Diablo II single player questions

OK, that is significantly more than what I get in a typical run. In fact, I would say that in a typical pit run with my neco, finding more than 2 uniques is a rarity. However, I was in no way trying to slam players 8. The reason I play on battlenet is that I sometimes play online with my brother, and I like having access to ladder only items, ladder only runewords, and battlenet-specific content (there are quite a lot in those categories, especially the runewords, although admittedly some of the ladder only runewords require several high runes and are incredibly expensive to make.)

I will readily concede that if you never have any intention of playing with someone else, and you are willing to forego the inventory of ladder only and battenet specific aspects of the game (which also include things like the Diablo Clone and the Pandemonium event - unquestionably the two most challenging parts of the game), then single player on the players 8 setting may be way to maximize the fun of the game for you. (Let's face it - it's not like I play on battlenet because I like getting fewer drops - it's just that it's the only way to access the entire game's content.) I was simply attempting to reassure Ziad that the game could still be very entertaining even on players 1. (Of course the counterpoint is that if you are happy with the players 1 setting, then you probably should be playing a ladder character on battlenet, as the main feature you get with single player is the ability to adjust the player setting.)

 

well, you can get mods (plugY) with the dia clone and all the ladder runewords and stuff like that

 

Unless they really bastardized the process of getting the Diablo Clone to spawn or the Pandemonium Event to activate, I cannot see how a mod would enable this function. (I can see how you could change the code for new runewords, and certainly allow ladder only runewords to become active, and ladder only items to become dropable.) For some of the other stuff, I don't see how it would work. For example, the Diablo Clone is activated through the selling of Stones of Jordan. There's no practical way one player would be able to accumulate enough SoJs to spawn them. I literally think he would need more than an inventory full of SoJs.

 

@ATFI

i think you can just "tell" the game that you have sold that many sojs, or simply cheat to trigger the event, though i do not have the items to battle him or the need to do so.

but you could go through some key runs and get the anni? or is it a torch that is dropped there?

i had a fanatic zealot on my other comp before it fried that could do one of the fights at least

 

That's the thing, you need keys, which I suppose could be coded to drop, that opens up separte fights against Lilith (looks like Andariel), an uber version of Duriel, and an uber version of Izual, who each drop artifacts, which can be cubed to open Tristram, where you fight uber versions Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal simulatenously. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the cheat versions. Even if you are fighting exact versions that you would find on battlenet, part of the challenge is it's hard to even get to the fights, and this seems like a shortcut around it.

 

Aldeth, PlugY has "bastardized" the World Event in that you cannot, for obvious reasons, sell enough SoJ in single-player to spawn the Event. What they've done instead is have a counter of sorts that increments ever X amount of time, that counter mimicking the variable that triggers the event, as if other players were on the same server and selling SoJ. I'm still in Normal and haven't tried it obviously. I think the Pandemonium event works much like online though, the keys drop from the same enemies with the same low frequency and you have to merge them using the cube.

I finished Act 4 and killed Diablo. It was odd, I had a lot of trouble at first and he killed me twice in a row very quickly. On the third try I noticed I'd already dealt him quite a lot of damage without noticing (about half his health was gone). I summonned my Fire Golem, got ready to gulp mana potions, and started spamming Decrepify. Diablo died shortly afterwards with no more trouble, but sadly did not drop anything too noteworthy (lots of uniques and rares, but nothing I can use). I go on to Act 5 and turned /players 8 on again, no trouble with it so far. We'll see if I can keep this up into Nightmare.

I have one item from each of Cathan's and Sigon's sets now. Cathan's seems like an OK set for my Sorceress (can probably do better with the rares and uniques I have now though) and Sigon's looks really good for my Paladin. Chances of getting a complete set seem rather low though, even with /players 8.

