The Great Race; a proposal for "Khalim" awards

[Ferengi]

Well, the first goal was to go through the game up to the ancients as fast as possible (leveling to 20 in the meantime), but then I hit a wall and decided to just do leveling to 20 ASAP in the untwinked, one player from start to end, way. I have read Sirian's pages extensively :)

OK, I suspected you had read Sirian. Yup, what you are doing is something differerent. The point of clvl8 was to imbue exceptional/elite items to feed into a cycle of tricks to produce neat stuff for high lvls. The point of clvl 20 is to collect NM Hellforge runes (my interest too). Both of these presuppose a high level char available to render all sorts of services. Note that Crystallion mentioned that timing begins when you leave Camp, not at game start.

You are chasing the very first char (the one that the above chain is supporting perhaps). Your times are excellent, far better than anything I ever got for the very first char. I'd say you would be better off concentrating on the class you will use for that purpose in the longer run. However, my experience was that very first char lifetime is very short, since as soon as possible, I'd bootstrap the replacement...which bootstraped the replacement again. I always used sorcs and the first goal was merely telport, generally backed up with Ice Blast and some fast cast. Guess I should run that again. Again, your times are excellent for totally untwinked characters. But I wonder without higher intervention what you will do at the Ancients.

So I think that the 8/20 racers can be twinked with up to 8 columns of backpak -- the same Malus mule sorc carries the twink items (my schedulling has her pick up the malus immediately after twinking, if not eariler). /Players2 is a minimum setting. But if you have an untwinked path to lvl 8 that is fast (~30 minutes), I need a twinked path of 15 minutes maximum, especially if your path leads to fast clvl 20 times. Surprisingly that limits the amount of twinking possible more than I would have guessed. On the other hand, Crystalion wants the imbue, let him worry about it :D

Air races are great and the pollen kicked my butt again, so I tell myself that I am practicing breathing in high humidy to see the finals tomorrow, and not to lvl Uzi...er, the throwing barb.

Thanks for the reply Walkiry, you have certainly changed my planning.

[Walkiry]

I'd say you would be better off concentrating on the class you will use for that purpose in the longer run. However, my experience was that very first char lifetime is very short, since as soon as possible, I'd bootstrap the replacement

Well, you can consider this sort of a "baseline" for fast gaming. This is the maximum it will take for someone to get a character to level 8/20, and everything on top (from twinking to being carried over or playing in big party games) will just improve it :)

I think some of these builds are going to have next to zero trouble with the ancients (in Normal that is). The only one I see strugging is the thorns pally, but with pots and smite I don't think it'll be an issue. Or if their Regeneration is as crazy as the Chaos Sanctualy superuniques *mumbled curse*

And truth to be said, I'm actually enjoying this whole thing :lol: I think I'm on to something here, 2:14:31 to level 20 with a poison javelin amazon. I think I'm going to try the complete speed run with her and see what happens.

[Crystalion]

For rushing a char to 20:
1 sorc with some static and a pimped up enchant... "Why yes mr necro, your 3 skellies can have 1k fire damage each"... sorc doesn't need to be in the party and/or
pimped up warcry barb donating 8(?) mins or so of BC/BO/Shout, also not required in the party.

Yes, now that enchant is beefy enough to help a Sorc herself, it is rather too tempting for her to help others, especially Necro and Druid summons. However she *does* have to be in the party, at least long enough to do the enchant.

Your bc/bo/shout Barb can be partly replaced by a Call to Arms wearer. A support Barb with pumped Leap is a thing of wonder ("Mommy, mommy... why do all the monsters just stand against rocks and walls throwing their hands up in the air over and over?").

A Bone Prison (sometimes wall) spamming Necro can similarly do some pretty amazing crowd control support (if he does this before the Leap Barb does his thing, then the monsters aren't inconveniently pushed off-screen and the Sorc can now static the whole mess so the rushee can touch them for the kill and xp).

Crazy stuff.

One of the things I hadn't considered before, that is funny and a little bit effective, is my level 1 rushees to act 5 can hire an act 3 *lightning* merc. Because charged bolt is their primary attack and is slvl req 1, they indeed use it right away (whereas the cold a3 merc is just a mime who never does anything to speak of). Of course, because of the silly merc xp leveling cap stuff, you'll probably return to act 3 umpteen times to hire a higher level a3 lightning merc (instead of watching your existing one lag further and further behind your level).

Other things about speeds and methods posted here recently impress me very much... I just don't have anything interesting to add. It might be amusing some time, post-v1.10 release, to have a (up to 8 contestant) great race of LLers in one game, for the added competition (for monsters to kill). Hmm, they should probably be rushed past Andarial first, so the clever (first) person to kill Andy in the GR game doesn't lock all their competition in act1, leaving act2 solely for them.

[Walkiry]

I think I'm on to something here, 2:14:31 to level 20 with a poison javelin amazon. I think I'm going to try the complete speed run with her and see what happens.

This is what happened (untwinked, unassisted, players 1), timer started on creation and never stopped except for real pauses for fetching food and so on:

57:20 Andy lvl 7
1:12:55 Staff lvl 9
1:21:21(1) Cube lvl 11
1:27:33 Amulet lvl 12
1:55:33 Duriel lvl 13
2:05:12 Jade Figurine lvl 14
2:49:52 Book lvl 17
3:03:29 Orb Smashed lvl 18
3:15:40 Mephisto lvl 18
4:06:21(2) Diablo lvl 19
4:40:20 Arreat Summit lvl 19
4:40:59(3) lvl 20 (3,000 exp)
4:51:36 Ancients die, lvl 21

(1) Yes, I did get the staff before the cube, I ran all the way to the lost city to get the map layout as soon as possible, then used waypoints back to get the staff and the cube.

(2) Lack of teleport hurt the time a lot. As you can see, up to killing Mephisto the run was only 15 minutes slower than the one with Blazie. It took less than 10 minutes with Blazie to get to the Chaos Sanctuary, and the best part of 20 minutes for the amazon.

(3) Yup, I did have to go back to act II and whack a couple fo things to level up. although it was really close to get a perfect level 20 just before the Ancients.

I had to reroll the ancients once, somehow Talic was immune to Poison (but it didn't show anywhere other than the fact that he didn't turn green).

A sorceress SHOULD be able to knock down about 30 minutes with the use of teleport in act IV and V. I'll give Blazie a vileness weapon twink and check out her time for acts IV-V. But that'll be tomorrow :)

[Ferengi]

Interesting stuff.

