Fresh Ladder startup strategies?

[Crystalion]

While I would have preferred to be lured back to D2 by v1.11 (aka bug fixes) I may be tempted to do further fun and exploration if they indeed start a new Ladder soon (as "promised" by Arreat Summit recently).

There are a lot of different aspects to fresh Ladder startup that could be discussed. I think a discussion here about jumpstart builds, rune rewards, MFing and trading might be interesting. My personal expertise is mostly in rune rushing. I also enjoyed doing a little bit of battle.net forum trading.

Thanks to all the posters in the Great Race thread and a partnership with Ferengi last year I confirmed that wealth in D2 can be acquired by (primarily rune) reward rushing efficiently. I found doing so to be fairly interesting and, imo at least, not as tedious as the MF/trading path to D2 wealth. The reason I feel so boils down to this...

A MF character, once leveled, can be primarily focused on just one space/time locus in the game, repetitively. But Rusher and Rushee characters face a variety of challenges, necessarily. Additionally the "measure" of the MFer tends to be simply MF% x Drop rate while a "rush" is typically measured, like a race, by elapsed time from start to finish. I simply find the latter more exciting. YMMV.

The nature of the "debate" over builds for rusher/rushee also strikes me as being more complex and therefore interesting.

The only thing I find annoying about rushing as a "challenge" is that it is undeniably the case that the simultaneous use of multiple accounts (CD-Keys) is an overwhelming factor compared to any other finesse you might skillfully employ. This irksome fact can be mitigated somewhat by finding a partner or small group to engage in the rushing effort.

Of course, technically, due to Find Item and Corpse Explosion, I'd have to say that ultimate MF technique probably requires multiple characters as well (though I'm not aware of that being the general practice).

So, if anyone has any questions about Fresh Ladder startup strategies, builds, utilitarian lowbie equipment, etc., I thought I'd offer this post to start a thread.

My expertise is completely confined to Softcore, so I also have an academic interest in how Hardcore twists the issues.

[Caaroid]

I was secretly hoping the new ladder would lure you back :)

New Ladder:
I play regularly with two friends, and among us we posess 8 CD keys. This makes rune running a bit easier and a lot more profiatble. The approach we had over the "past" (i.e. the current) season was, that we got one character to lev 40 (practically it was a lev 42+ bowazon with maxed Valkyre and Magic arrow) in Normal, then got all the other characters to act5, and "piggy-backed" the characters to hell. This way all of our mules became hell-capable, got burned in, and had some OK rune drops.

With the new ladder, however, one'd need powerful characters to do all the rushing (hell council is usually the most painful aspect, requiring either a hammerdin, a bone necro or an elemental druid).

So our plan for the new ladder is as follows:

• Create an ORB sorceress for MF-ing purposes (mainly for NIGHTMARE mephisto, allowing us to gather equipment fast for the rusher characters)
  <>
  
• Creating a rusher character. No definite plan yet, the ideal would be an enigma hammerdin/ele druid, but since we haven't seen an engima yet, it's not something we'd plan on doing. Instead we'd probably make a series of characters; a sorceress for teleport and eliminating easier targets (Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, NM Diablo), and another few characters for clearing the "hard" areas (Travincal, River of flame)).
  <>
  
• Creating an enchantress (paralel process with the rusher character). She is cruicial for the character development (lev 1x-25); must be able to open cow games in normal and allow lev 1x characters to one-hit-kill the cows.<>
  [st]
  Using these characters, we only have to worry about the levelling of the main rune rushee (the character who allows the others to piggyback). The usual leveling strategy for us consisted of a poison-setup: 20 poison jewels in helm, armor and weapon, allowing the character to one-hit-kill everything in normal act1 in 8 player games; the levelling was usually done in "Mule Parking" games or baalruns. Since we used amazons for this purpose, killing was swift without enchant to level 15 (this is useful since leveling goes faster if one can jump the character from baalrun to baal run, guaranteeing 8 player games). Al level 15 the character got her ravenclaw, and with enchant she levelled herself to 21 in the canyon, after what further levelling was done in the cow level. At 25, ancients were slain (takes 2 runs for lev 21->25), and exp is leeched in baal games (a magic arrow/valkyre build is hardly a mass murderer). Reaching level 42 she can equip Lycanders, and the rusing part is done.
  
  Since our group is composed of good friends, we all knew each others' passwords, allowing easier rushing to act5 (since we kept rotating the rusher characters, or even had 3 rushers in the game at the same time -- usually in act2, when we only had one rushee to complete all the quests, the others just piggybacked her to act3; or in act3, trying to find durance3).
  
  Another idea (that I got a long time back in your original "Great Race" thread) is to use a MA/Trap assassin as the main killer character. She'd use blade sentinel for leveling in the lower levels (with the poison setup of course, 3x4x20 = 240 poison damage at lev1 from equipment; initially using bow then sentinel). Later on she's transformed into a kicker; a tiger strike/dragon tail assassin can achieve 18k damage with IK boots. This setup might be more advantageous than the amazon, since she moves faster, levels faster and has less trouble with NM baal. Also she is less equipment-dependant than the amazon; instead of the class specific weapons she'd do good with dual strength claws.
  
