vigor+charge in open fields is as fast as teleport. not vigor by itself.
yes making something to get you into hell to farm hell cows/countess/chaos is what you need to focus on to get access to farm better bases/runes.
Charge alone does the job, doesn’t it? That’s what I meant. I’ve been Charging all the way to Countess, and it was quite fast. I don’t see how Vigor would make that much faster, as it’s just +13%. Am I missing something? Does Vigor’s boost increase when Charging? I remind you, I’m already at +58% run from gear.
Honor is not the most interesting choice, of all the ones you’ve shown me. But I should use it anyway, because it’s the only one I have the runes for.
The best 5-socket option for me right now, is a Divine Scepter. With Honor’s mods, my base avg dam from weapon would only drop by 8. But I’d be much faster, and Deadly Strike + Leech would help in this mess too. Also, the +skillers.
I like Lawbringer too, and I only lack Lem for it. BUT its lack of +ED would greatly hurt both my dam and leech.
Oath and Grief are so far away, I cannot expect to get them without farming Hell Countess a lot.
What’s the best option for farming Divine Scepters? Silospen’s drop calc suggests zombies in Swampy Pit lvl 2. What do you think?
My advice to you would be to drop a single point into conversion and use it with a fast weapon. It works best if you are below monster level. Also 2750 defense in hell isn’t very much to be doing melee, not surprised you’re getting belted.
As lvl 76, almost all of Hell A1 is significantly lower. On that, Conversion lvl 1 sounds like it’ll fail fairly often, right?
While I AM concerned with def, and want to max out HS and boost Dex some more thus, those zombies don’t hit me often. They just last long enough for my defficiency in dam and leech to become dangerous. Even if slowed by merc’s HF.
I should probably reallocate Conviction and its prereq’s to HS, to see the results for now.
You would have some + to combat skills surely. At Lvl 7 it works fairly well with a fast weapon. You could do pit runs with it (lvl 85) but I suspect your guy has too many problems to get past act 1 hell. It’s where quite a lot of my single player builds end up too to be honest.
Holy Shield will improve your defence but to get the numbers up to a point where you can realistically melee in hell you need to max it and defiance as well, have defiance on and have a strong armour, like over 1000 on the body armor alone. Stone is a good rune word and not that expensive. 50,000 is attainable but maybe a little over the top, but 20,000 would be helpful. And maybe some crushing blow gear would help too.
Lvl 7 sounds like I’d invest at least 2-3 points to Conversion, even if I happen to obtain a scepter that benefits it. Too expensive, and to gain just 29% chance for 16 seconds? Also, I cannot use Weaken at the same time. Right? They’re override each other.
I just took HS to base 19, and it’s about 3300 def now. Block is maxed, and NM cows have only about 25% chance to hit me. You make it sound like that’s pitiably low def for me. To me, it looks like I’ll have the chance to improve upon it while I’m doing the levels normally.
My current body armor is 449, with its own mod applied. It’s a Smoke rw. I’ll of course use better def armor rw as soon as I can.
20k def sounds so high, lol.
My converter in the test realm is lvl 70 now and has made it to River of Flame in Hell, under single player, player 1 conditions. He has 50,000 defense but this is excessive, also max block and still he gets hit. He wears an ethereal 3200 def armor (Stone Hellforge Plate) which won’t last forever but he’s also got upgraded Duriels Shell. It’s a good build you should try it.
In your original post you mentioned it’s /p8. Is that still the case after the discussion? I haven’t seen you mention that you dropped the players count.
That may be the problem.
It’s clear that I would be crushing A1 Hell, instead of finding it nigh-unbearable, if I were playing with p1 difficulty. But I don’t wanna do that. I wanna keep playing in p8 as much as possible. And I know it’s viable.
I like the challenge, and the bigger xp and drops help compensate since I don’t have THAT much time available to play.
I don’t wanna change the entire build or nearly so, thanks. I know a purely melee Zealot has to be viable. I’m ok with diversifying, but most “diversifying” options I’ve been offered have been “if you committ 70 skill points and half your gear to this…”
That’s NOT diversifying, that’s a total respec.
I really like p8. It’s a nice challenge, and it helps compensate for the fact that I don’t have that much time to play. I’ll keep it as much as possible.
And a purely melee Zealot HAS to be fully viable.
Sure. If I drop p count some, I’ll be able to go through Hell until I can improve my gear. But choosing the easier path is not my style. Specially when I’ve pinpointed the main weakness, and can work on a plan to solve it.
Well then there is your answer. A purely melee Zealot IS viable but not with the kind of gear your have.
There aren’t many builds that are P8 Hell viable at all - with ANY gear - much less with the kind of you are describing, during a standard playthrough leveling.
Your weapon and armor are the main problem, there is no way around that. The best way would be going in Hell on P1 until you build yourself up with what you find there to gradually increase the player count. The added bonus is that you actually WANT to do Hell Countess on P1 for her runes.
I have run my Zealot on P8 during leveling but only because he was twinked. He got Grief and Fortitude, GFace and Herald of Zakarum as soon as he hit relevant levels.
There is an efficiency limit on what you can farm on Nightmare.
From what I gathered, in this and other threads I created, the simplest solution is for me to create an Honor Divine Scepter. I said it already. So, as I have the runes, I’m looking for the base.
