Diablo 2 LoD: 100% 8-player-teamrun planning thread

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-19 12:54:55 pm

2009-12-19 12:26:04 pm

Gia? Wuv? We are on and waiting for you guys! Where are you? We cannot really go on with the run, if you guys are that unreliable... (missing without saying anything on the forum beforehand)

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-19 02:38:07 pm

2009-12-19 12:46:33 pm

Beenman? Anyone else? Can you guys help us out today please? We need an 8th player. We are playing TCP/IP now, if you still wanna help out, just say so here, and I give you instructions how to join...

Poobah

2009-12-19 02:49:16 pm

There IS A Cow Level

If you need another man I'm in. I'd have helped earlier but I had a guitar lesson.

Xaggoth

2009-12-19 03:18:14 pm

1.13 is out on PTR so I've been playing again, and something crossed my mind earlier. Are you sure you have to talk to tyrael? I could have sworn all you have to do is talk to jerhyn to open the dialog with meshif.

menschenfeind

2009-12-19 03:28:03 pm

http://www.file-upload.net/download-2091180/save.rar.html

download link for pala

mfb

2009-12-19 03:42:18 pm

Quote from Xaggoth:

1.13 is out on PTR so I've been playing again, and something crossed my mind earlier. Are you sure you have to talk to tyrael? I could have sworn all you have to do is talk to jerhyn to open the dialog with meshif.

Killing duriel is needed to activate Tyrael only. You can join a game after Duriel is dead and get the quest, too, if you are in the party when a char talks to Tyrael.
If you don't talk to Tyrael, you can't finish the quest.

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-19 04:52:15 pm

2009-12-19 03:57:36 pm

Thank you very much for your help Poobah. Unfortunately i read too late about it and now we finished approx. half an hour ago, still thanks for your help.

@menschenfeind: Also thanks for your help today.

Tomorrow we'll go on the same time again, maybe we need help then too (i will mention it here)

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-19 05:29:35 pm

2009-12-19 04:51:20 pm

As gia or MrEnzyme (forgot who it was, sry i'm not good at remembering names ^^) today after the tests pointed out, we need a lot more indepth planning on the specific segments, to get more structure in the run. Should we do that before the test-runs on each segment and then play them exactly like that (with leaving after tasks are finished and several tries per segment with different settings/strategies and such) or just test out the early-game-charcombination more generally to look for improvements on that part (playing just approx. through the planned segments) and do the detailed segment-planning later, when the real speedrun starts? What do you guys think about this?

Edit: Maybe I should point out the dates more clearly in this thread, so I will put the date and time of the next meeting in my prevailing posts to this thread from now on, so you don't forget them accidentely.
Again (as I said in b-net today) please, if you can't manage to come on any date (Wuv, where were you today?), or can only come later because of some real life stuff on that day, please announce it in the thread here before the meeting, so that I can find a replacement for you on that date via ICQ/IRC/this forum beforehand. Else I just can't manage this run and we have to cancel the run on every date where 1-2 players miss without any checkout.

Next meeting will be tomorrow at 1 pm (GMT-6), 2 pm (GMT-5), 7 pm (GMT), 8 pm (GMT+1). Basically its every weekend on saturday and sunday at this time if we don't plan otherwise in the future.

As gia or MrEnzyme (forgot who it was, sry i'm not good at remembering names ^^) today after the tests pointed out, we need a lot more indepth planning on the specific segments, to get more structure in the run. Should we do that before the test-runs on each segment and then play them exactly like that (with leaving after tasks are finished and several tries per segment with different settings/strategies and such) or just test out the early-game-charcombination more generally to look for improvements on that part (playing just approx. through the planned segments) and do the detailed segment-planning later, when the real speedrun starts? What do you guys think about this?

