Anything Goes D2 Lounge!

@Jamie Yeah, I think a respect would help a lot. 4 skill points extra in skellies will make them quite a bit beefier. They will really benefit from the extra skill points.
 
Yeah, for fishymancers (especially untwinked), it's highly recommended to have the following skill point layout before facing normal Diablo:

1 point Decrep (including only 1 in prereqs)
1 point CE (optional for trouble areas, i.e. Maggot Lair)
1 point Summon Resist (to include 1 in CG, Golem Mastery)
Max RS (or as close to max, depending on clvl)
rest in SM

Also highly recommended to have wand/head switch with +3 to skeleton mastery (or as high as possible).

This is simply because normal Diablo is probably one of the toughest fights you'll face as a fishymancer. This setup should give your skellies get a decent amount of +life (especially when raised with +SM switch) in order to survive a few of his Fire Novas before needing to re-raise your army.
 
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Started a Necromancer. I've always wanted to try using a Golem + CE through Normal to see how it goes. So far... mixed results. I will say that for the most part, it hasn't been as slow as I thought it would be. However, I don't enjoy the mana consumption.
The choice between sucking down mana potions every millisecond vs using 7+ Tir sockets and only chugging every 5 seconds is.... not my favorite.
 
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Started a Necromancer. I've always wanted to try using a Golem + CE through Normal to see how it goes. So far... mixed results. I will say that for the most part, it hasn't been as slow as I thought it would be. However, I don't enjoy the mana consumption.
The choice between sucking down mana potions every millisecond vs using 7+ Tir sockets and only chugging every 5 seconds is.... not my favorite.

Can relate! Though, to me it feels very rewarding to, gradually, have less and less of those issues. Until finally, it's all running smoothly, and you have become the ultimate badass. B)
 
@Fruit

I agree completely. The pain is real, but so is the payoff.

The great thing about the CE + Golem Necro is you get a really sweet taste of its capabilities in between the pain. Sometimes the density is just right (like in A2 tombs) and you start poppin' bodies left and right until nothing is left but a pile of detritus and gore. Truly glorious. It makes the pain bearable.

I think the reason I am enjoying it as much as I am is the lack of crutch in the form of any other offensive skill. Just Merc, Golem, Curses, and CE. I don't gain advantage until bodies start dropping, so the beginning of every fight feels more tense.

Right now, my absolute largest concern is the Ancients. I... have some ideas. Bosses, I can TP in and out if I absolutely have to without resetting the fight. Ancients not so much.

All in all playing this build reminds me of picking Charmander and overleveling him so I could fight Brock with just him in early Pokemon games. The Charmander WILL pay off... later.
 
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@Tenecabo
@Vildecor

My point layout with gear looks as following. Keep in mind I'm at most one level higher than I was since killing Normal Diablo on P8. Also I added an Eye of Etlich, so all of my skills went up one point after D.
-24 points Raise Skeleton
-7 points Raise Skeleton Mage
-5 points Skeleton Mastery
-3 points to each Golem
-4 points to Golem Mastery
-3 points to Revive
-3 points to Summon Resist

-2 points to Amp
-2 points to Decrepify, along with the prereqs

-4 points to Bone Shield, but can get it up to level 7+ with a specific weapon switch setup
-2 points to Teeth
-2 points to Corpse Explosion


I get +1 Summoning Skills no wand, along with Raise Mage, Bone Armor, Golem Mastery. I've had some issues shopping for a solid wand.
My Zombie Head of Deflecting, gives +3 to Raise Skeleton and +3 to Dim Vision.
Eye of Etlich gives +1 to all skills, post fighting Diablo.

If this was Necro, instead of Druid, I would have my helmet set for possibly the entire rest of the the playthrough lol. At least for a long time:

Loath Crest
Circlet
Defense: 25
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xf9d5bf7e
Item Level: 40
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Druid Skill Levels
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+43 to Attack Rating
+55 to Life
All Resistances +16
Magic Damage Reduced by 2


So while I may have wasted a few skills here and there, I don't think there was anything I could have done to made my army strong enough to survive Diablo on an 8 player game. Even with pretty high skeleton stats, Diablo's AI is really good at demolishing the army with long range attacks whether I have to make my way to him from far away or can get right on top of him. I finally got the job done though.

