Helm choice for my Holy Fire Paladin

Greetings.

I have a HoJ + Duo Dragon Paladin, who gets lvl 44

Holy Fire from the gear and fully synergized. I am also running with lvl 25

Conviction. This Paladin normally goes out to cow level and then zooms around to find base items. hence MF, CB or any other combat skills are not a concern.

I was wondering what

Helm should I use to amp his fire demage. He will be focusing on the fire tick demage and fast run walk for the intended job.

Choice #1: He is currently using

Giant Skull as the placeholder for the final gear choice. It has been socketed with two -5/5 fire facets.
Pro: Massive strength, 2 sockets, the only crush blow source from the choices.
Con: No Skill, No Res (as he only zooms around, knock back would not be a problem)

Choice #2: I managed to source a decent CoA from trading. When I first started, I was assuming this is the BiS

Helm for this char.
Pro: All res, DR, 2 sockets, Hit recovery
Con: No life, No Strength

Choice #3: I have a rare

Coronet found along the way. It sports +2 Paladin Skill, 30% faster Run/Walk, 20 Dex, 26 Life and some minor mods.
Pro: 2 Skill, Faster run/walk, Decent Dex
Con: Only 1 socket, No Res, little to non Def

Choice #4: I could buy one of those gg Paladin 2OS + 2Skill + 30% Faster Run/Walk + Res + Life mod helms
Pro: Everything I wanted
Con: Cost an arm and a leg

Which choice would you prefer based on the job description for this paladin?
Many Thanks. ❤

Flickering Flame?

Edit: Nvm, silly suggestion. I missed that you had socketed two 5/5 fire facets into the

Giant Skull lol

Knappogue wrote: 3 days ago

Flickering Flame?

Edit: Nvm, silly suggestion. I missed that you had socketed two 5/5 fire facets into the

Giant Skull lol

I thought about Flickering Flame before I started this char. The

Holy Fire I got would be from the gear, so Flickering Flame +3 fire skill is kind of waste to this build.

-15% res is also hard to roll, haha, I only manage to get -14% and then settled.

Maybe wear Dream, have

Holy Shock as your active aura and give an Infinity to your merc?

Or give up an arm and a leg to go with choice 4. That's what I'd do.

Knappogue wrote: 3 days ago

Maybe wear Dream, have

Holy Shock as your active aura and give an Infinity to your merc?

Or give up an arm and a leg to go with choice 4. That's what I'd do.

I have that one setup with my other Paladin. Native lvl 32

Holy Fire(full synergized) + Duo Dream(half synergized). with cresent moon, the tick damage I observed is still inferior to HoJ + Duo Dragon.

Good news: I can now

Teleport. and go nuts with Doom for tri-aura
Bad news: some magic find

Giant Skull doesn't do much except for the 2 facets. CoA is better in a lot of ways as you say, and it also gives you +1 extra to

Battle Orders. I like having the DR on CoA because this build doesn't have good leech. And extra res on your

Helm frees up other slots

Circlets are useful for a hybrid FoH/dragondin build. I use a 2/20

Circlet with one facet on my FoH hybrid dragondin, which lets me hit the 75 fcr breakpoint. Running a 2/30

Circlet on a standard dragondin sounds fine, but I would miss the overall bulk from CoA

marl71 wrote: 3 days ago

Giant Skull doesn't do much except for the 2 facets. CoA is better in a lot of ways as you say, and it also gives you +1 extra to

Battle Orders. I like having the DR on CoA because this build doesn't have good leech. And extra res on your

Helm frees up other slots

Circlets are useful for a hybrid FoH/dragondin build. I use a 2/20

Circlet with one facet on my FoH hybrid dragondin, which lets me hit the 75 fcr breakpoint. Running a 2/30

Circlet on a standard dragondin sounds fine, but I would miss the overall bulk from CoA

Thanks for the tips. I was also believe that CoA is much better. But then I have to get fast run walk somewhere. I have 40% with my

Boots. I need at least 30% to feel like I am running. Mind I have light body armor and light shield.

If I use CoA, then I would be stuck with

The Cat's Eye to get 70% total. side note, I think

The Cat's Eye is often over looked and it is in fact awesome.
If i use a 30% fast run/walk

Helm, then I can use other amulets, like mara, that +2 skill can in turn boost

Battle Orders

haha, need for speed to chase those cows

Crown of Ages, without doubt, with 2x 5/5 facet inside

Flickering Flame is a trap that only gives you the fire res from

Flame Rift back which can be offset by your merc wearing FF or just with charms, both easily doable.

CoA brings multitude of other benefits on top. Only negative is 174 req str which will require more points into strength or better rings.

Agreed on

The Cat's Eye, perfect choice for Dragon paladin. Using one myself. FRW, IAS, defense to up with

Holy Shield, 25 dex so more points that can be spent elsewhere.

If all you do is run cows for bases, you typically shouldn't be getting hit by anything anyways, let alone regularly be hit by elemental attacks. As such, most of the stats on CoA (or any helmet) would be largely wasted, making your best choice the one that gives you the highest dmg output as that's really the only thing of any consequence.

So basically any random 3-socket helmet with 3 fire facets.

Since as a pally you'd just be perma-charging anyways, even run speed makes no difference so you really can pick just any 3 sock head without missing much. Or one with extra gold on it to at least get some actual benefit out of it. MF would theoretically be an option as well but that would interfere with your base hunting so nevermind that.

thanks for the advice.

Schnorki wrote: 3 days ago

As such, most of the stats on CoA (or any helmet) would be largely wasted

thats the reason why I started with the

Giant Skull. it has 2 sockets, some stats would help, CB can deal with D-clone when I met him. but 99% of the time, he is just running around and pick things up.

