Avenger Question

[Guest]

I attempted to do a Hell Baal run yesterday. Everything was going fine until Lister spawned. Minions are fire immune, and Lister was cold immune in addition. I'm a cold fire sorc -_-;

I was looking around at skills, and noticed that maxed Conviction gives like -120 all resists. Can this break immunities?

I was thinking maybe my mate and I could do Baal runs together; one of us would make an Avenger, the other a Sorc (this is assuming that conviction can break immunities). This will be in Ladder, and since I just started playing Ladder, I don't have any good items, meaning we will have to play untwinked.

Assuming we don't have access to a Herald of Zak/Stormshield, is an Avenger using a two handed weapon viable?

Looking at Avenger guides, I saw that they were built two different ways. One build maxed vengeance, and put remaining points into synergies. Another build put one point in vengeance, and then maxed synergies. Which build is better in your guys' opinion?

One last thing; is it better to max out the vengeance synergy that gives a 2% bonus to all elemental damage (or something I forget), or alternate points between Resist coldghtning/fire?

[adeyke]

I was looking around at skills, and noticed that maxed Conviction gives like -120 all resists. Can this break immunities?

It can break immunities, sometimes. It only reduces resistance at 1/5 the listed amount against immunes. So that -120% would really just reduce resistances by 24%. A perfect -150% conviction (slvl 25+) will reduce immune resistances by 30%.

Looking at Avenger guides, I saw that they were built two different ways. One build maxed vengeance, and put remaining points into synergies. Another build put one point in vengeance, and then maxed synergies. Which build is better in your guys' opinion?

Points in vengeance give more damage than points in the synergies, in addition to increasing your AR (not that you really need it with conviction...). However, it also increases the mana cost. If you can leech enough to support it, points in vengeance are thus better. If you have mana problems, such as when fighting PIs or unleechable monsters, points in synergy are better.

One last thing; is it better to max out the vengeance synergy that gives a 2% bonus to all elemental damage (or something I forget), or alternate points between Resist coldghtning/fire?

Simple math:

3 points in Salvation: +6% fire, +6% lightning, +6% cold
1 point each in single resist auras: +10% fire, +10% lightning, +10% cold

In addition, every 2 base points in a single resist aura gives +1% max resistance of that element.

You should thus not invest any points in salvation unless you already have the single-resist auras or you actually want to use salvation as aura.

[gekko]

- Conviction can and will break immunities, but only at 1/5 effectiveness. So a maxed conviction will remove the immunities to monsters with up to and including 123% resistance to any single element. Monsters with 124% or greater resistance will still be immune. Note that while immune monsters under the effect of conviction usually still have a very high resistance, even dropping resistance to 99% allows the sorceress cold mastery to start working.

- A pally running conviction makes an excellent partner to any sorc. Personally, I would use a shield even if it was a craked buckler. The offensive power of such a duo definately leans on the sorc. The best thing the pally can do is attract the enemy, keep himself alive and keep the enemy's attention away from the sorc.

- Points spent on synergies are generally better spent on individual resist auras, rather than on salvation, for two reasons. First, salvation gives you a total of +6% bonus damage, while any individual resist aura will grant +8%. Spread the points out to ensure a healthy mix of physical, fire, cold and lightning damage. This gives the second benefit of raising the pally's maximum resistances by 1% for every 2 points invested in each resistance aura.

- Particularly when you aren't sure you have access to plenty of mana leech and a high damage weapon, I would start by investing only a few points in vengeance, and more into the synergies and utility skills (holy shield comes to mind), but work on maxing convcition first of all. This will power up your vengeance without raising the mana cost to extreme levels. Once you've maxed conviction and are happy with utility skills and resistance auras, increase vengeance to taste. If you find you have far more mana than you ever use, put a few points in vengeance.

Just to reitirate the main point of this duo: the pally is not meant to kill enemies (though he will once you get your hands on a decent, fast one handed mace, scepter or other weapon). The pally is meant to be the tank -- draw the baddies in, keep them occupied, while the sorc sits back and peppers the crowd with meteors, chain lightning, blizzards and other tasty delights. Throw in even a low-mid level enchant to take care of most AR woes. Watch as your sorc partner, and any spell casters who join your party, become demi-gods. Raise your glass and thank god blizzard came up with the idea of conviction.

(NB: you've gotta love that aura. I mean, if there's any other skill that looks so *decent* on paper and work so superbly in reality, I haven't met it and killed it yet)

gekko

[Guest]

I was hoping that both of these characters' would be viable on their own.

[Caaroid]

I was hoping that both of these characters' would be viable on their own.

An avenger is viable; it is one of the more powerful PVM non-caster paladin builds (well, nothing can outkill a hammerdin anywhere ever, save "Happy Wailing Beast Land"). The trick is, however, that an avenger needs medium-decent equipment (well, as all melee characters). And even if you avenger is very well equipped, a naked sorceress will outkill him, since Conviction makes every spell a lethal attack.