What do you guys recommend I work towards in skills going forward? I am not going to use a respec anytime soon, unless I am going to make a complete style of Necro change(PSN NOVA, ETC). I'm not going to use it to fix a couple skills i could have used better, yet. I've always kind of felt my way through new builds and then will respec when I learn how to properly create the build the most efficient way. But most builds can playthrough with some miss appointed skills and stats.
 
I second Skezla, the fishymancer guide is just too good. What I did when I started mine was that I shopped a +3 skelly +X skelly mastery wand before leaving act I. I agree than you will be able to manage without respec, but just to give you an idea, getting a +3 skelly wand together with putting those 4 points from skeleton mages into skellies would have had your skellies or skeleton mastery 6! levels higher at diablo. That's a really big difference at that level. Glad you made it, the rest will be a lot easier!
 
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I would also like to tip my hat at Nightfish's guide. I consulted it when I recently started my Cube Grail quest. I confess that I didn't strictly follow his advice. I maxed skeleton magi, contrary to Nightfish's recommendations, simply because I wanted them. Also, I invested no points in AI curses; instead, I just found wands with attract as a staffmod. Regardless, the guide is well reasoned and very worthwhile.
 
For whatever reason, I like having the most amount of summons. Maybe one of the many weird OCD type things that D2 brings out in me. The mages came in handy throughout normal, even if they obviously weren't needed. I have seen his guide and many others and some that maximize CE, which I'm more concerned about the tons of summons lol. I've seen some that had maxed out Skeletons and Mages, which I thought maybe I'd do kind of a half-ass thing with Mages. Although maybe Mages will be useless at that level. I've seen quite a lot of different builds and ideas through the Summoning field. I even was wondering about somehow mixing Summon with an offensive skill that isn't CE. A dagger/Summoner sounded cool, but probably not a very good idea at all and the gear wouldn't compliment each other I don't think.

A Poison Nova/Summoner sounded cool too, and Nova only has 2 prereqs so maybe it would work. My plan was to either stay Summoner at the end of the playthrough and go self found only if I really loved it. But I thought I would go Poison Nova more likely, not sure on whether I'd stay self found or not after beating Hell Baal. I have never found a Death's Web playing D2 since the day the item became available lol. I really want to find one, but it seems like I never will. If I find one, I will totally go twinked and respec to PSN Nova lol! But I did find my first Death's Fathom and my first Griffon's Eye during this current Single Player playthrough that started within the last like 2-3 years (I think?). Somewhere between my old hard drive crashing and not having my stuff backed up and starting a new Blizzer and going all over again lol. so maybe I'll luck out on that. Both the DFathom and Griffon's were found in either the Halls of Pain or Anguish, whichever is the one that is immediately down the steps after Pindleskin. That place has been a gold mine for me over my D2 career. So maybe I'll farm there if I ever make it there with him lol.

So, I know Nightfish's work is like the holy grail of the Fishymancer or Summonancer or whatever you want to call it, but for some reason I can't help but to try my own little strategies or twink existing builds a little/while asking the fine people on this forum for advice and what their opinions on everything is. I just like to pick people's brains a lot and there are a lot of people on here who know far more than I do about the game, despite the fact that I've been playing it for like 18/19 or some guady amount of years lol.

I just love hearing all of the feedback about different ideas and ways that have worked for people or interesting strategies that make the game new. You can only follow the meta builds for so long lol. And after doing Single Player on P8 for so long now, the game needs some extra challenges. With normal builds, playing through on P8 seems easier than when I used to play on B.net and solo'd in one player games. Crazy how much better you get when you start playing HC or to never die once in a SC playthrough and do it on P8 and play with control and defense. Oh and not having to use garbage internet on their servers definitely helps out. I had to stop playing HC online due to my rural location.

Thanks for all of the feedback. This is like the only place on the internet where I can go and converse with people and it not turn into arguments and flame wars. This community has been great.
 
While running LK, I accidentally clicking on nightmare difficulty, so my hell difficulty map was rerolled.
B7LKmap.png
What luck! Campfire on one side of the waypoint, campfire on the other. I shall be sad to lose this map if I accidentally click nighmare again.
 
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Nice save! That's why I hit 'H' instead of clicking, I don't trust myself.

I always do the clicking thing. I didn't really know about the ability to do that until way late into my D2 career. Of course I started SP for a minute and then was strictly Bnet for easily the next 10-13 years, before I finally didn't want to play with all the botters/dupers/dueling autoaims and programs. But by the time I realized I could do the letter on Single Player, I was already so addicted to the click method that I couldn't change it and keep up the speed lol.

