Fanazealot
(Ubertrist) Fanazealot
The Fanazealot was (and in my opinion still is) one of the most powerful melee builds. With decent equip and skill he was able to solo every adventure available in vanilla, from simple DiaBaalruns to Ubertrist and DClone. The main reason for his constant success, especially in UT, was the possibility of a fanazealot/smite-mix and easily available life tap from Dracul’s, as well as from Exile runeword and Last Wish runeword (which is ofc not so easily available due to the required runes: JahMalJahSurJahBer). Further, he was and still is one of the best party chars, I guarantee it, every party will love it if you join a map or just a simple Dia/Baalrun due to the damage and ias-bonus your aura provides to other players. Here in PD2 the availability of life tap was significantly decreased. Life tap was completely removed from Dracul’s and replaced on exile by amplify damage. So the only remaining option left for our Uberzealer is the veeeeeery expensive Last Wish runeword. However, the version of the Uberzealer I would like to introduce to you in this guide is able to solo Ubertrist without life tap, just requiring a decent level of skill and experience with the D2 mechanics and this build. I try to make it short and simple and to offer a high-end option as well as a mid and low budget option for farming and to get a start. This is not the classic fast-loot-diabaalrun-machine like many other builds, but a build for someone who loves a very active (group) gameplay and who wants to rush and crush every enemy without hesitation (you will literally be able to run into hordes of monsters and not even be able to see your char anymore, but will not die).
The breakpoints
Crucial for our Uberzealer are increased attack speed (IAS), faster hit recovery (FHR), faster block rate (FBR), lifeleech (LL) and the crits aka deadly strike (DS), crushing blow (CB) and open wounds (OW).
IAS
The calculation is very dependend from different variables and the level of your fanaticism aura does not make it easier. So please just use a calculator (google is your friend). But you should easy reach the IAS cap. That is your target!
FHR
Diablo runs on 25 frames per second. If we lose more than 1/12 of our life points with a single blow, we get paralyzed and need nine frames to recover if our FHR is 0. The table below shows the FHR-rate necessary to reach the next frame level:
| FHR in % | Frames |
|---|---|
| 0 | 9 |
| 7 | 8 |
| 15 | 7 |
| 27 | 6 |
| 48 | 5 |
| 86 | 4 |
| 200 | 3 |
We should be able to easily reach the 6 frames. Nice would be 5, but do not mind to much if you don`t reach it. As we should have about +1.600 life points and max block at level 90 it should not have that much impact on your daily gameplay.
FBR
FBR is responsible for the time we need to block an attack. So the less frames we need, the more attacks we are able to block. This is crucial in situations were many enemies surround you and hit you at the same time. But as we play with holy shield, we do not need to mind about FBR. See the table below (values with holy shield):
| FBR in % | Frames |
|---|---|
| 0 | 2 |
| 86 | 1 |
So we will stay with the 2 frames. If you really mind, I got a zaka with an additional 10% fbr corruption and you might change your gear to reach 1 frame, but at what cost?
LL
Life leech (as well as mana leech) means that we get a certain percentage of our damage dealt as life (mana) points back. However, in hell difficulty the life and mana leeched is divided by 3. Our high-end Uberzealer does not need to mind about, he easily reaches 18%LL and therefore gets more life than necessary. However, low-budget players should constantly check their LL taking into account the damage dealt, especially if it is challenging to fight against larger enemy groups like in Act 4. I recommend a solid 15%+ LL. If you do not find the necessary items, use your Amn runes in your weapon.
The crits
DS doubles our dmg dealt CB reduces the enemies life points by 1/8 (this effect adjusts with decreasing life points of the enemy, so it more useful if the enemies life points are high. Also, this effect is reduced on some bosses) OW is like bleeding dmg and prevents monster heal, so very useful for some boss monsters As our attack speed/rate is very high, we can easily work with 10% each (I know, many won`t agree, but starting from our mid-gear zealer we should easy reach higher values). However, optimum is of course for DS and CB 100% and for OW 25% (which we will get from our Dracul’s).
