The stages of solo self found offline play

Hello all! I’m back thanks to Teebling for resetting my account password. This website and community is awesome and all who support it should feel proud.

Now, as i mentioned previously, i haven’t been idle (although i did take like 4 months off to play totk to Death, and family vacation). Anyways i think I can say im finally in the final stages of d2r end-game.

Here what i think are the stages of d2r ssf offline play:

Stage 1: just getting through the game - its a good game! Story, pacing, play style, its all good. Build and character choices not super important.
Stage 2: getting a character build that is actually good so you can progress to further stages.
Stage 3: The MF stage - this is where you get most of your

Key uniques, your magefists, vipermagi, ravenfrosts, shakos, arachnid’s mesh, ect. You probably wont get your tc87 uniques here, but a few may drop.
Stage 4: rune farming - your lower Kurasts, cows and

Travincal, this is when you get your first Enigma, your first Infinity, CTA, HOTO, ect.

Now your cooking with gas!

Stage 5: S tier builds - you get your first character where almost everything is best in slot. Getting to this stage grants you access to stage 6!
Stage 6: TC87 MFing - you’re doing pit runs, Chaos, trav, terrorized zones on P7 like no-body’s business. All for those Death’s webs, Death’s fathom, griffon’s eye and the elusive threal’s might. You know its not a question of if, it’s a question of when. Which leads you to the next stage.
Stage 7: Experimentation - sure you’ve toyed with niche builds before, but mostly it was theory crafting. You didn’t have a spare

Eth reaper’s toll, or 2 head strikers, or ever found a 4/20 before, but now you have them all and even a few spare high runes at your disposal. It’s fun but it leaves you feeling like there’s something more, something you feel like you need to do, even if doomed to likely failure…

You’re now at Stage 8 of your solo self-found offline play experience:

Absolute min/maxing - what’s that you ask?
You rolled a 399 Grief - not good enough
Your Infinity only gives -54 en lightning res? No thank you … i don’t care if it’s useless for my merc!
Maras only is +29 all res? Trash, complete trash

You’re looking for those magic sorc wands with +6 to lightning and 20 FCR, those +6 amazon javelins, a necro head with +6

Poison Nova, a HoJ base for your dragondin with +3 to foh and that ever elusive +3 throwing skill barb

Helm (normal cows, gross)

This is where I am. My route here was a bit unconventional, but here i am. I have all the Annis and high runes i could want (i finally made a Last Wish, still not as good as a Grief, but i made it).

Even at this level i search…

Wisp Projector come on! Why wont you drop! I’ve found at least 2 metalgrids, which are way less common. And yea it would be nice to find thos crazy magic items that are better than rare, unique and even rune words. Also need at least another 2 perfect lightning facets (wasted one of my first meh griffons, then randomly with no MF what so ever a 1 off perfect one drops on a p1 play through?! Seriously?!)

Anyways all this to say when you get to Stage 8 of your play there’s a few tricks that can really speed things up (at least that i use on Nintendo switch)

Thanks for reading! Let me know what stage your at! Or if i missed any stages (gambling maybe) I’ll probably do another topic on some tricks to use

I'm at stage 7.5ish. But for me, I think stage 8 is modding. Or maybe taking a break--see how I feel after this ladder I guess

On NL, I'm at stage 7, but I'm actually quite content there and I'll never hit stage 8 because min/maxing a few % here and there is just not my thing
(and on ladder I typically stop playing actively at around stage 4-6 - then the rest of ladder is just dclone hunting )

I think you missing there crafting From lvl 94+ its also endgame. Pefect gear hunt is sure last stage. Im now at stage 7 and its just fun to experiment with all gathered items