Messing around with M'avina

Not the first time I've rocked mavina, however, I'm curious. What do you all think about the bow itself? I've always find it 'ok' at best.

Anyway, I'm curious if there's some way of taking it up a notch? Definitlynconsidering just not using the set later on (I've got

Hellrack and blizzard cannon on standby and some ideas about armour to go along with them.)

Still, I always like trying to push sets as far as I can take them. (Also, I'm missing the

Diadem at the moment and that's going to need up taking time to farm up. No big deal really). Probably going to end up using nightwing anyway.

So, I'm thinking , what do you all think the best thing to socket intonthe bow is going to be?

Nef, yellow damage jewel?

Ohm,

Ber for crushing blow?

Ist? Cold Facet?

I've got all the time in the world really. And I am curious what you all think. Though in the end I'm probably just going to do something silly.

Also, innoticed that the 188% doesn't actually end up at 204 dmg. Am I missing something here?

14-72 * 1.88

You are missing the "+", it means adding 188% damage on top of the base damage.
72 * (1 + 1.88) = 207.36

Flyhorse wrote: 1 month ago

You are missing the "+", it means adding 188% damage on top of the base damage.
72 * (1 + 1.88) = 207.36

I knew i missed a step thank you.

+ 3 x cold +5 -5 CR facets ftw.

All the sets are mediocre at best. This is one of the most tragic parts of the actual item system in Diablo 2.

I remember times when the Immortal King set was pretty good.

Tal Rasha is still maybe the best set, and the only one I would recommend using in endgame areas. M'avinas is "okay" for a cold bowazon, and useless for anything else. Trang-Ouls has friggin slow cast speed, this fact kills this set for me, which is a shame, because the transformation is very cool. Griswolds is nearly impossible to find, and mediocre as well. Same goes for Natalyas.

The Druid set never was anywhere like "good". It is and was, simply put, a complete fail.

DasNarf wrote: 1 month ago

All the sets are mediocre at best. This is one of the most tragic parts of the actual item system in Diablo 2.

I remember times when the Immortal King set was pretty good.

Tal Rasha is still maybe the best set, and the only one I would recommend using in endgame areas. M'avinas is "okay" for a cold bowazon, and useless for anything else. Trang-Ouls has friggin slow cast speed, this fact kills this set for me, which is a shame, because the transformation is very cool. Griswolds is nearly impossible to find, and mediocre as well. Same goes for Natalyas.

The Druid set never was anywhere like "good". It is and was, simply put, a complete fail.

For the most part it is more than "ok" imo.

Why is that?

Easily accessible. Low cost where all the parts can be collected with some pgems even at the season's start.

The only tough sell is the

Diadem - and even that can be done with a

Pul at the beginning.

Gather the highest negative cold res facets you can find and sock all 3 pieces. Super budget.

The alternative would be Ice / Nightwings / quad socked cold faceted armor and that can't be contested.

DasNarf wrote: 1 month ago

All the sets are mediocre at best. This is one of the most tragic parts of the actual item system in Diablo 2.

I remember times when the Immortal King set was pretty good.

Tal Rasha is still maybe the best set, and the only one I would recommend using in endgame areas. M'avinas is "okay" for a cold bowazon, and useless for anything else. Trang-Ouls has friggin slow cast speed, this fact kills this set for me, which is a shame, because the transformation is very cool. Griswolds is nearly impossible to find, and mediocre as well. Same goes for Natalyas.

The Druid set never was anywhere like "good". It is and was, simply put, a complete fail.

3pc trangs is still bloody awesome, same with partial set of Ik on druid.

In my opinion anyway.
Full sets for those two, meh. Not so much. And I do catch the irony that Immortal King works better on a druid. Perhaps the Immortal King wasn't actually a Barbarian himself. (The existence of

Wolfhowl might hint at this)

Couple of the pieces on an individual level on certain sets are again, quite nice. (Sanders

Boots/gloves, aldurs

Boots, trangs gloves.)

And

Griswold set, I really like it. Options galore. Though I agree that a piece or two are a bit frustrating to find. I have had the full thing a few time.

But seriously, totally agree about Aldur's, except for the

Boots. The set is unimpressive at best. (Though a case can be made for dual weilding the jagged stars on a

Club weilding

Frenzy Barbarian... I guess)

Skaijuice wrote: 1 month ago

DasNarf wrote: 1 month ago

All the sets are mediocre at best. This is one of the most tragic parts of the actual item system in Diablo 2.

I remember times when the Immortal King set was pretty good.

