Hans Escher
2003-07-19 23:28:42 UTC
Hi groups,
As you will have noticed the Amazon lightning skills now
boost each other.
I created Prikkie (dutch word for jab, made cuter).
She is a purist amazon specialising in charged strike,
lightning strike and freezing arrow. She's now 78 and has
just killed hell mephisto. This is in Diablo II 1.10 beta.
Prikkie maxed charged strike and lightning strike and got a
few points in Power strike and lightning fury, she hardly
uses the last two skills.
Some features of charged strike and lightning strike
.always hit (even against end-bosses)
.doesn't leech but the skills are cheap (+-9 mana/cast)
.mana/kill works. (and potion buying of course!)
.weapon damage is ignored, but speed is respected.
Logically, this points to javalin/shield use...
Mayor problem is of course that LS and CS grant only
one element and no physical... so another good skill is
required. Power strike does add physical but has no
damage boost aside from its (significant) lightning
damage.
Due to the extreme speeds of monsters I noticed with
other chars I decided for Freezing arrow, with syn.
points in Cold Arrow. Those skill were boosted last,
prikkie was ment to test charged and lightning strike.
(ABOUT SKILLS)
Note: this is purist. Twinkies can get far higher damage!
Charged Strike gains additional bolts (7 bolts at L20-24,
8 bolts at L25-29). More than one can hit a boss.
This makes Charged strike a nice skill against end bosses .
Prikkie killed all endbosses from normal Duriel up to hell
Mephisto with charged strike and had it easy. (and will
probably kill D and B with it later)
Current CS level 24: 7 bolts, 1-1681 lightning damage.
(31 syn points)
Lightning strike (LS), according to somebody analysing
MPQs, got a larger jump range. While playing, I've noticed
that LS indeed jumps fairly far and, in larger groups
hardly leaks... in other words its a lot better. Against
single creatures its bad, but charged strike tackles that.
Current LS level 24: 1-1339 lightning damage, 25 hits.
(also 31 syn points)
In the tombs LS could frequently reach and kill the mummy
when prikkie just touched the outer skellies.
Due to the massive amount of skillpoints spend on the jav
skills, prikkie had just 1 point in most passive skills
and used equipment to boost those. (Yep scary for a meleeer)
She compensated with gear - an found +2 passive glove, an
imbued +2 passive tiara (dropped in act 5 nightmare!), a
gambled amazon +1 skill ammy and a +1 jav +1 amazon skill
ceremonial javelin.
Later, in hell flayer jungle she found the harlequin crest
(woot!).
Other defense include near perfect blocking, good defense
armor and a defiance merc.
Freezing Arrow is not yet maxed and probably won't be.
Cold Arrow got 8 points for a nice synergy effect (better
spend in CA both damage- and mana-wise)
Freezing Arrow is up to its task, even in Hell, even with
just 1 point in Ice arrow (lengthens FA).
With it she can keep most groups in place. She only does
that if the group is mainly LI or extremely dangerous of
course.
A few early points in power strike made the start easy.
(LEVELING)
Prikkie played mostly at players 8 thru normal (not
the bosses) She ended it at level 45. It was easy
enough, including duriel - ok, prikkie was 26 by then,
love player 8)
Nightmare up to mephisto went on players 8 too.
Act 4 has a lot of lightning immunes (Damned)
and act 5 critters have a lot higher hitpoints, so
those went mostly on players 1.
End act 1: level 52. End act 2: level 58.
End act 3: level 62. End act 4: level 64.
End act 5: level 71. Who said leveling would be bad?
(SOME PLAYING NOTES)
Emilio, her merc, did a lot of work on those LIs, while
prikkie reduced the danger by freezing. Emilio used an
Hone Sundan, (found in palace celler level 2 from a holy
freeze,LE boss - lucky I didnt give that fight up)
I expected some problems in the chaos sanctuary but
the elemental attacks of OKs are really toned down.
Admittingly prikkie was level 64 by then, but even
lord the Seis group posed no real danger.
Strange enough those bone-spearing snakes in act 5 were
hardly a problem (my dual claw assassin had a lot of trouble
with them) Maybe resists all (from 3 PD shield) includes
magic damage now?
The ancients were downed at level 70.3 yielding just
about 16 M points, just enough for level 71.
Grrrr... should have read the summit better - now 4 M is
wasted.
