Jayaz_Forteck
13-05-2004, 22:52
Hello, I’m Jayaz_Forteck and I’m new to these forums, but I’ve been playing Diablo 2 for several years. I must confess that the reason I’ve joined these forums now is because I’d like to get some guides onto the diabloii.net strategy page. This guide, as you’ve probably guessed from the title, is an lld paladin guide. I created my lvl 15 paladin back in 1.09, when I realized the sad truth, I’m poor. Build after unsuccessful build failed because I simply did not have the resources to fund a PvP character. I was quite frustrated, and one day, combing the dii.net strategy section, I came across WarChicken’s lvl 9 Assassin guide (http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-guides/asn-lvl9pvp.php). This guide inspired me. I realized that even if I was poor, I could still afford godly gear for a low level dueler. Soon thereafter IndomitableOne was born. He’s still quite viable today; however, I’ve noticed a severe drop in low level duelers after 1.10. I hope that after reading this guide you’re inspired to create your own lld pally, or one of the other builds I mention here.
Order:
Skills
Stats
Equipment
Mercenary
Dueling Strategy
Conclusion
Tables/Calculators
Skills:
First of all, you want this character to be lvl 15 (obviously) when you’re done. That said, you also want all of the reward quests from normal, nm, and hell. While this may preclude you from clan-honor dueling, I don’t really see this as a problem, as I believe their lld levels are between 27 and 30, the outer reaches of what you’ll be able to handle. With all of the reward quests completed, you should have an extra 12 Skill Points, 15 Stat Points, 60 Life, and 30 resist all.
Sacrifice: 2 skill points
This skill is a prerequisite for Zeal, the second point is to boost the synergy, which at lvl two, will yield an extra 24% ed.
Zeal: 4 skill points
This is your main skill, when dueling; this should be your left click. Zeal is a required level 12 skill, this means that 4 is the most you can place here, 4 is definitely a must, as this gives you 40% to AR.
Smite: 1 skill point
Only one point here, prereq for Charge.
Charge: 4 skill points
4 skill points here will allow you to use charge in order to chase runners or finish off casters quickly. With this as a skill you won’t need a bow/javelin on weapon switch.
Might: 15 skill points
Raise this skill as high as you can, level 15 will give you a 180% boost to damage. Keep this skill on your right click.
Stats:
Strength: minimum for gear.
Unlike other dueling builds, this one doesn’t rely on strength for damage. Vitality is much more important at low levels. (Usually 41 for an archon plate or 50 for an Aerin shield)
Dexterity: Minimum for max (75%) block
Make sure you know how much dex you will get from gear, any more than you need for max blocking is a waste here.
Vitality: Everything else
All the rest of your skill points should go here, after all gear and charms, you should have 600+ life.
Energy: None
Please, like you needed me to tell you this…
Equipment:
None of this gear is very hard to obtain, with the exception of some jewels. I will offer some alternate gear choices, but you should be able to obtain the first recommendation.
Helm: 3-socket mask (with 3x flawless rubies)
Aha! Now we see one of the reasons that this build calls for a lvl 15, you can get yourself 93 to life from this mask, lvl 15 is the required level for flawless gems. Note, in normal and nm, this helm will only spawn with two sockets, you have to be in hell to get a three socket version; alternately, you can get an unsocketed mask, and socket it in hell.
Armor: 3-socket archon plate (with 3x flawless rubies)
Another 93 to life here, and 107 max defense isn’t too shabby for a light armor. These armors can spawn with three sockets in normal nm, and hell.
Shield: 4-socket Aerin or Heraldic shield
These shields are a toss up, I personally went with the Aerin shield for its higher block % and greater defense, but it does take 50 str to wield, while the heraldic requires only 40, which keeps you armor as the heaviest item.
Try to get a shield with a good amount of ed and ar on it; these mods often spawn on paladin shields.
You’ll want to fill the 4 sockets with the best low level jewels you can find. Due to a current bug, avoid using ed/max jewels in your shield, save them for the armor. Try to get a hold of some good rare jewels that have the joyfulness affix, which adds to min dmg, the of wrath affix, which can add up to nine max dmg, the envy affix, which adds 20 poison damage, the rusty affix, which adds ed, and of course any +life is also welcomed.
