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Since the original D2 thread has closed, started another one to talk about D2 and now D2R which was released 5 years after the most recent bug fix patch (v1.14), or 20 years since the last time I played at all (v1.09).

Anyway, the thing I most want to say after not having played in two decades is...Duriel can eat twenty years' worth of dicks.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Since the original D2 thread has closed, started another one to talk about D2 and now D2R which was released 5 years after the most recent bug fix patch (v1.14), or 20 years since the last time I played at all (v1.09).

Anyway, the thing I most want to say after not having played in two decades is...Duriel can eat twenty years' worth of dicks.

--Patrick

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Well, good to hear some things never change.

As a summoner necro, duriel wasn't a problem for me. Diablo on the other hand took 20 minutes

Duriel was rough the first time as a summoner necro for me. Once I got a decent Clay Golem and Decrepify, all bosses become a joke. My Necro is lvl 79 and still farming for real gear for Hell despite having 250% magic find. Good lord, I forgot how hard decent drops were ro get.

I may farm Countess forever so I can get good runes eventually.

Ravenpoe said:

As a summoner necro, duriel wasn't a problem for me. Diablo on the other hand took 20 minutes

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I pumped a few points into summin resisy so they would not be instakilled by fire and that helped a lot. Also, Decrepify.

My Necro was the good ol' Blood Golem + Iron Maiden. No idea how that's changed in 1.10 and up.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

My Necro was the good ol' Blood Golem + Iron Maiden. No idea how that's changed in 1.10 and up.

--Patrick

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It still works, but you're better off with clay golem as iron maiden no longer procs the lifesteal of blood golem

I've had some rotten luck trying to find skill charms, or even resist charms. Anyone here had any success?

Krisken said:

I've had some rotten luck trying to find skill charms, or even resist charms. Anyone here had any success?

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I've got a 20% resist lightning Grand charm that I found on normal, that's it so far

I’ve only just hit 24 or 25 (I forget which) last night. Only ones I’ve kept so far have been a couple of small charms with +1-2 cold dmg & high single-digit elemental resist.

—Patrick

Ahh, ok. My Necro is lvl 77 with +250% MF. I find lots of low level stuff but nothing to get too excited over (though i did get a Mal rune, which was cool). Still struggling with resists in Hell and really need +Skills so the Skellies can deal decent damage in Hell.

Getting REAL tired of the game crashing after getting to the lvl 5 Hell Countess cellar before I can kill the Countess

Necromancer has finally farmed his Monarch shield and has the Spirit runeword. I think what I enjoy about this game is how each step feels meaningful.

Story time:

Was traveling through Act 3, had just entered the Travincal Hell and a rando Unique drops this-



Damn near piss myself, excited as hell. Then I try to identify it.... and it won't do it. I immediately save and log out. Try to get back in and it shows my character as dead in the load screen.

Breathe a bit, get really worked up. Ready to do an angry post on the Blizz forums (which, c'mon, it's just a game right?). Try again in a minute and see my character isn't dead. With trepidation I open my inventory and I see it there! Hit Identify and am so lucky I still have my fantastic Shako, ready to go!



Just glad I didn't need to do 1700 Mephisto runs to get one!!!

Thanks for reading my story!

I don't think I've ever even had one of those.

--Patrick

I had them in the old days (I played a LOT), but to have it drop as soon as I roll into the Travincial area was bonkers. I saw the Unique color and Shako and said out loud "Are you fucking kidding me?!?"

I would have definitely not been happy if the character didn't load back up with it!

Maaaan I miss D2. Do I buy this? AAAAA

Chad Sexington said:

Maaaan I miss D2. Do I buy this? AAAAA

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Be warned that the bnet servers crash like... daily. Literally, it's been every day

Playing on the switch. Working on building up my summoner necro, but it’s slow going since you’re capped at four players and the biggest group I’ve hooked up with is three.

