Tesladin V.S. Ubers (1pt smite)

[w a t s o n]

Alright, ive always wanted to make a tesladin using creasent moon, and i also need to make a paly to take on the ubers fairly easily, so i figured why not see if i can combine the two? Seeing the 1pt smite uber guide gave me hope.

Skill points: 1pt zeal(wurmers guide says 4 can anyone tell me why this is?) 20 holy, shock 20 light resist, 20 salvation, 20 holy shield. still plenty of points left over, suggestions on where to put them?

Stats: str-enough for gear Dex-max block Vit-rest Energy-none

Gear: (pvm/pvUBERS)
Helm-Dream/Guillaume’s face
Gloves-Dracs
Boots-Gores
Ammy-Maras
Armor-Duress
Shield-Hoz
Rings-Ravenfrost/resist ring
Belt-anything really, maybe t-gods or 10ias belt
Weapon-Creasent Moon PB/Grief PB

Merc-Holy Freeze with infinity

Stratagy for normal pvm: just smack everything with light arua, should be fun and a breeze with creasent moon and infinity.

Stratagy for Uber trist: Switch to Grief and Guillaume’s face. Lure meph out, have on light resist arua(maxed with this build) smite him a lot. hope lifetap kicks in quick. Baal/diablo Lure one out at a time, have on salvation aura(maxed with this build) smite them a lot.

Alright, lets adress the issues i have with this build.
1.)This build doesnt have Fanaticism. How much more ias will i need to reach max with zeal/smite? Will I be doing enough smite damage without this arua to finish off ubers last bit of life after all the crushing blow ect.?

2.)Is Hoz good enough resist wise against ubers? I will be using maxed Resist Light/Salvation so im not seeing resist being a problem

3.)Dream Helm: How would the holy shock aura on this helm mesh with a tesladin build? does it stack on top of the regular holy shock skill? Does it benifit from synergies? Or does it completly suck and should i use shako instead?

3.)Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Will this work at all?

[Lanceor]

You get 5 attacks from Zeal at level 4, which is why Wurmer recommends level 4. In reality, you'll probably have some +skills, so even 1 point should be okay.

1) If you're using a Grief phase blade (or any phase blade with some IAS), your smite will be fast enough to dispatch the ubers. More IAS or Fanaticsm will make it faster, but it isn't needed.

2) Mephisto's aura cuts your resistances by 125%. Most of the damage in Uber Tristram is elemental, so the better your resists, the better your survivability. Personally, I would aim for maxed resist after Conviction, or 50%+ if I have absorb in that particular element.

3) The Aura from Dream won't add to your own Holy Shock, so for a Tesladin, it sucks. (Though see Dreamadin/Auradin if you want to see how a Paladin can use Dream to its advantage.)

4) Yes, it will work, though the lightning damage won't make any difference with the ubers. It's mainly CB laden Smite doing the damage, and life tap providing your healing.

The main attraction of a Tesladin is the huge damage with little equipment. If you can afford Grief and Infinity, I'd recommend a pure Zealot, Dreamadin or Auradin instead... you'd get more firepower from those builds if you have that much wealth.

[Ilikestarcraft]

I think 65 off ias with a phase blade for max smite. Try making a dreamer. Dont put points in holy shock and keep conviction on. Use grief to get the last life faster. You need to stack above like 300 resists. 100 from hell 125 from meph's convict plus 75+ for max resists.

Any paly with crushing blow, open wounds, stacked resists, a point in smite can do ubers.

[Samohtnnam]

I have been ubering for a month now with a dreamadin. I have taken off my gore's, guillem's, and death ax to see if my holy shock damage from dual dreams could solo ubers. The answer- yes.

My conviction aura with +5 skills is the real reason my holy shock is successful. With max conviction and some +skills (I have +5) my lightning damage owns just about everything in uber trist, with pit lords being the hardest. I alternate between using zeal (life tapping and leaching) and smite.

