Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

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There's never a good reason to make HotO in anything else besides flail. You get the absolute lowest stat requirements and the melee damage of HotO is 99,99% irrelevant after you consider it's only casters (ie. non-melee) that would want to equip one. Plus by putting it in an one-hander lets you equip a shield of your choice.

 

On the topic of liking casters or melee fighters better, I don't really have an opinion - it's all what I'm in the mood for. My more recent builds have aimed for flexibility over power, and I'm getting away from a lot of the cookie-cutter builds that I've used when getting started. The first was my WW/WB dual shapeshifter, which was a ton of fun, simply because most builds go one way or the other. That, to me, is the fun I get out of playing - figuring out builds that are less common. I've enjoyed melee characters and casters, and even have tried a missile character or two.

I'm sure there's a guide for every conceivable idea out there - almost all builds incorporate synergies, and so certain skills naturally work well together, so there's rarely a means of making a truly unique character. It's because of this that there's probably a finite number of skill combinations for any given class that will result in a hell viable character. However, in my recent builds, I've tried to mix different skills that are not often seen together, and I definitely have made use of different equipment than most builds advise. One of my dislikes about builds is that they tend to be equipment restrictive, requiring very specific gear for optimal performance. I like working backwards - look at what I have, and deciding from there.

To use the proposed paladin build as an example, is there a build out there for a conviction zealot using Baranar's Star as a weapon? While I've not seen one, I'm sure there is. But those builds would probably not also include a runeword sacred armor, nor use of Atma's Scarab as well as some of my other equipment ideas. So the basic build concept won't be unique, but the items incorporated to get there will be. But who knows? Maybe this paladin will get me off to a start of using high strength builds. Maybe my next character will be an Earth Shifter druid.

 

That much is true - it takes a little more work with a melee character to be effective. Elemental zealots become weak once they run into something immune to their primary attacks, and I've found WW barbs to be hugely over-rated. (Because they have no synergies - you have WW, weapon mastery, luck, and good wishes.) I'm interested in seeing how my current paladin turns out. One of the reasons my dual shapeshifter worked so well is that other than the occassional fire and physical dual immune, there was nothing that could really slow him down - he even had a stun attack against particularly nasty enemies.

I think the other problem with melee characters is that by their very nature they are less versatile. You cannot really max more than two attacks - and even then it's only if they share a synergy - while casters have tools in their bag of tricks that make them more adaptable.

---------- Added 21 hours, 16 minutes and 44 seconds later... ----------

Huh. In looking through my loot last night, I actually decided that Bloodfist gloves are surprisingly not sucktastic when it comes to early game play. 40 life, IAS, and FHR. Not bad at all. All for an item with a level 9 character requirement. I can use them for quite a while. I'm also looking into potentially using Steelrend late in the game. I've never considered using them before, owing to the whopping 185 strength minimum, but I'm getting there anyway...

+170-210 Defense
+30-60% Enhanced Damage
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
+15-20 To Strength

Those are some high octane offense gloves right there...

And Hellplague is the easy choice for early weapon for the paladin:

+70-80% Enhanced Damage
+2 To Fire Skills
Adds 25-75 Fire Damage
Adds 28-56 Poison Damage Over 6 Seconds
5% Life Stolen Per Hit
5% Mana Stolen Per Hit

Granted, the +2 to fire skills are pretty much useless - the only fire based attack I have is Holy Fire, which I don't even use, but that's significant damage output for a weapon I can use... well now. Early in Act II.

 

New forum! Anyway, I finished the Sorceress this weekend. I just plowed through the last act because I wanted to start the paladin. I did pick up one good drop on the way to Baal, although Baal himself dropped crap. I got the larger of the two BK swords, which I didn't have yet. So I now have both, although I don't think I'd use the set.

