BASIC CS GUIDELINES FOR NEWCOMERS TO CLASSIC AND NEW PLAYERS THAT ARE ISO CS RUNS.
Written by: Kelli//Ben (aka Jeena lvl 91 Sorceress @USEast SCCL)

Here in this post I want to simply point out how EASY and how SIMPLE CSing really is. I decided to work with some players to write this post because I feel educating future players is important if we are to keep having efficient CS runs in classic. Remember you more experienced players, these are just basic guidelines that will get you through a run cleanly and hopefully without dying too often. Nothing too fancy. Other more complicated methods to CSing exist, but this is just a guide to show newer people what really ought to be happening when they get inside a CS run.

Also I have included an advanced CS methods section afterwards written and edited by D3FIANT//myself. That part covers faster and more complicated CS schemes.

To Start: Chaosing in classic is a little different than LOD, mostly it is just at a higher speed. The primary goal is really to pop all 5 seals in the Chaos Sanctuary and get the experience from each of the three bosses as quickly as you can to get to Diablo, however there is also a general emphasis on killing unique mobs that yield high experience for all levels below 93. Why do everything so quickly like that? Well unfortunately in classic, CS is all that we have to level, but when you get to a higher level like 93 or above, most of the experience you obtain from a single run comes primarily from Diablo himself. At a certain point nearly 90% or more of your experience comes from Diablo; but prior to that you will receive great benefits from taking care to kill everything you can in the CS in a timely manner. The best players direct CS in such a manner so that you end up killing the three seal bosses, all of the seal minions, and a variety of different unique monsters - all in about 1-2 minutes. Here's how you go about that...

Firstly, fast CS runs typically use the following class functions:

1. A Sorceress The speed and efficiency factor.

• You need a sorc to teleport everyone to the CS. It's essential that you have a selected sorceress at least open up a tp in the CS star as quickly as possible.
• Additionally it is a sorceress who is required to pop seals for the group. This will help each CS go smoothly and help for the rest of the group to focus on killing.
• Many times, especially in softcore the fastest runs are done by a sorc who doesn't need bo before tele. However in hardcore especially, a lot of cs groups prefer to get the party bo'd//shouted at the river wp before the sorc goes to open up the first tp.
• Though not mandatory, it is usually expected that any blizz sorc doing the CS ought to be able to take out Viz solo as well. DO NOT do this without the groups presence, but know that being able to kill him without the group's help is a helpful quality (i.e. in case the din does not make it there along with the rest of the party).

2. A Hammerdin The damage factor.

• You will always need a din around and they are the best form of damage you can bring along to a CS run. Bread and butter damage.
• The din is charged with a serious speed factor in the CS. While it is true that many different mobs offer experience all the way up through 92, it's critical that the din in the CS takes responsibility for killing seal bosses once spawned. For ones like Lord de Seis this is hardest because he has a tendancy to run away and cower from players. Take special care to take them out and not miss them.
• Remember as well that paladins typically are charged with tanking most of the damage in the CS.
• Spread out if there are large amounts of 'dins in the party. You only need one to kill seal bosses. The rest should be strangling anything else in sight including unique//champion monsters and seal monsters that go along with the seal boss. (Lord De Seis' minions etc.) Killing anything in general will really help to rack up XP.

3. A Barbarian with maxed BO The support factor.

• Barbarians are still very important in CS because of BO. It's vital that the moment the CS tp opens up the Barb bo's the party multiple times and upon request.
• A high level bo is good to have, but really it is more important that the party has it at all.
• Shout is not a necessity as many barbs do not even max it. Just the prerequisite 1 is usually adequate because players recognize the points barbs invest in MF, etc, but the max is of course appreciated
• Leaping is a touchy subject in the CS. Barbs should take care not to move mobs like Seis across the room with it. That is extremely annoying.
• However there is no harm in a leaping two or three times once you enter a hot tp to break up huge amounts of tightly packed mobs. This helps the party get a little breathing room.

4. Other classes Important, but not vital.

• Other players like Necs and zons are still important because they bring the party up to 8 players (thus more xp per kill, yay).
• Multiple necromancers must manage curses effectively to choose the best option as well as help kill seal bosses and hazardous debris such as svs (we'll talk about those later).
• Amazons are useful for their lightning javelins and valkyries for taking hits.
• Clashing Views. Sometimes in CS runs we find Barbs that are interested in magic finding for items from vital seal bosses. Though this may provide great drops, it is definitely arguable that for skills like corpse explode (necs) MFing ought to stand aside. Corpse exploding tends to offer a lot of experience all the way up through the early 90 levels and when you CS publically there is an emphasis on experience, not drops. Barbs back down if you've got a necro that is willing to explode for you. They just want you to level faster. Of course this is something to dispute among CS runs constantly, usually upon the beginning of a set if you have a nec.
• I must point out that to be one not doing a lot of work in the CS (lvl 25-60ish) requires that you have patience for the ones DOING work and that you get along with the others. This goes for separate classes as well that are disputing and evaluating their own roles in the CS. It's not so easy to define a Necs job in the CS compared to a paladins for instance.

BASIC RULES AND GUIDELINES:

Those above are some of the primary roles you'll need for a common CS run. Now for some basic rules that EVERYONE should know.

