dulson
09-10-2007, 03:28
Hi
I recently joined this forum after years of playing solo with no one else and no one to share my knowledge with. I have some information that I would like to impart to all fellow noobies on gaining wealth. If a post this big is not allowed then please remove it. But after spending the last six hours writing it I think that I could retire from playing just as long as someone gains something from this humble guide
This is a guide for gaining wealth from your first untwinked character.
I have been playing this game for a number of years on single player and on battlenet. Although I still consider myself a noob regarding the masses of information there is to know about this game I have picked up a number of tips that I would like to pass on. Much of it is debateable and many will not agree with it contents but it has served me well when playing.
Diablo has many parallels to real life when it comes to acquiring wealth. The old maxim that “money creates money” is never truer than when it comes to Diablo.
If you have nothing you will not be able to slaughter your way through eight player hell games picking up all the goodies that drop. If this is your first character your killing speed will be far slower and Hell games may be a future consideration for you.
The received wisdom on Diablo is that you should create a Meteor/Orb sorc that combines the Ice and Fire trees and get to work. Load her up with MF and run Nightmare Andy and Meph until you get good items and then run Andy and Meph in Hell. This character is only temporary until you get the items you need to create better characters more suited to your needs.
I do not believe that this is the way to play the game. As a start up character you will have to use her for a long time and eventually she may hit lvl 90, do you really want to then relegate this character to the role of a mule when so much time has been invested in her. She well may be your strongest character for a long time but she is weakened by splitting her skill points between two separate elements
There are a number of characters that you can use as a first character and each of them has there own merits.
But first you can disregard all melee characters as they rely on weapons which you do not have. This is apart from frost/lightning paladins who I will discuss at the bottom of the page.
Necromancer using summons and corpse explosion.
I have heard it said many time that this character can run hell naked, but I have yet to find a single person who has done this. Yes it can be done but it is a slow laborious process and your killing speed it very poor. These are one of my favourite characters but I prefer to play them for the fun of the build.
Regardless of what people tell you all necromancers I have met have told me that skellies are poor in hell when untwinked and it is the Revives that stay alive the longest and if you are moving around they tend to get lost and they are your only protection.
What really happens in hell is this; you have multiple skellies who form a wall between you and the enemy and then you have a merc who sits on the end picking of the bad guys one at a time. You then use Corpse explosion to try to bring down the rest. Your skellies kill nothing as you are a start up character and corpse explosion is not very efficient in larger games as the monster life does not scale up.
Most successful necromancers either have masses of high end gear and lots of playing experience or they use bone spear/spirit with raise summons.
They are great characters with the right gear or the right attitude.
Lightning trapper
Great character for a first timer, but beware her damage is not great when untwinked and she cannot teleport and she cannot kill light immune characters.
Load her up with all MF gear and then kill your way to Meph and Andy and hope you turn up something nice. Good solid character especially when used with the shadow master and a merc to deal with light immunes.
Frost/lightning paladin
These are great characters in so far as they will deal masses of elemental damage with very poor equipment, but they do have one fundamental flaw as an untwinked character and that is that all melee characters rely on leach to live. No melee man will live long without it. You may do 3K lightning damage but only do 150 melee damage with an old sword you found which is the best you can get.
For this build to work you need a good weapon and Zeal and Sacrifice maxed for leach otherwise you may be killing but your will die very quickly
Meteor/orb Sorc
She is weak and prone to dying quickly but she can deal with most monsters in the game and we should be glad that she is on our side. Load her up with Magic Find gear and then get to those bosses.
But the downside is that she is a temporary character who you will disregards at some point and I believe that she does have a number of weaknesses that will slow her down which include splitting her power between two trees. But she can teleport.
Considerations for any Sorc to deal with that teleports
A serious problem that all Sorcs that teleport to bosses have is there level of Faster Cast Rate and the Faster Hit Recovery rate.
1. Faster Cast Rate. This is given by the items you wear and will be imperative to your success if you do decide to Boss run.
The more FCR equipment you have the faster you will teleport. When you have none monsters are more likely to get a free swing at you as you pass them by. If you have more they are less likely to do so. As a start up character with none everything that is near you will hit you and your death will come sooner rather than later. Charging around Meph’s place in hell or nightmare with no FCR will lead to death and make you bored of the game. As you gain certain items this will increase to a point where most monsters will not even register your passing. Try to aim for around 63% as an initial figure
2. Faster Hit Recovery. This is very underrated, but is probably the most important stat that a sorc should have and is again provided by equipment. I will explain it in simplistic terms as this is a noobie forum. When any character is successfully hit by a monster they go into a short period where they are stunned and cannot do anything else. This allows monsters to hit them again. So if a sorc teleports through a big pack of monsters and get hit they will stay there for a small period of time trying to recover allowing lots of monsters to hit them again. Items that grant FHR will reduce the stun time. This is why a naked Metor/orb sorc is so bad at boss running as they had none of each and initial attempts may be flawed which is why they are force to run Andy in Nightmare 500 times (this is not an exaggeration). The Spirit rune word shield provides 55% FHR which is just one reason why this shield is just so good for its cost
Item farming By Magic Find a very small critique.
