Diablo 2

[Anonymous No.1258247]

Can we have a Diablo 2 thread? I'm playing it for the first time and having a blast, just entered the sewers under Lut Gohlein or however its spelled as a Barbarian.

The only thing I'm having difficulty with is finding a purpose for my secondary weapon slot. I was using a 2h axe with Bash as my primary and dual wielding maces for my secondary whenever I found undead, but I just found a great axe that does +57 against undead, so my maces don't really have a purpose.

Should I just shove a bow in there in case I have to kite something?

[Anonymous No.1258293]

you're radically overthinking it

just use whatever you can find, and yes, having a backup mace is smart, especially as you proceed in this act

the objective at this low level is to simply gear up your health for when you face the boss of act 2, he is a massive cockblock, requiring lots of health to easily beat, since he just clings to you like a fucking disease

attempt to buy +health items at the shop, and gamble on rings when you have cash to spare.

the best type of blue items you can get at low level is jewelry with lots of +mana on it, this not only allows you to use your abilities a lot, but continues to be useful once you begin to transition into leech items, since a big mana pool makes leech a lot more forgiving.

[Anonymous No.1258705]

shameless self bump

[Anonymous No.1258738]

>>1258293
I don't think he's the guy who requires you to have health as much as he requires you to have good block and preparation beforehand (Thawing Potions are very useful, as is cubing Rejuvenation Potions).
What I recommend you to do is try to get a Bone Shield of Deflecting at Drognan's, he restocks them from time to time, to help survive the Duriel encounter later. For a weapon, if you have LoD, you should probably go with a Flail, it's the fastest and most damaging mace type available at this stage, and you can stick a Tir+El into it for massive damage (and those runes are commonplace, especially if you kill the Countess a few times).

[Anonymous No.1258758]

>>1258738
>>1258293
Your both wrong. All the act 2 boss requires is a metric ton of scrolls of town portal. Problem solved, thank me later.

[Anonymous No.1258774]

Diablo 2 was released in 2000, making it a non-/vr/ game. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.1258778]

>>1258774
Go fuck yourself.

[Anonymous No.1258805]

>>1258774
nice work bro gotta keep these shitposters off our /vr/ kill yourself

On topic:
Most people use their secondary slot for weapons with extra +skills and stuff like that. This lets you (for example) switch weapons and cast battle orders at a higher level, then switch back. It sounds like you're not far enough to have found any +skill stuff, so I wouldn't worry about the weapon switch too much.

[Anonymous No.1258810]

>>1258778
secconded

[Anonymous No.1258825]

Reported.

[Anonymous No.1258917]

How is this game single player?

I would prefer to play it that way first.

[Anonymous No.1258928]

>>1258778
So mature.

At least you didn't try arguing that he was wrong, though, because then you would have just looked moronic.

[Anonymous No.1258976]

>>1258928
Sorry, I wasn't clear the first time.

Lick the stinking fecal flakes off my unwashed anus.

[Anonymous No.1258983]

What level should you be at the end of act 2 if you are solo playing? My paladin just got fucked royally at 24. Going to pick it back up next week after finals.

[Anonymous No.1258987]

>>1258983
At least 40.

[Anonymous No.1258995]

>>1258987
Fuck. How did I get this far with such a low level?

[Anonymous No.1259005]

>>1258976
Good job, this post put my estimation of your age under what is required to have played this game on release.

Keep it up, you're adorable.

[Anonymous No.1259015]

>>1258917
It's great in single player. Check out the single player forum (google it).

>>1258995
he troll u xD

But seriously 24 is fine. However, you're going to get wrecked if your build sucks. I recommend you go as far as you can without looking at guides, then when you're stuck you should read some and blow your respec (assuming you're playing 1.13).

>>1259005
He may be calling you childish names, but you're the one watching /vr/ like a hawk so you can tell teacher that they're bweaking the roowls.

[Anonymous No.1259361]

>>1258983
24 is the level you should be at after clearing all the areas without level grinding and it's viable for beating the final boss of Act 2. My advice from >>1258738 still stands - that Bone Shield of Deflecting, combined with Holy Shield skill that you should be able to pick at that level, should give you a good defensive measure.

Of course the problem might simply be that your build just sucks overall but with proper preparation you'd really have to screw up in order to be unable to beat the Normal difficulty from start to finish. Of course, suboptimal builds can just power through by being patient. It would really require picking skills at random or some willful stupidity, so don't get discouraged, I'm sure your build doesn't suck that much.

[Anonymous No.1259515]

>>1259361
ok, so apparently I'm only level 21, not 24. Here is the skill layout I have right now. I pretty much have gone in blind so I would not be surprised if I need to respec.

[Anonymous No.1259534]

>>1259515
Using hero editor

just go now.

[Anonymous No.1259542]

Diablo 2 is my favorite game. I play it all the time. In fact, I'm doing a weird build run of nonexpansion hardcore right now.

Pictured is my jabazon.
>>1258983
24 is actually staggeringly high for Act 2. I looked at your build, however, and it's not hard for me to imagine why you're dying.

It looks like you're trying to go for a zeal build. This is a very fun build although things will start to get very difficult for you if you try to play past nightmare. The issue is that you have sunk a lot of points into holy fire, which sucks. It sucks a lot. The skill scales very poorly so additional points don't do much, which means you're probably not doing nearly as much damage as you should be.

Because you're such a low level, you don't HAVE to reset your skills but you will notice a perceptible drop in difficulty if you do.

If you do decide to reset your build (or you just want to know how to build going into the future), you should know that Zeal only needs to be increased until you get the maximum number of hits (5). From there, your best investment is fanaticism and its synergies. However, since fanaticism is only accessible at level 30, you might want to wait until then to reset. The reason that fanaticism is so valuable is that it boosts damage by a percentage and not an absolute value, and therefore scales very generously with stronger weapons. It also increases your attack speed, which both makes zeal more damaging and less dangerous (if you haven't discovered yet what makes zeal dangerous, you will).

In the meantime, I would suggest grinding out one more level and putting a point into concentration aura, which should be available to you. You will notice a very big damage difference right away.

[Anonymous No.1259561]

Currently leveling a WW barb on HC EU classic ladder. Still lvl26 and god is it painful before you get Whirlwind.

Build will be Kripparrian's Bonesnap build

[Anonymous No.1259567]

>>1259542
Nice to know about holy fire. I thought is was a better skill then that.
Zeal just seemed like the best attack. A friend told me the hammer skill would be better but the first couple of levels I was un impressed. I guess I will leave zeal at level 4, and start looking into concentration. Thanks

>>1259534
Its faster to pull up that screen than load a game. It came bundled with the torrent so fuck off. I'm not editing my character with it.

[Anonymous No.1259576]

>>1259561
I used to roll a lot of poison necromancers. Boy, those first 30 levels.

>>1259567
Blessed hammer forms the basis of by far the most powerful character build in the current version of the game. However, I would avoid the hammerdin because its power lies in its unique ability to ignore most of the game's mechanics and therefore playing one will likely just ruin your fun.

[Anonymous No.1259580]

>>1259576
The 3 points I put into it left me unimpressed with the skill. Those hammers seemed to miss most of the time and in tight hallways the hammers hit the wall behind me and never hurt the enemies. I think I will stick with zeal

[Anonymous No.1259591]

>>1259580
Blessed hammer doesn't start to be good until it's combined with concentration.

[Anonymous No.1259593]

>>1259580
Hammers always spawn from the upper left of your character, learn to position yourself. Use Vigor, Smite, Blessed Shield and Charge then nothing could possibly hold ya.

[Anonymous No.1259602]

>mfw /vr/ D2 general seems more alive than /vg/ D3 general

[Anonymous No.1259609]

>>1259602
Diablo 3 sucks.

[Anonymous No.1259618]

>>1258247
dun u gaiz ever weapon specialise?? or r u using a shouting barb just for the magic find?

[Anonymous No.1259643]

I try to enjoy this game, I really do, but every time I reinstall, there's a patch that rebalances all the skills and I have to relearn every single ability's synergies and drawbacks, AGAIN. I don't even care to take a character past normal anymore; I'll just stick with builds that are fun to play and don't require me to work out another fucking database in Access to min/max my way through nightmare and hell.

Holy Shockadin, hoooo.

[Anonymous No.1259649]

>>1258293
I experimented with a lot of "Damage reduced by X" items against him, I found not only does it make him easier, if you get enough of it, many enemies do exactly 1 damage to you. Of course, later on the damage you take is too high for such meager reduction to help you, but until you get out of normal, it's great.

[Anonymous No.1259654]

>>1258917
I used to play bnet all the time, I recently went back and played it singleplayer hardcore. I had more fun with that than I ever did online.

[Anonymous No.1259657]

>>1258983
Depends on gear. 24 is good if you have nothing but crap, I think I usually finish 18 or so because I dig for gear in shops, resetting them each time to get something good.

[Anonymous No.1259663]

>>1259542
Not that I'd recommend taking it, but Holy Fire begins to scale exponentially when you go past 20. I think it even become viable once you get enough +skills for it, particularly with a runeword.

[Anonymous No.1259680]

>>1259663
It never becomes good enough to deal any damage relative to the level you'd have to be to get the skill that high, though. It's too slow and the numbers are too low to make up for it.

They even added a sword that gives you +6 to Holy Fire. There's really nothing you can do to make it decent.

>>1259643
1.00-1.06 (all nonx patch versions) are roughly identical. Jab, corpse explosion and whirlwind were nerfed in 1.04 but all of them are viable anyway. Bow damage is bugged in the earlier versions, and the holy water sprinkler/lance drop issue is present up until I believe 1.04.

1.07 and 1.08 (early expansion versions) are very similar. I think the only difference is bug fixes.

1.09 (2001-2003), the patch many if not most longtime Diablo 2 players are most familiar with, has minor item changes from 1.08 but is otherwise very similar. If you're looking to play Diablo 2 without synergies (and therefore with absolutely absurd scaling on certain skills), this is the patch you want to play.

1.10 to 1.13 (2003 to present) are all virtually identical in terms of skills. These are the post-synergy patches and all of the skills are completely rebalanced compared to previous versions. There's also a lot more items compared to 1.09. 1.11 also added in the seven armor runewords each tailored to one class.

Tl;dr: There are only really four versions of Diablo 2, and only two if you play the expansion. It's also just plain not hard to use previous patch versions in single-player.

[Anonymous No.1259692]

Don't forget to buff your vit stat from time to time.

