Ax2Grind
06-12-2004, 18:44
I offered to write a guide for this in the Build Names thread, considering I see none around nor linked in the sticky thread above, since I make one every ladder season to wear the same exact gear as a mule. Maybe the build I'm thinking of is only a variation, but I tend to think it's the best since I'm the only one making one that lives.
It doesn't require godly gear, most of the gear is classic, in fact, but upgrading is key. Thorns and conversion are the main skills but there's more to it than that. If anyone has ideas or wants me to write the guide unaided feel free to post.
Ax2Grind
07-12-2004, 19:38
I was never aware that damage, either from an attack or from thorns, could trigger a conversion since that skill must be used by the paladin himself. Instead, I only built the new missionary after viewing a rare scepter in expansion, one I'll allude to in my first draft here soon. Suffice it to say it's not something people are going to think of quickly.
Ax2Grind
10-12-2004, 22:26
Alright, I'm a little ticked off by the BS handed down to us from Blizzard, also known as the new runeword list, so I'm just throwing this out here to find out if anyone is even still playing this game now.
Also, there are no variants listed as of yet, and few alternate items. I'll probably do that in the final draft, but the new runewords have also FUBARed those ideas, too. Anyway, for what it's worth...
Introduction:
With the defeat of The Three and the power of Zakarum at an apex the paladins began to seek out other challenges. Some went far and wide, spreading the word of the light to the most distant reaches of Sanctuary. Now, the unthinkable has occurred - The Three have risen once more - and though the Horadrim have all but vanished those left with even the most trivial of powers are called upon to aide the light once more.
A missionary's purpose is to alter the allegiances of the enemy to provide resistance against those that won't be subjugated. Though a missionary's word is strong at first, it weakens quickly and must be reinforced in the minds of the weak. It's during this fleeting time a missionary must put to use these converts as best he can, providing a beacon in a sea of darkness.
Despite the latest upgrade, 1.10, and all the excitement and problems it has caused, this build remains relatively unchanged since expansion. Though it's a rarely played design it now needs even more support - given it has received no synergies - and other builds, which could maximize their synergies and make the best use of this build's supplemental auras, are instead made as stand-alones; difficult to understand in a realm environment.
Hence, this is one of three in an all-paladin group build, of which the other two - the charging hammerdin and salvation avenger - each make a concerted effort to work with each other and divide treasure found equally. Though the other two base skill placement totally on synergies, the missionary uses the only non-synergistic skills left to a paladin, while wearing some of the least-used and most prevalent gear available.
The classic missionary build was based on conversion and thorns, but now monsters have a lot more health and higher regeneration making this combination weak if used as a sole basis; converts simply cannot deal damage quickly enough, to each other or themselves, and would take forever to clear an area. Instead, use must be made out of the oddest of modifications and abilities, not the least important of which being monster flee (MF).
Together, with open wounds (OW), poison damage (PDam), prevent monster heal (PMH) and even crushing blow (CB), MF will allow a missionary to defeat monsters without standing toe-to-toe against the group of dangerous foes. The purpose is simple: either the monster converts or runs away having been damaged, crushed, unable to heal, poisoned, bleeding from its wounds. A high level missionary can frag most whitenames with one swing.
Skills:
2: Might
3: Sacrifice
4-5: Smite
Akara: Holy Fire
6-11: Thorns
12: Zeal
13: Blessed Aim
14: Charge
15-17: Thorns
Radament: Vengeance
18-23: Concentration
Tyrael: Holy Freeze
Tyrael: Sanctuary
24-29: Conversion
30-49: Conviction
Akara: Salvation
50-60, Radament, Tyrael, Tyrael: Conversion
61-73, Akara: Concentration
74-88, Radament, Tyrael, Tyrael: Smite
89-99: Thorns
Smite is maxed for stun length only, and is the first attack that should be considered against uniques other than bosses. Hitting them occasionally with the scepter then stunning while allies pummel them.
Thorns for early use and, eventually, as a back-up for the mercenary. It's important have this skill in reserve but only maxed later since there are other ways missionaries gain experience.
Concentration will be the main non-converting aura, used with a two-hander it provides exceptional damage with less chance of being interrupted (important when not using a shield) while giving a boost to hammerdins of all kinds.
