Best build for each Class Set

General Discussion
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It’s no secret that the Class Sets vary in power. Some are quite strong and even useful(Tal Rasha being the prime example here) while some are just plain weak(M’avina, in my opinion, is the winner here). Feel free to list your build(s) for the various Class Sets. Mine are below.

Aldur

Build: Fire Elemental
The weapon is trash for Shapeshifting. Even with the advent of 2.4 permitting upgrading to Elite, the lack of %Enhanced Damage really, really hurts it. Yet despite lacking FCR, the 3 Sockets in the Weapon combined with the 3 Sockets in the Armor(Helm(2) + Chest(1)) allow for a solid 30% Fire Damage and -30% Enemy Fire Resistance with 6 x 5/5 Fire Facets(pricey to get but it makes the build). Combined with a Phoenix Monarch, Magefists and other gear will yield a solid and capable B-Tier Fire Elemental Druid.

M'avina

Build: Frostmaiden
This set literally pigeonholes you into rolling Frostmaiden, and a poor one at that since you can’t obtain 100% Pierce or as strong of %Cold/-Enemy Cold Resistance as Ice + Nightwing pairing can achieve. Yet despite that limitation, her Bow is still capable from a Physical damage standpoint, permitting use of Magic Arrow to help deal with Cold Immunes. If there is a silver lining is that M’avina should be relatively cheap to get. The 3 x 5/5 Cold Facets and other gear are another matter entirely. I rate this at C-Tier, maybe low B-Tier. 100% Pierce would easily slot it in B-Tier but updating Class Sets, AFAIK, isn’t in the future plans.

Griswold

Build: Fist of Heavens Zealot
Griswold set is one of the few to have flexibility in what skills you can utilize. Yet I find the best build for this Set happens to be a Hybrid: Zealot + FoH. Main Aura is Fanaticism while your Merc supplies Might + Conviction. Fanaticism buffs %Damage + Attack Speed(permitting both of you to hit max APS, even on a Colossus Voulge), Might buffs Physical Damage and Conviction lowers Enemy Defense and buffs Lightning Damage on FoH. What you socket into the Weapon, Helm, Chest and Shield is entirely up to you. 100% Deadly Strike, 100% Crushing Blow or even 100% Open Wounds is certainly possible here. 50% Physical Resistance is also possible, but that would be insanely expensive. Overall, this build is easily A-Tier since it can handle just about every enemy in the game.

Trang-Oul

Build: Poison Nova + Revives
Trang-Oul might be one of the most underrated Sets in Diablo 2. This set is tailored made for Poison Nova supported by an Army of Revives. It’s signature Unique Weapon in Death Web may cost you an Arm and a Leg(pun intended) but the Wand + 5/5 Facets in the Set can yield up to -95 Enemy Poison Resistance and that is BEFORE Lower Resist Curse!! Meaning every enemy in the game under the effects of your curse will take amplified Poison Damage. It also gives Fire Ball, Meteor and Fire Wall as OSkills, the latter of which is awesome against Bosses.

Offensively this Set is pretty solid but defensively, it’s pretty strong too. It comes with 25% Physical Resistance, one of three Sets to do so. It is the only set that “transforms” your character. While the FCR suffers from the Transformation, it allows you to walk as fast as you run, yielding you insane mobility without your Defense Rating or Block Chance taking a massive hit. Easily an A-Tier Set, bordering on S-Tier since it can literally handle anything in the game.

Immortal King

Build: Concentrate Barbarian

In the past I would recommend Whirlwind with this Set because it could hit 4-Frames with a couple IAS Jewels in the Weapon. Ever since 2.43 royally screwed over 2-H setups, Immortal King has seen better days. Despite that setback, it is still a very solid Set and one that can Tank like no other via its Concentrate skill and built-in 20% Physical Resistance. With all the Elemental and even Magic Damage on the Weapon, this Set can destroy just about anything thrown at it. Solid B-Tier or low A-Tier as I see it.

Natalya

Build: Tiger + Cobra Sin
Natalya Set is my personal favorite and is much more balanced than that piece of $HIT Mosaic we all know. Natalya is another Set that doesn’t push you in any one direction, but I feel that its best served with a Martial Arts build as opposed to Traps. Given that charges will not stay indefinitely as you use Finishing moves, it means you have to fight differently than you would with Mosaic. Pair its Claw with Plague and roll with a Physical/Poison hybrid with Life/Mana sustain in Cobra Strike. The Set comes with 30% Physical Resistance, the most of the 7 Sets. Yet despite that, it has the lowest Resistance of the 7 and one of the lowest Defense(if not the lowest), so you’ll be getting hit quite a bit without shrewd use of Cloak of Shadows and taking foes down quickly. High C-Tier, if not low B-Tier.

