(Lvl 61 Zealot, starting Act3 NM) Improving my main attack - Suggestions? - Best base for Honor runeword?

Paladin
1

Hi everyone. Had to type this one-handed, so please don’t ignore :sweat_smile:

I haven’t always been super strategic, nor made long-term plans for getting certain items/effects all the time. I mix that, with some spontaneous decisions. I’m NO expert.

I play solo, offline, players8 difficulty. Nothing so far has been truly tough, but I do feel like Dam could be better. Maybe I’m underestimating my paladin? Maybe his dam is really good for his level? I don’t know.

Dam in character tab is shown as 586-1001. With these relevant details:

  • Str 126.
  • Fanaticism and Sacrifice 20, Zeal 8 (Main).
  • Lightning: 1-32, 1-54 (charms).
  • Poison: 50 x 3" (ring), 169 x 9" (charm). We know this looks way better in the Character tab’s damage display, than it actually is.
  • Dam: +20% dam (armor), +8 max (charm).
  • Weapon: 1-Socket Unique (Ironstone Warhammer) + Ort rune. Normal speed, 41-63 Dam on its display, +120% dam, 2-60 Lightning. Plus some cool +AR and +Str.

The upside, is that most other aspects are nice. 900 hp, 3600 AR, Cannot be frozen, res all 75 (fire 85) with good extra in case of getting lowered, 44% FHR, 40% FBlock, 1168 def and capped Block % from gear + Holy Shield, 50% run speed, 30% attack speed, 13% life leech, enough mana effects to never need to worry, Holy Freeze merc, bit of cold dam from charm to enjoy the slowing.

So, I’m probably not about to throw away significant parts of that, for more damage. But I’m open to suggestions.

I was thinking then, the Honor Runeword MAY be a big boost. I have the runes, but it would greatly depend on the base item. I’d lose de 2-60 lightning, gain +40% on enhanced damage, plus all other benefits.

What’s the best item I can hope for, in NM? Has to be FIVE sockets, one-handed, with enough base dam to beat my Ironstone in the total result, and ideally with speed above normal. I’ll use cube to add the sockets, if needed.

On attack speed… I know it has no cap, but is there a point after which it becomes worthless to work toward increasing it? Considering it’s crucial for a Zealot’s damage, leeching, applying cold/poison/crit/etc…

Thank you all for your time. Have a nice first weekend of the year.

2

Nothing what it seems :wink:
Here is few less than obvious ways to bump your damage
a) upgrade your weapon … literally … in the cube
b) consider Duress instead of Honor (need Um thou which is not likely until Act 5 WS/Nilathak temple)
c) base damage may be king for zealot … but IAS is a God - accelerate yourself with IAS jewels (seen info on the web about numbers)
d) imo - NM for paladin is face roll, you can run it within template of “auradin” … just switch from Holy Fire to Holy Shock and (pre-reqs) … by level 61 you should be pretty well set to smoke everything on your path … err I mean electrocute lol
To summarize all you have few options
a) cube upgrade your “main tool” (may be not easy - need runes)
b) make sure you have highest speed IAS (and make sure you have CB/OW)
c) consider making Spirit Shield
d) consider temporary (before Hell) respec into Tesladin (use Zeal with Holy Shock)

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Thanks, that’s a bunch of good ideas. Even if some don’t seem that useful for my particular situation or I already applied them or something.

A) I literally didn’t remember that possibility. I had misconceptions about it, too. I had never used it. So, I asked around to make sure I woudn’t ruin anything, and I went ahead since the ingredients are easy enough and I had them. While I wasn’t quite sure how to make the best use of gems and runes, I keep as much of a variety as possible just in case. Upgrading runes and gems through recipes, while always keeping at least one of each if possible.

In upgrading my weapon’s base from War Hammer to Battle Hammer, I got a beautiful total dam boost of about 50%. Without sacrificing anything, beyond the ingredients. So, weapon is solved for a long while I think.

