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Jack of all Trades
Yes Tub, I was referring to the inside of the enormous dungeon that is the correct tomb.

As for Mephisto...sure, head left, then it will be on your right. =]
What's CLVL do you need to reach to beat normal then? I haven't played 1.10 much, but I think you'd be looking to get around 30 levels under your belt. If that's the case, something like a Barb or Paladin might be faster than a Sorceress. They won't travel so fast, but they'll sure as hell kill quicker upto level 30, and you won't need much mana. Give the Barb a poleaxe in Act 1 and you're off to a flying start Smiley

18 levels without teleport is a long, long way.
Jack of all Trades
You need at least twenty for the ancients.
Yeah, I said it.
Isn't there an amulet that grants +1 to teleport?
m00
no, there are only amulets with teleport charges. Levelreq 48 though, and the only chance for them to drop on a normal run is Nihlathak and Baal Wink
Just call me the cynicism machine
Quote:
In Mephisto's place, just keep left. always.

The position of the symbols in the Canyon of the Magi is always the same. Finding the correct tomb is easy, finding duriel inside the tomb is a different issue ..


These are pretty bad rumors that circulate around b.net a lot.  Another one is that the Sorcerer is always up and right from the teleporter in the arcane sanctuary.  These things are randomly placed and will require just as much luck as any other non-defined map area.

To put in my two cents, this is a toss up between using a Sorceress, an Assassin, or a Druid.  While a Sorc gets static field (and whoever said putting more than one point into this is an idiot, since points only affect radius), she will also be heavily dependent on her mana reserves and might die a few times.  An Assassin gets to use a few nice spells, using either the trap set or the martial arts set, but each are slightly flawed for a speed run.  Most Assassin weapons kinda suck at low levels, and most physical attacks, as stated earlier, tend to miss once you get into Act 3+.  However, the charged attacks will own a lot, especially when used in tandem with other skills.  A Druid gets to tinker with a few skill sets that the other characters don't.  While werewolf and lycanthropy own, they aren't exceptional until you are in Nightmare mode and get some nice weaponry. However, a summoner/elementalist Druid has a decent amount of magical power with a nice small army at his command.

So, to summate that last paragraph, take the Druid if you want to be safe, take the Sorc if you want to take risks, or take an Assassin if you're interested in showing off.
m00
Quote:
These are pretty bad rumors that circulate around b.net a lot.

I know what I'm talking about. It's not bnet rumors.
There are some areas in the game where you have much higher chances of finding the exit when either going left or right, depending on the area and where you're going.

For example in the durance of hate level 2, the exit to lvl1, waypoint and exit to lvl 3 are always in a clockwise order. If you wish to go from the waypoint to level 3, going left (or clockwise) is usually faster. If you enter from level 1 and want to skip the waypoint, go right.

of course there is no guarantee that these routes are faster every time, but they are faster on average.

Other areas include catacombs lvl 2, maggot lair (all levels), worldstone keep level 2. Possibly others. Go check yourself if going left or right is faster, I won't provide a list now.


oh, and about the symbol placement in the canyon of the magi, please go check yourself before acusing me of spreading false information.

Quote:
(about static field) and whoever said putting more than one point into this is an idiot, since points only affect radius

great. You go ahead, try hugging baal at level 20 with a low-vita-sorc. Please make a video, should be enjoyable.

Quote:
and most physical attacks, as stated earlier, tend to miss once you get into Act 3+.

that's where TS kicks in, giving you a good AR boost - the melee assassin will last longer than barb or pally.
But as I said, TS is mainly for the low levels where AR is not an issue and the additional damage will get rid of bosses quite fast. Spending 1 point is not wasted.
Edit history:
Gorash: 2005-05-23 11:58:35 pm
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In the tower of the countess in act1 heading left is also in 95% faster, in all levels.

I didn't figure out the best direction for catacombs 2, maggot layer 2, and worldstone 3... can someone help me there?

Ekarderif: My bad about ES lv18, but I still think it's not worth the trouble.

