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Q u o t e:

My, my D2sure is serious business. It must be since you can't disagree without someone without snark and hostility. You know, there is a reason I didn't mention any classes other than ones I did. :/

Melee druids are already extremely tight on skill points and there is no way they have enough skill points to boost any elemental skills to the point where hey are even remotely viable in hell. The only exception I can think of is a ploar bear build (bear that uses hurricane) but OK's are cold immune. Stunning and killing with shock wave would work if you are cautious about the OKs off your screen but that still leaves werewolf's out in the cold.

The paladin skills you mentioned would also require heavy investment in synergies and maxing of the main skill. You can make a paladin that can actually kill stuff in hell with a non melee skill if you use smite or charge (vindicator/templar/liberators builds). You can spend 40 points in elemental auras and synergies and make an elemental zealot that focuses on physical damage more so than elemental damage. So I guess using your reason all paladins should be one of the aforementioned builds and no one should make a pure physical damage zealot or anything like that since they don't have any skills to kill OK's while under IM. I mean it's not like IM solutions can be gar based or anything ( another flaw of tehe every class has a skill to deal with IM is that some classes use items rather than skills to deal with IM).

This has nothing to do with skills and everything to do with tactics so it is not even relevant to my post. Try again.

I would to see you post an example of paladin or druid build melee build that uses the skills you mentioned to kill IMs.

I appreciate all the assumptions you made in your post, I really do.I have no problem surviving IM and I don't think it should be removed from the game like others. I just think the claim that all classes have skills to counter IM is extremely flawed. Maybe next time you could try a to stay on topic a bit more, it's common courtesy you know.

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Since you remind me: the topic was Itoons complaining that D2C got forgotten patch-wise ;)


Nevertheless ..

Aye, D2 sure must be serious business to some. What other reason could drive people into still posting complains for a decade+ old game like get IM nerfed on Oblivion Knights? You can hear and see when Iron Maiden got cast, it has a unique cast sound and graphics effect. Just pay attention. A nerf for Iron Maiden would result in a nerf to the Necromancer skill itself since all the OK's do is cast the necro curse at a set skill level. Or: remove IM from OK's. Come on! Such complaining people already got Blizzard into removing Lord de Seis unique Thief ability which made him a boss worth a fight. Nowadays most say the game is too easy and request tougher monsters or a fourth difficulty. Now what?

No prob if you don't asked for strat. It got added as an option to those look for a non-skill/item related alternate. Almost always Oblivion Knights come together with a pack of melee knights who run up to your char while the OK falls back. Now facing those melee knights first with a physical damage dealing melee character is plain and simple the dumbest action possible to do, giving that OK any room to cast curses.

I strongly disagree with your saying that paladins or any other character skills require heavy investment. Nobody forces people to max both primary skill plus all synergies before even thinking of something else. There is always more then one way to fry an egg.
That all classes have at least 1 skill to counter IM is no claim. It's a fact all can see by looking inside the skill trees and the knowledge how and when IM works. It only becomes a flaw when people create builds where these skills have no place and don't fit in. But that's a flaw of the build and not the game. If you want all your skills to deal physical melee damage do so. It's your choise. So no complains please if you don't got a skill or at least a strat ready vs. Iron Maiden cursing OK's.

You ask for a Paladin and Druid melee build. Ok. Which primary skill do you want to use?
Not that those chars have tons of melee skills to choose from.

Zeal: 20 to Zeal and Fana. Sacrifie is a pur Zeal synergie, add for more dmg.
Smite: 20 to Smite and Fana. Holy Shield to add more dmg.
Fury: 20 to Lycantrophie and Fury. Werewolf's deminishing returns in attack speed past level 8 give no real reason to put more hard points into it. You'll need a fast weapon anyway and Heart of Wolverine adds dmg plus ar insteat of ar alone.
Those primary attack skills are all done with 60-something skill points, leaving the rest free.

Vengeance: 20 to Vengeance and Conviction; less if you can earlier get lvl 25 of the aura via +skills. This skill requires a big bad ass base damage weapon, otherwise it only produces low elemental damage. Here one needs the right weapon not synergies. If dmg is too low get a bigger weapon. Done with about 50 points, rest free.

As you see there are lots of free skill points to build up a good secondary skill, i.e. 20 Holy Bolt with some Blessed Hammer synergies OR 20 Blessed Hammer with Concentration Aura OR 20 Werebear with Shockwave.

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Q u o t e:

So a physical damage zealot is a lame build? I mean, it has no skills that let it kill while IM'd but can use a bow to kill them easily. I am an idiot for ever making anything but an elemental damge zealot of FoH hybrid paladin I suppose.

