Liberator Guide Author: Ragnarod Version: 1.09 Page 1 Introduction Hello everyone, my nick is Ragnarod, and as most of you know I’ve been around this forums for a long time now. I finally decided to write a guide about my favourite paladin build, the liberator, comments and suggestions are welcome. This build is a variant of the mage build, using Charge besides Blessed Hammer and FoH to create a very complete build for Paladin Vs. Paladin duels. Boogalizer suggested this build, and a nice setup for it in the diabloii.net forums some time ago, and I adapted it to suit my preferences and my dueling environment (Europe realm mainly, besides the open dueling games that have been hosted here). Equipment choices As you’ll all know, equipment is quite important to be successful in PvP so I’ll try to give a list of good choices, and explain my personal choice. One of the things to consider is that you’ll want to have 75% fast cast rate in your caster switch, and close to max damage reduced in your charging switch, while trying to maintain 95% lightning resistance on both switches. That plays a great role in equipment choices. Helms Well, looking at the available helms around, there are three worthy candidates in my opinion, those would be: - Harlequin’s Crest (Unique shako), which has a really great asset of mods, mainly +2 skills, really good life and mana, and 10% dr. The .08 version would also be a nice choice, with 40% extra life but no dr/mana, though those are usually duped and banned from legit dueling due to being overpowered. - Vampire Gaze (Unique grim helm) would give us a nice amount of damage reduced (15-20%), and the always useful life and mana leech (6-8% each). You should really try to get your hands on the .08 version (8% dual leech and 25% damage reduced), though it’ll probably be duped if you are to trade for it. - Rare circlet, some good mods to consider are fast cast rate (10-20%), +2 skills, life leech (5-8%), fast run/walk, strength, dexterity, all resistances. - .08 Valkyrie Wing, with 30% run walk and 30% fast cast rate, is another interesting option. As with all the .08 items, there’s a high chance of it being duped though. I went for a rare circlet in the end, mine is a +2 paladin, 10% fast cast, 8% life leech one, and I must say I’m quite happy with it. The usual choice for helm socketing is a Lo rune, which gives +5% to the maximum lightning resistance Amulets Two main choices here: - Highlord’s Wrath: along with the +1 skill, and the always useful lightning resistance, this amulet really shines for the chance of deadly strike depending on level. When deadly strike triggers, your total damage will be doubled, enough deadly strike makes your charge much more dangerous. The .08 version is even better, since it has 30% run/walk on top of it - Rare/crafted paladin amulet: well, you can get pretty good amulets, some great mods on it would be +2 skills, strength, dexterity, life, resistances (specially lightning), life leech and fast cast rate (10% is max in rare amulets, 20% in crafted ones) I decided to go with a .08 Highlord's, since the deadly strike is a really important thing for your build, charge is mainly used as a way to leech some life back and double damage charge is twice as much life leeched. In my opinion, the .09 version Highlord's would also be superior to a rare paladin amulet, if you can’t (or don’t want to) afford a .08 one. Armor Two good candidates here: - Shaftstop (Unique Mesh armor): this armor’s greatest mod is the 30% damage reduction, that coupled with the +60 life make it a great choice for PvP builds, it’s a medium armor type. - Guardian Angel (Unique Templar coat): the usefulness of this armor relies in the +15% to max resistances, that coupled with the +1 skills make a good choice if you had decided to use a gaze as helm, for example. It’s a heavy armor type, so you won’t run as fast as with a shaft, but there’s not much difference either way. Since I don’t have any damage reduction on my helm, I’m using Shaftstop, socketed with a Lo rune to attain 95% lightning resistance. Caster Weapon Again, three nice choices: - Wizardspike (Unique Bone knife): this weapon is just fantastic for a caster character, with 50% fast cast rate, a great mana bonus (based on your character's level), and +75 all resistances. - Suicide Branch (Unique Burnt wand): this wand is really nice too, with 50% fast cast rate, +1 skills, 40 life, +10 resistances and a 10% bonus to mana - Rare/magical paladin scepter, with +2 skills, 10% or 20% fast cast rate (10% is the max available in LoD, 20% fast cast can only be found on scepters found in classic) and hopefully +blessed hammer and +conc skills. It allows for a high blessed hammer damage, but you’ll probably have to set for 48% fast cast rate instead of 75% I chose Wizardspike, since I’m not using shako I really needed the mana from it, and the fast cast to reach the 75% breakpoint. I socketed mine with a 38% lightning resistance (8% prismatic + 30% lightning