Sillius Soddus began his career in the Roman legions a few decades before Percius Maximus and, as such, was one of the earliest legionnaires to be recognised and recruited by the Gods. Even as a Veles, he was considered to be reckless to the point of insanity. Everyone expected he would end up impaled an enemy’s spear sooner rather than later. Either through skill at arms or the favour of the Gods, he survived and progressed to become a Hastati. As a part of the first battle line, Sillius would charge the enemy and engage them with his scutum as often as his gladius. And he continued to prosper. He was not disciplined enough to become one of the Principes and so he remained one of the Hastati. In spite of this lack of advancement, his reputation grew. As he approached the end of his twenty years in the legion, a time when he should have progressed to become one of the Triarii, he was still a Hastati; standing shoulder-to-shoulder with boys young enough to be his own sons. Full citizenship was beckoning, but in the far-off world of Sanctuary, an ancient evil was stirring again. The Gods spoke to him of this evil and, armed only with his trusty gladius, pilum and scutum, he chose to face it.
This is his story!
Patriarch SilliusSoddus, (well, just another Zealer really!)
Level: 84
St – 142 (179)
Dx – 136 (157)
Vt – 217 (239)
En – 20 (22) [Yes, I accidentlly put 5 points in here!]
HP 1160
Mana 316
Resists:
Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75
Skills:
Smite: 20 (29)
Charge: 20 (29)
Holy Shield: 20 (29)
Fanaticism: 20 (26)
Sacrifice: 9 (10)
Zeal: 1 (10)
Prerequisites 1
Smite:
Dam: 1652 – 1658
Charge:
AR & Dam: Who cares!
Zeal:
AR: 7872
Dam: 723 – 953 Swap: 1319 – 2800
Defence: 12,578 with 75% block (after Holy Shield)
Equipment:
Weapon 1:
“Grief” Phase Blade
“Um” Upped HoZ
Weapon 2:
Demon’s Arch
“Um” HoZ
“Silver Jewel of Fervour” Harly
“Duress” Archon Plate
Lava Gout
Gore Rider
Nosferatu’s Coil
Seraph’s Hymn
Raven Frost & Manald Heal
Merc (Act 2 – Blessed Aim)
Eth Rockstopper
Eth Shaftstop
“Infinity” Thresher
Random musings:
Continuing my “Roman Legion” theme from a year or so back, I give you SilliusSoddus. I wanted to keep the equipment more or less the same as PerciusMaximus, being typical Roman attire [roll eyes], so the main change was to give him a gladius (or in this world a Grief phaseblade) and I upped my main Hoz.
I wanted to create a character using Charge and Smite, hence the name and backstory, but I ran into one major problem; Charge is the most god awful, inconsistent, bug-ridden skill I have ever used. When it wasn’t causing my character to run on the spot or be completely rooted in place with neither weapon-swapping or casting a teleport spell helping, Charge was either not recognising the target or somehow getting lost somewhere along the way to it. On two occasions, Charge would work in reverse and move away from the target while still facing it! When it did work, I was underwhelmed by the damage it caused. The two-step process of using the function key to select Charge and the mouse key to initiate it while keeping the pointer on the target was something my low dexterity rating had trouble achieving against a moving target. I kept telling myself “I’ll get use to it.” But I never did. The new setup in D2R and the bug fixes might make it more usable, but I doubt I will ever invest 20 points in Charge again.
Now let’s talk about Smite. Against Bosses and such, fantastic. Against everything else, the knockback made me want to scream in frustration. Having to pin your stunned enemy against an immovable object was a pain. Chasing your stunned enemy around until you found an immovable object made me want to put my fist through the monitor. If you had your character set on “run” (and who doesn’t?) the second your character knocked back an enemy, he would follow it. Even in a small pack this would leave him open to many free attacks with what I assume is zero armour and a third block success. For the vast majority of the game, the low-level Zeal was a faster and safer option than Smite. So, much for my Charging Smiter.
