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Heroes Community > Other Games Exist Too > Thread: Diabo II, Questions and opinions.
Thread: Diabo II, Questions and opinions. This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT»
disturbed-Gnu
disturbed-Gnu


Supreme Hero
Pro Bacon Vodka Brewer
posted August 13, 2012 03:41 PM

Diabo II, Questions and opinions.

As we all know, Diablo 2 is one of the best Blizzard games ever made.
And even if its old, its still alot of fun.
So i don't know if there is a thread about it, and i don't care! Diablo II can have all the threads it requires to get attention!
----
So, i will ask some questions to you experienced D2 players.

The most googled diablo II complication.

Should i as a sorceress focus on Frozen Orb or Blizard?
Combined with Fire Wall or Meteor?

When i google it, people always says that if you go for combined cold and fire, i should choose the Orb. But the Orb can't even get close to Blizzards damage. And blizzard can't even go near Orbs Area of Effect..
And meteor is hard as hll to cast because of its delay.
But then again, a good firewall requires alot of training to cast too.

I think maybe Orb and Wall because Orbs only synergy is Ice Bolt, and thats only 2%, so i only level up in Orb and Cold Mastery!
And Firewall get synergy from warmth at 4%. Plus Firemastery.!
At the moment, my wall delivers 1048 to 1124 damage per second.

----

And, Actually why can a Bowazon not be as good as a Javazon?

----

And finally, im starting a new necromancer focusing only on bone spells and a single curse spell.
Is that even a good idea to leave summoning and necromancing on the shelf?

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted August 13, 2012 05:13 PM
Edited by Doomforge at 17:16, 13 Aug 2012.

Well, sorceress is one of my least favorite classes (except novasorc), but I'll try to help.

Meteor is mostly for "MF sorcs" that teleport through the rooms to get to boss ASAP without fighting any monsters in between. As a rule of a thumb, it's too slow for "regular" gameplay.

Blizzard is more useable on groups, undergeared sorceresses are actually quite good with it. Once you get better gear, it becomes too slow for my taste, as you have to wait for it to hit.

Fireball is a great skill, but it takes a lot of FCR to make it work in PVM. There's also a lot of "unbreakable" fire immune monsters in this game - way more than, say, lightning immunes.

Frozen orb is usually picked as a skill to deal with fire/light immune creatures, and works well without any sort of synergy. Put 20 points in it and 1 point in cold mastery and it's a great backup skill to use against fire immunes.

I think the general consensus between players is that Lightning sorceress is the best for "regular" play, meteorb/blizzsorc is the best for MF, and Fireball sorc is the best for PVP...





Bowazon can work well in PVM, javazon however has the ability to kill everything on screen with a single javelin and murder hellmode Baal with 3-4 jabs. It's pure power (very expensive build, though).



As for necromancer, there are many viable builds - bone spells however aren't very good for PVM because they are either single target, or they are hard to use vs. groups due to projectile path/lack of AoE. Thing is, any necro can clear screens super fast with Corpse Explosion; all he really needs is "the first dead body" to explode. Bone-builds are best at player vs. player.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted August 13, 2012 05:14 PM bonus applied by Doomforge on 13 Aug 2012.
Edited by Elodin at 17:21, 13 Aug 2012.

Orb and Blizzard are both viable choices. And don't discount that seemingly small boost in Orb damage from its synergy. It actually makes Orb quite a bit more powerful. To use orb most effectively against bosses you want the orb to explode inside the boss. A synergized orb can take down bosses as quickly as a synergized Blizzard can.

I personally prefer Orb because it is the "safer" spell. You can keep everything on the screen constantly chilled due to the orb shards going all over the place. Also, Blizzard shards sometimes miss monsters and monsters standing still take less Blizzard damage.

Firewall can make a good secondary attack for either Blizzard or Orb. But you have to learn how to use firewall properly. It is a great damage spell for few points invested. You do need a good merc to help keep monsters standing in the firewall. If you are running Baal your most challenging wave will be the one with the skeletons as they tend to move out of the firewall and are cold immune.

Don't forget that you also have glacier spike even if you did not invest in it. You'll be surprised at how effective it can be with that one hard point + skill boosters.

Blizzard-firewall is good untwinked. Blizzard-fireball can be played untwinked though it will fell a little underpowered until you get some better gear. Orb-firewall or Orb-fireball are both good untwinked. You can chose to invest the extra skillpoints to get meteor. Then you would invest in both meteor and fireball but fireball would still be your main fire spell. Meteor against bosses that stand still. Or you can chose to save some skill points and invest in fireball with firebolt as the synergy. You'd never be using the firebolt beyond your starting levels though.

Hydra-Orb is another great fire/cold choice though some people don't like hydras. If you play hardcore it is the safest build.

My pick: Orb-fireball. Have a mid level orb by the time you hit nightmare.


A bowzon can be quite good, but is a lot more gear dependent than a javazon.


Bonemancers rule!!!!! They are one of my favorite classes. Yes, you can go with only one curse. And you can shop for unenchanted wands from normal drogan that will have +3 spear and one or more curses on it. You may have to shop for a while for a 2 socket wand. The "White" rune word (Dol-Io) is quite easy to make and will turn such a wand into end game gear.

Your main attack is bone spear. Sculpt the battlefield with your walls/prisons. Monsters also hate your bone structures so they can sort of double as an attract curse.

