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Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

Discussion in 'Diablo 1 & 2' started by dmc, Jan 27, 2010.

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  1. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    You can do it over and over and over. It's called running. You'll find yourself doing it much more on NM and Hell difficulties as the drops are better.
     
  2. Viking Gems: 19/31
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    Just to nitpick. There is no cap on pierce. There is a cap on your cth of 95% IFF the cth equation comes into play. Since LF is autohit, it bypasses this and hits 100% of the time, and pierces 100% of those times provided you have 100% or higher pierce of course.

    In fact iirc, there is no cap on any of the active triggers: Pierce, CB, OW, Static etc. The only limit is your cth which is maxed at 95% if the skill is not autohit. Anything over 100% is of course superfluous.

    @DMC - The elemental damage from charms and other gear is carried on the physical javelin, so you need to hit the monster. With LF that's never in doubt, with CS and FA the poison from a charm will only apply if you actually hit with the javelin / arrow. It is not added to the lighting bolts or the splash cold damage.

    Are you ready to play tag with the boys on the Arreat Summit yet? They will of course be harder than Baal and the waves put together with your build. If you have Cats Eye ammy and or Valk Wing helm I would suggest this is the time for FRW. They also don't really buy into the decoy I find. Might just be me.

    ******Phys FR LR CR PR
    Talic 40 110 50 50 50

    Madawc 40 50 100 70 50

    Korlic 40 70 50 150 50

    So one LI and one CI. I think your real nightmare is if either Madawk or Korlic spawn CI/LI. Hope you're not too proud to re-roll.

    Edit - To agree with Aldeth. Normal Diablo is generally the hardest fight in the game till you get deep into Hell for most builds. Other than what you mentioned there is one other reason why Normal D is more difficult. The Lighting hose of death starts further and further away from his body, and in NM and Hell you can Toe to toe him without getting hosed to death. It simply goes over your head. Need a short range weapon mind you.
     
  3. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    On my current Amazon, I have Titans, Valkyriewing, and Gore Riders for boss fights. They all provide 20% FRW. When you have all three equipped she absolutely motors. I walk at the speed most characters run.
     
  4. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Considering I almost quit the game my first time through Hell ancients because I didn't realize that re-starting the game meant regenerating the Ancients with different characteristics, I have absolutely no pride in that regard whatsover. In fact, the Ancients are the only thing right now that make me wonder if I shouldn't buy a valk (hah, get it, buy a valk??!! I kill me some times.) I am thinking of either ditching CoH for Enigma or ditching Maras for a teleport amulet. I can create supply dumps for FR potions at the corners of the area, bounce around to pick off Korlic and Talic first, and then let my merc and my FA take out Madawc. All the while I will have 16 FR's in the belt and dozens more scattered around for easy grabbing. The TP drags the merc with me to short-circuit his ridiculous suicidal tendencies. So long as they aren't dual immune or extra strong/extra fast I should be OK. Quite frankly, I hope they generate stone-skinned.

    Also, the Thunderstroke has the property of reducing LR by 15% or so, so does that mean that CS/LF will actually do some damage to Madawc? That would be cool.
     
  5. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Yes. For Monsters with resistances of 100% or less, -% enemy resistance works exactly as it is described. Since Madawac is 100% lightning resistant, he will be 85% resistant when you fight him. For monsters with resistances over 100%, it works differently. For those monsters, -% enemy resistance works at 1/5 of it's stated efficacy until it brings the resistance down to 100%, at which point it functions just like it does for monsters with resistances of 100% or less. Using Talic as an example, he has 110% fire resistance. So you would need -50% enemy fire resistance just to bring him down to 100%, effectively making his fire resistance unbreakable.
     
  6. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    And I am about two sessions from reaching the ancients, as I have the frozen tundra up next. Should be fun.
     
  7. Cap'n CJ

    Cap'n CJ Arrr! Veteran

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    Yayyyy! I finally got an item with +1 in a skill I use!
     
  8. Shrikant

    Shrikant Swords! Not words! Veteran

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    [​IMG]
    Playing with /players 8 continuously and without redoing any maps, my Barb is L31 at the Bazaar in ACT III. Wonder what my levels will be come Baal.
    ps. Please tell me it gets less annoying once I exit this jungle, the blow-dart pigmies are pissing me off.
     
