Starting Fresh With a Friend!

Me and my friend are going to be starting the new D2 season together and we are total noobs. I was hoping someone could suggest a good pair of characters we could make, that syngergize well with each other without fighting over all the same gear.

I want something that I can transition into a MF character once I beat baal on hell, and my friend is looking for something durable and efficient at clearing mobs.

With the new ladder season we will obviously have no gear or runes to start. With that in mind non-twink builds would be optimal. Thanks for your help guys|||There are two main non-twink builds, and since they work well even without the best of gear they can be used as MF characters if desired.

Fishymancer Necromancer and Meteorb Sorceress. It just so happens that from a playstyle pov, one could be considered a glasscannon and the other a more sturdy-yet-slower killer. Which in my book means they compliment each other pretty well.

The sorc can hide behind the large army in relative safety, dropping some nice AoE on monsters... and when encountering a tough Boss where the Necro may sometimes struggle (Duriel, Meph, Diablo, Baal), the Sorc can quickly spam Static Field and make short work of the fight. Sorc can also just tele past some annoying spots that are so hard for a solo un-twinked Necro that it makes one want to cry - places like Arcane and Maggot Lair.



It also fulfills your last requirement: The sorc can become your MF char, and the Necro can be your friend's area clearer.

If you don't know the builds by heart, generally a Fishymancer is just a Summoner Necro with maxed Skellies, Skellie Mastery, Corpse Explosion, 1pt Wonders of Clay Golem/Summon Resist/Golem Mastery/Bone Armor with spare points into BA synergies. Meteorb is maxed Frozen Orb, Cold Mastery to lvl17 after +skills, maxed Meteor/Fire Mastery/Fireball, 1pt wonders of Static and Warmth/Teleport, and spare points into Firebolt.

A variation on Meteorb Sorc that I like to use is to Max Firebolt/Fireball/Fire Mastery, and use Fireball as your main spell instead of Meteor. Fireball is aimable, has splash dmg for monster packs, can be spammed since it isn't a timered spell, and puts monsters into hit recovery so it's less likely your merc will die. Meteor takes a long time to land, and your merc has to be VERY beefy to survive long enough for the timered spell to land. And if the mob pack happens to move.... |||Welcome to our forums, Argolis! Knarlfist makes some excellent points, in my opinion.|||Wow, thanks for thorough and detailed post Knarlfist and the friendly welcome Noodle. This is exactly what I was looking for. I just had a few more questions if it's not too much trouble.

I know re-specs are possible but I want to avoid doing them as much as possible because I hope to be playing D2 again for a long time ( until D3 ). and once I decide on a build, I like to stick with it.

1) Where are the key locations for a meteorb sorc to MF farm. I'm guessing it's NM and Hell Mephisto because of the "moat trick" but are there any other spots I should be doing?

2) How does the "glitch" trick work where you can make the act bosses drop the quest version (better) drop when you kill them. From what I read, you must kill the boss witch a character who hasn't beat the boss yet. Can this be done with Mephisto in Hell/NM?

4) Any guides you recommend I read before over the weekend before monday's reset?

3) Which realm should I play on?



Thanks guys!|||1) I better let others answer this one, I've never really been an MF'er.. I am more of the full area clearer type of player.

2) There are 2 glitch types. The first one is simple, make the game with a char that hasn't finished the quest, have someone hold the game open for you or stay in 5mins to perm it, and then log off the first char and re-join with your MF char. The second one is a permanent thing that works with Andariel: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=449699

3) I am not a huge proponent of sticking to guides. I read them all for personal info, but far too many of them make it seem like you NEED Enigma, Griffs, Fathom, Infinity, 6BO CtAs for every char, Annis, inv full of Skillers and 20/x charms, etc. Kinda funny... I've played since 1.08/1.09, and through the Ladders as well, and I have NEVER owned any of those things. How on earth was I able to play Diablo2??? I guess it's a huge mystery!

4) Europe is supposedly the most active, and USEast is right behind it. I play on USWest, and I definitely have noticed that it's not as active. I guess in the end tho, it won't greatly affect you either way unless you are gonna be a DClone hunter. In that case I would really recommend staying away from West, we have no huge efforts to pop DClone like the other realms do.|||@Knarlfist: 2) I thought that you had to escape quit after talking to him before traveling east for her to bug. That is what I've always done, unless it has changed or the method has been revised to be more correct.

Edit:Thanks for digging that link up. I have not played in a while. I forgot that all you needed to talk to was Warriv. I agree with you, but she is great for jewelry as you pointed out.|||To be sure I could dig up the link on the discussion/testing. Lemme start looking around. (according to comments later in that thread, and my own experiences, you can still bug her even w/o leaving the game, but the method you mentioned and the tester tried is probably faster/easier. I took out my explanation and replaced it with the test link)

Not that I think she's running just in and of herself, unless you are specifically targetting SoJ's. Overall her drops aren't all that great.





edit: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=449699|||I like the two character builds Knarlfist suggested. As I've taken a 5 year hiatus from the game, I am going to have to play solo and mf for myself. Both of those builds offer forms of building a strong start to a season. The necro is slower at killing, but can definitely get the job done solo with his army. The sorc as the glass cannon, can mf well with a nice level advantage, but can get stuck with no means of finishing the job off. Together they compliment each other very well.

P.S. I prefer the frozen orb/fireball over meteorb. I hate waiting on the meteor to fall and shared cooldowns.|||I did several hundred Hell Andariel runs a few years ago in a hunt for a Stone of Jordan. (I ended up getting tired of her and taking a break to run Mephisto a bit, and it dropped from a chest in the Durance.) I was pleasantly surprised by the items she dropped. If you poke around the thread, you can see a few lists of items I found.http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=612065

Also, a Holy Freeze / Holy shock Zealot paladin can be quite effective untwinked. Crescent Moon (Shael Um Tir) is an easily obtainable weapon. Pair him with maybe a fire sorceress, and you should be able to carve through everything.

I've also had great success playing untwinked with a Plague Javalin / Lightning Fury Amazon and a Fire Blast / Lightning Assassin.

You might want to check out some of the Patriarch / Matriarch threads in the Single Player forum. Many SPF'ers play single pass untwinked, and it should give you some tips and ideas of how to proceed. If you want to see the extreme, check out somme of Insane Wayne's and Super Dave's threads. I recently revisited a thread where Super Dave related his hardcore Amazon doing full clears at /players 8, with no equipment beyond cracked low quality items, and no offensive skillpoints used. Basically he ran around punching things to death until he got a mercenary and a Valkyrie. He successfully made it through Hell Baal with her.

I wish you and your friend the best of luck as you proceed!