Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

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I noticed the same thing dmc. I agree though that I'd rather get half as many runes, but have the runes I do get be higher quality. It's definitely a situation where the rule "quality over quantity" applies.

Speaking of runes, I forgot to mention the best find of the weekend - a 5 socket cryptic axe (that's the elite version of the poleaxe). There are so many good runewords you can make with a 5-socket weapon (lacking the runes atm is a minor inconvenience).

Beast (40% IAS and Level 9 Fanaticism along with ~250% ed, CB and OW - drool...)

Call to Arms (+1 skill, 40% IAS, ~250% ed, battle orders, mf - almost as much drool...)

Doom (Level 12 Holy Freeze, 45% IAS, ~350% ed, -50% enemy cold resist, deadly stike, OW, PMH, Freezes Target +3 - massive amount of drool...

That's just the ones that I can get without the runeword mod for the ladder only rune words. There's Death, Destruction, Grief.

EDIT: Just looked up the ladder only runewords, and there's also Obedience which looks ridiculously cheap and very good:

Obedience:
Requires: Polearm with 5 sockets
Runes: Hel + Ko + Thul + Eth + Fal

30% Chance to Cast Level 21 Enchant when you kill an Enemy
(already, that's wow - huge bonus to AR and fire damage)
40% FHR
+370% ed
-25% target defense
3-14 cold damage
-25% enemy Fire resist (to boost enchant further)
40% CB (because you won't be doing enough damage with the 370% ed, enchant, and -% enemy fire resist)
+300 defense (you can't use a shield, so we'll compensate for that...)
+10 strength (for shiggles)
+10 dexterity (more shiggles)
All Resistance 30% (seriously?)
Requirements -20% (because we can't make you wait to get your dex and str high enough to use the cryptic axe...)

Oh, and the minimum level requirement on this runeword is a laughable 41.

I think I need to download the ladder only runeword mod...

EDIT2: While that weapon would be great on a WW Barb or Fury Druid, I'm thinking Fanatic Zealot...

EDIT3: Beat hell Baal last night, which will retire my barbarian. No great drops, although he did drop the armor for Sigon's Complete Steel (and with six pieces to the set, they do mean "complete"), which was the only piece I was lacking. That's actually one of the more useful early game sets, as there's no weapon involved. Great option for early game use for any melee oriented class.

All told, my barb accomplished exactly what I build him to do: He allowed me to build up a decent quantity of early wealth, which my necro will benefit greatly from. While he did not get me any of the top items that a necro would use like the Arm of King Leoric, Harlequin Crest, or a Humonculus, he game me a host of items, many of which are really useful that I'll be able to equip while my character is still in the 20s.

I actually started the necro a few days ago, because I was short some chipped gems for upgrading runes, so he's already at the Outer Cloister WP. This is the character that I'm trying to get by with only investing in strength to get to 55 (which I've already done), and putting everything else into vitality. Now that we have respecs, such a starting strategy is not without it's merits.

Here's my under 30 equipment list:

Weapon: Gravenspine (Level 20)
Ume's Lament (Level 28)

Both give +2 to all skills, although Ume's offers more mana and energy, so I'll probably only use Gravenspine until I get to level 28.

Body armor: Early on, I'll probably just stick 3 perfect topazes into ring mail for some early mf benefits. I'll probably go with Spirit Shroud (exceptional unique ghost armor) once I hit level 28 for the +1 to all skills. I plan to graduate to Bone runeword armor at level 47 for +2 skills. I have a 3 open socket mage plate ready to go for that.

Shield: Eventually, I have a rare minion skull that offers +2 to all skills, some life, mana and resist all +19%. Barring finding a Humonculus, that's like my end game shield, and it will probably be the item I socket in normal. Prior to that, I will probably use Milabrega's shield for the mf. (I would have used Sigon's for the +1 all skills, but alas, it has a strength requirement of 75).

Helm: Very early on it will be a 2 ptopaz hat of some type (likely skull cap). Then I have the options of Lore runeword or Peasant Crown (unique war hat) available at levels 27 and 28, respectively. Not sure there, although I'm currently leaning towards Peasant Crown, as the +20 energy will help out early. Barring acquisition of a HQ or a cool circlet, this might be end game equipment as well.

