DescentBB

I have the game now- anyone know anything about it? I'm looking into how to train a sorc, and there doesn't seem to be anything well established... anyone know of a good setup, and a good way to train along the way? Also, I've make a couple sorcs, but I think I'll still want to make a fresh one, because it looks like the money setups wait until later spells become available to train in them, meaning I'd be all gimp at first, but later make up for it.

Diablo 2 Arreat Summit
Diablo II.net
Diablo II Tomb of Knowledge
Official Diablo II Forums

and then of course the thread you posted months ago...

Diablo II thread by snoopy

and then...

My Characters

I'd say it happened

78 Sorc

Here is 1 of my 5 accts.

The Barb thats highlighted was my first ever character on D2 classic. Just cant bear to delete him.

Snoopy, take a look at the links Tyranny posted. especially diabloii.net. they have good info for your builds.

I'm not one for building sorcies,but I do have a couple. one being meteor/fireball wich is very effective. and the other was a cold lightning sorc. The latter build was a total failure.
I have heard that cold/fire sorcies using blizz and fireball are effective but i have no personal experience with them.

Have any of ya heard of sacred?
A lot of my D2 playing friends have made the switch to it over D2.
I'm gonna pick it up today and give it a test run.I've been told it's way better than D2, and is still on the base floor as far as developement goes.
I just hope it isnt as buggy as the demo was.

Lotsa palys

Played it since it came out.

Don't play anymore.

www.planetdiablo.com

What ever happened to getting a group of D3 players together and going through the game together?

If you have the 1.10 patch it's easier to put points in early spells, since the later spells get some nice synergies. That being said, I've only every made one scourcres, an Ice/fire one that's heavy on the ice. Frozen orb with a number of points in icemastery seems to work well in act 1 of Nightmare, but I've heard that later on most monsters are immune to 2 out of 3 types of spells. So I just stick with my shapeshifting druids...

Being in my last semester, gaming is out of the question for me till at least May.

Light/Cold Sorc is the way to go even though a Firesorc is extremely strong with the right gear. I was surprised when I built my Firesorc how powerful meteor and Hydra could be. I do upwards of almost 8K min/max damage with either spells.

Course, point placement is crucial and like I mentioned, so is the gear. Just in case though some extra points went into frozen orb and some lightning spells so I could dish out some damage to enemies immune to fire.

Anyways, this is how I went about building my LVL91 Light/Cold Sorc...

Stat Points (Bare Character):
-----------------------------
Strength: 95
Dexterity: 69
Vitality: 190
Energy: 196

Skill Points (Without + skill items):
-------------------------------------
Cold Spells:
------------
1pt to Everything. (Except Chilling Armor)
Max Frozen Orb.
Lightning Spells:
-----------------
1pt to Everything.
Max Nova.
Max Thunderstorm.
Max Lightning Mastery.
Fire Spells:
------------
1pt to Warmth.
Extra Points:
--------------
Once You've achieved all of the above start putting extra points into Cold Mastery. As you go you might want to keep putting a point into it every so often but make sure you achieve the other goals first so that you can boost that later.

Now, my Light/Cold Sorc is equiped with....

Helm: Harlequin Crest Shako (+2Skills/+2Attri).
Armor: Tal Rasha's Gaurdianship Lacquered Plate.
Amulet: Tal Rasha's Adjudication Amulet (+2SorcSkills).
Gloves: Frostburns (Mana) / Chance Guards (MF)
Boots: War Traveler Battle Boots
Belt: Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth Mesh Belt.
Weapon(1): The Oculus Swirling Crystal (+3SorcSkills).
Weapon(2): Blade of Ali Baba Tulwar.
Shield(1): Lidless Wall Grim Shield soc/w PerfDiamond (+19 All Resistances).
Shield(2): Grimshield "Rhyme" Runecombo (ShaelEth).
Rings: Two Stone Rings of Jordan (+1 all skills each)
Charms: Couple of +1 Cold Skill Charms. Dozen or so 7% or greater MF Charms (Small through Grand).

Lots and lots of work but since 1.10 I'd imagine dedicating the time to making a character and building the charlevel up into the 90s is almost impossible these days. I'm not sure how well this will work and Diablo all depends on experimentation anyways so, do whatever works best for you just make sure that you watch the synergies and see how well you get boosted in certain areas.