  9. Sir Rechet

    Sir Rechet I speak maths and logic, not stupid Veteran

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    If you think the blow-dart pygmies are irritating in Act 3, just wait when you meet their souped up relatives in massive hordes (and I mean MASSIVE) during some parts of Act 5. You better hope you brought some AoE damage with you... ;)
     
  10. Cap'n CJ

    Cap'n CJ Arrr! Veteran

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    I think today might be the day that I take on Diablo. I'm excited, and a little scared. Might just do one quick Mephy run before I go there.

    Also, I found a Sorceress staff in Act 2, i'm now in Act 4, and I STILL can't sell it for full price. Why can't I find any Druid items this good? :(
     
  11. Viking Gems: 19/31
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    Erm, no.

    The way immunities work is this:

    1) Only the necro curse Lower resist and the Pally aura Conviction are capable of breaking elemental immunity. Only LR can break poison immunity, and AD and Decrep can break Physical immunity (They both always will except against certain Champ / boss combinations, because all PI normal monsters are exactly 100% physical res). Immunity is any resistance of 100% or greater. Max conviction is -150 res (capped), max LR practically is around -60 to 65.

    2) Conviction and LR (and AD/Decrep) work at 1/5 against immune elements. For the whole spell / skill, not just down to 99% and even if used together, where one is enough to break the immunity they will still both work at 1/5.

    3) No other means of lower resistance work at all against immune monsters, however, if immunity is broken they will work in full.

    T-strokes will therefore not enable us to do any damage to Madawk on it's own. Coupled with a shoppable necro wand with Lower resist charges on the other hand, Bingo, and the -15% will work in full. Max level shoppable is lvl 3 charges, but that does require a shopper of lvl 94 or higher. Level 2 is easily available though.
     
  12. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Has that changed in a recent patch? Way back in patch 1.10, my brother and I played through a game together where I was a paladin with the Conviction aura, and he as a sorceress with maxed Cold Mastery. We encountered nothing that didn't take massive damage from his cold attacks, even cold immunes. It seems like if we were only getting 1/5 of stated resistance (even after the resistance was broken), a monster with cold resistances would still take very little damage.
     
  13. Cap'n CJ

    Cap'n CJ Arrr! Veteran

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    Wheee, Diablo is down! I've had some amazing loot today, loads and loads of +skill items, but NONE of them for Druid! Argh!
     
  14. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Well done - you should be able to sail through the rest of normal difficulty - as I said, Diablo is usually the hardest test in nomal.
     
  15. Viking Gems: 19/31
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    I'm not sure when it last changed, but it hasn't changed since 1.10 went live afaik. I'd guess that it was changed from 1.09, but I didn't really play much in 1.09, so I can't say for sure how it worked back then. It's 6 years ago after all.

    Remember that for those critters that were broken with conviction, the sorc's cold mastery would be working in full bringing their resistance down loads subject only to the cap of -100. For things that remain CI after conviction, the sorc would do zero cold damage, regardless of CM level.
     
  16. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    OK - that's how I thought it worked - I guess I did a poor job of explaining it. I thought that once a resistance was broken by character A, then further -% from character B worked as normal. I thought you were saying that anytime a creature had resistance exceeding 100%, that all -% resistance worked at 1/5 efficacy regardless of whether it was broken by the first character.
     
  17. Sir Rechet

    Sir Rechet I speak maths and logic, not stupid Veteran

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    Aldeth, close but not quite.

    There's a difference between skills that actually lower monsters's resistances for everyone concerned (Conviction and Lower Resist) and stuff that causes vulnerability specifically to *your* attacks such as Cold Mastery and Rainbow Facets. The first two are at 1/5 effectiveness against immunes, irregardless of the order in which you apply them or whether one of them is enough to break the immunity by themselves.

    The other category either works at full capacity - against non-immune monsters and the ones whose immunity is broken by Conv/LR first - or not at all, if the monster remains immune after Conv/LR is applied.

    So in the case of Conviction pally and a Cold sorc: If Conviction is enough to break immunity, even if just barely, Cold Mastery will take full effect and allow the sorc to really deliver the damage. However, an Amazon using Freezing Arrow without any Cold Facets or other sources of -enemy_cold_resist would barely tickle the same mob.
     
