Zod Sept - Planning & Progress

[ffs]

Assassin done. She finished Hell A1-A3 on mostly P8, A4 and A5 mostly on P5. For Ancients and Baal I turned it down to P3. No Mat pic but I recorded her Baal run, posted in the Mat thread.

She was fun indeed!

So that's two quick Mats in order to get this rolling. Next up in alphabetical order would be the Barb, and given I have a good idea of what I want to do with him that's likely the next Pat.

Edit: Sketch of initial Barb ideas to get back to, will give it more thought when I actually pick him up.

Spoiler

Gear:

• Main W1: BotD eth BA
• Main W2: Beast BA
• Switch: dual Hoto
• Wolfhowl, socket TBD
• HLW
• Fortitude
• LoH
• SoE or craft belt
• Raven
• Dual leech/adds ring
• Gore Rider or WT

Build: Frenzy until 79 when he can equip Wolfhowl. After that not sure yet, probably something like this:

• 20 BO
• 20 Axe Mastery
• 20 Berserk
• Remaining points TBD, likely Berserk synergies, Natural Resist, Shout
• 1 Battle Cry, Battle Command

On the other hand, I've been meaning to do go for decent HoR entries with more optimized MF characters, so there's a good chance it will take a while for the next one. Going on vacation tomorrow for 10 days anyway, we'll see what I feel like when I'm back.

 

[ffs]

OK so I did continue with the Barb, currently early A2 Hell.

I went Frenzy until the Wolf build was possible. Typical twinking route for him as well: Envy jewel'ed bow/helm/armor into Death's set, first with one Hel'ed weapon and adding a second one shortly after. Used those until lvl 30, then switching to Bloodletter and Butcher's Pupil. Finally at 49 he equipped 2 nicely rolled Oath Small Crescents (331 and 328 ED) and then destroyed everything until A1 Hell, replacing one Oath with BotD BA at 69.

After finishing A1 Hell he was lvl 78, and paid a visit to the Pit to get to 79 and transform into his final build. Not much gameplay done with it yet, but I'm curious as to how his Hell journey will continue as a Wolf.

Current LCS at 79:




Drops along the way so far:


0 MF Death Cleaver


36 ED/4 life jewel that I used for Wolfhowl (he dropped it and would have gone for some ED there anyway).



EDIT:

Also been thinking about Paladin. I think I will go with the HF route with Zod'ed Heaven's Light -- but with Dreams as well. Salvation benefits both HF and HS as synergy, and he will have enough skill points to max Resist Lightning and Resist cold as well. I've played Dreamers in several variations and this should actually work out quite nicely, with enough damage to provide decent leach and at least ok physical damage .

Given Merc will need to use Infinity, not sure yet how to handle IAS. I'll go for 65 IAS with 5 frame Zeal, which in addition to LoH + HLW means using either Nos Coil or IAS in weapon. In the latter case I'll probably have to use a one of my few 15/35+ RJoFs to justify the Zod.

 

[ffs]

Barb is done. I'm officially a Wolf Barb fan now.

I think the Paladin route with Dreams will make him the strongest character in this sept by a healthy margin, so I'll probably save him for last.

For now I'll be keeping it alphabetical though meaning next up is Druid with eth Earth Shifter and focus on physical damage. I expect him to be pretty strong, too, before moving on to the weaker builds with Necro and Sorc... :/

 

[Pb_pal]

You're flying through this! Excited for the druid, good luck.

 

[ffs]

Heh, yeah I figured I'll just do the sept a bit more (maybe even finish it) before I move on to more running with MF characters again. I expect to slow down with Necro and Sorc but we'll see.

Druid is underway, probably going to get it done quickly given Fissure rips through normal and NM like butter. I played him a bit 2 weeks ago and he's currently lvl 20. Btw made these items for him, which I can definitely recommend for any caster in early levels. Tirs in sword to equip it asap and really big help on its own, then adding 3 MPK jewels in 3os shield at lvl 16. I always feel casters struggle a bit after investing some skill points with mana needs, say from ~15 until being able to equip Spirit at lvl 25. These help a lot, and I prefer the shield over Wall of the Eyeless for mana management.

 

[ffs]

Pushed the Druid a bit further yesterday, nearing end of NM and just about to switch from Fissure to Fury based build. Should find the time to finish him this weekend.

