2H Zealot miniguide

2H Zealot miniguide

1. Foreword

1b. Performance

2. Stats

3. Skills

4. Items

5. Mercenary

6. Gameplay



1. Foreword

Though zealots are a fairly common build in the Sanctuary, being the bread and butter melee paladin skill since the first patches, two handed zealots have been a rare sight among adventurers. The key problems, lack of defense and resists without holy shield and blocking, and slower zeal speed with two handed weapons, can however be overcome thanks to the immense power of post-1.10 runewords. And the reward for such persistance, immense damage that crushes monsters in 8-player games, will put a smile on any paladin's face.

1b. Performance

With Death Colossus Sword, 5 frame zeal

http://i42.tinypic.com/jb6zuo.jpg

With BoTD War Pike, 5 frame zeal

http://i44.tinypic.com/s43l9t.jpg

Theoretical Rare weapon, 5 frame zeal

http://i42.tinypic.com/2885con.jpg

Example of performance:



2. Stats

Strength:As much as you can afford. With the Godmode-items you can put all in here while maintaining sufficient survivability, with lesser items it may be necessary to stick enough for item requirements.

Dexterity:Enough for equipment. Attack rating need not be a concern, it is available on charms.

Vitality: Enough for survival or everything else, depending on item quality and taste.

Energy: None.

3. Skills

20 Zeal

20 Sacrifice

20 Fanaticism

1 Charge (for transportation)

1 Vengeance (for immunes)

Spare points:

Resist Lightning (for protection against souls)

Blessed Aim (for passive 5% per level attack bonus boost)

4. Items

Helm:

Poor man: Guillaume's Face

Generic option: Guillaume's Face

Godmode: Guillaume's Face

With the strength boost, deadly strike and crushing blow, and fearsome looks, it is the ultimate choice for any zealot. Socket it with a 15/40 jewel for maximum power!

Armor:

Poor man: Duriel's shell, Duress, Shaftstop, Treachery

Generic option: Fortitude

Godmode: Eth Sacred Armor Fortitude

Without a shield, reducing received damage is especially important, which makes Shaft a better armor than usually, though Fortitude is still unrivaled, because no additional enhanced defense other than its shiver armor is available for this build.

Belt:

Poor man: String of Ears

Generic option: String of Ears

Godmode: Perfect upped String of Ears

Life steal and damage reduction make this the classic melee character's option.

Gloves:

Poor man: Laying of Hands

Generic option: Laying of Hands

Godmode: Perfect Laying of Hands

Damage to demons, fire resist, and IAS make these the best.

Boots:

Poor man: Gore Rider

Generic option: Gore Rider

Godmode: Perfect upped Gore Rider

Deadly strike and Crushing blow are great!

Weapon:

Poor man: Arioc's Needle, upped eth Hone Sundan, The Reaper's Toll, Upped Ribcracker

Generic option: BoTD War Pike or Death Colossus Sword, Ethereal The Reaper's Toll(zod)

Godmode: Perfect BoTD War Pike, Perfect Death Colossus Sword or Perfect Ethereal The Reaper's Toll(zod)

Only swords and spears reach the fastest 5-frame attack speed, which limits the choice to them. Arioc's Needle is surprisingly effective with its 50% deadly strike, ITD and other bonuses. Of top end weapons BoTD War Pike has the slightly higher damage, -25% defense and range going for it, along with BoTD's defensive bonuses, while Death Colossus Sword has crushing blow and deadly strike. Both work great and reach 5 frame attack speed with other gear listed. Surprisingly The Reaper's Toll is also very effective at 6-frame attack speed.

The comparative 8-player cs run times:

Perfect BoTD War Pike ~5:40

Perfect Death Colossus Sword ~6:50

Perfect Ethereal The Reaper's Toll(zod) ~6.40



Amulet:

Poor man: Highlord's Wrath or Angelic amulet

Generic option: Highlord's Wrath

Godmode: Highlord's Wrath

Other amulets don't come close to Highlord's. Atma's is unsuitable because of the small radius of amp and monsters dying too fast for it to have any effect. Angelic amulet is great for solving attack rating problems without worrying about charms.

Rings:

Poor man: Angelic ring, Raven Frost

Generic option: Raven Frost and rare ring with life steal, resists, stats, attack rating

Godmode: Raven Frost and a prepatch rare ring with life steal, resists, stats, attack rating

Raven Frost for CBF and a rare ring with whatever bonus your setup lacks work great.

