Well I have gotten tired of looking for groups to kill diablo on my HC barb, so I am working on a paly. A hybrid hammer/healer pally took out the council and meph with my barb, which mad eme want to try one out.

Can someone tell me the main skills to get for a healer, hammerdin, and the hybrid of the two?

Prayer seems a given to max, but what about the resist auras? Holy bolt was the only other healing skill I noticed when skimming the skill tree, so I assume that is also worth leveling.

Hammer, FoH and HB seem to be the only necessary skills for hammerdin, with a concentration aura. But combined with healing, would prayer be the active aura?

Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

grab that shield with meditation.. and u'll get a heal pulse from prayer through meditation being equipped.

Oh Lordy, did you seriously just suggest a level 85 runeword with 2x Jah for a untwinked player still in normal? Unreal.

I can't comment too much on a hammer/healer hybrid. It probably won't be that effective. Hammers are going to be pathetic without concentration running. They are pretty much an 80 point build if you don't include holy shield. Hammers are awesome for killing act bosses once they get rolling, which is the place where your heals are going to be needed the most. If you pump prayer first, your hammer damage is going to lack big time. Work on concentration and hammers first, and your heals are heading down the same path. I could possibly see it doing good late game, but as far as untwinked norm/NM goes I'd just stick to one or the other.

Al Mastro had a pretty cool idea of making a healer/hammer. Basically he just maxed prayer,HB,FOH,BH and probably the rest into HS. His idea was to turn into a hammerdin whenever there was another hammerdin around running concentration. However playing on HC, it was obviously pretty rare.

My last healer was a Zealer/Healer hybrid and that seemed to work out pretty well. I didn't do huge zeal damage, but the maxed fanat aura made people happy and it gave me something to do while I was running around healing people.

The build I think I will go with after the rabies guy gets further along is a healer/thorns concept - I want to call him the Punisher Cleric I am thinking I can heal my merc while he is loaded up with thorns gear.

Just some other ideas for you if the healer/hammer thing doesn't work out for you.

_________________
People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

I didnt like how slow he was starting out, so I made another and went for pure hammer. Concentration, FoH, HB, hammer and holy shield is everything, right?

Insight RW in a +bhammers scepter has meditation aura, which will gain a heal pulse from any points (soft or hard iirc) you have in prayer, allowing you to still run conc aura. I assume this guy would be HC as well, but if SC, I can hook you up with a +3 bhammmer scepter.

insight in a hammers scepter will be perfect for that. will alsogive you an endless suply of mana and a huge fcr boost. also allows you to run conc for trash and dual heal prayer or res aura + heal/mana from meditation for bosses when needed.

yeh the synergie to medi is soft points, cleansings reduce duration is too. so 1 point in cleansing means your medi aura will heal, regen mana and reduce poison and curse duration.

_________________

Why'd anyone make a hybrid is beyond me.

_________________
Oh dear god, why me?
This mother fucker hits hard
I'm out of cooldowns

Whata ya know....we have something in common.

_________________
I was never more at home than I was in battle. - Solomon Kane

I have the runes to make an insight. So I have to wander around looking for a scepter that is either non-magical or socketed and has +hammer? Sounds like that is going to take a very long time to find one.

Looking at what the RW does, basically I would get meditation 10, +5 all stats, 12 mana/kill, and 33% FCR. Everything else is for melee.

Right now I just have a random blue with +2 hammer and +1 conc and 3 Tirs so I dont go OOM so often.


Another question, since I am total noob. What is with sheild block? My sheild says it has 60% chance to block, and i have about 40% faster block rate from gear. I also have Holy shield at level 3 or 4 (char is 32), yet on my char page it says i have about a 15% chance to block. Do I need to pump dexterity or something?