  We'll see how this new setup works out. If the ladder will ever reset.

[Crystalion]

in the following the ">" denotes quoting Caaroid...
> I was secretly hoping the new ladder would lure you back

Well, it will if they start it soon, before some other game catches my attention (I've played several games since IRL pulled me away a few months ago).

> I play regularly with two friends, and among us we posess 8 CD keys.
> The approach ..."piggy-backed" the characters

Yes, having friends give each other a hand is a huge help. I made a post a while back about self-rushing with only one account--switching characters in a bnet game because bnet keeps the game alive for you (if the game is burned in)--and the single hardest thing about it was all the walking because the rushee couldn't ever be granted a waypoint. I have four CD-Keys myself, and the efficiency of moving three characters at a time through the game isn't bad, but it's a lot more fun and less tedious to play with friends.

> With the new ladder, however, one'd need powerful characters to do all the rushing

This is one of the things I like about the rushing puzzle on a clean ladder... ramping up the rusher characters. No one has any equipment yet, so even trading for what you need isn't likely to work. If I were certain to have a Ravenclaw bow by the end of the first day on the new ladder I could be a demigod on the second (day). So, ironically, though the "goal" of the process (other than having fun) is to get "wealthy", the start-up builds are heavily biased toward those that can function well with scant or shoddy equipment.

> Create an ORB sorceress for MF-ing purposes (mainly for NIGHTMARE mephisto, allowing us to gather equipment fast for the rusher characters)

Given crafting and runewords (and the other misc. cube recipes) it might be good to have your group collectively outline ahead of time which characters they want to initially build, and analyze what equipment can be shop-bought or made readily that "will do". Unless, of course, one of you really likes doing a lot of MF runs (or the run itself, such as Pindle's zombie garden, is being used for level ups... e.g. a Holy Bolt specialist).

> a sorceress for teleport and eliminating easier targets (Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, NM Diablo), and another few characters for clearing the "hard" areas

a bit of trivia: in classic Static Field is not limited in NM & Hell (i.e. no 1/3, 1/2 HPs cap). This means Sorc builds can easily rule the game in classic, where, coincidentally, one can completely bypass the nm & hell (from prior diff act 5) clvl entry requirement. That is, in classic, one can rush characters of clvl 1 to Hell Hellforge (nm also, of course). Classic doesn't have the rune and socket goodies you no doubt take for granted as a LoD player, so making normal sets for their set bonuses is a mainline activity there. Ironically this means that a complete Sigon's set is quite valuable (trading and otherwise).

> Creating an enchantress

I went to clvl 87 in LoD with mine and, iirc, the low 60s in classic. Very useful, especially when teamed with a skelemancer.

> Using these characters, we only have to worry about the levelling of the main rune rushee

A multishot rushee zon, given readily available +mana gear, levels very quickly when enchanted. Naturally the zon can learn Exploding Arrow at clvl 12, obviating the need to be lucky enough to find a Ravenclaw (or later a Kuko in LoD). Assuming you make an enchantress (and you can shop and make a decent set of key +skills for her fairly easily) then it is almost not worth bothering stocking and transfering other equipment to a rushee. Naturally whatever is fun should win out. If you don't like making a succession of clvl 40 rushees then you can consider playing in classic (rushing to hell act 3 start is sufficient). I've done it both ways and then some. I personally enjoy doing a solo self rush of an assassin fireblast/wake-of-fire build to clvl 40 (with waypoint rushing provided for speed as I deem fit).

The fact that mana is again sold in shops should not be overlooked (as money, on that scale, is never in short supply). If you just adjust your thinking to "equipment poor, mana rich (via potions)" quite a few builds sprint quite well to clvl 40 on their own.

> 20 poison jewels

Assuming an enchant isn't available or convenient, it really is amazing how effective poison gems are at low clvls. At very low clvls, putting weenie skulls into shields is quite a twink as well (run through the mobs to get hit, killing them, then blow a tiny amount of cash on red potions).

> in 8 player games

I imagine it is fairly well known that a young character with "overkill" damage output levels up a lot faster in an N-player game. When you have this nailed it becomes important to have fast run/walk or teleport to cut down on the waste time moving between kill zones.

> We'll see how this new setup works out.

Once your group is happy with your M.O. for builds, xp and MFing, it remains that rushing still has some time consuming bottlenecks (even with carry-along). In particular, since Act 2 must be "completed" three times on the way to Hell Hellforge rune drops, researching a time efficient method for passing through it is well worth the effort. Unfortunately the multitude of interesting tricks and oddities in act 2 is too extensive for a quick recap here.

