Diablo II character suggestions

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@ Tassadar

Otherwise okay, but I'm getting my fill of Diablo 2 with this char already -can't bugger to start from scratch again.

@ Earl Grey

Shure, I got boosted to Act 2 just yesterday and I have some small quests that require doing (Malus, Radament). PM me the time and date (GMT) and I'll try to be there.

Have to say that when comparing my barbarian, Druids are a lot more competitive choise. Easy way to deal damage, no absolute need for twinking or über items, and they can even specialize to summoning, spells, or melee (all groups). Still, sorcs and paladins seem to be better, since pallies have more HP/res and sorcs can basically annihilate anything without getting touched (guess who boosted me?)

 

I think Barbarians are the strongest class - even without twinking, their skills add so many +% damage they are the kings of the melee world.

I agree that through Normal and Nightmare - especially Nightmare - Sorceresses own. That's because you don't see any dual immunes on Normal and Nightmare, and any dual elemental sorceress will just mow things down. The problem kicks in on hell difficulty, when some (but by no means a majority) of creatures come with immunities to two different types of elementals. If they happen to be the two types you use, you're screwed. Then it's time for save and exit and hope the next game you start the creatures in that area spawn with different immunities.

 

Actually, Paladins are the kings of the melee world. They have a lot of auras and enchaments and they do not even need to rush head-on against monsters that can kill him with one or two swipes. Like electricity enchanted bosses. Paladins can just use those hammers and if that doesn't work: a) their shields automatically confer them high resistance against everything, and b) self-boosting auras make them very effective in close-range too.

I'm saying this from personal experience, like you already know from that other topic.

Plus "party-members whose skills complement each other." The thing is that when compared to other classes, you do not absolutely necessarily need max block, mercs, or other party-members. Sorcerer can simply wipe out the monsters, Paladin can just let the hammers do their job and stay behind his shield, Amazon has valkyrie and bows, necro his minions, and assassin his traps. Druid can use his wind-spells.

The point is that barbarian is the only class that has to go toe-to-toe with Hell-difficulty, near insta-gib monsters. The more players, the tougher time he will have in the fronts. Others have less risky options, like damage-absorbing summons, long-range attacks, and protective spells. In a good situation, you have a necromancer filling the fronts and a sorcerer dealing with the rest. Throw in a pally and it's ideal.

So it seems to me like barb is awfully difficult class to play with especially in Hardcore, where a single death means "the end." To be as effective as other classes in Nightmare and Hell, barbs need excellent items (twinking), maxed out skills (strict planning), and a careful playing-style (slow, tedious nudging to avoid being overwhelmed). In overall, the monsters are better barbarians in every aspect.

[ July 22, 2006, 18:45: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

I agree with wordplay. I played this ladder season extensively, and my most successful characters were my skellimancer (wait for something to die, then boom!) and my meteoorb sorceress. Frozen orb simply decimates everything in NM. Barbs on the other end require high end, expensive equipment to remain viable in hell. Ive stopped playing this ladder, but will start up again once new ladder starts. Anyone SPers want to join me?

 

How long is a ladder season?

+1 on necro being one of the best PvM characters I've seen.

 

The previous ladder seasons have been roughly one year long and the current season started early August last year so it's almost a year old now. Therefor people expect a ladder reset (=new ladder season start) soon, perhaps in August, but Blizzard has AFAIK not made any statement so it's possible that there will never be a ladder reset.

Only Blizzard knows.

 

That would be kinda good actually... I've just started a new necro!

 

Well its good if you want to jump on the 'duped runes galore' wagon. I'm hoping blizzard will do something about dupers in the new ladder

 

Nah it's all good mate, I find everything myself. No dupes here.

I figure what's the point of playing the game if you can buy everything? Killing monsters and finding out what goodies they drop is the whole appeal of Diablo!

 

I've completed Normal with a tri-elemental Sorceress, which I have to admit was not a good character. I just spread the skill points too much, and in the end she couldn't deal decent damage at all. Having Lightning Storm, Meteor and Frozen Orb all at once is nice and all, but it's just not effective. I plan on building a Cold Sorceress in the future, and see if I can solo the entire game (including Hell).

I'm currently playing a necromancer, and I've learned from my previous mistakes. I saved my skill points and used the Clay Golem (1 point only) until I got the Blood Golem, and am now pouring the points in Blood Golem and Golem Mastery. The only time my golem has died until now was against Duriel, and it was easy to recast it. It only took 2 recastings to kill Duriel, and all I had to do was stand in the back casting Amplify Damage - way too easy.

 

I only use clay golem, and iron golem whenever I find something I won't use like Kelpie Snare or an IK Maul. In Hell difficulty, clay golem has an absurd amount of life and regeneration speed with just one hard point. Skeletons, magi, merc and revives do all the damage for me. The golems only cripple or slow bosses they don't actually kill anything.

 

For me an assasin makes short work of Andariel, and most characters I've used are fine with everyone else (except the sorceress with Duriel -unless you have lightning, she's always too weak for me...).
Oooh, I like my Zookeeper. Very fun.

 

The main problem with D2 is that the number of workable builds steadily decreases as you increase in difficulty level. Almost any build will work in normal. Ziad's tri-elementalist is a perfect example. However, such a build starts suffering badly in Nightmare, and is almost impossible on Hell difficulty, unless you're walking around with a inventory full of +1 to all skills charms.

There was a time that a tri-elemental sorcereress was a workable build - but that was in the early days of D2, and definitely unworkable in version 1.10 and later. With the advent of synergies, spreading out your skills in multiple directions just doesn't make sense anymore.