Zurreco: less flaming, more AoS Wink

About my test stuff:
I used a fist of fire assassin and leveled pretty fast by creating a mob, casting cloak of shadows, charging fists up (using burst of speed lv3 and 2 katars) and finishing all in one blow. Exp en passent.

Hit is no problem at all except for Duriel himself, who will be a nuisance for every player. NO hit problems even in act5.

I got a frost merc in act3 which did't die once until chaos sankt, and which comes in handy to get a mob of flayers wait patiently while you convert them to exp.

So the list of the merits of sin is:
- fast running and hitting with burst of speed
- splash elemental dam
- keeps pretty strong at all times
- gets a free blocker
- nice croud control with cloak of shadows
- emergency res boost with with fade (never used it though)
- few hit probs

Flaws:
- chaos sankt is a pest, everything is fire resistant and oblivion knights will cast decrepify as soon as you approach them
- is not optimal vs bosses

I've still got the saves at the segments I made (act1 3 saves, act2 6 saves, act3 4 saves, act4 2 saves, act5 1 save)
I you want I can upload them so you can mess a bit with the char.
Jack of all Trades
Seems like a sin with TS would be great against bosses.

How much time do you guys spend in A1? I mean, it seems like you'd do most of your leveling there...or not? Especially with melee. You guys don't go to A2 with lvl 8 chars do you?

And being able to switch between say /players 4 and 1 for exp. and then to just plow ahead would save a lot of time.
Edit history:
Gorash: 2005-05-24 12:13:01 am
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Quote:
And being able to switch between say /players 4 and 1 for exp. and then to just plow ahead would save a lot of time.

I treated that as a beneficial code so I went /players8 all the way. Without I'd say, shave around 15-20 minutes off the run until river of flame, but also maybe 1 level.

Put the saves here.

I didn't put much effort in it, just wanted to see how difficult it is and what times realistic are. I should have gotten BoS 2+3 much earlier, realised too late what a difference it makes. I wonder if ice claws could be worth a point later on. Names indicate what you asked for marsh. Don't take the last save serious... 57 minutes for chaos sankt + diablo is way too much... :/

EDIT: deleted the charname (alotfaster) from the filenames for better readability in crappy apache dir index...
Edit history:
marshmallow: 2005-05-24 12:49:26 am
Jack of all Trades
Let me understand this: you leveled from 1-12 in 15 minutes? Wow! That's quite impressive.

I looked at your last save and played around with it -- quite powerful. I don't think I would put a point in fade, as you noted, and I was surprised to see you didn't do any of the skill point quests: Den, Rada, or Izzy! Five points could be huge, and you have to level anyway...right?

I was thinking with those extra five you could split the points between fire and thunder and then maybe fire immunes wouldn't be too bad.

Looks like you got a break in A3?

Personally, I would've gone with an A2 merc. But then again, those guys usually don't get awesome until later, but I think you could work it out. Then again, freezing your enemies can be nice too...
Edit history:
Gorash: 2005-05-24 01:23:54 am
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lv12 in 15 minutes is not that impressive on 8 players... once you get lv6 you can kill entire mobs with one or two fire charges. I mostly ran from everyting and only stopped for easy prey, like champions or a bunch of rogues maybe...

Main concern about the act2 guy was: he'll stay low. On /players8 he'll maybe reach lv15 and then become worthless. Freezing your enemies is a must in chaos sankt, otherwise you'll get decrepified by oblivion knights and you'll never get them down.

Den: looooong, maybe 5 minutes of toying with lvl1 monsters, in which I am already in stony and level 6.
Rada: even loooonger, 3 levels of dungeon, plus they are burning dead and thus fire resistant.
Izzy: I thought about doing him, but he was so far out of the way (look at the act4 map, the explored part) and I really hated act4 with that char. Maybe if someone tests how long it takes to kill that guy?

Break in act3? If you mean creation date, what's been killing that time is duriel... load the save and give duriel a try... the time is done without death btw. ;). Hint: Get a second folder of townportals for 40 scrolls, you'll need them.
Jack of all Trades
Was the Shadow and Cloak of Shadows that much use? If not, those are other points you could divert to CoT.
Edit history:
Gorash: 2005-05-24 09:59:30 am
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Well cloak of shadow is handy but not essential. It works pretty much like dim vision (unfortunately that includes oblivion knights being immune to it) and can save you from being blocked in narrow passages (like flayer jungle). I think one could do it without, but it would be a lot harder.

