ash2ash
26-07-2004, 05:02
The Elemental Zealot (elezealot?)
-by ash2ash
----------<Introduction>--------
I like paladins because they are the veritable swiss-army knife of the diablo world. They have an incredible variety of skills which allow them to be either strictly melee (zealot), caster class (hammerdin), or a mixture of both.
This guide is focused more as a melee build rather than a caster, so if you're afraid of getting up close and personal with diablo's minions..... well, at least read this guide and see what you think before dismissing it entirely!!!
----------<Theory>-------------
The main theory behind this build is to stack a bunch of elemental damage along with conviction. Conviction is an absolutely amazing skill and is easily my favorite paladin aura. Not only does it lower resistances by an incredible factor, but it also lowers enemy defenses, making AR virtually an irrelevant issue. Also, many people I have played with don't realize this, but conviction also has the power to remove immunities. There's something special about walking into a hell baal game only to see a bunch of fire sorcs attempting to take down a fire immune boss pack, then getting showered with gratitude as the "fire immune" text dissappears from the monsters.
Since we're lowering monster resistances into the negatives, makes sense to capitalize on the fact by loading up on elemental damage right? Bingo, that's exactly what this build does. However, unlike an avenger, I do not use vengeance as a primary skill. Instead, I use zeal.
Why, you ask?
Well first of all because zeal is an excellent crowd control tool. It hits five times instead of once, which is excellent if you are highly dependant on a certain %chance to cast life tap item....
Second, it has very low associated mana costs, so you can literally zeal until the cows come home without even blinking an eye at mana burn enemies. I am lvl 86 with my build right now and I find that my mana actually regenerates faster than I can zeal with base energy!
Well without vengeance, how do I achieve high elemental damage?
Here's the rub - this build is highly dependant on certain items. Fortunately, these items are (at least in my opinion) fairly available on both ladder/nonladder with the exception of Herald of Zakarum. If you are having trouble getting these items, you should read many of the excellent magic find guides available as they should not be particularly difficult to trade for.
A personal touch I have added to this build is that my character will ideally have maxed and CAPPED resists in hell mode along with cold / lightning / fire absorb, making him virtually immune to those 3 elements. He also has very high defense (20k+) along with maxed blocking to take care of any physical attacks.
----------<Skills>---------------
Okay, here's the easy part. My build goes something like this:
-------VV-Must-Haves-VV----------
-20 Points conviction
-1 Point Zeal
-1 Point Vengeance
-20 Points Holy Shield
--------VV-Optional-VV-----------
-20 Points Defiance (but highly reccomended!!!)
-10/10/10 points in fire / light / cold resist
-1 pt in Misc skills like meditation / salvation / cleansing
20 Points in conviction is pretty obvious since I'm concentration on elemental damage.
I only put one point in Zeal since Herald of Zakarum adds +2 to all paladin skills along with +2 to combat skills, so it brings Zeal to lvl 5. Anything past lvl 4 only adds physical damage and AR. Because this build concentrates on elemental damage, the added damage is not too helpful. The AR bonus is almost completely irrelevant as a result of conviction.
Vengeance is a useful power-hit skill when you want to attack ONE particular enemy instead of distributing the hits. This is nice for annoying spawns such as holy freeze enchanted / etc.
20 Points in holy shield is almost a must since this is a melee build and melee classes need all the block they can get. This also allows you to take all those extra points you would have otherwise spent in DEX and pump your VIT.
The additional points in defiance are solely for the synergy bonus to holy shield. With both skills at lvl 20, you get a whopping +610% defense WITHOUT defiance, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at! As a result, my pally achieves 20k defense, and could easily hit 30k if he really wanted to. You don't have to max defiance, but I highly reccomend it as it can make a BIG difference! (Keep in mind that this +% Def is applied to the DISPLAYED defense on your character screen rather than the base stats of your items, so if you have 1000 def displayed, your holy shield defense would be 7100!!!)
10 points in fire/ light / cold resist are primarily for the additional +5 max F/L/C resist. They have a secondary effect of pumping the Vengeance damage, but that's just icing on the cake. These skills are the least important ones in this build, so if you wanna try dumping points elsewhere, I reccomend you start cutting from these. If you do plan to use these skills, I recommend pumping them LAST.
