LLD101

[xshadow1]

Introduction

In my testing, it seems that Shiver Armor is not affected by the "PvP penalty" and does the listed damage.*** It seems that this could be exploited to great effect in level 18 melee duels, where (1) characters often need to attack repeatedly to deal damage, and (2) may not have maxed cold resist, and since (3) Shiver Armor triggers on attack, not on striking. Thus, every attack from your opponent, whether successful or not, is an attack for you.

***Edit for accuracy on 10/29: My testing indicates that Shiver Armor deals 1/3 of the listed damage to players. See other posts for details.

Disclaimer

I haven't tried this yet, because I'm not rich enough to buy the gear for everything at once -- but I wanted to flesh the idea out before testing. And since I'm spending time on it anyway, I may as well make it presentable and open it to peer review.

Skill Point Allocation

1 Ice Bolt
1 Ice Blast
7 Shiver Armor (main damage skill)
12+ Frozen Armor (synergy)

Obviously, if you hell-rush your character, you'll be able to max Frozen Armor to increase your Shiver Armor damage. Using the d2skills.com tool, the anticipated Shiver Armor damage (including a +3 Shiver Armor staff on switch) is 54-67 non-hell rushed (+12 FA) and 68-85 hell-rushed (+18 FA).

+Skills items can impact this. If you can manage +3 cold skills on prebuff, the damage goes up to 72-89 non-hell rushed and 91-112 hell rushed. And the duration is 384 / 444 seconds (non-hell rushed and hell rushed, respectively), so you don't have to worry about pre-buffing often -- just do it when you enter the game, and whenever you die.

Items

I suspect this may be the most controversial part of the guide, since all I know is to get a high level Shiver Armor and I'm guessing at the other aspects (since I've only played casters up to this point).

Weapon*: Cleglaw's Sword, socketed with 15 max jewel
(alternatively, you could use a 6os military pick socketed with damage jewels.)

Weapon Switch: +3 Shiver Armor staff -- you could also carry around a +3 Enchant staff for an attack rating prebuff. Ideally, this would also have +1 cold skills.

Armor: Twitchthroe -- this is to get IAS, FHR and ICB. Socket with a 15 max jewel.

Amulet/Rings: Angelic Amulet and Rings, for the +216 AR per ring, +75 life, +10 dex

Gloves: Death's Hand (for 30% IAS)

Belt: Death's Guard (for CBF)

----

I'm a bit unsure of what should go here -- please help out...

Shield: Pelta Lunata (for 40% FBR, 20% ICB)

As a second choice you could go with a deflecting shield (30% FBR, 20% ICB) which will also get you to the 27% FBR breakpoint (6 frame).

Swordback Hold also seems like a possibility for the 50% chance of open wounds -- this might help standstills where your opponent stops attacking and forces you to take the initiative.

Helmet: 3 socket mask/crown with +15 max jewels. Other possibilities include: +1 cold skills circlet socketed with 2x +15 max jewels, Tarnhelm (seems rather plain, though). If more AR is needed, Sigon's Helm socketed with a +15 max jewel will do.

Boots: Cow King's Boots (+20 dex, 25-35 fire damage), Sigon's Boots (+50 AR and AR synergy with the helm)

**Weapon Discussion: As another possible weapon choice, you could use a Raven Claw bow -- as an advantage, it always hits. However, the damage is low and the attack speed will be somewhat slow (50% IAS total from Twitch and Death's Gloves = 12 frame attack). However I'm not sure at this point whether it counts as a melee character...

Stat Point Allocation

It's the same in every guide (well, almost).

Strength -- Enough to use gear (55 for Cleglaw's Sword, may be higher if you use Sigon's Helm/Boots (70 in this case))

Dexterity -- Enough for max block (57 if using Pelta, 51 for Swordback Hold)

Vitality -- Everything else

Energy -- Are you insane?

Strategy

Cast Shiver Armor prior to beginning battle. Also cast Enchant if you're using that to increase your attack rating.

