Some questions about zealot

[:1]Recently, I've respecd my avenger who was lvl 84 and made him a zealot. The most important thing is that he lacks a good weapon so I need some item suggestions.

He has fortitude, war travelers, LoH, Verdungo, perfect Mara, good raven frost,Um'd HoZ(500 def).

My plans for him:

getting a Crown of Ages from a trade or giving a good Andy,

getting an 5os BA or 5os eth BA, I couldn't decide for weapon, death or grief?

getting a dualleech ring(maybe with AR or All resist mod).

I think I'll also switch the merc with A2 Nightmare defensive for HF. I had an A2 Offensive moron. He has andy's,upped duriels and reaper's toll.

I also got 7 or 8 skills that I couldn't spend. His skills are now

20 fana

20 blessed aim(for passive AR)

20 zeal

20 sacrifice

1 to prereqs

1 to holy shield

Shall I give other points to holy shield or defiance?

My future plans for him are running Trav and WSK/pindle.|||Helm: Guiliame's is near impossible to beat (due to Deadly Strike, not CB)

Amulet: Highlord's Wrath beats Mara's without question

Boots: Gore Rider is better than WT for offense, but if you want MF... yeah.

Moron: Might+Reapers, without a doubt in my mind

'Grief' beats everything 1-handed, no exceptions. There's no contest. 'Death' is cute and Fanatic Zealot is one of those builds where you can actually make something this slow work, but it's nowhere near as powerful as 'Grief'.

No 'Enigma'? That means extra points go into Vigor. All of them, until you reach a point when extra points don't improve your speed. Then you can dump a few in HS I guess.

As far as Holy Freeze goes, if you really need the safety, just dump a point there yourself and use it when you have to. Don't give up Might to get it.

-----

Pindle? I guess, maybe. I mean, I'd run with Sanctuary aura, not Fanaticism. Which is a whole different build.

Trav? Yes, I've done it thousands of times, he's my favorite runner there.

WSK? I don't see it. PI Witches at level 3, plus Gloams (80% PDR) & OK's with Decrep. There's just no way to do it comfortably by my standards, but hey, give it a shot, you might like it.

--Greebo|||Thanks for suggestions Greebo, do you have some MF places suggestions? I remember RoF,AT don't have PI monsters.

For enigma, I don't have Jah&Ber right now, so I will do trav runs for them.|||My honest opinion is that no character based on physical damage can compete in MF-ing with the specialized builds. WW Barb is the only one that's good enough, but (I think) Fabian claims that Zerker is better, and I believe him, so why go with WW?

Thing is, great gear for physical damage doesn't have MF on it. There's no real way around it. You will be way less efficient than a medium-well equipped sorc. Sad, but true. You can squeeze out 250MF by sacrificing like half your damage. Meh.

Feel free to experiment and prove me wrong |||I think I don't have the chance to disprove you , so I'll stick to Travincal.|||Good advice there- one other item to consider are Drac's instead of LoH depending upon your targets. Unleechables like skellies are made much more manageable for physical damage builds with Drac's and it can also keep you merc's bulb full at the same time. Switching is not a bad plan from time to time. On the rare ring front, mana and life leech are more important than AR and resists, as those can come from charms whereas leech cannot.|||Stormlash and Schaeffer's hammer are very good weapons as well if you're hitting things with high hp. For run of the mill normal monsters grief > everything though. You might want to look up Asmo's lvl99 zealot because it is awesome.|||Sorry, nepeta, but 'Grief' > everything else for all circumstances. No matter what set of monsters. In his thread, Asmo even says so, after trying how well his toon works with 'Grief'. In the end he stayed with Schaeffer's purely for style, not because it was even close to being as good as 'Grief'.

Lash & Schaeffer's are great for style, yes. But by saying "For run of the mill normal monsters grief > everything though", you suggest that under some circumstances they could beat 'Grief'. Sorry, they can't. It's a ridiculous runeword which is highly imbalanced with respect to the rest of the game.|||You are right. I wanted to point out that there are other options which are viable as well, but even the remaining half of a Pn baal after static done with a lash or schaffer's will be slower than doing the entire thing with grief. Asmo did the first half of baal's hp with schaeffer's before finishing him off with grief.|||Actually, iirc, he was using both unique Legendary Mallets (CB on the other one was useful). He thought about doing what you said, he tested it out, it worked out great, but he ended up deciding that using 'Grief' was against the spirit of his build In the end it was Schaefer's / Stone Crusher.

Yeah, there are other great options besides 'Grief'. Sadly, none of them come even close to being as good. Good for style though.