I max spear first, then wall, then prison, then spirit. Leftovers go in teeth. Don't put more than one point in bone armor, the synergies will make it give you good protection with that one point.

Shop in act3 normal for a teleport staff. That will allow you to teleport out if you wall yourself in or take shortcuts doing running meph. Your walls start off wimpy in normal and nightmare but are quite good in hell (they scale with difficulty.)

Edit: Oh, adding one point in clay golem, golem mastery, and resists can help against bosses. And a one-point revive can help. But neither golem nor revives are necessary.
____________
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disturbed-Gnu
disturbed-Gnu


Supreme Hero
Pro Bacon Vodka Brewer
posted August 15, 2012 02:35 AM
Edited by disturbed-Gnu at 02:43, 15 Aug 2012.

Thank you for the replies

I was doing some calculations, and quick internet searches on the difrence between Orb and Blizzard. The Blizzard can do insanely high ammounts of damage with gear and synergies. I'm talking at least 4000 for 4 seconds.
The Orb can never beat that. The orb's pro is the area of effect.
-I still used my last Skill Reset to convert from a low synergised Meteor and medium Blizzard, to the Firewall and Orb because they are powerfull and doesn't require alot of synergy.

20 Points in Frozen Orb
20 Points in Firewall
20 Points in Warmth
20 Points in Fire Mastery
And all the rest in the needed skills, and ofcourse static field, teleport and cold mastery.

Quote:
Well, sorceress is one of my least favorite classes (except novasorc), but I'll try to help.

Meteor is mostly for "MF sorcs" that teleport through the rooms to get to boss ASAP without fighting any monsters in between. As a rule of a thumb, it's too slow for "regular" gameplay.

Blizzard is more useable on groups, undergeared sorceresses are actually quite good with it. Once you get better gear, it becomes too slow for my taste, as you have to wait for it to hit.

Fireball is a great skill, but it takes a lot of FCR to make it work in PVM. There's also a lot of "unbreakable" fire immune monsters in this game - way more than, say, lightning immunes.

Frozen orb is usually picked as a skill to deal with fire/light immune creatures, and works well without any sort of synergy. Put 20 points in it and 1 point in cold mastery and it's a great backup skill to use against fire immunes.

I think the general consensus between players is that Lightning sorceress is the best for "regular" play, meteorb/blizzsorc is the best for MF, and Fireball sorc is the best for PVP...

Haha, you go babarian then?

I actually did that with the meteor, but not bacause i wanted to, i just kept dying because i could't hit anything with it

Funny, thats exactly why i asked you guys. The blizzard couldn't keep up with the cold immunes and fast runners on Hell.

My playmate used fireball as main skill on his Mono-fire sorceress, and the damage isn't nearly as high as Firewall. ;P So i guess i disagree with you on that part. But then again, fireball is easier to use, and has splash damage
I'm as you know, Combined Cold and Fire, so would it be a good decision to go fireball instead of firewall?

Why Lighting sorceress? The damage is always 1-something?
Static field is for bosses and uniques.
Teleport is like, duh, you always need it. All non-sorceress go for Enigma just to get teleport ;D
But thats it, in the lightning tab. (Unless you go for the Energy Shield)

Quote:
Bowazon can work well in PVM, javazon however has the ability to kill everything on screen with a single javelin and murder hellmode Baal with 3-4 jabs. It's pure power (very expensive build, though).
Yeah, especially with the Titan Javelin ;p Hmm, maybe i'll change her to a javazo if, and only if, i find an incredibly awesome javelin..
Javazon vs Cow Level

Quote:
As for necromancer, there are many viable builds - bone spells however aren't very good for PVM because they are either single target, or they are hard to use vs. groups due to projectile path/lack of AoE. Thing is, any necro can clear screens super fast with Corpse Explosion; all he really needs is "the first dead body" to explode. Bone-builds are best at player vs. player.

So you would sugest i go for a Summoner with Corpse Explosion? And Corpse Explotion only expands radius, so 1 point should e enough i think?

-----------

Quote:
I personally prefer Orb because it is the "safer" spell. You can keep everything on the screen constantly chilled due to the orb shards going all over the place. Also, Blizzard shards sometimes miss monsters and monsters standing still take less Blizzard damage.

Yeah! I really really hate that, especially the fast monsters on Hell. They run right through it!

Quote:
Firewall can make a good secondary attack for either Blizzard or Orb. But you have to learn how to use firewall properly. It is a great damage spell for few points invested. You do need a good merc to help keep monsters standing in the firewall. If you are running Baal your most challenging wave will be the one with the skeletons as they tend to move out of the firewall and are cold immune.

Don't forget that you also have glacier spike even if you did not invest in it. You'll be surprised at how effective it can be with that one hard point + skill boosters.

Its takes alot of practise to use a firewall, but it becmoes easier with teleport, and as you say, a good tanker/merc.
I always go for Act II because of theire auras ;P
I never run Baal alone because of his first wave. I skype my playmate, and we go Wall-Hydra on theire ass!

Hydra is overlooked. Its too bad, cuz, 15 heads delivering 1000-2000 damage per shot can do alot of damage! Im calculating at least 15000 per wave of shots. Thats alot of damage you don't have to point an click to deliver.

