I can’t say how it fares in d2r, as just haven’t the same time or drive that I used to for the game.

It’s still an oft forgotten thing that beast can be made in scepters.

What about Hand of Blessed Light?

It gives more +skill and the base speed is - 10 as well. I imagine this could be a go too as well - just with crushing blow from 1 Ber via socket.

Helmet could be gulllys ias/@ to make up for the smite part.

____

So I tried now to use hoto/spirit and grief/Zaka on swap just to try out how it goes. I still did not max fanatism and I could reach max speed with grief (35ias roll) and fana 1 hard point - 13 with skills from equipment - 14 total.

As I expected the gameplay with switching between slots is not giving a very fluent experience and Act bosses drop not much faster with smite than with bolts/foh - mind you, I have no crushing blow equipped with sandstorms/shako/Magefist.
I also waived on cta second slot for this staying at 1.8k life instead of 3k - doable but again missing out on some comfort.

I can get my hands on a heaven's light and a 2/20 pala circlet soon, so I can try out even further.

Still not sure if I should go for the 2/20 because the 125fcr cap is not reachable when loosing hoto.

This post was edited by wasserkrug on Nov 8 2025 01:40am

I'm still rocking act5 merc(forty/andys), switched azure wrath for lawbringer. Now it's plague/lawbringer but I go dual lawbringer for decrep to come in effect and does not get overwritten.
The Sanctuary aura is great, especially when stacked up so high.
Decrep is not really shining - because everything dies too fast and in some situations Falcwald seems to take over and becomes the main character

So what about a FoHbear?

It doesn’t give more +skills
Compared it to Astreon in my example:
Both give +4 foh / smite / holy shield
Both have -10 WSM
Aestron has an extra 10 ias, reaching max speed from only gloves
Aestron gets 53% CB vs 20% on heavens+ber
Aestron gives +85 dmg to your base shield dmg (mini grief lol)
Heaven’s +dmg is min & max dmg, this is not applied to your shield like grief/astreon

As you may have noticed already, foh is great, it’s your main skill.
So if you drop whatever helm for guillaume’s instead, you lower your main dmg.
I really wouldn’t do that.

I feel like the build I linked is the perfect balance of a nearly maxed foh dmg on a 75fcr setup, with still very good smite dmg and 78% CB without sacrificing any foh dmg.