I’m primarily a US West player too; most of my characters are there. If you want, I’ll help you run through hell with my amazon (lvl84) on game “sdmb”, password “cecil” tonight and/or tomorrow night. I usually get on around 11pm PDT. I just rescued Anya in Act 5, getting ready to kill Nihilitak. I don’t have much for weapons (cruel throwing spear with lightning fury) and skystrike with frozen arrow. It usually gets the job done. I use a alot of poison charms too.
I’ve had pretty good success with west. Occasional lag, but that’s about it.
My account is Fenris_99 (or something like that…it may or may not have the _ ) and the Amazon’s name is Roxie_1 (Hey, sue me, I’d just seen Chicago. )
Anyway, I get up at 4:00 in the morning, so I may not be able to make it on a work night but if you’re free Friday night or on a weekend (and depending on how tired I am, I may be there tonight and just really REALLY regret it tomorrow! )
I’m working on payroll right now and hope to finish by 9 or 10 tonight…but my wife gets first right of refusal when I get home; otherwise we’ll run the buggers through tonight…
This looks, as others have said (and you’ve verified), as though you are what is called a magezon … an amazon who relies on elemental attacks in her arrows/bolts to kill stuff.
My recommendation to you would be that if you do not already have something that does mana leech (or, at the VERY least, something Tired), get it. Swap out something for mana leech. The reason for this is that instead of pumping energy because you run out of mana, you’ll be able to pump dex and vit, which are more necessary to your character surviving.
I have never seen anything that corroborates this. My burizon (a buriza has inherent cold damage) did just fine MFing, and my frenzybarb (uses dual Baranar’s Stars, which have buttloads of cold damage) has had no problems either. Both ran MF of over 400, and the bstar barb runs over 900 when the merc gets last hit.
Not a problem:) I am not sure that your character will be completely viable at, say, level 80, unless you stick more to dex and vit than mana, but then I am used to such utterly twinked builds that I tend to see anything but cookie-cutter as a waste of time.
Re: other attacks … it might be a bit late for it now, but you might try strafe and guided arrow. There’s currently a bug with GA wherein you can pierce the target, so the same arrow hits the same target more than once. With a buriza and razortail, plus about 13 points in pierce, I’ve been able to have the same bolt hit one target 4-5 times. Strafe, when used with any sort of cold/freezing arrow/dmg, is plenty effective. It also allows for considerably more leeching than elemental damage (which, as it is not physical damage but magical, does not let you leech. So if your bow is doing 4-8 and your cold damage is one million, you’re going to be leeching crap even if you have 200% lifeleech).
If you do decide to hop over to USEast, I have at least one (and often more like half a dozen) of almost every bow and crossbow in the game. And that goes for most other gear as well. So if nothing else you’d be decked-out:)
Lately I’m using the_boxer, lance_mules (mf account turned mule account turned MF account with the dual bstar barb), our_specialchar and occasionally two other mule accounts, punha_mules and punha_mules2. Feel free to whisper at me (this goes for anyone, btw) for help and such:)
I finally leveled my maul barb to 76 so I can use the complete IK set. It’s nice, but the leech is lacking. I’m using a life leech ring and a mana leech ring and ammy and keeping everything up in a big melee is hard. I managed to rush a small party of 4 (plus myself) through hell Baal and the minions were a real pain. Baal was fairly easy though.
Now that I did that, it’s time to try my hand at trading again. Damn, I wish 1.10 would come out…
Am I the only one who wishes that on non-hardcore gameplay one could reshuffle skill points/stat points? I cannot say how frustrating it is to play a character for hours only to discover at level 56 that he/she doesn’t have what it takes to continue?
I’d like to explore character builds more, but I’ve taken to following roughly what strategy guides suggest so I don’t end up wasting time. A lot of the potential fun of screwing around with different skill sets is taken away (unless you really want to build multiple characters of each class over and over and over again).
At any rate, I’m having fun on single player right now with a level 56 Druid who just beat Diablo on Nightmare.
