Zeal Paladin Dying Issue

Hey all,

here is Skuarauz from Kenya. I'm new to D2 and I need your wise counsel.

I'm Lv. 60 Zealant Paladin looking to kill

Baal (in Nightmare).

I'm equipped with:
Guillame's Face
Duriell's Shell

String of Ears

Gore Rider
Beast Knuckle

Herald Of Zakarum, and
Grief

After having killed the Ancients yesterday, today I'm dying too easily before getting to

Baal.

Can you suggest me what is wrong? What can I do?

In the picture you can see my stats


Thanks all

With the current gear and setup you should absolutely be able to hold your own in Nightmare.

Ideally need to get your life up at lvl 60 (also through possible charms - cannot see your inventory currently) - surprised you have that much strength as it should not be required to equip the gear that you have on. Realize that Guils, Duriels, and HoZ add to strength so that likely is boosting (inflating) that value, but ensure you have the minimum required strength. At that dexterity level, I presume you should be at Max Block, but again, are you over invested in Dex right now that could be balanced more to life?

Also, what is Beast Knuckle? Assuming must be a rare ring or maybe you are referring to an amulet?

Can you also share your skill point allocations?

A bit much in the strength stat, i'd invest more in dexterity for higher AR or vitality for more Health. Also you're going to need more attack speed and life+mana leech.

Try to invest your runes in a

Raven Frost ring along with attack rating + dual leech ring and

Highlord's Wrath. Gloves either

Dracul's Grasp or

Laying of Hands, rest of the items are pretty solid.

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

With the current gear and setup you should absolutely be able to hold your own in Nightmare.

Ideally need to get your life up at lvl 60 (also through possible charms - cannot see your inventory currently) - surprised you have that much strength as it should not be required to equip the gear that you have on. Realize that Guils, Duriels, and HoZ add to strength so that likely is boosting (inflating) that value, but ensure you have the minimum required strength. At that dexterity level, I presume you should be at Max Block, but again, are you over invested in Dex right now that could be balanced more to life?

Also, what is Beast Knuckle? Assuming must be a rare ring or maybe you are referring to an amulet?

Can you also share your skill point allocations?

Beast knucle are

Blood Gloves with 9% cb, some life leech, lightning and poison res and 20 life
All that dex is for Grief in pb, ammy is a temporary rare one with decent res waiting to switch to highlords or mara (any suggestion on which one to equip would be very welcome). I don t remeber about what rings he s wearing now but should be ravenfrost and another with some leech and res.

About the gloves, I've seen somebody answered to you already.

These are my skills stat points

deepsea wrote: 2 years ago

A bit much in the strength stat, i'd invest more in dexterity for higher AR or vitality for more Health. Also you're going to need more attack speed and life+mana leech.

Try to invest your runes in a

Raven Frost ring along with attack rating + dual leech ring and

Highlord's Wrath. Gloves either

Dracul's Grasp or

Laying of Hands, rest of the items are pretty solid.

Even with max

Fanaticism ias from equip would still be needed? Guess it will be better to swith to highlords rather than mara. He could get some other

Blood Gloves with ias, i should have a nice pair with 20 ias 8 cb 5 life leech 20 life and some fire res i could give him

Definitely get at minimum a single point into

Salvation and

Redemption 100% - great to toggle these on/off as needed.

Assume you have Max Block % with that dex? If not, you want to ensure you have this so either again get a

Raven Frost for Dex boost or get some more points into

Holy Shield where you can balance.

Agree with everyone else on Dracs/LoH (always solid options - especially the Demon % dmg). Highlords is the ideal ammy for Zealers and if you can, I would swap out a

Vampire Gaze if you can get your hands on one vs. Guil's (albeit yes this is always a suitable option).

Also what merc are you using?

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

Also what merc are you using?

I'm using any with Might, got Emilio for a while. The actual is Fazel.

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

deepsea wrote: 2 years ago

A bit much in the strength stat, i'd invest more in dexterity for higher AR or vitality for more Health. Also you're going to need more attack speed and life+mana leech.

Try to invest your runes in a

Raven Frost ring along with attack rating + dual leech ring and

Highlord's Wrath. Gloves either

Dracul's Grasp or

Laying of Hands, rest of the items are pretty solid.

Even with max

Fanaticism ias from equip would still be needed? Guess it will be better to swith to highlords rather than mara. He could get some other

Blood Gloves with ias, i should have a nice pair with 20 ias 8 cb 5 life leech 20 life and some fire res i could give him

Ah, sorry. I did not take in to consideration of

Fanaticism. Well

Highlord's Wrath is pretty much BIS for most melee builds, specially the Zealot. Extra damage from Deadly Strike is amazing. For the gloves then i'd set my focus towards

Dracul's Grasp since the

Life Tap proc is a MASSIVE help in survivability with stronger groups, but until then I guess any leech gloves with open wounds or other on hit proc % would do just fine.

