neithan02
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Hab mal bissken rumgesucht und den noch online gefunen, havbe aber keinen Zugriff merh auf den Account und muss so ein bisschen umplanen, wird noch aufgehübscht aber so ist er erstmal halbwegs fertig geschrieben
ite this because I think the guides that have been posted so far are rather bad.
I want to thank people at the Amazon Basin and PlanetDiablo for their help and knowledge.
So here we go
The Guide:
1. Basics
2. Abbreveations
3. Attributes
4. Faster Cast Rate Hit Recovery and Blocking
5. Skills
6. Equipment
7. Mercenary
8. Game play
9. Hammerdin and MF
10 Hellfire Quest
11 Enigma
12 Maximum Hammer Damage
1 The basics
So why do I choose a Hammerdin. The answer to this question is pretty easy. He only has one monster that is immune against his attacks, the Wendigo found in Kurast, guarding Lam Esen`s Tome, this magic hammers deal a lot of damage in a very short amount of time and since all the gear you need to get him through hell can be found in normal and early nightmare games, he is one hell of a starting character. Concerning his item-find capabilities and the potential for Tristram, this build is one nice thing to have around, though playing him may sometimes lead to boredom because of it’s easiness. To play a Hammerdin, you only need ~5-6 different skills. Your Blessed Hammer, the Concentration aura to boost it’s damage, Cleansing to get rid of any curses, Redemption to fill your mana and life and Vigor and Charge for quick movement. On the defensive side we rely on our Holy Shield and full resistances.
2Abbreveations
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.
Strength
allows us to wear or gear, we do not need it for any other purpose, hence it follows that we only put in as much as we need for our equipment.
Dexterity
boosts our defence, 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 under the point Faster Cast Rate, Hit Recovery, Blocking and Resistances
Vitality
is our life, nothing more and nothing less. Every stapoint that we do not need for our equipment or maxblock should end up in here.
Energy
Although we are playing a caster, we do not put any points in energy because all the mana we need comes from other sources.
If you play self found and feel the need of mana, you can put something in here but from my experience, if you use dual spirit you normally do not need any mana from Energy, however this asks for a lot of countess runs in the first place.
Long story short:
Str: for items
Dex: for Maxblock
Vita: rest
Ene: nothing, zero, nada, niente
4 Faster Cast Rate, Hit Recovery, Blocking and Resistances
These four things are essential parts of our game play. With enough FCR, we fire our hammers at a decent speed, creating a cloud filled with damage that will kill every monster that we want to see dead. Blocking, resistances and hit recovery are essential parts of our defensive strategy, they are what make us survive.
Faster Cast Rate
Diablo divides a second into 25 frames, for any action that relies on frames, like the cast animation, it is essential to reach certain caps, thus being faster than before.
A Paladin has two important casting-breakpoints. We either play at 2,5 casts/second (10 frames) if we have anything between 75% and 124 % faster cast rate, the other cap is reached if we have 125% or more faster cast rate. We then do 2,7 casts/second(9 frames). This is important because one may have a lower char screen damage with 125 fcr than with 75fcr but because of the higher rate of fire, one may still deal more damage per second.
One may play with less FCR than 75% but as I have experienced it, playing at such rates just is not that easy and it offers us no advantages. It is a choice in the classic mode but not for LoD.
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 Defence
Defence
Pure char screen defence is not that important to us because we are seldom faced with monsters that can withstand us for more than one or 2 seconds or there are monsters that laugh about any defence because they use skills that ignore our defence like Baal’s minions or Sand Raiders and Moonies.
For a Hammerdin it is not important to aim at a high defence, it does not offer us any advantages. We do not need to face our enemies at an arm’s length if we don’t want to and we have 75% blocking anyway.
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.
With the block calculator in my signature you can figure out how many points you need to put into dexterity at what level with the gear and skills that you have.
The basic rule is, the higher your chance of blocking is, the less points you have to put into Dexterity and the more life you have in the end.
Using the calculator
The top field is filled with the sum of your % chance to block. This means your shield block (base shield block+ potential modifiers like 15% or 30% increased chance of blocking) As an example, a Holy Targe has a Shield block of 60, a Herald of Zakarum has a base block of 52 as Gilded Shield and 30% increased chance of blocking, meaning a Herald has a base block of 82. Add the increased chance of blocking you gain with your Holy Shield to the sum any increased chance of blocking you get from other sources.
After doing this, you fill your current sum of Dexterity in the middle field and your current level or the level you’re aiming at in the lowest field. Now hit the button "berechnen".
The first field below the button shows your current chance of blocking enemy attacks.
The second field shows your chance to block while running, it is 1/3 of your chance to block while walking/standing still.
The third field shows how many points you need to put into Dexterity to reach 75% block aka. Maxblock.
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. Here it is the same thing as with Faster Cast Rate, there are breakpoints that have to be reached, to be faster.
I suggest playing with 48% Fhr it is easily achievable and offers enough speed to be quick.
5 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 skill points you cannot think of any use for.
First of all, if you want to calculate your screen damage and plan your skills thoroughly, use this calculator
Combat Skills
Well this is our battle gear and as mentioned before, it is part of our defence. Five skills are important for us.
Holy Bolt
Preskill of Blessed Hammer and 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
This skill is our main attack it creates magic hammers that swirl around us, beginning left of the Paladin, travelling around us twice and enhancing the distance to the caster. With this we can create a cloud of massive damage around us. The Hammers ignore the resistances of undead monsters or any demons so there is only one kind of Immune monsters throughout the whole game.
One should train how to work with this attack and see how he can hit with the hammers. It takes some time to learn how to position yourself but once you’ve gotten into it, there is nothing you cannot hit. Put 20 points in here, this is what you need throughout the whole game.
For aiming with the Hammer: https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/images/thumb/e/ef/Blessed_Hammer.png/600px-Blessed_Hammer.png
Holy Shield
This skill enhances our defence by adding 15% bonus of our base defence 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;44
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, though as far as have experienced it, a level of 16 is enough for any PvM task.
If you want to take your Hammerdin to take down Tristram, you should think of maxing Holy Shield because of the better smite damage.
Offensive Auras
Well here we have our boosters. Three auras are what we need.
Might
Useful during the first levels and 1 Point as Preskill to Blessed Aim and Concentration.
Blessed Aim
Synergy to our Blessed Hammer, 20 Points
Concentration
This is our damage booster. It affects the synergized magical damage of our hammer and not only it’s base dam. 20 Points and not one less.
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
Meditation
This aura regenerates mana and life. We need mana regeneration in one way or the other.(Redemption,Meditation or mana after each kill and mana potions)
There is the rune word "insight" for an A2 mercenary that has this aura, and I suggest that you get that as soon as you can (lvl 27) I would only put one point in here if you do not want to rely on the other mana sources which means: no point necessary
Defiance
This aura has a passive bonus to our Holy Shield, for every level our Holy Shield’s defence 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 defence and have already maxed Holy Shield you can put points in here.
1 Point, maybe more, later
Vigor
A synergy to our Blessed Hammer and it allows us to walk and run faster for a longer amount of time.
20 Points
Redemption
This Aura redeems the dead, thus killing corpses and giving us mana and life for them. It has two uses on a Hammerdin. 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. 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 because we have enough + skill on our items to get a decent rate of regeneration.
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, so if you want to stroll around in the WSK and hate to wear a Thundergod`s Vigor or a Wisp Projector, use this to gain some advantage against souls.
If you are interested in the Chaos Sanctuary and do not want to use Hotspurs or Infernostrides or a Rising Sun, use Resist Fire to gain more fire resistances and receive less damage from the Infector of Souls, Venom Lords and the likes.
Cut, next scene!
Blessed Hammer: 20
Concentration: 20
Vigor: 20
Blessed Aim: 20
Holy Shield: Depending on gear, reach one of the following levels:16;19;23;27;34;44
Cleansing: 1
Redemption: 1
Preskills: 1
Possibilities for skill points, depending on gear and purpose:
Holy Shield, Defiance, Salvation, Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, Charge, Smite
Side note
While playing Single player or totally without any help from others online, you may have to come up with another attack, but more on that in the game play section. 6 Equipment
Yeah we don’t want to walk around naked, do we.