Switch items:

Poor man: Gimmershred or Lacerator

Generic option: CtA and spirit

Godmode: Perfect CtA and spirit

If a CtA isnt available, the switch can be used for taking care of immunes. Lacerator with its amp damage is useful.

Charms:

Poor man: Life charms, resist charms

Generic option: Torch, Annihilus, life charms, resist charms, attack rating charms

Godmode: Perfect Torch, Annihilus, 37 3/20/20 charms

Attack rating and life are the main stats to look for, and resists if they're missing.

5. Mercenary

Act 2 NM merc for more damage. For a weapon Reaper's toll works great, as does Pride, though the latter is better for higher end setups due to merc struggling to keep up with the main character's killing and being unable to curse monsters on time. For helm and armor Andariel's Visage and Chains of Honor are a good choice for the skill-bonus giving merc a higher level might aura. For poor players Tal Rasha's mask and any high defense armor works great. If everything falls apart, a Holy Freeze merc is useful for additional safety.

6. Gameplay

Similar to his one-handed cousin, the zealot needs to do little but smash everything down. Keeping close to the merc to let him provide backup is also a good idea, though not necessary with top end gear.|||Nice guide! And very impressive damage numbers!

But I think that, even though you miss the last frame using anything but Swords or Spears, Uped Ribcracker (Eth and Zoded if possible) Would be a very solid choise too. Have you tested this?|||Quote:








Nice guide! And very impressive damage numbers!

But I think that, even though you miss the last frame using anything but Swords or Spears, Uped Ribcracker (Eth and Zoded if possible) Would be a very solid choise too. Have you tested this?




I tried it(perf upped zodded) and it did around an 8 minute CS clear(with same setup as other benchmarks) so not really a top level weapon but decent.|||I like the mini-guide. I've played a few 2h zealots so I will offer a few things I have noticed while playing them.

When playing solo, it is very easy for a melee character to get surrounded. Without a shield, Paladins take a lot of damage. A point in Conversion can offer a lot of crowd control and really divert a lot of damage away from your character.

Knockback and slow target are great mods to have on gear. I like Cleglaw's gloves because it has both mods. A chilled enemy with 25% slow and Decrepify (if merc is wearing Reaper's) suddenly becomes much less dangerous. Knockback, while annoying at times, can be a real life saver when surrounded. It interrupts a monster's attack animation and puts them in hit recovery, providing a second or two where your enemy is not attacking your character. This, combined with Zeal can offer a lot of survivability.

Charge is a real candidate to be maxed. With no points in Holy Shield, it is fairly easy to max, and when your are using a high damage 2h weapon, the damage can be substantial (575% enhanced damage at slvl 20). Charge is also a fairly safe way to deal a lot of damage. It is a lot harder to get surrounded when charging and allows your to focus fire on specific targets, such as an aura enchanted enemy, ranged attackers, etc. Enemies also can't attack back when they are being charged.

Without a shield, resists can be a problem as well. Items like Kira's Guardian, Smoke runeword, Gloom runeword (the ctc Dim vision is amazing against ranged attackers as well) can really help.

The Delerium runeword on your character or your merc is an amazing form of crowd control as well.|||Added demo video of gameplay.|||^I second the charge and especially the delirium recommendation. :>|||Quote:








^I second the charge and especially the delirium recommendation. :>




Well the charge ED isnt that big compared to zeal when it already has its synergies maxed and theres tons of other ED on gear.|||The ED is actually quite a bit bigger, but yes, it becomes less when you take into account the other off-weapon ed and charge's lesser speed. It is however very useful when you want to take out single enemies quickly (like aura bosses) instead of waiting for zeal to hit everything else in range before going back to the thing you want dead. But now I'm starting to repeat everything Dr Clock said above.

It's not like you have a shortage of points and it's a viable route for everyone who doesn't have the leet equipment (mainly talking about the weap here)that will make them invulnerable in hell.|||Zrk - Listen carefully. I INSIST that you use a token and reset your skills to max charge and its synergies and then post a pic showing the dam that Blood Bite would do.

That is such a damn sexy weapon! I can remember laughing when I managed to hit 50k charge dam with a botd war pike last ladder but im sure you could come close to 100k with that weapon. Do it!!!|||I did it, not quite the same setup though. Used a theoretical thunder maul, arach, rends for more damage(and inv full of 14 maxers)

http://i56.tinypic.com/2ed5y4k.jpg