another starting from scratch thread

[freefree]

another starting from scratch thread

I know there all over the place, well through my stupidity and arrogance I'll be off B.net for a month. And decided to take a couple builds from normal to hell forge to see who might be the better starting character to just get going.

I'm looking for suggestions, on what everyones prefrence for a starting char that can reach hell forge untwinked, and be capable of running lvl85 areas, hell countess, and hell andy with atleast 300mf and no fear.

My first ideas:

1: Meteorb or any other sorc. I wont make one of these after playing my meteorb for more than a year I'm getting bored of sorcs.

2: Fishymancers. not my preferd but I probably will build one or two of these anyway to test variants (ie. summon/poison)

3: Bonemancer. I like this idea as a better choice than the sorc, but I don't know if they could put out enough damage untwinked to make it through hell forge and the runs id like to do.

4: Fury wolf, This one I am going to do, but I am looking for a couple more to test.

5: Zealot These seem to be all the rage and they could be good uber runners as a 1pt smiter. But are they good at running the above areas let alone retrieving keys.

6: Hammerdin I dont like these guys but I'm willing, I got time to master them.

any other suggestions are more than welcome, just keep in mind it's a broke character. With little to no help as I want my forges. Also would the build you suggest be good for running for keys, without an enigma, it'd probably take along time to get one.

 

[damaris]

fishymancer indeed. sm+rs+ce+amp+decp and you own the game! :grin:

 

[sirpoopsalot]

This is the Single-Player forum. The ubers do not work (or spawn) in SP, so the keys are completely useless. I believe you'd need a game-mod to fight the ubers, but I don't really know for sure. I do know that any such mod would not be accepted by this community.


1. Just about any 2-tree build can work pretty well for a sorc. Most popular are probably: Metorb, Blizzballers, and CL/FO

2. You'll get a lot of votes for this because it's such a safe build, but I agree with your point ... it's not the most interesting playstyle for me.

3. I haven't tried yet... no comment

4. I didn't enjoy my FuryWolf, but our personal preferences may be different. Also, without something to break Physical Immunes, some monsters can give you fits (I used a Reapers Toll on my merc - but if you're going untwinked, you'll probably have a relatively difficult time with PI's)

5. Yes Zealots are popular, but see my opening statement.

6. Hammerdins will certainly work well enough, but mine is level91 and I still haven't mastered targeting in tight places. For open areas (like the Pits), they pwn.


Edit: I've also spent a fair bit of time 'rushing' individual characters to Hellforge, as well as running most of the popular areas in the game (as well as a couple unpopular ones). My opinion is that if you intend to seriously run any target, you should build a character explicitly for that purpose (example, a CL/FO sorc for Countess, a Blizzsorc for Meph/Ancient Tunnels, etc.).

 

[crazy_bear]

Just a reminder on differences between SP & Bnet

- Rushing for other people is uncommon since multiplayer is less common, so forge drops are rarely an issue. Being prepared for all monsters is a necessity in SP

- As already pointed out, the keys will do you no good, though they do drop.

- Use the /players x command to help you level faster early


One char you didn't mention which is strong untwinked is a lightning zon with either strafe or FA as a backup for immunes.

Good luck in your SP career! Don't forget to read the stickies.

CB

 

[freefree]

You guys didn't seem to catch on, I plan to play this charact on the realms, but i'll be testing it out in single player to see how easy the build is while my ban is active.

I forgot javazons, Might be a good choice I've never even played a zon in D2 yet that was the only char I played in D1. My Fury wolf just past tristram at level 13, and I'm liking him so far. Though he doesn't deal much damage he does deal it quick and can tank with all that life.

 

[Hrus]

Well, getting wealthy in SP is very different from getting wealthy in BNet. In SP you can have very efficient MF runers, thanks to static maps and no temp restrictions, you can build nice pool of uniques and sets easily. On the other hand, runes are very tough to get, on BNet there is a large pool of duped high runes, so they are quite cheap to trade, so there is no need to have countess runner. Running countess isn't the best way to get mid-high runes anyway.
If I understand correctly, the fastest way to get "wealthy" on BNet is building a keyrunner. If you need a MF runner for Meph and Andy first (and Tunnels), I would suggest pure Blizzard. Meteorb and Blizzball are slightly weaker in damage output, but are more versatile, so you can run more areas with them (which is good for longer games and no temp restrictions). For all kind of runs - the speed is the key and if you can't have Enigma, the sorc is the best having the teleport skill.

Meleebuilds like Furywolf or zealot - you will have tough time with them untwinked and even twinked, they will not be the best MF runners.

 

[buffa]

If you want something other than sorc, you can try LF/FA amazon by nightfish, I playing her with pindle now. Not really need good item.

She can also run WSK and pit pretty well, just the merc might die when facing strong mob.

I am using my fishymancer to run pit and WSK, my merc is safer....

Both these can be found in the character guide somehwere in the sticky

edit: I started my d2 with them recently... just run some nightmare meph, and you might lucky to get titan revenge like me. Though usually ppl said you wont get the item you want... :sad2:

 

[Randall]

3: Bonemancer. I like this idea as a better choice than the sorc, but I don't know if they could put out enough damage untwinked to make it through hell forge and the runs id like to do.

