Vengeance pally needs help

[chiefin]

Hi, lurked here on and off over the years and had a question (for both entertainment :) and game-related material). I recently started playing dii again and I'm quite new to 1.10. I'm playing realm non-ladder on useast, and my vengeance pally is currently going into nightmare act 2. Had a few questions regarding my vengeance pally. If it matters, I party with a frenzy barb most of the time who uses a might merc, and I use a holy freeze merc. I'm lvl 42.

Equipment I've picked up from norm baal runs and here and there (keep in mind I don't get much decent stuff even when I play regularly, what little time I get to play I'd rather spend killing monsters than mfing):
Butcher's Pupil
Death's Gloves & Belt
Gorefoot
Steelclash socketed with a perfect diamond
Wormskull
Mahim Oak Curio, cathan's seal, 3% mana leech ring (with a couple of rare resists ar rings in stash)
Spirit Forge (2 sockets)
mostly small charms with various resists/+life (I have mostly maxed resists in nm and will probably opt for a socketed pally shield full of p diamonds for hell play).

My first question is what should I socket in Spirit Forge? I have a +7min dmg/+ar jewel, but I was thinking 2 perfect rubies. I'm quite poor so wondering if common runes or other p gems would be better.

I also have a question about skills. I've read some guides posted about (diabloii.net), and my current skills.
Conviction 10
3 resists auras with 4 pts apiece.
Holy shield 5.
Vengeance 1.
Redemption 1.
1 in all prereqs.

Is it advisable to keep pumping conviction, or resists auras, or holy shield? I don't want to ruin my character for hell play is what I'm most concerned about. I'll be looking to tread there at lvl 60-70.

Hope some more experienced paladin players can point me in the right direction, thank you for taking the time to read this and respond (apologize if my post is all over the place, I'm in dire need of sleep).

[Brista]

My first question is what should I socket in Spirit Forge?  I have a +7min dmg/+ar jewel, but I was thinking 2 perfect rubies.  I'm quite poor so wondering if common runes or other p gems would be better.  

Welcome :)

You might wish to consider Ral and Ort or some such combination of resist runes. Otherwise I'd probably go with the rubies, melee characters get battered in Hell

Is it advisable to keep pumping conviction, or resists auras, or holy shield?

Get enough Conviction to take resists from 0 to -100 which is the low end cap. That's very necessary

More Conviction will help against resistant monsters. It's more common for monsters to be either immune or at 0% resist to any specific element but there are still a lot with at least one element between 0 and 100.

The main benefit of higher Conviction is against bosses. There are a lot of boss mods that boost resists - LEB, FEB, CEB, Magic Resistant and one or two more. Since bosses in Hell have at least 3 mods it's very usual for a boss to get at least one of these boosts.

Next I think you should max Vengeance. You need damage. Nothing will boost your damage as much as maxxing Vengeance.

Doing so will cause you to hurt even more than you currently do for mana. Don't be afraid to equip mana charms, rings with 100+ mana and drink lots of blues. In the later game you will do big hits that will leech back significant mana provided you have a big hefty weapon, even at just 3% mana leech. (The theory being that 3% of a very big number is rather a lot, certainly enough to cover a 10 mana Vengeance even with leech reduction in Hell)

After Vengeance I'd do Holy Shield because I'm lazy and like longer duration but also because it allows me to maintain max block with less Dex which means I can put the points in life instead

You might possibly want to consider a point or two in Conversion - it gives a crowd control option. However your Barb friend's Howl does the job better if you can count on him to be there and if you don't get too far ahead of the game's internal area levels. Running away also works pretty well but careful - pallies are very vulnerable to Bold Sir Robin teasing

Last point I'd make is that Vengeance needs huge physical damage. Don't worry about Deadly strike, crushing blow, elemental damage etc. The skill takes a weapon's physical damage and then multiplies it. You need enhanced damage% on the weapon and preferably + max damage and stuff like that too

The reason I mention this is that a lot of people think Baranar's is an Avenger's weapon. It isn't, you do more damage per second if you use Conviction and Zeal with Baranar's. On the other hand if you find yourself or cube up a big hefty elite weapon with over 250% enhanced damage you'll do huge damage, certainly more than any zealot*, and you'll leech mana pretty well

If your Barb friend is going to be stunning monsters with Warcry then you might want to consider a really big elite two-hander on your weapon switch. You won't need a shield against stunned critters and you'll do approx double damage

(*excluding special weapon effects like ctc Static Field and crushing blow from the equation)

[chiefin]

Thank you very much for the detailed response Brista.

