Spearazon!

[Muzzy Roberto]

So, I'm thinking of making a spearazon for giggles, and I just have to ask:

Are Impale and Fend any good?

No one seems to mention them anywhere, but I'm sure for a meleezon, they must have SOME use. I'm not wild on pumping CS like it's going out of style, but if it's my ONLY to go about it...

Anyway, ideas? suggestions?

[Evrae Altana]

Fend is bugged and I have no idea if they fixed it yet. While you're "fending" anything that triggers a Dodge, Evade, or Avoid animation causes all of your Fend attacks after that to miss. So you're basically standing there stabbing and missing while monsters swarm you and beat you up.
Impale on the other hand, is ridiculously slow. Even with a ton of IAS, you won't get it to a respectable speed. If you really want to make a spearazon, I'd go with Jab or one of the lightning skills that work with spears.

[bruthor]

Impale is slow and do not really deal that great damage. Forget it. Only use is against lightning imunes in early levels.

Fend is bugged. You get hit and you miss. Someone can probably explain more closely. (I remember making a pure fendazon and getting her through nightmare in 1.09. It did'nt suck to me....)

Physical imunes are dead ends :lol:
If you get some lightning, why not get a javelin so you can equip a shield too?
Spear is dead :(
I have the impression that it is only usefull against lightning imunes for javazons. God, it was my favorite class when I was young and newbie :D

[Epsilon Eyez]

The only feasible spearzon left is probably a Passion-wielding one. Zeal and Berserk are great skills and putting Passion in a good Zon spear with +skills would rock. No attack skills are need to be put into on your part and you can just sink points into passives.

[Wingspan]

I agree...

I made spear zons in classic D2, in 1.08, in 1.10... fairly often

Though fun, basically it comes down to the fact that it has no real benefit over javelins. Normally this would be physical damage, but since Fend is bugged and impale sucks, you really only have jab. Jab is good but a javazon can jab much faster.

Spears have no crowd control. Lightning is CC but Javs can apply lightning much faster and can even get more +skills due to shield slot.

I woudl say that since you don't have to worry about lightning skills as much, you can focus in other areas and become a great tank. Spearazon is great fun to play but you will not kill things too fast. You will be able to tank with decent gear. You will die very fast to iron maiden.

Consider putting 17 pts into Valk, maxxing jab, 1 pt in fend, and the rest in passives. Put some kind of ele setup on wpn switch (ele dmg javs + ele dmg shield) and get a good merc. I'd suggest Holy Freeze (Defiance aint' so great since u wont have a shield), but actually Might would be best. Between you, the merc, a Valk, and a Decoy, there is no reason your merc shoudl die other than instantly to iron maiden. If your merc has Reaper's Toll or Blackleech Blade he will already be protecting you.

[Omikron8]

For the billionth time avoid fend like the plague and use jab/melee elemental skills (eg. lightning strike) instead

People may say to you "you can use fend fine without dodge/avoid/evade investment" to which i say "great so now you have a character that is weaker than a javazon in both defense AND offense, because she can't even attack a group of enemies without being locked in evasion"

[Wingspan]

Is Lightning Strike even useable? I used it in 1.09 and whatnot, but it seemd kind of lackluster. I know there are synergies now, and I think the skill is one of the smot visually impressive there is (everyone will ask what you're using!), but it drains mana like crazy and the dmg is not comparable to LF usually. I can imagine a non jav build with CS/LS/Valkyrie with rest of points in passives.

[Omikron8]

Lightning strike's weakness compared to fury is that you can only have ONE bouncing bolt doing damage between a group of enemies. If you launch another lightning strike with an attack it will override the previous one. If lightning strike worked like fury (multiple bolts can damage enemies at same time) then it would be far more useful, considering it is melee range restricted already.

[Wingspan]

So, do you have to wait for the whole botl to disappear, or jsut wait till it is no longer damaging that particular monster?

[Omikron8]

Wait until the first bouncing strike completely disappears

[sillek]

Thanks to everybody who gave information in this thread. I was going to make my second 1.11 character a Spearzon, but have now changed my mind. Especially after that disaster that was Max Freezing/Immolation arrows. Level 87 and can't even do NM Meph.

Off to the Druid forums to search for Fissure strategies, I guess.

[Omikron8]

Yes you can thank blizzard for changing your mind about that build idea. I loved to play fending spearazons in 1.09 even though physical immunes completely stopped them (back then MUCH more common to see in hell). Since blizzard took forever to release 1.11 and it essentially had no balance changes you can expect that fend will never be fixed.