Old timer here back for some nostalgia. Hadn’t played since the old 1.09d days (except for a handful of hours in 1.10 till I decided I hated sinergies and quit the game). Because I’m a masochist I decided the best way to come back was to do a HC run in single player with players8. Playing as a sorcerer because old habits don’t die. Unfortunately that also means I tried (and am still spec’d on) Thunderstorm because back in the day it was incredibly fun to see cold inmunes go down in a single thunder… Anyways, let’s get to the matter at hand.
Hell so far has been a pain, but I managed to get to act5 right now. Chaos sanctuary was a drag, literally took over an hour (would have been so much faster if I just had opened the portals without killing anything, but I’m THAT stubborn, so here we are). Diablo went down like in half a minute as it should be for what’s ironically probably the easiest act boss in the game. Thing is, act4 was a breeze with almost no cold inmunes. But I know for sure I’m not completing act5 in players 8 as it is now, not even close.
I just reached level 85 in chaos sanctuary. Build is basically 20 Frozen Orb, 10 Cold mastery, 20 Thunderstorm and 20 Lightning mastery, 1 Energy Shield (for safety) (basically your typical FO/Thunderstorm 1.09 build). Could respec out of Thunderstorm and go for lightning or nova but I know I’m not beating cold inmunes with that in players8. I hate fire and I would prefer not having to respec to that, but what do you guys think? Would a 20 Firewall or meteor be enough to kill inmunes in act5 hell with p8? Or will I need to get my mercenary top gear (unlikely to happen in single player) and rely on him?
Gear wise I have a mixed bag of equipment in my character,got a shako and an oculus from Mephisto runs, but in 85 levels I haven’t seen not even a +1 blue amulet for sorc, even from gambling! Not a single SoJ either, actually I’m wearing a blue +16%mf ring on one hand, go figure. The mercenary is even worse, have him running around with a Rockfleece, the %DR seems to help but he’s getting slaughtered against any boss with an aura or cursed.
So, what is my best chance? Respecing seems not enough in P8 given the health pools monsters have and the lifespan of my merc, but I don’t think I’m getting better gear or enough runes for a decent runeword for him in the near future.
/p8 is best used for 99ing. If you want better drops switch to the odd numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7. Good low - mid lvl rune word armours are Smoke (Nef + Lum), Lionheart (Hel + Lum + Fal), Treachery (Shael + Thul + Lem) and Duress (Shael + Um + Thul).
If you’ve added the ladder rune words to your single player game consider making Obedience (Hel + Ko + Thul + Eth + Fal) in a pole arm (not a spear), it provides the merc with crushing blow (CB), high fire damage and -25% enemy’s fire resist. I assume you have some life leech on your merc, if not use Tal helm, Crown of Thieves or Vampire Gaze. If you still have issues with keeping your merc alive try using a life tap wand/dagger on switch to help him stay alive. Also work toward making Call To Arms (CTA) if you haven’t already. http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/
Oh, it’s not for the xp or drop rate, it’s just the challenge of trying to complete the run with P8. Obedience seems like a great option for my merc against cold inmunes, but I’m still missing the Fal rune. Call to arms seems like a runeword I’m not gonna be able to complete in SP. What would be the best place to farm for runes besides the Countess (which is a pain to kill with a cold sorc)?
Try farming nightmare cows, and in hell The Pit, Ancient Tunnels and Lower Kurast (LK). Pop all the chests and click all the clickables in LK, especially the 3 chests in the huts west and north of the bonfires. There is also Stormtree at the gates of LK coming in form The Flayer Jungle. The rock and skull piles in the Reliquary and Fane. Trav will be good, except Toorc, and the near harmless Nigh Lords and Heirophants, whom are all cold immune. The chests in Durance of Hate 1 and 2 rain runes, but there are those pesky Dolls to navigate that have prevented most people from learning this about the areas. Since you’d be going back to completed areas, switch it up to /p7 for the far better drop rates. If Chaos is taking you too much time drop it down to /p3.
Do note that you cannot make Obedience without adding the Ladder Rune Words to your game files. If you’ve not done that, consult DDG as to “How to add ladder rune words to d2 single player”. There are youtube an reddit guides that work for windows 7 to 10. The other option is to keep your eyes open for Stout Nail Demon Club, which you can use to enchant your merc. Try to make Obedience in an eth Thresher. A Larz quest will give it 5 sockets.
If you have no way to mule gear, do a DDG request on how to set up GoMule, which is an improvement over the ATMA muler originally developed by a Blizz North programmer.
Here is a quick vid showing how fruitful LK can be on /p7.
Glad to see Kurast is still a thing. Had actually done a handful of runs already but just TPing to the hut chests without much success. Have done a score of more complete runs since your advice and I’ve definitely gotten many more charms (been able to improve a couple small charms I was carrying actually), but in terms of runes just an Ort. Definitely avoiding Durance of Hate, lost a couple of HC chars on 1.09 to a doll boss exploding and I’m not risking it again on p8.
I have ladder runewords enabled. Actually one of the reasons I came back is because I discovered basemod and its autopickup makes the game SO much more enjoyable. I use it just for that, ladder runewords and bringing back unique monsters dropped from the game but it’s totally worth it even just for that. So as soon as I get a Fal rune I’ll make an obedience for the merc.
Meanwhile I continued a bit on A5, rescued Anya (basically through teleport cause I couldn’t kill a single thing down there) and I’m almost at the ancients, which are my main fear (no way my merc can take even a 1/2hp korlic on p8 on his own as it is) so I’ll stick to rune farming for a while.
