Avelynn’s PvM Pure Fend Spearazon Guide


My pride and joy of this ladder.
Soloing Shenk's minions in a 5 player game as a demonstration. Love the lightshow!


Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Fend IAS Breakpoints/Overview
3. The Fend Bug
4. Dealing with the Fend Bug - Strategy
5. Skills Distribution
6. Stats Distribution
7. Character Equipment
8. Mercenary
9. Conclusion, Credits and Special Thanks

1. Introduction

The Amazon has always been a favourite class of mine to play. I’ve always felt that, once geared, not only are they very efficient at PvM, but their flashy skill sets make it very satisfying to kill monsters en masse. This rings true for both the Bowazon and the Javazon, the most popular builds of Amazon out there.

But what about the Spearazon? In the official D2 posters the Amazon is often depicted holding a spear. There is rich lore regarding the use of the spear found in the D2 manual. However, the build is largely neglected – the fact that it has been forgotten to exist among most of the player base is saddening.

As such, being an Amazon aficionado myself, along with the recommendations of some of my friends, I have used my discovery of JSP and access to forum gold to build a Spearazon this ladder that functions well in PvM, which has walked the entirety of the game solo, in 1-8 player public games.

Be warned, however. This build requires some patience to play, which will be discussed later in the guide. The equipment required (especially for the optimal build) will require a bit of wealth to acquire, so consider this a character you would make a month or two into a ladder season.

I have searched for guides for any form of Spearazon prior to making mine. Only ones that still exist are on the Amazon Basin dating back to early 1.10, and leave many questions regarding the best end-game equipment setup. As such, I intend to attempt to write a guide for a build I have found the most fun and rewarding to play bar none.

And who doesn’t like a girl welding a big stick?

2. Fend IAS Breakpoints/Overview

Terms used throughout this guide:

IAS: Increased Attack Speed
AR: Attack Rating
FHR: Faster Hit Receovery
FPA: Frames per Animation
FRW: Faster Run/Walk
D/A/E: Dodge/Avoid/Evade
AoE: Area of Effect

Fend IAS

20 WSM Spears - Ceremonial Pike, Matriarchal Pike, Pike, Lance, War Pike
0 IAS 20/9
4 IAS 18/9
9 IAS 18/8
13 IAS 17/8
16 IAS 16/8
24 IAS 15/7
37 IAS 14/7
46 IAS 13/7
54 IAS 13/6
80 IAS 12/6
83 IAS 11/6
125 IAS 11/5 <--- Where my current build’s IAS stands.
168 IAS 10/5
208 IAS 9/5
456 IAS 9/4

10 WSM Spears - Maiden Pike
0 IAS 18/8
2 IAS 17/8
5 IAS 16/8
11 IAS 15/7
22 IAS 14/7
29 IAS 13/7
35 IAS 13/6
56 IAS 12/6
58 IAS 11/6
89 IAS 11/5
120 IAS 10/5
147 IAS 9/5
292 IAS 9/4

0 WSM Spears - Maiden Spear, Ceremonial Spear, Matriarchal Spear, Trident, Fuscina, Stygian Pike, Spetum, Yari, Ghost Spear
0 IAS 15/7
9 IAS 14/7
15 IAS 13/7
20 IAS 13/6
37 IAS 12/6
39 IAS 11/6
63 IAS 11/5
86 IAS 10/5
105 IAS 9/5
200 IAS 9/4

-10 WSM Spears - Spear, War Spear, Hyperion Spear
0 IAS 14/7
4 IAS 13/7
8 IAS 13/6
22 IAS 12/6
23 IAS 11/6
42 IAS 11/5
60 IAS 10/5
75 IAS 9/5
142 IAS 9/4

-20 WSM Spears - Brandistock, War Fork, Mancatcher
0 IAS 13/6
9 IAS 12/6
10 IAS 11/6
26 IAS 11/5
40 IAS 10/5
52 IAS 9/5
102 IAS 9/4

Amazon FHR Frames

0% 11
6% 10
13% 9
20% 8
32% 7
52% 6
86% 5
174% 4
600% 3

Once optimally geared, some things the Spearazon can do:

- Can achieve 3k-13k Fend Damage at 5 FPA
- Able to clear Hell difficulty alone
- Max required skills at around level 85+
- Ridiculous spell effects on screen in the form of constant BOTD Poison Nova, Ice Bolt, Frost Nova, Confuse, or Decrepify (based on your mercenary choice)
- Maxed resists in Hell with the help of charms
- 3.5k + Life with CTA’s BO, since Dexterity isn’t required for blocking

3. The Fend Bug

Dodge, Evade and Avoid are all very useful in most situations.