Gloves: Chance Guards - can't imagine why I'd ever switch unless I found a better pair that what I currently have.

Belt: Goldwrap is standard, available at level 27, although the mf on Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth is almost as good, and the belt offers other nice mods, albeit I cannot wear it until level 53.

Boots: Marrowwalk is the only boots that really do much for a necro, but with a strength requirement of 118, that's not happening, and I dont' have a Marrowwalk on hand anyway. Right now, I have a pair of rare demonhide boots that give 20% faster run/walk, some resistances, and 20% mf. Available at level 25, they'll do.

Amulet: I have an assortment here. I already equipped my +1 summoning skills, +5% mf amuelt (level requirement just 15). Later on I have a couple choices of +1 to all skills rare necro amulets, and I also have a Graverobbers (+3 to summoning skills) amulet of something in my stash, available at level 45.

Rings: No SoJs yet, so likely whatever rings I can find that maximize my mf. Currently two blues, with about 15% mf each.

 

I've used Obedience in a THRESHER (elite Scythe, for lowest STR req) as a poor man's alternative to having Demon Limb on switch. Works wonders on all melee characters, with the notable exception of zero DEX investment Mace/Maul users.

Also, I finally managed to score an Ethereal Great Poleaxe. No sockets, but Larzuk will fix that. Zero base speed weapon with max range combos perfectly with BotD for WW barbarians. Now I "just" need that Zod.

 

is obedience really right for a WW barb? it doesn't have any IAS..

maybe it's fast enough by itself?

 

That's why I said "maybe" for a WW barb, but after further investigation, it's inadequate. 12 frames per check is quite slow, and since WW only counts IAS on the weapon itself, gloves and other IAS won't help. While you don't NEED to hit the last breakpoint for WW (6 is optimal but 8 is very playable), 12 is really bad. A fanatic zealot however, needs just 30% IAS to hit the last breakpoint for zeal.

 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way the necro is progressing. I'm in the Inner Cloister now, a hair away from level 20. I already have +4 Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery, and +3 to Bone Armor, thanks to a blue necro wand that gives +2 to each of those skills, a necro head that gives +1 to each of those skills, and an amulet that gives +1 to all summoning skills as well as some mf.

Levels 20 and then 28 are big levels more my necro, in which his power will increase specifically. In those levels I will start trading in items that provide bonuses to specific skills to items that give +skill(s) to all of my skills.

The first upgrade occurs at level 20, when Gravenspine (+2 to all skills, and Wormskull (+1 to all skills) become available. While that will only give me a net of +1 to my skeletons and skeleton mastery, it will give me +3 to my clay golem (and golem mastery) as well as my skeletal mages (of which I only have one point in at the moment).

Level 28 is the next upgrade. That's when I'll switch out Wormskull for Peasant Crown (still +1 to all skills, but better other mods), Gravenspine for Ume's Lament (skill +2 necro skills, but additional +2 to Decrepify, Terror, and 20% FCR), and I'll add in Spirit Shroud for my armor (+1 all skills, Cannot be Frozen, Replenish Life).

So even though I'm lacking all the "top gear", by the time I start Act III (I'm doing everything on /players8), I'll have +6 to skeletons and skeleton mastery, +5 to all other summoning spells, and +4 to everything else (except Decrepify and Terror, which will be at +6). That makes for a very early launch point of the character.

This is the character I absolutely needed to play second. I plan on this guy being the guy that gets me the equipment I need for everyone else. The barbarian did his job, in that he got me some starting items, but this is the guy who needs to get everything else done.

In some spare time at work yesterday, I did some research on the assassin. I don't think I've ever even played an assassin before, and I may have underestimated that class. I had not realized that Burst of Speed, Fade, and Venom were all prebuffs, that have about a two minute duration even at skill level 1, and it appears they all can be active simultaneously. Burst of Speed, as the name implies, increases the rate at which you move and your attack rate. Fade does a ton of stuff. It significantly reduces curse duration, it provides resist all, and gives 1% PDR per point spent. Venom adds poison damage to your weapon, with a very short 0.4 second timer to deliver that poison damage (so it works really fast).

