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An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-12-2003
My curiousity aroused by Warblade's description of the AWFUL AWFUL things that blizzard did to the paladin in 1.10 and the general wailing and moaning about the increased difficulty and sucktitude of the patch, I finally decided to try it out for myself. What follows are my general impressions about what has changed and my experience playing an avenger in acts I and II normal.
General Observations:
The most striking change I noticed was the increased drop rate. (I usually play normal in players 8 so keep that in mind) For one thing, rares were practically falling out of the sky now. I'd generally find a rare in each major area I traversed, and most of them didn't suck! It seems that while the affix pool hasn't been reduced, the chances of individual affixes spawning have been tweaked. Generally the higher level rares seem to get higher level affixes more often (like more Ed%, leech, IAS) and the frequency of crappy mods like "5% chance to cast level 1 firebolt" is greatly reduced. Furthermore you get more rares from gambling. I usually get one rare every 5 gambles or so. IMO this is a great thing because rares are now viable endgame items and you can actually FIND them in singleplayer provided you try hard enough. Uniques and set items drop slightly more often, but it's not an earthshattering change.
Experience has also been boosted. At the end of Act I I was level 20. At the end of act II I was level 27. This is with minimal replaying (though I did visit the optional dungeons).
Monsters are tougher now. Not in terms of HP but in terms of offense. They hit harder, and elemental damage has been greatly increased (especially poison). Spectral hit is a dangerous boss mod now, and when a greater mummy poisons you with a melee attack you'll feel it (does something like 11-12 damage/sec). This is a nice change from 1.09 when lightning enchanted was pretty much all you had to worry about in normal. I got a nasty shock when was trapped in a pack of zombies facing Blood Raven, even run of the mill encounters can surprise you now.
Overall the game is a lot more interesting, even normal can be challenging at times and the increased item drops means that the boring unique driven economy of 1.09 might change and we might see some diversity in gear.
Act I:
Playing act I with a paladin (indeed any melee class) is a pedestrian affair. The blood moor had a LOT of fallen that got me to level 5 almost immediately. I found my first rare in the den of evil, and it was a doozy. A sceptre with 6-13 damage, 5% chance to cast amplify damage, +AR, and a few other mods. Blood raven was an interesting exercise in hit and run, worked out well except for the time that I got trapped. Tristram was easy. The countess was also easy pretty easy, I killed her entourage one by one as they filed through the doorway (actually my rogue merc did most of the killing). Somewhere along the way I found my first good unique, the axe of fechmar. Did good damage (10-22), gave a lot of cold resistance, and most importantly had a lovely "freezes target +3" mod. This enabled me to go shieldless most of the time. I got vengeance by the time I finished the outer cloister. I didn't have the mana to use it often, most of my killing was done with sacrifice and zeal with vengeance reserved for bosses. Proceeded down to the catacombs, my greatest challenge was dealing with boss packs of afflicted, their lightning balls HURT and elemental damage enchantments didn't help any. Nearly died a few times, my merc did die once (wouldn't stop shooting at a lightning enchanted one from point blank range). I switched to players 1 when dealing with andariel (I figured players 8 would mostly be an exercise in tedium). The battle went well. Antidotes allowed me to ignore her poison and she fell quickly to the might of vengeance.
Act II:
Upon reaching act II the first thing I did was send my rogue merc packing. While there's something to be said about having a good source of ranged damage as a melee character the rogue merc's AI was just too stupid. As it is she doesn't have the HP or defense to survive even the smallest mobs; being dense enough to exert her own gravitational field was the last straw. I replaced her with a nice defiance act II merc. (Unlike the rogue, their AI seems to have been tweaked. Now they try and attack the same target you are attacking, rather than just focusing on the closest monster. This is a good thing).
I then proceeded to sit most the act out while he wreaked horrible destruction on the evil hordes. I'll bet he must have been pretty pissed when he was in the middle of a horde of burning dead while I wandered the battlefield picking up potions and kicking open urns. My character was the middle manager of heroes, adept at delegating responsibility to his hapless subordinate.
"You there, disposable henchman #2, kill that skeleton!"
"Where's henchman #1?"
"You'll be finding out very soon if you keep asking stupid questions!"
At the end of Act II that merc did more damage than I did with vengeance! He also had something like 850 defense so he could sit in the middle of a mob while I organized my inventory according to color.