While not meaning to really min-max him, I've been using a spreadsheet to compare damage output to the non-eth Earth Shifter Druid I completed recently. Comparing the different attack speed (7 FPA vs 8 FPA) and higher damage with eth Shifter, I was still surprised how much higher the Fury DPS it with eth Shifter at around ~40k DPS for eth in comparison to ~30k DPS with non-eth Shifter (in each case with same gear and Might triggered). According to my numbers his LCS Fury damage should end up at around 3-16k, Armageddon at 2.6-3.1k and Fissure procs at 750-800. Sounds good so far, we'll see how it turns out in practice.

 

[ffs]

Alright, managed to squeeze in the Hell Ancients => Baal section with the Druid yesterday. Pat thread here. Solid build, nothing special though. Necro, Sorc and Pally left .. but first of all a welcome break with the MF/RF tourney... who knows, maybe afterwards there'll be more interesting eth items to choose from!

 

[ffs]

Somehow got into this untwinked HC Barb project that makes up most of my D2 efforts currently and sadly taking time away from a couple of other projects like this one.

Still some progress as I played the Paladin a bit in between. Finished NM with him and brought him to lvl 75. I plan to quest him through Hell via MP'ing as an Avenger with maxicek and hopefully a few others.

I decided to pair the Zod in his Heaven's Light with a mid-roll RJoF (15/34). Other socket options I considered were Lo, Ber, Jah, Ohm. But given the use of Infinity and the fact that physical damage is just "nice to have" for him, including IAS seemed the best choice to ease requirements on the rest of the gear. Shael would have been too lame to justify the Zod, so RJoF it was.

Looking sexy:



Current gear:

• Dream Grand Crown
• Dream ST (61@)
• eth Heaven's Light Zod/RJoF
• Ormus Robes (14 CSD, 14 LSD) to boost dmg from both of his auras
• HLW
• Raven
• BKWB
• eth Treks
• SoE
• Blood craft gloves with 20 IAS, 3 LL, 8 CB, life, dex, CR, PR
• Inventory: 6x OA skillers with life
• Merc (Might): Infinity, Stealskull, Duriel

Build is 20 HF, 20 Resist Cold, 20 Resist Lightning, 1 Zeal, Vengeance, HS, pre-reqs. Rest will go into Salvation (currently 5 hard pts).

For Hell he will temporarily use the BotD GPA that I've used on the Sin and smack things as 2-handed HF Avenger for a while. This will be paired with faceted Nightwing's and CoH since he won't be using dual Dream in that phase.

***

In other news, my HC Barb actually found an ethereal Tomb Reaver. It rolled 2os (my only previous one had 1os ...). I'm not a fan of the idea to HC->SC transfer it, but it could be a nice fit for the Sorc. Even with only one RJoF it hits most breakpoints I'm interested in. Readout:

Tomb Reaver
Cryptic Axe
Two Hand Damage: 176 - 812
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Level: 84
Required Strength: 155
Required Dexterity: 93
Fingerprint: 0x6f4c5842
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+60% Increased Attack Speed
261% Enhanced Damage
+182% Damage to Undead
+310 to Attack Rating against Undead
All Resistances +39
10% Reanimate as: Returned
+10 Life after each Kill
57% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Light Radius
Ethereal
2 Sockets (0 used)

 

[D2DC]

Love this project. Can't wait until we have another Zod-God to worship! Our almighty @grape is a very unresponsive deity..

Nice twinking gear also, but dude get a 1.07 MPK ring!

 

[ffs]

@D2DC I don't time travel (or trade for that matter), so no 1.07 MPK rings for me.

Since the Pally finished NM and is waiting to be MP'ed through Hell with the Avengers starting this weekend, I've moved on to playing the other two remaining chars whenever I take breaks from Baal runs with HC Barb.

Necro is lvl 15 and moving towards Andariel. Also did some high speed super twinked session with the Sorc to quickly bring her to 73 and finishing NM.

She's the reason for this update, given I made an "interesting" decision regarding her Zod item:



Somebody mentioned why not use one Zod on an armor piece earlier, and I figured... why the hell not indeed?

I struggled with my eth weapon options for Sorc anyway, because attack rate would be so bad in any case and I was pretty sure she wouldn't be that powerful. I decided not to HC->SC transfer the eth Tomb Reaver found on my HC Barb for moral reasons... That was the only reasonably fast Zod option for her weapon, and with that eth Arkaine's it was.

Plan with her now is dual Dreams as well (like the Pally), but for the first time with Zeal from Passion. (My previous Dream Sorcs, actually Enchantress builds in general, were all Bear Sorcs.)

