Parties/Teams (combos)

[HegemonKhan]

this thread is about parties/teams. what parties do u form or would like to ("dream teams")? what are good party member build/skill/character/gear combos?

name u give to it. pvm or pvp. party members' builds/skills/gear/characters. description/explaination.

i'll start it off....

1A. "Catastrophic Cold" party. PVM. 6 holy freeze paladins using wizendraw. 1 conviction paladin. 1 LR (lower resist) necro. the cold pulse damage alone will probably kill nearly everything until later in the game and than the wizendraw cold damage from arrows will finish off what the cold pulse damage doesn't kill. ~ -230 to monsters' cold resistance FOR weapon (arrow) damage. ~ -200 to monsters' cold resistance for pulse cold damage. wizendraw gives ~ -30 cold resist which is what bumps -monster cold resist up to ~ -230 for weapon (arrow) damage from ~ -200 monster cold resist.

1B. variant: replace a holy freeze paladin with a fanaticism paladin.

[Mirrislegend]

2A) ANY elemental build of ANY class
2B) Conviction Pally
2C) LR Nec

Just wanted to get that out of the way. Now that this has been done, submissions have to be real ideas, not just the same things in different words.

[HegemonKhan]

the holy freeze party/team is unique though. unresistible slow effect as well, for pvm or pvp. wizendraw even gives more -cold resistance to target for your arrow for a whooping at least ~ -230 cold resist to targets firing from safe distance. u can do cold pulse damage and cold arrow damage. a unique and VERY powerful party/team combo for pvm or pvp.

true that elem damage builds' base/foundation combo is having a conviction paladin and a LR necro.

for spell skill attacks there's not much to talk about or explain.

but for weapon skill attacks there's a lot more specifics.

but there's more party/team combos than just elem spell damages

phys damage parties/teams requires a lot more details though just from gear alone and stat choice... etc used in mutual cooperation with the other party/team members.

for example a phys bow zon strafe user by itself is very weak. but what if u have 5 of them and 1 fanaticism paladin and 1 concentration paladin and 1 might paladin. or whatever combo.
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this thread IS for very specific party/teams. what personal party/team set-ups for each character lets u demolish your way through pvm d2 or in pvp.

(posting very general set-ups for party/team combos isn't very useful. only by specifically going into micromanaging detail makes this thread more worthwhile)

(of course u are not required to spell stuff out, like i didn't with my holy freeze party, that's not needed. this isn't for "noobs". u don't have to explain it for a non-veteran to understand. just list whatever info is needed, IF NEEDED. or u can leave it open for customization like i did for gear with my holy freeze party. of course, if "noobs" are interested u should help them)

[purplelocust]

t wizendraw even gives more -cold resistance to target for your arrow for a whooping at least ~ -230 cold resist to targets firing from safe distance.
I don't think the -% cold resist from several Wizendraws would stack. Presumably, each Wizendraw would apply only to the attacks (pulse, direct attack, etc.) from the character holding it.

Cold immune monsters tend to have pretty high (150+%) cold resists, which isn't easily broken by Conviction, even in combination with Lower Resist. Generally the easiest immunities to break are lightning immunes, and thus the popularity (in LoD) of Infinity (runeword giving Conviction) lightning sorcs.

I did experiments with some self-combo parties, to varying degrees of success. One that seemed like a good idea was the Enchantress + Summoner combo, but it wasn't that impressive. The idea was to have a summoner who maxed Lower Resist instead of amp, partied with an Enchantress who added big fire damage to each skeleton. It worked OK, but it wasn't the massive steamrolling combo that I hoped it would be.

[HegemonKhan]

great party/team combo of enchantress and summoner!!!!

1 enchantress with 7 summoning necros...scary army size and scary lag..lol

i think the reason it wasnt that impressive is because..um...enchant gives fire damage..which most monsters in d2 have resistance/immunity to. the con (as in pros n cons) of enchant skill.

1 enchantress. 1 conviction paladin. 6 summoning necros. would help more. though i jsut re-read your post and i think u mention u did try this, using both conviction and LR with enhchanted necro minions... it seems like it "should" work great. unless monster fire levels are really high and u don't lower fire resistance that low even with LR and conviction, so that u don't kill very fast.
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as for my holy freeze party combo:

EACH (of 6 or 5 if u want fanticism) holy freeze paladin would have a wizendraw. 1 conviction paladin. 1 LR necro.

