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[next-L] attention Traders planning to start next Ladder (w/i weeks!)...
An open letter to traders here who plan to start up fresh on USWest SCL when ladder resets within the next few weeks... (see: Blizzard announcement--clicky!)
In order to edit in more/updated info in this post I'm sticking stuff into "Spoiler/Show" buttons (click 'em to expand 'em). This first one is the rest of my original post, kicking off this thread about how we can help each other get going faster & funner(TM):
So post any comments, thoughts, interest, plans you have here and we'll see where it goes...
Here's a grab bag quick list of ideas people have mentioned here so far:
Grab bag of Tricks or Treats for a new ladder:
Some useful but unusual build suggestions to get you started quicker on a new ladder:
What we know about the new patch changes and how it affects us:
An open letter to traders here who plan to start up fresh on USWest SCL when ladder resets within the next few weeks... (see: Blizzard announcement--clicky!)
In order to edit in more/updated info in this post I'm sticking stuff into "Spoiler/Show" buttons (click 'em to expand 'em). This first one is the rest of my original post, kicking off this thread about how we can help each other get going faster & funner(TM):
I think it is safe to assume most of you choose to trade here because it is less noisy, more polite and relatively free of cheats and dupes. :thumbsup:
I also assume that many of you enjoy the challenge of building up your favorite characters or gear or trade empires and will be happy to start fresh on a clean new ladder.
I'm looking forward to it myself, but I don't have as much time to spare this summer as I've devoted the last few months. So I either need to give it up now or become more efficient with a lot less time available to spend playing.
So I'm going to suggest a discussion here, in this thread, about ways in which a "merry band of traders" can help each other to fun and fortune on the new ladder. (forgive the Sherwood Forest metaphor but I'm still chuckling over the pubbie that thanked me for the open-to-all cow game rushes I did last week by saying: "you're better than Robin Hood, only less g-a-y!" :crazyeyes:
I have a number of ideas on fresh ladder starts, some as crazy as my recent Race-to-25 contest or my playable giveaway mules account, that I'd be happy to share here or mastermind as a project if it turns out that there is enough interest for a group effort.
I also assume that many of you enjoy the challenge of building up your favorite characters or gear or trade empires and will be happy to start fresh on a clean new ladder.
I'm looking forward to it myself, but I don't have as much time to spare this summer as I've devoted the last few months. So I either need to give it up now or become more efficient with a lot less time available to spend playing.
So I'm going to suggest a discussion here, in this thread, about ways in which a "merry band of traders" can help each other to fun and fortune on the new ladder. (forgive the Sherwood Forest metaphor but I'm still chuckling over the pubbie that thanked me for the open-to-all cow game rushes I did last week by saying: "you're better than Robin Hood, only less g-a-y!" :crazyeyes:
I have a number of ideas on fresh ladder starts, some as crazy as my recent Race-to-25 contest or my playable giveaway mules account, that I'd be happy to share here or mastermind as a project if it turns out that there is enough interest for a group effort.
Here's a grab bag quick list of ideas people have mentioned here so far:
1. planning, suggestions and announcements in this thread!
2. encourage people to enter our BNet chat channel between games by: /join op pc_wtf
3. everyone plan to get together the first weekend of the new Ladder to play together and help each other out
4. some shared accounts (for traders with rep only!) with an Enchantress, shared/free item swap-meet mules, act2 staff done mules, etc. etc.
5. a thread, like my rune marketplace experiment, making it easy in one place for traders to ISO and offer early gear to each other
6. hard-to-find-elsewhere advice on faster bootstrapping in a new ladder (because most guides assume the availability of equip and runes we won't commonly have for weeks or months), covering neglected builds, tricks, and surprisingly-useful-items-that-are-junk-later-on-so-people-aren't-used-to-saving/using-them(TM).
2. encourage people to enter our BNet chat channel between games by: /join op pc_wtf
3. everyone plan to get together the first weekend of the new Ladder to play together and help each other out
4. some shared accounts (for traders with rep only!) with an Enchantress, shared/free item swap-meet mules, act2 staff done mules, etc. etc.
5. a thread, like my rune marketplace experiment, making it easy in one place for traders to ISO and offer early gear to each other
6. hard-to-find-elsewhere advice on faster bootstrapping in a new ladder (because most guides assume the availability of equip and runes we won't commonly have for weeks or months), covering neglected builds, tricks, and surprisingly-useful-items-that-are-junk-later-on-so-people-aren't-used-to-saving/using-them(TM).
