INTRODUCTION

I remember when I read about the Paladin's supposed powers against the undead, amongst all the pre-release hype. "Holy Bolt, Sanctuary, the Paladin is a Holy Warrior blah blah blah". Then I get the game, and what do I find? A skill system that requires specialization in just a couple skills, unless one only plans to play through Normal -- or wants extra challenge. The two much-hyped undead-killer skills are so useless at low investment levels, except for short term use, that only the variant-minded would ever even bother with them!

Well... that's me. The variant-minded. If it's a little kooky or just interestingly different, I may give it a try.

The problem with these skills is, specializing in them only prepares your Paladin for a minority of foes. Ideally one could ignore most or all non-undead, but in reality that won't do. So then what? What could I do with just a few skill points, that would be in line with an undead-slayer skill path, let me cope with other monsters, yet not render the two undead skills useless? I decided on Conversion. I could Convert a couple monsters then just move on, leaving them to fight amongst themselves. Who cares about experience anyway. I can farm some of the more undead-laden areas to level up if I fell behind. I could also full-clear Normal without a problem (one can do that with a shortsword and no skills, even, with some determination and patience).

Thus was conceived the great hero, Eksor Syste, Bane of the Undead. Conversion doesn't require that you even hit the target, so I won't be bothering with Dexterity. I'll need a piercing scepter for those must-do battles in higher difficulty, namely the Act end bosses, but just about everything else is an optional kill. At least, that's my theory. We all know that I have mixed history with these kooky theories I come up with. Yeah I can usually find some solution, but not always the one I planned.

Prereqs required for Sanctuary include: Might, Holy Fire, Holy Freeze, and Thorns. Well, Thorns fits in with Conversion quite well, but I don't want to make Eksor a Conversion/Thorns paladin with an undead fetish. I'll keep the Thorns at low level and make some effort not to overrely on it. Might Aura will see lots of early use and, well, you never know, maybe some situational use later on. Holy Fire? Forget it. Holy Freeze will come in handy and I'd even be willing to pump it up some, except that I honestly intend to rely on Sanctuary if there are any undead at all, and otherwise make do. Eksor is going to be Jekyll and Hyde character: uncommonly strong vs the Undead, and rather feeble against everything else, at least in higher difficulty.

Items... believe it or not, I'm hoping for a Wyrm's of Magus scepter, with or without useful +skill boosts. I'll have to carry an alternate for those times when I can't readily avoid engagement. Or, well, maybe a Wyrm's of Piercing! Heh. In Normal, of course, I can get by with 50% to hit, and I can get that without any dex, just pick up some +AR weapon and maybe a ring, too. In point of fact, a low to-hit value should only help conversion, by not wounding the converted monsters in the process. Sacrifice I will use as needed, but Zeal and Vengeance will only be acquired as prereqs, and I'll mainly use normal attack until Conversion arrives. My plans include taking Holy Bolt to slvl 11, filling in the prereqs, then saving up points to get some levels into both Sanctuary and Conversion right away. One point into Salvation, but otherwise nothing from the Defense tree. Which leads me to items and stats. I could go for Sigon's Guard or the much beloved diamond shield, or... I could halt strength at 60, and go for Steelclash, unique Kite Shield. Steelclash has +25% blocking and +1 to Paladin skills, -3 Damage and +3 Light Radius. Well, that sounds like the perfect shield for a Holy Warrior to me! And at 28k per gamble attempt, I'm sure to have it by the end of Normal.

60 strength would also allow Frostburn, the surest way to boost mana from items. I could also gamble for rare plated belts and be sure to get something good eventually. Helms... well, since resistances will be suffering from lack of shield help, I'd better get some from helm, belt, boots, and maybe armor. Salvation would have to attend to the rest.

And so it begins...

ACT ONE

Eksor's plan? Well, for starters, get something blunt to swing with, pump most of his early stat points into Energy, and have Sacrifice (at slvl 1) available on hotkey for any moments when doing extra damage in a hurry seemed desirable. A mace of bat dropped fairly early, offering +5% mana steal, and also a bronze ring of leech, +10 AR (EVERY bit helps when you leave Dex at minimum) and 6% Life Steal.

His first few levels were hardly different from any other Paladin. Eksor had Holy Bolt by the time he went to get Raven, though, and it was rather nice to mow down her "Army of the Dead" with one shot each. Mana potions offered refills as necessary, so even though Eksor could not fire endlessly, he did not have to be conservative when targets presented themselves.

There were undead in the Stony Field. This is where Eksor's split personality began to emerge. I originally started with Holy Bolt on right button but soon realized this would not hold up long term. I needed to key it to the left, so that an aura could be running at the same time. This meant targeting would have to be handled like a Bow Amazon, instead of like a Sorceress. Arg, that's less than ideal, but there was no choice. I remapped hotkeys the way I always do for fighters: A, Z, S, X for any left-button skills, so I could switch without moving my left hand at all (although that X isn't an easy reach, I have smallish hands). Auras I left on function keys, but I may consider remapping those, too, if I need to do a lot of rapid switching down the line. The undead in the Stony Field were killed with Holy Bolt, while everything was attacked with mace, and thid did provide an interesting change of pace. I can't of a single other character I've played that fought some foes with melee and others with a ranged attack, switching back and forth between attacks according to each opponent.

Ran into an archer boss in the Underground Passage. Holy Bolt proved its worth, making short work of these goons. A mana regen shrine from the Stony Field assisted in the kills, saving Eksor a potion or two. Even with Energy at 40 or so, Mana runs dry fairly quickly.

