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+1 to All Skills
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+50% Enhanced Defense
+114 Defense
All Resistances +30
Damage Reduced by 15%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor

Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x3bb2e7d1
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed

Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
AmnRalMalIstOhm
One Hand Damage: 17 - 53
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xbdb5eeed
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
254% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 to Battle Command
+6 to Battle Orders
+3 to Battle Cry
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Ist Rune
Socketed: Ohm Rune

Spirit
Sacred Rondache
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 139
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 68 of 68
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 109
Fingerprint: 0x2d777ec9
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+91 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
All Resistances +42
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+3 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Death
Colossus Sword
HelElVexOrtGul
One Hand Damage: 202 - 546
Two Hand Damage: 473 - 941
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 60
Required Strength: 138
Required Dexterity: 68
Fingerprint: 0x7bd14795
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion
100% Chance to cast level 44 Chain Lightning when you Die
25% Chance to cast level 18 Glacial Spike on attack
Indestructible
420% Enhanced Damage
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+50 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
7% Mana stolen per hit
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
43% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
+1 to Light Radius
Level 22 Blood Golem (15/15 Charges)
Requirements -20%
Ethereal
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Vex Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Gul Rune

Mercenary:

Name: Alhizeer
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 79949330
Level: 87
Dead?: false

Naked/Gear
Strength: 190/205
Dexterity: 153/153
HP: 1847/1966
Defense: 1359/5023
AR: 1937/1937

Fire: 179/139/79
Cold: 179/139/79
Lightning: 179/139/79
Poison: 179/139/79

Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 28 of 40
Required Level: 67
Required Strength: 115
Fingerprint: 0xd0f780cd
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength
Cannot Be Frozen
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Cham Rune


Fortitude
Archon Plate
ElSolDolLo
Defense: 3447
Durability: 31 of 31
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 93
Fingerprint: 0x9d1c1ccd
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Chance to cast level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
300% Enhanced Damage
+200% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+119 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +28
Damage Reduced by 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 to Light Radius
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Lo Rune

The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 59 - 696
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 107
Required Dexterity: 81
Fingerprint: 0x5d0f12d6
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking
230% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
Adds 4 - 44 Cold Damage Over 0 Secs (10 Frames)
11% Life stolen per hit
20% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ber Rune

Finds were generally terrible due to me running almost the entire game with 0% MF (the lone exception being a chunk in normal and NM where I was using War Travs, but I picked up two skillers of life in quick succession in A4 Hell that made up for it. The first is a new toy for my clvl 98 java.
Harpoonist's Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x131471e6
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)
+39 to Life

Sparking Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0xabf69fd4
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Lightning Skills (Sorceress Only)
+34 to Life

Cheers!
1588002128953.png
 
Originally posted by @Cyrax on Dec 14, 2009:

Patriarch NoPain (charger abbot)

It's been a while since my latest pat/mat so i thought it was about time to get another one. Still had a char parked in early hell which was a rebuild of another char (changed my mind about gear and i'm a perfectionist so a rebuild was in order). Still in 1.12 but even if it were 1.13 i would've gone with a rebuild instead of respecing the char. But more on topic: i hate unfinished business so the choice was obvious. That char had to be taken through hell.

Thus i present to you: patriarch NoPain. He's a charger abbot. Since i like the idea of building chars that don't take any damage (or close to it) it was i build i had to try. For another build of mine that doesn't take much damage (most of the time) see matriarch energetic in the stickies. But for now lets stick with NoPain and go see the stats.

