Hello,

Was wondering what the ultimate hammerdin setup would be?

Heart of the Oak scepter (with +3 blessed hammer)
Dragonscale shield (go for more resists with diamonds? max box with amethyst? or res and sorb with ruby topaz and saphire?)
Enigma armor
Soulmancers helm, gloves, boots, belt
Stone of Jordan rings
Maras amulet

Soulmancers is killer set. +7 skills total it gives. Enigma for tele, str for gear, dex for max block, +2 skills. Sojs help your skills and boost your mana a lot. Maras has nice stats and resists.

For the dragonscale, what to socket with? Max block is already pretty easy with holyshield, so I dont think amethysts are needed. Uber diamonds will adds 90 more res giving it a total of 140. With 140 res dscale, 40 maras, 40 hoto, 100 soulmancers, 30 from anya you have 350 res total. May be a bit over kill. You could try 1 of each elemental gem, topaz for lightning, saphire for cold, ruby for fire. Each one will give 60 to that element and 12% absorb. Its basically same resists as 2x diamonds, so you lose 1, but you gain 12% sorb to each element, giving the shield 32% sorb to fire, cold, lightning.

As I recall the FCR breakpoints are 75 then 125? This setup will give 83.

Thoughts? Ideas?

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

I'm by no means an expert at this set-up (or any other), but I think crafting rings with a pally skill, fcr, mana, dex is something to look for instead of soj's. Then you could get the max fcr of over 125 w/ 20% on each finger.

Also, I'm currently using metalgrid as I love using the spirit of barbs to get rid of all those annoying curses and poison for my merc and myself. You lose a skill, but you gain the ability to not have to heal so damn much with poison.

I'm interested to what other experienced players have to say as well.

skulls in dscale for the dr%. reducing incoming damage and avoiding incomming damage is key to all paladin builds. the rest looks fine except the jewelery. as crew 82 says, rings with fcr to reach the last breakpoint (blood craft preferably for the boost to life but its hard to get pala skills/high life and fcr). Amulet wise I would aim for a caster craft with +3 combat skills (the added fcr means you can most likely free up a ring slot for a whisp (sob/oak as needed) maras is still a good option though.

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Go with the uncursed blade, Dscale, Enigma 15% superior archon (you are a bad otherwise), CoA helm, Hellmouth gloves, WSG belt. You have a choice for boots and amulets. Rings are +1 pal 20 fcr life/res.

HotO may work but I'd stick with the uncursed blade for whatever reason

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

like to state those reasons? having +3 hammer/conc scepter with +3 all is alot better than the sword of the wanderor...

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have fun finding a 3bh/3conc base

to be honest, a sword of the wanderer is probably better only until you find a base that good for hoto. you can socket it and slap an uber diamond in there for some magic pierce, it adds max life and mana, a good amount of resists, good fcr, 3 all skills, 20 all stats. its definitely your choice only until you find a base thats 3/3 for hoto

level 17 shopper in a3 can get +3 hammers alone in next to no time. There are tons of them around

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You have more effective health and 10% more FCR from the uncursed blade.
Plus you have a 400 dmg weapon you can charge people with in PvP. 20 to all stats makes for easy strength bugging, too.

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

with setups like these that have already a ton of extra +skills, do you really think 3 lousy skills will make up for 12 magic pierce? not to mention the 10% max life, 20 all stats, 10 more fcr, at least 10 more all res.

either weapon wouldnt really make a difference, but theres easily a case for the sword of the wanderer. not everyone has to be completely cookie cutter to be effective.

How well does -magic resist workout for hammerdins? With the ability to get 4x 12% pretty easily from a quad socket rare or 5 x 12% from Gris Caddy, is the boost to -resists that powerful?

I guess in general you won't need those -resists due to the ignore resist aspect of Hammers or is there a need for it?

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

im not 100% sure on this, but i think ignore resists sets monster resist to 0. im pretty sure additional pierce can put them under that number into the negative pile. id have to consult someone with that kind of knowledge though (someone like baerk).

hammers ignore every monster resist? or just undead?

magic pierce dont make any impact on hammer damage. the stuff that has mag res that hammers wont ignore will be dead in 2-3 hammers anyway so it makes no impact.

He wanted the best hdin setup, an extra +3 on hammers (especialy at high skill levels) makes a big impact. theres no real need for str as you will get more than enough from anni, eni, mancers gloves and jewelery.
The sword of the wanderor is a good choice for around the level 80 mark, once you get all your endgame gear etc, the best setup (what he wanted) is a 3bh/3conc hoto.
you dont need to charge in PvP with a hdin

hammers ignore deamons and undead mag res. You cant take mag res below 0%. thats why mag pierce sucks so much. the cap is 50% and the minimum is 0% so any more than -50% enemy mag res on a magic damage build is a waste

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You can be 100% sure now because that is how it works. To be more specific though, it acts as though the monster has no resists what so ever which has relevancy below....



This though is inaccurate. By removing the resists, you can no longer lower them below 0. That offsets Hammer dmg a bit compared to other elemental characters who can lower resists past zero.



Undead and Demons. Which covers about 80% of the game and most every boss.

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

Got it! The Wisp and the Vampire were the toughest one's to do, I was very fortunate that my bro came on (his 1st time in like a month) to help out. If anyone wants a good all out fight, go get glyph #5. That room is just packed with friendliness.

Very useful info. gonna be working on some crafting later. Any thoughts on what to put in SM helm? atm its double amn to reach break points. If i can get some decent crafts were i wouldnt need the cast rate. blood stones?

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ISO - 6-6 Poison offering Jah, PnB Gc offering Jah, Pcombat Gc offering Ber, Warcry Gc offering Ber, Defensive Gc offering Sur, Elemental Gc offering Sur.

Depending on how high you can get your life I would consider 2 uber diamonds for a nice 40 MDR/PDR to go along with what comes with mancers set already. It really makes a massive impact. You will take pretty much no damage from mobs and the fire patch damage and its not lowered by amp like % is. Its not as good against the big single hits like korlic etc. You can pretty much negate all regular incoming damage that way though. Its worth trying out for sure though.

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Holy - Have you tried it out with having uber diamonds in the helm yet? Any difference? I'm to the point where I'm getting ready to lose the Amn's and move onto something else and was wondering which way was working for you. Thanks