Feysal
15-08-2006, 20:26
HAMMERDIN IN UBER TRISTRAM
My first truly successful character in Diablo was a hammerdin, and no wonder. Everyone pretty much agrees that they rule. There is one exception however, and that is Uber Tristram. While I have killed the Diablo Clone with hammers, this simply doesn't work so well in Tristram, since the Ubers regenerate twice as fast as Diablo Clone. And who would want to try, when there is a much faster and safer way to deal with them: Smite.
There are of course plenty of guides around which explain how to build an Uber-Smiter, but I have not found one which would explain what to do when your character is not built to use Smite. That, and the fact that I had to look around in several places for useful formulas I needed to calculate whether I could make this work, is the reason I'm writing this.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Since you are a hammerdin, you probably have a single point in Smite as a prereq for Holy Shield. You have probably put only a few points in Holy Shield, as it is your dump skill. Hopefully you have spent one point in Salvation. What you do have is Blessed Aim, Vigor, Concentration and Blessed Hammer all maxed out. You probably have no Fanaticism. Even if you do have it as a one-point skill, Concentration is better.
Skill-wise, the one thing you can't do without is the one point in Salvation. The more points you have in Holy Shield the better, but it doesn't have to be maxed.
As for equipment, the way to go is Crushing Blow combined with Open Wounds and Life Tap. Cheapest way to get Life Tap is to buy a wand of Life Tap from any Vendor. I got mine from Akara on Hell difficulty. Walk in and out of town until she has one to sell.
Crushing Blow and Open Wounds are easiest to come by with the Guillaume's Face set helm and Gore Rider unique boots. These two are pretty much vital. The rest of your equip is more a matter of preference, but the thing you really want is resists, and lots of them. For this reason, a Wizardspike bone knife is very good. You should also get a Spirit runeword shield with good resists, or better yet a Herald of Zakarum unique shield. As for the rest of your equip, the things you want is more resists and skills, specifically combat skills.
You'll also want Cannot Be Frozen. Being chilled in Tristram will get you killed a lot quicker.
WHY DO I NEED THAT?
Smite is the best attack to use against the Ubers, because it can be damned fast, it cannot be interrupted, and because it works with Crushing Blow and Open Wounds.
Crushing Blow is the way to quickly reduce the Ubers hit points. This is important because they have 650 000-660 000 of them, and you probably couldn't survive long enough to bring them down by any other means.
The regeneration rate of the Ubers is insane, around 16 000 a second. There are only three ways to prevent regeneration, and those are items with Prevent Monster Heal, poison damage and Open Wounds. Prevent Monster Heal doesn't work on the Ubers. You cannot do poison damage with Smite. That leaves only Open Wounds, which causes the Ubers to lose hit points for a duration of 8 seconds. That should be plenty of time to trigger Open Wounds again, so the Ubers bleed continuously.
Life Tap is the only way to leech when using Smite. You need it to stay alive while you Smite each Uber. Don't even think about using only potions, they wouldn't last very long. This is also what you need combat skills for: while directdamage from Smite isn't that important to the speed at which you kill the Ubers, it is what defines the amount you can leech, and therefore directly affects your odds of survival. Skill points added to Smite and Holy Shield both increase damage, as does Concentration, but points in combat skills are far more important.
What you need resists for is Mephisto's Conviction aura, which reduces your resists by 125%. You need to counter that somehow, and fortunately you have the means to do so with the remaining equipment slots.
HOW IS IT DONE?
