Diablo II single player questions

Well, at least you have your priorities in order...

 

eth weapons will get the same (max if white) sockets as any other weapon

http://forums.diii.net/archive/index.php/t-315822.html

 

Death's Guard (sash, effect: Cannot be frozen) + War scepter (Eth rune: - 25% target defence) + a Paladin (lvl 23, Str 67, Dex 60 or so) = Duriel dead, first try, without a single trip to the town

It's on regular difficulty, and I had amazing luck with gear and it probably isn't remarkable, but I'm rather proud of myself, atm.

 

You're allowed to brag about defeating Duriel without TP and on a first try. But as for luck with gear, come back when you gamble Guardian Angel

(sorry had to brag about this again)

 

Oh, just for clarity - it was first try with this character - I had played LoD once before, way back, with a pally and using touch pad (big mistake) on my laptop - and Duriel fight actually made me cry - lost practically all my char's cash on trying it. Thus the immense satisfaction this time - I thought I'd get pummeled again.

 

It also depends on the character a lot. I've noticed some characters have a lot harder go of it the first time around. The hardy characters with a lot of life tend to have more success - same thing with Diablo on normal difficulty.

Ironically, I'd say nightmare is the easiest difficulty. You have all of your skills developed to a reasonable point, but yet the monsters aren't insanely difficulty. I've never got "stuck" on a character in nightmare.

 

I remember we had this particular discussion some time ago and I think we all agreed on this. I think Normal is easy for melee characters (Paladin and Barbarian specifically) if you stored some items for them from other characters, but for classes that are more reliant on skill selection (especially the Sorceress) Nightmare is much easier. You've got all the heavy duty skills at a decent level but the opposition doesn't have any truly nasty tricks yet (like double-immunes, multi-shot and lightning-enchanted, and so on). Duriel and Diablo on Normal usually give me some trouble (especially Duriel) but they're a joke on Nightmare.

 

The socket quest is the only way to socket stuff that spawns "superior". You know, up to 15% enhanced damage or up to 15% enhanced defense. Cube recipe only works on vanilla, plain white items.

Finding an elite polearm that is ethereal, superior AND has the exact amount of wanted sockets is almost as tough as finding the Zod itself, but you can consider yourself lucky if you just find an eth sup one as you can ask Larzuk to punch those holes in for you.

Although, an ethereal weapon with BotD in it is a weapon of mass destruction, with or without the "superior" mod so don't sweat it.

 

Heh a very interesting mephisto run today, he dropped two lightsabres I wonder what the odds are for that to happen, also got a pefect vampire gaze for myself which is very nice. Anyhow the swords are good and I have been thinking about starting a sword based barbarian. Would dual wielding these be efficent enough on later levels particullary in Hell difficulty? Also considering the limited range would it be smarter to concentrate on other skills than wihrlwind?

 

The Lightsabre is one of the fastest weapons on the game, so if I were dual wield them, I would definitely make a Frenzy Barb. The Lightsabre is actually a rather poor choice for a WW Barb, because one of the mods that really ups the Lightsabre's damage is the "chance to cast" (ctc) Chain Lightning. The problem is that all ctc mods don't work with WW, so you're losing out on one of the things that makes Lightsabre a great weapon if you go with WW.

I have made a TON of barbs playing D2. I'd say the Barb is my favorite character. From experience, I can tell you that WW is the skill of choice if you're using a single weapon (regardless of whether it's a big two-handed weapon, or if you going with a single-handed weapon plus a shield). If you opt to dual wield, I have found Frenzy to be the better choice.

Assuming you go with dual Lightsabres, you will need to spend one of your item slots to get some crushing blow. That's the one essential item mod which Lightsabres will not provide. Now there's a ton of choices out there - Goblin Toe, Guillaume's Face, or my personal favorite, Gore Riders. If you don't have any of them, a crafted pair of blood gloves will even do. Frenzy barbs are super fast, so even something with a 10% chance of crushing blow will do it.

I finished Act III and IV on Nightmare with my druid this weekend, and I discovered a WONDERFUL little fact about shape changing druids. I'm cruising along in the Chaos Sanctuary, when an Oblivion Knight casts Iron Maiden on me just as I start a Fury attack. Since Fury is an uninterruptible five-swing attack, that's insta-death, right? WRONG! It turns out that when you are in werewolf or werebear form and you take a hit that would normally kill you, instead of getting killed you shapeshift back into a druid with 1 life point. So the very next hit will definitely kill you, but when you shapeshift back to a druid, it stops the Fury attack (as you must be in Werewolf form to use Fury). Twice I got Iron Maiden in the middle of a Fury cycle, twice I morphed back to human form, and twice I chugged a FRP as I ran away. So Werewolfs and werebears have Iron Maiden insurance.

Two good finds this past weekend. The first was the unique battle gauntlets, Lava Gout. I've never used these before, and I really underestimated them. I only started using them because they give big fire resistance (the one element that I thought I'd be short on in my end game setup) along with 20% increase attack speed and a substantial increase in fire damage. The one mod I totally overlooked in the past was the 2% chance to cast Level 10 Enchant on striking. All I can say is WOW! Level 10 enchant greatly increases your chance to hit and your fire damage. When I say greatly increases, I mean it adds a couple thousand to your attack rating. It takes me from about a 80% chance to hit, up to the maximum of 95%.

