What is the best melee leveling item options to take you directly to Hell?

Yeah, pretty much the caption. Is it

War Axe with 6os that you could fill it with low level damage jewels or any other option? I mean to level up a melee char without any separate leveling process like

Holy Fire Paladin etc.

I love Honor in

Naga, killer str req for lvl 27 but it makes you fly thru normal/nightmare

Steccothal wrote: 11 months ago

I love Honor in

Naga, killer str req for lvl 27 but it makes you fly thru normal/nightmare

I like it actually but I'd rather see an option from level under 10 or so.

When I was leveling my Pally, I found using part of Sigon's and part of Milabrega's to be quite effective. For sub level 10, unless I feel like muling over all this low level stuff, I usually just use random weapons I find. It's not like you're spending that much time below level 10. The lower level set items are very helpful though.

vectorViridian wrote: 11 months ago

When I was leveling my Pally, I found using part of Sigon's and part of Milabrega's to be quite effective. For sub level 10, unless I feel like muling over all this low level stuff, I usually just use random weapons I find. It's not like you're spending that much time below level 10. The lower level set items are very helpful though.

Yea I was using Sigon's for fast leveling a Paladin to get socket quests and if you put str req aside, it's really good for the purpose.

Ravenclaw

Would say set stuff for start (Sigon for Pal or Barb, Arctic / Iratha for zon, Infernal Tools for necro, Cathan for sorc...).

Then adding something like

Bloodletter is great for Barbs for example.

Civerb's Cudgel can carry you a decent way

Black is pretty solid outside of the knockback has nice CB, but this is also build/class dependent for shape shift leveling there is the obvious

Ribcracker in the mid levels, though I've also found a minotaur shealed to be quite a satisfactory as well.

For paladins and any start off character though you cant go wrong with scepters in the very early levels.

Knell Striker isnt a easy find but is clutch if you get one and a fair amount of the paladin scepters that are not FOH focused work out pretty well. My 2 cents

I tend to use a combo of 3p angelic and 3p sigons.

Angelic Halo

Angelic Mantle

Angelic Wings

Sigon's Gage

Sigon's Sabot

Sigon's Wrap

The Angelic gives you:
+20 HP/Ring
+6 HP regen/Ring
AR/Ring (with 2 pieces, if needed)
+50 MF/Ring (with 3 pieces)

20% damage taken goes to mana on ammy
+75 HP on the ammy (with 2 pieces)
+1 all on the ammy (with 3 pieces)

3 DR on chest
+40 fire resist (with 3 pieces)

The Sigon's give you: +50 MF that's all! (no, but seriously it's the main reason I use it)
+10 Strength on gloves
+30 IAS on gloves (with 2 piece)

+20 life on the

Belt
+20 fire resist on the

Belt

+20 run/walk on

Boots
+40 cold resist on

Boots
+50 AR on

Boots (with 2 pieces)
+50 MF on

Boots (with 3 piece)

The

Key things you get is +150 MF, 135 HP (by level 12 BTW which is for most classes like 40+ vitality), +1 all, +10 strength, +30 IAS (good on some "casters" like trapsin), Tons of AR, some fire & cold resist and some faster run/walk.

Helms can be things like

Sigon's Visor for more AR (with 2 pieces) and 30 mana (for a barb is I think is literally 30 energy equivalent.)
there's also

Biggin's Bonnet or

Tarnhelm for more +1 and 25-50 MF (my fav).

Infernal Cranium for 20% damage to mana and +10 all.
Berserker's Arsenal -

Helm and weap are also viable low level and provide (with 2 pieces) +50 HP to bring the HP to +185 with all by level 12. Radiance and Lore for sub-30 runewords.

