Game Difficulty

[slapshot68195]

I'm used to playing diablo (when I play in offline mode) on /players 8 and dominating. However, my lvl ~26 sorc gets dominated by andy and by that super unique in inner cloister, and by practically everything in act 2. Granted, I didn't do the best job with my skill points and this is my first char, so I don't have any good gear, but... Is this mod supposed to be more difficult so that 1 person cannot do 8 players? I had no problem doing 8 players for most of act 1 but once I got to inner cloister things got hard lol. Anyway, do most of you play on /players 8 or not? Fill me in hehe

[lanfeara]

Of course it's significantly easier if you are twinked. Certain characters just have a harder time during the earlier stages. What you can do though is go to earlier areas to level up a bit more if you want to stay on /players 8. If not you could always turn it down to /players 5 or something. Some areas are a bit harder but for the most part it scales quite well as you play through it imo.

[Skivverus]

It depends?

The /player count isn't exactly set in stone, but generally I don't keep it at 8 - it really depends on the build. For example, a character who prefers extended battles would want a higher /player count (for example, a Necromancer using totems), while one who relies on effects triggered after each kill would prefer a lower count. And you may decide you want to shift the count for various areas - it's not like you can only type it once per game.

So - to your last question, the answer is - yes. I do play on /players 8, and I also play on lower /player counts (particularly for uberquests).

[slapshot68195]

oh alright. I may have messed up my skills too. I have a lot of useless skills (imo) like supernova and some other ones. heh, the desc for supernova sounded so cool but a ton of mana and not much damage >_<

[Skivverus]

Heh - Supernova's actually pretty powerful if you build around it: like Cataclysm, it deals its best damage at melee range - and the high mana cost can be an advantage with the feedback skills, since it's the only skill that can make a dent on 10,000 points of mana in a reasonable amount of time.

But yes, the Sorceress does take planning.

[Brother Laz]

Don't delete your character yet, Supernova is becoming Nova Charge in 1.57 which is automatic. Perhaps this will as a side-effect fix your build.

But as Skiv said, the skill misleads everyone because it looks like a screen-wide nova, but does crap damage at long range. Personally I liked the combo of 'letting monsters approach > SN SN SN SN > monsters at half health > Mana Sweep > monsters explode > kill stragglers with SN with now-full mana > run to next monster pack while mana is still low > SN SN Mana Sweep > repeat'.

But people apparently expected more of it (a screen-wide nova perhaps, with low mana cost - because feedback builds are 'weak'?!). I could have improved it until I'm blue in the face, but it won't matter - no one would have used it anyway. Replacing it was the only option.

[rickcarson]

Huh. I've been reading these forums for a while now, and have yet to encounter these hordes of people decrying feedback builds as weak.

// waits for hordes of protesters.

// watches tumble-weeds roll past.

The flying swords that let off a Supernova when they die always seem to do megacraploads of damage even if I'm in the opposite corner of the room. I typically rely on my minions to kill them so I can try to find somewhere to hide.

Nova Charge seems like a great little skill, but in Act 2 Hatred if it is doing the same damage as Supernova used to do then I can see why people would avoid it (that is, 1.56 Supernova) as it can take a lot of novas to kill most monsters. And maybe it gets better as the game goes on, or maybe it is just a shiny way to empty your mana pool. Either way, I can see how most peoples initial dalliance with Supernova might leave them a bit disappointed if they are just looking at it in isolation.

[Brother Laz]

Huh. I've been reading these forums for a while now, and have yet to encounter these hordes of people decrying feedback builds as weak.

You know, 'avoid Mana Sweep because its damage is capped'?

The flying swords that let off a Supernova when they die always seem to do megacraploads of damage even if I'm in the opposite corner of the room. I typically rely on my minions to kill them so I can try to find somewhere to hide.

That is not an actual Supernova - it has ND.

Nova Charge seems like a great little skill, but in Act 2 Hatred if it is doing the same damage as Supernova used to do then I can see why people would avoid it (that is, 1.56 Supernova) as it can take a lot of novas to kill most monsters.

It actually does half as much damage as Supernova... it turned out to be far too powerful when it did the same damage.

[rickcarson]

Huh. I've been reading these forums for a while now, and have yet to encounter these hordes of people decrying feedback builds as weak.

You know, 'avoid Mana Sweep because its damage is capped'?

So hang on, the damage cap is what 88k, right?
And if you hit it, you don't wrap around? Ie it doesn't do something odd like starting over at 0 or -88k, right?
And that damage would be to everything on the screen?

