Mean, JBouley. Very mean.

[MaDmAn678]

Grr. I don't like the difficulty increase between Act III and IV.

I've gone from barely getting hurt to dying in 4 or 5 hits.

Then again, maybe it's because my vitality's still at 40..

[Gubbinz]

that would sure help
btw, which char class are u using? that may make a difference

[MaDmAn678]

Level 28 barb.

Those bastard flesh beasts\spawners... If you get surrounded, you're dead, and that's that.

[IronSigil]

Here is what you should do. It requires gold, so have fun gold finding. Figure out the most cost effective way to use these tips, because some of them are VERY expensive. And they contain spoilers.
[spoiler]
1. Get a mechaninst weapon (normal or nightmare version). Put 6 sockets in it. Use the Gem Creche+Monster Jawbone recipe to get a few rancor circlets and make yourself an uber-weapon.
2. Cheap one. Get a Act 3 "Crystal" merc. Level him up a bit and he can stop crowds cold.
3. Equip merc with culwen's point by getting a rare war sword (if possible) and combining it the correct etherseeking glass. There was a thread called "Buggy, Buggy" where I posted which glass was correct for swords.
4. The best anti-crowd solution is to pick up an energy weapon. Most charms will be far to expensive to make at this point, but phoenix charms and charged orbs work fine. I suggest actually using charged or cast on attack items... the FireHeart of Jarda is a unique charged orb that is VERY useful. Once again, refer to my etherseeking chart.
[/spoiler]

[jbouley]

One of the things I tried to achieve in this mod is to force players to have to change their strategies for some areas and monsters (and my success is spotty, obviously, some characters can waltz through the game...good sorc builds and bowazons come to mind ...and others have more challenges). IronSigil's advice is a perfect example of this.

I never liked the concept that you could build your character in one way and never look back. So, where possible, I tried to at least force situations where melee characters would have to consider charged items and such for ranged combat at least some of the time.

It's harder to force ranged characters into melee situations, though the high running speed of some monsters probably achieves this is a few scattered cases. And the high resists of some monsters will, at times, force a character like the sorc to seek out items to give her more ooomph! in an element that she suddenly needs because a bunch of monsters are damned near immune to the elements she's chosen for her main skills.

At least, the was the general idea.

I didn't realize the difficulty ramped up so drastically for certain characters from ACt 3 to Act 4. Not my intention, exactly. On the other hand, do you expect the "nether regions" to be friendly territory?

Good luck and good hunting....

[Vendanna]

well you always can add more ranged attackers and make the missiles they shoot travel faster, that should make it less confotable for Bowazons.

for the hybrid javelin/bow amazons it should be tricky since they already have shield to overcome that.

maybe if you add a few monsters immune to missile attacks (aka make it so they regain life when a missile hits them) will make it really hard for those running gals (aka amazon & sorceress)

its only an idea.

[jbouley]

Stuff to consider for the Rise of the Old Gods mod.

I wouldn't even be making a rebuild of v2.21B (which I thought done and finished) if not for a problem with the barbarian not being able to use his starting item at level 1.

No more adding of anything new to SiC, at least not from me. Hash Casper has indicated a desire to possibly mod SiC beyond this last version, and he is welcome to. In fact, anyone who wants to mod it beyond this point can feel free to do so (as long as you make it clear that you're expanding on my work and that I'm not involved in it personally). The rebuild of v2.21B that I'll do when our file center is up and running again will be the last I ever do of SiC modding, aside from a 2.21B variant called SiC:Brutality that will have harder monsters but be otherwise exactly the same...and a druid/amazon skill patcher for those who want a couple better/different skills. But those last two items are really small projects and I don't really consider them any kind of real modding of SiC.

[MaDmAn678]

Anyway....

Just completed Act 4.

At the moment, D2 is sitting on my taskbar, and I'm on my way to kill Shenk.

The set war bracers that I found are proving to be *very* nice.

Now I do 50-400 damage with each hand..

So, yeah. I've got it figured out now.

Edit--

Erm, 2 hits and Shenk goes down.

[MaDmAn678]

Nooooooooo..............

Crashage. :/

File Read Error
Loaction: Fog\Src\AsyncData.cpp, line #311
Expression:
DATA\GLOBAL\MONSTERS\DI\LG\DILGlitDThth.DCC

Bleh.

[jbouley]

Anyway....

Just completed Act 4.

At the moment, D2 is sitting on my taskbar, and I'm on my way to kill Shenk.

The set war bracers that I found are proving to be *very* nice

The Mated Fists set, I presume? Probably the nicest thing I ever did for boxing barbarians.

Nooooooooo..............

