I'm like a newbie again!

[traxus]

So, I haven't played for about 2 years, but now I'm getting back into d2x. (eep!) I'm trying to remake my holy shock pally, but it's harder without large characters to twink with. Plus, 1.09 is so very different from what I remember. I've learned about the 3 chip/sword cube recipe, and tried it out. Plus chipped gems are worth stuff now? So many changes. My main question is, what should I be looking for? I'm level 25, my eq is pretty horrid, less than 10% in all resists, oblivion knights hurt! Are there any ...re-education guides for people like myself who played years ago and want to be knowledgable again? :unsure:

[SevenMass]

So you are a paladin and you have trouble with resist?
You know there are special paladin shields in D2X and they come with up to 4 sockets and build in magical mods, without being actually magical (blue)! Pala shields with +4-9 to resist all and 3-4 sockets to put some chipped gems in can be found all the way from act1!
If you use a 2h weapon, its always a good idea to have such a shield and 1h weapon on your weapon swich. Just in case you come across such places as the chaos sanctuary ;)

and gems drop a LOT nowadays (they are worth something becouse their demand is even higher!)

What you need in chaos sanc and RoF is fire resist and cold resist, becouse knigts don't use lightning and poisen can be countered with potions and other replinish life sources. Going for only those 2 resist shouldn't be to hard!? The least you could do is kill andy a couple of times to get some normal gems. (she always drops one)
Gems are the Elite twinking gear for the legit player.

And what do you mean with horrid eq? Compared to the end game uber eq some of your old chars used to have? or some of the uber twinked chars that wander the realms?
That's not a good comparison!

I often play my chars through normal untwinked, never have to much trouble. If your gear is horrid even by my standards you are not playing right, or just plain unlucky all of the time.
Pick up items, ID them, and if you don't need them, sell them. Then use the gold to gamble.
MF and even Gold Find can do wonders.
I can imagine you forget to do this if you are used to playing twinked chars.

You don't need any resist exept for fire against diablo. Becouse you can manually dodge all his attacks exept for his fire nova, but that doesn't do much dmg in the first place. So use all the MF gear you can get your hands on, and some fire resist, let your holy shock hit hem while you run around him or zigzag.
(don't fight him on the pentagon, but lure him off.)

hope this was helpfull!
good luck! B)

[Bullit]

One item you might like to try out is the Holy Thunder runeword - my holy shock paladin used it, as it provides a nice bonus to Holy Shock (+4 IIRC) as well as lightning damage and resistance. The runes are fairly common (EthRalOrtTal I think), but 4 socket scepters are not so forthcoming. Do you play battle.net? I guess if you play on Europe I could link you up with one ;)

[Albion Child]

I end up having most of my HC Pallys using Rhyme runeword (My SC characters are all twinked, but HC is PWYF only or trading within a party). Anyway, Shael isn't terribly hard to find and Eth drops every ten minutes.

Cheap runewords are the savior of my HC characters "honor" (AMN EL ITH TIR SOL) is an excelent runeword for weapons. "ORT SOL" helms are nice for necros, sorcs, elemental druids, or any other skill loving class or build. (It's possible to get +3 helms with this for Barbs and druiewordsds, perhaps even +4).

If you want to make an inferno sorc, save up some gold and shop in town until you find a 2 socket staff with +3 to inferno. Stick TIR RAL in it and that changes to +6 to inferno, +3 to Firemastery, And other nice mods.

There are MANY "cheap" runewords so I recomend checking out the Arreat summit.

S

[SevenMass]

You guys, i have to disagree here. If you play through normal untwinked and you are in act4, the chance you found a RAL, ORT, or TAL isn't very big. And you can just about forget about AMN, SOL, and SHEAL.

I have never found any of these last 3 before act5 normal. And even then, the chance is too small to rely on it! I mean, it could happen, i wouldn't count on it.

Finding a chip in act1, now that is something you can build on!

[Albion Child]

You get ancients pledge for completing quest 2 act 5 every time, and if you can't get through at least the first half of nightmare without "good" items then you just need to practice. In other words, it doesn't matter if you don't get these runes before act 4 normal, because you can still basically punch your way throught hese areas.

