Diablo II single player questions

is it windhammer or something? with 55% CB and 2xx or 3xx damage? i got it as well, and yes the tombs are a pain when playing melee, i usually don't do them.

not a lot of playing going on, i found a unique tiara the other day in the pits with my MF necro, the one that gives +1 all skills, +xx% to lightning skill dammage, and -xx% to enemy lightning resist, i muled it to my paladin, and he gives about 400 extra dammage with it(lighting zealot btw), not counting the -xx% enemy light res. so i might keep it on him.

 

It most certainly does. You get just as many attack checks regardless of whether you are slowed or not, so when you slow down you actually stay over any given enemy for a longer period of time. So cold enchanted enemies (like Duriel) can be taken down very quickly.

PITA? Phyical Immune Something Something?

 

pain in the ass?

 

Made an MF summoner druid for fun and he's currently on nightmare doing tomb runs. Funny character (he uses Langer Brister), and he's found some exotic gear that seems promising to keep, besides the other stuff. Might be useful for some other unconventional builds.
One is Woestave, which seems to be a pretty nice Halberd. 50% slow, Freeze Target, Open Wounds and Blind,and yet not much info about it online.
Then there's Witchwild Sting, Que Hegan's Plate and the Iron Jang Bong Warstaff.
The ravens' blind is very useful at keeping monsters non-unique monsters under control, btw. Might be helpful in isolating a boss from its minions, besides shockwave.

 

Actually, it appears that shockwave does work on bosses. In fact, it appears to work on everything besides Act bosses. I'm playing a Fury druid, but I do switch over to werebear form when fighting physical immunes, and use a combination of Shockwave and Fire Claws to take them out. It appears that Shockwave works on uniques, champions, etc., although not consistently. Most of the time you cast it they get stunned, but sometimes more than one casting is needed.

I do not have an explanation for why this occurs. I have speculated that perhaps it does an attack rating check and you actually have to "hit" with the shockwave for it to work. However, I am skeptical as to whether or not this is true, as it appears that Shockwave always works on the normal monsters, and you'd expect a 5% failure rate on them if attack rating was taken into account.

 

Perhaps there's a hidden value in the game like Stun Resistance or Faster Stun Recovery. Would make sense considering the effects of the "Cleansing" paladin aura, which works on similar stuff (curses and poison). Same concept though (it needs to trigger, like attack rating vs defense).

I read Shockwave is affected by fast cast rate items... +FCR items on a switch might be useful if you think you'll need them. Some people I've played with online keep recommending that I get Shockwave for my summoning druid, but I don't think I need it. I rarely tank anything and I find it more convenient to just resummon my minions around me/retreat and regroup. I also keep a few amulets/rings of confusion/dim vision/terror/teleport for use in situations when I really need better crowd control than just my minions and the ravens. Expensive, but effective (especially in the sanctuary with all the oblivion mages and their iron maiden) and at least I won't be wasting skill points. I also prefer just using a bow/crossbow, usually with Open Wounds for PI's. I particularly prize ones like Langer Brister for the magic find.

 

Seeing as how it's a cast skill (i.e., not passive) I do not see any reason why it would NOT be affected by +FCR. I have a little +FCR, and I haven't had any problems, so getting more +FCR is not a priority for me.

For me, it was easier to get Shockwave. Since I was already getting Fire Claws to deal with PIs, I needed to spend a skill point into both Werebear and Maul anyway. With all the prerequisites already acquired, I needed to spend just a single point into Shockwave to get the skill. My setup has +10 to all my shapeshifting skills, so a single point investment allows me to cast Shockwave at level 11.

I should also be more clear - I don't use Shockwave on ALL PIs. I specifically use it on mana drain PIs, like ghosts. My Fire Claws attack in werewolf form is adequate for PIs without mana drain. The issue is with the mana drain ones, because as soon as I get hit, the Fire Claws skill is gone. I do have a 20% chance of OW on my weapon, and I do carry around a few poison charms, but that's more for preventing regeneration than it is as a killing technique.

I do like my build though. The only thing that would really give me problems is the rare boss that would spawn with immunities to both fire and physical damage, as that combination would be effectively unkillable for me.