Stats
We have to reach three goals: - Ability to wear our gear - Max Block - Min. 1.500 life For our high-end gear that means 103 points in str to wear archon plate CoH and BotD in eth BA and as much in dex as necessary for max block but at least 136 to wear our Last Wish PB. Rest in vitality and NONE into Energy. We should reach about 300 mana at level 90 and this is more than enough. Please skill and cast holy shield BEFORE you put any points in dex, as we should reach max block with holy shield casted and not without. Otherwise you waste a crucial part of your vitality.
Skills
That is the easiest part of all All necessary skills to reach the named below = 1 Point Sacrifice = Max, bonus dmg for zeal Zeal = Max, main skill Holy Shield = Should be lvl 16 at the end, so just look how much you need taking into account your +skills from pc skiller, torch, anni etc. After lvl 16 the output of further skill points does not justify the “costs” Fanaticism = Max, this is our second main skill Salvation = 1, we use this to “block” the -65res aura from Uber-Mephisto
Makes all in all 77 points if you have +0 skills. At level 90 we should have enough points in spare to do whatever we want to. So the rest depends on your personal preferences.
You could: 1. Put some extra points into “Bleesed aim” to optimize you attack rating. This is especially helpful in UT and for bosses as it increases your hit chance. And the zealer need a good hit rate to work properly. 2. Skill 1 point in Joust. This allows you to tele short distances (if a monster is available) and makes diaruns way faster 😉 Can only recommend this. Also helpful to faster reach enemies! 3. Further push holy shield or defiance to up you def. 4. Skill Holy Nova (but as it costs you 5 skill points and does not have a decent effect, I cannot really recommend it). 5. Put some extra points into smite. But tbh, I do not really use smite in PD2 because of the missing life tap options. It just does not make any sense. 6. Skill resists. Every 2 points increase you maxres by 1%. Does not sound that nice, but we should have more than 18 points left at lvl 90, you might get an additional 8% maxres which might help a lot for DClone. 7. Or just play with your skills, test what fits your needs.
Personally, I prefer Nr. 1, 2 and 6. Blessed aim helps a lot in Ubertrist. You need to hit your enemy to activate leech and the skills on your weapon like life tap on LW. The extra maxres is also nice to have. And joust is just nice to have ;)
Items
This is the interesting part. The Uberzealer is not as …. Let`s call it fixed in his equipment as he was in vanilla. This is due to the missing life tap options and due to the newly invented corruptions.
My current gear
So first, I will present my current build. Currently, I am aiming for solo organ and torch farming and am collecting some items to test this on DClone. I will keep you posted here. Afterwards, I will show an option for the mid- to low-budget players. In brackets () means that this is in sockets.
| Bodypart | Item | Reasons |
|---|---|---|
| Weaponhand | Last Wish runeword in Phaseblade | This is THE tank runeword. 10% chance to lvl 18 life tap, 6% chance to fade, lvl17 might aura, 335+ed, ignore targets defense, up to 70% CB, prevents monster heal….
just WOW. But with JahMalJahSurJahBer around 10HR at the moment (10th December 2020), so expensive as hell. You might think it would make more sense in BA because of the higher damage. But we need to proc LT as fast as possible on hardcore mobs in solo, so speed of the phaseblade outruns the higher damage of ba in my opinion |
| Weaponhand II (press w) | Breath of the Dying in eth berserker axe | Indestructible, so use eth BA for higher dmg. 60% IAS, -25% target defense, +330% ed, 50ar, 8% dual leech, prevent monster heal and +10 all attributes. Very nice choice and the first one after LW since Grief was nerfed in PD2 and is now no longer a real option for this char. Further, this is my first choice for solo diaruns. The damage output combined with dual leech is very nice and fast. Further, it is a good starting option in the high end section as Vex and Zod are easier to get than LW runes |
| Shield | Herold of Zakarum (p’diamond) | +2PCSkl +2PalaSkl, 20% AR and +20Str/vit combined with +50 plain allres and +19allres from the diamond. Solid shield |