Weapon's vary from class to class and generally stop for most of what I play at a Spirit until later, it really all depends. Thing's like

Rixot's Keen is a great item because of the crushing blow, now it's not gonna win DPS item of the year, but 25% CB goes a longway on melee characters. This assumes you're looking PURELY for low level items. Either way the 6 pieces I listed have taken multiple of my playthroughs to hell, with weapons upgrading throughout. if you get a sorc orb you can use a

Sigon's Guard for instance, or else you're either chasing +3's on staves. I sometimes find myself using

Raven Claw commonly (on a lot of classes), when I have one, because it's got good enough DPS to take me to 20+ for Spirit or a Leaf. I'm trying to list Sub 20 items but also more importantly 12-15 range tops and Leaf is 19, but very easy to get and strong with or without +3's (for example +3

Fireball on the

Short Staff or

Long Staff)

Rixot's Keen like I had mentioned earlier is a great low-level item or the Berserker's Arsenal 2 piece I had mentioned for more HP.

Crushflange is also really good for CB, but has knockback.

Gull for +100 MF.

Angelic Sickle is also viable and finishes off Angelic giving 4 piece bonuses with +30 IAS, +40 MF, +25 all, half freeze (with full set). Steel and Honor come to mind for lower level runewords on melee, mind you Honor is 27. Holy Thunder on a pally might be strong at 21 if you can get a

Scepter to fit 4 open sockets by then. Zephyr for bows.

Lastly if you manage to get into later difficulties and want to level others or if you manage to shop these, any weapons with 3-6 sockets for any gems you find. From the start you can shop 3 open socket

Short Bow and

Long Bow, but in Nightmare-Hell you can find those with 4-6 sockets. With chipped gems you will destroy anything, then upgraded to flawed and then regular (level 12) gems. Things like

Crystal Sword and

Flail can also come with 3-6 sockets depending on difficulty. 3 open socket flails, shopped, with emeralds was a common one that was used back in the day.

A lot of my characters go from chipped bows -> flawed bows -> standered named gems bows ->

Raven Claw (if i have)

Now most of these weapons won't take a melee to hell, but are all good starting points to get to 25+ which is where most runwords start to come online.

For shields you have

Sigon's Guard,

Hsarus' Iron Fist DR and +10 strength, and

Pelta Lunata energy and vitality. That's pretty much all until runewords. Rhyme at 29 for instance or Ancient's Pledge by 21 are both great for various reasons before Spirit.

I want to touch on damage taken goes to mana. This is a very undervalued stat in general. The concept is when you take damage you gain mana proportionally to how much damage you took and goes a long way, especially at low levels for sustaining some mana. The main item that comes to mind that people tend to make some moderate use of would be

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth.

Stealth is the main low level runeword most tend to go for, and for good reason. That said if I have 3 piece Angelic, I'm using it over Stealth I value the HP/skill/and MF to FRW/FHR/FCR/Mana regen. But to each their own.

I hope you found this insightful and thank you for reading.

Xanhast70 wrote: 11 months ago

For paladins and any start off character though you cant go wrong with scepters in the very early levels.

Knell Striker isnt a easy find but is clutch if you get one.

Didn't look into "class specific items" but this isn't just a pally weapon and is also a great recommendation I forgot about.

Theoutrank wrote: 11 months ago

I tend to use a combo of 3p angelic and 3p sigons.

Angelic Halo

Angelic Mantle

Angelic Wings

Sigon's Gage

Sigon's Sabot

Sigon's Wrap

The Angelic gives you:
+20 HP/Ring
+6 HP regen/Ring
AR/Ring (with 2 pieces, if needed)
+50 MF/Ring (with 3 pieces)

20% damage taken goes to mana on ammy
+75 HP on the ammy (with 2 pieces)
+1 all on the ammy (with 3 pieces)

3 DR on chest
+40 fire resist (with 3 pieces)

The Sigon's give you: +50 MF that's all! (no, but seriously it's the main reason I use it)
+10 Strength on gloves
+30 IAS on gloves (with 2 piece)

+20 life on the

Belt
+20 fire resist on the

Belt

+20 run/walk on

Boots
+40 cold resist on

Boots
+50 AR on

Boots (with 2 pieces)
+50 MF on

Boots (with 3 piece)

The

Key things you get is +150 MF, 135 HP (by level 12 BTW which is for most classes like 40+ vitality), +1 all, +10 strength, +30 IAS (good on some "casters" like trapsin), Tons of AR, some fire & cold resist and some faster run/walk.