Isted

Shako for more MF then if you don’t need more damage nor defensive stats

An if you don't have or want to save an

Ist and don't mind losing 1% magic find, then socket it with a

Perfect Topaz.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 3 days ago

Isted

Shako for more MF then if you don’t need more damage nor defensive stats

I think he doesn't want any MF. He's hunting for bases.

Best for damage is just a 3 perfect facet helmet(any).

Yeah, I think the 3 perfect facet is really the only improvement for your

Helm if you don't want MF or anything.

Although I'm curious what does more damage. Dual Dragon+HoJ (for max

Holy Fire), or Hoj+Dragon+Phoenix/4xFireFacet Jmod+Flickering Flame.

I'm going the latter route on my character but I still need the HoJ to finish my build. He still wrecks stuff right now, but atm it's mostly me cutting through mobs with the tick damage as a secondary. (But man, does he cut through mobs like a hot knife through butter!)

According to some sources, each "equipment aura" does full radial damage (so Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal triple radial damage while Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal only double radial damage)
post3770466.html?hilit=theamazonbasin#p3768150
But even without that, the level difference makes a lot of difference on the base damage (almost double)

- Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 30 (Item Aura)
Damage: 583–726

- Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 44 (Item Aura)
Damage: 1067–1270

(max sinergies)

SkullScythe wrote: 13 hours ago

Although I'm curious what does more damage. Dual Dragon+HoJ (for max

Holy Fire), or Hoj+Dragon+Phoenix/4xFireFacet Jmod+Flickering Flame.

fredkid wrote: 13 hours ago

According to some sources, each "equipment aura" does full radial damage (so Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal triple radial damage while Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal only double radial damage)
post3770466.html?hilit=theamazonbasin#p3768150
But even without that, the level difference makes a lot of difference on the base damage (almost double)

- Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 30 (Item Aura)
Damage: 583–726

- Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 44 (Item Aura)
Damage: 1067–1270

(max sinergies)

SkullScythe wrote: 13 hours ago

Although I'm curious what does more damage. Dual Dragon+HoJ (for max

Holy Fire), or Hoj+Dragon+Phoenix/4xFireFacet Jmod+Flickering Flame.

Yes, but does the extra -Enemy Fire Resist from Flickering Flame (-10-15) and Phoenix (-28) make up for that damage? Or what about the 4xFacet Jmod instead of Phoenix? -20/+20?

I'm guessing with the jmod it would be 699-871. But you'd have an extra -35% to enemy fire resistance. If they aren't highly resistance to fire already you could be doing a lot of damage if you make them go negative, right? Still, I have a Phoenix so I guess I won't get as big of a boost as a jmod (I'll be at -42 with no % bonus. -62 when I get HoJ). But maybe when I'm rich lol.

Remember that you already have self using

Conviction, so that extra -Resist is in practice only Vs Immunes...
+% fire damage makes lot of difference (is multiplicative with sinergies), but is only +20% versus double base damage with Dragon shield (or versus triple damage if you consider triple radial damage from three equipment sources)

On paper the most

Holy Fire damage comes from
Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice + Helm with triple

Rainbow Facet: Fire Level-up /

Rainbow Facet: Fire Death

SkullScythe wrote: 13 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 13 hours ago

According to some sources, each "equipment aura" does full radial damage (so Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal triple radial damage while Dragon + Hand of Justice would deal only double radial damage)
post3770466.html?hilit=theamazonbasin#p3768150
But even without that, the level difference makes a lot of difference on the base damage (almost double)

- Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 30 (Item Aura)
Damage: 583–726

- Dual Dragon + Hand of Justice

Holy Fire – Level 44 (Item Aura)
Damage: 1067–1270

(max sinergies)

SkullScythe wrote: 13 hours ago

Although I'm curious what does more damage. Dual Dragon+HoJ (for max

Holy Fire), or Hoj+Dragon+Phoenix/4xFireFacet Jmod+Flickering Flame.

Yes, but does the extra -Enemy Fire Resist from Flickering Flame (-10-15) and Phoenix (-28) make up for that damage? Or what about the 4xFacet Jmod instead of Phoenix? -20/+20?

I'm guessing with the jmod it would be 699-871. But you'd have an extra -35% to enemy fire resistance. If they aren't highly resistance to fire already you could be doing a lot of damage if you make them go negative, right? Still, I have a Phoenix so I guess I won't get as big of a boost as a jmod (I'll be at -42 with no % bonus. -62 when I get HoJ). But maybe when I'm rich lol.

fredkid wrote: 12 hours ago

Remember that you already have self using

Conviction, so that extra -Resist is in practice only Vs Immunes...

Why is that? Can't you take monsters negative? Like players get negative resists as difficulty penalties?

Can, but you already have 125 pierce from

Conviction
So the effect of additional pierce is not that big on non-immune (at least compared to the alternative of double base damage of the triple equipment aura)

If monster have less than 25 resist extra pierce has no effect (it will already have effective -100 resist which is the maximum negative possible - or minimum )
If monster have 50 resist monster it will take 1.75x damage with only

Conviction (effective resist -75) and 2.0x damage with an addition 25 pierce (effective resist -100): ~+14%
If monster have 75 resist monster it will take 1.5x damage with only

Conviction (effective resist -50) and 1.75x damage with an addition 25 pierce (effective resist -75): ~+16%

Against immune/sundered

Conviction works at 1/5 so extra pierce will be way more effective but still not enough to double the damage...
monster will take 0.3x damage with only

Conviction (effective resist 70) and 0.55x damage with an addition 25 pierce (effective resist 45) (~+83%)

SkullScythe wrote: 2 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 12 hours ago

Remember that you already have self using

Conviction, so that extra -Resist is in practice only Vs Immunes...

Why is that? Can't you take monsters negative? Like players get negative resists as difficulty penalties?