Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

It is a lot for dex, but I'm too far along to stop now. My vitality with a level 33 Battle Orders will be just fine.

Arreat's Face would be a MUCH better option, except for the fact that I don't have one. Heck, that even comes with 3 sockets, so I could take care of resists with some Ums. I have a Wolfhowl, I'm just not so keen on using it - it seems pretty gimmicky.

Eye of Etlich is my current amulet, although I'm planning on trading it out for Seraph's right now. The +2 to all skills is just too good for a barb. It helps everything from resists to AR to damage.

I considered Gore Rider's, but I already have 45% CB on HS, so CB is not a high priority for me.

I don't have Soul Drianers, but they are a very good choice.

I'm using an upped Goldskin because it gives superior resistances compared to Duriel's (it's +35% to all). Duriels and Shaftstop would improve survivability by giving life or reducing damage, respectively. With no shield though, resistances are my main problem. Skullders is really more of a magic find armor than anything. I don't think the +1 skills justifies it's use for melee characters, as it doesn't do much else.

 

Hmmm... I never considered an upped Duriel's. I'm not sure if I have the runes handy (or what the runes are offhand), and I'm not sure what the strength requirement is for the elite version (although it's likely not that high as the breast plate/cuirass has a much lower strength requirement than the other metal armors).

That said, I can still get more resistances out of Goldskin if I Um it. The current 35% is the base amount, whereas I think Duriel's is 20%. I could also in theory up Goldskin again (if I have the runes), although that would require a TON more strength to wear. The base item type of Goldskin is full plate mail, so the elite version (don't know what it's called) probably has a strength requirement in excess of 200, possibly more. Elite ancient armor (which I think is called sacred armor) has a stength requirement of 230, and it's less than that, but probably not a lot less than that.

You also bring up a good point about total defense. I'm going to have a level 33 shout activated, and with +skills, iron skin will be around level 12. (Once I hit Hell difficulty, it may actually be higher, because once I'm done maxing my weapon mastery, there really isn't anything else to put skill points into besides iron skin.) Having a high base defense rating body armor will take my total defense well into the thousands. (Although even now, my base body armor has a defense of about 800, so it's not bad.) Add in all the other smaller defense items I get from the rest of my gear, and the bonus to defense from dexterity, which also is affected by the mulitplier, and I may not be in bad shape at all in terms of defense.

 

I have never made Enigma - it works in helms as well as body armor, right? So it's theoretically possible to use both?

I do like telelport, the only difference is that I only need it for certain areas, and I can usually get away with using a teleport amulet when I need it. It's a little pricey when you burn through a lot of charges, but there's only certain runs when I actually use it (like on a Mephisto run for example).

CoH is, IMO, one of the best all around armors in the game. With the exception of low mf (25% is 1% more than you can get from any other armor that you socket with a perfect topaz), it has everything a melee character could possibly want. Unfortunately, you are right about the runes - I am sh!t out of Ber runes.

 

For general purpose use, Enigma and CoH are tough nuts to beat. You can't really go wrong by using your first appropriate runes to make one of each, before even considering any alternatives.

However, there are some variants that would rather don Fortitude (just about anyone concentrating on physical damage with possible side dish in something else) and Treachery is a mighty fine piece of low-budget equipment with its +IAS and chance to proc Fade (MASSIVE +resist all, lasts several minutes) and Venom (HUGE amounts of poison damage that works faster than lightning). It beats most normal and even exceptional unique and set armors hands down, even if you aren't an Assassin yourself.

 

I do play ladder. It's not like I'm devoid or short on runes though - I'm just missing out on most of the high ones. I'm not home right now, so I cannot go and check, but I think I have at least one of everything up to Ist (which I think is #25). After that, it gets very spotty. I don't have a Vex (necessary for a lot of the high end rune words), but I do have a Gul and a Lo. No Ber, Cham, or Zod, which I think are the three highest runes in the game. I think I need two Lo and a perfect gem of some type to upgrade to a Ber, but considering I only have one Lo, and I'm missing a whole lot of other runes necessary to upgrade to another Lo, I do not foresee a Ber anywhere in the near future.

