[3.10] Sovyn's Lazy Pally - Tanky Templar with Max Block

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maffa50 wrote:

I've just started using Heavy Strike + Multi Strike + Melee Physical Damage on mana instead of Blood Magic and it seems to be working ok. DPS is good, better than Elemental Hit, and I somehow don't have mana issues. Originally I had 90 mana left over after having Purity, Hatred, and Tempest Shield running and that worked fine so I tried putting lvl1 Grace on as well, leaving me with 28 mana. It somehow still works even though my HS costs I think 22 mana. Not using BM seems to keep me a lot healthier now but I got wrecked in Fetid Pool. Any tips on how to go about this area? Have been able to successfully farm Ledge by myself which I use to level.

Hi. :)

Perhaps you have 1% of mana leech somewhere. That would explain why that particular combo works as the mana will be restored on each swing due to high damage effectiveness and physical damage. You can even add blind or stun as they use no additional mana. It's when you go to add a fourth support gem with a mana multiplier that things get trickier.

Fetid Pool contains bone rhoas which are some of the hardest hitting single monsters in the game. Fortunately their charge is now blockable. If you have evasion, armour and high blocking, and are careful to avoid their charges by using your mouse dexterously, especially on the named ones, you should be OK. Even so I know the break in can be tricky if self found and doing it around the intended level. You can bypass that quest and do it later if you prefer.

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maffa50 wrote:

I've just started using Heavy Strike + Multi Strike + Melee Physical Damage on mana instead of Blood Magic and it seems to be working ok. DPS is good, better than Elemental Hit, and I somehow don't have mana issues. Originally I had 90 mana left over after having Purity, Hatred, and Tempest Shield running and that worked fine so I tried putting lvl1 Grace on as well, leaving me with 28 mana. It somehow still works even though my HS costs I think 22 mana. Not using BM seems to keep me a lot healthier now but I got wrecked in Fetid Pool. Any tips on how to go about this area? Have been able to successfully farm Ledge by myself which I use to level.

Rhoas are nasty if you are standing still and letting them take aim for you. Not sure if i would use multistrike in that map, since you dont move while hitting attack 2 and 3. I like manually dodging them, so i hit once, move a step or 3, hit another. But thats not for a lazy pally i guess. But it helps alot to move between hits, not much just a little bit. Good training for later areas when getting locked by charges will kill.
Nice to hear about your mana.
Also in fetid, i dont think they are doing other damage then phys normally in there. So tweaking gear for more armour/life instead of resists. ie switch rings/belt can help alot. That's alteast semilazy...
Since they do hit very hard, afaik the only way to avoid stun is higherlife or not being hit.

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maffa50 wrote:

I've just started using Heavy Strike + Multi Strike + Melee Physical Damage on mana instead of Blood Magic and it seems to be working ok. DPS is good, better than Elemental Hit, and I somehow don't have mana issues. Originally I had 90 mana left over after having Purity, Hatred, and Tempest Shield running and that worked fine so I tried putting lvl1 Grace on as well, leaving me with 28 mana. It somehow still works even though my HS costs I think 22 mana. Not using BM seems to keep me a lot healthier now but I got wrecked in Fetid Pool. Any tips on how to go about this area? Have been able to successfully farm Ledge by myself which I use to level.

Glad to hear you improved your survival and your dps.
It happened your Heavy Strike was hurting you a lot. Blood Magic gem increased a lot your skill cost. Even though I use it to cast some utilities like Enfeebled or Leap Jump.
Do you have Mana Leech on gear?.
22 / 28 looks very tight. Maybe you hit a non skill blow from time to time when you are under 22. If you are doing so, you're lowering your real dps.
If you ever need more mana, you know you can use Mana Leech gem, more mana leech on gear or dropping one aura.


Fetid Pool and those side areas are a lot harder than the standard way.
There's no need to complete the Fetid Pool quest to keep on advancing.
You can continue and turn back to Fetid Pool when you're 6 levels ahead xD
About tactics, rhoas hit like a hammer. Caution is your friend. You can advance slowly and use skeleton or totem to lure them. Once you avoid it's charge, they won't hurt you so much.

Wow three answers in a row xD

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kahoraho wrote:

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Xiaoyen wrote:

Blurb

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kahoraho wrote:

Blurb

I don't know if uniques could be mirrored, but it doesn't worth it. Uniques are too common to waste a Mirror on them.
Mirror of Kalandra is reserved for extraordinary good Rare items, crafted with lots of useful and high stats.