Anyway, I just started playing again too. Just got to act 3 with my melee sorc. Been having some great drops. The set gloves of crazy poison resist dropped literally the room before Andariel, and I got a unique greatsword in act 2. For duriel, I just town portal hit and runs until my follower started tanking him. Speaking of which, I don't remember the follower AI being this bad. He's an idiot.

[Anonymous No.1259696]

I always wondered if it's possible to have a curse necro. Does it work for any type of play? Could you party play one?

[Anonymous No.1259698]

This game hates 64 bit systems, too. I haven't had too much trouble except for the darkness in act 2. That completely fucked up my colors and I had to beat that section in a window.

[Anonymous No.1259707]

>>1258917
Better, considering that battle.net for D2 is laggy as hell.

[Anonymous No.1259734]

>>1259609
Eh, it's not as bad as internet makes it out to be. Compared to 2, yeah it sucks.

[Anonymous No.1259747]

Not retro. I don't care that you like the game, rules are rules. Yeah go fuck YOURSELF.

I also liked Diablo 1 a lot more than this game.

[Anonymous No.1259762]

>>1259747
>Retro gaming means consoles, computer games, arcade games (including pinball) and any other forms of video games on platforms launched in 1999 and earlier
>on platforms launched in 1999 and earlier

The game came out in 2000
Shantae for the gbc came out in 2002.

Shantae threads start up all the time because its on the gbc which came out before 1999.... by a year. The gbc is 1 year away from the retro mark.

The pc came out well before 1999. Diablo 2 is just a game for retro system. Going off that logic not only should diablo 2 count but any pc game could.

Its a gray area. This thread is (for the most part) quite civil and productive. Diablo 2 plays like any other retro game in its genera if not better. Graphically its not much better than fallout1/2

Stop the bullshit and let a good thread go on.

[Anonymous No.1259773]

>>1259762
Don't forget Baldur's Gate 2 threads.

[Anonymous No.1259785]

>>1259773
Shit man. Even better example.

[Anonymous No.1259792]

>>1259734
I think it's every bit as bad as the internet makes it out to be and maybe even worse. I remain unconvinced that anyone on that development team knows what makes the first two Diablo games enjoyable. Diablo 3 has got to be near the bottom of the hack and slash genre, which is saying a lot.

>>1259698
Google glide wrapper. It'll fix all of your video problems with the game. Also, if you're not already doing so, use the "disable visual themes" option.

[Anonymous No.1259798]

>>1259762
Are you one of the people that come to /vr/ to talk about some Xbox, PS2, or Gamecube game because "/v/ is shit :("

Fuck off, Diablo II isn't retro. Take it up with moot if you want to bitch about it.

[Anonymous No.1259837]

I remember getting as far as Act IV with a terrible Paladin using nothing but Spike Aura and swords with skull gems when I was 10. Then I just got wrecked over and over.

I think I'm going to play this again for my holyday vacations.

[Anonymous No.1259887]

>>1259837
When the game came out I was fresh off of three years of playing nothing but the original Diablo but for some reason thought it would be a good idea to try and beat the game as a necromancer wielding a poleaxe and relying almost exclusively on the combination of blood golem and iron maiden.

[Anonymous No.1259948]

Was there ever a way to respec in Diablo 2? I remember using a trainer to do it once when a patch came out and 'ruined' my build, but there was no way to do it in-game, right?

[Anonymous No.1259958]

>>1259948

in the current version you can go to akara in act 1 and respec, you get one respec per difficulty.

[Anonymous No.1259956]

>>1259948
The latest patch gives you a respec for every difficulty you complete Den of Evil on. You can also get one by getting a somewhat common drop off of each of the act bosses in hel.

[Anonymous No.1259964]

>>1259956
>>1259958
Ah, great. I think I might reinstall, it's been a LOOONG time since I played and I don't want to bother making a min/max build, but I would like some insurance if my build goes sour.

[Anonymous No.1259971]

>>1259964
In the current version of the game, pretty much any build (no matter how stupid) can make it through normal. Most every build with thought put into it will make it through hell. Only the best builds can solo hell untwinked, however.

[Anonymous No.1259973]

>>1259971
Meant to say "Most every build with thought put into it will make it through nightmare".

[Anonymous No.1259993]

>>1259798
Nope. This game sits right on the edge of what is and is not retro. Until moot or a mod says it's not considered retro fuck off.

[Anonymous No.1259997]

>>1259993
>June 29th, 2000

Seems pretty clear to me.

[Anonymous No.1260006]

what slippery slope are we trying to avoid by classifying d2 as not-retro

are we worried about halo threads or something

the moderation here seems pretty hit and miss but somehow I think they will understand when the line gets crossed

[Anonymous No.1260002]

>>1259971
I finished Hell with a decently geared Paladin using Cleansing (With maxed prayer) and Zeal with a lot of damage reduction items like Shaftstop and resist equipment. The lynchpin of the setup was Atma's Scarab, however -- amplify damage on attack made it possible to damage a lot of enemies, even physical immune ones. I had a Dracul's Grasp, but I couldn't use it since amplify damage was too important.

I don't ever recommend that build, however, it's incredibly slow and there's a few enemies that can still nearly instantly kill you. When it works though, you take very little damage and passively heal most of it, and it would probably make a very nice party character for similar defensive characters.

[Anonymous No.1260007]

>>1259997
If baulders gate and shantae are allowed here why would DiabloII not?

[Anonymous No.1260014]

>>1260007
If Baldur's Gate II is allowed, that's the failure of the mod either not doing his job or not knowing the release date of the game.

Shantae is allowed because it came out for the GBC which was released in 1998. PCs don't have generations.

[Anonymous No.1260017]

This thread is better than the 20 daily "favorite final Fantasy" or zelda threads we get.

[Anonymous No.1260024]

>>1260006
That's really the thing. The board is made up of humans who don't need a hard set of rules to adhere to. Certain concessions can be made for particular games, and certain games can be banned from discussion as seen fit.

Besides, I'm of the opinion a lot of retro PC games get the shaft since consoles can extend slightly past the 1999 rule for games. In truth, PCs are an entirely different beast though -- would you count mods made in recent times as retro for engines made prior to 2000?

[Anonymous No.1260021]

>>1260014
Even though the game is from 2003, and is borderline a gba game.

[Anonymous No.1260027]

>>1260021
Doesn't matter. It's tied to generation.

[Anonymous No.1260030]

So a pc that runs crisis in max settings and a commodore64 are the same thing? Both are pcs so they are generation less

[Anonymous No.1260035]

>>1260030
No?

This is why PC goes by the 1999 rule.

What are you not understanding?

[Anonymous No.1260037]

>>1260035
How about you stop shitting up a thread about an obviously retro game? Notice the deleted posts already? If mods had a problem with it this thread would be gone by now.

[Anonymous No.1260039]

>>1260035
See

>>1260024

[Anonymous No.1260043]

Thinking about paladin. How viable is vengeance long term and should I try to max out Holy Shield quickly or is it better to invest in damage?

Seems like you'd be able to get a lot of damage without breaking the game with vengeance. Might get into some LAN play as well with two buddies that are going sorceress both. Sould I focus on Conviction of Fanaticism as my main aura? The resist penalty would obviously be useful for my damage and to theirs but wouldn't my overall DPS get higher simply by boosting my attack speed and dmg%. I mean how useful is the resist penalty
really.

[Anonymous No.1260042]

>>1260037
Then the janitor is a retard and isn't doing his job correctly.

[Anonymous No.1260046]

I like this game for being so fucking hard in Hell. It didn't use to be this way, but after 1.10? Fuck you, you're dying in a single hit if you're not a strongman paladin/barbarian. I used to play a lot on Bnet and I mostly just stuck around while other people killed the monsters. The most viable build I had was a lightning sorceress that did a shitload of damage and could actually feasibly solo Diablo.

[Anonymous No.1260048]

>>1259015
>He may be calling you childish names, but you're the one watching /vr/ like a hawk so you can tell teacher that they're bweaking the roowls.

How is noticing a red exclamation point in a thread when I'm reading something else watching like a hawk?

Fuck, I played this for somewhere around a decade before getting tired of it, but at least I know it's a /v/ topic.

>>1260042
Man, gotta love when moderation is biased and allows something against the rules.

[Anonymous No.1260049]

>>1260042
>I don't consider this a retro game so I'll cry about it.

[Anonymous No.1260051]

>>1260049
It isn't though.

[Anonymous No.1260053]

>>1260046

Worst is easily the bone archers in act V. A volley and you're fucking dead.

[Anonymous No.1260059]

How are necromancers late game?

[Anonymous No.1260061]

>>1260043
I did a vengeance+conviction build once. You hit like a truck, it's not bad against slower enemies like bosses in nightmare either, but you're pretty much ass at clearing large groups with any speed or efficiency. You'll spend more time blocking, so you have to ditch a shield, immediately taking four times as much physical damage (Since you lose the 75% block from holy shield.). Defense drops like mad since shields are a big source of it, same for resists. If you choose to use a shield anyway, against large groups you'll just get stuck blocking like mad and having your slow attack interrupted.

Someone else might have a better solution for getting it to work, but I found zeal to be much better. Use holy shock if you want some elemental damage.

[Anonymous No.1260063]

How dangerous is it to focus entirely on one element as a sorceress? I hears some enemies get immune on Hell but nothing that I Have to kill.

I mean just focusing on lightning seems like a quick way to clear a room

[Anonymous No.1260064]

>>1260035
If /vr/ wanted to be truly consistent, every single game released after 1999 wouldn't be allowed.
But it isn't, so PC games get fucked, and that doesn't make sense. It never did.

So stop being a cunt and understand that maybe sometimes people want to discuss a game made SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER THE COMPLETELY ARBITRARY CUT-OFF DATE.

Some people, man.

[Anonymous No.1260065]

>>1260048
It's called the mods letting a dead board have a topic that suits it rather than further restricting this place to save a few whiny faggot's feelings. I bet you are the same faggot who shitposted every Dreamcast thread into oblivion a few months back.

[Anonymous No.1260068]

>>1260063
Lightning sorc is extremely viable. The usual strategy is to have an act 2 merc with good equipment, he can usually clear out anyone that's immune. Also, lightning immunes are rarest, fire/ice sorceress have the worst time.

