Trying for Spirit Shield - Help please?

General Discussion
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I wasn’t about to burn a socket quest for any of this. I’d just wait for a socketed drop, or use the Horadric Cube recipe to socket it. For one thing, I already used up Larzuk’s in Normal. In a not too useful way, but it’s done.

I didn’t know about that one. Doing the math, it’d be +63 with 2 perfect diamonds.

That shield’s def looks nice, definitely. But that’s about the only thing it has where it beats my current one, I think. Unless its massive bonus to def applies to the overall stat, instead of just the shield itself?

  • The natural block rate is a bit higher (67 vs 55), but I cap that at 75 with Holy Shield anyway.
  • The 30% faster block rate looks nice too. It’s rather big, and right now I have no such boost.
  • Dam goes to mana (in my current) is useless to me. I barely use mana, and I already leech plenty of it anyway.

The funny thing is, I haven’t had much luck with Diamonds. Even with keeping almost all (I used two in items, earlier on), and using the Horadric Cube to upgrade, I barely made it up to almost one Perfect Diamond thus far. I’m about to face Andariel in NM.

If I had managed to collect and make more perfect diamonds, I probably would’ve gone for a multi-diamond shield long ago.

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The zakarum it’s most likely to find clearing chaos sanctuary because multiple sources could drop in there. Even if the odds are lower but also the time spent. Most unique monsters in that zone can drop it similar to pindle/eldritch/shenk but also has diablo in the end.

Act 3 Councils, pindle, eldritch and shenk are also decent options. Because are fast to find and kill.

Without mf at p1. Bosses aren’t great 1:3500-5500 ish while on the alternatives 1:70k for pindle, eldritch and shenk, while councils 1:350k-360k

About faster I would say pindle,eldritch and shenk. You could skip pindle and try councils if it’s complicated to kill. Would be safer, faster and could match the timer for rmk.

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By “Andy” you mean Andariel, right? And those substantially better odds with her in Hell, are only when questing (aka for the first time), right? I assume she becomes less useful than Diablo NM, afterwards. Is that what you mean by bugged? That her drops are too good or something?

I was just checking that website, and it says something about “Diablo (World)” with extremely better odds that are not affected by MF bonuses (1 in 298). What is that?

Also, the whole “focusing on MF equipment” doesn’t make much sense to me. I did get like a +36 at some point, by sheer coincidence, and I think it was giving me kinda good results. But I lost those as I moved to items with more generally useful benefits.

I don’t think ruining my character’s build significantly by focusing on +MF, is worth it for HoZ. I don’t want to spend half the gaming experience working toward that shield alone. I’m ok with farming Andariel or Diablo maybe um, 50 times tops? To give it an honest chance.

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With 0 mf and p1 baal nightmare quest has the best odds 1:3560, without it 1:5381.

Andy hell quest, 1:5592

That’s why I mentioned the alternatives. The time spent on andy vs the alternatives easily compensate both on runes wise and overall drops.

At least on p1 killing more and faster often compensate. You mentioned zeal, which would pair well on the other options. You would spend like 1-2 mins to kill council, eldritch and shenk covering the rmk time against 30s-5min on bosses.

Try to put a timer and you could gauge your time. The only downside of going on act3 and act5 would be the load time, if you have small one you’re fine, if not try nihlathak or pindle.

You could go baal minions+baal also. Could drop similar to councils and get some exp from it.

Just gauge your time spent on each task and adjust accordingly. If your goal it’s the shield optimize your time for it, otherwise if you’re willing to pick also something else, make the run diverse like:

Eldritch, shenk, pindle, nihlathak, baal’s minion and baal. If you doesn’t have loading time problem also act3. Just remember of not logging out on act 3 because it’s a long path to reach the wp.

Edit: andy quest bug, it’s andariel old bug that on d2r it’s “believed” that always you get the quest reward from her.

