neithan02
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Ja, ich weiß, ist ne Wall of Text, werd ich aber nach und nach ändern.
Well good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my guide to the Fanazealot.
I have looked at the guide-section and found no guide for (in my opinion) the best melee-paladin of all there are and so I figured that I will write a decent guide for that.
You`ll probably like it or at least, think that it is not the average hammerdinguide or sorceress guide that is normally posted in here.
On a sidenote wink.gif
as this topic already sais, this is PvM only, so don`t expect me to do anything for PvP, PvP and PvM have totally different demands, and thus a PvP char will never be as good in PvM as a PvM char and the other way around.
So let`s start:
For those of you, used to Adun´s Hammerdinguide from the basin, he allowed me to quote him if I find the information useful wink.gif
The Guide:
1. Basics
2. Abbreveations
3. Attributes
4. defensive and offensive details
5. Iron Maiden and physical Immunes and others
6. Skills
7. Equipment
8. Mercenary
9. Hellfire Quest
The basics
So why do I choose a Fanazealot?
Well I just love melee combat and this Chainsaw on 2 legs was one of my first melees ever played and is one of my favourites. Properly skilled and equipped, he does not fear any immunes, can beat any monster in the game and is fun to play in every part of the game.
However there are two things, that other chars are better at.... mffing and rushing...
A fanazealot can be equipped to MF or to port around but that is really against the potential of the Character and not as effective as with sorceresses wink.gif
Diablo is a Hack`n Slay Game and this char is the ultimate Hack`n Slay Character.
I mean, 8k minimum damage per strike, 6 strikes per second.... sounds nice, doesn`t it.
I will only include 1 Hand Fanazealots in this guide, the 2 hand versions may come later.
2 Abbreveations
3 Attributes
This is one very short part of this guide. Every character has 5 stat points per level and can divide them upon Vitality, Strength, Dexterity and Energy.
When we begin our long journey to fight the forces of evil, our Paladin starts with the following attributes.
For every level, our Paladin gains 2 hitpoints, one point in stamina and 1,5 points mana.
1 point in Vitality gives us 3 Hitpoints and 1 point for stamina.
1 point in Energy gives us 1,5 points for our manapool.
Now we come to the better part of this. We plan the character
Strenght
allows us to wear or gear, and one point in str means 1% enhanced damage for nearly all weapons, for blunt weapons it means 1,1% and for javelins 0,75%
Dexterity
boosts our defence and attack rating, allows us to carry some weapons and is one central part of our defensive concept. Maxblock is what I am talking about here.
This means, that 75% of all physical attacks are blocked by our shield. More information on this follows later.
Vitality
is our life, nothing more and nothing less.
Energy
No need for anything in here.
Long story short:
There are 2 ways of statting a Fanazealot:
Str: for items
Dex: for Maxblock
Vita: rest
ene: nothing, zero, nada, niente
Vita for as little life as you feel comfortable with
Dex for Maxblock
Str as Str can
Ene= zero
4 offensive and defensive strategies
In this section I will talk about resistances,blocking,defense,faster hit recovery,leach and invisible damage.
We prevent monsters from hitting us with resistances blocking and defense.wif we get hit hard we want to recover as quickly as possible and we get back on our enemies and use their power as means to keep us alive.
We use invisible damage sources to amplify our damage and thereby killing faster and thus standing stronger.
Resistances
This is our defensive measure against any elemental attacks. It is important to have high resistances because if you don’t skeleton mages, archers, souls and other monsters will kill you in an instant. Resistances can be acquired via charms and your equipment, and as far as I know, there is no character build like the hammerdin, that can be equipped with full resistances without loosing any damage. 75% fire and lightning resistances should be your goal, cold is not as important, though it should be above 50% and concerning poison resistances, if you do not have them, it is not bad, either use potions or cleansing.
Blocking and Defense
Defence
Well well, we can easily stack up charscreendefense as Fanazealot by wearing items with high defense and our holy shield.
However in PvM you don`t really need to have really high amounts of defense, even as melee, especially if you wear a shield. Between 7 and 12 k is enough above that you only get diminishing returns from high defense:
A little example:
Monster with lvl 85 tries to hit you while you have 9k defense and 16k
9k deff chance to get hit=21% --> 75% of that are blocked--> 5,4% chance to get hit
16k deff chance to get hit=18%-->75% of that are blocked-->4,5% chance to get hit
Blocking
This is what keeps physical attacks from hurting us, reducing the amount of attacks that do damage to us by 75%. We achieve this through the skill Holy Shield, our dexterity and any +% of block chance on our items. To sum things up first things first. With Holy Shield we have a block speed of 2 frames, meaning that we can block 12 attacks/second, and believe me, there is rarely a pack which can deal so many attacks in such a short amount of time.
The other part aside of our block speed is our chance to block. All Paladin Shields have a higher base block than the normal shields. This basic chance to block can be increased with the Holy Shield, armors like Rattlecage and Guardian Angel and safety craft amulets (thul+jewel+perfect emerald+ magic amu).
Now the basic chance of your blocking depends on your items and Holy Shield, however blocking attacks depends not only on that chance to block, but also on your dexterity and char level.
Faster Hit Recovery
We are forced into the Hit Recovery Animation if we loose 1/12 or more of our hit points through one attack.
As it is normal for any animation in Diablo, once you’re in it, it cannot be interrupted by another animation, thus you are defenceless while you are in this animation.
Faster Hit Recovery means that you shorten the time you are in this animation.
I suggest playing with 27% Fhr it is easily achievable and offers enough speed for all our purposes.
Leech
We use this, to get mana and life back from our attacks. The amount we receive depends on our damage dealt, the damage received by the monster, our % of leach and in wich difficulty mode we are active.
simple example:
we deal 5000 damage to a monster in hell with 50% physical resistance and have 10% leech
the monster receives 2500 damage
we leech 250 of that
because we are in hell this gets cut by 2/3
means we leech 83 hitpoints or manapoints
If the curse Life Tab is active, you automatically leech 50% of the damage you have dealt.
There are also monsters that you cannot leech from.. like any skelettons or wraith type monsters or mephisto. Only life tab works in theese cases.
Deadly Strike/Critical Strike
Theese trigger effects exclude each other but do the same thing...
If they are triggered this means, that we deal twice as much physical damage as normally.
You definetely wanna have this on board.
Crushing Blow
Well this describes a trigger effect that normally takes away 25% of a monster`s current life, however
there are several things that work against this...
Cb works only half as good versus bosses, meaning only 12,5%
CB is affected by the monster`s physical resistance--> if 50% physical resistance, also only 12,5 life of current monsterlife are being taken away
While in multiplayer games, CB is also restricted, as follows:
___100%_______
2*(people in the game+1) = % lifedrain of Cb
--> this means it only takes away the amount it would have taken away in a one player game.
However, the monter`s always have high amounts of life, so we definetely wanna have as much of this as we can.
Speed
A Fanazealot does 5 attacks per zeal series and can do as much as 5,2 attacks per second.