Swing with the Cleglaw's Sword (with 50% IAS, you should hit 12 frames). The damage won't be great, but it's only needed to supplement the damage you're dealing with Shiver Armor... hopefully this and the open wounds from Swordback Hold will be able to help you win any standstill where your opponent refuses to attack for fear of cold retribution.

[xshadow1]

In re-reading what I have written, FCR, FHR and FBR breakpoints are something that were not considered.

FCR/FHR/FBR breakpoints

FCR -- Don't bother with this.

FHR -- You get 20% from Twitch. This lets you hit the 11 frame FHR breakpoint, which is quite terrible for a melee dueler. Most sorceresses (even casters) try to hit the 86% FHR breakpoint (7 frame), though given the lack of FHR in equipment 42% (9 frame) or 60% (10 frame) might be a more reasonable goal. Since you're not getting this from equipment, it'll have to come from charms. Preferably some with useful second mods.

FBR -- Depends on which shield you use: Swordback Hold (0 FBR = 9 frame), Deflecting Shield / Pelta Lunata (27+ FBR = 6 frame). For some reason I thought that Twitch increased your blocking speed, I'll remove that from the original post.

Charms

Load up on FHR charms to get to your desired FHR breakpoint. If available at this level (I forget at the moment), use 8% FHR LCs, otherwise use 12% FHR GCs.

As for the rest, load up on +15 life SCs to build up a huge pool of life so you can tank the hits coming your way.

[Visual Tactics]

[xshadow1]

[food-ranger]

the only way this build would have a chance of working is if you had extreamly high defense because shiver armor still delivers damage even if the attack is blocked or nulled because of defence.

level 13 shiver armor has 117% defense bonus
so if you get
500 from glitched ancient armor
100 from sigs
112 from a crown with 3x 20def jewels in it
100 from an ameryst bonesheild
120 from a 20def jewel'd pick

932 base def * 2.17 = 2k def which is still somewhat low but would helm more then anything else you could get

you could try to gett def / 15 life or light dmg / 15life sc sc's for even more def or damage

if you went for light dmg you could use a
20 ias 1-(110-120) light dmg scimitar with 2x ptopaz's
ideal youd want 15life 1-11 light dmg (which i've only ever seen one ever)
to end up with like 700 light dmg melee @ 11fpa with normal attack

to make this build stand a remote chance it would be quite expensive (charm wise) and shiver armor would have to not be affected by pvp reduction (im not sure of this)

or you could try making a giant angry punching bag
Craft a crap load of "Safety" items
you get 4 dr from each safety item so.
you could use
gloves
ring1
Belt
ring2
boots
amulet
armor
Weapon

these gives 32 DR plus you could use a dusk deep for 7more DR
which gives 39 DR (which is applied after the pvp penelty) which would effectivly reduce their damage by 234 each hit(before pvp) meaning if your facing a pub with 10-800 max zeal with 30cold res. (lets forget about ds for now)
since you have 75% block, they will hit you aproximatly 3 out of 13 hits
now in his 3 hits he will average 1207 dmg (before pvp) which is 201 dmg (after pvp) now if your DR is applied 3times his damage is reduced by 117 leaving him with an aprox gain of 84 of your life after 13 swings at you.
at which time you would have delivered 91-112 damage 13 times to him. (average 101 cold dmg) which you claim isnt subject to pvp so if thats true you would have deilvered 1313 (before resit duduction) which is
919 dmg if they have 30 cold res
656 dmg if they have 50 cold res
393 dmg if they have 70 cold res
328 dmg if they have 65 cold res

For every 1 mdr they have each damage will be reduced by 13 although level 18 melee's dont have much mdr if any at all.

With Ds calculating average damage gets a littel more complicated and more random.
if a zealot has 50%ds and does 10-800 dmg it averages 1205 dmg over 2 swings. which is 200 dmg average pvp reduction. if you have 39 dr this damage is then reduced to 122.
it will take a zealot ~8 swings to hit you twice. in 8swings you would have deilvered an average of 808 cold dmg (after pvp assuming it isnt subject) so if they have 30res you'd do 565 cold dmg. if they have 75 cold res youd do 202 cold dmg thus still putting you in the gain.