I already have a non-socketed DS stashed, but it’s a mere +1 to a skill I don’t care for. And there’s a chance the Cube recipe doesn’t give mt 5 sockets there. So, I’m looking for a DS with interesting +skillers. Thus far, not even one DS at all.
It’s hard to figure out, where to look for it. But I think I would be better off farming for it in NM, since it’s easier and faster. Its item level being 45, farming for it in Hell is counterproductive.
So, right now, NM cow level seems like the best option. It’s tough enough that I have to tone it down to p6 difficulty and still be careful. But at least the monster density helps a lot.
I know an Honor DS is not a permanent fix, of course. But enough to let me keep progressing through p8 Hell probably. As the combination of higher leech, faster attacks and +skillers should make a significant difference.
Once I reach Countess, which is not even half an Act away, I can farm there. Ideally, to make a Grief or Oath. Mostly for the runes, as I could take the Honor runes out of the Divine Scepter to make Grief. And I already have multiple base candidates for Oath.
If my Zealot STILL finds p8 A1 Hell pretty tough, even with an Honor DS, at least it shouldn’t be as bad as right now. I’m ok with challenging, I really enjoy the added perks and threats from p8. It’s just that, with the Zombies, it became nigh-impossible at some point.
Correct me if I’m wrong in any of this, please.
I don’t know if this will or will not be enough, like I said - I don’t have much experience with p8 untwinked melee fighters.
What I CAN recommend though is a Life Tap wand. You can shop one with 100+ charges at Normal Drognan (best to reroll maps so that you have him right at the town exit).
Without Dracs the wand will improve your survivability dramatically. You can use it on boss groups. The bonus side is that you will be able to leech everything with that, skeletons included.
Zombies have a lot of life, are you able to deal with the Zomb’s one on one? I imagine the bosses are a totally different issue.
It occurred to me Zombies have a lot of life and they might just be healing through your damage. A simple poison charm would fix that.
As I never played a caster before, the idea that I could obtain Life Tap easily through vendors never even occured to me 
Someone else suggested that in another thread I created, yesterday. He suggested looking for that gear in Akara’s sales in Hell.
Up until now, I was just waiting for a drop to give me a reliable way to use Life Tap charges. Thus far, nothing.
How high a level, is it realistic for me to expect? So I don’t settle for lvl 1, if something higher may come up. After all, it’s very easy, fast and free to go back and forth to reset her sales. So I can aim for the higher-level charges.
Seeing as my main problem is not being able to leech enough, casting in on those monsters who’re tougher (or impossible) to leech would be a huge bonus indeed.
The Zombies requiring a fair share of hits to go down, is the secondary problem. The primary one, is their drain effectiveness coupled with Hell’s penalties to leech.
My Zealot was doing well enough with life leech, and has such a small need for mana, that the vast majority of the potions I use are antidote and thawing ones. If I use potions at all, which is a rarity in itself. Even bosses would be like that. Unleechable Mephisto would not require many health potions either, thanks to my other stats and being rather weak in melee range.
But Zombies just don’t give me enough from leech, period.
They’re not healing through my damage. I carry a 9" poison charm mostly to prevent healing, even if I have to go out of range for a few momentos for whatever reason.
First of all, I apologize.
I wrote Drognan normal because this has been on my mind but I was actually looking for a base for White runeword recently.
Now, you want to be shopping on Nightmare or Hell because that’s when the ilevel of vendor items depend on your own level (up to +5).
With your level you should be able to find a wand with lvl 4 Life Tap and about 90 charges. And yeah, Akara is supposedly the best for that.
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I didn’t read the entire post but the title says it all, dude I warned the hardship of hell on 8p lol
I suggest you farm NM baal for some decent weapons, and maybe you can get some rune drops on the way. Headstriker, Butcher’s pupil, even some elite weapons might drop from nm baal
didn’t read all, but skimmed over it a few times and read some responses.
p8 is meant for END GAME… you’re not end game so get that outa your mind- maybe until you find some upgrades, then you can continue to torcher yourself
my suggestions:
1)drop to P1
2)Farm countess for those mid runes ppl have talked about
3) Farm level 85 areas like the pits, moseoleium, or ancient tunnels for etheral berzerker axes, etheral ettin axes, Etheral cryptic swords… whatever base you want. or farm for the regular versions. roll them for 4 sockets in the cube or hope they come with it
4) make Oath imo (etheral base + indestructable runewrod + 340%enhanced damage = nearly Ebotd level damage)
5)put it back to p8 now if you want
Sometimes you just have to be lucky.
But I suggest going for a Lawbringer runeword which means farming Countess for a Lem. Once you get that Lawbringer, The Tower and the Ancient Tunnels become a cakewalk up to /players4 but I would recommend keeping at /player1 for a while just to make back to back Tower and Tunnels runs faster.
Running the Countess enough will get you some Ums and Mals which open up other runewords and you can get an Act 5 merc to put your Lawbringer on you can equip a different runeword like Oath or Voice of Reason or something cheap like that.
If you can get a Gul and Vex, A Death Ettin Axe will allow you to up the difficulty a bit more and open up other farming areas.
I got pretty lucky, I got a Vex from a crypt in the Tower and a Gul from the Hell Hellforge and with Death and an act 5 merc, /players8 is doable in some popular farming zones. Cows can be a little rough but there’s plenty of other zones you’ll have no problem farming.