A New Kind of Paladin in the making: Enchanted Conviction Ranger

[Fearlessone]

Last week I decided to finally make a conviction pally. He was twinked with a few humble items and got up to a respectable level. I wasnt sure at all what to do with him, where he would go. While waiting for Conviction at lvl 30, he got 5 points into Holy Shield, and down to Vengence and Conversion for future protection. He has a few points into Cleansing and Vigor. Stats: 35dex, 80+str, rest in vitality. Getting from lvl 20 to 30 always seems to take me the most time in this game, so I had my enchantress come into the game and she gave him her RavenClaw and lvl 28 enchant.

At lvl 30 the Conviction started to roll. I entered nm cows and cleaned up the place. Conviction is maxed now. Before his conviction was maxed, and just before leaving Nm, chaos sanct games were a breeze, but not a blowout. I guessed that he would be able to use this bow in late hell, even in full games, but it would be unimpressive (I was wrong).

Vengence test. I came across a 120 Naga and put on some spare +str items to get the necessary 121 str. My conviction was high at this point. +2 pally shield and +2 pally ammy. Sigs gloves and helm for the ias and attackrating. At lvl 1 vengence + skills=lvl5, the result was very unimpressive. Now I will guess that his damage will be roughly twice, and maybe less, than at lvl20+4skills=24. (Lvl1= +70% elemental dmg, lvl20=+180%, but remember physical dmg from the weapons listed damage and str contribution will remain the same). Now add synergy damage. There is a great flexibility here, but not a great # of skill points to add to them. My pally currently has 50+ unspent skill points and a possibility of getting maybe 5 more, ever. Maxing salvation will add another 40% to damage, presumably just elemental. Since he will be spending the rest of his life in the hell cs, fire dmg isnt going to help much, unless its tremendous, so the ResistFire synergy isnt too promising. The only lightning immunes there are storm casters and they have a low life, so Resist Lightning is a good synergy. Well, ~4x a very unimpressive dmg is something.... but not sure if I want to go this route.

Chaos Sanctuary. This is where the new paladin will be spending the rest of his time. He will have to have full-time resists and not just occasional salvation. Oblivions wont be able to kill him with Iron Maiden, cleansing will take care of that, but if you try to melee this mage, without smite, my paladin will be constanty Decreped]/b]. That will be a drag. The hell cs is also loaded with fire immunes. The river is a great place to lvl up, only fire immunes there are the Pit Lords. But in the CS there are Venom Lords and Doom Knights, the latter whose fire immunity can be broken, but are a slow kill.

[b]Attack Rating Currently with only 35 dex and no angelic rings or partial sets that add to ar. I've saved up 85 stat points and expect another 25 on the way. My pally is lvl 85. RavenClaw apparently doesnt need an attackrating, although there was a post elsewhere that the explosive 'splash' damage to nearby monsters is affected by ar. Without a shield, using sig gloves+belt and twitch, I'm desperate for resists, so dont use the sig helm, and havent tried goblintoes. Will gtoes work with raven claw? On fire immunes? This is something to test. I use resist rings, helm and boots, and switch out my +2 junky ammy for a good resist one.

My Discovery After lvling up in nm cows and cs, I entered hell at around lvl 48 and blew thru to act4. Surprisingly, with max conviction and lvl 28+ enchant and RavenClaw, this pally is able to quickly deal away with those monsters who werent originally fire immune. He blasts his way thru the river better than any bowazon can, even one with enchant, better than my Enchantress can even. However he cant match the sorc in the cs since he doesnt easily have a damage skill like static or orbs. A sorc enchants herself with about 1400+ fire damage and then has fire mastery to augment that. (The listed dmg on the Lying Character Screen unfortunately includes xtra fire mastery and is not the true damage, its too much, they say). So its Fire Mastery versus Conviction, which is better? Conviction seems to be better. A sorc cant remove the fire immunity of doom knights in the cs. My pally can kill them, but again its slow.(they have 120% fire res, and that takes 105% conviction to bring down to 99%: 105/5=21%; all conviction past that brings their fire res down normally) Venom Lords with 180% fireres are hopeless, even with a LowResist curse on them.

This aura is very helpful to the party, assuming there are any competent sorcies or zons. Fan aura helps this build. LowRes curse is better, especially if the necro is using the accumulating corpses for minions or CE.

Where to from here?

Smiter. I've done this before, requires 60 skills to max and is somewhat slow to kill Venom Lords, Grotesques. I've put 5 into HS already on the road to being an Avenger, which is on hold.

Avenger]/b]. On hold, as a primary. Having vengence as a secondary, requires switching to a shield/weapon, and maybe even other items. And that's a real pain in classic.