Lvl 85

str - 136 (141)
dex - 20 (50)
vit - 289 (294)
ene - 15 (20)

unspend - 60

life - 1136
mana - 208

resists (F/C/L/P): 51/37/68/63

skills:
20 prayer, vigor, might and charge
1 in pre-reqs, cleansing, redemption (hardly used), salvation (also hardly used, but useful sometimes)
spare points in blessed aim (10 so far)

Damage with might: ~5.8-6.7K
Without might: ~5.1-5.9K
AR: 3030

Gear:

resist all/DR amu (29/22)
DR circlet (38)
Insight archon staff (switch weapon: the gavel of pain (/w hel))
The gladiator's bane (/w sol; 27 DR)
crafted gauntlets (2 DR)
nightsmoke (2 DR)
crafted boots (2 DR)
nature's peace (10 DR)
ravenfrost (18 dex, 218 AR)

5x defensive GC (all with minor mods)
3x resist all GC (2x 15, 1x 14)

Gear readouts:
Code:
Chromatic Amulet of Life Everlasting
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xaa70e10a
Damage Reduced by 22
All Resistances +29

Circlet of Life Everlasting
'SolSol'
Defense: 20
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xeca481e5
Damage Reduced by 38
Socketed (2: 2 used)

Insight
Archon Staff
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 301 to 349
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Strength: 34
Required Level: 66
Staff Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x4b6b5327
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+253% 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
+1 to Thunder Storm (Sorceress Only)
+1 to Fire Wall (Sorceress Only)
184% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 13 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

The Gladiator's Bane
Wire Fleece
'Sol'
Defense: 1279
Durability: 135 of 135
Required Strength: 111
Required Level: 85
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xd70ec86e
+155% Enhanced Defense
+50 Defense
Damage Reduced by 27
Magic Damage Reduced by 16
+103 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 20
30% Faster Hit Recovery
Poison Length Reduced by 50%
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Dire Grip
War Gauntlets
Defense: 90
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 36
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x5a5a89d6
+64% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 2
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Cold Resist +9%
Poison Resist +13%
9% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Half Freeze Duration

Nightsmoke
Mesh Belt
Defense: 71
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 30
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x6bb7f956
+20 to Mana
+45% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 2
All Resistances +10
Required Level +5
50% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

Nature's Peace
Ring
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x8e5d5cb
Damage Reduced by 10
Poison Resist +23%
Slain Monsters Rest In Peace
Prevent Monster Heal
Level 5 Oak Sage (27/27 Charges)

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x4851743b
+18 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+218 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Stone Nails
War Boots
Defense: 59
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 125
Required Level: 48
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 97
Fingerprint: 0xde0eb3bd
+5 to Dexterity
+10% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 2
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +5%
Lightning Resist +32%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

The Gavel of Pain
Martel de Fer
'Hel'
Two-Hand Damage: 169 to 285
Required Strength: 135
Required Level: 45
Mace Class - Slow Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x6ff911ce
+158% Enhanced Damage
+12 to Minimum Damage
+30 to Maximum Damage
Attacker Takes Damage of 26
Requirements -20%
150% Damage to Undead
Indestructible
5% Chance to cast Level 1 Amplify Damage on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 1 Iron Maiden when struck
Level 8 Amplify Damage (3/3 Charges)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

The merc: Since i was using might most of the time that wasn't an option. So HF it was. He was dressed up with duriel's shell, vamp gaze and obedience in an eth cryptic axe.

The story behind the hero:

Let's start with some of the choices i made. Originally i was in the process of making an abbot with an insight cryptic axe. That was because i didn't expect to find an archon staff with the proper amount of sockets anytime soon. I was wrong. That's why i had the rebuild. With an archon staff less statpoints were needed in str and dex. So more could go to vita.

One of my other choices made it so that i couldn't take full advantage of that. That choice was to use a gavel of pain on switch. Even hel'ed it required a lot more strenght than my second highest required str (111 from glad bane). But it was i choice i was very happy with. With this build all the damage is physical. So either i had to get a backup damage (= less regular damage) or i could remove physical immunity by using amp charges. I choose the latter and as said i never regretted that.

Why the 60 unspend statpoints you say? That's because of a dilemma i'm in. The current AR isn't all that great. On the other hand i'd like to replace the ravenfrost with another nature's peace for more DR (CBF already on glad bane). Problem is i'd lose a lot of dex and AR. So i'm not sure whether i should pour those points in dex to get that up. Or that it's just not worth it and i should toss them in vita and keep the ravenfrost. Maybe someone here can give me some advice on the subject.

