Diablo II single player questions

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Yeah I know. Used to do that quite a lot myself.

Nightmare act2 still going on since I haven't played that much in recent days. However I did get goblintoe boots which are allways nice, allthough for now I think I'll keep the magic finding boots on since I have really no kind of trouble with the monsters in act II

EDIT: Also a question for dmc. Are you using some mod that enables the ladder runewords and unique items? Personally I'm just using ATMA right now which is really helpful, especially in getting all those runes out of the way.

EDIT2: Another question sprung to my mind too. Is the horadric cube able to to transform all three runes to a higher rune? I seem to remember that there were limits on this before as to how high of a rune it was possible to create with the cube.

 

The rune upgrades are limited in single player and non-ladder games, and unlimited in ladder games. I think in single player and non-ladder you were allowed to upgrade all of the runes that didn't require a gem, and also all of the runes that required a chipped gem, which took you up to a Hel rune IIRC. However, I know for certain that dmc is upgrading all of his gems, so there is something he is doing that allows him to do this. (Doesn't ATMA let you do this?)

 

One word of caution here - while an eld will add 7% to your blocking chance, it will never raise the base blocking chance of a shield beyond 75%. Stormshield has an extremely high block rate the way it is. While I don't know offhand what the exact percentage is for a sorceress, if it's base is already something like 73% (and it very well may be close to this number), an eld may not be your best option (if you don't need the resists, and you like the magic find ability of this character, you can consider an Ist).

Level 77 should be more than adequate to start hell difficulty, even with the players 8 setting. Conventional wisdom states that you should not start hell prior to level 70, but that rule generally doesn't apply to sorceresses anyway, as they can "fake it" so to speak.

Have you guys recently had any difficulty getting onto the diabloiii.net page? That's where I go for most of my information. The D3 page loads up just fine, but all the links to the archived D2 pages seem to be broken.

 

Drat! Despite the age of the game, I actually find this quite strange. You see, diabloii.net used to be a stand alone site, but when Blizzard started releasing info on diablo3, they made a diabloiii wiki page with links to all the old diabloii.net information. The game may be old, but the latest incarnation of the site is not.

In that case, it's a great idea, and definitely something to consider. I would still suggest that you make maxing resistances your priority, but assuming you can, then raising the base chance to block seems like a solid option. (Although I must confess that I have no idea how many points in dexterity it will save you. I don't know if an extra 7% chance to block means you won't have to invest any points into dexterity for the next few levels, or for the rest of the game.)

Finished Act III Hell with my paladin last night, and didn't even die that much in the process. My only death of the evening was at the hands of a stygian doll (actually two of them that blew up simultaneously).

 

my paladin has hit a huge stall as he can't seem to clear act 3, it might be because i don't have enough liveleech, i will check that out later but he's got like 4% as it is right now and about 90% in all res. and it seems to be light immune big guys with a ton of life that's killing him, he's also got 10% CB and it can't get any better.

i am wondering about an alternate attack, i have quite a few unused skillpoints, about 20 i think.. so any thoughts on an alternate attack for him? it has'nt been nessecary(this can't possibly be the right way to spell this word???) until now, but as he is failing hard i am crying out to all of you

 

here's what's important

zeal for 5/cycle
max lightning aura and the major synergy resist lightning
almost max resist
max block and about lvl10 HS
dammage: mostly light around 5k

merc has plenty resist, frozen aura and decent gear, does araound 3k dammage, mostly physical

i use the crescent moon runeword (important stats)

-35% enemy light res.
+35% ias
7% ctc static field

it also has about 150 phys. dammage on the base weapon

mentionable items on pally:

the weapon listed above

rare tiara +2skills +3x str + 2x dex and +17 all res.

and the guardian angel armor

other items are mostly bad-medium rares mainly focused on res. and stats

 

i have the big cool looking one with 40% CB, i might try to give it a swing, as i can also use charge with it, that might do the trick


edit: and in my belt is mainly reju potions given by my necro as he doesnt use any

and my belt is mavinas, a sucky belt but it is the best i got, so meh

only problem with going switch weapons is that i can't hit anything, since my main weapon has ITD i haven't really planted anything in AR improving skills

 

Balle,

I would say that your weapon is acceptable. I don't know what weapon type you made Crescent Moon in, but if it has a base damage of around 150, that should more than do it when it comes to physical damage, once you add in the bonus you are getting from your strength, zeal, and (presumably) sacrifice synergy.

