Veangadin

[spastic-ninJa]

Okay guys, this is my favourite build of any character, and I love it because it isn't based upon the immensely popular Hammerdin.

Although I haven't played in a while, I still remember the basic build structure:

Combat Skills:
-- 20 into Veangance
-- 1 into Sacrifice
-- 1 (to 4) into Zeal (4 if you want a decent skill to use while you level up your Veangance)
You can also put points into Holy Shield, if you are willing to sacrifice synergies for Veangance.

Offensive Auras:
There are two different combinations you can go with: they revolve around Fanatacism (or Concentration if you want to lose Atk Speed for Damage) and Conviction. They both have good bonuses: Fanatacism will increase your attack and atk speed greatly, whilst Conviction dramatically reduces monster defence/ resistances at high levels. Personally, I prefer Conviction, as it allows you to use less Stat Points for Dexterity, as monsters' defense goes down the drain.

So, either:
Conviction:
-- 20 into Conviction
-- 1 into all prerequisite skills.

Or:
Fanatacism:
-- 20 into Fanatacism
-- 1 into all prerequisites.

Simple. :)

Defensive Auras:
NB: Defensive Auras will not be used often; their primary use is for synergies.

I'm not entirely sure over the synergy system (never have been). Anyway:
-- 10% to cold, lightning, and fire damage per level of each respective Elemental Resitstance (IE: Fire increases fire, and so on)
-- 2% to all three with Sanctuary.

Therefore, it appears that Sanctuary is less effective than the others, as it only increases a total of 6% per level.

Basically, just chuck all of your extra skill points into these skills :)

If you put 10-20 points into Holy Shield + prerequisites, and 4 or so into Zeal, then you will have approximately (at Level 99, with 110 skill points) 35 skill points at least into these skills.

If you forgo both Holy Shield + Zeal, then you can have around 60 points into these synergies (whooping damage). However, this is not very effective, as, especially in HC, you will take a lot of damage (due to the lack of a good defensive skill).

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I don't know if anyone else has heard of/ used this skill tree, but it's quite effective, as your elemental damage doesn't get affected by high monster resis's in Hell, due to almighty Conviction :)

Comments would also be appreciated.

[Moser]

So the build would be:

20 into Veangance
20 into Conviction
20 into Fanatacism
then some into some minor skills?

I've never really heard of that build, about how much damage does it get?

[spastic-ninJa]

Well, you can actually choose whether you wish to use fanatacism or conviction, and save yourself a lot of skill points to put into Holy shield or Veangance synergies.

Before 1.10, I did about 4k damage with conviction and a LS. With the synergies, I can imagine it would do a whole lot more.

So, my preferred build would be:
20 into Veangance
20 into Conviction (although you can swap this with Fanatacism)
Around 15 into Holy Shield
The rest can be divided up amongst Synergies/ prerequisites.

[GrassDragon]

Looks good, my dad built a paladin like this a long time ago.

I like to figure out exactly how much damage a build is gonna do, but I don't have time right now. I'll do it tonight.

[T-Dawg]

This build also just sucks through mana like no tomorrow. Let that be known, a good fair of mana leech is very helpful. This build is quite classic, but due to the upkeep of mana, the average player doesn't often play an avenger, especially because the damage comes from elemental sources and in hell, creatures have a staggering amount of resistances, and immunities. For most people it is just simply easier to got zeal + fanat, and switch to something like holy shock for phys immunes.

Tis a shame that hammerdins became so cookie-cutter again, things are far too cyclic in humanity.

[GrassDragon]

Conviction at slvl20:

Radius: 13.3 yards
Enemy Defense: -90%
Enemy Resist All: -125%

Vengence at slvl20 without syns:

Cold Length: 12.6 seconds
Fire Dmg: +184%
Cold Dmg: +184%
Lightning Dmg: +184%
Attack Rating: +210%
Mana Cost: 8.7

And with each of it's syns maxed (the three resists, not Salvation):
Cold Length: 12.6 seconds
Fire Dmg: +384%
Cold Dmg: +384%
Lightning Dmg: +384%
Attack Rating: +210%
Mana Cost: 8.7

Each level in Vengence gives +6% dmg to all, and each level in a syn gives +10% dmg for the corresponding element, without increasing mana cost (which is 0.25 mana per slvl). So if you know what element you'll be using, it might be a better bet to pump that syn, to keep the mana cost low. I really don't know how that would work in practice though, it may not really matter, and you may need the broadness of equal damage in all elements.

You said this is your favorite build, how has it worked in practice?

[Neo]

This is believe it or not a semi basic pally build.

Revolves around Elemental Damage (Vengeance) and Conviction. This always means that you will use alot of charms and/or other elemental damage sources.

This isnt to bad of a build, except for the fact that you lose alot of leeching ability. As you are not doing to much physical damage (especially in hell)

But Ive seen it work :)

-Neo

[spastic-ninJa]

GrassDragon: It worked very well in practice, even though I never had a large stockpile of items to choose from. I was using either a Baraner's or a LS, and I still did pretty reasonable damage (before 1.10). I would check to see what my best avenger's skill allocation/ items / attributes were, and such, except that the character expired X_x

NeoX / T-Dawg: Thanks for your input, guys :) It is, as Neo pointed out, a pretty basic build order, except that most avengers have disappeared due to increasing popularity of Hammerdins, so anything out of the norm -- provided it works well -- can be quite a success. Also, yes, I can imagine that LL would be reduced greatly -- I hadn't thought that it was only physical damage that affected this, prior to your comment, Neo. I'm not sure how effective a Fanat Avenger would be in relation to a Convict Avenger, considering that Fanat adds to physical damage. My guess is that the Fanat Avenger would be more balanced, but would find it tough going against the high resis monsters of Hell.

[GrassDragon]

If you substituted Fanat for Convic, I don't think it would work as well. You're basically relying on elem dmg, and switching your aura would just make you do less dmg. It would increase attack speed, but I don't think that's enough to make up for the lowered dmg.

One thing my dad used to do (and note, this doesn't work anymore in 1.10) is "flash" auras. When you got an aura, the effects lasted for 8 seconds after the source disappeared. The way that worked, you could aura flash Conviction on all of them enemies, then quickly switch to Fanat. You'd have about 5 seconds where the monsters were "Convicted" and you had Fanat on, and you would do TONS of damage. Of course that doesn't work anymore in 1.10, but I thought I'd let you know how this build worked in the past.

[spastic-ninJa]

I agree with your comment, GrassDragon, I was just wondering how everything would affect each other. IE: with fanat, you get more leeching, according to Neo (as I have no real technical knowledge of these things). But yes, Convict sounds quite superior.

[T-Dawg]

aura flashing was the coolest. i so owned at aura flashing, was a pain in the ass though, if one was used to mindless WW barbs or MA Zons. Once someone got the hang of flashing, wow was it effective.

Also, I have seen veng + fanat work in tandem with each other before, more physical damage = more elemental damage, but it is not as effective as eliminating the resists of the enemies with conviction. of course, one does get a bit more leeching that way.

[The_Pawn]

I once knew of an interesting paladin build: The tankidin. As you can guess, He is a multiplayer dependant paladin, who's job is to rush into the heart of the enemy and keep them all busy while sorcs and amazons rain destruction from afar. He has about maxed holy shield, maxed defiance (or salvation) and all synergies, with a few points into zeal, and absolutly mad leech life and defensive armor to keep him alive. The tankidin I heard of had cleglaws bracers and a few other knockback items (as wel as BOTD) to keep himself alive as well as buy time for his allies.

I have heard of this with a barbarian too, maxed iron skin, shout, taunt, and natural res. Very interesting...