The faster we attack,the more damage is dealt, we sure wanna achieve maxspeed while playing.
use the speedcalculator to find out how much ias you need and what fanatism level is useful for you with the weapon you want to use.
5. Iron Maiden and physical Immunes and others
Well well this is what we do not like that much.
Iron Maiden is only a threat to those playing patches 1.11 or older on Diablo2 NOT the remastered version. You can disregard it as curiosity and a tale of the past if you are not playing single player with the old game in one of the older patches.
Iron Maiden is a curse done by Oblivion knights, it reflects and multiplies any physical damage that is dealt in melee combat....
this means for a fanazealot: 1 strike while you face iron maiden and you`re dead.
How to protect yourself:
1. Long range combat with Gimmershreds, demon`s arch war shrikes,lacerator and so on,widowmaker,wildwitch string
2. Berzerk from Passion Runeword
3. Walk up to the Oblivion Knight and if you get close, he will cast decrepefy on you... kill him and concentrate on other monsters afterwards.
4. separate monster packs.. deal with melees first and out of range of IM-casters then go for the caster
5. avoid them at all costs.
physical immunes
Well we deal physical damage , so we don`t really deal any damage to those monsters, but there are ways to deimmunize them or alternative damage strategies.
1.elemental damage from weapon/shield in 2nd slot with conviction and zeal or vengeance+ conviction
2. magical damage form passion`s berzerk or the bows widowmaker and wildwith string
3. Amplified damage: this course lowers physical resistances by 100% and by 20% if a monster is physically immune, this means if you get the resistances below 100% with this curse you can damage the monster with physical attacks.(wildwitch string,rares,atma`s scarab,lacerators)
4. Decrepefy: works in the same way as amplified damage but only takes away 50% and 10% if a monster is immune (Reaper`s Toll, Lawbringer)
6 Skills
So how do we actually convince the monsters to die?
In this section I will mention all the skills you will need while playing and give some hints on what to do with any skillpoints you cannot think of any use for.
First of all, if you want to plan your skills thoroughly, use the skillcalc in my signature.
Combat Skills
Well this is our battle gear and as mentioned before, it is part of our defense. Five skills are important for us.
Sacrifice:
Preskill and synergy to Zeal, offers 8% off weapon ed per level
20 points
Zeal:
a series of up to 5 quick attacks. 4% off weapon ed per level and boosts our AR
20 points
Holy Bolt
Preskill of Holy Shield.
1 point
Smite:
This skill stuns our opponent and hits with a 100% chance, only useful in the beginning or maybe against bosses, if one has much crushing blow (watch out for the Tristram part)
1 point to stun and as HS preskill
maybe more if we focus on Tristram
Charge:
This skill allows us to move around quickly on the battlefield and to sniper out one monster and punch it out of a group.
1 point as preskill for Holy Shield not more.
maybe more if we want a second attack
Blessed Hammer
preskill to Holy Shield
1 point
Vengeance:
An attack that multiplies our weapon damage (+maxdam/mindam from eq) with elemental factors, making us deal elemental damage... one strategy versus PI monsters.
Holy Shield
This skill enhances our defense by adding 15% bonus of our base defense for every level and it increases our chance of blocking and thus decreases the amount of Dexterity we need for Maxblock. This means we have more points for Vitality. Though keep in mind, that the chance of blocking is only increased at certain levels.
With all + skills and + combat skills of your equipment you should reach one of the following levels:
16;19;23;27;34
At any of these Levels of your Holy Shield you gain 1% increased Chance of Blocking.
Depending on your gear you may decide for any of these breakpoints or you can max it out for higher defense and smite damage.
Offensive Auras
Well here we have our boosters.
Might
Useful during the first levels and 1 Point as Preskill to Fanatism
Blessed Aim
preskill to fanatism and passive bonus of 5% more basear for every hard point in that.
If zeal and fanatism are maxed out and you still have problems with hitting, you can put some points in here wink.gif
Concentration
1 Point as preskill to Fanatism, if oyu play in a party and another Paladin also has Fanatism, let the one with the stronger aura switch his on, while the other one activates conce, because the stronger party aura overrides the lower one.
Fanaticism
Our main aura, amplifies our damage, speed and attack rating
20 Points
Sanctuary
preskill to Conviction and negates physical resistances of undead monsters... a nice thing to have.
Conviction:
Great skill in party and versus physical immunes
1-x points if you want to use it
Defensive Auras
Prayer
regenerates life but costs mana
1 Point as preskill to Cleansing
Cleansing
Reduces the time we are cursed and regenerates life depending on the level of our prayer aura (including all + skills)
1 Point, you will need it
Defiance
This aura has a passive bonus to our Holy Shield, for every level our Holy Shield`s defense boost gains another 15%. We first of all need only one point here as preskill to Redemption and Vigor, though if you are keen on the defense and have already maxed Holy Shield you can put points in here.
1 Point, maybe more later
Vigor
Preskill to Redemption
1 point
Redemption
This Aura redeems the dead, thus killing corpses and giving us mana and life for them. It has two uses on a Fanazealot. On the one hand it is a tactical weapon against any summoners because it kills the minions corpses making it impossible to revive them or let them explode(nihlathak and wave 2 will hate you for this as well as any mummies. On the other hand it is a source of mana and life after or during a battle, we kill some monsters and use their remains as our "drinks".
1 Point more is not needed.
Salvation
This aura is a bonus because it enhances, when active, all our resistances, it is an aura we do not need normally, though it can come in nice if we are in a party or when we want to kill uber Mehpisto because with Salvation we can counter his Conviction.
Resist Lightning/Resist Fire
Depending on your aims with the Hammerdin, it may be useful to out some points into these auras, for every 2 points you gain 1% maximum resistance.
it depends on you wether you wanna do this
Cut, next scene!
Core Build:
20 Zeal
20 Fana
20 Sacrifice
20 Hs
1 Redemption
1 Cleansing
Possibilities:
1 Salvation
Conviction
Defiance
Blessed Aim
Vengeance
Charge
Smite
Resistance Auras
7 Equipment
Yeah we don`t want to walk around naked, do we.
There are tons of different setups for a Fanazealot, therefor I will not post any full equipment because there are too many alternatives for every part of equipment, depending on where you play, what you want to achieve and how you play.
Basics
There are several things we will have to watch out for.
Nice to have:
Helmets:
Yeah our head, our pretty head, what to wear, well I will tell you, the rules are simple.
Best there is:
Guillaume`s Face
15% ds, 35% cb, 15 str, Fhr
this one surely has it all...... only replace this with certain really rare setups if you already have nearly 100% ds and tons of cb...
this helmet offers us all fhr we ever need and the other stats really shine on any physical melee.
other options:
Vampire Gaze,Crown of Thieves, Tal Rasha`s Mask, CoA, Bloodcraft
Rare Circs with skills, leach,resis,stats
Armor
What do we wear on our chest. there are simply not that many uniques that make sense on a Fanazealot but a couple of nice runewords.
Fortitude
Resistances, 300% off weapon ed, Life and some nice defense.... probably one of the best armors around.
