Poison Smiter A.K.A. Mappo Killer

[LordManhammer]

For those of you who prefer to solo farm like I do, here is my approach to dealing with Mappo.

Mappo No Ruyiin is one of the four bosses you will face in Dreamlands, an endgame area that you can reach by killing Knarst in Tristram. After killing Knarst, a red portal will open that leads to Dreamlands. Three of the four bosses in this area are all easy to solo with your standard Smiter setup. Mappo on the other hand is immune to everything and needs to pierced with an aura or lowered enemy resist items. Usually this would require a Smiter tanking him with a Javazon or Sorc dpsing him down with elemental damage as his physical immunity cannot be pierced with the Amplify Damage curse and Crushing Blow seems to have no effect. It wasn't until after I saw a post about the Conviction aura where Game stated that, in Annihilus, the conviction aura lowers poison resists as well as elemental resist that I had an idea. What if I use Smite to apply the cast on striking Venomous Spirits from Plaguebringer to poison Mappo?

Here's the gear that I use:

Weapon: Plaguebringer
Shield: Dragonscale
Chest: Husk of Kaluut (socketed with four poison facets)
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: Scourgelord's Girdle or Thundergod's Vigor (if Mappo is lightening enchanted)
Boots: Death's Advance
Helm: Veil of Steel (socketed with three poison facets)
Rings: 2X Carrion Wind
Amulet: Seraph's Hymn (Prevent Monster heal is a must)
Weapon swap: Warshrike for Burst of Speed pre-buff


At level 25 the Conviction aura has a tool tip of -150% to enemy resistances which, when used against a monster that is immune to a given damage type, operates at 20% effectiveness (thank you Lucid for pointing this out). I'm not sure what Mappo's poison resist % numbers are (anything over 100% resistance is considered immune) but the effective -30% to resistances from Conviction is enough to break Mappo's poison immunity. With that in mind it's safe to assume that his poison resistance is no more than 129% as bringing them down to 99% effectively breaks it. After the immunity is broken, all -poison resist on gear or facets is 100% effective but cannot by itself break an immunity. All that being said, using different gloves and a different shield for life tap on striking would probably be a better option The Husk of Kaluut could also help for more addition poison resist penetration and poison damage.
Source: http://www.diabloii.net/forums/threa...nces-d.658719/

I use a basic Smiter skill build, with the exception of the Conviction aura; maxing out Smite, Holy Shield, enough points for a level 25 Conviction aura (the lower resist gains stop at level 25) and the rest dumped into Defiance. At level 92 with 39k defense Mappo has a 41% chance to hit me. Unlike the Liche King, Mappo will very rarely use his ranged and aoe attacks on you as long as you are engaged in a melee. This makes the fight more predictable and you can rely on your defense to allow for long gaps between deaths to continuously apply poison damage.

Here's a protip: make sure to clear the rest of the map before engaging Mappo. He likes to move around if you die. If you have issues killing Ssshaa because of a stone skin affix then kite her to the top right corner of the map. Also, make sure not to kill Mappo or any of the bosses in Dreamlands over water or rocks as this will cause them to drop zero loot. It's a bug

Edit: Since adding Husk of Kaluut and seven poison facets to this build it has become very powerful.

[Lampogriz]

I kill knarst, ssha, kaalut and mappo in 1.5-2 minutes. How much time u need to kill them with this smiter?

[thessarill]

I think it'll take longer, but all bosses can be done solo, so it's a good point, even if you make a 3/4 min run, if all bosses are dead, it's very good !

[Lucid]

great stuff dude

good to hear but i still prefer java+smiter, since smiter still cannot cow aswell as a java ^^

sidenote to your -300% enemy poison resistance. Thats not a 100% correct. If im right, then a aura or curse that is used to pierce through an enemys immunity is only 20% effective. This means, if mappo has 110% poison resistance and you come around with a conviction aura that hast -100% to enemy resistance, this aura will only pull off -20% enemy resistance (due to 20% effective), but still pierces the enemys resistance which would be then at 90% poison ress.

Here`s where i struggle. Too many time has been gone from when i last active played diablo 2 lod... Is the enemy resistance lowerable to -100% or only to 0% resistances?

If its only lowerable to 0% resistances, you would then need additional -90% enemy posion resistance to get the spells maximum effect.
Maybe you dont even need this -300% enemy posion resistances...
And also maybe you/we can figure out whats the "hardcap" of -% enemy poison resistance needed, when fighting against mappo at a certain level of conviction?! All we need to know is how much posion resistance Mappo has

regards

[LordManhammer]

I kill Knarst with my WereBarb first and then switch to my Smiter. Knarst takes a couple minutes. A full Dreamlands clear takes about 5 minutes for me if Mappo is in a good mood

[LordManhammer]

great stuff dude

good to hear but i still prefer java+smiter, since smiter still cannot cow aswell as a java ^^

sidenote to your -300% enemy poison resistance. Thats not a 100% correct. If im right, then a aura or curse that is used to pierce through an enemys immunity is only 20% effective. This means, if mappo has 110% poison resistance and you come around with a conviction aura that hast -100% to enemy resistance, this aura will only pull off -20% enemy resistance (due to 20% effective), but still pierces the enemys resistance which would be then at 90% poison ress.

Here`s where i struggle. Too many time has been gone from when i last active played diablo 2 lod... Is the enemy resistance lowerable to -100% or only to 0% resistances?

If its only lowerable to 0% resistances, you would then need additional -90% enemy posion resistance to get the spells maximum effect.
Maybe you dont even need this -300% enemy posion resistances...
And also maybe you/we can figure out whats the "hardcap" of -% enemy poison resistance needed, when fighting against mappo at a certain level of conviction?! All we need to know is how much posion resistance Mappo has

regards

Good to know. I'll have to tinker with this and see what exactly is required to pull it off. I know that with just Conviction and the gear it is a slower prcess than when I pre-curse Mappo with Lower Resist.

[Lucid]

http://www.diabloii.net/forums/threa...nces-d.658719/

found something, refreshing my mind

1. curse + aura get the 20% penalty if the mob is immune, even if one of them is enough to pierce they still both penaltied

2. enemys resistance can be lowered to -100%

3. so if you get mappo pierced with lets say conviction having 99% res left and you have a lvl 1 lower resist curse which would give around 5-15% -%psn res (depens on your +all skills on the gear).
So mappo would be around 80-90% posion res after your curse+aura, leaving you in the possibility to have up to -180% enemy poison resistance on gear without loosing dps.

This math depends on mappo`s psn res (which i dont know) and your skilllevels of aura + curse

[LordManhammer]

http://www.diabloii.net/forums/threa...nces-d.658719/

found something, refreshing my mind

1. curse + aura get the 20% penalty if the mob is immune, even if one of them is enough to pierce they still both penaltied

2. enemys resistance can be lowered to -100%

3. so if you get mappo pierced with lets say conviction having 99% res left and you have a lvl 1 lower resist curse which would give around 5-15% -%psn res (depens on your +all skills on the gear).
So mappo would be around 80-90% posion res after your curse+aura, leaving you in the possibility to have up to -180% enemy poison resistance on gear without loosing dps.

This math depends on mappo`s psn res (which i dont know) and your skilllevels of aura + curse

I edited the post to include this info

[Game]

I like innovative builds, that is one thing I love to consider when making new items. Glad to see people are exploring their options, that is what Annihilus is all about! Good work.

[LordManhammer]

I like innovative builds, that is one thing I love to consider when making new items. Glad to see people are exploring their options, that is what Annihilus is all about! Good work.

Thanks. This has become a very fun build and has potential to get better. Keep up the good work with the new content