This is the character and the equipment I used:
Level 93 Paladin Feysal
Smite: level 8
Holy Shield: level 21
Concentration: level 25
Salvation: level 5
Weapon: Wizardspike unique bone knife, socketed with Shael rune
Shield: Spirit runeword gilded shield, with 30%/65% resists
Secondary weapon: bone wand of Life Tap
Secondary shield: Rhyme runeword sacred rondache, with 55% resists
Head: Guillaume's Face, unsocketed
Armor: Guardian Angel, unsocketed
Secondary armor: Treachery runeword breast plate
Gloves: Laying of Hands set gloves
Belt: Credendum set belt
Boots: Gore Rider unique boots
Amulet: +3 combat skills and 76 life magic amulet
Rings: 14% resist all magic ring and unique Raven Frost ring
Charms: Annihilus and assorted magic charms, with a total of 32% resist all and about 210 life
The above setup gives a total of 316% resist all, including Anya quests and Salvation aura, meaning I would have maxed resists of 90% even against Mephisto. Wizardspike with Shael and Laying of Hands give 40% faster attack speed, which speeds up Smite to once in 7 frames, which in turn means faster leeching and shorter fights. The bone knife by itself is very fast, and Smite speed is dependent on weapon speed. By wearing the Treachery armor I could trigger level 15 Fade which added another 60% to resists, although it was only useful for keeping me alive for the second I needed to cast Life Tap. Combining the effects of my strength, skill levels and the Ubers physical resistances, I calculated my damage against Mephisto as 266, giving a leech rate of 465 hit points/second and an estimated battle length of 93 attacks over 27 seconds. Against Diablo and Baal my damage was 348, giving a leech rate of 609 hit points/second and an estimated battle length of 127 attacks over 36 seconds.
While doing the math wasn't strictly necessary, it convinced me that I could in fact win the battles. So why did I do it? I wanted to be sure I could kill Mephisto within the 28 seconds the Life Tap curse from my wand lasted, since I did not want to risk lowering my resists to cast it again.
MATH
For calculating damage and leech rates, you need to know the following:
(Smite damage) = ((base Smite damage on shield) + (damage from Holy Shield) + (plus-x damage from items)) x (1 + (STR / 100) + (Smite ED / 100) + (Fanaticism ED / 100) + (Might ED / 100) + (Concentration ED / 100) + (off-weapon ED / 100)) x (1 - (enemy physical resistance))
Many of the modifiers can usually be ignored, like in my case there was no Fanaticism, Might, or off-weapon ED present, and against Mephisto no Concentration ED either. Neither did I have any of the items which add to base smite damage: Grief runeword, The Redeemer, Astreon's Iron Ward or Stone Crusher. Note that ED against Demons has no effect. I only wore Laying of Hands because of its 20% IAS and 50% fire resistance.
Mephisto's physical resistance is 20% and Baal's and Diablo's are 50%.
To know my leech rate, I had to know my attack speed. 40% IAS gives a 7-frame smite, or 3,5 attacks per second. Using Life Tap you get half of the damage as hit points. Therefore:
(Leech rate) = ((Smite damage) x 25 / (frames per Smite) / 2)
The battle length formula is harder:
F(N) = (((F(N - 1) - (Smite damage) - (Open Wounds damage)) x (1 - (Crushing Blow %))) + ((F(N - 1) - (Smite damage) - (Open Wounds damage)) x (Crushing Blow fraction) x (Crushing Blow %)))
Basically, you want to know the smallest N for which F(N) < 0 when F(0) = 655 000.
Note that Open Wounds damage is not negligible! In my case, it made the difference between killing Mephisto within 28 seconds and having to finish him without leech. The formula for Open Wounds damage (in this specific case, for character levels above 66 and against bosses) is the following:
(Open Wounds damage) = ((45 x (Character level) - 1319) / 512 x (frames per Smite))
The Crushing Blow fraction is affected by physical resistance. Since Mephisto has 20% physical resistance, in that battle the fraction is 0,9 instead of 0,875 against a non-resistant boss, and against Diablo and Baal the fraction is 0,9375. Also remember that your damage is different in the battles depending on the same resistances and your aura. And especially, don't forget that the above formula only gives a good estimate of how long a given battle will last, there are no guarantees.
NOTES
If you're having doubts about your damage and leech being sufficient, you can boost it with the help of shrines. A skill shrine adds +2 to your Smite, Holy Shield and Concentration levels, which increases your Smite damage accordingly. Better yet, a combat shrine gives you an off-weapon ED bonus of 200. If you move fast, you can kill an Uber within the 96 seconds the shrine effect lasts. Note that this does not work with Fade, since Fade reduces the shrine duration.
