Diablo II: I eat my words. It's fun!

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by LordAzreal
Last time I played as a paladin, I struggled against Baal. Playing as a barbarian however, I mopped the floor with Baal's ugly face, and at the lowly level of 36 (normal difficulty obviously) and didn't die once (in fact it was no longer than a minute and a half before Baal was the one to die). My struggling paladin was level 40 and died at least 30 times before I could beat the SOB.

Anybody have a decent approach to developing a paladin so that he has little to no trouble at that point in the game? I'm so tired of being discouraged from using a paladin.

I really didn't have any trouble beating Baal as a lvl 37 Paladin. I had put points into prayer in act I, but that didn't really serve me very well for combat later on. it became a way to recharge between battles. I then put about 9 points into thorns, which delivers a respectable 570% damage back to melee attacks. I had put a few points into a couple other things, but Vengeance was really my payoff. I made vengeance my leftclick standard, and thorns my right. By the time I went against Baal My vengeance level was 14! Act V teleporting demons fell in one blow, most others in 2. Good War scepter helps a lot, too.

Oh, that's right, don't forget the equipment! I made a prismatic amulet, and used the RalOrtTal runes to make an Ancient's Pledge Shield. Between the two of them and that 10% resist all scroll, my resistances to all were maxed out. so magic attacks didn't hurt me as much as might have otherwise. I just waded in past those magical waves an started beating on Baal.

One last thing. Had a full belt of full rejuvs. whenever I ran low, would replay lesser levels for a while to save mana potions and build up a full belt of full rejuvs.

[Dis]

I did better against Diablo as a paladin than as a barbarian. my barb was geared towards attacking multiple enemies but he struggled against the big D. A paladin can beef up his damage fairly easy without burning too much mana. As for bhaal I struggled more with my paladin than I did with my barb. Go figure.

[Father Beast]

for everybody that helped, thank you.

My wife beat Duriel with her lvl 24 sorceress and moved on to Kurast. She says she expected to be killed at least once, and kept hitting him with static field, all the while drinking mana and health potions. She had kept all the rejuvs back in her stash for when she got killed, so she could finish the job, but she looked and Duriel was about down to nothing, so she swithched to chain lightning and finshed him off.

[FrustratedPoet]

Told you so.

Glad to hear that she has made it to Kurast! She shouldn't struggle too much there since she's a pretty high level now. Most people complete Act 3 at about Level 24-26 ... although Act 3 can be the most annoying because fighting your way through the jungle can be really tough because of all those little beasties running around. I forget their names ... the little dudes with blowpipes. Once you get to the town area of Kurast it gets a little less frustrating. It depends on her skills I suppose, her Chain Lightning should be good for getting rid of the swarming mobs.

[SnowFire]

Yeah, the dart guys can be nasty. They aren't so bad for a Strafeazon who auto-targets them all, or a Sorc who just tosses Glaical Spikes/Chain Lightnings in all directions, but I understand that Barbarians have the darnedst of times with them, since you have to kill each one indivdually. My roommate, who went for a slow-attack speed Maul that is one-hit kill on virtually everything, had the biggest of problems there because he could only one at a time, and slowly, and he had to catch up with them (presumably it'd be easier in Nightmare, because you could Whirlwind through). While somebody with projectiles can let them do the work.

[Sharpe]

Yeah, I bought the Diablo Battlechest a while back and I am just finishing off Act III as a Paladin - the Fetishes (blow dart guys) were a pain for me until I switched from Thorns to Zeal. The multiple hits really helped! Their shamans with the inferno attack were also irritants until I used a charge attack on them. Amazing game! Almost as good as civ (but will probably become a little repetitive eventually).

[DinoDoc]

Personally, I like to use Golemancers. They remove the need to even have a merc until you get access to a barbarian.

[Chowlett]

It's quite humourous really. I have a problem with my Barbarian because I increased a skill or two too much. He's exceptionally fun to play, and deals a hell of a lot of damage (including something in the region of 50 poison damage/second), but he's too damn fast!

