Anything Goes D2 Lounge!

Lounge is busy tomight :)

Oh Max, you know the only thing I'm good at is spamming :ROFLMAO:.

Besides, even if I don't particularly play anymore doesn't mean I don't remember at least something about the game.

Edit because someone else edited so this can be contributive:

Single element characters have great charm so obviously one would want to clear the game with those too. What kind of hero would a character be that left dangerous demons alive and free in her wake to keep terrorizing Sanctuary?

I actually found the mighty bonehew, speaking of it, with the aforementioned cold sorceress but due to her overall frailty and bad preparation for combating cold immunes she could not take advantage of that, or of the also very useful Draculs Grasp she had found.

Ehm, what is the point of Diablo II if not to battle its enemies and succeed with as many different characters as you can come up with? It sounds extraordinary strange that skipping great parts of the game should be considered some sort of standard approach for any kind of build.

This is terribly boring and often not enough, I found out the hard way. The mercenary needs more dedicated help to prevail.

I do (or at least did) battle its enemies and I do (or at least did) succeed. I probably just did it in a manner different from how you typically play the game (and I know I do because I read some of your stories and they are fantastic). My favorite way to play the game was with another person and in hardcore. If you go back to any of my 20ish guardians you will see that for almost all of them I did it in conjunction with another forum member. Some of them were typical builds, but some of them were builds that would only work ok on their own, but worked fantastic complementing eachother. Each of them went from normal to hell straight through and then the character was free to be used for whatever else such as mf runs or baal runs or what have you and almost all of them ended up somewhere around level 84 all said and done. That's how I liked playing it so that's how I did it. That being said, we still skipped content that we didn't enjoy, particularly I remember blasting through as much of the jungle as fast as possible because I hated that area, and almost never did nihl because the danger outweighted any real benefit. Especially since that guy and his vipers are overpowered and bugged as hell.

Yes, you can kill everything if you want to, but do you have too? Not really, why not leave some for the iron wolves, or the barbs to take care of :). You kind of even contradict yourself a little here. if the point is to battle its enemies and succeed with as many different characters as you can come up with, you are going to have some builds that will struggle in certain areas, and it then in fact becomes terribly boring. Its not really a challenge to watch a merc try and kill 3 cold immunes for 10 minutes, its really just a game of how long can I wait before I'm annoyed to the point of not playing anymore because I'm bored.
 
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Can one of you version switchers help me out?

I am trying to get 1.07 running again and I just can't get it going. I have a fresh shiney clean install of 1.13d that I'm starting from (not downloaded through the downloader currently provided on the blizzard website). The caveat I have here is that I have my discs, but my computer has no disk drive at all so it's impossible for me to have my disks inserted. Using the links in the stickied post I have installed and tried launching 1.07 through:

1. Bliss version switcher - Forum accepted version linked, followed installation instructions. Launched 1.13d through the switcher first. Then tried launching 1.07, and literally nothing happens on screen when I click launch. tried -w, not window, -3dfx, not 3dfx

2. Trenshadow version switcher - again, starting from a clean install, following installation instructions. I launch 1.07 through the freshly created shortcut, it gives me the two prompts (create bin files? run in windowed mode?), and then nothing happens. Doesn't matter how I answer those questions.

I THINK I have all the disk mpq files stored away on my external in an old d2 installation. Will that help me with either of these programs? What are my other options? Is the only current forum accepted way to get old versions running to have a disk inserted into your computer?
 
An external disk drive is pretty cheap, I picked one up a couple years ago for my (then) new laptop. Sorry I can't be of more, or perhaps any, help.
 
An external disk drive is pretty cheap, I picked one up a couple years ago for my (then) new laptop. Sorry I can't be of more, or perhaps any, help.

Yeah man. I was thinking I'd have to do that. I was just itching to get it going and I live in small town ND so it's a struggle to get anything.
 
I will just say that, of the many delightful things in the SPF's 99er history, Grogs' double Hel'ed Bonehew is easily in the top 3 for me:

1. CE with full Blizz was such an elegant solution in the era of no respecs and Baal being the main option due to IM and lack of Nihl exploration.
2. It nonetheless meant using charges for a key piece of Baal runs. And if memory serves, it also meant p1 for waves 1 and 2, leaving a lot of XP on the table from wave 2 . . .
3. He ran Baal with full Blizz to 99!
 