Weapon switch (shield) should be another Heraldic/Aegis shield, but this time with all jewels of envy, providing 20*4=80 poison damage.
Weapon: 5-socket flail
This is the best choice for your main weapon. You could go with the death sword (Hel’d), for its cold damage and leech (with the belt and gloves), but I’ve found a 5-socket flail to be much more useful. You should ideally socket this flail with 5 rusty jewels of wrath, which can have a max of 20%ed/9max dmg. However, these jewels can be as hard to get as 40/15s, so I’ve used something a bit different on mine. Ith runes, which are very easy to get, add 9 to max dmg in any weapon. I’ve used 5 to socket my flail.
Your weapon switch should be another 5-socket flail with flawless gems in it, I recommend either 3 rubies and 2 topazes, or poison all the way with 5 emeralds.
Belt: Death’s sash
This is a must-have belt for this character, it gives you cannot be frozen, as well as combining with the gloves to yield 15% all res and 8% life leech.
Gloves: Death’s Gloves
With the belt, these gloves will give you 30% ias, and they also provide a very useful 50 to poison res and poison duration reduced 75%. You could use bloodfists here, as they add some ias, a lot of fhr, and +life, but you’ll have trouble with elemental attackers as you’ll be missing 15 all res and 50 poison res.
Boots: Treads of Cthon
I chose the treads for several reasons; first of all, they have a required level of 15. More importantly, they add 30% r/w, slow your stamina drain by half, and provide an extra 1o life. Recently it has been brought to my attention that the cow kings set boots are also very good. And you might choose to go with these for their 25-35 fire damage and 20 to dexterity, which will make max blocking much easier to obtain. (They also have 30% r/w)
Rings:
Ring 1) Here I’d put a good rare ring, try to find/trade for one, and do the gidbinn quest with all your characters for the rare ring quest reward. Ideally, your ring would have over 100 to attack rating, other mods are gravy.
Two other options here are the nagelring, which adds 50-75 ar, and the manald heal, which gives you mana leech, 5-8 life regen, and 20 to life.
Ring 2) The Angelic Halo
This ring is very useful in conjunction to the angelic set amulet. By itself it gives another 20 to life and 6 life regen.
Amulet: Angelic Wings
This amulet provides 20% damage to mana, which comes in useful as a sort of low level damage reduction (note, only works vs. melee). If you’re wearing the angelic ring as well, the bonuses are incredible, you’ll gain 3ar per level * 15 levels = 45 ar, and a boost of 75 life.
You may choose to go with the Eye of etlich amulet for its 1 to skills, life leech, and cold damage, but I’ve tried both and I prefer the life/ar to the leech/skills
Inventory:
This should be filled with charms that add to life and ar, another good mod is +mana, as charge can be mana intensive, you might opt to always wear a manald for charge duels. All other mods are secondary, if you have extra space, fill it with poison damage charms. Life is the key to this build.
Mercenaries:
Mercenaries are cheap and die easily… but if you insist…
Get an act 3 cold mercenary, you’d be surprised how many duelers opt to not get cannot be frozen on their gear, if you’re lucky, your merc can land some damaging blows on the enemy before they close to range. Note, make sure you purchase your merc from hell. For some reason they do much more damage than the ones in norm/nm.
For your mercenaries gear you should have a 3-socket spiked shield or 2-socket bone shield with the best +life jewels you can find. His weapon should be a 6-socket ethereal crystal sword. If it’s not ethereal, he probably can’t lift it. Socket the sword with +life jewels. His armor and helm should be the same as your own.
Dueling Strategies:
Here is where I will list the builds you are likely to face while dueling. Your paladin should be able to handle any character lower level than yourself, and nearly any character up to about level 27. After that it may become more difficult, and a good level 30 player will almost certainly beat you. Make sure whenever you’re in a pure melee duel, that is, your opponent will always be using a melee attack, you turn run off. If any of the builds mentioned here catch your fancy, please feel free to make them. Help me repopulate low level duels!
