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Quick question.

I just got a new sorc to Hell Meph and am trying to farm some basic gears before moving to join RFL as pure blizzard sorc.

I got to meph with typical speed running gear: stealth, ancients pledge etc. And have no gears to note other than skullders, alibaba, goldwrap, chancy and lidless.

Assuming about 10-15 hour mf time - to give myself a chance to actually finish a full set in RFL - what would be the bare minimum i should farm before moving on to cows??
 
If you're going untwinked, high priority would go to +skills items (harly, vipermagi, arachnid, etc) and FCR gear, as well as merc survival gear (tal's mask, vamp gaze, duriel's, etc.). Resistances aren't much of an issue with cows, and even though you'll spend a lot of time repositioning with teleport, you don't want your merc taking a dirt nap everytime you encounter might/fanat enchanted packs.
 
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Alright. That seems to be the typical MF sorc setup.

Was wondering if there would be a "must" to find; but it seems itll be a get-what-i-can instead.

Thanks!
 
@Gynli @Vildecor I'll just add back when i did some cow runs with blizzy with no cta, I definitely preferred max block. Think I just went with wistans to keep the life as high as possible. I'd most definitely do something like that if spirit monarch isn't available. But yeah otherwise, shako, arachs, viper like vildecor said. Shako probably the most important. Good luck!
 
I think it is IIRC. If you want to check, the numbers for Assassin Claws are in my claw guide. If these work, I would assume Double Swing is OK too.

Just remember if you are doing this PvM you need to re-lift the weapon every time you switch weapons. Personally I can't be bothered with it for PvP, let alone PvM.
 
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I think it is IIRC. If you want to check, the numbers for Assassin Claws are in my claw guide. If these work, I would assume Double Swing is OK too.

Just remember if you are doing this PvM you need to re-lift the weapon every time you switch weapons. Personally I can't be bothered with it for PvP, let alone PvM.
Thanks. And yeah under normal circumstances I can't be arsed to do it either, but it's for the 'Orange You Glad' crafting tournament. So, for better or worse, I likely won't have access to Warcry sticks for pre-buff :p
 
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Anyone ever play a Dragon Claw assassin? For some reason I like the idea of playing a physical sin slicing and dicing her foes, but...I've read around and it sounds like this could be a very painful build if untwinked :p

Clearly I will have enough AR since D-claw has a whopping 515% AR bonus at level 20 (dear lord why is the AR bonus so high and the ED% so pitiful?) and Claw Mastery also provides 220% AR, but I'm worried about ED%. I will have only ~330%ED when using dclaw. A bit low considering there are no runewords like Honor for claws that I could fall back on in case I don't find/gamble anything. An Act II Might Merc will help, but still.

I'm also wondering about Venom, it's useful in NM untwinked but without a bunch of +skills and +PSN% damage from Trang/Bramble I have a feeling I shouldn't bother with it for Hell.

Any testimonials?
 
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I did an untwinked aggressin in my 7x7 through A3 Hell and respeced and twinked then to ease progress:

Quite fun (single pass full clears with shopping for trap claws to go hybrid). I will eventually rebuild a fully twinked version, and I can definitely endorse. @maxicek has a guide or something also :)

 
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@PhineasB

Ty for the reply! Sounds like it's quite possible. I like the idea of LS/DS hybrid play, it's going to be quite the bumpy ride with all the hotkeys but it'll be fun!

I think I'll take it the same way you did, mostly untwinked with the possibility of outside help if Hell becomes too difficult.
 
Depends if it is single pass untwinked or just untwinked. SBartucs should be findable from NM Meph. If not you need to shop for cruel claws & use your imbues.
 
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Depends if it is single pass untwinked or just untwinked. SBartucs should be findable from NM Meph. If not you need to shop for cruel claws & use your imbues.
Definitely not single pass, I'm having enough of that in the craft tournament with another somewhat underpowered melee character, a double swing barb 😵

I think for fun I'll imbue eth claws if I find the right bases.
 
