1.10 Shockadin Strategy

[Bloodstar6078]

Anyone see those screenshots not too long ago of beefed up zeal, holy shock, and holy bolt? I never played paladins because they were so boring but the thought of running around watching stuff get damaged off screen sounded good to me so i was wondering waht are some shockadin strategies? I know ill max Holy Shock, get a good lvl Holy Shield and then for an attack skill probably vengence or zeal. I have no idea for equipment though.

[WarBlade]

The beta version doesn't give much opprtunity for anything I'd call "strategy", but . . .

First you dump 4 points in Zeal.
Then you drop some points in Resist Lightning before doing hard out investments in Holy Shock.
Then complete maxing out Resist Lightning.
Finally, drop points into Holy Shield, Zeal and Sacrifice to taste.

By the end you'll have

20 Holy Shock
20 Resist Lightning
4 or more Zeal
Arbitrary numbers in Sacrifice and Holy Shield.

That's it really. Just make sure you have those 40 points for Lightning skills and you're set.

[Logic_X]

I'd do somethin like (to optimize dmg):

Offensive tree (23 points)
20 Holy Shock

Defensive Tree (40 points)
20 Resist Lightning
- +100% elemental dmg for vengeance
- +240% elemental dmg for holy shock
20 Salvation
- +40% elemental dmg for vengeance
- +80% elemental dmg for holy shock

Combat Tree (46 points)
20 Vengeance
20 Holy Shield

[WarBlade]

err . . . You just designed character for cLvl 98 upwards. And it's an Avenger too I notice. :unsure:

Low leeching, high Mana usage, item-only Mana recovery, low survivability . . . errrr :unsure:


Good luck. :blink:

[TaiDaishar]

Low leeching, high Mana usage, item-only Mana recovery, low survivability . . . errrr :unsure:

Sounds like fun! :lol:

[Occhidiangela]

1 point in Salvation, if any. A Four Diamond Paladin Shield takes care of a lot. The damage boost aint worth the investment in Sanctuary. 2% and 4% per point? A single point in Conviction, for the Vengeance side, yields some 30% damage boost and a big To Hit bonus in terms of Defense Rating adjustment.

That takes you down to 90 points, which is a level 78-80ish character, which appears to be a bit more likely a ceiling in 1.10.

I'd even consider a single point into Conviction for use against Lightning Immunes. (that costs a few more prereq points, I think.)

[ryan4nayr]

I thought Conviction & Lower Resist don't unimmune a LI.

[Brista]

The beta version doesn't give much opprtunity for anything I'd call "strategy", but . . .

That's a bit unfair - it seems to me almost unarguable that there is a far great degree of tactical and strategic challenge than in 1.09

(Although I should know better than to claim any proposition is unarguable in this place ;) )

Are you referring to the lack of PvP?

For PvM there seems quite a lot of scope for good strategic and tactical thinking to get the most out of a Holy Shock build

Going Zeal and melee on one weapon switch and ranged on the other seems wise

Primary aura is Holy Shock and aura flashing is effectively ended but some lesser auras might be useful. Cleansing and Prayer are not exciting but a little Meditation would support a low level FOH (much boosted by the Holy Shock). Redemption is one I'm not a great fan of - it always seems quicker to tp to town and visit the healer

Safety elements are important: knockback, hcmtf, a Holy Freeze merc or cold Iron Wolf seem quite useful. Crafted Hitpower gloves provide Knockback

Positioning is vital as are decisions about when to advance and how hard to set Players X to if that is available

[WarBlade]

That's a bit unfair - it seems to me almost unarguable that there is a far great degree of tactical and strategic challenge than in 1.09

(Although I should know better than to claim any proposition is unarguable in this place ;) )

Are you referring to the lack of PvP?

No I'm referring purely to Paladin character development.

In 1.09 you could easily mix and match any number of Paladin skills for a massive array of interesting and viable builds. Pick an attack, pick an Aura for support, maybe start investing in Holy Shield, pick a backup or supporting attack or Aura and so on. In 1.10, you more often wind up picking an attack and watching as all the other skill options unfold before your eyes (or suffer tricky or unworkable builds).

The problem lies in the apparent lack of planning behind implementing synergies on the Paladin. I came up with some notes along the lines of all those damn "wishlist" posts about the various changes players think should be made to their characters and after spending something like 4 hours thinking and refining how I think Paladin synergies should work I kept coming back to it each day after that that in realization that some idea I wrote in amounted to a game imbalancing blunder for some obscure reason.

