Best weapon for ubers for zealadin?

[MatthyasL]

Hello all. I really want a Paladin torch and am considering getting a new weapon for my zeal paladin to make it easier (since on ladder they are overpriced at the moment). I am stuck on what to invest for though. One day I probably will invest in Last Wish, but I finally saved up enough for my enigma and just started doing hellforge runs. I can actually kill them all with just the lightsabre, but I want to kill them a bit faster than that.

Here's what I have for him so far. I have all the appropriate skill points too (max zeal, sacrifice, fanaticism, holy shield, and almost max defiance, 1 point in salvation, etc)

Goreriders
1315 def Duress
Umed HoZ
Blackhorn's face socketed with a really good rare jewel adding 10 to resists and 22 to fire, +6 max dmg, +7 faster hit recovery
Thundergods
Rising Sun Amulet (Got Highlord's recently, might switch to that)
Dracul's
High Ravenfrost
Bul-Kathos's

For his charms I am focusing on life, atk, and resists. Have 13-17 anni, 20/15 barb torch.

I almost went with ethereal cryptic sword Oath, but I thought I'd check first since it doesn't have crushing blow, and because of that maybe something like ethereal Death would be better?

[BAMFSpecialOps]

If you swap out Blackhorn's Face with, oh say, Guil's helm then you can still use Lightsabre for the light sorb and survive Uber Trist just fine. If your set on keeping your current set up then any weapon with crushing blow would work great Death/Black/etc.

[MatthyasL]

I guess now my question is am I better off getting Death and keeping Blackhorns or am I better off with that 4os ethereal cryptic sword oath and switching to Guillamane's?

[Eilo Rytyj]

Guillaume's = yes. Put it on and don't ever take it off. As long as you have that, most any weapon you use will be fine.

BTW against the ubers, aa a Zeal Paladin you will use Smite. Zeal just doesn't have the consistency that Smite has; Zeal can/will miss regularly, and if there are other monsters in range, Zeal will target them as well as the boss. A lot of people don't realise that you only need a single point in Smite for it to be effective, and will fruitlessly create Smite-only Paladins for the sole purpose of Ubering, when a Zealot is far more versatile.

oh, and are there Grief runewords still floating around? A Grief Phase Blade is all you need my friend.

Otherwise, that Oath sword you mentioned would be great, and as I said, Guillaume's Face should not move from your head. At all. Also check out the "Black" runeword in a Flail, and many of the Uniques will serve well.

Biggest problem with Last Wish is it's lack of weapon damage, and no IAS. Death is great too, powerful in an ethereal base, but no IAS sends it back to being merely the awesome Frenzy Barb off-hand that it is.


From memory my rig was as follows, and it worked a charm everywhere I took it save from PvP:

Grief Phase Blade
HoZ with Um rune socketed
Guillaume's Face with 15% res/some cold damage Jewel (Um rune will suffice here too)
Fortitude Boneweave (I think I upgraded to an Archon Plate at some point)
Dracul's Grasp
Thundergod's Vigor
Gore Riders
Highlord's Wrath (very much recommended)
Raven Frost
some Rare ring, wasn't bad but a second Raven Frost would have been preferred


I personally feel that the 50% Crushing Blow obtained from the Guill's + Gores is plenty enough to take down bosses in a few seconds. Then there's the 80%+ Deadly Strike combined with Grief's inherently overpowered damage figures which makes mopping up normal minions a joke... there's my 2c for ya.

[MatthyasL]

Ok thanks. I think I'll give Grief a try as soon as I find a good 5os sword or axe and try out Guillamane's face.

[blackrocksword]

As far as PvM is concerned, don't use Grief on any other weapons apart from Phase Blade, because:
1) Repair costs aren't cheap for Grief and it can get annoying to find your weapon broken halfway through the Uber fight.
2) Guaranteed maximum smite/zeal speed with level 20 fanaticism regardless of the roll. What else can you ask for?

[Cyanight]

You only need +15% IAS with 20 Fanaticism to reach 4fpa Zeal and 6fpa Smite which is maximum according to the german speed calculator. If you can put a +15% IAS/+15% resist all jewel in that Gil's then you really dont need the highlords. If you use the grief then you dont need anymore IAS on anything.

I like Death Wish with the +15% IAS on the helm better. The CTC Life tap really helps IMO not to mention with Gills you have 95% CB.

Both weapons are great though.

[guface]

I think you mean Last Wish.

[Cyanight]

LOL, yea I think I have seen too many Charles Bronson movies, hehe.

[mackscynox]

stormlash is my favorite, still use it even now i can afford high runewords (just because of ctc static cast)