[Anonymous No.1260069]

>>1260059
I've only used a skeleton summoning necromancer. They have an easy time against minions, and a very hard time against bosses because of the increased damage skeletons take paired with the lack of corpses. Mud Golems were nice though, it can really cut the attack/move speed of whatever it hits, but it's very weak in damage.

Don't get crazy and stick all your points into iron golem, no matter how good the item is you use, they never seem to turn out that great. I wasted a really nice rare leviathan plate once, he still got one shot.

[Anonymous No.1260073]

I think D2 should be the cutoff for anything retro. Forever. No matter how many more gens come out, give gamcube and ps2 faggots /v/ but diablo 2 should be the cutoff for /vr/ forever and always.

[Anonymous No.1260074]

So if the cutoff is 99 in 2013 will I move up to 2000 next month?

[Anonymous No.1260076]

>>1260068

Lightning sorceress is hilarious because you can boost charged bolt without feeling too bad and suddenly you can create carpets of death.

[Anonymous No.1260078]

>>1260064
Rules are rules.

Start allowing one thing excluded by them and the slippery slope faggots start whining for other excluded things to be allowed.

Just look back at the Dreamcast exclusion wave of "WUT DE FUKC Y NOTE PS2!?"

>>1260065
This board is slow, but far from dead.

> I bet you are the same faggot who shitposted every Dreamcast thread into oblivion a few months back.
Contrarily, I was a supporter of its inclusion from the start. The only thing that had excluded it was its generation label.

[Anonymous No.1260084]

>>1260078
>Dreamcast exclusion wave
inclusion*

[Anonymous No.1260086]

>>1260076
Yeah, Charged Bolt is awesome. I've always loved everything lightning-based in Diablo 2, it even extended to other hack-and-slash games so I always go with the element. Gotta love those shiny rays of death.

[Anonymous No.1260098]

>>1260086
Same here. Love how it normally has little to no travel time compared to fire magic in action rpgs

[Anonymous No.1260136]

>>1260074
Why should it?

[Anonymous No.1260147]

I loved this game, especially the ambient music. Really good and atmospheric.

[Anonymous No.1260164]

>>1260136
To keep the gap of 14 years... Do you not get the concept of ageing?

[Anonymous No.1260178]

>>1259609
dat insight

[Anonymous No.1260184]

>>1260164
Not him.

D2 should be the cutoff for everything and anything. That was the last good game to ever come out on any platform. Let the age gap grow until there is enough shit consoles to warrant its own board, away from /v/ and away from here. D2 was the end of video games for me, i'm not sure how others feel, but that is the most non-arbitrary line you can get.

[Anonymous No.1260196]

>>1260184
>Hey youtube im only 13 but i only listen to the good old music like led zeppelin and pink floyd modern music is garbage i hate whats on the radio now thumbs up if u agree

Good games are still released, they're just few and far between.

[Anonymous No.1260202]

>>1260184
I just think PC should have its own board, but it would probably spread things too thin. PC doesn't follow the rules of everything else.

[Anonymous No.1260208]

>>1260196
>>implying i'm 13

I'm 29, you faggot.

[Anonymous No.1260217]

>>1260208
Wow, don't you act your age.

[Anonymous No.1260228]

>>1260208

wow 29 and already talking like an old man. I bet you hunt radios playing new music.

but seriously. Are there any good mod. I've tried Hell Unleashed and managed to get to the end of Nightmare with a vengeance paladin. Someone thought it was a neat idea to give I splash damage and I won't argue against them

[Anonymous No.1260236]

>Dueling some friends for shits and giggles.
>I have an MF sorc with no points in vitality at level 75 and maxed firewall.
>One friend is having a blast with his full on cold sorc, as it's his first PvP character.
>He's tearing everyone up with cold piercing, instantly killing a lot of people.
>I pretty much lose to anyone since this character wasn't made for PvP.
>I get smart and equip two raven frosts and a Blackoak Shield, giving me 40% cold absorb and around 50 interger cold absorb.
>Proceed to kill him because he can't actually damage me anymore.

>Later on, he gets smart and starts smacking me with his Tal Rasha's stick, which is actually rather fatal due to my low health.

[Anonymous No.1260248]

>>1260208
Then stop acting like one, you faggot.

[Anonymous No.1260253]

>>1259515

if you're playing alone then you generally don't need to redo anything ever, just grind more whenever you get into trouble, or go buy a lot of potions to make it easier and try again, or whatever

the enemies are all morons because that's just how the game works, so you don't need to be at all optimized to beat them

if other players get involved then you need to keep up with them so as not to feel useless or inferior, but if you're alone then just do whatever you feel like doing

I used to play as a barbarian who smacked monsters with a wand, it worked pretty well

[Anonymous No.1260264]

>>1260046
The only issue is that some classes require an entirely unreasonable amount of gear to reach the viability of an only moderately twinked sorceress. All they have to do is fix the scaling on certain skills, however.

>>1260059
Depends on the build. Summon necromancers are indestructible but kill at the speed of snail without good gear; it also takes a lot of patience to mf as a summon necromancer so it takes quite some time before you get that gear. Bone necromancers are basically only useful with amazing gear. Poison/summon hybrids kill quite a bit faster than straight summon necromancers at the tradeoff of dealing even less damage with minions. Straight poison necromancers are basically unviable without excellent gear but are more or less unparalleled in killing speed without that gear.

It's worth noting that no build of necromancer is particularly good against act bosses despite paradoxically being the best at disabling them with clay golem/decripify.

>>1260043
Vengeance is viable right up until the end in terms of damage but it is going to be really, really slow going without any multihit skills. You can destroy act bosses like the wind, however.

>>1260063
Single element sorceresses hit a brick wall in hell when a sizable percentage of the game becomes immune to whatever that element is. Twinked lightning sorceresses get away with it anyway because their damage is so ridiculous that they will remove anything not immune to lightning from the map so quickly that a half-decent mercenary can kill the remaining monsters at a decent pace. This is somewhat also true with pure cold because they can use static to partially deal with cold immunes. They don't deal damage nearly as fast, however.

[Anonymous No.1260278]

>>1260264
Should say that poison necromancers are more or less unparalleled in killing speed WITH that gear, not without.

[Anonymous No.1260284]

>>1260253
I guess this is kind of true on softcore but a bad build will simply never get the damage required to clear the game at any speed on hell. On hardcore? Not a chance you're getting anywhere on a bad build without chicken.

[Anonymous No.1260292]

>That feel when you get pic related
>That feel when you use it on your paladin instead of giving it to your lightning sorc friend

[Anonymous No.1260294]

>>1260236
>Getingt killed by a sorc smacking you with Tal Rasha's stick
I cannot imagine how embarrasing that must've felt.

[Anonymous No.1260319]

>>1260292
There are a bunch of better helms for a paladin given that there's no damage bonus for being an ass.

[Anonymous No.1260341]

>>1260294
Such are the risks of having 240 max health. It was a very stupid build, as were all of our builds back then.

I saw Mana Shield and thought "You know, I'm going to pump this and energy and just use my massive mana pool to tank damage! It'll work great with warmth!" And then I found out it never absorbs 100% of damage taken, nor does my mana even come close to regenerating fast enough to make it worthwhile.

[Anonymous No.1260347]

>>1260292
But that helmet blows.
200 defense one way or another doesn't make much of a difference, neither does +1 skills, you're not going to make use of FCR unless you're a hammerdin.

You might as well be using Peasant Crown or an OrtSol runeword on whatever exceptional/elite helmet for similar benefits.
>>1260341
The game is actually terrible at telling you that the right way to use Diablo 2's Energy Shield (don't insult D1's spell by calling it Mana Shield, Mana Shield was broken as fuck) is to leave it at 1 point and actually max out Telekinesis, its synergy. It's still rather unfeasible to go non-vita, but still.

[Anonymous No.1260358]

>>1260347
It's also broken because it doesn't make use of damage reduction or resistances, pretty much making the thing useless.

[Anonymous No.1260540]

I can't think of another item that made people as mad as these did, or at least as common as these were. They were probably the fastest way to empty a duels server.

[Anonymous No.1260617]

Tfw I never got my hands on legit loot.

Played most of the game with common below average equipment

[Anonymous No.1260708]

>>1260358
It also isn't affected by resource penalties, which is something of a plus.

I honestly think they were a little gunshy after mana shield completely broke Diablo 1.

[Anonymous No.1260713]

it's happening

[Anonymous No.1260720]

>>1260617

I find that serious good loot is only really worth it if you want to play some insane build that beats the game slightly quicker.

Problem with D2 is that it ends fairly quickly and challenges kind of end with it. Personally Im more into single player these days and you want onto believe how much fun it is to find some insane yellow or gold item that totally cranks your dude into death incarnate mode. Hardcore single player is easily the most fun you can have.

[Anonymous No.1260764]

>>1258774
I thought our cut-off date was 2001?

[Anonymous No.1260821]

>>1260764
If it were, we'd be flooded with Deus Ex threads.

[Anonymous No.1260867]

>>1260713
>There was a time when that 1,440 MB installation was considered huge

I love it in even older games where it's all "Full Install: 40 MB installation!!! HUUUGE, but includes all movies and voice acting!!!" I think Leisure Suit Larry 7 did that.

[Anonymous No.1260874]

>>1260063
Get a spear for your merc that contains the conviction aura (can't remember the name of it) and lightning sorc dominates everything.

Fire/ice sorc is usually what people play with that frost ball and meteor.

[Anonymous No.1260875]

>>1260821

It very briefly was 2001 during the earlier months of the board, but some wise-asses figured out that this included Halo so they flooded it with ironic Halo shitposting.

[Anonymous No.1260906]

I used to play D2 on hardcore.

What an exercise in masochism that was.

[Anonymous No.1260942]

>>1260906
ah I remember hardcore

>playing a pnb necro
>got up to level 80 something, doing baal runs in hardcore
>all of a sudden lag
>I die because some asshole tppk'd me
>forgot to turn loot on

bastards

[Anonymous No.1261058]

>>1260617
Don't feel bad, on bnet, the most expensive item I ever got was a Stormshield or Trang-oul's set. I've never actually seen a high rune drop before, and the one time the Grandfather dropped, another guy grabbed it before I could.

The good news is that you don't really need that great of equipment to beat the game, some high rares or even very specific blues can get some builds through.

[Anonymous No.1261070]

>>1260906
>>1260942
I think hardcore's great for singleplayer, but I wouldn't even think about putting it on online. A split second of lag could ruin hours of gameplay, at least in singleplayer you don't have that problem. It does prevent you from cheating if you get the urge though.