Note: One good thing about low level duels is that you can guess what skill a character will be using based on their level, which is often equal to that required by that skill. At the very least, you can figure out what skills they won’t be able to use. Your build has the advantage of unpredictability, as your level is based on gear, not skills.
Amazons:
Bowazons: These are real pushovers, low damage, no blocking, low defense, and no guided arrow. Just run in at an angle and zeal away, they should die after 3-5 hits, or, if you’re feeling creative, charge-lock them to death. Be on the lookout for any lvl 33 zons that try to sneak into your games, they bring the promise of guided arrow and the kuko shakaku, which may mean death for you if you’re not careful.
Spearazons: Any of these not using jab will be a piece of cake, they usually have better stats than bowazons, but die quickly to your zeal nonetheless. If they’re using jab it’s a whole different story. A good jabazon will be your equal or your superior. This is one of the few builds that can consistently beat my zealot. You can test their jab, but in many cases it will trump your zeal. The technique here is not to engage in melee combat. Switch to your alternate and charge them. Back off after each charge to let poison soften them up, then finish them off.
Assassins:
Trappers: Low level trappers are a joke, with your 15 res from death sash and 30 from the Anya quests, along with your high life; you should be able to run right through their traps and zeal them to death.
MA Assassins: These are a mixed bag; some may be very difficult, others downright laughable. While you should never lose to a lvl nine like the one that inspired me, there will be some assassins (usually level 18), who will give you quite a fight. If zealing them doesn’t work, switch to charge or your regular attack, hit them once and flee. Don’t let them charge up on you, or if they do, don’t let them release. There’s nothing cowardly about running so long as you stay onscreen at all times (it’s called dodging) just don’t run across the blood moor.
Barbarians:
Iron Barbs: These brutes, while not seen with Iron skin until level twelve, can reach high amounts of defense with shout and good equipment. They will generally use bash or concentrate, either way, your tactic should be the same. First try to tank them, see if your zeal can keep them in hit recovery or if it’s possible to jest outdo them damage/life wise. If you can’t, or if their defense is too high, switch to charge, which raises your ar. Keep on the run, hitting them with your charge when they give chase and their blocking drops.
Doubleswing Barbs: Crush them; seriously, these barbs are worthless.
Double Throw Barbs: Double throw is available at level 12 and with it and throwing mastery, barbarians can be quite a fearsome sight. With good javelins, their damage will far surpass yours. Don’t make the mistake of getting hit too many times or you’ll be finding yourself looking at the death screen. One tip here, if you can’t dodge the javelins, turn off run. It’s just making your blocking go down. With walk on, charge them, then follow up with 1-2 quick zeals, if this doesn’t remove at least 1/3 or so of their life, back off and repeat, otherwise, stay in there and finish them off with zeal. One advantage you have over these high damage killing machines is that they, unlike you, have no blocking.
WW Barbs: If a lvl 30 ww barb tries to pass himself off as a low level dueler, don’t engage. Even though he can only have 1 point into ww, with +skills he will destroy you every time. Just ignore these barbs; they can’t kill you if you don’t let them catch you.
Druids:
Summoning Druids: These druids are pushovers, their wolves will surround you and usually die in one zeal, even allowing you to leech back life. Ravens are more an annoyance than anything, because these druids lack the life and damage to kill you, especially now that true “blocklock” cannot be achieved. If the druid is high enough level to field a bear, target this first, if he persistently recasts it, charge the druid and retreat, repeat this until he dies. If there’s no bear, destroy the wolves and simply zeal the druid, he won’t know what hit him.
Werewolves: I can honestly say I’ve never seen one in low level dueling games. Feel free to make one of your own; I can sense a good build in there, with lots of life and feral rage.
Werebears: These Druids can have tons of life, making them excellent tanks. Most will use a military pick, but some make use of various set gears. These bears can hit hard and take what they dish out. You should be able to mix it up with zeal against most, but try to take out the sage first. If you can’t hold your own in melee, switch to charge and batter him to death. Note, if you see a lvl 29 werebear, he is most likely wielding a 6-shael military pick. Druids like these will attack very fast and very hard with maul; usually have good blocking, and tons of life, a real challenge. Use the charge technique mentioned above, but don’t be ashamed if you lose. (Just blame it on the 14 level difference).