Quote:
A bowzon can be quite good, but is a lot more gear dependent than a javazon.

I say: Runewords ftw! Plus, i have allmost every unique Bow in the game. So thats why i wanted to build a Amazon
I only lack:
Lycander's Aim
Blood Raven's Charge
Widowmaker (Because its Ladder only)
Windforce
and Cliffkiller

Quote:
Bonemancers rule!!!!! They are one of my favorite classes. Yes, you can go with only one curse. And you can shop for unenchanted wands from normal drogan that will have +3 spear and one or more curses on it. You may have to shop for a while for a 2 socket wand. The "White" rune word (Dol-Io) is quite easy to make and will turn such a wand into end game gear.

Your main attack is bone spear. Sculpt the battlefield with your walls/prisons. Monsters also hate your bone structures so they can sort of double as an attract curse.

I max spear first, then wall, then prison, then spirit. Leftovers go in teeth. Don't put more than one point in bone armor, the synergies will make it give you good protection with that one point.

Shop in act3 normal for a teleport staff. That will allow you to teleport out if you wall yourself in or take shortcuts doing running meph. Your walls start off wimpy in normal and nightmare but are quite good in hell (they scale with difficulty.)

Edit: Oh, adding one point in clay golem, golem mastery, and resists can help against bosses. And a one-point revive can help. But neither golem nor revives are necessary.

It seems you an Doomforge disagree on the Bonemancer.
So, can you live with Bonespear being Singe target ony?

And why Bonespear above Bonespirit? Because of the Mana cost difrence?

Yeah, while i was playing sorcerer i looked at some necromancer wands, and i must say, even at low level and for a cheap price, you can get a wand that boost 2-3 necromancer skills by 2-3 levels Nice!!

I already have a 2 socketed wand im saving for that. Just need the runes (I started on my necromancer yesterday, and at the moment i chose Summoner. Im at kurast now. But reading this, kinda makes me wanna use a skill reset to go bonemancer instead

---------
What's your favorate character and build then?

Once again, thanks for the replies

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted August 15, 2012 03:45 AM

Quote:


It seems you an Doomforge disagree on the Bonemancer.
So, can you live with Bonespear being Singe target ony?

And why Bonespear above Bonespirit? Because of the Mana cost difrence?



Bonespear is not single target. Bonespear pierces everything in a straight line. That is your main attack in PvM. Spirit is single attack and in PvM is only for things like annoying leapers or bosses as it will track the monster. I posted already the order I max stuff in as a bonemancer. For PvP you would chose spirit over spear.

Bomemancers are a fun and powerful PvM class. They are better at area runs than boss runs though. Bonespear + corpse explosion + walls/prisons/curses mean you control the battlefield. And if you go the one point clay golem/mastery/resist and one point revive/skele mastery (to boost revives) you are even more untouchable. Revives + clay golem really helps a lot in boss fights, to keep the boss slowed and tied down but as I said before, neither is necessary. And there is always the possibility of trading for or finding a wand with clay golem/mastery or revive on it in addition to the +3 spear.


Quote:

What's your favorate character and build then?



It is hard to say what my favorite build is. I like to play lots of different characters. I like werebears. They are kind of slow killers until you get them a good fast two handed weapon but shockwave is probably the best defensive skill in the game. A tomb reaver makes a great werebear weapon. I like shockbear summoners too (minimal werebear investment, max dire wolves/grizzly, investment in shockwave.) Ever try a double swing barbarian? I like double swing barbarians with a big investment in warcries. I like Frozen arrow-lightning fury zons. Lightning sentry-fireblast sins. I like a lot of builds.

Basically the only types of characters I really don't like are things like a full blizzard sorceress. I like to have more than one way to deal with an enemy without overrelying on my merc. So my sorceress will always have 2 elements (I have played a three element sorc before.)
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted August 15, 2012 10:19 AM
Edited by Doomforge at 10:22, 15 Aug 2012.

Every necro is powerful in PVM with mere corpse explosion amp. You don't even need to cast ANYTHING else and you'll keep killing stuff faster than 2/3 classes in this game. So in a way, Elodin is right, that it ain't a BAD class, and adding bone certainly contributes to getting that "first corpse", after which you amp the monsters and get a domino effect with corpse explosion.

However, take into consideration that it's the slowest of all Necromancers (except fun stuff like melee necro or dagger necro). For a simple reason: while indeed bone spear is not single target, it has an EXTREMELY thin projectile, and it won't hit unless your targets are pretty much in a line (very specifically). Half inch away? Won't hit. That doesn't qualify for a good PVM move in my book.

Also, there's one more annoyance, although minor: "lower resist" curse doesn't work with magic damage type.



Don't trust the firewall damage too much. One, it has iirc a cooldown. Two, it requires target to stand still, three, it does damage "per tick", four - fireball I believe has more damage with all synergies maxed and +20 to skills, but I'm not sure of that. Firewall is still a no-no due to awkwardness of use.

Yes, Lightning does 1-something, but when that "something" is 40000, it doesn't really matter anymore ;P
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Salamandre
Salamandre


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Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted August 15, 2012 10:38 AM
Edited by Salamandre at 10:40, 15 Aug 2012.

My preferred was sorc, simply because after thousands runs and cows, the only fun thing was to wait players near TP, cast fire wall and declare my love. In hardcore of course.

