Retaliate Paladin single target problem.

[sabecao]

I Been playing since a while with a retaliate paladin and i simply can't do bosses, especially summon/uber ones. I just got 120 on act 4 destruction, but before that every boss beat me, and i had to die atleast 5-20 times before finally take their life out.

My current gear is:

Weapon: The Angeris Star
Armor: Wyand's Fervor
Helm: Witchhunter Hood
Belt: Cinande Anvil
Gloves: Honorific Gloves (1) with +144% to all resists and -30% Poision enemy resistance
Boots: Nephilin RW
Shield: Wall of Fire RW
Amulet: Angel Heart
Rings: Xorine's Ring/Empyrean Brand(with -15% poision resistance)

About skills: SMaxed Plague/Devaking/Dragon Oath/Merkabah, rest 1-3 points(i'm saving in case i find more Maximum level things)

More info: I did Challenge 0,1,2 Ennead, got Butcher tooth and scroll of kings.

I give my thanks already if you wasted time reading to help me!

[01001010]

I'd probably switch to a 2 hander for more damage and Amazing grace proc.

Without brimstone you don't really have any reliable single target, you could try for crafts to get some useful on attack proc or invest in crushing blow.

I haven't tried holy melee after adding dragon form yet, but I'd only get enough into Dragon Oath to keep it up at all times or high enough so the timer isn't too long. Merkabah isn't worth smaxing imo, you could instead get points into Colosseum for a shorter spell timer. You could test revive instead of plague and get some strong meatshields to tank those bosses for you.

[cowking]

What's your AR and LL? You should craft a full set of %AR, 2LL jewels (best add is flat life). The mana leech will help you spam dragon oath. At this point the fastest way to grind arcane crystals is terror grisbox.

Plague is shit, one of the worst uberskills in the game, take 1p resurrect instead. Trap Rats can do all basic charms by themselves, do jday bonus with 2x dark summoning active, grind trophies for akarat, jitan, jday, kill juris khan in ureh, complete yshari, rez neon fiends for toraja, list goes on. Plague is massively expensive (-100 poison res) and does shit dps with no decent means to spread it (excluding SU gear). You could just get +100 phys/magical damage instead and do more damage with VoR (x20 damage multiplier). Plague is only worth using after you've acquired just about every charm you're gonna get.

Crafted fascinating armor pieces will beat your current setup which has no -fire res or +fire spell damage (which is why you lack single target dps). Dragon Oath can one shot most heroic shield bosses if you gear properly. Auhe belt is a no brainer for this char for the same reason. Boots are the worst piece, so I'd go with hidden destroyer shaman/void archon craft, MO with FHR and +res.

I'm not sure angiris star is really optimal for this char, since retaliate/time strike have 5/4 frame ND respectively (leaving only a 2 frame window for time strike to actually work). You can roll time strike on a rare scythe and calculate the delay if you want. Mostly useful in conjuction with colosseum I think.

Ix RW hand of god is probably the best non SU weapon for this char, especially after getting auhe belt vs necrobots. Taqiyya looks good on paper, but the 3 second fuse delay on bombs makes it inferior vs cataclysm craft. By the time the bombs trigger, cataclysm would have killed your target twice (and that's not including retaliate, merkabah, vor, path of flames or dragon oath).

Merkabah isn't worth smaxing imo, you could instead get points into Colosseum for a shorter spell timer.

Merkabah is better than plague, so no. It does more damage per second (without needing MO space) and it's all alpha damage, meaning it can put mobs into FHR. Getting 500 sigs and 80k merkabah damage is a huge defensive buff for this char, since you'll only have around 200-300k defense.

Dragon pala will kill all enemies inside colosseum radius so fast smaxed colosseum is only useful for spreading plague (shit). Leave at 1p.

[suchbalance]

Plague is fine. Key item being Hadriel's Protector, which pushes its dps to levels comparable to Curare. And no, elemental stones are not hard to obtain unless you're a beginner. Budget item until then is wormtongue belt.

Yeah fair enough you can abuse reanimates from resurrect to be cute in certain ubers. However you will never be able to match the clear speed of plague in levels like fauzt, dunc etc.

Don't have anything to spread plague? What? Have you even used retaliate before - a piercing nearly screenwide nova is pretty godly at poison spreading as it turns out.

[cowking]

Plague is fine. Key item being Hadriel's Protector, which pushes its dps to levels comparable to Curare.

L42 plague = 85-114k damage over 5.8s = 17.15k average /s
Hadriel = 1.2-2.2k damage over 1s = 1.7k average /s

Both together @-100 res using retaliate
duration = (5.8 + 1) / 2 = 3.4s
damage = (17.15 + 1.7) * 2 * 1.25 = 47.1k /s
total = 3.4 * 47.1k = 160k average damage over 3.4 seconds

L45 curare @-100 res using ricochet = 329-448k over 3.4s = 388.5k average damage over 3.4 seconds

I'd say that's a pretty far cry from curare, especially given the nature and purpose of wdm poison.

