I've hit a brick wall

[tessellated]

Hey all. I'm a returning player, but it's been a long time since I last played. I thought this time around I would be smart and try creating an MF barb but it's just not working out very well. Part of it is my own fault for accidentally finishing NM mode way too early. Part of it is I simply don't know how to get useable set of equipment for levelling, nevermind the actual MF equipment I will need.

I just don't know what to do. I suppose I should probably give up on this character and try a sorceress or a fishymancer, but this is already my second try and I am getting frustrated. Any and all suggestions/advice welcome!

[ilurk]

Hi There.

I'm in a very similar situation, also returning after 6+ years away from the game (sucked in by D3 trailers like many others..). My first character a few weeks ago was a barb (concentrate) and like you I found it very hard going once I reached hell difficulty, and Chaos Sanctuary was a struggle in all difficulties (damn oblivion knights..).

I've since made a fishymancer, now level 88, which I'd recommend as a nice low-gear-requirement class/build to get started with. Barbs need some pretty specific end-game gear to be competetive in hell I think, whereas you can finish the game without too much trouble as an un-twinked summon necro.

I'm planning to get back to my barb once I've found him a few key items i'm missing (arreats, better runes for some good runewords), you could do the same. Sorceresses are the other standard choice for a starting MF character, you could try those if you don't fancy a necromancer. I've also heard hammerdins are a very powerful build which can steam through the game without too much problem.

GL and HF :).

Edit: One other point, just because you have finished NM mode there's nothing stopping you from farming it for more experience and gear before going on to Hell, for example you could do NM WSK/Baal runs which should still give you decent experience and should eventually turn up some nice gear upgrades, with a bit of luck.

[krischan]

As you have D2 experience, I suggest to start a meteorb sorc, that's what I'm always doing when the ladder season restarts. See the sticky with character builds in the sorc forum for details. Summon necros are slow and they cannot teleport to bosses efficiently with beginner gear and that's what you have to do if you want to get a halfway decent item fund quickly. Nightmare Meph is your best friend for that.

[tessellated]

Hi There.
Edit: One other point, just because you have finished NM mode there's nothing stopping you from farming it for more experience and gear before going on to Hell, for example you could do NM WSK/Baal runs which should still give you decent experience and should eventually turn up some nice gear upgrades, with a bit of luck.


Hi ilurk,

I'd love to do that, but it seems I can no longer join NM games even if I know the name of the NM game. I only have the ability to create them. This doesn't help me much since my barb can't solo Baal. I suppose I could just create the game and hope other people join but I'm too impatient for that!

To give you an idea of my power level I can solo normal mode Baal ok (probably better since last night's exp run and modest improvements in eq) but I'm still really challenged even by the early acts.

I've just now created a fishymancer. We'll see how that goes. I used to play a sorceress a lot, so the other poster's suggestion of a meteorb (that might've even been the build I attempted last) is another option. I just wish I could get a leg up on this game!

Thanks for your responses!

[Brutass]

You could always make a friend or two who have good magic finders (I am assuming you play multiplayer). I find that if you ask for help, from time to time a generous sole will come to assist, then ask them to join your friends list. You also learn a lot from more experienced players that way, well thats what i did once i figured out how to talk with people. Just a thought! If you need help you can find me on US West under this name or with just one s. Good Luck

[Blizzatch]

As you have D2 experience, I suggest to start a meteorb sorc, that's what I'm always doing when the ladder season restarts. See the sticky with character builds in the sorc forum for details. Summon necros are slow and they cannot teleport to bosses efficiently with beginner gear and that's what you have to do if you want to get a halfway decent item fund quickly. Nightmare Meph is your best friend for that.

Fishys don't need gear, Meteorbs do. While your Meteorb is running NM Meph endlessly for mediocre gear, the Fishy is making his way through Hell getting better gear, and trading it. I've played both, and find Sorcs to be more of a pain. Sure, they can teleport, but they always have to worry about dying. Once a Fishy gets tele, it's no contest. CE rules all.

[krischan]

It depends on where you are going. My sorc nearly never died while I made nm Meph runs and as soon as I had 63%fcr (from e.g. any Spirit sword, Magefists and Lidless), a bit fhr and a Rising Sun amulet, I switched to hell Meph, that's all gear you need to reach and kill him if you are doing the moat trick the right way. The mentioned gear gosts 20 pgems and you can save another 5 if you make your own Spirit from perhaps 10 nightmare Countess runes and the "free prisoners" quest reward.

