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I just tried the ancients on hell mode with my martial artist. Besides the game crashing on the battle 4 and then freezing up on the 5th, I finally littered the ground with pots. But they make short work on my merc and then seem to 2-3 shot kill me even at 1700 life with a CtA loan. I'm level 78, most builds that's more than enough for me. Not sure what else to do here. Maybe if I respec for the shadow warrior that would draw less aggro on me.
More info about your build? What kind of gear do you have? Are you playing on /players 1? /players 8? Do you have blocking/resistances?
 
@McGruber08
I had problems too with ancients with my Nats Phoenix Striker. No CoS there, so a bit of a hassle.
She has 40+ DR, so she can tank a bit, but whenever they roll cursed or extra strong, it's pretty much GG for me. Extra fast is PITA too. FYI I have around 1600k life at level 84.
If you're using a reapers toll merc, it would be a bit easier imo. Otherwise, Ice bolt charge them first. You need to slow them down and/or tank them enough so you can spam the meteor charges in.

As for hotkeys, I hotkey PS, FoF, CoT and BoI at ASDF... I play my PSer two ways;
Phoenix strike exclusively and then finish (This requires timing and muscle memory, so I hardly mix with other charges)
Or charge up FoF, CoT and BoI fully until I have the ultimate Nova finish for clearing packs. I don't particularly understand which skills are affected by the next delay, but since Hell mobs have at least 1 immunity, I don't think it would matter😅
 
@Serdash @Jamie Right. I don't want to use my BlizzSorc there because she is currently geared up for Travincal, and the setup is quite different. And the Meteorb can do Pit/Pindle, but can't do Travincal (I don't have Infinity). I also like the Fireball/Meteor combination a lot better, just got very used to it.

And still, the doubts would be the same: what's the recommended run/walk setup, how many skillers is enough, runtimes to aim for, etc.

About Halls->Nihlatak, Jamie, what exactly do you do? Kill Pindle then enter the temple and clear all areas? Or teleport straight to Nihlatak? Also, do I need Infinity for that? I don't know the immunities in those areas, I almost never do the Nihla quest tbh.

You don't need any skillers to do those runs. I think maybe I run with one or two. I was running the area before I had even found a Shako yet. I found Deaths Fathom before a Shako lol. This was a restart from a hard-drive crash I didn't have backed up several years back.

I run on 8 Players, kill Pindle and his small mob and then go down the stairs and teleport around that entire level taking out as many boss packs as I can find. Try to focus on boss packs, evil urns and the golden chest in the Halls of Anguish. I end up killing a lot of non-boss packs sometimes, but it happens and if you are good enough with a Blizzer to leave it on a high Players setting when you get past Pindle, you'll get tons of drops.

I'm not sure what you mean about the run/walk setup, unless you mean a different character like a Hammerdin. Not utilizing Teleport on a Sorceress isn't a good idea, lol. But when doing these runs, I only bother killing Pindle and his cronies and then clearing out as much of the Halls of Anguish(very next level past Pindleskin) as I can, boss packs/evil urn/golden chest/occasionally large packs of monsters. I don't go past that area and don't kill Nihlathak. For the difficulty he poses and being cold immune, he doesn't really pay out for the trouble.

As far as cold immunes, there is only a couple monster combinations that can spawn in the Halls of Anguish that make the level not worth fighting in with a Blizzer. If that so happens, I just move on to the next game. You can tell pretty quickly if it's a map worth bailing on. Other than occasional bosses spawning immunity to cold, you are good to go on most maps.

I do not use an Infinity on my Blizzer ever, either. For these runs a high damage Insight should work fine and keep your mana solid. I either use Insight on my Blizzer or an Ethereal Reaper's Toll I found early on(may have been down in this area actually lol). Might Mercenary with Shael'd Reaper's Toll(non ethereal works fine as well), Treachery and a Guillame's works very well for taking out cold immunes during any type of MF runs. If you can afford a Fortitude and want higher damage over speed, you can probably go that route and use an Andy's and may or may not need a Shael in Reaper's and an IAS(+Fire Resist if possible) for breakpoint purposes. I never use Fort, always have used Treachery so I'd have to check the exact breakpoints again.