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@Pyrotechnician
About teamplay, I absolutely agree it's a great way to enjoy the game and get by with very singularly focused characters that can complement and help one another.

I've also skipped areas on occassion with some characters, typically in nightmare to rush ahead and search for themed gear, and I completely understand the reasons of playing that way. What I find strange is more like how that way of playing often appears to be the recommended and even expected in discussions of how to build and equip a single damage type character. I lean more to always assuming that untwinked all-clearing should at least be a possibility for any character, unless stated otherwise by the one who asks, and skipping areas will be up to the player if he or she so wishes but not something that we'd expect as the default strategy, so to say, when advising on building and playing a character.

Yes, you can kill everything if you want to, but do you have too? Not really, why not leave some for the iron wolves, or the barbs to take care of :). You kind of even contradict yourself a little here. if the point is to battle its enemies and succeed with as many different characters as you can come up with, you are going to have some builds that will struggle in certain areas, and it then in fact becomes terribly boring. Its not really a challenge to watch a merc try and kill 3 cold immunes for 10 minutes, its really just a game of how long can I wait before I'm annoyed to the point of not playing anymore because I'm bored.
I think I have been unclear regarding this. My point is that it will be boring to just watch the mercenary do the work and help out with some limited support like static field and telekinesis and that the sorceress, or any other character facing immunes, consequently would have to have an effective - and thereby also fun - solution planned for those immune enemies.

So in the discussed particular case the sorceress might have to be built to make use of ranged or melee weapons that let her help out actively without being too exposed, so she can choose to engage in combat when the blizzards fail her. And finding the balance between casting and immune-battling then becomes one of the main challenges when building the character, and something that can set different blizzard sorceresses apart in an interesting way.
 
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Guys how do I perform a GoMule readout?
For individual items, you can right click and "view item". For full readout, you can copy/paste from the "dump" tab.

You can also create a .txt file with the "perform txt dump" button on the right.
 
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My blizz sorc was parked at the AT for MF purposes, and leveled most of the way through 94. I had, years ago, taken her all the way through the game to the point just before the Ancients quest. Last night I decided to finish Baal, mostly due to inspiration from this thread.

@Maltatai would be happy to hear that no monster escaped in my trek to take down Baal and his minions, although some CI were a bit more...stubborn ;). No Bonehew for me, I went for the safety of a ful Tal's set. Baal in typical fashion dropped nothing notable (Ginther's Rift and Bverrit Keep).

What I did discover is that she has a ridiculously good Baal map, amazing coincidence since its the same AT map I've been running for years since it is only two teleport clicks to the AT entrance. This was way before the AT map analysis thread @Albatross did, which when I have the time will do a breakdown to see how my map shakes out.
 
Extra Strong and Aura are additive not multiplicative correct?

Long but detailed answer below, short answer is yes, additive:

Newbie question on monsters.

1. extra stong + fire enhance, do 200%phy+200%fire or 200%phy+100%fire?
2. extra stong + might auro(+100% damage), do 300%phy or 400%phy?
3. Why are souls so dangerous in hell? Their damage doesn't seem that much on paper.
4. What are the chances of critical strike by melee/range. will critical strike double elemental damage?

Re: Newbie question on monsters.

  1. A monster's base damage is calculated by applying percentage values for that monster from MonStats.txt for the relevant difficulty level to an absolute value from MonLvl.txt for the relevant monster level and difficulty level. The MonLvl.txt damage value for level 85 in Hell is 96, while the MonStats.txt percentage values for a Burning Soul's melee physical damage (its A1 attack) are 45-115: this results in the base melee physical damage of a Burning Soul in the Throne of Destruction of Hell (a level 85 area) being 43 [96*45/100] to 110 [96*115/100].

    Added magic, elemental, poison and mana damage from Unique bonuses is calculated by applying percentage values for the monster type from MonUMod.txt for the relevant difficulty level to an absolute value from MonLvl.txt for the relevant monster level and difficulty level. Unique monsters and their minions have base level +3, the MonLvl.txt damage value for level ** (85+3) in Hell is 100 and MonUMod.txt's percentage values in Hell are 66-100 for a Unique and 33-50 for its minions: this results in a Fire Enchanted Unique Burning Soul in the Throne of Destruction of Hell having 66 [100*66/100] to 100 [100*100/100] fire damage added, while its minions would have 33 [100*33/100] to 50 [100*50/100] fire damage added.

