Looking for someone to explain classic issues...

[Kodachi_ysaane]

Hey, I am getting sick of dueling on xpac with all the same issues and problems, so I am thinking of starting classic for fun. What I need to know is... how is the pvp on classic? Is it any fun? What is the best pvp dueler on classic? How do different classes counter each other? ETC.., if someone could post this information I would be evry thankful. :)

[Baltozer]

think xpac without enigma. ww hits a trillion times a whirl though, speed lancers are quite strong. BVB is boring as hell though, just 4k hp barbs with duped bhammers, angelics, twitch, that unique spiked shield, and goblin toes wwing at each other for like a year, they all should just realize they have a 50/50 chance of winning cause they are all the exact same damn baba and get it over with

[Kodachi_ysaane]

what about sorcs, wouldent they be overpowered without absorb and resist charms? Also being the only class that can teleport etc.

[Suo]

I've dueled quite a bit on classic and it's better than xpac imo. Sorcs are quite strong but almost always lose to chargers. Frw is only up to 30. Hammerdins aren't quite good since a good barb can easily take them out due to lack of tele. Obviously no druids or assassins. No absorbs means you need good resses which are quite easy to get on single element. Lower space means that you can't be ready for everything though.
Bvb is exactly as mentioned before: godly rare battle hammers w/ swordback (unique spiked shield) which gives nice open wounds and block. Twitch for the extra block and some crush from boots. Lance barbs are quite popular vs sorcs & necros. Necros don't have the marrowalk bug so they aren't quite as deadly but still, can beat a barb with decrep + bone prison.
Fb sorcs are quite deadly unless they can't aim, fo sorcs are somewhat easy to beat unless they are good telers. Cannot be frozen comes from 3 items if I remember right: death's sash, some unique armor and jade tan do unique kirs.
Haven't tried dueling using palas, necros or amas alot though. Amas are pretty rare pvpers since they need don't get knockback to guided arrow and need godly rares to do enough damage.
Well, it's been few months since I last dueled in classic so don't remember everything now.

[Kodachi_ysaane]

So frozen orb sorceress are not that strong?

[Suo]

Fo sorcs are the main pvp sorc type still, just that their damage doesn't reach that of lod fo sorcs. Svs dueling is mostly just about casting fo and teleing around. The limited items is the main difference in classic dueling though. And very easy way to defeat orb sorc is to make a charger with maxed cold res and cannot be frozen. I learned it the hard way, trying to duel a 20 something pure charger with 70+ fo sorc.
Fo sorcs are good if you can tele though. Most of the ones I dueled couldn't tele good so I just put cannot be frozen mod item on my barb and got good range weapon and good frw so I easily killed them.

[Rauth]

The best sorcs I have seen in classic are blizzard sorcs. Ww works very differently in classic(as I found out when I brought my classic lancer to xpac). Basically weapon speed is ignored. All weapons hit with the same speed and they hit a lot of times. Necros can do very well with strategic use of bonewalls/prison since only sorcs can tele. Hammerdins aren't much competition. Best overall dueler in classic would be a fast barb with some res gear, or necro with the same. The lack of variety in classic pvp moved me to xpac. No druids, no assns, and no rare build types.

Quick note about pvm in classic. Without a hammerdin, any hell chaos sanctuary runs(the baal runs of classic) are pretty much screwed. Usually runs consist of 1 sorc teles to center and makes tp, then teles to each seal to release bosses. 1-3 hammerdins to kill everything extremely fast. 1 barb for battle orders. 3-5 other chars leeching. These runs can be very fast and are nice experience. Not as good as baal runs but they work well up to around lvl 85. After that it gets painful. ANother note on classic hammerdins:fanat works on hammers as well as concentration.

[TheCerberus]

Actually, STINGER at the HC forums said he used Fanatacism on a pally that got to lvl 67. He said he wasn't killing that fast, until another Paladin lended Concentration, proving it didn't work. Although I myself have seen a lvl 89 pally on East kill just fine, but he was paired with 3 other hammerdins in the party. I'd personally go with Concentration just to be sure.