I think "teamwork" is a big factor: working well together, enjoying the process... finding the time! If there are 3 of you with a combined 8 CD-Keys I offer the following suggestion for fun and profit: figure out an M.O. that never *requires* more than 2 of you (CD-Keys available; character expertise available; role in the process understood and competent). If parts of the M.O. allow efficient progress by one person solo, all the better... but then you should also figure out an effective way to keep each other up to date on what has been done and what needs doing. Naturally this should be understood as an aid to enjoyable play and not as a "rules police" bone of contention.

> If the ladder will ever reset.

It sounds like you and your friends are going to have a good time. Hope to see you on the new ladder soon.

[Caaroid]

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?

[Crystalion]

> does enchant work with Blade Sentinel?

Elemental adders work with the Blade skills. The Sentinel has a NextDelay factor of one second, so the 0.4 sec duration Venom override causes a damage output shortfall. There are reductions to the damage with Blade skills which apply to all of the damage. In addition weapons that are marked (mpq) for a 2H penalty for these skills are halved again, including the elemental damage, iirc (but don't take my word for it, as it's been a while).

> how do you kill Baal with a fire blast/WoF assassin?

Baal himself is no problem, so I assume you're asking about the fire immunes one runs into for sure in the course of the game, like Talic? My goal with a rushee is only clvl 40 so I tend to ignore this flaw in their character (my first WoF build was stopped cold by all the fire immunes in act 1 Hell and "retired" into MFing in nightmare). Neither the FI seal boss in CS act 4 nor Talic are mandatory kills though (the character needing quest credit has to share kill credit for the last Ancient standing; ditto e.g. on the three prison doors "killed" in early act 5).

In any event, in normal difficulty, the occasional FI can be taken with a normal attack. I've played many builds "pure" (without help or items from my other characters) and found that keeping an eye, for example, on the shop watching for poison ranged weapons (or just emeralds into socketed bows) is sufficient to patiently sleaze the occasional "immune to my usual attacks" monster.

BTW, in playing with "crippled" builds I've found that I love leveling in Far Oasis and Kurast Bazaar (after the Council is broken) because of the monster mix. Any sort of AoE (area of effect) attack tends to turn swarms of bugs into instant xp. Other than the resulting lightning when you hit a beetle, F.O. doesn't ever have ranged attackers, so it tends to be a very "safe" zone. Because of various opportunities for faster leveling lopsided builds, I think location rushing a character is very effective (more than just the "I can't kill Duriel! Would you help me?"). People joining impromptu parties that actually *work* (as opposed to the messes I've seen the majority of the time on public Ladder play) are effectively getting a location rush... you just need to know when to bail and solo a good xp area you've been granted access to (in as high a Players N game as makes sense for your build/twink).

> with enchant, try TIR TIR TIR helms and armor

Yes, I've done that. I first had that thought during the buggy beta when you unfortunately got tons of mana from +mana/kill stuff. The convenience factor is rather high. I've also played a Freezing Arrow zon with +mana/kill gear from clvl 30 into the 40s and had a good time. Even in classic this can be a fun build (use perfect saphires in a bow for really long freeze duration).

> since you save the ALT-TAB, JOIN, PARTY and ENCHANT moves

I hear ya. If you go the enchant route you need to really go for it. In classic my enchant would last over 10 minutes and circa 13 in LoD, iirc. Even so, this aspect can be tedious. Speaking of which, twinking a Kuko/razortail on a clvl 33 makes getting to clvl 40 pretty swift for probably any build in LoD (if you meet the reqs). Of course, since we're always talking Softcore, I have to acknowledge that 8 player Baal run (normal) games are an xp gravy train no matter what your build--as long as you stay alive, keep up, and the party has sufficient killing force. Simply location rushing your clvl 20+ rushee to Worldstone Waypoint and then seeking to party in games like that at clvl 25+ (xp penalty formula release) makes a lot of sense for time efficiency. If you're just playing a character for fun to act as a carry-along engine then you could use some oddball builds that would be welcome at clvl 25 into a WSK party (max Static Field; pumped Meditation; etc.). Your ton of poison jewel twink could carry pretty much any build to clvl 25 (assuming you location rush yourself at need).

> since iirc lev 85 characters are rather rare in classic -- so a mono-tree is guaranteed

The partnership of an Enchantress with Static Field maxed and a Skelemancer in classic was stunningly powerful. At one point, when our goal was gaining levels, Ferengi noted (iirc) that the combo had an excellent chance of being contenders in a new ladder race for ranking. In classic having a high level Sorc around with max. Static is a license to print xp for any other character (SF doesn't steal kills you see, and cream puffs the monsters for the rushee). So, if you have a partner and are willing to bootstrap yourselves a utility Sorc, then I indeed think classic is open to more than mono-tree builds.

> introduced the (imho) hideous practice of synergies.

Yes, the blessed hammer Paly in Classic, etc. Pretty odd balance when you have sh*t for equipment and some builds with uber skills.