My friend was rushing a mule character of mine for the hellforge drop and Hell Meph dropped a Bonehew (elite unique ogre axe). Would it be worth the strength investment to use that as two-hander when the situation warrants it? I was thinking of doing that and socketing resists runes in my armor after reading your reply. That's the biggest damage weapon I have, if I do that would you suggest shaels? I can probably get my hands on one or two.

Also I've read that enhanced dmg on the weapon helps vengeance, but only min/max off weapon. Can you confirm that?

Again thanks for the pointers, especially concerning skills.

[ShadowHM]

Also I've read that enhanced dmg on the weapon helps vengeance, but only min/max off weapon.  Can you confirm that? 

According to adeyke, our resident technical expert (from a thread here):



"Vengeance damage is based on weapon damage. Weapon damage is whatever is listed on your weapon plus any +min/max elsewhere. If you have a 150% vengeance, that would mean that it adds 150% of your weapon damage as fire damage, 150% of your weapon damage as cold damage, and 150% of your weapon damage as lightning damage."

[Brista]

I'm personally a bit fastidious about trading since so much of the high end stuff is either botted or duped

If you don't share that view then your best option would be to trade your Bonehew for a high physical damage one hander

If you decide to use Bonehew you might want to consider either using Hel runes or dual mod -% requirements jewels

I'd advise not pumping Strength if possible - you will get battered in Hell so firstly you need life and secondly you won't often have the safe opportunity to go two-handed. Even if it's softcore dying every time a boss gets Might, Amp or Extra Strong is really tedious

Your Bonehew would also make a great merc weapon, amn or shael it if you give it to the merc

Regarding the off weapon stuff I think that's right to some extent. Let's take some very rough figures

If you do 100 damage +100% for Strength +600% for Vengeance with elemental damages doubled due to Conviction you'll do 200 physical and 1200 elemental. Adding more off weapon enhanced damage say 200% for a Might merc would give 200 more physical.

Well 1400 beats 1200 but the off weapon enhanced damage does not boost the added elemental damage whereas weapon enhanced damage and + max/min damage does

Your leech is based on your physical damage. In the first example your 3% mana leech would give you 6 mana (a bit less than the cost of maxxed vengeance) but with the merc you'd get 12 mana, coming out ahead

Some monsters in Hell have resistances which reduce damage of that type and many have a reduced leech property, seperate to and stacking with the resistance

Big weapon, lots of leech is the answer. If you do trade try to get them to give you Tal's Mask with the one-handed weapon since Bonehew is actually pretty good. Can't hurt to at least ask ;)

[crumpuppet]

A while ago I saw a guide for a 1.10 avenger paladin on diabloii.net and they claimed that Resist Fire, Resist Cold and Resist Lightning raises your MAX resist by one point per slvl. Is there any truth to this?

[IKKE]

yea, if maxed u get +10 perm res if not activated iirc

[adeyke]

Those auras give you 1% max resist per base point if you have the aura active or 1% max resist per two base points if you don't. Note that +skills doesn't help this.

[IKKE]

Question

With a might merc, does it work with the veangence % extra ?

[Brista]

Yes and no

Re-read my second post

[IKKE]

omfg @ me :P
sorry ;)
have over looked it, I knew i read it somewhere but didnt know where ;)
sorry again, just not awake yet :P

[Grayloch]

omfg @ me

Even though you've been registered here for eight months, it seems you haven't gotten around to reading the forum Rules, FAQ, and Etiquette yet (or you read them so long ago you've forgotten).

In particular:

Keep it clean.
It's PG-13 here. Computer games, even those rated "mature" by the ESRB, will have young kids playing them. There's no need to have swear words in your posts - they aren't conducive to intelligent debate or strategy discussion anyhow. We run a clean site and we hope that the posters will respect that.

While it is just an abbreviation you used, we all know what it stands for, and we don't need language like that around here.

And while we're at it:

4) Please post in real English. If English is not your first language (or even if it is *cough*), we do not mind spelling or grammatical errors...we do not mind typos from anyone either. However, we do not appreciate '|337 5|o33|<' or any unnecessary shortenings of English words - common abbreviations such as 'lvl' or 'dmg' are fine though. If you do not follow this rule, you will be flamed or ignored completely.

Some of your posts aren't too bad, but some of them still look and sound like chat speak.

-G.

[IKKE]

:| My apoliges(don't know how to spell it :))

[ShadowHM]

You may want to try the Spell Checker here.

It has saved me from any number of gaffes. :D