Chains of Honor
More prisma but less damagheboost overall, in Tristram better than Fortitude, outside of it: less good
Lionheart
one of the top armors because of nice stats and resistances, if you already have enough cb, this is the thing to take.
Duress
Nice one, defense,fhr,cb,ed and prisma if you still need cb, take this one
Treachery
If you want one of the Heavier weapons, this may help you a lot. This armor offers Lvl 15 fade as trigger, this means 15% damred and 62 prisma.... you`ll want to use this in tristram.
Tyrael`s Might
pretty rare, useable, but a good old lionheart beats this baby any day of the week.
Duriel`s Shell
like a lower version of the Tyrael`s... if you`ve got nothing else, take this.
Smoke
Resistances... Cheap solution but not that good.
Griswold`s Heart,Black Hades
Cheap and effective because of the three sockets... extremely low cost versions, either for ias or resis.
another option is, obviously, a 4 socket 100 life elite armor but those are hardly ever more beneficial than a fortitude
Sidenote: Why no eni.... because even a lionheart has more offensive potential than enigma, you don`t need tele, you have charge...
+ getting decent fcr on a fanazealot can hardly be done without loosing stability or killspeed.
Shields
Give me something to protect me and to save me.
best of the best:
Herald of Zakarum
Skills,defense,vita,str,resistances and a socket.....
this is what makes this our number one shield... we need all that this baby has to offer.
Good:
Exile:
we may not achieve maxspeed with vertain setups and this shield, however it`s trigger of LT and defense make this a good shield... but iat best in an ethereal bugged Sacred Targe, as you should do with any shield runeword.
Other good options are the Sacred Rondach or the Kurast Shield or Royal Shield.
Griswold`s Honor
3 sockets, 45 Prisma, Blockmod, depending on yoour weapon this is the best shield there is was and ever will be.
Sanctuary:
50-70 prisma, blockmod,dex,slower missiles.... one hell of a defensive package
Rhyme:
Nice thing with blockmod and resis.
Nonplusultra: 30/20 block mod 45 allres 4 sockets elite paladin shield
sidenote:
Why no Phoenix: because we already have tons of off weapon ed, we do not reach maxspeed with certain weapons and the triggered firestorm disrupts our Zeal series.... this way we loose more damage than we may gain with this thing.
Gloves
Actually we have very few possiblilities here:
High end:
Laying of Hands
20 ias, 50 fire resistances and most importantly 350 ed vs demons (~116% overall) make this the best melee gloves for our plans.
other choices:
Dracul`s Grasp
a little str and life tab on strike.. useful in tristram ore for hc, but if you need LT to survive outside of tristram, play another build.....
LT overrides our merc`s decrepefy and thus takes away ~ half of our damage.
Bloodfists:
mindam and fhr, nice things to have around
aside of that:
Souldrainers,Venom Grip, Ik Parts, Rares witzh nice stas,resis,ias or Bloodcrafts.
Belts
well few choices here
Nosferatu`s Coil
Ias,str and ll, one of the best belts around
Thundergod`s Vigor
good choice in tristram and allows us to take a bath in soulfire.... lovely, however, the FoH trigger costs us damage because it gives us a castdelay and thus moments in which we cannot attack.
String of Ears
Well 8% ll and it`s frequent drops make this normally your belt to take
Wilhelm`s Pride
If you need the manaleach, take this
Razortail
Maxdam on a belt, if you got everything covered and just want to increase damage:take this one
Bloodcrafts....
Shoes
well well this is quite simple, we have three choices here.
Goreriders:
Overall the best shoes around, ds,cb,ow nice stats for us best shoes in tristram and for nearly all other setups outside of tristram
Wartravellers:
Well str, 15-25 damage are the things we like about theese boots... They beat Goreriders in certain setups and thus are either number one or 2 on our list.
Goblin Toes
25% cb and pretty cheap. Third best boots around.
Rings
Ravenfrost:
Nonfreeze,ar,dex,coldabsorb.... one nice thing to have around... cheapest possibility to gain nonfreeze.
Rare Leachers/Bloodcrafts
Well nice things can spawn on this, resis,ll or dualleach,stats..... best things there are
Peace of Nature:
Well if you wanna visit the good ole nille.. take this with you
cheap options:
Cathan,Manald,Carrion Wind
Amus
Highlord`s Wrath
20 ias, ds on lvl and lightning resis: First choice for nearly all setups....
Atma`s Scarab
Only interesting because of AD on strike... if you already have enough DS, this is better than a highlord`s wrath
other options:
Crecent moon, metalgrid,Bloodcraft or Safetycraft
Weapons
Well well now comes the tricky part...........................
Best there is:
Death
huge amounts of ed, ds and cb, ar and glacial spike on strike, which is nice for the crowdcontrol..... one hell of a weapon
no fvear of manaburners because of ml on board...
baseweapon of Choice: etheral Ettin Axe reason: compared to the BA you have a higher avdam--> higher weapon average and higher overall avcerage damage, even the sockets you use to get the needed ias cannot make up for that
aim for 80 ias with fanalvl 27 or some more ias with less fana
BA: if you choose this, you should switch for another amu to get the finest of the setup, atma`s is your choice here.
less good:
Grief:
High average damage and some ds, unfortunately no CB
Baseweapon of choice: PB
Stormlash:
CB,speed,damage and Static... > one nice weapon, especially versus bosses or big masses of monsters
socket it with : LO or ed+mindam
Schaeffer`s Hammer
Damage,ar,static,lightning resistances....
One nice weapon, however it needs 120 ias for maxspeed but that can be taken care of.....
socket it with: depending on eq: Shael,ias+ed,ed+max
Death Cleaver
ED,66% ds and nice speed, however low durability
Socket it with: ed+ias or ed+maxda/ed+mindam
Oath:
well nice weapon for it`s price, but it in an ethereal baseweapon and enjoy it`s nice amount of ed and speed
Baseweapon of choice: Ettin Axe, Small Crescent,BA, Conquest Sword
other weapons:
Upped Headstrike, Upped Butcher`s pupil, Eth Demon Limb, Nords Tenderizer, Baranar`s Star
nonplusultra:
Eth Selfrep 40 ias 2 sockets 450 ed legendary mallet Lo Lo
Free Sockets:
simple: Resistances, speed, damage
depending on your overall damage and off weapon ed aand so on.... it depends wether enhanced damage or maximum damage.. you have to calculate that yourself.