  18. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    OK - I get it now. I had not realized there was a different way of applying -% resistance. So other than Conviction and Lower Resist (and I guess Amplify Damage, as I know I've used that to break physical immunes), it's an all or nothing proposition based on whether or not the monster is at or over 100% resistance.

    ---------- Added 2 hours, 28 minutes and 53 seconds later... ----------

    I have taken the plunge into single player. I was pissed when I saw that Battlenet is resetting the ladder again next week. When the ladder resets, all existing ladder characters become non-ladder characters. The issue I have with that is non-ladder characters do not have the ability to upgrade runes indefinitely. I believe the last set of runes non-ladder characters can upgrade are Hel to Io. Since I generally play solo anyway, and it is a pipe dream that I'll ever get the runes to be able to make any of the ladder-only runewords, I felt this was as good a time as any for a fresh start. There are many powerful non-ladder runewords that are expensive, yet comparitively less so than the ladder-only ones. Since I can upgrade runes indefinitely in single player, it is feasible that I'll eventually be able to make some of them in a couple of months.

    That said, I have found that there are many perks in using single player that I did not have access to while playing on Battlenet. First of all, I downloaded ATMA, and that makes switching things between characters very easy. In ATMA V, you can create a stash with unlimited capacity, where the stash is broken down into many subgroups, so you can organize by weapons, runes, gems, armor, whatever. So it's nice that I don't have to create mules to hold my extra stuff.

    Secondly, I never realized until now the benefits of changing the game settings to 8 players. Monsters are worth a LOT more experience points when you change the setting to eight players, and they drop a LOT more stuff. (The downside being they have a lot more life and take a lot more damage before dying.) I'm unsure of the exact percentage, but based on the rate my character is advancing, I'd say I'm getting about triple the XPs I was getting when I played solo on Battlent.

    As for items, while changing the players setting to 8 does not affect what a given monster can drop, it greatly increases the chances that it drops something. It's not that you're getting a higher percentage of magic or better items - that part is still controlled by one's magic find percentage - it's just that by getting more of everything, you also get more magic or better items. (You also get more cracked and low quality gear as well.) Chests, barrels, and other containers also have improved drop rates. That didn't surprise me because those drop rates work the same way as monster drop rates (the percentage are different for the different containers, but the drop mechanics function identically). What did surprise me is that not only do containers seem to drop more often, they also appear to drop more stuff when they drop. It's not uncommon to get multiple drops from a single container, whereas on Battlenet if a container gave you anything at all, it was typically one item. (Gold chests excepted - they always give multiple drops.)

    Anyway, for my first character, I decided on a Concentrate Barbarian. As far as magic find abilities, this is a mid-range character. The Find Item ability makes him better than most other melee characters, but he cannot hope to compete against somthing like a skellimancer. The thing is, I currently have nothing. So even a mid-range magic find character that can progress rapidly through normal and nightmare is the easiest path to gaining some wealth. My previous skellimancer had some serious problems with normal Diablo, and he was well twinked. I couldn't see Normal Diablo going well when playing untwinked.

    The Concentrate Barbarian will be the standard for that build type: max battle orders, concentrate, shout and a mastery, in that order. You'd max the mastery last anyway, but that is especially true for my character, as I have no idea what weapons I will have access to. I have already spent a point in both axe and sword mastery, as they are the two decent weapons I have found up to this point. If I get a good mace class weapon, I'll also throw a point in there. I won't spend points in spears or polearms, because one thing I'm certain of is I will be using a shield eventually. A Concentrate Barbarian doesn't really need a shield in normal difficulty. It's hard to find one with a decent block rate, and a one-point shout is typically adequate to prevent monsters from hitting you anyway. So right now, I'm just using the biggest beat stick I can find as my primary weapon, which up to this point is a magic battle axe.

    Anyway, I've reached the Inner Cloister way point in Act I, and I am already stunned by the amount of levels and the amount of gambling I've been able to do. Based on my current advancement rate, I predict I will be level 21 by the time I get to Andariel. I usually don't see level 21 until around the Arcane Sanctuary.

