Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

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Remember that only the boss can possibly spawn both CI and PI. When I played my FC/Fury Druid and ran into something that was FI and PI (which happened I think twice in the entirety of hell difficulty), I just killed all the rest of the pack, and ran from the boss.

I know a lot of people who like working out first thing in the morning - I've never been able to force myself to do that. I tend to work out after work. In fact, I usually work out at night, after Jack goes to bed. Last night I finished my workout at 9:30. I haven't had a gym membership in years. A lot of people say that buying a membership gives them incentive to go the gym, but with me it's the opposite. I would rather work out in my house than go somewhere - there's nothing more convenient than that. And I'm sure my wieght and workout equipment has paid for itself in the costs of gym memberships over the years.

I have never played softball, or any organized form of baseball since Little League. Those blisters sound painful though to be sure.

 

Gladiator's Bane is a one-shop solution to merc fragility problems, ESPECIALLY for classes that actually need a durable tank to stave off mob packs. Even more so if the merc in question doesn't get any sort of a defense bonus.

There's more to that piece of armor than meets the eye.

 

Agree Rechet - the only negative thing you can say about GB is that it has a very high level requirement - 85 IIRC.

 

Ooh, shiny!

What are you planning to use that LO for? A Grief, perhaps? (My personal recommendation - that weapon is a beast. Even beastier beast than Beast.)

 

I finished Hell with my necro. While my Pit, Countess, and Meph maps are all crap, I have an awesome Baal map. I might run Baal a bunch of times just because it's so quick. (My merc doesn't have any CB, so Baal himself isn't so quick - he takes a few minutes to kill on p3, although he has no ability to kill me or my army. Decrep him, throw a CG on him, and then switch over to amp. Once the CG goes to work on him, combined with the slowing effect from the cold mages, he's slow enough that he cannot really do anything, even without decrepify.

The find of the weekend was actually from Pindle - the unique Archon Staff, Mang Song's Lesson:

+5 To All Skills
+30% Faster Cast Rate
-15% To Enemy Lightning Resistance
-15% To Enemy Cold Resistance
-15% To Enemy Fire Resistance
Regenerate Mana 10%
+50% Damage To Undead

The +5 to all skills is nice, although it can be easily matched with an Occulus + Spirit shield, and you then get resistances to boot - from the shield and Occulus, and you'd get 50% mf. Still, it's TC87, with a qlvl of 86, so it's among the highest item that Pindle can drop. Then again, Occulus + Spirit doesn't offer the -% enemy elemental resistances, so maybe it would offer superior damage.

 

Your analysis is spot-on. With the exception of some high-end and aura-granting RWs, Reaper's is considered the best merc weapon. You're also right that the only character class where this isn't the case is the necro, as you don't want the ctc Decrepify to over-write your necro's curses. For just about any other class though, it's the bomb.

 

Bah! For the first time since Friday, I had the opportunity to play last night, and what an unrewarding experience. I ran the Countess, Pit, Pindle, Shenk/Eldritch, Meph and Baal and for all my troubles the best thing I found was an Io rune. Tick me off. I know there's no guaranteed drops here, but that's still mighty disappointing.

 

A little better with the mf last night. I acquired the armor for M'Avina's set, and that was the next-to-last piece I needed. The problem is I think the last piece, the headgear, is a diadem, making it pretty damn rare.

I also gambled a +3 shadow disciplines amulet, meaning my item acquisition for my assassin is nearly complete. In fact, unless I get my hands on a pair of Shadow Dancers, I'd say it IS complete.

 

True - I wasn't a confident as you were. +3 skills amulets can spawn for any of the 21 skill trees in the game. +3 skill amulets have an ilvl of 60, meaning you can possibly gamble one as low as level 56, and guaranteed to have a high enough ilvl to gamble one once you reach level 65. So it wasn't like I was concerned about the ilvl. The thing is, all of those +3 skill amulets are in the same "group" so even when the game decides to pick from that group, you only have a 1 in 21 chance of getting that specific one.

I still have to look into gloves. I'm not entirely sure what I have there. Ideally, I'll want something from the rare options, that gives +skills and IAS.

