Hey, Who_me, would it be possible to try to trade for a “Herald Of Zakarum”? It’s probably the last item I need for my pally and I’ve never even seen one. Do you need anything from me for trade fodder?
Thanks!
Just to put in a word for USEast- there are at least a half dozen active players and a ton of equipment on East, too, though we’ve been sort of MIA lately.
I’ve noticed we tend to show up all over the place from 7-midnight weeknights and pretty much anytime over weekends.
It doesn’t seem to matter: I’m in Colorado and play on East. Way back when, I played on West and I’ve never really noticed a difference.
The other advantage to ladder is that some of the spiffy new unique items can only be found on the ladder. This won’t make much difference early on, since they’re all elite, but if you stick with it, they’ll eventually show up.
And if you like using Might, then I would recommend that you hold off for Fanaticism. Fanaticism gives you everything Might does and then some, and is much more useful in the later game. Playing in a party, it’ll only take you a day or three to reach level 30, and the party can also make up for your low skill levels before then. Also, once you get to Nightmare, it’s possible to get a mercenary with a Might aura, which won’t stack with yours (but it will stack with Concentrate or Fanaticism).
Fenris, as I told you in game, an HoZ goes for a bit in the trading channels. Then again, so does Eschuta’s, which you have. There are a lot of items on the community mule which you could try to add up for a trade also, including 65 or 70 pgems.
The diablo.net USEast trading forum is here
Make sure you check that whoever is trading you is on ladder. The threads are supposed to be maked (L) or (NL), if it’s not, ask.
By the way, Fen. Don’t get taken if you trade the Eschuta’s. The best posible stats on it are +3 to skills, and +20% damage with fire and lightning and +30 energy. Yours is +3 and 18% increased fire damage and I don’t remember the lightning. I thought the mana was high also, but I can’t remember.
For a fire sorc, it’s close to the best. If the lightning is similar to the fire, you’ll get some very good offers for it.
BTW, the +damage range is +10% to +20% for both the fire and lightning and between 20 to 30 energy.
I’ll just repost this for the newer folk to come and join us…
This thread has been way too quiet. So i figured i’d post an update.
Got 2 or 3 more anni’s over the weekend, bringing my total to around 9-ish now. hooray. the pally is at 92 now too, around halfway to 93. He could use a pair of gore riders though, anyone have a pair they’d trade me?
Also, i’m planning on starting a Thrower Barb in the near future. Is anyone else interested in making new characters and playing up through the quests? I’m not a huge fan of rushing for characters that i really intend to play, it kinda ruins the experience of watching your character grow.
We need theckhd in East, is all I’m sayin.
lol, well while i won’t be joining the Easties any time soon, i did find this forum (viewing requires registration, which is free) which lists which ips are seeing SOJ sale activity. It’s completely player-run, and it seems to lag a bit behind the information on irc (though not by too much), but i don’t know if the eastern complement to the irc channel #dclone-west even exists. At any rate, if you look back at my explanation of how to find out which server you’re on, and combine it with the information in the forum above, you should be well on your way to bagging some annis. You can average around 1 per day or so, depending on luck and activity.
Hmmm, I’ll try to check out some strategy guides and see what sort of Paladin sounds good to me. I’ve heard a lot about zeal, but I’ll definitely check out Fanaticism.
I should be free tomorrow (Tuesday) and/or Wednesday, if anyone thinks they’ll be free. How can I find an active game? Should I just type in SDMB once I’m logged into Battlenet?
There are two things you need to get Annihili. First, you need to be in a game when D’’ spawns. That forum should help you out with that. Second, you need a character or characters who can kill D’’. This can be an uber-elite character, but it doesn’t need to be. I made my clonekiller paladin on a budget; you Easterners probably already have everything you need for one. Perhaps another communal character like your MF sorc? There are three types of equipment that are the key to beating the Clone: You need maxed or more fire resist, (a good paladin shield with 4 diamonds will help a lot here) 75% blocking (see above, plus a few points of Holy Shield), and as much crushing blow as you can get your hands on (I have 75%, from a Black runeword weapon, Blood-crafted gloves, and Goblin Toe boots). Prevent Monster Heal is also very nice, which you can get from the Malice runeword on weapon switch, as is Open Wounds, from a blood-crafted belt. Amplify Damage or Decrepify is also very useful, if you can get it as a chance on striking or from someone else in the party casting it. If you have amp or decrep, then I think that lifesteal becomes useful, but not if you don’t. Lifetap will also work well.