The only +2 Arkaine's I had happened to roll very high defense (both base and modifier), which is why I deemed it worthy. It should fit a Zeal/Dream Enchantress quite nicely, especially when using ES (which I'm leaning towards). I'll go with Defiance Merc and invest significantly into Shiver Armor for a major defense boost. Defiance Mercs with Fortitude have ridiculous defense which increases their survivability noticeably, and I expect this to do the same for her, making the melee gameplay much smoother I hope.

The iDR on Arkaine's (low roll unfortunately) also comes in handy when using ES, as it applies to the remaining damage not soaked up by the ES. By the same token, if I do choose to go that way, the lack of resists from that slot may not even have to be made up for elswhere, given resists aren't high priority either with ES.

Warmth moreover doubles as synergy for Enchant and helping with mana regen, so I plan to invest a lot into that as well.

Anyway lots of interesting options for her now with that plan in mind. Just dual Dreams with max LM makes her quite powerful already, so there's plenty of room to play around with regarding other build and gear choices. Looking forward to questing her through hell.

 

[zemaj]

While admiring the minutia of that shmexy chunk of armor, it popped into my head, "isn't that kinda low Vita for a 1.07 Arkaine's? Hold up, isn't that indestructible anyway? WTF..." Then that first bit replying to @D2DC finally penetrated my thick skull...


Very stylish choice for Sorc's Zod-item going with armor! Willl be following with especial interest on this one.

 

[ffs]

I brought her to 85 in the Pit so that she could equip Arkaine's. Didn't want to finish most of Hell before even wearing it.

Defense seems OK.. so does damage but that's a given on a Dream Sorc.



Honestly never seen such defense on a Sorc. Glad this worked out just as I had hoped, it's really noticeable how hard it is for enemies to hit her.

So far we've stayed on P8 and destroyed everything until now, let's see if we can stick with that for the remainder of Hell.

Things to try for the remainder of Hell:

• Distribution of skill points among ES, Enchant, Warmth, FM and Telekinesis. For now I went with 20 Enchant and Warmth, 1 FM, 1 ES and remaining couple of points in TK. But aside from unbreakable LIs, I'm not sure if maybe investing more in TK or even ES could do more for her overall gameplay than Enchant/Warmth. CtH could be fine with just Infinity. I'll likely use a couple of respecs throughout Hell to try a few things in that regard.
• Might bring resists up by swapping out skillers. Currently using 8 Sparking GCs, but of course damage would still be more than enough when dropping some of those. Negative resists are fine so far in A1 (as mentioned above, ES makes them lower priority anyway), but that could change going forward.
• She currently hits last Zeal attack rate breakpoint with IAS on gloves and amulet, but I might drop one breakpoint for other utility like Dracul's. Loved using those on several previous melee Sorcs, especially in later/tougher areas.

Gear at the moment:

Spoiler

Dream Grand Crown
Dream Troll Nest
Passion PB
eth Arkaine's Valor (Zod)
HLW
Bloodcraft gloves 20 IAS, 5 LL, 5 CB, dex, PR, life
Raven
BKWB
Waterwalk
SoE

CtA/Spirit switch

Might Merc with Infinity, Andy, ebug Fortitude

Inventory: Cube, Sparking GCs with life, SCs with life/mana

Super fun and very strong character. Will record some gameplay for her Mat thread.

 

[D2DC]

Defense seems OK.. so does damage

Resists look like they could use some work.

 

[ffs]

Resists look like they could use some work.

Why? As mentioned above I might feel some resists are necessary in later acts (think Souls in WSK, Pit lords in CS etc.), but as a general rule I don't care much about resists with an ES Sorc. Resists only apply to remaining life dmg after most of the damage is soaked up by the mana pool.

Example:

Spoiler

Say Sorc has ES at 75% absorb and also 15 MDR from gear (SoE in my case). Now let's assume you're in a lvl 85 area and encounter a lightning bolt from an LE boss. It will deal 175 lightning damage if I'm not mistaken.

With 75 lightning resist, this will happen: 25% of the 75 dmg go to the life bulb, so that's ~44 dmg. The remaining 75% are doubled to ~262 and this amount is subtracted from the mana bulb. No damage mitigating modifiers can affect this except Telekinesis.

Now, the 75 LR is applied to the 44 life dmg. So that is reduced to 33. Subsequently, the 15 MDR is applied, resulting in 18 dmg taken overall on the life bulb.

With 0 Light res, the 44 is reduced by MDR to 29 dmg taken. In other words, both variants will tickle your life bulb, with the 0 res option just tickling a little more.

In both cases MDR reduces damage more than resists, hence for an ES Sorc something like Viper, SoE or Dwarf Star tend to be more effective ways to mitigate elemental damage. If my Sorc now just used Dwarf Star instead of one ring, that would reduce damage more than 75@ in this example.

