So between the Diablo 4 announcement and a bunch of threads getting bumped here, I picked up a compulsion to play this game yet again. Starting a new project, going by the following rules:
- A set of 7 single-player hardcore characters, one of each class, aiming to complete Hell difficulty and make Guardian with each.
- No variant restrictions, all character builds and items and mercs are allowed.
- Sharing items by this rule: characters that have completed the same acts can trade freely among each other until beginning the next act. (So in general, I'll play all 7 in parallel, one act at a time.)
- No mods. No expanded or shared stash, characters keep and trade only what they can carry. No realm-only ubers or runewords in single-player, or loot filters or anything else that's not part of the standard unmodded game of Diablo 2.
- No respecs. [This rule was edited in later; I hadn't decided at first about it, so you'll see discussion below.]
- No repeating areas or rerunning bosses; each character makes a single pass through the game. [Also edited in later after some discussion.]
- If a character dies, it can be replaced with a new one of the same class starting from the beginning, as long as the character build has some significant difference (roughly, at least two different maxed skills.) The replacement character is still subject to the rule of trading only with characters that have completed the same acts (so solo until it catches up, unless multiple characters die.)
My favorite part of the game is arranging and allocating items between characters. I think this structure hits the sweet spot of making that interesting but not overpowered. Each character gets 7 times as much selection to pick from compared to playing solo, which should allow some solidly satisfying options but without degenerating into the known standard optimal packages. And this avoids how I went a bit overboard with my hardcore stable previously, on item twinking and reuse and things like imbue/hellforge rushers. Every item travels through the game once and only once; nothing ever gets sent "backwards" to be used before it was found, nor reused through the same areas/acts multiple times by different characters. And the quantity of characters is fixed to set an ultimate endpoint rather than an open-ended sprawl of dozens more builds as I also did before.
Here's the list of character builds:
Necromancer: Standard bonemancer, my favorite class in general. If he dies, the backup plan for a replacement is a standard summoner.
Assassin: Standard trapper, my next favorite, and was my first pure/untwinked Guardian. And really hope she succeeds because the backup plan of melee with an assassin is clunky and dangerous.
Amazon: Javazon with lightning and poison skills. Picked over a bowazon because those skills work with any javelin in a limited item pool, rather than needing to find a good bow. But bow skills is obviously the backup plan, and actually twice over as either a physical- or elemental-based shooter.
Barbarian: Whirlwind and Berserk main skills, as I think is the standard best barbarian build. All other barb combat skills suck (I'm not doing Leap Attack or throwing all the way through hell), so a backup would use the same combat skills while changing out the weapon mastery and war cries.
Druid: Wind spellcaster. Like the javazon, that's the best build of the class to cobble together with a limited item pool. Backup plan would have to be a melee werebear, although that depends on a strong weapon, and also on the bizarre wereform speed mechanics which I used to know fairly well but have now forgotten and don't want to relearn unless I have to.
Sorceress: I'm going with lightning/cold rather than the somewhat more powerful fire/cold because I think it's more fun (because Meteor is slow and clunky to use), and also to leave room for the fire as plan B.
Paladin: This one is the hardest. This is by far the worst class for survival in solo hardcore. He's fully exposed to monsters all the time: no summonable minions to hide behind, no teleport to keep away, no disabling skills like Cloak of Shadows or Dim Vision or Shockwave, and no big life boost like Battle Orders or Werebear either. A hammerdin is obviously the powerful option on offense, but I've actually fared poorly with them in hardcore, the short range with a fragile character is dangerous, never made one to Guardian in about four attempts. And there's this in the 1.13 patch notes which is new since the last time I played D2: "Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons." That sounds like enough of a nerf for BH to have trouble making it through Hell singlehandedly. And there's no room for a hammerdin to do any hybrid, since BH/Conc/synergies need basically all your skill points.
The only paladin I ever made Guardian with was a Vengeance/Conviction meleer, but he had a pretty elite set of equipment acquired by other characters. I hate Zeal melee, for how it spreads out the damage instead of actually killing shit. Smite is slow too. Maybe a Fist of the Heavens spellcaster, who can attack at long range, which is about all the safety a paladin can get, but blasting just one monster at a time is very slow later on.
Anyway, so far I've played the first four characters up through act 3 normal (really no point to bother trading items before that), and about to start the druid next. So anyone got suggestions for a survivable hardcore paladin?
- A set of 7 single-player hardcore characters, one of each class, aiming to complete Hell difficulty and make Guardian with each.
- No variant restrictions, all character builds and items and mercs are allowed.
