Geared Vindicator... sucks?

[:1]So, I've recently began playing LOD again, on account of my current computer not being good enough to run a certain other Blizzard game and also the impending release of D3...

I did however, have a few WoW friends who could pretty much provide any gear I wanted on account of being ridiculously rich.

Anywho, I built a fishymancer first and he straight rocks for soloing and MFing. My next build was a Zealadin, however I really liked the idea of soloing Uber Tristram so I respec'ed him and made him a Vindicator.

I followed a guide on gamefaqs to the letter...

I'm currently level 84, and I'm geared as follows:

Armour:

Helm: Kira's Guardian upgraded and socketed with an um rune

Body: Perfect Chains of Honor (Archon Plate)

Gloves: Dracul's Grasp

Boots: Gore Riders

Belt: Verdungo's Hearty Cord

Weapons 1:

Last Wish Berserker Axe (374% ED & 60-64% CB)

Herald of Zakarum with an Um (179% ED)

Weapons 2:

Breath of the Dying Berserker Axe - Ethereal (384% ED)

Exile Vortex Shield (45 Res All 239% ED)

Jewelry:

BK x2

Maras

Charms:

Pali Torch

Anni

3 Max Damage w/ 20 AR & 20 Life SC

My skills are as follows(before +skills):

Pre-reqs: 1

Smite: 20

Holy Shield: 20

Fanaticism: 20

Defiance: 20

Charge: Currently maxing (8 I think...)

I have pumped Vit with every point that I didn't need to use my gear.

I am not currently using a Merc on account of wanting to test the Vindicator out, but I'll take an A2 Might one when I do...

My tactic is obvious... I holy shield, turn on Fanac and spam Smite...

However, I couldn't even beat the Ancients on Hell!

So, I'm wondering whether there is some trick to using this toon, whether I'm not a high enough level yet, whether I need a gear merc to be really effective...

This is a purely PvM toon for the moment. I've read around and lots of versions of this build seem to include Fist of Heaven, but I suspect they are pre-1.11.

So peeps, what's my major malfunction?|||Hi

With all that uber gear I see lots and lots of physical damage but absolutely nothing to deal with PI's and I assume its PI ancients that are giving you problems.

That kind of set up is just fine for UT since you can just ignore the PI's there but for general questing I'd say you might want some kind of plan to deal with em.

Kaytie|||Quote:








Hi

With all that uber gear I see lots and lots of physical damage but absolutely nothing to deal with PI's and I assume its PI ancients that are giving you problems.

That kind of set up is just fine for UT since you can just ignore the PI's there but for general questing I'd say you might want some kind of plan to deal with em.

Kaytie




I think you might be on to something. The Ancients aren't a very good test of a Uber Tristram Solo'er.... Is there like a "% converted to elemental damage" charm or something?

Any solution for adding non-physical damage to the build?|||Such charms do not exist and Smite never transfers elemental damage anyway. For PIs you will have to use another skill, and I guess Vengeance is one of the first options.

I really hope for you that one of the Ancients was PI, because if you can't beat them with this kind of gear you'll never will. Ancients and even Ubers shouldn't be much of a problem for Paladins with gear not even worth 5% of what you have.|||That seems to be a kind of smiter variant, a character who sucks versus crowds and who cannot leech well (or not at all) with your equipment.

If you use smite, you don't leech, except from lifetapped opponents. Even then, smite only applies the damage which is shown on the shield, except you have something with the "damage +x" mod (exactly that wording), like the Grief runeword.

The point of using smite is not its damage bonus, but that it always hits (which it achieves at L1), else use a different attack skill. The damage comes from crushing blows while regular damage (needed for life leech and the last few hits when CB becomes ineffective) comes from Grief's +dmg.

You should have kept your fana-zealot. He usually sweeps the floor with the Ancients (when a physical immune appears, you can reset them by casting a town portal) and he has little problems against the �bers with far less expensive equipment than yours. Mine looks like this:

Helm: Guillaume's + Um

Weapon: Grief phase blade

Shield: HoZ + pdiamond

Armor: Enigma, except in �T where I use Smoke

Gloves: Dracul's

Belt: T-God's

Boots: Goreriders

Amulet: Highlord's

Rings: Ravenfrost + dual leech

Charms: Gheed's + torch + enough to max resists, MF SCs for the rest

Weapon switch: Wizardspike + crap Spirit in sacred targe with crap stats (only 75%fcr and nice mana, energy and res bonuses are needed). In �T I use a wand with lifetap charges instead of Wizzy.

Skills:

Max fana, zeal, sacrifice, holy shield

1 in redemption, conversion and salvation

rest in holy fire (adds +1 to max fire res per two hard points invested, even when inactive)

Smite is a holy shield prereq, so he has that skill as well, of course.

He uses zeal all the time, except versus hell Baal and �bers (smite). I use him for solo Baal, organs and �T.|||Last Wish isn't good for regular, non-uber PVM. It's not even decent... try Grief instead.

Also, smite isn't too hot in regular mob killing either. Zealot is much better. Dreamer is infinitely better, along with Auradin (I prefer dreamer for easy leech though).|||Tactics trump equipment. Superdave and InsaneWayne have each finished Hell Baal in hardcore mode with completely naked and skill-pointless characters, which tells me that you should be able to kill the Ancients with your uber equipment. One good tactic is to liberally strew the ground with full rejuvenation potions, so you can pick them up on the fly once you exhaust the ones in your belt. Otherwise, as a rule of thumb you don't want to just wade in and start pounding away, but rather spend some time running around to isolate them so you're only facing one at a time. Use the pillars and other landscape objects to your advantage, such as ducking behind them to block the throwing axes one of the ancients will be hurling at you. Or search for the threads of superdave's and insanewaynes naked characters to see how they managed to win. One of the weaknesses of having such good equipment is that it allows people to succeed most of the time without having to learn and use good tactics.|||IIRC Superdave finished normal act 1 with a naked sorc with no equipment, skill and stat point investments and without going anywhere twice. Beyond act 1, a lot of monsters could probably kill such a character with a single hit, so I doubt he could come far. But I'm not 100% sure about that.|||Yeah, I guess I was thinking of AnnaGoanna, his amazon who finished Hell on /players 8 with all cracked/low quality equipment and only passive skills. http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x...=guardian1.jpg

Point being that with the gear the OP listed, someone playing with patience and sound tactics should be able to kill the ancients with only a normal attack.|||I found Smite (with Crushing Blow gear) to be asolutely amazing against Hell Ancients, because Smite stunlocks them. The key to me beating them was that I first used an amulet with Teleport charges so I could take on one of the Ancients at a time.