Diablo II single player questions

As a somewhat cheesy suggestion, the game checks the players setting at the moment of the monster's death. You could theoretically set it for players 1, and take Baal and Mephisto down to a sliver in health, and then at the last second switch in back to players 8. You get the benefit of the better drop, without the extra time to do it. This would work with all the bosses of course, but Shenk, Eldritch, et. al., are probably killed so quickly that you wouldn't have time to switch it over. And of course with the Countess, you wouldn't want to switch it up to players 8.

The other thing I'm thinking is if I want to speed up my paladin through the game, I could get him to Travincal in Act III (I'm almost there). I would have to kill the Council with my Paladin in order to get credit for the quest and advance into the Durance. But at that point, I could save and exit the game and then immediately re-enter with my necro, and have him clear out the entire Durance of Hate in about 30 minutes - kill everything except for Mephisto. (When you play online you have about one minute after you save and exit to re-enter with another character. Battlenet only deletes the game if there is no player in it for about a full minute - I use this trick to transfer stuff between characters.) Then re-enter with my paladin, kill Meph, and get credit for finishing Act III.

I could do the same thing in Act IV and V if I want, as the only stuff I have to kill with my paladin are the quest related things.

 

Aldeth, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to kill the Countess on /players 8?

 

Well, thanks to Chicken I got a working copy of Atma and I honestly have no idea how I played Diablo 2 without it. It's revolutionary for me.

I'm swapping gems, runes, jewels and set items between characters like mad. I've created 4 Amazons (since I don't like playing them) as mules, one for runes, items, gems and one for storing up Full Rejuvination potions. I've also been playing on Players 8 (which adds a nice challenge in addition to all the extra schwag) so I'm getting rare items almost as often as I seem to be getting regular magic (violet lettering) items, and I've found more set items in the last day than I have in all my years of playing. I already have 2 sets that are one componant away from completing, which I never thought I'd see without buying or swapping with other players online (which always felt like cheating, to me).

I also made my first runeword item: the Ancient's Pledge shield. Simply awesome for my Frosty Zealadin. It maxes out all my resistances (minus cold), a feat I've never achieved until Hell before. I also understand it's one of the more basic and easy-to-achieve runewords, so I don't feel THAT cool...but still.

The next one I want to make is Holy Thunder - can anyone tell me the best way to get a 4-socket Scepter?

 

The Countess has unique drop mechanics. The short answer is if you're looking for runes, you want her to fail her drop checks, because in failing her drop checks she drops runes instead. Since more players means more drop checks, if runes are what you're after you want the fewest possible players, which is 1. It is theoretically possible for the Countess to drop 6 runes, although it is extremely rare to see more than 3, because it's almost certain one drop is gold, one drop is a magic item, and one drop is some junk item like a key, potion, etc.

You have no idea of the complexity of the question you just asked:

Get lucky and find one, ideally one that has good +skills on it, because you keep whatever skills are on it when you make the runeword. The problem is that 4 sockets on a scepter is really tough to get. You cannot even take a white scepter you find to Larzuk, and use your socket quest. When you use your socket quest on a white item, you get the maximum number of sockets that the item can get. Unfortunately for you, the small scepters (the ones that are just called "scepters") can have two, the medium scepters ("grand scepters") can have three, and the big scepters ("war scepters") can have five. So you're SOL when it comes to Larzuk.

Here's why 4 is so tough to find though: scepters and grand scepters (and their exceptional and unique counterparts of course) can never spawn with 4 sockets (an item can never have more sockets than the number of spaces it takes up in your inventory, and the two small kinds take up just 3 spaces). That leaves war scepters (and their excep/elite counterparts). And here is where the math turns against you. Scepters are termed a "class-specific item" (even though any class that meets the minimum strength, dexterity and level requirements can wield them).

As a class-specific item, they drop with 1/3 the frequency as other items in their treasure class. This is easier to conceptualize with an actual example. War scepters are in TC Weapons 21. The items in that TC include Flail, Military Pick, Spetum, Long Sword, Maul, Poleaxe, Giant Sword, and the War Scepter. Normally, when the game decides to drop from a TC, all items are dropped with equal frequency. But from experience in playing the game you already know that you see the other items in this TC much more frequently than you see war scepters. And that's because as a class-specific item, it drops at 1/3 the frequency of the other items. So you're odds of landing a war scepter if this TC is selected are not 1/8, but 1/22 (with the odds of the other 7 items being 3/22).

But it gets worse. Even if the game does decide to drop a war scepter, now it has to decide what type of war scepter it drops. The only way you get a war scepter is if it fails it magic checks and is a normal item, with 1/20 of all normal items dropped being socketed.

You're not done yet. Even if you get the item to drop, and the game decides that it is a socketed item, it still has to determine the number of sockets it gets. Number of sockets are randomized, with an equal probability of getting each possibility. Since war scepters can have up to 5 sockets, you're odds of getting exactly four are 1/5.