Tal Rasha is still maybe the best set, and the only one I would recommend using in endgame areas. M'avinas is "okay" for a cold bowazon, and useless for anything else. Trang-Ouls has friggin slow cast speed, this fact kills this set for me, which is a shame, because the transformation is very cool. Griswolds is nearly impossible to find, and mediocre as well. Same goes for Natalyas.

The Druid set never was anywhere like "good". It is and was, simply put, a complete fail.

For the most part it is more than "ok" imo.

Why is that?

Easily accessible. Low cost where all the parts can be collected with some pgems even at the season's start.

The only tough sell is the

Diadem - and even that can be done with a

Pul at the beginning.

Gather the highest negative cold res facets you can find and sock all 3 pieces. Super budget.

The alternative would be Ice / Nightwings / quad socked cold faceted armor and that can't be contested.

Funny you should mention

Pul, one just dropped for me not long ago in the

Far Oasis. Maybe I'll try trading it, maybe not.

Probably just going to equip Kira's and cope until I can convince my wife to give back nightwing lol. (Or just stick with g-face)

Speaking of pieces of sets or partials that are decent:

Laying of Hands
G-face
Sigons shield. (Tho whole set on normal trivializes the entire difficulty setting)

I mean, back in the day when partial set bonuses didn't exist, I would totally agree with you DasNarf. But that was a long time ago.

If anything though, I wish there was a specialized set for each characters 3 skill trees instead of basically one of them per class.

BoringTitle wrote: 1 month ago

Skaijuice wrote: 1 month ago

DasNarf wrote: 1 month ago

All the sets are mediocre at best. This is one of the most tragic parts of the actual item system in Diablo 2.

I remember times when the Immortal King set was pretty good.

Tal Rasha is still maybe the best set, and the only one I would recommend using in endgame areas. M'avinas is "okay" for a cold bowazon, and useless for anything else. Trang-Ouls has friggin slow cast speed, this fact kills this set for me, which is a shame, because the transformation is very cool. Griswolds is nearly impossible to find, and mediocre as well. Same goes for Natalyas.

The Druid set never was anywhere like "good". It is and was, simply put, a complete fail.

For the most part it is more than "ok" imo.

Why is that?

Easily accessible. Low cost where all the parts can be collected with some pgems even at the season's start.

The only tough sell is the

Diadem - and even that can be done with a

Pul at the beginning.

Gather the highest negative cold res facets you can find and sock all 3 pieces. Super budget.

The alternative would be Ice / Nightwings / quad socked cold faceted armor and that can't be contested.

Funny you should mention

Pul, one just dropped for me not long ago in the

Far Oasis. Maybe I'll try trading it, maybe not.

Probably just going to equip Kira's and cope until I can convince my wife to give back nightwing lol. (Or just stick with g-face)

It's probably lower than that now. I might also want to chip in that even up to 5P this set excels.

Each Bow skiller GC scales up your cold damage but quite a bit - and those are super cheap too.

This thread comes just in time for me. I just got the final piece I was mising of M'avina's yesterday (

M'avina's Tenet). I'm going to start with just a basic ice build and test things out from there. Let me know if you get any ideas.

Re: Sets in general
Long write up coming, apologies. I've been thinking about this lately and I will push back against the idea that sets "suck," but especially that they are poorly designed. For sure they're not perfect, but I much prefer this over D3's set-centered builds, for example. Having sets be BiS means you lose a huge amount of flexibility and it increases the feeling of cookie-cutterism even further. I will do my best to explain my thoughts.

There are basically two types of sets in D2, mid game sets and end game sets.

Mid game sets are a treat if you find a few pieces while leveling (adding partial set bonuses was a great decision) and they're fantastic in that they both give you something to aim for (while implying that builds are a thing) and provide a sense that there's more out there that you haven't seen. But you can't be expected to complete any of these sets while leveling at a pace that keeps up with the increasing difficulty. So, that means two things: you can only put them together after multiple play throughs (and use them on new characters) and pressure on them to be powerful (even at earlier levels) is much lower. I think, ideally, they would point you in a direction that makes sense (which some don't), but I also think there's something to showing you that you can create weird builds (which is also why it's so good that all low-level sets, as all most items, can be used by any class).

The only state in the game that lasts long enough for you to be reasonably expected to complete a set and use it is the end game. But you don't want to make everyone have to wear a complete set to be viable, or for that to be BiS, because, again, that means you reduce flexibility by locking up too many equipment slots, making every build look much more the same and giving the players a much greater feeling that their character is cookie cutter. This isn't as important with lower level items, because those aren't used for too long (attachment to the character is lower, builds fluctuate more, etc.). Now, at the very top of the min-maxing end game, builds are always going to be completely locked up (or very closed to that), but you can miss on the side of making sets too powerful and have them cover a huge swath of power levels, not just the players who only care about making perfectly min-maxed characters.