 

What little I played this weekend was with the necro, not the assassin. I had friends in town on Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday is football, so there wasn't a heck of a lot of time gaming this weekend. We went to the zoo and an Orioles-Yankee game on Saturday, and so other than watching football, the only thing I did Sunday was all the other house stuff that I normally do on Saturday.

I'm not even sure the assassin will be my next character. I'm still trying to decide between an assassin and a amazon. I have a lot of the gear I'd like to have for both of them, although I probably will go assassin next just for the new experience - it's the only character class that I've never played all the way through hell.

 

I haven't played much in the last few days, but in an bit of an upset, I decided to go with the WWS amazon as my next character. I started the assassin, but I'm still in Act I, and one of the things that's a bit annoying (that I had not realized) is that yet use a lot of the equipment I've saved up for the character thus far. I tend to only look at the level requirement of start-up equipment. So I found a starting assortment of claws that had level requirements of 12 and lower. The problem is that most claws have fairly significant strength and dexterity requirments. You're basically stuck with katars for quite some time not because you don't meet the level requirements but the stat minimums. For example, I found two or three really nice blade talons with low level requirements, but they have a strength and dex requirement of 55 for each - that takes a while to get to.

For the WWS zon, I'm in Act 3 and I now have strafe. With only 4% mana leech, I'm having difficulty using it exclusively, but I think that will be a problem that will rectify itself. I'm adding about 2 points per level up to dexterity, and strafe will improve damage by 5% per level up, as well as giving more arrows per strafe volley. It shouldn't take too long before I start leeching back more than I use.

I am still using the Arctic set, and I will probably continue to do so until I hit level 41. That's when I'll make wholesale changes to a lot of different equipment. I'll switch out the Arctic bow, armor and gloves with WWS, Lionheart, and some gloves that give me +skills (still not decided yet on which ones will be the best option). That's also when I'll switch out the belt, as the belt is basically crap if you aren't using the rest of the set.

 

Milabrega is an excellent choice for a paladin in the early going with the +3 to all pally skills. Better hammers, and better level in Concentration (I think that's the name of the only aura that affects BH). The only downside is what you mentioned - a 100 str requirement on the armor. That said, is 100 strength really too much? I know you've told me this before, but I forget - what armor do you have Enigma in? I imagine it's an elite piece, so I'm guessing you need somewhere in the ballpark of 100 to equip it anyway. (Archon plate, for example, is 103 IIRC.)

 

That's the strange thing about the Hammerdin. While the paladin is generally thought of as a melee class, a hammerdin is a caster, and thus, benefits more from the bonuses of Enigma than he would from Chains of Honor. The one thing that CoH doesn't do is give a bonus to defense, while I believe Enigma does (~700 IIRC).

I take it you are using the standard Hammerdin build, maxing Blessed Hammer, Concentration, and both of the BH synergies, Vigor and Blessed Aim.

There was one change that was made to BH in the latest patch, and it bears mentioning. Prior to 1.13, even though Blessed Hammer dealt magic damage, it ignored the immunities of magic immune monsters. This feature has been removed in 1.13, and so Blessed Hammer will do no damage to magic immunes.

Most 1.13 Hammerdins get around this by selecting Holy Shield as their 5th skill. You already have all of the prerequisites to Holy Shield by maxing Blessed Hammer and it's synergies, so it doesn't cost you anything else to get it, and Holy Shield is useful in its own right. Holy Shield gives a significant damage bonus to Smite (which you'll already have as a prerequisite anyway), and use Smite against magic immunes. Many Hammerdins like using a 1-pt Smite for bosses as well, as crushing blow on your equipment is transferred to Smite, so in the case of Act bosses, it is often quicker using Smite over Blessed Hammer.

There will literally be nothing in the game that you won't be able to kill at that point. The only creatures in the game that can spawn both magic and physical immune are undead, and Blessed Hammer gives a 50% damage bonus per level to Holy Bolt, and you'll already have a point in that as a prerequisite to Blessed Hammer. So on the off chance that you run into a pack of magic and physical immune undead, you whip out Holy Bolt.

There's only one other issue you need to be aware of with a Hammerdin - since BH deals magic damage, you will have no life or mana leech when you use it, and that's the other reason why a lot of Hammerdins like Smite as a second attack as well. Unless you have a ton of +mana per kill equipment on, you'll find it difficult to gain back the mana used without some use of Smite.