pk advice

[MrZip]

Ok, I'm thinking about making a pker at the moment but I've never made one before so I'd like some advice. I was going to go with a lvl 29 trap sin, I figure if I use all of my tradeable resources I can get:

spirit longsword
pruby vmagi
sigs shield (pdiamond?/?)
pruby peasant crown
2x soj
sanders boots (?)
bloodfist
+2 traps/+1 all rare ammy (?)
belt with life/str (?)

1pt mind blast
1 pt bos
5 in lite sentry
rest in synergies

Now I figure this would be an ok lower lvl dueler on sc but am I going to be able to do enough dmg before people pot/save and exit? All I really see are charge pallys for lower lvl pks, would a char that can't 1hit KO be worth making? Thanks for your help, and any advice on the gear would be appreciated too.

[bigD72]

Unless they have REALLY bad light resis, you don't stand a chance (IMO) of killing them. That's a really expensive one too.

You should just do something simple, see any build in the sticky.

[AzaZaz]

although the gear is ideal, i would still duel you with my 16 zealot of 21 jabber and be pretty confident about winning.

At 29 the dmg simply isn't that great.

You would be very pesky and certainly better than any of the pvmers, but i wouldnt count on getting many ears.

The huge skill and benefit of a trapper comes in the stun lock created by traps/mind blast. When pking to achieve this simply doesn't happen unless you convince them to duel you.

One huge factor in pking is the time it takes to stop between chasing down your prey and switching to your attack. Two examples of this are a charger who has 0 time between switching and a bowazon who has to stop to shoot. As a trapper you have to stop to cast multiple traps, or get very close to cast them in opposite directions.

Lastly you haven't considered the speed breakpoints for casting traps. Mindblast is based on fcr which you will have covered through your spirit however casting time for traps is IAS dependent and is not addressed. Off the top of my head i'm not sure the breakpoints but you'd have to make sure that you meet those as well as they are very important.


With regard to pking I would suggest you pick one of the low lvl disposable characters, ie: 12 charger or 16 kicker to pk with. As a 29 should be pking nothing less than baal runs I would not recommend that as a starting point.

Check the PK library as Barry has posted numerous ideal builds for starting to pk.

Cheers

[MrZip]

Ok, thanks for the replies!


I hear what you're saying bigD72- I was hoping to be hunting in nm so that would help the resist problem a little, but you're right, that could be a problem.

I think you hit on the two main problems I was worried about AzaZaz, specifically having to stop running to throw up the traps and needing more than 1 shot to kill, allowing people to save and exit. I don't know if there's a solution to either of those other than "pick a new build". I think I'm covered with IAS, bloodfist gives me 10, the Longsword is a base of -10 and a with a lvl 8 BoS I should throw at 9fps. I guess I need to think about it a bit more, building this char would wipe me out economically so I'd like for it not to be a waste. I'll check out the library. If you think of anything else please let me know.

[bigD72]

You could do a trial run of a pk barb I'm thinking about.

Level 13 with all stat quests (through NM maybe Hell if I have time and help.)

3 max damage jewel +3 sword mastery helm
4 max damage jewel armor
2 cleg swords max damage
cleg's gloves
death's sash
ck boots
angelic rings and ammulet
tons and tons of max damage charms, rest will probably be filled with str or dex charms (some would say life is better, but if it's the choice of a +12 life lc or a +4 str lc the +4 str would mean 4 more points in vit for +16 life.)

It's going to take me for freaking ever to find all that stuff though. Namely jewels and charms (and ck boots, killed king over 100 times and not a single one about 20 hides though)

Skills being as much as possible in Bash (13)
1 in Double Swing
10 in sword mastery

[MrZip]

Hmm, that sounds like a possibility. Maybe I'll give that a try, although I just gave away a cleglaws sword and traded my angelic rings x2 and angelic ammy. doh!

I think part of the reason I wanted to try that sin build was that I had most of the equip (needed bloodfist/rings/belt) and it's all so common which makes tracking it down and trading for it a breeze. Unfortunately my computer is a pos and lags for a few seconds when loading the graphics for a new area and my sin kicked the bucket at lvl 23 in nm act4 when I took a tp with souls around it. (was getting rushed, not there lvling or anything)

So, back to the drawing board. Your build does sound more interesting than a charger or a jabber but I've really got the itch to try this pvp/pk thing out so I don't know if I'll have the patience to find all of the jewels, ect to make it worthwhile. I'll keep you updated on my doings.

[abbithedog]

Unfortunately my computer is a pos and lags for a few seconds when loading the graphics for a new area and my sin kicked the bucket at lvl 23 in nm act4 when I took a tp with souls around it. (was getting rushed, not there lvling or anything)


You could try pre-loading the area (take WP down before you hit the hostile timer). That could save some lag issues for you.