I invested a point or 2 into the faster run/walk skill, and my main attack is Frenzy at about level 5 or 6, and I'm wearing items that give me +2 skills. Once he's hit about 3 things, he's nearly uncontrollable. I think a lot of the next few points will be going into stone skin and natural resist - I dual-wield, so he needs them.

[Sarxis]

I too was unimpressed with the demo for D2. Maybe I should reavaluate this game?

[Father Beast]

I was looking through the collection of mods for D2, and Phrozenkeep had a method of using a separate shortcut via direct mpq to access a mod, instead of replacing the mpq file, so the original would be available for use and the mod also.

Unfortunately, I can't get it to work. I try it and the game asks me to check if the CD is in the drive (which it is). I am nervous about switching the mpq again because of the expanded stash we are using. if somebody loaded one of those characters....

any hints on this process?

[ravagon]

I've pretty much always used a subdirectory just to store each of the individual mpqs (or .txt files as the case may be) due to the possibility of loading up the wrong character (I don't think there's any way to access different save directories using the shortcut method).
I've never run into the problem with the disks though ...
Are you sure you're loading a mod for the same version you have installed? 1.09d I imagine.

Copying mpq files around may seem tedious but it does get you into the habit of doing the same for your characters. I always create a save directory in each of my mod directories and copy/backup my savegames whenever I'm moving mpq's around.
Either that or start a character with a code in the character name specific to each mod - can get very messy though when you have a lot of mods.

[ravagon]

Incidentally the expanded cube/stash/inventory plugins are available on Phrozenkeep (somewhere). Along with tutorials on how to, well, plug em in, in case you were thinking of upgrading to 1.10 (if it ever comes out )

[Father Beast]

I ended up making .bat files for switching between mods. I never did get the direct MPQ version to work, even following the instructions at phrozenkeep.

I don't know how to have a separate save directory for a mod, either. wish they had something like FW for this. The only mod we have yet is the Harry Potter mod, which levels you up fast and buries you in hordes of creatures just by walikng out of town. I started a new character and was up to level 8 before I found the den of evil!

My wife decided to load her lvl 26 sorceress in harry potter mode ( now alvl 26 hermione ) and abruptly leveled up to level 41!!!! unfortunately, it now freezes if she tries to play it in our normal xpstash mode

Ah, well. can anyone suggest a few good mods? I muist say, I'm not looking for something that rebalances the game, as so many seem to do. stuff like this harry potter mod that redo the character classes. I heard about one that allows you to play as several kinds of demons, but I can't seem to find it.

[ravagon]

Highly recommended:

Ancestral Recall - either the classic or the enhanced skills versions - both are compatible with standard LoD characters although only the enhanced version uses the expanded stash/cube/inventory plugins (IIRC?).

SG's Rune mod - No magic/rare/set etc items of any kind. Find runes and use your cube to add their stats to your items. Very innovative.

BG mod - Integrates graphics/monsters etc from Baldurs Gate. Looks very good although I haven't tried it yet.

The Ancients (buggy)/The Fury Within - upgrades to AR above. More new monsters/items etc. Again haven't gotten around to it yet but this one looks very good too. I don't think these characters can be put back into std LoD though.

The "Demon Trip" mod allows you to play as various demon classes but is still in closed beta testing - check out the Mod announcements section of the Phrozen forums.
Also take a look at the "Apocalypse Mod" - again still in beta testing.

Most of these can be found on either Phrozenkeep or its hosted sites.


Re: The Harry Potter sorceress - it shouldn't be the stash thats causing the problem - not in going from a standard size to an enhanced size anyway. More likely a new item or two were picked up that are of course incompatible with the original mpq file. Try divesting your character of any of these first.

[Father Beast]

Thanks for the reccomendations, ravagon.

My wife did lose 2 out of 4 charms when going back to regular LoD (xpx stash), so I didn't think it was the item thing. What also suggests otherwise is that it always freezes when she kills her first monster. The HP mod uses the same size stash, cube, inventory as the XP, although the cube in the inventory is only 1 square!