Zeal was, as always, the go to skill, with Grief ploughing through anything not physically immune and the Demon's Arch, aided by the Infinity, ploughing through those that were. If truth be told, for /players1 at least, Demon's Arch felt pretty much on par with Grief for killing speed. PerciusMaximus lives still. All in all, a Smiting Zealer, with charge as a transportation skill, in D2R is probably on the cards, but a stable graphics card and the completion of the six other characters I have parked, with have to come first.
This is his story!
Patriarch SilliusSoddus, (well, just another Zealer really!)
Level: 84
St – 142 (179)
Dx – 136 (157)
Vt – 217 (239)
En – 20 (22) [Yes, I accidentlly put 5 points in here!]
HP 1160
Mana 316
Resists:
Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75
Skills:
Smite: 20 (29)
Charge: 20 (29)
Holy Shield: 20 (29)
Fanaticism: 20 (26)
Sacrifice: 9 (10)
Zeal: 1 (10)
Prerequisites 1
Smite:
Dam: 1652 – 1658
Charge:
AR & Dam: Who cares!
Zeal:
AR: 7872
Dam: 723 – 953 Swap: 1319 – 2800
Defence: 12,578 with 75% block (after Holy Shield)
Equipment:
Weapon 1:
“Grief” Phase Blade
“Um” Upped HoZ
Weapon 2:
Demon’s Arch
“Um” HoZ
“Silver Jewel of Fervour” Harly
“Duress” Archon Plate
Lava Gout
Gore Rider
Nosferatu’s Coil
Seraph’s Hymn
Raven Frost & Manald Heal
Merc (Act 2 – Blessed Aim)
Eth Rockstopper
Eth Shaftstop
“Infinity” Thresher
Random musings:
Continuing my “Roman Legion” theme from a year or so back, I give you SilliusSoddus. I wanted to keep the equipment more or less the same as PerciusMaximus, being typical Roman attire [roll eyes], so the main change was to give him a gladius (or in this world a Grief phaseblade) and I upped my main Hoz.
I wanted to create a character using Charge and Smite, hence the name and backstory, but I ran into one major problem; Charge is the most god awful, inconsistent, bug-ridden skill I have ever used. When it wasn’t causing my character to run on the spot or be completely rooted in place with neither weapon-swapping or casting a teleport spell helping, Charge was either not recognising the target or somehow getting lost somewhere along the way to it. On two occasions, Charge would work in reverse and move away from the target while still facing it! When it did work, I was underwhelmed by the damage it caused. The two-step process of using the function key to select Charge and the mouse key to initiate it while keeping the pointer on the target was something my low dexterity rating had trouble achieving against a moving target. I kept telling myself “I’ll get use to it.” But I never did. The new setup in D2R and the bug fixes might make it more usable, but I doubt I will ever invest 20 points in Charge again.
Now let’s talk about Smite. Against Bosses and such, fantastic. Against everything else, the knockback made me want to scream in frustration. Having to pin your stunned enemy against an immovable object was a pain. Chasing your stunned enemy around until you found an immovable object made me want to put my fist through the monitor. If you had your character set on “run” (and who doesn’t?) the second your character knocked back an enemy, he would follow it. Even in a small pack this would leave him open to many free attacks with what I assume is zero armour and a third block success. For the vast majority of the game, the low-level Zeal was a faster and safer option than Smite. So, much for my Charging Smiter.
Zeal was, as always, the go to skill, with Grief ploughing through anything not physically immune and the Demon's Arch, aided by the Infinity, ploughing through those that were. If truth be told, for /players1 at least, Demon's Arch felt pretty much on par with Grief for killing speed. PerciusMaximus lives still. All in all, a Smiting Zealer, with charge as a transportation skill, in D2R is probably on the cards, but a stable graphics card and the completion of the six other characters I have parked, with have to come first.
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