How much inventory space do you use for charms?

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

"Hansjoerg Malthaner" <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote in message
news54v7p$i7r$1@domitilla.aioe.org...
> Hi,
>
> it seems all my characters end up with at least 50% of their inventory
> filled by charms. I'm wondering if this is a lot compared to other
players?
>
> Also, while going through the charms, I see that some must've been there
> for ages. Is a +10 life large charm sensible if the caharacter already
> has 600 life, or should I remove it to get more inventory space? Is a
> +3% cold resist small charm sensible on a lvl 79 character that doesn't
> have maxed resitences in hell?
>
> I don't know where to make the cut. All the modifiers are helpful, more
> or less. I tried to seriously sort out the useless, but with only 3x4
> squares left, boss runs to collect items don't make a lot of sense. Also
> my stash tends to be filled with stuff so I can even temporarily put the
> charms in the stash before I go item hunting ...
>
> Any advices for a packrat like me to solve the problem?
>
> I'd like to expand my question: what things do you really keep? Amulets,
> rings, jewels, gems, runes, armor, weapons ... I see some players don't
> even bother to pick up jewels?
>
> I lost a lot of runes during an muling attempt yesterday, but this
> solves the problem only temporarily
>
> --
> c.u. Hajo
I fill my whole invintory up completly apart from my cube and 1 tomb of tps
and one ids. i then keep my cube empty to put things in there to id or keep.
then move from there to my stash when i can be bothered

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Stefan Roth wrote::

> "Hansjoerg Malthaner" <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote in message
> news54v7p$i7r$1@domitilla.aioe.org...
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>it seems all my characters end up with at least 50% of their inventory
>>filled by charms. I'm wondering if this is a lot compared to other
>>players?
>
> Mine are usually full, except one 2*4 field. horadric cube is in stash.

What do you do if you find more than a few good items during a game?

(E.g. things that are handy to other chars of you, but can't be muled
away in this game, becuase it is publie or the mule can't enter the
difficulty level).

>>Also, while going through the charms, I see that some must've been there
>>for ages. Is a +10 life large charm sensible if the caharacter already
>>has 600 life, or should I remove it to get more inventory space?
>
> that +10 life large charm at 600 life i would drop, regardless of
> richness/poorness. i'd keep life charms with at least +10 per field. of
> course at the beginning of a new char i keep all of them.

I've now handed those charms to my lower level characters. There they
add a noticeable amount of life, at 600 life total the difference wasn't
really noticieable.

>>Is a +3% cold resist small charm sensible on a lvl 79 character that
>>doesn't have maxed resitences in hell?
>
> as long as you dont find any better, yes.

Ok, so I keep it. I'm pretty new in hell (only two characters there) and
still trying to get used to it.

>>I don't know where to make the cut. All the modifiers are helpful, more
>>or less. I tried to seriously sort out the useless, but with only 3x4
>>squares left, boss runs to collect items don't make a lot of sense. Also
>>my stash tends to be filled with stuff so I can even temporarily put the
>>charms in the stash before I go item hunting ...
>
> hm, i dont do much boss runs anymore, maybe that's why im having no problem
>
> and if i did, i wouldnt find anything

I'm a fairly new player, so I don't have a lot of items yet. Almost all
good things are gifts from friends and helpful players.

Currently I'm trying to get my own stuff, and boss runs seems to be a
proper approach (I don't run the big bosses in hell, just some of the
minor uniques with fixed locations, like shenk, eldritch, bone ash, fire
eye, corpsefire, rakanishu and whoever crosses my path to them, also
visiting the the pit in act 1. Results are mixed, but it's a easy tour,
so I do it fairly often ).

>>Any advices for a packrat like me to solve the problem?
>
> i decided to stop creating mules. actually, i'm in the process of deleting
> mules.

How many mules would you recommend? I'm currently having three, two
tightly packed mixed purpose mules, and a new one for gems and runes
which slowly pile up.

> go through them and throw away everything which is there for longer than 2
> months, except the REAL precious items

Hehe
I'm just playing online for two months, so this threshold won't kick in
so soon.

> it's crazy, i noticed one mule with 8 tal masks on it lately, and still i
> keep to pick them up.

Don't tell they drop so often. Although I got one, too.

> well, tals mask is one of my favouites merc helmet.

I gave it to my merc, too. (I hate the looks of tals set, so my sorceres
will get other equipment).

> but since you can buy each of those items for 1-2 pgems, why keep them
> yourself ? let others do the muling

The only items that I have multiple times are those actually in use by
my characters. I store only one of each type, if I store them.

> unless you only have zod runes and botd on your mules of course.

Maybe in a few years

My highets self found rune so far is a Dol, and the only runeword that I
made is ancients pledge, more or less just to try it once.

>>I'd like to expand my question: what things do you really keep? Amulets,
>>rings, jewels, gems, runes, armor, weapons ... I see some players don't
>>even bother to pick up jewels?
>
> still picking up blue amuletts, and mostly keeping 3+ skill tree. or 2+skill
> +stuff.
> socketing stuff, full elite sets and one sigon.
> uniques like arreats, titans, bartucs i keep some, who knows...

I almost think you play a different game. But ... I found two +3 skills
amulets, but for characters I don't play, and one +2 skills for a
bowazon that is almost retired. Titans, indeed dropped once.

All of those I consider extremely lucky finds so far, and don't expect
to get them regularly.

> 2 mules for runes, 2 mules for pgems. that should be it.

Hmmm, that's more than I have so far

>>I lost a lot of runes during an muling attempt yesterday, but this
>>solves the problem only temporarily
>
> hehe

No high runes lost, so not really troublesome. But I also lost a +1
paladin skills amulet, which bugs me a bit. I don't find +skills too
often, so I consider them valuable.

That's been the second time in 8 weeks that I lost items due to a game
crash. Not that that'd be frequently but it gives me some fear that it
could happen when I try to mule some of the really valuable stuff ...
probably I'll only do that if friends hold the things while I change chars.

> Stefan

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

> What do you do if you find more than a few good items during a game?
>
> (E.g. things that are handy to other chars of you, but can't be muled
> away in this game, becuase it is publie or the mule can't enter the
> difficulty level).

i dont play public in hell, only sometimes in nm.
mostly i mule away my stash before/after a session.
so if i find more than one item, i take one item, go back to town and put
into stash, go back.