Right now, I’m just trying to find a plain crystal sword and kite shield to make a couple Spirit runewords. They. Just. Won’t. Drop.

That Monarch shield you won't get until hell difficulty and you are better off shopping for a +3 Sunmoning wand. Only Paladin can Spirit shield in Normal.

Started a Sorc.. never leveled one back in the day.

Chad Sexington said:

Started a Sorc.. never leveled one back in the day.

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For me it was Druid. Never played one, don't know the meta (well, even more than just never played 1.10 or newer).

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

For me it was Druid. Never played one, don't know the meta (well, even more than just never played 1.10 or newer).

--Patrick

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I'm leveling an elemental druid now. For the first 30 levels or so you're basically just playing shitty sorceress

Ravenpoe said:

I'm leveling an elemental druid now. For the first 30 levels or so you're basically just playing shitty sorceress

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Yeah, but then you can respec into Wind Druid, which is hella fun. But you aren't wrong, fire druid is pretty craptastic.

Krisken said:

Yeah, but then you can respec into Wind Druid, which is hella fun. But you aren't wrong, fire druid is pretty craptastic.

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Arcane Sanctuary to a fire druid is like the maggot tunnels to a summoner necro. Pure frustration. All of the fire druid spells travel along the ground and don't work on stairs, and the sanctuary is ALL STAIRS.

But yes, once you get to around 32 or so you can comfortably respec into wind and it's a lot better.

So is there a Battlenet group to join? Do I post my username? Down to play with some people sometime. I am only Lv 15, just finished Act I on Norm

Ravenpoe said:

Arcane Sanctuary to a fire druid is like the maggot tunnels to a summoner necro. Pure frustration. All of the fire druid spells travel along the ground and don't work on stairs, and the sanctuary is ALL STAIRS.

But yes, once you get to around 32 or so you can comfortably respec into wind and it's a lot better.

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I main Summon Necro. Maggot tunnels aren’t so bad, especially with Corpse Explosion. The Arcane Sanctuary is my most hated zone because of the minion pathfinding. If they have to go downstairs to get to a ranged enemy, it’s the biggest PITA.

Chad Sexington said:

So is there a Battlenet group to join? Do I post my username? Down to play with some people sometime. I am only Lv 15, just finished Act I on Norm

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I think we have a thread where many of us have posted our bnet IDs?
It's been a while since @Jay has updated the OP with the tags people have posted further on in the thread, though. So it might take some digging to find the rest of us. Too bad the board doesn't have a regex search function, eh?

--Patrick

Zappit said:

I main Summon Necro. Maggot tunnels aren’t so bad, especially with Corpse Explosion. The Arcane Sanctuary is my most hated zone because of the minion pathfinding. If they have to go downstairs to get to a ranged enemy, it’s the biggest PITA.

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I have a summon necro as well and the only problem I have with arcane sanctuary is it's going to use up my staff of teleportation charges and force me to return to town to repair/recharge.

Seriously, don't let your skeletons path find, just teleport them.

Ravenpoe said:

I have a summon necro as well and the only problem I have with arcane sanctuary is it's going to use up my staff of teleportation charges and force me to return to town to repair/recharge.

Seriously, don't let your skeletons path find, just teleport them.

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The day I get Enigma for my Necro is the day the clouds part and choirs of angels sing. Though at this point I'd settle for 2 Um runes for Bone.

Krisken said:

The day I get Enigma for my Necro is the day the clouds part and choirs of angels sing. Though at this point I'd settle for 2 Um runes for Bone.

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Have Enigma on my OG Necro, and it makes things sooooooooooo much easier.

Krisken said:

The day I get Enigma for my Necro is the day the clouds part and choirs of angels sing. Though at this point I'd settle for 2 Um runes for Bone.

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Enigma is hard to get, but a staff of teleportation is easy, give it a try. It'll change your necro life.

