Diablo II single player questions

Lightsaber is a good weapon for that type of character for the ignore target defense (ITD). When you're using a character that does not typically do much in melee combat in a non-traditional role like that, having ITD is almost essential. Barbarians, paladins, amazons and druids all have skills that give significant boosts to attack rating, but necros just get the 4 per point in dexterity, which simply isn't going to cut it at the higher difficulty levels.

dmc - great necro head as a quest reward. The +2 skills alone make it a great choice. About the only thing I'd take over a +2 skills shield (with a couple useful increases to specific skills) would be a +3 summoning skills shield. (There's no such thing as a +3 to all skills shield, but it is possible to get a shield that give +3 to all the skills in a particular tree.)

If you are already level 74, I'd say just go and start nightmare now. The best items are on hell difficulty, and the sooner you get to the pits in Act I Hell (or even the mausolem), the sooner you can start accessing those best items.

I haven't played in a couple of days now, so nothing new and exciting to report. I had internet connectivitiy issues on Sunday, so I threw in Sid Meier's Pirates in for a change of pace, and now that I've started the game, I feel inclined to see it through to completion.

 

just to clarify Aldeth, i presume you mean 4 points of AR pr. 1 point of Dexterity and not vitality, right?

 

Ah, bloody hell. Yes, I meant dexterity and not vitality. I edited my earlier post to include that correction - adding to vitality doesn't affect AR.

 

dmc: yes it is possible to get a ring with +skills on them but AFAIK it is only the stone of jordan and the ring of bul-kathos, and as they are quite rare, i dunno if you play battle.net or single but either way they are a bit hard to come by, so i would find some rings with good resistance, +stats and maybe MF if you want that.

on the socket thing in head you can socket your hat with the "add-sockets" for the quest yes, but IIRC i would not want to put a perfect diamond in that because it does not add to resistance, but to something else like +X light or something.

i would add a Perfect topaz to it, or if you need resistance throw an UM rune in it

 

I have not seen any penalty to the time curses last in hell. I spent a couple of points into amplify damage, and with bonuses, it probably is about level 8, and it lasts a really long time, and covers a fairly large area. 99% of the time the creature is dead without it having to be recast. I also do not think that the area of effect changes, nor does the effect of the curse. (In the case of amplify damage, it still has the effect of -100% resistance to physical damage.) Your skeletons are what do the killing, so the more points in them you get, the more damage they do, and the quicker you can kill things. I'm not saying that +2 to all skills is bad, just that whatever level your curses are is probably sufficient.

As Balle states, with the exception of a couple of unique rings, there is no such thing as a ring with +skills on it. No magic or rares with +skills. Amulets follow the same rules as circlets - up to +2 to all skills available, and up to +3 to a particular tree.

Balle is correct again, you can socket it, but putting a diamond in it will not raise your resistances - only diamond in shields can do that. Since you don't need more mana or life, the most logical thing to socket into it would be a perfect topaz.

Edit: However, rings do come with the "resist all" modifier. Unfortunately, in rings the max resist all available is +15 (whereas amulets can get up to +25 resist all). However, both rings and amulets can come with individual resistances up to +40%, and a rare ring can get multiple resistances (up to 3 out of 4 if you get lucky), all of which can be up to 40%.

EDIT2: It is also possible to get a rare amulet that has both resist all and +skills on it.

 

correct me if i'm wrong here, but is it not possible to get a ring with the +15% all res. prefix and then +xx% res. suffix?

to make it:

+15% fire res.
+15% cold res.
+40% light res.
+15% posion res.