> How many mules would you recommend? I'm currently having three, two
> tightly packed mixed purpose mules, and a new one for gems and runes
> which slowly pile up.

ohoh
i started this season, with (IMO) a bigger approach, currently using 2
playing accounts and 5 mule accounts.
at the beginning i muled everything away, sorting items from the beginning
on.
for the next season i will restrict myself to one playing and two muling
accounts.

> I almost think you play a different game. But ... I found two +3 skills
> amulets, but for characters I don't play, and one +2 skills for a
> bowazon that is almost retired. Titans, indeed dropped once.

well, of course stuff will only drop when you least expect it
i played a new char this weekend, and when i killed nihlatak in normal, he
dropped titans
didnt even know he can drop those.
and furthermore, i was playing an amazon, which actually could use it !
(bowzon though)

> That's been the second time in 8 weeks that I lost items due to a game
> crash. Not that that'd be frequently but it gives me some fear that it
> could happen when I try to mule some of the really valuable stuff ...
> probably I'll only do that if friends hold the things while I change
chars.

happened to me too twice this season, not nice.
Stefan

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Sonni Skammelsen wrote::

> On Mon, 02 May 2005 12:26:00 +0200, Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:

>>I lost a lot of runes during an muling attempt yesterday, but this solves
>>the problem only temporarily
>
> Back luck, maybe you were on the same server is me when i did almost the
> same, but i only lost a couple mid level runes, +40 pgems and a couple of
> perfect manald heal rings.

We're playing both on the european realm IIRC, so it's quite possible
that we suffered from the same problem.

Yet, compared to yours, my loss is really rather minor.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

You should try the chaos empire mod. It has a much larger "backpack"
and almost limitless stash, with 999 pages. Alos a "shared" stash,
which can be accessed from all characters on your computer.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> it seems all my characters end up with at least 50% of their inventory
> filled by charms. I'm wondering if this is a lot compared to other
> players?

Heh, not compared to mine. By the time mine get halfway through A5 Hell,
their inventory is generally completely filled with charms, less the cube
and *maybe* a key slot.

--
chainbreaker

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

sidekick wrote::

> You should try the chaos empire mod. It has a much larger "backpack"
> and almost limitless stash, with 999 pages. Alos a "shared" stash,
> which can be accessed from all characters on your computer.

Actually I think the limited stash is a feature. It makes you think
about what to keep. It's ok that muling is inconvenient and even
dangerous sometimes. IMO this is a fairly important part of the game.

OTOH I'll try the CE mod some day. I've reading about it with great
interest, but first I want to play Diablo II/LOD seriously. I only got
two characters to hell so far, and both are not really strong there.

The game is still very challenging for me, and very interesting.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Sliver wrote::

> What you might try which can get to be a pain but ends up being entirely
> space conserving is dump all your charms in one game off all your chars and
> then weed through them to max the resists for each one. (ask me I know LOL)
> Anyway after much shuffling turns out I needed like 2 big ones and about 4
> small ones for my current project. Not bad plenty of room for boss running
> and item finding. Eventually you will run out of charms or chars that need
> resists. Whatever is left is for rerolls or you need better gear 8D (don't
> we all!)

This idea is quite good. At least I want to make a list of all my
possessions. I assume I have forgotten about many of the items that my
less played characters and their mercs use.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
> Reading that quite a lot of players live with as little free space as
> I do, or even less, gives me some confidence.
>
> After some serious cleanup I now have a free 4x4 area in my inventory,
> so I can collect a few things on my trips. Unfortunately my stash is
> still almost full (almost just because I used a few of the gems to
> socket things, and handed down a few items to my younger characters).
>
> It seems I have to mule away things even more consequently.

Well, I play HC exclusively and tend to value resists charms as mush as or
more than most other objects in the game, and that's what you'll generally
find taking up the lion's share of my character inventories. The only
reason I'd even want to have unused space would be to be able to quickly
pick up items in a multiplayer game, but in the only multiplayer games I
ever play any more, there's no need to snatch and grab.

--
chainbreaker

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

> In article <d557d3$4cs$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:

>>What do you do if you find more than a few good items during a game?
>
> Well, there are two approaches, and I use them both:
>
> Either start the MF-run with a more or less empty stash, so that you have
> plenty space for the goodies you might find. Abort the run when the stash
> is full.

All my played characters underwent a major stash cleanup yesterday
evening. I've created a new mule to keep all jewels, rings and amulets.
It's unbelievable what amounts I've collected with the different chars!

But at least my played characters can collect stuff even during a longer
journey, now.

> Also, in case things are _really_ going very good, create/rush some mules
> which can enter NM/Hell games. F.i. my gem-mule has been rushed to Hell,
> so if the stash overflows, I can temporarily park some stuff on that mule.

My only serious chance to get a mule to hell seems to be to retire some
charcaters that have reached hell, and at least now, all of my
characters that reached hell are still active.

The situation will change in a few weeks or months I guess.

>>How many mules would you recommend? I'm currently having three, two
>>tightly packed mixed purpose mules, and a new one for gems and runes
>>which slowly pile up.
>
> At the very least, split up the gem and rune mules. You can count it out
> yourself, but if you put all gems flawed and up in the inventory of a
> mule, it just about fits.
>
> The same goes for runes: I put all runes up to Thul in the inventory, Amn+
> goes into the stash. Whenever I have 3 runes El-Thul, I cube them up the
> next-highest (except Rals, those I mule off).
>
> Hope this gives you an idea.

Yes, it does, thank you. It means I need at least one more mule, I'll
set it up and park it to get it permed later the day.

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

> In article <d5ajbi$okt$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

>>All my played characters underwent a major stash cleanup yesterday
>>evening. I've created a new mule to keep all jewels, rings and amulets.
>>It's unbelievable what amounts I've collected with the different chars!
>
> Hope you found some useful stuff, because blue rings and amulets aren't
> that valuable without any useful mods. Jewels are of course always useful,
> as trade fodder for crafting junkies...

It's very mixed. I separated about 20 rings and amulets to be used in
cube recipes, there are 18 amulets left that seem useful on their own
(some with +skills for character classes that I currently don't play,
like barbarian and necromancer). About 12 rings also seemed to be useful.

Some of them I kept because they have nice mods and low level
requirements and might help to start new characters, others are kept
becuase of the overall power of their mods. Some are even too high to be
useful right now, but waiting to be used soon. E.g. a rare amulet with
FCR, life and mana that needs level 48 and will be used by the rocket
sorc until I find another +1 sorc skill amulets. I have a +2 cold skills
amu, perfect now that I build a sorc without any cold spells

IIRC the jewels pile up to a group of ~20. Some of them are rare jewels,
some might even be useful, but most wait to be used in crafting recipes.

