Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

[Cambios]

Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

So I just got back to playing D2 again. I haven't played in years, but my daughter is getting into computer games and asked me what some of my favorite games of all time were. I mentioned Diablo 2, and so she said "lets play!"

So I have made a bunch of characters, and one of them is a level 71 sorc that is just starting hell difficulty. So I run out of the rogue encampment. I start tossing spells and enemy health isn't dropping. Doh!

Without getting too much into exact specs, what are the types of things you look for as a sorc to increase damage?

1) Obviously spending skill points in your main spells, and the synergies for your main spells boosts your damage. What % of your magic damage comes from skill point increases? Is this the most important thing? Should I be looking for as many +skill items as possible?

2) For melee classes, I understand that getting a high level weapon with lots of damage, lots of +dmg or +%damage is really important.

3) Do magic items with +lightning damage, or +fire damage, or weapons with +X increased damage affect spells (or for that matter, special abilities in general)?

I know this is a pretty noobish question, but I haven't played in forever and I know things change a lot with various patches.

So if someone could explain the mechanics of how you boost your damage, I would really appreciate it. I am interested in understanding the mechanics for all classes, not just sorcs.

Thanks!

 

[Poppis]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

3) Do magic items with +lightning damage, or +fire damage, or weapons with +X increased damage affect spells (or for that matter, special abilities in general)?

No.

You should look for +skill items as the main way to boost your damage. Also -XX% to enemy resistances works with spells, as well +XX% to fire/cold/light/poison skill damage(which can be found from Rainbow Facet jewels for example).

EDIT: Also, what kinda sorc are you making? Some spells benefit greatly from fast cast rate items, so if your using Fire Ball for example, you could use that to increase your killing speed.

 

[Hrus]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

If your sorc was from 1.09 or older patch, no wonder she can't do any damage. The monsters HP was multiplied alot in 1.10 and to partially remove this advantage, characters got synergies...

The most damage for sorc comes from skills and synergies (if the synergies are strong of course). So you have to focus on few spells only... Then there is FCR which is very important even when you use spells with casting delay (you can cast more spell in casting delay period) and FCR is also helpful for safe teleporting. Finally there is +% elemental damage and -% enemy resists mods on items. +Skills are the most important, that's why skillers (grand charms with +1 to tree skill mod) are so needed and traded for a lot.

 

[Cambios]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

Ok. So for casters, I want +skills (for the skill and its synergies), I want +elemental damage, and + fire/cold/light/poison damage, -% enemy resistance, and faster cast rate. But the most important is + to various skills.

For melee classes, I still want +skills for the skill I mostly use + its synergies, and then I want what else? Faster attack rate? Do I want + various types of damage?

Thanks!

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

+skills does not work on synergies, only the main skill itself and masteries. You want +xx% elemental skill damage (but these are rare, very rare). +elemental damage, like +3-5 fire damage, is useless for a sorc. -% enemy resist is always good. Faster cast rate is good for many spells, enough that I will sacrifice some +skills for it.

For melee class, +skills is almost useless. You want a big bad weapon which has a high average damage. Depending on which class, you may or may not want faster attack rate, but it is usually good.

The detailed mechanics have been worked out by many of the math wiz in the forums.

 

[Hrus]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

What AnimeCraze said is true.

Melee builds don't need so much +skills because usually melee skills progress is linear (for example you get 10% for each level invested in might... and there are lot of other better methods to increase actual damage - for example adding +max damage gear (which benefits from all off-weapon ED sources - so melee builds usually use +max damage/AR grand charms), AR, deadly strike, crushing blow etc. (IAS of course plays similar role to FCR)

For spells, the skill progress is usually increasing (on higher levels you will get more damage per skill point invested) and the gear with +%cold/fire/lightning/poison damage as well as -%resist mods is really expensive and usually doesn't come with high numbers...

One other note - +% fire damage gear (as well as +% lightning damage gear) only add together with fire (lightning) mastery, so it's quite useless for fire (lightning) based sorc...

And here is the skillcalculator link, you might find it useful...

 

[jel]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

So I just got back to playing D2 again. I haven't played in years, but my daughter is getting into computer games and asked me what some of my favorite games of all time were. I mentioned Diablo 2, and so she said "lets play!"