 

on the note of the keys, they also drop in singleplayer without mods, they just can't do anything, so it should be exactly like battle.net unless they've changed droprates of keys in 1.12

ISRN: my ama has now passed lvl 60 and i am gonna attack diablo in a bit, no good drops at all, i would really like a new bow or something, eaglehorn or mavinas or something

 

Sigon's is a good set for any melee character. However, it is difficult to complete the set because there are so many pieces. It is appropriately named Sigon's Complete Steel. The good news is, none of the items are all that rare. There's no class specific items and no jewelry, and so overall it's not that hard of a set to put together. And it's pretty decent to boot. The highest requirement item is the tower shield - like all tower shields you need a strength of 75 to use it. Definitely good enough to go through normal, although you may need to upgrade some equipment going into nightmare, as the set takes up all your inventory slots besides the jewelry, and once you start taking items away, it loses a lot of it's luster. I put Sigon's on the same level as Isenhart's - very good for melee characters on normal, and fairly easy to acquire.

 

Unfortunately I don't think I will have completed Sigon's in normal, not unless I get lucky gambling for it with my Necromancer (who is swimming in money at the moment, so why not). As you said there's too many items and I cannot imagine getting so lucky as to assemble it before my Necro hits Nightmare. I was planning on switching back to my Paladin when this happens, but I may instead keep playing with the Necro and come back to the Paladin and Sorceress later. I've still got to start on my Druid too...

IIRC 1.11b and 1.12 are exactly the same thing except for the removal of the copy protection. I've never seen any of the keys in 1.11b so they must be pretty rare drops to begin with.

 

they can opnly be found in hell at the countes, the dude in the space station in act two, and from pindleskin in act 5.

and i have had them drop at times

 

Close. It's Hell Countess, Hell Summoner (he's the guy you are referring to in Act II), and Hell Nihlathak. I've never tried to run keys in single player mode, so I have no idea how rare they are there. Your chances on battlenet aren't that bad at all: about 1 in 13.

 

IIRC it's 1:13 for the nithlatak one, and 1:9 for the other two

ISRN

i made the runeword edge for my FA strafeazon, and it is rocking! i would like some more phys. dammage though since i don't really seem to leech anything

and nm Baal is a *****! i dont seem to hurt him at all, not really sure on what to do now..

 

Damn. My magic arrow-zon died at lvl55. I was farming nm mephisto. She was quite powerful but the Lightning Enchanted Council Member at Mephisto's level spawned with that green aura that lowers resistances and Ghoul Lords casted Meteor on me and I was dead in a second. I will start another and the next time I see that green aura I will just save and exit.

 

That is odd. Baal does have all sorts of resistances, including to cold and physical, but unless your damage is really low, it shouldn't be that bad. Obviously, if you're fighting Baal, you managed to kill all of his minions, including Lister. If you were able to take out Lister without much of a problem, then you should be able to take out Baal. On the other hand, if it took you several minutes to take out Lister, then you better bring a lunchbox when you go to fight Baal, as he has several times the HP that Lister does. The only good news I can offer is that Act bosses do not regenerate damage, so any damage you deal is permanent.

Other than having FA, what is your skill setup? You don't have to list any prerequisites, just tell me what skills you have placed more than one point into.

 

I love gambling set items

I got Naj's circlet while gambling yesterday, and thought that could make an interesting set (only 3 items too). I finally decided to get a set items FAQ and noticed that the other 2 items have much higher level requirements though, so even if I find them I will not be able to use them for some time.

Funny how I was saying yesterday that my chances of completing Sigon's set were nonexistant. I got another piece for it yesterday from random exploration. The frequency of set items dropping seems much higher in Act 5 than it was in any of the others. Now that Exceptional items have started appearing rather frequently I've also got a list of Exceptional and Elite item names (and the equivalent Normal items) so I can start gambling for the specific set items I want. Who knows, I may get lucky again!

I was wondering for a second if we were playing the same game, until I saw Aldeth's post

 

I still have yet to gamble a single set or unique item.

No fairzeez.

 

@Ziad - Naj's set isn't so great because of the level requirements. Also, the armor is Hellforge Plate, whihc IIRC, has a strength requirement of 180, which is much more than a typical sorceress will want to invest in that attribute.

The odds of gambling a set or unique item are 1 in 2000. I've onyl gambled a handful of them in my life playing D2.