Hi folks. I said I would make a thread about ultimate characters a few weeks ago, but due to masses of RL and work I had no time to play Diablo 2 till now, But anyway here it is.
The purpose of an ultimate character, is to meet the following requirements as well as can be done.
- To be able to defeat all kinds of monsters, and not skip any monster as far as possible. This means not restarting the game when encountering 3-4 nasty boss packs of fanaticism and conviction or whatever, or spawning a certain type of immunity.
- To be able to kill hell monsters on players 8 with a decent kill speed, anywhere in the game, with a good comfort level.
- No deaths, as far as possible. Even in softcore, I don't like to die. Less than once in ten hours is what I'm looking for.
As you can imagine, the building of an ultimate character is one of the toughest things in D2. This is what I had been interested in for the last one year, trying different builds, respec'ing, testing, and now I think I've taken concept to a good level, maybe not perfect, insofar as no character can really ever be perfect, but still good. If any of you are interested in this kind of thing, which I don't think there is, but anyway, I would be happy to hear any suggestions.
The testing was mostly all carried out in p8 worldstone keep runs ( level 1,2,3, throne, waves, baal ). WSK spawns very erratically and sometimes very tough types of monsters, so I think it is a good representative of Hell mode in general.
1. Matriarch Zarine - Blizzballer sorceress
The blizzballer is, in my opinion, the best sorc build of all time. It is great for untwinked, decent at MF with a Tal rasha set ( can do p3 hell almost anywhere with 300 mf ), and with the items I equipped it comes the closest to an ultimate character that I can think of. Huge cold damage, decent fire damage, boosted by conviction, which also breaks quite a few immunities, and she packs a good amount of -efr/-ecr to deal with broken immunes. Unbroken dual immunes are taken out by static field and merc. Static is also used to deal with bosses and just to soften up monsters sometimes- it's a great third element, practically a tri elementalist. Also, telekinesis spammed on dual immunes so that they don't bother the merc.
The phoenix shield is very key in recovering mana and life quickly, and is actually what makes the sorceress very comfortable to play. Though she is quite fragile, careful play and teleporting keeps her safe. I only died twice levelling from 94 to 96.
Merc: A2 holy freeze, eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
Full build here. The LCS pics are for level 94 and it improved slightly at level 96 but I can't find the new screenshots (they're in the lounge thread somewhere ). This is the only character that I planned from the beginning as an ultimate character, the others just sort of happened - they went through so many respecs that they have very little in common with their original character - and thus don't have a mat/pat thread.
Pros: Very high damage and kill speed, practically no problem with immunities.
Cons: Low survivability, low FHR. The cold immune witches on WSK 1 and throne are really killer sometimes.
2. Matriarch Rukmini - Lightning javazon
Lightning fury is perhaps the single most powerful offensive ability in the game. Add to this killer single target damage in charged strike, elr and conviction for broken immunes , decent physical damage via merc and jab and you have a very formidable ultimate character.
I have two swap setups for her
-( chaos/other leechable/easy areas ): Moser's (+10/-6), Rare amulet +1 skills/20@/8ML, razortail
-- maxblock, max pierce, better dmg and -elr. LCS.
-( Worldstone keep/difficult areas ): Phoenix monarch, Mara's 29@, Tgods
-- high fres/lres and sorb, better hp, big boost to jab/throw, wtfbbq redemption aura LCS.
Other items are all same, Griffons +20/-25, Chains of honor, 2/20 gloves, rare boot, ravenfrost, Stone of Jordan
And of course 3 stacks of ethereal upgraded Titans, one used and two carried in cube for convenient swapping -Pic.
I planned to replace the mosers with AtSoD or JMod with 5/5s but never got round to it. Prefer the phoenix for the most part anyway, more versatile and smoother. Sometimes carry both sets for swapping depending on area Pic, but this only uses 2 sets of javs which can cause depletion. Eth titans can't be repaired obviously and must be rotated. I used to carry a thunderstroke for Baal but stopped bothering really.
Merc: A2 might, eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
Pros: Immense damage output. Decent crowd control using slow missiles and decoy. Good survivability via dodges and blocks.
