Holy Fire Pala

[Alkali]

Holy Fire Pala

Hi all...

My first time playing on Battlenet with my first char - a pala... I decided early on that I liked the look of the Holy Fire because in just 2 skill points I was slicing through most monsters (good 1h weapon & shield)...

Now I'm on level 26, and I have a great shield (add pala skills etc), lots of health (350+), a 2h great axe and a great 1h weapon too...

When I look at the damage, the Holy Fire adds a minimum of nearly 70 damage onto my hits, and when I select vengenace instead of normal my damage rating go up very nicely... One handed I can get 304 damage, and 2h I can do 404 damage.

Am I looking at it wrong or something, but I don't understand why people say Holy fire is such a waste of skill points. However, if you can tell me why its a waste maybe I should be better starting a new pala instead of wasting my time..

I have level 15 Holy fire & level 4 Fire resist btw...

what do you think guys & gals....

 

[Evanta]

well... u are probably new to the game... but holy fire as compared to holy freeze and holy shock is rather underpowered. If you are going to use DragonScale shield though, it can be an interesting build.

Try going for this:

20 Zeal
20 Holy Fire
20 Resist Fire

Vengence does not swing as fast as Zeal, so it will do less damage with Holy Fire than Zeal will. Check the tesladin guide in the stickys above, just substitute instances of Holy Shock with Holy Fire, and it should be fine... Just remember to try get the Dragon Scale Pally Shield, shouldn't be too hard, people may trade it with you for 3 perfect gems.

 

[Alkali]

Thankyou very much for your insight

Im going to try that...

Regards, Alk.

 

[Mack]

This will be a much tougher build when you get into NM and/or HELL. AND!! that's fine, just realize that you'll hit a block with this build, which just means you can try another later on. Good build to start with and familiarize yourself with the pally.

 

[Evanta]

This will be a much tougher build when you get into NM and/or HELL. AND!! that's fine, just realize that you'll hit a block with this build, which just means you can try another later on. Good build to start with and familiarize yourself with the pally.

DRAGON SCALE (pally shield)
Defense: 523-582 (varies)(Base Defense: 169-193)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 142
Durability: 65
Chance To Block: 52%
Smite Damage: 46 To 46
(Paladin Only)
+170-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
Adds 211-371 Fire Damage
+15% To Fire Skill Damage
+10 To Hydra
+5% To Maximum Fire Resist
+15-25 To Strength (varies)
Fire Absorb 10-20% (varies)

I believe the build can float with this shield. It'll still be a struggle, but it can be done. Socket it with a perfect diamond for best effect. Best of all, few people will actually want to use this shield, it's very specific for a Holy Fire pally, so it'll be quite cheap and within reach for a new guy.

 

[Mack]

Evanta, perhaps true, but he has to hit lvl 80 before he can use it. Even with it though, I don't think it'll be very fun at all to play with, unless of course he's got some other awesome gear. HF just doesn't do much damage even with maxed synergies. Fine for normal, probably ok for NM, but hell will be tough if he decides to go that far.

And reaching lvl80 without being in HELL will be a chore

 

[D2XNewbie]

Evanta, perhaps true, but he has to hit lvl 80 before he can use it. Even with it though, I don't think it'll be very fun at all to play with, unless of course he's got some other awesome gear. HF just doesn't do much damage even with maxed synergies. Fine for normal, probably ok for NM, but hell will be tough if he decides to go that far.

And reaching lvl80 without being in HELL will be a chore

What if he laid on the Crushing Blow, similar to Kitriara's Frost Zealot? Would that make the build more viable in HELL, or is that only workable with Holy Freeze?

 

[joepublic]

all chars are hell viable, if they can find ppl to team up with. Have fun with ur Holy Fire pally. My second ladder char was a HFire pally and he was alot more fun than my first char, one of those hammer thingees. after you have maxed HFire and fire res. max zeal and sacrifice. dont over look ITD.

