Finding Stuff

[shavenlunatic]

Right, im pretty much a D2 n00b, ive got a lvl 78 barb and thats it, never had another character and only installed a month or so ago.

I just want to ask.. as im not sure where im going wrong... is why my barb still sucks at suck a high level???

Ive built him ok imo, 20 in sword mastery, and frenzy, 15 in ww, bit of NR... (these numbers are just approximate guesses but u get the picture)

Ive got plenty of life and mana steal so thats not the issue... ive basically had to put it down to crap equipment (2 swords, approx 150-500 total damage on my better sword)

NOW, ive heard that doing runs at mephisto usually gives some decent equipment spoils.. but ive done more than i care to imagine (on NM level) and then went on to kill D and then harass baal.. still im stuck with a mediocre armor (380 def), sigons boots + belt and 2 swords not worth spit...

ive got around 120% magic find on when im doing these runs.. so why oh why after hundreds of meph runs am i still running around with crap equipment and getting slaughtered as soon as i go onto hell?? :(


any help or advice will be mucho grande appreciated.. cheers

[AtomicKitKat]

If you told us which version you're playing(D2Classic or LoD?)

If you're playing Classic, best I can suggest is you go on gold runs, and gamble the hell out of the shops till you get a good rare. If you're playing LoD, start carving your way through the Countess till you get the runes you need for whatever the good Rune-worded weapon is(I don't play Barbs much, so anyone who can elaborate for him/her, please do.)

Quick n Dirty fix=Hunt gems, plunk 6 perfect Rubies in one sword(I'm assuming they're the 2-handed type), and 6 perfect Sapphires in the other. Or a decent mix of both(If you throw in Emeralds and Topazes into the mix, you get Rainbow swords! :P )

LoDv1.10 might provide some nicer equipment, if you can get access to some nice non-ladder runewords(they escape me atm, ask around or read this forum)

[shavenlunatic]

i got LOD, just upgraded a week ago only to find my character sucked on LOD.. now 1.10 came out and he's totally screwed so its all irrelevant.. lol


think ill have to start from scratch as he dies from 1.5 hits of a cow and life-steal / mana steal aint working for some reason.. time fora necromancer i think.. i hear they dont actually have to fight..lol :D

[War_Master_Ares]

Not meaning to nit-pick here or anything AtomicKitKat, but if you read his post a bit more carefully you would have seen he was using Diablo 2: LoD.
Quote:
'but ive done more than i care to imagine (on NM level) and then went on to kill D and then harass baal.. '
The keyword here being Baal, last time I heard Baal only appeared in LoD :lol:

[TabithaWolf]

Well, since you don't say exactly how bad your weapons are, here's some things that might help:

Find a pair of gobblin toes (boots). If your damage really is awful, the crushing blow will help.

Shop for a cruel elite. I was casually checking Larzuk 2 nights ago and found a high end cruel colosus blade. Friend of mine bought it.

Make some imbue mules. I saved up my 3 imbues and several white elites for 1.10 in hopes of getting something nice with one of the 3. My first imbue was a 312% ed 30% ias elite.

Use one of the new magic+socket rerolling recipes and hope for a 3 socket cruel.

If you were an axe barb, I would have suggested trying to craft an elite blood axe, which can go up to 560% ed (300% cruel, 200% grandmaster, 60% set mod).

Also, magic find no longer works on end bosses (like meph) and certain uniques (like pindleskin).

I can't really comment on armor, since my only melee char is a tank java, and she was holding her own against diablo clone wearing twitchthroe and irathas set (50% dodge, 75% block). My advice would be to hunt down some runes for a runeword armor, since many of them can be made with semi-rare runes (as opposed to many super rare runes for the weapons).

[Bob the Beholder]

Wow, a month and only a level 78 character!? You must be a really bad player! You will now be shunned by me. (Note: Sarcasm)

I installed the game July of 2000, and I've got only... two characters right now that are past Normal. One of which is a level 73 paladin, which was very low level back in the days of patch 1.04, medium level in the earlier days of the expansion, and higher level now in 1.10. He's also incapable of killing anything in the later parts of Hell difficulty, but that's beside the point. (There were more characters, but I randomly decide to start new characters too much to ever finish any of them, and I also go through and delete characters I don't play after a while.)

Hopefully you aren't wearing the magic find equipment while you're trying to go through hell, because that would not be a good thing.

Perhaps you could revise your strategy a bit. With Piotyr, my Paladin, for example, I use Zeal. But when I started trying some Countess runs in Hell (Act 1, I know. But he sucks...), I'd get mobbed like crazy, and then block-locked and killed. This was obviously not a good thing. So, first I tried running around like a chicken with its head cut off until I could run in and put a few good thwacks on some poor unsuspecting fool of a monster. They weren't so poor, considering with my Atlantean (I love the thing, but it's just not cutting it) it would barely part their fur, and their regeneration is just too much for me. By the nature of Zeal itself I had to go toe to toe with the hellions for a pretty good amount of time before I could take 'em down, so I sat back and took a lot at my options.

Charge costs too much mana; I built the character around the pitiful mana cost of Zeal. Vengeance had the same problem. Sacrafice had me dying even faster. There was something wrong with every skill I had, except Convert. So, I tried it out. I ran in and whacked a yeti a few times, and a little swirly appeared above its head. All the monsters attacked it, and I was able to chop down a couple monsters during the distraction. Woohoo, progress. And the progress continued... Until I met a physical immune archer LEB, and a goat with the same mods, both at the same time. I actually never completed a countess run due to things like that. Boy were they fun, though. All that frantic running around and such.

Well, I've managed to ramble on quite a bit, but there's a point here somewhere. One thing you can do is just improvise. I'm not up on high level Barbarian skills (The only ones I've used extensively are WW and Concentration, and that was just in Normal), but just take a look at your options, and try to formulate a plan. It also helps to be really careful, and not just whirlwind into everything you can find.

Or you could just keep doing MF runs until you find some sort of crazy uber equipment and slaughter everything easily. I've never had uber equipment, though, let alone the kind that allows you to slaughter everything easily, so I really wouldn't know much about that.