NeverDeath

[Caaroid]

I first came upon the suggestion of using excessive straight damage reduction in a strategy guide in 1.08. At that time, the "Safety" type of crafted items were actually usable, and one could build a character that could withstand most melee attacks throughout the game. I even built a barbarian based on that guide, and found him rather enjoyable - but then I completelly forgot about the build.

My interest was raised again by whyBish in this thread, where he claimed that he mainly equipped his sorcerers with -DAM items instead of blocking or defense back in 1.09. He himself voiced his doubts wether this could be a successful path in 1.10, since monster damage has been beefed up big time.

In this idea-raising thread I try to summarize the advantage of a -DAM build over other defensive characters, and then suggest the most effective -DAM character in my opinion. These are all just speculations, and I am really interested in your opinion.

ADVANTAGES:

• Works against all physical attacks, even the un-defendable ones (stun)
  <>
  
• Does not work "by chance" (save the critical hits): it provides a constant reduction in damage, all the time
  <>
  
• Does not cause block-lock, or any other kind of action interruption
  <>
  
• Helps avoiding getting into hit recovery<>
  [st]These are HUGE advantages, so they must come at a great price.
  
  First, let's take the kind of damage we need to be able to absorb:
  
  MONSTER DAMAGE:
  Moon lord: 74-139
  Thorned Hulk (actV): 81-145 / 68-136
  Minion of destruciton: 83-135 / 83-145
  Venom Lord (Ventar's minions): 108-189 (OUCH)
  
  I have to tell you, that venom lords' extreme damage did not even occur to me up to now (I always died to the Inferno, or kept my distance ;))
  
  Now let's see how much damage reduction can we achieve:
  
  DAMAGE REDUCTION:
  SOL rune: damage reduced by 7
  Circlet of life everlasting: 25 + 2x7 = 39
  Amulet of life everlasting: 25
  Aritsans/Jeweler's Armor of Anima: 15+3x7 = 36
  Artisans/Jeweler's Shield of Anima: 15+3x7 = 36
  TOTAL = 137
  
  Considering a 4 socket armor and a 4 socket shield we have an additional 14, netting 151.
  Safety rings can reach 6 each, safety belt and glove 4 tops, giving us a maximum of 171.
  
  For the sake of this discussion, let's just look at the number 137. What does this give us? With the exception of Ventar's minions, no normal monster is capable of harming us (ok, Lister pack can do 10 damage tops on a lucky roll). This means, that only critical hits, extra strong monsters and might/fana enchanted packs stand a chance of actually doing any damage. While it has been suggested, that AMP could be the bane of a build like this, I beg to differ. Since MDR and DR come BEFORE resistances, this means, that AMP is irrelevant, unless the boss is also extra strong.
  
  
  CHARACTER BUILD:
  
  So why 3 socket armor and shield? Here comes the sick part. Getting those (admittedly ideal) mods on a quilted armor and a kite shield, one can get away with having nearly base strenght. In case of caster types, base dexterity is also achievable (ignoring the lure of Wizardspike, that is).
  
  Where does this put us? We have a character, who needs no strenght and dexterity for physical protection, and is less likely to be harmed by attacks than an ironman barb or a defiance paladin. We also tied up this character's shield, armor, helm and amulet slots, although the amulet can get a prefix of +2 skills or +3 three if one's lucky. And also we're as vulnerable to elemental attack as a kitten.
  
  At this point, one either beefs up resistances from some sources (weapon, belt, rings, glove, boots, charms), or play a wind druid. A 60-point build has a 1000 point cyclone armor, that is sufficiently gloam-proof for a few hits (about 5 I guess). Again, this absorbtion comes before resistances, so one can get away with having -100. A 80-point build would have an armor over 1300, and if one can get +skills, this can get even better (+3 amulet, 2 soj already have us at 1705, that is 8-17 gloam hits).
  
  And here comes the best part: you spend your stat points the way you feel like it. Want to go all-vit? With a maxed sage (90+ level or only 60 in the wind tree) this already unhittable character has enough HM buffer to deal with critical hits or the occasional out-of-armor situation. One could also have a lot of mana, but at this day wind druids don't need it (fixed mana cost of tornado).
  
