Guide for VHHC destroyer?

[penmi]

Hello,

I'm an old d2 hardcore player. I've been playing Destroyer on hard and vanquisher on veryhard, but in softcore. Now I'd like to start Destroyer in VHHC, but am not sure what skills should I invest in and what ratio to str:def. I'm playing 1.12, and would like to have a character with extreme safety yet good killing speed.

Should I use weapon+shield or dual wield? Any experiences/guidance on completing the game in VHHC with destroyer are more than welcome! So excited to start one -->

[MindlessTorch]

Use 2 handed weapons, and put first 3 points in 2 handed skill and the next 2 points in shadow armour, and every time you lvl put 4 points in str and 1 point in defense.

Then keep putting points in 2 handed skill then put 1 point in entropic aura when you reached lvl 5. then keep putting points in 2 handed skill till you reach lvl 10. At lvl 10 put all points in adventurer till lvl 15 then lvl 15 put all points in frost shield. thats what I am doing so far its working... I not sure what to do after that... have not made it far enough yet.

But I guess best defensive build would be 1 handed weapon with shield maxing shadow Armour then frost shield then adventure then defensive spell mastery. Using same stats 4str 1 defense per lvl. It will be slower killing but safer.

[locklere]

Isn't Devastate your main attack, and doesn't it cancel Entropic Aura?

[Voj]

Hi Penmi,

I've got a 94 VH HC destroyer, and here's what worked for me:

*Getting 50% block is your first priority, so max shadow armor asap. You can block any attack - melee, ranged, magic. Try to buy, gamble, or find a shield with a lot of block.
*Socket all your gear with resist, armor, and crit gems.
*Update your gear occasionally, every few levels. Always check the blacksmith for upgrades when you're in town. Later in the game, gamble your gold away on gear, since you can't enchant as effectively as before. Gambling is a lot more fruitful here than in D2. I'm not saying to ignore enchanting, but slap on a few enchants, maybe 3-5 then stop or you'll probably wipe your stats (unless you have the gold to spare). I only enchant my uniques twice or thrice (none if I can't bare to see it wipe).
*Put 2 in str and 3 in def every level. I went 4 def:1 str because I have a 3000 dps sword I've enchanted prepatch, so the str isn't as vital in my case.
*Focusing on crit rate and increased crit dmg is wise in endgame.
*Make sure most, if not all, of you gear has lots of resists.
*Get elemental protection, and keep updating it with new ranks when they become available.
*Put 1 point in entropic aura when it becomes available, then max it when you start to feel unsafe.
*Use spectral echo as your main attack with a weapon or armor that has knockback. Hold shift and attack away from melee range, but just close enough for the spectral echoes to hit. Try to alternate putting points into spectral echo and crit strikes. Eventually you'll want to max spectral decay to double your dmg and have aoe stun/knockback.
*Keep an eye on your block rate when you have shadow armor up. Sometimes it doesn't work the way it should. See here for explanation.
*Get titan stomp when it becomes available, then respec out of it when you don't need it anymore or have spectral decay.
*ALWAYS keep your defensive buffs up: entropic aura, frost shield, elemental prot., shadow armor. Get this mod to extend their timers to 5 mins each.
*Use heal spells to top off your health to save on pots.

If you choose to follow this advice and still get "oh shit" moments, don't worry because I also get them (once or twice per day) even with 5000 armor absorb and nearly 3000 in every resistance. Mobs that stampede (large packs of those orange lizard guys) and dragons are still deadly if I'm getting cocky.

[MindlessTorch]

If you choose to follow this advice and still get "oh shit" moments, don't worry because I also get them (once or twice per day) even with 5000 armor absorb and nearly 3000 in every resistance. Mobs that stampede (large packs of those orange lizard guys) and dragons are still deadly if I'm getting cocky.

Good guide, except 1.12 you can not make a 3000dps weapon and have super dmg absorb because of the enchants were nerfed.... But other then that most of the stuff you said made sense and was smart choice.

[Voj]

If you choose to follow this advice and still get "oh shit" moments, don't worry because I also get them (once or twice per day) even with 5000 armor absorb and nearly 3000 in every resistance. Mobs that stampede (large packs of those orange lizard guys) and dragons are still deadly if I'm getting cocky.