The one thing I was willing to change after playing D2 for 10+ years, was to change all the hotkeys around. I used the F1-F9 system for all those years and then learned from either jsp or here, that there is a far superior keyboard setup. Now my skills are qwertyasdfg buttons, space in place of alt to check the floor and then had to put like weapon switch on V, Run/Walk to X, Skill Tree Template to K, Quest Log to L, Character Screen to C(may be the standard though) and Z to turn on/off the minions/merc/teammates boxes in the upper left corner. It took a minute to get used to, but oh boy did it make the gameplay so much more seamless. No having to find alt, as a thumb is always on the space bar. No wheel scrolling or having to find the right F1-9 button and the way your hands are naturally placed on a keyboard for any computer work, fits it perfectly where you can just remember the letter each skill goes by and click it instantly.

I usually use like precasts, bo/shout/war command/summons in the upper left corner in the QWERTY region, depending on how far. A as regular attack early on and F as main attack, with SD as other attacks and A always as teleport if I have Enigma or Sorcy. On a Blizzer I like to use F for Static Field, A for teleport, E for Blizzard, S Glacial Spike, D Ice Blast, QW for CtA casts and R for cold armor and T for Telekinesis. I guess it just depends on the character. But anyone still using F1-9 for skills, should definitely give the other system a try. It improved my gameplay by multiple times over and there is never any moment where you are searching for a button on the keyboard with your eyes. The time it takes to get back to the level you were used to playing, and then beyond, isn't all that long at all. Whoever originally suggested it to me and other players, is a hero in my book. Just make sure you rekey the buttons that are already used in the QWERTYASDF(Y and G can be added too if you have a lot of skills to use) to another key. Mine being the Z(upper left icons), X(run/walk toggle), V(weapon switch), N(clear messages), K(skill tree log), L(quest Log).

A question I do have for you guys, does clicking R/N/H to join games save you time or make it worth it once you get used to it? I still click the wrong difficulty, VERY RARELY.. like only a couple times or so in thousands and thousands of games...so I'm not so much worried about clicking the wrong bar. But I am curious if it saves a lot of time and is better for not those misclick times.
 
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A question I do have for you guys, does clicking R/N/H to join games save you time or make it worth it once you get used to it? I still click the wrong difficulty, VERY RARELY.. like only a couple times or so in thousands and thousands of games...so I'm not so much worried about clicking the wrong bar. But I am curious if it saves a lot of time and is better for not those misclick times.

Since I'm running 10k LK runs, yes, pressing H does save you quite a bit in the long run. It allows me to have the load screen start as soon as I select the character. The difficulty selection screen barely flashes before I select Hell.
 
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@Jamie

At some point, everyone wants to use the mages. Nothing wrong with that. However, I believe you will find this section on the Arreat Summit useful to give you an idea of what you can expect from them.

As far as respeccing to Poison if you find a Death's Web... don't get caught up in building around your gear. If a build seems fun, go for it. There are VERY few builds that cannot be done without specific gear. Optimal, no. But workable. If there is any lesson a person should take away from the SPF, it is that.

I hold Nightfish's work in high regard not because it outlines a great build, but because he goes in depth about skills and the pros and cons of each. He was a real outside of the box thinker(for his time), which is a common trait among the old-timers.
A lot of what is considered common knowledge these days was brought about because of him, and several others like him, during the early 2000s.

Finally, the hotkeys are VERY useful. They prevent misclicks entirely, which can end up saving MANY hours of painful map rerolling. In my opinion, there's no reason to risk doing that if you don't have to. Even with a very low chance, it happens, as you've demonstrated.
I would say that once you get used to using them, they effectively cut menu time by half or more. It adds up.

EDIT: I would also like to point out that if you accidentally enter the wrong difficulty again, you can open your Task Manager in Windows and end the application process from there. It will not save your game. If you exit normally, however, it's gone for good.
 
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@Jamie

"At some point, everyone wants to use the mages. Nothing wrong with that. However, I believe you will find this section on the Arreat Summit useful to give you an idea of what you can expect from them."

I know their usage will somewhat peter out as the game goes on. I went for them to feel them out and for early game situations, or at least as long as they hold up value. Nice to have some ranged attacking. I plan on using one respec at some point when I am ready to optimize my Summoner build a little better. So up until then, I am kind of playing around with everything.

