sprucegoose
Member!
I recently started playing d2 again and was once again faced with the gigantic problem of getting godly gear on my own no friends nada. Now i know we have all been in this position before so i thought id share some advice that I have picked up by running this gauntlet many a time.
First of all your first character should ALWAYS (unless your playing for fun and dont care about getting richer in which case dont read this guide
) be a sorc. I would suggest the blizz sorc as it is what I think the best for the sort of mfing were going to be doing.
Now for the first steps towards riches...your first goal is to get to hell asap DO NOT waste your time trying to mf or look for items in normal or nightmare. So first of all we need to get to level 25 so we can start baal runs. I would suggest leveling in the blood moor and cold plains to get to lvl 5 then do trist runs from 5-15 and then do tomb runs from 15-20 then cows to 24. Find someone to rush you for forge as norm forge is usually useless anyways or someone might do it out of the goodness of their heart. Once you do the ancients quest you'll hit 25 and be ready to do baal runs to level 40.
Now your in nightmare and you've probably picked up some junky items during your runs, that people dropped etc. This is what you want to do always keep on the lookout for anything that will better your char whether it be rare, magic, set, unique, whatever! So your at level 40 and sitting in a nightmare game picking your nose...no time for that,you need to get rushed! Once again look for someone who will rush you for forge as most will do it in nm quite easily. I know what your thinking...give my nm forge up HELL NOOO but hey unless you wanna play through all of nightmare then you gotta make some sacrafices, or you could scam them which i dont approve of, but hey its your choice. Once you get rushed you will want to do baal runs to lvl 60. As always keep on the lookout for any gear that will improve your stats. And now your ready to get to hell yippy!!!
So now you need to get a rush through hell...no easy task and you could spend quite a while looking for someone to do it for the forge but never fear someone will! Once you kill the ancients you could do 1 of 2 things...A: do chaos runs or B: baal it up. I've found that chaos runs are more convienient and there are more drops, but the choice is yours. You will want to get probably to at least level 75 or higher, depending on if your an efficient telier and can avoid getting hit by the hell monsters.
So at last your ready to hop on the road to fortune and glory. First of all lets talk about how you'll want to setup your character.
For skills you'll want to put 1 into warmth, 1 into frozen armor, 1 into static, 1 into teleport,1 into cold mastery and of course max blizz and all its synergies. If your able to complete this task eventually put all of your extra points into cold mastery. For stat points you'll want 97 strength,base energy(none), base dexterity, and the rest into vitality.
Now what you'll want to do is scrounge around usually for rare items that will give you plus skills, mana, and resists. Do you best with this, if your very good at staying alive then it wont be TOO much of a problem. You will also want to have the following potion setup in your belt: As many rejuventations as possible, followed by at least 1 row of mana pots unless you have items that allow for you to have excess mana, and maybe 1-2 rows of healing. You'll be able to figure this out pretty fast as you see how quickly your health/mana drop per run.
Ok so now your ready to begin the fun. You have some clunker gear but hey everyone starts somewhere! One option (and perhaps the best) is to do chaos runs as the drops are pretty good and you can let others do most of the work, but you'll have to be faster than the other players as well. What i personally do is andy and meph runs (more meph than andy as it doesnt take as long to find level 3). If you have mh then your a step ahead if you don't like me...it'll take some extra time finding the stairs but if you tele in crazy zig zag patterns i find this helps locate them quicker. And remember the stairs will always be on the edges of the map. With Andy once you reach level 4 immediatly put up a tp, cast frozen armor and tele up and into andys chamber bypassing the goons behind the first door. There will always be a Shaman and minions up from the barrels so cast a blizz there first and take out anyone else around NOT ATTRACTING ANDY!!! You usually wont find any cold immunes so that is good. now for andy...i've tried staticing her but i've find she usually manages to kick my ass so keep running around and cast blizz where you were standing and then run in a straight line from there....andy will follow and take damage. eventually you'll kill the bitch and hopefully get some drops. Now remember that tp we made?! sure ya do time to go back through it. Seeeee it serves as insurance in case you die and youd have to cast one anyways. Also if theres no good sets or uniques she drops you'll want to pick up anything and everything you can starting with rare items first. Go back to town identify the items sell, keep, but NEVER just drop them. This is because gold is your friend and you can gamble on rings and ammys with it. Every bit helps!
