Diablo II: I eat my words. It's fun!

[Chowlett]

What merc would people recommend for a half-werewolf, half-summoning druid? I've just made it into Lut Gholein, at about level 15, and was thinking one of Greiz's men to complement the semi-party nature of my force - but which type?

[Triped]

Get yourself a nice barbarian to tank hits. Later on, get an ice scorceress to freeze the monsters for you.

[Chowlett]

And before I hit Acts 3 and 5?

[FrustratedPoet]

The Thorns Merc would be a good fit for your summoned beasties.

I think a Might merc would be the best all-round, though ... it would nicely complement the attacking style of the werewolf as well as giving a nice damage boost to your minions.

If you want freezing then the Holy Freeze mercenary is the best, but IIRC you can't get him until Nightmare.

In fact, all of my posts should have an 'IIRC' attached to then ... I haven't played D2 for several months, but I think that's right.

[Chowlett]

Anyone remember what type of merc those are? Ie Offensive, Defensive or Combat?

And perhaps thorns is better than might, given that 2 of my minions don't deal any damage

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Father Beast
I have a level 13 necromancer specializing in summoning skills most of the way through act I. I'll have to remember to keep a few bodies close by when I fight duriel, or something.

Best rely on your golem + curses + lots n lots of mana potions.
Skeletons/Mages at that level don't do too well against Duriel and die very quickly.

Originally posted by Father Beast
You've got to be kidding! does it really work? and can you use it with current characters?

even in the expansion my stash is too small. too many gems, even with cubing them.

It does work with your present characters but take care to note the original limits in the new stash/Inv/Cube screens. If you ever wish to go back to the original (or upgrade patches) you will lose any items outside those limits. There have also been incidences of crashes if items are straddling those limits when reverting to the original game.

Originally posted by Chowlett
Anyone remember what type of merc those are? Ie Offensive, Defensive or Combat?

Only ones I remember are the might Merc (offensive) and the prayer Merc (combat).

[Jethro83]

Last time I played as a paladin, I struggled against Baal. Playing as a barbarian however, I mopped the floor with Baal's ugly face, and at the lowly level of 36 (normal difficulty obviously) and didn't die once (in fact it was no longer than a minute and a half before Baal was the one to die). My struggling paladin was level 40 and died at least 30 times before I could beat the SOB.

Anybody have a decent approach to developing a paladin so that he has little to no trouble at that point in the game? I'm so tired of being discouraged from using a paladin.

[SnowFire]

LA: If you are well and truly bored, you can try a strategy that somebody (not me!) actually used at the CS lab last year when D2 was popular there. The "ThornySmurf," a Paladin who pumps literally all his points into Thorns and Vitality. You can have 1000 hitpoints after completing Normal. You can't wear good armor, but who cares, because you want to get hit (okay, Magic Resist is useful, and Darkglow ring mail only requires Strength 35 I think). And your weapon, aside from Thorns bonuses, is utterly irrelevant. On the downside, the "game" now consists of running around and getting hit and drinking potions.

The other fun CS lab strategy was "Rings and Fields" (a pun on the Math course). One Sorc with massive amounts of Static Field. One Sorc with massive amounts of Nova. 6 other random characters who sit in town, if there are enough free machines at the lab. The enemies have 8x normal HP and give tons of XP, but Static Field rapidly whittles them down to nothing all the same, and then the Novas finish off every enemy nearby Rings. Really only works in a lab where you can have the extra characters there to burden up the enemy's HP/XP, but still interesting.

[Father Beast]

Snowfire -

I can type "players 8" in an sp game and watch the HP of all the monsters jump up high.

That improved stash is awesome. got to make sure I keep it.... No more patches for me.

The enourmous cube now lets me walk around without getting full for a loooonnnggg time.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Glad to hear you're enjoying it!

My good deed is done...

[FrustratedPoet]

Chowlett: All the relevant info on the Mercenaries can be found on the other end of this link.

Thorns and Might mercs aren't available until Nightmare difficulty unfortunately.

Your options on Normal are Prayer, Blessed Aim and Defiance. None of them are great, but all have their uses.

[SnowFire]

FB: Really? This one of the changes of LoD? Interesting... I never patched because I liked my fast-throwing Glacial Spikes over the change to slow firing rate but more damage versions in LoD, as well as the fact that I heard that money was useless in LoD since gambling didn't get you uniques anymore.

[FrustratedPoet]

I think that 'players X' (doesn't have to be 8, i think you can have 'players 64' if you want, although i've never tried) wasn't in the original LoD release, but was patched in at a later date because the fans wanted it. It's a pretty neat feature.

Gambling can get you uniques .... theoretically ... but the percentages have been slashed so thoroughly that it is very very unlikely now. Not really worth bothering with.

You don't need to gamble to get good uniques now anyway ... it is really easy to load up on a ton of +% magic find items and kill bosses like Mephisto on Nightmare and Hell difficulties over and over and over and over and over ... far more lucrative than the gambling ever was, and it is slightly more exciting .... but only slightly.

[Triped]

Players X is a player mulitplier.

If you have 8 players in a game and you type "Players 5", it will compute monster strength as if there were 40 (8x5) players.

Fighting Baal can get pretty crazy when the game thinks there are 64 players after him.

[FrustratedPoet]

Aaahh .... thanks ... I get it now.

I've never used Players X before 'cos I only played multiplayer after LoD came out.

Yeah, wow ... fighting Baal (or even worse: Lister) with 8 people when the game thinks there are 64 players in the game ... it would take AGES to kill him.