Well, now I know what I’m doing tonight…time to dust off the necro, set to players 8 and hunt me some toys…
Nah… come with me and vol and do runs in Hell.
You do have a ladder char who can get there, yes?
Thanks for the advice on horadric cube recipes; on rereading them, I see there’s some cubing I need to be doing.
What would y’alls’s advice on a mercenary for a CC assassin be? Currently I have a mid-50’s-level cold rogue to complement my 58 assassin, but I’m wondering if I ought to switch either to a battlemage (in order to equip a sword) or an act-2 merc (since everyone seems to think they’re great). It does seem that a ranged attacker is a good match for my almost entirely melee character.
Daniel
A3 mercs are paper tigers. They can cause a lot of damage, but all takes is a fallen coughing on one to kill them.
Sadly, no. I only play sp/lan. I do occasionally play on bnet, but usually find the experience grating. Probably because I don’t know enough cool people to game with. 
Well, after a few runs I found a Cat’s Eye amulet and Sazabi’s armor. Not too bad. Time to pile on more mf and try again…
I met Voltaire in game earlier. My javazon is not the best tank in the world. My necro is much better, but he’s only in Act2. He now has the Arm of King Leoric and at least in 3 and 4 person games, the skellies hold up quite well.
I’ll be off b.net for a week due to going on vacation for the holidays, but when I get back I’ll try to work him into Act5.
Vol and I found Andariel’s Visage on the first run. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything close to that afterwards, but that’s not to say we didn’t find anything, my bowazon is now the proud owner of a 195% ED Buriza. I didn’t realize the damage difference between that and what she had before. Maybe she will be able to kill something now.
If anyone decides to start a necro or a bowazon, let me know because I have extra equipment to give them.
slortar, start a char on East ladder and join us. Or west and join those guys. Either way, you’ll have a less grating experience. I don’t know about on west, but once you get going you’ll get plenty of help, and since I can’t stick to one character very long without starting a new one, I’ll probably have someone around your level.
Just make SDMB///cecil games and it won’t be any different than single player unless another Doper joins up.
I believe I will. Hmm…maybe I’ll start up a shockadin. I’ve been meaning to try one of those for a while now…
As others said, you probably want to wait for a good jewel. But in any event, you certainly shouldn’t put in a skull. A skull gives you 4% life steal and 3% mana steal, whereas the fairly common Amn rune gives you 7% lifesteal. For everyone except maybe an elemental amazon, 5% or so mana steal is plenty, and you probably already have that, so you would want more life steal rather than mana steal.
For mercenaries, I would generally recommend a ranged merc (act I or III) to complement a melee character, and a melee merc (II or V) to complement a ranged character. Rogues are as fragile as battlemages, but they seem to have good AI, and tend to stay out of trouble, so don’t worry too much about that. And for an amazon, a might act II merc is probably better than a barb. But for my sorceress, I use a barb, since none of the auras is particularly useful for a sorceress.
I found the Hone-Sundan Yari last night and it has three sockets. I’m going to give this to my A2 Might Merc, but what is the best combination of runes/gems/jewels to put in it for this type of Merc? Should I go for extra speed, extra damage, or other extras?
BTW, we’re in A1-Hell if that matters…
Man, that’s a really nice spear. One in our group upgraded it and the dmg is great. I would go for more speed and enhanced damage if you can find it on jewels.
If it’s for a merc, go 3 AMN runes for 21% Life Leech.
If you can upgrade it with the PUL LUM and perfect emerald recipe then try to do it. The dmg would be great. There is crushing blow on the item so I don’t think %dmg jewels or OHM is good for it. And speed is not really a factor for mercs in my opinion. They hit at a good rate with Hone Sundan with no speed increase.
If you’re not so high on wasting 3AMN’s for this Hone Sundan, a cheaper alternative is 3 perfect skulls for some life leech.
Merc’s really do need Life leech. My ideal set up for act2 mercs is this. I’m too poor to outfit mercs good right now. But ideally I don them with a Duriel’s shell, Hone Sundan 3 Amns, and a Blackhorn’s Face. This set up keeps them alive from Lightning Enchanted Multishot uniques. Gives extra life and good resists and competent damage.
Meat Scraper or Hone-Sundan…what’s the weapon of choice here when upgraded…(is 50% open wounds better than 45% crushing blow, or vice versa)?
Not a bad idea. I like for that a2 merc to hit fast and often. Life leach is a great thing to have for a tank of any kind.
IMO the open wounds is great. Crushing blow is ok, but it can’t kill them and the open wounds can. they just keep bleeding and the higher your level, the higher the damage from the wounds.
I actually just traded in my dumb dumb a5 merc (with my pali) for a rogue. Much better! She can whup ass on lots of things from far away. My Fanaticism aura works well with her.
slortar and anyone else planning to make a ladder char, some thing you might wish to think about before settling on a char:
- I’ve got a lvl 89 barb (and a lvl 24 who will be supplanting the 89 ASAP)
- vol’s got the sorcs covered, and if he didn’t, Fenris and Who_me also have sorcs
- Who_me also has a zon, and at least one other person does IIRC
- Who_me also has a necro, though unless he’s got a friend who’s willing to play, we need a good summonmancer with good curses
- Gear. I don’t have the eleven accounts worth of mules as I did pre-ladder. I am still collecting gear to imbue, fercryininthemud.
- What we need, I think, is either a strong druid with maxed sage (and said druid to play more than every once in a while) and able to take solid dmg … or a hammerdin with maxed hammer and concentration. Fenris’ paladin doesn’t have the build for it, and he’s already allocated too many points for it to be feasible.
OK. Yeti, I’d go with the standard Amn-Shael-ED (as long as yer ED is decent. A 13% jewel ain’t where it’s at) unless you have plans to upgrade it. But I’d really wait for an ethereal version.
I’m working on a summoning Necromancer. It’s just taking me forever to level up, since I don’t play for very long most nights. With any luck, I’ll beat normal sometime this weekend, but Hell is a good bit away for me.
Hm. Actually, I think I’ll make an oak sage using shockbear, then–been a while since I had one. The last one was rather misbuilt…
I’m working on the SageBear Druid. I’m alternating points into sage, maul and Lyco. More maul than Lyco now that I’m getting AR increases. I’m horribly low on AR!
Sage is lvl13, IIRC.
MDSL has already seen the name of my new barb. I think the rest of y’all will be amused by it. It’s lvl 30 now.
That’s right, folks. The new barb is on his way. Lvl in norm baal runs until lvl 55, then I am hoping to get some help through to NM, where I’ll do Baal runs until about lvl 75 (same pattern as for the other barb).
This guy will solidly supplant my other barb.
Well, maybe not lvl 55 after all. I’ve been pumping BO like a fiend, and it’s now at lvl 20 (with +skills). And at level 41 I can now do the ancients in NM (with help, because my dmg with either hand is less than 150 max), so if someone would like to help me rush myself to NM baal runs, it’ll take a night to get me to level 70 or so, at which point I can (I think) use all the gear I have stowed.
I have roughly 1300 life now, at level 41, so I think I will be able to survive a rush, even if that means chugging pots (thank you, find pot). And the enhanced MF from first-kill bosses should be a lovely price to pay for hastening this guy’s voyage into the land of Hell Meph runs.