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No it's not. Mage Plate is the highest STR req armor that you should use a for a Druid, most Druids actually go for a Light Plate, or Breast Plate.
It is so because Druids have exremely low defence (just what they are wearing, no bonuses from skills), therefore, it won't differ whether you are wearing Breast Plate or Sacred Armor (lol).
metallix wrote:Single element sorcs are doomed. Unless you don't plan playing beyond Nightmare difficulty, that is -- which is pretty dumb, because Hell is where it's all at.
Bielementalist is the way to go, plus a merc for the pesky monsters taht are immune to both elements you are using.
Trielementalist is only for the seasoned players, because they are extremely hard to plan out and level.
You couldn't be more wrong. Lightning sorcs have the most damage dealing potential in the entire game. Hybrid sorcs of all kind are doomed in LOD (they are fine in Classic) ever since 1.10 came out, because synergies are everything. And Trielementalists are for noobs lol, I'd love to duel one someday. There's nothing really to planning out a char, and leveling one is a joke (I can make 1->80 in ~4 hours).
Koki wrote:Tri are impossible to make.
How many cold immunes are there on NM? I've been thinking of making pure Blizzardess, it's damage is crazy and it has three fucking synergies. This would be catastrophic proportions char(I don't care for Hell).
A Blizzard sorc would be an excellent option for a poor player. If you ever decide to play on bnet, let me know and I'll hook you up with equipment. If playing by yourself, I'd recommend higher FCR (faster cast rate) and high resists over damage and +skills.
However, nothing can ever live up to the damage potential of a lightning sorc, if also the mercinary has the Infinity runeword. Godly.
Oh and boywoos:
Max out the spell Lightning, and all of it's synergies. Don't bother with Thunderstorm and Warmth.
By the way, if anyone is interested, I wrote a basic sorc MF guide in another forum a while ago, but here it is, lol (made it a bit shorter as well and did not bother including the screenies).
MF guide.
This is a build that I have developed over years and has been built for running Andariel, Mephisto and Pindleskin, however running Countess, Diablo, Duriel, Summoner, Eldritch and Hell Cows is equally possible. 700% magic find can easily be reached without sacrificing too much power:
NB: Remember this is a MF guide, not a guide to killing bosses.
Equipment:
Helmet: PTopazed Harlequin Crest - The best MF helm out there. 74% MF, +2 skills, 10% DR, over 100 life + mana. What more could You ask for?
Griswold's helmet: with 2xPTopazes [Ists if You're a freak] provides a little bit more, however it's mods are just dire considered to those of The Harlequin Crest.)
Armor: PTopazed Skullder's Ire - Awesome MF with +1 skills. Try getting this Ethereal.
Belt: Goldwrap - Beats Tal's belt by 15% MF. Upgrade this at least once.
Rings: Dual Nagelrings,or any rings that have more than 30% MF. The crappy mods of a Nagelring are easily sacrificable. Try to find the Fortuitous Ring of Fortune, which can have up to 40% MF with other handy stats.
Amulet: Any high Magical MF amulet,try aiming above 30%. Fortuitous Amulet of Fortune can have up to 50% MF with other handy stats.
Gloves: Chance Guards
Boots: Wartravelers - Best MF boots out there with nice mods.
Switch 1:
Weapon: Wizardspike - (optionally, You may socket it with the Rainbow Facet of Your build for more damage)
Shield: Moser's Blessed Circle (With 2 PDiamonds)
In hell, set one gives You +68 all resists, meaning that You only need another +7 to reach the max. Resists are the single most important thing when MF'ing.
Switch 2:
Weapon: 2x Ist'ed Ali Baba
Gull - An alternative if You haven't got the 2xISTs quite yet.
Shield: Rhyme runeword shield - 25%MF, 20 resist all, Cannot Be Frozen
4xIST Monarch if You're rich
The whole idea of this build is that You have max resist with about 500% MF and You switch over to the 2nd Set when giving the final blow to the Bosses. This can raise Your MF to about 800% or even higher, haven't done the calculations yet. Oh and add a Gheed's.
Tal Rasha's Set's combo: (I updated this section since it's a large source of debate)
Tal Rasha's Amulet + Armor + Amulet = 192 MF (88+24+15+65)
Skullder's + Magic MF amu + Goldwrap = 209 MF (115+24+30+40)@lvl92
As You see, the difference is minute, a mere 17 MF @lvl 92. Which one to use?
