Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

One more thing if you intend to go the CB route: The easiest way is combining Guillaume's Face, either double upped Goblin Toes or upped Gore Riders boots, along with dual wielding a pair of Stength Claws. Both setups yield 100% CB (Strength (25%*2) + Guillaume (35%) + GT/GR (25%/15%) = 100%/110% (which is 100%).

It's also a fantastically cheap setup.

I am now about half-way through Act III Nightmare. Even though I'm now level 60 and can equip just about all of my end-game gear, I haven't done so yet, and have instead opted for a mf heavy setup. I'm still lacking a lot of mid-level set and uniques, and since I cannot get to a 6th kick until I can equip ALL of my end-game gear, I see no point in missing out on finds just to get one more kick. My ancillary skills like Cloak of Shadows, Burst of Speed, etc., will only be marginally improved by a couple of extra levels (and more by duration than actual effect), and until I get my traps fully synergized by the end of nightmare, they are more support skills than primary offense.

 

On Sigon's Set - you want to ditch it as soon as you can equip a decent pair of exceptional boots. If you're primarily a kicker, that's the most important part of your equipment.

On SW versus SM, I never used the SW after I hit level 30 and got the SM. Some people like the SW because she uses the same skills you have hotkeyed, and so you can sort of personalize the summons. However, I kind of like the summons to do things I don't do - afterall, if I'm already doing it, then I'd prefer an alternate form of offense from my summons. I'm not saying the SM never kicks - just that she does a whole lot of other stuff, including loving traps and chargeup skills.

IMO the SM is the best summons in the game. Surpasses the valkyrie, the clay golem (maybe not in abuse it can absorb but in usefulness), the grizzly, and is even better than any merc I've ever had.

 

Change of plans. I'm NOT using Jade Talon. I had not realized I had a JJ Walker claw in my stash. (If you're wondering what a JJ Walker claw is, it's DY-NO-MITE!)

It's just a blue claw - probably why I overlooked it at first. I don't remember the exact claw type offhand, because it's irrelevant for a kicker/trapper, but it's a mid-level exceptional claw with strength and dexterity requirements of 99. It's a Mage-Killers [exceptional claw type] of the Vampire. So, as you'd expect, it's +2 to all skills, and 7% mana leech. Here's what I don't get: It also has 120-160 fire damage, and 26-53 cold damage on it, which does transfer to kicks, and comes with 40% IAS, also kick transferable. Oh, and it gives +3 to Blades of Ice, so that's level 11 now, and may be of marginal use against PIs. So how the hell is this a blue weapon!?!?

When you compare it to Jade Talon, it's better in almost every respect. JT offers +2 to the MA and SD trees, but this claw gives +2 to Traps as well. While I don't necessarily need that +2 to traps, I'm certainly not going to avoid it either. So better skills. JT offers +14% mana leech compared to this claw's 7%, but that is irrelevant, as a volley of kicks completely fills my mana bulb, no matter how low it is. So mana leech ability is negligble. JT offers 30% IAS, this claw has 40%, but I may already be at the last break point, so that is either an advantage or no difference. JT doesn't add any elemental damage, so this claw does about 200 extra damage per kick, or about 1000 extra damage per volley. I'm not sure if BoI will be worthwhile at level 11, but that's another source of elemental damage that JT lacks.

The only thing JT has that this claw doesn't is 41% resist all. Since I maxed out all my resistances prior to completing the Malah quest in NM, I don't think I'm going to need a ton of additional resistance once I enter hell anyway. So I went ahead and socketed it (I was hoping for two, but only got one), and added an Amn rune for now for the life leech. I had considered a pskull, but I didn't need the mana leech, and the Amn rune gives 2% more life leech than a pskull.

So right now, I'm in Act 5 NM, high 60-something level, and have completed the first three quests. Still playing on p5, still kicking ass. I've modified my game tactics somewhat now that I have other skills at workable levels. I usually open with Cloak of Shadows. Then I lay down a bunch o' traps - usually 3 Lightning Sentries and 2 Death Sentries, and then start spamming kicks. I have just enough mana to cast CoS and the 5 traps, but then one kick volley and I'm back to a full bulb. I haven't run into anything yet that I would define as "challenging". I did die once this act by stupidly running into a boss back of extra strong extra fast frenzytaurs - I don't know why I thought I could take them - but other than stupidity, there's nothing out there that can really kill me.

