I won’t be able to get myself onto Bnet, I think, until late August. We might want to plan ahead for what characters we’ll be using (and I promise to use potions:D). I do best when I’m A) in front tanking or B) in back slaughtering stuff. Not much in between.
Well, we did have one start-of-ladder already, but it took a while for us to all meet up (which is probably more important than any of the items we might find). And it could probably go pretty quickly, if you were trying for that. First, work on levelling a sorc to where she has decent Enchant, and can survive teleporting. Then, use the enchant trick mentioned by Bone earlier in the thread, to level everyone else. Then the enchantress teleports past most of the quests and to the waypoints, and TPs the rest to where they need to be. Of course, you’d want most of your characters to be builds relatively independent of equipment: A concentrate barb can go for quite a while before committing to a weapon, a Tesladin or Frost Prince gets most of his damage from his aura, a fire sorc only needs a half-dozen low runes to take her through Hell, etc. Really, the only big difference from how we do it now is that we’d actually have to collect the anatomy of Khalim (for one character, at least).
And theckhd, I’m up for a mule rush, if we set a time (I can’t be online for the whole span “this afternoon or evening”). I can probably even contribute a level 20 for normal Ancients.
Well, i think it would be faster from the get-go to just work together as a party and level. The enchantress thing works quite well for rushing characters and leveling, but it requires that you level a character alone first (or in public games), which basically defeats the purpose of the exercise (plus we could probably level our actual characters together faster than we could level the enchantress alone, assuming we were all online).
I’m going to say 9:30 EDT for the mule rush, assuming i get to it. I have characters for both quests, but if you’d like to contribute a lvl 20 that’d be great (i have several characters for the nm quest, but only 1 for the norm quest).
The sorceress enchant won’t work considering we’d all just be starting out as lvl 1 characters. She’d have to be a lot higher than the rest of us, and that would defeat the purpose.
My best characters, playing-wise, are javazon, summoning necromancer, and barb.
I have some experience with hammerdin, sorc (which I don’t exactly suck at) elemental druid, and bowazon. Out of these, the bowazon and elemental druid are not hell capable, except in a very limited supporting role, without elite equipment.
We’ll need at least one sorceress and barb. Pallys and their auras help so more than one Pally could be good, but at least one would be needed. We’ll need another elemental killer, this could be a javazon and/or a Trapsassin, these guys would help the sorceress in killing the big groups we hit. If you want a necromancer, he should be a summoner who can help with the tanking and have a fair to full range of curses*. We could figure out which mercenaries each of use would get, so the we wouldn’t overlap their auras if they’re Act2 mercs, although that would take until NM to get their full range.
I’m figuring that to do this right, we couldn’t twink the characters with equipment we have stashed at present. This will mean that we should decide, as a group, who gets what drop… there’s no sense having the party barb having a +mana ring when the sorceress needs it more. We would also want to share money for repairs and mercs, and raise cash if a merchant is selling something that one of us can really use.
- If I play the necro, I’ll ask you guys what curses you want and get those. Usually, except lower resist, adding points to curses only widens the affected range so one point in most would be sufficient. Bone Spear, and Bone Spirit I’ve found to be important. Bone Spirit is actually a very good Boss killer since it’s a guided shot and cannot be blocked by equipment or intervening monsters.
BTW, if you can’t tell, I’d be up for this.
Just one more post so I can have 1000…
Eonwe, I have a Buriza for you to try on your druid. When I see you next I’ll give it to you.
I won’t be in the mule rush unfortunately… I need my beauty sleep (boy do I need beauty sleep ;)) as I have a meeting to attend tomorrow morning that I really don’t want to go to. I think it would be bad form to nod off in the middle of it.
theckhd - I have a 3-socket archon with 440 defense - it’s yours if you want it.
And better’n 1/4 of them in this thread.
Here is what I recommend for a party of two, three, four, five and six people:
Party of 2: Meteorb (with more orb than meteor) Sorc and cookie-cutter Barb
Party of 3: Same sorc, barb and conviction/holy freeze paladin.
Party of 4: Same sorc, barb, paladin and a summoning necro
Party of 5: Lacy Chabert, Neve Campbell … oh, wait. D2, not sitcoms. Time to bring an amazon in, more for valk than anything. Get her loaded up with poison damage and get those javs flying fast. If you don’t already have mana leech she might need to chug mana pots or ::shudder:: actually invest points in ::gasp:: energy.
