Ouallada
10-06-2007, 04:12
1.0 Introduction:
A dreamer is, in this case, a paladin that relies on dual dream runewords (helm and shield), to stack two level 15 holy shock auras, giving a level 30 holy shock aura. Let us take a closer look at what a level 30 holy shock aura gives to us dreamers:
Radius: 23.3 yards
Lightning damage: 1 – 1668 lightning damage to your attack
Pulse lightning damage: 1 – 278
I know, it looks a little underwhelming and wimpy at the moment. Let me clarify a few things first. Any +skill items that you have, such as an annihilus charm, for instance, will not add to the holy shock level that the dual dreams give you. That means that the holy shock aura that you get is FIXED at level 30, no more, no less. Another common question is whether or not the holy shock auras can be synergized, because they are not the paladin’s own aura but given by items. The answer is a resounding yes, and as we move on to that portion of the guide, you will quickly see that the damage provided by the level 30 holy shock is not as wimpy as it looks. This guide is primarily for pvp, and I will answer questions about how to customize for players without access to expensive gear. Some of the gear listed here would be worth three figures of hrs on west easily, such as some of the rares you will see mentioned later.
2.0 Skills:
2.1 Necessary skills:
Like all other builds, a dreamer has necessary skills and non-necessary skills, meaning there is room for customization even within a narrow build. Take note of pre-requisites, which I will not mention.
1) Resist lightning (max) – This speaks for itself. It is a synergy for holy shock, and when maxed out, you get the following holy shock damage:
Lightning damage: 1 – 5761
Pulse lightning damage: 3 – 945
Not so wimpy now, is it? Wait, there is more to come.
2) Smite (1point +) – It is a pre-requisite. Some variants of dreamers will choose to add more to this skill. Will touch on this more later in the guide.
3) Charge (1point – max) - It is a pre-requisite, and also your main form of movement. You will be charging around very often. If you max it, charge will also be your killer skill.
4) Holy shield (max) – Why holy shield is necessary is obvious in a melee paladin. You will not have good defense if you do not max this, and holy shield gives you better smite damage as well. It is basically a trade-off between holy shield and smite for quite a few of your skill points. I will cover this in more depth in the PvP section of the guide.
5) Zeal (1point – max) – Like smite and holy shield, it will be a trade off between zeal and charge as your main form of attack. Both have their pros and cons. My personal preference is to choose charge as the main killer, and to have zeal as a backup, but I will discuss the most important trade-off this build has to make later in the pvp section.
6) Fanaticism (1point) – Fanaticism gives ed, ar and ias. This helps zeal and smite, particularly the latter. This is a must.
7) Conviction: (Add to level 25) – This will be the aura you have running most of the time. It gives – 92% defense and -150% resist all to your opponents. The reduced defense allows dreamers to hit most characters easily, while the huge reduction in resists ensures that whatever elemental damage is dealt will not be fully resisted.
2.2 Non-necessary skills:
This section will cover the rest of the skills that could be used, depending on your style.
1) Salvation: The second synergy that holy shock has. Consider using this to increase your holy shock damage further.
2) Might: A synergy for charge. Consider adding to this if you go down the charge route
3) Vigour: The second charge synergy. Has defiance as a pre-requisite, but is such a utility skill that the one extra point could be worth it.
4) Smite/Holy shield: If you are still stuck on the trade-off to be made between these two skills, you may want to dump spare points into these. They will help you when you need to smite, and that situation comes more often than you might think.
3.0 Stats:
Strength: Add enough to carry your most strength intensive gear. If a CoA were to be your most strength-intensive gear, then you should add only enough to hit 174 str. The lesser points into strength, the better.
Dext: Enough to hit 75% block. Use block calculators to calculate the amount of dexterity that is needed.
Vitality: Every single spare point should go into vita.
Energy: None should go in here.
