Skill census/analysis of the SPF Mat/Pat/Guardian build compilation

[d2lover]

All paladin auras have an area-of-effect radius that increases with skill level.

Not entirely correct, Conviction radius is always the same. (irc)

 

[Swamigoon]

Not entirely correct, Conviction radius is always the same. (irc)

You're right - Conviction's rage is fixed, at 13.3 yards. Thanks for noticing that mistake, d2lover.

[Update: Redemption (below) also has a fixed radius at all skill levels.]

[Update 3 Aug 2021: more corrections]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Defiance


At skill level one, Defiance boosts the paladin's and nearby allies' defense by seventy percent, plus another ten percent per level after that.

A paladin's Holy Shield skill adds its own defense bonus for a limited time, and each point spent in Defiance increases Holy Shield's defense bonus by another fifteen percent. Of our paladins that maxed Defiance, all of them did so for its synergy bonus to Holy Shield. Furthermore, three of them used the Defiance aura provided by carrying an Exile-runeworded shield (at best, it provides level 16 Defiance), and then activated Fanatacism (instead of maxed Defiance) as their main aura: Kalgor by Ocau_Mikle, Kailash by TopHatCat64, and Lycidas by Liquid_Evil.

Crazy Runner Guy's Arreat-Slayer engaged his maxed Defiance aura situationally in certain PvP contests.

A defensive act 2 town guard provides a Defiance aura.

Vigor


At skill level one, Vigor adds 13% to run/walk speed, and boosts max stamina and stamina recovery by 50%. Higher skill levels increase the stamina bonuses by 25% per level, and also augment the run/walk speed bonus (with diminishing returns, reaching +43% at skill level 20).

Vigor provides a damage synergy to Charge and a magic damage synergy to Blessed Hammer. Almost all of our chargers and hammerdins maxed Vigor for its synergy, so, unsurprisingly, maxicek's hammer-charger hybrid de_Carabas maxed Vigor on behalf of both skills. Two write-ups that specifically mentioned locomotive uses of the Vigor aura were of Orion by VoX Dei and Alt-Eisen by Evah.

Dec 2022 Update: For his recent PvP Hammerdin Faithless, frozzzen wrote that Vigor is "obviously a staple of any PvP Paladin."

Redemption


This is one of the auras whose range does not scale with skill level; its radius is fixed at just under eleven yards. Redemption is a "pulse" aura: every two seconds, it pulses at each corpse within range. At skill level one, there's a 23% chance for a "pulsed" corpse to evaporate and add 25 points to the paladin's life and mana. Higher skill levels increase the chance that a pulse will "redeem" a corpse (with diminishing returns, but it reaches 85% at skill level 20), and also increases life and mana recovery by five points per skill level (it reaches 120 per corpse at skill level 20).

Each point in Redemption also provides a damage synergy bonus to Sacrifice.

Two write-ups that specifically mentioned their use of a maxed Redemption aura were:

• Ngonyama by Vulpine. (He was happy to quickly redeem corpses that Nihlithak would otherwise try to explode.)
• Mart by Hrus. (He mentioned several difficulties of a Sacrifice-focused "martyr" build, but then countered that maxed Redemption was one of a martyr's major benefits.)

Kimppi's report for his level 99 hammerdin HolierThanThou was hard for me to figure out. I calculated that he spent 125 skill points, which of course is impossible (a 99er only receives 110 skill points to distribute). Maybe he got his high Redemption aura from an item, instead of by skill points? I couldn't discern for certain, so for now I just decided to simply accept Kimppi's reported skill numbers, despite their implausibility. (Perhaps someone else may shed more light on HolierThanThou's actual build?) [Update: HolierThanThou's skill counts are now corrected.]

[Update 3 Aug 2021: corrections, new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]​

 

[Swamigoon]

...
At one time, I thought Sword Mastery also advertised that it gave its damage, attack rating, and critical strike bonuses to dagger class weapons in addition to swords. I don't know if that was true then, and I don't know for certain whether it's true now...

Update: I've been playing a stun barbarian, who just arrived at level 78. Up to now, I had spent no points in any mastery skill, so I decided to do a little experiment and see what would happen if I spent the new skill point in Sword Mastery:

Spoiler: Sword Mastery, swords, daggers, and the LCS

Before and after screen snips, with a plain Mythical Sword:
no SM: lvl 4 SM:

Before and after with a plain Colossus Blade:
no SM: lvl 4 SM:

Before and after with a plain Mithril Point:
no SM: lvl 4 SM:

Before and after with a plain Fanged Knife:
no SM: lvl 4 SM:

Before and after with a plain Legend Spike:
no SM: lvl 4 SM:

So in version 1.14b, assuming my trusty character screen is not lying to me, it appears that Sword Mastery improves AR and Damage as advertised with sword class weapons, but not with dagger class weapons. I presume the same fact holds true for its chance of a critical strike.

It would be nice to see results of an experiment like this one with an earlier patch, such as 1.00 or 1.07. If a time traveler is willing, I would appreciate that. I can't shake my memory that SM buffed daggers at sometime in the past.

Dec 2022 Update: D2R patch 2.4's "Blade Mastery" skill now buffs both swords and daggers.

 

[PhineasB]

@Swamigoon Kimppi’s beta CTA had +1 to redemption, so I’m pretty sure he didn’t have to put any hard points into it.

 

[D2DC]

@Swamigoon Kimppi’s beta CTA had +1 to redemption, so I’m pretty sure he didn’t have to put any hard points into it.

Boo. I was hoping there was a loophole to allow more skill points!

 

[Swamigoon]

Thanks, PhineasB. I will update Kimppi's row for HolierThanThou in the spreadsheet. I appreciate your help!

The right column of the defensive aura skill tab has four resistance auras. None of these require any prerequisite investment!

By default, each of a characters resistances can be no higher than 75%. There are some items that may boost maximum resistances higher. The paladin's Resist Fire, Resist Cold, and Resist Lightning skills can also lift resistances beyond 75%, even when some other aura is active. This passive bonus happens as follows: for every two skill points invested, the paladin's maximum resistance to that element can be one percentage point higher. (So with all 20 points invested in one of these three resistance auras, and with enough resistance items equipped, the paladin's corresponding maximum resistance can be up to 85%.) If a paladin makes one of these resistance auras active as the right-mouse-button skill, then the maximum resistance can grow even higher: one percentage point for every invested skill point, applicable to the paladin and to all allies within the aura's range. (This means that, with 20 points invested and the aura active, the corresponding maximum resistance can be as high as 95%.)

At skill level one, each of Resist Fire, Resist Cold, and Resist Lightning auras adds 52% resistance to their respective element. Higher skill levels increase the resistance bonus, but with somewhat diminishing returns: at skill level two, 14% more (66%); at skill level three, another 10% (76%); at skill level four, another 9% (85%), and so forth. A level 20 elemental resistance aura adds 131% resistance.

Resist Fire


Each point in Resist Fire grants a fire damage synergy bonus to the paladin's Vengeance combat skill (10%), and also to the Holy Fire offensive aura (18%). Most of our paladins that maxed this skill did so for one of these synergies. A few Examples include: avengers WIthAVengenace by Pyrotechnician, Fawkes by Colorless Green, Nub by Pucho, and Grumpy by PhineasB; holy-fire-zealots Clark-WGriswold by Steven Q Urkel and Crusader by Nightfish; and holy-fire-rangers VeeFour by Desrok and Robin Hood by zaphodbrx.

A couple of runewords ("Dragon" in a body armor, and "Hand of Justice" in certain weapons) grant a Holy Fire aura when equipped. I found several paladins that equipped both, and maxed Resist Fire to give a synergy boost to the resulting compounded aura. These were: NorthDakota's Magus, zaphodbrx's Griswold, Steven Q Urkel's HaXOr-RayPatean, and maxicek's Aubec.

As far as I could discern, sirpoopsalot's SpongebobII and PandadudeSP's Convict maxed Resist Fire just for the passive maximum fire resistance bonus.

Dec 2022 Update: Flan's Perun, a D2R dual-dream auradin zealot. With maxed Resist Fire, maxed Resist Lightning, he then supplemented his equipment-provided auras with maxed Fanaticism.

Resist Cold


Each point in Resist Cold grants a cold damage synergy bonus to the paladin's Vengeance combat skill (10%), and also to the Holy Freeze offensive aura (15%). As you might expect, there were over two dozen holy-freeze-zealot paladins that maxed Resist Cold for the synergy. For now, I'll just highlight one of them: tournament guardian Hoar by Sput. An avenger that maxed this synergy skill was Pyrotechnician's Phavenger. A holy-freeze-ranger maxing this synergy was Nightfish's RangerJoe.

The "Doom" runeword provides a Holy Freeze aura when equipped. Two paladins maxed Resist Cold to synergize a Doom weapon's aura: PhineasB's Doom and bcoe's Pharomachrus.

A very interesting achievement featuring maxed Resist Cold was purplelocust's King Kongdensate, a "Digglerdin" tesla-frost-zealot. He completed classic hell difficulty attacking only with a "Diggler" unique dagger-class weapon.

Dec 2022 Update: we now have Blue by Pb_pal to help represent this skill.

Resist Lightning


Each point in Resist Lightning grants a lightning damage synergy bonus to the paladin's Vengeance combat skill (10%), and also to the Holy Shock offensive aura (12%). As you might expect, there were over three dozen holy-shock-zealot ("tesladin") paladins that maxed Resist Lightning for the synergy. For now, I'll just highlight one of them: Isenhart by D2DC. Some avengers that maxed this synergy: Grumpy by Brak and sirpoopsalot's Dorkelmeyer. Some holy-shock-rangers: Apollo by VoX Dei, Baudin by Doctor Clock, Calm by Doctor Clock, and Savier by Neksja.

A "Dream" runeword provides a Holy Shock aura when equipped, and we had some Resist Lightning maxers synergizing their dreams, including bcoe's Pharomachrus and Grape's Himalaya.

