Using low level skills

[davcol]

I've been looking for ways to make D2 more interesting lately. One thought I've had is to build characters
that only use the level 1 and level 6 skills and see how far I can take them. No twinking of course.

I've started a necro and I don't believe I'll have too much trouble with normal or nmare. I'm not sure how
well I can make this work in hell though.

If the idea interests you perhaps we could start discussions of possible builds.

Bnet does not have lots of players who actually play - or at least I'm having trouble finding them.
I'm playing these chars from the account HardlyWorking on USWest. I'm on most evenings (PST) if you'd care
to join me.

-davcol

[Den]

I think you'll do okay with the Necro just using Amp Damage and Corpse Explosion. You could also Max Raise Skeletons / Mastery and Clay Golem if you want to test your vid cards limits. Yeah, the occasional PI/Fire Immune and Act Bosses will be tough. But compared to other classes you should have an easy time with your Necro. CE has got to be the most overpowered level 6 spell.

As far as partners go, I've given up the realms at least until v1.10 comes out. Perhaps longer. If you ever want to play some Open or TCP games then PM me and we'll hook up.

[Baajikiil]

Sounds like an interesting restriction. Many classes would have a pretty easy(relatively) time with it. Barbs get their mastery, and bash. Assassins get claw mastery, BoS, and tiger strike. necro gets CE and amp. Druids get their wereform, lycanthropy, and oak, amazons can get multishot. They would probably not be real fast in Hell ,but would be playable. Course I'm also thinking of characters with good equipment; getting that equipment might not be easy.

Pally and sorc kinda get the shaft though.

I guess if you only use lvl 1 and 6 skills and choose bad ones, it will be really tough. Hmm playing without a merc would make it pretty hard too.

[Den]

Sorcs might be alright if you allowed them to use Masteries, that's a big IF though. Frozen Armor, CB, Static, and Inferno are all pretty good skills. Especially if you get a nice Leaf staff. I don't want to start talking about Inferno in this thread though. ;)

I think the melee Chars would really have the worst time of it. Sounds like slow going with PI's and the Global resists.

[Chameleon]

Can you say Jabazon?
PI?? errr... fire arrow, at least until it is fixed.

[Albion Child]

Fireball is level 6 right? or is it 12? Anyway, I played a sorc using fireball as a main spell once. Though I used Orb (only for fire immune), she made it through hell, though very slowly. Either way, there are lots of viable spells for the sorceress at lower levels. Static, charged bolt for example.


EDIT: as soon as I posted this I realized an error in my thinking. She couldn't use masteries. I guess sorcs do get "the shaft."

[BlackLightning]

Dude, pretty good idea.

It's nice to see most people taking up a challenge.
Anyway, the necro build is a good idea. You shouldn't invest in Clay Golem tho. It's got low power, and doesn't really pay for itself. CE rocks!

You could also try a pally or somethin'.

Barbs are kinda' tough to do, but bash is possible, and shout is good too. Assassins got it made with TS.
Just felt like postin' something. Don't go all out on me, just expressin' an opinion.

[Az3ar]

Actually, CB sorceresses are very fun and effective, at lvl 20, charged bolt makes a big wave full of small zots (well, thats what I call them :)) and if they dont do that much damage for your taste, get a level 10 static field whith it, down whith the health and moppem off!

[AtomicKitKat]

Y-e-p. Static Field is more over-powered than CE. Always has been, always will be. After CE was nerfed, SF become the ONLY spell that actually scales UP in damage as the number of players increases. Now, if SF were affected by the number of players in the following way:

Static Damage= (XY)/(3Y)

Where X is the monster's current HP and Y is the number of players in the game.

840 is used because it is divisible by 5, 6, 7, and 8 with no remainder.

Players 1 Damage = (840*1) / (3*1) = 0840/03 = 280
Players 2 Damage = (840*2) / (3*2) = 1680/06 = 280
Players 3 Damage = (840*3) / (3*3) = 2520/09 = 280
Players 4 Damage = (840*4) / (3*4) = 3360/12 = 280
Players 5 Damage = (840*5) / (3*5) = 4200/15 = 280
Players 6 Damage = (840*6) / (3*6) = 5040/18 = 280
Players 7 Damage = (840*7) / (3*7) = 5880/21 = 280
Players 8 Damage = (840*8) / (3*8) = 6720/24 = 280

As you can see, the amount of damage done is always the same, regardless of the number of players(ie, just like pretty much all spells), and will only scale up with the difficulty level of the opponent(or rather, their hit points) The RELATIVE amount of damage done is less, but still in keeping with other skills(ie, your contribution to the damage as an individual is lessened as more players cause the monster's HP to increase), but you're still taking out a relatively large chunk of HP with the spell(up till Players 8)

1/03=33%
1/06=16%
1/09=11%
1/12=8.3%
1/15=6.7%
1/18=5.6%
1/21=4.8%
1/24=4.2%

If this formula were implemented of course, then the caps on bosses and for NM/Hell could be removed, since by the time you can actually knock them down to 1 HP, your mana could be better spent elsewhere. Assuming Hell Izual, players 2(players 1 would be unchanged, so soloing would be still be easy for the loner static sorc):

16000/6=2667
13333/6=2222
11111/6=1851
09260/6=1543
07717/6=1286
06431/6=1071
05360/6=0893
04467/6=0745

As you can see, Static Field IS still an effective "boss-killer", just that you can't cheese your way through any more. Of course, this is basd on the OLD Static Field, the one that did 1/3 damage per casting. The new one(25% per casting) inserted into the formula I devised above would be a neutering rather than a nerf.