Let's go to the gameplay part now. As i said somewhere at the start of this post. This char had been parked for quite a while. That's why i don't remember too much of normal and NM. As far as i can remember it wasn't too difficult since you get a powerfull attack early on. And from lvl 27 you can carry an insight stick so healing get's up. And damage too ofc. since insight is powerfull that early on. I do regret the 1 point spent in redemption however. Early on it comes in handy, but once you put on a nature's peace then there isn't too much to redeme anymore. And as you're healing all the time just by carrying insight it's kinda overdone. The one point in salvation however does come in handy, but more on that later.

So let's take it from where i restarted which is somewhere in Hell act I. Didn't have much trouble there. Easy going except for the occasional PI. But i had the solution for that on switch. Andy went down very easy. Didn't even have to go back to get the merc healed up. I did switch from might to cleansing just to be safe.
Act II also pretty much a walkthrough. Only trouble there was the arcane sanctuary with all it's PI's and some more in tal's tomb. But the trouble mostly existed from the high repaircosts of the frequent use of charges. Also the lack of decent AR began to be noticable. Very annoying knocking an enemy back an entire screen but still at full health because i didn't land a hit.
Act III also uneventfull. Just as act IV. The latter did take a while though. Got spawners in more then one aerea there. Not too good on the merc either. Eventually i muled on some cash because i was starting to run out. CS pretty easy. Draw back the monsters so IM couldn't be cast. A big bonus here was that my merc was 'invisible' to the monsters. They came straight for me and while going after me the merc picked of most of them. So he had a pretty easy time for the largest part. I say for the largest part because after opening and clearing 2 seals i got IM'd and because of the range of the spell so was the merc. So he got killed and after resurrecting him the monsters could see him again. That made it tougher for him. Luckily i was through for the largest part already. Oh yeah and the forge was a mal. Not the best it can drop, but much better than i'm used to. So i was very happy with it.
Act V. Went through it easily. Until i found the ancients way. There i stopped for a moment. I was still wearing a skin of the vipermagi, but wanted to finish the game in my final gear. Lvl 85 for glad bane was still a while away (i was 80 IIRC). So decided to run the AT for a bit. Very doable, but sometimes i really had to watch out not to get killed. Merc got whacked on a regular basis. Here's also where the point in salvation came in handy. Sometimes encountered those horrormages with a convictionaura. Nice opportunity to boost those resists.
After reaching 85 and equipping glad bane i went back to the ancients way. Got those minotaurguys there. When careful i could take them, until i hit an extrafast pack. They shredded the merc. I decided not to take them out because it would take a lot of merc ressurections. So charged past them. Still had a lot of trouble ditching them. Partly because of corners in the playingfield, but also opponents blocking my way (spearwomen mostly). And as said they were extra fast.
Finally got where i needed to be: the restingplace of the ancients. Expected a pretty easy fight since i had a lot of DR. I was wrong. First try they nearly took me out by surprise and killed the merc in seconds. Worst part was that it actually was a good spawn. So i saw dark clouds rising above my head. Second try one of them took a decent chunk away from my health (about a third of my life) and straight after that i was dead. Don't know what could take away that much life away while having that much DR, but i was dead nonetheless. My best guess would be that the thrower was FE since he already does some good damage. Several attempts later i finally got to split them up before they killed my merc and then it was just a matter of time before they went down (only 1 full juvie used in the entire fight). After that the WSK. Lvl 1 was easy. Lvl 2 a totally different story. Encountered black souls. Bosspack, FE and LE. That hurt. Even with pretty good resists. Several NDE's, only avoided by quickly using full juvies. Ok, now it get's easier i think after taking them out. Wrong. Regular souls hurt just as much. Glad i finally made it to the WP. After that lvl 3. OK's also great fun. But being carefull helps so only the merc died once or twice there. Baal's waves were easy. Baal himself proved to be very annoying. Just him was ok, but he cloned himself and they both constantly targeted the merc. So lots of trips to heal him or ressurect if i was to late. Finally got the clone down. Was still trying to determine where Baal himself was (not on my screen anyways) and before i found him, he cloned himself once more. Took me about a full book of tp's, but in the end he fell.