Btw, I’m actually worried about the amulet thing. I’ve lost count for the amulets I’ve gambled for and not a single +1 blue amulet for sorc yet. Not only that, but I’ve gotten many unique items through the game but just one unique amulet and one unique ring in 86 levels (nokozan from normal Mephisto and Manald from nightmare Mephisto). Have they cut down the drop from unique amulets and rings or I’m just THAT unlucky?
Finally did it! Couldn’t change anything for the merc except for the Obedience runeword, which helped a bit. But I actually expected the ancients to be giving me much more trouble defensively, with energy shield on they were never near killing me. Unfortunately Korlic was cold inmune, fire inmune, lightning enchanted and magic resistant… Luckily it took so long to kill the other two that by the time he was the only one left he was down to 1/20th or so of his health since he was the one always following me the closest and eating all the thunderstorms. So when he went down I thought, that’s it, the rest is a piece of cake…
Well, down to the throne of destruction, with death lords, balrogs and black souls. My merc could easily tank small groups of the first two ones, but how broken are black souls? 2-3 of them would kill my merc in 2 seconds and drain all my mana with one single lightning. There were 3 bosses and a group of champions down there. Guess their type? A small hint, they were all the same type of monster.
Anyway, after clearing the throne of destruction Baal and his waves were comparatively kinda easy. So finally, my first P8 HC whole run completed, my sorc is now a level 87 Guardian. Thanks Endugu for all your tips!
Poison-Necro does well… with the exception of bosses. All Necros are kinda bad at killing off Diablo / Baal… it’s pretty much all about your Merc at that point in time.
Presumed as much, it was so back then. But i feel every necro suffers with bosses, at least in P8. I was leveling a summoner and summons were out against Mephisto way before he was down to half health. I’ll give the nova necromancer a chance, tho.
I’ve decided I’m going to try to complete as many runs as I can with the same set of rules the sorc ended up following and see how many perform as well. Those rules being more or less the following.
-HC & players 8 (can only lower player count for already cleared content)
-No respecs
-No external items, can use only what that character finds
-No stat min-maxing, must follow a fixed stat distribution (with the exception for enough strength for gear for casters). In case someone’s curious the distribution is gonna be:
2/1/2 (str/dex/vit) for melees
1/2/2 (str/dex/vit) for ranged (mostly bow ama)
1/2/2 (dex/vit/ene) for casters
-Must use opposite type of mercs (ranged merc for melees, melee merc for ranged/casters)
Right now I’ve started the following characters to loop through them and make it less tedious, let’s see how many finish up hell
-Full poison necro (I’m considering throwing in a golem but no skellies)
-Full fire (fireball/meteor) sorc (Plus static field oc)
-Bowazon (probably freezing arrow, would be multiple/guided but I know guided is terrible in 1.14)
-Vengeance+conviction pala
-Concentrate + full IK set barb (one thing I wanted to try and never got to it in 1.09)
-Trap sin (another on my 1.09 wish list)
Actually, skellimancer is 1 of the 5 most powerful characters. They can be built to drop hell Diablo and Baal on /p8 in 10 - 15 seconds. Only ww barb and zealer sorc is faster.
I think you’d really enjoy being a part of the the diabloii.net / purediablo.net community. Just don’t tell them you’re using a mod, they have a no mod policy. But they have a similar challenge which they call “untwinked”, where as I call it single player self found.
Currently I’m building a HC Frenzy barbarian that only uses self found blue magic items and gems while attempting to complete the entire game on /p8. A technique of mine is to farm hell act one for experience, which on /p8 is easy to get to clvl 90 pretty quick. At clvl 90 a character pretty much flies through the rest of the game. Playing this character I’ve been able to fall in love with the game all over again. So many amazing blues!
Well, that sounds rough. It’s true that usually you only care for 2-3 properties of every unique or set you wear, but I’d still have a hard time renouncing the extra 20 life or 15 fire res. Good luck with him!
Btw, no way I’m renouncing to the QoL features of the mods at this point, specially the autopickup
I don’t have the… patience? (probably skill but patience sounds less discouraging) I’m even starting to lose faith in the venomancer. Just killed diablo in normal and the merc would last 2 secs to p8 diablo even with decrepify. So it was just lower resist + poison nova which took like a thousand novas… Dunno if that’s gonna be viable in hell, but it sure isn’t gonna be fun…
Nice to see you have a YT channel, will check your videos specially when it’s the barbarian’s turn
Edit: Just noticed the previously posted video was yours too. I’m an idiot
Main reason why I don’t play in /p8 at all, I have the attention span of a goldfish , I get bored of the game way before my character is strong enough to do P8 without taking forever to kill things
That was part of my point, but it may have come across as boasting. It takes a certain type mindset - obsessive - to do the /p8 challenges. You appear to be one of those types.
It’s that suffer that keeps me going. I know the reward is going to be so much better and last far longer than the initial boredom. Then my character dies and the cycle of pain to reward starts all over. It’s just like real life, and why I’ll never use VR.
The reason why we play the way we play, even when vastly different from each other, is hormonally the same.
For example, people who can do 1000s of consecutive LK runs is admirable, but near impossible to me. I have to do 100s of Chaos runs for the same results. You play hundreds of different video games and likely are very good at all of them, where as I’m a master of one character class in one game while sucking at all other games I’ve ever played. Whatever the pleasure, in my opinion, it all boils down to hormones, just like absolutely everything in life.
, I get bored of the game way before my character is strong enough to do P8 without taking forever to kill things