"As far as respeccing to Poison if you find a Death's Web... don't get caught up in building around your gear. If a build seems fun, go for it. There are VERY few builds that cannot be done without specific gear. Optimal, no. But workable. If there is any lesson a person should take away from the SPF, it is that."

I know that having fun with your build is important and all and one item doesn't make a character great, but the super rare items like DFathom, Griffon's, DWeb and maybe a couple others, are just so hard to find and full of value that I am always going to make a character that optimizes that item lol. I could always trade it, but I see no point in acquiring an item like DWeb and not making a Poison Necromancer and letting it sit in a stash. I did the same thing when I found Griffon's and instantly respec'd my Bowzon into a Javazon, farmed for an Enigma, stumbled upon high end, Eth Titans, made the CtA and was extremely pleased with how that all went down.

"I hold Nightfish's work in high regard not because it outlines a great build, but because he goes in depth about skills and the pros and cons of each. He was a real outside of the box thinker(for his time), which is a common trait among the old-timers.
A lot of what is considered common knowledge these days was brought about because of him, and several others like him, during the early 2000s."


I played a lot on bnet during the early 2000s through the early 2010s and like to think that I helped popularize some builds or had builds that I never saw elsewhere, but still tore up in duels, from 1.09 through the early days of 1.10. I had a Hydra/TS Sorceress in 1.09 that was a tank and was extremely successful. I could let Barbarians come to me and rapidly die and chase more DPS styled builds around. It helped that I was using a 1.08 Shako/1.08 Valor/Stormshield and was able to take on a lot of damage. I also started playing with Lightning Sorceresses for dueling, prior to Infinity being a thing. I created a dueler, I forget the damage but I want to say around 55K and nobody was preparing for Lightning Sorceresses at the time. I don't know if I actually influenced anybody in the dueling scene, but I love the idea of Nightfish and thinking outside of the box and constantly coming up with new ideas.

"Finally, the hotkeys are VERY useful. They prevent misclicks entirely, which can end up saving MANY hours of painful map rerolling. In my opinion, there's no reason to risk doing that if you don't have to. Even with a very low chance, it happens, as you've demonstrated.
I would say that once you get used to using them, they effectively cut menu time by half or more. It adds up.

EDIT: I would also like to point out that if you accidentally enter the wrong difficulty again, you can open your Task Manager in Windows and end the application process from there. It will not save your game. If you exit normally, however, it's gone for good."


I may try to start getting used to the Normal/Nightmare/Hell game. It sounds like it will be something you can get used to fast and if I could get used to switching the whole keyboard setup around quickly, I'd hope this would be easy to get used to lol.

The Task Manager idea is great! I don't know why it's something I have never thought of lol. It seems so obvious, but in the moment I usually just think of rage quitting lmao. As long as the Task Manager method is considered okay and not cheese or banned in the community. Doing it to fix a map misclick seems harmless, but I suppose there could be sinister motives used with that method if timed right. I try super hard not to do something wrong, not realizing something is frowned upon or banned lol.

@Skezla Sorry if the format I used to reply to each point is annoying.
 
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@Skezla Sorry if the format I used to reply to each point is annoying.

Imho, this is the only sane way to answer several points of a long post on a mobile device. Just remember to declare you have done so outside the quote. Otherwise people might think you just accidentally quoted someone and forgot to add content. (As ʾclick to expand' quote is needed to view what you wrote.)
 
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@Jamie

I like the way you replied, honestly. Very easy to read. :)

If you ever have questions about what is or isn't allowed, the best thing to do is check the Rules FAQs first, and then message a mod if that didn't clarify for you. To the best of my knowledge, the Task Manager is okay to use in this specific circumstance.
 
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A question I do have for you guys, does clicking R/N/H to join games save you time or make it worth it once you get used to it? I still click the wrong difficulty, VERY RARELY.. like only a couple times or so in thousands and thousands of games...so I'm not so much worried about clicking the wrong bar. But I am curious if it saves a lot of time and is better for not those misclick times.

Definitely saves times over a large number of runs. It also saves me the possibility of having to re-roll maps, which if it happens even a couple times could mean a significant chunk of time spent not doing the runs you were there for. Lastly, it's one less click per run for the mouse hand, which is good for extended running as well.
 
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I still just click, because I dont do a lot of efficiency running. VERY rarely misclick. However, everyone should make a mental note (as mentioned) you can just Ctrl+Alt+Del/Task Manager when you accidentally enter wrong difficulty. DONT S&E!! Just terminate d2 application from OS, and you wont lose your maps! (y)
 
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