So that means every time the game decides to drop from TC Weapons 21 (and of course there's no way to guarantee that you drop from this TC with any regularity), you have a 1/22 * 1/20 * 1/5 = 1/2200 chance of getting a war scepter with exactly four sockets. (And then you want one that has good +skills.)

Have fun.

 

Well, poop. Oh well - still tons of fun.

 

Aldeth, I don't want to know how many hundreds of hours you've spent on this game in order to know how ALL the math works and be able to answer just about any question we can throw at you! You're a living Diablo encyclopedia!

 

Ziad,

I have a secret, in fact you can argue that I actually have a Diablo II encyclopedia: DiabloII Wiki.

Although I do know a lot of this stuff off the top of my head. But to illustrate by example, I would not be able to describe the exact Countess drop mechanics without looking it up. All I know off the top of my head is what I wrote. If you go to the wiki site, you can look up calculations of exact odds of how many runes she will drop, and the frequency of which types of runes she will drop. Again, while I don't know the exact numbers, I can tell you that getting 2 or 3 rune drops are by for more common than getting only 1 or 4-6, and that the lesser quality runes are dropped with more frequency that the higher ones.

EDIT: I also had to look up what the other weapons were in the war scepters treasure class - it's not like I have that level of detail memorized.

 

Sometimes you get burned when you don't check the wiki site! I forgot one more way to get a 4-socketed war scepter, although your odds still are far from great. You can use the socketing recipe in the horadric cube to socket a normal white scepter. Here's the various socketing recipes from the wiki site:

After that, the game rolls a random number between 1-6. If the number rolled exceeds the maximum number of sockets possible for that item, you get the maximum number. (So you're odds for getting a 4-socket war scepter would be 1 in 6.) The example from wiki:

 

Finally got to Act IV with my Paladin (had a week off) and players 8 has only just started to become an annoyance. The monsters just have so much hp, with the worst being the battle against Izual. I did not come close to dying, but I had to TP twice in order to repair my weapon, with the final blow taking it's durability down to 0. That slow action really takes down the fun level. Good news is that Izual dropped a rare circlet which should really speed things up thanks to:

+119 to attack rating (never an issue really)
+1-52 lighting damage
+22-53 fire damage
Magic damage reduced by 2 and a 20% faster cast rate are also there, but essentially useless.

This replaced the Infernal Cranium cap which I had been using along with the Belt of the same set up until that point. The cap had a long run, but it is safe to say that it has been replaced.

 

Izual is annoyingly uber tough with players 8. I had never really appreciated how much HP he had and how difficult he was to kill, compounded by how his character size which makes him tougher than several other bosses (some nukes hit less or don't work well at all).
At least I don't have as much problems with Griswald.
Wait 'till you meet the spawners or are "lucky" enough to play an instance where there are lots of them.
Do you gamble? Circlets with +damage stats are not so rare with gambling, as well as other useful stuff (although yours has two elements, lucky find). If you ever have extra cash you can use it to gamble for inexpensive armors and weapons with good mods.
Magic Damage Reduced (MDR) by 2 is actually more useful than one would think. Some spells (like Firewall and Poison) work several times per second, and MDR reduces that damage by 2 each time.

 

dmc,

The one set that you have that is absolutely excellent and will carry you a long way through Nightmare is Isenhart's. Even if you end up playing something like a sorceress, it's extremely useful early on because you'll actually be able to take her into melee in the early parts of the game when mana issues are at their worst. With a sorceress, by the time you hit Act IV or V you probably would want to switch to something else because you'll become predominantly a caster. But any melee character (barbarian, non-elemental druid, or paladin would be very good with that set for a long time.

Also, Milabrega's and Infernal tools are excellent starter sets for a paladin and necro, respectively, although you probably have no interest in starting another character of one of those classes.

Cleglaw's would be great without the knockback on the gloves. There's a few other's in there that are OK (like Tancred's), and some others that I've never particularly liked (like Berserker and Angelic).

Ma'avina's, like all the other class-specific sets (Aldur's, Griswold's, IK,etc), is outstanding. If you ever make a bowazon, that's a great set. Putting together the Arctic set first would allow your bowazon to wear a set throughout the entire game (and the Arctic set is surprisingly effective - even the armor (quilted) is OK, because it has an attribute that gives +3 defense per character level).

The most unusual set that you are close to completing is Orphan's Call. The two very unusual things about Orphan's is 1) None of the pieces of the set have the set's name as part of their name (although there are a couple of others like that) and 2) There is no weapon for the set. (again not unique). With the exception of being a little light on resistances, it's a very good set, and usable by any character that uses a one-handed weapon (the set has a shield). It is the lack of a weapon that actually makes the set worth using. The weapon is often the weakest item in the set (usually low damage), which is why the caster sets get used more than the melee sets.