----------<Stats>--------------
Enough to use your equipment, the rest in Vit.
This means at least 108 dex with a variable amount in strength.
----------<Equipment>----------
This is the hard part. Since this character is not using vengeance for elemental damage, he is highly dependant on items to give him elemental damage. I've split this into a must-have and optional section.
After you've gotten all the must-have's, the choice really boils down to items with high elemental damage. Mana leech is completely unnecessary for this build since zeal only costs 2 mana and your mana bulb will regenerate faster than you can zeal.
Those who seek to make a build who is almost completely immune to fire/light/poison/ice and has 20k defense, read my optional part.
------------VV-Must-Have-VV-----------------
***Weapon:
Before 1.10, the item of choice for this build was Barnar's Star. It added 1-200 fire/cold/ice damage, but I realized only too soon that this was not nearly enough damage, even with conviction, to be viable in hell mode.
Fortunately, in 1.10, Blizzard has decided to give this build an injection of steroids with the addition of the amazing new item: GIMMERSHRED!!!
What!? A throwing weapon for a paladin!!!!??? Blasphemy!!!
Well... take a quick look at the stats on this item and you'll see what I mean:
Gimmershred
Throw Damage: (39-46) To (171-204) (105-125 Avg)
One-Hand Damage: (44-52) To (169-201) (106.5-126.5 Avg)
Required Level: 70
Required Strength: 88
Required Dexterity: 108
Base Weapon Speed: [10]
Max Stack: (240)
+160-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 218-483 Fire Damage
Adds 29-501 Lightning Damage
Adds 176-397 Cold Damage, 4 sec. Duration (Normal)
+30% Increased Attack Speed
Increased Stack Size [60]
If one does the math, it becomes apparent that this item alone adds 1385 (!!!) to your maximum elemental damage. Couple that with a lvl 20 conviction and you are talking anywhere in the 3000 elemental damage per hit. Add in the physical damage, and you are easily talking about 3500 damage PER ZEAL SWING!!!
Not only is this item incredibly damaging, but the 30% IAS makes it a speed contender as well!
Finally, and possibly the most fun reason; these weapons work great as throwing weapons if you've been IM'd. Pally's throwing axes and doing 3500 damage per hit really turns heads!
Anyway, enough gushing over that item. Gimmershred is really the only end-game weapon that makes sense for this build, and best of all, it's relatively easy to trade for.
Alternatives:
-None really, except maybe barnars star
Now onto the other items:
***Shield: Herald of Zakarum
I often think that it would be nice if paladins and HoZ's spawned in a 1:1 ration on the realms since it really is the ultimate shield for a paladin. The only other shield that comes close is Exile, and that, unfortunately, is well out of the realm of attainability for most persons.
This is going to be the hardest item to get, so until you get this shield, some good alternatives are:
-Rhyme (Shael-Eth)
-Pally shields with high resists / Pdiamonds
-Mosers with Pdiamonds
***Glove: Draculs Grasp
Arguably the second hardest item to get. These gloves are an absolute must if only for their %To cast life tap on striking. Once life tap is cast, you can kiss your life leech woes goodbye since you are effectively leeching 50% of physical damage done. The added mods to STR/life leech/+life per kill are just icing on the cake. The only real reason not to have Dracs is if you have exile, and if you have exile, I really don't think I need to tell you what items to use
Alternatives:
-Soul Drainers
-Laying of Hands
-Crafted/Rare gloves with life leech
------------VV-Optional-VV------------------
I'm not going to spend too much time here since I'm basically posting down what my char wears:
-Ring1 - Nagelring (for MF)
-Ring2 - Ravenfrost (for cannot be frozen / cold absorb)
-Belt - Snowclash (for cold absorb)
-Helm - Blackhorn's Face (for lightning absorb)
-Ammy - Rising Sun (for fire absorb)
-Shoes - Sandstorm Trek (for poison, +def, and +stats)
-Armor - Guardian Angel
I've socketed my blackhorn's face with a 15% IAS / lightning resist jewel and I've upped my Guardian Angel and socketed it with a 15% Resist all jewel. With this gear, I have the potential to achieve 95/95/95/90 resists in hell mode if I flash on salvation. Without salvation, my resists are currently in and around the 50's 60's.