And people complain? The mind boggles.

I actually found myself putting points into Circle of Mana early on. After 3 points it is something like 100 mana per kill which in cLod terms is massive. In the early game it certainly keeps the Lightning Cascades flowing. I had actually been thinking about a build which put lots of points into Circle of Mana, because my perception is that most of the sorc builds out there don't, because they all rely on Mana Sweep. (And hence all the recent whinging about Circle of Mana being a prerequisite for it?)

--- goes and looks at the skill trees again ---

Oh, hang on, that can't be right. Circle of Mana isn't on the tree of Mana Sweep, but it is on the tree for Arcane Torrent. Maybe I got those two skills confused.

So why wouldn't people use Mana Sweep? ... The only thing I can think of is the 9 second timer. I'm not sure how low the timer gets at high levels, but that'd scare me off for sure. I can just see me trying to do the Nova Nova Nova, Sweep Nova Nova Sweep thing you described and running out of mana against a champion or other tough monster with a whole bunch of time before Sweep comes on line ... and dying ... and after a couple of repititions of that I'd get frustrated too.

Alternately, my observation about long timers is that they tend towards exclusively locking each other out. E.g. with an unholy paladin, I just don't use Vanquish, Black Sleep or Blood Flash because they lock out my 'get out of jail free' card: Holy Armour. If I did use (for instance) Black Sleep a lot, then I'd probably not use Holy Armour in turn. On the side topic of Black Sleep, I find the timer really gives me the {philtered} because as soon as I take a swing at a champion* I'm up the {philtered} without a {philtered}, because it won't work on champs, and the combats with champions are tougher than others and that is when you need it most.

*No - I'm not aiming at the champ, but if they're in a big mob of other monsters, that means sometimes I swing at them accidentally, and now all of my timered skills are locked out.

I think the Sorc has lots of timered skills (I count 6 of 25 or 7 of 30), so it might just be that people don't use Mana Sweep simply because there are so many other (pretty much) mutually exclusive choices.

The flying swords that let off a Supernova when they die always seem to do megacraploads of damage even if I'm in the opposite corner of the room. I typically rely on my minions to kill them so I can try to find somewhere to hide.

That is not an actual Supernova - it has ND.

So how does adding Next Delay make it more powerful? Or are you saying that Supernova has ND?

Nova Charge seems like a great little skill, but in Act 2 Hatred if it is doing the same damage as Supernova used to do then I can see why people would avoid it (that is, 1.56 Supernova) as it can take a lot of novas to kill most monsters.

It actually does half as much damage as Supernova... it turned out to be far too powerful when it did the same damage.

Well... yeah... I guess that would be a bad thing. I like the autocast. Very pretty, also the element of danger as you have to get up close and personal, that seems to be a lot more the agenda/identity of the median sorc.

Lightning Wall surprised me, what with you talking about how you had been forced at gunpoint by the median mobsters to make it hugely imba and all that. I thought it would be good for taking out stationary targets (being ... like ... a wall and stuff), but casting it on a stationary target just creates a whole in the wall.

I'm not clear from the description if I'm using it wrong though, it sounds like if I position it sort of _next to_ but not _on top of_ something it is supposed to fire bolts out at them, but I haven't seen that yet. And I thought Vortex was the token 'fiddle with the placement' skill on that tree.

Which reminds me, I'd seen something about a Blaze-like build which sounded interesting, I must go check whether that is still doable in 1.57

[slapshot68195]

So let me ask this question to sum up:
Which of the following sorc skills are considered "good" by the general population? (of course, everyone has theire own opinion, but for example, in clod, most people would consider Hydra a bad skill, and most people simply don't use it if they have a fire sorc)

Flame Strike
Glacial Nova
Meteor Shower
Cataclysm
Vortex
Supernova

This is my build so far (i remade and am doning a lot better, but let me know what you think) I'm kinda a meteor shower/vortex/cataclysm sorc I guess lol...
skills:
(lvl 29 btw)
3 Vortex
3 Meteor Shower
6 Apocalypse
2 Mage armor
3 Arcane Power
1 in pre requisites, 5 skills left to spend.

Anyway, is that build any good? Thanks a lot! Also, what's the deal with the whole "forum moving" thing posted on the main page? I mean, where is the new median forum gonna be?


