/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5311357
you just reminded me i needed to refresh my accs
12 days left for expiration

on that note
why havent they removed the realm down shit

>>5311357
Solo Diablo 2 is not fun at all though, anon. Sorceress is pretty much easy mode though, so you can't really fuck this up.

>>5311357
>What do you guys think is the absolute best build for solo hell, even with cheap gear?
One or two for each class:
>Amazon
pure lightning Javazon (easy area farmer, skip non-LIs or sicc the merc + valk on him) or hybrid LF / FA or LF / Strafe. pure Bowies hard to run on a budget but really safe in HC.
>Barbarian
frenzier or berserker. Frenzier trickier to survive with, craft Nagas late-game. Berserker nukes single-targets with any old Maul. Use Howl + Taunt to survive, divide and conquer. WW is bugged in 1.14 but with any Cruel Polearm doable.
>Assassin
trapper or kick/trap sin. Death Sentry FTW.
>Paladin
Hammerdin, duh. Otherwise holy shock, ShaelUmTir is all you need in Hell. FanatZealot may work if you get a cruel onehander or some unique, with Vengeance for PI immunes.
>Sorceress
Any hybrid of two things works well (like Firewall/Orb or Blizzballer or CL/FO) or pure Blizzard if you're willing to skip CIs.
>Druid
Windy.
>Necromancer
Anything that has Corpse Explosion decently levelled.

If your Sorc is dying in Hell then you might need
>more levels (you can probably run around Hell on a caster at like level 55 already)
>more resistances / HP (are you slamming everything into Vit?)
>better footwork (separate your enemies, don't get pincushioned by archers)
>better merc (get him some good armor, probably ethereal)
What are your problems? Sorceresses are generally fairly self-sufficient with player skill.

>>5311357
cheap gear and solo hell, minion/skelly necro all the way

>>5311381
>Solo Diablo 2 is not fun at all though
I disagree, I find single player far more enjoyable, especially with plugy
>>5311382
I dunno, I think I'm using her wrong honesty. I find myself using Orb a lot more than Meteor, just find Orb far more fun

>>5311383
This or hammerdin.
Do hell countess runs until you have an infinity for your sorc, then just blizzard everything

>>5311710
>I find myself using Orb a lot more than Meteor, just find Orb far more fun
That's what I do too. FOrb is strong because you can just slap 20 points on it and enough Frost Mastery for lowering resistances with +skill items and you're done; it gives a bang for your buck, and then you can spec into something else. Meteor is somewhat unwieldy aside from stacking flames on a boss or dealing with cold immunes, but do you use Fireball? Both Orb and Meteor share a "global cooldown" of sorts, so you can't spam them both at the same time. Slam Fireballs between Orb spams on non-immunes, while waiting for the next Orb to proc. Also, maybe you're simply taking on too much characters at the same time - don't Run so much, and try to uncover a bit of the screen at once. Also, use terrain features - getting these archers to line of sight you behind a corner can do wonders.

Necromancer Fishymancer build (summon + corpse explosion) will get you pretty far into Hell, no gear required. Use him to get a Sorc into working condition so that she can do endless Hell Mephisto runs. Use the gear from the Meph runs to create a Hammerdin.

I beat hell with a magic-find fishymancer, it takes some time but does the job well

Lightning sorc

>>5311918
>Necromancer
A good 2 socket wand with the "White" runeword (Dol Io) is a cheap way to get some good + skills is a good cheap wand.

>>5312185
God no, I tried doing one and I couldn't stand constantly getting low damage rolls and then getting fucked and dying

>>5312516
My experience has always been the opposite though. Low damage rolls are often followed by high rolls and statistically you are rolling in the middle 50% of the time. You do retarded amounts of damage as lightning.

>>5312528
At what lvl does it start to become worth it? My sorc is at 65 so I may try it again. I do find chain lightning to be entertaining.

>>5311357
For barbarian, MP + HP drain gear with Whirlwind move. Spin around like a ballerina against every enemy.

>>5312538
Like a lot of builds, what makes or breaks it is whether or not you have an Infinity, but Infinity is only needed for late game Hell stuff. It really starts to take off around 65, assuming you have the right gear and build, but this is true for most classes. CL is situational, though it is fun watching it bounce around. Lightning is your main spell that you spam over and over again. Max all of Lightnings synergies. I'm not home right now and phoneposting so I cant link a build.

>>5311357
Shock Bolt Sorc. Just send out tons of waves of little electricity zaps and nothing that doesn't have immunity will ever make it close enough to melee you. Even Diablo himself melts to death in seconds.

>>5313670
This is bullshit the first lightning spell is the best one unless they nerfed it. It's mainly because it rolls so high on tables and is piss easy to stack up, and there's no really limit to the amount of zaps you can just piss out in front of you

>>5311357
Fishymancer build is the safest and cheapest possible build imo. Not the fastest.

>>5313715
>This is bullshit the first lightning spell is the best one unless they nerfed it
Since when? It is was pretty terrible the last time I played a lightning sorc (about a year ago). You could maybe use it in a build, but spamming Lightning is the way to go imo because it scales way better......and looks cooler.