You might like to read about a bear that maxed Resist Lightning to synergize Holy Shock: Grape's Alyosha. (In an upcoming post, we'll see other werebear paladins sporting offensive elemental auras.)

Some other curious Resist Lightning maxers are: sirpoopsalot's conviction-aura ranger gimmernator, and "Rift" runeword wielders Nephael by VoX Dei and Celsius by AJK.

Dec 2022 Update: It wasn't a surprise to find maxed Resist Lightning (and lots of pretty screencaps) for Kaiser by J-Dog.

Salvation


At skill level one, Salvation adds 60% resistance to fire, cold, and lightning resistances. Higher skill levels increase the resistance bonus, but with diminishing returns a bit more severe than those of the individual resistance auras: at skill level two, 8% more (68%); at skill level three, another 7% (75%); at skill level four, another 5% (80%), and so forth. A level 12 Salvation aura adds 101% resistance (just barely more than enough to compensate for hell difficulty's 100% resistance penalty).

Each point in Salvation grants an additional 2% synergy to each of Vengeance's fire, cold, and lightning damages. It also grants a small synergy boost to each offensive elemental aura: 6% to Holy Fire, 7% to Holy Freeze, and 4% to Holy Shock. Just over a dozen holy-elemental-zealots elected to max Salvation for the offensive aura synergy, such as jdkerr's Merlin. (We'll notice a few more of these later.) Our lone avenger that maxed the Salvation synergy was Disco-neck Ted's Lord_Forwhyllin.

Other curious Salvation maxers: werebear Static by lionheartthebrave, Milb's ranger Walker, OldSoldier's ranger Robin, and scrcrw's dreamers Silliness and BigBlueBalls.

Dec 2022 Update: Behold Salvation maxer OdeHughManatee by TheNix, who wrote the following about this skill: "(doh!)"

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]
​

 

[Swamigoon]

Might


A paladin's Might aura increases physical damage, by 40% at skill level one, and by another ten percent per skill level thereafter - a level 17 Might aura triples (+200%) physical melee and missile damage. Another way to get this aura: many players choose to hire a Lut Gholein town guard offensive mercenary in nightmare difficulty.

Each of our paladins that maxed this aura were chargers, doing so to synergize damage: patriarchs Colorless Green's Tuck, Muktuk's Spazz, Neksja's Neely, Crazy Runner Guy's HolyHighlander, and Cyrax's NoPain, and also Arkardo's guardian InYoFace. Recent chargers in the compilation: saracen85's CosTeLLo and Pb_pal's Gary_Lasereyes.

Blessed Aim


When active, a Blessed Aim aura increases chances to hit with a melee or missile attack. Recipient's attack ratings are boosted by 75% at skill level one, and by another fifteen percent per skill level thereafter - a level 16 Blessed Aim aura quadruples (+300%) attack ratings. Another way to get this aura: some players choose to hire a Lut Gholein town guard offensive mercenary in normal or hell difficulty.

When not active, each point in Blessed Aim also gives a five percent passive bonus to the paladin's attack rating. Several of our paladins maxed Blessed Aim to get this 100% attack rating boost, including rangers Flynn by TopHatCat64 , Savier by Neksja , and Orion by VoX Dei; zealots Fans_Notes by Galtwish, Zealalittle by maareek , StanTheMan by sirpoopsalot, Humungus by MrBlonde, and Sir_Stuart by Asmodeous; also werebear paladins Ngonyama by Vulpine, Kailash by TopHatCat64, and Alyosha by Grape.

But of course the most common reason to max Blessed Aim is for its magic damage synergy to Blessed Hammer. There are dozens of 'hammerdins' in the compilation. A couple of unique builds to note here are Flakhammer by Tupsi, who sported a few unusual auras for a hammerdin, and Pulsar by Nano , who built a hybrid specialist in both Zeal and Blessed Hammer. As far as standard hammerdin builds go, the oldest contributions I could find were posted in 2004: Lachnadan by Spook_Cell, Thonk by Tedric, and Order by Solo.

Concentration


A paladin's Concentration aura increases physical damage, by 60% at skill level one, and by another fifteen percent per skill level thereafter - a level 17 Concentration aura quadruples (+300%) physical melee and missile damage. It also provides a 20% chance that any such attack will proceed uninterrupted.

A Concentration aura also increases the magic damage of Blessed Hammers, by 30% at skill level one, and by another seven or eight percent per skill level thereafter - 37% at level 2, 45% and level 3, and so forth - the magic damage boost is half of Concentration's physical damage boost. For example, maxed Concentration, along with +3 skills, can produce a level 23 aura, adding +195% magic damage to Blessed Hammers.

Beside the dozens of hammerdins in the compilation, there are a couple of paladins that found other uses for maxing their Concentration auras: Jason Maher's ranger Baudin, and jiansonz 's Flea, a Conversion/Concentration guardian.

Also, maxicek built an interesting Charge and Blessed hammer hybrid patriarch named de_Carabas.

Fanaticism


Fanaticism seems to be the most popular offensive aura among our paladin players. Its range is a bit narrower than most paladin auras, just seven yards (22 terrain tiles) at skill level one and another 2/3 yard per skill level thereafter - 20 yards at level 20. But with Fanaticism active, every ally within that radius gets these combat bonuses:

• Increased attack speed: +14 at skill level one, +18 at skill level two, and so forth with decreasing returns - it reaches +29 at skill level nine, or +35 at skill level 20.
• Increased attack rating: +40% at skill level one, and +5% more per skill level thereafter - it reaches 80% at skill level nine, or 135% at skill level 20.
• Increased melee/missile damage: +25% at skill level 1, and +8.5% more per skill level thereafter - it reaches 93% at skill level nine, or 186% at skill level 20. (The paladin himself gets the damage boost applied yet again, for a total of +50% at skill level 1, and 17% more per skill level thereafter.)

A 'Beast' runeworded weapon engages a level nine Fanaticism aura on any character that carries one, and players that enable ladder runewords can get an even higher Fanaticism aura from a 'Faith' runeworded bow or crossbow.

At least 45 zealots in the compilation maxed and activated Fanaticism as their main fighting aura. The oldest entries I could find were Erdrick by LordDamien, Voltan by Milamber, paran by WhiskeyJack, and Knightfish by Nightfish, each completed in 2004.

For the third version of his abbot Spongebob, sirpoopsalot chose a fanatic zealot build; a similar-yet-different "pseudo-abbot," posted a few years later, was Zubans' Dakkon.

Another popular build couples Vengeance with Fanaticism, which somehow got the nickname 'justiciar.' Examples include: Timorn by Asmodeous, Kitteh by Kitteh , Atlas by Vulpine, Griswold by PhineasB , Nub by Pucho, Amarth by Doctor Clock, Heuberg by Obdob, and Spiked by Grape.

Fanaticism enhances Smite attacks quite well. Examples: MadTwoPhysicist by ThePunisher, Kalgor by Ocau_Mikle, Heironeous by Asmodeous, Lawrence by TopHatCat64 , and Arreat-Slayer by Crazy Runner Guy.

Tero by jiansonz was a fanatic smiter/thrower hybrid, and Ulysses by maxicek was a fanatic smiter/ranger hybrid. Other fanatic rangers included Walker by Milb and Foba_Bett by poopie_pants.

Two newer innovative builds combined both Charge and Zeal attacks with Fanaticism: in 2017, HolyHighlander by Crazy Runner Guy, and just last year, Shenron by Gripphon.

Some fanatic martyrs: Raskolnikov by Grape, Mart by Hrus, penance by saracen85, and Alt-Eisen by Evah.

Several paladin werebears chose to max Fanaticism, instead of just use Beast's aura: Static by lionheartthebrave, Lycidas by Liquid_Evil, and Kailash by TopHatCat64.

Dec 2022 Update: since my last update almost a year and a half ago, I think more fanatic zealots were added to the compilation than any other build/skill! Here are most of the newly added ones: fanatic zealots Arstarius by Crudesash, Maximus by LouB, Breathadin by Serdash, Fermat by snickersnack, Theron by Vildecor, guardian Doubted by Vang, and the eponymous guardian fanazealotvenger by Kitteh.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Dec 2022 Update: In the D2R 2.4 patch, the damage mechanics of Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock and of Sanctuary were each significantly modified, and in particular, Holy Fire was granted very healthy amounts of additional fire damage.

Holy Fire


The first elemental pulse-damage aura is available as early as character level 6, but it never gets to be as potent as the other two elemental pulse auras. At skill level one, 6-18 fire damage is added to attacks, and 1-3 fire damage pulses every two seconds at monsters up to 4 yards away. At skill level 21: 120-132 fire damage, 20-22 fire pulse damage, 17 yards. If this aura is to be used in nightmare or hell difficulty, then synergies (18% per Resist Fire point, 6% per Salvation point) are necessary. With the synergies fully maxed, that level 21 aura adds 696-765 fire damage to each attack.

The Holy Fire specialists in the compilation tended to use item-based bonuses to further boost fire damage, such as Demon Limb's enchant charges, or explosion area-of-effect damage from missile weapons like Kuko Shakaku or Demon Machine. Here are some nice comments from a successful fire ranger, poopie_pants' Foba_Bett: "When facing PI's or groups of non-FI 'soft' mobs, switch to Demon Machine and HF aura for quick work. I found myself using the Demon Machine more often in Hell than I originally thought." Another was guardian VeeFour by Desrok: "Exploding Arrows and Holy Fire take care of almost everything except Act Bosses in Normal and NM. Vengeance gets increasingly used throughout Hell, until it is used almost exclusively in some parts of Acts 4 and 5 (depending on what monsters spawned)." Ulysses by @maxicek tried Holy Fire with a missile weapon as a backup to smite, but did not laud it: "I planned on using Holy Fire as a PI solution, but it sucked. The cold damage from Duress was almost better."

