Proceed, Heroes, Into Terror's Lair! Diablo II Freestyle Group Slamdance Thread!

LIIIIIIGHTNIIIIIIIIIING ENCHAAAAAAAAAAAAANTEEEEEEEEEEED


Along the way he comes across the significantly less hilariously named cave, The Pit. I think folks like to run this place on Hell a lot for items? Sadly, Frrrt finds absolutely nothing of use inside.


And finally, he reaches the Monastery. What horrors await him within?


Well, this dude for one. The Smith hits DAMN hard, and Frrrt still needs to get up close and personal to do any real damage. Seriously, the Smith knocks a third of Frrrt's life away in each hit. Fortunately he manages to get out of range before he can suffer strike #3.


And here Charsi offers one of the more interesting Quest reward perks in the game: Item Imbue. Basically she'll take a normal, unenchanted item, and make it a rare item with a random assortment of bonuses. This is a one-time only thing, no backsies, and since you can't reload an old save or whatever in Diablo II you can't just try again.

I'm not 100% positive on how this works, but I THINK that the bonuses she grants depend on the difficulty level, so I don't believe there's much point in saving your three Imbues (one per difficulty) until you're neck-deep in Hell since the first two will be kind of crap for where you are. Unless I'm wrong! I won't even be thinking of using this until Act V anyway, so maybe one of you folks can correct me on this.

The Imbue: Worth saving all 3 for Hell Act V, or use em by the end of their respective difficulties?


Anyway, Frrrt heads deeper and deeper into the Monastery.


And enters... what? The Inner Cloister?

Wait, you enter the Monastery in the Outer Cloister. Then you go DOWN into the Jail. And keep going DOWN into the deepest levels of the Jail. And then you go DOWN from the Jail... and into the Inner Cloister? Shouldn't this place be back on ground level? Is the Monastery built on the edge of the cliff? Am I just confused? Possibly!


Anyway, Frrrt is approaching Andariel and currently has utter crap for armor. As I mentioned before, the RNG has NOT been kind to him, and that has not let up all this way. His defense is garbage and since he still needs to get close to things to kill them, so he still relies on hit-and-run. That's NOT going to cut it against Andariel, who hits like a truck ON TOP OF her massive poison damage.

So Frrrt grits his teeth and visits Gheed and decides to take a chance on the best armor he can find from him in Act I. Will the RNG gods be good to him?


FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Well.. it's... it's still better than what he had.

LET THAT SINK IN.


Alright, get your game face on, Frrrt. Andariel and a host a baddies are on the other side of this door. Remember your druid training...

...actually, don't remember your druid training. Just burst in there and wreck her shit.


RUUUUUUUUUUUUN AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY


Frrrt has to run back to town with his tail between his legs FOUR TIMES to restock on potions before he's able to whittle Andariel down to dead. But finally, FINALLY he succeeds. And his reward?


Yeah, if you know the game you already know what that shield is.


It's not GREAT, but it beats what he had. And hey, he might find one of the other items in the set. Plus Act II is just lousy with poison damage, so the more defense against that the better. That being said, if any of you US-East Ladder-goers have some kind of frothing demand for this shield let me know and I'll consider parting with it once I find a better one.


And lo, Frrrt heads off into the vast desert. Surely the worst is behind him now, right? I mean, by the time he reaches the end of Act II he'll have a much better arsenal of skills at his disposal and even better gear, right? It's all up from here, right?

Right?

:/

TO BE CONTINUED

The Adventures of FRRRT! the Windy Druid Supplementary

Something odd happened on his trip through the Catacombs that I never got a shot of.

Y'see, despite that fact that Frrrt never died once through Act I, he also kind of DID.

On the third level of the Catacombs, or so, he wound up getting surrounded and beaten by a bunch of Dark Ones (and Champion Dark One Shamans). However on my screen he wasn't surrounded by them, which implied there was some sort of server hiccup (especially since by the time I made it back to my corpse it was in a different location than where it looked like I died on my screen)

That's not where it gets weird, though. I couldn't reclaim my corpse. Everything else had suddenly stalled as well, monsters and my wolf started walking in place. I couldn't interact with anything.

DISCONNECT.