The great thing about these items is that assuming you can achieve max resists, you are going to be pretty much immune to ALL elemental damage. Not only will you be immune, but alot of elemental damage will actually HEAL YOU!!!
Blackhorn's face has 20 lightning abosorb, and once you hit around 75 resist, you will be pretty much immune to all lightning attacks - even Black Souls in the Worldstone. It also adds slows target by 20% and prevents monster heal, which actually make this a VERY good item on its own! It also adds lightning damage to your attack, which is always a good thing when coupled with conviction!
Snowclash, I admit, is a wierd choice, but the +15 cold absorb is enough to make those annoying skeletal mages that spawn with Achmael about as dangerous as a dead trout. The %Chance to cast blizzard is really just ornamental, but I must admit I've often been amused to see the lvl 16 blizzard killing monsters in hell mode who have been flashed with conviction! Adds cold damage too.
Rising Sun - I cannot say enough about this amulet. You don't even really need high fire resist to make yourself almost completely invulnerable to fire while wearing this item. At lvl 86, this ammy gives my character +64 fire absorb. Coupled with my 60% fire resist means that in order for an enemy to do any damage to me, he must do AT LEAST 320 fire damage in one hit. With this amulet, I can safely solo Hell Council since their hydras keep healing me faster than the council can damage me :D Also adds fire damage, and the %chance cast meteor can sometimes kill ranged attackers for you, which is a good thing (tm). (Note: for all those wierd people who care, the +2 fire skills on Rising Sun actually adds +2 to holy fire)
Ravenfrost - I don't think it's possible to make a melee build WITHOUT using one of these things. Great stats. Cannot be frozen is a life saver. Get one, even if its got low stats. Also adds cold damage.
Guardian Angel - Nice +1 to pally skills as well as adding +15 to your resist caps. There are better armors out there, but if you wanna max/cap your resists, this is the thing to do it with. I upped mine (199%ED) for a cool 1386defense. Requires 196STR when upped, though, so be warned. I switch this with Tals armor when I'm doing MF runs.
Treks - couldn't get the poison resist elsewhere, so I went with these. Great stats all around, but it's not really too important. I switch these out with perfect war travelers.... HAHAHA I wish! No, I have a pair of rare boots that I use for MF
With all these items, my displayed max damage is around 2400. Assuming around 2100 of that is elemental damage, with lvl 25 conviction, I should be doing around 400 + 2.5*2000 = 5400 damage per zeal swing.
So 5 * 5650 = a potential 27000. Not too shabby for 2 mana.
My resists are still not quite up to the 95's, but I'm always on the lookout for +res all grand charms / small charms. In a pinch, salvation gets me up to max in a jiffy.
----------<Strategy>-----------
Step 1: Activate Holy Shield
Step 2: Turn on Conviction
Step 3: Zeal
Step 4: ???
Step 5: !!!PROFIT!!!
Seriously, it's not that simple, but that pretty much describes the process I use on all my enemies. Since zeal is dealing elemental AND physical damage, there is no need to worry about any immunities / resistances. In a pinch, it helps to switch to vengeance and take out whichever enemy is causing you all the problems, but I HIGHLY reccomend you wait until they are tagged with Life Tap before doing this!!!
This character is great in parties and is popular with both sorcs' and melee builds. No caster is going to complain about the -res and the -def makes AR a non-issue for your melee buddies.
Be smart and don't forget about your other auras as well - use cleansing to remove any problematic curses; use salvation/Lightning resist if your party is being slaughtered by lightning hoses; use redemption if you don't wanna use your potions and there are alot of bodies lying around. If there's one thing that annoys me more than anything, it's a hammerdin just standing there with concentration on while everybody in the pary is slowly dying from Achmael's poison.
If you are in an area where there are Oblivion Knights, always remember that Gimmershreds are a THROWING weapon and they can inflict just as much damage thrown as they can melee.
----------<Mercs>--------------
Uh? I don't have a mercenary, but I'd imagine that the natural choice would be between a holy freezer and/or Defiance merc. Keep in mind the defiance aura also works off your base displayed defense, so a lvl 20 defiance and lvl 20/(20synergy) holy shield does not translate into X*(710%)*(360%)=a total of (+2400%) def. Rather, it will be X*(710%+260%) for a total of around (+870%) def, so the effect is a bit less dramatic.