4.0 Gear:
4.1 Helms: Only one real choice here. Dream helm, preferably made in a superior bone visage.
io + jah + pul
10% Chance To Cast Level 15 Confuse When Struck
Level 15 Holy Shock Aura When Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery (varies)
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense (varies)
+10 To Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+0.625-61.875 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
All Resistances +5-20 (varies)
15-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (varies)
4.2 Shields: Only one main choice. Dream made on a sacred targe with high inherent resists (40+, but 35+ will suffice). For both dreams, I stress that you should reroll them until you get good rolls. The dreams give you a lot of good modifiers, and it is better to roll until you get them from your primary pieces of equipment than to rotate charms or other gear to obtain certain breakpoints and resist stack. You should roll until you get at least the 48fhr breakpoint from both dreams alone, and you should get at least 28res all on the dreams, sacred targe resists notwithstanding. This is the bare minimum.
Other alternatives:
Stormshield (ber): At times, you will need dr, and your holy shock damage will be absorbed/stacked against, and this nice little shield allows you to obtain 38dr, while having block modifiers that allows you to maintain max block.
Sanctuary: This runeword should be made on a sacred targe, and should only be used in very extreme cases, such as when you are up against a doom-wielding blizzard sorc with a 20/20 shield.
4.3 Armours:
Chains of honour: Primarily used against casters. Gives great resists, 2 skills and 8dr.
Enigma: No guide is ever complete without having this as an option. They are extremely useful in certain duels, especially against bone necromancers who think nothing of spamming bone prison or bone wall. The 45frw does not hurt either, although it does not increase charge speed.
Lionheart: A cheaper alternative: Has strength, dext, life, vitality and resists to make it an extremely viable choice.
Shaftstop (ber): Your saving grace against melee. Providing a maximum of 38dr with a ber, up this armour and use this against melee characters.
4.4 Weapons:
Doom Zerk: This option works the best if you are going for an overall pub build, as the holy freeze aura gives you almost autowins against amazons, while stopping sorcs from running away after their energy shields have been depleted. As an added bonus, other opponents will find it hard to desync against you with holy freeze active, and as long as they do not stack, you should not be hit by any melee attack. Do note that salvation also synergises the holy freeze that doom provides. When rolling a doom, always aim for better –cold resists over ed.
Grief Zerk: You will need to smite when in melee dogfights, especially when you have been absorbed. This is the only real option you have. A pb works if you do not have any other ias, due to the ias that fanaticism gives, but a zerk has one extra range, which is important for both charging and smiting, as well as zealing where necessary.
Crescent Moon Zerk: A perennially overlooked weapon. This is the hardest hitting weapon you have in your arsenal, due to the -35% lightning resists that this runeword has. When used with conviction, it is not hard to see why it is going to be hard for opponents to stack against you. This weapon is the one of choice if you are primarily against casters.
Beast Zerk: Useful if you need confirmed hits against casters due to fanaticism’s ar, and a faster zeal, and if you want to turn into a bear for the fun of it. Can be useful if you need to charge and have a higher chance of hitting melee chars with high defense.
Rare Cruel/fool’s/ias weapons: Extremely rare and expensive, but very worth it if you have one. It will need to hit at least 5frame zeal with a 40/15 or a shael inside, depending on what other gear you use. The AR from fool’s is the single largest source of AR in the game, beside the complete angelic combo. This is useful for charging and zealing high defense characters. Barbs and paladins fall into this category, although this option is primarily for the former.
Glimmershred: A weapon of surprise. You will not be aiming to charge and hit with glimmershred, but very few people will be expecting this. As the damage from dream stacks onto this weapon, and with conviction lowering all resistances, it is hard to stack against glimmershred’s multiple sources of damage. A great form of surprise.
4.5 Amulet:
Mara’s Kaleidoscope: Almost no guide is complete without mentioning mara’s, and every non-fcr amulet will be compared to mara’s. 5 to all attribures, 2 skills and huge resists. There is nothing to dislike about this amulet.
