Kylearan sends an async team to death or guardianship

[Kylearan]

For act 2, the tricks to good weapons are gambling (you can gamble better base items long before they come available from vendors or drops, particularly pikes and mauls)

I didn't know you could get better base items earlier - thanks! Back in the day, I think I almost exclusively gambled circlets, rings and amulets. I'll try that out for the assassin, and maybe the amazon too.

Keep the Hsaru's items - the boot/belt combo is very useful [...] I'd recommend a two-hander if you do use Steel; at this point any available shield is quite marginal and two-handed damage is better.

Regarding Hsaru's, I'm mainly disappointed that I got the belt and shield and not the boots (yet). But I've given them to my barbarian for now and decided to make a Steel flail - the runeword is so cheap that I can easily make a bigger Steel later if needed. And while the damage variance can be a bit annoying, it's still more than sufficient for Act 2 - I one-shot the Summoner on players 7. (Yeah I know the Summoner is a bad benchmark, but it was sooo satisfying to leap attack from one corner of my wide-screen monitor to the other - he never saw what hit him! I love the new leap attack with AoE damage on top, at least for normal. )

It also feels more fair that everyone is earning the same amount of gear, rather than the high-count characters carrying the lesser ones.

The fairness bit is a good point which I'll keep in mind. I guess I have to find a balance between fairness, tedium and difficulty, and maybe I can compensate by some characters skipping more areas than others.

Thanks for the feedback!

[T-hawk]

To cover the details: Gambling ilvl ranges from character level -5 to +4, so you can get base items with qlvl up to 4 higher than your character level, although it may take a lot of refreshes to see them. The most relevant ones are Blade Talons qlvl 21 (character level 17+), Maul qlvl 21 (best two-hander), Pike qlvl 24 (for mercs), Flail qlvl 19 (best one-hander.) For bows, there's not really any particular sweet spot actually, the progression is smooth.

You can also do the next level of this towards the end of normal difficulty. Gamble for a rare base item with any decent (like +50%) damage, and cube-upgrade it to exceptional once you get the inputs (Ort + Amn + sapphire.) That's how to get a high-end exceptional base way sooner than any other method.

Fairness in balancing the character experience/loot/levels is up to you. I found I liked doing it that way.

[Kylearan]

Normal Act 2

When with the release of Diablo 2 Resurrected I started to play again after so many years, I only played single player on the realms where you do not have the players x command. I had forgotten just how many items drop at players 7 - so many runes, gems, and rares! Seven characters at p7 produce a nice pool of items, and I found myself looking forward to the end of the act to distribute all the goodies. It's also a bit cruel to see a good item in the stash found by another character and not being allowed to use it just yet. 

The characters were a bit more equal in power now so that players 7 was fine for all, with two exceptions. The amazon did low damage and had huge mana problems even now that patch 2.4 has reduced the mana cost of Multishot and Strafe; she also had a rogue mercenary and no tank, so it was very slow going with her. Later I gambled a bow with more damage and 5% mana leech with helped a bit, plus a better bow for her rogue. Also, at level 24 she spiked in power with getting Strafe, Decoy and Evade, but she was still considerably less powerful than the other characters.

She also encountered a rock worm egg in the maggot lair which couldn't be hit:

   

What you can see in the picture are two guided arrows zipping back and forth, each time missing the egg.    Now I know why guided arrows vanish after a set amount of frames. 

The other notable exception regarding killing speed was again the assassin. She was killing mobs with lightning speed - usually one or two combinations of Claws of Thunder and Dragon Claw were enough before she moved to the next mob using either Dragon Flight or Burst of Speed, rarely having to drink a mana potion inbetween. No time and need to gamble better claws! I know it was only Normal Act 2, but still - compared to the other classes, the early game balance feels wrong here.

The paladin was less powerful than before because of the number of non-undead, non-demon foes, but the second crafting attempt gave his desert mercenary a nice savage polearm. Sometimes it's time to switch roles and and let the merc enter the room full of scarabs alone! 

   

The sorceress made a slight change of plan and invested 10 points in Fireball (which means only 10 points in Cold Mastery down the road). This will later strengthen her main skill, Hydra, but more importantly I found myself unable to slog through players 7 with Fire Bolt only - I don't have that patience. She also got lucky and found a staff at Drognan's with +3 to Fireball to make a Leaf out of. That, plus a nice crafting roll for a savage polearm for the merc boosted by Enchant, made the act more than manageable for her.

The Barbarian got lucky and found himself a Nagelring, which I really like this early - the bonus to attack rating and especially the magic find are really nice! He will keep this for himself for now to boost his Find Item, which I was tempted to invest more than one point into. But since that would weaken his combat abilities in the long run and I tend to forget to use that skill (the downside of playing different classes in parallel I guess  ), I held off for now. Apart from that, he did well jumping around with his Steel flail.

