Diablo II "LoD" CLASSIC STYLE MOD for v1.10

[Bob the Beholder]

So, I've picked this out of the provided changest text:

  3) the Missile skill levels of the Abyss/Oblivion Knight monsters have been reduced to level 1 (= patch 1.09 value)
  4) the Inferno skill levels of the Megademon class monsters have been reduced by about 40-50%

This is a good thing. Player skills are strong. Enemies that use player skills at high levels can be too strong.

It is a possibility that either I suck and my character's weak, or another monster using a player skill might be a bit high level.

Just a little while ago, I was making some progress through Act V, with my level 72 Zealot Paladin. Now, he's only got 900 hp, but that's been enough for most things so far.

But then I hit the Defiled Warriors. The first encounter was maybe four of them. As they're slow, and, so far as my memory tells me, not much to deal with, I started whacking on one of them. They shuffled forward, one landed a hit; I leeched that back fine. Then another one charged, and I died. That's it. Full life, charge, dead. 900 hp.

This trend continued. I lost a full quarter of a level trying to clear through Pindleskin into the Halls of Anguish.

Now, these previously pathetic monsters, even in my occasional Hell Difficulty experiences, are maybe the second most powerful monsters in all of the areas of Act V that I've been able to access so far. (About the first half to two-thirds).

So, what's the problem here? Am I just ridiculously weak, or do these things just have a ridiculously over-leveled charge skills?

[nightwing]

Funny thing, I had a similar experience with my charger/zealot (lvl 87) and the "ah gee" boys in Glacial trail. It wasn't Bonesaw breaker or even a random boss, just 5 of these previously pitiful dudes dragging their swords around. I charged into the fray thinking that if I closed the distance to them they'd resort to normal attack rather than their (rather nasty in 1.10) charge. I wasn't close enough....bam! bam! and bam! I was toast. This was a char who had 1754 life before the Oak Sage (wisp protector, thanks Baal) boosted it.

Retrieving my corpse was...er....interesting :)

I don't mind though, they were pathetic in 1.09, now they look useless but we know better. My tactics (with my paladin) involve trying to string them out, using sanctuary and trying to avoid getting charged by more than one in succession! I don't mind because they demand some tactics, unlike the cheesy gloams which Nobbie has thankfully removed from Throne of destruction.

They're nothing compared to a pack of fanat or might-enchanted moon/blood/hell lords...now those dudes are just scary....Axe Dweller in hell....*shiver*

[Fragbait]

Hi nightwing,

According to AS, monsters in hell have +7 to skill levels. Assuming a lvl 8 charge attack, that'd give these baddies 375% damage.
With max 115 base dam this adds up to a maximum of 432 (rounded) damage in a charge attack, this should be the maximum you receive under normal circumstances.
If there is any sort of aura or curse involved, that's a completely different boot of course.
Disclaimer: calcs may be wrong. If so, wait for adeyke to jump in here.

Greetings, Fragbait

[nobbie]

Yes, the "Defiled Warrior" type monsters were ridiculously weak in patch 1.09, and in the original patch 1.10 they were retardely strong (Pindle area, anyone? :)). Reason for their strength in 1.10 was however not an increased Charge level (which is still just level 1 (+ skill level depending on game difficulty)) but their massively increased physical damage output combined with their very high "To Hit" chance which should be almost 100% using Charge. I generally liked their new strength and the "surprise" effect though, and so I tried to make a compromise for my MOD. The "Defiled Warrior" types, like all other monster in the MOD, have their physical damage output now reduced by 15% in Nightmare and Hell difficulty so that they're still very strong but not the 1-hit killers anymore. Also, all monster densities, speeds and hitpoints have been reduced by 15% each in Nightmare and Hell. They're still strong enough though to kill you if you simply run into a mob of them, especially minor bosses. Some tactics are required now ;) If you see mobs of them, just approach them carefully and lure them away to take them out step by step. Just one point in Sanctuary on a Pally (or an Azurewrath sword) works wonders, by the way. There's basically just one situation where they can be quite nasty and that is if you get cursed by either a boss or the Succubi's "magic balls" (in the WSK level 1). In this case, you should be even more careful.

As we are on the topic "monsters and player skills": The Bone Spear casting Serpent Magi can now be found in the temple in the Valley of Snakes in Nightmare and Hell. They're weaker than their Act 5 pendants in the original 1.10 patch though to adapt their strength to Act 2.

