I have to admit, we cheat. We live in the same district, so we're not online friends (this is a HUGE help in coordinating playing sessions and discussing strategy... you go and eat lunch together, and beer helps the inventive mind :P).
The two bottlenecks are act2 and the new ancients-limit.
I ONCE did an act2 self-rush (my poor little crier just could not kill hell duriel), and vowed never to do it again. There is just so much walking one can do ;). I have read quite some of your act2 tips, but we usually end up only using the "piggy back" one (and sometimes store spare staves). In 1.09 we had opener characters; in 1.10 they are less useful and trickier to use (and if I am not completelly mistaken, it again requires some walking). Actually, having 3 teleporters in the game, it is not that painful. Yes, I know it is not so elegant as your solutions, but it's fast :) (one gets staff, other gets snakes, third gets summoner and then all three look for the staff socket).
The ancients thing can be bypassed in classic... however, I have not played it since LoD came out. I once tried to go back, looked at the stash, and gave it up :). When 1.10 came out we thought to make a classic rusher. At the time we knew nothing of the state classic is in, but we got the information that immunities do exist in classic, too; and it was easy to see that they have introduced the (imho) hideous practice of synergies. This implies that one'd need the over-powerful skills to kill things, thus making an everything-killing sorceress unviable (since iirc lev 85 characters are rather rare in classic -- so a mono-tree is guaranteed). All in all, we thought that it is more pain than gain. Hearing that you had good experiences with this we might try it out.
A trick with amazons when leveling up: if you use multi-shot with enchant, try TIR TIR TIR helms and armor. I found this to be actually faster than using exploding arrows.
(About poison jewels: it's a perversion of mine, but I love to watch the chilled enemies shatter automatically. Maybe I should make a dagger necro... And they are actually beneficial, since you save the ALT-TAB, JOIN, PARTY and ENCHANT moves. Makes the keyboard last longer ;))
BTW, does enchant work with Blade Sentinel? (I love that skill, it's a pity it's so stupid).
And: how do you kill Baal with a fire blast/WoF assassin?
The two bottlenecks are act2 and the new ancients-limit.
I ONCE did an act2 self-rush (my poor little crier just could not kill hell duriel), and vowed never to do it again. There is just so much walking one can do ;). I have read quite some of your act2 tips, but we usually end up only using the "piggy back" one (and sometimes store spare staves). In 1.09 we had opener characters; in 1.10 they are less useful and trickier to use (and if I am not completelly mistaken, it again requires some walking). Actually, having 3 teleporters in the game, it is not that painful. Yes, I know it is not so elegant as your solutions, but it's fast :) (one gets staff, other gets snakes, third gets summoner and then all three look for the staff socket).
The ancients thing can be bypassed in classic... however, I have not played it since LoD came out. I once tried to go back, looked at the stash, and gave it up :). When 1.10 came out we thought to make a classic rusher. At the time we knew nothing of the state classic is in, but we got the information that immunities do exist in classic, too; and it was easy to see that they have introduced the (imho) hideous practice of synergies. This implies that one'd need the over-powerful skills to kill things, thus making an everything-killing sorceress unviable (since iirc lev 85 characters are rather rare in classic -- so a mono-tree is guaranteed). All in all, we thought that it is more pain than gain. Hearing that you had good experiences with this we might try it out.
A trick with amazons when leveling up: if you use multi-shot with enchant, try TIR TIR TIR helms and armor. I found this to be actually faster than using exploding arrows.
(About poison jewels: it's a perversion of mine, but I love to watch the chilled enemies shatter automatically. Maybe I should make a dagger necro... And they are actually beneficial, since you save the ALT-TAB, JOIN, PARTY and ENCHANT moves. Makes the keyboard last longer ;))
BTW, does enchant work with Blade Sentinel? (I love that skill, it's a pity it's so stupid).
And: how do you kill Baal with a fire blast/WoF assassin?