I feel squishy?

Paladin
1

I’m in Act 4 on normal mode, Im running Steel Scimitar, Stealth Leather Armor, and an Ancient’s Pledge Kite Shield

My resistances are all above 75% and I’m also running Holy Shield . . . but I feel squishy? I feel like I’m chugging potions like crazy.

I haven’t played the game in like . . . 20 years so I dont remember if I was chugging as many potions back then or not.

I’m running Holy Fire build right now, hoping to make a Zeal build later on, but considering hammerdin now if I will be this squish.

Any suggestions?

2

Resistances are good but just as a reminder defense is the chance to get hit, and getting hit will always deal a certain amount of damage not reduced by defense, so until you have a chunky health pool and max block then it’ll feel like this.

Hammerdin won’t really fix that - it’s more a problem of not having a great shield, enough stat points to invest in dex, and just being low level in general.

If you can stack some life steal that will go a long way.

3

https://d2r.guide/#fc/

If you go down to crafting theres a section for blood gloves and if you mouse over it it’ll show you the ones you need as a base. Gloves with lifesteal + Lifesteal ring should add a lot to your survivability. The lifesteal ring can also be crafted.

1 Like
4

First off your using leather armor in A4. A zealot needs to upgrade his armor and weapons regularly or it just falls behind. Your probably better off shopping some high Def armor from a vendor vs stealth for a Pally. Stealth is a good armor for a caster because you can use it for lot of acts. For a Zealot you need higher Def.

Next how much Life leech are you running? A Zealot will take damage but the ability to heal through LL offsets that. You need at least 5% preferably more.

Also with your weapon Steel is an ok runeword and a scimitar is good for A2. By act 4 you need to upgrade that weapon. As Melee classes need to upgrade regularly to keep alive I recommend not getting ‘attached’ to a weapon/armor. You are probably going to do fine if you just shop a weapon for regular fighting in A4. The bleed will be nice facing Diablo but other than that Steel will fall off quickly. It only has 20% ed, I found a 80% ed for my merc by act 3.

2 Likes
5

Thanks for all the suggestions, I’m certain I’m on the right path now. I think lifesteal will help a lot as I have zero.

6

Something you may not know, is that while you are running your defense drops to 0. This tanks your dodge chance and survivability. You may want to try walking sometimes at least when you are approaching some monsters.

2 Likes
7

Wow, no I had zero clue about this. Thank you.

8

Not sure if this is 100% correct but I believe charge still keeps your armor, I generally charge at targets as I get close. In my mind I feel better thinking I have armor this way…

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9

if you allocated correct and enough skill point on zeal, holy fire and resist fire shouldn’t be any issue. I use Gull, studded leather stealth, ancient pledge beat baal till nm.

10

give it a test. Open your character sheet and then use charge. If the defence doesn’t change to “–”, then you are correct.