Setups
The Standar Setup:
Gulli
armor of choice
shield of choice
Highlord`s
LoH
Gores
Raven+ll ring
String
The Schaeffer`s Setup(high end):
Gulli Ias
Belt of choice
Griswolds 3x ias
Highlord`s
LoH
Raven+ll ring
Schaeffer`s ED
Gores
The Death Setup:
Guillmaue`s Head ias
Armor of your choice
Herald Ias
Nosferatu`s Coil
Highlord`s Wrath
LoH
Raven+ LL ring
Death Ettin
Gores--> later WT`s
--> lvl 27 fana needed
The Atma Setup 1
Gulli Ias
Armor of your Choice
LoH
Nossi
Herald Ias
Atma
Gores
raven+ll ring
Death BA/upped Headstriker
The Atma Setup Death Cleaver
Gulli ed or max
Herald resis,ed or max
DC
LoH
Atmas,Gores
String/Tgod/xxxx
Raven+llring
Grief Setup
Gulli ED
Herald ED
Loh
Highlord`s
Armor of your choice
ravem+ll ring
Tgod/ll belt
Gores
2nd slot
One of the anti PI/IM measures Mentioned
Conv+ Zeal:
Weapon: Azurewrath,Gimmershreds,Nords,Demon Lomb
Shield: Herald, Griswold,Tiamat`s Rebuke, Dragonscales
Vengeance: 1st Slot
Dec: Lawbringer+ Shield
Tristram:
LT-Wand or Dagger+ Shield with resis
anti-Im:
Gimmers, wildwitch String, Widowmaker,Demon`s Arch
Inventory
Fill in whatever you need
if you want to, take a torch and an annihilus
resicharms or maybe lifecharms...
but most of all:
Offensive aura skillers and/or maxdam/ar charms, but this totally depends on what you use and what exactly you have.
Mercenary
The one to go for is the a2 nightmare offensive mercenary with his might aura, unless you are really struggling with safety, damage and immunes. You can think about an A5 merc with lawbringer to trigger decrepefy. You will lose the might aura though, so it might be better to simply have the lawbringer on switch yourself.
Equipment
First of all befor we talk about our sidekick`s gear. He needs some stuff.
Weapons
Time for his big tool.
Reaper`s Toll
ds,ll,speed and most of all decrepefy are the things that help us... the curse means ~ 100% more effective damage for us
if you don´t use atma`s scarab, use this.
Insight
up to 290 ed, meditation and critikal strike (wich means chance of dealing twice the physical damage)
probably the biggest bang for the buck considering poleweapons. and you will never have to worry about mana.
Obedience
5 socks Polewearm
Well 370 ED,40 CB,20-30 prisma and 40 FHR all that for a little price.
Other weapons:
Just to name some weapons that might be of use but cannot really shine on Fanazealot mercenaries:
Bonehew, Tombreaver, Upped Hone Sundan,Arioc`s needle
Helmets
If your merc already has a source for lifeleach, use
Guillaumes Face
There is no better boost for physical damage with the 15 ds and 35 CB
Vampire Gaze (lvl 41)
dualleech and damred are one nice thing.
Crown of Thieves (lvl 49)
10% lifeleach are what makes this our choice sometimes.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (lvl 66)
10% dualleach and 15 prisma are the stats for this cheap allrounder.
Andariels Visage (lvl 83)
10 Ias, up to 30strength and 8-10% lifeleach are the arguments for this helmet: If you use it you will have to put in a Ral or a jewel with fire resistances in it because it also has -30% fire resistances.
Armors
Duriel`s Shell (lvl 41)
Nonfreeze, 15 strength,20 prisma... all time classic
Treachery (Shael Thul Lem) (lvl 43)
45 ias, 60 prisma and 15 damred if fade triggers
one might reach a frame breakpoint with this, depending on mercweapon and other ias on the merc`s equipment. Cheap and easy.. nice one
Griswolds Heart (lvl 45)/Black Hades(lvl 53)
Put in Ral+Ort+Thul and enjoy this cheap sollution to a number of problems.
The Gladiator`s Bane (lvl 85)
Magicdamreduce and Nonfreeze and Damred.. a nice armor, because the higher the merc`s level, the less resistances are needed and this armor offers better protection against elemental and magic attacks.
9 Tristram
Yes a Fanazealot can go and kill all three Ubers with no problems but you have to make some adjustments.
1. One point in Salvation
2. Tons of CB, a little bit of OW and LT.
Items:
Weapons:
Strength in a PB, Heaven`s Light, Astreon`s, Redeemer,Grief, Black, wand or dagger with LT charges.
Armor pieces:
Duress, Smoke, Fortitude,Vipermagi,CoH,Goblins,Gores,Guillaume`s Face, Herald of Zakarum, 4 PD Palashield, Elite Spirit,Exile,Dracul`s Grasp.
You smite with yourFanatism and take down the three big ones, use Salvation versus Mephisto and quickly dispatch any minions after the uber is dead.
Tactics for Tristram are best explained in the Poorman`s Guide to Tristram wich is avialable at the Amazon Basin... I suggest you read it, there is no better description of what you need to do.
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=63770
so guys
introducing my zealot
He does his baals alone on Players 8 and if I hear anyone complaining about low life.... he does not need it... few monsters survive a zeal series of him.....
He did a couple of tristruns and killed the Organbearers with ease
Stats with Might from merc and you can still ~ double the damage because of 93% ds
Death Ettin
Gulli Ias
Fortitude
LoH
Highlord`s
WT`s
rare LL ring with dex,str and prisma
Raven
on switch: Azurewrath+Dragonscales
Inv: Torch,Anni, 1x Off aura skiller
rest maxdam/AR
Skills:
Fana Max,HS max,Zeal Max,Sacrifice Max
1 Redemption,Salvation,Cleansing
Rest: Conv
Merc: Gulli 34 ED duriel`s Shell Non eth Reaper`s
what advantage do we have by choosing str over vita:
well our life insurance ain`t our life pool because we can leach life....
the higher our damage is, the more life we can leach
also the higher our damage is, the faster do the monsters die--> the less damage we receive, the less we have to leach
one could also go for LT but that won´t work in those cases that are dangerous for a fanazealot
and normally a fanazealot dies only to certain things, mostly unawareness and bad gameplay and inexperienced players/people overestimating themselves
reason 1: dolls.....
killing them on your own and receiving the corpse explosions will kill you
reason 2: undead souls...
straight away not avoiding them or dodging their attacks, luring them into close combart but standing there and getting fried
reason 3 Iron Maiden
nothing will save you from this other than good tactics and a second slot or cleansing or another new curse on your head
reason 4 PI monsters
no leaching possible neither with ll nor LT
countermeasures.. see guide, if they are AD`ed or decrepefied, they are vulnerable toi your attacks, LT would be bad since it overrides ad and dec and thus makes you not leach...
reason 5 : bad positioning and tough luck
ad+fana lister and standing where you can get decrepefy on your head is surely one way to die.....
there are situations you die... and 99% of them do not care about your life at all, but about your tactics
and I surely prefer the more offensive version of handling the game
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
next reason:
Damage contra Vita:
I did my paladin as sign of what is possible and what can work
compared to a vita as vita can build, I have ~262% more off weapon ed
wich means with my weapon and setup:
248-575 damage (including all max/min form eq)
---->649-1506 extradamage from str
--> 93% ds
1252------------2907
damage extra
which means, for my setup
70-164 life leached
(if a monster has 50% resis in hell)--> this means 35-82 life leached/strike
wich means
182-426 hitpoints leached per second
if decrepefy makes those 50% become 0 %
this means
364-852 HP leached per second
Well good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my guide to the Fanazealot.