Early in a new ladder probably most gear you usually want either isn't for sale at all or you won't be able to afford it! So here are some tricks you can use or "treats" aka surprisingly-useful-items-that-are-junk-later-on-so-people-aren't-used-to-saving/using-them(TM)...
If you make a Sorc you can be super nice to folks by not doing your norm diff Hellforge quest... then you'll be able to quickly teleport in a normal difficulty game to kill Hephasto, pick up his Hellforge Hammer and bring it to act 1 for a new char to equip immediately! The damage is very good and the fire resist quite helpful.
A shared account mule "stuck" in act 3 can pick up Khalim Flail pieces and bring them to act 1 where new characters can use Khalim's Will, which is an awesome early game weapon. These mules (as well as the act2 never-do-viper-or-maggots-again mules) can also just hold completed KWills to give as twinkee treats.
If you get Enchanted before char level 15 (or no Raven Claw exploding arrow bow has yet been donated to the library) then a really fast melee weapon like Khalim's Will is your best bet for super fast killing/xp (unless you're a multishot zon). A good trick to make an early "overkill" weapon work better for you is to leave that right mouse button assigned to *normal attack* and then get used to moving by always right clicking (on the ground, not an enemy)... this causes the game to auto-target enemies in your path of movement and automatically hit all of them over and over with your fast weapon until they are dead. Try it, you'll like it! :thumbsup:
XP is shared according the ratio of characters' levels. Because of this having a much higher level character in your party doing the killing for you actually isn't very efficient. An example of a much faster power leveling technique is to have a Sorc fast cast max'd Static Field for you without being in your party... all monsters will be nearly dead by time you can even target them and you'll get *all* the xp credit for it.
XP twinking is nerfed by Blizzard's anti-rush formula until your character makes level 25. There are too many details to list here but one important one: don't bother trying to get xp rushed in a Cow game until you make level 21! For Example: get to 3 yourself, then Trist rushes are ok to ~9, then get Andy/Radament/other to ~13, then Palace/Summoner/Tombs/Duriel walk game to ~21, and finally Cows to 25 (end of nerf, ready to go anywhere and do anything, xp-wise).
Once you've broken the Trav Council in a difficulty level then most of the melee enemies you'll encounter in Upper/Kurast Bazaar will flee from you... take advantage of this in high player count games with decent resists (to cold and lightning) and MF gear to easily loot chests/racks/corpses/etc just by running around! In a new ladder I think you'll find this very profitable. I get your first SoJ tho! :wink:
Save those early game "junk jewels" with 20poison/2secs... by time we manage to donate a dozen to the group effort some really nice solo twink gear can be put in the "library" for people to check out!
Save those gem chips and El Runes... if people also save "low quality" ("cracked", "crude", "damaged") paladin and necro shields (shrunken heads) then the Cube allows rerolling/"normalling" them with just an El and a Chip. The resultant pally shield could be a lucky 40%+ resist all and the necro head could have a good bonus to Raise Skeleton/Mastery. The cost is "junk" but the result can be really good early gear! (those Pally shields will get 4os from Larzuk later and can be runeworded pretty early in ladder with Spirit).
New characters can really benefit from weenie skulls put into weenie 3os shields... a level 5+ character doing an automatic 24 damage to anything that whacks 'em is killer early in the game and only needs 3 flawed skulls to pull off (and you can pass that shield along when you grow out of it). So save your lil skull bits and donate them to the library!
The most common failure I see in xp rush games (aka leeching) is death due to poor resists. Cowardice saves people from most melee deaths but people die all the time from fire and lightning etc. Two neglected things can largely solve this easily: weenie 3os shields with 3pDia for 57% res all or a Paladin bothering to "waste" a single point (or ws to a +skill scepter) for Salvation aura, 60%+ res all. So save your diamonds for the library and we can gear people up to not die under fire!
*Any* item you get that you don't want that has a "+XX% to maximum f/c/l/p resist" is probably a useful donation to the library for early ladder gear. This ladder Nokozan Relic ammys dropped for me like candy, for example. People, in classic especially, know that Hotspurs are "good", but there are a lot of other lowbie gear drops with these properties--please save 'em for people, it'll really help! (imho the very best stuff for this is all the Iratha Set pieces + Darkglow, so please save/donate those if you get them)
I think everyone knows to save all their topaz pieces so everyone can wear MF helms/body armor to MF sets/uniques faster? If we pool these gems for the common good then every fresh character could have their own early gear for +144% MF starting at clvl 18! A special note here is that any plain "mask" drop in normal cow runs should be saved for Larzuk (i.e. donate it to the Library and we'll see about getting 3os for it to be twink item).