HELL was a lot nastier... I want a new type of potion:
Holy water (removes curse) - really all bosses in act 1
seemed to be cursed, holy freeze, lightning and cold
enchanted or at least 2 of those. Prikkie really TPed up
and down to town to rescue Emilio (or resurrect him) and
to get rid of curses...
She also started to need more than the 6 mana/kill that
was sufficient in normal/nightmare. Somebody invent 100
row belts...
Apart from the mana and life prikkie prikkie swallowed
lots of thawing potions, just to be able to run away from
those CE-boss packs... First time for me a char has a row
dedicated to thawing potions.
Rune finds were not that good, so prikkie had no shael for
rhyme up to very recently. (Ironically, she found a couple
of Dol runes - just one higher, but shael waited till durance
of hate in hell. Amn didn't show up either, but enough Thuls
did for an Amn. Sol showed up once. As did Lum and. Ko fell
twice.)
(HELL COUNCIL + MEPH)
I expected to run to a wall with the hell council (note that
the durance TPs are unlocked by the council-kill, not by the
orb smashing) but they were very doable.
First of all, prikkie could lure them mostly one by one
by placing a decoy and valk near the temple and recasting
them further away from the temple when they were attacked.
I saw not a single self-healing! WOOT! The most annoying thing
is gone! PHOO.... A lot of members could be freeze-killed from
a distance, a few were charge-striked. No member started fleeing
in time to avoid his death.
The council in durance 3 was harder but again an important
easing... that annoying conviction was gone. The fight went
on around the stairs, which frequently offered an escape.
Luckily the council was sportive enough to keep some distance
to the stairs... so reentering wasn't too difficult.
Mephisto himself costed 2 full rejuvs... to keep Emilio
alive... charged strike shining...
Drops... I've seen all types of elites quite early and I've tried
to flawless cube 'm up... only to get +1 max damage and
such worthless additions... so neither Emilio nor prikkie use
those... but that can change any moment.
I tried nightmare mephisto a few times. First drop: only rares.
Three later drops: lot of normal uniques. Then a serie of
magic only drops. ?!?!?
All in all I can't complain... Hone Sundan dropped early and
a Harlequin Crest is nice of course...
to be continued
Hans Escher.
As you will have noticed the Amazon lightning skills now
boost each other.
I created Prikkie (dutch word for jab, made cuter).
She is a purist amazon specialising in charged strike,
lightning strike and freezing arrow. She's now 78 and has
just killed hell mephisto. This is in Diablo II 1.10 beta.
Prikkie maxed charged strike and lightning strike and got a
few points in Power strike and lightning fury, she hardly
uses the last two skills.
Some features of charged strike and lightning strike
.always hit (even against end-bosses)
.doesn't leech but the skills are cheap (+-9 mana/cast)
.mana/kill works. (and potion buying of course!)
.weapon damage is ignored, but speed is respected.
Logically, this points to javalin/shield use...
Mayor problem is of course that LS and CS grant only
one element and no physical... so another good skill is
required. Power strike does add physical but has no
damage boost aside from its (significant) lightning
damage.
Due to the extreme speeds of monsters I noticed with
other chars I decided for Freezing arrow, with syn.
points in Cold Arrow. Those skill were boosted last,
prikkie was ment to test charged and lightning strike.
(ABOUT SKILLS)
Note: this is purist. Twinkies can get far higher damage!
Charged Strike gains additional bolts (7 bolts at L20-24,
8 bolts at L25-29). More than one can hit a boss.
This makes Charged strike a nice skill against end bosses .
Prikkie killed all endbosses from normal Duriel up to hell
Mephisto with charged strike and had it easy. (and will
probably kill D and B with it later)
Current CS level 24: 7 bolts, 1-1681 lightning damage.
(31 syn points)
Lightning strike (LS), according to somebody analysing
MPQs, got a larger jump range. While playing, I've noticed
that LS indeed jumps fairly far and, in larger groups
hardly leaks... in other words its a lot better. Against
single creatures its bad, but charged strike tackles that.
Current LS level 24: 1-1339 lightning damage, 25 hits.
(also 31 syn points)
In the tombs LS could frequently reach and kill the mummy
when prikkie just touched the outer skellies.