The shadow is a must. It's a blocker that will take the damage you don't want to take, it gives you the crucial splitseconds in the fight vs duriel to charge, set of a charge and retreat. And in rare moments of AI enlightenment it casts stuff before you do it, saving your mana.
MGS for PS1 forever.
I think for Diablo I and II there should be 2 kinds of runs.

1) Runs that try for the lowest possible char. level to beat the game. Of course this means that if someone with a lvl. 90 char. beats it in 3 hours and a lvl. 40 char. beats it in 6 hours, you'd have to keep the 6 hours one. Of course as soon as you figured out the lowest possible lvl for a char. to beat the game, you would then just improve the time for that lvl.

2) As fast as possible with any lvl. char. This would be mostly for higher lvl. char.

In both instances you wouldn't start recording when you first start the character...only when you want to beat the game...so you could start recording at say...lvl. 30. The reason why I think these 2 should be the runs done for the game is because of the randomness of dungeons/drops/enemies, etc. If it weren't for randomness...a "from scratch" recording would work.
Jack of all Trades
Yeah, I've used CoS before, I know what it does...I just never found it that useful until late in Hell, particularly A4 and A5, where the strong, massed ranged attacks would otherwise own you in a volley or two.

And I wasn't sure if the Shadow warrior was any good with just a single point, but yeah, especially against Duriel he would be useful even if he died in a hit or two. Ancients too, I imagine.

In A1, where did you level up? Because I tried my own lil sin and I got to the monastary kinda early and somewhat underleveled (and I did the Den and even killed Raven and Woodfist). Maybe I just had a shorter path than you.

Is there any other character that could own normal this quickly from scratch? FoF is almost perfect: increased AR, area of effect, high damage, low mana, and only level 6! It's like having a miniature meteor. I can't think of any other character type that could do so well so early except maybe a sorc with lightning, although the damage itself would be less and she'd be slower and weaker and need even more mana pots.

Is Dragon Claw that useful? I looked at your A5 save and the difference between DC and the normal attack AR was only like 150 or something and only amounted to a difference of about 3-4% against normal enemies. Increasing it by 40% is big usually but when your base AR isn't that large it doesn't seem to do THAT much.

So that's another 2 potential points, unless you think that's a bad idea later in A5.
Edit history:
Ekarderif: 2005-05-24 03:53:31 pm
Your almighty lordship
Best levelling would probably be:
Act 1 - Tristram, Tamoe Highlands
Act 2 - Sewers (but no wandering here :(), Tombs
Act 3 - SUCK
Act 4 - Chaos Sanctuary (but melee = bad)
Act 5 - Bloody Foothills / Baal
Jack of all Trades
Well, I'd like to see movies of all this. Even your 'crappy' run because it looks incredible just by looking at the times.
${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}
You can see where I went when you look into the char and view the maps... basically I took the fastest possible route in every case. Don't forget /players 8 all the time.

I can't remember the levels at certain passages, but I think the main exp was gained from medium to large sized monsters, like rogues, wendigos and goat men later on. They are fast and you get get them into a mob by running in between them, then turning around to concentrate them and then finishing them off. Spiked stuff, archers, and mages don't move, so you can't mob them, resulting in less exp per hit. Fallen give only exp the first kill, and they are very hard to gather once the first sucker bites the dust, so finish off as much as you can in the first blow and travel on.

Be sure not to get more than lv2 in the first area, after that small groups in cold plains are better.

Champs and bosses usually give fast exp, exceptions are fire enchant, stone skin, and magic resist bosses. Don't hesitate to take on fanaticism or might bosses, the aura is ridiculous in act1.

About other chars:
I've been pondering about a hybrid elemental summoner druid. Still have to do the maths for that... maybe I'll do it later today.