[bigD72]

So, back to the drawing board. Your build does sound more interesting than a charger or a jabber but I've really got the itch to try this pvp/pk thing out so I don't know if I'll have the patience to find all of the jewels, ect to make it worthwhile. I'll keep you updated on my doings.
Almost every pk build (with phys attack) REQUIRES those kind of jewels.

[jafrick]

You could do a trial run of a pk barb I'm thinking about.

Level 13 with all stat quests (through NM maybe Hell if I have time and help.)

3 max damage jewel +3 sword mastery helm
4 max damage jewel armor
2 cleg swords max damage
cleg's gloves
death's sash
ck boots
angelic rings and ammulet
tons and tons of max damage charms, rest will probably be filled with str or dex charms (some would say life is better, but if it's the choice of a +12 life lc or a +4 str lc the +4 str would mean 4 more points in vit for +16 life.)

It's going to take me for freaking ever to find all that stuff though. Namely jewels and charms (and ck boots, killed king over 100 times and not a single one about 20 hides though)

Skills being as much as possible in Bash (13)
1 in Double Swing
10 in sword mastery

Lawnmower barb=fun and effective for PK... dont bother with hell rush, not worth the effort for 45 hp and a couple more pts in mastery... and fine GCs that you can get at that level arent gonna add all that much damage. with the 2x cleg swords giving you lots of fun deadly strike 10 extra max from like 3 gcs isn't gonna be all that much of a help

[AzaZaz]

fine gc = lvl 16 at least anything that counts.

don't need a single jewel or charm to make a low lvl charger. Find an eth great maul or pike and imbue it. Throw on some life armor and biggons bonnet. Deaths sash bloodfist angelics hotspurs/hsarus. You've got yourself a perfect pk no jewels.

[OldMan_Quiet]

With perfect gear and a full hell rush the assassin would be capable of only dealing 4-929 damage per lightning sentry. Including a total of +9 skills from gear. Oh yeah, your assassin would have to be level 30, because +2 traps = clvl 30. So your damage would actually be 4-1002.

You should probably go for a bone necro-- lvl 30. If you rather not go towards the jewels approach, or make a charger.
+1 Armor
+2 Circlet
+2 Ammy
+2 Rings
+1 Shield (Splendor) with additional +decriptify (so you don't waste points in curses)
+3 Wand (White) with additional +3 bone spear from the runeword

If your shield has +3 bone spear and your wand has +3 bone spear prior to adding white, and you have had a full rush (to hell), your damage would be 1075-1138.

1 teeth
1 corpse explosion
1 bone armor --- 520 absorb if perfect
19 bone wall (synergies for BS * bone armor)
7 bone prison (synergies for BS * bone armor)
13 bone spear

The goal is to hit either 75% fastercast or 125%.
Viperskin = 30%
Magefists = 20%
Wand = 20%
So if you intend to hit the 75% BP, you'll need to sacrifice an soj unless you can manage to get a fastercast belt (crafted), or fastercast helmet/ammy. If you want to reach the 125% BP... then you'll be sacrificing damage & mana, but gain insane casting speed, however, GL on finding the fastercast gear :).

[AzaZaz]

necro is certainly an alternative to the 30 trapper. As is a hammerdin. Although I don't suggest hammerdin because my 35 hammerdin is the box roxxors and you'd just always be 2nd best ;)

[OldMan_Quiet]

Oh yeah... if you make a necro, I got to say your greatest challenges if you duel will be:

Hammerdins & Other Bone Necro's.

There's a lot of chargers/ww barbs-- just make sure your out of town first and have a decriptify/bone walls/your bone armor casted. I dueled some WW Barbs with my necro, and happiliy watched some of them ww out of my bone prisms. Watch out for leapers.

As for hammerdins, 1 charge/hammer breaks the bone wall-- and they certainly have plenty of mana to keep coming. Had a couple of close calls vs hammerdins.

My necro finally died against a charger--- I admit I was upset, not because of the item loss, or the fact that he was a charger, but that I got screwed over when I clicked outside of the window TWICE (I play window mode-- Diablo 2 doesn't work any other way... I couldn't fix the problem), while he charged. But chargers shouldn't be as much of a threat as hammerdins or barbs.

[MrZip]

You could do a trial run of a pk barb I'm thinking about.

Level 13 with all stat quests (through NM maybe Hell if I have time and help.)

3 max damage jewel +3 sword mastery helm
4 max damage jewel armor
2 cleg swords max damage
cleg's gloves
death's sash
ck boots
angelic rings and ammulet
tons and tons of max damage charms, rest will probably be filled with str or dex charms (some would say life is better, but if it's the choice of a +12 life lc or a +4 str lc the +4 str would mean 4 more points in vit for +16 life.)

It's going to take me for freaking ever to find all that stuff though. Namely jewels and charms (and ck boots, killed king over 100 times and not a single one about 20 hides though)

Skills being as much as possible in Bash (13)
1 in Double Swing
10 in sword mastery

Ok, I decided to give this one a whirl. Is it possible to keep him in norm or should he go to nm for the skills/res/stats/life? He's lvl 13 at the moment but needs more charms to be able to use cleglaws swords, I'll keep you guys updated. Question though- I thought Frenzy was the skill you used Bash with (get yourself going really fast and then switch to bash), how does double swing work with it?