Nightfish's Crusader, Arufala's Kaboom, and VoX Dei's Apollo were rangers that switched between Holy Fire and Holy Shock auras. All had nice things to say about their Holy Fire auras. Nightfish: "Maxing 2 elemental auras and synergies actually worked pretty well. Holy fire doesn't really do that much damage, but 1500 is pretty good." Arufala: "Holy Fire is great, 1.3k damage doesn't look cool on paper, but the 66% pierce on Demon Machine makes a huge splash damage applying the damage several times and kills non-FI bosspacks in no time!" VoX Dei: "Two powerful elemental attacks and no mana required, ever. Pretty cool."

OldSoldier's Robin switched between Holy Fire and Holy Freeze. OldSoldier wrote: "The fire portion of the ranger was pretty powerful, despite the low damage number. I could still kill without the merc unless fire immunes were around. I needed his aura to hit monsters with the magic arrows on the Wizendraw. I didn't care about mana a bit, which is rare."

There weren't quite as many melee Holy Fire maxers: Clark_WGriswold by Steven Q Urkel, Trueheart by crazy_bear, and FluffyFlavius by T72on1. Also, zaphodbrx's RobinHood plowed through most of the game as a Holy Fire ranger, but switched to melee (Zeal with a 'Passion' runeword) starting with Hell Ancients.

Holy Freeze


Skill level one Holy Freeze: 10-15 cold damage and 2-3 cold pulse damage. Skill level 20: 185-190 cold damage and 37-38 cold pulses. Synergies: Resist Cold (15% per point), Salvation (7% per point). But even better is the chilling/slowing affect of the aura. 30% slower at skill level one, 54% slower at skill level 20. Many players hire a defensive Act 2 town guard mercenary in order to bring this aura along.

There are plenty of "Frost Zealots" in the compilation. Doctor Clock delivered two of them: two-handed BoneSnapper ("I wanted a 2H Frost Zealot, so I made one anyway, and I am happy with it") and an eponymous Holy Freeze/Holy Shock patriarch with a comprehensive playing guide that made me smile:

"My strategy was pretty straight-forward and went something like this: 'Monsters!' *Clickclickclickclick* 'Oh, they're lightning immune.' *Switch to Holy Freeze, clicklicklickclick* 'Dead.'"

There were many more "Teslafrosters" like DoctorClock that switched between synergized Holy Freeze and Holy Shock auras. Guardian Enkidu by Mursilis accomplished this build untwinked. Zapsugaya by NeoKnuckles caught my notice, because he maxed Holy Shock/Freeze, also chose hire a Holy Freeze act 2 mercenary, and in my opinion, convincingly defended this choice. SMTP's Django: "my first character that has beat Hell." Raz by Nerigazh: "HF ended up being kind of a lame backup without having much in the way of points to synergize it, although its crowd control is nice." Isenhart by D2DC: "Holy Freeze and Holy Shock because [weapon] doesn't do any damage." Astaroth by LD50: "Yes, Holy freeze. I chose to get it instead of the maybe more straightforward zeal+sacrifice. Rather than figure out exact damage numbers for each, I just thought that it fits the char better. I mean, you have an aura that lowers resist, so doing elemental damage is the point, right?" I also liked Lompo's Straived, just for the explanation behind the character's name.

Another amazing two-handed frost zealot was Asquiol by maxicek , who included some very impressive screenshots.

I collected some interesting quotes from other frost zealots. FrozenSolid by HolyPade: "This guy basically ripped through everything with amazing speed." I also enjoyed reading about FrozenSolid's unconventional hireling choice. Moiselvus' moiselvus: "He's a frost zealot, and I had lots of fun with him." Uther by relliKniaP: "he takes CI/PI/CIPI down like any other monster." Gordon by Rizzo: "my freezealot beat hell mode, and it wasn't as hard as I thought." SirPants by SirName: "this was a char that embraced the respec feature." Scatha by Swiller: "Madman? No...I am a zealot!" Pyrrhon by winmar: "I would actually not recommend this char, its boring, slow and you die alot. But it was a great feeling when i finally patted him!" Kaltritter by Wraithan: "Also thanks for all the great advice I have gotten so far, without the SPF, I don't think I would be happy with D2 anymore."

Noteworthy guardian frost zealots: Hoar by Sput and IceTea by Darkoooo.

Two players coupled Holy Freeze with the Sazabi set: PhineasB's Sazabi, and also Tom_S's xupamisto, one of the earliest patriarchs in the compilation.

There were also a couple of "polar" werebear Holy Freeze paladins: Frosticles by AJK: "The great thing about this palabear is of course his aura. I went for frost because slowing stuff is fun and it fits comfortably into my masterplan of building the ultimate tank. A total of +11 to holy freeze was reached." Frosticles would later inspire one of PhineasB's '51 mats/pats' efforts, Ursa: "my favorite of the entire project, and also the most expensive item-wise."

There was one notable Holy Freeze/Shock ranger, RangerJoe by Nightfish.

Dec 2022 Update: Heikki-Lunta the frost zealot was LouB's very first zealot.

Holy Shock


This is the most damaging and most popular of the elemental pulse auras. Skill level one: 1-60 lightning damage to attacks, 1-10 lightning pulses. Skill level 21: 1-996 damage, 1-166 pulses. Synergies: Resist Lightning (12%), Salvation (4%).

We have dozens of really neat zappity-zap "tesladin" Holy Shock zealots. Here are just a few favorites: Spark_Dancer by Drystan (friendship is magic!), Nikola by DarkChaos (reached level 99), Static_Shock by Pyrotechnician, TevashSzat by Xdeathfire, Ackatus by Kitteh , Gauss by RobbyD ("This is by far the most powerful character I've played"), Vogonotronic by purplelocust, Acolon by Neksja ("I wanted to fully synergize Holy Shock and I don't regret it"), Milo by jonny5, Rayden by Cyrax, Jack by FredOfErik, and Uriel by Dagaz.

Merlin by jdkerr and Sweeper by Kefir-Tribe were each tesladins built for repeated Baal running. For powerhouse two-handed-weapon tesladins, read about maxicek's Aubec and BjornIronScythe by sirpoopsalot.

Ranger by PhineasB was an arrow-shooter turned tesladin: "felt he was more fun with Zeal and crescent moon rw than with bow, way too slow." Another player that liked that runeword was domac, who wrote about LordofLightning: "Ah yes you may notice I had no +skills. It's pretty strange opening skill tree and seeing white numbers. However holy shock did enough damage and I really liked the -35 lightning resist on Crescent Moon."

Notable Holy Shock rangers: Savier by Neksja, and Walker by Milb.

Holy Shock is a synergy for the Fist of the Heavens spell, and there were a few that enjoyed using both: Chrono by Nagisa, Apollo by NacRuno, northern_lights by art_vandelay, and Calm by DoctorClock.

Some out-of-the-ordinary Holy Shockers: themed build DarthVader by DeathMaster, quadruple arua Baudin by Jason Maher, and werebears: Static by lionheartthebrave, Prism by ffs, and Alyosha by Grape.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Thorns


When Thorns aura is active, an enemy that hits your paladin (or a mercenary, minion, or ally within range) and causes physical damage will in turn receive the same physical damge magnified: 250% damage reflected at skill level 1, 810% damage reflected at skill level 15. A druid's Spirit of Barbs minion and a necromancer's Iron Maiden curse have the same effect, and like those skills, Thorns is seldom effective in hell difficulty. Only one paladin, RobbyD's Shaefer, experimented with eleven points to this skill in patch version 1.09, and that experiment failed.

There were other players that obtained skill level 15 Thorns from the Edge missile weapon (RWM/ladder runeword), but at least one player (Vang's druid Reflector) hired an act 2 combat town guard mercenary to produce this aura.

Dec 2022 Update: Thorns' gameplay mechanic was altered in the D2R patch 2.4 to return both a percentage of damage taken and an additional fixed measure of damage.

Sanctuary


Dec 2022 Update: Pb_pal contributed Grey, a charger with sanctuary. -- In the D2R 2.4 patch, the damage mechanics of Sanctuary were significantly modified.

Sanctuary only affects undead, never beasts nor demons.

Sanctuary is another pulse damage aura. Unlike most other paladin auras, Sanctuary's range is more limited: seven terrain tiles (just over three yards) at skill level 1, and two more terrain tiles per skill level after that brings it to 16 yards at skill level 20. Once every two seconds, undead enemies within the aura's range are knocked back, away from the paladin, and receive magic damage: 8-16 at skill level 1, 88-108 at skill level 20. Each skill point spent in the Cleansing defensive aura increases the magic pulse damage by 7%. (None of our paladins bothered with the synergy, but if they did, it would only have increased a level 20 Sanctuary's magic pulses to 211-259, or level 30 pulses to 336-408.)

Sanctuary also removes (sets to zero) the physical damage resistance or immunity for every undead enemy within range. That effect alone makes it a useful one-point-wonder aura skill. Three paladins invested more. Serdash observed that an Azurewrath sword granted a mid-level Sanctuary aura to a barbarian, and that aura's effectiveness inspired him to max Sanctuary with DaShocka. Kaizan by poopie_pants was a carefully built Sanctuary zealot, using the full Griswold set and other gear optimized for damaging undead. And maxicek 's Homerian-themed hero Ulysses, after maxing his core skills, divided remaining skill points evenly between Sanctuary and Redemption.

Conviction


Unlike most other paladin auras, Conviction's range is fixed at forty terrain tiles (just over thirteen yards), regardless of skill level. Conviction also behaves somewhat like a pulse aura, in that it affects enemies within its range every two seconds; however, it doesn't inflict any pulse damage. Instead, it shines its aura under affected foes and reduces their defense rating and elemental resistances.

