Diablo II single player questions

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I agree with this, but the problem for a frenzy barb is A) they don't use shields (and therefore will not pump dexterity as high as you would if you used a shield) and B) equipping a demon limb on switch would prevent you from carrying around two echoing weapons, which is pretty much a given for all barb builds.

 

I'm possibly even going to go with dual raven frosts, I also have a dwarf star but the rest of my rings plainly suck. I think I'll experiment a little with skill points and if I start seeing trouble I'll make the decision to invest points to sword mastery.

 

Well dual Raven Frosts will definitely make for a stellar attack rating. The family took a late summer mini-vacation this past weekend, so my druid is still near the end of Act V, normal. If I get a chance to play tonight, it's the battle with the Ancients (although that isn't a particularly daunting task in Nightmare).

The plan is to hit level 73 before advancing to hell. Seeing as how my current level is 68, and I cannot realistically expect to be higher than level 70 by the time I fight Baal (figure one level worth of XP from the Ancients and maybe one more level worth from killing stuff), that's going to be a TON of Baal runs. And probably a cow run. (I'm on the fence for how effective this build will be for cows.) I need to have my end game equip ready to go before I start hell, so I can see where my resistances will be.

It's a given that I'm socketing the Stormshield. I still am not sure if I will need to stick an Um in Duriel's Shell for the extra +15% resist all, but I still have my socket quest from normal difficulty, so that is an option. Of course, I probably should stop being lazy and just figure this out. All I have to do is count up all the resistances on my equipment, add 20 to all from two Malah quests, and subtract 100. (Or just subract 80.)

 

73 before going hell seems awfully high. My barb just killed baal on nm being just lvl 61. I must say that once I got the lightsabres rolling I chop things down (including Baal) with quite a satisfying pace. My resistances are horrible though and need to be amended once I hit hell. Since I lack decent armors I'll probably be wearing Naj's armor (currently using silks of the victor) once I'm on a high enough level to use it. The good thing is though that thanks to lightsabres and dual raven frosts I have pretty high absorb for both lightning and cold, making fire my main weakness.

 

Which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. And you absolutely FLEW through normal and nightmare if you beat nightmare baal at level 61. I admit that I'm a bit neurotic and do full-clears of every area, but 61 seems awfully low.

I don't think you actually have to be 73 to start hell difficulty - all I'm saying is I think it's a good idea for this particular character, because that's the level requirement of my end-item equipment.

 

With frenzy flying becomes so much easier.

Yeah, I skipped plenty of areas. I usually don't bother with the optional areas unless I'm feeling like I want to test something. I also did not bother to stay in act III for very long, and basically flew through the entire act, act IV went quite normally and act V I skipped all optional areas, except Nihlathak.

 

OK, but level 61 is way too low for Hell difficulty. Don't forget, your chance to hit, and the monsters chance to hit you is effected by level, and you'll be giving up 10-15 levels on the monsters, and that's just in Act I.

 

Oh I'm not planning to hit hell quite yet, I'll just do some Baal runs and hit hell when I'm starting to feel that I can manage.

In other news, anyone have any suggestions how my meteorb sorc will survive the hell ancients? She's currently at lvl 86 and my merc dies before I have any chance to heal them and after the distraction is gone I'm screwed.

 

arioc's needle, stealskull and corpsemorn

I'll make an new attempt sometime tomorrow and see how it goes, I'll need to transfer some full rejuvenation potions from my barb first though.

 

I'm playing a summoning druid atm and I reached 75 before starting Hell (only did a few Baal runs). It shouldn't be too hard to reach 73.

Very proud of how this char turned out, I didn't give him any special treatment at startup as part of an experiment (how well a summoning druid actually does in practice). Thus far tho he's found his own Skin of the Vipermagi and Dark Clan Crusher, and has only died once. (normal Bloodraven)
Haven't had any trouble with anything so far, although he kills things slower than a skill-spammer.

 

Morgoroth - I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but one thing I had to do with my Meteorb to survive the Hell Ancients is immediately teleport down to the southern corner of the summit. You can usually get only one of the Ancients (or at worst two) to follow you down there. Your merc usually can go toe-to-toe with a single Ancient and sometimes even two (with lots of FRP of course).