[b]Foh'er. I kind of didnt want to have my next pally a hammerdin, foh'er or smiter. The idea was something new. Nevertheless, getting rid of fire immunes is a challenge. Doing Foh and a synergy are feasible and would do in the low thousands of damage per hit, with the conv aura on. There is some holy bolt dmg too, which would help against the undead doom knights.

Holy Bolter. Would eliminate doom knights and any storm casters, but not any demonic Venom Lords.

Sanctuary. Will knockback undead doom knights but not Venom Lords.

Conviction Ranger. This is what he is now. To continue using just a bow, he might be able to easily use foh, or perhaps pick up a few other helpful aura's. One such build is a...

Missionary, using a decent level of Conversion and Holy Freeze to make it safe to do the conversion and slow the mob majorly. This would provide safety for me and party and could allow resuming sniping at susceptible targets. Downside: u cannot convert with a bow, requires weapon switch. Holy Freeze might be feasible without the conversion, to get into position. Using Charge to get into position? No, doesnt work with a bow.

[NASE]

First, why would you need ar for the explosion to with, that is just not true as far as I know. The explosion is not affected by ar, however. The arrow it self is, so if you want to do double fire damage, you need ar. Luckily enchant, explosion arrow both give good ar boost.

In your comparision between your paladin and the enchant sorc, you ar counting fire mastry once to much. The fire mastery will only applie why enchant is casted and not when the explosion hits. Making the comparision one between conviction and notting. Count in the probable faster attack from the paladin. I'm not surprised he's faster.

I don't think you paladin is better then a good amazon. A bowazon doesn't have to change anything in the setup in order clear chaos at a good rate. They only need a one point explosion arrow after which they can't just do as they normally do with huge fire damage. And they have maxed pierce.

And this is my next points. Get pierce, as much as you can get. So certainly razortails and perhaps demon machine or Kuko Shakaku. It will greatly increase your damage. Then only problem is that these are a bit slow, so more ias would be nice.
Note that an amazon can shoot with faith at 7 fpa, have maxed pierce and good physical damage. If they want, a conviction merc can bring there fire damage up, although concentration is probably better. Your paladon will need a faith merc to get to 7fpa, if he even can get there with those bows. Brand might be the best strong option, though it lack pierce.

[Kevin William Cox]

First, why would you need ar for the explosion to with, that is just not true as far as I know. The explosion is not affected by ar, however. The arrow it self is, so if you want to do double fire damage, you need ar. Luckily enchant, explosion arrow both give good ar boost.

In your comparision between your paladin and the enchant sorc, you ar counting fire mastry once to much. The fire mastery will only applie why enchant is casted and not when the explosion hits. Making the comparision one between conviction and notting. Count in the probable faster attack from the paladin. I'm not surprised he's faster.

I don't think you paladin is better then a good amazon. A bowazon doesn't have to change anything in the setup in order clear chaos at a good rate. They only need a one point explosion arrow after which they can't just do as they normally do with huge fire damage. And they have maxed pierce.

And this is my next points. Get pierce, as much as you can get. So certainly razortails and perhaps demon machine or Kuko Shakaku. It will greatly increase your damage. Then only problem is that these are a bit slow, so more ias would be nice.
Note that an amazon can shoot with faith at 7 fpa, have maxed pierce and good physical damage. If they want, a conviction merc can bring there fire damage up, although concentration is probably better. Your paladon will need a faith merc to get to 7fpa, if he even can get there with those bows. Brand might be the best strong option, though it lack pierce.



Welcome to CLASSIC!!!!!!!






Kev

[Monzee]

First, why would you need ar for the explosion to with, that is just not true as far as I know. The explosion is not affected by ar, however. The arrow it self is, so if you want to do double fire damage, you need ar. Luckily enchant, explosion arrow both give good ar boost.

In your comparision between your paladin and the enchant sorc, you ar counting fire mastry once to much. The fire mastery will only applie why enchant is casted and not when the explosion hits. Making the comparision one between conviction and notting. Count in the probable faster attack from the paladin. I'm not surprised he's faster.

I don't think you paladin is better then a good amazon. A bowazon doesn't have to change anything in the setup in order clear chaos at a good rate. They only need a one point explosion arrow after which they can't just do as they normally do with huge fire damage. And they have maxed pierce.

And this is my next points. Get pierce, as much as you can get. So certainly razortails and perhaps demon machine or Kuko Shakaku. It will greatly increase your damage. Then only problem is that these are a bit slow, so more ias would be nice.
Note that an amazon can shoot with faith at 7 fpa, have maxed pierce and good physical damage. If they want, a conviction merc can bring there fire damage up, although concentration is probably better. Your paladon will need a faith merc to get to 7fpa, if he even can get there with those bows. Brand might be the best strong option, though it lack pierce.

Note that this is classic and that we do not have / nor do we want access to overpowered runewords such as faith etc.