A lighting sorc will hardly make it past andariel I think. I tried to take her on with lv8 or something charged bolt, but first of all she's got 50% lr, so static isn't that powerful. Also she does insane amounts of damage, and to get a sorc to the essential 150 life early on is hard. And if you try to take her from distance charged bolt won't do the damage it could if all hit (Andy: 8192 hp, one bolt: 10 dam, andy gets hit for 5 dam per bolt, even if you manage to hit her with 15+ bolts it's going to be a long fight)

Dragon Claw: no it isn't and I'd never waste the two points again. I didn't realize it makes so little difference and wanted to be safe for later. If these 2 points, plus the 2 points from Izual are free I'd propose to switch to Ice Claws starting lv24. You'd get it to lv3-4 just in the chaos sankt and diablo gets much easier in a breeze.

If you want to be sure the route isn't the clue, use the first save. It's immediately after character creation, but the map for act1 is already fixed (saves you the trouble of having to explore it).

Another question: In single player, is the map for all 5 acts generated on character creation or on first entry of that act? No guesses please.

Also I don't think I'd level much in act5... lv27 is enough to hit the ancients, and lv28 should be enough for Ball as well, otherwise gain 2 level on the way there, put one point into venom and laugh insanely at your damage.
Your almighty lordship
The map is generated on the way. However, if you just backup your character, you can go generate a map, reload the save, and the map remains (it's stored on separate files).
${$uid.$user}{' usertext'}
Can you copy a map onto another save?

I tried that and it didn't work.

The map I got for act3 in my test game was pretty good, and the act2 map wasn't bad either.
Edit history:
Gorash: 2005-05-27 10:25:28 pm
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Double post and topic necromancy - yay!

Just to keep this alive (you guys have sure an attention span when it comes to diablo) I did some experimenting with other chars. Knowing my assassin got owned later on in the game I decided to start a little softer this time, that is on /players4. I used the build introduced a few posts ago and did some fine tuning to the skills...

And just to keep you guys from ignoring this again I let fraps record a whooping 12gig and stuffed them into neat little 60megs of a try to get a weak caster fast to level12 (where he gets fissure), which unfortunately failed... but maybe some of you can help me to get even more exp out of the first few maps.
(Oh this is only the 3rd try, and also randomness inpersonated so don't expect a TSA from it...)

still here

EDIT: It took me 10 minutes to type this and by the time I submit this I find another topic necromancer... tsts...
Quote:
If it weren't for the fact that the first special zombie (called Corpsefire) could never drop SoJ in Lord of Destruction, I'd really believe you.


I don't mean to be destructive, but due to the huuuuuuuge amount of randomness I consider diablo2-runs not only to be extremely boring, but also to be extremely pointless. A good time takes more luck with drops and pathfinding than skill (ever spent 3 hours in the jungle trying to find your way?)
I'd also be difficult to track, as every patch and game mode has different monsters and difficulties and can't be compared. There is no obvious "standard setting" for runs.

Oh, and beating Baal on normal skill untwinked might take longer than 7 hours. It's difficult to find a good estimate, but it does take longer on my regular playthroughs, and you can't really speed up leveling. Oh, and I usually skip khalims flail (I hate the sewers), which you can't.



yes he can drop it i saw my friend do it you liar
http://darkness.diabloii.net/beastiary/bosses/corpsefire/

http://www.diabloii.net/items/uniques/armor-rings.shtml

Normal Corpsefire Mlvl = 4
Stone of Jordan Ilvl = 39!

Monster level needs to be higher than the item level, for it to drop that item.

Sure you weren't on a higher skill level?
Edit history:
marshmallow: 2005-05-29 05:53:42 am
Jack of all Trades
Not bad -- having a level 1 area of effect spell is pretty nice. Plus, you get some early meatshields AND extra health from the oak sage. And the druid is a decent tank.

But, wouldn't you have the same problems as the sin later on (against the fire immunes)? Also, I think the shadow would be better than the summons later on, although I may be wrong (gonna get a grizzly? They're nice).

What other spells will you get?

You'd level more if you weren't so lucky and just went right through all the areas in such short order (especially lucky with the caves and all the exp. shrines). Spend more time on the Tamoe Highlands is my guess.