Should I upgrade my Herald of Zakarum?

As a Hammerdin, is it worthwhile upping my HoZ? Seems like it will just mean a much higher strength req for not much gain.
Thanks!

from max base def 168 to 193, I don't see the benefits of up'ping.

you want to see base numbers that go almost double to benefit real gains.

best e.g

Mesh Armor ->

Boneweave Armor

if you intend to use your hammerdin as a smitter for ubers it makes sense to upgrade. Def is not improved much but

Smite damage are. Even if most of the damage come from crushing blow, it helps accelerate the end.

If you dont intend to do ubers with it, dont upgrade.

Thanks, that's very helpful

Aye, the main benefit of upgrading a pally shield is the improvement in

Smite damage. If you exclusively play as a hammerdin, then that is obviously worthless to you.

Additionally, your "not much gain" in this particular case actually has a 1 in 25 chance to be literally 0 gain.
That's because the base HoZ will have max base def + 1, due to being an ED unique, meaning the

Gilded Shield you currently have started with 169 defense. If you upgrade that to a Zakarum, the ED auto-max bonus sadly gets lost and you end up rolling randomly within the Zakarum range of 169-193. If it rolls 169, you'll literally see the exact same defense on the upgraded version as you already have now. So at that point, all you get is a higher str req.

By contrast, your best case would be a 193 roll which would equate to 72 more total defense on it.

Only up it if you play the smiter/hammer hybrid for killing ubers on your own.
Regular Hammerdin with +1 in

Smite and +1 in

Fanaticism can kill them easy with just swapping Gear

It's not needed tbh. More like a perfectionist thing.

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

Only up it if you play the smiter/hammer hybrid for killing ubers on your own.
Regular Hammerdin with +1 in

Smite and +1 in

Fanaticism can kill them easy with just swapping Gear

It's not needed tbh. More like a perfectionist thing.

Iam curious. What would be the best gear? Trying to figure this out quite a while.

inFECT wrote: 2 years ago

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

Only up it if you play the smiter/hammer hybrid for killing ubers on your own.
Regular Hammerdin with +1 in

Smite and +1 in

Fanaticism can kill them easy with just swapping Gear

It's not needed tbh. More like a perfectionist thing.

Iam curious. What would be the best gear? Trying to figure this out quite a while.

Doesn't take much really.
Resistances (which you should already have), either further overcapped or

Salvation/counter-

Conviction against meph
Some source of

Life Tap (Exile, dracs or even just a

Charge

Wand)
Open wounds (dracs again)
And some crushing blow (gore, Duress, ...)

If you have the runes to spare and a decent shield base, you could just get a Kingslayer phase and an Exile. Those two cover all of your

Life Tap, crushing and open wound needs while at the same time giving you max

Smite IAS with only 1 point invested into fana. Between that and leaving everything else as your normal hammer gear, you tend to do just fine. Not quite as fast as a dedicated smiter, obviously, but perfectly sufficient. And if the rest of your gear is good enough, you could even go so far as to keep it on switch, not bother with a CTA and be able to just shift from hammer to

Smite on the fly.

Been a while since I ran that myself (mainly because hammers bore me) but I distinctly remember it working very well back in the day.

In terms of skills, you'd just have your normal hammer build, then add 2 pts to get fana unlocked and with the rest you either get

Conviction to beat meph's (which should be fairly easy in hammer gear) or get

Salvation capped. Personally, I'd go with

Salvation because that has the benefit of not only saving yourself against meph but also protecting your merc and possible other players.
Capping everything you want capped for that would put you at lvl 98. But considering the +skills you'd get from hammer gear, you really don't need

Salvation capped fully. So anything around 85-90 would be perfectly sufficient to be set for everything.

In case of

Conviction, uber meph is at lvl 20, meaning you want ~10 pts in there, considering the normal +skill you're expected to get in hammer gear (not yet having a torch/anni). That means you're done at around lvl 92. Another reason I prefer

Salvation actually - even if you only consider yourself, the pts you need to unlock

Conviction make it not that much faster to get sufficiently high, if at all.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

inFECT wrote: 2 years ago

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

Only up it if you play the smiter/hammer hybrid for killing ubers on your own.
Regular Hammerdin with +1 in

Smite and +1 in

Fanaticism can kill them easy with just swapping Gear

It's not needed tbh. More like a perfectionist thing.

Iam curious. What would be the best gear? Trying to figure this out quite a while.

Doesn't take much really.
Resistances (which you should already have), either further overcapped or

Salvation/counter-

Conviction against meph
Some source of

Life Tap (Exile, dracs or even just a

Charge

Wand)
Open wounds (dracs again)
And some crushing blow (gore, Duress, ...)

If you have the runes to spare and a decent shield base, you could just get a Kingslayer phase and an Exile. Those two cover all of your

Life Tap, crushing and open wound needs while at the same time giving you max

Smite IAS with only 1 point invested into fana. Between that and leaving everything else as your normal hammer gear, you tend to do just fine. Not quite as fast as a dedicated smiter, obviously, but perfectly sufficient. And if the rest of your gear is good enough, you could even go so far as to keep it on switch, not bother with a CTA and be able to just shift from hammer to

Smite on the fly.

Been a while since I ran that myself (mainly because hammers bore me) but I distinctly remember it working very well back in the day.

