Been watchin Youtube videos and got nostalgic. Anyone got some tips for starting off strong 
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Welcome back! …We all come back 
My advice would be not to take the negativity on the forums too serious. Have fun for yourself, and enjoy it! Ask yourself what kind of vibe do you want to struggle with… Melee? Caster? Pets? Ranged? There are obviously some characters better than others at starting, but all can be done. Do you plan on playing once and that’s it, or investing into Hell and pressing for better gear?
Amazon
Maybe not the best starter, but poison javelin is pretty strong to get through normal. You can combine with lightning fury to get yourself through hell. Some people will go exploding arrow / poison javelin.
Assassin
This class can get through all difficulties pretty well going with a hybrid fire blast + lightning sentry + death sentry and possibly a low level dragon talon for kicks.
Necromancer
This class can always start pretty well with a summon build. However, Diablo in normal is a pretty heavy build check for your summons. I’ve found that thorns from the “Edge” runeword and a blood golem can make super easy work out of act bosses… you can start this with mephisto in Act 3, or by the time you hit Diablo in act 4, it’s a very cheap and easy runeword combined with Amplify Damage is surprisingly effective. Endgame, poison nova is one of my favorite all-up character builds.
Barbarian
Melee can sometimes be a hard starter, especially when you start getting into late nightmare and hell. However, the double throw barbarian is really fun from the beginning. You can also get through very well with Frenzy. Barbarian is one of my favorite end game farmers with “item find”. I’ve found a TON of high runes and items with him.
Paladin
This build is an excellent starter. You can easily clear normal difficulty by investing completely into Holy Fire. You can switch to Fist of the Heavens “FoH” around NM and complete Hell pretty easily. This class has a very high utility built in the skill tree depending on your skill selections.
Sorceress
A classic pick for the first character with the access to “Teleport” on her skill tree. However, this class can be more fragile in Hell without making some decisions to bulk her up. She’s a great early boss farmer in hell that can get you going or help gear up other characters.
Druid
The fire druid and summon druid are exceptional choices to clear normal. Melee wolf is one of the better melee choices for ubers and just a fun character all up. Wind is very good and fun.
I hope this helps, think of a playstyle that you want to try, and make a pick on one of those classes. I’m happy to provide more details, along with others that will most likely chime in! Cheers and most importantly, just have fun!
Edit: I actually started with Amazon for ladder this season and got her up and almost fully geared pretty easily by herself without needing parties. I went plague/fury (I have a video on YouTube), and now she’s pure lightning and destroying demons.
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I suggest to check out youtube channels like: Ginger Gaming Mentor and WithNoFiller. You will find best information there. Check: “maxroll gg late game builds tier list” to see what builds are the strongest and plenty of information how to build them (not set in stone). Use Traderie not to get cheated while trading.
Next ladder should start at end of November or in December looking at latest ladders reset trends. If you already have the game i would test what builds are fun to play i.e. on Non_Ladder (where you can get plenty of items for free) and when new Ladder starts you will have a plan what to do and wont be rusty.
Also i suggest not making first character only to farm items to gear the character you want to actually play with. This is the “meta” but i dont know if you want to spend days/weeks grinding on other character and than just throw all the stuff on char you want to use, lvl it up and call it a day. You can start with a starter build for given class and than reset your character, if you want fastest start. Starting with the build you want to play and trading can be a lot more fun and will give you more gameplay time. Its about the road not the destination. Endagame is grind, dont think its fun to start with separate grind-oriented character too.
Meh, don’t give views to purists
What he needs is to not play online and instead play modded
I dont know him. I just wached his explenations of game mechanics and think they are one of the best on youtube. Especially for new players. At least he can form a coherent stream of information that builds on itself. Some other content creators can’t even get this right. Just a personal preference, anyone have a prefered method of content delivery they want.
When it comes to puritism, I play mosty off-meta and still learned a ton.
i.e. I wanted to build a Bowzon. Ive learned that most procs and +effects in game apply only to 2 middle arrows. Did not make the build and saved a lot of time.
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It’s not a matter of delivery preference
It’s a matter of giving attention to somebody actively promoting the demise of the game we love
How he is promoting that? Give me 3 basic examples please. I think you are trying to make a case. He literally made videos how to fix and balance game issues.
Your comment remaids me of situation with Dark Humillity. He had some argument over an item drop and needed to give something back for it. He made 2-3 hours long guide videos, contributed to maxroll and did research for the game (i.e. 5k Arcane runs with detailed data). He made 1 mistake and than he got discredited in certain forum by most of the users …
I’ve interacted enough with him on his streams to know he’s a purists
Against improvements to the itemization, adding content, etc
Let me just add to this u can cheese kill any boss on normal difficulty with just 4 skill points invested. 1 point clay golem, 1 point golem mastery (probably not even needed but i use it), 1 point amp damage to get to 1 point iron maiden. No skellies needed u just summon ur clay golem and cast iron maiden on the boss and watch while he kills himself on ur golem and just recast golem when it dies. Ez as that and even baal can be killed this way although it does take a while
I started summoner necro but blizz sorc is king of cheap easy farming.
