Returning to diablo, need some help..

[Cerberus]

Hi there :)

Decided to pick up diablo again after a rather intensive 2 year period of WoW. Just want some good old fastpaced 800*600 action and diablo 2 really is brilliant :) Planning on completing hell with a friend as a start and take it from there.

I used to play a lot of diablo before quitting a while after 1.10 (I think). I've read up on some guides and decided to go for a meteorb using the guide posted in this forum. Had a sorc somewhere around 90 at the end and could MF pretty well with her using that build. I've leveled to 24 now and I'm starting to remember the basics. There are a few things I'm stuck at however.

Here goes..

Stats; How much strength, dex, vita etc can I "safely" place to start with?
I know I should have enough strength to use the items I'm aiming for endgame, but I'm completely lost at how much I can expect to get from other items, charms and whatnot. Placed around 15 here this far.

I remember dex as being pretty important for blocking and that I should have max block if possible. I'll need more and more to achieve this as I level up if I got it right. Spent no points here yet.

Starting out without any points in energy is very annoying, but this will get better with levels and gear and shouldn't be focused too much on(?). Spent 5 points here I think.

Dump whatever left in Vita after blocking and strength reqs are met?


Then there's defense. Honestly can't remember what use I have for this. It reduces my chances of being hit and guess it's gonna help my merc, but as for using a breastplate vs a mageplate for a runeword? Any big difference?

Gonna use an act 2 merc and get one of those meditation runewords on him. The guy I'm playing with is playing a necro and will be using a might-merc from act 2 (orb+necro might not be the best combo, but we'll get there I guess). What aura should I go for? Remember holy freeze as being pretty useless in hell, so defiance (called "defensive" in normal/hell?)?

We're starting out from scratch, so there won't be any handy high level stuff to pass down, but I guess I could do a fair bit of countess runs and NM meph to get some viable gear going. Not going to trade outside the two og us even if I know it's going be hard.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

[Nimbostratus]

Since you're going untwinked, you should put a little extra into strength and just ignore blocking, since you probably won't find a decent shield for a while.

-Strength: 70-95 should be good enough for any gear you find. Also note that you need 154 if you plan on using a "Spirit" monarch (or any other monarch type shield, for that matter)
-Dexterity: None, since you won't have a good blocking shield just starting out. You might need some for item requirements, though (75 max, if you find Wizardspike)
-Energy: minimal investment. As you mentioned, gear and levels will get you enough mana later on.
-Vitality: Everything else


Defense: On your sorceress, it won't really matter since she'll have low defense no matter what. Besides, playing well enough should prevent it from becoming an issue. For your mercenary, defense will help a whole lot more since he's actually going melee with things.

Mercenary: You basically have 2 choices here.
-Prayer will combine with the Meditation from "Insight" to give you double healing and pretty much eliminate your need for healing potions (though it can't save you from the real heavy hitters).
-Defiance will make your merc and your friend's summons much harder to kill, and it might even boost your own defense into numbers that actually mean something. (don't count on it, though).

[Noite Escura]

Holy Freeze is not useless! Though, if your friend is playing a Summoner, HF may cause corpses to shatter too much. I'll go with Defiance, though Prayer and Thorns can be good alternatives here. If you ever plan on playing solo Defiance is the best.
As for strenght, I usually shoot for 55(Mage Plate) or 77(Dusk Shroud and Heater Shield) when starting from scratch. I think is much easier to find a good block shield than a good caster one, so I always go for block. It helps specially in early levels, but since you are already at level 24 it's your call...
Don't worry about str in charms, life charms are more useful for sorcs.

[Cerberus]

Thanks for the replies :)

Decided to go with the defiance merc. Pretty sure that was what I had last time.

Guess I can't expect to get any extra strength from items, so I'll just put in whatever I need. Gonna go easy to start with, placed 60 there now.