SWAT team

S

Scaramouche

New member
SWAT team

After a long, RL imposed D2 break, I am back.

And, of course, back with a problem. My chars like to be pimped out with gems and jewels in their gear (they are very big on bling). However, each one only gets 3 socketing rewards, which is nowhere near enough.

So I need a socket runner. A char that can be twinked to reach the prisioners as fast as possible - which rules out any build that relies on lvl 30 skills. This guy (or gal) is certainly not going on to NM, as I doubt he could kill Baal.

Any ideas, suggestions, builds?
 
Well, Fireblast Assassins could be very fast, I guess. You can use it from level 1 on, furthermore you have BoS for FRW and couls simply run through most parts. Very item independent build for this task, I guess.

But there might be better options: A sorceress using early level spells comes to my mind for example (Teleport at level 18).
 
My suggestion is to use a Firezealot paladin. Holy Fire + Zeal in early game = ownage. Plus you have vigor to speed up things. He is very item independent also as you rely on your fire damage really and not your weapon. WSM though is a consideration to hit breakpoints with zeal.
 
Assuming you can twink the char (each char?) to get them to normal Shenk as quick as possible I would go with a Frost Nova sorc. In normal diff she can be huge fun and with the right gear for +skill and mana she will plow though packs and bosses with ease and you get free teleport to make life a lot quicker in act2 tombs/act3 swamps etc. And with a well twinked fire arrow rogue to clean up the stragglers.

I used to make frost nova sorcs just to run havoc around in normal, it always annoyed me that frost nova was worthless at higher levels as it's such a cool skill.
 
I thought a lot about this question for quite a while (so please share your results when you're done with the project). My conjecture lead me to pick a pure fire sorc (assuming you're twinked). Basically, pump fbolt until you have fball, then max that (with a point in OPW's of course). Your damage should be extreme for that point in the game, and if you use a mask and breast plate stuffed with (insert appropriate quality) sapphires, you shouldn't ever have much in the way of mana problems. Once you hit level 18, just tele past almost everything except when you need a quick burst of exp.

-CG
 
I don't think killing power will be the deciding factor if we're talking about running through /players1 normal. An assasin will likely be the fastest in from level 6 to 12. At that level charge becomes available, which should be faster with a little practice (and a lot of sapphires). And teleport will own pretty much anything once it's available. The crucial question would be how much levels you expect to gain, and how soon.

Personally, I'd try a sorceress first.
 
Fire assassins are a good choice, as are Holy Fire paladins. Neither does well in NM and certainly not hell, but they are both quick out of the gate. Or a Fireball sorc.

If you are twinking items on, I would vote for a Holy Fire paladin using Raven Claw at level 15, Hsarus' items + Khalim's Will/gemmed scepter at the beginning. That's hard to beat
 
I'm with CG on this one, fire sorc all the way. What are your biggest challenges going to be?

1) Bosses:
a) Andy - run around the blood pool shooting fireballs, or blaze away
b) Duriel - blaze again
c) Meph - fireballs across the moat
d) Diablo - stay mobile with teleport and fireballs again

2) Mobility
Early game won't be the best, get some FRW gear on and high tail it to lvl 18 when teleport will own if your mana can cut it.
 
muzzz said:
I don't think killing power will be the deciding factor if we're talking about running through /players1 normal.
Click to expand...

If we're talking p1 normal while running past a good portion of the monsters, the runner will likely be severely underlevelled for the majority of the game. While p1 normal certainly requires no real killing power for the average questing char, anything requiring a to-hit roll (zealots for example) is going to be whiffing the majority of their attacks due to being very low level, and even things that autohit are going to have severely underdeveloped skills. When I was planning for this kind of thing way back in the day, I was expecting to reach my goal (in my case it was the personalization quest, but that's only 5-10 minutes past the socket qeust) before ever getting meteor (possibly without even hitting level 20 - leaf and TP are both available earlier and once you have both, why level?). An advantage of the fire sorc is things like leaf in addition to the abundance of low level +fireskill equipment allowing a large chunk of damage even with a single digit number of hard points in fball.

-CG

[pet peeve]Special Weapons Assault Team[/pet peeve]


 
Surely it would be more efficient to build a blizz or orb sorc and do both the normal and NM socket quests? Plus you get a NM HF drop as a bonus.
 
goltar25 said:
Just to be nitpicky, I've never seen it called that. I've only seen it Special Weapons And Tactics. So SWAT Team is correct, and is the common usage on most police forces (to my knowledge).
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT

According to Wiki, the creator wanted to call it Special Weapons Assault Team but his boss disagreed and so it became Special Weapons and Tactics, which is what I've always heard it called (but then I am a Brit and so I'm basing it on what I've seen on TV).

Back on topic, I second the Holy Fire Zealot. Shop a weapon with +3 holy fire and you rock through normal. Also, a holy fire zealot is a great way of getting chippies if you ever decide to do chippie re-rolls. But basically, any build that allows you to pump points in level 1 or level 6 skills will go through normal at a rate of knots. Sorcs are good for the inbuilt teleport, but IIRC, staves with charges of teleport can be shopped in Act 2 normal, so with a bit of time here you could get teleport on other characters.

If you do decide to go the caster route, a 6 soc crystal sword full of Tirs helps a lot with mana.



 
If you use Holy Fire, you should twink the Angelic set for Zealing, and the unique Long Bow as well. The Holy Fire damage carries to the explosive arrows, IIRC.

The Angelic sabre attacks super fast, the rings' AR will allow you to hit monsters far above your level, and the Rings + Ammy give huge life bonuses, while the +skills and MF are all gravy. Excellent twinking set in my opinion.
 
Just a point. An orb sorc can run through NM in about 20 minutes with teleport, but normal is a bit slower. I would go with a twinked sorc and do NM and normal for socket rewards, and carry on to the Hell Hellforge. That is just me though.

Another good trick is to run your first one to act 3 and create Khalims flail but don't use it. It has zero level requirements and is the best early twink weapon. Dump it on all your socket rushers and Normal will fly by.

I would also check with guys like Dune and maybe consider doing a Hell HF rush while you are about it anyways. Sockets are nice but the change of getting a Gul rune is great!
 
Yikes - I posted the wrong quest! How embarassing! :embarassed: noob But it made for a much better title anyway.

I think I'll go the sorceress way (fire) and aim at doing both normal and NM. Khalim's and angelics make act 1 and 2 very easy, fire attacks the rest of the way.

For scientific observation, I'll see if I can outfit a zealot, just to time it. Since I've never played an assassin, I'll pass that one for now.

I'll get started tonight and let you guys know how it's going!
 
Colorless Green said:
If we're talking p1 normal while running past a good portion of the monsters, the runner will likely be severely underlevelled for the majority of the game.
Click to expand...

Anything that doesn't skip a good portion will be sub-optimal anyway :smiley: I hadn't thought about AR yet. But wouldn't an angelics combo (and possibly a BA merc) solve most of that?



 
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