5. Items:
When compiling your equipment try to focus on the following features:
- Increased Attack Speed (This estimator might help you.
Link)
- Crushing Blow
- Death Strike
- Resistance
- Life Leech
Because Zeal does not need a lot of mana to use, there is no need for mana leech. Also you dont necessarily need physical damage reduction, the Skill Holy Shield will provide enough defense and block to stay alive.
Other useful facts:
- Life Leech and Mana Leech are reduced to 1/2 their effect in Nightmare, and to 1/3 in Hell.
- Absorb % is capped at 40%, so you won’t be able to become totally immune to an elemental attack if you don’t combine this kind of absorb with absolute absorb.
- Damage Reduction % is capped at 50%.
Weapons:
Baranar's Star
This is a solid weapon to survive, even when playing Hell difficulty. The huge amount of elemental-damage helps to kill physical immun enemies without switching the weapon and/or the aura.
Nord's Tenderizer
I think in general Nord's Tenderizer is slightly better than Baranar's Star, because it offers more physical damage. But the advantage is not crucial, both are solid weapons to master hell difficulty.
Demon Limb
This one is the flamy counterpart of Nord's Tenderizer. Try to get an ethereal version to utilize the self-repair ability. If not used as a main weapon, Demon Limb is also a nice choice for the second weapon slot, to utilize the Level 23 Enchant Charges. If you use Enchant with Demon Limb in the second slot, it will enchant your main weapon in the first slot too.
Azurewrath
This weapon is outstanding in terms of speed and elemental damage. However it lacks good physical damage to become a first class choice, but its still solid.
Oath
This weapon offers a huge amount of speed and raw physical damage for a reasonable price. Note, that Oath has the ability "indestructable", so you are able to use this runeword with an ethereal item.
Astreon's Iron Ward
Astreon does not have the same amount of damage Oath has, but abilities like 33% Chance of Crushing Blow or Damage +40-85 compensate this loss. The ability Damage +40-85 increases our smite a lot, making it very easy to kill bossmonsters quick.
Death Cleaver
Like Astreon, Death Cleaver does not offer that much physical damage, but it offers an amazing amount of Deadly Strike to compensate this disadvantage.
Stormlash
At the first look Stormlash does not seem to be much better than the weapons we discussed so far. But the ability to trigger a Level 10 Static Field On Striking makes it one of the best weapons for a FanaZeal. Zeal is one of the fastest attacks in the game, so Static Field will trigger very often. The big advantage is that we are able to deal damage to multiple targets. Also Static Field helps to kill bossmonsters quicker.
Schaefer's Hammer
This weapon is similar to Stormlash with the advantage that it offers more raw physical damage and the disadvantage, that it is very slow. You have to rely on a special equipment to bring this big hammer to maximum speed. With items like Treachery this can be achieved.
Death
Now we arrived at the top. Death is maybe the best weapon you can give to a FanaZealot. Just look at the stats and you will see what I mean. The huge amount of Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike enables our Paladin to be very flexible with the rest of his equipment.
Grief
It is still an unanswered question whether Grief or Death is the best weapon for a FanaZeal Paladin. I think it depends on the situation and your other equipment. Grief offers much raw damage combined with great speed (this runeword can be used in a phaseblade) and increased Smite-Damage, while lacking Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike. So you have to rely on items like Duress or Guillaume's Face to compensate this loss. At the End I think you wont see a big difference useing one of these great weapons.
Armor:
Lionheart
This is just a good allround package for our paladin, offering a little bit of everything we need. The runeword´s only drawback is that it lacks the enhanced defense feature.
Duress
Duress is slightly better than lionheard especially cause it offers more offensive stats. Crushing Blow and cold damage are allways nice to have. However Duress does not have that much elemental resistances, so it depends on the rest of your equipment if you can use this armor.
Treachery
This runeword is very interesting even if it is made for Assasins. You can utilize the "5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Fade When Struck". Fade will provide a huge amount of elemental resistances and some physical resistance too. Try to trigger Fade in an area which is not very dangerous (For example little fireplaces are able to deal little damage, without the danger of getting killed). Once triggers Fade will be renewed constantly while you fight. Also you may need the "+45% Increased Attack Speed" for example if you use a slow weapon like Schaefer's Hammer.
Duriel's Shell
A nice armor with a low strength requirement, decent defense (upgrade possible), some extra life and fantastic resists.
Fortitude
Fortitude is every FanaZealot´s dream. You wont find any other armor with more offensive potential combined with solid defensive abilities. First Choice!
Chains of Honor
While Fortitude offers great offensive stuff combined some solid defense, Chains of Honor works vice versa providing great defensive features (8% Life Stolen Per Hit, All Resistances +65, Damage Reduced By 8%) combined with some offensive abilities. There is no obvious winner when comparing this two armors. It depends on personal preferance, playstyle, the rest of your equipment and last but not least the runes you have available.
Helmet:
Guillaume's Face
In 90% of all times this helmet is a must have for our FanaZealot. There is no better way to get huge amounts of Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike.
Andariel's Visage
This item has the main disadvantage, that your Paladin will look pretty weird, when wearing it. But if you do not care about looks, this mask got some decent features. +2 To All Skills, 20% Increased Attack Speed and 8-10% Life Stolen Per Hit is very useful for our FanaZealot. To compensate the -30% fire resist, put a Ral-Rune or a juwel with fire resist into the mask.
