Runeword help needed, wait or go for it?

[Graydagger]

Hi everyone, I am a new member here and first of all I wanna say hi to everyone!


I have just started an untwinked single player, ultimately to be a Phoenix Striker assassin character and I'm level 12 right now. First of all, let me say that I'm playing on players 1, and I am thinking of making use of these runewords during my journey:

Steel
Strength
Stealth
Malice
Possibly Honor if I can get it in the later stage
Possibly Lore
Nadir
If I can find Mal, Prudence

Also I'm not sure if Steel runeword works with Claw weapons? I tried to check the runeword page here but it does neither say it works or it doesn't.

I don't expect to get all the necessary runes so I don't expect to have them all quickly, but I think I can get some of them done. Anyway, the question is that, should I wait until later levels of the game and craft the runewords with better weapons, or make them as soon as the class level is available? (or perhaps waiting a little bit for the better weapon after the class level is at the right spot)

Thanks a lot for help!

[felixbavaria]

Welcome!

First of all, I highly recommend using a higher player setting. It will be tougher in the beginning, but you will level much faster, meaning that you will have more stat points, higher chance to hit, lower chance to be hit, etc. Also, there will be more items dropping

Second, all of these runewords (except Prudence) can be made easily and multiple times, so just make them in any suitable weapon / armour you find. Keep in mind that Honor requires a 5os weapon which cannot be found until Hell difficulty. However, you can make one in a base item that supports 5 sockets, by using the Cube recipe or the Larzuk quest reward. Check the ilvl and the Sockets page of the Diablo Wiki to see if your base supports 5 sockets.

Steel does not work in Claws, but Strength does.

Prudence is a waste of runes IMHO, consider making Smoke instead (you can find a Lum by Countess running in Nightmare).

[Graydagger]

Welcome!

First of all, I highly recommend using a higher player setting. It will be tougher in the beginning, but you will level much faster, meaning that you will have more stat points, higher chance to hit, lower chance to be hit, etc. Also, there will be more items dropping

Second, all of these runewords (except Prudence) can be made easily and multiple times, so just make them in any suitable weapon / armour you find. Keep in mind that Honor requires a 5os weapon which cannot be found until Hell difficulty. However, you can make one in a base item that supports 5 sockets, by using the Cube recipe or the Larzuk quest reward. Check the ilvl and the Sockets page of the Diablo Wiki to see if your base supports 5 sockets.

Steel does not work in Claws, but Strength does.

Prudence is a waste of runes IMHO, consider making Smoke instead (you can find a Lum by Countess running in Nightmare).

Thanks a lot for your answer. I don't like using the players 8 command, not that I think it is cheating inherently, but I feel that if you level up faster and get to a point in the game and then have to lower it, it kinda seems like cheating to me. Besides, I think it takes longer to get through the acts.

I have another question, shall I save my imbue or use it now?

[pharphis]

Well, if you're just starting up, I would use your imbue as soon as you feel like you can't find or gamble any decent weapons to carry you further into the game. However, in the long run, if you plan on doing all sorts of crazy things, some people use them to imbue ethereal crystal swords (so that they can later upgrade them to phase blades if they're reallly good, which are indestuctable).
One thing I like to do is imbue plain circlets, which you will probably run into during act 3. Circlets are da bomb, but you can also just gamble those, too.

The game is just too easy on p1 in most of normal and most of nm. I think of it as a way of making the game more exciting. If you plan to rerun any areas to level or item find, it feels like it just makes sense to be more efficient about it and play at higher settings. Of course, it's you're decision, though. I don't want to be all like "incorrect, sir! How dare you play p1!"

Hello! Good luck with your char! Join the S&S tourney, too :P It's real fun!

[felixbavaria]

Note that imbuing is like gambling except that:
- the item level will always be character level + 4 (which is the maximum for gambling),
- the item quality will always be rare,
- you can imbue item types that you cannot gamble.

So, don't expect to get a godlike item from imbuing. It might happen but chances are that you'll sell it back to Charsi right away.

[zaphodbrx]

Thanks a lot for your answer. I don't like using the players 8 command, not that I think it is cheating inherently, but I feel that if you level up faster and get to a point in the game and then have to lower it, it kinda seems like cheating to me. Besides, I think it takes longer to get through the acts.

I have another question, shall I save my imbue or use it now?

I suggest the following: Use players 3. It's still double the experience, while allowing you to proceed through the game a little faster without being frustratingly hard ( which p8 is on untwinked characters ).

As for the imbue, use it rightaway. The odds of getting a good circlet are really, really low. Much better to get a nice weapon for Act 2 ( even though you'll eventually throw it away ).

Don't really know why you want to make prudence. Not a very useful runeword imo.

[Pijus]

I like Prudence. While there may be better things available, depending on your needs, Prudence can get you about 2800 defense on your body armour, since you can make it an ethereal(e-bugged) base. It also has 25-35 resist all.

[zaphodbrx]

I've been trying to make a 2os ebug armor for AGES. Still haven't got one.
In practical terms, 'Duress' and 'stone' are easier to obtain and more useful. I don't think prudence is worth it without ebugging.

Not to mention, the runeword is a little costly to make untwinked.

[Graydagger]

Yeah as I've said and as you can see from the list of runewords, since I'm untwinked I tried to choose mostly modest, easy to make runewords. As long as I can get Malice, Nadir, Strength and Stealth on reasonably good items, I think I'm gonna be good until I can get really good stuff, which should take quite a while.

[queenEm]

For claw information (not sure if you have seen it) this guide is a must

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...rt-of-the-Claw