Corkscrew map, Balanced in the fact that they start with more money/units than i do.. compared to my first-to bonus. Should be fun!


My basic plan is to try and capture as much territory as i can, as fast as i can.. THEN build trebs and play defensibly. Hopefully the other players quit copying me.. lol

So I started her up. A Fire/Cold/Magic arrow amazon. Her name is Uni, and she will go using the three basic arrow attacks. Fire, Cold an Magic arrows.

So, what goes into making a character?

Well, first we need to see what we go against.





Look at the hell portion of health. Now keep in mind that monsters regenerate. Finally, monsters who lose a good portion of their life (at least 8th) get stunned a little. That gives us an idea of how much damage we need to do. At least a few thousands.

So, Fire, Cold and Magic arrows. 

Magic arrow is the simplest, it gives our bow one damage (+1 min and +1 max) per level. This is before %enhanced damage is applied, making the small number misleading. Amazon Basin players call amazons focusing on magic arrow Sniperzons. It also converts a percentage (1% per level) of physical damage to magic. Goodish against ghosts. Not so much against Horadric Ancients in hell (Immune to Magic)

Fire arrow converts some portion of damage to fire (45% at skill level 21, 2% per level), and adds fire damage to the attack. (63-70 at skill level 20, 123-140 at skill level 26, and 219-249 at skill level 31) It also gains 12% fire damage from each point spent in exploding arrow (skill bonuses from items don't count), but I don't know yet if it affects the converted damage or just the base fire damage.

Cold arrow does the same, but supposedly lower physical attack damage and cold damage, to account for the inherent utility in slowing enemies (that are susceptible anyways).

And most importantly: NONE of them increase my attack rating when using them, so my chance to hit is actually the one that gets listed when I have my normal attack up. Silly bug.

However, Penetrate gives me a nice attack rating boost. (35% + 10% per level above the first), and thus will get increased as much as I can spare skill points into it.

So To get there, I fired up a calculator, ( https://diablo3.ingame.de/diablo-2/calcu...n&char=ama mind the ads, use a blocker if necessary.) combed the basin forums, looked up sites, and came to the conclusion that the damage will depend entirely on my weapon, will be most likely weaker than my near-5k damage firebolts, and with no teleport to back it up, I'd need a sturdy tank to hide behind.

I haven't decided yet on how much I'll pump into Decoy and Valkyrie. Between Penetrate and the three arrow skills, I won't have many points left to make them tanky summons. (Decoy to draw fire and Valkyrie to distract everything else)

Lurkers welcome, although I'll likely be updating somewhat infrequently.

No players!

Get your (war)groove on at the new forum, here.

Having played some classic Diablo with the GOG release of the original game, I am now moving on to fresh confusion (and lots of questions) in Diablo 2.

I decided to begin with a sorceress, tentatively planning to emphasize the lightning skills. I have been told this is rather a noob choice but since I pretty much am one hopefully it won't turn out too badly.

After chatting with the inhabitants of the rogue camp and being given an initial quest to clear a cave befouled by evil, I entered the Blood Moor (charming name) and started shocking fallen, quill rats, and the occasional zombie along with thwacking them with my staff. Hmmm, shrines and a well; not sure yet what these do. Are the shrines single use, or do they reset/recharge after a time?

I collect a bit of gold and a few basic bits of loot, explore the area, and find an entrance to the next region with a rogue who warns me to turn back. Seems like good advice for now. I manage to wander all over the place without finding the evil cave for quite a while, but gain an initial couple levels and find a little bit of basic gear (a cap, some boots, etc.).

Finally I stumble across the cave and cautiously enter. Fallen and some big shambling things, plus zombies. And they keep coming back to life. This could be a problem, although I suppose also a bit of a farming opportunity. OK, there are some shamans raising the killed monsters. How annoying! I am guessing I am going to get awfully tired of these guys.

A bit of work results in all the shaman becoming dead (can they raise one another?), and then I finish off everything else (including one zombie with spectral hit -- not really sure what that does) and head back to the camp. A bonus skill point is a useful reward. I put it in warmth for more mana regen. I gained a couple more levels, and add those points into charged bolt. Stat points go into energy, some dex, and a couple points of strength to allow wearing some quilted armor I found. Probably noob choices, but I will try it and see how it goes.

Another quest: defeat Blood Raven. I guess it is time to head past that guard into the next region. I talk to everyone in camp again and buy a couple more bits of gear (a belt, some gloves, simple stuff). Hmmm, what is gambling? Looks like purchasing unidentified items? Well, maybe later I will have more gold and that might be worthwhile to try to fill holes in my gear.

Onward to the next area, seeking the burial grounds and this Blood Raven person....

So far I am having fun, and getting used to the interface changes from Diablo 1. The day/night cycle on the Blood Moor was a nice effect, does that apply to all outdoors regions?

Because the mods here are unwilling to allow discussion on this forum, I have made a quick topic for the ongoing discussion on Brexit stuff: https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/v5X3YfrcQcc8

Please note, any insulting or verbal abuse and I'll just up ban the individual, rather than close the whole discussion down.

Brick, Sulla, T-Hawk, whichever mods are closing the threads, do it if you want. One way or another the discussion is going to happen.

Edit: Post updated.

It seemed that normal units are not particularly strong except longbowmen in the early game and there are no stat buffs. Something like gladiator available at the beginning of the game seems much stronger unit compared to elven lords available after 1406. Pegasus, while initially very nice, didn't seem useful in the later game except for scouting and wind walking.

Of summons, nagas seem decent early game, water elementals ok in the middle game and storm giant very good in the later game but making the whole offensive army of these didn't seem practical.

Support spells, however, seem strong mid to late game.

So in short, I'm looking for some advice how to success with this combo. I think if I had mid game treasure hunted with storms giants it would have went much better.

Background: My game just ended in Myrror wizard casting armageddon, nuking my citadel and then storming it with full stack of doom bats (the one debugged in the release thread for ship code crash).

After this I played a game with chaos barbarians which was a boring steam roll with gladiators, which were also able to take most nodes much earlier.

By request, an update...

By popular (???) demand, here's my thread for the Wargroove FoW game.  



This map is terrible, and while I've already given SD some grief in the Wargroove general thread for picking it, I share a fair amount of responsibility as well for having simply jumped into the game without actually reviewing the map at all.  I even voluntarily picked the fourth player slot!  


Not only does my corner of the map have fewer production facilities, despite bee-lining the two "contested" barracks to my north & east I couldn't reach either before SD and CH had already captured them, due to player order.  I also had the misfortune of both SD and CH sending their CO's my way, ensuring I couldn't simply power through their units with my own leader.


Realizing I was screwed like four turns into the game, I've had two objectives- A: get a cheap CO kill using a Dragon I saved up for, or failing that B: make my inevitable elimination as painful as possible.  


I almost achieved Objective A after CH got too aggressive trying to capture my exposed barracks, but he used his CO power to heal back up.  I think I've done a decent job at securing Objective B already, as CH came back with a large force shortly afterwards, minus his CO- I was waiting for him however with a charged CO, and over the past couple turns I've heavily damaged or wiped most of his expeditionary force, with few loses.  


Here's my troops disposition:  




Most of those Spears had been hiding just outside my "fortress" until a couple turns ago; having sprung my trap, I'm advancing to secure the area.  


Also note the 2 health Wagon- I almost lost my CO to SD after I failed to capture the northern barracks, but thankfully had produced a Wagon I used to run to safety.  Wagons are possibly my favorite unit in Wargroove... you don't want to excessively produce them, since each Wagon you deploy is a combat unit you could have had in the field, but their utility is undeniable.