My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

[Lizardking]

My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

The Begin of Your Diablo II Carreer

I. Why This guide ?
II. What should I do first ?
III. What char ?
IV. What skill ?
V. What class ?
VI. Mf tips
VII. Cheap gear
VIII. Links

Let’s start, get a cup of tea (tea is good for you !) :jig:

Why this guide ?
First things first, why even write a guide about starting the game anyway ? Well because it can be difficult to start with a game without knowing some basic things. And since I play for a long time and started over and over again for over 100 times I wanted to share my “experienceâ€.

What should I do first ?
First, it will be handy to register yourself @ www.forums.dii.net. Why ? No not because I want to get some visitors to that site but because it’s just so handy to have a helping hand. This ladder season I asked a lot on this forum. And that’s point 2, ASK ASK ASK !!! I played D2 for almost 5 years and I still have many questions. Point 3 is Save everything you find at the beginning. Gold, gems, socketed armors ect. All pwetty handy. You can throw low stuff away if you are a little more rich. Also safe runes. For example I had a nice mf (see next chapter) ring for just 4 nefs and I still wear it. Point 4 and I guess the most important point in this chapter is : experiment skills, stats, build ect. Just scout your way through the game and use what you like most on your second char. Rebuilding a char isn’t that bad !

What char ?
MF (also Magic Find Character). You can get some pretty good gear with these chars. They kill bosses with high speed and get nice shiny unique items. I always make MF chars as a first character. You can get your own gear but you can get nice items to trade too (which give you gear !). So MF is highly recommended by me as a first char. See chapter VI for tips !

What skill ?
You want a nice,fast, high damage skill for your first char (I hope for you that this is a MF char). Frozen orb is a nice one, kills fast and slows enemies if they don’t die. Don’t get fooled by the damage on your stats window, it’s much higher (the damage). Multishot or Strafe is nice too. Both are good for cows, pitruns and other high crowded areas. Skeletons and Corpse explosion is good too. For a barb whirlwind is your friend and assa has her traps. Druid doesn’t have good mf skills so don’t make a druid as a mf char. The Paladin has the (overpowered) blessed hammer.

What class ?
For a begin:
Assasin (because of her skill ! she doesn’t need good gear to clear)
Necromancer (they don’t need good gear either )
Sorc (her frozenorb or Meteorb combo is good)
Paladin (hammerdins are overpowered but that isn’t our problem is it ?)
Amazons ( they need rather high equipment for good areas)


If you have some better gear :
Sorc
Paladin
Amazon
Necro
Assasin

MF tips
Tip 1 : Don’t use too much mf, believe be it doesn’t help. I love 200-250 mf and not more. The chance to get a unique out of a boss is getting more but with small numbers… Really not worth to have like 500 mf. Been there done that and I felt horrible when there were no unique falling out of mephisto in like 10 runs .
Tip 2 : Know the bosses you want to run. The best runs are for me : Andariel->mephisto->Frigid highlands wp (shenk and the overseer)-> pindleskin. You’ll probably know where these guys are if you are leveling through the game.
Tip 3 : MERC MERC MERC. A Merc in Diablo II is very important. A char without a merc is a bath without water. A great merc is the Act 2 ones. They have auras and shares the effect of them with you. They have blessed aim, frozen aura, might, prayer and a couple more. But I really recommend the frozen aura one. Might is nice if you are a necromancer with skellies or a amazon with arrows/bolts.
Tip 4 : Don’t get frustrated if you don’t find anything good in 4-5 runs. **** happens and just try it over and over again till you find something nice to wear/trade.
Tip 5 : if you have to choose between power and mf, get power. You’ll kill more and you’ll find more (better) stuff then.
Tip 6 : Socket your items and use those Perfect topaz gems bling bling !

Cheap items
Some cheap:

Helms:
tarnhelm (nice mf and a +skill)
Peasent crown (+ skill , vit, energy, life replenish, run and walk faster)
Stealskull (Mf, Increased attack speed, mana and life leech)

Armors:
Twitchthroe (dex, strenght, nice mêlee stats)
The Spirit Shroud (one of my favorite cheap items, a skill, replenish life, cannot be frozen, I love it)
Skin of the Vipermagi (a lil more expensive but still nice, faster cast rate, resists and a skill)
Duriel’s Shell (nice life, defense and resists and a cannot be frozen mod)
Que-Hegan’s Wisdom(a nice looking armor, a skill,faster cast rate, some mana, poor mans vipermagi)