Crashage. :/

File Read Error
Loaction: Fog\Src\AsyncData.cpp, line #311
Expression:
DATA\GLOBAL\MONSTERS\DI\LG\DILGlitDThth.DCC

Bleh.

What area were you in? Looks like the same monster token reported in another crash recently. But I'd like to know where you were so that I can pin down the problem more precisely.

As long as I have to rebuild SiC later this week or next week anyway to fix the barbarian's starting weapon, I might as well crush this bug, too.

[MaDmAn678]

Well, actually... it's just one item from the Mated Fists set. But it still helps a whole lot.

I was in, uh.. the second area. The place after the Bloody Foothills.
Frigid highlands, is it? I had just killed some of those REALLY annoying goblins, and *boom*, crash.

Edit- Erm, just to clarify, I doubt the goblin had anything to do with the crash... I've killed tons of 'em

[Gubbinz]

it IS the exact same one
let me guess, u were at the entrance to the "arreat plateau"?
yea, i got that each difficulty, but its alright, jbouley just said to go to the save file, and delete the filename.key
thats all u have to do
as long as u don't delete the .d2s file, its all good

[IronSigil]

So that you can get the benefit of my superior wisdom (read: hours of "wasted" time) I have posted instuctions for how to get the second item in Mated Fists.

[spoiler] Get another War Bracer. All vendors in nm sell exceptional items, so it will be easy by then. Upgrade it to elite with 3 enchanted stones, a gem, and a rune. Combine it with a sorcerer's eye (magestones work too), and amberstar jewel, and a faceted skyshard (both these last 2 can be found in Act 1 nm) to make it rare. Go to norm akara and buy the upper left etherseeking glass. Combine it with the weapon. Result: for less than 200K, you have the completed set. [/spoiler]

Sheesh. I'm willing to bet I know almost every recipe at this point, without ever looking at the spoiler docs.

In any case, if you ever need elemental damage or crowd control again, dragonlord rods can be bought in act 2 nm. They are expensive as you would expect, but if you can get on with the "replenish quantity" (I don't know for certain that they can spawn with it) you will be all set. When you "throw" the rod... it fires a dragonstorm. If you have lots of IAS, you can get LOTS of dragonstorms. Instant almost-anything flambé.

[MaDmAn678]

Anyway, I'm betting that that's an etherseeking spoiler, so I refuse to look at it.

I'm either going to figure out etherseeking on my own, or not at all.

[jbouley]

It's not only an etherseeking spoiler but a spoiler on a few other recipes, too.

One piece of information that IS helpful for you to know from IronSigil's post is what the other weapon in that set is, so that you know what you're looking for. If you want to know what the item is...

[spoiler]It's the elite version of the war bracers.[/spoiler]

The bonuses with both weapons in the set are obscene. I must have been feeling really warm and fuzzy toward barbs that day.

[MaDmAn678]

Oooh, obscene. Sounds nice.

[jbouley]

And just HOW obscene? Well, for inquiring minds that just have to know, here's what I posted in a recent thread about babarian fist weapons:

[spoiler]OK, I have a few extra moments and I'm feeling nice, so here is the scoop on the Mated Fists set:

- Deathbrawler war bracers:
+6 levels to mace mastery, +6 levels to double-swing, +6 levels to bash, +1.625 stength per level, 20% to chance to cast level 9 Frozen Spires (Frost Nova) on striking, +1.125 mana per level, +1 to maximum damage per level

-Dragonstunner conqueror fists:
+6 levels to mace mastery, +6 levels to double-swing, +6 to stun skill, knockback, 10% chance to cast level 6 Fire Drakes (Hydra) on striking, 75% chance to cast level 8 Arctic Womb when hit, 12-60 cold damage (and more than a minute of chilling time, if I'm calculating right)

FULL SET BONUSES:
- +40 strength
- +15-50 physical damage
- 45% chance deadly strike
- +90 hit points
- 60% faster swing speed
- +2 to all barbarian skills.

Yes, folks, that means a total of +14 to mace mastery and +14 to double-swing with the full set. [/spoiler]

And you thought having one "fist" was nice...

Maybe hard-core boxing-barb lovers don't think that's obscenely generous....but I sure do.

[IronSigil]

For a 2 item set... definately obscene. Keep in mind that a barb could be using this in combination with the Might of Heroes set to get somewhere in the ballpark of +150 strength, and still have armor open for a crafted conqueror plate. Or any other crazy runeword/unique combo. I would definately play a boxing barb only to use this set, if only those cast on attack skills worked for me on JEBS' server ( ).

[xantus]

and to think in 1.1 with synergies... that would be +340% damage to doubleswing with max bash......*shivvers*

[jbouley]

Well, since I don't plan on porting SiC over to 1.10...

Though, other people might.