Single Tree Build Grail

update

Spiral thanks for the tips I will consider them while I build the paladin builds.

I think I already have my defencive aura pally designed its just implementing it. He will have huge defence and resistances but he will lack in offencive combat, a passive build great not like I haven't done a few of them already.


Elemental Druid- in the interest of completing my build guide I have spent all this past weeks D2 time with my druid and the single tree grail stash.
I have been able to progress into Act 4 Hell. burning Souls (or whatever those lightning attacking invisable enemies are) are killing any chance I have of progressing further, I went back for a cow run looking for skill charms and found a +25 % lightning grand charm that takes my resistance to lightning to 75% I have not tried to get past the burning souls again.

My druid is clvl 80 and a tad and has another point in Tornado, he is almost complete and ready to start the cyclone armor increase which should be substantial to completing Hell mode. I would still like to find some more +skills for him and the club with +elemental tree still alludes me, but hexfire's + max fire resist takes me to 85% fire resist which is a nice trade off.

my resistance now stand at:
fire 85
cold 88 (snowclash belt for the extra 15% max resist)
lightning 75
poison 68

Not bad for a Hell character without the last anya quest, most of the resist comes from my 2x Pdiamond moser's. charms put me just under 0 without equipment on.
 
It looks like intrest is dying about my grail but thats ok.

Anyways this week I was able to take my dual elemental druid into Act 5 Hell, Soon I will be able to start working again on my other builds. The focus on the dual elemental build has proved to be great at getting through Hell. Diablo fell from waypoint to Diablo kill in about 30 minutes. Diablo himself only took about 1 and 1 half minutes. Its surprizing how fast he falls with 3 damage sources over 1000 damage.

The extra points in Cyclone armor are going to be great I have a 32 sec hurricane right now and how to increase it about another 10 seconds before hitting baal. clvl 82 seems so far away though.
 
update

Well another week and yet not completely done with my druid.

I have completed quest 1 and quest 2, and found anya with a short trip to visit pindle for the first time in Hell, I was sitting nicely at max resistances 85,90,75,75 and very happy to quit for the evening.

I decided to take a short break from the druid and head back to playing some normal characters. I started my lightning sorc for about 9 clvl in about 1 hour of play. its kind of fun playing a sorc that uses just charged bolt.

my plans for her are to go chain lightning / static and have no points in teleport or that whole part of the tree. lightning immunes will be unable to be beat with the build so a merc will be the only chance to face any that I happen to stumble upon, I do not intend her to go into Hell lightning immunes would kill her chances.

I plan to start working again on my amazon (tankazon) and finish atleast normal with her before next week.

Sorry for the long side track from my grail to finish Hell mode with a grail character.
 
Im not losing interst, Go uzziah!
For your lightning sorc, why no teleport? it oesnt break any rules, and its not exactly cheese of the century considering your still only using 1 tree, and they cant all be impossible to play with. You got to get the best sorc you can out of it.
Keep going, how many builds have you still got left to finish?
 
farting bob said:
Im not losing interst, Go uzziah!
For your lightning sorc, why no teleport? it oesnt break any rules, and its not exactly cheese of the century considering your still only using 1 tree, and they cant all be impossible to play with. You got to get the best sorc you can out of it.
Keep going, how many builds have you still got left to finish?
Click to expand...

I don't move too fast through the game thats my play style slow and calculated, teleport is a very fast spell for movement and dropping mana.

I already have 100 points to place,

20 charged bolt
20 lightning
20 chainlightning
20 static
20 lightning mastery

That will be more points than I have at completion of nightmare (about 80) so I have to give somewhere I plan to relax on the static and just concentrate on chainlightning, so points in charged bolt, 1 in static, when lightning is available dump in lightning, when chain lightning is available dump until maxed, then go back to charged bolt/lightning, by then my +skills will be high enough to get static into a good radius. Lightning mastery will get 1 skill point until the others are maxed after lightning mastery will come static for alot of radius.

If I want teleport I will use an orb or staff with +teleport as a staffmod.
 
I just think2 points for one of the best skills in the game is a fair trade off. with teleport, you wont need high static slvls either, since you can TP to monsters, static, then TP out.
 