Even high level barbs were annihilated by, if player had a fraction of second lag when TP.
____________
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Disturbed-Gnu
Disturbed-Gnu


Supreme Hero
Pro Bacon Vodka Brewer
posted August 15, 2012 03:19 PM

Quote:
Bonespear is not single target. Bonespear pierces everything in a straight line. That is your main attack in PvM. Spirit is single attack and in PvM is only for things like annoying leapers or bosses as it will track the monster. I posted already the order I max stuff in as a bonemancer. For PvP you would chose spirit over spear.

Bomemancers are a fun and powerful PvM class. They are better at area runs than boss runs though. Bonespear + corpse explosion + walls/prisons/curses mean you control the battlefield. And if you go the one point clay golem/mastery/resist and one point revive/skele mastery (to boost revives) you are even more untouchable. Revives + clay golem really helps a lot in boss fights, to keep the boss slowed and tied down but as I said before, neither is necessary. And there is always the possibility of trading for or finding a wand with clay golem/mastery or revive on it in addition to the +3 spear.
I did the skill reset to Bonemancer instead, and even at Normal mode, and level 21, i was able to kill duriel in 14 seconds
So, i agree, Bonemancer rocks hard
And i can see why you like Bonespear so much If you draw all enemies attention, position yourself correct, you can spear em all

I can imagine that I'm looking forward to level him up
Thanks for the "persuation" to go from summon to bone.

---------------

Quote:
Every necro is powerful in PVM with mere corpse explosion amp. You don't even need to cast ANYTHING else and you'll keep killing stuff faster than 2/3 classes in this game. So in a way, Elodin is right, that it ain't a BAD class, and adding bone certainly contributes to getting that "first corpse", after which you amp the monsters and get a domino effect with corpse explosion.

However, take into consideration that it's the slowest of all Necromancers (except fun stuff like melee necro or dagger necro). For a simple reason: while indeed bone spear is not single target, it has an EXTREMELY thin projectile, and it won't hit unless your targets are pretty much in a line (very specifically). Half inch away? Won't hit. That doesn't qualify for a good PVM move in my book.

Also, there's one more annoyance, although minor: "lower resist" curse doesn't work with magic damage type.



Don't trust the firewall damage too much. One, it has iirc a cooldown. Two, it requires target to stand still, three, it does damage "per tick", four - fireball I believe has more damage with all synergies maxed and +20 to skills, but I'm not sure of that. Firewall is still a no-no due to awkwardness of use.

Yes, Lightning does 1-something, but when that "something" is 40000, it doesn't really matter anymore ;P
Yeah, i can see that Corpse explotion works fantastic DOMINO as you mentioned.

Maybe slow yes, but, with enough mana gear, you could spam spears all over the place And as i wrote to elodin, position yourself after drawing all the attention. It really makes the spear powerfull , but, i agree its a thin projectile and it is kinda hard to kill more than 5 in a row, because they try to move arround each other.


Oh, i use the teleport to cast a firewall next to them, and then whe they walk towards me i teleport miself back standing in the wall, and makes them run along in my firewall, and tha works Plus shooters stand their ground allmost every time.
And yes, firewall requires skills to use , and a fully synergised fireball requires mono-fire sorceress build. Unless you are level 99 i guess.


Can you get it to 40000? That would be a kickass, but there will always be a chance to deliver low damage Do you have a lightning sorecess?

----

Quote:
It is hard to say what my favorite build is. I like to play lots of different characters. I like werebears. They are kind of slow killers until you get them a good fast two handed weapon but shockwave is probably the best defensive skill in the game. A tomb reaver makes a great werebear weapon. I like shockbear summoners too (minimal werebear investment, max dire wolves/grizzly, investment in shockwave.) Ever try a double swing barbarian? I like double swing barbarians with a big investment in warcries. I like Frozen arrow-lightning fury zons. Lightning sentry-fireblast sins. I like a lot of builds.

Basically the only types of characters I really don't like are things like a full blizzard sorceress. I like to have more than one way to deal with an enemy without overrelying on my merc. So my sorceress will always have 2 elements (I have played a three element sorc before.)
It seems that i have many builds to try out But it looks like you go Druid ;p (Never played barbarian before) Im building my amazon with Freezing Arrow and Strafe as attacks, while maxing Valkyrie and Pentrate

Yeah, i agree with you. On hell, the most stupid build is a mono build. So many immunes

-----

Quote:
My preferred was sorc, simply because after thousands runs and cows, the only fun thing was to wait players near TP, cast fire wall and declare my love. In hardcore of course.

Even high level barbs were annihilated by, if player had a fraction of second lag when TP.

SOunds Powerfull indeed

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted August 15, 2012 08:07 PM
Edited by Doomforge at 20:08, 15 Aug 2012.

"Diablo 2" and "skill" used in the same sentence seem weird

Don't get me wrong, I still love this game, but it's among the most brainless entertainment ever.

I don't have a Lightning sorc, my friend owned one and yes, he reached 1-40k damage. don't worry about the potential "low" damage, since your average is 20k, and that tops many classes' maximum damage

The chars I like are Summonmancer, Dreamer, Novasorc, Javazon and good ol' WWbarb. I plan to finish all of them one day, but I don't really have time to trade and stuff. Still got some hot gear myself, like the selfmade Grief 400 PB.
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted August 16, 2012 10:49 AM

A meteorb sorc is basicly a fireball sorc, which applies meteor against bosses (mf-targets) and orb against required fire immunes (which you won't find many of that you can't skip at your mf-targets anyway).