  OVERALL:
  • invulnerability to most physical attacks from items
    <>
    
  • immunity to elemental attacks from skills
    <>
    
  • huge life because of stat point freedom
    <>
    
  • effective killing skills from the wind tree<>
    [st]
    Do dissapoint me, but at the moment it seems like a powerful character.

[AtomicKitKat]

You forgot the weapon slot. Are there any -dam jewels? Safety Javelin won't have any sockets though. :/

[Caaroid]

You forgot the weapon slot

Not forgot, omitted. The point is pretty much that you can get relevant amount of DR from only 4 pieves of equipment. You could use a safety javelin there (according to the irrelevant AS, there are no DR jewels).,

Then again, if you go ALL-OUT, with the aim of 180, you need that safety javelin.
Bring on the criticals, baby!

[Kevin]

Just a small piont. A 4 socket shield is impractical for anyone but a pally as there are only 3 non pally shields that can have 4 sockets and they are all elite base types requiring at least a level of 54 and 156 strength (a monarch). So, that extra 7 on the shield there probably won't happen for too many people. But that only affects the all out DR builds and you didn't use it for your build or analysis anyway. Hence the small point.


The other advantage is that cyclone armor has not timer. So, you can effectively have infinite (if you can guzzle the mana fast enough) magic protection. Since Hurricane is fire and mostly forget, that will allow you to stand around and recast cyclone armor while still dealing damage.

So, this shopping list character seems viable to me (I call it a shopping list since it more dependant on items than anything else).

[JustAGuy]

What about Stormshield? I believe it would be worth it to equip a Stormshield for the -35% to reduce the amount of straight -DR you would need. The only thing is that you would lose the straight -DR from the lack of sockets available. But is -35% really about equal to the -DR from 4 sockets?

Now, I'm not going to do the actual math, but I would say -35% would be better when used in tandem with lots of -DR rather than just socketing. If you're going to get enough STR to use a Monarch (the lowest 4-socket non-Paladin shield), you may as well equip Stormshield, be you that "rich" to do so (I actually found one from a chest in act 3's Durance Level 2 last night!). You could also socket the Stormshield for more -DR.

If we're talking uniques, String of Ears couldn't hurt either. I don't think Rockstopper or Rockfleece (both -10%) would be as applicable as the Stormshield or String, because they take away valuable sockets.

[Crystalion]

wind druids
OVERALL:

• <>
  
• invulnerability to most physical attacks from items
  
  <>
  
• immunity to elemental attacks from skills
  
  <>
  
• huge life because of stat point freedom
  
  <>
  
• effective killing skills from the wind tree
  
  <>
  [st]

I did such a character years ago (Paladin holy shock zealot) who turned on Salvation if he needed more resists and often switched to smite (crushing blow boots) so I can testify that such a build (probably still) owns normal and nightmare.

In hell your Wind Druid cyclone armor concept is quite intriguing (as you can stock up on MF charms or +druid elemental GCs instead of needing resist charms).

One technical detail you didn't mention... CTC on being struck will not proc, iirc, when you take no damage, however, iirc, your equipment will still potentially lose durability (both these triviaoids should be tested in v1.10). Neither of these seem likely to be deal breakers.

My Sol accumulation for such a build in v1.10 ladder has been slow (since the Life Everlasting has a large range, it takes a long time to get both a good circ/ammy... also getting a +3 dru_elem on those would be phenomenally lucky). I was planning to have the gear on hand, eventually, as clvl 37+ twinks (the req. level for Life Everlasting--Sols only require clvl 27).

But my play partner has a Wind Druid in hell, so I might accelerate getting the gear together if he's willing to test the concept out in practice in hell. I even happen to have the 4 socket Monarch on hand, which, at 156 str req, is the lowest str req 4 socket non-Paly shield, iirc.

So the only negative I see here is that Wind Druids are ranged characters, so what are they doing gearing up as if they expect to be a punching bag?! :D

In other words, if they are already using my "don't be there"™ physical damage reduction technique, adding lots of -phys is of little net value. This is why I brought up my Paly build.

...

