The Avenger guide for V1.11.
Ok. I have decided to post my Avenger guide here for all to see. Not much point having it laying around on my hard drive with nobody getting any benefit from it. Much of the information and research that has gone into this guide comes from the single players forum but I am sure that battle.net players will find the information here applicable. This is a fairly in depth guide and hopefully should dispell any myths about the avenger. Feel free to comment and ask questions.
Enjoy!
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[highlight]The Avenger.
A guide to the Avenger Paladin for V1.11 Diablo 2/LOD.[/highlight]
By Asmodeous.
[highlight]Foreword.[/highlight]
The Avenger. Many would say that this is a forgotten Character. Vastly over shadowed by the Hammerdin, The Zealot and even other elemental builds such as the Tesladin. Why is this so? In theory, the Avenger should be a strong character to play as Vengeance is able to deal with every monster type in the game. Nothing is immune to Physical, Fire, Cold and Lightning damage all at the same time.
So is the Avenger a capable character then? Is he able to hold his own against the hordes of hell?
Well yes he can. With the right equipment the Avenger is a very capable character. Strong enough to handle every monster and quest in the game and still want more.
This is the biggest problem with the Avenger. His equipment. He is more reliant on his equipment than most other melee classes are, in particular, his weapon. With careful item and skill selection, the Avenger can be a strong class to play. We just have to be careful with our skill and item selection.
So how do we do this? Well, this is a guide, isn't it? Read on and hopefully, we can get your avenger leaving a trail of smouldering, fried and frozen corpses in his wake.
[highlight]How does Vengeance work?[/highlight]
Vengeance is a skill from the Combat tree that is available when your Paladin reaches level 18. What the skill does is add a mixture of Cold, Fire and Lightning damage to your Paladins attacks. So, the end result is that your Paladin will be doing Physical, Fire, Cold and Lightning damage with every strike of his weapon. If for example, you had a weapon that did 100 points of damage exactly. Level 1 Vengeance adds 70% damage of Cold, Fire and Lightning damage to this, so 70 points of each element is added to every attack that your Paladin makes. That’s pretty much it.
This means, that only certain things that add to your physical damage, will also count towards Vengeance elemental damage. These are;
What doesn't count towards Vengeance elemental damage;
These types of effects work with the physical part of your Vengeance damage, but not the elemental parts.
[highlight]The Maths of Vengeance damage.[/highlight]
The elemental damage component is calculated from the weapon's damage, or "adjusted" weapon damage from the factors as listed above.
An example is a Avenger armed with a Mighty Sceptre (40-52 damage) with 190 for strength and level 20 Vengeance with no Synergy Skills.
Vengeance Part:
40-52 * 184% = 74-96 for each element
74-96 Cold + 74-96 Fire + 74-96 Lightning = 222-288 Total elemental damage.
Physical part:
40-52 * (1+1.9) = 116-150
Total Physical (116-150) + Total Vengeance (222-288) = 338-438 total damage.
[highlight]The problems with Vengeance.[/highlight]
Vengeance has some draw backs. The first one is the amount of Mana it needs. This does not seem a problem seeing that we can equip Mana leech items on our character. But remember. Leeches only work from Physical damage, not elemental. This makes it much harder to fuel Vengeance from leeching because of the low physical damage which is not boosted in any way by vengeance. Basically, this means we need a lot of mana leech to keep Vengeance going. Depending on your weapon set up, you need 8 - 14% total mana leech for one handed weapons and 5 - 10% typically for two handed which is a tall order considering that we have the same problem with our life leech for the very same reason.
Another problem is that many monsters in the game are immune to Physical damage and while the elemental damage component of Vengeance will work on them, every blow you swing at them is costing you mana, which you won’t win back from them with leeching, and being a Paladin, you don't have a lot of Mana points to spare.
This is the one weakness's of the Avenger, the Physically Immune and other monsters that we can't leech mana from. Some players would say that Vengeance is a great skill versus the Physical Immune. Well, It is. You just can't rely on Mana Leeches against Physically Immune to replenish your mana.
Fortunately, Physical immune's and unleechables such as skeletons are usually mixed in with other types of monsters which you can leech from so really all we need is a good sized mana pool to keep our Avenger going in between those leechable targets and drinking the occasional mana potion when required. It really isn't that hard to pick up the odd mana pot.