Cons: Immune problem, broken ones are easily dispatched but unbroken ones have to be jabbed down one by one, despite ~3k jab and good merc dmg it's a little slow, and sometimes they can be immune to both lightning and physical. I usually skip these, or keep an Um'ed reapers in stash to swap on merc if I really want to kill them ( open wounds preventing regen ). No teleport, compared to the sorc.
3. Matriarch Graendel - Kick trap assassin
A powerful and versatile character. Good lightning damage and CE from traps, great crowd control using CoS/MB, decent physical damage, leech, mana leech, life tap, max block and max pdr.
Items: Azurewrath/Stormlash, Stormshield (um ), CtA Phaseblade/Spirit monarch, Enigma, Harlequin crest ( Ambergris JoF ), rare amulet ( 2 sin/10 fcr/6 ml/17@ res/58 mana ), upped gores, dracs, Arachnid mesh, raven frost, bkwb.
Skills: Lightning sentry level 39, with all its synergies maxed. 3 in fireblast, 1 pt CoS,MB,fade, rest in dragon talon ( around level 27 ). Charms - whole bunch of entrapping skillers. Merc: eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
The CTA pb/spirit switch is used for trap laying ( 9fpa max speed, +3 more skills ) and for teleporting around/mindblast ( 65 fcr ). The stormlash/Azure + stormshield is used for kicking. Stormlash is mainly only used for Baal - around lightning immunes the Azurewrath with it's sanctuary, magic and cold dmg is much more useful in general areas. Stormshield provides max block and pdr, Resistances are maxed ( except fire, which is a little less ) due to fade.
I prefer k/T to pure trappers - I don't like fireblast and find that the setup for melee - lifetap, max block/pdr, sanctuary,mana leech etc. more comfortable to play with. Lightning sentry damage is still very high ( around 1-8600 ) and Death Sentry CE also provides a huge amount of damage once some bodies are on the floor. CB and static are also very nice for Baal runs and other bosses, as compared to a pure trapper. This video shows Baal run with stormlash.
Pros: Versatile, mobile, good survivability, great crowd control.
Cons: Killing speed is not as good as a sorc or zon.
4. Patriarch Conan - Whirlwind/Berserk Barbarian
The WW barb is one of the strongest physical damage characters in the game, so it is hardly a surprise that it would be represented in the ultimate characters collection. In addition to physical damage, he also brings magic damage for immunities via berserk and a whole host of crowd control skills.
Items: Grief pb/Azurewrath (cham), Grief pb/stormshield (shael), Fortitude sacred armor, Arreat's face (um ), String of Ears, LoH, Highlord's, gores, ravenfrost, rare dual leech/resists ring.
Skills: 20 WW, sword mastery, BO, shout, 1 pt warcry, taunt, incr speed, iron skin, berserk, rest in howl. A few extra in natural resist.
Charms are mainly resistance, life, and about +30 max dmg/some AR. Resistances are overstacked to about 30 fr and 70 lr under conviction - a little overkill maybe, but take that! conviction gloams or hydras or whatever.
Merc: A2 might, eth reapers ( shael ), Guillame (cham ), treachery.
For the most part, whirling through, leeching and having great hp and defense means he can effortlessly mow down mobs. Merc applies decrepify and crushing blow. The only difficulties are presented by physical resistance, immunity and unleechables.
To some extent, the physical resistance/immunity problem can be solved by the sanctuary aura via Azurewrath, which sets the physical resistance of undeads to 0. This helps dealing with wraiths ( immune ), gloams ( 90% dr ), doom/oblivion knights ( high dr, and can be very dangerous - the cham in azure freezes them and sanctuary knocks them away ). The unleechable problem can't really be solved but we can use potions for health and mana recovery.
The actual problem, however, is the A5 monsters that are naturally immune to physical and are not undead - ie. Hell temptess, blood lord, death berserkers, etc. There is no option but to berserk them - and unlike single bosses that are physical immune some times, whole groups of monsters can be pretty dangerous to berserk. Not only do we not leech, but the defense rating drops from ~20,000 to zero.