BvB is exactly as mentioned, some barbs don't even have many shout because they're not using high defense items and 11k AR can easily be achieved. If you use ornate/grim then maxing shout would probably be beneficial to you. Sorcs are strong, I've only seen like 1 0r 2 lightning ones, almost all of them are orb sorcs, second blizz, and then FB ones. Usually to go against a cold sorc you use Hawkmail/3saph shield, some will whine about it. I used a lvl 67 necro for dueling, he was originally just for nm games, but then I accidently beat Diablo to go to hell. Only lvled once there though.

From my point of view:
- against barbs, I don't use iron maiden at all unless I've been nked and they're annoying me. Then it's cast lots of prisons and maiden them. But usually, as they run towards me I'll cast decrep and then use the ponds and such to my advantage. If you get desynched, not much you can do, except just keep casting decrep and firing bone spirits. Speeders with a good lance can catch you despite decrep, so watch out.
- against zons, Prison if they have knockback and use guided, or decrep then prison, decrep is key. If you can get them in a prison use spear because its a lot faster. Be sure to keep recasting your bone armor because that'll keep you alive. I use twitch + eyeless and keep 75fcr. Also, you can't get 125fcr in classic, 75 is the best for a necro. 120 fcr is the most for any char (except barbs) so see what breakpoints it covers. Against javazons, you can try to get up close immediately and start firing before they do, I mean right next to them, or stay far away at first. Try to avoid CS and move slowly to decrep range, then spear or spirit them.
- against paladins, Stack as much lightning resistance if they're FoH. You need 125 resists to get maxed in hell, and conviction can lower you -150, so thats 275 you need. 3topaz shield is 120, so 155 after that. With some select lightning gear you can get by it, but your stash is only so big. Try to get a massive amount on your ammy if it has fcr also. Against hammerdins, they aren't as bad as someone said. They can easily kill a barb if they make use of charge and laying hammer fields. They break out of prisons easily, so make use of spears while they're casting. If they don't use charge, ust decrep them and keep throwing spears/spirits at them. If they do use charge, be wary of following them because theyre usually laying down hammer fields. Prison is nice, and so is bonewall to prevent them from getting close. Melee paladins can be kept inside a prison or kept outside with bonewalls.
- against sorcs, 75% of them don't know how to tele. Against FB sorcs, they might not have as much dmg as in expac, but it hurts when they hit you. Hotspurs+nokozan if you have them, but FB sorcs are really rare. Use spirits always, keep bonewalls in front of you. One FB can usually take out a wall, so keep casting them. As the sorc starts to tele, see if there's any patterns, and prison can be useful. While it'll only hold them for 10 frames or whatever, if you've kept a steady stream of spirits after them, it can catch them for that 1 second. Or probably not, tele is a big advantage, but I've gone 50/50 with the best FB sorc on East, and I was 15 lvls lower. Necros are still pretty powerful. Blizzard sorcs keep running, for any character, once that blizz hits you it keeps hitting you. You have a second after its cast where you can see it, so keep running. Although, when you're running the sorc doesn't have to dodge. Use the prison/bone spirit strategy, same with orb sorcs. You shouldn't be hit full on with the orb, you can dodge them pretty easily.
- against necros, Keep prisons to the side and in front of you, to attract all the spirits. Fire some at them if they don't have any walls up. If they don't kill them with sprits far away, get them running. Don't want to go prisoned though, that gets annoying, even though it may not help them. If you both have walls, switch to spears and try to guess where they are. You can play defensive and let the other person come to you, or you can circle him. He should keep the walls up, and so should you. If he doesn't come in and snipe at him. These can go on for a long time.

