msoerensen said:
i am starting a frost zealot but i am considering doing it with a balance of skills
20 hf
20 res cold
20 zeal
10 sacrifice
10 salvation
and 5+ in holy shield
would it be better to put 20 in sacrifice instead of dividing them into sacrifice and salvation.
this i purely pvm
To answer your last question: I'd put more points into holy shield or sacrifice, the defence it gives you is godly, sacrifice is a better choice then salvation because ALL monsters in hell have at least 30-50% resistance to COLD even though it wont list it on the monster as soon as you have a few players join all the monsters get resists 30+ or so resist to most elements. Lifetap and leech only effects *physical damage* so if you like to leech sacrifice is the place to put your points if you're going to have a weapon with high minimum physical damage (Note: I may be wrong about the lifetap but I'm pretty sure it works like leech in that you only get life from *physical damage*).
As a hell PVM frost zealot please leave salvation for near last and make sure you have FULL ZEAL before going into hell or you wont hit much without +ar gear or good +ar weapons or helmets that have visonary magic bonus on rares or magic helms. also I'd try to find a fools ancient or fools warsword of evisceration (but really any fools warsword/ancient will do you just want to hit them). Fools they have insane AR and have it in your inventory or on switch for when you have any problems hitting stuff, you can't beat fools with its +1200-1400 AR which adds to your *base* so it gets multiplied majorly by zeal, without it I ahve something like 1800-2000AR, with fools I have over 4200AR.
These people saying you wont have any AR probs are not being honest or are speaking without knowledge. I have like 230 points in vitality (if that tells you anything) and you need it. I have something like 138 dex at level 80 fyi. Bosses, certain champs and uniques in hell especially have huge defense and the faster you kill them the better with the huge damage output and curses. Especially if you have no +skill charms or no skills on your shield, I'm still using my 'ancients pledge' paladin shield that has over 80 resist (I found a shield with a decent base 33-35%, its been hard for me to find anything above 30'ish with *just* 3 sockets).
You do res cold first, then split between zeal and freeze (best IMHO), with a ratio of maybe 3/4 points going to holy freeze and the other 1/4 going to zeal. Whatever you do dont waste points in salvation if you are going to play all the way through hell the extra bonus cold damage with the synergy from salvation is not as great as the guide or some other frost zealots might make it sound with all the monsters with cold resistance and immunities in hell. I'm using a lightsabre in hell and before I acquired it, even with crushing blow I had to get to level 80 before I could manage act2/3 fairly well by myself.
Also if you dont mind spending time running in and out of town to re-roll shopkeep inventories you can buy yourself kris or cinquedeas(sp?) of lifetap in the harrogath nightmare and act1/2 shops in hell between level 75 and 80 I think (they may start showing up earlier). Get one with level 5 lifetap and have it on switch/in your inventory and you'll laugh at those people who have exile runeword since you can cast lifetap whenever you want and aim it wherever you want, and with 97 charges and decent repair bill (talking hell here with 30K item drops) you'll do fine.
If you like to MF on higher difficulties a high res base shield /w 3 sockets is a must for ancients pledge or another nice shield with high resist (at least 80% all on the shield). You can find these most anywhere starting in nightmare by doing cows, doing baal runs, doing foothills, or nithathaks temple. So be sure to join all the cow games you see and most people leave behind regular socketed paladin shields so you can just run around and see what is left in cow games. Why on the shield? Because it frees up your armor, helmet rings, boots and gloves for MF gear if you can put them all on the shield, paladin shield is the most efficient slot to put all your resist requirements for Paladin MFing with frosty. Because its most likely you wont have the charms you'd need to negate the negative resistance if you plan to MF in hell.
