Really Weird Hybrid.

[Ayliffe]

Hey everyone,

For a while now i've been trying to come up with something that i don't see in duel games very often but is still effective. Me and one of my buds on East were talking (Some of you may know him, He's Lavish *Pantheons) and came up with a very weird Hybrid Paladin. It uses FoH and BH like a mage, But also uses Smite and Charge. I don't know if alot of people use this, but i certainly haven't seen any, the closest thing ive seen is one Mage.

Now for skills i've got something like this..

19 vigor
05 concentration
16 blessed hammer
10 blessed aim
15 fist of heavens
17 holy shock
01 Fanaticism
01 Smite
01 Charge
01 Holy Shield
01 Salvation
01 Conviction
13 Prerequisites

Done at 90, obviously the more levels the better with this build.

For Gear I was thinking of having three Setups.

DR Setup

Helm - CoA (Dual Ber'd)
Chest - Enigma
Weapon - Grief Phase Blade
Shield - Sacred Targe Spirit
Amulet - Mara's or a 2 Pally Skills strength res life ammy.
Rings - 2x ravens for Max block
Belt - Arach
Gloves - Trangs Gloves
Boots - Waterwalks for max block
Inventory
- Pally torch
- Anni
- 9 20/5's if i can afford it, and a 5fhr/5res sc
- 30+ life pcombs.

hitting 90 fhr (hits 86 Fhr BP) 75 fcr, (hits the 75 fcr bp.) 39% dr (works fine on a bvc, should work fine with this.) Around 4k Foh 8k Hammers 6k Charge, havent done smite dmg yet. Remember, the aim for this build is versatility.

Non DR setup

Helm - Griffons Eye
Chest - Enigma
Weapon - Grief Phase Blade
Shield - Sacred Targe Spirit
Amulet - Mara's or a 2 Pally Skills strength res life ammy.
Rings - Bk or soj and a raven
Belt - Arach
Gloves - Bloodfists
Boots - Tri Res Boots
Inventory
- Pally torch
- Anni
- 9 20/5's if i can afford it, and a 5fhr/5res sc
- 30+ life pcombs.

This also hates all the same Bps.

Fcr Setup (Plain Mage)

Helm - Griffons Eye shael'd or 5/5'd
Chest - Enigma
Weapon - Hoto
Shield - Sacred Targe Spirit
Amulet - Mara's or a 2 Pally Skills strength res life ammy.
Rings - Bk or soj and a raven
Belt - Arach
Gloves - Trangs
Boots - Tri Res Boots
Inventory
- Pally torch
- Anni
- 6 20/5's if i can afford it, and 3 5fhr/5res scs
- 30+ life pcombs.

This hits the 125 FCR bp, and the 86 fhr bp.


Gimme some input guys.

[Zarley]

It's fairly traditional for paladins to wear shields too. ;)

What's your res look like? Looks like it's mediocre in both of your non-DR setups (DR setup is forgiven for bad res), even considering you'll almost certainly get a hefty chunk from the-shield-to-be-named-later.

I would pump Concentration over Blessed Aim. BA does nothing for Charge or Smite damage, even if the synergy does manage to squeeze out some extra hammer damage (which I'd have to see with the skill calc to believe).

1 in Fanaticism is worthless. I'd use the built in 7-frame Smite that a Grief PB offers with maxed Conc over a 6-frame Smite with a pitiful Fanat.

Also, I think you'll find your FOH damage is woefully low. FOH is a powerhouse because of -res... most FOHers pack at least -175 res. You pack.. -25, tops, with a faceted Griffons. I suspect you'll be a weak Liberator with a tickle of an FOH attack. As it stands most decent duelers will have 25 lightning stack; that means your FOH will take roughly 160 life from them. That's not worth ~32 points IMO, especially when they start sorbing.

[Ayliffe]

Yea i forgot to put in the conviction points and the shield haha. I also might use a few Offensive Lifers.

/E fix'd.

Oh and Cta Spirit on swap of course.

[Zarley]

You might think about tracking down a traditional FOH stick and making your CTA in that. +4 FOH/+4 Conviction would make a solid switch if you needed some extra FOH power in one of your Grief-based setups.

I still think you don't have enough in Conviction though. FOH just isn't that scary without the stupid high -res from Conviction.

[Ayliffe]

Might take a few points out of some other stuff and put them into conviction, as it stands im at -105 from conviction. with one point in it and with grief, with hoto im at -120 from convic. with around the same dmg and -res on my v/t it worked quite well, and if they sorb, theres always hammers.

[Immortal_Daemon]

Well, did you want to focus on any one thing, or use all skills evenly?

[Ayliffe]

More on Foh and Hammers, But some on charge and smite for certain situations.

[brom]

good sites immortal, verry usefull

[Immortal_Daemon]

Ah, thank you. Lol.


Alright Ayliffe, here's what I'd do...


Let's take look at the skills you'll need for each class:


Hdin =
Hammer + Vigor + Blessed Aim + Conc

Smiter =
Smite + Fana + Holy Shield

Charger =
Charge + Vigor + Might + Fana

FoH =
FoH + Holy Shock + Conviction

(These are the "required" for effectiveness skills)



Now, the first thing that stands out is Hdin requires the most skills, meaning hammer damage will suffer the most from hybriding, unless you make that the main class.

