Vengeance? Whats the lowdown on it?

[LucianDK]

Im curious to what you people here say about the vengeance skill, how usefull is it? Do you need to invest into energy to use it properly? As it is quite a mana sucker, and your physical damage output will be rather low. I know the classic build for an avenger was vengeance+conviction, how is it now with the expanded rules in 1.10?

[Sporky Smurf]

The way I see it, keep Vengance at 1. Crank up the three Resist Auras (not Sanctuary, too small a return) to about 12 and then pour the rest of your points into Conviciton, to mow down the enemies. Seems like quite a sturdy build to me.

[gekko]

It's one of the most balanced skills in the game. It's one of those skills that shows the ol' blizzard genius shining through.

Limitations of the skill are simple: very high mana cost at high slvls, and you can only hit one enemy at a time. There are several ways around the first -- get a higher damage weapon, add more mana leech, use potions, use redemption or meditation. Most characters will be able to use vengeance at low to mid levels without investing into energy.

The second problem is more interesting -- there really is no way to "fix" this limitation. You hit one enemy at a time, and that's pretty much it. However, the advantages do somewhat make up for this.

The advantages are obvious and very powerful -- excellent damage, and many different types of damage. Simply put, nothing is immune to a swing of vengeance. Enemies with little or no resistances/immunities take simply disgusting ammounts of elemental damage.

The second, somewhat "hidden" benefit of vengeance is how well it works with conviction. Conviction is another of those skills that, for lack of a better word, is uber l33t. It works so much better in reality than it looks on paper. At high skill levels, it makes it damn near impossible to miss (-90% enemy defence!) and greatly increases your elemental damage (-150% enemy resistances!).

As already mentioned, try leaving vengeance at low skill levels, at least until late in the game. Pumping conviction gives excellent returns, doesn't add to the mana cost, and helps any spellcasters in your party tremendously. Adding to the resistance auras will also increase your damage AND gives the hidden benefit of increasing your max resistance by 1% for every two skill points invested.

My current avenger is taking just that route -- vengeace is at slvl 1 and will remain there for quite some time. Conviction is getting pumped at the fastest possible level, after which my individual resist auras will get pumped to about 10. Holy shield is at 10 and is enough to get me max blocking for the moment. I'm planning on maxing holy shield and getting a defiance merc to play the part of a semi-"defiant avenger." But we'll see how that goes.

So, basically, yes, vengeance is a mana-guzzler; however, by leaving it at slvl 1 and pumping conviction and the synergies, you can solve that problem and still reap the benefits.

gekko

[Taem]

I just wanted to comment that I agree fully with everything Geko said, but would like to make one other recommendation:

Because you will be attacking one creature at a time, I'd invest in some IAS gear, hit recovery, and a Holy Freeze mercinary. While the added damage from Might may be tempting, it is far from neccessary as your damage will be insane without Might, but the freeze will slow fast moving packs of monsters, making your chances of survival that much greater!

[adeyke]

While the added damage from Might may be tempting, it is far from neccessary as your damage will be insane without Might

It's worth noting again that might won't increase your elemental damage at all. It will only increase your physical damage, though this does help a lot with leech.

[LucianDK]

That i knew, i had long ago asked about how a physical damage enhanching aura might work with vengeance. As it COULD have blown the elemental damge up quite hard. But i was told it only counts from the actualy damage on your weapon.

[Vash]

I think we've built the exact same Paladin, gekko =)

Mine's 73 right now in a5 nightmare. He's maxed conviction and vengeance. He's got 2 natural points in resist cold (I think I'm going to leave it at that since I'm wearing a Ravenfrost), 10 in lightning resist, and 8 in fire resist. He's got about 10 in holy shield. I've also got a defiance merc.

I'm really hoping that getting the defiance merc instead of the holy freeze merc won't end up biting me in the ass in hell.

Question about conviction...does it remove immunities (assuming your conviction is well over -100% resist all)? If it does, does actually remove the "Immune to XXXX" text from monsters?

[adeyke]

Question about conviction...does it remove immunities (assuming your conviction is well over -100% resist all)? If it does, does actually remove the "Immune to XXXX" text from monsters?

Conviction can break immunities, but it's at 1/5 effectiveness against immunes.

For example, if you have a -150% conviction (that's the highest conviction will go), it'll remove 30% resistance from immune monsters. Anything with 130% or more will stay immune. It does remove the text as well, if the immunity was really broken.

[Freepaperclips]

For example, if you have a -150% conviction (that's the highest conviction will go), it'll remove 30% resistance from immune monsters. Anything with 130% or more will stay immune.