First shot at Poison jav Zon. I think the Throwing Barb will easily have the advantage to clvl 20 however. Barb gets mucho increased damage and still pays only 1 mana. Poison clouds are nice, but the underground passage rarely allows a big crowd into them.

20 minutes, players4, twinked with 1 chipped skull buckler and 20,000.

Build plan, pump energy, pump critical hit until Poison Jav (one point only).

I want to add another thorns buckler, and probably Hsaru belt if I can figure out the str problem. Add 2 socketed armor with chipped saphires or maybe str. Just gamble javs and fill backpak with javs, buy sash. Put TP scroll in belt and fill belt and rest of inventory with healing. I can probably tweak this in and make the 15 minutes.

When javs exhaust, toss and refill from inventory unless you get a mana leech with increased stack size. Pick up mana for the empty backpak slots.

Run to Cold Plains, you will be clvl 3 moments later. Head for Dark Wood, try to only toss into trailing packs. Compared to the barb, this char has serious mana problems, but never goes back to camp until clvl 8. Finding mana leech javs would be nice (barb got that on first attempt). Barb seems to be a slower start but will be a faster finish.

I notice that LitFury gets synergies, lol. I used to know a command to find out how long the game has been running, anyone know what it is and if it works in SP ?

[Walkiry]

First shot at Poison jav Zon. I think the Throwing Barb will easily have the advantage to clvl 20 however. Barb gets mucho increased damage and still pays only 1 mana.

You think so? At level 11, poison jav does close to 1,000 poison damage. Even with the trips to town, the fact that you can fire a good trail, lead many enemies to it and just go away knowing full they'll be dead shortly is a big advantage.

Poison clouds are nice, but the underground passage rarely allows a big crowd into them.

Well, there're rooms where you'll find shamen and fallens all over the place, although they give you little exp by the time you get there.

Compared to the barb, this char has serious mana problems, but never goes back to camp until clvl 8.

Indeed, but try to get ONE item with +mana after each kill. At level 1 the skill costs 4 mana, and you should be killing packs bigger than that each time you shoot. In players 4 you'll also be leveling so fast that you won't have mana problems. I think this ough to save a bit of time.

I say only one item because:

a. It's all you'll need.

b. There's the bug with multiple items that will surely be fixed before release.

I can probably tweak this in and make the 15 minutes.

For that time you're going to need faster run boots and stamina potions, since your problem will be travelling time and not killing enough stuff to level up.

Have you noticed how annoying it is that, when you shoot the last javelin of your stack, the graphic disappears?

[Crystalion]

At level 11, poison jav does close to 1,000 poison damage. Even with the trips to town, the fact that you can fire a good trail, lead many enemies to it and just go away knowing full they'll be dead shortly is a big advantage.

I think going to town can be a good thing, when you know the monsters can't get to you and are all dying while you chat up the townsfolk. :D

Generally I'm all in favor of not investing (skill or) stat points until the clear need presents itself. But for this build (poison javalin centric power-leveler) I'm somewhat puzzled over what approach even makes sense...

STR: why bother? this isn't an equipment (str req) intensive build
VIT: "always good" but why bother? With stamina potions and town portals it's not like we ever give the monsters a chance to whack on us (yes, I know, "can't hurt" and sometimes helps)
NRG: why bother? mana potions can be bought at shop and you'd have to have a ton of mana before your regen would be high enough to pay for your mana expenses; as you pointed out, a single Triumphant (+1 mana/kill) rulez

bringing us to:
DEX: why bother (?!!) as poison javalin works just as well without it, and *better* when we deliberately miss any target. Any "tough" target we'd prefer to just ignore anyway (build is about power leveling, not proving we can kill anything). Also there is the shield blocking angle (but see VIT comment above).

So my answer, thus far (small little tests in the last week but nothing like your five hour ancients run), has been to either not distribute, or put points into VIT. What's your take on it, in practice?

On a related note, aside from PJ, I've put skill into Dodge and Critical Strike (just for fun--I like to see the star animation--I don't think the poison is ever getting any benefit) but decided that the new improved Inner Sight didn't matter, as poison clouds are auto-hit. But going to 20 opens skill choices up all the way to 18, so, again, what's your take on it?

On a tech note, I think I should mention that my current thinking, for assisted power leveling, is that Sorc/PJavazon is an ideal combo. Since pumped PJ has such long duration, a simplified procedure would be:

1) Sorc teleports to new area; lures mass of monsters together; does: teleport/cast Town Portal/teleport dance to open a TP for PJavazon near but not in monster cloud

2) Sorc begins staticing mob

3) PJavazon comes through portal, tosses a couple of PJs aimed to miss and leaves through Portal

4) Sorc is still staticing mob, weaving about a little if needed to trick mob into crossing the poison cloud lines from step 3 above; at some point static will get the mobs so low on HPs that the poison will finish them off (this shouldn't take very long at all, as far as I can see--naturally I'm assuming normal diff, but as that allows this technique to be useful up to at least clvl 40 as thus hell Hellforge clvl req, I think I can rest my case)

5) rinse and repeat

Now this procedure hinges on a technical point I pondered long ago and didn't answer: who gets kill credit for a poison death?... the last character to damage the monster?, or does the last poison successfully applied to the monster have its own memory of who the poison belongs to? (this question was originally thought up long long ago, when poison overwriting laws were quite different, and potentially an odd implementation here could have been exploitable).

If the answer is favorable (i.e. poison remembers its source) then the above procedure should work. If the answer is unfavorable (i.e. there is only a bucket to remember a single player who last touched a monster) then the above procedure needs reordering, so that the Sorc has to take everything down in HPs via Static before the PJ does the final coup de grace. This is much less efficient (no PMH and sensitivity to monster HP levels to decide what/when to perform actions).

tech note: also, if you're using two humans in the above scenario, instead of one human doing game switching, I'm wondering if the numpad "help" etc. voice keys work for player communication even when you aren't in the same zone? (rather hard for me to test, as I'm not set up with two PCs atm) The purpose, of course, would be to have a single key press for the Sorc to summon the PJavazon for her step 3 (this is the only real-time signaling/coordination issue in the whole procedure, making the assistive twink relatively mindless and therefore highly effective). In case it isn't obvious, the Sorc and PJavazon are not partied (if that matters to the communication method detail).

edit tech note: if this is hardcore, or danger is posed to the PJavazon in her brief appearances, the Sorc could use an item with charges of dim vision or cloak of shadows just before the PJavazon comes through. I think DV might be better, because of its *short* duration, to free the monsters up again asap to walk into the poison clouds. Naturally the Sorc isn't going to stop her teleport search and do a cycle in an unfavorable mix of monsters--such as bunch of horror archers (e.g. act 5 guests) who can be deadly at range, who won't move into clouds and don't suffer much by poison anyway. Also, while there isn't anything wrong with the PJavazon having a merc (and it might even be helpful, as, iirc, HF mercs can now hold their auras up on themselves while in town?) it would be a poor idea for the Sorc to have one :blink:

[Ruvanal]

Just out of curiousity, are you using keyboard/mouse/display switch, or can you actually cross 25 feet of space in half a second (must be a NASA G-force test chair)?

