Strong HELL CS Builds?

[WarlockCC]

so you think a holy bolt/foh + sanctuary pally would own hell CS?

whats best lightning sorc for fastest killing??

A good level Holy bolt with max synergies will definately clear out the monsters in CS easily, except for the venom lords. With the obscene amount of life Venom lords have you need another skill to wipe them out fast. I don't think FoH will do the trick for you there. Maxed FoH will get you 3k damage, with a level 25 conviction that will make the damage something like 7.5k or so. Though everything has resists in Hell, you would probably need about 8-10 bolts to take down a single, non-minion Venom Lord in a 8 player game. I don't think they will let you.
"And in futher news, another hydrid FoHdin was caught in a Venom Lord stampede and crushed. His remains can be seen in the museum of exotic canned goods."
If you want your holy bolt up to some good damage, you will need to max our good friend blessed hammer, but without it's synergies, blessed hammer will do nothing but itch them. 64 skillpoints needed to max Holy bolt, You'll want about 10 in Sanctuary, so 74 skillpoints, leaving you 1 more skill to max. You will be level 84 when you have this other skill maxed.
But which skill will that be ?
vigor wil get your blessed hammer up to about 744 - 760 damage. (you'll need 3 extra points for prereqs) And get you some running speed. But you'd still need another pala near with a conc aura to actually make a difference.
How about in stead maxing prayer. Then your holy bolt will be Healing: 187 - 393
Your party members will like you a lot for it.
On top of that, any +skills(not just actual points) in prayer will still work as a synergy of Holy bolt and meditation.
Yes, you will allways need another person or a lot of patience to complete a CS. And the above doesn't even include the basic aura's you will need to get some health/mana back (Redemption or/and Meditation)
If you do go the way of the prayer, you may like meditation, because it will heal 25 life per second with a level 20 prayer. (47 per second with +10 skills)

I did some CS'ing with my FoHdin and it just takes too long for him to kill Venom Lords. He has max FoH, max synergies and max Conviction(5 above needed for most monsters). Sorcs like the conviction though.

Anybody know if there is a conviction 'breakpoint' for the immunities to vanish ?
Cause I was CS'ing the other day, flipped on my low level 11 conviction to get rid of those Venom Lords fire immunities for the resident fire sorc, but they happily stayed fire immune. Maybe my conviction just wasn't conviencing enough.

[JEstevam]

why not just max holybolt/hammer/foh/sanctuary/holyshock?

that way you have a sick holybolt, ur sanctuary knocks all the undead around, and u can switch to foh/shock to atleast keep urself busy when all the undead are owned?

also what if you forgot about sanctuary and replaced it with resistligtning, ur foh/holyshock would deal more damage and u'd atleast chip away at the venom lords

in all honesty, would i be better off going conviction instead of any other aura, so i can solo when need be with foh, and i can help out sorcs in hell cs to kill faster?

[Beltyn]

Hmmmm, healer/holy bolter is sounding a damn good idea methinks :smiley:

Anyone know if high FoH is worth it for the holy bolt damage from that or best sticking with plain bolt? looking at differences in synergies i'm guessing holy bolt the way to go.

What sort of gear you looking for? do you need heavy FC to get decent damage? looking at it thinking would probably prefer +2 pal/3holy bolt/3prayer scepter (god thats gonna take a while to shop :undecided: ) but the temptation of shard is there.

[tdlofcc]

Hmmmm, healer/holy bolter is sounding a damn good idea methinks :smiley:

Anyone know if high FoH is worth it for the holy bolt damage from that or best sticking with plain bolt? looking at differences in synergies i'm guessing holy bolt the way to go.

What sort of gear you looking for? do you need heavy FC to get decent damage? looking at it thinking would probably prefer +2 pal/3holy bolt/3prayer scepter (god thats gonna take a while to shop :undecided: ) but the temptation of shard is there.

t's a blast to CS with that character
Healing and the mana regen aura, its almost impossible to die with.

