Tesladin stuck in the Blood Moor :(

[Remxi]

Tesladin stuck in the Blood Moor

Hey guys, I'm having a bit of trouble with my pally in hell, and was wondering if you could give me some advice. Here are my stats/equipment etc.

Skills
10 - Sacrifice
5 - Zeal
20 - Holy Shock
5 - Fanaticisim
5 - Conviction
20 - Resist Lightning
5 - Salvation

Stats
Str - 130
Dex - 160
Vit - 130
Eng - Base

Attack Rating - 1447 (gives me about 57% chance of hitting)
Defense - 1093 (gives monsters about 70% chance of hitting)

Damage with HS - 211-3847
Damage without HS - 210-515

Resists
Fire - Approx. 40
Cold - Approx. 50
Lightning - Approx. 15
Poison - Approx. 5

Equipment
Weapon - Butcher's Pupil
Shield - The Ward
Armor - Duriel's Shell
Ring - 2x Cathan's Seal
Boots - Sigon's Sabot
Belt - Sigon's Wrap
Amulet - Amber Amulet of Absorption (39% Lightning Resist, Damage Reduced by 3)
Gloves - 20% Fire & Cold Resist, 3% Mana Steal
Helm - 25% Fire & Poison Resist

Basically, I'm getting my *** totally kicked in all areas of Hell Act 1. I had no troubles at all dealing with NM Act 5, but even weak monsters like Quill Rats are chewing through me in Hell. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to improve my chances of survival?

EDIT: I'm level 69 at the moment.

 

[Zavior]

Thats very low dmg for a tesladin. What lv are you?

Mercenary?

Life?

Where are you excatly having problems?

 

[FrolfFreak]

I think your low Attack rating and consequently chance-to-hit is a problem. Consider perhaps the Angelic set amulet and ring(s) combination for a quick AR boost. Or AR charms. Or any magical/rare equipment that boosts AR. I think magic/rare helms can spawn with +50% AR bonus, so shop around.

Another thing: what is your percentage to block? A point or two or more in Holy Shield may help you there.

-FF

 

[hermit_boy]

I would think about using Conviction a bit more. Fanaticism is good for the increased attack speed, but you don't care about the extra damage it does.

I would also say that your gear is a bit low end. Butchers Pupil is good, but try finding something a bit faster. Duriels is good, but everything else is decent at best. Get some PDR gear if possible. What is your block and defense at? And what Merc do you have?

 

[Uzziah]

Resists
Fire - Approx. 40
Cold - Approx. 50
Lightning - Approx. 15
Poison - Approx. 5
...
Amulet - Amber Amulet of Absorption (39% Lightning Resist, Damage Reduced by 3)
...
Helm - 25% Fire & Poison Resist

Everything looks fine you need to make sure your blocking is high in percentage like 60+% chance to block with the ward and your dex it should be in that range though.

I quoted part of your question and think that you may be able to better your resistances by gambling circlets and ammys for the x% resist all like prismatic or chromatic. You could get better resistances with a 3 socketed helm and ral, ort, tal, thul runes. I think that your lightning resistance is way low. I usually get fire, lightning, cold then poison.

 

[MeBrutox]

I agree with the suggestion about adding points into holy shield, great skill to have. It helps increase the defense alot and keeps you at max block with lower dex, which means more vitality to life.

Also, you may want to socket the Buther's pupil (I love that weapon by the way, specially if you upgrade it), with an ETH rune, easy to find, and will make things much easier to hit with the -25% to the target's defense.

Also, more points into either zeal (for the added AR) or into Blessed aim for the passive 5% AR bonus)

Then there is your attack speed..The Butchers pupil has 30% IAS, the break points are in the following table. I recommend getting at least an additional 5% increase from gloves, will give you a faster attack speed..which gives you more damage.

IAS Frames per attack Attacks per second
0% 8 3.1
11% 7 3.5
35% 6 4.1
89% 5 5
292% 4 6.2

And one more thing, you may want to look for some crushing blow, because with Zeal, even at 50% crushing blow, it will go off quite a bit.

 

[Howitzer Al]

Also, a Crecent Moon weapon will do wonders for a Tesladin if you can possibly scrounge up the runes. A phase blade would be ideal to put it in, but a dimensional blade or crystal sword would also work well (though you'll be heading to town to repair it a lot). I'm playing a Tesladin right now and have noticed that the biggest killing factor is how often you hit, not how much damage the weapon does (the lightning damage is idependant of the weapon damage). So, attack speed and AR are both vital.

Sorry if any of this is preaching to the choir. Good luck!

 

[NSXdreamer]

I'd say don't use crystal or dimentional blade, as they have base speed of 0, while it's -30 for phase blade.

 

[WhiskeyJack]

well, first i'd say find a better shield. look for a good paladin shield- consider using an ancient's pledge or rhyme runeword in them, or gem them heavily. I had an akaran targe that i socketed with 2 p-diamonds and 2 p-amethysts for a def of 181 and total resists of +51 (it had innate resists), and an AP Akaran Rondache with 202 def and an avg of 50% to each resist. they aren't as good as some of the high end uniques, but are more easy to come by, and can be found in NM (I don't trade, so I have to consider the cheaper lower end options). Points Holyshield will help immensly as well.

as for the weapon and dmg you do- enh...the butcher's pupil is better than the king's grace phase blade i was using, and i used that into act II hell (fanatic zealot, bag full of elemental damage and resist charms, maxed holy shield). I had to switch over to the moonfall jagged star, and am now considering using either the pupil, or a djinn slayer, as those are the best one handers I have. the zealot is currently in hell act III, and took out the council, with less avg damage than you're currently doing with HS on (open wounds, crushing blow, and deadly strike are your friends- cultivate that friendship!)...w/o HS, yes, your dmg is quite low....

