My latest pat: HurtyStick the Avenger

My latest pat: HurtyStick the Avenger

Today I trampled over Baal's squishy behind in the last difficulty level, making my avenger Patriarch.

This build immediately followed my E-lot, (elemental zealot).
That character played quite well, but I was still curious about a classic Stick-O-Hurt 2-handed pain-delevering device, AKA an Avenger.
I browsed through Asmodeous' avenger bible, and decided that I'd like a 2-hander with ~400 avg. damage at least. Coincidentally, I also had a 290%ED ribby gathering dust in my stash, which I've always wanted to try.

Putting one and one together (three, I think), I present to ye:

HurtyStick, lvl. 83, Avenger.

Vengeance without prebuffing:
Damage --> 3902 - 6311
AR --> 1677 (Boo! Hiss!)

Vengeance with a little sprinkle of demon limb:
Damage --> 3989 - 6422
AR --> 2856 (More than enough)

My gear and merc are a little bit out-of-the-ordinary, because I couldn't help iincluding a few experiments in this build. I wanted to test two things:
- The usefulness of a Cold Wolf.
- The usefulness of PMDR, or magic damage reduced by X.

A few conclusions:
- I want to wrap my merc's sword around his neck and kill him to death. Then I want to throw his corpse to a bunch of foul beasts and pour his half-digested remains in concrete, and then cast the concrete block into the fiery lava below Diablo's domain. Bastard. Well, he's not entirely useless, I mean, he freezes stuff, but apart from that he sucks harder than a tornado.
Damage: low, survivability: low, intelligence: low.

- With a total PMDR of 71, HurtyStick could tank every bolt/blob/laser beam of elemental damage tossed at him. Gloam champion packs could zap all day long, and he only needed a red potion every once in a while. I went this route in response to the poor elemental tankability of my previous project.

- I will not likely play a two-handed paladin, or similar low-HP character again. He tanked his elements well, but he died so many times to physical harm, that I'm not going to touch a shieldless melee-er with a ten-foot pole(arm) for a long time. These glass cannon melee builds just go against my playing style.
I must say, he performed splendidly when going against single foes, or small packs, but when HurtyStick got surrounded, the Grim Reaper LOL'ed.
I guess a holy freeze merc would have eased my pain.

- I liked my previous zeal-based conviction pally much better. The damage/second ratio was the same, but zealing uninterruptably at 5FPA is superior crowd control to hitting one foe at a time.

Gear:
Head: Kira's guardian, pimped. 80 all res, +7 to dex.
Neck: Crescent moon, 6%LL, 13%ML [10 PMDR]
Weapon: Upped ribby, listed damage 322-482 (yeah!), 290%ED, Shael'ed
Armor: Eth bugz0red 'Prudence' Wyrmhide, 2589 defence, +29 res all [17 PMDR]
Rings: 2 Dwarf Stars [30 PMDR]
Belt: String of Ears, 8%LL, 15%DR [14 PMDR]
Boots: War Traveler (50%MF, not very relevant to build, but quite nice nonetheless)
Gloves: Something I plopped on in NM and never bothered to take off since, it has light res. and 20% IAS, needed for the 10FPA breakpoint.

Merc's gear: Eth Spirit monarch, spirit crystal sword, eth Shako+PAmethyst.
Merc's total FCR: 95%.

Charms: 44 res all (3 GC), Sharp/fine charms (+38 max damage, +240 AR), and 12% FHR which brings the total to 87% (ribby, prudence, charm), or 4 frames hit recovery.

Oh, Hellforge gave: NM --> Hel, Hell --> Hel.

 

Grats on the pat.

PMDR? What's the P supposed to be?
Also, that 12% charm is kinda unnecessary, as 75% is the 6-frame bp for staff-wielding pallys.

 

I think I missed something here, what was your skill allocation? Is it another thread or something?

 

Congrats on the Pat.

Did you need the Demon Limb Prebuff? With a high level conviction you shouldn't really need any AR - unless you come up against a Stone Skin Boss.

 

I haven't got the faintest idea. I used the standard terminology DR (% damage reduced), and PDR (damage reduced by X) and added the M for magic. Free cookie for whomever knows what the P stands for.

Oh, I got the 86% 4FPA breakpoint from Asmo's guide. Apparently the breakpoint for two-handers is different. Didn't know that.

Nah, who needs proofreading... :dunce:

Vengeance (20), Conviction (20), Redemption (1 + prereqs).
Resist Lightning (20), Resist Fire (13), Resist Cold(6).

Next time, I'll skip Redemption and go with potions instead. Never used it...