This is where warcries are important. Sometimes just charging in and warcry -zerk one by one ( fcr from forti helps ). Sometimes they have to be taunted out one by one. I usually switch to grief/stormshield - the ~45% block helps a bit. Howl is also sometimes used to isolate troublesome bosses.
Overall with practice I have got the technique down to where PI's are not much problem any more. Also, I switch the weapons quite a bit- grief/grief if I see no PIs or troublesome undead, grief/azure for sanctuary/freeze, grief/stormshield for berserk.
Pros: Great survivability, due to high hp,stacked resists, defense, leech and warcries.
Cons: Somewhat slow kill speed. PIs, especially hell temptresses can still pose a threat when multiple bosspacks with bad mods spawn. Without AOE, stygian hags are frustrating. Dolls are a problem for any meleer, though I'm impatient and just whirl them when not amped, it seems reasonably safe.
5. Patriarch Duran - Poison/Summon hybrid mercmancer
He is one of my experimental builds that I call the poison summon hybrid mercmancer . The basic idea behind this build is to have a summon/CE type mercmancer that didn't suck too much against physical immunes. The summon/CE mercmancer is easily the strongest necromancer build in the game, due to the combination of strong merc damage, amp, skeleton meatshields and CE, with only one weakness - physical immunes, which this build tries to rectify.
Items: Beast zerker/Death's web +4/-55 ( in cube, in inventory, for swap ), spirit 35 fcr, CtA/spirit switch, Enigma, shako (um), Mara's (29@), 2 SoJ, Arachnid mesh, rare boots.
Skills: 20 Raise skeleton, 20 Poison nova, 20 poison dagger, 20 poison explosion, 1 clay golem, golem mastery, skeleton mastery, summon resist, amp, decrepify, lower resist, rest in CE ( level 22 after skills )
Charms: PnB skillers
Merc; A2 might, Ebotd warpike, Guillame(cham), ebug fort.
He has decent poison nova damage when equipped with a death's web but I only use that against physical immunes. Merc/CE with skeleton support ( LCS ) is usually a lot better, though the summons need to be replaced more often than a conventional summoner. I use Beast here ( dweb is kept in cube for swapping ).
He does all right against anything not physical immune due to amp-teleport-merc kills stuff -CE-CE-CE. Against PIs, I swap to Dweb and use poison nova. It is effective most of the times though it kind of sucks against high hp stuff like frenzytaurs. There are some things that are immune to both physical and poison, like wraiths. Which suck, even though they break under both amp and lower resist. Decrep is used against dangerous bosses and teleporting on top of monsters can be dangerous sometimes, so a little care needs to be taken.
Pros: Good crowd control and survival, as long as teleporting is done carefully
Cons: Slows down versus PIs and bosses, mana problems ( needs potion popping, a little ), very dependent on minions.
6. Patriarch Robinhood - Fanatic Dreaming zealot
This is my last addition to the ultimate characters. It is a fanatic zealot that relies primarily on physical damage, but also has two dreams equipped for holy shock lightning damage vs immunes.
Items: Grief phaseblade ( 396/37), Fortitude wire fleece, Dream crown, Dream hyperion, SoE, LoH, Highlord's, Gores, ravenfrost, dual leech ring. Cta/spirit switch.
Skills: 20 zeal, 20 sacrifice, 20 fanaticism, 20 resist lightning. 1 sanctuary, redemption, vigor, cleansing, charge, holy shield rest in conviction ( level 10 after skills )
Charms: Resistance/life/max dmg
Merc: A2 might, eth reapers ( shael ), Guillame (cham ), treachery.
The fanatic zealot is one of the most powerful physical damage builds in the game. Unlike a barbarian though, there isn't any easy solution to physical immunes. Sanctuary is available to paladins, but isn't always useful. Reapers merc is useful but only to an extent, since decrepifed enemies still have 90 dr. Thus the need for an alternate type of damage. This is where dreams come in. Even though we have less physical damage compared to a two handed setup or the same build with guillame/phoenix shield, the dreams add about 3k lightning damage which greatly help in dealing with immunities. We also have max block and around 8k def.