A little more oddball is to save up those emeralds. Aside from making a few poison twink weapons it would be nice early on to manage a few dozen pEmer and the craft runes for the Library to make a set of clvl 14 to 17 req. PDR/MDR twink gear. If the library can lend you the same twink gear I presently use, then levels 15..25 just sail by (you just don't die, even when swarmed). I will put out an ISO on behalf of gear for the shared library but collecting enough pEmeralds is really the hardest part.
Saving gem chips in general is useful to reroll sorc orbs fyi. Until you can get a good drop or runeword it is nice to have a 1h orb with useful staffmods for your sorc, instead of a 2h staff. But shops don't sell 'em so no one ever bothers. Turns out you can reroll any magic orb over and over with just 3 chippies until you get staffmods you like (all the way up to clvl 24 req, such as Blizzard or Meteor!)
Any diamond (even chip) will let you make a Savage polearm (Cube: any kris+weenie belt+weenie staff+any diamond) and those can be up to the exceptional Partizan. Yes, by time you get to act 2 it is quite possible to make a nearly free weapon so good that your merc can't yet equip it! Even though the ladder is young no one's merc should be ill equipped if we share gear for 'em! Until you can get a nm act 2 merc I recommend considering norm act3 Freeze merc with a dia sox shield to max their resists (unless you have an Enchantress on hand, in which case the act 1 Rogue is the way to go, imho). I especially recommend that people donate (to our shared gear Library) or use Woestaves, which as normal uniques are a pretty common drop, but they are surprisingly effective for act 2 mercs until you can get a "real" weapon for them.
If you find a plain Burnt Wand (non-magic) then save it... either imbue it yourself with any weenie clvl 8+ character or donate it to the library so someone else can do it. The "imbue math" is very very favorable for these and some of them will end up being near "uber" gear for early ladder. Similarly once you have a character level ~30 you should consider gambling weenie "boots" (you can add the better base item boots to your gambling as you gain levels) because rare boot affixes can be near "uber", even for late ladder!
It is really useful to have several "breakpoint" level characters in nightmare for shopping (13, 15, 19 are some of the better levels, iirc) so we can provide this in a shared account. 19 is the last character level (apart from normal diff act1/2) that you'll see white items offered by the shops and this is very very useful for certain staff/rod/scepter shopping for runeword blanks.
This brings us to neglected runewords. Everyone knows Spirit is cool. But there are a number of early ladder possible runewords that are very useful when mid-high level item drops are hard to come by. Be sure to also look at Myth, Peace, Treachery, Passion, Splendor, Edge, Harmony, Insight, Lawbringer, Obedience, Voice of Reason, and all of the original pre-v1.10 runewords to see what interests you for early gear and to be aware of the runes and blanks others might be able to use early on. I will discuss some of the best runewords for early Ladder in the build suggestions section below...
If you make a Sorc you can be super nice to folks by not doing your norm diff Hellforge quest... then you'll be able to quickly teleport in a normal difficulty game to kill Hephasto, pick up his Hellforge Hammer and bring it to act 1 for a new char to equip immediately! The damage is very good and the fire resist quite helpful.
A shared account mule "stuck" in act 3 can pick up Khalim Flail pieces and bring them to act 1 where new characters can use Khalim's Will, which is an awesome early game weapon. These mules (as well as the act2 never-do-viper-or-maggots-again mules) can also just hold completed KWills to give as twinkee treats.
If you get Enchanted before char level 15 (or no Raven Claw exploding arrow bow has yet been donated to the library) then a really fast melee weapon like Khalim's Will is your best bet for super fast killing/xp (unless you're a multishot zon). A good trick to make an early "overkill" weapon work better for you is to leave that right mouse button assigned to *normal attack* and then get used to moving by always right clicking (on the ground, not an enemy)... this causes the game to auto-target enemies in your path of movement and automatically hit all of them over and over with your fast weapon until they are dead. Try it, you'll like it! :thumbsup:
XP is shared according the ratio of characters' levels. Because of this having a much higher level character in your party doing the killing for you actually isn't very efficient. An example of a much faster power leveling technique is to have a Sorc fast cast max'd Static Field for you without being in your party... all monsters will be nearly dead by time you can even target them and you'll get *all* the xp credit for it.
XP twinking is nerfed by Blizzard's anti-rush formula until your character makes level 25. There are too many details to list here but one important one: don't bother trying to get xp rushed in a Cow game until you make level 21! For Example: get to 3 yourself, then Trist rushes are ok to ~9, then get Andy/Radament/other to ~13, then Palace/Summoner/Tombs/Duriel walk game to ~21, and finally Cows to 25 (end of nerf, ready to go anywhere and do anything, xp-wise).