There are tons of different setups for a Hammerdin, therefore 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.
There are some things that are nice to have but not necessary for our build.
Helmets
Yeah our head, our pretty head, what to wear, well I will tell you, the rules are simple.
Tarnhelm (lvl 15)
Yes you read correctly a Tarnhelm. It is one nice thing to have around in the beginning because of it’s low levelreq, it offers us 1 extra skill and some mf and extra gold. A Harle for the little fellers and I can tell you, I’ve used that thing quite long, far up until hell Mephisto was down.
Lore (Ort+Sol) (lvl27)
Well our first rune word. It comes in pretty cheap and offers us +1 all skill, some mana and lightning resistances. One nice add are the 2 Mana after each kill which help our blue ball to stay filled once we are engaged in combat.
Peasant Crown (lvl 28)
Well well, this is some nice thing. It offers 60 life, 30 mana, +1 all skill and a little bit of faster run. One nice thing to have around.
Harlequin’s Crest (lvl 62)
Here comes the good old classic, good for all casters helmet. +2 all skills and the bonus of life and mana combined with a little damred and that magic find you can’t do anything wrong with this.
Rare/Magic circlets
sometimes we may need something else or we have no access to the mentioned hats but there are rares and magics which can help out.
They either have + all paladin skills or +combat skills with nice adds like statpoints,life/mana ,resistances and sockets. Faster Cast Rate may also be one nice thing, if we reach a higher cap with it. They are potentially better than the Harle but such circlets are rarely seen and whether they are better, always depends on the setup of the paladin.
Armors
Hey we will need this. There are many nice things an armour can offer us, so let’s do it guys.
+ Walking around naked would mean trouble ^^
Stealth (tal+eth) (lvl 17)
2 socks armour
The first rune word in this gallery. It is cheap and useful if we want to reach 75 fcr pretty quickly at lvl 25 when we will start hammering. Apart from that it does not offer that much for a Hammerdin. Dex is nice, manareq also nice in the beginning but hey we don’t really need it that much.
Skin of the Vipermagi (level 29)
Isn’t this a beauty. 30 Fcr, 20-35 prisma and it also offers +1 all skill. For many purposes this is it, perfection has a name, accept it.
Smoke (Nef Lum) (lvl 37)
2 socks armour
Cheap and 50prismatic resistances... can’t think of anything better.
Skullder`s Ire (42)
One Skill and can you spell MF
you’re out there hunting for items.. Take this and you will not be disappointed.
Que Hegan`s Wisdom (lvl 51)#
Skill, fc,Manaereq,fhr and Maek a nice one, if no Vipermagi is available.
Enigma (Jah Ith Ber) (lvl 65)
3 socks armour
at first sight, this armour looks rather nice, however, if you know a little more about the game, you know that it is far less good, than it seems to be. I will discuss this later.
Other Armours
anything that has + skills (except principle because it offers too little for a Gul) or resis may be useful, however those mentioned above are the most common ones.
Gloves
Well, we gotta protect our pretty nails, right?
Bloodfist (lvl 9)
30 Fhr and 30 hit points are something nice.
Chance Guards(lvl 15)
Up to 40% MF are what these gloves have to offer.
Magefist (lvl 23)
20 FCR and manareq, for me the best gloves around.
Frostburn (lvl 29)
If you have enough Fcr, you can use these gloves to gain more mana.
Trang Oul`s Claws (lvl 45)
FCR and some resistances, are what these gloves offer, imho Magefists are the better choice, though.
Rares/Crafteds
Think of adds like stat points, however I suggest in accepting the unique gloves, normally it is a race between Chancies, Mages and Frosties, depending on your gear and play style.
Belts
Potions need their place, and the boys drink it, too.
You know!
Nightsmoke (lvl 20)
10 prisma, 50 mana and damage to mana are the arguments for this belt, it is nice in the beginning and if you upgrade it can hold 16 potions, which I recommend.
Godlwrap (lvl 27)
This belt only offers MF and some more gold from monsters.
Gloom`s Trap (lvl 36)
15% maximum mana, mana and Vitality, this is a nice package to have around.
Thundergod`s Vigor (lvl 47)
Lightning Resistances and hit points in combination with lightning absorb. If you face souls, you will love this belt.
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth (lvl 53)
This belt offers 20 points dexterity, this equals 60 hit points, in combination with the 10-15% MF this is a nice belt.
Credendum (lvl 65)
10 points strength , 10 points dexterity and 15 prisma, a nice belt.
Arachnid Mesh (lvl 80)
20% FC, mana and +1 skill is what this belt has to offer.
Rares/Crafteds
Well FHR ,stats and resistances are nice things, if you use the Caster-Craft -recipe you will also get between 5 and 10 % FCR.
Shoes
Walking the hot sands, humid jungles, mountains and the hell with bare feet. Come on, we are no masochists.
Tearhaunch (lvl 29)
These shoes offer hit points in the form of 5 Strength and 5 Dexterity in combination with 10 prisma.
Waterwalk (lvl 32)
These shoes offer 40-65 hit points and 15 Dexterity, meaning overall up to 110 hit points. The fire resistances and FRW are nice adds.
Silkweave (lvl 36)
These shoes offer 10% maximum mana, 30 FRW and 5 Maek, so 5 mana for every killed monster.
War Traveler (lvl 42)
These shoes offer up to 50% MF.
Aldur`s Advance (lvl 45)
50 hit points, 40-50 fire resistances and some FRW are what makes these boots a nice choice.
Sandstorm Trek (lvl 64)
20 Fhr and up to 30 stat points are a nice choice.
Rares
Stats, resistances,mf could be what you may find.
Amulets
BLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Mahim-Oak Curio (lvl 25)
10 prisma and 10 points each for Dexterity, Vitality,Strength and Energy. One nice choice.
Saracen's Chance (lvl 47)
Bigger brother of the Mahim Oak with 15-25 prisma and 12 points for each attribute.
Seraph`s Hymn (lvl 65)
2 all skill, that is all this amu has to offer.
The Rising Sun (65)
Being invincible against fire attacks can be pretty useful. The absolute fire absorb may heal you in combination with your fire resistances. A nice thing to have around if you face fire attacks.
Mara`s Kaleidoscope (lvl 67)
2 all skills, 20-30 prisma and 5 points for each attribute. this is one item that is nice to have around.
Magics/Crafteds/Rares
Magic amulets with +3 combat skills can drop pretty often and are a nice choice.
Crafteds and rares can beat a Maras if they have nice stats like +2 Paladin, stat points, resis, mf and especially with crafts some nice FCR.
Rings
MORE BLING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Aside from Carrion Wind and Manald Heal, every Unique ring has it’s use, either for fire or lightning absorb (Dwarf Star and Wisp Projector), MF (Nagelring) More Damage (Bul Kathos or Stone of Jordan) or nonfreeze from the Raven Frost (one can do without nonfreeze without any problems).
If you want to hammer down Nilathak, a Nature’s Peace is what you should take with you.
Rares/Magics and Crafts
Are options to fill in blanks like FCR or have other nice adds like stat points /resis
Shields
Don’t punch me, for I is Shieldcat.
Well basically here we normally have two alternatives.
Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) (lvl 25)
+2 All skills, 25-35 FCR, 35%cold,lightning and poinsonresis , 55 FHR, 22 Vita and 89-112 mana.... one nice shield
as a bonus, put this rune word in a Paladin Shield with a nice Base block, prismatic resistances (up to 45) and as little Str-req as possible, either Sacred Targe (60 block), Sacred Rondach (58 block) or Royal Shield (55 block)
This shield gets rid of all our FHR worries, it comes with 55% fhr, making us get the 48 fhr cap with 5 frames.
Herald of Zakarum (lvl 42)
Well well, good for every Paladin, one might say.
