Diablo II

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It did take a long time, about a dozen merc deaths and two of my own.

Frozen Orb is the balm!

Cleans out the whole screen in Act V.

Got a War Staff now that gives +1 to all Sorceress skills.

 

If you like Frozen Orb, then you should stop pumping points into Blizzard. Blizzard and Frozen Orb do not give synergies to each other, and the best way to maximize damage is to make use of the synergies. Frozen Orb, as I mentioned before, pretty much kicks ass all the way through nightmare difficulty, and if you plan to go that route, I'd recommend maxing it out. However, most Blizzard sorceresses don't put more than one point into Frozen Orb, because it doesn't help with their primary attack. Regardless of what route you go, you'll also want to place a couple of points into cold mastery, as that lowers enemy resistance to cold. (Note: If an enemy doesn't have any cold resistance, it actually takes their resistances into negatives, which REALLY ups your cold damage.

 

Only have one point in everything.
I saved them up to see what I like best.

"you'll also want to place a couple of points into cold mastery, as that lowers enemy resistance to cold."

Really???

Does it help against those that are cold immune too?

Also I got the unique breast plate that gives 90% protection from poison.
I never got a % higher than 75% and I thought that was a cap.
Is it only a cap if it's from multi-items?
A single item can give more than that?

Way back in my Pally game I got a unique necklace that did give give +10% to fire raising my limit to 85% though.

 

Absolutely true.

It does, but on nightmare and hell difficulty resistances can exceed 100%. In fact, they can get as high as 120% on nightmare and 150% on hell, so it's possible for you have a few points in cold mastery, run into a frozen horror that has 150% resistance to cold, and it will still be immune because you don't have enough of a lower percentage to break through the immunity. On normal difficulty it works on everything though.

The typical cap is 75%. As you mentioned, there are items you can find that can raise resistance beyond 75%. However, it never hurts to hold onto items with high resistance even if you have reached 75%, because of the resistance penalty when you move up from normal to nightmare difficulty, and again when you mover from nightmare to hell difficulty. When you move from normal difficulty to nightmare, you get a -50% resistnace penalty, and then another -50% resistance penalty (so total -100%) once you move from nightmare to hell difficulty. So even though it's possible to get over 75% on one item, it only works in normal difficulty, and once the penalty kicks in you'll need to find more. Maxing resistnace in hell difficulty is quite challenging, as you have to stack 175% total to hit the cap once the penalty is factored in. For characters who do not use a socketed shield filled with perfect diamonds, it's nearly impossible to hit the max.

 

OK my Sorceress is finishing up.
I'm using the Barb merc for the first time.
Swords are it for him?

Amazon is next.
Any good ideas with her.
I see it's either Bows or Javelins...
Or switching back and forth between both...?

 

the best thing with amazons are to go just one way either bows/xbows or java and for your first try i would recommend bows, and gowing with multishot and guided arrow. and go for valkyrie in the passive tree, also go for the three evading skills, dodge and evade, there is also one more which i can't recall the name of.

i would also try to get a bow instead of a crossbow, because it fires a bit faster

 

Hmmm... It's been a banner day for magic finding. I found a Skullder's Ire (+1.25% mf per level, which means it's currently 106% for my necro).

I also found a unique, elite, ladder-only throwing weapon - Warshrike. Here's the unusual bit: It is ethereal (meaning it cannot be repaired), but it also comes with a replenishing quantity. So I don't know which one over-rides the other. When you repair a thrown weapon, you refill the quantity, but with an ethereal, I just don't know what happens.

Aces: Balle has given one strategy for making a bowazon. While I agree that bows are easier as a first go of things, there are many builds that don't do much with multishot or guided arrow. Also, while bows are generally faster than crossbows, there are exceptions. As an example my best bowazon build ever was one who used a unique crossbow (the Buriza) and specialized in strafe and immolation arrow.

 

Amazon bites.
First time I died in Act I.


I was backing up firing against a strong mini boss and his minions when I back into another group with a mini-boss and minions.

I killed them all but the last boss died and had a cold nova blast that got me with my low HP.

Any way to stand still while firing arrows like in Diablo 1?

 

Yes - hold down the shift key, and your amazon will stand in place.

 

That should make life easier.

 

I'm in Act IV with my Amazon and will have all skills open soon.
I really don't have a grasp on how to build her.
Were should I start sticking the extra skills points?

I'm using a bow mostly.
Should I build up one skill (say the strongest cold attack) or build up both the freezing arrow and immalation together with a few in strife too?

