All Diablo2 Talk here.........

Cafe Society
581

MDSL, word to the wise. Fen told me what he wanted, and he has a 7% leech 80-100 dmg (base dmg) sword, as well as a few other goodies (Fen, I think that Crown of Thieves is doing more for you than anything else. Your AR alone, d00d;)).

Find out what you want. Let me know. I may or may not be able to help you, but if you’re looking for a 3-socket runic talon and I find one, I’ll know to pick it up if you give me heads up:)

BTW, Fen, that razortail does +15 max dmg, yes? That might have something to do with your tanking ability. And re: dmging undead … we might try making you a mace of mass damage (King’s Grace in one of them should do the trick). I’ll do some hunting around tonight (on d2.net) and figure out what mace would be best, and we can start the hunt for one.

Anyone doing gold runs is more’n welcome to the Goldskin I found tonight. And anyone at all is welcome to the Soulfeast Tine, the Stoutnail, etc.

Now I am off to mule and give the Countess another try or two. She was dropping like a miser the past half-dozen runs or so (highest Ral, and about 8 Els, including one drop that was 3). Maybe if I give her a chance to stock up on Dols and Puls she’ll be decent:D

582

Right. That was a quick kill.

As a Paladin, you want to hit as fast as you realistically can. You also want to take advantange of the fact that, in many cases, you get an attack speed bonus for maces (same as druids do).

So. The best weapon, considering damage to undead and damage overall, is the scourge. The min dmg is 3. This is horrible, but you’ll make do because the max dmg is 80.

  1. Naked 80 max dmg. Add razortail’s bonus and you’re doing 95 max. For a very fast weapon with middle (3, out of 5, min 1) range and adding 50% dmg to undead, that’s fairly decent. Granted, the min dmg is horrid, but the compensation for that is more than fair.

The next thing we look at is the sockets. A scourge can have up to 5 sockets. And by FAR the most common 5-socket runeword is Honor … Amn El Ith Tir Sol.

I think if I hunted I might just be able to find those runes;) So you’re looking at something like 17 to 263-ish dmg. I think. Shite, dude, if you get 263 max dmg I think I might just make a mace barb to handle dual Honor scourges…my numbers might be off, though. If anyone wants to double check, Honor gives 160% ED (double dmg and then 60 percent more), and Ith gives +9 max (after ED is calculated) and Sol +9 min (same calc).

583

Well. After struggling mightily against Duriel’s minions, the beast herself (female monster) was a cake walk. Got Silks of the Victor, which was nice, and random other stuff I think we sold. Meph dropped a visceratuant, which is the third I’ve seen spawn, so vol was pleased.

The Council were fun, actually. I haven’t used taunt so much ever before as I did here. One of my swords has a chance to cause monster flee, and it also blinds (+10 … I think my sword is a wanker), so I’d taunt, and then the odds that one or two ww would cause monster flee or blind was very high. It was comical, though at the time we were making sure to live, so we didn’t have time to laugh.

I’d post a long story about our fight with Meph, but it’s 3 bloody 30 in the morning and I have a test in philo later today for which I should be at least awake enough to refrain from drooling on the test paper as I doze in class.

And now voltaire knows two things:

  1. Don’t rush into battle while I’m horking pots for you.
  2. Echo weps are used for horking, not for tanking through approximately a half mile of Urdars (not to mention a PI, mana burn, spectral hit Hephaesto, who killed me TWICE).

We did the forge (see, now you know we beat Meph. I shouldn’t even bother with the story, but I will later), and I unpartied so we wouldn’t get lots of gems and only one rune. vol got a Ko, which he says completes the Wealth he’s been planning. Tomorrow (meaning today, I hope) we’ll do my forge, and if Who_me? is able to join us, all the better. Fenris, for his part, will be providing either conviction or … something else. Concentration high enough, Fen? Of course, we’ll have to get you actually past NM Baal (he could tank the damn run, but the added MF bonus if he gets lh in a game hosted by someone who already has the quest is just too damn tempting). And then through Hell. Which includes Act2, by far the most annoying of any act ever created since the beginning of time. That thing should be taken out and shot, then transmuted and shot again.