I couldn't get back on for like five minutes, I don't think it was something on my end. However, when I DID reconnect, Frrrt was in one piece with all his old gear and everything.

Even the potions were back in his belt.

And his EXP was in a different position.

And the items he had picked up along the way were gone.

So apparently the server stopped recording what happened to Frrrt shortly before he was killed, thus when I restarted the game he was in a condition where he hadn't died yet at all.

So, his death count officially remains at 1 0. (Also, I won't be keeping a death count, I forgot to keep track of his deaths in Act II)

This sort of fluke would be a Godsend if it happened at the right time on a Hardcore game. On the other hand, if you were lucky enough to just pick up the BEST ITEM EVER, then you'd probably ragequit if you were disconnected and restored to a point before getting it.

I hope people are playing in the TalkingTime room (Tyrant). Whenever I play that is where I'm at and I'd like to see some more of you in there as we go through with this LALP

I've been going there whenever I log on to play!

But no one's ever there for me either.

I've run into Mr. Bean a few times and he tells me he's run into Knight. I guess were all just on different schedules.

I'd like to, but it always says it doesn't exist when I try to join.

If it doesn't exist, that means nobody's inside, and you'll have to create it in order to get in.

Actually, while I'm at it, am I the only one who's posted as far as they've gotten? Because I'd be playing it through further as we speak, but my brother is addicted and unwilling to let me on >_> Oh, I see how it is, brother. One day, and soon, revenge shall be mine!

You can create it? Then if someone comes on they can join it.

EDIT: JimCloud covered that it looks like... U'm about 1/3 of the way through ACT 2.

So long as every TalkingTime game has a password everyone knows of (I've been doing TalkingTime/TalkingTime), anyone who wants in can join in. I would take it as a kindness if folks would pop onto IRC (or, if IRC isn't your thing, you could prod me via LunisCabarach on AIM).

we were going with TalkingTime and a password of Tyrant

Nope, they're the worst. Fire Enchanted used to be pretty nasty back when it was bugged and the monster would kill you instantly upon death, but nothing has ever carried the sheer weight of horror that Lightning Enchanted does.

I mean, you could get a Gloam boss with Extra Strong Multiple Shots (Conviction) Aura Enchanted, and technically that's worse than Lightning Enchanted, but it doesn't instill the same level of fear/hatred and certainly hasn't claimed as many lives.

Welcome to intermediate lightning sorcery class. This semester we'll be discussing the two spells that you gain access to during Act II at level 18.

Chain Lightning

Oh yes. This is your bread and butter spell on the overworld. Lightning will hit an unlimited number of targets in it's path, but it cuts a rather narrow swath. Whenever chain lightning connects, it will begin to bounce between monsters. You start out with 5 bounces maximum, but that number goes up as you put more points into the skill. When there are fewer monsters on the screen than your total bounces, the lightning will oscillate between the remaining baddies. The raw damage output isn't quite as good as vanilla lightning, and the lower synergy bonuses mean that it will never hit lightning's stunning potential. In the open where it has room to bounce, chain lightning is your best friend, but down in dungeons where doorways and halls corral monsters in to nice choke points, regular lightning is a better choice.



Teleport

Bungle has discussed the wonders of teleport in the main LP, but it is just so damn useful I'll mention it again. Cast it, and you bampf to wherever you clicked, no muss no fuss. Useful for a variety of functions, including but not limited to getting around in the Arcane Sanctuary not to mention the Kurast jungle hell and Diablo's hell fortress, getting some distance between you and your foe for some breathing room, quickly moving across the map, you name it. Additional points reduce the amount of mana used per bampf so one point is usually all you need. This along with warmth are the two spells that pretty much every sorceress puts a point into no matter their specialty.

I just finished up Act II last night. I had to quaff every potion in my belt to keep Duriel from turning me into a fine paste, but I eventually got him down with my hireling being the only casualty. At first I tried to kite him, but he moved too damn fast and any time he grazed me, the cold effect made running impossible, so eventually, I just ended up standing my ground and pouring raw voltage into him. I had invested a point in shiver armor for the defense boost, so every time he hit me, he'd slow down as well. It helped that by the time I had gotten to Duriel, I had cold resist well over 60%.