Good guide, except 1.12 you can not make a 3000dps weapon and have super dmg absorb because of the enchants were nerfed.... But other then that most of the stuff you said made sense and was smart choice.

All of my armor was found after the patch and enchanted using the new enchanter, so its possible to have this absorb.

[locklere]

If you choose to follow this advice and still get "oh shit" moments, don't worry because I also get them (once or twice per day) even with 5000 armor absorb and nearly 3000 in every resistance. Mobs that stampede (large packs of those orange lizard guys) and dragons are still deadly if I'm getting cocky.

Good guide, except 1.12 you can not make a 3000dps weapon and have super dmg absorb because of the enchants were nerfed.... But other then that most of the stuff you said made sense and was smart choice.

All of my armor was found after the patch and enchanted using the new enchanter, so its possible to have this absorb.

Armor, maybe... but not that weapon. No way.

[jackx]

Shrine-farming could be the answer... With the enchant hotfix, that should work well enough... so far I haven't had a game where I didn't get at least one enchant shrine in close proximity to a wp portal... that's a free enchant every 30 minutes or so...

However, the best tip has to be

Use mods that make the game easier

I disagree with the priority on block, though, it's nice to have, but you can't really get a useful % early on, so I'd not prioritize it right away... not getting hit in the first place is the way to go, and doable early game (pre-black palace really, before that you shouldn't get swarmed by ridiculous numbers of mobs in open spaces where you can't force them into a bottleneck easily).

[Symbol]

Most important tip, LEARN TO SHIFT CLICK. Just like diablo, your basic attack slightly outranges most melee opponents. A judicious combination of shift clicking and repositioning will prevent a ton of damage.

Also, I would max frost shield over shadow armor. Damage resistance is more useful in hardcore (and frost shield gives you a whopping 54% when maxed) because you don't want to be rolling the dice every time to take a big hit. It's much, much better to reduce a potential 1 hit KO by half then blocking half of them. Because the other half is enough to kill you.

[penmi]

So many opinions here... I'm not sure which attack skill I should use. I really loved devastate in softcore, but is spectral echo the way to go in VHHC? I'd love to make a destroyer who can beat the game and continue to shadow vault.

[jackx]

DW should be viable in VH/HC (If you look at this thread, you'll find an argument that basically labels shields as useless), but you'd probably be using Slash more than Devastate, so you can benefit from Entropic Aura, and because you're doing all you can to only fight small groups of enemies at a time.
Devastate would mostly come into play vs bosses, as it lets you move and attack simultaneously.

[penmi]

Voj, you seemed to have a nice success in making VHHC destroyer, although you used prepatch enchanted weapon. I'd like to know what skills did you max to beat the storyline (until lvl 30-40)?

[duncandun]

I gotta say early on maxing martial weapon prof/taking armor prof to 5 is really helpful.

Although I only got to level 19, I feel the way I was building my guy was good. I died mostly because I wasn't paying attention.

I put 3 points into slash
6 Martial Prof
5 Armor Prof
1 entrop shield
frost shield was maxed though I don't remember what its lvl was at 19
titan stomp ~ 1 level I think.

1-13 or so I dual-wielded, but switched to shield/sword when I found a really awesome shield(34 base armor + 17 bonus + 15% block rate with a 5% bonus BR from magic +190 hp and a ton of resists, wish I had a SS).

I switched when I was doing a map dungeon(1-10) that had lvl 14 mobs in it, which really fucked me up at first. I almost died atleast 20 times in that map dungeon. Once I got that shield though It all changed.

Also, having ~300+ dps weapons available by lvl 10 is really helpful. Martial weapon prof IMO is great, and the dmg increase is also really good for sword+board users, as dual-wield no longer helps.

anyway, I just stacked the highest armor/resists I could. Slash'd my way to freedom.

I recommend doing the 'bonus' quest dungeons(the guy near the WP) as soon as they are available (as long as you have decent weapons when you start). They help keep you quite a bit above the main dungeon mobs and of course you get alot more fame and loots/gold.

Map dungeons if you think you're powerful enough.

always check the blacksmith for weapons, every now and again he will have a few blues that are generally way above your current level and with martial prof, available to be used and abused.

