Now that 1.10 is out

[MonTy]

Hail all,

I thought it would be nice to hear what kind of characters everyone is playing. My D2 playing time has been limited due to FFXI and Call of Duty (both great games). Though I have been able to play an hour or so a day on bnet.

I started a new Amazon named Veelina, and I plan to use bows and spears. For distance and magic damage I will be using the freezing/immolation arrow line. For physical and up close and personal damage, I will be using a spear and the skill Impale.

Now I've played a lot of Diablo 2, but I've never used a Amazon. So this is all very new and fun to me. So far I only got to finish act 2, but she is extremely fun to use. Pretty lucky with items also. I wish I had more to report, but like I said my playing time has been limited. I'll be sure to reply with more when I get into nightmare though.

If anyone else would like to report on their character in 1.10, please do! :)

[Lord_Olf]

Hello MonTy,

as for me, I started with the character class I know best - the Paladin.

Nothing wrong with starting a character class you've never played, but I was thinking along this line: The skills have been changed in 1.10 (synergies, anyone?), so it seemed a good idea to me to start with a class that you have experience playing. Otherwise, I think I might have messed my new character up quite a bit, since you now have to pay even more attention to where you place those skill points. Up to this point, it didn't to me any good, though: Gut-Tun died to a connection failure while battling a vampire boss pack at Lvl 26, Gut-TunII made it a level farther and then succumbed to Diablo's LBOD. Guess it was a rether dumb idea to tank to give those zons and sorcs time to hit him with arrows and meteors... well, you live, you learn.

As for you build: In my experience (1.9 so far only with amazons), it's best to use either bows OR spears. I think you will not have enough skill ponits to distribute on to weapon skill sections, but, hey, go ahead and prove me wrong, I'm not the god of LOD. But let me elaborate:

In my experience, a bowazon will probably need to put around 10 points in Multishot for crowd control (in conjunction with an item that gives you "Knockback", Cleglaw's Pincers beeing a nice item for that early on, as it also slows monsters), maximum Guided arrow for bosses, quite a few points in Valk (also for crowd control), 6-10 points in your evading skills to survive. Also, you'll need points in an elemental skill for Physical Immune Monsters (don't forget that Immolation Arrow is on a timer, a "lesser" fire skill might serve you better if you use a fast bow, but to each his own). I wouldn't recommend using freeze AND fire arrows; if I were you, it'd decide on one of those, and maybe put one point in the other skill in case that a monsters is Phys Immune and immune to fire or cold.
Also, with 1.10 as I see it and monsters having massively more hit points, Critical strike will have to be either maxed or at least very high, I think.

On the other hand, you could use a spear and not use Guided Arrow to deal massive damage to bosses and champs. But to my way of thinking, this has a drawback, that being that you have to get close to a monster to kill it. With Guided Arrow (anyone mind if I shorten it to GA?), you can deal with LEBs/Amp Damage/Extra Strong Bosses from a distance without too much trouble (again, knockback is extremely helpful here). This is especially important since the spears (except for throwing "spears" which you probably don't want to use for Impale) and bows are all two-handed weapons, so you will not be able to get that 3-diamond-shield for resistances, and those seem to be VERY important now.

Well, anyway, answer is that I still like the Paladin, since he is a very nice party char, but I thought I'd pass on a little bit of my (limited) wisdom about Amazons. Anyway, I'd really like to know how your build fares in the game, but I fear that instead of getting the best of both worlds, you might end up getting neither. Still, as long as you're having fun, go ahead! And I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a discussion of Amazon builds in 1.10 ...

Greetings,
Lord_Olf

[jms]

My first character is somewhat similar to your own. I plan to invest as much as possible in the immo branch, probably maxing out exploding arrow for the synergy bonus, and perhaps adding a few points to fire arrow if I can spare them. I don't plan to put too much into FA--I'm just going to stock with 1x1 cold dmg charms to increase the duration. Close to maxed pierce, moderate investment in all the necessary passives, little bit in valk but not too much...I don't want the mana cost to become too prohibitive. I'm even thinking about maxing magic arrow since I'm hearing good things about it.

