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If just two players, I recommend 2 Paladins and then going for massive Aura stacking with Nightmare Act II Mercs ^_^ The game becomes a huge walkover.
P.S. : One of the hardest runs I've did with a friend (we actually did beat the game on Hell after just 3 nights of play together), was a Martial Arts Assassin and Frenzy Barbie :D We came close to dying many many times, but scraped thru somehow. One of the toughest fights we've had was with Diablo's minions at Hell. Iron Maiden is a bitch !
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Iron Maiden has been removed from the game.
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On July 31 2011 05:20 Isualin wrote: use all +skill items you find on your skellymancer. skeletons power up exponentially. there is a world of difference between 20/20 and 30/30 skeletons. you should use curses and corpse explosion a lot. you might consider leveling clay golem for its slow. a blizzard sorc will be really good against bosses because skeletons cant do shit to them if their level is low. How is he supposed to get +10 summons on untwinked and without farming for items?
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Germany / USA16648 Posts
On July 30 2011 22:56 FireBearHero wrote: If you're going to rely on conviction for immunity stripping I would advise lightning. It is by far the easiest immunity to strip. Fire is next and high level conviction should be enough to strip, but the resulting resistance would be rather high still. Cold really is a no go. Many cold immunes have upwards of 150% cold resistance which is VERY hard to remove (remember you need -5% for every 1% over 100% for immunity stripping). Cold mastery has no effect against immunes, so until the immunity is stripped it will do nothing to aid the cause. 150% resistance is not "very hard" to remove, it is impossible.
This might not interest everyone, so I put the explanation in spoilers + Show Spoiler +A monster is immune to something (Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison, Physical) when it has a resistance >= 100, this is straight forward. This immunity can stem from resistances much, much higher than 100%, it depends on the monster type.
The Paladin's Conviction aura and the Necromancer's Lower Resist curse reduce a monster's (elementary) resistance by however much the spell description states. However, for immune monsters it does so for only 1/5 of that value.
So whether you can break a monster's immunity depends on how high above 100% its resistance is.
Example: Conviction level 5 (-50% resistance) and monster with 100% resistance, the monster has 90% resistance remaining.
Now, Conviction is capped at -150% (reached at skill level 25, doesn't go any higher for higher levels), so a Paladin on his own can break the immunities of monsters that have up to 129% resistance.
The highest a Necro can get with Lower Resistance is -65% (well, technically 69%, but those 4% don't matter). Paladin + Necro: 150/5 + 65/5 = 43 So, no resistance higher than 142% can be broken
(For the record Conviction does -Fire/Light/Cold, Lower Resist does those and -Poison)
You were right regarding the monster resistances though. Many lightning immune monsters have lightning resistance around 100-110, so they can be broken fairly easily. Most cold immunes have resistances above 130, so only very few of them can be broken. Fire is mostly somewhere in between.
All that being said Conv and LR isn't just for breaking immunities, they are just incredibly powerful in general. Example: Monster has 75% resist, your Conv does -50%, damage tripled, hell yeah.
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On July 31 2011 06:08 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2011 05:20 Isualin wrote: use all +skill items you find on your skellymancer. skeletons power up exponentially. there is a world of difference between 20/20 and 30/30 skeletons. you should use curses and corpse explosion a lot. you might consider leveling clay golem for its slow. a blizzard sorc will be really good against bosses because skeletons cant do shit to them if their level is low. How is he supposed to get +10 summons on untwinked and without farming for items?
i didnt say he needed +10 skills. i said level 30 skeletons are far stronger than level 20 ones. every +1 all/necro/summoning skill item helps, you dont need shako-hoto-enigma(which you cant get outside the ladder i guess) to beat the game with 2 people.
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This seriously makes me want to beat hell in singleplayer. been playing the game forever but never legitimately beat hell after it got the serious buff.
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Germany / USA16648 Posts
Obviously hammerdins are pretty much a joke when played with Enigma, Hoto, CtA and what not, but for an untwinked playthrough it's not quite as bad.
Quite a few interesting and viable choices for a team have already been mentioned. I feel it mostly comes down to whether you wan't characters who do similar amounts of "work", or whether you're comfortable with a (potentially stronger) combo where one of the characters plays a more passive, supportive role, while the other one does most of the actual killing. The latter can be boring for some people.