Also, Dervish + Elemental Prof + draining touch are great spells, I used them liberally when fighting bosses. with dervish and draining touch, you just autoattack and pretty much dont have to worry about healing. I imagine with echo strike it would be alot easier(take out trash around boss with it). For your pet... I like summon spells, but if you find yourself with alot of elemental fish invest in elemental overload.

[Voj]

Build around lvl 30-40

You can move all the points from martial weapons expertise to critical strikes if you have a nice weapon that you can use without any -levels.

You can experiment with the dps abilities' point placement, but in the end you'll be maxing them all.

Edit: putting points in slash and titan stomp is not a bad idea, then respecing when you can use spectral decay and echo.

Edit2: can't go wrong with duncandun's advice too.

[MindlessTorch]

LvL 19 so far with my build but with 5 hours of play which is a decent speed I suppose for destroyer... Can't go too fast in VH HC when you not using any item transfers and no enchanting Also 1.12 little more hard now that you have to pay for spells heh.

I got a new build I gonna start from scratch gonna try make it faster by 25% though.

Also make sure to do the side quests. There should be a guy in town that makes extra portals for side quests do thoes as much as you can, Hard but good xp.

[jackx]

Actually, you can outlevel the sidequests, so get a 1-2 lvl buffer. Much more relaxed that way. Probably also farm a few map scrolls (again, below your level). The small increase in xp and loot gain isn't worth the huge increase in death risk for taking on lvls scaled to your clvl, at least not early on, when you have (relatively) bad gear.

VH/HC Destroyers live and die by crowd control/movement more than anything else, IMHO. If you play(ed) lots of Diablo/D2, I don't think that should be a problem.

[penmi]

My destroyer is now lvl 25, slow going but rather safe. Now I'm wondering which attack skill I should use as my main one. Been slashing only until now Never used spectral echo/spectral decay before so are they safe and effective for VHHC? Somehow devastate is attracting me but can't use entropic aura then

Wouldn't like to use respec potion so I must be sure what skill to go for.

[Voj]

My destroyer is now lvl 25, slow going but rather safe. Now I'm wondering which attack skill I should use as my main one. Been slashing only until now Never used spectral echo/spectral decay before so are they safe and effective for VHHC? Somehow devastate is attracting me but can't use entropic aura then

Wouldn't like to use respec potion so I must be sure what skill to go for.

I was playing a lvl 25 vh hc destroyer with gear from the shared stash (mostly uniques) using devastate and chain vortex (for the long stun and no knockback), with 600 dps unique weapons that add nice additional crit dmg, giving me 3500 crits. This build was quite powerful, 1-shotting everything, but I had to drink pots at almost every encounter. I then equipped a unique shield with lots of resistances, lost some dps, respec'd into spectral echo and now I'm 2-shotting stuff, drinking about 2 pots per map, and feeling indestructible. I'm still in melee range because I don't have any knockback modifiers on my gear, but with entropic aura and max block (had about 30% without a shield with devastate) I rarely get hit.

Yes, this advice isn't great for someone that doesn't have a unique item in every slot, but I emphasize that even with a totally twinked character using devastate, death was still not far off. And again, this was at low lvl.

[penmi]

Thanks Voj for your experienced comments. You are right that devastate can be pretty unsafe, so I think I'll follow your guidance.

Lets keep 'em alive no matter what!

[Phoenix]

Spectral echo ON and shift+auto attack as main and only source of damage - this way you can kill mobs before they can hit you.
Max out entropic aura, shadow armor and frozen shield.

Max block/parry and armor exp.

I personally prefer using 2x 1handers due to bonuses you can get and the attack speed ( spectral echo can knockback and with entropic aura you can keep mobs away from you so they cant get to you before they die ).

2handed wep will do higher crits but will be alot slower and you'll loose lots of nice stuff that you could get with 2x1h.

Make sure to max that stun/dmg increase spell as well, this will help you alot on big packs and will save your ass lots of times.

Devastate is not viable build if you wanna get very far because it has super short range and with haste you will jump over mobs instead of killing them.

And spectral echo gets better with lots of bonuses to attack speed anyways : ) + you can use life leech.