Tal's set gives a whole load of extra resistances, however those shall be unnecessary with the equipment suggested above. It also gives +1 more skills than the default. It has 17 less MF. The 10% FCR provided by the combination is not going to boost the 50% on the Wizardspike a lot. Powerwise, Tal's combination is *NOT* going to make a difference. On the other hand, it's a lot more expensive. I would much rather sell those 3 items for runes. Once again, I would go for the default equipment, suggested above.
I've left out the Oculus. Why? Because even IST'ed, it cannot compare to the MF of Gull or Alibaba, therefore it's useless on the switch. Also, it is crappy compared to Wizardspike. It does give +3 to sorc skills, however, it has a much slower cast rate, (20% compared to 50% on Wizzy) and less resistances (20% compared to 75%). When doing bosses, remember resistances, resistances and resistances. With full resists You can tank Mephisto easily.
Stats:
Strength: Enough for gear, I usually go for 97 (required for Skullder's Ire)
Dexterity: 75 (necessary for Wizardspike [Alternatively, You could use a Hel'd Ethereal Wizardspike to put less into dexterity, but I think that 75 is decent, as it also gives You a little chance to bloack])
Vitality: rest
Energy: It is *helpful* to have some points here (I'll touch on this later)
Skills:
The essentials
Warmth: 1 point (personal choice, You don't need this, but I think that it's worth it)
Static: 1 point
Teleport: 1 point (duh! obviously!)
Shiver Armor: 1 (a must have), possibly more if You go for the Orb build.
Energy Shield: 1 A helpful skill to have, especially on the light sorc, however if You are makeing a Blizzard build You may choose to leave this one out, since it requires a whole load of prerequisites.
Mercinary:
The way that the merc works in MF'ing is that if he scores the kill, his MF is added on top of Your's, however, if You kill the monster, it's only Your MF that counts.
The aim is to have a good tank, not a killer, You can take care of the killing Yourself, so I suggest either:
Act 2 merc with Defiance: Boosts Your and his defence. Useful.
Act 2 merc with Holy Freeze: EXTREMELY HELPFUL! Even if You have a cold sorc. Why? Because he slows the enemies down, so that they're easier to hit, and he also slows down cold immunes, something that a cold sorc is completely helpless against.
Act 5 merc: I occasionally use these, because they have better resists.
Equipment for merc:
Armor: Personally, I find that more DR on Your merc works much better than extra defence. Also, try to get all of Your merc equipment ethereal.
Helmet - Vampire Gaze, cheap, get it with 20% DR. If You cannot afford one, Rockstopper will do.
Shako - less DR but gives life and mana. I prefer Gaze. If You choose Shako, make sure that it's etheral. eShako costs next to nothing.
If You decide on act5 merc, use Immortal King's Helmet. Try to get it with perfect MF%, then socket it with 2xPTopaz and You'll have 88% MF on the merc alone.
Armor - Shaftstop. GOLDY! Especially if ethereal. Socket it with whatever You like, preferrably "UM" if You're using an act2 merc.
Shaftstop + Gaze combo = 50% DR (max). Your merc practically never dies MF'ing, even if Pindle's minions charge right at him. This combo is also good for doing the Cow Level.
Weapon:
Act 2 merc: Eth Colossous Voulge Insight if You are not aiming for damage. However, it means that You have to socket his armor with +STR stuff. The key with Insight is that it provides mana regeneration.
Eth Colossous Voulge Obedience - another good choice, especially of You're into the Cow Level. Take Your merc to Stony Field, let him pwn some Fallen until his Enchant kicks in. Godly damage. Also, it provides the resists that Your merc is going to need to get max. Oh, and like Insight it's CHEAP!
Act 5 merc: Ethereal Flamebellow. Nice damage, cheap, especially good if You're a light or cold sorc for taking down those immunes.
Strategies:
I've experimented with different builds:
Fire sorc:
Andariel - teleport directly to Andariel. Don't bother with killing anybody around her, just blast at her. 3-4 Fire Balls, she's dead. Simple, however it is extremely helpful to have a decent merc here.
Countess - You need to have a mercinary that does a lot of damage, otherwise the runs get really tiresome and take ages.
