Advice/stat checking on Charge/Auradin

[bwonga]

Ok. I'm new to the forum but not to D2. I'm sick of hypothetically creating a character and not having it turn out the way I want to. IF...,and this is a big IF, this build could be done without too much trouble (e.g. trading all kinds of stuff), I think it could be quite viable. Kind of a variation of a chargeadin/dreamer/auradin. Here goes...

Skill Point Distribution:
20 might (for synergy to charge)
20 vigor (for synergy to charge)
20 charge (for, um, charge of course)-ends up being lvl 28 charge
20 resist lightning (synergy bonus to holy shock from dream helm)
1 smite
1 sanctuary
1 holy freeze
1 holy fire
1 thorns
1 prayer
1 cleansing
1 defiance

(see below for this)
20 conviction

And here's the kick in the pants...can't decide whether to go with fanatacism or conviction as primary aura. fanat has the dmg and ar bonus (good %!) but conviction has the neg def and resist (to work with holy shock and immunes).

sooo...it'll take a while for the build to finish but I'll figure the outcome with conviction for right now.

I do realize that there are 108 skill points used here (what is the maximum?-someone please remind me), and it would take a while to complete that.


Basic idea for character is a charge main skill (fully synergized) with holy shock aura and conviction aura. Merc will contribute might aura (nightmare a2 offense) and concentration aura (pride polearm). Nice dmg bonuses on most auras and -defense from convic makes for an easy hit almost every time.

Wanted to make sure that holy shock from dream helm IS able to use the resist lightning synergy. Someone please comment on this that isn't guessing...I've read all kinds of crazy stuff regarding aura stacking, synergies, and the like.

At the end of this build, I'd like to accomplish a lightning enchanted 1-hitter-quitter with high % chance to hit and the highest dmg possible without getting retarded for resists and overall weaknesses.



Gear to use: (keep in mind this is all figured for highest possible dmg-gear is going to take a while to get reasonably)


Armor: ebug COH (need the high def b/c no shield)
Helm : Dream (figured a 25 fhr (avg) and 20 res all -why not?:wink2: )
Wepn: eth Death Colossus Sword (figured 390% dmg)=440-875 dmg
Ammy: Mara's, of course (figured 25 res all)
Boots: Gore Rider
Gloves: Steelrend (high str req I know, figured 50% dmg)
Ring #1: Ravenfrost (must for chargers, figuring 200 ar and 17 dex)
Ring # 2: any suggestions? (maybe a wisp...I dunno)
Belt: Verdungo's (figured 35 vitality and 15% dr-a must)
Anni: (figured 1-15-15-x)
Torch: (figured 3-15-15)
PCombat GC's : 7 plain ones (for now hehe)

-figured with 6x5% res all sc's I could be maxed out@ 75, so that's nice I guess...put them under my Pcombats and the anni for a nice even look.

Cta and spirit on switch (just figured 1 all skills for bc, didn't figure bo or anything yet)


All in all figured at clvl 80, here's the results:

45 resist all (Hell diff)
+8 all skills (+7 gear/charms, +1 bc)
23% Damage Reduction
40% FHR
7% mana leech
8% life leech
30% FRW
75% Crushing Blow!
55% Deadly Strike!
10% Open Wounds
+580% AR bonus (560 from charge, 20 from wepn)
2373 defense (all variable def items figured average value)
+2265% dmg (50% steelies, 285% conc, 180% might, 1750% charge)
+200% dmg demons (coh)
+100% dmg undead (coh)
+70 str
+55 dex
+80 vit
+35 energy
Cannot be frozen (ty ravenfrost)
45% mf (whoopity doo)
+9 light radius (sweet!)
+17 replenish life (not sure of the pts/second on this)
+90 mana
+120-ish stamina

STRIKE MODS:
10% lvl 15 confuse/struck (dream)
25% lvl firestorm/strike (torch)
25% lvl 18 glacial spike/strike (death)
100% lvl 44 chain lit/death (death)-hope i dont have too see that too often...
+15-45 cold dmg
+1-50 lit dmg

AURAS
lvl 15 holy shock (1-3950 attack, 3-598 pulse)=figured with res lit synergy
lvl 28 conviction (-94% def, -150% resists)
lvl 15 might (180% dmg)
lvl 16 concentration (20% uninterrupt, 285% dmg)

*NOTE-if anyone knows how to figure mercenary's aura levels, let me know...I just used lvl 15 as a number...figured that'd be about right for hell @ clvl 80. I have NO idea.

