Hello! Another Single Player fan here who wants to join in the fun

[little birdy]

Hi all -- I just wanted to make a thread to say hello and introduce myself. I'm a big D2 fan going back to D2 Classic, predominantly a Single Player player, looking for a place online to chat with other people about the game. I'm hoping this is the right place!

I took a pretty long break from playing D2 but the release of D2R last fall gave me the itch to play again. I was a bit unsure if it would just be a nostalgia purchase and that I wouldn't actually play the game much, but that definitely wasn't the case. I've been playing a ton, still going strong and enjoying the game more than ever. The balance changes that patch 2.4 brought have been rather interesting.

All my playing in D2R has been in Single Player, and I've completed Hell with 9 characters now:

1. Matriarch fira -- Fireball Sorc (re-spec'd to a Fireball / Orb hybrid to get through Hell)
2. Patriarch howlinwolf -- Wind Druid
3. Patriarch ken -- War Cry Barb
4. Patriarch gallagher -- Summoning Necro
5. Matriarch sonus -- Lightning Fury / Freezing Arrow Amazon
6. Patriarch zed -- Zeal Pally
7. Matriarch dee -- Lightning Sentry / Death Sentry / Fire Blast Trapsin
8. Matriarch summerbabe -- Blizzard Sorc
9. Patriarch ikea -- Summoning Druid (The 'Zoo Druid' in 2.4 is a fun time!)

My Fireball Sorc (re-spec'd back to pure fire build after finishing Hell) is my probably main farming character right now, and she's a blast to play. I've been turning up lots of cool items of late.

That's about all from me for now. I'm enjoying reading other people's write ups about their characters. Next up for me is probably a Frenzy Barb, so I look forward to writing a more detailed report about that character once he's finished the game!

 

[Cattleya]

Welcome! I remember really enjoying my fire sorceress way back in the day. (Although I also remember a whole lot of teleporting to complete Hell!)

 

[little birdy]

Welcome! I remember really enjoying my fire sorceress way back in the day. (Although I also remember a whole lot of teleporting to complete Hell!)

Yeah, I try to avoid skipping stuff wherever possible, because I find it less fun to skip things. Getting through Hell without skipping stuff as a pure fire Sorc simply wasn't going to be possible, thus the re-spec to add in Frozen Orb. Once she was through Hell, I re-spec'd and went back to the pure fire build. There is a nice variety of areas that can be farmed as a fire Sorc, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything without a second element. I love Fireball and Meteor.

 

[Maltatai]

Welcome, and beware of shin-kicking and thieving fallen ones that plague the newcomers.

Getting through Hell without skipping stuff as a pure fire Sorc simply wasn't going to be possible

Can be done

 

[little birdy]

Welcome, and beware of shin-kicking and thieving fallen ones that plague the newcomers.

Can be done

Neat! The thought never occurred to me to go melee against fire immunes. Though it might not have worked out too nicely, as this was my first character played in D2R and I was starting from scratch. Gear might have been a shortcoming. Since then I've accumulated quite a bit of gear and this strategy could be doable.

 

[little birdy]

Say hello to the latest adventurer to complete Hell: Patriarch xuong
(apologies for the crummy cell phone picture of my TV screen! )



In my introductory post, I mentioned that the next character up for me would likely be a Frenzy Barb. I started on that but I left the Barb is sitting in Act V (Normal) as I got a bit bored of him. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a more mindless style of play like a Frenzy Barb offers, so I will get back to him eventually, but lately I felt like playing a character with a bit more variety. Enter the Bone Necro from a while back that I had left sitting somewhere in Nightmare. This is a really fun character to play! Curses, Bone Walls and Prisons, Bone Spear and Spirit, Corpse Explosion, and careful Golem placement. There's just a lot more going on compared to playing the Frenzy Barb, and that helped to keep me engaged.

Regarding the name: xương is Vietnamese for bone. First thing that popped into my head.

xuong completed Hell at level 79 and handled pretty well everything in the game with ease. No quests were skipped, I was able to advance through the game at a very quick pace, and it was a very easy play-through overall.

The only slow spots were Tal Rasha's tomb and Achmel--magic immunes--but a combo of Firewall (granted by Trang-Oul's set) and Corpse Explosion took care of them.

Sadly, there were not a ton of noteworthy drops during xuong's adventure through the game. No high runes, and I don't recall any elite uniques or really good set items. I did happen across a couple useful elite bases that I might use for rune words in the future, but that's it really. xuong seemed to have a nose for finding normal elite items (Phase Blades, Monarchs, Threshers, etc.)