Win98se task switching. With the number of turns involved (7+) in that distance, I am not even sure that a "NASA G-force test chair" could stand up doing that run. :P

There. Now that I'm less obscure, and finally understood that you were using some better than safespot technique (safespots are hassles--I like my suicide method better, unless the safe spots are no-brainers, like Andarial's area), am I on the same wavelength? Or did you discover some awful D1esque player attribution "slot" oddity, like have the rusher cause open wounds and then leave the game, which then decides to award the kill to a remaining (in game) party member? I was assuming that if you had found something abnormal like that, you'd just report the particulars as a bug, and not worry about it, so I guessed that you were using safe spots or timing (or, as I now believe, timing insensitive automagic kills, like Holy Shock).

Basically none of the above. As I said; "With what I did, a sacrifice would gain zero speed increase and in hardcore just be a waste of even having started the character in the first place." As in if you did this in HC, the results would be similar to hitting the "Go to Jail" square in Monopoly; go back to act 1 normal and start a new set of characters over from there, do not pass the act, do not collect any rewards. It need not be any more dangerous in HC than what players are already used to risking there normally.

Some of the posts in this thread are touching on parts of 'how to do it'. There are are a few minor misconceptions that some have about certain parts that are preventing them from seeing the way though. If this thread continues to over 100 posts, there is a good chance that some will begin to see what it is that needs to be done though. Most are not seeing the forest due to the trees you are looking at.

Edit: Another possibility ...

Another way would be to change the limited TP access is coded for the restraint. Have it limit the leaving town based on the clvl and level of the area going to. If the limit is that a character cannot tp into an area that has a level more than twice as great as their clvl, then that would provide a simple method to frastrate most the rushing exploits, but not too much of restraint for someone who can play good. Some example levels in normal
level area
11 Catacombs 2
12 Catacombs 4
16 Valley of the Magi
17 Valley Tombs and Duriels lair
25 Durance 1-3
28 Chaos Sanctuary
29 Ancient Way
43 Throne Room/Worldstone Chamber
Needing a clvl that is at least 1/2 of these values would not cause normal players much trouble, but to someone that is trying to rush the restriction to using a TP to get to say Durance 3 would put them at a disadvantage. Though they could run the distance, that would severly restrict the 'value' of the 'rush'. The recieve credit in town exploit could be used to some degree, but the 'rushees' would then just face the problem of having to run out of town in some of the later acts and difficulties until they could find the WP to use. For access to the MooMooFarm, the area levels are 28, 64, 81.

Walkiry:

I had to reroll the ancients once, somehow Talic was immune to Poison (but it didn't show anywhere other than the fact that he didn't turn green).

Two of the ancients have a base 70% poison resistance in normal. The ancients get some random equipment when they spawn. If they had gotten an item(s) with 30%+ poison resistance on the game would have ended up treating that like Poison Immunity, but not listed it as such on the overhead display. The listing of imunities and such with their life bar is only based on the stats that they have without equipment or extra add ons (like a necros Summon Resist).

[Walkiry]

So my answer, thus far (small little tests in the last week but nothing like your five hour ancients run), has been to either not distribute, or put points into VIT. What's your take on it, in practice?

Exactly as you say, except for a couple of quirks.

STR was raised to 34, to be able to wear a 3-socket shield. Although perhaps unnecessary, it was nice to put my two chippy skulls in and have a socket available for the lovely +1-5 cold damage/+3 mana after each kill jewel I found afterwards :)

DEX, or why bother indeed. My to-hit against the ancients was 42%.

STR + DEX might be worth pumping to 33/47 respectively for a single reason, and that's being able to use Maiden Javelins with their excellent +to skills. A simple +1 to PJ could bump your damage a couple of hundreds, and the stacks are bigger than regular javelins. A dense maiden javelin of propagation with +3 to javelin skills could be a beautiful weapon to have :)

As usual, Energy gets no points.

And VIT was in fact useful for her for two reasons:

a. Allowing monsters to suicide on her thanks to the thorns (a good amount of life does help here). Although I could live without the thorns, they were a nice touch.

b. Standing in front of tough bosses while the poison does its thing and using the helper skill of choice: Lightning Bolt (autohit and converts all physical damage into lightning). Not the primary killer, but it did help speed up things with the ancients, for example, and when killing big D as well.

EDIT:

Now this procedure hinges on a technical point I pondered long ago and didn't answer: who gets kill credit for a poison death?.

We can set up a TCP/IP game if you want and find out :)

[Crystalion]

As in if you did this in HC, the results would be similar to hitting the "Go to Jail" square in Monopoly; go back to act 1 normal and start a new set of characters over from there, do not pass the act, do not collect any rewards.

This is technically inaccurate. As things stand now, a dead HC character still on screen enables the reward of quest credit to party members in town when a remaining (rusher) character that does not enable the reward completes the quest kill. While safe spots or your technique, under present circumstances, are indubitably a superior method, that does not constitute either "start over" or "no reward" to the suidide-carry-along technique.

As I mentioned, the speed of mindlessly rushing level 1s without any concerns for xp is so great that the "booster stage" rocket concept actually does mean, if given no alternate superior method to prefer using, that you could use dying HC characters to promote living ones. (general historical note: "smart" people thought we couldn't escape earth's gravity well, based on reasonable calculations--they didn't consider the booster rocket principle: jettison mass as you go)

This is no different than a difficult situation in which you don't really care if your merc dies, as long as the thorns type effect on him takes down enough enemies to make progress.

While hardcore suicide rushing technique is not of much importance now, as things stand, it should still be considered when whatever further anti-rush tweaks are made to the code for v1.10 release. (Since I don't know the details of the DiabloClone encounter I can't predict whether knowledge of suicide credit techniques could be exploitable there, but perhaps you see my point that no major oddity should be ignored? They tend to come back to haunt you later)

This seques into my next point...

Some of the posts in this thread are touching on parts of 'how to do it'.

Most are not seeing the forest due to the trees you are looking at.

Actually, most of us don't discuss forests because we are so in love with trees. :D

But I think it is very clear--and not at all from just this thread, but also from snippets I see casually alluded to in many threads--that the following things are "understood" in the sense of many people knowing about them or how to accomplish them...

1) ways to easily level characters quite rapidly

2) ways to easily location rush characters very rapidly

3) ways to easily get quest credit for superficially "on-site required" kills (e.g. my suicide simplicity; "safe but present" techniques; your technique isn't in this "known" list apparently)

4) the way to "carry along" extra quest credit drones in town (and yes, I've seen quite a few thread references to this, in my searches, that suggest to me that this is well known to practical meta-gamers on bnet, so I don't see any value in hush-hushing it... better to scream about it pre-release to increase the likelihood something is done)

So "the forest" is pretty much: you can rush easily and rapidly, even if we discount #4 and even if we don't learn the nuances of Ruvanal's method for #3. The one exception is that Ruvanal's special #3 is apparently of additional value in hardcore, where safe or suicide techniques are non-optimal.

I also think it is pretty clear, in this thread at least, that as things stand in v1.10s you can probably coax/exploit at least 7 nm hellforge rune drops per 3 hours. I have, as yet, no good idea of the time for the hell hellforge rush. These are both significant numbers given the rune distribution involved and the probable value of the runes/runewords ala eBay. That's quite a forest for you.

While this also means that any character normally advancing through the game can, at present, make use of #4 to ridiculous effect, that is one forest I'm going to continue to ignore, because if Blizzard doesn't chop it down for release, they'll have an embarrassing forest fire to fight on the v1.10 ladder, later on.

So, since you've not detailed your technique for #3, I'm left with guessing, an a purely intellectual activity (because, as I've indicated, I think #3 above is already quite foresty without knowing your contribution) unless I see evidence that your timings are substantially better for rushing tasks than are otherwise achievable. I did not get that feeling at all from your earlier post (which I deliberately didn't link to when starting this thread, since you seemed to not want to reveal much there and I didn't want to call a horde of pesterers down upon thee).

So, if I were a hardcore eBay exploiter who thought the code won't change for release, I'd be very eager to know your optimization (and then lock you in a dungeon, so no one else could learn it :P ). As it is, I'm rather puzzled as to why you'd be under the impression that our of love of nitpicking trees has caused us to miss seeing the angry Ents advancing.

Another way would be to change the limited TP access is coded for the restraint.  Have it limit the leaving town based on the clvl and level of the area going to.

I, at least, am studying rushing under the presumption that #4 will go away, and hoping something like your clever TP/area level restriction idea comes into effect (although, by the numbers you cited, 1/2 is cutting it pretty close, as at a glance I see 43/2 is 21, and a player who defeats the ancients legit, as Walkiry just has, is right on the edge--so I have to wonder if any of the other numbers might clip "normal" progress).

My personal interest in rushing is both in the intellectual challenge (which is why your mystery technique intrigues me, in case it happens to be one I don't know, even though I can't imagine it matters apart from HC) and in the possibility of guiding players to methods of *earning* runes for runewords that are more time bounded than: just run the countess a few hundred times and hope you get really lucky.

...

Do you really think, as long-winded as I always am, that anyone but a fanatic is still reading at this point?

At times discussion of the "trees" endangers the forest, very unintentionally. To give an example: say I suggest that, since I've observed a delay between kills and quest credits (e.g. Andarial's death sets off a long sequence before some of the quest state changes: death anim...generic portal), that it is possible, with excellent communication or game switch timing, to sleaze "on site" kill quest credit with essentially no risk, by portaling in after death but before quest state transition. (I, of course, have slow switch times, and would not be inclined to exploit implementation in this way--this is like using D1 current HPs < clvl under Mana Shield: a sleaze that should either be fixed, or made not to matter in some other way).

To continue my hypothetical example: I might thoughtlessly mention this seemingly very innocent technical point but conceivably not have realized that this minor implementation detail could be a huge pandora's box for the game's online community as a whole (this is certainly the case for several bugs/oddities I published back in D1 days). But this case is really better treated like disease control... you don't keep a child totally away from disease, because then their immune system doesn't respond effectively to threat when they are older. The answer to players use of effective or even sleazy techniques isn't security through obscurity (or rust storms, albeit necessary in retrospect), but in limiting the damage the "disease" can inflict ahead of time. For a child, this means you let/want them to get sick, mildly, for their future benefit, or even artificially immunize them.

Ergo, openness in discussing the severity of disease risks, is generally good, as you can plan ahead and get some resistanance now.

The *consequences* of #4 (above) *must* be dealt with. One way of dealing with part of it, your creative suggestion (of additional generic area entry clvl restriction), also mitigates the general game problem of super-rushing, and thus helpfully mitigates the damage of any optimizations exploiting game implementation vs. intent.

Speaking of minor implementation exploits, I ran into a lovely one earlier today: my level 6 PJavazon was being terrorized by extra fast LEB Rakanishu... then it happened to fall into place that he, I and one of his minions formed a diagonal line, with his minion exactly in the middle. Rakanishu then jittered behind his minion, bump bump bump, spastically, unable to simply step around to get at me, while I stun locked the minion, and got the poison cloud to tag Raggy as well. The slight respite gave me time to think, as I'd been in a run-away panic. Clearly monster pathing (as it was bigtime in EQ) is a candidate for exploits.

By and large, however, most implementation errors don't threaten the integrity of the game. If they do, in combination with some other consideration, then now is a great time to make Isolde aware of it, don't you think? (Is he like Kibo I wonder? Do you suppose he greps for his name? :lol: )

[Crystalion]

We can set up a TCP/IP game if you want and find out :)

[snip of interesting stuff]

Thanks for the offer, but I did a quick test and it seems to work (Sorc/PJavazon Static/Pjav procedure) as far as the xp going to the PJavazon in town, and not to the Sorc. Whether my suggested xp rush is the best one, or even a contender, is up for grabs. Certainly the technique doesn't need fully maxed PJ to work, so points could be saved for other things (I like your use of Lightning Bolt, for example) that don't need tons of points. If you're going for a 25 or 40 rush, then Plague Javalin might be easier at some point, for the nice cloud spread out at point of impact (no longer a need to miss and then mobs walk through the clouds before they poof). Similarly, points in pierce could be helpful.

