EoFF Diablo II again, anyone?

[Tavrobel]

Have I ever told you guys just how scared I am of the "too many items" error? I can't even look at PlugY anymore.

Good for you, Celes.

EDIT: I hate the Cathedral of Vanity, too. See, in the old Median, it only shoots once. Now, it shoots twice. TWICE IN A SIXTY DEGREE COOLDOWN ARC HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DODGE THAT WITH A BARBARIAN AND A PHYSICAL IMMUNITY BOSS THAT I CAN'T TELL IS IMMUNE?

EDIT II: I lied. I'm going to make a Holy Caster, not an Elemental Druid. Fortunately, I'm twinked out to world's end; my Assassin is almost 120, and I finally finished Cathedral of Vanity (the key was to use Shower of Rocks and Bear Stance, oddly enough), which means I did the AC500 challenge for the Assassin and Barbarian classes. I'm going to be abusing Fascinating Shrines a hell of a lot, since all I can do is Physical/Fire damage. My first attempt at a real caster since the Alpha.

[Nominus Experse]

Laz lies about the Lucky Modifier recipe: I've gone through so many El runes and random weapons just to see if it will work, and it hasn't yet. 1:5 odds my ass I've done this 12 times now.

LIES

Btw: Crucifix Assassins are so much fun

[Tavrobel]

Yeah, it's a little on the low side, but, at least we can upgrade something past the maximum modifiers without a major drawback. Runes are so common, that it's worth doing it for virtually free.

Crucifiers are fun, but the last time I tried to do the Black Road Challenge, my mercenary accidentally killed one of the Priestess while I was running, so he got the swirlies, but not me. I was pissed. On the downside, its AoE capabilities, while substantial, are less than optimal for the conditions that I play on.

Nom, which skills/equipment/stats did you use for your Holy Paladin? And more importantly, what level did you get him to?

[Nominus Experse]

I made an Honorific Naginata that is fun...


What Paladin do you speak of? The Holy Mage made it to the Smith and that was it, whereas my Retaliator made it to Act III at players8 easily (both untwinked since I just began playing Median XL since the initial beta was made public way the smurf back during last summer).

EDIT: smurf you .cpp fog whatever error. smurf. You.

[Tavrobel]

I made an Honorific Naginata that is fun...

What Paladin do you speak of? The Holy Mage made it to the Smith and that was it, whereas my Retaliator made it to Act III at players8 easily (both untwinked since I just began playing Median XL since the initial beta was made public way the smurf back during last summer).

EDIT: smurf you .cpp fog whatever error. smurf. You.

Speaking of which, apparently the intended 1.99 full patch will have Naginata Crafted weapons capable of getting +10 Assassin Skills. It's already in the Beta 2.

The Holy Mage. I didn't know you made a Retaliator (oddly enough, the Paladin has more builds that are capable of doing the game untwinked; a stark contrast to Vanilla). But the Holy Caster does need to play twinked. There's no hope for it otherwise, but it just plain runs through everything. I can't wait to bring it to Fautzinville and get the right Azmodan's Heart/Worldstone Key/Scroll of Kings with the OSkills I want to make him godly. I already have a Key with Dark King on it.

[Flying Mullet]

After reading all of this, I might have to check out Median again. I played on version for a couple of hours a year or two ago. The biggest pain is learning all of the game mechanics, skills, equipment details, etc...

[Tavrobel]

The key is to keep your internet browser open at all times, multiple tabs to the information you need, and plan ahead. I spent half my time with cLoD in town; I spend a good 90% of it in Median. It's pretty easy to pick up.

Thank the universe that I made a caster character and a caster mercenary. The way to get damage is so radically different from melee (procs, ED, that kind of stuff). It's a bit of a relief, really, and it's doing wonders to my PlugY stash. I'm not even level 40 yet.

Have I mentioned that I hate Act III? Not because it's particularly difficult, but because it's just so poorly designed.

