Quick project: Normal Unique/Set wearers

Quick project: Normal Unique/Set wearers

This is an idea some people have thrown around, “How far can you take a character using only normal unique/set items?†I know finishing norm is possible, but how far can you go? End of NM? Can you beat hell?

First guidelines (some personal*)
1) Melee only. Casters are too easy.
2) The Character will either use all normal sets or all normal uniques. No other items may be muled on. Until the character is able to use an item (clvl, str/dex, etc), they may use what they find.
3) No Uniques may be upgraded. This rule may change should I push these build into late NM/Hell.
4) No cookie-cutters allowed. These builds are designed to be powerful enough to suit the power-gamer inside me, but they are not terribly common builds.
5) Please check the Arreat Summit about the respective items first if you are going to constructively criticize my item choices.
6) I will be on /p8 for most of the time.

So, now for the builds:

Sacrificing Set-A-Din: Why? Well, after I set down my item choices, I noticed I had 22% LL. Why not use sacrifice?

Skills:
20 Sac
20 Redemption (15% damage synergy)
1+ Fanat
1 In all pre-req’s

Items and explanations:
Sigon’s Armor and Boots:
40% Cold/Light res, decent fr/w and most of all 10% when both are equipped is nice.

Full Iratha’s set:
Nightfish gets the inspirational credit here. I have been looking for a way to incorporate this set, which NF applauds with no end, however, I have been unable to do it. The bonuses here are amazing, including 40% fr/w, +65% res all, +10% max res all, 75% plr, and 20% IAS.

2x Cathan’s Seal’s:
12% LL is nothing to sneeze at.

Cleglaw’s Sword and Shield
Scaling damage, 50% DS, +30% AR and 15% res all between the two. The only drawback is the low blocking %, which I am going to leave at base. I’m not going to spend my points increasing the blocking of such a bad shield. I may take it 50%, but that’s a max.

Stats:
Enough STR, for gear, enough Dex for my desired blocking and the rest into vita.


The Unique Assassin

I’m still unsure what exact build I’m going to play, but, here we go:

Skills
20 TS/1 Cobra Strike OR 20 D-Talon/1 Dragon Flight
20 Venom
17 Shadow Master (I really don’t want to use traps, see rule #1)
1 BoS
1 CoS

Gear and explanations

Armor: Twichthroe: Simply the best norm armor out there.
Helm: Duskdeep: +damage, res, and not much else is good for helms
Shield: Stormguild: Great shield for our purposes /w LR and good blocking
Weapon: Gnasher/Blood Crescent (D-Talon) OR Battlebranch (TS)
Gloves: Bloodfist: IAS/dmg/life/FHR
Ring: Nagel: AR
Ring: Manald: ML
Belt: Nightsmoke/Snakecord/Bladebuckle
Boots: Tearhuach/Goblin Toe: Either higher base kick damage or CB. I'm undecided.
Ammy: Eye of Etlich: LL/skills/cold damage

What do you think? I’m going to start the Sacrificer in about 30 minutes, when I’m done with work and supper. I think this is going to be fun.

crg

 

Hmm...seems interesting. I think you could take both most of the way throught nightmare at least. I'm guessing 50% block on the sac and CB on the sin would take you farther. Good luck. :thumbsup:

 

Ever notice how the uniques/sets you don't pick up come back and bite you?

The quick project is being put temporarily on hold whilst I go mf for a Stormguild and Iratha's Helm. If you have either of those, I'll throw 5 pgems your way for them (sorry to AE/Krem for the non-SPTF trade offer).

necro34 (at) hotmail (dot) com

 

Inflicting enough damage will be a problem in Hell, especially if you plan to use mostly p8. Extra damage and CB will be a must IMO. I like the Cleglaw's sword/shield combo, but add the gloves too!

Consider what the gloves will add:
20% IAS
scaling AR (+10/level)
35% Crushing Blow <---- this is key!
6% mana leech
+100 defense (possibly helpful depending on build)
25% slowing
Knockback (sometimes good, sometimes bad)

Add these to the deadly strike/scaling damage and your damage is Hell-viable. You can boost your CB to 60% with Goblin Toe. All that for only 4 item slots, which leaves you several good combos for life/resists..etc.. (edit: I guess the Goblin Toe option is out, since your set char doesn't use uniques)

The drawbacks:
Low blocking. Getting this shield to 50% block will be very expensive stat-wise.
Knockback. A nuisance at times.

I'm speaking from some experience here. My original character in jiansonz's S/U tourney chanced upon the full Cleg's set, which became part of her endgame gear. She died in Hell Act2 Tal's Tomb (FE unraveller).
But up to that point, Cleg's set proved to be worthwhile, especially after Shael-ing the sword and PDiamond-ing the shield. Blocking% was awful though. With 95 str, 112 dex, and 273 vit; her blocking was down to 19%.

On another note, if you need some crowd control, consider the Face of Horror Mask, which has:
+50% damage undead
+10 resist all
+20 Str
50% monster flee

edit: this might be a long shot, but if you could spare the resists, maybe use an Eld in Cleg's shield instead of PDiamond. That should save you a lot of stat points if you want to get the blocking% higher.

 

Check your mail, dont send anything back.

 

hehe, this sounds like my cleglawdin I am making, he's going through just using cleglaws set, and when he couldnt use it, he punched

good luck with your chars

 

Thx for the gear!

Also, I'm planning to take these as far as I can with the gear I have assigned them. I'm hoping to complete NM, and get as far as the smith in Hell (for the imbue). The goal of the chars is to use only norm sets or norm uniques, not mixing the two. I appreciate your comments.

crg

 

I'm thinking a sigon's tesladin with one of the fast sword, not sure if it's a cookie cutter by your definition.

 

Ah, I see. If you're stopping in Act 1 Hell I think you can pass on extra CB and still do p8. I like the gear selection for both chars, good luck!