Highlord’s wrath: If you want to use a grief zerk, consider using highlord’s. It has deadly strike, which means that you have more physical damage when you charge or zeal, has 20ias, which allows you to stack IAS to use a griefz to smite at the fastest possible speed. It adds lightning damage and resists to boot.
Metalgrid: My personal favourite: Better resists than mara’s, huge ar and huge defense, the latter two posing huge problems to dreamers in typical situations, means you kill not one, but three birds with this stone.
Rare ammy: A rare amulet could easily be better than mara’s, and you would be looking for a 2pally/high str and dex/life/mana/res amulet. They will be extremely hard to find, and extremely expensive though, but for those of you lucky enough to own one, this is the place for it to shine.
Angelic amulet: For angelic combo (one ring/ammy)
4.6 Belt:
Thundergod’s vigour: Strength, vitality, increased lightning resistances. These attributes makes this belt a very attractive belt.
Verdungo’s hearty cord: Huge vitality, fhr and up to 15%dr. This is an excellent belt indeed, and together with other gear choices, should give you maximum dr when you need it.
Arachnid’s mesh: Alright, which guide is complete without mentioning this? One to all skills, 20fcr for teleporting when enigma is switched in, plus some slow target to use in certain duels. A very attractive choice as well.
Rare belt: You would aim for a belt with 24fhr/25+str/50+life/res. These belts allow you to wear a lot of you more strength intensive gear without adding points, solves fhr problems and gives increased resists. The drawback? They can also be ridiculously expensive, and you can be dependent on them, meaning you NEED the strength on these belts to wear equipment. However, do not get me wrong. They are a fantastic option indeed. For those who dislike stashing, you may want to stick with such a belt.
Hsarus’ belt: For boot/belt combo.
4.7 Rings:
Ravenfrost: One ring needs to be a ravenfrost. Nothing more needs to be said. Try to get a 20dex one with as high AR as possible. The dex is needed for max block, while the AR is needed to solve a dreamer’s AR woes. Did I mention that they give you the “cannot be frozen” mod? Or very nice mana? Or cold damage? Enough said. You can even use dual ravenfrosts.
BK ring/SoJ: Once again, every guide needs to mention these. These will give you a higher BO, which translates into higher life, mana, defense, ar and so on. A BK would generally be better, because the extra life is more important.
Rare ring: IF, and that is a big IF, you have access to a AR/str/dex/life/mana ring, with high enough stats of each mod, use it. That is all that needs to be said. The AR you lose from a second ravenfrost will need to be made up elsewhere.
Angelic ring: For angelic combo.
4.8 Boots:
Waterwalks: 15dex, increased fire resists, 65 life, frw. What else could you want from boots? Ok, maybe fhr and tri-resists, but that is another story for another pair of boots. I strongly recommend these.
Sandstorm treks: Up to 15str and 15vita. Huge defense if eth. Up to 70poison resist. 20fhr. Brilliant pair of boots, if waterwalks were not so hard to beat. Give this serious consideration.
Shadow dancers: 25dex, 30frw, 30fhr. Wow, wow and WOW. If you decide to have your strength that high for whatever reasons, use these boots. If not for their strength requirements, they would be the best boots in the game.
Rare boots: Here we go again with the rares. Those of you who love to stack your resists higher than a pile of pancakes on Christmas eve could consider a pair of boots that has 10fhr/30frw/tri resists. Frw is not really necessary, but the rest are. A good pair would be ridiculously expensive, to the tune of a few hundred hrs (on west).
Hsarus’ Boots: For boot/belt combo.
4.9 Gloves:
Bloodfists: You get 40life, 30fhr and 10ias, all for a pair of gloves that cost a couple of pgems. There is nothing to complain about here.
Rare gloves: You would need a pair which has 20ias/highstr/highdex/res, and it would beat bloodfists most of the time.
4.10 Inventory:
Torch: Speaks for itself. As high as possible.
Annihilus: Speaks for itself. As high as possible.
