Diablo 2 just turned 20

[luj1]

Gents, what about some Sorceress advice? I'd like to use Akara's respec about now and wanna make sure I don't do something too stupid. I'm planning to take this char to around level 40, Normal only, so my concerns are:

a) Stats: I'd prioritised Energy > Dexterity > Vitality > Strength going for a glass cannon approach, falling back to "Brave Sir Robin bravely ran away" if things got too hot. So what would be a good target Strength for equipment with this strategy, around a 45-50?

b) Skills: I'd originally invested in Fireball as my primary ('cause, you know, Fireball), but more recently I'm really digging Glacial Spike instead. Lower AoE, sure, but freezing enemies in their tracks works for me. So what I'd like is to use Glacial Spike as my main spam and follow-up with Fire Wall or maybe Meteor for tougher enemies. So far I've favoured Fire Wall for the massive damage and quick delivery, Meteor's got better coverage but there's that 3s lead time. I'm aware that Frozen Orb & Meteor is supposed to be the hot thing, but it seems more unwieldy than Glacial Spike and quite expensive on Mana for my level range. Anyway, thoughts?

Aside from that, I know I want a level in Teleport (so I can bravely run away) and quite a lot of Warmth for mana regen, running 8 points right now at level 26. I'm also considering a level in Energy Shield for extra security, plus Fire and Cold Mastery. Ooh, and maybe an Enchant to give my henchie a little extra oomph.



Also, more generally, any tips on Synergies? They weren't a thing back when I last played the game. As far as I can tell, they're set up to roughly scale to another level in the benefiting skill - e.g. increasing Fireball drops an additional 14% damage to Meteor, which is about as much as I'd get from investing another level in Meteor itself... except without the increase in Mana cost? In that case, wouldn't I be better off taking a single Meteor level and then pumping Fireball underneath it?

Energy is a dump stat

 

[Gargaune]

Energy is a dump stat

Eh, already respecced now. But for future reference, for Normal-range playthrough, what's the proper way to power a spellcaster's mana pool if not investing in Energy?

 

[octavius]

Prunkvoller...that has a nice ring to it.

 

[Ippolit]

Items with + mana. You can for example wear a 3-sox-crown and put 3 ( maybe even perfect) sapphires into it. Nothing to be ashamed of. Mana pots. Tir runes are also nice. Getting 6 mana per kill back can be a big help. You can shop for example a large shield with 3 sockets and put 3 tir runes into it.

Also these completely broken low-level-runewords. Spirit for you to wear (4sox swords drop at the beginning of act 5) and Insight for your desert mercenary to wear. The meditation aura it provides solves the mana problems of so many chars in D2. Also it synergizes with the prayer aura from the combat merc in act 2 normal and heals you additionally.

There is also a neat feature - as long as you are below lvl20, you can shop grey items from every vendor. If you are higher lvl, only act 1 and act 2 vendors in normal offer you grey items anymore. And you can do a little shopping for runeword-bases at them.

My sorceress goes to Drognan, looks for a neat 2-hand-staff with +3 fireball and 2 sockets (costs around 12-20k gold) and puts a nice low-lvl-runeword in there - leaf. If you put it into a grey staff with +1-3 skills, the runeword retains these skills and you can get this nice little thing with +6 fireball for example:

This brings you easily through normal. You can find the runes if you kill the countess in act 1.

 

[Gargaune]

Ippolit, appreciate the advice, thanks! Those first two runewords look cool, though I don't think I've seen a 4-socket item drop on Normal even on my level 42 Paladin yet. Either it's that I'm still playing the original 1.14 D2 or just my luck.

 

[luj1]

Energy is a dump stat

Eh, already respecced now. But for future reference, for Normal-range playthrough, what's the proper way to power a spellcaster's mana pool if not investing in Energy?

Mate did you ever play Diablo II before?

For 20 years it was,

Strength - enough for gear
Dexterity - enough for gear / max block
Energy - nothing
Vitality - everything else

99% of builds used the same rationale.

 

[Gargaune]

Mate did you ever play Diablo II before?

For 20 years it was

Yes! But it was 24 years ago...

Spoiler

 

[Ippolit]

It is luck and visiting the optimal regions. I also have to correct my statement - you can find white crystal swords in act5 that can get 4 sockets if you use the socket recipe ( Ral Rune + Amn Rune + Perfect Amethyst + weapon in the cube) or bring it to larzuk but they cannot drop naturally yet. A good place to find them is the cow level normal or act 1 nightmare.

