Couple of skill rants

[WarBlade]

Heh, was any of the new ranged attacks AI pose a threat to her?  I read that supposedly monsters will no longer target just the summons or nearest targets.

Oh, that reminds me. Merc AI has been upgraded the same way. I noticed an Iron Wolf ignored a closer target and started blasting away at a further target. They were the same monster type, but the closest one was hiding behind a pillar.

But to answer your question, not really. There was a point where a couple of them, thought "bugger this" and came running after the character instead. I threw up a decoy, as you do, and they still weren't fooled. Decoy worked nicely at other times when cast at the edge of the screen though.

I gotta admit though, the synergy looks interesting on paper at least.  Especially to my D2C Fanatical Martyr who Redeems part time.

Yeah, he'd do well. I had a Thorny Martyr running in Act 2 Nightmare and really couldn't see much difference between 1.09 "players 8" and 1.10 "players 1". Quite alright for 1.09 items I think considering he uses Bloodletter with the rest being crappy rare junk.

[WarBlade]

I read that Lower Resist will affect immunities, did your test confirm if Conviction will do the same?

Well I did mention beetles. ;) Beetles there are Lightning Immune. ;)
Now that I know it works, the trick is to figure out what the breakpoints are.

2 Hell level examples:

Level 23 Conviction (-140%) wiped the Lightning Resists off some Beetles in the Far Oasis.

Level 21 Conviction (-130%) failed to wipe the Cold Immunity from that pack of Hellspawn(?) just above the Frigid Highlands WP in Act 5, but at the same time successfully wiped Cold Immunity from some crows coming up the stairs.

So, obviously it takes the total Resistance level into account before deriving a net value which may or may not push a monster below its Immunity Threshold. I'd love to see the figures on this one. B)

edit: The Lower Resist I mentioned ealier wiping a Poison Immunity is at level 14 (-59% Resist)

[Hammerskjold]

Or a bug by the grand poobah over at bliz? Since iirc ASummit lists Conviction not affecting immunities. Easier to change the code, or just change the skill listing? :)

>Well I did mention beetles. Beetles there are Lightning Immune.
Now that I know it works, the trick is to figure out what the breakpoints are.

I guess I was just excited and blanked out after reading the implications. And browsing the blizzard bug reports forum probably didn't help my comprehension either.

Now to see if bliz crowns this a feature, or a bug to be fixed and nerfed , and taken out to the back shed to have it beaten to an invalid.

>So, obviously it takes the total Resistance level into account before deriving a net value which may or may not push a monster below its Immunity Threshold. I'd love to see the figures on this one.

Hell so do I.

[Guest]

Seems like they should hit for ~1500 with decient(not great) gear if you spec for it. Any one try it to see how that works?

[IlleglWpns]

Warblade:

Can you describe how the synergies interact with vengeance? From the mpqs it seems that each point in a synergy would add 5% each of fire, lightning and cold damage, which seems like quite a boost.

[lemekim]

Another viable paladin build (from what I have experienced) is the hammerdin - with the various improvements to the damage of blessed hammer, and concentration helping on top of the base damage, it's pretty effective even at base lvl 20 skills.

[Iolair]

A paladin with 20 points in Blessed Hammer, Vigor, Blessed Aim and Concentration will have a hammer damage of 3737-3808.
This will cost a huge amount of skill points, namely 87.

But it's an increase in damage :)

[Guest]

There is no documentation on this so I wasnt sure.

[Chaerophon]

I'm thinking, max BH, 10 in vigor, 1 in BA, max CONC, some points in Meditation, and a Hammerdin should be quite doable, yet not overpowered in the least. Haven't tried it yet, but I'm in the process. I'm thinking that the added benefit in the synergies should push the LOD Hammerdin from, "so-so" status to that of "well-balanced"; however, he may have to sacrifice alternate skills... The bonuses to meditation may make up for that and allow some investment in zeal, etc. as skill points may be more readily available now that they are not in as great of demand for energy. We'll have to see how it all works out!

[WarBlade]

Warblade:

Can you describe how the synergies interact with vengeance?  From the mpqs it seems that each point in a synergy would add 5% each of fire, lightning and cold damage, which seems like quite a boost.

LOL No.

Vengeance
Conviction
Meditation
Holy Shield

Pretty much all needed and pretty much all hogging the points. They might as well have not bothered with Holy Shock as a Synergy, since players will be scraping points into Holy Freeze and Holy Fire when they can. Point stretching kills the Avenger. You'd think with their bloody idiotic Paladin synergy system someone would come up with Meditation offers -0.2 Mana cost per level on Vengeance or simply cut Vengeance mana costs in half, but that would be requiring someone actually have long think about the Paladin.

[IlleglWpns]

Hmm, are you quite sure about that? The synergies for vengeances are salvation, resist cold, resist lightning, and resist fire respectively. The battle.net 1.10 forum confirms that each point in a resist aura adds 5% to base vengeance damage, so 15% total. This means you don't really have to max all the synergies.

For example the build I'm thinking of trying:

20 Vengeance
20 Fanatacism
20 Resist Lightning
1 Meditation
1 Vigor
As many points in charge and holy shield as possible.

