Patriarch RayDeEnt, Gris’ Avenger (D2R)

[TheNix]

Patriarch RayDeEnt, Gris’ Avenger


Level: 84

St – 129 (200)
Dx – 89 (157)
Vt – 282 (287)
En – 15 (20)

HP 1284
Mana 219


Damage

Vengeance: 2516 – 4204 (a little more when the Merc was nearby)


Resists:

Fire: 79
Cold: 79
Ltning: 79
Poison: 75


Skills:

Vengeance: 20/27
Holy Shield: 20/29 on switch
Conviction: 20/27
Resist Fire: 8/15
Resist Cold: 8/15
Resist Lightning: 8/15

1 in Prerequisites


Equipment:

Weapon 1:

Griswold’s Redemption (4os with 2 Fervour Jewels with Resists & 2 %ED Jewels with Max damage)
Griswold’s Honour (3os all with Resists and Max damage Jewels)

Weapon 2:

Astreon’s Iron Ward
HoZ

Griswold’s Valour (2os with %ED and max/min damage jewels)
Griswold’s Heart (3os with %ED jewels)
Lava Gout
Silkweave
Nosferatu’s Coil
Mara’s Kaleidoscope
Manald Heal & Raven Frost


Merc (Act 5 – Frenzy)

“Um” Arreat’s Face
“CoH” Dusk Shroud
“Crescent Moon” Cryptic Sword & “Hustle” Cryptic Sword

Random musings:


Another set build that didn’t live up to expectations. That might be a little harsh, perhaps it was my choice of mercenary. A Frenzy barb, with level 1 Fanaticism and Burst of Speed is like a demented rabbit on a near-fatal dose of amphetamines. It would kill something and dash off in some random direction to find something else to kill, often leaving me alone to face multiple enemies. This madly careening merc would either find himself swarmed and die, would do a crazy dance running between two random points somewhere off-screen, or would somehow come scampering back to me bringing a pack or two of pissed-off monsters for me to help him with. At least one of my two deaths was caused by the sudden appearance of a pack or two that completely swarmed over me. When we did work together, the team was formidable, but I did end up spending a fair amount of time fighting by myself and I really wanted the extra speed buff of Fanaticism.

On the times I was fighting alone, the build felt decidedly squishy. I had over 10K defence, 75% block chance, overmaxed resistances, good AR, and reasonable Hit Recovery and I still felt squishy. I even walked rather than run so as to maintain the defences and block chance, using Charge to get around. Maintaining mana was problematic at times when each hit used about 15 mana with the mana pool a little over 200, especially when I came across unleechable monsters. I ended up having to buy mana potions and import fat purples from my stash. I’m really glad this one is over!

Spoiler

 

[Maltatai]

Congrats on the patriarch, a shame he was not living up to the expectations.

You've geared up for all offense it looks like, with enhanced damage and speed and extra damage from every socket...doesn't that make for a glass cannon character? Except that it is melee so, glass battering ram?

 

[TheNix]

Congrats on the patriarch, a shame he was not living up to the expectations.

You've geared up for all offense it looks like, with enhanced damage and speed and extra damage from every socket...doesn't that make for a glass cannon character? Except that it is melee so, glass battering ram?

Yes, I went the full offensive route (I like the term glass battering ram!) and he did hit pretty hard, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that the squishiness probably had more to do with the fact that I was only attacking one monster at a time. On top of that, I didn't have a viable escape route when things got tough. I just had to keep smashing away at the monsters and down potions until I got out of trouble and that became tiresome after a while. And, of course, Vengeance is interruptable, so that wouldn't have helped when I got swarmed.

 

[Maltatai]

@TheNix
He hits very hard for a one-hander, but I would be scared of going into the fray without those sockets stuffed with Sol runes and some cursing. Weakening gloves perhaps. And maybe a chromatic amulet of life everlasting instead of Mara's.

Nothing wrong with glass rams as such but squishiness tends to be a characteristic. The thing with all-damage characters in my experience is that they can rarely stay in position long enough to keep dealing out that damage. I am thinking of trying vengeance with a cold mage and conversion to take advantage of running conviction, but I will have no illusions of racking up that kind of numbers.

I wonder how the madman sidekick would have been doing with a delirium hat? Just to add to the general level of lunacy...