Like most of such prebuff/passive type skills, the greatest returns you see are in the first few points spent. So if we are conservative, and say that we can get each of them operating at skill level 5 with +skill items (only actively spending a single point in each), you'd get the following active at all times provided you remembered to recast it once every three minutes:

37% IAS
42% faster run/walk
Curses Reduced by 65%
42% resist all
5% physical resistance
120-140 poison damage

EDIT: Actually, BoS and Fade cannot be used simultaneously. You can have either: Fade + Venom or BoS + Venom.[/edit]

At first the only thing I though assassins could do was lay traps, which made them basically like a necro in that the merc and summons would do all the work, which means you might as well play a necro and get more summons and versatility. This makes me want to try out a martial artist of some type.

This is still very much in the planning stages, but I was thinking something along the following:

Max Tiger Strike for huge physical damage
Max one of the Elemental Charge of skills (either Fists of Fire, Claws of Thunder, or Blades of Ice). I'm not sure which one yet, as there are pros and cons for each one. Claws of Thunder is the most in raw damage, but Fists of Fire leaves a burn patch on the ground that affects multiple monsters. Blades of Ice does the least damage, but has a 4 yard area of effect freeze associated with it, which sounds extremely useful.
The third maxed skill will be Phoenix Strike, as it provides a synergy to all three of the individual elemental skills, and is a means of me still being able to inflict damage against a dual immune.
Finally, I need a finishing move, and Dragon Tail seems the most interesting there.
1 point in all Shadow Disciplines, and nothing in traps.

 

Aldeth, ain't it nice to discover new things?

An army of skellies hitting for 600+ damage each (with fairly bog-standard mid-level Summoner gear) is a serious contender in any physical dps race. ESPECIALLY considering you get Amplify Damage exactly when and wherever you want it without sacrificing items slots. Better yet, even if the damage tends to spread out there's practically always some poor monster that gets surrounded and subsequently owned in no time flat. Follow up with a CE and a chain reaction of explosions soon ensues.

There's just something mathematically beautifull about the synergy between a horde causing mayhem and a tactical nuke taking care of collateral damage. You get quite a bit of the first with a Zealot pally and a whole lot of the other with a Meteor Sorceress, but you get 'em both with the Summoner.

Edit: A friend of mine seemed unsure if CE was really up to anything good some time ago. So I told him that CE is pretty much like a Meteor, with the following key differences:
- No wait time between cast and impact.
- No cast delay.
- Monsters behind walls and obstructions are affected as well.
- Area of effect can be upped to several screen's worth, instead of just a medium-sized patch. This more than compensates for the "lack" of damage, if several thousands can even be called that.
- You don't even need to aim. (No corpse selected = blow up the nearest)

Long story short, he was pretty much sold after that.

 

Indeed it is nice to discover new things. I have no plans on scrapping my necro - afterall, the whole point of the character is to get me stuff for other characters. Although I may seriously consider an assassin after that. I did a bit more research on the assassin, and one thing did strike me as odd - their attack speeds seem really, really slow - even for the martial arts moves. You're looking at 12-14 fpa for a lot of them, and even with IAS gear, you're probably not getting under 10. That is unfortunate, as it seems like a lot of the skills get the biggest benefit with more charge ups, and I may have to spend some time getting those charge ups before getting off the finisher.

I did not play much this weekend, although I did reach the level 20 mark (23 actually), and I'm already noticing some improvement in performance. I plan on doing everything at /players8, and so far, no problems. I'm in Act II now, and I just retrieved the cube from the Halls of the Dead. I picked up a defiance merc, as I really didn't need a rouge archer. I now have three skeleton mages, so I have enough artillery fire.

I largely agree with your assessment of corpse explosion. About the only time where it loses some of its effectiveness is in large games (or on /players8 setting). In small games, you can usually start the CE chain as soon as the first enemy drops. Such is not the case in /players8. It usually takes about 4 for the chain to start. (Although the first three do damage and thus speed the process up.)

The necro still wins the title of safest character to play. Once you get your army up, you're pretty much unstoppable. Doing hell on /players8 is more an exercise in patience than an assessment of your skill in the game. While I do place some value in getting decent resists, as a lot of elemental attacks have the pierce effect and can thus hit you from behind the line, I place no value whatsoever in blocking (as a lot of elemental attacks are also unblockable). If I find myself in melee, something has already gone seriously wrong. For similar reasons, I don't care about defense either. It's all about (in this order) +skills, magic find, resistances.

