Not asking which is better, telling you straight up Exile is killer on a Zealot vs HoZ.
My question is, what is going on?
Character screen say HoZ is “marginally” better (ok, ~1000 better attack rating).
Every search I do on HoZ vs Exile comes up in Smiter pretense… where the majority of the time the consensus is HoZ is beter (Smiter) with a few folks standing hard that is not the case.
In game play, with a Zealot, says the the character screen is wrong… and you don’t need a stop watch to see it.
My HoZ started out as perfect, which I put an Um in… then up’d it, and got a 540defense version of.
I have 2 Exiles…
A Sacred Targe with 45all-res and 252 Enhanced Defense
and
A Vortex with 45all-res and 247 Enhanced Defense.
Been running my Zealot mostly Solo in an effort to get to Clvl99, with the up’d Um’d HoZ.
No complaints (currently less than 2 bars to Clvl98).
Found a nice Alma Negra earlier and pulled up my Shield mule, and remembered/noticed I had a couple Exiles in the queue from days gone by… ah why not see what Defiance adds, been months since I ran an Exile, and I don’t want to die, so, Defiance might be good.
I was running City of Damned/River of Flame TZ’d at the time, and the killing power of Exile over HoZ was immediately apparent… like, not even close.
All of a sudden I was 1 shooting many, and double tapping a lot of others… where HoZ was a show of 5-hit Zeal.
The Grotesque shooting out their babies had been a real issue wearing HoZ, but with Exile, I was just wading thru and laying them out.
Been playing off and on for the rest of the day, and, every TZ I go I am impressed how much faster I can eliminate monsters wearing Exile, over HoZ.
So.
What gives?
On paper, HoZ is better.
On character screen HoZ is better.
internt says, HoZ is better.
In game, ya… not so much.
Pretty sure my Act 1 merc with Mist is stronger as well.
Some kinda hidden mechanic?
What is going on?
My guess would be that the freezes target attribute on the exile is allowing you to hit more often, since it locks the monsters down. Melee characters have their % hit chance, but also can miss when monsters move around (due to server desync or otherwise moving out of range). My experience with Melee is that your real hit chance is more like half of what the tooltip says, especially when using lower range weapons. I could be wrong though, this is just my subjective experience.
Also, killing frozen targets shatters their bodies, which makes them unable to be resurrected or consumed for healing. This can make certain situations where those interactions occur feel like a much easier situation.
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I was wondering that - and/or, with the higher defense, maybe not getting hit as much, so, not being interrupted/fhr being used as much.
Swapped back and forth between HoZ and Exile earlier this morning, and, TZ’s were Act1 - 3… was not so noticeable, and, possibly HoZ was better… but when Chaos got TZ a little bit ago, it was noticable once again.
There’s tons of hidden mechanics, so anything is possible. It could be what the other poster said, or it could be you have a hidden synergy with one of the mods on Exile that makes everything run exponentially better in certain situations.
I don’t like everything Brevik does, but the man is a master when it comes to mechanical systems in games.
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Thought I should update.
While the Exile certainly rocks it, I used a token to respec my Zealot… because I noticed my block chance was in the 50’s (did not seem to be a problem except for against ghosts)
Getting Dex high enough to get block to 75% totally tanked my life.
Whats worse is, having upp’d my HoZ means so many extra points go into strength (60 some) to equip the upp’d HoZ, life again, is restricted …
Keep in mind this guy is days from reaching level98, so he’s not short on stat points.
In short…
If you’re playing a Zealot…
Do not upp your HoZ (Dedicated Smiter, maybe, ok, not sure).
And HoZ is better than Exile if you value life pool.
Reason is - any Zealot worth a darn is going to easily have 20 points in Smite and 20 points in Holy Shield (after +gear/charms bonus’s)… so the extra Smite damage from upp’n the HoZ is not really worth it… IMO.
I am missing 6 terror keys (Countess sucks) to have assembled a 10 key - set - to go run torches again.
I’ll flip-flop shields and see what’s what…
now I need to shop a perfect HoZ… to socket… and NOT upp
If your finding Chaos runs better with Exile, look to the first line on the shield - 15% ctc Life Tap. The Oblivion Knights in A4 have a 33% drain effectiveness meaning your life leech only works at 33% under normal circumstances. With life tap that’s up to 100% effectiveness. Same thing for the ghosty mages and the big fire demons are at 66%. That’s why we usually go for a really high level of LL to overcome this.
The freeze target also goes a long ways to keeping you alive as your not taking damage from a frozen monster.
Exile for the Ubers means you can keep Laying of Hands in the gloves slot. As long as you have your resists from something else. Hoz can basically solve the resists issue. Then again I’m HC and resists are the world.
Just have all 4 shields
Hoz = elemental (fire sorc light sorc poison necro)
Phoenix = physical damage dealer
Exile = v caster Druids
4p sapphire = cold sorc