24hrs Diablo 2 Challenge: 2, Necros & Tal Runes

Aside 1: The tower is a great alternative place to level up versus Tristram, only if you have a fast character due to the longer time needed to find the Tower and traverse 5 levels. At levels 10+ or 11+, Countess runs actually give more EXP due to a boss pack on almost every level and still has a good chance to drop the early game items I want. The best advantage though is the rune drop at the end. PROTIP: Although the Tower levels are supposed to be randomly generated, go LEFT every time you get to the next level. This works in all difficulties 99% of the time due to the way the randomized sections are generated. There may be 1 or 2 layouts out of 100 where it’s faster to go right, and they only occur in NM and Hell iirc.

Aside 2: I like to use my imbue’s early on to try to roll a useful rare. Otherwise, I usually don’t do use it until I’m trying to roll something very specific in the super late game, in which case I have to look up tons of complicated calculations to figure out the best char level, base item, etc. which I’m not as familiar with. The 3 main options for imbuing were Nec wand, Nec shield, Sorc orb. I decided Nec shield is the best route to use up my quest reward, because a Sorc orb will eventually be replaced by a Spirit sword once I can make it, and a Nec wand can be obtained by shopping or replaced later by Aokl. My Sin also doesn’t need anything other than maybe a Leaf. So Nec shield it is.

Aside 3: Yes you can say I chickened out of Hardcore. There is a good reason for that. I just can’t stand losing all my progress due to a lag spike. I’ve already experiences a few that would have ended a Hardcore run so far, including one where I had to restart my game and my char got rolled back to a state 5 minutes ago. It’s just not something I’m willing to put up with.

Forgive me, Hardcore players!

Aside 4: This is going to be a long section so a cup of coffee may nice to have here. Some people I've seen either skew mostly into Raise Skeleton early to have more of them or 50-50 in each. I like to put literally every point into Skeleton Mastery and let a wand carry my Raise Skeleton skill level as much as possible. My use of early skill points for a summon Nec is going to require a bit of explanation on my overall theory of the early game. As a preface, I have heard and seen multiple schools of thought and this is just the way I personally feel is best.

In the beginning, the 2 most important factors for efficient character progress are 1) AOE and 2) minimum damage. This is why I am very much against twinking a char w/ Khalim’s Flail, which is a popular strategy. I also don’t like Sigon’s Set – I like part of it, specifically the gloves-boots-belt combo, but I never use the entire set to twink a char.

Due to the low amount of HP on most monsters in Act 1 Normal compared to the possible range of single-hit damage output obtainable by low level characters, the fastest way to kill monsters IMO is to scale your char’s damage to be just barely able to kill monsters you face in 1 hit. To use an example, let’s pretend we are standing in the Blood Moor with a sorceress at LVL 1. You have 2 options: 1) firebolt for 3-6 DMG, or physical attack w/ staff for 1-5 DMG. Fallen here have a randomized amount of HP between 1-4. Zombies here are the same between 7-12.

Considering the worst case scenario of max HP when facing a Fallen, firebolt may take 2 hits to kill while staff takes maybe 2, maybe 3, maybe even 4 hits to kill. What if we could guarantee a kill in just 1 hit? Let’s pretend it takes a sorceress casting exactly 2 firebolts every time to kill a Fallen. If we can create a scenario where it only takes 1 hit, we are literally cutting time needed to kill by 1/2. That scenario is: If my firebolt is guaranteed a minimum of 4 DMG per hit, I am also guaranteed to ALWAYS kill a Fallen in 1 hit. So, I could either get LVL 2 firebolt so that it does 4-7 DMG instead of 3-6….. or much more easily, I can just grab a melee weapon w/ minimum 4 DMG and not even have to worry about mana costs.

Considering a second worst case scenario of 12 max HP on a zombie, trying to get firebolt to do a minimum of 12 DMG in the Blood Moor with any low level sorceress is ridiculous. But not so with a melee weapon, which you can mule away for re-use for on any starting char.
What if, then, you could have an AOE attack that kills monsters in 1 hit? If you can walk into Bishibosh’s camp in the Cold Plains, and wipe a screen of 15 monsters in 1 attack, you are literally increasing your killing speed by 15 times.

Coming back to my beef w/ Khalim’s Flail, the minimum damage is way too low while the high maximum damage is completely wasted on monsters that average maybe between 15-30HP in Act 1. In addition, the life and mana leech are mostly wasted when you are doing low amount of physical damage at low levels. (My complaint about Sigon’s is different though – I just feel it doesn’t do enough compared to items that can be way more easily obtained.)

I hope I haven’t lost you with all this dry talk about strategy! All this being said, my favorite low level weapon is a regular paladin scepter. It does 6-11 damage, with possibility of 2os for 2 chipped rubies, and can be equipped for the cheap cost of 25 STR at LVL 1. The best part about it is that I can buy one from Akara for something like 350 gold! When you start from scratch, this is extremely meaningful. If twinked, a 2x chipped ruby scepter does 12 minimum damage! I’m literally 1-shotting everything except gargantuan beasts in the early game and speeding up my progression tremendously. Once I am finishing up Trist runs or wherever I choose to level up, my char’s skills will naturally grow to replace these melee attacks.

Returning all the way back to my Nec’s skill points, I’m looking to get the best minimum damage I can from my sometimes-bad-AI skeletons, so they don’t waste time trying to kill the same Fallen over and over again while the Shaman resurrects endlessly. If they can 1-shot monsters, they can overwhelm resurrecting monsters much more efficiently instead of being stuck in a never-ending stalemate situation.

This screenshot shows what happens when you explore an area under-leveled. That’s a drastic drop in AR effectiveness. You’ll see me later get an A2 offensive merc on my Nec for the Blessed Aim aura, which is very unusual.