> We live in the same district, so we're not online friends (this is a HUGE help

It is a great annoyance to me that it was easier in Everquest to "slave" a character on a second account to your primary by far than D2 (log in/out blessings; /follow for travel; pets acting autonomously but predictably/usefully; etc.). If I could just have my second character in either park or follow mode and message them to trigger an occasional mouse click I'd be going crazy toying with duo combos. Naturally I've diddled this a bit by changing hireling skills in a mod but its just not the same. It has been many years since I've had housemates playing the same games I'm playing. My EQ phase was the last of that (loads of fun).

> 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

iirc, when my Durimule creates a game:
1. the true tomb is known (Quest screen, durimule)
2. the summoner can still be killed, if you wish, for credit
3. the viper darkness can still be lifted, if you wish, for credit
4. the staff isn't needed, as it has already been placed; Duriel/Tyriel is available, for credit
5. the palace can be walked into at will

What's not to like?

If you don't want to walk down through the palace to AS you can instead waypoint/teleport to the Vipers, slaughter them and TP in a rushee to touch the altar (lift darkness credit enables TP directly to summoner). If you don't want to walk from summoner platform (red TP) all the way to Duriel you just bring the rushee on screen (dead in softcore is fine) for the summoner demise (which enables TP directly to Tyriel).

Indeed, all that has been "blocked" is the ability to piece together a staff, to open the palace, to "reveal" the true tomb by touching Horizon's Journal, to place a staff.

In other words, no difficulty arises for any reasonable act 2 M.O. by having a "perfect" Durimule create the game (they can leave immediately, of course, provided you note the true tomb on the quest screen and get another character into the game before the one minute bnet grace period for new games living expires).

If you appreciate the incredible convenience of having such a mule handy and know how to properly create one all that remains is the tedium of doing one for each difficulty level (and for both classic and LoD, if you're a junkie like me). Naturally the effort is hardly worth it unless you're actually going to putting a lot of (batches of) characters through act 2.

> About poison jewels: it's a perversion of mine, but I love to watch the chilled enemies shatter automatically.

I have a similar weakness... I really love to see Rabies catch hold on a crowd.

No point in doing anything in the game unless you're enjoying yourself. In my view, the whole "reason" for rune rushing to get wealthy is merely to acquire "toys" to have more fun with. People realized very early on in Everquest that speedily leveling a primary character by hook or crook would allow them to twink later characters. Unfortunately many of them got into a grind about it, and so never enjoyed either the initial hard-working character nor stopped to smell the roses with their subsequent twinkees. Since the "real world" these days is tinted fairly hedonistically, I find it supremely ironic to find, in a *game*, a high occurrance of an ethic in which the purpose of life is to "work really hard, so your children can be pressured to do the same, ad infinitem".

That being said, I certainly "wasted" a lot of time acquiring my Ravenclaw in classic (never was able to trade for one, so eventually I racked up many many hours on Fire Eye runs).

[Caaroid]

Baal himself is no problem

Ah. I thought he would be. I did not think that the damage would be high enough for that --- apparently I am mistaken. Truth to be told, he was no breeze with Magic Arrow either, but with the enchantress around...

iirc, when my Durimule creates a game:
1. the true tomb is known (Quest screen, durimule)
2. the summoner can still be killed, if you wish, for credit
3. the viper darkness can still be lifted, if you wish, for credit
4. the staff isn't needed, as it has already been placed; Duriel/Tyriel is available, for credit
5. the palace can be walked into at will

Tricky. How do you achieve that? (I mean: placing the staff without the snake/summoner quest?) Do you get the amu for the mule with another character and then walk the mule from the palace to the socket? By the way, what DOES open the palace? (I thought it was getting the quest for the summoner.)

In my view, the whole "reason" for rune rushing to get wealthy is merely to acquire "toys" to have more fun with.

You're talking to someone who has a KINGSLAYER using STONE wearing melee enchantress... Yes, I could have bought myself a HotO from that equipment (I still use wizspikes as caster weapons). I just make expensive toys ;) (But it's fun to kill an IK barb with a melee enchatress, as it had been noted by my opponent as well ;))

[CelticHound]

Since you mentioned it, here's how much leverage you can get using a Dury Mule.

Assumptions (perhaps obvious):

- The gate quests don't change for 1.11.

- One character was left behind as a Dury Mule, the first time through.

- Four player games. (numbers for n-player games in parentheses)

- All rushees must be in Act II to get credit for quests.

- An unlimited number of chars have been rushed past Andy and can be subbed in as needed. I really mean unlimited! Just look at the numbers below.

- All rushees are helpless first level characters, so one game slot is taken up by the rusher for making all kills.