>>But at least my played characters can collect stuff even during a longer
>>journey, now.
>
> Sounds good!

Yes, I enjoy this very much. Even the needed breaks to mule stuff away
are good, so I can recover a bit between fast paced sessions

Yet, most of the time yesterday I spent on leveling the rocket sorc, so
I only picked very few useful things, but once a high level Druid with
obviously high MF helped me through act 3 and act 4 nightmare, and there
were some nice leftovers from Mephisto and Diablo drops that he didn't
want to have or could not carry. So my item collection grew a bit again.

>>>Also, in case things are _really_ going very good, create/rush some mules
>>>which can enter NM/Hell games. F.i. my gem-mule has been rushed to Hell,
>>>so if the stash overflows, I can temporarily park some stuff on that mule.
>>
>>My only serious chance to get a mule to hell seems to be to retire some
>>charcaters that have reached hell, and at least now, all of my
>>characters that reached hell are still active.
>
> I'm myself seriously considering to rush some more mules to Hell Act V. I
> will do this with my skelliemancer as the rusher on the fast computer, and
> the mule-to-be-rushed on my slower computer. If you want to, you can tag
> along if you want, with your mule. I don't think the skelliemancer will
> notice any difference between a 2 or a 3 player game.
>
> It will however be quite boring, because as a mule you just tag along,
> without being able to do anything; you just have to be within the right
> distance when the needed act bosses are killed, etc.

This reminds me of the caretaking one of my rushers did for me a while
ago - he lead me to a spot that he considered safe in the CS and told me
to stay there and not move while he kills Diablo. Interesting. There
really seem to be locations close enough to Diablos spawning point to
get the quest and yet being protected enough that Diablos area attacks
don't reach the character.

OTOH a mule probably doesn't care if rushed dead or alive.

Let me know when you plan to do the rush, I'll see if I can arrange my
day to join the rush.

>>Yes, it does, thank you. It means I need at least one more mule, I'll
>>set it up and park it to get it permed later the day.
>
> See my other remark too, put the chippies also on the rune mule. You'll
> hopefully be consuming these too for cubing up stuff from Sol and up.

Will do. After the accident on Saturday there aren't so many runes left,
though. Yet I found a few earlier this week.

You need Rals, right? I've counted, three are left, and I can give you 2
of them. The rocket sorc can do the "free the barbarians" quest in
normal and nightmare soon, so I can restock on Rals quickly if I need to.

I skipped the quest yesterday, teleported through the highlands right to
the crystallite passage to rescue Anya (normal only, in nightmare I'm
not yet ready for that). The Barbs are tough enough to wait another day

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

In article <d5aon5$62b$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>
>> Nice going! You're building the RocketSorc as described by 'Mickey', i.e.
>> Nova + FB? I'm interested in how you fare!
>
>Nova and FB, but not ES. Focus on vitaliy, maybe a touch of energy.

Hmmm, so there are some differences with the 'standard' RocketSorc then.

Curious how it works out, because in your report below (which I will
heavily snip, to keep the size down a bit) I noticed a few remarks by
yourself which might indicate why the RocketSorc is built like she is.

>Earlier this day I posted a summary of my findings so far, but maybe it
>was lost somewhere on the path to you. I'll copy it in here:

Where did you post this, a new subject/post? Or in an old thread? If
something got lost, I'd like to find out, so I can see where it went.

[biiiig snip]

>Starting with fireball rocks through normal, it's really strong in
>almost all areas and kills everything in one hit usually. The efficiency
>drops in nightmare quite a bit, but it's still strong.

As long as it's nicely synergized, it should remain strong, no?

>At least at this point I miss frozen orb very much. I really doubt if
>nova will be as efficient, OTOH nova can be cast _much_ faster than FO.
>Currently I can't say if it will work well

I think that's where the killing power comes from, perhaps lower damage,
but spam it quickly enough, and it starts to hurt. Of course, starting
with some keyboardian acrobatics and spamming a few SF's will also help.


>With +1 skills, fire ball curently does a little less than 600 damage in
>average, and nova about 80 (since there are 29 skill points in fire ball
>and synergies, but only 7 in nova and mastery, this isn't too surprising).



>Str: 60
>Dex: 25
>Vit: 78
>Ene: 52

So you went for some energy.

>The rocket sorc is a mana burner, particulary if using nova. Fire ball
>is a bit easier on mana, but if you fight bosses you'll cast fireball
>all over, and it seems unavoidable to run out of mana at some point.

This is probably one of the reason why Mickey maxed ene in this specific
case, relies on ES with +skills to keep him safe, and quite important, I
think, the Insight stick with a Prayer merc to keep both the life- and
mana-balls filled. I'm still hoping to get a reaction from him as to the
effectiveness of a Prayer/Insight 'mutal synergy'...

>damage still does. So I have a little hope that around clvl 60 there
>will be a turning point from which mana will be less of a problem.
>Currently I need blue potions badly.

We'll know soon enough, if you continue levelling at this pace!

>If the build shows potential, I'll try to get better equipment.

You'll acquire plenty of spare stuff as time goes by.

[snip-snip]

Sounds good, looking forward to a further update, and of course a session
with her in action!

Patrick.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

In article <d5fagj$mi4$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>
>> Where did you post this, a new subject/post? Or in an old thread? If
>> something got lost, I'd like to find out, so I can see where it went.
>
>It was posted in the "Sorceress" thread. I used google to look for the
>message, but google groups doesn't list it either. So I assume my
>newsserver didn't propagate it properly. It seems I really need to look
>for another news server.

Ah, OK, well, luckily you reposted it's contents in another message.

>> As long as it's nicely synergized, it should remain strong, no?
>
>Yes, but since I started to spend every second point on nova/lightning
>mastery it doesn't improve as fast as before while monsters keep getting
>harder all the time. So I must slow down and repeat areas to level fast
>enough. I also ran into the first fire immunes in act 4, which was
>really troublesome because nova still was very weak at that time.

Aha. OK, I'll comment on my findings below.

>Nova can be cast very fast. Let me put it this way: in less than a
>second all mana is gone. If all monsters are gone, too, it's perfect, if
>not, I'm having troubles. (I can't say if it's really just a second, but
>it feels so. IIRC I can cast about ten novas in a row, don't know how
>long that takes at 20% FCR)

There should be an FCR breakpoint calculator somewhere...?

