Never imbue a weapon, and never imbue when you first get it if you plan on going to nightmare. In nightmare you get better items to imbue, and it will be worth it to have the two imbues remaining. A good set of armor will take you further than any weapon.
I finally beat hell/hell and became a duke. I am now offically Diabloed out. Till the expansion.
Chocobo: I’m sure you’ve read the math on the BG/IM combo, right? Have IM return 325% damage, and your BG will actually gain health every time he gets hit (melee damage). Unless, of course, the one hit kills him. And if this happens, you have bigger problems…
MadPoet, I imbued a battle hammer, and I bet that weapon would kick the ass of almost every weapon you could find with few exceptions.
My current weapon is a kick-ass ancient sword…the stats follow.
Raven Brand Ancient Sword.
54-132 damage
220 durability
Fast attack speed
6% life stolen per hit
Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-16 lightning damage
+229 to attak rating
+9 to maximum damage
My normal damage per hit is 214-529. With concentration it goes up 195%, I think.
Diabloed out??! are you kidding>? you have to play online with all the other character types 
its a lot of fun …
I know, this is just the beginning. i just needed to feel satisfied by finishing the game. i started a new necro and its pretty fun, im enjoying the new strategies and new skills, and playing online more.
I am going to try to keep playing my other character to get him as far as i can too…
oh i forgot to ask, does anyone have any good stratgies for allocating skill and stat points, etc for the necromancer?
I just beat the game for the first time with my Level 27 Paladin. I was having a rough time with Diablo, and got killed approx. 10 times until I went to town and picked up a Deadly War Sceptre of the Glacier, which did only 10-19 damage but also included +4 Cold damage which froze Diablo’s flaming butt quite nicely.
Now I’m ready to visit the cows for my first time…How the hell do I get to Tristam to get the peg-leg?
chief, read back through this thread. I haven’t played a necromancer yet but I’ve got a bundle of notes of good tips on how to develop the character, courtesy of diabolic Diablo Dopers. Let me try and decipher my notes: “Teeth is good, Amplify Damage to level 2, Raise Skeleton level 1, “pump points into Corpse Explosion”, Clay Golem max at level 1 and combine it with Amplify Damage. After level 12 pump Iron Maiden, get Blood Golem at level 18 then add a couple of points to Golem Mastery.” As for your necromancer character, apparently you need high Strength and lots of Energy (mana) but there is very little need to build Vitality or Dexterity.
Anyway, read back through the thread for lots of necromancer tips. As for you Voltaire, I guess you’ve been paying Cain all through the game to identify items since you obviously didn’t get to Tristram in Act 1 to rescue him. In Act 1 a red portal appears in camp that takes you to Tristram and you are supposed to rescue Cain. Wirt’s corpse is north of the town by the stream and that’s where you get his leg. If Diablo killed you 10 times the cows will make cow pie out of you.
Chief: You’ll find more in depth point allocations on diabloii.net, but here’s my thoughts. Get a couple skels early - they’ll be all you need. Put points in skel mastery early as well (they’ll also work towards your “revived” creatures later on, and it’s easier to add points now than later - this’ll also toughen up your skels).
After that, focus on: Iron Maiden, the golems (focusing on BG of course, ignore CG except to move down the tree), golem mastery, bone spear, and corpse explosion. You’ll probably find that as you progress through the game (say Act 2 and more) that BS and CE will be your best offensive spells. (BS to take out resurrectors, CE to clear doorways and large groups of baddies.)
Note: You’ll want to bump IM up to 300-325% as soon as you get your BG (or have it ready beforehand), see my “math” post above. Also, don’t put any points in clay golem, as it will be strong enough while it’s around, but worthless compared to blood and, later, fire golems.
Um, Voltaire, dunno how to tell you this, but I heard that paladins tend to get shredded pretty badly in the cow level. My roommate was level 28 when he killed Diablo fairly easily and died within 20 seconds of entering the cow level… I’m sure there are good strategies to be used, but he sure as heck didn’t know 'em. Good luck…
I was L27 when I cleared the Cow level for the first time with a Paladin. It was simply tedious. I ran in circles around the first group, being careful not to go too far and activate other cows. I picked off a few, then ran somemore. After that, I would activate a new group of cows, the pick them off, retreating as needed to avoid being surrounded. Simple.
