Diablo II

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So the best regular mace is the flail huh?

 

As ridiculous as that sounds to anyone who has played any decent PC D&D game, yes.

War Hammers are still considered maces for the purpose of the Barbarian's Mace Mastery though. For anything else they've apparently considered as a separate weapon category, like Scepters.

 

Um... no, they are consider mace class weapons. That's why it says "mace class" when you read the description on things like war hammers, maul, etc. Even the Arreat Summit and dii.net (the two authoritative sources on all things Diablo) list them as mace class weapons. (When you click on "weapons" and then "maces" things like war hammers and mauls come up along with all the rest. However, you are correct that scepters are NOT mace class weapons.)

Runewords are just funky. Some things work on certain types of weapons but not on others. I agree that you would assume that if a rune word works on one type of weapon in the class, that it should work on all types in that class, but it doesn't. (Of course, there are tons of rune words that exclude weapons from a particular class due to socket limitations. You'll never be able to make a rune word that requires six sockets in a weapon that cannot get six open sockets, even if it's the correct class of weapon.)

I would actually state it exactly opposite of what you did - I would say that war hammers, maul, and great mauls are considered maces for the purposes of all game features EXCEPT rune words.

 

Sounds better.

 

Have any of you seen a pure bone necromancer? It's something crazy to watch. I just saw my friend put his first 15 skill points into teeth and he kills everything without any trouble. Plus, as soon as he could get bone spear it already had over +100% damage from the synergy with teeth.

 

My son created a necromance for LAN play (not battlenet) and used the hero editor to get teeth to level 99. It was quite impressive.

 

Bone necros are viable, but they are mana intensive characters. Practically everything in the bone tree synergizes with multiple other bone skills, and so a pure bone necro can have very high damage spells. Furthermore, the spells deal magic damage, and very few creatures in the game are immune to magic. Bone spear is very useful in that it passes through a target and keeps going until it hits a wall. It's great for narrow passageways (like the maggot lair) where it can literally hit dozens of enemies.

Most bone necros have a mercenary and a minion or two (at least a golem) accompany them so they have a means of dealing with the few magic immunes they will encounter, and to provide a wall between them and enemies. They also usually invest in corpse explosion for clearing mobs. The build for a necro that uses teeth as his primary skill (and loads up on the synergies) is called a "Dentist", which has to be the most amusing build name in D2.

 

Bone Necromancers (these "Dentists") are a pretty nift lot. I'm not too keen on the PvP aspect of the game, as people keep laying down ridiculous rules and not spending points in Energy, but as far as PvM goes Bone Necros have some really powerful skills for every emergency.

 

People dont spend points in energy more because it is useless than anything else.

 

For PvP, you simply cannot afford to spend points in energy, because every spare point must be directed into vitality if you want to survive a single hit.

In PvM, it's a little different. The general rule of thumb in PvM is if you are melee character, it is best to not spend points in energy. Finding an item (usually a ring) that has mana steal on it is easy enough. Since melee characters are constantly hitting things, and their attack skills are not mana intensive, you are usually more than capable of stealing more mana back than you need to activate the skill, and your mana bulb usually remains full. Amazons that use bows aren't melee, but they also can rely on mana steal (although for missile weapons, mana steal only works at half the listed rate).

So amazons, assassins, barbarians, paladins, and shape shifting druids should never need to invest a point in energy. Similarly, summoner druids, and summoner necromancers are low mana cost builds, and they don't need to spend points in energy either. That leaves sorceresses, elemental druids, and poison/bone necros that may have mana issues. Mana steal is mostly useless to these characters, because mana steal only works for physical damage dealt, and these characters use skills that deal elemental or magic damage.

These mana intensive characters do have a few options, however, other than spending points in energy. If you have some wealth, and have access to gear or charms with +skills, a sorceress with the skill "Warmth" can regenerate mana fairly quickly. For the very rich, they can make the rune word "Insight", which provides the paladin's meditation aura, and that makes mana regenerate at a ridiculously fast rate. Since it's an aura, you can make it in a bow and give it to your act 1 mercenary, and you still get the benefit.

In the end though, sorceresses, elemental druids, and poison/bone necros are not front line characters, and can be played in such a way that you can keep them out of harm's way. For the purposes of PvM, I see nothing wrong with investing some points into energy (especially in the early going when mana problems are usually greatest) even if it means that you your character will have a little less life in the end. The good news with these mana-intensive characters is you get an automatic increase to your mana pool at each level up (druids get 2, necros 3, and sorceresses 4). So by the time you get to high levels you will have a nice mana pool even with minimal investment.

