Avenger q's

[Brinson]

Hey,

I check the forums here every now and again, and they're a very nice change to the garbage that is mostly posted on the battle.net forums, so I figured I could get a better response to my questions here.
I'm currently doing an pseudo-avenger pally, (I use pseudo because I don't know what the "true" build would be like.) I'm hoping for this build to be somewhat viable in hell, and I was sick of seeing all the zeal/fana and BH pally's running around.

So, I've currently got conviction maxed, working on vengeance now. I had the initial idea of using holy shock as a secondary aura, along with 4 points in zeal for an easier type of crowd control. Vengeance/convict would be used for light immunes and bosses.

Now, does conviction actually remove immunities on monsters in hell? I've heard both sides of it, and have no way of testing or knowing if this fact is true or not.

Second, is holy shock and ok choice for second aura? Or will I have to scrap this char and remake him, dumping points into synergies for vengeance?

Thoughts/comments are appreciated.

*edit* woops, wrong forum. Anyway I can move this?

Thanks in advance

[WarBlade]

Now, does conviction actually remove immunities on monsters in hell?  I've heard both sides of it, and have no way of testing or knowing if this fact is true or not.

Not exactly, but yes, in a way.

As you know it can severely impact on enemy elemental Resistances. Sometimes this is enough to bring those Resistances down enough to negate the Immunity effect and relegate them to merely formidable. Not always though. Even a maxed Conviction can be stymied by some of the monsters in the game. I see it most often with Cold Resistance, where even with Conviction maxed some monsters will remain Cold Immune.

Second, is holy shock and ok choice for second aura?  Or will I have to scrap this char and remake him, dumping points into synergies for vengeance?

Holy Shock works best with Zeal and considering you already have Lightning in abundance with Vengeance I would say you'd be better looking elsewhere in your Aura selection. Meditation is my preferred backup, just to deal with the mana loss in between fights and the Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning will also empower your Vengeance via the synergy.

However you might also want to consider Vengeance, Conviction, Resist Lightning and Holy Shock for your maxed out skills. The Resist Lightning will power up your Vengeance and later your Holy Shock, not to mention give you the sweet new passive upgrade to bring your Paladin's natural max Lightning Resistance up to 85%.

[Brinson]

yeah, the final maxed skills were gonna be Holy Shock, Vengeance, Conviction and Lightning resist.
Thanks for clearing that up.

[Brista]

Conviction subtracts one-fifth of its regular amount against immunes

So if your Conviction usually does -100% then against a monster with 100% resists it will do -20% and the monster's resists will be reduced to 80%

Try Stevebro2's calculator for specifics of each different monsters:

Discussed here:
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/in...showtopic=34908

[Obi2Kenobi]

However, if paired with a necromancer's lower resist, which is applied first? If lower resist did -50% and conviction did -100%, it would be beneficial for lower resist to go first against monsters that are 100%-109% immune (putting them at -1% resist all [max], opposed to 39% [max]), but against monsters that are 110%-119%, it would be better for conviction (49% max, opposed to 89%). After that, it doesn't matter which order they go in. Or are they added up and then applied?

[Brista]

However, if paired with a necromancer's lower resist, which is applied first?

Jarulf thought that the one that tagged the monster first would apply first

If lower resist did -50% and conviction did -100%, it would be beneficial for lower resist to go first against monsters that are 100%-109% immune (putting them at -1% resist all [max], opposed to 39% [max])

Yup, so get the curse on first then wheel in the pally

[Obi2Kenobi]

But what if a pally uses conviction, a necro uses lower resist, then a pally turns off convition and then turns it back on again? I assume that would make the lower resist go first, but would the game be smart enough to reset it [lower resist] to be at 1/5 effectiveness? (note: this is somewhat similar to the 1.10 beta bug of casting amp damage/decrip/lower resist, breaking immunity, then recasting it for a non-penalized reduction)