09-08-2008, 10:36 PM
Heiho,
some months ago I've restarted playing D2 with a standard MS/FA bowie in SP. She managed quite well, mostly because she could find a Riphook just in time before gambling bows would've became to boring and frustrating. However, I always preferred the challenge of playing a class slightly outside their predetermined routes, so as soon as she entered Hell I additionally started a Druid who should rely on his wolves and ranged weapons. This is a conceptual subclass I had played already a long time ago, I think it was still during patch 1.09 (back then with Volcano supplement). It is by no means a build to rush through the maps with monsters falling apart at the sheer sight of him, but this never was appealing to me. My satisfaction during the game comes from playing through each and any map and clearing it from the forces of Evil, no matter how long it takes.
I really would love to take the five wolves as pack, but this would need items completely beyond reality. The character is almost completely untwinked, in a sense of he can use stuff the bowie found on her way to Hell, which is obviously not that kicky - especially since the Riphook and any other stuff the bowie's actually wearing isn't available to the druid. Some of you might remember that I've dug a bit into the modding scene, but I wanted to get the 'real' D2 feeling back, and nothing of that 'put a key and a scroll into the cube and get a <insertwisheditem>' stuff, so it's a bare D2/LoD 1.12 without any fancies.
The druid is now in his late 50s and has entered Act3/Nightmare. He is always played with 'players 6', because I think this is a reasonable setting for an experienced player, where the monsters are just strong enough without becoming too tedious.
The skill setting by now looks like this:
Shape Shifting
- none
Elemental
- 1 into Cyclone Armor and the prerq
Summoning
- 20 into Poison Creeper
- 1 into Raven
- 10 into Spirit Wolf (slightly too much, but I kept them as long as possible ^^ )
- 5 into Dire Wolf (they'll need more)
- 20 into Grizzly
- 1 into Oak
- 1 into HoW
status points
- about 65 str (some from items)
- about 250 dex
- nothing in vita/ene
- 50 spare
- switched the Cold Rogue to a Mighty Guy recently
The mercenary wears an IceBlink, Undead Crown, and I was lucky to find him an awesome pole at the vendors', otherwise I'd have used the Savage Pole cube recipe.
Annotation: I've read about it some (long) time ago, and I can confirm that hirelings don't leech in SP; AFAIK this is true for 1.11 and 1.12, not sure about 1.10. They have a pretty high regeneration, so this doesn't matter as long as you're aware of it and willing to spend 'em a drink more than you'd do at bnet. So despite the annoying effect of IceBlink destroying valuable wolf food every now and then I'll stick to that safety shirt until there's a really kicky alternative.
The druid himself used gambled throwing axes (I really like throwing axes) and some gambled bow/xbow until I got very tired of him being just a show-off. Unfortunately, with a bowie occupying RipHook with her nice buttocks, the other stuff available lead to him using HellCast by now. For those who won't remember, it is that Heavy Crossbow (normal unique), which shoots Explosive Bolts.
He's still just a show-off, but at least he can now illuminate dark dungeons :-P I'm looking forward to try some blood-axe-crafting soon. Despite my loathe of trigger stuff he has a shopped weapon to cast AD on striking in Slot2, because in Arcane Sanctuary I met the first PI bosses; Poison Creeper is almost useless in that map. Other equip involves complete Hsarus Set (complete only at Slot2, obviously), a rare druid circlet with +1 and some slightly better stuff than the +1 pelt from Anya/Normal offered (which had additionally +1 Solar Creeper and IIRC something like +5mana or anything of that scope), TwitchThroe, and some gambled jewelry which is good enough at the moment. Because of his awesome damage output I don't need to keep an eye on leech properties here, so it is a +1 druid amulet and some resistance and life replenish from the rings. BloodFist is recently changed to Magnus' Skin, the Orphanage Set gloves.
I'll badly need to work on my Poison Creeper tactics, since this one is my inbuilt PI solution. I doubt I'll find some high-elemental-damage-weapon just in time.
The threesome Wolves do quite good, and in emergency cases I reluctantly switch to the Grizzly. Yet there's no decision if I should push Oak or HoW, but I heavily tend to HoW (especially regarding the druid's AR issues otherwise). Nevertheless I've used Oak in some tight situations where even the Grizzly's HP were brought down irritatingly fast. I don't play HC, but still I don't like my chars to die ;-)
So you may already have noticed that this build is very low in life, and be assured this won't change dramatically. If there happen to come some suitable throwing axes around the dex-as-dex-can idea will still pay off because of the damage multiplier for throwing stuff, and if there's a nice shooting weapon on the way it will of course do as well. For the record, (x)bow-wielding chars in endgame with less than 400dex are either very specialized (aka no-leech-no-pierce Magezon or ITD-special-effect-Snipers) or very misplanned, and to my opinion mostly the latter (anyone remembering the ridiculous Jah-Windforce-Zons in .09? That misplanned).
