Guide Fatty’s Hardcore Hammerdin guide

Hey diablo 2 community.
I got a guide for hardcore hammerdins.
NOTE: This build consist of not only damage but also surviability.
PROS: - Extremely durable can even farm Chaos+baals including souls on players 8 mode
- decent amount of damage got defensive auras for the teamplay.
- not relaying on skillers.
CONS: - Expensive to make such as jah ber for enigma,life with resistances small charm,crowns of ages with 2 sock 15% damage reduction.
- will have hard time dealing with magic immunity mobs.
- 75 fcr build

STATS DISTRIBUTION:
Strength: enough to wear crowns of ages or enigma.
Dexterity: enough to get 75 Block with holy shield.
Vitality: Rest of remaining stat points in here.
Mana: no point in here.

SKILL POINT DISTRIBUTION:
Combat skills Skill tree:
Holy bolt - 1 point
Blessed hammers - 20 points
Smite - 1 point
Charge - 1 point
Holy shield - 1 point in holy shield (Max holy shield at last when u got all skills maxed)

Defensive auras skill tree:
Prayer - 1 point
Cleansing - 1 point
Defiance - 1 point
Vigor - 20 points
Salvation - 1 point
Redemption - 1 point

Offensive aura skill tree
Might - 1 point
Blessed aim - 20 points
Concentration aura - 20 points
Fanatisum- 1 point if got free skill point.

EQUIPMENT:
Best setup:
Helmet : Crowns of ages with 2x Lo
Amulet: perfect Maras
Shield: Stormshield with Lo or Vex
Situational item: Herald of zakarum with Um or Lo
Weapon: Hoto
On switch Call to arms+ spirit shield
Armor: Enigma (On Dusk shrould)
Gloves: Trangoul gloves
Belt: Thundergods vigor
Ring: 10 fcr ring all resistances and strength
Ring: another 10 fcr ring with resistances and strength
Boots: Hotspur

Low Gear build:
Helmet: Shako with um
Amulet: maras
Armor: vipermagi
Weapon: wizardspike
Shield: Stormshield
Rings: bk rings
Gloves: Magefists
Boots: hotspur
Belt: thundergods vigor

Inventory on your character should consist of:
1 tome of teleport
1 tome of identify
Paladin torch (more high stats and resistances the better).
Annihulus (more high stats and resistances the better)
Resistance charms
Any resistances clean charms or small charms with lifers 15+ Ultimately These 20 life with 5 all resistance small charms are welcome
If resistances are stacked and maxed Try to fill whole inventory full of life small charms.
1 horadric cube

Act 2 mercernary nightmare defensive ( holy freeze aura) insight Nessarily rest of gear up to u.

Always use cleansing Aura when u are AMPLIFIED (Note: This is Hardcore Ez rips with Amplify curse thanks they didnt added lower resist curse in chaos santuary)
Why Stormshield Over Spirit or HOZ
1: because it had nice damage reduction + resistances and strength Block rate etc are also welcome
Why not use Cs paladin skillers?
Well mate ask this question for ur self Do i need surviability for hardcore or More damage with 125 fcr build but Ez rips in front of lord desis or Lord infector with conviction aura. Thats why instead of those gcs stack the resistances up and try to have small charms lifers.
I am using with this build and dont have problem killing mobs on p8 chaos+nithalak+ baal with low damage.

Well if u have any doubts or any questions feel free to ask me.
I hope u guys enjoy this build and will make more use of it.

 

I'm curious, why use Hotspurs instead of Tearhaunch? Tearhaunch has better DEF, FRW, All Res, +Strength, and adds +2 to one of our main skills (Vigor aura). Seems like a much better choice on paper than Hotspurs.

 

Hello well due to fire resistance Very good against conviction fire type enemies with amplifeed on u take a example of infector.
45 fire resistance=15% maximum fire resistance that makes ur fire resistances max cap from 75 to 90
Tearhaunch only provides 10 all resistances+5 strength and 2 vigor skills and i think hammer damage from vigor skill is little bit increased

 

1 tome of teleport= Town portal

 

I'm sort of loosely following your guide with my own HC hammerdin, and would like some input. I've maxed Blessed Hammer, Concentration, Blessed Aim, and Vigor. My understanding is that for every two skill points invested in the various singular resistance auras (Resist Fire, Resist Cold, Resist Lightning) your maximum resistance corresponding to the aura increases by one passively (whether the aura is active or not). I'm pretty sure this innate boost doesn't take bonus +Skills into account, so this bonus only applies to skill points invested. I'm thinking about doing that with Resist Lightning instead of socketing Lo runes. I'm focusing on PvM (Key farming, Hell Diablo, Hell Baal, Hell Nith, DClone, Ubers). I'm level 90 and this is my current equipment setup:

• Helm: Perf Shako /w Ber
  
• Amulet: 26 ResAll Mara's
  
• Armor: Perf Enigma, 15/15 Archon Plate base
  
• Weapon: Perf Hoto, 15/15 Scourge base
  
• Shield: Perf HoZ /w Ber, upgraded to Zakarum Shield.
  