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Did i say it's a lame build? No. I said it's a flaw of the build and you should think up a secondary skill. Even the mighties physical damage zealot needs something to dispose physical immunes anyway.

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Q u o t e:

Yes, I already know you think every zealot should be an elemental damage focused zealot.

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A wrong assumption. Even such an elemental zealot has to deal physical damage. The skill itself forces you to do so. Due to Zeals multiple hits and IM damage amplification you're dead very fast.

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Q u o t e:

Actually, you will get more smite damage by putting 1 point in smite and maxing holy shield and fanaticism. I already mentioned smite hybrid builds.

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I know by going 1 point Smite 20 point Holy Shield you get more damage for the same amount of points. It's a personal choise between more damage or more stun time. I prefer stun time. Damage is not really an issue with a good Smite shield and i'm not talking about rediculous overpowered runewords here.

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Q u o t e:

You imply I don't know anything about how IM works so this amuses me. Vengeance does your normal attack damage in addition to its elemental damage. Using a "bigger weapon" is a bad idea, you can kill yourself in 1 hit that way.

IM Damage = PhysicalDamageDealt * (1-MonsterResistance) * %DamageReturned * (1-YourResistance)

Physical Damage = (WeaponDamage + damageOffWeapon) * %DamageOffWeapon
%DamageOffWeapon = %OffWeaponED + %Skill + strBonus

Plug some numbers in. Since I am to lazy to give an expample, here is one:

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264548

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LOL! Did i tell you to use Vengeance when IM'd? I sure did not!

Looks like you have not noticed yet that i gave you rough amounts of skill points needed to build your NEVER-USE-VS-IM primary skill. With the remaining skill points of a lvl 85 char which are 30..40 you are free to build up a secondary skill for those situation your primary skill doesn't bite (physical immunes) or kill you (IM).
Since Vengeance works well vs. PI's you can concentrate on battling OK's alone.

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Q u o t e:

Is 40 points is enough to make an elemental skill viable in act 4 hell? I am skeptical, but it may be possible.

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For an example let's stay with the Vengeance paly above.

About 50 points are used to max Vengeance, Conviction, getting those skills and some 1 point wonders like Salvation. Since Vengeance also downs PI's you got about 40 points left to build an exclusive Oblivion Knight killer. Let's take the already mentioned Holy Bolt with Blessed Hammer synergie. With up to 40 points you get a lvl 20 Holy Bolt and up to 1000% damage increase from the Blessed Hammer synergy, giving you up to 2156..2420 magical damage vs. Undead per single Holy Bolt and i'm not taking in account any +skills you sure have.

5 of those bolts down a regular hell diff OK and 10 an OK boss. That's pretty quick work in my eyes.

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Q u o t e:

You also can't use elemental skills while shape shifted, except for Armageddon (which is going to take more than the maxing of one synergy for damn sure). Unlike you however I don't think all were builds should be armageddon builds you know because everybuild needs to have one skill that can kill OK while they are IM'd. You can cast Hurricane in huamn form and shift and repeat when hurricane duration runs out but OKs are immune to cold. Werewolf druids are low and life and usually have plenty of AR so oak sage is a much better choice. You may need more than 1 point in werewolf to hit max FPA depending on gear.

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Did I say put only 1 point into werewolf? No.
I said the skill has deminishing returns past level 8 and that you need a fast weapon anyway.

Here you are right, a werewolf druid has to make a compromise. Going with Armageddon is his only elemental choise beside unshifting. But 10 skill points alone to get it and 19 more to max it for a weak area effect is plain BS. For a werewolf druid it will never be more than a show-off spell, only usable if already focused on elemental skills.

A much better alternate is Fireclaws with a good chunk of points into it's synergies AND a fast but very low physical damage weapon like a dagger in the alternate weapon slot. With only low physical damage dealt only low to moderate damage can be returned by IM while the OK is nailed at the same time by the werewolf's fire damage.

Let's look at some numbers here. A dagger does 1..4 damage. Now assume a werewolf druid with 200 str and 200 dex (pretty high values IMO) and calc the total damage for that dagger. 100 points into either str or dex equal 75% ED for a dagger, so 400 points represent 300% ED. This gives our werewolf druid a total of 1..4 times 4 = 4..16 damage. Now what dmg would IM return?

A hell diff OK casts lvl 10 IM which will reflect 425% of the physical damage you deal back to you. 4..16 times 4.25 are 17..68 damage returned per dagger hit. The werewolf still takes IM damage but looking at his usual 1+k life ball this is a joke.

Another alternate is shifting over into werebear form and go with Shockwave. It costs less than 20 points to get it to the max stun time of 10 seconds. Damage and stun everything with Shockwave until IM fades out, then shift back and slay the OK's first.