However, resistances are except fire, higher if you use spirit, the possibility of better fcr and fhr caps are more than enough to justify the use of a spirit instead of a herald.
However, if you favour screen dam over real damage or have enough mana, FHR and FCR, you may think of a Herald.
Rares/Magics
are only an alternative, if you play Single player without Plugy or play nonladder and don’t want to pay for a spirit shield. In ladder mode, a Spirit shield is so cheap you’d have to be insane not to use it if you can.
nice adds for rares: Offensive Auras/Paladin skills, blocking modifications, resistances, sockets.
Example:
+2 Offensive Auras
+30% Chance of Blocking
+20% increased blocking speed (irrelevant)
17% faster hit recovery
a little life and mana
+16 Prisma and a perfect diamond in the socket
Weapons
I have always thought about this part, however I will only talk about the real caster-weapons.
In a later part of this guide I will also post the maximum damage equipment for one hammerdin and for 2 ones.
Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) (lvl 25)
4 socks one handed sword
Like the shield, FCR,FHR,Mana,Life and +2 All skill for this price at that level.
It’s the economy, Stupid! Work with it.
A 4 sword with 4 sockets can be found starting in the Arreat Plateau on normal Difficulty.
Suicide Branch lvl 25
a little prisma, 50 FCR and +1 all skill... only to be used if you don’t have a spirit sword.
Heart of the Oak (Ko Vex Pul Thul) (lvl 55)
4 socks flail
+3! All skill, 30-40 prisma 40 FCR and 10 dex + a little mana.... best mainstream- hammerdin weapon
Wizardspike (lvl 61)
75 ! Prisma, 50 FCR and some mana.. one nice item, gets rid of your resistance worries and eases your FCR situation a nice thing and to my mind the second best weapon for a hammerdin.
Alternative Weapons
It is a cookie cutter and normally you do not need any alternative weapons, however there may be some choices.
Call to Arms (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) (lvl 57)
5 s one handed sword or flail
with the Battle Command and Battle orders from this weapon, you can boost your Life/Mana and Damage.
Naj`s Puzzler (lvl 78)
Two Reasons.. one is legal Teleport
Second one... Use this weapon in combination with Charge. That thing can deal some damage.
Charms
Let’s make this part short.
Your Inventory is used to fill out any blanks and give extra damage.
you can use
Paladin Combat or the less effective Offensive Aura skill charms
If you happen to own a Hellfire Torch or an Annihilus, you can use such charms because they give nice stats- and skillboni.
Other things that can be of use are
MF charms
resistance charms
life- charms
FHR charms if you want to reach the next cap.
Sockets
If you happen to have any free sockets, there are only a few choices that you have to fill them
1st one: MF, mostly perfect topazes in your helmet and armour and Jewels in your weapon
I never understand those that use Ist runes for mf, you’re supposed to find items and not
waste them.
2nd one: Life. If you own a CTA or if there is a barbarian around... use rubies, in the end
they are more effective than Jah runes.
3rd one: Resistances
7 Mercenary
Well you are free to choose your mercenary if you work with a Hammerdin. You only have that one immune monster, so let’s take a look at all our choices.
1st Rouques:
Weak, reposition themselves quickly, deal some elemental damage, however we don’t really gain anything from them, even a harmony rouque is not that much of an advantage.
2nd: Ironwolves
Elemental attacks that we cannot really boost. Only interesting for dupe-using guys that have some issues with "wanna get xp quickly"
3rd Barbarians
well those are some melee fighters, they block and can endure some punishment, however they are no match for
4th desert mercenaries.
These Melees come equipped with a polearm and auras.
This means: Insight/obedience or some other nice weapons.
If we take a closer look at all those auras, there are four candidates.
a: normal combat mercenary: he has a Prayer aura, which is even doubled, if you give him an Insight polearm.
b: normal defensive mercenary: he has a defiance aura and this boosts our defence, however a hammerdin has his Holy Shield to boost his defence
c: nightmare defensive mercenary: this one uses holy frost, which slows down all monsters, therefore these monsters move slower and receive more hits from your hammers and deal less damage if they do not cast spells (casting animations are not affected by freezing effects)
d: nightmare offensive mercenary: he has a might aura, which might be of use if you play in a party that does not already have a might merc.
Equipment
First of all before we talk about our sidekick’s gear. He needs some stuff.
Looking at his speed, use the speedcalc in my signature.
As you know it is dam dealt per second and not screen dam, that is important, and one may need to look at the best attack caps for his hireling.
Weapons
Time for his big tool.
Insight (Ral Tir Tal Sol) (lvl 27)
4socks Polearm
up to 290 Ed, meditation and critical strike (which means chance of dealing twice the physical damage)
probably the biggest bang for the buck considering polearms. and you will never have to worry about mana.
Obedience (Hel Ko Thul Eth Fal)(lvl 41)
5 socks Polewearm
Well 370 ED,40 CB,20-30 prisma and 40 FHR all that for a little price.
If you don’t need an insight-mercenary you can use this and will not be disappointed.
Other weapons:
Just to name some weapons that might be of use but cannot really shine on Hammerdin mercenaries:
Bonehew, Reaper’s Toll, Tombreaver, Upped Hone Sundan.
Helmets
If your merc already has a source for life leach, use
Guillaume`s Face
There is no better boost for physical damage with the 15 ds and 35 CB
Vampire Gaze (lvl 41)
dual leech and damred are one nice thing.
Crown of Thieves (lvl 49)
10% life leach are what makes this our choice sometimes.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (lvl 66)
10% dual leach and 15 prisma are the stats for this cheap all-rounder.
Andariels Visage (lvl 83)
10 Ias, up to 30strength and 8-10% life leach 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.
Griswold’s Heart (lvl 45)/Black Hades(lvl 53)
Put in Ral+Ort+Thul and enjoy this cheap solution to a number of problems.
The Gladiator’s Bane (lvl 85)
Magicdamreduce and Nonfreeze and Damred.. a nice armour, because the higher the merc`s level, the less resistances are needed and this armour offers better protection against elemental and magic attacks.
8 Game play
Well, well what is there, that one needs to know about playing a hammerdin.
First of all, I must say that the first 25 levels are a pest.
You should rely on a party or think of some setups to get you to lvl 25. I normally work with the standard attack and a shopped sceptre with Holy Fire until I am well past Andariel. Save all your skill points, and only put in the ones you need as prereqs for your Hammer, Holy Shield and Conce, Prayer and Cleansing are a must.
The problem is, that you learn your main attack at lvl 18, but you have neither FCR nor Mana, to really use it until you can wear dual spirit @ lvl 25. Magefists or other fcr items will make you reach 75 fcr and with the boost of ~200 mana, you can start hammering.
Looking at the distribution of your skillpoints, you should do it as follows:
First save all skillpoints you don’t need for skills like Prayer, Holy Shield or other Prereqs. Once you reach lvl 18, your saved skill points in your Hammer, Concentration and synergies until you have used up all your saved skill points but 2.
On your next lvl-up you put one in Conce, Hammer and one Synergy, after that it is maxing you Hammer first, after that one synergy and Concentration in such a way that you have one point in your synergy, one point Conce, one point synergy.....
Take a look at your Holy Shield as well, never forget your defence!
After Hammer, one Synergy Concentration and your Holy Shield are at the level you’re aiming at, max out the last synergy.
There are two ways of using the hammer.
The first one is to create a hammer cloud in advance, before any monsters reach you and let them walk into it.
The second one is to directly approach the enemies and start casting right in front of them. Watch the point where your hammers appear, that is a little above your Paladin and to his left, from there the hammer travels around the paladin, enlarging the distance between itself and the caster. This Image will show you how this looks in game and you will get an idea of how to position yourself to hit.
To train your abilities with this skill, I suggest walking the Chaos Sanctuary or and open area that you come across,. The CS is special because normally enemies will walk right into your hammers, due to the construction of the map. The mix of monsters and their AI are different, some will attack directly, others will flee from you, and thus it is a good place to train.