    If the Unique were Extra Strong then, according to the Arreat Summit's recently updated Special Monster Bonuses page, +99% Enhanced Damage would normally be applied to its physical monster damage in Hell: however, in the case of Willowisps like Burning Souls this is halved to +49% [99/2] ED, resulting in 45-115 melee physical damage being increased to approximately 67-171 (*1.49). Overall, an FE ES Unique Burning Soul in the Throne of Destruction of Hell would apply approximately 67-171 physical damage and 66-100 fire damage with its A1 attack, while its minions (+[49/2]% ED) would apply approximately 55-142 physical damage and 33-50 fire damage each.

  2. A Unique Burning Soul in the Throne of Destruction of Hell that was ES (+[99/2]% ED) and Aura Enchanted with level 14 [**/6] Might (+170% ED) would apply +219% (49+170) ED in total to its 45-115 base melee physical damage, increasing it to approximately 143-366; +194% (24+170) ED in total would apply to 45-115 base melee physical damage of its minions, increasing it to approximately 132-338.

  3. Due to a bug, Willowisp lightning bolt damage is calculated using the percentage values for the mana damage added to its A1 attack rather than those that should be used for the lightning damage of its bolts. The percentage values used to calculate its mana damage in Hell are 200-300, whereas those that should be used for its lightning damage are 5-190.

    Willowisp lightning bolts collide with a solitary target once, since they are prevented from colliding with their last target. However, if two targets are close enough together for a single bolt to collide with both of them, then the second target becomes its last target and it can collide with the first again. Fortunately, unlike Tomb Viper clouds the bolts are moving, so they normally don't have time to collide with each target more than twice before they move out of range... unless they're slowed down after casting Slow Missiles on the Willowisps, in which case they can collide with each target up to four times.

  4. Monsters have 5% chance of a critical hit doubling damage of all types (physical, magic, fire, lightning, cold and poison) from all sources: this includes Bone Fetish and FE explosions, but not Nihlathak's Corpse Explosions.
 
Can one of you version switchers help me out?

I am trying to get 1.07 running again and I just can't get it going. I have a fresh shiney clean install of 1.13d that I'm starting from (not downloaded through the downloader currently provided on the blizzard website). The caveat I have here is that I have my discs, but my computer has no disk drive at all so it's impossible for me to have my disks inserted. Using the links in the stickied post I have installed and tried launching 1.07 through:

1. Bliss version switcher - Forum accepted version linked, followed installation instructions. Launched 1.13d through the switcher first. Then tried launching 1.07, and literally nothing happens on screen when I click launch. tried -w, not window, -3dfx, not 3dfx

2. Trenshadow version switcher - again, starting from a clean install, following installation instructions. I launch 1.07 through the freshly created shortcut, it gives me the two prompts (create bin files? run in windowed mode?), and then nothing happens. Doesn't matter how I answer those questions.

I THINK I have all the disk mpq files stored away on my external in an old d2 installation. Will that help me with either of these programs? What are my other options? Is the only current forum accepted way to get old versions running to have a disk inserted into your computer?

An external disk drive is pretty cheap, I picked one up a couple years ago for my (then) new laptop. Sorry I can't be of more, or perhaps any, help.

Those are the main resources to use, if you are like me, and it sounds like you are, I was having problems using both versions although I eventually got the bliss version switcher to work somehow. Before I figured it out though my simple solution was to just have a separate folder for every patch I wanted to play:

1599833079531.png

The plain diablo II folder seen above is my 1.13d instance. If I wanted to switch, I would just relabel the folder to have "- 1.13d" behind it, and then take away that same extension behind the version I wanted to play. Its a pain and it takes up more space this way but its a super simple solution if you want to play right now without trying to figure out whats not working. Computers these days have tons of space and all four versions I want to play fit on a low space flash drive, so its a cheap alternative if you don't want to get a full external drive. Just be sure to make backups every now and again should the flash drive fail for some reason.

Only difference in the folders below are each folder has its own save folder so the characters don't get mixed obviously, and the patch.mpq file is different. I think by default if you downloaded the bliss version switcher files they included modified files that didn't require a disc to play.
 
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@Pyrotechnician
About teamplay, I absolutely agree it's a great way to enjoy the game and get by with very singularly focused characters that can complement and help one another.

