Patriarch Mart, the Martyr
I didn't made a Patriarch thread for a long time, but I think that some forumites can find this thread and info about this particular build interesting....
Some of you know that I have Martyr build in progress and I just successfully patted him. He died twice, both deaths in Chaos Sanctuary were caused by Iron Maiden. He was started with classic twinking gear and went through normal and NM in MP game with my friend, though all Hell difficulty he went solo. I skipped a lot of monsters, though they were all regular, all champions or bosses that cross my way were killed.
I didn't want to sacrifice my best charms/jewels/runes for this experimental build (I don't move items between characters), but I still used some goodies. Especially the merc has decent gear. From the beggining, I wanted to use Haeven's Light as the main weapon, I thought I had an almost perfect one, but I couldn't find it anywhere in my stashes, so finally I used one with really low ED
. The rest of gear was chosen to give Mart high leech, maxed resists, fastest possible attack (only 20 additional IAS was needed with 27 lvl Fanaticism - SHAEL solved it), some FHR, high defence. Also I wanted to save at least 2 socket quests for another characters, so I didn't socketed merc's helm (his fire resist is crappy) neither Mart's armor. I leveled Mart in NM Baal until 76, then Hell Pits until lvl 82 (for CoA), then went straight forward to Pat.
STATS:
STR 174 for CoA, DEX for 75%block, rest VIT
Mart's Stats
Skill distribution:
20 Sacrifice
20 Fanaticism
20 Redemption
20 Holy Shield
rest in Blessed Aim (3 or 4 skillpoints I think)
1 prerequisities
(zeal 0, vengeance 0)
Gear:
Crown of Ages (15%DR,23%resall,ORT,THUL), I used Vamp Gaze before 82, but I had to temporarily use Offensive skiller and +15resall GC to simulate CoA effects.
Haeven's Light (252%ED,+3skills,SHAEL,AMN)
HoZ (PDiamond)
Shaftstop upped (213%ED -> 1524 defence)
Dracul's Grasp (10%LL)
Ravenfrost (crappy 15/189)
Gore Rider
String of Ears (10%DR, 8%LL)
and rare amulet and ring:
Chaos Master
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x578e98c8
+2 to Dexterity
+118 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +11%
Cold Resist +11%
Poison Resist +11%
8% Life stolen per hit
30% Extra Gold from Monsters
Wraith Beads
Amulet
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x2d3e842b
+1 to Strength
+17 to Energy
Fire Resist +36%
Lightning Resist +18%
Cold Resist +18%
Poison Resist +18%
6% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
SWAP:
Wand of Life Tap / Passion War Spike
Herald of Zakarum (was needed because of resistances and STR bonus)
Charms: around +30max damage (fine and sharp charms - not the best though), some minor resists, ~20 FRW
MERC: (Leharas, A2 might)
Eth Bonehew (311%ED, SHAEL,SHAEL)
Andariel's Visage (used from lvl83)
Eth Stone Lacquered Plate (4331 Defence, used from lvl83)
Leharas' stats
Martyr disadvantages:
Well, the 8% damage to self was very annoying in hell, even with 37% life leech I had. I was loosing life even when attacking some leechable monsters, and if they were able to do some damage, I couldn't do anything else than use that Life Tap charges. For normal monsters I leeched some low life back, but it wasn't enough if they were able to hurt me.
Interruptible attack: When surrounded by monsters, you can live (high defence and high block), but still you will be most of the time in hit recovery, not able to kill them quickly.
Nonleechable monsters as Skeletons: You can't offset the damage to self (only Life Tap helps)
Missclick danger: Click on nonleechable monster / catapult / door and you have serious trouble - that's why the 50%DR is a must. Actually I thought it will be worse, I was still able to land 3-4 attacks on non-leechable monsters without dying.
Martyr advantage:
He doesn't have any.... :wink3:
OK, maybe that you don't need mana and you can laugh to those mana burn bosses.
