I started playing my Assassin after almost 2 months thanks to this thread.
I’ve noticed that alot of rune words don’t work anymore. For example, today I tried to do Strength on a two-socketed greater claw and all I got was the rune improvements (Amn + Tir). It used to work on the 1.10 beta but not anymore. Did some of the rune words get deactivated or something?
Also, I remember that before 1.10 your MF % went towards merc kills and not the other way. Is it still like that?
I didn’t play in the beta, but all the runewords from 1.09 still work in the appropriate items, as do the new 1.10 words. I would link to either the Blizzard or diabloii.net runeword page, but I’m at work and both are blocked to me from here.
Yes, your mf goes to merc kills and kills by things you summon. The merc’s mf does not count toward your kills.
Ravens are fun. I put a point in them and let my +skills do the rest. They also have a hidden “blinds target” effect.
Can you cast ravens and bears and/or wolves (oh my!) and still morph, or are you stuck in man-form? I know you can’t transform while apocalypse or other such skill are going, so I’m curious.
I believe you can… I’ll have to check on my old (now mule) druid, as my present one has no shapeshifting skills. And of course you know that you can cast Armegeddon while shapeshifted.
Since I’ve been here at work for the past 13 or so hours, I wonder if I’ll have the energy to get on b.net when I get home… only another hour til I’m off…
Again, I decided to reactivate my lvl 49 barb (for the second… or is it third time). I’m not sure how long I’ll play him until he gets on my nerves… but I’ll play him some. I wonder if I have any weapons for him…
Yep. All the summoning skills work in wereform.
All summoning skills can be cast regardless of were-state. Back when I played my lvl 79 druid, I had an Islestrike on wep switch specifically for the bonuses to a few things (mostly for the sage).
Magic finding has not gone extremely well. I found a lum and a hel rune, but the only decent unique has been Ondal’s Wisdom. It’s a +3 version. I have discovered that the +3 is not sorceress specific, so I’ve given it to my hammerdin, he’ll use as a switch it for extra hitting power.
Change that… just found the BK mythical sword. 
Now to find the Colossus blade…
I’d be MFing with you, Who_me?, but we just got hit with several inches of snow, and the electricity has been … well-meaning but imperfect? The desktop has rebooted 3-4 times tonight already. Once everything was out long enough that when the television came back on it took about a minute for the satellite to remember to work. So I’d really rather not be running Baal, then spawn a Shako or summat and then have the electricity burp.
I don’t understand… Shouldn’t you be able to easily get +4 to paladin skills from a one-handed weapon plus a paladin shield? Or, for that matter, up to six to combat skills, or a mixture of both? What’s the value in using a staff for +3?
By the way, what’s the trade value for a +1 shadow skills GC? I know that some skill trees can be quite valuable, but I don’t think I’ve seen mention of any of the assassin ones.
The plusses, while not simple, aren’t too difficult… if I want to cast hammers at a sedate pace. Ondel’s Wisdom has 45% fast cast. Finding pally equipment with faster cast is the problem. My primary weapons is a Wiz Spike with its 50% faster caster and a lidless with a +1 to skills. Now if I had a shield with +2 to combat, that may be better, but I don’t have one.
Who, if you can get your hand on a VEX rune, you should make a nice Heart of the Oak scepter. It has +3 skills, 40% faster cast, and other assorted goodies and can be put into a select range of 4-socket maces. It would enable you to wear a shield (HoZ) with +skills and enable you to block.
'Course, that VEX is tough.
Did you mean to say scepter there? The Arreat Summit says that Heart of the Oak is for “staves and maces”, and defines “maces” to mean mace, morning star, flail, and excep/elite equivalents (not everything that says “mace class”). Do scepters also count as “maces” for that definition?
I’m done for the night. Magic finding was pathetic all weekend. The Tribal Guardian was the only worthwhile thing I found with the exception of runes and jewels. I did find a 34% ED and a 37% ED jewel and the runes Fal, Io, and Lum.