Once you've broken the Trav Council in a difficulty level then most of the melee enemies you'll encounter in Upper/Kurast Bazaar will flee from you... take advantage of this in high player count games with decent resists (to cold and lightning) and MF gear to easily loot chests/racks/corpses/etc just by running around! In a new ladder I think you'll find this very profitable. I get your first SoJ tho! :wink:
Save those early game "junk jewels" with 20poison/2secs... by time we manage to donate a dozen to the group effort some really nice solo twink gear can be put in the "library" for people to check out!
Save those gem chips and El Runes... if people also save "low quality" ("cracked", "crude", "damaged") paladin and necro shields (shrunken heads) then the Cube allows rerolling/"normalling" them with just an El and a Chip. The resultant pally shield could be a lucky 40%+ resist all and the necro head could have a good bonus to Raise Skeleton/Mastery. The cost is "junk" but the result can be really good early gear! (those Pally shields will get 4os from Larzuk later and can be runeworded pretty early in ladder with Spirit).
New characters can really benefit from weenie skulls put into weenie 3os shields... a level 5+ character doing an automatic 24 damage to anything that whacks 'em is killer early in the game and only needs 3 flawed skulls to pull off (and you can pass that shield along when you grow out of it). So save your lil skull bits and donate them to the library!
The most common failure I see in xp rush games (aka leeching) is death due to poor resists. Cowardice saves people from most melee deaths but people die all the time from fire and lightning etc. Two neglected things can largely solve this easily: weenie 3os shields with 3pDia for 57% res all or a Paladin bothering to "waste" a single point (or ws to a +skill scepter) for Salvation aura, 60%+ res all. So save your diamonds for the library and we can gear people up to not die under fire!
*Any* item you get that you don't want that has a "+XX% to maximum f/c/l/p resist" is probably a useful donation to the library for early ladder gear. This ladder Nokozan Relic ammys dropped for me like candy, for example. People, in classic especially, know that Hotspurs are "good", but there are a lot of other lowbie gear drops with these properties--please save 'em for people, it'll really help! (imho the very best stuff for this is all the Iratha Set pieces + Darkglow, so please save/donate those if you get them)
I think everyone knows to save all their topaz pieces so everyone can wear MF helms/body armor to MF sets/uniques faster? If we pool these gems for the common good then every fresh character could have their own early gear for +144% MF starting at clvl 18! A special note here is that any plain "mask" drop in normal cow runs should be saved for Larzuk (i.e. donate it to the Library and we'll see about getting 3os for it to be twink item).
A little more oddball is to save up those emeralds. Aside from making a few poison twink weapons it would be nice early on to manage a few dozen pEmer and the craft runes for the Library to make a set of clvl 14 to 17 req. PDR/MDR twink gear. If the library can lend you the same twink gear I presently use, then levels 15..25 just sail by (you just don't die, even when swarmed). I will put out an ISO on behalf of gear for the shared library but collecting enough pEmeralds is really the hardest part.
Saving gem chips in general is useful to reroll sorc orbs fyi. Until you can get a good drop or runeword it is nice to have a 1h orb with useful staffmods for your sorc, instead of a 2h staff. But shops don't sell 'em so no one ever bothers. Turns out you can reroll any magic orb over and over with just 3 chippies until you get staffmods you like (all the way up to clvl 24 req, such as Blizzard or Meteor!)
Any diamond (even chip) will let you make a Savage polearm (Cube: any kris+weenie belt+weenie staff+any diamond) and those can be up to the exceptional Partizan. Yes, by time you get to act 2 it is quite possible to make a nearly free weapon so good that your merc can't yet equip it! Even though the ladder is young no one's merc should be ill equipped if we share gear for 'em! Until you can get a nm act 2 merc I recommend considering norm act3 Freeze merc with a dia sox shield to max their resists (unless you have an Enchantress on hand, in which case the act 1 Rogue is the way to go, imho). I especially recommend that people donate (to our shared gear Library) or use Woestaves, which as normal uniques are a pretty common drop, but they are surprisingly effective for act 2 mercs until you can get a "real" weapon for them.
If you find a plain Burnt Wand (non-magic) then save it... either imbue it yourself with any weenie clvl 8+ character or donate it to the library so someone else can do it. The "imbue math" is very very favorable for these and some of them will end up being near "uber" gear for early ladder. Similarly once you have a character level ~30 you should consider gambling weenie "boots" (you can add the better base item boots to your gambling as you gain levels) because rare boot affixes can be near "uber", even for late ladder!
