I forgot how leveling was a real pain in classic :S

[Arkansaw]

Trying to get a rush sorc going, Level 18 before I killed Andariel and she almost got me...lol
but yea it was a 4 player game :o

[Akse]

But hey when u struggle to 30 and you finally reach it maaan thats gonna be nice.

I leveled a barb to 29 then friend came to clear CS with pala and I did a leap attack with conc on and died to IM cuz I didn't remember it takes damage now. It was pain to start this character since it was my first one in this ladder. However I made a new barb and I had all kinds of start up gear this time.. so it went slighly easier. I was about 16 level when I did anda and 23 at duri and 26 at mephi :) then I started again to bash my way to level 30 and whirlwind.. and when I finally got it AHHH that felt soo good :)

I remember doing my hc sorcs to 18 level many times before going to anda :) didn't wanna die there. Also things get easier when u get glacial spike.

But keep up the good work :)

[Arkansaw]

Man, I really want to go back to the goodness of expansion soon, can't believe it took me 3 days to complete normal.

Act 2 was about buying mercs again and again to get combat ones, but at least they were still cheap.
Act 3 was actually smooth because of the cold merc, his cold spells were doing much more damage than mine so I could just focus on static. I was using some +2 to Ice blast staff with 2 emeralds, that turned out to be more mana efficient than glacial spike.

Really miss the merc in act 4, Blizzard was the only reason why I could still level on my own...but it was just snail's pace. I was nearly out of gold due to mana pots and after splurging 200k on an Angel's +2 Blizzard staff. The river of flame was enough for one level and CS yet another, so I got The Orb just in time for the seal bosses and Diablo.

Looking back, I completed normal without using a shield at all, amazing and quite unthinkable if this were not classic!

Nightmare was a lot better, easily 3 more levels by the time I got to Stony Fields

[fledgeling]

why werent you leveling with other people? o.o

[Arkansaw]

why werent you leveling with other people? o.o

I wanted to say there are not that many games on asia hc, but I actually I just wanted to make sure I get the hang of things again before I get bumped off as quickly as I get some chanted rush

[Akse]

Nice nice.. Orb build is probably the hardest one to level at low levels if you don't twink at all. It is pain to get 30 :) but after that wohooo.

[Eyez]

i started with a barb when i first started playing again. no items or anything was lvl 70 in two days with a fresh account, no friends, no help. im not telling u my secret though :P

actually not really a secret lol just the secret cow level , is all! ^^

[Arkansaw]

Hmm...but the cow level is only usable after you completed the difficulty, no?

anyway I made it to hell @ lvl 57 :D but decided to take some time off to farm normal Meph for iratha's set and other needed things like twitch etc.

At first things didn't go so well, meph keeps dropping things that either I don't need (crushflange? a few of them) or already have too many (3 raven claws) but eventually things start to pick up as I get more mf-boosting items. I got the entire angelic set w/ 2 pf the rings (it was quite the killer combo together with 25mf boots 25mf gloves and 72mf topaz crown), and eventually the entire iratha set w/o the amulet (meph simply refused to drop it). All that was well within 100 runs.

Then I got truly bored, so started to roam in public games hunting anything from Coldcrow to Big D, and eventually Duriel also (and that means the Summoner too in order to find him), since he's supposedly the next best target for the amulet after a bugged nm andy, and lo and behold, Duriel really did drop the damn thing after 10+ pubby games or so!

[Akse]

Heheh grats. I have the same problem with the unique drops, I think i've gotten 80% of the unique weapons already and nothing good armors or anything yet :). I don't run any one boss. Been doing hell flayer now with about 130MF and this weekend I did 72->78 there and every other or sometimes every game I got 1 unique from there :) and ofc bunch of rares that where pretty useless tho. Now I got spectral shard at least and twichtroe.

Also found a nice wand 20cast 59 mana 2xlight 2x cold res, so I'm planning to make a sorc! I hope I find some nice gear now since I wanna make sorc like I did in ladder 1 with base strenght :) I prolly go for orb static.. not sure if i put some firewall for cold immune kills. Most likely I try to go with the wand, woe, magefists and 1 fc jewlery just like the old times :)