Hi I know there is lots of experts here at this huge community so I thought it'd be nice to ask.
I know a lot D2 but havn't played in like 3 years. Me and a friend are gonna try and beat the game in Hell straight through via LAN just for fun and cuz D3 coming out sometime soon.
I was wondering what 2 player party combo would be best for the long haul to beat the game in hell? I don't want us to spend the time playing all the way through and then get to Hell and be useless so I wanted to ask some people who are up to speed ^^
#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.
Even in Hell? Nothing can stand up to a Hammerdin? I thought u run into stuff that's immune to all Magic etc, so like I thought you can't just have 2 Hdins?
If you want to not be a loser hammerdin, a Smite Paladin and a Necromancer are a good team that can do anything in the game with minimal gear. They compliment each other well.
You could make whatever combination you wanted to as long as you don't pick stupid builds (ex: Inferno Sorceress, Spear Amazon)
If you just want to be a dink, make two hammerdins.
Why are people recommending a Smiter? A smiter is absolutely useless pvm aside from uber tristram, and even in uber tristram, you only need 1 point in smite to do the job. A fanatic zealot would be far superior to the smiter but is rather gear dependent. OP and his friend are playing untwinked so its not like either of them are going to get any good gear.
best builds for this situation would be summon necro, meteorb sorc, blizzard sorc and hammerdin. Additionally don't listen to the people saying two Hammerdins. BH no longer ignores immunities of undead and demon so you won't be able to kill magic immunes anymore. Also hammerdin requires you to be able to get in range first which can be difficult especially in hell with low resists.Two concentration auras are also a waste.
edit: for good guides and more help make a thread in diablo.incgamers.com. D2JSP community is awful and is basically a trading community for duped ladder goods.
The requirements are: - Lan play, which means using chars otherwise used for SP (or open Bnet) and pretty much results in no trading (non cheating SP players who trade do exist, but there are very few). - "beat the game in Hell straight through", so I doubt they want to do much magic finding
Now, for a seasoned D2 player those aren't very limiting requirements, most builds still work fine. There are so many viable two character combinations that I'm not even sure where to begin. Do you and/or your friend have any preference at all when it comes to characters? Or characters you don't like at all? That'd help.
Summon Necro + Meteorb or Hammerdin imo. Summon Necro because it's the cookie cutter build for playing untwinked, sorc can speed things up a bit (tele to bosses, etc) but is kind of a glass cannon in untwinked play. Hammerdin because there's just so little that it cannot kill. But anyway, consult/look at d2jsp s&g before deciding, it's a very good place for d2 info.
A Frenzy Barb and a Bowazon, you can use the shit out of eth weapons, which is always cool. This combo is super efficient for dealing with mobs as well, and the frenzy barb can do enough damage, and with BO's has enough health to take on the heros, especially once you get some life leech.
Frenzy barb can be fast in the right hands as well, so if you dont want to teleport everywhere, frenzy is efficient as well.
On July 30 2011 20:56 Holcan wrote: A Frenzy Barb and a Bowazon, you can use the shit out of eth weapons, which is always cool. This combo is super efficient for dealing with mobs as well, and the frenzy barb can do enough damage, and with BO's has enough health to take on the heros, especially once you get some life leech.
Frenzy barb can be fast in the right hands as well, so if you dont want to teleport everywhere, frenzy is efficient as well.
If you do this you will absolutely die in hell if not in the later acts of nightmare; it's just too gear dependent.
All this comes down to how you want to balance your OP'ness and your element of fun. If you're looking to autowin, make a hammerdin. If you wanna have fun and don't have 100% faceroll, check the opposite end of spectrum.
it depends whatt kind of char you like... melee/range/caster. id like for fun (and the suuuper~~~)hack&slay effect fanazealot and any kind of barbarian except singers ^_^. if you got the items make a doublethrow barb
Conviction paladin and a lightning sorc/lightning javazon/trap assassin. Clears basicly everything no problem and fast. With conviction you don't even need sick gear and it removes most of lightning immunity.
Me and a friend just recently did a couple play throughs. The easiest combo we had was corpse explode/summon/amp damage necro and wind druid. Tornado can take advantage of the -physical % resistance of amplify damage (not to mention the immunity stripping amp damage does). The summons take a lot of pressure off with their meat shielding.