[Fearlessone]

Well, this response seemed applicable until the last paragraph. I read somewhere else that the attack rating mattered in the chance that explosive part would transfer to nearby monsters. AR doesnt seem to matter whether the enchanted arrow hits its target.

When u enchant a sorc, is the listed damage on the LCS really the damage you will dole out? I see stuff like 4800 or so sometimes with a staff. But the enchant skill says its 1300-1700 at lvls 28-31. I read that what u see on the char screen is wrong....

Pally vs Sorc in attack speed. Yah, the pally might be inately faster with regular attack. This is something easy to test. Just get a watch out and count arrows.

Pally vs Sorc in ability to kill certain monsters. Urdars have 75% fire res. Oblivion Knights are up there too. With conviction those 2 very important and strong monsters are quickly annhilated. This is why the enchanted paladin is more powerful in the river, esp in those 50% of games where Pit Lords dont spawn.

Pally vs Amazon. I admit, I've never used anything outside of strafe with some pierce and critical hit with a zon. I think here you are thinking of LoD thruout ur entire descrip of zons abilities. They have a real hard time from what I've seen in clearing out cs, even in a group with concentration aura. I see bowazons only using frozen arrows, strafe or ms in cs games, very rarely explosive arrows. Anyway, most of the monsters in cs are fire immune (a conviction merc would be nice!) and even with massive fire damage, the only dmg that would go thru with them is base bow dmg+dex. Conviction strips away immunity from Pit Lords and Doom Knights, but not by much.

[phool]

The LCS is incorrect when using ravenclaw on an enchantress in classic as it applies fire mastery bonus twice which should only be done when using melee weapons.

Stuff like this is way more suited to lod with items like dream, infinity, dragon, etc. I don't really like the idea of a build entirely reliant on another build but it would work and better than an enchantress by themselves.

attack speed breakpoints - most off-weapon IAS you can get in classic is 60 (sigon gloves+non-belt part of sigon+twitch+goldwrap). A paladin's fastest possible attack rate is hit at 48% IAS for 11 fpa, for the sorceress it's 42% IAS for 12 fpa. Incidentally if you have a level 24 fanaticism a paladin will reach their top possible 9 fpa with 32% IAS, not really a massive improvement. (I use the german calc btw) Max res and 50% IAS with a bow is not easy to get at all though.

You don't mention tesladin as an alternative secondary route, I think it's what I'd go for personally. Zeal with holy shock+synergies (salvation, resist lightning) on top of the conviction. A fire-orientated projectile build is never going to be amazing in hell CS though even with conviction, the FIs get in the way a lot. Having to carry around weapon switches in classic is quite annoying though.

[WarlockCC]

This makes me wonder which is more common on CS. a Fire and lightning immune boss or a fire and cold immune boss ? I guess we tend to remember the ones we found most annoying, so for me personally, I think I remember more cold fire immunes cause I couldn't kill them then I remember fire lightning immunes. I guess I didn't vanture into CS much with fire based characters.

[goomba]

This makes me wonder which is more common on CS. a Fire and lightning immune boss or a fire and cold immune boss ? I guess we tend to remember the ones we found most annoying, so for me personally, I think I remember more cold fire immunes cause I couldn't kill them then I remember fire lightning immunes. I guess I didn't vanture into CS much with fire based characters.

now that I managed to squeak my blizzer to lvl 90, I started levelin my fball/meteor sorc (currently lvl 87)

seis has been a rough 50/50 split for me as to whether he's fire/cold or cold/lightning immune.

viz is VERY rarely at least in my experience immune to fire or cold in hell.

with the lower levels' in the cs's combined with what I perceive to be lower talented players these days on non-ladder, I find myself trying to solo seis, then viz immediately after the hoard kills infector.

[Fearlessone]

with the lower levels' in the cs's combined with what I perceive to be lower talented players these days on non-ladder, I find myself trying to solo seis, then viz immediately after the hoard kills infector.
If you were in my party and tried to solo 2 of the seal bosses, I would raise the Infector mob and come after you... Unfortunately the way hostiling works u cant do this. In pre 1.10 days, it was common to split things up, since the exp was doled out to anyone in the cs.

Anyways, lower levels are just all over the place lately. The number of cs games has collapsed due to baal runs. Walks on USWest used to be just as popular as cs runs last summer, but they have suffered even worse.

Back on track: The idea behind this pally was again, to try something new, which isnt always easy, and to help out in the cs with at least the conviction aura, cleansing, salvation (such as at Infector), and perhaps getting holy freeze, and/or a second attack.

Yeah, I knew someone was going to mention a tesladin, with holy shock. I've never tried one of these, completely ignorant as to how to go about them. What I thought was that conviction and holy shock cant be had at the same time. A friend of mine years ago tried one just before LoD came out, and he considered it a failed adventure.... He posted his adventures in the Paladin
Forum, long since lost.

