An odd build

[Doc]

I actually did this before I got sick, in single player. Single player with players set to eight is kinda interesting. Game is tough, you can level fast. Heck, you can be level 20 before reaching Andy.

I was just being a screwball when I did this, but I was surprised at how well it worked. When I get my coordination back, I'm thinking about rebuilding him and having another run, and perhaps refining him a bit.

I wanted a Paladin who was more or less an undead hunter. I know it has been done dozens of times in dozens of ways. I didn't want to do fist of the heavens. Not in players 8 mode. Specifically, I wanted holy bolt. But then when I sat down and thought about previous bolt blasters I've made, I thought about all the non undead there are and the troubles associated with those. I'd have no team mates to deal with non undead.

There's been a couple of builds that detail smite and holy bolt. I looked over various guides and decided those weren't what I was looking for. They were shopping lists and I was playing single player, with no guarantees for equipment.

About holy bolt. It is really powerful. You really don't need to fully synergise it, even on players 8. You only need to add to a synergy when it takes more than a bolt or two to kill something. It is a surprisingly flexible skill when you want to blend it with something.

The build wound up being maxed out holy bolt, a point in smite, some points in blessed hammer, (but it wasn't maxed) some points in holy shield, and I maxed out sanctuary even though I wasn't actually attacking anything with a weapon. No points in sacrifice, or zeal, or any of those skills. I did fill out the offensive aura tree to get one point in fanaticism and 1 point in conviction. Also, filled out the defensive aura tree to get redemption.

So, you are asking, why sanctuary? Since I wasn't attacking anything and sanctuary is a broken skill? Well, sanctuary rocks, broken or not. I think it was about level 25ish or so, undead off screen would be doing the thriller shuffle. Nothing undead could reach me. I could walk into a room, start bolting, and do so in complete and total safety. I'd flash redemption to get rid of bodies so they couldn't be revived. But the effect was awesome. I'd walk into a room, and suddenly it would turn indo an undead disco. Mirror ball sparklies all over, and dancing undead shuffling to the funky beat. I could walk through the chaos sanctuary and destroy it with no real effort. The venom lords concerned me a bit though, but my merc could deal with those just fine. (Holy freeze merc, armed with an ethereal woestave)

When I was forced to deal with the living, I'd swap over to fanaticism swap weapons. On the switch, I had a strength cutlass and a rare +1 pally skills elite targe I found. (Resists were an issue though, no resists on the shield at all) One point smite backed with a fairly decent of holy shield is enough to wear something down reasonably. I made short work of act end bosses, and never had to worry about AR or missing.

I was able to play though most of the game on players 8. A few times in hell I was forced to reduce the player count and reload a map. Most of hell act 5 was single under players 1 or 2. I was able, by some miracle, to defeat hell ancients. It took many, many tries. I finally just got lucky.

The character wound up being much stronger than I had anticipated, flexible, and not such a half baked idea. Sanctuary and holy bolt work very, very well together. If I was in a team situation, I'd max out holy bolt, sanctuary, and then cleansing to raise sanctuary's pulse damage. Here's the odd thing, even under players 8, sanctuary's pulse damage was killing things, even in hell. Things I hadn't bolted yet. I have a suspicion that it does a lot more damage than the skill suggests, and the LCS reports. I started noticing that in Nightmare A2, when I walked through the tomb in the rocky waste and stuff was dying with out me doing a thing. Slowly, but dying. As I raised up the skill with more points, it was more noticeable. I'd even go as far to say that sanctuary acts as a passive synergy for holy bolt. Wearing stuff down and keeping things away from you so you can safely cast.

Also noticed that gloams didn't bother me as much with a high level of sanctuary. They kept getting knocked back and spending time in a hit recovery animation loop. I still got gloam bolted many times, but I killed them quite readily. There were no deaths in my run. (But many close calls)

Oh, and my equipment was JUNK.

I kept finding ethereal uniques, like Woestave. I had bad item luck for most of the game. I did find a Nightsmoke, it was part of my normal Diablo drop, and I wore that until the end. I did find a nice +2 skills paladin sceptre and a other assorted junk bits of gear. I wore Stealth armor until the end of the game. I am amazed that I survived and thrived as well as I did with the gear I had. Then again, most of the really dangerous monsters in the game are undead, and I could blast them to cinders. There were a few rough spots in hell, including a nasty pack of frenzytaurs. To deal with those I actually had to put smite on my right mouse button so I would auto attack. I managed to keep the pack mostly contained and seeing stars, while my merc whittled them down with Woestave. (Which is an unbelievably awesome weapon)

One point in conviction proved useful far to many times to count. Merc had a circlet with oooooodles of lightning and fire damage, as well as life leach. With conviction, holy freeze, and the elemental damage he did, pretty much anything could be killed, worn down over time. Open wounds helped. So did prevent monster heal.

Hell Lister was a really scary experience. I remember that well for some reason. Hell Baal was a disapointment. Smite and crushing blow took him down in a very short time.

All in all, I'd say to give it a try. It is rather variant-ish, but it strong to the point of overpowering under the right circumstances. And if it works in single player /8, it should work on the realms. A spirit sword and shield would have been great.

[Roland]

I used to play Paladin "variants" back in multiplayer, before the game became such a joke that I got disgusted with how Blizzard ruined it all. I had two basic versions, one more warrior, one more magician. They were support characters, designed to aid a partner, while still being viable in solo play. I found them very interesting to play, providing a solid enough balance of power, challenge, tactics, and most of all FUN. Not to mention that it was a complete breath of fresh air to play a character designed to actually support your teammate(s), in a game primarily designed entirely around combat.