In terms of spoils, act II was the jackpot! The gold was flowing in gold rivers of, um, golditude, and I found many a rare (as well as a couple of uniques and a set item). I replaced my weapon with a "steel" broadsword, and later with a superior version of the same. (Open wounds is really quite nice, especially combined with poison charms). I found a really nice targe (it had everything, increased defense, faster blocking, increased block rate, 10% res all and a whopping 35% to lightning resistance) and I gambled a rare poleaxe for my merc to use.
There were a few notable encounters. One was when facing the summoner, I switched to resist fire (a synergy for vengeance) and his firewall barely touched me (usually it really, really hurts). He died with little ceremony. Duriel himself died an ignominous death. By that time I had something like 650 defense with holy shield with almost max blocking. He couldn't lay a claw on me and quickly succumbed.
At the end of act II I was level 27 and had the following skills:
1 vengeance
2 charge
4 holy shield
8 resist fire
1 meditation
1 vigor
1 concentration
+various miscellaneous pre reqs
I have a few thoughts about the new, improved paladin skill tree as well, but I'll save it for my next post.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-13-2003
Been playing an Avenger myself, on Players 8 the whole time so far. The plan was clear - Holy Shield and it's annoyingly many prereqs got one point, the rest goes without exception towards boosting Vengeance. Vengeance itself will stay at slvl 1 till I have maxed all Res auras, which means I'll probably never put another point in it. The point of this plan was to make sure Vengeance stayed as mana-efficient as possible. A point in Res X gives you +15% elemental damage, compared with +18% dmg for Vengeance, not too much of a trade-off for the vastly decreased mana cost. The lack of an AR bonus also becomes irrelevant once I get Conviction. With a few +slvl items, Vengeance at slvl 5 costs about 5 mana, and with my current 150 mana I can spam it for quite some time before having to gulp down a mana potion, I always carry plenty of those. I doubt I'll even need mana leech at all with this Avenger. Once my mana gets up to about 300, I'll be able to make more than a hundred attacks before having to refill, which a Super mana pot takes care of nicely.
I got through the whole of Act 1 using only Sacrifice and Holy Fire (Holy Freeze at lvl 18) with a Superior 6-12 dmg scepter. Holy Fire is now a much better choice than Might for your early-game aura due to it's added weapon fire damage. I made sure to get through with all the prereqs for Vengeance, Conviction and Holy Shield as soon as possible, and then dumped all remaining points into Resist Cold.
Holy Freeze is, and will be my aura of choice until I get Conviction. The range is so pathetic as to be nearly useless at slvl 1 unless you're completely swarmed (which I, on second thought actually was quite often), but with all those points in Resist Cold, I got +25-35 cold damage added to my weapon practically for free.
I upgraded to a Vicious Flail of Gore in Act 2, doing a very nice 35-270 dmg at lvl 20 when I first entered the Sewers. Things died pretty quickly needless to say, even though I was constantly draining light mana pots to fuel my never-ceasing Vengeances. Luckily, monsters themselves provided most of them. Is it me, or have potion drops become far more common in v1.10? I seem to get them all the time, and even after pretty small fights, I'm left with more than enough pots of either kind to fill up what I lost. Duriel was a bit of a PITA, mainly because I didn't have the advantage of high DR and kept getting hit constantly. This was on Players 8 as well, so Duriel took quite a few punches to down, had to go back to town to refill and revive my merc twice.
I'm currently in Act 3 at lvl 25 with one invested point in; Might, Holy Fire, Holy Freeze, Thorns, Sanctuary, Sacrifice, Zeal, Vengeance, Holy Bolt, Blessed Hammer, Charge, Smite, Holy Shield - and 14 points in Resist Cold. I upgraded from my Vicious Flail to a Brutal War Scepter of Carnage with +2 Vengeance - currently doing 120-273 dmg. Most things so far in the Flayer Jungle fall in 1-2 hits and it's honestly been a breeze so far. I predict that at lvl 75, I will get a total elemental damage bonus of +3150% (with Conviction of course), which I figure is more than enough to kick some Hell Monster butts, even if I can't get my hands on any godly weapons.
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-13-2003
I plan to use fanaticism along with vengeance as my mid/late game attack. With 20 points in resist aura synergies, 20 in vengeance, and 20 in fanat I'll have a grand total of 1225% extra damage not counting the strength bonus. Conviction would do 500% more but about 30% slower so no huge loss there. My avenger isn't as hyper-specialized as yours though, I plan to have at least 5 in charge and 5 in holy shield when all is said and done.
