Discussion State of the Game - How do you play D2R? What have you been up to lately?

[little birdy]

I went with Atma’s Scarab on my multishot Bowazon and I concur that it’s too unreliable to be truly helpful. Maybe it would proc more if your predominantly used Strafe instead of Multishot..? I dunno. While questing, I kept a Witchwild String on switch for Physical Immunes. It fires Magic Arrows, which I agree are great, and seems to proc Amp Damage more frequently. Still not super reliable, but better than Atma’s IME.

 

[Cattleya]

put on an act 1 mercenary (in which case you have to make it in a non-amazon bow, which does feel like sort of a waste).

Act 1 mercenaries can now use Amazon bows. (That was one of the 2.4 changes.) They also now benefit from +Amazon skills.

 

[LouB]

Yes, Rogues can now use Amazon bows. However, before you make Faith in a GMB read Art Vandelay's guide Faith Bow. Also, You need to decide if you ever want to build a Paladin Ranger or a Druid Hunter using a Faith Bow.

As to what Melee build could use a bone breaker Sunder Charm, you want something with

1) High defense because if they can't hit you they can't do damage. Some level of blocking will also help.
2) High AR so that you can hit and kill the target. You want to be able to hit it more than it hits you.
3) High Life so that nothing can one hit kill you.
4) High life leach, life tap or Redemption so that you can recover quickly from those hits you do take.
5) Reasonable FHR. You don't want to get stunned and then watch your character die while you recover.

Which is why I want to find one to try on my Wolfbarb. However, I would want one with less than 15% extra damage received.

 

[maxicek]

Wind Druid may be interesting. Otherwise I think it is mostly useless. There are relatively few PIs, especially in the main areas that people run. You can just slap Reaper’s on the merc and take a bit longer to kill.

PI solutions for physical characters are well documented. Actually immunity workarounds are well established for all classes, except sorcs, where the advice is usually to teleport past. Sunder charms still seem to me like a solution for a problem that never really existed. All they are doing is making strong characters even stronger.

In fact they break problems they already made solutions for. They added Magic Resistance to Baal Wave 2 to stop Hammerdin bots. Now the bots can just use a sunder charm (I'm assuming bots are still a BNet thing here).

 

[Arparrabiosa]

In fact they break problems they already made solutions for. They added Magic Resistance to Baal Wave 2 to stop Hammerdin bots. Now the bots can just use a sunder charm (I'm assuming bots are still a BNet thing here).

I'm not sure if Black Cleft is really that useful. There is no way to further decrease Magic Resistance, as far as I know. Blessed Hammer does a lot of damage, and I guess you can try to take them down at 95% magic resist, but I think Hammerdins are better skipping magic immunes, just as physical damage characters do with their counterparts.

 

[NorthDakota]

Sunder charms still seem to me like a solution for a problem that never really existed.

Totally agree.

except sorcs

Haha except they can use multiple elements


I think the one element that benefits more than others from sunders is any pure fire build. Fire has so many immunities and unbreakable immunities so it's more limiting than other elements. I think that's unfair. It seems arbitrary to me that one elemental type should be that much less convenient than another type.

I still don't think sunders were the answer though, I would have preferred solutions that made dual element playstyles stronger because that would make the game more interesting. Synergies are the real bad guy here imo, pidgeonholing folks into one tree to maximize their damage, and making unsynergized skills ultra weak. How can you play multiple trees that way? One of the beauties of 1.09.

 

[maxicek]

I dislike sorcs and hate dual tree sorcs. I never even considered that in my head

 

[LouB]

Ugh, me dumb stubborn barbarian, me kill EVERYTHING!!! Well that pretty much sums up my playstyle. So even when I find a PI monster that Decrepify doesn't break he is still going down. That means that I carry a decent amount of elemental damage charms that I might repurpose into MF if I had Bone Breaker. It also means that slows my overall speed.

I agree that PIs aren't that common. Unfortunately, when I started questing toward 99 I chose Baal and Nihlathak as my major targets. I get tons of PI on Nihlathak's level and frequently run into them on level 3 of WSK. Now I do usually run around the Hell Temptresses in the WSK, but that is also how I died a couple of times. Hence my interest in Bone Breaker.

Do I really need Bone Breaker? Not really, but I think it would make life easier. With Terror Zones I'm gaining plenty of experience and do run into fewer PI and especially the unbreakable ones.

As far as dual trees it wasn't just Sorcs. Nightfish also wrote a Fishyzon guide that I used for my first Amazon Mat. Lightning Fury and Freezing Arrow. Now everyone just does Javazons.