Is Fade and the Treachery breast plate really necessary? I'd say no. In my battle I screwed up with Mephisto and took some three seconds getting Life Tap on him, and still I didn't take serious damage. If I'd done it right, my resists would have been down for a much shorter time, which probably would have enabled me to survive even without Fade active. All it is is an extra insurance. Of course it gives you 15% physical resistance, but I didn't even bother with it any more against Diablo.
Baal still has his mana burning attack and he summons specters which drain mana. Smite requires mana. This results in the odd effect that a Spirit shield may be better against Baal than a Herald of Zakarum. The idea is, that together with Wizardspike it adds a lot to your mana, and as your mana regeneration rate is based on your max mana, having more of it means you get it back faster. For me, I would stop smiting only for a split second before mana regeneration had me up and running again. I regenerate mana faster than Smite uses it.
How much leech is really necessary? Depends on how much you take damage, obviously. If you have decent defense and don't allow the Ubers to spawn too many minions to attack you and especially if you have good resists, you could probably get by with a lot less than what I had. I only needed to use full rejuvenation potions a couple times while leeching. Most of them were spent when the Life Tap duration ran out or I did something stupid, like forgetting to switch my left click back to smite after dispatching Baal's specters with hammers.
About the lesser Ubers, namely Duriel, Lilith and Izual: I couldn't find a single good strategy guide for them as I planned my Tristram run. Now I know why. You can fight each of them alone, and while they have just as much HP and regenerate just as fast, the same tactic works against them just as well as it does against the Tristram Ubers. Izual is the easiest, as he has neither Duriel's aura which chills you and slows you down, or Lilith's physical resistance. Izual was easy to beat during a single Life Tap duration, while Duriel and Lilith both took two.
RESOURCES
For additional information, see these places:
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=63770&hl=poor+man's+uber/
http://extreme-gamerz.org/diablo2/viewdiablo2/hellfirecharmquest
Hope the information gathered here helps someone.
My first truly successful character in Diablo was a hammerdin, and no wonder. Everyone pretty much agrees that they rule. There is one exception however, and that is Uber Tristram. While I have killed the Diablo Clone with hammers, this simply doesn't work so well in Tristram, since the Ubers regenerate twice as fast as Diablo Clone. And who would want to try, when there is a much faster and safer way to deal with them: Smite.
There are of course plenty of guides around which explain how to build an Uber-Smiter, but I have not found one which would explain what to do when your character is not built to use Smite. That, and the fact that I had to look around in several places for useful formulas I needed to calculate whether I could make this work, is the reason I'm writing this.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Since you are a hammerdin, you probably have a single point in Smite as a prereq for Holy Shield. You have probably put only a few points in Holy Shield, as it is your dump skill. Hopefully you have spent one point in Salvation. What you do have is Blessed Aim, Vigor, Concentration and Blessed Hammer all maxed out. You probably have no Fanaticism. Even if you do have it as a one-point skill, Concentration is better.
Skill-wise, the one thing you can't do without is the one point in Salvation. The more points you have in Holy Shield the better, but it doesn't have to be maxed.
As for equipment, the way to go is Crushing Blow combined with Open Wounds and Life Tap. Cheapest way to get Life Tap is to buy a wand of Life Tap from any Vendor. I got mine from Akara on Hell difficulty. Walk in and out of town until she has one to sell.
Crushing Blow and Open Wounds are easiest to come by with the Guillaume's Face set helm and Gore Rider unique boots. These two are pretty much vital. The rest of your equip is more a matter of preference, but the thing you really want is resists, and lots of them. For this reason, a Wizardspike bone knife is very good. You should also get a Spirit runeword shield with good resists, or better yet a Herald of Zakarum unique shield. As for the rest of your equip, the things you want is more resists and skills, specifically combat skills.
You'll also want Cannot Be Frozen. Being chilled in Tristram will get you killed a lot quicker.