And now that I write this up I realize that we got an almost perfect River of Flame spawn … none of those mana-drain things. No Oblivion Mages or Oblivion Knights or any of those guys. We had it way easy. We had Urdars, Maw Fiends and those things that spit out wormies. I’m not sure you could ask for an easier draw, and now that game’s of no use because vol has gone to sleep and I shall do so soon as well.

I also happen to be about 50 mil xp (something like ten baal runs … no biggie) away from being on the bottom of the barbarian ladder. It’s at level 87 and climbing slowly but steadily. I hit level 87 earlier today, and every stat point I get from here on out, I think, will go to vit. I’m at nearly 2800 HP, and when I can do the book in a3 I should be near 2850 (5 vit gives me 20 HP, which translates into almost 50 with lvl 29 BO). The difficulty is that I’ve maxed the most important skills (WW, BO, mastery), and nearly maxed Nat Res, but I don’t see any positive aspect to putting another point in an already low Iron Skin, because my defense is already over 4K with shout, which lasts for a while. So I’m thinking maybe grim ward, which would be largely useless but a fun toy, or maybe more in Berserk for those lovely but annoying PIs, or maybe war cry so I can do some damage even with my echo weps (a +2 barb and a +2 cry) equipped. With the skill points I already have invested I should do at least 30 or 40 damage with it (with echo weps and BC up, I have +9 warcries), and what’s more important is the stunning effect.

Literally. It stuns most enemies. It’s not like they say “Say, when you do that battle cry you look positively stunning!” Cuz Stol ain’t exactly a name you give to a beauty pageant winner. World’s Strongest Man, mebbe (251 str), but not Miss USEast. Especially cuz of him being a guy an’ all.

Right, I’m rambling. Time for bed. Nighty-ho.

584

G’night punha!

So voltaire’s up to act 4? Cool, I got to act 5 yesterday. And yes, my forge has not been done yet. My damned bowazon has one, and only one redeeming quality… she can freeze things. She can’t kill them (at least not very fast), but she can freeze them for others to kill. And I hate the nerf in mana leech. I can up my mana leech to 27 (magewrath bow 15%, belt 5%, manald 4%, gloves 3%), and I STILL have to guzzle mana to keep up a freeze arrow barrage (not every shot hits). More damage will mean more mana to leech to me so I need a better bow. I figure I’m going to have to find an Eagle at the very least to do enough damage to be of real use in hell, better yet I’m going to have to start hoarding runes myself and make a runeworded bow. The new runewords are powerful enough to make my zon a viable character to play in hell, unfortunately, the runeword I like best… needs a zod.

My javazon, created just to use the synergies, is coming along slowly. She doesn’t get much playing time. Hopefully, she can kick some serious ass once she gets some more levels into her Lighting Fury, Lightning Strike and whatever her poison attack is called.

I won’t be playing over the holiday weekend due to visiting my mother. I’m leaving Wednesday afternoon and be back Sunday late afternoon or so.

585

Just got my Mav’s zon up to lvl 70 this weekend in 1.10. I don’t have any of the 1.10 version items, so the new bonuses are lost on me. But the aura is really cool! Too bad I can’t kill a darned thing in Act I/Hell! Seriously, can’t kill a thing.

Okay, Piercing.

Razortail gives 33%.
Kuko gives 50%.
Buriza gives 100%.
Vidala’s gives something, but that set sucks (Arctic rocks).

586

I have only been around at odd times, as school is keeping me from my regularly scheduled D2 addiction. I haven’t leveled either of my necromancers: the first got tedious and the second I misbuilt. Dim Vision does not play as nicely with Poison Dagger as I would have thought, and because I allocated too many initial points to curses, my dagger damage is crap. He’s still definitely playable, but levelling just takes too long.