This is the only paladin on which I use very many skills. Main switch ( grief/dream ) has zeal left, and right aura cycles between fanaticism, sanctuary and conviction depending on what type of enemy we face. Fanaticism for normal enemies, sanctuary for undead high DR ( gloams)/immune, conviction for non undead PIs ( example ) Switch has call to arms for buffing BO, holy shield, also charge on left and aura on right is vigor ( fast running ), redemption ( clearing corpses/regain life ), cleansing ( negate poisons and amp ). Note that 4fpa zeal is obtained even when not running fanaticism.
Dreams also have chance to cast confuse when struck, which is very helpful against tough enemies ( they fight each other ), but can be irritating sometimes due to small enemies running away ( like flayers ), and overwrites decrepify. This adds some degree of crowd control.
Overall I think it is the most satisfactory type of zealot.
Pros: Good survivability, some crowd control, versatile.
Cons: Some types of monsters are physical and lightning immune, and don't break under decrep or conviction. These must be parked. A little slow kill speed. Without AOE, stygian hags are frustrating. Dolls are a problem for any meleer, though I'm impatient and just zeal them when not amped, it seems reasonably safe.
Okay, so that's the lot. Hall of fame Pic.
[highlight]Close but no cookie[/highlight]
These are the builds that have merits to them and work very well under different circumstances, but can not be accepted as ultimate characters. I tested them all thoroughly.
Sorceress
>Lightning/orb sorceress - Lightning has some disadvantages compared to fire and cold. First the cast rate is much lower, and you have to stand there and cast it, unlike fire and forget spells like meteor and blizzard. This makes it a lot more dangerous to use against tough enemies like witch boss packs, conviction gloams, etc. Second is the immune problem, orb and conviction/-elr helps, but its not enough. Things like extra fast zealots in WSK1 can be very difficult. Not having a phoenix shield on this build doesn't help either. Finally, you can not use static against immunes.
>Pure lightning sorc - The same problems as the above but the immune problem is even worse and you are entirely reliant on merc to kill unbroken ones. Not versatile at all. Overrated build in general - it's only good for Baal runs.
Amazon
>Icemaiden ( FA/EA) - Works pretty well in general, but EA has low damage and some types of monsters almost can't be dealt with, such as vampires. Also, mana problem.
>Physical bowazon ( strafe/multi/MA/GA ). This is probably best suited to low level/low hp areas such as pits, any kind of physical resistance or immunity just pwns it in the difficult areas. Same goes for physical spearazon/lightning spearazon.
Assassin
>Pure trapper is quite good, though I haven't got the full build for it ( don't like shopping claws ). Some disadvantages such as against bosses, dual immunes, etc.
>Phoenix striker- killing speed is low, but it is versatile.
Paladin
>Two handed fanatic zealot/ 1H fanatic with grief/phoenix, etc. These are rather good in general, but physical immunes are problematic. Also they have no crowd control.
>Avenger, Auradin. They have multiple types of damage, but kill speed is too low, plus other problems.
>Hammerdin . Great build if you want to only kill about 70% of the monsters in the game. For full clear, you will be tearing your hair out of frustration trying to nail kitey monsters, monsters in small passageways and magic immunes are impossible.
Barbarian
>Wolfbarb is an awesome build so long as you skip non-undead PIs. Shifting to zerk and cast warcries is too much.
I have grief/beast main and grief/azure switch depending on whether I want fanaticism or sanctuary.
Necromancer
>Conventional Summon/CE mercmancer. I have one of these, with the same equipment as Duran except for the Dweb and the skillers are replaced with graverobbers. Skills are 20 RS,SM,CE, golem mastery with insight iron golem and remaining points in amp. Great build, so long as you skip PIs.
>Poisonmancer. Equipped with Dweb, bramble, 3 piece trangs, his poison damage is very good, with LR and -80% ePR and what not ( LCS. But he really struggles against unbreakable PoIs and there are just too many of them in act 5 hell, it's a big weakness. Plus, problems with high hp enemies ( frenzytaur ), and bosses.
Druid
>Windy druid is the only one which is sort of acceptable, but he doesn't really cut it in WSK type areas. Damage is too low, immune problem and oak sage is unreliable. The druid class is badly designed and is not suited to being an ultimate character.
