Diablo II Single Player Thread - 3

Hmmm... But isn't the first one basically a Shockadin with a fanaticism aura? So (I'm guessing here so feel free to correct) that you're going dual dream. As that's only taking up the helm and shield slots, it frees up loads of options for the armor and weapon. What's the general build plan here? Max fanaticism, resist shock, and sacrifice? And then a bit to get Holy Shield, and whatever left in Zeal? Even with conviction running on the merc, it seems like you wouldn't necessarily have to pump zeal for the boost to AR, but I think it's adds damage as you level it (although less damage than the sacrifice synergy).

Oh there are tons better than Dragon - but if you want dual elemental it's the only way to do it. Heck, dmc has Chains on hand - that's a better option too. Although that does become a tough call. Getting +300% damage on armor is nothing to sneeze at. But getting +2 to all skills, along with much better resistances, life steal, and %DR is also very appealing.

Oh, that I concluded just by doing the math. Once you try and throw cold on there, you are forced to gimp either your fire or lightning damage, resulting in a worse combinatino than if you had simply done 2.

The other thing I wonder about is if the whole point of an auradin (from dmc's perspective) is to be able to try a build he never has done before? I mean, physical is feasible all on it's own without any elemental damage at all. I have made cheap zeal paladins that just did zeal, sacrifice, conviction, holy shield, rest into defiance. (With one point in Vengence vs. physical immunes.) Conviction was worth it over fanaticism just for the lowered defense and guaranteed hits. These guys were absolute tanks. Even on hell difficulty, I seem to remember my chance of being hit was only around 25% (and 3/4 of those were blocked).

 

D2.... retro! How have you managed to get it working? I tried once and even when working fully patched with compatibility for old versions of Windows, I had major colour issues!

It's still a million times better than D3 to be fair.

 

I don't understand why you are so fussed about getting Holy Shield for free. Assuming use of Heart of the Oak, you'd have to spend 7 points in combat skills. Combine that with 60 Defensive Auras and 25 Offensive Auras, and you're at 92 skill points. That's level 81 with all quests completed, and there's no way you won't be level 81 by the time you complete all quests. The point in Zeal and the Sacrifice prereq are obligatory, so it's all of 5 points to pick up a hard point in Holy Shield. To put it another way, where else were you looking to spend those 5 skill points? Becasue I can't see where they would be put to any significant use.

To me, the tradeoff simply isn't worth it. A phase blade will reduce your fpa by 20% compared to a scepter. Since you'll have a 95% chance to hit, this will effectively increase your damage output by 20%. I can't see how saving 5 skill points in a build that's for all practical purposes done by level 81 is worth a 20% decrease in damage.

And it's not like you're getting nothing for those 5 points - you'll be getting a level 6 Holy Shield out of it. There's no such thing as a scepter that you're going to get your hands on with a level 6 Holy Shield on it. And that's a big difference IMO - the higher the level in Holy Shield, the fewer points you need to devote to dexterity to maintain your block rate. Attack rating is meaningless in a build with an activated high level in conviction. The huge decrease in enemy defense allows you to maintain a 95% hit probability irrespective of dexterity.

The best you'll find on a weapon is level 3 Holy Shield. For comparison's sake,

Level 3 Holy Shield: +20% Blocking, +55% Defense, 80 seconds duration
Level 6 Holy Shield: +26% Blocking, +100% Defense, 155 seconds duration.

To me, there's absolutely no argument just based on that, but when you add in that you also miss out on 20% damage by getting Holy Shield on your weapon, I just can't see why you wouldn't make that tradeoff.

Rechet's comment on Life Leech is valid - You won't be leeching nearly as much life as a single elemental build that has a lot of physical damage with it. But it's not like you won't be doing ANY physical damage, and there's a reason for healing potions in the game. Given the number I leave lying on the ground, there's no shortage of them. (Mana leech is of no concern - Zeal costs 2 mana. You can probably get away with no mana leech as the only thing you need it for is to cast Holy Shield once every 155 seconds (assuming level 6.)) I can't see how this build wouldn't work at least reasonably well.

 

I was under the impression that they did not, but I'm not 100% sure. It should be easy enough to test with another character that can already use HotO.

 

Nice gloves indeed. I think you hit the max on both CB and IAS with blood gloves. So right there it's a 1 in 100 craft, and anything beyond that is gravy. The Tgods is an interesting belt choice - I hadn't thought of that at all. As for the upped Gores, IIRC you need a ton of strength. I think it's 160 something to equip them.

