Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

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That would appear to be the only option. Actually, I would probably stun the pack first, so only the unstunable boss chases after me - I only need to get that first War Cry off before getting hit to shut the whole back down. Kill the boss first, and then go back and finish the pack. In many areas it would difficult to park an unstunable boss somewhere, so it might just be easier to deal with the boss first.

 

I made some significant progress over the weekend. Now I'm in Act IV hell, level 81. Had a decent go of finding some stuff over the weekend. I picked up a SoJ (in a basket in Act III), so now I have two, as well as two items I didn't previously have - a Vampire Gaze and Horizon's Tornado. VG is actually pretty sweet - dual leech, cold damage, big damage reduction. Horizon's Tornado is more of a novelty find than anything. It's the other unique scourge - Stormlash - that's truly an end-game weapon.

As for what this character cannot do well, this list is exceedingly short. Specifically, boss packs of mana burn physical immunes are problematic. But they must have all three of those attributes to be a problem. Boss packs that are just physical immune aren't a big deal as they still stun well. Boss packs that are just mana burn aren't a big deal because one attack with double swing and I'm back in business. And things that aren't boss packs are always stunable no matter what attributes they happen to be carrying.

The solution I've come up with is to get the boss to focus on the merc, while I deal with the rest of the pack. It's a bit tricky, because you have to stun the rest of them almost as soon as the boss engages the merc, because even with a beefed up battle orders active, the merc is not going to last long against a boss pack. If it's just the boss hitting him though, it seems to work pretty well.

I only have a few points to go before maxing axe mastery. I think I need four more points, two of which will be provided when I kill Izual. It should be done by early Act V. After that, I only have a couple of options with my last few skill points.

I could add more to double swing - which would raise it's attack rating, but that's not too big of a deal. Without Battle Cry, I have a lousy attack rating - my chance to hit is only around 60-something percent. But once I do use Battle Cry - reducing the enemies defense by more than half - I have no trouble hitting stuff. I do not think that a few points in Battle Cry would obviate the need to use Battle Cry, so to me that seems like a marginal benefit.

So that means there are only two sensible choices. I could add to Battle Cry directly, which would further reduce enemy defense and add a bit of damage to War Cry as a synergy - not that my War Cry damage is all that impressive to begin with. Finally, I could throw a few points in Shout. The added defense won't do too much, but it will provide a duration boost to Battle Orders and Battle Command, and it will give a damage synergy to Berserk, which is my backup attack. The final option seems the most sensible.

 

I was under the apparently mistaken belief that BSpear did physical damage.

IMO, three rows isn't much at all. Three or four is typically what I shoot for. That said, I always carry the cube in my inventory. It takes up 2x2, and holds 3x4.

What do you do against lightning immunes? I know that when I was running my paladin, even with a conviction level in excess of 20 I ran into some things that were still lightning immune. So with a level 13 conviction, you're certainly getting some immunes.

I think your sorceress will probably evolve into your favorite runner for just about everything. Less safe than a lot of other characters, but highest AoE damage capabilities. She's still my best rune and pit runner, and while there are certain characters than can do certain areas quicker than she, as far as all-around effectiveness is concerned, she's the best. There's no area she cannot do at least reasonably quickly - which is more than I can say for most characters.

That sounds solid - you're at the 50% physical cap, and VG also will soak up elemental damage to boot. What merc are you using? Might would seem largely pointless... Defiance or Holy Freeze perhaps? I'm thinking of trying out a barbarian one of these go throughs for a merc. I might even give him Sazabi's set, as he'd be able to use the complete set (only has helm, armor and sword).

 

The defiance merc is a solid choice for any build that doesn't do high melee damage, and even then it could be justified if you're going for a really high defense build. I'd say about the only time defliance would be a bad pick would be for a barbarian. With Battle Orders active (and often Shout to boot), even your merc is going to have such a high life pool that he should be very hardy.

Now that I know that BSpear does magic damage, it is making me re-think my view of that build. So few things in the game are immune to magic, and your merc, golem, and assorted other minions could probably take care of them. Perhaps a problem with the second wave of Baal's minions, but other than that, you're in very good shape.

 

Only major miss with Necro's bone spells is that they're so weak. You either get strongish single-target damage or weakish "AoE" in a straight-line formation. But considering there's hardly any immunes, it kinda balances out in the end, I suppose.

 

What about the sorceress - how do you deal with LI? Merc time?

