Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

I would lean in that direction as well. Even in hell difficulty, I'd say no more than 10%-15% of the enemies you will face will be PI. So you probably want the setup that gives you the most bang for your buck the 85%-90% of time you won't be using Hellrack.

 

the discount on the bow carries over to gambling as well, i've had one.

 

Did they open the ladder runewords to single player in the latest patch or are you using some sort of a mod?

 

Yeah, I've been looking at the mouthwatering prospect of getting a Spirit shield made. I have a four socket superior monarch just waiting for it. Perhaps I should too download a mod to crack the ladder runewords available.

 

Well, I have a regular four socket monarch and a superior one. I think I'll make spirits out of both since I'm sure they are better for both my sorcerer and necromancer compared to the old rhyme shield my sorc is currently wielding and my necromancer has sigons shield which is badly in need of a proper replacement. Too bad the strenght requirement of the monarch is quite high so my necro would need a couple of levels in order to wield it.

 

if you are building a fishy mancer, you won't need the extra vita

 

Yeah I know, I used a reset to change my ability composition a bit. The stat reset is really a great feature since it enables you to play a bit differently early in the game and change your skills if they don't work in late game. Scored probably my biggest drop so far today while running Bhaal in the form of Tal Rashas armor. I'm considering keeping it for my necromancer for the mf bonus but I'll certainly try the entire set with my sorcerer now that I have all the pieces.

By the way, I find that killing Bhaal with my necromancer takes a bit too much time at the moment and since I have 25 extra skill points I wonder what I could invest in to make the killing a bit faster. I'm only looking to speed up end boss kills since other monsters die easily enough. I have full points in corpse explosion, summon skeleton warrior and skeleton mastery. Also I think I have couple in summon resist. I haven't put anything extra in curses since my gear give me like plus nine to curses and the range and duration is good enough for me. Could some points in poison or bone spells make the killing faster since right now my necro just stands there hitting Bhaal with king leoric's wand and spamming decrepify. Otherwise he's not much of use.

 

you could invest them in the skeleton mages, they do should increase you killing speed about 20% from Aldeth's earlier posts.
they might not make a dent quite that big in boss killing speeds, but will easily be better than any of the poison and bone spells, because they require a huge investment to be effective.
you already have the max level skeleton mastery.

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This is true. I don't know why, but the repair costs for superior items are several times the cost (like more than a order of magnitude) compared to the non-superior ones. Melee characters hardly ever make runewords out of superior items, because you can be looking at 20K to 30K gold per point lost in durability. To the few people who do use superior items, they use Rals and Orts for repair purposes, and they wait until the weapon/armor is almost broken before using the recipe:

Ort + Any Weapon = fully repaired weapon
Ral + Any Armor = fully repaired armor

If everything is available, I'd go for a Hydra Bow. Str/Dex requirement on it is 134/167. If that's not available, you'll get pretty much identical damage per second out of a Crusader Bow (slightly less damage, but it shoots a bit faster, so the damage is nearly identical). That one also has much easier requirements of 97/121. I'm not sure what bonus rogues get to str/dex per level up, so I don't know if reaching the requirements for the Hydra Bow would be problematic or not.

Great find. I used TR's set a long time ago. During the last ladder, I had all the pieces except (of all things) the amulet, Tal Rasha's Adjudication. That was frustrating to say the least. Supposedly, the only items easier to find in the set than the amulet are the belt and mask.

As far as performance goes, I'd say the only gear combo superior to TR's is a combination of high-end uniques and RWs (owing to the superiority of Occulus to the Lidless Eye). Either way, you'll still need a shield. There are the obvious choices of Spirit or Stormshield, depending on whether or not you want +skills or max block and damage reduction.

I, however, prefer the upped version of Viseratuant. I think it offers the best balance between the two. First of all, even when you up it to the elite form, it still only requires 97 strength to equip. So right there, you're saving yourself 59 strength points that you'd need for either Spirit or Stormshield. Once upped, it's blocking percentage is actually 3% better than Stormshield. That's not a ton, but by level 80 or so it will save you 20-30 points in Dexterity. And it gives +1 to all skill levels.

IMO, that's the best option. It's by far the lowest str/dex requirements for max block that will translate into about 160 more life. Having 160 more life pretty much offsets the damage reduction you'd get from SS. Since you already have a ton of +skill gear from TR's set, losing out on one more +skill with Spirit in exchange for max block is another good trade.

I agree with Balle that Skeletal Mage is the only real option for boosting killing speed. As Balle correctly points out, 25 points in the bone skills is not going to do a heck of a lot of damage as those skills are only effective when highly synergized.