B) Duress is for armor, and it looks nice but for now I’m enjoying a Lionheart. Had good luck with a base socket drop (219 def) and some nice rune drops all when clearing Act 2’s end in NM. Basically got that base and the two tougher ones for the runeword in a matter of hours.

I think I would change that one for a Duress, but indeed the Um rune will probably take a while. Lionheart is basically good all over, but honestly I don’t need that +100 to life. It’s almost impossible for my hp to drop below 60% anyway, if I’m not acting suicidal.

C) My IAS situation is: +30% from gear (gloves and boots from Sagon set), Fanaticism 20, Zeal 8. Even with the hammer’s base speed being just normal, I hit fast enough to leech all I need and then some. 13% life leech. I also gave the merc a good leeching, so he basically melees like I do.

Jewels look so pointless. I never seem to run into one that’s worth ignoring the chance of a runeword, or the effects of a lone rune or perfect gem.

I think I stashed a +24% dam one away just in case, but I don’t think I’ll ever use it. It doesn’t look like it’d give me much of a boost, especially now that I’m on almost 1600 max dam.

My only non-runeword item that’s also socketed, is the Ironstone (Larzuk), which is of course only one socket and I put the Ort there on a whim. I’ve had pretty bad luck with the Shael rune.

But, when I get another one (likely, as I’m stocking up on the immediately lower rune), I’ll probably destroy the Ort there and put the Shael for even more speed fun.

D) I really find no point in any other auras. Or any other skills beyond the simple. Fanaticism + Zeal as main, Holy Shield all the time, Sacrifice (20 already) for the larger bonus to Zeal. All else, is just there for the prerequisites.

  • I sometimes miss Cleansing for its unique effects, but I wasn’t ever gonna put more points into it.
  • Salvation is not worth losing Fanaticism’s firepowers against tough monsters and I already handle most elemental dam like a breeze. CBF, all maxed out and fire +85, some PLR.
  • No other offensive aura helps my melee build nearly as well as Fanaticism. Sure, dam is mostly physical so physical immunes are just a bit more challenging right now. But, I plan to invest in Vengeance if I run into enough trouble on that front.

What’s so amazing about Holy Shock? Sure, its + to melee dam is great at lvl 20. But that’s a serious investment, for basically no other benefit. Range dam is laughable, the synergies make no sense for the rest of my build and feel weak overall. And immunity to lightning is far more common than to physical both in NM and Hell, so it’s not like I’m dying for that elemental damage to happen. Heck, the physical immunes I’ve faced haven’t been hard really thus far. Even with my small non-physical damage. Attack speed + Holy Freeze merc compensate greatly, as usual. I gave a ton of poison dam to my merc, so we both prevent heal and can hit and run while the poison does its thing if I so desire.

And yes. As I think I’ve told you around in other topics and probably here too, no enemy has been a true challenge thus far. I only come even remotely close to depleting my potions, when I’m being intentionally “careless” to speed things up. And most of the potions go to up me back to 100% hp from like 70%, when I wanna play it super-safe so I don’t rely on leeching like I normally do. Perhaps NM Baal just hit me hardest and then teleported and started attacking from afar, thus depriving me of leech for a moment or two and I stay at like 60% hp for a moment and I don’t wanna wait.

About spirit: We’ve talked about it in prior threads of mine, I believe. I just couldn’t get lucky with the potential bases I’d find. Even when socketing them with the cube, as max sockets are supposed to be the most likely outcome.

So, I went from Ancient’s Pledge to Rhyme as my main shield. Mostly because, thanks to Lionheart, the lower +res from Rhyme is now quite compensated and I get to keep the rarer mods from Rhyme that Pledge lacks.

Also, I have enough extra +res that I could face like -40 res from auras/curses and still remain capped.

For now, I think I’d only change shield for a HoZ. I’ve been looking up the odds of that drop, and have +MF gear stashed away (mostly Topaz-socketed) that will lend me around +200 for use in the exact moment of the drop.