E.g. a Mephisto run would seem like a strange choice because of 50% of the council members having fire immunity. However the trick is to lure away the council members, then position Mephisto at a safe zone and then you can in safety cast meteor and spam fireballs during the meteor casting delay.

However for this target in specific a blizzard sorc is preferable, the strong points of the meteorb is mainly two things:
1) If you've just started the ladder and you're not that experienced, this sorc allows you to be able to deal with any threats you're forced to deal with.
2) This sorc allows for the greatest variety of mf-targets while still maintaining the typical high sorc speed.
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disturbed-Gnu
disturbed-Gnu


Supreme Hero
Pro Bacon Vodka Brewer
posted August 17, 2012 01:42 AM

Doomforge# Maybe so, but its not that easy to cast a perfect firewall as you may think.

Brainless indeed. The game is addictive because you have many options and builds, plus the greatest addiction, getting better gear and trying it out. (The same is true for Borderlands!, You are tryng to find the pearlescent weapons, but they are damn hard to find)

20k is insane Maybe one should try to build a Lightning Sorceress? But to get 20k you have to go mono lightning? And thats not good against the immunes on Hell.

Finish, meaning level 99? That would take some time!
I'd like to help ;p Dual Hell, and Boss runs!
Isn't nova kinda crappy?

---------

Ohforsake# Meteor is powerfull, but damn hard to cast perfectly. Meteor is only for boss runs.

Its too bad the bridge method is possible against mephisto.
Duriel is the hardest boss, but always drops crappy loot.
The best chance to get some good loot and the complete Set "Immortal King", is to battle Baal, Frozenstein and thresh socket.

Yeah, small area of effect, but damn powerfull, and lasting longer than a second. Perfect for mephisto runs, and actually every other boss than duriel and andariel.

----------

Today i was playing a little with all my characters, and i gotta say, the most powerfull in my arsenal is a Wind Druid

Level 78 OrbWall Sorcerer
Level 64 Wind Druid (Cyclone Armor, Hurricane and Oaksage as mains)
Level 29 Bowazon (Strafe and soon to be Freezig Arrow)
Level 21 Bonemancer

I was able to build the "Chains of Honor" rune armor for my druid Awesome!

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RedSoxFan3
RedSoxFan3


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Legendary Hero
Fan of Red Sox
posted August 19, 2012 08:25 PM bonus applied by Doomforge on 20 Aug 2012.

I used to play this game a lot. The cheapest easiest build for starting out is necromancer summoner.

You can beat Baal by yourself at around level 70-80 completely naked. You just have to use the right curses and the right golem.

Here's my build.

Skills:

20 Raise Skeleton - Your primary skill. Max this to get more and make them harder to kill and deal the most damage. Once you get up over 40 points in this skill, they can pretty much tank anything except the poison damage from the salamanders in act 4.
20 Skeleton Mastery - Also improves your skeletons. This skill is very important for ramping up the power of your skeletons as well as your revives later on in the game.
1 Amplify Damage - Another part of your combo. Your skeletons deal physical damage. This doubles it. In hell mode this will also break most physical immunities. Immunities start when creatures have more than 100% resistance to a certain type of damage. Amplify damage effectively reduces their resistance by 100%. So an enemy that is 150% resistant to physical, will only be 50% after amplify damage.
However sometimes mobs can get over 200% immunity and you aren't able to break it with amp damage. Certain mobs, like ghosts have over 100% resistance in hell. If a rare boss has a stone skin aura or something else that increases physical resistance, then sometimes you can't break the immunity.

Also if you get a pack of champions. The possessed one is immune to curses. So if you run into champion wraiths, you won't be able to kill the possessed one with just skeletons and amp damage. However, there are ways around this with your next skill.

20 Corpse Explosion - The more points you put into this skill the larger the radius becomes. At level 40 the radius fills up your entire screen. This skill is 50% physical and 50% fire. It deals damage equal to the max hp of the dead creature. Very useful for taking out a pack of physical immunes when your amplify damage can't break the immunity.

1 Decrepify - Slows the enemy by 50% and amplifies damage by 50%. Your best choice for powerful or fast enemies that are killing you or your army. Especially good for bosses. This can break immunities, but not as well as amplify damage.

1 Clay Golem - The creature slows any unit that attacks it. The overall best choice for bosses. For some reason the boss always attacks this guy instead of you, your dozen skeletons, or your mercenary. If you use decrepify and Clay Golem on a boss you'll be shocked out slowly he attacks. If you decided to put cold damage on your mercenary, then he'll attack at like 1/8th of the normal speed. Extremely useful for beating Duriel in normal mode.

1 Summon Resist - Don't bother trying to do Diablo or Baal without this. Your skeletons will die. I wouldn't bother putting extra points into this as they have diminishing returns much like cold mastery.

1 Revive - Make sure you max out skeleton mastery when using this. Otherwise it won't be that powerful and they will die very quickly. The big ogres with the clubs are awesome because they have crushing blow and will take down bosses super quick. This is how necromancers solo Uber Tristram. Sometimes I like to take enemies that deal magical damage to take care of physical immunes. If you don't have a lot of +skills, consider taking a couple extra points as needed.