I have looked at the guide-section and found no guide for (in my opinion) the best melee-paladin of all there are and so I figured that I will write a decent guide for that.
You`ll probably like it or at least, think that it is not the average hammerdinguide or sorceress guide that is normally posted in here.
On a sidenote wink.gif
as this topic already sais, this is PvM only, so don`t expect me to do anything for PvP, PvP and PvM have totally different demands, and thus a PvP char will never be as good in PvM as a PvM char and the other way around.
So let`s start:
For those of you, used to Adun´s Hammerdinguide from the basin, he allowed me to quote him if I find the information useful wink.gif
The Guide:
1. Basics
2. Abbreveations
3. Attributes
4. defensive and offensive details
5. Iron Maiden and physical Immunes and others
6. Skills
7. Equipment
8. Mercenary
9. Hellfire Quest
The basics
So why do I choose a Fanazealot?
Well I just love melee combat and this Chainsaw on 2 legs was one of my first melees ever played and is one of my favourites. Properly skilled and equipped, he does not fear any immunes, can beat any monster in the game and is fun to play in every part of the game.
However there are two things, that other chars are better at.... mffing and rushing...
A fanazealot can be equipped to MF or to port around but that is really against the potential of the Character and not as effective as with sorceresses wink.gif
Diablo is a Hack`n Slay Game and this char is the ultimate Hack`n Slay Character.
I mean, 8k minimum damage per strike, 6 strikes per second.... sounds nice, doesn`t it.
I will only include 1 Hand Fanazealots in this guide, the 2 hand versions may come later.
2 Abbreveations
3 Attributes
This is one very short part of this guide. Every character has 5 stat points per level and can divide them upon Vitality, Strength, Dexterity and Energy.
When we begin our long journey to fight the forces of evil, our Paladin starts with the following attributes.
Code:
Strength 25
Dexterity 20
Vitality 25
Energy 15
Life 55
Stamina 89
Mana 15For every level, our Paladin gains 2 hitpoints, one point in stamina and 1,5 points mana.
1 point in Vitality gives us 3 Hitpoints and 1 point for stamina.
1 point in Energy gives us 1,5 points for our manapool.
Now we come to the better part of this. We plan the character
Strenght
allows us to wear or gear, and one point in str means 1% enhanced damage for nearly all weapons, for blunt weapons it means 1,1% and for javelins 0,75%
Dexterity
boosts our defence and attack rating, allows us to carry some weapons and is one central part of our defensive concept. Maxblock is what I am talking about here.
This means, that 75% of all physical attacks are blocked by our shield. More information on this follows later.
Vitality
is our life, nothing more and nothing less.
Energy
No need for anything in here.
Long story short:
There are 2 ways of statting a Fanazealot:
Str: for items
Dex: for Maxblock
Vita: rest
ene: nothing, zero, nada, niente
Vita for as little life as you feel comfortable with
Dex for Maxblock
Str as Str can
Ene= zero
4 offensive and defensive strategies
In this section I will talk about resistances,blocking,defense,faster hit recovery,leach and invisible damage.
We prevent monsters from hitting us with resistances blocking and defense.wif we get hit hard we want to recover as quickly as possible and we get back on our enemies and use their power as means to keep us alive.
We use invisible damage sources to amplify our damage and thereby killing faster and thus standing stronger.
Resistances
This is our defensive measure against any elemental attacks. It is important to have high resistances because if you don’t skeleton mages, archers, souls and other monsters will kill you in an instant. Resistances can be acquired via charms and your equipment, and as far as I know, there is no character build like the hammerdin, that can be equipped with full resistances without loosing any damage. 75% fire and lightning resistances should be your goal, cold is not as important, though it should be above 50% and concerning poison resistances, if you do not have them, it is not bad, either use potions or cleansing.
Blocking and Defense
Defence
Well well, we can easily stack up charscreendefense as Fanazealot by wearing items with high defense and our holy shield.
However in PvM you don`t really need to have really high amounts of defense, even as melee, especially if you wear a shield. Between 7 and 12 k is enough above that you only get diminishing returns from high defense:
A little example:
Monster with lvl 85 tries to hit you while you have 9k defense and 16k
9k deff chance to get hit=21% --> 75% of that are blocked--> 5,4% chance to get hit
16k deff chance to get hit=18%-->75% of that are blocked-->4,5% chance to get hit
Blocking
This is what keeps physical attacks from hurting us, reducing the amount of attacks that do damage to us by 75%. We achieve this through the skill Holy Shield, our dexterity and any +% of block chance on our items. To sum things up first things first. With Holy Shield we have a block speed of 2 frames, meaning that we can block 12 attacks/second, and believe me, there is rarely a pack which can deal so many attacks in such a short amount of time.
The other part aside of our block speed is our chance to block. All Paladin Shields have a higher base block than the normal shields. This basic chance to block can be increased with the Holy Shield, armors like Rattlecage and Guardian Angel and safety craft amulets (thul+jewel+perfect emerald+ magic amu).
Now the basic chance of your blocking depends on your items and Holy Shield, however blocking attacks depends not only on that chance to block, but also on your dexterity and char level.
Faster Hit Recovery
We are forced into the Hit Recovery Animation if we loose 1/12 or more of our hit points through one attack.
As it is normal for any animation in Diablo, once you’re in it, it cannot be interrupted by another animation, thus you are defenceless while you are in this animation.
Faster Hit Recovery means that you shorten the time you are in this animation.
I suggest playing with 27% Fhr it is easily achievable and offers enough speed for all our purposes.
Code:
Frames: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
needed Fhr:0% 7% 15% 27% 48% 86% 200%Leech
We use this, to get mana and life back from our attacks. The amount we receive depends on our damage dealt, the damage received by the monster, our % of leach and in wich difficulty mode we are active.
simple example:
we deal 5000 damage to a monster in hell with 50% physical resistance and have 10% leech
the monster receives 2500 damage
we leech 250 of that
because we are in hell this gets cut by 2/3
means we leech 83 hitpoints or manapoints
If the curse Life Tab is active, you automatically leech 50% of the damage you have dealt.
There are also monsters that you cannot leech from.. like any skelettons or wraith type monsters or mephisto. Only life tab works in theese cases.
Deadly Strike/Critical Strike
Theese trigger effects exclude each other but do the same thing...
If they are triggered this means, that we deal twice as much physical damage as normally.
You definetely wanna have this on board.
Crushing Blow
Well this describes a trigger effect that normally takes away 25% of a monster`s current life, however
there are several things that work against this...
Cb works only half as good versus bosses, meaning only 12,5%
CB is affected by the monster`s physical resistance--> if 50% physical resistance, also only 12,5 life of current monsterlife are being taken away
While in multiplayer games, CB is also restricted, as follows:
___100%_______
2*(people in the game+1) = % lifedrain of Cb
--> this means it only takes away the amount it would have taken away in a one player game.
However, the monter`s always have high amounts of life, so we definetely wanna have as much of this as we can.
Speed
A Fanazealot does 5 attacks per zeal series and can do as much as 5,2 attacks per second.