The Paladin is hellishly harder that you'd think, but it is possible to generate a more effective system given proper thought in the planning stage. Comparing my list against what I see in 1.10 I'd say that two things are very apparent. 1.) That rules governing how Paladin Synergies should be implemented were concieved, but not quite followed to the letter and 2.) The current list of Paladin Synergies is roughly around two thirds complete.

[Brista]

1.) That rules governing how Paladin Synergies should be implemented were concieved, but not quite followed to the letter and 2.) The current list of Paladin Synergies is roughly around two thirds complete.

Agreed

Of all the classes in 1.10 the Paladin seems to me also to be the one most in need of more work

[Logic_X]

Heh.....I always plan to the high 90s whenever possible on a character...nothing bugs me more than when I occasionally reach the 90s and have a backlog of skill points :). Also yea...switching out salvation for conviction is a good idea - but yea, I expected there'd be more effective ways of making one considering I only spent a short amount of time scribbling out an idea (I do that kind of thing with all my characters...scribble out about 12 ideas, look at strengths vs. weaknesses, then try and merge them to where there's only a few ideas with more strengths than weaknesses)

Vengeance isn't as mana hungry as you'd think - if you have a decent damage weapon (which you defenitely want for vengeance to get every ounce of damage you can out of it), you don't even need 10% mana leech to break even (I currently have a glass paladin that refills his bubble with 4% mana leech while using vengeance - but that is 1.09, I haven't tested on 1.10). Only time you'll encounter problems with it is when you're fighting physical immunes.

There are several different setups that are appealing for different reasons:
Zeal, Holy Shock, etc. - use a [-30] weapon with this, and plenty of ias to get as many hits as possible per second.

Vengeance, Holy Shock, etc. - Use a high damage weapon, possibly even extending to a 2h weapon choice on switch to deal optimum damage.

FoH, Holy Shock, etc. - Use a bow (rangers make VERY effective FoH'ers) with this to allow you to get mana leech, while still dealing some damage with it, and give you something to do while waiting out the casting delay (shoot, FoH, Shoot, FoH...you get the idea)

and many more.....

[Edit: And paladins aren't too fragile...I've played some way out there builds of them, and they are by far one of the most survivable characters in experimentation, only being beat out by the barbarian and druid usually. And sometimes not even the druid (certain druid builds are amazingly fragile)]

[WarBlade]

Vengeance isn't as mana hungry as you'd think - if you have a decent damage weapon (which you defenitely want for vengeance to get every ounce of damage you can out of it), you don't even need 10% mana leech to break even (I currently have a glass paladin that refills his bubble with 4% mana leech while using vengeance - but that is 1.09, I haven't tested on 1.10).

Ah, finally something that makes sense. Well I can't say for certain, because I haven't accumulated this much Mana Steal yet, but an Avenger in Act 5 Hell 1.10 beta feels like it would need somewhere in the 20 - 30 percent Mana Stolen per Hit to break even in most places. :P

Only time you'll encounter problems with it is when you're fighting physical immunes.

Or Physically Resistant creatures, which are everywhere now, and Skeletons which lurk most areas of Act 5 too, not to mention those frightening versions of gloams in the Worldstone Keep and more fun stuff. ;)

[Edit: And paladins aren't too fragile...I've played some way out there builds of them, and they are by far one of the most survivable characters in experimentation, only being beat out by the barbarian and druid usually. And sometimes not even the druid (certain druid builds are amazingly fragile)]

'bout time you tried 1.10 then eh? B) You'll sing a different tune after Act 5 Hell.

[sojourn]

I think the only reason why the paladin needs work, is since the lack of being able to attack multiple enemies at once with a decent skill. Just about every skill the pal uses is dependant on being up close with the monsters, except for blessed hammer. I just tried testing slvl 20 blessed hammer and other skills, they still feel somewhat worthless in the long run.

Take a look at

Amazon: Multishot/Strafe, and a Valkryie tank
Barbarian: Whirlwind
Sorceress: just about everything
Druid: (this is the clostest to the paladin IMO, but not in terms of survival) Elemental skills, and has pets to be meat
Assasin: Phoneix Strike, Blades of Ice, Traps, Shadow tank.
Necro: Corpse, meat shields, bone spear, poison nova, anything I missed.

But probably that's the reason behind the Paladin, it was made to be hard. He doesn't get a meat shield for him other than the mercs (which are definately hard for a Pal to keep alive in Hell difficulty). And he still has the charge bug, which is rather annoying.

Maybe it's just the lack of a skill that adds bonus to life for the Pal build? The one thing I definately notice is that all the light-speaders seem to have get double edged effect with their gear - you can stack up all the good damaging equip, but you'll be sacrificing life in return..