Mercenary:
Nightmare Act 2 Offensive

This gives you an aura that increases your physical damage. It stacks multiplicatively with amplify damage.

Merc Weapon - My personal favorite is insight. This is a runeword for polearms that gives meditation aura, which basically means that you have infinite mana. However some people will make Iron Golem with insight, so you can use better equipment. And yes the iron golem still gives you the aura.

Weapons & Armor:

Weapon 1 - Arm of King Leroic. This actually drops in nightmare and goes pretty cheap since few people play summoner. Most people who MF want paladin or sorc gear. If you can't get this, then just look for a magical or rare one with +necromancer skills or +summoning skills and +2 or +3 raise skeleton. Spirit Sword (runeword) is great cheap option here as well.

Weapon 2 - Gull Dagger, Blade of Ali Baba or Wizard Spike. Anything with as much mf or resist as you can find. Skeletons, revives, and golems are as powerful as your skill points at the time they are summoned. So once you build your army, you can switch to another weapon and they won't get any weaker. Your max skeleton level might change, but that's all that does change. 8-9 really strong skeletons are better than 10-11 weaker ones.

Shield 1 - Any necromancer head with +summoning and +raise skeleton. Remember this shield is only going to be used when you summon skeletons.

Shield 2 - Humunculus. This one is great because it gives a ton of resist and +4 to curses. There aren't really too many great shields that give MF. Some cheaper options are Sigon's Guard and The Ward. I wouldn't recommend cubing The Ward to its exceptional or elite version, because it requires too much strength to use at that point.

Other Gear:
For the rest of your gear, you can pretty much follow the norm of any MFers gear. +skills, resistance, and of course MF are your primary choices. If you are doing Hell Baal runs, make sure you have plenty of lightning resistance. You'll want to max it out at 75%, so pick up as many small charms with lightning resist as you can find till its maxed out.

Special Mentions on Gear:

Teleport Getting this skill via items is imporant. Why is this? Well you may notice that as your army grows, you don't do as well in closed quarters or bottlenecks. It becomes much harder to get the first kill to start your corpse explosion. Well when you teleport, it stacks all of your units in one spot and if its close enough to an enemy, they all instantly attack it. This goes for bosses as well. The best strategy for killing many units is to just teleport next to them. But always be careful when doing this as it takes experience to know when and where to do it without getting killed. There is definitely some skill involved in this.

Items with Teleport - Obviously you can use Enigma. But not everyone can afford this. However there are some additional options. Some items have teleport charges on them. Unfortunately this costs a lot of gold to repair, but its still worth it if you are MFing and not gold farming.

- Magical Amulets can spawn with teleport charges. You can usually find one with +resist all or +skills if you look hard enough.

- Naj's Puzzler is another item you can use for teleport.

Boss Strategies:

Normal Andariel:
Pull as many enemies as you can without pulling the boss. And don't waste corpse explosion on these bodies, you'll want them to resummon skeletons cause her poison damage can take them out if you aren't strong enough.

Normal Duriel:
Decrepify, Clay Golem, Cold Attack. You might have to rebuild your army in the sewers a couple of times. But if you keep Duriel slow with those 3 spells you should be okay. Sometimes the Clay Golem can go down without you noticing and then he starts raping your skeletons and your merc.

Normal Mephisto:
Piece of cake. Same strategy as Duriel. Don't let your skeletons stand in the poison cloud for too long if you can manage that. You can do this by running away.

Normal Diablo:
Get Summon Resist or they will die when he casts his fire spells. Make sure you have enough fire resist or hp that you don't get one-shotted by his spells. Keep up clay golem or he will imprison you and then you are toast.

Normal Baal:
This guy is annoying cause he'll teleport around. Make sure your cold damage is up to snuff.

Nightmare Andariel:
Now that you have summon resist all you have to worry about is dodging the poison clouds.

Nightmare Duriel:
Also a cakewalk.

Nightmare Mephisto:
The minions in the final room before you encounter him are harder in my opinion.

Nightmare Diablo:
Again I think the minions before Diablo can be more dangerous than Diablo. Don't be afraid to spam decrepify instead of amp damage. Just make sure you have plenty of fire resistance.

Nightmare Baal:
Get Crushing Blow for your mercenary or Baal will take a really long time to kill. Another strategy is to revive some monsters with crushing blow in another act. Urdars an excellent choice here.


Fighting in Hell:
At this point your skeletons will be fully maxed out and as the game progresses, they will seem to be less powerful until you get better gear. Once you get up over 30 in raise skeleton and skeleton mastery they will be a lot better. If you get up into the 40s, they are godly. The only thing that will kill them are the poison salamanders in Nilithaks Dungeon. Nilithak can also kill them with corpse explosion, but you'll prob die before they do. So be careful around him.

Unlike in nightmare, you probably only had 1 or 2 points in corpse explosion, so you are probably starting to wonder what the hell I was talking about with this spell being so awesome. Well hell is where you start to believe me on this one. Get it maxed out and you'll love it. Once you hit level 60-70 you'll notice that one or two casts of this spell will drop half the room. In act 2 you'll be waiting in agony for the first kill in all those tight corridors. The more you level corpse explosion the more expensive it is. You'll definitely want to put insight on your mercenary or make an iron golem with insight.