It is also fairly large and does not have that many walls that could be a problem.
Your hammer will go through any opponent, but a little wall will stop it. Thus narrow hallways and dungeons like Coldworm` s layer in act 2 are not that nice to play in as a hammerdin, in fact the layer of the worms is that area, that I simply hate playing as hammerdin because you cannot really kill anything in there with hammers.
What a Hammerdin does not like:
A2 visiting Coldworm because down there it is so narrow that you hammer normally is casted directly into a wall... using your merc, smite or normal attack might work in normal and nightmare difficulty, but in hell this is really painful. You have Hell swarms, animals that are PI therefore smite does not work, you either have to lure them into areas where your hammers work or use Lawbringer`s Decrepefy and zeal and let your mercenary kill them, Conviction in combination with vengeance or zeal are also options... but the easiest one is to get an amulet with Teleport charges and just to tele through that dungeon and kill the worm in the end.
Be sure to have enough money.
A3 getting Lam Esen`s Tome because the Wendigos cannot be hurt by your hammers, they are animals.
Use smite to stun them and let your merc do the rest.
9 Hammerdin and MF
Finding items is a question that interests every player of this game.
I thought about using a Hammerdin for this task and have found him able to take this challenge without any problems.
He deals a good punch but costs little and with few investments can be up to the task of finding items for you.
Areas:
Act 1:
If you have some experience with the hammers you can run the Pit.
Both Crypts at the graveyard are only something for experienced players.
Act 2:
Ancient Tunnels are a nice area if you know a little bit about working with the hammers.
Act 3:
Travincal but watch out for the enchantments of the High Council some combinations really hurt.
Act 4:
River of Flames and Chaos Sanctuary are those areas that literally scream "MF-Hammerdin".
If you have a "Rising Sun" Amulet these areas are yours... go for these areas and no other ones... here you will find everything you need.
Act 5:
The WSK is only something if you have good resistances and lightning absorb.
Baals Minions of Destruction are dangerous, you need good damage and a strong mercenary.
Baal himself is not that much of a problem if you have a nice party, static or some CB and Smite.
You can also run bosses like Eldritch, Shenk, Fireeye or Boneash with this Char.
Equipment
The Item section is already full so I will not give you that many setups but some general advice:
Only put in so much MF that you still have a good kill speed...
I’d say 200-300 if you use 125 FCR, if you stay at 75 Fcr you can reach up to 500% mf in your main slot and with Rhyme/Milabregas Shield and a Gull/Ali Baba you have another 100- 125% on switch.
Suggestions:
Maxblock with Spirit, nearly full resistances if you run arealvl 85 areas, 75 or 125% fcr, rest for MF
If you run the CS, you don’t need to look at your resistances that much, ~30% Fire resistances are enough if you have a Rising sun, The Venom Lords` Inferno will heal you. Lightning damage is not really dealt there aside from LE Bosses and Cold Damage is not that tough.
Really Low-cost MF Equip:
Dual spirit
Vipermagi with PT
Tarnhelm PT
1 Fcr Ring, 1 Nailring
Magefists
Goldwrapp/Credendum/Tal Rasha Belt
Tearhaunch or Rares
Skill Amulet
A little more expensive:
Same as above but Wizzardspike as weapon and a 4 PT armour
More damage and MF:
Harle PT
Wizzy
Spirit
Skulli
WT`s
Chancies
Rest like above
You can also Use a Hoto or three parts of the Tal Rasha Set but I know that you are smart enough to figure out the setups on your own.
As one description of a "High-End" CS walker I will give you my Precious.....
Harle PT
Skulli PT
33 Prisma Hoto//Gull Dagger
42 Prisma Crown Shield Spirit//Milabregas Shield
Rising Sun
Tal Belt
Nailring + 10fc 26 cresi Ring
39 MF Chancies
Rare Tripleresboots(low) with 24 mf
2 GC`s with Dex
one SC with Fresi
one Gheed`s Fortune
rest: MF Sc`s
His tasks: doing the CS in 1-3 player games, assisting my Baal-champion Sorceress by killing the 5 waves that Baal ordered to guard him.
Well I normally do 1 or 2 player game with him and he kills quickly, I could give him Combats killers or a Hellfire-Torch but he simply does not need them.
10 Hellfire Quest
Yes a Hammerdin 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, Austrian’s, Redeemer, Grief, Black, wand or dagger with LT charges.
Armour 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 your Concentration and take down the three big ones, and use your hammer against the minions of Baal and Mephisto.
Tactics for Tristram are best explained in the Poorman`s Guide to Tristram which is available in this forum... I suggest you read it, there is no better description of what you need to do.
Klick here to learn about the Poorman`s way
11 Enigma
We all know this armour too well but let’s face it, it is only useful for two thing, fast CS teles while a party does a Baalrun and receiving the XP if you’re level 94+ and doing PVP against others who’ve got more runes than brains/accept and encourage dupes and using them.
So what does this Armour offer us?
45% Frw---> we have Maxed Vigor and Charge
+2 All skills--> hard to achieve maximum damage with Eni+Herald and 125 FC and if you can’t do that, A Vipermagi enables you to Deal more Damage
Strength-->the perfect Hammerdin needs 86 Str or 110 for a Thundergod`s Vigor, not really much if you consider the small amount of dex you need for maxblock.
MF: Skullders on lvl 84 offers 45 more MF so if we switch our Belt or one Ring for skills and not MF, we still deal the same amount of damage but have more MF
Defence--> We have Holy Shield and Maxblock and don’t really need that high defence. I really want to see the monster that can resist our hammers for more than 2-3 seconds.
If you really wanna go for defence you can upgrade a Vipermagi and get about the same amount of defence you have with an Enigma in a normal armour and still have more advantages....
The Teleport Question:
A Paladin can have 2,7 casts/s with 125% Fcr, 2,5 casts/s with 75 Fcr.
A Sorceress with 105% Fcr is at 3,1 casts/s, she also has static which makes her the better boss runner/killer.
Looking at immunes, if you consider the price of an Enigma, you can equip a good dual-element-sorceress with that, which means no more problems or a mono-element sorceress like a L/CL with an infinity....
Also the sorceress is the better rusher because of these aspects.
Some Bosses are also easily reachable via Charge and walking, so who needs Teleport?
MF-Running:
A Hammerdin can run, as mentioned above Arealevel 85 Areas, where Champions or Random Unique monsters can drop every Item of the game apart from Baalcharms.
Example:
Chaos Sanctuary: All Seal Guardians have a Treasure Class of 78, Diablo has a TC of 84, any random monster in the CS has TC 87.
You may do 3-4 Speedruns with the Enigma in the time you need for one walk, but in this time you will kill more than 6 random uniques or champions, making it more effective in the long run to walk.
12 Maximum Hammer Damage
so first of all the maximum Hammer damage equip that one person can reach:
+2Helmet (Harle/Circ)
+2 Amu
+2 Armour
Herald
2x SoJ
Arach
Sceptre +2 Pala +3 BH +3 Conce
Torch
Anni
9 Combatskiller
Battle Command
Skill-Shrine
-----------------
+20 All/Pala Skills, +11 Combat, +3Conce/Hammer = lvl54 Hammer + lvl43 Conce, means: 19442 - 19557 (ø19499.5)
However if you go for 125 FC and exchange some equipment, we will have a higher kill speed.
The Sceptre has to be a Priest’s Sceptre of the Apprentice for 10 FC, we need a 20 FC +2 Pala circlet and +2 Pala 20 Fcr amu and a 35% fc Spirit or a Skin of the Vipermagi.
meaning we deal 0,2 casts/s more but deal only 18618 - 18734 (ø18676.5) damage.
Now if we look at both setups and Diablo in a game at Players 8
75Fc Cap 27 Hammers = 27*10 Frames = 270 Frames = 10.8s
125Fc Cap 28 Hammers = 28*9 Frames = 252 Frames = 10.08s
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ite this because I think the guides that have been posted so far are rather bad.
