07-17-2003, 07:00 PM
I like it.
I went in with my bowazon at CLevel 54, and she must have been at the sweet spot for experience. She got one, sometimes two levels clearing Blood Moor. Her Act2 merc was right behind her on experience, and was keeping up pretty well until she got to CLevel 63, when the merc had fallen two levels behind.
She is the first character I made in D2. I hadn't played her much after the Valkyrie nerf came out (1.07?), since she has a lot of points in Valkyrie and it was pretty pathetic after the nerf. Now, my Valk can kill stuff again. :)
I went in with fairly crummy equipment by 1.09 standards. I'm still using the Rare Gothic bow I got by testing Charsi's imbue. It took 40 tries, but I finally got one that has decent damage (33-166, IIRC).
Charms are just what I found on this character, not many and not very good.
I found that Magic Arrow is very usable now. The global physical resistance seems to still be there, but with Magic Arrow converting Physical damage to Magic it kills well. There does not seem to be many Magic Resistant/Immune monsters.
I finally found a non-Magic Embossed Plate, and used it to make up a set of all of the 1.10-only Runeword armors. That made quite a difference in whether I Stand and Deliver, or Hit and Run. Even with the crummy equipment, I only got killed once, that was in the first 5 minutes. :)
Bramble seems to be a good Runeword armor for the melee merc (Act2 from NM, Might aura). Having Thorns on the Valk is a pretty fine way to get damage. The Merc does need something to keep him from getting killed so often. Zombies are his nemesis, and a lot of time is spent running around to get him to disengage from Zombie groups.
I also got a non-Magic Crown, and made a Delirium for my character and the merc. Having Confuse cast about every three hits is strange, but it gives great crowd control. Best tactic seems to be to use Multishot to get Confuse cast over a large area, which seems to bring all the monsters together in a mob. Freezing Arrow to take out the non-Cold Immune critters, followed by whatever works for the ones that are left.
The biggest change from new equipment will probably be having Teleport, now that I can equip Enigma armor. That will probably be an effective way to keep the merc alive, it's going to take a bit of a change in my Amazon mind-set to use it well. :)
I haven't gotten any bows yet for weapon Runewords, but some of them look like they are extreme enough to get this character through Hell. Breath of the Dying might be a game-killer, we'll see. :)
Overall, I think Hell is fine, as far as I've gone. It's dangerous enough to be challenging, and leveling fast enough in the CLevel 50s-60s to be able to tune the character's attributes.
Once 1.10 hits the Realms, it's going to be tough to say how it will be with fresh characters, but I think that by the time you hit Hell you'll probably be able to put together a fairly effective set of equipment. There seems to be so many ways to go, that I don't think the cookie-cutter builds will be written in stone.
-rcv-
I went in with my bowazon at CLevel 54, and she must have been at the sweet spot for experience. She got one, sometimes two levels clearing Blood Moor. Her Act2 merc was right behind her on experience, and was keeping up pretty well until she got to CLevel 63, when the merc had fallen two levels behind.
She is the first character I made in D2. I hadn't played her much after the Valkyrie nerf came out (1.07?), since she has a lot of points in Valkyrie and it was pretty pathetic after the nerf. Now, my Valk can kill stuff again. :)
I went in with fairly crummy equipment by 1.09 standards. I'm still using the Rare Gothic bow I got by testing Charsi's imbue. It took 40 tries, but I finally got one that has decent damage (33-166, IIRC).
Charms are just what I found on this character, not many and not very good.
I found that Magic Arrow is very usable now. The global physical resistance seems to still be there, but with Magic Arrow converting Physical damage to Magic it kills well. There does not seem to be many Magic Resistant/Immune monsters.
I finally found a non-Magic Embossed Plate, and used it to make up a set of all of the 1.10-only Runeword armors. That made quite a difference in whether I Stand and Deliver, or Hit and Run. Even with the crummy equipment, I only got killed once, that was in the first 5 minutes. :)
Bramble seems to be a good Runeword armor for the melee merc (Act2 from NM, Might aura). Having Thorns on the Valk is a pretty fine way to get damage. The Merc does need something to keep him from getting killed so often. Zombies are his nemesis, and a lot of time is spent running around to get him to disengage from Zombie groups.
I also got a non-Magic Crown, and made a Delirium for my character and the merc. Having Confuse cast about every three hits is strange, but it gives great crowd control. Best tactic seems to be to use Multishot to get Confuse cast over a large area, which seems to bring all the monsters together in a mob. Freezing Arrow to take out the non-Cold Immune critters, followed by whatever works for the ones that are left.
The biggest change from new equipment will probably be having Teleport, now that I can equip Enigma armor. That will probably be an effective way to keep the merc alive, it's going to take a bit of a change in my Amazon mind-set to use it well. :)
I haven't gotten any bows yet for weapon Runewords, but some of them look like they are extreme enough to get this character through Hell. Breath of the Dying might be a game-killer, we'll see. :)
Overall, I think Hell is fine, as far as I've gone. It's dangerous enough to be challenging, and leveling fast enough in the CLevel 50s-60s to be able to tune the character's attributes.
Once 1.10 hits the Realms, it's going to be tough to say how it will be with fresh characters, but I think that by the time you hit Hell you'll probably be able to put together a fairly effective set of equipment. There seems to be so many ways to go, that I don't think the cookie-cutter builds will be written in stone.
-rcv-