And now the algorithm:

1. Make game with rusher and three (n - 1) rushees.

2. Rusher goes to lost city and clears to Viper Altar.

3. One rushee comes down to altar room.

4. Rusher leaves game, another rushee joins and parties.

5. Hit altar, all four (n) rushees talk to Atma (or someone) to complete quest 3.

6. All rushees but one leave, rusher returns, two (n - 2) new rushees join.

7. Now have a game with rusher, one rushee who has completed Q3, and two (n-2) who are new to Act II.

8. Go to Arcane Sanctuary, and get the Q3 rushee credit for the Summoner. (TP rushee in just before killing summoner to get credit.) All rushees talk to townsfolk to finish quest. Verify by giving them a TP to get the Canyon WP. Now have three (n - 1) rushees who have completed quest 5.

9. There are three (n - 1) more rushees who have completed quest 3. Repeat steps 7 & 8 three more times (n - 1) in new games.

10. You should now have twelve ( n * (n-1) ) characters who have completed quest five and can get credit for Duriel.

11. Make a game with Dury mule (so the chamber is open), join with one of the Quest 5 characters, and two (n - 2) characters new to Act II. Check which tomb, then rusher replaces Dury Mule.

12. Kill Duriel with Q5 character in chamber.

13. Rusher leaves game, another new rushee joins and parties.

14. Talk to Tyrael.

15. Four rushees (n) go to Act III.

16. Repeat steps 11 - 15 eleven more times ( (n * (n-1)) - 1).

17. Cycle is done and forty eight ( n * n * (n - 1)) rushees are in Act III.


Required activity:

- Maggot Lair: zero (only need it the first time through when making Dury Mule).

- Claw vipers: once (yes, once!)

- Summoner: four times (n)

- Duriel: twelve times ( n * (n-1) )


And one complete cycle through 8-player games would yield 448 chars in Act III (all off a single visit to the Claw Viper Temple).

-- CH

(edit: p.s. and no rushees have to do any extended map walking.)

[CelticHound]

In other words, no difficulty arises for any reasonable act 2 M.O. by having a "perfect" Durimule create the game (they can leave immediately, of course, provided you note the true tomb on the quest screen and get another character into the game before the one minute bnet grace period for new games living expires).

If you appreciate the incredible convenience of having such a mule handy and know how to properly create one all that remains is the tedium of doing one for each difficulty level (and for both classic and LoD, if you're a junkie like me). Naturally the effort is hardly worth it unless you're actually going to putting a lot of (batches of) characters through act 2.

Very interesting. I've been assuming that a Dury Mule will have completed at least quest 5, so a new game will have to be created for each pass at Duriel. What are the steps for creating a "perfect" one?

(Caaroid, my "imperfect" mule is created by simply getting credit for placing the staff and opening the chamber and then leaves the game. I assume completion of all quests up to that point. Crystalion's mule would save (n) game creations during the cycle.)


Now, what about Hardcore?


More assumptions (and I'm still obvious):

- The rusher doesn't die. (Well, yeah.)

- No rushees die for the Claw Viper altar, but one is sacrificed each time to get credit for the Summoner or Duriel. If you have any survive, they are icing on the cake.

- The summoner is relatively straightforward: One character dies and the other (n - 2) get credit.

- Duriel is more tricky, since someone needs to talk to Tyreal. For now, my solution is to have two Q5 characters in the game. One goes down and the other stays in the staff room. If the first dies, he is replaced by a beginning A2 character and the second goes downstairs to set the angel free. If the first Q5 char doesn't die, the second leaves and is replaced with a beginning A2 char, so we don't waste a good Q5 char.


Worst case for 4-player Hardcore games:

- Claw vipers: once

- Summoner: four times (n) yielding eight (n * (n-2)) Q5 characters.

- Duriel: four times ( n * (n-2) / 2 ) yielding sixteen ( n * n * (n-2) / 2 ) characters in Act III.


That's not as impressive as the softcore numbers, but the extreme of 8-player games would be 1 Claw, 8 Summoner yielding 48, 24 Duriel yielding 192 in Act III. And that's assuming none of the sacrifices are saved.


Now let's assume a 50% survival rate:

- Claw vipers: once

- Summoner: four times (n) yielding ten (n * (n-1.5)) Q5 characters.

- Duriel: six times ( n * (n-1.5) / 1.5 ) yielding twenty four ( n * n * (n-1.5) / 1.5 ) characters in Act III. (I'm rounding down when dividing by 1.5 to assume you don't even attempt Duriel without two Q5 rushees available.)

And finally for 8-player games: 1 Claw, 8 Summoner yielding 52, 34 Duriel yielding 272 in Act III.

-- CH

[devzero]

Duriel is more tricky, since someone needs to talk to Tyreal. For now, my solution is to have two Q5 characters in the game. One goes down and the other stays in the staff room. If the first dies, he is replaced by a beginning A2 character and the second goes downstairs to set the angel free. If the first Q5 char doesn't die, the second leaves and is replaced with a beginning A2 char, so we don't waste a good Q5 char.