>>5313842
Have you actually done the math on the scaling taking into account the multiple hits and casting speed?

>>5314178
No I definitely haven't. By scales better I was only talking about damage. Care to show me the numbers that include FCR and multiple targets?

Raw damage per cast, Lightning can go over 100k on the high end of the spectrum (say 50k average) and it passes through multiple targets in a straight line, it can be cast from a safe distance without dissipating and can be spammed even faster as you get more FCR.

Charged Bolt on the other hand requires you to be somewhat close so that whatever is in front of you takes the brunt of the cone before proccing outwards on the x and y axis. In terms of raw damage per 1 cast, it will never come close to Lightning. Lightning already hits multiple targets, albeit only in a straight line. Does Charged Bolt scale better with FCR than Lightning? Even so, I just can't see it being better than a Lightning focused build. Show me the numbers?? Even if what you say is true, I prefer the playstyle of Lightning over Charged Bolt anyway so maybe I am just biased.

>>5314287
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlW-4JxXC7s
If you go all in on it it pretty much just melts everything. I haven't played in forever though so I can't say how it actually balances compared to other skills in the current popular versions that people play.

>>5314348
That actually looks pretty interesting...the cone is much bigger than I thought when it is maxed. I wonder how it performs in Hell though? I haven't reinstalled D2 since my last reformat (about 10 months ago) so I can't give it a shot right now. Next time I install it I plan on playing SP with PlugY and trying a Charged Bolt build seems like it could be in the cards.

>>5314348
Damn, I'm gonna have to try this myself

Best non-hammers pally spec for SP?

Is there way to reduce lightning effects on Median Sigma? They fuck my fps up like it's 2003 all over again.

>>5315723
Holy shock zealot because even without grinding you can just swing a fast weapon and kill everything. In Hell you can make Crescent Moon runeword in a fast weapon and be more or less set for damage, so you won't fall asleep.

MEDIAN
E
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I
A
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SIGMA
I
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A

tp pls

>>5316056

>>5316119
So, how is medium smegma?
Does it stand on its own two legs? I read they made selling items impossible and you only can get gold from farming it.

>>5315930
I will check it out, thanks.

>>5316119
>the lord
Why even bother? All he does is fuck you up once you hit a real threat anyways.
>encounter serious enemy
>lord dies in one hit
>reborn, now you have serious enemy and lord trying to kill you

I really should get back to my Median XL characters. Finally going around and exploring the new areas on the 2nd difficulty. Got a lot of the special award items, still run across stuff that wipes me easily.

>>5316154
Not him, but it's really good so far. A good amount of polish for sure.

>>5311357
Summonmancer. Always summonmancer. Supplement with corpse explosion.

>>5316056
>reading changelog notes
>they finally removed most of the invincible/100% immune shit from enemies
There it is, the thing that makes me get back into Median XL.

>>5317404
>install new version of Median XL since it's so different you can't update into it
>alright, they have the Glide thing integrated into it, shit looks great
>huh, I can't seem to push the mini-map into the corner anymore, what the hell?
>get belt, go to put potions into belt
>can only put potions into first row, second row is completely off limits, game won't let me put or take potions from those slots
>only way to force potions into 2nd row belt slots is to drop them on the ground, and pick them up while having the same type of potion in the first row slots
>artwork has been redone getting rid of all the classic D2 look for menus, now it's just a bland reddish color everywhere
I'm glad they finally removed most of the invincible enemy bullshit, but why throw away the classic menus, and WHY break the mini-map, and WHY is the belt broken?

>>5317343
use a sabre bro theyre fast as fuck

since when is d2 allowed on /vr/?

>>5318195
it's 19 years old, i think we're ok

>>5318195
For PC games, exceptions are often made when a game runs on older OSes. Diablo 2 actually supports Win95 and Win98. So you could play Diablo 2 on a Win95 machine. With 3DFX Glide.

>>5317403
charged bolt sorc can actually stat almost everything into vit, it's really easy

>>5318573
I want to make one since it was the last thing I made before I stopped playing because people constantly harassed me on server for my drops because they refused to believe I was killing everything. Even my pseudo friends who I'd been leveling with refused to acknowledge my build.

I don't even know where to start now if I actually wanted to be part of an active community.

tp pls
tp pls
tp pls
pvp?
Need gems for cow lvl. pls drop.

>cubed up to infinity
>feel like my blizz sorc was better without infinity and just doing at

hold me

>>5317368
My totems fry him when he comes back to haunt me, and he has a bunch of good skills so i like him.

>>5316154
There's a bunch of amazing quality of life shit and some annoyances, you can't run anymore because the stamina is capped, this i don't like.

>>5311382
>vengeance for PI immunes
Reminder that sanctuary also works if the enemy is undead.

>>5319308
>they added sprinting to diablo 2

>>5316154
I was thoroughly disappointed with Median XL because I was looking for fresh content that felt like it was still Diablo 2. Everything felt like it had been turned up not to 11 but 12 or 13 and it just didn't feel like D2 to me anymore. If you want D2, play D2 or maybe Path of Diablo if you're looking for something fresh. I might try Median XL again since I know what I'm getting into now, not because I'm looking for that nostalgiac D2 feeling.