I want to thank people at the Amazon Basin and PlanetDiablo for their help and knowledge.
So here we go
The Guide:
1. Basics
2. Abbreveations
3. Attributes
4. Faster Cast Rate Hit Recovery and Blocking
5. Skills
6. Equipment
7. Mercenary
8. Game play
9. Hammerdin and MF
10 Hellfire Quest
11 Enigma
12 Maximum Hammer Damage
1 The basics
So why do I choose a Hammerdin. The answer to this question is pretty easy. He only has one monster that is immune against his attacks, the Wendigo found in Kurast, guarding Lam Esen`s Tome, this magic hammers deal a lot of damage in a very short amount of time and since all the gear you need to get him through hell can be found in normal and early nightmare games, he is one hell of a starting character. Concerning his item-find capabilities and the potential for Tristram, this build is one nice thing to have around, though playing him may sometimes lead to boredom because of it’s easiness. To play a Hammerdin, you only need ~5-6 different skills. Your Blessed Hammer, the Concentration aura to boost it’s damage, Cleansing to get rid of any curses, Redemption to fill your mana and life and Vigor and Charge for quick movement. On the defensive side we rely on our Holy Shield and full resistances.
2Abbreveations
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.
Strength
allows us to wear or gear, we do not need it for any other purpose, hence it follows that we only put in as much as we need for our equipment.
Dexterity
boosts our defence, 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 under the point Faster Cast Rate, Hit Recovery, Blocking and Resistances
Vitality
is our life, nothing more and nothing less. Every stapoint that we do not need for our equipment or maxblock should end up in here.
Energy
Although we are playing a caster, we do not put any points in energy because all the mana we need comes from other sources.
If you play self found and feel the need of mana, you can put something in here but from my experience, if you use dual spirit you normally do not need any mana from Energy, however this asks for a lot of countess runs in the first place.
Long story short:
Str: for items
Dex: for Maxblock
Vita: rest
Ene: nothing, zero, nada, niente
4 Faster Cast Rate, Hit Recovery, Blocking and Resistances
These four things are essential parts of our game play. With enough FCR, we fire our hammers at a decent speed, creating a cloud filled with damage that will kill every monster that we want to see dead. Blocking, resistances and hit recovery are essential parts of our defensive strategy, they are what make us survive.
Faster Cast Rate
Diablo divides a second into 25 frames, for any action that relies on frames, like the cast animation, it is essential to reach certain caps, thus being faster than before.
A Paladin has two important casting-breakpoints. We either play at 2,5 casts/second (10 frames) if we have anything between 75% and 124 % faster cast rate, the other cap is reached if we have 125% or more faster cast rate. We then do 2,7 casts/second(9 frames). This is important because one may have a lower char screen damage with 125 fcr than with 75fcr but because of the higher rate of fire, one may still deal more damage per second.
One may play with less FCR than 75% but as I have experienced it, playing at such rates just is not that easy and it offers us no advantages. It is a choice in the classic mode but not for LoD.
Code:
frames: 15 14 13 12 11 10 9
needed FCR: 0-8% 9-17% 18-29% 30-47% 48-74% 75-124% >124%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 Defence
Defence
Pure char screen defence is not that important to us because we are seldom faced with monsters that can withstand us for more than one or 2 seconds or there are monsters that laugh about any defence because they use skills that ignore our defence like Baal’s minions or Sand Raiders and Moonies.
For a Hammerdin it is not important to aim at a high defence, it does not offer us any advantages. We do not need to face our enemies at an arm’s length if we don’t want to and we have 75% blocking anyway.
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.
With the block calculator in my signature you can figure out how many points you need to put into dexterity at what level with the gear and skills that you have.
The basic rule is, the higher your chance of blocking is, the less points you have to put into Dexterity and the more life you have in the end.
Using the calculator
The top field is filled with the sum of your % chance to block. This means your shield block (base shield block+ potential modifiers like 15% or 30% increased chance of blocking) As an example, a Holy Targe has a Shield block of 60, a Herald of Zakarum has a base block of 52 as Gilded Shield and 30% increased chance of blocking, meaning a Herald has a base block of 82. Add the increased chance of blocking you gain with your Holy Shield to the sum any increased chance of blocking you get from other sources.
After doing this, you fill your current sum of Dexterity in the middle field and your current level or the level you’re aiming at in the lowest field. Now hit the button "berechnen".
The first field below the button shows your current chance of blocking enemy attacks.
The second field shows your chance to block while running, it is 1/3 of your chance to block while walking/standing still.
The third field shows how many points you need to put into Dexterity to reach 75% block aka. Maxblock.
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. Here it is the same thing as with Faster Cast Rate, there are breakpoints that have to be reached, to be faster.
I suggest playing with 48% Fhr it is easily achievable and offers enough speed to be quick.
Code:
Frames: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
needed Fhr:0% 7% 15% 27% 48% 86% 200%5 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 skill points you cannot think of any use for.
First of all, if you want to calculate your screen damage and plan your skills thoroughly, use this calculator
Combat Skills
Well this is our battle gear and as mentioned before, it is part of our defence. Five skills are important for us.
Holy Bolt
Preskill of Blessed Hammer and 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
This skill is our main attack it creates magic hammers that swirl around us, beginning left of the Paladin, travelling around us twice and enhancing the distance to the caster. With this we can create a cloud of massive damage around us. The Hammers ignore the resistances of undead monsters or any demons so there is only one kind of Immune monsters throughout the whole game.
One should train how to work with this attack and see how he can hit with the hammers. It takes some time to learn how to position yourself but once you’ve gotten into it, there is nothing you cannot hit. Put 20 points in here, this is what you need throughout the whole game.
For aiming with the Hammer: https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/images/thumb/e/ef/Blessed_Hammer.png/600px-Blessed_Hammer.png
Holy Shield
This skill enhances our defence by adding 15% bonus of our base defence 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;44
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, though as far as have experienced it, a level of 16 is enough for any PvM task.
If you want to take your Hammerdin to take down Tristram, you should think of maxing Holy Shield because of the better smite damage.
Offensive Auras
Well here we have our boosters. Three auras are what we need.
Might
Useful during the first levels and 1 Point as Preskill to Blessed Aim and Concentration.
Blessed Aim
Synergy to our Blessed Hammer, 20 Points
Concentration
This is our damage booster. It affects the synergized magical damage of our hammer and not only it’s base dam. 20 Points and not one less.
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
Meditation
This aura regenerates mana and life. We need mana regeneration in one way or the other.(Redemption,Meditation or mana after each kill and mana potions)
There is the rune word "insight" for an A2 mercenary that has this aura, and I suggest that you get that as soon as you can (lvl 27) I would only put one point in here if you do not want to rely on the other mana sources which means: no point necessary
Defiance
This aura has a passive bonus to our Holy Shield, for every level our Holy Shield’s defence 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 defence and have already maxed Holy Shield you can put points in here.
1 Point, maybe more, later
Vigor
A synergy to our Blessed Hammer and it allows us to walk and run faster for a longer amount of time.
20 Points
Redemption
This Aura redeems the dead, thus killing corpses and giving us mana and life for them. It has two uses on a Hammerdin. 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. 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 because we have enough + skill on our items to get a decent rate of regeneration.
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, so if you want to stroll around in the WSK and hate to wear a Thundergod`s Vigor or a Wisp Projector, use this to gain some advantage against souls.
If you are interested in the Chaos Sanctuary and do not want to use Hotspurs or Infernostrides or a Rising Sun, use Resist Fire to gain more fire resistances and receive less damage from the Infector of Souls, Venom Lords and the likes.
Cut, next scene!
Blessed Hammer: 20
Concentration: 20
Vigor: 20
Blessed Aim: 20
Holy Shield: Depending on gear, reach one of the following levels:16;19;23;27;34;44
Cleansing: 1
Redemption: 1
Preskills: 1
Possibilities for skill points, depending on gear and purpose:
Holy Shield, Defiance, Salvation, Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, Charge, Smite
Side note
While playing Single player or totally without any help from others online, you may have to come up with another attack, but more on that in the game play section. 6 Equipment
Yeah we don’t want to walk around naked, do we.