Not to nitpick, but firewall and poison are not considered magic damage. They are considered fire and poison damage, respectively. These can be reduced by getting elemental resistances. There are very few things that deal magic damage. The only ones I can think of offhand are the Oblivion Knights (who can cast bone spirit) and the various different forms of the succubus that shoot those red energy balls that you encounter throughout Act V.

Physical damage, on the other hand, is combined with elemental attacks. For example, the claw vipers attack is part elemental and part physical, as is Diablo's Pink Lightning Hose of Death (PLHoD). In fact, PLHoD is half lightning and half physical, so going against big D with some physical damage reduction (PDR) gear and good resists make that battle much easier. (And getting some PDR is never a bad idea anyway, as the vast majority of monsters you encounter deal physical damage.) I've built concentrate barbs with a focus on high defense and damage reduction (and high resistances of course) that could bask in the glory of D's PLHoD on Hell difficulty without fear of dying (especially the one that used the Lightsabre).

 

dmc - could you talk a little about your Necro build, and any advice you have on building a successful one? Thanks.

 

Will I do?

dmc and I have the same necro build (although dmc does have superior equipment than mine) - a summoner commonly referred to as a skelimancer. It focuses on four primary skills: summon skeleton warrior, skeleton mastery, amplify damage, and corpse explosion.

Basic play style - have merc/golem kill some monsters, which you resurrect as skeletons. Cast amplify damage on enemies so they take double physical damage from your skeletons. Let skeletons administer beat-down on baddies. Once first baddie dies, cast corpse explosion to kill the rest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's a powerful build. Amplify damage is -100% physical resistance, so it's even effective in removing the immunity of physical immune creatures. (Physical immunes still take a while to hack through, but with an army of 10+ skeletons, it's not too bad.)

 

Yes, you'll do. I'm about Paladin'd out at the moment.

When you say "skeletons," do you not invest in Skeleton Mages? And in the skill investments, you didn't mention Golem masteries as a skill pick, yet cite them in the strategy. Do you use them or not? And which kind - clay, blood, or iron (or all 3 in succession)?

 

Skeleton mages are accessory summons, and are non-essential to the build. dmc and I each invested one point into them. Since summoners use as much +skill equipment as they can get their hands on (and especially anything that gives a bonus the the summoning skill tree), even a single point investment can usually turn out to have an effective skill level of 7-10 when cast. That's why it's worth it to place a point in just about every skill in the summoning tree. I can summon up to five skeleton mages - I think I have that skill level at 9 - even though I only invested a single point in the skill.

You definitely want to get a point into clay golem and golem mastery as soon as the skills become available, for the same reason you put a point into skeletal mages - you'll effectively a level 7-10 golem with bonuses from the passive level 7-10 golem mastery for just 2 points. But once you get a point in each of those skills, you can forget about golems for a while. Which golem you use is mostly personal preference, although both dmc and I favor the clay golem because they have tons of life, and slow the enemies they hit (even bosses, which is a very useful thing to have happen).

One of the advantages about a skelimancer is that there's a lot of latitude in where you spend your skill points. You definitely want to max out skeleton warrior, skeleton mastery, and corpse explosion. You also want to spend a few points in amplify damage so that the skill has a decent area of effect and duration. There's no need to max amplify damage though. I think I spent five points into it - I have a few +skills that take it up to level 8 or so - it covers a good chunk of the screen and my skeletons can kill most of the stuff I cast amplify damage on before the duration expires.

So you only have about 70 points of stuff to invest in with this build (there's some prerequisites and 1-point wonders, so I added a few extra there), and you should have all of your main skills maxed and your build finished before you even finish nightmare. The skill points you get from then on can be spent any way you like. It is at this point that you can start heavily investing in the golem of your choice. A maxed out clay golem can have immense amounts of life. I think dmc has his clay golem at level 35 or so, with golem mastery at level 12 or so, and the thing has over 11000 life. It's pretty much indestructible, even on hell difficulty with the players 8 setting. My golem is in the upper 20s in level, with a golem mastery about 10, and mine has a little under 9000 life.

The advanatge of this is obvious - whenever you run into an act boss recast the golem so that it appears right in front of him with the idea being that the boss will attack him. When said golem has thousands of points of life and heals fairly rapidly, the boss's attacks are an exercise in futility - usually the golem can regain life faster than the boss can inflict damage (especially because the boss is moving at a fraction of his normal speed due to the slowing effect of the clay golem).

EDIT: Two more things - dmc is correct in refering to the skill as "Raise Skeleton". I call it Skeleton Warrior to differentiate it from Skeleton Mage, but his term is what the skill is actually called in the tree.

Finally, while necros benefit greatly from +skills (I love my wand that gives +3 to the entire summoning tree), a skellimancer can be effective with no +skill equipment at all (or no equipment of any kind for that matter - it's your summons that do the work). It's a great character to start the game with to help you build some wealth and to supply equipment for future characters.

 

Nice, this is good stuff. My Necros always seem to crap out in the early parts of Act III. With these tips in mind (and my new love interest, ATMA ) I think I'll last a bit longer.