Dual Dream, Dragon + HoJ

Hi Guys,

Inspired by
I'm trying out the Dual Dream, Dragon + HoJ built after completing the Uber Tristram Challenge.

Dream/Dragon/HoJ Gear: - Dracul's Grasp
- Marrowwalk
- Thundergod visor
- Raven Frost
- Dwarfstar

* Crack of heavens
* Flame Rift
Sunder charms to address immunities.
Rest of inventory is with charms to make achieve max 75% resist (one maxed out but I digress).

Have worked extremely hard to collect the materials. Many thanks to friends and D2R community support (trading) otherwise this would not have been possible,

I've restat but not allocated all the points yet: Currently:

1 point wonders:
- Smite
- Holy Shield
- Redemption
- Fanaticism
- Zeal
- Holy Shock/ Holy Fire

Max:
- Conviction

62 skill points left

Spoiler alert: Big disappointment: monsters are not dropping like flies when you walk/run around like in video (Max Convict Aura by default). Not sure what's missing? Maybe need to max out Holy Fire/Shock but if you do that, you DO NOT have Conviction aura.
Somehow I get the feeling that there's a bug in the system that not all the 4 auras are doing its job. The monster's health are not decreasing fast.... And I'm only doing P1 runs (online solo game)

Any comments what does it takes to achieve the effect from the YouTube video?

Thanks in advance for your Insight and comments

The damage comes from synergies. You need to max the synergies for Holy Fire and Holy Shock: Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, and Sanctuary. You want to run lvl25 Conviction as your main aura--any points after lvl25 is wasted

Don't run dracs, run highlords/cats eye and Laying of Hands/20ias gloves to hit the fastest Zeal breakpoint. If you want life recovery, but 1 point into Redemption, or make CTA in a War Scepter with + Redemption on swap

If you want things to drop fast just from the pulse damage, I recommend running dual Dragon and hoj. That build has more aura damage

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

The damage comes from synergies. You need to max the synergies for Holy Fire and Holy Shock: Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, and Sanctuary. You want to run lvl25 Conviction as your main aura--any points after lvl25 is wasted

Don't run dracs, run highlords/cats eye and Laying of Hands/20ias gloves to hit the fastest Zeal breakpoint. If you want life recovery, but 1 point into Redemption, or make CTA in a War Scepter with + Redemption on swap

If you want things to drop fast just from the pulse damage, I recommend running dual Dragon and hoj. That build has more aura damage

Actually the Key question is why my current set up is not replicating the effect shown on the reference YouTube video. Just focusing on the aura pulse damage. Not concerned with Zeal attack for now.

Let’s just focus on non immunity monsters in hell:
1. Conviction aura should amplify the pulse damage from both Holy Shock/fire aura from Dream, Dragon, HoJ (but I’m not seeing this)

2. I can only active one aura at a time, thus switching to Holy Fire/shock we lose Conviction aura.

3. Resist Fire/lightning doesn’t help as it only helps aura from hard skill points (char in play). Not aura from gear. This is what I understand.

Any Insight as to why this build (same gear set up as YouTube video but not achieving same results)?

Thanks!

the video shows max Resist Fire/lit....

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

3. Resist Fire/lightning doesn’t help as it only helps aura from hard skill points (char in play). Not aura from gear. This is what I understand.

This is where you're missing things, I'm afraid. Synergies ABSOLUTELY count for the auras granted by these items. I have a Dragon Paladin and can confirm this from experience. Just like synergies count for spells cast on hit. Bone Spear cast by Brand will benefit from Necromancer synergies too.

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

3. Resist Fire/lightning doesn’t help as it only helps aura from hard skill points (char in play). Not aura from gear. This is what I understand.

Well, you understand wrong. We are trying to help you get the build to work correctly. Auradins are my main build, and I've built this type before. Here is the build on maxroll--just scroll down and click the "hybrid" variant: https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/dream-paladin, or click here for a view of the skill tree: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/zb01066h#2

Yes, you can only cast one aura at a time as a skill, and you should run Conviction for damage. But you can swap to Cleansing, Redemption, Vigor, whatever for a few seconds to do all kinds of things

Edit: Forgot to reiterate that Zeal is important for this build. The aura damage is ok on its own, but you get a lot more damage from Zeal. Once again, if all you care about is aura damage, make the runeword Dragon in a shield--this setup has a stronger aura

Edit 2: to clarify a misunderstanding below, I mean ADD the runeword Dragon to your setup to make a dragondin if you still think you want more pulse damage

only hard points put into synergies count in relation to on-items skills. So do max both res fire/light to increase dmg. Having these skills.

in fact it is the reason this build is viable only on paladin and sorc (other classes do not have synergies for the auras...). The name auradin kind of implies that.

p.s. someone here or at jsp made a detailed comparison of auradinsa few years ago. the main was that If you want to see things melt offscreen use 2x Dragon and HoJ.

p.p.s. you may want to drop Zeal and use Charge to move/kill things then

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

Edit: Forgot to reiterate that Zeal is important for this build. The aura damage is ok on its own, but you get a lot more damage from Zeal.