And you can get more than 30frw. Blinkbats and Hawkmail each give 10frw, 30frw, and irathas gives like 30 also I think. Speeders with irathas and boots = fast barbs. Blinkbats is an extremely useful armor against any non-elemental, twitch against zons. No use against barbs because if they get a clean WW you're dead, unless you're a very high lvl. Garb is ok for resists.

[Suo]

Yeah, hammerdins are mostly pvm. Haven't seen a very succesful charge hammerdin pvper though. And forgot about the frw on the armors like blinkbat and hawkmail. Iratha's gives 20 frw with 3 items according to Arreat Summit.
And yeah, the res penalty in hell is only 50 compared to 100 in xpac but still, it's quite hard to get decent equip for resses.
Don't know about hammer damage but it shows in the character sheet in the damage part a huge increase in damage with blessed hammer while under effect of fanatiscm too. Jumps from 9k (with conc) to about 14k. I also get dmg boost from combat shrines strangely. Either a bug or it works in different way.

[Kodachi_ysaane]

Hmm, do whirlwind can beat all melee, including a smite charger?
I was thinking of making a paladin, maybe foh + charge, or Smite + foh.

[TheCerberus]

Well Kodachi, WW hits a lot in Classic. Someone said that it might even be as fast as to hit once every frame, which is a lot of damage. I made a Defiant for tanking in PvM, but I got bored with him at lvl 87 so I played with him in some PvP. He had about 1350 life, 500 damage smite without fanatacism, 8 fpa, and around 8.5k defense. Barbs won every time, despite my huge defense and max block. However, this was without Fanatacism so that might work well. You could try to make a V/T, I don't know how much success you'll have with the low FoH dmg.

And Suo, I know Hammerdins view large increases in Hammer damage with shrines and such, I think the shrines are alright since it is a combat skill. However, someone said that they did the same Hammer damage with Meditation on as with Fanatacism.

[Rauth]

I can confirm fanatacism works on blessed hammers for sure. When a friend and I made two hammerdins for mfing, I used fanat and he used conc. Without fanat his damage went down dramatically just like mine went down without conc. I just tested in sp and lvl 20 fanat actually gives MORE damage to blessed hammer than lvl 20 concentration. Remember though, the enhanced damage is halved for your teamates.Two hammerdins can tear up any area in the game with 14k hammers(excluding magic immunes).

As for smiters, my rich friend made a godly one in classic(used fanat because angelics make any defense attainable in classic obselete), but could not even touch my fairly good ww baba. I think the way ww works in classic messes it up. Ww in general will tear up ANY other build because of the strange way it works in classic.I'm pretty sure it is slower than one hit a frame but it is very fast. Even bone necros will have a very hard time beating a good speeder without resorting to iron maiden and bone walls. Foh can work well but alot of other duelers will have a 4 p topaz shield to negate you easily. Barbs are all about the rare weapons though. Either a 200+damage executioner sword or a 300+ damage lance will beat most other classes.

[TheCerberus]

That's awesome if Fanatacism works with Blessed Hammers. It'd be more viable for soloing, and I can't be the only one that thinks its looks are superior to Concentration. When you said tested, you guys were looking at the dmg done to monsters and not the display screen right? Thats really cool though, thanks for correcting me.

Also, the smiter v. WW thing, did you just outright kill him, or was he able to get your life narrowly down? Did you use a lance or go 1-handed? I want to try a smiter for PvP if there is a reset, but if even 1-handed barbs will be able to kill him, I'm not sure there would be a point. Also, since I'm unable to play right now, do you guys know if Enchant dmg will add to smite?

I'd recommend either an FO sorc, a bone necro, or a speeder for your first PvP character. Cookie cutter, yes, but they can give you a lot of experience.

[Rauth]

That's awesome if Fanatacism works with Blessed Hammers. It'd be more viable for soloing, and I can't be the only one that thinks its looks are superior to Concentration. When you said tested, you guys were looking at the dmg done to monsters and not the display screen right? Thats really cool though, thanks for correcting me.