I have a Shael in my Reaper's, but it's on my Zealer for Trav Runs. I MUCH MUCH prefer my Zealer over my Blizzard Sorc for Trav runs. But for the Pindle/Halls runs, the Blizzer is faster and Insight should do you fine. I used to mess around with Meteorb back in 1.09 before synergies, when dual element was obviously the way to go. I messed around with them earlier on in the post 1.09 era, but quickly realized that Blizzard with a decent Merc will far outperform a dual element Sorceress. Pure Blizzard just does far more damage, is effective at much further ranges and you can avoid most cold immunes in the game and use static/telekinesis/might mercenary to quickly take out the few cold immunes you have to deal with. The time saved using Blizzard, far outweighs the time having to rely on your mercenary a few times.
 
@McGruber08
I don't have much advice for you, but I know that the shadow warrior can cast CoS and CoS causes crashes at ancients and other places so you need to consider that.
I ended up re-specing, I never thought to go full traps to get past them, and maxed claw mastery. I connected a lot more and beat them much easier.

When it crashed for me it as before the shadow warrior and I had another crash where I was dumping pots on the floor and restocking for more. I was unable to move on one trip back in town and had to reset.

Thanks everyone for all the great strategies and tips on hot keying!
 
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I'm using a Phoenix Striker, she's now at lvl 78. Normally I hot key Pheonix Strike, Claws of Thunder, Fists of Fire and Blades of Ice on F1-F4 respectively, and on F6 Dragon Claw for my finisher.

I've read on a guide that "Phoenix strike works well with Fists of Fire, but not with Claws of Thunder. Wondering what hotkeys & combos other use.

I also (when I remember) use death sentry on the bodies for extra effect, but often forget in the heat of things. Recently just added Mind Blast to make her even more effective when hordes come in

Using QWERT and sometimes Y and ASDF and sometimes G for your skill hotkeys, makes the game one thousand times easier.

I usually use QWERT for passives of precast type spells like BO, Holy Shield, Auras, Valkry, Frozen Armor etc(I do use E for Blizzard though). Then ASDF and possibly G I usually use for attack skills and more frequently used skills. It depends on how many skills I want hotkeys for, some characters it's good to have a lot of spells hotkeyed, even if you don't use them that much.

I always use A as attack early on as a new character when you are using basic attack frequently, but always have A as teleport once, or if, I obtain teleport on a character.

You have to move things around to do this, but there is an easy solution that I use.

First of setting the Space Bar as your 'show items' button, instead of Alt, is probably the most important. You can put your thumb on space all day if you want and never have to bother searching for the Alt key. This one is as helpful as changing the skills from the hard to find F1,F2,etc keys, to the letters that your hand is already naturally resting on.

The rest:
quest log from Q to L
swap weapons from W to V
toggle run/walk from R to X
skill tree from S to K
show portraits should be Z
character screen should be C


The last couple might already be standard, I forgot. But I think that covers the switches you would need to make. This allows your left hand to be on the standard keyboard position, index finger on F and pinky on A, with your thumb on the Space Bar. Your right hand runs the mouse, while your left hand is already positioned on, or next to, any hotkeys you might need to change to and they are letters anyone should already be used to finding in an instant. Your thumb is already on the Space Bar, so you'll be able to check the ground constantly without moving. The buttons you switched around like weapon swap, skill tree, run/walk and others you'll have to remember and get used to, but they aren't so important as skills that you need to be able to constantly swap to, to fight effectively. The potions stay at 1-4 and shouldn't be difficult to find.

This might feel weird for you for a little while, but it doesn't take long at all to get used to and once you do, you'll wonder how you ever played the game using the F1, F2, F3, F4, etc keys and alt for 'show items on ground'.
 
Greetings SPF, how much slow can you stack on a character? I was thinking mixing holy freeze with slow target and decrepify for extra slowdown. I've heard you can slow monsters down enough to walk out of the path of their attack. I'm curious to see what I can do with all this.
 
Greetings SPF, how much slow can you stack on a character? I was thinking mixing holy freeze with slow target and decrepify for extra slowdown. I've heard you can slow monsters down enough to walk out of the path of their attack. I'm curious to see what I can do with all this.
I'm wanting to say it's something like 75% slow target. But I'm probably wrong
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've yet to see an "armor" sorc build with fully synergized armors.

