1.13 Ladder Climbing

[CdMagicFind]

1.13 Ladder Climbing

It might be a bit early but with the current updates, what do you guys think are the best builds for ladder climbing? It should be pretty interesting with respecs as well as slight game changes playing a large role.

In my opinion, amazons weren't really changed; assassins weren't really changed. Barbs got a decent boost with faster early leveling by using double swing and no iron maiden in CS. Druids got a decent boost from respec leveling. Necros got a decent buff as well: skill increases and a useful respec. Paladins seemed to receive a minor nerf but respecing makes them even more versatile by letting them cycle through -all- the builds. Sorcs seem to have gotten a major versatility boost as well.

All in all, what do you think 1.13 has done to ladder climbing?

p.s. And what about new teams? With IM not being an issue, will a barb do more than just BO? Despite the few resistances, will hammerdins' auras make them the top? Will respecing allow necros to use more of their curse tree and help the party? etc.

 

[stillman]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

If the fixed dupe problem holds for a while, maybe it will just be sorc's on top for their natural teleport to Baal? Idk. No nigma's for a while sounds really awesome and interesting, even if it makes sorc's the obvious choice and ladder rulers.

 

[stzein]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

assassins weren't really changed

One of the fastest ways to run through normal is with a fire trapper. respec to whatever you want later. So if you want to be on top very early in the ladder season, I think a fire trapper respeccing to a lighting trapper may be very good.

 

[CdMagicFind]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

One of the fastest ways to run through normal is with a fire trapper. respec to whatever you want later. So if you want to be on top very early in the ladder season, I think a fire trapper respeccing to a lighting trapper may be very good.

Figures I would I forget that right after saying that in another thread. :crazyeyes:

Since this is kind of a question in addition to being a discussion, I think any comments on how useful BO, Oak Sage, CE, and that sort of thing are in the beginning would really help me too, if anyone has anything to say on that... :thumbup:

 

[Harahune]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

Windy druid! Oak Sage + Cyclone Armor + max block if you can find a good shield = tank hell mobs in magics.

 

[Matt]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

I think fire druids stand to gain the most in terms of viability for plowing normal and nm, then respeccing to something else (probably a wind druid) in hell. Fissure absolutely rocks the early stages of the game, and pumping sage for the life boost won't hurt either.

That said, in a good ladder running team, a sorc will want to respec herself. She'll probably want to focus on teleporting and staticing (and the useful skills to do so: teleport, static, warmth, possibly TK/ES, and perhaps a little enchant), and then later on, when she's strong enough to tele baals, or whatever is being run by her party without focusing only on tele/staticing, she can respec into whatever build she wants, and retain her usefulness as the only non-enigma teleporter.

-Matt

 

[droid]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

If duping has really been fixed then Amazon might hold her own at least into mid-ladder. Both bowzons and javazons, but especially bowazons, never really were dependent on any high end runewords, just uniques. Hell, a WF Bowazon gets by with just Fortitude, which just costs a Lo - which I think even Countess can rarely drop. Early in the ladder, a LF Javazon will own as LF is a 20-point full-screen win button

 

[jhtvman]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

My startup character of choice is always the summon necro. You can run normal and nightmare naked with ease, and hell with only a little bit of difficulty. The lack of need for much gear frees you up to stack up cheap mf equipment as much as possible and find items for other, more gear dependent characters.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

summoner necro. great meat shield for team ( 2 necros + 5 sorc + 1pala with 1pt into meditation ) going to rock through game.

my summoner on ptr can solo hell baal in under 5 min with 10 skellies my merc and IG.

on sp your CE just kills all cows.

necro got full light res in hell mode ( souls -_- ) 300 def, and hides behind army. slow moving, but unstoppable ( total of +6 skills. 3 summoning tree stick from akara, 1 all necro shield ( anay reward ^_^ ) 2 necro amu (gambling with lvl 99 char + unlimited gold ) )

 

[altima]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

If you add teleport circlet to stack your minions it will take less time i think . Do you notice the buff ce got ?

