Diablo General

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Pierre D'Olnique said:
That being said, I never finished LoD Hell with necro. I can't imagine summons living for more than a few seconds under all that constant projectile spam.
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Speaking as someone whose entire family has only ever played ARPGs "offline solo self-found" as the kids say these days, when I came back and played through D2LoD last year I was really disappointed to find out you can't even beat Normal as a dedicated summonmancer. Or as a summonmancer with some utility Curses.

Diablo and Baal both have at least a couple attacks that will just 1-hit all of your summons, even if you're Lv35+ and exclusively specced for Summons. I respecced a fuckton thanks to PlugY, and I couldn't find anything that could be done about this short of maybe grinding to a stupid level or doing the kind of exploits I see online players do (e.g. transferring OP items from another character to the necro, stat boosting with charms, other things that require prior playthroughs or assistance from other players), cheese tactics like leaving the boss fight 30 times to find corpses to redo summons, or just respeccing to be entirely Bone/Poison for the bosses (which is what I went with) -- all of which I just see as cheating, tbh.

It was kind of a jarring moment seeing with my own eyes that one of the most lauded games of all time is so unbalanced that there's at least two occasions with a character where you outright can't beat even the easiest difficulty without exploits.
 
Lurkerish Kandor said:
It was kind of a jarring moment seeing with my own eyes that one of the most lauded games of all time is so unbalanced that there's at least two occasions with a character where you outright can't beat even the easiest difficulty without exploits.
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D2 is one of the most unbalanced games in the genre, we love it because its a good game, not because its particularly fair, Paladin EXISTS and is about 3 tiers higher in power than everyone else (except now his equal, Warlock)
 
Pierre D'Olnique said:
That being said, I never finished LoD Hell with necro. I can't imagine summons living for more than a few seconds under all that constant projectile spam.
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Oh they survive just fine in hell. My necro's summons lasted long enough against Baal that the revives timed out. The issue is that they did such little damage, the fight lasted long enough for my revives to time out. I had to go find some crushing blow gear for my merc to have any hope with Baal, he regen'd faster than my summons could damage him. My warlock just stomped him in like 7 seconds at a far lower level with far worse gear. Half my stuff was just blues with magic find I rolled from vendors. That's not to mention the fact that you can actually control your summons as a warlock, which necromancers can't do without a fucking enigma. Warlock is pretty retarded, he seems to be better at everything than every other class. I wish I learned of this thread way sooner :(

draggs said:
Abyss for physical immune enemies.
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Sir, you've got access to a summon which casts amplify damage on hit. Re-roll lister a few times until you get Cursed, the physical immunes will get blown up just as quickly as the rest of the game.
 
Swine Schwein said:
FUCKING RUNEWORDS
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Lurkerish Kandor said:
doing the kind of exploits I see online players do (e.g. transferring OP items from another character to the necro, stat boosting with charms, other things that require prior playthroughs or assistance from other players)
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I mean yes, you are correct, but in my book that's a "requires prior playthroughs" thing, because the chances of getting all parts of a runeword by the end of a new game run is astronomical -- if you can even get any useful runewords in Normal and offline.

I frankly don't know much about runewords in D2 because that's just not really a thing I have access to. D2 is not my hobby, so I don't have this pre-existing stable of items/characters that I can use to force things to be viable.

I had a similar frustration with HellDivers2: All the advice I got to cope with solo play was based around already having access to post-lv20 stratagems and upgrades. That's cool if you're already there but the process of getting there sucks and it just means I didn't get to have fun during my time with the game.
 
The Secret Sauce said:
Warlock is pretty retarded, he seems to be better at everything than every other class. I wish I learned of this thread way sooner :(
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he is not better than the Paladin, but he is cooler, he's not much worse than him though.
the problem is all the other classes are borked, the game is just built on bad bones, getting to the endgame results in you realizing the inherent flaws the lot of the classes were built on, nothing can be done about it beyond reworking them.
 
