Ways to start ladder

Hello everyone, I am quite sure this topic already been discussed many times, but this is my first ladder i will manage to start not later than one month after ladder start.

So just wondering how you will start it ?
Personally me, nothing unusual - start sorc/pal. Sorc (light) with runes and meph; pal (hamer) cs/cows/trist depending on mood. And actually i got bored of my self by even typing it….lol

So how you will start? Any interesting thoughts?

For those wanting something different on new patch, one of the new OP builds is

Demon Machine Sorc.
Prebuff is actually quite decent - easy to get used to for those not used to prebuffing.
It one-shots players8 cow packs. Just something different to try if you're bored of what you've been running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_azJujIVVc

I don't have the greatest luck finding items for characters I would like to build(eg. 2 bers for Infinity) so I stick with cold sorc since one can get by pretty well without godly gear.

If the nerfing of

Cold Mastery destroys any chance of surviving in hell, I just may give up on D2 once and for all.

Good luck in S3.

lowkey wrote: 1 year ago

For those wanting something different on new patch, one of the new OP builds is

Demon Machine Sorc.
Prebuff is actually quite decent - easy to get used to for those not used to prebuffing.
It one-shots players8 cow packs. Just something different to try if you're bored of what you've been running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_azJujIVVc

The chance of me finding/rolling all those skill charms and/or finding enough runes to trade for them are slim. I watch all these vids of guys smoking hell cows or hell trav. with setups that are very hard to attain.

These setups are for those who find high runes by the bucket load.

lscottl wrote: 1 year ago

If the nerfing of

Cold Mastery destroys any chance of surviving in hell, I just may give up on D2 once and for all.

It doesn't.

lscottl wrote: 1 year ago

I don't have the greatest luck finding items for characters I would like to build(eg. 2 bers for Infinity) so I stick with cold sorc since one can get by pretty well without godly gear.

If the nerfing of

Cold Mastery destroys any chance of surviving in hell, I just may give up on D2 once and for all.

Good luck in S3.

As for the

Cold Mastery nerf, it exists, but it only concerns immunes. And as immunes were not breakable easily before introduction of sunder last season, you're actually in a better situation than you were in S1, even if worse than S2.

To sum up, far from being unplayable, even if I see how it can be frustrating.

lscottl wrote: 1 year ago

lowkey wrote: 1 year ago

For those wanting something different on new patch, one of the new OP builds is

Demon Machine Sorc.
Prebuff is actually quite decent - easy to get used to for those not used to prebuffing.
It one-shots players8 cow packs. Just something different to try if you're bored of what you've been running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_azJujIVVc

The chance of me finding/rolling all those skill charms and/or finding enough runes to trade for them are slim. I watch all these vids of guys smoking hell cows or hell trav. with setups that are very hard to attain.

These setups are for those you find high runes by the bucket load.

Just to help out on how to approach builds, you can run this build without Infinity on merc (due to Flame Sunder), without any skillers, without any 5AllRes SCs, without SOJ and so on. He's just showing the "best possible" gearing which most creators will do unless it's a budget build video like a budget smiter etc.

So as long as you gear a minimum setup like

Demon Machine w/ 15IAS jewel,

Razortail, ravenfrost, vmagi,

Magefist, Flame Sunder, Flickering Flame RW, and so on you will be fine to start steamrolling and progress (very cheap initial setup).

I think the build's like 60k-70k max dmg w/ BIS gear so you can lose a ton of dmg (not needing skillers, having less items to prebuff, etc) and still be fine to progress.

You mentioned cold sorc for example, think of starting basic cold sorc w/ Spirit CS and

Monarch and then gradually moving to NightWings and

Death's Fathom w/ cold facets, arachs and so on - you don't need

Death's Fathom and nightwings to start out, you just add as you get more drops and acquire Wealth. Like your starting dmg might be 2-3k and you end up at least 12k for example.

Also on cold sorc, the CM nerf might not be as bad as people think because static is completely unaffected (that's 1/2 HP), lowering cold resistance from cold facets may also be unaffected if the nerf is just

Cold Mastery, and so on.

But yeah I hear your frustration on not getting drops - that can put a damper on everything.

Forgive me if this was already asked - Do you guys know if Infinity on cold sorc will be recommended again after nerf? Heard it wasn't needed for S2 and just found an awesome

Eth Reapers was hoping to use for her..

Just give up hope and roll a cold sorc this season and every season.