>>5317403
Every necro build is essentially a corpse explosion/golem build with side skill points for damage.
I have a poison dagger necro at the moment that straight up one hits anything he stabs, it's pretty fun. Gonna switch to poison/summon later

>>5318471
so is deu sex, soon.

>>5316056
I downloaded it yesterday and after installing I hit play and the Diablo II window popped up but stopped working, the same happened when I just wanted to open the normal game ignoring the launcher.
So I couldn't even play regular diablo, meaning I had to uninstall both. Is there I way I can make median work or am I just fucked?

>>5314348


That's not a very good demonstration of charged bolt. First of all the game is modded, secondly the entire inventory is filled with grand charms, and thirdly its on nightmare. We don't get to see the gear, the levels of the spells, the build, or anything like that.

Charged Bolt is powerful yes but once you get into Act 5 hell you'll start to have problems.

>>5321680
I didn't mean to imply that it was almighty or anything, but it's quite easy to get online and you can synergize well with something like blizzard or a strong merc/partner. It's also extremely cheap on mana drain which gives you a lot of options.

>>5311357
This is one of the few games I missed out on and just can't get into nowadays. After playing more modern stuff like Torchlight and PoE, this really feels mechanically dated, though the artstyle is miles better than any other arpg out there.

Still sore that there was no way to cast Diablo's fire nova with my character.

private server fucking when?

>>5322285
There is a semi-popular one with its own subleddit but I forget what it is called.

>>5322285
Here, I did it for you. Looks kind of popular.

>>5322410
>no botting
>map hacks allowed

>>5322448
I'm not a slashdiablo admin or whatever, but I'm guessing the rationale is that battle.net model doesn't allow you to save convenient permanent map seeds (which Single Players often use to farm bosses) so a maphack to allow you to take the shortest routes to bosses and 85 areas is sorta rational. Not having bots brings this to an equilibrium because bots can easily bring you near infinite wealth while you're off doing something else in your life - crushing the economy singlehandedly without any player input. It makes some sense - you still put in the work, you just remove something that the general population of the server considers to be tedium.

>>5322410
why the fuck can't phone posters only show the thing they want people to see and not their entire screen

>>5321315
I downloaded and installed and played fine for a few days. Today I go to play, it claims the launcher and Median need an update. So I update, and then it says it needs to install Median again. I'm not sure, it might be currently unstable?

>>5322754
On the tech support channel of their discord a ton of people are complaining about various problems and unstable stuff, and mods have mostly been useless.

>>5322767
After reinstall, my save game was still there, so I continued on. I still can't manually add potions to any row of my belt beyond the first, minimap still can't be put in the corner. Haven't noticed any other major issues yet.

>>5322784
I just reinstalled both and it's still the same, hit play and the game freezes and I eat dick.

I just really wanted to play a fun game and a more complex iteration of Diablo II, I don't want to have to go through meaningless conversations with the admins and go into changing files and shit that I don't understand just to maybe MAYBE play the game.

anyone know any map hacks that work with 1.13? all the ones i come across are for 1.10 or older

>>5322481
Because I took a screenshot for the guy asking about a private server and the screenshot automatically includes whatever is on the screen you autistic ape.

>>5315930
Would Crescent Moon be useful to a lightning sorc as a ghetto infinity.

>>5322984
I have one that works with 1.13c
https://ufile.io/qtmbw
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/bc12f9fd48a676e0b87a367496c559b9c5e69eef4b433b2d16c319d1146303d3/detection

>>5323596
Useful yes but you need conviction to actually break immunities.

>>5322984
am I the only person who just memorized the patterns

almost all areas only have like 3-5 templates with minor variations in like 80 sets

>>5323743
Right, yeah.

>>5316119
>even the npc spamming nova skills

just stop

How the fuck do I keep my merc alive in hell? He dies almost instantly and it's fucking annoying

What's the "Giant Dad" of Diablo 2?

>>5322793
Dunno man, I'm using Win7 on an old Thinkpad and it works for me. I can't recall if I updated beyond retail before installing Median or not.

>>5323661
this has backdoor on it

>mfw trying to play act 5 on a p2 400 with 64mb of ram

>>5324879
Needs good armor for one.

>>5324879
High resists and life leech mainly.
Add freeze reduction and IAS to taste

>>5322410
Path of Diablo is better

>>5325840
>>5326201
How much damage should my merc be able to do in Hell? And I thought attack speed didn't matter for mercs?

>>5321865
I had many hours of fun creating overpowered characters with the Hero Editor, stuff like being invisible or having meteors randomly crash down around you like uberDia.

How bad is the Diablo 1 PSX version?

>>5327108
I've never tried it personally, though I really don't see the point of doing that when you could just play on your PC

>>5327108
Auto targeting. You also have to open the main menu to access inventory and whatnot. You can hotseat multiplayer with a friend though, which is pretty sweet. Minor changes to the dungeons regarding enemy placements.

>>5326642
He's not really there to do damage

>>5327253
so the best i can hope for is interference? how do i make him a "tank" in that case? like what's the overall defense he should have?

