Resistances / Avenger

Resistances / Avenger

Resistance part: What is the difference between "resist" and max resist"? I was thinking that max resist dealt with how much resistance you were ABLE to have, while actual resist was how much you DID have. For example; I can have a max cold resist of 95 but i actually only have 56. But then again, I have always thought that it is impossible to go over a 75% resist. As you can tell, I am quite confused and any help would be great.

Avenger part: I am making an Avenger and thought once I was done using Baranar's Star, I would move on to a Doom Berserker Axe (mostly because of the high IAS, and minus to enemy cold resist). If I calculated it right, I should be doing 631 - 1869 elemental damage (not including my aura, Conviction, or the minus to enemy cold resist, which would come close to doubling or tripling my damage). Good idea or bad?

 

You are right about the resistance part. While normally max resist is 75%, there are many items that can increase max resist. Guardian Angel, Iratha set, for example. The absolute max resist is 95%, however, no matter what gear you use.

 

I see. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

 

I read in a thread long ago that the best weapon for an Avenger is BOTD in an eth BA, as the elemental damage added by Vengeance is based on the physical damage you do. BOTD also has 60% IAS, which is the most of any Runeword. One person was arguing that Famine would be better, as it adds elemental damage, but everyone else was in agreement that BOTD is superior.

Doom would be better for a cold-oriented Frost Zealot.

 

Yah, if you can get high Physical damage, you can hit really awesome Vengeance damage. Famine, even Gimmershred or Baranar's Star can work...just...not as cool.

 

So physical damage is calculated first followed by elemental damage? I thought they were done at the same time.

 

If you go the Fanaticism route instead of using the Conviction aura, just make sure to equip your merc with Infinity if you can afford it. High speed + High elemental damage + Infinity = winner combo :grin: :thumbsup: !

 

Long time ago i posted about using Grief for avengers here. I am still convinced that Crushing Blow and Critical strike is a must for every melee character. Finding your self in a situation fighting a monster with huge hit points and not having CB is not smart. Also not having Critical strike for mana / life leech is not a very good idea. Vengeance is a skill that takes a lot of mana so I always make sure that for every hit I take my mana back. There is a very slight difference killing regular monsters using the best high-end weapons / runewords BUT the true difference comes when you don’t have CB / CS equipped on yourself when dueling bosses. I use Death RW with a lot of IAS jewels. Botd and Death will kill a regular monsters with 1-2 hits, but Death will take down Baal much faster.

So for an Avenger the best solution is to have a weapon with a very high direct physical damage and your Pala has a lot of min / max modifiers on him. ED% modifiers (jewels) don’t do much.

 

Well you can always use an Insight merc. Your running conviction yourself so an Insight merc can easily fix any mana leech problems.

As for Death, my case on it is that its too slow, you have to sacrifice alot for IAS. You can easily mitigate Ebotdz lack of CB by using Guil face and Gore riders which will give you 50% CB which is enough for most pvm.

Anyway we should all know by now that Grief's +damage mod does not work with Vengence, so its not a good choice for an avenger.

 

I'm sure that some clever gear choices can make a variety of weapons viable, but nothing beats an ebotdz. It has the highest damage for this build, is very fast, and solves the leeching problem that tends to plague Avengers with lesser gear. I also use Fortitude to add 300% to the physical damage. Off weapon +XX% does not boost elemental damage, but it still adds > 1000 damage and more importantly, cranks up leeching to near overkill levels.

BTW, using a Doom weapon on a Might merc is a great, albeit pricey, way to go.

 

After reading all this, I'm fairly sure I'll go with an eBotD BA, if I can afford it. Although I do have the runes to make Death... Well, my Avenger's still only level 42, so I have enough time to decide on my higher end weapon. (I still can't even use Baranar's Star!)

Also, should I just stop at 44 Dex for my Avenger because thats all he needs for Baranr's or should I keep adding to it?

 

Get enough for max block with Holy Shield activated.

 

What would be the general number I'm shooting for then?

 

if using hoz 130+ is a good number.