Quikest/Safest Char to kill Ball (only baal)

[Slash]

Ok, so i have this idea. I need to keep my mfer safe since i *finally* have some decent items, and i enjoy clearing areas with my moderate mf necro, so im going to combine the two and kill baal.
Question: What is the best char to kill baal with.
My first thought was sorc. tele, blizzard, etc. coockie-cutter.

Then i thought i could do better than that. I am more than willing to sacrifice speed in getting to baal for safety while killing. I doubt i will have the time to get these items i have on the mfer again (like 350 mf but low res), and since i dont use hacks, i need to be conservative.

I have a wizzy, ali, shako, ss, mosers, wealth, nature's peace to work with.
I thought sorc's life would be to low.
pally, thatd be nice. Wouldnt know what kind. hammer or zeal. I figure hammer + vigor is syn. oak to feel safe.

Barb with that ring would be excellent on life. Im wondering if beserk is as good as i imagine holding a big maul. Dont like ww.

Any advice?

[GibItam]

It all depends on your playstyle, in my opinion you can use many chars, these are my to favorites for safe/quick baalrunning:

- Necromancer: by far the safest, but not the quickest. You can go full skellimancer or poison nova accompanied by skelletons, whatever you prefer. This one is easy if you use the right skills:
Dim vision souls spotted on the way to throne, dim vision and they are no problem.
Decrepify + Clay Golem Especially useful on Baal, keep him decrepified and cast Clay Golem on him and Baal just sits there and does not do anything.
Advantages: Clear WSk levels (lvl 85 area) and do baal in a safe manner, you can get an army ready in pindle's garden. Very Safe.
Disadvantages: do not expec 3 minute runs.

- Sorceress: Can get to throne very quick using teleport. My favorite setup is Blizz/baller. However I first run countess untill I have the runes for CTA because the added life gives me a safer feeling (don't expect this to be done quick, last time it took me 3 days to get the runes). My preference is to have a reapers toll on my Holy Freeze act 2 Merc, Decrepify triggering + Holy Freeze slows most monsters down. Most of the waves it is just casting bliz and in between glacial spike to freeze the monsters. For wave 2 mob up the skelletons with fireball. Baal usually does not do much once the decrepify triggers, after that just keep spamming him with iceblast/ blizzard. With this setup I can usually complete a baalrun in 3-4 minutes.
Advantage: Can get to throne very quickly, fast runs
Disadvantage: You have more chance on High TC items in lvl 85 area than form Baal, this is the part you teleport past. Some throne rooms can be extremely dangerous, fanafrenzylords, might dolls can almost instantly kill you if you are not careful. It is important that you know when to save and exit.

[crawlingdeadman]

javazon. you wont need to be safe, she'll kill him in ~5 seconds.

[Slash]

Gib: I could just kill with fishymancer i have now, and yes i know how to use him. The one i clear WS with. The whole point of this thread is what character to switch to with quicker kill time/safety during switch to ali baba/quest drop (low res w/o wizzy)

crawlingdeadman: He summons a double as soon as i get close, 2 ele attacks and a few appendages of physical damage; im down to nothing. And am i really going to be able to make that last swing with an ali baba? CS doesnt work with that.

My major concern; when i switch i will be very vulnerable. Sorc saves me from that but has low base life. Hammerdin has more life, but has to get closer.
...Im leaning to the side of a hammerdin right now. Quick kill even with switch. And theres always salvation to use for last sliver on switch.

[crawlingdeadman]

i saw "What is the best char to kill baal with." from your first post. nothing will top a CS java for that one task.

you must be walking there or something, i've never had him summon a clone too fast on me. from your description of him nearly killing you, there's something wrong in your tactics. i've been baaling more times than i can imagine and while i know his tentacle attacks hurt more than anything else, they rarely get close to killing me.

i didnt see where you said you had to have a magic find switch. i musta missed the part where you were going to zerk him to death with an alibaba...

[mattinm]

If MF is your primary concern, then sorceress really is going to be the most efficient way, I think. You could build a sorceress similar to Socialism's Orb/TK build. It uses Frozen Orb as a boss killer with a moderate ES as backup. I'm not a big fan of ES in general, but if a small life pool is your biggest concern, that's one way to "enhance" it, to a certain degree.

[GibItam]

...Im leaning to the side of a hammerdin right now. Quick kill even with switch. And theres always salvation to use for last sliver on switch.

I would advice to go with paladin then. It seems you favor this yourself most. I always suggest playing the char you enjoy playing the most.

[SeCKSEgai]

and since i dont use hacks, i need to be conservative.

On these forums, all accomplishments should effectively be "hack free".

Playstyle really dictates your choice. There are several builds that would be effective, but considering all the repetition, the most important thing is that you actually enjoy the build. The most dangerous monsters that give me pause in the throne room are the souls and stygian dolls, everything else is a walk in the park.

An Hdin has high life, "naturally" high blocking, and until they finally made magic immune monsters actually immune to hammers, they were the ideal baal runners. Now, wave 2 can be painfully slow, mainly in multiplayer games when the health is scaled up.

Sorcs are squishy, but make up for it in general damage output, too many variants to detail here. Don't recommend unless you never get lazy with her since she's probably the most vulnerable overall of all the classes.

LF/CS zon can be amazingly fast, but you do have to be weary of getting locked into place by packs of gloams when clearing throne.

Summoner necros should effectively be the safest at the cost of speed.
Bone has survivability, but a little lacking in damage (not a problem except in mp games)

Barbs with high life should have more than enough time to pot if need be, and frenzy with cb can make relatively quick work of baal.

[Slash]

Yes, i realize this site is hack free; but that doesnt stop people from giving me advice about crazy runewords and such gotten through endless bots.

Theres something i may not have said enuf in the original post... I am not clearing anything with this char. My necro will do all that.

This thread is a discussion about killing ONLY baal in his throne room. Not his minions. This char will kill no one but baal himself.
P.s. I am a seasoned player who knows most of the ins and outs, i dont need descriptions of who has more life and blocking; i know these things. I want to know your opinion relative to such matters.

[SeCKSEgai]

Yes, i realize this site is hack free; but that doesnt stop people from giving me advice about crazy runewords and such gotten through endless bots.

Theres something i may not have said enuf in the original post... I am not clearing anything with this char. My necro will do all that.

This thread is a discussion about killing ONLY baal in his throne room. Not his minions. This char will kill no one but baal himself.
P.s. I am a seasoned player who knows most of the ins and outs, i dont need descriptions of who has more life and blocking; i know these things. I want to know your opinion relative to such matters.

I've had such "crazy" runewords without ever utilizing a single hack - of course that was pre 1.13 before the market changed, but even still, one doesn't need to rely on bots to get them pretty runes.

If you're a seasoned player, you don't use a character to kill just baal, because its too inefficient to bother switching. The difference between 200 and 400 mf isn't much, and for most builds the killing speed reduction far outweighs the benefit. A summoner (if that's what your necro is) is one of the safest but also probably the slowest builds out there. Well-geared with a nice infinity merc, a LF/CS zon can tear through chaos/baal at lite sorc speeds and faster.

But hey, if you really feel the need to have a separate baal killer, don't let me stop you.