>>5326642
It is generally accepted that a2 Nightmare defensive merc is the best one because of Holy Freeze. The want to give the merc good armor so it is tanky and a weapon like Insight

>>5327253
Merc can be a source of crushing blow for ranged characters and a hefty walking boost to physical damage thanks to Might, plus polearms can be pretty damaging, so I wouldn't say that. Obedience is fairly easy to farm out and he should hit hard with it.

The most basic bitch setup for a cheap merc is something like Smoke chest armor, Obedience or Insight in a thresher and some random helm with life leech.

>>5327339
>Merc can be a source of crushing blow for ranged characters and a hefty walking boost to physical damage thanks to Might,
but is he himself actually doing the damage in that case

that's what I mean, he's basically an extra piece of equipment or a durable summon

>>5327108
It's not bad. Controls take a bit of getting used to.

>>5327365
>but is he himself actually doing the damage in that case
Yes. Crushing blow is a shitload of extra damage. Not to mention he is going to deal around 3000 damage per second with garbage equipment. As a summonmancer, he is your main source of damage, killing most things in one or two jabs.

What is your favorite location in the game? Either because of the aesthetics, ambiance or whatever.


Mine is the Harem, it really shows a lively place overrun by evil, and the monsters are so awfully ugly, I find it really cool to think how the "normal" people of the place would have reacted when seeing the monsters arrive.

>>5328020
I like act 1 in general, especially tristram . The storyline and music ties in perfectly together.

>>5326642
a2merc should be able to take out most /players 1 regular enemies in 1 to 3 hits, I think.

Attack speed matters, particularly for life leech and crushing blow.

>>5328020
Aesthetic-wise, I love the pocket plane labyrinth (I forgot the name)
Gameplay-wise, I fucking hated it when I wasn't playing with a sorceress that could teleport at will

>>5328020
and dont forget the sandnigger music

Made my hardcore javazon a CoH today (pic related). I hate LK.

>>5327267
For every class, nightmare offensive (might) is endgame because holy freeze is mostly used to save your mercenary from itself, which becomes highly unnecessary with good gear. Even if your character doesn't directly benefit from might, the fact that it essentially doubles your merc's damage makes it more useful than holy freeze for fully geared characters.

...Having said that, if your gear is less than ideal there is nothing wrong with using holy freeze. It's particularly useful on hardcore, where you may actually need holy freeze to protect yourself.

>>5327259
The best way to make your mercenary tanky in general is to give it life leech, a weapon with high physical damage, and damage reduced by %. Defense isn't really important at first because it's only useful in very large numbers (such as through ebug fort). A good budget setup is insight in a cryptic axe (or bill if you're lower level) plus tal's mask. If you can afford treachery, that's a great merc armor until you can make a fort.

Anyone know how to kill Uber Diablo? He spawned on SP for me and I couldn't even do any damage to him.

>>5329058
The biggest difference between fighting Uber Diablo and the act bosses is that the former has a massive amount of life regeneration (on top of a huge health pool). The main thing you need to do is stop the regen. Other than items with prevent monster heal, the easiest way to do this is to hit him with a long-lasting poison and then switch back to whatever you were ordinarily doing.

Also, crushing blow works really well since it is basically just static on a melee attack.

>>5311357
Diablo is an anagram of blo-aid. Really makes you think.

Level 18 zeal pally (+ future Holy Shock) just hit a2 normal. SP with /players X turned on seems far better than bnet in 2019.

>>5329069
>blo-aid

>>5329062
anyway to kill uber diablo with a sorc or am i pretty much SOL? i'm also guessing with plugy he appears far more often than on bnet? since i had it happen twice over the weekend alone, but the first time i didn't know what it was so i ignored it.

>>5330535
You might be able to do it but it will be a struggle. Check out some guides and see what they say.

>>5330535
I got him with an ungeared meteorb during a ladder season 1000 years ago, he spawned at eldritch (a5 wp1)

I somehow managed to be behind an obstruction offscreen and namelock him, so he died under a few minutes of meteors.

>>5311357
You niggas actually still play d2 in 2019?

>>5332482
Why not? I play "modern" games all the time and I still find D2 fun, especially now that I actually understand how to play it

>>5332482
can we somehow deploy this shitbag vs the "not retro" shitbags?

>>5330779
>>5330854
Yeah I'm starting to consider whether I should do a smiter as my next build or stick to berserker Barb after I finish Hell, since I forgot Uber Bosses were a thing

>>5329069
I would love to have enough money to just spend a month doing blow and playing diablo II all day

>>5332710
Don't get me wrong my nigga, I love d2 and played the fuck out of it for like 12 years, but I dont think I've played since like 2013. I will fight the niggas who say it aint retro u got my word.

what's better atm, ladder D2 or Single Player with the occasional tcp/ip with some dedicated community (if such even exists?). I'm EU but can join USEast if it has more players since I play SC.

>>5333521
Depends on what you really want to do. Play ladder if you want to trade and be competitive, or play SP if you want to do SSF. I just reinstalled and am playing SP and going to set up PlugY and have fun experimenting with builds. Also, /players x is a lot of fun.