Eldritch - easy, just have Your mercinary tank them and blast them with Meteors and Fire Balls
Summoner - easy
Cold Sorc: Orb-Blizzard pros and cons
Blizzard pro - always more damage than Orb,
Blizzard cons - annoying to aim even if You've mastered it, because the monster can move out of the way. Requires all of Your skill points.
Frozen Orb cons - weaker than Blizzard.
Frozen Orb pros - (A personal choice) Easy to aim, does decent damage once You've maxed out the synergy and mastery. Leaves You more skill points to play with. You can now put lots in Enegy Shield and Energy. My build had max Orb, max Ice Bolt and max Cold Mastery and it does awesome damage. Now I put the rest in Energy Shield and about 150 into Energy. Even though You cut down drastically on HP, this is very useful.
Andariel - cold sorc is the best, no cold immunes. She goes down really quick, especially with Orb.
Countess - once again, like for Fire, a tough merc is required.
Eldritch - impossible, unless You have Your merc to kill them, however it's a waste of time, because his drop isn't all that good. (I got a BER once though)
Summoner - easy
Lightning tree sorc:
A good choice, because You can use it with MMbot, however some monsters can be hard.
Andariel - not that good, but can be done rather easily. Also there can be annoying immunes, which isn't the case with a cold sorc.
Eldritch - same as Pindle, the ultimate killer
Summoner - eazy peazy as usual
Mephisto strategies:
Fire/Cold sorcs:
Key to Mephrunning is understanding his "behaviour". Always make a TP when You reach him, just in case he kills You when You're using Your MF set. Always teleport to the same place. This means that Meph is always going to use one way to get at You, making it easier to drop a Meteor or Blizzard. It's also better to let him come at You, because that way You won't attract the Ghoul Lords. Then, tele up to him and get his life to 50% with Static, tele away and start moving parallel to him and keep casting. It is actually very simple, just time Your attacks right after You have moved out of the way of his attacks.
All builds, but mainly Light Sorcs:
Because MF Light sorcs are not the best builds for Mephing, I suggest that You use this method:
Meph "bug".
You have to teleport so that Meph gets stuck behind the stairs (screenshot), meaning that You can blast at him with whatever You've got without him being able to attack You. Once You get the hang of it, it should be rather easy and handy to use if You're weaker (I can't really be bothered to do it, but if You're desperate, why not?)
NB1: This does *NOT* work with an Orb sorc. (bad range)
NB2: This does *NOT* work with a mercinary.
Pindleskin:
This is simple as long as You have a good tank. Tele to Pindle's room so that Your merc is also inside the room. Then just start blasting with whatever You've got. If Your element is his immunity then just let Your merc finish him off. The merc plays a key role in this.
Diablo:
This is a tough one to run with any sorc, since the Chaos Sanctuary has all kinds of immunes. I have not tried this with any sorc besides Blizzard, however theoretically it is possible if You have a powerful merc. I suggest that You don't try it with a Fire sorc though. I don't recommend that You do this, because it is dangerous, costly and the rewards are usually quite meager, however, I'll put the basic idea up and You can do whatever You like with it. Using the Wizardspike is the key. You really need as much resists and cast rate as You can.
The idea is: Teleport to the seals, past any monsters that You may encounter, open the seals, never stand in one place for longer than half a second. Cast Blizzard, teleport, repeat. The seal with the Grand Vizier of Chaos is the easiest. Lord de Seis is also pretty easy, it's the monsters around him that can cause a problem. Also, if he spawns cold immune, You just have to kill everybody around and let Your merc finish him off. With the last seal, once again, hope that the Infector of Souls won't spawn with cold immunity. Killing Diablo himself is pretty easy, just cast and move, You don't even need to teleport. Only teleport if Your merc is getting killed.
Duriel:
Same as for Diablo, Wizardspike with it's cast rate and resistances is the key. This is actually far easier than most people seem to think. Teleport to the Summoner, kill him, look at the 6 signs that are there and think which one is missing. With a little practice, that shouldn't take You longer than 5 seconds. Just teleport to the correct tomb (they are always in the same locations), inside, teleport around until You find the correct room, and then just keep teleing from one end of the room to the other, over him, casting whatever You use. If Your merc has 50% Damage Reduction and 75% cold resist, then this is child's play.