Zenos Yae Viator said:
he is not better than the Paladin, but he is cooler, he's not much worse than him though.
the problem is all the other classes are borked, the game is just built on bad bones, getting to the endgame results in you realizing the inherent flaws the lot of the classes were built on, nothing can be done about it beyond reworking them.
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The way I see it, the warlock was designed to succeed with little to no items. Take any class into hardcore and try to play through with only the items you find yourself, and most will hit a brick wall at the beginning of Hell in my experience. You usually need an infinity or some kind of dual element build to get through on casters, and melee classes just need a ton of good gear to survive Hell. Warlock gets the tankiest minions, the most damaging minions, his minion can shatter any immunity with Conviction or Amplify damage, and he gets a ton of -enemy res for free that other classes just don't get. Barbarian can wield most weapons one-handed. Warlock can wield all weapons one-handed, and he gets a bunch of -requirements for free as well. His vitality gives as much life as anyone except the barbarian. You can easily get 50% damage reduction from one skill with really cheap gear. Maybe other classes are better if everyone has great gear, but warlock can seemingly run anything and easily succeed with dogshit gear.
 
The Secret Sauce said:
Sir, you've got access to a summon which casts amplify damage on hit. Re-roll lister a few times until you get Cursed, the physical immunes will get blown up just as quickly as the rest of the game.
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i dont play the game to litrully do nothing but watch my npc frens play the game for me
 
I hate to keep coming back in here to geek out, but I'm having so much fun still and I haven't even touched warlock yet. Even little things like walking over gold to pick it up makes me so happy. I usually avoided the 2 rooms full of gold on Countess runs because I didn't want to click everything, now it's nothing to just run through then go get my runes. I beat normal yesterday and was starting nightmare but struggled because my gear is shit. I've been spending so much time hording gear for future characters that I'm still using weapons I found in Act 1 normal.

Now that I beat normal I see that I must have been confusing terror zones with the parts where you fight Uber bosses, and terror zones are actually pretty good for early grinding. It's probably still better to just do Baal/CS runs but it's nice having the variety when a good zone gets terrorized. I got some extra levels and a runeword for my bow merc so now I'm able to do Nightmare Countess runs comfortably. I've been holding an avenger helm with +3 Battle Orders and +2 Iron skin so I turned it into a Hearth because I'm sick of being frozen all the time. I'm having shit lucking finding anything with more than 3 sockets to get a good chest piece or sword, but hopefully that will change. For now I'm gonna get a collection of runes going then maybe hit some more terror zones or the cow level. I also want to start warlock soon before Blizzard decides to put out a patch nerfing it, maybe this weekend I'll make one.
 
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Hamburger Detractor said:
terror zones are actually pretty good for early grinding.
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I still haven't touched the terror zones, might do that today off sick anyway.

*edit just did some terror zones and got a complete set of gear for a low level toon. Then i ran some cows in hell to vacuum up the set and unique items people didn't want i just got full geared for my warlock in about 20 minutes.
 
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I love how you can try to have a plan to do something, then the game says "fuck you, do this instead". I wanted to stick with my bow merc, I figured the cold arrow was good for my barb and I just made an Edge runeword with a shitload of extra damage on demons and undead, plus I always end up using the Act 2 merc and wanted to do something different. Then as soon as I take one step out of Lut Gholein a monster drops a Superior Bill (polearm) with 4 sockets and Ethereal. So I guess I'm going back to the Countess for runes to make Insight then picking up a prayer aura merc.
I also upgraded to double Spirit swords. I was thinking about going all in on skill boosts and making a Myth armor, but I didn't want to give up resistances. Then my brain told me "skill boosts can give lots of resistances". I told him to explain. My brain then told me barbarians have skills to add resistance and defense which will get a +7 boost between all my gear and Battle Command. So that sounds like a good plan, I might as well also respec so I can start using whirlwind instead of just being a basic frenzy barb. Between having 500+ mana and all the regen I feel like I can just spam infinite whirlwinds and that will work better than leap attacking everything (as much fun as it is to do). At this rate I feel like I can coast through the rest of nightmare by tonight or tomorrow morning, then I can take a break and start the warlock.

Edit: After putting it into practice, I can technically do infinite whirlwinds, but it drains the fuck out of my weapons' durability. I guess swords weren't the best option, or at least not dimensional blades. I'll just have to control it better until I find something with more durability to socket.
 