Your assumptions are wrong on one point tho, you dont need to be in the chamber while duriel is killed to get the quest, you can stand outside untill he is killed, then enter and talk to tyrael.

As for summoner, i would use a necromancer to do him, a boner would be splendid. Use your clay golem to tank the summoner (slow + low dammage) then kill all other monsters with your bone spells (or poison if you prefer) bring in the rushed char after all other monsters are cleared. Summoner should be slowed and cursed with decreptify, thus standing virtualy still. Clay golem wont do enough dammage to kill him, leaving you to kill him at your leasure.

[Crystalion]

Very interesting.&nbsp; I've been assuming that a Dury Mule will have completed at least quest 5, so a new game will have to be created for each pass at Duriel.&nbsp; What are the steps for creating a "perfect" one?

As to the fan out possible with viper/summoner/tyriel cascasdes of carry-alongs: yes, but in practice it isn't worth it to manage that many characters/accounts. Ferengi and I tried fan-out efficiency but he convinced me of the "simple, straightforward M.O. executed well is best" principle in this case.

Now, as to your (and Caaroid's) request for (previously posted?) info on Durimule creation...

If you read my "self-rush with only one account/CD-Key but multiple chars" post some time back, then you're aware that character can potentially enter a game by themself in act 2 and simply walk immediately through the harem, palace, Arcane, Canyon, Tomb directly to Tyriel (and thereby act 3) without meeting anyone monsters (because they were cleared).

The key, of course, is that the game was started by a Durimule.

BTW, the simplicity of just walking (rapidly, after a clear) is very nearly as efficient as carry-along cascades, given that it is very JIT (just-in-time and thus low overhead, esp. cognitively) and given that norm/nm walks are very easy to clear (with suitable high level builds). Much efficiency is regained by spliting the walk at the Summoner (so you then have a batch of carry-alonged carry-alongers that can be directly TPed into TY's chamber). But the walking concept allows you choose expediency or efficiency depending on your mood and whether you feel like keeping an account of Summoner credited mules (remember thats per difficulty level!).

So a Durimule is simply a walker type act 2 denizen that hasn't done anything questwise apart from:

1. handling horadric stuff (must place staff in oriface; use cube to combine staff)
2. touching Horizon's Journal

Now, fortunately, cubing a staff and chatting Drognan is the normal way to open the walk into the Palace. And touching the Journal is trivial (requiring only that the creator of the game quest template has not "completed" that step previously).

So it suffices, to make a Durimule, to create a game in which they perform those three quest state change tasks (and no other).

This means you have to get staff pieces for them (and lend them your cube) without them touching the viper temple chest. This means you have to make it possible for them to *walk* to the summoner's platform and walk to Duriel's antechamber without dying (well, if they spam their own TPs I suspect they can shortcut back down if they die, as, iirc, TPs are only restricted if they're not your own).

Fortunately getting a non-Durimule character who qualifies to touch the claw viper chest in order to get an amulet isn't a huge inconvenience (ditto staff from maggot lair) given that you're only going to do this once per Durimule and then never again. The horadric cube can be lent, of course (or produced in abundance when you take rushees through act 3 Trav Council, if you don't like the Halls of the Undead).

Frankly I've not tested the v1.10 difficulty interlock on quest items to know if you could bring nm/hell staff pieces back to normal (etc.) and use them successfully. I also never got around to testing if the items-on-your-corpse might be used to transport staff/amu past act 2 (there is a point in time at which they auto-delete from your inventory/stash and also then can't be picked up, but a corpse and corpse looting auto-equip might defeat both).

If the quests for act 2 are conveniently numbered so:
123
456
then, iirc, a proper Durimule will show state for 2, completion for 4, and true tomb for 6 (when they start a new game). That means 3, the viper/darkness, and 5, the summoner, are wide open for anyone. Of course 6 is also wide open, even though it has advanced to the point of knowing the true tomb and the entry to Duriel is "wide open".

As a bit of trivia: if you don't kill Duriel but teleport through the wall you will indeed find Tyriel, but he won't talk to you. You can look up the appropriate old STSI pic/commentary if you don't know how to pull off the teleport.

With a little thought I think you can see how easy it would be to create a "perfect Durimule" in passing, while doing act 2 normally, provided you have more than one player or CD-Key cooperating. For normal it's really trivial, since rushing a new char to act 2 is so simple. For nm/hell you have to have planned ahead a little. If you are facing a new Ladder, simply make your regular characters and carry-along three rushees... in normal one rushee becomes the normal Durimule from the amulet/staff your regular character collects and so on for nm/hell. In a way you pay a "tax" of your first three rushees on the presumption that the benefit to later rushees will be well worth it.

Enjoy. :)

[Caaroid]

I never knew exactly what were the differences in q4 and 5. Glad to have learned that trick :)

[CelticHound]

As to the fan out possible with viper/summoner/tyriel cascasdes of carry-alongs: yes, but in practice it isn't worth it to manage that many characters/accounts. Ferengi and I tried fan-out efficiency but he convinced me of the "simple, straightforward M.O. executed well is best" principle in this case.