[Anonymous No.1261271]

>>1260713
Why is the special? It installed for me with no problem running win7 64 bit. It diablo 2 known to have issues on modern hardware?

[Anonymous No.1261286]

>>1261271
There are known and common bugs with the colors. Even if you set the compatibility and whatnot.

[Anonymous No.1261292]

>>1261286
Oh. I have never encountered them.... I will now start to count my blessings

[Anonymous No.1261320]

>>1261286
No there aren't. They are very easy to solve.

Turn off desktop composition and visual themes and use a glide wrapper like I suggested last time someone said this in this thread. And, if all else fails, use a batch file to kill explorer before launching the game.

[Anonymous No.1261754]

>>1258247

Was probably mentioned already.
When going melee untwinked my swap weapon slot is usually for Amplify Damage stick - preferably something quick, like 1h sword. Use it for debuffing fat guys\Physical Immunes.

[Anonymous No.1262373]

>>1261754
Why not just use a wand with charges?

[Anonymous No.1262385]

Does anyone else absolutely hate the class restricted items? I know those weren't originally in the game. They just ensure that you get tons of shit that you can never, ever use.

[Anonymous No.1262494]

>>1261070
>I think hardcore's great for singleplayer, but I wouldn't even think about putting it on online.

Hardcore really pulled people together, which made it great for online.

I played hardcore expansion quite a bit back in high school with a few of my friends. It's a rush going through all the acts together, and there was this sense of camaraderie between everyone since it was you all versus the game. You really learned to appreciate every member of your team - the summon wall necro, the buff barbs and pallys - and it forced teamwork.

Even if you didn't have IRL friends to play with, there was this weird code of honor between some people if you played a single game with them long enough. You'd both toggle loot for each other, then when one of you died, you'd meet up in a different game and hand it over. When that happened, you were basically each other's bros4lyfe.

Damn I miss old Blizzard.

[Anonymous No.1262758]

Does anyone have a link to somewhere with all the differences between the classes, such as attack speeds of different weapons, block frames, etc? I feel like making some off the wall strange character like a Zeal Necromancer or a Trang-oul Barbarian duel wielding throwing axes.

[Anonymous No.1263035]

>>1259792
I've got the glide wrapper and it works great, but does it include a way to increase the resolution of the game? 800x600 is pretty pixelated on my screen, 1024x768 would be better.

[Anonymous No.1263057]

>>1263035
Nope. One of the things about the glide protocol (and one of the major reasons it's now dead) is that you're stuck with 800*600.

>>1262494
I agree with everything said in this post. Hardcore is actually just THE way to play Diablo 2, single- or multi-player. Permadeath makes it all that much better.

[Anonymous No.1263103]

>>1262494
>>1263057
I only like hardcore in singleplayer or LANs. Of course, I only had dial up back then, and my ping was around 400 no matter what game I played on the internet.

[Anonymous No.1263857]

>>1263103
I've been playing hardcore on battle.net for about ten years or so and I think that I've only lost a character due to lag once or twice. I could see why you wouldn't want to play at 400ms but with broadband? It's fine. This is even considering the poor state of the battle.net servers today.

[Anonymous No.1264251]

>>1259542
Your tips worked. I went ahead and leveled up to 30, and did the respec. I'm only on normal so I figured it would not be that detrimental if I blew it now. I put bare minimum points into the early skills. Droped everything else into zeal up to level 5, and put stuff into concentration. I still had to spam potions and it took a long time to get gear that was worth a damn back but I killed him. Best feeling ever. I stared this semester getting my shit wrecked, took time off to devote to my classes, passed my finals, and ended the day by serving up his punk ass.

[Anonymous No.1264620]

>>1262373
> AD
> wand
u wut
The unique mace is the only item with that property. Other than that two quick weapons is a good choice as I've said. Untwinked you might have enough runes for Lawbringer (Decr) so that's a strong option as well. Other high %% procrate is on some unique axe and the Reaper's Toll (godly for merc), but it's unlikely to drop in a single playthrough.

[Anonymous No.1264714]

>>1258247

Diablo 3 is a lot better without bullshit skilling and grindy crap

[Anonymous No.1264719]

>>1264714
ok

[Anonymous No.1264767]

>>1264620
Wands with charges aren't that uncommon?...

[Anonymous No.1264769]

NOT RETRO

[Anonymous No.1264937]

>>1264620
My bad. I forgot that AD wands stopped being possible a long time ago.

It's weird that AD is locked out but LR is apparently fine.

[Anonymous No.1265136]

>>1264769
Are we really going to start this again? The mods have already deleted posts, if they didn't like the thread they would have deleted the entire thing.

[Anonymous No.1265189]

>>1264714
PFFT HAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD get out and stay out you cunt sucking faggot.

[Anonymous No.1265270]

>>1264769
>platforms launched in 1999 and earlier
>platforms

Windows 98 was a platform. XP didn't come out until 2001. Therefore, it is retro.

[Anonymous No.1265340]

>>1261754
this is a hacked item

[Anonymous No.1265362]

Hey guys I'd really love to play, been trying to get D2 to run from 2 different torrents (one had all the isos, the other was a direct play executable) neither of which seem to work on my two laptops running win764.
I've tried all comparability options and as some suggested waiting for ten minute for the program to start, but nothing, even after several installs/reinstalls the furthest I get is windows charming colors and resolutions and the diablo2.exe process running, but the game has yet to come up.

Help or a link to a functioning version would result in much e-head for whoever helped.

[Anonymous No.1265374]

>>1264714
This post, in all its simplicity, made me angry, as it was designed to do.

[Anonymous No.1265412]

This is my gear for my paladin, he's in Act 3 in Nightmare difficulty, Hardcore mode. I'm starting to really feel that my gear is not good enough, my resistances aren't as high as they should be, same for my defense.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I should look for to upgrade? My belt's gotta go, I just desperately needed the cold resist, and the crafted boots/gloves have been with me for a long time as well. I've got access to the Nightmare countess, so I can farm a lot of low-med level runes, but I haven't made it to Meph yet to farm uniques and sets from him.

[Anonymous No.1265426]

>>1265362
Sounds like it's a bad version, I installed my copy off the CD and had no trouble beyond some messy colors (After patching to the latest version, however, my color trouble went away unless I tabbed out.).

[Anonymous No.1265508]

>diablo 2
>not knowing Median XL mod

seriously, if you love this game, try that shit. It's like Diablo 2, only 100 times better.

[Anonymous No.1265521]

>>1265508
I was playing this last time I was messing around with D2.

Had an assassin build that zipped around like sanic, was pretty fun. Though doing that 500 stat point challenge was several kinds of dicks.

[Anonymous No.1265576]

>>1265508
100 times more random and spammy

[Anonymous No.1265731]

>>1265508
garbage

[Anonymous No.1266401]

>>1260617
This is the best item I ever got...ever. A level 12 sword. Good luck killing the final boss with this

[Anonymous No.1266413]

Best ring i ever got then got scammed on D2JSP lol. I no longer trust Them

[Anonymous No.1266415]

>>1266401
I used this all the way up to Duriel on Act 2 Nightmare.

[Anonymous No.1266418]

>>1266415
>>1266401
Forgot to add, but items that cast amplify damage on striking are actually amazing. At worst, they double the damage you deal, at best, they remove physical immunities from enemies and actually let you damage them. Starting in nightmare, some enemies get a small amount of physical resist, and if you hit an enemy that has a small amount like 30%, you do 2.4x damage to them amplified compared to normal.

[Anonymous No.1266430]

>>1258247
obligatory

[Anonymous No.1266434]

>>1266430
Amazing

EVIL BE WARE

[Anonymous No.1266448]

>>1265412

Chest - if you have an Um, you might have a Lum as well so make a Smoke (+50 allres). Another option is any 3\4os stuffed with Orts\Rals(\Tals\Thuls) which would give you 30% fire(\light) res per socket.

Helm - Gambling a circlet is always a fun option. Other than that, a 3os helm+Orts\Rals\etc.

Shield - yours is shit. Don't forget that "+% ED" on shields is additive with skills\auras so it doesn't add much. Find a good base with high CtB(even a Bone Shield would do, but preferably a paladin base with +allres) and socket it with: Diamonds (ultra cheap, any # of sockets) or Rhyme (CBF is godly, also Block Rate and allres) or Ancients Pledge (allres).

Belt\Boots\Gloves - just check the vendors for blues, use it to up your resists (or leech from the gloves)

Amu - it's shit, with high base block+holy shield buff you should be almost capped. You'd better off with using it to cap your resists

Rings - same as for Amu. Angelic is superb with the amu\ring combo, until then swap it for leech\resists\whatever

[Anonymous No.1266449]

For anyone new that's having trouble getting gear, keep in mind there are numerous low-level runewords available. The countess on normal difficulty often drops one rune per run, any of the first 12 on the list. Two to keep in mind are Ort+Sol in helms (+1 to all skills, 30% lightning resist, small physical damage reduction, +10 energy), Tir+El in Swords/Axes/Maces (Small increase in many important stats, notably damage, attack speed, and attack rating, also gives open wounds which causes lots of damage over time.), and Ral+Ort+Tal for shields (Resistances and defense), which is given to you as a reward in act 5 if you can't find the runes before then.

More expensive but also good are crafted items, made by putting a magic item in the cube along with a perfect gem, any magic jewel, and a specific rune. Gems can be farmed by killing Andariel or by leveling up smaller gems into larger ones (3 of any same gem = 1 gem of higher quality in the cube). Crafted items are essentially rare items with some set modifiers found on any one that you craft. For example, all Hitpower crafted items return damage to your attacker and have a chance to cast frost nova when hit. Blood items center around health gain, regeneration, life leach, etc, Safety items grant damage reduction, and Caster items help you to regenerate mana quicker and cast faster.

Both of those items are nice because you don't have to hope for a specific drop and can simply assemble the more commonly found individual components to make something worthwhile. Finally, if you're extra poor and just want to get to fighting, you can reroll the inventory of shopkeepers by leaving town and re-entering. Many blue items with the right modifiers can be stronger than rares and even some unique items if they have worthwhile stats (I had a Glowing Long Sword of Swiftness I picked from the Pandemonium Fortress for a long time, it had 1-165 lightning damage and 30% increased attack speed, made zeal incredibly powerful.).