She says she doesn't mind just playing in that mod, anyway.

odd thing about this crash. the screen freezes right in the middle of her chain lightning strike. you can't ctrl-alt-del to quit. you CAN, however use ctrl-tab to return to desktop, where a message says something about the diablo2 program having had a fault. it's not the standard windows message, though. it only has the one button, marked "OK". the mouse cursor disappears over this message, but if you position it right, you can still use the invisible mouse to click the OK, which closes the message and the D2 program

[Felch]

Weird.

Heavy summoning Necros are fun in B.net if you have broadband. There's nothing like having a twenty odd minions around to soak up damage and lag all your teammates. Revives though are much better than either skeleton. The skeletons are both obselete by the end of Normal.

My favorite build was a Tanking Druid. I specialized in Oak Sage, Dire Wolves, and Hurricane, and cranked up my armor and hit points as best I could. Using a Defiance hireling helped out a lot too, it gave my a huge defense bonus. I was able to stand in the middle of packs of enemies near the end of Nightmare and kill them just by using Hurricane. A laid back way of playing that was more interesting than effective. By Hell the monsters simply stopped dying.

Right now I'm working on a lightning Sorc, and plan on using Static Field heavily along with Thunder Storm, and an Act V merc. My buddy has a Fire sorc, so we'd complement each other well enough to do Cow runs in Hell.

[The Mad Monk]

My werewolf-summoner actually uses a rogue; the party already kicks in melee, the rogue adds decent ranged combat.

I used to favor ice mages, but the more time I spend in the higher difficulties, the more I favor rogues. Except for zookeeper necros -- I use a thorns merc there, assasins (ice mage), and bowazons (also ice mage).

[The Mad Monk]

for those characters who have problems with the dart blowers, there are a couple options:

1) Ignore them. The melee specialists that have the most trouble with them are also usually the best equipped to just run right by them and on to targets more worthy of their consideration.

2) Get a rogue or ice mage, and let them worry about the plinkers.

3) Carry a pack of throwing knives, or a bow, whatever -- for those 'special occasions'.

I have a paladin who actually has all three options.

The rogue and bow options will also work with death and oblivion knights. In normal difficulty, plug a couple perfect emeralds in a bow and go sniping...

[Father Beast]

BTW, after starting again on nightmare, I noticed my resistances were all dropped significantly. to be exact, all my resistances went down 40%

is this pretty standard?

[FrustratedPoet]

yes, that's exactly standard .... it's supposed to be a 'nightmare' ....

They drop even more on Hell difficulty, if i remember correctly it is a 100% drop ... that is indeed 'hell'.

This is where things will start to get very tough if you have a sub-optimal set of skills for your character. Almost any character is good enough to complete Normal mode, but unfortunately you might find that your character simply isn't good enough to cope. That's what happened to me with my first character ... I completed Normal quite easily, but couldn't get out of Act 2 on Nightmare ... my latest character is finding things very easy on Hell difficulty, though ... we live and learn.

Other differences about Nightmare difficulty:

a) monsters have LOADS more hit-points ... I expect you noticed that the zombies in the first zone of Act One took longer to kill than most of the monsters leading up to fighting Baal.

b) monsters do LOADS more damage, but give LOADS more experience.

c) you will start to see Exceptional items drop ... you might have seen a couple in Acts 4 and 5 of Normal, but they're quite rare there. They're better versions of the normal weapons you'll notice that they have improved stats and a different (usuall weird) name from the base type... use them if you can.

d) many basic monsters will be immune to some kind of attack. Most commonly this is Fire, Poison, Ice or Lightening ... pure melee characters won't be too bothered by this, but it can be very tricky if you are playing a Sorceress with only one decent damage spell. Some of the champion and random boss monsters will also be Immune to Physical ... if you don't have a good elemental attack then these guys will be almost invincible ... if they have Stone Skin too they probably will be invincible if you can't do elemental damage. If you don't have a good skill to counter these (Vengeance for a Pally, Berserk for a Barb) then keep your eyes out for an Exceptional weapon with either 3 or 4 sockets or good base elemental damage.