EACH (of 6 or 5 if u want fanaticism) holy freeze paladin using wizendraw will EACH do ~ -200% cold resist to target for the cold pulse damage AND do ~ -230% cold resist to target for cold arrow damage.

cold pulse damage= ~ -200% cold resist to target

~ -125% conviction + ~ -67% LR = ~ -200% cold resist to target

cold arrow damage= ~ -230% cold resist to target

~ -125% conviction + ~ -67% LR + ~-30% wizendraw = ~ -230% cold resist to target

*i am NOT sure if the arrow has to successfully hit for arrow's cold damage on target or not. i know it does for holy fire arrow's/bolt's fire damage on target. so, i'm gonna astrapulate (no idea how to spell this..tried to be fancy with vocab:P), that the arrow must successfully hit also for the holy freeze arrow's cold damage on target.

* correct me if it doesn't work like this (i'm NOT refering to JUST about arrow needing to hit for its cold damage)!!!! if i'm wrong about how the -% cold resistances work, let me know, correct me!!!!
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u can of course replace holy freeze with holy fire or holy shock for a party/team combo.

but holy freeze lets u use wizendraw for extra -% cold resist with arrow, and its (holy freeze's) slow effect.

but holy fire lets u use ravenclaw/hellcast for fire splash (AOE=area of effect) and double damage (but only for a single target) if the arrow/bolt successfully hits too (damage from arrow/bolt + damage from fire splash = double damage)

but holy shock lets u use rogues or demon? (the unique cho ko no) for high arrow/bolt speed but only single targets

or for all three elem auras, u could use a piercing bow/xbow instead.

each aura has its own perk: effect, "damage delivery sytem/method", and bow/xbow or u can go with a piercing bow/xbow for any of the three auras instead.

all three are probably equal but i posted about the holy freeze mainly cuz it also gives the slow effect and minorly its cold damage which means it can shatter monsters so u dont have to keep killing them cuz they get revived again and again.

[gafgarian]

A team of zealers and ww barbs with might, concentration, and fantaicism for massive melee damage. They would do nicely in hell cows, especially with iceblink (good old days anyone?), not that hell cows are worth anything anymore.

[Akse]

A team of zealers and ww barbs with might, concentration, and fantaicism for massive melee damage. They would do nicely in hell cows, especially with iceblink (good old days anyone?), not that hell cows are worth anything anymore.
Well i think 1 hammerdin would do better :) lol

I always liked sorc+ something parties.

Sorc+ama, sorc + necro mostly.

First I didn't think sorc+ ama would be good but high level static field + multishot is fast killing in CS.. altho this doesn't work after 1.10 cuz ama is gimped :P or it might work but not as good as before.

Necro lower resist and static field is nice too.. it bites a lot more and faster, then throw some few orbs to finish the mobs. Also why not conviction too.

[HegemonKhan]

in reading most of the posts, i get the feeling, most of you and myself as well are still kinda thinking with an individual skill/build player mindset. instead of as a whole or party/team potential.

for example and explanation of what i feel most of u and probably ME TOO are doing:

conviction is good. LR is good. sorcs are good. lets lump them together.

instead of thinking about, lets say, phys damage. how would i form a party/team of characters who's builds/skills/gear that UNsuspectedly make a MORE powerful party/ team than if u jsut lump the best characters and skills together for your party/team idea.

my hope was that this thread would get people thinking about the sum of the party/team that make (probably unsuspected) powerful combinations much more so than jsut taking the top powerful builds and skills and just putting them together.
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i'm gonna try to explain the above in a different way that may make more sense.

using an (usa history) sports analogy:

i'm an american, live in usa. in the 60's there was the winter olympics i think? previously, every time the russians had beat us (usa) in ice hockey. we had the attitude that we (usa) could never win against the russians in ice hockey because time and time again our best hockey players lost against the russian team. well in this year (60's i think) we had our "miracle on ice" and beat the russians finally in ice hockey at the winter olympics i think.

so how did usa finally win in this "miracle on ice" year against the russians who beat our best players over and over again?