I've also skipped areas on occassion with some characters, typically in nightmare to rush ahead and search for themed gear, and I completely understand the reasons of playing that way. What I find strange is more like how that way of playing often appears to be the recommended and even expected in discussions of how to build and equip a single damage type character. I lean more to always assuming that untwinked all-clearing should at least be a possibility for any character, unless stated otherwise by the one who asks, and skipping areas will be up to the player if he or she so wishes but not something that we'd expect as the default strategy, so to say, when advising on building and playing a character.

I think I have been unclear regarding this. My point is that it will be boring to just watch the mercenary do the work and help out with some limited support like static field and telekinesis and that the sorceress, or any other character facing immunes, consequently would have to have an effective - and thereby also fun - solution planned for those immune enemies.

So in the discussed particular case the sorceress might have to be built to make use of ranged or melee weapons that let her help out actively without being too exposed, so she can choose to engage in combat when the blizzards fail her. And finding the balance between casting and immune-battling then becomes one of the main challenges when building the character, and something that can set different blizzard sorceresses apart in an interesting way.

You make a fair point, its probably not right to assume that an untwinked character will be skipping areas and not doing full clears, but at the same time untwinked, full clear single pass isn't exactly a common thing either, and knowing what Resetti did with his last untwinked character I made an assumption. You know what they say about assumptions though, they make an ass out of you and me, haha :ROFLMAO:. Its probably because when I look to build my characters I look to make them fun for the play through first, but then have them useful and efficient afterwards (and have no concern if I burn a respec in the process), and I've only done one untwinked full clear build in my life.
 
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I think by default if you downloaded the bliss version switcher files they included modified files that didn't require a disc to play.

Hm. Interesting. I can't for the life of me figure out why 1.07 and 1.09b won't launch for me through the bvs I downloaded off the current link in the sticky if that's the case. 1.13d and 1.14d both launch without issue through that BVS and without having disks in. I believe I have everything set up correctly as far as like paths/flags/patches/folder structure. When I hit launch on 1.07/1.09b, I get nothing, no "please insert disk", no error message or anything. It's such a pain to get everything up and running each time I start playing again. I think I just gotta suck it up and do it the good old fashioned way, get my disks in there and start with a fresh 1.07 install.
 
Hm. Interesting. I can't for the life of me figure out why 1.07 and 1.09b won't launch for me through the bvs I downloaded off the current link in the sticky if that's the case. 1.13d and 1.14d both launch without issue through that BVS and without having disks in. I believe I have everything set up correctly as far as like paths/flags/patches/folder structure. When I hit launch on 1.07/1.09b, I get nothing, no "please insert disk", no error message or anything. It's such a pain to get everything up and running each time I start playing again. I think I just gotta suck it up and do it the good old fashioned way, get my disks in there and start with a fresh 1.07 install.

If it doesn't come up with anything you could always try a couple things. Also in the links is a download for the "No CD" files by GalaxyHax. You could try replacing the files in the bliss version switcher with those.

Second you can try running the version switcher in admin mode and give it permissions for read/write because I think way back this was an issue that was discussed but I can't for the life of me remember. Its been a whie.
 
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If it doesn't come up with anything you could always try a couple things. Also in the links is a download for the "No CD" files by GalaxyHax. You could try replacing the files in the bliss version switcher with those.
Didn't see this, I'll give it a go.

Second you can try running the version switcher in admin mode and give it permissions for read/write because I think way back this was an issue that was discussed but I can't for the life of me remember. Its been a whie.
Already tried this one.

Thanks for the suggestions pyro.


EDIT: Don't know how I didn't see those galaxyhax no-cd files. I just got home from work, plopped them in there and bam. Game launches. Saves me the hassle of making isos of my disks and transferring between computers and all that jazz. Thanks again @Pyrotechnician
 
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Didn't see this, I'll give it a go.


Already tried this one.

Thanks for the suggestions pyro.


EDIT: Don't know how I didn't see those galaxyhax no-cd files. I just got home from work, plopped them in there and bam. Game launches. Saves me the hassle of making isos of my disks and transferring between computers and all that jazz. Thanks again @Pyrotechnician

Fantastic, glad it worked. That's about as much as I can help though unless you want to play 1.07 lol.
 
If I lost itemz while muling Muled itemz on char and forgot to save...any chance to recover them? Lost 3 KO Runz which would be a vital Obediance!
 
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