| Head | Guillaume’s face (um) | 30% fhr, 35% CB, 15% DS, 15str and um for 15allres
Nothing to say here if you read the whole story above |
| Body | Chains of honor runeword in Archon Plate | Nice defence, +2allskl, nice dmg push 200%DTD 100%DTU, 8%LL, +20str and +65allres. This is very nice alone for the allres |
| Hands | Dracul’s grasp | 20 IAS, 10 LL, 25%OW, 11str, nice alone for the IAS and life leech |
| Feet | Gore Rider | 30%FRW, 15% CB/DS, 10%OW, nice crits here |
| Belt | Nosferatu’s coil | 20% IAS, 6% LL, 10%DS, 12%Str |
| Amu | Atma’s scarab | 7% chance to cast amplify dmg, +56% AR, 60%psnres. Amplify helps a lot with phys immunes. Who need a merc? |
| Ring 1 | Raven | 250AR, Mana, 20% cold absorb and cannot be frozen is a must have for our zealer |
| Ring 2 | Raven | Y, why not? |
So far we got: +149 allres 30% FHR (remember, goal was 27%) 32% LL (if we use Last wish 24%) 40% DS 120% CB 35% OW
I do not use Mara as with CoH the additional res are just not necessary. Further, I value amplify higher than +skills from Highlords (and it is holy expensive atm, so nn). As the crits, especially CB, as well as LL are overstacked, we could easy replace some items like nosferatus. As said earlier, I am still in the process of finding the best gear (also limited due to the hard economy and the missing trade system). For DClone I plan to change nosferatus to verdungos for the +15%physdmg reduction and one of my Raven for Dwarf because of the 8% fire absorb. Gully will be replaced by vampire gaze as fare as I thought about it, for obvious reasons (for the newjoiners, Dual leech and also physdmg reduction). We can also get the necessary FHR from Small Charms, so no need to stick with Gully all the time. We got all we need to Solo almost everything in PD2 (not tested dungeons and DClone). Feels a bit like the good old smite in vanilla. Life tap from LW and the AR is so high, it is ~90% hit chance at the Uber`s, so who needs smite? We can also withstand hordes of monsters (even might or fana upped ones) in a 8 player Tier 3 map easily with this build and gear. But it should be around 20 HR`s at the moment, so I don`t think it is achievable for everyone.
Here some other options for your gear in high-end
It is not a final list, just do as you wish and play around with your gear!!!
| Weapon | Death runeword in eth BA
Eth Stormlash (Zod + if you get more sox on it add as you need, +dmg jwl always nice) |
|---|---|
| Shield | Exile runeword (still very nice due to amplify, allres) |
| Helm | Crown of Ages (but you need to get you FHR up on other ways if you use this) Vampire Gaze (see above) |
| Armor | Shaftstop (nice dmg reduction and +life) |
| Gloves | Laying of hands with nice dmg boost if you do not need the LL from Dracul’s Rares with 20ias, str, dex and res |
| Boots | War traveler Goblin Toe |
| Belt | String of ears |
| Amu | Highlords Wrath Maras |
| Ring | Any rare ring with dualleech, AR, str/dex, life, allres |
Some mid-/low-cost gear options
| Bodypart | Items |
|---|---|
| Weapon | Butcher’s pupil Baranar’s Star |
| Shield | Rhyme runeword – nice res + cannot be frozen Sanctuary runeword – also nice res and 20FHR +20dex |
| Helm | Crown of thieves – good with LL, life and fireres as well as dex Rockstopper – res and physdmg reduction |
| Armor | Duriel’s Shell – very nice stats, +res, cannot be frozen and def+life/lvl Templar Coat – nice res, def, AR, +1PalaSkl, +maxres (very nice option here) |
| Gloves | Venom Grip – LL, CB and res Soul drainer – dual leech |
| Boots | Tearhaunch – FRW, str/dex and res |
| Belt | Thundergod’s – str and res are pretty well for our zealer |
| Amu | Any rare amu with the missing stats you need, so IAS, FHR, res, LL/DL, crits |
| Ring | Any rare ring with the requirements in high-end but less perfect. No really good nice options here for the general gameplay. |
Basically, you can mix any items on this char. As long as you reach your IAS cap, got enough FHR and LL as well as crits you should be able to solo most parts of the game. The high-end gear is solely necessary for Ubertrist and DClone. For DiaBaalruns it is just OP.
In case of any questions pm me on discord Maddinsche #6114 Hope you enjoy this build as I do 😊