Your chance to hit will be pathetic, but you get around that by using Smite or Conviction (Smite will let you use another aura, such as one of the Prayer proxies, but Conviction will be useful if you’re partied with anyone doing elemental damage. With maxed Prayer active, you should be able to get by with chugging red potions, instead of purple). With maxed Conviction, you should have a 90+% chance to hit, even though it won’t display as such.
As for what you don’t need, defense is completely useless, since D’’ has such a high attack rating. You won’t be able to budge his chance to hit you. And surprisingly, damage isn’t all that important either. My clonekiller does less than 100 damage average. You’ll be doing almost all of your damage by Crushing Blow, which, against something with that many hit points, puts all other forms of damage to shame. Magic find and gold find are also irrelevant, since he’s gonna drop the same thing no matter what.
To be successful, this character only needs to be about level 50-60. He won’t be able to solo at that level, but he will be able to guarantee a very short fight, if partied with anyone else. By level 70, I think this build can solo the Clone, but I haven’t tested yet.
Be warned, by the way, that the clonekiller-on-a-budget is a very specialized build. Against any single monster in the game (including any boss), he kicks butt. Against any three monsters, though, he’ll die. This build simply cannot handle crowds. If you want a versatile character who can handle D’’ and everything else in the game, that’s where you need to start being godly.
Meanwhile, on a completely different note, Funguy: For a paladin build, you generally want to choose one primary attack and one aura (not either-or). Your attack goes on left-click, while your aura goes on right-click. Some attacks work particularly well with some aurae: Zeal is usually used together with Fanaticism, leading to an insanely fast attack; Vengeance (which does elemental damage) is usually used together with Conviction (which lowers enemy elemental resistance), etc. You’ll be spending skill points mostly on your attack, your main aura, and the synergy skills for those two.
As for Battlenet, the first time you log in, you’ll have to create your character. Then, once you choose your character, you’ll be in a sort of waiting area screen where you can join or create a game. Either way, try the game called sdmb with password cecil (it won’t show up in the list, since it’s a passworded game: You’ll have to type it in). Either you’ll be the first Doper on that night, in which case you’ll create the game, or someone else will be on, and you can join. If you can’t join, then whisper to one of the Dopers whom you think might be online and tell them. Also, tell us your account name here, and we’ll keep an eye out for you.
Since I haven’t posted in a while, I will now.
For a Clone killer, I have no one that could probably solo DC. As for someone with maxed resistances that can survive in a battle with him, my zon, barb, and hammerdin all have maxed resistances. The zon has no crushing blow, but will hit DC, but with DC’s resists her lightning damage would be pathetic and her poison not much help. The barb has 35% crushing blow with one sword (BK colossus) and I have a Goblin toe somewhere, and having maxed Frenzy will hit DC as often as anybody and hit quickly, but can’t block while using Frenzy. Both of these can tank DC a bit, but…
The pally can damage and kill DC if someone can tank him. His Blessed Hammers do 5K damage each that DC can’t defend, block, or resist. If I ever decide to get him though hell and get him some levels, he’ll do even better. With someone doing crushing damage on DC early and the hammers for when the life gets lower DC wouldn’t stand a chance… hopefully…
My magic finding sucks. My necro is set up for Pit, Eldritch, Shenk, and Pindle runs wearing about 566 mf. I tried Meph yesterday and using that setup and found that the skellies aren’t strong enough. I’m going to go to the mf equipment switch tactic, which will lower my mf while wandering through Durance, but raise it when Meph is alone and almost dead. I’m hoping this works… it’ll raise my mf at the end to 591 and 639 if my merc gets the kill.
Last night on my Single Player, I used a banked point to get Zeal, and it seemed to work pretty well, with no appreciable mana drain. Can I set my standard attack (left click) to Zeal, and still use an aura? This is what I was missing - I was hotkeyed to switch everything on my right click. With Zeal as a left click and an aura, I can definitely see its worth.
I should be able to get on tonight. I will try for USEast, around 9:00 p.m. (Eastern, of course.) I will try to create a Paladin named Yuggoth_FunGuy. As for my account name, I can’t remember right now. Can I create a new one?
Let’s say I want to build a Zeal/Fanaticism Paladin. I’ll study up on a guide for that before distributing any Attribute and Skill points. If no one else is playing on SDBM tonight (should I use all caps or no caps?), I guess I can just go ahead and start to level up a bit, anyway?
I appreciate the help and advice for a newbie to the MP game.
Oops, I didn’t intend to post back-to-back with myself, but it just occured to me that I don’t know anything about the MP ettiquette. How are gold and item drops handled? Does anyone just pick up whatever looks good and sort it out in town (presumably by class, etc.)? How does the game award experience? While you play, do you try to stay on screen together, or in the same area, or wander off a ways?