BK Sacred Charge (the big one):
One Handed Damage: 75 To 195
Two Handed Damage: 174 To 345
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 189
Required Dexterity: 110
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
+200% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +20
20% Increased Attack Speed
Knockback

BK Tribal Guardian (the little one):
One Handed Damage: 120 To 156
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 147
Required Dexterity: 124
+200% Enhanced Damage
+50 Poison Damage Over 2 Seconds
Fire Resist +50%
+20 To Strength
20% Increased Attack Speed

Set bonus (obviously with only two items, no partial set bonuses):
+2 To All Skill Levels
+200 To Attack Rating
+200% Damage To Demons
+200% Damage To Undead
+20 Fire Damage
+25 Defense

So the total damage to demons and undead would be substantial. It just doesn't do much more besides that. I guess your two choices with two weapons would be limited to frenzy and whirlwind.

I definitely agree that Drac's are the way to go for my build, but I don't have them. I'm looking for a second best choice here. I've now pushed my paladin on to Act III normal already. I did pretty much full clears on Act I, but not on Act II. There's just not a lot of good XP areas in Act II. Most notably, I fly through the palace. Just head directly to the stairs down, with the only area that even gets mostly cleared being the bottom level.

On the other hand, I did do all the false tombs, as the XPs and gold chests are surprisingly quite good there. I also made some use of the Sanctuary aura for the first time, and it's actually somewhat useful. The only reason I invested a point in it at all is because it is a prerequisite to Conviction. I've never made a Conviction paladin before, and if you don't intend to get Conviction, there doesn't appear to be any reason to get Sanctuary either, as Conviction is the only skill it unlocks.

Salvation pulses every couple of seconds knocking back all the nearby undead out of the way. (It does a piddling amount of damage as well, but the damage is insignificant, and you're interested in the knockback effect.) You also get a nice damage bonus to undead (150% at level one, and another 30% for every skill level thereafter). Furthermore, it ignores any physical and elemental immunities that the undead may have (largely a non-issue before hell difficulty). It's useful when you have a room filled with undead and mummies in the back. Even with cold damage, there's only a 20% chance that the body shatters on death, which makes hacking your way through to the mummies (all the while raising the undead as you're killing them) a very long process. But you get there very quickly with Sanctuary, as the skill makes the entire hoard part before you. The bonus damage isn't bad either.

There are other useful skills I am finally making use of, and I cannot believe I usually did without these skills in prior builds. Most of them are on the defensive aura tree, and since I always have an offensive aura active, the only time I ever invested in those auras are for synergies (like the elemental resistances for holy fire, freeze or shock, or definance for Holy Shield). But there were enough extra points left over in this build that I could afford to spend a handful of them into one point wonders in this tree.

The one I wanted was Redemption, but owing to the prerequisites, you pick up Prayer, Cleansing, Vigor, and Defiance. First is Vigor. The only time I ever thought I'd need this skill is for a synergy to Blessed Hammer, and since I've never tried a Hammerdin (mostly because I lack the equipment I'd really want to make a good one), I never bothered with the skill. Wow is it useful for running through previously cleared areas. It is also helpful in getting in and out of town quickly. Cleansing is another useful utility skill. Just like with Meditation, you get the Prayer synergy without the mana cost. Cutting poison length and curse duration in half is always useful.

That means the only defensive aura I've now made no use out of is Meditation, and I probably never will, as I can get that out of my mercenary should I desire such. Mana will never be an issue with this build (Zeal is two mana - Holy Shield is a lot, but it's not like it has to be recast often), and I think the mana regained through Redemption will be largely superfulous, so Meditation definitely isn't necessary. I'm getting Redemption to recharge my life bulb after a battle.

I'm now level 28. As I said, I think I'm only going to go with one point in Conviction early on, although I do plan on making it my primary aura once it is available. All of my offensive auras only have one point, and I think since I do have some elemental damage sources on my equipment it will help, along with cutting the defense of monsters in half - which actually won't be a bad idea with my low dexterity, although I cannot say that's a problem in normal.