[Bob the Beholder]

Yes, the "Defiled Warrior" type monsters were ridiculously weak in patch 1.09, and in the original patch 1.10 they were retardely strong (Pindle area, anyone? :)). Reason for their strength in 1.10 was however not an increased Charge level (which is still just level 1 (+ skill level depending on game difficulty)) but their massively increased physical damage output combined with their very high "To Hit" chance which should be almost 100% using Charge. I generally liked their new strength and the "surprise" effect though, and so I tried to make a compromise for my MOD. The "Defiled Warrior" types, like all other monster in the MOD, have their physical damage output now reduced by 15% in Nightmare and Hell difficulty so that they're still very strong but not the 1-hit killers anymore. Also, all monster densities, speeds and hitpoints have been reduced by 15% each in Nightmare and Hell. They're still strong enough though to kill you if you simply run into a mob of them, especially minor bosses. Some tactics are required now ;) If you see mobs of them, just approach them carefully and lure them away to take them out step by step. Just one point in Sanctuary on a Pally (or an Azurewrath sword) works wonders, by the way. There's basically just one situation where they can be quite nasty and that is if you get cursed by either a boss or the Succubi's "magic balls" (in the WSK level 1). In this case, you should be even more careful.

As we are on the topic "monsters and player skills": The Bone Spear casting Serpent Magi can now be found in the temple in the Valley of Snakes in Nightmare and Hell. They're weaker than their Act 5 pendants in the original 1.10 patch though to adapt their strength to Act 2.

Well, it's probably a symptom of my low life, but the strategy thing's just what I'm doing now-a-days. I've been running like crazy, trying to use the terrain, whatever I can to get them at most three or four on me at a time, instead of the whole packs wailing on me at once. I've even been making sure to close the distance quickly so they don't charge as often. And, still the deaths. And more deaths. And deaths some more. And just one more death, for good measure.

Bah. And now I have to clear out Pindleskin's area again. I coudn't tank Pindleskin (I tried, that was the first death) so I had to have room to manuever, which involves again clearing out the large outdoor area just before him. Now, there are, apparently, a whole helluva lot of these zombies out there. I had to use about half an hour, and a couple of choke points to keep them from slaughtering me so easily, and still I ended up, repeatedly, dead with my corpse under the portal to town, so that as soon as I go back to recover my equipment, BAM, dead.

Eventually I cleared those out, and took on Pindleskin, which was even worse, because he was extra fast. There was simply no way to string those out in such a small place. More deaths. Took him down, eventually, since they really don't have much hp.

So, I get into the Halls of Anguish, and start clearing it out. While I'm ripping up some Arachs, charge, bam, dead. Didn't see that one. He was hiding in a corner, doing a pretty good job of blending in with the surroundings.

On the way to grab my corpse, I woke up a LEB/CEB Frenzytaur pack. Another quarter of a level down, and eventually I gave up.

Well, rambling aside, I guess the verdict so far is that my character is just pathetically weak?

Durn. And yes, I'm from Missouri, so I'm allowed to say Durn. I'm fluent in Redneck, you know.

[nobbie]

I have now reduced the physical damage of the "Reanimated Horde" class monsters by 30% in all difficulties. They should be better manageable (with average equipment) now. If not, please let me know :)

You can download the updated Mod from the page link in my signature.

PS: I'll add the 4 new realm-only rune words with their original stats (see the Arreat Summit) in the next Mod update.

[nobbie]

The 4 new realm-only rune words "Duress", "Prudence", "Splendor" and "Wind" have now been added with their original stats to the "1.10 LoD Classic Style MOD".

Well, even though "Wind" has just a rather disappointing 120%-160% enhanced damage, it turned out quite well in a Giant Thresher on the full-blown level 99 example Druid, at least in my Mod where monsters aren't that overpowered as in the original 1.10 patch. If you use a "Wind" weapon, I would recommend an additional "Atma's Scarab" with a chance to cast the Amplify Damage curse on attack, though.

You can download the updated MOD as always here:

1.10 LoD Classic Style MOD

The new rune word items can be found on the ready-to-use level 99 characters.

Have Fun! :D

[nightwing]

What a pleasure to have access to the new Runewords as they are discovered/announced!

Thanks Nobbie, much appreciated :)

[nobbie]

The Diablo Clone has now the same strength (and hitpoints) again as in the original 1.10 patch (for testing purposes before you fight him in the Battle.net).

A hint for single-players: If you think the Hell Clone ist too difficult now, try him in Normal or Nightmare mode.

You can download the updated MOD as always here:

1.10 LoD Classic Style MOD

Have Fun! :D

[Kaizoku]

I've been a lurker since the Lounge reopened.. and a member for a solid year before it closed initially. I seldom have much to say, hence I lurk an awful lot. :)

Nobbie, I actually registered again just to tell you how utterly enjoyable your mod is. Between tiring of the cheating and lag of Battle.net, and having a pretty low-end machine by today's standards, I've played SP exclusively for over a year now, and your mod puts a fresh breath of air into playing Diablo II again. Many thanks to you for putting in the hours to bring myself and others many more hours of enjoyment.

Myself and other SP'ers can only pray that you continue to update the mod with whatever new realm content is released with the beginning of the second ladder season.