 

[LouB]

My Griz's Avenger also filled all of the sockets with offensive jewels. While he died multiple times, I chalk it up more to it being my first Paladin and one of my first builds after coming back from a 10 year hiatus. Big difference is that I went with a Holy Freeze merc wearing Delerium. So, lots of crowd control.

I've used a Frenzy merc with several builds and they never acted the way yours did. I wonder how much of that was from Hustle and how much was due to how slow you were moving.

 

[snickersnack]

@TheNix
He hits very hard for a one-hander, but I would be scared of going into the fray without those sockets stuffed with Sol runes and some cursing. Weakening gloves perhaps. And maybe a chromatic amulet of life everlasting instead of Mara's.

I agree. I used Soul Drainer on my recentish avenger pat and found that it worked well. It has a lot of utility and helps with squishyness.

I wonder how the madman sidekick would have been doing with a delirium hat? Just to add to the general level of lunacy...

I have a Delirium in 1.14d, but I don't remember how/if I ever used it... But, yeah, with a zoomy barb merc, that could be fun.

Edit:
@TheNix Did you consider focusing on +min damage in sockets instead of +max? Iirc (from @Asmodeous' guide), +min is way, way more effective if you have enough decent jewels.

 

[TheNix]

Edit:
@TheNix Did you consider focusing on +min damage in sockets instead of +max? Iirc (from @Asmodeous' guide), +min is way, way more effective if you have enough decent jewels.

I only had a couple of +min jewels and I used them in the build, I rarely seem to find them.

@Maltatai the thought of my lunatic merc wearing Delirium makes me feel queasy!

 

[PhineasB]

You are too fast with new ones for me to keep up with going back to update Mat/Pat thread In all seriousness, nice Pat, even if not living up to expectations

 

[TopHatCat64]

Congrats on the pat!

I've tried numerous times to get a min-dmg avenger to work, but the inherent squishiness and lack of battlefield control always make me put him back on the shelf.

Paladins just have a very limited toolbox in general, because so many of their skills are auras. But in particular, imho, 'dins have the weakest crowd control out of the 7 classes:

• No castable tanks: paladins have nothing to take the heat off when they're swarmed in melee. No valkyrie, no grizzly, no golem, no shadow warrior
• No way to weaken monsters: paladins have nothing to reduce incoming monster damage. No weaken, no battle cry, no slow missiles.
• No way to AOE immobilize/terrorize monsters: paladins have nothing to stop groups of enemies in their tracks. No cloak of shadows, no shockwave, no glacial spike, no terror, no howl, no mindblast. Holy freeze does help a bit in this this regard, but let's be honest, that slow isn't saving your bacon like the aforementioned skills.
• No way to change monster behavior*: paladins (with the exception of conversion) cannot change the way monsters react. No taunt, no confuse, no attract. Conversion does get a monster to temporarily switch sides, but it only affects 1 monster per attempt, and even at lvl 20, it's still only a 42% chance. Taunt/confuse/attract work 100% of time AND can affect multiple monsters at once (yes, taunt has a small AOE!)

For paladins, it's really comes down to you going head-to-head with monsters and prevailing on the strength of your gear and the most efficient shield blocking of the 7 classes. Theorycrafting here, but it would definitely help if holy shield had a chance to block elemental attacks and/or exceed the 75% block cap.

 

[TheNix]

Theorycrafting here, but it would definitely help if holy shield had a chance to block elemental attacks and/or exceed the 75% block cap.

Assassin's Weapon Block can block some incoming elemental damage, so there is a precedent there.

 

[snickersnack]

I only had a couple of +min jewels and I used them in the build, I rarely seem to find them.

I've been saving +min jewels and rings for a while (none are even close to perfect), but I only recently found a the set cadaceus. Maybe a griz-avenger is my future...

Congrats on the pat!

I've tried numerous times to get a min-dmg avenger to work, but the inherent squishiness and lack of battlefield control always make me put him back on the shelf.

