Diablo 2

[JonathonWally]

That's right, I'm talking Diablo 2 here!

With the announcement of Diablo 3 and them even showing footage, I went and started playing Diablo 2. I had never played it before. Yes, I know, 7 years late to the party, but, better late than never ya?

That said, damn, awesome game.

I know tons of you have played it, anyone playing it again or for the first time like myself?

I'm still in the beginning of them game, don't get a whole lot of time to play, I'm in act 1 around level 10. I went with a paladin as my first toon and have a sorceress as my second, but haven't done too much with him. I chose those 2 guys since when I played WoW my mains were a Pally and a Mage and figured the play would be similar.

Anyone else wanna chat about playing?

 

[Arrqh]

I'm not allowed to play D2 again, it's far too addicting! But the sorc was always my favorite class... I had endless amounts of fun just spamming frozen orb over and over, much to the dismay of a friend who played a necro

 

[Venardhi]

I had played it before but never beat it, and a few months back I started over again, this time I decided I would pick the class everyone told me never to play: Amazon. I have managed to make an Amazon that not only keeps up with my friends who have played the game several times each on their min/maxed Necro and Barbarian but is a lot of fun to play.

I still haven't beat it though, and since my computer died a few days ago, I likely never will.

 

[Lindley]

I just played it multiplayer for the first time yesterday, after close to a year of not touching it. My cousin in California wanted to do a co-op game.

I have two characters, a level-28 assassin and a level 68 sorceress. I used the assassin since my cousin's barbarian was level 22, and I didn't want to completely outclass him.

Besides, the sorceress is for the Hell difficulty level. You know, the one where you can Frozen Orb the hell out of a group of stooges in the first area and maybe kill all of them after 5 minutes. Tough to the point of annoying, is what it is.

 

[Cutter John]

Its a pretty fun game, at least til you make it to the second boss. I tried playing through the game twice but could never get past that bastard.

Maybe someday when the annoyance wears off I'll try again.

 

[Shurik]

Its a pretty fun game, at least til you make it to the second boss. I tried playing through the game twice but could never get past that bastard.

Maybe someday when the annoyance wears off I'll try again.

He's very tough but beatable. Try not to get too close to him because of his freezing aura, hit him with ranged weapons/spells.

But he's not the most annoying part of the game. There are 3 barbarians in Act 5, just before you enter the final dungeon - you can spend literally half an hour or more running around and trying to hit them on "nightmare"and "hell" difficulties ...

Besides, the sorceress is for the Hell difficulty level. You know, the one where you can Frozen Orb the hell out of a group of stooges in the first area and maybe kill all of them after 5 minutes. Tough to the point of annoying, is what it is.

Sorceress is my favorite character in Diablo 2, but "hell" difficulty level, especially with the latest patches, is beyond annoying even with her. You know something isn't right when there are things you can't kill even when you cheat ...

 

[Lindley]

Its a pretty fun game, at least til you make it to the second boss. I tried playing through the game twice but could never get past that bastard.

The key is to distract him and use indirect attacks. Hydras for the sorceress, traps for the assassin. The distraction can be achieved by letting him focus on your hireling (whom you should protect as long as possible), or using a decoy spell (such as the assassin's Shadow Warrior).

Also, as always with bosses (except the three barbarians), keep a town portal open in the combat area so that you can get back quickly if you die or need to retreat.

 

[GMac]

Quite a fun game to play although it took me a while to be able to get past the aforementioned second boss and I still haven't got past the third (although I haven't played it for a while). May start again when I've got a spare couple of weeks and try to get somewhere with a Paladin or Sorceress.....

GM

 

[JonathonWally]

I just did the 5th quest in the first act, I'd been coasting through easily hacking the hell out of crap until I got to this dungeon place, I'm glad everything isn't too easy, I was almost getting bored.

I've been using an online guide on how to shape my character, so I'm banking most of my skill points till I reach certain level requirements.

Man, what a fun game.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I was a huge D2 obsessive for years and years. I have maybe twenty different level 80+ characters of different builds and have collected most of the rare items.

Nowadays I play World of Warcraft.

