What skills next. Avenger

[CyberNite]

I am a 40 avenger and this is my skills so far.

4 zeal
1 vengance-left click
10 resist cold
9 resist fire
2 resist cold
10 holy shield
1 conviction-Main aura-right click

What I am wonder is what should I pump next.  What I am thinking is damge first, resist cold/fireghtning to 10 (for mana reasions) then vengance to 20 then conviction.  I gess my problem is when to pump conviction over damge.  I have heard that NM you should be 50+ and 75+ for Hell and I am trying to get my skill so I can be effective in late NM and in hell.

Thanks again
Sirbub
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Well, I know that I'm a little late in getting here to give my 2 cents, but I find that my way of doing things, while less popular, works just fine.

First, your stats are the easiest part: str for gear, dex for 75% block, vit - everything else.. that one everyone can agree on.

Where my build tends to get less-than-popular, is in the skill placement choices. I'll give my reasoning after.

Defensive Auras:
20 Resist Fire
20 Resist Cold
20 Resist Lightning

Offensive Auras:
20 Conviction
5 prereqs

Combat Skills:
3 Zeal
1 Vengeance
16 Holy Shield
5 prereqs

Total skill points: 110 (Yes, this is a fully planned out build)

Now to the reasoning for this spread. First and foremost, this build doesn't HAVE to have any specific gear. You can play it untwinked well, and twinked even better.

I'll give the differences between my way and the 20 Vengeance 10 in resists auras now so that we have an understanding of what made me choose this path:

20 Vengeance + 10 Resist Fire + 10 Resist Cold + 10 Resist Lightning = +284% of each element at the cost of 8.7 mana per attack (easily hitting double digits with +skill gear) and +5% to your max elemental resists.

1 Vengeance + 20 Resist Fire + 20 Resist Cold + 20 Resist Lightning = +270% of each element at the cost of 4 mana per attack and +10% max elemental resists.

So we have here the differences: 11 skill points more for my build and loss of 14% damage in each element.. in trade for 54% mana cost reduction and 5% higher natural max elemental resists.

Let's look at what happens if we have +6 skills in gear (easily done):

26 Vengeance + 10 in resist auras = +320% of each elemental damage
10.2 mana per attack
7 Vengeance + 20 in resist auras = +306% of each elemental damage
5.5 mana per attack

What does this tell us? Well, if we do the rough math (as opposed to the tedious but more specific kind) we will find that while you are doing 42% elemental damage more with the first method, you do it at the cost of 85.5% more mana. So if you are worried about the mana issue, you should really think about just what your skill points are doing for you. (If you are dead set on breaking that +1,000% elemental mark, then you could take points out of Holy Shield and raise your Vengeance until you hit it (with maxxed resist aura synergies, you break the +1,000% elemental damage mark at total level 12 Vengeance including bonuses from gear)).

Disclaimer: Before anyone brings it up, if they would decide to do so, I intentionally didn't go into the math throwing Conviction into the mix. The fact is, the only numbers that would be viable as a reference point would be the standard 75% resist of things like the 3. If anyone is really curious, with level 20 Conviction, your elemental damages will be doing (base resist 75% - 125 from Conviction = -50%) 50% more damage than listed. And for those who just want to have some extra skill points to throw around, one might note that the resist pently from Conviction caps at -150% (slevel 25).