Well, that does it. This is just a version 0.1 of this guide, so comments / criticisms are welcomed! :D
-by ash2ash
----------<Introduction>--------
I like paladins because they are the veritable swiss-army knife of the diablo world. They have an incredible variety of skills which allow them to be either strictly melee (zealot), caster class (hammerdin), or a mixture of both.
This guide is focused more as a melee build rather than a caster, so if you're afraid of getting up close and personal with diablo's minions..... well, at least read this guide and see what you think before dismissing it entirely!!!
----------<Theory>-------------
The main theory behind this build is to stack a bunch of elemental damage along with conviction. Conviction is an absolutely amazing skill and is easily my favorite paladin aura. Not only does it lower resistances by an incredible factor, but it also lowers enemy defenses, making AR virtually an irrelevant issue. Also, many people I have played with don't realize this, but conviction also has the power to remove immunities. There's something special about walking into a hell baal game only to see a bunch of fire sorcs attempting to take down a fire immune boss pack, then getting showered with gratitude as the "fire immune" text dissappears from the monsters.
Since we're lowering monster resistances into the negatives, makes sense to capitalize on the fact by loading up on elemental damage right? Bingo, that's exactly what this build does. However, unlike an avenger, I do not use vengeance as a primary skill. Instead, I use zeal.
Why, you ask?
Well first of all because zeal is an excellent crowd control tool. It hits five times instead of once, which is excellent if you are highly dependant on a certain %chance to cast life tap item....
Second, it has very low associated mana costs, so you can literally zeal until the cows come home without even blinking an eye at mana burn enemies. I am lvl 86 with my build right now and I find that my mana actually regenerates faster than I can zeal with base energy!
Well without vengeance, how do I achieve high elemental damage?
Here's the rub - this build is highly dependant on certain items. Fortunately, these items are (at least in my opinion) fairly available on both ladder/nonladder with the exception of Herald of Zakarum. If you are having trouble getting these items, you should read many of the excellent magic find guides available as they should not be particularly difficult to trade for.
A personal touch I have added to this build is that my character will ideally have maxed and CAPPED resists in hell mode along with cold / lightning / fire absorb, making him virtually immune to those 3 elements. He also has very high defense (20k+) along with maxed blocking to take care of any physical attacks.
----------<Skills>---------------
Okay, here's the easy part. My build goes something like this:
-------VV-Must-Haves-VV----------
-20 Points conviction
-1 Point Zeal
-1 Point Vengeance
-20 Points Holy Shield
--------VV-Optional-VV-----------
-20 Points Defiance (but highly reccomended!!!)
-10/10/10 points in fire / light / cold resist
-1 pt in Misc skills like meditation / salvation / cleansing
20 Points in conviction is pretty obvious since I'm concentration on elemental damage.
I only put one point in Zeal since Herald of Zakarum adds +2 to all paladin skills along with +2 to combat skills, so it brings Zeal to lvl 5. Anything past lvl 4 only adds physical damage and AR. Because this build concentrates on elemental damage, the added damage is not too helpful. The AR bonus is almost completely irrelevant as a result of conviction.
Vengeance is a useful power-hit skill when you want to attack ONE particular enemy instead of distributing the hits. This is nice for annoying spawns such as holy freeze enchanted / etc.
20 Points in holy shield is almost a must since this is a melee build and melee classes need all the block they can get. This also allows you to take all those extra points you would have otherwise spent in DEX and pump your VIT.
The additional points in defiance are solely for the synergy bonus to holy shield. With both skills at lvl 20, you get a whopping +610% defense WITHOUT defiance, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at! As a result, my pally achieves 20k defense, and could easily hit 30k if he really wanted to. You don't have to max defiance, but I highly reccomend it as it can make a BIG difference! (Keep in mind that this +% Def is applied to the DISPLAYED defense on your character screen rather than the base stats of your items, so if you have 1000 def displayed, your holy shield defense would be 7100!!!)
10 points in fire/ light / cold resist are primarily for the additional +5 max F/L/C resist. They have a secondary effect of pumping the Vengeance damage, but that's just icing on the cake. These skills are the least important ones in this build, so if you wanna try dumping points elsewhere, I reccomend you start cutting from these. If you do plan to use these skills, I recommend pumping them LAST.
----------<Stats>--------------
Enough to use your equipment, the rest in Vit.