Paradise CS runs

[WarlockCC]

Hmmmm, healer/holy bolter is sounding a damn good idea methinks :smiley:

Anyone know if high FoH is worth it for the holy bolt damage from that or best sticking with plain bolt? looking at differences in synergies i'm guessing holy bolt the way to go.

What sort of gear you looking for? do you need heavy FC to get decent damage? looking at it thinking would probably prefer +2 pal/3holy bolt/3prayer scepter (god thats gonna take a while to shop :undecided: ) but the temptation of shard is there.

On my healer I just went for max +skills, so +10 without BC.
Since his primairy focus was on healing, that part is the only part I really maxed and then I just had to select all auras. So this char could be more focussed at CS if you indeed max FoH aswell, bessides blessed hammer, but I felt I would be of more use to the parties if I had more aura's.
Yes they are fun to play, but it really takes ajusting to the playing style.
Shard might be fun for the FC, but personally, I prefer the +skills for more effect on my support auras. And when I have a char namelocked, they are as close to immortal is one can get. As long as they can tank damage a little bit, you'll have a neigh immortal char to stop the monsters.
Note that it takes time for people to ajust to what it is you actually do.
More experienced players are easier to pick out and they will usually thank you for keeping their health full.
Especially in a busy CS one can't allways see what is going on, so people may just wonder why their damage kept disappearing until they actually see you heal them.
There are also those who just don't get it. They will hide behind you, perhaps because there are so many hammerdintanks in CS. But often they will be far more likely to survive a encounter with the infector simply because you can heal them.
250-450 life healed per bolt is enough to counter most damage. sometimes even saves people from IMWW gibs, Though that is only possible if they happen to WW towards and trough you aswell. That would give you enough time to counter the damage they did to themselves trough IM
Healers are quite rare in classic it seems. Most people try build chars so they can do CS on their own when they want, but for a full-out healer, you just can't. Even with the holy shock maxed, I don't think you will do enough damage to the infector. You'd have a better chance to zeal him with a heavy weapon switch from your inventory. Nice Steel or Snap.
Pure support is a different playing style, but people *want* you in the party.
It's good to be appreciated.

[Man In Black]

Anybody know if there is a conviction 'breakpoint' for the immunities to vanish ?
Cause I was CS'ing the other day, flipped on my low level 11 conviction to get rid of those Venom Lords fire immunities for the resident fire sorc, but they happily stayed fire immune. Maybe my conviction just wasn't conviencing enough.

Conviction (as well as lower resist) work at 1/5 effectiveness when breaking immunities.

[WarlockCC]

Conviction (as well as lower resist) work at 1/5 effectiveness when breaking immunities.

That much I knew, but at what point does a monster lose it's "immune to fire" label ?
It used to be that it vanished inmediately no matter what level conviction I flipped on.
Now, it seems like that annoynig stain you just can't seem to wipe.
Maybe it was just a glitch that those Venom Lords kept their immunities to fire, but they did not seem to be getting any damage from the firesorc even though they had conviction on them.
My level 11 Conv normally takes 80 from their resists, so in this case it would subtract 16 from their fire resists, that sorc should have been nudging them at the very least, but nada.

[Tetsume]

There is actually a salvation pally running around in hell cs on ESCL. Max salvation and holy bolt / synergies. Salvation keeps those knights off you and holy bolt can kill seis/viz in 2-3 hits. Only annoying thing is salvation can knock viz off into the fire so he doesnt drop any items. Also, blessed hammer is a synergy of holy bolt, so maxing it you might be able to get decent hammer dmg as well. If anyone wants to make this build i have a +2 pal, +3 salvation, +3 blessed hammer, +3 holy bolt scepter im lookin to get rid of

[Beltyn]

Looking at arreat summit it says VLs have 130 fire res in hell.

Assuming said stat is same for classic, you'd need -155 all from conv to break the immunity.

[Noite Escura]

Which is unreachable...
Thah could work if you had max Conviction on them PLUS a Lower Resist Necro. That way you could get 150 + 63 => 213 /5 = 42.
Though, as I understand, after breaking the immunity, they would still have 88 FR.