Brickadin

[meathorse]

Forgive me if I'm asking the same old questions... but I can't find much info on -damage builds.

I've heard mention of this so called "brickadin" or "physical immunity" build, but never so much as a sentence of details. Sounds to me like you'd just pile SOL runes into everything you can, and put 20 points into Holy Shield. Is that pretty much it? Sounds like fun, but with as hard as the baddies hit on Hell, I wonder if armor with -42 to damage would really have an impact.

Any thoughts or experience on the matter? I'd hate to waste my time on something impractical in the long run.

[MegaFlame]

I don't think it's really possible to take hits in hell and still be fine. The point of avoiding physical damage is actually to have high defense so that you don't get hit, not getting hit. Since the DR is capped at 50%, this build might not do so well.

[kingdryland]

After patch 1.10 was introduced damage reduction % is capped at 50%. I don't see how one can be physically immune.

[PhatTrumpet]

Well back in 1.09 you could actually throw on points of DR and completely negate Hell Bovine attacks, so why couldn't you do that now? Something like:

'SolSol' CoA (14DR)
Amulet of Life Everlasting (25DR)
'Sol' Glad's Bane (27DR)
'Sol' Gerke's Sanc (23DR)
Safety belt/boots/gloves/ring

That's nearly 100DR right there. Compare that to how much damage most monsters do in Hell...

[Tings]

the problem is that extra strong guys, might, fanat, elemental guys, and just plain hard hitting guys will still hurt you. and there are a lot of those types of guys.

[kingdryland]

Well back in 1.09 you could actually throw on points of DR and completely negate Hell Bovine attacks, so why couldn't you do that now? Something like:

'SolSol' CoA (14DR)
Amulet of Life Everlasting (25DR)
'Sol' Glad's Bane (27DR)
'Sol' Gerke's Sanc (23DR)
Safety belt/boots/gloves/ring

That's nearly 100DR right there. Compare that to how much damage most monsters do in Hell...

As I posted before,after 1.10 was introduced, damage reduction is capped at 50%. Overstacking damage reduction pretty much matters only when you are cursed with amp damage/decrep , just like when you stack resists to deal with conviction or cold mastery. 1.09 cow sorcs with 75% dr and nova belong to the days of yore.

[psych]

Kingdryland, notice the difference between %damage reduced and straight damage reduced. The latter is not capped and if applied in good amounts can bring down monster damage by a lot. Of course there are still enough troubles with elemental damage and the likes

[kingdryland]

I know the difference,and I have tried various sol'd items in pvp and pvm. I didn't see any remarkable results.

[PhatTrumpet]

Not exactly the best argument I've ever heard...

I can go down to the Halls of Vaught with 0 DR and get slaughtered running through poison clouds.

I can go down to the Halls of Vaught with ~40 DR and take zero damage running through viper poison clouds.

Is that not a remarkable difference?

You could've just admitted that you misread my post...

[Pucho]

string of ears for belt. it has both dr% and straight DR, and jeweler's (armor/headgear) of amicae are better that uniques, in terms of DR

[kingdryland]

Not exactly the best argument I've ever heard...

I can go down to the Halls of Vaught with 0 DR and get slaughtered running through poison clouds.

I can go down to the Halls of Vaught with ~40 DR and take zero damage running through viper poison clouds.

Is that not a remarkable difference?

You could've just admitted that you misread my post...

For your information, I run nihlathak with my pvm zealot, wearing stormshield and dungo. That is huge difference.

[sorceressgod]

the only character i can think of that is totally physically "immuned" is a GFG ES sorc with Ber shako and Ber SS with max block :)

[kingdryland]

Well if you figure how to make a difference out of sol runes,let me know,I'd love to have that in melee duels...Sol'd stormshield,sol sol coa,trang belt (cbf), eth steel carapace "sol"...Or an artisan's tiara of the whale with 3xsol/100 life, sol stormshield,verdungo and a jeweler's archon plate of the whale 3xsol/1xcham. First setup has 28 dr and 50% dr,second has 49dr and 50% dr....Right now I just fail to see why it should make a difference.

[PhatTrumpet]

Forgive me if I'm asking the same old questions... but I can't find much info on -damage builds.

I've heard mention of this so called "brickadin" or "physical immunity" build, but never so much as a sentence of details. Sounds to me like you'd just pile SOL runes into everything you can, and put 20 points into Holy Shield. Is that pretty much it? Sounds like fun, but with as hard as the baddies hit on Hell, I wonder if armor with -42 to damage would really have an impact.

Any thoughts or experience on the matter? I'd hate to waste my time on something impractical in the long run.
He's talking about how hard "the baddies hit on Hell." There is no reference to duels or PvP. Obviously your average PvP character is doing massive amounts of damage in comparison to your average Hell monster, which is why %DR items are the way to go for PvP.

If we take a Minion of Destruction on Hell difficulty, the Arreat Summit lists them as dealing 83-135 dmg for melee attack 1 and 83-145 dmg for melee attack 2. With the ~100DR setup I quickly rattled off earlier (I imagine it could be improved upon) that takes their damage down to 0-35 for attack 1 and 0-45 for attack 2. Compare that to the 42-68 and 42-73 dmg you'd take with the more popular 50%DR setup.

Note also that points of DR come into effect before resists just like MDR (supposedly), so it doesn't matter if you're Amped or not (which reduces your physical resistance by 100%), if you can negate the dmg with DR you still take zero damage when Amped. Compare that to the 125-203 and 125-218 dmg you'd take while Amped with the more popular 50%DR setup.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an optimal setup or something I would try for anything but ****s and giggles. I'm just trying to address the original poster's questions a little better than just saying "don't bother, that only worked in 1.09."

[kingdryland]

No It's ok,my orientation maybe more pvp in this ,eg, I always wanted to see what protection sol from fortitude offers. I will try a setup in the throne of destruction that includes about 50 straight dr,instead of the 50%. Still, what I have tried was running areas full of dolls with 50% dr and a sol setup instead. And their suicidal attack seems to hurt alot more with the sol setup. Now, I may have to use sol items in excess,after getting 50% dr to see.

[MegaFlame]

Anyways, it's hard to be in an area with pure physical attack monsters, hell cow level would be the only place I think of.

[kingdryland]

True but halls of anguish/vaught have all those frenzy minotaurs,vipers,zealots and such, so physical resists are more important than the elements there.

[lCE]

The only char who could get remotely close to physical immunity is a synergized ES sorc with stacked straight damage reduction (Sol runes etc). However she is still very vulnerable to mana burn.

[meathorse]

Ahhh input. Thank you for the replies, gentlemen. PhatTrumpet assumed correctly, I should have clarified that I'm not a PvP guy. Bouncing around solo or with a couple friends for some PvM fun is it for me. Though I did show concern for whether or not a "brickadin" would be worth it in the long run, he was also right in that this was for "****s and giggles."

Until now I wasn't aware that there were even % damage reducing items! Anyone know if they resolve before the straight -damage stuff? Taking the 50% off first would be sexy.

6 SOL in the chest... 3 in the helm... a -20 amulet. That's -83 damage already. Would have plenty of room left to take care of elemental resists... especially with the help of a big ol' diamond filled shield. (Points into Fire/Ice/Lit resist auras bump up your max resists a wee bit, even when not active, right?).

I'm just sort of going for a neat party trick here. Paladin seemed like a good choice since Vengeance alone would hopefully be enough to deal with those pesky multi-immunes later on (so long as I was patient... very patient...). That way I could put all my points and gear into defense.

It appears that Kingdryland is willing to be a crash test dummy. I'll wait a bit and see if he goes through with it and comes up with anything :thumbsup: