07-04-2006, 07:56 AM
>Secondly I never ever needed a 3rd party modding tool, which is in the way you repeatedly suggest it in fact a cheating tool. _My_ experience comes with playing my chars from the very first Quill Rat in Act1/Normal Blood Moor up to BigD/Hell, respectively Baal/Hell. Maybe this is the reason why my experience is worse than both of you, pakman and Munkay, and I didn't ever get it work to revive unrevivable monsters, as an example.
Before anyone throws down the 'c' word, I'll throw down another 'c' word to counter. Context. Unless I severely misread it, Munkay seems to be mentioning those editors in the context of SP, for the purpose of test driving a build. No one has suggested that firing up an instant high level char with instant high end items is now a legitimate way of 'winning' the standard game. I personally don't however, see any problem using those methods for testing builds or whatever else.
The real question is what experiences are relevant and applicable. Every 'real' D2\LoD character I've had were all started from scratch, no trade and mostly solo 8 throughout. Some made it to Hell Baal, some are pretty much in limbo in lower acts. I've also tried out various char builds and gear combos via the cube mod (SP and separate from real chars obviously).
I did have a test necro that was a skeleton summoner ( using the 20 SWarrior and 20 SMastery as the core build) and he did experience a bit of a slowdown when he hit Hell mode. Looking at various strategy guides the majority seems to advocate making and using a 'Beast' rword weapon. I did try that route out, and it worked out quite well. However making a 'Beast' is fairly expensive in the standard game, so even though the actual result was valid, the relevance to my real question wasn't. Which was, is there another affordable alternative. Thankfully there was, which was just assembling an 'Insight' stick, putting a point into Decrepify and casting it like it was on sale.
And just for the sake of completeness (and risking everyone's boredom) my gear on that test char was actually 'poor- barely ok' by most of the leet standards. I could've loaded him up with riches to the gill very easily, but that wasn't what I was trying to find out. I just used items which I could expect to make \ find in the standard game situation. (Insight, White, Rhyme, Smoke, Stealth, Lore, was pretty much the limit of his gear that I could rely on making.) Apart from the 'Beast' weapon that I tried (and then chucked out for an Insight staff instead) of course.
Basically I think we're talking about two different experiences here, we're just trying to find what's applicable. An editor\mod tools for testing methods can be great on saving time, does anyone really need to fire up a new lvl 1 char to see if their idea that involves a maxed out clvl 30 skill will pan out? Especially if they already know how to play the early level modes. Strictly for the purpose of testing that kind of idea, it's a waste of time. (To me it's like reading a book. I've read LotR from page 1-finish more than once. If I wanted to quickly look up who did what at what mountain near the last chapters, should I fast forward to the relevant pages, or should I be starting at the very first pages again to avoid 'cheating' myself from the experience of reading it from start to finish, the way it was 'meant' to be read?)
It's also a waste of time to whip up a high level char\build with very expensive items, and declaring that kind of very specialized and most likely expensive build is easy to do in a standard game, especially if the tester never experienced the standard game from scratch. Skewed experience is usually to blame.
I don't however, get the impression that's the case here. Munkay didn't say anything ridicilous like 'fire up an editor, give your necro a gajillion HP and MP and bam game set, match.'
Having said all that, I do think the opinion that a skelemancer type is weak or needing expensive gear is a bit exaggerated. Especially in 1.10+. Builds that heavily focuses on reflected damage might be 'good' (which is a loaded term to begin with, I'd rather go with efficient) with loads of +skills gear, but imo it definitely falls in the 'very specialized' category nowadays. If we're comparing that kind of efficiency and reduced gear dependance, then a skelemancer build ranks pretty high up there.
High level CE that requires lots of +skills gear is nice, but 20 maxed hard points from what I've seen, is adequate for most players. If a player has that kind of gear and is comfortable with that kind of style that's great. But that kind of approach almost always have a severe trade off. Personally I'm more comfortable with having more Resist and + life or high\fast mana regen to spam spells, at the cost of having less skill adder. I understand that 1.10+ favours the 'defense through a strong offense' mentality, but for me it's not worth the cost of sacrificing everything else for offensive power. Theoretically I don't need to worry about any danger if I kill every monster so fast they don't have any chance of even touching me. In practice crap happens while I play, there's a phone call, my ice cream fell on the carpet.
To really wrap it up like a tortilla, while I disagree with many things Doc said lately, on this subject his post is pretty accurate and applicable. High level Dim Vision with Decrepify (1+ with adders) can be great help for a summoner, and many of the deadliest threats are ranged (and ranged elemental) attackers. IM or any reflected damage means nothing to those critters. IM\thorn attacks can potentially shine in Cow level, since there's no ranged attackers there. But there's quite a few on the road to the moo moo farm.
Of course if we're talking about personal favourite builds that personally works for you, there is no way that can be debated objectively. (Since we all know Dentists pwnz all!!!!!!11111111)