Ar/life charms: Do not use plain ar charms. Use at least decent ar/life charms of any size to fill half your inventory. This is an ideal case. If you do not have ar/life charms, use what you have, and fill the spaces with 20life scs, and use the angelic combo.
Ar/other mod charms: As per ar/life charms. The other mods would be fhr, or perhaps frw, but the priority would be the former.
Resist/life charms: You will need enough resists from your charms and other gear to stack about 50 over for each element, which is really easy if coh and mara’s are used, for example. Any lacking resistances can be derived from charms. When I say 50 over, I mean 50 over whatever your max resists are for an element. If you have 80 fire resists, then you need to stack 50 more fire resist on top of the 80 max resist which you need. The same applies for the other elements.
Pcombs: Not very useful to this build, but you could use a couple with mods (life/fhr) to increase your defense, damage and ar.
Lightning damage/life scs: Only use scs for these. These should only be used if you have taken care of your other needs in the ar/resist department. Give quite a bit more damage with conviction on.
Stash:
From the above gear I mentioned, keep those that would suit your wants from this build the best and which you cannot fit into your primary build into the stash. This would include Griefz, for example, if you use crescent moon as the primary choice. Certain stash items should also be added, like snowclash against blizz sorcs, possibly hotspurs against fire sorcs if you wish, and so on.
5.0 PvM:
Leecher: Speaks for itself. Equip yourself with safety gear and leech. People will never make noise at you, because you are a walking act2 infinity merc who is not so stupid as to poke every oblivion knight you see in chaos.
Zeal: Equip crescent moon. Phase blade is better here, as you have better ias, indestructibility and most importantly, you deal low physical damage, and can survive iron maiden. Have smite to deal with ubers if you wish.
Charge: Difficult to use this in pvm, but have an A1 faith merc, and use conviction and grief to charge everything you see.
Gear changes for pvm: You may want to equip enigma for faster movement. Also, gore riders is useful for crushing blow against bosses and allows you to do ubers. Dracul’s grasp gives life tap as well as life leech for survivability in pvm, as well as great open wounds for bosses and uber.
Continued in next post.
A dreamer is, in this case, a paladin that relies on dual dream runewords (helm and shield), to stack two level 15 holy shock auras, giving a level 30 holy shock aura. Let us take a closer look at what a level 30 holy shock aura gives to us dreamers:
Radius: 23.3 yards
Lightning damage: 1 – 1668 lightning damage to your attack
Pulse lightning damage: 1 – 278
I know, it looks a little underwhelming and wimpy at the moment. Let me clarify a few things first. Any +skill items that you have, such as an annihilus charm, for instance, will not add to the holy shock level that the dual dreams give you. That means that the holy shock aura that you get is FIXED at level 30, no more, no less. Another common question is whether or not the holy shock auras can be synergized, because they are not the paladin’s own aura but given by items. The answer is a resounding yes, and as we move on to that portion of the guide, you will quickly see that the damage provided by the level 30 holy shock is not as wimpy as it looks. This guide is primarily for pvp, and I will answer questions about how to customize for players without access to expensive gear. Some of the gear listed here would be worth three figures of hrs on west easily, such as some of the rares you will see mentioned later.
2.0 Skills:
2.1 Necessary skills:
Like all other builds, a dreamer has necessary skills and non-necessary skills, meaning there is room for customization even within a narrow build. Take note of pre-requisites, which I will not mention.
1) Resist lightning (max) – This speaks for itself. It is a synergy for holy shock, and when maxed out, you get the following holy shock damage:
Lightning damage: 1 – 5761
Pulse lightning damage: 3 – 945
Not so wimpy now, is it? Wait, there is more to come.
2) Smite (1point +) – It is a pre-requisite. Some variants of dreamers will choose to add more to this skill. Will touch on this more later in the guide.
3) Charge (1point – max) - It is a pre-requisite, and also your main form of movement. You will be charging around very often. If you max it, charge will also be your killer skill.