Needless to say, my build differs from yours by staying away from the jav/spear tree. I doubt I'll have enough points :)

Do you have a good solution for the huge drop off in leech (particularly mana) effectiveness in hell? I really don't want to have to socket all my armor with tir runes but there are levels of survival I am willing to endure B)

EDIT:

And I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a discussion of Amazon builds in 1.10 ...

Oops. Oh boy, I guess you didn't have to...

[kier]

1) elemental druid
2) magic pala

[Lord_Olf]

Hail jms,

guess I got carried away... sorry for that!

Greetings,

Lord_Olf

[jms]

Hail jms,

guess I got carried away... sorry for that!

Greetings,

Lord_Olf

Hardly! At least you restrained yourself :) I shamelessly loaded my post with my own agenda.

[Baajikiil]

My brother and I often play D2 together, so we usually try to plan characters designed to play together. We only play HC, so survivability is first concern, next is being interesting(non cookie cutter), and the final concern is killing speed.

My first build was an elemetal druid(Max cyclone armor,hurricane,twister, oak). His partner is a meditation Pally, who focuses on being a tank, while I shred things with tornado/hurricane.

Our second combo was his shockbear(max grizzly, oak, lycanthopy, and shockwave), and my skeleton necro. I'm planning on upping either bonespirit, or poison nova with the necro to fight phys immunes. He shockwaves, I curse, and the grizzly/skellys/mercs demolish eveything.

I've also made a martial arts assassin(RIP), and a holy shock paladin so far. The next I'm aiming at is a warcry barb, but it'll be a while(hopefully) till my other chars die.

[Swarmalicious]

Hiya,

For me,

HC Ladder Freezy Paladin & Leap Barbarian

Currently levels 46 & 29 respectively. While he's still fun (and the party master of the Chaos Sanctuary :)) I played the hell out of my LA Barb during the beta, so he's really a side project. I have some emails to answer (sorry for the wait!) about my LA guide, too, and building one from scratch will keep me frosty.

And speaking of frosty, my heart is really in my HF pally, who has totally exceeded my expectations...
Since my odd unending pursuit of the approval of strangers continues, look for an upcoming guide on this one, in the same vein as the Booyaka ™ :) one.

Good luck on the zon, Monty, keep us posted.

[Ultimate_Power]

Seeing as how this posts is about strategies and such, I will give forth my 2 cents. I have only one ladder character, a sorc, same character I started off with. She is levl 26 and in act 5 norm. This is quite a surprise for me as I have no skill points or attribute points spent and she is relying on items to get her through the game. Its a blast playing her as its like a live off the item kinda thing and a little bit onf Irene the Infirm kinda thing :D (gotta give a shout out to her and her maker!)

Thing is though, I am seriously considering using points soon as she cannot for the life of her take on anything even witha full party to help as well. I am so far undetermined as to which way to go on the skill trees. On the fire tree, I could make a fireball/meteor sorc which lookc pretty good. Or, I could make a glacial spike/blizzard sorc which is equally enticing. There aren't many good skills in the lightning tree and I am not brave enough to do that. I might be crazy enough to go for a dual tree sorc for a fireball/glacial spike , fireball/blizzard, or meteor/glacial spike sorc, which would be really hard. The synergies look good too and I am having trouble where to put them in my plans for making such characters. Any help is greatly appreciated thanks!

[Animation]

I have 2 SoftCore Realm (Ladder) characters in progress:

1) Skelemancer
2) Fire/Ice Sorceress

My Skelemancer is planning on (ultimately) putting 1 in Life Tap, 10 in Dim Vision, 10 in Corpse Explosion, 20 in Bone Spear, 1 in Summon Resist, 20 in Skeletal Mastery, and 20 in Raise Skeleton, with 5 point in pre-requisites. That should be a reasonable goal. After that, since level 20 Bone Spear will be OK in Nightmare but useless in Hell, I may try to pick up 1 point in Lower Resist and/or Revive in order to add usefulness to a party. That would bump my "final" point total from 86 to 94. It might be do-able. Currently he is level 25 and about to finish Act 2 (did full clears of act 1 and 2, but in act 2 there were some other people in my game, so more experience was gained). He is on USWest.