WHY DO I NEED THAT?
Smite is the best attack to use against the Ubers, because it can be damned fast, it cannot be interrupted, and because it works with Crushing Blow and Open Wounds.
Crushing Blow is the way to quickly reduce the Ubers hit points. This is important because they have 650 000-660 000 of them, and you probably couldn't survive long enough to bring them down by any other means.
The regeneration rate of the Ubers is insane, around 16 000 a second. There are only three ways to prevent regeneration, and those are items with Prevent Monster Heal, poison damage and Open Wounds. Prevent Monster Heal doesn't work on the Ubers. You cannot do poison damage with Smite. That leaves only Open Wounds, which causes the Ubers to lose hit points for a duration of 8 seconds. That should be plenty of time to trigger Open Wounds again, so the Ubers bleed continuously.
Life Tap is the only way to leech when using Smite. You need it to stay alive while you Smite each Uber. Don't even think about using only potions, they wouldn't last very long. This is also what you need combat skills for: while directdamage from Smite isn't that important to the speed at which you kill the Ubers, it is what defines the amount you can leech, and therefore directly affects your odds of survival. Skill points added to Smite and Holy Shield both increase damage, as does Concentration, but points in combat skills are far more important.
What you need resists for is Mephisto's Conviction aura, which reduces your resists by 125%. You need to counter that somehow, and fortunately you have the means to do so with the remaining equipment slots.
HOW IS IT DONE?
This is the character and the equipment I used:
Level 93 Paladin Feysal
Smite: level 8
Holy Shield: level 21
Concentration: level 25
Salvation: level 5
Weapon: Wizardspike unique bone knife, socketed with Shael rune
Shield: Spirit runeword gilded shield, with 30%/65% resists
Secondary weapon: bone wand of Life Tap
Secondary shield: Rhyme runeword sacred rondache, with 55% resists
Head: Guillaume's Face, unsocketed
Armor: Guardian Angel, unsocketed
Secondary armor: Treachery runeword breast plate
Gloves: Laying of Hands set gloves
Belt: Credendum set belt
Boots: Gore Rider unique boots
Amulet: +3 combat skills and 76 life magic amulet
Rings: 14% resist all magic ring and unique Raven Frost ring
Charms: Annihilus and assorted magic charms, with a total of 32% resist all and about 210 life
The above setup gives a total of 316% resist all, including Anya quests and Salvation aura, meaning I would have maxed resists of 90% even against Mephisto. Wizardspike with Shael and Laying of Hands give 40% faster attack speed, which speeds up Smite to once in 7 frames, which in turn means faster leeching and shorter fights. The bone knife by itself is very fast, and Smite speed is dependent on weapon speed. By wearing the Treachery armor I could trigger level 15 Fade which added another 60% to resists, although it was only useful for keeping me alive for the second I needed to cast Life Tap. Combining the effects of my strength, skill levels and the Ubers physical resistances, I calculated my damage against Mephisto as 266, giving a leech rate of 465 hit points/second and an estimated battle length of 93 attacks over 27 seconds. Against Diablo and Baal my damage was 348, giving a leech rate of 609 hit points/second and an estimated battle length of 127 attacks over 36 seconds.
While doing the math wasn't strictly necessary, it convinced me that I could in fact win the battles. So why did I do it? I wanted to be sure I could kill Mephisto within the 28 seconds the Life Tap curse from my wand lasted, since I did not want to risk lowering my resists to cast it again.
MATH
For calculating damage and leech rates, you need to know the following:
(Smite damage) = ((base Smite damage on shield) + (damage from Holy Shield) + (plus-x damage from items)) x (1 + (STR / 100) + (Smite ED / 100) + (Fanaticism ED / 100) + (Might ED / 100) + (Concentration ED / 100) + (off-weapon ED / 100)) x (1 - (enemy physical resistance))
Many of the modifiers can usually be ignored, like in my case there was no Fanaticism, Might, or off-weapon ED present, and against Mephisto no Concentration ED either. Neither did I have any of the items which add to base smite damage: Grief runeword, The Redeemer, Astreon's Iron Ward or Stone Crusher. Note that ED against Demons has no effect. I only wore Laying of Hands because of its 20% IAS and 50% fire resistance.