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On July 31 2011 07:17 Isualin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2011 06:08 obesechicken13 wrote:On July 31 2011 05:20 Isualin wrote: use all +skill items you find on your skellymancer. skeletons power up exponentially. there is a world of difference between 20/20 and 30/30 skeletons. you should use curses and corpse explosion a lot. you might consider leveling clay golem for its slow. a blizzard sorc will be really good against bosses because skeletons cant do shit to them if their level is low. How is he supposed to get +10 summons on untwinked and without farming for items? i didnt say he needed +10 skills. i said level 30 skeletons are far stronger than level 20 ones. every +1 all/necro/summoning skill item helps, you dont need shako-hoto-enigma(which you cant get outside the ladder i guess) to beat the game with 2 people.
Besides, +10 Summoning Skills isn't really hard.
+1 Tarnhelm (really common item) +2 rare Amulet ("rare", because they are super easy to get) +1 trough a number of breastplates, for instance the common but super strong vipern +4 dual spirit (all you need is a monarch)
Thats 8 right there, as soon as you get any vanity item like a Shako, a Leoric or skiller, 10 is very easy to reach.
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On July 31 2011 07:46 caruso wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2011 07:17 Isualin wrote:On July 31 2011 06:08 obesechicken13 wrote:On July 31 2011 05:20 Isualin wrote: use all +skill items you find on your skellymancer. skeletons power up exponentially. there is a world of difference between 20/20 and 30/30 skeletons. you should use curses and corpse explosion a lot. you might consider leveling clay golem for its slow. a blizzard sorc will be really good against bosses because skeletons cant do shit to them if their level is low. How is he supposed to get +10 summons on untwinked and without farming for items? i didnt say he needed +10 skills. i said level 30 skeletons are far stronger than level 20 ones. every +1 all/necro/summoning skill item helps, you dont need shako-hoto-enigma(which you cant get outside the ladder i guess) to beat the game with 2 people. Besides, +10 Summoning Skills isn't really hard. +1 Tarnhelm (really common item) +2 rare Amulet ("rare", because they are super easy to get) +1 trough a number of breastplates, for instance the common but super strong vipern +4 dual spirit (all you need is a monarch) Thats 8 right there, as soon as you get any vanity item like a Shako, a Leoric or skiller, 10 is very easy to reach.
Sidenote on the monarch: you can let Larzuk socket any white monarch through the quest, it will end up with 4. He'll socket any white item with the maximum amount of sockets (depends on itemlevel; The itemlevel can be determined by the arealevel, which is where the item is found). If you want to socket something else: just google an arealevel chart. It's trickier with weapons for example since spirit requires 4 sockets and 6 is the maximum.
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Wow I went to work and came back home and there are so many great replies. I'm gonna go through and read them all, I really appreciate it everyone! Just a couple things I saw on the first page real quick asking that I'll answer (plus I'll add this to the OP)
#1. I don't wanna just faceroll the game, it's not fun to have no challenge. If something is super OP then I don't care to use it. So I'm looking for something that's doable if you execute / play properly but is still challenging and not an auto-win in Hell.
#2. It's LAN, so we don't have people to trade with. We're gonna play legit, no hacking / buying items or anything like that. We might do some magic finding / leveling sometimes randomly but some super exotic builds with tons of unique / rare ass runewords probably aren't viable for us.
#3. For character preference I don't really have one except I don't really enjoy playing with a Druid or Assassin. So any combination that doesn't involve 1 of those 2 chars would be fine. The characters I'm most adept with are Barb or Pal.
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On July 31 2011 07:09 Carnac wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 22:56 FireBearHero wrote: If you're going to rely on conviction for immunity stripping I would advise lightning. It is by far the easiest immunity to strip. Fire is next and high level conviction should be enough to strip, but the resulting resistance would be rather high still. Cold really is a no go. Many cold immunes have upwards of 150% cold resistance which is VERY hard to remove (remember you need -5% for every 1% over 100% for immunity stripping). Cold mastery has no effect against immunes, so until the immunity is stripped it will do nothing to aid the cause. 150% resistance is not "very hard" to remove, it is impossible. This might not interest everyone, so I put the explanation in spoilers + Show Spoiler +A monster is immune to something (Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison, Physical) when it has a resistance >= 100, this is straight forward. This immunity can stem from resistances much, much higher than 100%, it depends on the monster type.