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Andy is Andariel indeed, quest bug andy is something from D2 where you could “bug” the quest drop, which meant if done right every drop would be as if it was a quest drop.
However in D2r Andy always drops as if she is quest bugged, so her drops are very good in comparison.

Diablo World is what is often called Uber Diablo, you can’t farm him, its the World Event where Diablo drops the Annihilus.

You could have a mf setup under weapon switch (with for example the blade of ali baba), however since you play solo you’ll have to make due with what you find and hunting for a mf setup would be kind of awkward :stuck_out_tongue:
Get a bit mf if you can, a Rhyme has 25%, you can put Pgems in your gear (if you have open slots) head and armor give 24% mf for each Perfect Topaz you put in it.
But since you play on player 8 its hard to sacrifice gear for mf.
You also have certain tricks you could use like play with your normal gear until you get to Andariel and switch your helm with a 3x Ptopaz plain helm you keep in you inventory.
Low Magic Find is very effective, but the higher it gets to less useful it becomes, on the site you can change your mf and see what difference it makes.
Just to get an idea.

P8 0mf Andy HoZ 1 in 1619
P8 100mf Andy HoZ 1 in 947
P8 200mf Andy HoZ 1 in 768

You can already see that the difference the first 100mf makes is allot more than the second 100mf.
I think getting 50 to 100mf should be possible without losing much power, so might be worth it.

In my opinion hunting for a specific unique that isn’t incredible common in a solo play is not worth it.
Just farm Countess a few times make a Rhyme/Spirit and go on, grab 50 to 100mf if you can and see what you find while playing.
Once you reach mephisto NM farm him for a little while, go to Diablo do the same a few times and then either farm Baal a few times or just go to Hell and farm the Countess and Andariel for a while (I usually do mephisto often, Diablo a few times, Baal only the guest and go to Countess/Andy which I’ll do often).
Diablo is an RNG game and farming for a specific thing can take a long time, Andy Hell has the best chance and on average it P8 0mf 1619 kills before getting the shield so I don’t think its worth the effort, I’ll just farm her a while and see if she gives me a few upgrade, whatever they may be.
Lower Runewords can be pretty good aswell and you have a little more control over those as farming the countess NM and later Hell will get you many of the lower runes quite fast.
Take a look at the runewords and see if there are things you’d like, then keep an eye out for the base weapons, shields armor and helms you might need for those and store them for later, when you get the runes you don’t want to start hunting for the base items to make the runeword, often people could have picked it up somewhere along the road but just didn’t think to do so.

PS: for magic finding it might be better to lower the player count a bit and trade some damage for magic find, if you really only play P8 just grab a bit, but don’t let it slow you down.

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Ok, thanks to you both, UnluckyMan and Regonox.

So, to sum up, I’ll use take your advice about HoZ farming bosses, but try not to obsess over it too much.

I’ve equipped a +72 mf recently, because I found a 3-socket armor with about as same def as the rare I was using. Since that rare’s bonuses weren’t meaningful, I had the topazes to spare, gambling for a better rare 200+ def armor is quite costly, and I 'm nowhere near having the runes for a nice 3-socket armor… It made sense to change.

I’ve also started stashing the drops with decent +mf, for a quick switch when about to kill the bosses that are worth the try.

I’m currently still looking for a shield with enough +res and sockets for Spirit. Right now, I have stashed a Targe that has +34 res, but no sockets and low def. If no better shield drops before I face Duriel NM (clearing the other tombs right now), I can add the 4 sockets to the Targe with the Horadric Cube. The loss in def will be compensated by the +2 to Holy Shield (which I just keep casted all the time in battle).

Sounds like a solid strategy for now, seeing as I still have two acts to go before facing the first decent HoZ drop boss.

Much as it’d be fun to find the HoZ, just because it’s hard to do so and it pretty much means I have the best possible option in one of my gear items… I’ve greatly enjoyed the game’s more challenging pace and faster XP increase, since I started doing /players8. So, I’m not dropping that, just to make the HoZ maybe easier to get.