>Yes, and this build needs even more energy. Despite all advice I'm
>spending skill points now 2:1 on vit and ene. I keep 60 points for later
>if I need to correct the balance. I seriously need more and better
>+mana/+energy items.

In that case perhaps some consideration of ES should be in order...?

>>>The rocket sorc is a mana burner, particulary if using nova.
>
>There should be a lot of exclamation marks here!



>> You'll acquire plenty of spare stuff as time goes by.
>
>Yesterday it was a lucky day.
>
>I gambled a +1 sorceress skills tiara for her, and cubed a +2 fire
>skills amulet.
>
>I gambled a +3 fire skills tiara for my other sorc (wheeee!) and also
>cubed a larger number of +1/+2 skills amulets for other classes - I had
>a immense collection of rings, I used the 3 rings = 1 magic amulet
>recipe. I'm out of rings and amulets as input now, though. Unfortunately
>nothing with nice secondary modifiers, yet I never had such a collection
>of +skills amulets before.
>
>With the +3 fire skills tiara, fire wall now does ~6200 damage/second.

Nice numbers, and great to hear of your luck in gabling/cubing stuff! Some
people don't bother with the 3 rings->1 magic amulet/3 amulets->1 magic
ring recipes, but they're a cheap way to get amulets with f.i. +3 skills
on them...

>> Sounds good, looking forward to a further update, and of course a session
>> with her in action!
>
>Currently you'd just meet a fire sorc, nova is still too weak and needs
>to much mana for regular use.

Well, I'm also building a sorc which is at the moment nothing more than a
plain fire sorc.

>But we can try a session at any time
>
>I started the rocket sorc on a new account, that why you don't see me
>currently. I get way too much whispers on my first account. I really
>enjoy the silence on the new account. It's not really fun if you fight a
>boss and get three whispers in a row and shortly thereafter a lot of
>whisprs asking why you didn't answer yet.

Ah, I was wondering if you didn't have any time the last few days, but
this explains a lot.

>I'll mail you the new account name, so we can set up our friends lists
>accordingly.

That'd be nice. Don't worry, I won't whisper you very much.

>Hey, you have a new sorc, too, do you? "FireAndIce" I think, is her
>name? Is that the FB/FO build that I considered "too easy" ;o)

Unfortunately 'FireAndIce' was taken, so I took the somewhat unoriginal
alternative 'FeirAndIce'. Currentyly a might level 10 sorc, with only
skill point in Fire Bolt. She isn't yet kicking ass, but I suppose the
ass-kicking will start once I acquire Fire Ball.

I haven't had much time to play her, maybe today, and/or later this
weekend...

Regards,

Patrick.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

> In article <d5fagj$mi4$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

>>Nova can be cast very fast. Let me put it this way: in less than a
>>second all mana is gone. If all monsters are gone, too, it's perfect, if
>>not, I'm having troubles. (I can't say if it's really just a second, but
>>it feels so. IIRC I can cast about ten novas in a row, don't know how
>>long that takes at 20% FCR)
>
> There should be an FCR breakpoint calculator somewhere...?

Sonni posted a table, using it, it seems 10 novae take ~5 seconds.

This worries me a bit. The fire wall of my other sorc does 6200 damage
per second.

A good nova does about 600 damge per cast. Assuming 2.5 novae per second
can be cast (40% fcr), this is only 1500 damage/second against a single
monster.

OTOH nova is circular and has the potential to hit more monsters per
cast. Yet one fire wall burns for 3.6 seconds and costs ~30 mana, while
a nova also costs ~30 mana but one needs quite some of them for the same
effect. Nova isn't very efficient per mana point

>>Yes, and this build needs even more energy. Despite all advice I'm
>>spending skill points now 2:1 on vit and ene. I keep 60 points for later
>>if I need to correct the balance. I seriously need more and better
>>+mana/+energy items.
>
> In that case perhaps some consideration of ES should be in order...?

I must admit I have no idea how to find out at which point ES could be
useful, and which level of ES should be used.

>>>You'll acquire plenty of spare stuff as time goes by.
>>
>>Yesterday it was a lucky day.
>>
>>I gambled a +1 sorceress skills tiara for her, and cubed a +2 fire
>>skills amulet.
>>
>>I gambled a +3 fire skills tiara for my other sorc (wheeee!) and also
>>cubed a larger number of +1/+2 skills amulets for other classes - I had
>>a immense collection of rings, I used the 3 rings = 1 magic amulet
>>recipe. I'm out of rings and amulets as input now, though. Unfortunately
>>nothing with nice secondary modifiers, yet I never had such a collection
>>of +skills amulets before.
>>
>>With the +3 fire skills tiara, fire wall now does ~6200 damage/second.
>
> Nice numbers, and great to hear of your luck in gabling/cubing stuff! Some
> people don't bother with the 3 rings->1 magic amulet/3 amulets->1 magic
> ring recipes, but they're a cheap way to get amulets with f.i. +3 skills
> on them...

I tried the formula early in the game (with a low level character), and
the results were bad. So I concluded the formula is bad.

Recently, actually when you told me that you use the recipe a lot, I
checked the arreat summit and saw that the character level is part of
the calculation. So I tried it again with my highest level charatcter
and all of a sudden the results were much better

My FW/FO sorc is now level 81, as is my assassin. This measn they get
access to modifiers up to ilvl 60, which includes the "+3 skill group"
modifier.

Maybe a lot of players did it like me, try the recipe early, were also
disappointed, and then never tried it again.

>>>Sounds good, looking forward to a further update, and of course a session
>>>with her in action!

>>I started the rocket sorc on a new account, that why you don't see me
>>currently. I get way too much whispers on my first account. I really
>>enjoy the silence on the new account. It's not really fun if you fight a
>>boss and get three whispers in a row and shortly thereafter a lot of
>>whisprs asking why you didn't answer yet.
>
> Ah, I was wondering if you didn't have any time the last few days, but
> this explains a lot.

Yesterday I had a lot of time to play, the days before were a bit mixed,
some days one hour only some days 4 or more hours.

>>Hey, you have a new sorc, too, do you? "FireAndIce" I think, is her
>>name? Is that the FB/FO build that I considered "too easy" ;o)
>
> Unfortunately 'FireAndIce' was taken, so I took the somewhat unoriginal
> alternative 'FeirAndIce'.

