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don't make me play .............

Its sucking up a good hour a day ATM.

I play whilst the wife is making tea, giving me the rest of the night to do whatever (sadly not enough modelling ATM)

Its a great game as you can walk away for months/years and if you have saved your characters to a file somewhere and reload it when you reload the game you can just pick it up right away.

FO/CL or MO/FO are the two builds I have worked with for the Sorc. But the spamming Sorc is supposed to be excellent. But she is better for PVP. The other two are better for PVM. The trick about the Sorc is faster cast rate. You want to get it over 125% if I remember correctly. That is the last frame rate breakover that is attanable. I think there is another at 300%, but that is not possible to get. Teleport is your friend, and get ready for a fast ride.

Neco is a ton of fun to play. I completely ignore the golems. I only raise skeletons, and I max them out. Both sorcs and melee skeletons. Build up the summon resist to about 15 if I remember. So, probably only build it to 5, and let + to skills take it the rest of the way. If you want to beat Durial, there is one really easy way to do it. DECREPIFY!!!!! Your skeletons should be able to tear Durial apart once he has been Decrepified. Other than Amplify Damage, Decrepify is a must. You will own Durial with Decrepify. Make sure you take Amp Damage for Hell. You can break "Immune to Physical" which makes you much loved by all your physical damage buddies. Also, I love taking Revive. I usually only put 10 into it, then let + to skills take it the rest of the way. Once you have those three summoning skills, you have an army, and you can sit back and chuckle at all the silly critters trying to kill you. If you get Enigma, the Necro can be really scary. You can teleport on top of an enemy, and ALL of your critters start attacking that one target.

If folks would like, I can post some of my builds out here for everyone to look at. It might help.

I had a 30 something Sorc in Diablo I who lost all his stuff. Surrounded by something like ... 10,000 of those big lightning cave monsters with a couple unique ones. He went down naked into Hell and got a second awesome set of gear before too long. A fine moment in gaming lore. .

I always go for Cold/Ice with Sorcs. Always Ice. Makes things go 'smash' and no corpses to reanimate.

My two fav classes are the Paladin and the Sorceress. My current cha is an Assassin, just because I had never used one. Barbarian was fun, but I raced through the game the first time (I was in hell by cLvl18, and Death Knights could kill me in three hits). Started an Amazon a few times, the Necromancer never interested me, and I've not used the Druid.

BE

Since we're all bonding over our digital crack, what do I like. I like screwing around with Paladins. Necromancers are cool if potentially frustrating (they are probably different 10 patches later) and I have always wanted THE awesome druid. Barbs, Amazons and Sorceress are always fun. Assassins have never interested me much.

what the heck, eh. Installing ...

tide me over until I can get a new PC and play Oblivion/ Fallout 3 the way they were meant to be played.

Freezing is good good. Freeze 'em good, and then Fire Wall them. Fire Wall can be replaced as other area spells become more toasty.

Lightning mages are fun, and ridiculously good in certain circumstances, but don't scale up as well. By Lvl30 you're dragging a bit.

Magic Immune critters hurt....


Freezy lightning mage and dual-wielding Barbies are my favourites to play though, definitely. I've got a friend who swears by lycanthropy... but meh.

HIT 'EM WITH A HAMMER AND EAT THEIR FLESH

The problem with Lightning, and this is the reason I never do Lightning Sorcs, only Freeze or Flame, usually Freeze but sometimes Freeze/Flame (Firebolt is a good spell, as is Meteor), is that Lightning always does 1-X damage.

So if sLvl20 Chain Lightning has a max damage of 400, it's minimum is still 1. Whereas everything else goes up min and max as well. Lightning always keeps its min at 1, making it inconsistent.

You could be fighting a Zombie in the Blood Moor or fighting Baal on Hell difficulty, and your Lightning may fry Baal in one hit, or it may bounce off the Zombie.

It's annoying as anything, so I avoid Lightning spells completely.

BYE

All I have to say is, 'Skaven'.

Lightning mages suck, but they are FUN. My classic frosty-shock witch was backing up a barbarian at the time. His shouts kept my defense up, then I'd step back and chain/spark away. Freeze the big suckers or clumps of rat-men... Really helps in act 3, except for the increasing magic def/immunity.

Like, I'm not going to tell Gonads he really should just start again and go pure dual wield. Every RPGer knows the advantages of stickin' with one proficiency, and where it's worth spreading out a little...