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Couple things
a) Spirit rune word cheap as dirt rune wise and technically you need just chipped topaz to get Amn out of 3 Thuls. Saying this
b) you don’t need initially anything fancy rather 30+ resist and some reasonable defense (Akaran Targe will do btw)
c) Imo best place to farm bases for any rune words are cows with zero MF, Countess comes second again with as low MF as possible and last place where I usually use for hunting high-end bases for rune word Nilathak area - floor itself have at least 2 weapon and 2 armor stands that potentially can yield something nice

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A) Yeah, getting the runes hasn’t been problematic. I’ve been upgrading runes through using the Cube all the time, as soon as I get 4 of the same (so I always keep at least 1 of each).

B) Finding a proper base has been complicated. Either the shield drops don’t have enough +res and def, they’re not 4-socket, or they come out with less sockets when using the Cube recipe (I don’t have a Larzuk reward available for this right now, and won’t for about 3 Acts). That’s how I ended up making an Ancient Pledge’s one, as a nice option for now.

Right now, I’m close to sacrificing some def in order to get it (as I explained in my last reply). And hoping the Cube does give me 4-socket on that. As far as I remember, 4-socket should be the most likely outcome when that’s the item’s max amount. Right?

C) Can I get a proper non-magic shield from Normal’s cow level? I could go back there and farm for it without the +MF gear, if nothing decent shows up soon.

Right now, I’m barely getting any paladin shields. Magic or otherwise. So, I don’t think my current +MF is making me miss any chances.

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Cannot be frozen is a must when you start reaching Baal throne room and Chaos. It’s probably the most obnoxious thing in the game to be using a rapid attack you’re locked in while being frozen and decrepified.

Even if for some reason your +skills give you like 500 extra damage, you will be doing much less damage if you’re frozen from how slow you swing.

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Frankly I never had a problem with soon or later getting 4OS Pala Shield with at least some resist and as soon as I got first I made spirit of it (with crystal sword spirit and with lore helm). But I think yes there cube recipes that does exactly that (random number of sockets up to max). As a temp solution you can use Rythm or Splendor in 2 socket Pala Shield. I haven’t done for a long time normal cows so don’t remember but you are right in terms that even blank base 4OS Pala shield with half decent resist not very common :frowning: I yet to see blank vortex or eth vortex (let along vortex with good resist)

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While this is nice but nowhere near to be “required” - you can get away with half freeze duration…
What is most annoying is poison even 75 resist will drop you down rather quick … remember when snakes at Nilathak temple where so brutal that Blizzard actually nerf them … Hammerdin don’t really have problem with “been frozen” it not affecting FCR so as long your hammers flying with 75+FCR and do at least 5-6k damage you should be fine with 12k damage they kill on single game everything with 1 hit except for bosses

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And what’s the best option for that, for you? A Rhyme shield stashed away? To use when cold enchanted enemies show up.

I’ve run into cold enchanted before, and I managed to make it without dying. Doing hit and runs where poison damage works while I fall back for a bit, and Holy Freeze merc helping even things out.

But I know that the game will get much tougher later on. And, as a Zealot Paladin, I rely heavily on speed. I have significant attack and speed bonuses from items, Fanaticism maxed out, etc.

My strategy on that thus far, has been just hoping for an eventual drop that would grant me that benefit on an item that was good enough to keep it in my gear long-term.

I just made some more research. It’s not as useful as it seems. Sure, it protects my paladin from the slowing down from cold attacks. BUT the most dangerous slow-downs, thanks to both for length and area, are from Holy Freeze and Decripify. And Cannot Be Frozen doesn’t protect from either. Those it does affect, I can solve with thawing potions. I know it’s not the most elegant solution, but I can afford to carry 2-4 such potions at any time without making a significant sacrifice as to access to health potions.