It is really useful to have several "breakpoint" level characters in nightmare for shopping (13, 15, 19 are some of the better levels, iirc) so we can provide this in a shared account. 19 is the last character level (apart from normal diff act1/2) that you'll see white items offered by the shops and this is very very useful for certain staff/rod/scepter shopping for runeword blanks.
This brings us to neglected runewords. Everyone knows Spirit is cool. But there are a number of early ladder possible runewords that are very useful when mid-high level item drops are hard to come by. Be sure to also look at Myth, Peace, Treachery, Passion, Splendor, Edge, Harmony, Insight, Lawbringer, Obedience, Voice of Reason, and all of the original pre-v1.10 runewords to see what interests you for early gear and to be aware of the runes and blanks others might be able to use early on. I will discuss some of the best runewords for early Ladder in the build suggestions section below...
under construction--will edit in builds here later so feel free to post your suggestions and tips for me to add!
Unless Blizzard really changes fundamental things in v1.13 there are a few "inescapable" (new ladder) facts to consider:
1. you start out powerless and poor at level 1, in act 1 normal, but
2. all the real wealth is in nm hellforge onwards (i.e. nm/hell hellforge, and in hell countess/summoner and level 85+ drops)
3. yet if you travel rush to hell you need to already be level 25+ to continue to level up quickly (due to xp nerf)
4. even if you solve all that most builds suck there without good gear, which you need "wealth" to have... damn!
So our goal is to figure out how to escape each of these "facts" by being clever, until the ladder matures and we can go back to doing things pretty much any way we want to.
#2 we can solve, within the limits of level requirements, by bringing wealth back to younger chars in earlier acts, provided someone nice enough to give us stuff has already made the journey from #1-4. I'm not saying anything new here, everyone knows it makes sense to gear the characters you want to play by making a high level character that's good at getting wealth (MF or GF or HF rusher or Key runner or Countess runner, etc.).
The reason to think about this is that we can make this "nice" person ourselves, in shared accounts. Even though some of us will have to donate time or items to make this happen, everyone will profit.
#1 can be solved with twinks and helping each other by playing together so I won't talk about it in this section... If you want to read about one rushing solution to #3 and 4 then click:
For getting easy early wealth sans good gear lots of builds are well known, but here's a build plan for the unusual hell Pindle runner you can try out in our current ladder shared account:
Eventually, when you can get the gear, you might want to have a handy BO barb or hell Trav Goldfinder--but why wait?! Start that Barb out right away on the new ladder and get him rushed to nm or even hell... put all your points into Leap (useful for easy GF later) except for a few into Find Item and 1 in increased speed (& prereq). Then with FRW boots you can enter Cows secure in the knowledge you can escape or even drive back the remaining Bovines while you profitably hork the corpses of their fallen comrades! :thumbup:
Unless Blizzard really changes fundamental things in v1.13 there are a few "inescapable" (new ladder) facts to consider:
1. you start out powerless and poor at level 1, in act 1 normal, but
2. all the real wealth is in nm hellforge onwards (i.e. nm/hell hellforge, and in hell countess/summoner and level 85+ drops)
3. yet if you travel rush to hell you need to already be level 25+ to continue to level up quickly (due to xp nerf)
4. even if you solve all that most builds suck there without good gear, which you need "wealth" to have... damn!
So our goal is to figure out how to escape each of these "facts" by being clever, until the ladder matures and we can go back to doing things pretty much any way we want to.
#2 we can solve, within the limits of level requirements, by bringing wealth back to younger chars in earlier acts, provided someone nice enough to give us stuff has already made the journey from #1-4. I'm not saying anything new here, everyone knows it makes sense to gear the characters you want to play by making a high level character that's good at getting wealth (MF or GF or HF rusher or Key runner or Countess runner, etc.).
The reason to think about this is that we can make this "nice" person ourselves, in shared accounts. Even though some of us will have to donate time or items to make this happen, everyone will profit.
#1 can be solved with twinks and helping each other by playing together so I won't talk about it in this section... If you want to read about one rushing solution to #3 and 4 then click:
If you rush a new character in Classic and get them all the way to the start of act3 in Hell, then, when they convert to LoD, they show up in act3 Hell still. The character can be level 1 even and no other character is required to be able to get quest credit in order to "pull them along". This method is the key to repeatable fast Hellforge rushing and incidentally also gets your character to hell for when they make clvl 25 and can start to get good xp there. When done properly even six or seven rushees can be processed together in under an hour and a half (act1 norm to start act3 hell). In early ladder this results in a lot of rune wealth for little time invested.
