Actually, a charm will add to the poison damage, and are better used on characters with poison skills. Poison on melee characters is pretty overrated - it’s a hold-over from when poison used to automatically stop any and all regeneration, while now it just subtracts from it (i.e. if a monster is regenning at 100/frame and you deal 10/frame, the monster regens at 90/frame).
The sorc has now beaten Norm and NM. She’s level 63 and won’t be leaving NM any time soon; she needs to be able to deal a good bit more damage, and the merc needs to be more of a tank than he currently is.
My resists are currently pretty horrid. I haven’t checked them in Hell, but Fire is barely 75% in NM, and the only one I’m not completely concerned about is Cold. The reason I say those are horrid is that with the -100 to res in Hell (-40 in NM and -60 added for a total of -100 from Norm), fire will be sitting at about 17, and two other res probably won’t be far from 20. Life will be interesting. I’ll have to upgrade some gear, I think, before I head into Hell.
Here’s her stat and skill distribution as well as her gear:
Str: 100 (this is so she can wear Hwanin’s helm for the cold res and regen)
Dex: 97 (this will get hiked the heck up before I get into Hell)
Vit: 10 (I have 317 life, but that’s almost all from charms)
Energy: 218 (1072 mana total)
Skills, not including the +4 I have from items:
Warmth 13 (this will get another point or two, I think)
Fire mastery 8
Hydra 20
Orb is the only cold skill with more than 1, and it’s got 4 for when I don’t feel like being patient (it’s got a synergy in spike, so it’s not a total waste)
Energy shield is the only ltg skill with more than one, and it’s got 6 and will get one or two more before I’m done with it (I don’t know that I’ll max it, but I do want to put more in it to compensate for what will be low regen)
Gear:
random +1 skills 20% fcr +mana (65 or so) cold res 40 orb.
Skin of the vipermagi 33% res (also 30% fcr)
random circlet with 30% frw, res 17, dmg redux 3 and psn length redux 75%
random ammy with +1 skill, +2 min, 68 mana, res 8, dmg redux 3, psn length redux 75% (I don’t stay poisoned long)
Lidless, 130% ED
Frostburns
random rare ring, 1 dex replen life 9, cold/fire/psn res 7, ltg res 15
manald heal, 20 life, replen 5 and regen mana 20
hsarus’ belt (this will get switched out), 20 life and cold res 20
random rare boots, 20% frw, 15 mana, fire 21, psn 39, psn length redux 25 (I told you I don’t stay poisoned long), 22% mf. I’d use these boots on most any mf char.
Charms add 125 to my life, which would otherwise be 192 just with gear and 152 naked (the golden bird added 40 to my life, which would be 112 base). I get +1 life per level, so if I stay doing Baal runs until level 80 (which will get quite tiresome), I’ll have 334 life assuming I don’t find anything better in the way of gear.
Then you haven’t tried poison explosion in 1.10, or at least, not a good poison build. Sokkerman has a dueling necro that only uses poison explosion, and it’s amazing how quickly you drop. If you max the synergies correctly, a poison explosion necro can be quite lethal. Generally he can kill ColdYouSo unless i manage to snag him on the first or second Charge (of course, he uses enigma to teleport out of the way when i Charge, otherwise there would be no contest) .
In fact, i’ve been wanting to try a P.E./skelemancer but haven’t gotten around to it…
My 2 cents regarding amazon’s damage…
I view lightning fury as the primary attack and lightning strike as my back up attack…
For lightning immunes, I maxed frozen arrow and almost maxed cold arrow to knock them out ASAP since my resists suffer from a lack of shield.
I have an amulet and armor that I switch in town to generate my level 22 Valk (current base level is 13) and would like to put a couple more points into it so it can withstand the Oblivion Knights a little longer. Sometimes she can deal more 1:1 damage than my merc or myself with Titan’s + LS.
The poison charms I have (two 175/6) that keeps the regenerators at bay…I don’t invest any points in poison because I like to diversify with the cold and lightning damage and to switch at a whim when the need arises. My survivability has greatly increased using this mix of skill points.
Again, for the lurkers and noobs…
Just thought i’d mention i’m holding a game where the clone should come a-walkin this evening. I know a few people have never had the opportunity to fight one, so if anyone is around tonight when he walks, i’ll make sure to mention it so everyone can come.
Walks. I’ll wait around for about 15 minutes before i’m going in to take him out. If anybody wants to come, log on now. 
Total newbie just bought the game, I’ve played D2 before a long time ago, hardly remember it, I just made an account on USWest named RyleG and I have a level 1 Assassin named RyleG too. Would love to play with anyone if possible, don’t really know what I’m doing or what skills to choose, what is good for an assassin anyways?
And let the pages of advice, stat allocations, gear setups and stories pile in…
I’ll try to keep this as short as possible, Ryle. As you’ll see if you read earlier pages in this thread, I attempted a potionless character (one who drinks absolutely nothing). I used an assassin, and it went decently enough.
Assassins are like half-barb half-sorc, with just the touch of necro thrown in. I maxed claw mastery, tossed half a dozen points into TS and CS, maxed Shadow Master and tossed some into venom and fade as well, leaving ten combined, I think, for some of the traps.