Eonwe, I recently got a Druid up to level 42 in Nightmare so he could use Aldur’s Rhythm. He already had Aldur’s Stony Gaze, now I just need to find the other two.
He just started tearing up Act III, BTW. That jagged star does a hell of a lot of damage!
I’m actually using the jagged star from Aldur’s Rhythm.
It seems so completely random as far as getting pieces to a set, though. I mean, is there any chance, in a single player game, of me actually getting any of the other pieces?
I’m hitting a wall though with this character. I’ve gotta find some elemental resists somewhere; I’m getting eaten alive by skeleton archers.
Also, how likely is it that one will come across runes? I was hoping that now that I’m in Nightmare I’d maybe pick up a few rarer runes, but here I am almost through with Nightmare and I only ever pick up Ith, El, Eld, Tir, and a few other ‘common’ runes, and those only rarely. What gives? Where are the more uncommon runes?
Run the hellforge in NM or Hell to get good runes. Most of my good runes came from there.
Jeff, good luck finding the other half of that set. I’ve found the mace so often I don’t bother with it anymore, and almost same with the helm. I think I’ve found the boots 6 times ever, and I traded a Hell rush for the only armor I have.
Eonwe, what hybrid/builds are you thinking of? I know enough about some char classes to give you advice gear, stat and skill-point wise … though to be sure of the effectiveness you’d have to play the char. I’d be happy to rush any though the game. Cowing for levels has gotten boring (got my MF barb up to level 93. He’s MFing at well over 700 now).
There’s always a chance, might not be a good chance but it’s there. I’m improving my chances by running one of each character plus four different Barbs (Axe, Sword, Mace, and Polearm). That’s the other reason I reverted to 1.09, I can use Shadowmaster to transfer items between characters. That’s how my Druid got that Aldur’s Rhythm in the first place.
I know what you mean, but I like it the way it is. After you spend that much time leveling a character up you won’t give up on it easy. If the build is not viable, you’ll be sure it’s not viable before quitting. I have some underpowered characters I that I use now for NM or hell level mules.
I don’t have nearly the amount of characters that iampunha or Voltaire have, nor that amount of equipment, but I don’t believe I do that badly.
Yowza. If you’re going a magezon route, you’ll need to pick up a kuko shakaku ASAP. It’s easily the best bow for that build. It’s the unique cedar bow, and should be gotten fairly cheaply (bunch of chippies should do it).
Max out Frozen Arrow and Immo Arrow. Get Pierce to 50% (you get an additional 50% from Kuko). Load up on some elemental charms. Think about wearing Frostburns gloves (more mana) and putting a Shael in your bow. Also good with Kuko is Crushing Blow gear. Since Kuko’s exploding arrows as well as FA transfer CB to anyone in the splash radius, it’s a great crowd control skill. Guillome’s Face, blood craft gloves, Goblin Toe boots and Ribcracker armor are all items that have it.
Kuko’s are [0] weapon speed bows. Which means you’ll hit 7 fps at 200% IAS, 8 fps at 105%, 9 fps at 65%. Speed tables for amazons can be found here:
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How/where does one get one? I just managed to kill Andarial on hell (who dropped shit, I might add. :mad: ) and haven’t found a unique thing, even though my MF is up to 170-something. And what are “chippies” Chipped gems? How in the world do I do that?
Chippies are Chipped gems, and those can be traded for the Kuko Shakaku bow. The price range varies between realms but just gather 40 and you’ll find a taker. The range would be in the 20 chipped gems area, but if you don’t want to wait for hours to get a bite, just offer a ton.
Since trading doesn’t seem to be in your repertoire, and you do have reasonable MF on your character, might I suggest that you kill Nightmare Mephisto over and over. His drops are rather good, you can net almost all of the Exceptional Uniques (maybe all of them, not 100% sure). So you can get a Buriza ballista, Lycander’s Aim Ceremonial Bow or whatever gets you going. When you get decked out with NM Meph drops, then you can hit Hell Meph and hope to get some elite uniques.