I need to spend 105 points into strength to wear all gear, so I am left with 295 points to spend. I'm not sure, but before any points are spent, I have 295 life (55 base plus per lvl pally bonus [3 pts8 80 lvls=240 pts]). Not sure how many pts I'm gonna need in dexterity with the conviction aura running at -94% enemy defense plus my 580% AR bonus. Obviously trying to put lots into vitality.


Was wondering how to calculate total damage. I tried to look online for a couple of ways, but the math is too complicated for me. I need to find a guide or something that has plugin values (excel or spreadsheet value plugger maybe?) Again, if anyone has any ideas on how to get this done, would appreciate the help.





Well, that's it so far. The merc would be using a eth coh, a pride polearm wepn (preferably highest lvl conc aura possible), and a gaze (maybe um'd?).


If anyone has any advice, please drop me a line and I'll check it out. Am looking forward to building this one. I enjoy building variations and have had some wierd, but effective builds in the past...I hope this one follows the tradition.



Thanks

[kohlman]

I think that death might be bad because I heard somewhere that the Glacial spike will freeze enemies which means they arent knocked back so you cant charge again in PvM, but in PvP it would be fine for the slow down.

Off hand weapon ed isnt that important so you could save a few points in str and invest in Dracs for str/lifetap or Cleglaws if it hasnt been nerfed (i think it may have been by now) or they are bad manners, It alows for some slows target on the Cleglaws. Also, with a 500 damage weapon, and 2265% ed you will do about 11325 dmg roughly. Without steelrends, you will do 11075. The 300 damage may look like alot, but when you hit someone with 10k damage, they usually die in one or two hits.

Personally, I would use the Conviction. Charge around them in circles then when you see the opening you want, charge in for the kill. You dont want a missed charge because in good dueling, mistakes arent forgiven.

Another thing, amulet, Saracens Chance is a great option that is overlooked, It can cast Amplify Damage and has good resistances as well as stats that are much better than maras. It is a cheap maras with a chance to double all your damage.

For other ring, BK for life and skill or Dwarf Star for life and absorb (if its allowed)

I think 111 skills is max (99 skills, 3 den of evil, 3 radament, 6 izual = 111) but I may be wrong.

I may be wrong on alot of this but if it were my charger, those are the tweaks id make to it, and maybe a maul instead of sword, maybe botd or something of that sort. Other than what I said, looks like you will be killing everyone in 1 hit anyways. Good luck! :thumbsup:

[TheBe]

I think I would use fana in pvm, and put infinity on merc (adds conviction). And also would equip dream shield and use 1 handed weapon to add light dmg. But this is only my opinnion and I can admit that I've never made dreamer or chargeadin or anything, so this is just what I think sounds good.

[bwonga]

Hey guys. Thanks for the coupla responses so far. I like the idea of a maul. kohlman...was my primary choice (probably botd), except I liked the stats on the death. Didn't think about the freeze/knockback thing...good call on that one. Like you said, though, good for pvp. Looks like Conviction is gonna be the way to go (been talkin to some players online and seems like 95% of them use convic and are happy with the results). Any other suggestions for weapon (I don't wanna keep repairing it a lot-but charge you dont have to hit as many times due to the high dmg per hit i guess-but i will spend the dough if the payoff in dmg/bonuses is worth it. I've thought about a shield/phase blade, or shield/botd 1 hander, but i dunno if it's worth it to lower the base dmg by so much. Does a phoenix shield edmg% apply to overall like the rest of the added %, or does it only apply to shield-damage skills like smite? Also, still curious about the holy shock/lit resist synergy from dream helm. I think that crushing blow/deadly strike mix on this charger could be DEADLY. Thanks for the posts back so far. Finally getting my accounts back up to where they should be...got a smellit (smiter/zealot) a windy doom druid, and a conc/berserk barb that are all in their final stages of development ...this charger is gonna be next. Keep the suggestions coming!