This means at least 108 dex with a variable amount in strength.
----------<Equipment>----------
This is the hard part. Since this character is not using vengeance for elemental damage, he is highly dependant on items to give him elemental damage. I've split this into a must-have and optional section.
After you've gotten all the must-have's, the choice really boils down to items with high elemental damage. Mana leech is completely unnecessary for this build since zeal only costs 2 mana and your mana bulb will regenerate faster than you can zeal.
Those who seek to make a build who is almost completely immune to fire/light/poison/ice and has 20k defense, read my optional part.
------------VV-Must-Have-VV-----------------
***Weapon:
Before 1.10, the item of choice for this build was Barnar's Star. It added 1-200 fire/cold/ice damage, but I realized only too soon that this was not nearly enough damage, even with conviction, to be viable in hell mode.
Fortunately, in 1.10, Blizzard has decided to give this build an injection of steroids with the addition of the amazing new item: GIMMERSHRED!!!
What!? A throwing weapon for a paladin!!!!??? Blasphemy!!!
Well... take a quick look at the stats on this item and you'll see what I mean:
Gimmershred
Throw Damage: (39-46) To (171-204) (105-125 Avg)
One-Hand Damage: (44-52) To (169-201) (106.5-126.5 Avg)
Required Level: 70
Required Strength: 88
Required Dexterity: 108
Base Weapon Speed: [10]
Max Stack: (240)
+160-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 218-483 Fire Damage
Adds 29-501 Lightning Damage
Adds 176-397 Cold Damage, 4 sec. Duration (Normal)
+30% Increased Attack Speed
Increased Stack Size [60]
If one does the math, it becomes apparent that this item alone adds 1385 (!!!) to your maximum elemental damage. Couple that with a lvl 20 conviction and you are talking anywhere in the 3000 elemental damage per hit. Add in the physical damage, and you are easily talking about 3500 damage PER ZEAL SWING!!!
Not only is this item incredibly damaging, but the 30% IAS makes it a speed contender as well!
Finally, and possibly the most fun reason; these weapons work great as throwing weapons if you've been IM'd. Pally's throwing axes and doing 3500 damage per hit really turns heads!
Anyway, enough gushing over that item. Gimmershred is really the only end-game weapon that makes sense for this build, and best of all, it's relatively easy to trade for.
Alternatives:
-None really, except maybe barnars star
Now onto the other items:
***Shield: Herald of Zakarum
I often think that it would be nice if paladins and HoZ's spawned in a 1:1 ration on the realms since it really is the ultimate shield for a paladin. The only other shield that comes close is Exile, and that, unfortunately, is well out of the realm of attainability for most persons.
This is going to be the hardest item to get, so until you get this shield, some good alternatives are:
-Rhyme (Shael-Eth)
-Pally shields with high resists / Pdiamonds
-Mosers with Pdiamonds
***Glove: Draculs Grasp
Arguably the second hardest item to get. These gloves are an absolute must if only for their %To cast life tap on striking. Once life tap is cast, you can kiss your life leech woes goodbye since you are effectively leeching 50% of physical damage done. The added mods to STR/life leech/+life per kill are just icing on the cake. The only real reason not to have Dracs is if you have exile, and if you have exile, I really don't think I need to tell you what items to use
Alternatives:
-Soul Drainers
-Laying of Hands
-Crafted/Rare gloves with life leech
------------VV-Optional-VV------------------
I'm not going to spend too much time here since I'm basically posting down what my char wears:
-Ring1 - Nagelring (for MF)
-Ring2 - Ravenfrost (for cannot be frozen / cold absorb)
-Belt - Snowclash (for cold absorb)
-Helm - Blackhorn's Face (for lightning absorb)
-Ammy - Rising Sun (for fire absorb)
-Shoes - Sandstorm Trek (for poison, +def, and +stats)
-Armor - Guardian Angel
I've socketed my blackhorn's face with a 15% IAS / lightning resist jewel and I've upped my Guardian Angel and socketed it with a 15% Resist all jewel. With this gear, I have the potential to achieve 95/95/95/90 resists in hell mode if I flash on salvation. Without salvation, my resists are currently in and around the 50's 60's.
The great thing about these items is that assuming you can achieve max resists, you are going to be pretty much immune to ALL elemental damage. Not only will you be immune, but alot of elemental damage will actually HEAL YOU!!!