If there is ever a way to start to hate this game and tire of it quickly it is the MF the big bosses. Teleporting there and then killing Andy or Meph. 500 runs later and you have not turned up that much and everyone else seems to have everything. How do I gain wealth you say well MF is exactly the wrong way to do it. It has its place but boss running is very tedious. The sheer joy of this game is in its killing of masses of creatures and that is what you should concentrate on. MF should not be an end unto itself but as another way of finding wealth.
MF as a wealth builder
Apart from end game items most uniques that you find will be worthless and you will be dumping them constantly. Even Elite items are usually dumped. Your chances of coming across a big find will be minimal and as you are untwinked your killing speed is very much reduced. Most of the very best items are only dropped by Baal or Nith and if you have no items then you will never get there or it will take an age and a half.
An example of the MF problem are shields. Almost every unique shield in the game will be dumped apart from a handful that may fetch a few pgems at the market. The only real exception is the Paladin HOZ shield. As for gloves there are around 3-4 that have any value and this is again mainly perfect gems apart from a selected few.
MY PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION FOR A FIRST CHARACTER THAT WILL BE DISMISSED BY 95% OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER LIVED
A Lightning Sorc. A sorcerer who uses only lightning skills to kill monsters. Yes that’s right a light sorc.
Why because with my soon to be explained strategy all you want to do is mass kill monsters as quickly as possible and Chain Lighting is the best skill to do this. You target a single monster in a pack and hold down the mouse until everything is dead. The lightning will jump from monster to monster killing everything. There is no timer on this skill so you don’t have to wait. If a there is a champion around then this is to your advantage target him and he will be a conduit of death to everything else then use lighting on him only when everything else is dead.. You should have pure lightning on your left button and chain lighting/teleport on you right button. Have chain light on F1 and Teleport on F2.
Stat placement
Str 156
Dex base
Vitality everything else
Mana base- that’s right base.
Place a single point in warmth for mana regeneration.
Single point in teleport and its prerequisites
Skills
20 lightning mastery
20 chain lightning
20 lightning
Then
20 charge bolt
20 Nova
This is a standard build.
The main criticism for this build is that it has problems with lighting immunes and lightning is very mana intensive and you can run out very quickly. This is true but can be compensated by a few small measures.
Initial Items to wear.
Some of the end game items are very common and can be purchases for a few perfect gems
Your first buy should be
Magefist gloves as they give an extra 40% to your meagre mana stock. (Cost 2-3pgems tops)
Look for high mana rings and amulets if possible. ID everyone you come across. A mana ring with 80-100 mana is just great for you although if you find one with 25mana use it until something better comes along. These are everywhere from Nightmare onwards
Boots- look for a high walk rate speed. Nataylas boots have 40% run faster and lots of elemental resistance on them. (Cost 2-3pgms tops)
Belt, helm, Orb (weapon) should all be from the Tal Rasha set. These are the cheapest parts of the set and are widely available. They give plenty of bonuses including magic find (65%) life regeneration and some elemental resistances. The price should be 2-3 pgems each apart from the Orb which should be 4-6pgems. Try to get one with +2 lightning skills.
Your first armour purchase should be the “Skin of the Viper Magi” it is a fantastic piece of kit for its value and has everything for a start up. Its value is dependant on the level of elemental resistance it has. They come with between 20-35 resist all. A 35 res all will be worth a PUL-UM to the right buyer, a 20-25 will be worth a few pgems. This is the one that you want. Everything else on the armour will be the same from 30% faster cast rate and +1 to skills.
Shield- Spirit in a monarch shield. This is why you have to have 156str. It is fantastic and by far as good as it gets. I could harp on all day about the merits of this shield. The runes are very low level and three of them are awarded in an act5 quest. The other one if not found will be available for a pgem or two.
The hardest part of obtaining this rune word will be finding the shield itself. When you are fully equipped you will find hundreds but initially you won’t find any. They cost around 12 pgems and may be your most expensive initial purchase. But you may get them cheaper if you find a rich player looking to clear out there mules.
This set up will do you just fine initially and should give you a good mana pool with which to get moving with.
Upgrades
Later you may which to upgrade the armour to a Tal Rasha (MAL UM)
Tals Helm to a Shako (UM)
The Tals orb to an oculus (PUL-UM)
The amulet to a Tal’s amulet (UM-MAL)
The rings to whatever you wish.
Plug a perfect topaz into the armour and helm to give you an extra 48% magic find and your worn equipment will be finished (ok you can put an Ist in the Occy but this is for start ups). This should give you a tremendous boost in skills plus giving around 300%MF. Making you an all round killing machine.