Party of 6: Bring a druid in for Sage. Depending on what weapon you find, you might invest some in WW or WB, depending on which you want, but worry more about the summoning tree. Also vines so stuff doesn’t get revived.
Once you get to a party of 7, unless you’re completely incompetent it shouldn’t take much to kill whatever you find in your path. Thorns won’t stop you, bloodmana won’t stop you, decrep can only contain you, etc.
my vote would be:
paladin (zeal/fanat or zeal/holy freeze or hammerdin)
sorc (fireball/meteor with static and perhaps blizzard)
javazon (lightning fury, valk, maybe some plague jav)
barb (bo and tank-age, preferably some sort of sword/shield concentration build)
necro (summoner, either revives or skeletons)
druid (melee would probably be better, but elemental would work too)
in that order.
Basically the paladin is the tank for the sorc/javazon. Holy freeze is nice because (looking at the first 3 chars) you have 4 types of damage:
physical/cold
fire
lightning
nothing is going to be immune to all 3 of those.
Then you start beefing up the front lines with the barb and necro, as well as getting battle orders/shout and curses out of the deal.
Finally, the druid offers a sage and extra meat. At this point, you could be adding another sorc, or another paladin for conviction (maybe instead of the druid/necro), or whatever.
To be honest, you can do it with any group though, as long as they plan ahead and cover each others’ weaknesses. I’d rather see us all pick characers we would like to try and figure out skills afterwards. Though it’d be good if we chose for variety, just so that we don’t end up with 7 paladins (as much fun as that could be… lets see… Zeal/Fanat, veng/conv, zeal/holy freeze, zeal/holy shock, zeal/holy fire, hammer/conc, fist/salvation… now there’s a party that will argue over drops).
For a party of two, a lightning javazon and a conviction paladin will shred most anything (I speak from experience from partnering with Yeti). Conviction will approximately double the damage from the lightning against normal monsters, and render most lightning immunes vulnerable. It also gives the 'zon nearly guaranteed hits against most everything (although admittedly, zons don’t generally have much trouble with AR to begin with). The javelins provide good area of effect crowd control, while the paladin can tank and kill bosses. The conviction, as mentioned above, removes most lightning immunities, and both characters are also dealing physical damage (and other elements, if the pally is an avenger), so immunes aren’t a problem. Were I to add more characters to this party, it’d probably be a sorc (mostly for teleporting runs, and she also benefits from Conviction), and then a barbarian for BO.
As to what we’re comfortable playing, most of my experience is with my fire sorc and my paladin. I like the paladin’s utility skills, so I might experiment with some other paladin build, but I’m not sure how to make a sorc other than a pure pyromaniac. I’ve also done a bowazon and a frenzy barb in single player, but that was 1.09, and I’m not sure how much of that is still viable in 1.10. I’m not too good with necromancers, druids, or assassins, but I’m thinking of trying a shuriken assassin.
theckhd, what’s the value in a Holy Fire paladin? It seems to me that he’d play the same as a Holy Shock, but with less damage (Freeze also has less damage, but the slowing makes up for that). He doesn’t have to worry about the same immunity, true, but the Conviction should make up for that, and besides, there are plenty of other characters better at dishing out fire.
You can keep Neve Campbell if I get Lacey Chabert.
Does anyone have any idea what the crosspondian lag is like? I normally wouldn’t get to play with you guys even if I made an account because I don’t have the characters, but unless the lag is intolerable I’d definitely be up for this - well, so long as it’s at a time that doesn’t translate to 3am GMT. 
punha, I have an issue with your javazon build. Yes, you can really get a javazon to have a lot of poison damage, my javazon in 1.10 now has maxed poison at about 17K damage over 15 seconds. IMHO, poison can only be a supporting skill and shouldn’t be a primary attack. I skimped on my Valk and physical attacks to max the poison, not my Lightning skills. Even though my Valk is only about level 9 after plusses, she does well enough to keep the non-lightning immune occupied until they are dead. The lightning immune make me wish for a higher level Valk, but you have to decide priorities.
As for the party, I’d be willing to play javazon, necro, barb or hammerdin preferably.