Due to the massive amount of skillpoints spend on the jav
skills, prikkie had just 1 point in most passive skills
and used equipment to boost those. (Yep scary for a meleeer)
She compensated with gear - an found +2 passive glove, an
imbued +2 passive tiara (dropped in act 5 nightmare!), a
gambled amazon +1 skill ammy and a +1 jav +1 amazon skill
ceremonial javelin.
Later, in hell flayer jungle she found the harlequin crest
(woot!).
Other defense include near perfect blocking, good defense
armor and a defiance merc.
Freezing Arrow is not yet maxed and probably won't be.
Cold Arrow got 8 points for a nice synergy effect (better
spend in CA both damage- and mana-wise)
Freezing Arrow is up to its task, even in Hell, even with
just 1 point in Ice arrow (lengthens FA).
With it she can keep most groups in place. She only does
that if the group is mainly LI or extremely dangerous of
course.
A few early points in power strike made the start easy.
(LEVELING)
Prikkie played mostly at players 8 thru normal (not
the bosses) She ended it at level 45. It was easy
enough, including duriel - ok, prikkie was 26 by then,
love player 8)
Nightmare up to mephisto went on players 8 too.
Act 4 has a lot of lightning immunes (Damned)
and act 5 critters have a lot higher hitpoints, so
those went mostly on players 1.
End act 1: level 52. End act 2: level 58.
End act 3: level 62. End act 4: level 64.
End act 5: level 71. Who said leveling would be bad?
(SOME PLAYING NOTES)
Emilio, her merc, did a lot of work on those LIs, while
prikkie reduced the danger by freezing. Emilio used an
Hone Sundan, (found in palace celler level 2 from a holy
freeze,LE boss - lucky I didnt give that fight up)
I expected some problems in the chaos sanctuary but
the elemental attacks of OKs are really toned down.
Admittingly prikkie was level 64 by then, but even
lord the Seis group posed no real danger.
Strange enough those bone-spearing snakes in act 5 were
hardly a problem (my dual claw assassin had a lot of trouble
with them) Maybe resists all (from 3 PD shield) includes
magic damage now?
The ancients were downed at level 70.3 yielding just
about 16 M points, just enough for level 71.
Grrrr... should have read the summit better - now 4 M is
wasted.
HELL was a lot nastier... I want a new type of potion:
Holy water (removes curse) - really all bosses in act 1
seemed to be cursed, holy freeze, lightning and cold
enchanted or at least 2 of those. Prikkie really TPed up
and down to town to rescue Emilio (or resurrect him) and
to get rid of curses...
She also started to need more than the 6 mana/kill that
was sufficient in normal/nightmare. Somebody invent 100
row belts...
Apart from the mana and life prikkie prikkie swallowed
lots of thawing potions, just to be able to run away from
those CE-boss packs... First time for me a char has a row
dedicated to thawing potions.
Rune finds were not that good, so prikkie had no shael for
rhyme up to very recently. (Ironically, she found a couple
of Dol runes - just one higher, but shael waited till durance
of hate in hell. Amn didn't show up either, but enough Thuls
did for an Amn. Sol showed up once. As did Lum and. Ko fell
twice.)
(HELL COUNCIL + MEPH)
I expected to run to a wall with the hell council (note that
the durance TPs are unlocked by the council-kill, not by the
orb smashing) but they were very doable.
First of all, prikkie could lure them mostly one by one
by placing a decoy and valk near the temple and recasting
them further away from the temple when they were attacked.
I saw not a single self-healing! WOOT! The most annoying thing
is gone! PHOO.... A lot of members could be freeze-killed from
a distance, a few were charge-striked. No member started fleeing
in time to avoid his death.
The council in durance 3 was harder but again an important
easing... that annoying conviction was gone. The fight went
on around the stairs, which frequently offered an escape.
Luckily the council was sportive enough to keep some distance
to the stairs... so reentering wasn't too difficult.
Mephisto himself costed 2 full rejuvs... to keep Emilio
alive... charged strike shining...
Drops... I've seen all types of elites quite early and I've tried
to flawless cube 'm up... only to get +1 max damage and
such worthless additions... so neither Emilio nor prikkie use
those... but that can change any moment.
I tried nightmare mephisto a few times. First drop: only rares.
Three later drops: lot of normal uniques. Then a serie of
magic only drops. ?!?!?
All in all I can't complain... Hone Sundan dropped early and
a Harlequin Crest is nice of course...
to be continued
Hans Escher.