 

I was much more kicker than trapper well into NM difficulty. It's only been recently that the traps are coming into their own. As I mentioned, I played through the game thus far on p5, not p8, but there's been nothing that's come close to slowing me down, and I hardly used any skill other than DTalon (well except for prebuffs like BoS, Venom, and the SM). I had one stupid death thus far, and that's it. IIRC, Baal took longer than Diablo, not because he was harder, but because he had more hitpoints and teleports around a lot.

The issue with the traps is that (especially in p8 games) they just don't do enough damage to be worthwhile when they aren't yet synergized. I'm using them now that they're hitting for over 1000 damage per shot, and will be well over 1000 a pop when fully synergized, but on p8 having a level 5 LS doing 200 damage just isn't worth it. In the time it takes you to lay a few traps you could just kick them to death. So I'm not at all surprised that you're basically still a kicker.

As I commented on earlier, the only reason I went with p5 was because that's the difficulty level I can kill most stuff with a single volley of kicks. I certainly don't think I'd have problems with p8, I just didn't want to invest the extra time. It didn't make sense to me to spend twice as long to clear areas for 37.5% more experience points. Especially considering that once you get to level 80, an extra 37.5% XP is worth about one level. I'm level 68 or 69 right now, I haven't repeatedly run anything yet, and since I usually switch over to Hell around level 75, I'd say I'm on pace to be at least in the low 70s by the time I reach Baal. (I have just saved Anya, but haven't gone after Nihlathak.)

The one thing that worries me a bit is the Frenzytaur death. That's the "squish" factor I was concerned about. It is concerning because it happened in NM difficulty. Lots of characters can get squished in Hell diffiuclty by a pack of Frenzytaurs, but not in Nightmare. Tactics are going to become much more important in hell difficulty.

 

Just found nature's peace which is quite an interesting ring. The spirit will certainly be of help for most characters and the damage reduction (which is max in my ring) is also quite good. The monster regeneration preventer is okay i suppose and monsters resting in peace is also quite ok especially during pit runs so that you don't have to snipe those shamans anymore. I'm thinking about giving it to my sorc and replacing my manald heal, we'll have to see how my mana situation will do after that though.

...or the spirit would be nice if I were able to keep it alive for more than five seconds.

 

As you correectly point out, the biggest bonus of Nature's Peace is the Oak Sage. It's basically +50% free life. The only drawback is that the spirit isn't particularly hardy, and frequently dies in combat. There are a couple of issues with the "slain monsters rest in peace" mod. It does prevent things like Shamans from resurrecting their minions, and it also prevents Nihlathak from blowing up his fallen minions on you, but there's also nothing you can do with the body either.

So if you're a necromancer, corpse explosion and revive won't work.

If you're a barbarian, you won't be able to use find potion, find item, or grim ward on any bodies.

Assassins will not be able to use Death Sentry.

Paladins will not be able to use Redemption.

So a sorceress is actually a pretty good idea for a character to use it - she has no spells that are negatively impacted by it, and seeing as how she stays out of melee combat, the Oak Sage should die somewhat less frequently than it would with a melee character (the Oak Sage generally hangs around by you - it attempts to position itself so that both you are your merc get the benefit). Personally, I only use NP when I'm running Nihlathak, as it stops him from using corpse explosion.

One more thing I forgot to mention in my previous post regarding Cloak of Shadows - it is one of the more powerful crowd control skills in the game. It blinds everything on the screen, so once you cast it, you can spam traps, kicks, whatever, and the only way you're attacked is once you enter melee. I'm already abusing the hell out of this skill, and I can only imagine I'll use it more frequently in NM.

One drawback of the skill - it has a 15 second timer on it (at its current skill level), and once you cast it, you cannot cast it again until the timer wears off. So while it's great for shutting down a pack, if you run into another pack while the prior CoS is still active, you won't be able to cast it again. This hasn't been a huge negative. By the time you shut down the pack, kill them off, and pick their bones for goodies, you've typically used the 15 seconds.

 

I haven't saved up any skill or stat points. Once I hit my target strength goal, all of my points have since gone into dexterity and vitality. Which means 2 dex, 3 vit, every level up. (For some reason, I thought that I had to alternate between 2 dex and 3 dex each level up to maintain max block, but it's been consistently 2 dex per level.) I'm now about level 70, and I'm just shy of 700 life, so not too bad.