Right, I remember now. Naming characters is always difficult. I mean the
first few are ok, but at some point one just runs out of names.

I see many characters that are rather categorized like "MF-firesorc"
than named.

> Currentyly a might level 10 sorc, with only
> skill point in Fire Bolt. She isn't yet kicking ass, but I suppose the
> ass-kicking will start once I acquire Fire Ball.

Not even then, becuase a lvl 1 fire ball, despiute synergized by fire
bolt is weaker than the fire bolt that you built up so far. I don't
remember whn it changed, but I think it was around slvl 3 .. 5 of fire
ball. From that point you really start. For me this happened on the path
to Andariel, so probably at slvl 3

> I haven't had much time to play her, maybe today, and/or later this
> weekend...

The more characters you have, the more of a problem this becomes. Just
be happy that your other characters don't complain if you don't play
them for a while

(Hajo imagines a horde of characters waiting for Patrick to log in, then
rushing to him all begging: "Play me!", "No, play me, XY was played
yesterday!", "Do you still care about me, Patrick?" - and Patrick must
calm the unplayed and choose one under big protest of the others.)

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
> In article <d5ft3q$5dm$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>>
>>
>>>There should be an FCR breakpoint calculator somewhere...?
>>
>>Sonni posted a table, using it, it seems 10 novae take ~5 seconds.
>>
>>The fire wall of my other sorc does 6200 damage per second.
>>
>>A good nova does about 600 damge per cast. Assuming 2.5 novae per second
>>can be cast (40% fcr), this is only 1500 damage/second against a single
>>monster.
>>
>>OTOH nova is circular and has the potential to hit more monsters per
>>cast. Yet one fire wall burns for 3.6 seconds and costs ~30 mana, while
>>a nova also costs ~30 mana but one needs quite some of them for the same
>>effect. Nova isn't very efficient per mana point
>
> But it's fast, and deals rather direct damage to a group of monsters
> directly around you... I'm still curious how it works.

It's a very mixed experience. Reading the "rocket sorc" thread I decied
to get a (normal difficulty) prayer merc and level him. When I hired
him, he was lvl 13 and my sorc lvl 52 (I should've known that that's a
bad idea, but anyways ...)

I spend all saturday on levelling him. I think I never before killed so
many beasties in such a little time. We started with normal arcane,
normal tombruns, then continued clearing nightmare act1 repeatedly.

Nova rocks in all those areas. In normal it's a weapon of mass
destruction. I basically ran through the tombs casting nova every few
steps. Running into a room right into the center of the biggest crowd of
monerts and a few novas - room cleared. (I want bigger groups of
monsters!) My only problem was that my sorc an't go that pace for long,
but needs to many mana potions. The situation changed when I cubed an
amulet with +106 to mana (and a second mod that I don't remember). My
sorc still needs a lot of potions, but can go longer without a a break.

In nightmare act 1 the situation starts to change. Nova isn't strong
enough anymore to kill everything quickly. My tactic changed to using
nova to wipe minor monsters and to use fire ball to kill the rest. It's
still very efficient.

But the farther I advance the more useless nova becomes. In nightmare
act 4 and act 5, my nova isn't a killer anymore, and even my fire balls
start getting weak.

With +skills my nova is curently lvl 16, lightning mastery is 11. Fire
ball is 23, fire bolt is 17, fire mastery is 5. There is a lot of room
for improvement both in improving the spells themselves as well as my
equipment. Except the staff I have no source of +skills (swapped my +2
fire skills amu for the +106 mana amu), my armor is bad (torso plate
socketed with flawless ruby and flawless topaz), the staff is two
handed, so I can't use a shield (always a nice source of resists), the
gloves, boots and belt are so-so, at least providing a few resists.

I was too lazy to check my mules for better gear, but I think I'll have
to trade for a few things, like a skin of the vipermagi and frostburns.

Currently I have no serious idea how well my sorc will perform on higher
levels and farther in the game.

>>>In that case perhaps some consideration of ES should be in order...?
>>
>>I must admit I have no idea how to find out at which point ES could be
>>useful, and which level of ES should be used.
>
> Me neither. But perhaps even a low level ES is better than no ES. I will
> try this out on my FO/CL Sorc, once she has a few more skill points to
> distribute. Helped by her significant +skills I'm curious what the effects
> will be...

Using nova you want to run into the middle of a group of monsters. Nova
stuns them a bit, so if you're quick you can kill them without getting
hit. Lightning enchacnted things are terrible for this tactic. More than
once I got away with only a little life left.

Maybe I should consider ES because the tactic currently is really almost
suicide if I can't kill the monsters quick. What happens if a "mana
burn" monster touches the ES? I met some that emptied my mana ball with
one hit. Is this the same with ES?

You can cast CL and FO from a distance. I think your build will be less
dependant on ES.

>>Maybe a lot of players did it like me, try the recipe early, were also
>>disappointed, and then never tried it again.
>
> That's quite possible. At low levels I indeed don't use it: I just sell
> the amulets/rings for gold, much more useful. Later on I start cubing it;
> sometimes quite nice stuff rolls out.

Currently I collect all of them and at the end of the session I mule
them over to my high-level characters and cube them. But no luck this
weekend.

>>I see many characters that are rather categorized like "MF-firesorc"
>>than named.
>
> That's probably the next step... I'll also start naming mules for what
> they carry, once I get that stuff organized (probably never..

I agree that giving mules names according to what they carry is a goo idea.

Yet for played characters, it makes it a bit difficult to talk to people
in multiplayer games if their characters don't have good names and there
are more players of the class so you can't use the class to address the
message.

Do you know how long a name stays reserved after a character is deleted?

>>Not even then, becuase a lvl 1 fire ball, despiute synergized by fire
>>bolt is weaker than the fire bolt that you built up so far. I don't
>>remember whn it changed, but I think it was around slvl 3 .. 5 of fire
>>ball. From that point you really start. For me this happened on the path
>>to Andariel, so probably at slvl 3
>
> It's going better, but I recently hit a wall with Duriel. That's one tough
> cooky. I'll probably level up a bit, then retry. Or go the melee route...

You could look for an open game in act 2, almost all of them end up by
killing duriel.

Do you know how Duriel chooses his target? In once game he kept going
for my sorc despite my merc being much closer to him. Finally we ran in
circles, my sorc at front, duriel behind her, followed by my merc who
occasially poked Duriels back with his lance if he was able to cut a corner.

In other games Duriel went for my merc, and my sorc could kill him from
a safe distance.