[WarlockCC]

I don't know if a tesladin would be the way to go, since that would void the use of your conviction aura and most things in CS(mainly venom lords) have a higher lightning resist then they have cold resist(if I remember correctly).
So you would be better off with your own idea of going holy freeze, since that at least slows monsters.

How much skillpoints would you have left over for this fire-immune kill skill ? Would it be feasable to get hammers up to any amount of damage(no conc hammers can still do quite nicely)
I gather the following are preferences :
- no weapon switching
- if possible, use conviction aura(remember it also reduces defence, not just c/l/f res)


Speaking of conviction aura's, would a higher level player conviction aura cancel out a monster's conviction aura like what happens when 2 FoH-dins 'duel' ? And does anybody know what level the conviction of fector and the other seal bosses is ?(Fector has allways been most dangerous imho, since he also has massive amounts of fire damage to compliment this conviction aura)

[goomba]

If you were in my party and tried to solo 2 of the seal bosses, I would raise the Infector mob and come after you... Unfortunately the way hostiling works u cant do this. In pre 1.10 days, it was common to split things up, since the exp was doled out to anyone in the cs.

Anyways, lower levels are just all over the place lately. The number of cs games has collapsed due to baal runs. Walks on USWest used to be just as popular as cs runs last summer, but they have suffered even worse.



it's everything that most party's can muster to even kill the infector hoards...

in these weaker cs's I usually have seriously stacked FR, on top of wearing hotspurs, so your summoned infector hoard would actually have to hit me to harm me, as I'm basically immune to their bad breath :p :thumbsup:

anyway, often I find myself solo-ing both of those seal bosses simply cause everyone else has died. While I don't do a ton of dueling I also haven't died very often to a pk-cs-er either, be they a sorc, barb, or din. (usually the other classes can't hostile, and get into the cs before it's over)

I also have several sorcs, on several accounts, and have been known to come back to the next game in a cs run, and hot tp folks via seis, that chap my butt... while I then move on to kill infector/viz with my blizzer... :D

this all being said, it is also fun to fire up the lvl 92 hammerdin, and literally kill just infector, seis and viz., claggin from seal to seal. there's a ton of whining about "killing all the monsters" as party members' corpses litter the floor.

don't get me wrong, I can, and frequently play the support role, but in some of these noob cs's with kids that won't listen, refuse to take tips/hints I guess I've lost patience during the very infrequent times I happen to play lately.

[Fearlessone]

I don't know if a tesladin would be the way to go, since that would void the use of your conviction aura and most things in CS(mainly venom lords) have a higher lightning resist then they have cold resist(if I remember correctly).
So you would be better off with your own idea of going holy freeze, since that at least slows monsters.

You are right! Thx for the heads up on that. I've been so consumed about fire mastery, forgot to check out lightning. Venom Lords are 75% lightning res in hell. Unless I had another conviction aura in the game or a LR cursing necro, it would be a bear. The Doom Knights are 120% fire res, and my conviction gets them down to about 75%, and they are still a pain to kill. So I would expect the Venoms to be even a longer kill. So a Tesladin is out, unless...

There used to be a 6.5 sec or so delay in aura checks in the game. Conviction and HF used to stay on monsters for this duration while u switched to an aura that sticks to you. Now there seems to be 1-2 sec of this now; possibilities here? Conviction then switch to HolyShock and getting a good pulse in?

I will have 55 skills remaining at lvl 90 and I'm definitely NOT interested in hammers. Foh is a possibility cuz I've never done it before and it certainly goes with conviction. FoH says it has a casting delay of 1 second, but it takes about another second to cast it, is 2-2.5 sec about right? I've been doing calc as to how fast I can kill certain monsterswith these skills.

Conviction aura is very nice around ww barbs, they always hit. I've been playing around LR cursing necros and FoH pallys that use my aura, and the usual sorcies and lightning zons. Also, amazingly a holy shock paladin!!! who was using my aura to help kill off the nasty fire immunes. Talk about cooperation...

I dont know anything about cancelling conv aura's, that sounds glitchy to me.

@Goomba:

Hotspurs, havent gotten one of those yet this ladder. As for techniques to deal with the Infector, I try salvation and run around alot while the weaklings do 'some' damage. Ideally, i could get more conversion and holy freeze, that would allow even more protection.

To me the most irritating thing a person can do in a cs game is pop seals with a weak group and plently of other monsters, mages and bosses around that seal. The motto of a weak sorc:

Well, I cant kill anything, but i can pop a seal, yes i can do at least that much. Besides, killing things means tedious clicking of buttons, and its just easier to hit the seal and pick up the pieces later...

[WNxZerker]

Aura flashing no longer works.
the image of the aura may still be displayed, but only the active (active on your char) aura will be used in calculations of damage, and resists n stuff when the game checks to see how much damage you do/don't do.
so no you wont be able to put conviction on them, and then hit them with zeal and have holy shock aura active.



