Diablo II character suggestions

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@ Earl Grey: Don't forget the revives. A few of them can make all the difference. And it looks kewl too.

Sure hope not, because I'm at the hardest difficulty level and approaching Diablo. Never met them, though, and all my resistances are 80, so perhaps they are not exactly as wonderful in insta-gibs as stygian dolls? Even then group bonuses (2x life from barb and 2-3x life from Oak Sage) are high enough to offset the danger.

Melee characters only. A bit of strategy could help here, no?

 

You're lucky bro, they spawn frequently in Act IV in Plains of Despair (I think that's what it's called anyway). They spawn all the time in Act V too, and are ridiculously powerful because groups of them fire a concentrated beam from miles away. You won't know what hit you cos you don't see them coming.

Stupid merc, golem and skellies love to get themselves killed on IM. I definitely need to get Enigma for teleporting.

 

You make it sound like getting Enigma is easy. Bloody hell. Let me know how that works out. If you can get the necessary runes more power to you.

 

I'm not sure I agree. Clay Golem would be very good if it weren't for abysmally low damage. I understand that's not a problem in your build using skellies, but it is in mine. Iron Golem is good, but cannot stand against bosses at all. My iron golem died within seconds fighting the Council in Travincal, so I quickly summoned a Blood Golem, which managed to kill all of them by himself. Blood Golem's healing is really amazing: not only does the Golem never die (until now I've only needed to recast it against Duriel and Mephisto, and only twice against each), but you can happily wade into melee and not worry about taking damage - as soon as you do your health magically goes back to full because the Golem is leeching life. I'd read good things about Iron Maiden, but Amplify Damage and Blood Golem is the winning combination for Normal as far as I'm concerned. I can't comment on the Revived and the Fire Golem, as I'm not level 30 yet. I probably should have invested some points into skellies and skeleton mastery, but it's a little too late now.

I've heard lots of good things about this, but I just cannot get myself to use Meteor. I know it's a powerful spell, but I've never been able to use it properly, and it doesn't fit my style of playing at all. Frozen Orb is great fun, though it eats up mana at an alarming rate.

 

@Ziad
Clay golem is good because of it's slow effect. IMO none of the golems can kill with the possible exception of an Iron golem made from a really good weapon. This is in Hell difficulty, in normal and nightmare anything works.

The MeteOrb sorc has two main fire skills: Fire Ball and Meteor. I too am not very fond of using Meteor and instead use Fire Ball whenever possible. Still, Meteor has it's uses.

Insight polearm mercenary is a must to handle the mana problem, until then it's mana pots in two or three of your four belt slots.

 

With practise and a holy freeze merc, you'll learn to time your meteors soon enough. You're losing out on a potential 10k plus dmg if you dont use meteor.

And for necros, use decripify against bosses. Makes even the uber three (if you seperate them) wussies.

 

Said this before, but here it is again; necros can't go alone against bosses at the harder difficulty and especially on hardcore because once the skellies are gone, the game turns very slow and tedious. Of course, in the last difficulty a party is a must in any case.

Oh, and if you are necro; don't forget lower resist. It's a blessing for all magic-using classes as much as amp.damage is for melee-classes.

 

I just killed Hell Baal for the second time. Piece of cake.

 

Back when I played a Sorceress that was with patch 1.08. With synergies I suppose it makes much more sense to max Fireball and Meteor. I think I'll try building a FireOrb next time I play a Sorceress.

I've got to admit you're right on this one. Trying to beat Diablo with a Golem was a pain, and my Necro died half a dozen times. The golem (no matter which one - Clay, Blood, Iron) just drops straight away as soon as Diablo casts that annoying red lightning spell. However, I cannot imagine how skellies would fare any better against him, as they would drop the minute Diablo casts any spell. I really doubt even 20 skellies could survive a couple of Fire Novas, and Diablo has a tendency to cast that spell a lot when he's surrounded. Not to mention there's the problem of running out of corpses to get skellies from.

I sure hope Act 5 gets a little easier. Maybe having a Fire Golem against all the cold monsters may help.

 

Don't count on it. What you need is a good party dishing out direct damage.

 

I don't see why everyone's having problems with necros - I can solo Hell with my necro with absolutely no problems. Most people don't seem to realise that skeletons go up in power exponentially and get substantially boosted in Hell. Mine have around 2000 hit points in Hell with a very high life regeneration rate, and do about 500 damage *each* per hit. Throw in amplify damage and you're looking at 1k damage per hit. Hell Baal goes down in about 5 minutes!

[ August 07, 2006, 00:43: Message edited by: Tassadar ]

 

/Me thinks Tassadar is bragging a bit too much. And leave out the sake; it does not mix well with games.

