What am I doing wrong?

I've been playing D2 since its release in 2000. Prior to D2R, I could level up a character to 99 in roughly a month, even while balancing school, work, and personal life. However, since I started playing D2R recently, my main character has reached only level 80 after 4 months.
Once my character entered Hell it was like a brick wall, and it seems I've been stuck grinding Act 1 for a month as well. Has the game mechanics really changed that much with D2R, or do I just have a poor character that sucks at finding decent gear?

I am attempting to build a

Zeal Paladin, eventually transitioning into a Dream

Zeal Paladin once my character is rich enough.
If anyone could be kind enough to point out what I am doing wrong. Perhaps Grief really did make that big of a difference.
My merc doesn't have survivability issues.
I have attached my character sheet and have listed out what I have on my character too.

W1- Lightsaber
OH1- Spirit (

Akaran Rondache w/ 43 res all)
W2- Honor (

Scourge)
OH2-

Herald Of Zakarum

Helm- Lore (

Shako)
Chest- Smoke (

Dusk Shroud)

Belt-

String of Ears
Hand-

Laying of Hands
Feet-

Tearhaunch
R1-

Raven Frost
R2- Magic Ring (w/ resist and +attack rating)
AM- Magic Amulet (w/ resist all + Life)


Merc-
Act 5

Frenzy
All Resist @ 75%
W1-

Plague Bearer
W2- King's Grace
Chest- Smoke (

Mage Plate)

Helm- Magic Avenger Gaurd (+2 barb skills)

For the most part, the mechanics haven't changed. At least compared to late D2:LOD, compared to early versions you would of course have to account for all of the later original D2 patches.

The changes that did happen really just make things easier. Vipers nerfed. Mana burn nerfed. DClone realistically available to everyone. Sunders (once you do make it past hell). Some class/ability buffs (be that direct buffs or indirect via things like Mosaic). Added gear options. There's been a few additions, none of which make things harder and most of which you will only notice in very specific situations/zones/with very specific builds.

Essentially, if you're stuck now but never had that problem in the past, odds are the game itself isn't to blame. You can still knock out 80 in a day or two if you really wanted to. Perhaps your balancing of life vs. D2 just ends up quite different these days, despite feeling the same. Perhaps your game time itself is differently split between e.g. active play, trade forums and all that jazz. Or perhaps you just got old and relaxed (read: slow) like..well..many of us, including myself.

Or you really are just getting crap for gear, making your life infinitely harder and progress equally slower. After all, you do seem to be running a rather gear dependent build.

Additionally, if you're after faster lvling, stop grinding A1. Force your way to later acts and grind areas your own level.
Well, or pick the right areas in A1 I guess...pit farming is probably already a valid option in your gear. That'd work fine for solo lvling.
If you're playing online, you can always also just join a rush/group hell clear and then proceed to the good ol'

Baal runs to get you to the early to mid 90s before moving on to

Terror zones afterwards. Though that option won't typically help much with getting you geared along the way, what with fighting pugs over everything that drops.

aamohammed90 wrote: 1 month ago

I've been playing D2 since its release in 2000. Prior to D2R, I could level up a character to 99 in roughly a month, even while balancing school, work, and personal life.

Not sure how u able to reach 99 with all things happened like that in 2000… experience gain etc should remain the same since d2lod.

Unless u were botting back then(which i was ), that would explains why u could get to 99 with school, work, personal life etc, unless u ddint sleep at all for that whole month…

i never had 99 char in 2001 or since d2lod, my highest was 92, it’s too much woek to reach 93 and beyond back without constant botting at

Baal for experience…because i had school, work and personal life as well.

Fast forward, my highest char is only 93 haha.

But to your point? Nothing hasnt changed much. U just need to grind more effectively with better gears and join pub

Baal runs and/or Chaos runs, even the , dont expect to reach 99 within 1-2 weeks, not factoring in accidental deaths etc etc.

Unless u play 12 hours per day for 1-2 weeks, i dont see u reaching 99 anytime soon.

Also, best to play and enjoy the game , and.l not focus on reaching 99?

Anyhow, gl

To add to what has already been stated, you mentions that you had Grief before and are using Lightsaber now. There is a massive damage difference between the two, which would make a difference in how fast you are able to clear, what you are able to clear, and thus your xp per minute.

Remembering that on the stats screen you will not see the Grief correct damage (maybe that's why you thought the damage was similar...)

No one in this thread is mentioning that EXP and how EXP was awarded changed significantly in various D2 / LOD patches.

This is why people don't spam cows, bloody runs, etc... anymore, and focus on Chaos /

Baal runs after 90 +

Grief plus gface, if u have...

Zeal requires a good weapon, and yours is adequate but very weak. In your situation (where I've been several times at ladder start), until you can make Grief, I recommend making Oath. With Oath you can easily beat the the game

You can get a

Mal rune and a

Pul rune from hell countess. The base can take a while to find, but the pits in act 1 is a great place to find bases. Ideally you would make Oath in an ethereal

Cryptic Sword, but any elite ethereal base is fine

The pits is also a good place for a zealot to farm for the

Jah runes and three socket pally shield you need for dual Dream. In fact it is one of the best places to farm with a zealot in the entire game. It's also a great place to level between 80 and 90, and the monsters are very weak despite their high level, so your build should be able to handle them. Go farm the pits.