I do have one question regarding Raise Skeleton vs. Skeleton Mastery. Is there any consensus as to the proper order to max these skills? The fishymancer guide is very specific in that it is one early point in the Mastery, and everything else in Raise Skeleton. However, he seems to be the only one that holds that opinion. I also have seen several recommendations for an even split, and others recommend about a 3:1 ratio between Raise Skeleton and Skeletal Mastery. My current ratio is about 3:1 (presently 14 in RS and 5 in SM), but that is owing to +skills. I have only actually invested a single hard point to the mastery.

 

That's kind of my thinking as well. With 14 in Raise Skeleton, I need to spend the next 6 points in that skill to get just two more skeletons (level 14 gives you 6 skeletons, level 20 gives you 8). Even by completely maxing out that skill, along wiht my +skills, I'll have Raise Skeleton at level 29, which is good for 10 skeletons IIRC. So I already have more than half the total number of skeletons as I'll likely ever get.

Since I'm going to eventually max out mages as well, the Mastery will benefit both the skeletons and the mages. OTOH, it does seem that increasing Raise Skeleton does make the skeletons a bit better, even if you don't end up with an additional skeleton as the result of that point. (Although, you obviously get a bigger bonus when you actually do get to summon an additional skeleton - more damage and another source of that damage.)

I understand this is a bit of minutiae at this point. I have no doubt that RS and the Mastery will be the first two skills that I max. The destination is the same, it's just the path I'm taking to reach it.

In fact, the order is the only thing in doubt with this character. The current plan is

Max Raise Skeleton and the Mastery in some order
Raise Corpse Explosion until I'm comfortable with the area of effect
Max Skeletal Mage
Go back and Max Corpse Explosion

My initial thinking is that I may be able to get away with just one point in all the curses. I should have +7 to the curses tree with endgame equipment, and I think level 8 in Amplify Damage should be adequate.

 

Well, that's every curse in the entire tree once you count used curses and prerequisites.

In addition to Amp Damage and Decrepify, in the previous itereation of my summons necro I used Dim Vision and Attract. Attract has prerequisites of Dim Vision and Confuse, whereas Decrepify has prerequisites of Amp Damage, Weaken, and Terror.

However, one of the reasons I was considering developing mages was to take on physical immunes. Against PIs, the curse of choice is Lower Resist, as PIs will take more damage from the mages + Lower Resist than the skeletons, even after Amp Damage is cast on them (as Amp only works at 20% effectiveness against PIs). Lower Resist is a level 30 skill, and in addition to having Decrepify as a prerequisite, also has Iron Maiden and Life Tap as prerequisites - so that's the entire Curse tree.

The only skill tree that will go relatively under-developed is the Bone and Poison Tree. I want Corpse Explosion, but Teeth is the only prerequisite for that, and I have already invested a single point into Bone Armor, which should give me 120 artificial life once I factor in +skills (and that's definitely worth a single skill point).

 

Oh, I'm not saying you NEED to use lower resist with any frequency, and further agree that for 99% of the PIs you run up against you can break their resistance with Amplify Damage (at the very least, you could break the immunity of everyone but the boss). So a monster would indeed be very rare that was both an unbreakable physical immune (at least 120%), and fire immune (at least 100%) to boot.

Since I'm planning on maxing out my mages anyway, I may as well make good use of them. As you know, when breaking a PI, Amplify Damage will work at 1/5 effectiveness - even AFTER the resistance is broken. So your average ghost (100% PI) will still be 80% resistant to physical damage when amped. Conversely, even a low level Lower Resist curse will lower its resistance to fire, cold, lightning, and poison by 50%. (Level 7 LR is 51% - easily attainable by just spending a single point and letting +skills carry you the rest of the way. You probably wouldn't want to spend more than a point in this skill as there are rather steep diminishing returns. Once you hit level 8, additional points only add 2% to the resistance penalty, at level 12, it goes down to just 1% more, and by level 15 it's 1% for every two points you spend.)