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

> In article <d5n6dn$d4h$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>
>>>But it's fast, and deals rather direct damage to a group of monsters
>>>directly around you... I'm still curious how it works.
>>
>>It's a very mixed experience. Reading the "rocket sorc" thread I decied
>>to get a (normal difficulty) prayer merc and level him. When I hired
>>him, he was lvl 13 and my sorc lvl 52 (I should've known that that's a
>>bad idea, but anyways ...)
>>
>>I spend all saturday on levelling him. I think I never before killed so
>>many beasties in such a little time. We started with normal arcane,
>>normal tombruns, then continued clearing nightmare act1 repeatedly.

I forgot about numerous normal baal runs and clearing the bloody
foothills ... a while each of these tours gave him a level.

> Oh dear, this might explain why it took so long: as far as I know, the
> best tactic is to let the merc kill all monsters, and stay back with your
> own char. If you do the kills yourself, your merc only gets a small part
> of the experience from that...

Do you know how large the fraction is? So far I assumed it's about 33%,
and I figured my sorc kills 3 monsters faster than him.

I was thinking the biggest problem is the level difference between my
sorc and the merc (something like he gets 0.33 *
(his_level)/(my_level+his_level) which was at the start 0.33 * 13/65 =
0.066 of the monster exp)?

*ouch* I really should've made that calculation before ... 6% of the
total exp is a good explanation why it took so long to level him.

I'm under the impression he levels much faster now that the level
difference shrunk.

> You can of course support the merc killing things by SF-ing everything...

Yes, if he must do the kills, that's the best option.

>>With +skills my nova is curently lvl 16, lightning mastery is 11. Fire
>>ball is 23, fire bolt is 17, fire mastery is 5. There is a lot of room
>>for improvement both in improving the spells themselves as well as my
>>equipment. Except the staff I have no source of +skills (swapped my +2
>>fire skills amu for the +106 mana amu), my armor is bad (torso plate
>>socketed with flawless ruby and flawless topaz), the staff is two
>>handed, so I can't use a shield (always a nice source of resists), the
>>gloves, boots and belt are so-so, at least providing a few resists.
>>
>>I was too lazy to check my mules for better gear, but I think I'll have
>>to trade for a few things, like a skin of the vipermagi and frostburns.
>>
>>Currently I have no serious idea how well my sorc will perform on higher
>>levels and farther in the game.
>
> There's probably plenty of improvement possible: by maxing Nova and LM,
> and acquiring a significant amount of +skills gear (i.e. aim for +10 at
> the minimum), it should be possible to do what the experts told of: Nova
> works quite well, even in Hell...?

The skill calculator says "1100 - 1484 (ø1292) damage" for this, which
is enough to wipe out the minor beasties in hell with one or two novae.

Act 1 "Fallen" exist in the range from 770-3500 hitpoints, but Act 4
"Mega Demons" come with 9000-14000 hitpoints and have 75% lightning
resistance in hell

Mega Demons are also all fire immune in hell ... I'm pretty sure act 4
won't be much fun. I guess I need one or two more points in static field
to give it a better range.

Fire ball gives "2770 - 3051 (ø2910.5) damage" at +10 skills and 20
FBolt, 20 FBall and 1 FM

Yet I don't think I can get +10 skills quickly. Something in the range
6-8 seems to be a more realistic idea for me.

Thinking about the resists and immunes, blizzard requires at least 5 (6
with mastery) points in the cold spell tree, and frozen orb requires 7.
That's an awful lot of points to get even the weakest of a backup spell.
Seeing the hitpoint totals of Mega Demons, it doesn't look like a real
option.

>>>Me neither. But perhaps even a low level ES is better than no ES. I will
>>>try this out on my FO/CL Sorc, once she has a few more skill points to
>>>distribute. Helped by her significant +skills I'm curious what the effects
>>>will be...
>>
>>Using nova you want to run into the middle of a group of monsters.
....
>>Maybe I should consider ES because the tactic currently is really almost
>>suicide if I can't kill the monsters quick. What happens if a "mana
>>burn" monster touches the ES? I met some that emptied my mana ball with
>>one hit. Is this the same with ES?
>
> I read some conflicting stories about this. If you have no, or low, mana
> regeneration, a mana burn monster hitting you drains your mana ball, and
> that also causes the ES to disappear. However, it seems that if you have a
> high mana regen rate (helped by Insight) it is possible for the mana ball
> to refill enough after being hit by a mana burn monster, to keep the ES
> going. No idea if this works, but this is what I'm also going to test
> with the Insight polearm on the, for now, FB-only sorc. I haven't put any
> point in the Cold tree (and only acquired Static Field from the lightning
> tree), so I still have some options open.

I'm very interested in your findings with ES. IMO Insight is a good idea
for all highly mana dependand builds anyways, so as soon as I can build
an Insight polearm for my merc I'll do it.

>>You can cast CL and FO from a distance. I think your build will be less
>>dependant on ES.
>
> Yes, the CL/FO sorc isn't that dependant on it, but she has a lot of
> +skills, and is even with the current skill point distribution quite able
> to kill monsters in hell, so she can spare the points to get ES. I just
> need her to gain a few more levels, so to do that quickly, I'll probably
> enter a few of those boring Hell Baalruns... Or do some solo Baalruns
> myself, and hope something nice drops.

I met players who 'clean up' after mephisto or baal runs. Some seem to
do it systematically. Many people are in such a hurry that they don't
pick up anything. Yesterday when I lagged a bit behind my party after
rearranging some stuff in my inventory, I found a lonely Amn rune on the
floor.

>>Do you know how long a name stays reserved after a character is deleted?
>
> I couldn't tell. Isn't it resusable immediately? You can test this
> yourself: create a character, delete it, then try to make a new character
> with the same name..?

I'll try that

>>>It's going better, but I recently hit a wall with Duriel. That's one tough
>>>cooky. I'll probably level up a bit, then retry. Or go the melee route...
>>
>>You could look for an open game in act 2, almost all of them end up by
>>killing duriel.
>
> I know, I know, but I'd like to solo.

Monsters in act 2 allow you to level up to lvl 23 fairly easily, and if
you are patient even 28 can be reached before you get serious exp penalties.