Here's an odd thought...since Fury builds don't need a lot of points, max cyclone armor and hurricane (mutual synergy, giving 50 seconds of Hurricane between wereform drop/recasts) and wear the -phys gear.

But here is another "build" by equip, using your thinking, that I like better:

-phys gear (uses up helm/ammy/torso/shield) plus
hellmouth gloves
thundergod's belt
a ravenfrost

That leaves 1h weapon, a ring and boots open. Then between your resist skills and charms (and anya quest) you need decent fire and lightning resist. Cold resist can be boosted by thawing potions (a pain, but living in the belt for 50% resist is a slot saver) or pretty much ignored if you blow the 2nd ring slot on another ravenfrost.

Poison is handled by antidote potions fairly well (and by the shrines unbelievably well), so it is a lesser priority.

You can end up with a build that is somewhat immune to phys/fireghtning and sturdy vs. cold. Recurrent poison is a pain, of course, but really only a problem if its very strong also. Magic damage you can do very little about (other than HPs, of course).

This seems well suited for 1h melee builds, and Barb, Paladin and Assassin all have resist skills to help get the fireghtning up (since near-immunity is achieved when the damage left over after resist is half or less of the hellmouth/thundergods straight absorb).

The build doesn't have much room leftover in the equip for +skills (weapon and ring, primarily, aside from GC) so tank builds not demanding a huge boost there make more sense.

Of the three (barb/Paly/'sin) I'd say 'sin is the class with "glass cannon" problems for melee builds. A kickasin needs primarily just the boot slot open for damage (secondarily weapon slot for speed), so I think we've found a good example match (for our equipment musings vs. "real world" build needs)...

Give her a +3 Martial arts greater/runic talon of 40% ias with +3 dragon_blank and Myrmidon Boots on top of what we're discussing and she could be one happy camper (weapon switch to cast Fade/shadow at big skill boost with dual claws, of course). If she is using a shadow warrior with fade they would both be meleeing the cr*p out of stuff while pretty much ignoring the monsters attempted retaliation.

I like it. I like it a lot. (always dangerous to fall in love with one's ideas, though :D )

edit: misc. formatting & typos

p.s. the reason %phys deduction, as on string of ears or by pumped Fade, doesn't bring much to the party: it is applied after the straight reduction and capped at 50% in any event... compare this to straight absorb, which, in v1.10 release, is coming after resists--it's a world of difference (ain't math fun? ;) )

p.p.s. don't fall into the shadowdancers trap, if you're a Dragon Talon specialist!... upgraded Gore Riders are vastly better, imo. This means that all the equip discussed are "easy to trade for" (not elite apart from the 4 socket shield) except for the need to gamble the circ/coronet & ammy of life everlasting. I'm not enough of a trader to give you a price check, but I suspect that the only "expensive" item is The tgods belt (which, afaik, is considered "good" aka one of the canonical "tradables").

[adeyke]

The DR comes before the %DR, though. The goal was to eliminate damage completely (though it fails with especially strong monsters). The listed damages for monsters (I'm not going to verify them) were:

Moon lord: 74-139
Thorned Hulk (actV): 81-145 / 68-136
Minion of destruciton: 83-135 / 83-145
Venom Lord (Ventar's minions): 108-189 (OUCH)

Thus, if you have 137, the damage gets reduced to:
Moon lord: 0-2
Thorned Hulk (actV): 0-8 / 0
Minion of destruciton: 0 / 0-8
Venom Lord (Ventar's minions): 0-52

So some of the big damages got reduced to 0 most of the time. If it was instead 101 and 35%, the damages would be:
Moon lord: 0-24
Thorned Hulk (actV): 0-28 / 0-22
Minion of destruciton: 0-22 / 0-28
Venom Lord (Ventar's minions): 4-57

All these damages are higher than the previous list. It's only with damages above 200 or so that the -35% of Stormshield does more than a -36 shield. Now, this would be the case for a lot of bosses and monsters under the influence of auras and such, and the Stormshield would thus probably be a better overall choice. But I think the point was a highly-specialized set of equipment for having really high DR against normal monsters.