Conversion is the main attack, and the second maxed. It's the mainstay of this build.
Conviction is the primary aura. It significantly reduces enemy defense, even into the negative and making the need for attack rating less significant, as well as greatly lowering enemy resistances which allows poison and elemental damage to devastate the opposition.
Salvation and charge aren't pre-requisites, but they are invaluable to this build in emergencies. It suffers from elemental resistances and speed, making getting into, through and out of the fray vital. Although this is an offensive aura build, fanaticism and holy shock are the only two of those auras without skill points in them, mainly because they are useless so low and other builds are likely to use them much higher.
Equipment:
The Face of Horror: this provides three important abilities; MF, resistance to all (ARes) and strength (STR) for upgraded gear.
Rattlecage: CB and attack rating (AR) are fantastic for an armor, but the additional MF will cause whitenames to run 90% of the time.
Bonesnap: fire and cold resistance (FRes/CRes) are nice bonuses to an already powerful two-handed maul. The CB and high enhanced damage (EDam) make this a fearsome weapon if the attack is uninterruptable.
Radament's Sphere: providing PDam and a way to remove corpses, which only becomes more powerful with charged synergies, it has high blocking and defense making it a reliable replacement for auric shields.
Snakecord: the only belt to provide PDam, and two additional and desirable rows for potions when upgraded, it also has 50% poison length reduction (PLR) and the replenishment necessary to counter the runeword's disadvantage.
Goblin Toe: mainly for the CB, it's still the only pair of boots with either magic or physical damage reduction (M/ADR).
Venom Grip: the more PDam the better, the poison resistance (PRes) - with a jeweled Face - gives exactly 180 to PRes making best use of raising PRes's max 5%. The life leech (LL) is gravy.
Alternative crafted gloves: 10%CB, high enhanced defense (EDef), 6%LL, 20 life, 25%+PRes, poison nova charges (for shield synergy).
MALICE scepter: since the only skills used while wielding a one-hander are conversion, smite and conviction, such a 3/3/3 three-open-socket scepter would be ideal. The PMH and 100%OW means not needing these abilities elsewhere on the gear, and the defense-per-hit (DPH) effects are extremely beneficial to a build lacking in high AR.
Rare ring: 40%FRes/CRes/lightning resistance (LRes) with 50PDam, 25%PLR and poison dagger charges - for the shield's synergy - would be one of the ultimate rings.
Rare ring: same as above but with half freeze duration (HFD) instead of PLR, since you have no other source for it on this build, and confuse charges replacing poison dagger. The point being to cause as much havoc among the enemies as possible by making allies less of a target.
Rare amulet: +2 to offensive aura/paladin skills is probably preferred, however, triple elemental resistances with MDR, PDam and attraction charges is more than acceptable.
Mercenary gear for act two blessed aim/thorns:
Steelgoad: the deadly strike on this upgraded unique should more than satisfy for its apparant lack of damage. The resistance and MF only serve to keep the merc alive longer as he occasionally tends to thorn himself.
Howltusk: knockback also keeps him alive and the remaining 25%MF means every time the merc touches a whitename they'll be staggered then run, further aiding in the merc's longevity.
Boneflesh: although this was the final part of the original build for the merc, there may be other armors that do better. With OW and LL, however, the merc can be a smaller version of a missionary - a companion brought from lands afar though not quite as powerful.
Any or all of this gear is readily available (usually found and thrown away due to the MF concept being completely distasteful) either from drops or cheap trades, and is nearly complete at level 29. If upgraded, this will be 34 or higher, but the final piece - the shield - requires a level of 50 before upgrading to elite. A 15ARes/9STR jewel in an elite Face would be fantastic, but even an lower level rare (preferred) with only 10ARes, STR and additional defense - and poison, if this be the sole purpose for the armor - would be fine for an exceptional (or original if at LReq20). Sockets for the maul, armor and shield haven't been finalized, though the shield could always use additional PDam. What's not needed is more PRes, as even with perfect rare jewelry and rare-jeweled Face the total resistances would be 170/170/170/180 when weilding the scepter.
It's obvious this build would benefit greatly from a salvation avenger, and vice versa, but otherwise would need charms to supplement elemental resitances. Such charms should have FRes, CRes, LRes, life, as much PDam as possible and any offensive aura skillers that drop or can be traded for.