Helms can be things like

Sigon's Visor for more AR (with 2 pieces) and 30 mana (for a barb is I think is literally 30 energy equivalent.)
there's also

Biggin's Bonnet or

Tarnhelm for more +1 and 25-50 MF (my fav).

Infernal Cranium for 20% damage to mana and +10 all.
Berserker's Arsenal -

Helm and weap are also viable low level and provide (with 2 pieces) +50 HP to bring the HP to +185 with all by level 12. Radiance and Lore for sub-30 runewords.

Weapon's vary from class to class and generally stop for most of what I play at a Spirit until later, it really all depends. Thing's like

Rixot's Keen is a great item because of the crushing blow, now it's not gonna win DPS item of the year, but 25% CB goes a longway on melee characters. This assumes you're looking PURELY for low level items. Either way the 6 pieces I listed have taken multiple of my playthroughs to hell, with weapons upgrading throughout. if you get a sorc orb you can use a

Sigon's Guard for instance, or else you're either chasing +3's on staves. I sometimes find myself using

Raven Claw commonly (on a lot of classes), when I have one, because it's got good enough DPS to take me to 20+ for Spirit or a Leaf. I'm trying to list Sub 20 items but also more importantly 12-15 range tops and Leaf is 19, but very easy to get and strong with or without +3's (for example +3

Fireball on the

Short Staff or

Long Staff)

Rixot's Keen like I had mentioned earlier is a great low-level item or the Berserker's Arsenal 2 piece I had mentioned for more HP.

Crushflange is also really good for CB, but has knockback.

Gull for +100 MF.

Angelic Sickle is also viable and finishes off Angelic giving 4 piece bonuses with +30 IAS, +40 MF, +25 all, half freeze (with full set). Steel and Honor come to mind for lower level runewords on melee, mind you Honor is 27. Holy Thunder on a pally might be strong at 21 if you can get a

Scepter to fit 4 open sockets by then. Zephyr for bows.

Lastly if you manage to get into later difficulties and want to level others or if you manage to shop these, any weapons with 3-6 sockets for any gems you find. From the start you can shop 3 open socket

Short Bow and

Long Bow, but in Nightmare-Hell you can find those with 4-6 sockets. With chipped gems you will destroy anything, then upgraded to flawed and then regular (level 12) gems. Things like

Crystal Sword and

Flail can also come with 3-6 sockets depending on difficulty. 3 open socket flails, shopped, with emeralds was a common one that was used back in the day.

A lot of my characters go from chipped bows -> flawed bows -> standered named gems bows ->

Raven Claw (if i have)

Now most of these weapons won't take a melee to hell, but are all good starting points to get to 25+ which is where most runwords start to come online.

For shields you have

Sigon's Guard,

Hsarus' Iron Fist DR and +10 strength, and

Pelta Lunata energy and vitality. That's pretty much all until runewords. Rhyme at 29 for instance or Ancient's Pledge by 21 are both great for various reasons before Spirit.

I want to touch on damage taken goes to mana. This is a very undervalued stat in general. The concept is when you take damage you gain mana proportionally to how much damage you took and goes a long way, especially at low levels for sustaining some mana. The main item that comes to mind that people tend to make some moderate use of would be

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth.

Stealth is the main low level runeword most tend to go for, and for good reason. That said if I have 3 piece Angelic, I'm using it over Stealth I value the HP/skill/and MF to FRW/FHR/FCR/Mana regen. But to each their own.

I hope you found this insightful and thank you for reading.

Xanhast70 wrote: 11 months ago

For paladins and any start off character though you cant go wrong with scepters in the very early levels.

Knell Striker isnt a easy find but is clutch if you get one.

Didn't look into "class specific items" but this isn't just a pally weapon and is also a great recommendation I forgot about.

Wow, thank you, great!

Seconded on Anglic.

I sold many sets of angelic (ring _ amulet) combo.

But also Iratha's Finery as well - really bumps up your resists.