Stats:
Strength: 91 (enough for Trang-Oul's belt, before I found Trang-Oul's Wing--I could now re-spec and lower the investment into STR)
Dexterity: nothing
Vitality: everything else (356 points incl. bonuses from gear)
Energy: nothing

Resistances were OK though more fire res would have been nice:
F/C/L/P: 31/50/75/41

Gear:
Helm: Harlequin Crest
Amulet: Crafted amulet w/ +1 Necro skills, 8 FCR, life, mana, +5 all res
Wand: 'White' Bone Wand
Shield: Trang-Oul's Wing socketed with a P. Topaz for extra light res
Armor: Trang-Oul's Scales
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws
Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth
Boots: Infernostride (for fire res; tried gambling and imbuing for something better but got unlucky)
Ring #1: Nagelring
Ring #2: Rare ring with mana, light res, and poison res

For the bulk of this play-through, I was getting by just fine with most of the above gear, minus Trang's Scales and Trang's Wing. Instead I had a 'Smoke' armor, and then Que-Hegan's Wisdom, and a Lidless Wall socketed with a P. Diamond for extra resistances. It was just a happy coincidence that I turned up the extra pieces from Trang's set while doing some MFing with my Fireball Sorc and Trapsin last week. Clearly the game knew what I needed!

Skills:
Summoning: (hard points / points w/ gear)
Raise Skeleton: 1/6
Skeleton Mastery: 0/12
Clay Golem: 1/6
Golem Mastery: 1/6
Summon Resist: 1/6

Poison and Bone:
Teeth: 1/9
Bone Armor: 1/12
Corpse Explosion: 1/9
Bone Wall: 19/27
Bone Spear: 20/30
Bone Prison: 20/28
Bone Spirit: 20/28

Curses:
Amp Damage: 1/6
Weaken: 1/6
Terror: 1/6
Decrepify: 1/6

My 'White' wand granted a pretty large bonus to Skeleton Mastery, as xuong inherited it from my Summoning Necro (Patriarch gallagher), so I put one point into Raise Skeleton just to have some skellies to act as shields. I eventually gave up on them because they died far too frequently in Hell. My golem on the other hand--that little guy could take quite a pounding before I needed to re-cast him. With the golem to act as a distraction, and Bone Wall / Prison to corral monsters, my merc and I could easily take down all comers with our Bone Spears / Spirits and arrows. I didn't even need to bother with Corpse Explosion too often, except in some more sticky situations.

Merc: Hannah, level 79 Rogue (Act I merc w/ Fire and Exploding Arrow)

Hannah's gear:
Bow: 'Insight' Great Bow w/ level 16 Meditation
Armor: 'Smoke' Wyrmhide
Helm: Rockstopper

Hannah did not do very much killing, but that wasn't what I needed her for. She very rarely died because monster's love to focus on the golem, so she was a very low-maintenance merc, and I could of course use Bone Prison / Wall to keep things away from her. She hardly ever got in dangerous spots. Her 'Insight' bow ensured I never ran low on mana, and that was the most important thing.

I normally do one run through the Cow Level after I clear each difficulty level. I haven't done that yet with xuong, but I'm sure I will get to it one night this week.

I'm still not decided on what character will be next. It could be the Frenzy Barb... but it could also be a Bowazon. Looking through my stashes, I have accumulated a lot of unique bows and crossbows from my plays through D2:R. Lots of options for a Bowazon at various levels. But... I also want a Lightning Sorc...

 

[DaveW]

Good work on the necro birdy.

 

[Swamigoon]

Nice pat. I'm looking forward to building a dentist soon, and Xương the bonemancer is motivational inspiration.

 

[little birdy]

Thanks! The Summoning Necro has been one of my favourite builds going all the way back to when D2 first came out, but playing this Bone Necro might have changed my perspective. I still have a soft spot for summoning skills, but the Bone Necro was so fun and engaging to play.

 

[coju]

Thanks! The Summoning Necro has been one of my favourite builds going all the way back to when D2 first came out, but playing this Bone Necro might have changed my perspective. I still have a soft spot for summoning skills, but the Bone Necro was so fun and engaging to play.

Samesies. There’s nothing like a summoner, but that bone crow…. Nice

 

[Coyote_Sly]

Yeah, I try to avoid skipping stuff wherever possible, because I find it less fun to skip things. Getting through Hell without skipping stuff as a pure fire Sorc simply wasn't going to be possible, thus the re-spec to add in Frozen Orb. Once she was through Hell, I re-spec'd and went back to the pure fire build. There is a nice variety of areas that can be farmed as a fire Sorc, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything without a second element. I love Fireball and Meteor.

I'm pretty close, got up to the ancients so far. Took quite a bit of patience and good gear for the merc to get through A4, though.

 

[little birdy]

I'm pretty close, got up to the ancients so far. Took quite a bit of patience and good gear for the merc to get through A4, though.