It should be pointed out that even though I have played this game for years, I've never had "top end" gear. I've never made any of the high end rune words, and I've never found several of the top end armors and weapons (like Azuredge and Tyreal's).

I believe Venom is ladder only, and it's one of the rune words that were specifically designed for a specific class (in this case Assassin). Truth be told, I never considered using any of the class-specific rune words in anything other than the specific class they were intended for. I always looked at the + to assassin skills and chance to proc assassin skills as a means of supplementing skill points for an assassin. Since I'm not particularly keen on playing an assassin (I should really try, I know) I completely overlooked this runeword.

 

Level 46 is easily high enough to start nightmare. Heck level 40 is usually sufficient.

As for items, you're right - it is exceedingly unlikely that you would ever find something in normal (or even most of nightmare) that you could use. I, too, also pick up all rares and get them identified. While a regular rare would probably not be worth using as is, the ability to up them to the exceptional version means you could get something of value. With set items, I will pick them up if I lack a piece of that a set that I'd like to have. (For example, I'm the shield short for Sigon's Complete Steel, and I think it would make a good starter set for any melee character.) For uniques, I know what they are before I pick them up. I will ID the ones that come with variable stats to see if I can get one better than what I already have.

For me, I have a gambling addiction, so I pick up all gold, and I pick up all items that have the potential to sell for good money. I will pick up all class-specific items that can come with +skills, as they routinely sell for the maximum amount of gold. I especially like necro wands and sorceress orbs which take up just two inventory slots. I will even pick up regular (white) armor from full plate mail on up, as they also routinely sell for max gold, and nearly always do if they are a blue item. I agree that blue weapons, boots, gloves, helms, and belts can be left lying on the ground. I always pick up amulets and rings, because you can get some decent stuff from late normal (like resist all with +1 to all skills), and they have a decent value in terms of what they sell for compared to the space they take up in your inventory.

 

Sorry to hear about your daughter. At least you have D2 - I assume she's not as into it.

Early on, I gamble things like belts, gloves, and boots. And what I'm looking for are rares. There are certainly good set and unique items in those categories, but many of the best are unavailable unti you're at high levels, and in many cases I think a good rare will beat out most of the set and uniques. (For example, most of the sets and uniques don't come with much resistances or magic find, but you can regularly get them on rares.) As far as belts go, I'd say the best all-around belt that you can use pre-hell level is String of Ears.

 

I think most of your gear selection is excellent. For the bow, you may want to consider an upped Witchwild String. It has a super fast firing rate, comes with two sockets (so it's customizable) and when you up it to the exceptional version it has a pretty good base damage rate - and it fires either flaming or magic arrows when you don't use a skill, so it's a another damage source. Razortail is, IMO, a must. If you equip that and put just one point in Pierce with some +skill items you get a very good chance of piercing, which greatly increases the damage output of Lightning Fury.

I would probably go with Skins of the Vampermagi over Duriel's. If you have a good version of SotV, it provides better resists, and indirectly will improve your survivability with it's damage reduction, and of course it has the +1 to all skills that Duriel's lacks. If this was a melee character, I'd definitely go with Duriel's but since it's not, I think +skills and better resistances win out.

Are crafted caster gloves the ones that come with knockback? That's the only reason why you would want to craft one. Gloves are probably a slot where you want to go with either crafted or rares though. You can get rare gloves that come with +2 skills to any of the three amazon skill trees, plus potentially a bunch of other useful mods (+skills, increase attack speed, and mf would be godly). Regular magic gloves can come with +3 to any individual tree, but can obviously only have one other modifier on them. Crafting, as I'm sure you're aware can be difficult to produce a good result, because the knockback is the only guaranteed mod that will be of great use to you. (The bonus mana won't be bad, but assuming you have some leech, that's probably not a major concern for you.) You'll be counting on the random mods from crafting (especially +skills) for it to be an excellent item.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, why a lightning facet? Won't you be using your bow primarily for lightning immunes? Also, while you didn't intend this, you're making the ultimate hell cows runner. (One of the few things the necro cannot do well.) Cows cannot spawn immune to lightning (except for the king who gets two random mods), and lightning fury amazons with pierce are considered the fastest cow runners in the game.

