What The $%#* Happened?

[Taem]

I finally, finally, finally found my first SOJ about a month and a half ago. I transfered it over to my enchantress and cradled it like the jewel it was. Then tonight, a messege pops up about xxx,xxx amount of SOJ's sold to merchants, so I decide after much hesitation that if I sold mine, I could always purchase it back. I did a test run with a few items that seemed to reappear in their appropiate spot, i.e. armor appears in armors, weapons in weapons, etc. So I sold the SOJ and sure enough, it said, xxx,xxx SOJ's sold to merchants. I had been saving up ALL of my gold for just this occassion and thought might actually be the night I spawn a diablo clone in my very own game. So I search through Chari's goods, and my f*&%'in ring is not there anywhere! I exit shop and reenter, but the ring is still not there!?! What did I do wrong? Why did my ring go poof? Shouldn't it have shown up in MISC or ARMOR? Why did my ring dissappear, while other items sold to merchants show up in their trade window? Was I just unlucky, or do people have to somehow amass large quantities of SOJ's to get a d.clone? If the case is the latter, then it would seem Blizzard is fully supporting botting and duping, which is very unfortunate; the little guys like me who don't cheat get shafted in the rear for what, a messege saing my SOJ was sold to merchants? Damn you Blizzard!

[ShadowHM]

Was I just unlucky, or do people have to somehow amass large quantities of SOJ's to get a d.clone?

The latter <_<

And yes, this is one of those "What were they thinking?" issues that makes you wonder about the foresight used by some of those who put code in the game. :rolleyes:

There are many who refuse to use Annilhus charms because they feel that would be supporting the dupers. Although I will say that it is huge fun to kill Diablo in places other than the usual. :D

The second last time I did so, it was with my Paladin Cleric in the company of a Barb Singer: we spawned Diablo in the Den of Evil (seemed fitting) and supported the mercenaries while they killed Diablo. And the last time I did so was in a group game of wussy softcore variants: Diablo pasted us all repeatedly but the fight was fun anyway.

[Taem]

That is so ridiculous... blasphemy Blizzard! I've never seen the clone before and now it seems I never shall, and to top it off, I have no chance of spawning him by myself.

This is kind of like the Countess Quest in hell for my Orb sorceress; to do enough damage to survive Hell solo, especially with 6+ players in the game, I decided it was important to maximize Orb and it's synergy and Mastery. After plopping a point into Static, Teleport, and quite a few into Warmth, there was no Fire or Lightning skill left worthy enough to do any substantial damage whatsoever in Hell, so I've been placing the rest of my skills into maxing Warmth and Static, but now is the dilemma; I can't do the Countess quest because she, and her cronies, are cold immune. My poor merc does not have a chance in Hell (punny?) to kill all of them before they kill him, so I cannot complete this quest. Many areas of Hell are filled with nothing but cold immunes, however I can usually skillfully teleport past them unscathed to where I need to be, but most of Hell is simply unplayable for my Orb sorcie - very, very disappointing. So question, why make the game per near unplayable for some variant of classes? I understand this forces us to play together, but in single-player, this game must really suck if you've chosen to maximize any one skill to its fullest potential. I hope D3 learns from D2's downfalls, but for some reason, I doubt Blizzard cares - no I envision them only seeing $$$.

[Crusader]

why make the game per near unplayable for some variant of classes?

Why do you make a class variant that can't play some parts of the game? You call it maximizing, I call it shooting one self in the foot.:P

[--Pete]

Hi,

Why do you make a class variant that can't play some parts of the game? You call it maximizing, I call it shooting one self in the foot.:P

That brings up some deep questions. Should a game force a player to minimax to be able to play through? Should the understanding and exploitation of the rules be more important than the actual playing skills? Should gear and build be the only important factors?

I don't think these questions have 'right' answers, but rather they are indicators of the type of game that appeals to each individual. Personally, I feel that there should be vast room for skill to make up for gear and build, but then, I'm variant scum at heart.;)

--Pete

[Taem]

Why do you make a class variant that can't play some parts of the game? You call it maximizing, I call it shooting one self in the foot.:P

Please, tell me a sorceress sub-class that focuses on multiple skill trees which is capable of handling their own on /players 8 in Hardcore Diablo 2 with minimal gear support? Unless you are insinuating /players 8, or even joining a Hell game with 8-players in the game and soloing, are not an acceptable part of Diablo 2's game play experience? Because I will tell you now from my own experience with an Orb sorceress that it takes quite awhile to kill anything (obviously not including unkillable cold immunes) in Hell with maxed Orb, synergy, and Cold Mastery and somewhat decent gear. . . by myself in a game. If a monster group is extra fast, I have to be especially careful - there are a great deal of times where if I did not have a point into Frozen Armor and Teleport, I'd be a smear on the digital landscape. Not the mention the mana regeneration *required* means maxing Warmth if you can't find the runes or 4-socket polearm (which was my problem for awhile) to make an Insight. I greatly considered, since I had already maxed Warmth, to put the rest of my points into something in the Fire tree, but upon checking the damage on skill planner sites, it was so little as to make virtually zero effect, especially when confronted with a mob of extra fast cold immunes in Act 5 Hell. Unless I'm missing something in your words, I just don't find what your saying to be realistic *and* survivable in Hardcore.

[Xeniphon]

I found playing a sorceress solo quite fun in hell difficulty when I make what I call a "power" sorceress build. Max out Firewall, Blizzard, and Thunder Storm. Token points in all the skills to get to them, 6 or so in warmth, 1 in cold mastery, then split the rest between lightning mastery, fire mastery and glacial spike.