EDIT: btw Laz.... that avatar picture thing you have gives me the creeps lhaha

[Skivverus]

Well, from the looks of it you've got a death-at-a-safe-distance Sorceress, which should do fine so long as you play her accordingly; Arcane Power gets diminishing returns regarding spells (at least in 1.56 - I'm staying out of the beta due to lack of time), so I'd say you can leave off additional points if you expect to have plenty of +skills.
Actually - keeping your distance means you could probably skimp on Mage Armor (heresy, I know) and dump more into your damage skills or Cold Fear: the timer on Cold Fear drops below the flee duration if you've got enough points in it.

[rickcarson]

...super unique in inner cloister, and by practically everything in act 2. ...

If I am thinking of the right one, you're talking about the Goatman-caster/shaman. Now, I seem to remember reading somewhere that those particular monsters do more damage the more damage they've taken. So you need to take them out quickly if you can.

If you can't take him out quickly, then maybe you can find a position where he can't hit you. If I remember correctly he's either Fire Immune or Fire Resistant (does Fire Enchanted still carry a bonus resistance to Fire?), so trying to take him out with Fire Spells isn't going to do the trick. Which is a shame because (I think) the ideal spell for taking him out while simultaneously hiding around the corner is Meteor.

If you were an Amazon you could hide behind a wall and shoot him through it perhaps. Oh, maybe stand a long way back and launch the cold bally things at him?

For Andariel, I believe the 'trick' to beating her is that if she's in combat range she won't cast spells, and it is the plague avatar and meteors she cast which really hurt. So the last time I fought her with a Sorc I ran up to her and tanked her attacks while I went through my skill list looking for something to take her out. Yes, it was poor planning on my part, but I hadn't expected her to charge quite as quickly as she did, almost as soon as I was through the door. I settled on Vortex I think, took a couple of casts to get it in the right spot, but with me tanking her it did the trick nicely (whereas if she'd been running around it would have been a problem). Not sure if she has the same vulnerability to Fire damage as she does in cLod. One of the easier battles against Andariel I've had for a while. Perhaps some of my noobishness is wearing off? Nah. And that was at level 18, so I didn't have Nova Charge at that point.

[Brother Laz]

So hang on, the damage cap is what 88k, right? And if you hit it, you don't wrap around? Ie it doesn't do something odd like starting over at 0 or -88k, right? And that damage would be to everything on the screen?

And people complain? The mind boggles.

Easy: there is no damage cap in 1.10, and people do 200K damage with some other attacks.

The fact that a regular Destruction monster has only 30K life and that 88K is actually a lot doesn't matter.

So why wouldn't people use Mana Sweep? ... The only thing I can think of is the 9 second timer. I'm not sure how low the timer gets at high levels, but that'd scare me off for sure.

The timer does get seriously lower, below 5 seconds at higher levels.

On the side topic of Black Sleep, I find the timer really gives me the {philtered} because as soon as I take a swing at a champion* I'm up the {philtered} without a {philtered}, because it won't work on champs, and the combats with champions are tougher than others and that is when you need it most.

Keep an adrenaline pot handy for such emergencies.

So how does adding Next Delay make [scimitarsupernova] more powerful? Or are you saying that Supernova has ND?

No, the scimitar Supernova (and only it) has ND, and its base damage is much higher than regular Supernova. Regular Supernova would have instagibbed you at melee range, but tickled you at a distance - not exactly a good balance when a monster does it.

Lightning Wall surprised me, what with you talking about how you had been forced at gunpoint by the median mobsters to make it hugely imba and all that. I thought it would be good for taking out stationary targets (being ... like ... a wall and stuff), but casting it on a stationary target just creates a whole in the wall.

You don't use it like a firewall or 1.56 LW. The point is that it lasts X seconds, and you want the monsters to hit as many of the tiles as possible. Think of it like Breakout, with the monsters as the ball.

Total damage packed into a wall is massive, you just need to figure out how to get the monsters to hit every tile... I suggest casting it at your side so it shoots off towards the monsters, and they walk down its length.

I'm not clear from the description if I'm using it wrong though, it sounds like if I position it sort of _next to_ but not _on top of_ something it is supposed to fire bolts out at them, but I haven't seen that yet. And I thought Vortex was the token 'fiddle with the placement' skill on that tree.

LW is completely different now, and may take some getting used to... but the damage is worth it.

Which reminds me, I'd seen something about a Blaze-like build which sounded interesting, I must go check whether that is still doable in 1.57

Not with the sorceress, but Faerie Fire for the druid is a weapon damage version of Blaze that only goes off when you are near enemies.

......