Now onto meph...you'll want to tele around a bit and if you see stygian dolls dont try to outrun them TELE they will spank you! Also dont try blizzing them because they will blow up and spank you anyways. Enough spanking...you've found level 3. Cast a tp and frozen armor. You'll want to kill/lure the council members to the right so they dont cast hydras while your moating meph. If theyre in the center of the runway quickly get on the other side and blizz them to death while running around because of the hydras. I've personally found a hoz off of them so its not a waste of time. Now tele towards meph and lure him down and to the left. Go across the moat so you can barely see him but not 2 far incase you attract the blood ghouls who lurk in the bottom left. Also stick close to the right of your section because theres another angry council member in the adjacent room and you wont want to attract him. Anyways blizz meph to death, collect items, then go through the portal to act 4. Sell your stuff etc. You want to go through the portal because this will cut down on the walk time from act 3 to the wp.
I've found that people often times pass up potentially good drops so here are some items you will always want to pick up if you see them. Of course all charms, rare and or magic ammys and rings, rare boots, rare gloves, and any socketed items as they may be right for some runeword. I found a pair of rare bowzon gloves that i traded for a soj, not bad eh?!
Ok so you've finnaly found that big item! First priority is can you wear it and will it help you? If not time to trade it! Create a game and look what people offer...don't take the first offer unless its really amazing. See what a variety of people offer you for it, this will help determine its value. If people ask what you want ask them for stuff that seems overpriced...if they laugh and call you a noob then you'll get a good idea, but try this strategy on at least 3 people just to see if theres not just 1 poor sport out there. Eventually you'll figure out the value and trade it for what you need. The gear i would suggest you get is the following (and try to get it in this order): Occy, tals belt, lidless, frost burns, tals armor, travs, shako, tals ammy, rings...sojs nagels whatever you feel you need.
And that concludes this little guide, i hope it helps some people and if you have any questions or want me to add something just post. :hxc
GETTING STARTED
First of all your first character should ALWAYS (unless your playing for fun and dont care about getting richer in which case dont read this guide
) be a sorc. I would suggest the blizz sorc as it is what I think the best for the sort of mfing were going to be doing. Now for the first steps towards riches...your first goal is to get to hell asap DO NOT waste your time trying to mf or look for items in normal or nightmare. So first of all we need to get to level 25 so we can start baal runs. I would suggest leveling in the blood moor and cold plains to get to lvl 5 then do trist runs from 5-15 and then do tomb runs from 15-20 then cows to 24. Find someone to rush you for forge as norm forge is usually useless anyways or someone might do it out of the goodness of their heart. Once you do the ancients quest you'll hit 25 and be ready to do baal runs to level 40.
NIGHTMARE
Now your in nightmare and you've probably picked up some junky items during your runs, that people dropped etc. This is what you want to do always keep on the lookout for anything that will better your char whether it be rare, magic, set, unique, whatever! So your at level 40 and sitting in a nightmare game picking your nose...no time for that,you need to get rushed! Once again look for someone who will rush you for forge as most will do it in nm quite easily. I know what your thinking...give my nm forge up HELL NOOO but hey unless you wanna play through all of nightmare then you gotta make some sacrafices, or you could scam them which i dont approve of, but hey its your choice. Once you get rushed you will want to do baal runs to lvl 60. As always keep on the lookout for any gear that will improve your stats. And now your ready to get to hell yippy!!!
HELL
So now you need to get a rush through hell...no easy task and you could spend quite a while looking for someone to do it for the forge but never fear someone will! Once you kill the ancients you could do 1 of 2 things...A: do chaos runs or B: baal it up. I've found that chaos runs are more convienient and there are more drops, but the choice is yours. You will want to get probably to at least level 75 or higher, depending on if your an efficient telier and can avoid getting hit by the hell monsters.
CHARACTER SETUP AND MAGIC FINDING
So at last your ready to hop on the road to fortune and glory. First of all lets talk about how you'll want to setup your character.
