Classic, yup Classic

[Dr Phil]

Classic, yup Classic

I'm thinking of making a Classic char for fun, I mean baaling and using the same old ruenwords ALL the time and EVERY build of character almost being the same get's boring...

So straight to the point; What should my first char be? & Why?

 

[purplelocust]

I'm thinking of making a Classic char for fun, I mean baaling and using the same old ruenwords ALL the time and EVERY build of character almost being the same get's boring...

So straight to the point; What should my first char be? & Why?

It depends upon what you are looking for, of course, and whether you'll be playing alone or in cooperating parties.

Frozen Orb sorc is a good choice for a first char if you like casters, or a elemental Zealot if you prefer melee. Neither needs great gear to do well and both are pretty quick through NM. Or a skelemancer is very quick through the first three acts, but for A4 getting the first corpse is problematic as you have no merc and your skellies don't follow you from act to act like they do in LoD.

If you are going to mostly be playing in parties, Frozen Orb + max static is a very good build for cooperative play. Pure Blizzard is great as well and either is good for running Meph for items. Remember that in Classic, static can take monsters down to a silver in NM and Hell. Finishing them off is a problem, though, if they are cold immune.

And of course, there is the hammerdin route if you want to look like everyone else! There is no denying hammerdins are safe builds that level and kill quickly.

 

[Fists of War]

Play a Sorc like above poster, or play a barbarian where Whirlwind (especially using slow polearm as weapon speed is ignored) is still very very powerful even in v1.06 Classic Diablo 2 (each successive patch from v1.01 to v1.06 basically nerfed barb's ability especially WW somewhat, but WW still very powerful).

Have fun!

V.1.06??? If you play online it's 1.11b for you, so do you mean playing offline? Or are you just behind the times? Sorry if it was just a mistake...
But back to the question, both your suggestions are good, and IMO most builds that are pssoible with LoD can work well with classic, except for auradins, commandmancers, etc

 

[ElDrunko]

I say orber/blizzard for Meph, Andy and effective CS runs.

 

[Zodijackyl]

Blizz sorc, because orber's are a bad char to start 1-30 with.
First 4 points to ice blast, the extra from den to telekinesis, ice blast as your primarty attack so all the points there until 23, minus frost nova and glacial spike as prereqs, and the point from radament to teleport (save one for it), then blizzard at 24, one point to mastery at 30, then max blizz first, finish ice bolt, and the build is easy enough to solo from there.
Alternately, Whirlwind barbs work, just pick up a war hammer in a public cow game, and as soon as you have 53 str whack things with it, from level 1 until you can use the WH just use a white scepter that costs 350 gold.
Hammerdins work too, but 1-18 is boring on them, and if you're bored of the same old LoD stuff you probably don't want a din anyway.

 

[IsThisNamePermanent]

What ever charactor you do decide on, make sure you have some one grab a Hellforge Hammer from act4 normal. I love using them on new charactors.

 

[purplelocust]

What ever charactor you do decide on, make sure you have some one grab a Hellforge Hammer from act4 normal. I love using them on new charactors.

For true twinking goodness, I prefer an assembled Khalim's Will instead as it's faster and has no requirements. It's more trouble to get than the Hammer but if you mule it off before killing the council you can recycle it for future starting characters.

 

[goomba1]

For true twinking goodness, I prefer an assembled Khalim's Will instead as it's faster and has no requirements. It's more trouble to get than the Hammer but if you mule it off before killing the council you can recycle it for future starting characters.

funny, I prefer using a bow, and/or then an rclaw, plus a lvl 30/31 chant :grin:

I've gotten chars deep into the mid 30s w/out using a single skill/stat point that way

 

[quadeddie]

funny, I prefer using a bow, and/or then an rclaw, plus a lvl 30/31 chant :grin:

I've gotten chars deep into the mid 30s w/out using a single skill/stat point that way

For starting, full Kalims will is awesome, and I'm pretty sure it destroys hell forge in firepower.

However, if you have a gg chanter (the chanter goomba's talking about is using full gear minus sojs - and if he's including a skill shrine in there, maybe silks and +2 ammy) - you'll never tire of people going:

a <insert char type here> with a bow - lol?

after you start killing:

holy sh*t! what bow? OMG show bow in town.

 

[goomba1]

For starting, full Kalims will is awesome, and I'm pretty sure it destroys hell forge in firepower.

However, if you have a gg chanter (the chanter goomba's talking about is using full gear minus sojs - and if he's including a skill shrine in there, maybe silks and +2 ammy) - you'll never tire of people going:

a <insert char type here> with a bow - lol?

after you start killing:

holy sh*t! what bow? OMG show bow in town.