EDIT: oh and dmc if you are using exploding corpse it might be a good idea if you get a fire rainbow facet to stick that either in your hat or somewhere else, the best idea could be in your wand actually as i don't recall any gems or runes that would be good there

 

ahh dmc you had me fooled, throw all the perf. diamonds in the sheild you want.

i would still go for +3 to summoning skill shield, and if you are lucky it might have a + or two at amplify dammage or the likes

the rings i mentioned are available in single player and on battlenet, though they are hard to come by especially in single so i would not set up my build around them

the rainbow facet is a unique jewel:

Rainbow Facet

Required Level: 49
100% Chance To Cast Level 31 Meteor When You Die
Adds 17-45 Fire Damage
+3-5% To Fire Skill Damage (varies)
-(3-5)% To Enemy Fire Resistance (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

though it does not have as good stats as i remembered it might still be a bit usefull

EDIT:

Stone of jordan

Required Level: 49
100% Chance To Cast Level 31 Meteor When You Die
Adds 17-45 Fire Damage
+3-5% To Fire Skill Damage (varies)
-(3-5)% To Enemy Fire Resistance (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)


Bul-kathos Wedding band

Required Level: 58
+1 To All Skills
+ (0.5 Per Character Level) 0-49 To Life (Based On Character Level)
3-5% Life Stolen Per Hit (varies)
+50 Maximum Stamina
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

 

haha i'm sry about the stats mix-up with the SOJ you are correct, and i not have any and i really only play single-player now a days.

the idea of the rainbow facet was that, if you should find one, a fire oriented, and have nothing better to use it on (a fire sorc or a caster-oriented druid) you might as well but it in your wand for that little extra kick, as there are not many things worthy of being put in a wand gem or rune wise

 

It is possible for an item to generate this way (although not in the exact manner you suggest), and I apologize if I implied that it could not. When I said the maximum resist all you could get was 15%, I meant that the "chromatic" and "prismatic" prefixes (which give 21%-25% resistance to all and 16%-20% resistance to all, respectively) are unavailable on rings, but available on amulets. I did not mean to imply that it was impossible to land another prefix to give additional resistance.

The only mistake in your statement is that there is no suffix to give resistance to a specific element. All of the single resistance modifiers are prefixes (like "ruby" for fire resistance and "emerald" for poison resistance). Since the single resistance modifiers are prefixes, as are the resist all modifiers, we can further state that the item you list would only be possible on a rare, as it's impossible to get more than one prefix or suffix on a magic item (of course on a rare it would also be possible for it to have one or more suffixes as well).

Regarding facets, you are right dmc that you would have to be playing a character that relied on elemental damage for this to really boost damage. However, there are a heck of a lot of characters besides sorceresses and elemental druids that rely on elemental damage. There are necros that use poison damage, javazons that do lightning damage, are paladins using one of the elemental damage auras are all example of characters that could use rainbow facets, and it certainly isn't an exhaustive list. In fact, the only character class that lacks a build for facets is the barbarian, as they have no skill that does elemental damage.

Having said all that, facets are quite rare, and the people who make builds around them are some of the richest players on battlenet. It's nto enough to have a meteorb sorceress with a ton of +skills equipment. No, you need a meteorb sorceress with multiple facets to rachet up the damage another 20-25%*.

* Facets increase damage more than it looks like, because they lower enemy resistnaces as well as increasing your damage. A creature that has 75% resistance to fire, will take more damage by lowering its resistance by 5% than by increasing your fire damage output by 5%.

 

I always run Pindleskin first for that very reason. I usually summon up 6 or 7 skeletons before they even get up for the first time. (I have to admit that I was playing a long time before I realized you could raise them prior to initially killing them.)

Nihlathak drops slightly better than Pindleskin, but nowhere near as well as Meph and Baal. It is up to you to decide whether the extra time it takes to get to Nihlathak is worth your effort. Is there any particular reason you aren't going after Shenk and Eldritch (the super uniques just north and south of the first waypoint in Act V)? They have the same TC drop as Pindleskin, and are extremely quick and easy.

The only thing I would recommend taking out of your current rotation is The Pit. In Nightmare difficulty, The Pit offers only slightly better TC drop options than the rest of Act I, and the possible max TC is significantly less than any area in Act III, IV, or V. The Pit is only a really good area in Hell difficulty. In normal and nightmare difficulty the max TC it can drop from is not significantly better than the rest of the Act, and since it doesn't offer good XPs in Nightmare difficulty either, it really isn't worth running. (Although it is still, IMO, the best place to mf in Hell difficulty.)

