- Feb 24, 2004
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Originally posted by colony on Aug 11, 2009:
Matriarch Iazla - Vengeance Sorc
Warning: Giant wall of text incoming, scroll to the bottom for a summery.
Been working on this character for a while now; over a year in fact. I originally made Kingslayer last year with the intention of making a Vengeance sorc, but I never really got round to getting anywhere and ended up leaving it at the end of normal. I was reminded of it a few weeks ago when looking through my characters and decided it was time to do something about finishing off the build. Now the MFO's over I had the time to get the last half of Hell done.
Normal was fairly standard, run around with a 1.09 Racenclaw blowing up screenfuls of monsters, putting points in Enchant when I was able to. At level 33 I switched to a Kuko to help deal with the rest of Act 5. As always the piercing was a great help and with the added damage from Enchant everything except the last 2 waves of Baal's minions went down very quickly, showing what lay in wait for me later in the game. I moved on to NM at level 40, adding points in Enchant and Warmth as I went. Monsters were still dying quickly, but not quite as fast as before, so I was quite glad when I got to Act 3, hit level 54 and could use Kingslayer; except I then realised I'd forgotten to mule on a shield to use until I got to a high enough level for Sanctuary to be available, so I stuck with the exploding bungee cord for a bit longer.
I'd changed 1 or 2 items as I'd levelled, but at level 57 I could finally use my Sanctuary Troll Nest, so I'll summarise them here, as just about all the
items changed then. Off went the Kuko, Twitchthroe, Death's set items and so on, on came a lot of new things. Not all were endgame items, but a few were, so they'll be first on the list:
Kingslayer PB - Kingslayer for obvious reasons, but I'm not too sure why I made it in a PB. My train of thought probably went along the lines of: "Lots of good RWs are made in PBs, Vengeance is a slow attack so will need lots of IAS, therefore a PB would be a great choice." A Cryptic Sword, Berserker Axe or Conquest Sword would've all done more damage but would've needed much more IAS to reach a 10 frame Vengeance, leaving a lot less choice in item selection. A Cryptic Sword might've been the best compromise, only 69 off weapon IAS needed, as opposed to 18 for the PB and 108 for a zerker, with an average damage not much lower than the zerker.
Sanctuary Troll Nest - I needed lots of resists from somewhere and a shield with a low strength requirement and good blocking. I considered Whitstan's, but after adding up the resists from my other items decided against it. An upgraded Moser's was another option that'd give 1 frame faster blocking, but also make it much more difficult to reach a decent FHR breakpoint.
Raven Frost - CBF and AR, needed to get it from somewhere. The Dex points were obviously useful too.
Duress Dusk Shroud - Lots of FHR, some resists, and a bit of CB.
Gore Rider - More CB
Weapon switch - Beta CtA/Sigon's Guard
I'd also muled on the IK Belt and Gloves for the massive stat bonuses to help equip a lot of this stuff, as well as a Crown of Thieves. The Angelic amulet and Ring I'd put on at the start were kept on for now. After I'd put all this stuff on the displayed damage looked quite nice, but almost all of it was fire damage from Enchant at this stage. I moved onto Act 4 NM and things were still dying in 1 hit, except for Venom Lords and Doom Knights that took a while to kill. The CS wasn't too bad as I'd given my merc some decent items to use to deal with the FIs and heavily resistant monsters. At level 65 I put on a Highlord's for the IAS. Act 5 was similar to Act 4, but without the FIs, until I got to Baal and it took me about 10 minutes to kill the Venom Lords and Minions. I levelled up to 73 before starting Hell and it was time to mule the rest of the endgame items on, even though I couldn't use them yet:
Verdungo's - Much needed life and FHR
Dracul's - Strength and tap, which saved me several times, despite not being very reliable with the low CtC
Andariel's - To replace the IAS lost when taking off Highlord's and to add some +all skills for Vengeance damage
Rare ring - Fire res, Light res, AR
Mara's - To keep my resists respectable in the later stages of Hell and add more +all skills
I also put a beta CM Thresher on my merc to help increase the killing speed. Early hell felt like late NM with a lot more FIs thrown in. They still died slowly, but between static, CB, my merc and accounting for the fact it was p8 the speed was acceptable. The large amount of OW I had also come in handy a couple of times for stopping some of the tougher FIs regenerating. I did notice that I was starting to have to play a bit more carefully, the monsters were now damaging enough to put into hit recovery fairly often, so teleporting into the middle of a boss pack and attacking everything didn't work too well. Block lock was a bit of an issue, but I managed to avoid it most of the time with a bit of teleporting. Most of my inventory was filled with fire skillers but I played around a bit and got some SCs with lightning damage in there to try and take advantage of the high level LM. In a way it did make a significant difference, FIs were slightly less of a problem, but the strong ones still took a while to kill.