 

[CdMagicFind]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

Okie dokie, so far it's one druid and one sorc. I was thinking about playing a necro because I thought respecing really helped him but I'm not entirely sure. In the end (hell baalish), he doesn't seem to contribute as much because waves go down easily and there would be no major boss killer (aka a zon or CB character).

Have you guys had any very successful groups? Ones that worked well for how much you played by yourself, played together, etc. I'm not sure how important it is for the group to work well since 3 sorcs might work wonders too..

 

[Locohead]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

Count on the fact that there will still be duping.

Enigmas will still abound. I doubt ladder climbing will be any different. I doubt anything will be any different, except Hammerdin bots spazzing out in some fashion during 2nd Baal wave. Very very sad.

 

[TheBigClown]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

Imo it won't change a single thing. The good characters will still be soso, baba, pala and nec. Either you go for the soso who can host brs without enigma or you make a cser who can provide diablo experince. But in the end I guess you can go for any char/build as long as you know where to find brs (hence channelruns).

If a person is serious about climbing the ladder for real and want to at the top after 1 month or so I would suggest a barbarian. 4 life each 1 stat point + BO along with MB makes you immortal. It's not like it's something that's new to the barbarians as they almost had immortally in 1.12 too, but sometimes the zerkers died to manaburn in conjunktion with IM. I see no reasons other than being very drunk while playing for the barbs to ever die in 1.13 if there's no IM in cs (If you think bugged vipers are likely to kill barbs I can tell that I've never ripped @ nihla with barbs and I've never seen high level barbs rip @ nihla in brs). Another good thing about barbarians is that they are among the top cs'ers available. The other 2 buids are hammers (still while weakened) and boners - forget about the soso's, they can't compete with the speed and safety of barbs, necs and pals in 8-player channelruns. Sometimes a wack soso wanna give cs a try in channelruns, but quite often she can't get diablo to spawn before baal is ready and quite often the dp needs to help kill a seal boss. If you want to be at the top of the ladder for more than the first couple of weeks it's imperative to get diablo experience in baalruns. The real level challenge is 97+ imo as this is where you get lousy experience in baalruns and absolutely need diablo experience in order to see your experience bar get a little white dot once in a while. Getting lvl 96 is just too easy imo. It's very nice to be immortal at this level obviously. Say a cs barb died 1 time in 1.12 you would probably see about 20 cs pals die within that same time.

However, there's 1 problem. You need enigma in order to be able to cs in brs, but so do the other cs'ers. Don't let your only reason for picking a sorceress be that they don't need enigma if you wanna climb the ladder with a sorc. If you go for a sorceress let your reason be that you can start her as a mfer and respect into a pure lightning build later on. I'm not sure how difficult it will be to get an enigma as I don't know what increased high rune drops really means...

Btw, if I had to make a pick I would pick the sorceress as she's a mighty fine mfer and can be respected into a pure lightning build once she have spent a few weeks mfing. But climbing the ladder doesn't include mfing ^^

One of the fastest ways to run through normal is with a fire trapper.

Btw, it is the fastest build for normal mode (SP), but once you hit nightmare you're bound to respect if you want to kill monsters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlrJW0DAZrY

summoner necro.

Sure it's good for completing the game, but pretty fast people will hate you for lagging the game. Also, you will be banned from non-bot channelruns.

Have you guys had any very successful groups? Ones that worked well for how much you played by yourself, played together, etc. I'm not sure how important it is for the group to work well since 3 sorcs might work wonders too..

I'm not really sure what you're asking. But a br team of 1 soso for tele and static, 1 baba for bo, war cry and cs and 6 lightning amazons would obviously be a nice team as the firestorm from the torch have been changed (possible 1 pala for conviction if there's no infinity merc in the party).

 

[LorveN]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

I think fire druids stand to gain the most in terms of viability for plowing normal and nm, then respeccing to something else (probably a wind druid) in hell. Fissure absolutely rocks the early stages of the game, and pumping sage for the life boost won't hurt either.