Although, if a good base for spirit DOES drop, I’ll revisit the idea. Thanks to Lionheart, I don’t depend on shield nearly as much for +res anymore. So, I don’t need it to be a crazy +70 to all like my now-stashed Pledge is.

But I’m not gonna farm for that base, nor waste more runes and pgems on non-socketed shields (much less the quests) that keep giving me only 2-3 sockets. There was this one nice +res Superior Aerin Shield that wouldn’t even get socketed at all. Like it’s not a base item for the recipe. Probably something I ignore, there.

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Couple life hacks here :wink:
I did poor man approach to get myself amp of mid-range runes - CUBE everything
3Thul +chipped topaz = Amn
3Amn+ chipped amethyst = Sol
3Sol + chipped sapphire = Shael (one that you been looking for)
3Shael + chipped ruby = Dol
3Dol + chipped emerald = Hel
3Hel + chipped diamond = Io
Basically terrorizing Countess can get you quick good amount of runes for Spirit (and up to Hel … and hel can be used to purge something from socket)
About Holy Shock … heh… let me tell numbers and you will be a judge
Even if you don’t have many +skills (and +5 IS easy to get at any level on NM) when you will max our holy shock and resist lighting your average damage (per hit while you are zealing) will be closer to 3.5k (700-5300 lighting damage per hit) for mere 40 points of skills (plus pre-requisites) and as a free bonus you natural lighting resist will be capped at 85 w/o any items). Beauty of auradin … you don’t need actually any weapons to deliver damage (you can brawl if you like to lol) but to deliver your damage fast … you need speed. So Auradin with holy shock simply goes over NM like knife through warm butter sometime (like in Act 3) you won’t be able even hit target - it will die from your aura pulse)… You will start run into the problem in Hell thou with lighting immunities but not before that. Big plus of D2Lod you have ability to re-spec … So I normally run Holy Fire in Normal (can do this naked btw lol) switch on Holy Shock in NM and at level 70 transform my paladin into the final built (based on gear and my plans)

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Yea holy shock is interesting as it can deliver big damage. If you are on 8 players, with your current setup, you are guaranteed to have trouble clearing in hell mode. 1 player difficulty is most likely doable but 8 players in hell you will need big damage boost. If you have the runes, a Tesladin can do some serious damage.

With your upgraded Hammer, you will be able to go thru NM without too much problems. This game’s real test is 8 player hell, anything before that is just practice. It all comes down to how many rare runes you got lol. If you are rich, no content is hard!

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I did say I upgrade runes through recipes. And on that, the main reason I keep a full variety of gems is for that. Previous other goal for gems was +MF stashed gear, but I’m finished with that since I have 6 perfect Topazes spread through armor and helm.

I did Countess twice, in NM. Honestly, quite a waste. One low rune in total, and the stands were few and with ugly drops. So, it didn’t serve me for base-hunting either when I was going for that as well.

I have the needed runes for Spirit. Have had them for a while, off and on. They’re not that hard to get. As I said, the base was the issue. A shield with enough +res wasn’t dropping, and when it did it wouldn’t be socketed. Then, recipes would keep failing to add 4 sockets even when that was the most likely outcome. Bleh.

Dude, maxing out two skills is 40 points which is NOT mere. It’s a large part of a build, considering you need to work like crazy to get the full 110 total.

And resist lightning is a waste except for the synergy. While Fanaticism, Zeal and Sacrifice have a nice chain of synergies while being individually useful. During all of Normal and part of NM, Sacrifice remains useful on its own to deliver seriously bigger damage. Right now, not anymore as it doesn’t really go that much higher than Zeal.

I get it that it’s far more damage than what I’ve been doing, and I’ve also had to max out two skills for that.

But it’s significantly slower without items as it loses the skill’s speed boost, lacks bonus to AR, physical once again is more reliable than lightning as it usually has much shorter min-max relation and immunities/res to it is far less common… Also, physical is much easier to boost further. Very few things boost your base elemental damage.
And my merc doesn’t benefit from Holy Shock at all, right?