So I have made a bunch of characters, and one of them is a level 71 sorc that is just starting hell difficulty. So I run out of the rogue encampment. I start tossing spells and enemy health isn't dropping. Doh!

Without getting too much into exact specs, what are the types of things you look for as a sorc to increase damage?

1) Obviously spending skill points in your main spells, and the synergies for your main spells boosts your damage. What % of your magic damage comes from skill point increases? Is this the most important thing? Should I be looking for as many +skill items as possible?

2) For melee classes, I understand that getting a high level weapon with lots of damage, lots of +dmg or +%damage is really important.

3) Do magic items with +lightning damage, or +fire damage, or weapons with +X increased damage affect spells (or for that matter, special abilities in general)?

I know this is a pretty noobish question, but I haven't played in forever and I know things change a lot with various patches.

So if someone could explain the mechanics of how you boost your damage, I would really appreciate it. I am interested in understanding the mechanics for all classes, not just sorcs.

Thanks!

If you're from .09 time then the game have changed a bit in difficulty.

The solution is often to use crowd control, and use what you find to the best possible.

Now the amazon can pretty easy take on the game with a sapphire bow and freezing arrow to freeze the lightning immunes (her crowd control) and else have a valkyrie tank (around level 17 for best gear spawned on the valkyrie) and maxed CS and LF, CS can take down pretty much any non lightning immune opponent 1vs1 and LF can take down big crowds, when to CS and when to LF is something you'll learn through nightmare.

The assassin can also pretty easy beat the game as a trapper, using a level 18-20 fireblast, maxed lightning traps and having cloak of shadows and mind blast for crowd control skills. (You collect a big group of monsters via BoS so you won't be too slow, then you CoS the area, set up traps, and MB the monsters so they stop walking towards you) then DS, FB and LS will quickly take down a mob, and lightning immunes can still be taken down via FB and CE.

The barbarian often needs to use warcry to stun the opponents before taking them down, often combining with a high level howl can be a very good idea, as you can remove every archer on the screen, then taunt monsters back, warcry, and use you main skill, sure it's slow, but it's the 1vs1 way the barbarian can force that makes him pretty good.

Against stuff like champion archers, you've to lure them close together, then warcry and start on swinging, or just ignore them.

The druid can be a hard player to complete the game with, where the wind druid have a relative easy time in nightmare and hell, normal can be a pain, and for the fire druid, normal and nightmare is rather quick and easy, hell is pretty hard.

The necromancer as a summoner is probably the char with the easiest trip through the game, make sure to max out your resists, especially lightning, get a bit of damage reduce by x and some +skills if you can, but it isn't really needed if you just think while playing. Make the classical fishy build, maxing mages, mastery and corpse explosion, and you're pretty set for the rest of the game, I'd suggest maxing DV as well when playing untwinked, and invest 1 point in attract and decrepify, as that'll make your game play more easy on hell.

The paladin is a char that in my experience, when untwinked, unless making a hammerdin, have the hardest time completing the game. A hammerdin doesn't have much problems though and would be a good choice to make, if you make a non-hammerdin, make sure to focus on PDR and high resists, and try to shop a life tap wand if you're a zealot of a smiter.

The sorcereress will often not have that much trouble, if you just make sure to get a decent cast rate you can often teleport past the immunes, only one immune in the entire game really needs to be taken down and that's the seal bosses. So either go single skill for maximum damage, remember a good cast rate with teleport, and make a good merc with insight (or if single player, via the diamond recipe for a savage stick), or go dual element for lower damage, but easier time against immunes.
There are many other builds than those I've mentioned, but these are often pretty hard to complete the game with and impressive if you can do so, though in principle crowd control and taking advantage of the stupid AI is what most of the time gets you far into hell when playing untwinked.

 

[NASE]

Re: Priorities for Boosting Damage for Various Classes

the most important aspect is a good build.

A well build meteorb can almost complete the game without smart equipment choice - just use dual spirit and you will be fine. Same goes for well build fishyzon - using freezing arrow and lightning fury.

The build is much more important then all other choices. A good build can complete the game without gear, a bad build can't complete it with the best gear.