EDIT: Didn't catch Milbs question.

I loved my prebuff. I found that I didn't want to whiff at a monster, especially when surrounded (happened too often). For a comfortable chance-to-hit, I'd like my AR to be ~7 times the target's defense (meaning ~ **% CTH). Let's say the average critter's defense is 4K, or 400 after conviction, then my AR should be around ~2800.

 

It's just staves and spears, at least according to this, though staves might include axes and mauls as well... not sure about that.

 

I've learned something new today. Too bad I already Pat'ed him.

 

Gratz on the pat.
and i'm pretty sure the P in PDR means physical. Can I get the cookie?

 

*hands Pucho a charred disk with icky bits on top*

Sorry, my cookies aren't as yummy as W_M's.
Watch out for your teeth.:badteeth:

 

Yeah I was thinking about a 2-handed for an avenger myself, and I realized with the paladin this is a tricky thing to do against large mobs (with a berserker barb you have warcry to help you out for instance). Have you thought of maybe using a shield + scepter in the other hand with +3 conversion? I was thinking that conversion is the answer to the avenger pally vs lots of mobs, quickly convert a few then switch and bash on them with massive vengeance! You might have to wait for them to convert back, but it's safer, and it might not be all that long considering how tough hell monsters are for melee.

 

Didn't think of that. It sounds like an interesting idea. But I don't think it's needed if
- you play more carefully than me (probable), and
- you get a better merc than mine (very probable).

The deaths I've suffered were mainly due to impatience. Running merrily through the WSK and suddenly finding yourself blocked and surrounded is a bummer. I'm sure that a holy freeze merc is all you need for your two-handed avenger. He tanks for you, and he chills for you.
I mean, if I can pull a suboptimal build through hell...

 

Hehe do it untwinked!

 

Congrats on your Pat!

 

I am straight Hardcore and Two Handed Paladins are what I do 50% of the time. Plain and simple your Armor, Helm, and Amulet should all be devoted to PDR. Simply put do this or you will die. I find physical damage far more deadly in this game then elemental. Only Gloams are Dangerous to me if you just have the 75, 75, 75, 75 resists. As long has there is no Conviction or Lower Reist effect on you. All of my dead Hardcore melee characters have died to Physical damage or Fire Enchanted explosions. I have taken over 1500 damage from a single physical hit before from a damn Unique Zombie. Plain and simple my Two Handed Paladins go for 30% and Damage reduced by 75.

Rock Stopper = Belt Equals 30%

Amulet 25
Helm 7 Sol In Rockstopper
Armor 40-43 Jewelers Of Amicae

Which Equls 72-75

If you aren't wearing gear like this don't even think about trying a Hardcore Two Handed Paladin.

 

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of using straight damage reduction. It's probably more useful than I think it is, since most of the wimpier hell monsters do like 100 damage so if you have -70ish that would help a lot!

 

Congrats on your Pat.

These are the most relevant boots to Avenger build because of 15-25 damage, which adds a lot of final Vengeance damage....

 

I tried to say that the MF% was irrelevant to the build, but nice. The added damage is of course the sole reason I'm wearing them. Too bad I didn't have an open slot for a +min damage jewel.

@Sir Dante: The straight MDR I used worked like a charm, but wasn't needed in the end. As you said, Gloams are the most dangerous elemental foes, the rest can be avoided.
If straight damage reduction works that well too, I'll guess I'll have to try re-outfitting a chargerdin of mine stuck in Act I Hell. Too bad that jeweler's of amicae armors are bit hard to come by *cough* understatement *cough*.

 

Many congratulations on that Pat. :thumbsup: Can I ask why you put points into the individual resists rather than Salvation?

Edit: @ AJK - thank you for explaining that

Thanks for giving me a good laugh this morning ...

 

More damage.

Let's call my base physical damage X.
Every point in a single res. aura adds 0.1*X to total damage.
Every point in salvation adds 3*0.02*X = 0.06*X to total damage.
More importantly: every two points in a single res. aura bumps up the corresponding max resist by one point. That also explains why I maxed res. lightning. A good number of Gloams tasted the painful end of my hurty stick.

 

PDR might mean;

..."Physical Damage Reduce" (referring to dmg reduced by x) or...
..."Point Damage Reduce" (referring to dmg reduced by x) or...
..."Percent Damage Reduce" (referring to dmg reduced by %).

All depending on whom you ask. Do I get three cookies?

I'm a big fan of Damage reduced by x. Sadly it's mostly just a neat thing to play around with, since the items that comes with it have a significant lack of... other affixes.

Oh and congratulations to the Patriarch!