Frost Zealot NM Baal or Hell pits

[hackedagainanda]

I have a frost zealot that can kill pretty fast in NM, but when I go to hell my killing speed slows to a crawl.


Would I be better off running NM Baal until I have enough gear to kill in hell or should I start farming Pits in hell for gear?

My gear is
Tal rashas mask
Duress armor
Angelic amulet and rings
Black flail
Spirit shield
Crafted blood gloves with ias and res
Sigon boots
immortal king belt

 

[pharaoh]

Crushing blow will work fine for CIs, but it's a bit slow (particularly if they have physical resist as well). It mainly shines as a boss killer; remember you can apply it with Smite if your chance to hit a boss is on the low side. What will work best depends on your skill setup. If you're planning on dealing with CIs through physical damage, you want a decent weapon, good AR (or ignore target defense), and maxed Sacrifice. If you're using a second aura (Holy Shock) as a CI solution, then speed is more important than raw damage on your weapon.

Crescent Moon is a good choice, since it has respectable damage, ITD, and chance-to-cast Static Field. If you use Holy Shock as backup, the penalty to enemy lightning resist is helpful too. Voice of Reason, if you play RWM, is another nice choice for the -enemy cold resist, which helps against heavily resistant (but not immune) enemies. If you're using physical as a backup, then Oath is pretty hard to beat unless you are quite rich. Heaven's Light is a nice choice, offering nice damage, speed, -33% target defense, 33% crushing blow, +2-3 paladin skills, and up to two sockets.

Without knowing more about what you're having trouble with, it's hard to be more specific. Are you dying a lot? Having trouble hitting? Hitting fine, but dealing low damage?

 

[hackedagainanda]

Without knowing more about what you're having trouble with, it's hard to be more specific. Are you dying a lot? Having trouble hitting? Hitting fine, but dealing low damage?

I'm dealing okay damage to physical immunes, but cold immunes take forever to take down. I'm not in any danger and I'm hitting fine.

 

[khuzgan]

What pharaoh said! What is holding you back most right now? And also, what is your goal? Beating the game with a self found frost zealot?
To me your gear looks perfectly hell viable (as in can beat the game fine solo on players 8 with some patience) with exception for the black flail. Keep it for bosses, but it is really on the low end for normal monsters in hell, especially if you want any help whatsoever from the leech on tal's mask. Replace it with any fast good damage weapon you have access to. If you have no other option, and str enough, making a black scourge will help you more than in a flail, though I'd only go that route if I had no other available weapon at the moment and str enough for a scourge to begin with.

Also, you might benefit more from a rhyme made in a pally shield with res staffmod, than from spirit, despite the +skills it gives, as a big bunch of monsters are cold immune in hell anyways, and you have no other source of cannot be frozen and max block will be cheaper to achieve.

Mind your merc too. Sometimes when baad on luck with drops, you might have to rely on him for killing fast until you find something to use for yourself. What gear is he wearing? Give him the biggest meanest hurty stick you can get your hands on (easy to get is Insight in whatever the most powerful base you've found so far) and some leech (maybe even use tal's mask on him and anything else yourself until you find him some other source of leech, he will benefit more from it than you with current weapon) and he'll do alot of the job for you.

That said, even with the best possible gear you could theoretically get your hands on, a frost zealot is not going to be a very good farming char for repeated area runs or boss runs (even if he kills bosses just fine with smite and cb) compared to other options, so if you want him to gear other chars I'd suggest another build instead.

 

[japanzaman]

Cold immunes are going to be hell for you character unless you get a top end weapon like Grief or an eth BotD, as you simply aren't going to do much physical damage to them fast enough to kill efficiently. Fanatcism with a decent damaging weapon could get the job done against the CI, as I doubt you'll have the skill points to pump something like Holy Shock to the point where it can kill effectively. Crescent Moon would be a nice find, but those Ums can take a while to drop, and then you need to scrounge up a phase blade.

 

[Korlic]

Hmm I would prolly run The Countess on P1 until Um dropped, and then make Crescent Moon. It has ITD, that means you will hit 95 procent vs. normal monsters. Then on switch you could have Black for taking down bosses.

IF you go that road respec so you only have points in Zeal to make it lvl 4. The rest goes to max out HF and synergies as well as maxing HS. Holy Shock will recieve a little damage from Salvation, so those points are well spend as a dual auradin.

 

[Korlic]

Dont know if you can find low quality Phase Blades, if so you can make it normal with a cube recipe, and then stand a good chance of 3-sockets when using the socket recipe