I hate my hammerdin, but it is the cheapest build and it does kill stuff.
Trying to get the damn hammer to hit through doorways, halls, pillars, ect is just a pita.
and sometimes it’s not even obstacles, if a mob is standing next to you half the time the hammers miss it anyways.
I get tired of the constant repositioning. About to reroll because it bugs me constantly.
You obviously don’t know anything about Diablo… It’s always about offense over defense… in just about any situation… you have to kill them before they kill you. Or are you new here?
Also, that’s all you got out of that entire post? 
really? You’re a fool.
I literally told him to even upgrade all his gear and gave him all the BiS options possible (aside from enigma, because let’s face it, most of us don’t have an enigma yet) … but Guardian Angel is a great substitute.
I started off with just as crap gear as he has now after about 150 pit runs I had most of the stuff I needed to survive Act 4 and 5 quite easily… I mean you still have to pop potions, that’s a give in but you won’t get insta gibbed.
Personally my holy shield still isn’t maxed out and I’m on level 89.
I was wearing the following stuff up until yesterday and I was able to clear Hell no problem, even while carrying another person:
Helm: Peasant Crown
Armor: Glad’s Bane
Shield: HoZ (P. Diamond)
Weapon: Spirit
Ring: Raven Frost
Ring: SoJ
Belt: String of Ears
Boots: Aldur’s
Necklace: +20 STR +1 Paladin Skills
Merc: Vamp Gaze, Insight Thresher, Treachery Armor
I’ve gotten a few upgrades since then like a CoA with 1os, Upped Guardian Angel Armor, Sandstorm Trek Boots and I made a Hoto… but yeah I was doing great with the stuff I previously mentioned.
He just needs to sink all his points in to offense and upgrade his gear a bit… if he had a string of ears (like I stated) he’d already be taking way less damage.
I find that you are correct. The pally is weak for some reason. I have to deck mine out with physical reduction. I was shocked at how weak he is. People are probably used to teleporting everywhere with enigma. He is weak against missiles and physical attacks. It is very obvious if you are having to walk and fight
- your target is 0 strength and 0 dex and 0 energy
- you need physical damage reduction or you are dead quick. string of ears, verdungo’s coil, ber rune, crown of ages, shaft armor, shako hat. Something.
- use charge/walk instead of run
- hammer, concentration, vigor, blessed aim, holy shield is the order. one in redemption is fine
- basically you’re spending too much effort into resists and not enough into physical damage, which is your real problem. hammerdin needs physical damage reduction. in high level builds, they will often use ber in shako, which is 18%, plus 8% in enigma… in godly builds it can be 1-2 ber in diadem and 1 ber in enigma.
In short, worry less about absorbing elemental damage and more about getting hit with physical.
none of those are used in any standard hammerdin gear setup. If you don’t have the optimal choices, sure you can take first what you have. But if you have a ber rune and no other gear, you certainly won’t socket it into a shako 
I never bothered with that and never had a problem. Run into mobs and use force stand to cast is very simple and convenient anyways. if you cannot face tank you need to run circles and cast 1-2 hammers all the time anyways.
Cheap gear atm:
Shako (it now sells for less than a mal rune lolz)
Spirit Sword
HoZ (since you have it already)
Viper (skullders is trash)
aldur’s boot / ST also fine / WT for MF (pretty useless anyways)
Arach (although on the more expensive side. Just use whatever you have)
Trang gloves
Raven + whatever ring you got with some res that you are missing
Amulett can also be whatever. I still didn’t bother trading for a maras and just use what I found (e.g. beeds or high lords)
with this gear you shouldn’t die at all unless you got one tapped by some crazy fanatic death lords
Target is max block and max vita. Depending on gear.
DR is nice but mostly only focused for pvp. 18% from Eni and shako is usually enough for pvm.
I would say… you play it wrong. I wear total trash gear… I not even get past 1000 Armor… or have a ton +skills.
The very first thing you need to look out for as a Hammerdin is cast speed… for the Paladin the Faster Cast breakpoints are - 0 - 9 - 18 - 30 - 48 - 75 - 125.
Try to reach the 125 Faster Cast breakpoint.
The next thing is… learn the hammer pattern. The hammer comes out right to your left and then flies upward and still hits enemies above you… but then on your right and below you it will be too far to hit them… there are your blind spots.
The hammers have many blind spots where they not hit anything.
The best strategy is to see enemies… have the Concentration Aura up and then already stand there casting hammers like a madmen… so enemies run into them when they close in on you.
If your Mercenary engages enemies outside the reach of your hammers… run towards him, stand next to him and start chain-casting hammers again. If enemies are in dead spots… adjust your position.
This might be easier when you play using a controller… at least for me it is.
For defense it is enough to reach 75% in Fire and Lightning resistance.
I play right now a weird setup, 50 Strength, 35 Dexterity… the rest in Vitality. 20 in Blesssed Hammer, it’s synergies Blessed Aim and Vigor… 20 Concentration which is what you run… and 20 in Holy Bolt to deal with the second wave at Baal.
I not even use Holy Shield right now… since I am not even done with Holy Bolt at 86.
I ran a max block setup before… but I figured I not really hear allot blocks occurring… or see me getting hit allot. If you play this right your hammers will hit and stun most enemies for a brief moment… with enough cast speed the next hammer hit them before they can do anything.
So I thought… since most of my gear not really requires 100 Strength and I not have to use a Monarch for Spirit as Paladin… I got a Paladin Shield for Spirit that needs less then 50 Strength… why not go for full vitality, since I get 3 HP per Vitality point?
Anyway… works for me like a charm. You need to get your Cast Speed up… and start casting and let them run into your hammers… don’t run towards them, let them come to you.
Just play more.
Also, try a different character. E.g. fireball sorceress. Then you see that your current state is not so bad.
Yes I know about the moving reduction but this happens to me when standing still as well.
I remember playing original d2 for 15 years and I was never this squishy, I probably had better gear then but still.
Zax. No, I listed my stats. 75% block which is max in the game.
I have a defiance merc with some decent gear.
Have you tried asking nicely for the enemies to take it easy?
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Appreciate your lenghty reply but this is something else. My question is how come normal skells can cast a few macic balls and im dead in the worldstone for example.
How I actually play the game is something else. My cast rate is low, but before I cast, im dead. I can solo baal with my merc but it’s a struggle. I use belt full of pots and buy new pots all the time.
I start to realize the only way to survive is to get all those super exensive things like the torch, anni, enigma, hoto. the game was more fun when those things weren’t in the game.
Depends what element their cast is. If you are not at least 75% in the resistance of their element… they will do allot damage. It scales up by percentage.
Another thing is… do you play solo? On hell as soon as there are more players in a game… or you use the players8 command solo offline… enemies will scale up dramatically.
Even standing there in a 8 player game, with 90% in every resistance… they still deal a ton damage.
Otherwise I do not know what you do wrong. I only have issues like you describe in a 5+ players game.