Add to that the fact that the low level runes can be made in the horadric cube so it doesn't matter whether they drop.

My strategy for HC PWYF is use absolutely every resource available to obtain equipment you need. That means crafting, runewords, cube recipes, gambling, MF and whatever.

[SevenMass]

Yes, i know, and your tips aren't bad or something, but only when you are past act4 normal.
traxus needed help getting past the RoF, or that is what i understood.

Oh, and here is an other tip, Diablo now has 80% blocking (doesn't look like it but the game counts it as blocking) He didn't used to have this.
So there is no point trying to hit him if you are a holy shock paladin, just let your aura hit him.

BTW, traxus, how are you doing so far? give us an update B)

[Occhidiangela]

Tal drops as early as act II in the AS. I see it all the time. Ort can on occasion drop in act IV from monsters. I have seen Amn and Shael drop from the Hellforge quest in normal, though not all that frequently: more often, and Eth or Tir drops. :P I think I have seen Sol from Hellforge as well, but now my brain may be mixing NM and normal memories of dozens of characters. Best Hellforge Hell quest rune drop I ever got was Um, best NM quest rune I ever got was Lum.

You can morph runes up to Thul by using low level runes and a cube. Now, it may take some luck, but Ral Ort Tal can be made before opening the last seal: I concede that it will take a lot of Tal's to make three Rals, three more for another ral, and another Tal for Tal, so unless you full clear and get a bit of luck, it could be tough to make Ancients Pledge by Act IV and the last quest.

Paladin Shields, however, with sockets in them, drop rather frequently. Kite Shields with three sockets are not all that uncommon, nor large shields.

Drop in some diamonds, Flawless and or Perfect, and you get 40-50+ percent Res All.

[traxus]

I spent a few days doing meph runs for gold and items and gambling, at one point I found a Brevitt's Keep so I don't need to worry about fire resist until nm, I've got a lightning resist jewel in my armor and some mediocre gloves, enough to finally get me through the RoF and past diablo. That 80% block would explain why I rarely hit him with zeal.. took a while, but he went down and dropped 3 uniques and 3 rares.. I was amazed, but only one of them was good (twitch, which I'm now wearing). I got an amn from soulforge, thinking about crafting a blood ammy once I get the P ruby (2 flawless right now).. Probably going to switch from magic socketed long sword to bloodletter once I hit 30. I read that the Eth rune's -25% target defence was broken at one point, is it still ITD? In either case, -25% target defence and the huge ar boost from zeal means I rarely miss monsters, so I may socket the bloodletter at larzuk for another eth.

I noticed that gambling was incredibly useless, compared to 1.04. I've spent probably a million gold on items, never getting anything useful. Lots of crap of self-repair or +stamina, but nothing that I would use. My jewelry is horrendous, best ammy i've found overall is only 7% mf. I do have eth and tal for holy thunder or ancient's pledge, depends on what I find socketed first.

I guess I just have horrible eq luck or something.

[Striker]

I read that the Eth rune's -25% target defence was broken at one point, is it still ITD?

As of v1.09, yes.

I noticed that gambling was incredibly useless, compared to 1.04. I've spent probably a million gold on items, never getting anything useful.

Depends on what you gamble for, but yeah, it has gotten worse overall. I usually gamble for gloves, boots, and circlets (when I can). I find that circlets spit out fairly good mods every so often.

I guess I just have horrible eq luck or something.

Based on what you have told us, I would have to agree. :P

[Albion Child]

Sometimes a nice 3/4 socket pally sheild is better than Rhyme or ancients pledge anyway, with a few flawed, chippies/...


I usually gamble entirely for jewelry, but not much in normal (50K is hard to come up with, much less 63 for an ammy) and usually get a rare roughly 1 in 10 times.

It's not hard (unless i have exceptional luck) to gamble for a rare ring with life leech, some nice resists, and some small stat bonuses or + max/min damage modifiers. I get...and use...these constantly.