My most recent experiment is my summoning/elemental druid. I’ve got him up to lvl 26 now: he shows no signs whatsoever of slowing down, and he even has six unallocated skill points still in the hopper. And when I slap that +2 elemental skills ammy on, he will start to deal out some serious damage. I figure I’ll spend perhaps five more levels in normal and then he will definitely be ready for NM. He doesn’t have very many HP, alas, so I rely heavily on his doggies to create enough space for him to cast comfortably. This isn’t always easy given the huge casting delays due to graphics-intensive druidic spells.

I’ll be on this afternoon and early tonight. If anyone has any spare stinky little mana charms, I will gladly take them off your hands.

And I second eveyone else’s comments about the the pleasure of playing with SDMBers. Last night I killed Diablo with a party of Bnet rabble. After Diablo’s death, I lagged for a split second and all of the drop was eaten. This was followed by a chorus of:

“I WIN!! HAHAHAHA! ICEBLINK U ALL SUXXOR!”

“I WIN!”
“I WIN!”

Ad nauseam.

Thanks, guys, for not being semiliterate knuckledragging children. It really makes the experience worthwhile. :slight_smile:

587

At what level can I expect to find assassin skill up drops? So far at lvl 18 I’ve found and sold tons of other class drops, but not one assassin item.

588

You mean like a +1 assassin skills amulet? They drop at the same rate any other character class ammy drops. You’re just having bad luck. Level 18 is still pretty low for that (I don’t think you can equip such an ammy until lvl 24, but I could be wrong).

589

I was thinking of items along the same lines as the druid head gear, the paladin shield or the sorc staffs. Things that give a bonus on certain skills like Claw Mastery or finishing moves.

590

You can buy claws at several vendors, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’ve never played a 'sin, so I don’t pick them up (and would have no idea what types to focus on).

591

When you guys speak of “playing with Dopers” do you play on the Realms, or do you host LAN games? I think I stopped playing on the realms around 1.04, and with friends who have broadband, I’ve never missed it. What I’m getting at is, how many Dopers would be interested in a game hosted on someone’s computer, rather than on Bnet?

Cons:
(1) The (non-trivial) inconvenience of setting up a session; probably involves exchanging several e-mails, perhaps even scheduling a day and time.
(2) Much smaller community to trade with

Pros:
(1) No PKs
(2) No 1337-X0rz
…
(73) …and basically none of the other living, breathing reasons Bnet play so often sucks
(74) the lag can’t be much worse!
(75) muling good gear is simpler

Just wondering.

592

Well, Jurph, we get the same from Realm passworded games (those of us that play on the Realms), plus we don’t need a schedule. I play Open ladder games with sometimes the painfully maladjusted, but I’ve played with some good people too. If I want to be alone or with other Dopers, I just make the SDMB/Cecil game or join one and I can leave the a-holes behind.

593

Jurph we play on bnet. USEast and USwest. I for one don’t really have any single player characters that I would want to play with, so LAN is out for me.

puhna, I need me some Battle Boots with decent mods. I like %faster run on my boots and some resists if I can get 'em. My Asn was meant to be a kicker, but I can’t do that with the crapy boots that I have now.

If you guys happen to come across any 5socket swords, that would be great. My Barb is going sword now and I’d like to have an Honor sword at some point.

594

If you have Titan’s, then maybe. Just maybe. My Javazon has Titan’s and level 16 LF, and still needs her Static Circlet of Pestilence to deal serious damage in Act III NM. I can’t see Javazons being powerful enough for Hell unless they can get Titan’s and upgrade it, or find Thunderstroke.

Poison attacks are OK, but IMO their main benefit is that they stop healing on bosses. You may as well get a bit of poison damage on charms and equipment and save most of the skill points for LF/Valk.

595

IIRC, level doesn’t matter. Drops come from four things: your MF (magic find stat), the level at which you’re playing (Hell, Act 5 drops are going to be better than normal act 1 drops) who you snuff (one of the low level “Rackadishu!” goblins on act one won’t drop as well as, say, the council members in act 5. And apparently the first time you kill someone, you get better drops than the subsequent times.

