So how do yall level?

C

CamaroIroc

New member
So how do yall level?

Im a Bnet player, moved to NC recently and Im without internet for about a week or 2.. so I started playing SP. Got a Venom Sin to 32 and Act 4 and a Fishymancer to 18 and Act 1 so far.. and Im liking SP.. I like not losing maps, and not having to make mule games lol.. and with RRM and RWM, I dont lose anything from Bnet. But how do yall get to the 70s and 80s? MP games with Chaos and Baal Minion runs? Or just playing thru the game? I enjoy playing, but I want to get up to high NM and Hell so I can MF.. which is the true fun of the game, imo :)

Just curious
 
finally someone else using the word ya'll and yep players 8 another nice feature of sp then you can solo baal runs for the same exp as large groups
 
Well, if you are having trouble leveling, it's because you're progressing to slow. Run your Sin through act 4, run to anya, save her, and pindle run until level 40.
 
Playing through the game and doing some runs, got my necros level up to 84 (wish my meteorb was lvl 84). I did some norm baal and diablo runs when i was about 1/2 way through NM, as well as some NM andy and meph. The former still got me a few levels up surprisingly. I think i got up to pits at around lvl 79 and got about 3-4 lvls from running there.
 
I progress slow because I'm anal and I always do full clears of mobs and maps in every area.. yes.. every area.. even the false tombs (took 2.5 hours) and the dungeons in Kurast (an hour there) and the Marsh (45 minutes at least)

Havnt gotten anywhere where I can do runs yet.. I did do a few Norm Meph runs, but Ive gotten better things from him in p1 than I have on p8 in the 10 or so runs Ive done o.O
 
I generally wait until the end of a difficulty, then do WSK and baal runs til I feel like I'm ready for the next difficulty.
 
Yaotzin is right, if you do full clears then /players 8 command is all you need to keep you clvl in balance with you area progress.
 
Just in case you're not familiar with the /players # command...

Hit enter like you are going to chat with someone (even though it's SP)
type /players 8
hit enter
you will not see your message, but instead a message from the game saying that it has been set to 8 players

Actually you can set the number to any integer from 1 to 8 and the game will adjust itself accordingly.

Note: Monsters that have already spawned retain their current /p setting, so if you see a tough group, you can't quick type /players 1 to make them easier. The range is slightly off screen.

As how I level? I typically do a few countess runs in each difficulty that helps, and when I get to act 5 I do a handful of Eldrich runs.

Other than that, typical Bnet guidelines work, except it's single player so no rushes ;)
 
CamaroIroc said:
I progress slow because I'm anal and I always do full clears of mobs and maps in every area.. yes.. every area.. even the false tombs (took 2.5 hours) and the dungeons in Kurast (an hour there) and the Marsh (45 minutes at least)

Havnt gotten anywhere where I can do runs yet.. I did do a few Norm Meph runs, but Ive gotten better things from him in p1 than I have on p8 in the 10 or so runs Ive done o.O
Click to expand...

For MF, P1 >>> P8. P8 doesn't improve the drops by that much, but significantly increases your run times. Lots of runs at P1 will yield much more than fewer runs at P8, especially seeing as the effect of adding more players suffers from diminishing returns.

Also, for the purposes of drops, always use an odd players setting. Because the players command adds unpartied players, you'll see the same drops on P1 as P2, P3 as P4, etc.



 
Nazdakka said:
For MF, P1 >>> P8. P8 doesn't improve the drops by that much, but significantly increases your run times. Lots of runs at P1 will yield much more than fewer runs at P8, especially seeing as the effect of adding more players suffers from diminishing returns.

Also, for the purposes of drops, always use an odd players setting. Because the players command adds unpartied players, you'll see the same drops on P1 as P2, P3 as P4, etc.
Click to expand...

Depends what you're doing and how much damage you do. For say cows, p7 is certainly better than p1. They drop far more stuff, and for most cow killing builds, it isn't considerably slower. For pindle, or unique-only AT, or somesuch, p1 is best as upping it doesn't change the drop rate at all.

Also, if you kill stuff in 1 blizzard on p1 and p3, obviously you should run on p3 :P


 
Players8 for all of normal and nightmare for me, then usually just players1 through hell. Once I've killed Baal in hell (if I can, that is - I haven't done it with any character except a summoner), then I go back with varying players settings depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.

As far as MF goes, set the players setting to as high as you can without a decrease in your killing speed.

If you want to run countess for runes, run her at P1 (there is a thread out with a linky to Lord Urlik's Rune Finder's Guide v2.0 it contains gobbs of info on drop rates - interesting read if your into the mathmatics).
 
Once you reach Act V, the top XP generators are Eldritch runs until the XP dries out.

Then you do Pindle runs until your eyes bleed. You don't have to kill all the undead in the Zombie Garden, just Pindle and company. It goes like this: Start game, run to Anya's portal, kill Pindle, pick up any phat l00t, end game. That takes all of about 20 seconds or so if your character can deal enough damage. Now repeat.

After Pindle stops giving you XP, you kill Baal...get to the throne room with a minimum of delay, kill his posse (that's where the biggest XP boost comes from) and if you like, jump through the portal and kill Baal. I usually switch from p8 to P1 for baal. Not because he's hard but it takes more time to kill him on p8 and it doesn't improve his drops worth mentioning.