Also take a look at Vigor. It's used for multiple builds. This is a good starting place for a skill to max out.
Fana is also used for multiple builds. This is a good place to start as well.

Also keep in mind that Holy Shield is very nice for any build, so we'll want points into that.

A one-point Smiter as the base class would be my preferred starting place.

So we'll end up with skills looking something like this:
Obviously this depends on what level you're planning to go to. I generally stop at level 90, so I'll go from there.
Level 90 grants us 101 skill points, with all of the quests.

I would do the following:

Fana: 20
Vigor: 20
Holy Shield: 20
And all of the prerequisites to reach these.

I'd then put one point into Smite, which is going to be more than enough once you have Fana and HS activated. This should also hold true for Charge, assuming you're using a good weapon (Grief).

That leaves Hammers and FoH.
We already have Vigor granting pretty decent damage for Hammers, but you'll end up doing a lot of skill switching because the damage will still be pretty low.
Luckily Pcombs will help this quite a bit (and they work for FoH).
Now... I've never made a FoHer before, so I don't know the best way to get damage out of it.
Either maxing FoH, or Holy Shock, or Conviction...... whichever one grants the most damage is the way you'll wanna go.

Gear-Wise:
I think getting the 75% FCR bp will be the way to go, unless you wanna do a lot of gear switching.
And unfortunately I cannot continue this post, as I have a party to attend.
I shall return tomorrow.

[dainbramage]

20 fanat will make life very, very hard, I wouldn't bother. The standard libby build uses conc and is extremely effective - throwing in foh alongside fanat will take far too many skill points to be remotely effective.

I'd stick with 20 conc - you're at 7 frame smite, and 2% per level less damage, however the return will be hammers which are actually useful (because hammers which deal less damage than a bone spirit are hardly ideal).

20 vigour also, as it is the only skill (semi-alongside conc) which is useful for more than 1 aspect of your char - damage for charge/hammers, and integral to desync.


This is where you'll need to split from the libby build in order to fit in FoH. To start with, let's add up some skill levels.

1 griffs
2 ammy
2 enigma
2 spirit
1 ring
1 belt
1 anni
3 torch
1 BC
= +14 all skills.
And up to 9 more for combat from charms (if you're considering offense charms, consider the returns of investing more hard points in conv, taking points out of BH/foh evenly, then replace the offense charms with combat charms).

Theoretically, 13 points in conviction [metagaming foh vs foh, w00t] would be ideal, but that's never going to happen. 1 hard point will give -100 res all. It's useless against foh/auradins, however if you want to have respectable hammers or foh, that's what you'll need to use. If you can find a foh stick to put your CtA in, that will make life much easier and save a decent chunk of pre-req points (well, 3).

We then have ~40 points to split between foh, holy shock, and BH. This will depend on what you're wanting here.

With maxed hammers (7.5k), you can crank out ~4k foh damage
FoH-heavy (6k), you can reach only 4k hammer damage.
(these are both limited to level 91 - at level 99, you can have 7.5k hammers and 5.6k foh)

I'd advise against the latter as you'll only have -135% light res. However, whatever balance you want is up to you.


The skill planner looks something like this:
http://diablo2.ingame.de/spiel/skills/calc/index.php?lang=en&char=pal&diff=0&set=14,0,0,9,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,20,0,0,0,0,0, 0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,20,0,1,0,11,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,1,0, 1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,20,0,1,0,1,0,16,3


The numbers for a setup like this are looking like:

8k-9k charge, 15% DS (average 10k incl DS)
5.2k smite @ 7fpa
7.5k hammers
~4.4k FoH, -135% enemy light res
80% FCR
30% FHR <---needs to be increased through charms
Max block
~4-5k hp, 8% DR. (griffons build)

A DR rig can get 26% through shako, though this drops your fhr to ZERO, this is going to put a lot of strain on your charms.

With a CoA, you can reach 39% and 30fhr. CoA, however, has a str req of 174; compare this to your next highest str req of 86 (sacred targe). You'll need to put in 50-80 points of str to wear a coa, this is going to drop your life by anywhere from 350-500hp.

With a BerBer 2pally/2soc/fcr/whatever else circlet, and dungos, you can reach 39%DR and 10fhr, but have far more life (you can go base str, as well as a nice 120 extra from your dungos) than you would building in a CoA. Making up the loss in FHR through charms will net you more life overall than building in the coa. If the circlet comes with bulk life, even better (note that in this case str/dex will be useless).

i.e. if you can afford a good circlet, use it for your DR rig. Compared to a 2/15 coa, it shouldn't be too hard to get.

With 10 fcr from your ammy and 1 ring, you can keep on bloodfists, to have an extra 30% more fhr than has been listed.

Your DR setup will have slightly more smite/charge/hammer damage than griffs build, but much lower foh damage, and less -res.




Jack of all trades, master of none build is what it's looking like. You're gimping your hammer damage for a weak foh compared to a liberator, compared to a mage you're dropping a lot of foh and hammer damage (and a fcr breakpoint) for a weakish charge and smite.

[Ayliffe]

k so this whole Charge Smite thing isn't working out nearly as well as i thought.

So i'm thinking ill just make a mage, and just grief to smite and charge when necessary, How should skills be done for a mage? and can i get some gear lists?

Thanks guys.