This is my third summoner. The only act boss you can potentially have trouble with is Diablo. They don’t do 10x damage, its all based on resists.
Skeletons footmans will own Duriel, Mephisto and Andariel. Diablo and Baal are equally difficult, but still pretty easy. The only hard part is at normal Diablo, where his forked lightning can do a number on your mobs.
Clay Golem does indeed slow down the boss, but it’ll bring the boss’s wrath on him. For diablo, thats perfect to make him fire AWAY from your skels. If you got them both at 20, you can get a 50k HP Clay Golem. Life Tap can keep your skeletons alive indefinatly. Amplify damage and see them drop fast.
I think you’re still living in 1.09, when the game was alot harder. A fully buffed army can drop diablo clone in a matter of seconds. Of course they’ll do better with a team thanks to curses, but firstly and mostly a summoner does great as a tank. See Uber Tristram for example.
Edit: They’re all ridicously easy. Even Diablo. He’s only harder because you have to drag him off the pentagram first to surround him. Clay golem behind him? Works everytime. My suggestion? Use a town portal or Teleport to regroup.
The first time you fight diablo you need to do it smart. Pre-buff your army (Skill shrine), Drag him away from the pentagram, use a clay golem to draw his attack away from your skeletons, heal your mercenery as needed, and leave a few corpses around in case you need more skeletons. Its a decent fight, but nowhere as difficult as you think it is.
As for Baal and Mephisto, just town portal back in and let them lose upon him. They’re that easy to kill.
Later difficulties you get a way stronger clay golem, might aura, new curses, skillers charms and skiller gears that help on their resists, damage, and life, so it evens out.
What the HELL? It used to be that two of the same unique couldn’t drop in the same game… And since the OTHER ring I’m wearing happens to be Manald Heal… I’m actually pretty pissed off this isn’t an SoJ. I mean, SoJ’s are pretty shitty items, I’d much rather have a Dwarf Star or something, but I’ve never once found an SoJ in this game and I kind of want to. What a let down. Two NAGELS. Fuck me.
Well Hades, I believe a game here means when you open the game, not when you start it. I found two Nezorakan Relics (Fire Resistance Ammy) myself.
I think the better part of the game is the AI. Its amazing.
I mean, in WoW, there’s only two kind of enemies. Melee and Ranged. They all follow the same protocol. Close in (or stay far away), then attack until it dies. Cast skills if any. Thats about it. Same thing in Ragnarok, you all you saw was mostly melee. They ran to you in a grid pattern (shortest path, see vertical firewall trick), and hit you.
But in Diablo2, they react. Fallens will run away when you kill something. Thunder Beasts will occassionaly stay far and shoot orbs of lightning before going into melee. The archers will run away if you get too close. Imps teleports around, the pests. Cliff Lurkers will jump away when hit. And the bosses have their own pattern that you need to learn and avoid.
Well, made it to Act V this morning. Diablo wasn’t as hard I as I thought he was going to be. Granted, I did have to run around and remake my army a 2-3 times, but with my very nice +Skill equips and good Revives (plus lots of Decrepify), managed to take him down without dying.
I just hit 70 this morning. Baal went down nice and easy. Started Hell Difficulty, it is noticably harder. I used to have 80-90 resist all - now its all in the 30s. Found an undead crown… 40 levels too late. Still good for pre-Buffing. I don’t have enough strenght for my pair of marrowalks, waiting till I get a torch to balance it out.
I also rekeyed my controls for something akin’s to RO’s battlemode. Now Corpse Explosion is much easier to get. And its a huge help while meleeing with my skeletons.
My Defiance mercenary gets me 4.7k Armor, its awesome. I wish I had Might still.
Finally, started replacing my charms for something more appropriate for Hell Difficulty. Better charms, better survability. First time crafting gave me a nice amulet.
Beat Baal this morning. Wasn’t nowhere near as hard as I imagined, or maybe I got lucky? Anyways, after the initial nova-like attacks, it ended up being my Merc and 4 Skeletons vs. Baal w/me constantly casting Decrepify. Took a few minutes, but he went down like a punk. Too bad he didn’t drop anything worthwhile (Diablo dropped nice Uniques).
So now I’m just messing around in the Secret Cow Level, may level up a little bit more towards 39-40 before hitting Nightmare.
On a related note, after playing this game, I’m astounded by the similarities of D2 compared to Soma Bringer, since now I see that it borrows heavily from D2 (stuff like the Waypoints, Difficulties and lowered resists, Weapon ranking, and tons more).