Edit: Maybe I should point out the dates more clearly in this thread, so I will put the date and time of the next meeting in my prevailing posts to this thread from now on, so you don't forget them accidentely. 
Again (as I said in b-net today) please, if you can't manage to come on any date (Wuv, where were you today?), or can only come later because of some real life stuff on that day, please announce it in the thread here before the meeting, so that I can find a replacement for you on that date via ICQ/IRC/this forum beforehand. Else I just can't manage this run and we have to cancel the run on every date where 1-2 players miss without any checkout.
[b][color=red]
Next meeting will be tomorrow at 1 pm (GMT-6), 2 pm (GMT-5), 7 pm (GMT), 8 pm (GMT+1). Basically its every weekend on saturday and sunday at this time if we don't plan otherwise in the future.[/color][/b]

Poobah

2009-12-19 05:44:58 pm

There IS A Cow Level

Is it gonna be on TCP/IP or battle.net tomorrow? Cuz, if it's Ip, you should post the info.

gia

2009-12-19 07:32:20 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

like i told you i will never be at 2pm due to swimming, so dont wait for me and test your pair segments or make it 3:30pm GMT+5 if you want to be 99% I'll be there. Not starting because one is missing is stupid since when we are all together we don't play either, standing in town trying to figure out what to do next, those were about 60% of the recorded avis Tongue

I checked the times we got, none are exact but aren't far off:
3:08 town to: den of evil quest (druid and three sorcs)
2.30 stony wp to: underground passage, dark wood wp. (bonus rakanishu, bonus treefoot)
0:48 stony wp to: tristam run
4:26 team does tristam again, other team gets black marsh wp, third team starts and then all together do countess

lots of time wasted everyhwere, we dont have a good leader when playing, frag said to follow the assa, druid, pala, but no idea who of the three is the leader when together.

ofcourse

2009-12-19 09:42:27 pm

I love Rogue Squadron and stories.

doesn't look like I'll be able to make it tomorrow, friend I can pretty much only see on the weekends.

little better reason than i was asleep but still....
sorry doubt the save file is any use but jsut in case

Attachment:

ofcourse.rar

mfb

2009-12-20 06:34:38 am

3:08 town to: den of evil quest (druid and three sorcs) <-- can be improved to ~2min i think, maybe even lower. With one single group (and 5 sorcs), we are faster as the fallen shamans have less time to revive fallens.

2.30 stony wp to: underground passage, dark wood wp. (bonus rakanishu, bonus treefoot) <-- ~1:30 with 3-4 boss groups is possible, we lost time with our coordination problems here

0:48 stony wp to: tristam run <-- 1min for this segment is possible, maybe 45s

4:26 team does tristam again, other team gets black marsh wp, third team starts and then all together do countess <-- we wasted a lot of time searching the black march and the tower, so this time will be much lower in our run

I don't think we should fix the planning to much before the run starts - we can't plan everything like drops, the number of boss monsters for each group and so on, so we will have to look at this in the run. Chars which were unlucky with boss groups go to the leveling areas, chars with much xp look for the waypoint, ....
But we should have a rough plan for our tests, too.

FraGFroG and the lightning sorc discussed a new skill plan for the latter one, it can be skilled like blizzard1 in norm and nightmare. More damage, and we don't need lightning damage there.

>> Is it gonna be on TCP/IP or battle.net tomorrow?
battle.net, then TCP/IP, I guess.

3:08 town to: den of evil quest (druid and three sorcs) <-- can be improved to ~2min i think, maybe even lower. With one single group (and 5 sorcs), we are faster as the fallen shamans have less time to revive fallens.

2.30 stony wp to: underground passage, dark wood wp. (bonus rakanishu, bonus treefoot) <-- ~1:30 with 3-4 boss groups is possible, we lost time with our coordination problems here

0:48 stony wp to: tristam run <-- 1min for this segment is possible, maybe 45s

4:26 team does tristam again, other team gets black marsh wp, third team starts and then all together do countess <-- we wasted a lot of time searching the black march and the tower, so this time will be much lower in our run

I don't think we should fix the planning to much before the run starts - we can't plan everything like drops, the number of boss monsters for each group and so on, so we will have to look at this in the run. Chars which were unlucky with boss groups go to the leveling areas, chars with much xp look for the waypoint, ....
But we should have a rough plan for our tests, too.