I think it's lvl 30 chant, or 31 if I pre-bo, or get BO'ed? I don't recall exactly, and don't commit such things to memory most of the time. +2, +3 chant staff, silk, +2 ammy, magefist, and tarn. whatever that all ads up to.

and yes, the "what bow?!" is fun/funny. however, for that matter, folks on the /f list asking for a chant for a newly created character will also be relatively commonplace.

it is fun sometimes to make a new mule, and perm it a bit by levelling. only to have some new player getting pissy cause the lvl 67 sorc didn't party them in a norm game, and hostiling the mule. if said mule is high enough to wear angellics it pretty much means a one-hit-one kill scenario which turns into more "what bow>!?!! OMGZORS"

come to think of it, I haven't done this in a while... maybe I'll make a necro...

as for the hell forge hammer, I've seen it used by new, non-geared, or lightly geared casters (e.g. Dins, sorcs/bone necro's) chiefly for FR, doesn't it give 40% FR? that, plus a nozokan, twitch and shopped 30/20 shield(specially if it's priz) make for a VERY LOW level char that can survive running around in hell cs runs provided they dodge melee attacks well enough - bonus, they don't annoy the folks doing the csing by spamming the screen with their death!

 

[purplelocust]

as for the hell forge hammer, I've seen it used by new, non-geared, or lightly geared casters (e.g. Dins, sorcs/bone necro's) chiefly for FR, doesn't it give 40% FR? that, plus a nozokan, twitch and shopped 30/20 shield(specially if it's priz) make for a VERY LOW level char that can survive running around in hell cs runs provided they dodge melee attacks well enough - bonus, they don't annoy the folks doing the csing by spamming the screen with their death!

It does give 40% FR. Crushflange gives 50% FR but it has a STR requirement of 27, more than the Hellforge hammer. As offensive weapons, Khalim's Will is much faster and adds 1-40 lightning dmg, as opposed to the Hellforge hammer's 5-20 fire. If you have a lvl 1 character who wants to progress by whacking things, assembling the complete flail is worth the trouble, as the untransmuted flail has the typical flail requirements and not as much damage.

 

[Dr Phil]

Thanks for all your advice guys, I'm going to make a Cold Sorc, i'm going to play LoD still but I think I'll focus on Classic, if any Classiuc players want to help out/be friends/talk or anything then you can add me as Death-Classic ^^ Hope to hear from people soon.

Thanks again.
~Phil

 

[goomba1]

It does give 40% FR. Crushflange gives 50% FR but it has a STR requirement of 27, more than the Hellforge hammer. As offensive weapons, Khalim's Will is much faster and adds 1-40 lightning dmg, as opposed to the Hellforge hammer's 5-20 fire. If you have a lvl 1 character who wants to progress by whacking things, assembling the complete flail is worth the trouble, as the untransmuted flail has the typical flail requirements and not as much damage.

hell forge is easier to find however for some folks than crush flange.

seems that when you don't want something, you find boat loads of it. if one doesn't mule such items, then, when you need/want them most, you can't find them... or at least, that's how it works for me.

oh. I did not manage to set a personal record for highest new char that's not permed. I got a new palladin to lvl 32 last night via the chant, bow, and then rclaw solo-ing norm cows in full games starting at lvl 20 (I like to set up cow portals in games where people are doing act 2/3 quests so they don't cry until after I've cleared cows that I didnt' invite them, or let them know what I was up to)

I have yet to decide if he will be a remake of my lvl 91 Din, that has slightly too much invested in str due to his heavy tower shield, or if this will be a medic/healer/hybrid with hammers to supplement.

 

[Rawly]

oh. I did not manage to set a personal record for highest new char that's not permed. I got a new palladin to lvl 32 last night via the chant, bow, and then rclaw solo-ing norm cows in full games starting at lvl 20 (I like to set up cow portals in games where people are doing act 2/3 quests so they don't cry until after I've cleared cows that I didnt' invite them, or let them know what I was up to)
QUOTE]

I usually make it to lv 40 before i get permed

 

[Dr Phil]

Yeah... Well... I'm level 6 so in your face! Only got to play for like 20 mins last night.

 

[Akukami]

I have yet to decide if he will be a remake of my lvl 91 Din, that has slightly too much invested in str due to his heavy tower shield, or if this will be a medic/healer/hybrid with hammers to supplement.

And that Din is headed in the too much Str category, too. :undecided:

If you're going to add anymore, at least cap it 45 or 50.

- Akukami

 

[Zodijackyl]

I have yet to decide if he will be a remake of my lvl 91 Din, that has slightly too much invested in str due to his heavy tower shield, or if this will be a medic/healer/hybrid with hammers to supplement.

Go ornate def din, rings/belt/amu can supply plenty more strength and he'll be a great tank.

 

[Akukami]

That's assuming he has an Orn, which he doesn't at the moment, but perhaps a nice one will drop during our CSes. :grin:

- Akukami

 

[Rawly]

Here is a question for you. If you go defensive and get down to say 8% chance of something to hit you and you have 75% block does that take it down to 2% chance to be hit or does the always 5% chance to hit come into play?

 

[WarlockCC]

That would take it down to 2% effective since caps are on individual stats.

You are still going to get hit more though. Especially by carvers, they seem to be special somehow. I stood still with a level 80 barb in normal dark wood and they hit my barb a lot. amazing little critters or just a fluke ?