I'm sorry if you knew most of that already, I don't mean to be patronising ...

Have fun

BTW, what character are you playing? what level? what skills do you have and at what level are they? what equipment do you have? We can give you a few helpful hints if you find things tough going on Nightmare.

[FrustratedPoet]

Ahhh OK, I just re-read your earlier post about being a level 37 Paladin with 14 points in Vengeance. That is an excellent skill to use, if only because it solves any problems you might have had with Physical Immunes but you will need two things to make it really effective for the harder difficulties...

1) 3-5% mana steal or plenty of rejuvination potions. You'll be using the attack a lot more on Nightmare. This is easy to get.

2) Conviction. (lvl 30-req aura) If you don't have this already then you're gonna need to get it if you want to survive until the end of Nightmare. The basic 'cookie-cutter' Paladin builds are Zeal-Fanaticism and Vengeance-Conviction ... when you get to higher levels you can put points into both those auras and start to flash them. They're not the only ways to do it, of course, nor necessarily the most fun, but they are the most powerful ... and dying lots isn't much fun either.

Your top priorities in terms of equipment should probably be Resistances ... all of them if possible, but I always find Lightning to be the most important, since the Lightning Enchanted bosses are Ultimate Destruction if you have a low lightning resist. Also you will need to get a high damage one-handed weapon ... some people like two-handers, but I always find I die too much without the resistances gained from the Ancients Pledge or a 3D-shield. The biggest problem I had with my first paladin was damage on Nightmare level ... wading through all the monsters was a huge chore and I was dying too much because it took me forever to kill anything.

[tniem]

I just defeated Act I on Normal difficulty with a level 13 Paladin. I know, I am just getting started. I figured now would be a good time to make sure that I am investing in the right stuff. What spells would you suggest I upgrade to so that I can beat Diablo and Baal and possibly move on to Nightmare and Hell?

[Freeze]

There's a BUG in the game that causes ETH runes (#5 or #6 i think. level req is about 13) to give full ITD when socketed in a weapon. It's not all that much help against monsters with high block, like Diablo, but it's useful for leveling up your newest build. There's natch rumors that the BUG will get fixed in patch 1.10, so it's probably best to socket only crappy low-level items with ETH runes.

[SnowFire]

They're not the only ways to do it, of course, nor necessarily the most fun, but they are the most powerful ...

Don't know how things worked out in LOD, but a friend of mine had a Smite Paladin who tore it up. He could stun-lock pretty much any single enemy in the game (be it unique or not), and could still do pretty well against multiple nasty monsters, with only true swarms & Lightning Enchanted giving him problems (which is why a Strafeazon worked very well with him- the aura that does more damage made her arrows rule, and the Paladin stunned any nasty monsters before they could get close to her, which was her weakness).

[The Mad Monk]

One thing to keep in mind about pallys is that they can be hard to stop if they have a high blocking percentage, but they can only get that percentage by boosting DEX regularly.

A monster that can hit you 90% of the time is nowhere near as bad if you can block that hit 75% of the time...

[Chowlett]

I recently played one of the most fun Mephisto runs I've ever done. I was my level 46 Sorc (a minor tri-elemntalist, given my +1 skills amulet, my +1 skills orb and my +3 fire skill coronet) aiding a level 44 Werebear take Phisty down. It's classic - my Barb and the druid just tank, while I hang back and land firewalls on the stationary monsters for 450-550 damage per second, lasting 4 seconds!

She's even better now I've fitted her out with, erm, Stealth armour, I think it is. TalEth, gives Cast Rate and Mana Regen among others. My RalOrtTal is doing well, but I'll upgrade that to a 3D sometime soon.

[FrustratedPoet]

Paladins that put a lot of skill points into Smite or into Charge can also be extremely good, however I didn't have as much fun with my Smite Pally as I did with my Zeal or Vengeance one ... but I suppose because it was my 3rd Paladin I was a bit bored of the class anyway. I've heard that Charge is amazing, especially in PvP, but I've never tried it myself.