[Anonymous No.1266450]

>>1266418
But in >>1266401 case its a 5% chance. Thats really low. unless something like zeal will apply 5% to every hit. Then its a 25% chance per click. Also how do you have indestructible + Ethereal?

[Anonymous No.1266461]

OP here, Diablo 2 fans are fucking autistic about stats, holy shit. Do you really need to know these things for Nightmare mode?

[Anonymous No.1266468]

>>1266450
With Zeal on a weapon that fast (It's probably at 6 frames per attack, meaning roughly 4 attacks per second), he'd be striking fast enough to keep the curse up indefinitely. He'd have roughly a 20% chance to apply the curse every second, I believe AD at that level last 8 seconds, so it'll be up 80% of a fight.

As for indestructible, I don't know, Indestructible usually only appears on magic (non-rare) items 56 and above.

[Anonymous No.1266470]

>>1266461
Nightmare, not so much. Later in Hell will really give you trouble if you have no resists/leech/autism

[Anonymous No.1266472]

>>1266461
Yes you do. Do you even play on that difficulty?

[Anonymous No.1266475]

>>1266461
Yes and no. On nightmare, it's only really important to know how to make your damage, defense, and block go higher while pumping every point you don't need into strength and dex into vitality for lodes e life. Once you get to hell, you have to know how to break the game, turn it over, and rape it for everything it's worth because hell is designed to be unfun otherwise.

Case in point -- my first venture into hell with a buddy took us 30 minutes to kill corpsefire in the Den of Evil. Don't go to hell without knowing how to deal with physical immunes, and don't go below level 60.

[Anonymous No.1266546]

I want to "roll" up a character to start out in Nightmare using the HeroEditor. Obviously, the rules would be that I'd start at level X with unspent statpoints and skills and health/mana equal to what I'd normally get.

What level should I start at, and how should I handle gear? Should I generate blue, level appropriate items only, or should I toss in a unique/rare/set item or two? Should I start with gold only and buy the items I need from a vendor?

[Anonymous No.1266564]

>>1266546
Try to see if you can just clear Act 1 without hacking any equipment. You'll be bound to gear up eventually, i remember ditching lots of normal items for nightmare items and such because of higher iLvls and better stat rolls and such.

I bet you'll have enough syngergies to kill some shit, but unique and rare mobs may give you a bit of a run. Sounds kind of fun, actually

[Anonymous No.1266576]

>>1266546

Purely single player perspective here.

Since that's a mode\challenge you are creating for yourself, it's rather personal what restrictions you should impose.

The level and items a typical character has when starting NM difficulty vary from player to player not only because of RNG but more because of their playstyle. I usually play
- untwinked, self-found-> shit items
- single-pass (no farm) -> lower level, shit items
- 3\5\8ppl -> higher level, more shit items

Someone grinds lvl30 before engaging Diablo, someone else at that level could be skipping areas to get to Baal, or grinding 55+ before going to NM.
I would say level 40 and 0-2 shitty Uniques (Venom Ward)\Sets (Berserker, Cathan) is not an unreasonable expectation of what a typical character would have when starting Nightmare.
You could just cap your personal gold+stash gold and look through all the Normal+Act1 Nightmare vendors for basic gear (resists mostly) and spend the rest gambling a couple of circlets, amulets and rings. You would probably have several Perfect gems and fuckton of lesser ones, as well as cheap runes up to Amn or so.

[Anonymous No.1266614]

>>1266576
>>1266564
I've finished making characters for nightmare starts. I've went with level 38 for starting level (Fallen are level 34 for reference, highest level mob is 42 in Act 1, Andariel is 48.), natural stats +20 life (potion), 190 stat points, 41 skill points (All default if you've cleared all quests in normal), no items, maxed gold, hardcore. You can turn hardcore off if you want with an editor. You have enough gold to buy whatever you want from vendors or gamble a few times to get some rings/amulets, or you can just toss the gold and start clean.

Also note that I checked the box to make these ladder characters, so you can make ladder runewords and farm keys for doing the bosses if you want.

The link to download the character files is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/y9t60nbbx1b0ghj/NightmareStart.zip

[Anonymous No.1266625]

>>1265731
>>1265576
>i played it for five minutes, haven't understood a single new mechanic introduced, and died in blood moor

fixed for you guys

[Anonymous No.1266653]

>>1266625
Not them, and I haven't played Medium XL, but if it's like any other mod, it'll screw up balance and change all sorts of core mechanics without a reason other than to be different. I like Diablo 2 for what it is, I don't think mods can really improve it all that much.

[Anonymous No.1266661]

>>1266614
Played up until the Den of Evil, made it through ok although Corpsefire's frost nova nearly killed me. All hail the glorious Glowing Military Pick of Simplicity, with its might 1-165 lightning damage. It goes wonders with my +4 to dexterity boots and +7 to energy Skull Cap.

If I don't get some resistances soon, I'm going to explode. I have -10 fire resist and -30 everything else.

[Anonymous No.1266682]

>>1266653
Well, if you haven t tried it, you should really give it a chance, because it doesnt screw up any balance (the creator, Brother Laz, worked something like ten years to balance it), it is only harder than diablo 2 because it requires a better understanding of the basic concepts; for example, in diablo clod you can die in nightmare if you dont have your resistances up to 75 or more; in median xl the same thing happens by act 2 normal.
A lot of people give up on Median because it feels a lot more difficult and because they dont fucking read the documentation on the site that explain all the new mechanics.
There are not screwed up things here, just enhanced ones, and you should really give it a try because, objectively, i think its not possible to prefer classic clod to this mod if you have played it for some time:

http://modsbylaz.vn.cz/

[Anonymous No.1266685]

>>1266661
Killed Blood Raven after chasing her all over the graveyard. Took about 40 hits to kill her, but her zombies went down in one. Sorta made me regret not getting holy freeze just to slow enemies down more, but Holy Shock's got the damage I need, especially considering my weapon's pretty poor right now.

I picked up a Heraldic Shield with +15 to resists and some boots with +40 to cold resist. I still lost 3/4s of my health when a cold enchanted mob died near me.

[Anonymous No.1266687]

I'm thinking doing a solo self-found hardcore playthrough of d2.

Do you think that LoD or classic is better suited for that style of play? LoD feels like it will be incredibly tedious in hell without trading with other players.

[Anonymous No.1266694]

>>1266685
>all text fits on screen

how the fuck are you getting a good resolution?

[Anonymous No.1266702]

>>1266694
There's been a resolution option for as long as I can remember

[Anonymous No.1266703]

>>1266687
You can do hell hardcore in singleplayer, but you have to grind quite a bit towards the end of nightmare and at the beginning of hell. You'll need to hit about level 65-70 so you have a good chance of hitting enemies if your physical, and then in hell you'll need to do countess runs quite a bit to get some runes for better gear. You should have a couple of nice items by the end of nightmare naturally, but hell's such a big jump in difficulty because of the various immunities, it's just frustrating without stuff that casts amplify damage or lower resist or something that has a conviction aura.

I think that's really one of the reasons I don't like hell all that much, it's not really a linear increase in difficulty, but an exponential one because it really narrows the list of things that can complete it. Nightmare any class or build can do, but when you get to hell, you need very specific builds that focus on skills/equipment that can pierce immunities.

[Anonymous No.1266710]

>>1266685
Well, what a shame. After blood raven, the very next cold enchanted enemy exploded and killed me anyway, despite my 60% cold resist and 400 health. Next time I might take a step back and farm up some resist gear before starting my nightmare escapade.

[Anonymous No.1266718]

this thread is making me re-install.

I have a level 90 hardcore (former ladder) werebear druid. He was so amazing i'll post in a bit.

[Anonymous No.1266998]

>tfw you missed the glorious bnet days where bots/hackers are still scarce

I'll never get over this feel.

[Anonymous No.1267009]

>>1266998
>tfw cow runs

[Anonymous No.1267028]

>>1266703
To add to what you said, I'd like to state that you can probably finish untwinked Nightmare difficulty with any character who uses elementals instead of basic physical damage, with crap inventory.

My Fireclaws Werebear whom I parked at Act 1 Hell a long time ago (and lost interest in playing further), for a lack of a better weapon and only needing IAS, ran around with a +40% IAS magic scimitar. Swang very fast, dealt lotsa damage, had a lot of CC for when I played LAN with friends in like-minded communities (and with their help I'd probably be a valuable tank in Hell).

[Anonymous No.1267090]

>>1266998
There was this amazing trainer that could rip copies of items that other people had on them. I remember going into trade games and then siphoning copies of everything they had.

[Anonymous No.1267153]

>>1267090
I never really bothered with hacking beyond a map hack back in the 1.09/1.10 days. I do miss the time before they started detecting those maphacks though, I really liked having an automap each time. Also, the increased dungeon sizes on nightmare/hell were pretty annoying too, took forever to get to Meph or the Countess.

I do remember setting up a pindlebot though, left the thing running for a day and had nothing to show for it beyond a few trash uniques. That thing was more trouble than it was worth.

[Anonymous No.1267168]

>>1267028
Yeah, hell always requires special consideration. Can't take a single elemental caster in there without a way to break immunities. I think some cold sorcs can do it because of cold mastery, but they're still really weak. Dual elementals have a little trouble too on some enemies with double immunities. Magic damage like the necromancer's bone spells are more viable, but every so often you'll run across magic immune enemies and be forced to rely on a strong merc to finish them. Hope you trained up a barbarian or Arabian guard from act 2 or 5.

Physical is probably the easiest to attempt hell with plainly, physical immunes are fairly rare and amplify damage charges can remove it from those who are. In the event you don't have that though, some weapons pack enough elemental damage on them to deal ok damage without the physical component.

And yeah, I love that some skills you can get by with just a fast attack speed. Holy shock with a long sword and zeal is always great.

[Anonymous No.1267182]

>>1267168
I really dig werebears. They, along with barbarians, provide so much crowd control. So much fun to play in party games. I never really got into Paladin for whatever reason even though I played the shit out of Warrior (as in, had a level 41 Warrior in D1). Maybe I should give him another try but I just don't feel like going through Normal again and again.

[Anonymous No.1267193]

>>1266682
Looking at the forums there are like three different versions of Median XL now. What are the differences?

[Anonymous No.1267197]

I used to give a fuck about builds, but then I realized I never do pvp in d2 because everyone already has those speed charms / maxed moves. you're fucked if you're not within 10 levels of them usually.

Now I do whatever I want to have fun in the game. Barbarian leap attack with spears. DRAGOON!

