Hey guys!

Since rotw introduced new items that boost magic damage, the hammerdin got a significant buff. With hellwardens will, gheeds wager , sling ring the new Uber jewel and sunder charm, you can boost your magic damage by a significant amount.

Have seen people talking bout this and hammerdin a lot. But what about foh? The new items will buff it‘s bolts by a big amount.

And since both builds will be buffed by this the same amount , the hybrid seems even better now.

Just focusing on the magic part of FOH with 40 points, using conc and putting the rest in hammer and it’s synergy’s…

Your blessed hammer will be weaker than on pure hammerdin of course, just like pre patch. But since hammerdin got significantly better with the patch and the magic part of FOH receiving the same buffs… the blessed hammer damage will be much closer to the pre-patch pure hammerdin than before rotw.

Like both builds got buffed by the new magic gear. The hybrid looks realy good to me now. Since the overall damage is much better now, sacrificing some hammer-synergie-points doesn’t hurt as much as pre-rotw with lower overall damage.

Has anyone tried it for p8 farming ? Can you confirm my thoughts?

Ty for reading

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Apr 19 2026 07:01am

I havnt had time to test foh yet.
On maxroll’s planner it shows as if -magic res wasn’t working.
I know maxroll is often wrong, but it could make sense, cuz bolts are supposed to ignore magic res.
If they ignore positive res, they should also ignore negative res.
So overall, if that’s correct, hammer got big buffs, but not foh.

From the amazon basin:

O wow, actualy didn’t know this. Would be a shame if all the new items would be useless. But if bolt „sets“ enemy res to zero while calculating that makes sense.

Shame if true. I realy like foh but especially with the new shards and wider farm areas, not hitting beasts is a nono for me. And if the new items work only on hammer, I don’t see a point to go hybrid…

Thanks for your answer m8

Mmh just checked maxroll again
It's the other way around...
they show that +% magic is not working on FoH, but -% magic res is working
but it doesn't make sense at all, cuz they show it as if FoH was reduced by magic res (it is not)
so it's all messed up and we can't base anything on that

Logically, -magic res shouldn't work
but +% should work
the exact opposite that maxroll is showing

if no ones comes with some verified data, I'll try to find some time to test it properly in the next few days

Thanks again

Just realy like the style of foh and it is so good in huge density. But as soon as groups get small it’s kinda weak . Hammer would help a lot there and also kills beasts.

Sorry for offtopic, won’t have access to my pc for a while and can’t test but got some more hybrid questions:

- is it possible to cast a hammer in the 0.4 sec delay window at 125 fcr without decreasing foh uptime? That would make for a high octane playstyle for sure

- if magic stuff won’t work with FOH , is there a world where you can build an lightning hybrid?
Would try to get a scepter with + 3 to FOH to build cta , giving you a + 4 foh stick on your cta swap to cast it and a fully free second weapon slot.
Since holy shock is an actual synergy to the lightning part of FOH you could go infinity merc, cast FOH on cta slot , and go meele on second slot with zeal and holy shock, using grief or crescent moon to kill smaller groups and animals. Hard solving ar and stuff I guess then , but that would be kinda cool . Hardly worth it I think but maybe someone has tried this

Think about the god awfull lame bm magezon with smite on top:
Void dagger = DAMACH + Curse chargets and then your hammer wepon can suddenly make annoying smite damage on top.

Didn’t understand anything m8

Smite hybrid is easy with foh though . Get your +4 cta foh stick and cast foh with maxskills. On second slot Last wish + exile for smite setup . Fana as aura. Basicly 100% cb + might + lifetap on switch. Fully functioning smiter with all stats he needs on second slot. Fully functioning FOH-din on the other. Both skills at almost full power despite beeing a hybrid.
With only 40 skills needed for FOH you can max holy shield smite fana and get a hybrid that almost looses nothing compared to pure builds .

Smite for bosses/heralds , FOH for aoe.

Still no aoe for beasts though …. Smiting down cows one by one isn’t fun. But it’s a realy cool hybrid with both aspects almost at full power

There are many other ways as well to build a vt, i just ment that magedins has exploded in power since d2lod. And if you pvp with lets say a barb vs a magedin it gets quite boring. He can now spam foh while make a swarm of hammers to hide in xD

Uuuu get it now sorry I‘m a complete noob at pvp …

Can anyone confirm yet that - enemy magic res does/ does not work on foh bolts?