If I were you I'd definitely spend those points moving on to NM, as you will increase your killing speed. Remember that each point spent in strength gives a 1.1% damage boost to your kicks, while points spent in dexterity give a 0.5% boost to kick damage.

Your thinking regarding your 4th skill sounds correct. The only two realistic possibilities I see are Shadow Master or an additional trap synergy. It's actually a pretty tough decision. While I stand by my statement that the SM is the most powerful summons I've had in any game, and that she is of great value when wading into combat, an additional synergy to your traps would give you +11% damage per point spent, which would equate to at least several hundred points of additional damage per shot, and several thousand points of additional damage when considering all the shots that LS fires. Then you figure in that you can have 5 traps out at any given time, meaning we're now talking tens of thousands of additional damage.

The only drawback I see to the trap strategy is that the only damage type you get from traps prior to getting the first body is lightning damage. So against a pack of lightning immunes, a shadow master would be more useful, but against just about anything else, you may be better off with better traps.

The counter-arguement is that nothing is immune to the SM, as the shadow uses a variety of skills from all three assassin trees. I've seen both fire and lightning traps, as well as Claws of Thunder, Fists of Fire, and Blades of Ice. The two skills she seems to have a penchant for in particular are Mind Blast and Dragon Flight. In fact, sometimes her use of the latter gets her into a bit of trouble. If you're in a dungeon where you can see there's a nearby room or corridor, but there's no door or pathway to it, she can still DFlight through the wall and and engage whatever monsters are there.

---------- Added 22 hours, 12 minutes and 27 seconds later... ----------

I finished NM last night, although I have no intention of going to hell difficulty just yet. I'm clvl 72, which is a bit low for my liking. In summary, I took out Nihlathak on Monday, and he was a total sissy. Gratuitous use of Death Sentry meant I was blowing up more corpses than he was.

The Ancients were tougher than I anticipated. While my shadow and I were never in any danger of dying, my merc bit the dust. I did get a bit unlucky in that Talic (the one that uses Whirlwind) did spawn PI, and so I saved him for last.

Baal's Minions went down pretty quickly, although Lister's gang was tough (my merc died there as well). Baal wasn't tough, but it took a lot longer to kill him that I thought it should. The batte definitely took over a minute. With CB active, I thought I would have wasted him in short order (although it seems like the way CB is also nerfed by a higher player setting - it's almost like you get 10% of the damage on p1 even if you set it for higher, so I'm not sure.

I think I'll run Baal for a while. It never hurts to be a bit higher in level before going into hell. While I didn't get anything special from Baal, I did get one ancillary piece of equipment that I didn't have - the boots from Tancred's set. There's nothing particularly great about the boots or the set, but the boots are a rather tricky piece to get owing to the difference in TC and qlvl. They are just regular boots, so it's a case where the item type is in TC3, but the qlvl is a rather astounding 27. So most of the monsters you run into who are likely to drop boots won't be high enough in level to drop Tancred's boots, and most of the stuff that is high enough in level to drop Tancred's boots won't pick from TC3.

 

I only played for a little while last night - I did one Baal run and then started working out. Maybe a bit more tonight, although I think I may want to do some Yoga, which is a longer than normal workout, and then there's the football game and LeReturn. So we'll see. Anyway, my merc survived this run, so perhaps I just wasn't paying enough attention last time.

I probably won't enter hell until I max out both DS and LS, which is a few more levels yet. I'm planning on p3 for hell difficulty. The extra XPs are still worth upping the player settting until you get to about level 90, and I'm still missing a LOT of high end stuff, so the higher player setting will be beneficial in that regard as well. Any subsequent skill points earned after I max out LS and DS will go into another trap synergy - there simply isn't anything else to put them in. SM is already maxed, all the other SD skills are already well into the diminishing returns range so more points will only add to duration, and there's no other skill I can see using with any frequency.

I've been thinking about the your decision between SM and another trap synergy, and I really think it comes down to playing style, which if your assassin progresses the way mine did, you'll discover during NM. Like you, I was almost exclusively a kicksin throughout normal mode, simply because that was the quickest way to kill anything. There was no real need to use any other skill, because everything died with a single volley of kicks. Truth be told, that's pretty true throughout most of NM as well. The thing is, by the time you hit Act III, the packs start getting bigger. It starts with the flayers, and continues from there.