Despair not, however, since the avenger will be a powerful character in itself, and my ladder-playing experience shows, that if you hoard perfect gems, you can buy yourself the mid-level gear (like Guardian Angel) that will give you a 95% resall, fast-blocking character that is capable of killing EVERY ENEMY IN THE GAME on their own, with the minimum amount of personal risk (wearing a Tgod, you can chat with your friends in the middle of a gloam pack, and keep your party members death count :P).

The avenger is the true party-leader kind of paladin Blizzard intended the paladins to be. He can kill on his own (taking out the critical monsters his party members can't), increase the effectiveness of his partners' attacks, and provide protection (if you get bored by the constant yelps of "TP TP!" in a gloam--infested Worldstone, switch to Resist Lightning, and let the others do the killing).

You just need to think warm fuzzy thoughts about this when your sorceress partners kill the bosspacks with a single meteor :)

[patriach]

I must apologize first to the thread starter *bow to unrealshadow13*, but...

[thread jacking]

I heard that +ed% jewels in armor slots do not increase the elemental damage of vengeance. How about +min or +max jewels? How about the +max damage charms?

[/thread jacking]

[adeyke]

Vengeance is based on your weapon damage. Weapon damage is equal to whatever is listed on your weapon plus any other sources of +min/max.

So off-weapon ED won't affect your elemental vengeance damage, but off-weapon +min/max will.

[gekko]

Caaroid nailed it right on the head. My avenger can solo anywhere in the game (some places faster and safer than others, of course) with reasonable ease. The thing about conviction, though, is that while it improves the power of vengeance dramatically, it has an even more impressive effect on allied players' elemental skills. Lightning fury javazons, fire sorcs, poison necromancers and trapsins are the most common allied players who wet their pants when a conviction pally joins the fight.

Given that you said the main purpose of your avenger was to partner with a sorc for mf'ing runs, my suggestions were based on getting the safest, most efficient pair. The best way to accomplish this (given that you already decided on a sorc/avenger combo) is for the pally to tank the crowds, take the heat and keep conviction active so that the sorc hanging in the background can make mincemeat out of entire crowds in moments.

gekko

[Guest]

(given that you already decided on a sorc/avenger combo)

Can you think of a better combination? I was thinking of conviction because I tried to do a Baal run and Lister spawned with cold immune. I thought that a tanker allie would help take out elemental immunes, and conviction is a cherry on top.

[patriach]

Ah, thanks for the answer adeyke.

Now let me give you a more difficult question ^_^ :

How does a +ed% and +min/max jewel jewel in an armor slot affect vengeance damage (e.g.: 40% ED and +10min jewel)?

[adeyke]

There's a bug in 1.10. Non-weapon items with both ED and +max have the ED applied only to min damage. Non-weapon items with both ED and +min have the ED applied only to max damage.

So that jewel would really just give +40% enhanced max damage, +10 min damage.

The +10 would be added to your weapon damage. The +40% will be added to the max damage part of your off-weapon ED (usually, you have only one amount of off-weapon ED for both min and max damage, but the bug causes these two to be unequal).

So the +10 would increase both your physical and your elemental damage, while the +40% will increase only your physical damage.

One way to look at it would be to just look at the vengeance bonus as differently-flavoured off-weapon ED. For example, if you had +75% each vengeance and 200 strength, you'd have a total of 425% off-weapon ED, of which 200% is physical and 75% each is fire, lightning and cold. With 80 weapon damage, you'd then have:
80 base physical damage
+80 * 75% = 60 fire damage
+80 * 75% = 60 lightning damage
+80 * 75% = 60 cold damage
+80 * 200% = 160 physical damage
420 total damage

[Freepaperclips]

Another of the great joys of Avengers is that after 1 point in Vengence, 20 in Conviction and about 20 in synergies, you have a great deal of points left.

Want to max Holy Shield and Defiance, go right ahead and tank anything in the game.

Want to dump all of your points into synergies and Vengence, then kill anything with +384% fire, +384% cold, +384% lightning damage, plus the Conviction bonus.

It really is on of the most versatile/customizable builds in the game, and one of the most fun to play. See how you like using different weapon styles in Act III and IV, and you should be able to work out your own style of play.

Hope you have fun.

[Caaroid]

Can you think of a better combination?

Well, an enigma hammerdin :) The way to make it a combination (we're working on a pair like that with my friend) is, that the sorc is the 'enigma' part, and the paladin is the 'hammerdin' part (as in: I tele, he kills). Hammerdins kill like there is no tomorrow, but some (like me) find them too tedious to play. If I had to pick, I'd go with an avenger/meteor combo (just keep throwing rocks on your mate and nothing survives). This might be more beneficial, since the sorc might be able to wear an all-out MF gear (we're talking Baal runs, right?) after she teleported down to the Throne, since the avenger will be taking most of the hits.

[patriach]

Thanks for the answer, adeyke. You've enlightened me