 

---------- Added 0 hours, 1 minutes and 39 seconds later... ---------- (<-- nice, useful)

I just thought that +fast "cast" rate mod working on what seems to be an attacking animation (from Shockwave) odd. I always thought it worked more like the assassin skill Blade Fury.

I was referring to my character and why a summoner wouldn't have found the Shockwave skill as viable. Understandably it would be a useful skill for a shapeshifter. Still, you might wanna be extra careful with ghosts with the "extra fast" mod, those things are deadly fast in hell.

Heh I used to play an Elemental/Summoning (I believe they call it "Shaman") Druid. Ironic how the opposite build would have problems with the same type of monsters, fire+physical immunes.

 

With the exception of the Frenzy Minotaurs, there are few things as deadly when they spawn extra fast. (Although extra fast Pit Vipers also suck big time.)

Indeed - all of the skills in the elemental tree deal fire damage, physical damage (which makes the "elemental" part a misnomer), or both.

 

On the Sorceress' Enchant.
I was peacefully doing tomb runs in a nightmare multiplayer game the other day (the other guys were doing acts 3-5) when a level 80+ sorceress joined and went around buffing everyone with Enchant. She was even nice enough to buff me and little group before leaving.

I didn't think much about it at first until I looked at my character screen and it showed that I had gained something like 2000+ fire damage. The effect of this on my wolves was shocking - they were pretty much killing everything (even bosses) in one or two hits. I can only imagine how powerful this spell would be on a summoner necro with lower resist. With a Paladin using conviction, this damage would be insane.

 

Enchant sorc is a one-trick pony as it takes as much as 60 skillpoints to fully develop it, and it still doesn't do more than 500 pts or thereabouts without further +skills gear. But it certainly gives any minion a nice extra punch, especially since it also boosts their pitifully low chance to hit.

 

Yeah, Enchant as a Sorceress's skill isn't much to write home about. The Enchantress is a build for a sorceress, and it is unique among sorceress builds in that it is a melee build. This is possible because enchant comes with a big bonus to attack rating. However, as Sir Rechet has already pointed out, to really get the damage up, the Enchantress needs to spend a ton of points, and even then the damage isn't mammoth. Assuming a level 25 Enchant and Fire Mastery, and the one synergy Enchant has (Warmth at 9%), here's the numbers you're looking at:

Level 25 Enchant: 236% bonus to attack rating, average added fire damage 132.

Warmth 20 point synergy: 9% damage per points spent = 180% damage, so 237 points

Fire Mastery - not technically a synergy, but rather a passive skill, so more than 20 points are possible - lets go conservative at level 25. That would be 198% damage increase, so 261.

So that's 630 points of fire damage added per hit, plus a very nice addition to attack rating, but that's not a ton of damage once you hit hell difficulty, and you spent 60 points to get there. Granted, Enchantresses also use a fairly high damage weapon, and often go over 100 strength points to wear high end armor and shields and use big weapons, so getting closer to 1000 damage per hit is certainly possible.

The problem is two-fold. First, once you cast enchant on your weapon, you just use your regular attack to actually hit enemies, so it's a one at a time attack, which is not good for a melee build on hell difficulty who will often be engaged with multiple enemies at once. Secondly, since a good chunk of your damage is fire-based, you need another damage type. With already 60 points invested in the fire tree, your options are limited. Your best bet would probably be Frozen Orb, and once that is maxed, any left over skill points would be sunk into Cold Mastery.

However, if you are NOT a sorceress, and you can get Enchant on one of your items, that's a wonderful thing indeed. Any melee character will benefit from having Enchant for the increased chance to hit, even if the extra fire damage isn't so great. There are two uniques, neither particularly uncommon, that come with Enchant:

Lava Gout
Battle Gauntlets
Defense: 120-144
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 88
2% Chance To Cast Level 10 Enchant On Striking
Half Freeze Duration
Adds 13-46 Fire Damage
+20% Increased Attack Speed
Fire Resist +24%

The fire damage only works out to about 100 per hit, but it gives a 100% bonus to attack rating, and along with the IAS and fire resistance, these are definitely worth using for any melee build that attacks rapidly to get the 2% ctc to activate. Definitely recommended for zeal paladins and fury druids. Not such a good choice for whirlwind barbarians, as ctc mods don't work with whirlwind.