I would obviously have to test this in game to find out for sure, but my gut feeling is that ALL PIs would go down faster to the mages with LR rather than the skeletons with AD, assuming I max out both skeletons and mages. Obviously, that's not the case with your necro. Your skeletons are 19 levels higher than your mages, so their damage is so much more that there's no way the mages could outperform them in such a scenario. Whereas your mages main tactical purpose is to give the enemy something else to hit, I actually hope mine will be able to contribute meaningfully to the total damage output.

EDIT: I did some more research regarding Raise Skeleton versus the Mastery, and the conclusion I've drawn is that after that initial point, especially if you have some +skills gear on your developing necro, you're better off investing in Raise Skeleton over the mastery.

According to the skill progression table, skeletons summoned at level 1-3 have identical stats: They all have 21 life, and they all do 1-2 damage.

Starting at level 4 and onward, all skeltons receive the following bonuses for a point in Raise Skeleton:

+15 AR/level
+15 defense/level
+10.5 life/level (the table shows the skeletons life alternating between +10 and +11 for each additional level)
+ variable damage gained per level, with more points leading to bigger damage increases.

I'll explain that last point in a little more detail. With the early levels of RS, adding a point will only raise the skeletons min and max damage by a single point. But additional points yeild bigger returns on damage. By the time you get to level 20, a point adds +6 to both the min and max damage.

The Mastery, by contrast, is completely linear. Each an every point give +2 to min and max damage, and +8 to the life of your skellies. So that first point in the Mastery is important, especially if you have +skill gear, as the initial return for a point spent in the mastery is greater than the intial return on a point in RS. However, once you hit level 4, you get more life per skeleton by investing in RS, and once you hit level 8, you get more damage per level by investing in RS (and the same +2 to min and max damage for levels 5-7 of RS).

A few caveats to the above points:

1.) The damage return on the Mastery seems appreciably better on Skeletal Mages than their warrior counterparts, so for Mage Lords, the Mastery may be of more use. (Although it seems the interaction between RSM and Mastery is complicated - take a look at the table.

2.) Skeleton Mastery gives a very nice +5% life/level and +10% damage/level bonus to Revives. So for those who are a big fan of Revives, the Mastery will be of more use.

3.) The mastery seems to give much better returns once you advance to Nightmare and Hell difficulty. However, by the time you proceed to Nightmare, you should have just about maxed out both Raise Skeleton and the Mastery anyway, which I why I didn't bother with a detailed comparison.

 

My necro is now in Act IV, Normal, level 33. Everything going as planned. I think the biggest advantage in playing on players 8 and being over level 30 comes with the necro - I'll be able to snag a few revives prior to the fight with Diablo. So long as I can get to the pentagram prior to him spawning (and I see no reason why this would be a major problem) I should be able to take him out fairly quickly without him blasting all my skellies to pieces. (It seems like he stops doing that circular flame attack as soon as you close to melee range.)

Here's an excellent mf camparison from incgamers:

 

Yeah, gotta agree with that.

Doing CS & WSK runs with anyone that kills fast > doing them slow(ish) with lots of MF. Preferably on /p8 as long as it doesn't bog down the body count per hour too much. Sure, you'll get less Act Boss kills per hour that way, but the sheer amount of junk dropping will ensure better acquisition rates for runes, jewels, gems, socketed items and stuff like that.

 

Took out Diablo last night. Grabbed a few Doom Knights as revives, ran to the pentagram and was on top of him as soon as he spawned. Unfortunately, before I could get a decrepify on him, he shot out his circle fire attack, which blasted out all my mages, one skeleton and two of my revives .

It seems that once you get him surrounded and cursed, he uses primarily his standard attack, and forgoes the Pink Lightning Hose, which he didn't use even once.

Fortunately, I still had 8 skeletons, who, along with my merc and clay golem, did the job and it only took about a minute and a half to kill him.

Once decrepified and the clay golem going to work on him, he was moving really slow - he kept hitting my skellies, but he only managed to kill 3 of them in that time. I think he was so slow that my skellies were regenerating life almost as fast as he was inflicting damage. There's no way that Diablo should need 3 or 4 whacks on a skeleton to kill it.