 

With the lightning sorceress, if you place all your points into lightning, anything that isn't LI should go down very quickly. Lightning does have the highest damage ceiling (unfortunately also the highest damage range), so yes, I'm not surprised it is the easier class to play at this point.

With the bone necro, most players keep their investment into CE to a minimum. You need a point in it as a pre-requisite for the rest of the bone spells, and most necros go with just that point. As you know, the damage doesn't scale with more points - just the range, and most bone necros find that they can get away with the single point along with a healthy investment in +skill items (sometimes even on switch, where you switch over only to cast CE).

Bone necros do get insanely powerful at high levels, and after maxing Bone Spirit and Bone Spear, you just have to decide which synergies you want to work on. As their synergistic benefits are all identical, it's personal preference which skill you'll use the most. Your options are teeth, bone wall, and bone prison. High level teeth are actually not too bad as crowd control. You get 1 + skill level teeth, so you're getting 20-something with each toss, more than one can hit a target, and they get a lovely 15% synergy bonus from all of the other skills.

Bone wall is probably more useful than bone prison as a synergy, and the only additional benefit of that is it gives a bonus to your bone armor (which is always only worth a point as you get +15 damage absorbed from the synergy, and +10 from the skill itself, and it's the only bone skill that doesn't offer any synergies to Bone Spear or Bone Spirit).

 

Level 12 Conviction is nothing to sneeze at. That's 30% + 5%*11 = -85% resistance. Still the going will be rather slow. A monster with 100% lightning resistance will still be 83% resistant to lightning. There are a few things I'm unsure of though. First, I am unsure if the additional -%enemy lightning resistance transfers to your attacks, or just the ones by the mercenary. I also don't know if the -%enemy lightning resistance works at full effectiveness, or if it is also at 1/5 effectiveness.

However, that may be enough. Infinity is a high damage weapon, so unless you get really unlucky and it's PI and LI, it should be too concerning. It also comes with PMH, so even if it takes a bit of doing, it should be enough to get rid of monsters eventually. The thing I'd be more concerned with is some monsters come with up to -120% lightning resistance, and a level 12 conviction won't break that. The additional -%enemy lightning resistance on Infinity definitely won't work on breaking an immunity, irrespective of whether that affects your attacks or not.

Definitely. Are you still using Amp Damage as your main curse? There's no curse that I'm aware of that lowers resistance to magical damage, but you still have CE that's half physical at the very least, along with your merc and other assorted minions.

Unfortunately, that is true. Even amped enemies will take multiple castings of CE on P8 to do them in. I did not use CE heavily until I had reduced to players settings in hell difficulty. Really annoying to kill stuff quickly on any setting higher than P3.

I think those are points well spent. Like you said, even if they don't kill much, they give the enemy targets to keep them off you and your merc.

What is there to consider regarding bone armor? It absorbs physical damage, and it's a prerequisite for bone wall and bone prison. Even if you take teeth as your 3rd spell, bone wall will be the 4th skill you max, and you'll have the one point in Bone Armor already. 1 point in bone armor is 20 physical damage absorbed, and another 15 for each point spent in wall or prison. Assuming you max one of them, that's 320 free physical damage absorb. Who wouldn't want that? Given that you'll have +skill equipment, it will actually be a bit more than 320. It doesn't help against elemental attacks, but there are a lot of missile firing enemies in the game - skeleton archers, quill rats, blow dart flayers, rogue archers, etc.

 

Hmmm... I found this on -%enemy resistance (gained from items) on Amazon Basin:

Bold added by me. So assuming Conviction breaks the immunity, any -%enemey lightning resistance granted by items will be applied in full, however, it will only help the character using that item. So your idea of Crescent Moon is a good one - assuming that Conviction will usually break the immunity. You'd only really use it as a switch - most of the time, the enemy lightning resistance will be well into the negatives already - and you may get better damage by carrying around a HotO or static wand that gives +3 to all lightning skills. The combined enhanced damage from getting three more levels out of Chain Lightning and the Mastery would probably exceed what you'd get from an additional -35% enemy lightning resistance.