Kicking everything the death becomes rather tedious, especially since you cannnot link your SD skills to the left mouse button. (I have no idea why this is the case - I liked having DTalon on my right mouse button, because you could just hold it in and move the cursor around the screen, and as soon as your assassin got near something, she'd start kicking. However, Cloak of Shadows is one of the most useful skills in the game, but they won't let me link it to the left mouse button, which pisses me off. So I have CoS on the right mouse button, and DTalon on the left, which makes you click on every single monster.)

But I digress. Back to the playing styles. The way my playing style progressed, I have remained a combatant. Traps are support skills, not the primary damage dealers. I'm still in the thick of combat, mixing it up. I use CoS so I only have to fight a few monsters at a time, and because of that, I prefer to have two tanks (merc and SM) along for the ride.

However, if you go the trap route, traps are your main damage dealers, and you only revert to DTalon for lightning immunes. In such a case, Shadows not only are of far less use, they can even be detrimental because of the 5 trap limit. Shadows can and will cast traps, they count towards your limit of 5, and if they cast one (even if it's some measly little fire blast trap) it will overwrite one of your traps. Shadow Warriors are not of particular use either, because although you can control which traps they use, since their traps are not as damaging as yours owing to lack of synergies, you want your traps - not theirs. So trapsins usually don't take any shadow along at all, even though they can cast one at level 12 or so with just one hard point, SD claws on switch, and assorted other +skill gear.

The other change you make if going the trapsin route is you don't need no stinkin' might merc. You're a caster, and the prayer merc with Insight is your man, since most of the damage you deal won't be of the physical variety anyway. (Or, if you prefer the defensive route, defiance mercs are also popular. The only time I ever used a defiance merc for the entire game was with a frost zealot a while back. They are very hardy, and while they deal the least amount of damage, they definitely have staying power, even on Hell difficulty, when propoerly equipped - I'd recommend Leviathan. But they would only be the choice if you were OK with leeching your own mana back through kicking.)

 

Actually, now that I think about it, it makes total sense why this is so. Any skill that can be cast without targeting something is unable to be linked to the LMB, because instead of moving, you'd just cast it instead. Still, I'd rather be able to link DTalon to the RMB - alas.

 

Baal just dropped stromspire, which is not all that impressive but back in the day it used to be regarded as the rarest weapon in the game although even back then there were better alternatives. Don't know about its rarity these days but as it has the highest possible item level I suppose it has to be quite rare. Not much use for it now though, reapers is better in just about every regard for my merc and I have two of those. Also scored an Lo rune which is by far my highest ranked rune. I also inserted a fire themed rainbow facet into my occulus making it a bit more effective.

Otherwise I have mainly been running my sorc. I haven't played my assassin in a while and am thinking about starting a bowazon.

 

Stormspire is in TC87, which is the highest, and therefore the rarest, TC in the game. Assuming a monster that can drop anything (and that's the case with Hell Baal), the only rarer items are the class-specific items from TC87, as they are only selected with 1/3 the frequency compared to items that aren't class-specific. So that's a really short list. There's the unique archon staff, Mang Song's Lesson, the unique bloodlord skull, Darkforge Spawn, the unique caduceus, Astreon's Ironward, and I think the caduceus and vortex shield from Griswold's Set is also in that TC, but since they are set items, their drop probabilities are slightly better than a unique, so not quite an apples to apples comparison.

Still, that's like 4 items that are rarer. It is more interesting to compare what had the same odds of dropping as Stormspire (although this might make you feel unlucky): Crown of Ages, Griffon's Eye, Windforce, Tyreal's Might, Templar's Might, IK Soul Cage (although that's a set) and the Grandfather are the obvious names that spring to mind. There's a lot more item types than that in TC87 though - the TC is huge, because initially there was TC87 and TC90, but as of patch 1.10, all the TC90 items were dropped into TC87. So TC87 is twice as large as most other TCs (I think there's 20-something possible picks), so there's great variety if the game actually picks from there.

Lo runes are rare, but rainbow facets are considerably rarer. I've never found a single one, although I have found a few (not a ton, maybe like 3 or 4) runes higher than Lo.