I started a new account and a new Barb (AxeBarb) and it took me nearly the same time to beat Normal difficulty and reach lvl40 as it used to building a new character, getting rushed, power cowing and getting to lvl85 in the 1.09 patch. I don't have the time to do that anymore and it becomes really annoying after a while.

ty tyr- all those items are lod, right?

Here's what I was thinking:

140 Str, with items (so I can wear ornate armor)
45 Dex, + items- apparantly there's a nice sonrc weapon that needs 45 dex.
lots of energy- probably around 160
the rest in vitality

I'm trying to make somewhat if a pvp setup, because I just like competition, and sitting there lvling for forever is boring

Skills:
20 Frozon Orb
20 Thunderstorm (I want to have my two main damage dealers in two different lines, I've read that FO is good for pvp)

6 warmth
then start building both cold and lightning mastery, try to move them up parallel.

(1 teleport, and ~5 ES in there, too)

That's just about all the skill points there are out there.

I wasn't planning on investing in any of the cold shields- it seems in pvp you're biggest goal is to not get hit at all, so shields are essentially worthless. Also, I wasn't planning on developing nova- would that be a good idea?

In the way of equipment- most of the things you mentioned seem to be pretty standard, and I wasn't planning on worrying about trying to find anything specific until I got to hell difficulty.

Finally, my asking if Diablo 2 happened meant are DBBers getting together to play at all? I'm on useast- my char's name is apringus (don't ask about the name, I hit some keys and that's what came out)

Well, if you're developing a light/cold sorc Nova is a must. It's one of the strongest spells a sorc can have, which is why I suggested to max it out.

Even with everything I got on all my spells have upwards of 12pts (the ones I only put 1 or 2 pts on) or so in them and 31 for those that are maxed out. If I did any PVP it was against certain friends I met online or with people I knew outside of Diablo and yes, everything is LOD.

I didn't care for PVP that much. I liked being able to MF and rush people and I enjoyed cowing, which is why you can see how the 1.10 patch really closed out my Di2 playing days. Most PVP players I came across were assholes and most of them did little cheap tricks or used hacked items to try to steal your stuff. I'd imagine 1.10 cleaned that up a great deal but It probably didn't lessen the amount of lame PVPers there was.

Most of the stuff I have is pretty standard, which is why I mentioned it. A lot of people built their sorc with that gear in mind because its one of, if not the best, set of gear a sorc can wear. I do have the full Tal set but they dumbed down MF for high level players so much in 1.10 that its practically worthless to wear the full set anymore.

I think I ended up trading a couple of my Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye Swirling Orbs to other people who were interested in having all of the set items. Managed to get some pretty good things for some of my other characters for a lot of the stuff I traded. Also ran into a lot of assholes while trading too. Got screwed on a couple of deals but in the end I'm pretty satisfied with all the gear I found while doing Mephisto/Pindle runs and the gear/charms I ended up trading for.

Like I said though, its your character and I've always been of the mind that if you followed a plan for your character that you believe would make a really good character then go for it. The problem with that is it takes so much time to find out and if it didn't work out quite how you'd like theres a lot of time down the drain.

Tyranny wrote:Lotsa palys

hehe, Yeah I'm a paladin freak!They are by far my favorite class.
I've Built several zealots and hammerdins. Right now I'm thinking of building a Fist of heavens pally to try and duel with.

For you west coasters, I usually am playing on acct: SQN1(Ladder only). give me a holler if ya want.

I sure hope Diablo 3 comes soon. D2 is starting to get stale for me. In the mean time I'm giving Sacred a try.

Sacred is much more involved than Diablo and has better character classes. Problem is right now the game looks like it wasnt properly beta tested and was rushed into shipping just to make some bucks. I hear there are plans for an expansion pack soon.
If it doesnt come to be, Sacred is finished.The game is really buggy at this point. I'm giving it some leeway. but something better happen soon or this game goes into the crappy game drawer of my desk.

Personally I hope Starcraft II comes out long before we see a Diablo III They've spent WAY too much time on Warcraft stuff

Though, I'm hoping that if/when they do make Di3 it'll be along the same lines as War3 but less cartoonish. This way I think people will take great satisfaction in how unique their characters look and of course how strong they are

It'd be great if while you were building your characters they start out at a mediocre size for even their class and when you add pts to character stats like strength, dexterity, that kind of thing you actually see stuff like their muscles increasing and gradually they become larger or more toned. It would be all class based of course, you wouldn't want a Zon this huge hulking thing but a Barb you would

Or being able to have a blacksmith type place craft personal weapons/armors with personally specified attributes (up to a point) just for you depending on if you meet a game requirement or you have the gold or items to trade to upgrade said weapons/armor.