IIRC, one was a "Cleric", while the other was a "Priest". My skillplan (and thus playing tactics) was theme-based. The Cleric was a bit more warrior-oriented, while the Priest was more support-oriented. They both had their pluses and minuses, although the Cleric certainly was easier to solo with. The builds were focused around some of the most under-rated and oft-overlooked skills in a Paladin's arsenal.

The Cleric used maxed Holy Bolt, Smite, Holy Shield, and Fist of the Heavens as his main skills, with strong Meditation, and decent Cleansing and Salvation for situational use. He eschewed the use of an actual "weapon" in favor of bashing enemies to death with his powerful shield. The automatic stun and long stun duration (four plus seconds is an eternity when utilized properly)of Smite, combined with damage (and blocking) boosted by Holy Shield meant you could take on entire droves of enemies and never get scratched. It all revolved around cycling your Smites from one enemy to the next, preferably after drawing them to you so you had less distance to travel between enemies. I would usually smack each of them once for the stun, and then bash the hell out of one until it was dead, or his buddies started to wake up. First of the Heavens, while being a "maxed" skill, was designed more for heavy offensive "oomph" rather than bread'n'butter usage. Meditation was there to replenish your mana reserves from all the Smite, Holy Bolt, and Fist of the Heavens usage, as well as aid your allies (it's amazing how welcome that skill is to others, perhaps mainly because no one ever uses it). Also, it should be noted that Fist of the Heavens has a very powerful, but virtually unknown ability: healing. Used properly, a single Fist can be enough to heal your partner to full life from heavy damage. It's all about proper positioning.

The Priest, on the other hand (which I didn't really play much) was almost entirely support-oriented. High Cleansing, Meditation, and Salvation, along with maxed Smite, Holy Bolt, and Fist of the Heavens. Smite was mostly used to help you solo, as well as pull enemies off your teammate(s), while Fist of the Heavens was more your main attack skill, hence the higher Meditation (along with a heavier focus on mana).

I found the Cleric to be a blast to play. Solo was far from rapid, but having played Paladins designed around a 2-handed hammer combined with Vengeance and Conviction I was used to slower playing. Besides, the ability to control the flow of the entire battle, combined with adding support abilities to an otherwise pure-combat game made the whole experience that much more enjoyable and fulfilling. Of course, this was long before synergies, and the subsequent butchering of game balance that came with it (Jimmy was just a rotting corpse on the side of the road at that point; Blizzard hadn't come along with the steamroller just yet).

Most fun I ever had with a character was my old Mageazon from 1.06. My Cleric was probably in my top three, though. I honestly can't espouse enough on the sheer enjoyment of being able to heal a teammate mid-battle from across the screen, while doing solid damage to the enemy, to say nothing of the sheer control you hold with proper Smite usage.

Needless to say, I haven't touched D2 in a number of years. I slowly phased out playing for mod-building, but 1.10 meant we modders had to go back to the drawing board to redo everything, and since I focused on balance, Blizzard had more than doubled my workload (while at the same time giving us modders tons more control over the game). Honestly, if it wasn't for running my private Realm for awhile (which, IIRC, is where I played my Cleric) I would have given up on D2 long before then, even, but that was years ago. I still think about D2, and all the recent action has made me nostalgic, but sadly the game of today is not the game I fell in love with all those years ago, so I have not taken the dive back in. EVE Online takes up my gaming time these days, what little of it I spare, and it suffices. There are tons of games I WANT to play, but lack of funds, time, and just overall energy / motivation hold me back. I'm waiting patiently (but eagerly!) on Diablo III and Starcraft II. I don't care what the detractors say about DIII - it looks gorgeous, it looks like Diablo, and I bet it will be an absolute BLAST to play. I've no doubt Blizzard has as much capability to completely destroy their creation as they've ever had, but I'm still going to buy it, play it, and enjoy every single moment I can until that time comes. As for Starcraft II, I'm actually glad they're splitting it up into 3 separate games. Yes, it absolutely reeks of money-grubbing greed, but if as a side-effect it allows them to triple the amount of content, grant further polish to the game, flesh out the story into a full novel series (as opposed to a large novella), and just overall make the game(s) more epic, I'm all for it. People will vote with their wallets, and what's important to the masses (multiplayer) will be available on any of the three chapters, so no loss their.

This turned into a much longer (and often off-topic) post than I had anticipated or intended, and I still haven't even said hello to you. So, on that note, hello! I'm glad to see you, alive and reasonably well. It's comforting to know my instincts still guide me, but that is neither here nor there. I have but one thing to say to you: you are not useless. Don't ever think you are. That your body may "trap" you does not condemn your entire being. So long as you still have your mental strength and your sanity, you are as strong as ever. The mind is far stronger than the body, and the heart is the strongest of all. You have more than enough of both to overcome any obstacles of the flesh. I've no doubt you will continue to recover, and although you may never reach the capacity you once had, it in no way diminishes your being. Do not let the idiocy of the masses cloud your judgment, especially concerning your own self. The old Doc would never let such simple people dictate who he was or how he acted. You just have to remember that, get back in touch with that, find your inner strength once more and embrace it. I know you're just as strong inside as ever, even if the people you surround yourself choose to forget it (or never knew of its existence in the first place).

Take care Doc. Welcome back home.