Poison Necro in Players 8 Hell: Uh oh.

[Guest]

20 PD
20 PE
20 PN

and 20 points split in skel mastery and skells

The only gear I used was what i could buy at the merchants in about 5 minutes time.

It was pretty good in hell single player better than anything else I tried this way.

[Ignatz]

This isn't a "I haxored up this level 99 char.."etc post. It's a warning about a potential future, possibly broken, cookie-cutter build.

And when we talk about "reasonable" number of +skills levels, I wonder that you're even playing the same game. I took your "advice" and gambled or purchased everything except Trang's gloves and the unique spiderweb sash, assuming that a two-item twink is a rather conservative way to start a character for most of the b.net populace. (I am thinking a little bit long term here, as a lot of cookie cutter builds don't pop up until a critical mass of certain items is found with other characters.)

I ended up with, in about a half hour of shopping and gambling, the following:

+2 Necro ammy, vanilla
+2 Wand
+1 Circlet
+3 to P&B head

Though I didn't get any, you can now get +tree skills on rare rings. I was in a game with several other Lurkers a couple weeks ago and somebody gambled a +1 Curses ring.

Other mods on them range from "eh" to "bleah". But that right there is +9 to all my important skills (including the belt). Sure, the missing +skills, Bramble armor, etc would be nice, but I found that my killing speed was still very respectable. Much better than the Hammerdin or Chain Lit Sorc or Bowazon that I've tried already. Much.

As for the extra 20 points that make up the difference between a lvl 70 and lvl 90 character, well, as I said, I stopped using my golem at all. And he ate up 20 skill points or so. Bone prison is a great tool for this build; more useful than the golem. That gives you a powerful build that kills very fast at lvl 70 with nothing but gambled, purchased items and a pair of probably-not-all-that-hard-to-get twink items.

And you KNOW that cookie cutter builds will have much better items than this after a few months.

[Occhidiangela]

We are told that level 99 will be heck of a lot harder to get to. That meants that a lot fewer level 99's will be about. (We think, who knows what loopholes will be exploited over time.)
But, over time, there are Ladder Seasons, or so Blizzard claims. There is no open ended, ladderwise, length of time to get to 99 and run amok Ladder Only at 99 forever. For non ladder, the 99's that already exist will still exist. :) Even if only as mules.

An uber 99 with super gear would be expected to beat the game by any reasonable measure. How is that "broken?" What they are building in is how to limit the number of 99's out there.

Given that they are making 99 so much harder to get to, a level 70-80, maybe mid 80's should be able to work hard and beat it in Hell, or so the theory might go. :o

Therefore, what is of even more inteterst would be if

A level 75 could "break" the game. :) I may not have been too clear.

You remember a level 60-70 Barbarian pre LoD: with a decent Rare Lance, maxed Masteries, maxed WW, and not a lot else, he simply owned everything but being IM'd, and a few points in Leap Attack solved that.

[Guest]

"decent Rare Lance"

In original D2 I could kill everything with my pike.(this was before lances were in the game).

[kandrathe]

If you put the same effort into focusing power on a Sorceress fire skills, you would find the same result. Craft a +2 Fire skills staff into Leaf +5 fire skills staff, or use the L337 Mang Song's Lesson, or Eschuta's Temper with Head Hunter's Glory (3 Rainbow Facets), Magefists, Ormus's Robes, etc. etc.

You add enough cheese and sure enough, you're in Wisconsin.