For the sake of comparison, same case without ES, to illustrate how ES makes resists less relevant: With 75 LR , you'd take 29 damage after LR and MDR. With 0 LR, you'd take 160. Much more significant difference.

EDIT: To clarify, resists still help in particular when mana bulb is not full enough to absorb the dmg to mana, because remaining damage is taken with the life bulb. That will result in some case in between the ES and no ES scenario. Whether that's worth piling up resists depends on actual gameplay, but IMO it's not necessary unless running specific areas with lots of elemental dmg.

Basin wiki: http://theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php/Energy_Shield

 

[D2DC]

as a general rule I don't care much about resists with an ES Sorc.

Ahh yes. I've only played ES Sorc once, and that has been quite a while. IIRC my resists were not great..

Resists: -46 / -70 / -40 / 12

 

[saracen85]

If you don't mind sacrificing a couple of Enchant levels, you can always go Demon Limb and channel those 20 points either to FM or TK..

 

[ffs]

If you don't mind sacrificing a couple of Enchant levels, you can always go Demon Limb and channel those 20 points either to FM or TK..

True, somehow I hadn't thought of that at all, thanks for reminding me of that option! I was actually contemplating using fire skillers and other pre-buff gear to get higher level Enchant because of the general lack of + skill gear on builds like these. But I like the idea to do quite the opposite, just go with Demon Limb and use those points more efficiently.

 

[ffs]

Sorc is done – Mat thread here.

Nearing completion of the Sept with Necro and Pally remaining.

The route for Paladin is sorted out as stated above (basically Vengeance & HF, first with eBotD then with Heaven's Light & Dreams).

Given Pally will be MP'ed, the Necro may likely be the next one to make it across the finish line. He'll just be played as Boner until able to use Windhammer. Haven't Zod'ed it yet but I think I'll stick with that weapon choice. Faith Merc (EDIT: actually I think Beast IG) will be used to at least max out the attack rate, which will be slow anyway. I now plan to go without Beast, instead investing a lot in summons and do some more casting (AD/CE) to make up for his otherwise rather underpowered offensive capabilities. Don't want to spam/overuse CE though. I'll try to balance his gear between improving his own attacking and supporting his summons.

 

[ffs]

Since I last mentioned the Necro, I got him a little further to A5 normal. Currently lvl 42 and just having equipeed a ton of Bone Spear stuff. While NM lays ahead, I've been giving his Hell approach some more thought...

Necro may likely be the next one to make it across the finish line. He'll just be played as Boner until able to use Windhammer. Haven't Zod'ed it yet but I think I'll stick with that weapon choice.

Scratch that... he'll go with Ribcracker instead. Higher damage, same attack rate, FHR, dex... and saving some 150 strength points in comparison to Windhammer. I nearly failed really hard there. (Ribby has better chances of being used on some future char as well, at least I can justify making a Fury Wolf for it.)

So here we go, final Zod item for this sept:



Gameplay-wise I'm looking to roll with a bunch of skeletons, cast AD and join the fray by hitting things with the Ribby, with some CE use to clean things up (within measure). Also decided we'll go non-Bear after all, mostly to distinguish him from this melee Necro I just played a few months ago.

Apart from the weapon there will be another "questionable" investment, namely Beast Iron Golem. Kinda need Fana to reach fastest attack rate, with non-Bear build that's an impressive 11 FPA. Lvl 9 Fana from Beast does the trick, so I can go with Might/Infinity Merc instead of A1 Faith Merc. Pretty sure Infinity does more for damage output (by increasing CtH for both Necro and summons) in comparison to e.g. Pride or Reaper, which would moreover counteract Amp.

Build I think will be something like max GM (kinda don't want to lose Beast IG), CE, Skeleton Mastery, Raise Skeleton. Leftover points will probably go to Amp (higher range) and Summon Resist.

As for gear, with Beast IG and Merc helping a lot in the offense deperatment, I don't plan to go crazy on damage gear. Rather some mix of survival/damage/summon support stuff. Something like CoH, Kira's, BKWB, Mara, LoH... Enigma might see use as well, not to teleport through but for positioning purposes.

 

[D2DC]

Pretty sure Infinity does more for damage output (by increasing CtH for both Necro and summons)

True. But couldn't you just make an 'Infinity' IG then to get the same benefit? Allowing you to use a higher level Fana from Rogue instead of a paltry lvl 9 on 'Beast'.. Something to think about..