What a refreshing approach to D2 game play. This was the first time in years I've played solo un-twinked, non-muled.
In the beginning, I wanted to try a thrower so double-throw was the main path I followed, along with a shield/axe on swap. I found double throw to be the most damaging attack for a low level barb I have ever attempted. It was really amazing how fast everything dropped. I yawned zzzz at the smith and Andarial was no problem, especially with Stealth armour (poison res).
When I finally got to Duriel I was pretty much screwed. I just couldn't over come the cold or avoid him enough to do any damage. So I ended up lvling a few more and respec'd for Conc strictly. So ActII was pretty significant in that case, and that's when I also got the Darkglow armor
I was able to pretty much tank both Diablo and Baal with the high res, block and Conc. Where I nearly died was in Act 5 in the Abaddon portal in the bloody foothills. I found that a group of frenzied Blood-lords (i think thats the name) were a force like no other. If they have a tough unique boss, then they are much faster already. I also opened up one of those urns in the Ancient Way that spawned a group of them, one Boss with holy freeze... I ran like hell of course. Well anyway, below you can see my layout.
Peace.
I got a lucky find early, dropped by Duriel in ActII, which was Darkglow armor +5 to max res across the board, +10 res all. (80-80-80-67 res)
I couldn't find a good axe or even a decent socketed, so I crafted a blood War Axe.
Blocking was Ancients pledge in ActII, then I moved to plain magic tower shield of blocking in the end.
Kept Anya's +2 Shout barb helm (rare).
2x +1 WC daggers
Gloves, rings and belt had random res mods mostly. 10% ias on gloves. Boots were Hsarus 20% FRW + fire res.
Saved the best charms I could, end game 72% Block + 850 Life after BO.
Merc = ActII prayer, used gear I discarded - Stealth rune word armour and Nadir helm.|||welcome to HC! are you going to continue on with your guy?
evil urns arent worth it!|||Quote:
welcome to HC! are you going to continue on with your guy?
evil urns arent worth it!
Thanks man. I'll just have to see how it goes. I mean, getting a decent single handed weapon is very difficult. So much so that it makes me want to not play on.
I know all the runes words, crafting recipies and what uniques to look out for, but I'm not willing to do endless runs, which is why I was willing to finish at lvl 33 (which I personally think is low for Baal). I did Act 3 one evening, Act 4/5 in a day.
and yeah Evil Urns are indeed evil.|||just be careful when you get to nightmare, since you are somewhat underleveled|||I have never passed an Evil Urn by unopened. Something about the surprise... I just can't resist them!!|||Idd, evil urns are wicked nice
You should be able to finish nightmare, I always find that's were my halftwinked (can use items from my other toons, but I have no MF-er
) or completely untwinked toons run into trouble. They start to progress so slowly that I simply can't dedicate the chunks of time it takes to get from one waypoint to the next ^^My current dude is at that point. Was a holy freeze/holy shock ranger pally on which L had already respecced a couple points into zeal for bosses (Black flail), but I respecced him to a full frost zealer and will try if that can keep him going.|||I don't think respec is going to change anything for me. It's the main weapon that's always an issue. a 16-30 weapon wont even cut the mustard in NM. But, like Arkansaw said, my lvl is on the low side.|||Welcome to HC
Ironically, my first pally of the season died to that same group of evil lords in abbadon :P hate em with a passion.
My current WW-arian met a group of might buffed ones while he was under amp O.o close call! it was a surprise attack in hell WSK...i was blissfully rampaging through those little act 3 paper-wad spitting flayers that appear often in lvl 3 of wsk, and noticed the had a boss with Might aura.
No biggie, they hit like my neighbors 6 yr old anyways, so i was whistling down by the river as i sqishied them under foot, and suddenly around the corner come running the blood lords and they amped me! I was mid whirl of course...barely squeezed away (glad i set myself up for a long one. think I spazzed and drank half my belts pots.
popped howl, grim totem, and switched on a shield while my merc distracted them with a re-enact of beauty and the beast on ice, and pulled them away long enough to kill the might boss (little freak, had to step on him twice to kill him). pulled the lords @ at a time to finish them off :P After that was was little more careful on that level hehe...|||Casters always seem to be much easier untwinked, not having to worry about keeping your weapon current ALL THE TIME.
Especially since 1.10, it seems to be pretty much impossible to kill stuff as melee untwinked (even a twinked melee can get pretty tough in spots).
Best bet is get the best possible weapon you can get for an act 2 merc and just tank for him while he kills everything. An insight ethereal polearm gives extremely good damage for the level if you can get the sol rune (for your merc, not you of course, stick with the weapon/shield!)
Of course take it with a grain of salt, I have not actually finished norm-hell untwinked with melee, just casters. You seem to be doing great so far.|||Thanks. I actually did just respec for NM, then went back to norm to mess around. Glad I went to WW vs Conc at this point. Conc is just too slow.
Even though my 1 weapon was weak, wielding 2 of them and using WW (safely..) yeilds sooo many more hits, even with lousy IAS/Breakpoint.
I lucked out further and a Duskdeep helm dropped, which has very useful damage reduction. Then I just got a Humongous Giant Axe. Wholly crap what a difference. I just tanked Diablo and Baal in one run no problem (using cathans ring for life leech and 1 ring/1 ammy for mana leech.
Most likely I'll go back to shield/weapon for safety ww when I go back to NM, but right now I'm getting lvl's quickly in norm with the setup now.
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