The key for any character is to be able to do a decent amount of two types of damage, and for a holy shock paladin those damage types are physical and lightning. The trick is to balance the two so that you don't slow down too much when you run into lightning or physical immune monsters (even in mixed packs with both types present).

My guess is that if you have 20 or so skill points lying around that you are lacking in one of those damage types. I would further surmise that since you say you are having problems with lightning immunes that your physical damage is not up to snuff, and you have not maxed out either zeal or sacrifice.

Your lightning damage should be fueled by holy shock with the resist lightning synergy. With both maxed out, even if you don't have any +skill equipment, that should be doing in excess of 2000 lightning damage per attack.

Your physical damage should be fueled by zeal with sacrifice as a synergy*.

* You should do it backwards from what most paladins do - max sacrifice before maxing zeal. The normal strategy is to max zeal first, because it gives an attack rating and damage boost, and then max sacrifice. However, with an ignore target defense weapon, you would max sacrifice first because it provides a +12% damage boost, while zeal only gives a 7% damage boost. That said, zeal should eventually by maxed as well. (You made it sound like you only invested 4 points to get it up to five attacks per use.) The damage difference between a level 4 and a level 20 zeal with a 150 base damage weapon is 168 damage per swing X 5 swings per zeal cycle = 840 more damage per cycle. Which is a lot. And beacuse it's physical damage it's leechable damage, meaning you should also be leeching an additional 33 points of life back per zeal cycle even with just 4% life leech. (As an aside, more life leech is always better with melee characters, but 4% should be adequate. My holy freeze pally has 6% life leech, and does just fine.)

You are having trouble killing lightning immunes as a holy shock pally, because you're losing more than half of your damage (unless you have a super high physical damage weapon, most shockadins do more lightning than physical damage). However, I'm assuming you are switching to some other aura when you run into lightning immunes. At the very least, if you've maxed out holy shock, you certainly had to spend at least one point in both holy fire and holy freeze. Even if it's level 1, it's going to add something to your attack, and something is obviously more than the zero you're getting from holy shock.

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dmc,

I completely agree that if the only elemental resistance you don't have maxed is poison, that you don't need to do something silly like socket a stormshield with a perfect emerald. I think Hexfire is an excellent choice as a weapon switch (you can't beat +3 to all fire skills), and I'd say throw an eld in Visceratuant as well. (It's not like you cannot get rid of the eld later if you need to.)

I love the bravado.

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Something very strange has happened to my frostadin - he stopped dying. I started Act IV Hell with him last night, and I got all the way to the River of Flame way point without any real difficulty to speak of. (Although I got a lousy Io as my Hellforge rune - damn it to hell.) It just goes to show how thin the line between a good character and an average character really is.

The only thing I added to this character since I became frustrated and stopped playing him a couple months ago are a couple sharp and steel charms. He went from a pitiful hitting percentage to a decent one by raising the base attack rating by about 150 (which is multiplied by zeal of course).

The Izual quest allowed me to max my sacrifice skill as well, so I have all of my four main skills maxed out. All remaining skill points will likely go into Salvation. It's only a 7% boost to cold damage, but it's the only thing left to invest in that will add anything to my attacks, as I will not earn enough skill points during the duration of the game to get an additional skill to a functional level.