Right now I know some folks would be saying "thats ridiculous!", but keep in mind that I am 87th level and I only run from fights when my minion buys a farm or when I am dealing with too many black soul monsters and their ilk (I still haven't gotten my resistance maxed yet). I play in hell by myself or with my wife's pally, oftentimes when other people are in the game. Now all my sorc is trying to do is reach lvl 99.

The key points to this build are that you are quick with your hotkeys and take note of what creatures are resistant/immune to what. Granted you won't be able to kill creatures as fast perhaps as a solo tree or dual tree build, but I think it makes up for itself in that I can handle any monster in the game and find the element its weak to. Your increasing mana pool helps with mana consumption issues, as does any MPK (mana per kill) items. + to skills or + to skill tree items will make even the "token" points put into say nova or chain lighting actually feasible to use on hostiles that are resistant to your primary kill spells, fire wall and blizzard. Glacial spike helps both with damage for blizzard and with freezing targets not immune to cold so your minion isn't so easily overwhelmed. You should always be shooting glacial spike or chain lighting off if you are waiting for the firewall/blizzard spell casting delay to pass. Some would argue that cold mastery is better than glacial spike, but I believe faultily so for a couple of reasons: 1) Glacial spikes freeze time increases with each point in it and it synergizes 5% damage to blizzard (one of this build's primary skills) -- meaning it does the same effective damage increase as cold mastery against monsters not immune to cold; 2) cold mastery eventually gets your enemies to -100% and that's all it does -- +1 items and the like can get a token point investment to do that work for you while you increase your actual damage output with the 5% damage synergy. 3) if you are playing with a conviction aura from equipment or a pally, you max out the % damage they will take but without increasing what you dish out - that's wasted skill points.

Now obviously some fights are harder than others -- especially when you have say and extra fast, immune to fire and cold boss you're fighting. In this case, I am thankful I have +6 to all my lighting skills and can just spam nova at them whilst my minion stabs and my thunder storm bolts him.

It's a strange build, and your first 18 levels are usually slow and hard, but once you get going, you can crush everything.

[Hammerskjold]

I found playing a sorceress solo quite fun in hell difficulty when I make what I call a "power" sorceress build. Max out Firewall, Blizzard, and Thunder Storm. Token points in all the skills to get to them, 6 or so in warmth, 1 in cold mastery, then split the rest between lightning mastery, fire mastery and glacial spike.

Right now I know some folks would be saying "thats ridiculous!", but keep in mind that I am 87th level and I only run from fights when my minion buys a farm or when I am dealing with too many black soul monsters and their ilk (I still haven't gotten my resistance maxed yet). I play in hell by myself or with my wife's pally, oftentimes when other people are in the game. Now all my sorc is trying to do is reach lvl 99.

The key points to this build are that you are quick with your hotkeys and take note of what creatures are resistant/immune to what. Granted you won't be able to kill creatures as fast perhaps as a solo tree or dual tree build, but I think it makes up for itself in that I can handle any monster in the game and find the element its weak to. Your increasing mana pool helps with mana consumption issues, as does any MPK (mana per kill) items. + to skills or + to skill tree items will make even the "token" points put into say nova or chain lighting actually feasible to use on hostiles that are resistant to your primary kill spells, fire wall and blizzard. Glacial spike helps both with damage for blizzard and with freezing targets not immune to cold so your minion isn't so easily overwhelmed. You should always be shooting glacial spike or chain lighting off if you are waiting for the firewall/blizzard spell casting delay to pass. Some would argue that cold mastery is better than glacial spike, but I believe faultily so for a couple of reasons: 1) Glacial spikes freeze time increases with each point in it and it synergizes 5% damage to blizzard (one of this build's primary skills) -- meaning it does the same effective damage increase as cold mastery against monsters not immune to cold; 2) cold mastery eventually gets your enemies to -100% and that's all it does -- +1 items and the like can get a token point investment to do that work for you while you increase your actual damage output with the 5% damage synergy. 3) if you are playing with a conviction aura from equipment or a pally, you max out the % damage they will take but without increasing what you dish out - that's wasted skill points.

Now obviously some fights are harder than others -- especially when you have say and extra fast, immune to fire and cold boss you're fighting. In this case, I am thankful I have +6 to all my lighting skills and can just spam nova at them whilst my minion stabs and my thunder storm bolts him.

It's a strange build, and your first 18 levels are usually slow and hard, but once you get going, you can crush everything.

Thread necromancy aside, hello and welcome. (Unless you're just re-registering or something and in fact an old school lurker. In that case, hello again.)

But better on topic necromancy than spam or tumbleweeds I guess.

It sounds like you're describing a tri-elemental sorceress. While I've played and like them too, personally I find T-Storm too be too slow and random for my taste.

I did have a mid level sorc that had maxed Firewall, a throwback to an old school style of sorcies, but after a while I just could not tolerate the pace of it. It had it's charms for me, but in the end it did not fit my personal style.

But if it suits your playstyle, and at clvl 87 I'm gonna guess that it does. That's all that matters in the end really.

ps. If you're playing on SP\LAN, consider the Realms Runeword enabled mod. Some of the affordably realistic runewords like Insight and Spirit are game changers. Especially for casters. Unless you are deliberately playing straight up vanilla mode SP\LAN or something. Then in that case ignore the p.s.