You couldn't be more wrong. Lightning sorcs have the most damage dealing potential in the entire game. Hybrid sorcs of all kind are doomed in LOD (they are fine in Classic) ever since 1.10 came out, because synergies are everything.
I understand that, but how are you supposed to deal with the immunes, which are aplenty in hell? With just a merc -- well, that might work, but ONLY with a twinkled char, because merc will need some very uber gear to be hardy enough in hell.
And no, partying up with other ppl is not an option/solution here.
You couldn't be more wrong. Lightning sorcs have the most damage dealing potential in the entire game. Hybrid sorcs of all kind are doomed in LOD (they are fine in Classic) ever since 1.10 came out, because synergies are everything.
I understand that, but how are you supposed to deal with the immunes, which are aplenty in hell? With just a merc -- well, that might work, but ONLY with a twinkled char, because merc will need some very uber gear to be hardy enough in hell.
And no, partying up with other ppl is not an option/solution here.
This bad boy on your merc will take care of 90% of immunes.
The other 10%can easily be avoided, or your merc can kill them manually. Of course, there are no immune bosses.
Of course no party. Your merc is actually very easy to keep alive if you use the correct equipment, i.e. eth Fortitude Archon Plate (or Shaftstop would be a cheap alternative) and for headgear, go for Crown of Ages (Vampire Gaze/Veil of Steel = cheap alternatives). You will be killing so fast that your merc hardly ever takes a hit.
boywoos wrote:Synergies?
If you hold your mouse cursor over a skill in the skill tree window, it will say something like: "this skill will recive a x% bonus from the following skills". Skills that give bonuses to others are called synergies.
Koki wrote:Lighting might have highest damage potential, but if I can choose between 1-100 damage and 40-60 damage I choose the latter.
And twinked means with items you get from others, gain with other chars through ATMA, etc. Untwinked means "Only items you find yourself".
And I haven't seen a single Tri-'ess build, ever.
I used to play Diablo for years in single player, so I used ATMA to transfer stuff imbetween my chars. I did not see this as any kind of cheating, since if I had played on bnet, I would just have been able to mule easily. Of course, I only transferred items that I had found with my other chars. I actually had a lvl 91 amazon in SP (legit, of course).
Tri sorcs would be like the most retarded idea ever. I cannot think of any monster that would spawn with a dual immunity (actually countess is immune to 2 elements, and probably some randomly spawned monster, but your merc can take care of that). Hybrids were made extremely weak in 1.10 and to be honest, you won't need them anyway (Infinity polearm on merc, however, there are some sorcs that actually use Infinity themselves).
If you want a small damage gap, go for a Fire sorc.
Fucking christ, level 91? I had a level 60 or 70 something Paladin and quit. Keep in mind I took a 2 month break at the halfway point. And I cheated. But a character beyond level 60 can kill any monster with one hit. Shit, you kill one guy and the rest explode from the sight of you. Fuck Diablo for being fun for 5 minutes followed by hours of tedium. Now I'm remembering the 5 minutes I had fun and have the urge to play again.
What I'm playing:
I just beat Freespace 2 with the FS Open port I posted about. Awesome stuff. Uninstalled.
Half Life 2 SMOD is something I have fun with once in a while. Basically some guy added to the singleplayer campaign a shit load of better weapons, more and several new monsters, randomized enemies, iron sights, bullet time, better physics and blood, a few more NPC's, tweaked levels, and my favorite the "Gordon kick" (think Duke Nukem 3D).
ChaosUT2 for UT2004 has my attention again. There was a new release a while ago and I decided to check that out. The one on one melee combat is so addictive. I challenge any of you animals to take me on. I am god with a bastard sword.
Deus Ex with Shifter Mod v.1.6 with Shifter OL (further tweaks to 1.6). Adds more weapons, augs and balances to the singleplayer game. More weapons are throwable. For example, you can stack a dozen combat knives and throw them like you would a throwing knife. Other stuff can be picked up and hurt or kill people depending on weight. Enemies are significantly improved. They're more aware of their surroundings, have better accuracy, etc. It's all tweakable. I don't remember where to find this mod, but if someone wants it I can email or upload somewhere.