As you progress through the game you'll notice that you'll need more and more resists. You'll definitely want fire resist for act 4. And you'll really want lightning resist for act 5. 75 lightning resist is pretty much a must for any baal run. Otherwise the gloams will one shot you before you can say Daddy.
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EvilLoynis
EvilLoynis


Famous Hero
The Dark Shadow
posted August 19, 2012 09:12 PM

It's been a while since I played D2 but I have to say that my favorite chars/builds are:

1. Javazon - Lightning Fury & Charged Strike just ROCK.  Charged Strike takes out most of the bosses in seconds and LF just rocks major crowd control. Pair this with Act 2 Nightmare Def aura (Holy Freeze) merc and you have a nice smooth path.  Also if you play on Ladder use the Runeword Infinity (Ber+Mal+Ber+Ist)on your merc as it gives the Paladin Convitction aura that breaks resistances.

2. Hurricane Druid - This is the most intensive skill point build but it so rocks.  20 points in Hurricane, Tornado, Cyclone Armor, Twister (81 skill points with ABlast 1 pre req).  But with good Armor and Def this build is quite strong and does non elemental magic damage with tornado.

3. Marrow Mancer - Basically Other than 1 point in Clay Golem I max out Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Bone Prison & Bone Wall.  The rest of the points go into Teeth usually.  This build seriously rocks in PvP and in PvM though I rarely use Corpse Explosion on this build.


Out of these 3 I believe the Hurricane Druid is the easiest to survive with as they can have high Vit and with Cyclone Armor absorbing 3500 elemental damage you survive quite well.  Pair the Hurricane with a A2 NM Holy Freeze Merc with Infinity and you will almost untouchable.

Although I have the most fun with Javazon.
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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted August 19, 2012 10:07 PM
Edited by Elodin at 22:12, 19 Aug 2012.

I've found 1 point in skele mastery to be all that is needed for revives. If you are a full blown skelemancer, yes, you need to max it.

Skelemancers are indeed great starter characters, but as was mentioned Wind druids are actually quite good as well. The cyclone armor covers the elemental damage so you need only worry about poison resists, which with the potions available at the store are a non-issue.

Another favorite starting character of mine is the lightning sentry-fireblast assassin. Very gear independent. Fade covers your resists needs and 1 point in shadow master gives you an additional tank to help your merc. Trap claws and shadow claws can be purchased from stores (shadow helments as well.) This allows that one point in fade and shadow master to be boosted quite high by even an untwinked character.

Wind druids were already mentioned. When reaching hell you'll need a way to deal with physical immunes as your main attack is tornadoes. Not a big problem though. And you can have a grizzly to help your merc tank.

Druid summoners can be an excellent starting character as well. After investing 3 points in spirit wolves you can save your points for the dire wolves and grizzly. In hell you'll have to find a way to deal with physical immunes, but that is not a big problem even for untwinked play. Items can be bought or found that have curses that will help you there. A reaper's toll is easy to come by also, if you are playing online.

I would not recommend poison creeper for battlenet play, because if you get your creeper to a high level the poison mats will cause you to drop from the game.

I also like Holy Freeze Zealots or tesla-frost zealots for starting out. Hammerdins are usually though of as being very gear dependent but they also can make excellent starting characters.

Of course a number of sorceress builds are also very good starting characters.

Most barbarians are a bit gear dependent, but can be done untwinked as well. A beserker who uses a lot of warcries can easily get through hell with a bonesnap that has been upgraded one time (easy to do, and bonesnap is easy to find.) And a build you never see online is a double swing barbarian. With a mere 9 soft poits in double can attack mana burners with impunity as your attacks no longer consume mana. Well, you'll be using warcries that do so you are not 100% mana independent but mana burners are not your bane.

A lot of what makes a character "easy" or hard to play untwinked is your familiarity with all of the skills and the monsters.

Single Player Tip: For those who don't know. Your maps won't change unless you change difficulty level. So you can use this to your advantage. For instance when you get to hell and want to start running Mephisto if the entrance to level 3 is a long walk from the waypoint change difficulty level, start a game, quit, and start the game again on hell difficulty to "reroll" the map.
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disturbed-Gnu
disturbed-Gnu


Supreme Hero
Pro Bacon Vodka Brewer
posted August 19, 2012 10:42 PM

Quote:
2. Hurricane Druid - This is the most intensive skill point build but it so rocks.  20 points in Hurricane, Tornado, Cyclone Armor, Twister (81 skill points with ABlast 1 pre req).  But with good Armor and Def this build is quite strong and does non elemental magic damage with tornado.
A very good idea with this build, is to put 20 points in Oak Sage! Cyclone Armor and Oak Sage makes you very very hard to kill. Only problem is to keep the Oak Sage allive!

---

Anyone using the assassin?

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EvilLoynis
EvilLoynis


Famous Hero
The Dark Shadow
posted August 20, 2012 08:01 AM
Edited by EvilLoynis at 08:02, 20 Aug 2012.

One thing I forgot to mention about my top 3 characters is that they are all primarily Ladder characters NOT single player.

The main reason is that "Infinity" (Ber+Mal+Ber+Ist) and "Spirit" (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) and even "Insight" (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) are all 3 ladder only rune words.