Hope you had fun reading!
The purpose of an ultimate character, is to meet the following requirements as well as can be done.
- To be able to defeat all kinds of monsters, and not skip any monster as far as possible. This means not restarting the game when encountering 3-4 nasty boss packs of fanaticism and conviction or whatever, or spawning a certain type of immunity.
- To be able to kill hell monsters on players 8 with a decent kill speed, anywhere in the game, with a good comfort level.
- No deaths, as far as possible. Even in softcore, I don't like to die. Less than once in ten hours is what I'm looking for.
As you can imagine, the building of an ultimate character is one of the toughest things in D2. This is what I had been interested in for the last one year, trying different builds, respec'ing, testing, and now I think I've taken concept to a good level, maybe not perfect, insofar as no character can really ever be perfect, but still good. If any of you are interested in this kind of thing, which I don't think there is, but anyway, I would be happy to hear any suggestions.
The testing was mostly all carried out in p8 worldstone keep runs ( level 1,2,3, throne, waves, baal ). WSK spawns very erratically and sometimes very tough types of monsters, so I think it is a good representative of Hell mode in general.
1. Matriarch Zarine - Blizzballer sorceress
The blizzballer is, in my opinion, the best sorc build of all time. It is great for untwinked, decent at MF with a Tal rasha set ( can do p3 hell almost anywhere with 300 mf ), and with the items I equipped it comes the closest to an ultimate character that I can think of. Huge cold damage, decent fire damage, boosted by conviction, which also breaks quite a few immunities, and she packs a good amount of -efr/-ecr to deal with broken immunes. Unbroken dual immunes are taken out by static field and merc. Static is also used to deal with bosses and just to soften up monsters sometimes- it's a great third element, practically a tri elementalist. Also, telekinesis spammed on dual immunes so that they don't bother the merc.
The phoenix shield is very key in recovering mana and life quickly, and is actually what makes the sorceress very comfortable to play. Though she is quite fragile, careful play and teleporting keeps her safe. I only died twice levelling from 94 to 96.
Merc: A2 holy freeze, eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
Full build here. The LCS pics are for level 94 and it improved slightly at level 96 but I can't find the new screenshots (they're in the lounge thread somewhere ). This is the only character that I planned from the beginning as an ultimate character, the others just sort of happened - they went through so many respecs that they have very little in common with their original character - and thus don't have a mat/pat thread.
Pros: Very high damage and kill speed, practically no problem with immunities.
Cons: Low survivability, low FHR. The cold immune witches on WSK 1 and throne are really killer sometimes.
2. Matriarch Rukmini - Lightning javazon
Lightning fury is perhaps the single most powerful offensive ability in the game. Add to this killer single target damage in charged strike, elr and conviction for broken immunes , decent physical damage via merc and jab and you have a very formidable ultimate character.
I have two swap setups for her
-( chaos/other leechable/easy areas ): Moser's (+10/-6), Rare amulet +1 skills/20@/8ML, razortail
-- maxblock, max pierce, better dmg and -elr. LCS.
-( Worldstone keep/difficult areas ): Phoenix monarch, Mara's 29@, Tgods
-- high fres/lres and sorb, better hp, big boost to jab/throw, wtfbbq redemption aura LCS.
Other items are all same, Griffons +20/-25, Chains of honor, 2/20 gloves, rare boot, ravenfrost, Stone of Jordan
And of course 3 stacks of ethereal upgraded Titans, one used and two carried in cube for convenient swapping -Pic.
I planned to replace the mosers with AtSoD or JMod with 5/5s but never got round to it. Prefer the phoenix for the most part anyway, more versatile and smoother. Sometimes carry both sets for swapping depending on area Pic, but this only uses 2 sets of javs which can cause depletion. Eth titans can't be repaired obviously and must be rotated. I used to carry a thunderstroke for Baal but stopped bothering really.
Merc: A2 might, eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
Pros: Immense damage output. Decent crowd control using slow missiles and decoy. Good survivability via dodges and blocks.