This little bit of kit I found in a random pot helped a bit too:



This is the first set item I've found this go round. If anybody finds any more of the Hsarus' set I'd appreciate the heads up. The defense boost would be nice, especially for a low str character like the sorc.

In other gear news, I was hurting for a decent hat, so I went ahead and burned a few runes to make this:



Runes work just like gems and jewels in that you can stick them into socketed equipment for their bonuses, but if you stick the right combination of runes in the right order into a piece of equipment with the right number of slots, you get a rune word item that has additional bonuses on top of the base rune bonuses. The helm up there is probably the simplest of all the runewords and uses two nice common runes, so it's easy enough to make in the early game. I'm sure Bungle will have a nice detailed rune breakdown at some point in the future.

DUUUUUURIIIIEELLLL!!!!!

Oh dear, all the repressed memories are coming back.... Duriel... Duriel.. Duriel... Duriel... ;_;

Heh, I found one of those myself. Shortly before you walked in, in fact. (The Summoner dropped one)

I had forgotten about the Nadir helm, though. I'll have to see about making one of those later...

EDIT: Speaking of Set Items again! Anyone interested in Cathan's Seal? I actually got TWO of them to drop, so one's burning a hole in my Stash.

AND I STILL CAN'T GET ANYTHING USEFUL FOR FRRRT!

Robopope is a ranger, which is to say a paladin with a bow. Rangers are probably the most effective type of ‘unintended’ build in the game. None of a paladin’s combat skills work with ranged weapons; Robopope will be exclusively using auras for damage. But that doesn’t matter; it only leaves more skill points synergies. Doing so makes a ranger’s attack the most powerful single target ranged weapon attack in the game, beating out the amazon, who has a whole tree devoted to it.

The downside of rangers is a complete lack of area of effect attack. And crowd control isn’t his real forte either. So I’ll be running from packs a lot and killing them one by one.

One other note is that I’m playing single player on /players8, meaning I enemies have more life, but give more experience. Because of this, I’ll be a higher level than those on the realms, but the going will be slower and I won’t get to play with others.

So without further ado, let’s get started!



Before going into the den of evil, Robopope clears the Blood Moor. While doing so, he levels up a few times. As should be the case with all paladins, the first point goes into Might, which increases physical damage.



All further skill points up to six go to Resist Fire, a synergy with Holy Fire.



With the blood moor cleared, Robopope enters the den. While in there, he hits six, and switches his aura to Holy Fire.



The den gets cleared quickly, as Holy Fire is crazy powerful in the early game. Corpsefire was barely stronger than a normal zombie, dead before it could get to me.




I found almost no useful equipment so far. I’m using a gemmed longbow with two chipped emeralds in it, some boots with +1 dex and 5% fire resist, and a rare quilted armor with 5% more fire resist, +5 life, +1 light radius, and attacker takes damage of 1.

I haven’t spent any of my stat points yet. I prefer to save them until its clear I need them in a certain area. In general, I’ll have just enough strength to carry stuff, with the rest split between dexterity and vitality equally.

Before I finish, a brief summary of my talent plan. Holy Fire adds fire damage to attacks and does a small amount of additional damage to all enemies near the paladin every few seconds. The skill is godly in the early game, but loses its punch before long, becoming pretty much useless by hell difficulty. I’m going to ride it as long as I can, and will then switch to a different skill thanks to the new reset points feature the latest patch gave us.

But what will I switch to? A ranger really only has three options for primary aura:
Holy Freeze (level 18 with two synergies)- adds moderate cold damage to attacks, and slows all enemies around him by about 50%
Holy Shock (level 24 with two synergies)- adds a popeload of lightning damage to attacks and aura damage akin to holy fire
Fanaticism (level 30 with no synergies)- adds physical damage, attack rating, and speed to attacks

I don’t know which aura I’ll choose once Holy Fire stops working. I’m open to suggestion.

What are synergies? Can we talk about that?

Synergies, added, I believe, in a patch, are the effects skill levels in other abilities have on a certain ability. For example, in the picture above, you can see that Resist Fire adds +18% to damage on his Holy fire, per level. It adds up pretty quickly there, though the effect is not always as great in other cases.