The faster we attack,the more damage is dealt, we sure wanna achieve maxspeed while playing.
use the speedcalculator to find out how much ias you need and what fanatism level is useful for you with the weapon you want to use.
5. Iron Maiden and physical Immunes and others
Well well this is what we do not like that much.
Iron Maiden is only a threat to those playing patches 1.11 or older on Diablo2 NOT the remastered version. You can disregard it as curiosity and a tale of the past if you are not playing single player with the old game in one of the older patches.
Iron Maiden is a curse done by Oblivion knights, it reflects and multiplies any physical damage that is dealt in melee combat....
this means for a fanazealot: 1 strike while you face iron maiden and you`re dead.
How to protect yourself:
1. Long range combat with Gimmershreds, demon`s arch war shrikes,lacerator and so on,widowmaker,wildwitch string
2. Berzerk from Passion Runeword
3. Walk up to the Oblivion Knight and if you get close, he will cast decrepefy on you... kill him and concentrate on other monsters afterwards.
4. separate monster packs.. deal with melees first and out of range of IM-casters then go for the caster
5. avoid them at all costs.
physical immunes
Well we deal physical damage , so we don`t really deal any damage to those monsters, but there are ways to deimmunize them or alternative damage strategies.
1.elemental damage from weapon/shield in 2nd slot with conviction and zeal or vengeance+ conviction
2. magical damage form passion`s berzerk or the bows widowmaker and wildwith string
3. Amplified damage: this course lowers physical resistances by 100% and by 20% if a monster is physically immune, this means if you get the resistances below 100% with this curse you can damage the monster with physical attacks.(wildwitch string,rares,atma`s scarab,lacerators)
4. Decrepefy: works in the same way as amplified damage but only takes away 50% and 10% if a monster is immune (Reaper`s Toll, Lawbringer)
6 Skills
So how do we actually convince the monsters to die?
In this section I will mention all the skills you will need while playing and give some hints on what to do with any skillpoints you cannot think of any use for.
First of all, if you want to plan your skills thoroughly, use the skillcalc in my signature.
Combat Skills
Well this is our battle gear and as mentioned before, it is part of our defense. Five skills are important for us.
Sacrifice:
Preskill and synergy to Zeal, offers 8% off weapon ed per level
20 points
Zeal:
a series of up to 5 quick attacks. 4% off weapon ed per level and boosts our AR
20 points
Holy Bolt
Preskill of Holy Shield.
1 point
Smite:
This skill stuns our opponent and hits with a 100% chance, only useful in the beginning or maybe against bosses, if one has much crushing blow (watch out for the Tristram part)
1 point to stun and as HS preskill
maybe more if we focus on Tristram
Charge:
This skill allows us to move around quickly on the battlefield and to sniper out one monster and punch it out of a group.
1 point as preskill for Holy Shield not more.
maybe more if we want a second attack
Blessed Hammer
preskill to Holy Shield
1 point
Vengeance:
An attack that multiplies our weapon damage (+maxdam/mindam from eq) with elemental factors, making us deal elemental damage... one strategy versus PI monsters.
Holy Shield
This skill enhances our defense by adding 15% bonus of our base defense for every level and it increases our chance of blocking and thus decreases the amount of Dexterity we need for Maxblock. This means we have more points for Vitality. Though keep in mind, that the chance of blocking is only increased at certain levels.
With all + skills and + combat skills of your equipment you should reach one of the following levels:
16;19;23;27;34
At any of these Levels of your Holy Shield you gain 1% increased Chance of Blocking.
Depending on your gear you may decide for any of these breakpoints or you can max it out for higher defense and smite damage.
Offensive Auras
Well here we have our boosters.
Might
Useful during the first levels and 1 Point as Preskill to Fanatism
Blessed Aim
preskill to fanatism and passive bonus of 5% more basear for every hard point in that.
If zeal and fanatism are maxed out and you still have problems with hitting, you can put some points in here wink.gif
Concentration
1 Point as preskill to Fanatism, if oyu play in a party and another Paladin also has Fanatism, let the one with the stronger aura switch his on, while the other one activates conce, because the stronger party aura overrides the lower one.
Fanaticism
Our main aura, amplifies our damage, speed and attack rating
20 Points
Sanctuary
preskill to Conviction and negates physical resistances of undead monsters... a nice thing to have.
Conviction:
Great skill in party and versus physical immunes
1-x points if you want to use it
Defensive Auras
Prayer
regenerates life but costs mana
1 Point as preskill to Cleansing
Cleansing
Reduces the time we are cursed and regenerates life depending on the level of our prayer aura (including all + skills)
1 Point, you will need it
Defiance
This aura has a passive bonus to our Holy Shield, for every level our Holy Shield`s defense boost gains another 15%. We first of all need only one point here as preskill to Redemption and Vigor, though if you are keen on the defense and have already maxed Holy Shield you can put points in here.
1 Point, maybe more later
Vigor
Preskill to Redemption
1 point
Redemption
This Aura redeems the dead, thus killing corpses and giving us mana and life for them. It has two uses on a Fanazealot. On the one hand it is a tactical weapon against any summoners because it kills the minions corpses making it impossible to revive them or let them explode(nihlathak and wave 2 will hate you for this as well as any mummies. On the other hand it is a source of mana and life after or during a battle, we kill some monsters and use their remains as our "drinks".
1 Point more is not needed.
Salvation
This aura is a bonus because it enhances, when active, all our resistances, it is an aura we do not need normally, though it can come in nice if we are in a party or when we want to kill uber Mehpisto because with Salvation we can counter his Conviction.
Resist Lightning/Resist Fire
Depending on your aims with the Hammerdin, it may be useful to out some points into these auras, for every 2 points you gain 1% maximum resistance.
it depends on you wether you wanna do this
Cut, next scene!
Core Build:
20 Zeal
20 Fana
20 Sacrifice
20 Hs
1 Redemption
1 Cleansing
Possibilities:
1 Salvation
Conviction
Defiance
Blessed Aim
Vengeance
Charge
Smite
Resistance Auras
7 Equipment
Yeah we don`t want to walk around naked, do we.
There are tons of different setups for a Fanazealot, therefor I will not post any full equipment because there are too many alternatives for every part of equipment, depending on where you play, what you want to achieve and how you play.
Basics
There are several things we will have to watch out for.
Nice to have:
Helmets:
Yeah our head, our pretty head, what to wear, well I will tell you, the rules are simple.
Best there is:
Guillaume`s Face
15% ds, 35% cb, 15 str, Fhr
this one surely has it all...... only replace this with certain really rare setups if you already have nearly 100% ds and tons of cb...
this helmet offers us all fhr we ever need and the other stats really shine on any physical melee.
other options:
Vampire Gaze,Crown of Thieves, Tal Rasha`s Mask, CoA, Bloodcraft
Rare Circs with skills, leach,resis,stats
Armor
What do we wear on our chest. there are simply not that many uniques that make sense on a Fanazealot but a couple of nice runewords.
Fortitude
Resistances, 300% off weapon ed, Life and some nice defense.... probably one of the best armors around.