>Depends on what you really want to do.
Thing is that while I like solo self-found I also enjoy the ability to join a public server and run around with whoever's levelling, so I'm not sure about how these two stack up. Most of my time with D2 was self-found gameplay even on ladder, but ladder nowadays seems fairly inaccessible with all the botting.

>>5333571
I thought that Blizzard fixed botting (or just made it much, much harder) by removing something? I was under the impression that there are far less bots now than in the past?

I quitted the game because I couldn't beat Duriel. One year later, I'm playing the game again and I'm still can beat him.
I'm a necromancer lvl 21. I barely can open a portal in Duriel's lair because he kills me with two hits. It's a miracle that I still conserve my weapons.
I have tons of potions, skeletons and a golem. Even an assistant, and it is still impossible.

>>5334094
*I'm still can't beat him

Sorry.

>>5334094
I'm assuming you're playing the game vanilla in single player? If so that's a tough one. You may want to read some guides for beating the game with a necromancer.

>>5334149
I'm playing with the expantion in singleplayer. I have no friends to play.
I searched for help but everyone responds obvious things or just says "git gud".

>>5334157
Dude I've been playing D2 since release and have plowed through the game to Hell Baal with many different pally and sorc builds (fav classes) and I still haven't been able to beat normal Duriel with a summon necro. It is fucked.

>>5334168
Can't anyone beat duriel just by stacking lots of VIT and kiting him with a freezey weapon

>>5334094
G I T G U D but no srsly grind to lv 25 dingus

chug thawing potions kite let skellies+golem mob him decrep amp damage AND LIFE TAP GG EZ

>>5334272
ok
Thanks...

>>5334168
I can't tell if you are joking or not, but my strat to killing Durial as a summon necro is to get my army up, drop a town portal once I hit the ground, then run around letting the army work. Once army+helper dies, port out. Rehire helper and restock potions. Use waypoint back to the valley, rebuild army. Repeat. It might take a few trips, but he doesn't seem to regenerate health or heal any, so it doesn't matter.

I used this same strat as a summon barb in Median XL to take down Durial on Nightmare.

>>5334168
>>5334272
You don't need Decrepify (untwinked no-restarters on /p1 don't even have access to it when reaching Duriel). Your army will fall apart very quickly to his attacks, yes. But what works well is spamming Clay Golem in Duriel's face while maintaining Iron Maiden on him - it's good practice to keep at least a point in every single Necro curse anyway.
Just keep it as a one-point wonder and have him kill himself on it. Duriel won't even be able to hit you if you're diligent. It'd be helpful if you already had a wand that'd boost your Golem skill somehow so that you don't have to spam the Golem that much and can have a more relaxed time keeping the uptime on IM.

Aside from that, stack up on thawing potions and, if necessary, Drognan sells Bone Shields; you can reroll him until he sells you one with the "of Deflection" suffix. Fast block is helpful in this fight.

Like many of the obstacles awaiting a Summoner, this fight can be somewhat tedious, but really, really safe.

Protip for future Diablo fight which murders noob Skelemancers worldwide: if you reach Chaos Sanctuary on a somewhat early level, keep an extra unspent skillpoint at level 23 so that when you ding level 24, you skill Decrepify AND Summon Resist at the same time. Will make all the difference. Ultimately you can still do the Golem + Iron Maiden spam instead of constantly replenishing your army, but you now have the tools to last much longer. Clay + Decrepify neuters the bosses, Summon Resist ensures the flaming aura won't kill you.

Also, I'd get the Edge runeword Rogue merc over the cookie-cutter crafted Savage Halberd A2 merc because none of the Normal auras really help you that much but Thorns on your whole army is pretty sick in Normal.

Is poison stab necro still a thing

I remember at one point you could rack up insane multipliers on poison damage and just stab things to death

>>5334419
I'm not joking. Though, I've never tried very hard to kill Duriel before... I just reinstalled D2, so maybe I will give it another go. I've always been interested in necro but never tried very hard. When it comes to skeles you max the melee one? Dont ever bother with mages? Then other than that, max CE like most necro builds? Throw in a maxed golem and some curses? Link yo recommended build?

>>5334753
dude just google it, there are plenty of guides out there for builds. as far as killing bosses it's like that guy said, you have to go in with your army golem and merc, and then tp and rebuild/rehire them if/when they die. the only boss where this becomes a real grind is andy and diablo, the rest shouldn't really give you that much trouble.