Also, I know the game scales the monsters based on the number of players. What exactly scales? Life and defense? Experience awards? Does gold scale? How about the item drops -- are they improved in multiplayer games?
As you can no doubt see, I have a lot to learn. I'm looking forward to playing with Dopers, as I'm sure it'll be a more pleasant experience than just encountering random players. Looking forward to trying it out tonight.FunGuy, that’s exactly what you can do. Just click on the attack button on the left (not the right), and you can set your hotkeys to the left button. Zeal/fanat. works great.
Multi-player ettiquette? Unless you’re playing with people you know (either IRL or on-line) it’s an oxymoron.
When the dopers on east get together we share drops pretty well. Usually whoever picks up the item gets first choice, if he doesn’t want or doesn’t need it, he’ll just ask who wants it. Gold is automatically shared between partied players, experience for killing monsters is increased and shared among partied players within a certain (I believe 2 screens away) range. Each monster will have more hitpoints and will hit harder for more damage for each player in the game.
Depending on what we’re doing, we can either stay together or have individuals doing seperate parts aiming towards the same goal, depending on what is more efficient.
Item drops seem to be better with more players. I believe Blizzard says some drops are scaled to how many players are in the game, but most aren’t… but don’t quote me.
If you join an open (closed b.net, but unpassworded) game with strangers… don’t count on anyone to do anything to help you. When things drop it’s the first one to grab it that gets it. Some players will be using a grab it program that automatically grabs items according to the users’ specifications. You may have PK’ers (player killers) that will come in and hostile you and attempt to kill you. They may be 20 or more levels higher than you, but they get a kick out of it for some reason.
On the other hand, you will meet some good people in open games. I’ve had people just give me items that I really wanted but could afford to trade for. Even the PK’ers can be fun if you can find the right equipment and can play a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There’s nothing like having someone 15 or more levels above you hostile you, attack you,… and die ingloriously in the attempt. My old Buriza zon was level 46 and killed a level 67 barb 6 or 7 times before he left the game. It was fun taunting him.
That should have been…
Oh, and Fen… I saw an HoZ go for an UM rune yesterday, to give you an idea of what you’ll need to get one.
My first 1.10 MP character was a Zeal/Fanaticism paladin. For a standard Fanatic, the key skills are Fanaticism, Holy Shield, Zeal, and Sacrifice, in roughly that order of importance. You also want one point in Redemption. That’s about 90 skill points, so the build won’t be finished quickly, but you’re guaranteed good damage, amazing AR, excellent blocking and reasonable defense. Since Holy Shield gives +blocking you can skimp on dex and put those points into vit instead, so you wind up with good life too.
The one point in redemption looks random, but is very important. Since it tries to redeem all the monsters near you as soon as you turn it on, you can turn it on, leave it for a second or two, then switch back to Fanaticism fully healed. This is especially nice against unleechable monsters like Oblivion Knights, or against reviving monsters like Fallen and Act 2 undead.
I built mine a bit differently, skimping on Zeal and Holy Shield in order to put points into Conviction. At the time I was planning to use him as spellcaster support; Conviction + Sorceresses is ridiculously good. I don’t think this is a good plan though; With only 5 points in Conviction it’s too weak to help them out or help kill DClone or anything like that, and the lack of damage, AR, and blocking has really hurt him in Hell. Zealots are fun and powerful, but they’re not very flexible in skill choice.
Unless there’s a large discrepancy between East and West prices, that was a steal. HoZ usually goes for higher than that on West, I traded a Gul for my HoZ and a Mal, and that was a pretty good deal. If prices are that much cheaper on East, perhaps i’m on the wrong server! 
Btw, i would have to disagree with Taran slightly, in that i would put zeal above Holy Shield in importance. One of the biggest weaknesses of melee paladins is their low damage per hit (paladins are very defensive characters in general). The higher your AR (so your zeal swings don’t miss) and the higher your damage the better. Holy shield, on the other hand, only needs to be high enough to get you max blocking of 75%, above that all it does is add do your defense, which isn’t as important as blocking or solid damage output, IMO.
Also, while Holy Shield is worth getting before maxing Sacrifice, i would definitely max Sacrifice before holy shield. The damage bonus from Sacrifice doesn’t decrease with your level, but your blocking percent will, so you can easily get a high blocking % at low levels with just a few points in Holy Shield, and then pump it later on as your blocking gets lower to keep yourself afloat.