A neat little tool you might want to check out is a program called Atma "A Tenshi Muling Application", it lets you swap items between your characters easily and store your loot in a big stash file.

 

[JonathonWally]

Thanks for that tip, I'll check it out. Kinda sucks I can only carry so much stuff on me at once. Not like my WoW characters where I could just get myself more and bigger bags.

I also need to do some more reading to see which stats I should be focusing on and such.

 

[JonathonWally]

Anyone know a good spot to grind up levels without doing quests? I'm on act 2 and it's a slow grind getting him to level 18.

I went to some diablo 2 message boards, but they weren't that great

 

[Iasius]

Anyone know a good spot to grind up levels without doing quests? I'm on act 2 and it's a slow grind getting him to level 18.

I went to some diablo 2 message boards, but they weren't that great

Type in "/players 8" into the message console (unless you think this would be cheating). The game will play as if it were an 8-player game.
This will make the monsters harder to kill (more hp), but you also get a lot more xp out of killing one, I think around 4x the amount. If you have a character that does so much damage that you kill everyone with one hit and much to spare, this is for you.
In fact, I usually use this until I enter hell difficulty, but then I also use ATMA to equip my characters with the various goodies my characters have amassed over time so they are pretty well equipped.

Edit:

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/experience.shtml

Monster Experience In Multiplayer Games
Monsters' experience value and Hit Points will change with the number of players in the game. When more people join a game, the monsters become harder, and as they leave the game, the monsters become easier. For the ultimate challenge, fight solo against monsters on Hell difficulty in an 8-player game. In multiplayer, when a monster is created, its Hit Points are multiplied by the number of players in the game: (Life = Hit Points * (Number of Players + 1) / 2). The monster's base experience value is determined by the following formula:
Experience = X * (n + 1) / 2
X = base experience
n = # of players in the game
Upping the Party Members in Single Player and TCP/IP
Typing "/players X", where X is a number between the current number of players and the maximum (8), in the message box will set the effective number of players in the game (in single player, open Battle.net and TCP/IP games only). This will increase the Monster Life, Experience, and Item Drops. If this command sets the number of players higher than the current amount of players in the game, the added amount of players will be considered to be just in the game, and not part of your party.

Oh and the Amazon is one of my favorite characters (next to a Barbarian or a Sorceress, though a Paladin can be nice as well). Nothing quite like a high level multishot Amazon with a fast bow for crowd control.

 

[Shurik]

Anyone know a good spot to grind up levels without doing quests? I'm on act 2 and it's a slow grind getting him to level 18.

I went to some diablo 2 message boards, but they weren't that great

Where are you in the second act?

Basically you can just go through the areas you already did, but the higher is your level, the slower you will gain the new one without advancing in the game, because the monsters give you same amount of experience while each level requires more and more experience. So just advance as much as you can, visit every single dungeon including ones you don't have to and kill everything there. There are very few places on normal difficulty level (if at all) where you might have troubles because your level isn't high enough.

 

[JonathonWally]

Anyone know a good spot to grind up levels without doing quests? I'm on act 2 and it's a slow grind getting him to level 18.

I went to some diablo 2 message boards, but they weren't that great

Where are you in the second act?

Basically you can just go through the areas you already did, but the higher is your level, the slower you will gain the new one without advancing in the game, because the monsters give you same amount of experience while each level requires more and more experience. So just advance as much as you can, visit every single dungeon including ones you don't have to and kill everything there. There are very few places on normal difficulty level (if at all) where you might have troubles because your level isn't high enough.

I just want to hit level 18 so I can get concentration and blessed hammer and start melting faces.

Type in "/players 8" into the message console (unless you think this would be cheating). The game will play as if it were an 8-player game.
This will make the monsters harder to kill (more hp), but you also get a lot more xp out of killing one, I think around 4x the amount. If you have a character that does so much damage that you kill everyone with one hit and much to spare, this is for you.
In fact, I usually use this until I enter hell difficulty, but then I also use ATMA to equip my characters with the various goodies my characters have amassed over time so they are pretty well equipped.

Thanks for the tip. And no I don't really think of it as a cheat. My rationalization, I'm making things harder, so I think it's fair I earn a bit more experience.