However, when one of the above is activated during certain Amazon spells, the spell will either miss entirely and deal no damage (as seen with Lightning Fury), or have all attacks in that cycle miss.

This is particularly devastating to Fend. While it is optimal to be around as many monsters as possible to make the most out of the skill, should you be surrounded, it is quite possible to die easily due to being stuck on Fend while landing no hits for no life leech in return.

While you could forgo the entire D/A/E tree, this leaves you without one of the best minions in the game – they are prerequisites to Valkyrie.

This guide will focus on the build that includes Valkyrie.

4. Dealing with the Fend Bug - Strategy

There are two main objectives to playing the Fend Spearazon:

Faster Attacks: The faster your Fend cycle, the better your chances of pulling one off, or recovering from a failed Fend cycle – which will happen a little no matter how well you play.

Not Getting Hit: This is the crux of your Fend strategy. Using Decoy and Valkyrie as tanks and your mercenary’s disrupting abilities, your aim is to fire off your Fends behind your minions to avoid activating D/A/E.

Generally, much like a Bowazon, you would use your Decoy to draw fire and herd monsters as you allow your Valkyrie to get in, and your Holy Freeze mercenary to get into area of effect range.

This will allow you to get in and Fend safely, dealing satisfying AoE damage, and proc tons of rapid Poison Novas from BOTD on top of the existing spell effects on the field!

From experience, there are two types of monsters in game that I've had a little trouble with, but are doable:

Undead Stygian Dolls: Decoy up as you would normally, and make sure you're at maximum range before you start Fending, especially versus big packs. Use Shift + Fend if you have to.

Gloams: The main problem with these is that their Lightning attack pierces, going through your tank minions and proccing D/A/E. Use Decoy to estimate how big the pack is first. Your best bet would then be to pull away from them and use the window of time when they're not attacking from chasing after you to pick them off. My own Fendzon has walked through Great Marsh and Frozen River with Gloams without incident - just takes a bit of patience. As always, you'll need maxed Lightning resistance. You'll be able to take a couple of stray shots easily; you just won't be able to Fend into a pack of them.

5. Skills Distribution

Javelin and Spear Skills:
[1+] Jab – Prereq. I’ve added more later on to help with singling out problem monsters in packs, and for single target.
[1] Impale
[20] Fend – For every 1 point into this, you get 10% increased Fend Damage.

Passive and Magic Skills:
[1] Inner Sight
[1] Slow Missile
[1] Dodge/Avoid/Evade
[20] Decoy – One of your tank minions. Powers up your Valkyrie.
[20] Valkyrie – Your other tank. Maxed for huge HP and good damage.
[10~] Critical Strike – I generally like to have about 65% Critical Strike with CTA buff – there are diminishing returns past this.
[20] Penetrate – You want as much as AR as possible without investing into Dexterity.

There will be no stat points allocated into the elemental strike skills as this is a pure Fend guide.

As you level, spend some points on Critical Strike as you wait for Fend. Do not invest any in D/A/E until you can put points into Valkyrie. After 1 point in Fend, max Valkyrie, Fend, Penetrate, and Decoy in that order. This allows you to get your tank minion set up early and then work on damage/AR while finally beefing up your Valkyrie in preparation for Hell.

6. Stats Distribution

Strength: As much as your BOTD weapon of choice requires. If you wish, you can strength glitch using the +30 Attributes on BOTD.

Dexterity: As much as your BOTD weapon of choice requires. You may invest more into this if you feel you require more AR. Personally, since this build is fairly fragile to packs, I prefer having more Vitality for survivability and ease of play. Act 1 mercenary will help towards AR as well with Inner Sight, as with Enchant from Lava Gout.

Vitality: Everything else.

Energy: Zero.

