Another HC death (and Qns)

[fanatic]

Another HC death (and Qns)

within 2 weeks of the demise of my mojomancer, Selina the Mageazon meet her doom in the Jails of Act1 nightmare
she was lvl50 when she fell to the charged bolts of some LE fallen boss pack. With one hand on on the mouse, the other on the phone reciever, i couldnt hit the potions hot-key fast enough when i saw her red globe rapidly shrink..
i had tot that for my inexperienced HC play, mages would be quite safe and tat i should be able to go quite far. act2 nightmare is certainly not where i tot i would stop!
So jus to prove myself, i reincarnated Selina_II! cept this time she's a melee character. I intedn for her to put points only in the Passive tree though. I remember readin b4 a guide on Swordmistress zon who specialises in sword as weapon and passive tree only. Maybe i will go with a different weapon, but for now, Selina is quite happy with her Rinox Keen (sp?) with CB and other cool stats i've forgotten. She also managed to lay her hands on an Artic Furs! +10 to all resist is not 2b sneezed at in normal! now waiting for other parts from the set to drop =)
As Selina_II reached her 14th level, she has some queries about her skills and such..

Qn: Should she invest points in Dex to up her blocking? She has plans for reaching 50% in Dodge, Evade and Avoid b4 nightmare.

Qn: If she should invest into blocking, how much is needed? Its 23% right now with her small shiled.

Qn: How will blocking work with D, E and A? All are considered as parrying attacks right? Will they stack or they have a checking order?

Some insights:-
Selina Meleezon
lvl 14
Critical Strike:5
Dodge:5
Avoid:3

1 unused skill pts, 30 unspent stats pts (as usual)

 

[farting bob]

with 50% in natural dogde at least, it shoudl be easy to get to 75 with a decent shield, although you might consider just using a 2 handed weapon if your blcok is 50 anwyay, thats a very nice total as it is, and havign a 2 handed sword or whatever will mean you cn kill quicker so less hits.
and what is tot?

 

[farting bob]

edit: double post.

 

[jiansonz]

Blocking with most weapons is very buggy for an amazon. The block recovery is ungodly slow, except when you use javelins or daggers. Expect a very tough time if you try sword/axe/mace or something like that.

I took a Swordmistress to Matriarch in 1.09. She used only two-handed swords (as soon as she could use one) during her entire career. I maxed Critical Strike, Penetrate and Dodge, had one point in Inner Sight, two in Slow Missiles and the rest in Avoid and Evade.
I had attack on left mouse button the whole time and had only two skills hotkeyed on right mouse button: Town Portal and Slow Missiles. She died 20 times along the way (some of those deaths could/should have been avoided).

If you play 1.10, you have basically three choices:

* Use a dagger or a javelin and get high blocking (max or close to it). This is probably the best for HC, although finding a high damage javelin/dagger can be troublesome.

* Use a two-handed weapon and don´t care about blocking. Get a tough Valkyrie for those bad-a** enemies you don´t want to melee in HC.

* Try another one-handed weapon type anyway, get a good Valk and fight on with sucky block recovery speed.

Use Decoy, Valkyrie and Slow Missiles wisely in all cases.


I think the checking order is:
- Monster AR/level difference/your Defense/To Hit roll. Did the monster actually hit you?
- Dodge/Avoid/Evade
- Blocking
... but I may be wrong.

Blocking is first important against Duriel. I´d get a Bone Shield of Deflecting from Drognan for that fight.


Also: do you plan to use a mercenary? If yes, what type?

 

[fanatic]

farting bob: tot = thought. picked up this abbrev somewhere =p

jiansonz: Sweet! i tot ur name looked familiar, it must have been ur guide tat i had read abt =) wat better person to ask for advice? this char is meant for playin in 109, despite the lure of new itamz and skill synergies in 110, i have decided to not step in tat direction jus yet. I had planned on going without a merc, but on second tots i might need one to provide elem attack on PIs. maybe i'll him/her die of poison after tat =p

 

[farting bob]

please dont use chat room slang to much here. saying things like itemz, tat and tot, it makes you look like a n00b.

 

[jiansonz]

jiansonz: Sweet! i tot ur name looked familiar, it must have been ur guide tat i had read abt =) wat better person to ask for advice? this char is meant for playin in 109, despite the lure of new itamz and skill synergies in 110, i have decided to not step in tat direction jus yet. I had planned on going without a merc, but on second tots i might need one to provide elem attack on PIs. maybe i'll him/her die of poison after tat =p

No, I didn´t write the swordmistress guide, that was Sapphidia. Reading her guide made me play a swordmistress, something I didn´t regret.