I use these with my current fury druid, and the attack rating is through the roof. I have nearly 9000 attack rating with fury, and nearly 11000 attack rating with fire claws. I'm just dying for Diablo Clone to spawn while I'm using this character...

Your other choice is:
Demon Limb
Tyrant Club
One-Hand Damage: (89-105) To (162-191)
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 133
+180-230% Enhanced Damage
+50% Damage to Undead
+123% Damage To Demons
Adds 222-333 Fire Damage
7-13% Life Stolen Per Hit
Fire Resist +15-20%
Level 23 Enchant (20 Charges)
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds

This one has way more fire damage added per hit - upwards of 400 when you count the bonus fire damage on the weapon itself, and you get over 200% bonus to attack rating. The base weapon damage is also solid. Level 23 Enchant lasts for about 10 minutes, so even though it costs 10,000 gp per charge spent to repair the weapon, you get quite a bit of mileage per charge. Some characters use Demon Limb as their weapon switch, because once you cast enchant on yourself, it works with all your other weapons. So you could cast enchant on yourself, and then switch to another weapon that has a higher damage output while still getting the improved attack rating and fire damage.

 

on the melee sorcerer build, you can also make use of the beast runeword, and morph to a werebear and/or use the pala skill Zeal, and it greatly increases your dammage and life, making it a though expensive, but at least viable build for hell

 

Well yeah, but most people don't have the runes for Beast. I think it requires a Ber, and at least one other high rune.

 

i was wrong it is the runeword passion:

Dol + Ort + Eld + Lem

+25% Increased Attack Speed
+160-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
50-80% Bonus To Attack Rating (varies)
+75% Damage To Undead
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
+1 To Berserk
+1 To Zeal
Hit Blinds Target +10
Hit Causes Monster To Flee 25%
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12 Charges)


which is actually quite affordable, and has good stats/cost though the monster flee thing might be annoying

 

OK, that's much more affordable - the only thing there that might even be considered a mid-level rune is Lem.

 

Well, given my obsession over summoner-type characters I've decided to develop an Enchantress who can buff my minions from my brother's PC.
Which calculator were you guys using? I used this one from d2items (seems to be the only 1.10+ compatible version around) and it shows that I only needed to max out three skills (Warmth, Enchant, Fire Mastery) and give her +10 to fire skills from items to make Enchant add ~1450 fire damage. I'm guessing it's because Fire Mastery actually boosts total fire damage (including synergy bonuses) of a skill. I also did a little research and discovered that Fire Mastery actually gets calculated twice if the Enchantress casts it on herself (since Fire Mastery works on her skills and any fire damage bonuses she has) but since I won't be using her to kill anything at all.... meh.

 

I use the calculator at my desk, along with with the values I see for the skills on whatever website I happen to pull up. If you are right, and fire mastery damage bonus is multiplied after the synergy bonus from Warmth, then the damage will obviously be significantly more than I calculated. If that's the way it actually works, it would be a bit of an oddity, as the damage bonuses from multiple skills (like a paladin using might aura with zeal, or a barbarian combining whirlwind and a weapon mastery) are typically additive.

I don't understand what you mean by Fire Mastery working twice. You say it works on her skills and the fire damage she has, but Fire Mastery doesn't actually affect any skills, as it's not a synergy, but a passive skill. It just adds a percentage damage to whatever fire damage you do. When you cast Enchant, it doesn't inflict any damage on it's own. It's only when you actually hit something that the damage is calculated. Are you suggesting it works on the displayed damage on the screen, and then again once you hit something? That obviously would also raise the damage.

And you're making this character just to buff your own minions? That seems like a lot of work. Even at level 30 or so, you're going to have to recast enchant every 15 minutes or so, and should one of your wolves die (very possible on hell difficulty), a resummoned one won't have enchant on it until you cast it again.