7. Character Equipment

Quick Equipment List: Current character – Leptine, May 2013 East Ladder

Breath of the Dying Matriarchal Pike, Ethereal
Artisan’s Diadem of the Whale (100 life, 3x 40ED/IAS Jewels)
Mara’s Kaleidoscope, 30 All Resists + Atma’s Scarab in Stash
Fortitude (1.5 Life per Level, All Resists 25-30)
Lava Gout OR Rare 2 Jav/20 IAS with stats and resists
Verdungo’s Hearty Cord (40 Vitality/15% Damage Reduction/13 Life Rep)
Gore Riders
240+AR/20 Dex Raven Frost, Rare LL/Str/Life/Resists Rings

- 125% IAS reached, 5 FPA Fend
- Strives to get the most out of resists from gear. This is a major point due to the need to max IAS while maxing resists without any help from the weapon and other slots.
- 32% FHR reached, 7 FHR breakpoint

Weapon Options:

Breath of the Dying: Ethereal Matriarchal Pike (95 Avg. Dmg) – +3 Javelin & Spear Skills. Hard to find, but rewarding as it will add 30% Fend Damage. Achieves 5 Fend FPA with 125 IAS while maintaining good damage. Mana and Life Leech is largely covered here as well.

Breath of the Dying: Ethereal War Pike (105.5 Avg. Dmg) – Excellent damage range. Easier to find. Achieves 5 Fend FPA with 125 IAS as well.

- Other options are viable, but the above weapons have a way better overall damage. 4 FPA is achievable with a Viperfork, but loses way too much damage to be competitive with BOTD.

Breath of the Dying: Ethereal Matriarchal Spear (80 Avg. Dmg) – +3 Javelin & Spear Skills. Hard to find. Possible to use with less IAS on gear. However, as shown, the damage suffers.

Hone Sudan, Ethereal Ghost Spear – For fans of Crushing Blow, but I feel 65% Crit with some Crushing Blow on Gores is sufficient. Upgrade + 3x 40ED/IAS for fanciness! Has to be Ethereal to even stand a chance.

(Economy) – Stoneraven, Viperfork, Steel Pillar, Arioc’s Needle, etc.

Helm Options:

Artisan’s Diadem of the Whale – 100 Life is great for PvM. 45 IAS will be useful to hit that 125 IAS breakpoint exactly. Avoid the 30 FRW variants, they are costly as they are popular with the PvPers, and you pay more for almost no added benefit.

Rare 2 Zon/30FRW/Strength/Resists/2 Socket Circlet – An expensive alternative for those who can’t live without their 2 Zon Skills, but with only 30 IAS available this forces you to use Highlord’s or Cat’s Eye for IAS.

(Economy) M’avina’s True Sight – 45 IAS possible, but lacks resists
(Economy) Andariel’s Visage Demonhead – 35 IAS possible, 2 Skills, Life Leech, Strength, but lacks resists except for poison.

Amulet Options:

Mara’s Kaleidoscope – 30 All Resists will fix a lot of resist problems. Also very affordable.

Rare/Crafted 2 Zon Amulet – Another expensive alternative. This one’s more reasonable as this allows you to use godlies without losing much.

Highlord’s/Cat’s Eye – Prefer Highlord’s due to 1 skill, and Light Res, and the 25 Dex from Cat’s Eye I feel, isn’t required. Use if IAS is required.

*Atma’s Scarab – Useful in your stash if you ever run into a Cold/Fire + Physical Immune monster, and you don’t have Decrepify from an Act 2 mercenary.

Body Options:

Fortitude – Pick your favourite style! 300% Enhanced Damage is hard to beat. Get 1.5 Life per Level most importantly, and hope you get a decent resists roll. Activating Chilling Armor helps a ton as well as you inherently have low Defense with a two-hander.

Chains of Honor – If you’re struggling for resists, using this might be a last resort. 65 All Resist will help immensely, but at the cost of 300% ED from Fortitude. However, if you plan to run lots of Chaos, then this may not be a bad idea since 200% ED to Demons, Life Leech and 8% Damage Reduction is helpful.

Gloves Options:

Lava Gout – Chance to Enchant on Hit, 20 IAS. One of the most under-used gloves out there is the prime glove for this build. Enchant will help greatly with AR, and the Fire Damage from Enchant will do some damage to Physical Immunes. Cheap to acquire as well.

Rare/Crafted 2 Jav/20IAS gloves – Good for regular use as well. Get stats and resists if needed.

Belt Options:

Verdungo’s Hearty Cord – The Vitality and 15% Damage Reduction is welcome even if you’re not planning to get hit that much. Without any need for IAS in this slot, this seems like the most logical choice.

Nosferatu’s Coil – An option if 10% IAS needed, along with helpful Life Leech. The Slow Target on it is not as noticeable as I had hoped, especially with Holy Freeze already applied.

