Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

I agree with everything you said, regarding both the use of assassins, play style, etc.

If you have over 2000 life, that will be a big advantage. Depending on the definition of "over" you have somewhere around 2.5-3 times as much life as my assassin, which is around 800. Also, since you didn't go for max block, I'm also assuming you invested heavily into vitality, which means even more life.

You are also correct in your assumption on Act III - it's exactly like the maggot lair, where as soon as bodies start dropping you clear the screen. It doesn't matter how many flayers are on the screen - I don't care if there are 50 of them. CoS so they stop shooting blow darts, 5 DS, and as soon as two of them die, they all die. Gloams are also a joke because they stop shooting lightning when you cast CoS. They are lightning immune, so you do have to close to melee to take them out, but with no lightning bolts, it's no problem.

Act IV is somewhat more difficult, but only because some of the tougher monsters you fight - like the fire breathing blood lords, are fire immune, and so your DS only works at half of its effectiveness. That's the primary reason why the going was slow - I actually had to kick to death more of them to get the rest of the pack to drop. Udars are also annoying because they are lightning immune - so it takes longer to get the first one to drop before DS can go to work. When you get combined packs of both, it is quite the slog. It's not that it's so much harder - it's just the normal tactics you employ are less effective against what you are fighting, which is why I worked Mind Blast into my tactics.

One odd thing I noticed with Diablo - he appeared to be unleechable - is that always the case? It didn't effect the battle that much, it's just that I burned through quite a bit of potions - most notably mana potions.

I also agree with your opinion on LS. The only times I use it is when fighting a singluar difficult monster, like Act Bosses, Izual, Hephasto, etc. - i.e., when there are no corpses to explode. In those cases, LS does marginally more damage and gets more shots per casting, so it's worth it. I may just dump all my remaining skill points into Fire Blast, even though I'll need most of Act V to earn the three I need to get the extra shot. It doesn't make sense investing in a second LS synergy if I rarely use LS.

 

I feel like I'm retarded. I cannot believe what I did. I had a Gheed's Fortune drop last night, and as per usual, I went and dropped my current one in order to ID the new one to see if it was better or not. It wasn't, but for some reason I inexplicably saved and exited after selling the new one, prior to going back through the portal to pick up the new one. So I tossed a 36%mf Gheeds. Like I said, I'm retarded.

Anyway, I did the first quest in Act V last night. Even though you are a couple of acts behind me, we're almost identical level wise. I just hit level 84 last night. I did not like the Bloody Foothills last night - the spawn consisted of skeleton archers which are fire immune and unleechable - not so fun for a character that relies heavily on leeching to keep the traps flowing.

 

I'm getting antsy to start that sorceress. Hopefully I can work my way through Act V with the 'sin fairly quickly. I haven't been playing much the past week, but I did manage to complete the second quest of Act V last night. With any luck, I'm rescue Anya tonight.

As an aside, I think the reward from Qual-kek (or however you spell it) is one of the most lame-ass awards that you get in the entire game. While getting a Tal, Ral, and Ort rune is an acceptable reward for normal, it is absurd that you get that same lame-ass reward for nightmare and hell difficulties. All of those are low, first tier runes. By the time you've reached hell, you're practically choking on the number of those runes you've found.

I'm not saying that they should be throwing around high runes all over the place, but I think they should follow the same tiered system of runes that is already present in the game. The second tier of runes are those runes that require chipped gems to upgrade, which are for runes Thul-Hel. Three of them for completing that quest on nightmare difficulty would be appropriate. And getting the 3rd tier runes on hell difficulty (Io-Pul) would also be appropriate.

They could also do a bit more for the hellforge rune drop you get - on hell difficulty something higher than Gul should be possible - although I have terrible luck with those drops so maybe I'm just bitter - got a Ko with my assassin. I would propoose something like El-Thul on normal, Amn-Lem on nightmare, and Pul-Ber on hell. So the top three runes would still not be available from rushing hellforge, but you'd get something appropriately valuable for that stage in the game. That you can still get as little as a Hel rune on hell difficulty is absurd.

