Sacrifice Paladin

[iamdanthemanstan]

Sacrifice Paladin

I've been away from Diablo II for a while and now that I'm back I've been thinking of a Paladin based mostly on Sacrifice and shield. It would have:
20 Sacrifice
20 Smite
20 Holy Shield
20 Fanatisism
20 Redemption

That way it would Sacrifice would have a 835% increase in damage and Fanaticism would add some more or Redemption to make back the health spent in Sacrifice. I'd use the slowest 1h weapon to maximise the damage per swing and there is the advantage of needing no points in energy. This might work eshpeshally well with high dexterity to reduce damage not from your own attacks. What do you all think?

 

[Astralbeing]

Sounds risky, lol. Try it!

 

[koeraokse]

I'd use the slowest 1h weapon to maximise the damage per swing and there is the advantage of needing no points in energy

I cant see how would this help? if u hit faster u kill 'em faster, if ur slow they have more time to damage you, fast weapons arent weak...

also why max smite? We all know that 1 point in smite is enough

:shocked:
*priit2

 

[iamdanthemanstan]

That's a good point about smite I think on second thought I'd lessen it somewhat but still maybe 8 to get a full two second stun. As for the weapon I'd go for a slow weapon assuming that slower = higher damage per swing. Therefore more damage per life loss. If I have extra points any idea where to put them? Maybe salvation to defend against casters?

 

[koeraokse]

slow weapon doesent mean higher damage, weapon speed doesent increase or decrease your damage directly. faster weapon means more attack which means more damage, so I'd say faster weapon does more damage than slower..

about that lvl 8 smite.. dont put more than 1 point in it, dont forget you have +skills and getting 2 sec stun isnt that important...

you could dump rest of your skillpoints into defiance for more defence...

:shocked:
*priit2

 

[SSoG]

Sacrifice is a *VERY* tough build to make. Vengeance will deal more damage per swing with a comparable number of skill points, first of all. Second of all, the problem with Sacrifice is that it sometimes deals *TOO MUCH* damage. If you deal 5,000 damage per hit, you're hitting yourself for 400 damage every single swing. It might take you 10 swings to kill a tough enemy in Hell, but only 4 swings to kill yourself.:shocked:

The *only* way to make Sacrifice viable as a full-time skill, in my opinion, is with lots of DR% and Leech. 50% DR will cut the damage you deal to yourself from 8% to 4%. After that, you just need 4% leech in Hell to offset. Since leech is penalized 50% in Nightmare and 33% in Hell, that means you need 12% Life Leech and 50% DR to offset the damage you do to yourself from Sacrifice.

There are two problems with that, though. First off, that's just enough leech to *OFFSET* the damage that you deal- if you want to actually heal yourself, you'll need more leech, still. Second off, a lot of enemies in Hell have "Leech Resistance", which means leech operates at a reduced effectiveness against them. If you fight an enemy with 50% leech resistance, you'll need 24% leech just to break even (and more than that if you want to heal). Some enemies (such as Skeletons and certain megademons) have 100% leech resistance- meaning you could have 500% leech and you'd still kill yourself when you attacked them. The solution to that is Lifetap, which isn't reduced by difficulty (always leeches 50%- way more than you'll need), and which ignores Leech resistance (meaning you can leech off of skeletons).

Of course, the problem now is how you're going to get your hands on some Lifetap. Most sources have high clvl requirements, so you'll have to level up without them. Wands have charges, which you'll have to CONSTANTLY repair. Dracs and Exile are nice, when the Lifetap actually triggers, but a pain before you get it to go off. The best way to go is partying with a Necro and asking him to use Lifetap 24/7.

No matter what you do, Sacrifice is a very tough build to pull off.

 

[Clervis1]

How about you put a point into zeal (which will do pretty good on it's own with full sacrifice) and use that until your lifetap triggers for all the leach immunes and maybe if your life is getting low. Good Luck!

