Weapon Master of Torm (5ftr/5wm/50CoT)

[fallenwizard]

This has recently been my main Hell-runner, playd it trough 1xD to 3xD and mid way to 4xD atm. This was originaly reinced back when Divine Wrath damage didnt scale on charisma but instead had set +20 divine damage, which how ever got nerfed and turned into much less usefull physical damage. None the less I've still been doing 30-50% more damage than second highest tank on any run trough those 25'ish hell runs, 100-150% more than most of the other tanks deal. (This is ofcourse mainly because of trend of people playing low damage, high survibility tanks - and I havent seen more than 2 staffies on all those runs!)

Half-Elf Kolyarut.

starting stats:
15/14/10/12/8/16
after subby
20/19/12/14/6/14
at 60
54/19/12/14/6/14
2xD + arty
58/23/18/18/10/18
+14
72/37/32/32/24/32

pre epic feats in order of picked (includings fighter bonus feats lvl's 1-5 and CoT bonus feats 11-20):
strong soul, swapped to fort/ref
wep prof: exotic
expertise
weapon focus diremace
whirlwind attack
two-weapon fighting
iron wil
greater wep foc diremace
improved critical diremace
ambidexterity
improved two-weapn fighting
power attack
cleave
great fortituve
great cleave

epic feats
great strenght 1-7

CoT bonus feats at epic levels
overwhelming critical diremace
deveastating critical diremace
epic weapon focus diremace
epic prowess
power critical diremace

Leg feats
LSA listen
Legendary Valor
Leg waepon focus diremace
Leg will
Great str 8-10

Saves
66fort
66ref
56will

CoT is immune to most will check effects, how ever Amnesia can be annoying at times.

skills:
concentration 31
craft weapon 63
Discepline 63
intimide 4
Listen 63

AB (14-20 / 5x crits 8 APR)
20 BAB
10 EBAB
15 LBAB
9 feats
31 str mod
20 buffs
-2 dualweild
=103, 105 flanking, 107 vs prone.

With the gear I run i have 61 unbuffed AC, but very high immunties/resists+soak. This means I can take a ton of beating from anything that doesnt inflict vulnerabilties. In Hells there are only handfull of inflictors, most of them are no-hittables so you aint trying to be too close to these anyways. One thing to mention thou. If you are the one doing the tanking, you'll want to kill that hamatula with 5 hits and only then turn to Pit Fiend standing next to it, even if it'd cause others comment about you hitting trash, this will increase your survibility a great deal.

Gear setup:
Mandate of Heaven (40% phys, 50% div)
Visor of Vigilance (+14 str/cha/wis)
Baator's Embrace (resists, imm's)
Mordenkainen's Mockery (breach, phys imms)
Chain of Solidarity (+14 dex/con, rooting, GS, foundation of stone, phys imms)
Gauntlets of Tranposed Energy (phys resists/imms)
Signet of Set (mag/acid/elect)
Bahamut's Ruination (mag/cold/fire)
+ I wear Coil of Grabduk with Added 56% sonic immunity.

With this gear + PreLL tags my immunities in town without any party/item buffs are:
84%blud 25/-
85%slash 30/-
85% pier 25/-
90% acid 50/-
90%cold 50/-
85%elect 50/-
95%fire 50/-
80%sonic 50/-
68% magic 30/-
53% div 20/-
4% pos 20/-

40/+16 soak on physical damage + crit immunity on Div Wrath.

This means my weak spots are: Positive and Mord. Mord you can handle by swapping PW ring for maps with raks and drop which ever of the 4 ele's frm rings that is least needed that map. Positive is used by only very few on Hell critters, those dont cause you problems as long as you keep your crit immunity on, you can take 3 of their beating with drinking couple heal pots. EQ spam how ever will force you to swap some rings for styg/cania if you dont have full confidence on your casters - I'd recommed using Signet of Mammon + PW set to elect/pos in Styg and first map of cania, 3rd map of cania will be harsh no matter which rings you use if your casters dont handle the fiends..

Notes: when this guy hits 4xD i'll most likely reincarnate him to drop his str by 1 at creation for +2 con and 5 str on level ups to up dex to 42, this'll mean -3 AB/damage, +60hp and better resistance to dex checks.