4) Holy shield (max) – Why holy shield is necessary is obvious in a melee paladin. You will not have good defense if you do not max this, and holy shield gives you better smite damage as well. It is basically a trade-off between holy shield and smite for quite a few of your skill points. I will cover this in more depth in the PvP section of the guide.
5) Zeal (1point – max) – Like smite and holy shield, it will be a trade off between zeal and charge as your main form of attack. Both have their pros and cons. My personal preference is to choose charge as the main killer, and to have zeal as a backup, but I will discuss the most important trade-off this build has to make later in the pvp section.
6) Fanaticism (1point) – Fanaticism gives ed, ar and ias. This helps zeal and smite, particularly the latter. This is a must.
7) Conviction: (Add to level 25) – This will be the aura you have running most of the time. It gives – 92% defense and -150% resist all to your opponents. The reduced defense allows dreamers to hit most characters easily, while the huge reduction in resists ensures that whatever elemental damage is dealt will not be fully resisted.
2.2 Non-necessary skills:
This section will cover the rest of the skills that could be used, depending on your style.
1) Salvation: The second synergy that holy shock has. Consider using this to increase your holy shock damage further.
2) Might: A synergy for charge. Consider adding to this if you go down the charge route
3) Vigour: The second charge synergy. Has defiance as a pre-requisite, but is such a utility skill that the one extra point could be worth it.
4) Smite/Holy shield: If you are still stuck on the trade-off to be made between these two skills, you may want to dump spare points into these. They will help you when you need to smite, and that situation comes more often than you might think.
3.0 Stats:
Strength: Add enough to carry your most strength intensive gear. If a CoA were to be your most strength-intensive gear, then you should add only enough to hit 174 str. The lesser points into strength, the better.
Dext: Enough to hit 75% block. Use block calculators to calculate the amount of dexterity that is needed.
Vitality: Every single spare point should go into vita.
Energy: None should go in here.
4.0 Gear:
4.1 Helms: Only one real choice here. Dream helm, preferably made in a superior bone visage.
io + jah + pul
10% Chance To Cast Level 15 Confuse When Struck
Level 15 Holy Shock Aura When Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery (varies)
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense (varies)
+10 To Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+0.625-61.875 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
All Resistances +5-20 (varies)
15-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (varies)
4.2 Shields: Only one main choice. Dream made on a sacred targe with high inherent resists (40+, but 35+ will suffice). For both dreams, I stress that you should reroll them until you get good rolls. The dreams give you a lot of good modifiers, and it is better to roll until you get them from your primary pieces of equipment than to rotate charms or other gear to obtain certain breakpoints and resist stack. You should roll until you get at least the 48fhr breakpoint from both dreams alone, and you should get at least 28res all on the dreams, sacred targe resists notwithstanding. This is the bare minimum.
Other alternatives:
Stormshield (ber): At times, you will need dr, and your holy shock damage will be absorbed/stacked against, and this nice little shield allows you to obtain 38dr, while having block modifiers that allows you to maintain max block.
Sanctuary: This runeword should be made on a sacred targe, and should only be used in very extreme cases, such as when you are up against a doom-wielding blizzard sorc with a 20/20 shield.
4.3 Armours:
Chains of honour: Primarily used against casters. Gives great resists, 2 skills and 8dr.
Enigma: No guide is ever complete without having this as an option. They are extremely useful in certain duels, especially against bone necromancers who think nothing of spamming bone prison or bone wall. The 45frw does not hurt either, although it does not increase charge speed.
Lionheart: A cheaper alternative: Has strength, dext, life, vitality and resists to make it an extremely viable choice.
Shaftstop (ber): Your saving grace against melee. Providing a maximum of 38dr with a ber, up this armour and use this against melee characters.
4.4 Weapons:
Doom Zerk: This option works the best if you are going for an overall pub build, as the holy freeze aura gives you almost autowins against amazons, while stopping sorcs from running away after their energy shields have been depleted. As an added bonus, other opponents will find it hard to desync against you with holy freeze active, and as long as they do not stack, you should not be hit by any melee attack. Do note that salvation also synergises the holy freeze that doom provides. When rolling a doom, always aim for better –cold resists over ed.