Both her and I used a fire rogue as mercenary (Sapphidia made a rogue merc guide as well. I think I have a link for it on my computer at home). In 1.09, the buggy Fire Arrow converts much of the physical damage from the bow into fire, so if you can get a high damage bow for her, she will be a great help against PIs. My merc and I also had good damage from another element: lightning. I was lucky to find Skystrike for the merc and Cloudcrack for the amazon. I also made a huge poison damage bow which the merc used a few times and the amazon used on one occasion: to take out Hell Talic and Madawc (the bow, along with many arrows and lots and lots of running!).

I played untwinked, full clear each area once. I was pretty lucky with items. Sigon´s gloves and helm provided attack speed, AR bonus and life steal. The Rising Sun made the fight with Hell Diablo easy. It was not until she got her end game armor, a 'Smoke' Wyrmhide in late Act 3 Hell, that she was really coming into her own.

So if you play 1.09, I advice you to use a two-handed weapon. Damage is King (along with attack speed and life steal). Feel free to laugh at those pathetic Mana Burn monsters that scare other melee characters...
Decoy and Valk are not a necessity in this version, but may be good for your survival. 2 points in Slow Missiles is enough. One is not, in my opinion. 12 seconds is not enough. Getting that up to 18 seconds feels like more than 50% better, since you need a few seconds to cast it and dodge arrows.

If you choose two-handed swords, a 'Steel' Claymore is a very nice sword from act 2 onwards and can actually take you all the way through Normal. Fara sells 2-socketed Claymores and you are almost guaranteed to find the runes (Tir + El) well before the end of act 2.

In act 2 Nightmare you can buy a Tusk Sword (good damage, reasonably speedy, not that high requirements) from Fara and cube it with the 3-chipped recipe until you get some nice +% damage. And it´s very customizable. Add a good jewel, Amn rune, Shael rune or skull, etc...

 

[fanatic]

farting bob: I dont visit chatrooms, those 'slangs' i picked up from talking to my friends via ICQ.. I didnt realise the forum arent used to those abbreviations, will try to keep that in mind whenever i post

jiansonz: Oops! sorry about the mistake, but i kinda remember reading some guide u'd written.. was it the mojomancer + rogue merc guide?
Those were some pretty nice tips there, think they will help me get to at least act1 Hell ;p i think i will let Selina use a sword, she has been picking up some chipped gems lately, she has even set 2 chipped rubies on her cap for a nice red sparkle! merc-wise, its only a matter of whether i want one or not. When i do, it will always be the rogue merc, no other merc can cut it as cool as she does! (excpet unless u can get Tyrael to travel round with u...)

Thx guys for the input! i'll be posting whenever something nice comes up

 

[strijdje]

srry about the death man, just keep playing HC, its worth it :thumbsup:

 

[jiansonz]

jiansonz: Oops! sorry about the mistake, but i kinda remember reading some guide u'd written.. was it the mojomancer + rogue merc guide?

It was the Tale of Isolde and Mike, yes (which wasn´t really a guide, more of a description of what happened, with lots of gameplay details). The forum crash wiped it out, but I still have it saved. I really should put it on a web page and include the screenshots I took...

merc-wise, its only a matter of whether i want one or not. When i do, it will always be the rogue merc, no other merc can cut it as cool as she does! (excpet unless u can get Tyrael to travel round with u...)

If you are going HC, I would definately get a mercenary. There are some bosses you just don´t want to melee with this type of character. The rogue worked well for me. It was good to see her take out a Fanaticism + Spectral Hit + Extra Strong Hell Lord boss pack across lava in one of those bonus areas in act 5.

 

[SnakeEye85]

It was the Tale of Isolde and Mike, yes (which wasn´t really a guide, more of a description of what happened, with lots of gameplay details). The forum crash wiped it out, but I still have it saved. I really should put it on a web page and include the screenshots I took...

yeah that was some nice reading!!!

im still waiting for similar stories from your 1.10 adventures

 

[jiansonz]

im still waiting for similar stories from your 1.10 adventures

You will have to make do with my tournament updates, as these five are the only 1.10 characters I have (apart from my "1.10 discoverer", a pretty dull SC Necro who is in Act 5 NM, probably not to be played again). Sadly, the posts about the two that have reached Hell (SniperBlazie and Lucky) have been wiped out (but I have that text saved as well).

 

[SnakeEye85]

You will have to make do with my tournament updates, as these five are the only 1.10 characters I have (apart from my "1.10 discoverer", a pretty dull SC Necro who is in Act 5 NM, probably not to be played again).

i guess that will have to do then