Which of the following sorc skills are considered "good" by the general population? (of course, everyone has theire own opinion, but for example, in clod, most people would consider Hydra a bad skill, and most people simply don't use it if they have a fire sorc)

Slightly off-topic, but it is not that Hydra is bad, but some others are just better.

Anyway, is that build any good? Thanks a lot! Also, what's the deal with the whole "forum moving" thing posted on the main page? I mean, where is the new median forum gonna be?

I suggest you either read the threads about the forum move, or take a look at the Median homepage.

......

If you can't take him out quickly, then maybe you can find a position where he can't hit you. If I remember correctly he's either Fire Immune or Fire Resistant (does Fire Enchanted still carry a bonus resistance to Fire?), so trying to take him out with Fire Spells isn't going to do the trick. Which is a shame because (I think) the ideal spell for taking him out while simultaneously hiding around the corner is Meteor.

There are two ways this fight can be difficult. One, you run into the central room and get smashed by 20 pain spirits. To avoid this, stand back and lure them away from each other.

Two, you carefully creep up to the pack, and then a gargoyle trap shoots a bloodstar in your face and you lose all of your life. Kill the traps first, because you cannot tank them until you overstack fire resist. Even if you do, the knockback can nicely interrupt you when you are running for your life. That and they give you some practice avoiding lightwells in Khalimgrad.

[slapshot68195]

So, how do the sorc's mana sweep and mana... umm.... that lvl 1 skill work? What exactly does it mean by 25-35% of max mana stolen, and how exactly does returned damage work? Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but for some reason I just can't figure out how the skill works.

[rickcarson]

So, how do the sorc's mana sweep and mana... umm.... that lvl 1 skill work? What exactly does it mean by 25-35% of max mana stolen, and how exactly does returned damage work? Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but for some reason I just can't figure out how the skill works.

my understanding is that it works like this:

Lets say you have a sorc with max 1200 mana, and current mana of 200. That you are casting it at level 2 (300% feedback damage). And that you mana sweep for 25%-35%.

So. The first thing is that the difference between your current mana and maximum mana is 1000. 25%-35% of 1000 is 250-350.
Hence when you use mana sweep every monster in range will be drained of 250-350 mana, which will all be given back to you, probably refilling your mana bulb.
Then the feedback damage is 300% (x3) so the monsters in range will take 750-1050 damage.

If you then immediately sucked down an adrenaline potion and blasted off another mana sweep the damage would change:

Lets say your sorc now has max 1200 mana, and current mana of 1200.

The difference between your current mana and maximum mana is now 0. 25%-35% of 0 is 0.
Hence when you use mana sweep every monster in range will be drained of 0 mana, which will all be given back to you, probably making you feel slightly silly.
Then the feedback damage is 300% (x3) so the monsters in range will take 0 damage.

Ideally you want a combination of spells that can drain your mana orb in roughly the same time that it takes to refresh the timer on your mana recovery spell.
Alternately you could drain the bulb and then use Arcane Torrent to smack the monsters around while you wait for the timer to refresh (or not).

Arcane Torrent is similar in that its damage is based on your 'missing' mana, but unlike the other two, it does not leech you back any missing mana, isn't timered, and is spammable.

So there is more than one way to approach this.

[slapshot68195]

^^^
Thanks, very helpful response. On another note.... I think I'm only on my 3rd day of the mod and I'm ready to remake my sorc for the 3rd time lol... Is there a fast way to level or some sort of editor that functions with this mod? My buddy and I are playing through the game and we got to about lvl 45, and while I want to remake my guy, I don't want to level all the way back up there manually and redo all the quests haha. Is there a solution to this other than somebody rushing/leveling me with a high lvl char on tcp/ip connection?

EDIT: Alright, another couple of questions. Do mana sweep, mana coil, and arcane torrent all deal magic damage? Also, how many elements would make for a good build? Would supernova + torrent + sweep be a good build? Or do you think I should throw in another element, or maybe switch supernova for a different skill? I mean, I don't want to make a cookie cutter build (unless I figure out a build on my own that that happens to be a cookie cutter), but I don't want to make one that appears good but starts sucking when it gets to higher levels like my last couple of sorcs.

[rickcarson]

^^^
Thanks, very helpful response.

No worries mate. I will note that its usefulness depends on its correctness so you might want confirmation that that is correct.

On another note.... I think I'm only on my 3rd day of the mod and I'm ready to remake my sorc for the 3rd time lol...

Ah. A perfectionist. Good luck with that

NB: I've got about 50 chars now, only two of which have made it all the way through Hatred.