And of course an auradin would be completely unimpressive without rune wealth. You need 2 dreams and 2 dragons to make it work. With +skill items, it may be conceivable for a paladin to attain 30 in either HF or HS, but completely unrealistic to have both. (And seeing as how you can only have one aura active at a time anyway, it would be pointless trying to get both.

I confess, I think I got the bug back. I've never made a Hammerdin, and I checked out my rune wealth over the weekend, and I couldn't believe I didn't have a Vex. Cripes, with the exception of Zod, I have a copy of every rune beyond a Vex, but no stinkin' Vex. There really isn't a good solution other than to break out another character and do Countess runs if I want one. She can't drop Vex - Ist is max - but I have a ton of lower level runes as well, and I can cube one up to a Vex with (hopefully) a smallist number of Countess runs.

 

I'm guessing it's the second wave of mummies, as they are typically immune to magic on hell difficulty. Although I'm guessing they wouldn't be immune to Holy Bolt?

 

Damn it to hell. With all the work I've been doing on my house preparing for the move, I have very little disposable enjoyment time. However, I think I have finally acheived the best Countess map I've ever had. The tower is visible from the way point. Level 1 of the tower is a short travel distance to level 2. Not so short as you won't encounter any enemies, but by no means a run across the entire map either. Level 2 to Level 3 and Level 3 to Level 4 are literally around the corner. Often times you won't even see, never mind bothering to stop and fight an enemy. Level 4 to Level 5 is also a short run, comparable to what you see on Level 1 to Level 2. What this means is that I can accomplish a Countess run in a couple of minutes. A Vex may be closer to my reach than I had originally anticipated.

 

Keep in mind that MF is not the be all and end all of characters. In fact, most serious D2 players build characters specifically for the purposes of MFing. The most obvious candidate for this by a wide margin is the sorceress, as all you have to gear towards are +skills, resistances, and MF. And even the +skills so long as you have some you're usually OK. Just off the top of my head you can throw on a ptopaz Shako (74%), a ptopaz Skullder's Ire (1.25% per level + 24% so say ~125% depending on your level and it does give +1 all skills to boot) and you are already at 200 without any other piece of equipment. Given that you want to target about 250-300, it's easy to get the rest of the way.

 

I think the popularity of the Meteorb over the Lightning Sorceress has nothing to do with who is the faster level clearing machine - the lightning sorceress wins that hands down. I think the difference is that with lightning immunes, you already have to possess a fair amount of wealth in order to effectively build a lightning sorceress in the first place. OTOH, Meteorbs provide versatility, and with the exception of a rare dual fire/cold immune, there's nothing they can't handle. So if you don't have the wealth yet to get around lightning immunes, a Meteorb provides a cost effective alternative that doesn't need great gear to become a viable MFer.

EDIT: Here's a MF setup that can easily be completed in normal difficulty:

Tarnhelm (25-50)
Goldwrap (30)
Charce Guards (25-40)
Milabrega's Orb (20)
2 Nagelrings (15-30)

Taking the averages you get a total of 142% with nothing else. That would allow you to farm at the very least normal Baal and get you started.

 

You guessed the build order. Holy Shield is the last maxed skill (clvl 90+) to relieve the pressure on pumping DEX. Fanaticism is nice in that the only IAS I'll ever need is from the weapon itself, it greatly helps to nullify enemy HF/decrep effects on you, and the mercenary benefits greatly as well. Conviction from the merc is mainly to speed up killing stuff so that I'm not hosed if he dies. A Reaper's Toll to decrepify stuff would work just as well, if not better, considering the additional life leechable targets once you break physical immunities, although dual Dreams ARE a pain when (trying) to use other curses due to their Confuse ability.

The main selling point of going physical/lightning rather than fire/lightning (with some physical) is that you only need one item to really boost physical damage (Grief) but you'll need two for fire (HoJ+Dragon). Finally, although Fortitude is mostly known for it's tremendous +damage%, it also has one of the best defense ratings on any armor in the game once you count its Chilling Armor AND it carries a whole lot of +resist all.

That said, both variants are absolute death machines at /players 8, and getting yourself killed using one is most likely the result of getting greedy in trying to see how many screenfulls of mobs you can take on at once rather than a flaw of either.

Edit: Actually, it's not P+L vs L+F+P, it's P+L+POISON vs F+L+P. Grief's Venom ability is a dual unbreakable P/L immune solution all by itself.