Perhaps, but since I don't use quest rewards immediately - esp. socketing - I've been keeping track, anyway. And a simple "NM A2Q3" tells me that a given char has done the Viper Altar in nightmare. Also, my mules don't just exist for the quest rewards - they are characters I'd be creating anyway because I'm a packrat.

I just tried a variation on the mule, btw. In the process of taking a character through Act II, I had the experimental mule (xmule - cause the letter 'x' is 'cool') - a character fresh to Act II - join the game just before the staff was cubed and placed in the orifice, leaving immediately after. The result is that only Quest 2 has been completed, but none of the other Act II quests have even been activated. The xmule creates a game, a character who has completed Q5 joins and the xmule leaves. The chamber is now open, but Q6 is not active until the Q5 char goes to the Canyon WP (having previously talked to townsfolk).

This simplifies things for me a touch; now I can pretty much leave the mules out of the calculations entirely. They just have to be rushed into Act II, and complete Quest 2 as a side effect of my opening the chamber the first time. Though you are right that my initial carryalong should include the ones for nightmare and hell.

-- CH

[Brista]

Would this idea work?

Rush level 1s to Hell Act 4 in Classic
Convert the mules to Expansion
NM & Hell Hellforge quest

Of course you'd need both a high level Classic character and a high level Expansion character but once you have your set-up you should be able to get runes quicker since you can use level 1s not level 40s

[Caaroid]

Known strategy, however the pain of building two powerful characters (especially the classic one) keeps many away from that solution.

[CelticHound]

I thought there was some issue with converting a classic character where they weren't marked as having completed nightmare.

-- CH

[Caaroid]

I learned this from someone else, maybe Ruvanal? So, the game keeps a counter that says how many acts you completed, and allows you to open LoD Hell games if you completed 10 acts (5 normal, 5 nightmare). Since classic only has 4 acts, you have to complete 2 more (hell act1, act2) to be able to create hell games.

Ok, this is all iirc. You might need to complete hell act3 too, but that would not make much sense (mind you, I am horribly drunk now, so maybe tomorrow it'd make sense...).

[Crystalion]

Would this idea work?

Rush level 1s to Hell Act 4 in Classic
Convert the mules to Expansion
NM & Hell Hellforge quest

Of course you'd need both a high level Classic character and a high level Expansion character but once you have your set-up you should be able to get runes quicker since you can use level 1s not level 40s

Yes, it does work as evidenced by Ferengi and I doing so repeatedly last year (subsequent to Ferengi's insight in November of 2003 that this should be possible).

As others have asked (and I teased Ruvanel about in a post, long ago) it is indeed the case that a Classic convert to LoD "counts" the acts, so to speak. It suffices to finish act 2 in classic Hell to maintain access to Hell in LoD post-convert.

Ferengi and I had much more powerful characters in LoD than in Classic, so we would convert them as soon as possible (i.e. do act 3 Hell in LoD, not Classic, with the runemules).

Twinked, assisted, and "well played" you can get a character to clvl 40 in a small number of hours. That character can be used as a carry-alonger for clvl 1 mules. This seems like a very viable approach for a single human (this is essentially Ruvanal's observation: "do what you do normally, but also...""). But when you have two people (or more) I do indeed believe, based on experience with Ferengi, that clvl 1 rushing via Classic is necessarily of greater potential time efficiency.

Either approach involves a significant time investment, so picking a method for which that time expenditure is "fun" for you can be a key factor to your success.

[Caaroid]

By the by, does classic have all the area restrictions that LoD has (apart from the obvious missing of act5)? I mean, can't you avoid Travincal if you do it in classic? (Only asking since travincal is always the key hardship for my rune rushees; passing those darned priests is more than tiresome most cases).

[Ferengi]

It must be true that one hears one's name mentioned....

The general answer to the quest interlocks is : Yes, they are the same between classic and LOD.

As Crystalion has pointed out, there are many sharp tricks to reduce the effort, and time is what should be the determining factor when choosing between them. With the experience of last year and some new insights into tactics, I know that an 8 player setup (2 rushers and 6 mules) can produce hell runes rather fast, once the rushers have been fully setup. Enchanted skeletons with static field assistance in classic, where +skills are non-existant by LOD standards, basically crushed everything we encounted, making the classic portion of the rush rather easy (outside of Andy). I recall lvling from ~40 to ~60 in classic hell over 1/2 dozen games without any fear from monsters far above my clvl while wearing ordinary items. Classic Hell Andy seemed to like to have LI and FI around, along with a few boss packs to keep things interesting...I recall at least one battle that represented the majority time in the rune rush.