FraGFroG and the lightning sorc discussed a new skill plan for the latter one, it can be skilled like blizzard1 in norm and nightmare. More damage, and we don't need lightning damage there.

>> Is it gonna be on TCP/IP or battle.net tomorrow?
battle.net, then TCP/IP, I guess.

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-20 11:56:20 am

2009-12-20 08:47:52 am

@Poobah: You got a pm with the data.

@gia: Hmmm 3:30 pm would mean 9:30 pm here in europe... that's kinda late. Would it help if we do 2:30-3:00 pm out of it?
The timings are quite good, considering the fact that we did it the very first time and it's just a random time, which is almost 50 % above the REAL time, that you can reach with several retries later...
To save the time about segment-discussions, we can do them in detail here in forum before we meet.

So here are some thoughts about leadership/the first segments from me:
First of all, the teams (if we split up) should be these in normal:
1) Druid + Blizzard 1
2) Assassin + Orbsorc
3) Paladin + Blizzard 2
4) Firesorc + Lightningsorc

Leadership: If we have segments together, we should have 2 leveling teams running parallel to each other 1-2 screens away (so we still get the xp-teambonus). Leader of team 1 should be Druid and Leader of team 2 the Assassin, because of their fire and forget skills (from level 12 on). Every single teammember has to strictly follow that leader then (only if he discovers a boss on the sideway, which the leader overlooked he should stop and tell the leader, the short term for telling this should just be a "b" for boss in the chat). That means, that the team only fights against the monsters that the leader is also attacking and ignore all the other monsters that he ignores. That way we can get the chaos of multiple players running in all sorts of directions without any synchronicity out of the run and speed up each teams killingspeed in the process. The two leaders should then follow this rule for running forward: Before Level 12, never ever kill monstergroups below 5 monsters (only if they block your way), the xp you gain from them is simply not worth the time you need for staticing them down/finishing them! (den is an exception here of course) After Level 12 you should increase this engagement-rule up to ~8-10 monsters, because you get much better aoe-attacks by then (fissure, firetraps, nova etc.).

When the teams are more split up (2 player teams), each team should then name a leader, who the second player follows. Team 1 and 2 should take the Druid/Assassin as leader because of their fire and forget skills and Team 3 and 4 should take the Blizzard 2 sorc/Lightning sorc as leader, because they just need to static down crowds and then go on while the second player has to still finish them all off without being able to move forward (firesorc, paladin).

About the first segments here are my thought on them:
1. segment: The den should be done with team 3 and 4, thats a good mix of aoe (3*cb on sorcs against all those fallens/groups) and single target damage (from paladin against single zombies/Wendigos). The den teams can split up a bit, if there are 2 parallel ways in one direction in the den for example.
The stony field wp will then be searched by the remaining 2 teams with splitting up on the 2 ways in the cold plains and opening a tp for the "wrong-way-team" as soon as you have reached stony field. They can then also try to find rakanishu before the wp by following the way on both sides with 2 teams. After that, the 2 teams split again in stony to try to find the wp as fast as possible.
The first team who is ready then, doesn't have to ask for a tp but should go shopping some mana-/stamina-potions instead. To signal the other team, that you are ready with your task simply type "q" for "quest done" in the chat, so the host knowes when to leave (when all tasks are finished). This "q" should only be written by one player to avoid confusion for the host, so you have to arrange that before the segment-start (who does it). Both teams: The den-team and stony team should be in a seperate teamspeak-channel for this segment.

2. segment: Find the way on stony as soon as possible (its above the wp most of the time) and kill rakanishu alongside the way before entering the underground passage.
All teams should go in one direction for the underground passage and we cannot/should not split up here. If we are lucky (which we can manipulate) we find dark wood really fast! Mfb or me can take the lead for that segment, because we made almost a hundred passage-runs already with naked barbruns and our 2-player-speedrun and know approximately the map-layouts/directions to go...
When we reach dark wood we split up in our 4 teams and search wp/inifuss scroll in every cardinal points, to find them as fast as possible. Try to avoid double-searching some place by watching the other teams position on the minimap carefully and go as far away from them as possible. "wp" is the sign for finding the wp, "i" is the sign for inifuss-tree.
If your team finds the Inifuss-tree before the wp, you can try to kill that boss before the wp is found, else just ignore him and get the scroll, so the host can leave immediately.