[nobbie]

Glad you like it. You can be sure that - as soon as the SOON™ to be reset ladder and the patch 1.11 become available - I'll update the Mod asap :)

[Fragbait]

Hi!

Recently I was wondering what mods are out there to Diablo II (all patches) and LoD (all patches).
I was trying to research the mainpage www.lurkerlounge.com/diablo2 but it doesn't include a modding section. Guess I could post on this in the suggestion box, but now to my question:

What are good (in terms of balance and ambiance) mods that don't just alter the monsters names and attributes and insert monsters that were left out by Blizzard?

I mean, there must be some mods out there that have an utterly new realm inside, a new story and just take the engine of Diablo II, no? Seven Lances maybe? It's not important that the mods are from 1.10, I am willing to patch down to the required version to play a good mod.

Please feel free to say what's on your mind.

Greetings, Fragbait

[nobbie]

Recently I was wondering what mods are out there to Diablo II (all patches) and LoD (all patches). ...

Try The Phrozen Keep, the biggest D2 mod and modding site.

[Fragbait]

nobbie triumphates

[SNoble Jr.]

First off, I'd like to say that this mod seems really great.
But, I'd like to ask a question first before I try it: Does anyone know if it's compatible with Zhoulomcrist's giga-inventory plugin ?(If I'm right, it was made for the CryptForge mod, but was made available on its own.) Because that's really useful. If anyone can help with this, thanks.

Oh, and one more thing: if they ARE compatible, how could I run the two at the same time?
EDIT: Never mind the last line, I read the readme and noticed that the mod replaces the patch file. The plugin doesn't.

EDIT 2: Okay, I tried it, and the two work fine at the same time.

[Smoketest]

Thanks for adding the superuniques back into the game. I entered the Inner Cloister recently and found myself being peppered with missiles from Flamespike's pack. Thanks also for not spawning him right on top of the waypoint. ;) I'm enjoying the other superuniques as I find them.

The damage reduction is a great help. I love playing sorceresses and amazons, both of which usually don't have mega hitpoints, so those one-hit wonders Blizzard loves to inflict upon us truly were a pain in the neck. (No, I'm not good enough to not get hit.)

While playing with your cube mod, I noticed that the game engine hiccups a lot when making uniques. It seems that if you've already made a certain unique in that game, or, in the case of rings and amulets, you've made a certain number of uniques, the game will start randomly chugging out rares instead of uniques. Although you can still get uniques with this formula, once the rares start showing up, you can expect them about 50% of the time. This problem also occurs if re-rolling unique items, say to get a different ring or improved stats on that armor; once the rare shows up, all you get is rares on your re-rolls. So far, none of these problems occur when working with set items. I'm guessing the game's code for unique items has a few glitches in it, possibly tied to the old one-unique-item-type-per-game-session rule. At any rate, unique creation can be refreshed for a time by leaving the game and starting another one.

As an aside, in my own personal modding, I changed the sound environment for the Monastery Gate to that of the Tamoe Highland. I got tired of hearing interior sounds while still standing in the wilderness outside the gate. LEVELS.TXT contains the pertinant info.

[CelticHound]

While playing with your cube mod, I noticed that the game engine hiccups a lot when making uniques. It seems that if you've already made a certain unique in that game, or, in the case of rings and amulets, you've made a certain number of uniques, the game will start randomly chugging out rares instead of uniques.

The game engine is set up to only spawn a given unique item once in a single game. After that the unique will spawn as a 3xdurability rare. So, for example, if a unique short sword spawns, it's Rixot's Keen, but if a second one spawns in the same game - and gambling and Nobbie-cubing both count - then instead it will become a rare short sword with 72 durability.

(You get the same effect is a monster isn't high enough level to spawn the unique - e.g. fallen can drop short swords, but not a Rixot's.)

Or are you saying you are experiencing something different?

-- CH

[Smoketest]

Nope, it's what you described. I just tried again with an inventory full of rings and amulets, and it finally quit making uniques after I had one of each. Of course, jewelry has infinite durability, so the triple durability effect is lost there if a unique fails to a rare.

It's been ages since I had to deal with this rule of the game engine, so I'd forgotten the details.

[nobbie]

CelticHound said it already: A unique can only spawn once per game, so just add an ID scroll to the cube when you suddenly get a rare and keep on rolling (it's all documented in the ReadMe.txt for the CubeMOD, by the way ;))

I'll make some changes to the Classic Style Mod with the next major update, which will then include the new ladder season rune words and the server-side changes to monsters etc. Hopefully, the Arreat Summit lists the changes soon, and a patch 1.11 will be made available for download.

[Smoketest]

*guilty*

Okay, so I missed this detail in the readme, not once but twice. I did completely read the other readme though.

BTW, I changed the chipped gem requirement for set item generation to a scroll of town portal, which makes set item generation as easy as unique item generation, and doesn't seem to conflict with anything else.