punha, I would laugh, except that early in my Magic: the Gathering days, I traded a Force of Nature for a couple of Sea Serpents. That was with a friend, though, so no hard feelings (but he still has the Force of Nature, of course).
Still, that doesn’t explain “Gul for HotO”, though. Anyone with HotO either painstakingly made it themselves, and hence understands its true value, or traded it from someone else who made it and hence charged well for it, and either way, nobody with HotO is going to give it up for a Gul.
Meanwhile, a technical question. What exactly does the modifier “damage goes to mana” (as, for instance, in the Vulpine prefix) mean? I can think of two plausible interpretations: First, that might mean that when you take damage, you gain mana. So for instance, if you take 100 damage and have 5% damage goes to mana, then you would gain 5 mana. The other interpretation I can come up with is that damage is redirected from your red ball to your blue ball, somewhat like Energy Shield. So in that case, if you were dealt 100 damage, you’d only actually take 95, and lose 5 points of mana. Which is it?
Not necessarily. It could be a dupe, and one the person in question wants to get rid of so as to assure no CD key banning. So you make a dupe of a valuable item and offer it for an obviously less valuable item, hoping to scam someone into trading for a dupe (this is one reason, and basically the main one, that I rarely traded in 1.09). There is also the possibility that someone ended up with one who didn’t know its value and traded it to someone else who made the Gul sound like the shiznit.
My understanding is that it was your first guess. See this for a more in-depth answer.
Looking at that guide, it would surely be a neat trick to make a character who “leeched” mana back through vulpine items. Ten Ith runes would give 150% mana back, so roughly 1.5 units mana per point taken from melee damage; if you managed to leech back enough life for that damage taken it wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. Of course, your resistance would be less than spectacular and your hit recovery not all that great, and if you went up against a bunch of archers you’d be best served to run and hide.
Just a heads up, i’m doing another mule hellforge rush tonight, probably in around half an hour. Anyone who wants in is welcome, i’ll probably be on *30-foot-smurf.
strike that, postponed until tomorrow or later. If anyone has a preference for tom. night or thurs. night let me know. It’d be good to set a starting time so that everyone who wants in can get in.
Who was it who had a char for the nm baal quest again? i have normal covered.
Thanks, punha. This might potentially be useful for my singer barb, who desparately needs some new source of mana. Continual War Cries suck mana down faster than Super Mana Potions can replace it. I’m still puzzled, though: The Blizzard page on unique belts agrees with the page you link in its note about Nighsmoke. But the description for Dun jewels says “+7-12% Damage Goes To Mana Damage”, which is either a typo, or it’s meant to imply that my second guess is correct.
theckhd, tomorrow (Tuesday) would work better than Thursday for me, but Wednesday would work better than either. And my singer and (as of yesterday) one of Who_me?'s characters are both A. B. B. (All But Baal) in NM. I also have a couple of mules above level 20 who could cover normal, and I’d probably be bringing one of them for the rush anyway, so you can save your normal char for later, if you have others to rush.
Chronos, you’re investing solely in the warcry tree? If not, I’d think equipping a Serpent Lord Long Staff (does 100% mana leech) might help you, and a point each in Bash, Stun and Mace Mastery might yield more damage. You could also go with equipping a +3 cry weapon in one hand and a six socket weapon in the other hand, with 6 Tirs in there, though that’d only help you after stuff died. Other hand, you could go 4-Ith armor or 2-Ith … damnit, that armor with decent mods and 2 sockets or 3-socket Gris, etc. Gear choice abounds; best bet is to post here what you use and let the SDMB collective guide you:D
Currently, I’m using a Razorswitch on primary (+1 skills, +175 mana, among other things). The plan is to use Berserk against phys immunes, and I currently have Ginter’s Rift on switch for that purpose (will change that for a Djinn Slayer, probably with a couple of elemental jewels, once I level up enough). Helm is IK, graduating to a 3 warcries Wolfhowl eventually, amulet is +3 warcries, and rings between them have about 120 mana. All other equipment is unremarkable.
I haven’t yet found any weapons better than +1 to skills yet, or I’d probably be using them. Serpent Lord wouldn’t be worthwhile; 100% mana steal is singularly unimpressive when the weapon only does an average of 6 damage. Even upgraded to a quarterstaff, that’d only be 20-something. Currently, the best trick I’ve found for mana is to drink my potions on weapon switch, so they’ll be a greater proportion of the total.
