In my continuing SP mode, I’ve put my assassin on hiatus and am trying a paladin, playing with “/players 8” on all the time. God, it’s so much easier playing with someone with good equipment! At level 42 with a defiance merc, I’ve got about quintuple the AC as what I had with a lvl 76 assassin (with a rogue merc). My damage is less – about 700 per fast hit, compared to the assassin’s 400 per very-fast claw (which would get martial arts bonuses added on) – but it’s coming up close, and the conviction aura may mean I’m doing more damage overall. A single point in the redemption aura means I don’t drink potions outside of fighting act-level bosses. Soooo much easier!
Not as good at MF, though – ~100%, compared to the assassin’s 250%. Give me 30 levels, see what i can do.
I’m using the Herald of Zakarum and The Atlantean. I don’t have anything better in my kit for him, so unless he finds something else, he’ll be using that same stuff at level 76.
Where’d you get your Herald, Left Hand? And The Atlantean is a great weapon, and should last you through Nightmare.
What main skill are you using? I absolutely love Vengeance/Conviction. So much elemental damage, and with Redemption, you don’t need to worry about leeching.
Fenris, my sweet cornflake ball, I did tell you that a novasorc, or one who relies upon +skills and fastcast gear, would require very capable gear to survive, did I not? You need:
+2 helm
+2 ammy
+2 (at least) orb
+1 armor (or serious defensive armor; I used an Umed Shaftstop in 109 for mine)
+1 shield (or a stormshield, which is what I used)
either kickass resist rings or serious +mana … SOJ are ideal, but bahamut’s of the [fire/cold/ltg res] are also very good.
magefist
etc.
It’s the sort of char that only becomes viable with good gear.
Who_me?, the most life this barb has ever had was about 6700 from a guy with level 31 Sage (1.7life). With sage operating at 1.4life, I’d be looking at just shy of 5800 life. Of course, any skill level will automatically go up one, so I’d be over 5800 life. And that, sometimes, is still not enough to tank Achmel’s poison damage.
I had detailed last night, but the server ate, a guide to starting a new party when the next ladder season begins. Let me try to sum it up in the hour or so I have before I go home:
Sorc, 2 Pals, Barb. Barb doesn’t pump mastery or attacks until he gets capable weapon(s). Until that time he pumps vit and maxes shouts and nat res (you will have many skill points left over using this build, which you’ll use when you get a suitable weapon). I would advise, if the lack of offense begins to be a problem, to work on frenzy, since it doesn’t require much mana leech as WW does.
One paladin goes with conviction, the other goes with concentration (affects a larger area than fanat). The sorc goes cookie-cutter as vol’s sorcs have gone; maxed orb/mastery and meteor/mastery. Use runes early on to make decent weapons; doing all four forges, combined with countess runs, should yield enough runes to make Lionheart, which the barb will probably use to tank.
You should, backtracking some, be doing norm baal runs until mid 50 clvl, and someone who does not have the baal quest will want to get lh on all of those. The easiest way to do this is for one person to have the quest and make the game and for the other three to get lh on Baal. This ensures pretty drops, and if you’re going from scratch you’ll need all the gear you can find.
Move into NM mode around clvl 55 and work your way to NM Baal runs. You should hit level 60 before you get to the Worldstone, but if you don’t it’s not crucial. Runs of NM Baal should take you through to level 75, but I don’t recommend going into Hell until your melee chars:
leech at least 3% per hit (with Hell penalty)
do at least 500 min; or, if not 500 min, then at least 1K max
Your chars should all have positive resists in NM, and should have res at least close to 0 if they are negative in Hell. 3-socket shields can give +60 res with 3 Pdiamonds (at this point you won’t have the Ums to toss into one), and a paladin can put a half-dozen points in salvation should a convict boss come along. The barb, with Norm and NM Anya plus level 15-20 nat res (my barb’s nat res is 25 with +skills), should have res of -20 across the board, at least, in Hell. If you need to go with a shield for him, go between using berserk and concentrate as an attack unless you have enough leech to keep WW going. You might need to use a 3PD-socket shield on him, which would take his res to 40 across the board in Hell without any salvation from the paladins.