Enemy cold, fire, and lightning resistances are reduced by 30% at skill level 1, and by another 5% per skill level there after, up to a maximum 150% reduction at skill levels 25 and higher. If an enemy is immune (resistance 100% or higher) to an elemental damage type, then Conviction is only one fifth as effective. That is, such an immune montster's resistance is only reduced 6% at skill level 1, up to a maximum of 30% reduction at levels 25+.

Conviction's defense reductions get diminishing returns with increased skill levels. Examples: enemy defense is reduced 49% at skill level one, then by another 7% (56%) at level two, then by another 5% (61%) at level three. Defense reduction reaches 90% at skill level 20, 92% at level 23, 94% at level 27. Enemy cold, fire, and lightning resistances are reduced by 30% at skill level 1.

There's a curious interaction between competing Conviction auras: as long as it's active before an encounter, a paladin with a higher level will remain unaffected by an adversary's lower level Conviction. Abbot paladin SpongebobII by sirpoopsalot commented on this artifact: "Running Conviction full time made things a lot safer around elemental attackers. And since my aura is a high level, it overrides any monster's conviction. Convicted Gloams become Gloams (and therefore, notably safer). Gloams still did have a little snap, but with 2200+ hitpoints and 90% Lightning Resists, it's not like they were a real threat."

More than fifteen "maxed Conviction" builds in the compilation are avengers. Interesting specimens include untwinked UncleRuckus by Alfonso the Great, WithAVengeance and Phavenger by Pyrotechnician, minimum-damage oriented Dorkelmeyer by sirpoopsalot, Lrrr by Milb, and Grumpy by Brak. Fire ranger VeeFour by Desrok employed Vengeance and maxed Conviction as a backup attack against fire-immunes.

We have almost as many "Conviction zealots," such as PhineasB's Doom, Pucho's Lment, ChrisTheMean's Diddly, PandadudeSP's Convict, AJK's Tristan, Doctor Clock's Lightbringer, and scrcrw's Silliness. Dante by maxicek was a two-handed weapon Conviction zealot. Espr wrote about guardian CapSwai, "All in all a pretty fun character, with a lot of versatility, but most importantly, one designed such that I can run [Travincal] about as risk free as it gets." And friedbananazzzz wrote about Inigo_Montoya: "Seeing the + blocking% on GA made me think that I could still get max block without pumping dex, though after doing some paper calcs I realized this wasn't possible. Then thought, why not? Wear some dex charms/gear, get a decent level Holy Shield, and I should still be able to pull it off. And I did, though it meant a slight sacrifice in speed & power."

A very sizeable cohort of Conviction zealots equipped the (RWM/ladder) Rift runeword. Among these are domac's GreenDeath, Xdeathfire's TevashSzat, AJK's Celsius, BobTheWarrior's Palabob, and PhineasB's Crevace. For the rift-zealot-templar northern_lights, art_vandelay reported that "Conviction benefits both FO and FoH." HappeningKT's wrote about Zoro, "Rift really is a wonderful weapon, I never expected the ctc tornado to be that effective.That was my main source of physical damage." About Pyrotechnician's SirRiftALot: "Essentially it’s a standard zealot build that uses conviction aura and relys on frozen orbs and tornados rather than weapon damage to clear out enemies. ... Do I recommend the build? Yep, tons of fun and throws some variety in there for the zealot based paladin." However, scrcw seemed slightly disappointed with BigBlueBalls: "Rift and 2xDream don't really go together."

A few templars used Conviction to get more lightning damage out of their Fists of the Heavens: DeathMaster's DarthVader, Asmodeous' Saint_Cuthbert, NagisaFurukawa's Chrono, and newco's untwinked Turgon.

Some other notable Conviction paladins with elemental-damage weapons were Vulpine's Ngonyama, Gimmernator by sirpoopsalot, and a sad-but-funny confession by jiansonz about Tero's backup attack: "I used my (expensively invested) maxed Conviction and my lightning damage javelins against exactly four monsters..."

Dec 2022 Update: more Conviction ambassadors: Schokolade by d2lover, SirTshirt by SirName, Testor by LouB, and guardian Axer by Vang.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Dec 2022 Update: the D2R 2.4 patch made interesting improvements to Sacrifice and Conversion.

Sacrifice


Sacrifice is a melee weapon skill with enhanced attack rating and damage: +20% AR and +180% damage at skill level one, and another 7% AR and 15% damage for each higher skill level (at level 21, that's +160% AR/+480% damage). Two aura skills add synergy damage: 15% per point in Redemption, and 5% per point in Fanatacism. Fully synergized, a level 21 sacrifice attack gives 880% additional damage!

This skill costs no mana, but instead costs a variable amount of hit points: 8% of the damage actually delivered. However, this "life cost" feature interacts with certain gameplay mechanics, which I think are helpful to illustrate. In the following examples, suppose a paladin's Sacrifice attack happens to cause 300 hit points of damage:

• In most cases, if the strike is successful, the paladin suffers 24 damage (eight percent of 300).
• If the attack misses, the paladin suffers no damage (because the target takes no physical damage).
• If the strike is successful and the paladin is cursed with Amplify Damage, the paladin still suffers 24 damage. (This is because the curse only magnifies damage caused by enemies, not the Sacrifice damage the paladin causes to himself.)
• If the strike is successful and the paladin is using "damage reduced" equipment, then the paladin still suffers 24 damage. (This is because the equipped gear only diminishes damage caused by enemies, not the self-inflicted Sacrifice damage.)
• If the strike is successful but target is immune to physical resistance, the paladin suffers no damage (because the target takes no physical damage).
• If the strike is successful but the target has 50% physical resistance, then the target only suffers 150 damage, and then the paladin takes 12 damage.
• If the strike is successful and the target is cursed with Amplify Damage (has -100% physical resistance), then the strike actually causes 600 damage, so the paladin suffers 48 damage.
• If the strike is successful and the target has 50% physical resistance, but is cursed with Amplify Damage (lowering its resistance to -50%), then the strike actually causes 450 damage, and then the paladin suffers 36 damage.
• If the strike is successful and the paladin equipped "8% life stolen per hit" equipment, then in normaldifficulty the paladin suffers 24 damage, and then that 24 damage is healed back again.
  • In nightmare difficulty, only 12 damage is healed, for a net loss of 12 hit points. ("16% life leech" is necessary to counter self-inflicted Sacrifice wounds in nightmare.)
  • In hell difficulty, only 8 damage is healed, for a net loss of 16 hit points. ("24% leech" is necessary to counter self-inflicted Sacrifice wounds in hell.)
• If the strike is successful, and the paladin has fewer than 24 hit points left, then the paladin "pays the ultimate sacrifice" (is killed).

There are a few weapon attributes (deadly strike, extra damage to undead, extra damage to demons) that generally work with other weapon skills, but it turns out do not add damage when used with Sacrifice.

Players have adopted the appellation "martyr" for Sacrificial paladins. The "maxed sacrifice" martyrs here include: Mart by Hrus, Penance by saracen85, Raskolnikov by Grape, Grumble by Doctor Clock, and two-handed guardian Alt-Eisen by Evah.

Zeal receives a damage synergy (12%) for each point in Sacrifice, and most zealots choose to max Sacrifice to get as much Zeal damage as possible. Indeed, there were many zealots that relied entirely on the synergy for damage, with only one or a few points in Zeal. Some examples: GreenDeath by domac, Magus by NorthDakota, and Silliness by scrcrw. Zealalittle by maareek was a fully-synergized 0skill zealot.

Zeal


Zeal always costs 2 mana per melee "zeal cycle." It provides an attack rating bonus: ten percent per level (that's 10% at skill level one, 200% at skill level 20).

At skill level one, Zeal adds one more rapid attempt to a melee attack (against the same target if no other enemy is in range, or against another if in range). Skill level two gives up to three rapid attacks per "zeal cycle," four attacks at level three, and up to five attacks at skill levels four and beyond. At skill level five and higher, the skill adds enhanced damage to each of its five attacks: six percent per level (so that's 6% at skill level five, or 96% at skill level 20). As noted above, each point invested in Sacrifice adds another 12% to Zeal's damage.

Zeal is one of the most popular paladin skills in the compilation. Many more than twenty followed the most popular build pattern, a fanatic zealot with maxed and synergized Zeal and maxed Fanatacism. Stormlash by @jjscud is a relatively early write-up in the complilation. Other keen representatives: tufo's Bjork, Thirty-Thirty's Desaix, TheNix's Intransigence, Pyrohemia's Kricket, purplelocust's Siarnaq and MakeMake, LordDamien's Erdrick, LD50's Zakath, ioupain's Garion, Doctor Clock's Gil-Galad and Dullahan, Cormallon's Sundan, Heironeous by Asmodeous, Dakkon by Zubans, Kabal by Zylo, and Kobaine by maxicek.

Nifty two-handed fanatic zealots: TopHatCat64's Dawn Treader, sirpoopsalot's StanTheMan, Sir_Stuart by Asmodeous, Galtwish's Fans_Notes, and frosty's Dienekes.

Some fanatic zealots that maxed Zeal, but not its synergy: Pwned_Nooblar by Naab, and two-handed zealot RabidRingo by muzzz.

Another popular build pattern maxes Sacrifice and Zeal for physical damage, with a synergized elemental aura for additional damage. Some nice examples of "tesladin" lightning zealots: Moochie by Rummski, Kemlor by Rhone, RollingThunder by SimonTheBulletFreak, and Uriel by Dagaz. Examples of cold damage "frost zealots:" Rohnic by Vildecor, Pyrrhon by winmar, and Dorfax by ps2v12. Other elemental zealots that maxed Zeal but not its Sacrifice synergy: tesladins Dante by smokeeblade and Davion by Nightfish, and frost zealots Uther by relliKniaP, Gordon by Rizzo, and Skywalker by stormlash.

Some other interesting zealot variants include abbot CrazyEyes by Skinnyy, templar/zealot hybrid Hawkmoon by maxicek, hydra/zeal hybrid Darude by Grape, and hammer/zeal hybrid Thaddeus by Stony.