Upon further reflection the resist aura synergies for vengeance really aren't that bad, once you realize that you don't have to dump all your points in one aura. If you spread them evenly you can basically max any elemental resistance when called for, even in hell. Since most of my damage is elemental losing the fanaticism bonus in favor of resists won't hurt that much when facing enemies with powerful elemental attacks.
BTW since you're in roughly the same place in the game as I am let me know if you're up for a TCP/IP game, singleplayer gets boring sometimes.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-13-2003
Well you can still get the minimum 8 fps per attack without Fanaticism, just requires 110% IAS instead of 30% :) Might seem much, but it can be done without sacrificing too much if I can get my hands on an "Of Quickness" Weapon and shael it. You sure about the 500% damage drop? I got it to almost 800% when I did the calcs, even more when you calculate for +5 skills and the maximum -150% resists.
Seeing as how I will have a higher base elemental damage bonus, with all three Res auras maxed and Vengeance at maybe lvl 6-7 (with skill adders that is), the damage difference between Conviction and Fanaticism is greater for me than for you though, not to mention that I'm going to be completely dependant on Convictions -%def to actually hit anything beyond Normal. Even if I did max Vengeance and Fanaticism, I think it would take something like dual Angelic rings + amulet to get a 90%+ chance to hit in hell, which I most certainly wont have access to.
I found that maxing Resist Cold was a sensible choice, seeing as how it greatly boosts the damage of one of the best early-to-mid-game auras - Holy Freeze. I most likely wont use any of the auras though. Between a 4PDiamond Pally shield with an innate +40-50% all res (Ok so I most likely wont find anything like that ,but 20-30% should be reasonable), the Anya quest rewards, and various other resists from other gear, I think I should be able to max my resists in Hell just fine.
Are you American? Just wondering about the time zone difference. I live in Sweden and that makes playing with people across the globe difficult when their prime gaming time is when I sleep or am busy working :) Wouldn't mind a co-op game at all otherwise.
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-13-2003
Quote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well you can still get the minimum 8 fps per attack without Fanaticism, just requires 110% IAS instead of 30% Might seem much, but it can be done without sacrificing too much if I can get my hands on an "Of Quickness" Weapon and shael it. You sure about the 500% damage drop? I got it to almost 800% when I did the calcs, even more when you calculate for +5 skills and the maximum -150% resists.
Keep in mind that the lowest monster resistance can go is -100% even though conviction is capped at 150%. 552% from vengeance +300% from a synergy x 2 = 1704% additional damage with conviction. I figure that an 11 frame attack with IAS from gear is pretty achievable without sacrificing anything else (at least in non realm play) so figure a 37.5% advantage in speed for fanaticism. All in all the damage output is comparable with the advantage of better leeching for fanaticism while conviction is far better against resistant monsters.
Anyway I'm on the east coast of the US so the time zone difference shouldn't be insurmountable. I'm actually up for a game tonight so if you're interested send an email my way at asarpeshkar@hotmail.com
An Avenger in 1.10 - LucianDK - 07-13-2003
Monsters do have innate resistances too, so there is something to negate first, before you can get down
to -100%
And for the avenger, i think you forgot that vengeance adds 3x the listed percentage. Adding 18% fire, 18% cold, and 18% lightning. Where the resist auras only adds one 15% increase. So maxing vengeance is economically sound, as you get the most bang for the buck there. Though the mana cost will rise.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-13-2003
I didn't know that negative resistances were capped at -100%. That doesn't apply to players, does it? Well like LucianDK said, almost every single creature in Nightmare and Hell have a resistance or immunity to Fire, Lightning or Cold, so Conviction will still be effective even at -150% resists. Lets assume that all monsters in Hell have an immunity to one of the aforementioned elements, 100% that is. With your build, the total damage with 200 STR, x being the weapon damage, would be 12,41x. With my build, the total damage would be 23,35x. Also, triple-immune Bosses are probably going to be a fairly common sight in v1.10 Hell, even quadruple-immunes might be possible. Against those kinds of bosses, your damage would be crippled, while my damage, because of Conviction, would hardly be dented.
Don't know about 11 fps either. If you use a quick weapon, like a War Scepter or a Flail, all you need is 60% IAS to get to 9 fps, not very hard to get, even if you play untwinked. 8 fps does require a bit more specialized gear at 110% IAS, but it can still be done if you get some lucky drops. Shop for a nice Cruel weapon of Quickness in Act 5 Hell and socket it with two shaels (upgrade from lesser runes if necessary) and you're almost there.