Meanwhile, I had a bit of an interesting experience tonight with my paladin. Some guy in chat offered a Rising Sun amulet in return for help with Hell Diablo. It sounded fishy, but I figured, what do I have to lose? The payoff seemed enough to justify risking spending the time. So I kill Diablo for him, and he takes the portal to Harrogoth, then runs and joins a new game with a different character with a couple of his friends to quest. He doesn’t pay me, saying that “that n***** [presumably meaning myself] took too long”. Never mind that he didn’t help at all with most of the Sanctuary, and I defy anyone to kill Diablo himself faster than my paladin. He also had some choice insults for my gear, although I’m not sure that Baranar’s Star and Reaper’s Toll are worthy of scorn.
Interestingly, though, the new game he went into had the same password as the one he invited me into. And also interestingly, neither he nor his friends noticed that Mephisto was already dead until they reached Durance 3 :D. Unfortunately, they changed the password for the next game. Ah, well. Maybe the lesson sunk in anyway.
Chronos, my barb (yes, the one that dies a lot ;)) has a +3 to warcries sword and a +2 to warcries sword on switch. If you want them you can have them, but be warned, the damage they do as swords is very, VERY low. Now if you want… and have time… to shop, you can get your own the same way I got them. Larzuk sells swords. Larzuk sells swords (in hell at least) that have good modifiers. What I did to get those swords was to check Larzuk, then hit the WP to another Act5 WP, then WP back to Larzuk and check again. If you have time to kill, kill it there. They aren’t even expensive.
My necro is in Act1 of hell now, so I won’t be able to help you rush mules that way. I figured Act1 was as far as I really had to go to do a little magic finding. As soon as I get there, the necro will be doing fairly constant pit runs until I can equip everybody I have now. He’s only running 320 or so magic find, but besides a 39% Gheeds, everything can be upgraded quite a bit if I can find stuff to upgrade it with. I retired the 3 topaz mage plate that I was wearing and have a 4 socket armor with 450 defense that now has 2 ptopazes in it and will get more as I find them.
Hm… wednesday night would work as well, i meant to say tomorrow through thursday night are all options.
If you’d like Chronos, i can give you two suicide branches to dual wield. that’d be +2 skills and 100% faster cast rate, in addition to increasing max mana by 20%. Unfortunately, this probably won’t make up for the +175 you’d lose from razorswitch, unless you’ve pumped energy a lot.
I’m interested in any of the three nights, but I usually don’t come on until 9pm PST, but I think I have a character that can join you guys later in the game if you start earlier, otherwise, I’ll just assist in the run with my amazon or paladin.
Chronos, I think I have a Rising Sun Amulet somewhere if you still have a need for one. I was saving it for my sorceress, but it would be a long time before she would be able to use it. I had found this amulet just last week.
I have a need for a Raven Frost Ring if you have one to spare.
I’m thinking my weapon options are:
+2 Barb or +3 Warcries weapons (low damage is just fine)
Suicide Branch wand
Wizardspike
Heart of the Oak (yeah, I can dream)
random Bahamut’s wand
(all of these one handed, so mix and match) or
Razorswitch jo staff
Elite upgraded Serpent Lord (not sure if this would be worth the runes)
Ondal’s Wisdom elder staff (again, I can dream)
(two handed)
I haven’t touched Energy at all, since it does so little for a barbarian. It’d take ten or twelve levels of pumping energy to equal one Bahamut’s item. Actually, I haven’t assigned many stat points at all… Once I decide on my final equipment, I plan to assign just enough str and dex to use it, and the rest in vit.
Who_Me?, I have some topazes you can take. And Yeti, Rising Sun is pretty much the ideal amulet for my fire sorc, though at this point, improvements become somewhat nebulous. At any rate, I can offer trade of my current volcanic amulet, if you want to. I also have one Raven Frost, but not a spare. On the off chance I should find a Stone of Jordan, Bul Kathos’ Wedding Band, or Wisp Projector, you can have that one, or if I find another Raven Frost.
Personally if i were building a singer, i wouldn’t neglect energy. It may not do a lot for a barb, but with +% max mana equipment it can make a big difference. My reccomendation would be str/dex high enough to use equipment, and a 3/2 vit/energy allocation scheme afterwards.
You won’t need 300 points in vit if your build works correctly, since the monsters will be stunned. You’re not building a tank, so don’t allocate stat points like a tank. Your goal should be to not take any hits – if you pump vit so that you can weather a barrage of hits, you’ll be very unpleasantly surprised when that Mana Burn boss and his buddies eliminate your only offensive threat and your strongest defensive ability with a single hit.
By the way, i should have 1 or 2 wizardspikes floating around that you can have if you’d rather have those.
Also, i’m not sure what day we’ll rush mules yet, but if it’s tonight i’ll try to post about an hour beforehand so nobody gets left behind.