The one thing to remember is there are only five uniques, no sets/pieces and four runewords which cause monsters to flee. Only two of those uniques are weapons - one usable by a merc and the other, Ume's Lament, stashed with the missionary for emergencies. Of the four runewords (all weapons with only 25%MF), only VENOM comes remotely close to having necessary effects for this build, and even then no OW - which provides thousands of points of damage in later difficulties and would need to be obtained by other means. At this point more expensive gear must be compared and none of it stacks up.
An ideal rare - a scepter with +3 conversion, +3 conviction and +3 smite - would need both PDam prefix and suffix, prevent monster heal, ignore target defense (not the same as reducing enemy's defense per hit and acting contrary to conviction), 100% MF and fool's for decent damage and AR would come close to replacing all the benefits of the previously stated gear, and CB/OW would have to be on armor - all of it expensive and still not adding up to 95-100% in both. There are also other versions of missionaries, utilizing ETERNITY and other equally elite gear, but these don't use quite the same concept and have to be built from scratch, likely using other skills.
Some say 100% chance of anything, be it CB or OW, isn't possible, but MALICE shows otherwise with OW and it's likely the 10%CB on crafted gloves could give the missionary 100% using Bonesnap. The difference of 5% likely won't make for much of an argument, as Venom Grip is superior in this case and the chance of getting that ideal craft is remote, however, the poison nova charges (which are possible on gloves having found a rare pair for proof) add a great deal to a build specializing in PDam.
With these rare-based crafted gloves the only ones seen capable of getting poison nova, this leaves poison dagger (only available on gloves or rings) to be on one ring, and with attraction coming on any rare jewelry but confuse only on rings it makes sense to have a confuse ring and attraction amulet to attain all the affixes. Additionally, in this setup there is HFD, 75%PLR, maximized synergies for a non-necromancer using Radament's Sphere poison explosion charges (better than grim ward charges on an amulet for this build as either the missionary or his sidekick landing an attack will acheive the desired result with damage to boot), replenishment to counter the loss from MALICE and to gain life while using Bonesnap, some LL for the maul, tremendous amounts of PDam from most of the non-weapon gear that can provide it in the game (barring Wormskull and Andariel's Visage), 90%MF, 95-100%CB, 100%OW, and the best DPH in the game. All of this not including the skills themselves.
Upgrading is almost a necessity, given most of this build's strength lies in it's gear, and therefore he needs STR. Though the lack of AR isn't important with conviction, he won't be wearing anything requiring dexterity (DEX) and better defense is gotten from the upgrades, the blocking issue is central to the one flaw that might haunt this build. This means what isn't needed to wear the gear must go into life, and the belt must be upgraded with a constantly replenished supply of potions. After all, this is a thorns build, and though the character must live it's only natural he'll take some damage. It's the art of playing it that determines whether it's mostly himself or his converts.
Tactics:
[Yet to be written as it's been a while since playing the build and have yet to play it with the other two stated companion builds.]
Conclusion:
This build isn't the easiest to play, but there's a reason it should be played: it's fun, cheap and easy to start with a would-be mule. Given the right jewelry and charms resistance isn't usually an issue, though missionaries aren't fond of wisps in the least. This is the only reason the third affix on the amulet is additional MDR - to stay alive. The attraction and confuse charges are for getting out of the way, or through, wisps and other unattractive adversaries, however, after practice anyone can recognize this build's weaknesses and adjust for them appropriately.
There's also something this build has going for it most others don't: it's capable in it's standard configuration of defeating Uberclone. Though the CB is the main reduction at first, conviction, PDam, DPH, OW and ordinary damage from the missionary and his merc would be able to finish the job quickly, though not as a specific clonekiller might. Technique is even more important here than elsewhere, as fire and lightning damage (FDam/LDam) could spell the end if a player isn't careful. In this particular case, converts are almost useless as it would be difficult to continuously reconvert local monsters to do little damage compared to what the character himself can do. Though they might take the heat off of a missionary, they wouldn't survive the wrath long enough to make it worthwhile.