Even though 2% doesn't sound like a lot, when you think about it, it works out to activating about once every 10 zeal cycles. Level 10 enchant also has a duration of a couple of minutes, so once you get it activated the first time, you can usually keep it activated continuously (the timer resets if it activates before the timer on the previous activation runs out).

The other thing is I switched my armor over (at least for the duration of Nightmare) to Skulder's Ire. Skulder's gives the same +1 life per level as Duriel's Shell, but has +1 to all skills (very useful for me) and +1.25 mf per level. Since I can maintain 75% resist all in Nightmare without Duriel's Shell, I saw no reason to continue using it (my merc is wearing it atm).

This also bodes well for hitting the 75% resist all in Hell. There will be a 50% resist all penalty when I go to Hell difficulty, but I'll get 10% of it when I do Malah's quest, I'll get 20% by equipping Duriel's, and an Um rune in Duriel's will give me another +15% resist all (for some reason an Um in a helm or armor gives +15% resist all, whereas in a shield, it's +22% resist all). I'll also switch to Stormshield in Hell. That will increase my resistances in Lightning and Cold, but I'll lose 19% resistance to fire and poison. I'm currently using a mechanic's hyperion of deflecting, which is resist all +38%, but Stormshield will have just 19% resistance to fire and poison). Still, I think I'm in decent shape.

 

Yeah I did some independent checking and frenzy barb appears to be the way to go, I also have the unique elegant blade but the lightsabres feel like a better choice. I have some decent unique polearms (bonehew the unique poleaxe) and spears (artioc's needle) but I think I'll rather use swords for now, ali babas make a good secondary weapon of choice, dual wielding them while using the find item will probably be a better idea.
I'm not sure about skills though. You would not happen to know a good guide for frenzy barbarians? I could not find one in diabloii.wiki and I looked at two others but they seemed somewhat outdated.

 

Hmmm... I don't have a link to a guide, but basically, here's what you want to do:

Stat point allocation:

Strength: As always, enough for gear. It helps if you can project about how much you'll need. With Lightsabres, your body armor will be the determining factor.

Dexterity: Your Lightsabres require 136 IIRC, and that should be adequate.

Vitality: The more the better.

Energy: Nothing - Frenzy isn't mana intensive, and it leeches like crazy.

Skills:

The problem with Frenzy is that it has a two synergies, Double Swing and Taunt, and it's usually impractical to max both of them unless you want to lose out on some other really useful Barb skills. Remember that a Barb has a ton of one-point wonders, and so you can really only reasonably expect to max out 4 skills. However, with Lightsabre, since it has ignore target defense, there's a few ways to go with this build, and you can max both synergies.

Frenzy - 20 - self explanatory.

Double Swing - 10 or 20 - This is one of Frenzy's synergies. You'll want 10 points in this at least, as the mana cost goes down with more points, and it becomes a mana-free skill once you hit level 10 (making it a great skill against mana-drain enemies).

Taunt - 1 or 10 or 20 - You'll need at least one point here as a pre-requisite for Battle Orders, but it's also a synergy for Frenzy. Normally, If you only go for 10 in Double Swing, you can spend about 10 points here. I love Taunt, as it greatly reduces the amount of damage enemies inflict, so I prefer the 10-10 split, but other people hardly use Taunt at all. It's personal preference.

However, in your case, you do not need to invest in a Weapon Mastery, as Lightsabre has ignore target defense as one of it's mods. So you can max both Taunt and Double Swing, which I only recommend if you're using a ITD weapon. Maxing both synergies gives more damage. Maxing one synergy and a weapon mastery is a balance between damage and attack rating.

Sword Mastery - 1 (20 if you don't have a ITD weapon) - Sword mastery greatly adds to your attack rating, so in the absense of a ITD weapon, it's pretty much mandatory to max it to avoid attack rating problems. However, you don't care about attack rating if you're using Lightsabres. Since damage increases more by working on Frenzy's synergies than you get from the mastery, you're better off maxing both synergies. I'd still plunk one point into sword mastery, as you'll probably have some +skill gear, but beyond that first point, it's not the best way to go.

Battle Orders - 20 - this is mandatory for all barbs. It basically doubles your life when you max it (more than double with +skill gear), which is good.

That would be your four main skills, and I would only invest in prerequisites until you hit level 24, as you are going to want to sink a point into both Frenzy and Battle Orders as long as you can once you hit level 24. I would max the skills in the following order: Frenzy, Battle Orders, Double Swing, Taunt. In addition to all of the prerequisites, you're going to want some one point wonders: Berserk (needed for physical immunes), Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, and Battle Commands. I would also highly recommend a point in Find Item and War Cry (or at least Battle Cry), although those are not absolutely required.

If you manage to make it to level 85 or so, any extra points you have there would be best invested in Shout. It adds defense, and synergizes with Battle Orders.