In the Hidden Features thread we are discussing regen oddities a bit. I now have a wild theory as to why Player's can get psuedo-PMH out of going to town (and why occasionally monsters don't regen even though injured, until you touch them again)... I suspect it is a consequence of some past nerf, when poison used to be long lasting and poison damage uber high by "exploit", such that they wanted to turn off poison shortly after a player went to town, so you couldn't just sleaze the monsters. Since poison application and regen are close together in the code, a nerf affecting one in the past becomes a "nerf" (vs. the unlucky monsters) on the other in the present (e.g. Town Portal, the new "poor man's PMH").

Although it is nice to hear you confirm much of my tentative thinking on stat distribution, it still bugs me a bit... something about not needing or benefiting much from stats for such a simple build that also doesn't need much for equipment seems a little odd. Certainly HPs are the right answer for the Sorc/PJavazon assist, as it would enable you to not have to worry about twinking for DR or resists.

Doh! it just occurred to me that you might in fact want to twink the PJavazon... MF to the moon (to help get those unique drops that are good enough to want to upgrade them to exc or elite). Hmm. Seems like a big win for the method to me.

[Crystalion]

Reading thru the various posts, I'm reminded of many things.

What I'm going to make a weak attempt here to summarize would take far too long to get right, and I'm definitely going to be showing my own biases and weak memory (I'm not using notes), so bear with me (or correct me)...

A whirlwind list of various xp leveling techniques of merit (strong bias toward mass killing speed net effectiveness), in minimum character level required chronological order:

clvl 1..5, untwinked, unassisted
======================
Druid Poison Creeper skill
Necro Raise Skeleton skill
Sorceress Charged Bolt skill
Fulminatiing Potions (drops, supplemented by sell to/rebuy from shop)
Javalins (fast, decent damage at range)
raiding chests etc. for cash to blow on useful shop items
skulls (chips clvl 1, flawed clvl 5) in shield for thorns damage
poison (chips clvl 1, flawed clvl 5) in bows (e.g. 3 socket long bow at Gheeds) for you/rogue hireling
stamina potions, for temporarily unlimited running
mana potions (from shop as needed)


clvl 6..11, untwinked, unassisted
=======================
Amazon Poison Javalin skill
Amazon Multishot skill
Strangling Gas Potions (drops, supplemented by sell to/rebuy from shop)
Necro Corpse Explosion skill
Necro Clay Golem (slows enemies when they hit golem)
Assassin Blade Sentinel skill
Assasin Burst of Speed skill
Paladin Thorns skill
Sorceress Ice Blast skill


clvl 12..17, untwinked, unassisted
========================
Assassin Wake of Fire skill
Assassin Dragon Talon (clvl 1 req, but starts to get really good by this point)
Assassin Cloak of Shadows skill
Paladin Zeal skill (needs a +skill or a few levels past 12 to get good)
Barbarian Double Throw skill
Amazon Lightning Bolt skill
Amazon Exploding Arrow skill (key here is double effect for +fire adders, so socket with Rubies)
use of regular gems in socketing (clvl 12 req; e.g. skulls in shields, rubies/emeralds in bows, rubies in armor/helms)
(use of flawless is only clvl 15, but you're unlikely to find/cube them before 18 and perfects are allowed)
Necro Skeleton Mages skill (+skills wand... quite a good skill offensively for a while)
Necro Iron Maiden skill
Sorceress Blaze skill
act 2 hirelings (and good polearm, spear or javalin class weapon for them)


clvl 18..23, untwinked, unassisted
========================
use of perfect gems in socketed items, if you're lucky enough to cube some up (clvl 18 req)
Sorceress Firewall skill
Sorceress Glaciel Spike skill
Sorceress Teleport skill
Paladin Blessed Hammer skill (Synergizes Holy Bolt bigtime, for massive ranged damage vs. undead)
Necro Blood Golem skill (not as good for as long as in the old days, but still good for a while)
Necro Bone Spear skill (magic damage)
Barbarian Leap Attack skill
Barbarian Battle Cry skill (in combo with Taunt skill)
Amazon Plague Javalin skill
Amazon Guided Arrow skill
Assassin Blade Fury skill
Assassin Dragon Tail skill (use with Tiger Strike for AoE mass damage)
Countess runs for the simple runewords
act 3 cold mage hireling


clvl 24+, untwinked, unassisted
======================
Assassin Mind Blast skill
Druid Shock Wave skill
Necro Decrepify skill
Necro Bone Prison skill (cheaper with slvl and works with Iron Maiden to wear them down)
Necro Iron Golem skill (e.g. takes characteristics of socketed item)
Sorceress Meteor and Blizzard skills (not clear to me that these are better than FW and FO)
Barbarian Frenzy skill
Amazon Decoy skill
Amazon Strafe skill
Paladin Holy Shock skill (esp. in combo with Zeal skill)
act 5 Barbarian hireling


clvl 25, untwinked, unassisted
=====================
can fight for good xp way above clvl (e.g. Holy Bolt Paladin builds)


clvl 30+, untwinked, unassisted
======================
Sorceress Frozen Orb skill
Sorceress mastery skills
Sorceress Enchant skill (clvl req 18, but possible to be major skill by this point)
Barbarian Whirlwind skill
Barbarian Warcry skill
Barbarian Berserk skill (magic damage)
Druid Fury skill
Assassin Shadow Master skill
Assassin Death Sentry skill
Assassin Dragon Flight skill
Necro Poison Nova Skill
Necro Revive skill
Necro Bone Spirit skill (magic damage)
Amazon Freezing Arrow skill
Amazon Lightning Fury skill
Amazon Valkyrie skill
Paladin Fanaticism skill
Paladin Conviction skill (with Vengence skill)


Okay, I know I missed stuff, but I'm going to post, then edit in the next section...

clvl 1..5, twinked, unassisted
=====================
Hellforge hammer (trivial to give out compared to Khalim's flail/will)
chipped/flawed gems or items with gems (thorns shields, poisoned weapons)
Hsarus set (clvl 3 req)
lots of charged bolt on being struck items (bugged as of v1.10s, so uber effective until fixed, then...?)
gold
Horadric cube
better potions than can be bought in accessible acts (i.e. act 1)


clvl 6..11, twinked, unassisted
=====================
Sigon's set (clvl 6, but probably Str req issues)
Strangling Gas Potions


clvl 12..17, twinked, unassisted
======================
better throwing potions
Ravenclaw bow (exploding arrows)
misc uniques for player or their hireling
better gemmed items (clvl req 12, 15, for regular and flawless).
poison and elemental damage charms; resist charms, life charms etc.
runes and runewords


clvl 18.., twinked, unassisted
======================
perfect gem items (clvl 18)
misc sets and uniques
better charms
better runes and runewords
exceptional base items as clvl allows