Tonight is the Pandemonium Fortress, although the Oblivion Knights will almost certainly slow me down compared to how I have been doing thus far. Once I get through that, with my 90% lightning resistance and physical damage reduction gear, I shall mock Diablo as I bask in his Pink Lightning Bolt of Death.

 

ah great man! i knew i was missing something, will start pumping sacrifice when i get home from work!

and it should solve most of my problems.

when facing light immunes i usually switch to the might aura, so me and my merc does more dammage, but it just haven't been adequate lately, and i think this might solve it

wil post when i get home

 

Geez, if you didn't max out sacrifice, that's even worse than not maxing zeal. You could have been missing out on up to 342 points per swing or 1700 damage per zeal cycle with a 150 damage weapon (that's the difference between level 1 and level 20 sacrifice). That's obviously a huge amount, that will probably double your physical damage output. And might is a good call as a secondary aura.

I hardly ever switch from my holy freeze aura, even against cold immune creatures, because even cold immunes are still slowed by the aura (they just don't take the damage). The only exception to this is those minotaur things that you run into in Act V that are dual wielding axes and have frenzy as their attack - for some reason they are unaffected by holy freeze. On the rare occassions that I do switch auras, I usually switch to holy shock.

The other thing is it is usually smart to place a single point in Vengence in the combat skill tree. You will occassionally run into a boss that is both physical and lightning immune (or in my paladin's case phyiscal and cold immune), and Vengence will allow you to kill him.

 

I was serious - I wasn't mocking you - I really did like the comment. In fact, I agree, if there is a character that can breeze through Hell with no difficulty, it would be a character like yours. But it's still bravado to say it before you've even finished Act 1.

 

There were specific instances that were problematic, but it wasn't that bad as a whole.

Do NOT worry about any of the Act Bosses, including Diablo and Baal. I think Diablo may have killed my merc in the battle with that fire snake thing he casts, but his clumsy attacks are no match for a teleporting sorceress. The typical life span of a boss from the moment he appears on screen is definitely under one minute. (And I would ramp it up to Players 8 for better drops for the bosses - they really are that easy.)

Do NOT worry about dual immunes, and you don't even need to help your merc if you don't feel inclined to do so. It's only the boss that will be dual immune - all of his pack buddies will be susecptible to one of your attacks. What I would do is kill everyone else, then run up to the boss and cast static field a few times, and the merc would do the rest.

That said, there are a few tricky points if you intend to do everything, and a few battles were unexpectedly difficult. Coldcrow, the unique archer in the hole of the Cold Plains in Act 1, is a lot tougher than you'd think (but Blood Raven is not tough at all). She spawns extra fast and cold enchanted, and gets two more random modifiers, which if they happen to be something like multishot and extra strong will prove to be a very difficult combination, especially considering that she's not in any preset area of the hole, and you can run into her unexpectedly.

Gloams in Act III and Dark Souls in Act IV, even with 75% lightning resistance are challenging. Stygian Dolls can be, if you accidently cast Frozen Orb into a pack you're standing right next to, although you can usually kill them at a safe distance. Durance of Hate Level 3 can be difficult, as the vampire things spawn immune to cold and the council members spawn immune to fire, so there's no quick way to take the far more dangerous council members out quickly.

Finally, there are a few things that aren't just challenging, but are outright dangerous and will definitely kill you if you aren't careful. For example, Fangskin in the Claw Viper temple definitely has to be respected. Speaking of Claw Vipers, you'll also find them in the bottom level of Nihlathak's hideout, where they have their bone spear damage WAAAY ramped up, but I'm sure you've encountered that already. The fire-breathing blood lords that spawn when you open the southeast seal in the pandemonium fortress deal huge damage, maxed fire resistance or not. Teleport out of there, and try to break them up. Lister is extremely dangerous to your merc, but not so much to you. Unless you get unlucky, and Lister spawns extra fast, you can usually play keep away by teleporting. It's a long battle though, because Lister and Company ALWAYS spawn fire immune.