Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2) de

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Rice_Farmer3 - I already mentioned skelemancer and hammerdin earlier

As for the rest:

Trapsin is a nightmare if underleveled, and useless against enemies with decent fire/lightning resistances (think urdars... those are such a pain) until you get infinity.
Wind druid - until you reach very high level, you will struggle. A weaker hammerdin.
Zealot - dies too fast Without good items that bump his life beyond 1000.

It's still just three builds that can comfortably play untwinked..how's that good design

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Trapsin - Yes, it does suffer from immunes, but may things about it allows very defensive play. Sure, it won't be fast, but dying can be avoided a lot if you can utilize tricks like running away with BoS while monsters are chilled by Holy Freeze Merc, etc. I found that just walking from Normal to end of NM and doing all quests will clock the character in at around lvl 70, and walking through Hell will come to about lvl 75+ by act 5. I find that's usually good enough level.
Wind Druid - Weaker Hammerdin is a very accurate description, but again, in my personal experience, levels were high enough. Again, not exactly a speed-killer, but still very death-free if you utilize Merc, Bear, etc.
Zealot - Physical zealots stand no chance untwinked, but an elemental variety, Frost Zealot, in my case, does well, if you constantly look out for good gear from both drops and vendors. No one uses magical/rare/unpopular uniques in favor or cookie-cutter uniques and runewords, but I found that nice ones weren't too far behind the well-used items. Lifetap/Lower Resist/Amp Damage wands, if all else fails.

Yes, Fishymancer and Meteorb (and other dual-tree sorc) and perhaps Hammerdin are about the only builds that can cut through Hell, but other builds can be perfectly viable and enjoyable if you play defensively and have the patience. In a way, walking Normal to Hell with something like a Frost Zealot can be more fun than destroying everything with a cookie-cutter Hdin because you have to constantly stay on your toes and use more than just 3-4 skills all the time.
The only character class I could never play untwinked is Barbarian, but I'm sure there's something out there.

Then again, you're speaking from your experience, and I from mine. I personally find fun in the challenge of going up against unending hordes of overpowered monsters with my carefully managed characters. That's why I think this game is good design. This game's been around for over 10 years, and everything about it has been beaten to death and beyond, yet it STILL provides even veteran players with challenge and fun. If you think about it, every thing the game faced danger of stagnating into cookie-cutters with click-click-kill-kill atmosphere, Blizzard did something about it to shake it up. For example, the introduction of synergy and other drastic changes of 1.10 pretty much changed the entire gameplay, and as NEW cookie-cutters were beginning to dominate, new runewords were introduced to open up a dozens of new possible builds. The Uber quest also introduced a challenge of whole new level for players for whom Hell Baal had become a cakewalk. Most recently, the introduction of respec and frequent rune drops made the game much more flexible and accessible even to players with little D2 knowledge.

EDIT: I would also like add that with such readily available respecs, you can momentarily re-tweak the character to get through whatever area's giving you trouble then switch back or whatever you want. For example, if a Frost Zealot is suffering mightily from Cold/Physical immunes, he can respec some points into, say Holy Lightning or Vengeance (or take the ultimate shortcut and convert to a Hdin), to take care of those. I would even say that it's a smart idea to always have a dozen or so skill points unused (unless it's a very tight build), for emergency flexibility.

 

[stephan]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Yes, if you can't play a trapsin comfortably untwinked, there is something wrong with you. It's certainly not the game, because they work fine. A trapsin is just a fishy who doesn't depend on a merc to get the first kill and gets extra free res. If you can play an untwinked fishy trough Hell then a trapper should be no problem because it's really easier and faster.

I never understood the skellie hype over the trapper, because having an untwinked merc or skellies kill anything in the later acts in Hell is just as fun as scratching your eyes out.

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

I never understood the skellie hype over the trapper, because having an untwinked merc or skellies kill anything in the later acts in Hell is just as fun as scratching your eyes out.

Revived Frenzytaurs/Venom Lord FTW for the endgame. Also, once you've gotten to the later acts, Fishymancer arguably becomes easier because you can simply hop into the Pindle portal and score free skellies.
But yeah, I totally agree that untwinked Trapsin is more fun, if not more effective, than an untwinked Skellimancer, though I'd personally just make a Meteorb to start out.