Boots Options:

Gore Riders – Some Crushing Blow is welcome. Deadly Strike, while not stacking with Critical Strike, does create two instances where double damage can occur. Just another option to round out your Spearazon.

War Travelers – Adds about a hundred or so damage on both ends to your Fend, as well as 10 Strength and 10 Vitality. Solid choice as well.

Sandstorm Treks – For those wanting more FHR, this is a possible option. 15 Strength, 15 Vitality and Poison Resist help as well. However, as stated before, since you aren’t likely to be Fending through a ton of hits (without dying, at least), heavy amounts of FHR aren’t needed as much.

Rare FRW/FHR/Dual or Tri Resist Boots – An (expensive) option to max out resists.

Rings Options:

Raven Frost – As perfect as possible, since the AR does help. Cannot be Frozen is essential to this build as being slowed messes heavily with your Fend cycle. Use two if you feel like pumping out AR.

Rare Rings – Round out your rings set with a decent rare ring. AR, Life Leech, Strength, Life, Resists – the works.

Bul-kathos’ Wedding Band – Not bad, however the Life isn’t BO-able and the lack of resists might hurt.

Charms:

Grand Charms: Jav Skillers for a cheap fix, or spend on some high lifers. Include a 12% FHR if going for 32%. (Remember that 1 each extra point is 10% Fend Damage)

Small Charms: You are likely to require quite a few all resist charms. Patch resists as needed and fill with Max/AR/Life or AR/Life. FHR charms are possible as well to hit your desired FHR breakpoint.

Low level gear:

Any rare/unique spear will do for the first few levels. Follow it up with a Bloodthief for mass Life Leech and try to boost your resists in preparation for normal Diablo, which will be your first big obstacle with his huge fire and lightning damage. His Lightning Hose, which does part lightning and part physical damage, will prey on your low defense.

Once you’re up to normal Act 5, grind away till Lycander’s Flank is accessible. This will last you till your BOTD weapon.

8. Mercenary

There are only two logical choices for your mercenary:

1) Act 2 Desert Mercenary: Nightmare-Defensive, Holy Freeze

- Reaper’s Toll Ethereal, IAS Jeweled
- Guillaume’s Face (or Vampire Gaze, Eth if Damage Reduction is preferred), IAS Jeweled
- Treachery Eth Armor

With 75% IAS, 4.5 FPA Jab is achieved. At the second fastest IAS breakpoint of the Thresher, your mercenary will be spamming Decrepify constantly.

This is a huge buff to your cause, as Decrepify not only applies additional slowing effects, but also breaks Physical immunities and causes you to deal more damage to the affected targets. Needless to say, this is highly beneficial for safer Fending.

On hindsight, this mercenary is a safer choice than the Rogue described below – purely due to the effects of Decrepify, and the addition of another strong tanking minion.

2) Act 1 Rogue: Cold Arrow

- Ice Great Bow
- Treachery Eth Armor
- Delirium Eth Helm

With a Great Bow and Treachery, your Rogue will hit 9 FPA with 60% IAS, leaving you with the ultimate disruption tool: Delirium. Confuse is amazing for control, essentially adding many more potential targets for monsters to hit – which in turn allows for safer Fends.

Another perk is Inner Sight. While not removing Physical Immunities, this spell will lower enemy defense dramatically – allowing you to require less AR/Dexterity. Plus the Frost Nova spam is beautiful to watch! Watch out for Cold + Physical Immunes though.

I was strongly recommended try out this mercenary by friends when planning out my Spearazon. It works, if you’re looking to try out something different.

*While other mercenary builds might be viable, such as those that provide more buffs to damage like a Faith Rogue or Might/Pride Desert Mercenary, due to nature of Fend, I tend to err on the side of caution and focus on survivability over pure damage.

9. Conclusion

I sincerely hope that people will enjoy playing a Fendzon as much as I have. The amazing feeling of digging into a large Flayer pack or Shenk’s minions and watching Fend going off and setting off multiple spell effects is indescribable.

I have done my best to figure out the best setup for my Amazon, and have play-tested it as much as possible. While she does require a bit of attention while playing, she's actually not that fragile as I may have implied. My Light Sorceress is way squishier even with better gear (with the setup with Ormus, Eschuta's and such - 200 FCR).

Any and all suggestions are welcome, as I acknowledge that this is a rarely used build, and other people may have different opinions.

Credits:

Arreat Summit: Figures, skill stats and item stats. Always keep a second tab open for your referencing fellow JSPers!