Annoying is when I realise I could have better spent earlier skills, so I start waiting three levels for every skill point I spend. Then... oh wait, I'm GRINDING again. My dentist told me I shouldn't do that. Uh huh.

Druid summoning doesn't seem that great. Might go for the big grizzly later on.

I've just kileld duriel and into the 3rd act.

He was actually really easy to kill, only had to leave once for more health potions and my idiot hireling only died twice.

Also already finished the first quest in act 3, and have the 3rd. Just need to find the pigmy village to activate the 2nd quest.

Arctik_Firangi no way am I going all the way back to the start.

I've dropped 2 into dual wield and its going great ATM, but I'm aiming for whirlwind.

I just dropped a point into increased run/walk and the speed jump is fantastic.

I've set up all the pre-requisites for whirlwind, and have 6 skill points saved to invest in it straight away.

The internet guides tell me whirlwind is where the action is...

I'm waiting till hell and have a super weapon before I pump points into combat masteries.

Also scored 2 of Hsarus defense- first time I've ever gotten 2 of any of the same item.

Going to take a break next couple of days.

Need to do some modeling.

Lightning Sorcs are all about speed. Spam lightning. Chain lightning and Lightning both built up to 20 is great. Throw a Frozen Orb, then spam Chain Lightning. Room is cleared. I was able to rush folks with FO/CL Sorc in Hell. With my + to skills, my CL was well over 30. The damage per cast maxed around 5K. I was casting probably 3 or 4 times per second. Any lightning mage must max faster cast rate if they want to survive. Plus you have to build up your supporting bonuses from other skills. Then do a couple thousand hours of Magic Find, and you'll have a kick a$$ character.

CHOP CHOP CHOP DIE DIE DIE

Remember that saving points to invest isn't always practical. Just in case you thought you were going to reach the minimum level for whirlwind and then put six points on it...

I don't need to tell you that. This is the hundredth time you've played. Nevermind.

This game is getting stupid, that has to be a good sign.

I think I will theoryhammer (theorydiablo?) my druid build.

I did a spiel on mathhammering diablo, then realised that little contextual error...Theoryhammer.... theory diablo... diablomath...

Nothing quite hammers like a hammer, does it?

Saving up allows me to drop into others whilst I build in whirlwind, wherever I need the help.

ATM I don't need to drop any points so am saving them for when I get a better idea where to invest them.

I'll probably up increased speed, iron skin and natural resistance all at once.

Ironskin is great. Increased foot speed is uber online, but it's no biggie single player. Natural resistance is what will get you through the higher difficulties.

re saving; I know, sorry, I was presuming that you wanted to pop six ranks onto whirlwind as soon as you reached the minimum level. Then I remembered everyone knows you can't do that.

I always save points. As I said, I don't spend a point on anything 'til I hit cLvl6 when I start, and I usually leave 3-5 levels between any spending.

BYE

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Saving up allows me to drop into others whilst I build in whirlwind, wherever I need the help.

ATM I don't need to drop any points so am saving them for when I get a better idea where to invest them.

I'll probably up increased speed, iron skin and natural resistance all at once.

I did that with my own Barbarian once upon a time. They do just fine with just one or two points here and there.

Killed the Act 1 boss. My fire spells were ineffective so I 'went wolf' and spammed my thing, whatever it is. Chompy-Wolf-Attack while scarfing rejuv potions. My team mates did whatever it is that they do.

I am never playing this game again, I lost about 7.5 hours of my life. Also, I hate you all.

(j/k)

Really? I've just aquired the last piece of the Immortal King set (thank you 600% magic find!), and I'm RAPING everything. Had to edit my hero to make him good with hammers.

I felt a twinge.

But I refrain from further play. I now devote myself to more constructive things like painting toy soldiers and enjoying pornography.



also, gratz.

Yeah I've only been playing it for 10 years now. I will probably pick up Diablo 3 now, thanks to this thread.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I've just aquired the last piece of the Immortal King set (thank you 600% magic find!), and I'm RAPING everything.

Loler

I've been haunting Dakka for almost fourteen hours today, but I've just found my Diablo 2 cd-key. Goodbye world...

I guess that's the one good thing about Blizzard - there's something for everyone.

I don't like Starcraft, Warcraft was interesting enough to play through once but nothing more, I have no interest in WoW, yet I can play Diablo for weeks on end and not get bored.

Amazing how they do that.

BYE

It's too bad that everything they make is so derivative of FB/40K.