Merc
More than any other character this build has a very close relationship with her Merc who serves as a Meat shield and as a killer of light immunes. As she is so weak physically it is really is a double act as your character needs her Merc more than most ever will. She has no summons and can rely on no one else.
At level 83 you should stop eight player hell Baal runs and buy yourself a defensive act2 nightmare merc. There freezing aura will slow anything coming towards you and give you more time to react. The Merc must be lvl 83 or he will not have the strength to equip the weapon I have listed.
This is the best and cheapest initial merc equipment you can get. Its entire focus is on keeping him alive so that you can fry monsters from behind him. The emphasis is on life steal/and resists with a few other nice mods thrown in.
Duriels armour. This is the most underrated armour in the game and has everything. Resists, bonus to life, cannot be frozen and most importantly +15 to strength. Cost is between free and 6pgems
Helm Tals Rasha. Very cheap helm with +15 all res and +10 life steal (cost few pgems)
Weapon. Bonehue. A huge big damaging weapon with two sockets. Place two Amn runes in here and you have a total life steal of 24% (cost 4-6pgems). But it has a strength requirement of 195 which is why you need the Duriels armour for the strength bonus
What should you look for as a wealth builder?
The best piece of information I can give is that FLAWLESS GEMS are your friend and will get you far further initially than MF. You can find them when you reach nightmare just lying on the ground after you have massacred a group of monsters. Use the horadric Cube to combine 3 flawless gems of the same type to create a Perfect Gem. The Pgem market is the best form of currency for most items. Collect them wherever you find them. Create a mule specifically to hold them. Use these to buy your initial items. This will be your main source of income initially.
Charms
I have a real thing about charms and they are my favourite items in the game. A grand charm found deep in hell waiting to be for an ID is a fantastic thing. It could be anything from a Pally combat skiller with lots of life to a +1 to mana. People will pay through the nose for good charms but my advice to you is to keep them unless you really are not going to use them. What you sell them for is dependant on your list of equipment needs. If you are still all in blue gear then for instance sell your bow skiller for 30pgems (30pgems roughly equals a PUL) and then use those to equip your character quickly. If you are high end and cannot buy any of the goods you need for just pgems then take that PUL and spend or horde it the choice is yours.
For small skillers anything with 20life or 15-20 life with extra mana or elemental resist has value. The list is endless and I am sure that you can find what to look for on this forum.
Grand charms; the Plus one to skillers is your biggest find especially if it comes with life. The best are worth several high runes if they have life to a few pgems for the lesser ones.
But my advice to you is to fill up your inventory with what you find within reason. As you have low mana a grand charm with +50 to mana is worthless on the open market but to you it is a fantastic thing. A grand charm with 25 life should be stored until something better comes along. They all give little advantages that give you the edge you need.
If you find a small skiller with 10life/ 10 mana keep it. If you have nothing in there then use the space. For a long time I had a small skiller with 9 life that was there simply because there was nothing better to take its place.
Socketables
This is a strange one as there are many Socketables that people want but no one ever seems to be interested in buying. A few examples are.
4socket flail
5socket phase blade
3 socket phase blade
4 socket hydra bow
There are a few Socketables that will always be in demand and people will pay handsomely for them
Eth Berserker Axe 6 sockets
Eth Colossus Voulge 4 sockets
Eth Cryptic Axe 4 sockets
Mage plate 15%ED defence 3Sox
Eth Vortex shield with 45res
Grand matron bow +3 skills 4 sockets
Find one of these and you are laughing
But there are many others that may get you a good deal if the right buyer comes along
These are too many to list at present but you should always try to get the approx values here so that no one has the opportunity to rip you off.
Someone once pretended to innocently offer me a PUL for a 3x3 keyset when I said that I did not know what they were worth. Its worth a Mal (four times the price)
You can tell them as the never innocently offer you more than what its worth.
And finally Magic Find
Having some Magic find is always a good thing but never under any circumstance reduce your killing power for MF. This set up which is in no way my creation never sacrifices killing power but still has lots of MF. You could from the outset plug a four socket armour with 4 perfect topas and a 3 socket helm with 3 perfect topazes. You could have chance guard gloves and a magic find belt. Use could hold a Gull knife and use only MF gear. You would have lots of MF but you would be effectively naked running around in hell and an easy target for any monster nearby and I can tell you that no one is good enough the teleport to Meph in Hell naked without being chopped to pieces or drinking purple pots every 5 seconds.
How to play the game for wealth.
This is the way that I did it and it may not be for everyone.
I rushed through normal difficulty with others and then did Baal runs. Never sit back doing nothing and just leach experience points as this is just bad manners. Your input will be minimal but just sit at the back and fire off lightning to do your bit. When i was at lvl 40 I joined a game called “Baal4quest” or something like that. These are people rushing low level characters to hell so that they can get a good rune from the hellforge drop. They need you to get there rushed character to the next difficulty level. Always ask if you can join them through Nightmare and that you will be no trouble. If they agree ask for a game name and enter. Be quiet and DO NOT PICK UP THE DROPS and they will let you go all the way with them. I go into these games and ask if they are hellforge rushing. If they have no interest in helping you rush along with them then just leave as there are plenty of players who will. You can tell who they are as they are normally very talkative but then when you party they will not talk to you anymore when you start asking them about nighmare rushing.