Chains of Honor
More prisma but less damagheboost overall, in Tristram better than Fortitude, outside of it: less good
Lionheart
one of the top armors because of nice stats and resistances, if you already have enough cb, this is the thing to take.
Duress
Nice one, defense,fhr,cb,ed and prisma if you still need cb, take this one
Treachery
If you want one of the Heavier weapons, this may help you a lot. This armor offers Lvl 15 fade as trigger, this means 15% damred and 62 prisma.... you`ll want to use this in tristram.
Tyrael`s Might
pretty rare, useable, but a good old lionheart beats this baby any day of the week.
Duriel`s Shell
like a lower version of the Tyrael`s... if you`ve got nothing else, take this.
Smoke
Resistances... Cheap solution but not that good.
Griswold`s Heart,Black Hades
Cheap and effective because of the three sockets... extremely low cost versions, either for ias or resis.
another option is, obviously, a 4 socket 100 life elite armor but those are hardly ever more beneficial than a fortitude
Sidenote: Why no eni.... because even a lionheart has more offensive potential than enigma, you don`t need tele, you have charge...
+ getting decent fcr on a fanazealot can hardly be done without loosing stability or killspeed.
Shields
Give me something to protect me and to save me.
best of the best:
Herald of Zakarum
Skills,defense,vita,str,resistances and a socket.....
this is what makes this our number one shield... we need all that this baby has to offer.
Good:
Exile:
we may not achieve maxspeed with vertain setups and this shield, however it`s trigger of LT and defense make this a good shield... but iat best in an ethereal bugged Sacred Targe, as you should do with any shield runeword.
Other good options are the Sacred Rondach or the Kurast Shield or Royal Shield.
Griswold`s Honor
3 sockets, 45 Prisma, Blockmod, depending on yoour weapon this is the best shield there is was and ever will be.
Sanctuary:
50-70 prisma, blockmod,dex,slower missiles.... one hell of a defensive package
Rhyme:
Nice thing with blockmod and resis.
Nonplusultra: 30/20 block mod 45 allres 4 sockets elite paladin shield
sidenote:
Why no Phoenix: because we already have tons of off weapon ed, we do not reach maxspeed with certain weapons and the triggered firestorm disrupts our Zeal series.... this way we loose more damage than we may gain with this thing.
Gloves
Actually we have very few possiblilities here:
High end:
Laying of Hands
20 ias, 50 fire resistances and most importantly 350 ed vs demons (~116% overall) make this the best melee gloves for our plans.
other choices:
Dracul`s Grasp
a little str and life tab on strike.. useful in tristram ore for hc, but if you need LT to survive outside of tristram, play another build.....
LT overrides our merc`s decrepefy and thus takes away ~ half of our damage.
Bloodfists:
mindam and fhr, nice things to have around
aside of that:
Souldrainers,Venom Grip, Ik Parts, Rares witzh nice stas,resis,ias or Bloodcrafts.
Belts
well few choices here
Nosferatu`s Coil
Ias,str and ll, one of the best belts around
Thundergod`s Vigor
good choice in tristram and allows us to take a bath in soulfire.... lovely, however, the FoH trigger costs us damage because it gives us a castdelay and thus moments in which we cannot attack.
String of Ears
Well 8% ll and it`s frequent drops make this normally your belt to take
Wilhelm`s Pride
If you need the manaleach, take this
Razortail
Maxdam on a belt, if you got everything covered and just want to increase damage:take this one
Bloodcrafts....
Shoes
well well this is quite simple, we have three choices here.
Goreriders:
Overall the best shoes around, ds,cb,ow nice stats for us best shoes in tristram and for nearly all other setups outside of tristram
Wartravellers:
Well str, 15-25 damage are the things we like about theese boots... They beat Goreriders in certain setups and thus are either number one or 2 on our list.
Goblin Toes
25% cb and pretty cheap. Third best boots around.
Rings
Ravenfrost:
Nonfreeze,ar,dex,coldabsorb.... one nice thing to have around... cheapest possibility to gain nonfreeze.
Rare Leachers/Bloodcrafts
Well nice things can spawn on this, resis,ll or dualleach,stats..... best things there are
Peace of Nature:
Well if you wanna visit the good ole nille.. take this with you
cheap options:
Cathan,Manald,Carrion Wind
Amus
Highlord`s Wrath
20 ias, ds on lvl and lightning resis: First choice for nearly all setups....
Atma`s Scarab
Only interesting because of AD on strike... if you already have enough DS, this is better than a highlord`s wrath
other options:
Crecent moon, metalgrid,Bloodcraft or Safetycraft
Weapons
Well well now comes the tricky part...........................
Best there is:
Death
huge amounts of ed, ds and cb, ar and glacial spike on strike, which is nice for the crowdcontrol..... one hell of a weapon
no fvear of manaburners because of ml on board...
baseweapon of Choice: etheral Ettin Axe reason: compared to the BA you have a higher avdam--> higher weapon average and higher overall avcerage damage, even the sockets you use to get the needed ias cannot make up for that
aim for 80 ias with fanalvl 27 or some more ias with less fana
BA: if you choose this, you should switch for another amu to get the finest of the setup, atma`s is your choice here.
less good:
Grief:
High average damage and some ds, unfortunately no CB
Baseweapon of choice: PB
Stormlash:
CB,speed,damage and Static... > one nice weapon, especially versus bosses or big masses of monsters
socket it with : LO or ed+mindam
Schaeffer`s Hammer
Damage,ar,static,lightning resistances....
One nice weapon, however it needs 120 ias for maxspeed but that can be taken care of.....
socket it with: depending on eq: Shael,ias+ed,ed+max
Death Cleaver
ED,66% ds and nice speed, however low durability
Socket it with: ed+ias or ed+maxda/ed+mindam
Oath:
well nice weapon for it`s price, but it in an ethereal baseweapon and enjoy it`s nice amount of ed and speed
Baseweapon of choice: Ettin Axe, Small Crescent,BA, Conquest Sword
other weapons:
Upped Headstrike, Upped Butcher`s pupil, Eth Demon Limb, Nords Tenderizer, Baranar`s Star
nonplusultra:
Eth Selfrep 40 ias 2 sockets 450 ed legendary mallet Lo Lo
Free Sockets:
simple: Resistances, speed, damage
depending on your overall damage and off weapon ed aand so on.... it depends wether enhanced damage or maximum damage.. you have to calculate that yourself.