Opinions, corrections (spelling, capitalization and otherwise) and critiques are welcome before final draft. On a side note, this idea was created upon viewing a rare scepter which had, among other things, +1 conversion and MF. Although a fellow player commented on it's uselessness due to MF, it has spawned an even greater missionary build the likes of which haven't been seen in the realms to best recollection.
Don't take this the wrong way and feel free to disregard it entirely, I only offer advice.
I think you're going down the wrong path with this build. If you manage to get a monster to convert, he will likely turn around, take one look at his teammates, and get pummeled. While this may still kill off the pack in the end, it' not playing much like a Missionary. I'm currently working on a Missionary/Vindicator, as this build requires NO AR AT ALL. It's really quite beautiful. I never damage my soon-to-be-minions, and when the smackdown needs to be layed (straglers/bosses) smite has built in ITD against everything, along with CB and OW it can take down any single targets.
The new runewords have also ****ed up my design, but in the end, will most likely make it much more viable. Good luck with whatever Missionary variant you take :thumbsup:.
Ax2Grind
11-12-2004, 02:58
I'm not sure I know what the wrong way is. I've shown a definitive use for MF that everyone else seems to have missed, still thinks is an absolute waste of affix space even on a sorceress weapon, allows the build to frag all by himself, and puts to full effect open wounds and poison damage, both which take time to work and that time is ideally while the monster is Running Scared (I'll laugh if that's linked to Netflix as the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines movie).
This build also has 95-100%CB, 100%OW, conviction for multiple other builds to work tremendously well and doesn't need much, if any, AR. I also believe you underestimate the durability of monsters; they're greatly more resiliant than what you make them out to be in the last post. Since missionaries can't convert tons of minions the four to eight he normally has work well enough in multiplayer games.
As for what a missionary's technique is, I believe I read somewhere a contest involving this build. It prohibited the use of most equipment, like body armor, and when you do something like that in the .10 culture you'll die for sure, frequently. Seems that's sort of the attitude I see in your post, that missionaries need to act in a certain way. I'm merely saying that I'm using tools no one else does in a build no one else is that's easy and quick to make, as well as fun.
In fact, I'd contest the idea that MF should be part of a missionary's arsenal to begin with. The idea is the word of the light, it either converts or makes you run in fear. The poison and open wounds are just mild incentives to join the winning team, along with the bonk on the head ('I see the light!').
I was always under the impression that a Missionary was a paladin using Conversion and and Aura (traditionally old skool thorns) in an effect to recruit minions and use them to kill you're enemies. It didnt specifically prevent you from also being able to kill stuff, but the idea WAS to get and army to do stuff with you, kind of a Trang-Summoner necro.
Not diss'n the MonsterFlee+Poison+OW approach here, but methinks that you would just be better off making that guy a zealot. You just don't seem to be really using Conversion at all, I mean it doesn't seem that it augments your play style and vice versa.
Ax2Grind
11-12-2004, 09:32
Well, that's part of the Tactics section I hadn't written yet. The ideal technique would be to have the roll to hit made, then the roll to convert if the hit lands (therefore needing to hit to have a chance of converting) and if that failed only then would the effects of the blow be felt. Unfortunately, you don't need AR at all seeing as you only need to target the monster by swinging at it for conversion to be rolled, but as well you can land such a blow causing the monster to be hurt, crushed, wounded, poisoned, running in fear then have conversion roll successfully and gain him afterward as a minion. Seems ridiculous but it's all true, so it is technically possible to have an injured minion, he just dies quicker.
Then again, those poison nova charges can work for more than just a synergy. Pretty low levels, though.
As for a zealot, that not only defeats the purpose of a using these skills at all, but poison doesn't work quick enough and if the first swing successfully lands the rest are wasted due to the monster running. Zeal is for damage, vengeance slows them down and they don't get as far away due to the cold damage (hence, the missionary build does not like cold damage - fire/lightning only if necessary as a side), sacrifice requires much more leech and, preferrably, high blocking (you're already taking more damage than usual with low blocking in a thorns build). Conversion is the only one left, and - seeing as it deals no damage - the OW/CB/PDam/etc. seem to be perfectly attuned to the concept.
Other attacks, even in other classes, use these abilities to supplement their skills - a missionary uses them as his bread and butter, and they work. He has time for them to take affect since they're running away; the one-swing concept is ideal for a conversion-using paladin.
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