When you reach level 60 in nightmare continue again into hell using the same procedure.
When you get to level 83 in hell you can relax and get your Merc and start killing proper.
Early on keep lots of blue pots around as you may only have 300-400 mana in store. As you get all the initial items on the earlier list and a few mana skillers plus mana rings/amulet it should raise to around 800-1000.
Go back and do any skill/resist quests you missed in normal and nightmare and then get to work.
When you are in hell a quarter of the populous are immune to lightning but only the ones you don’t care about. In the main it is the undead or mostly monsters who you can run away from or you can let your merc deal with them.
I initially cleared out all of the huge open areas of Act1 in hell. My favourite method was to come across a carver camp with maybe 50-80 monsters in it and hold down that chain lightning button. If you joined a game with lots of other players then there will be masses of items as drops increase with more players including the wonderful flawless gems. If you are lucky there will be a charm or two laying around for you to look at. Maybe a Unique or two. Once you have all the waypoints for the open areas of act1 in hell you can jump to one and if it is full of light immunes then move to another waypoint and it will not be.
Most players do not care if you jump in and kill open areas of monsters but they will not be happy if you kill bosses. Try to find big games such ones mark “Duel or act 2 all quests” you can then run around happily killing your way across the open areas of the game without ruining the game for other people.
Another area to run in Act1 is the pits. This is great for gem farming with the added bonus that monsters can drop any item in the game although I am yet to be convinced just watch out for the light immune archers as they can be painful.
But the area of choice is your own remember that pgems are found everywhere, but stay away from the undead as they all seem to be light immune.
When you are a lot stronger the best area in the game to run by far is the worldstone keep level 1-3. Monsters here can drop everything in the game and they can drop gems and high level socketables. If by this time you have 300%MF and you are looking for socketables don’t worry you will still find them. MF does not have that much of an effect regardless of what people think. Don’t worry about running Baal the real wealth is in the killing of lots of monsters not just one big one. I found my HOZ shield on a dead carver in act one hell!
When you are really powerful and might run the worldstone keep level 1-3 in eight player games and your wealth will go through the roof, but one word of warning if there are any Gloams around then leave straight away. They fire lighting which can kill a character with 75% light immunity and you may still be in the negatives at this point. One or two shots and you are dead.
Key running
One of the best ways to leave the Pgem economy that most players are stuck in is to engage in Key Running. When you have at least the minimal gear and a faster cast rate of 63% go key running. They have different wealth values but most agree that 1 destruction key is worth 2 of the hate or terror keys. This is because acquisition of the Destruction key is by far the hardest to get.
Terror keys are found on the countess on ACT1 in the tower in the black marsh. You have to teleport around until you find the tower and then find your way down five levels and kill her. The benefits are that if she does not drop a key she will always drops a few low level runes
Hate keys are found on the second last waypoint of ACT2. Teleport around until you find the summoner. He is easy but if he does not drop a key he will not drop anything else normally.
Destruction keys are found in Niths place and require you to do the Anya quest which is epic in its own right. If you are still weak then go in a group or ask for help. Once you have done that you can run Nith. Always find the Waypoint before you kill him as otherwise the portal will close and you will not be able to get there again. He is surrounded by monsters and when you kill them he can use corpse explosion to rip you apart. The damage can be up into the thousands which a one hit death for you. To stop this use a natures peace ring which stops him from using corpses and a Dwarf Star ring that reduces fire damage (corpse explosion is 50% physical 50% fire). But remember that if you’re Merc kills a monster it can be used by Nith for a Corpse explosion. The same problem exists for suicide monsters that explode on contact.
Killing Nith when weak
If you want to kill him more easily get to his area where he will wait on a raise square containing lots of monsters but do not approach. Just get close enough so that you can see the corner of the square and then fire directly into the square with chain lighting. To this repeatedly and if any monsters come towards you just target them. After a few seconds everything on the square should be dead apart from Nith. Run towards him and just use lightning on him until he is dead. The benefits of Nith are that he can drop any item in the game. I have found Tals armour, Mara amulet plus much more from him including a couple of grand charms that can be rerolled as skill charms with life. These are some of the most valuable items in the game.
A keyset is worth a PUL
3 keysets are worth a MAL
A good torch from Tristrum is worth a fortune. If a Pally torch 20/20 is ever offered see what it goes for.
