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Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
> In article <d4o9te$mo$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>
>
>>But actually that was just a matter of a few Baal runs. Formerly I
>>played with friends in earlier areas of the game, without gaining much
>>experience.
>
> If you're in a hurry, Baal runs, public ones at that, are your friend.
Sometimes. I think it was the day before yesterday, when I really had
bad luck. You know, I'm bad at the teleport thingy.
In the first Baal run that I joined, I was the highest level sorc, and
so they asked me to teleport. I tried, but as usual I died ... how can I
explain the party that I can't do that well, and they send me on a
suicide mission? I couldn't erecover my body, so my exp was lost.
I tried three more Baal runs, but no luck. People put the portals right
into mobs of monsters, so that the whole party died when going through
the portal. It was really frustrating. In all those runs I couldn't
recover my Body, and lost a lost about half an level of exp
Then I did one Baal run alone. Walking, not teleporting, clearing all
the WSK levels. It worked, got an easy variant of Listor and pack. After
that, things turned to the better, and the further baal runs that I
joined were rather successful, I got my lost exp back quickly and made
lvl 74.
> I
> did a few when I just wanted my IK Barb to get to the level where he could
> wear the full set. It worked, but it wasn't much fun, people were much too
> selfish, and I must admit I took over that behaviour (not that there's
> much more you can do...)
Hmm, what do you mean with selfish? I got accustomed to getting no loot
in a public Baal run, but that's just the way it is. I can do my own
boss or Baal runs if I want, or play with friends. Usually the parties
team up well in the throne of Baal, but thats easy becuase each type of
character has a mostly fixed task and position.
>>>As you probably saw yesteryday, I was online, but had due to
>>>other things, little time to play D2.
>>
>>A friend asked me for a rush through normal, so was a bit busy, too.
>
> No problem, retry this evening.
And this time we got it right
[Decisions on high level stuff that Hajo never saw before]
>>I want to have your problems
>
>
The game was also fun for me when I was in your position... So don't
> worry, the game will adapt to your own 'level' of 'advance' in it.
Overall I found that D2 has a great game balance. It scales perfectly
from the start to the very end, it is challenging but also rewarding on
all levels.
I never saw a game before that provided such a good game balance
throughout such a long path of character development.
>>>I also acquired an Amn (someone gave me one for free, nice), and made
>>>Spirit in a Monarch. It turned out rather mediocre: 30% FCR (range 25-35),
>>>about 105 mana (range 89-112) and only 3 magic absorb (range 3-8).
>>
>>Don't be sad. The shield will be a great help, even with this modifiers.
>
> I know, I know. I also know I'm going to make another 4 socket Monarch,
> acquire the runes for spirit again, and make another. The wordt of the two
> I have then, I'm probably going to clear with the cube recipe, or try to
> trade for more 'ingredients' for another one.
The hunt for the perfect gear. Just take care, some day Diablo will be
so easy for your characters, that it gets boring
>>Magic/rare boots aslo don't seems to have any modifiers that are
>>particularly helpful for a sorceress. You could just look for helpful
>>things in general, high defense, high resists, faster walk, +light
>>radius. I find the latter interesting, because you can target monsters
>>farther away and react better if you see a danger earlier.
>
> Actually, rare boots _can_ be very valuable, so I also pick all of them up
> too. They can f.i. spawn with 3 seperate resistances, and if that's
> combined with some other nice mods (FRW, life, etc) they can be quite
> valuable.
Yes, somewhere I have two nice pairs of rare boots stored (I gambled
both, long ago, when I was short on good boots. Then all of a sudden I
got some unique and set boots and now I have more boots than characters
to make use of them. But lately boots became rare drops again, but I get
lots of gems ... funny world).
I guess I seriously should check if they are better than what my sorc is
currently wearing.
> I've also looked at the crafting recipes, but even Crafted Caster boots
> don't look too promising...
I never tried crafting items so far. The recipes are expensive, and from
the descriptions, the results didn't really look promising.
I heard that some people are very happy with their crafted items, so I
might be wrong, but I also don't know how often they had to try before
getting something useful.
> +light also indicates to the monsters you're there, so sometimes -light
> helps you to stay more 'stealthy'...
Interesting. I didn't know that
Yet, at least with my style of playing +light helps. That's why all
otherwise useful -light gear goes to my merc, he doesn't care so much
>>>This is a _lot_ of points in Energy which could better have been put
>>>somewhere else.
>>
>>Yes, but I always wondered how people can live with less. Now that I
>>learned about the items that have +X% to mana, I understand the issue
>>better.
>>
>>I'd still like more mana. So I'm not seriously worried about the points
>>that I've spent, but knowing that items can help means that I can stop
>>increasing energy without any sorrows.
>
> Most casters, especially certain sorc builds, can use all the mana they
> can get.
Lately it's getting better. Fire Wall is maxed, fire mastery just adds
damage at no additional mana cost. Frozen Orb is a fairly cheap spell.
I still get a little mana bonus each level, so I guess it'll be ok to
leave energy at the current level.
> Which why a pure ES build is also quite popular, because there
> you _do_ put all points in ENE, because your mana is your life, so to
> say...
I see a lot of ES sorceresses lately. Yet I don't feel like trying one.
>>>>150 spare points
>>>
>>>Vit's your friend!
>>
>>I'm not sure if I should put 50 of those immediately into vitality?
>>I think I'll start with 20, and wait for your anwer.
>
> I can't really answer that for you. Try to determine for yourself which
> item(s) you would really like to equip, in the future. F.i., if you are
> planning a Spirit Monarch (the one with the lowest Str req of all 4
> socket shields) you should keep enough points to be able to reach 156 Str.
> Or start stocking up on +str charms, etc.
