Palabear Help

Need some opinions here. The goal is to have a nice safe build to help friends with Ubers (tired of using a lightning sorceress, and their problem always seems to be conviction from Mephy,) General PvM, and maybe Pubby Duels?!



Skills:

Holy Shield -- 20

Resist Lightning -- 20

Conviction -- 20

Defiance -- 20

Blessed Aim -- 1+



Equipment:

Helm: 'Dream'

Armor: 'Fortitude' Archon

Shield: 'Dream' 43 base resist Kurast Shield

Weapon: 'Greif' Phase Blade (see below questions)

Switch: 'Beast' + 'Spirit'

Belt: Verdungos Hearty Cord

Boots: Gore Riders (Up'd?)

Gloves: Dracul's Grasp

Rings: Bull-Kathos, Raven Frost

Amulet: Metalgrid



Mercenary: Act 2 (what aura?!)

Helm: Ethereal Andariel's Visage

Body: Ethereal Archon 'Fortitude'

Poleaxe: Ethereal Great Poleaxe 'Destruction'



Holy shock will be nice to run Conviction and counter Meph making Ubers a cake-walk for my smiting friends (also the damage is nice, and -def from conviction and lowered resists make it that much better) The physical damage from 'Grief' and 'Fortitude' should be enough to leech life and help with non breakable lightning immunes.



When checking the speed clac it shows that 30, 35, and 40 IAS all are different breakpoints in bear-form for a paladin (using a Phase Blade) Is this correct? Playing a wolfbarb, 32 IAS on a 'Greif' Phase Blade gets me a 7-frame attack, and even with a 40 IAS 'Grief' its no different. I know the breakpoints are different, but are paladins really that much more IAS friendly?



For Duels, is this viable? With maxed blessed aim giving 5% Bonus to attack rating, and maybe a swap of Angelic for the really high defense barbs, I should be okay with AR. On my wolfbarb, using 'Grief' and 'Fortitude' give me enough physical damage to compete with melee duelers (although I have an attack there, not just normal...)

If anyone has experience with this/general opinions, lemee know!|||A Grief-PB (31+ ias iirc) wielding wolfbarb gets you to 5 fpa when the attack hits and 7 fpa when you miss or get blocked. I can't get to Titanseal's calc for some reason so I can't comment on the palabear breakpoins :/

There's a really nice palabear thread somewhere that should help (read the replies on the 2nd page as well to see his reasoning).|||Thanks Hubb



I can't get to titanseal speedcalc either... Its where I checked it the first time, and what my infor is based off, so... I coulda swore my wolfbarb swings 7 fpa constant, I'm usually wrong though.|||There was a bit of a debate about it recently, if you're interested you can most of the important info here (and the page after that one).

The wereform central calc gives these breakpoints for a PB wielding palabear:


Code:

FPA IAS
7 21 %
6 32 %
5 40 %
4 58 %

I can't really comment on PvP, except to say that a slower attack with more phys damage (Grief) might be better since you'll get sorbed. It seems like there's a couple of guys who's had some success with the wolfbarb, go check in the barb forums for a good setup.|||That was my ubering pally bear thread! There was some very good discussion in that thread. I can say first hand that it is very hell and uber viable.

Like most builds, you'll have to decide whether you want to concentrate on PvM/ubers or PvP. The stats and gear choices will be different.

I don't PvP, but from what I've read, you want to max you defiance for the defense boost, get a lot of FRW, and go with a 4 frame weapon to put your opponent into block lock.

I do PvM and Uber and would make the following comments for this application only. I would recommend maxing Blessed Aim and skip Defiance. The big weakness with this build is the lack of AR. Even with the conviction aura, I needed around 6.5K AR to hit reliably in hell and about 7.4K AR to hit the ubers reliably. Take a look at wearing the both Angelic rings and ammy. It really is the only easy way to pump up your AR. Use the Trang's belt for CBF and some life bonuses.

Grief PB works well for this build. It hits hard and makes leaching easier, but you need 40 IAS to hit 5 frames. EBOTD PB gives you 4 frames (one faster than a 40 IAS Grief) and some nice bonuses. It doesn't hit quite as hard, making leaching a little more difficult. After going back and forth, I finally settled on the Grief for my bear.

I'd also consider Enigma armor for the FRW, the plus skills, and the strength bonus. If you use Grief, you'll do plenty of damage (with your synergized lite damage) and won't need the Fort. Finally, I'd go with upped Goblin Toes for the CB (25% vs the 15% that Gores has).