I totally sure I missed mentioning important things in that section, but on we go...

clvl 1.., assisted
===========
waypoint granting
kill all but last monster in Den of Evil; faster +1 skill point quest credit
Blood Raven quest credit help for hireling rights
Cain quest credit help for free IDs
Andarial quest credit for free movement to act 2
Enchantment (+100s or even 1000s of points of fire damage)
Cursing, staticing, or otherwise softening up monsters
buying expensive shop items (e.g. +skills stuff) after lowbie sets shop contents
other act/waypoint/reward rushing (or even, as of v1.10s, rushing to nightmare or hell difficulty)
(for clvl 25+) xp factories (like Zombie Garden builds) for idle party xp leeching


clvl high, reverse assistance
====================
Imbue rushees, for high qlvl (elite) items
Hellfore rushees, for runes and gems
Larzuk rushees, for item socketing
Anya rushees, for quirky item personalizations
mules
shoppers (lower clvl chars because of shop offering ilvl rules)
Enchantress builds
MF/item find barb camp followers
misc. lopsided builds for party assistance

[Ferengi]

For that time you're going to need faster run boots and stamina potions, since your problem will be travelling time and not killing enough stuff to level up.

Have you noticed how annoying it is that, when you shoot the last javelin of your stack, the graphic disappears?

At slvl 11, it takes a LONG time to deliver the 1,000 damage. Barbs throw axes a couple times a sec, axes deliver enough damage to 2 hit kill anything in Act2 I've encountered. Even if that expands to 8 hits per kill (4 throws), I'm still much, much faster than poison. But you have a clvl6 skill and I need a clvl 12 skill. I don't need to lure anything, I can hit anything on the screen. Your time spent in luring is my time moving, plus monster distribution versus local terrain are rarely an issue for the barb. Poison needs to move monsters into clusters. I agree poison is fire and forget, but I have nothing left to "forget". Remember that our ground rules are very different, as a twinkie, I am amazed at your times. BTW, how are you resetting the game? (how do you avoid running the same map over and over?).

I'll look into Triumphant. Barb throwing axes get mana leech at clvl 3-4, just need to get on a javalin.

I don't need faster boots, I'll just twink into an appropriate waypoint. I'm thinking of starting the barb at Outer Cl.

Usually when I run out of both stacks, I have a pack after me and am too busy to notice anything beyond refill and fire. The annoying kill is loss of the skill on right click when javs exhaust.

[Walkiry]

At slvl 11, it takes a LONG time to deliver the 1,000 damage.

But does it really matter? I mean, once you've poisoned them that's it, you don't have to hang around any longer, just go away. They're dead anyway. Remember that the target is to just level up as fast as you can and/or reach for the malus. Although at a couple of points you'll have to wait for the mob to die if they're blocking you, in most cases you just run and run and run.

I'd be interested in the thrower results anyway, best way to compare is with real data ;)

[Ferengi]

But does it really matter? I mean, once you've poisoned them that's it.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Although at a couple of points you'll have to wait for the mob to die.

I'd be interested in the thrower results anyway, best way to compare is with real data ;)

a) yup, they will die soon, but live long enough to be a threat in later acts. I can remember getting killed several times in CS by monsters waiting to die.

B) I don't wait.

c) Take a peak at various thrower guides, they were becoming very popular last xmas. Hybrid builds are similar.

For your rules, give up the axe for the first throwing weapon available. Keep the shield until clvl 12, then keep it on one weapon switch. Increased attack speed is less important than more dex, i.e. damage is definately King. Save skill points until clvl 6, then add to T masterery and Double Swing, eventually raising the synergy skill in preference to TM. When you can get throwing axes, use them, good stack size, but use anything with mana leech or your Triumphant attribute. To my surprise, points in Warcries are wasted, as you never really need them. Do not pump vit, dead monsters cannot kill you.

My twinkie uses the 3 unique shields, and mixed sets for +AR/clvl, +HP. I gamble throwing weapons to find keepers. I use the CubeMod to reroll anything over clvl 6. This is the only good way to discover what will truely be available in 1.10, website data is likely to be wrong, especially on charms. I start with 5 grand charms giving +20dex, thus throwing axes. I'm still discovering a build plan, /players2 has me around clvl 14-15 in the desert of Act2. I headed straight to Andy, relearned some (but not all) maze tricks, and am headed straight to staff. I'll be clvl 20 before I leave the act.

But you really need to try it yourself. Javalins are nice, but throwing axes are really, really nice.

[Crystalion]

But does it really matter? I mean, once you've poisoned them that's it.                                                                         
Although at a couple of points you'll have to wait for the mob to die.
I'd be interested in the thrower results anyway, best way to compare is with real data ;)

a) yup, they will die soon, but live long enough to be a threat in later acts. I can remember getting killed several times in CS by monsters waiting to die.

B) I don't wait.

Hmm. Very interesting points of view. Since this is the workshop and not the Armory I'll make a few comments (though "IRL" I'd bow to either of your results in practice)...

Both the Blaze Sorc and PJav builds want to avoid certain kinds of situations and seek out others. At higher game difficulties this is likely to be a problem. It seems very unlikely to be an insurmountable problem in normal through clvl 40 however. Some of the better solutions to situational problems with the build can be spot-solved by location rushing (act/waypoint). So in that respect this is a difference in ease and efficiency depending on whether the build is a "bootstrap" or a "reward-rush" character.

PJav skills only work with Jav class weapons, and apparently thrusting (1h jav, dagger type) weapons have a decent block frame rate for shield using amazons, whereas all other weapon types have a sucky block frame rate.

Interestingly, IIRC, Barbarians have a really good base speed with javalins. Looking at the D2data numbers, the only thing I can see in favor of throwing axes (2 base types) over Javalins (5 base types) is quantity. The means the Blood craft recipe (throwing axes) is probably relevant (did you mention that yet? I know the guides you refer to do) as the automods for it are nicer than the Safety craft recipe (Javalins). Still, a PJav'er won't be throwing as many Javs as the double throw barb throws axes.

I don't recall whether only throwing mastery applies (i.e. no double mastery via axe mastery) when you are throwing, not meleeing...?