 

[stephan]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Revived Frenzytaurs/Venom Lord FTW for the endgame.

Well first you have to kill them to get them, and then they get lost and disappear anyway.

Also, once you've gotten to the later acts, Fishymancer arguably becomes easier because you can simply hop into the Pindle portal and score free skellies.

Whereas the trapper would go in the Pindle portal and... kill Pindle?

How about that?

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

I played a trapper from scratch, two ladders ago. It was actually fun, but there were times I wanted to kill myself. I'm not saying it's a bad build, but I'd put it behind Skelemancer and hammerdin in terms of "untwinked viability" and somewhere on par with dual tree sorceress. While you don't have as much power as sorc, you have cloak of shadows and mindblast, two one point wonders that will help you a million times.

As I mentioned before, however, while this is a powerful char, against foes with decent resists it kills slowly. Hammerdin has nearly no immunes + extra damage, skellymancer has amp and an extremely powerful CE that wreaks havoc no matter how strong the enemies are (not to mention the skeletons are actually quite capable damage dealers en masse), sorceress has cold mastery which removes problems with non-immune resisters. Trapsin doesn't have such tools.

I'd rank her fourth, behind skelly, hammerdin and sorc, in terms of ease-of-play.


Oh, and I don't see an issue with necro. As mentioned you have pindle portal, and before that you can just let your merc kill some fallen ones, with amp/decrep/golem it shouldn't be a problem for even very undergeared merc. Who says you have to raise skeletons from enemies at act 4 or 5....

 

[stephan]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

As I mentioned before, however, while this is a powerful char, against foes with decent resists it kills slowly. Hammerdin has nearly no immunes + extra damage, skellymancer has amp and an extremely powerful CE that wreaks havoc no matter how strong the enemies are (not to mention the skeletons are actually quite capable damage dealers en masse), sorceress has cold mastery which removes problems with non-immune resisters. Trapsin doesn't have such tools.

A trapsin doesn't have CE and skellies do damage? Well that's it for you in this discussion.

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

By the way, I think we inadvertently hijacked the OP lol.
Bottom line is, be patient, pick a build, stick with it, just keep playing, and you should be holding HRs in a short while.
And this is something so many D2 players don't realize. You have to get real. Hell is the hardest difficulty of Diablo 2, which is not easy to begin with. You're going to die and the playings will get slow at parts. You don't get owned in, say, Legendary difficulty of Halo and complain the game's unbalanced, do ya? If you want a breeze run, play Pokemon instead.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

A trapsin doesn't have CE and skellies do damage? Well that's it for you in this discussion.

trapsin's CE compared to necro's:

a) it's weaker
b) it's not as smart (aims randomly)
c) assassin cannot get 1st corpse as easy as necro
d) assassin doesn't have amplify damage

it's much much weaker than necro's.

And this is something so many D2 players don't realize. You have to get real. Hell is the hardest difficulty of Diablo 2, which is not easy to begin with. You're going to die and the playings will get slow at parts. You don't get owned in, say, Legendary difficulty of Halo and complain the game's unbalanced, do ya? If you want a breeze run, play Pokemon instead.

Actually Diablo2 isn't harder than pokemon. Once you get some gear, Diablo 2 is among the easiest games EVER. Hellmode is a joke! It's only hard for legit untwinked players for the first few days.

 

[stephan]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

trapsin's CE compared to necro's:

a) it's weaker
[..]
d) assassin doesn't have amplify damage

But it is sufficient. Good placement of traps will cause at least a few monsters be targeted by them so I don't need to take the complete health of a monster down with it.

b) it's not as smart (aims randomly)

Huh? You can't really aim corpse explosion. You blow up the corpse where it is. DS will only blows up corpses that are in range of other targets. Exactly what a player would do, methinks.

c) assassin cannot get 1st corpse as easy as necro

Well show the numbers and let us see how you have determined this.