 

OK, I don't know how you have spent your points so far, but the first decision you need to make is whether or not you want a valkyrie. Valkyries become extremely powerful if you invest the full 100 points in them - generally they deal more damage and can take more punishment than your merc. However, the reason why many people forego the valkyrie is that by taking that skill you are forgoing a backup attack skill. You only have so many points to spend, and if you drop 20 on a valk, you are losing a whole other skill or a valuable synergy.

Assuming you've only been spending points on prerequisities, here's a couple sample build plans for you:

My personal favorite - The Stafer

20 points in Stafe
20 points in Valkyrie (she kicks major butt if you pair her with a Might mercenary)
20 points in Immolation Arrow (backup attack against physical immunes)
several points in pierce (Pierce is necessary, as your arrows will travel through packs and one arrow can strike several foes, greatly increasing your damage. Ideally you'll want to be using a bow or xbow that has the "Piercing Attack" modifier, as that gives you a base 50% chance to pierce, so you'll only need to spend a couple of points - otherwise this can be a significant investment.
1 point in all prerequisites (there are a TON of them, but I wouldn't spend more than 1 point in any of the dodge type skills)
Any leftover points (you'd need to level up to around 85) would go into one of Immolation Arrow Synergies.

The other option is the Frost Maiden

As you might expect, the Frost Maiden relies on cold damage. Here's the strange thing about the Amazon skill set - if you only have 20 points for a backup attack, you want to go with Immolation Arrow, because if all you have is those 20 points to spend, Immolation Arrow will out-damage any of the cold-based attacks. However, if you want to specialize in elemental damage as a primary attack, it is much more useful to sink 20 points in all three of the cold-based attacks and rely on the synergies.

As a word of warning, since this build deals mostly elemental damage, it is difficult to leech sufficient mana to use the cold skills constantly. The advantage of the Strafer is it's mostly physical damage and therefore with a little bit of mana steal you can leech back all the mana you use to keep the skill going constantly.

20 Cold Arrow
20 Ice Arrow
20 Freezing Arrow
some amount in pierce depending on bow being used
20 in either multiple shot or stafe to have a physical attack to leech back mana to feed your other skills

Obviously, this build plan needs to forego the valkyrie - there just aren't enough skill points to go around. In fact, the only skills you want to invest in the passive/magic tree are those required for pierce.

I personally think that the first build is easier to play, especially if you don't have access to godly equipment, but the second build can certainly be effective.

I'm no expert on zons though. There are some excellent strategy guides that you can read though - here's a link.

 

Just downloaded ATMA...

Any tips or pitfalls from you experts?

 

@aces

on atma, be sure to make use of the stash in there, a database with a decent browser to oversee all your items. and i would also recommend keeping and stashing all items you might find useful in there as it can make early leveling much easier if you have the right equipment, the sigon set comes especially to mind here

 

Hmm...

Haven't made a file yet.

Saved a chipped skull and moved it around to a few players just for practice.

Now how do I delete a file? lol

---------- Added 0 hours, 7 minutes and 52 seconds later... ----------

Hmm...

I see.
You have to go right to the Diablo II save folder and make your own file folders or delete items.

Is that right?

 

Wow.
My Amazon killed Diablo without dying and only coming close once!
None of the other four characters could make it with out at least one death (normally two).

Just the one lame Act I death so far.

Got him to drop three Uniques, one set, and two rares.

None of which are better than what I got but now I can start filling up ATMA.

 

3 Perfect Skulls + 1 Rare Item + Stone of Jordan = Add 1 Socket To a Rare Item

I got a nice rare bow when I saved the frozen barabrian girl and I wanted to add a socket to stick a perfect emerald on it to add massive posion to it's other bonuses.

What's a "Stone of Jordan"?

Is that the same thing as the socceress's rod thing?

 

Good luck getting a SoJ. A Stone of Jordan is a unique ring - and a pretty tough unique ring to find, at that. It's rarer than the two other much sought after unique rings (Dwarf Star and Raven Frost). In fact it's the second most rare unique ring (Bul Kathos Wedding Band is rarest.) The SoJ is prized because it's one of only two rings (Bul Kathos is the other) that gives +1 to all skills. Here's a list of all the unique rings and what they do:

linky

 

So much for that idea...

Nagelring is the only unique ring I've gotten to drop and got it twice.

And the Nokozan Relic is the only unique amulet and I got it way back in my first game.


OK a Druid is going to be next.

What a good build?