A quick note about the Insight rune word. The mana regeneration from level 17 meditation is not enough to run our vengeance attack. The reason for this is because mana regeneration is based upon our total mana pool which is low for a paladin. If your paladin has a mana pool of approx 500 mana points or more, then it could be possible. I haven’t tested in game where the break even point is but it is likely to be high. Equipping your mercenary with Insight is still a good idea. The meditation aura will still help and can offset a lower amount of mana leech.
So you can see the main problem with Vengeance is it’s reliance upon the physical damage of the weapon used.
Remember our Mighty Sceptre example above, 40-52 points physical generates 222 - 288 total elemental damage at level 20 Vengeance with no synergies. With a 300% synergied Vengeance this damage grows to 476 - 618 all from a mere 40-52 point weapon. Then you have the effect of the conviction aura which can double the elemental damage if the targets resistances are reduced to the maximum of -100%. That is a lot of elemental damage stemming from what is a small amount of physical damage.
It is also because of our need for high mana leech to sustain Vengeance, and Life leech as well, that the higher the damage weapon, the better.
Is there anything else you need to know about Vengeance? Well, not really. It does increase your attack rating which is also helpful but hardly needed with Conviction’s effect on defence. It also has a cold Duration. Monsters affected by the cold damage component of Vengeance will be chilled by it, and this duration of chill increases with Vengeance level. This time is Nerfed depending on difficulty setting, but really, it doesn’t matter. The monsters chill timer gets reset every time you hit it, and it will be dead before the timer expires, no matter how much The game difficulty Nerfs it.
Finally keep in mind that vengeance is an interruptible attack. This means that if your character is hit hard enough while performing a vengeance attack, it is interrupted and your paladin has to start his attack again. This is a very good reason to have a good level of fast hit recovery, but more importantly, avoid getting hit in the first place with high defence and shield blocking. Physical damage reduction and lots of hit points will make it harder to interrupt your avengers attacks as the attack must do a total of 1/12 of your total life pool after any reductions to provoke the interruption.
Ok. I have decided to post my Avenger guide here for all to see. Not much point having it laying around on my hard drive with nobody getting any benefit from it. Much of the information and research that has gone into this guide comes from the single players forum but I am sure that battle.net players will find the information here applicable. This is a fairly in depth guide and hopefully should dispell any myths about the avenger. Feel free to comment and ask questions.
Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[highlight]The Avenger.
A guide to the Avenger Paladin for V1.11 Diablo 2/LOD.[/highlight]
By Asmodeous.
[highlight]Foreword.[/highlight]
The Avenger. Many would say that this is a forgotten Character. Vastly over shadowed by the Hammerdin, The Zealot and even other elemental builds such as the Tesladin. Why is this so? In theory, the Avenger should be a strong character to play as Vengeance is able to deal with every monster type in the game. Nothing is immune to Physical, Fire, Cold and Lightning damage all at the same time.
So is the Avenger a capable character then? Is he able to hold his own against the hordes of hell?
Well yes he can. With the right equipment the Avenger is a very capable character. Strong enough to handle every monster and quest in the game and still want more.
This is the biggest problem with the Avenger. His equipment. He is more reliant on his equipment than most other melee classes are, in particular, his weapon. With careful item and skill selection, the Avenger can be a strong class to play. We just have to be careful with our skill and item selection.
So how do we do this? Well, this is a guide, isn't it? Read on and hopefully, we can get your avenger leaving a trail of smouldering, fried and frozen corpses in his wake.
[highlight]How does Vengeance work?[/highlight]
Vengeance is a skill from the Combat tree that is available when your Paladin reaches level 18. What the skill does is add a mixture of Cold, Fire and Lightning damage to your Paladins attacks. So, the end result is that your Paladin will be doing Physical, Fire, Cold and Lightning damage with every strike of his weapon. If for example, you had a weapon that did 100 points of damage exactly. Level 1 Vengeance adds 70% damage of Cold, Fire and Lightning damage to this, so 70 points of each element is added to every attack that your Paladin makes. That’s pretty much it.
This means, that only certain things that add to your physical damage, will also count towards Vengeance elemental damage. These are;
- - Enhanced or min/max damage from socketing in the weapon.
- - Min/max damage from socketing in off weapon equipment.
- - Min/max damage from items or charms.
- - Weapon and item added damage that reads "adds xx damage" such as Butchers pupil, War traveller boots and Blood Fist gloves.
What doesn't count towards Vengeance elemental damage;
- - Auras enhanced damage such as Might or Fanatism.
