WarlockCC
14-01-2007, 03:00
As allways, my built is slightly different then what most people would make.
First off, my gear :
basically max skills, the better you heal.
So Tarn, +2 amu, +2 Pala scepter with +3 holy bolt, Silks, +2 pala shield and 2 SoJs.
Magefists for FCR, the amu also has 10FCR
res from boots, belt, shield and fire res on the amu(heck, I spend most of my time in CS anyway, since there are lots of undead to kill there, so might aswell get fire res)
Still, most of my res is near zero in Hell, cept for Fire res, that's 75.
The weapon can be any +2 and if you happen to find a +2 scepter with either +Holy Bolt, +Prayer or +meditation, mayber 2 of those or all three of those, you would be a better healer offcourse, but it's not mandatory. Same with the SoJs and harder to get +2 gear, just upgrade if you get your hands on it.
10FC rings with either mana or res will do very nicely to replace the SoJs.
The ideal weapon would be a +2 scepter with +3 Holy Bolt, +3 prayer, +3 meditation and 10fcr. Good luck shopping that one. :)
Stats :
Str for gear, in my case Silks was the heaviest, so 100 str and the rest in vit.
You could stick some in energy (up to 50 or so) if you are relatively certain you won't be able to free up SoJs any time soon.
As for skills :
These make up most of the healing part
Max Prayer, synergizes for the below 2.
Max Holy Bolt, gets more healing per shot from prayer
Level 8 meditation, gets more healing per 2 seconds from prayer.
With all the +skills, the meditation has a nice range at level 18.
Note that +skills on prayer still work trough as synergies, it's the only synergy which does that.
Then I figured I would be more usefull to my parties with more versetile aura's, so I got all of them (cept the single res ones) at level 1, making them all level 11 with the +skills. This would be the part most people might skip or find wastefull. But I like it, I can serve up any of the aura's required and even FoH or Hammer Venom Lords to death given enough time or when there are few players in the game.
Later on, I discovered the awesome power of Holy bolt as a weapon against undead, so I have been maxing FoH and Blessed Hammer since to get a lot of damage to undead per holy bolt. Poor Seis eats 2 Holy Bolts and dies with the third shot.(in a 8 player game)
Most of the Storm Casters perish after 2 shots.
Personally, I am happy to have all the aura's, but one could also choose to go the offensive way and get max Holy bolt damage first.
With enough FCR you will spend your time switching between healing party members and killing undead. Delivery of the bolts is swift and they only cost 2 mana to cast, so with Meditation on, even when you are continually mana drained, you will be able to cast holy bolts at full speed.
One major problem people sometimes have a hard time to understand is that the Holy bolt does not pass trough somebody even though it looks like that on other people's screen.
Things it does pass trough :
Monsters and Demons.
aka, you can still heal somebody who is surrounded by the Infector's pack as long as you can get a lock on this party member.
Things it does not pass trough :
partymembers
minions
party members minions
- valks
- skeletons (and mages)
- revives
- golems
- mercs
When people see this stream of holy bolts they are magically drawn to it. If there are new players in the CS, briefly explain to them that they should not stand between you and the one you are healing. Some have a small grasp of how it works and might walk into the stream to get themselves healed, they too need to be convienced you know what you are doing and will get to them in due time. Their health might seem more important to them at that time, but when the party tank dies cause you couldn't heal him, the next target will be this person who was in the way. When your original target dies, your lock ends, the healing ends and the fool who jumped in will be dead before you can get a lock.
I allways knew minions where a problem because they are brainless and just run right into the path of the bolts. But it seems people can be just as brainless. Point out to minion baring people that they do not need their minions. As long as you can heal the party tank, the tank will not die and they are safe.
I have noticed that people do not realise exactly who is killing the undead so fast. They have a hard enough time grasping the concept of healing, let alone somebody who kills undead so fast and efficiently from a long distance. So far I did not bother to try and explain it. I wager if somebody understands they will show it by running behind some undead, causing my bolts to cut them down like good old Painless(Predator, the movie).
The first thing people might notice is the mana regeneration from the meditation aura, although most don't notice it the first 5 games, eventually hammerdins will realise they don't need to stand still to redeem corpses, they can just move on to the next target since they will get recharged on the way there. Their life will still be full anyway because of the holy bolts.
Later on people might notice one of the two types healing. They will presume you to be a FoHdin, you'll know better, they might some day understand. :)
At this time my paladin's meditation regenerates mana +725% and heals 47 life per 2 seconds (This is without BO)
IIRC, my paladins Holy Bolt heals 260-536 life per shot and does 6635-7635 damage to undead per shot.
This is by no means a powerbuild, since you can't clean out CS on your own, but it will boost the effectiveness of any party. Be it people who just started , veterans of 94+ or anything inbetween. They will all want you back on the team once they realise what it is you do. You can in fact, very efficiently kill anything in CS except Venom Lords.
As a Support skill I took a point in Conversion, this has saved me too many times to count. When there's a stampeding horde of Venom Lords heading over to you, all you need do is switch from holy bolt to conversion, swing a couple of times with whatever you are holding and you have made some friends, the Jedi way. Then just fall back and wait for somebody to show up who can kill those Venom Lords. Or just walk far away.
Sometimes I just convert a single enemy to take the damage from his friends while I pelt them with bolts from a safe distance.
A amusing and very confusing to some of the other players, side-effect of my conversion habbits is that more often then not, there will be few Venom Lords running around when Diablo appears.
This was quite a long read and for those who stuck with me so far and read it all, cudos to you and I hope you will give this build a honest go before you condemn it.