After changes to Half-Guardnal it'd sound like a great subby for CoT, sadly to get wm pre-requirements by lvl 5 it'd force to go martial weapon instead of exotic and drop lvl 1 save feat. Latter one you'd outcome by dropping power critical at lvl 40, leg valor and 2x great str at legendary levels to pick up lightning reflex, leg fort/ref and epic will to end up higher saves than my current ones are, but weapon selection would be quite disepointing, since you cant dualweild morningstars!

On a side note: For anyone who dont have good randomized selection of items I listed I would recommend to use Lee's "Non Smiting Uni CoT 6ftr/4pal/50cot As it aims for much more solid defence.

[Vichya]

I've tried to come up with a good CoT/WM build using Half-Guardinal because I like that subrace but it's impossible if you want to have 30 CoT levels.

The only option I could think of is a Ftr 8/WpM 5/CoT 27 using either 2 weapons or weapon and shield for tough situations. Stats are similar, a bit less strength tough. But that way you could tank mobs with heavy infliction which can be pretty bad for tanks with no conceal or AC.

[fallenwizard]

I'm a bit hesitant on dropping CoT levels from pure. The Wrath duration and 1 extra usage doesnt affect all that much, but Soak dropping to +15 instead of +16 is something i'm a bit scared of. However I dont have data on enemies' exact enchantments so I cant tell for sure on how many enemies this'd affect. But with +16 it appears that there is only 1 enemy in hell that cuts trough that.

[Vichya]

I have no clue what mobs hit with a +15 weapon either, but for these you could swap to shield to tank them with 135 AC, 140 in expertise. I'm not saying this is better than what you posted, it's just different.

[gandoron]

I believe most tough mobs that count pf/male/worm hit wtih +15. so the difference between +16 and +15 soak is huge. Most trash hit with +14. I'm not sure if anything hits with +16 in hells (maybe para orthon? or asmo), but there are a few in ely and I would expect abyss.

Epic warding FTW

-G

[fallenwizard]

Jul 30, 2011 13:02:48 GMT gandoron said:

I believe most tough mobs that count pf/male/worm hit wtih +15. so the difference between +16 and +15 soak is huge. Most trash hit with +14. I'm not sure if anything hits with +16 in hells (maybe para orthon? or asmo), but there are a few in ely and I would expect abyss.

Epic warding FTW

-G

As far as I know Asmo has +15, buerozas has +19 or something ridicilous like that.

To Vich, those that pierce the +15soak are the ones you want dead asap, so the more tanky setup you go the less damage you deal and longer they live

[Vichya]

Why do you start with 16 charisma instead of just 14? You'll end with 30 charisma that way, which only gives you -1 to physical damage and you could increase dex by 1 and con by 2 at character creation.

[fallenwizard]

Aug 2, 2011 7:07:58 GMT Vichya said:

Why do you start with 16 charisma instead of just 14? You'll end with 30 charisma that way, which only gives you -1 to physical damage and you could increase dex by 1 and con by 2 at character creation.

Good point, it does increase 5 rounds of wrath duration. On a reinc that is another possible tweak, although I think lowering it at 1xD wouldn't have been very good idea (As it would have put me at 28 untill 2xD which means -2 damage vs 30).

[Deleted]

I just reincarnated a toon to almost this exact build. Mine has higher str, higher con, lower cha and lower dex though. Also did dual wielding bastard swords instead of a double-weapon, simply for the sake of being able to switch to shield when nescessary.

[fallenwizard]

Having higher str is pretty pointless, AB is alrdy on the better side of 100 and dropping dex/charisma hurts quite a bit. Losing dex means you fail a lot more KD/dom checks and lowering charisma actually costs you more damage than lowering str does, because wrath gives 1½ * charisma to damage, where as str is just 1 * damage for medium/double wep (30 is minimum charisma for a CoT IMO, that is what this build had at 1xD when I made it from old smiter CoT).

As I stated on notes, on reinc I'll lower the str to bump up Dex for more check resistancy and small increase on Con at the same.