Cons: Immune problem, broken ones are easily dispatched but unbroken ones have to be jabbed down one by one, despite ~3k jab and good merc dmg it's a little slow, and sometimes they can be immune to both lightning and physical. I usually skip these, or keep an Um'ed reapers in stash to swap on merc if I really want to kill them ( open wounds preventing regen ). No teleport, compared to the sorc.
3. Matriarch Graendel - Kick trap assassin
A powerful and versatile character. Good lightning damage and CE from traps, great crowd control using CoS/MB, decent physical damage, leech, mana leech, life tap, max block and max pdr.
Items: Azurewrath/Stormlash, Stormshield (um ), CtA Phaseblade/Spirit monarch, Enigma, Harlequin crest ( Ambergris JoF ), rare amulet ( 2 sin/10 fcr/6 ml/17@ res/58 mana ), upped gores, dracs, Arachnid mesh, raven frost, bkwb.
Skills: Lightning sentry level 39, with all its synergies maxed. 3 in fireblast, 1 pt CoS,MB,fade, rest in dragon talon ( around level 27 ). Charms - whole bunch of entrapping skillers. Merc: eth infinity CV, Andy's ( RJOF), ebug fort.
The CTA pb/spirit switch is used for trap laying ( 9fpa max speed, +3 more skills ) and for teleporting around/mindblast ( 65 fcr ). The stormlash/Azure + stormshield is used for kicking. Stormlash is mainly only used for Baal - around lightning immunes the Azurewrath with it's sanctuary, magic and cold dmg is much more useful in general areas. Stormshield provides max block and pdr, Resistances are maxed ( except fire, which is a little less ) due to fade.
I prefer k/T to pure trappers - I don't like fireblast and find that the setup for melee - lifetap, max block/pdr, sanctuary,mana leech etc. more comfortable to play with. Lightning sentry damage is still very high ( around 1-8600 ) and Death Sentry CE also provides a huge amount of damage once some bodies are on the floor. CB and static are also very nice for Baal runs and other bosses, as compared to a pure trapper. This video shows Baal run with stormlash.
Pros: Versatile, mobile, good survivability, great crowd control.
Cons: Killing speed is not as good as a sorc or zon.
4. Patriarch Conan - Whirlwind/Berserk Barbarian
The WW barb is one of the strongest physical damage characters in the game, so it is hardly a surprise that it would be represented in the ultimate characters collection. In addition to physical damage, he also brings magic damage for immunities via berserk and a whole host of crowd control skills.
Items: Grief pb/Azurewrath (cham), Grief pb/stormshield (shael), Fortitude sacred armor, Arreat's face (um ), String of Ears, LoH, Highlord's, gores, ravenfrost, rare dual leech/resists ring.
Skills: 20 WW, sword mastery, BO, shout, 1 pt warcry, taunt, incr speed, iron skin, berserk, rest in howl. A few extra in natural resist.
Charms are mainly resistance, life, and about +30 max dmg/some AR. Resistances are overstacked to about 30 fr and 70 lr under conviction - a little overkill maybe, but take that! conviction gloams or hydras or whatever.
Merc: A2 might, eth reapers ( shael ), Guillame (cham ), treachery.
For the most part, whirling through, leeching and having great hp and defense means he can effortlessly mow down mobs. Merc applies decrepify and crushing blow. The only difficulties are presented by physical resistance, immunity and unleechables.
To some extent, the physical resistance/immunity problem can be solved by the sanctuary aura via Azurewrath, which sets the physical resistance of undeads to 0. This helps dealing with wraiths ( immune ), gloams ( 90% dr ), doom/oblivion knights ( high dr, and can be very dangerous - the cham in azure freezes them and sanctuary knocks them away ). The unleechable problem can't really be solved but we can use potions for health and mana recovery.
The actual problem, however, is the A5 monsters that are naturally immune to physical and are not undead - ie. Hell temptess, blood lord, death berserkers, etc. There is no option but to berserk them - and unlike single bosses that are physical immune some times, whole groups of monsters can be pretty dangerous to berserk. Not only do we not leech, but the defense rating drops from ~20,000 to zero.