Fully agree. Fire druids breeze through nightmare with a few exceptions. This is where team play comes in, and a sorceress with FO/teleport together with the druid will make the journey to hell fast. If they then run nm baals to lvl60-70, then respec the druid to a windy, hell will also fly by.
I expect druids to be a part of good runner teams, although maybe not as the main character. After all, the main character should be the one killing most/fastest after lvl90+ when it starts to get slow.

edit:
@KillaMike
Here's another run through normal that is 12 minutes faster than the one you posted. Still a fire trapper though.
There's also another video there, in which a guy goes through the whole game, completing all quests and getting all waypoints on all difficulties in 4.22h with a sorc.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

There's also another video there, in which a guy goes through the whole game, completing all quests and getting all waypoints on all difficulties in 4.22h with a sorc.

i thought 4:22 to get to hell hf, not hell baal :whistling:

and i am gonna make blizz baller (without metoer, 20 pts into fb and 20 into fb ) ( damn you expensive teleport. )

necro is not pretty slow, he is incredibly slow.

and playing nm, i can say that a1 mercs are gg now ( when you teleport, they pop minion or 2, found tal this way )

 

[Bongstrocity]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

I always run two accounts when I'm not playing public games so maybe I'm a little skewed, and usually my first thing out of the gate for fun is an Edge/Insight necro with low defense revives/amp damage BUT this time around though, I think I'm going to model my first couple of characters around something I've had great success with lately which would work in a team format if you don't like fast user switching... A basic glass cannon strafer (which with the respecs looming becomes even easier since you don't have to worry about putting too much into strength/vitality early on when you need a big damage bow for hell but don't have your end game gear yet to know specifics) who does the brunt of the questing, dealing raw physical damage over a fairly even area over time. The second part of the equation is a pure support enchantress (which i love to use in public games until someone starts whining that I'm not throwing enough orbs/meteors etc) which gives teleport/static for quick runs to bosses, then jump out to the last waypoint leaving a tp to a 2/3 depleted life boss, lob a nice solid level 20+ enchant onto the strafer which eliminates a decent portion of the need for points into penetrate and bonus of 1k or more fire damage (we're talking a new ladder so I'm lowballing my +skill and damage charm expectations) so there's a nice fix for physical immunes, and for that rare-as-hell phys/fire immune combo with stone skin, just switch back to enchantress and blast away with low level lightning/orb/whatever. Respecs are going to make this a cakewalk. God I wish they'd change the tokens, I love blizzard, I love the patch, and I'm sick of all the threads complaining rather than celebrating that it's happening at all, but that thread suggesting replacing SoJ's with tokens and just leaving the quest respec option makes SO much sense to me.

 

[CdMagicFind]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

@Locohead: Oh, definitely. I think my estimates would have been much different if I expected high runes to not be duped. :cloud9: As for hammerdins, my guess is people won't play them -as- much but still.. a lot. I guess I'll wait and see but I'll keep in mind that everyone thinks there will still be a ton.

@TheBigClown: I'm not too adept at channel runs to be honest. Would I just be waiting for people to spam channels or should I try to make them myself or...?

By MB, I'll assume you mean WC. :crazyeyes: I didn't really know barbs had a plus side besides a higher BO level, though, and especially not CS. In classic, no one plays barbs there, so I thought they were bad at it. What build is it exactly? The main reason I didn't want to play a barbarian was their item dependency early on. That, and I like the idea of respecing for max block. :jig: How do I deal with needing a new weapon all the time to keep damage up (in case I don't have a nice party)? Is there a best weapon mastery early on too? (since respec abuse is probably effective)

Oh, and HR drops are about 3x as high, so it shouldn't affect much.

p.s. Your post was very, very helpful. Do you have any other advice, maybe along the lines of how/when to respec and/or generic beginning ladder information? I guess I know a lot less than I thought. :scratchchin: Just to make sure I'm on the right track... how is my three-man sorc, druid, baba sounding? I was thinking about necro as well but I'm not sure about CE's usefulness or his CSing ability.