- - Weapon added damage that reads "damage + xx" such as Grief rune word and The Redeemer. This has been tested in game to not work.
- - Factors such as Deadly Strike, Open Wounds or Crushing Blow.
- - Strength. Vengeance works from weapon damage only.
- - Off weapon enhanced damage such as socketed jewels or Lion Heart, Fortitude or Duress rune words.
These types of effects work with the physical part of your Vengeance damage, but not the elemental parts.
[highlight]The Maths of Vengeance damage.[/highlight]
The elemental damage component is calculated from the weapon's damage, or "adjusted" weapon damage from the factors as listed above.
An example is a Avenger armed with a Mighty Sceptre (40-52 damage) with 190 for strength and level 20 Vengeance with no Synergy Skills.
Vengeance Part:
40-52 * 184% = 74-96 for each element
74-96 Cold + 74-96 Fire + 74-96 Lightning = 222-288 Total elemental damage.
Physical part:
40-52 * (1+1.9) = 116-150
Total Physical (116-150) + Total Vengeance (222-288) = 338-438 total damage.
[highlight]The problems with Vengeance.[/highlight]
Vengeance has some draw backs. The first one is the amount of Mana it needs. This does not seem a problem seeing that we can equip Mana leech items on our character. But remember. Leeches only work from Physical damage, not elemental. This makes it much harder to fuel Vengeance from leeching because of the low physical damage which is not boosted in any way by vengeance. Basically, this means we need a lot of mana leech to keep Vengeance going. Depending on your weapon set up, you need 8 - 14% total mana leech for one handed weapons and 5 - 10% typically for two handed which is a tall order considering that we have the same problem with our life leech for the very same reason.
Another problem is that many monsters in the game are immune to Physical damage and while the elemental damage component of Vengeance will work on them, every blow you swing at them is costing you mana, which you won’t win back from them with leeching, and being a Paladin, you don't have a lot of Mana points to spare.
This is the one weakness's of the Avenger, the Physically Immune and other monsters that we can't leech mana from. Some players would say that Vengeance is a great skill versus the Physical Immune. Well, It is. You just can't rely on Mana Leeches against Physically Immune to replenish your mana.
Fortunately, Physical immune's and unleechables such as skeletons are usually mixed in with other types of monsters which you can leech from so really all we need is a good sized mana pool to keep our Avenger going in between those leechable targets and drinking the occasional mana potion when required. It really isn't that hard to pick up the odd mana pot.
A quick note about the Insight rune word. The mana regeneration from level 17 meditation is not enough to run our vengeance attack. The reason for this is because mana regeneration is based upon our total mana pool which is low for a paladin. If your paladin has a mana pool of approx 500 mana points or more, then it could be possible. I haven’t tested in game where the break even point is but it is likely to be high. Equipping your mercenary with Insight is still a good idea. The meditation aura will still help and can offset a lower amount of mana leech.
So you can see the main problem with Vengeance is it’s reliance upon the physical damage of the weapon used.
Remember our Mighty Sceptre example above, 40-52 points physical generates 222 - 288 total elemental damage at level 20 Vengeance with no synergies. With a 300% synergied Vengeance this damage grows to 476 - 618 all from a mere 40-52 point weapon. Then you have the effect of the conviction aura which can double the elemental damage if the targets resistances are reduced to the maximum of -100%. That is a lot of elemental damage stemming from what is a small amount of physical damage.
It is also because of our need for high mana leech to sustain Vengeance, and Life leech as well, that the higher the damage weapon, the better.
Is there anything else you need to know about Vengeance? Well, not really. It does increase your attack rating which is also helpful but hardly needed with Conviction’s effect on defence. It also has a cold Duration. Monsters affected by the cold damage component of Vengeance will be chilled by it, and this duration of chill increases with Vengeance level. This time is Nerfed depending on difficulty setting, but really, it doesn’t matter. The monsters chill timer gets reset every time you hit it, and it will be dead before the timer expires, no matter how much The game difficulty Nerfs it.
Finally keep in mind that vengeance is an interruptible attack. This means that if your character is hit hard enough while performing a vengeance attack, it is interrupted and your paladin has to start his attack again. This is a very good reason to have a good level of fast hit recovery, but more importantly, avoid getting hit in the first place with high defence and shield blocking. Physical damage reduction and lots of hit points will make it harder to interrupt your avengers attacks as the attack must do a total of 1/12 of your total life pool after any reductions to provoke the interruption.
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