Oh hell… I tried to withstand the pressure of commenting on this… but I failed… miserably…
I get Jennifer Love Hewitt…
Damn… I’m so embarrassed… 
I was mostly just looking for the viable variations so that each pally was using a different aura, and since none of them could dish out fire damage, i figured why not? But in practice, a holy fire paladin is basically useless, especially with a conviction paladin around. That spot would be better off with another hammerdin using blessed aim for the melee characters.
Phase: 440 is pretty low for an Archon plate. Let me keep looking a bit longer for something closer to 500, and if i manage to continue having no luck, i might give up and use it.
You could also have tossed in a jouster, using Might, or a smiter, who can use pretty much any aura he wants, or a medic, with Cleansing/Meditation. If you just want to have fire damage in their somewhere, the avenger can focus on his fire synergies first.
For, at 1946GMT today, I wasted Hell Baal for the first time.
I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything to you lot, and that you’re all thinking “That’s nowt, I remember when I first killed Hell Baal back in nineteen ought-two, it were an achievement then, you young uns don’t know how easy you’ve got it”, but I’m pretty damn pleased with myself for now.
Drops sucked, mind you - all I got was Sander’s Riprap.
Next up for the sorc are the ancients. I’m finding that a mix of orb, spike, thunderstorm and hydra is most effective. I’m also finding those harpy things are incredibly annoying.
Okay, care to tell me who else is going to make sure the group of nasties can’t regen? Who else is going to spread poison damage to the entire horde of beasts? Sure ain’t a paladin. Sure can’t be a sorc. Sure isn’t an asn. Sure isn’t a druid or a necromancer (unless you go with poison explosion). Barbs won’t apply it as fast as you do.
Now, that said, I wouldn’t suggest poison as a primary skill (can’t leech off it). Having played an asn, if her shadow master is anything like the valk in terms of tankability, I’d go with maxing the valk. You might even want to wait on dumping points into a weapon skill until you find a good one.
On the contrary: I find that the scorched ashes of dead enemies don’t regenerate at all. If you want things to not regenerate, then just kill them quickly and be done with it. And if for some reason that’s not an option, then Prevent Monster Heal or Open Wounds are much better alternatives. Really, I don’t see the point in “poison damage to stop monster regeneration”.
And if you absolutely insist on poison damage, there are still other ways. Assassins, necromancers, and druids all have poison skills, and even barbs and paladins can use poison equipment. So what if you can’t apply it as fast? It’s poison! You’ve got to have something to do while you wait for them to die anyway.
As for comparing Valkyries to Shadows, my impression is that the Valk is harder to kill, but does less damage. But I’ve only played an amazon in 1.09, and assassins not much at all, so I could be mistaken.
I was referring to the enemies that aren’t so weak that they instantly fall to your Mega Meteor of Doom;) Eventually a party without gear that’s muled for the purpose will fall into difficulty killing stuff. Hell beasts regen pretty decently; Nightmare beasts do also, though not quite as well. If you don’t have PMH or Open Wounds, it can be difficult to keep things in check without poison.
Perhaps I am alone in this, but I have found that there are better things for an assassin to invest points in than venom. I have also found that poison dagger and poison explosion are inferior skills, and poison creeper is the one of three vines in which I would put the fewest number of points. YMMV, as always.
I’m not saying, in case it was unclear before, that the amazon should take the first opportunity to max all poison skills and dump vita SCs for 50/3 psn SCs. I just thought that in terms of being the best for spreading poison damage, … that fell to the amazon.
In this case, we agree. A zon’s poison is a good secondary skill, I always give the zon poison damage, I wanted to see how high I could get it with my present zon… so it’s 17K. The Valk is a matter of dispute among zon users, although most like to max her (I don’t, although I do like to get her into the low teens). Maxed, she does decent damage and can kill things, but maxing the Valk takes away from either the poison or your primary lightning skill.
Lightning Strike actually does more damage per bolt than Lightning Fury, but LF pierces and hits multiple targets on striking. LS is only Chain Lightning, so I usually use it for smaller groups where it will always hit whereas most of the bolts in LF would miss and be wasted. I also use it when I’m running low on javelins or to better leech mana. A javazon cannot have enough mana leech to keep up with her use.
I don’t believe poison charms add to a zon’s poison damage except for the target the jav actually hits. Poison charms are better on characters that hit more targets physically. A poison facet would, of course, add to her total poison damage as would the Bramble runeword.