My Sorceress is on USEast. I've played her very little, and I may move her to USWest since my old USEast buddies dont play much anymore and I'm playing with the AGD Folks on West when I can. Anyway, she is shooting for Ice Blast 20, Blizzard 20, Cold Mastery 1, Warmth 1, Meteor 20, Fireball 20, Fire Mastery 1, Teleport 1, Static Field 1, Pre-requisites 8. That's 93 points. Tight, but do-able maybe if I get in a party and go through hell. Scary. Yeah I might move her to West. Yup. Hmm. Right now she is almost done with act 1 Normal.

No rush on these two, I'm taking my time.

Lewis

[NeoLunar]

I tried a fairly new sorceress build, focussing on frost nova and hydra.

I find this works q..u..i..t..e.. nicely, frost nova slowing the crowds and hydra blasting them up...

If there are any fire immunes, I find spamming frost nova with maxed out synergies works quite well, although shamans were still a t..e..e..n..y.. irritating.

There, my two cents worth.

[AssA]

I'm currently playing a HC Skeletonmancer. I've already maxed out Skeleton Mastery and Raise Skeleton, and I'm working on maxing Raise Skeletal Mage. Once I'm done with that, I might put a point into Revive and Bone Armor, and I'll be boosting Dim Vision and Confuse as well, because they're going to need the extra duration in hell difficulty.

If you're going for a serious build, Skeleton Warriors are worthwhile, but Skeletal Mages are still quite fragile and weak; they die quickly, and when compared to Warriors their damage stinks. I'm going to need them to take care of PI's which Amplify or Decrepify can't affect, because I'm not putting any points into direct-damage skills.

Also, I'd like to add that Slvl 1 Clay Golem r0x0rs j00 :) he's a usefull addition to my team of Skeletal fighters. The ability to place him anywhere you feel like place him is very usefull, and his Slow Target ability, combined with Decrepify and various freeze effects from my Mages and the mercenary makes act bosses very, very slow :D

Speaking of act bosses, Duriel and Mephisto win "teh prize" for not being able to kill even a single skeleton :P

But Mephisto gets bonus points for destroying my Clay Golem with his fart o' doom, or whatever his poison cloud attack is called ;)

[Maximus]

I Started a Druid Meleementalist(that's how you spell it, right?). So far he is lvl 33, and doing fine. :)

[[wcip]Angel]

Playing it safe, I decided to make my favourite build:

I always enjoy a good amazon with both freezing and immolation arrow as well as a few in valkyrie and multishot. I started playing, and got half way into act 1 (outer cloister) at lvl 10. 4 days later my character was lvl 1 sans all my stuff.

And so begins the quest for the holy rollback.

[Brista]

Skelliemancer with Amp

My two other characters that I've started are a Double Swing Barb with BO and an old-fashioned Fanaticsm Zealot

[TabithaWolf]

I tried a bow enchantress, but despite the synergy investment for enchant, I'm horribly underpowered. Of course, I haven't moved up to an exploding arrow bow yet, nor do I have fire mastery (level 25 I think). So, I think I'm going to scrap that char.

I finally rounded out my tri-elementalist sorc that I started building prior to 1.10. I maxed hydra/orb and couldn't decide on a lightning skill, so I saved up all the rest of the points and was sitting at around level 80. I decided on chain lightning and couldn't be happier. I don't really feel underpowered unless I'm running around trying to kill a cold/fire immune champ and it seems like cl is doing a number of consecutive 1 dmg hits. Mind you, I haven't invested in any synergies yet, and by the time (*cough* if *cough*) I hit level 99, I'll have 24 points to further invest in either masteries or synergies (I currently only have 1pt in each mastery, but +10 to all skills).