For regular monsters generally you just want the amp damage them, the druid puts a few corpses on the ground, and then the necro just clears the area with CE. Amp damage + tornado makes short work of bosses even in hell difficulty (also the summons provide a bit of meat shielding). Don't neglect cyclone armor with the wind druid, easily one of the more underrated skills in the game, especially if you have bad resists due to shitty gear.
We beat the game rather easily (including a kill of an uber diablo spawn - but you won't get that on lan ) with really shitty gear. I mean we were using like stealth armors and lore hats. So bad lol.
Edit: I should mention that my friend, who was playing on the necro) focused on CE moreso than summons. The radius of high level CE is really amazing lol. Though initially he did do a summoning build (so did I until hurricane). I'm not sure if you get respecs in lan though. The hardest the game got for us was actually normal diablo due to our summon reliance at that point then lol. We managed it with amp damage/repeated dire wolf summoning. Nightmare was a joke - pretty much just running through while hurricane insta-popped everything. Hell was fairly easy because our builds were in full swing by then.
Another vote for conviction + elemental caster. Conviction obviously doesn't need items. Fire sorcs are probably the fastest to build from scratch, since you get decent damage spells earlier and you can shop for early leaf staffs with + skills.
Cold sorcs, well you don't get frozen orb until 30.
You could also do a lower resist necro with summons, but that takes longer to kill stuff.
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.
one of you definately has to be a hammerdin, theres no question about it those guys rape pve.. as for the other, i wouldnt choose a melee, like zealot/barb since nightmare/hell sanctum monsters mash out dat iron maiden.. so yeah it'd be difficult for a hammerdin to solo, i wud probably recommend a fire/lightning sorc, or if u wanna lame the shit outa it get a lightning trap sin LMAO, lay traps.. run around, rinse..repeat GG
wind druids could also be good to.. dont get a fire one tho, since fissure really does suck ass. GL!
On July 30 2011 21:57 HaXXspetten wrote: All this comes down to how you want to balance your OP'ness and your element of fun. If you're looking to autowin, make a hammerdin. If you wanna have fun and don't have 100% faceroll, check the opposite end of spectrum.
This is totally true. Pick something really hard and try to beat it anyway. It's way more fun. I'd suggest something with a melee sorc (enchanted weapon).
I can't kill anything with a hammerdin in hell. I'm untwinked, and without salvation aura, I have almost 0 resist, so everything with 2 of the following "x enchanted" or "spectral hit" or "cursed" or "extra strong" kills me in one hit.
I've always thought the necro would be overpowered in hell. Skeletons have only 600 or so life at 20/20 so they die in 5 hits by act4 hell, but revives are a great shield. Then anything that complements the necro with good damage (sorcs, hammers, bowazons, lightning fury) is a pretty good combo. If you guys are noobs I seriously recommend a necro or you'll be dieing a lot to bosses and random uniques in hell.
you can do it 2 ways, hammerdin or fana pala. both can finish hell. i dont think you will be doing uber trist out of b.net. takes a long time to get there (about 20 hell runs).
On July 30 2011 21:57 HaXXspetten wrote: All this comes down to how you want to balance your OP'ness and your element of fun. If you're looking to autowin, make a hammerdin. If you wanna have fun and don't have 100% faceroll, check the opposite end of spectrum.
Exactly how i see D2, the game is so ridiculously easy a 5 year old could beat it with a OP character like a Summoner Necro or Hammerdin. 1-2 hitting everything gets old quickly.
Personally, i never play the game on anything else than /players 8 with an unorthodox build or less powerful build
Well, just for clearing Hell you need Summon Necro to make you some tanks and all other characters doesn't matter - they have just to cast something and that's OK. Ofc it works better with Barbarian to BC and BO you, since it's unlikely for you to have CtA. And i'd fill all other 6 slots with Sorcs - 2 Meteor, 2 Blizzard and 2 Chain Lightning - it's the most common and usefull setup for quick completing of Hell at the begining of the new ladder in D2. FO sorcs are much worse in this scenario since they need a lot of ubers to be any good; and the best usage of them are Destro Key runs.
There is a lot of combinations avilable. If you're playing D2 classic hardcore, I'll suggest necro + paladdin (optimisation of auras) barb + sorc (bo + good versatility) barb + barb, barb + necro, barb + paladdin, sorc + pala, sorc + necro also work well. So it's mainly dependent on wich class you like playing, what is more important is the synergies of the spells, try to get some combination of physical + magical damages to not die in hell.