That last one is one of the reasons I’m level 71 and still haven’t completed the Baal quest in NM. If Punha creates the game, I can’t complete the quest and if I snuff Baal, it counts as a “first kill” each time I do it.

And there’s a site listed about 4 pages back that gives EVERYTHING you need to know on how MF and drops work.

Fenris

596

Well, ED. my javazon just kicked the crap out of Izzy in act4 of NM. I go LF on the throw side and was going LS on the melee side, but found the charged strike actually does more damage (about 1-750 plus the damage of the javalin). The mana drain is bad though and I’m using caster-type equipment to give me more.

I’m going pure javazon, no points in the bow at all. I checked my old javazon. She does 1-1500 points of damage with LF (each bolt), 1-1400 damage on LS (again each bolt), 1-1200 damage poison over 9 seconds, a lvl 12 valkrie, and the other jav skills do awesome damage. Admittedly she has twin Titans (one on weapon switch), Valkries helm, T-Gods (yes, she’s set up pretty well) and the normal +2 to skills ammy. Her LF is lvl 36 and LS is lvl 22. But with all that, she has so many “wasted” skill points that could have gone into synergies (had I know that they were going to put them in the game), for example I put 20 into fend, which could have put into charged strike which would have added to all the lightning damage and/or poison.

I’ve seen javazons in hell dealing out a major ass-whopping. I’m going to try to do the same,

597

BTW, I did Izzy alone and was headed towrds him through the first section of act4 with Fenris in the game and had no difficulty killing every monster I came across.

598

Damn, now you tell us. Yeti and I could have used that little tidbit yesterday. It was only a Hel, too.

An idea I’ve been toying with is characters designed to farm Annihilus charms. I don’t have the actual experience with the Clone yet, but from the stats I’ve seen, it seems like a pair of paladins, one with maxed conviction and vengeance, the other with maxed salvation and vengeance, should be able to take him down. Blood belts for the open wounds, blood gloves for the crushing blow, blocking/resist shields, and maybe something with amplify damage charges, and you’d negate all of his major advantages. Whaddaya think, might work?

599

It would work only if the paladins had godly gear. And of course how you define godly gear has changed fundamentally from 1.09 to 1.10. I had the gear for an A+ Paladin in 1.09, but with the advent of the new 1.10 items, I’d guess that paladin at a B+, if that.

The party for killing fast seems to have these things at its core:

Necro with army
Paladin with concentration (or conviction, depending) and mebbe blessed hammers
Sorc of any legitimate sort: an enchantress won’t do diddly, but a fire/cold would be ok.
Barb for Bo (lvl 29, baby)
Druid, maybe, for the summons but mostly for oak sage
Probably another caster or two
random other person

For the DClone, I’d emphasize berserk for the barb … probably max that and the relevant mastery … you’d have to find out what’s the fastest possible weapon for a barb and then get that thing going really fast. Put a Gul in something that’ll touch DClone, so he can’t heal, and you won’t have to worry about poison damage or anything. A sorc is essential for static as well as slowing and such, though the cold dmg won’t do much unless you have a necro to cast either decrep or lower res … and use bone spirit in either case. Maxed, with maxed synergies. One paladin with conviction maxed (I don’t recall if it has diminishing returns) and maybe another with alternating holy freeze, salvation and mebbe concentration? That’s 5 people. A druid for the summons and oak sage, again, and probably another barb for berserk. That might do the trick, though it would take quite a bit of time to get DClone killed.

Fen, I found a scourge doing another hell baal run. I’ll get it to you next I see you, or you can take it from my barb’s stash. IIRC you know my acct and pw.

MDSL, I’ll work on the boots. No promises, as tonight I’m trying for level 88 (safer runs and ladder placement!), but I’ll be on the lookout, and magic battle boots aren’t exactly the sort of thing that everyone runs to pick up. Hell, I might be able to pick up a pair from Larzuk or someone like that.

600

That’d be a Mal rune, not a Gul. Gul does +20% AR in a weapon.