I know that this was intended, but I thought that I heard somewhere that it didn't get put in the final patch.

[adeyke]

I'm quite certain that it does work.

[gekko]

I can confirm this, though not the 1/5 effectiveness. I have seen a sorceress meteor damaging an enemy previously immune to fire while under the influence of my conviction. And the "immune to fire" does disapear with regularity from damn near every monster I approach in NM difficulty.

gekko

[arrunique]

A bit off topic but one of the most effective builds I've seen is a conviction zealot who uses the Stormlash unique scourge. He wear's Dracul and his holy freeze merc wields Reapers Toll and Delirium.

This means as soon as he starts swinging everyone on the screen will be either confused, life tapped or decreped. He might also wear atmas scarab to cast amp, I'm not pos.

Between holy shield and Guardian Angel he didn't take much damage, I saw him tear through act 4 and 5 hell without so much as a life drop. This build is just brutal if you can get the gear for it.

The 15% chance of static on the Stormlash makes up for the zeal only hitting one or two guys at a time. As soon as he starts swinging everything on the screen is at half life and the curses make them either slowed, fighting each other, or walking healing potions.

It was quite the beautiful display of PvM buttkicking, to see how quickly champion and boss packs were torn up by this guy. If I had the gear I would consider building one as well. It seemed like his killing speed was on par with any Hammerdin I've ever seen.

[LucianDK]

Now thats a quite original and interesting idea. You can zeal away, and be sure to score hits each time because of the massive def reduction monsters suffer under conviction. While its about half the chance, perhaps Cresent moon runeword in a phaseblade? To help getting as fast as possible. Imo one of the greatest problems with zeal have always been that you would whiff helplessly against targets, not connecting.

[arrunique]

I worked up some gear for the "Static Conviction Zealot" and here is what I came up with so far:

I'm going to assume we can get 40% of our resists from charms (3 rows of 10% small charms). Also noting 60 IAS is 9/5 frame zeal for scourge and 110 is 8/5. Next breakpoint is 145 to 8/4 which is doable but sacrifices too much.

Weapon: Stormlash socketed with shael -- 15% chance to cast level 10 static , big physical and lightning damage, 50% ias
Helm: Andy's visage -- +2 skills, 20% IAS, life leech, 30 strength, massive poison resists, -30% fire resist
Amulet: Maras -- +2 skills high resists (Mine has 27 so I'm calculating off that)
Armor: Guardian angel -- +1 paladin skills, +15 to max resists, better and faster blocking
Shield: Paladin shield with Sanctuary(ko ko mal) runeword -- Relying on this to get 100% resists, also adds 20 dex and decent block
Gloves: Lava Gout -- Fire damage, chance of enchant for more fire damage, 20% IAS
Rings: Either 2 ravenfrosts if we can rely on potions to keep up zeal mana, if not 1 frost and 1 mana leech ring (manald, whatever)
Belt: Tgods -- 20 str, lightning absorb, lightning damage
Boots: Infernostride -- fire damage, 30 fire resist, + max fire resists

Freeze Merc
Weapon: Reaper's Toll
Helm: Delirium
Armor: Shaftstop

To max out resists andy's and GA need to be socketed with UM or 15% res all jewels

Totals:
110% IAS for 8/5 frame zeal
95% resists in hell if enough charms are carried
lightning and cold absorb, if fire absorb is necessary mana leech/2nd raven frost ring can be replaced with dwarf
A couple of hundred elemental damage from the armor + 1 to 473 lightning damage from the Stormlash
+5 skills

Stat distribution
str 110 total and gear will add ~50
dex ~100 depending on gear, so you have about 160 total at level 99 to keep 75% block
energy base
vit rest

Skills
20 conviction
20 holy shield
10 resist cold (to get to 95% max cold resists)
10 resist lightning (to get to 95% max lightning resists)
20 sacrifice
1-5 zeal -- depends on how impatient you are, gear will provide the skills but it will take a while to equip. I'm pretty sure conviction will take care of any AR issues but this might have to be where the rest of the points go.
leftovers defiance

Overview:
You will be one tough nut with 95 resists in hell and absorbs. If you go all out with resist charms or are lucky enough to have an Annihilus replace the Maras with a Highlord and the Gouts with Hellmouth for even more damage. There is no room for damage reduction so big physical damage might be a problem but the max block and high vitality should help with that.

Any thoughts or improvements? I'm still missing a couple of crucial pieces of gear but when I get them I believe this will be THE melee PVM build for both dishing it out and taking it. With the full resists/absorbs I can see this shredding sorcs in PVP, not sure how it will do against other melee characters though.