 

I must not be remembering my paladin's immunity-breaking capabilities correctly. There were some creatures that remained completely immune to certain elements even after the conviction penalty - or at least I thought so. If they were standing in the radius of Conviction, and when I hovered my mouse over them it would still "Lightning Immune", so I assumed they were still, in fact lightning immune. (Just using lightning as an example. I saw the same thing with fire and cold as well.) I was using Baranar's Star, so I didn't particularly care if they were immune to one element. Conviction was used as much to guarantee hits with a fairly high damage weapon as it was to remove immunities. The extra elemental damage was gravy.

To cite a specific example, I distinctly remember the Urdars in the Durance of Hate being immune to lightning after Conviction was applied. But perhaps I mixing up my characters, because like I said, with the conviction zealot, it really didn't matter.

I finished Act IV with the barbarian. One aspect of the barb that I seriously under-rated in regards to his equipment is his actual appearance, which I dare say is pretty damn cool. All of his armor pieces are "light" armor, so he looks half-naked going into battle. His armor is a dusk shroud, so it uses the quilted armor appearance. His helm is Shako (so the cap appearance), and even the gloves and boots are bramble mitts and demonhide boots. Way cool.

Got a Mal from Hellforge, so that's pretty good. I'm slowly rebuilding my rune wealth after forking over quite a bit of it for Oath and Death. For example, I'm almost ready to cube an Ohm rune - my next rune of Mal or better will set off a chain reaction of runes I already have that will allow me to get to Ohm.

After that I still need a Lo rune before I can make Doom (have a Cham) - which IMO, may be the best merc weapon for any Act II merc in existence. It has everything you could possibly want for a merc weapon except CB, which could be acquired elsewhere (Duress + Guilaumme's would give you 50%). And I even have an ethereal cryptic axe ready to plunk the runes in.

Of course, that does overlook that there are two other juicy looking rune words that require a Lo that I haven't made yet - Fortitude and Grief. The current Holy Grail is still a Ber rune. If and when I ever get that I'll have the runes for either Chains or Enigma (already have a Jah). If I had to decide right now, I'd make CoH over Enigma. I see much more utility with Chains.

Next up is still that damnable Aldur's druid. The equipment part is straight forward enough - after the set items, it's blood gloves, Spirit Shield, RF, SoJ, +1 all druid skills rare ammy, and a belt which is going to have to give me some resistances. So possibly Credendum, as 15% res all is about the best you can do from that slot. If I calculated it correctly - that gear setup should give me exactly 75% res all in hell difficulty for cold and lightning, 50% in fire, and 45% in poison. So a few charms will be necessary (2-3 small charms for fire and poison), but not a big deal. I'll have +8 to the SS tree and +7 to the summoning tree.

For the skills I'm leaning towards a Beastmaster/FC druid with a point in Fury as a backup. I still want to try a FC/Rabies build with a one point Grizzly and Fury, but it seems practically criminal to utilitze rabies and not have Plague Bearer and Trang-Oul's Claws in the equipment. I need two Spirits for the FC/Rabies build (which isn't a problem), and use Plague Bearer for Rabies, and an upped Fleshrender for Fury and Fire Claws. With the other planned equipment I have on hand, I'll have +13 to both Rabies and Fire Claws - which can't be bad.

 

For me, the real winner on CoH is the 65% resist all - no other armor in the game can match that by a fairly large margin (I think +50% res all is the next best), and resistances have universal utility for all characters. Heck, Sanctuary + Chains and you're pretty much done with resistances.

The character I use to run most areas is my sorceress, and she already has teleport as a skill. I also have her decked out in Skulder's Ire for mf purposes. I will grant that Enigma gives almost as good mf (1% per level as opposed to 1.25%), +2 all skills as opposed to +1, and a bunch of other stuff that Skulder's doesn't.

As far as the comparison of CoH and Enigma is concerned, I agree that CoH with it's damage modifiers is more suited towards melee characters. You get more than 1/3 of all you need to max your resistances with Chains. Enigma gives more strength (although since Enigma is likely your highest strength requirement, I'm not sure how useful that is), more defense (unless you have a really high defense piece of armor I cannot imagine the +70% defense on Chains is going to come close to the +750 defense on Enigma), and better mf. Chains has life leech and replenish life, whereas Engima has life per kill and increase maximum life - probably about a wash there. They both have 8% DR and they both have +2 all skills.

