need help with pvm dreamer

[acceleration turkey]

at first i was going to do this build:

20 zeal
20 conviction
20 resist lightning
20 holy shield
prereqs

but i was thinking that 20 in zeal is possibly a waste.

here lies my question: ive never made a paladin build with conviction before, never made an avenger or anything. high level conviction lowers enemy defense by over 90% according to arreat summit. is this roughly the same thing as ITD, and if so, is it pointless to seek AR from extra zeal points when i should be putting points in sacrifice for physical damage or salvation for more lightning damage?

if high level conviction basically allows me to completely ignore attack rating either from gear or from skills, then a different build might look like:

20 salvation
20 conviction
20 resist lightning
20 holy shield
prereqs (5 in zeal)

or

20 sacrifice
20 conviction
20 resist lightning
20 holy shield
prereqs (5 in zeal)

the salvation build is appealing because salvation not only boosts lightning damage, but also synergizes vengeance. ive read that gloams are a real weak point for this build, since they have high lightning and also physical resistance, so a vengeance attack would actually be the best bet.

the sacrifice build is less appealing simply because im going to be using weapons that i think match best with the lightning damage: at first i plan to use a crescent moon weapon and then stormlash (high level requirement) for the static and crushing blow. neither of those weapons have particularly good physical damage, so boosting zeal or sacrifice seems somewhat pointless, zeal especially if the AR boost doesnt matter since conviction cuts defense by 90%.

im planning to use:
dream helm and shield,
chains,
highlords,
2x ravenfrost,
war travelors,
string of ears,
laying of hands,
and either crescent moon or stormlash.

the gear is sort of not open to change because it is all i have left at the moment. i realize this isnt ideal gear necessarily. i think a beast weapon would be best for points in zeal

to reiterate the main question: does conviction slash monster defense to the point that focusing on AR is redundant? or would 20 points in zeal be a good idea because the AR will be necessary?

[Vegetall]

Well after making a auradin, i based everything around the conviction and the resist skills.... but i did screw my guy up....

i started by maxing resist lighting, then as soon as conviction opened up i went for that but maxing it is not needed, since when it hit about 17 you get pased the 100% to resists and ur +gear will make it above that, but im not against maxing it....

then there is were i screwed up, i only did 1 pt into salvation/holy sheild, and at about lvl 60 i deceided i was going to make a dragon/dreamer out of this guy so i abandond salvation and now started adding points to resits fire...

o and i was useing vengence as my main skill with about 11 pts to that....

this probly doesnt seem like much help but, as for a main damg skill for PvM i would stick about 5 pts into zeal for the 5 hits, but lose the scarifice maxing, since all teh damg ur doing is elemental base, thats basically the build the % add through sacrifice probly wont be worth it. As for hitting, i havent noticed much missing in hell and im on act 4 since i sorta just stop this guy since i have to remake.

I made my guy around the point that i wanted to kill without swining a wep, and i can in act4 takes a few (not long) if i just run circles, and im not dealing with FI/LI guys, as of right now my build is a mess too. As for vengance i can 1-2 hit most enemys and they bust so thats fun to but its slow, and dont get much leech.

to stop my rambling with the:
20 salvation
20 conviction
20 resist lightning
20 holy shield
prereqs (5 in zeal)

build u will be doing a easy 7K light damg. And ur gear is fine maybe take out a raven for like a wisp or dawrf for fun ..

[Ludacris]

I'd go for max salvation, resist, lightning and holy shield. You only need to put around 18 points in conviction to hit lvl 25 for -150% enemy resistance. The reduced defense from conviction doesn't work like you think it does. It doen't reduce enemy's defense by 90%, but -90% enhanced defense. Which is somewhat lower. Zeal doesn't need more then 1 point, because added skills will make it hit the 5hit breakpoint. I prefer Zeal over Vengeance because of the quick attack speed and the multiple hits. You don't really need more elemental damage than you already got from dream and stormlash. You can put 1 point in vengeance to check it out yourself. I have around 12 extra skills points and I don't know what to do with them. But don't max sacrifice for the damage. It's not worth it. Go for defiance for defense or zeal for some added damage. It's up to you.


Your gear looks fine. My dreamer uses a similar setup. Instead of the LoH I use draculs and instead of Strings I use verdungo.