[Ludacris]

A few comments.

First of all 110 skill points is max. 12 from quests and 98 from lvling (You start at lvl 1!) And whatever you do don't get conviction up to lvl 28. At lvl 25 you get the highest possible -% of enemy resist (150) And the -ed% isn't as effective as you think. Its not -90% of the total def. For example if your oppent has +2000%ed conviction will lower that amount to +1910%ed. So as you can see it doesn't make a lot of difference. At least not enough to waste more points in conviction for a few more ed%. (There might even be a penalty for pvp too, but i'm not sure of this.)

Just like the others said it's not very wise to use a two handed weap and death. Dream shield ofc will add more damage and some nice resists if made in an allres shield. You could go for a +ed% pala shield for extra damage but I haven't seen those with dreams in them. This leads me to the next possible shield. If you like extra +ed% you can go for phoenix and make it in a +ed% pala shield.

For a weapen you could go for a good grief. (Nice added amount of damage) and when venom kicks in you get even more damage. (Beware you screen will be LCS with +damage and -poisen resist%)

As for the gloves. I'm not a big favourite of steelrend and therefore I would chose draculs for the lifetap, 10ll, 15str.

If you choose to go for dream resist pala shield mara isn't really priority anymore and highlords becomes more attractive for the ias, DS, +1skill.

As a second ring I would see what opponent i'm facing. For instance use wisp for lighting, dwarf for fire, another raven for cold. Or go for life and skill and choose for bkring. However this ring choice won't make a big impact.

I hope I was able to help you!

(I'm guessing your using this char mostly for pvp as charge isn't the ideal skill in pvm.)

[HCKull]

I suggest the following:

Use a shield and 1 handed weapon. It is much superior to a 2 hander.

Use dream shield so you will have lvl 30 holy shock and use conviction aura.

A dream shield will double your holy shock damage to approximately 5100 per hit.

With conviction, a 75% resist opponent probabley will have have -75% resists and give you an effective damage of approximately 1.75 * 5100 = 8925. Can't beat that.

Conviction will also break most if not all LI monsters.

You also gain resists and blocking from the shield.

Cresent Moon is a good option because it will drop resists by 35% so the -75 % example above would go to -100% and damage would be 2.0 *5100 or 11,000 from holy shock every time you hit.

Grief PB provides the most physical damage at the fastest speed possible. It would be a great choice for a more balanced attack.

You will regret using etherial armor. Do you really want to have to replace your COH periodically ? You can get huge defensive bonuses with holy shield and defiance. Get a defiance merc and put enough points into holy shield so you will have max block. You defences could be 20k and 75% block which is much better than just a huge defence.

[bwonga]

Thanks again for the replies and new posts. HCKull, got a coupla questions for ya...I understood that a dream+dream does not equal a lvl 30 holy shock...it just equals double the damage of a lvl 15 holy shock. So instead of the damage at 1-xxx for lvl 15 h.s., it goes to 2-(2*xxx) for 2x dream items. Not sure if that is correct, but seems to be the opinion of half of the D2 players out there. The other half sides with you...I'd love to get some verification of this if anyone has the time or resources to post an official answer to this query. As far as the ethereal armor goes, I said an ebug COH, and if you don't know what that is, I won't explain it to you b/c of the forum rules. Also, crescent moon wouldn't be bad, but the base dmg on it is PATHETIC. True, it's good for holy shock, and a phase blade is indestructible. Also, it has ITD, so big bonus for crescent moon there...Crescent moon=not a bad choice, I'll put it in my consideration list.