Btw that spirit runeword also fits in paladin shields - you can build these things for example:

The best advice (which might sound a bit condescending) i would give though is to play 'normally', visit the vendors regularly and learn to use their equipment (blue boots with 30% lightning res? great!) to overcome the obstacles. Almost no amount of equipment can save you from an angry mob of souls or moon lords or stygian dolls - you need to use your brain for these.
And Diablo 2 offers you quite a lot of ways to overcome certain obstacles with it's skill tree if you use your brain.

The deadliest region in normal for me is for example is the chaos sanctuarium. For some reason the venom lords do an ungody amount of damage with their fire breath. In Nightmare and Hell they barely tickle me but 2 breath attacks can kill you in normal.
So as a paladin maybe use your aura 'resistance against fire' and socket a shield with rubies. Don't be afraid to use 2 or 3 skill points to widen your arsenal.
The stygian dolls explode on death but you can block the explosion (skill your holy shield!) and you have an excellent aura that can knock back the undead - try that also. Having that aura also ignores the physical immunitiy of undead monsters in general so you can suddenly damage immune ghosts and wraiths.

If a moon-lord-mob rushes you, you can convert the lesser ones for 16 seconds - don't be afraid to put some points in this skill. It is an underrated crowd control skill and it doesn't even need a successful hit, just attacking them is enough.

Diablo 2 is such a cool game if you don't focus on playing it the most elegant/smooth way. The power creep will get you anyways sooner or later.

Btw, are you using PlugY btw for your 1.14 installation to have a shared stash? A lot of pain can be avoided if you collect and keep some low lvl items for later chars.

This is why i made my peace with D2 Resurrected and never looked back since (also because of the bug fixes and some formula changes).

 

[Gargaune]

you can find white crystal swords in act5 that can get 4 sockets if you use the socket recipe ( Ral Rune + Amn Rune + Perfect Amethyst + weapon in the cube)

Ah, yes, there was that too! It's a pricey solution for Normal, takes me ages to assemble a Perfect Amethyst, but it could have some interesting applications...

The best advice (which might sound a bit condescending) i would give though is to play 'normally'

Oh, I am. Truth be told, I'm not struggling with it, just getting greedy over stats and loot. You know, that's the fun of the game. Not really interested in replaying the campaign with the same characters on a higher difficulty and resetting that feeling of progression, but I'm pinching pennies to get "more OP" and/or "cooler", if you get what I mean. Like I recently got a Steelclash shield which is technically better than my gemmed Heraldric (2 Perfect Diamonds and 1 Perfect Amethyst), but the latter looks cooler. So yeah, there's nothing condescending, I'm grateful for the advice.

With the Paladin I died twice - first to Diablo himself because I froze up like a deer in the headlights when he struck me with his death ray (totally forgot about it after so long), and second to his Venom Lord underboss because I was trying a different setup (I thought the fire was wrecking me, turns out it was the physical damage). Then Duriel did an absolute number on my Sorceress's cornhole and I had to give up and just Town Portal the Galaxy of Terror reject, but beyond that it's been quite smooth... Except for Scarabs, fuck those sparklers with Duriel's dick!

Btw, are you using PlugY btw for your 1.14 installation to have a shared stash? A lot of pain can be avoided if you collect and keep some low lvl items for later chars.

This is why i made my peace with D2 Resurrected and never looked back since (also because of the bug fixes and some formula changes).

Nah, I'm running 1.14 with the D2DX wrapper and the larger stash mod. I was tempted by PlugY precisely for the shared stash, but saves aren't backwards compatible and I figured it's more hassle than it's worth in the end. I was quite interested in Resurrected, had my $70 ready to go, but mandatory BattleNet accounts are an absolute deal-breaker for me.

 

[Gargaune]

FUMIGATED!

Burn in hell, you miserable bag of shit! This is my new melee Sorceress, took him first try, single trip! I did equip a whole bunch of antifreeze gear and quaff an entire inventory of thawing pots, but during the fight I didn't have to use a single juvie, just a few healths and manas.

And he coughed up Cathan's Seal ring at the end. Score!

 

[ghardy]

So... did you go on to beat Baal?

 

[Gargaune]

So... did you go on to beat Baal?

With the melee Sorc? Not as of yet, left her in Act 4 for now. Act 3 went smoothly, but then found she was missing like crazy in Hell, she'll need a lot of overleveling when I eventually get back to her.

