repost of my old topic http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=9528632&f=87

Hi people ,
I have already published this guide three years ago in a french forum , but someone have copied idea of
this build and is trying to sell a guide for money on a D2 shop item omg , some friends have suggested to me
to translate in english to cut this shitty business , that's what i do .

The princip of this build is to turn ‘ life tap ’, which is a defensive curse , into the favourite offensive curse of melee players : Amplify damages . Ubers got a 50% damage reduce (only 20% dr for mephi) , with Amplify damages it will decrease to – 50% . Thus you will increase by three times your damages . It may be note that this is only for doing tristram runs alone. This build is not efficient for pvm.

But how staying alive without life tap ?
The answer comes from ubers’s summons , which are mostly casters using fire ( pit lord from diablo and himself, Lord goule from baal and even some wizards from mephisto). Using the amulet Rising Sun is efficient enough to stay alive without life leech . Indeed fire absorbtion given by Rising Sun will make you heal with fire attacks.

So , build is very simple and very cheap :

EQUIPMENT
Weapon : Lacerator

Shield : sacred targe or rondache with some all resist , socketed with perfect gems to have the good resistances

Helm : guillaum socketed 15 ias

Armor : shaft socketed 15 ias

Belt : thunder god

Boots : goblin toe

Gloves : hellmouth

Ring : 2 raven ( better dext , ar useless ofc ^^ )

Amu : rising sun

Iventory : Take all crappy charms you have on your mules ( life , strengh , dext and resist ) , and one offensive naked skiller to have conviction lvl 21 (for cancel meph conviction on you)

SKILLS :

20 smite
20 holy shield
20 conviction
all the rest in fanatism

STATS :
strengh : 110 to wear thunder god /hellmouth
dext : enough for 75% block
life : the rest ofc

RESIST : 75%cold , 80%light , 75%poison and about 30% in fire , not more ( to optimize the valor of fire resistance , it would be necessary to know exacts damages of tristram monsters ) , resistances are found on shield , anya , and resists charms

Question : why 30 fire resist and not 75 ? Because absorb is calculated after resistance , then if you have big resistance you have less damage to absorb .

Gameplay is easy :

Enter, kill, leave ^^.

Seriously, activate Holy Shield and conviction, run in the middle of Tristram bypassing the first house. When invocations start to spawn, it's won, lock Mephisto with smite ( you can switch conviction to fanatism when he's dead ), then Baal, finally Diablo.
Don't move to much in order to be hit by fireballs, walls, storms and other infernos in the head.
Your bubble of life plays yo-yo , soon we think we're gonna die, it goes up again, then goes down again, but the God of the Rising Sun is protecting us tongue.gif .

For information, my paladin is level 76, 1250 life, I died one the first run because I wasn't near enough invocations , but the 10 other runs were done easily, sometimes it's close but it's ok and very fun.

Of course you can adapt the principle of fire absorb/lacerator with a paladin who's got big weapon in switch in order to boost again damages, but the switched shield must have the same resistances.

Have fun with this build

Here's a video http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=7087309357399889748


Great thanx to Del and _Prometheus_ from judgehype who have made essential of the translation , thx to Le-bref and ehfull for support .

nice!, i have to try it <5>

why 20 conv when fade+1 salva is enough to coutner out ^^

problem: without lt oyu will not have any leech while smiting= bad idea

the very point of his guide is to try something different.. flaming is easy..

his build is based on using absorb for getting back life.. not tap.. and it makes sense too.. maxed salvation will only give you better res, which obviates the point of absorb.. on the other hand, higher conviction than meph will make his conv useless, and since your res are not awesome, you'll be taking some dmg and the absorb gear will heal you..

pretty decent guide.. at least it's new, not the dracs, grief, guilame everyone uses.. and if it works, gz..

absorb is done before resistances are applied....
you are healed when the absorbed life exceeds the amount of damage you receive

problem is: he will be faced not only with elemental but also a very good chunk of physical attacks....

It's the other way round.

This post was edited by Faelwen on Jul 8 2009 08:47am

who whacks you in trist?? apart from baal's scepters, it's completely elemental attacks..

Thx for gz , and absorb is calculated after resistances , not before

For physical attack you have 75% block +30% reduce by shaft

This post was edited by Staros on Jul 8 2009 09:03am

aren't they called that? the ghost things that fly around.. at least the ones in arcane are called that iirc..