    Since there are level limits on what the merchants can sell in normal difficulty, I'm getting all my equipment via gambling, as that is based exclusively on your character level, irrespective of difficulty, and my character level far exceeds the item types that merchants sell. The only downside up to this point is I am using a lot of mana potions to keep my Concentrate skill going. It's actually fairly difficult to find a mana leech item (except for a lucky gamble) this early in the game, and normally that's not an issue because in the past I never needed mana for a melee character this early in the game. It's not too bad though, as my mana pool is so small even a minor mana potion completely fills my bulb.
     
  19. dmc

    dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Well, that was annoying. I decided to motor straight through to the ancients last night without swapping out anything for a TP item, as I had accumulated a few dozen FR potions. No one spawned particularly horribly and I was busy thumping Korlic while my merc engaged the other one who was not Madawc (forget his name). Madawc was conveniently off screen somewhere.

    So I was CS'ing Korlic up the yin-yang (good visual there), had a full health bulb, and killed him. Much to my surprise, he exploded and my over 1000 HP amazon went down like a wet piece of paper - insta-dead. I had no idea he could do that, and with that much friggin damage. Jeez!

    So, I revived the merc, went back up there and started again. Didn't get as lucky as last time with Madawc on some kind of field trip somewhere, but managed to separate them out a bit and this time I killed Korlic by remote control (with a LF after I got him most of the way down with CS). The other guy whose name I can't remember didn't take much longer, so then it was just a race with Madawc, FA, and trying to avoid his axes. Let me tell you, they sucked mana out of me like nothing else, poisoned me and caused me no end of headaches. He completely ignored my decoy and mostly ignored my merc, meaning I was motoring around at top speed, trying to get off a couple of FAs while not letting him close on me, scooping up potions I had scattered around, and generally thanking my lucky stars that I had Aldurs boots and their +40 FRW on. Definitely would have died without them.

    Killed Madawc with a grand total of two FR potions left (no reds or blues at all at that point). Which means I went through about 34 of them.

    Gained a level, sweet, and moseyed into the worldstone keep. Cleared the first two levels, but the third is chock full of gloams, midgets, and blood lords, which makes some slow going. I've got it paused somewhere halfway through as I ran out of time (I was getting pretty tired by 10:30 -- means I am an old man, I guess). I will finish Baal tonight and will probably end just shy of level 86.

    I do like the killing power of LF, but I have to say that gloams pose a very, very serious threat and slow things down a lot. If you are looking at a speed to kill things factor, the necro still takes the cake overall because there are, quite frankly, no enemies that cause any real problems. CE just owns.

    Plus, in an entire run of meph, baal, pindle, pits, eldritch, shenk, and travincal, the necro might get hit once or twice and face some real danger every fifth run. The amazon gets hit a lot and faces real danger quite often within each run. The lawnmower effect is cool though, and she kicks ass so long as there aren't any gloams around. (That's a big caveat though.)

    I think I'm going to go druid next. Any thoughts on builds?
     
  20. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    He must have been Fire Enchanted. That's the only way bosses explode like that, and since I do not think he comes Fire Enchanted as a standard ability, he got that from one of his two random abilities. Chances are he wouldn't have done that on your second attempt, even if you were nearby when you killed him, as he probably wouldn't have spawned twice with the same random mod.

    Well, the only place where you could possibly encounter gloams would be a random spawn in Act V leading up to Baal. There's no chance of them spawning for Shenk, Eldritch, or Pindleskin, nor during a Mephisto run. And since the gloams won't spawn during every Baal run - or even most Baal runs for that manner - your amazon may still be the better character. You can always save and exit if gloams spawn.

    There is also one more thing that you haven't done yet, where your amazon will be much better than your necro - cow running. Even on players 8, LF completely destroys cows, as they can never spawn lightning immune. Your necro won't even be close to the speed of your amazon for cows.

    Gotta help me out on this one - are you leaning in any particular direction? Windy Druid, Elemental Druid, Shapeshifter, Summoner, or Hybrid? (Although keep in mind that while hybrids are possible, there are a lot of elemental skills that cannot be cast when you are shapeshifted, so a Shapeshifter-Elemental or Shapeshifter-Windy is not a viable combo. All the other ones are possible, especially with your stash of equipment.
     
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