Spirit Swords&Shields rock for casters like the Wind Druid.  And Infinity is so awesome in breaking elemental Resists which is great for the Javazon and the Druid to a lesser degree.

The main thing I dislike about Single player or even just playing non .net with a friend is that you miss out on those rune words AND finding set items and uniques your character can actually use is a major pain in the arse.  It really sucks when you find a good item say like a HoZ (Herald of Zakurum shield for Paladins) on ANY character but a Paladin.

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/normal/upaladin.shtml

They really need to fix it so you can get ALL rune words offline and that character specific equipment has a higher chance of dropping offline as well. Getting the Immortal King set on say Sorc is really dumb.

Oh Yeah favorite single player character would be Summoner.  Max Skel/msstery/mage and Corpse Explosion and it's the safest damn build around as you will likely rarely ever be hit.
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted August 20, 2012 10:32 AM
Edited by OhforfSake at 10:43, 20 Aug 2012.

Quote:
The main reason is that "Infinity" (Ber+Mal+Ber+Ist) and "Spirit" (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) and even "Insight" (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) are all 3 ladder only rune words.

[...]

The main thing I dislike about Single player or even just playing non .net with a friend is that you miss out on those rune words AND finding set items and uniques your character can actually use is a major pain in the arse.  It really sucks when you find a good item say like a HoZ (Herald of Zakurum shield for Paladins) on ANY character but a Paladin.


Both issues have been solved for years, with really simple, easy to employ, solutions.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?760286-ATMA-GoMule-RWM-etc-Help-Thread&s=cc66a1bd7e07d033fec1b4ca8ed7bdce

I suggest getting Atma, so you can mule over the IK set you find on your sorc to your barb, like on b.net, and the rune word mod for making all runewords available:
Quote:
Muling applications

This is a way of moving items around. It also allows a large number of items to be kept in stashes away from your D2 character. ATMA is the original muling utility, GoMule is a java-based utility that also works on Macs.


Quote:
RWM enables Bnet only runewords.



I suggest getting as little modifications as possible, because in general you can get banned from b.net, if you've these installed while playing.
However there isn't really any installation process with these two, so it's very easy to remove again.

Edit: While I'm here. Regarding the Assassin, it's probably the second fastest character through normal difficulty and the character with the best combination of speed and safety. Much faster than the safest one, the Necromancer and much safer than the fastest one, the Sorceress. However as you progress through the game, it become one of the hardest and unsafest characters to play untwinked with. She has a lot of similar means to other characters, but used at a weaker level. Her summons (traps) deals less damage and protection than the Necromancers. Her safety curse is less controllable. She's the ability to freeze similar to the Amazon's freezing arrow, but it's more dangerous to employ and you can only have 2 sockets in claws, which means less freezing time. The DS trap is much less effective than Corpse Explosion, and the Shadow Master doesn't give a lot of protection, even at maxed.

It can still be a fun character however, but she's very much a weak utility character in my opinion. You can get insane damage with Dragon Tail + Tiger Strike, but it's dangerous to employ already during mid Nightmare diff. and it doesn't work against Physical Immunes and/or Fire Immunes. It's possible to get a Shadow Warrior (not Master) which deals incredible damage with her traps (very gear dependent), as well as a minion which is immune to everything apart from Magic/Physical damage. You can basicly run through most of normal diff. without any item and only employ Fireblast and Wake of Fire, but already at early Nightmare, Wake of Fire goes from incredible powerful to more or less useless and Fireblast becomes hard to use effectively, because you can't tank the damage that well anymore.
All in all, I won't recommend an Assassin, unless you will only do Normal difficulty, or have the items required to really make her useable in the later parts of the game as well.
If you do use an Assassin, you really need to be quick with the utility skills and apply safe distance attacks. Focusing on lightning traps, is probably the smartest way to go, and then use Fireblast for immunes and be ready to use a lot of Cloak of Shadows, Mind Blast, Re-summoning, etc.

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted August 20, 2012 11:24 AM

Also, if you play on single player and not on Bnet, try PlugY mod for ladder-only gear, infinite stash, and ladder-only events. Doesn't work with 1.13d patch, you'll need 1.13c.
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RedSoxFan3
RedSoxFan3


Admirable
Legendary Hero
Fan of Red Sox
posted August 22, 2012 09:01 AM

@Ohforfsake:

Resists do only work at reduced efficiency after immunity, because that would make cold sorcs overpowered.

However amplify damage does not work by reducing resists. It applies a curse that causes that unit to take increased damage. It's a lot better at breaking immunities than your best -resist gear.
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted August 22, 2012 09:10 AM
Edited by OhforfSake at 09:15, 22 Aug 2012.

Quote:
Resists do only work at reduced efficiency after immunity, because that would make cold sorcs overpowered.

Cold mastery is unique in the sense it does not affect immunity at all.

Quote:
However amplify damage does not work by reducing resists. It applies a curse that causes that unit to take increased damage. It's a lot better at breaking immunities than your best -resist gear.

No, it reduces physical resistance of the creature. It's very easy to test, btw. Monsters in hell at older versions of the game (I think 1.09) always had 50% physical resist in hell. Doubling the damage, would obviously mean reducing the creatures hit point with twice as much health, reducing its physical resistance with 100% would however mean the creature takes 3 times as much damage as before.

Edit: If you want a source.
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