Shields:
Swordback hold (nice melee shield, open wounds which helps with bosses and a nice block mod)
Wall of the Eyeless (nice mana, faster cast rate and low requirements, put a Perfect Diamond in it=cool)
The ward (nice defense, strength and resistance)
Lidless wall (a skil, faster cast rate, mana, nice caster shield)

Gloves:
Bloodfist (awesum life mods, a little +min damage and a faster hit recovery mod)
Chance guards (nice for mf, and goldfind)
Magefist (ubernice for your firesorc, mana, fire skill and faster cast rate)
Frostburn (nice mana mod and a little bonus to your damage)
Boots:
Goblin toe (nice crushing blow just nice for melee)
Silkweave (Huge mana bonus and defense vs irritating ranged attackers)

Belts:
Nightsmoke (nice mana and resistance)
Goldwrap (nice gold find and mf)
String of ears (nice damage reduce and life steel)
Razortail(good for your amazon, gives nice pierce and dex and damage)
Gloom’s trap (if you have mana problems, get one of these, nice mana and vit bonus)

Weapons:

It’s a little hard to describe every weapon in the game but some nice weapons:

Wizardspike (faster cast rate,mana)
Gull(100 mf yeahh)
Alibaba(nice mf based on your char lvl)

These 3 are my favorite begin items.

Links :
Ama builds:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175957
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127612

Assasin:
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=513

Barbarian’s:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164067

necromancer:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=349093

Paladin:
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=502

Sorcs:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180024
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214093
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254070

It's a little short and my english isn't that good... But i hope this guide will help some people . It's my first guide ever so i hope it's good or at least do-able .

 

[NASE]

Re: My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

It's good, though I strongly disagree with the following.

What should I do first ?
First, it will be handy to register yourself @ www.forums.dii.net. Why ? No not because I want to get some visitors to that site but because it’s just so handy to have a helping hand. This ladder season I asked a lot on this forum. And that’s point 2, ASK ASK ASK !!! I played D2 for almost 5 years and I still have many questions. Point 3 is Save everything you find at the beginning. Gold, gems, socketed armors ect. All pwetty handy. You can throw low stuff away if you are a little more rich. Also safe runes. For example I had a nice mf (see next chapter) ring for just 4 nefs and I still wear it. Point 4 and I guess the most important point in this chapter is : experiment skills, stats, build ect. Just scout your way through the game and use what you like most on your second char. Rebuilding a char isn’t that bad !

The first thing you have to when you start the game is play. just start playing solo and see where it gets you. You will screw up, yes we all have, though that's part of the game. You will learn what works and what not, you'll know what parts of the game are hard, and you will enjoy yourself. A first time through the game can't be replaced, so don't lose it following a guide. Self experience is much better then things other people tell you.

The second thing people want to do if they want to learn more about the game is read. Not ask. Nearly 100% of the things someone want to know is in the stickies. It's all there and normally it's quite organised - if you just ask question, you lose the organisation and will still miss a lot of information anyway. That why we wrote those things, so we can have them all together for easy reference. And don't forget to read the summit. Atleast get to know where to find the stats on uniques, items, runewords and skills.

And if you then still have question or things that aren't clear. Try using google or just come and ask. Often these questions contain interesting ideas or go about information that isn't documented organised. So then you can best just ask at someone who hopefully knows what he's talking about.


P.S. you are talking about multishot and strafe to be good, though then you talk about amazon being item depending. Isn't that a contradiction?

 

[Lizardking]

Re: My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

Tnx for your reply and yes you are right, people have to read but i think smart people will check the sticky's if they have a question.

Yea I say Amazon is a little item depended. You need a pwetty good bow to kill something. Also i think a Amazon needs more tactical thinking (which is hard for newbies). So yes, multi and strafe are good but you need a nice damaged bow for it which can be expensive.

 

[KremBanan]

Re: My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

i think smart people will check the sticky's if they have a question.

Do not underestimate the dumbness in people...

 

[helvete]

Re: My First Guide, Your Start @ Diablo 2

As Einstein said:

"Only two things are infinite. The universe, and the stupidity of man. And I'm not sure about the universe"

Anyway, just want to add that when running meph with a blizzsorc, you can pack on 5-600MF easy, and a merc is just getting in the way. Didn't check all your links (since they're not formatted) but did you link to the meph glitch guide?

Edit my post to see how you format links like this:

This link links back to this page.