Paladins just have a very limited toolbox in general, because so many of their skills are auras. But in particular, imho, 'dins have the weakest crowd control out of the 7 classes:

• No castable tanks: paladins have nothing to take the heat off when they're swarmed in melee. No valkyrie, no grizzly, no golem, no shadow warrior
• No way to weaken monsters: paladins have nothing to reduce incoming monster damage. No weaken, no battle cry, no slow missiles.
• No way to AOE immobilize/terrorize monsters: paladins have nothing to stop groups of enemies in their tracks. No cloak of shadows, no shockwave, no glacial spike, no terror, no howl, no mindblast. Holy freeze does help a bit in this this regard, but let's be honest, that slow isn't saving your bacon like the aforementioned skills.
• No way to change monster behavior*: paladins (with the exception of conversion) cannot change the way monsters react. No taunt, no confuse, no attract. Conversion does get a monster to temporarily switch sides, but it only affects 1 monster per attempt, and even at lvl 20, it's still only a 42% chance. Taunt/confuse/attract work 100% of time AND can affect multiple monsters at once (yes, taunt has a small AOE!)

For paladins, it's really comes down to you going head-to-head with monsters and prevailing on the strength of your gear and the most efficient shield blocking of the 7 classes. Theorycrafting here, but it would definitely help if holy shield had a chance to block elemental attacks and/or exceed the 75% block cap.

Sanctuary aura is pretty strong in certain areas.

I think it'd be pretty interesting to add some resist synergy to HS so that points in res auras gave you some more res. Though, paladins using shields usually don't have major resist issues. Maybe just points in Salvation give some all res to HS?

 

[SirName]

I think it'd be pretty interesting to add some resist synergy to HS so that points in res auras gave you some more res. Though, paladins using shields usually don't have major resist issues. Maybe just points in Salvation give some all res to HS?

Holy shield already has a very suitable synergy and is a strong skill. I’d rather salvation had a passive bonus like the other resist auras but instead would give actual resists vs increase hard cap. Something like +1 all res / invested skillpoint. This would give something to the non shield pallies as well.

Maybe salvation could have a chance to block elemental damage aspect which would have a higher value when active and also a passive bonus with lesser effect.

 

[snickersnack]

Holy Shield idea: let paladins dual wield shields but only when HS is active, and maybe with a minimum point investment. Then, the chance to block is 1-(1-S1)(1-S2), where S1 and S2 are the chances to block with each of the two shields individually. For example, if the calculated chance to block with the gloves shield is 60% and the chance for the boots shield is 50%, then the chance to block is
1-(1-0.6)(1-0.5)=1-.4*.5=1-0.2=0.8-->80%
If you want things to get more complicated, then maybe the level of HS affects the block formula in some way.

There are a few builds this could be used for. Smiter is pretty obvious, but what about a dual spirit shield caster? Maybe a charger would work? Dual HoZ Thorns build?

 

[drmalawi]

Congrats on the pat!

I've tried numerous times to get a min-dmg avenger to work, but the inherent squishiness and lack of battlefield control always make me put him back on the shelf.

Paladins just have a very limited toolbox in general, because so many of their skills are auras. But in particular, imho, 'dins have the weakest crowd control out of the 7 classes:

• No castable tanks: paladins have nothing to take the heat off when they're swarmed in melee. No valkyrie, no grizzly, no golem, no shadow warrior
• No way to weaken monsters: paladins have nothing to reduce incoming monster damage. No weaken, no battle cry, no slow missiles.
• No way to AOE immobilize/terrorize monsters: paladins have nothing to stop groups of enemies in their tracks. No cloak of shadows, no shockwave, no glacial spike, no terror, no howl, no mindblast. Holy freeze does help a bit in this this regard, but let's be honest, that slow isn't saving your bacon like the aforementioned skills.
• No way to change monster behavior*: paladins (with the exception of conversion) cannot change the way monsters react. No taunt, no confuse, no attract. Conversion does get a monster to temporarily switch sides, but it only affects 1 monster per attempt, and even at lvl 20, it's still only a 42% chance. Taunt/confuse/attract work 100% of time AND can affect multiple monsters at once (yes, taunt has a small AOE!)

For paladins, it's really comes down to you going head-to-head with monsters and prevailing on the strength of your gear and the most efficient shield blocking of the 7 classes. Theorycrafting here, but it would definitely help if holy shield had a chance to block elemental attacks and/or exceed the 75% block cap.

Salvation aura comes to mind. Works ok for undeads.