Jaypee: Used his mercenary guide to determine the IAS breakpoints for my respective mercenaries. A HUGE thank you for the Javazon guide as well, which allowed me to rediscover my love for the Amazon class upon returning to the game this ladder. Made a Javazon as my first character, and had to follow it up with this one!

Special Thanks:

Otho: Helps me out with game mechanics and deals with weird item setups. I suggested a Spearazon as his next character, but he got lazy, so I picked up where he left off. Do not regret it one bit – even though finding that Diadem was hard!

haileystrade: Talks with me about Amazon mechanics often, and whom I acquired a large amount of my Amazon’s gear from.



~~ End of Guide. Thank you for reading! ~~

Nice to see a different build... not bad at all.

I notice you have trouble at times with souls / dolls... have you ever tried placing decoy to the other side of you to avoid the souls attacks, then move forward and casting your Valk
into the packs to stop them from casting lightning? (if there are strays... just plant decoy on top ot them as well.. )

Dolls... divide and conquer... your merc should be able to take them out since you are using Decoy / Valk. Mind you... I am unsure of your FRW speed either, so if you are too slow
with medium / heavy items on, you may not be able to run to safe location faster enough.

Do you use 1 base point Impale on bosses to test out your damage? from your setup using Maras, this means your Slvl = 3 = 350% more dmg. (just a thought for you to test on a boss)

Oh yeah, letting the merc do the job does work as well, but I'm also using the A1 merc - her damage output isn't that much.

The situation isn't that dire for me - I can take hits from both the Dolls exploding and Gloams as well. It's just there to inform people to avoid digging right in and Fending a big pack of them. Like I said, I've found her to not be that fragile as I expected. I've also never had problems running away from them, with the help of Decoy - you shouldn't really be charging headfirst into the darkness in Durance anyway. It was just like a thing where I went "Oh! I took a bit of damage from that one -" with regards to the dolls. I've walked through the entire game in almost full games (though less in Hell because of the lack of regular games, but I've done Act 3 Hell in a big game = Flayer Dungeon has tons of dolls - in close quarters too :P).

I'm not sure what you're suggesting with the Gloam packs - do you mean casting them behind the Gloams so they shoot the other way? It's generally chaos when a bunch of them are around. Their lightning casts from a screen away as well so it's hard to get up close initially.

I don't really have a clue about Impale unfortunately. I was warned against trying out Impale because apparently you require a fast weapon for that build to work well. But Mat Spears aren't that ideal for Fend, so I never really looked into it. Sorry! I've been Jabing my bosses.

This post was edited by Avelynn on Sep 14 2013 05:21pm

Souls: If you cast Decoy or Valk on top of them, they change their attacks from casting to melee (think it is melee), occassional 1 or 2 will move out to get into range attacks.

Impale: As you do with Dolls tactic (hold shift while range 3 etc) use Impale once on boss.

Mercs... personally since you are melee, you should go with a might merc using either Reapers Toll or Pride... faster kill speed is better for you I beleive... also more dmg = more LL / ML return for you using Fend/Jab... holy freeze on A1 merc is nice... but not needed when you are using Valk & Decoy... just a thought for you to test out.


EDIT: Have you tried Doom Poleaxe with Cleglaws Gloves (KB & SLOW monster) and Blackhorns Death Mask (SLOW monster) to Slow bosses and KB with Fend then use Impale? In conjunction with Might/Pride merc etc?


This post was edited by izParagonzi on Sep 14 2013 05:44pm

I know what you're talking about with the Souls, unfortunately when when it's really dangerous - like the huge packs in A4 / Frozen River, a bunch of them do get away to Lightning you from afar again. Just one or two Lightnings will get you D/A/E locked.

I'm curious, what's your reason to use Impale? The cast is horrendously slow even with 125 IAS on my Mat Pike. You're asking me to test damage with it? What's the difference if so? Between the listed Fend damage from the character screen and from playing it I feel that was a sufficient gauge.

Mercenary: Reaper's Troll is 100% recommended if you're going the Act 2 route - it's there to break PIs.

As for recommended Mercs, while it may be nice to stack more damage, for a person who's looking to try out the build for the first time, a Holy Freeze merc is definitely the safest build to use. Judging from my experiences in-game, the damage done is respectable in 5+ player games as it is, plus the aura is a huge utility in minimizing D/A/E procs - especially for Archer packs as well - since you are still getting hit even with the two tank minions up - and I'm using Delirium which has more CC than the Reaper's Toll merc. The aura also helps with running away from dolls as talked about above. Don't think your hp will spike that much to justify needing that rapid LL/ML - mine doesn't - and even with higher damage, if your D/A/E procs repeatedly you wouldn't even be landing those hits. Ease of play > all I believe!