It's hard to compare the relative rarity of runes and jewels with weapons and armor because they have independent TCs. The 33 runes are contained in 17 different rune TCs, each containing two runes in order (so the first rune TC contains El and Eld, the second has Tir and Nef, etc) all the way up the 17th rune TC which only has a Zod. All jewelry, including jewels and gems, are also in distinct TCs from weapons and armors. Different monsters have different drop rates (for example ghosts and other non-corporeal monsters have much higher chances of dropping runes and jewelry) so it's very difficult to say how these finds compare with Stormspire.

 

I'm getting tired of doing Meph/Diablo/Baal runs in NM. I wanted to max DS/LS before going on to Hell, but I'm only level 76, and I'll need level 82 to max both of them. That's a F'N TON of levels to gain in NM.

I've been thinking about Morgoroth's post in a bit more detail, and it turns out it's a lot more complicated than I originally considered, when speaking of TC87. Everything I stated is factually correct, but it is also incomplete. So I did a bit more research. Here's what's in TC87, spoilered if you don't care to look through the whole list:

Spoiler

01) Archon Staff (qlvl 85)
Mang Song's Lesson (qlvl 86)
02) Berserker Axe (qlvl 85)
Deathcleaver (qlvl 78)
03) Bloodlord Skull (qlvl 85)
Darkforge Spawn (qlvl 72)
04) Caduceus (qlvl 85)
Astreon's Ironward (qlvl 68)
Griswolds's Redemption (qlvl 44)
05) Colossus Blade (qlvl 85)
The Grandfather (qlvl 85)
Bul-Kathos' Sacred Charge (qlvl 50)
06) Colossus Girdle (qlvl 85)
07) Corona (qlvl 85)
Crown of Ages (qlvl 86)
Griswold's Valor (qlvl 44)
08) Diadem (qlvl 85)
Griffon's Eye (qlvl 84)
M'avina's True Sight (qlvl 21)
09) Dimensional Shard (qlvl 85)
Death's Fathom (qlvl 81)
10) Dream Spirit (qlvl 85)
11) Giant Thresher (qlvl 85)
Stormspire (qlvl 78)
12) Glorious Axe (qlvl 85)
Executioner's Justice (qlvl 83)
13) Guardian Crown (qlvl 85)
14) Hydra Bow (qlvl 85)
Windforce (qlvl 80)
15) Legend Spike (qlvl 85)
Ghostflame (qlvl 70)
16) Myrmidon Greaves (qlvl 85)
Shadowdancer (qlvl 79)
17) Mythical Sword (qlvl 85)
Bul-Kathos' Tribal Guardian (qlvl 50)
18) Ogre Gauntlets (qlvl 85)
Steelrend (qlvl 78)
19) Sacred Armor (qlvl 85)
[U] Tyrael's Might (qlvl 87)
[U] Templar's Might (qlvl 82)
[S] Immortal King's Soul Cage (qlvl 37)
20) Scissors Suwayyah (qlvl 85)
[S] Natalya's Mark (qlvl 22)
21) Thunder Maul (qlvl 85)
[U] The Cranium Basher (qlvl 85)
[U] Earthshifter (qlvl 77)
22) Unearthed Wand (qlvl 86)
[U] Deaths's Web (qlvl 74)
23) Vortex Shield (qlvl 85)
[S] Griswold's Honor (qlvl 44)
24) War Pike (qlvl 85)
[U] Steelpillar (qlvl 77)
25) Winged Harpoon (qlvl 85)
[U] Gargoyle's Bite (qlvl 78)[/U][/U][/S][/U][/U][/U][/S][/S][/U][/U]

[U][S][S][U][U][U][S][U][U]

The first thing to note is that it's big, with 25 choices. Most TCs have around 15 possible picks, some have as few as 12, and very few have even 20, much less 25. Further, it's not an even split - there are 14 weapon choices (4 class-specific), and 11 armor choices (3 class-specific). TC87 is broken down into weap87 and armo87, for weapons and armor respectively. After picking TC87, the game picks from weap87 and armo87, with equal frequency, before picking an item from that TC subset (it does this for all TCs, but I'm focusing on TC87). So, once you account for class-specific items (which drop with 1/3 the frequency of other items), it would initially appear that you have a slightly better chance of landing one of the armors than one of the weapons.

