Pala-Polar Bear?

[:1]Yeah, the name sucks, and I'm betting someone has a better name. Anyway, this came from another thread discussing weapon choices for a Frost Zealot:


Quote:








I would suggest BEAST or Heaven's Light...these are more ultimate than DOOM, IMHO...and I have a lvl 91 FROST ZEALOT who has used both...I chose Heaven's Light. And from my experience, Heaven's Light sits in the upper eschelon of weapon choice for the FROST ZEALOT.




Speaking of Beast... I've been idly considering a Polar Bear type: Beast runeword as a weapon, with Defiance, Holy Freeze, Holy Shield, Resist Cold and Salvation maxed at 20 (it would be 106 skill points, including the prereqs). I've got an ideal equipment list in mind, though I'm sure it's not exactly "uber" by any means:

Helm: Nightwing's Veil (+2 skills and the +8-15% cold skills damage seems like an excellent fit)

Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope (though Eye of Etlich might be a possibility as well, depending on how "cold" we want to be)

Body Armor: Chains of Honor (need more be said?)

Weapon: Beast (obviously -- Fanaticism will be nice)

Alternate Weapon: Crescent Moon (elemental lightning damage for when it's needed)

Shield: Exile (this lets me have a decent slvl Defiance running as well as Holy Freeze, and +2 Offensive Auras to help bolster Holy Freeze further doesn't hurt)

Gloves: Lava Gout (+20% IAS, fire damage, potential Enchant for further fire damage and significant AR boost)

Ring #1: Raven Frost (cold damage, plus cannot be frozen)

Belt: Arachnid Mesh (+1 skills)

Alternate Belt: String of Ears (physical damage reduction, life leech)

Ring #2: Stone of Jordan (+1 skills, max mana increase, slight lightning damage)

Boots: Gore Rider (CB, faster run/walk, deadly strike)

All told, I'm looking at +8 to all skills (that should make Beast's slvl 3 Lycanthropy and Werebear a respectable modified slvl 11), and +2 to Offensive Auras (which means a net +10 to Holy Freeze). This isn't including +skills charms or anything like that, nor is it including ladder-only equipment. Mercenary, I'm still trying to decide on -- Might seems the best choice, given all the potential AR boosts by the end.

Anyway... has anyone tried a build like this before, and if so, what's your experience been with such a build? I'm really intrigued by the prospects.|||Ha! I had a build idea like this for a sorceress once, weilding a giant doom axe, but it proved that physical damage would win out easily unfortunately, maybe it will be different for a paladin.

Hm....that makes it so 2079-2106 cold damage is added to your attack, according to the skill calculator with maxed out synergies and a level 30 holy freeze, not bad for damage but I think that your going to attack fairly slow. The problem with bear form is that the majority of your ias has to come from wias, and beast does not have a lot of that. Most people only use beast to shift and then switch to a different weapon that attacks faster so that they can really deal out the cold damage. You may want to consider a faster weapon switch. I think the build is kind of split between doing physical damage and cold damage at the moment, but that might not be a bad thing, I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say.|||beast is a terrible weapon when shifted because of the way ias works while a character is shifted. you need it to shift, but once you do, nearly every character would be better off with a different weapon.

also, off weapon ias (lavagout) rarely does anything to a character's attack speed when it's shifted.|||But can't you switch weapons from Beast to something else with a higher IAS? Or will the effects of Werebear wear off when you switch weapons?|||Yes, you can equip beast, shift, and then equip something else. The effects of werebear will not wear off until the timer expires.|||So, let's be certain I'm understanding this properly: only innate weapon speed plus weapon-based IAS works for Werebear? Does this mean that Beast's Fanaticism aura doesn't help augment weapon speed, since the slvl 9 Fanaticism aura should otherwise be boosting your attack speed by 29%?

If that's the case (in that the Fanaticism aura doesn't increase your attack speed), then... well, honestly that sucks.|||Can you use any pally skills in bear form? If so why not use a doom zerker axe and put those 20 points somewhere else? You could either run conviction and have an act 1 faith merc or run fanta and have an act 2 merc run conviction and might.|||As I understand it, Werebear form can't access any of your nominal abilities (aside from Paladin auras, IIRC, but I'm waiting to hear whether or not [and more importantly, if it's truly the case] why Fanaticism's attack speed boost doesn't seem to work when using Beast). So no Charge, no Smite, no Zeal or Vengeance. Sad, too, because Zeal would be wonderful for this potential build, if that were the case.

Regardless, I'm going to look in-depth at playing a Werebear with a Druid, be sure I have a feel for it all (normally I play Werewolf when I play Druid), so I have some idea of what to expect when Beast comes into play (and make my own observations as to whether or not Fanaticism helps with a Werebear's attack speed).|||Spoiler


Some terms:

WSM = Weapon Speed Modifier, the base speed of the weapon

WIAS = Increased Attack Speed found on your weapon

OIAS = Increased Attack Speed found on non-weapon equipment

SIAS = Increased Attack Speed granted by skills

fpa = frames per attack



WSM and WIAS is most important, but skill and off-weapon IAS does have a greater impact on bears than most people think. For example a palabear with:

40 IAS Berserker: 9 fpa

add lvl 9 Fanat: 7 fpa

add 30 OIAS: 6 fpa

Weapons to consider:


Code:

   damage speed
Beast BA  171 6 fpa with 30 OIAS 20% CB, ~100% AR
37 IAS Grief PB  410 5 fpa with 10 OIAS ITD and -25% target defense
BotD PB   158 4 fpa   -25% target defense, 30 all stats, 12%+ leech
eBotD War Spike  280 5 fpa with 30 OIAS "
eBotD BA  342 6 fpa with 45 OIAS "
80 IAS Gris Caddy 128 4 fpa with 40 OIAS socket with 2xEth for -50% target defense
100 IAS Gris Caddy 128 4 fpa with 20 OIAS socket with 1xEth for -25% target defense

|||Off weapon ias does have an effect but it is a reduced effect in comparison to weapon ias, Hubb's chart is pretty inclusive, but of course you have to remember the ever popular 4 fpa 6 socket phase blade with 4 shaels, an ias jewel, and another jewel/rune of your choosing but that would definately make your physical damage suffer substantially. It really depends how much off weapon ias you can get through your gear to determine what weapon is viable for you.

In werebear form you cannot use any paladin skills except your aura, so yes no zeal, smite, vengance etc. Also using a doom zerker goes from using a level 30 holy freeze down to a level 12 which is a substantial drop in cold damage, but you gain the -cold res of course, and you can run another aura such as conviction, obviously the weapon choice has been debated a lot in the past.