resistance), 9% of damage taken goes to mana rare jewel. The damage to mana mod is really nice if your mana isn’t too high, but not really needed. Caster Shield and Charging Shield Two main choices here too: - Herald of Zakarum (Unique Gilded shield): this shield has impressive overall mods, mainly +2 skills, +2 combat skills, enhanced block, +50 all resistances, +20 strength, +20 vitality. - Stormshield (Unique Monarch): along with a nice lightning resistance, this shield has enhanced block, +30 strength and, most importantly, 35% damage reduction. I went for Herald of Zakarum as caster shield, since it has great mods and I didn’t think max damage reduction was a must in this switch. Mine is socketed with a perfect topaz for some extra lightning resistance. As charging shield I chose the Stormshield, since you are exposing yourself to hits more when you charge your opponent, the extra damage reduced is quite important here. It’s socketed with a rare -15% req, 19% enhanced damage, +7 to max damage, 30% lightning resistance jewel, but a plain -15% req jewel (or a Hel rune) would also do the job. Charging Weapon One thing to note is the effectiveness of charge is related to weapon range, in the sense that a weapon with high range will make you hit much more when you charge. That’s why I’ll only present Berserker Axes as alternatives, since they have range 3 (highest for a 1 handed weapon). An scourge also has range 3, but it’s damage is too erratic for my liking: - Fury Berserker Axe: this one is a pretty good weapon, with life leech, good damage, and chance for both critical strike and open wounds. The Eth rune included in the runeword also allows you to ignore your opponent’s defence, which is quite good since we don’t have much AR in the first place. - Cruel Berserker Axe of the Lamprey: it has the potential for higher damage and leech than a fury axe, it should be socketed either LoEth or LoLo. Be warned than the Eth rune itd effect is likely to be fixed in the 1.10 patch. An ethereal version with ZodLo or ZodEth would get impressive damage, but it’s price would be equally impressive. - Honor Berserker Axe: even if the damage on this one is a bit low, it has life leech and deadly strike. A good substitution for the fury axe if you’re not wealthy enough to get one, or if you don’t want to abuse the Eth bug. Notice that an ethereal one would be a great choice, if you can get yourself a 5 socketed ethereal berserker axe. It would break eventually, of course, but since you aren’t Zealing with it you’ll be able to enjoy it for some time. I’m using a Fury Berserker Axe at the moment, the deadly strike coupled with Eth makes for a great charging weapon, everything you’ll need. Gloves Well, let’s look at our choices: - Magefist (Unique Light gauntlets): 20% fast cast rate make this gauntlets a good choice if you’re lacking fast cast to reach a breakpoint. - Crafted Blood gloves: this gloves can be really good, with up to 6% life leech, crushing blow, strength, dexterity, life or even resistances. They’re a good choice if you manage to get some good ones. - .08 Hellmouths (Unique War gauntlets): this gloves are worth considering for the cannot be frozen mod, they’re pretty rare (and pretty expensive) though. - Bloodfist (Unique Heavy gloves): 30% fast hit recovery and +40 life make this gloves quite nice. I chose to use the .08 Hellmouths, since I decided not to use a Ravenfrost as ring and cannot be frozen a must in my opinion. Boots The main options to consider are: - War Travelers (Unique Battle boots): with 25% run/walk, +10 strength, +10 vitality, adds 15-25 damage. These ones are nice for the life and damage boost, but I feel they are more melee oriented. - Waterwalks (Unique Sharkskin boots): 20% run/walk, +15 dexterity and +45-65 life complete some quite useful boots. - Aldur’s Advance (Set Battle boots): 40% run/walk and +50 life can make this boots the ones of choice for those who focus on attaining quite high run/walk. - Gore Riders (Unique War boots): 30% run/walk and 15% deadly strike make this boots a good choice, if you lack deadly strike from other sources. - Crafted blood boots: they have great potential, for life leech, 10% fast hit recovery, 30% run/walk, lightning resistance, dexterity, replenish life... If you’ve got a good ones, go for it. - Classic rare boots: some of them have really outstanding mods (run/walk, strength, dexterity, lightning resistance, and some even fast hit recovery), there are some great ones out there. I went for classic rare boots with the following stats: 30 run/walk, 17 strength, 13 dexterity, 38% light resistance, 41% cold resistance. Belt Three top belt choices here: - Thundergod’s Vigor (Unique War belt): 20 strength, 20 vitality, +20 lightning absorb and +10% to max lightning resistance makes this belt a great one for paladin vs. paladin duels. - String of Ears (Unique Demonhide sash): 6-8% life leech and 10-15% damage reduction make for another great belt, a good choice if