There are tons of different setups for a Hammerdin, therefore 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.
There are some things that are nice to have but not necessary for our build.
Helmets
Yeah our head, our pretty head, what to wear, well I will tell you, the rules are simple.
Tarnhelm (lvl 15)
Yes you read correctly a Tarnhelm. It is one nice thing to have around in the beginning because of it’s low levelreq, it offers us 1 extra skill and some mf and extra gold. A Harle for the little fellers and I can tell you, I’ve used that thing quite long, far up until hell Mephisto was down.
Lore (Ort+Sol) (lvl27)
Well our first rune word. It comes in pretty cheap and offers us +1 all skill, some mana and lightning resistances. One nice add are the 2 Mana after each kill which help our blue ball to stay filled once we are engaged in combat.
Peasant Crown (lvl 28)
Well well, this is some nice thing. It offers 60 life, 30 mana, +1 all skill and a little bit of faster run. One nice thing to have around.
Harlequin’s Crest (lvl 62)
Here comes the good old classic, good for all casters helmet. +2 all skills and the bonus of life and mana combined with a little damred and that magic find you can’t do anything wrong with this.
Rare/Magic circlets
sometimes we may need something else or we have no access to the mentioned hats but there are rares and magics which can help out.
They either have + all paladin skills or +combat skills with nice adds like statpoints,life/mana ,resistances and sockets. Faster Cast Rate may also be one nice thing, if we reach a higher cap with it. They are potentially better than the Harle but such circlets are rarely seen and whether they are better, always depends on the setup of the paladin.
Armors
Hey we will need this. There are many nice things an armour can offer us, so let’s do it guys.
+ Walking around naked would mean trouble ^^
Stealth (tal+eth) (lvl 17)
2 socks armour
The first rune word in this gallery. It is cheap and useful if we want to reach 75 fcr pretty quickly at lvl 25 when we will start hammering. Apart from that it does not offer that much for a Hammerdin. Dex is nice, manareq also nice in the beginning but hey we don’t really need it that much.
Skin of the Vipermagi (level 29)
Isn’t this a beauty. 30 Fcr, 20-35 prisma and it also offers +1 all skill. For many purposes this is it, perfection has a name, accept it.
Smoke (Nef Lum) (lvl 37)
2 socks armour
Cheap and 50prismatic resistances... can’t think of anything better.
Skullder`s Ire (42)
One Skill and can you spell MF
you’re out there hunting for items.. Take this and you will not be disappointed.
Que Hegan`s Wisdom (lvl 51)#
Skill, fc,Manaereq,fhr and Maek a nice one, if no Vipermagi is available.
Enigma (Jah Ith Ber) (lvl 65)
3 socks armour
at first sight, this armour looks rather nice, however, if you know a little more about the game, you know that it is far less good, than it seems to be. I will discuss this later.
Other Armours
anything that has + skills (except principle because it offers too little for a Gul) or resis may be useful, however those mentioned above are the most common ones.
Gloves
Well, we gotta protect our pretty nails, right?
Bloodfist (lvl 9)
30 Fhr and 30 hit points are something nice.
Chance Guards(lvl 15)
Up to 40% MF are what these gloves have to offer.
Magefist (lvl 23)
20 FCR and manareq, for me the best gloves around.
Frostburn (lvl 29)
If you have enough Fcr, you can use these gloves to gain more mana.
Trang Oul`s Claws (lvl 45)
FCR and some resistances, are what these gloves offer, imho Magefists are the better choice, though.
Rares/Crafteds
Think of adds like stat points, however I suggest in accepting the unique gloves, normally it is a race between Chancies, Mages and Frosties, depending on your gear and play style.
Belts
Potions need their place, and the boys drink it, too.
You know!
Nightsmoke (lvl 20)
10 prisma, 50 mana and damage to mana are the arguments for this belt, it is nice in the beginning and if you upgrade it can hold 16 potions, which I recommend.
Godlwrap (lvl 27)
This belt only offers MF and some more gold from monsters.
Gloom`s Trap (lvl 36)
15% maximum mana, mana and Vitality, this is a nice package to have around.
Thundergod`s Vigor (lvl 47)
Lightning Resistances and hit points in combination with lightning absorb. If you face souls, you will love this belt.
Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth (lvl 53)
This belt offers 20 points dexterity, this equals 60 hit points, in combination with the 10-15% MF this is a nice belt.
Credendum (lvl 65)
10 points strength , 10 points dexterity and 15 prisma, a nice belt.
Arachnid Mesh (lvl 80)
20% FC, mana and +1 skill is what this belt has to offer.
Rares/Crafteds
Well FHR ,stats and resistances are nice things, if you use the Caster-Craft -recipe you will also get between 5 and 10 % FCR.
Shoes
Walking the hot sands, humid jungles, mountains and the hell with bare feet. Come on, we are no masochists.
Tearhaunch (lvl 29)
These shoes offer hit points in the form of 5 Strength and 5 Dexterity in combination with 10 prisma.
Waterwalk (lvl 32)
These shoes offer 40-65 hit points and 15 Dexterity, meaning overall up to 110 hit points. The fire resistances and FRW are nice adds.
Silkweave (lvl 36)
These shoes offer 10% maximum mana, 30 FRW and 5 Maek, so 5 mana for every killed monster.
War Traveler (lvl 42)
These shoes offer up to 50% MF.
Aldur`s Advance (lvl 45)
50 hit points, 40-50 fire resistances and some FRW are what makes these boots a nice choice.
Sandstorm Trek (lvl 64)
20 Fhr and up to 30 stat points are a nice choice.
Rares
Stats, resistances,mf could be what you may find.
Amulets
BLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Mahim-Oak Curio (lvl 25)
10 prisma and 10 points each for Dexterity, Vitality,Strength and Energy. One nice choice.
Saracen's Chance (lvl 47)
Bigger brother of the Mahim Oak with 15-25 prisma and 12 points for each attribute.
Seraph`s Hymn (lvl 65)
2 all skill, that is all this amu has to offer.
The Rising Sun (65)
Being invincible against fire attacks can be pretty useful. The absolute fire absorb may heal you in combination with your fire resistances. A nice thing to have around if you face fire attacks.
Mara`s Kaleidoscope (lvl 67)
2 all skills, 20-30 prisma and 5 points for each attribute. this is one item that is nice to have around.
Magics/Crafteds/Rares
Magic amulets with +3 combat skills can drop pretty often and are a nice choice.
Crafteds and rares can beat a Maras if they have nice stats like +2 Paladin, stat points, resis, mf and especially with crafts some nice FCR.
Rings
MORE BLING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Aside from Carrion Wind and Manald Heal, every Unique ring has it’s use, either for fire or lightning absorb (Dwarf Star and Wisp Projector), MF (Nagelring) More Damage (Bul Kathos or Stone of Jordan) or nonfreeze from the Raven Frost (one can do without nonfreeze without any problems).
If you want to hammer down Nilathak, a Nature’s Peace is what you should take with you.
Rares/Magics and Crafts
Are options to fill in blanks like FCR or have other nice adds like stat points /resis
Shields
Don’t punch me, for I is Shieldcat.
Well basically here we normally have two alternatives.
Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) (lvl 25)
+2 All skills, 25-35 FCR, 35%cold,lightning and poinsonresis , 55 FHR, 22 Vita and 89-112 mana.... one nice shield
as a bonus, put this rune word in a Paladin Shield with a nice Base block, prismatic resistances (up to 45) and as little Str-req as possible, either Sacred Targe (60 block), Sacred Rondach (58 block) or Royal Shield (55 block)
This shield gets rid of all our FHR worries, it comes with 55% fhr, making us get the 48 fhr cap with 5 frames.
Herald of Zakarum (lvl 42)
Well well, good for every Paladin, one might say.