Your basic attack plan is to use War Cry to stun enemies, and then chop them to pieces with Frenzy. You don't have a shield, and you aren't maxing your defense skills, so it's pretty mandatory to sink as much as you can into vitality for a high life pool, and make gratuitous use of War Cry, to temporarily stun enemies.

 

Ummm... no. ITD is ITD on everything. It's the basis for paladin zealots who use a two-handed, high damage weapon without a shield - it works on everything. (Most common example of above is a paladin who use a two-handed axe to make Crescent Moon runeword).

For being such a high-end item, I don't find Seraph's Hymn particularly worthwhile, especially not for a paladin which is evidently who the amulet is intended to be used by. It can work for a barbarian, but that's about it. Pretty much everyone I knows wants to get some resistances out of their amulet slot, and the only class taht gets that from Seraph's Hymn is the barbarian (assuming at least one point was placed in Natural Resistance).

 

Ehh.. ITD only works on normal monsters. Been that way for ages now. Champions, normal bosses, superuniques or act bosses just laugh at your ITD and proceed in giving you a hard time.

I should know, my Zealot's Grief just plain owns normal mobs but starts whiffing ominously as soon as I meet anything out of the ordinary. Any single hit is large enough to be noticeable on them so I can easily confirm this by counting the swings made against actual hits on them.

 

I was (obviously) unaware of that. It's also a major pain in the arse as far as the frenzy Lightsabre build goes. An ITD weapon would still be useful for clearing out the pack of everything except the boss... but I'm not sure having a high attack rating weapon on switch would be sufficient...

I must concede that the only time I've ever used the Lightsabre was way back in the day. It was the first elite unique I ever found, and I actually had it on a paladin. It was so long ago, I don't remember if there were attack rating problems. While I have certainly made Frenzy barbs before, I always go for Crushing Blow for my weapon choices, and I've never tried running a Frenzy barb with an ITD weapon, so I always maxed a weapon mastery.

So back to the problem at hand, if you look up the attack rating bonus for Frenzy, at say - level 25 (I think that's fairly attainable) it's 268%. That's pretty big, but the question really is: Is 268% big enough that you can get away with 136 in dexterity? Or perhaps the question is: Is 268% big enough that you won't mind taking a little longer killing bosses because you'll be mowing down the normal monsters so much faster?

Without play testing, I have no way to know for sure. I'm guessing that even if it takes longer for bosses/champions/uniques that your total speed would still be faster with an ITD weapon, as there are far more normal monsters than there are anything else. Plus, it's not like your dexterity is going to be that bad. You need to get it to 136 just to equip the weapons. I'm inclined to say it is doable, especially if you slap a Raven Frost in one of your ring slots.

On the other hand, perhaps you aren't giving up that much in maxing Sword mastery. Both synergies give an 8% damage bonus per level, while Sword Mastery gives 5% damage bonus per level, but you get more than 5% for the first point. **me looks up info**

The first point gives you +28% to damage, with each subsequent point giving you 5%. But here's the other thing that just occured to me: Sword Mastery is a passive skill so +skills work. Taunt and Double Swing are synergies, so only hard points spent count. If you spend 20 points on either Taunt of Double Swing, you know you'll have exactly +160% damage. If you spend 20 points in Sword Mastery, it's quite likely that you'll actually have Sword Mastery at an effective level of 25 with +skill items, and that would be +158% damage.

OK, I must retract my previous comment on maxing a mastery - it appears that you want to go with that irrespective of having an ITD weapon. If you have a total of +6 to sword mastery from your gear, 20 points spent in Sword Mastery will actually put out more damage than 20 points spent in a synergy, and you get the attack rating bonus to boot.

So that means you want the build plan to be:

20 points in Frenzy
20 points combined in Taunt and Double Swing (I recommend 10 in each, but it depends on your play style)
20 points in Battle Orders
20 points in Sword Mastery

All the one point wonders stay the same. Given the new info, you'd want to max your skills in the order of Frenzy, Battle Orders, Sword Mastery. At that point, you'd want to sink all of your remaining points into Taunt and Double Swing.

If you get this character to a high enough level it is possible that you would get more than 10 points in each synergy. I maintain that once you get Double Swing down to a zero mana cost skill, there's no real point in investing further in it, as more points just add to the skill's attack rating, not damage. The increased effectiveness in Taunt with more points spent isn't remarkable either, but at least you get something for your skill points, and I know I certainly use Taunt a lot more than I use double swing. (Don't love it until you try it! No more pesky demon imps teleporting away, no more archers running away while pelting you with freezing arrows so you cannot keep up, no more gloams blasting you with lightning bolts - just taunt them all!)

 

I'm finding that somewhere around 3000 Attack Rating puts me into somewhat comfortable whiff/hit ratio against bosses, and that's achievable with nothing more than the DEX you'd need for max block percentage anyway. 6000 is obviously better, but requires +AR bonus from items and/or some way to get Enchant cast on yourself. Obedience or Demon Limb on weapon switch usually work wonders for this.

Obviously that's at levels equal to somewhat above the enemies you face - anything below and you'll whiff a lot even if pump it all the way to 10,000.