Elemental Druids:
At low levels these druids are nearly as bad as summoners; they just don’t do enough damage. Ignore their piddly spells and zeal them to death, not much strategy needed here.
Necromancers:
Summoners: Bit harder than summoning druids, but same rules apply (eliminate golem first)
Poison Dagger: This skill will give the necro poison damage as well as a boost to his ar. Along with bone armor, curses, and a decent golem, he may be able to stand up to your zeals. If you can take down his bone armor with one charge, do so and then follow it up with zeals. Otherwise, zeal him until his armor drops and then keep the pressure on, don’t let him recast. If you’re facing a really good necro, you may have to take him down using charge, just use it to hit him, and then run back out of melee range.
Bone Necro: some may do decent damage. Be on the lookout for those that use lower res, they’re under the misguided belief that it raises their magic damage, noobs. Close with charge and zeal until they die. Not much to do here.
Paladins:
Dragoons: aka Throwsmiters, these paladins are a good lld pvp build. They usually use a rare spiked shield for its high smite damage, and along with a good spear, these paladins can be more dangerous than throwbarbs. If they use charge, it will usually be level one. This is because the paladin must put points into smite, holy shield, and an aura. Try to zeal this paladin at first, he may have a sub-par zeal, but his real damage will be in his smite. You may be able to tank with your large hp pool, but if you can’t, pull back and charge him repeatedly, try your weapon switch if your main weapon is ineffective. Above all, don’t let him hit you with his javelin, these paladins often carry a large number of poison charms.
Zealot: Ah, time to see who’s the better man, eh? I’d like a straight up zeal to the death here. As in any other melee only duel, always turn off running. If you can’t out zeal him, odds are you’re in trouble. However, you can still see if your charge trumps his by hitting him with it repeatedly. A very low strategy high tension duel.
Pure Charger:Switch to walk and your weapon switch, zeal him when he charges you, try to weaken with poison and finish with a few charges of your own.
Hammers/FoH: Hammers may be tricky if handled by an expert, otherwise it’s easy pickings. Try to come in from directly below and kill him off quickly, either by charging or doing some high damage zeals. Keep an eye on your life globe, if it’s dropping fast try hit and run charges. If you see a lvl 30 FoH pally, he’s not lld, not your league anyway. These paladins will roast you nearly every time, your res just isn’t good enough to withstand conviction.
Sorceresses
Fire Sorceresses: These ladies really shouldn’t be in lld, while you may chance across one higher level lld sorc with good damage on her fireball, the truly skilled are few and far between. Because of their low level, points must be expended into energy. If you notice she stops shooting, she’s probably out; one of my favorite techniques is to dodge around until she runs out of mana then pick her off at leisure. Zeal should be an effective tool here, as it will keep her casting interrupted.
Cold Sorceress: the only good sorceress I’ve ever dueled has high level shiver armor. Her high defense combined with the damage I took every time I hit her is what did me in. Switch over to charge for duels like this, squeeze out all the ar you can. These duels can be similar to Ironbarb duels, but your opponent will probably be higher level.
Lightning Sorceress: The easiest sorceress to beat, if she uses charged bolt, ignore them and zeal her to death. If she uses lightning, dodge it until you get to melee range, then zeal her. Your fast attack should keep her from casting.
Conclusion:
Well there you have it. Good luck in the world of low level dueling, should you make a paladin or any of the other builds I’ve mentioned here. I hope to see you online soon, look me up on Non-Ladder USEast, account name Jayaz_Forteck.
If you can’t find anyone to duel, try joining/making the following games:
Low duel (-/s/z/ing)
Low lvl duel (-/s/z/ing)
Low level duel (-/s/z/ing)
If you make, be sure to set the level restriction at 15, this will ensure that nobody above level 30 joins your game. If you’re interested in making a dueler for the lvl 27-40 crowd, stay tuned for my upcoming lld FoH guide.
