It's a two part question if you got time to answer both.

Well unfortunately d2r is messed up and they took away the fire cast from the Phoenix shield making any other shield worthless.

When it comes to coa smiters you will notice you need more minimum damage instead of getting high and low damage with say a sacred targe, due to the nature of a coa build “low life and damage” you cannot get away with anything but a sacred rondache or zakarum base Phoenix with high Ed boosting your minimum damage. So the ideal best build on d2r would be.

Coa Ber ber
2 pally 20 fcr 30 str 20 dex ammy
10 fcr 25 str 15 dex 20 life 30 lr ring
Phoenix zakarum 65 Ed and 45 res base
Water walks
Dungo belt 40/15
Steelrends “can swap to trangs if need 50 fcr but you’ll loose your 10 Cb.
Grief pb 30+ /400
Enigma dusk or mage

For the skills

Max smite
Holy shield
Fanta

Then the rest of the points you can do whatever you want with, if you want lot of foh damage then keep foh 4 points ahead of shock while stating, example 14 points foh 10 points shock. Then you can do whatever you want with the rest of the points. Or just keep going till foh and shock are 20/18.

Now I didn’t mention the extra ring slot because you have a 5% light absorb from your shield, if your okay with that you could put on a bk ring, stat ring or raven, if not just put on a wisp.

I’m not gonna waste your time building you a char with your gear, d2r is messed up and it will only be waisting your time “currently” with any other shield than a Phoenix.

This post was edited by Nataraja on Jul 5 2022 05:01pm

Thanks man. I have a dumb question. At what point is attack speed too much? Cuz I have a 40/390 PB grief, and a 20ias 10cb gloves. I was wondering if I can drop the gloves since I have max fanaticism

The ias gloves are used when a necro slows you or someone uses an Arach belt, besides that you only need a 30 ias grief pb to hit 6fps with a level 27 fanta.

The Cb gloves would work if you went with gores or goblin toes but I’ve found the waterwalks and rends to work best on anything with a coa plus the Trang gloves for 50 fcr swap or 75 is simply unmatched.

This post was edited by Nataraja on Jul 5 2022 05:29pm

Sweet. I guess I have to get crafting for the pally ammy then.

Just curious, why ber ber coa? Why not ber Shako?

Average smite damage is 900

If you don’t go max damage reduction that 900 will go to like 1200 and you’ll die faster basically.

Ah damn it. I guess I have to look for that 15dr 2os coa then.

Thank you again for your tips and guide.

Anytime

Oh one last question. Why MP or DS armor? Wouldn't AP be better for defense?

Depends if your using maras in your inventory to pre buff your life, if you take off the str from your gear it will not allow you to wear the armour. But yes ap would have the highest defense.