Early on you’ll want to find Tir and Ral and a 2-socket staff (hopefully with decent mods, but be prepared to use a naked staff if necessay) for Leaf, which gives +fire skills, though it doesn’t allow for a shield. Your sorc will want to use either a Holy Freeze or a prayer merc, and someone else who can keep a merc alive (i.e. not a wwbarb) will want to use whatever the sorc doesn’t use. 4R (four ruby) armor and 2R helms should help with their life; 150 to life with lvl 23 BO (modest in NM even if you’re just starting out) adds 300 to the merc’s life, which can be damn useful, and if you’ve leveled them with your chars they should have very capable resists. If you manage a Meat Scraper or a Hone Sundin, you’re doing very well, and you might stick a P Emerald in the Hone to guard against monster heal. The Meat Scraper has open wounds as well as MF, so consider that when getting LH on Baal.
Crafting will be important, and in the beginning you’ll want to keep all the jewels you find as well as all the runes. NM Countess can feed you runes that you’ll need for crafting, and Hellforge and customary drops should yield the perfect gems you’ll need for blood crafting (a lot of rubies). Look for open wounds and crushing blow on gloves and belts especially and do not worry too much about IAS on gloves; if you use frenzy you’ll get plenty of attack speed.
I am partial to frenzy because it does not assume much mana leech, and in the beginning you’ll be looking more for life leech (to keep your character alive) rather than mana leech, which at least initially is more a luxury than anything else. Two low-level swords (Shadowfang and Soulflay) both have dual leech and both are capable swords into NM, depending on how you use them. If you can upgrade them (Ral Sol P Emerald, I believe) they’re worth it. Shdowfang especially, for the cold damage, is godly early on, and Soulflay has not-insubstantial resists.
The paladins, unless you find something similarly godly, will want to use maces. They have a char-specific IAS with maces, and maces also do added damage to undead. I am personally a fan of using maces on all melee chars because I am a big fan of frenzy. Toward that end I’d recommend having the barb be, if you’re going to commit to any weapon class before you have something uber or even excellent, a dual mace frenzybarb. Devil stars fall in A5 of NM, and before then you can certainly use Steel and Strength in maces for the open wounds, crushing blow and such. If you happen upon (as I did) a cruel sword at any point, feel free to pop in a P Skull for mana and life leech. I had a 247% great sword which I used into Hell with Stol (ww swordbarb) and a 276% legend sword which he still has equipped.
Do not be afraid to scrap a character if it’s not working. Alternately, if you happen upon the gear that would make a capable necro, for example, figure out who in your party is the most nonessential and have that person make the next character. If you have Trang’s armor, gravespine, frostburns and a +2 necro skills amulet, that’s a very strong basis for a necro to last into A2 Hell at least, depending on the build of course. Or you might get a fifth person into your party (a doper, natch:)) and be all the stronger.
It really is not that hard, using the party system and assuming decent (not great, but decent) gear, to get into NM Baal runs on your first day. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour, if that, to get past Andy doing all the A1 quests (the sorc and one paladin can do the den while the other paladin and the barb get blood raven) and getting every waypoint. Your chars should be level 15+ by the time you hit Andy, and if the barb (me, for example) knows what he’s doing, he’s got 200+ hp already and can tank Andy quite nicely. Duriel should be wasted by clevel 21, and Meph by clvl 25, maybe 26. I would hold off on Diablo until clvl 31 or so mostly because you’ll get orb and nat res then, and you want to have a point or two in those before you try for Diablo. And as I said, Baal runs should take you up into your 50s. They will get easier, vastly easier, as you level, because regardless of if you’re putting points into vit (your first chars should have obscene amounts of vit) the barb will be pumping BO until it is maxed. With BO, your sorc should have at least 600 life, your paladins each 800+ and your barb probably about 2K-2.5K by level 50 (barbs get 4 points of life per point into vit).
Indeed. My sorc kept her Leaf staff up until just the other day, at level 78. Admittedly, she’s a pure fire sorc, so +fire skills is as good as +all skills for her, and she didn’t have any higher-level characters looking out for equipment for her. And Drognan in Act II normal sells gray socketed staves, so it’s not too hard to find a good one. I think it took me about a half-hour of popping in and out of town to find a 2-socket with natural +2 to fireball, and a multi-tree sorc (who can benefit from a wider variety of bonuses) should have an even easier time of it.
Meanwhile, a Lore helm (Ort Sol) and Stealth armor (Tal Eth) are also pretty good for a sorceress, and use low-level runes. Runewords make it really easy to start a sorceress.
