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Partiarch Dakkon, The Warrior Monk
Story:
Dakkon stared down at the mangled corpse before him. The battle was won, Baal was destroyed, and yet he derived little satisfaction from the deed. The last remaining member, he still carried the loss of the total destruction of his Order during the Zakarumite purges with an acid bitterness. His eyes hardened as they fell on Tyrael's glowing image. The plotting of the divine held no interest to his mortal ears. He was bound to his Order and bore the responsibility of its survival. His quest was over, yet his work was far from done. Striding towards the portal he could not help but think back to how this all started.
Since his oldest memories as a young boy, he had always been a member of the secret Order in Kurast. Highly skilled warrior monks, each and every one of them were trained endlessly in the deadliest martial arts in all of Sanctuary. Ancient skills of crafting and imbuing made the monks the curators of the largest collection of rare relics and magical equipment in the East. They were feared for their power, respected for their skill and revered for their wisdom. Trained in the rarest martial form of all, Dakkon was one of only two people able to wield the most brutal weapon with the speed and precision to be truly effective; the legendary mallet.
It was on his mission to Khanduras that news reached him of the purges enacted by the corrupted Zakarumites in Kurast and the destruction of the Order in the process. Gone was the vast collection of relics and magical items, swept away by the hands of evil. Gone were millennia of documenting and preserving ancient knowledge. Gone were his brothers and sisters.
Rushing back to Kurast, his caravan was ambushed by the forces of evil. Leading the survivors away, they found shelter among the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye. It was here, staring into the flames of the campfire, that his devastation turned into unyielding resolve. He would enact cruel justice upon those that destroyed his kin.
Although he made Patriarch a while ago, I have continued working on him, levelled him to lvl 92 recently and felt it was maybe worth writing this up.
I now only play with a rule-set called 'Rare Only', by which I mean that characters are allowed everything except runewords, unique items and set items. This makes for some interesting outcomes, for example 'Cannot be Frozen' is only possible via socketing a Cham, the max FCR achievable is 90, battle orders are barbarian only, and rare and crafted items become generally much more interesting.
I started this character without having any of the gear needed for late game and had to craft/find everything he used to get here. This was doubly rewarding for me because I love good rare/crafted/magical equipment in Diablo II and love seeing good gear work out well in the final character product. He is however, twinked, since it was very much a combined effort between various characters to get him his current setup.
I ended up settling on legendary mallets thanks to their high damage and the fact that fanaticism zealots are some of the few builds that can make it work very nicely. Furthermore, since no uniques or runewords are used, it leaves a lot of possible open sockets to fill with ias jewels. Mallets really do pack a punch and the minimum damage is especially glorious (particularly for a zealer). I will continue to improve on his equipment whenever I can, but for now the balance is great. The end result is a really fun character.
I never use mercenaries (except on a fishymancer).
Gear:
I used one of my favourite looks for the Paladin (Wire Fleece) and saw it suited the Armet look well and tied in nicely with a warrior-monk-look based more around chain/leather/war hammer rather than gleaming plate/sword.
iPDR makes a huge difference to his survivability thanks to a low-ish life. I tried to stack it as much as I could without sacrificing too many other aspects. PDR plus life-leech allows me to survive most things. I have had several deaths with him (all in hell) and they usually occur in some way thanks to being frozen/slowed by cold damage. In my experience, cold has been the single biggest threat to RO melee characters.
Thanks for reading!
Perhaps it might encourage a couple of other people to put their beautiful blues and yellows to good use on an RO character
EDIT: Please ask any and all questions!