Personal favorite (it's not strong but funny) is bowama + ench sorc. Kinda useless in hell but very funny and efficient in NM.
just dont play summoner necro, sure it rapes hell but you will be too bored to get past NM
I thought hydra got buffed recently. That said, I don't know if it's worth it.
Anyway, I would totally agree with the summoner necro thing myself, but not necessarily force a person not to choose one. Personally I think nothing can be worse in any game than making a summoner character... it's so stupid.
From what I heard summoner necros are imbal as anything (solo hell naked), but I don't understand why anyone would want to play one. Actually, the same sort of thing applies to a hammerdin. That hammer ability is so stupid and virtually skilless. Just sit in one spot spamming hammer without hardly even aiming.
If you want to own, go necro+ hammerdin. If you want to have a bit more fun, should probably try something else. Realize that a recent update to D3 allows 3 respecs throughout the game, so you can run a fun build at the start, then respec once or twice around hell, to a powerful but bland build, and then save the last respec for emergency.
On July 30 2011 22:34 kaztah wrote: Conviction paladin and a lightning sorc/lightning javazon/trap assassin. Clears basicly everything no problem and fast. With conviction you don't even need sick gear and it removes most of lightning immunity.
This is a good idea.
On July 31 2011 04:55 caruso wrote: Does anyone else here play singleplayer with Plugy?
Yes, and I recommend the OP to totally use Pluggy. It's the only way I would play single player
Summon Nec + a hammerdin or a fire/cold sorc, ob fireball or just blizzard.
and yeah i read the OP, stating that he wants to play in lan where you won't find anything anyway and no trading, just straightup beating the game with a friend. no uber tristram obviously too.
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.
Well as alot of people have stated, hammerdin is very good, but high level items are going to be very hard to find, and playing a hammerdin is not very fun.
I think the Sorc and barbarian are the easiest to find items for, and rely on their items the least. I recently just ran through the game with my friend and we found it very easy as a Sorc + Barbarian. At every level you can "reset your stat and skill points" so at first the sorc can be lightning, and chang eto cold etc, and barb can start with maybe spear class barb, into swords or axes or poleaxes etc.
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 !
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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...
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
On July 31 2011 13:51 igotmyown wrote: 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.
I know this is a bit anal, but concentration works at half effectiveness which makes blessed hammer even worse and leaves your final damage at 540. This is just to reinforce your point. With a lot of points in vigor, plus skill items, and high block rate, I was still dying to hell brutes (those act 1 things). People have no idea what the game is like untwinked and just say "HAMMERS OP OMG!"
So are you guys in the last couple posts saying I shouldn't make a Hammerdin? I'm kinda confused ^^
And if anyone wants to play TCP/IP or chill on Skype n play hit me up
ChosenBrad1322 @ Skype Also I was the leader of Team SCD which has Pride, Zingy, Korlith, many Grand Master players. I use to charge for coaching so if you wanna talk SC that's cool too I say "was" cuz I retired from SC about 2 months ago cuz of school.
For any of you who'd like to play single player and still be able to trade stuff: check out the diablo.incgamers single player forum. You need to play legit to trade (not sure how to track it but if you're unsure you're legit: pm a mod). They basically only allow the ladder runeword and red runeword mod, multiple instance dll and muling application (atma, gomule). You can find more info in the sticky thread.
Saying that Hammerdins are easily outclassed damagewise, especially if you build it from scratch.
It's highly unlikely that you'll get any unique that you target unless you do magic find runs. Not to mention the harder to find ones like Herald. You probably won't get a high rune. You won't get enigma, you won't get herald of zakarum, you might be able to buy a +2 paladin skills scepter. You won't get stones of Jordan or Bul Kathos ring. You might get a + skills amulet, but it might be for a different class.
People are so used to getting rushed/pre-outfitting their characters that they don't realize it's not so easy to get all that stuff without trading/having mf characters.
You want fairly item indepedent characters that still do a lot of damage.
Summon necro and frenzy barb play well off each other. Amp damage increases the barb's damage dealing while the skeletons help keep it from getting overwhelmed, and the barb's war cries make the skeles tougher.
On August 01 2011 07:54 igotmyown wrote: Saying that Hammerdins are easily outclassed damagewise, especially if you build it from scratch.