So the question really boils down to the unique aspects of the armors. Is the 45% FRW, teleport and enhanced mf better than the huge damage increase and huge resistance boost provided by Chains? And that really is a character-dependent question. I think melee fighters are more inclined to pick Chains, while casters are more likely to go with Enigma. But I keep going back to the resistances. Getting 65% on your armor really gives a lot of flexibility on your other equipment choices. So even a caster can make more mf gear choices on the other slots if you are wearing Chains.

I don't know. I would like to have both options, but seeing as how I don't even have ONE Ber right now, it might be a long time indeed before I get two. Hell, it might be a long time before I get one. I don't even have any Lo or Sur runes, which are the two that preceed Ber, so I'm probably going to need to find a Ber rather than cubing to get there.

 

I also finished Hell Baal yesterday, and came to pretty much the same conclusion as you did with your necro - while he can do anything, there isn't any one particular thing that he excels at. Just like with you, the best character I have in terms of boss running - and any other running for that matter, is my sorceress. My paladin gets an honorable mention for Countess, as magic find doesn't factor into it, but other than a fire-cold dual immune, nothing even slows her down.

So I also started my Aldur druid yesterday. I got through Countess normal, and frankly, I cannot wait to get through these early levels. I didn't have anything but standard attack until level 12, and Feral Rage is great for health replenishment, but since I'm not specializing in the skill, it's a one point wonder. Things got a little easier at level 15, as I was able to equip Eye of Etlich and Tarnhelm. That allows three spirit wolves instead of one, and a longer transformation into the wereforms.

I'm thinking of holding off on equiping any piece of Aldur's set until I hit level 75 and can put the whole thing on. There's literally nothing that any piece gives individually that I really want. (Well, the boots are a nice piece - I'll grant that.) But as far as other pieces go, I think I'd rather have a peasant crown or a unique druid pelt over the helm (that's really the weakest piece of the set), and I think I may be better off with a Fleshrender for the +skills and CB instead of the weapon. Although, the weapon will be super fast one I throw three Shaels into it. I'll have a 5-frame FC attack with it, so maybe worth using after all.

 

My fastest death ever is still the time that the teleport on the Oculus kicked in when I got hit, and happened to drop me in the middle of a boss pack of gloams. That was really, really, quick.

 

Well, the thing with bowazons is that there really isn't many different ways to do the build. There's fire, cold, and physical - you need to pick two - and almost any combination of those two works. As I've mentioned, I used WWS and picked cold and physical. Maxed two of the three cold arrow skills (didn't max the middle one - I forget if that is Frozen or Freezing Arrow), maxed Strafe, and a healthy investment (though not maxed) in Multishot. Kept a Koku on switch to deal with dual cold/physical immunes. My experience would lead me to conclude that speed is everything. There's only so much damage you can get out of your bow, and with CB working at half its effectiveness in missile weapons, getting a 3 or 4 frame rate attack is necessary.

That's also on my to-do list. Most sensible option seems to be to pick one of the elemental attacks - whichever floats your boat - be it Fists of Fire, Blades of Ice, or Claws of Thunder, and combo it with Phoenix Strike. PS not only gives and receives a synergy to all three elemental attacks, but it's a source of prismatic damage. I would probably lean towards BoI or CoT and avoid FoF, because Dragon Tail seems like a great finisher that does fire damage, so you could get two damage sources right there. Dragon Flight, OTOH, seems rather useless to me - unless there is some hidden benefit to the skill that is not immediately apparent. Not sure why it is a level 30 skill. Tiger Strike also looks interesting for it's huge damage boost. That would be a real winner with Dragon Tail.

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Did the first few quests with my druid. One of the things I like with new characters is that I have a big choice of starting equipment. Given that I'm investing no points into dexterity at all, I may as well make use out of some of my two-handed axes and maces as I advance this character. I'll use The Chieftan for certain by the end of Act I, and probably graduate up to Bonesnap late in Act II.

That said, the character isn't particularly interesting thus far, not that I expected anything differently this early on. The barbarian spoiled me by getting my main attack at level 6. None of the skills I'm going to rely on during the game are available for this character until level 18 - that's when I pick up Dire Wolves, Fire Claws, and Heart of Wolverine.

The current plan is to go with Aldur's weapon and boots as soon as they become available, so by level 45, I'll have about half of my end-game equipment on. I'll have the boots, weapon, both ring slots (Raven Frost and SoJ both available by lvl 45) and amulet all equipped. The pelt is absolutely the worst piece of the set (the lack of +skills is indefensible), and there's no point in putting that on until I can wear the armor as well.