My elemental trapper still feels underpowered in hell (though, the only hell game I played was an 8 player game), even with a significant investment into synergies. I've maxed ls and woi, with 10 points in ds and my shadow. I'm thinking of maybe taking 1 pt in blade fury and maxing out venom. This way, I can keep my horribly low dmg claws for the +skills and just rely on the poison to kill what my shadow and traps can't. Won't have to worry about mana leech either, since I have over 900 mana and plenty of mana regen.

I had a level 25 martial arts 'sin before 1.10 came in, and she seems to be doing even better now. Of course, I still suck at playing them (not quite quick enough on the keys).

I rebuilt my tank java, since I screwed up skill point investment at level 92. I have ~30 points saved at level 63 (only 10/10 fury/pierce), and I'm still slaughtering everything in nightmare. I primarily rely on 1 pt in jab, with fury to thin crowds (or kill immunes and unleechables). I find myself having not enough attack rating, though. With the gear I've chosen, getting more won't exactly be easy. I do want to get plague, though, I'm just not sure which will be the best way to invest between it and its synergy, since points in plague give bigger damage but longer duration. I do love, however, that I can now dodge spells with avoid, which makes skill point investment there pretty valuable. Those silly claw vipers throw bone spears at me, and even though they can't be resisted, I can dodge them. Every little bit helps.

My husband, on the other hand, started a blizzard sorc, and he's absolutely dizzy with the amount of power he has at the moment (level ~53). He's excited that this is the first char he built all by himself that doesn't suck (with a bit of advice from me, of course :P). Sure, I twinked him heavily with lots of +skills gear (angel's orb with +3 bliz, +3 cold ammy, viperskin, +1 cold rare circlet, etc.). This, of course, puts his mana cost through the roof and he uses 1 row of reds and 3 rows of blues in his belt to compensate. He has cold mastery right now at the 100% reduction level, but he's pretty sure he isn't doing anything to cold immunes. So, either he just doesn't have enough of a cm investment, or it isn't working as advertised.

[Occhidiangela]

One Trapper Assassin
One Paladin with Blessed Hammer and Charge.
One Tourette's Barbarian

All Hard Core

SoftCore: A naked Assassin.

[Bun-Bun]

I've got a Hammerdin that's just finished Normal at level 47, untwinked except for a scepter I had lying around. He's just sailing right along. I've pushed the synergies up faster than BH to keep mana consumption to a reasonable level. The faster cycle time on Redemption is turning out to be quite nice for this build, so I'll try upping BH for a while in NM.

After that, I'll probably try a Charged Strike spearazon and/or a Fireball/CL sorc.

Sigh. Every time I think I've done it all with this game ... <_<

[Guest]

As soon as i saw the beta synergies I planned this guy.

All he does is walk around with hurricane on watching stuff die.
Max block shied, chill from huricane and super cyclone armor are pretty good defense.



-75 str
-everything else split between dex and life.

-20 Cyclone armor
-20 tornado
-20 twister
-20 hurricane

Right now Im 70 but havent started Hell yet. Im sure it will be tough though.
I pretty effective in NM right now and I only +1 to skils so far.
I figure if I get some damage reduction gear and some plus to skills Ill be ok in hell and maybe quite good if I can team with a conviction pally.

Next Ill start my favorite character - a WW barb :)

[Walkiry]

I've started with a poison javelin amazon. Couldn't be happier because the transition to plague javelin is great, getting ready for a second skill (thinking about exploding arrow in the switch with a socketed bow), and testing the "why bother with anything" theory (121 skill points saved, only added some to strength to be able to wear a scale mail socketed with a skull. Full black, hmmmm :lol:).

Doing fine at level 30, starting Nightmare. Haven't been playing as much as I wanted to, since I was in Spain on vacation. Damn you Murphy! *Shakes fist*