Making a new char, advice please

[norvi11erogers]

Hi,

So this week, I made my first classic char since, well, LOD came out. She was a cowazon in the 60s for whom I got almost everything I intended to get for her when inexplicably, someone decided to kill the nmare cow king. Instead of admitting the char was ruined, i did some nmare meph and diablo runs, and while freak LIs in cs were sort of annoying, things worked pretty well.

The point of the story is that this character has run its course, and while i've not amassed anything resembling wealth, I have found enough items to probably get another character started. I was thinking a whirlymartel barb, as out of all the barbs I've made, zero have wielded giant hammers.

pros of this build:
with equipt, should be able to kill relatively well
cons:
equipt

I haven't really found anything that seems particularly suited for a whirlybarb, and while I have a bonesnap and a few free imbues, I can't say I'm too hopeful. Cookie cutter builds are boring.

I saw this paladin in a cow game using conviction and shooting explosive arrows. Seemed like a good idea, I thought, lowering enemy's def and resists. What i'm wondering, though, is how a pally like this could manage to kill anything. The best available unique has either level 3 or level 5 explosive bolts. When I made an enchantress, the vast majority of her damage came from enchant, mastry, and lil items, not from the explosion itself. is there any way that a character like the one i saw do any damage?

If no one has a good answer, I might like to try it out in SP before commiting too much time to the char. Can anyone direct me to a SP trainer that is not bubbling with trojans? I clearly plan on doing no harm to the single player community, as this program would be for just my use. I mean, I dont even play SP. I've read the SP faq and rules, and I understand that people are not allowed to respond in the forum, but seeing as I don't trust things on google as much as I trust people at dii.net, if someone could pm me with any ideas, that'd be awesome.

But respond here if you have suggestions for the character I should make. I'm also open to pretty much any suggestion, though I will almost certainly not be making another cowazon, and I've had about my fill of hammerdins...

[zrk]

You could use your cow killa to do hell cows - better drops there and a decent lightning fury ama has no problems killing there either.

Another fun idea would be to use a ranger (paladin who uses a bow and has holy freeze or holy shock as their aura). This fella can do decent damage: 1k per arrow with holy freeze and 2k with holy shock. You can also make a hybrid of these two builds which doesnt have immunity problems.

A conviction ranger indeed wouldnt cut it if you used him as a solo char... if you had an enchantress to enchant him then he could do well though.

You can also just do a sorc ranger who uses a 6 ptopaz bow as a weapon, has enchant and its synergies maxed AND has lightning mastery maxed which increases the elemental damage on the bow.

If you dont know already, theres a great skill planner available which is very helpful for planning the skillpoints of your characters. Just search for "diablo 2 skill planner" on google and the first response should be the right one :P

[WarlockCC]

In classic, characters cannot get skills from other classes.
The pala you saw was probably using a ravenclaw, which works really well in normal cows. In NM cows you need help, either enchant, or, maybe conviction is enough to get it done. You only need to get your conviction to take off 100% of their resists, cause cows just don't have any resists.
Give it a go in SP, like you said. Be sure to try with the ravenclaw, as this makes all the difference.
Zrk indeed poses a good choice aswell with the ranger sorc.
Though I would make a enchantress with a ravenclaw, since the fire mastery boosts the damage of the explosions, it boosts the enchant damage and it boosts the damage after the enchant. Tripple bonus there I'd say.
But with Zrk's option you have 2 elements, allowing you to kill fire immune bosses in NM cows. I wager Fire immune bosses are more frequent there.
Parking those fire immunes isn't allways an option of you run into them early in the cowgame.

On the other side, you could take up a bit of orb for those bosses, you have a sorc after all. :)

[Ijakeash]

Since all you have is a bonesnap, I would reccomend getting rattlecage and goblintoes. Crushers(barbs with 90%+ crushing blow) are devastating in cow levels. I have one, it uses a 230+ helm, bladebuckle, bonesnap(perfect of course), goblintoe, dual manalds, eye of the elich amulet, and 90 def greaves(bloodfists would do just fine). At lvl 33 my barb has 2.7k defence, 500 ww damage, and has about 1k life. It is a beast. 500 damage with 90% crushing blow translates to about 800 damage. It already owns all nm cow levels.

[norvi11erogers]

Since all you have is a bonesnap, I would reccomend getting rattlecage and goblintoes. Crushers(barbs with 90%+ crushing blow) are devastating in cow levels. I have one, it uses a 230+ helm, bladebuckle, bonesnap(perfect of course), goblintoe, dual manalds, eye of the elich amulet, and 90 def greaves(bloodfists would do just fine). At lvl 33 my barb has 2.7k defence, 500 ww damage, and has about 1k life. It is a beast. 500 damage with 90% crushing blow translates to about 800 damage. It already owns all nm cow levels.

how much are rattlecage and goblin, and isnt the monster flee annoying?

Yeah, and he was clearly using ravenclaw. The crossbow seems to have higher level explosive bolts, but it's probably slower, or the difference isn't that great.

I could have sworn he was in nmare, but it might have been norm i suppose. maybe he was enchanted...

But one thing that i'm pretty sure is true is that any elemental damage transfers to the explosion. Is it possible at all to stack elemental damage? i suppose one could socket the bow with a pgem, but the rest would have to come from uniques. is there a search option where i can search for every unique with elemental damage?

And one other thing, is -100% really the max? for some reason, i remember wanted to try to get to -150% when i made an avenger. maybe i was planning on resists, or breaking immunities or something, i dont remember. And is it true that cows have zero resists?

[Palm]

I was thinking a whirlymartel barb, as out of all the barbs I've made, zero have wielded giant hammers.Use the Bsnap, it's as good as any martel. Maybe I spent too much time playing hardcore but the thought of 169 base str is like nails on a blackboard to me.I haven't really found anything that seems particularly suited for a whirlybarbHe don't need much. You'll need some form of AR from gear: Angelic ammy+1ring (2 is overkill for pvm) or hsarus belt+boot or sigons helm+something. A mana leecher. That's it. The CB you get from Bsnap is enough.
I saw this paladin in a cow game using conviction and shooting explosive arrows.He was using conviction because he is PvP-built FoHer. The shooting arrows part is just for lvling with ench, it has nothing to do with his build. His damage come from enchant.how much are rattlecage and goblin, and isnt the monster flee annoying?Yes it is, and you don't need that much CB anyway. Get some resists instead. If you can find one switch out your res body armor for an Iceblink when you go cowing. -_-

[tdlofcc]

Iceblink is actually a pretty good idea ... freezing them when you hit.

And who needs res in cows :)

[The Butcher]

169 str does hurt but remember str=dmg with a barb, depending if you are making a pk - if you are you'll need around 1000-1500 ww dmg (minimum) at lvl 80+, 4000-4500 life. A martel with 170 enhanced dmg or more will do and if it has -req so mucht he better. wear with ornate an i use angelic amulet and 1 angelic ring with a str/leech/liife/res ring. find a high str belt an gloves- max str on gloves is nine nowdays i think an belt give you 20 - dont be afraid to wear a 3 socket ame crown or 3 sock ruby if u are hard up