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I wanted to share that I found shako on a random mob after entering a freshly terrorized lower Kurast, but instead have this magnificent find:

Hephasto with holy freeze and cursed. Probably the best combo you can have, since it not only makes him hit super hard but also makes reaper's toll obsolete. I accidentally sacrificed one with fanaticism and went back on a hunt to get a new one, and as it turns out the bound demons retain ALL effects they had, so this guy automatically freezes and casts amplify damage on every monster on screen then proceeds to kill them in one hit.

I also want to drive home how durable the bound demons are. Heralds, if they do spawn, pretty much always can onetap my merc. The summon tanks them like they're nothing.
 
So i redid my skills to get bind demon, i got hephasto and derped while trying to kill diablo and bound a low tier demon. I was so mad still can't kill big D by myself on normal yet, might be able to do with Hephy if i don't fuck it up.

Also it might just be me i tried to get Lister bound and it just refused to work, anyone else experienced this before?
 
Anyone here used jamella before? My father showed me it a very long time ago to edit your own items. It was buggy as fuck but fun to use.
 
Nightmare as a javazon is some of the most fun I've had with the game. I've got a fair bit of gear built up (personal and 3/4 of my shared stash tabs are filled with Set and Unique items which is more than I've ever gathered) so it might make sense to try out another class soon.

Some parts of hell are completely fine, some are complete walls. I need to work on getting a different damage type set up but have used two of my three respecs - if I mess this one up I'm out of luck until I gather essences (which is unlikely). So in the meantime I'm just farming Nightmare Meph and Hell cows. I'm holding on to any poison charms I get just in case I need to lean on them to build some extra damage.

There's a slight delay between hitting the weapon swap button and it actually swapping. I frequently try to weapon swap after a teleport, and accidentally teleport right into the middle of the pack I wanted to attack from afar. This is never a recoverable error so I've mostly been content with just getting extra run/walk speed on gear and speeding up my farming that way.
 
I played a little javazon on classic, but hit the wall in Hell because 80% of the monsters after the first area were lightning immune. Hell seems to be the limit for me on any character, I just don't know enough about what gear to get and everything good needs materials you get from runs in Hell. I just tried to do the first quest with my barbarian at 66 and couldn't even kill anything unless I pulled one at a time. Trying to solo Nightmare cows didn't go so well either so I guess I'm going to have to stick with terror zones for awhile until I can make better gear. As much as I love the skill boosts I don't think Spirit and Myth are going to cut it and I need the extra stats and bonuses from other gear. I really need to get some skill charms but as far as I know they're in NM cows, so fuck me I guess. I could try to join some public games even though I'm sure the lag will be an issue. It's been better since the last server maintenance, but I still notice some slowdowns and getting randomly teleported during fights. Plus I don't know how pvp works and don't want to risk losing anything from a bullshit death. I think it's time to switch classes anyways and finally try warlock.
 
Hamburger Detractor said:
I played a little javazon on classic, but hit the wall in Hell because 80% of the monsters after the first area were lightning immune. Hell seems to be the limit for me on any character, I just don't know enough about what gear to get and everything good needs materials you get from runs in Hell. I just tried to do the first quest with my barbarian at 66 and couldn't even kill anything unless I pulled one at a time. Trying to solo Nightmare cows didn't go so well either so I guess I'm going to have to stick with terror zones for awhile until I can make better gear. As much as I love the skill boosts I don't think Spirit and Myth are going to cut it and I need the extra stats and bonuses from other gear. I really need to get some skill charms but as far as I know they're in NM cows, so fuck me I guess. I could try to join some public games even though I'm sure the lag will be an issue. It's been better since the last server maintenance, but I still notice some slowdowns and getting randomly teleported during fights. Plus I don't know how pvp works and don't want to risk losing anything from a bullshit death. I think it's time to switch classes anyways and finally try warlock.
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By dumb coincidence you picked two of the most gear dependent characters, melee characters are generally more gear dependent than casters and Javazon is near unplayable in Hell without one or both of Infinity + a Lower Resist wand.

If you want to get through Hell without grinding or public games the Bone Necromancer is a safe bet, very few things are immune or even resistant to magic damage and Bone Wall/Bone Prison helps keep enemies away from you. Wind Druid is in a similar boat, he gets two damage types + a ton of bulk from Oak Sage + Cyclone Armor + Grizzly (it's not there to deal damage, it's there to sponge hits).
 
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