For me and the other 2 people still following this quest:

alot of progress was made this weekend,

I started my lightning sorc, she is now looking for Andy, and has gain 15 levels, a few more and I will start using my end game skill, I have firmly made my mind up she will not be getting teleport. I know its a great skill but she is not a MFer or rusher she is trying to work her own way through no need for speed there.

I have also altered the skill plan set up, a bit she will use this for point alignment:

20 chainlightning
1 Static (letting +skills bring it up)
10 charged bolt
20 lightning
20 nova
20 lightning mastery

I know this is 91 Skill points and I usually end with about 80 points used, the extra points will most likely be in the nova skill, I will be maxing it last, mostly for synergy to chain lightning and as a secondary skill when caught in mobs (hopefully rarely used).

My druid: I finally gave up on getting by Pindle, after dying to charging monsters about 15 times I decided that completing that quest was not as important as beating Baal, plus he was my friend, gambling from him before Anya came :( . So I progressed towards the ancients currently I am at clvl 81, I hope to get atleast 1 more level before facing the ancients and 1 level after beating them (not likely) that would put me at clvl 83 facing Baal. Well I was able to get into the Frozen Tundra, and low and behold skeleton archers picked my arse apart and ate it for dinner. I am starting to believe that my build has hit its limit without having points in the summon skills, (for life and another minion). Things are going rough and its hard to push forward, my gold stash has gone down 300,000 just from replacing my merc and clay golem whilst not getting any further in my quest.

The Amazon (tankazon), I think I have grown bored with this build, it really a lot like the passive barb, strike strike strike strike, still not done beating one enemy. My merc and valk are stronger, and faster at killing than I could hope to be, She is in act 5 normal now and is working on getting to Anya. I was planning to use throwing weapons with her but they are far to intensive having to watch how many you have and return to town for repairs, I find myself using them in melee more often. I think I need to just slog through act 5 and move into nightmare with her this week.

I actually played with my trapsin this weekend, from a gambling give away I got a +2 assassin skills, +3 lightning sentry (and more) rare sawayyah (sp) this gave me an additional +3 to my lightning sentry :) which took me to 1-4700 damage with my lightning sentry blade fury assassin (I still need skill charms to make her very big damage), after cow running in nightmare at players 8, I didn't find any skill charms (read grand charms at all) but I did manage to get a clvl so she is now clvl 70, with 1-4800 lightning sentry damage. I still want to rebuild her a bit differently.
 
Uzziah said:
The Amazon (tankazon), I think I have grown bored with this build, it really a lot like the passive barb, strike strike strike strike, still not done beating one enemy. My merc and valk are stronger, and faster at killing than I could hope to be, She is in act 5 normal now and is working on getting to Anya. I was planning to use throwing weapons with her but they are far to intensive having to watch how many you have and return to town for repairs, I find myself using them in melee more often. I think I need to just slog through act 5 and move into nightmare with her this week.
Click to expand...

I played mine (in the first tankazon tournament) a lot like a general surveying the battlefield, helping here and there. Pull back merc and give him potions when he´s in trouble, recast Valkyrie, throw some Prevent Monster Heal throwing daggers, place a Decoy, go in and swing with my 'Black' Knout (40% Crushing Blow) against high-HP bosses that my minions tank, blow up corpses (using charges on said Knout), etc, etc.
 
Big upsetting, horribly bad weekend, I tried to get the druid past the hell ancients; needless to say it didn't work, I had 1,300,000 in gold inorder to do rerolls and bring back my merc, that total stands at 150,000~ now.

All I can say is FE sucks with an elemental druid, I can imagine melee is twice as hard. Heck I even started a multi-player game asking for help, (sorry I wasn't able to stay online, I had to get off rather abruptly and quickly). Nothing seemed to be helping, I need to see about getting some better equipment and a bit more thought I believe will give me a chance at beating them.

On to better news, My lightning sorc hit clvl 18 (yeah chain lightning) she is looking for Andy now and is fairing well, I think the lack of warmth is going to make this build hard (I may have to place stat points in energy, *shutters*) but such is life, It just makes me think again that teleport will be a hard skill to use with this build. the 2 girls move well together though both move then shoot shoot than move together so that helps out alot. charged bolt still works really well with mobs lightning with single foes.
 
Uzziah said:
Big upsetting, horribly bad weekend, I tried to get the druid past the hell ancients; needless to say it didn't work, I had 1,300,000 in gold inorder to do rerolls and bring back my merc, that total stands at 150,000~ now.