What should I be doing on Normal for gear? Farming bosses or just pressing onward and using the mediocre things I find. I still can't find a belt better than one that dropped in the Den of Evil

Just keep going. Unless the meta has changed, you probably want to get through the normal (“training”) game ASAP so you can at least start farming the tier II stuff in Act I Nightmare OR hang out in Act IV/V hoping for boss drops.

…now you’re going to make me go look to see if the meta has changed, dangit.

—Patrick

Chad Sexington said:

What should I be doing on Normal for gear? Farming bosses or just pressing onward and using the mediocre things I find. I still can't find a belt better than one that dropped in the Den of Evil

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For normal you can almost ignore gear entirely and still get through it, especially if you are a caster. Just use that you find and soldier on. Once you get to NM you can run normal cows for some nice socketed items to build runewords in, and farm nightmare countess of blood in act 1 for the proper runes, which should be able to carry you through nightmare

Chad Sexington said:

What should I be doing on Normal for gear? Farming bosses or just pressing onward and using the mediocre things I find. I still can't find a belt better than one that dropped in the Den of Evil

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Did you do the Andariel glitch trick?

Zappit said:

Did you do the Andariel glitch trick?

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They "fixed" that and it is no longer necessary. The odds are the same for quest Andariel and non quest Andariel now.

Zappit said:

Did you do the Andariel glitch trick?

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No idea what that is. I haven't played this since like... I can't even tell you. My memory is vague. I remember the boss fights a bit, the Stone of Jordan was a valuable and then devalued commodity, and I impressed myself by recalling a few Horadric cube recipes. No memory of any glitches!

Chad Sexington said:

No idea what that is. I haven't played this since like... I can't even tell you. My memory is vague. I remember the boss fights a bit, the Stone of Jordan was a valuable and then devalued commodity, and I impressed myself by recalling a few Horadric cube recipes. No memory of any glitches!

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Yeah, not a thing anymore, thankfully. You now get the best item odds from Andariel whether it is the quest or just going after her after the quest is done. It used to be that you could quest bug her so you got better item odds if you took the portal back which spawns, talk to only the dude to take you east on the Caravan, then log out.

As for getting items... yeah, generally you are going to get some pretty crap stuff. Farm Countess for runes so you can make a Stealth runeword if you are a caster



And also you can get the runes for Lore



Other than that, get thee to Nightmare as soon as you can.

The reason so many of us are telling you to get to Nightmare is that there is a visual and obvious hierarchy of items and item quality—leather->studded leather->ring mail->etc But eventually you will get to a point where you start to find items that use the graphic/icon for the most basic, lowest-level stuff, yet their stats/armor value are better than the highest-level stuff and they start having new names, e.g. instead of “Leather Armor” it may be called “Serpentskin Armor.” This is what I meant by “Tier II” items. The official nomenclature is that they are “Exceptional” instead of “Normal” items, and they will ramp up in stats/hierarchy/icons the same way that “Normal” items did.

…And then once you have climbed all the way through Nightmare, and made your way into Hell difficulty, the cycle will begin again with the Tier III or “Elite”-quality items, e.g. “Wyrmhide Armor” and so on.

—Patrick

True. I would also suggest when beating Baal in NM to NOT jump directly to Hell. It is HARD, and doesn't hold your hand.

Kill Andariel, Mephisto, Baal, Diablo if you can handle it (I always find Diablo harder than Baal), and secret Cow Level (The Moo Moo Farm) until you get some decent items. Also, Nightmare Countess can drop even better runes than Normal Countess and is and the potential for essential runewords for steps up.

Yeah, I beat the game on Hell back in the day, I remember the difficulty curve being steep. I just can't really remember when I started accumulating quality equipment

Well I've finally made it to Act IV at cLvl 27.
Let the games begin!

--Patrick

Just beat Duriel, wow I forgot how challenging that fight is. I was not ready. Basically just kept TP home, heal, buy potions, attack until potions ran out, repeat. Took so long.