My first character was also a Zealot and I took him to level 90. I also had a

Lightsabre and I was pleased with that.
Then I made an Unbending Will in a

Phase Blade and I was very happy with the increased damage.

I like to play offline on P8 and when I go to Cows it take me 40+ minutes to clear the whole level. If the weapon wasn't PB sure it would break up before finishing.

Then I made a Grief and the game changed dramatically. Now I clear cows in 20-25 minutes. You can see the mob's life bar shortening fast. Before Grief it was very slow.

As a side note, the damage screen is not accurate. With Unbending Will I have much more damage (2000 ish - 3000 ish) than I have with Grief (1400 - 2500). As Fredkid said earlier you won't SEE big diference but you'll FEEL it.

Your min damage is low. Try to equip some charms with damage to make it bigger. Or maybe on P1 is enough to kill stuff (on P8 I had the min damage at 1500 - 2000 and it was not quite good).

There's a big speed bump in the levelling curve at around level 80. You've out-levelled Nightmare

Baal runs, but aren't powerful enough to tackle the rest of the game yet. Progress also grinds to a complete halt every time you encounter a physical immune.

For the power problem, you'll need to gain a few levels - there's a massive difference in your ability to hit things between low 80's and high 80's. If you've been rushed, try to join

Baal runs to sponge up the experience. If you haven't, Cow runs will do much the same. XP gain will be slow going if you try to level on your own.

For Physical Immunes, try to grab yourself one of the following to use on switch: Rift, Voice of Reason,

Azurewrath, Lawbringer. The first two cast

Frozen Orb on attack/hit while the latter two grant the

Sanctuary Aura which zaps the physical resistance of Undead, solving many of your PI problems.

(Or check out my guide below!)

EDIT: I have a Voice of Reason

Phase Blade that's sitting around doing nothing, If you're non-Ladder softcore, you're welcome to have it at no

Charge.

Lanceor wrote: 1 month ago

There's a big speed bump in the levelling curve at around level 80. You've out-levelled Nightmare

Baal runs, but aren't powerful enough to tackle the rest of the game yet. Progress also grinds to a complete halt every time you encounter a physical immune.

For the power problem, you'll need to gain a few levels - there's a massive difference in your ability to hit things between low 80's and high 80's. If you've been rushed, try to join

Baal runs to sponge up the experience. If you haven't, Cow runs will do much the same. XP gain will be slow going if you try to level on your own.

For Physical Immunes, try to grab yourself one of the following to use on switch: Rift, Voice of Reason,

Azurewrath, Lawbringer. The first two cast

Frozen Orb on attack/hit while the latter two grant the

Sanctuary Aura which zaps the physical resistance of Undead, solving many of your PI problems.

(Or check out my guide below!)

EDIT: I have a Voice of Reason

Phase Blade that's sitting around doing nothing, If you're non-Ladder softcore, you're welcome to have it at no

Charge.

Ditto on the Lawbringer, because it will break physical immunity and give you a boost in LL, If you really want to have fun, throw on a pair of Drac's to go with it for more life steal. I've cleared Hell

Chaos Sanctuary on a Paladin build using just those and a little

Smite for Diablo.

Obviously, Grief, but you heard that already.

Unless you get Lawbringer for your merc(which will be an insane change), ditch the act 5. Take act2 might, give him Obedience, Bulwark and if you have a

Lem- Treachery. He'll rip things apart and significantly increase your damage.
Also, if you have another

Lem, switch your Smoke for Treachery too. The attack speed bump is huge, and

Fade will take care of your res and also give you 15% phys resist which you will feel.
Lore is bad for you, the + skill is nothing. Make a Bulwark. If resists are bad then put orts and rals as you need in a 3 sock

Helm, but bukwark is good and you will feel the LL bump.
Try to clutter your inventory with resists and life charms.

Almost certainly the biggest difference is liable to be changes in how much EXP you're earning. Overall the calculations were changed compared to pre-expansion days, and it might be that D2R's are even slower than were found in the original's later versions of 1.10 through 1.14. (though I honestly have no data either way)

Another oft-overlooked part is that in the original Diablo II, the default gameplay mode was an offline-stored character, while for D2R it's online and roughly the same as "Battle.net realm." A

Key part here is that... In offline mode playing on "players=8" has been the reflexive standard due to the extremely elevated experience gains netted. Meanwhile this is very much lacking from D2R's online mode, thus leading to slower level gains.

You can power through if you try. Of course, a gear power change could help; most notably, as others have mentioned, is that a Grief-socketed weapon just flat-out gets you the best possible DPS for

Zeal.

