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Diablo 2 just turned 20

typical user

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I remember I got to D2 Hell with Blizz sorc, it was fun when I was invaded by low-level Assassins who killed entire party then face-planted on the floor the moment she stepped into my level 20 blizzard amplified by synergies from other moderately leveled spells. I couldn't play through hell because most enemies had immunities. I honestly don't see myself waiting for my merc to kill all the trash mobs or avoiding them if they have PHYS/ICE immunity or creating split-elemental build. Do you have any insight or tactics how can I beat hell for the first time? Class doesn't matter - well I do not want to play Paladin, Ele Druid or Trapsin. Of course if you think they are great then please tell me how I should approach them.
 

luj1

You're all shills
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Blizz sorc just needs a secondary skill for CIs, usually firewall is chosen because it doesn't need synergies, just a point in Fire Mastery with +skills to get some nice damage.

You also need a minimum of 1000 hp in Hell.

For merc get Holy Freeze or Act V Merc with Lawbringer in phase blade, treachery armor. Safety is achievable in hell with relatively inexpensive stuff, you just need crowd control and some key stats like resistances and CBF
 

octavius

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I remember I got to D2 Hell with Blizz sorc, it was fun when I was invaded by low-level Assassins who killed entire party then face-planted on the floor the moment she stepped into my level 20 blizzard amplified by synergies from other moderately leveled spells. I couldn't play through hell because most enemies had immunities. I honestly don't see myself waiting for my merc to kill all the trash mobs or avoiding them if they have PHYS/ICE immunity or creating split-elemental build. Do you have any insight or tactics how can I beat hell for the first time?

Well, it's not like you have to spend all skill points on one skill tree. Overspecialization leads to extinction.
Lightning and Ice spells worked fine for me (1.09 version).
 

DraQ

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That's the new game+ feature. You can definitely exploit it, but that's not how the game is designed or balanced, and is basically cheating. That said, even if we count new game+ feature, it's still harder than D2.
I wouldn't call it exploit if let's say so happened that witch stubbornly won't sell spells you need/want. Or you play as a warrior and just can't drop/buy a decent weapon. Just reset until you get it, the game is heavily randomized in that regard and was designed with multiplayer in mind when you start over every session anyway. Moreover, untill you get to hell difficulty, you have to prepare your char and it's next to impossible by just playing through first two runs.
Aww... How cute, it thinks it is people.
 
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Diablo 2's gameplay is fundamentally broken by the ability to run. Skills trees were a mistake and essentially make most equipment useless other than +resistance/life for defence or +all skills for offense. Characters that try to rely on physical attacks (e.g. barb) are hopelessly shit and barely able to complete normal difficulty unless you have intricate knowledge of where to farm all the equipment needed while all skill-based damage classes run around one-shotting or two-shotting entire mobs. Stats other than +vitality are a waste and aforementioned physical classes trying to play a physical attack character "properly" (i.e. getting high damage weapons and high defense armor/shield rather than just running around spamming skills with 0 armor because you kill everything on the screen before it touches you) get additionally penalized by needing half their skill points in dex and str to put shit on.

Source: just finished getting a barb through hell.

Also fuck the whole idea of charms so much. Inventory space is already limited and you want to force me to min-max throwing away more of it?
 
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octavius

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Maybe newer patches nerfed the Barb, but playing 1.09 I found the Paladin to be the weakest class.
My Barb didn't have particular problems, with max Blocking and 30% or so damage reduction, and using Whirlwind.
I didn't do any farming, but shared loot between seven characters helped.

Tend to agree about the charms.
 

Gregz

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Diablo II's drop rate was tuned with the expectation that you would be playing online and trading with other players.

Don't give a shit about developer intent, I judge games based on how they actually are. Otherwise we might as well say the whole game is irrelevant since the "best" way to play is to beg someone to run you to hell baal. And trading for items is almost as bad as just being run.

Also its not the drop rate at all, its how the overall gameplay is borked to the point where any build that relies on skill damage can complete the game naked while every build that attempts an item-dependent build requires absurd itemization.

