"Frost-Zealot" Questions

[gibsonSG]

...rather, this is more like a few questions, but hey, I've got the whole post to make my case. I've read a "Frost-Zealot" guide or two, and even looked at the 1.10 statistics for the skills on the Arreat Summit and have a few questions.

1. Why does a frost zealot use holy freeze instead of fanatacism as its main aura? Obviously, the name frost zealot implies the cold implications, but the question is this. Holy Freeze adds cold damage to the attack, does periodic cold damage, and has the chill/freeze thing. I assume most use this aura for the chill/freeze thing, and take the cold damage (both of 'em) in stride. Wouldn't you get more damage, speed, and AR out of fanatacism for zeal? I know sacrifice/zeal are usually maxed in both builds (frost/"pure"), but is the use of holy freeze just for the cold damage and chill? You can get mad elemental damage through other weapons if you wanted, I suppose--though I guess the holy freeze aura is there for mainly the dual-element attack thing (cold and physical damage).

2. Why does the holy freeze's aura synergy, resist cold, seem to be nerfed in its family? Holy fire gets a bigger +% from both salvation and resist fire, and these +%'s seem to diminish with holy freeze/resist cold, and holy shock/resist fire (and salvation--I think that's the other one that adds +%). Did the folks at blizzard see the frost zealot build as a potential powerhouse or something, and decide to nerf the +% bonuses you get from it?

3. I read the guide on the frost zealot (er, the one in the sticky), and had a few questions about that. One build says split 20 points between sacrifice and salvation. Is the higher averge damage a decent trade off instead of leaning more towards physical or cold damage? And the holy sheild point alloting. It's reccomended to have at least 5 base into the skill, right? After all, +skills will help, but even without them, 5 still gives you a decent duration on the skill, right? To me it also seems that some of the points made in the guide kinda negate themselves. Like, why would you want a "really defensive" build, when holy freeze in itself kind of negates the need for a higher defense. If all the monsters are slowed by 50% or more, it seems like you wouldn't need a maxed holy shield for more defense, as you could spend them on a synergy that would increase your damage output--like...why have even greater defense if nearly everything coming your way most likely won't be able to attack you... Share frost-zealot experiences with me if you have 'em! Also, anyone have a general idea of where I should be putting points into strength, etc. I think one of the "lowest" item requirements I saw was somewhere between 50 and 80 (something like one pair of boots, and hearld of the zakarum).

4. Can someone explain to me the concept of a "dragoon" build? I haven't read much on it here, and can't seem to find much info on it.

Sorry for the length!
Thanks.

*edit: sorry if I didn't mention this before, but couldn't you attain a somewhat-similar approach to a frost-zealot if you had a holy freeze mercenary, or does the fact that the mercenary has holy freeze kind of defeat the purpose of a frost-zealot, as he wouldn't get synergy bonuses, etc.*

[Chimaira]

1. Otherwise it wouldn't be a Frost Zealot... A "regular" Fanatic Zealot could easily outperform a Frost Zealot in pure damage, but the Frost Zealot gets added defensive capabilities and more flexibility because he deals 2 kinds of damage (cold/physical). Even though you can get "mad elemental" damage from some weapons it can't quite compare with the amount of cold damage you can potentially do, also when you get a large amount of cold damage from your skills you can focus on getting other mods like Crushing Blow, instead of elemental damage.

2. Even if Holy Fire gets larger synergy bonusses (boni??) it's still not more powerful than Holy Freeze because the "original" aura is more powerful. Even if Holy Fire did more damage I'd say it was only fair since Holy Freeze also slows enemies.

3. I'm not sure what the optimal skill configuration is, but I'm leaning more to maxing cold damage and then get lots of Crushing Blow instead of high physical damage. As for Holy Shield, I'd say 5 points + Herald Of Zakakorum is plenty, but I do see the advantages of building a high defence build. Even if monsters are slowed by 50% doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, also some of the most dangerous monsters in the game are immune to Holy Freeze (some of the minotaur men:().

