Flux
15-02-2009, 23:46
I had a couple of hours free this morning and after posting here yesterday, D1 thoughts were in my head. so I dug out the CD and installed it on my laptop (first game installed on it). I was going to go up to Hellfire, but I couldn't find the CD so I said what the hell and just did Diablo. It wouldn't let me make an MP char; kept giving a weird error message, so I had to go on support.blizzard.com and find the old v1.09 D1 patch. First 4 dl links were dead, too. Including the version on blizzard's own FTP. heh.
Anyway, I made a sorcerer and he was fun. I played totally legit; no duping or anything, and I never even did any adria runs; just bought what she offered and used what I found. I did almost full clears, took a break to do other things after each dungeon level section and used the short cut stairs next game. In total I made it down to lvl 15 @ clvl 22 before I had to quit.
I'll sorta recap progress and spells, in disjointed fashion.
At level 22 I had 1 chain lightning, 8 charged bolt, 3 firebolt, 2 firewall, 5 holy bolt. Those were pretty much all I used. And yes, you can do the caves quite easily with level 6 or 7 charged bolt. I got illusion weavers on 9 and 10 and charged bolt just owned them. I'd fire off a little burst every time I turned a corner or went through a doorway, and the bolts found them very nicely. I had about 330 mana at that point, without any equipment good enough to mention. No lucky item finds at all. I was using a plain +29 str titans club since I needed the STR to wear an amber/sorcery gothic plate I found on lvl 13.
I was surprised the lvl 3 firebolt was enough for support, but for the occasional frost charger or other lightning resistant or immune, it did the trick. I got succubus on level 12 and had to use firewall on them.
level 13: I got Dogs, the black lightning demons, and black witches. charged bolt worked fine on the dogs, and I mixed a lot of firewall with firebolt to get the lightning demons and witches. even just level 2 firewall would kill a monster w/o fire resistance in like, 1.5 seconds.
level 14 I had steel lords and red witches. had to start using chain there. charged couldn't get it done against the steel lords, and even lvl 1 chain was much better. I'd never found a regular lightning book.
15 I quit on. i had soul burners and couldn't kill them with lvl 1 chain lightning. They're fire immune and lightning resistant, and it was taking me 3-5 full blue pots to kill each group, and that was just silly. Not dangerous, just boring. So I quit and started a nightmare game, popped right down to the cats, and leveled up to 25 by level 7. Easy there. NM/cats is MUCH easier than normal/hell. Easier to kill, less dangerous to survive.
My build was pretty basic. I put every point into magic until about level 15, when I started mixing in some strength since i knew I'd need to wear plate in hell. I didn't find a mana shield book until around lvl 18, and didn't need to use it until lvl 12 in the caves, when I got succubus and their blood stars were hurting me too badly to play safely with my 70 or so hps.
I don't know if this is of any use to people having trouble with a mage, but shoot a lot, buy your inv full of partial blues every time in town, and use low level spells with some points in them instead of wasting time trying to find higher level books. Burn the hell out of charges on staves too. I use those constantly to save on mana, especially early on. Just recharge them yourself; the whole point is to save time and have fun; if I wanted to go back to Adria for repairs I'd just buy more pots. I usually hotkey the recharge to F8, so I can fire the staff dry and then recharge it in a second and keep in the action. I burned through the whole charged bolt staff you start with, and then a 60 charge holy bolt, and then a staff with Flash that I found in the Cats. That was surprisingly useful; I didn't have Flash yet, and it sucks end game, but even lvl 1 is deadly that early on.
You don't need big spells to succeed on normal. Firebolt and charged bolt are plenty to fly through the cats and caves on normal. I was doing hell monsters with level 3 firebolt. They've only around 100-150 hit points, and even low level firebolt does like 17-25 damage. that's just 7 or 8 shots per monster, and if you start hitting them at a distance, they won't hit you more than once or twice. I had 300 mana by then and firebolt was only 5 mana, so I shot as fast as I could click, non stop.
I had over 60k gold by level 20, mostly since Adria was just failing to offer me any books worth buying. I didn't do anything special to get gold; just picked up every stack and sold all the valuables. I think it's actually easier to get gold with a sorc, since you don't need to buy equipment, and you've got to go back to town every level or so to refill on blues, so you might as well sell when you go. I tend to stay down much longer with a rogue or warrior and only return when I need repairs, so I end up selling less frequently.
I died about 5 times total. 3 of those in hell; twice in about 3 minutes when I started on 14, to my annoyance. first time when I got about 6 steel lords at once and was trying to use charged bolt on them. FAIL! Then I went back down and used chain, and was careless and lost mana shield and one single steel lord hit me twice in a row and killed me. I laughed. Other deaths were twice to explosive barrels on level 3; I had like 30 hps, and kept forgetting the barrels did far more damage than the monsters. I laughed at those too. Died once in the caves when I was careless and let illusion weavers come up behind me while I was charged bolting a cave viper boss pack.