Mephisto's physical resistance is 20% and Baal's and Diablo's are 50%.
To know my leech rate, I had to know my attack speed. 40% IAS gives a 7-frame smite, or 3,5 attacks per second. Using Life Tap you get half of the damage as hit points. Therefore:
(Leech rate) = ((Smite damage) x 25 / (frames per Smite) / 2)
The battle length formula is harder:
F(N) = (((F(N - 1) - (Smite damage) - (Open Wounds damage)) x (1 - (Crushing Blow %))) + ((F(N - 1) - (Smite damage) - (Open Wounds damage)) x (Crushing Blow fraction) x (Crushing Blow %)))
Basically, you want to know the smallest N for which F(N) < 0 when F(0) = 655 000.
Note that Open Wounds damage is not negligible! In my case, it made the difference between killing Mephisto within 28 seconds and having to finish him without leech. The formula for Open Wounds damage (in this specific case, for character levels above 66 and against bosses) is the following:
(Open Wounds damage) = ((45 x (Character level) - 1319) / 512 x (frames per Smite))
The Crushing Blow fraction is affected by physical resistance. Since Mephisto has 20% physical resistance, in that battle the fraction is 0,9 instead of 0,875 against a non-resistant boss, and against Diablo and Baal the fraction is 0,9375. Also remember that your damage is different in the battles depending on the same resistances and your aura. And especially, don't forget that the above formula only gives a good estimate of how long a given battle will last, there are no guarantees.
NOTES
If you're having doubts about your damage and leech being sufficient, you can boost it with the help of shrines. A skill shrine adds +2 to your Smite, Holy Shield and Concentration levels, which increases your Smite damage accordingly. Better yet, a combat shrine gives you an off-weapon ED bonus of 200. If you move fast, you can kill an Uber within the 96 seconds the shrine effect lasts. Note that this does not work with Fade, since Fade reduces the shrine duration.
Is Fade and the Treachery breast plate really necessary? I'd say no. In my battle I screwed up with Mephisto and took some three seconds getting Life Tap on him, and still I didn't take serious damage. If I'd done it right, my resists would have been down for a much shorter time, which probably would have enabled me to survive even without Fade active. All it is is an extra insurance. Of course it gives you 15% physical resistance, but I didn't even bother with it any more against Diablo.
Baal still has his mana burning attack and he summons specters which drain mana. Smite requires mana. This results in the odd effect that a Spirit shield may be better against Baal than a Herald of Zakarum. The idea is, that together with Wizardspike it adds a lot to your mana, and as your mana regeneration rate is based on your max mana, having more of it means you get it back faster. For me, I would stop smiting only for a split second before mana regeneration had me up and running again. I regenerate mana faster than Smite uses it.
How much leech is really necessary? Depends on how much you take damage, obviously. If you have decent defense and don't allow the Ubers to spawn too many minions to attack you and especially if you have good resists, you could probably get by with a lot less than what I had. I only needed to use full rejuvenation potions a couple times while leeching. Most of them were spent when the Life Tap duration ran out or I did something stupid, like forgetting to switch my left click back to smite after dispatching Baal's specters with hammers.
About the lesser Ubers, namely Duriel, Lilith and Izual: I couldn't find a single good strategy guide for them as I planned my Tristram run. Now I know why. You can fight each of them alone, and while they have just as much HP and regenerate just as fast, the same tactic works against them just as well as it does against the Tristram Ubers. Izual is the easiest, as he has neither Duriel's aura which chills you and slows you down, or Lilith's physical resistance. Izual was easy to beat during a single Life Tap duration, while Duriel and Lilith both took two.
RESOURCES
For additional information, see these places:
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=63770&hl=poor+man's+uber/
http://extreme-gamerz.org/diablo2/viewdiablo2/hellfirecharmquest
Hope the information gathered here helps someone.