Throwing daggers (2 base types), OTOH, have the highest quantity, and are the only one of the 3 types (Jav, axe, dag) to have the "of piercing" aka ITD mod available. Of course they don't have a craft recipe, so qlvl is relevant for the sake of doing imbue rushes--hmm, others are better at this than I, but it looks to me like the affix is clvl req 18, alvl 25, so only the elites have high enough qlvl to work. Still, I'm rather found of ITD so it's a thought (an important thought, if you aren't a class with huge AR bonus to throwing... both Paladins with Holy Shock and Sorc with Enchant come to mind).

Assassins are a special case. They have throwing AR problems as well, but a huge variety of things they can throw (any weapon other than throwing potions contributes) at high speed (5 per second, with area spamming). For them socketing a cruel with some Eths is quite easy and the use of uniques and runeword items as good throwing fodder can be simply amazing (Blade Fury transmits effects).

In other words, any v1.10s argument that a Barb, with Throwing Mastery and Double Throw, trumps the PJav technique for net utility, is going to run smack into the probability that a properly equiped Assassin is the uber thrower now, for pure damage and effects delivery (again, apart from the amazon only poison cloud effects). Arguments can still be made based on other class skills as to which you prefer, of course.

Even this pales if you have a decent Enchantress to bless you. When you have that, Blade Fury is still good, but Multishot begins to look just silly good. Since charges are rather limited for MS for other classes, the obvious answer there are the Exploding Arrow bows.

For example, if your bootstrap (fresh ladder) plan includes two accounts (self or by friend) and you can get a decent Enchantress going, then a clvl req 15 Ravenclaw bow becomes an uber leveling tool (and, of course, why not also give one to your Rogue hireling?). If you are so lucky as to get a Kuko (iirc clvl req 33) and a Razortail belt for arrow piercing, so much the better.

Of course, if rushing is the goal, Druid summons would be a reasonable choice, but Necro summons (Blessed Aim merc I suspect) all Enchanted would be obscenely good (fyi, Skel Mages don't benefit, but afaik ranged revives do).

In fact, this is so super uber that I suspect Enchant should be nerfed to do less +fire if you aren't the Sorc herself or her minions--perhaps a duration nerf in that case would do as well. Such a change would still make the Sorc herself very interesting in combo with the new items and runewords granting her various minions.

So one of the more interesting Great Race questions is getting a Sorc to level 40+ (assuming no prior Enchantress available, and that she has to dump almost all her points into an accelerated Enchant build plan). The bootstrap plan I'd consider would have you using two players, and you'd bootstrap a Static Field Sorc first, and then usually use her to help others (including the Enchantress) achieve their build plans in normal, and the Enchantress to help others in nightmare and hell (and sometimes in normal, in preference to the SF assist). For the SF bootstrap Sorc, since Blaze is so effective, one could presumably keep your skill point investment down (using Leaf or some other suitable but not-too-hard to get staff) while building her levels and maxing her Static Field.

Yes, I'm suggesting that any competent two person team will find better bootstrap strategies than any poor unfortunate solo player--even if they have two accounts--can find, since they must fundamentally rely on the power of item acquisition ramp-up (even though runewords make that quite a Holy Grail in v1.10).

[Ferengi]

...the only thing I can see in favor of throwing axes (2 base types) over Javalins (5 base types) is quantity.

I don't recall whether only throwing mastery applies (i.e. no double mastery via axe mastery) when you are throwing, not meleeing...?


Assassins are a special case. They have throwing AR problems as well, but a huge variety of things they can throw (any weapon other than throwing potions contributes) at high speed (5 per second, with area spamming). For them socketing a cruel with some Eths is quite easy and the use of uniques and runeword items as good throwing fodder can be simply amazing (Blade Fury transmits effects).

Yes, I'm suggesting that any competent two person team will find better bootstrap strategies than any poor unfortunate solo player.

There are speed and range issues mentioned in the first Hybrid build guide that I found to be accurate. I stopped being lazy and looked up the author. PsiSig. Axe Masterery is for melee. Actually, I got nice axes long ago, increased stack size and leech. The doubleswing bonus helps a lot, so I have other questions to be answered (or a monster that doesn't 4 hit kill) before I fool with different axes. That the weapon can be tweaked is a given, it's crowd control I have some concerns over (I simply can activate too many targets, the game becomes more work than I'd like). My LCS says 95% chance to hit most of the time, plus there is the boost from Double Throw/ and Throwing Masterey.

Ah, I've never played an Assassin, surely you mean 'can throw any "throwing" weapon'. But then you say "socketing a cruel". Pray tell, what throwing weapon has sockets?

Ravenclaw: This is a first char plan item, I try to restrict to < clvl 12 items for twinking. But I am also assuming that clvl 20 becomes a true barrier to NM Hellforge. I suppose you are off thinking about clvl 40 and Hell.

The synergistic effects of multi-player teams are indeed large. The problem is creating such teams. The hometown LAN clubs have tremendous advantages here.

[Crystalion]

There are speed and range issues mentioned in the first Hybrid build guide that I found to be accurate.

Okay, I'll be sure to look up PsiSig's guide then.

I simply can activate too many targets, the game becomes more work than I'd like

I too favor a non-activation style of play. So it is worth mentioning, of the reasonable throwing classes I listed, that the Barb and the Assassin have the best crowd control skills by far. Poor Amazon better do a lot of dodging, avoiding and evading, eh? To be fair, Decoys and Valks are really really nice as of v1.10s. So...

I suppose you are off thinking about clvl 40 and Hell.

Since I do indeed think of this--actually I try to think of all the Great Races more or less at the same time, since much of it is interrelated--we can't ignore higher level skills completely, as the important race to 40 offers substantial reward and is plenty high enough to have benefited from level 30 skills.

The synergistic effects of multi-player teams are indeed large.  The problem is creating such teams.  The hometown LAN clubs have tremendous advantages here.

I think, when you have a community like LL or AB, and a "faq" outlining some areas of "common knowledge" to be applied in a play session, that the only remaining question impeding short term hook-ups of players (when not in Hardcore at least) is the ability to put in a small time commitment and fairly split the spoils. IMHO, if the art of rushing is well understood by both players, this barrier is surmountable in one evening's play. As an example, if we agree to spent about 3 hours playing together, and I get an imbue (clvl 8), a socketing (Larzuk) and some gems (norm and nm hellforge) and you get eight runes (Ort, Ral, Tal, Ort, Ral, Tal, plus the runes for norm weenie and nm decent hellforge) and on some future evening reverse roles, then we're probably pretty happy with the arrangement and effort spent. If by doing this with various people we come to like working together with a particular person, then we might also tackle the additional time and challenge of doing the hell hellforge rush.