you’ve got 95% lightning resistance from other items. - Crafted caster belt: you should look for 10% fast cast rate, fast hit recovery, life, mana, strength on them, same as the string a good choice if you get 95% light resistance from other sources. I went for Thundergod’s, since I needed it to reach 95% lightning resistance with the rest of my setup. Rings Finally, we’ll take a look at the available options for our two ring slots: - Ravenfrost: the 15-20 dexterity and cannot be frozen mod, along with 40 mana, make this ring really useful. It’s a must vs. sorceresses, for the 20% cold absorb, but this isn’t the point of this build really. - Stone of Jordan: this is a great caster ring, with +1 skills and a bunch of mana, makes for a nice choice. - Bul-kathos Wedding Band: another good ring, +1 skills, 3-5% life leech and up to 49 life is very nice. - Crafted blood rings: you should be aiming for 10-11% life leech, strength, dexterity, life, mana, fast cast rate (if you need it), lightning resistance, replenish life (an undervalued affix, really useful for a mage, since the duels tend to be long)... A good one is probably the best option for a liberator. I managed to get myself two nice crafted blood rings, with 10% and 11% life leech and 10% fast cast rate, one with dual stats (strength/dexterity) and the other one with replenish life, and it worked out alright. Charms I’d suggest getting 10 grand charms with +1 to combat skills and 30-45 life, and then choosing 10 small charms from the following options: - Amber charm of vita: these charms can get up to 20 life and 11% lightning resistance, they are really good to prevent conviction from lowering your lightning resistances to the point where Fist of the Heavens starts hurting. - Amber charm of inertia: 5% run/walk and up to 11% lightning resistance, you should use these if you feel you need some more running speed. - Fine charm of vita/inertia: up to 3 max damage and 20 to life (or 5% run/walk), if you already have enough lightning resistance then you might as well use this ones to boost your charge damage. I’m using 5 amber charms of inertia, and 5 amber charms of vita, play around some with your charms to find the proportion you like better Stat and Skill choices Well, the skill distribution at level 99 for my paladin looks like this: 20 charge 20 blessed hammer 20 concentration 20 fist of the heavens 12 holy freeze 1 point in prerequisites for this skills, and in vigor, meditation, conviction and holy shield You can also choose to get 12 points in conviction and 1 into holy freeze, but since holy freeze is widely used in Europe and nearly every top paladin has enough lightning resistance to negate a high level conviction, I decided to invest in holy freeze. As for stats, I followed the usual distribution, taking into account I would need 133 strength (without Herald of Zakarum equipped) to use Stormshield: Strength – enough for equipping your gear Dexterity – enough for max block with your lowest blocking shield (Stormshield in my case) Vitality – all the points left Energy – zero Dueling Strategies Well, since my paladin was built with paladin vs. paladin in mind, I’ll just try to give some hints for the different paladin builds you’ll face: Mage, Judicator: these two paladin builds have a similar playing style, their main weapons being blessed hammers and fist of the heavens. Usually, the Mage will have a higher level conviction than the Judicator, so having enough lightning resistance (around 300-400, depending on the difficulty you are dueling at) is vital in this duel, and probably a higher level holy freeze too. The Judicator, on the other hand, will have holy shield maxed and usually some points into smite to reach a good smite damage, often used as a finishing move since it’s unblockable and ignores defense. Usually, Mages and Judicators will play defensively, always trying to keep a blessed hammer barrier between you and them to protect themselves, and using fist of the heavens on you to force you to go on the offensive. Since you’ll have less life, and probably less mana than your opponent, you can’t afford to just sit there and exchange fists of the heavens with him until one of you gets bored (if you must, try to have meditation on while you use fist of the heavens, you probably won’t be close enough for conviction to lock, and even if you were, any good Mage/Judicator has enough stacked resistance to negate it). Your main hope for this duel is charge, since it has enough flexibility to allow for surprise hits, has a good damage even when charging without an enhancing damage aura (you want to charge with vigor on to give you opponent less time to react, or you could be charging to a cloud of blessed hammers by the time you get there) and is a great way of recovering your lost life if you have enough life leech. Basically, there are two tactics that I like to use when I duel, they aren’t limited to dueling Mages and Judicators, but also work well against most