Ultimate Characters - the making of

Some interesting points, but it all depends on your definition of ultimate. Your definition is not necessarily the same as everyone else's. For example I think you have limited the power for some builds significantly against many opponents just to be able to kill every monster in the game. I wouldn't use azurewrath on a barb, especially due to its stupid level requirement. My questing is almost done by 84, after that equipment depends on the retirement plans.
 
Well, you can always use a Lawbringer (I do - I don'r own an AW).
I think that the OP suggests that a character is to be played for quite some time after actually having finished questing, so... That's just a matter of personal preference.

Also, would you be so kind to post your thoughts on other characters? With possible alternatives coming to your mind?

P.S.
I really should stop posting that much in other people's threads.
 
@naranjadita: Hope this isn't too far away from the original thread:

After you have finished questing, there are limited things to do with a character:
- Level 99
- Grailling
- PvP

I don't think anyone goes back through the game doing full clears again. The best characters for all of the end game examples that I gave are fairly well documented.

A Swiss Army Knife is a good bit of kit for doing lots of things, but specialist activities require specialist tools. It isn't the best corkscrew, screwdriver or knife by any stretch of the imagination. By trying to achieve everything, you compromise the one thing you really need to focus on. So for me, you should define the end game goal first and then design the character to suit.

I don't really see why you would use Azurewrath on a WW Barb when you can put Reapers on the Merc (increasing damage and safety against everything) and dual wield grief.
 
I don't really see why you would use Azurewrath on a WW Barb
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I wouldn't. I'm a wolfbarb, so my off-hand weapon slot is kind of wasted :D
For a WW - yeah, I'd use dual Grief or something long and masculine (like, eBotD or Cruel War Pike of Quickness [ShaelShael]).

I like to play my old toons - just clear random areas just for kicks - with occasional rune hunting and MFing. To each his own, though.
 
maxi- I did define my end game goal. Read the top of the first post. The entire aim of the project is to create a swiss army knife character.

Level 99 and pvp are really not my thing, neither is time travel. Grail is somewhat interesting but I got to -8 and don't really care ( just crappy items left anyhow ). A zod rune would be the only thing I would actually like to find, but not obsessed.

Azure is for freezing and sanctuary, it is really helpful at times. The switch has grief/stormshield, so depending on the enemies spawned, I switch that out to replace azure on the main ( thus making grief/grief ).
 
I certainly understand your aim and everything, but I somehow cannot stomach cookie cutter WW barb as ultimate character. Yeah Cham'd AW is really nice twist for WSK, but non enigma etc... I dunno. I like assassin most out of your represented characters and about some I can't agree at all (amazon being pretty poorly built imo).

I feel like I should challenge your view on "ultimate character". After you reach certain threshold with items, game becomes just too easy, even on p8 settings. I like adapting characters for specific goals rather than having good all arounders, but seriously, after some time game becomes juts too easy and it kinda makes no sense to call ultimate characters those that can challenge pvm at all. PvP isn't necessary either. What I can view as ultimate character is for example, Fabian's Berserker barb. Character that excel in certain aspect of game and can challenge pretty much any other MF char in just about any area, highly optimized, calculated and I wonder if there are any chars are better than him in that aspect.

I just think that managing to challenge players is more of a ultimate character trait, rather than being able to challenge monsters in pvm, but as for your goal they are ok built for the good part (again, some that I really don't agree how they are built). While I'm at it, windy isn't bad candidate for best of his class. I think he might be able to outdamage your nec and with Reaper's/holy freeze/delirium merc he has enough CC to cover any needs. Yeah, he isn't LF zon but not worst either.
 
zaphodbrx said:
maxi- I did define my end game goal. Read the top of the first post. The entire aim of the project is to create a swiss army knife character.
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I guess what I am getting at is that "Ultimate" is a very personal perspective. The initial tone of the thread is that these are the best possible characters that it is possible to make in D2, but that all depends on the environment that you play in. It is more about your personal definition of Ultimate, and I agree with Froz's example of Fabian's barb - A character that, about ten years after the game's first release, challenged the idea of what a MF build should be.