- Sharing items by this rule: characters that have completed the same acts can trade freely among each other until beginning the next act. (So in general, I'll play all 7 in parallel, one act at a time.)
- No mods. No expanded or shared stash, characters keep and trade only what they can carry. No realm-only ubers or runewords in single-player, or loot filters or anything else that's not part of the standard unmodded game of Diablo 2.
- No respecs. [This rule was edited in later; I hadn't decided at first about it, so you'll see discussion below.]
- No repeating areas or rerunning bosses; each character makes a single pass through the game. [Also edited in later after some discussion.]
- If a character dies, it can be replaced with a new one of the same class starting from the beginning, as long as the character build has some significant difference (roughly, at least two different maxed skills.) The replacement character is still subject to the rule of trading only with characters that have completed the same acts (so solo until it catches up, unless multiple characters die.)
My favorite part of the game is arranging and allocating items between characters. I think this structure hits the sweet spot of making that interesting but not overpowered. Each character gets 7 times as much selection to pick from compared to playing solo, which should allow some solidly satisfying options but without degenerating into the known standard optimal packages. And this avoids how I went a bit overboard with my hardcore stable previously, on item twinking and reuse and things like imbue/hellforge rushers. Every item travels through the game once and only once; nothing ever gets sent "backwards" to be used before it was found, nor reused through the same areas/acts multiple times by different characters. And the quantity of characters is fixed to set an ultimate endpoint rather than an open-ended sprawl of dozens more builds as I also did before.
Here's the list of character builds:
Necromancer: Standard bonemancer, my favorite class in general. If he dies, the backup plan for a replacement is a standard summoner.
Assassin: Standard trapper, my next favorite, and was my first pure/untwinked Guardian. And really hope she succeeds because the backup plan of melee with an assassin is clunky and dangerous.
Amazon: Javazon with lightning and poison skills. Picked over a bowazon because those skills work with any javelin in a limited item pool, rather than needing to find a good bow. But bow skills is obviously the backup plan, and actually twice over as either a physical- or elemental-based shooter.
Barbarian: Whirlwind and Berserk main skills, as I think is the standard best barbarian build. All other barb combat skills suck (I'm not doing Leap Attack or throwing all the way through hell), so a backup would use the same combat skills while changing out the weapon mastery and war cries.
Druid: Wind spellcaster. Like the javazon, that's the best build of the class to cobble together with a limited item pool. Backup plan would have to be a melee werebear, although that depends on a strong weapon, and also on the bizarre wereform speed mechanics which I used to know fairly well but have now forgotten and don't want to relearn unless I have to.
Sorceress: I'm going with lightning/cold rather than the somewhat more powerful fire/cold because I think it's more fun (because Meteor is slow and clunky to use), and also to leave room for the fire as plan B.
Paladin: This one is the hardest. This is by far the worst class for survival in solo hardcore. He's fully exposed to monsters all the time: no summonable minions to hide behind, no teleport to keep away, no disabling skills like Cloak of Shadows or Dim Vision or Shockwave, and no big life boost like Battle Orders or Werebear either. A hammerdin is obviously the powerful option on offense, but I've actually fared poorly with them in hardcore, the short range with a fragile character is dangerous, never made one to Guardian in about four attempts. And there's this in the 1.13 patch notes which is new since the last time I played D2: "Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons." That sounds like enough of a nerf for BH to have trouble making it through Hell singlehandedly. And there's no room for a hammerdin to do any hybrid, since BH/Conc/synergies need basically all your skill points.
The only paladin I ever made Guardian with was a Vengeance/Conviction meleer, but he had a pretty elite set of equipment acquired by other characters. I hate Zeal melee, for how it spreads out the damage instead of actually killing shit. Smite is slow too. Maybe a Fist of the Heavens spellcaster, who can attack at long range, which is about all the safety a paladin can get, but blasting just one monster at a time is very slow later on.
Anyway, so far I've played the first four characters up through act 3 normal (really no point to bother trading items before that), and about to start the druid next. So anyone got suggestions for a survivable hardcore paladin?
![[Image: noidea.gif]](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/noidea.gif)
In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
But yeah, around mid act 2 in Hell is where monster health starts to escalate out of reach (and there's no payoff waiting on the far side this time) of all but the truly powerful character builds, which Zeal really isn't. Vengeance/Conviction does deliver more damage per second, by working around AR deficiency and physical resistance and elemental immunity, plus it focuses on a single target instead of Zeal-spreading and doesn't put you in Zeal-lock.