Holy Fire pally questions

Is there any way to get my

Holy Fire ticks to hit a bit harder? I figured it would be a fun idea to run MF on the rings,

Boots, gloves and

Belt and run through quick access areas like Chaos, WSK,

Kurast Bazaar, etc. for mfing sometimes and would like for the

Holy Fire Aura to tick a little bit harder if possible. I assume Defensive Aura GC's would help with this correct?

Also, I'm running dual Dragon and HOJ as well as a double fauceted COA. My skills are max

Conviction,

Salvation,

Resist Fire, and

Zeal. 1 point all the way to

Vigor, and

Holy Shield and the rest into

Sacrifice. I will need to respec soon for better stat allocation, should I put points into

Holy Shield instead of

Sacrifice for more survivability? Also, I'm thinking of putting a Flickering Flame on my merc to bump fire res, he is currently running Andy's visage, FORT and Insight (for constant

Charge usage). Would Flickering Flame be a good idea or is something else be better?

ShadowHeart wrote: 8 months ago

Blindfire187 wrote: 8 months ago

I assume Defensive Aura GC's would help with this correct?

No, that won't help.

Resist Fire and

Salvation are synergies for

Holy Fire, so only hard points count. The only way to improve

Holy Fire on a Dragondin (besides maxing both synergies) is to equip gear with +to Fire Skill damage or -to Enemy Fire Resistance. Flickering Flame has -to Enemy Fire Resistance, so that's an option for yourself for that reason.

COA adds +1 all skills so that helps bring up the synergies to

Holy Fire and 2 Faucets which give +10 fire skill and -10 enemy fire res. I was thinking Defensive GC's would boost

Salvation and

Resist Fire's skills for boosting the damage of

Holy Fire from Synergies or would this not work? Flickering Flame on my merc is just for the

Resist Fire aura.

ShadowHeart wrote: 8 months ago

+X to skills raises your level for

Resist Fire and

Salvation, sure. But that only matters when setting either of those auras as your current active aura, and only for those auras themselves. Synergies don't work that way. For synergies, only hard points count. A hard point is one you have invested with a skill point, not one granted by +X from equipment. Bonuses from equipment are soft points. The most you can invest in a skill is 20 points, so that's all you get from a synergy too.

Holy Fire gets synergy effects from investing in

Resist Fire and

Salvation, but only hard points count for those synergy effects. Put 20 points in both to maximize your

Holy Fire, but + to skills from equipment won't matter for that.

Ah, Got it. I didn't realize that only hard points counted for synergies and incorrectly assumed every extra point counted. So defensive GC's won't matter. So I really don't need any GC's then. Adding to

Conviction doens't amount to much except defense after a certain point anyways. I guess I'll just keep going as I have been and stack up on small charms for other stuff then. Thanks for the advice.

Oh, would putting Flickering Flame on the merc help reduce fire res to the enemies or would that only effect when he is applying fire damage?