Maybe newer patches nerfed the Barb, but playing 1.09 I found the Paladin to be the weakest class.
My Barb didn't have particular problems, with max Blocking and 30% or so damage reduction, and using Whirlwind.
I didn't do any farming, but shared loot between seven characters helped.

1.10 was a massive change, yes.

Diablo 2 doesn't support shared loot so using it is cheating.
 
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luj1

You're all shills
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I'll say I'm a little disappointed by skills in Median. Not all of them look and feel good. I don't have a problem with elite skills or how skills are structured in the trees. Barbarian stances were a great idea, but robbing Paladin of auras wasn't. I played the Unholy Paladin and his skills are just dull. It's a mixed bag.

Median 1.99-1.F9 has outdone Diablo II from the aspect of itemization though, it sounds crazy but is true. I liked how you "nurture" a unique you find on Normal from the early stages to lategame, adding orbs, hidden bonuses, sockets, etc.
 
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Diablo 2 doesn't support shared loot so using it is cheating.

That's like saying that trading when playing online is cheating.

As far as game balance is concerned it might as well be. The whole point of the game called Diablo is to kill things->acquire experience and loot->get stronger and repeat. If instead you bypass this by Go online->beg for handouts that cost a high level player literally nothing but will make you 100x stronger->you win the game, then you have cheated. The fact that you don't have to use console commands or w/e to do this, or that tons of players do this, doesn't make it not cheating. The fact that so many players do this is just evidence that Diablo 2 is fundamentally a broken game.
 
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octavius

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Drops in D2 are totally unconnected to your class, so the design encourages trading/shared loot when you play only one character.
 
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Drops in D2 are totally unconnected to your class, so the design encourages trading/shared loot when you play only one character.

How do those relate in any way? "encourages" - in the same way that DOOM "encourages" having the player type IDDQD?

If some level 50-something player hands you one of their throwaway weapons/charms/etc you can be dealing like 300 damage per attack in Act 1 of normal, or for skill-based classes give you +50-100% damage output for the rest of the game. This is not some minor little trick to get ahead, its utterly game-breaking in its balance implications. If we are supposed to accept that Diablo 2 isn't a fundamentally broken game then we have to consider any kind of item trading or twinking to be verboten. The fact that the game doesn't have some flashing red flag calling you a cheater when you do it is irrelevant, its cheating the gameplay system in the same way that importing a max level party with 25-in-all-stats characters to IWD is technically legal but obviously cheating the gameplay systems and breaking any semblance of balance.
 
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DraQ

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Don't give a shit about developer intent, I judge games based on how they actually are. Otherwise we might as well say the whole game is irrelevant since the "best" way to play is to beg someone to run you to hell baal. And trading for items is almost as bad as just being run.

Also its not the drop rate at all, its how the overall gameplay is borked to the point where any build that relies on skill damage can complete the game naked while every build that attempts an item-dependent build requires absurd itemization.



1.10 was a massive change, yes.

Diablo 2 doesn't support shared loot so using it is cheating.
The problem with that is that many of D2's mechanics are completely unworkable in "normal" playthrough - no sharing, no trading, no farming, no boss runs. Good luck getting even single runeword or set.

D2 is rotten to the core in being an MMO-lite as it is entirely designed around being played as one. Playing it like normal SP game, while possible, is not playing it as intended in much the same way as playing Doom as pacifist.

Meanwhile Diablo 1 worked splendidly as a single player game played like a single player game.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Diablo 2 doesn't support shared loot so using it is cheating.

That's like saying that trading when playing online is cheating.

As far as game balance is concerned it might as well be. The whole point of the game called Diablo is to kill things->acquire experience and loot->get stronger and repeat. If instead you bypass this by Go online->beg for handouts that cost a high level player literally nothing but will make you 100x stronger->you win the game, then you have cheated. The fact that you don't have to use console commands or w/e to do this, or that tons of players do this, doesn't make it not cheating. The fact that so many players do this is just evidence that Diablo 2 is fundamentally a broken game.