• Ring 1: Perf BK Wedding Band.
  
• Ring 2: SoJ. Been considering switching this to Wisp Projector to deal with the lightning souls, but haven't been able to find one.
  
• Gloves: 28% ED Magefists, double upgraded to Crusader Gauntlets. I've considered switching to Trang's Gloves but haven't had any drop for me yet and haven't felt like it was worth spending runes to trade for.
  
• Belt: Perf Arachnid Mesh
  
• Boots: 79% ED Tearhaunch, double upgraded to Myrmidon Greaves. Been considering switching to double upgraded Hotspurs or upgraded Infernostride, but fire doesn't seem to hurt me near as much as lightning so I'm not sure it's worth the drop in damage from the +2 to Vigor synergizing with my hammers.

I have a crappy CtA (+4 BC, +1 BO) and a low (25% FCR) Spirit Crown Shield on swap. Anni is 12/17/6 and Torch is 12/14. Also have 2 clean Cs skillers and 2 Cs+FHR skillers. Stats are 90 base STR (final 213), 85 base DEX (final 131), 355 base VIT (406 final), no points in energy. I equipped everything and then respec'd to minimize STR and DEX to the minimums I needed to wear gear and have 75% block with Holy Shield with only 1 point invested. I still have two more free respecs.

Total of 10.8K DEF, 80% FCR, 24% FHR, 65% FRW, 34% DR, 186% MF (includes a 39% Gheed's plus a 7% MF Sc), and +187 ResAll (+87 in Hell). I have 11 skill points left over after one point in pre-reqs, maxing the previously mentioned main skills/synergies, and one point in utility auras (Redemption and Salvation). I will also get 9 more points from levelling, for a total of 20. If I dumped them all into Resist Lightning, I could get a +10% to max lightning resistance which is getting the effect of having two Lo runes socketed for free, making me much more resilient to the lightning souls without needing Wisp Projector.

On Hell in A4 and A5 the dolls, lightning souls, and occasionally De Suis or Invector of Souls do sometimes give me some issues. I occasionally have a close call because I don't switch to Cleanse quickly enough to get rid of Amp Damage curse. Do you think I should spend my remaining points in Resist Lightning, and swap Tearhaunch for Hotspurs or Infernostride? My next priority is getting some ResAll+Life Gcs and gearing my merc better (his gear leaves a lot to be desired, although it's not absolutely terrible). My A2 merc is Holy Freeze, and I have him wielding an Eth CV Insight with a level 17 Meditation aura and +6 to Critical Strike. He's also got Highlord's Wrath for the IAS and Deadly Strike along with imperfect, non-eth, non-upgraded Shaftstop/Vamp Gaze/TGods. I currently want to find perfect eth versions, upgrade them, socket armor/helmet with Um, and bug the armor's defense. He needs Gores and Steelrend too (he's currently using Sandstorm Trek and Soul Drainer). I'm not particularly worried about being frozen because it doesn't affect my casting speed and I'm using Teleport for mobility.

 

De seis infector of souls the reason why i use hotspur boots and i dont think that 10 all resistances from tearhaunch is important SINCE U can place 2x 5@ scs in ur Extended inventory.

Well if u got extra skill points then spend it on light resist.

ALSO wear TGODS the most crucial item in hardcore without it u will face many problems against light enemies such as souls.

Solution for dolls is hammer and teleport to circle around them so that when u teleport they come to that original location and get damaged.

One thing Always turn off ur Run speed to walk mode.

 

Okay, I dumped all my extra skill points into Resist Lightning for the passive max light res boost, and swapped Tearhaunch for perf double upgraded Hotspurs. I don't want to swap out Arachnid's for TGods because of the FCR Arachnid's provides, how about swapping SoJ for Wisp Projector as my source of Lightning Absorb? Is that a viable alternative?

 

Welll If u dont want to swap archanids then definately wear wisp projector

 

" the + skills to vigor do not add to the synergy for hammers, only +all skills does..." , - xtylerx,Apr 7, 2004 (https://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/tearhaunch-boots-for-hammerdin.167955/)