Vengeance


This skill adds attack rating and elemental damage (cold, fire, and lightning) to each melee attack. The elemental damage is always proportional to the weapon's physical damage. At skill level one: +20% AR, and +70% damage of each element, at a cost of 4 mana. Each skill level thereafter adds 10% AR, 6% to each elemental damage type, and 0.25 mana cost, so at level 21, Vengeance gets +220% AR, delivers +190% cold, fire, and lightning damage (in addition to the weapon's regular physical damage) and costs 9 mana.

Vengeance enjoys four synergy skills. Each point in Resist Fire, Resist Cold, and Resist Lightning adds ten percent to that respective element's damage boost, and each point in Salvation adds two percent to all three elements. One of our paladins, Lord_Forwhyllin by Disco-neck Ted, successfully maxed Vengeance and all four synergies.

The most popular "avenger" build uses a Conviction aura with partial Vengeance synergy investments. Examples: crawlingdeadman's HankPym, Thirty-Thirty's Devagen, Tansaabas' Tasuja, snickersnack's Riemann, nualum's Dune, HolyPade's Tyrael, esd's Roland, BlizzballerSorc's Lemuel, AJK's RainbowWarrior, and adeadrat's Saterkias. Some interesting two-handed weapon avengers: WithAVengeance by Pyrotechnician, maxicek's Dante, and Grape's Lemmy.

Another popular 'justiciar' build couples Fanaticism with synergized Vengeance, such as Odbob's Heuberg, PhineasB 's Griswold and Asmodeous' Timorn, and two-handed weapon justiciars Amarth by Doctor Clock, Spiked by Grape, and Vulpine's Atlas.

Some other Vengeance variants: abbot Nusilis by Cormallon, Chain of Strength's holy shield avenger JuliusCaesar, and two-handed zealot/vengeance hybrid Little John by zaphodbrx. Another outstanding achievement: after achieving 98 levels with a blessed hammer build, Lucid by ffs switched to an avenger's skill layout to grind out the last level.

Dec 2022 Update: fanatic zealot PerciusMaximus by TheNix also features maxed Vengeance.

Conversion


For a cost of 4 mana, Conversion has a chance to temporarily (sixteen seconds) change a monster's disposition from enemy to ally. It never converts champions nor uniques, but can affect minion or regular foes. It can be a very effective crowd-control tactic; its gameplay mechanism is a bit different than a necromancer's Attract curse, but its battlefield effect is similar. At skill level one, a Conversion attack has a 7% chance to convert the targeted enemy; otherwise, it behaves the same way as a normal attack. Higher skill levels mean higher chances to convert, but with decreasing returns: 13% chance at skill level two, 18% at level 3, 29% at level 7, 36% at level 12, 42% at level 20. After the sixteen second conversion interval begins, a converted monster enjoys the benefits provided by the paladin's aura. Since most auras engage their effect in two-second pulses, the aura might take up to two seconds for the aura to start shining under the converted, and later may take up to two seconds to go away again after the sixteen second timer runs out.

There's a nifty side effect whenever the paladin's level is less than a converted monster's level: after the sixteen second timer expires and the monster is no longer converted, it has less than one hit point of life, and can be defeated in just one strike! But if the paladin has the same level or higher than the converted monster, it will still have the same hit points that it had before the sixteen second interval ended.

Three paladins maxed the Conversion skill: the polearm zealot LongSky by Crawlingdeadman, and random tournament paladin Flea and smiter/thrower paladin Tero, both by jiansonz. The conviction-aura figher Gimmernator by sirpoopsalot put twelve skill points into Conversion.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]
​

 

[Zyr]

@Swamigoon, with each update I gain a new appreciation for the magnitude of this undertaking. Thank you very much!

The most recent updates are of particular interest to me just now because I'm playing my first ever Avenger and Templar.

 

[Maltatai]

Keep up the impressive work, @Swamigoon .

One thing to also keep in mind with sacrifice and leeching is the varying drain effect of some monsters, with skeletons packs for example offering no relief from the pains of martyrdom unless the noble knight has the aid of a life tap curse.

 

[Pyrotechnician]

I love everytime this thread comes up in my notifications. Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading all the different builds people have tried over the years that you link here.

 

[Swamigoon]

Holy Bolt


Cast at a mercenary or other ally, Holy Bolt is a healing spell. At skill level one, each missile costs 2 mana, and if the missile collides with a mercenary (or other ally), it restores between one and six hit points to the target. Each higher skill level costs 1/16 more mana and adds between two and four hit points of healing with each bolt, so at skill level 17, Holy Bolt heals 33-70 hit points for 3 mana. Each skill point spent in the Prayer aura synergy increases the healed range by fifteen percent, so by spending 40 skill points to max both Prayer and Holy Bolt, a paladin heals between 117 and 246 life per shot. I noticed a few "combat medic" paladins that did so, healing their mercenaries much faster than a red potion ever could. Two of them were ranger Flynn by TopHatCat64 and zealot Alexander by Cattleya.

If cast at an undead enemy, Holy Bolt causes magic damage. Furthermore, it ignores the target's magic resistance. Even magic immune undead get Holy Bolt's full damage: eight to sixteen hit points at skill level 1, and augmented returns with increased skill levels; it does 196-220 damage at skill level 20. Synergy skills are Blessed Hammer and Fist of the Heavens, and each synergy point adds 50% magic damage. A fully synergized Holy Bolt strikes as hard as 21 unsynergized bolts! Paladins that pumped up their Holy Bolt damage included zealots Asmodean by zaphodbrx, Lightbringer by Doctor Clock, and Apollo by NacRuno.

Ugla's Irmo, Pucho's Dan, Ojimaru's Veran, and Maltatai's Sigfrid were "clerics" (Holy Bolt specialists) that maxed the healing Prayer synergy and maxed the offensive BH/FoH synergies. OldSoldier's Horatio came pretty close to maxing them all as well.

Points in Holy Bolt add a magic damage synergy (15%) to the Holy Bolts dispersed by the Fist of the Heavens spell. Templars DeathFromAbove by Pyrotechnician and Hawkmoon by maxicek maxed this synergy, as did the Holy Bolt/Fireball templar Morgir by Vang .

If cast toward an enemy beast or demon, a Holy Bolt continues right through it with no effect.

There are a few unique and set items that feature Holy Bolt charges or "proc" effects, thus allowing characters of every other class to cast them.

Dec 2022 Update: have a look at saracen85's cleric McDreamy. -- After the D2R 2.4 patch, Holy Bolts now pierce (like bone spears do), and damage both undead and demons. Their magic damage was rebalanced: the skill itself gets higher inherent damage, but the Blessed Hammer synergy was eliminated.

Blessed Hammer


"Hammerdins" have their own subsections in the compilation, so they're all easy to find. They're all mandatory reading for a dedicated Tyrosemiophiliac.

This spell launches a spinning hammer missile. Unlike most other missiles which take a straight path when fired, this one travels in a spiral pattern. A hammer missile seems to start at or next to the paladin's position, orbit almost two and a half circuits around the point where it was launched, and then expire before it can travel more than twelve terrain tiles (four yards) beyond the initial launch point. If it hits an obstacle, such as a wall or tree, it expires early. However, if it hits a monster, it continues through along its spiral path, and could possibly hit and damage other monsters before it evaporates. Blessed Hammer costs 5 mana at skill level one, and 1/4 more mana points per skill level thereafter (so 7.5 mana at level 11, 10 at level 21, etc.)

A Blessed Hammer causes magic damage: 12-16 at skill level one, 196-200 at level 20. Regardless of skill level, its maximum base damage is always four higher than its minimum base damage. This low variance distinguishes Blessed Hammer as one of the most predictably damaging skills in the game. For example, if a certain monster in a given area goes down in two hammer hits, then pretty much every other identical monster in that area will also die in exactly two hits. Points in synergy auras Blessed Aim and Vigor boost each hammer's magic damage by fourteen percent. Also, if a paladin has activated a physical-damage-boosting Concentration aura, it also adds half of its boost to Blessed Hammer's magic damage. Maxing those four skills is the standard recipe for chewy, savory, delicious dairy snacks. With lots of +skills equipment, these "glowing flying cheese bricks on sticks" are known to bludgeon monsters with many thousands of magic damage.

In earlier versions, the spiral hammers ignored magic resistances of both demons and undead, so that only magic immune "wailing beasts" were unharmed by Blessed Hammers. But in recent patches, magic immune demons and undead are also unharmed. As twenty points in Blessed Hammer add a 1000% synergy bonus to the prerequisite Holy Bolt skill, even a "one-point-wonder" HB can be a reasonably effective backup attack hammerdins can use against MI undead.

Several players reported that a hammerdin was their first ever patriarch: Beowulf by Doctor Clock, TBR_Hammerdin by TBrundel, and Thor by Baby Boy. Thaddeus by Stony and Thalad by bassen shared engaging and detailed role-playing stories behind their paladins, and Harrid imagined funny incantations that Whorlandu spoke to conjur his hammers. Jason Maher gave detailed accounts of various equipment that Lamur used along his journey; sirpoopsalot also shared some neat notes about Monterey_Jack's cheese. Tupsi tried very hard to build Flakhammer into an alternate-auras hammerdin, but eventually chose to embrace Concentration very late in hell difficulty.

A quote from xxnothing's Spammydin: "Playing the hammerdin was pretty fun, though aiming can be difficult."

There are at least a dozen Blessed Hammer casters that reached level 99. Two are guardians: AdmiralAckbar by wielanja reached 99 in 2010. A couple of years later, Samsara by Corrupted not only hit 99 in hardcore, he did so without even bothering to defeat Baal to advance from conqueror to guardian.

Players opinions of these paladins vary widely. You can read happy, delighted words about jrlafrance's Temps_deMarteau and Kitteh's Kitteh and Divinity, or you can read loathing disgust for HP_Sauce's Sherman or Nightfish's Hammerdin.