You're laying Sorc, yeah, that can be a tough fight. What element are you focusing on ATM?

Pro tips for people that struggle with duriel or Andariel, you can chug a few antidotes/thawing potions to increase your poison/cold resists during the fight.

And if you are playing a sorc make sure you have a point or two in static field. All your Merc has to do is live for three seconds while you static Duriel's health to zero

Krisken said:

You're laying Sorc, yeah, that can be a tough fight. What element are you focusing on ATM?

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Cold!

Ravenpoe said:

And if you are playing a sorc make sure you have a point or two in static field. All your Merc has to do is live for three seconds while you static Duriel's health to zero

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WHAT

I knew the potions thing but WHAT

Yeah it took me until D2:R to realize that thawing potions work against Duriel's freezing aura. I had always thought they wouldn’t because it was technically supposed to be holy instead of cold damage or some bs like that.

Chad Sexington said:

I knew the potions thing but WHAT

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Static is very spammable.

--Patrick

Chad Sexington said:

Cold!


WHAT

I knew the potions thing but WHAT

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Static field reduces a monster's health by 25% of their current health. Which on bosses is a whole lot. So spamming static as fast as you can is going to chunk their health down super fast.

This works on all bosses except for those immune to lightning. And at higher difficulties the effect is reduced, nm it stops working when they are at 25% health remaining and hell it can only get them down to 50%.

Fascinating

Yep, it's still one of the best skills against bosses just for that. Its effect loses its punch in Hell and the skill points are probably better spent elsewhere, but it's awesome in Normal.

Bubble181 said:

Yep, it's still one of the best skills against bosses just for that. Its effect loses its punch in Hell and the skill points are probably better spent elsewhere, but it's awesome in Normal.

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Even in hell reducing a boss to half health is still great, and by that point you only need a single point with all the +skills you should have. But for normal and much of nightmare I like to have 5 hard points into it just for convenience, that gives enough range to be just outside of melee

Ravenpoe said:

Even in hell reducing a boss to half health is still great, and by that point you only need a single point with all the +skills you should have. But for normal and much of nightmare I like to have 5 hard points into it just for convenience, that gives enough range to be just outside of melee

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I honestly don't remember if I ever played a Sorc all the way up to endgame Hell. I only ever played solo or LAN with my brother, so levels over 80 were hard and slow going. I leveled only once character to 99 and that took fo--rrr--eeeevv----eeeerrrrr. A Necro.

Bubble181 said:

I honestly don't remember if I ever played a Sorc all the way up to endgame Hell. I only ever played solo or LAN with my brother, so levels over 80 were hard and slow going. I leveled only once character to 99 and that took fo--rrr--eeeevv----eeeerrrrr. A Necro.

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I came to this thread via the New Posts page and didn't actually read the name of the thread before clicking on it. Then I misread Sorc as Sonic. I was very confused by this post.

Krisken said:

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Well those five minutes of accurate, personal attacks were unnecessary.

Patch 2.3
"Players now have a “Game Difficulty Scale” available in the options menu for offline games, which provides the same function as the /players debug command"


--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Patch 2.3
"Players now have a “Game Difficulty Scale” available in the options menu for offline games, which provides the same function as the /players debug command"


--Patrick

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I Can't Imagine playing D2 not on Player8 solo

mikerc said:

I came to this thread via the New Posts page and didn't actually read the name of the thread before clicking on it. Then I misread Sorc as Sonic. I was very confused by this post.

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Pretty sure sonic goes to hell in that bioware rpg

I dusted off my battletag yesterday and started my sorcerer

I think they added D3 to my library too. Very sneaky lol.

I saw you in game. I'm still on hiatus from D2R at the moment, or I'd offer to join.

--Patrick

I may make a WD. How can I not lol?

Are the servers particularly terrible or is my lack of being able to remain connected a local issue?