Diablo 2: The Brother (And Sister)hood of EoFF

[SeeDRankLou]

Would someone mind getting on for like 5 seconds, pretty please?

Nevermind.....yay!

[Nominus Experse]

I need a few of your brains to help my own shriveled up one.


For my Enchantress Sorceress, I'm wondering if I ought to place all my points in Mana instead of Vitality.

I wonder if this may be a better option than Vitality due to the fact that Energy Shield will absorb around 93-95 percent of all damage done in exchange for around .75 Mana per point of damage. Additionally, there are items that boost maximum Mana by a very substantial amount , whereas I have yet to see an item give a maximum Life boost of 40% or 25%. Obviously, the higher the base number, the greater the percentage increase. A Sorceress also gains more Mana than Life per level.

And since I'm maxing Warmth and Enchant due to its bonuses (Increased Dmg, AR, and duration), "Life" will have a recovery rate of around 360%. I've thought about using an Insight mercenary, which would give me a Mana regeneration of around 1060%, but I don't know how applicable that would actually be. And the Conviction Aura is somewhat needed due to Sorceresses not having any skills other than Enchant that grant AR bonuses - not to mention the fact that such an aura removes most Lightning and/or Fire immunities.

3000 or so Mana is quite a barrier, if I do say so myself, and made even more so when each point of damage done is literally reduced by a 1/4 before my ES feels the brunt of it. But that barrier can be broken, especially since it takes full damage instead of receiving resist bonuses (I believe). Only my Life receives such a luxury. And the scary part of it all is that I would only have around 580 Life if I pour points in Mana instead of Life.

It's a shame that resists are not factored in until after Energy Shield has taken damage, because I ought to have 74% resists on all elements in Hell difficulty - a feat usually only achieved by Paladins.



So I'm not entirely certain what route I ought to take. I have done a number of test runs in Single Player, and placing all my points in Mana instead of Life seemed a better option. The only real issue I had when placing all my points in Mana instead of Vitality was when I came across hordes of Lightning enchanted Scarab Beetles in the Worldstone Keep. For one reason or another, these slaughtered me (probably because of the resists not being factored in for ES), even going so far as to crash the game.

But everything else, I was able to kill (and with ease, I might add) and survive with payers set to 8 - including Baal's Minions of Destruction.

Everything dies in one or two hits, and Baal dies in around four or five.

31897 average damage is sexy (without Conviction Aura from Mercenary factored in).



*An interesting thing I found out is that I am almost immune to the curses Weaken and Iron Maiden. Since all my damage comes from a stacked Lvl 30 Holy Shock aura and Enchant, The effects of Weaken or minimal, and Iron Madain only caused my Mana to deplete by around 700-1000.

EDIT: I was thinking that it may prove beneficial for all of us playing to make a list of items that we are currently IN NEED OF, OMFG looking for. It may a compliment to the character sheet, or I could simply post updates every week.

If this sounds of any use or interest to you, PM me.




And I need a pair of Frostburns, along with any Small Charms with the following mods:
Fine (AR)
Steel (AR)
Iron (AR)
Serpent's (Mana)
Vita (Life)
Balance (FHR)

Any small charms that deal more than 20-30 Fire or Lightning damage.

[Tavrobel]

To be honest, I don't know how Energy Shield works best, nor Enchant. I know that there are some attacks that can ignore Energy Shield, and ALWAYS deal Life damage. With boosted Mana, you will also have to worry about Blood Curse.

You will have to worry about your Mana instead of your life, but Warmth and Insight could take care of that, if you're completely drained of Mana. You could also invest in one of the Ice Armors, if you have some spare skills.

BTW, both my Druid and Hammerdin have full resistances in Hell. My Barbarian and Zealadin can cast Fade.

Shriveled brains are a sign of intelligence, since the greater the creases in your brain, the more information.

[Nominus Experse]

It will net me more points if I devote points into Energy instead of Vitality, so I think I'll do that.

As for the attacks that pass through ES... I guess I'll either have to kill very swiftly or Tele away.

And yes, one of the Ice armours is most definitely needed for the Defense boost (~65%).

My characters always suck when it comes to resists, so this is something new to me.


And yes, indeed, shriveled brains are more intelligent, but I fear mine sometimes goes lax.

[Tavrobel]

What weapon do you think you will use?

Two-handed or one-handed?

[Nominus Experse]

One handed:
Phase Blade (Passion Runeword)

[Tavrobel]

LOL Dexterity rating.

EDIT: Are you considering Max block rate with Stormshield?

[Giga Guess]

Does anyone have a spare set of Aldur's Boots I could use? Even just for comparison purposes for my Sorc...tonight that is...damn this working for a living thing...*grumble, grumble*

[Tavrobel]

I think I gave out my last one, but if you're on when I am, my Druid can lend his to you.

[Giga Guess]

No, I'd rather you not have to strip a functional character for me, but thanks!

[Nominus Experse]

Does anyone know if you can stack auras on your character? I know you cannot do this on your mercenary any longer since there was a bug involved in stacking auras on your merc (duping or making you invincible - something of that nature).

But I haven't read anything that says if you can or can't do this on your character....

[Giga Guess]

Define stacking, please, as my merc has Prayer and Meditation, and both work seamlessly, I think.

[Nominus Experse]

Stacking would be when you have two auras of the same, such as a Dream Helmet and a Dream Shield. Both grant a Lvl 15 Holy Shock aura, and if they stack, they would then net me a Lvl 30 Holy Shock aura.

So basically, its adding like aura levels up.

With a Lvl 20 Lightning Mastery, the Lightning damage bonuses of a high Holy Shock aura are insane.


However, you can't do this on a merc now, and the same may or may not be true for your actual character.

[Tavrobel]

Define stacking, please, as my merc has Prayer and Meditation, and both work seamlessly, I think.

Putting on the same Aura twice on a character. For example, a Paladin with Last Wish, and Might skilled to level 20. Having Might active while Last Wish is equipped, would be stacking.

Different auras, such as Prayer and Meditation, work normally, and are calculated independently of each other.

However, in Diablo II, the non Holy Auras cannot stack. The one that is the strongest will take over, unless multiple characters have the same item. The character with the strongest source will apply to others, but the one with a weaker source will apply based on whose was cast (or switched) the most recently.

In simpler terms, if I had two Paladins, one with a level 15 and a level 12 Concentrate, the level 15 would affect everyone. However, if the level 12 switches his skill to his own Concentrate, his Concentrate will be calculated, instead of the 15. However, this does not compromise allied damage.

This seems to be my understanding of the situation.

Does anyone know if you can stack auras on your character? I know you cannot do this on your mercenary any longer since there was a bug involved in stacking auras on your merc (duping or making you invincible - something of that nature).

But I haven't read anything that says if you can or can't do this on your character....

I haven't found it either. Continuing on from my previous paragraph, normally, Auras don't stack. However, the Holy Auras (Fire, Freeze, and Shock) are supposedly able to stack. I've never heard of them duping, but they can make you riggedly uber. I believe that in the patch notes, this was stopped in a previous patch, but I do not know for sure., since Blizzard patch notes are so reliable.

This seemed to only apply to Mercenaries, when I heard about it, however.

I, personally, would go with the safer route, and make a Dragon shield.

[Giga Guess]

However, in Diablo II, the non Holy Auras cannot stack. The one that is the strongest will take over, unless multiple characters have the same item. The character with the strongest source will apply to others, but the one with a weaker source will apply based on whose was cast (or switched) the most recently.

Which is why (Or at least so I've heard) that the only way to be able to use onviction on the Ubers it to first be able to beat Mephisto's aura in level, yes?