 

[iamdanthemanstan]

SSoG makes some good points. Maybe instead of putting a lot of points into dexterity I could put only a few there and focus mostly on health. With Holy Shield I'd still get a pretty decent block even without much dexterity, does someone know the exact mechanics of HS. With some damage reduction and leach or Lifetap the damage to self would be reduced even if not zero. Koeraokse's also right about the speed thing. I'm not sure I agree with SSoG though when he says Vengeance will deal more damage. Wit Sacrifice you can get 835% damage plus it works well with Fanaticism while Vengeance really needs Conviction.

 

[iamdanthemanstan]

I was thinking some more about Mercenaries and it seemed that you could go with a prayer mercenary at first to offset the damage then switch to a might one later for some truly incredible bonuses. 835 from sacrifice, 373 from fanaticism and 200 from the mercenary. Also since holy shield is mostly included in there for the shield bonus 10 points may suffice which would free up enough for 20 in conversion. It might be hard to balance 4 offensive skill though with Sacrifice Zeal Smite and then Conversion.

 

[SSoG]

I'm not sure I agree with SSoG though when he says Vengeance will deal more damage. Wit Sacrifice you can get 835% damage plus it works well with Fanaticism while Vengeance really needs Conviction.

At slvl 20, Sacrifice has +465% damage. At slvl 20, Vengeance has +184% Fire damage, +184% Lightning Damage, and +184% cold damage, which works out to +552% total damage.

Maxing two synergies will add +200% damage to both skills, but from there Vengeance still has a third and fourth synergy that you could max, while Sacrifice is totally tapped out.

Also worth noting- Fanaticism will add just as much damage to Vengeance as it will to Sacrifice. In both cases, you'll get +373% ED, as well as a faster attack speed. With slvl 20 Fanat/Sac, you're dealing +838% ED, while with 20 Vengeacen/Fanat, you're dealing +925% ED. So Vengeance/Fanat is still better than Sacrifice/Fanat. Heck, Vengeance even has a bigger AR bonus (210% vs. 153%).

The reason why Avengers use Conviction is because it's *EVEN BETTER STILL*. Basically, Conviction will at least double all elemental damage... Vengeance + Fanat might gives +925% ED, but Vengeance + Conviction will give +1104%... and remember that it doubles the value of all synergies, too, as well as solving all AR issues you'll ever encounter (running a slvl 25 Conviction is exactly the same as multiplying your FINAL AR by 12.5, so 1,000 AR becomes equivalent to 12,500 AR).

Anyway, in terms of damage output, here's the progression.
Conviction + Vengeance > Fanaticism + Vengeance > Fanaticism + Sacrifice > Conviction + Sacrifice.

 

[iamdanthemanstan]

OK, good point.

The only other thing I can think of is that a Sacrifice build would have good versatility. I think a talent break down could be:

20 Sacrifice - primary attack
4 Zeal - good backup with maxed Sacrifice
16 Conversion - crowd control
1 Smite - also crowd control
10 Holy Shield - good shield defense with less dexterity
20 Fanaticism - primary aura
20 Redemption - secondary aura and synergy

This would provide 4 attacks (Sacrifice, Zeal, Smite, Conversion) and two auras (Fanaticism, Redemption) with some points left over. A vengeance build takes more points since Conviction or Fanaticism aren't synergies.

 

[koeraokse]

OK, good point.

The only other thing I can think of is that a Sacrifice build would have good versatility. I think a talent break down could be:

20 Sacrifice - primary attack
4 Zeal - good backup with maxed Sacrifice
16 Conversion - crowd control
1 Smite - also crowd control
10 Holy Shield - good shield defense with less dexterity
20 Fanaticism - primary aura
20 Redemption - secondary aura and synergy

This would provide 4 attacks (Sacrifice, Zeal, Smite, Conversion) and two auras (Fanaticism, Redemption) with some points left over. A vengeance build takes more points since Conviction or Fanaticism aren't synergies.

you better max holy shield and only 1 pt in conversion

 

[iamdanthemanstan]

there are probably enough points for both

 

[Eilo Rytyj]

SSoG, you've seem to have forgotten that:

1) Fanaticism is a direct synergy to Sacrifice, granting a further 100%ed when maxed, bringing it to 565%ed at level 20.
2) Redemption is also a synergy to Sacrifice, adding a further 300%ed to it. Now at 865%ed at level 20.