Eventually you will want to build a character to acquire the organs and run Tristrum. This is a guide in itself and there are plenty of them on this site I believe that are far better than I could produce. My only advice is this. No one ever defeated the Tristrum triplets solo without Dracs gloves or a lifetap wand or the extremely expensive Exile runeword shield
I recently joined this forum after years of playing solo with no one else and no one to share my knowledge with. I have some information that I would like to impart to all fellow noobies on gaining wealth. If a post this big is not allowed then please remove it. But after spending the last six hours writing it I think that I could retire from playing just as long as someone gains something from this humble guide
This is a guide for gaining wealth from your first untwinked character.
I have been playing this game for a number of years on single player and on battlenet. Although I still consider myself a noob regarding the masses of information there is to know about this game I have picked up a number of tips that I would like to pass on. Much of it is debateable and many will not agree with it contents but it has served me well when playing.
Diablo has many parallels to real life when it comes to acquiring wealth. The old maxim that “money creates money” is never truer than when it comes to Diablo.
If you have nothing you will not be able to slaughter your way through eight player hell games picking up all the goodies that drop. If this is your first character your killing speed will be far slower and Hell games may be a future consideration for you.
The received wisdom on Diablo is that you should create a Meteor/Orb sorc that combines the Ice and Fire trees and get to work. Load her up with MF and run Nightmare Andy and Meph until you get good items and then run Andy and Meph in Hell. This character is only temporary until you get the items you need to create better characters more suited to your needs.
I do not believe that this is the way to play the game. As a start up character you will have to use her for a long time and eventually she may hit lvl 90, do you really want to then relegate this character to the role of a mule when so much time has been invested in her. She well may be your strongest character for a long time but she is weakened by splitting her skill points between two separate elements
There are a number of characters that you can use as a first character and each of them has there own merits.
But first you can disregard all melee characters as they rely on weapons which you do not have. This is apart from frost/lightning paladins who I will discuss at the bottom of the page.
Necromancer using summons and corpse explosion.
I have heard it said many time that this character can run hell naked, but I have yet to find a single person who has done this. Yes it can be done but it is a slow laborious process and your killing speed it very poor. These are one of my favourite characters but I prefer to play them for the fun of the build.
Regardless of what people tell you all necromancers I have met have told me that skellies are poor in hell when untwinked and it is the Revives that stay alive the longest and if you are moving around they tend to get lost and they are your only protection.
What really happens in hell is this; you have multiple skellies who form a wall between you and the enemy and then you have a merc who sits on the end picking of the bad guys one at a time. You then use Corpse explosion to try to bring down the rest. Your skellies kill nothing as you are a start up character and corpse explosion is not very efficient in larger games as the monster life does not scale up.
Most successful necromancers either have masses of high end gear and lots of playing experience or they use bone spear/spirit with raise summons.
They are great characters with the right gear or the right attitude.
Lightning trapper
Great character for a first timer, but beware her damage is not great when untwinked and she cannot teleport and she cannot kill light immune characters.
Load her up with all MF gear and then kill your way to Meph and Andy and hope you turn up something nice. Good solid character especially when used with the shadow master and a merc to deal with light immunes.
Frost/lightning paladin
These are great characters in so far as they will deal masses of elemental damage with very poor equipment, but they do have one fundamental flaw as an untwinked character and that is that all melee characters rely on leach to live. No melee man will live long without it. You may do 3K lightning damage but only do 150 melee damage with an old sword you found which is the best you can get.
For this build to work you need a good weapon and Zeal and Sacrifice maxed for leach otherwise you may be killing but your will die very quickly
Meteor/orb Sorc
She is weak and prone to dying quickly but she can deal with most monsters in the game and we should be glad that she is on our side. Load her up with Magic Find gear and then get to those bosses.
But the downside is that she is a temporary character who you will disregards at some point and I believe that she does have a number of weaknesses that will slow her down which include splitting her power between two trees. But she can teleport.
Considerations for any Sorc to deal with that teleports
A serious problem that all Sorcs that teleport to bosses have is there level of Faster Cast Rate and the Faster Hit Recovery rate.
1. Faster Cast Rate. This is given by the items you wear and will be imperative to your success if you do decide to Boss run.
The more FCR equipment you have the faster you will teleport. When you have none monsters are more likely to get a free swing at you as you pass them by. If you have more they are less likely to do so. As a start up character with none everything that is near you will hit you and your death will come sooner rather than later. Charging around Meph’s place in hell or nightmare with no FCR will lead to death and make you bored of the game. As you gain certain items this will increase to a point where most monsters will not even register your passing. Try to aim for around 63% as an initial figure
2. Faster Hit Recovery. This is very underrated, but is probably the most important stat that a sorc should have and is again provided by equipment. I will explain it in simplistic terms as this is a noobie forum. When any character is successfully hit by a monster they go into a short period where they are stunned and cannot do anything else. This allows monsters to hit them again. So if a sorc teleports through a big pack of monsters and get hit they will stay there for a small period of time trying to recover allowing lots of monsters to hit them again. Items that grant FHR will reduce the stun time. This is why a naked Metor/orb sorc is so bad at boss running as they had none of each and initial attempts may be flawed which is why they are force to run Andy in Nightmare 500 times (this is not an exaggeration). The Spirit rune word shield provides 55% FHR which is just one reason why this shield is just so good for its cost
Item farming By Magic Find a very small critique.