 

Every time I see this thread it makes me wanna play D2 again. God dammit one day i'll actually finish that game on Normal

 

Hehe, same here .

 

The problem is that Aldeth and dmc are clearly pro. They know what bosses drop what items and they aim for certain items for their characters. I sort of bumble along and occasionally equip something shiny.

 

Oooh you can respec now? About time I'd say .

Must resist urge to buy Diablo 2 and LoD again...

 

Alright guys, I have no stashes or anything, and I have no characters. It's totally from scratch. Suggest me a class and a build

 

Necro for sure.

I would agree with dmc's recommendation of a skellimancer. I have played this and a Hammerdin paladin into the low to mid 80s, and overall I prefer the skellimancer. Both are great though.

While a well built hammerdin can do absolutely insane damage, and is one of the more popular builds around, in hell difficulty you'll encounter enough enemies that are immune to magic to give you a hard time. Even with a good Act II merc, there are still annoying monsters that are immune to magic and physical. I remember getting frustrated in hell because there were certain enemies I just had a hard time killing, and you really have to have great equipment to do this build right.

That said, the summoning necro, with maxed skeletal minions has a trick to take down pretty much everything without difficulty. I never had an overly tough moment with him running through hell difficulty. In previous patches skeleton warriors weren't useful, but they've been revamped, and can become incredibly good tanks. Max skeletal warrior and skeleton mastery as soon as possible. The skeletal mages still die easily, so don't invest too heavily in those, but a couple of points there with some items that boost summoning should allow you to have a nice supplement of mages. I would boost your clay golem and golem mastery as much as possible as they can gain an ungodly amount of hitpoints and slow enemies significantly. They don't do much damage, but your skeletons and revives can more than handle that (only put 1 point in revive, as additional points don't improve the strength of these minions). You can throw in a few bone spirits for good measure if you want to do your own damage. Amplify damage is an awesome curse, and is what I used throughout the game. A point or two in corpse explosion is strongly recommended.

A necromancer needs no party. He is the party, and has everything he needs right at his fingertips!

 

Nice dmc!

So Cap'n CJ, just to give you an idea of the potential, I just loaded up my level 84 necromancer, and here are the stats of his summons:

** Skeleton Warriors do 625-629 damage each, and I can have up to 15 of them! They have an attack of 1205, defense of 1205 and life of 1139. All good tanks in their own right, and when you have 15 of them, that damage really adds up.

** Clay Golem does only 44-102 damage, BUT slows enemies by 71%, and has a life of 34,042!! Attack is 1785 and defense is 835. A pretty tough tank due to all those hitpoints, especially when monsters are are slowed by 71%.

** I also have 10 skeletal mages each with 443 hitpoints and 640 defense. Again, they die easily, but they ensure that I can control any and all of the elements, and they are typically protected by a nice wall of skeletal warriors and my golem. Their damage isn't amazing, but I didn't have to invest much to obtain them, so there's no reason not to use them.

Here are my key skill levels (boosted by items, obviously):
* Raise Skeleton 40 (maxed)
* Skeleton Mastery 40 (maxed)
* Clay Golem 40 (maxed)
* Golem Mastery 40 (maxed)
* I also put 1 point into all other golem types for the synergies, so they are all at 21;
* Raise Skeletal Mage 24

A truly fun character to play. With all those summons, it's rare that my necro is ever directly in the line of fire, so I'm free to use magic find equipment and the like. I'm too caught up in NWN2 at the moment to do any D2, but I thought I'd share some details on just how badass those summons can become.

 

An age, ago, when I first played Diablo 2, I had a Skellimancer and found him great fun. He was built horribly though, so I think I might have a look at this guide.

Cheers guys, i'll update as soon as he's done something