It depends on the area and your build.

In high density areas, your main damage comes from your aura. Consider this: The aura pulses every two seconds and deals damage to EVERY monster in range. The more monsters, the MORE damage you do!

Zeal always does 5 hits in a given timespan, depending on your IAS (=DPS is always the same) and is used to support your aura in killing sundered immunes/bosses/unique monsters and give you some leech.

You will notice that your aura damage doesn't scale well with increasing player count. On players 1, most monsters instantly die within 1 or 2 pulses. On Players 8, monsters have +350% life, so your aura needs 4.5 to 9 pulses! This is where Zeal comes into play to finish off monsters.

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

Once again, if all you care about is aura damage, make the runeword Dragon in a shield--this setup has a stronger aura

If all you care is aura damage, make a pure Dragondin (Double Dragon + HoJ + self use Conviction). Highest aura damage with highest range of all auradins. Period.

Level 44 Holy Fire > level 30 Holy Fire + level 30 Holy Shock.


Last but not least, the best thing of a auradin is, that you are free in choice of your merc. There are several useful merc setups:

1. Might-Merc+Doom: Increases your physical damage/ leech and spends another useful aura, slowing down enemies. If you don't need more leech, consider Defiance instead of Might for maximum security. Prayer+Cure is another alternative.

2. Lightning Ironwolf (Plague+Griffons+Viperskin+ eth Spirit): Helps in softening enemy life pool with huge Static Field, adds Cleansing, LR proc and greatly profits from your Conviction aura. Try hitting the 86 FCR breakpoint for maximum effect. Very useful in higher player counts!

3. Fire Ironwolf (Plague or Hexfire+Flickering Flame+ Enchant Ormus+ eth Spirit) Vastly improves your CtH against bosses, and helps to mitigate the -res on your fire sunder charm if using CoA.

4. Dual Plague Barb merc: Improves your fire damage against immunes with additional -resist and has useful Cleansing aura with huge range! Excellent choice for doing Chaos runs.

5. Last Wish+Plague Barb merc: Increases physical damage and leech, spends Cleansing and may proc LR and LT for survival and additional damage. Adds crushing blow for fighting bosses. Swap to dual Last Wish when doing ubers. Very good allround-setup.

6. Rogue merc with either Ice bow, Harmony or Mist+Delirium. Can bring a lot of safety, run speed (not really needed, but nice party support) or crowd control. Inner Sight improves your CtH against bosses. May use Flickering Flame as fire variant to mitigate your sunder charm. Greatly profits from your Conviction aura.

Numbers 2. and 5. are my personal favorites for a pure Dragondin.

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

Actually the Key question is why my current set up is not replicating the effect shown on the reference YouTube video. Just focusing on the aura pulse damage. Not concerned with Zeal attack for now.

Let’s just focus on non immunity monsters in hell:
1. Conviction aura should amplify the pulse damage from both Holy Shock/fire aura from Dream, Dragon, HoJ (but I’m not seeing this)

2. I can only active one aura at a time, thus switching to Holy Fire/shock we lose Conviction aura.

The whole point of this build is to have Holy Fire and Holy Shock from the items, with MAXED synergies, Res fire and Res lightning for certain, but you can also raise Salvation as it bumps both auras, just not as much individually.
Maxed Resist Fire increases your Holy Fire damage by 420%.
Maxed Resist Lightning increases your Holy Shock by 240%
Maxed Salvation increases your Holy Fire damage by 200% and your Holy Shock damage by 80%.
All 3 maxed, would give you +620% and +320% damage for the aura pulses respectively.

Also, you need to remember that Conviction has a somewhat short range that does not increase with higher skill levels.
Anything that isn't resisting Fire and/or Lightning should die even just from the aura pulse, while having Conviction -150 together with sunder charms, should take all immune monsters down to what, 65% res IIRC. Meaning they should be heavily affected as well.

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

3. Resist Fire/lightning doesn’t help as it only helps aura from hard skill points (char in play). Not aura from gear. This is what I understand.

Which is wrong.

Ok, you have 62 points left.
Put them in Res fire, Res ltng and Salvation.
Done. Be a walking nuke.