If there is ever a way to start to hate this game and tire of it quickly it is the MF the big bosses. Teleporting there and then killing Andy or Meph. 500 runs later and you have not turned up that much and everyone else seems to have everything. How do I gain wealth you say well MF is exactly the wrong way to do it. It has its place but boss running is very tedious. The sheer joy of this game is in its killing of masses of creatures and that is what you should concentrate on. MF should not be an end unto itself but as another way of finding wealth.
MF as a wealth builder
Apart from end game items most uniques that you find will be worthless and you will be dumping them constantly. Even Elite items are usually dumped. Your chances of coming across a big find will be minimal and as you are untwinked your killing speed is very much reduced. Most of the very best items are only dropped by Baal or Nith and if you have no items then you will never get there or it will take an age and a half.
An example of the MF problem are shields. Almost every unique shield in the game will be dumped apart from a handful that may fetch a few pgems at the market. The only real exception is the Paladin HOZ shield. As for gloves there are around 3-4 that have any value and this is again mainly perfect gems apart from a selected few.
MY PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION FOR A FIRST CHARACTER THAT WILL BE DISMISSED BY 95% OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER LIVED
A Lightning Sorc. A sorcerer who uses only lightning skills to kill monsters. Yes that’s right a light sorc.
Why because with my soon to be explained strategy all you want to do is mass kill monsters as quickly as possible and Chain Lighting is the best skill to do this. You target a single monster in a pack and hold down the mouse until everything is dead. The lightning will jump from monster to monster killing everything. There is no timer on this skill so you don’t have to wait. If a there is a champion around then this is to your advantage target him and he will be a conduit of death to everything else then use lighting on him only when everything else is dead.. You should have pure lightning on your left button and chain lighting/teleport on you right button. Have chain light on F1 and Teleport on F2.
Stat placement
Str 156
Dex base
Vitality everything else
Mana base- that’s right base.
Place a single point in warmth for mana regeneration.
Single point in teleport and its prerequisites
Skills
20 lightning mastery
20 chain lightning
20 lightning
Then
20 charge bolt
20 Nova
This is a standard build.
The main criticism for this build is that it has problems with lighting immunes and lightning is very mana intensive and you can run out very quickly. This is true but can be compensated by a few small measures.
Initial Items to wear.
Some of the end game items are very common and can be purchases for a few perfect gems
Your first buy should be
Magefist gloves as they give an extra 40% to your meagre mana stock. (Cost 2-3pgems tops)
Look for high mana rings and amulets if possible. ID everyone you come across. A mana ring with 80-100 mana is just great for you although if you find one with 25mana use it until something better comes along. These are everywhere from Nightmare onwards
Boots- look for a high walk rate speed. Nataylas boots have 40% run faster and lots of elemental resistance on them. (Cost 2-3pgms tops)
Belt, helm, Orb (weapon) should all be from the Tal Rasha set. These are the cheapest parts of the set and are widely available. They give plenty of bonuses including magic find (65%) life regeneration and some elemental resistances. The price should be 2-3 pgems each apart from the Orb which should be 4-6pgems. Try to get one with +2 lightning skills.
Your first armour purchase should be the “Skin of the Viper Magi” it is a fantastic piece of kit for its value and has everything for a start up. Its value is dependant on the level of elemental resistance it has. They come with between 20-35 resist all. A 35 res all will be worth a PUL-UM to the right buyer, a 20-25 will be worth a few pgems. This is the one that you want. Everything else on the armour will be the same from 30% faster cast rate and +1 to skills.
Shield- Spirit in a monarch shield. This is why you have to have 156str. It is fantastic and by far as good as it gets. I could harp on all day about the merits of this shield. The runes are very low level and three of them are awarded in an act5 quest. The other one if not found will be available for a pgem or two.
The hardest part of obtaining this rune word will be finding the shield itself. When you are fully equipped you will find hundreds but initially you won’t find any. They cost around 12 pgems and may be your most expensive initial purchase. But you may get them cheaper if you find a rich player looking to clear out there mules.
This set up will do you just fine initially and should give you a good mana pool with which to get moving with.
Upgrades
Later you may which to upgrade the armour to a Tal Rasha (MAL UM)
Tals Helm to a Shako (UM)
The Tals orb to an oculus (PUL-UM)
The amulet to a Tal’s amulet (UM-MAL)
The rings to whatever you wish.
Plug a perfect topaz into the armour and helm to give you an extra 48% magic find and your worn equipment will be finished (ok you can put an Ist in the Occy but this is for start ups). This should give you a tremendous boost in skills plus giving around 300%MF. Making you an all round killing machine.