A few noteworthy hybrids: "blessed ranger" Orion by VoX Dei, hammering zealot Pulsar by Nano , hammer/charger de_Carabas by maxicek, and zealot/templar/hammerdin Genesis by NagisaFurukawa.

Dec 2022 Update: another new hammerdin in the compilation is level 99er AdaM by saracen85.

Fist of the Heavens


This spell has a casting timer - a paladin must wait a full second between strikes. Fist of the Heavens combines two attacks: a lightning bomb that instantly plunges from the sky onto an enemy target, and a salvo of Holy Bolts that spray from the same target, one toward each nearby enemy (up to 13 yards away) and one more toward the paladin. If the lightning damage doesn't put the target into a hit recovery animation, that last bolt sometimes hits the targeted monster. Each cast always costs 25 mana.

The lightning damage is 150-200 at skill level one, and gets increasing returns with skill levels - at level 20 it does 675-725 lightning damage. Each point in synergy aura Holy Shock adds seven percent more lightning damage, so maxing the synergy brings level 20 lightning damage up to 1620-1740. Again, the holy bolts only do their magic damage to undead, and pass through beasts and demons without harming them at all. Bolt damage is 40-50 at skill level one, and also gets increasing returns; at level 20, it damages undead by 226-236 hit points. Each point in the Holy Bolt synergy adds fifteen percent magic damage.

Most SPFers refer to fist-pounder paladins as "templars," and templars typically use a Conviction aura to further boost lightning damage. Some good examples are TalkingDonkey's Zeus, Asmodeous' Saint_Cuthbert, DeathMaster's DarthVader, and newco's untwinked guardian Turgon.

Some interesting templar variants include cleric-zealot Chrono by NagisaFurukawa, ranger-mage Calm by DoctorClock, and rift-zealot northern_lights by art_vandelay. On his way to level 99, tesladin Nikola by DarkChaos also maxed and used Fist of the Heavens. Two-handed zealot Sacre by D2DC fully synergized his Boneslayer Blade's Holy Bolt charges, but I didn't see any evidence that he ever used his 20 point FoH investment to pull down any lightning damage fists.

Dec 2022 Update: check out TheNix's Fister_Roboto. -- D2R patch 2.4: FoH bolts now damage both demons and undead, and the casting delay is reduced down to 0.4 seconds.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R notes]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Smite


Smite lets a paladin strike and damage with his shield. Smite also stuns and knocks back back most targets. At skill level one, it adds 15% to the shield's listed damage, and stuns for fifteen animation frames (0.6 seconds). Each additional skill level adds 15% more damage and five more animation frames (0.2 seconds) to the stun length, so at level 20, Smite adds 300% damage and stuns for 4.4 seconds. If Holy Shield is active, it adds a fixed amount of additional damage to the shield's listed damage, and Smite's damage bonus boosts that extra damage as well. An aura that boosts physical damage (Might, Concentration, Fanaticism, or a Heart of Wolverine minion) will boost Smite damage even more.

Attack Rating matters for weapon attacks and skills, but not for shield attacks: a Smiting paladin hits with every swipe! Also, Smite's stun durations are halved in nightmare difficulty and quartered in hell.

Even though the paladin's weapon isn't used for Smite damage, there are a few weapon properties that apply to Smite. One is melee range: the shield's range will be the same as the equipped weapon's. (For example, a paladin holding a dagger must be closer than one holding a long sword.) Some select weapon modifiers will apply to Smite, such as Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, or "proc" modifiers (chance to cast a spell on striking or on attack). However, most other weapon modifiers (life stolen, mana stolen, non-physical damage, enhanced/minimum/maximum damage) will not apply to shield attacks.

This is a popular "one-point-wonder" in the compilation, usually just used for delivering crushing blows. Regardless, there were a small number of dedicated Smiters: Ocau_Mikle's Kalgor, Crazy Runner Guy's Arreat-Slayer, TopHatCat64's Lawrence, and Grape's Raskolnikov. Liquid_Evil focused Lycidas' build on Smite until he could use a Beast runeword, then he became a werebear paladin thereafter. Tupsi learned that Viktor could freeze enemies with a "hit freezes target" weapon and Smite, and that frozen monsters don't get knocked back. Viktor exploited those features with an innovative build.

Guardian Tero used a "thrower/smiter" build, and never used Holy Shield at all. Here's how jiansonz explained his use of this skill to support his mercenary: "Smite was for controlling small packs, and to stop even single monsters in their tracks, to keep them away from Iantha so she could be more effective. It was also a good tool to move around monsters whenever I wanted to do that. Up to three monsters was very easy to control. Maxed Smite has around 5 seconds stun duration vs regular monsters (and about 1 second vs bosses) so it was very easy to keep a few monsters stunned. Smite is also the tool to stunlock tough bosses that you really do not want to fight in an "honest" way. Just find a suitable wall and smack the bugger into submission! Cursed bosses usually never got a hit in... And the stunlock effect works against the Ancients! Man, that is huge for HC play."

Dec 2022 Update: charging smiter SilliusSoddus by TheNix.

Charge


Charge is a weapon skill that should only be used when the paladin is outside of weapon range from an intended target. If the paladin is already in melee range, it behaves like a regular normal attack. If beyond melee range, the paladin rapidly sprints to close the distance and attack; the sprint is interrupted if the target is behind an obstacle. A charge attack gets an attack rating bonus (+50% at skill level one; another 15% per skill level thereafter - +350% AR at level 21) and a damage bonus (+100% damage, or double damage, at skill level one; another 25% per skill level thereafter - +600% damage, or sevenfold damage, at level 21). Each point spent in synergy auras Might and Vigor add another 20% to Charge's damage bonus.

Rather than use Charge to attack, a player may also hold down the shift key and click an empty location, to sprint to that location without attacking.

If a charge attack is successful, most enemies are knocked back far enough to put them out of weapon range again. Successful chargers try to maneuver to have plenty of obstacle-free space both ahead and behind a monster, in order to execute a repeated-knockback "charge chain" manoeuver.

Occasionally, a paladin will be paralyzed and unable to walk or run after a Charge; several players recommended quickly switching weapons to be able to move again.

Most of the Chargers in the compilation chose a staff as their charging weapon. Tuck by Colorless Green, Neely by Neksja, and InYoFace by Arkardo all used an Insight runeword in an archon staff. So did NoPain by Cyrax, who shared a few cautionary warnings about the skill: "Overall I liked the idea of playing him, but the result was a bit disappointing. He took more damage then expected (both regular and elemental). And also adding to the annoyance factor were 2 gameplay issues. The first is pretty well known here. The freezeing in midcharge. The second I did not know, but quite often when trying to move (either in or out of danger) he got stuck. I don't mean like with charge, but you see the char running on the spot. He's just not getting anywhere. Happened a little too often for my taste. So all in all it was a small letdown for me."

Other staff chargers were Spazz by MukTuk and CosTeLLo by saracen85 (both used Insight elder staves), and Gary_Lasereyes by Pb_pal , who really loved charging with a Breath of the Dying runeword in an ethereal archon staff: "If you haven't made a Charger, go now. Right now. Go to the character selection screen, click the Paladin. Make one."

Crazy Runner Guy's HolyHighlander used a Death runeword in a colossus sword: "He charges with great strength and aim. He zeals with less strength and worse aim. And that's about all he does. His crowd control skills are next to zilch. He is F*R*A*G*I*L*E. And he was a hell of a lot of fun." Fransisc by Tupsi Charged with a Stonecrusher hammer, Gripphon's Shenron used Grief runewords, and de_Carabas by maxicek used an Obedience runeword in a cryptic axe pole arm.

Dec 2022 Update: maxed charge on salvation zealot Ulrich by SirName.

Holy Shield


The Holy Shield spell temporarily grants several benefits, but only while the paladin keeps a shield equipped. One benefit is increased defense rating: a 25% boost at skill level one, and another fifteen percent bonus per level thereafter - at level 20, it adds +310% to the paladin's overall defense. Two other benefits: +50% faster blocking rate, and an increased chance to block an enemy attack with the shield: +14% chance at skill level one, and decreasing returns thereafter: the chance-to-block bonus reaches 30% at skill level ten, or 35% at level 20. There's also an offensive benefit, but only regarding the Smite skill: an extra 3 to 6 hit points of shield damage at skill level one, with increasing returns at higher levels: two more Smite damage per skill level through 8, then three more Smite damage per level through 16, and four more damage per level thereafter: the bonus to shield damage is 57-60 at skill level 20. Again, all of these bonuses are temporary: 30 seconds at skill level 1, and another 25 seconds per skill level thereafter - for example, its duration is 480 seconds (eight minutes) at skill level 19.

I was interested to observe the wide variety of investment levels in this skill. If chance-to-block happens to be the most important factor influencing a player's skill point choices, such a player might consider the skill effectively "maxed" when the paladin's combined blocking chances from equipment and Holy Shield achieve 75% chance-to-block. On the other hand, if other benefits (defense, Smite damage, duration) are also important factors, a player would instead choose to invest more points in Holy Shield well after the 75% blocking chance is reached.

The defense bonus gets a synergy from the Defiance aura: 15% more defense per invested point. A few zealots in the compilation chose to max both Holy Shield and Defiance to get very high defense ratings, including elemental zealots Zobomir by Cygnus, Tristan by AJK, Nephael by VoX Dei, and Loki by balluga08. Werebear paladin Kailash by TopHatCat64 also maxed both Holy Shield and its Defiance synergy. PhineasB's Crevace finished just a few points shy of fully synergizing his Holy Shield defense.

After spending 85 points to max their hammerdins' core skills, a handful of 99ers went on to spend another 22 points to max Holy Shield as well: Cyrax's Possessed, ffs' Lucid, Grape's Vodka, and @PhineasB 's Phaedrus.

