Coming back to D2 after 2 years or so

[Brian462]

I gave away all of my accounts before I quit so I am starting out completely fresh. I made a sorc and am currently up to level 78 and have started doing some Meph runs for items and a few countess runs for runes. I'd like to start trading for some new gear but it seems like people only want hacked items now. Is it even worth holding on to "legit" items, even the ones that would be good without the hacked items? Am I basically on my own equipment-wise now? I don't want to use hacked items but I'd like to start getting some decent items and its kind of hard without trading. Has anyone else here restarted fresh and has some advice they can give me?

My second question is about IG thorns. I'd like to make a Necro and my favorite build was always IG+AD along with Bone Spear, Spirit, a few other curses(LR, confuse, attract), and CE. I know the act 2 mercs Might Aura affects the IG's thorns but I am not sure by how much when figured with AD and hell difficulty. I figure the AD adds 100% but what level is the mercs aura and does it just add to the 100%? I've heard thorns are cut in damage in Hell difficulty. How much is the penalty here? ....On a side note, does Might affect CE damage?

Finally, about the necro's spells, I've heard LR no longer affects magic resistance, meaning it no longer affects the necro's spells. I think that might have been in reference to 1.10. Is that true, and if so is it likely to stay that way?

Thanks for any replies and if you have any other tidbits of info about major changes in the game over the past few years please feel free to share them.

[adeyke]

Unless you absolutely trust the person you're trading with, you can about assume that any good stuff you trade for is either duped or botted (or hacked, but you can usually just see that from looking at an item). Staying clean while trading publicly is very hard.

AFAIK, might aura does not affect iron golem's thorns. It just increases the damage your minions do when they actually attack and hit someone.

Amplify damage works by reducing physical resistance by 100%. In normal and nightmare, most monsters have 0% physical resistance, so amp will double physical damage against them. In 1.09 hell, monsters have 50% global physical resistance, so amp will take them down to -50%. So amp will triple damage in hell compared to no amp, but monsters will still take less damage than they would without the global physical resistance. Because of the resistance, thorns is indirectly penalized in hell.

Might doesn't affect CE damage. The only way it would directly affect a necromancer (and not his minions) is if the necromancer used a weapon and hit monsters with it.

[MongoJerry]

Welcome back! I restarted back in June after an 18 month hiatus, so I know exactly what you're going through. I got immediately sick of all the hacked and duped items as well, so I jumped as quickly as possible to hardcore. The game there is far more legit in terms of items than softcore and people in general are a lot nicer and like to party a lot more (except you have to be very careful of PK's). Sure, there are some hacked and duped items there, but they aren't as prevelant, and because of the nature of hardcore, they tend to get lost over time.

In hardcore, I managed to get some decent equipment by trading gems. There's some demand for chipped gems because of the 3-chipped gems + magic sword = new magic sword with sockets (people are trying to roll cruel socketed swords with this). So, I recommend muling away all of the chipped gems you find and then once you've collected enough, you can join an "Itmz 4 Chips" game and try to get some equipment. Wtih chips, you can get equipment that will get you through nightmare -- sigon stuff, undead crowns (useful to give to mercs), and nightmare level unique weapons. Using chipped gems, I was able to get several Skystrikes and a couple of Kuko's for my amazon.

Later, you can then jump into the perfect gem economy. A lot of people don't know about it, but you can get some pretty decent items with perfect gems. The perfect gem trading games are a lot rarer to find, but when they're there, they're a great place to get medium level equipment. That's how I got my Lycander's Aim (30 pgems), Goldstrike arch (40 pgems), and Magewrath's (20pgems each) for my 'zon (who died several times -- I'm playing over a modem -- so I needed multiple copies of equipment). You can also get pieces of various exceptional set items that way.

To get top equipment like Windforces, etc., you just have to adventure in hell for a while and collect them. Use as much magic find equipment as you can safely equip yourself with. Top equipment only trades for top equipment.

As to your other questions, the only one I have a solid answer to is that LR does affect magic resistance in 1.09 but doesn't affect it in 1.10s. I don't know if it's going to stay this way in the final release or not.

By the way, whenever 1.10 does come out, Blizzard will introduce "ladder games" that will basically be new separated realms (kind of like how hardcore and softcore are separated). So, if you play there, you'll be able to start off in a clean and new realm where everyone starts off with the proverbial +1 firebolt staff. You don't actually have to play for the ladder to play in ladder games. You can just enjoy playing in a new clean realm. I can't wait.

[Brian462]

I had forgotten all about the ladder games in 1.10. I guess I'll just not worry about trading until that comes out.

I did a few more meph runs today and got Wizardspike, Lidless Wall, Magefists(finally), and Spire of Honor which looks really good for an act 2 merc. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with the spike since it's not something I'd really use(no skills and HIGH dex req) but it was a nice surprise anyway. My sorc's actually is getting some decent gear together without any trading after all.

If I get bored with my sorc I'll take your advice about Hardcore too. HC was always a nice challenge in the past so it might hold me over til the patch.