Untwinked Zealot struggling in Hell

[japanzaman]

I wouldn't waste my time with Honor- It doesn't really do enough of anything to be a hell viable weapon in my opinion. I would also avoid putting Black in a Scourge, as the minimum damage is rather low.

If you spend some time running Countess you can probably get the runes for Kingslayer, which can be nice for a Phase Blade. It'll probably take some time to get the two Ist runes, but it can happen if you are patient.

 

[RobbyD]

I agree Kingslayer would be awesome - I'd say it would endgame. Only thing it lacks is life leech.

BTW, You do know that 1 point in Sanctuary completely removes the physical immunity of undeads, right? Even PIs become completely vulnerable. Useful for running Countess for the ghosts.

 

[pharaoh]

Crescent Moon is another good choice (I didn't see it mentioned, but I kinda skimmed the thread). ITD is a great help against anything but bosses, and those can be smacked around with Smite if you're having a hard time hitting them. The ctc Static Field will help a bunch against mobs, and you can slap it in a phase blade for speed. Check your breakpoints before choosing the base item, though; phase blades are fast, but the damage is less than stellar. If you don't need the speed, go with something hurtier.

CM also opens up the possibility to use a low-level Holy Shock aura or Vengeance as a backup for PI monsters; the penalty to enemy lightning resist will help an otherwise underpowered backup be more effective.

I'd recommend against Kingslayer in a phase blade because of the low damage. Crescent Moon offers a little less raw damage, a bit less IAS, no crushing blow, and no prevent monster heal, but it's also a lot cheaper, gives ITD, and Static Field is kinda like crushing blow over a group. Kingslayer's big selling point is the oskill Vengeance, and that works best in a higher-damage weapon, as non-paladins won't have the Conviction aura or synergies to boost its effectiveness.

The Treachery runeword armor can give you big resists (once the Fade kicks in) and IAS, which frees up other gear. It also means you'll be constantly running with active Venom, offering a bit more damage. It's short duration, and truncates item-based poison damage sources to 10 frames (0.4 seconds), so don't rely on it as a solution to prevent monsters from healing. Open wounds or prevent monster heal mods will do that, and they work against poison immunes. Treachery armor is also great on all but the Act III mercs.

I know you said no other software besides GoMule, but if you're willing to install the runeword mod (gives us SP people parity with b.net, as far as runewords go), then Harmony and Insight are excellent and cheap options for Act I and Act II mercs, respectively.

If you can find it, Headstriker is an excellent weapon. It doesn't have IAS, but it's got big damage, scaling max damage, and scaling deadly strike (at clvl 67, every strike will be a deadly strike). Sureshrill Frost doesn't offer great physical damage, but it gives decent cold damage, cannot be frozen, and it freezes things (great for shamans and the like).

 

[japanzaman]

I've used Kingslayer to great effect in a Phaseblade before with a concentrator Barb. Yes the damage is something less to be desired, but that CB works nice with Zeal and it will hit targets rather reliably and quickly. If you are looking for more damage, perhaps consider a different weapon, but be ready to be fixing it every ten minutes.

Crescent Moon is definitely a possibility, particularly if you can get some CB from another source. Not the best damage, but it does have some things going for it, and as was mentioned is easier to make. Still, if you are going to go down that road why not just go all in with a Holy Shock pally?

An upped Headstriker can be quite useful to, as can many exceptional unique weapons. Be on the lookout for anything!

 

[skocznymroczny]

I was trying to make a Crescent Moon tesladin from the beginning. It worked nice until Hell but with all the Lightning immunes around, not so much. Also, I need Fanaticism to be able to hit anything, I guess ITD would help here. Um rune is hard to get though, oh well, gogo Countess.

 

[krischan]

Hi

One more thing. You seem to be saying you're running the Pit. At 73. Don't. Monsters are level 85, champions 87, bosses **. You get 5% of experience you deserve:
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/experience.shtml

From L25 on, that's wrong. It seems you overlooked this:

Characters Level 25-99

For any monster above your level, you get EXP*(Player Level / Monster Level).

The gains from higher area levels outweigh that kind of XP reduction by far. The table with the severe reductions is only applied when visiting areas of a lower level than yours.

You should always kill monsters within 5 level of yourself. Ideally, this means running areas which are at most your level +3.

Only if you are below L25. Then it's as you said.

That means, you get a whole lot of XP in the Pits and it's pretty fine to go there. There are many skeletons in there though, so leech might be a problem from time to time.


Regarding the topic: Most of of the following has probably been said already, but anyway.

• Keep Duriel's Shell as long as you have no other CBF source or bad resists.
• The biggest problem with melee builds in hell mode is usually the weapon. Have a look for an ethereal elite socket small crescent, cryptic sword (or any one-handed sword, axe or scourge if it comes with 4 sockets or if Larzuk adds 4 to it). Once you have it, you just need a Mal rune in order to make Oath, IMO the best budget runeword for a character like yours, and finish hell mode. It needs RWM, however. Also note that "mace" in the context of runewords doesn't include all mace class weapons, only a few of them. See the footnotes of the runeword section on Arreat Summit.
• You can clear the Pits rather safely, so L73 is obviously fine.
• You need as much CB as possible. Also have a Black weapon for enemies with lots of life. As soon as you have a weapon of the quality of Oath (see above), 50% CB are enough, however.

 

[Greebo]

Thanks for that. I can't believe how I missed that for all those years...