However, resistances are except fire, higher if you use spirit, the possibility of better fcr and fhr caps are more than enough to justify the use of a spirit instead of a herald.
However, if you favour screen dam over real damage or have enough mana, FHR and FCR, you may think of a Herald.
Rares/Magics
are only an alternative, if you play Single player without Plugy or play nonladder and don’t want to pay for a spirit shield. In ladder mode, a Spirit shield is so cheap you’d have to be insane not to use it if you can.
nice adds for rares: Offensive Auras/Paladin skills, blocking modifications, resistances, sockets.
Example:
+2 Offensive Auras
+30% Chance of Blocking
+20% increased blocking speed (irrelevant)
17% faster hit recovery
a little life and mana
+16 Prisma and a perfect diamond in the socket
Weapons
I have always thought about this part, however I will only talk about the real caster-weapons.
In a later part of this guide I will also post the maximum damage equipment for one hammerdin and for 2 ones.
Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) (lvl 25)
4 socks one handed sword
Like the shield, FCR,FHR,Mana,Life and +2 All skill for this price at that level.
It’s the economy, Stupid! Work with it.
A 4 sword with 4 sockets can be found starting in the Arreat Plateau on normal Difficulty.
Suicide Branch lvl 25
a little prisma, 50 FCR and +1 all skill... only to be used if you don’t have a spirit sword.
Heart of the Oak (Ko Vex Pul Thul) (lvl 55)
4 socks flail
+3! All skill, 30-40 prisma 40 FCR and 10 dex + a little mana.... best mainstream- hammerdin weapon
Wizardspike (lvl 61)
75 ! Prisma, 50 FCR and some mana.. one nice item, gets rid of your resistance worries and eases your FCR situation a nice thing and to my mind the second best weapon for a hammerdin.
Alternative Weapons
It is a cookie cutter and normally you do not need any alternative weapons, however there may be some choices.
Call to Arms (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) (lvl 57)
5 s one handed sword or flail
with the Battle Command and Battle orders from this weapon, you can boost your Life/Mana and Damage.
Naj`s Puzzler (lvl 78)
Two Reasons.. one is legal Teleport
Second one... Use this weapon in combination with Charge. That thing can deal some damage.
Charms
Let’s make this part short.
Your Inventory is used to fill out any blanks and give extra damage.
you can use
Paladin Combat or the less effective Offensive Aura skill charms
If you happen to own a Hellfire Torch or an Annihilus, you can use such charms because they give nice stats- and skillboni.
Other things that can be of use are
MF charms
resistance charms
life- charms
FHR charms if you want to reach the next cap.
Sockets
If you happen to have any free sockets, there are only a few choices that you have to fill them
1st one: MF, mostly perfect topazes in your helmet and armour and Jewels in your weapon
I never understand those that use Ist runes for mf, you’re supposed to find items and not
waste them.
2nd one: Life. If you own a CTA or if there is a barbarian around... use rubies, in the end
they are more effective than Jah runes.
3rd one: Resistances
7 Mercenary
Well you are free to choose your mercenary if you work with a Hammerdin. You only have that one immune monster, so let’s take a look at all our choices.
1st Rouques:
Weak, reposition themselves quickly, deal some elemental damage, however we don’t really gain anything from them, even a harmony rouque is not that much of an advantage.
2nd: Ironwolves
Elemental attacks that we cannot really boost. Only interesting for dupe-using guys that have some issues with "wanna get xp quickly"
3rd Barbarians
well those are some melee fighters, they block and can endure some punishment, however they are no match for
4th desert mercenaries.
These Melees come equipped with a polearm and auras.
This means: Insight/obedience or some other nice weapons.
If we take a closer look at all those auras, there are four candidates.
a: normal combat mercenary: he has a Prayer aura, which is even doubled, if you give him an Insight polearm.
b: normal defensive mercenary: he has a defiance aura and this boosts our defence, however a hammerdin has his Holy Shield to boost his defence
c: nightmare defensive mercenary: this one uses holy frost, which slows down all monsters, therefore these monsters move slower and receive more hits from your hammers and deal less damage if they do not cast spells (casting animations are not affected by freezing effects)
d: nightmare offensive mercenary: he has a might aura, which might be of use if you play in a party that does not already have a might merc.
Equipment
First of all before we talk about our sidekick’s gear. He needs some stuff.
Looking at his speed, use the speedcalc in my signature.
As you know it is dam dealt per second and not screen dam, that is important, and one may need to look at the best attack caps for his hireling.
Weapons
Time for his big tool.
Insight (Ral Tir Tal Sol) (lvl 27)
4socks Polearm
up to 290 Ed, meditation and critical strike (which means chance of dealing twice the physical damage)
probably the biggest bang for the buck considering polearms. and you will never have to worry about mana.
Obedience (Hel Ko Thul Eth Fal)(lvl 41)
5 socks Polewearm
Well 370 ED,40 CB,20-30 prisma and 40 FHR all that for a little price.
If you don’t need an insight-mercenary you can use this and will not be disappointed.
Other weapons:
Just to name some weapons that might be of use but cannot really shine on Hammerdin mercenaries:
Bonehew, Reaper’s Toll, Tombreaver, Upped Hone Sundan.
Helmets
If your merc already has a source for life leach, use
Guillaume`s Face
There is no better boost for physical damage with the 15 ds and 35 CB
Vampire Gaze (lvl 41)
dual leech and damred are one nice thing.
Crown of Thieves (lvl 49)
10% life leach are what makes this our choice sometimes.
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (lvl 66)
10% dual leach and 15 prisma are the stats for this cheap all-rounder.
Andariels Visage (lvl 83)
10 Ias, up to 30strength and 8-10% life leach 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.
Griswold’s Heart (lvl 45)/Black Hades(lvl 53)
Put in Ral+Ort+Thul and enjoy this cheap solution to a number of problems.
The Gladiator’s Bane (lvl 85)
Magicdamreduce and Nonfreeze and Damred.. a nice armour, because the higher the merc`s level, the less resistances are needed and this armour offers better protection against elemental and magic attacks.
8 Game play
Well, well what is there, that one needs to know about playing a hammerdin.
First of all, I must say that the first 25 levels are a pest.
You should rely on a party or think of some setups to get you to lvl 25. I normally work with the standard attack and a shopped sceptre with Holy Fire until I am well past Andariel. Save all your skill points, and only put in the ones you need as prereqs for your Hammer, Holy Shield and Conce, Prayer and Cleansing are a must.
The problem is, that you learn your main attack at lvl 18, but you have neither FCR nor Mana, to really use it until you can wear dual spirit @ lvl 25. Magefists or other fcr items will make you reach 75 fcr and with the boost of ~200 mana, you can start hammering.
Looking at the distribution of your skillpoints, you should do it as follows:
First save all skillpoints you don’t need for skills like Prayer, Holy Shield or other Prereqs. Once you reach lvl 18, your saved skill points in your Hammer, Concentration and synergies until you have used up all your saved skill points but 2.
On your next lvl-up you put one in Conce, Hammer and one Synergy, after that it is maxing you Hammer first, after that one synergy and Concentration in such a way that you have one point in your synergy, one point Conce, one point synergy.....
Take a look at your Holy Shield as well, never forget your defence!
After Hammer, one Synergy Concentration and your Holy Shield are at the level you’re aiming at, max out the last synergy.
There are two ways of using the hammer.
The first one is to create a hammer cloud in advance, before any monsters reach you and let them walk into it.
The second one is to directly approach the enemies and start casting right in front of them. Watch the point where your hammers appear, that is a little above your Paladin and to his left, from there the hammer travels around the paladin, enlarging the distance between itself and the caster. This Image will show you how this looks in game and you will get an idea of how to position yourself to hit.
To train your abilities with this skill, I suggest walking the Chaos Sanctuary or and open area that you come across,. The CS is special because normally enemies will walk right into your hammers, due to the construction of the map. The mix of monsters and their AI are different, some will attack directly, others will flee from you, and thus it is a good place to train.