[goldfish]

I had a character of this sort for a while, and I can tell you from experience that there is one other type of monster that definitely hits harder than you can negate:

(Stats from Darkness):

Hell Bovine, Dmg 114-183

[Crystalion]

there is one other type of monster that definitely hits harder than you can negate:

Hell Bovine, Dmg 114-183

I think we can let him off the hook on this one, as it's an optional area... would be fun if the cows boiled out of the MMF after you killed Baal and started overrunning everything, ala Agent Smith. :)

Which reminds me that I've seen the "in town" allowed flag on those nasty act boss skills, so I've often wondered if there was an Easter Egg in the game that had the Prime Evils rampaging through town (perferably surprising you while you were afk, then camping your respawn point, ala EQ).

Let me know if anyone ever makes one of these wonderful mods, as I'd love to, ah, "experience it" firsthand. :D

[Obi2Kenobi]

Thus, if you have 137, the damage gets reduced to:
Moon lord: 0-2
Thorned Hulk (actV): 0-8 / 0
Minion of destruciton: 0 / 0-8
Venom Lord (Ventar's minions): 0-52

Technically it is less than what it appears to be. Since from the numbers shown, it would appear that the average damage per hit would be 1 for a Moon Lord, but it would actually be much lower, since only 2 out of every 66 hits would really do damage. (for a grand total of 1/22 average damage...)

[JustAGuy]

The DR comes before the %DR, though. The goal was to eliminate damage completely (though it fails with especially strong monsters).

Well, from a development standpoint (a "lets not allow the user to become invulnerable to physical by equipping two or three items" standpoint), that order of calculation makes perfect sense. Can't really complain when you think about how easily it would be to become invulernable to physical.

All these damages are higher than the previous list. It's only with damages above 200 or so that the -35% of Stormshield does more than a -36 shield. Now, this would be the case for a lot of bosses and monsters under the influence of auras and such, and the Stormshield would thus probably be a better overall choice. But I think the point was a highly-specialized set of equipment for having really high DR against normal monsters.

I see, and agree -- this specialized equipment set benefits best from just pure -DR items. Since I just found a Stormshiled on the realm, and this build won't be something I'll be trying any time soon, I'm going to stick with my -35%. :)

The only thing I wonder about are bone spells. I have a Paladin that is pretty much quad immune with Guardian Angel, some -MDR, Venom Grip for +5% poison max, thunder god's for the extra lightning max 5% and absorb, raven frost for cold absorb, and inferno stride for the extra 5% to fire. That leaves me with 95/90/95/95 in Hell (using a 118 resist shield (diamonds + resistance auto-mod)). With good defense and max blocking, physical isn't really a concern most of the time. He is a "total package", as far as I can tell, but he still gets hurt badly by bone spear, bone spirit, and that ball that the stygian harlots (those magic maiden cursers) shoot. Is there anything that can be done to acheive "magic immune" status?

I recall reading somewhere that magic resistance is always at a certain value, regardless of difficulty, and it can't be modified by difficulty level (nm/hell) or curses/auras (LR, Conviction). With this in mind, it would appear that the only way to get anywhere close to magic immune, is with MDR equipment... Something along the lines of this -DR equipment set. I doubt it would be as survivable as this -DR idea. Any ideas?

[adeyke]

Aside from MDR, there's only one other way to reduce magic damage: magic absorb, available only on Crescent Moon (+9-11).

Magic resistance is possible on safety shields (5-10%), but last I heard (in 1.09), that wasn't actually working.

[Crystalion]

Aside from MDR, there's only one other way to reduce magic damage: magic absorb, available only on Crescent Moon (+9-11).

Magic resistance is possible on safety shields (5-10%), but last I heard (in 1.09), that wasn't actually working.

I just modded safety shields so I could produce one, v1.10 sp, with 99% stated Magic Resistance.

I then isolated an Oblivion Knight in normal CS and let him hit me with his Bone Spirits. Lost ~30 HPs without the shield (I didn't look at what -MDR I might be wearing) and at most a few HPs when weapon switched to the shield.

So it looks like it's working (although 10% is not enough to bother with).

OTOH the *normal* OK BS was low enough that a barb dual wielding CM would have achieved immunity.

But I suspect the magic damage in hell for various magic attacks is so much higher that even having a *lot* of MDR before the dual absorb wouldn't achieve immunity.