 

[snickersnack]

As far as dual trees it wasn't just Sorcs. Nightfish also wrote a Fishyzon guide that I used for my first Amazon Mat. Lightning Fury and Freezing Arrow. Now everyone just does Javazons.

Fishyzon is a great build, but my understanding is that it became somewhat broken due to synergy changes in D2R.

 

[NorthDakota]

Alrighty! My turn to answer since I never did:


New Feature Related Questions:

1. Do you use quick cast? - YES you better believe it. I love quick cast. Why hit a button then click your mouse when you can just hit a button?
2. Do you use force move keybinding? - YES obviously. force move adds another skill based element to gameplay, because now you have more precise control over positioning especially in close proximity to monsters. Also, it enables you to toggle on item display at all times. Otherwise you'd also have to worry about clicking item labels.
3. Do you use always show items (toggle item label display)? or do you use the old method (push and hold to display)? - Toggled on always. one less button to press, thanks blizz my hands love you.
4. Do you use classic or resurrected item spacing? - resurrected is nice when playing on controller, but I use classic item spacing almost all the time.
5. Are you using Terror Zones? - Yeah, on characters I don't care about. On characters I DO care about, I haven't decided yet.
6. Would you use Terror Zones to go for level 99? - on my main 99er that I never got to 99 I haven't used them yet and I'm not sure I will. On my other characters I have because it's fun to farm in more locations, also it's fun to actually make progress towards 99 at a quicker pace. It's still not insanely fast but it's much faster than before. I appreciate it for a more casual experience.
7. How are you using Sunder Charms? Which builds/are you using them etc. - nah. haven't found a situation where I care about it enough yet. Maybe on my dragondin, not sure. The downside is pretty huge for a solo player so meh. I'd rather not take the massive downside to solve a nothing problem (as we've sort of been discussing in this thread).

What have you been up to lately?

1. What character/build have you been playing/enjoying lately? - Multishot Bowazon, leveled from 94 to 96 in terror zones, 30% to 97. Fun to farm, I have about 180% MF and it's working so I'm having a good time doing this. I've been testing out my characters in terror zones briefly but pretty much sticking to the bowazon.
2. Are there any builds that stick out to you as more fun now than in D2LoD? - always planning to do something with the changes but never get around to it XD
3. What have you been doing in game? (mfing, runefinding, LKing, leveling? and where?!) - mfing/leveling in Terror zones almost exclusively. I have been doing some LK runs when I really want to zone out late night. Got a pretty hefty rune stash piling up with no real plans to use any of it.

 

[maxicek]

@LouB A single point in Berserk normally does the trick for me, especially with War Cry.

1.13d really killed the popularity of the Fishyzon. Increased rune drops meant most people had access to Infinity for the first time.

 

[LouB]

@Maxicek The barb that is taking all of my time right now is ARGH the wolfbarb and I went full wolf with him. Unfortunately neither War Cry or Beserk work while in Wolf form. I have a total of 2 points in combat skills (1 in bash and 1 in double swing) from before equiping Wolfhowl. Nor do I have any points in Taunt, Battle Cry or War Cry.

 

[Grisu]

New Feature Related Questions:

1. Do you use quick cast? Tried it once, didn't get along well with it. I know it is the default for newer games now, but I always struggle with that in the newer games - it is probably because I have thousands of hours with D2 and its LMB/RMB only playstayle. You should see me with newer games (tries to switch to a skill in order to cast it a second later "damn, why did it go off already!?!" while it completely misses the target)
2. Do you use force move keybinding? Never tried it, but I often play casters with a spell on LMB, so...IDK if it would be e benefit for my playstyle
3. Do you use always show items (toggle item label display)? or do you use the old method (push and hold to display)? Wait - you can toggle it to always show? Again, I am stuck in my ways though. Tried it, didn't like it (screen got cluttered and it was more difficult to see enemies, which is kind of dangerous in HC), so I switched back to hold to display.
4. Do you use classic or resurrected item spacing? classic
5. Are you using Terror Zones? Yes, since a few days ago, and I like them very much! Don't seem to be more dangerous than regular areas though. But the XP gain is nice
6. Would you use Terror Zones to go for level 99? Yep, doing so atm. See the corresponding thread. I make around 2.5x the XP I made doing 2-seal CS runs at level 97. Will see how much more XP i'll get from 98 to 99, I think it will make a bigger difference there due to the level difference penalty that usually kicks in badly at level 98. In fact, you should get 20x the XP from regular monsters/boss packs in Terror Zones as opposed to non-Terror Zones (only 2 levels difference in terror zones for 100% XP, but 10+ level difference for other areas equals 5%)
7. How are you using Sunder Charms? Which builds/are you using them etc. I use it on my pure Blizzard sorc, but while fighting Uber Duriel I realized, that the CM nerf makes a huge difference. I had to use Revive charges on some Poison Magi in order to defeat him, because the regeneration is off the charts and the damage of Blizzard against 60% Cold resist not enough to overcome it. So no solo Uber Tristram for me, I guess. But it makes running Terror Zones a better experience, because I don't have to skip all CIs - but they still take much longer to defeat than non-CIs of course. Makes running Baal for a Blizzard sorc or 3seal+Diablo way better, but Terror Zones will probably still be better XP-wise.