Tables/Calculators:
- Chippydip’s 1.10 skill calculator: http://d2items.com/skills.php
- Arreat Summit: http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/characters.shtml
- Diablo2.de’s IAS calculator: http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english
- Diabloii.net’s IAS calculator: http://stats.diabloii.net/calcs/wspeed.shtml
- Socketing Info: http://www.diabloii.net/items/sockets.shtml
- Hit recovery/Block rates: http://69.93.48.226/~wirsz/clan-honor/76Legit.php?ID=HitRecoveryAndBlockRates
Order:
Skills
Stats
Equipment
Mercenary
Dueling Strategy
Conclusion
Tables/Calculators
Skills:
First of all, you want this character to be lvl 15 (obviously) when you’re done. That said, you also want all of the reward quests from normal, nm, and hell. While this may preclude you from clan-honor dueling, I don’t really see this as a problem, as I believe their lld levels are between 27 and 30, the outer reaches of what you’ll be able to handle. With all of the reward quests completed, you should have an extra 12 Skill Points, 15 Stat Points, 60 Life, and 30 resist all.
Sacrifice: 2 skill points
This skill is a prerequisite for Zeal, the second point is to boost the synergy, which at lvl two, will yield an extra 24% ed.
Zeal: 4 skill points
This is your main skill, when dueling; this should be your left click. Zeal is a required level 12 skill, this means that 4 is the most you can place here, 4 is definitely a must, as this gives you 40% to AR.
Smite: 1 skill point
Only one point here, prereq for Charge.
Charge: 4 skill points
4 skill points here will allow you to use charge in order to chase runners or finish off casters quickly. With this as a skill you won’t need a bow/javelin on weapon switch.
Might: 15 skill points
Raise this skill as high as you can, level 15 will give you a 180% boost to damage. Keep this skill on your right click.
Stats:
Strength: minimum for gear.
Unlike other dueling builds, this one doesn’t rely on strength for damage. Vitality is much more important at low levels. (Usually 41 for an archon plate or 50 for an Aerin shield)
Dexterity: Minimum for max (75%) block
Make sure you know how much dex you will get from gear, any more than you need for max blocking is a waste here.
Vitality: Everything else
All the rest of your skill points should go here, after all gear and charms, you should have 600+ life.
Energy: None
Please, like you needed me to tell you this…
Equipment:
None of this gear is very hard to obtain, with the exception of some jewels. I will offer some alternate gear choices, but you should be able to obtain the first recommendation.
Helm: 3-socket mask (with 3x flawless rubies)
Aha! Now we see one of the reasons that this build calls for a lvl 15, you can get yourself 93 to life from this mask, lvl 15 is the required level for flawless gems. Note, in normal and nm, this helm will only spawn with two sockets, you have to be in hell to get a three socket version; alternately, you can get an unsocketed mask, and socket it in hell.
Armor: 3-socket archon plate (with 3x flawless rubies)
Another 93 to life here, and 107 max defense isn’t too shabby for a light armor. These armors can spawn with three sockets in normal nm, and hell.
Shield: 4-socket Aerin or Heraldic shield
These shields are a toss up, I personally went with the Aerin shield for its higher block % and greater defense, but it does take 50 str to wield, while the heraldic requires only 40, which keeps you armor as the heaviest item.
Try to get a shield with a good amount of ed and ar on it; these mods often spawn on paladin shields.
You’ll want to fill the 4 sockets with the best low level jewels you can find. Due to a current bug, avoid using ed/max jewels in your shield, save them for the armor. Try to get a hold of some good rare jewels that have the joyfulness affix, which adds to min dmg, the of wrath affix, which can add up to nine max dmg, the envy affix, which adds 20 poison damage, the rusty affix, which adds ed, and of course any +life is also welcomed.
Weapon switch (shield) should be another Heraldic/Aegis shield, but this time with all jewels of envy, providing 20*4=80 poison damage.
