Vengeance and Fanaticism

[chronicking]

hello. i have a couple questions about building a pally fanatic [kinda] avenger. i'm investing most of my points in vengeance and the resists [for synergy bonus] but for monsters that dont have big resists i use zeal and have some [5 points] skill invested there. i want to reinforce my zeal with fanaticism and use conviction for vengeance once i get these two skills unlocked but vengeance/conviction being the main damage dealer. does fanaticism work well with vengeance? i mean do u get the elemental bonus damage after auras like might, concentration, and fanaticism put their bonuses in? or do these auras just give u the melee bonus and vengeance just give you the elemental bonus based on the original melee damage rating? hahaha i confused myself with that one. well if anyone can make since of that better than i did, i would really appreciate it. level thirty is coming quick and i need to decide if fanaticism is really worth it to an avenger based pally. thanx!

[saracen85]

vengeance elemental damages are not affected by any off-weapon ed or +damage modifiers. thus, the off-weapon ed from might/fana won't boost the converted elemental damage, but they will boost your physical damage.

[chronicking]

so let me see if i have this right...........lets say im getting +20% bonus to all elemental damage with vengeance. from what i think i know, this is based on your physical damage. so if my max physical damage is 50[according to rated damage on character screen] , the vengeance's elemental damages are +20% added to this. is this correct? added to the original melee damage?

ok now if might is boosting my melee[physical] damage by +50%, are these elemental damages from vengeance based on this or the original melee damage before might[or concentration or fanaticism] boosted it?

you probably answered this with your relpy but i'm still confused about it. i want to make sure, because as you all know, skill points are hard to come by and unretrievable once u put them somewhere.

thanx for your time!!

[Omnicide]

He's basically saying the Might/Conc/Fana auras only increase the physical damage aspect of Vengeance, so no elemental damage is added from those auras. They will help your Zeal...but not your Vengeance so much.

[chronicking]

ok i'm not trying to extend this thread or anything but from what i'm gathering is::: might, concen, and fanat boost melee/physical damage. got it.
ok i know that vengeance bases it's elemental damage on what your character's melee/physical damage is. got it.

now.........are the elemental bonuses from vengeance based on the original melee damage [before aura boost] or after the aura boost [+50% at skill level 2 of might]. if the elemental damage is calculated from the boosted melee damage from one of the auras, it seems that fanat may be almost as effective with vengeance as conviction. perhaps fanat accompanied with vengeance is not as efficient as vengeance/conviction but well worth investigating.

thats' what i dont get. surely you see where i'm coming from. level 30 is approaching fast and i want to go with fanaticism over conviction to create a fanatical avenger but if the elemental damage of vengeance is not based on the boosted melee damage from fanaticism, it would be foolish to build a fanatical avenger build and very inefficient it seems over a conventional avenger of conviction build.

thanx alot guys for your time and help.

[saracen85]

now.........are the elemental bonuses from vengeance based on the original melee damage [before aura boost] or after the aura boost [+50% at skill level 2 of might].


vengeance damage is calculated before ed aura boost, or any other off-weapon ed boost. vengeance is even calculated before any critical/deadly strike.

for more info, here's asmo's avenger guide. read the part on maths of vengeance for examples.

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=517192

so, basically, you're torn between two builds;
a typical conviction avenger.
a fanatical avenger.

these two builds are viable builds.

the former concentrates more on the elemental damage of vengeance. conviction will pierce monsters resistances, thus complementing your vengeance damage. you'll probably do ~2.5 times the damage listed in the lcs. you'll hit slowly, but pretty hard.

the latter is balancing physical damage together with your elemental damage from vengeance. whatever -resists bonus lost from conviction is replaced by a decent physical damage boost. apart from that, you'll have a higher attack speed, giving you an option of slower but more damaging weapons for a higher vengeance damage.

[chronicking]

thank you very much sir. that was a very informative answer and exactly what i needed to know.


which build, in your honest opinion ,do you think would survive best once reaching NM/HELL difficulties? i would say the avenger of conviction due to lowering the monsters insane resistances. aren't some of the monsters in hell immune to melee?

i appreciate all whom answered my questions.

thanx for your time.