Just different things like that to keep in mind.

Just out of curiostoy, but what point is there in putting experiance into dexterity for a scorceress? Just the shield blocking/armor boost? I was under the impression that attack rating had no effect on your ability to hit creatures with spells. I didn't put any points into dexterity for my scourcres, and while chance to block is something pitifull like 12%, the spells certaintly arn't missing their targets.

And what's all this blabing about Diablo 3? I was under the impresion that Blizard wasn't going to do any more Diablos.

Just that, blabbering. You never know with some of these companies. I should have stated "if" they make one, which I've since fixed. As for Sorc dexterity you really don't need all that much, this is true, most of your evasion should come from teleportation. It doesn't hurt to be able to block when you're hit with something though.

As for attack rating, you're right, that only applies to physical attacks and not spells.

Dexterity really is moot for a sorc, since defense only applies for physical attack, and that shouldn't be happening to begin with with a sorc. Snoopy, the sorc weapon you're probably thinking of is the Wizard Spike, but it's really not worth getting all of the dex for, and it really isn't that good anyways. I wouldn't recommend putting energy into a sorc either. She'll have plenty enough once she levels and gets good items. I didn't even put strength into my main sorc thanks to a breastplate enigma (8)), but that's a little harder to accomplish. Otherwise, all you'll need is enough strength to wear everything, and the rest should be into vitality, otherwise you'll get instapwned in hell and pvp all the time.

Spells like novas kick ass in normal and nightmare, but once you get to hell (and pvp), they'll be fairly useless and you'll have wished you would have concentrated in one main skill and its synergies. Don't waste points! You will regret it, even if it's just one point! You'll need them all! Never indulge, since it can often seem convenient at the time. Remember, your ultimate goal is to survive hell and pvp!

My personal favorite setup is 20 into frozen orb, 20 into cold mastery, 20 into cold bolt (only frozen orb synergy), 1 into warmth, 1 into shiver armor, 20 into lightning mastery, and 1+ into chain lightning (it'll be strong enough to get you out of almost all cold-immune situations without a mercenary), and 1 into teleport since you're probably not planning on an enigma any time soon. And all prerequisites of course.

Some of my items are high end, but some are fairly cheap...
Helm: Kira's Guardian (70 resistence, cannot be frozen, faster hit recovery) with a cold facet
Armor: Breatplate Enigma (runeword) (+2 skills, lots of other fun stuff)
Amulet: Rare amulet with +2 skills, faster cast rate, resistences, etc.
Gloves: Chanceguards (magic find and increased gold drop)
Boots: 50mf war travs: (Again, for the magic find)
Belt: Arachnid mesh (+1 skills, faster cast rate)
Weapon(1): Death's Fathom (+3 skills, 29% enhanced cold damage, other fun stuff) w/ ist
Shield(1): Perfect Lidless wall w/ um
Weapon(2): Edge (runeword) Bow, decreased vendor prices (I'm a stickler for gambling amulets)
Rings: Two stones of jordan (+1 skills each)
Charms: 5 or so +1 cold skills grand charm, Gheed's grand charm (unique, +MF, gold, etc.), and annihilus charm (unique, +1 skills, resistences, attributes)

And those are pretty much my ideal items too. So there you have it. I can't help but feel like I wasted a part of my life typing this up, but I guess it's pretty trivial compared to all the time I used to throw into the game.

Tyr, yah gotta be careful with crafting power. In DAOC, before crafting/spell crafting came about, items where hot. After crafting/spellcrafting, noone wanted any of the drops. All people did was make money, then pay for a crafter to make a perfect of armor, then pay a spell crafter to put custom imbues on it- you ended up with everyine having to have everything maxed out.

Over all, it seems like everyone is out for themselves- and everyone treats each other like crap- at least that's all I've seen so far.

String of Ears doesn't have +1 skills or faster cast rate, its virtually useless to a sorc. The new Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash in 1.10 does however. Or is this some pre-1.08 variation I'm not aware of?

I'll bet that annihilus charm is now the new 3/20/20 of trading as far as value is concerned. I'd like a few of those for some of my chars but its really not that important since I don't play very often if at all.

snoopy: yeah, you'll meet some nice people along the way that will be more then willing to trade/give items and generally help you out but for the most part everyone is in it for themselves and thats kind of the mindset you have to have as well. I remember getting pretty heated with some guys trying to trade stupid ★■◆● for some of my better items hoping I'd fall for it. Other times I managed to swindle some people out of good items for virtually nothing myself.