4. There's a guide in the guide sticky...

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=330514

Apparently it's a Paladin utilizing throwing weapons, sounds very interesting!

5. With a Holy Freeze mercenary you "would" only get the slowing part since his cold damage without synergies would be pathetic.

[Kitriara]

Hey there gibson... maybe I can clear a few things up for you.

1. You use Holy Freeze instead of Fanaticism because we want to be doing elemental and not pure physical damage, and because we want the awesome slowing effect of the aura. Yes, you can get decent elemental damage through other weapons, but none of them can match the fury of the skill. Your speed and AR will come from your gear choices, not a skill.

2. Nothing is nerfed as far as synergies. Except for the quite-pathetic Holy Fire, those synergies are balanced as far as their respective elements go. For a quick comparison, here are the skills and their 2 synergies at level 20:

Holy Fire: 643 - 713
(107 - 118 aura damage)

Holy Freeze: 998 - 1025
(199 - 205 aura damage)
(enemies slowed 54 percent)

Holy Shock: 1 - 3931
(4 - 655 aura damage)

Simply put, Holy Fire got the short end of the stick, Holy Freeze has a VERY small damage range which means high consistency, and Holy Shock has the most potential damage but a huge range, so you work more with the average you'll be dealing since hell, you could do 1.

3. When I wrote that guide I just wanted to lay out all possibilities. How you want to do things is up to you. I havent played this game in a LONG time but recently picked it back up. My current untwinked hardcore Frost Zealot is going to go all-out cold (20 in freeze, resist cold, salvation, and zeal for the AR). I'm either going to go with an act 2 might merc and let him worry about the physical damage component, or I'll concentrate on crushing blow and hire an act1 fire merc or something.

As far as Holy Shield, you are simply using it for the BLOCKING component, defense, unless you plan on concentrating on it, is pointless. In hell your defense will be pathetic, so dont worry about it. I've built a very high level runeword in a normal paladin shield because it had +44 to all resists and was socketed. Defense isnt your concern, great mods and high block are.

For strength, think about what you want your gear to look like (within your means) and place points appropriately. No need to put any more than is needed into strength for this build.

4. Gotta check elsewhere for Dragoon stuff. Thats a whole other field of expertise entirely.

5. Holy Freeze merc is good for one thing: slowing enemies. His damage can never get close to the potential that you have, especially with +skills, which is when the Frost Zealot REALLY starts to shine. For instance, Spirit runeword in a paladin shield. This runeword is SO cheap and has +2 skills on it. Find a nice paladin shield with big natural +resists and socket it for this... its the poor man's HoZ... and being poor, I use it. Spirit also words in weapons... theres another cheap +2 skills. That, or just shop a +holy freeze scepter. etc etc etc

Hope this has helped. PM me if you need more information. Trust me, if you havent seen this build in action, a well-built Frost Zealot is a wrecking machine.

[gibsonSG]

Sweet--thanks for the input. To me, it seems a frost-zealot would be somewhat more viable in the long term, as in hell, pretty much everything is immune to something. Dealing two types of damage can never be a bad thing. I suppose the "versatility" of dealing both cold and physical is somewhat better than just dealing massive damage of one type (think one-element fire sorcs not being able to kill half of everything in hell). Also, I think I might favor the frost-zealot build over the fanata-zealot build for the slowing effect in general. I love the effect that cold/slowing/freezing has--it makes life a HELL of a lot easier. Most sorcs I've made usually use frozen orb simply becasue the chill effect is of great benefit. Even though the length is cut in hell by what, 1/4?, if you have a long duration, that's still like 10 seconds of slowed motion in an enemy. But yeah...what would be a good merc for a frost zealot--defiance would help defense (but is crap once you get to hell), you already have holy freeze, might might help damage a bit, and blessed aim doesn't seem to help much, as you can get AR from other places...Ahhhhhhhh, the dilemmas. Oh yeah, and what exactly do the act 5 barbarian mercs do? I remember they had some type of distinct trait that made them different from the others, but I can't remember what it was.