@d2lover Never heard anybody do that. It's uncharted territory. Be careful with a Vamp Gaze though, it can end up with less def than the unupped version.

***

Does anybody know how Durability works with dual claws? I have two Bartuc's equipped and they don't "wear themselves" so there's no weird bugging going on. I attack only with Dragon Claw on left skill slot and use Weapon Block as defense. After one Bloody run my left side claw has full durability but my right hand claw has lost durability (quite a bit). I don't use Blade Shield.

This is 1.09 if that helps but maybe this is something universal throughout patches and I just don't know about it.
 
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Sounds curious. I assume it would follow the standard 4% chance to lose durability? If DC somehow skips this, you could wear ethereal weapon on the off-hand, without fear of breaking it. Or maybe you just happened to unluckily roll for only the main weapon to lose durability, which seems very improbable.
 
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I tested it a few more times with similar results. Sometimes I lost like 1 or 2 durability on left hand claw but it turned out that was from Dragon Flight.

The ethereal claw is a good idea to exploit this. Just need to find an eth Bartuc's somewhere :D

On another note Phoenix Strike in 1.09 is very weak, no idea why everyone is recommending it... it gives a nice AR boost though.
 
This evening I mistreated normal Diablo with four assassins who all managed to keep their hireling alive during the battle (one rogue, two ice mages and one town guard). I threw the rogues bow and town guards partizan on the ground before engaging and Diablo ignored the mercenaries altogether. This would seem to confirm the hypothesis that mercenary damage or its weapon damage plays a decisive role in determining who Diablo targets. In this case the rogue was the emplyee of the year and kept her distance while the mages milled about rather close and the town guard obviously being in melee range, pointing towards the conclusion that while distance may be a factor in Diablos targeting priority, the damage compared to the main characters damage takes precedence.
 
I have noticed a thing when I open sparkly chest in ancient tunnels. There seems to sometimes be two drops coming from the chest, sometimes at least. Sometimes i get a normal drop with a bunch of gold, and some blue items... and a unique item, or set item. What is happening?
 
I have noticed a thing when I open sparkly chest in ancient tunnels. There seems to sometimes be two drops coming from the chest, sometimes at least. Sometimes i get a normal drop with a bunch of gold, and some blue items... and a unique item, or set item. What is happening?
art_vandelay recently reminded me of his in-depth guide about chests and the items they release. It's a big bite to chew on, but looks like a very thorough answer to your question, "What is happening?"

I found it very difficult to decipher, so here's my shot at a tl;dr version: the game code will randomly choose among six different "recipes" for selecting the stuff that a sparkly chest will drop. The randomness isn't uniform: if you open a sparkly chest fifty times in fifty different games, the recipe that tries to select a unique item is expected to only happen (approximately) once, but the recipe that tries to drop at least three blue items is expected to happen (approximately) ten times, and the recipe that tries to drop at least two blue items will happen (approximately) seventeen times. Of course, it's even more complicated than that, because there are situations where a recipe will defer to another recipe... ;)
 
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Classes are slowing down, I'm moving soon, and now that I find myself with more free time- I've completely repurposed an old computer for the sole purpose of being my Diablo 2 machine. This old Dell is nearly as old as the game itself, and it feels good to play it on there. Thankfully, even after installing five or six instances of Diablo 2 (for time travelling without tools) I still have plenty of room on this ol' 20 gig hdd! haha

I've been considering how I wish to play. Do I go pure vanilla? FAM? Extended stash? Tough call. Reasonable decision seems to be go vanilla and enjoy it. I can always go from Vanilla to FAM, but once FAM- always FAM. Not that I plan to trade, but taint is as much mental as it is social.

Having said all of that; tomorrow I start my first D2 character in a long while. Tonight, I decide the version and the character! I wont deny that part of me even wants to make a sept thread of my very own... But I think I'd like to just Guardian a character to warm up. I'm excited.
 
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