 

[Rice_Farmer3]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

trapsin's CE compared to necro's:

a) it's weaker
b) it's not as smart (aims randomly)
c) assassin cannot get 1st corpse as easy as necro
d) assassin doesn't have amplify damage

it's much much weaker than necro's.

a) Weaker how? Yes, the Skellimancer is surrounded by a sea of minions, but physically, an Assassin is stronger than Necro by far on a bad day. And that's just in general, without Fade, etc.
b) About the only things you can "aim" as a Skellimancer are curses and CE. Although you can't "aim" Death Sentry's CE, it more or less explodes everything around it, so aiming isn't terribly important. IMO, the only time direct aiming would be necessary is for more offense-oriented characters, for whom best defense if good offense. For the likes of Skellimancer and Trapsin, just chilling out and casting the occasional curse/trap until the minions/traps clear the screen is a more sensible approach. As was discussed, the key to both Skellimancer and Trapsin is defensive play. Patience wins the battle for them, not spammed spells and mass destruction. This is actually why I personally prefer a Meteorb, a much more offensive build.
c) You think so? I think getting the first kill with lightning/fire traps that dish out rather hefty damage in seconds is much faster than a Necro waiting for Merc to make a kill. Unless you use the Pindle trick, in which case, I guess you're right
d) Amp Damage wands, or rather Lower Resist wand would work better for a Trapsin.

All in all though, Skellimancer is probably preferred as the first untwinked character because it can put on MF gear much more safely.
Sorry, OP, I keep turning this into some kind of Trapsin vs. Skellimancer discussion. I'll stop.:whistling:

 

[samuricex]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

a) Weaker how? Yes, the Skellimancer is surrounded by a sea of minions, but physically, an Assassin is stronger than Necro by far on a bad day. And that's just in general, without Fade, etc.
b) About the only things you can "aim" as a Skellimancer are curses and CE. Although you can't "aim" Death Sentry's CE, it more or less explodes everything around it, so aiming isn't terribly important. IMO, the only time direct aiming would be necessary is for more offense-oriented characters, for whom best defense if good offense. For the likes of Skellimancer and Trapsin, just chilling out and casting the occasional curse/trap until the minions/traps clear the screen is a more sensible approach. As was discussed, the key to both Skellimancer and Trapsin is defensive play. Patience wins the battle for them, not spammed spells and mass destruction. This is actually why I personally prefer a Meteorb, a much more offensive build.
c) You think so? I think getting the first kill with lightning/fire traps that dish out rather hefty damage in seconds is much faster than a Necro waiting for Merc to make a kill. Unless you use the Pindle trick, in which case, I guess you're right
d) Amp Damage wands, or rather Lower Resist wand would work better for a Trapsin.

All in all though, Skellimancer is probably preferred as the first untwinked character because it can put on MF gear much more safely.
Sorry, OP, I keep turning this into some kind of Trapsin vs. Skellimancer discussion. I'll stop.:whistling:

A) Assassin's CE only does 80%(?) max damage vs. the Necro's 120% max damage. Necro CE > Assassin CE all day.

C) I'm pretty sure he meant during an actual fight, not getting that first corpse of the game...

 

[kaoticdrake]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

Honestly the best way to build wealth that I've found is MFin in Nightmare. I can find some alright stuff most of the time, I usually get enough gold to Gamble, in Hell which I'm not even sure affects what spawns, about every 2-3 runs and a lot of the time; some decent rare circlets/ammys/rings. Then I just trade with people for pgems, trade pgems for higher class uniques or GCs and then trade that stuff for high runes. Or if I have enough pgems I'll just trade straight to Ists and stuff.

One thing that helped me the most was setting up rune/gem mules and keeping all gems and runes I found. Cubing everything up when I had 3-4 of the required gems/runes (depending on what I was doing and what runes and/or I was working with) I find it pretty easy to make my own high runes. Holding on to chipped and flawed gems is probably the hardest thing because in my personal experience they drop so much less frequently than anything else. I will run all of Act 1 on Normal like 4-5 times in an hour span and I still only end up with a few chipped gems. Which seems weird to me because I always feel like more chipped gems drop when I first start on a new ladder.