Originally posted by tniem
I just defeated Act I on Normal difficulty with a level 13 Paladin. I know, I am just getting started. I figured now would be a good time to make sure that I am investing in the right stuff. What spells would you suggest I upgrade to so that I can beat Diablo and Baal and possibly move on to Nightmare and Hell?

Several points into Thorns is a must ... it is the most effective skill to use against the big boss characters. You can simply load up on health potions and let them hit you if you really want ... some people even play as a Martyr Paladin. That's where you put all your stat-points into Vitality so you have tons of Life and put all you skill-points into Thorns, don't bother to wear any armour or even carry a weapon and let all the enemies kill themselves by attacking you. This is not a powerful build, and is really only a bit of a silly one for people who want a challenge, but it's quite possible to complete Normal at least using this .. or so I've heard.

Here's a quick rundown of my thoughts on making a Paladin:

General Skills for all Paladins:
5 Thorns - this is great! All paladins should have a few points in this. You can get an Act 2/Nightmare Mercenary with this aura, but by then you probably won't need it much anymore and will want to take the Holy Freeze Merc (see below)

1 Salvation - you need to be level 30 to get this, but it can really help you get started on Nightmare if you struggle to cope with the -40% resistances. Skip it if you think you can manage without it.

5 Holy Freeze? - this is another absolutely awesome skill that most characters would die to get their hands on ... however once you get to Act 2 of Nightmare difficulty you can get a Mercenary who has this skill ... I wouldn't put skill points into it if I were you because I always like to have the Merc with it ... but it's your call.

Specifics:
Right, there's SO many options here. The paladin isn't a broken uber-class like the Guided Arrow/Buriza Amazon, but has several different builds that can work well.

Vengance/Conviction: The Vengeance will give you a high amount of elemental damage, which is crucial at higher levels. It is kind of mana-hungry, so some leeching will be needed here so you don't run out. The Conviction aura will lower the enemy's resistance to elemental attacks ... you don't need to be a genius to see why this is a good combo. However, you can't get Conviction until level 30, but Vengeance and a bit of Thorns will see you through until then with no problems.

Zeal/Fanaticism: Zeal will give you lots of fast attacks, up to a maximum of 5 now (thank God!), and Fanaticism will give your attacks much more damage and will increase you % to-hit. Sweet.

Smite/Charge/Holy Shield: This build requires an excellent shield, but fortunately the Pally has access to several of those because of his class-specific ones. Use them well. The Smite and Charge skills will give you huge damage, Charge especially, and the Holy Shield will increase your blocking percentage and damage with shield attacks. You can supplement this with an aura of your choice if you want. Probably Thorns, Holy Freeze or Redemption would be good fits for this. A few points into Holy Shield with most of the builds will serve you well.

Zeal/Holy Shock: This can do HUGE damage, but it is very dependent on Lighning damage ... when you encounter Lightning Immune monsters later on they will simply laugh in your face. It is powerful in the right places though ... if you just want to do Cow Runs the whole time then this would be good.

For a more thorough and experienced analysis of the Paladin class, and indeed all the classes, you might want to check out the Diabloii.net strategy compendium. The nav-bar on the left has links to several useful guides, and includes guides for strange sub-builds of the Paladin such as the Ranger. Check it out, especially this general guide.

The best resource to plan your skill levels is this website, where you can experiment with putting skill points in different places to see what combinations you can have. It can take a while to load, though.

[Chowlett]

Originally posted by Freeze
There's a BUG in the game that causes ETH runes (#5 or #6 i think. level req is about 13) to give full ITD when socketed in a weapon. It's not all that much help against monsters with high block, like Diablo, but it's useful for leveling up your newest build. There's natch rumors that the BUG will get fixed in patch 1.10, so it's probably best to socket only crappy low-level items with ETH runes.

Really? Cool! Do you hae a link?

[FrustratedPoet]

A link to what? If you mean the rumours/facts about v1.10 then here is a link, most of the stuff on that site is educated speculation, but there are some things that Blizzard have revealed, including Ladder Characters.

[Chowlett]

No I meant to the Eth rune bug - I hadn't heard of it before.