Hmm... Unless the uniques are really good I guess? Like 6 link Shavronnes or 6 link Searing Torch. But I see your point as it would cost much less in crafting materials (not to mention the headache of farming) to get a proper 4 link or 6 link rare and just keep redoing the mods until you get what you want. And you can recover those costs by getting peeps to Mirror and charge them exalts.

Yes, I level up gems in weird unlinked slots too, just that I was surprised he does not have an aoe atk.

Quick question:



As you can see my main hand is using a mace, and I have:



for AOE. Using the axe in question I lose the capability of ever using ground slam. Should I just swap over and just use heavy strike? I have a lightning strike gemmed like this for backup AOE:



But the issue is 2 fold:

1) Mana (not enough dex to use mana leech atm)
2) Life gained on hit (which I can rectify later as I have a 4 link chest later on which I can re-colour)

Makes me use Ground Slam a lot more as it is a bit more mana friendly. I have an Ice Nova which I have kinda religiously skilled up as well.

Any thoughts? I am sorely tempted to use the axe, but my skill gems are holding me back...

Edit: Lol come to think of it I should lvl a blue gem there in my chest and use the secret recipe to change it to a q20 one. Maybe will put it up when I am on.

Edit 2: Btw, has anyone tried linking Iron Will to an aura? Or Molten Shell? Or even Tempest Shield? Wondering if it works. Have it linked to Tempest Shield right now, but I think I will stand still and let a bunch of monsters hit me next time and test with and without to see whether it does translate. Iron Will is a support gem which supports spells and Auras, Molten Shell and even Tempest Shield has the Spell category tacked onto it.

I have seen on wiki you can't mirror an unique item.

Even if you were able to mirror it, I think it'd cheaper and easier (there is more offer) to buy / craft a Shavronne 6L rather than found / buy a Mirror of Kalandra.

I think it's easier to build a 6L from a white item, than build the Ultimate Weapon with (let's say 200% physical increased damage, 25-30 added physical damage, 28% attack speed, 25% chaos resistance, 18-99 lighting damage, 26% increased elemental damage). All these stats are invented so probably it's impossible to craft such weapon, but I think you can get the idea.


Change your mace to the axe. It has more than double dps.
Lightning strike isn't a real area damage, as Multistrike isn't, but has projectiles that could help.
I don't know if chain is a good add here. I see it very situational.
Test the axe with your actual combo. Your dps tooltip will be more than doubled and I think your real dps too.
You can test your Axe + Lightning Strike + Lightning Penetration + Faster Attacks too, as it's a green gem.

My doubt here is... If we think on end game, will you be able to level up those blue gems up to the end. Standard build doesn't have too much intelligence. Of course you can get it from gear or pull some +30 intelligence nodes.

If you decide to test Heavy Strike, you need other colour combination. Melee Splash or Multistrike will help you on aoe. Added Fire damage will work fine here, as your axe has a good physical base.

Edit to previous post (my phone will go crazy if I edit it)

Iron Will works with Molten Shell and Tempest Shield. I'm not able to notice on Tempest Shield because it's reactive and it doesn't deal too much damage. But works on both.


Mana problems?. Use your axe and gear with Mana Leech.
It'll work better with Heavy Strike than Lightning Strike, because the former has more physical damage and cost less mana.

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kahoraho wrote:

I have seen on wiki you can't mirror an unique item.

Even if you were able to mirror it, I think it'd cheaper and easier (there is more offer) to buy / craft a Shavronne 6L rather than found / buy a Mirror of Kalandra.

I think it's easier to build a 6L from a white item, than build the Ultimate Weapon with (let's say 200% physical increased damage, 25-30 added physical damage, 28% attack speed, 25% chaos resistance, 18-99 lighting damage, 26% increased elemental damage). All these stats are invented so probably it's impossible to craft such weapon, but I think you can get the idea.

Oh you can't mirror a unique? Damn. Yeah self craft is a joy by itself lol. Stockpile loads of orbs and unleash once you get a piece of item you just can't put away/vendor.