>>5334753
>When it comes to skeles you max the melee one?
Yes. Raise Skeleton max, then Skeleton Mastery afterwards. One point in every Curse as you level up, 1 point in Clay Golem. Corpse Explosion max as you say.
Necro is extremely malleable because your build is finished at like level 50 or so. Mix and match:
>Bone Spear + Bone Wall
slightly faster corpse generation and bonus CC though as a summoner FCR is somewhat secondary for you and walls can clog your army's path. Gives you a good Bone Armor though.
>Skeleton Magi
their damage is weak unless you're in some party setup with 3 sorcies, druid and an amazon that you can Lower Resist for. they're bonus meatshields with token damage. They're also okay PI breakers at least on low /players settings. Knowing your luck you will get mostly poison mages though, and you only really want one at a time.
>Revives
these are extremely useful cause you keep the intrinsic abilities of the monsters you claim (Urdars with Crushing Blow for instance). Pretty insane HP values. When in doubt revive shooters so that you don't cause a traffic jam. They're a great instant-army-just-add-water in many situations and a worthy candidate for all the rest of your points (probably the best).
>hard points into curses
bigger radius and duration while reducing micromanagement aspects. Although it's easy to get +skill gear even self-found, it might be useful. levelled up Dim Vision can be a handy tool for killing ranged packs safely on HC (less micro-intensive than spamming Attract on one of the monsters for aggro, too). You never really need more than one point in curses, however.
>some other golem / Golem Mastery
Clay is all you need but if you're wealthy you can make Irons out of IK Mauls or something. Some sources claim Fire Golems are more sticky due to aura causing aggro (most notably Nightfish) but that might be a placebo.
>Summon Resist
hits diminishing returns with items too fast to be really worth investing into

>>5311357
Why can't I watch the cinematics in windowed mode?

Just finished Act 1 can anyone recommend what skill should I use on Paladin? Right now I'm just spending skill points on Zeal for the DPS

>>5335008
>Right now I'm just spending skill points on Zeal for the DPS
Stop at Zeal level 4 (when you get max attacks). If you're a Zealot you have two ways to go:
>Elemental
that means maxing Holy Shock and its synergies, or Holy Freeze and its synergies. The former does more damage, synergy gives you resistance to a nasty element, and synergizes well with a cheap runeword. the latter has crowd control but is weaker. Elemental breezes through the game with any fast weapon, even a cracked flail works.
>Physical
Max Fanaticism and Zeal synergies. Needs a good weapon to be really good. Fanaticism also gives benefits to your party.

otherwise just put a single point into non-synergy auras (they are useful; Vigor lets you gtfo or gap close, Meditation lets you re-pop you mana after you get Mana Burnt, Salvation can help if you turn a corner and see a hundred fireballs flying at you, Cleansing gets rid of poison, Redemption gets rid of corpses, Sanctuary is nice against some undead.) Regardless of build you probably want max Holy Shield (unless you go with a 2-handed Zealot, but that build loses the excellent resistances with Paladin shield).

>>5335008
Also since we can respec our skills since I believe patch 1.11, the fastest levelling Paladin in Normal maxes out Holy Fire with 4 hard points into Zeal and fights with either the fastest weapon available (Scimitar, Flail) or a +3 Holy Fire scepter (shoppable at Drognan).

>>5334094
you can kill Duriel with a lv1 golem and lv1 iron maiden.
just take shitloads of mana pots and keep spamming your golem every time he dies and keep the curse on Duriel.
Watch a MrLlama Necromancer speedrun to see how it's done, you can do it at like lv16.

>>5334574
it is, but it drops off in late NM and in Hell.
Remember every +poison dmg over X seconds modifiers stack, but it just adds the dmg and time together, so you can end up with a huge amount of poison dmg but it taking like 90 seconds for it to all actually be applied.
Your best bet is to poison dagger, golem & corpse explode necro up until your lv40s and then start respeccing into a Poison Nova necro, which is what i'm doing.
Poison Nova necro is really good at clearing lv85 The Pit in Hell, and farming a few other places where there arent Poison immunes.

>>5335008
Make a Hammerdin. Does some of the highest dmg at low lvls and you'll still be 1-shotting shit up until Hell. You dont need much gear when you're starting and you'll fly through to lv70 in an afternoon.
Auradins and Zealots are OK builds but you need some crazy gear to make them REALLY effective later on. I usually go max Holy Fire aura and some points in Sacrifice just to run through Normal difficulty super easy and then respec to Hammerdin once I hit Nightmare.

>>5332482
it's still unironically the best game in it's genre. D3, Path of Exile and the others are all shitty.
Diablo 2's not without it's faults but it just nailed everything.
Titan Quest is OK, I sometimes play that when I want something different.

>stuck in mid-70's with a bunch of characters
>look up "how to lvl to 99" guides on youtube/google
>every guide is "lol just leech from people killing Hell Baal from lv60 xD"

>>5335420
What other option is there though? There is no /players online so you pretty much have to do baal runs. That's partly why I don't play online anymore.

>>5335419
Eh...D3 is obviously garbage and will never be as good as D2, but I love PoE.

https://youtu.be/04Z67vmhVjo

>>5334939
So clay golem is the only golem worth using? Do you max golem mastery? I see people talking about iron golem, blood golem, etc.

>>5311357
Is PlugY worth it? Hard to install?

>>5335765
The thing about golems is that you pack them for utility and tanking, not for damage. Even Iron Golem who can be a powerful but expensive servant (he absorbs the abilities of the weapons he's built out of) generally won't be an impressive combatant.

Blood Golem is not useful, though at least it's no longer a health risk (he used to share your health pool and since properly ran Summoner is never in line of fire, this wasn't a beneficial relationship considering Blood Golem wasn't strong at all). Fire Golem's only claim to fame is the potential to tag enemies with Holy Fire so that he's focused first, which, again, doesn't necessarily work (I don't think anyone bothered to do research that would indicate that is the case; confirmation bias seems to run on this issue), and you probably don't have a steady supply of IK Mauls to generate Iron Golems, Clay is your best bet because he nerfs enemies with his slow, including bosses. Golem Mastery is... largely somewhat meh, because if your Golem dies, you can just resummon him instantly. Because what else are you going to do with the mana after everything is cursed and there are no corpses to explode?