Oh, one last tip. Get Auto Hot Key. Just google that and you'll see it first link. It's a little program that lets you remap keys; I can't stand the F5-8 spell hotkeys on Diablo. Those suck in any event, and I use an ergonomic keyboard, so it's really impossible with F678 way over on the right side. With AHK I just map F5678 to WERT, so I can juggle hotkeys and instantly switch. Much more fun and effective to use fire spell or lightnign spell or holy bolt spell when it's appropriate.
Anyway, I made a sorcerer and he was fun. I played totally legit; no duping or anything, and I never even did any adria runs; just bought what she offered and used what I found. I did almost full clears, took a break to do other things after each dungeon level section and used the short cut stairs next game. In total I made it down to lvl 15 @ clvl 22 before I had to quit.
I'll sorta recap progress and spells, in disjointed fashion.
At level 22 I had 1 chain lightning, 8 charged bolt, 3 firebolt, 2 firewall, 5 holy bolt. Those were pretty much all I used. And yes, you can do the caves quite easily with level 6 or 7 charged bolt. I got illusion weavers on 9 and 10 and charged bolt just owned them. I'd fire off a little burst every time I turned a corner or went through a doorway, and the bolts found them very nicely. I had about 330 mana at that point, without any equipment good enough to mention. No lucky item finds at all. I was using a plain +29 str titans club since I needed the STR to wear an amber/sorcery gothic plate I found on lvl 13.
I was surprised the lvl 3 firebolt was enough for support, but for the occasional frost charger or other lightning resistant or immune, it did the trick. I got succubus on level 12 and had to use firewall on them.
level 13: I got Dogs, the black lightning demons, and black witches. charged bolt worked fine on the dogs, and I mixed a lot of firewall with firebolt to get the lightning demons and witches. even just level 2 firewall would kill a monster w/o fire resistance in like, 1.5 seconds.
level 14 I had steel lords and red witches. had to start using chain there. charged couldn't get it done against the steel lords, and even lvl 1 chain was much better. I'd never found a regular lightning book.
15 I quit on. i had soul burners and couldn't kill them with lvl 1 chain lightning. They're fire immune and lightning resistant, and it was taking me 3-5 full blue pots to kill each group, and that was just silly. Not dangerous, just boring. So I quit and started a nightmare game, popped right down to the cats, and leveled up to 25 by level 7. Easy there. NM/cats is MUCH easier than normal/hell. Easier to kill, less dangerous to survive.
My build was pretty basic. I put every point into magic until about level 15, when I started mixing in some strength since i knew I'd need to wear plate in hell. I didn't find a mana shield book until around lvl 18, and didn't need to use it until lvl 12 in the caves, when I got succubus and their blood stars were hurting me too badly to play safely with my 70 or so hps.
I don't know if this is of any use to people having trouble with a mage, but shoot a lot, buy your inv full of partial blues every time in town, and use low level spells with some points in them instead of wasting time trying to find higher level books. Burn the hell out of charges on staves too. I use those constantly to save on mana, especially early on. Just recharge them yourself; the whole point is to save time and have fun; if I wanted to go back to Adria for repairs I'd just buy more pots. I usually hotkey the recharge to F8, so I can fire the staff dry and then recharge it in a second and keep in the action. I burned through the whole charged bolt staff you start with, and then a 60 charge holy bolt, and then a staff with Flash that I found in the Cats. That was surprisingly useful; I didn't have Flash yet, and it sucks end game, but even lvl 1 is deadly that early on.
You don't need big spells to succeed on normal. Firebolt and charged bolt are plenty to fly through the cats and caves on normal. I was doing hell monsters with level 3 firebolt. They've only around 100-150 hit points, and even low level firebolt does like 17-25 damage. that's just 7 or 8 shots per monster, and if you start hitting them at a distance, they won't hit you more than once or twice. I had 300 mana by then and firebolt was only 5 mana, so I shot as fast as I could click, non stop.
I had over 60k gold by level 20, mostly since Adria was just failing to offer me any books worth buying. I didn't do anything special to get gold; just picked up every stack and sold all the valuables. I think it's actually easier to get gold with a sorc, since you don't need to buy equipment, and you've got to go back to town every level or so to refill on blues, so you might as well sell when you go. I tend to stay down much longer with a rogue or warrior and only return when I need repairs, so I end up selling less frequently.
I died about 5 times total. 3 of those in hell; twice in about 3 minutes when I started on 14, to my annoyance. first time when I got about 6 steel lords at once and was trying to use charged bolt on them. FAIL! Then I went back down and used chain, and was careless and lost mana shield and one single steel lord hit me twice in a row and killed me. I laughed. Other deaths were twice to explosive barrels on level 3; I had like 30 hps, and kept forgetting the barrels did far more damage than the monsters. I laughed at those too. Died once in the caves when I was careless and let illusion weavers come up behind me while I was charged bolting a cave viper boss pack.
Oh, one last tip. Get Auto Hot Key. Just google that and you'll see it first link. It's a little program that lets you remap keys; I can't stand the F5-8 spell hotkeys on Diablo. Those suck in any event, and I use an ergonomic keyboard, so it's really impossible with F678 way over on the right side. With AHK I just map F5678 to WERT, so I can juggle hotkeys and instantly switch. Much more fun and effective to use fire spell or lightnign spell or holy bolt spell when it's appropriate.