of the paladin subclasses too. You should always try to have charge and vigor selected in your charge switch, that way when you are, for example, using fist of the heavens on your opponent, and you have him name locked, you can quickly switch and you’ll automatically be charging towards him, in this particular duel you should make sure you won’t be hit by blessed hammers when you do so. This is specially effective if you have managed to holy freeze him during the fist of the heavens exchange, since he’ll react slower even if he sees the charge coming. The other one consists in casting some hammers so you force your opponent to move (this can be confusing if he’s also casting hammers, try not to get hit thinking they are yours), and then using shift charge. It’s basically charging without locking the mouse in your opponent, but holding shift down and aiming to the place you think your opponent will be, it needs some practice but it’s a very useful technique to learn. Shift-charging is also useful when you want to escape from a difficult situation, or when someone is charging at you and you need to go faster to avoid being hit, you don’t need to switch to your charging switch in those last situations since you’re not going to use it as an attack then. Finally, just keep in mind that you don’t need to play offensively from the beginning, you can take lots of fist of the heavens (specially with some life replenish from crafted boots, or rings, or a jewel) so have some patience and wait for the right moment to attack, remember that he hasn’t got unlimited mana either. This duel can be hard depending on how skilled your opponent is, but having a way to leech life back while you deal some damage to him gives you an advantage. Vindicator, Vindicator/Templar: these kind of paladins focus on getting a high smite damage, and usually max fist of the heavens too. Most Vindicators today have also incorporated charge to their dueling style, usually wielding a berserker axe for the range 3, and some have a good level of holy freeze. Usually, you will want to play this duel as a Mage would, trying to keep some hammers always up, holy freezing your opponent to minimize the threat of surprise charges (I cannot stress enough the need of dodging charge, since you probably don’t have full damage reduction in your casting switch, a connecting charge will do a lot of damage, and allow him to leech a lot of life back in the process), and basically wearing down your opponent with fist of the heavens until he decides to go on the offensive. This strategy works well against most Vindicator players, but some will play defensively and expect you to make a mistake to attack you. In those situations, having charge really pays off, since you can apply the tactics described before for Mages and Judicators. Shift-charging is especially useful in this duel, since casting a few hammers will usually make him retreat, and you don’t have to worry about being hit by blessed hammers cast by your opponent, so you can charge more often. I would suggest having the Vindicator frozen before shift charging whenever possible, because if your charge misses you’ll be open to a counterattack from him, and he can get more than one smite in if he’s not frozen. Usually, frozen Vindicators try to retreat until the holy freeze wears off, so it’s less likely that he’ll be ready to counterattack, and even if he does he will smite slower. In short, this is a duel that you’ll win if you don’t make many mistakes, you have the upper hand here against an equally skilled opponent. Zealot, Crusader, Avenger: basically, melee paladins don’t stand much chance against a Mage build, you should try playing as a Mage in this duel too. Most of the melee paladins you’ll face have no resistances, so it’s quite easy taking them off with fist of the heavens alone, but the duel gets much more interesting when you encounter a good zealot/crusader, since they’ll be prepared to negate your fist of the heavens. Their main weapon is charge, this kind of paladin is usually built aiming for the max damage possible so it’s likely that you die in two charges, not to mention him leeching his whole life back in one hit. That’s why you should always try to keep some blessed hammers around you, holy freeze helps a lot here since charge tends to desynch (you’ll see your opponent half a screen away, and suddenly you’ll get hit by him, this is caused because of your computer not synchronizing with the server and thus not showing the current position of your opponent), and the desynch is reduced if he is frozen, since he’ll charge slower. There are some variants on these builds that use fist of the heavens too, but it’s not a real threat if they haven’t focused on it, it’ll do close to no damage with 95% lightning resistance and the absorb from Thundergods. In these duels, having replenish life comes handy, since it’ll completely nullify the damage you receive from their fist of the heavens, and will eventually force