STATS AND SKILLS
For skills you'll want to put 1 into warmth, 1 into frozen armor, 1 into static, 1 into teleport,1 into cold mastery and of course max blizz and all its synergies. If your able to complete this task eventually put all of your extra points into cold mastery. For stat points you'll want 97 strength,base energy(none), base dexterity, and the rest into vitality.
EQUIPMENT
Now what you'll want to do is scrounge around usually for rare items that will give you plus skills, mana, and resists. Do you best with this, if your very good at staying alive then it wont be TOO much of a problem. You will also want to have the following potion setup in your belt: As many rejuventations as possible, followed by at least 1 row of mana pots unless you have items that allow for you to have excess mana, and maybe 1-2 rows of healing. You'll be able to figure this out pretty fast as you see how quickly your health/mana drop per run.
MAGIC FINDING!!!
Ok so now your ready to begin the fun. You have some clunker gear but hey everyone starts somewhere! One option (and perhaps the best) is to do chaos runs as the drops are pretty good and you can let others do most of the work, but you'll have to be faster than the other players as well. What i personally do is andy and meph runs (more meph than andy as it doesnt take as long to find level 3). If you have mh then your a step ahead if you don't like me...it'll take some extra time finding the stairs but if you tele in crazy zig zag patterns i find this helps locate them quicker. And remember the stairs will always be on the edges of the map. With Andy once you reach level 4 immediatly put up a tp, cast frozen armor and tele up and into andys chamber bypassing the goons behind the first door. There will always be a Shaman and minions up from the barrels so cast a blizz there first and take out anyone else around NOT ATTRACTING ANDY!!! You usually wont find any cold immunes so that is good. now for andy...i've tried staticing her but i've find she usually manages to kick my ass so keep running around and cast blizz where you were standing and then run in a straight line from there....andy will follow and take damage. eventually you'll kill the bitch and hopefully get some drops. Now remember that tp we made?! sure ya do time to go back through it. Seeeee it serves as insurance in case you die and youd have to cast one anyways. Also if theres no good sets or uniques she drops you'll want to pick up anything and everything you can starting with rare items first. Go back to town identify the items sell, keep, but NEVER just drop them. This is because gold is your friend and you can gamble on rings and ammys with it. Every bit helps!
MEPH MF CONTINUED
Now onto meph...you'll want to tele around a bit and if you see stygian dolls dont try to outrun them TELE they will spank you! Also dont try blizzing them because they will blow up and spank you anyways. Enough spanking...you've found level 3. Cast a tp and frozen armor. You'll want to kill/lure the council members to the right so they dont cast hydras while your moating meph. If theyre in the center of the runway quickly get on the other side and blizz them to death while running around because of the hydras. I've personally found a hoz off of them so its not a waste of time. Now tele towards meph and lure him down and to the left. Go across the moat so you can barely see him but not 2 far incase you attract the blood ghouls who lurk in the bottom left. Also stick close to the right of your section because theres another angry council member in the adjacent room and you wont want to attract him. Anyways blizz meph to death, collect items, then go through the portal to act 4. Sell your stuff etc. You want to go through the portal because this will cut down on the walk time from act 3 to the wp.
WHAT ITEMS TO LOOK FOR
I've found that people often times pass up potentially good drops so here are some items you will always want to pick up if you see them. Of course all charms, rare and or magic ammys and rings, rare boots, rare gloves, and any socketed items as they may be right for some runeword. I found a pair of rare bowzon gloves that i traded for a soj, not bad eh?!
TRADING
Ok so you've finnaly found that big item! First priority is can you wear it and will it help you? If not time to trade it! Create a game and look what people offer...don't take the first offer unless its really amazing. See what a variety of people offer you for it, this will help determine its value. If people ask what you want ask them for stuff that seems overpriced...if they laugh and call you a noob then you'll get a good idea, but try this strategy on at least 3 people just to see if theres not just 1 poor sport out there. Eventually you'll figure out the value and trade it for what you need. The gear i would suggest you get is the following (and try to get it in this order): Occy, tals belt, lidless, frost burns, tals armor, travs, shako, tals ammy, rings...sojs nagels whatever you feel you need.
And that concludes this little guide, i hope it helps some people and if you have any questions or want me to add something just post. :hxc