All I can say is FE sucks with an elemental druid, I can imagine melee is twice as hard. Heck I even started a multi-player game asking for help, (sorry I wasn't able to stay online, I had to get off rather abruptly and quickly). Nothing seemed to be helping, I need to see about getting some better equipment and a bit more thought I believe will give me a chance at beating them.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you reroll ancients only on FE. But as long as there is no nasty mod (eg fanat, HF), I have few char can stand a few hit, or my strafer zon can provide ranged backup.
 
update

been a while since I updated.

2 major milestones

Elemental druid is complete, he has become patriarch and past into the realm of retirement (pit running). He needs to build up a gold stash first though.

Passive amazon has completed normal and is working on act 1 nightmare. She is following a daggerzon build as of now with throwing as her secondary attack, it kind of fun to see an amazon throwing a dagger through 3-5 people with about 50% in pierce. right now she is concentrating on getting her AR back into the 90% range for attack it dropped to 80% while placing points for a valk. The valk is turning out to be the main killer in the group and she isn't even to the slvl 17 where she would have all the rare items. Oh well I guess this was suppose to be the amazon summon build.

I started the skelemancer, I have gotten to clvl 10 with him, I am not use to the sit and watch aspect yet but the build seems very safe. I will be going the first 40 skill points in raise skeleton, and skeleton mastery, then I will look at getting a golem and mages, I don't think I will go with the revives with him I know they are powerful but that takes out the challenge in the build. +1 amp damage from a wand makes this build fly early on, I don't want to use that as a main skill though so I think I will just let it be on the screen but will not use it, less maybe bosses.

Lightning sorc, I wanted to work on her some and get into the clvl 30 range but haven't had the chance yet, she is almost through act 1 normal and has just reached the chainlightning skill.

alot of progress, but I doubt it will be going to fast for the next month or so, I have alot of RL things coming up and haven't had the play time I use to.
 
gg uzziah! So, did the Firestorm damage cut it through acts 4 and 5? Did you already found thet club you were looking for?

Hey, time for a full update report!
 
ricrestoni said:
gg uzziah! So, did the Firestorm damage cut it through acts 4 and 5? Did you already found thet club you were looking for?

Hey, time for a full update report!
Click to expand...

Let me put it this way at clvl 82 my firestorm was still dishing out more damage than my fully synergized tornado, and could be further synergized by finding that club I am still looking for.

My last kill using just the firestorm was a vampire lord in Baal's minion chamber. In fact if I could have tanked lister and his minions I would have used it on him too bad they were FE and I had to use a different tech. to beat them.

A full update will come with a completion of the next build to kill nightmare Baal. It will be awhile I am afraid.

@Rizzo from earlier on in this thread:

uzziah said:
20 chainlightning
1 Static (letting +skills bring it up)
10 charged bolt
20 lightning
20 nova
20 lightning mastery
Click to expand...

Most likely I will finish using chainlightning and nova as my main attacks, I haven't gotten the hang of chainlightning yet, its the first time I am using it as a main skill, (less my archmage long ago1.09).
 
well done uzziah, at this rate you'll be done by xmas! the lightning sorc should be one of the most fun builds, as long as you get the hang of CL, with nova and static, she'll fly through nm!
 
quick update

Not much for play time lately:

Over all standings;

Passive amazon - Tank_Throw act 1 nightmare
Arrow amazon - act 1 normal clvl 1
javalin amazon - act 1 normal clvl 1

trap assassin - Trapper - complete nightmare
trap assassin - Fire Trapper - act 3 normal (rerun project)
martial assassin - act 1 normal clvl 8 (may restart)
shadow assassin - act 1 normal clvl 1

combat masteries barb - Passive - complete nightmare
combat skills barb - act 1 normal -(restart)
warcries barb - act 1 normal

Elemental druid - Elemental - Complete Hell
Summon druid - Hunter - act 1 normal clvl 1
shapeshift druid - act 1 normal clvl 1

summon necro - Summons - act 3 normal clvl 29 ready to face mephisto (moving very quickly humph)
curse necro - act 1 normal clvl 1 (second restart)
poison & bone - act 1 normal clvl 1

Paladins - all act 1 normal clvl 1 (have restarted and thinking of these build deeply)

fire sorc- Fire - complete nightmare
lightning sorc - Lightning - act 2 normal clvl 20
cold sorc - act 1 normal clvl 1

As you can see not much progress except the necro gaining 19 levels and completing 2 acts.
 