Weapon: 5-socket flail
This is the best choice for your main weapon. You could go with the death sword (Hel’d), for its cold damage and leech (with the belt and gloves), but I’ve found a 5-socket flail to be much more useful. You should ideally socket this flail with 5 rusty jewels of wrath, which can have a max of 20%ed/9max dmg. However, these jewels can be as hard to get as 40/15s, so I’ve used something a bit different on mine. Ith runes, which are very easy to get, add 9 to max dmg in any weapon. I’ve used 5 to socket my flail.
Your weapon switch should be another 5-socket flail with flawless gems in it, I recommend either 3 rubies and 2 topazes, or poison all the way with 5 emeralds.
Belt: Death’s sash
This is a must-have belt for this character, it gives you cannot be frozen, as well as combining with the gloves to yield 15% all res and 8% life leech.
Gloves: Death’s Gloves
With the belt, these gloves will give you 30% ias, and they also provide a very useful 50 to poison res and poison duration reduced 75%. You could use bloodfists here, as they add some ias, a lot of fhr, and +life, but you’ll have trouble with elemental attackers as you’ll be missing 15 all res and 50 poison res.
Boots: Treads of Cthon
I chose the treads for several reasons; first of all, they have a required level of 15. More importantly, they add 30% r/w, slow your stamina drain by half, and provide an extra 1o life. Recently it has been brought to my attention that the cow kings set boots are also very good. And you might choose to go with these for their 25-35 fire damage and 20 to dexterity, which will make max blocking much easier to obtain. (They also have 30% r/w)
Rings:
Ring 1) Here I’d put a good rare ring, try to find/trade for one, and do the gidbinn quest with all your characters for the rare ring quest reward. Ideally, your ring would have over 100 to attack rating, other mods are gravy.
Two other options here are the nagelring, which adds 50-75 ar, and the manald heal, which gives you mana leech, 5-8 life regen, and 20 to life.
Ring 2) The Angelic Halo
This ring is very useful in conjunction to the angelic set amulet. By itself it gives another 20 to life and 6 life regen.
Amulet: Angelic Wings
This amulet provides 20% damage to mana, which comes in useful as a sort of low level damage reduction (note, only works vs. melee). If you’re wearing the angelic ring as well, the bonuses are incredible, you’ll gain 3ar per level * 15 levels = 45 ar, and a boost of 75 life.
You may choose to go with the Eye of etlich amulet for its 1 to skills, life leech, and cold damage, but I’ve tried both and I prefer the life/ar to the leech/skills
Inventory:
This should be filled with charms that add to life and ar, another good mod is +mana, as charge can be mana intensive, you might opt to always wear a manald for charge duels. All other mods are secondary, if you have extra space, fill it with poison damage charms. Life is the key to this build.
Mercenaries:
Mercenaries are cheap and die easily… but if you insist…
Get an act 3 cold mercenary, you’d be surprised how many duelers opt to not get cannot be frozen on their gear, if you’re lucky, your merc can land some damaging blows on the enemy before they close to range. Note, make sure you purchase your merc from hell. For some reason they do much more damage than the ones in norm/nm.
For your mercenaries gear you should have a 3-socket spiked shield or 2-socket bone shield with the best +life jewels you can find. His weapon should be a 6-socket ethereal crystal sword. If it’s not ethereal, he probably can’t lift it. Socket the sword with +life jewels. His armor and helm should be the same as your own.
Dueling Strategies:
Here is where I will list the builds you are likely to face while dueling. Your paladin should be able to handle any character lower level than yourself, and nearly any character up to about level 27. After that it may become more difficult, and a good level 30 player will almost certainly beat you. Make sure whenever you’re in a pure melee duel, that is, your opponent will always be using a melee attack, you turn run off. If any of the builds mentioned here catch your fancy, please feel free to make them. Help me repopulate low level duels!
Note: One good thing about low level duels is that you can guess what skill a character will be using based on their level, which is often equal to that required by that skill. At the very least, you can figure out what skills they won’t be able to use. Your build has the advantage of unpredictability, as your level is based on gear, not skills.
Amazons:
Bowazons: These are real pushovers, low damage, no blocking, low defense, and no guided arrow. Just run in at an angle and zeal away, they should die after 3-5 hits, or, if you’re feeling creative, charge-lock them to death. Be on the lookout for any lvl 33 zons that try to sneak into your games, they bring the promise of guided arrow and the kuko shakaku, which may mean death for you if you’re not careful.