3. segment (mfb's work): Find the way on stony as soon as possible (its above the wp most of the time), split into two groups for each side of the way (team 1 + 3, team 2 + 4) and kill rakanishu. The player with inifuss scroll talks to akara at the beginning of the segment. At rakanishu, he activates the stones and ignores the monsters (killing rakanishu is faster anyway). We can do some stat/skill/inventory-management and share found items (weapons for paladin, cb-staffs for sorcs, dagger for assassin etc.) or look for shrines until the portal is open. In trist, split in two groups again, team 1 + 3 takes the lower route, 2 + 4 the upper one. Ignore griswold, his xp/time-ratio is just bad.
White dots are possible champ/boss groups: http://i48.tinypic.com/30xbgc5.jpg
The char with wirrets leg types "w", the group with the lower route can type "d" for done when all bosses/champs are dead.

4. segment: The tristram team should do their run just like in the 3. segment, just without leg this time. Team 1 + 2 should be tristram (because they can handle rakanishu better) and team 3 + 4 countess/black marsh.
The black marsh/countess team should split up in opposite directions in dark wood, to find the way (which leads to marsh) as fast as possible. The first team who reaches black marsh opens a tp for the second team. In black marsh we should then split up by going in opposite directions. The first team who finds the tower is the "countess team" the second has to search for the wp then. The countess team types "c" in chat as soon as they have found the tower, the wp team types "w" in chat, so the 2. team knows they have already found the wp.
As soon as the tristram-team is ready, the countess team opens a tp for them to join and help. Same with the black marsh-team, who joines countess after finding the wp.
In the tower we should always have all teams searching for the boss on every level by splitting up on all ways/side-rooms simultaneously and then writing down "b" for boss as soon as your team found it. The first team who finds the way downstairs will then go down immediately and start searching the boss on the next level regardless of the other teams having found/not found the boss yet. This is the strategy for all 6 countess-runs.

Ok, I think that's enough input from me so far, happy discussions about it... Wink

@Poobah: You got a pm with the data.

@gia: Hmmm 3:30 pm would mean 9:30 pm here in europe... that's kinda late. Would it help if we do 2:30-3:00 pm out of it?
The timings are quite good, considering the fact that we did it the very first time and it's just a random time, which is almost 50 % above the REAL time, that you can reach with several retries later...
To save the time about segment-discussions, we can do them in detail here in forum before we meet.

So here are some thoughts about leadership/the first segments from me:
First of all, the teams (if we split up) should be these in normal:
1) Druid + Blizzard 1
2) Assassin + Orbsorc
3) Paladin + Blizzard 2
4) Firesorc + Lightningsorc

Leadership: If we have segments together, we should have 2 leveling teams running parallel to each other 1-2 screens away (so we still get the xp-teambonus). Leader of team 1 should be Druid and Leader of team 2 the Assassin, because of their fire and forget skills (from level 12 on). Every single teammember has to strictly follow that leader then (only if he discovers a boss on the sideway, which the leader overlooked he should stop and tell the leader, the short term for telling this should just be a "b" for boss in the chat). That means, that the team only fights against the monsters that the leader is also attacking and ignore all the other monsters that he ignores. That way we can get the chaos of multiple players running in all sorts of directions without any synchronicity out of the run and speed up each teams killingspeed in the process. The two leaders should then follow this rule for running forward: Before Level 12, never ever kill monstergroups below 5 monsters (only if they block your way), the xp you gain from them is simply not worth the time you need for staticing them down/finishing them! (den is an exception here of course) After Level 12 you should increase this engagement-rule up to ~8-10 monsters, because you get much better aoe-attacks by then (fissure, firetraps, nova etc.).