AnghioWalser wrote: 2 years ago

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

Also what merc are you using?

I'm using any with Might, got Emilio for a while. The actual is Fazel.

Totally get the appeal with Might, but do yourself a favor for CC = Crowd Control and consider

Holy Freeze.

With 2.4 Merc changes there is a lot of optionality here and how you can evolve this, but I think forego the Might DPS increase in-exchange for

Holy Freeze which can help. Worst case you do tests and see which you prefer.

While Blood Craft gloves have appeal indeed for the CB% I would definitely steer towards LoH (Affordable) and preferably Dracs (if you can acquire). I think we all exhausted the need for Highlords, but want to re-punctuate that for you.

If you are going to be using Guil's

Helm you can also consider Sandstorm Treks or Waterwalks which give a great Dex + life boost. Yes Goreriders have appeal in PvE, but right now with your Beast Knuckle's, Guil's, and Gore's I would consider swapping out to other possible BiS options overall.

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Figured as much per your intimate knowledge of the Beast Knuckle's!

I mean if this is primarily for Uber's then when in doubt this should be a Smiter and yes Crushing Blow becomes a far greater center point of the build. I don't want to say that Zealers cannot handle Ubers, but if that is the case, then Drac's for tap or critical and or LoH + Exile, keep your Gore Riders and Guil's, and yes I would consider Fortitude or a Duress all day over

Duriel's Shell. That, and ensuring you use Treachery to proc

Fade before going in and then placing your primary slot armor back on.

You will want to get that IAS up for a Zealer which was called out previously especially if you are doing Ubers and that is why Highlords + LoH can certainly help in that regard.

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Instead of Fortitude, invest that

Lo in getting Duress,

Raven, dracs and highlords and you'll be doing ubers really comfortably.

deepsea wrote: 2 years ago

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Instead of Fortitude, invest that

Lo in getting Duress,

Raven, dracs and highlords and you'll be doing ubers really comfortably.

No investment needed, all the gear you mentioned we already have, the issue is just about choosing the best gear, not getting it

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Figured as much per your intimate knowledge of the Beast Knuckle's!

I mean if this is primarily for Uber's then when in doubt this should be a Smiter and yes Crushing Blow becomes a far greater center point of the build. I don't want to say that Zealers cannot handle Ubers, but if that is the case, then Drac's for tap or critical and or LoH + Exile, keep your Gore Riders and Guil's, and yes I would consider Fortitude or a Duress all day over

Duriel's Shell. That, and ensuring you use Treachery to proc

Fade before going in and then placing your primary slot armor back on.

You will want to get that IAS up for a Zealer which was called out previously especially if you are doing Ubers and that is why Highlords + LoH can certainly help in that regard.

Ok for ubers but i think i went off a bit here. Before getting to

Tristram we need to survive nightmare, and that s the problem now. So, respec to have more vita, switch from

Fanaticism to

Redemption to regain life when needed, i guess, constantly keep the buff from

Holy Shield too? That shoukd do it? Gear is pretty solid so it should not be the problem

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

Steccothal wrote: 2 years ago

So just to be clear me and the OP are long time friends and we were aiming to run ubers together, that s why i am participating to the topic and why we thought that guillaume and

Blood Gloves and all the crushing blow equip would have been good for the purpose. But i don t know anything on pally, never played as one, so as it is not a big issue getting other equip if needed (already have dracs and loh and sandstorm), i think some build and playstyle hints would be very much needed.
Oh and how about armor? I have a Fortitude ready as soon as he gets at lvl 63, can it be a good choice? I know Enigma could be better but i can t spare one right now

Figured as much per your intimate knowledge of the Beast Knuckle's!

I mean if this is primarily for Uber's then when in doubt this should be a Smiter and yes Crushing Blow becomes a far greater center point of the build. I don't want to say that Zealers cannot handle Ubers, but if that is the case, then Drac's for tap or critical and or LoH + Exile, keep your Gore Riders and Guil's, and yes I would consider Fortitude or a Duress all day over

Duriel's Shell. That, and ensuring you use Treachery to proc

Fade before going in and then placing your primary slot armor back on.

You will want to get that IAS up for a Zealer which was called out previously especially if you are doing Ubers and that is why Highlords + LoH can certainly help in that regard.

Ok for ubers but i think i went off a bit here. Before getting to

Tristram we need to survive nightmare, and that s the problem now. So, respec to have more vita, switch from

Fanaticism to

Redemption to regain life when needed, i guess, constantly keep the buff from

Holy Shield too? That shoukd do it? Gear is pretty solid so it should not be the problem

Yes - even a single base point into

Redemption (mana/life) when needed, and make sure you use a single point into

Salvation so you can quickly trigger that aura when required for additional res boost. Find a way to balance and ensure you have Max Block % - if at 10 HS you have it, then no need to increase necessarily, but if you don't have Max Block that is a major priority.