WNxZerker

[Akukami]

To me the most irritating thing a person can do in a cs game is pop seals with a weak group and plently of other monsters, mages and bosses around that seal. The motto of a weak sorc:

Well, I cant kill anything, but i can pop a seal, yes i can do at least that much. Besides, killing things means tedious clicking of buttons, and its just easier to hit the seal and pick up the pieces later...

That could also be the motto of a SMART weak Sorc. :thumbsup:

- Akukami

[goomba]

@Goomba:

Hotspurs, havent gotten one of those yet this ladder. As for techniques to deal with the Infector, I try salvation and run around alot while the weaklings do 'some' damage. Ideally, i could get more conversion and holy freeze, that would allow even more protection.

To me the most irritating thing a person can do in a cs game is pop seals with a weak group and plently of other monsters, mages and bosses around that seal. The motto of a weak sorc:

Well, I cant kill anything, but i can pop a seal, yes i can do at least that much. Besides, killing things means tedious clicking of buttons, and its just easier to hit the seal and pick up the pieces later...

contrary to "pure builds" all of my sorcs get 1 pt in static immediately after 1 pt in teleport. they also all get some pretty high resistance gear, and typically use twitch with a 30/20 shield and thus have decent blocking.

even when my "new" sorcs are low level, and seemingly only able to teleport, and "pop seals" one will usually find me teleporting around the hoards, zapping static a few times, then rinse, lather and repeat - which can significantly weaken the foes in that area depending on their resists.

[Fearlessone]

Aura flashing no longer work.
Good to know, but I wonder, checking out the battle.net site, they said that concerning thorns that the aura may still be on the monsters for a second or two and converting zealers need to beware. It used to be, like I said, 6.5 sec or so back in the 'glory days'. I got this info from the battle.net site---> Skills---> Paladin---> CombatSkills---> Conversion

Well, I tested gtoes and a bow. As some of you know crushing blow isnt what it used to be before 1.08. With bows, its nerfed even more, but at least it works somewhat. I used gtoes and ravenclaw(no enchant) with wormskull, for poison damage, and conviction aura on a hell urdar in a half full game. It took 70 seconds to kill him. Im going to test this on an old bowpally of mine, a lvl 91 with max fan, using a rune bow with poison dmg and gtoes. When 1.10 came, this pally seemed to be rendered obsolete, with the much higher hitpoints... So, if i can just switch the bow and pick up fan aura, this might work. I want to avoid wormskull since my resists are suffering badly.

[Akukami]

I don't know about this kind of Din, but perhaps Knockback would be of some use?

- Akukami

[Fearlessone]

Knockback - well, like I said he just cleans up in the hell river, i sometimes back up a little bit, but can slaughter the Grotesque mobs ez, have to watch out being hit by more than one urdar, no shield. In the cs, the mobs of doom knights and venom lords are too much and either slowdown, as in clegs gloves, or some kind of knockback would help. I'm not a MS zon, so i cant knockback a whole mob.

Results of test with old fan bowadin using poison 100 dmg rune bow and gtoes:

this old ranger of mine, lvl 91, was able to take out doom knights within a reasonable period of time. But venom lords just took too long. He has no protection, without a shield, and its hard to find just one lone venom lord to attack. Now, what if he used rcage+gtoes(flee and big crushing blow) with poison bow and fan aura? That's something to test, although i hate chasing monsters offscreen. Interestingly, he was able to kill diablo with gtoes.

So even if I converted a venom lord, and picked up a full fan aura, i dont see myself being able to kill him within the 16 seconds that a conversion lasts. The old school conversion lengths of 1-2 minutes were more ideal. Fan will be nice, tho, for the barbs. I will continue to test this, and might even try Coif.

[Fearlessone]

.... I will continue to test this ...

The months have passed and this conviction ranger has become a staple in cs walks. Just a few days ago he reached level 90 !!! And he is stronger than most of the usual people in the party, not a leecher. He still depends on a sorc for good chant, almost always my sorc, followed by a good bo source, often my BO barb. It would nice if there were any LResist necros, he would wipe out the doom knights ez ... sigh. He still has 43 skill points unspent, and I might go Holy Freeze/conversion (req weapon switch, cant convert with bows) for dealing with high fire res or immune mobs.

Testing: well, this went onto the backburner after I had developed this successful, dependent build. These kinds of characters have weapons and charms and mercs in Lod where they don't always require chant. In classic, melee classes hobbled by 1.10 can certainly use chant, although the cs is especially severe with the fire immunes and iron maiden. Being a ranged attacker has solved the latter difficulty. Mobs are dealt with using conversion, and hoping others can use my aura to take them out.