(sorry for all the questions)

edit - Oh, I forgot about leveling as a double swing/throw character... That might make things a bit easier. :scratchchin:

@Bongstrocity: I've never really considered playing a bowazon at all. How do they fare in hell? Or is that just before respecing? I'm not sure how that compares to leveling as a java, though I don't recall javas being great early on.

 

[StrikexForce]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

I think the best character is one that has the survivability to not die. Dieing really slows down ladder climbing

As for what I want to make, im really torn between polearm WW barb and bear druid =\

 

[Locohead]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

I'm sick of all the threads complaining rather than celebrating that it's happening at all

Uhh... but WHAT exactly is "happening"? We're getting practically nothing relevant. Might as well call it "The Orange Rune Mod Patch", because that's really the main positive thing in it. Minor power tweaks (many of which are stupid), no new content, pointless respec. Meaningless rune changes since duping will still happen. And a ladder reset which will be a year late. I dunno what you expect people to be happy about.

 

[Bongstrocity]

Re: 1.13 Ladder Climbing

Uhh... but WHAT exactly is "happening"?

We're getting ANY support for a game that by all rights shouldn't be looked into at all given how busy the teams are on new projects that actually may MAKE money for Blizzard. The general vibe of the naysayers seems to be like when a teenage girl is given a 2 thousand dollar 10 year old car and complains that it doesn't have fresh paint or a huge stereo. Go make a mod, if you're really so insightful into how the whole thing should have been done. If they hadn't patched a THING, and had just announced a reset, nobody would be complaining at all.

@Bongstrocity: I've never really considered playing a bowazon at all. How do they fare in hell? Or is that just before respecing? I'm not sure how that compares to leveling as a java, though I don't recall javas being great early on.

Honestly they are amazing, there is nowhere in the game they can't handle solo and other than the lack of teleport (wonder how long until i see my first zip-zapping hammerdin this time around?) they're one of the fastest moving characters you can build. The pure physical damage a level 80+ strafer does, when you count in the bonus dex gives to bow damage, removes the need for a secondary killing skill, and there are no synergies to strafe (Physical immunes+stone skin aren't a problem either assuming you can find any elemental damage or %CtC amp damage bow on switch, hell even a bunch of socketed gems or 1 point into lightning bolt gets the job done) This lets you max out your valk / decoy up into the 4k life range, which also removes the need for a tank merc allowing you to get more phys immune killing speed from an act1/3 merc. Only a few points gets decent dodge/avoid/evade/pierce chances (diminishing returns get VERY steep after only like 5 points into each) and you don't need any +skills gear due to the diminishing returns on everything or specific equipment of any kind other than a little mana/life leech so that leaves you room for nearly pure MF gear (stealskull/tal rasha's helm gets enough leech and is super easy to find/socket) The distance between you and enemies means that you can survive without any vitality investment, but no worries now with respecs there you can pump vitality until you get enough charms/equipment to feel comfortable and then switch to PURE dex for the brutality. However, do pick up any +resist charms you find, as it's one area that I've found needs a little beefing up when you're MFing in hell. Start out with partial sigons, it drops EVERYWHERE and 2 pieces gets you 10% life leech. Weirdly, partial Trang Oul's set is a good mid-game option, with three or more pieces granting decent resists and fireball/wall to switch to for phys immunes O_O

Starting out just grab the first 3socket bow you see and put some elemental damage gems / jewels / runes (Edge is a great cheapie startup) of any quality in there and that will take you through act 3 no problems. Oh, and Nef the hell out of the first decent rare/unique bow (pray for the 100%-piercing-crowd-slowing-****-machine named Buriza, or a Wildwitch String) :thumbup:you find or else wear cleglaws claws for 20ias / knockback. God I love how cheap gear becomes less laughable after a reset. I can't wait to start keeping green plated belts and great helms...