All of the mages (irrespective of what elemental type) will deal about the same amount of damage. Assuming with +skills that you'll have your Skeletal Mage and Mastery at about level 30, each mage will do about 250 points of damage per attack. Since you'll have 12 of them at level 30, that's not bad. That said, not all mages are the same, and you still want to unsummon/resummon them to get the exact elemental composition you want.

Here's the breakdown: Lightning and fire mages are essentially the same, and both are equally desirable. Ideally, you'll want 8-10 of your mages to be one of these two types.

Cold does about the same amount of damage as fire and lightning, but you don't want a high percentage of cold mages, because if the cold mages deal the killing blow, there is a 20% chance that the monster will shatter on death, which would deny your the corpse for CE. The only time this is problematic is if it's the first corpse that would set off a CE chain. I use mages, and I don't have a problem with many corpses shattering, but I also make sure that I don't have more than 2 or 3 cold mages.

Finally, poison is the worst. While the total damage on poison is potentially the greatest of all four mage types, the poison has a very long timer to deal the full damage, and due to the rate of fire from your poison mage, the monster will get hit again, which will reset the timer, but not increase the total damage. Having one poison mage to prevent monster regeneration is fine, but I'd advise against any more than that.

What I do is summon up my first 12, and then take a look around to see what I have. I'll unsummon all of the poison ones, and all but 2 cold ones, and then resummon back up to 12. On the second time through, I usually have at least 8 fire and lightning, 2-3 cold and 1-2 poison, which is good enough for me. If you're really compulsive about it, you can keep on unsummoning and resummoning until you get all fire and lightning, but I find that to be unnecessary and annoyingly time-consuming for me.

 

as an added bonus to aldeths post, i think a slow effect is on the cold mages attack, wich stacks with holy freeze(from act nm merc) and decrepify, to make the bosses a little slower, not that you really need it.

 

I have a might aura since I figure killing stuff faster is more important than slowing them down since my necromancer has very few actual lethal threats left. The only thing capable of killing him right now is the bloody bone prison which is invoked by king leoric's arm and can get him trapped in front of a frenzied minotaur or something similar.

Thanks for the mage advice, I'll give it a try. If I don't like it I suppose I can always use the second stat reset.

 

Cold mages do slow the monsters, but between decrepify and a clay golem, you're probably already very close to the 95% slow cap.

I also agree that you're better off with a might merc - his aura is the best synergy when combined with amp damage. If you go with mages, also make sure you pick up a point in lower resist. Against physical immunes, it's usually quicker to take them out by casting LR on them and having the mages deal with them. Also, it's really you're only solution to unbreakable PIs.

 

sorry, i meant clay golem, kinda drunk, sorry 'bout that.

 

If someone has a question about D2, who should they ask? Clearly not Aldeth, because he obviously doesn't know anything about the game.

 

I can finally get back to my necro. I took a break to play SCII, and now that I completed the campaign, I think I'm going to go back to D2. I have no real desire to get into multiplayer.

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I progressed further through Act II Hell last night. All that's left is to go and kill Duriel. I typically start each night with a Pit run (solid XPs and drops), and I found an item I never had before, the unique Vambraces, Soul Drainer. While these certainly aren't OMG great find gloves, it's still nice to get a piece of equipment you've never had before. They do have dual leech, nice defense, and a chance to cast weaken, so I suppose they could be of limited use to a melee build.

I also had a 3 socket sacred armor drop. After I thought about it, a 3 socket sacred armor, while very difficult to find, has very limited utility. Most of the 3 socket armor runewords you'd never make in a sacred armor. Sure, Enigma requires three sockets, but that's only for casters who would never meet the strength requirements. Same thing with Lionheart, as that's more of a missile armor. There's Myth for a Barbarian, but with no %ed on Myth, there again is no point in using sacred armor. About the only option would be Duress.

I'm still largely undecided on what build I want to try next, because while I have a boat load of equipment at this point, I don't have all the great equipment I'd want for any particular build. For example, I have a WWS for a bowazon, but I'd rather get my hands on a Razortail before I try that. I have an Occulus, and a few pieces of Tal Rasha's set, but I don't have a shield I like, or an armor. I'm seriously considering continually running my necro until I find more stuff. My necro, incidentally, is practically indestructible at this point. I have 12 skeletons, 12 mages, a CG, and might merc. I have to do something stupid to die. I ran into an unbreakable PI ghost boss last night. No probelm for this build - just cast Lower Resist, and he drops in seconds.

 

I had a crash yesterday and when I reloaded my lvl 13 Amazon was gone, and with her some really nice gear ...