When the teams are more split up (2 player teams), each team should then name a leader, who the second player follows. Team 1 and 2 should take the Druid/Assassin as leader because of their fire and forget skills and Team 3 and 4 should take the Blizzard 2 sorc/Lightning sorc as leader, because they just need to static down crowds and then go on while the second player has to still finish them all off without being able to move forward (firesorc, paladin).

About the first segments here are my thought on them:
1. segment: The den should be done with team 3 and 4, thats a good mix of aoe (3*cb on sorcs against all those fallens/groups) and single target damage (from paladin against single zombies/Wendigos). The den teams can split up a bit, if there are 2 parallel ways in one direction in the den for example.
The stony field wp will then be searched by the remaining 2 teams with splitting up on the 2 ways in the cold plains and opening a tp for the "wrong-way-team" as soon as you have reached stony field. They can then also try to find rakanishu before the wp by following the way on both sides with 2 teams. After that, the 2 teams split again in stony to try to find the wp as fast as possible. 
The first team who is ready then, doesn't have to ask for a tp but should go shopping some mana-/stamina-potions instead. To signal the other team, that you are ready with your task simply type "q" for "quest done" in the chat, so the host knowes when to leave (when all tasks are finished). This "q" should only be written by one player to avoid confusion for the host, so you have to arrange that before the segment-start (who does it). Both teams: The den-team and stony team should be in a seperate teamspeak-channel for this segment.

2. segment: Find the way on stony as soon as possible (its above the wp most of the time) and kill rakanishu alongside the way before entering the underground passage. 
All teams should go in one direction for the underground passage and we cannot/should not split up here. If we are lucky (which we can manipulate) we find dark wood really fast! Mfb or me can take the lead for that segment, because we made almost a hundred passage-runs already with naked barbruns and our 2-player-speedrun and know approximately the map-layouts/directions to go... 
When we reach dark wood we split up in our 4 teams and search wp/inifuss scroll in every cardinal points, to find them as fast as possible. Try to avoid double-searching some place by watching the other teams position on the minimap carefully and go as far away from them as possible. "wp" is the sign for finding the wp, "i" is the sign for inifuss-tree.
If your team finds the Inifuss-tree before the wp, you can try to kill that boss before the wp is found, else just ignore him and get the scroll, so the host can leave immediately.

3. segment (mfb's work):  Find the way on stony as soon as possible (its above the wp most of the time), split into two groups for each side of the way (team 1 + 3, team 2 + 4) and kill rakanishu. The player with inifuss scroll talks to akara at the beginning of the segment. At rakanishu, he activates the stones and ignores the monsters (killing rakanishu is faster anyway). We can do some stat/skill/inventory-management and share found items (weapons for paladin, cb-staffs for sorcs, dagger for assassin etc.) or look for shrines until the portal is open. In trist, split in two groups again, team 1 + 3 takes the lower route, 2 + 4 the upper one. Ignore griswold, his xp/time-ratio is just bad.
White dots are possible champ/boss groups: http://i48.tinypic.com/30xbgc5.jpg
The char with wirrets leg types "w", the group with the lower route can type "d" for done when all bosses/champs are dead.

4. segment: The tristram team should do their run just like in the 3. segment, just without leg this time. Team 1 + 2 should be tristram (because they can handle rakanishu better) and team 3 + 4 countess/black marsh. 
The black marsh/countess team should split up in opposite directions in dark wood, to find the way (which leads to marsh) as fast as possible. The first team who reaches black marsh opens a tp for the second team. In black marsh we should then split up by going in opposite directions. The first team who finds the tower is the "countess team" the second has to search for the wp then. The countess team types "c" in chat as soon as they have found the tower, the wp team types "w" in chat, so the 2. team knows they have already found the wp.
As soon as the tristram-team is ready, the countess team opens a tp for them to join and help. Same with the black marsh-team, who joines countess after finding the wp. 
In the tower we should always have all teams searching for the boss on every level by splitting up on all ways/side-rooms simultaneously and then writing down "b" for boss as soon as your team found it. The first team who finds the way downstairs will then go down immediately and start searching the boss on the next level regardless of the other teams having found/not found the boss yet. This is the strategy for all 6 countess-runs.