I admit, I needed 40t Countess, as I was meant to find runes like Pul and Lem and Ko runes before I completeed a Sirit set and I also wasted the first Spirit set and the sword by confusing a rune. OTOH, that solved the issue of getting a MF armor - LemKoTir = Wealth :whistling:

You won't find many uniques when killing regular monsters with no MF gear, no matter if you are in hell or nightmare. A necro has more time to pick up stuff in multi-player games, however :D

It's a matter of play style.

[Blizzatch]

It depends on where you are going. My sorc nearly never died while I made nm Meph runs and as soon as I had 63%fcr (from e.g. any Spirit sword, Magefists and Lidless), a bit fhr and a Rising Sun amulet, I switched to hell Meph, that's all gear you need to reach and kill him if you are doing the moat trick the right way. The mentioned gear gosts 20 pgems and you can save another 5 if you make your own Spirit from perhaps 10 nightmare Countess runes and the "free prisoners" quest reward.

I admit, I needed 40t Countess, as I was meant to find runes like Pul and Lem and Ko runes before I completeed a Sirit set and I also wasted the first Spirit set and the sword by confusing a rune. OTOH, that solved the issue of getting a MF armor - LemKoTir = Wealth :whistling:

You won't find many uniques when killing regular monsters with no MF gear, no matter if you are in hell or nightmare. A necro has more time to pick up stuff in multi-player games, however :D

It's a matter of play style.

My Necro has over 500% MF and runs Baal. That's the thing about Necros, they don't need Spirit, or anything else, really. The only thing on my Char that doesn't give me MF is my Homunculus, which gives skills and resists. Is that true of Meteorbs? I don't think so.

And "The Moat Trick" isn't all that cool when everybody does it and devalues the items you can get from Hell Meph. To find the truly high items, you have to run Baal, or the Pits, Mauseleam, etc.

You're right about play style though. I can watch TV while running Baal with my Necro, I certainly couldn't do that with a Sorc.

[krischan]

Your necro probably has better items than tessellated can afford and I don't deny that it's possible to do Baal runs with your 500 MF necro, but this is not about your necro, but about his options. When assuming that all he has are 20 pgems, he cannot afford items for 500% MF. Also, it's not about getting rich, but about getting items and Meph is an excellent target if you want to find your own items. However, I agree that Meph runs become less and less attractive, the longer a season takes, and hoarding pgems or Spirit/crafting runes becomes a better strategy and it's also easier to achieve.

I've played summoners as well and a necro with let's say 20 pgem gear will have a hard time in hell mode. His army will get slaughtered a lot before it can produce a corpse for CE. there's a big difference between RS/SM at let's say L25 and L40. You can surely fight your way through it, but it won't be that easy.

[ilurk]

I finished hell with my untwinked summoner without any major problems, all in solo games but on b.net. Didn't really trade for any gear for him except for trang-oul's chest, and in general he was far from powerful (no skiller grand charms, didn't get homunc or AoKL until long after i'd already completed hell, etc). Only thing I ever really had problems with were the lightning-throwing gloam types, but that's a problem for most classes I believe, and I made what I now feel was a mistake by going max block rather than max vita so his health is a bit low, my next summoner (in progress) isn't going to be bothering with blocking.

I never had any problems producing a first corpse for CE, it's not hard to get the runes for insight for your merc, and that gives him more than enough poking power to kill for the CE corpses, skellies are there as much to act as meatshields as anything else (although they do kill stuff, even in hell).

Also it depends what type of MFing you want to do; sorc's rule for bosses, summoners are great for area-clearing eg. hell pits or WSK (once you have the lightning resist or life to not be one-shottable by the gloams). Personally as someone fairly new to the game (well, not counting having played it through single player years ago when it was new) I've found the fishy to be the all-around easiest class to get to a decent level of power quickly, perhaps an expert player can get better results with a sorc. though, I couldn't say.

[SnickerSnack]

ilurk: If you have a homonculus, then max block is the best way to go. 75% light resist and 75% block will keep your fishy alive. It's not necessary, but it is fool proof.

It's hard to compare sorcs with summoners since they do different things. Imo, running Meph with a sorc is better for getting a decent level of gear, but once you have decent gear it becomes less prolific. Running areas with a necro is another good way to get wealth, but, if you are gearing anything beyond the necro himself, you should start by mfing with a sorc.