Overall i liked the idea of playing him, but the result was a bit disappointing. He took more damage then expected (both regular and elemental). And also adding to the annoyancefactor were 2 gameplayissue's. The first is pretty wellknown here. The freezeing in midcharge. The second i did not know, but quite often when trying to move (either in or out of danger) he got stuck. I don't mean like with charge, but you see the char running on the spot. He's just not getting anywhere. Happened a little too often for my taste. So all in all it was a small letdown for me. I have read i guide of a barb somewhere that also tried not to take any damage, so maybe i'll try that someday to see if that works out better. For now i hope you've enjoyed the read on this one.
 
Originally posted by Doctor Clock on Nov 21, 2011:

Patriarch Calm

"And they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them," J.R.R.Tolkien, The Return of the King.



Patriarch Calm

Level 83 Harmonious Tesla Mage

Stats:

Strength: 111
Dexterity: 129
Vitality: 280
Energy: 20

Life: 1178

Damage: 390-9211

Resistances: 75/46/85/42

Skills:

20 (24) Resist Lightnig
20 (24) Salvation
20 (29) Holy Shock
20 (24) Fist of the Heavens
4 (14) Blessed Aim

1pt Pre-reqs


Items:

Head: Griffon's Eye (15% IAS Jewel)
Neck: Mara's Kaleidoscope
Weapon 1: Harmony Blade Bow
Weapon 2: Heart of the Oak Flail//Spirit Rodanche
Chest: Trang-Oul's Scales (15% IAS Jewel)
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws
Ring 1: Shadow Spiral rare (7%LL//30%LR//26%PR)
Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth
Ring 2: The Stone of Jordan
Boots: Dread Spur rare (20%FRW//30%LR//36%FR//21%MF)

Backpack: 5 Captain's Grand Charms and assorted resistance/life charms


Mercenary:

Emilio Act 2 Nightmare Defensive

Head: Vampire Gaze
Weapon: Infinity Thresher
Chest: Treachery Wire Fleece

Ramblings

This character's general idea was built around the runeword Harmony. The name of the bow and the character fit well together and the bow's stats are really what made the character work.

I had attempted a ranger some time ago, but he ran into several problems along the way; one of which was getting swarmed by enemies. Summon Valkyrie from Harmony solved that problem quite handily. Even if my moron ran off somewhere or couldn't hold aggro, I could always rely on my Nordic war-angel to pick up the slack, and I felt safe traveling through Sanctuary with her at my side.

A second issue my first ranger had was kiting. He just moved too slow, and a slow archer is a dead archer. Again, Harmony provided a solution: level 10 Vigor. Constant Vigor in addition to FRW from gear meant Calm was always quick but never in a hurry. I was able to move swiftly out of danger, and rain arrows and Fists of the Heavens upon my foes from afar.

I decided to throw in 3-piece Trangs because I though Firewall would be fun to play with and that it would look cool. I was correct on both counts. It provides some decent AoE damage on a character that is sorely lacking, but it was mostly for show. However, I think the golden armor fits the character nicely.

Gameplay was pretty straightforward. Shoot things, plop down a Firewall if there are lots of baddies, re-summon Valk if she dies/needs repositioning. Other than that, there was a good deal of baiting and luring enemies into funneled chokes as much as possible, but most fights were fairly easy. The only difficulties he encountered were the ancients and Baal's Minions of Destruction. Even then, it was mostly a matter of patience than anything else.

No significant finds along the way. No deaths. Hellforge was a Lem or something terrible.

Thanks for reading.
 
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