What have you been up to lately?

1. What character/build have you been playing/enjoying lately? My untwinked level 99 Blizzard sorc, doing Terror Zones since I hit 97.3 (now at 97.8). I will probably go back to my Ability Scroll Tournament sept once she hits 98 though.
2. Are there any builds that stick out to you as more fun now than in D2LoD? Haven't tried new builds/Runewords etc. But I am really looking forward to try out some of the new builds and RWs in untwinked tournament play
3. What have you been doing in game? (mfing, runefinding, LKing, leveling? and where?!) Mostly levelling my UT99er and MFing on my way to 99 (I could be waaaay faster if I didn't pick up all those normal uniques, magical jewels, rare circlets, superior elite items and so on...).

 

[NorthDakota]

if I didn't pick up all those normal uniques, magical jewels, rare circlets, superior elite items

This is normal behavior right?! RIGHT?!

 

[LouB]

RIGHT!!! Anyone else out there that used to pick up EVERY blue ring?

 

[CaseyJones]

New Feature Related Questions:
Do you use quick cast? Until this discussion, I didn't know it existed. Since then I've tried it and have been using it for sure

Do you use force move keybinding? I haven't found a need for this yet, maybe I am just not that much of am elite gamer

Do you use always show items (toggle item label display)? Again was unaware until this discussion, been trying it since. There are times I like it but I still have to remember the key to turn it off so it hasn't entirely freed my mind, just lets the hand rest more.

Do you use classic or resurrected item spacing? Since most of the characters are new to D2R (I started a set of HC chars) whatever the default was. I have since brought forward most of my SC chars from 1.14d for tourneys and fun

Are you using Terror Zones? Yes, a bit. Mostly on my HC chars for extra levels before advancing to the next difficulty. I haven't made it to guardian yet on any.

Would you use Terror Zones to go for level 99? If I decide to try for 99 again. Would be untwinked but not the challenge it once was. A challenge of persistence that I've never managed to play long enough at a time to reach. I had some UT 99er SC chars but since pulling them into D2R I dropped the idea and went ahead and twinked them with the gear I had built up in 1.14d before bringing them forward. It would have to be a new untwinked 99er and if I decided to do it, would probably use Terror Zones just to actually reach it. I just know it isn't the same level of dedication.

What have you been up to lately?
What character/build have you been playing/enjoying lately? Oh, many...I started a guardian sept, and of those, I've been enjoying a blade skills assassin and FoH pally pretty well.

Are there any builds that stick out to you as more fun now than in D2LoD? FoH pally for sure is better with the addition of demons for Holy bolt damage and the boost to assassin blade skills were definitely nice to make that build more viable. We'll see how some of the changes hold up for later gameplay.

What have you been doing in game? Mostly working on my guardian sept of FoH Pally (Conq), Windy Druid (Conq), Blade Assassin (Destroyer), Hydra Sorc (Conq), Bone Necro (Destroyer), Zerk Barb (Destroyer), and Multi/Strafe zon (Destroyer). I did take a few hours to key farm and run uber trist in SC with the intent to get a sorc torch for my SC ES/Nova Sorc (Renet_Tilley) to use in RFL. Luckily managed a midling sorc torch the first time so that didn't consume a ton of time and I was mainly after the +skills

 

[Cattleya]

Anyone else out there that used to pick up EVERY blue ring?

Used to? I'm confused by the use of past tense here...

 

[coju]

Used to? I'm confused by the use of past tense here...

Some play console mainly so having to pick and choose every to keep goes against all instincts.

 

[DarkMaster]

I was checking blue rings for a while when D2R first released, couldn't be bothered to keep that up though haha.

I was hoping to find a 40 MF ring or something but I figured I'd just be better off making a goldfind barb and maybe get one as I'm gambling for rare rings or something.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

I was hoping to find a 40 MF ring or something but I figured I'd just be better off making a goldfind barb and maybe get one as I'm gambling for rare rings or something.

I've settled for perfect Nagels.