Also, be mindful of the aLvL of the zones you're going through. If they're too much lower than your own level, your EXP gains will evaporate. All the non-side outdoor zones of Act I only range from levels 67-70, (with the Monastery going up to 73) so at 80 the EXP will severely taper off. It's best to seek out side-zones that in Hell difficulty bump the aLvL to 83-85:

• Pit (85) is the favorite in Act I due to the extreme ease of quickly reaching it from the
  Outer Cloister waypoint.
• Mausoleum (85) and
  Crypt (83) are also options, though generally disliked due to their extremely low monster density, and the long trip to reach it.
• Hole (81) is another option
• Underground Passage Level 2 (85) is high-level, but requires a lot of trekking to reach the entrance, as well as trudging through the level 69 Level 1.

To be honest, you should be powerful enough to slowly trudge your way to Act 2, where your options will open up with Stony Tomb &

Ancient Tunnels. But ultimately, the entire situation gets better the further you progress, as the best farm options will be

Chaos Sanctuary,

Throne of Destruction, (aka

Baal Runs) and select Terrorized Zones.

We all got old, that's the point. I could play D2 LoD for 12h, 14h, 16h a day like a boss.

Nowadays, i can barely play for 2, 3 hours straight. My back hurts, i get bored/annoyed, my patience just runs dry. Things had a different timing back then, as how we perceived time. Take the same amount of gameplay back in the 2000's and nowadays to level up to level 99. The XP is the same. Maybe are you feeling this time more slowly?

The thing that works for me is: try to enjoy the game more than being efficient. Who cares that i can't run one

Chaos Sanctuary run every 20 seconds? Enjoy running around in circles while your dual Dream paladin frys everyone and get a good laugh.

For me, the most enjoyable thing now is a casual and fair play with some friends. Times change, so do we.

And if you need some gear, I'm sure that someone here can help you out. We are among friends here.

Thanks everyone for the input.

I currently play non-ladder/softcore. So certain rune words are out of the question for me until they become available thru a future patch. Probably next ladder season. heh. Personally this pally just has poor luck. Never really have gotten good drops. I can do 5 countess runs and get maybe 3 runes. Or everything that drops that is worth while is not for a pally.

TBH I have been doing NM TZ mostly. I will switch over and do H Countess and Pit runs. Pushing to act 2 is doable right now. May actually do this tonight. Then back to grinding the pit and countess.

Never been too big on trading until I started playing D2R. I may actually try to get guilface and the rest of the runes for Fortitude. I have a 4 os superior

Dusk Shroud that would work. Also I wouldn't mind a Lawbringer. So searching/trading I shall.

The specs for my damage is for Honor (

Scourge). This is why my low end damage is so low. The

Lightsabre is 1200ish-1900ish. Lastly I think it is time to switch mercs and go with a act 2 merc for the buffs I am missing out on.

aamohammed90 wrote: 1 month ago

Never been too big on trading until I started playing D2R. I may actually try to get guilface and the rest of the runes for Fortitude. I have a 4 os superior

Dusk Shroud that would work. Also I wouldn't mind a La

I wouldnt make fort in sup dusk unless u know u can afford the repair

Bill or use the cube method to repair..
Ofherwise, best to go for high def normal elite 4 socket armor for fort self use…

I assume str wont be an issue for u?
I always like wirefleech look or

Diamond Mail, mid range str req n pretty good def.

U cN always go with

Archon Plate…

Gl

If not superior, any elite light armor will work, just take the one with the highest defense you found.

aamohammed90 wrote: 1 month ago

[..]
I currently play non-ladder/softcore. So certain rune words are out of the question for me until they become available thru a future patch. Probably next ladder season. heh.
[..]

Do note that the "ladder only" list today isn't the same as it was in the olden days. All of the old ladder-only stuff is available in non-ladder today. The only thing that's ladder-only is the latest batch of newly added stuff which really isn't that much and specifically for a zealot would have close to no impact, if any.

More specifically:
runewords/#filter=New%20item%20in%202.6

Also note that Blizz has effectively stopped caring about D2:R in any way whatsoever so don't expect the above to ever be available non-ladder.
(To buy off ladder folks after season rolls over, yes, those are already available from the prior season - but not to actually create in NL)

luizgeo wrote: 1 month ago

We all got old, that's the point. I could play D2 LoD for 12h, 14h, 16h a day like a boss.

Nowadays, i can barely play for 2, 3 hours straight. My back hurts, i get bored/annoyed, my patience just runs dry. Things had a different timing back then, as how we perceived time. Take the same amount of gameplay back in the 2000's and nowadays to level up to level 99. The XP is the same. Maybe are you feeling this time more slowly?

The thing that works for me is: try to enjoy the game more than being efficient. Who cares that i can't run one

Chaos Sanctuary run every 20 seconds? Enjoy running around in circles while your dual Dream paladin frys everyone and get a good laugh.

For me, the most enjoyable thing now is a casual and fair play with some friends. Times change, so do we.

Tell me about it. Although if we're being honest here, you forgot to mention the sub culture of scamming.


Act 2 pick up spots by palace and tavern, I know you know

I am glad that d2 moved away from this, it was a wild ride those first many years.