Still some nice ideas here though. The Phase Blade CtA on the Assassin is interesting.
 
If the word "ultimate" bothers you, then just think "characters that are very good at p8 WSK". Why argue over the connotations of a word?
 
Also adding to the request for Fabians barb plus it would be most excellent to have the recommended builds aluded to by maxicek for;

-Grailer
-lev 99

Always trying to optimise:)

cheers!

dude.
 
nar,

That's really old and outdated though. I guess the best argument for actually doing a new write-up is so people stop linking to that thread, heh. fwiw I made a new video of him just a few days ago, in the videos thread.
 
frozzzen said:
I certainly understand your aim and everything, but I somehow cannot stomach cookie cutter WW barb as ultimate character. Yeah Cham'd AW is really nice twist for WSK, but non enigma etc... I dunno. I like assassin most out of your represented characters and about some I can't agree at all (amazon being pretty poorly built imo).

I feel like I should challenge your view on "ultimate character". After you reach certain threshold with items, game becomes just too easy, even on p8 settings. I like adapting characters for specific goals rather than having good all arounders, but seriously, after some time game becomes juts too easy and it kinda makes no sense to call ultimate characters those that can challenge pvm at all. PvP isn't necessary either. What I can view as ultimate character is for example, Fabian's Berserker barb. Character that excel in certain aspect of game and can challenge pretty much any other MF char in just about any area, highly optimized, calculated and I wonder if there are any chars are better than him in that aspect.

I just think that managing to challenge players is more of a ultimate character trait, rather than being able to challenge monsters in pvm, but as for your goal they are ok built for the good part (again, some that I really don't agree how they are built). While I'm at it, windy isn't bad candidate for best of his class. I think he might be able to outdamage your nec and with Reaper's/holy freeze/delirium merc he has enough CC to cover any needs. Yeah, he isn't LF zon but not worst either.
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I would challenge your challenge. Your definition of "Ultimate" appears to be "Ultimate (at one thing) [that is not a cookie cutter]". If you were to challenge his characters on his list, that is a good debate. Did you see any of his character sept threads? They were probably more interesting because it was easier to debate different character setups within each class because it was easier to see what he had done.
 
thefranklin said:
I would challenge your challenge. Your definition of "Ultimate" appears to be "Ultimate (at one thing) [that is not a cookie cutter]". If you were to challenge his characters on his list, that is a good debate. Did you see any of his character sept threads? They were probably more interesting because it was easier to debate different character setups within each class because it was easier to see what he had done.
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My definition? Let's see... I like these two definitions of ultimate:
a) Of the greatest possible size or significance; maximum
b) Representing or exhibiting the greatest possible development or sophistication

However most of these characters don't excel at anything. Or they aren't optimized to extent some other SPF characters are. Pretty much Jack of all trades but Master of none. You pick (almost) any of those characters and it's not even hard to create character that can beat them for selected goal. They aren't best at MF, they aren't fastest at area cleaning or best at pvp. Can't They are good at bits of everything but I wouldn't say that zaph can say they are best at *something*

Instead of beating around the bush, I'll give you example. His javazon uses CoH, total of 20 IAS, Moser's (wat) and similar stuff. She doesn't have teleport to position himself, and honestly, shooting for 75 allresist with javazon is just lol. When I made my lvl 99 amazon she had all negative resists (-70 -70 -35 -70) for running CS and I had absolutely no problems. I used enigma for mobility, and when I moved to WSK/Baal I just replaced FRW/mana charms I used in CS for life/LR. I didn't need to sacrifice anything, nor 55 IAS for best attack speed or 65 fcr for mobility with enigma, and still, my amazon has highest damage output, possibly of all characters made on SPF up to this day, and considering she is level 99, believe me she didn't really die (one death at 97 and none at 98 so probably over 150h without death). As for cookie cutter thing, just saying Areat's, HLW, Griefs, Fort, SoE etc is as cookie cutter as it goes, and not best barb build anyway, but nvm me on this.

