What weapon to gamble for?

Ergro

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Jun 20, 2021
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Hello!

it is my first time truly trying untwinked /p8 HC and with Fana Zealot at that (I almost never played truly meele characters, so I thought why not give myself extra new experience) and just now I finally got over normal Mephisto at fresh levels 30, which honestly saved my ass, because Salvation is truly a one skill wonder.

So far I have Zeal at 5 hits, lvl 1 Fana, lvl 1 Salvation, lvl 1 Holy Shield and rest in Sacrifice for extra Zeal damage. Also I am using Prayer Act 2 Merc ATM.

I am not exactly against rerunning areas, but unless I am missing something, at this point of the game it is not really any good to rerun anything anyway? Considering that beating Mephisto, while not extremely dangerous, took pretty long.

As for gear I am using right now, I have various lvl topazed two socket helm and three socket armor, Sander's gloves (courtesy of Mephisto!), Vidala's boots, MF rings and amulet, random rare paladin shield with some extra resists and blocking and as for a weapon I am using a Steel Crystal Sword right now.

It is honestly not that bad when it comes to killing speed so far, but obviously I will need soon a decent upgrade and unless I am lucky with some unique drop, I am looking for something I can try to probably gamble.

Could any of you give me any advice what to look for?

Thanks.
 
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I would probably go for a runeword before I would take the gambling option. With a prayer merc you might go for Malice to get you through normal.

As a rule of thumb I usually rerun locations when I start having problems killing stuff until I find something better. In this case I’ d either go for Lower Kurast with its many chests and pots for stuff to find or good old countess for runes.
 
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Well in that case I have every rune up to Amn, though I have no decent bases atm.

What would be then best to use ATM? King's Grace/Strength/Holy Thunder? Or possibly even Spirit? Obviously some are limited to if I even get a 4 socket single handed weapon, but still what would probably be best use of the runes? I only have a single one Amn and Thul.
 
What is your current level? That also plays a part on which prefix/suffix you can get. Do you want big hits or fast? I like War Hammers as they hit hard with an early zealer, but you can also try faster attacks.

I find level 41 to be a great level to be able to gamble as you can get two +damage% mods (Knights and Ferocious) along with other mods, but it allows a fair amount of 150ish ED items to spawn.
 
Well I just ended my session for today at lvl 39, killing Nihlathak.

Also I decided to roll with the King's Grace, since I had never ever made that RW before and I had superior 3 slot Long Sword in stash. Actually helped quite a bit so that was worth it.

Had my first NDE at Ventar, had to S&E and do it all again with Salvation. Diablo himself was harmless though and dropped me a Crushflange so that will be nice to have on switch for Ancients and Baal. Also gotten Steelclash from first normal venom lord of River of Flames on that second run so that is nice too. Will do nicely until I can get Shael rune for Rhyme.

The killing speed with the King's Grace has been pretty decent so I will probably finish normal with it, level up to maybe a lvl 50 at Baal and do some cows in hopes of getting either some decent uniques or at least slotted bases (say 4 slot polearm for Insight for merc or something).

Will probably end up taking defensive Act 2 N merc. I would love the damage from Might, but considering already having a NDE and this being HC and all, the Holy Freeze will serve better I suppose.
 
Have you considered trying to craft something nice? You can shop instead of gamble to get your base items cheaply. Blood gloves/belt/boots, safety gloves/armor, or hitpower helm/armor are some of the recipes with easy to find runes that might fit your paladin. Hitpower hammer weapons are interesting too, but your King's Grace runeword is probably already better than most products of that particular recipe.

Also, I have never encountered a four-socket base in normal difficulty. Can bases with more than three sockets drop now in D2R nomal difficulty?
 
Have you considered trying to craft something nice? You can shop instead of gamble to get your base items cheaply. Blood gloves/belt/boots, safety gloves/armor, or hitpower helm/armor are some of the recipes with easy to find runes that might fit your paladin. Hitpower hammer weapons are interesting too, but your King's Grace runeword is probably already better than most products of that particular recipe.
Also, I have never encountered a four-socket base in normal difficulty. Can bases with more than three sockets drop now in D2R nomal difficulty?
You could find them in LoD too. I found a 4so poleaxe type and a 4 so paladin shield if I remember correctly.
Both in act V probably (but the more I type the more I doubt if it wasn’t early NM)

Edit: clueless what happened with the quotes and I’m to tired to fix it with my phone
 
Yeah the four slotted versions can be at the very least be gotten from normal cows, maybe even act 5, not sure about that one.

And I actually never crafted anything in Diablo (not counting Zy-El times lol), so that may be a thing to try to look at, thanks for the suggestion.
 
Yeah the four slotted versions can be at the very least be gotten from normal cows, maybe even act 5, not sure about that one.

Afaik max sockets on items in normal is 3 if they drop directly with sockets, but you can use white items found in a5 and cows at larzuk and in the cube to receive 4 sockets if the base allows it, e.g. polearm found in wsk will have a chance at 4 sockets in cube and guaranteed 4 at larzuk
 
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