For MF purpose (and best killing speed) the basic tactic is close to a fishymancer. Get one first body and use high level CE.

 

[smilts]

good luck in your quest i first came to sp to test and see what I wanted to do on b.net when I got back. i Though I wasnt banned from B.net it didnt work well for me and in fact I have decided I like Sp better. Everything is 100% diff here. I still have 4 legit godly chars on non ladder east, and one Im not sure about that a friend put together for me in a couple of days hoping I would come back online. compare that to monthss of play and I havnt found a ist or anything higher yet here.

 

[water_moon]

I'd second the javazon, my lightening girl owns and rather than run to a differnt tree, I have plague jav as my back up and my valk takes out what the merc can't get.

Though I think a pure lightening would do fine on b.net, you don't have the same issues as SP.

 

[Brak]

As has been mentioned earlier, couldn't tell if you wanted a realm or sp suggestion, but if you wanted to make a good no-twink key runner, I'd recommend a firewall, lightning sorc. The teleport is a must and you obviously won't have Enigma. Any lightning build is needed for Countess to get Terror Keys. And there are also no lightning immunes in Arcane Sanctuary. I'd go with firewall because I like it better unsynergized than Orb, and the monsters that seem most resistant to your lightning (if you bother to kill anything) are the ghoul lord's which are cold immune. I don't think you want to bother running Destruction keys with this character. From what I understood howl barbs were most effective at this, but it's very easy to just trade Terror + Hate, or 2x Hate, 2x Terror in order to complete your sets. The nice thing about running Terror and Hate keys is that they are MF independent ways to get loot. The keys don't need MF to drop, the Countess drops decent runes at an OK rate, and the sparkly chests in the Arcane Sanctuary are MF independent. Thus if your gear is not optimal for MF'ing yet don't have to worry about it much. I do think keys are the easiest way to get yourself items from scratch on realms. Just remember that most of the runes you'll be able to trade for are likely duped. I had to beat Ohm, Sur, Lo and other naughty rune offers away with a stick when I was trading away my keysets. Craziest offer ever was 3X Ber for 2X keysets.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

... I'd go with firewall because I like it better unsynergized than Orb...

While personal preference should be the deciding factor on which backup skill you use... I have a lvl93 CL/FW sorc and a lvl89 CL/FO sorc, and I've done at least 2k+ Countess runs with each.

For Countess, Orb is better than Firewall for two reasons:
1) Chilled Archers = slower attacks = safer runs
2) Archers often run away when engaged at melee range, so it can be difficult to make them stand in your Firewall if your merc is trying to attack them.


I'll concede you're probably right about the AS and Nihlathak's keys though - I haven't run them (since they're useless in SP).

 

[freefree]

I'm looking into tyhe rrm/rwm mods, and might think about sticking to single player, as the runewords and trading are the only reason I prefered bnet in the first place. And I got to say I hated trading, everyone thoght there gear was worth the world. Who the hell wouldn't trade a frickin amn for a titans? I mean what wearth does an amn have other than for a spirit, but you can get an amn running counmtess once... just once, thats five minutes for a MELEE character.

I'm realy likeing my fury wolf, though I don't know how well he'll fair in the chaos sanctuary, I'm starting my first Fishy as well. I'll probably make a few of these just for NM and Hell forges.

thanks for your advice you guys, if I go back to bnet I guess a CL/FO sorc might be a good change for me, as I've never used anything on the lightning tree other than static.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

You're certainly welcome here if you make the switch to SP.

However, you should probably learn that the trade-values on BNet are VERY different than they are here (i.e. if you didn't know already). Since we don't allow duped runes (or items), a lot of the traders highest runes are probably in the Ko/Fal range - and these are quite valuable (although many traders aren't allowed to trade any rune above Hel until they 'prove' themselves). Likewise, sets and uniques dominate a large percentage of the items traded, and high runes/runewords are almost non-existent in the trade pool.

Finally, we have fairly strict rules for trading, and it's often confusing keeping everything straight for newer players (heck, some of us oldies have our difficulties too). If you're truly interested in trading, swing by the Single Player Trade Forum, and please have a look at the posted rules. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here in the SPF - we're a lot more patient answering questions about what is and isn't acceptable than we are when someone gets excited and posts something that's against the rules (especially if it's clearly documented as 'illegal' in the rules, and someone posts anyway :grrrr.

 

[Brak]

For Countess, Orb is better than Firewall for two reasons:
1) Chilled Archers = slower attacks = safer runs
2) Archers often run away when engaged at melee range, so it can be difficult to make them stand in your Firewall if your merc is trying to attack them.
QUOTE]

I'd 100% agree with you here. It was really annoying trying to hit archers with firewall especially since they tend to walk out of it rather often. Holy freeze merc tended to help a bit for the chilling effects, but nasty boss packs were always hairy. Think I hit a fanat, extra fast, extra strong pack once that tore my merc apart before I could notice his life bar changing.

@freefree: Don't go back to Bnet. I just came from there. It's much better here, and there' cookiesrop: .