I've just spent several hours going thru vendors in Nm and Hell looking for certain +skills on Sorc staves. There aren't any lvl 30 skills to be found: no frozen orb, no hydra, no cold/fire/lightn mastery. Now I also happen to know that u CANNOT find poisnova [lvl=30] on wands in classic in any difficulty at any vendors, and these dont seem to generate on rares either. Does this mean that u can forget about finding lower resistance, bone spirit, fire golem, and revive on wands? Is it also the case that u can forget about salvation, redemption, fanaticism, and foh on scepters?? And does this apply to rares also???

Sure you can find +2 to sorc/necro/pally on occasional items. And often there will be a synergy +skill present. It's interesting that the 2 most overpowered skills in the game, blessedhammer and blizzard are 'safe' from this bugaboo, including all the synergies for bh - vigor and blessedaim, but not coldmast.

Has this always been the case in classic? Is it a bug here? Are u going to write ur CongressMan about it, hmm?

Yes you can't find lvl 30 skills on wands/staves/scepters I guess they thought it would be too good to have a +2pally skills scepter w/ +3 foh and +3 convinction. So you can give up on it. Does anyone know if there are other skills that are forbiddin on them? I'd like to know.

i found an orb with 3 to hydra b4... :D

That must be pre 1.10

an ORB he is expansion. This is the classic forum.

I seem to remember that Blessed Hammer can't spawn on rare/magic scepters, does that sound familiar to anyone else?

Nah. It can I just checked with Ormus he says he has 1 for a bargain price of 44,676 gold.

You cant find +Smite or + Any type of arrow, javelin, or spear skill except exploding arrow.

No scepter can have + to Holy Shield either. Nor Fanatism, nor Smite. Only more shunning the already underpowered Smitadin.

No scepter can have + to Holy Shield either. Nor Fanatism, nor Smite. Only more shunning the already underpowered Smitadin.

The unique Stormeye has some level 30 skills, including FOH (I might be wrong though)

I could of sworn I've seen scepters with smite/holy shield on them. Maybe it's a before 1.10 thing though.

Yes when I was playing pre 1.09 i know I saw a scepter w/ +smite I dont think ive seen any since then though. and stormeye does have +1 to foh which is kinda useless as it has no +skill lvls.

Yes you can't find lvl 30 skills on wands/staves/scepters I guess they thought it would be too good to have a +2pally skills scepter w/ +3 foh and +3 convinction. So you can give up on it. Does anyone know if there are other skills that are forbiddin on them? I'd like to know.
Well, I disagree that foh pallys in classic are so good already that having an extra +3/+3 would be "too good". I was playing with one last nite, with my sorc and he was apologizing for killing so slow(his aura allowed me to kill 2-3 times faster, who's complaining...). Expansion certainly has most of these skills on items available from vendors. I spent just 5 minutes looking at +skills in LoD hell, and saw almost all the lvl 30 skills absent here in classic! And that including conviction, pnova, cold mastery. Now the xpac is already overpowered, as we all know, and they beefed up classic to make it about as hard as LoD, 1.10. So I think its some sort of oversight on Blizzard's part, one among MANY with 1.10.

So smite isnt on scepters? I also cant find warmth on any staves in hell. Now both of these are lvl 1 skills. I'ma gonna go look right now at normal vendors for these skills, that seems weird. No holy shield either? That royally sucks.

I'll start looking at staves/scepters to see what they dont have.

...
Sure you can find +2 to sorc/necro/pally on occasional items. And often there will be a synergy +skill present. It's interesting that the 2 most overpowered skills in the game, blessedhammer and blizzard are 'safe' from this bugaboo, including all the synergies for bh - vigor and blessedaim, but not coldmast.
...

I thought that the only skill points that synergize with a main skill are the "hard" skill points that are actually invested and clicked on, so staff or scepter plusses on a synergy won't help at all. Is this definitely the case? I don't think bonuses from items contribute. I just did experiments on battle.net ladder and non-ladder Classic and on battle.net non-ladder and single player in LOD and for example, a +2 Blessed Aim scepter did not increase the listed damage of my Blessed Hammers, so I think it's true that only "hard" skill points count for synergies. I do know that the listed damage is sometime inaccurate (for example, it shows the Might aura as increasing Blessed Hammer damage when it really doesn't- that fooled me a while ago and which is one of the reasons why MongoJerry calls it the "Lying Character Screen") so I am not absolutely positive but I do think hard points in synergies are all that count.

By the way, I know that I have read good discussions about what skills can appear on scepters, staves, orbs and claws- you can search for "staffmods" in the statistics forum and I think you would find it there. I don't know, though, how much of that analysis applies to Classic.

I thought that the only skill points that synergize with a main skill are the "hard" skill points that are actually invested and clicked on, so staff or scepter plusses on a synergy won't help at all....
By the way, I know that I have read good discussions about what skills can appear on scepters, staves, orbs and claws- you can search for "staffmods" in the statistics forum and I think you would find it there. I don't know, though, how much of that analysis applies to Classic.
Yeah, you are right, this is something I forgot about from the days when the patch had just come out. And I too tested it after someone reminded me. But I also tested it with + to all skills items and that seems to work with the synergies, much more damage that just, say, +2 to the main damage skill. Correct me someone if wrong.

What appears at vendors in classic and LoD are two different worlds. I still am not sure whether some of these skills can appear on rares, its just easiest to see what the vendors have.

Yeah, you are right, this is something I forgot about from the days when the patch had just come out. And I too tested it after someone reminded me. But I also tested it with + to all skills items and that seems to work with the synergies, much more damage that just, say, +2 to the main damage skill. Correct me someone if wrong.

Again, I think that only hard skill points affect the synergies, though if we are talking about something like Blessed Hammer damage, the + all skills would affect both the hammer damage and the level of Concentration, so the effect can be quite large.

purple, you're right about only hard points counting towards synergies. I tested this once by equipping a Sigon shield, looking at damage values, then unequipping it, put skill point in each of the synergy skills and seeing a difference. (yes this was in classic)

I seem to remember that Blessed Hammer can't spawn on rare/magic scepters, does that sound familiar to anyone else?

It can, but scepters are powered down now.

Prepatch scepters could have much more powerful mods, notably 20fcr. Postpatch scepters are limited to 10fcr.
Prepatch scepters were able to drop with +2pal 20fcr +3bh +3conc, and I believe one USWest dupe has those mods.
Postpatch scepters I have seen with +2pal 3conc 3bh 10fcr, but this is highly unlikely.
In my opinion shard is better than any scepter for a hammerdin, and an FOH pally could use a scepter or any 1h weapon with nice resistances.
To sum it up:

Prepatch scepters up to:
+2 Paladin Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+3 Concentration
+3 Blessed Hammer

Postpatch scepters up to:
+2 Paladin Skills
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+3 Concentration
+3 Blessed Hammer

Also, no level 30 skills can be found on class specific weapons on classic, and +3 Holy Shield can be found ONLY on classic, never on Expansion, where +2 Holy Shield is the limit.

Also, Synergy bonuses from items never count, but auras do, and the overall points on staves do add to mastery.

taft, i see you play classic useast ladder. /w *fredsta54 , or feel free to add me. Its always nice to have more friends to play with :)









Fred