I remember playing a Zealot in the LoD OG days. While I didn’t use Holy Shock, lightning dam was big for my character. Through gear, vengeance and FoH. Physical was decent. So, when I ran into the many lightning immunes I had to hit and run way too much. When it was both physical and lightning immune, it was cringeworthy to watch. Happened with a Zakarum Council unique that of course I couldn’t just ignore. Had to take him down with low-level blessed hammer. And to make it worse, he was super fast, he’d regenerate, and I didn’t have a great mana pool either in amount or recovery speed.

Holy Shock 20’s pulse is supposed to be able to kill fast in Act 3 NM? How? 530 max, from what I see. With 900-1600 physical damage right now in Act 3 NM, most of the sturdier enemies (zombies, bramble hulks) need some 12 hits to go down. With that pulse, that’d mean over 24 hits. Sure, AoE. But it’s SLOOOW.

Maybe Holy Shock goes down in flames when /players8 added difficulty is applied, I dunno.

Also, last but not least… I already spent two of the re-specs. So, there’s no going back after I use the 3rd one. Which I doubt I will.

Sure, it shows I didn’t play as strategically as I should have. The first re-spec had to happen rather soon, to correct some blunders. For second one: As I didn’t want holy fire or cleansing anymore, regretted FoH and so… I spent it on making my main skills a much bigger priority. Getting rid of all the non-prerequisite “stepping stones” skills that don’t quite pay off after Normal.

7

it’s tough playing single player since you will actually have to level yourself and go thru everything without anyone powering you thru and therefore respec is worth much more than multiplayer.

There may not be a point going for a testladin at this point as it requires 2 Jah for a complete build. You should just stick to the zealot build until you either get bored or have enough runes to make the gear. Testladins runs around with conviction on and the gear gives you 30+ holy shock, plus all your synergies and it outputs massive damage and breaks enough immunities. The build is very gear dependent.

For when you have issues with physical immunes when it comes to late NM or Hell. The cheaper way to deal with them other than running away is making a Voice of Reason rw in a phase blade or Lawbringer might be good too since you can easily proc decrip. They are both fairly cheap to make but again, in single player it might be difficult to get the runes. If you put your game on 1 player difficulty for hell, you should be able to get thru without too many issues.

If you get stuck, you can alway spec hammerdin lol

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Well, I’m not about to abandon this character. Either his build, or the character himself. It’s been forever since I played in Hell, and it’s taken me weeks to get to this point since I can’t spend that much time playing and I play rather slowly (like to cover all corners, sell most loot for more gambling, etc.). /players8 is one of the most entertaining changes I’m experiencing since I played in the OG days, and also the fact I’m being smarter about my gear and skills.

I’ll see about making gear for specific situations. I already work on that some. I keep the Ancient’s Pledge shield stashed just in case, have good +MF stashed too, and also for extreme poison situations such as Andariel.

Thus far, it looks like it’ll be impossible for me to get stuck. If physical dam immunity may become too a big deal, I’ll save up some skill points to spend in Vengeance right away. And I have a scepter with +3 for it as an emergency of sorts (that I haven’t needed yet). Even the physical immune uniques thus far, have fallen to the sheer speed of my attacks’ and their elemental damage. Which is some lightning and much poison. More slowly of course, but still.

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Save those swords that does magic dmg, they usually kill phy immune fast. With your current dmg 8 player will not be so fast, things just have much higher health pool and resist. I look forward to more posts on your hell experience once you get there

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I usually just downright forget and underestimate, the magic (non-elemental) dam. Thanks for the tip. I’ll surely show up with more threads and comments, as things get tougher :sweat_smile:

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Instead of Tesladin (which requires synergies and gear) you might consider Freezadin as a complement to Fanaticism? :thinking:

The reasoning here is that even without synergies, you get a non-physical damage boost and 54% slow which adds a lot of safety for you and your merc. (It’s even a thing on Icy Veins (https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/holy-freeze-zealot-paladin-freezadin-build), though this build doubles down on Holy Freeze with 20 in Resist Cold instead of Fanaticism).

