My introduction and the beginning of a Royal Dynasty

[lizard]

I am a long time lurker from the old forums. My main active phase was during 1.11 until some years after 1.13 came out, after which I took a break from D2.
I played mostly softcore back then and build a good collection of characters, which are collecting dust on one of my hardrives. Some years after D3 and reapers came out I started playing that and was hooked for a good while (2014-2016 ish). My time in D3 also converted me to playing hardcore, to increase the challenge. In the end, I found D3 to be a bit too simplistic and limiting in my choice of items and playstyle, but enjoyed some of the builds there, especially the explosive blast wizard. The stacking of delayed explosions was really enjoyable.

I rediscovered my love for D2 in 2020 and played some mods here and there and dabbled in older versions. During the past weeks and months I have had much more time to devote to D2 and have spent most of my time in HC 1.00, which brings me to the purpose of this post.

King Maahes​

I was inspired by @art_vandelay 's post , because i am not a huge fan of Barbs and wanted to try something new.
Totally have to agree with art, Hdin is a powerhouse in 1.00, with some caveats.
The first 20 levels were quite slow and i spent 5 points in smite to make it easier to hit stuff. I was mainly smiting and just hitting things with my weapon. Self-MP helped a bit here to make leveling easier, but it was a bit of a slog to be honest, since I played untwinked. I should have gambled much earlier, but I was relying more on drops, because i did not know any better.
Once I hit lvl 18-22 things went much smoother. I invested into energy quite early (to 50) to have a better mana pool and i think that it is crucial to have any fun. This is probably not necessary on twinked chars, but i like to have more mana available, and this build does not really need too much str or dex.

I leveled concentration and hammers in parallel, but it might be better to raise concentration first or invest some points into redemption earlier than I did (in the late 30s).
I also invested some points (5) into vigor because i did some rushing on the side and it helps with running maps (CS, trist, cows etc).
Other than that there are not many skills needed. I will invest the rest into HS probably, just to see how it performs on higher levels.

Things to look out for​

Normal and Nightmare were fairly easy for the most part. The most difficult or tedious parts are in act 2, mainly the maggot lair, but with some patience and positioning it is doable.
The only monster types which were dangerous on N and NM were Duriel, Abyss Knights, Oblivion knights (the element projectiles) and vultures.

In Hell, Duriel was a challenge. His charge hit like a truck, 600 dmg on 750 life and it took quite a few tries to get the positioning right to consistently hit with the hammers. I used a merc as meat shield and managed it after some tries.
Overall the most difficult Act is Act 3, but surprisingly the fetish shamans are not part of that, I could stand in their inferno and not loose any health. Same was true for dolls, their death explosion was only really dangerous in packs
There are a ton of other dangerous mobs in Act 3. Vultures, Trashers, Spiders, and of course the council. Much like @art_vandelay I had to rely on cheese and find a council-member which was not stone skin, mana burn or light enchanted and parked the rest by the dam.

Act 4 was a walk in the park in comparison and only the knights caused any problems and near death experiences. Diablo fell quite quickly and i could tank basically all of his attacks.

Spoiler: Notable drops in Hell

Gear​

My gear was mainly obtained from gambling in the beginning and supplemented later by cows.

Early gear:

Frost burn - great option to solve mana problems. i used it until end NM before I gambled Magefist and Eyeless

Heavenly Garb - Dropped from cow king and increased my survivability

Griswolds Edge - main weapon throughout normal and before hammers. found one in a1 and it carried me far.

Greyform - Overall great armor with tons of useful stats

Spoiler: Endgame Gear

from cow king


found during play in NM


shopped in A4 N


cow king


gamble


gamble




cow king




cow king

I beat Diablo at lvl 50 and spent the last couple of days running RoF for xp and gold.



The gear remained the same, so the stats are what I had for all of Hell, minus the vit and 10 energy

Future plans:

I will see how far I can push this character level wise, before I give up or he dies, but my goal for 2022 is to breach lvl 90 which would enable me to gamble some nice but rare amulets.
My plans for other chars are not quite fully formed, but I will definitely build a Goldfind barb, somekind of sorc (non Orb, i dont like that skill) and a Zon (i lean towards jav or spear zon). Maybe i try that mystical thorns/conversion paladin to see how it compares to hammerdin .