It is also fairly large and does not have that many walls that could be a problem.
Your hammer will go through any opponent, but a little wall will stop it. Thus narrow hallways and dungeons like Coldworm` s layer in act 2 are not that nice to play in as a hammerdin, in fact the layer of the worms is that area, that I simply hate playing as hammerdin because you cannot really kill anything in there with hammers.
What a Hammerdin does not like:
A2 visiting Coldworm because down there it is so narrow that you hammer normally is casted directly into a wall... using your merc, smite or normal attack might work in normal and nightmare difficulty, but in hell this is really painful. You have Hell swarms, animals that are PI therefore smite does not work, you either have to lure them into areas where your hammers work or use Lawbringer`s Decrepefy and zeal and let your mercenary kill them, Conviction in combination with vengeance or zeal are also options... but the easiest one is to get an amulet with Teleport charges and just to tele through that dungeon and kill the worm in the end.
Be sure to have enough money.
A3 getting Lam Esen`s Tome because the Wendigos cannot be hurt by your hammers, they are animals.
Use smite to stun them and let your merc do the rest.
9 Hammerdin and MF
Finding items is a question that interests every player of this game.
I thought about using a Hammerdin for this task and have found him able to take this challenge without any problems.
He deals a good punch but costs little and with few investments can be up to the task of finding items for you.
Areas:
Act 1:
If you have some experience with the hammers you can run the Pit.
Both Crypts at the graveyard are only something for experienced players.
Act 2:
Ancient Tunnels are a nice area if you know a little bit about working with the hammers.
Act 3:
Travincal but watch out for the enchantments of the High Council some combinations really hurt.
Act 4:
River of Flames and Chaos Sanctuary are those areas that literally scream "MF-Hammerdin".
If you have a "Rising Sun" Amulet these areas are yours... go for these areas and no other ones... here you will find everything you need.
Act 5:
The WSK is only something if you have good resistances and lightning absorb.
Baals Minions of Destruction are dangerous, you need good damage and a strong mercenary.
Baal himself is not that much of a problem if you have a nice party, static or some CB and Smite.
You can also run bosses like Eldritch, Shenk, Fireeye or Boneash with this Char.
Equipment
The Item section is already full so I will not give you that many setups but some general advice:
Only put in so much MF that you still have a good kill speed...
I’d say 200-300 if you use 125 FCR, if you stay at 75 Fcr you can reach up to 500% mf in your main slot and with Rhyme/Milabregas Shield and a Gull/Ali Baba you have another 100- 125% on switch.
Suggestions:
Maxblock with Spirit, nearly full resistances if you run arealvl 85 areas, 75 or 125% fcr, rest for MF
If you run the CS, you don’t need to look at your resistances that much, ~30% Fire resistances are enough if you have a Rising sun, The Venom Lords` Inferno will heal you. Lightning damage is not really dealt there aside from LE Bosses and Cold Damage is not that tough.
Really Low-cost MF Equip:
Dual spirit
Vipermagi with PT
Tarnhelm PT
1 Fcr Ring, 1 Nailring
Magefists
Goldwrapp/Credendum/Tal Rasha Belt
Tearhaunch or Rares
Skill Amulet
A little more expensive:
Same as above but Wizzardspike as weapon and a 4 PT armour
More damage and MF:
Harle PT
Wizzy
Spirit
Skulli
WT`s
Chancies
Rest like above
You can also Use a Hoto or three parts of the Tal Rasha Set but I know that you are smart enough to figure out the setups on your own.
As one description of a "High-End" CS walker I will give you my Precious.....
Harle PT
Skulli PT
33 Prisma Hoto//Gull Dagger
42 Prisma Crown Shield Spirit//Milabregas Shield
Rising Sun
Tal Belt
Nailring + 10fc 26 cresi Ring
39 MF Chancies
Rare Tripleresboots(low) with 24 mf
2 GC`s with Dex
one SC with Fresi
one Gheed`s Fortune
rest: MF Sc`s
His tasks: doing the CS in 1-3 player games, assisting my Baal-champion Sorceress by killing the 5 waves that Baal ordered to guard him.
Well I normally do 1 or 2 player game with him and he kills quickly, I could give him Combats killers or a Hellfire-Torch but he simply does not need them.
10 Hellfire Quest
Yes a Hammerdin 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, Austrian’s, Redeemer, Grief, Black, wand or dagger with LT charges.
Armour 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 your Concentration and take down the three big ones, and use your hammer against the minions of Baal and Mephisto.
Tactics for Tristram are best explained in the Poorman`s Guide to Tristram which is available in this forum... I suggest you read it, there is no better description of what you need to do.
Klick here to learn about the Poorman`s way
11 Enigma
We all know this armour too well but let’s face it, it is only useful for two thing, fast CS teles while a party does a Baalrun and receiving the XP if you’re level 94+ and doing PVP against others who’ve got more runes than brains/accept and encourage dupes and using them.
So what does this Armour offer us?
45% Frw---> we have Maxed Vigor and Charge
+2 All skills--> hard to achieve maximum damage with Eni+Herald and 125 FC and if you can’t do that, A Vipermagi enables you to Deal more Damage
Strength-->the perfect Hammerdin needs 86 Str or 110 for a Thundergod`s Vigor, not really much if you consider the small amount of dex you need for maxblock.
MF: Skullders on lvl 84 offers 45 more MF so if we switch our Belt or one Ring for skills and not MF, we still deal the same amount of damage but have more MF
Defence--> We have Holy Shield and Maxblock and don’t really need that high defence. I really want to see the monster that can resist our hammers for more than 2-3 seconds.
If you really wanna go for defence you can upgrade a Vipermagi and get about the same amount of defence you have with an Enigma in a normal armour and still have more advantages....
The Teleport Question:
A Paladin can have 2,7 casts/s with 125% Fcr, 2,5 casts/s with 75 Fcr.
A Sorceress with 105% Fcr is at 3,1 casts/s, she also has static which makes her the better boss runner/killer.
Looking at immunes, if you consider the price of an Enigma, you can equip a good dual-element-sorceress with that, which means no more problems or a mono-element sorceress like a L/CL with an infinity....
Also the sorceress is the better rusher because of these aspects.
Some Bosses are also easily reachable via Charge and walking, so who needs Teleport?
MF-Running:
A Hammerdin can run, as mentioned above Arealevel 85 Areas, where Champions or Random Unique monsters can drop every Item of the game apart from Baalcharms.
Example:
Chaos Sanctuary: All Seal Guardians have a Treasure Class of 78, Diablo has a TC of 84, any random monster in the CS has TC 87.
You may do 3-4 Speedruns with the Enigma in the time you need for one walk, but in this time you will kill more than 6 random uniques or champions, making it more effective in the long run to walk.
12 Maximum Hammer Damage
so first of all the maximum Hammer damage equip that one person can reach:
+2Helmet (Harle/Circ)
+2 Amu
+2 Armour
Herald
2x SoJ
Arach
Sceptre +2 Pala +3 BH +3 Conce
Torch
Anni
9 Combatskiller
Battle Command
Skill-Shrine
-----------------
+20 All/Pala Skills, +11 Combat, +3Conce/Hammer = lvl54 Hammer + lvl43 Conce, means: 19442 - 19557 (ø19499.5)
However if you go for 125 FC and exchange some equipment, we will have a higher kill speed.
The Sceptre has to be a Priest’s Sceptre of the Apprentice for 10 FC, we need a 20 FC +2 Pala circlet and +2 Pala 20 Fcr amu and a 35% fc Spirit or a Skin of the Vipermagi.
meaning we deal 0,2 casts/s more but deal only 18618 - 18734 (ø18676.5) damage.
Now if we look at both setups and Diablo in a game at Players 8
75Fc Cap 27 Hammers = 27*10 Frames = 270 Frames = 10.8s
125Fc Cap 28 Hammers = 28*9 Frames = 252 Frames = 10.08s
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