This method requires making a "rusher" build of some sort in a shared account. If you're interested in details about an example look at:
This method requires making a "rusher" build of some sort in a shared account. If you're interested in details about an example look at:
I've done different classes/builds for this depending on what else I wanted to do but for a shared account single-minded get-er-done M.O. the build has to meet the following requirements:
1. has to work well enough with primitive early ladder gear (though gets better over time)
2. has to find and get where you're going quickly (in Classic this almost forces you to choose Sorc for teleport)
3. easy to understand how to use and mostly foolproof (remember this is a shared character)
All three points are helped by having lots of life. So points for Str must be minimized and points to Dex and Energy are forget about it (this character has no use for inventory space other than potions = no charms, no reason to pick up anything other than an SoJ). Vit is king!
With this emphasis on Vit pretty much only some things in act 1 & 2 of hell can hit hard enough to put you into hit recovery. (if there is also a simple Classic BO barb in the shared account even that can be overcome if one wishes). Here is one possible scheme that works well...
The only required kills are:
norm/nite/hell Andy (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite/hell Summoner (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite/hell Duriel
norm/nite Trav 3x Council bosses (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite Meph (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite CS 3x Seal bosses
norm/nite Diablo (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
The related "travel" is:
norm/nite/hell Cats2 wp to Cats3 to Cats4
norm/nite/hell Lost City wp to Viper1 to Viper2 (TP in rushee just to *touch* altar)
norm/nite/hell Arcane wp to Summoner
norm/nite/hell Canyon wp to True Tomb to Duriel (TP in rushee after Duriel to walk/talk to Tyriel)
norm/nite Dur2 wp to Dur3 Meph
norm/nite RoF wp to 3x Seal pop boss kills
It's that simple because shared mules start the act2 games so the staff has already been placed in the oriface (note that nothing in Claw Viper Temple needs to be killed nor do you need to get the CV ammy--rushee hits the altar just so they can be TPed into Summoner kill actually). Drinking potions is to be expected... the runs are fast assassinations though, not love letters!
None of the required kills are Cold Immune so Cold Mastery ruleZ! For that matter none of them are Lightning Immune so Static Field is often helpful (in Classic SF is allowed to take them down to 1 HP even in nm/hell fyi). From these two observations we arrive at my minimum recommended point investment, with commentary:
1 Warmth (just a win for a single point)
1 Telekinesis (prereq for)
1+ Teleport (more points makes it cheaper which helps to ignore/recover from Mana Burn catastrophes)
1+ Static Field (more points makes the range better which makes the rush easier to play)
1 Frozen Armor (prereq for)
1 Shiver Armor (I'd rather slow down *everything* that *tries* to whack me rather than just the things that managed to hit me so far)
1 Ice Bolt (prereq)
1 Frost Nova (prereq)
1 Ice Blast (prereq)
1+ Glacial Spike (prereq--suggest max this over another synergy cuz way easier when you can freeze most stuff at will)
20 Blizzard
1+ Cold Mastery (after +skill getting this to 75% aka slvl 12 is plenty imho)
===
~50 minimum with ~80+ starting to work really well (one synergy max'ed for Blizzard is enough)
1. has to work well enough with primitive early ladder gear (though gets better over time)
2. has to find and get where you're going quickly (in Classic this almost forces you to choose Sorc for teleport)
3. easy to understand how to use and mostly foolproof (remember this is a shared character)
All three points are helped by having lots of life. So points for Str must be minimized and points to Dex and Energy are forget about it (this character has no use for inventory space other than potions = no charms, no reason to pick up anything other than an SoJ). Vit is king!
With this emphasis on Vit pretty much only some things in act 1 & 2 of hell can hit hard enough to put you into hit recovery. (if there is also a simple Classic BO barb in the shared account even that can be overcome if one wishes). Here is one possible scheme that works well...
The only required kills are:
norm/nite/hell Andy (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite/hell Summoner (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite/hell Duriel
norm/nite Trav 3x Council bosses (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite Meph (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
norm/nite CS 3x Seal bosses
norm/nite Diablo (TP in rushee, dead or not, to get credit)
The related "travel" is:
norm/nite/hell Cats2 wp to Cats3 to Cats4
norm/nite/hell Lost City wp to Viper1 to Viper2 (TP in rushee just to *touch* altar)
norm/nite/hell Arcane wp to Summoner
norm/nite/hell Canyon wp to True Tomb to Duriel (TP in rushee after Duriel to walk/talk to Tyriel)
norm/nite Dur2 wp to Dur3 Meph
norm/nite RoF wp to 3x Seal pop boss kills
It's that simple because shared mules start the act2 games so the staff has already been placed in the oriface (note that nothing in Claw Viper Temple needs to be killed nor do you need to get the CV ammy--rushee hits the altar just so they can be TPed into Summoner kill actually). Drinking potions is to be expected... the runs are fast assassinations though, not love letters!