This royal bloodline will definitely continue and I will aim to post semi-regular updates in this thread. Who knows in another ten years one of these characters might hit level 99.

 

[lizard]

reserved for future updates

Character  Class   Build    Level  Exp                Date         Hours
---------  ------  -------  -----  -----------------  -----------  -----------
Maahes     Pala    Hdin     70     285 372 942        2022-02-01   01d 06h 43m

 

[art_vandelay]

Nice! So happy that Hdin is finally getting some attention in 1.00, it's a great build.

It's also interesting to see that you don't have much MDR on your char in HC and still made it, I thought it was absolutely mandatory, maybe I'm just too careful

My plans for other chars are not quite fully formed, but I will definitely build a Goldfind barb, somekind of sorc (non Orb, i dont like that skill) and a Zon (i lean towards jav or spear zon).

I tried Zon with spear and bow and it was a complete disaster, she's stuck in NM Arcane Sanctuary and I haven't touched her in nearly half a year. I think the only hope for Zon is potentially Lightning Fury, assuming that doesn't crash the game as some people report. (You can of course also google the 22 hour Zon playthrough of Llama which looks absolutely painful )

I can also recommend Necro, he's really powerful in 1.00 with Iron Maiden/Blood Golem early on, supplemented by Corpse Explosion and Bone Spirit later on.

 

[lizard]

Re MDR:
What does MDR do again? Does it reduce magic damage only (as in magic arrow) or does it reduce elemental damage as well (after resistances i assume)?

I have some MDR gear, so i can test it and see. My approach was just to pump vit and resistances to tank through and draw out the fights by kiting. I have a fairly defensive playstyle and thankfully there is no teleport for me to get into overwhelming situations.

Now after having spent some points into HS (ca 4), the increase in block chance does make a noticeable difference and I can fit it into my rotation quite easily. The duration goes up by 10 seconds each level. My manapool is high enough and refills often enough that the high cost of HS does not slow me down. I feel a Zealot should at least consider dropping some points into it, and even the defense bonus may make a difference with an exceptional rare shield with high %ed roll.

Re Zon:
I must have missed that Llama run with the Amazon. I saw the Sorc run but will check it out an maybe reconsider ;D.
My plan was definitely to try out a Bowazon in 1.04 as %ed is fixed there, but I wanted to see how bad Amazons are in 1.00.

Necro was always my least favorite class, and is on the bottom of my priority for now, but I will check it out at some point and I now that CE is quite overpowered in 1.00, so I will def try it.

 

[art_vandelay]

Re MDR:
What does MDR do again? Does it reduce magic damage only (as in magic arrow) or does it reduce elemental damage as well (after resistances i assume)?

It reduces magic, fire, cold and lightning damage by a flat amount. In 1.00 it is applied after resistances (good) while in modern patches it is applied before resistances (bad). For all we know in 1.00 it is also not nerfed against frame based attacks like Diablo's lightning hose and firestorm. So it's really good in 1.00.

Now after having spent some points into HS (ca 4), the increase in block chance does make a noticeable difference and I can fit it into my rotation quite easily. The duration goes up by 10 seconds each level. My manapool is high enough and refills often enough that the high cost of HS does not slow me down. I feel a Zealot should at least consider dropping some points into it, and even the defense bonus may make a difference with an exceptional rare shield with high %ed roll.

For some reason the AR of all enemies is multiplied by 4 in Classic, so that's the same as dividing all defense by 4 due to the way the formula for chance to hit works. Maybe this can offset some of that but I wouldn't hold my breath. In any case it sounds like the blocking could be useful.

Re Zon:
I must have missed that Llama run with the Amazon. I saw the Sorc run but will check it out an maybe reconsider ;D.
My plan was definitely to try out a Bowazon in 1.04 as %ed is fixed there, but I wanted to see how bad Amazons are in 1.00.

Here are the three parts, it's so damn painful towards the end ...

Spoiler: 1.00 Zon by Llama

Necro was always my least favorite class, and is on the bottom of my priority for now, but I will check it out at some point and I now that CE is quite overpowered in 1.00, so I will def try it.

Well CE scales with player setting so if you rush chars it will be OP but otherwise it's just good old corpse explosion with a different radius. (At least I believe the radius to be different.