So basically you run Fanaticism, switching to Holy Freeze for large packs and/or physical immunes.

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Yeah, clearly the amazing dam from Tesladin requires so much synergy and gear that I may spend the entire game finding the items.

I did consider Holy Freeze for my paladin, but then I learned I could get it from the merc. And it would deprive me of Fanaticism if my paladin has it, as it has to be on all the time to be useful. Its effect only lasts 2 seconds actually, regardless of level, right? So, if I switch back to Fanaticism, it’s gone too soon. Also, I THINK the slowing down doesn’t stack, if both my paladin and the merc use Holy Freeze.

And of course, doing some crazy back and forth switching between both auras would require ungodly levels of coordination and extra attention. No thanks. Besides, you’ve gotta remember, ALL auras take a couple seconds to kick in. Fanaticism’s bonuses would take about as long to apply, as it takes for HF’s slow-down to go away.

As a melee class, if either my merc or my paladin use it, the duration of the slow-down is irrelevant. Since I’m always in range to keep applying it. Also, damage is not big. The most important effect by far, is the amount of slowing. Like, 48% slowed down, which I think is what the merc does right now.

The only real drawback on merc being responsible for the aura, is that I sometimes have to “pull him around” so he gets into the thick of things. A tiny corner may be enough for him to stay away for the whole fight, and also for the aura to not reach the monsters even when they’re within range. That sucks. But I don’t find it too frustrating. I even have a laugh at myself, when I sometimes get mad at the merc as if he were a person xD

I read that article when I started considering Holy Freeze for my paladin, previous to getting the Act 2 merc. Came to the conclusions I’m expressing right now.

My paladin is honestly tough enough to not really need the merc. When he dies in a tough situation, I usually just keep going. Only bothering to revive him afterwards. But I enjoy the extra safety anyway. And most of all, how it keeps the habits of some enemies from annoying me as much. Like, right now, the tiny fetish monsters keep running away so fast but Holy Freeze evens things out some. I’ve actually dealt with a few extra fast ones, and before Holy Freeze kicks in they’re just too fast to even target lol.
They can zoom in from outside the screen, try a hit, then run away outside again. Before I can even atempt one or Holy Freeze can get its pulse in.

Of course, they eventually have to stay in place for more than a blink. And then the aura will do its job.

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Some clarification needed here :slight_smile:
a) Tesladin = pala with conviction + 2 Dreams = mass murder everything on path that don’t have 120 lighting resist. Auradin (with Holy Shock) = no dreams, zeal with CB/OW and other damage comes with Holy Shock.
b) Auradin with HS on Hell will have a problem unless you have either supplemental source of damage or rely on Merc. Supplemental source comes with rather expensive weapons - its either Grief or Stromlash. On the side with Grief/Stormlash on P1-2-3 you won’t have any problems what so ever with any area’s in hell even w/o Dream
C) Don’t get me wrong Fana-Zeal is iconic built for Pala but get full potential of it you still need have CB/OW and way of dealing with Phys immunes (simplest - wand with decryfy/amp damage charges)

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you could also save the items with teleport charges, like naj’s staff, you can swap and teleport to reposition merc, it gets quite annoying when the merc just goes where ever they want and get stuck easily. it is important to keep your merc levelled so it stays at the same level as you to equip better stuff and stronger in general.

15

You are correct that you can get Freeze from your merc, but then you do not have access to Conviction from your merc. Conviction benefits both Fanaticism and Holy Freeze. Of course, if you do not feel that you need the extra safety on top of an answer to Physical immunity, then incorporating Holy Freeze is moot. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I get the idea. But it still feels too dependent on gear AND too narrow at the same time. Also, when priorisiting elemental against physical damage, I choose physical because being immune to it is far less common. Are any bosses, always physical immune or something like that? In any case, I see even the solution for elemental immunes in the Tesladin is ALSO hugely dependant on items I doubt I’ll ever find.