Also, the smiter v. WW thing, did you just outright kill him, or was he able to get your life narrowly down? Did you use a lance or go 1-handed? I want to try a smiter for PvP if there is a reset, but if even 1-handed barbs will be able to kill him, I'm not sure there would be a point.

I'd recommend either an FO sorc, a bone necro, or a speeder for your first PvP character. Cookie cutter, yes, but they can give you a lot of experience.

We tried going with just different auras through a cs run. Only the concentration hammerdin killed stuff with the other pala providing aura. The first time(with fanat) EVERYTHING died in one hit, except for diablo who didnt take long. The second time(no fanat) everything took 1-2 hits depending on monster type and diablo took about 1.5 times as long. We did this about a month ago because another friend said it didn't work and wanted proof. So, unless blizz fixed this on realm for some weird reason, it still works.

I used my bvb baba on my friends smiter. 145 damage bhammer is what I used. I think he hit like 2 times doing about 500 damage of my 4k life(prebuffed bo). Took maybe 3 whirls to kill. It was pretty one-sided. Remember, 8.5k def is nothing compared to the 11k ar easily attainable with angelics. Ww simply hits too many times for smite to win in classic.

I'd go with speeder if you can get a nice wep for him. Find normal lances and imbue them. I've seen some very nice ones come from that. Not sure if level matters on the imbue but I never got anything nice from low level ones. Nothing more fun than chasing down people and hitting them 5 times in one ww of death.

[TheCerberus]

That's cool about the auras then, thanks.

Whoa... 3 WW's to kill? I figure with 1k smite he could go about 650 dmg to you, And if he's maybe lvl 85 he could have 1400 life? 460 dmg PvP for WW, each one... god WW is way over powered then. They could have it hit maybe max fpa like in Expac, but keep the same speed aspect, that isn't that bad. Also, start imbuing weapons at lvl 74 if you want the most damage. At that level you can get the mods of 100% enhanced dmg and 100% enhanced dmg + AR, giving you the 200%ed possibility.

[Rauth]

That's cool about the auras then, thanks.

Whoa... 3 WW's to kill? I figure with 1k smite he could go about 650 dmg to you, And if he's maybe lvl 85 he could have 1400 life? 460 dmg PvP for WW, each one... god WW is way over powered then. They could have it hit maybe max fpa like in Expac, but keep the same speed aspect, that isn't that bad. Also, start imbuing weapons at lvl 74 if you want the most damage. At that level you can get the mods of 100% enhanced dmg and 100% enhanced dmg + AR, giving you the 200%ed possibility.

Ya, it hits so many times. Take a normal martel and go whirl some monsters. It's crazy how many times you hit. It is sooo easy to level with ww barbs because of weapons low reqs. At lvl 30 I have a 263 damage lance equiped. Tore up the monsters like a lawn mower.

He got in 2 hits tops against me thats all I know. Maybe smite doesn't work so well in classic but ww barbs shred them like any other char. Think the last ww breakpoint for xpac, but hitting twice as much as that. I can't see any difference in hits for long range weapons either. Bhammers seem to hit just as many times as lances. You can imagine my surprise when I brought my classic lancer to xpac to mf. Hitting 2 times per ww sucks.

[NightShade]

BVB is a joke. PM stinger for things more hardcore relative

[BabehJesus]

Barbs own classic.

Classic is built on dupes. Duped SOJs are currency, and duped armors, helms, and weapons, are the only good armors, helms, and weapons. You can't find better ones anymore. Because of this, all barbs use the same stuff.

-CV (Cruel Visage Bone Helm)
-Twitch (Twitchthroe Studded Leather)
-SBack (Swordback Hold Spiked Shield)
-Random BHammer

So classic dueling is kind of stupid. It's also a lot harder to get rich in XPac, because as I said, you can't find this stuff. It's all old dupes, so you can't get rich MFing as easily as you can in XPac.