Crown of Ages
In some cases Crown of Ages maybe better than Guillaume's Face. For example if you still have huge amount (90-100%) of Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike without Guillaume's Face. Then Crown of Ages is the better choice, cause it offers superior defensive features and it has 2 sockets, which can be filled with anything you need (damage, life, mana etc.).
Shield:
Spirit
Although this shield maybe better on a Paladin that casts spells, it still serves well on our FanaZealot, providing much elemental resistance, FHR and +2 to all skills.
Rhyme
This one is often overlooked, but it offers some useful things. 20% Increased Chance of Blocking, All Resistances +25 and Cannot Be Frozen are the relevant features. If you put this runeword in the right shield, it will serve you well even in hell difficulty.
Herald Of Zakarum
Not much to say here. This shield offers everything our paladin needs, and more. First Choice!!
Exile
Many people think Exile should be a great shield for a FanaZealot, because of the high defense rating it provides. But keep in mind, that due to the skill Holy Shield, our Paladin allready has a great defense rating, even without Exile and the additional Deviance Aura. Further more in Diablo 2 the defense rating is affected by diminishing marginal utility. That means the more defense you have the less effective an additional improvement will be regarding the chance to be hit by an enemy. The difference between 12000 defense and 15000 defense is less big than the difference between 4000 and 7000. If you now compare the other abilities of Exile to Herald Of Zakarum, you will see that the latter is quite simply the better shield for a FanaZealot.
Gloves:
Dracul's Grasp
These Gloves are a great defensive package offering % Life Stolen Per Hit, Chance To Cast Level 10 Life Tap On Striking and Life After Each Kill. With these gloves, your zealot can survive about any situation the game throws at you.
Bloodfist
Many people don’t realize what a great pair of gloves Bloodfist are. Look at the stats: +40 vitality, 30% FHR, 10% IAS and +5 min dmg make these gloves a very good choice, especially because they are available at level 9.
Laying of Hands
This pair of gloves are maybe used the most on a FanaZeal. Although they can be found very often the stats are very useful. They provide substantial fire resist as well as Increased Attack Speed and last but not least will increase your damage by 350% for about 1/3 of the monsters in the game.
Steelrend
Although these gloves require 185 strength, they are a good choice for our FanaZealot. If you dont need Incresed attack Speed from your gloves, Steelrends offer a lot of offensive features.
Crafted Gloves
Crafted items are similar to rare items, but cannot be Gambled, dropped by Monsters or found in Chests. They can only be created with The Horadric Cube. Crafted Items have 3-4 Fixed Properties and 1-4 Random Magical Prefixes/Suffixes.
The recipe our Paladin likes the most is Bloodcraft:
Crafted Recipe for Gloves: Magic Heavy Gloves/Sharkskin Gloves/Vampirebone Gloves, Nef Rune, Perfect Ruby and any Jewel.
Fixed Effects:
- Crushing Blow (5-10)%
- (1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
- +(10-20) To Life
As you can see we benefit very much from two of the fixed properties. Combined with 1-4 random Magical Prefixes/Suffixes (especially 20% Increased Attack Speed) crafted gloves are as good as the mentioned unique gloves.
Belt:
String of Ears
This is a very nice belt for our FanaZealot. A decent amount of Life Stolen Per Hit together with damage reduction features make this belt stand out.
Nosferatu's Coil
This belt seems to be made for a FanaZeal. It combines Increased Attack Speed with Life Stolen Per Hit and some other useful stuff. Many item combinations only work, cause you have access to this little belt.
Thundergod's Vigor
Lightning absorb and additional Maximum Lightning Resist maybe needed sometimes when dealing with souls etc. The other stats make this a decent option for primary belt as well. If you dont need any more Increased Attack Speed or Life Stolen Per Hit from your belt, this would be your best option.
Boots:
Gore Rider
These Boots are without a doubt the best a FanaZealot can get. They simply have the most offensive potential. First choice!
Goblin Toe
These boots could be named Gore Rider´s little brother. The only relevant ability you need is 25% Crushing Blow.
War Traveler
Because of additional damage combined with Faster Run/Walk and some bonus stats these boots deserve to be mentioned.
Rings:
Raven Frost
You will need "cannot be frozen" and this ring is the best way to get it. Remember that You can't Zeal very fast if you are frozen! Together with some useful stats like cold absorb and dexterity this ring is a great package that just can't be ignored.
Rare/
Craft
One ring slot should be filled with a nice rare or crafted ring. Most of the times you need some additional Life Stolen Per Hit, some extra elemental resistance and/or stats. Such a Ring can satisfy this needs. If you want to craft one the Bloodcraft recipe should be the best choice.
Amulet:
Highlord's Wrath
This one is unrivaled. Whats better than getting 20% IAS from an Amulet together with about 35% Deadly Strike. As a bonus you get 35% lightning resist.
Charms:
When choosing your charms just follow the rule: Fill up your needs. If you have Torch and Annihilus, use them. This charakter does not benefit much from skill charms, regardless of which kind. Use charms with max-damage, resis, life, FHR, whatever you need.