If I was going to enter into this effort again (and I'm not), I would add one additional character. A dedicated taxi sorc, with 105% fast cast, sufficient FHR and maxed teleport would have been very handy for the various scouting that needs to be done, as well as providing TPs to cut walking&fighting time....said sorc leaving appropriately for a 'closer' rusher. This 'quest' has a lot of interesting problems for the dedicated diablo player to overcome, and they will not yield their secrets easily, so if you go this route, expect to spend a lot time before you can routinely pop out a rune...but do expect to be able to do so :rolleyes:

[Iknowwhen]

I would like to give my opinion on this issue also.

Personally I have done a lot of rushing in 110 ladder 1 as I thought this is actaully a fun way to play.

I use 2 cd-keys and these are the steps I used.

1. create a game with a lvl 1 char, then with a rusher joined and pass him through act 1. Normally takes 1 minutes or so.

2. exit and create another new game with another lvl 1 char, and rush him to act 2 and finish the quests in order - get staff, ammy, summnoer and then finally the tomb. Rusher then kill boss while lvl 1 char doesn't need to be down at the chamber. When its done, rusher exist and then the earlier lvl 1 char join the game and party. The one down there at the tomb goes down to the chamber and finish the last quest. Both chars get the credit and move to act 3.

3. one of them exist, rusher joins in again, finish act3, 4, and then act 5 save anya in order.

4. usually I use a sorc as the rusher (normally I prefer fire ball sorc), the key to rush act 4 is to take off the weapon from your merc and put it in your inventory, you goal is to open the seal and kill the 3 boss, if you are not messing around, it will normally take less than 2-3 mins in normal.

5. after finishing all of the above, rush the other one (lvl 1 char) through act 3-5 again.

6. For the one that actually gone through act 2, I will use him to level up. join a game with 5-6 players, then call in another enchant sorc (yes, I have 2 cd-keys as mentioned above).

7. how to run a lvl 1 char in less than 30 minutes? there are some little tircks.

8. first, you will need to prepare some items : I prefer to have :
a. a 2 sock helm : with 2 Chipped Amethyst in
b. a 2/3 sock armor : with 2/3 Chipped Amethyst in
c. a 2/3 sock short bow : with 2/3Chipped Diamond in
d. Hsarus' Iron Stay (Belt) and Hsarus' Iron Heel (Chain Boots)
e. Raven Claws (this is a must)
f. greyform is preferred but not a must
g. 2 nagel ring
h. some +str GC, which allows you to use on/before lvl 10. from +3 to +5 I believe, you traget is to get 30str.
i. bloodfist

my point is, if you have certain amount of extra AR, after the enchant, your AR will be huge, of coruse, some may argue these kind of AR is overkill, then you may want to sub it with some chipped ruby also - extra life instead.

Also try to join game with name such as Act3 start, Act4-5, etc. - meaning nobody is going to bother you at act 1 and act 2 and the red portal to Tris had been opended.

9. lvl 1 char goes to stoney and start to clear out couple pack of champions or uniques packs, and proceeds into the red protal and clear it out (don't forget to pick up writ's leg), after that, you may also want to Dark wood to take out couple unique packs also. Don't bother with normal monster, unique packs will give you huge bonus of exp.

10. normally, after this, I will have lvl 9-10, then I proceed to act 2, here I change my gear and put all of the above on except Raven Claw, i will put it in my cube.

11. Proceed to Rocky Waste, if you are lucky, you will see some Scarab Demon, congrats! these monsters will be very easy to crack and they give you HUGE exp. Then proceed to The Stony Tomb, and normally, before you even clear it out, you will be lvl 15.

12. time for another enchant.

13. Now let the fun starts, go to Canyon of the Magi and choose whatever tomb you like, you will easily get to lvl 20 in less than few minutes.

14. Back to act 1, give the leg to enchant sorc and she will creat the cow level for you.

15. Have fun in the cow level, you should be in 24 lvl in few minutes.

16. As not to leave a bad taste for some other players in this game, normally I will create a new game and kill the ancients.

17. but before I leave, I normally will type a smile face and say hello to them again :) remember me? the lvl 1 bar who joined this game 20-30 minuest ago?

so, I would say that getting a lvl 25 char is quite easy if you will have 2 cd-keys. Normally it takes me less than 1 hour to do so.

You may ask why do I need to rush another char in act 2? Well, after I leveling up the 25 lvl char to 40, I will use my rusher to clear the game and hit baal with about little life left, then call in my enchant sorc to enchant the 40 lvl char, then enchant sorc left, lvl 1 char joins in and party. Lvl 40 char makes the kill, both got credit and advance to NM.

By creating a new char, I normally get an extra mule with him all the way to hell - meaning extra runes.

No doubt someone will argue this is some type of cheating, but when you spend the time and effort to study what type of items you need to use, where to level and how to proceed,

and also can amaze someone in the same game within 30 minutes while they may only gain 2 levels in that time and you flying from level 1 to level 24...

that was fun.