In this case, with 60 skill points + prerequisites invested, that's 1238%ed while running Sacrifice + Fanaticism.

Vengeance, at level 20 with 20 points in synergies and 20 in Conviction (60 points also + prereqs) sits at 652%ed total.

I wont go into details regarding Conviction's -resist and such, mainly because it'll take too long and SSoG has pretty much covered it already. Something like effectively being 1304%ed on a -100% resist monster, as well as the huge effective AR differences.

 

[PlayWithHonor]

Another factor is that once you get to hell most monsters are immune to something. Conviction will break alot of immunities but not all and when it does break immunities it'll operate at less effectiveness.

So, Vengence adds elemental damage from all 3 trees. Odds are that any monster you are attacking is likely immune to 1 and sometimes even 2 of those elements. You will want to run Conviction all the time if you go this route so forget about the bonuses from Fanatacism. On the other hand no monster will be immune to all of the elements (excluding Uber Trist Pit Lords) and you can easily dispatch physically immune monsters.

Sacrifice is providing physical damage so you'll shred all those elementally immune monsters. You'll get the insane damage bonus from Fanatacism. You only have to worry about physically immune monsters. Don't seem to be as many of those running around Hell but when you encounter them you'll need an alternative way of disposing of them as your build won't address them.

 

[SSoG]

SSoG, you've seem to have forgotten that:

1) Fanaticism is a direct synergy to Sacrifice, granting a further 100%ed when maxed, bringing it to 565%ed at level 20.

Yup, I did forget that Fanat was the Sacrifice synergy. I was thinking that Sacrifice needed 80 points to max out (20 for Sac, 40 for synergies, 20 for Fanaticism). Won't make a huge difference- Vengeance + Conviction will still win- but it will bring Sacrifice closer again, and will probably give Sacrifice + Fanat the edge over Vengeance + Fanat.

Another factor is that once you get to hell most monsters are immune to something. Conviction will break alot of immunities but not all and when it does break immunities it'll operate at less effectiveness.

So, Vengence adds elemental damage from all 3 trees. Odds are that any monster you are attacking is likely immune to 1 and sometimes even 2 of those elements. You will want to run Conviction all the time if you go this route so forget about the bonuses from Fanatacism. On the other hand no monster will be immune to all of the elements (excluding Uber Trist Pit Lords) and you can easily dispatch physically immune monsters.

Sacrifice is providing physical damage so you'll shred all those elementally immune monsters. You'll get the insane damage bonus from Fanatacism. You only have to worry about physically immune monsters. Don't seem to be as many of those running around Hell but when you encounter them you'll need an alternative way of disposing of them as your build won't address them.

The thing is, while few monsters are IMMUNE to physical, enough are resistant that Conviction will still come out on top.

Think of it this way: If you run into a monster with 50% physical resistances, your total Sacrifice damage will be cut in half (so 900% ED becomes the equivalent of 400% ED). If you run into a monster who is unbreakably immune to Cold, your Vengeance damage is only cut by a bit less than a third (Cold ED is completely negated, but thanks to Conviction even if the monster is 50% resistant to Fire and Lightning, they'll still deal double the listed ED for both elements). In other words, if you have 200% tri-elemental ED + Conviction and run into a Cold Immune monster, that's still the equivalent of 800% ED. When you factor in monster resistances, Vengeance's damage disparity just becomes that much greater compared to Sacrifice (unless, of course, you have a consistant means of triggering Amp or Decrep, which makes the situation a lot more murky all over again).

Anyway, long story short, there are lots of different and very complicated mechanics involved, but the overwhelming majority of the time, Vengeance will deal more damage than Sacrifice.