This is all asuming shiver armor isnt subject to pvp reduction. in theory if it wasnt subject to pvp and you made a giant punching bag you could outlast your enemy.

[Waramp]

one good thing to do is to go with MASSIVE defense like a conc barb. not only does the shiver armor give you a nice def boost, but your opponent takes dmg with every swing, not just connecting hits! so if they miss due to defense or get blocked, they still take damage. so if your non-pvp dmg theory is true, then 1 zeal will deal out 500 dmg to them, and you might not even get hit

[xshadow1]

Thanks for the responses, guys -- food-ranger, I'm going to see about going the high defense route and see what would be optimal. Your list is a very good start, but I want to take the time to analyze it and see what choices there are since I'm not too familiar with melee dueling (esp. at level 18).

And yes, there is the huge, huge premise that Shiver Armor isn't subject to the PvP penalty -- anyone want to test this with me? It's been a while since I tested -- I had a level 12 vlld sorc about a month ago and noticed that she dealt more damage with her Shiver Armor than her Ice Blast, and that got me thinking...

[xshadow1]

All right, I just norm-rushed a sorceress and put the points as allocated above.

With level 10 Shiver Armor and 12 hard points in Frozen Armor, I have a listed damage of 54-67.

I took a level 86 amazon mule who hadn't completed any Anya quests, stripped her, and brought her to normal difficulty. I made sure that her cold resist was zero before beginning the test, and made sure there was no DR/MDR equipment to interfere. And I punched the sorceress, making note of my life before and after.

In six trials, the damage was very consistent -- 22, 22, 21, 21, 21, 21.

This is approximately one-third of the (supposed) average damage of 60.5 -- certainly more than the 17% PvP penalty (nearly double), but a bit disappointing since it's not dealing full damage.

---

Edit: Performed testing using a level 18 assassin without MDR or cold resistance. Damage was the same as observed above. Overall, in 23 trials, I recorded a mean of 21 damage and a standard deviation of 1.

That's not much variation, and doesn't show much promise for this build, either.

[heprea]

this seems nice O.o very interesting
id like to see the results when u are ready with this >_<
if i only where able to get online i could erm 'support' this idea or something (depends also on that what realm u are trying this in)

specialy if this works well with the massive def build :)

[ATOMICMAN]

actually the only way this would work is with a high def and a using a zeal charged scepter

[RodeKil]

[dragonfire_god]

I have made one of these before, defence is the way to go.

My sorc used a 20% ias posion dagger charged dagger along with enchant for a nice ar boost.

I have leveled her a few levels from that time but if i remember correctly she had 300'ish dmg and 2k'ish ar.

zealers/kickers are still hard, as your in blocking motion most of the time.


These are quite fun for pubbies as well as real duelers if you dont mind losing a few.

[xshadow1]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I've done some testing (thanks to d2loader, it's very easy for me to do so) and it appears that the average damage of Shiver Armor is equal to one-third of the listed damage.

At level 18, the highest Shiver damage you can get is 91-112, which works out to 101.5 average or 33.8 actual average damage. That's a bit pitiful, since resists and MDR can bring that down further...

(Source of the 91-112 damage calculation: Hell-rush. 18 points in Frozen Armor, 7 points in Shiver Armor. Tarnhelm, Eye of Etlich, +1 cold skills / +3 Shiver Armor orb/staff)

[xshadow1]

Observation -- El runes (in armor/shields, +15 def, +1 light radius) can be used as a cheap and easily available substitute for 20 def jewels.

Question -- given the low damage of the skill, would it be worthwhile to make it a level 30 build? Calculations suggest that with +10 skills, you could get a Shiver Armor that deals 101 damage (after accounting for 1/3 vs. PvP) to players.

[Zeiris-lld]

Very nice work.

Level 30 tends to be mostly caster, so it won't be all that useful. Although if you combine that with the unkillable sorc build that's posted somewhere on the forums (energy shield + sol runes = melee can not kill it ever) you might be very successful.