But I bet you didn't get ANY of those items in the Pit (well possibly the sorceress orb - they can drop anywhere). And I've been doing some thinking about amulets that I included at the bottom of this message.

Yeah, I know what you mean. There's really not much of anything exciting with the first two Acts to be honest. The challenge of Hell difficulty does not truly begin until you hit Act III. With me, my desire to run The Pit usually entices me to work my way through the first four quests in Act I to get there.

It's been so long since I played single player, that I don't know what happens with the maps, but I suspect you may be right that you lose them. Whatever you do though, do not waste your socket quest just for the sake of not losing a map. You only get three of them per character, and every single one of them should be used on end game equipment.

I would do the cow level only as far as it is necessary to kill the Cow King. The Cow King drops some nice items on Nightmare difficulty, but I completely agree that the drops other than that aren't good enough to remain there. I definitely wouldn't bother clearing the entire level.

I've been doing some thinking about what the ultimate amulet would be. This would also apply to all the items in the circlet class (which includes coronets, tiaras, and diadems), as the same modifiers are available on these items as well. The rules for rares are quite simple:

1. Up to six total modifiers, with a maximum of three prefixes and three suffixes on an item.
2. There can never be two modifiers from the same "family" of modifiers. (For example, you cannot get both "prismatic" and "chromatic" on the same rare, because they are in the same "family" of modifiers.)

So, working with these two basic premises, here's what I decided. For the prefixes I think two are pretty non-negotiable. You are going to want the +2 to all skills, and resist all. The suffixes are harder to make a selection because it really depends on the type of character. If you are a melee character, two of the three you'd want would definitely be life and mana steal. And of course we cannot forget magic find. Magic find is unique in that there are two "families" of magic find modifiers. The first family are the prefix modifiers (Felicitous: up to 10%, Fortuitous: 11%-15%). The second family are the suffix modifiers (of Chance: up to 15%, of Fortune: 16%-25%, of Luck 26%-35%). It is possible to land a magic find prefix and suffix on the same item, because even though the effects of the modifiers are the same, since they aren't in the same family, both could be selected.

(Although the game won't actually show two different lines for +mf%, it will just add them together. The game adds all like modifiers together and lists it as one modifier. So you could also get a rare weapon the gets a modifier for enhanced damage (like jagged, merciless, etc), and also a modifier that gives both attack rating and enhanced damage (like veteran's, knight's, king's etc). In this case you'll just see one line for enhanced damage, but it could potentially be a huge number.)

 

With a necromancer, the decision of what you'll end up socketing is easy. There's only four item types that can take sockets (weapons, shields, body armor, and headgear), and since you never actually use your weapon to kill anything, it's a near-certainty that is the one you won't socket.

I would add that you can already socket your shako (unless your pally already did it) and stick a perfect topaz in it. Your necro is a mf character, and you aren't going to find another piece of headgear that offers +skills, life, mana, and a healthy amount of mf. The only other set/unique helms that equal or exceed it in mf are the set helms from Griswold's and the Immortal King's set (and the IK helm is class-specific, so you cannot even use it), and the unique skull cap Tarnhelm. However, since none of those other options have a +2 skills modifier on them, it's safe to say that unless you score a crazy-good, mythical, rare circle gambling, you have your end game headgear right now.

As far as maps for the Pit are concerned, remember that there are two options for getting there. Most people who run the Pit take the Outer Cloister waypoint and run south to the Tamoe Highlands. However, it is possible to generate a map where the waypoint in the Black Marsh is actually much closer to the Pit. You cannot save maps in multiplayer, so I always use the Outer Cloister waypoint, but just remember that the Black Marsh is a possible option for a good map, especially if you also get the Countess Tower by the waypoint as well, so you can score some nice runes.