To Ludacris:
Good points. Was not aware that the -% def was not off of the total. Guess that's where a "ignore tgt defense" mod would come in handy. As far as shields go, yeah I was thinkin about a phoenix...not bad. Keeps enemies dead too with the aura. A nice res all vortex would be good for that dream I think, and good idea with getting rid of the mara's with a res shield. What did you mean by "your screen will be LCS with +dmg and -% poison res"? Good call with the highlords for the D.S. and keeping 1 skill. I guess I'm really drawn to the death runeword because of the deadly strike mod and the other bonuses on it. I suppose headstriker would be great for deadly strike as well, but no real damage on it. Plus death is indestructible and has GREAT mods. Any other suggestions for a weapon with decent dmg plus deadly strike?



How about a last wish PB plus a phoenix vortex res shield? Last wish would free up merc's aura to let him use defiance for an aura. Wouldn't be bad. Plus I still get the Might bonus to help with the lower EDMG% from not using a 2 hander. I'll crunch some numbers and post another finding with some different setups. Thanks to all who have been writing so far!

Brad

[Ludacris]

By LCS I mean Lying Character Screen. ('C key' in diablo) It means the added amount of physical damage of grief is not added to your damage on your charachter screen. The -20% poison resist works the same. (Same goes for conviction ofc.) You will do the damage it says on your character screen but in reality is does significant more. With -150% resists the elemental attacks are far stronger and deel more damage but your character screen won't show it.

I defenitly won't use Headstriker. You already got lots of 'crucial hits' like Deadly strike, Open wounds, Crushing blow. If you would go for highlords you get around 30% deadly strike plus 15 from gores makes 45% Crushing blow. The % on Open wounds doesn't really matter a lot but its handy to keep the Ubers from regenerating like hell.

You could also stick with death and make it in a Zerker or Phase blade. Like this you will get the added damage ed and even more Deadly strike. Not to mention the 50% Crushing blow. But I believe there's a cap on it somewhere and prehaps a pvp penalty i'm too lazy to look up right now. But as Kohlman said the glacial spike will prevent you from charging the monster back. (again if you intend to go pvp only it'll be allright) However I wouldn't recommend it, but that could be that i'm not a huge death fan.

Beats is also a possiblity. With you sticking to 1 handed probably it'll have to be a Zerker. Also some nice damage with CB. The fanatism will give you some more ias wich you probably need because it's made in a Zerker. Grief is another nice option like I said earlier.

Botd is also a solid charger weapen used by some chargers I know.

Last wish can also be a nice choice with Vortex phoenix, although I don't know the resist you got with the switches being made in the gear section so far. Don't forget that when fade kicks in you get an extra 56 resists for 240 seconds. Defenitly go for defiance if you choose last wish. Without HS you will have significant lower def than other paladins with HS. I'm sure if retaining 75% is worth all the dex points compared to life. Although you can get life scs. Depends on your preference.

Let me know what you've got and what you're thinking on doing:smiley:

Edit: Found this pvm charger info thread. Might be of help to you: http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=511532

[SirBeetle]

I currently have a lvl 76 charger and here's what he uses:
shako 'ber' - changing to 80/30 coa
hoz 'diamond'
fort ap
gores
dungos
bloodfist - switching to 59/19 rends when I'm high enough lvl.
angelic sets (without them, you will SUCK pvp)
sometimes a raven frost, but when you're charging, being frozen doesn't really matter.
death zerker (381%)
Lots o life/res/ar sc's.

and I maxed:
fant
charge
might
vigor
couple points into zeal/holy shield and prereq's.

I do about 12-13k one handed so far and will do about 14-15k when completed. having a shield is extremely helpful in pvp as well as using angelics set. pvm I suck as the only useful skill I have is like a 6 point zeal.

If I were to remake him, I'd probably go with a grief zerker, skipped maxing might/zeal and go with more of a smite route with holy shield/smite. Making perfect charges isn't the easiest thing on the planet.