Koki wrote:Lighting might have highest damage potential, but if I can choose between 1-100 damage and 40-60 damage I choose the latter.
And twinked means with items you get from others, gain with other chars through ATMA, etc. Untwinked means "Only items you find yourself".
And I haven't seen a single Tri-'ess build, ever.
I used to play Diablo for years in single player, so I used ATMA to transfer stuff imbetween my chars. I did not see this as any kind of cheating, since if I had played on bnet, I would just have been able to mule easily. Of course, I only transferred items that I had found with my other chars. I actually had a lvl 91 amazon in SP (legit, of course).
Tri sorcs would be like the most retarded idea ever. I cannot think of any monster that would spawn with a dual immunity (actually countess is immune to 2 elements, and probably some randomly spawned monster, but your merc can take care of that). Hybrids were made extremely weak in 1.10 and to be honest, you won't need them anyway (Infinity polearm on merc, however, there are some sorcs that actually use Infinity themselves).
If you want a small damage gap, go for a Fire sorc.
Bers are fucking expensive runes, how do you get such costy items? I reckon, a 4 sock eth cryptic axe isn't easy to come by as well.
I traded a bit as well back in the days, but my equipment was only worth like ~25IST altogether.
Koki wrote:Lighting might have highest damage potential, but if I can choose between 1-100 damage and 40-60 damage I choose the latter.
And twinked means with items you get from others, gain with other chars through ATMA, etc. Untwinked means "Only items you find yourself".
And I haven't seen a single Tri-'ess build, ever.
I used to play Diablo for years in single player, so I used ATMA to transfer stuff imbetween my chars. I did not see this as any kind of cheating, since if I had played on bnet, I would just have been able to mule easily. Of course, I only transferred items that I had found with my other chars. I actually had a lvl 91 amazon in SP (legit, of course).
Tri sorcs would be like the most retarded idea ever. I cannot think of any monster that would spawn with a dual immunity (actually countess is immune to 2 elements, and probably some randomly spawned monster, but your merc can take care of that). Hybrids were made extremely weak in 1.10 and to be honest, you won't need them anyway (Infinity polearm on merc, however, there are some sorcs that actually use Infinity themselves).
If you want a small damage gap, go for a Fire sorc.
Bers are fucking expensive runes, how do you get such costy items? I reckon, a 4 sock eth cryptic axe isn't easy to come by as well.
I traded a bit as well back in the days, but my equipment was only worth like ~25IST altogether.
~25 Ists is fine for a PvM character, but it's not enough for PvP. Hell, there are items out there that are worth like 4000 forum gold (Ist = 3 forum gold [www.d2jsp.com]), but that's the more extreme stuff for collectioners. A decent PvP char could be made with ~100 Ists.
You just have to know how to find good stuff, how to trade, etc. Incidentally, it so happens that the rich get richer all the time, while the poor remain poor ;\
For example, look at this beauty:
Bloody hell, that would go for like ~1k fg, I think. Rare items can be extremely godly and therefore are very expensive. My Druid could do with that helm.
Mad Max RW wrote:Fucking christ, level 91? I had a level 60 or 70 something Paladin and quit. Keep in mind I took a 2 month break at the halfway point. And I cheated. But a character beyond level 60 can kill any monster with one hit. Shit, you kill one guy and the rest explode from the sight of you. Fuck Diablo for being fun for 5 minutes followed by hours of tedium. Now I'm remembering the 5 minutes I had fun and have the urge to play again.
Actually my highest is 95 lol (very, VERY close to 96), also have many other chars over level 90 (94 hammerdin, for example).
Yeah, but ever since 1.10 it's not so easy any more (well, depends). You actually have to plan your chars and need to have good equipment.
edit: Anyway, this seems to have become a Diablo thread, so should we perhaps make a new thread?
edit2: By the way, Thor Kaufman, luck does play a large role, for example, I found a perfect Griffon's Eye in the beginning of the ladder season, and have had many other lucky finds.
Thor Kaufman wrote:What's the secret of D2 trading? I tried meph and baal runs for items, but didn't work out that well
Check the edit of my last post, I added some stuff there. Basically, entire diablo 2 trading economy is managed by 2 things:
a) runes and dupers
b) d2jsp forum gold.
