I’m a level 65 zealot build, and I def. need a better weapon. A mace with the black runeword has been by weapon for a long time, and it’s long overdue (and annoying since it has knockback). I’ll need a better weapon before going into hell difficulty for sure.
Where do I go from here? For example, it looks like I could use a unique such as a lightsabre to move forward. But it appears to get this in NM is a matter of farming the forgotten sands for that 1:40775 chance that it will actually drop (I’ll add magic find of course), or is there something else I could do that’s more efficient?
https://d2.maxroll.gg/guides/zeal-paladin
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That just shows more uniques or runewords that appear to be out of my reach. My question is - do i just grind out for that one in 40,000 chance before i can progress.
Sad truth is you switch to Hammerdin because melee is bad without good items in this game.
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Yeah, i’m somewhat “new,” to diablo 2 so I was asking if this is my only way to progress. Maybe i can find someone to trade. I was thinking of going hammerdin because it was much easier when with the pally i made pre-ladder.
Yupp. You don’t level whit Zealer 
You could farm cows for a high dmg base and put a Steel or Malice Runeword in it, and you’ll deffinetly need a Rhyme shield. Farming NM Countess is not that bad, untill you still put points into Holy Fire and it’s synergies. Right now that is your best way, if you haven’t respeced yet. You just run around the enemy and they die.
Farm nm until you get a Butchers Pupil. Up it with a pul lum pemerald in the cube. With a zeal fana build, it will serve you well in hell until you can upgrade to a lightsabre. I wouldn’t recommend going into hell until you are over level 70. Also try to pick up either a tiamats revenge or herald of zakurum shield, both can be found in nightmare, hoz mainly late act 3 and beyond.
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Use akara and redo your skills to be a hammerdin. Grind gear and farm until you have the gear you want to make your zealot.
Ideally your first character is a sorc to boss farm for the gear/builds you want to make next.
It’s much more time consuming to farm for gear to make builds viable as a non teleporting sorc boss killer.
They need to add cleave to melee weapons. Possibly reduce single-target baseline damage to compensate a bit. But, even with grief you’re gonna clear slower than a Blizz sorc with 0 items.
Don’t see why they can’t make melee builds actually enjoyable to play still.
Nice! This is perfect. It looks like I can get this from Andariel at a good drop rate, plus i have the runes to upgrade
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You can also get a Ginther’s rift from Andy, but I wouldn’t recommend upping it unless you were desperate, and I would deem tiamats necessary for it to be hell viable
What is your black in? The weapon you’ve put it in makes a difference.
A odd but viable option is full cleglaw set. It has res, ias, 50% deadly strike, and 35% crushing blow. Also has damage/clvl, ar/clvl and it can be upgraded to elite version which i highly recommend. Dont give up!