I finished off Act 3 on p8 and moved onto Act 4. I managed to do everything up to the Chaos Sanctuary on p8, but had to switch down to p5 to deal with all the FIs there, although I still wasn't in too much danger of dying. With all the CB and Static around Diablo died very quickly, so it was time for Act 5, which started off well enough, but quickly became very annoying. The massive numbers of projectiles caused some serious issues with block lock, which was dangerous as well as incredibly irritating, although my only 2 deaths in Hell weren't caused by that. 1 was due to a Champion Claw Viper charging me whilst Amp'ed, killing me in 1 hit, the other was caused by Souls with Conviction. I'd switched down to p3 by the Crystalline Passage to speed things up a bit, I was getting frustrated and just wanted to finish things off quickly. The Ancients were simple once I'd rerolled to get only 1 FI one, Baal and his minions weren't much tougher either. One thing that became very important as I got further into the game was proper positioning with Teleport and making sure I took advantage of the minion stack with my merc, in order to avoid the problems with block lock and stun lock. It worked to an extent, but I still had problems with a lot of the strong melee monsters.
Skills:
20 Enchant/FM/Warmth
20 LM
1 in Static, Teleport CM and prerequisites.
Rest (6) in Chilling Armour
Stats (LCS):
Str: 81/136
Dex: 174/228
Vit: 225/268
Energy: 35/40
Life: 1464
86 FHR
Items:
Andariel's Visage (should've put a Ral in it, but it didn't matter in the end)
Mara's
Duress Dusk Shroud
Kingslayer PB
Sanctuary Troll Nest
Dracul's Grasp
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Gore Rider's
Rave Frost
Rare ring - 119 AR, 23 Fire res, 30 Light res, 7 LL, 4 dex
Charms: Various Lightning damage SCs, Res/FHR SCs, Res/Life SCs and 7 Fire skillers.
Merc: Beta Crescent Moon Thresher, Treachery Dusk Shroud, Tal's Mask
Damage breakdown (with Might):
Physical - 214-242
Fire - 9903-11648
Lightning - 508-2255
Cold - 131-179
Crushing Blow - 48%
Overall it was an interesting character that was a bit different to normal, as well as being the first purely PvM build I've made for years. It also means I now have a character with a decent level of Enchant for levelling new characters quickly. Using a 2 handed weapon would've removed the problems with block lock, but would've led to needing much more life to compensate for not having max block, so it might be an good build to try, and I know a few people have done. I'm not an enormous fan of single target melee attacks which probably contributed to me getting a bit bored at the end, despite anything not FI dying in a couple of hits at most, even on p8. Even with quite a few lightning damage SCs FIs still died far more slowly. The beta CM helped a lot there, most large groups of FIs were at half health very quickly, and the CB helped , but certain areas of Hell were still very slow to get through.
Matriarch Iazla - Vengeance Sorc
Warning: Giant wall of text incoming, scroll to the bottom for a summery.
Been working on this character for a while now; over a year in fact. I originally made Kingslayer last year with the intention of making a Vengeance sorc, but I never really got round to getting anywhere and ended up leaving it at the end of normal. I was reminded of it a few weeks ago when looking through my characters and decided it was time to do something about finishing off the build. Now the MFO's over I had the time to get the last half of Hell done.
Normal was fairly standard, run around with a 1.09 Racenclaw blowing up screenfuls of monsters, putting points in Enchant when I was able to. At level 33 I switched to a Kuko to help deal with the rest of Act 5. As always the piercing was a great help and with the added damage from Enchant everything except the last 2 waves of Baal's minions went down very quickly, showing what lay in wait for me later in the game. I moved on to NM at level 40, adding points in Enchant and Warmth as I went. Monsters were still dying quickly, but not quite as fast as before, so I was quite glad when I got to Act 3, hit level 54 and could use Kingslayer; except I then realised I'd forgotten to mule on a shield to use until I got to a high enough level for Sanctuary to be available, so I stuck with the exploding bungee cord for a bit longer.
I'd changed 1 or 2 items as I'd levelled, but at level 57 I could finally use my Sanctuary Troll Nest, so I'll summarise them here, as just about all the
items changed then. Off went the Kuko, Twitchthroe, Death's set items and so on, on came a lot of new things. Not all were endgame items, but a few were, so they'll be first on the list:
Kingslayer PB - Kingslayer for obvious reasons, but I'm not too sure why I made it in a PB. My train of thought probably went along the lines of: "Lots of good RWs are made in PBs, Vengeance is a slow attack so will need lots of IAS, therefore a PB would be a great choice." A Cryptic Sword, Berserker Axe or Conquest Sword would've all done more damage but would've needed much more IAS to reach a 10 frame Vengeance, leaving a lot less choice in item selection. A Cryptic Sword might've been the best compromise, only 69 off weapon IAS needed, as opposed to 18 for the PB and 108 for a zerker, with an average damage not much lower than the zerker.
Sanctuary Troll Nest - I needed lots of resists from somewhere and a shield with a low strength requirement and good blocking. I considered Whitstan's, but after adding up the resists from my other items decided against it. An upgraded Moser's was another option that'd give 1 frame faster blocking, but also make it much more difficult to reach a decent FHR breakpoint.