It's just the way things work and sometimes you have to be cold blooded to get what you need. Sucks, but its really not that different from reality.

Yeah, you're right-- I meant Arachnid Mesh. I'm going to edit it to reflect that. Ultimately, they're all just beefed sashes anyhow.

hehe, so true

By the way, what do more points into the telekenesis and teleport spells do? More points in Teleport decrease mana cost, but it's so small of an improvement that it's laughable. Perhapse theres' some other bonus? And what about telekeniesis, can you ever actually pidk up anything more then gold and potions? What about activating portals from distances(which only seems to work when you're in town)?

Not sure, I've always thought telekenesis was worthless and really only used it to mess with the personal stash from a distance. Never tried activating a portal from a distance but I'd imagine that it's possible.

Teleport I only put a couple points in, but with all my +skill attributes its at 12 or so pts and really all it does is speed up the delay between teleports and decreases mana-drain that I can tell.

I'm basically a pally and sorc freak.
Ive got a blizz/fb sorc and and Fb/orb sorc.
My pallys are usually Zealots although hammerdins are cool. thinknig of trying a smiter too for the hell of it.

My Pally Gear
etheral BOTD Zerker
40/15 shaftstop
Chammed Harlequin Crest Shako
Etheral Exile Shield
Gore riders
Angelic ammy and 2 Angellic Rings (for massive AR)
Verdungos belt (life and 15% damage reduction)
Dracul's Grasp Gloves for leech n lifetap
bunch of 290s and 32020s in inventory for added dmg, ar and life

Weapon switch i have Herald of Zak and Call To Arms (runeword) that gives my pally Battle Orders Shout and Battle Command

My hammerdin has uh...

Helm: Gaze soc/w 40/15.
Armor: Griswold's soc/w 3 40/15s.
Belt: Perf String of Ears.
Weapon[1]: Schaefer's Hammer soc/w 40/15.
Shield[1]: Herald of Zakarum soc/w shael.
Gloves: Perf Venom Grips (life leach + psn damage).
Boots: Perf Gore Riders.
Amulet: Atma's Scarab (Psn + resist psn + amp damage).
Rings: Rare Ring w/ life leach bonus element defenses. Raven Frost Ring (Cold Damage, Cannot be frozen).
Charms: 5 +skill charms offensive auras + +skills. 100-290 psn charms w/ bonus attributes (run/walk, cold damage, resistances etc...)

my ladder zealot has

7/6 gaze open socket
+2 maras ammy
EBOTD zerker
HOZ (no sockets)
Perf Achron Enigma
Carrion wind ring/+3 Bul kathos ring
Draculs grasp vambraces
Arachnid mesh
Sandstorm trek scarabshell boots

He's a lot of fun! 7k dam and lotsa life leech makes him one hell of a tank! well until the phys immunes show up LOL!


@Mr.perfect: You used to be able to snag everything with telekenisis, but after many complaints about sorcies getting all the drops Blizz nerfed it to pick up gold,potions and scrolls only.
I believe i did read something about opening portals from a distance in the users guide. I'd say give it a try next time you're playing.

Man, it's sad i can quote that off the top of my head. I really need to get out more.
Can't wait to solo him against the clone.Oughtta be one hell of a fight

my barb has...
40 strength
20 energy
20 vitality
20 dex

weapon: short sword
shield: eth buckler!
boots,armor,helm,gloves,rings,amy: naked

im sry but my barb totally rocks all of ur socks

haha!

nice Z~

Zero! wrote:my barb has...
40 strength
20 energy
20 vitality
20 dex

weapon: short sword
shield: eth buckler!
boots,armor,helm,gloves,rings,amy: naked

im sry but my barb totally rocks all of ur socks

OMG! Thats sooo l33t! I want one

I was kinda curious. Anyone have a well equiped character on USEast thats pretty strong on 1.10 hell difficulty? I've been playing again the last few days and managed to get my new Axebarb up to LVL60 and beat nightmare lastnight.

Wondered if anyone wanted to tag/lead along for a bit in Hell *shrug*. If any of you are in the same boat "nightmare completed" and haven't done hell yet that would be fun. I've got to wait until lvl66 to use my hellslayer. If I'm on I'll be using "tyr4ever1" on USEast.

Found this snoopy, might be useful. Probably could have used this site when I was building too

http://strategy.diabloii.net/ - Strategy Compendium.