FULCRUM75 wrote: 1 year ago

should take all immune monsters down to what, 65% res IIRC. Meaning they should be heavily affected as well.

Don't forget the additional -20% fire resistance from Hand of Justice.

-Enemy resistance from items works 100% on sundered monsters ( Conviction/LR only works at 1/5 effectiveness).

Hi guys,

Really appreciate u guys pointing out my blind spot. Need to put points in Resist Fire & lightning and Salvation. I was ill-informed

1. Have experimented maxing Resist Fire & lightning. Holy Molly!!! Monsters are starting to drop so much faster than before!

2. Adds max Salvation, waola! Even better though improvements not as drastic but nevertheless it’s good!

I’ve 2 skills points left, any recommendations? Current paladin is level 92.

Btw the Zeal damage is great even at lvl 1 (w/o Fanaticism as preferred Conviction aura be default to maximize dual Dream, Dragon + HoJ aura damage). Currently just trying things out Travincal Hell. Will try Diablo & Baal later tonight. Then try D Clone

I’m kinda lazy player, not particularly skilled in that sense. Just preferred to do less during farming rather than clicking targets

That’s the reason why I chose hammerdin build when starting D2R last month. Then I realized it also takes a little bit of skills to move/adjust a bit to target monsters.

Auradin are awesome!
Again many thanks for the Insight and advice, point out my errors. Otherwise I’d have just gave up on this build. Wasting the restat and the hard earned runes collection

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

I’ve 2 skills points left, any recommendations? Current paladin is level 92.

That's great! If you don't have Cure on your merc, then it's nice to have a point in Cleansing to get rid of curses. Otherwise if you don't want to put extra points into Zeal/ Sacrifice, you can put them into Holy Shield

Edit: nevermind, you have a point in Redemption, so you have Cleansing already

Just back to report I’ve had luck to face d clone this evening USA server before trial run Diablo & Baal. I didn’t plan nor check /uberdiablo, just doing usual farming away at Travincal. Thought what the hack, let’s do it. Of course I didn’t depend on the aura alone, I just Zeal attack all the way to try things out.

It took a lot longer than (Grief/ Smite with g face + goblin toes). At this rate, I doubt this build can handle Ubers.

In any case, killing regular Diablo and Baal is a breeze.

Also clearing Travincal is a lot faster than hammerdin build

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

I’ve 2 skills points left, any recommendations? Current paladin is level 92.

That's great! If you don't have Cure on your merc, then it's nice to have a point in Cleansing to get rid of curses. Otherwise if you don't want to put extra points into Zeal/ Sacrifice, you can put them into Holy Shield

Edit: nevermind, you have a point in Redemption, so you have Cleansing already

I think I’ll just put in Holy Shield
Thanks for the pointers!

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

Just back to report I’ve had luck to face d clone this evening USA server before trial run Diablo & Baal. I didn’t plan nor check /uberdiablo, just doing usual farming away at Travincal. Thought what the hack, let’s do it. Of course I didn’t depend on the aura alone, I just Zeal attack all the way to try things out.

It took a lot longer than (Grief/ Smite with g face + goblin toes). At this rate, I doubt this build can handle Ubers.

In any case, killing regular Diablo and Baal is a breeze.

Also clearing Travincal is a lot faster than hammerdin build

I do not have experience with your build, but I expect dragondin is similar - I use it for dclone, gaining organs and ubermephisto much rather then my smiter, because I like that everything around dies and I can Concentrate to one main monster. Unfortunatelly uberbaal and uberdiablo are so much faster with smiter, that I am switching to him for beating these monsters.

frakira wrote: 1 year ago

ohptsh wrote: 1 year ago

Just back to report I’ve had luck to face d clone this evening USA server before trial run Diablo & Baal. I didn’t plan nor check /uberdiablo, just doing usual farming away at Travincal. Thought what the hack, let’s do it. Of course I didn’t depend on the aura alone, I just Zeal attack all the way to try things out.

It took a lot longer than (Grief/ Smite with g face + goblin toes). At this rate, I doubt this build can handle Ubers.

In any case, killing regular Diablo and Baal is a breeze.

Also clearing Travincal is a lot faster than hammerdin build

I do not have experience with your build, but I expect dragondin is similar - I use it for dclone, gaining organs and ubermephisto much rather then my smiter, because I like that everything around dies and I can Concentrate to one main monster. Unfortunatelly uberbaal and uberdiablo are so much faster with smiter, that I am switching to him for beating these monsters.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions;
Auradin is not proficient against Ubers. Smite still way to go. I haven’t had the time to try other class yet. Playing Hammerdin, Auradin is taking lots of time as it is