Ok, I think that's enough input from me so far, happy discussions about it... ;)

Dragonkiller

2009-12-20 11:44:52 am

Quote from FraGFroG:

Mfb or me can take the lead for that segment, because we made almost a hundred passage-runs already with naked barbruns

Sigend

My best trys at naked barbruns were the ones I followed you Wink

C ya later...

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-20 02:18:09 pm

2009-12-20 01:58:00 pm

ok, lag is back, no more search needed...

menschenfeind

2009-12-20 02:18:30 pm

i could help again (until approx. 23:30)

edit: pff ^^

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-20 05:09:28 pm

2009-12-20 03:25:35 pm

ok today we tested segment 1 a lot. Still VERY problematic segment which will need a lot of retries to be fast and smooth. The main reasons for that difficulty as I see them are:
1) The Stony team is heavily underleveled for stony field to kill stuff there with good speed.
2) On top of that, they don't have any manapotion-reserves at that point (no shopping till then), so a fast and smooth segment is heavily dependant on sufficient manapotion-drops from the monsters on the way.
3) Rakanishu is really hard to kill on level 3-4 in an 8-player game (also because of 75 % lightning resistance) and his attacks/lightning bolts hurt like shit (that's why at least one of us dies almost every attempt)!
4) We don't have sufficient vitality and oak on that point in the game, so that makes us all even more fragile...

Those are the main reasons we have so big problems there. Maybe we should rethink the teams for segment 1 and put the paladin-team on stony, so he can kill those heavy-hp-bosses (like in the very first try with 7 players) with his nice sacrifice-skill/might-aura. Let's try that next time. The druid-team can then go in the den for him...

Another option would be to just get the cold plains wp with 1 player and just steamroll through the den with all players together (tp for wp-player later ofc), so we all get a nice and easily gained startlevel ~4-5 for the coming segments to deal with all those high-hp-monsters/bosses on cold plains/stony field much faster. We used this strategy in our 2-player-run too btw... just cold plains wp + den as 1. segment with a time of 2:32 (but that was with a cold-sorc as partner, so the only one who killed effectively was the assassin in that segment). With 8 players steamrolling through the den we might be able to cut that time down to 1:30 or even less, if we get a very good one (with a very linear way through it and a very short way to the den itself) That way we could also quite easily manipulate for a very short cold plains way to stony field in the following segment (with 1-2 manipulated bosses on the way) combined with a fast Raka-kill/wp-find. Might be worth trying out next time...

Anyways, as soon as we all reached Level 12, the run will become a LOT smoother and easier due to fissure/firetraps/holy fire with zeal/fireball/nova/high enough static field, so we won't need as much retries as in the early segments now...
The next meeting will be january the 2nd (saturday) at 1:30 pm (gmt -6), 2:30 pm (gmt -5), 7:30 pm (gmt), 8:30 pm (gmt +1). Hope I see you all back by then. Dragonkiller has already signed off for saturday, so we need a replacement for that date. Who wants to play here? Also, we still need more players in the team, so don't be shy registering as regular player for the run here, if you're no d2-noob...

ok today we tested segment 1 a lot. Still VERY problematic segment which will need a lot of retries to be fast and smooth. The main reasons for that difficulty as I see them are: 
1) The Stony team is heavily underleveled for stony field to kill stuff there with good speed.
2) On top of that, they don't have any manapotion-reserves at that point (no shopping till then), so a fast and smooth segment is heavily dependant on sufficient manapotion-drops from the monsters on the way.
3) Rakanishu is really hard to kill on level 3-4 in an 8-player game (also because of 75 % lightning resistance) and his attacks/lightning bolts hurt like shit (that's why at least one of us dies almost every attempt)!
4) We don't have sufficient vitality and oak on that point in the game, so that makes us all even more fragile...

Those are the main reasons we have so big problems there. Maybe we should rethink the teams for segment 1 and put the paladin-team on stony, so he can kill those heavy-hp-bosses (like in the very first try with 7 players) with his nice sacrifice-skill/might-aura. Let's try that next time. The druid-team can then go in the den for him...