Yeah fair enough you can abuse reanimates from resurrect to be cute in certain ubers. However you will never be able to match the clear speed of plague in levels like fauzt, dunc etc.

15 skillpoints away from plague into VoR equals +52k average dmg /s on my char, allowing complete freedom in your choice of weapon (and it's sockets), as well as ~45 double MO slots, while still granting you access to resurrect.

Don't have anything to spread plague? What? Have you even used retaliate before - a piercing nearly screenwide nova is pretty godly at poison spreading as it turns out

I've played untwinked dragon melee the entire ladder, no twinking or trading.

The problem with retaliate is you can't spread plague beyond the zone where everything melts anyway (unless you're using something like SU war axe), and that's the zone where poison damage sucks ass. Skills like pounce and ricochet allow you to spread curare with impunity across the entire map, one shotting everything.

As I said, plague is only worth using after you've gathered nearly all charms. Until then, resurrect is far more useful.

[sabecao]

I changed my Plague to ressurrect and the damage not changed so much(i think its because i'm bad geared overhaul), also that helped me doing Akarat. Until i find a sacred hand of god to test the RW, Should i use a Great Maul or its not worth? I managed to get to diablo, my only gear change right now is a sacred aerin shield with bear stance.

With my actual gear there's any place that i can farm some shrines, so i can make the boots?

Btw, you asked my AR, its 3477

[suchbalance]

total = 3.4 * 47.1k = 160k average damage over 3.4 seconds

L45 curare @-100 res using ricochet = 329-448k over 3.4s = 388.5k average damage over 3.4 seconds

Why are you comparing curare with 100 psn pierce to plague with 0? L42 curare is on average 145k over 3.4 seconds. L42 plague with avenger is 102k over 3.4 seconds. So thats 42k dps vs 30k dps. However you omit the part where plague ends up being a lot higher level than a javazon might have curare, because you use a weapon with +4, chest with +2, rare rings with +1 & rare ammy with +4 (for the psn pierce). So in practice they are a lot closer.

Long story short, plague becomes enough dps that all non poison immunes die from 1 retaliate - thus cross character comparisons are pointless. You don't have to rely on having your Oath off cd or proccing anything, which gives you the best clear speed.

15 skillpoints away from plague into VoR equals +52k average dmg /s on my char, allowing complete freedom in your choice of weapon (and it's sockets), as well as ~45 double MO slots, while still granting you access to resurrect.

Why are you assuming that I don't have 25+ points in VoR already? Also you vastly overestimate its 3yrd hitbox.

Also you are not restricted in any equipment at all. The only thing you must do is have 1 poison rune equipped anywhere and no other sources of passive psn damage apart from plague, in order to boost its dps. The reason I say the spear RW is "key" is because I like 2h pala spears and the rest of the stats also fit the build. However it could be that a club + shield setup with more regular items and only 1 psn rune socket could be superior. That far I haven't theorycrafted.

---

It seems we have really different ideas on what that character build should be. Lets agree to disagree so we don't spam the OP's topic any more and confuse him. You gave him good advice yesterday, hopefully he improves his character with your suggestions.

[cowking]

Why are you comparing curare with 100 psn pierce to plague with 0? L42 curare is on average 145k over 3.4 seconds. L42 plague with avenger is 102k over 3.4 seconds. So thats 42k dps vs 30k dps.

What's avenger? As for poison pierce...

Both together @-100 res using retaliate
duration = (5.8 + 1) / 2 = 3.4s
damage = (17.15 + 1.7) * 2 (this here is -100 poison res) * 1.25 (this here is retaliate wdm) = 47.1k /s
total = 3.4 * 47.1k = 160k average damage over 3.4 seconds

L42 curare = 145 * 2 * 1.25 = 362k over 3.4s

Why are you assuming that I don't have 25+ points in VoR already?

Where are you taking those points from?

[Asteroth]

smaxed hammerstrike does decent damage 1v1, but honestly melee pallys shine vs mobs (great for farming dunc/TA/fauzt/whatever). They're not good bosskillers at all (which, to be fair, makes them "balanced" in the sense that no character should be good at everything).

I remember theorycrafting and using gorefest (multihits a LOT per second) and 100% CB as a bosskiller, but never got around to trying it. This is also kind of useless against heroics.
My advice would be to use a5 mercs or a1 rangers (arrowside OP) to help with the boss killing, but in uberquests that might not be so viable.
The next best thing would be to just re-spec to unholy caster and do the hard ubers with that, and then go back to holy melee for farming.

Also, you really need to do BRC. Blessed life is completely OP. And your AR is pitiful. You definitely need more dex and to craft jewels with bonus AR (40-50%)

[sabecao]

I'm using both Plague and Ressurrect depending what i will do... Your both advice are being helpful, While plague helps me farming, ressurrect helped me with some ubers(i did infernal machine and Akarat with ressurrect, with plague i did black road challenge, butcher, creature of flame, binding of baal)
Both are good at my point of view.

For now i started using three parts of Malthael's set because it gives extra fire damage(i thought using it would work because you said thats the lack)

I'm really liking this character and i think i'm gonna play a lot with that.