Of course a glance at monstats.txt (and not considering other factors) shows only zombie5 and brute5 at 100% magic resist (none listed as more, not that I know of a way to try to break it). There are also not many things with more than 50% resist in any difficulty. So it really does look like "magic" is intended as the baseline "can't overcome" damage type. AFAI can quickly tell only Baal Inferno, DiabCold, SuccubusBolt, Bone Spear and Bone Spirit are monster skills using magic damage vs. the player? I didn't see how to tell which of those are blockable (or zon avoid type skills).

Seems to me that only the bone spear throwing viper mage type monsters pose a huge problem here. I assume that they, unlike OKs, are vulnerable to convert/confuse/DV/CoS etc. So the game seems pretty balanced w.r.t. to the awesome power of magic damage, at a glance. That is, for some things you just need to be able to sustain the punishment. Certainly the players have lots of options there (and I'm always running a surplus of full rejuvs, which are pretty much totally unfair to the poor monsters, if you have any decent quantity of them).

[Ruvanal]

Circlet of life everlasting: 25 + 2x7 = 39

one may want to consider a
Artisans/Jeweler's Tiara/Diadem of Life Everlasting
for the higher levels as this would give you 3 sockets to work with. While the level requirements are higher, that is also the point at which you can be expecting to be running into the highest damage dealers unless you were 'rushed' up to the latter parts of the game.

Some may also prefer a Chromatic Circlet of Life Everlasting to get the 21-30% res-all.

[Crystalion]

one may want to consider a...
Some may also prefer...

Yes, scary how nice some Diadems can "easily" be (which is why I find the Shadows rolling them for "free" interesting).

I'm about to hit clvl 87 on ladder, at which point I hope to complete a trade for a -15% shop price gheeds and "convert" to a gold finding set of equip/charms, just so I can play with dumping mass gold on coronet gambles (wasn't it adeyke that pointed out circlets that get upgraded show as coronets, so that circlets in the gamble window are never tiara/diadem?).

Assuming you get a near perfect suffix of life everlasting, the number of awesome/useful prefixes you might be fortunate enough to get with it is quite impressive.

An analysis of the "value" in blowing 3 pGem rerolls on a magic diadem vs. ilvl 50+ GC might be interesting (of course you have the possibility of gambling for the former, if you're high enough clvl, but you simply can not gamble for +skill GCs). If posters are to be believed, the blizz trade forum (ladder softcore uswest) suggests a "value" in gold of ~100k per pgem, btw.

[Caaroid]

JustAGuy:
just as adeyke said. Also, about the DR coming before resistances: it actually HELPS this build. Your average 50% (1.09 75%) PDR build was just torn apart by any cursed monster; whereas a DR build just laughs at them. Then again, PDR might survive the extra strong fanat might dual-boss packs, what would eat a DR char alive in case of a moon lord or cow pack (thank Goodness Venom lord and M.o.D dual-packs wont happen, but the extra strong-fana would still be uncountered).

adeyke and goldfish:
if one goes the all-out DR build, the criticals of most hitters can also be absorbed, and cows would be down to 0-3. That is manageable I think, but the price is just too high (in equipment slots). Besides, combined with Chrystallion's "not be there" defensive technique even the 137-reduction works, since you do not get into hit recovery from the reduced bowine damage.

Chrystallion:
About the no-need-if-you're-not-there idea: well, yes, I'd rather play an enigma windy as well ;) Thing is, I do not think I'll manage to do so soon, even off ladder. I am a poor guy, you see ;) Also, my sorcerers found, that en route to, say Durance 3 or World stone chamber, it would've been nice to be able to avoid the stray shot that put me into hit recovery/ block lock.