What about Foh, Sanctuary, Holy Shock ... for the Fire Immunes? Bow switch from RClaw to a good poison Rune bow with goblin toes? Some of these I've either tested or done some number crunching to see how far they can go. And that was last fall, and I've forgotten the exact numbers... Stay tuned to see if I can complete my Work in Progress...


This was a very nice, informative thread, worth rereading.

[HegemonKhan]

fearlessone,

for the first half of your 1st post in the thread, i'm not sure exactly what you were doing with your paladin build. you talked about many different skills and builds. i guess u didnt know what to do with your pts and tried different skills and builds testing things.

but than in the second half u talk about (or decided to go with this build) rangers.

anyways....(hopefully i'm not off topic with my below post)................
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1. first off, for hell cs and the rest of diablo 2 world, COLD is the least resisted elem damage of the 3 (lit, fire cold, excluding poison). cold is the best damage for hell cs (only the oblivion lords are cold immune, if my memory serves, and sometimes the seal bosses). though there are a few areas that have cold resist-immunities groups of monsters (like hell early act 1, snake temple act 2, duriel tombs, etc.)

2. fire is the most resisted throughout the game (except a few areas like snake temple in act 2) and including in hell cs.

3. lit (lightning) is highly resisted in hell cs. i dont use lit that much so i dont know about the rest of diablo 2 world where it works and where it doesnt.

4. so for hell cs, cold and fire works best (or least much better than cold and lit). i think there's no cold+fire immune monsters except sometimes the seal bosses.
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now about your ranger builds (these are kinda old-school but maybe this is new to u):

non-party or non-enhanced by other characters:

1. holy fire and raven bow (fire ranger) works great, if only most of diablo 2 didnt have fire resistant and immune mosnters.

2. wizendraw bow and holy freeze (cold ranger) works great (cuz its cold damage jsut like orb or bliz or freeze arrow or etc). and also wizendraw fbow or a paladin acts like cold mast does for a sorc. except there are areas of cold immune monsters and wziedraw is i think to weak to break immunity or is hard coded so it cant.

3. so than the best ranger is to combine fire and cold. or u could do cold and lit. but fire and cold is better i think.

max holy fire, resist fire, holy freeze, resist cold. than whatever u want. use ravenclaw bow with holy fire aura when u need fire damage. use wizendraw bow with holy freeze when u need cold damage. switch between the two as u need (the bow switch is irritating though).

4. lit isnt normally done. fire and cold are usually prefered. and lit is rarely used ever for any build or character. but if u wanna use lit for a lit ranger than:

max holy shock, lit resist. use rogues bow. do this (instead of the fire skills and ravenclaw bow) with cold for a lit and cold ranger.
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obviosuly as u (fearlessone) already know and said party enhancing is more powerful:

1. this allows u to use a sorc's enchant for huge fire damage and not need to waste points into holy fire. all u need is raven claw for its splash (area damage).

2. it lets u instead use conviction for lowered monster resists and breaking elem immunities like fire.

3. even better would be having another paladin do/provide max conviction for u.

4. even better would also be having a necro putting LR as well on monsters for even more lowered resists and broken elem immunities stacking with conviction's.

5a. not having to waste pts into holy fire or conviction, would allow u to use either holy freeze or holy shock for even more damage to your bow attack (though u have to keep ravenclaw if u want to keep fire splash damage) but the lit or cold damage would be only on your arrows for single target hits and dependant on your AR to hit and do damage. or u could not use ravenclaw and let the fire damage be single target and equip wizendraw for more cold lowered resist and use holy freeze. or u could use rogues bow for fast damage but only be able to hit single targets.

5b. or u could use holy fire for enormous fire damage.....

6. or instead u could make a phys damage ranger. using high damage bow/xbow and concentration or fanaticism. having phys damage and fire (from sorcs enchant).

7. even better would be if u had yet anotehr paladin giving u fanaticism so u dont ahve to waste points

8. etc.. the power of party (extra character boasting) is limitless. any build is viable in a party or having characters boast your character...even a thrower barb....grins..
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hopefully i get this right:

about enchant, fire mastery, ranged, raven bow, and melee:

with a sorc when she casts enchant on herself (and maybe others as well) the enchant is boasted by her fire mast as her enchanted fire damage from enchant. but the sorc gets an additional bonus when she uses melee. the fire mastery gets aplied AGAIN. the monster receives enchant damage boasted by fire mast and fire master again on/from the MELEE weapon hit. this does NOT happen with a bow though. HOWEVER, if a sorc is using ravenclaw, than it hits twice as well. the ARROW gets the enchant damage boasted by the fire mast (this IS dependant on AR to hit and do damage) but it also gets fire mast and/or enchant damage apllied to the fire splash damage as well (the splash will always hit, NOT AR dependant). this ONLY works with fire damage to fire splash. cold or lit damage from holy freeze or holy shock or weapon or gear will NOT get applied to the fire splash damage.
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link for the ranger guide:

http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=595

[EagleEntek]

You know the really annoying thing about bow paladins and fanatic aura? My bow amazon with maxed strafe, 320 dex and a big 117 dmg ballista does about 575 dmg per arrow.
My gf's paladin with same ballista, at half the level and with only 180 dex BUT maxed fanat. aura does 987 dmg - and hes going to level another 45 levels to catch the ama up - so more dex.
How annoying is that!
Bow paladins are a very underestimated build...