OK, so far so easy. Here's the thing though - unlike most other TCs, in which nearly every armor or weapon has a unique or set (or in many cases, both) to generate, TC87 has a lot of holes in it in terms of getting a unique or set. There are just 8 set items for the 25 choices, and 17 of the possible choices have uniques associated with them. (There are actually 19 uniques, because two of the items have two different uniques to pick from. Unique sacred armors can be either Tyreal's Might or Templar's Might, and unique thunder mauls can be either the Cranium Basher or Earthshifter). Finally, 3 of the 25 possible picks have neither a set nor a unique associated with them.

To figure out the relative probabilities of landing one of them, you have to take these factors into account, and there's no easy way to do that. This is because after the game decides on an item type, it rolls to see if it is a unique or set, even if no unique or set exists for that item type. To take the colossus girdle as an example, there is neither a set nor unique for it, but the game checks anyway. If the unique roll is successful, it tries to drop the unique, but since there isn't one, it insteads drops a rare with double durability. If the set roll is successful it instead will generate a magic (blue) with triple durability. These items are referred to as failed uniques or failed sets.

If that were the extent of the problem, we'd still be able to figure out a solution. You would have to examine all rare/magic drops to see if they had enhanced durability to see the occurance of failed sets or uniques. (It would be tedious, but possible.) Unfortunately, this method isn't foolproof. For example, let's say the game decides to drop a hydra bow. There is a unique for this item type (Windforce), but there is no set. Let's say the unique roll fails, but the set roll succeeds. You'll get a magic hydra bow with triple durability - but bows don't have durability, so there's no way to differentiate a magic hydra bow from a failed set hydra bow.

So we can only make certain qualified conclusions about relative frequencies. Of the 3 items in TC87 without either a set or a unique, they are all from the armor half of TC87 (colossus girdle, dream spirit, guardian crown). So even though the initial split favors getting a particular set armor or unique armor from TC87 (because it picks from weap87 and armo87 equally, but there are fewer choices for armo87), this is offset by 3 of the 11 armo87 choices having no set or unique to pick. And that trend is true when considering sets and uniques individually as well. 12 of the 17 uniques are weapons (or 13 of 19 if you count sacred armors and thunder mauls twice) and 5 of the 8 set possibilities are also weapons.

Given all this, I think it is probably a bit more likely to get a TC87 set or unique weapon than armor. The following lists assume that the monster in question can drop anything, which is true for hell Diablo, Baal and a few other super uniques (but not Pindleskin).

The most likely picks from TC87 set/uniques would include:

Deathcleaver, Grandfather, Death's Fathom, Stormspire, Executioner's Justice, Windforce, Ghostflame, Bul-Kathos Sacred Charge and Tribal Guardian, Cranium Basher, Earthshifter, Steelpillar, and Gargoyle's Bite.

Next most common would include these:

Crown of Ages, Griswold's Valor, Griffon's Eye, M'avina's True Sight, Shadowdancer, Steelrend, Tyrael's Might, Templar's Might, Immoral King's Soul Cage

Assassin claws are different than other class-specifics in that they drop with 2/3 frequency instead of 1/3 frequency, so Natalya's Mark is the sole entry in the list of third most common.

Next would include these:

Mang Song's Lesson, Astreon's Iron Ward, Griswold's Redemption, Death's Web

The rarest would be:

Darkforge Spawn and Griswold's Honor

Finally, it should be noted that all items in TC87 are extremely rare - none of them are "common" unless speaking relative to each other. Griswold's set is considered the hardest set in the game to complete. Three of the four items are in this TC, including two of them - the weapon and the shield - that are class-speciifc, making them rarer than the non class-specific choices. The amazon, assassin, and barbarian sets all have one item in this TC, with the assassin item being the 2/3 frequency claw, while the other 3 classes don't have any items for their sets in this TC. If you want to include the Bul-Kathos Set as a barbarian specific set (only the barb can equip the complete set as it consists of two weapons), both of those weapons are TC87, although since colossus blades and mythical swords are not class-specific, they turn up with the same frequency as the other weapon options.[/u][/u][/s][/u][/u][/u][/s][/s][/u]

 

Started Hell last night at level 77 - I couldn't take it anymore. I actually had some tough decisions to make. Namely, I cannot get close to maxing my resistances without Jade Talon, which is an inferior choice to my initial selection, in that it only gives +2 to SD and MA skills, as opposed to +2 all skills. Further, it doesn't have the +3 BoI and +3 DTail, which I thought was a good damage source when facing mana drain PIs like ghosts. Still, I'm a melee character, so I need those resistances, so I sucked it up and equipped it.