So for PvM, go ahead and spend a little in energy - just don't go crazy and spend like 100 points or something like that.

 

Yep, Aldeth pretty much summed it up. Leveling any decent caster is ridiculously annoying if you don't spend points in Energy. Energy is never useless, it just needs to be in an amount that reasonably allows you to spam skills. There may be a lot of items with Energy modifiers out there but the fact is a lot of them require you to be at certain *higher* levels.
Relying on a particular set of uniques or rune words is good but restricts growth. Cookie cutter builds are powerful, but the ones that really shine are the ones with a player's personal quirk in their them. How you use your character is just as important as his gear.

Also I simply do not have the patience to go through all that trouble just to fight a battle by someone else's rules. (And the few PvP arenas that are no-rules type are frowned upon by others)
For many who are using a variation of the classic PvP builds these rules are acceptable (and fun - PvP is great for such builds), but to others they are inhibiting.

 

Hmmm.. I'm looking at my latest find (Stormshield) and I have some mixed emotions about it. Here are the relevant stats:

The 25% chance to block, high defense (easily over 400 by the time you reach the level where you can use it), and 35% physical damage reduction are absolutely wonderful. The lack of fire and poison resistance is a little concerning. Assuming I socket it with a pdiamond (I cannot justify using an Um rune for the extra 3% resist all), I can add an additional 19% resistance to all to the shield. That will take the cold resist all the way up to 79% (very nice), lightning up to 44% (not bad), but will only have 19% in poison and fire resistance. That may make maxing my resistances somewhat difficult. (It is impossible for my current paladin to use this shield as it would kill his resistances - I've built him on the premise of him using his current shield that provides 120% resistance to all elements. I cannot justify giving a SS to my necro. So perhaps if I play a druid next, he will inherit it.)

 

Finally finished my Druid game.

No deaths!

*And what's wrong with the forum-I can't get the smiles to work right???*



The cows finally gave up some good stuff after six games. The boss gave up two uniques and some semi-good rares. And found two green items among the other dead cows there. Nothing big since it's a normal game but in the last five games I think I got one green item and just a few no good rares combined.

Now for the Assassin.
Any pointers?

She seems like the most work intensive with finishing moves and the like.

 

Just started a druid for online play, it's crazy how much faster you level up. Going with a mostly shifter, but I guess I'll throw in some summons as well. I'm playing with a bone necro and a bowazon, so I figure I'll hang out with a summon or two on the front line while a ton of support comes in.

 

Assissan is working out great so far.

It's fun running around again and killing things first hand in melee after a Amazon and a Druid.

Finishing moves rule!

How did all my code optins get disabled?
Smilies don't work and I can't bold or underline anything.

 

Started a single-player Paladin today, I'm just about to go and kill the countess and it has been more fun than expected. However, I do have a long term question: Does fanaticism effect the attack speed of Zeal? I know that Aldeth has recommended going with holy freeze and resist cold, but faster attack speed always appeals to me... Early on I already have three items with faster hit recovery, so I like quick fighter of sorts.

 

Yes, Fanatacism's faster attack speed works very well with zeal.

 

Fanaticism works with zeal, and all other attacks. Combining zeal with fanaticism will result in the highest physical damage dealing paladin you can make. If you run a fanaticism/zeal character, the only thing you need to worry about is having a means to deal with physical immunes. That can be accomplished by placing a few points in vengence, as that deals a high amount of elemental damage. The only downside to vengence is that it is a mana intensive skill, and is sometimes problematic to use against a pack of physical immune creatures. Many physical immunes, like ghosts, have mana drain, further complicating the use of the skill. I prefer to combine two types of damage in all of my attacks, but a fanaticism/zeal paladin is viable - just spend some points in vengence.

 

Yeah, Aldeth, I avoid that combination because of physical immunes. Pity though, used to be my favourite.

A holy freeze mercenary or one of the mercs from act 3 can help. Even better, play multiplayer with friends!

Remind me to see if I can get my house to play D2 with me....

 

My Paladin just defeated Duriel (it might be the first time I beat him without dying ), but I hate Kurast Docks, so I started a Necromancer. Going with a Golemer and I was planning on using corpse explosion a lot, but it is very mana heavy.