Naturally I am not of the opinion that random hook-ups in public games on BNet are going to prove very satisfactory in this regard. This would be why, although I'm something of a hermit, that I joined the nice Snakegod people in D1, who in turn formed play relationships with a few like-minded clans.

Ah, I've never played an Assassin, surely you mean 'can throw any "throwing" weapon'.  But then you say "socketing a cruel".  Pray tell, what throwing weapon has sockets?

This got quite a chuckle out of me, as I'm sure you'll understand once you catch up on the Assassin changes in Beta. As a starting point...
Just one Blade Fury et al post of many good ones (look on the AB as well) You'll know you've read enough of the posts when the phrase "elite Serpent Lord" makes instant sense to you. :lol:

[Ferengi]

This got quite a chuckle out of me, as I'm sure you'll understand once you catch up on the Assassin changes in Beta.

Well, I didn't track down the appropriate posts. It probably dates back to classic D2 when I was annoyed that the assy was basically a 'chat screen gem'. So I tend to lose interest fast when encountering Assy posts.

However, if anything can be thrown, there are indeed many interesting items. The few build plans I looked up laughed at Blade Fury. Seems like you might want to issue a correction someplace popular.

If lvl30 skills enter the picture and the goal is clvl 40, I'm be surprised if the tweaker sorc (and I mean the original) is not best overall. I can remember many normal rushes cleaning out the CS with a few well placed orbs. I've heard that Lightning Fury has been capped, otherwise it may be better but zons lack inherent teleport. I know that you can work Normal up to clvl 60.

[Crystalion]

So one of the more interesting Great Race questions is getting a Sorc to level 40+ (assuming no prior Enchantress available, and that she has to dump almost all her points into an accelerated Enchant build plan). The bootstrap plan I'd consider would have you using two players, and you'd bootstrap a Static Field Sorc first, and then usually use her to help others (including the Enchantress) achieve their build plans in normal, and the Enchantress to help others in nightmare and hell (and sometimes in normal, in preference to the SF assist). For the SF bootstrap Sorc, since Blaze is so effective, one could presumably keep your skill point investment down (using Leaf or some other suitable but not-too-hard to get staff) while building her levels and maxing her Static Field.

I had another thought here and partially tested it...

For the Sorc trying to become an Enchantress the "off plan" points one is tempted to make are: Telekinesis/Teleport and Frozen Armor just because those are so useful. In addition, once you've maxed out your Enchant skills (62 skill points worth) you probably want these plus a bunch of points in Static Field, so you can "throw away" the SF bootstrap Sorc and have the convenience of a single uber twinker.

This line of thinking suggests you'd like to avoid, for the Enchantress, wasting any other points, for her own bootstrap (including any in my thought of Blaze to level her up faster). If she has a bootstrapping friend, a Sorc that leveled fast with Blaze and pumped Static Field, then what you need is way to touch the wounded monsters efficiently without blowing skill points. The thoughts that occur to me here are:

1) ranged attacks (bows, throwing weapons, incl. throwing potions)
2) thorns shield punching bag technique
3) charged bolt +3 staff (clvl 1 req)
4) frost nova + 3 staff (clvl 6 req)

Since this build will eventually pump Warmth some points can be expected in that early on (because your skills to max are: Warmth@1, Enchant@18, Fire Mastery@30, with the priority roughly being to max Enchant, get one point in FM and max Warmth, then FM). So one can blow some early stat points into Energy and skill points into Warmth without harming the build (I think later stat points should be biased to field survivability when the Enchantress eventually converts to double duty as a SF helper, so that basically means Vit, unless you plan to have a staff/orb of +1 to Energy Shield or are convinced that shield blocking, aka Dex, is more effective). But the point is you can afford, with shop mana potions buyable, to plan on spamming out a bit of a touch 'em to kill 'em skill, if need be.

So I altered the act3 lightning merc to cast only Frozen Armor and Static (slvl 20) and hired one for my level 6 Sorc. She then tried out a staff of +3 frost nova.

While it is true that this test is far from perfect at emulating the Sorc/Sorc power leveling team (since I don't have another computer and body handy to do a real test) it was clear to me trying it that the real technique is going to work pretty well. Because the Static Fields are the first thing that draw monster attention, the monsters focus on the Twinker. By time the twinkee comes in and they might even consider her as a target, they're hit by the Frost Nova and die (since they have so little health). (Note: another flaw in the test is that the a3 merc is slow at chain casting SF, unlike a Sorc, who can be expected to have enough faster cast gear to hit a decent frame rate spamming the statics; additionally, because I'm using the merc to emulate the presence of my partner, I lose the service of the a1 or a3 ranged mercs I could be expected to be using for my own benefit).

To clarify why I'm focusing on Sorc Static Field and Sorc Enchantress twinker builds rather than alternatives:
1) they don't need to be partied with you when you're killing, so you don't suffer shared xp penalty
2) the Enchantress twink is bless and forget; she can, therefore, bless whole armies of players and minions

Compare this to using a Paladin aura or Druid Oak Sage to help a lowbie level up (they don't work very well because of massive xp dilution). Paladins are fantastic party helpers, but not great lowbie xp rushers (after the rushee is 25 this changes quite a bit).

By contrast, a Necro can provide major curse and bone imprisoning support. An Assassin can CoS. A Barb can do great crowd control and a couple fantastic curses (a Battle Cry, Taunting Barb with Life Everlasting Circlet and Amulet is probably able to bring monsters to him that beat on him without harm, while a twinkee picks them off--especially since the Barb could soften them up with Warcry), a Druid werebear with Shock Wave can stun (and soften) things up for even longer durations per cast than the Barb Warcry, a Bowazon with low level Freezing arrow and a ton of cold charms can create long lasting frozen forests for you to chop down, etc.

Please note that I'm not trying to be exhaustive, but am trying to favor some of the techniques that touch a lot of monsters rapidly (which is why I didn't mention Paladin soft smite with Passion) for the benefit of a rushee pre-25. So a very notable approach, post-25, like a support (partied) Paladin with uber healing Holy Bolts doesn't make this list.

I think characters biased toward support skills all have their place for rushing, even if they aren't "perfect", as most of these builds are also fun and challenging to play on their own and good for groups. That is, you're not making "throw-away" support characters, just for rushing purposes.