>>5335420
Running Baal isn't even efficient for hitting level 99 because L99 chasers often save Ancients for the last possible moment to instantly zoom past level 90+. CS / Bloodruns can also be lucrative.

150+ reasons I stopped playing D2:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20743204621

>>5336284
Definitely worth it since you can hoard items and reset your character as much as you want, those things alone make it worthwhile. Then you throw in the added stats info, running cow as much as you want even if you kill king, uber tristram and online runes being available, along with the other perks of plugy. As far as installing I had no issues, though I use it with my pirated version and not the one I brought.

>>5336473

> 17) Mana drain bosses actually do 512 times the proper damage!
I thought it was pretty stupid that mana drain monsters always deplete your entire supply every time they hit!

> 42) Blizzard copy/pasted that Desert level for the uber quest in v1.11x, and forgot to set the Waypoint Id to -1 (255), waypoint lists are constructed clientside, and we all know what that means
I definitely haven't heard of this getting exploited. Perhaps someone using a packet sender would only need to farm 2 keysets instead of 3... some of the time.


I searched the page for the bug that causes Jerhyn to disappear when you are doing act2 quests, but no love.

>>5335765
Blood golem used to be the go to golem back in old versions where using Iron Maiden in mobs around him would heal him/you, fire and iron golem have always been kinda neh.
Clay golem is your tank. Once you get Heart of the Oak and Chains of Honor his HP gets fucking insane and he tanks like a beast.

>>5337289
Right on bud, thanks. I assume that Clay Golem taunts and holds aggro until he dies and then I just resummon him?

don't max golem mastery. if you have points left max the synergies for bone armor

>>5337193
The worst bug is the crash when you cast Cloak of Shadows on the Ancients.

>>5336473
I don't know what is more hilarious: Writing all that drivel down, or expecting others to read it.

>>5337917
I'm not the one who wrote it, but it just shows how much the game was far from finished. This list exists for ages now.
Blizzard's statement is either 1) it's an old game, fuck off or 2) it's too complicated to be fixed

>>5337848
Yeah just resummon him. With the buffs from those two rune words how HP will be in the thousands, and he has slow on hit.
I only have 1 level on my clay golem at the moment and he already has 700hp just from +skill gear.

>>5311382
I think Zealot is one of the absolute best for soloing hell, provided you can find a good weapon that casts amplify damage on hit or Atma's Scarab. You can use it with a weapon that has amp damage charges, but it'll be much more clunky.

>>5329062
>items with prevent monster heal
..which doesn't work on everything.
There are only three things which make any difference and work on the Diablo clone or Uber DIablo: crushing blow, open wounds and stuff to slow them. I've taken down the clone with a fishymancer in HC ladder multiple times simply putting plenty of CB + Open wounds on the Merc, and have him using an upped etherial kelpie snare (75% slow) with a clay golem. That combo means Diablo barely moves.

>>5339003
>I think Zealot is one of the absolute best for soloing hell, provided you can find a good weapon
Yeah, my post is basically a listing of the classes that do decently even if they're absolutely and completely pauperized. "Provided you can find a good weapon" is also a prerequisite for whirly barbs and werewolf druids (I LOVE Ribcracker Werewolf and while it's not a hard weapon to find in comparison with many other things, it's still something you do have to find) after all.

Compare to the Kicksin and Berserker I posted up there. Kicksin just has to upgrade her boot type dilligently (easier to find than a weapon) and has Death Sentry to fall back on for screen clearing. Berserker gets +435% bonus damage that's barely resisted by anything - all you need to make that work is anything with decent base damage and IAS, and that can even be shopped (I favor Steeldriver for levelling).

It's also, by the way, hugely important on melee classes to pick up any trash rare you find anywhere, because even if it's a basic bitch Rare Axe or something it can also be one with +300% ED and other useful intrinsics and then all you have to do is upgrade it.

>>5334094
Duriel was seriously my nemesis as a kid. So OP when playing Necro

>>5339619
He is still my nemesis as a necro. I reinstalled a week ago and I'm going to take him down this time, I swears it.

>>5338832
He taunts though right?

>>5340016
lol, wait until you get to diablo. he's far more of a pain in the ass for a necro

>>5334998
Who plays in windowed mode?

>>5341384
I play all my games on windowed, what's wrong with that?

>>5341272
>fighting Diablo as necro on hell
>get army together
>drop town portal somewhere inside the area
>start fighting
>team dead? Portal out
>rebuild team, use WAYPOINT to river of flame, walk back to Diablo
>repeat until dead, do NOT use portal back to Diablo because bone cage

This is the strat I just used to take down Diablo on NM in Median XL. I didn't have much choice, he was one-shotting half my army and their health was WAY higher than mine.

Anyone know a good site or guide that has stats on monsters in every act and their resistances?