Setups
The Standar Setup:
Gulli
armor of choice
shield of choice
Highlord`s
LoH
Gores
Raven+ll ring
String
The Schaeffer`s Setup(high end):
Gulli Ias
Belt of choice
Griswolds 3x ias
Highlord`s
LoH
Raven+ll ring
Schaeffer`s ED
Gores
The Death Setup:
Guillmaue`s Head ias
Armor of your choice
Herald Ias
Nosferatu`s Coil
Highlord`s Wrath
LoH
Raven+ LL ring
Death Ettin
Gores--> later WT`s
--> lvl 27 fana needed
The Atma Setup 1
Gulli Ias
Armor of your Choice
LoH
Nossi
Herald Ias
Atma
Gores
raven+ll ring
Death BA/upped Headstriker
The Atma Setup Death Cleaver
Gulli ed or max
Herald resis,ed or max
DC
LoH
Atmas,Gores
String/Tgod/xxxx
Raven+llring
Grief Setup
Gulli ED
Herald ED
Loh
Highlord`s
Armor of your choice
ravem+ll ring
Tgod/ll belt
Gores
2nd slot
One of the anti PI/IM measures Mentioned
Conv+ Zeal:
Weapon: Azurewrath,Gimmershreds,Nords,Demon Lomb
Shield: Herald, Griswold,Tiamat`s Rebuke, Dragonscales
Vengeance: 1st Slot
Dec: Lawbringer+ Shield
Tristram:
LT-Wand or Dagger+ Shield with resis
anti-Im:
Gimmers, wildwitch String, Widowmaker,Demon`s Arch
Inventory
Fill in whatever you need
if you want to, take a torch and an annihilus
resicharms or maybe lifecharms...
but most of all:
Offensive aura skillers and/or maxdam/ar charms, but this totally depends on what you use and what exactly you have.
Mercenary
The one to go for is the a2 nightmare offensive mercenary with his might aura, unless you are really struggling with safety, damage and immunes. You can think about an A5 merc with lawbringer to trigger decrepefy. You will lose the might aura though, so it might be better to simply have the lawbringer on switch yourself.
Equipment
First of all befor we talk about our sidekick`s gear. He needs some stuff.
Weapons
Time for his big tool.
Reaper`s Toll
ds,ll,speed and most of all decrepefy are the things that help us... the curse means ~ 100% more effective damage for us
if you don´t use atma`s scarab, use this.
Insight
up to 290 ed, meditation and critikal strike (wich means chance of dealing twice the physical damage)
probably the biggest bang for the buck considering poleweapons. and you will never have to worry about mana.
Obedience
5 socks Polewearm
Well 370 ED,40 CB,20-30 prisma and 40 FHR all that for a little price.
Other weapons:
Just to name some weapons that might be of use but cannot really shine on Fanazealot mercenaries:
Bonehew, Tombreaver, Upped Hone Sundan,Arioc`s needle
Helmets
If your merc already has a source for lifeleach, use
Guillaumes Face
There is no better boost for physical damage with the 15 ds and 35 CB
Vampire Gaze (lvl 41)
dualleech and damred are one nice thing.
Crown of Thieves (lvl 49)
10% lifeleach are what makes this our choice sometimes.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (lvl 66)
10% dualleach and 15 prisma are the stats for this cheap allrounder.
Andariels Visage (lvl 83)
10 Ias, up to 30strength and 8-10% lifeleach are the arguments for this helmet: If you use it you will have to put in a Ral or a jewel with fire resistances in it because it also has -30% fire resistances.
Armors
Duriel`s Shell (lvl 41)
Nonfreeze, 15 strength,20 prisma... all time classic
Treachery (Shael Thul Lem) (lvl 43)
45 ias, 60 prisma and 15 damred if fade triggers
one might reach a frame breakpoint with this, depending on mercweapon and other ias on the merc`s equipment. Cheap and easy.. nice one
Griswolds Heart (lvl 45)/Black Hades(lvl 53)
Put in Ral+Ort+Thul and enjoy this cheap sollution to a number of problems.
The Gladiator`s Bane (lvl 85)
Magicdamreduce and Nonfreeze and Damred.. a nice armor, because the higher the merc`s level, the less resistances are needed and this armor offers better protection against elemental and magic attacks.
9 Tristram
Yes a Fanazealot can go and kill all three Ubers with no problems but you have to make some adjustments.
1. One point in Salvation
2. Tons of CB, a little bit of OW and LT.
Items:
Weapons:
Strength in a PB, Heaven`s Light, Astreon`s, Redeemer,Grief, Black, wand or dagger with LT charges.
Armor pieces:
Duress, Smoke, Fortitude,Vipermagi,CoH,Goblins,Gores,Guillaume`s Face, Herald of Zakarum, 4 PD Palashield, Elite Spirit,Exile,Dracul`s Grasp.
You smite with yourFanatism and take down the three big ones, use Salvation versus Mephisto and quickly dispatch any minions after the uber is dead.
Tactics for Tristram are best explained in the Poorman`s Guide to Tristram wich is avialable at the Amazon Basin... I suggest you read it, there is no better description of what you need to do.
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=63770
so guys
introducing my zealot
He does his baals alone on Players 8 and if I hear anyone complaining about low life.... he does not need it... few monsters survive a zeal series of him.....
He did a couple of tristruns and killed the Organbearers with ease
Stats with Might from merc and you can still ~ double the damage because of 93% ds
Death Ettin
Gulli Ias
Fortitude
LoH
Highlord`s
WT`s
rare LL ring with dex,str and prisma
Raven
on switch: Azurewrath+Dragonscales
Inv: Torch,Anni, 1x Off aura skiller
rest maxdam/AR
Skills:
Fana Max,HS max,Zeal Max,Sacrifice Max
1 Redemption,Salvation,Cleansing
Rest: Conv
Merc: Gulli 34 ED duriel`s Shell Non eth Reaper`s
what advantage do we have by choosing str over vita:
well our life insurance ain`t our life pool because we can leach life....
the higher our damage is, the more life we can leach
also the higher our damage is, the faster do the monsters die--> the less damage we receive, the less we have to leach
one could also go for LT but that won´t work in those cases that are dangerous for a fanazealot
and normally a fanazealot dies only to certain things, mostly unawareness and bad gameplay and inexperienced players/people overestimating themselves
reason 1: dolls.....
killing them on your own and receiving the corpse explosions will kill you
reason 2: undead souls...
straight away not avoiding them or dodging their attacks, luring them into close combart but standing there and getting fried
reason 3 Iron Maiden
nothing will save you from this other than good tactics and a second slot or cleansing or another new curse on your head
reason 4 PI monsters
no leaching possible neither with ll nor LT
countermeasures.. see guide, if they are AD`ed or decrepefied, they are vulnerable toi your attacks, LT would be bad since it overrides ad and dec and thus makes you not leach...
reason 5 : bad positioning and tough luck
ad+fana lister and standing where you can get decrepefy on your head is surely one way to die.....
there are situations you die... and 99% of them do not care about your life at all, but about your tactics
and I surely prefer the more offensive version of handling the game
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next reason:
Damage contra Vita:
I did my paladin as sign of what is possible and what can work
compared to a vita as vita can build, I have ~262% more off weapon ed
wich means with my weapon and setup:
248-575 damage (including all max/min form eq)
---->649-1506 extradamage from str
--> 93% ds
1252------------2907
damage extra
which means, for my setup
70-164 life leached
(if a monster has 50% resis in hell)--> this means 35-82 life leached/strike
wich means
182-426 hitpoints leached per second
if decrepefy makes those 50% become 0 %
this means
364-852 HP leached per second
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