None of the required kills are Cold Immune so Cold Mastery ruleZ! For that matter none of them are Lightning Immune so Static Field is often helpful (in Classic SF is allowed to take them down to 1 HP even in nm/hell fyi). From these two observations we arrive at my minimum recommended point investment, with commentary:
1 Warmth (just a win for a single point)
1 Telekinesis (prereq for)
1+ Teleport (more points makes it cheaper which helps to ignore/recover from Mana Burn catastrophes)
1+ Static Field (more points makes the range better which makes the rush easier to play)
1 Frozen Armor (prereq for)
1 Shiver Armor (I'd rather slow down *everything* that *tries* to whack me rather than just the things that managed to hit me so far)
1 Ice Bolt (prereq)
1 Frost Nova (prereq)
1 Ice Blast (prereq)
1+ Glacial Spike (prereq--suggest max this over another synergy cuz way easier when you can freeze most stuff at will)
20 Blizzard
1+ Cold Mastery (after +skill getting this to 75% aka slvl 12 is plenty imho)
===
~50 minimum with ~80+ starting to work really well (one synergy max'ed for Blizzard is enough)
Paladin that is a good only vs. Undead but great at getting whites/MFing Pindle and simple to play with easy gear; base point dist:
Str only as needed, none to Dex/Energy, lots to Vit
20 Holy Bolt (this is your #1 priority)
20 Blessed Hammer (this is your #2 priority)
20 Fist of the Heavens (finish off build here before your optional points)
1 each all other Combat skills (many are FoH prereqs also)
0 in any Offensive aura
1 in Salvation (at level 30, no prereqs!)
?lots remaining to play with as you like (several good options)
You generally leave Holy Bolt on left mouse (typically hold shift when you left click fyi) and Salvation on right mouse. Your early merc will be an act3 Freeze but eventually you'll take cold rogue when you can get Riphook (Nef it), Blackhorn's Face and Rattlecage for her (weird I know, but try it!). Your goal (to do Hell Pindle garden easily) is a +3 Holy Bolt scepter runeworded with Lawbringer (pretty easy goal) but in the meantime just use +3 Holy Bolt and extreme cowardice. You can easily self level up vs. undead in undead only areas or you can party up (which you'll need to do anyway to complete acts and progress to hell)... you'll be appreciated in party for your Salvation aura! Additionally, with 20 in BH you can soso help out with that when another Pally in party is aura'ing Concentration for you. You don't need much resist gear due to Salvation so going for FCR and MF makes sense. You'll be able to level up in high player count games in hell Maus/Crypt and Pindle garden at an amazing rate, once you're level 25+ and get to those places.
I could give you more details but why don't you just ask to take S_FoldnMutilate for a spin in this thread! and see for yourself?!
Str only as needed, none to Dex/Energy, lots to Vit
20 Holy Bolt (this is your #1 priority)
20 Blessed Hammer (this is your #2 priority)
20 Fist of the Heavens (finish off build here before your optional points)
1 each all other Combat skills (many are FoH prereqs also)
0 in any Offensive aura
1 in Salvation (at level 30, no prereqs!)
?lots remaining to play with as you like (several good options)
You generally leave Holy Bolt on left mouse (typically hold shift when you left click fyi) and Salvation on right mouse. Your early merc will be an act3 Freeze but eventually you'll take cold rogue when you can get Riphook (Nef it), Blackhorn's Face and Rattlecage for her (weird I know, but try it!). Your goal (to do Hell Pindle garden easily) is a +3 Holy Bolt scepter runeworded with Lawbringer (pretty easy goal) but in the meantime just use +3 Holy Bolt and extreme cowardice. You can easily self level up vs. undead in undead only areas or you can party up (which you'll need to do anyway to complete acts and progress to hell)... you'll be appreciated in party for your Salvation aura! Additionally, with 20 in BH you can soso help out with that when another Pally in party is aura'ing Concentration for you. You don't need much resist gear due to Salvation so going for FCR and MF makes sense. You'll be able to level up in high player count games in hell Maus/Crypt and Pindle garden at an amazing rate, once you're level 25+ and get to those places.
I could give you more details but why don't you just ask to take S_FoldnMutilate for a spin in this thread! and see for yourself?!
under construction--will edit here later so feel free to post your rumors/news/comments for me to add!