I'm just too impatient

>>Do you know how Duriel chooses his target? In once game he kept going
>>for my sorc despite my merc being much closer to him. Finally we ran in
>>circles, my sorc at front, duriel behind her, followed by my merc who
>>occasially poked Duriels back with his lance if he was able to cut a corner.
>>
>>In other games Duriel went for my merc, and my sorc could kill him from
>>a safe distance.
>
> It's always a gamble which target Duriel chooses. It's usually the merc,
> if I don't get in the way. But the merc is currently too weak to stand op
> to Duriel while I Fireball him to death.

I usually have the same problem with normal Duriel. Hardcore players
need a lot of patience to level properly before trying Duriel I guess.
In softcore you can always try to grind Duriel down even if you die a
lot. But after some very frustrating single player meetings with Duriel
I avoid him unless I'm about lvl 20.

> And since the merc is a lot of
> levels below me, I'm using this opportunity to level him up a bit. He also
> need these levels to be able to use the Insight polearm I have planned for
> him.

How's the level requirement of a runeworded item calculated? Sol (as the
highest rune in Insight) has a requirement of lvl 27, is that what
determines the overall requirement if the base item is below that?

> "To be continued..."



> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

> In article <d5q3ma$ghg$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
>>
>>Given due to my approach to levelling I still run in
>>my low-level equipment, but it can't be that spells close to their max,
>>or even maxed and well synergised can't kill in areas of way lower level
>>than myself. Slowly I grow into a region where I can't level efficiently
>>anymore because all killable beasties are too low level.
>
> The only thing I can think of is that the damage gains go up exponentially
> at lvls above ~25?

Maybe, but I think we once made the calculation with +12 to all skills,
and the damage numbers were just about 2 times the ones that I have now.

From nightmare to hell monster hitpoints grow more than only two times,
so I'm really afraid this is a dead end.

But I think I should tell something else as well: in single player,
early nightmare, act 1 and 2, she kills blazingly fast.

These are areas where nova and fire ball are strong enough to take out
monsters with one or two hits. I think once the build is finished, all
of nightmare will be doable, but I'm fairly sure I can't take this char
to hell.

But it turns as soon as there are more players in the game, two are ok,
four, well monsters now take several novae or fire balls and 8 player
games are not very funny with this character.

I think spells like FO, Blizzard, FW and maybe some more have a huge
overhead in single player, that just isn't noticed because a monster
doesn't die faster from the excess damege.

But nova is just a little stronger than the average monster, so every
additional player in the game means one more nova to cast, even for the
small creatures.

She must stay in the party to be safe, but nova is too short ranged to
work there, and then she actually becomes a weak single element sorc
which isn't useful for the party.

Maybe I'll join more Baal runs and try to get to level 80. At that point
nova and LM should be maxed, and fire ball well synergised. Maybe it
pushes the limits to an acceptable region.

>>Go meteor and frozen orb. Or fire wall and frozen orb. Or blizzard. But
>>not nova! And not fire ball! I think anything else is better,
>>particularly anything from the cold tree.
>
> Hmmm, OK. It might even not be too late for me to go Meteor: the points in
> Fire Bolt and Fire Ball will help synergize the meteor, and I can still
> get a quite nice Frozen Orb... Which will also make her name still
> applicable...

If you can spend 60 points in the fire tree, 40 points on cold, she
should still be strong:

FBolt: 20
FBall: 20
Meteor: 19
FM: 1

+8 skills

This gives:

FBall: 3923 - 4343 (ø4133) damage
Meteor: 8301 - 8707 (ø8504) damege

That's something I'd like, particularly together with a maxed FO and
almost maxed CM.

But this needs more than 100 skill points, which means clvl 90 or more
to be finished.

>>>Hopefully I have some more time available this evening to play a bit, and
>>>also perhaps exchange some 'goods' with you...?
>>
>>This evening is pretty packed. I'll email you once I know when I can be
>>online. ATM is seems either from 20:00 to 21:00 or rather late in the
>>night.
>
> That's fine. Or just message me in-game. It looks like I will have a
> rather quiet evening, so I hope to get some D2-time logged.

That's good. At some point this evening I will have a chance to get into D2.

>>>It's Rals I need for crafting, so if you can spare a few of
>>>those, I'd be much obliged.
>>
>>I'm sorry for the mistake. Yet I'm sure there are 2, 3 or some more
>>spare ones scattered around my characters and you can have them.
>
> No problem at all; I'll do the crafting in-game, and I'll show you the
> results. Maybe there's something you can use...

I'm curious. I never tried crafting before.

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u. Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Patrick Vervoorn wrote::
> In article <d5q8k6$tvs$1@domitilla.aioe.org>,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Patrick Vervoorn wrote::

>>This gives:
>>
>>FBall: 3923 - 4343 (ø4133) damage
>>Meteor: 8301 - 8707 (ø8504) damege
>
> Nice indeed. I'll keep this in mind, it's not too late yet.
>
>>But this needs more than 100 skill points, which means clvl 90 or more
>>to be finished.
>
> Well, one of your characters should reach clvl90, so you can gamble the
> best stuff (f.i. amulets with +2 skills .

All my current sorceress builds are somewhat screwed. Maybe it's time to
use the collected experience and build the ultimate cookie cutter, stick
with it and play the game to the very end.

But if I think about all the work to build up another character, I guess
I rather stick with wht I have. In that case my fire wall/frozen orb
sorc is the candidate to be played to level 90.

Maybe the rocket sorc can be repaired? I'm still waiting for advice from
the two people who seem to have a lot of experience with this build.

> Regards,
> Patrick.

--
c.u.
Hajo

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Long ago, in the world without shrimp, Patrick Vervoorn
<patrick.vervoorn@NOSPAM.perihelion.demon.nl>, supreme ruler of bunnies,
hopped and flopped and said:

>>Maybe the rocket sorc can be repaired? I'm still waiting for advice from
>>the two people who seem to have a lot of experience with this build.

>Both of them are, I think, from the US, so they should wake up by now, and
>hopefully either of them finds the time and motivation to react to your
>very interesting observations...

The two people being referred to (Mickey and Linenoise) only read
alt.games.diablo, and not alt.games.diablo2, so if you still have further
questions about the build (which you might not, given the age of the thread),
you'll need to post to the other group.

For reference from my one nova sorceress this season (not a rocket, though,
but I'll be working on one soon), level 34 Nova plus level 34 Lightning
Mastery gives Nova damage of 1477-1958.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Long ago, in the world without shrimp, Hansjoerg Malthaner
<hansjoerg.malthaner@nurfuerspam.de>, supreme ruler of bunnies, hopped and
flopped and said:

>>>>Maybe the rocket sorc can be repaired? I'm still waiting for advice from
>>>>the two people who seem to have a lot of experience with this build.

