The Ladder Slasher Guidebook
Art of Ladder Slash
I would like to thank Divine Knights International, eagle_fs, and the folks on the IRC channel #Ladderslasher for their support; you all know who you are and I greatly appreciated it.
Hi everyone, I am writing this to guide Ladderslasher with some advice and suggestions for players. For those that do not know me, my character is RaraStab and I was the first to reach level 61 in roughly 4 days, the last two of which I played 20 hours each.
This guide is intended solely for leveling and getting to Master Quest; this is not a guide showing you how to make forum gold, use magic find to get gear, build design/hybrid characters, or will contain spoilers about the Master Quest. If you read all of this, it will be long and very detailed, I guarantee that you will have a much better understanding of this game. It took me about 60 hours in 4 days to get to the Master Quest; take the time to read and understand this guide and you will do it in 20 hours.
Firstly, things are a lot easier for everyone now than it was for me simply because there is more gear and prices are cheaper. Do not be disillusioned that this game is about number crunching, or there is a special trick to getting a high level. No, it is all about gear and the better gear you have, the better you will do. Better gear means you survive more fights and kill more monsters.
Before reading more, please take time to read and keep these post for reference:
Ladder Slasher - Game Mechanics Explained by njaguar
http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=3770403&f=272“Weapons, Armors & Charms Class Mechanics” by ragnaroks
http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=3827582&f=272ClassesThere are four basic classes and each are powerful in their own right. When choosing a character, do not choose what you feel is the best, choose something that matches you personality.
Fighter(Weapons: sword, club, axe) (Armor: Heavy)
Stats: 50 strength, 40 dexterity, 10 intelligence, 50 vitality. All points into strength.
Good all around and balanced character but don’t expect to get any first strikes. The only fault is that it has less intelligence which means less defense against spells.
This class is a jack of all trades with no real focus in anything; if you wanted to focus on melee damage play a barbarian, if you want to get really high damage play a rogue. If you want to play a very solid character with not too many weaknesses, this is the class for you.
Barbarian(Weapons: sword, club, axe) (Armor: Heavy)
Stats: 60 strength, 25 dexterity, 5 intelligence, 60 vitality. All points into strength.
Strongest melee character with better life and armor than a fighter but will never get the first strike in a fight, criticals are not as high as any other melee class, and has the lowest defense against spells.
Barbarians do the best damage with weapons and have a good amount of hit points but their defense against spells is extremely weak. Being focused in damage though has a great advantaged with good average damage but don’t expect many criticals. If you want to be solely focused on killing your enemies but are willing to take the risk of being weak against casters, this is the class for you.
Rogue(Weapons: sword, club, axe, dagger, staff) (Armor: Medium)
Stats: 30 strength, 60 dexterity, 25 intelligence, 35 vitality. All points into dexterity.
Weakest melee class in normal hits and hit points but does incredible criticals, also has decent defense against spells.
Average damage is not great at all but this character shines with its ability for almost always getting the first strike and massive critical damage. This is my first, favorite, and only class out of the four I consistently play. Their battles are extremely quick with either you winning in 10-20 hits or running away or dying. That’s about all the advantages they have because everything else is hell. They have horrible hit points, their average non critical damage is atrocious, and running away is required at high levels when monsters start doing 900 damage. This class is also very gear dependent because if you do not have a good weapon and high enough dexterity, you won’t be able to end the fight. This class is highly not recommended unless you have a lot of patience and forum gold to buy a good weapon and armor.
Mage(Weapons: dagger, staff) (Armor: Light)
Stats: 20 strength, 50 dexterity, 60 intelligence, 20 vitality. All points into intelligence.
Only caster in this game and has the lowest hit points and just pretty much all around fragile except against other mages since they have high spell defense. Damage is based on intelligence since they use charms as spells.
Mages have the advantage of consistent damage and gear. Your spell damage will be very solid and predictable but spells cannot leech life or critical. Mages also naturally have a lot of mana and by putting points into intelligence you will get even more. This means that gear wise, you only need to focus on intelligence, and can get a ton of max life to boast your low hit points. There are two huge disadvantages though, one of which is that you need to regenerate both life and mana which means that you may have a lot more down time. The second is that while low levels will be easy, higher levels will be extremely difficult unless you can buy a very good charm. Finding a good charm at your level will be extremely hard. This is recommended if you have the forum gold and like to play casters in other games.
Gear:Here is an outline of what you should be looking for. Before you read up on gear though, it is very important that you understand about base statistics, enhanced effect, statistic abilities, and averages.
Base Statistics: You can get the base statistic on an item by click on the item and than the “perm link.” This will show you the unmodified statistics on an item so your strength for weapons, vitality for armor, or intelligence on charm will not be taken into account. This is very important when trading (or bragging) because a weapon on a barbarian will look better than that of a mage so that extra strength of a barbarian could be misleading, same for a mage and barbarian holding the same exact charm.
Enhanced Effect (referring to “Weapons, Armors & Charms Class Mechanics” by ragnaroks): Do not overlook this because it is the most important thing about gear. An iron sword (4-50) does not do as much damage as a steel sword (5-50) but if the iron sword has an enhanced effect 20%, the iron sword is now 4 * 1.2 – 50 * 1.2 for a new damage of 6-60 which makes it better than a steel sword. I have seen enhanced effect up to 190% on a level 30 weapons and that makes it better than base level 45 weapons. Furthermore, enhanced damage weapons are very good because they can be low level weapons that are as good as level 45 weapons as shown. That level 30 weapon with 190% enhanced effect not only does more damage than the level 45 weapon but can be equipped at level 30.