Tal Rasha

Build: Hydra + Orb
Last but certainly not least is Tal Rasha, arguably the best Set in the game. It’s tailored made for Magic Finding and the best way to ensure the most MF opportunities requires going in a Hybrid setup. Fireball/Orb works but I truly like Hydra a lot. Allows you to summon them and then run away as it pelts the enemy and does wonders on Bosses(although Fire Wall is very strong too). Overall, it’s an A-Tier Set due to its flexibility(any of the 3 Trees are valid here) with its MF being second to none.

PS: I challenge a group of 7 to walk the game with each of the Class Sets represented. Build you choose is entirely up to the player but it’d certainly be interesting to see a Hell Walk with the 7 Class Sets.

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Griswold is for holy freeze.

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IK set is pretty cheap and wearing the full set is a game clearing barbarian, uber trist included with a lifetap wand on swap. The chest armor is likely the only hard to find or slightly expensive bit. If you’re judging sets relative to each other for the rankings, you can put IK in S-tier if it’s based on clearing all the game’s content.

Tal’s is kind of whack beyond the belt+armor+amulet 3p bonuses.

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i wouldnt put it above B tier after the weapon speed change ruined it.

they should be improving these sets, yet instead they literally ruined a fan favorite in IK.

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Griswold can be whatever you want it to be honestly. With 12 Sockets, you can make a very strong Holy Freeze Paladin or Holy Fire, Holy Shock or whatever you opt to roll. Will it be as strong as a Zealot with a runeword option like EBotD or Grief? Course not but those 12 Sockets certainly can mold it into an effective and capable character. Could even give decked out Smiters a run for their money with a bit of investment.

@Tohki: As for IK, it’s a B-Tier Set now. 2.43 royally screwed it over since it used to Whirlwind as fast as dual-wield or Sword/Board setups. Now it can’t even do that and requires 60 IAS to even hit 5-Frames. Without a means to deal AoE Damage(Leap Attack is still too clunky for my liking), it’ll struggle against Hordes but against single targets or Bosses, it’s still quite viable with Concentrate arguably being its best option.

Full Tal Rasha though isn’t whack either. It just doesn’t hit for the power or cast as fast as a Unique/Runeword setup can. However, the 15% Cold Skill or -15% Enemy Fire/Light Resistance on the Orb is quite nice. Meshes quite well with Hybrid setups or can be consolidated into a single Element if you so desire. Can also double that 15% to 30% respectively with 3 Rainbow Facets in Helm, Armor and Orb(Spirit in Off-Hand). 30% isn’t as high as Unique setups but 228-233 Magic Find on the Complete Set is a nice sweet spot to hit.

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The nerf from 4FPA to 5 FPA for IK WW Barb does indeed suck, but I would suggest that 5 FPA WW is still likely more damage than 12 FPA Conc, especially considering the 35-40% CB that the Maul has. More hits = more CB procs. I guess with Fant on merc you could get 11 FPA, but I think that’s about the max for Conc. The extra def from Conc is nice, but WW IK Barb is still very tanky.

So I’d still say for me, WW is best for IK Barb. I am right now building a Maul Conc barb though, and may give him full IK eventually. He is only lvl 15 now, using a Brutal Maul of Readiness and 5 piece Sigs. Mostly just for fun to grab normal (and maybe NM) socket, but I haven’t done a conc barb since closer to 1.10 coming out, so I figured it would be fun nostalgia/meme.

Yeah I don’t think I’ve tried Ubers with any of mine, but IK WW barb definitely takes DClone down really easy, even after the WW IAS Nerf. So good to know. I may have to transfer my LT wand from Frenzy barb and try it on him sometime!

I actually just donated full IK set to a person in need. I had the 5 common pieces just sitting in mules, and found the armor on NL for 3x Ral so I just grabbed that for him as well. Definitely a cheap way to get a full game clearing character!

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Concentrate can cap at 10 Frames(2.5 APS) with 90 IAS and an A1 Faith Merc. Since the Set has 65 to start with, all you need is 25 or 2 x 40/15’s in Maul to hit the breakpoint. I do get your point about WW but I just feel that they didn’t need to nerf 2-H so hard. If WW could proc… then that would be an entirely different story. Death, Plague, Unbending Will, Grief, Destruction, Oath, Voice of Reason and Obedience would be straight up scary on Whirlwind. Even Tap from Dracs or Last Wish would be super helpful while WW.