 

I'm an idiot. You said Mosers, and I read Lycanders.

That's surprising. I figured you had access to any normal unique item. In fact, given the rarity of some of the stuff you found, it's amazing you don't have a WWS. I hear WWS has the best chance of dropping from creatures that also drop SoJs.

If it makes you feel any better, it shouldn't be that hard to find a regular (white) elite amazon bow. Since you already have your runewords, you won't be using your socket quests, and Larzuk puts the maximum number of sockets in bows, which I think is three for elite amazon bows. (I would need to double check this, because it may be four, which would be bad.) If it is four, then you could try cubing a bow to give it sockets, with the only problem being the cube recipe gives a random number of sockets, so it's only a 1 in 6 chance of getting one with three.

If you aren't using your shield for resists, and you plan on using Mosers for any length of time, I would advise against the Pdiamond. It would be a waste of a socket if you have max resists without it. Even an Eld rune (which would raise your chance of blocking by 7%) would be a better option.

The cow king always spawns near that fenced in area, so it's not as hard as you'd think. The technique for cow running is called "herding". You deliberately run around and get a crazy number of cows following you around, and then you launch two or three Lightning Fury javelins into them and kill them all. From what I hear it's an impressive sight to see. You just don't herd near the cow king.

Cow running with LF amazons is popular for two reasons: While cows don't have great drop rates (max is TC 78, which is good, but not pits good), there's so many of them that you usually get something good. Secondly, hell cows offer excellent XPs. Expert LF amazons can run the entire hell cow level in about 5 minutes, and there's simply no way to get that kind of XPs that quickly anywhere else. So it's more of an XP run than a mf run. The downside is that each time you do it, you have to go back to Tristram and get Wirt's Leg. The good news is you don't have to go back to the Tree of Inifuss. You can just go to the Cairn Stones and randomly click on them. They don't light up if you don't get the order right, and it's not like you have to start over if you click on the wrong one. The XPs are generally thought to be so good that most people will take the time to get another leg because you can still earn more XPs than if you spent that time in Act V.

 

Well, the high XP yields are for hell cow runs, and in order to do a hell cow run, you need to have completed hell difficulty. So you wouldn't be able to run hell cows yet.

The second problem is the actual leg itself. I don't know if this applies in single player, but online, you need a leg acquired in the appropriate difficulty to get the portal to open. So a normal wirt's leg would only allow you to do normal cows. I know this, because I tried. The strange thing is if you already have a wirt's leg from a prior difficulty level, the game won't let you pick up a another leg, even though it's from a new difficulty level. This is also from experience, as I didn't bother to do a normal cow run, and I was temporarily confused that it wouldn't let me pick up wirt's leg form nightmare. Now, things work differently in single player, so it may or may not apply there.

It is theoretically possible to see a white item for sale, but the items merchants offer are based on your character's level. Once you get a character past level 20 or so, the odds of seeing a white item on a merchant's screen are low, and it's virtually impossible past level 30. (It's a moot point anyway, no merchants sell amazon bows - or any other class-specific equipment. The only reason you can by things like staffs and scepters is any character can equip them, they just won't benefit from the +skills on the item. But amazon bows and spears, barbarian and druid helms, and paladin and necro shields are not sold anywhere - nor can they be gambled.)

I don't remember the recipes for socketing white items, but I think it's pretty cheap - I think it only requires some low level runes and a gem. The only problem is once you socket it, you cannot re-socket it, so it's one try per bow, and the limiting factor in the number of times you can use this recipe will be the number of bows you find. (Honestly, I'd settle for a +2 skills bow with the appropriate number of sockets.) And I know the Melody rune word is really cheap. I don't remember the exact order, but I know you need a Shael, Ko, and Nef. (If I had to guess, that's the order I'd pick, but I'm positive I have the three runes right.) The only thing that's even remotely rare is the Ko, but I know I have a couple of Ko runes, so you likely have a ton of them.

EDIT: Don't sweat the dex requirement. Amazon javelins and spears gain bonus damage from strength and dexterity (although I believe it's 0.5% per point spent instead of the normal 1% strength gives to melee weapons and 1% dex gives to missile weapons).