Each character visited Drognan each time they had to go to town to also look for a suitable wand for making White for the Necromancer later on, but so far only found a very mediocre one with only some plusses to synergies. Speaking of items in general, I found a lot of crap (two Axes of Fechmar, Pluckeye, Steelgoad, Berserker's Hatchet, Witherstring, and more), but also some interesting stuff. For example, I found the missing Hsarus' piece, the boots. I made the odd choice of giving the now complete Hsarus set to my druid for Act 3 - the barbarian simply doesn't need it, the assassin cannot wear the shield (she's dual claw) and the druid finds himself toe to toe with groups of enemies more often than not so his Tornados will hit reliably, so he can use the extra defense.

This, plus two Gorefoots and two crafted Stealth armors, will also give some much needed mobility for most of my characters in Act 3. A twitchthroe went to my assassin for its boni to Strength, Dex, FHR and IAS (even though the increased chance of blocking sadly doesn't work with her Weapon Block), and some other items will see at least some use although probably not much: an Umbral Disc, a Swordback Hold and some jewelry, among others. I also found a second Biggin's Bonnet which I'm quite fond of: Even when I find better headgear later on, I can see them both used on my mercenaries for the 30% enhanced damage.

The level difference between the characters began to bother me now too, so I skipped or raided some extra tombs for each class until everyone was at level 27 before killing Duriel. Funny how I had some flashback of Duriel Angst with my Amazon - Duriel is not really a problem, but I suddenly remembered how it had been for my very first character, also a Bowazon, 20 years ago.

[T-hawk]

Maggot eggs are 1 tile in size (every other monster is at least a 5-tile X-shaped footprint), and projectiles move faster than 1 tile per frame, so it's very possible for an arrow to skip over a maggot egg, that happens a lot.

Try just sticking with normal attack or Magic Arrow to deal with mana costs for now, there's no shame in that. And early bows do terrible damage, as you're finding. The best solution is to get some decent rare (50% ED or so, gambling is one source) and cube-upgrade it to exceptional, once you get the inputs (the Council in act three can drop the Amn.)

Re a White wand - the math is that 1 in 225 wands will have +3 Bone Spear. (And only a Bone Wand works from Drognan, a Yew Wand can only have one socket.) Sure you don't want to deliberately shop for that?

Level 27 is really high to finish act 2. I only bother going to 24 at that time. You'll be getting next to no experience while you're far above the monster levels in act 3. Yeah, you're getting excited about the players-7 amount of loot... but really it's all junk, there's nothing yet that's going to be useful into even nightmare difficulty.

[Kylearan]

Re a White wand - the math is that 1 in 225 wands will have +3 Bone Spear.  (And only a Bone Wand works from Drognan, a Yew Wand can only have one socket.)  Sure you don't want to deliberately shop for that?

Yep, I'm sure I don't want to go that road. "No vendor grinding" is one of my flavors of "living off the land", and I'll make my White out of whatever I'm able to get and accept to live with that even if it's not that good.

Level 27 is really high to finish act 2.  I only bother going to 24 at that time.  You'll be getting next to no experience while you're far above the monster levels in act 3.

I know the table for experience gain by level by area, but level 27 was the outcome of what felt natural. I had started with my barbarian, had a good feeling regarding clear speed at p7, cleared only one false tomb and ended up at 27. He already killed Mephisto and is now at level 31; I'll have to see when it feels right to reduce player count so gameplay won't be too slow for most of the characters.

Yeah, you're getting excited about the players-7 amount of loot... but really it's all junk, there's nothing yet that's going to be useful into even nightmare difficulty.

I'm fully aware of that, but please alllow me still to be excited. I genuinely enjoy finding low-level items and kitting out my low-level characters for Normal, even though I know I could play the game more or less naked at this stage. But it's fun not only to think about the end game and how to get there ASAP for once, but to do a full clear of earlier stages of the game (can't remember when I last went into the Swampy Pits!) and thus spending more time than usual in Normal and with items I usually ignore. Right now these items don't feel like junk, even if I can only use them for an act or two.

[T-hawk]

My standard for player count was p5 through four acts, p7 for normal act 5 (the only time monster levels escalate fast enough that you aren't overshooting into the experience penalty), p5 for all of nightmare difficulty and hell act 1, p3 for most of the rest of hell, p1 for the sewers/Durance and act 5 hell. I full-cleared from act 3 nightmare through act 4 hell (minus the sewers and false temples.)

BTW, area levels don't take effect for normal difficulty (level type is defined per monster and doesn't change by area), only for nightmare and hell.

Yeah, the point of this format is indeed to get excited over mediocre loot, so I suppose you're just taking that a bit further than I did.

[KingOfPain]

Normal Act 2

When with the release of Diablo 2 Resurrected I started to play again after so many years, I only played single player on the realms where you do not have the players x command. I had forgotten just how many items drop at players 7 - so many runes, gems, and rares! Seven characters at p7 produce a nice pool of items, and I found myself looking forward to the end of the act to distribute all the goodies. 

And that is why I somewhat feel a little disconnected when I read these reports.