Wow its been almost a month since my last update:

Anywho, My skeleton necro is doing great he beat Baal and the minions with no problem and he will be moving into nightmare shortly.

My passive amazon got some play this round and is sitting in act 2 nightmare working on finding the amulet of the viper IIRC. She has turned more into a sit and watch the valk kill type of build, for some reason I am not to into her right now.

During my week of being sick with the flu, I started a new build the defencive paladin, I must say I was skeptical at first but the build is working quite well. He will be played very different from how I initially thought, I will be playing him as a mage, yes you heard me right he is a defencive aura mage. I recieved 2 more pieces of Trang Oul's set (the armor and belt) to match the gloves I have for the set. though I will not be able to use fireball until level 49 when the armor can be placed on my build, I will be able to manage with physical damage through act 1 nightmare when I hope to reach level 49. I tried out the trangs set with my old passive barb, he was able to use the set effectively to clear the Den of Evil in Hell. Yes even without being fully equiped anymore the passive barb using trang's set could handle act 1 Hell, a better defended Paladin should be able to go through a good portion of Hell with that set on.

Been multi-playing alot lately, mainly using my fire sorc and elemental druid both of which seem to be getting good comments as far as build, uniqueness and viablity. Still in search of that Godly +3 elemental club of Fissures, this is a grail all to itself.

To all of those still following my slow progress, I am sorry that my personal life has limited my D2 play time significantly, thus I have been progressing very very slowly. I really don't want to quit this game but a break from it may be in the near future.
 
Keep the show coming, I love to read how things like this are going. How are you planning to do your shape shifting tree Druid? I'm currently running a solo WB in 1.09 and have just killed Hell Meph. God he's slow and clunky but with almost 2400 hp, in WB form, he's one hell of a tank.
 
revisited

Back from a long hiatus, I got to work on a magi-barb for a while, work with another game for awhile, and had Real life kick my arse for a while.

I started to push my spearzon into the game, she is now clvl 14 :clap: yeah I know not too big of an achievement there. She is wielding a 3 os maidens spear with +2 spear skills, and will be using charged strike once I get it working at high enough levels.

I also revisited my passive only amazon, I did some major items arranging with her and now she is wielding a kuko with her pierce she is in the 75% piercing range, I may readjust her again to have the demonmachine cross bow with 100% pierce, I will have to look at boosting the overall fire damage as well as the physical :). She is in act 3 and is ready to hit the kurast sewers for the nightmare stage, hopefully I can push her to hell in quick order I am really annoyed with how slow that build, and the other melee/really slow builds have been going as of late, I only get 75% of the way to the waypoint then have to do something with my real life :(

I also revamped the equipment with my summon necro, he is in act 1 nightmare awaiting the chance to kill andy and move on into act 2, hopefully I can muster the want to push him through nightmare.

The defensive only paladin is on hold, I will look into using a similar tack as the magi_barb with him so that he may make his way through to hell.

Over all standings;

Passive amazon - Tank_Throw act 3 nightmare
Arrow amazon - act 1 normal clvl 1
Spear amazon - act 1 normal clvl 14

trap assassin - Trapper - complete nightmare
trap assassin - Fire Trapper - act 3 normal (rerun project)
martial assassin - act 1 normal clvl 1
shadow assassin - act 1 normal clvl 1

combat masteries barb - Passive - complete nightmare
combat skills barb - act 1 normal
warcries barb - act 1 normal

Elemental druid - Elemental - Complete Hell
Summon druid - Hunter - act 1 normal clvl 1
shapeshift druid - act 1 normal clvl 1

summon necro - Summons - act 1 Nightmare
curse necro - act 1 normal clvl 1 (second restart)
poison & bone - act 1 normal clvl 1

Offensive Paladin - act 1 normal clvl 1
Defensive Paladin - act 2 normal clvl 20 IIRC
combat paladin - act 1 normal clvl 1

fire sorc- Fire - complete nightmare
lightning sorc - Lightning - act 2 normal clvl 20
cold sorc - act 1 normal clvl 1

Sorry for getting side tracked everyone :)
 
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