Fill you inventory with as many res charms you need to max them in hell, and as many FHR charms to hit the BP, and the rest of the space use for AR charms.

I use the same gear for PvM and Ubers, only adding AR charms to fill up the open space in my inventory.

I don't use a Merc with him because Mercs are useless in UberTrist, so I can't comment on this. I can say that I never needed to have a Merc with this guy.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The conviction aura only protects you from Mephy's conviction aura. If your friends aren't running a higher level conviction than Meph, then they will still have to stack res.

Good luck! This is one of the most entertaining builds I have made in D2.|||If I could ever find some decent charms for my wolfbarb, I'm pretty sure I could compete with any melee dueler. As it is with only AR charms and pitiful damage I can clean out melee pubbies. The slower attack is defienently better to get the damage. With the palabear a faster attack might not be so bad if they don't sorb because of the lightning damage, but...



I thought one conviction aura higher cancelled Meph for everyone Instead of Defiance I can put spare point into Salvation (the resist all synergy to holy shock) and run that. Much to think about... I've never really had a problem with Mercs surviving in Ubertrist. My smiter merc (Non-ladder, building the bear on Ladder) using Fort, delerium, and ebotd gpa does fine, although I have to watch him close in the matrons den (The worst part of running trist lol)



Maybe a Might Merc would be best (Possibly with a 'Dragon' plate and the poleaxe with -fire resist?)|||Quote:








Need some opinions here. The goal is to have a nice safe build to help friends with Ubers (tired of using a lightning sorceress, and their problem always seems to be conviction from Mephy,) General PvM, and maybe Pubby Duels?!



Skills:

Holy Shield -- 20

Resist Lightning -- 20

Conviction -- 20

Defiance -- 20

Blessed Aim -- 1+



Equipment:

Helm: 'Dream'

Armor: 'Fortitude' Archon

Shield: 'Dream' 43 base resist Kurast Shield

Weapon: 'Greif' Phase Blade (see below questions)

Switch: 'Beast' + 'Spirit'

Belt: Verdungos Hearty Cord

Boots: Gore Riders (Up'd?)

Gloves: Dracul's Grasp

Rings: Bull-Kathos, Raven Frost

Amulet: Metalgrid



Mercenary: Act 2 (what aura?!)

Helm: Ethereal Andariel's Visage

Body: Ethereal Archon 'Fortitude'

Poleaxe: Ethereal Great Poleaxe 'Destruction'



Holy shock will be nice to run Conviction and counter Meph making Ubers a cake-walk for my smiting friends (also the damage is nice, and -def from conviction and lowered resists make it that much better) The physical damage from 'Grief' and 'Fortitude' should be enough to leech life and help with non breakable lightning immunes.



When checking the speed clac it shows that 30, 35, and 40 IAS all are different breakpoints in bear-form for a paladin (using a Phase Blade) Is this correct? Playing a wolfbarb, 32 IAS on a 'Greif' Phase Blade gets me a 7-frame attack, and even with a 40 IAS 'Grief' its no different. I know the breakpoints are different, but are paladins really that much more IAS friendly?



For Duels, is this viable? With maxed blessed aim giving 5% Bonus to attack rating, and maybe a swap of Angelic for the really high defense barbs, I should be okay with AR. On my wolfbarb, using 'Grief' and 'Fortitude' give me enough physical damage to compete with melee duelers (although I have an attack there, not just normal...)

If anyone has experience with this/general opinions, lemee know!




Makes no sense that you are using grief pb on a dual dream bear pally. You dont need raw damage with that build its the light dmg that is important. I would use a 6os pb with x3 shael and x3 5/5 light facets to boost up light dmg by far. But I guess you could use 40 ias grief pb for good dmg but id rather have more light dmg.|||He took Ubers easy. Way slow, but easy. I didn't even swap boots.

To speed things up I made a 3x Shael 3x Ber Phase blade.

I took him to pubby duels and did really well surprisingly. If my convcition level is higher than my opponents, will it cancel his out, like mephy? Will 5/5 facets affect my lightning damage? Its not from a skill, its from an item Still, the -resists might help.

Lastly, my AR is really low, 3k at best, but it was fine. Might try to dig up some +AR charms to help (with blessed aim passive bonus even, not having an attack really hurts the AR)

Good solid build. Expensive, but good.|||... and if you want to try a different palabear build, here's a nice thread.|||Thats the guide I went off

Might try a melee one later. Must find more stuff though.