It's not cheating, the game was primarily designed to be played online with other people and is completely unbalanced in single player.
 
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It's not cheating, the game was primarily designed to be played online with other people and is completely unbalanced in single player.

Then the game is broken and a joke because you can just be run to Baal. What's the point, if we allow online play? Online features like trading, running, etc have to be ruled out otherwise literally nothing about the game makes sense.

At most the game could be considered equally playable and balanced as single player for two characters of similar level co-oping through the same game without characters outside these two trading or interfering to give undue advantages.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I remember I got to D2 Hell with Blizz sorc, it was fun when I was invaded by low-level Assassins who killed entire party then face-planted on the floor the moment she stepped into my level 20 blizzard amplified by synergies from other moderately leveled spells. I couldn't play through hell because most enemies had immunities. I honestly don't see myself waiting for my merc to kill all the trash mobs or avoiding them if they have PHYS/ICE immunity or creating split-elemental build. Do you have any insight or tactics how can I beat hell for the first time? Class doesn't matter - well I do not want to play Paladin, Ele Druid or Trapsin. Of course if you think they are great then please tell me how I should approach them.

Summon necro - max skeleton, skeleton mastery and corpse explosion, put 1 point in bone armor, amp damage, decrepify, summon resist, maybe revive, rest of points into bone wall or prison to buff bone armor & use them to block enemies later in the game
Hybrid zon - max charged strike and lightning fury, use fury for mobs, charged strike for large enemies (like bosses). then get a secondary skill to deal with lightning immunes, strafe is low skill investment but needs a good bow which you might not get, frozen arrow requires more skill investment but does more reliable damage without a bow, it's a huge mana hog though). get valkyrie and the dodge/crit/penetration/pierce passives too, 1 point is enough in those.
 

Daedalos

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Just installed Path of Diablo. Seems like a really good mod that keeps the vanilla shit but makes alot of QOL changes.

Median XL is too much change for me, its an entirely different game than D2 was, and too spergy and fast with shit all over the screen.
 

luj1

You're all shills
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Summon necro - max skeleton, skeleton mastery and corpse explosion

No, don't max CE. Max Revives or Mages instead.

Max CE is hilarious and should be done.

lol Skeleton mages lol.

Why should it be done? I can give you 10 reasons of why it shouldn't be (I think you are noob)

- It's a waste of points, you get +0.3 larger radius per point while damage stays the same.
- CE is a 1pt wonder, with enough +skill items you will easily rack up 20 points (40 points you don't need)
- any time you are in a smaller area those are wasted points (most enteriors)
- any time you are fighting a boss those are wasted points
- Mages are a solid choice (besides Revives) because 1) they benefit from Skeleton Mastery (which you are maxing anyway), 2) they benefit from auras, 3) they have useful poison/cold attacks vs bosses (high regen on Hell), 4) you have twenty additional meat shields (instead of +6 radius on CE)
- CE doesn't give you survivability
- it doesn't work when there aren't corpses
- in Hell you will need survivablity and versatility
- Revives have insane life, also benefit from Skeleton Mastery, also benefit from auras, plenty of them have useful mods like CB

Good luck getting even single runeword or set.

You said about 20 things in this thread that aren't true, it's amazing. I'm pretty sure you never played D2
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Summon necro - max skeleton, skeleton mastery and corpse explosion

No, don't max CE. Max Revives or Mages instead.

ignore this, esp if you don't have top tier gear. even with top tier gear, max CE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>max mages/revives. maxed out CE makes all non-boss encounters trivial and is esp useful in narrow areas like the maggot lair or arcane sanctuary that take forever to clear. it's one of the main reasons why necro is so good in hell
 

typical user

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Thanks but I am leaning towards Assassin. Is it better to go c/c and invest into claw block or pick a shield? I should build around dragonstrike, right? I don't expect to get any high level runes to build WW Assassin.
 

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