The other downside is having only one source of CB is problematic in hell difficulty - even on p3. Now I understand why the guides I saw for kickers recommended 50% CB - I have 15%. I'm considering making a switch to double-upped Goblin Toes for my boots so I can at least get to 25%.

I've only done the first two quests, and I won't be going to fight Blood Raven again with this character. In other games, if I had a good WP, I'd actually run her multiple times in order to get to the Mausoleum as it's alvl 85 - just as good as the pits. The problem is that the Mausoleum is filled with skeletons and zombies, both of which are lightning immune, with the skeletons being unleechable to boot. Any character that doesn't rely on lightning damage can run this area, but this isn't the character for it.

Fortunately, I cannot think of any other area that I'd want to run where this would be a problem. If I decide to run countess, the only unleechables in the tower are the PI ghosts, but aside from the odd unique here and there, they aren't LI. The Pits can get LI monsters, but none of them are PI/LI, and none are unleechable.

I also had a thought regarding my next character - it's a rather oddly themed build - a "Passion" barbarian:

"Passion" - Dol-Ort-Eld-Lem (cheap enough that I won't mind if the build fails)
Any weapon with 4 sockets
Required Level 43

+25% attack speed
+160%-210% enhanced dmaage
+50%-80% attack rating
+75% damage vs. undead
+50 attack rating vs. undead
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
+1 Berserk
+1 Zeal
Hit Blinds Monster +10 (largely useless since they can see you in melee)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25% (unfortunate)
75% gold find
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12 Charges)

OK - work with me here for a minute. This is the idea - a barbarian who invests NOTHING in the combat tree, and only uses the two skills provided for by the weapon to kill stuff. If I use a phase blade (and I have a 4-socket one on hand), the IAS speed from the runeword alone will get me to the 5 fpa breakpoint (4 is the fastest possible with 45% more, but unnecessary).

With the large AR bonus on the weapon, a maxed sword mastery, a heavy investment in dex for max block, and a Raven Frost if I feel like it means I shouldn't have AR issues. Here's the trick - I need to get Zeal up to at least level 4 to get to a 5-swing zeal attack. The reason that's tricky is that any item that gives "+X to barbarian skills" won't work because zeal is not a barbarian skill (although such items will improve berserk).

I headed over to Amazon Basin forums and asked if items with "+X to All Skills" modifier will raise zeal, and they will. Battle Commands also is an "all skills" modifier, so I need at least 2 from other sources. If I had a Harlequin Crest, I'd have it right there - alas. There are an assortment of helms that give +1 all skills (or heck, I can make "Lore"). The other would have to come from the armor (many choices), the shield (very few choices), or the amulet (quite a few choices).

I have a Seraph's Hymn and an Arkaine's Valor, which would solve the +2 with one item slot, but those aren't available until level 69 and 85, respectively. So more likely Skullder's throughout NM, combined with either Eye of Etlich or a +1 helm. (Tarnhelm + Skullder's would work, and give some sweet mf.) Alternatively, I can go with the helm and amulet, and use Duress. I also have a SoJ, but that seems like a waste of a ring slot.

Skills: I'd mav Battle Orders, Sword Mastery, and Shout (which does transfer it's synergy to Berserk). One-point wonders include Taunt, Battle Cry, War Cry, Battle Commands, and one in everything else in the mastery tree except the other weapon masteries.

Only 3 skills maxed, so lots of leeway with where to go after that. Options for a 4th skill: Iron skin, if I want to raise my defense even further. War Cry, if I want to stun prior to zealing. Howl also gives a synergy to Berserk. Bury them in the ground and try to grow a skill point tree... really it doesn't matter much at that point. The one big downside.... I only have the standard attack until I can equip the weapon... at level 43.

 

Hi,

I started a Lightning sorc a couple of months ago which got pretty far (end Nm), but then my machine crashed with no data rescue option

Last week, I got thát feeling again, so I started over.

I'm now running a classic: the SkellieMancer.

Currently I'm on Act 2 normal, level 19 and running on P8. Nothing special in mind, just the hords of skellies, a golem and some Revives.

Will be posting here again soon.