Thanks for the questions so far - I've answered them to the best of my ability. You've played one of these before? Did you invest into Valkyrie?

edit: saw your edit. I don't think that it's required for you to center your mercenary around killing bosses. Generally they're the least of my worries - I don't even have to worry much about D/A/E since it's only 1 thing attacking me. The real obstacles are when your entire screen is filled with monsters - especially ranged ones like Gloams and Cursed Archers.

This post was edited by Avelynn on Sep 14 2013 06:30pm

Nice guide, I've always wanted to try a fend zon. Have you thought about using Guillaume's 40/15, Treachery, Laying of Hands, and Highlords? As pure melee, it looks like you could use a lot more CB/DS, and the 350% DTD is huge from LoH. Treachery adds nice resists, DR, FHR, and the 45% IAS you would lose from switching to Guillaume's, which is hands down the best melee helm in the game. Also, I would consider String as well for the added life leech.



This post was edited by pickady on Sep 14 2013 06:40pm

Amazons have never really relied on CB that much - since Critical Strike is available to us. Crushing blow sort of provides a redundant coverage. Goes the same for DS. As for LoH, you wouldn't be facing Demons all the time, and Enchant from Lava Gouts helps with AR and Fire damage. If you're planning to run Chaos a lot, then by all means, why not.

Treachery's resists only activate on getting hit - something you want to avoid as much as possible. Fendzon doesn't work like the conventional melee character - the Fend Bug does change that a lot. Not to mention you lose 300% ED + passive 25-30 resist from Fortitude. You don't actually require that much DR either, Dungos was there to add 40 Vit, with a DR as a nice bonus. You're not effectively sponging a ton of attacks to require that much ML/LL. They're good to have to top you off as required, but playing this build doesn't involve a ton of HP spiking. If you're getting hit and constantly getting D/A/E procs, you're going to have to back up and try and lose some of those hits. This is why you don't require that much FHR either - you wouldn't be trying to Fend through a ton of hits. Strings is probably fine to use though regardless.

Highlords was listed in case you needed more IAS. Otherwise the +2 skill, stats and resists from Maras is superior - you generally will be struggling for resists.

This post was edited by Avelynn on Sep 14 2013 06:53pm

I have tested a few melee zons before... ever since the time of the Tankazon (this is an Impale zon) around 1.09 and earlier.

Going to test this out on P8 Hardcore... need to find some of the items though... so might use a mixture of ideas from Pickady and your build in conjunction with some other items.
Won't have the runewords... so have to improvise...

Try some cb... 12.5-25% of a monsters hp goes a long way.

Guillaume's would be the only thing you'd be able to swap out safely, and that kind of screws with your IAS - you'll be forced to use Treachery with a War Pike/Mat Pike. The build inherently already has low damage, so losing 80 + 300 ED in favor of 35% CB and a redundant 50% FHR seeems like a bad idea - especially since this build was intended to walk through the entire game - not specialize in bosses. Hone Sundan comes with a bunch of problems as well - BOTD is your main source of leech, so you're going to have to make up for it elsewhere.

In solo games, my Fend just decimates packs of monsters as it is. In 4+ games, my Fend is already doing 12.5-25% easily with the help of Crit. CB is also diminished in games with more players. Sure, I might kill bosses faster, but the trade off in damage isn't worth it with respect to clearing the rest of the game. Other than Normal Diablo, the rest of the bosses have been a easily dealt with.



Yeah, CB is probably more important when you're unable to stack a ton of damage on your gear, but the amount of Life Leech with that kind of damage is going to suck a little. And resists will be fun with deal with

Also, Impale zon will require a way different gear setup - especially a different weapon. I haven't seen Impale tables, but a faster weapon and a more IAS is probably needed - the swing time is horrible compared to Jab when you aren't specialized into it (mine does 3.6-15k on screen). It's not that reliable in practice, especially with only 1 point. The amount of hits you actually land in a space of time is pretty bad (again this is with trying to use it as a single target skill in conjuction with 1-few skill points, not maxed - which I can't with an investment in Valkyrie).

This post was edited by Avelynn on Sep 15 2013 03:55am