[Anonymous No.1267203]

>>1267182
Post build, noob

[Anonymous No.1267218]

>>1267203
Here you go, bitch:
Str to carry items, Dex for block and AR, rest in Vita, no Ene
Skills:
1 Werewolf
5+ Lycanthropy (as in, will consider maxing it out later)
1 Feral Rage (to unlock Fire Claws)
1 Werebear (no need for more, leveling it up increases mostly phys. dmg and I don't care for that in this build)
1 Maul (handy but unnecessary beyond one point)
MAX Fire Claws (core skill)
Few points into Shockwave (it won't stun for any more than 10 seconds despite anything else, so I just get it for more range and duration, a great skill)
Two whatever Fireclaws synergies from the Elements tree (I chose Fissure and Volcano. I don't think it really matters much. I used it once or twice when giving someone a Normal rush. If you're stingy for points then just pick the first two).
In summons, I went for Oak Sage though I assume that if you don't have Angelic Ring+Ammy and are hurting for AR then HotW is a viable alternative.
All the items I have are self-found, but they're shit really: 'Smoke' in some Exceptional armor and 'Rhyme' in a Tower Shield, and I crafted gloves to gain some Crushing Blow (a whopping 9%, woo!) I also played with a Runeword mod that lets me use B.net RW's in single player, mostly for convenience's sake.

That character should be Hell viable either as a tank for a party or if outfitted with Crushing Blow. Invited and recommended, Piotr Fronczewski.

[Anonymous No.1267272]

>>1259696
curses usually supplement a play style rather than define it. there aren't any curses that do damage directly.
iron maiden comes to mind as a great skill you could exploit with patience.

[Anonymous No.1267332]

>>1266413
that's a pretty godly ring holy fuck
but d2jsp is usually very trustworthy. only do high end trades with a mediator present

[Anonymous No.1267401]

>>1259696
You need some fancy items and have to settle for the fact you won't really be that great, but a curse+poison necro is possible. Poison dagger does a ton of damage when properly synergied, lower resist will break immunities, or decrepify/amplify damage can be used to enhance physical damage and lessen the damage you take.

I messed around with bone+curses necromancer with a passion weapon. I could absorb a lot of damage with bone armor + decrepify and high defense, decrepify reduced enemy physical resist by 50% which would break immunities, and the passion runeword granted one point of zeal making me attack at twice the speed. Only issue was that Passion also had Blinds Target +10 on it, which overwrote curses which were the backbone of the build. Perhaps a Doom polearm for holy freeze would be better, I believe at that level of holy freeze it cuts their attack speed and movement in half, with decrepify it'd cut it down to 25% of total.

[Anonymous No.1267509]

>>1266702
Is there a way to make it higher than 800x600? I play the game windowed and that is just to small. Full screen and it looks to blocky.

[Anonymous No.1267532]

My favourite item is the General's Tan Du Lia. I would combine it with Cleglaw's gloves and pester the shit out of opponents in low level PvP as a Zealot. It's one of my best memories of the game.

What's your favourite item?

[Anonymous No.1267539]

>>1267532
Hellslayer ranks pretty high on my list because it's a axe with a lot of hurty. I remember it used to be worth an SoJ and a lot of barbs really liked it, I picked one up for my paladin despite it not being very good on one. I always liked 2h weapons on paladins.

Past that, the Stormshield and Shaftstop rank pretty high, as does Griswold's Set. I've also got some great memories from finding the Harlequin Crest Shaco and the fucking Venom Ward has been found 57 times across all my characters on the realms.

[Anonymous No.1267564]

>>1267532
oculus weapon for sorcs. my favorite build use to be MF sorcs, and i always had that weapon.

[Anonymous No.1267657]

>>1267532
>>1267539
>>1267564
>favorite items
>Not Godly Full Plate of the Whale

[Anonymous No.1267663]

Looking back on it d2 was a really shit game.

It had a lot of interface problems like how you needed to keep picking potions off the ground and having at least 1 mule character was practically required for trading.

Lots of the builds were down-right unplayable in the higher difficulties because they just didn't do enough damage. If you played self-found or off-line where you wouldn't be able to acquire godly rune-words than even more builds became unusable in hell difficulty.

Nearly all melee characters felt identical. The spells and arrows might arc or be shaped differently but a zeal paladin, furry druid, frenzy barbarian, etc all played the same.

Outside of the act end bosses most the monsters didn't require any special strategy or reaction time. Later clone of diablo such as PoE and even d3 fixed this by giving monsters a greater assortment of abilities and ways to burst/debuff you. Monsters in diablo 2 are incredibly boring.

PvP was terrible and was almost entirly about who had the better gear, if it wasn't gear it was class rock paper scissors. Using potions where often considered cheated by players but there was no way to prevent players from doing it. It's the some sort of issue found in any mmos pvp but with an even greater scope of issues. There was no way to organize teams or even keep score.

About half the zones were a pain in the ass to navigate like the entire jungle zone of act 3. You would spend 20 minutes retracing your steps through an empty world looking for where the RNG placed the door you are looking for.

The slash commands to talk to friends were terribly primitive and every 2 minutes a bot would whisper you.

[Anonymous No.1267685]

>>1267657
>Not calling it Godly Dupe of the Whale

[Anonymous No.1267738]

>>1267663
I agree with most of this notion but
>Nearly all melee characters felt identical. The spells and arrows might arc or be shaped differently but a zeal paladin, furry druid, frenzy barbarian, etc all played the same.

I actually play melee characters the most in Diablo games and similar simply because of how intricate it can get with the footwork needed to pull off stuff. Warrior in D1 was the class for masochists who wanted a challenging Hell run because of that.
In D2 there was no class that could approach the pure warrior feel (Concentrate Barbarian maybe comes closest) but instead there's stuff like: Berserker who scares every monster off and keeps them at bay carefully with his cries in order to not lose a hit point from his 0 AC ass; a Fana-Zealot being free stats for his friends; heck, just the difference between Werewolf and Werebear is interesting enough to create one, then another, and compare (Ribcracker Werewolf FTW). Sure that down to the basics it's just walking up to stuff and hitting LPM but there are some subtleties.

I still had moments in D2 where my untwinked character had to proceed carefully and use some tactics, particularly if I didn't want to die, so I'd not say they're that boring.

I hate the act 3 jungle though, yeah. The slash commands is because of battle.net (and you could talk and hang around with BW and WC players back then)

I don't think it was really shit, it had its drawbacks. The biggest one for me is that I just hate starting Normal difficulty over and over when I want to play some Diablo because it's just not "real stuff".

>>1267657
King's Bastard Sword of Haste
Rags of the Ages

[Anonymous No.1267976]

>>1267532
I ran around with a Cruel Colossus Blade of the Leech on my barbarian because I was too poor to find anything else. Those were dark times.

[script writer kibe No.1267980]

>>1260014
>PCs don't have generations
Ehhhhh, depends on how you slice it. There's Dos, Dos-Shelled (Windows 95 & 98) and post- Dos

Diablo II was released with Windows 95, 98, and 2000/Me in mind (according to the Setup prompt). So, theoretically, it could very well count as a retro game

[Anonymous No.1268009]

>>1267663

That's why Diablo 3 is the better game.

[Anonymous No.1268045]

>>1267153
It was all moot, anyways, like three months after I got it someone ripped a .zip file with a copy of every single legit item in the game. I was actually surprised that almost everything I siphoned wasn't hacked.

[Anonymous No.1268105]

>>1267980
That's a really fucking great way of slicing up PC generations, anon.

[Anonymous No.1268103]

When I started playing Diablo 2, I played all day and all night on bnet. Then they did some stupid rollback for some reason and I lost all the progress I had made. Did not really play much after that. Always enjoyed Diablo. The second one had a lot going on I didn't want to dig into. Soooo many modifiers.

[Anonymous No.1268232]

>>1268105
I've always wondered why we don't split pc game up based on the OS they were made to run on. Sure the this game came out in 2000 but it was made for win95/98. There is no way to make a game this big within a few months for the latest os out there.

[Anonymous No.1268253]

>>1267193
Ultimative it s the last one, developed by MarcoNecroX on Brother Lazs base. It is more difficult, but has more sacred uniques, runewords, uberquests, and secrets in general.

[Anonymous No.1268312]

this is by far my up most favorite game of my childhood, I spent so many years playing this game. Lord of destruction was the best thing that happened to that game. I had so much fun playing on my wind druid. collecting ears and spending hours doing the same thing over and over and over again. and rune words are awesome. good times

[Anonymous No.1268527]

>>1259542
What did you mean by zeal will get hard past nightmare? I just made it to act 4 and so far the only complaint I have is the lack of crowd control. I can't take out mobs on critter at a time, zeal has to split up and hit multiple targets. I still walk out of fights with a mass of gore around me though.

[Anonymous No.1268581]

>>1267009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqSFu3IU_hI

dont make me cry

[Anonymous No.1268598]

>>1268581
That shit made me loos it. Seriously questioning my choice in a paladin class now. All those hits and the cow still stood. And the necromancer, so fucking accurate..

[Anonymous No.1268625]

Hey I just got done beating this through hell on hardcore. Granted, it was with a summon necro, but it still feels like I accomplished something. Hell wasn't that bad, really -- skellies didn't do that much damage towards the end but I lucked out and found a 4 socket thresher that I put Insight in and gave to my merc. From then on he was 4 hitting everything and then I blew the shit out of everything using 24 point corpse explosion.

Baal still took a bitch ass time to hack down though.

[Anonymous No.1269218]

Looks like it's time for Deus Ex and Halo threads and whatever the hell people want to post.

[Anonymous No.1269231]

Not retro and mods=fags

[Anonymous No.1269232]

>>1268581
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqSFu3IU_hI
Interesting. That's a weird version of Cirrus - Boomerang at the beginning.

[Anonymous No.1269263]

I found my cds today, including lod, but only have cd key for lod. Can't remember b.net info, is multi still active enough to buy a fresh d2 key online?

[Anonymous No.1269745]

>>1269231
>>1269218
Holy shit. A post like this is made every 2 days. If it was breaking some rule it would be deleted. The game its self was intended for windows 98, there is no way it came out in 2000 and was made for windows 2000.

[Anonymous No.1269787]

>>1269745
Windows 2000 released retail Feb 2000, Diablo 2 released July 2000. Unlikely that D2 had Windows 2000 as a recommended requirement. Anon's argument seems to hold weight.