>>>Both of them are, I think, from the US, so they should wake up by now, and
>>>hopefully either of them finds the time and motivation to react to your
>>>very interesting observations...
>>
>> The two people being referred to (Mickey and Linenoise) only read
>> alt.games.diablo, and not alt.games.diablo2, so if you still have further
>> questions about the build (which you might not, given the age of the thread),
>> you'll need to post to the other group.

>We had and have a nice discussion about the rocket sorc build in another
>thread, that was cross-posted to a.g.d and a.g.d2

Yes, I know. That's how I knew who you were referring to, I just couldn't
remember the dates the threads, since I've been reading in a strange order.

>Mickey, Linenoise and others posted a lot of helpful hints, overall a
>very interesting discussion.

Great! Pure fast cast builds certainly are fun, if you have the gear to pull
it off.

>> For reference from my one nova sorceress this season (not a rocket, though,
>> but I'll be working on one soon), level 34 Nova plus level 34 Lightning
>> Mastery gives Nova damage of 1477-1958.
>
>My own rocket (a fairly clean build using the advice from Mickey and
>Linenoise) reached hell and just finished act 1 this weekend. Lightning
>mastery is not yet maxed, though, Nova currently does a damage of (IIRC)
>800-1100 (don't know the exact numbers from top of my head).

>The skills totals are Nova:26 and LM:25

Definitely a good start.

I've been browsing the various sorceress threads, but am usually a couple of
weeks behind, so there's not usually much point in me responding. It's also a
tad confusing, since I go and read half a thread in one group, then a week
later I end up reading bits of the threads over here instead. hehehe.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Long ago, in the world without shrimp, Hansjörg Malthaner
<hansjoerg.malthaner@danet.de>, supreme ruler of bunnies, hopped and flopped
and said:

>[rocket sorc build]

>>>Mickey, Linenoise and others posted a lot of helpful hints, overall a
>>>very interesting discussion.
>>
>> Great! Pure fast cast builds certainly are fun, if you have the gear to pull
>> it off.

>Yes, that's been my major problem, but became much better after some
>donations from Patrick. Compared to the gear suggested, my rocket is a
>still poorly equipped, but finally shows some of the potantial that a
>rocket has.

Being on a dialup connection and connecting to US West from New Zealand, I've
been pretty slow to the party, as it were, in building a rocket, since I
usually prefer sorceresses with maxed block instead of more "glass cannon"
builds given the conditions.

Speaking of fast cast... I had a lot of fun with a fireball/charged bolt build
last season, which was a refinement of a fireball/charged bolt/glacial spike
sorceress I played in 1.09. It's a tough build to get right though, since
there's not really the points to develop both skills to the max and still have
capable killing speed in act 4/5 hell and durability and mana. This build is
something I should revisit in light on Insight being available.

>>>The skills totals are Nova:26 and LM:25

>> Definitely a good start.

>

>> I've been browsing the various sorceress threads, but am usually a couple of
>> weeks behind, so there's not usually much point in me responding.

>We discussed a lot of ideas and stuff, I think at times we went quite
>far off from the rocket sorc idea.

>IMO if you come across a point that you want to comment on, feel free to
>post a reply, even if the original message is a bit dated already.

Some of the discussions on Firewall have quite interested me, since it's not a
spell that I've really had a lot of time for in the game, being mostly a fan
of fireball, hydra, meteor, charged bolt, nova, glacial spike etc (heck, I'd
even make a frost nova sorceress if I thought I could put together enough
+skills to make it enjoyable in hell, I've tested this in single player and
it's quite a fun skill). But as somewhat of a magic finder, Firewall's
application as a boss kill skill has quite interested me. What I'm wondering
though is how it performs in general play. From my perspective, I'd probably
be most comfortable combining it with glacial spike, firstly for its "freeze
in place" capability, and secondly, to have a spammable spell to combo with a
timered spell.

Incidently, has short responded to any of your various threads? The reason I
ask is that I believe he recently made a rocket sorceress of his own (SCL
WEST), and might have a bit more to add to the discussion.

This season, I haven't spent a huge amount of time playing sorceress builds,
so thus far all I've played are an orb/fireball/hydra girl, one with
enchant/nova, with a standard blizzard sorceress, frozen orb/charged bolt, and
of course a rocket sorceress in the works. It seems I've spent a lot of time
playing barbarians and paladins instead of spell flingers and amazons, hehe.

>> It's also a
>> tad confusing, since I go and read half a thread in one group, then a week
>> later I end up reading bits of the threads over here instead. hehehe.

>I'm reading the messages in chronological order, not threaded. So for
>me, the consistency of threads isn't so important, new messages are
>interesting always

Hehe. I'm well over 1,000 unread messages in some of my groups, so I just
pick a few thread subjects that look interesting each day, and plow in.

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Long ago, in the world without shrimp, Hansjörg Malthaner
<hansjoerg.malthaner@danet.de>, supreme ruler of bunnies, hopped and flopped
and said:

>> Incidently, has short responded to any of your various threads?

>I remember two messages, but can only find one of them currently.

He has been around much recently, it seems. I haven't seen him on battle.net
for a few days either.

>> The reason I
>> ask is that I believe he recently made a rocket sorceress of his own (SCL
>> WEST), and might have a bit more to add to the discussion.
>
>I think I remember that, but it must be the message that's got lost.

Thanks for the information on Fire Wall. I think I'll add it to the things
to do list.

>> This season, I haven't spent a huge amount of time playing sorceress builds,
>> so thus far all I've played are an orb/fireball/hydra girl, one with
>> enchant/nova, with a standard blizzard sorceress, frozen orb/charged bolt, and
>> of course a rocket sorceress in the works.

>I tried a few things, but the only three left are a FW/FO/CB
>tri-elemental try, a dual-tree FW/FO rebuild or that one, and the rocket.

Admittedly the sorceresses are level 91, 86, 79 and 76 respectively, so I
guess I've given them a reasonable amount of time this season, hehe.

>> It seems I've spent a lot of time
>> playing barbarians and paladins instead of spell flingers and amazons, hehe.
>
>I think I'd like to try a druid, but I rather should play at least one
>of my characters up to the clvl 90s, I think.

Most of mine finish in the mid to late eighties, although I usually end up
taking a couple to 90+ each season.

So many builds, so little time...