I consider Median fairly forgiving, since it stops you from dumping 20 points into a skill straight up. 1 or 2 'wasted' points here and there doesn't matter so much.

Note that 1.57 is even more forgiving - you get (much later in the game) the chance to buy some more skill points. If I remember correctly it breaks down to something like 27 uniques and 100k gold.

Is there a fast way to level or some sort of editor that functions with this mod?

For the fast way to level, I've seen Laz recommending the Death Projector. I've seen some others recommend doing /players 8 Baal's Minions.

As for editors, I know nothing.

My buddy and I are playing through the game and we got to about lvl 45, and while I want to remake my guy, I don't want to level all the way back up there manually and redo all the quests haha. Is there a solution to this other than somebody rushing/leveling me with a high lvl char on tcp/ip connection?

Huh. I'd have thought that the game would be significantly easier with two of you going at it.

The easiest character I've had so far in Hatred has been the unholy paladin using maxed out Vessel of Judgement. I also had a Doom/Queen of Blades Assassin that did quite well, but she was massively twinked with somewhere between 0.5 and 1 million gold and spent a lot of time gambling for some very specific stuff, whereas the pally was untwinked.

For a pair of characters, I'm not sure that a sorc is the best choice. I'd have chosen a combo of a tank + any of the umpteen many builds that put an utterly obscene number of arrows/daggers/burritos/axes in the air.

Or for instance two barbarians, for double the stance fun, and the ability to have Defenders + Protectors.

A Deathstrike necro + a tank might work quite well. I still haven't gotten the hang of Amazons yet.

There's heaps of combos that might work. If I was going a sorc I'd probably choose one that makes heavy use of the cold skill which blows up corpses.

EDIT: Alright, another couple of questions. Do mana sweep, mana coil, and arcane torrent all deal magic damage? Also, how many elements would make for a good build? Would supernova + torrent + sweep be a good build? Or do you think I should throw in another element, or maybe switch supernova for a different skill? I mean, I don't want to make a cookie cutter build (unless I figure out a build on my own that that happens to be a cookie cutter), but I don't want to make one that appears good but starts sucking when it gets to higher levels like my last couple of sorcs.

Arcane strike deals magic damage.

Most monsters have one kind of immunity. So in theory a 2 element sorc should work fine.

There are four situations I know of that monsters get multiple immunities:
(1) When they spawn (2% chance) in destruction with physical immunity as well as their pre-determined immunity.
(2) When a yeti aura grants them an extra immunity (solution is obvious).
(3) On the uber level with the robotniks, there is a monster with triple elemental immunity to fire/cold/lightning.
(4) When the monster is immune to all types of damage, e.g. various uber levels, Kurast 3000BA etc.

To me it looks like a sorc could do quite well with two different elements, plus arcane torrent as a backup.

But I'm just a sorcy-newb, so definitely get a second opinion. Most of the arguing about sorc builds goes right over my head, the whole Apocalypse vs Cataclysm thing I just don't care about.

If you keep suffering from severe bouts of buyers remorse/perfectionism and you insist on playing a sorc, then maybe a cookie cutter is the right approach till you learn the skills. There is a skill calculator around, and if you plug the numbers in you'll find that the various sorc skills all do roughly the same amount of net damage.

Unlike cLod its not like you put 20 points into Frost Nova only to discover that its damage is piddling compared to Frozen Orb. In Median all/almost all of the skills are good to go at high levels.

NB: sometimes the damage on a spell will look low, but remember that many of the sorc spells have a character level component, so when you go up levels they do more damage. So just because at level 1 it looks like the skill doesn't do damage, doesn't mean the same applies once you pump some points into it and get some decent levels under your belt.

[slapshot68195]

ah, thanks for the info! And as for my question about "me and my buddy" and "remaking" my guy, he already has a druid. He wasn't planning on remaking, but I was, so i was wondering what the fastest way was to.... catch up to him hehe. Oh, and you mentioned something about 2 elements AND arcane torrent. So right now, my vortex/meteor shower/(soon to be arcane torrent?) sorc should be okay? Maybe I don't need to remake? Also, what is the key to getting higher resistances? Somehow I remember playing through clod and getting max res in normal mode was easy as pie, but I'm doing a really crappy job of it in median haha.

EDIT: if it matters, my friend has an elemental driud i suppose. His probably isn't very typical, he pretty much pumped every elemental skill hehe. Has the poison avatar, gamma field, those poison creatures, shadow avatar, and fire fountain. He basically uses all of those combined. Maybe since he has poison/fire under control I should make a lite/cold/magic sorc?