Crushing blow definately helps kill the ubers faster, I am not denying that. However I feel a dreamadin fits the role of ubering better than a tesladin. With my dreamadin I can PvP, PvM, and uber. A tesladin pretty much runs PvM and ubers (with crushing blow gear + you really need a source of conviction from infinity or by putting points into it to take advantage of holy shocks damage).

[w a t s o n]

Alright guys, thanks for the responses. I have taken a closer look at the dreamer, and realized that it has made the telsladin obsolete. I will now be making a dreamer instead, but i still have some questions. Lets look at the new setup first.

Skills:
Max holy shield, resist lightning, and conviction. Max fanat, 1-4pt zeal, 1pt smite. Rest of pts into sacrifice.

Gear: (pvm/pvUBERS)
Dream helm/Guillaume's face
Dream shield
?/high resist armor
Creasent moon pb/Grief pb
Gores
Dracs
?/Metal Grid
?/tgods
ravenfrost and resists ring

Defiance Merc
my light sorc gets to keep infinity cause pally will be using conviction himself! :)

Alright, here are the questions i have about this setup:
1.) What do you think about the skill setup, particularly the second half? i choose to max fanat so i can use vs ubers with smite. i choose to put rest of pts into sacrifice because i think pts in that help out zeal damage more than pts in zeal itself does.(if im wrong, then ill put points in zeal instead) Is there a better way to use these remaining skill pts the the ways i have chosen?

2.)I cant seem to find the ias breakpoints with zeal and NO fanat. Ragnarod's guide lists it but says there are errors. I dont know if he fixed them or not. Basically i need to know the breakpoints when not using fanat for normal pvm play with my phase blade. This is why there are some question marks in my gear section, as i will likely need ias in those areas. ie, highlords instead of metalgrid, an ias belt, maybe ias armor. (was thinking about a g-angel with 15 ias jewel for non-uber play)

thx in advance for the help.

[ImmaMechE]

Watson - You and I have had a bit of discussion about this in my thread about a cheap tesladin, but I'll post here for others to see and to refresh your memory. Using Zeal in a phase blade, you only need 15% IAS to get 5 frames per attack, and since both Crescent Moon and greif have 20+%, this is not a problem. However, if you want to get to the 4 frames per attack breakpoint (something I would strongly recommend doing if you have the wealth to spend on dual dreams!), you will see an increase in damage of about 25%.

Since you will save 20 skill points by not getting holy shock, you have some flexibility in skills, but I would seriously quesiton maxing out sacrifice if you plan on using holy shock. I think it comes down to your choice in weapon, if you're going to use Greif, then you max sacrifice. If you're going to use crescent moon, then you max salvation instead. Basically, are you making a character that relies on lightning damage as their primary attack, or are you using lightning damage from dual dreams to just compliment your physical damage.

As for the 4 points in Zeal, that is suggested simply because it requires 4 points in order to attack 5 times. If you have +3 to skills and don't mind waiting until after level 12 to be able to hit 4 times with zeal, then you can save the points and just get 1 into zeal.

Personally, my Tesladin is SOO poor I had to put the 4 points into Zeal, but then again, Tesladin's in general are a bit outdated compared to Dreamers. But who can afford dual dreams on a budget of about 80 chipped gems? lol.

[ImmaMechE]

Oops, forgot to mention that it takes a total of 75% IAS in a phase blade to reach the maximum attack speed with Zeal. On another note, the maximum attack speed of Zeal yeilds attacks that are 8/4/4/4/4 frames long, or 4.8 average frames per attack. With just 15% IAS, you will have an attack rate of 10/5/5/5/5, which is an average of 6 frames per attack. This is still the 25% damage increase I had mentioned earlier, I had just forgot to mention/calculate the first swing, which is generally twice as long.

On that note, I was corrected earlier today, and I will share that here. Zeal's first attack is not exactly twice as long as the rest...