Gloves: Frostburns are very good. Magefist are also fairly decent, and really anything that leeches mana or has good IAS should do you well. Another good option is Bloodfist, which do +40 life, +5 min dmg and 10% IAS.
Belt: Mav’s is a good one here, and so is Wilhelm’s pride (for the dual leech). However, for the piercing target I respectfully submit Razortail. I have several of these and they are excellent belts. if you’re going for MF, a Goldwrap might be an idea, since it also does +light radius and 10% IAS.
Rings: manald heal is almost a must here for the leech. You might almost even consider a SOJ for the extra mana, but I think you’ll do fine as long as you can leech back.
Armor: Rattlecage is good. Lionheart is as well. Atma’s combines some nice elements of several armors, including FHR and MF. Silks of the Victor has +1 skills as well as mana leech.
Helm: Guillaume’s Face does crushing blow, IIRC, and combines with Wilhelm’s Pride to give you +35 life. The gloves from that set are nice as well (20% IAS, among other things), but you can’t complete the set and use Kuko at the same time because the last piece is a shield (albeit one of the best in the game). Stats for Guillaume’s Face:
+120% Enhanced Defense
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+35% Chance of Crushing Blow
+15% Chance of Deadly Strike
+15 Strength
Req str is 115.
Since your str is only at 88, an easyish way to get it higher is to equip two cathan rings and a cathan anything else. That will give you +20 str, which will take you up to 108 and you’ll be leeching 12% life. Then equip either Duriel’s Shell (+15 str, also has Cannot be Frozen) or Lionheart (+20 str) and you’ll be set for wearing either Guillaume’s or Valkyrie Wing Wigned Helm (+2 zon skills among other things. My kingdom for an 08, which had 30% IAS). Then I think you’ll be able to take off the cathan amulet and put on an Atma’s Scarab (%chance to cast amplify damage, which helps a lot in Hell), or a Highlord’s, which will help with IAS, or a Crescent Moon, which would handle leech for you, or any number of fine other magical/rare/unique amulets. Stealskull, if you’re looking for MF, gives that as well as dual leech and the str req is not very high.
Boots … well, ideally of course you’d be using Gore Riders. I’ve never found a pair, myself. IK are nice if you have them (and I do):
+75 Defense
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+110 to Attack Rating
+44 Life
And of course War Travelers are the ideal mf boot, though another good option is to go for Tancred’s boots and amulet, which give 30% frw and 78% mf.
Charms will want to add life, mana, some damage (lots of poison) and resists, since you won’t be leeching a whole lot back. Or, if you’re going MF, … well, you get the idea.
I also suggest doing NM Meph runs. You might also try running various areas in act 5. Running the Crystalline Passage/Frozen River a bunch of times yielded few items I’ve kept, but one was an Arkaine’s Valor.
Damn. This is kinda depressing. Of all the items anyone’s listed, the only thing I’ve found is the Frostburn Gauntlets.
Oh well. Couple more questions:
1)Can the items you’ve listed ('punha and Much) even be found in Nightmare? I’m still having trouble staying alive with my MF stuff on. And if it’s not, I don’t get shit. (I’m up to MF 210 or so! w00t!
#2) I’ve found some decent stuff in Travincal and the Councillers are pretty easy to snuff. Plus there’s what? four bosses in the same place. Anyone have any other area to suggest? I’m getting sick of the Durance of Hate 2 -> Mephisto run.
#3) I’ll be poking around in Nightmare on and off today on West. If I’m around the game will either be named SDMB or straightdope and the password for either will be cecil. Feel free to join in!
And again, thanks to everyone for all the advice. I’m takin’ notes!
BTW: What th’ hell are Jewels for? I’ve never seen any with even half-way decent powers (+4 to MF! Wooptie-doo! :rolleyes: )
Do they get better and I’m just getting crappy ones or am I missing something?
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