Spearazons: Any of these not using jab will be a piece of cake, they usually have better stats than bowazons, but die quickly to your zeal nonetheless. If they’re using jab it’s a whole different story. A good jabazon will be your equal or your superior. This is one of the few builds that can consistently beat my zealot. You can test their jab, but in many cases it will trump your zeal. The technique here is not to engage in melee combat. Switch to your alternate and charge them. Back off after each charge to let poison soften them up, then finish them off.
Assassins:
Trappers: Low level trappers are a joke, with your 15 res from death sash and 30 from the Anya quests, along with your high life; you should be able to run right through their traps and zeal them to death.
MA Assassins: These are a mixed bag; some may be very difficult, others downright laughable. While you should never lose to a lvl nine like the one that inspired me, there will be some assassins (usually level 18), who will give you quite a fight. If zealing them doesn’t work, switch to charge or your regular attack, hit them once and flee. Don’t let them charge up on you, or if they do, don’t let them release. There’s nothing cowardly about running so long as you stay onscreen at all times (it’s called dodging) just don’t run across the blood moor.
Barbarians:
Iron Barbs: These brutes, while not seen with Iron skin until level twelve, can reach high amounts of defense with shout and good equipment. They will generally use bash or concentrate, either way, your tactic should be the same. First try to tank them, see if your zeal can keep them in hit recovery or if it’s possible to jest outdo them damage/life wise. If you can’t, or if their defense is too high, switch to charge, which raises your ar. Keep on the run, hitting them with your charge when they give chase and their blocking drops.
Doubleswing Barbs: Crush them; seriously, these barbs are worthless.
Double Throw Barbs: Double throw is available at level 12 and with it and throwing mastery, barbarians can be quite a fearsome sight. With good javelins, their damage will far surpass yours. Don’t make the mistake of getting hit too many times or you’ll be finding yourself looking at the death screen. One tip here, if you can’t dodge the javelins, turn off run. It’s just making your blocking go down. With walk on, charge them, then follow up with 1-2 quick zeals, if this doesn’t remove at least 1/3 or so of their life, back off and repeat, otherwise, stay in there and finish them off with zeal. One advantage you have over these high damage killing machines is that they, unlike you, have no blocking.
WW Barbs: If a lvl 30 ww barb tries to pass himself off as a low level dueler, don’t engage. Even though he can only have 1 point into ww, with +skills he will destroy you every time. Just ignore these barbs; they can’t kill you if you don’t let them catch you.
Druids:
Summoning Druids: These druids are pushovers, their wolves will surround you and usually die in one zeal, even allowing you to leech back life. Ravens are more an annoyance than anything, because these druids lack the life and damage to kill you, especially now that true “blocklock” cannot be achieved. If the druid is high enough level to field a bear, target this first, if he persistently recasts it, charge the druid and retreat, repeat this until he dies. If there’s no bear, destroy the wolves and simply zeal the druid, he won’t know what hit him.
Werewolves: I can honestly say I’ve never seen one in low level dueling games. Feel free to make one of your own; I can sense a good build in there, with lots of life and feral rage.
Werebears: These Druids can have tons of life, making them excellent tanks. Most will use a military pick, but some make use of various set gears. These bears can hit hard and take what they dish out. You should be able to mix it up with zeal against most, but try to take out the sage first. If you can’t hold your own in melee, switch to charge and batter him to death. Note, if you see a lvl 29 werebear, he is most likely wielding a 6-shael military pick. Druids like these will attack very fast and very hard with maul; usually have good blocking, and tons of life, a real challenge. Use the charge technique mentioned above, but don’t be ashamed if you lose. (Just blame it on the 14 level difference).
Elemental Druids:
At low levels these druids are nearly as bad as summoners; they just don’t do enough damage. Ignore their piddly spells and zeal them to death, not much strategy needed here.