I probably picked up both the Herald and the Atlanean from NM Baal – with my assassin, I tended to run Baal until I leveled up, go to Hell, get my butt kicked, and come back to NM and repeat the process. I’ve got in several dozen Baal runs like that, and gotten quite a few toys from him. None of which help the assassin, but plenty of which will be useful for other characters.
I started off thinking I’d go zeal with the paladin (and sunk 9 or 10 points into zeal and sacrifice), but read some stuff online suggesting how great Vengeance+Conviction is, and am using that now, with Zeal as backup for when I’m low on mana. Strangely, even with 2% mana regen, I can fill up my mana pool almost immediately when using Zeal, while the higher-damage Vengeance depletes my pool very quickly. Does the elemental damage not contribute to mana/life steal?
I’m putting most of my points into the cold/fire/electricity resist skills, for their synergies with vengeance, in order to keep the mana cost down.
iampunha, that party idea sounds like lots of fun. My play schedule is too erratic, as is my online time, for me to join; maybe sometimes I can pop in and say hi as y’all do that party.
Sounds okay to me. The trouble, as I see it, is that we all have different schedules and getting everyone on at the same time may be a problem to have the party set up the way you’d like. I see you, vol, Fenris, MDSL, and vol’s friend on most. If we get the four party members you’d like, what other characters do you want in the party?
I’ll be trying hammerdin before the ladder resets so if I get stuck as a pally* I won’t be totally clueless since my next pally will also be my first. Druid, zon, necro or even a second barb I can do if we have the pallys. Since I’m on b.net more than most, I’ll also be playing public games for levels, as I imagine you will be. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably (if there are no Dopers on) do two characters, one with you guys and one to rush to hell as quick as I can. This won’t be the first day of course because there won’t be anyone to rush me through the unnecessary quests. This character can mule equipment down to everyone else if possible (if I can find a good group in a game).
I’ll start a new account for the ladder reset so that both characters are on the same account to make contacting me easier when another Doper logs on.
*this is not a reflection on any paladin anywhere, just my opinion on what I enjoy
I got a Harlequin Shako (+2 skillz), a knife that adds bunches of manna (it’s the same thing that Vol uses…can’t remember the name but I think it also adds skill levels, skins of the vipermage, a plus 3 ammy and a +1 skillz ring, along with a Whistan’s shield (for mondo block) which I’m gonna socket w/ a perfect diamond. So I’m at least in the ballpark of what you suggest.
And I still die whenever anything looks crosseyed at me. For one, every damn thing in the game is f*cking lighting immune now. Hell, almost everything in A2 is.
Is the knife you’re talking about a Wizard Spike? If it is, your resistances should be good, as that adds 75% resist all, with the Vipermagi adding at least 20% more. If your resisances are still low, you could use a Moser’s Blessed Circle. It has 25% resist all and two sockets which will give you another 62% resist all with 2 pdiamonds, the block isn’t as high but you’re a sorceress, you should stay away from trouble anyway.
If the knife isn’t a Wiz Spike and you want one, just ask and ye shall receive.
Between them and good resist boots you should be fairly set resistancewise. If even after that you want better resists, you may have to lose the shako. Find a nice +2 skills rare tiara, coronet, or circlet that gives you resists. You’ll lose the extra mana that the Harlequin Crest gives you but you still should have enough.
Only physical damage counts for leeching, +x% damage to undead, deadly strike, etc. For my pally (Fergheas, USWest, lvl 50 something), I use Vengeance (~10) + Holy Freeze (20) + Cold Resist (~15), as the Cold Resist adds to both of the other skills’ damage. My weapon only does around 30-60 physical, but with all those skills active my damage is around 700-1500. Plus, I’m using a Divine Scepter with King’s Grace runeword, so I get a phat bonus to undead and demons, plus some extra elemental damage (included in above total), and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. I have 5 points in Zeal for backup, which fills my mana quickly enough.
Earlier I mentioned working on a new ATMA type program, but as I dig out my programming books I’m finding that I’ve forgotten too much stuff in the year and a half since I graduated college. So, it won’t be coming anytime soon. I will be writing some kind of simple freeware game for practice though.
I needed to find some good ethereal socketed polearms for my merc, so I switched over to v1.07, where I could do some rack-running. Trying to find a good rack is tough work, and very time consuming. I did find a Cadaceus rack, so I ran that until I got a Cadaceus, the Grizwald weapon - and the rarest set item in the game. Woohoo!