[Az3ar]

Yes, but the fact that now it only gets 1/4 of their points rather than 1/3 doesnt really pose eny big problem...... hell, SF can be cast very rapidly and damage alot of monsters, I still use it eccesivly whith some chars, like my CB/SF sorc, so cute......

[CelticHound]

Here's a link for inspiration:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/ember.html

-- CH

[Archon_Wing]

Thorns merc, amp damage, and clay golem. Follow with corpse explosion. Use bone armor. Run in and whack them. Use poison dagger for immunes. What else do you want? :)

[the Langolier]

I found this a little homorous:

>Static Damage= (XY)/(3Y). [=(X)/(3)]

Obviously the "Y" which you define as the number of players cancels out before any calculations are done, thus giving a damage independent of the number of players. The formula is equivalent to X/3 (X/4), which is simply defined in the skill tree.

But seriously, why is there a "Y" in the denominator anyways (I am assuming X is the hp of a monster with only one player in the game, and XY calculates the hp for multiple players)? I don't play multiplayer - does this mean that static field gets degraded with more players - meaning it only does 17.5% (25/2) damage with 2 players and so on? That sort of defeats the purpose of the skill entirely, where each casting does a mere 3.1% damage to enemies with 8 players in the game (not to mention the fact that monsters will have 8 times the hp to begin with). But the skill is defined by reducing the hp of a monster by 25%. Something is wrong.

BTW, why didn't you calculate it for 25%, after all, this is what it currently is.

[AtomicKitKat]

I think I was doing that at 5 in the morning. The point of scaling it so it does LESS damage with the number of players in the game is to bring it in line with the other skills. Alternatively, one could lower the effectiveness of Static Field by lowering the range to 1 TU(.6 yards IIRC) per slvl, such that you'd actually need to invest at least 5 points or so into this so that you could get a reasonable AoE or else risk running right into the boss' range. :D

[the Langolier]

nt

[AtomicKitKat]

Hmm, I also noticed what the nit was about. But unfortunately, I don't currently have the same frame of mind, so I cannot remember what I was thinking at the time. The idea IIRC, was to do the same amount of damage to a monster(but not proportional to its HP) no matter the number of players, just that instead of ONE player taking down 1/3(1/4) of the monster's HP in a single shot, that player will actually be taking away only 1/24(1/32) of the monster's HP in players 8. So that it's not the Sorc doing all the work in a single blow even in P8.

Although, I think I know what it was that confused you. In the 1/3 1/6 etc part, the "1" actually referred to the monster's HP(which if you may recall, was the formula XY), so yes, it LOOKS odd, but the end result is:

840/3
1680/6

etc.

So the player would ALWAYS be doing 280 damage per shot in this case, but as the number of players increased, his relative contribution as an individual would decrease:

1/3
1/6
1/9
etc.

So essentially, a Sorc can no longer use SF to solo her way through 8P games with ease(compare that to any other character using skills that don't get MORE powerful with the number of players in the game. ie, almost every other skill in the game)

[BanditAngel]

Alternatively, one could lower the effectiveness of Static Field by lowering the range to 1 TU(.6 yards IIRC) per slvl, such that you'd actually need to invest at least 5 points or so into this so that you could get a reasonable AoE or else risk running right into the boss' range. :D

Except that most players on Battle.net (or at least the Uber-type players) generally have some fairly hefty +skills: 2 SOJ, Tarnhelm and an Occulus is +6, and fairly easy to trade for in softcore (or at least it used to be - I haven't done trading in months now). That only gives a range of 7 TU / 4.2 yards though, so a few points in it would still be nice. Still, stuff like that generally just hurts the people who don't already have ubergear, while the ubers can shrug it off fairly easily.

I like the idea of making it not scale with the number of players who join, just like CE, since it is the ONLY skill like that, and it makes that skill fairly overpowered agains't enemies like Izual in players 8.

[Archon_Wing]

Not really, one could just spam SF, and it would really be the same in the end ;) Just more casts, but spamming it isn't hard at out.

Seriously, I just hold the button down, so 3 or 24 times is little diffrence.

If you really wanted to nerf static, you would put a timer.

Also, said ubers never use SF in my experience

Besides, the 1/3 and 1/2 limit prevents it from actualy killing anything, so yea. :)

[Taem]

Paladin
Main Aura: Might
Secondary Aura: Resist Fire (for Diablo)
Attacks: Sacrafice + Smite
Optional: If Mercinaries are allowed for this challenge, then a Holy Freeze one would be ideal for this build in my opinion.

Strategy: Smite your enemy to stun them and sacrafice to kill. Use healing potions until you can find life leeching equipment.

-edit- I just realized that IF mercinaries are allowed, that they should have the same aura restriction as we do, in which case defiance would be my first choice with might my second choice.

[Walkiry]

Here's a link for inspiration:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/ember.html

-- CH

*Sigh* I miss Sirian's stories :(