Many fanatic zealots opted to max Holy Shield, including ioupain's Garion, Kitteh's Sanguine, Pyrohemia's Kricket, Sir Lister of Smeg's Zealot, WhiskeyJack's paran, xALT's Juggernaut, Zylo's Kabal, and Zuban's Dakkon. So did a few conviction zealots, such as Espr's CapSwai, domac's GreenDeath, and ChrisTheMean's Diddly; Phelddagrif by Solar Ice was just one point shy of maxing his Holy Shield. Avenger JuliusCaesar by Chain of Strength also maxed this spell.

Dec 2022 Update: see werebear abbot Poppa by LouB and tournament lightning shocker guardian Elding by Pb_pal.

----------

That's every Paladin skill. There's just one more extraordinary patriarch that I feel I should link here: back in 2009, Cygnus' fanatic zealot Judas defeated hell Baal, and he had never invested more than one skill point into each of his skills. I was intrigued to learn about the gear Judas equipped to compensate for his minimal skill training.

Thanks so much for your corrections and encouraging comments! I have just thirty skills left to examine, but with almost 500 rows in the Sorceress' skills spreadsheet, I anticipate that a lot more study time will be necessary to finish them. My next post here will examine the left column of the cold spells' tree.

[Update: new histograms]
[Dec 2002 Update: new histograms]​

 

[PhineasB]

Great work @Swamigoon I continue to thoroughly enjoy reading these and look forward to the Sorc analysis. Thank you for doing this thread!

 

[Kartongen]

I must say @Swamigoon, this thread is such an incredible resource. The data you have compiled is amazing, but it is nothing next to the excellent, humourous and on point analyses you add to every skill.

I consider it a great honour to have my only SP mat/pat used as an example, and I'm constantly looking forward to reading your addition to the thread. It is a little bittersweet that it will soon end.

I really hope we host that "best of SPF" thing again, cause I know exactly what I would nominate.

A big thank you for the time and effort you put into this.

 

[Swamigoon]

The sorceresses in the SPF Mat/Pat/Guardian compilation are organized by element: first by single-element specialists, then dual-element focused builds, and lastly others, which comprises unusual and creative variants as well as three-element "archmages." As you read our sorceress success reports, you might observe that many players like to have a "spammable" attack skill (without any enforced timeouts between casts) that they can use between casts of hard-hitting but time-delayed skills. Not all players build their spellcasters like this, but it seems to be a relatively common practice.

Every cold-based attack spell either chills (slows) or freezes (immobilizes) the enemy it hits, for some specific cold- or freeze-duration. A chilled monster moves and attacks at half its usual speed. Please note that all of the chill and freeze durations that will be mentioned below apply to normal difficulty. In nightmare difficulty, these durations are cut in half, and in hell, these durations are reduced by 75%. Cold-immunes are never chilled nor frozen by one of these cold attacks. Also, some enemies, such as death lords, lightning spires, etc. won't be chilled, even though they aren't cold-immune.

Frost Nova


There are only two spammable "area-of-effect" cold damage sorceress skills, and Frost Nova is one of them. The ring of cold expands to about eight yards (24 terrain tiles) away. Every enemy struck by the expanding ring is chilled. At skill level one, the chill effect lasts for eight seconds, and each additional skill level adds another second to the chill duration - for example, 24 seconds at level 17, or 36 seconds at level 29. Frost Nova costs 9 mana at skill level one, and one more mana per higher skill level (for example, it costs 25 mana at skill level 17, or 37 mana at level 29).

Frost Nova also causes cold damage to every enemy in its range. At skill level one, 2-4 cold damage, and slightly increasing returns at higher levels: 19-25 at level nine, 44-54 at level 17, 69-82 at level 23, 100-116 at level 29. Each synergy skill point spent in Blizzard and Frozen Orb adds ten percent to this damage, so a fully synergized level 29 Frost Nova does 500-580 damage. With enough faster-cast-rate on equipment, a sorceress can spam Frost Novas several times per second. As with all cold skills, Cold Mastery is another way to increase Frost Nova's cold damage.

To my mind, Frost Nova appeared to be more effective as a defensive spell (chilling and slowing enemies) than as an offensive damage dealer. Nevertheless, there were seven that maxed the skill and turned it into a capable offensive tool. Two sorceresses by sirpoopsalot, FrigidBridgett and Athena, maxed FN and both synergies. Each also had a (distinct) backup fire attack, skilled up sufficiently to be useful. They are both worthwhile reading, because sirpoopsalot carefully and thoroughly explained how these sorceresses succeeded with their high-powered Frost Novas. Both of the synergies are timered (not-spammable) skills; however, both Blizzard and Frozen Orb are reasonably strong even without their respective synergies, so a fully synergized Frost Nova sorceress effectively has three cold attacks, and each can each be situationally effective monster killers.

The other five sorceresses that maxed this skill were "dual nova" builds, with Nova's lightning damage as their primary skill and partially synergized Frost Nova as a backup: Muktuk's Supernova, Skinnyy's SuperNova, Jaedhann's OOps, bcoe's Aix_Sponsa, and jdkerr's untwinked guardian Bob.

The "hit power" crafted item procedures always produce an item with a chance to cast level 4 Frost Nova when struck. In hell difficulty, this hit-power "proc" effect chills enemies for almost 3 seconds, which can make a big difference to a hero that needs to temporarily walk away and recover from a hard-hitting enemy.

Dec 2022 Update: Frost Nova was one of the key skills for the very defensive Elsa by CaseyJones and of the rainbow warrior Indigo by Pb_pal. -- The 2.4 patch for D2R noticeably strengthened Frost Nova's cold damage.

Blizzard


Just a few months ago, TestyFish shared an illuminating and carefully animated comparative analysis between Blizzard and Frozen Orb. That post does a much better job than I can to explain the mechanics of these skills.

Blizzard pulls hailstorms down from the sky into a square area approximately eight-by-eight terrain tiles wide. Blizzard's icy stones and shards fall one-at-a-time, once every four animation frames, until 28 shards have struck - the ice storm lasts just over four seconds. Each shard is large enough to hit enemies up to one terrain tile away from where it lands, so it can be even more effective against tightly packed mobs. Blizzard costs 23 mana at skill level 1, and one more mana per skill level thereafter - 42 mana at level 20, 52 at level 30. Each ice shard chills for 4 seconds, and causes cold damage: 45-75 at skill level one, and higher skill levels get increasingly higher returns on damage - 570-619 at level 20, 1120-1179 at level 30. Three synergy skills, Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Glacial Spike, each add 5% damage per invested point, so spending all 60 synergy points quadruples Blizzard's cold damage. After Blizzard is cast, no other delay-timered skill (including Blizzard) can be cast until a 1.8 second timeout expires.

More than seventy of our Blizzard maxers were single-element (cold-only) specialists that put as many leftover points as they could into Cold Mastery, synergies, or some combination. Blizzard is definitely the skill of choice for cold-only sorceresses, and that fact seems to me to be a suitable tribute to the game's namesake publisher and distributor. You'll find dozens of great pure Blizzard sorceresses to read about in the compilation, but I'll just highlight two of them here. Both were untwinked hardcore heroines that were also their players' first ever guardians: Xendaria by Drixx and Vlana by Unrsrvd.

We have a wide variety of alternate elemental attacks that our Blizzard sorceresses chose as companion skills. Fireball is the most popular fire alternative; good "blizzball" examples are Felicia by Milb, Flogging_Molly and Donatella by HP_Sauce, Juliana by Caralis, and asdf_DemonFrost by asdfgah. Other fire skills combined with Blizzard were Firewall (Snowy_Ploppy by DX-Crawler, Sway by b1ur nee srrw, and CharleneMcGee by crawlingdeadman) and Hydra (untwinked MoonlightFlower by Elfie).

Players consistently raved about their choice of Nova as a lightning attack to accompany Blizzard: BobTheWarrior's Bobtheblizznova, Kimppi's SparklingIce, maareek's Blova, Obdob's Emeralda, and 99ers Blower by inter and Eleanor by Pb_pal. Other lightning attacks used with Blizzard were Charged Bolt (Chill_Out by Darkoooo and Seeker by TheNix) and Lightning or Chain Lightning (Shermila by Asmodeous, Diablo_Runner by chrischar, marge by nubikoen, Sparkles by xxnothing, and Mhysteria by Pijus).

Blizzard is aptly represented among a few "archmages" that invest in all three elemental damage types, such as Albatross' updated enchantress Stardust, Toppo's weather manipulator Caillech, and Kdawg's tri-elemental Okashyra.

Update: 2005 matriarch CoolTrix, by SeDnA, was relinked in the compilation.

Frozen Orb


This very popular skill may be used both as a single-target missile, when carefully ranged and aimed, but may also be used as a wide area-of-effect chaotic cold bolts when cast reactively or whimsically.

A Frozen Orb travels to a point about nine yards (28 terrain tiles) away from the sorceress, taking a little more than one second to get there. For its 28-animation-frame journey, the orb spins out one ice bolt in a new direction. When the orb reaches its destination, it bursts into sixteen more ice bolts that spray all at once in every direction. At skill level one, casting Frozen Orb costs 25 mana, and each ice bolt inflicts 40-45 cold damage and chills for eight seconds. Each higher level adds 0.5 mana cost, one second chill duration, and increasing damage returns: 122-131 cold damage (29 mana, 16 second chill) at skill level nine; 220-233 (33 mana, 24 second chill) at level 17; 304-320 (36 mana, 30 second chill) at level 23. Its only synergy skill is Ice Bolt, adding 2% damage per skill point invested; maxing the synergy adds 40% to the damage of each of Frozen Orb's cold bolts. Skilled Frozen Orb casters attempt to walk or run to the right position, and then aim the orb so that it releases its final sixteen bolts all at once from within a monster. Depending on the monster's size, it's possible for most or all of those final cold missiles to collide with and damage the monster. For example, if all sixteen bolts of a fully synergized level 23 Frozen Orb erupt under a boss monster, that adds up to over 6800-7168 cold damage per cast. (Cold Mastery makes that damage hurt even harder.) A player needs luck, finesse, and careful practice to consistently pull off that feat with a sorceress, but most don't find it difficult to learn.