My main criticism of sets in D2 is at the level of specific sets (or specific stats in some items). You could definitely make some of them be more coherent and I think that, ideally, all end game class sets should be at the level of IK, M'avina's, or

Tal Rasha's: good enough to play through the whole game without being BiS.

So, with all that, a sate of things were some indvidual set items or some combination of partial sets are viable (or even BiS), and some end game sets are good enough to be viable (but not BiS) is a pretty good place. Maybe you could have more end game sets that enable specific, quirky builds. Maybe you could redesign a few end game sets to not be absolute trash (some day, full Trang's, some day). But, all in all, sets in D2 accomplish a lot of things quite well without crossing a power level line that I think would make things much worse.

Not many people know this about Trang's full but...

Golem Lord floats from the Ground and isn't encumbered ...so toggle that run to walk and it's the same movement speed.

Except of course the game takes defence into account when you walk as opposed to running, dance dance dance amongst the mobs!

Skaijuice wrote: 1 month ago

Not many people know this about Trang's full but...

Golem Lord floats from the Ground and isn't encumbered ...so toggle that run to walk and it's the same movement speed.

Except of course the game takes defence into account when you walk as opposed to running, dance dance dance amongst the mobs!

Honestly, the nerf to casting speed on full trang-ouls might actually be a good thing. Can't tell you how many times I have wasted corpses on

Corpse Explosion from spamming click when everything is already dead. And

Poison Nova should probably be cast about 1.5-1.9 seco ds apart anyway.

human_being wrote: 1 month ago

...put them together after multiple play throughs (and use them on new characters) and pressure on them to be powerful (even at earlier levels) is much lower....

Unless a player gets an extremely lucky playthrough, quest drops and crafting opportunities are a great way to funnel into a single endgame player. Of course, trading is catalytic option. But, at this point in the season, I'd just fafo until reset :S.

As for

M'avina's Caster, I would just 2x

Shael and

Nef it, (I am unsure if it really is 3os because it is a niche item), until

Hellrack.

doGBone wrote: 1 month ago

human_being wrote: 1 month ago

...put them together after multiple play throughs (and use them on new characters) and pressure on them to be powerful (even at earlier levels) is much lower....

Unless a player gets an extremely lucky playthrough, quest drops and crafting opportunities are a great way to funnel into a single endgame player. Of course, trading is catalytic option. But, at this point in the season, I'd just fafo until reset :S.

As for

M'avina's Caster, I would just 2x

Shael and

Nef it, (I am unsure if it really is 3os because it is a niche item), until

Hellrack.

Yeah, I'm sitting on like 3 hellracks myself, along with buriza. At the moment I'm just tinkering.

In the end, I vastly prefer to avoid best ins slot items by the way (

Windforce

Lysander etc.) It's a case of its all really been done before and all that.

Soon I'm going to be blue bombing a hardcore character. Just for kicks. (No equient other than blues, no mercenary, no runewords). Probably a druid.

doGBone wrote: 1 month ago

human_being wrote: 1 month ago

...put them together after multiple play throughs (and use them on new characters) and pressure on them to be powerful (even at earlier levels) is much lower....

-snip-

As for

M'avina's Caster, I would just 2x

Shael and

Nef it, (I am unsure if it really is 3os because it is a niche item), until

Hellrack.

Would that it could Those shaels can be better off resting in a

Witchwild String, maybe.

This site has a feature that pops out stats on mouse over so you can preview them after. It's alphabet sensitive.

Skaijuice wrote: 1 month ago

doGBone wrote: 1 month ago

human_being wrote: 1 month ago

...put them together after multiple play throughs (and use them on new characters) and pressure on them to be powerful (even at earlier levels) is much lower....

-snip-

As for

M'avina's Caster, I would just 2x

Shael and

Nef it, (I am unsure if it really is 3os because it is a niche item), until

Hellrack.

Would that it could Those shaels can be better off resting in a

Witchwild String, maybe.

This site has a feature that pops out stats on mouse over so you can preview them after. It's alphabet sensitive.

Never understood why that weapon isnt more popular.

BoringTitle wrote: 1 month ago

Skaijuice wrote: 1 month ago

doGBone wrote: 1 month ago

-snip-

As for

M'avina's Caster, I would just 2x

Shael and

Nef it, (I am unsure if it really is 3os because it is a niche item), until

Hellrack.

Would that it could Those shaels can be better off resting in a

Witchwild String, maybe.

This site has a feature that pops out stats on mouse over so you can preview them after. It's alphabet sensitive.

Never understood why that weapon isnt more popular.

The little bow that could - if you get to know it #IYKYK