What do we want to see:
fire bow pala, freeze bow pala, convict pala and fanata pala all in one party - explosion hits groups, freeze slows em down, convict takes off theyre res, and fanata makes em all shoot faster - now THATS party play :innocent:

[IsThisNamePermanent]

I've done cs runs with your paladin before on UsWest, if you wanna play with me my account is nH-1 .

Right now I'm leveling a Max Amplify and Corpse Explosion necromancer, hes got lower resist and every other curse. Seems fitting to play with your paladin.

[fledgeling]

Technically an amazon does more damage due to critical hit. She also has dodge/evade/avoid and penetrate, which grants her AR.

I wont even mention guided arrow (duels) and strafe/multishot.

But I wonder if such a 1 arrow per shot palladin wouldnt be more effective anyway, despite the fact he does not possess any amazon skills.

[WarlockCC]

I'm having a hard time visualizing this paladin work well.
When you use a bow and especially if you do not have a shield or the amazon skills of dodge/evade/avoid, you are considered a ranged character. Yet, the chosen aura has a very limited range, so the monsters have to be close to you.

[HegemonKhan]

an old gun warfare saying... "do NOT shoot until u see the whites of their eyes" or something like this.

even though he does has to be close for conviction, he probably doesnt ahve to worry as monsters will be dying fast and if not he can jsut move back and shoot and move back.. or he be a tank ranger with high def. but usually monster's melee isn't a big deal even with no def but lots of vit-life (unless u made a phys ranger who needs to pump dex for damage). usually u kill off the mosnters before they can really whack u good. and if u get surrounded...than thats your fault.

but the concept of a bow user...killing from afar...seems void if u have to be nearly next to the mosnters for conviction aura. though maybe he's using a ballista xbow (crossbows=xbows=in history required u to be close to enemy until u could penetrate the plate armor with it)
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u arent doing a valid comparison between the paladin and amazon though:

1. the paladin will get more damage (per single arrow per shot) with his fanaticism/concentration aura (doh) more than a amazon with no damage aura on it. shouldn't u compare no aura paladin to no aura amazon or aura paladin to aura amazon? i know the auras ARE the paladin's skills and not NOT the amazons. but why would NOT having a damage aura be able to do more damage than when u do have a damage aura? obviously having a damage aura compared to not having a damage aura means your going to do more damage than when not having a damage aura.

2. as the otehr poeple pointed out:

yes the paladin with his aura gets more damage per arrow. BUT he can only shoot 1 arrow per attack. yes he can shoot fast with IAS gear and fanaticism. BUT the amazon can shoot even faster with just IAS gear and strafe skill. and that strafe skill does 7-10 arrows per attack. than u also got the critical strike skill. the amazon does more (total) damage than the paladin. but if we are only talking about a single arrow than the p aladin does more damage with a single arrow....

[Fearlessone]

an old gun warfare saying... "do NOT shoot until u see the whites of their eyes" or something like this. ...even though he does has to be close for conviction, he probably doesnt ahve to worry as monsters will be dying fast and if not he can jsut move back and shoot and move back...

...auras ARE the paladin's skills and not NOT the amazons.

but he can only shoot 1 arrow per attack. yes he can shoot fast with IAS gear and fanaticism. BUT the amazon can shoot even faster with just IAS gear and strafe skill. and that strafe skill does 7-10 arrows per attack. than u also got the critical strike skill....
So this thread seems to be turning into a "why not just make an amazon, but not sure who does more damage.." sort of thread. HegemonKhan certainly seems to have lots of experience with these general sorts of builds.

First off, conviction has a range across most of the screen. That's good enough for me. Besides, storm casters and oblivions mostly stay put. In the river, most monsters are jammed behind others in the narrow passages. I'm killing the non-fire immunes fast enough, that contact doesn't matter... despite lack of the zon DAE defensive skills.

Bowazon vs. Bowpally Damage: My enchant is usually, with bo, around 1400 fire damage. With max conviction, that damage is raised to around 3K damage, then there is the explosive splash damage on the RavenClaw, which makes the damage to the primary monster much greater. (Some experts know just how much, and I'm going to search for threads on this.) Anyways, the total damage must be in the low tens of thousands per arrow, since the mobs don't last more than 10-20 seconds and they have a life in the mid to upper tens of thousands in a full late hell game.

