an observation with +skill gear

[HegemonKhan]

yes, +skill gear leaves u very vulnerable (no resists), but wow does it change skill potential. skills-attacks that are considered "weak" at slvl 20 and even with all synergies maxed, undergo a metamorphisis when u got +skill gear raising slvl 20 to slvl 25+.

for example:

i was lvling in nm (around the "proper" clvl for the areas) with a bone necro and the bone spear could hardly kill stuff. but than i put on +skill gear and the bone spear and my bone necro was "tearing up" nm.

same thing with the nova sorc i'm currently working on (never really did a nova sorc and wanted to try it). it doesn't have the FCR like it should (i'm still around nm in clvls so i don't ahve much mana and am using frostburn for more mana instead of magefist for its FCR), but it is making up for its speed in damage. i can't wait to get my nova sorc to high lvl so that i have mana to use nova with more FCR. i'm not sure if FCR or +skill gear is better or what's the best balance if a balance is actually the best. (i've read fredsta's nova sorc hell arcane guide...which is what got me to finally make/try a nova sorc, so i know that FCR is very very very good. i jsut wanna see for myself and compare FCR to +skills to a balance of the two).

summoners are probably the best for +skill gear as they have to worry the least about an unprotected cahracter (for PVM *ONLY* of course lol).

but besides raising your main damage skill to entirely a different level, having all those 1 sk pt other prequisite or miscellanious skills boosted to slvl 5+ is really nice. your slvl 1 static is no slvl 5+ and has *some* range for example. very very nice. or whatever skill of whatever character. all those 1 slvl curses u got as prequisites are now slvl 5+. so so very nice.

but again, the big con to all this is that, u got no/less resists and are much more fragile/vulnerable.

i know this is pretty common knowledge about +skills (duh), but i think a lot of people (like me) don't/didn't realize just how much a difference +skills can make with especially "weak" skills. changes "weak" skills into much much stronger skills. many skills don't get much of a boost from slvl 1-20. but some skills get a huge boost from slvl 20-?. this is what i mean.....

let's say for some skill, each slvl from slvl 1-20, gives u 100 more damage. but than from slvl 20-?, each slvl gives u 200 more damage.

so from this crude example u can see that some skills have a hidden surprise for u (or rather your targets, hehe) if u take them over slvl 20.

[Aditu]

does anyone know about the "area gain" for static, with the different spell levels?
i remember having read/seen something, a while ago (stumbled upon it, can't remember where), about how the different radius gains with higher spell levels for certain slvl (the impair ones??) actually result in more covered area, because of the tiles that are covered, where monsters would be affected by the spell, that increase irregularly with the increasing radius (being an ellipsoid) - uh i don't know how to explain this well, sorry.

i was wondering about it, because then, depending on the +skill gear a sorc wears, it might be useful to put a second point in static (instead of the usual 1 point) to get a more useful increase in radius?

[HegemonKhan]

the radius increase is small for each slvl of static.

as for how much radius is equal to the tiles in diablo 2, i don't know. there was a link that i found that had diablo 2 's radius/range info. but now the page doesn't have the information anymore.

[Vodage]

I prefer to even it out. I used to use +4 to skill on my poison necro, but now I only use +3 to skill. I switched out my Sigon's Shield for a Stormguild for more light res. My necro wears a 19pris amulet with fire stack and MDR 3, a goldskin, a +2 necro dagger with no other mods, wormskull, 30% frw high res boots, and high res rings. He only uses 10% fcr cuz poison doesn't need fcr. So with Battle Command i'm back up to +4 to skill. Not bad. I equip sig shield and a +1necro amulet to cast my clay golem-- meaning with battle command i get a 44% slow clay golem with around 2k life.

*Vodage
*Sir_Vodage

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