It's highly unlikely that you'll get any unique that you target unless you do magic find runs. Not to mention the harder to find ones like Herald. You probably won't get a high rune. You won't get enigma, you won't get herald of zakarum, you might be able to buy a +2 paladin skills scepter. You won't get stones of Jordan or Bul Kathos ring. You might get a + skills amulet, but it might be for a different class.
People are so used to getting rushed/pre-outfitting their characters that they don't realize it's not so easy to get all that stuff without trading/having mf characters.
You want fairly item indepedent characters that still do a lot of damage.
and still with decent equipment hammerdins are just doing tons of damage. i read your little example but remember...in hell a lot of monsters are immun to elementalattacks or at least have high resistance. all the hammerdin is lacking without items is his ability as tank and of course his mobility...
On August 01 2011 07:54 igotmyown wrote: Saying that Hammerdins are easily outclassed damagewise, especially if you build it from scratch.
It's highly unlikely that you'll get any unique that you target unless you do magic find runs. Not to mention the harder to find ones like Herald. You probably won't get a high rune. You won't get enigma, you won't get herald of zakarum, you might be able to buy a +2 paladin skills scepter. You won't get stones of Jordan or Bul Kathos ring. You might get a + skills amulet, but it might be for a different class.
People are so used to getting rushed/pre-outfitting their characters that they don't realize it's not so easy to get all that stuff without trading/having mf characters.
You want fairly item indepedent characters that still do a lot of damage.
and still with decent equipment hammerdins are just doing tons of damage. i read your little example but remember...in hell a lot of monsters are immun to elementalattacks or at least have high resistance. all the hammerdin is lacking without items is his ability as tank and of course his mobility...
Again, high resistance doesn't mean anything against conviction, only immunity does. You're playing with an ally, so it's pointless to consider your solo potential.
So the question is, would you rather do 200 x (1+ 3.45 / 2) = 545 damage per hammer against all monsters or 1000 x (1+0.05 x 40) x 2.63 x 2.25 = 17000 damage per meteor against most enemies (more with basic things like leaf, about half as much against a monster with 99% resistance)? Is having to evade/kill with your paladin/merc the third of the immune monsters a huge price to pay vs having 30x damage and sweeping through players 8?
What characters would people recommend if the duo (possibly trio if my mate decides to play) are starting on fresh accounts with no way to get items/twink at all? So many of the guides/builds I read require a lot of items to function seemingly, and I've no idea what to play in order to start out with, though I'd quite like to be a paladin.
I'd go with Barb/Pala and Necro. Skeles with all the auras/shouts are awesome. So is Barb/Pala when you add curses to the mix.
Damn I miss my HC necro. Soloed the game up to Baal on Nightmare, didn't pay attention and one of those tentacles that rise from the ground killed me at lvl 76 Or maybe it was Hell?
Summon necro + a good support, smiter or frenzy barb. Or two hammerdins, one with conviction, one with concentration. Both of these combos have great synergy and can kill everything.
Why the hell would you have two hammerdins and have one use conviction? Conviction has absolutely no effect on hammer damage.
Also if you are choosing to go the Conviction paladin + X, make sure X deals Lightning Damage. Almost all fire/cold immunes are not breakable even by the highest level Conviction in Hell (in fact I don't think any cold immunes are). Lightning is the only viable route, and even then the broken immunes will have ~90% lightning resist so you still won't be doing much damage at all (no way you will be finding 5/5 facets and griffon's eye in single player).
On August 01 2011 18:56 NikonTC wrote: What characters would people recommend if the duo (possibly trio if my mate decides to play) are starting on fresh accounts with no way to get items/twink at all? So many of the guides/builds I read require a lot of items to function seemingly, and I've no idea what to play in order to start out with, though I'd quite like to be a paladin.
As I mentioned first, if you are completely untwinked, Necro + Meteorb is a great way to go.
So many possibilities are viable, there is not really one best combo. But in order to chip in like a true d2 zealot, I just had to propose something :p Oh, and stay away from meteorb sorcs, they're obsolete ^^
1) A sumoning necro with max corps explosion and a good level lower resist combined with 2) a lightning amazon. 3) a paladin with helpful auras (fanaticism, concentration, res auras) or 3) a ranged character like a fire/cold sorceress or a bowazon (strafe).