 

Not bragging at all bro! I think a summon necro is probably one of the easiest classes to solo Hell with as you don't even need good gear to do it. You don't ever get hit apart from stray gloam lightning bolts, which will kill you in one hit anyway. All I did was max Skeleton Mastery, Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Magi. You've got 20 odd skellies there right away! You might need a few extra strong melee revives for certain super unique bosses (multi-immune ones), but that's pretty much all you need to do!

 

The most powerful builds for casual players (meanign players that won't do item runs for 6 hours a day) are obviously going to be the builds that are not heavily item dependent. The summons based necromancer is an excellent example of this. The concentrate barb also works well.

However, other builds practically require you to have great items. I can't remember the last time I saw an effective Amazon with anything other than a Windforce. Sorceresses require items with a lot of + skills to compete in terms of damage output. at higher levels.

 

Shure, Tassadar, I believe only when I see it. So how 'bout you take those 5 minutes, tape it, and upload it to YouTube or your own server for us to see? Start the vid from the moment you step into Hell Baal's chamber -although I wouldn't mind seeing how you defeat, alone, his minions too.

Not too hard, I presume, to do it all in 10 mins. I fully expect you to show us how l77t you are in your next reply.

 

First I gotta know how to tape it, then upload it on dialup!!!! (Broadband still too expensive here!)

How bout you just meet me on Bnet and I'll do it for you - you just sit back and watch. I really don't do much apart from curses. Might be longer than 5 minutes with 2 players cos of life scaling - maybe 10 minutes. (This is just for Baal, running WK2 takes longer or shorter depending on enemies spawned and where the exits are, duh! )

Baal's minions - that's a good fight. Depends on what Lister spawns with though. If he has something like fanaticism, you're in for a huge scrap. If you kill just one of them however, corpse explosion flatlines everyone else.

Here is a summon necro running Uber Tristram with top of the line gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1tPFaNJDZI

[ August 08, 2006, 23:39: Message edited by: Tassadar ]

 

Well, that is a nice way to weasel out of it, unless you just happen to play on EU, ladder, and hardcore. Honestly, I'm disappointed to your sheer laziness to prove your l77tness.

That vid doesn't show did the fella manage to finish it, by the way. He seemed to have a lot of trouble with Diablo and I don't think he got Baal either.

Anyway, hope you don't rely on luck (re-rolling) when dealing with them. I would love to see a video of how it is done, preferably on hardcore, untwinked, and single-player. I'm sure there are several recording programs out there and I could even host it for you for a while. If one of your buddies (or nearby libraries) has a faster connection, you can use that.

 

Definitely not hardcore mate, I'm not *that* good! Which is why I play a necro! It takes very little skill! That's what I've been trying to show - it's a much easier class to use than something like, say your windy druid which takes a lot more planning and finesse to use I'm sure.

I do play on Europe Ladder but softcore so fire up a character and we can run Baal!

Try this vid... better than the other one.

http://rapidshare.de/files/25347176/FooSoftNecroTrist.avi.html

 

Just to get things in perspective: You can beat "Über Tristram" with crap gear. See this story:
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=63770

The Necromancer issue
I agree with Tassadar. Hell Baal with a fishymancer is not hard. I'm a bit surprised that it takes as much as five minutes though, but ok.
A member of the team I created last ladder reset used to walk WSK and Baal with his Fishymancer. With CB on your merc and possibly yourself Baal should drop in health fairly fast. Clay Golem and decrep at the start makes him almost immobile and you can switch to Amp dmg once you're ready.
I don't think Wind Druid requires more finesse to play though. It's: Cast Oak (and Grizzly), turn on Hurricane and then you spam Tornadoes.

@Aldeth
Windforce? How many years has it been since you played Diablo 2?

Javazon is fairly easy to play without good gear. I'd rank that build the same as Conc barb.
Sorceresses are among the easiest there is to play untwinked! I'd say there are five builds that rates as easy untwinked and two of those are sorc builds:
MeteOrb sorc
Blizzard sorc
Fishymancer
Hammerdin
Lightning Trapsin

[ August 09, 2006, 10:30: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

@ Wordplay
I downloaded a free screen video recorder but the bloody thing slows my PC down to a crawl! Can you recommend a decent program? I'm actually keen to try filming a run just for fun.

@ Earl Grey
Haha it takes four minutes. Just did it again and looked at clock. Only skellies merc and golem, no revives. Yeah I like to take my time. I use decrep and ice magi for boss fights. Iron golem is made from a "slow target by x%" weapon (can't remember what). Poison magi to prevent monster regeneration. None of my minions have CB. I stand by summoner being easier though - go to Pindle's Garden, raise skeletons, wait raise more skeletons.