[Anonymous No.1269793]

>>1268598
In my experience, Paladins do fine against cows if they've got the right gear. Certainly no worse than anyone else.

[Anonymous No.1269851]

>>1269787
unless d2 was made in less than 5 months.

[Anonymous No.1269875]

Eurofag here

Which realm has the most players, US West, US East or Europe? And how can I check it? I kind of remember being able to do it by checking the Battle.net website but now it's full of Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and all that crap and Diablo 2 and all the others are kept under "Classic" Blizzard games.

[script writer kibe No.1270623]

>>1269787
>>1269851
For the Lord Of Descrtuction Expansion (at least), Windows 2000 and ME are listed as compatible systems. They were also the last two versions of Windows with Dos packed in, so I'd say they're retro

[Anonymous No.1271075]

>>1269745
It came out in 2000 but 2000 is the cutoff date. Not things that can be run on windows 98. You could stretch a lot of things onto windows 98 way past it's date.

>They were also the last two versions of Windows with Dos packed in, so I'd say they're retro
PC goes by date not generation since PC has no date. Diablo 2 isn't covered by /vr/.

Also, 2000 doesn't have DOS packed in. It has a command line but it is not DOS. All NT based windows run a command line with a DOS VM - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_DOS_machine for executable support.
This is the same shit as Windows 7 has running for it's command line. If you think 2K is retro because of that support then you think windows 7 is retro because they support it. (technically 8 as well but that's a broke pile of shit)

[Anonymous No.1271124]

>>1271075
Not him, but like I said earlier in this thread, it's best to just allow some PC games in on a case by case basis. Diablo 2 is a good candidate for one of those games, and there are plenty of games we discuss that have come out in 2000 (As they were still making games for retro consoles post 2000.).

Also, if you want to discuss the validity of certain games on /vr/ or the actions (or inaction) of the mods/janitors, you should probably make another thread or contact moot. The only thing bringing it up here does is create off-topic posts and/or flamewars in an otherwise good thread.

[Anonymous No.1271148]

>>1271075
>2000 is the cutoff date
1999 is the cutoff date. And it's not about PC dates, it's about SOFTWARE RELEASE DATES for PC games. 1999 and before. Simple.

The FUCKING POINT is that "retro" is about having a single date of reference where we do not go past technologically. In 2000 we were past what we could do in 1999 and thus there's a cutoff.

This is just getting ridiculous. We've already had the goddamn "Barely 90s Kids" push through the fucking Dreamcast by whining ever since the fucking board opened, and now you're not even going to let that be enough?

Look, "Barely 90s Kids", go back to /v/ and pollute that place with your 2000s games. You have a fucked-up idea of retro if you think what you had as a kid even comes close to qualifying. You won't even allow yourselves to actually mature into someone that barely knows anything about the world before you proclaim shit from your youth "retro". Get up to the point where you suddenly realize shit from your childhood is 30 years old, and we'll talk.

[Anonymous No.1271591]

>>1271075
But like other posts have pointed out (and got removed for) Games like Shantae for the GBC are considered retro but they came out in 2003 because of the system they are on. If you go by this logic Diablo 2 is retro because its it was made for windows 95 the game had been in development since 97.

[Anonymous No.1271901]

>>1271148
>No games from 1999 are allowed.
inclusively.
I meant exclusively. The dreamcast got through because it was released during the end of retro era.

Also nice job missing the fucking point 2000's kid.
>You have a fucked-up idea of retro if you think what you had as a kid even comes close to qualifying.
Yeah I guess you're right. Fuck Atari, fuck coleco, fuck NES, fuck SNES, Master System, Genesis, SNES, N64, PSX, C64 and so fourth.

>Get up to the point where you suddenly realize shit from your childhood is 30 years old, and we'll talk.
We're talking now, kid.

[Anonymous No.1271929]

Windows 98 isn't a console.
The date for PC's is 1999 or earlier. Consoles have a generation limit effectively.
By your definition since mount and blade works on windows 98 it's retro.

Games made for retro systems are included in that category. That's why games after 1999 can be discussed if they belong to a pre-2000 system. Though the dreamcast really is iffy it kind of bridged the end of retro with modern gaming. The worst problem is that essentially sets a precedence that this place has essentially a time limit before it goes to shit and modern games flood in. Hopefully they hold back on doing it anymore. But my guess is they will. Once they allow gamecube/xbox/PS2 this place will be /v2.0/. Dreamcast allowance gives potential PS2 cross over games a place here.

[Anonymous No.1271948]

>>1271929
>Windows 98 isn't a console.
/vr/ isn't just for consoles.

>The date for PC's is 1999 or earlier. Consoles have a generation limit effectively.
Why?

[Anonymous No.1271961]

>>1271948
And don't get me wrong, I wish we could resolve this. Right now we have threads about PC games from 2000+ all the fucking time (BG2) and they're not getting deleted, so why are you surprised when people start making D2 threads? The rules are vague when it comes to PC because that's how PC "generations" work, there is no clear cut-off point anywhere. How is Win98 not a platform?

[Anonymous No.1272041]

>>1271961
>/vr/ isn't just for consoles.
No shit Sherlock.

>Why?
Are you that dense? Because PCs don't have cut and dry generations. Operating systems split and work over various software, software allows newer software to run on older software and so fourth. Hardware scales.
Consoles are locked in and the same, they have competing generations in the same area and they're generally close enough in library design principles that you can roughly determine sixth generation as the major dive into modern development principles that separate it from retro games.

>>1271961
> all the fucking time (BG2)
They used to get deleted. BG1 was covered though.
Same for other 2K+ games. Now they're not.

[Anonymous No.1272079]

>>1259680
Don't forget the cool down patch. I miss filling rooms with fire walls and blizzards.

[Anonymous No.1272084]

>>1272041
Even though the games are "cross platform" pc games always have one version of windows that it is developed for. D2 was developed for 98,

[Anonymous No.1272092]

>>1272084
So you're purposely being daft.

[Anonymous No.1272130]

>>1269263
If you have a battle.net account you can register your keys and just download it directly from Blizzard.

[Anonymous No.1272169]

Diablo 3 is a lot better. It improved on everything and the streamlining is actually quite good.

[Anonymous No.1272215]

How about we stop feeding the trolls and go back to having a good time?

[Anonymous No.1272289]

>>1271929
Do you even hate PS2 games? Are you such an insufferable hipster?

[Anonymous No.1272304]

The combat is boring, the sprites are too tiny to see anything and when I switch to my browser window to shitpost on /v/, the game gets minimized.

7/10 so far, shit game. Glad I pirated it.

[Anonymous No.1272439]

>>1272215
>Trolls
>People who are saying the game isn't retro when it isn't

Is everyone smarter than you a troll?

[script writer kibe No.1272448]

>>1272304
>Glad I pirated it
I pirated my copy as well, but I'm enjoying quite a bit so far. I am slightly miffed that I can't play multiplayer though

[Anonymous No.1272469]

>>1272448
It's made for multiplayer for the drop rates. It's pretty much impossible for economics of the game to work in singleplayer. That being said the best way to figure out what you should go for is to discuss it on /v/.

[script writer kibe No.1272484]

>>1272469
Oh, well I meant that I was afraid to play Battle Net multiplayer because I was fearful of getting caught

[Anonymous No.1272486]

>>1272304
>using the HD mod
>complaining about sprites being too tiny
I fucking hate people who use the HD mod. The game wasn't built around it. It lets you see shit well before they see you as well, which breaks the gameplay.

[Anonymous No.1272501]

>>1272469
This.

D2 is great with multiplayer, or it was back in the day. Higher levels would find stuff and give them to lower levels for free.

[Anonymous No.1272539]

>>1272469
The drop rates are fine for single-player for a lot of builds, assuming you stick to /players 1.

>>1272484
You're not going to get caught. If it lets you connect (it probably won't -- there's a good chance your key is banned), go for it.

[Anonymous No.1272739]

>>1272469
I disagree on the basis you can finish hell without exceedingly rare runewords or uniques. Sure, if you want to find a set of gear for a "perfect" build, you've got almost no chance in singleplayer, but if you're just looking to finish the game, it's certainly not out of a single player character's reach.

[Anonymous No.1272810]

>we can't have 2000 PC games or /vr/ will turn to /v/!
>proceed to turn thread to /v/

[Anonymous No.1273856]

>>1272739
>I disagree on the basis you can finish hell without exceedingly rare runewords or uniques.
I disagree on the basis you didn't read what I said.

>It's made for multiplayer for the drop rates.
I never said you can't beat hell, you can. Just don't expect to get to get showered with any significant amount of super amazing shit. You need to grind for ages to get most decent stuff. Because most of the good shit was designed to be dropped into pools of players for trading etc... You can argue all you want, that's what they did and designed it around. For the same reason that a single ZOD rune you're looking at between 1.5-100 million drops, 100 million pretty much guaranteeing you get one. Good luck getting that many drops. Set items are better but still not amazing.

[Anonymous No.1273968]

So anyone here play with the Eastern Sun mod? I find it a nice change of pace from vanilla D2 while not being as insanely difficult as Medial XL.

[Anonymous No.1273979]

>>1273856
>most of the good shit was designed to be dropped into pools of players for trading etc.

I'll agree with you there.

D2 was relatively mediocre when it came to singleplayer. Half the game came from player interaction and trading on Bnet. Another big thing is that the rarest items weren't even the best. At higher levels, everyone was slinging around Stones of Jordan and Harlequin Crests, Blades of Ali Baba, etc, so you never really felt bad.

[Anonymous No.1274609]

>>1272092
Purposely being daft? No. I'm applying logic to the situation. If the game was made for a 98 os then it's a 98 game. Just like a game for any of the retro consoles can be released years later and it still counts as retro.

[Anonymous No.1274616]

>>1273979
It was a different kind of game, but SP / hamatchi has it's upsides too. The power level was lower and you had to fight with what you found, if you played hardcore it could get really challenging. You didn't just get dupes of whatever was the best thing around.

[Anonymous No.1274702]

>>1258758
faggot

[Anonymous No.1274718]

anyone else ever go to drop games and turn peoples godlies into iron golems?

[Anonymous No.1274729]

>>1274718
>now whenever your online im gonna watch for you and hack yo shit
Classic.