You will have superior leeching though, though you're gonna need some mana leech as well with that 10-mana Vengeance. I will most likely not bother with any sort of leech, my physical proportion of the damage will be quite small and with a 5-mana Vengeance and maybe 300 mana, I'm not very likely to even need any mana leech, potions will do the trick. I think max res, max block and about 1100-1200 life at lvl 75 ought to be enough to stay alive in Hell if I make liberal use of Super healing potions and revs and be careful not to get swarmed.
Quote:Anyway I'm on the east coast of the US so the time zone difference shouldn't be insurmountable. I'm actually up for a game tonight so if you're interested send an email my way at asarpeshkar@hotmail.comGreat, still about 6 hours minimum though :/ It was about 4 in the morning here when you wrote that, had to sleep :)
Btw, LucianDK. Vengeance gives +6% to each of the three elements (+18% total that is), and any of the Resist X auras give +5% to each element, +15% that is. So the difference really is only 3% in total, and not 54% - 15% :)
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-13-2003
Quote:I didn't know that negative resistances were capped at -100%. That doesn't apply to players, does it? Well like LucianDK said, almost every single creature in Nightmare and Hell have a resistance or immunity to Fire, Lightning or Cold, so Conviction will still be effective even at -150% resists. Lets assume that all monsters in Hell have an immunity to one of the aforementioned elements, 100% that is. With your build, the total damage with 200 STR, x being the weapon damage, would be 12,41x. With my build, the total damage would be 23,35x. Also, triple-immune Bosses are probably going to be a fairly common sight in v1.10 Hell, even quadruple-immunes might be possible. Against those kinds of bosses, your damage would be crippled, while my damage, because of Conviction, would hardly be dented.
Well I think you only start seeing widespread immunities in hell, and in 1.09 monsters were limited to being double immune. I highly doubt I'll run into a triple immune even if its now possible that they exist, and even if I do I'll just charge them to death. As for the speed issue, yes you can shop for a cruel of quickness (good luck though, just finding a cruel elite is hard enough, I know because I've tried) however there are a lot of problems with that approach:
a) It will take FOREVER
B) You lose out on other damage enhancing suffixes, like the ever tasty evisceration
c) You have to go with a less damaging base weapon type and still won't reach the 8 fps max
d) You have to use shaels in the socket in place of things that add leech or damage
e) Rares are better than magics now, and good luck finding rare with both great ED% and "of quickness" (I'm not even sure that can spawn on rares).
Now that is said and done there is no question that vengeance/conviction is superior to vengeance/fanaticism in terms of damage/time, I ran the numbers before I started the character and came to the same conclusion you did. However my build does offer a number of advantages:
a) Better leeching
B) Better speed = more monsters in stunlock = better crowd control
c) Much higher cold length due to pumping vengeance
d) Better damage for other physical skills such as charge
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-13-2003
Yeah I'm not saying you can't deal with triple- or quadruple-immune bosses, just it'll take you quite some time (don't reckon your Charge will be very strong, or are you planning to max it?), whereas my vengeance more or less ignores the immunities.
Quote:yes you can shop for a cruel of quickness (good luck though, just finding a cruel elite is hard enough, I know because I've tried) however there are a lot of problems with that approach:Haven't shopped anything in v1.10, but finding Cruel elites wasn't *that* hard in v1.09 with a lvl 80+ character. What does worry me is the fact that the only -10 speed weapons or below with decent damage are Elite War scepters, Cryptic Swords and Scourges, and an Elite Scepter is probably going to cost more than my stash can hold if it spawns with any +skills what so ever, that leaves Scourges and Cryptic Swords both which have pathetic min damage. Even though I know min damage doesn't matter in the end, I feel uncomfortable with such a huge damage range.
I'll put my hopes to Gambling. Rares can be quite powerful in v1.10 as you said, and gambling Flails and War Scepters at lvl 60-70 aren't overly expensive, should be able to land a decent rare sooner or later that way. "Of Quickness" can spawn on Rares btw, at least I see no reason why they can't, since they always could.