High damage, fast, safe, all can carry magic find equip which will help you a lot in the long run.
as long as one person in your party deals damage based on skill level rather than equips you should be fine. you just need a glass cannon and a support or tank. just kite everything in the game.
On July 30 2011 16:38 Uranium wrote: Hammerdin can solo everything once they hit a certain level. Frost sorc is just there to help him level up to that point.
Hammerdins are seriously broken as hell. Stupid Blizzard balancing...
Hdins rely on exclusive gear to get anyting done at a reasonable speed. The real overpowered build in D2 is blizz sorcs. Blizz sorcs do p8 cs runs as fast as hdins, even when both fully geared. And this is with all the extra time blizz takes to kill immunes.
And light sorcs and meteorb? These are low damage builds when untwinked, only killing stuff fast with endgame gear, infinity is mandatory to even compete with blizz sorcs.
Necros of all sorts, amazons, druids, assassins, barbs are also low damage chars(unless very high end gear) so have low utility for party, given that tanking and healing are unnecesary in d2
I don't understand why you would want to know the best 2 player combo. The most fun I had playing these games was trying out the craziest build I could think of and trying to make it work. Obviously follow everyone else's great suggestions if this isn't what you want but I honestly think you would find it a lot more fulfilling to go straight into a game with your buddy without any plan at all.
My brother and usually end up making at least 1 HC Diablo 2 run a year. Most times they fail, sometimes we lose interest, but it's still a fun time while it lasts.
The easiest/most successful was probably Pally/SummonNecro, but also probably the most boring.
One we had me as a Hydra Sorc and him as a Blizz sorc ... needless to say I was riding his coat tails.
The most fun was probably dual-druid, both elemental with both taking a different element. (Ended up being fissure/tornado + Armageddon/Hurricane, was hilarious taking on big packs, but bosses were a nightmare)
But I do have a question to the D2 guru's in the house:
I've always been a fan of a more DoT type gameplay, so is it possible to make a Poison Necro work? All my previous attempts have tapered off EXTREMELY early (barely into nightmare mostly), where my only saving grace seems to be some points in Corpse Explosion ... but I could get that without dumping so many points in poison skills
Is there an untwinked method of doing a Poison Necro in either solo or duo, that isn't outshined by ... every other decent skill build in the game?
On August 01 2011 08:50 Barrin wrote: Warcry Barb + Blizz Sorc.
The warcry barb should play a lot like a prot warrior in WoW. Wear a shield... get lots of hp and armor. This is not your regular hack-and-slash barbarian... this style takes a bit of thinking AND teamwork.
max: [war cry], [battle orders], [battle cry], [stun or concentrate]
at least 1 point: [howl], [shout], [taunt], [battle command], [weapon mastery], [iron skin], [increased speed], [natural resistances], [berserk]
the rest: shout/masteries
This style is very fun if played properly. Remember: you are a TANK, you can absorb shitloads of damage, you can force things to attack you. You make it easier for your sorceress friend to kill things.
Priority 1: keep things off of the sorceress. Priority 2: group as many things together as possible. taunt any strays to bring them near the group. Priority 3: spam War Cry to keep everything stunned in a single place (this keeps you alive and maximizes sorceress damage). Priority 4: keep Battle Cry on everything.
The blizz sorc is just a standard blizz sorc, nothin' really special other than sick damage. The special thing here is that it's much easier for you to kill things with everything focusing on the barbarian instead of you.
With Leap Attack, Howl, lots of defenses, and good run/walk boots with the run speed mastery, Barbarians aren't that bad at helping the sorceress find things.
Also, almost no monster is both Cold immune AND Physical immune... Between the barbarian's concentrate/stun and two decent mercenaries pretty much anything dies pretty fast (cold sorcies PWN anything not cold immune). There is VERY RARELY a physical/cold immune in some areas of hell... the barbarian should have 1 point into berserk to take them down if necessary.
Fun (at least for the barbarian lol, Blizz sorcies are overdone).
Powerful (but not too powerful... it isn't always easy to do this combo)
Synergistic and Team-oriented (Barb needs sorcy... sorcy pwns extra hard with barb)
This combo is tried and true... but it's also very unique and obscure. It is fun, trust me.
All this needs is... dual wizspikes... and then +100 extra FCR from other sources... and you'll be able to cast 3.42 times a second... ( they're fairly easy to find compared to other items )
EPT
) with really shitty gear. I mean we were using like stealth armors and lore hats. So bad lol.