 

I mentioned a few posts back about the problems I saw with a FoH paladin, and I think I may have come up with a workable idea. If my conviction paladin goes as well as planned, I may try a FoH paladin. My initial thinking was you needed 60 skill points just to maximize FoH - which is still true. 20 for FoH, along with both synergies, Holy Bolt and Holy Shock. I then reasoned that since you're sinking 20 into Holy Shock, you may as well use that as your aura, and sink 20 into Resist Lightning as well. And that's where I went wrong.

An alternate would be to max Conviction as your primary aura, and invest into Holy Shock solely as a synergy to FoH. That alone should make any Lighning immune vulernable to FoH. I'd definitely need an insight paladin owing to the high mana cost, because the one drawback of this build is FoH is pretty much your only attack. FoH has no prerequisites, and neither does Holy Bolt, but Conviction has five. (Thankfully all of the prerequisites for Holy Shock are satisfied by getting Conviction.) But that's still 85 hard points. You'd only have enough points left to invest marginally into something that would let you leech back some mana on the fly, which really limits your options. Smite doesn't leech, Vengence only leeches the physical damage which is negligible, which pretty much leaves you with a few points into Zeal.

 

Advanced throught Act IV last night with the paladin. I'm now level 33, and I'm finally getting to the point where I can equip some semi-decent equipment. Specifically, I like my options for weapons and helms.

On the weapon side, I'm spoiled for riches. Oddles of choices that come on line in the 30s - Butcher's Pupil, or if I prefer to go the elemental side of things, there's Sureshrill frost (100 cold damage), or Moonfall (100 fire damage and ctc Meteor). I'm leaning towards Butcher's Pupil, because I'm pretty sure with my other equipment I can hit the 4 fpa Zeal attck rate, and I definitely won't be worse than 5 fpa.

With helms I think there are two very good and very under-rated options available in the 30s. I love Rockstopper, although seeing as how I don't need resistances at the moment, I'll probably go with Stealskull. I think this is one of the most underappreciated items in the game. Unless you're looking for resistances, this helm offers just about everything else you can want - IAS, FHR, dual leech, mf.

The thing I'm in doubt with is my ancillary equipment. I may go with Thundergods as my belt, simply because other than crafting one, there's nothing that really fits with my current setup. Of course, it's not like the mods on blood belts are that great. You get the life and life leech like all the other blood crafts, but the third pre-set mod is OW, which is not particularly important as far as melee mods go. But at least I could potentially get some resists out of a craft. (I know I'll have cold and poison maxed easily, but I may need some to lightning, and I definitely think I"m short with fire in my current equipment selection. And I have no idea what gloves I'm using long term - that may also be a blood craft.

 

Lightning Mastery gives a flat 12% per level after the first point, so it's very linear. CL is different in that the more points you spend, the more the damage increases. For example, the max damage on CL increases 10 points per bolt going from level 1 to level 2. The point between level 19 and level 20 increases the max damage per bolt by 20. So more points yield a bigger difference in total damage.

You are right that you get one more bolt per five levels, but you start with five bolts, so level 20 yields 9 bolts. So that total damage increase is really not 20, but 180. So I am unsure what the best point allocation strategy is. By the sounds of things, it's a moot point. You probably won't go onto NM before level 50 or so, and by that time, you'll have nearly 20 points in both CM and CL.

 

DUH. I just figured out what my belt and gloves are going to be:

Immortal King's Detail
War Belt
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 110
+36 Defense
Lightning Resist +31%
Fire Resist +28%
+25 To Strength
+105 Defense (2 Items)

Immortal King's Forge
War Gauntlets
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 110
+65 Defense
12% Chance To Cast Level 4 Charged Bolt When Struck
+20 To Dexterity
+20 To Strength
+25% Increased Attack Speed (2 Items)

Done and done.