About the suggestion of using it on a melee chitter: I have a kicksin built along Tommi's "how to kill conv/MSleb" guide. She has ~ 80 MDR and ~ 35 DR (she is clearly not a DR build). I gave up on her in NM since - although nothing much hurt me - I did not hurt anything, either. Since my replies to your posts usually end up in "Oh why oh WHY did they not fix the assassin-always-misses-in-melee bug" I'll not say anything more. But your ideas gave me the thought of making a BERSERKER along this line. I know, you have war cry at your disposal, but it still seems rather tedious (a friend showed me his nearly-full IK set berserk barb, with 5k berserk damage and 3k life, and he seemed to die all the time). A berserker also needs only one piece of equipment to deal damage (you know, the BIG weapon - in this case, one handed only I'm afraid), and you can use the boot/belt/rings slot to complement natural resists. I'd wear Magnus skin for the AR and IAS, and it also gives a measely little fire resist also.

and last but not least Ruvanal:
AFAIK Artisan's and Jewelers don't spawn on Circlets. Now this info comes from the AS, what we all know is at least a mile off. Since adeyke refuses to correct that (;)), I have no better source of prefix-suffix information. Anyone has any ideas where one can find that info? (I know, in the MPQs, but I mean in human readable format?)

[adeyke]

(wasn't it adeyke that pointed out circlets that get upgraded show as coronets, so that circlets in the gamble window are never tiara/diadem?)

Credit goes to Ruvanal. While I knew for a long time that you have to gamble coronets to get tiaras and diadems, I didn't know the actual reason until Ruvanal posted it.

[Crystalion]

AFAIK Artisan's and Jewelers don't spawn on Circlets. Now this info comes from the AS, what we all know is at least a mile off. .. Anyone has any ideas where one can find that info? (I know, in the MPQs, but I mean in human readable format?)

Try diablo2.de affixes for v1.10 lister where you'll see, as usual, that Ruvanal is correct.

About the no-need-if-you're-not-there idea: well, yes, I'd rather play an enigma windy as well ;)

Speedy feet and CC (crowd control) work pretty well also. But yes, Enigma is on my "lofty ambitions" list for ladder. ;)

Also, my sorcerers found, that en route to, say Durance 3 or World stone chamber, it would've been nice to be able to avoid the stray shot that put me into hit recovery/ block lock.

iirc Tommi's pages show a dramatic improvement for sorc hit recovery when you have a modest amount of fhr gear. The subject of fast block in v1.10 I feel is still not fully understood, so I can't comment on that aspect here. Certainly it is nice to avoid HR entirely, and one trick I presently have in that department is to have one of the new ways to cast Oak Sage with my sorc for such dangerous teleport missions. Ironically the best one for that, Nature's Peace, is also the cheapest option (trade prices as I know them... ymmv).

"Oh why oh WHY did they not fix the assassin-always-misses-in-melee bug"

Ah, thanks for reminding me about that. I understood it somewhat in beta, so, if they didn't "fix" any of it, I'll have to play with the mechanics again before I go and do something hasty, like build a melee 'sin. :D But I rather suspect the pain of the effect can be contained to a reasonable level.

But your ideas gave me the thought of making a BERSERKER along this line.

Let us know if you have any luck with it. I think a zealot/smiter with the lifetap runeword shield (Exile's Path, very spendy at VexOhmIstDol) and +combat skills of life everlasting circ/ammy would be pretty awesome also (need crushing blow, clearly).

[adeyke]

AFAIK Artisan's and Jewelers don't spawn on Circlets. Now this info comes from the AS, what we all know is at least a mile off. Since adeyke refuses to correct that (;)), I have no better source of prefix-suffix information. Anyone has any ideas where one can find that info? (I know, in the MPQs, but I mean in human readable format?)

Those prefixes can spawn on any (magic) weapon, shield (that includes the class-specifics), helm (that includes the circlets and class-specifics) or body armour, but cannot spawn on throwing weapons.

There is this affix calculator for 1.10, but I can't vouch for its accuracy (which means I haven't studied it in depth, not that I think it actually is wrong).

EDIT: Cross-post with above. I was too slow.

[Crystalion]

EDIT: Cross-post with above.&nbsp; I was too slow.

Nah, I'm not playing fair... I'm posting in half your threads both here and the Basin, so I'm bound to mess with ya at some point :D

When I stop primarily listening to the $20 bucks I blew on iTunes today I'll no longer have the time to be racing ya. :)

You did point out the important "caveat emptor" about diablo2.de though... even looking at the mpqs it is easy to goof up, so any site providing the info for convenience needs to sanity checked if the info looked up matters.