[saracen85]

imo go conviction avenger. why?

well, should you be swarmed with mobs, you can use a weapon switch with high elemental damage and zeal away.

plus, there's a general physical resistance to all monsters in hell. that's quite a bummer for most melee builds =P

[safetypro]

Here's another option.

I'm in the process of building a hybrid Conviction/Fanatic Zealot/1 point Smiter. He will be using Voice of Reason Phase Blade with a Spirit Shield on his weapon/shield option 1. While on this combination he will be using Zeal and Conviction. On switch, I'll be using Herald of Zakarum and Astreon's Iron Ward. On this combination, his attack will be Fanatism combined with either Zeal or Smite.

Skills
20 Zeal
18 Conviction (25-26 with plus skills)
20 Fanatism
20 Holy Shield
1 ea in prerequisites and Defiance and Salvation
Remaining points into Sacrifice


His gear will consist of:
Guillaume's Face,
Duress Armor,
Dracul's Grasp,
Goreriders,
Thundergod's Vigor,
Highlord's Wrath, and
Ravenfrost with either Bul-Katho's, Dwarf Star or Nature's Peace (depending on area he is running).


On his main switch he'll be hitting 5 frames with a weapon that to my understanding (1 lvl away, can't wait) proc's Frozen Orb and Ice Blast so regularly that the monsters will be dropping like little cubes from an Ice Machine. The conviction of course will lower most of the monsters resistances so that monster will inevitably be frozen, slowed and unable to retaliate while I skate around making a “kick save and a beauty” (hockey term, I’m Canadian…LOL).

On the other switch, I'll be hitting 4 frames with a nasty fast weapon with magic damage, plus damage (the kind that helps Smite) tons of additional AR and a total of +8 to combat skills (how's that for a holy shield prebuff?) AND 98% crushing blow to Smite the bosses into submission.

I haven’t been this excited about a build since I made my first Town Dump Werebear.:D

[chronicking]

yes i almost went with the zealot build myself after seeing how useful it was when my mana ran dry from vengeance. i probably would have went with zeal if i'd known this from the start but i 've already invested in vengeance so i'ts a bit late. maybe a full blown fanatical zealot will be my next build since ive gone the conviction route with this one.

zeal comes in real handy when you dont have any leech items yet to replenish mana depletions from vengeance. after the mana gets down to about 1/5 full i switch to zeal and finish em off [usually works like this hahaha]. then once i use the rest of the mana with zeal, u can alwayz switch to sacrifice real quick instead of slamming the dreaded mana potion to kill any heavy hitters/ stragglers. this may not be the practical way to play but works for me since i'm in the early stages vengeance.

i love this game. it's better than the first and that's really saying something!

thanx for your time.

[jrob624]

Heres a quick question, it might have been answered above but I dont know. If I use Famine runeword does vengeance applied elemental damage affect my weapon elemental damage or r both independant of each other?

[N V]

I would think it applies after all other calculations with vengeance is done, and then its all added together in the end. So first the elemental damage is calculated based on your vengeance and physical damage, then that is added together with the damage from Famine and then applied to the enemy.

I would rather spend those runes on a different runeword though. Not sure, but if griefs +damage is calculated into the elemental damage from vengeance it would make quite a powerfull vengeance weapon i think.

Don't quote me on anything though since I'm only speculating :D

[safetypro]

N_V you are correct. Vengence creates elemental damage from the physical damage on the weapon. If the weapon already has elemental damage then it is applied after the physical damage has been converted to elemental. The best weapon for vengence is eBOTD as it has a huge amount of physical damage. This is one situation where Grief cannot be considered superior to eBOTD since it's +damage modifier cannot be converted to elemental damage.
Hope this helps.

[N V]

I was thinking it wouldnt be converted, but wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up :)

[dainbramage]

You can think of vengeance as 'elemental enhanced damage'. Other than not working with grief/redeemer/astreon's/stonecrusher, it's the same as other ed, except it adds elemental damage.