[Baranor]

Since you're level 13 you won't be getting at frenzy (clvl 24). There is no need to get the stat quests, this is a tester peekay.

1 pt double swing, 1 into sword mastery, rest into Bash for added damage. Just use double swing, nothing else.


and no, nobody ever uses bash with frenzy. you frenzy yourself, and if you fancy it you do some double swinging, because its the same speed as your frenzy hit, but it hits twice in that amount.

[MrZip]

Ah yes, I remember now. Double swing, not bash was used with Frenzy. My brain is mush today.

[MrZip]

Update!

Ok, I finished the Barb I was working on, this is how he looks:

lvl 14
55 str (with items)
50 dex (with items)
95 vit

225 def :embarassed:
1518 AR (double swing)
36-368 dmg
36-364 dmg

639 hp
and terrible resists.

Gear:
Cleglaws gloves
Deaths sash
Cowking boots
Angelic ring x2
Angelic ammy
Cleglaws sword (with 9max dmg jewel)
Cleglaws sword (with 8max dmg jewel)
24max/32ar Mask
26max/+8def Breast plate

Inv is filled with +str, +dmg and +life charms.

So far I have one ear, a lvl 22 (I think, I was very excited an her lvl 78 friend had hostiled me so I had to make a hasty getaway.) sin that I got in the Chaos sanct. I had some problems with a lvl 19 charge pally, he used vigor to run (I couldn't keep up) and the charge continually knocked me back. I have nothing in the way of fhr either. Any advice for a charger? Also, what does your inv look like? Do you keep any open space? Anything other than charms in there?

Let me know where you think I can improve this guy. I think I might need to carry some stamina potions with me, but it seems like such a waste, anyone else's char constantly winded? :tongue:

Thanks.


Edit: Huzzah! I'm like a proud father. I'm sorry.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d194/MrZip/firstkill.jpg

[AzaZaz]

Update!

Ok, I finished the Barb I was working on, this is how he looks:

lvl 14
55 str (with items)
50 dex (with items)
95 vit

225 def :embarassed:
1518 AR (double swing)
36-368 dmg
36-364 dmg

639 hp
and terrible resists.

Gear:
Cleglaws gloves
Deaths sash
Cowking boots
Angelic ring x2
Angelic ammy
Cleglaws sword (with 9max dmg jewel)
Cleglaws sword (with 8max dmg jewel)
24max/32ar Mask
26max/+8def Breast plate

Inv is filled with +str, +dmg and +life charms.

So far I have one ear, a lvl 22 (I think, I was very excited an her lvl 78 friend had hostiled me so I had to make a hasty getaway.) sin that I got in the Chaos sanct. I had some problems with a lvl 19 charge pally, he used vigor to run (I couldn't keep up) and the charge continually knocked me back. I have nothing in the way of fhr either. Any advice for a charger? Also, what does your inv look like? Do you keep any open space? Anything other than charms in there?

Let me know where you think I can improve this guy. I think I might need to carry some stamina potions with me, but it seems like such a waste, anyone else's char constantly winded? :tongue:

Thanks.


Edit: Huzzah! I'm like a proud father. I'm sorry.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d194/MrZip/firstkill.jpg

sounds great to me.

For chargers I wouldn't sweat the pvm chargers as they dont do enough dmg. Just keep at them and try to be the aggressor. If it is a pvp charger then you are kind of up the creek since you have no block. Maybe keep an Umbral on your switch to block the charge then switch to clegs for DS and repeat.

what realm are you on btw?

[MrZip]

Yeah, the charger wasn't really damaging me, just making it incredibly hard to hit him with the running and the knockback. A shield on switch would probably be a good idea, I'll see if I can grab one. I'm on USEast HCL. You?

[PawnOfChaos]

A 19 charger could 1 hit you with 6xx life, be careful with them.

If you plan on continuing to pk in chaos sanctuary, watch out for im :)

I wouldn't mind seeing you make a 30something cs'er. Charged strike has done very well for me in the past at that lvl. Though I do recommend a bow switch, works if they res it or not but easier to kill if they don't bother stacking lr, and duelers of that lvl will figure you to be a cser.

Oh, and don't duel azaz's 16 zealot if he tries :)

Your lack of block would make you incapable of standing up to one. Stick to pk'ing.

[AzaZaz]

damn you!

i'm on east as well.

you're character is fine for pking. have fun with it. The only thing is you've put alot into him for a PK. I'd hate to see you lose him when you could have put that much effort into a dueler. PK's typically get a lot of kills and then die to something they shouldn't have been fighting. Going all out with charms and such on a PK is a waste for that reason. Make sure that if you die you are aware of what you're ready to lose and be fine with it.