And maxed Redemption is cool and useful.
My strategy:
Well most of the monsters were OK, with my semi-leet gear, I was able to tank most of them, only usual archers/gloams/succubi were problematic.
Those non-leechables were solved this way:
1) Strong merc attack - Eth Bonehew with Might merc and Fanaticism - he was much more stronger than Mart himself :smiley:
2) Waiting for Life Tap from Dracul's - if leechable and non-leechable monsters were mixed together, I primarily choose leechables as my targets, quite often, LT from Draculs was activated...
3) LT charge from wand on switch - that was used mainly on bosses/champs/big groups
4) skipping them - I skipped smaller groups, especially those bone mages who don't follow me.
Physical immunes - I switched LT wand for Passion and Berserk them to death. The chance to flee was useful against ghosts. The pack of Ghosts is quite nasty, burning your mana, so dividing them by flee turned out to be a good tactic (all I had to do was clicking fanatically instead of holding the mouse button as usually). They often didn't made it back to me because of OW
.
Some stygian furies were skipped...
The toughest areas:Unraveler/Apparition combo in TR tomb, Chaos sanctuary, siren/Gloams combo in Frozen River, WSK.
Bosses were easy with ~50 CB and Lifetap. Even PI Lister was killed with Berserk easily (though it took some time)
Summary:
Martyr is viable even on Hell (I played P3 first act, P1 rest of Hell), but you better prepare good gear and lot of LL. I wanted to use CoA, but maybe even more leech (Vampire Gaze) would be worth it. The damage itself isn't great, I would say it's mediocre in comparison with other skills like Vengeance or Concentrate, but the disadvantages are really painful. You have to be fully concentrated when playing, any misclicks can bring you death.
I enjoyed playing this character, but I think that I will take a break from melee characters.
EDIT: ...and best finds: Saracen's chance, Demonhorn's Edge, MAL from Hellforge. With 0 MF.
I didn't made a Patriarch thread for a long time, but I think that some forumites can find this thread and info about this particular build interesting....
Some of you know that I have Martyr build in progress and I just successfully patted him. He died twice, both deaths in Chaos Sanctuary were caused by Iron Maiden. He was started with classic twinking gear and went through normal and NM in MP game with my friend, though all Hell difficulty he went solo. I skipped a lot of monsters, though they were all regular, all champions or bosses that cross my way were killed.
I didn't want to sacrifice my best charms/jewels/runes for this experimental build (I don't move items between characters), but I still used some goodies. Especially the merc has decent gear. From the beggining, I wanted to use Haeven's Light as the main weapon, I thought I had an almost perfect one, but I couldn't find it anywhere in my stashes, so finally I used one with really low ED
. The rest of gear was chosen to give Mart high leech, maxed resists, fastest possible attack (only 20 additional IAS was needed with 27 lvl Fanaticism - SHAEL solved it), some FHR, high defence. Also I wanted to save at least 2 socket quests for another characters, so I didn't socketed merc's helm (his fire resist is crappy) neither Mart's armor. I leveled Mart in NM Baal until 76, then Hell Pits until lvl 82 (for CoA), then went straight forward to Pat.STATS:
STR 174 for CoA, DEX for 75%block, rest VIT
Mart's Stats
Skill distribution:
20 Sacrifice
20 Fanaticism
20 Redemption
20 Holy Shield
rest in Blessed Aim (3 or 4 skillpoints I think)
1 prerequisities
(zeal 0, vengeance 0)
Gear:
Crown of Ages (15%DR,23%resall,ORT,THUL), I used Vamp Gaze before 82, but I had to temporarily use Offensive skiller and +15resall GC to simulate CoA effects.