[acceleration turkey]

I'd go for max salvation, resist, lightning and holy shield. You only need to put around 18 points in conviction to hit lvl 25 for -150% enemy resistance. The reduced defense from conviction doesn't work like you think it does. It doen't reduce enemy's defense by 90%, but -90% enhanced defense. Which is somewhat lower. Zeal doesn't need more then 1 point, because added skills will make it hit the 5hit breakpoint. I prefer Zeal over Vengeance because of the quick attack speed and the multiple hits. You don't really need more elemental damage than you already got from dream and stormlash. You can put 1 point in vengeance to check it out yourself. I have around 12 extra skills points and I don't know what to do with them. But don't max sacrifice for the damage. It's not worth it. Go for defiance for defense or zeal for some added damage. It's up to you.


Your gear looks fine. My dreamer uses a similar setup. Instead of the LoH I use draculs and instead of Strings I use verdungo.

what monsters have flat defense that is boosted by percent? i didnt think any monsters had defense boosting abilities.

[PlayWithHonor]

what monsters have flat defense that is boosted by percent? i didnt think any monsters had defense boosting abilities.


I believe you are correct turkey. I built a Conviction Zealot and researched this quite a bit.

Conviction removes 90% of the defense rating of any monster you encounter. That is what it does and it's not any more complicated than that.

To the original posters question, yes you pretty much can ignore trying to boost up AR because you'll be hitting anything and everything while running Conviction.

[acceleration turkey]

I believe you are correct turkey. I built a Conviction Zealot and researched this quite a bit.

Conviction removes 90% of the defense rating of any monster you encounter. That is what it does and it's not any more complicated than that.

To the original posters question, yes you pretty much can ignore trying to boost up AR because you'll be hitting anything and everything while running Conviction.

thank you. i imagine then that only monster level figures strongly in chance to hit once defense is lowered by 90%, much like ignore target defense.

just to clairfy, i do understand ludacris' distinction about reducing by a % and reducing overall. for instance, the curse "weaken" when used against a pack of monsters whose boss has a might or fanaticism aura will be fairly ineffective because the -33% comes off the top of the %boost from the damage aura, not 33% overall damage.

but again, ive never heard of a monster with a defense boosting ability. there are no defiance monster packs that i am aware of.

[PlayWithHonor]

thank you. i imagine then that only monster level figures strongly in chance to hit once defense is lowered by 90%, much like ignore target defense.

just to clairfy, i do understand ludacris' distinction about reducing by a % and reducing overall. for instance, the curse "weaken" when used against a pack of monsters whose boss has a might or fanaticism aura will be fairly ineffective because the -33% comes off the top of the %boost from the damage aura, not 33% overall damage.

but again, ive never heard of a monster with a defense boosting ability. there are no defiance monster packs that i am aware of.


I did some digging through some Diablo resources and that is exactly right. So ludacris is technically correct and I am technically wrong.

"In the defense rating equation, +%def and -%def from skills are put in the same parenthesis, meaning -%def doesn't work on the final defense of the enemy character" ABasin

But for PvM, as you noted Turkey, monsters don't run around with Defiance auras so this isn't going to be an issue for you. For a PvM player, Conviction really will just reduce the monsters defense by that %.

[acceleration turkey]

I did some digging through some Diablo resources and that is exactly right. So ludacris is technically correct and I am technically wrong.

"In the defense rating equation, +%def and -%def from skills are put in the same parenthesis, meaning -%def doesn't work on the final defense of the enemy character" ABasin

But for PvM, as you noted Turkey, monsters don't run around with Defiance auras so this isn't going to be an issue for you. For a PvM player, Conviction really will just reduce the monsters defense by that %.

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/bonus.shtml

i was just looking on the arreat summit and the only boss mod or champion mod that might affect defense is "stone skin" which is listed as +80% physical resist and defense x3.

i dont know if the game calculates this x3 as +200% defense or treats the tripled defense as a new flat value. hard to tell if stone skin counts as a "slill" in the game's calculations.

if calculates it as +200%, then convinction would be weaker against this kind of boss, since +200% - 90% would still leave +110%, or roughly double the normal defense for the monster. 90% would still cut overall defense by about 1/3, which is significant.

if the new defense of x3 is simply treated as a new flat value Y, then the 90% reduction should still reduce it to 10% x 3 overall, or 30% of normal defense (x), which would be a dramatic defense cut.

my experience using battle cry with the barbarian is that defense cut abilities provide pretty dramatic results. ive never used other defense cutting skills, such as inner sight or cloak of shadows, but with battle cry, i seemed to exhibit excellent chance to hit against normal monsters no matter my listed chance, to the point that i would describe the effective chance to hit as a little worse than ITD, maybe 85%. the difference was less dramatic against enemies like baal, probably because of the level disparity. 1 point in battle cry, with skill boosts and echoing weapons on switch yeilds about 70% defense cut, hence my interest in what a 90% defense cut could do.

[Ludacris]

I'm sorry. I meant in PvP ofc. You are right about the pvm bit.