Here's what Zeal's Frame Rate is for a phase blade:
(Keep in mind that Crescent Moon has 20% already)

15% IAS 10/5/5/5/5 (baseline)
30% IAS 9/5/5/5/5 (3% damage increase)
55% IAS 8/5/5/5/5 (7% damage increase)
75% IAS 8/4/4/4/4 (25% damage increase)

[w a t s o n]

ImmaMeche-thx for all the info you have provided so far. I agree, your budget of 40 chips isnt much, you may want to make an cheap mf sorc or something first and run nm meph a bunch for some decent gear. Investing the time to make a new char isnt really a waste either because you will get hellforge drops. If your real lucky, you can get the um for your Creasent moon off nm forge, and trade off your hell drop for gear. (I got a gul off of hellforge once, made a game "Gul here" and instantly some lvl 95 pally joins and offers me a Dream Bone visage for it. Amazing i know) Tesladins are good choices though for a low budget. I think if you want to reach max zeal on your budget its very possible, if you look at the setup i posted in your thread, most stuff isnt hard to get. Bloodfist are cheap, 15 ias jewels are cheap, just put one in armor or helm, most expensive thing would be highlords, but even that isnt expensive, i think they go for pul-um on ladder right now, maybe less(or even cats eye for a cheaper option). Goldwrap for another 10 ias, use some combo of these items for that extra 55.

[ImmaMechE]

So much overlap between this thread and mine, lol... Well, I think that I am going to go for a Treachery Armor, it’s cheap, gives 45% IAS, and the Fade + Venom combo will be interesting (I think that I need to carry around some crappy poison charm with a decent duration, I’ve heard that makes Venom’s duration go longer). With that, all I’ll need is another 10% IAS in order to reach the maximum speed for Zeal, and there are plenty of options for that.

As for my budget, 40 chips may be a bit of an exaggeration, lol. I am going to need at least 1 Um rune for Crescent Moon, and if I want to get Stormshield (for 50% DR), probably one more Um rune to buy it, and then a third to put into Stormshield! Also, I do believe that this Tesladin will be sufficient for running Meph on Nightmare. I should be able to switch out my equipment to incorporate a reasonable amount of MF (200 - 300) without making nightmare too difficult.

In any event, you’re certainly welcome for the advice/information and thank you for the feedback as well.

[w a t s o n]

Treachery does seem like a good option for you, it frees up a lot more gear space. Couple things about the ss though, it goes for pul tops, i've even seen people offering it for pgems(at least on west ladder) also, just put a Pdiamond in it, and save the extra um for something else.

[ImmaMechE]

Thanks for the info Watson, I'll have lots of Pgems by the time I get to a place where I could use Stormshield. Also, I'm sure I would have thought of the Pdiamond by the time I actually socketed Stormshield, haha. Pul or Pgems, huh...? Sweet!

As for Treachery, it's a VERY good deal for my build. With Holyshield (and potentially Defiance) my defense should be high enough to take the hit of a body armor with no Enhanced Defense. The attack speed will make it easy for me to hit the 75% IAS breakpoint (only need 10 more, and cat's eye or a belt can give me that.) The Fade ability grants 60% resist all, and 15% DR, as well as like 75% curse length reduction... Could someone please confirm that the DR from Fade actually works...? I know that Fades DR is only based on hard points, and thus a base of 1 fade + 9 to all skills will only give you 1% damage reduction. So does Fade grant the 15% damage reduction...? If so, I'm grabbin' a Stormshield and hitting 50% DR super easy!

Also, Venom does like 300 damage over .4 seconds (10 frames)... Since I'll be hitting twice in that time, I should be able to keep it on them at all times, essentially adding 300 damage to my attack. Might not seem like much, but every bit helps!

[mmmpld]

Don't forget that a level 21 and up conviction will override Meph's conviction (for you only!), so you wouldn't need the massive stacked resistances.