And having to translate the relevance of clvl vs mlvl vs players x makes my head hurt

[Kylearan]

Normal Act 3

There's not much to report about Act 3. My characters finished at level 31, so everyone has access to all their important skills now - some with more synergy already than others. But some builds are not yet as they should be, as they still have the wrong mercenary - especially the sorceress, who plans to hire a barbarian in act 5. I also consider switching the paladin's planned Holy Freeze merc with a barbarian too, to have two paladins and two barbarian mercs instead of three/one.

I will wait with that decision for another act or two, once I know what to do with my bonemancer. Oh boy is he boring to play! And weaker than expected as well, mainly because he lacks a tank. The clay golem doesn't stay alive long enough to gather enemies into a tight group to make my level 1 Amplify Damage/Corpse Explosion really work, and so I'm mainly maneuvering around and using Bone Spear which... is okay, but not very fast at killing mobs. In addition, his rogue merc is running around like a headless chicken instead of shooting (screaming "Where's the tank? We need a damned tank!" all the time), and when she finally stands still, she casts Inner Sight or shoots normal arrows instead of fire arrows most of the time. I guess I should use Bone Prison/Wall more, but in Normal this feels more tedious than necessary. Maybe the rogue will become better later with an Insight bow or something, but right now I'm tempted to switch her with a barbarian merc, too.

The new fire Iron Wolf is a positive surprise, however. He reliably casts Enchant on my Leap barbarian and is much bolder than the rogue, standing amidst enemies and casting Fireballs in quick succession. He really does kill stuff, and hasn't died yet at all! Let's see how useful he will be in Hell, but he's fun to have around for now (the sorceress is a bit jealous, seeing him standing toe to toe with mana burn monsters and still spewing Fireballs at high rates!). The barbarian itself almost died, as I didn't know you cannot drink potions while jumping. I jumped into the middle of a monster pack, saw mid-flight that my health bulb was only half full, hit the key for a health potion and concentrated on the monsters again. Luckily my peripheral vision registered the lack of the color red on the bottom left after landing and I was able to save myself with an emergency rejuv potion, but that's a really stupid rule!

The assassin became even more ridiculous than before, now that she has claws with a chance to cast Amplify Damage on hitting, plus Twitchthroe. If I could scale the game to players 15, I would. The amazon became a bit better, but is still far from being good or self-sufficient (she has to drink too many mana potions), but I already have some gear and a plan for her for Act 4.

Item-wise, nothing really great dropped either. Maffer gave me an Amn rune which opens up some possibilities for the next act; I found a +1 martial arts amulet (yay, more power to the assassin!  ); i got the nice combo of Sander's Riprap and Taboo and a Bloodrise which my Paladin will use for monsters not susceptible to Holy Bolt. Also, I found a mallet my barbarian will compare in the field with his Steel flail:

   

Nothing exciting, I know, but that's all this act had to offer.  Now off to kill Diablo!

[T-hawk]

Level 31 is crazy high for act 3 - I think I usually made 28 then. I've been cautioning you about overshooting because I don't want you to burn out from doing all that extra work. If you're sure you'll keep going, then fine, enjoy the overkill.

Yeah, bonemancers are boring. Bone Spear gets somewhat faster when its synergy ramps up and you get a White wand and more +skills equipment. Fast-cast equipment matters a lot too - do you have a Stealth armor? If you don't want a tank merc, then yes you'll have to use Bone Wall/Prison. 1-point Clay Golem is not much of a tank. He gets a little better if you have +summoning skills equipment on switch to prebuff him, but he still dies a lot, but that's okay, just recast him.

You can upgrade that maul to exceptional, Ort + Amn + sapphire in the cube. If you don't have a sapphire yet, you'll get one from the Hellforge loot. Just be ready for the strength requirement.

[Kylearan]

Level 31 is crazy high for act 3 - I think I usually made 28 then.  I've been cautioning you about overshooting because I don't want you to burn out from doing all that extra work.  If you're sure you'll keep going, then fine, enjoy the overkill.

Haha, yeah, my metric for the levels is playing at an enjoyable speed and having fun, not preventing xp waste, so yes - at the moment I do enjoy the overkill. In most games I'm the opposite of a speedrunner, playing slowly and cautiously anyway, always taking my time. The downside is that my characters are more powerful than usual or intended, which hopefully won't make me overconfident as this will change once I'm in Hell.

Yeah, bonemancers are boring.  [...] do you have a Stealth armor?

Yes, I had the runes for two Stealth armors, one for my sorceress and indeed one for the necro. I'll probably decide about which merc to use during Act 5.

You can upgrade that maul to exceptional, Ort + Amn + sapphire in the cube.

I always forget about the upgrade recipes! Probably because I always think I'll find similarly powerful stuff anyway later, but getting a nice war club this early is probably fun (I'll have to see if I can reach the 124 strength requirement). Although I've played act 4 already with the barb, and everything already dies in two jumps at most, so it's not yet needed - but sometimes it's good to feel overpowered, so I'll probably do that.