I'll have to keep in mind that I'll be better off getting mana from items and investing points into vitality, than overpumping energy and then looking for more Life from items. Unfortunately, +mana on helms and armors isn't available until about the time Eksor would get to Hell Difficulty, so it will be of particular importance to get mana from scepter and jewelry if I can swing that and still get my resists up.

In Tristram, the usually stalwart Griswold got banished like the zombie he became. Poor guy, I still think it's awful what they did to him in this story line, but oh well. He's just another target now.

Eksor did not encounter a single undead foe in the Forgotten Tower until the lowest level, where three ghosts were found. Plenty of undead in the Tamoe highland, though, and also the barracks and jail. By this time I had adjusted to Holy Bolt on left and enjoyed the switcheroo of identifying targets and employing the appropriate attack form. In this regard, Eksor reminds me more of the D1 Sorcerer than any other D2 char I've played. There were plenty of Bone Warriors in the pit, so many that Eksor sometimes ran dry and I didn't always refill him with mana potions. (I can be too conservative with potions -- which is silly when I always have extras go to waste at the end of an act, especially acts 1 and 2.)

Bone Ash was slain in three hits! Ha! Try that with your sorceress! :)

Not much undead on the first two levels of the catacombs. Then down on level three, wall to wall undead. Holy Bolt shone here, downing ghouls by the dozen and putting a quick end to the speedy vampires.

I figured Holy Bolt wouldn't hurt Andariel, and it didn't. Does this mean Diablo can't be harmed by Holy Bolt and Sanctuary? Just exactly whose brilliant plan was this, in laying out the skill trees? What were they afraid of? Paladins pumping Sanctuary to the max JUST to get an easy (if slow) long distance kill on Diablo??? No, we can't have that. We have to reserve the easy stuff just for barbarians. I'm thinking this will mean tough times (relatively speaking) for Eksor with all Act end bosses.

ACT TWO

The Lut Gholein Sewer, home of the undead. So many undead down there, Eksor almost had a conniption of glee. I might let him hang out here in Nightmare a little. :)

No undead out in the desert at all, though. Time to hire one of Greiz's men. (No, I'm serious!) If ever there was any character built to work with an Act Two merc, it was Eksor. His holy bolts could keep these incredibly fragile characters alive, at least for a while. So I hired one. I should have bought one with Poison Resistance, but it just didn't occur to me that he'd live long enough to need it!

You can see that even a large mob of vultures and leapers in the Dry Hills could not down good old Alhizeer. We won't discuss how many Holy Bolts it took to keep him alive, though. :)

In the Hall of the Dead, the combination of so many undead and Alhizeer's healing needs had Eksor running on empty a lot. Even with mana potion usage, I did not have enough juice to Holy Bolt every little skeleton. I got into the habit of rushing in to shoot down the Hollow Ones (two shots, they had slightly more health than I could undo in one bolt), then melee the skeletons. I ran Thorns Aura (at slvl 2 now) and Alhizeer actually got some of the kills that way. He even contributed a few with his mighty 2-6 melee attack. In Nightmare, I expect to rely on Sanctuary to deal with the Peons and to reserve Holy Bolt for targetting the big boys. There won't be enough mana there, either, to Holy Bolt everything.

Alhizeer survived the Rocky Waste, Dry Hills and all the way through the Halls of Dead, but he met his fate when we backtracked to the Stony Tomb and foolish Alhizeer insulted Creeping Feature's mother. The mummy boss took serious offense and targetted the merc mercilessly. I was trying to heal Al but a stray shot or two hit Creepy and that was the end of that.

I hired more mercs, but none were quite as sturdy as Al had been. I believe I lost four more of them by the time I finished Viper temple. Fangskin quite nearly killed Eksor! I could have used more lightning resistance there. On Realms, I may actually have died in that situation from mishandling it and lagging too much to save myself. Even a good connect for me is about 200ms.

The gambling began right away in Act Two. I was looking mainly for Steelclash, but also faster/fastest boots. My first Kite gamble turned up a Lightning Resistance shield, but my second attempt landed a NICE rare, with +20% block, -50 Poison Dur, Half Freeze, Fire Resistance and Thorns damage of 2 points. This is the best rare item I can ever remember having (gamble or find) this early in the game.

I did not bother with a mercenary through the Palace and didn't want one for Arcane. Both places had lots of undead and Eksor thrived on them. By now he also had Holy Freeze and had switched to that for primary aura. Goats were little problem with Holy Freeze to help out, and by Nightmare I'll have a good bit of Conversion. Civerb's Cudgel dropped in the Sanctuary and Eksor switched to that: 6-33 damage, I think, and +75 AR. That AR boost REALLY helped. I think it added about 14% to Eksor's To Hit chances.

I actually went straight to Duriel for a switch. What use delaying? Another level up wasn't going to matter. Holy Freeze and Sacrifice and blunt force, that was the plan. It worked. That's going to be more of a problem next time around, though.

Eksor had to continue his practice, through the tombs, of targeting Unravellers and then using melee to fight off the skeletons. I kept one merc alive through most of the tombs. Some boss ate him eventually. I think it was a beetle. Ancient Kaa was a ready victim of Holy Bolt. I rather enjoying spanking him, actually. :)

Eksor landed his Steelclash with two tombs left to clear. He also hit on a pair of fastest run boots and finally turned up a mana steal ring. By now he was doing a LOT of whiffing, even with Civerb's and the Bronze ring. He can make it through to Conversion, Sanctuary and a backup piercing scepter, though, and that was the plan from the start.

What's next up for the Holy of Heroes? Tune in again and find out. :)

- Sirian

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