Yeah, Hell A4 is a bit of a problem for fire builds! Where there's a will there's a way, though.

I've been trying to figure out which of my characters is best suited for quick Baal runs, as I'm trying to farm essences to cube up some tokens. My Fireball Sorc took down Baal nice and quick--but getting to him was a bit tricky. Lister and his buddies kept overwhelming my merc so I eventually lead them out of the throne room so I could skip them. Everything else went down rather easily to a combo of Fireballs and the ol' Static Field and let the merc sort it out vs. fire immunes.

 

[little birdy]

Looks like I've settled on my next character to work on: sparky, the lightning Sorc. Not Lightning the skill, but lightning in general. More specifically, sparky will be mowing down her enemies with wave after wave (after wave after wave...) of Charged Bolts. Frozen Orb will most likely serve as the secondary attack for dealing with immunities in Hell.

sparky earned the title of Slayer sparky today, completing normal difficulty at level 31. I played most of normal on /p1, though I did bump it up once sparky and her merc hit level 27. An 'Insight' scythe solved our mana problems and it became much less tedious to play at higher players settings.

I normally don't spend much time farming the Cow Level, but I think this time around I'm going to stick to running normal cows on /p8 for a bit before I move along to nightmare. After a couple cow runs, sparky is now sitting at level 33. Cows are not much of a challenge. She is still wanting for a 'Spirit' sword base--help me out here, cows!--but the Razorswitch unique staff she is currently rocking is getting the job done OK in place of a 'Spirit'.

 

[DaveWThe2nd]

Fast Baal runner you say? Didn't you just pat a Bone Necro?
Getting to the Throne Room without teleport may be time consuming but the Bone Necro can do the waves no problem. (P1 setting coz you are after essences only) But a few adjustments to Xuong are in order first I believe.

Get an Act 2 Merc, with HF (defensive) or Might (offensive) to help him out. Remember I play mostly HC so I went HF. Give him a big stick (either Insight or Obedience in eth Polearm) some LL (Tals Mask or whatever you have; Stealskull? Crown of Thieves? Vamp Gaze?) And a sturdy armour (Duriels is perfect for the CBF; don't forget Lionheart, Treachery, etc)

If you need mana, take an IG with Insight Polearm; cheap as to make. The CG is good but you already have Decrip.) If you wanna keep CG, just chug blues. The Bone Necro not only does Baal but excels in the WSK as well as the CS. (P1 setting remember)

As for the Summoning Tree, please place a point in Revives. They are awesome and will outperform your skellies, even if they have a limited life span.

Just for the record here's the White Wand I used years ago to Guardian my Boner .... ahem Bone Necro. Check the skills.

White
Grim Wand
DolIo
One Hand Damage: 5 - 11
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x131d2658
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Bone Armor (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Decrepify (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Attract (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Golem Mastery (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
+10 to Vitality
+13 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 4

Notice the Attract and Decripify? This means no skills spent in the Curse tree. I get crowd control (Attract) and an offensive/defensive (Decrip) boost from both of those add ons. I would have even accepted Amp Damage instead of Decrip but this was good enuff..

Anyways all the best on your Diablo travels.

BTW I am DaveW and DaveWthe2nd. Don't ask me how, i dunno either.

 

[little birdy]

Thanks for the tips

I have considered a Necro for quick Baal runs. Maybe the Bone Necro, or I could even dust off my Summoning Necro. Either would be pretty quick and safe, I think. The only drawback, like you say, is lack of teleport. Though I could take a bit of time and shop myself a staff with teleport charges, or just refresh the maps until I get lucky and have a short path from the WSK 2 waypoint to the Throne Room. The last few days I've been focused on questing with my lightning Sorc, so the essence farming project is on the backburner for now.

 

[little birdy]

Looks like I've settled on my next character to work on: sparky, the lightning Sorc. Not Lightning the skill, but lightning in general. More specifically, sparky will be mowing down her enemies with wave after wave (after wave after wave...) of Charged Bolts. Frozen Orb will most likely serve as the secondary attack for dealing with immunities in Hell.

sparky earned the title of Slayer sparky today, completing normal difficulty at level 31. I played most of normal on /p1, though I did bump it up once sparky and her merc hit level 27. An 'Insight' scythe solved our mana problems and it became much less tedious to play at higher players settings.

I normally don't spend much time farming the Cow Level, but I think this time around I'm going to stick to running normal cows on /p8 for a bit before I move along to nightmare. After a couple cow runs, sparky is now sitting at level 33. Cows are not much of a challenge. She is still wanting for a 'Spirit' sword base--help me out here, cows!--but the Razorswitch unique staff she is currently rocking is getting the job done OK in place of a 'Spirit'.