EDIT: So I tried putting a Naginata runeword with the ATMG Sentry OSkill (Io) on my Assassin. It works great with a half-maxed Doom; I still have 40 skill points to use, but I don't have Way of the Raven, so I can't sink all of my points in, just quite yet. It's fun, and seems as though it goes naturally with a Crucify main attack skill (for AoE and CB procs), but unfortunately, none of the Mystic Orbs are "on Striking," which is what ATMG uses. Anyone got any ideas on how to rectify this?

[Nominus Experse]

Are there Shrine craft affixes that could add the "Striking" modifier, perhaps? Mind you, I've not made it very far yet, and so haven't been able to play with Shrines as of right now. Laz has secreted away the actual list of modifiers again, right?

Do modifiers such as +x% to Poison Skill Damage / Duration also multiply the flat added bonus awarded to me by the various Ways within the Assassin skill tree? I ask this because I've been hunting the Demonstone Blood Jewels for the added tri-elemental damage bonus, but am wondering perhaps if hunting instead for the Eye of the Storm jewel instead due to its bonus to Spell damage.

[Tavrobel]

I believe that there are some "on Striking" mods, but they are Rare affixes, not Shrine affixes, so it wouldn't help anyways (but they could be generated). There is a list of what can or can't proc somewhere on Laz's Forums, but I haven't bothered to look. The only ones worth using are the ones on Runewords, Uniques, or Sets, but those don't always provide the bonuses I need, nor are they the procs I necessarily like to use. And even if there were good rare procs, a majority of them are "on killing," anyways.

Poison skills in melee get the +%spell damage, but not the missile component, which means the main strike from Crucify gets the +poison, but not the 8 extra pins. I've heard it's more effective to mod on some -%enemy spell resistance mods. In an Assassin's case, Poison and Fire. If you're farming jewels, I would upgrade as many of them as I could to rares, and then use the ones either with +%spell (relevant element) damage or -%enemy res. Until you get some one of the ones you like, invest in Runes and Gems.

[captkrill]

Ex-Diablo 2 player here and I quit playing after the patch with the Keys and Ubers came out...it was way to easy to get to 99 then killed the fun of MFing and doing manual (ie. no bots or super |337 hammerdins) Baal/Diablo runs. Have there been any real big changes that would interest me in coming back?

[Tavrobel]

If you quit after 1.11, then all you missed was the over-saturation of high runes on the Ladder market, the Uber Duriel waypoint hack, and a patch that was identical to the previous (1.12) with the exception of a legitimate no-CD crack. There's even ways to backpatch from 1.12 to 1.11b without the servers recognizing anything different.

So, no, you missed nothing.

[captkrill]

Uber duriel way point hack?

[Tavrobel]

Suffice it to say, it overloaded the market with Baal's Eyes. Forgotten Sands was a great place to level up, too.

Original mod thread at Edge of Nowhere.

[Nominus Experse]

I used it to level

[Tavrobel]

TEEHEEHEE LOOK AT WHAT I STOLE FROM KURAST3KBA



By the way, yes, it does work with Way of the Spider! So I just added a big giant boost to my limited AoE capabilities, and I'm going to go abuse my collection of Shimmering Shrines (%Poison crafting). TEEHEEHEE

EDIT: Works great with ATMG on my Naginata. I just set up seven or of the traps, cast Doom, and switch back over to my regular weapon at a choke point. The number of green sparklies, my blue sparks from Crucify, and 20% Spike Nova proc is more than enough to clear everything that dares to get in my way. Furthermore, Time Strike from Scales will proc from each Spike Nova if it rolls the chance and hits an enemy. My "pitiful" AoE before is now ungodly powerful. I clear screens without thinking about it. Ohh, and Doom is awesome.

EDIT II: Finished the BRC with my Assassin. Dear God, if I could count the number of times I accidentally killed a Priestess while three screens away because of the number of procs I have on my equipment. I'm still only 119, though; I'd really like to get on with my Edyrem summons at 120.

EDIT III: Screw that. I got to 120 after spending about 3 seconds in Act IV, and a Signet of Experience (which actually put me about 990 EXP above the cap required to level to 120. Everything has been maxed. Life is good.