To get to Tristam from the Pandemonium Fortress, simply step on the waypoint, click the act I tab at the top, goto the stony field, find the carin stones, then activate the portal to Tristam and go rip Wirt’s peg leg off of his still twiching body, you horrible, horrible man! One you have it a portal takes you back to the rogue encampment, which is where you have to be to activate cow level anyway.Oh, of course, all this is done on normal dificulty.
Glacial Spike works wonders in the cow level; cows are, I imagine, what you would see if you took a magnifying glass to a Swarm. They stick together like . . . well, like herds of cattle. Glacial Spike has an area effect upon impact; you hit one cow, you’ve hit the herd.
Damn it feels good to be a sorceress
I did get to Tristram but I wasn’t aware of Wirt being there at the time, I guess I missed someone to talk to??? And until now (thanks to weirddave) I didn’t know how to get back to Tristram since it’s not listed on the waypoints.
I’ve been using scrolls of identify in a tome, I’ve always had plenty of money to afford it. Putting the items in the cube seemed to be a pain in the butt.
I feel a bit more confident now with my new +4 cold sceptre, which finished Diablo quite easily after I acquired it. The spiffy new Goldskin armor that Diablo dropped when I offed him doesn’t hurt either.
I just finished killing Diablo again with my second Palidan a few minutes ago. Because I was level 30 I had “Salvation” and, with this aura on, my fire, lightning, and cold resistances were maxed out. I didn’t even have to go to town, just stand toe to toe and slowly hack him down with my unique one-handed axe. He dropped some mediocre items, only one notable item: a set piece ring “Angelic Halo Ring” replenish life +6, +20 to life. It’s part of a set - Angelic Raiment, Wings, Halo, Mantle, Sickle. One would be quite the little angel with that complete set. I guess my next step is to take on the cows, for which I guess I’ll be depending on Holy Hammer and weirddave’s careful strategy. After that I’ll either go through on nightmare mode or maybe fire up a Necromancer (or maybe just give the game a rest and do something wholesome and healthy for a change).
voltaire, you don’t have to talk to anyone to find Wirt’s corpse, it’s just laying there on the ground. I hope you don’t think I was giving you a rough time…we’re all suffering through this marathon game together.
I noticed that when I threw one of the switches and a pack of knights and mages appeared one of them is Lord De Seit. His description includes “thief” and he’s the prick that makes me drop potions off my belt at a rapid rate.
The cow level was kinda tedious, but easy. If you’ve got a level 1 Magic Hammer, it’ll be a breeze. Just get a huge force of cows after you, go somewhere near the portal back to town, then use Hammer until all your mana is gone. Go through the portal, get Akara to rejuv. your character, and repeat. Cheap, but effective.
Y’know, that might be where my roomie went wrong. I know he wasn’t using the hammer, if he even had it. He tried using zeal though… 
Well I just spent a couple of hours this morning trying to do the cow level. Everything was going just tickity-boo and I was following wise old wierddave’s strategy. I had the Magic Hammer skill at level 4 for some time now so I just blasted away and it mowed down the cows. I stuck close to the magic portal, or wandered out to lure cows back to the magic portal, and turned them into beef. I killed the Cow King and another unique. I picked up quite a few low quality gems and (a) the light blue coloured Arcana’s Flesh Light Plate, def. 94, +2 light, damage reduced by 3, part of a set: Arcana’s Tricks, Flesh, Hood, Deathwand, Sign, which I sold for 5000 gold, and (b) unique Demon Spur Boots, def. 6, fast hit recovery, fastest run/walk, +8 dexterity.
Then tragedy struck. I got a little frisky and ran around too much and ended up fighting about 30 or 40 cows at the portal. I got killed and every time I portaled back I couldn’t find my corpse in the mountains of dead beef and all the dropped goods - endurance potions and other items - littering the ground by the portal. I would portal in, look for a around for a split second as I tried to run, a blur of cow axes would descend once, and I would drop dead again. It was hopeless, my corpse was simply not visible. I restarted the game and the portal was gone, so that’s all the cowboying around for me this round.
Anyone up for a B-Net game? I’ll see if one of the SDMB games are open, else I’ll start my own. If I end up starting my own SDMB game, the password would be Cecil.
Name: SDMB
Password: Cecil
Come join me!
Ok, make that “Please join me.” My necromancer’s already been killed once!