If he isn’t killing anyone, don’t party with the guy unless you’re at the quest. Clear a path (if you’re in NM or norm, you can usually leave rabble lying around to annoy lower level characters and kill them so they get the quest/can’t mess with the drop) to D, then dispose of minions. Open a portal where D spawns. Go back to town, TS (trade screen) for the item in question, THEN party so he can use the portal. You’ll have told him ahead of time that if he dies, he waits for the quest (this is more of an issue in A3 or 2, where running back to the portal can take several seconds) and then gets his body. Since there’s now no portal open with you having taken your own down, he’s FUBARed if he presses ESC, since with your new item you don’t have to kill this boss guy (note to self: this would be a good way to scam someone), but you will since you’re not a jerk. If the guy isn’t dead yet, it’s all good. If the guy does die, open a portal once you’ve gotten your pick of the loot (don’t rush for pay without having room in yer cube). If he wants to complain, invite him to tank Hell D (in this case) himself if he likes.
Re: the singer barb, I’d go +2 (the extra res and such you’ll get from it is worth the decreased dmg, IMO) barb skills 1H wep with a +1 skills [other random mods] shield. Ideally you’ll be going with a Lidless (that unique grim shield, whatever it is).
I was partied with him since I have a hard time handling crowds with my paladin, and (in principle) a sorc makes a perfect complement to him. The problem wasn’t so much that he wasn’t killing anything as that he was killing stupidly. For instance, in a crowd of Doom (fire immune) and Oblivion (cold immune) knights, he was using Frozen Orb, instead of Meteoring the blivvies. Now, I can handle any number of Doom Knights with ease, so long as I don’t have to worry about Iron Maiden. But with blivvies around, I have to go very slowly and carefully, and sometimes die anyway. All in all, though, I think he was just trying to play some stupid joke, rather than an actual scam, since the guys he was hanging out with had a level 80+ paladin and barb. But thanks for the advice; I obviously lack experience in maximising trustability in deals.
And punha, the only shields with +skills are Lidless Wall and Sigon’s Guard (which latter I’ve since handed-me-down to my merc), so it’s not really a question of “ideally”. If I go with any shield, it’d be a Lidless, but I’m not sure a shield is necessary. I can get more spellcasting benefit from another weapon (or a two-handed weapon), and between stunning and a barbarian’s insane life total, I don’t think I need the blocking either. theckhd, I may take you up on that Wizardspike and/or Suicide Branch, though at this point I’m firmly undecided on my weapon setup. I’m going to need to do a lot of experimentation, I think.
My necro just isn’t strong enough at the moment to reliably do pit runs. He’s supposedly primarily a summoner first and a bone skiller second, but I haven’t been able to get any plusses to summoning except the plus 2 to all on both my weapons and the plus 1 to all from wearing a Tarnhelm. I think I’ll go back to NM Baal runs and mule money to my sorc and gamble amulets. I may find something, or I may gamble something… two chances to help myself.
An amusing tale… when I signed on yesterday afternoon I found MyDamnSnakeLegs on West. His druid is up to level 20 and I offered him some equipment help. Afterwards he asked me whether I had a Buriza. I said no, but I told him that if I found one I’d give it to him. I then left to try to get to the Pt in hell. First unique monster I hit dropped a Buriza. I hope MDSL asks me for something REALLY good next time…
You know, I think that the Buriza just hears it’s name and drops. That’s just what happened when I found mine. I was chating with someone and said “Man, I wish I could find a buriza.” Then it dropped from some random monster in a4. Weird.
Who I’m also going to need a couple of Gheed’s charms, a Zod and a Ber or two if you can manage it.
I played the wolf a little this morning and made it into a3 norm. Yay! I switched from my voulge to a maul and I now do 199 damage Now that’s progress!
Darn! Sorry for replacing Darn with Damn in your name MDSL, but I wanted to do a change of pace and use your whole name instead of the initials… and was too lazy to go back and check.
While you’re wishing, could you wish for an extra Ber and a Jah or two also?
Who_me?, I just found a +2 summoning rare head a couple of days ago. If you’re on tonight, I’ll give it to you.
And MDSL, don’t be overly humble. Gheed’s Fortune is dirt common, not nearly in the same class as Ber or Zod. I’ve actually been in games where it dropped and nobody could pick it up. Heck, you can probably have the one on my sorc, I never do MF with her anyway, and she’s kinda low on inventory space.
And while we’re at it, if you happen to find any SOJ, Jah, Ber, a Harlequin Crest, or an Azurewrath, keep me in mind
Chronos:
Maybe that’s a difference between East and West. The Shakos fall like rain on East and I have only ever seen one Gheed’s drop. I don’t even know if you can trade a shako (Harliquin Crest) on East any more. Like you said, dirt common. Who
No offense taken. I didn’t even notice the mistake And I did wish for some Ber!