Merc
More than any other character this build has a very close relationship with her Merc who serves as a Meat shield and as a killer of light immunes. As she is so weak physically it is really is a double act as your character needs her Merc more than most ever will. She has no summons and can rely on no one else.
At level 83 you should stop eight player hell Baal runs and buy yourself a defensive act2 nightmare merc. There freezing aura will slow anything coming towards you and give you more time to react. The Merc must be lvl 83 or he will not have the strength to equip the weapon I have listed.
This is the best and cheapest initial merc equipment you can get. Its entire focus is on keeping him alive so that you can fry monsters from behind him. The emphasis is on life steal/and resists with a few other nice mods thrown in.
Duriels armour. This is the most underrated armour in the game and has everything. Resists, bonus to life, cannot be frozen and most importantly +15 to strength. Cost is between free and 6pgems
Helm Tals Rasha. Very cheap helm with +15 all res and +10 life steal (cost few pgems)
Weapon. Bonehue. A huge big damaging weapon with two sockets. Place two Amn runes in here and you have a total life steal of 24% (cost 4-6pgems). But it has a strength requirement of 195 which is why you need the Duriels armour for the strength bonus
What should you look for as a wealth builder?
The best piece of information I can give is that FLAWLESS GEMS are your friend and will get you far further initially than MF. You can find them when you reach nightmare just lying on the ground after you have massacred a group of monsters. Use the horadric Cube to combine 3 flawless gems of the same type to create a Perfect Gem. The Pgem market is the best form of currency for most items. Collect them wherever you find them. Create a mule specifically to hold them. Use these to buy your initial items. This will be your main source of income initially.
Charms
I have a real thing about charms and they are my favourite items in the game. A grand charm found deep in hell waiting to be for an ID is a fantastic thing. It could be anything from a Pally combat skiller with lots of life to a +1 to mana. People will pay through the nose for good charms but my advice to you is to keep them unless you really are not going to use them. What you sell them for is dependant on your list of equipment needs. If you are still all in blue gear then for instance sell your bow skiller for 30pgems (30pgems roughly equals a PUL) and then use those to equip your character quickly. If you are high end and cannot buy any of the goods you need for just pgems then take that PUL and spend or horde it the choice is yours.
For small skillers anything with 20life or 15-20 life with extra mana or elemental resist has value. The list is endless and I am sure that you can find what to look for on this forum.
Grand charms; the Plus one to skillers is your biggest find especially if it comes with life. The best are worth several high runes if they have life to a few pgems for the lesser ones.
But my advice to you is to fill up your inventory with what you find within reason. As you have low mana a grand charm with +50 to mana is worthless on the open market but to you it is a fantastic thing. A grand charm with 25 life should be stored until something better comes along. They all give little advantages that give you the edge you need.
If you find a small skiller with 10life/ 10 mana keep it. If you have nothing in there then use the space. For a long time I had a small skiller with 9 life that was there simply because there was nothing better to take its place.
Socketables
This is a strange one as there are many Socketables that people want but no one ever seems to be interested in buying. A few examples are.
4socket flail
5socket phase blade
3 socket phase blade
4 socket hydra bow
There are a few Socketables that will always be in demand and people will pay handsomely for them
Eth Berserker Axe 6 sockets
Eth Colossus Voulge 4 sockets
Eth Cryptic Axe 4 sockets
Mage plate 15%ED defence 3Sox
Eth Vortex shield with 45res
Grand matron bow +3 skills 4 sockets
Find one of these and you are laughing
But there are many others that may get you a good deal if the right buyer comes along
These are too many to list at present but you should always try to get the approx values here so that no one has the opportunity to rip you off.
Someone once pretended to innocently offer me a PUL for a 3x3 keyset when I said that I did not know what they were worth. Its worth a Mal (four times the price)
You can tell them as the never innocently offer you more than what its worth.
And finally Magic Find
Having some Magic find is always a good thing but never under any circumstance reduce your killing power for MF. This set up which is in no way my creation never sacrifices killing power but still has lots of MF. You could from the outset plug a four socket armour with 4 perfect topas and a 3 socket helm with 3 perfect topazes. You could have chance guard gloves and a magic find belt. Use could hold a Gull knife and use only MF gear. You would have lots of MF but you would be effectively naked running around in hell and an easy target for any monster nearby and I can tell you that no one is good enough the teleport to Meph in Hell naked without being chopped to pieces or drinking purple pots every 5 seconds.
How to play the game for wealth.
This is the way that I did it and it may not be for everyone.
I rushed through normal difficulty with others and then did Baal runs. Never sit back doing nothing and just leach experience points as this is just bad manners. Your input will be minimal but just sit at the back and fire off lightning to do your bit. When i was at lvl 40 I joined a game called “Baal4quest” or something like that. These are people rushing low level characters to hell so that they can get a good rune from the hellforge drop. They need you to get there rushed character to the next difficulty level. Always ask if you can join them through Nightmare and that you will be no trouble. If they agree ask for a game name and enter. Be quiet and DO NOT PICK UP THE DROPS and they will let you go all the way with them. I go into these games and ask if they are hellforge rushing. If they have no interest in helping you rush along with them then just leave as there are plenty of players who will. You can tell who they are as they are normally very talkative but then when you party they will not talk to you anymore when you start asking them about nighmare rushing.