Raven Frost - CBF and AR, needed to get it from somewhere. The Dex points were obviously useful too.
Duress Dusk Shroud - Lots of FHR, some resists, and a bit of CB.
Gore Rider - More CB
Weapon switch - Beta CtA/Sigon's Guard
I'd also muled on the IK Belt and Gloves for the massive stat bonuses to help equip a lot of this stuff, as well as a Crown of Thieves. The Angelic amulet and Ring I'd put on at the start were kept on for now. After I'd put all this stuff on the displayed damage looked quite nice, but almost all of it was fire damage from Enchant at this stage. I moved onto Act 4 NM and things were still dying in 1 hit, except for Venom Lords and Doom Knights that took a while to kill. The CS wasn't too bad as I'd given my merc some decent items to use to deal with the FIs and heavily resistant monsters. At level 65 I put on a Highlord's for the IAS. Act 5 was similar to Act 4, but without the FIs, until I got to Baal and it took me about 10 minutes to kill the Venom Lords and Minions. I levelled up to 73 before starting Hell and it was time to mule the rest of the endgame items on, even though I couldn't use them yet:
Verdungo's - Much needed life and FHR
Dracul's - Strength and tap, which saved me several times, despite not being very reliable with the low CtC
Andariel's - To replace the IAS lost when taking off Highlord's and to add some +all skills for Vengeance damage
Rare ring - Fire res, Light res, AR
Mara's - To keep my resists respectable in the later stages of Hell and add more +all skills
I also put a beta CM Thresher on my merc to help increase the killing speed. Early hell felt like late NM with a lot more FIs thrown in. They still died slowly, but between static, CB, my merc and accounting for the fact it was p8 the speed was acceptable. The large amount of OW I had also come in handy a couple of times for stopping some of the tougher FIs regenerating. I did notice that I was starting to have to play a bit more carefully, the monsters were now damaging enough to put into hit recovery fairly often, so teleporting into the middle of a boss pack and attacking everything didn't work too well. Block lock was a bit of an issue, but I managed to avoid it most of the time with a bit of teleporting. Most of my inventory was filled with fire skillers but I played around a bit and got some SCs with lightning damage in there to try and take advantage of the high level LM. In a way it did make a significant difference, FIs were slightly less of a problem, but the strong ones still took a while to kill.
I finished off Act 3 on p8 and moved onto Act 4. I managed to do everything up to the Chaos Sanctuary on p8, but had to switch down to p5 to deal with all the FIs there, although I still wasn't in too much danger of dying. With all the CB and Static around Diablo died very quickly, so it was time for Act 5, which started off well enough, but quickly became very annoying. The massive numbers of projectiles caused some serious issues with block lock, which was dangerous as well as incredibly irritating, although my only 2 deaths in Hell weren't caused by that. 1 was due to a Champion Claw Viper charging me whilst Amp'ed, killing me in 1 hit, the other was caused by Souls with Conviction. I'd switched down to p3 by the Crystalline Passage to speed things up a bit, I was getting frustrated and just wanted to finish things off quickly. The Ancients were simple once I'd rerolled to get only 1 FI one, Baal and his minions weren't much tougher either. One thing that became very important as I got further into the game was proper positioning with Teleport and making sure I took advantage of the minion stack with my merc, in order to avoid the problems with block lock and stun lock. It worked to an extent, but I still had problems with a lot of the strong melee monsters.
Skills:
20 Enchant/FM/Warmth
20 LM
1 in Static, Teleport CM and prerequisites.
Rest (6) in Chilling Armour
Stats (LCS):
Str: 81/136
Dex: 174/228
Vit: 225/268
Energy: 35/40
Life: 1464
86 FHR
Items:
Andariel's Visage (should've put a Ral in it, but it didn't matter in the end)
Mara's
Duress Dusk Shroud
Kingslayer PB
Sanctuary Troll Nest
Dracul's Grasp
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Gore Rider's
Rave Frost
Rare ring - 119 AR, 23 Fire res, 30 Light res, 7 LL, 4 dex
Charms: Various Lightning damage SCs, Res/FHR SCs, Res/Life SCs and 7 Fire skillers.
Merc: Beta Crescent Moon Thresher, Treachery Dusk Shroud, Tal's Mask
Damage breakdown (with Might):
Physical - 214-242
Fire - 9903-11648
Lightning - 508-2255
Cold - 131-179
Crushing Blow - 48%
Overall it was an interesting character that was a bit different to normal, as well as being the first purely PvM build I've made for years. It also means I now have a character with a decent level of Enchant for levelling new characters quickly. Using a 2 handed weapon would've removed the problems with block lock, but would've led to needing much more life to compensate for not having max block, so it might be an good build to try, and I know a few people have done. I'm not an enormous fan of single target melee attacks which probably contributed to me getting a bit bored at the end, despite anything not FI dying in a couple of hits at most, even on p8. Even with quite a few lightning damage SCs FIs still died far more slowly. The beta CM helped a lot there, most large groups of FIs were at half health very quickly, and the CB helped , but certain areas of Hell were still very slow to get through.