Oh well, thanks for the input--I guess the thread's still open to more. If you wanna talk more, either PM (still remembering how to use the forum stuff here), AIM, or talk to me on USEast.

Later!

[Kitriara]

Personally, I've gone with a Blessed Aim merc a few times before when testing builds for the guide. He requires a bit more maintenence to keep him alive but the AR boost is MASSIVE. The fact that Holy Freeze slows everything SO much really helps him out. His AR boost saves using some of YOUR equipment for AR boosting which is nice.

Might is cool if you want a merc that can have a big physical attack while you concentrate on cold, or if you just want to boost your physical as well.

I've gone with Act III fire once to take out the rare cold+physical immune. Slow but it worked the VERY few times I ran across them. I just hate running into something I cant kill =)

Honestly, I'll tell ya what I think - concentrate on cold and let crushing blow handle your physical component. There are SO many items and CHEAP runewords that gives crushing blow. For example, Strength (AMN + TIR) gives you 25% crushing blow and works in any melee weapon - pick something fast like a flail or cutlass and go to town. Anything physical immune your cold handles, and your cold immunes are taken by the crushing blow + merc damage.

Best of luck!

[gibsonSG]

Thanks! Another question: How much base dex is required on average to hit things in hell at a really high rate? I know that like 5 into holy shield (and plus skills) will help take care of the blocking/defense issue(s), and I assume most frost zealots use at least one ravenfrost (you know, good dex/AR, and this IS a cold build we're talking about). I'd assume that a frost zealot would be best off with a hearld of the zakarum...and what's the other shield that paladins would use (it's a paladin-only shield) for that spirit runeword? It has like +resists before you even put the rune(s) in it, so it's even more of a +resist all once you have the runeword. Is it like a targe or something, or do most paladins need the "elite" version of the shield? I think my build already has like 50 base strength, also wondering if I put too much in already, or if I'm nowhere near where it should be (guardian angel=108 or so strength, right?).

Oh well, I've still got some time to think about what to do, my paladin is a mule for now, but I'll begin leveling him once my brother's computer is fixed, so he can tag along and help out.

Thanks.

[Kitriara]

As a hardcore player, I put in enough dex to get max block with holy shield and about an 80% chance to hit and pump the rest into life. Using ETH runes specifically will really help you a lot. Use a hit calculator or something as I'm not really good with those kind of numbers, but make sure you keep in mind your gear as a place to get a lot of AR and dex. Hell, you can get nice rare rings and amulets with plenty of +dex. Ravenfrost is a good idea for almost any melee build =)

ANY paladin shield can spawn with an "auto-mod" which is a fancy way of saying "bonus that doesnt make the item count as magical so you can runeword it." Paladin shields can either get +damage or +resists as a natural bonus. For a Frost Zealot, you want to find a shield with +resists. You wont find shields with the highest possible resists (+35 to +45) until later on, so pick up every pally shield you see and check it. You can always socket it later. Check up on everything here.
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/normal/paladinshields.shtml

The awesome and cheap runeword you're looking for is "spirit": Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn. I found a +44 shield I'm going to make this in!
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords.shtml

[gibsonSG]

Nice. Sadly, I never play hardcore and I never will. Anytime I play, most deaths are internet connection related (3 or so computers on a home network doesn't help for connection much). It's not even worth my time to attempt a HC build. I just have to clear out some space on my characters, and then I can get going on this build, I'll probably post more questions as I have them, but as for now, I need to find out what I can get for 40 chipped gems (I actually got some items last time I traded), and I need to know which places are good for leveling for which levels. I think it was like...Tristram runs thru level 15, Sewer/Arcane runs thru level 20 or 25, and baal runs thru level 45 or 50. Then, on to nightmare. But anyways, what is a good average base strength for a zealot build in general--is 100 too much? I assume once you begin to use higher damage weapons and better armour etc., you'd need at least 100 for a melee build such as this.

Thanks.