If you’re going to go with claw damage, make sure you’ve got the claws to tank through. If you’re going to go with traps, you’ll probably want to go with a shield, because while you can get a nice +3 traps claw (and put some points into claw block), you’ll block more with a shield.
Thanks 'punha, I’ll check out more of this thread, it’s damned long.
I made a Druid and thats pretty funny, level 9 so far and playing with my doggies / vines / birds / floaty glowing thingie. I saw the sdmb room but it was on hell class :eek: so I made a sdmb2, I’m still in there right now, on my way to the forgotton tower in Black Marsh.
Gives me an idea to post an index/table of contents, but that would take forever and it would be hard to do table of contents since this thread has been all over the place.
The floaty thing is likely your oak sage. I’d max it (it adds to life of the entire party, assuming same party is in reach of the thing), but that’s my personal build preference. Others swear by Heart of the Wolverine, which IIRC adds to damage and AR.
With any character, you need to specialize to some degree. An assassin will be either primarily martial arts (melee combat) or primarily traps (ranged). Either way, you have a couple of choices to further specialize. If martial arts, you can focus on the elemental charge-ups, or on Tiger Strike (adds damage, can be insane amounts at high level) and Cobra Strike (leeches mana and life). With a trapper, your choice is mostly between the lighting traps (you set them and they fire at enemies on their own, like a hydra) or the blade traps (throw them directly at enemies; damage depends on your weapon damage). Either way, you’ll want a fair smattering of shadow skills.
With a druid, you can summon birds, one spirit, one vine, and one set of animals. The animals can be up to five spirit wolves, up to three dire wolves, or a single grizzly. Most druids pump one spirit heavily, usually Oak Sage (adds life), but some don’t bother with the other summons. You then have a choice of attacking with shapeshifting skills (melee) or elemental skills (ranged), but you can’t use elemental skills while shapeshifted.
BTW, you guys talking about poison necros are getting your skills mixed up. Poison explosion uses up corpses and has a small area of effect. It’s truly a waste, since you can usually get more damage quicker from the regular corpse explosion. Poison nova is the one that flings green goop in all directions.
I managed to mix both; to be fair, though, I usually employed traps for the stun effect (sometimes LS/DS does that) or just to bleed the lives down of mine enemies. I also used blade fury to leech when I was low on life and especially against anything that stunned (Lister, anyone?). I didn’t put more than one point in it because the damage increase is really very slim and I only needed the one point. I think I had something like 8 in TS and 7 in CS … something like that. I combined the chargeups so that when I released them I leeched back the life and mana from the bigggggg damage. When I was going well, I’d hit six times, then kick-release. Made decently short work of NM Baal in a players 1 game; for players 8 I usually just used TS and CS until I got low, then recharged with blade fury and let my shadow master take the brunt of the elemental and such.
I agree and disagree with this as a strategy. While I had much more success adding a few points to claw block so that my +skills would make me up to about 50% then adding as few points to Dex as I could get away with so I could optimise life and mana, an untwinked character like Ryan’s quite likely would do better your way. In that scenario I’d be looking to build more as an MA assassin with a dip into blade traps than a pure trapper, though; it’s easier to stay alive.
Erm, yes. Poison Explosion is what i meant. I keep forgetting that Poison Explosion exists… probably because it’s so useless. Sorry about the mix-up.
bah! NOVA. Poison NOVA. Sheesh.
Well, we were Pitted… now we’ve been… errr… ATMB’d…
Good, isn’t it? Some people just make no sense.
To add topical content to this post: does 1.10 have a point where the returns on MF become negative? I’ve been cruising along merrily with about 350% on my Pit runs and finding half a dozen rares and a set/unique almost every time, but when I tried adding Tal’s armour I found I was finding next to nothing. I tested this over a series of half-a-dozen runs, too.
Also, what’s cow running like in 1.10? I can’t load up on MF gear there like I can for the Pit, but I didn’t seem to be getting much regardless. Also, I hit six PIFI bosses in a row - is that normal?
More magic find is always better, but it isn’t necessarily very much better. Over a mere half-dozen runs, I’d just chalk it up to random variation. On the other hand, one of the Baal runs last night netted a Laying of Hands and a couple of exceptional uniques, and I don’t think there was any MF involved there at all. There’s still a lot of luck involved.
On cows, I find that they’re pretty good for money-value items, but I’ve never found anything actually useful there. And while regular herd-member cows aren’t immune to anything, they seem to have pretty good resistances (at least to lightning, fire, and physical… I don’t know about cold and poison), so it doesn’t take much (stoneskin, spectral hit, fire enchanted, etc.), for them to become immune to various attacks.
By the way, if we’re still planning ahead for a putative ladder reset, it might also be a good idea to have a clonekiller paladin on a communal account (along with an MF sorceress). I remember a few Easterners missing out on a charm because they couldn’t kill him, and I’ve found that a properly-built killer can already make the difference at level 55, with cheap equipment (by level 70, with the same cheap equipment, he can solo). Also very effective against other bosses, of course.
Eh, I was just curious - didn’t mean to start the debate that ensued.
I was actually thinking of starting a Diablo 3 thread, but poking around the internet it seems I’m about 2 years early to even begin speculation. Looks like the first we might gain an inkling of what’s going on at Blizzard North is this September.