 

[Gargaune]

Guys, how can I share stuff between my local characters without PlugY? Desperately need to start sharing some stuff, getting clogged up.

Was thinking about setting up a second install on my laptop to host a server on LAN and TCP in from the desktop, but do I just use the IP address from ipconfig? Or do I need to set up Hamachi or tweak the Firewall or some shit?

 

[luj1]

W

FUMIGATED!

Burn in hell, you miserable bag of shit! This is my new melee Sorceress, took him first try, single trip! I did equip a whole bunch of antifreeze gear and quaff an entire inventory of thawing pots, but during the fight I didn't have to use a single juvie, just a few healths and manas.

And he coughed up Cathan's Seal ring at the end. Score!

Whats that custom UI sorry? With 2 new celtic banners left and right

 

[luj1]

Guys, how can I share stuff between my local characters without PlugY? Desperately need to start sharing some stuff, getting clogged up.

ATMA 5, a Tenshi muling application

 

[Gargaune]

Whats that custom UI sorry? With 2 new celtic banners left and right

I'm using the D2DX wrapper. Highly recommended, does widescreen, FPS, alt-tabbing etc. perfectly. Although you still wanna limit the in-game vertical to 600px, there's only so much the engine loads around you.

ATMA 5, a Tenshi muling application

That's interesting, thanks, but I think it'd conflict with the extra inventory/stash mod I'm using. The author warned that any character editors would wipe everything stored outside the standard inventory sizes, it's why I'm looking for a LAN solution.

 

[luj1]

That's interesting, thanks, but I think it'd conflict with the extra inventory/stash mod I'm using.

Yeah, it's an old utility from back in the day which I still use. I suppose you definitely don't need it if you use an extra stash already.

 

[luj1]

I'm using the D2DX wrapper. Highly recommended, does widescreen, FPS, alt-tabbing etc. perfectly. Although you still wanna limit the in-game vertical to 600px, there's only so much the engine loads around you.

I'm gonna try it, see if it works with ATMA

I dont see why it shouldn't, as it doesnt change the game

 

[Gargaune]

I suppose you definitely don't need it if you use an extra stash already.

I use this little mod which just expands the inventory grids, but it can't share things between characters and using editors risks deleting anything in those extra slots. I guess I'll try setting up some "multiplayer" in my LAN, just hope I don't have to mess around with port settings.

 

[Gargaune]

Well, doing it over LAN worked. A bit of a paint in the backside to swap characters in and out, but it's an absolute breath of fresh air, I've actually got inventory space again.

One unexpected downside, though - looks like all the characters I joined with adopted the server's map roll so all my maps are gonna be the same between 'em. Bummer, but it had to be done.

 

[mastroego]

I've been using PlugY for years, I couldn't play without its shared inventory honestly.

 

[Gargaune]

I've been using PlugY for years, I couldn't play without its shared inventory honestly.

I was hesitant because it's "no takebacks" proposition, once you intall PlugY, your save file needs it.

I'm curious, though, does anyone know which save file stores the map layout data? A Diablo 2 save has multiple files, a .d2s, .key, .map and an .ma0, but I've noticed that the characters I connected to the server - and only those - also now have an .ma1. If I were to delete that .ma1, would the character revert to its original map rolls?

It feels a little counterintuitive that you connect to a friend's game in TCP and suddenly you're stuck playing his maps in singleplayer too, is there a setting that disables that?

 

[mastroego]

I've been using PlugY for years, I couldn't play without its shared inventory honestly.

I was hesitant because it's "no takebacks" proposition, once you intall PlugY, your save file needs it.

Understandable, on the other hand, with a regular save I wouldn't have access to a real pool of items anyway, and I play Single Player, so I'm not too interested in preserving the save format.

 

[Gargaune]

Understandable, on the other hand, with a regular save I wouldn't have access to a real pool of items anyway, and I play Single Player, so I'm not too interested in preserving the save format.

Nah, I get your point, I'm still considering it myself. I could put up with the tedium of sharing items over a proxy server every once in a while, but having it match the same maps on my characters is kind of a letdown.

 

[mastroego]

Not sure how it works regularly, but with PlugY maps are separated for each character.
You can reset them by changing difficulty level.
Say, from Hell you load Nightmare once, then Hell again. Maps will be redrawn.
Those that change anyway.

Basically, imho, if you play SP you want PlugY.