Grief Zerk: You will need to smite when in melee dogfights, especially when you have been absorbed. This is the only real option you have. A pb works if you do not have any other ias, due to the ias that fanaticism gives, but a zerk has one extra range, which is important for both charging and smiting, as well as zealing where necessary.
Crescent Moon Zerk: A perennially overlooked weapon. This is the hardest hitting weapon you have in your arsenal, due to the -35% lightning resists that this runeword has. When used with conviction, it is not hard to see why it is going to be hard for opponents to stack against you. This weapon is the one of choice if you are primarily against casters.
Beast Zerk: Useful if you need confirmed hits against casters due to fanaticism’s ar, and a faster zeal, and if you want to turn into a bear for the fun of it. Can be useful if you need to charge and have a higher chance of hitting melee chars with high defense.
Rare Cruel/fool’s/ias weapons: Extremely rare and expensive, but very worth it if you have one. It will need to hit at least 5frame zeal with a 40/15 or a shael inside, depending on what other gear you use. The AR from fool’s is the single largest source of AR in the game, beside the complete angelic combo. This is useful for charging and zealing high defense characters. Barbs and paladins fall into this category, although this option is primarily for the former.
Glimmershred: A weapon of surprise. You will not be aiming to charge and hit with glimmershred, but very few people will be expecting this. As the damage from dream stacks onto this weapon, and with conviction lowering all resistances, it is hard to stack against glimmershred’s multiple sources of damage. A great form of surprise.
4.5 Amulet:
Mara’s Kaleidoscope: Almost no guide is complete without mentioning mara’s, and every non-fcr amulet will be compared to mara’s. 5 to all attribures, 2 skills and huge resists. There is nothing to dislike about this amulet.
Highlord’s wrath: If you want to use a grief zerk, consider using highlord’s. It has deadly strike, which means that you have more physical damage when you charge or zeal, has 20ias, which allows you to stack IAS to use a griefz to smite at the fastest possible speed. It adds lightning damage and resists to boot.
Metalgrid: My personal favourite: Better resists than mara’s, huge ar and huge defense, the latter two posing huge problems to dreamers in typical situations, means you kill not one, but three birds with this stone.
Rare ammy: A rare amulet could easily be better than mara’s, and you would be looking for a 2pally/high str and dex/life/mana/res amulet. They will be extremely hard to find, and extremely expensive though, but for those of you lucky enough to own one, this is the place for it to shine.
Angelic amulet: For angelic combo (one ring/ammy)
4.6 Belt:
Thundergod’s vigour: Strength, vitality, increased lightning resistances. These attributes makes this belt a very attractive belt.
Verdungo’s hearty cord: Huge vitality, fhr and up to 15%dr. This is an excellent belt indeed, and together with other gear choices, should give you maximum dr when you need it.
Arachnid’s mesh: Alright, which guide is complete without mentioning this? One to all skills, 20fcr for teleporting when enigma is switched in, plus some slow target to use in certain duels. A very attractive choice as well.
Rare belt: You would aim for a belt with 24fhr/25+str/50+life/res. These belts allow you to wear a lot of you more strength intensive gear without adding points, solves fhr problems and gives increased resists. The drawback? They can also be ridiculously expensive, and you can be dependent on them, meaning you NEED the strength on these belts to wear equipment. However, do not get me wrong. They are a fantastic option indeed. For those who dislike stashing, you may want to stick with such a belt.
Hsarus’ belt: For boot/belt combo.
4.7 Rings:
Ravenfrost: One ring needs to be a ravenfrost. Nothing more needs to be said. Try to get a 20dex one with as high AR as possible. The dex is needed for max block, while the AR is needed to solve a dreamer’s AR woes. Did I mention that they give you the “cannot be frozen” mod? Or very nice mana? Or cold damage? Enough said. You can even use dual ravenfrosts.