It's slow going with low dmg, but with tactics can be doable. consider finding a good throwing weapon as a switch- i favor high damage in a small stack (ghost glaives for ex) or moderate dmg in a larger stack (hurlbats, etc). elemental dmg mods and life leach are great for these too, and can be useful for picking things off at distance to thin out a pack.

other options for gear include cubing blood gloves- you can get up to 10% crushing blow, which helps, not to mention LL and other potentially good modifiers (magical heavy/sharkskin/vampirebone gloves, p-ruby, nef and a magic jewel). I might consider switching out the boots and belt too, if you have anything that seems reasonable to replace them.

oh yeah- make sure of the players setting...I've left it at higher than 1 before due to running a different character before hand, and once or twice after moving up from NM just automatically set it to 3 without thinking....death swiftly ensued... :teeth:

if all else fails, do what i am doing and build a meteorb sorc to hunt for gear for your pally... heh heh...however, i think i'm going to try to go after meph soon with him, with the equipment he has, and have some fun with the challenge and really having to try to play with skill (hah! I wish....).

anyway, just my thoughts...good luck!

WJ

oh yeah- charms- you can add alls sorts of extra dmg by looking for elemental dmg charms. I try to keep a mix of fire/cold/lightning, and it seems to help a lot.

 

[SgtTMan420]

well, first i'd say find a better shield. look for a good paladin shield- consider using an ancient's pledge or rhyme runeword in them, or gem them heavily. I had an akaran targe that i socketed with 2 p-diamonds and 2 p-amethysts for a def of 181 and total resists of +51 (it had innate resists), and an AP Akaran Rondache with 202 def and an avg of 50% to each resist. they aren't as good as some of the high end uniques, but are more easy to come by, and can be found in NM (I don't trade, so I have to consider the cheaper lower end options). Points Holyshield will help immensly as well.

as for the weapon and dmg you do- enh...the butcher's pupil is better than the king's grace phase blade i was using, and i used that into act II hell (fanatic zealot, bag full of elemental damage and resist charms, maxed holy shield). I had to switch over to the moonfall jagged star, and am now considering using either the pupil, or a djinn slayer, as those are the best one handers I have. the zealot is currently in hell act III, and took out the council, with less avg damage than you're currently doing with HS on (open wounds, crushing blow, and deadly strike are your friends- cultivate that friendship!)...w/o HS, yes, your dmg is quite low....

It's slow going with low dmg, but with tactics can be doable. consider finding a good throwing weapon as a switch- i favor high damage in a small stack (ghost glaives for ex) or moderate dmg in a larger stack (hurlbats, etc). elemental dmg mods and life leach are great for these too, and can be useful for picking things off at distance to thin out a pack.

other options for gear include cubing blood gloves- you can get up to 10% crushing blow, which helps, not to mention LL and other potentially good modifiers (magical heavy/sharkskin/vampirebone gloves, p-ruby, nef and a magic jewel). I might consider switching out the boots and belt too, if you have anything that seems reasonable to replace them.

oh yeah- make sure of the players setting...I've left it at higher than 1 before due to running a different character before hand, and once or twice after moving up from NM just automatically set it to 3 without thinking....death swiftly ensued... :teeth:

if all else fails, do what i am doing and build a meteorb sorc to hunt for gear for your pally... heh heh...however, i think i'm going to try to go after meph soon with him, with the equipment he has, and have some fun with the challenge and really having to try to play with skill (hah! I wish....).

anyway, just my thoughts...good luck!

WJ

oh yeah- charms- you can add alls sorts of extra dmg by looking for elemental dmg charms. I try to keep a mix of fire/cold/lightning, and it seems to help a lot.

upgrade buthcers pupil i had 195% i upgraded went from 147 dmg to155 my min dmg now its 155-227 dmg

 

[Remxi]

Blocking is at maximum (I think it's around 68% with my current shield, although blocking never seems to occur for some reason).

Life is around 800.

No merc.

Anyways, here are some things I'm going to do to try and help my pally:

- I have a 4 Socket Protector Shield with +20% all resist, which I'm going to socket with 4 PDiamonds. This should max out resists.

- Start pumping Vit and put less in strength. If I ever need higher for better gear, I'll just use charms.

- Try to cube some gloves with CB and IAS.

- Socket Butcher's Pupil with an Eth.

- Eventually find runes to upgrade Butcher's Pupil, or find a better weapon.

- Increase AR somehow.

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

 

[FrolfFreak]

No merc?!? I highly recommend ignoring the cheese factor and going with the ever-so-popular Nightmare Act 2 defensive merc, who comes with a free Holy Freeze aura. Slowing down every enemy on screen should make life a lot easier for your pally. You can level him up right quick by using the /players 8 command somewhere in Nightmare (find a place where the monster level matches his and let him do the killing for quickest exp gain). Unless the no merc thing is a principle thing, in which case kudos to you and good luck.

-FF

 

[WhiskeyJack]

for better AR, you can start pumping zeal. pumping sacrifice will increase your damage. I'd also get a merc- I tend to buck tradition and use actI fire-mercs for my pallies, although i can see the appeal of a HF merc in hell- some of those stupid uglies move fast! Make sure to give it decent gear though, esp. LL.

Check out some of the other cubing recipies. safeties can get you some added resists if needed, and a little dr., etc.

the rest of the plan looks pretty good. the only other thing i'd add is to look for items with life leach, and try to get plenty of it. that's helped my zealots immensly. And again, consider the boots/belt. Hwain's belt will add decent defense based on your lvl, if you want that, or cube a safety or blood belt, and try to switch out the boots...if you come across gore riders, slap 'em on.

good luck!