Seriously though, dmc is right. In addition to having all 16 slots of your belt loaded with FRP, you're going to want another 16 or so scattered at other points in the level. I usually put 4 more in each corner. I didn't use all 32 during the fight, but I probably did burn through more than half of them.

 

I'll give that one a chance since I don't think I stand the smallest of chances against all the three at the same time since my Merc as I mentioned dies before I have a chance to even give him a potion.

 

You can also sometimes cheese your way to victory. In addition to running to the southern corner, you can sometimes position yourself so that you are behind the entrance to the summit. The guy who throws axes will repeatedly try to throw at you, even though the axes will hit the entrance.

That said, there is always a chance that you are SOL depending on what mods spawn on the Ancients. If the WW barb spawns with two of the following three mods: extra fast, extra strong, and cursed, it's pretty much insta-death.

 

Nope, no Hone Sundan. I don't have any polearms or spears with crushing blow, I do have the reapers toll which has a good(14%) leech and deadly strike though, should I consider changing? I might also give Andariel's Face to my merc further boosting his leech. Can't do much about the armor though since I haven't got anything much better.

Also found the rainbow facet jewel with focus on poison. What a waste.

 

Ehh.. you have an effin' REAPER'S for your merc and you're pondering on if you should use it?? Man, that's as awesome as it'll ever get. Put it to use and lay some serious ownage. Reaper's Decrepify procs often and when it does, it turns the fearsome Ancients into molasses. Not only does the slow effect exceed that of the Holy Freeze aura (due to chill effectiveness reductions), it also reduces their damage considerably.

Granted, there are character builds that could benefit from their merc using some other stick, but those are far and between.

Edit: CB is overrated anyway. One percent of CB turns out to an average of 10 points worth of damage per hit against average Hell monsters with 8000 life. It's of course better against bosses, but not in the hands of your mercenary that does reduced damage against Superuniques and Act bosses to boot.

 

I actually had two of those, well I chose the one with most damage and combined with Aldeth's suggestions the Ancients turned to be quite easy after all. I used like five full rejuvenation potions. I also killed Baal while I was at it. To be honest though I got the ancients one at a time so it made the fight easier. The decrepify curse turned out to be awesome indeed especially when it stacks with holy freeze, I really should have remembered this since I kept cursing decrepify and cold when fighting normal Baal with my barb before getting ravenfrosts. Baal was not overly challenging, my merc died once but otherwise he and his minions went down quite easily.

 

Ummm.... Yeah. Reaper's is one of the top merc weapons in the game. The reason dmc advocated Hone Sudan is it is much, much easier to acquire than Reaper's. I assumed that if you didn't have a HS, you almost certainly didn't have a RT.

Absolutely - decrepify is the main curse a necro uses to take out bosses and other tough foes. That you get it as a % chance to cast mod is simply too good to turn down.

I'm not sure I agree with that, unless you're limiting your comment to strictly the merc. I find having a source of CB is essential for all melee builds unless you want to take forever to chop up uniques, champions (especially the ghostly ones), and bosses. A good build with a solid weapon can probably do around 25% damage to standard monsters anyway, so I agree that CB isn't necessary to kill regular monsters, but most people don't have a problem with regular monsters.

I also find it strange that you do the comparison with 1% chance of CB, because I don't know of any character that has only a 1% chance of CB. (In fact, the only way I know of that is is even possible to get 1% CB is if you crafted a pair of blood gloves and got the minimum for the CB stat.) I shoot for around 50% CB in my melee builds, and usually 20% is the bare minimum (as is the case with my current Fury druid).

Decrepify is da bomb when fighting bosses and other tough monsters. It slows their movement to half (meaning they attack half as often), and their hits only do half damage, so you effectively reduce their damage output by 75% by casting decrepify. And that's before you factor in that holy freeze slows them even further.

I also am not the least bit surprised that you did not find Baal particularly difficult. At a bare minimum, I would say that the Ancients, Lister, and Nihlathak are all tougher fights than Baal. (Nihlathak himself is a pushover once you get close to him, but his CE hits like a mofo on Hell difficulty, and if you get Claw Vipers to spawn on the bottom level they can absolutely rip you to shreds.)