Slayer sparky is now Champion sparky

Nightmare was a walk in the park. A good chunk of NM was completed on /p8, but I rolled it back to /p1 starting at Act IV. sparky is now at level 69 and is probably ready to test the waters in Hell difficulty. Charged Bolt and Lightning Mastery are maxed, Lightning has 10 points (synergy for CB of course), and Frozen Orb is sitting at 15 hard points. 1 point in Cold Mastery and all prereqs. After FO is maxed, I'll go back to pumping points into Lightning. My merc just upgraded to what is likely his end-game setup: 'Insight' Thresher, Tal's mask, and Duriel's Shell. Feels like we're ready for Act I Hell, though I can always go back to NM Baal runs if it turns out I need a few more levels. Grinding out levels isn't my preferred strategy though.

 

[little birdy]

A new character has joined the club: Matriarch sparky. My 11th character to complete the game now.



sparky employed Charged Bolt and Frozen Orb to pretty much cruise through the game. I thought I'd try using Lightning against bosses, but ultimately I preferred to either get up close (when it was safe) and spam Charged Bolts, or hang back and launch Frozen Orbs. Turns out I don't especially like Lightning.

I found it very satisfying to get through the game relying mainly on a clvl 1 skill. Charged Bolt works just fine throughout the whole game (excluding against immunes of course) if you max it and Lightning Mastery, and then synergize it with Lightning. It scales quite well IMO and I'm not sure the same can be said for other clvl 1 skills.

sparky polished off Baal at level 79--just one level away from completing the build. I'm about halfway to level 80, so I will at least grind that out to get that last skill point I need, but I'm not sure if I will continue playing sparky as a MF character until I happen upon some gear upgrades for her.

Stats at level 79 (with / without gear):
Strength: 92 / 80
Dexterity: 77 / 75
Vitality: 275
Energy: 87 / 55
Life: 851
Mana: 502
Resistances: All at 75%

Gear:
Helm: Rare Coronet w/ +1 Sorc skills, 13 all res., life
Amulet: Magic amulet w/ +1 Sorc skills, 32% MF
Weapon: Wizardspike
Shield: Moser's Blessed Circle socketed with 2 P. Diamonds
Armor: Que-Hegan's Wisdon
Gloves: Magefist
Belt: Crafed caster belt
Boots: Treads of Cthon
Ring #1: 10 FCR, resists
Ring #2: Resists, energy, MF
Charms: A handful of charms with resistances, life... just a few things I found along the journey

I equipped the boots at level 15 with the intention of eventually swapping them out for something better later on... but next thing I knew I was deep into Hell and still had them on. I could have switched to something else in the stash, or maybe tried gambling / imbuing something, but there really wasn't a need for it.

Skills:
20 points into Charged Bolt, Lightning Mastery, Frozen Orb
19 points into Lightning (just 1 more point to go!)
1 point into Static Field, Teleport, Cold Mastery, Warmth, Frozen Armor, and all prereqs

(I suppose I could respec and forgo the point in Warmth and then I wouldn't need another level)

Merc: Ahsab, level 79 Desert Mercenary (Defiance)

Ahsab's gear:
Weapon: 'Insight' Thresher
Armor: Duriel's Shell
Helm: Tal's Horadric Crest

I think I did a pretty good job of keeping Ahsab alive for the most part, using Teleport very liberally to move him out of dangerous spots, but he still died more times than I would have liked. Oh well. I had the gold to resurrect him each time.

I had a lot of fun playing this character. Thanks for reading if you got this far

 

[Kruemelmonschda]

Charged Bolt / Frozen Orb is exactly the build I plan for my future key sorc. I wouldnt recommend it in HC but in SC she does the key running quite well.

 

[BBS_Agonistes]

Nice work! Sorc's are always a ton of fun to me. Looks like you've completed sorcs with a focus on all the skill trees now, so I'm curious: which is your favorite?

 

[little birdy]

Nice work! Sorc's are always a ton of fun to me. Looks like you've completed sorcs with a focus on all the skill trees now, so I'm curious: which is your favorite?

It's almost a toss up between Fire and Lightning skills for me, with Fireball and Charged Bolt specifically as my favourite primary attacks. Frozen Orb is a great secondary element for a Fire or Lightning build, and my Fireball and Charged Bolt Sorcs both relied on Frozen Orb against immune monsters while questing through the game. But I didn't enjoy playing the Cold-focused Sorc as much, even though Blizzard was very effective and fast, and my Blizzard Sorc cleared the game at the lowest level so far... it just wasn't as fun for me.

After beating the game, my Fireball Sorc re-spec'd out of Frozen Orb to be a pure Fire build for MFing and rune running, and I'd say that's still my favourite character to play. Charged Bolt is a pretty close second though!