But then I ran across a Vortex Shield rack, and ran that until my eyes bled. Finally, I got a Vortex Shield, the Griz shield, and the second rarest set item in the game. I went to identify it, and it had 9 resist all. The range is 5-45. 9. Nine! Gimme a break.
Since my druid is up to level 45 now and isn’t getting too much of anything from normal Baal runs, I think I’ll start the hammerdin this evening. If you get a group together to rush, whisper me on b.net, leave a message here, or even email me. I’ll bring the druid so you can piggyback the Baal quest in normal and NM. If we can’t get it done this weekend at least, I’m going to kill Baal and head to NM. I should have the next character well over level 20 by then so you’ll still get him for the rush.
A question though about the paladin, Since I’m going for the Blessed Hammer type pally, I won’t have too many points to put into auras. What is a good aura to use that I won’t need more than 1 or 2 points in? Should I put one in each? Since I’m going to be a pally-newbie I need advice. The auras I’m looking for should be for helping the party more than helping myself.
In v1.07 (the original expansion version) armor and weapon racks dropped the same item each time for the same map if you took the same route to the rack. Thus, you could find a rack that drops, say, Collossus Blades, and keep running it until it drops a green or a gold one. The odds are really low, though. With some dedication, you can get a set item to drop. Uniques are nearly impossible. Monsters have terrible drops in 1.07, to the point where Treasure Classes above 60 or so just don’t appear.
Rack running: If you’re in single player (so the maps don’t reset), and 1.09 or earlier (I presume not 1.10, though I haven’t tried it), weapon and armor racks will drop the same type of item each time you visit it. So you keep clicking on every rack you find until you find one that’s dropping a good item type, or the item type of a set or unique that you want, and then you just keep re-making games and going to that rack until you luck out and get a set or unique. Even if you don’t get a set or unique, it’s still a pretty good way to make money, as you can often find something worth big bucks even when nonmagical.
On preview, I see Munch saying that it was only 1.07, but when my bowazon was doing Meph runs in 1.09, the armor rack never dropped anything but Shakos and Spiderweb Sashes (the variation might be due to route… I hadn’t known about that). I was hoping for another Harlequin, of course, but one mustn’t be greedy. Still, I was there primarily for Meph, and I wasn’t going to re-seed the map anyway, since I managed to find a Durance 2 with the stairs right next to the waypoint, so it was a nice bonus drop.
Okay, I just realized something really stupid about my method of building a vengeance-conviction paladin; can y’all let me know if I’m (now) reading the numbers right?
My plan had been to put a few points into conviction to begin with, a few points into vengeance, and a lot of points into the elemental resistance skills. I figured that too much in conviction wouldn’t help, since most creatures don’t have elemental resistances anyway (and I’m hitting most creatures 95% of the time as is), and that points in vengeance would up the mana cost inconveniently.
I’m still thinking that too many points in vengeance isn’t good, even though each point ups my damage by 18% – 6% of each element. But I just remembered, in a “D’oh!” moment, that creatures could get negative resistances, and that would basically be a hidden bonus on my damage against them. If I’m currently doing 400-1200 damage with vengeance, and 300-900 of that is elemental, then if I lower their resistances to -100%, I’ll be doing 700-1900 damage, right? In other words, since conviction lowers all resistances 5%/level, each point I put into it increases my vengeance damage by 15%, right?
No more raising my elemental resistance skills till I’ve maxed out conviction, in other words.
Yeah, some racks in 1.09 don’t vary much, especially down by Meph. The bummer is that they nerfed the MF on racks, so the odds are even more astronomical.
I don’t think that’s true: I looked at battle.net before posting here, and while Hell creatures have massive resistances, most Nightmare creatures have either 0 resistances or one resistance. (I’d figured I’d raise my conviction by the time I got to Hell anyway).
Blood Lords, for example, are those obnoxious no-slow-down guys from Act V. The Moon Lords in NM get 25% fire resistance and 50% cold resistance; none of the other varieties get any resistances until Hell. This is pretty typical for critters on the charts.
The massive defense is a good point, but I’m currently hitting close to 95% of the time in Act I nightmare, even before figuring in the reduced Defense from Conviction (assuming that the mouseover on Attack Rating doesn’t calculate the aura in); I figured I’d raise either conviction or vengeance as my hit rate started dropping. Right now it’s mostly damage I’m worried about.
You need: