Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (
More info?)
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 01:45:06 +0100, "Bjarke Mønsted"
<bjarke@eventworkers.com> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>What build I want to play?
>
>I started playing with the Paladin because I liked the idea about helping my
>party while fighting, by healing, thorns and so on. But I like the Zeal as
>well, I have this skill granted by my Scepter. The question is how much I
>should start building on? How many different skills?
>
>Bjarke
A very viable build uses mostly Fanat/Zeal. In Hell you will need
Vengance/Convict to deal with Physical Immunes and this combo is also
helpful with those Oblivion Knights that cast Iron Maiden in the Chaos
Sanct in Act 4 and WS 3 and Throne in Act5. The OKs will be your
biggest problem. One swing with Fanat/Zeal under IM is instant death.
Unfortunately, even when using Vengance/Convict you will still be
doing physical damage and IM is still very dangerous but usually you
will not die with one hit and have time to stop when you hear that
dreaded sound. One strategy is to switch to a low damage 5 socket
weapon filled with perfect gems that add elemental damage.
You will need points in Holy Shield to keep your block rate up to the
max at 75%.
Sacrifice has a synergy with Zeal and it is quite useful early, so
starting out, Sacrifice is a good skill to invest in until Zeal is
available. Eventually you will want to max Sac out because of the 12%
damage bonus per lvl. Zeal itself needs 4 points to get to the 5 hit
per swing lvl. After that each point gets plus 10% to AR and an added
6% to damage. So it's a bit of a toss-up between Zeal and Sac but
eventually you want to max both.
At lvl 30 Fanat becomes available and it is a powerful aura that
increases attack speed, damage and AR. So it's useful to max this
skill out before putting any more points in Zeal or Sacrifice. This
aura is also popular with any character that is doing physical damage.
If you have enough added skill points from equip you can get away with
one point in Vengeance and Conviction. Obviously the more points the
better, but you wont use this combo that often.
I'd ignore the defensive aura tree entirely. Cleansing is a nice
skill to reduce the duration of curses but a trip back to town will do
the same thing without using 2 skill points.
A Fanat/Zealot is a very viable character and if you like melee
characters they're a lot of fun to play. With enough life leech, you
can stand in the middle of packs of monsters and survive.
If you can get some Guardian Angel armor and get all your resists to
90 you can run into packs of Gloams without too much fear.
And Fanat/Zealots are also excellent Diablo Clone killers.
Try to get a Schaefers Hammer. It has a 20% chance to cast a lvl 10
Static Field and every swing under Zeal hits 5 times so you will be
constantly casting SF. It reduces packs of monster to half their life
in Hell and that's a lot of damage if you add it all up. I have an
eth BOTD Zerker Axe and still prefer my Schaefers for my Fanat/Zeal
Pal.
I like the combination of the skills I´ve been granted 
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