In any case, best advice is to understand the trading system for D2. The forums here are great help and you can almost always find awesome stuff for relatively cheap. Or you can easily find out what an item is worth on your season on that day, to lots of different players. Sometimes you'll find an amulet with +1 to skills that you think is worthless but the other mods on it are worth more than you think. I once got a Jah because I happened to have an Amulet with +1 to Skills and a handful of caster related mods which the guys was looking specifically for. It wasn't perfect, it didn't have max mods, it was like an ilvl46 item or some horse. Still, it was valuable to him. Most people just vendor items because they're looking for the "big fish" like a Shako early season and don't even bother to spend twenty minutes in a game that advertises some rares they just found.

 

[Jednowlosy]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

a) Weaker how? Yes, the Skellimancer is surrounded by a sea of minions, but physically, an Assassin is stronger than Necro by far on a bad day. And that's just in general, without Fade, etc.

Somebody already answered. Trapsin has 80% CE, necro has 120%. +50% power isn't much to you?
Also, compare the radius of DS and necro's CE explosions. Necro clears whole screen.

b) About the only things you can "aim" as a Skellimancer are curses and CE. Although you can't "aim" Death Sentry's CE, it more or less explodes everything around it, so aiming isn't terribly important. IMO, the only time direct aiming would be necessary is for more offense-oriented characters, for whom best defense if good offense. For the likes of Skellimancer and Trapsin, just chilling out and casting the occasional curse/trap until the minions/traps clear the screen is a more sensible approach. As was discussed, the key to both Skellimancer and Trapsin is defensive play. Patience wins the battle for them, not spammed spells and mass destruction. This is actually why I personally prefer a Meteorb, a much more offensive build.

I also prefer offense, hence I prefer necro that CEs everything to oblivion much easier and no defensive play is required ^^
also don't forget that leveled up dim vision >>> cloak of shadows. No cooldown. So necro is also very defensive if necessary and golem+decrep slow beyond 100% which makes things completely harmless. Plus +50% damage for your skellies and merc.

c) You think so? I think getting the first kill with lightning/fire traps that dish out rather hefty damage in seconds is much faster than a Necro waiting for Merc to make a kill. Unless you use the Pindle trick, in which case, I guess you're right

It doesn't really matter since merc with a decent weapon will kill hellmode fallen one (on amp) instantly and that's it, you get skellies from there

d) Amp Damage wands, or rather Lower Resist wand would work better for a Trapsin.

1. they have charges
2. they require annoying weapon swaps
3. their level is small -> tiny radius, necro curses the whole screen, trapsin can wand like a few monsters at best.
4. you need to find it first, which requires annoying shop runs.

There's no real competition here

All in all though, Skellimancer is probably preferred as the first untwinked character because it can put on MF gear much more safely.
Sorry, OP, I keep turning this into some kind of Trapsin vs. Skellimancer discussion. I'll stop.:whistling:

No biggie. Skellimancer is THE character of PvM to me. He not only has the power to go through the game untwinked, but also is absolutely fastest (minus enigma javazon perhaps) char to clear levels. 17 skeletons of 2000 damage + merc + amp = rofl damage, and from there, 2-3 CEs and everything on the screen is dead. No hammerdins or sorcs or druids or whatever can rival the killspeed of endgame skele necro. Trapsins also cannot

 

[kronikchef]

Re: Best way to get high runes? (AKA: Best way to become god at d2)

kicksins are very viable in the right hands untwinked at the beginning of ladder. thats what i always use. they are powerful the whole game, (not boring and weak in the beginning) great attack speed and ar, venom works well for phy imm, dragon tail works well for physical and venom immue. and they benefit greatly from a might aura merc. they also have a lot of one point wonders. CoS, shadow master, mind blast, and cobra strike. max venom, and dragon talon. get all one point wonders. get dragon tail, tiger strike, and fade all to lvl 10. then pump either fade or tiger strike (offense vs defense) find some ll and ml gear, some -target defense is helpful too.

fun build really and can run nm mephy quickly. get mid range gear from nm meph then can run the quick mini bosses in hell, shenk, eldrich, pindle, fireeye, trav. also run meph in hell.

treachery is top priority to get, and its so easy, pretty much just a lem rune and you should be able to cube one of those or even find one. and then you wont need fade or venom anymore, so you can respec and put points into other things, like maxxing dragon tail and tiger strike, pumping CoS, and getting weapon block if you want (who doesn't?)

as for the OP, the fastest and easiest way would be to have multiple keys and doing forge rushes, and upping all the runes you find