we got this maverick coach. instead of like all the other coachs, he didn't pick the very best players and stick them on a team like we had done over and over and lost over and over.

what he did was make the best team possible!

he saw that even though the previous usa teams had their best players that didn't mean they played well together as a team! this is why we kept losing over and over to the russians! our players were jsut as good as russians but we played worse as a team than the russians did. our team and its team play was worse than the russians. it wasn't our individual players abilities that kept losing over and over to the russians. it was their lack of team experience with each ohter.

so this maverick coach took these much more "amaturish" players but who had played together for a long time and had good teammanship with each other. well with these amaturish players who knew each others abilities as they knew they own abilities, won against the russians in that "miracle on ice" year usa had in the 60's i think.
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so i want to apply this analogy to this thread for d2. more thought about team coordination and not jsut lumping the best characters together and calling that a party/team.

there may turn out to be some surprises by doing this jsut like in my above usa historical analogy:D
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ps,

i wasn't around in the 60's !!!!!! not this old...yet..though years are going by fast now..cries...

i saw a very good movie, miracle on ice, that was about this historical usa event.

[UnderAge]

Nice cs dream team.

Fast sora
Lvl 31 bo'er
Maxed fana din
maxed resist din
4 hammerdins

[fledgeling]

what is the fanaticism palladin supposed to do?
I would switch him to a filler..

Anyway, the best "team" imo, would be a summon-necromancer + a smiter; my friends used to play such a team - the smiter killed the first monsters to get the corpses, bosses and he was the 'fist of the team'; the skellies also benefited from his aura a lot. The necromancer summoned skeletons, who dragged attention of the monsters; amped and corpse exploded.

I wonder if anyone has actually ever tried the massive damage boost from few auras. There is a level 93 amazon on my realm, who can be often found in cs, and even with cocncentration (from hammerdins) and fanaticism (Ive seen few zealers), she doesnt do impressive damage.

[HegemonKhan]

quick question underage,

whats the fanatic din for?

blessed hammers is a cast spell (FCR effects) not a weapon attack (IAS, fanaticism efects)
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well a phys bow zon definately does even less damage with out those damage auras..

disapointed to hear even with them she's still weak...

though lvl 93 is quite good and she IS doing cs...she has to be quite a decent (good) zon if she's phys bow zon.

[UnderAge]

I don't know exactly how it works but this is how I think of it. The conc aura and the fana aura stack each other and make for the most powerful hammers. I've had 16k dmg hammers with a high conc and high fana party with only +3 skills from other gear.

[fledgeling]

You were a victim of the lying character screen.

[UnderAge]

Lying character screen? explain. Also I'm not the most educated person about the game like alot of you.

[Akse]

in reading most of the posts, i get the feeling, most of you and myself as well are still kinda thinking with an individual skill/build player mindset. instead of as a whole or party/team potential. Hmm? If there is only team of 2 you kinda need to think about the individuals a lot oor something. Necro has some revives, lower res and CE(prolly BS for cold immunes), sorc has high static and orb :)

Lying character screen? explain. Also I'm not the most educated person about the game like alot of you. In d2 everythign u see might not be the truth. Only conc increases hammer damage afaik. So if there are 4 hammerdins, 1 should have conc, 1 could use holy freeze, 1 could use meditation etc :)

[HegemonKhan]

ONLY concentration boosts blessed hammers.

i'm NOT sure if blessed hammers get full concentration bonus or half of it.

unfornately, the character screen in d2 is really inferior. it messes up lots of damages and lots of damages also aren't shown like undead damage.

it will show your blessed hammers doing more damage when party members are giving u might and fanaticism, but this is only a display error. in actual game u do NOT do the damage shown on the character screen when party members give u might and fanaticism while u use blessed hammer and concentration.
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what i wanna see in d3:

full and accurate stats display ("character") screen!!!!

i want a character screen that does NOT mess up damages and stats and it shows everything! even the lists of where/what/how u get that damage!! NO mystery with any of the stats!

[Mirrislegend]

Vengeance + Blessed Aim din
Fana din
FoHer
LR Nec
Hammerdin
Charger
Chanter
1 elemental damage char (or just a ww barb fully dependant on chanter)

This covers all -%resistance and all decen +attack goodies auras, while leaving room for some flexibility