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Good info I hadn’t done the calcs with Faith. If I decide to push my Conc barb that far, I’ll plan on an A1 Faith merc!

Oh absolutely. This is my top disappointment with D2R changes, with a close second being Mosaic. I can ignore that well enough though, but since I main Barb and like 2H, all 2H being regulated to 5 FPA, and WW now getting reduced frames from frozen/decrep, when it never did before, with no supplemental buff, is a big downer. It’s not like WW was OP compared to Blessed Hammer, Blizzard, Lightning Fury, etc.

Honestly I’m against them adding proc chance to WW, I’d prefer they buff it in other ways, likely just returning to 4FPA goodness, and raw damage - possibly in the form of flat damage & AR per level in addition to the existing % scaling. Maybe it’s not fair to other physical melee skills that WW previously wasn’t effected by chills and decrep, and this was their way of evening the playing field, but as I said, WW wasn’t OP in the grand scaling of the game, so nerfing it seems silly.

The reason being, I run Death on my WW Hork barb, and I don’t want lvl 18 Glacial Spikes freezing things all around making corpses shatter and be useless for Find Item. IMO the 216-234 damage with no synergy or -cold res support is not worth it. It’s bad enough Raven Frost, 6 piece IK gloves, Pride, Reaper’s Toll and Lawbringer, and Azurewrath all have cold damage.

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The supplement is that it benefits from off-weapon and skill IAS, but given it takes a ton of both to negate the -50 sIAS each from chill/Decrep/Holy Freeze it’s not a great tradeoff I agree. That and it takes way too much IAS for 2H weapons in the first place, especially the 10 and 20 WSM ones.

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Pretty good list

I forgot Aldurs existed

I think Mavina does well with Strafe too (with Freezing Arrow)

Griswold I always just did Zeal/Fanatacism but that was long time ago

Trang definitely poison nova and summons, and walking around at fast run speed with full defense/block

IK I used to do concentrate and whirlwind but I guess you said whirlwind was nerfed? Dang

Nats is definitely martial arts I always used Dragon Claw

Tal rasha I usually use Meteorb aka Fireball+Frozen Orb, I guess hydra was buffed though so maybe that’s better now

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WW being affected by Cold + Slow is partly why in my Class Set overhaul, I proposed, at one time, upgrading Half Freeze Duration on Boots to Cannot Be Frozen AND replacing Enchant on IK Armor with level 14 Burst of Speed. When the latter procs, you gain 50 Skill IAS, which is enough to overcome the negative effects of Decrepify while under the effects of an A1 Faith Mercenary. Either one would easily put you at 5-Frames for Whirlwind but combined it makes you all but impervious to Slow. This frees up your Maul Sockets for w/e you want(Ber for CB, Um for Open Wounds, Eth for -Target Defense, or Ohm for some flat %Enhanced Damage).

I’ve since changed things considerably. I still have the Cannot Be Frozen change on IK Boots but the bulk of my buffs go towards IK Helm(which makes it Barbarian exclusive). I should update my thread again sometime.

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Yeah I agree. It definitely opens up more options, and in the early/mid game getting just 10 IAS on gloves, or 30 from Sigons Gloves+ combo can drop FPA a lot compared to what was possible, for something like say, Insight Partizan, which is often where I end up on getting through NM SSF. But at the high end it’s just oen other stat we now have to balance and sacrifice other damage for, like AR, etc.

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Nat’s set actually shreds as a bladesin. I also can reach some pretty insane WW damage on an IK barb, but I just can’t stand the 2h nerf already mentioned in this thread as well as the cold/slow effects affecting WW.

I think Tal Rasha’s might be the most perfect and balanced set. It is incredibly well rounded and you can make it work for all three elements, essentially all of the sorc archetypes.

I think Mav set is actually good though, not the best of the sets, but it is useful and not necessarily bad. I even use it on a barb elemental build that works very well (4 pc obviously).

Worst set is Aldur’s IMO.

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Aldur is one of the worst ones, but as a Fire Elemental it’s actually not half bad since Elemental ignores the Physical Damage of the Weapon and makes use of its 3 Sockets. M’avina, on the other hand, lacks 100% Pierce and only buffs Frostmaidens via Gloves. It lacks the Enhanced Damage one would like for a Physical setup and is devoid of anything for Firemaidens outside of 3 Sockets.

That said, M’avina’s weapon is leap and bounds better than Aldur’s. It’s why both Aldur and M’avina are prioritized when it comes to my Class Set overhaul.