[SwordOfJusticeX]

Barbs own classic.

Classic is built on dupes. Duped SOJs are currency, and duped armors, helms, and weapons, are the only good armors, helms, and weapons. You can't find better ones anymore. Because of this, all barbs use the same stuff.

-CV (Cruel Visage Bone Helm)
-Twitch (Twitchthroe Studded Leather)
-SBack (Swordback Hold Spiked Shield)
-Random BHammer

So classic dueling is kind of stupid. It's also a lot harder to get rich in XPac, because as I said, you can't find this stuff. It's all old dupes, so you can't get rich MFing as easily as you can in XPac.
actually, its quite easy to get rich in classic
first, build a mf barb, then do trav or nm meph runs
find a 200ed lance, exe, bhammer and sell it for like 500sojs worth of stuff to rich guys who collect or use or show off godly legits O_O
thats how i started and became godly in 1 month in classic west :D
gogo 199ed lance :cheesy:
also 2 weeks ago i found a 177ed 40ias prevent heal knockback naga:D
am using now to stand out in bvb and although i cant beat bhammer *duh* i can kill sword barbs surprisingly easily

-sword

[TheCerberus]

also 2 weeks ago i found a 177ed 40ias prevent heal knockback naga:D
am using now to stand out in bvb and although i cant beat bhammer *duh*

Couldn't you use your range to your advantage? You're range 3, they're range 1. That would work right?

[handofg0d]

I have EXTENSIVE dueling experience in classic due to playing it for the first 4 months of 1.10 exclusively (before I bought LOD)

The bone necro is purely unstopabble. Against any melee oppoenent (inculding charging hammerdin who tries to desynch), you simply cast a fortress of bonewall around you and then IM / decrep as appropriate = Dead melee.

Against blizz /Orb sorcs, use a 3 sapphire shield = dead sorc. Fire sorcs are the most viable sorcs, but noko + hotspur and they are useless.

Against Foher, 3 topaz shield = dead FoH.

Basically, what we have resorted to is Nec vs. anything in 1v1.
Or in teams, as many necs as possible and 1 barb for BO.

For reference, I have made, axe barb, bhammer barb, lance barb, hammerdin, bone nec, blizz sorc, fire sorc all to high level (90 +). All with perfect / near perfect build and the godliest rare (or among the top, talking ladder here) items possible in classic.

And yes BVB is insanely lame. Basically bvb is sigon helm + gauntlets, twitchthroe armor, angelic ammy + rings, swordback hold shield (gives Open Wounds), then goblin toe boots, some FHR / Str / Cold dmg belt. THe build is every point into vita.

Now ww your opponent once and run away for 5 seconds!
WW again run away for 5 seconds!
Repeat until the higher level / higher life person wins. (higher level = more OW damage).

[handofg0d]

Just to clarify some erroneous points made above:

WW only hits 4-5 times in PvP. Can easily "Soak up" the hits by making bonewalls / minions same as in expac.

Fanaticism does NOT combine with blessed hammer, it will merely display on the character screen. I will prove this to anyone (made level 80 hammerdin with fan before I realized this error ><).

It is easier to become rich in xpac than it is in classic due to Botting. I started xpac only 2 months ago and already I have full Perfect setup with several vita gc's. Basically a couple weeks of botting can get you the setup.
Only those vita gc's and 20/5 Sc's separate a good from average person now adays. (again talking ladder here).

Now compare that to classic where you may have to find 20 rare Bhammers in order to find a 160 + dmg one. And keep in mind that bhammer drop isnt that frequent.

[D1ce]

Can't Hammerdins charge de sync and spam hammers? Enigma isn't the only viable option for the mode of transportation for Paladins you know:P

[Watzit2ya]

You can. Vigor chargeing around lock on them then spam hammers catches some people off gaurd, most the good people are aware of desynching and have ways around it. Tele name locking is 10x better.