Statistic abilities: These are your four abilities: strength, dexterity, intelligence, and vitality. The focus of all characters is that of surviving and doing damage and in that order; nothing else is important. Many people look at an item and do not know what they are looking at or looking for. How do you know if item “x” is better than item “y”? Simply put, does it make you survive longer or do more damage? If the answer is no, don’t bother using it. Let us take a look at the most misleading facet of this game: max life versus statistic abilities. Max life items are completely if you are surviving battles. Rather, you should be focusing on doing more damage by finding items with statistic abilities that improve your damage. You must examine all your items and weigh the benefits of it because you only have 3 slots to maximize your potential.
Averages: I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked “is this weapon better than this one?” Whatever does the most damage is usually better unless the other weapon has spectacular bonuses. The best way to gauge two weapons on damage is simply finding the average by first adding the minimum to maximum damage than dividing that number by two. If that weapon has no good bonuses (or none at all), choose the weapon with the higher average. Why average? Because you are here for the long haul and the one with the average damage will give you better damage in the long run. And the long run means over 3,000 monsters with 10-50 attacks on each monster. If by chance the averages are very similar, choose the weapon with the lowest gap in damage, i.e. a rusted axe (5-6, average 5.5) over a rusted sword (1-10, average 5.5).
Melee Gear
Weapons: Highest damage possible, strength and dexterity
Armor: Highest defense possible, strength and dexterity, rogues armor defense does not matter, dexterity and strength
Charms: Strength and dexterity
Mages Gear:
Weapon: Intelligence and max life items, damage does not matter
Armor: Intelligence and max life items, defense does not matter
Charms: Highest damage possible, intelligence, max life
Other good bonuses are experience, life regeneration, max life if needed, and vitality for fighters and barbarians.
Combat:"Every battle is won before it is ever fought.”
- Sun Tzu, Art of War
By understanding the classes and gear, you are fully prepared to rush through the game, now it is time to do the deed. I will give you the basic strategy and than 3 paths for the amount of forum gold you are willing to spend.
Basic StrategyBattles are more than fight or die, you actually need to think if you want to play efficiently.
- Beginning of combat: if you see the first 3 hits of the monster do near or more than 10% of your life, run
- Middle of combat: if you are at less than 50% and the monster still has 75% or more life, run
- Near end of combat: if you have less than 10% of your life and the monster has 10%, run unless you are a rogue, than stay and fight
- Fight till the monster dies in all other scenarios
You have to understand that to play this game fast, you have to cut your losses as soon as possible, and prepare for the next fight. Also understand that dying is part of the game and you want to minimize the risk of dying without running from every battle by setting a standard and guideline to follow.
Regeneration gear is key to leveling. You have to use regeneration gear if you want to level fast, especially in higher levels, so you should have a weapon, armor, and charm with the highest regeneration on them to switch to during battles. A tip if you have gear that uses max life is when switching back to your normal gear switch max life gear back first giving you a few more hit points of regeneration. At high levels, you need to regenerate to full health because monsters do so much damage if you do not start full, you’ll end up running away or worse dying.
Paupers Path – I want to spend as little as possibleIf you have 0 forum gold (“fg”) at all, I feel bad for you so if you private message me, I might give you 3 fg to start you out. Start by buying the best weapon, armor, and charm possible for your class using the gear guide above for 1 fg each. Kill everything, sell anything that is mystical (3 bonuses) and above for 1-3 fg. Sell gear that is good, refer to my gear section for an idea, for more fg. This is the slowest path of all since this is a gear based game and generally bad gear means slow leveling.
Merchants Path – I will spend a decent amountStart yourself off by buying a good starting weapon (charm for mages), and a statistic ability armor and charm (weapon for mages) based on your class. Level up, sell gear, and buy new gear every 10-15 levels either in the market place or on the forums. This will get you into the game in a pretty fast pace.
Kings Path – I will spend a lotStart yourself by going onto the trading forum and buying a high enhanced effect weapon (charm for mages), and the highest statistic ability armor and charm (weapon for mages). Constantly keep an eye out for better gear both in the market place and forums. Every 5 levels, go to the market place and look for weapons that are your level and compare on the base statistics of which is better. If you find something better, buy it. Buy better gear ahead of time, buy uber gear that you may use 30 levels later, buy buy buy! The game will be fairly easy and fast if you choose this path. Please note, mages and rogues pretty much need to fall under this category if you want to level fast.
Master QuestWhen you do this, please keep it to yourself. I hope you have not read any information on what the Master Quest is. You will find it thrilling, engaging, horrifying, and a hundred other emotions when you do this for the first time and not knowing what to expect. Mine was namely dread especially with zackaria_dki on Ventrilo asking me if I was going to do it, telling me to do it, than laughing at me when I did it. But when it was all done, I look back and smile.
Finally, I would like to thank njaguar for an excellent game and the continuous and constant work and improvements he has done. Good luck to everyone and remember, this is a game so have fun.