I still try to get along with 60 str. The Spirit Monarch is definitely
too heavy for my plans, although very nice. The +2 skills are thempting,
but I asssume I need the points to boost my health.
I'm not quite sure what gear I'll find, but I don't want to boost str
that much.
> But I think 20 now, would be no problem at all..
I've put 10 in vit yesterday (before we played) and will do another 10
today. In hell I need the health badly.
>>I assume I'll end up with a similar result as with my assassin. A
>>character that plays well and easy in nightmare but is challenging in hell.
>
> Well, next project: a character that goes through hell like a knife
> through butter!
I'll need a second account. Sometimes I'd like to rebuild both, my
assassin and my sorceress. And then, I'd like not to. Somehow I like
them as they are. With some flaws and weaknesses. It gives them a
'human', at least an individual touch.
[Aiming firewalls]
>>The only problem is that you need some space and time to position
>>yourself right.
Findings from yesterday test run: The more one wants to 'show off' the
worse the aiming gets. Fire walls definitely force a slower pace on the
game. Aiming a fire wall is kind of precision work.
> You might want to look into acquiring one of the polearm/spear weapons
> which have the mod "Slows enemy by xx%". F.i. Kelpie Snare is very wanted
> for that, because when the merc hits something, it's slowed down a lot.
> And therefore stays in your firewalls longer...
Usually if the merc fights with a monster, they don't move much anymore.
OTOH there are some monsters that run/jump all the time. Using Firewalls
is hopeless case against them, unless I ignite a whole area, and this is
hard with 1.4 seconds casting delay (What does 60% FCR exactly mean?
Will it reduce the casting delay to 1.4s - (1.4s * 0.6) = 0.56s? A
fireall stays for 3.6 seconds. In that case I could have at least 6 of
them constantly burning. I could get 60% FCR without too much troubles.)
My merc currently has a Grim's Burning Dead grim scythe. (Your Hone
Sundan is waiting for the proper runes, and reserved for my assassins
merc).
>>>Anyhow, as long as FO is useful as a backup/support spell for you, leave
>>>it alone. If you feel it's too weak, put some points in there.
>>
>>I want to max it, but I'll not be able to put a lot of points into cold
>>mastery. The first point in cold mastery means -30% resistance already,
>>so I have hope that it will suffice.
>
> I haven't done the math, but it might be worth to do the math and see what
> increases the damage more: 1 point in FO or 1 point in CM...
Math never has been my strong side, but let's try. (Please correct me if
my calculations are wrong!)
Since CM only affects the monster resists and not the damege it's hard
to tell. I'll try a few example calculations:
Boost by one more point in frozen orb (slvl 15 -> 16)
-----------------------------------------------------
FO at slvl 15 does 196 damage in average
FO at slvl 16 does 208 damage in average
= + 12 damege
Boost by cold mastery - from slvl 5 (-40%) to 6 (-45%)
------------------------------------------------------
I don't exactly know what D2 means by "lowers monster resistance by
40%". It could mean
1) res_eff = (res_base * (1-0.4))
2) res_eff = res_base - 40
I'll assume the first case.
In case of a monster with 0% cold resistance
= 0 difference in damage
In case of a monster with 50% cold resistance
= (196 * (0.5 * (1-0.4)) - (196 * (0.5 * (1-0.45))
= 58.8 - 53.9
= + 4.9 damage
In case of a monster with 100% cold resistance
= (196 * (1.0 * (1-0.4)) - (196 * (1.0 * (1-0.45))
= 117.6 - 107.8
= + 9.8 damage
If my calculations are correct, then boosting FO is more effective than
boosting CM, even if monsters have fairly high cold resistences.
If my assumption was wrong, and the second formula is used to calculate
the effects of CM, the situation seems to change, and CM is more
effective. Particularly the damage gain becomes a constant, while in my
calculation it was dependand on the monsters base resistance.
= (196 * 0.45) - (196 * 0.4)
= 196 * 0.05
= + 9.8 damage
*scratched head*
That's still less than the effect of one more point in frozen orb?!
Please, can someone with better math skills and better D2 knowledge help
and check this!
>>I'm not quite sure if I should try to max fire mastery first, opr put
>>points into fire mastery and frozen orb alternating, building up both in
>>parallel.
>
> If mana is a problem, keep in mind adding points to Fire Mastery increases
> the damage done, without increasing your mana needs...
>
> Can't help you with the priority setting; maybe it will guide itself due
> to your perceived effectiveness of both attacks, and which one needs the
> points the most...?
Now that I'm in hell, the priorities became rather clear (12 spare
points right now):
Frozen Orb + 5 -> 20
Fire Mastery + 3 -> 12
This will leave 4 spare points. The magefists already boost the firewall
by one level
>>>That's precisely what a lot of people use it for. Or tough/big groups...
>>
>>I have it on my weapon switch. So I can switch between FO/FW and
>>FO/Static quickly. I'd prefer FO/FW and teleport/static but neither
>>teleport nor static can be mapped to the left mouse button.
>
> Nice trick. Unfortunately, I still have the wand with lvl 2 Lower Resist
> charges on switch. Static Field is somewhere in the range F1-F8, where I
> put my other skills, but I can't remember where it is now.
Let me see:
Left mouse button is hardwired to frozen orb, and never changes.
Right mouse button is hotkeyed:
F1 - town portal
F2 - static field
F4 - frozen orb
F5 - fire wall
F8 - teleport
In case of my assassin:
Left mouse button is hardwired to standard attack
F1 - town portal
F2 - fade
F3 - burst of speed
F4 - venom
F5 - wake of fire
F6 - shadow warrior
F7 - death sentry
> Regards,
> Patrick.
--
c.u. Hajo
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