Dreadful Normal difficulty

[Immortal Cocacola]

Single player fans,
how do you keep yourself going through the tedium of the Normal difficulty? /players 8 makes me stronger faster, but it still takes a lot of patience and mana to kill and do everything. /players 1 is also easy until a roadblock like Duriel.

I have so many characters I want to play but I'm tired after Act 1 at best.

 

[hackedagainanda]

This helped me to get through the boredom.

 

[wakiki]

Making a crazy good set of twinking gear can be fun.

I like Khalim's Will with a +12 min damage mask (level req3) and +12 min damage light plate. You will kill all of the monsters really fast in 1 hit on /players 7. Bosses may take 2 or 3 hits. Then add on some angelics and/or sigons and you're set for a while. It will make it fun to blast through and also it will take less time. Fortunately for me, I still have to find a perfect pair of chancies and I like picking up normal jewels/small charms and the like. If you're looking forward to some items from normal difficulty, that also makes things fun.

 

[TheNix]

Normal difficulty, especially Act 1, is my favourite part.

 

[nulio]

^That

Because when I get to act2 I just quit and go to 1.07 rush characters...!

 

[endlesscircuit]

^Thirded, only really like playing through Act 1 and Act 5.

 

[Greebo]

If you do it right, assuming you're twinking and respecing, it can be fun throughout. It's about planning.

In the first post of the thread below, I describe what I like to do through normal with 6 classes and at the end of the thread I provide my favorite setup for Druids too.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?806117-Leveling-Druids-24-49&highlight=

I've done normal over 50 times I think, and it's still one my most favorite parts of the game.

Greebo

 

[Darkthrone]

The only thing I find tedious about normal is playing a sorceress because you have no mana, but as mentioned if you have a nice collection of twinking gear (if you play twinked) you can get through it pretty quickly.

I find nightmare to be the easiest difficulty because you're a high enough level to use most of your gear and you've already unlocked all the skills without the penalties of hell.

 

[Greebo]

RE sorc, 1.07 MPK rings ftw. 60 MPK at level 3.

Re nightmare: true, but the monsters in NM can be the most dangerous (Gloams and dolls) and because you need to invest into str and dex first, you have kinda lower life. Makes it interesting IMO.

Greebo

 

[Mungojerry]

I think I have done normal difficulty (and Act 1 specifically) about 3000 times and it's still my favorite part. Well.. maybe not jail levels 1-3.

I think investing in twink gear is a good option. Also you can try out whatever wierd build you like and just respec once you're in Nightmare, kinda fun.

 

[Darkthrone]

Re nightmare: true, but the monsters in NM can be the most dangerous (Gloams and dolls) and because you need to invest into str and dex first, you have kinda lower life. Makes it interesting IMO.

True, but that's what Call to Arms is for.

 

[nebux]

even without MPK rings from 1.07 a sorc is still easy go. heavy twink with damage charms until lvl 18 then add some tir weapons and sapphires and more mana charms

 

[TheNix]

Some of the most fun doing Act 1 Normal for me is when I've been living off the land.

 

[pharphis]

I think someone mentioned NM difficulty.. I've never heard of it. I'm only aware of normal and hell difficulties. Does NM come later on or something?

 

[krischan]

For leveling while questing, /players 1 is the best setting IMO. The easier the monsters, the quicker you will advance to areas where you become slower, so things will settle on their own sooner or later. Exception: You reached the Chaos Sactum befor you are L24. Increase /players until you found the highest XP per second ratio. reason: Before L25, XPs from areas too far beyond your level suffer huge penalties while ithe reduction is much less from L25 on. For areas below your level, the reduction will always be of the tough kind BTW.

When you reach nightmare Baal, it makes sense to increase /players as well and do a few nm Baal runs because it's usually better to reach L70-75 before entering hell mode. In hardcore, it's a good idea to do the same with normal Baal as well for a while.

BTW, you might have more than one game copy, so you could run the game several times in parallel. In that case I suggest to make a TCP/IP game and place L1 characters in town, in order to get extra Larzuk and Hellforge rewards for them (and perhaps gain a few other quest rewards).

 

[Cyrax]

For me the game doesn't really start until hell, so i'm usually twinked as much as possible to ensure fast passage.

 

[FredOfErik]

bow + mask + bp filled with envy jewels make a1 easy. Switch to 1.07 Raven Claw at lvl 15. That will easily bring you to level 25-30, where you can start using your main skills.

Or, ofc, self-rushing.

 

[ron]

I'm restarting from scratch, so I have to just gut it out. I used to have a nice twink set just for getting through normal with. I don't remember all the pieces as there were several sets as i leveled up. The weapons was a 5 socket longbow filled with +20 poison dmg jewels though. Khalims flail also works great. I just prefered the bow because with some IAS you can really rip stuff apart and you don't have to chase runners.

 

[MYK]

Some of the most fun doing Act 1 Normal for me is when I've been living off the land.

I think Normal is the best part of the game. If you get good at P8/full clears, then it's great. Just using shopped or gambled weapons and spells is enough to get you through the first difficulty.

Outside of that, a handy enchantress in a MP session turns the game into a cakewalk, especially if you've got a ravenclaw and a few IAS items. And Stealth. And speedy boots. Because speed. Speed!

 

[coju]

I'm restarting from scratch, so I have to just gut it out. I used to have a nice twink set just for getting through normal with. I don't remember all the pieces as there were several sets as i leveled up. The weapons was a 5 socket longbow filled with +20 poison dmg jewels though. Khalims flail also works great. I just prefered the bow because with some IAS you can really rip stuff apart and you don't have to chase runners.

If you play in Windowed Mode, you can hold down Right Click, drag your pointer off the D2 winder, release Right Click, and your toon will run around like Rick Click is still pressed down. All you have to do is hit the mana potion key and move your mouse around.