You need to know limitations and strengths of build to know where you can compensate one thing for other and make best characters possible. Some of zaph's characters aren't designed with that mindset so I can't recommend his build to anyone for anything, hence no ultimate character. That's at least my take on it.
 
frozzen/maxicek: I'll quote you this

jeffy said:
If the word "ultimate" bothers you, then just think "characters that are very good at p8 WSK". Why argue over the connotations of a word?
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Look, I understand what you are saying. But the aim is, ultimately to create a character that is versatile, can kill fast and is fairly safe. These goals are not easy at all. If you think p8 WSK is easy, all I can say is, you haven't played it enough. And no, I don't mean that bull sh!t jumping from place to place, skipping entire monster types because they are immune or 3-4 boss packs spawning fanaticism holyfreeze and then skipping them. I mean killing every single monster in the area regardless of what. And also not dying every 20 minutes.

That's why I have overstacked resistance and absorb , and azurewrath and things like that. You can not really compare it with a baal run or a crapy area like pit. When push comes to shove, the difficult monsters in the game are really, really dangerous.

I know nobody else really did investigate into this idea, and it is unusual, I don't expect anyone to really try it, just putting it out there. Believe me though, I really did try everything and these characters are the end result after dozens of respecs and hundreds, thousands of worldstone keep runs. ( My worldstone keep runs often also include WSK level 1 and ancients ).

I have a comparison of forti vs enigma for WW barb in the lounge thread somewhere. Forti is just flat out superior for this specific character in any number of ways. For a different type of character, it might not be the same.
 
frozzzen said:
My definition? Let's see... I like these two definitions of ultimate:
a) Of the greatest possible size or significance; maximum
b) Representing or exhibiting the greatest possible development or sophistication

However most of these characters don't excel at anything. Or they aren't optimized to extent some other SPF characters are. Pretty much Jack of all trades but Master of none. You pick (almost) any of those characters and it's not even hard to create character that can beat them for selected goal. They aren't best at MF, they aren't fastest at area cleaning or best at pvp. Can't They are good at bits of everything but I wouldn't say that zaph can say they are best at *something*

Instead of beating around the bush, I'll give you example. His javazon uses CoH, total of 20 IAS, Moser's (wat) and similar stuff. She doesn't have teleport to position himself, and honestly, shooting for 75 allresist with javazon is just lol. When I made my lvl 99 amazon she had all negative resists (-70 -70 -35 -70) for running CS and I had absolutely no problems. I used enigma for mobility, and when I moved to WSK/Baal I just replaced FRW/mana charms I used in CS for life/LR. I didn't need to sacrifice anything, nor 55 IAS for best attack speed or 65 fcr for mobility with enigma, and still, my amazon has highest damage output, possibly of all characters made on SPF up to this day, and considering she is level 99, believe me she didn't really die (one death at 97 and none at 98 so probably over 150h without death). As for cookie cutter thing, just saying Areat's, HLW, Griefs, Fort, SoE etc is as cookie cutter as it goes, and not best barb build anyway, but nvm me on this.

You need to know limitations and strengths of build to know where you can compensate one thing for other and make best characters possible. Some of zaph's characters aren't designed with that mindset so I can't recommend his build to anyone for anything, hence no ultimate character. That's at least my take on it.
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I agree that we can debate the equipment used. I would prefer enigma for merc positioning. I agree that the barb is quite cookie cutter, but I can't argue that something is more effective (sans enigma vs fort). So those are good points. I guess I read this thread as the ultimate characters ie the builds used rather than his specific gear. Your amazon sure falls under the "ultimate javazon" cateogory for sure. Except for the aegis :)
 
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