Hopefully this was not too boring to read, I just wanted to spice up the D2 section a bit ;-)
some months ago I've restarted playing D2 with a standard MS/FA bowie in SP. She managed quite well, mostly because she could find a Riphook just in time before gambling bows would've became to boring and frustrating. However, I always preferred the challenge of playing a class slightly outside their predetermined routes, so as soon as she entered Hell I additionally started a Druid who should rely on his wolves and ranged weapons. This is a conceptual subclass I had played already a long time ago, I think it was still during patch 1.09 (back then with Volcano supplement). It is by no means a build to rush through the maps with monsters falling apart at the sheer sight of him, but this never was appealing to me. My satisfaction during the game comes from playing through each and any map and clearing it from the forces of Evil, no matter how long it takes.
I really would love to take the five wolves as pack, but this would need items completely beyond reality. The character is almost completely untwinked, in a sense of he can use stuff the bowie found on her way to Hell, which is obviously not that kicky - especially since the Riphook and any other stuff the bowie's actually wearing isn't available to the druid. Some of you might remember that I've dug a bit into the modding scene, but I wanted to get the 'real' D2 feeling back, and nothing of that 'put a key and a scroll into the cube and get a <insertwisheditem>' stuff, so it's a bare D2/LoD 1.12 without any fancies.
The druid is now in his late 50s and has entered Act3/Nightmare. He is always played with 'players 6', because I think this is a reasonable setting for an experienced player, where the monsters are just strong enough without becoming too tedious.
The skill setting by now looks like this:
Shape Shifting
- none
Elemental
- 1 into Cyclone Armor and the prerq
Summoning
- 20 into Poison Creeper
- 1 into Raven
- 10 into Spirit Wolf (slightly too much, but I kept them as long as possible ^^ )
- 5 into Dire Wolf (they'll need more)
- 20 into Grizzly
- 1 into Oak
- 1 into HoW
status points
- about 65 str (some from items)
- about 250 dex
- nothing in vita/ene
- 50 spare
- switched the Cold Rogue to a Mighty Guy recently
The mercenary wears an IceBlink, Undead Crown, and I was lucky to find him an awesome pole at the vendors', otherwise I'd have used the Savage Pole cube recipe.
Annotation: I've read about it some (long) time ago, and I can confirm that hirelings don't leech in SP; AFAIK this is true for 1.11 and 1.12, not sure about 1.10. They have a pretty high regeneration, so this doesn't matter as long as you're aware of it and willing to spend 'em a drink more than you'd do at bnet. So despite the annoying effect of IceBlink destroying valuable wolf food every now and then I'll stick to that safety shirt until there's a really kicky alternative.
The druid himself used gambled throwing axes (I really like throwing axes) and some gambled bow/xbow until I got very tired of him being just a show-off. Unfortunately, with a bowie occupying RipHook with her nice buttocks, the other stuff available lead to him using HellCast by now. For those who won't remember, it is that Heavy Crossbow (normal unique), which shoots Explosive Bolts.
He's still just a show-off, but at least he can now illuminate dark dungeons :-P I'm looking forward to try some blood-axe-crafting soon. Despite my loathe of trigger stuff he has a shopped weapon to cast AD on striking in Slot2, because in Arcane Sanctuary I met the first PI bosses; Poison Creeper is almost useless in that map. Other equip involves complete Hsarus Set (complete only at Slot2, obviously), a rare druid circlet with +1 and some slightly better stuff than the +1 pelt from Anya/Normal offered (which had additionally +1 Solar Creeper and IIRC something like +5mana or anything of that scope), TwitchThroe, and some gambled jewelry which is good enough at the moment. Because of his awesome damage output I don't need to keep an eye on leech properties here, so it is a +1 druid amulet and some resistance and life replenish from the rings. BloodFist is recently changed to Magnus' Skin, the Orphanage Set gloves.
I'll badly need to work on my Poison Creeper tactics, since this one is my inbuilt PI solution. I doubt I'll find some high-elemental-damage-weapon just in time.
The threesome Wolves do quite good, and in emergency cases I reluctantly switch to the Grizzly. Yet there's no decision if I should push Oak or HoW, but I heavily tend to HoW (especially regarding the druid's AR issues otherwise). Nevertheless I've used Oak in some tight situations where even the Grizzly's HP were brought down irritatingly fast. I don't play HC, but still I don't like my chars to die ;-)
So you may already have noticed that this build is very low in life, and be assured this won't change dramatically. If there happen to come some suitable throwing axes around the dex-as-dex-can idea will still pay off because of the damage multiplier for throwing stuff, and if there's a nice shooting weapon on the way it will of course do as well. For the record, (x)bow-wielding chars in endgame with less than 400dex are either very specialized (aka no-leech-no-pierce Magezon or ITD-special-effect-Snipers) or very misplanned, and to my opinion mostly the latter (anyone remembering the ridiculous Jah-Windforce-Zons in .09? That misplanned).
Hopefully this was not too boring to read, I just wanted to spice up the D2 section a bit ;-)