(As an aside, my merc is equipped with Hwanin's Justice - very under-rated merc weapon IMO. Level and strength requirement are just 28 and 95, respectively, and it has the following stats:

10% Chance to cast level 3 Ice Blast on striking
+40% increased Attack Speed
+200% Enhanced Damage
+330 to Attack Rating
Adds 5-25 Lightning Damage

The 40% IAS is the real winner here. My merc is super fast with it, and the other mods offer some decent damage.)

---------- Added 22 hours, 7 minutes and 49 seconds later... ----------

Hmmm... I'm reconsidering my skill plan with my necro. Currently, I'm level 40, in Act V, Normal.

I have maxed out Raise Skeleton, and have one point into all of the other summoning skills, except Skeleton mastery (not sure offhand how many hard points I have invested in it). I have one point in each curse, and one point each in Bone Armor, Teeth, and Corpse Explosion.

Since I know I'm maxing Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery, and Raise Skeletal Mage, that's 60 points, and combined with the other 7 summoning skills, the 3 in poison and bone tree, and the 10 curses, that already puts me at 80 skill points, so I'm reconsidering my skill point distribution a bit.

As I see it, beyond those three maxed skills, I see limited utility in raising three other skills: Amplify Damage (AD), Dim Vision (DV), and Corpse Explosion (CE). AD has merit in that it's my most used curse. DV is very useful against Gloams, their ilk and other dangerous ranged attackers, as they stop firing missiles. CE is an excellent source of damage beyond your skeletons. However, what all three have in common is more points do not improve the base effect of the skill. In each case the only thing more points do is increase the radius of effect.

So I'm thinking that there's really no reason to max any of these skills. A little bit more about my gear before I explain my reasoning further. Even if I find no other equipment that grants +skills from here on out, and continue what I have on-hand as my end game equipment (this is unlikely, but I'm projecting worst-case scenario), here's what I'll have:

Weapon: Gravenspine/Ume's Lament - There are advantages and disadvatages to each wand, but both grant +2 to all necro skills.
Shield: Rare necro head that grants +2 to all skills.
Armor: Bone runeword that grants +2 to all skills.
Helm: Peasant Crown that grants +1 to all skills.
Amulet: Graverobber's (blue) amuelt that grants +3 to summoning skills.

So I know at a bare minimum, I'm going to wind up with level 30 in Raise Skeleton, Skeletal Mastery, and Skeletal Mage. My Clay Golem, Golem Mastery, and Revive will be at level 11. All of my curses and CE will be at level 8 with just one base point invested in each.

So this got me to thinking. Assuming I get to level 89, and complete all the skill quests, I'll have 100 skill points to work with. With 80 points spoken for, that means I can max out a fourth skill, or work on improving several skills. Since I don't need CE before hell difficulty, I'll work on that after my skeleton skills are maxed.

So how do I allocate these remaining 20 or so points? In reagards to AD and DV, it really is only a matter of convenience. I can always cast in more times to affect all the monsters. I can see some limited utility in having more points in DV, as I can shut down an entire pack of gloams with a single casting. More points in CE, however, has game utility beyond convenience. A bigger blast means more monsters get hit, which would certianly improve killing speed.

So my initial thought was to just max CE. However, the more I think about it, do I really need a level 27 (with +skills) CE? Level 27 gets me all the way to the edge of the screen, but level 15 would certainly get me about half way across the screen. Perhaps splitting the points a bit more evenly between the three skills would be most useful.

 

After further contemplation, I think you're right.

AD is simply a convenience thing. Level 8 AD can work if I just cast it a few more times. Besides, I have yet to equip Bone armor, and so it's currently functioning at Level 6, and I have to say, it's not that bad. It will only get better with two more levels in it, and I'm bound to find/gamble something that will raise it even higher than Level 8 by the time I reach hell. (Most of the desirable gear - Humonculus, Arm of King Leoric, Harlequin Crest, etc., are available by late nightmare.)

DV scales by radius exactly the same as AD. While it's certainly possible that a single casting of DV will be insufficient to shut down an entire gloam pack (and I wouldn't want to hang around long enough to get multiple castings off), I've concluded that there really isn't any need to shut down the whole pack. One should be enough. After that, I can retreat, and slowly creep up and cast Attract, which will over-ride the DV on the gloam, and can get the rest of the pack to attack that gloam, while I engage the only one that will be interested in me. Heck, as I charge the one that is firing at me, I can then DV the rest of the pack.