them to go on the offensive and play as a pure melee paladin. To sum it up, the only real chance they have is charging and hoping to desynch you, shift-charging is dangerous but with a bit of practice you can manage to dodge it most of the time. If the duel is long, remember to recast holy shield, I’ve lost some duels because of that since I was used to the much longer holy shield duration of a Vindicator. Liberator: this is usually an interesting duel, partially because two Liberators rarely use the same setup, and because the build itself changes a lot depending on your playing style. Personally, I tend to play against a Liberator the same way as I duel a Vindicator, more or less defensively and getting a few charges in to win the match. Same as against a Mage, there can be some confusion with so many blessed hammers being cast, you can use it to your advantage sometimes. I don’t really have a lot of experience dueling Liberators, since it’s not a very popular build, I hope my guide contributes to popularize it since these duels are usually very challenging, and very fun. Ranger: this paladin subclass uses a bow as a weapon. Often regarded as not suitable for PvP, a Ranger in the right hands is the ultimate Mage-killing character in paladin vs. paladin duels. They usually combine an eth bow with aura stacking, high run/walk speed and a very high level holy freeze (around level 35) to kill their opponents from a safe distance. They normally have good resistances too, and such a high damage and life leech that they manage to leech all their life back after a couple hits, so fist of the heavens isn’t a real option in this duel. Other paladin builds have very little chance against Rangers, you can try charging and hope to get lucky, but it’s hard that charge will hit since you’ll be permanently frozen, and charge is slow and easy to dodge then. These are the reasons Rangers are usually frowned upon in dueling leagues and private paladin dueling games, and not lots of people play one, but you might encounter one someday. Tables and formulas Total Blocking = (Blocking * (Dexterity - 15)) / (Character Level * 2) Total Blocking = the actual % chance to block. Capped at 75%. Blocking = shield base block + shield increased chance to block + holy shield bonus + item bonus The tables for fast cast rate and fast hit recovery are the following: Fast hit recovery: 0% fhr 9 frames 7% fhr 8 frames 15% fhr 7 frames 27% fhr 6 frames 48% fhr 5 frames 86% fhr 4 frames 200% fhr 3 frames Fast cast rate: 0% 15 frames 9% 14 frames 18% 13 frames 30% 12 frames 48% 11 frames 75% 10 frames 125% 9 frames Final words If you’ve done it this far, you might have a couple questions about my paladin, mainly why I don’t have any fast hit recovery and how do I manage with so little mana. Well, I don’t feel the fast hit recovery is needed, since the main purpose of a mage is not getting hit. I would probably be using 48% fast hit recovery if I had managed to get some good 20% fhr classic boots, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any on Europe, and I would have sacrificed too much life to get 48% fhr otherwise. As for the mana, the main drawback is that you lose it every time you switch to charge, since it comes from the wizardspike. I use meditation quite often in duels, and I do fine with just 400 mana and no shako, I assure you it’s doable. At level 99, my paladin reaches 2011 life in Herald switch, 1951 life in Stormshield switch, 35% life leech, this is a very decent amount of life considering I don’t use a Shako I think. Finally, I would like to thank some special people that contributed in one way or another to this guide, hope I don’t forget anyone: - Realm Fury, I had a really good time dueling him in the open duel games, and got a lot of practice with my new build thanks to him, thanks mate. - Pendragoon, he contributed to the original Liberator idea, and his webpage has been quite useful for me. - Boogalizer, he was the first to post about this build, and made a really nice guide some time ago that got me really interested in it. - Concept, real fun dueling him too, if you ever want to get some practice against a defensive player connie is your man. - -Scorpius-, your vindi/templar is a great opponent, keep it up mate. - Duri, his stacker paladin has to be one of the most challenging opponents I’ve ever had, and he helped me out choosing some of the equipment for this paladin. - Ferro, another top Europe paladin, always trying new things to improve, go you! - Princeper, he helped a great deal with the equipment, and was always willing to help, thanks - Armor_Biff, Mack, for hosting the open dueling games, I had a blast dueling everyone from here. - My fellow posters in the Europe Trading Forum and the Paladin forum, for bearing with me and being such nice people. - And hey, if you managed to get this far, you deserve to be thanked too, thanks for reading! 0 Please log in to post... 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