BK ring/SoJ: Once again, every guide needs to mention these. These will give you a higher BO, which translates into higher life, mana, defense, ar and so on. A BK would generally be better, because the extra life is more important.
Rare ring: IF, and that is a big IF, you have access to a AR/str/dex/life/mana ring, with high enough stats of each mod, use it. That is all that needs to be said. The AR you lose from a second ravenfrost will need to be made up elsewhere.
Angelic ring: For angelic combo.
4.8 Boots:
Waterwalks: 15dex, increased fire resists, 65 life, frw. What else could you want from boots? Ok, maybe fhr and tri-resists, but that is another story for another pair of boots. I strongly recommend these.
Sandstorm treks: Up to 15str and 15vita. Huge defense if eth. Up to 70poison resist. 20fhr. Brilliant pair of boots, if waterwalks were not so hard to beat. Give this serious consideration.
Shadow dancers: 25dex, 30frw, 30fhr. Wow, wow and WOW. If you decide to have your strength that high for whatever reasons, use these boots. If not for their strength requirements, they would be the best boots in the game.
Rare boots: Here we go again with the rares. Those of you who love to stack your resists higher than a pile of pancakes on Christmas eve could consider a pair of boots that has 10fhr/30frw/tri resists. Frw is not really necessary, but the rest are. A good pair would be ridiculously expensive, to the tune of a few hundred hrs (on west).
Hsarus’ Boots: For boot/belt combo.
4.9 Gloves:
Bloodfists: You get 40life, 30fhr and 10ias, all for a pair of gloves that cost a couple of pgems. There is nothing to complain about here.
Rare gloves: You would need a pair which has 20ias/highstr/highdex/res, and it would beat bloodfists most of the time.
4.10 Inventory:
Torch: Speaks for itself. As high as possible.
Annihilus: Speaks for itself. As high as possible.
Ar/life charms: Do not use plain ar charms. Use at least decent ar/life charms of any size to fill half your inventory. This is an ideal case. If you do not have ar/life charms, use what you have, and fill the spaces with 20life scs, and use the angelic combo.
Ar/other mod charms: As per ar/life charms. The other mods would be fhr, or perhaps frw, but the priority would be the former.
Resist/life charms: You will need enough resists from your charms and other gear to stack about 50 over for each element, which is really easy if coh and mara’s are used, for example. Any lacking resistances can be derived from charms. When I say 50 over, I mean 50 over whatever your max resists are for an element. If you have 80 fire resists, then you need to stack 50 more fire resist on top of the 80 max resist which you need. The same applies for the other elements.
Pcombs: Not very useful to this build, but you could use a couple with mods (life/fhr) to increase your defense, damage and ar.
Lightning damage/life scs: Only use scs for these. These should only be used if you have taken care of your other needs in the ar/resist department. Give quite a bit more damage with conviction on.
Stash:
From the above gear I mentioned, keep those that would suit your wants from this build the best and which you cannot fit into your primary build into the stash. This would include Griefz, for example, if you use crescent moon as the primary choice. Certain stash items should also be added, like snowclash against blizz sorcs, possibly hotspurs against fire sorcs if you wish, and so on.
5.0 PvM:
Leecher: Speaks for itself. Equip yourself with safety gear and leech. People will never make noise at you, because you are a walking act2 infinity merc who is not so stupid as to poke every oblivion knight you see in chaos.
Zeal: Equip crescent moon. Phase blade is better here, as you have better ias, indestructibility and most importantly, you deal low physical damage, and can survive iron maiden. Have smite to deal with ubers if you wish.
Charge: Difficult to use this in pvm, but have an A1 faith merc, and use conviction and grief to charge everything you see.
Gear changes for pvm: You may want to equip enigma for faster movement. Also, gore riders is useful for crushing blow against bosses and allows you to do ubers. Dracul’s grasp gives life tap as well as life leech for survivability in pvm, as well as great open wounds for bosses and uber.
Continued in next post.