This is where warcries are important. Sometimes just charging in and warcry -zerk one by one ( fcr from forti helps ). Sometimes they have to be taunted out one by one. I usually switch to grief/stormshield - the ~45% block helps a bit. Howl is also sometimes used to isolate troublesome bosses.
Overall with practice I have got the technique down to where PI's are not much problem any more. Also, I switch the weapons quite a bit- grief/grief if I see no PIs or troublesome undead, grief/azure for sanctuary/freeze, grief/stormshield for berserk.
Pros: Great survivability, due to high hp,stacked resists, defense, leech and warcries.
Cons: Somewhat slow kill speed. PIs, especially hell temptresses can still pose a threat when multiple bosspacks with bad mods spawn. Without AOE, stygian hags are frustrating. Dolls are a problem for any meleer, though I'm impatient and just whirl them when not amped, it seems reasonably safe.
5. Patriarch Duran - Poison/Summon hybrid mercmancer
He is one of my experimental builds that I call the poison summon hybrid mercmancer . The basic idea behind this build is to have a summon/CE type mercmancer that didn't suck too much against physical immunes. The summon/CE mercmancer is easily the strongest necromancer build in the game, due to the combination of strong merc damage, amp, skeleton meatshields and CE, with only one weakness - physical immunes, which this build tries to rectify.
Items: Beast zerker/Death's web +4/-55 ( in cube, in inventory, for swap ), spirit 35 fcr, CtA/spirit switch, Enigma, shako (um), Mara's (29@), 2 SoJ, Arachnid mesh, rare boots.
Skills: 20 Raise skeleton, 20 Poison nova, 20 poison dagger, 20 poison explosion, 1 clay golem, golem mastery, skeleton mastery, summon resist, amp, decrepify, lower resist, rest in CE ( level 22 after skills )
Charms: PnB skillers
Merc; A2 might, Ebotd warpike, Guillame(cham), ebug fort.
He has decent poison nova damage when equipped with a death's web but I only use that against physical immunes. Merc/CE with skeleton support ( LCS ) is usually a lot better, though the summons need to be replaced more often than a conventional summoner. I use Beast here ( dweb is kept in cube for swapping ).
He does all right against anything not physical immune due to amp-teleport-merc kills stuff -CE-CE-CE. Against PIs, I swap to Dweb and use poison nova. It is effective most of the times though it kind of sucks against high hp stuff like frenzytaurs. There are some things that are immune to both physical and poison, like wraiths. Which suck, even though they break under both amp and lower resist. Decrep is used against dangerous bosses and teleporting on top of monsters can be dangerous sometimes, so a little care needs to be taken.
Pros: Good crowd control and survival, as long as teleporting is done carefully
Cons: Slows down versus PIs and bosses, mana problems ( needs potion popping, a little ), very dependent on minions.
6. Patriarch Robinhood - Fanatic Dreaming zealot
This is my last addition to the ultimate characters. It is a fanatic zealot that relies primarily on physical damage, but also has two dreams equipped for holy shock lightning damage vs immunes.
Items: Grief phaseblade ( 396/37), Fortitude wire fleece, Dream crown, Dream hyperion, SoE, LoH, Highlord's, Gores, ravenfrost, dual leech ring. Cta/spirit switch.
Skills: 20 zeal, 20 sacrifice, 20 fanaticism, 20 resist lightning. 1 sanctuary, redemption, vigor, cleansing, charge, holy shield rest in conviction ( level 10 after skills )
Charms: Resistance/life/max dmg
Merc: A2 might, eth reapers ( shael ), Guillame (cham ), treachery.
The fanatic zealot is one of the most powerful physical damage builds in the game. Unlike a barbarian though, there isn't any easy solution to physical immunes. Sanctuary is available to paladins, but isn't always useful. Reapers merc is useful but only to an extent, since decrepifed enemies still have 90 dr. Thus the need for an alternate type of damage. This is where dreams come in. Even though we have less physical damage compared to a two handed setup or the same build with guillame/phoenix shield, the dreams add about 3k lightning damage which greatly help in dealing with immunities. We also have max block and around 8k def.