I levelled the barb to lvl 62, but without decent armor he ain’t going to hell. Now I have two characters stuck until I find them armor. At least NM Baal runs are still worthwhile for the barb.
My plan for the barb is to try and get the BK collosus blade and some armor with some decent mods. He wearing 4 pieces of the IK set (helm, gloves, boots, and belt) and the partial set bonuses are seriously good. The armor would be a bonus, but I’m not really concerned about it. It wouldn’t be that much better than a good rare or high exceptional unique. I have a good rare on the community mule, but the str requirement is 232 and he won’t be there any time soon, if at all. His str at the moment is only 185 (and that’s with plusses).
I don’t think the War Scepter would be 'Heart of the Oak’able.
I personally think that it’s a Hammer and not mace. If you equip a war scepter on any char, it looks like a war hammer and therefore doesn’t work with this particular runeword.
Like Chronos said, it doesn’t mean all “mace class” weapons, just flails, clubs, morning stars, all staves and their exceptional and elite counterparts. With that being said, only flails and its better counterparts are able to be used since clubs and morning stars have only a max of three sockets. Staves can be good, but again only certain staves can have four sockets that needed to make this runeword possible.
And for a final note, if you do trade, that’s why we see 4-socket flails in demand. It’s the best thing to Heart of the Oak with.
I can confirm this. I whomped up the runes (plus a Hel) and stuck them in a four-socket War Sceptre I have lying around. No runeword.
Personally, I think this is a bit off; Sceptres advertise as being of mace class.
You’re right, I meant “mace”. There’s a very limited list of maces that can be HOTOed. As always, it’s *extremely * important to doublecheck your items before you try to runeword them.
I think it’s actually a retarded definition made by Blizzard.
Mace class weapons are subcategorized and makes things crazier than they should be.
There are Hammers and Maces. And that screws things up for Heart of the Oak. There are also Scepters that fall into those two subcategories. And furthermore, Staves are somewhat “mace class”. I think it says Staff Class on them but Barbarians actually get damage bonus from their mace mastery skill on staves.
Hammers are GreatMaul/MartelDeFer/ThunderMaul, Maul/WarClub/OgreMaul, and WarHammer/BattleHammer/Legendary Mallet.
Adding to that list of Hammers is the WarScepter/DivineScepter/Caduceus
I’m not sure if the scepter/runescepter/mightyscepter and grandscepter/holywatersprinkler/seraph rod would be considered Hammers and refer to maces, since when they’re equipped they look like the club or morning star.
Since they aren’t able to get 4 sockets we can’t really see if they can be HOTO’ed. I can’t read the .mpq files, and don’t really want to bother to learn to do so, but if anyone can and wants to reply with what would happen with HOTO’ing a modified 4socket scepter/runescepter/mightyscepter and grandscepter/holywatersprinkler/seraph rod or try and read what can actually be HOTO’ed in the .mpq files.
oh well, as noted by Munch make sure you double, triple and quadruple check runewords that require higher end runes. You don’t want to be wasting good stuff on a mistake, that is of course if you are not “rich” enough to experiment or don’t use trainers to test things out.
[naive]
Well, with the combination of my kid’s hockey tournament and the cable internet going on hiatus, I made a startling discovery with a paladin that I started in solo play a long time ago (only to meet frustration in hell and gave up)…I discovered that you could mix an aura with a combat skill and I looked down on my paladin and realized that “it” was good…
I had naively thought I could only have one skill on the right side and normal or throw on the left side…I had fanaticism on the right click and I accidentally chose zeal on the left click (during a battle) and then I smiled as my little pally had beaten everything into frozen hamburger with his lame-ass sureshrill(sp?) untill he found something a little more lethal called “Hellslayer”. Now, he can freeze and cook hamburger faster than any McDonald’s…
[/naive]
Hopefully, I will be on tonight out West with this new found strategy…I apologize ahead but I just had to come clean and just claim my ignorance…mainly because I have been playing amazons to much…