So basically, there are work-arounds for having a lower level AD and DV, but there's really no way to compensate for a low level CE. Even if there is no advantage in having a larger radius CE all of the time, owing to there being no other monsters near the edge of the screen, there will certainly be situations where it will help some of the time.

The other thing I've noticed thus far in my use of CE, is that evidently, the damage inflicted does not scale up with monster life. When you cast CE on players 1, there is a pretty good chance that you will either kill or severely injure all other monsters nearby. That doesn't happen on players 8. I find I generally need 3-4 CEs to start the chain.

This is the reason why I'm more inclined to max Raise Skeletal Mage preferentially to CE. Assuming Level 30 in both Raise Skeletal Mage and the Mastery, Fire and Lightning Mages will do about 250 points of damage per attack. So a volley from 12 mages is worth around 3,000 points of damage. Even if we're talking about a monster that is immune to either fire or lightning, it's still 1,500 per volley. That's nothing to sneeze at.

The reason I'll cull out the cold and poison mages is because I don't want a lot of corpses shattering which could not be used for CE, and the long timer on the poison damage means the mage will hit the monster again and reset the timer long before it inflicts the total damage. Maybe one poison mage would be of limited use to PMH, but I cannot see needing more than that.

So I don't really need CE at all before Hell difficulty, which is when I'm likely to lower the player count and make it more effective anyway.

 

I haven't played much recently. I was gone to Hershey park this weekend with the family. I found it somewhat humorous that I didn't have to pay admission for my son to get into the park, as he's under 3, and yet, he was the only person who went on any rides that day.

Anyway, I have completed Normal, but I have not yet started Nightmare. I'm around Level 50, and so I'll probably start nightmare soon. The thing is that I can still get a full level's worth of experience points for a Baal run - and that's not clearing the whole thing. That's just killing stuff on the way from the WP in WSK2 to the stairs to WSK3, from there the the WSC, and then only killing stuff in the WSC in the middle portion and not going down the side areas.

Anyway, I have now had Bone Armor equipped for a while, so my end game gear is starting to come into focus, and I have to say that I'm satisfied with my Amp Damage radius of effect. Two additional levels doesn't sound like much, but it is a surprising increase. I can pretty much amp an entire pack that is adequately crunched together, and 2-3 casting of amp is almost always enough to get everyone on the screen.

The radius on Decrepify is also pretty good, although since I only use that against bosses it's not very important. I haven't had the need to use DV yet, but with the radius of Amp, it should be just fine. DV is only for use against ranged attackers, and specifically gloams, but since they don't do much damage in normal, I just amped them when I saw them.

I'm definitely sticking to the plan of maxing mages before I max Corpse Explosion though. As I said, on p8 you have to kill 3-4 monsters before you can clear a pack anyway, so it has limited utility on that setting. Once I hit hell, I'll drop the setting at least to p5, and possibly to p3, so I won't really "need" a more powerful CE until then anyway.

While the Baal runs have been unspectacular thus far, I did land the set skull cap to Arcanna's Set, which was the only piece to that set I was lacking. That's one of those hard to find low level items. Skull caps are in the second lowest TC - TC6. The problem is that Arcanna's Cap has a qlvl of 16. So, in order for a monster to be able to drop Arcanna's Cap, it has to have an mlvl of at least 16, which would enable such a monster to drop from TC18. However, if a monster is capable of dropping from TC18, it is quite unlikely that it will drop from TC6 instead, and when it does, it then has to pick a skull cap, and have the mf roll come up with a set item.

The hardest to find low level unique is probably the unique necro wand Torch of Iro. The base item is in TC3, but qlvl 15. Of course here the odds are even worse, because there are a ton of items in TC3, and since a wand is considered class-specific, it's only selected with 1/3 the frequency of the non class-specific items of the TC. So a monster capable of dropping from TC15 rarely drops from TC3, and even if it does, it has poor odds of picking the wand, and subsequent poor odds of the wand being unique.