This is the only paladin on which I use very many skills. Main switch ( grief/dream ) has zeal left, and right aura cycles between fanaticism, sanctuary and conviction depending on what type of enemy we face. Fanaticism for normal enemies, sanctuary for undead high DR ( gloams)/immune, conviction for non undead PIs ( example ) Switch has call to arms for buffing BO, holy shield, also charge on left and aura on right is vigor ( fast running ), redemption ( clearing corpses/regain life ), cleansing ( negate poisons and amp ). Note that 4fpa zeal is obtained even when not running fanaticism.
Dreams also have chance to cast confuse when struck, which is very helpful against tough enemies ( they fight each other ), but can be irritating sometimes due to small enemies running away ( like flayers ), and overwrites decrepify. This adds some degree of crowd control.
Overall I think it is the most satisfactory type of zealot.
Pros: Good survivability, some crowd control, versatile.
Cons: Some types of monsters are physical and lightning immune, and don't break under decrep or conviction. These must be parked. A little slow kill speed. Without AOE, stygian hags are frustrating. Dolls are a problem for any meleer, though I'm impatient and just zeal them when not amped, it seems reasonably safe.
Okay, so that's the lot. Hall of fame Pic.
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These are the builds that have merits to them and work very well under different circumstances, but can not be accepted as ultimate characters. I tested them all thoroughly.
Sorceress
>Lightning/orb sorceress - Lightning has some disadvantages compared to fire and cold. First the cast rate is much lower, and you have to stand there and cast it, unlike fire and forget spells like meteor and blizzard. This makes it a lot more dangerous to use against tough enemies like witch boss packs, conviction gloams, etc. Second is the immune problem, orb and conviction/-elr helps, but its not enough. Things like extra fast zealots in WSK1 can be very difficult. Not having a phoenix shield on this build doesn't help either. Finally, you can not use static against immunes.
>Pure lightning sorc - The same problems as the above but the immune problem is even worse and you are entirely reliant on merc to kill unbroken ones. Not versatile at all. Overrated build in general - it's only good for Baal runs.
Amazon
>Icemaiden ( FA/EA) - Works pretty well in general, but EA has low damage and some types of monsters almost can't be dealt with, such as vampires. Also, mana problem.
>Physical bowazon ( strafe/multi/MA/GA ). This is probably best suited to low level/low hp areas such as pits, any kind of physical resistance or immunity just pwns it in the difficult areas. Same goes for physical spearazon/lightning spearazon.
Assassin
>Pure trapper is quite good, though I haven't got the full build for it ( don't like shopping claws ). Some disadvantages such as against bosses, dual immunes, etc.
>Phoenix striker- killing speed is low, but it is versatile.
Paladin
>Two handed fanatic zealot/ 1H fanatic with grief/phoenix, etc. These are rather good in general, but physical immunes are problematic. Also they have no crowd control.
>Avenger, Auradin. They have multiple types of damage, but kill speed is too low, plus other problems.
>Hammerdin . Great build if you want to only kill about 70% of the monsters in the game. For full clear, you will be tearing your hair out of frustration trying to nail kitey monsters, monsters in small passageways and magic immunes are impossible.
Barbarian
>Wolfbarb is an awesome build so long as you skip non-undead PIs. Shifting to zerk and cast warcries is too much.
I have grief/beast main and grief/azure switch depending on whether I want fanaticism or sanctuary.
Necromancer
>Conventional Summon/CE mercmancer. I have one of these, with the same equipment as Duran except for the Dweb and the skillers are replaced with graverobbers. Skills are 20 RS,SM,CE, golem mastery with insight iron golem and remaining points in amp. Great build, so long as you skip PIs.
>Poisonmancer. Equipped with Dweb, bramble, 3 piece trangs, his poison damage is very good, with LR and -80% ePR and what not ( LCS. But he really struggles against unbreakable PoIs and there are just too many of them in act 5 hell, it's a big weakness. Plus, problems with high hp enemies ( frenzytaur ), and bosses.
Druid
>Windy druid is the only one which is sort of acceptable, but he doesn't really cut it in WSK type areas. Damage is too low, immune problem and oak sage is unreliable. The druid class is badly designed and is not suited to being an ultimate character.
Hope you had fun reading!
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