Blackhorn's face has 20 lightning abosorb, and once you hit around 75 resist, you will be pretty much immune to all lightning attacks - even Black Souls in the Worldstone. It also adds slows target by 20% and prevents monster heal, which actually make this a VERY good item on its own! It also adds lightning damage to your attack, which is always a good thing when coupled with conviction!
Snowclash, I admit, is a wierd choice, but the +15 cold absorb is enough to make those annoying skeletal mages that spawn with Achmael about as dangerous as a dead trout. The %Chance to cast blizzard is really just ornamental, but I must admit I've often been amused to see the lvl 16 blizzard killing monsters in hell mode who have been flashed with conviction! Adds cold damage too.
Rising Sun - I cannot say enough about this amulet. You don't even really need high fire resist to make yourself almost completely invulnerable to fire while wearing this item. At lvl 86, this ammy gives my character +64 fire absorb. Coupled with my 60% fire resist means that in order for an enemy to do any damage to me, he must do AT LEAST 320 fire damage in one hit. With this amulet, I can safely solo Hell Council since their hydras keep healing me faster than the council can damage me :D Also adds fire damage, and the %chance cast meteor can sometimes kill ranged attackers for you, which is a good thing (tm). (Note: for all those wierd people who care, the +2 fire skills on Rising Sun actually adds +2 to holy fire)
Ravenfrost - I don't think it's possible to make a melee build WITHOUT using one of these things. Great stats. Cannot be frozen is a life saver. Get one, even if its got low stats. Also adds cold damage.
Guardian Angel - Nice +1 to pally skills as well as adding +15 to your resist caps. There are better armors out there, but if you wanna max/cap your resists, this is the thing to do it with. I upped mine (199%ED) for a cool 1386defense. Requires 196STR when upped, though, so be warned. I switch this with Tals armor when I'm doing MF runs.
Treks - couldn't get the poison resist elsewhere, so I went with these. Great stats all around, but it's not really too important. I switch these out with perfect war travelers.... HAHAHA I wish! No, I have a pair of rare boots that I use for MF
With all these items, my displayed max damage is around 2400. Assuming around 2100 of that is elemental damage, with lvl 25 conviction, I should be doing around 400 + 2.5*2000 = 5400 damage per zeal swing.
So 5 * 5650 = a potential 27000. Not too shabby for 2 mana.
My resists are still not quite up to the 95's, but I'm always on the lookout for +res all grand charms / small charms. In a pinch, salvation gets me up to max in a jiffy.
----------<Strategy>-----------
Step 1: Activate Holy Shield
Step 2: Turn on Conviction
Step 3: Zeal
Step 4: ???
Step 5: !!!PROFIT!!!
Seriously, it's not that simple, but that pretty much describes the process I use on all my enemies. Since zeal is dealing elemental AND physical damage, there is no need to worry about any immunities / resistances. In a pinch, it helps to switch to vengeance and take out whichever enemy is causing you all the problems, but I HIGHLY reccomend you wait until they are tagged with Life Tap before doing this!!!
This character is great in parties and is popular with both sorcs' and melee builds. No caster is going to complain about the -res and the -def makes AR a non-issue for your melee buddies.
Be smart and don't forget about your other auras as well - use cleansing to remove any problematic curses; use salvation/Lightning resist if your party is being slaughtered by lightning hoses; use redemption if you don't wanna use your potions and there are alot of bodies lying around. If there's one thing that annoys me more than anything, it's a hammerdin just standing there with concentration on while everybody in the pary is slowly dying from Achmael's poison.
If you are in an area where there are Oblivion Knights, always remember that Gimmershreds are a THROWING weapon and they can inflict just as much damage thrown as they can melee.
----------<Mercs>--------------
Uh? I don't have a mercenary, but I'd imagine that the natural choice would be between a holy freezer and/or Defiance merc. Keep in mind the defiance aura also works off your base displayed defense, so a lvl 20 defiance and lvl 20/(20synergy) holy shield does not translate into X*(710%)*(360%)=a total of (+2400%) def. Rather, it will be X*(710%+260%) for a total of around (+870%) def, so the effect is a bit less dramatic.
Well, that does it. This is just a version 0.1 of this guide, so comments / criticisms are welcomed! :D