Didn’t you mean Rhyme? I went for Ancient’s Pledge, and I think it’s better overall. Bigger +res, which is the most important thing in this case. I’m going through NM with all res maxed out (fire 85), and it’s allowing me to deal with elemental damage quite efficiently even in players8 difficulty. 10% life leech and fast attacks mean I only need potions when I’m hit extremely hard (a rarity) or the monster is an undead I can’t leech from.

As for Splendor, I don’t have the runes yet and it doesn’t look like that’ll be easy. I’ve only run into 1 Io and 1 Fal thus far. All other runes have been Hel or lower.

I’ve talked about being frozen, in this very reply above. I already have half freeze, and it helps nicely.

I don’t do Nilathak’s quest because I know it’s not worth it. Bigger risk than most others, and not of particular usefulness in any way. I limit myself to Pindleskin there.

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Well Nilathak temple have something that no other place have :wink:
4 guaranteed stand 2 for weapon 2 for armor - that is THE place where on hell best bases come … Countess also have a lot stands with weapon or weapon+armor - and this imo second best source for bases. Nilathak is not that risky if you know what you are doing and paladin, necro and druid 3 safest classes to do it… Paladin consume everything with redemption, druid have vines that eat corpses and necro … well just CE everything with Nilathak if he get clumsy :). So yes Nilathak temple really worth every MF run just for bases (and keys on Hell)

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That sounds promising, for building runeword items.

So, do I have to expose myself to Nilathak, to reach those? Redemption is hardly worth the skill point expenditure for me. I have no points in defensive auras. And it needs to be lvl 4 to grant a decent chance at disposing of corpses. That’s 6 points…

I used to invest in Redemption, back in the original’s days. It was fun, too. But now I play a much more focused Paladin. Fanaticism is my only aura, Zeal as my main attack, Sacrifice for extra damage against the tougher ones + the Zeal synergy, Holy Shield all the time. That’s it.

So, instead of relying on quick Redemption switches for recovering health (which is slow and random), I just use a good life leech and potions. I don’t care for mana, I barely use it and I already have items with great mana recovery anyway. Just as a coincidence.

Is there a way to face Nilathak, without having to dedicate significant amounts of my build to him alone? I mean, without deviating from what I’m already building. I don’t even intend to farm him for keys in Hell, as the Hellfire Torch frankly doesn’t justify all the trouble it requires (to me, at least). With my luck, it’d come out as a +3 to ANOTHER character class lol.

Also, thus far in Countess (normal and NM) I’ve found very very few stands. And I did NM twice for that tower.
How many are supposed to be there?

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I’ve played recently and there is no just carrying thawing potions. They will reapply cold to you constantly and you are forced to be in melee range to zeal. Normal monsters can sometimes also freeze you. Yeah it doesn’t stop you from being aura frozen, but that’s much less common then cold enchanted or just freezing normals. Yes it also doesn’t stop decrepify, but it stops Decrepify + being frozen.

The spirit isn’t doing that much for you to make up for the massive dps increase when you aren’t slowed. If you had another source of Cannot be Frozen, it would be fine to use Spirit. Duriels Shell if possible until Raven Frost. I even use Raven Frost on my trap assassin, which is frozen much less often, but when it does happen, it slows you down.

Speed is king.

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I was going to suggest this for “cannot be frozen”. Even a bad one can be gotten for dirt cheap. I have one that I can sell you if you need it badly enough lol.

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Well answer is yes just take longer time to accomplish that

  1. clean all outlets but one where Nilathak is
  2. do not fight inside room - just go in - pull some mobs and run out, kill them outside room (Nilathak can’t leave room) … once you deplete original population down to 20-30% just charge to Nilathak and finish him off
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Yeah, basic strategy to keep minion/boss teams from overwhelming you. But can’t he use CE from a great distance? Or is that just for the explosion’s radius?

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Nope he won’t blow out corpses outside of the room

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Is it worth it to go farming for good bases there, in Normal? Considering players8 difficulty, lvl 60 right now (about to end Act 2 NM). I read that good base shields may drop in Normal.

I skipped it except for Pindleskin, back then.