Quote:Now that is said and done there is no question that vengeance/conviction is superior to vengeance/fanaticism in terms of damage/time, I ran the numbers before I started the character and came to the same conclusion you didWell then that's settled :)
Quote:a) Better leechingI agree with A and D. It's questionable whether you'll get better speed or not with Fana, like I said, with as little as 60% IAS I am only one frame behind you, and if I do get 110% IAS, your speed advantage is no more :) As for stunlock, do you reckon you'll have enough damage to stun Hell monsters? I doubt even I will, Hell monsters in Players 8 average more than 50 000 HP now, dealing 4200 dmg on average is going to be tough for you, and even for me it's going to require a pretty good elite weapon. Of course, Players 8 might not be what you had in mind, or? Don't know how much of an advantage the added cold length is, since you'll likely concentrate on one target till it's dead, as long as it stays chilled long enough to receive another blow, I don't see how it matters.
Better speed = more monsters in stunlock = better crowd control
c) Much higher cold length due to pumping vengeance
d) Better damage for other physical skills such as charge
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-13-2003
IMO there's no question that I'll get better speed with fanatacism. The best you can hope for is a 9fps attack (let's face it 110% IAS is not realistic, and 60% IAS without sacrificing something else is pushing it for singleplayer). As for stunlock, there's no way either of our builds is going to do 4200 damage per strike on average to a hell monster, even with an awesome elite weapon (you'd need 2000% ed and a 200 average damage weapon to come close, and AFTER resistances). I'm not going to be playing players 8 in hell, that looks like an exercise in futility to me. Wrt to chill length, focusing on one target at a time is not always the best solution. When facing multiple targets with high HP the best thing to do is to chill them all first and then focus on one. When faced with two or three targets it's best to keep them in perpetual stunlock by alternating attacks between them. Both are made easier with higher speed.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-13-2003
60% IAS - Of Quickness weapon with a Shael. At worst, I sacrifice maybe 20 base damage for this.
110% IAS - Of Quickness with 2x Shaels + 2 sigon items, or less IAS on weapon and Twitchthroe.
Not that I think getting these items will be easy while I'm still playing the beta (trading not an option I mean), but they're far from impossible to collect.
As for damage, with +6 to Vengeance (maybe a rosebranded amulet or a +skills scepter), 150 STR, maxed Resist auras, Conviction, and calculating for, on average, one immunity (100%) per monster, my total damage bonus will be [b](106 + 300) * 2 * 2 + (106 + 300) * 1.5 + 150 = 2383%. With that damage bonus, the base weapon damage would have to be 169.15 to reach 4200 total average damage. For a Caduceus that means at least 323% ED. Yep, getting such a weapon will be tough, though not impossible I think.
About attack order, I've always thought it's better to fight one enemy at full life than two enemies at half life, so I mostly try to get rid of one enemy as soon as possible so he can't bother me when I'm fighting the rest. Never tried your approach, though I can see it being less effective in v1.10 when monsters regenerate so quickly. You hit an enemy and then leave him alone to hit another enemy, the first one will be back to full health once you're ready to hit him again. As for keeping enemies chilled, HF Mercs and items that release Frost Novas when hit have always been my favourites.
An Avenger in 1.10 - whereagles - 07-13-2003
Illgl, how can you keep a bunch of monsters in stunlock if their hit recovery is better than yours? More likely the opposite will happen (they stunlock YOU :P).
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-13-2003
>>Illgl, how can you keep a bunch of monsters in stunlock if their hit recovery is better than yours?
Paladin's have very good hit recovery and the fastest blocking in the game. From what I've seen most monsters have fairly slow hit recovery and being chilled won't help them any. More on this subject later.
An Avenger in 1.10 - ghost70 - 07-14-2003
Quote:And for the avenger, i think you forgot that vengeance adds 3x the listed percentage. Adding 18% fire, 18% cold, and 18% lightning. Where the resist auras only adds one 15% increase. So maxing vengeance is economically sound, as you get the most bang for the buck there. Though the mana cost will rise.
Lucian, you are slightly misreading his post. Each elemental resist adds 5% elemental damage to all elements (as seen on the arreat summit) which is equal to 15% total. Each point in vengeance adds 6% to each element which or 18%, not 18% to fire, cold and lightning.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Theodrim - 07-14-2003
Well, I'll toss my findings in on this one too...my Avenger is level 49, about to finish up Nightmare Act 1, so take this with whatever grain of salt you wish.
So far, I've maxed Holy Freeze and Cold Resist. Next up on the to-max list is Vengeance, then I'll dump probably ten points in Conviction and Salvation apiece. My game plan (which has changed a bit) is to use bows (complete with piercing) for crowd control, and switch to Vengeance with a high damage 1H weapon for heavy work -- Conviction will be reserved for Iron Skins and Cold Immunes.