A bowazon doesn't have conviction, and although Wizendraw is a decent substitute for cold damage, it doesn't fire explosive arrows. They have a good chance at a critical hit, and have skill damage bonuses, dex to boost dmg, and skills like strafe and MS. They can make a valk. So why does my conviction ranger blow them away in the River? Just look at the damage in the paragraph above... does a bowzon do that kind of damage, hitting just about all the time? Its an academic argument anyways... the conviction aura allows barbs to hit almost every time, lightning zons to blast all mobs away in a couple seconds and sorcies to do their thing in half the time. Zons cannot do that for the party...

HegemonKhan. Thanks for the advice about cold damage and Wizendraw, it's worth looking into. And yes, ur right about my 1st post and how its confusing early on about what direction I'm going with the conviction pally. He is indeed a Work In Progress, and that's why he is fun to play.

IsThisNamePermanent: yes, we play well together. I have only been playing here and there for the past few days, usually after 4pm West Coast time and mostly likely late evening The cs walks have picked up in the past 2 months, when I figure out what to do next with that pally, i will resume playing him. Meanwhile, I've got a bunch of other chars i like playing.

[HegemonKhan]

the point about ranger (bow/xbow paladin) having to be close if he is using conviction (which is uncharistic of being a "ranged" character) is amusing-silly-fun discussion, not to be taken as actually serious.
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also the discussion over which is more powerful paladin or amazon (or any character or build) is a mute point too. whichever IS more powerful doesnt really matter as they can both kill equally well.

though i like this discussion. it adds knowledge about the two builds even if its a bit pointless in the specifics of the discussion. so i'd like to add this to it:

with party or otehr character help:

the conviction+enchanted+fanaticism+concentration+migh t bow, xbow, ravenclaw/hellcast?, rogues/demon?, or wizendraw paladin is indeed very powerful. my point is that so is a....

the conviction+enchanted+fanaticsm+concentration+might bow, xbow, ravenclaw/hellcast, or rogues/demon? strafe amazon is indeed ALSO very powerful.
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party play or other characters' skills help can make ANY build/character, not only viable, but powerful. having bo, 4-8 different auras, LR, amp, decrepify, enchant is nothing to laugh at. this is serious death to any monster or character no matter what build or character u are using if u are enchanced by party play or other characters' skills.
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i do have lots of experience with weird or weak builds so if anyone is interested ask me about it cuz i probably have tried what u wanna do and can give some advice.

though my knowledge is not perfect or complete. i know some stuff but not everything and am wrong about some things too. i am still trying to learn this game more as well. there are many other people who have much more knowledge and experience than i do.
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it is pointless to try to make a bow barb when u have the amazon and her skills that are for using bows or xbows.

unlesss........ :

u specifically WANT that CHALLENGE of trying to make a barb into bow using amazon:P
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for fearlessone and whoever, :

that link i gave for the ranger guide didn't talk about the duel paladin ranger build. i thoguht it did. sorry. also i cant rember where i saw it. so i'll jsut give the out line for it myself:

*this is a very powerful pvm build!! it can go solo an 8 player game from norm act 1 to hell act 4 cs diablo with relatively cheap gear (namely u jsut need the bows/xbow: ravenclaw/hellcast and/or wizendraw and/or rogues/demon?)

stats: base or enough str for gear, base or enough dex for gear, rest or all into vit.

weapons: ravenclaw/hellcast? and/or wizendraw and/or rogues/demon?

gear: use whatever gear u want/need.

(instead of raven claw u could use the other fire splash xbow? hellcast? and maybe there's also a unique repeating xbow too, can't remeber if it does fire splash or if it jsut has pierce and i'm getting it confused with having fire splash on it. though most poeple jsut use ravenclaw, but the hellcast? unique xbow might be better. i'm not sure)

1. "best/better" build: fire and cold ranger:
2. alternative "weaker" build #1: lit and cold ranger:
3. alternative "weaker" build #2: lit and fire ranger:

(1. build) max holy freeze+resist cold, holy fire+resist fire, rest of points where ever and/or into salvation for more damage to both holy freeze and holy fire. switch between the two auras and bows as u need to kill monsters. use wizendraw for holy freeze. use raven claw/hellcast? for holy fire.

(2. or 3. build) if u are using lit damage than max holy shock+lit resist and use this to replace either holyfire+fire resist or holy freeze+resist cold. use rogue bow or demon? unique -60 base speed xbow with holy shock.

party or other character help:

the fire damage can be further raised with enchant from a sorc. conviction from another paladin can further increase fire and cold (and lit damage if u are using lit instead of fire or ice). LR from a necro can further increase fire and cold (and lit damage if u using lit instead of fire or ice). fanticism from anotehr paladin can increase attack speed. etc....