There are always people with private dupe methos duping their runes and selling them, eventually making rune prices drop, so as the ladder season progresses, they will all drop. For example, last August when the ladder reset, HR (high rune [Jah, Ber, Zod, Lo, Ohm]) was 300 fg (forum gold at d2jsp), now they are 8 fg.
Depends on when you sell and what you sell. By the end of the season, everyone already has their uniques and runewords, so they will bid more for rare items, such as the one that I posted above.
edit: as an example, when I found my Griffon's, HR was ~80 FG, I sold it for 480 FG, I think, meaning around 6 HRs. If I had sold it now for FG, I would have got 48 FG.
I decided to keep most of my FG and only use runes for buying the items that I needed, so I now have 1100+fg at d2jsp. It's also good to have spares for next ladder reset.
By the way, rune prices are decided by their usefulness as single items, and their usefulness in runewords. For example, Cham is the 2nd highest rune (after Zod), but it's not worth as much as Ber, because Ber is in many crucial runewords and has amazing adds individually as well (crushing blow and damage reduction).
ri sorcs would be like the most retarded idea ever. I cannot think of any monster that would spawn with a dual immunity
Hah, man you must be eating some amnesia pills. There are tons of dual-immunes in hell. My sorcie that has only two elements had a real hard time with some of the super uniques. Like, some of the Coucil members in Travincal and Durance of hate -- and that was a big problem, because although I could just ignore them and run away like a teen-bitch, it would mean that I lose some potentially good loot and exp. Plus, it just looks kinda weird, when your seemingly almighty 90+ sorc runs away from some 80- lvl mob.
And only a UBERLY-equipped merc can take care of those guys. And I'm not that rich to twinkle him like a goddamn christmas tree, eh.
ri sorcs would be like the most retarded idea ever. I cannot think of any monster that would spawn with a dual immunity
Hah, man you must be eating some amnesia pills. There are tons of dual-immunes in hell. My sorcie that has only two elements had a real hard time with some of the super uniques. Like, some of the Coucil members in Travincal and Durance of hate -- and that was a big problem, because although I could just ignore them and run away like a teen-bitch, it would mean that I lose some potentially good loot and exp. Plus, it just looks kinda weird, when your seemingly almighty 90+ sorc runs away from some 80- lvl mob.
And only a UBERLY-equipped merc can take care of those guys. And I'm not that rich to twinkle him like a goddamn christmas tree, eh.
But that's because even though sorcs are good started characters, in the end they need good equipment to rip shit by themselves.
Frater Perdurabo wrote:If you want a small damage gap, go for a Fire sorc.
Why? Cold does bigger damage, freezes/slows down and shatters annoying fuckers so they can't be revived.
And mana is not a problem.
The main damage behind Cold spells comes from Blizzard, but Blizzard has a long cast delay, so it's a nuisance, because you will have to finish everyone off with Ice Blast/Glacial Spike anyway.
The main damage behind Fire spells comes from Fireball. I built a Fire sorc for a clanmate a few months ago, it did over 20k damage with Fireball, and had a fast cast rate. It never died either, because I used Pheonix Monarch (VexVexLoJah, so it's quite expensive).
Cold sorcs are good to start out with but get tedious after a while. Oh, and if you make a fire sorc, make sure you max out all the synergies, even Meteor (even though you are not going to use it, but it adds damage).
Stainless wrote:I'm half tempted to start playing again. Although, I'm more of a necro minion master user.
Summoners need godly gear to be efficient, and even then, most other chars with equal gear will be tons better ;\
Koki wrote:I'm not even playing D2 at the moment. All this talk makes me consider it though.
Even if I did, I will continue with my Pal. Act I makes me puke.
Oh man, I love act1, it's my favourite. Anyway, if playing with a Paladin, I strongly suggest that you may either a Hammerdin, or a Smiter.
Hammerdins can deal out ~18k unblockable unresistable magic damage, so they are pretty godly in PvM. Not that great in PvP though. Smiter is the choice for you if you want to be melee, since Smite always hits, so AR won't be a problem. Also, amazing at bosskilling.
Too late, it's Zeal-something. I don't even remember... Fanaticism...? Yeah, that.
Hammerdins, Smitters... I like to have my character remotely likeable. Throwing hammers was in Mario, and attacking mainly with Shield is like WTF. So no way I'm making a retarded char like that.