 

The level you need to be for gambling certain modifiers depends on what you are looking for, but the highest affix available on armor is "of the Whale" which has a character level requirement of 60. So once you hit level 65 you are guaranteed to have a shot at gambling any armor available in the game. The only thing additional levels beyond 65 do is raise the chance of having the gambled item be an exceptional or elite item.

That having been said, since this a mf character, and there is no such thing as a mf prefix or suffix available for armor on magic or rare items, I don't think gambling is a particularly good investment if you're looking for mf. I don't ever gamble body armor. The only way you're getting any mf on your armor is from a set, unique or socketed item. The easiest way to stack mf is to just find body armor with four open sockets and stick 4 perfect topazes in there. Presto! Instant +96% mf!

On the unique and set front, there are these options:

Spirit Forge: Linked Mail 349-449 Defense
74 Str Required
Socketed (2)
Clvl req: 35
+4 Light Radius
+1.25 Life per clvl
Adds 20-65 Fire Damage
+5% to Fire Resist
+120-160% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength

Two open sockets allow for two ptopazes, and this one comes with tons of life too.

Skullder's Ire: Russet Armor 587-732 Defense
97 Str Required
Clvl req: 42
+1 to All Skills
+1.25% Better chance of getting magical item per clvl
+160-200% Enhanced Defense
+60 Increased Durability
Magical Damage Taken Reduced by 10
Repairs 1 Durability every 5 seconds

This is easily the best choice in my opinion. A very nice +1 to skills and huge mf at higher levels. Worthy of adding a topaz to with the socket quest can take the mf even higher.

Black Hades: Chaos Armor 758-1029 Defense
140 Str Required
Socketed (3)
Clvl req: 53
-2 Light Radius
+200-250 to Attack Rating Against Demons
Half Freeze Duration
+140-200% Enhanced Defense
+30-60% Damage Against Demons

This one is only included because of the three sockets, and so you can get it up to 72% mf. It doesn't have that much to offer beyond that, and the strength requirement may make this choice prohibitive.

Griswold's Heart: Ornate Armor 917-950 Defense
102 Str Required
Socketed (3)
Clvl Req: 45
+500 Defense
+2 To Defensive Auras (Paladin Only)
+20 Strength
-40% Item Requirements

Same as Black Hades in that it gives 3 open sockets and not much else, but the lower strength requirement makes it a little better.

Finally, this one doesn't give mf, but it still may interest you:

Trang-Oul's Scales: Chaos Armor 787-857 Defense
84 Str Required
Clvl Req: 49
-40% Item Requirements
+100 Defense vs. Missiles
+40% Poison Resistance
+2 To Summoning Skills (Necromancer Only)
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+150% Enhanced Defense

Quite honestly, if you cannot find a Skullder's Ire, any armor with a reasonable strength requirement and 4 open sockets may be your best option.

Like armor, magic find is not a modifier that can be found on shields. Unlike armors, adding a ptopaz does not add mf (it adds resistance to lightning). I truly believe a shield is best used as a place to load up resistnaces. I have a confession to make, my resistances were so low when I entered hell difficulty, I traded in my necro head for:

The Ward: Gothic Shield 112 Defense
60 Str Required
Clvl Req: 26
Magical Damage Taken Reduced by 2
+10 to Strength
+10% Increased Chance to Block
+100% Enhanced Defense
+50% Resist All

I added a perfect diamond to take my resist all to 69%.

The ultimate choice for a necro shield would be:

Homunculus: Hierophant Trophy 147-213 Defense
58 Str Required
Clvl Req: 42
+2 To Necromancer Skills
+2 To Curses
+150-200% Enhanced Defense
30% Faster Blocking
+40% Chance to Block
+20 to Energy
+33% Mana Regeneration
+5 Mana After Each Kill
+40% Resistance To All

Add a perfect diamond to this bad boy and you're up to 59% resist all.

There are jewels that add mf, and you are correct that a jewel does exactly what it says it does, regardless of what you socket it into. mf jewels are fairly rare, and I bleive are capped at 15%.