Another option would be to just get the cold plains wp with 1 player and just steamroll through the den with all players together (tp for wp-player later ofc), so we all get a nice and easily gained startlevel ~4-5 for the coming segments to deal with all those high-hp-monsters/bosses on cold plains/stony field much faster. We used this strategy in our 2-player-run too btw... just cold plains wp + den as 1. segment with a time of 2:32 (but that was with a cold-sorc as partner, so the only one who killed effectively was the assassin in that segment). With 8 players steamrolling through the den we might be able to cut that time down to 1:30 or even less, if we get a very good one (with a very linear way through it and a very short way to the den itself) That way we could also quite easily manipulate for a very short cold plains way to stony field in the following segment (with 1-2 manipulated bosses on the way) combined with a fast Raka-kill/wp-find. Might be worth trying out next time...

Anyways, as soon as we all reached Level 12, the run will become a LOT smoother and easier due to fissure/firetraps/holy fire with zeal/fireball/nova/high enough static field, so we won't need as much retries as in the early segments now...
The next meeting will be january the 2nd (saturday) at 1:30 pm (gmt -6), 2:30 pm (gmt -5), 7:30 pm (gmt), 8:30 pm (gmt +1). Hope I see you all back by then. Dragonkiller has already signed off for saturday, so we need a replacement for that date. Who wants to play here? Also, we still need more players in the team, so don't be shy registering as regular player for the run here, if you're no d2-noob...

Wuv

2009-12-20 06:34:14 pm

Ah well the first step's always the hardest. Swapping paladin for druid seems like a good idea, the den is so full of sissies that we spend just as much time running as fighting.

Lag.Com

2009-12-21 02:05:38 am

sda loyalist

I'm not sure. Poison Creeper does more good in the Den, but I'm free to spend my first few points in Vit, unlike some of the other classes. Ideally I would just find a Lightning Resist charm on the way. Fancy manipulating that? Grin

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-12-21 03:02:38 am

2009-12-21 02:52:41 am

I fear, my earlier mentioned alternative with pala-switch won't work, because Rakanishu and his minions are level 8 (and all other stony bosses/minions have level 7), so the chance for him to hit Raka with Level 3-4 is therefore far below 50 % Sad

So the only alternative i can see right now is the latter one i mentioned. Let's try that one out next time. It might work better than we think yet. The smaller segments you choose the more you can manipulate on them, so we can get 2 very small and kickass segments that way. And I don't think we will end up with a time above 4:00 minutes for both segments together (if we retry often enough), but with level 6 after the 2. segment this time, because of much better boss-manipulation-possibilities in the 2. segment and much more monsterkills altogether! Btw. we can ignore the monsters in blood moor if we choose this strat and go for den right away for the first levels...

Dragonkiller

2009-12-21 01:08:15 pm

Have I missed smething? Lag? Can you tell us, why we had to wait around 1 hour for you? And you didn't answer in IRC also...

I want to do den, because the little fallen are in my heart Grin

The DK!

Lag.Com

2009-12-22 02:19:07 am

sda loyalist

Was getting too pissed off at my incredibly unreliable connection and decided to cool off elsewhere.

Dragonkiller

2009-12-22 05:58:09 am

Would be nice, if you tell us next time, so we won't wait half an hour while you are playing any other game... Undecided

mfb

Edit history:

mfb: 2009-12-23 04:59:58 pm

2009-12-23 10:14:19 am

At inDiablo, there is a nice thread (german) how to find the next level, waypoints and so on.

The relative orientation of these spots is fixed, so if you know the direction of the waypoint/entrance (...), you know the direction of the exit/waypoint/...
However, this is only useful for underground levels. And if you enter a level somewhere in the middle like in the catacombs, there is no (known) pattern.