Of course, the problem is not limited to just the sorceress. Anymore, there are only two or three different builds for each class that tend to work. A barbarian is a good example. It used to be that whirlwind barbarians were all that you saw. However, now with synergies it's all but obsolete, as nothing synergizes with whirlwind.

My best build ever was a concentrate barb. The skills that he maxes out - Shout, Battle Orders, and Concentrate all synergize with one another, maximizing their effectiveness. The other beauty of this build is that you don't pick your weapon of specialization until hell difficulty, which means if you don't twink your builds, you can wait until hell to find out which weapon will be the one you use the rest of the game. With three skills to max out, and several one point wonders (OK, sometimes more than one point for things like natural resistance), you don't have the points available for a weapon specialization until around level 70 or so.

 

I actually consider my tri-elementalist to be a failure even when only Normal is considered (and I never did take her farther than that). I remember having a LOT of difficulty against bosses because none of my attacks would do enough damage to kill a boss quickly. I remember Andariel being a big pain (especially compared to how easily I killed with my Necro, using just one point in Clay Golem), and my Sorc died several times to seal bosses in the Chaos Sanctuary (to the build's credit this was the first time she died).

It is true that the number of viable builds decreases as you go along in the game, even within Normal (I'm guessing it gets much worse in harder difficulties). During the first 2 acts for example things like Lightning and Frost Nova seem wonderful, and then become useless no matter how much you've pumped them up. The same goes for Blaze, a fun spell that's not much use on the long run.

I almost fell into that pattern with my necro. I wanted to spread points over the curses, try some P&B spells, and take both the golem and skelly trees. Then I realised skellies were just not going to be strong enough, unless I end up summoning 10 of them. Now I'm hoping pouring everything into Blood was a good idea. Maybe I should have saved points for Fire Golem or Revive...

 

I believe the purpose of the v1.10 and v1.11 patches was to make most of the builds obsolete in later difficulties -alone. E.g: my HC wind druid at Hell difficulty can't proceed forward (fast enough), but in teams the situation changes quite dramatically. Even with just two players, one of which should summon stuff, the speed improves a lot. Which earns thumbs up from me.

Now, if only there were enough players too...

 

I think the necro summoner is best built for any type of situation, with physical damage by skellies/merc, elemental damage from mages, golem for auxillary support and curses to remove immunities/control crowds. Plus they have corpse explosion.

 

It's in nightmare difficulty that practically any build will have a very easy time since by then you have spent plenty of skill points. Normal difficulty is actually more difficult than nightmare since you aren't developed yet. For example many builds have problems with Duriel in normal.
In Hell it really gets tough though.

It's very important to have a focus with whatever build you decide on. Spending skill points as you go along on whatever looks nice at the moment is a sure way to screw up a character.

My latest character is an assassin kicker/trapper. She was wonderful to play all through normal and nightmare. Fast and fun. She works good in hell too so I can recommend this.
20 Dragon talon (the kicking skill)
20 Venom (more damage)
20 Death Sentry (for the corpse explosion it does)

1 pt each in:
Dragon Flight ("teleport" for the assassin)
Blade Fury (ranged attack in case you get cursed with Iron Maiden)
Burst of Speed
Fade (resists are needed in hell)
Cloak of Shadows (crowd control)
Mind Blast (crowd control)

Finally, enough points in Shadow Master to get it to effective level 18.

@Ziad
Skellies are extremely powerful. The necro supports their fight with his curses, a 1 point Clay Golem and Corpse Explosion. I've said so before in this topic.
A good sorc build is max Frozen Orb and Meteor/Fire Ball. It's called the "MeteOrb".

Blood Golem and Fire Golem are quite bad golems. Clay Golem is fantastic for it's slow effect and Iron Golem is great if you have access to good items from which to make the Iron Golem.

 

Yup, in normal difficulty, the hardest bosses are Duriel and Diablo (low level/resistances). Possibly Baal if you didn't plan your character carefully enough. Mephisto always seems to be a walkover in any difficulty.

Creatures that cause me much more trouble than any boss are (Hell difficulty):

Gloams - Lightning attacks shoot across whole screens and you're dead in one hit.

Spear Cats - Pierce attack goes through everything from several screens away.

Vipers - Bugged poison cloud one-hit kill attack. And also bone spear.

Undead Stygian Dolls - When they die they all but drain your whole life orb.

Oblivion Magi - Iron Maiden really hurts.

Any lightning enchanted monsters.

 

I hate Diablo's red lightning. And those scarabs in Act II (especially if I have a rogue buddy who just keeps shooting at it while I'm trying to dodge all the lightning).

 

Gloams get my vote for hardest non-boss in the game. I completely agree with Tassadar. On normal and nightmare they make you drink a lot of potions, but aren't THAT bad. On hell difficulty, unless you've got a bunch of life and 75% lightning resistnace, they are insta-death, as there's no way you can effectively dodge that lightning. I've gone so far as to save/exit a game when they spawned, and then restarted the area in hopes they wouldn't spawn again.

The stygian dolls are annoying, but can be dealt with. When they die and explode the damage they deal is half fire and have physical. The range of the explosion is pretty small, and it should really only be a problem for melee characters. Most melee characters have high elemental resistance, and some physical damage reducing items, meaning that you should survive for blast. The problem here is when you are surrounded by five of them and a sorceress casts a frozen orb...

Oblivion Knights were the scourge of my holy freeze/zeal paladin. There's no way to stop mid-zeal, and there's no way I'm surviving one of my zeal attacks. Barbs are a little better in this regard (unless you happen to be whirling), as you are less likely to kill yourself with one attack.