In terms of skills, you'd just have your normal hammer build, then add 2 pts to get fana unlocked and with the rest you either get

Conviction to 1 pt higher than meph (which should be very easy in hammer gear) or get

Salvation capped. Personally, I'd go with

Salvation because that has the benefit of not only saving yourself against meph but also protecting your merc and possible other players.
Capping everything you want capped for that would put you at lvl 98. But considering the +skills you'd get from hammer gear, you really don't need

Salvation capped fully. So anything around 85-90 would be perfectly sufficient to be set for everything.

Running "standard" Hammerdin with HOTO,

Shako, HOZ+

Um, Enigma,

Magefist, Arachna, War Trav,

Seraph's Hymn, Dwarf, 10% FCR Ring, anni, torch and skillers ofc
So. Basicly i just need Kingslavery and Exile.. Hmm. Thats sounds too easy, but i give it a try

Best setup in my opinion:

Weapon: ofc Grief. There is no better one.
Shield: uped zaka.

Helm: G Face

Boots: Gorerider
Gloves: Draculs

Belt: Thunder Gods
Chest: Fortitude or COH
Jewelery:

Raven Frost, Highlord's,

Dwarf Star

CTA + Spirit Offhand

Prebuff:

Fade from Treachery

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

Best setup in my opinion:

Weapon: ofc Grief. There is no better one.
Shield: uped zaka.

Helm: G Face

Boots: Gorerider
Gloves: Draculs

Belt: Thunder Gods
Chest: Fortitude or COH
Jewelery:

Raven Frost, Highlord's,

Dwarf Star

CTA + Spirit Offhand

Prebuff:

Fade from Treachery

Where to get the

Fade prebuff from? Dont see it in your setup..

Right now iam sitting at:

Helmet: G+Face with

Um
Armor: Enigma (not much variations here, since iam on a zero strenght build right now)
Shield: Exile in +44 Res

Targe (Switching to Upped Zaka with

Um?)
Weapon: Kingslayer (Switching to Grief?) or maybe even a Last Wish?

Belt: Verdungo (Switching to Arach or Thunder?)
Gloves: Draculs
Ring:

Raven + Dwarf
Amu: Highlord (Switching to Seraph or Mara )

CTA + Spirit Offhand

Loving and hating the pala for so many diffrent variations. Any of this items will work, but i try to figure out the "ultimate"

Question about Grief:

Afaiu the benefit from Grief is the +400 damage. Does the weapon of choice matter in any way?

Axe or Sword? What would be the difference between a 5 socket

Phase Blade and a

Double Axe for a smiter?

rantha wrote: 2 years ago

Question about Grief:

Afaiu the benefit from Grief is the +400 damage. Does the weapon of choice matter in any way?

Axe or Sword? What would be the difference between a 5 socket

Phase Blade and a

Double Axe for a smiter?

Your smiting speed comes from your weapon's so in this sense you would want a Grief

Phase Blade (IAS% roll on it is irrelevant).

rantha wrote: 2 years ago

Question about Grief:

Afaiu the benefit from Grief is the +400 damage. Does the weapon of choice matter in any way?

Axe or Sword? What would be the difference between a 5 socket

Phase Blade and a

Double Axe for a smiter?

Your smiting speed comes from your weapon so in this sense you would want a Grief

Phase Blade (IAS% roll on it is irrelevant).

DukeFriend wrote: 2 years ago

As a Hammerdin, is it worthwhile upping my HoZ? Seems like it will just mean a much higher strength req for not much gain.
Thanks!

Nope, upping it doesn't make sense for neither a hammerdin, nor a smiter. I'm using a non-upped HoZ on my Ubers Smiter and I'm deleting them in no time.

It's not questioned about what is enough. He asked for best possible. And yes upping zaka increases

Smite damage a bit.

Fade you will get from Treachery. Procc when you get hit

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

It's not questioned about what is enough. He asked for best possible. And yes upping zaka increases

Smite damage a bit.

Fade you will get from Treachery. Procc when you get hit

Yah, i got this. but in his setup, i dont see an armor with it. Guess he swap it and prebuff..
My goal is to find a setup with no swap during the "fight" .. swapping from standard hammerdin to "smiterdin" is ok
And here i try to find the best balance between Damage and Quality of Life..

Ah OK. I mean with that setup you should have no problems anyways.

If Meph can 1 shot you even with T-Gods

Belt and CTA Buff, just use

Salvation for him and

Fanaticism for Dia and

Baal.

If Meph can't 1shot you, just

Bash him with

Fanaticism too.


I just use Treachery for

Fade buff in A5. Put on Armor, run out of town and chill a bit in the fire on the Ground till Buff is up. Then switch Back to regular Chest. It's not that much to do for extra Allres and Physical res

Zaggazow wrote: 2 years ago

Ah OK. I mean with that setup you should have no problems anyways.

If Meph can 1 shot you even with T-Gods

Belt and CTA Buff, just use

Salvation for him and

Fanaticism for Dia and

Baal.

If Meph can't 1shot you, just

Bash him with

Fanaticism too.


I just use Treachery for

Fade buff in A5. Put on Armor, run out of town and chill a bit in the fire on the Ground till Buff is up. Then switch Back to regular Chest. It's not that much to do for extra Allres and Physical res

Thanks for your input. I created a thread with first results.. -> forums/infect-s-hammerdin-for-uber-runs-t848127.html