When you reach level 60 in nightmare continue again into hell using the same procedure.
When you get to level 83 in hell you can relax and get your Merc and start killing proper.
Early on keep lots of blue pots around as you may only have 300-400 mana in store. As you get all the initial items on the earlier list and a few mana skillers plus mana rings/amulet it should raise to around 800-1000.
Go back and do any skill/resist quests you missed in normal and nightmare and then get to work.
When you are in hell a quarter of the populous are immune to lightning but only the ones you don’t care about. In the main it is the undead or mostly monsters who you can run away from or you can let your merc deal with them.
I initially cleared out all of the huge open areas of Act1 in hell. My favourite method was to come across a carver camp with maybe 50-80 monsters in it and hold down that chain lightning button. If you joined a game with lots of other players then there will be masses of items as drops increase with more players including the wonderful flawless gems. If you are lucky there will be a charm or two laying around for you to look at. Maybe a Unique or two. Once you have all the waypoints for the open areas of act1 in hell you can jump to one and if it is full of light immunes then move to another waypoint and it will not be.
Most players do not care if you jump in and kill open areas of monsters but they will not be happy if you kill bosses. Try to find big games such ones mark “Duel or act 2 all quests” you can then run around happily killing your way across the open areas of the game without ruining the game for other people.
Another area to run in Act1 is the pits. This is great for gem farming with the added bonus that monsters can drop any item in the game although I am yet to be convinced just watch out for the light immune archers as they can be painful.
But the area of choice is your own remember that pgems are found everywhere, but stay away from the undead as they all seem to be light immune.
When you are a lot stronger the best area in the game to run by far is the worldstone keep level 1-3. Monsters here can drop everything in the game and they can drop gems and high level socketables. If by this time you have 300%MF and you are looking for socketables don’t worry you will still find them. MF does not have that much of an effect regardless of what people think. Don’t worry about running Baal the real wealth is in the killing of lots of monsters not just one big one. I found my HOZ shield on a dead carver in act one hell!
When you are really powerful and might run the worldstone keep level 1-3 in eight player games and your wealth will go through the roof, but one word of warning if there are any Gloams around then leave straight away. They fire lighting which can kill a character with 75% light immunity and you may still be in the negatives at this point. One or two shots and you are dead.
Key running
One of the best ways to leave the Pgem economy that most players are stuck in is to engage in Key Running. When you have at least the minimal gear and a faster cast rate of 63% go key running. They have different wealth values but most agree that 1 destruction key is worth 2 of the hate or terror keys. This is because acquisition of the Destruction key is by far the hardest to get.
Terror keys are found on the countess on ACT1 in the tower in the black marsh. You have to teleport around until you find the tower and then find your way down five levels and kill her. The benefits are that if she does not drop a key she will always drops a few low level runes
Hate keys are found on the second last waypoint of ACT2. Teleport around until you find the summoner. He is easy but if he does not drop a key he will not drop anything else normally.
Destruction keys are found in Niths place and require you to do the Anya quest which is epic in its own right. If you are still weak then go in a group or ask for help. Once you have done that you can run Nith. Always find the Waypoint before you kill him as otherwise the portal will close and you will not be able to get there again. He is surrounded by monsters and when you kill them he can use corpse explosion to rip you apart. The damage can be up into the thousands which a one hit death for you. To stop this use a natures peace ring which stops him from using corpses and a Dwarf Star ring that reduces fire damage (corpse explosion is 50% physical 50% fire). But remember that if you’re Merc kills a monster it can be used by Nith for a Corpse explosion. The same problem exists for suicide monsters that explode on contact.
Killing Nith when weak
If you want to kill him more easily get to his area where he will wait on a raise square containing lots of monsters but do not approach. Just get close enough so that you can see the corner of the square and then fire directly into the square with chain lighting. To this repeatedly and if any monsters come towards you just target them. After a few seconds everything on the square should be dead apart from Nith. Run towards him and just use lightning on him until he is dead. The benefits of Nith are that he can drop any item in the game. I have found Tals armour, Mara amulet plus much more from him including a couple of grand charms that can be rerolled as skill charms with life. These are some of the most valuable items in the game.
A keyset is worth a PUL
3 keysets are worth a MAL
A good torch from Tristrum is worth a fortune. If a Pally torch 20/20 is ever offered see what it goes for.
Eventually you will want to build a character to acquire the organs and run Tristrum. This is a guide in itself and there are plenty of them on this site I believe that are far better than I could produce. My only advice is this. No one ever defeated the Tristrum triplets solo without Dracs gloves or a lifetap wand or the extremely expensive Exile runeword shield