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kahoraho wrote:

Change your mace to the axe. It has more than double dps.
Lightning strike isn't a real area damage, as Multistrike isn't, but has projectiles that could help.
I don't know if chain is a good add here. I see it very situational.
Test the axe with your actual combo. Your dps tooltip will be more than doubled and I think your real dps too.
You can test your Axe + Lightning Strike + Lightning Penetration + Faster Attacks too, as it's a green gem.

My doubt here is... If we think on end game, will you be able to level up those blue gems up to the end. Standard build doesn't have too much intelligence. Of course you can get it from gear or pull some +30 intelligence nodes.

If you decide to test Heavy Strike, you need other colour combination. Melee Splash or Multistrike will help you on aoe. Added Fire damage will work fine here, as your axe has a good physical base.

I have chain as well but not enough dex (lvl? can't remember) so it is shelved at the moment. I think I can do a Lightning Strike + Fork and ditch the penetration first I guess since I can stick it on the axe (sadly just 2 link and I don't wanna add more sockets cuz waiting for that big drop).

You are spot on for the Int part. Didn't think about it. May just shelve some of those blue gems as I wanna make a Witch (with a full frost + CI + Cold to Fire build which I am thinking of) and I don't wanna keep the gems in stash too long before I can use em cuz of levels.

I have a splash on my 2H melee templar (can't even cross Act 3 Normal well, so ditched it - first character so bad passives I guess). Splash is kinda mana intensive though, worth it? Or go one Heavy Strike single target and another Heavy Strike pseudo AOE? Multistrike is not a drop for me now as I am just at Act 3 Normal. Trading is possible but I don't have enough orbs to trade for it (too expensive imo).

Does Added Fire and Anger stack? And have you tried going Iron Will + Auras/Molten Shell/Tempest Shield before? I am REALLY curious if it will work as with a templar or even a marauder, having strength converted to dmg on the auras is just pure win (added efficiency without too much drawbacks!)

Edit: Saw your 2nd post on the Iron Will + Auras. Ok. Win. Here we go Anger + Iron Will!

Edit 2: Hmm... gotta think REALLY hard on how to socket them gems then. If I do remove lightning strike and Ground Slam as AOEs, I can regem one AOE heavy strike and one single target heavy strike. Stick in 1 mana leech each and I will be good to go. Poor fork and chain though, but guess it will be used by my witch so no biggie I guess.

Edit 3: Reread your post PLUS did more research (googleismyfriend x 3). Auras do not get boosted even though it is a spell as iron will specifically boosts spell DMG. Auras do not specifically do spell dmg, it just conveys the ability to DO spell dmg for your atks. As such, it is not buffed. :( Guess it will run with molten shell first, then tempest shield later when I max block.

I never said Iron Will worked with Auras. I think it won't, try it and told us, looks interesting.
It works with Tempest Shield and Molten Shell. None of them are auras.


I'm a bit confusing about your post.
You have Lightning Strike + Lightning Penetration + Chain on your chest
You can test it without invest any orb.
Change your weapon to your axe and test Lightning Strike.

What I think about Chain / Fork is that you're still underdeveloped, levelling, and they will drain dps and mana more than help. To use its green slot I suggest you use Faster Attack.
You'll end wasting a lot more of mana / second, but your real damage will be more than doubled.
If you can't maintain it, yes add Mana Leech gem on the green slot.

It's normal you test a lot of skills at low level, but there'll be a point where you can't continue levelling all gems, and you'll have to decide one or two combo as attack.

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Sovyn wrote:

Perhaps you have 1% of mana leech somewhere.

Yeah the Sliverpinch gloves that were recommended in a previous reply have 2% mana leech on them.

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kahoraho wrote:

Do you have Mana Leech on gear?.
22 / 28 looks very tight. Maybe you hit a non skill blow from time to time when you are under 22. If you are doing so, you're lowering your real dps.

Mana leech as mentioned above haha. And yeah I have noticed that I will occasionally hit a normal attack. I'll try to remedy this, perhaps by putting grace onto Blood Magic, but I guess I can just mess around with different things until I find something that works.

It sounds like Fetid Pool may be worth skipping until I've leveled up a bit. Might try it again with a friend and implement the suggested techniques. As always every bit of info has been useful in expanding my knowledge of the game :D

Is it normal to be a few levels behind the monster level of an area? Even after grinding 2 levels I'm still behind which may be why the going is pretty tough. Are there any areas which are good to grind for this build for leveling? In act 1 Merciless by the way. Please and thankyou :)