If you depend on specific, hard-to-get runewords and uniques for your build to be decent… I don’t like it.

As far as I see it, I can deal with physical immunes in a variety of ways. I’ll try Vengeance, plus some situational gear probably as well.

I’m yet to find one with Teleport charges. Of the potentially useful ones, I only got a decent one for Telekinesis.
I did find one with high-level Blizzard, but it was ethereal :sob:

If it’s an emergency, or he’s just stuck real bad I usually just throw him a potion or portal away. Depending, of course.

And thus far, I’m not doing anything special to “keep him levelled” but he still manages to keep up somehow. Always same level as me, or almost.
Should I be doing something specific there, aside from making sure he doesn’t miss a lot of fights? And paying attention to his gear, of course.

Fanaticism how? Conviction only lowers resist to cold/fire/lightning, and Fanaticism is purely physical.

Yeah, extra safety thus far doesn’t make much sense. I’ll need even more +res in Hell, but not that much more to keep the caps. Other than that, the combo of my speed + merc’s HF means that the strongest-hitting monsters (which are usually slower as a start) can barely throw a few attacks before I land a lot of mine. Even with the toughest bosses thus far, Holy Shield and related stuff is keeping me from being hit most of the time.

I don’t know what I’d improve, at this point*. I don’t feel like devoting a ton of time to specific farming. I have a lot of +MF in stashed gear, in case I decide to go for that in the future. Also, my normal gear’s +MF is 25 so I still have good chances of landing useful bases.

My helm and belt (rares) look a little weak, but they also have mods that have made me keep them in spite of technically nicer stuff dropping. Helm gives nice +AR and +Run, belt gives +FHR and +PLR.

And I also have stashed gear for the next time I face insane amounts of poison. And plenty of +Str or +Dex Charms to equip in case of a nice drop that is more demanding on those. To equip it sooner, while I raise the actual stat/s permanently.

*There’s always obvious stuff. Increasing PLR, speeds, FHR, getting some % for crit or crushing. Some +skills, perhaps.

But I don’t wanna do it in a way that breaks what I have right now.

That’s the reason the item upgrade recipe came as such a blessing, in the end. Pure, raw and large improvement to dam, but with no sacrifices.

17

Conviction also lowers Defense. :smiley:

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About teleports … its not as hard as you might think …
Gambling with Gheed … yeah might take a while but :wink: teleport Ammi with 22 charges of Tele 1 or 25 charges of Tele 2 both are level 48 requirement to equip. Frankly cost of 1 charge make me cry lol - 25 charges of Tele 2 after 19% discount from Gheed Charm = 72k gold
Alternative way of dealing with immunities (and basically old school way) - watch out for necro wands with charges look specifically for Decrify - it will break Phys Immunities … those wands could be mighty useful … lower resist perfectly substitute Infinity and life tap allow you leach life from undead and phys immunes.
For single player also few 100-432 psn sc could come very handy :wink:

19

No, since you are on single player, I don’t think you need to worry about this, unless you are playing without the merc for many levels. Conviction lowers defence as well as resist, see description/effect of skill. Low defence means you can hit easier.

I wouldn’t count on Infinity rw for your merc since you are on single player, good luck having the runes drop lol Cheaper options to deal with phy immune as I mentioned before, Lawbringer(lvl 15 decrip proc easy), Voice of reason(frozen orb proc + minus cold resist + your conviction if you have it).

No Boss is immune to anything, by Boss I mean act ending bosses. The uniques/super uniques before Bosses will be immune to all kinds of crap lol and yes teleport charges are expensive so if you use it, make sure it is a good use. Decrip is very useful for a melee char and the easiest way to get it is Lawbringer, note that rw does little dmg, you use it for the proc. I have heard people using that on a a5 barb with phase blade so the barb just constantly proc decrip lol

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I would argue about easiest way lol - necro wand with charges of Decrip cheapest and more reliable way (weapon switch, hit pack with it, switch back)