There is a one-second timeout enforced after each Frozen Orb cast.

There aren't very many single-tree-focused cold sorceresses that chose to fully synergize Frozen Orb. Three of them were Glacial Spikers: Hayate by NagisaFurukawa, Spike by maareek, and LuckyLucyII by sirpoopsalot. Denali by sevenOfDiamonds had a unique twist: she spent 100 skill points to fully synergized both Orb and Blizzard, but ignored Cold Mastery altogether.

More than 65 entries in the compilation are dual-element "meteorb" builds, that is, Meteor and Frozen Orb specialists. Almost all of them cast Fireball between Meteor or Frozen Orb spell timeouts. I recommend reading about these three untwinked meteorbers: Cygnus' Cassandra, LD50's Khafai, and Mursilis' Malice. Please look for plenty of other fine meteorbers, they aren't hard to find.

Socialism helped to popularize an "orbitall" build that combines Frozen Orb with Firebolt-synergized Fireballs. Some examples: Lily by janooo, TheMadGeniusII by Eoanthropus, and squidder's first ever guardian Sue. The orb-it-aller guide also recommends a higher investment in Teleport, to help conserve mana for the attack spells while magic-finding; Seleia by GoldenredDragon accepted this advice. Other FO/FB projects: San's LogicalNoodle, ioupain's Selene_I, Cattleya's Anala, maareek's Ineedrunes_II, and Crazy Runner Guy's Layla-II. My-SweetFlame by Slartibartfast chose to further synergize her Fireballs with ten skill points Meteor. She used both orbitall and meteorb playstyles.

Many fire/cold sorceress players, particularly hardcore players, selected Hydra as their Frozen Orb companion skill. These include Bruja by D2DC, Alyx_Vance by HP_Sauce, Habacalva by Kitteh, Firaga by Milb, Online's Grape, and Charmer by Shagsbeard. Neksja's Mona coupled Frozen Orb and Firewall. I found three Frozen Orb/Enchant builds: Grape's Necronomica, D2DC's Angelic, and drmalawi's Life. We also have three proud Frozen Orb/Blaze runners: Joan by galtwish, Nur by Miron, and Robin by HappeningKT.

The most common lightning/cold builds combined Frozen Orb and Nova: Aconite's Storm, DementiaMaster's Diamanda, Flayed One's Lena, Gahzban's FroNo, luskan's StormSpirit, maareek's Frova, martinkingss' Finderess, PhineasB's Esfera, sirpoopsalot's Sura, Nightfish's Alustriel, and Pyrotechnician's Frozen_Sparks.

There were also Charged Bolt and Frozen Orb pairings Lyrella by Kitteh, JungleJulia by crawlingdeadman, Holysinner by Eliza, and Electric_Six by crazymatt1, and a few more that accompanied FO with either Lightning or Chain Lightning: bodis' LightOrber, HolyPade's TeslaSorc, Sir Lister of Smeg's Coldlight, SirName's Alice, zaphodbrx's Nynaeve, PhineasB's Josie, and Solar's Swizel.

Enersense presented a full sept of (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) seven Frozen Orb archmage sorceresses, each having different combinations of fire and lightning skills. LadyMagic by DeathMaster and Aaliyah by jiansonz are both impressive guardian archmage reads. I thought the classic hardcore queen Ceto by purplelocust was a rather unique entry. Here are a few more cool Frozen Orb archmages: Isoce by Colorless Green, Becca by Helix, Zann Esu Warrior by JoeBruce, ESSoul by Neksja, 1.09-patch matriarch Gieb_Vex by RobbyD, and 1.07-patch achievements UltimateBadness and OhSevenOrbs by HoosierDaddy.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms, D2R note]​

 

[Swamigoon]

Ice Bolt


Ice Bolt is the only offensive cold skill with a fixed mana cost (three), and a sorceress may repeatedly spam Ice Bolts as fast as her Faster Cast Rate equipment allows. At skill level one, it delivers 3-5 cold damage to one target, chilling it for six seconds. Each higher skill level adds 1.4 seconds to the chill time. (At skill level six and beyond it will slow susceptible monsters longer than any other equivalently leveled cold skill. For example, at skill level 21, it chills for 34 seconds.) Ice Bolt also gets increasing damage returns at higher skill levels, such as 12-18 at level nine, or 29-39 at level 17. Each of the other five offensive cold skills (Ice Blast, Glacial Spike, Frost Nova, Blizzard, and Frozen Orb) add 15% cold damage per invested skill point, so just seven points in synergies more than doubles Ice Bolt's cold damage, and twenty synergy points will quadruple cold damage (that is, add 300%).

In turn, each point in Ice Bolt adds cold damage synergy to four of the other cold attacks: 8% to Ice Blast, 5% to Glacial Spike and Blizzard, and 2% to Frozen Orb. All of the sorceresses in the compilation that pumped up their Ice Bolt skill seemed to do so for synergy purposes. The only other advantage of a high level Ice Bolt is its chill duration. Even in hell difficulty, where chill times are very penalized, a level 20 Ice Bolt still chills for over eight seconds. There may have been a matriarch or guardian that used the Ice Bolt skill itself in late gameplay, but if so, I didn't find her.

Ice Blast


At the first skill level, Ice Blast costs 6 mana, and delivers 8-12 cold damage and completely immobilizes a target for three seconds. Each higher skill level costs 0.5 more mana, and adds one-fifth of a second to freeze time. Higher skill levels also boost cold damage, with increasing returns at higher skill levels: 91-100 at skill level ten, 273-287 at level 20. Each point in Ice Bolt, Blizzard, and Frozen Orb adds 8% cold damage, so maxing all three synergies adds 480%. Each point in Glacial Spike adds 10% freeze duration, so maxing it triples the time affected targets are immobilized.

Ice Blast has no casting delay timer, and some Blizzard sorceresses used Ice Blast as their spammable skill of choice between Blizzard casting timeouts, such as Cream by elponeis, Blackstream's Slippy, fried_bananazzzz' Glacia, Jason Maher's Tessa, Skinhead On The MBTA's StolenPrayer, and Ice_Queen by RIP.

Some Cold/Fire and Cold/Lightning builds that mentioned their Ice Blasts' damage to non-cold immunes:

• (Blizzard/Firewall) DX_Crawler's Frosty_Ploppy, Tanksaabas' Piff, and steelsixtyIV's Frosty;
• (Blizzard/Fireball) Enrico's Nefertiti, Jason Maher's Liza, jonny5's Marina, Smips' Ellen, Tupsi's Ethereal; zaphodbrx's Zarine;
• (Blizzard/Energy Shield) nulio's Geada;
• (Blizzard/Nova) bcoe's Sturnella_Magna and maareek's Blova, who specifically recommended Ice Blast, "or Glacial Spike, if you're into maxing that instead, but I wouldn't advise it for Baal."

Hathor by VoX Dei used a Voice of Reason runeword to cast synergized Ice Blasts, and credited NagisaFurukawa for the idea: "proof that SPFers are pretty inventive, and of course that great minds tend to think alike."

Glacial Spike


A Glacial Spike missile looks like an extended blue comet. It flies faster toward its targets than Ice Bolts or Blasts, and when it strikes a target, it immobilizes and damages all nearby targets up to 2.6 yards (eight terrain tiles) away. Glacial Spike also has no casting timer, making it one of the only two spammable area-of-effect cold spells.

At skill level one, it costs ten mana, freezes for two seconds, and bites 17-26 cold damage. It does more cold damage at higher levels, but its damage dealt per additional level doesn't accelerate quite as dramatically as Ice Blast's -- 100-113 at skill level ten, 247-266 at level 20. Each point in Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Frozen Orb adds 5% cold damage, so maxing a synergy doubles damage, maxing all three quadruples damage. Each point in Blizzard adds 3% freeze duration, so Glacial Spikes won't freeze enemies for nearly as long as the (single-target and slower) Ice Blast missiles.

Three dedicated Frozen Orb/Glacial Spike builds were mentioned above in my previous post. Many other sorceresses prominently featured this skill:

• (Glacial Spike/Meteor) Orni by Evah;
• (Blizzard/Firewall) Sir Lister of Smeg's Snowstorm;
• (Blizzard/Fireball) Shannon's Shae, TedDeeBoy's Atheltha, and HP_Sauce's Donatella;
• (Blizzard) ioupain's Gale;
• (Glacial Spike/Nova) bcoe's Strix_Varia;
• (Blizzard/Nova) Kimppi's SparklingIce;
• (Blizzard/Charged Bolt) TheNix's Seeker.

In his tour-de-force regarding Gibitamz and her sisters, sirpoopsalot pondered about whether to choose Ice Blast or Glacial Spike as a spammable Blizzard synergy: "[FYI], I've actually built a pure-IceBlast sorc. The power is fantastic, but the missiles travel very slowly and there's no area-of-effect whatsoever. When I weighed these shortcomings, I decided that GlacialSpike was a better solution, despite GS's lower damage. I'm still not sure if that was a right (or wrong) choice."

Whenever any player chose to hire an act 3 Iron Wolf mercenary, the cold-spells version (casting Ice Blasts and Glacial Spikes) seemed to be the favorite choice.

----
Cold Mastery was placed at the bottom of the middle column in the cold skills tree. I'm going to hold off on that skill for now; I feel that it makes more sense to analyze it together with the other two elemental masteries. Please wait a few weeks, and then I will compare all three masteries' appearances in the SPF matriarch/guardian writeups. The next post will explore the cold armor skills.

[Update: new histograms]
[2022 Dec Update: new histograms]​