Stat-wise, my heaviest investments will be Vitality and Dexterity. My Holy Shield will most likely have to stay at slvl 1, so points in Dexterity will be paramount to keep my AR and blocking rate up. High Vitality is a given, and I'm probably only going to raise my Strength just high enough to use an elite weapon of my choice (I'm thinking as of now, Berserker Axe or Scourge).
Equipment-wise, I'm going to go for standard Avenger fare: IAS and leach where I can get it, followed by resists and a decent DR. I'm currently planning on using the improved chipped recipe to try to cube up a Cruel elite weapon with plenty of sockets, if it's even possible (Cruel Berserker Axe/Caduceus of Evisceration with six sockets would be heaven).
Of course, right now I'm nowhere near that. I've been lucky enough to scrounge up a Bloodletter for Vengeance and a Kuko Shakaku due to Normal Pindleskin and Nightmare Crypt/Mausoleum runs, and using Sigon's belt and gloves with Tearhaunch greaves; four socket (PDiamond) Aerin shield; rare +1 Paladin skills Circlet; mediocre rare Full Plate; dual Manald Heals; and a +2 Offensive Auras amulet.
Right now I deal 900-1400 with Kuko with Holy Freeze, and comparable damage with Vengeance/Conviction and Bloodletter. That's without his new Might merc (I traded in his Blessed Aim merc ASAP). His only problem comes in with AR (~800 naturally), but getting him above the level curve solved that problem quickly (has anyone else noticed that it doesn't seem to be monster AR/DR that's been improved, but a much greater weighting to the clvl/mlvl portion of the to-hit/experience formulae?). Not to mention Kuko's exploding arrows, Conviction, and the option to Eth my Bloodletter (I'll opt for Eth due to Jah not applying towards bosses).
When I get the chance, I'm planning on importing my old Avenger and a couple mules to 1.10 and tweaking the poor Ranger/Avenger to Hell--either Harle's or Vampgaze, Shaftstop (or a very nice Gris' armor filled with +15 max jewels), War Travs, Herald of Zakarum, Demon Machine, possibly Razortail, and a couple other goodies I have laying around.
Another possibility I've entertained for this Paladin is, instead of maxing Vengeance and pushing points into Conviction and/or Salvation, is maxing Holy Shock and Resist Lightning and pushing as many points as possible into Vengeance. This way, I have two elemental auras to use as I need as well as a much stronger Vengeance (which should make up for a substandard Conviction). Any thoughts?
As a sidenote, has anyone experimented with the Assassin skill Venom? I noticed it's received a substantial power boost, but it's .4 second duration sends up warning flags in that any other form of poison could possibly seriously detract from Venom's usefulness. I've been working on a Venom/bow/trap Assassin variant for 1.10 and I'm curious if she'd be even viable before she's created.
An Avenger in 1.10 - LucianDK - 07-14-2003
my post and point is still valid.
It is more sound, and give more bang for the buck to invest in vengeance first.
Because, with vengeance you get 6% cold, 6% fire and 6% lightning damage increase per level. Where for example resist fire ONLY adds 5% of ONE element to the attack. With vengeance you basically get a bit over 3 points worth spent in resist lightning, fire and cold.
Granted the mana costs ramps up, but once you have conviction up and running, you dont need to worry anymore about AR. But vengeance does give more value for your skillpoints, and a bit more flexibility, say you have 1 point in vengeance and 20 in resist fire and you come to act4, and weep, because so many is fire resistant or imune if if in hell
An Avenger in 1.10 - Rataxes - 07-14-2003
Nah, that's not how it works LucianDK. No matter which Resist Aura you invest in, you'll always get +5% dmg to ALL three elements, not just the one the Resist aura is tied to. So Vengeance gives slightly more damage, 18% vs 15% per lvl, but that is an acceptable loss for the vastly decreased mana cost. If you only have one point in Vengeance (+ skill adders) you're likely not even going to need any mana leech at all! That gives you a bit more freedom in your equipment choices.
An Avenger in 1.10 - LucianDK - 07-14-2003
That i find quite doubtfull and odd. Why would resist fire give extra damage to cold and lit attacks?
An Avenger in 1.10 - IlleglWpns - 07-15-2003
You can doubt all you want but that doesn't make it any less true. Why does it work that way? Because that's how the MPQs work. The damage in the mpq is specified per element, hence any synergy bonuses are also per element. End of story.
An Avenger in 1.10 - Guest - 07-15-2003
You mean per all elements right?