Necromancers:
Summoners: Bit harder than summoning druids, but same rules apply (eliminate golem first)
Poison Dagger: This skill will give the necro poison damage as well as a boost to his ar. Along with bone armor, curses, and a decent golem, he may be able to stand up to your zeals. If you can take down his bone armor with one charge, do so and then follow it up with zeals. Otherwise, zeal him until his armor drops and then keep the pressure on, don’t let him recast. If you’re facing a really good necro, you may have to take him down using charge, just use it to hit him, and then run back out of melee range.
Bone Necro: some may do decent damage. Be on the lookout for those that use lower res, they’re under the misguided belief that it raises their magic damage, noobs. Close with charge and zeal until they die. Not much to do here.
Paladins:
Dragoons: aka Throwsmiters, these paladins are a good lld pvp build. They usually use a rare spiked shield for its high smite damage, and along with a good spear, these paladins can be more dangerous than throwbarbs. If they use charge, it will usually be level one. This is because the paladin must put points into smite, holy shield, and an aura. Try to zeal this paladin at first, he may have a sub-par zeal, but his real damage will be in his smite. You may be able to tank with your large hp pool, but if you can’t, pull back and charge him repeatedly, try your weapon switch if your main weapon is ineffective. Above all, don’t let him hit you with his javelin, these paladins often carry a large number of poison charms.
Zealot: Ah, time to see who’s the better man, eh? I’d like a straight up zeal to the death here. As in any other melee only duel, always turn off running. If you can’t out zeal him, odds are you’re in trouble. However, you can still see if your charge trumps his by hitting him with it repeatedly. A very low strategy high tension duel.
Pure Charger:Switch to walk and your weapon switch, zeal him when he charges you, try to weaken with poison and finish with a few charges of your own.
Hammers/FoH: Hammers may be tricky if handled by an expert, otherwise it’s easy pickings. Try to come in from directly below and kill him off quickly, either by charging or doing some high damage zeals. Keep an eye on your life globe, if it’s dropping fast try hit and run charges. If you see a lvl 30 FoH pally, he’s not lld, not your league anyway. These paladins will roast you nearly every time, your res just isn’t good enough to withstand conviction.
Sorceresses
Fire Sorceresses: These ladies really shouldn’t be in lld, while you may chance across one higher level lld sorc with good damage on her fireball, the truly skilled are few and far between. Because of their low level, points must be expended into energy. If you notice she stops shooting, she’s probably out; one of my favorite techniques is to dodge around until she runs out of mana then pick her off at leisure. Zeal should be an effective tool here, as it will keep her casting interrupted.
Cold Sorceress: the only good sorceress I’ve ever dueled has high level shiver armor. Her high defense combined with the damage I took every time I hit her is what did me in. Switch over to charge for duels like this, squeeze out all the ar you can. These duels can be similar to Ironbarb duels, but your opponent will probably be higher level.
Lightning Sorceress: The easiest sorceress to beat, if she uses charged bolt, ignore them and zeal her to death. If she uses lightning, dodge it until you get to melee range, then zeal her. Your fast attack should keep her from casting.
Conclusion:
Well there you have it. Good luck in the world of low level dueling, should you make a paladin or any of the other builds I’ve mentioned here. I hope to see you online soon, look me up on Non-Ladder USEast, account name Jayaz_Forteck.
If you can’t find anyone to duel, try joining/making the following games:
Low duel (-/s/z/ing)
Low lvl duel (-/s/z/ing)
Low level duel (-/s/z/ing)
If you make, be sure to set the level restriction at 15, this will ensure that nobody above level 30 joins your game. If you’re interested in making a dueler for the lvl 27-40 crowd, stay tuned for my upcoming lld FoH guide.
Tables/Calculators:
- Chippydip’s 1.10 skill calculator: http://d2items.com/skills.php
- Arreat Summit: http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/characters.shtml
- Diablo2.de’s IAS calculator: http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english
- Diabloii.net’s IAS calculator: http://stats.diabloii.net/calcs/wspeed.shtml
- Socketing Info: http://www.diabloii.net/items/sockets.shtml
- Hit recovery/Block rates: http://69.93.48.226/~wirsz/clan-honor/76Legit.php?ID=HitRecoveryAndBlockRates