Haeven's Light (252%ED,+3skills,SHAEL,AMN)
HoZ (PDiamond)
Shaftstop upped (213%ED -> 1524 defence)
Dracul's Grasp (10%LL)
Ravenfrost (crappy 15/189)
Gore Rider
String of Ears (10%DR, 8%LL)
and rare amulet and ring:
Chaos Master
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x578e98c8
+2 to Dexterity
+118 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +11%
Cold Resist +11%
Poison Resist +11%
8% Life stolen per hit
30% Extra Gold from Monsters
Wraith Beads
Amulet
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x2d3e842b
+1 to Strength
+17 to Energy
Fire Resist +36%
Lightning Resist +18%
Cold Resist +18%
Poison Resist +18%
6% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
SWAP:
Wand of Life Tap / Passion War Spike
Herald of Zakarum (was needed because of resistances and STR bonus)
Charms: around +30max damage (fine and sharp charms - not the best though), some minor resists, ~20 FRW
MERC: (Leharas, A2 might)
Eth Bonehew (311%ED, SHAEL,SHAEL)
Andariel's Visage (used from lvl83)
Eth Stone Lacquered Plate (4331 Defence, used from lvl83)
Leharas' stats
Martyr disadvantages:
Well, the 8% damage to self was very annoying in hell, even with 37% life leech I had. I was loosing life even when attacking some leechable monsters, and if they were able to do some damage, I couldn't do anything else than use that Life Tap charges. For normal monsters I leeched some low life back, but it wasn't enough if they were able to hurt me.
Interruptible attack: When surrounded by monsters, you can live (high defence and high block), but still you will be most of the time in hit recovery, not able to kill them quickly.
Nonleechable monsters as Skeletons: You can't offset the damage to self (only Life Tap helps)
Missclick danger: Click on nonleechable monster / catapult / door and you have serious trouble - that's why the 50%DR is a must. Actually I thought it will be worse, I was still able to land 3-4 attacks on non-leechable monsters without dying.
Martyr advantage:
He doesn't have any.... :wink3:
OK, maybe that you don't need mana and you can laugh to those mana burn bosses.
And maxed Redemption is cool and useful.
My strategy:
Well most of the monsters were OK, with my semi-leet gear, I was able to tank most of them, only usual archers/gloams/succubi were problematic.
Those non-leechables were solved this way:
1) Strong merc attack - Eth Bonehew with Might merc and Fanaticism - he was much more stronger than Mart himself :smiley:
2) Waiting for Life Tap from Dracul's - if leechable and non-leechable monsters were mixed together, I primarily choose leechables as my targets, quite often, LT from Draculs was activated...
3) LT charge from wand on switch - that was used mainly on bosses/champs/big groups
4) skipping them - I skipped smaller groups, especially those bone mages who don't follow me.
Physical immunes - I switched LT wand for Passion and Berserk them to death. The chance to flee was useful against ghosts. The pack of Ghosts is quite nasty, burning your mana, so dividing them by flee turned out to be a good tactic (all I had to do was clicking fanatically instead of holding the mouse button as usually). They often didn't made it back to me because of OW
. Some stygian furies were skipped...
The toughest areas:Unraveler/Apparition combo in TR tomb, Chaos sanctuary, siren/Gloams combo in Frozen River, WSK.
Bosses were easy with ~50 CB and Lifetap. Even PI Lister was killed with Berserk easily (though it took some time)
Summary:
Martyr is viable even on Hell (I played P3 first act, P1 rest of Hell), but you better prepare good gear and lot of LL. I wanted to use CoA, but maybe even more leech (Vampire Gaze) would be worth it. The damage itself isn't great, I would say it's mediocre in comparison with other skills like Vengeance or Concentrate, but the disadvantages are really painful. You have to be fully concentrated when playing, any misclicks can bring you death.
I enjoyed playing this character, but I think that I will take a break from melee characters.
EDIT: ...and best finds: Saracen's chance, Demonhorn's Edge, MAL from Hellforge. With 0 MF.
I love having my hp @ full when ever it can be.. sounds like it was a hard character that worked out well for you 