[script writer kibe No.1274928]

>>1273968
Once I finish the main game I might just install it along with Back To Hellfire. I've always had a major boner for Japanese Period Dramas and Samurai Movies, so the Eastern Sun mod should be right up my alley

[Anonymous No.1274948]

I still duel everyday on USEast softcore non-lad. My favorite game of all time and I've been playing it since 2003

[Anonymous No.1275023]

>>1274928
Just make sure to keep the site and its wiki on hand. The map layout got changed a bit, and you don't want to wander to the bonus areas in Act 2 and 3.

Best part is that it makes pure Summon Necros a lot more viable with them being able to have one of each golem plus better skeletons.

[Anonymous No.1275028]

>>1275023
Forgot to add, they buffed the mercs quite a bit. So there's less using the act 2 merc as a cheap aura. They're fully equipable (same slots as you) with unique merc sets too.

[Anonymous No.1275117]

>>1272169
>>torchlight II is a lot better. It improved on everything and the streamlining is actually quite good.

fixd

[Anonymous No.1275127]

>>1272486
Excuse me, there appears to be a problem?

[Anonymous No.1275129]

i accidentally left d2 at my parents so i can only play d3 but i have no internet atm :( so while i cook dinner i will stay a while and listen

[Anonymous No.1275148]

>>1275127
HOW FAR DOES IT GO

[Anonymous No.1275242]

Hey guys, anyone know if there are any up-to-date skill calculators around? I love planning out characters in advance but it seems like the best and most up-to-date one has gone MIA: http://diablofans.com/tools/skillcalculator.php

This one is an old standby, but it's only current to 1.10, and so some of the skills have different synergies and stuff: http://d2items.com/skills.php

[Anonymous No.1275292]

>>1275242
Never mind, found it: http://old.diablofans.com/page/tools/skill/index.html

[Anonymous No.1275927]

>>1275148
Do not challenge me, mortal.

http://i.4cdn.org/hr/src/1387151854842.jpg

[Anonymous No.1277197]

>>1275927
Fak.

[Anonymous No.1277238]

>>1272486

You know there is a legit keypress that lets you unlock your camera and look around right? I don't know how many Meph runs I have done pre 1.09 where I would just unlock my camera and guided arrow Meph to death with my Buriza from across his room (where he couldn't fly over).

[Anonymous No.1278703]

>>1277238
What is this magical key?

[Anonymous No.1279079]

>>1278703
Not him, but I think he left Mousepad's Maphack on. Used to be the - key on the number pad.

I used to do it to mephisto with my firewall sorc, made killing him easy.

[Anonymous No.1281328]

>>1265362
http://thepiratebay.gy/torrent/6098061/Diablo_2_With_Lord_of_Destruction_%28v1.13c%29_%28Direct_Play%29_%28Latest

extract the files, run the video test named d2vidtst, and then you can launch the game . I have no problems just make sure you click the exe named diablo2 and it should work for you

[Anonymous No.1283404]

How much do you miss out on if you don't have the Lord of destruction add on?

[Anonymous No.1283459]

So - I'm looking for builds that can finish the game on hell without needing some specific items in single player.

I know Meteorb sorc, which I played some time ago already, and hammerdin, which I despise.

Any other such builds?

[Anonymous No.1283508]

>>1283404
There's actually a rather active community that plays D2Classic exclusively. Though many actually do that mostly to rush their characters to Hell faster because this way they bypass Act 5.
>>1283459
Summoner necromancer can wreck the game all by himself with little to no items. Max Raise Skeleton, THEN Skeleton Mastery, THEN Corpse Explosion (which is your #1 spell come mid-Nightmare or so), rest is up to you. Invest 1 point in each Curse, you're going to rely on Amplify Damage (better damage for skellies), Dim Vision (shuts down ranged mobs), Decrepify (helps with bosses tremendously)
The Confuse/Attract family of curses proves to be pretty useful crowd control in a pinch.

Best golem is Clay Golem because he slows bosses down, but don't invest more than a point into him.

Other characters who stand a chance in hell are elemental-based fighters who may have to park certain mobs away from them. Fire-based characters, like my beloved Werebear, are the weakest in that regard because Blizzard has a boner for fire immunities. Holy Shock Zealot and the Lightning Amazon can do well. (There's also a hybrid Amazon build going around which has you go Frozen Arrow/Lightning Fury). You'll usually be fine with self-found weaponry and armor on such characters because most of the damage will come from the skills. On Zealot you can have Vengeance as backup.

A Berserker Barbarian should be viable in Hell because he has a ton of crowd control skills that allow him to remain unharmed while bashing the shit out of people with his magic damage. You don't even need solid armor class - if you find a Twitchthroe armor, you're set for life. Any other Barbarian build can do well in Hell with just a single point in Berserk, too, but they'll rely much more on equipment.

All melee builds need Crushing Blow if you want to kill at any speed in Hell. Failing to find it, there's still alternatives like crafting gloves.

I speculate a Smiter could work if you pack enough C.Blow on him.

[Anonymous No.1283520]

visual C++ runtime error when installing, I downloaded the 2013 redistributable what do?

[Anonymous No.1286354]

>>1283520
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=visual+C%2B%2B+runtime+error+diablo+2

[Anonymous No.1287013]

>>1258247
Haven't played D2 in years, but I'm familiar with it from back in the day.

Kind of wonder what it would be like to play a modded version with /vr/ people. I never really have. Does this sound interesting to people? We'd all begin from level 1 and play together, of course.

[Anonymous No.1287141]

For a level 30 paladin, excluding skills and equipment buffs is this a good stat spread or should I mix it up a bit?

Str: 97
Dex: 61
Vit: 62
Energy: 15

I mainly use zeal so mana is always full. I notice a lot of the hits from zeal miss so I'm planning of getting dex up a bit more. Should I focus on Dex or get more Vitality so I take less damage?

[Anonymous No.1287238]

>>1287141

I think the rule of thumb is to keep enough Str to wear the gear you want, enough Dex to stay at max block, dump the rest in Vit and then don't touch Energy.

So yeah, that looks smashing.

[Anonymous No.1287249]

>>1287238
What is max block?
75%

[Anonymous No.1287270]

>>1287249
Yeah, block tops out at 75%, and if you are using holy shield, you will need less DEX.

Also, online strats/builds are very hard to do in single player, as they're generally built around the idea that you will be level 70+ in a few days to a week at most.

[Anonymous No.1287278]

>>1283508
IIRC the first person to solo ubers was a Smiter. Not sure how they'd do on CC in say, act IV/V, but Smiters are stronk as fuk.

[Anonymous No.1287279]

>>1287270
Im only doing single player. I just want to get the story, I don't need the extra stuff that online brings. Playing through it on normal now, is it worth going all the way through to nighmare and hell if I am going to play strict oneplayer.

[Anonymous No.1287283]

>>1287279
If you're doing it for story only? No.

The only thing Nightmare and Hell offer are harder mobs/bosses and the chance to take your character from mook with a few skills to the god damn Savior of Heaven and Earth.

[Anonymous No.1287482]

What's an unusual and fun build to try? I feel like getting back into this. I will be playing solo.

[Anonymous No.1287497]

>>1287482
I'll try to give you one of each class to the best of my knowledge.
Amazon
You could try any of the Spearzons but you're unlikely to get past Hell. A Magezon (both elements bowazon) has a lot of elemental damage and so doesn't need a whole lot of gear except +skills, but bows are kinda eh in this game.
Barbarian:
The Singer is fun, but his greatest power is in team games and he is unlikely to be able to play in Hell too well. It's fun to run around with two Crystal Sword spirits and just boo at everything but your damage output doesn't scale that well. I'm not sure if Leap Attack barb is still good. You can try Double Swing barb.
Druid:
>>1267182 My favourite but has problems in hell alleviated only by C.Blow.
Assassin:
Kicksin, I guess?
Sorc:
Firewall as main Fire skill with some other skill as backup. FW doesn't really have necessary synergies and it deals huge damage, the tricky part being to have people stay in the wall.
Paladin:
Avenger, maybe? Has ways to deal with everything.
Necro:
Hard to say anything because the viable PvM necros are the ones that abuse Corpse Explosion and the difference between Boner and Summoner is the way in which you acquire the bodies for a chain reaction.

[Anonymous No.1287504]

I just got sigon's full set. Holly balls is this a great set of equips.

[Anonymous No.1287508]

>>1287497
Might try Avenger. I tried a ranged Holy Freeze Paladin once, and it was pretty hilarious with the "hit slows target" against Diablo.

[Anonymous No.1288005]

>>1265189
Even though his post was a joke, there's actually a lot of shitty things about D2 that are conveniently forgotten yet very relevant to "endgame" play. Like realm downs. Those things that forced you not to play the best you could because it's bad to go too quickly. They could take the day from you if they felt like it because you did one little thing they didn't like.

[Anonymous No.1288059]

>>1288005

Diablo 2 had a shit server crew but the game design was better.

Diablo 3 has this annoying habit of trying to take the fun out of things. Like how they limit your item +walk/run to 25%. I mean this isn't that big of a deal really but the fact that they have a kind of speed limit in the game just tells you that they just don't want you to have too much fun.

I tried explaining this problem to a friend of mine and he said that walk/run speed isn't that important if you play as a wizard since you have triple-teleport. I told him that in D2 on the teleport ability doesn't even have a fucking cooldown, is practically free and you can increase your cast rate to well above 100% without much problem.

Seriously, the beauty of D2 is that the game rewards your hard work by just granting you demigod capabilities and makes you feel that you've deserved it.

[Anonymous No.1288079]

>>1288059
I know what you mean. I bought D3 on release and played it with a close friend. I actually had a blast, but only because I was playing with him. These days, I think Path of Exile on hardcore is a much more enjoyable game. But it's also a slower game than perhaps D3 OR D2.

It's true, one of the funnest parts of D2 was that it was a limitless mess. The only "real" problem I had with that all was that it was limited by frames. It didn't matter if you got, say, 5% faster cast speed if it didn't make you go 1 frame faster. But if you got 1% more, suddenly you were quite a lot faster if it put you over the threshold. These sorts of mechanics haven't aged well at some points, even if it was an overall better game. And I'm not making excuses for a run speed limit on a modern game, which is arguably worse because they should've known better.

[Anonymous No.1289359]

Are there any recommended mods? I'm currently using PlugY for the ladder runewords and shared stash and such on top of LoD 1.13c.

[Anonymous No.1290037]

so who wants to start fresh on ladder lod HC with me?
I'll be playing the classic summon negro.
game name is vrd2
pass is griswold