>>5343050
http://www.letmegooglethat.com/?q=diablo+2+wiki
How can anyone be this stupid or lazy?

>>5343058
Then why can't you find it, genius?

>>5343069
>post link
>YOU CAN'T FIND IT!!!
Be butthurt and stupid somewhere else.

>>5343073
The only person coming across as butthurt and stupid is you, friend. Don't get pissy with me because you're on your period today.

>>5336473
A lot of truly legitimate bugs there, but some are just wank. Well, what do you expect...

>28) Evil Urn were not meant to spawn spiders
They weren't? Well that's a really fortunate bug then, I think. Shit looks cool and fits really well with the concept of Evil Urns.

>51) The Uber Quest Items drop in single player as well, where they are completely useless (quest drops like these should be hardcoded...)
Unnecessary drops, but has anyone ever cared?

>55) Santard of Heroes still do nothing.
Was it ever meant do something?

>60) Massive rune duping due to the rarity of high rune drops
Now duping (mentioned again as a separate entry, #101) counts as a bug, but people's behavior of resorting to it due to HR rarity is one? Alright...

>65) Game is Full Bug
I feel no comment is necessary

>77) 1.11 patch gave only 7 runeword instead of 10 what patch notes says
Typos are definitely bugs.

>96) Ice skating in town (run, then hold shift. The character’s walking animation stops, but the movement does not)
Alright, we get it, you hate fun.

>135) Strenght (sic) bug
Gear that works if the stat bonuses they themselves grant help you reach their requirements, as long as you met the requirements fully when putting them on - how the fuck is this a bug? You meet the requirements > item works. Makes perfect sense that it shouldn't matter where exactly the stats come from, only the end total.

>140) On the Barb there is a spelling error on one of the skill icons. It says "Pole Arm Mastery" instead of "Polearm Mastery" (the space). All the weapons say "Polearm Class".
Turboautism.

>141) "Drop barabarian" bug/exploit
(sic)

Should I be playing the new Median XL Sigma thing? I kind of want to, but at the same time it seems way too overwhelming, and I also rather not play alone. Anyone in here actually playing?

>>5343170
Varied. Parts of it are pretty cool. The completely overhauled skills means you gotta figure out new builds. The end-game additions are pretty neat, if borderline pointless. It's nice they offer these quests that let you pick up powerful charms(since charms are removed in Median), but you can't get most of them until you're already near the end of a Hell run, at which point you really don't need them anyways. It's almost like they exist just so you can say you defeated whatever and got them.

The Sigma update is somewhat better than the old versions, since now there isn't invincible enemies all over the place where you MUST keep "-% to enemy resistance" just to be able to damage them a little. On the downside, they broke the belt so you can't manually put potions in anything besides the first row, and the map no longer has a mini-version, so its full screen map or nothing.

If you wanna play a D2-like game but are tired of D2, give it a go. Still too unbalanced and gimmicky for me to recommend it. The fucking difficulty spike in Act 5 alone makes me not want to recommend it. Seriously, I just cleared Diablo without issues, but get 1-shot by some regular enemy? Who tested this shit?

Any suggestions as far as runewords and the weapons/armor to put them into? I have the runes for insight but should I try to MF for a high base damage weapon first?

>>5343170
>but at the same time it seems way too overwhelming
if you are burned out from D2 MXL is great its really easy to get into it looks complex but its not
>>5343253
>The fucking difficulty spike in Act 5
>but get 1-shot by some regular enemy?
GET GUD besides its not like you have to kill said enemies that blow up when they die or maybe it means you have shit fire rez

>>5344049
I'm not near them, my army is. And all resistances are maxxed. Enemy shoots something, I got hit, died.

Who here playing based median xl?

>>5316154
First time playing it and its fucking based, it so fucking nice to play good aprg after poe went to shit, but there some fucking cancer like invisible mobs, spots to farm at 120lvl are fucking cancer, some of the bosses later have extremely cancer mechanics and leveling till 105 is kind of meh.

I'm jumping back into Diablo 2 after a long, long time because I've never finished the LoD back in the day.
What are the must-have mods which I need to install?

>>5344592
Plugy, it makes SP so much more enjoyable

>>5311357
Why does diablo 2 art look better than diablo 3

>>5345219
Because 3 has that ugly cartoon fantasy look that should be reserved for mobile games.

>>5344592
just install plugy

>>5345160
>>5345763
Thanks. I will. I also will try to replicate some of the strats which was used during this speedrun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qc4j77Bjg

This one gave me the idea to return in a first place. Looks fun.

>>5345790
Plugy isn't compatible with 1.14d. What a bummer.
Doesn't matter, I will my installation tomorrow.

>>5345836
Just pirate 1.13d lol

>>5343168
>>65) Game is Full Bug
>I feel no comment is necessary

This bug is the bane of every ladder reset group. Usually due to bots: join a game, dump their advertisement, and leave. The roster slot doesn't free up. Teammates trying to join the game get "Game is full."

If you never played on the realms I recommend it, reset teams are well worth this sporadic bullshit.

>>5311379
Didn't they just remove character expiration several months back?

>>5346969
That's news to me, not that it matters much. I find online boring as fuck anyway.