Zero187 wrote: 1 year ago

Forgive me if this was already asked - Do you guys know if Infinity on cold sorc will be recommended again after nerf? Heard it wasn't needed for S2 and just found an awesome

Eth Reapers was hoping to use for her..

No, better turn into self-use Infinity light sorc.

Cold sorc gain 85/5 = 17% To Enemy Resistance after sunder charm.
Light sorc gain 17% res and (45-55)% while self-use Infinity. Also Griffon reduces ~20% more To Enemy Lightning Resistance.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

Zero187 wrote: 1 year ago

Forgive me if this was already asked - Do you guys know if Infinity on cold sorc will be recommended again after nerf? Heard it wasn't needed for S2 and just found an awesome

Eth Reapers was hoping to use for her..

No, better turn into self-use Infinity light sorc.

Cold sorc gain 85/5 = 17% To Enemy Resistance after sunder charm.
Light sorc gain 17% res and (45-55)% while self-use Infinity. Also Griffon reduces ~20% more To Enemy Lightning Resistance.

Thanks, I do have a Light Sorc already on my other account who kicks ass. But I recently found a near perfect

Death's Fathom and Nightwing Veil, and have a perfect Cold Sunder waiting to be xfered to non ladder, so was hoping to put those to use, eventually. Haven't started leveling her yet though and wondering if it's still worth my time after the nerf.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

lscottl wrote: 1 year ago

If the nerfing of

Cold Mastery destroys any chance of surviving in hell, I just may give up on D2 once and for all.

It doesn't.

Indeed.

And even if it did. It seems a bit excessive to throw away the game just because of that single reason.

I mean, there are literally a dozen of good reasons to quit but why that one in particular!?

I'd say cold sorceress got shafted in 2.6.

You are still capped at damage like before 2.6 (75% increase from fathom+nightwing+ormus, all with facets) but now also the third (hyperbole for the sake of this argument) of all monsters you'll encounter cut your damage output by 75% (going from -100% cold res to 50% cold res), so you might as well farm non-cold immune areas. Blizzard was viable everywhere but was moving at the speed of a thawing glacier. Now it's just standing still like an iceberg.

That's cold of them. Not very cool now. Can't stay frosty at all. Lukewarm reception all around.

Personal grief (not that one) I have with it is that now a cold sorc with Infinity merc is a thing, one might even say a needed thing, if you want to farm all areas. It was the only sorc build that could have used like an act5 merc for shits and giggles.

Queegon wrote: 1 year ago

I'd say cold sorceress got shafted in 2.6.

You are still capped at damage like before 2.6 (75% increase from fathom+nightwing+ormus, all with facets) but now also the third (hyperbole for the sake of this argument) of all monsters you'll encounter cut your damage output by 75% (going from -100% cold res to 50% cold res), so you might as well farm non-cold immune areas. Blizzard was viable everywhere but was moving at the speed of a thawing glacier. Now it's just standing still like an iceberg.

That's cold of them. Not very cool now. Can't stay frosty at all. Lukewarm reception all around.

Personal grief (not that one) I have with it is that now a cold sorc with Infinity merc is a thing, one might even say a needed thing, if you want to farm all areas. It was the only sorc build that could have used like an act5 merc for shits and giggles.

This is the answer I was looking for, and dreading. Guess I'll just sell the cold gear and focus on my Javazon. Really a shame as I was building up some incredible cold gear for many months now, just waiting for that Sunder to xfer to NL.. What a waste. Don't want to have another char that relies on merc's Infinity to kill stuff. At least now I'll have my gaming schedule free for when D4 drops.. Well done, Blizzard.

Zero187 wrote: 1 year ago

Thanks, I do have a Light Sorc already on my other account who kicks ass. But I recently found a near perfect

Death's Fathom and Nightwing Veil, and have a perfect Cold Sunder waiting to be xfered to non ladder, so was hoping to put those to use, eventually. Haven't started leveling her yet though and wondering if it's still worth my time after the nerf.

You can test it offline before deciding to level your online char.
I use saved offline chars here for testing.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... xgWdE_e77M

Myself, I never be a fan of cold sorc.
Whether she is weak (

Frost Nova) or deal no real AOE (Blizzard).
She is only good because you can reduce non-immu monsters to -100% res without end-game gears.

It ain't that bad; just invest more points in CM

Choose one of the seven starter characters, give them a silly name, make sure you select "Ladder" and enjoy playing the game.

Queegon wrote: 1 year ago

I'd say cold sorceress got shafted in 2.6.