Tessellated: you must be typing the game names in wrong; there is no reason for you to be unable to join nm games. Iirc, you can copy/paste game names.

And "The Moat Trick" isn't all that cool when everybody does it and devalues the items you can get from Hell Meph. To find the truly high items, you have to run Baal, or the Pits, Mauseleam, etc.

It's bad for everyone to have cool items? I though that's what we wanted.

[Bob The Barbarian]

Hi ilurk,

I'd love to do that, but it seems I can no longer join NM games even if I know the name of the NM game. I only have the ability to create them. This doesn't help me much since my barb can't solo Baal. I suppose I could just create the game and hope other people join but I'm too impatient for that!





Any charactor can access a game in a lower skill level. IE, a player in nightmare can access any normal or nightmare games (do keep in mind that some games created have limits set by their creator .. such as character level limits, number of player limits, passwords, etc)

The trick is to locate the games, since once your charactor is in nightmare he can only view nightmare games on the lobby "join" screen. I overcome this by making sure I have at least one character in all levels of the game so I can select a game from another level. All you need do is run your normal level character in the lobby, find the game you want to join and highlight (but do not join) it, press cntl + C to save the game name in computer memory, change characters to your nightmare character and (in the lobby join screen) hit cntrl + V to insert the normal level game name. Then press the "join" tab. As long as there is space in the game and nothing that restricts your character from playing in it (such as a level limit) you are in.

Good hunting.

[Blizzatch]

The trick is to locate the games, since once your charactor is in nightmare he can only view nightmare games on the lobby "join" screen.

That's not true at all. Even a normal character can see all levels of games in the join screen. He just can't enter all of them. Usually nightmare games say "NM" in the description.

[krischan]

Blizzatech, you are wrong.

You will only see normal games in the join game list when you haven't solved the game with that char at all. If you solved normal, but not not nightmare, you will see nightmare games onmly and once you solved nightmare, you will only see hell games in the join menu. You can still enter lower games, of course.

The description field only says what the createor of the game entered when he made the game.

[Blizzatch]

Blizzatech, you are wrong.

You will only see normal games in the join game list when you haven't solved the game with that char at all. If you solved normal, but not not nightmare, you will see nightmare games onmly and once you solved nightmare, you will only see hell games in the join menu. You can still enter lower games, of course.

The description field only says what the createor of the game entered when he made the game.

Huh, just tried it, you're right. I never really try to join games until I get to Hell. I was thrown off by the "Level 1-99" games I see in Hell. I guess those are for people that get Grushed.

Apologies, guess you learn something every day.

[darkfear]

If your are looking for someone to play with and mf with then feel free to pm me and i will give you game name and password when I am on (most of the time it is last on the weekends)
Lmk

[tessellated]

Any charactor can access a game in a lower skill level. IE, a player in nightmare can access any normal or nightmare games (do keep in mind that some games created have limits set by their creator .. such as character level limits, number of player limits, passwords, etc)

The trick is to locate the games, since once your charactor is in nightmare he can only view nightmare games on the lobby "join" screen. I overcome this by making sure I have at least one character in all levels of the game so I can select a game from another level. All you need do is run your normal level character in the lobby, find the game you want to join and highlight (but do not join) it, press cntl + C to save the game name in computer memory, change characters to your nightmare character and (in the lobby join screen) hit cntrl + V to insert the normal level game name. Then press the "join" tab. As long as there is space in the game and nothing that restricts your character from playing in it (such as a level limit) you are in.

Good hunting.

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the response!

Yep, you are right about that. I had actually tried this trick before you said. My problem was I was trying to get in on Baal runs and evidently so were a lot of other people because in the short time it took me to switch back to my barb, the game had already filled up. I had this happen to me MANY times. I naively assumed that that meant I wasn't allowed to join because I had beat normal mode.

Hi All. I didn't really expect to still see this thread when I came back. I appreciate all of your feedback!

I feel obliged to give a quick update. I'm happy to report that my fishymancer is now level 81 and quite healthy. I haven't assembled much in the way of MF gear yet. My only real purchase thus far has been a homunculus. I think this was an excellent first investment. I'll always need/use it regardless of whether I am going hunting for gear or just running at max killing power. For anyone else contemplating a fishy I must say that it is quite a solid build. The only real weakness I have seen with the character thus far are single file maps. Maggot Lair in hell was AWFUL. Other than that, most maps shouldn't really pose a problem though in hell some maps can be quite a slog. Corpse Explosion is YOUR FRIEND! :)