You should be able to work up to lvl 65 or so doing this in NORMAL.

Run through NM but spend some time killing Mephisto until you get as much stuff as you like (he likes to drop Titan's Revenge in NM) and then run through to Act V where you can do the Eldritch-Pindle-Baal thing. You will see when the XP boosts start to dry up.

Hell Act I has Teh Pitz. For XP, run them at as high a playersX setting as you can handle. For MF, run them on p1 for efficiency. Then hit Mephisto for as long as you can stand it. Eventually you will tire of the repetition and move on to Act V where you can do the [drumroll, please] Eldritch-Pindle circuit until you gather up enough courage to take on the Old Guys on the Mountain. After that, it's Baal.

Nowadays most folks become pats/mats with char levels in the mid to high 80's although there are always exceptions...depends on the build. My javazon and fishymancer both pat'd at level 83 whilst others are almost lvl90 and still have not gone the distance.

Your mileage may vary.
 
Level 65 in normal difficulty? Seems like a waste of time to me, experience starts to drop off ridiculously once you're a few levels higher than the monsters you face. How many runs does it take to get that high?
 
Experience does not drop off as quickly in Normal as you think when you run Baal's posse over and over and over and...well, you get the picture.

As to how many runs, I do not know. I hardly ever count the number of times I do anything in the game unless it's for a specific project like recording Countess rune drops on Players 1, Hell cow rune drops on Players 2, etc.

Killing Baal does not give nearly as much experience as killing Lister does. I think I mentioned it wasn't strictly necessary to jump through Baal's portal as his boost to your XP drops off sooner than the posse's and he takes longer to kill. I usually run the posse and Baal until about lvl 60 and just the posse until level 63-65 depending on how I feel.

What you will notice is that your XP drops off dramatically when you finally give up on running Baal's house and your start doing NM. Well, at least until you make it back into Act V.

Try it on your next character and see what I'm talking about.

BTW, a lot of folks freak when they make it to Baal's house for the first time. Running him over and over will eliminate that fear/confusion and the mistakes they cause. By the time you make it to Hell Baal, you will be ready to rumble because you've seen it all so many times before.

The Ancients are another matter. TONS of XP but you really don't get much of a chance to scope them out because each character normally gets to see them only once per game (Normal, NM, Hell) unless they die or bail out. And the Ancients have an annoying habit of spawning with ugly mods that almost always highlight your weaknesses.

One the mistakes I see people make is to stand near the central altar and duke it out with all three of the Old Guys at once. Before you activate them, take a gander at the whole playing field (two to three screens wide!) and size up the defensive and offensive opportunities. For example, the steps to Worldstone Keep or one of the other tight spots insures that the Ancients will come at you from only one direction. If you can go toe to toe with them one at a time, that could work for you. If your character needs to move around to avoid hits, there are a lot of columns where you can duck behind as needed. Don't get strafe locked: One burst and then move to a new position. Keep your merc/underlings alive. Recast them as needed. Decoy, Decoy, Decoy. It's little stuff like that.

Dang! I spend way too much time playing this game...
 
OldSoldier said:
Level 65 in normal difficulty? Seems like a waste of time to me, experience starts to drop off ridiculously once you're a few levels higher than the monsters you face. How many runs does it take to get that high?
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I've made it into the low 60s of normal Baal runs. (I wasn't trying to, I was just enjoying the runs so I kept doing them.) Normal Baal is lvl 60 iirc, so he will give you good XP for a long time.



 
I have to correct my statement as to the size of the Ancient's map. The accessible area is actually four screens wide and 3 screens high. That gives you a lot of room to move.

In the process of measuring the map, I also happened to slug it out with Hell Old Guys. I can never keep their names straight but the jumper and I had a cute little dance going on. He'd jump at me, I'd let loose a Guided Arrow and run to the spot from which he'd leaped. This went on for quite some time. I had to feed the merc a couple of purples, drank a few myself, and recast my valk twice while all this was going on. The nice thing about having a merc and a valk is that it evens up the odds a bit. Occasionally, the Ancients will split up and attack all three characters separately but sometimes all three of them will gang up on just YOU.

BTW, you should always snap a screen print of your character after beating the old guys. It's quite scenic up there on the mountain.

Here are a few I took:

Bowies Kick
Look Ma
I Can See
 
o1d_dude said:
What you will notice is that your XP drops off dramatically when you finally give up on running Baal's house and your start doing NM. Well, at least until you make it back into Act V.
Click to expand...

Interesting concept that I hadn't heard before (getting up to 65 in normal, that is). Do you then play NM on players 1 until getting back into act V? Might make the game go faster, but I don't know how long those runs take to get that high. I usually go into NM at level 45 or so.



 
To be honest, until you suggested it, I hadn't thought about playing NM on players 1. Good call.

The Act V runs usually produce a couple of levels each time I sit down to play...an hour maybe?

My playing style is oriented to the attention deficit times we live in. Do some leveling of developing characters, run the Countess for runes with a different character, run the Hell cows with a Lightning Fury Javvie for old times' sake, cube some skillers, charms, and jewels, do some more leveling, etc.

I no longer work for a living and take breaks from my projects throughout the day to play D2. Maybe that's why my projects always take longer than I plan...
 
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