That's a good summary. Synergies are especially important because they effectively let you put more than 20 points into a skill, making them substantially more powerful most than skills without synergies. Most skills have at least one. Blizzard's goal was to be able to make any skill viable in the endgame, and they were semi-successful. There are still a few completely awful choices out there, but most can be made into a workable build now.

Duriel was a huge pain for me. He caused me to have to use a whole 2 light healing potions. Two of them!

Ok, for most characters he's a huge terror, but Muntak is built to take on melee monsters like him. Max Blocking + Concentrate + Shout + Defensive Merc means I was pushing over 900 def + 75% blocking with my Pelta. Too awesome.

I may or may not be able to post much update wise, but I'm going to blame you folks for sucking me into this game again.

Since the latest patch almost doubled Assassin combo point duration, I've never managed to get an Assassin past nightmare, and there seems to be a distinct lack of Assassin there, sign me up as AzureWraith.

I've started a Sorcereress, with no idea toward a build to go, named Elle_Dritch.

I see how it is. Songbird is offended to the deepest innermost level of her being. If by "there" you mean "here", anyways.

Whoops! I place all blame on Mr.Bungle. I scanned the list in the first post before posting that. On the plus side, now I can rely on someone else to cover most of the Assassin details .

Edit:VV He's apparently been busy playing Diablo 2, who woulda guessed.

Nah, I don't blame you, I was waiting for Bungle to put it up, but I didn't want to seem to hasty in my requesting... didn't really think it'd be relevant.

While I won't be joining in on the fun, I thought I may as well share a nifty item I nabbed a bit ago.



That bad boy combined with the Thorns aura makes Salatin the Paladin there quite deadly to the touch.

I'll get any newer players added to the main post tomorrow! Right now I need to be in bed an hour ago.

AWESOME

I can't imagine the other two auras being nearly as effective as Fanaticism, but then again, I've never made a character like this before.

You can always get Holy Freeze on your mercenary if you really want it. Though Might is probably the better option there.

One other important thing about synergy bonuses: only points that you actually spend on a skill count. You can't get synergy bonuses from skill levels on your gear.

Of all the Sorceress builds I've tried, my personal favorite is the Fire Ball/Blizzard combo.

My build goes like so:

1 Ice Bolt
1 Frost Nova
1 Ice Blast
20 Glacial Spike
20 Blizzard
1 Cold Mastery

1 Static Field
1 Telekinesis
1 Teleport

1 Fire Bolt
1 Warmth
1 Inferno
1 Blaze
20 Fire Ball
1 Fire Wall
20 Meteor
Everything else in Fire Mastery

Basically, you drop Blizzards and throw Fire Balls into them. Against cold immunes, you drop Meteor instead of Blizzard, and against fire immunes you throw Glacial Spikes instead of Fire Balls. Against bosses that are immune to both cold and fire, just Static Field their life down and let your mercenary finish the job.

This is the Sorceress that I like most for boss running and for just playing the game. If you haven't tried one before, I recommend it!

Bunglecorrection!

You know what? I didn't really give enough thought to this last night because I needed to go to bed, but I've been crunching some numbers today and I think you're better off going for Holy Shock and Holy Freeze instead of Fanaticism. With max Resist Lightning and Resist Cold and any extra points you can spare put into Salvation, the damage bonus from both auras becomes pretty nice.

Plus, this gives you two options for dealing damage, so monster immunities won't be as much of a problem. It also means that your damage won't be very weapon dependent, and that's always a good thing.

This build also has the neat additional effect of passively increasing your maximum lightning and cold resistances by 10%!

I assume that even though this damage is magic-based you'll still need to hit the target physically in order to apply it, so going with a Blessed Aim merc for the attack rating increase might be a good option. Ideally, though, you'd have an Angelic Wings + Angelic Halo combination to take care of attack rating, freeing your mercenary up to use Might to add some extra physical damage.

I'm going to be busy with stuff today, but when I get home I'll respec a high level paladin and test all of this out. This is fun!

I'll be playing with my Hammerdin! Probably let the other people I'm with screen though haha.

Two items have been added. Anyone who can one-up Steelgoad (unique voulge), I have gems and jewels (the same ones that were originally up for trade, incidentally) and a rune available.