 

[Alkali]

Thats great thanks

Im feeling more confident all the time as you guys help me understand how to gain more from this build... I would really like to take this build up and beyond lvl80 - but I think, judging from the warnings, I really will have to team up with some other good level chars to be able to progress in latter stages... I've *mostly* been playing through the Acts on my own, all except Duriel...

One thing thats funny is to help people in Act I or II, because I just walk around, and pretty much all the monsters burn up immediately because of the holy fire aura damage

One question, what is ITD?

 

[D2XNewbie]

Thats great thanks

Im feeling more confident all the time as you guys help me understand how to gain more from this build... I would really like to take this build up and beyond lvl80 - but I think, judging from the warnings, I really will have to team up with some other good level chars to be able to progress in latter stages... I've *mostly* been playing through the Acts on my own, all except Duriel...

One thing thats funny is to help people in Act I or II, because I just walk around, and pretty much all the monsters burn up immediately because of the holy fire aura damage

One question, what is ITD?

ITD = Ignore Target Defense. When calculating your probability to hit a target, that target is treated as if it had a defense of zero.

 

[joepublic]

1) max holy fire, then max fire resist, then max sacrifice. you'll need to max sacrifice for hell and late nightmare. make sure u got at least 4 points in zeal as soon as possible, make this a priority, max it later. put 5 points in holy shield as soon as possible, put more later if u want.

2) make sure u got max resists and max block all the time.
make sure u got max resists and max block all the time.
make sure u got max resists and max block all the time.
make sure u got max resists and max block all the time.
make sure u got max resists and max block all the time.

3) If you don't have ITD, get ar in ur equipmnt cause ur gonna need it, especially for bosses, cause they immune to ITD. angelic ring and another angelic set peice is great for ar. sigons helm and another sigon set peice is almost as good, the gloves are practically a must have, unless u can get better.

4) Get enough str for ur equipment and no more. A baranor's star requires 153 str, stormlash 125, and nord's tenderizer **,(u can get these weopons for pgems in the trade forums). A storm sheild requires 157 str, just in case ur lucky enough to get one. A HoZ requires 89, u'll proly find this before u find a ss(storm sheild). U prolly want this more than a ss anyway(i found a hoz, no ss in site yet). Don't over look rare pally shields. They have everything u want, resists and block.

5) You can get by with 50 vit in normal, 100-150 in nightmare, and can't get enough vit in hell. In hell, pump vitality, pump vitality, pump vitality.

6) Save and cube every gem and rune u find, every scrap of gold. U can get good items in the trade forums for them. I bought a shaftstop for 2 mil gold.

7) Iratha's set gives great resists. Guardian Angle is great, but, costly. Duriels shell is a great cheap little armor. Darkglow will work if u have noting else. Pdiamonded whitstan sheild is almost a HoZ, it will save u tons of dex that u can put in vitallity. Orphan's call set is great if u have max resists.

8) If u rush and baal run u will be lower lvl than the monsters most of the time. this means that u will have trouble hitting them. u will be tempted to pump zeal for the ar. dont bother. it wont fix he problem. get ar equip or itd.

9) Enjoy norm and nightmare cause you'll be uber there.

 

[Cold493]

I'll give you my dragonscale shield free of charge. Only catch is I wont be able to get onto battle.net until monday. My username is *cold493 I'm usually on at random times during the day and late at night.

 

[Cod]

i was actually going to try something like your holy fire pally at first, but as i started putting points into holy shock for a switch in case of fire immunes, i realised that holy shock adds a LOT more power to hits. still, after i max that, i'm going to go back to maxing holy fire just to see if it's actually viable. right now i do about 700 damage with my holy fire aura on, so killing lightning immunes is possible, it just takes a looong time.

 

[Alkali]

I'll give you my dragonscale shield free of charge. Only catch is I wont be able to get onto battle.net until monday. My username is *cold493 I'm usually on at random times during the day and late at night.