The Paladin's Conviction aura and the Necromancer's Lower Resist curse reduce a monster's (elementary) resistance by however much the spell description states. However, for immune monsters it does so for only 1/5 of that value.
So whether you can break a monster's immunity depends on how high above 100% its resistance is.
Example: Conviction level 5 (-50% resistance) and monster with 100% resistance, the monster has 90% resistance remaining.
Now, Conviction is capped at -150% (reached at skill level 25, doesn't go any higher for higher levels), so a Paladin on his own can break the immunities of monsters that have up to 129% resistance.
The highest a Necro can get with Lower Resistance is -65% (well, technically 69%, but those 4% don't matter). Paladin + Necro: 150/5 + 65/5 = 43 So, no resistance higher than 142% can be broken
(For the record Conviction does -Fire/Light/Cold, Lower Resist does those and -Poison)
You were right regarding the monster resistances though. Many lightning immune monsters have lightning resistance around 100-110, so they can be broken fairly easily. Most cold immunes have resistances above 130, so only very few of them can be broken. Fire is mostly somewhere in between.
All that being said Conv and LR isn't just for breaking immunities, they are just incredibly powerful in general. Example: Monster has 75% resist, your Conv does -50%, damage tripled, hell yeah.
Ah i was not aware conviction capped out like that. I had always assumed it kept going at it's linear rate.
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What are some programs that would be good for us to use? Of course legit only, I don't wanna cheat or hack in any way. I know back in the day we use to use this program called Atma which would help you basically sort your items, it was like a Mule program.
And wuts this Pluggy thing I see some of you talking about?
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Hm now that i've messed around a bit, isn't PlugY kind of a hack? You can re-distribute skill points and attribute points... doesn't that kinda take all planning out of the picture?
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Make a hammerdin/summon necro. Or a hammerdin/bowazon
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Does /players 8 give you more experience per enemy or just make it more difficult? Cuz I tested how much XP i get per enemy before and after typing /players 8 and it is pretty identical...
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Building a hammerdin from scratch takes a long time to get to level 18. And without + skills, your level 20 blessed hammer does 196-200 damage, level 20 concentration gives +345%, for a total of 890 damage.
Whereas level 20 big fire/lightning spells will do around 1000, with +163% from fire mastery, and a further multiplier from conviction. You are resistable, but the advantage is you do more damage, you get a huge damage amplifier, and kill stuff much faster.
People don't realize that if you play without trading, items, and if you have to find/sacrifice for your magic find, reliably getting items is not that easy. If you play through and don't do runs, you may not even get two spirits.
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You could also make a summon necro/bowazon
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On July 31 2011 13:50 Pro]ChoSen- wrote: Does /players 8 give you more experience per enemy or just make it more difficult? Cuz I tested how much XP i get per enemy before and after typing /players 8 and it is pretty identical... you get a lot more experiance but the game will be significantly harder. more players = more monster hit points.
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Oh, also, a trapsin might work quite allright paired with a summoner or hdin. It can have quite allright damage output, though only one element. In addition, if you play together with a hdin you have a source of CE which is imo the best pvm spell in the entire game (make sure to max it on your summoner too). A tip, you can clawshop at anya which should give you some cheap and easy +trap skills.
On July 31 2011 16:56 Isualin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2011 13:50 Pro]ChoSen- wrote: Does /players 8 give you more experience per enemy or just make it more difficult? Cuz I tested how much XP i get per enemy before and after typing /players 8 and it is pretty identical... you get a lot more experiance but the game will be significantly harder. more players = more monster hit points.
At /players 8 I believe the amount of hitpoints AND experience are at x4.5 (xp/hp = base_xp/hp * (n_players + 1) / 2). I'm not sure about the exact number for MF chance, but it increases regardless because an increased number of items drop.
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ya I figured out it doesn't change the amount of HP / XP a Mob gives if they have already spawned. You have to have the /players 8 done before they spawn and then it changes their XP/HP to ya I'd say about 3 or 4x. Cuz I'm level 12 and only in the Underground Passage playing by myself on /P8 whereas usually on /P1 I'd be about level 8.
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