Personally I think your emphasis on mana consumption is exaggerated. A point in meditation was sufficient to recover mana between battles, esp as the base mana pool grew. A few % mana steal combined with fanatacism was more than sufficient to recoup the mana loss. Now that the global physical resistance has been removed replacing fanaticism with conviction for even more UBAR DAMAGE should be viable.

[WarBlade]

Hmm, are you quite sure about that?  The synergies for vengeances are salvation, resist cold, resist lightning, and resist fire respectively.

I'm well aware of what the Synergies are. What I'm saying is I don't have points to spend in them.

The battle.net 1.10 forum confirms that each point in a resist aura adds 5% to base vengeance damage, so 15% total.  This means you don't really have to max all the synergies.

For example the build I'm thinking of trying:

20 Vengeance
20 Fanatacism
20 Resist Lightning
1 Meditation
1 Vigor
As many points in charge and holy shield as possible.

Personally I think your emphasis on mana consumption is exaggerated. A point in meditation was sufficient to recover mana between battles, esp as the base mana pool grew.  A few % mana steal combined with fanatacism was more than sufficient to recoup the mana loss.  Now that the global physical resistance has been removed replacing fanaticism with conviction for even more UBAR DAMAGE should be viable.

I was using Conviction. Trust me when I say "You WANT Conviction". Using Conviction over Fanaticism means crappy leeching and hence the need for Meditation. Your case at a quick look, looks to be about 74 points without anything in Charge and Holy Shield. The way the game is now, I'd say you'd have to forget either Holy Shield or Charge and face the fact that what you have left is only your end-Hell build.

And have you tried an Avenger in Act 5 Hell yet? I've tried a couple of Paladins, one being and Avenger, and let me just say that Holy Shield becomes very very inviting for one who stands and swings with the likes of Vengeance, Zeal and Sacrifice. :blink:

Also don't discount Redemption. I've just tried that out and discovered it rocks by comparison to its old self, purely because the pulse is almost immediate instead of the old 3 second wait.

[IlleglWpns]

Why do you say you "WANT conviction"? Have resistances been beefed up? Looking at monstats.txt the old pattern seems to be intact (i.e most monsters have one immunity and maybe some resistance to one other element).

By my count, if I want 5 in holy shield and 5 in charge it will take 81 skill points all told, which is acheivable by level 69. Doesn't seem too bad to me.

Another build I'm thinking of trying is the sacrifice + zeal + fanaticism build. This one is less costly in terms of prereqs, so I can put a few more points into charge (I really like this skill!). However I won't have any elemental damage.

[Chaerophon]

Hello,

Not sure of the exact calculations, but I'm thinking that aura flashing conviction with fanaticism may remain, on the whole, more effective as a damage dealer than pumping lightning damage.

[IlleglWpns]

Aura flashing is gone. The most effective route in terms of damage would be one synergy (either resist cold, fire , or lightning) and conviction. This would give you an additional (552 + 300) * 2 = 1704% additional damage. This is a fair bit more than the old convic/fanat avenger build, but it sacrifices some speed, but you gain the convenience of not having to flash auras.

[WarBlade]

Why do you say you "WANT conviction"?  Have resistances been beefed up?  Looking at monstats.txt the old pattern seems to be intact (i.e most monsters have one immunity and maybe some resistance to one other element).

Well try this on for size then . . .

Glacial Trail Hell "Players 1"

WRAITH
Undead Drains Mana
Immune to Physical, Immune to Poison

One hit zapped Mana down to around half and a second hit almost drained the Paladin flat. The only way your Fanaticism based Avenger will challange that is with Damage Taken goes to Mana or switch aura, with Sanctuary and Conviction being the two options that spring to mind.

Same level
SKELETON MAGE
Undead
Immune to Cold, Immune to Poison
And I didn't bother to check to see if these were leechable since they weren't in 1.09.

Put these two together with many more examples of Conviction's ability to knock out selected Immunities and Conviction starts looking extremely useful throughout the game whereas Fanaticism is very powerful and fickle at the same time.

[IlleglWpns]

Interesting example, but physically immune enemies (esp wraiths) were always hard as an avenger. Usually I just chugged some pots and keep hacking. Conviction IS very useful but I still like the speed of fanaticism.

Have you thought of trying holy shock as well?

Holy shock and vengeance share a synergy in resist lightning, and with holy shock you'll be able to deal out substantial amounts of elemental damage even when out of mana.

[WarBlade]

Have you thought of trying holy shock as well?

With that build I don't need to. He has all Immunities covered. ;)
I did run a Shock Zealot around Act 2 Hell for a bit though. Unfortunately he only had 13 spare points to drop in Resist Lightning, but he seemed ok at that point in the game. In some ways he's more weapon dependant than the Avenger now, so it'll be interesting to see how he works out with the new equipping possibilities.

[lemekim]

Just to throw a curveball into the whole discussion on possible builds - conviction now caps out at -150% resists; which is level 25. So if you have a lot of +skill items, it might be quite possible not to max it, but let +skill take care of rest.

[IlleglWpns]

So far we've talked about three different avenger builds. Before there was pretty much one. That's a promising sign to me. 1.1 is going to shake things up a lot, but on the balance it seems for the better. Now if only they'd fix bone spirit......

One thing I'm really looking forward to is the increased potency and frequency of rares. Combined with the new cube recipes it looks like the days of guides consisting mainly of godly item recommendations are over.