I have a level 61 sorceress that I’ve been working on since the expansion came out (she was actually level 15 before the expansion came out), and she hasn’t had much difficulty. She’s died a few times - mostly because I get careless, but overall, she’s doing much better than any of my previous sorcs. Because of the immunites, I’ve focused on two spells from each tree: Thunderstorm and Chain Lightning from the Lightning tree, Frozen Orb and Glacial Spike from the Cold tree, and Fire Wall and Hydra from the Fire tree. All are at least level 11 (having 5 points of + to all skills, plus an addition +1 to Fire helps). She’s currently in the Arcane Sanctuary in Hell difficulty. Most drops have been crap, especially those from the Super Uniques (she did Duriel twice in Nightmare - both times, he dropped only gold!). The Unique items she’s found have all been dropped by generic monsters, or found in chests.
The decrease in Firewall damage with the 1.09 patch was dissapointing at first (her damage dropped from around 1,100/sec to around 950/sec), but hardly crippling. Firewall still deals major damage.
I haven’t noticed hirelings being all that much more effective. The increased regen rate is useful, but Uniques still kill them all too quickly. An Act II hireling in Hell difficulty costs 50,000 gp to resurrect though, so my sorc has been going solo for some time.
Has anyone tried the new “players X” command in single player? It lets you simulate the increase in difficulty experienced with multiple players - just type “players X” (without quotes), where X is the number of simulated players you wish, in the message window. All monsters not in your immediate vicinity will have their hit points and experience values adjusted as though there were X players in the game. I tried it out (going for 8 players, of course) with my sorceress, and it worked - monsters took much more work to kill (and were worth more xp, of course!).
“Players #” in single is awesome. I’m running a nekkid (no equipment. Just scrolls and potions) hardcore barbarian, and I’d reached a point where I hit a wall in leveling-up. The ability to incrementally increase the difficulty is quite cool.
Although let me add that after killing Nimihlak (or however the name is spelled), Anya gives you an item based on your character class. The one I got for my sorceress in nightmare was really good, +2 to all skill levels, a further +1 to a couple individual skills, and a couple other bonuses.
The one I got in normal was good enough for me to use, but it was replaced soon by a runed staff I made (Leaf).
All my characters are now in Act V. I had forgotten about my first character, one that I was making into an axe-barb. Left him in Q2A1 and went up to Q1A5N over the long weekend. I like being in A5 with a barb, doing at least 150 points of damage with Concentration or Frenzy.
My druid still has that (not hacked) circlet w/+1 barb skills and some other nice mods.
Does anyone have a closed bnet USA East non expansion character who can open up a normal cows portal? My sorc 31 is not tough enough to beat nm, and I seriously could go for some more xp.
I ran the cows level a bunch of times the other day, until some fucking moron didn’t call king and whacked him while still partied with me. So now I’m good and stuck. If you feel like doing a doper a wee favor, please let me know.
Sorry, I upgraded all my characters to expansion. If you ever get the expansion, I’d be happy to open the cow level for you. I’ve got 4 characters in nm and 2 of them can still open the portal.
Very likely! Assassins are fun. The only character I was able to salvage from my recent hard drive fiasco was Mrs. Tranq’s bowazon, and she has essentially forgotten all about her l27 amazon, now that she started up an assassin.
I can always tell when she’s just used dark vision to back-stab something. The evil laugh would be a credit to Lon Chaney, jr.
I read up on some assassin strats today and I admit to being totally confused. The beta pros argue that there are essentially two kinds of assassins: tank assassins and hit and run assassins. Then they proceed to argue that neither one is all that efficient: assassins lack the combat skills of barbarians and paladins, yet traps are mana-inefficient and shadows are good only for bait.
So wtd? Sure, there’s plenty of room for style and variety when building an assassin, but if they aren’t real good and tanking and but their h&r is too costly, what is a player supposed to do?
I dunno about the beta experts. I usually ignore their advice and do what looks right to me. Usually, that means an oddly effective character, but sometimes it means a train-wreck.
Mrs. Tranq is the Mistriss Of Hit and Run, and she definitely uses shadow a lot. She also has a devestatingly effective rogue mercenary, whom she uses as bait along with her shadow, while she applies dark vision and runs around behind whomever for a quick jab to the kidneys. I’ve never seen her bother with traps, just quick in and out, let the monsters chase her for a bit to string them out, and then a bunch of nasty back-shots to finish them off.
Mrs. Tranq has a vicious streak, and I love watching her at play.
Me, I’m a tanker for the most part, so don’t look to me for fancy suggestions, unless you want to talk necromancy, in which case I’ll be happy to talk about my (sadly unrecoverable) necromancer and his Army Of The Dead.
It’s you and your hordes that are responsible for all the lag on bnet.
I like reading the guides, as many of them are truly thoughtful, scientific, and rigorous. Most of them are, alas, crap.
I like the way your wife plays, to be sure. Does she bother with martial arts techs or does she simply pump up her shadow skills? How much of an effect does dimming have on your own light radius? I could see that in a dark place, it might get rather annoying. And how do non-tanking assassins get out when they’re mobbed and perhaps stunlocked?
All this talk of assassins confuses me. Anyway. On to the point of this post:
I beat D2 last night/this morning. Barbarian (yes, Maeglin, the one I keep bragging about) level 28. Died like ten times before I got the guy. I’m going to wait until I have a machine that can reliably run D2 before I get the expansion (I have a 6-gig drive and a slow processor).
Work on your bnet char, man. My sorc is gaining fast enough that even if she were to go around with you, you wouldn’t get much experience. Comparatively, neither would I.
I have a level 70 Paladin (got some really cool gear, too!), a level 48 bowazon, a level 14 sorc, a level 3 Necro, a level 6 Assassin, and a level 72 Assassin. My level 72 Assassin sucks (Don’t put a lot into traps! DON’T! They’re not worth it by Hell mode! Focus on Shadow Skills and Martial Arts: Phoenix Strike kicks ass when maxed out! Dragon Flight is cool for PK. The good Shadow Skills are Burst of Speed, Claw Mastery, The blocking one, and Shadow Master (great bait in Hell mode))
My Paladin rocks. He needs a better weapon, sure, but with Fanatacism and Charge maxed, he can do upwards of 2000 damage.
I’m getting kicked in the teeth by immune monsters. My ice mage is currently spinning her wheels trying to get to Andarial in hell mode. I have belatedly started putting points into fire skills, I actually have semi good hydra skills, but not much else, and god forbid if I run into a monster immune to both fire and cold, I’m next to powerless. Anything that cold can hurt, tho, I kick it’s ass.
That’s why I’ve been focusing on all three trees with my sorc
She’s currently in Act IV Hell, and pretty much walking. She just finished off Izual, and is about to descend into the River of Flame.
Weirddave, how did you handle Duriel in Nightmare? He’s immune to cold in both Nightmare and Hell difficulties.