If you have any suggestions or questions, just pop them under here.
First off, my gear :
basically max skills, the better you heal.
So Tarn, +2 amu, +2 Pala scepter with +3 holy bolt, Silks, +2 pala shield and 2 SoJs.
Magefists for FCR, the amu also has 10FCR
res from boots, belt, shield and fire res on the amu(heck, I spend most of my time in CS anyway, since there are lots of undead to kill there, so might aswell get fire res)
Still, most of my res is near zero in Hell, cept for Fire res, that's 75.
The weapon can be any +2 and if you happen to find a +2 scepter with either +Holy Bolt, +Prayer or +meditation, mayber 2 of those or all three of those, you would be a better healer offcourse, but it's not mandatory. Same with the SoJs and harder to get +2 gear, just upgrade if you get your hands on it.
10FC rings with either mana or res will do very nicely to replace the SoJs.
The ideal weapon would be a +2 scepter with +3 Holy Bolt, +3 prayer, +3 meditation and 10fcr. Good luck shopping that one. :)
Stats :
Str for gear, in my case Silks was the heaviest, so 100 str and the rest in vit.
You could stick some in energy (up to 50 or so) if you are relatively certain you won't be able to free up SoJs any time soon.
As for skills :
These make up most of the healing part
Max Prayer, synergizes for the below 2.
Max Holy Bolt, gets more healing per shot from prayer
Level 8 meditation, gets more healing per 2 seconds from prayer.
With all the +skills, the meditation has a nice range at level 18.
Note that +skills on prayer still work trough as synergies, it's the only synergy which does that.
Then I figured I would be more usefull to my parties with more versetile aura's, so I got all of them (cept the single res ones) at level 1, making them all level 11 with the +skills. This would be the part most people might skip or find wastefull. But I like it, I can serve up any of the aura's required and even FoH or Hammer Venom Lords to death given enough time or when there are few players in the game.
Later on, I discovered the awesome power of Holy bolt as a weapon against undead, so I have been maxing FoH and Blessed Hammer since to get a lot of damage to undead per holy bolt. Poor Seis eats 2 Holy Bolts and dies with the third shot.(in a 8 player game)
Most of the Storm Casters perish after 2 shots.
Personally, I am happy to have all the aura's, but one could also choose to go the offensive way and get max Holy bolt damage first.
With enough FCR you will spend your time switching between healing party members and killing undead. Delivery of the bolts is swift and they only cost 2 mana to cast, so with Meditation on, even when you are continually mana drained, you will be able to cast holy bolts at full speed.
One major problem people sometimes have a hard time to understand is that the Holy bolt does not pass trough somebody even though it looks like that on other people's screen.
Things it does pass trough :
Monsters and Demons.
aka, you can still heal somebody who is surrounded by the Infector's pack as long as you can get a lock on this party member.
Things it does not pass trough :
partymembers
minions
party members minions
- valks
- skeletons (and mages)
- revives
- golems
- mercs
When people see this stream of holy bolts they are magically drawn to it. If there are new players in the CS, briefly explain to them that they should not stand between you and the one you are healing. Some have a small grasp of how it works and might walk into the stream to get themselves healed, they too need to be convienced you know what you are doing and will get to them in due time. Their health might seem more important to them at that time, but when the party tank dies cause you couldn't heal him, the next target will be this person who was in the way. When your original target dies, your lock ends, the healing ends and the fool who jumped in will be dead before you can get a lock.
I allways knew minions where a problem because they are brainless and just run right into the path of the bolts. But it seems people can be just as brainless. Point out to minion baring people that they do not need their minions. As long as you can heal the party tank, the tank will not die and they are safe.
I have noticed that people do not realise exactly who is killing the undead so fast. They have a hard enough time grasping the concept of healing, let alone somebody who kills undead so fast and efficiently from a long distance. So far I did not bother to try and explain it. I wager if somebody understands they will show it by running behind some undead, causing my bolts to cut them down like good old Painless(Predator, the movie).
The first thing people might notice is the mana regeneration from the meditation aura, although most don't notice it the first 5 games, eventually hammerdins will realise they don't need to stand still to redeem corpses, they can just move on to the next target since they will get recharged on the way there. Their life will still be full anyway because of the holy bolts.
Later on people might notice one of the two types healing. They will presume you to be a FoHdin, you'll know better, they might some day understand. :)
At this time my paladin's meditation regenerates mana +725% and heals 47 life per 2 seconds (This is without BO)
IIRC, my paladins Holy Bolt heals 260-536 life per shot and does 6635-7635 damage to undead per shot.
This is by no means a powerbuild, since you can't clean out CS on your own, but it will boost the effectiveness of any party. Be it people who just started , veterans of 94+ or anything inbetween. They will all want you back on the team once they realise what it is you do. You can in fact, very efficiently kill anything in CS except Venom Lords.
As a Support skill I took a point in Conversion, this has saved me too many times to count. When there's a stampeding horde of Venom Lords heading over to you, all you need do is switch from holy bolt to conversion, swing a couple of times with whatever you are holding and you have made some friends, the Jedi way. Then just fall back and wait for somebody to show up who can kill those Venom Lords. Or just walk far away.
Sometimes I just convert a single enemy to take the damage from his friends while I pelt them with bolts from a safe distance.
A amusing and very confusing to some of the other players, side-effect of my conversion habbits is that more often then not, there will be few Venom Lords running around when Diablo appears.
This was quite a long read and for those who stuck with me so far and read it all, cudos to you and I hope you will give this build a honest go before you condemn it.
If you have any suggestions or questions, just pop them under here.