You are still capped at damage like before 2.6 (75% increase from fathom+nightwing+ormus, all with facets) but now also the third (hyperbole for the sake of this argument) of all monsters you'll encounter cut your damage output by 75% (going from -100% cold res to 50% cold res), so you might as well farm non-cold immune areas. Blizzard was viable everywhere but was moving at the speed of a thawing glacier. Now it's just standing still like an iceberg.

That's cold of them. Not very cool now. Can't stay frosty at all. Lukewarm reception all around.

Personal grief (not that one) I have with it is that now a cold sorc with Infinity merc is a thing, one might even say a needed thing, if you want to farm all areas. It was the only sorc build that could have used like an act5 merc for shits and giggles.

With 2.6, Blizzard has made 'poor man' D2R more difficult and more limiting.

Zero187 wrote: 1 year ago

Queegon wrote: 1 year ago

I'd say cold sorceress got shafted in 2.6.

You are still capped at damage like before 2.6 (75% increase from fathom+nightwing+ormus, all with facets) but now also the third (hyperbole for the sake of this argument) of all monsters you'll encounter cut your damage output by 75% (going from -100% cold res to 50% cold res), so you might as well farm non-cold immune areas. Blizzard was viable everywhere but was moving at the speed of a thawing glacier. Now it's just standing still like an iceberg.

That's cold of them. Not very cool now. Can't stay frosty at all. Lukewarm reception all around.

Personal grief (not that one) I have with it is that now a cold sorc with Infinity merc is a thing, one might even say a needed thing, if you want to farm all areas. It was the only sorc build that could have used like an act5 merc for shits and giggles.

This is the answer I was looking for, and dreading. Guess I'll just sell the cold gear and focus on my Javazon. Really a shame as I was building up some incredible cold gear for many months now, just waiting for that Sunder to xfer to NL.. What a waste. Don't want to have another char that relies on merc's Infinity to kill stuff. At least now I'll have my gaming schedule free for when D4 drops.. Well done, Blizzard.

Honestly, this whole "omg cold so broken now!!!" is just as exaggerated as the previous "omg blizz sorc rule all now!!!". Merely towards the opposite end of the spectrum.

Any well geared cold sorc will sit on -195 enemy res. Typically, around 15ish of that is from gear and around 180 from

Cold Mastery. The goal being that any and all mobs you find (currently) get dropped to the -100

Cap.

Post-change, you'll still sunder to 95. The ~15 from gear will still hit fully, dropping to 80. And the ~180 from CM will be cut to 36, dropping the targets to right around 44 res with no change whatsoever. Sure, that's only about 28% of the full damage you'd do on fully reduced targets but it is still 56% of your base damage and plenty to take out whatever you wish.

Most half-geared sorcs get to that point with around 10 points in CM, meaning you could simply add another 10 if you want more dmg against immunes, upping your -res by another -50 or -10 on immunes. So that's 66% of base dmg or about 1/3 of what you do to fully reduced non-immunes. Again, plenty.

Infinity would still be a bit of a waste for cold imo (compared to alternate options). For any non-immune, it continues to add nothing. For immunes, it merely adds the same weak -17 that any other element gets from it, taking you from 34 res left to 17 left. Roughly a 25% increase as compared to just capping CM against immunes but since that, too is immunes only...mweh.

Take the java you're raising as an alternative for contrast. They tend to sit at right around 45 -res from gear plus Infinity. So around -30 res left on non-immunes, 38 on immunes (bit more reduction if you break with tradition and use tstrokes). That's 130% of base dmg on non-immunes, 62% on immunes. I.e. worse than non-Infinity cold with full CM in both categories. The difference is of course that cold is balanced around massive reduction whereas others aren't quite at that point (i.e. typically higher effective base dmg in one way or another) so the 62% being so close does give non-cold a comparative Edge. But that's solely because cold (so far) has never actively geared for -res. If you do blow your merc on Infinity, you widen the gap. If you start using more -res gear than cold normally would, you widen the gap. You have options. You merely never needed them before as cold whereas others have always used any -res at their disposal because they had no real choice.

Sure, cold will perform noticeably worse against immunes than it did in S2. But it'll be far from broken and will still do just fine. Nerfs hurt..but they don't inherently mean your char is now unplayable. Is cold gonna be worse than certain other builds? Yes. Yes it will. Depending on what you do with it at least. And it always has been (despite the whining to the opposite with S2). Is cold also still gonna be better than a plethora of other builds? Also yes.

FB sorc here! Super cheap to get going and I can spam arcane, meph and andi for base gear extremly fast. Dont get why she is so looked down on tbh..