I can recommend sorc if u want to gear up. Ez boss farm and andy or meph on hell is ez and will get u most of the basic uniques u need for any other char u want to build. I myself prefer hybrid frozen orb/ hydra since it makes it easier to deal with immunities until u get a sunder charm and hydra really makes meph farming ez with moat trick and andy has really bad fire resistance. Besides this its ez to farm tower for the basic runes u need for spirit and insight etc. just make sure ur merc can kill countess cause she is cold and fire immune on hell difficulty
I recommend try to beat the game in single player on any character except barb.
Whats up Xlux, honestly your best bet is to just have fun with it and explore the game, depending on how long ago you played you have a lot to learn, and explore with the changes made since that time.
My youtube channel has a wealth of information in bite size pieces you can look up as you go, instead of spoiling yourself all at once. Like if you find a unique item you can look up just a video on that unique item and what it could be useful for.
Some of the others have already mentioned me, My channel is Ginger Gaming Mentor.
If you ever have any questions feel free to comment on the videos I usually respond.
If you want more of a guided playthrough I do have Solo Self Found Players 8 runs of every class, and a single player series as well. They are all separated out into playlists for ease of access
I am against actively destroying a 24 year old masterpiece yes.
As for Improvements and changes to the game, I have already been a part of a multi-streamer coop for that exact purpose. Making improvements, updates to itemization, and adding content.
However we tend to like to do that in a way that doesn’t utterly destroy the game in the process.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
I also have an entire series called “Fixing D2R” where I go over in detail many skills, mechanics, and Things within D2R that need work, and how I would fix them.
If you are who I think you are, what you want to do to change the game would indeed directly destroy it.
Change just for the sake of change without consideration to why that change could be bad within the game isn’t the right way to go about things.
PRNG In Diablo 2 is directly linked to the item count, and doing things willy nilly like increasing inventory space might on the surface seem to have no effect on the game. One could even argue what harm is it in making things more convenient! But the truth under the surface is that because the PRNG in Diablo 2 is directly taking into account your total number of items when determining what drops, what stats are on the item, what monsters are present, the mods the monsters have, the monsters name, and more. You start to quickly realize that a simple inventory increase is a lot more then just a harmless thing.
I could have entire discussions about changes to Diablo 2, In-fact one of my own Ideas involves a New game mode for Diablo 2 that would not change the original in anyway.
In The Gaming industry another game “Mario Maker” and “Mario Maker 2” have had great success and I think that Diablo 2 could easily benefit from this type of model.
#1 Players would have access to a Tool that would allow them to create and upload custom levels that they design. Under the proviso that they are able to first complete the level themselves.
this would involve existing tile sets, monsters, bosses of Diablo 2 as it is currently no new things would need to be added.
#2 players across the world could download these levels, and using their online characters both ladder, and non ladder in separate forms, could then challenge themselves with this custom content trying to beat it.
The Completion of a level could be varied from killing a boss, to killing all monsters, to maybe even more custom stuff like killing bosses in a certain order.
#3 Levels could have a Code that could be sent to friends, streamers, ect that would take them right to a specific level as well for easy sharing
#4 Level rankings would exist with the most popular custom levels at the top.
As well as a timed based ranking for completion of the level with the players names.
I think this kind of content would excell at drawing new users to D2R, expanding the existing user base, drawing old users back, and increasing engagement across social media, youtube, and twitch.
But I digress, If “Anu” wants to bad mouth me all over the internet because I didn’t want to play his particular flavor D2R mod then so be it. As a person who has spent a long time modding games with 2000+ mods I fell out of love with it.
Mods are fun, but mods can also just be Cheating with extra steps. One thing I learned about cheating is it takes the fun out of a game fast. So I am a bit picky in which mods I use these days and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I enjoy the Vanilla Experience Diablo II has to offer.
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Assumption Confirmed
They all say this
There is a huge difference between being a purist and trying to prevent this old masterpiece from being destroyed. I really dont think he would mind changes as long as they are done with care and respect for the original game. So no i dont think ur assumption is correct at all
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I absolutely am for changes, just not the kind of changes Anu wants.
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Yeah, Anu (aka Sekscalibure) throws out tons of change ideas hoping one of them sticks with the community. At least he’s pushing the changes as ideas for a mod now, and not necessarily for the game. I guess it finally sank in that the game is a remaster after all. 
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Yeah i have seen quite a few of his ideas and i think most of them would have a pretty negative impact on this old gem of a game. Im not against changes but you have to be careful what u wish for and not mess up the game
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Enjoy your dying game with your collapsing already minuscule viewer base
All thanks to your protectionism of an outdated masterpiece all for nostalgic reasons
I have gained over 10,000 subscribers in a month lol, and I am up to 15 million channel views I think I will do fine.
Diablo II is a masterpiece of a game, it does not need nostalgia to make bring people to play.
And for 2.5 decades people have tried and failed to make a better arpg then Diablo 2.
The ego on you to assume you can do better than all of people, companies, and games that failed for 24 years to do better is laughable.
What you want is change for the sake of change, without any regard for how it would break the game.
Warcraft 3 reforged did that, and it was an abysmal failure.
The way they handled and developed Diablo 2 Resurrected was a Direct result of your style of development ruining WC3 Reforged.
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