Patriarch Magus - Auradin

[NorthDakota]

I hate that grief is an item in the game, simply because it's so vastly better damage wise than anything else for almost any melee character. And it's ridiculously cheap. So many other weapons are fairly close to each other damage wise but offer different utility. If grief weren't an option then yeah melee characters would be even weaker than those heavy hitting spellcasting/lightning characters, but at least you'd have a decision to make.

 

[PhineasB1]

@Dazliare I was actually thinking of A2 might merc with Reaper's/eTomby and keeping the pally with Conviction. I have some nice 20 IAS blood gloves to choose from, and I don't think extra speed from fanaticism will be necessary to hit fastest IAS with Grief. Enigma will also up the damage, and Gore Riders could be used, but likely not necessary.

But I hadn't really gotten too far into that planning phase, instead planning first to push him at least one more level but maybe two with an A2 might merc replacing the A3 cold merc, and current build but stronger gear replacing ctc gear. And I haven't even gotten to that yet

Edit: And I also wanted to have some fun with the Doom and Last Wish that I made after Phaedrus hit 99. But I still think the Grief variant will be strongest option, as I think @ffs found with a dual dream pally.

 

[Grape1]

That Caduceus! Such a cool way to put HoJ into use!

Nice char overall!

 

[NorthDakota]

Thank you @Grape!

@PhineasB - So I tried out the dual dream w/ grief for fun. I tried fanat instead of conviction though. I guess I thought it'd be basically the same as just a regular zealer, but with an extra level 30 lightning aura and no guillame's. I had to see for myself

Here's the setup I tried:

Hat: Dream
Shield: Dream
Body: Fortitude
Weapon: Grief PB
Gloves: 20ias whatever
Belt: String
Boots: Wartravs/gores
Rings: Ravenfrost/dual leech
Ammy: Highlord's

and over +100 max damage worth of 1.07 charms.

A2 Might Merc
Weapon: Infinity
Body: Treachery/fort
Head: Andys

Basically I ran maxed Fanat, Zeal, Sacrifice, Resist Lightning, and Sanc. So Conviction from merc, Fanat on me, and Holy lightning from Dream. I dunno, I guess I thought most my damage has got to be phys damage running with all that +% from all them skills and fort. Anyways, blew all my tokens tweaking this setup and ran out before trying running conviction on me and a reaper's might merc.


I was quite surprised to find it MUCH weaker than my originally posted full aura set up. For comparison, I did 5 runs of /p8 wsk lvls 2&3 on the dual dream/grief setup, and 5 runs with the full auradin afterwards. Yeah, the difference was huge. Full Aura setup felt about 50% stronger. That's not a scientific measure of course, but like, when I switched back to the full aura setup I was surprised by how much stronger it was, it was VERY noticeably faster, killing stuff in 2-3 hits where the grief was taking 4 or 5. The grief setup also struggled with mob immunities/resistances more and slowed down my runs significantly, whereas the HoJ aura setup you kill everything at just about the same rate.

I tried like.. half setups - getting rid of Dragon and just chucking fortitude in it's place and prioritizing holy fire synergies less and the phys damage side more (more points in zeal). It felt about the same or a bit worse.

Anyways, Now that I've gone back and fiddled with Zeal more, I think this HoJ Auradin is either better or as good, and very safe as well. I had forgotten what zeal feels like on /p8.

 

[ffs]

Nice character @NorthDakota!

As @PhineasB I fooled around with this one as well, and indeed ultimately I settled for a physical/Grief Dreamer with Might/Reaper's Merc. With PB there is no need for Fana to reach the last BP, so that aura doesn't do much. Might + Reaper obviously adds a huge amount of punch to a phyiscal hybrid, given there aren't many phyiscal dmg multipliers at work for a Dreamer.

The elemental damage output with CM or HoJ based setups is higher of course, but in my case I found running to be way less comfortable and even slower than with Grief setup, because I never had to back away with Grief. The difference it came down to was the ability to leech comfortably. With the elemental-focused setups, I found it frustrating at times to not be tanky enough to handle some of the tougher mobs due to lack of life upkeep. Though I made HoJ in PB as well, never tried whether leeching is high enough with a different dmg base. Probably not if it means sacrificing Might/Reaper Merc in order to use Fanaticism to solve IAS BP issues.

Anyway, this characters is definitely there to have fun with, and that's the case no matter what. Doesn't really matter if he can handle this or that situation better or face tank more or less in that other situation...

 

[NorthDakota]

Weirdly, this character (and his merc) feels incredibly safe. In the early 80s there were times where I felt unsafe, but my resistances weren't sorted out yet, and I didn't have my max block yet either, I was sitting around 65%. This guy takes so little damage that the only times I worry are basically a fast pack at Lord de seis and getting surrounded at infector. This is the first character that I spent the time to make sure I had max block, so maybe that's normal for chars with it.

But yah definitely a cool build. It's too bad that zealers are basically 1 button wonder, buff, run around, and click zeal - no matter how you make it. Not exactly exciting gameplay. I kinda had this vision in my head that maybe this Auradin version would be way stronger with a few tweaks and some broken 1.07 stuff, since I hadn't seen too many people try to go all out with it. It seemed so cool, I had this idea that I'd start leveling to 99 - but the reality is it's just about the same, it's zeal, you're not clearing out whole screens at a time even if you're 1 shotting everything, which you aren't. Baal runs take so long /p1/8/3 because of wave 4 and 5, and it's slow with baal. p8 Chaos sanc runs are also slow and infector/de seis are very threatening. And you can't equip enigma unless you're going to swap every run.

 

[T72on1]

Congrats. Very cool and stylish build. Reminds me a bit of my own auradin, although that was a Bear build, so at the same time completely different.

Congrts ND! Looks like a nice starter build..

I agree.with Death set. I use a -15% req copy for easier equipping.

+1 to Death's set. On melee characters I usually use the gloves and belt combo all the way to NM or sometimes even into the 60's. If it weren't for the 2 row belt, it would be endgame gear for sure.

Btw, love the idea of putting a Hel in the weapon for easier access. Thanks for the tip !!!

Great build and a very very good roll on that caddy. If staffmods in 1.07 are anything like 1.13 then you definitely stopped at the right time

I agree. I think you already got quite the good mods on your weapon. Getting that ultimate +9 Caduceus you pictured, or even something somewhat close to it, would have taken far too long. Although you can still try to improve over time of course .

Yeah, you don't wanna end up like that Gripphon guy who lost all his rune wealth to inflation

QFT. Spend those runes if you have them. You'll only find more in the long run. Says the guy who is sitting at 2x Zod, 1x Cham (and Doom already completed) and a bunch of Jah runes and below . I do have plans for a HoJ Fireclaws Werebear though ... at some point ...