To use this knowledge on where you have to go for the next level/waypoint/whatever you need to know what "To the left" means, so here is the definition:
this, just look at the arrows in both drafts. You take the orientation of the entrance (here: to the upper right corner), turn it 90° to the left and you get the orientation of the exit (here: to the upper left corner)

It is useful to run or tele along the left wall - in most cases, this is the shortest way. The second case in the picture is rare (~10% or less) but it still means "to the left", because there is no alternative way and the orientation of the exit is still the upper left corner.

In caves in act 1 and 5 finding out the orientation of the entrance is a litte bit more tricky, the direction of the entrance is defined by a larger area here, as you can see at the boxes in
this and that picture.

In act 2 dungeons (stony tomb, halls of the dead, clawviper temple, tal rashas tombs) there are always 3 ways from the entrance, that you can follow. The middle way of them is always "straight forward" and "to the left" would means this here for example.

In most areas , "to the left" is the right strategy, exceptions:

straight on:
underground passage (lvl2 is to the left)
jail1 -> jail2 (wp is to the left)
jail2 -> jail3 (pitspawn is to the left)
sewers2 -> sewers3 (waypoint is to the left)
maggot lair 3 -> staff
durance of hate 2 -> 3 (waypoint is to the left)

to the right:
catacombs wp -> catacombs 3
maggot lair 1 -> 2 and 2 -> 3
worldstone keep wp -> level 3

Caves in act 5
(WP+Entrance can be switched in the glacial trail)

At inDiablo, there is a [url=http://diablo3.ingame.de/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=844075]nice thread[/url] (german) how to find the next level, waypoints and so on.

The relative orientation of these spots is fixed, so if you know the direction of the waypoint/entrance (...), you know the direction of the exit/waypoint/...
However, this is only useful for underground levels. And if you enter a level somewhere in the middle like in the catacombs, there is no (known) pattern.

To use this knowledge on where you have to go for the next level/waypoint/whatever you need to know what "To the left" means, so here is the definition:
[url=http://diablo3.ingame.de/forentechnik/pictures/844075/test.internetwebmaster.deupload1124744384.jpg]this[/url], just look at the arrows in both drafts. You take the orientation of the entrance (here: to the upper right corner), turn it 90° to the left and you get the orientation of the exit (here: to the upper left corner)

It is useful to run or tele along the left wall - in most cases, this is the shortest way. The second case in the picture is rare (~10% or less) but it still means "to the left", because there is no alternative way and the orientation of the exit is still the upper left corner.

In caves in act 1 and 5 finding out the orientation of the entrance is a litte bit more tricky, the direction of the entrance is defined by a larger area here, as you can see at the boxes in  
[url=http://diablo3.ingame.de/forentechnik/pictures/844075/test.internetwebmaster.deupload1124744441.jpg]this[/url] and [url=http://diablo3.ingame.de/forentechnik/pictures/844075/test.internetwebmaster.deupload1124744450.jpg]that[/url] picture.

In act 2 dungeons (stony tomb, halls of the dead, clawviper temple, tal rashas tombs) there are always 3 ways from the entrance, that you can follow. The middle way of them is always "straight forward" and "to the left" would means [url=http://diablo3.ingame.de/forentechnik/pictures/844075/test.internetwebmaster.deupload1124744428.jpg]this[/url] here for example.

In most areas , "to the left" is the right strategy, exceptions:

straight on:
underground passage (lvl2 is to the left)
jail1 -> jail2 (wp is to the left)
jail2 -> jail3 (pitspawn is to the left)
sewers2 -> sewers3 (waypoint is to the left)
maggot lair 3 -> staff
durance of hate 2 -> 3 (waypoint is to the left)

to the right:
catacombs wp -> catacombs 3
maggot lair 1 -> 2 and 2 -> 3
worldstone keep wp -> level 3

[url=http://i49.tinypic.com/qs38mu.jpg]Caves in act 5[/url]
(WP+Entrance can be switched in the glacial trail)

jprophet22

2009-12-25 08:31:36 pm

This world is all we have,cherish it

This run seems so awesome! I wish I had realized you guys were so serious about this earlier. I have been playing on b-net religiously for about a year and would have liked to have been a part of this. Oh well, good luck! Cant wait to see this when/if it's finished.