I think we're likely to have a few weeks or months without much in the way of bots or dupes messing up the game (i.e. I think Blizzard will start out by forcing cheaters to come up with new tricks and that will take some time). My best guess is this means that we won't see much in the way of runewords that need Sur+ for a long time. Of course it is possible that Blizzard's "content add" will include some new way to earn/work towards getting HRs (which would deprive the spambot item pushers of a lot of their profit potential too).
I'm pretty certain they'll add more ladder-only runewords but like the v1.11 ones I don't think they're going to make a huge impact on play. I've heard no word of a beta so I doubt they are attempting any serious play balance changes. They will probably fix a number of bugs and they might consider something like Grief (with Smite) to be a bug and change play balance by "fixing" it. I could see them bumping or synergizing a few of the really bad skills without having done public testing but really they just want to keep D2 going for another half year to better feed us into a D3 buying frenzy for Christmas (so they are likely to make easy/fun or flashy changes, not hard/controversial ones).
I think the chat interface will get a facelift and some new form of advertising. Since I play on both Mac and PC I'm hoping they finally compile an OSX native version (I lag out or crash way too often). I don't think we'll see new in-game graphics or resolution changes. Hopefully they'll stop with the outdated anti-dupe hack of using SoJs to trigger Uber Diablo and make it something we can earn (my suggestion to them was to use Std of Heroes in some way).
I don't think we'll see any stash/muling/trading improvements, though hopefully they're working on that for D3!
If they add a mechanism to report cheaters or exploits I'll be pleasantly surprised (very).
Finally I predict they will do something totally lame to promote D3, such as offer entry to the Beta or free copies or something as a prize based on your new ladder standing for each of the character classes as of some contest end date. You heard it here first :crazy:
thanks to skyjuice for spotting this one:[BLUE=]"Bashiok: So yeah, we’re still working on the patch. It’s coming along really well. We’re getting there. I can’t give an estimate or date, we’re expecting there to be a good amount of testing required due to the types of changes being made. We want to take our time and put out a solid patch, and that means we don’t have a release date right now. Some exciting news - and it also may be some comfort - due to the types of changes we’re making we will be offering the Diablo II 1.13 patch for testing and feedback on a test realm before its release. We’ll have more information about how you’ll be able to help test it in the coming weeks."[/BLUE]
I think we're likely to have a few weeks or months without much in the way of bots or dupes messing up the game (i.e. I think Blizzard will start out by forcing cheaters to come up with new tricks and that will take some time). My best guess is this means that we won't see much in the way of runewords that need Sur+ for a long time. Of course it is possible that Blizzard's "content add" will include some new way to earn/work towards getting HRs (which would deprive the spambot item pushers of a lot of their profit potential too).
I'm pretty certain they'll add more ladder-only runewords but like the v1.11 ones I don't think they're going to make a huge impact on play. I've heard no word of a beta so I doubt they are attempting any serious play balance changes. They will probably fix a number of bugs and they might consider something like Grief (with Smite) to be a bug and change play balance by "fixing" it. I could see them bumping or synergizing a few of the really bad skills without having done public testing but really they just want to keep D2 going for another half year to better feed us into a D3 buying frenzy for Christmas (so they are likely to make easy/fun or flashy changes, not hard/controversial ones).
I think the chat interface will get a facelift and some new form of advertising. Since I play on both Mac and PC I'm hoping they finally compile an OSX native version (I lag out or crash way too often). I don't think we'll see new in-game graphics or resolution changes. Hopefully they'll stop with the outdated anti-dupe hack of using SoJs to trigger Uber Diablo and make it something we can earn (my suggestion to them was to use Std of Heroes in some way).
I don't think we'll see any stash/muling/trading improvements, though hopefully they're working on that for D3!
If they add a mechanism to report cheaters or exploits I'll be pleasantly surprised (very).
Finally I predict they will do something totally lame to promote D3, such as offer entry to the Beta or free copies or something as a prize based on your new ladder standing for each of the character classes as of some contest end date. You heard it here first :crazy:
thanks to skyjuice for spotting this one:[BLUE=]"Bashiok: So yeah, we’re still working on the patch. It’s coming along really well. We’re getting there. I can’t give an estimate or date, we’re expecting there to be a good amount of testing required due to the types of changes being made. We want to take our time and put out a solid patch, and that means we don’t have a release date right now. Some exciting news - and it also may be some comfort - due to the types of changes we’re making we will be offering the Diablo II 1.13 patch for testing and feedback on a test realm before its release. We’ll have more information about how you’ll be able to help test it in the coming weeks."[/BLUE]