The numbers looked pretty decent, enough to actually dispense the infinity merc. (and these numbers are before factoring in the 40+% damage via fathom and nightwings)

Annotation 2020-07-30 120506.png

I'm thinking of supplementing this with either Nova or Firewall, but at the end of the day, I'm basically a Thorns/IM sorc, and that requires tanking.

How could I make this work? Getting 2500++ life on a sorc is a pretty tall task imo without sacrifices. ES will pretty much rule out the supplementary attack.
 
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've yet to see an "armor" sorc build with fully synergized armors.

The numbers looked pretty decent, enough to actually dispense the infinity merc. (and these numbers are before factoring in the 40+% damage via fathom and nightwings)

View attachment 58445

I'm thinking of supplementing this with either Nova or Firewall, but at the end of the day, I'm basically a Thorns/IM sorc, and that requires tanking.

How could I make this work? Getting 2500++ life on a sorc is a pretty tall task imo without sacrifices. ES will pretty much rule out the supplementary attack.
Dump into enchant. Grab you a BIG weapon. Fight back. Get some flat DR/MDR to absorb more hits. Take that energy shield because nothing is wrong with a supplementary life bulb when you don't use Mana for anything else
 
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Unlike Thorns/IM, Shiver Armor damage should apply on blocked hits and misses and will not suffer from DR / DR%. This should make the whole tanking thing easier because you can use a Stormshield.
I'd also test a Defiance merc to make use of the high level armors, although HF might be necessary to survive.

As far as actually killing anything... spell casters will probably be the biggest issue. Firewall doesn't sound too bad, but maybe you could go for Thunder Storm :D
A Dream helm + Death's Fathom with a Shael rune, imagine all the electric branch whiffing noises! With Infinity the attacks might even connect.
You could still grab ES to make some use of the mana bulb.

Use Lava Gout and 1 point FM and Warmth as a cheap source of Enchant. You'll still want 20 more IAS (total 58%) from somewhere, at the least aim for 42% with Nosferatu's Coil or an IAS jewel.

Definitely let us know how it goes :)
 
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Does anyone else find theorycrafting and character stats almost as much or even more fun than playing the characters? I've been having a blast just seeing how crazy high or low I can make the numbers go. Even metaDiablo 2 is addicting.
Lolz. Same. It's like that time when I find building and upgrading my gaming pc being more satisfying than playing the games itself..:p

Of course there are times playing certain builds straight up disappoint/frustrate you completely. My PDR charger and now an on-going Leap Attacker comes to mind...
 
Here's how the cold armors seemed to respond when I used them:

Frozen Armor freezes (but doesn't damage) melee enemies that attack, regardless of whether or not the enemy hits or is blocked.
Frozen Armor freezes (but doesn't damage) melee enemies that hit, but doesn't freeze enemies that miss or are blocked.

Shiver armor chills and damages melee enemies that hit, but doesn't chill or damage enemies that miss or are blocked.
Shiver armor chills and damages melee enemies upon each attack, regardless of whether or not the enemy hits, misses, or is blocked.

Chilling armor returns an ice bolt at ranged enemies that attack, regardless of whether or not the enemy missile hits, misses, or is blocked.

I started one of these about six years ago, and I still have her file, but I stopped playing her part way through act 3 hell. She has a Demon Limb, which helps her attacks a lot, but I didn't get an Energy Shield for her - I probably should have put a point into it. She needs some better resist gear, and she should re-run earlier acts a bit more, to get up to a level where she and her mercenary aren't so level disadvantaged in later acts, but I had lost interest. :(

(Update: I'm playing another cold armor sorceress in July 2023. What I posted back in 2020 was incorrect. Fixed. 😖)

[edit: corrected almost 3 years later. I was so embarrassingly wrong!]​
 

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Did someone already ATMA-bug a 1.07 eth Polearm and put Infinity in it and slammed it on a Tesladin?
I mean... I had a Tesladin that had Infinity on his merc. I feel like a Tesladin with a polearm would be unnecessarily slow.
 
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