Does anyone take a character all the way through hell without respecing?? Seems like an interesting challenge.
We used to constantly, respec wasn’t a thing. Now that we can respec it changes the whole build order. Why struggle through lit traps in the beginning when I can build fire traps and change over later. It was more interesting when I had to struggle with the bad traps before I got to the good ones.
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yeah, it’s pretty easy to do in multiplayer. Doing it solo is just a self imposed hurdle for no reason though.
i do that on every character.
pre-plan and dont mind suffering early on. ez pz.
ppl dont seem to remember but there were no respecs at all at some point.
*sometimes ill cave in and use a couple respecs on chars that need a spirit monarch because its silly to save that much str early on - in hardcore anyways. Never ended up needing more than the 3 free respecs.
I always beat the 3 difficulties before I respec. Just always been a personal preference of mine. I mean unless I totally ruin a character along the way which hasn’t happened yet 
First char solo-selffound no respecs through hell.
Second character was solo leveled and only used selffound or items from the first character no respecs through hell.
Have about 8 chars somewhere in NM or Hell and have done 1 respec on 1 of them and will probably do it on 1 or 2 more because its more fun to level with certain skills and then respec to the skill you want.
It isn’t as hard as you might think actually, atleast with most builds.
I have taken my throwbarb (lvl 75), my fendazon (lvl 82) and freezadin zealot (lvl 80) from lvl normal to hell difficulty. Some of them are in Act 5 Hell but some are progressing too like in either Act 2 or Act 4.
My other classes such as my necro (lvl 77), my assassin (lvl 62) and my druid (lvl 64) have used their respec from normal difficulty after like lvl 40 or something. My necro was using a leveling guide to level so he was an initial bonemancer (using bone spear and teeth as synergy) but now he is a summoner build with full trang set. My assassin was using a leveling guide as well so she was using those fire traps (wake of fire and fire blast as synergy) early to level up but now she is an elemental assassin build. My druid was using a leveling guide as well and was using the fire spells to quest/level (fissure with firestorm as synergy) but now he is a werebear build (more focus on damage than being a tank).
My sorc (lvl 41) has just finished Normal difficulty but still using Fireball with Firebolt as synergy according to a leveling guide I am following for her so she has not used any of her respecs yet.
Btw, they are all on Multiplayer Online so I have grouped for some quests and have done some runs to level up a bit but for mostly 90% of the quests I have done them solo in a private game. I guess it’s much much easier to do it all online in multiplayer mode than doing it all as solo since I have gotten lot of gear from either drops or trades or just freebies (in those freebies games).
I mean… respecs were added in 1.10…
So yes… most of the legitimate D2 players have and did do this… lol its not really a challenge… maybe some new players might find it fun but its really not that hard to do.
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It was the old way
I tend to do it even now minus a couple of builds which just have no early game so it’d be extremely tedious to play through.
On top of this some builds, like Summonmancer, wouldn’t even notice the challenge
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Yeah did that for years , it’s not a challenge it’s a chore .
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More like masochistic way of having fun lol. Number of classes can do it easier than others. While doing kick start Paladin as a auradin with holy fire save for you tones of time for leveling you have fairly safe built hammerdin w/o respec or meteor-orb sorc. Another thing to factor in is - is char twink or not… You can load any melee char with tones of poison damage SC and push into the middle game where you can switch to mail caliber with raw melee attack
I played 1.11 and respec did not exist, it was added after that.
My Necro still has all 3 respect’s. My sorceress did use 1.
Depends…
Sometimes I use different gear sets for leveling so it requires at least 2 resets before I get into my end game gear.
Other times I’ve itemized and prioritized everything one time
Was added in 1.13, not 1.10.
As for the OP, pretty much most old school D2 players had to play this was before respecs were added. It was WORSE before synergeries were added since now at least putting points into the synergy of your “future” skill wasn’t “wasting” points. Before, if you were gonna play say frozen orb, all you put in was 1 point in pre-req and thats it with saving the rest, Made the early levels PAINFUL for some builds.
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I used to play when there were no respecs, good old days.
Now everyone is complaining the game is easy, of course it is, you can respec
My 3 softcore assassins have all used up their respecs for the purpose of learning the game beyond Nightmare. My 4th assassin is hardcore and still has all respecs intact after beating Hell.
#RespeccingWasAMistake.
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My current character in Hell has not respec’ed once.
It was tough before I got Frozen Orb (especially since I was saving a few skill points), but a few levels past 30 it all fixed itself.
I used to make builds in that way all the time, as most of my playtime was before respec was even a thing. I found out about it a couple years ago when I fired-up the game for the first time since 1.10 (I think).
Took the bowazon on all the way into hell, tried a couple of different builds along the way.
Then I was looking at javazon… so I rolled a new one.
Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.