Thankyou very much
I can try give you something when we trade....
___________________

Thankyou very much joepublic for your input on the subject. I have one question though. When I am playing and use Zeal (leveled up to 5), it is not at all effective because it only hits a monster once in like 5 hits, but when I use Vengeance it hits them pretty much 3/4 of the time. I dont pretend to understand why, I have since reverted to Vengeance instead of Zeal... Do you guys think Sacrifice is a good way to go? I heard the only viable way to do this when you get up to Nightmare or Hell level is with a very heavy life regenerate to cancel out its strong effect...

Btw, my stats are as follows at the moment:
Strength: 120 (needed for equipment)
Dexterity: 75
Vitality: 66 (Life is 433 due to my socketed ruby pgems in equipment
Energy: 22

Resistances are 75/37/44/63 (1 handed) less with no shield...

Damage (with Vengeance and holy fire on): 265-355 (1 handed), 401-565 (2 handed)
Attack rating (with Vengeance and holy fire on): 700 (1 handed), 655 (2 handed)
Defence: 528

Skills spread:
18 in holy fire (19 with shield bonus)
1 in fire resist (2 with shield bonus)
1 in pretty much most else except Zeal, Vengeance which both have 3 (4 with shield)

**************
So.. should I go for
20 holy fire
20 fire resist
as many as possible in vengeance

or

20 holy fire
20 fire resist
as many as possible in (zeal?, or one the other possible skills) - [read above for why I'm dubious about Zeal at the moment...]

 

[Evanta]

you are playing d2 version 1.10 right? Zeal should hit just as often, if not pump more pts into it, and get some items that add attack rating.

 

[zrk]

in 1.09 zeal hit 20 times

 

[joepublic]

Thankyou very much joepublic for your input on the subject.

No, thank you for allowing me to spread my magnificance. ROFLMAO. I'm such a clown.

i would go with zeal because if u get all 5 hits then the damage is 5 times listed. Also u have more chances to set off %[somethingor other] like crushing blow or static and thats a very good thing. i was lucky and found a bunch of high damage ITD knives early on so i hit alot. i also had higher dexterity. look for a heart carver knife in the trade forums. they should be cheap. its all about ur equipment. ur biggest problem is equipment and low dexterity.

some ppl use 1 point vengence with 10 points in each of the other 2 resists fr fire immunes. in that case they dont put points in sacrifice. i prefer the sacrifice synergy over vengence because u get better leech and u do 2 types of damage all the time.

also, zeal had a problem where if the first hit missed then they all miss. rumor has it that its been repaired. while the "feature" was working, the work around was to click your opponent for every hit instead of just holding down the button on them.

i never made a sacrifice pally, but, dont think i would. pallies dont really have too much life and it's tough enough with everybody else out to get them. they dont really need the extra help. so no sense in hurting urself. like u already read they are a problem. but u could try it and it'll have great to hit cause you'll max fanat and sac has good ar bonus. the point spread would be very much like u should be doing now. str for gear, dex for block, vit all the rest. if dont max fanat u wont hit ****. zeal has higher ar bonus than sac.

 

[Alkali]

Well, I cant understand why I should be maxing fanat... Im not going to be able to use Holy fire at the same time as Fanat because they are both auras...

But, I just tried out fanat, and although the vengeance damage rating plummeted, my ar skill went to 1,404.......

Does this mean I should forget about Holy Fire? Because I cant use the Holy Fire and Fanat auras at the same time can I... hum

 

[Alkali]

Ok, I'm now on level 43 (aint too bad at this leveling lark :surprise: )

I have maxed out Holy Fire, and have 10 points in Resist Fire. The auras attack alone is now 50 fire damage to all monsters in screen view (wicked :clap: )...

I have also played around between Zeal and Vengeance, and although my initial impression was bad about Zeal, I'm now using it all the time, so I will max this too I think.

Regards.