SETS

• When you begin a really efficient and quick cs runs that occur under 2 minutes you need to know exactly what is happening outside of the games.
• CS runs come in sets which comprise about 20 runs. Anymore than 20 at under 2 minute pace is going to result in a realm down (temporary ban).
• Understand that when you cs with more experienced players who go at a fast speed you are probably going to be gameless after the 20 break point.
• Typically a 12-15 minute break is a safe bet on when to start Csing again. Switching keys is another way to avoid this.

LEAVE THE X SHRINE FOR THE HIGHEST LEVEL

• When an experience shrine is found anywhere along the way to the cs, you need to notify the highest level player in the CS.
• These shrines are only for the highest level in the game to use against Diablo.
• DO NOT TAKE THE SHRINE IF YOU AREN'T THE HIGHEST AND DO NOT TAKE IT BEFORE ALL 5 SEALS ARE POPPED.

FOCUS ON SEAL BOSSES

• Go for those seal bosses. Kill them and everyone has an excuse to move on to the next seal to kill more things! Without the seals done, the game is not done.
• HOWEVER do not get overly concerned with this. When there are 4-5 dins in one game spread out and clear as much as possible.
• The more mobs down before the last seal is popped, the more xp you're going to be getting.

DO NOT PREPOP

• When 4 seals are done and one remains, make sure that the last boss (usually Grand Vizier) is dead before activating that seal.
• Activating the seal before he is dead takes away all the experience you can get from him because he dies due to the seal rather than a players blade so to speak.
• Additionally, prepopping gets rid of Viz' minions and surrounding mobs that give great xp. If you have players in the area to kill a lot, then take advantage and pop the seal a little later so you can soak up that XP just 3-8 seconds longer.
• If you do not know that 5th seal I'm talking about, you simply need to join a few CS games to figure it out.

LEAVING AT 8

• This may be the most important rule here. THE 8TH PLAYER IN THE CS HAS TO LEAVE THE PARTY AT DIABLO.
• Diablo's experience is best yielded by 7 players rather than 8, so the lowest level HAS to leave if there are 8 players in the game.

KILL AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

• When a CS run has a din doing a great job getting seal bosses down, it is time for other players to focus on other mobs.
• Kill unique monsters that are easy to take down and use AOE like ce, fireball, lightning javelin, and blizz to take down monsters for more xp.
• The more you can kill in the time that it takes to pop those seals, THE BETTER.

FOCUS ON SUPER VENOMS AND URDARS

• It is important that sorc's lead players to urdars and super venoms (puke feast).
• Urdars especially, yield some of the most experience in the game. And it is not uncommon to be getting high amounts of XP from unique urdars and their minions even up through lvl 93. It is NO waste to tp the river to kill these.
• Occassionally a CS run may be going slowly, but if the game is moving faster than 3 minutes per, it is spectacular to kill any unique in sight, as well as its minions for people around lvl 88-90. You make surprising gains by just killing any big mob in sight at these levels; an emphasis on Svs and unique urdars. In other words if the game is going quickly enough anyhow, falling off track to destroy big groups of unique mobs is a positive thing. Quality over quantity in most cases, but not at the expense of a decently paced run.

ADVANCED CLASSIC CS METHODS
D3FIANT//Kelli

Above are the common rules and guidelines followed by most CSers, but here are some of the advanced methods of CSing with speed.

TAXING- Taxing consists of a sorc teleporting to each seal making a tp at each one.
So everyone comes out through the tp and kills the seal boss only to go right back in the tp to wait for the taxi to put up a tp at the next seal.
A taxi cs can usually be done by about 80-120 secs.


SPLITTING- This can be done in different ways depending how many soras and dins you have in your cs group.
This is mainly just done by higher level characters just interested in Diablo.
Simply have a sorc put up a tp in the star and send a sorc and a din to kill Infector.
Simultaneously have another sorc and din go to kill Seis and have a last sorc go to kill Vizier alone.
Like I said it can be done in a few different ways and it is really only wise to utilize this type of CS method when every player is above level 92 and relies primarily on Diablo experience. It can cut away on your experience gain sharply if entire groups do it below lvl 90.
Usually a split cs can be done in 60-90 secs.


BACKDOOR/TRAPDOOR- This is one of my favorites.
If the sorc in the game does not taxi and you are a hammerdin
just have the sorc tele to star and put up a tp.
Go and kill Infector. Right when he is finished make a tp and go back through the star tp left by the sorc.
Charge to Seis and kill him only to make another tp to go back through the star tp and kill Vizier the same way.
This saves a lot of time.. Instead of fighting your way back through all the monsters, simply make a tp and skip most of the mobs in the way.
Can typically be done in 70-120 secs.


OTHER METHODS- In games where a Sorceress is not present, the best way to approach CS is to send your Barb leaping there.
Once inside the star, open up a tp and raid each wing one at a time. This is sometimes known as Leap CS.
In hardcore mode especially, players will sometimes use a third party program or other means to play an 8 player game with only two or even one player(s). This method is known as 2/8 or 1/8. I will not cover this method in depth however since this post is mainly concerned with public CS runs and PvM players working together in CS.



Conclusion: That about wraps it up. Some of the above advanced methods take practice and time to learn, others may be irrelevant to many players. Remember, these are only mere suggestions and guidelines, there may be other methods to CSing that have not been mentioned. More than anything we hope that this guide will be informative to players in some way and teach them some of the basic rules of CSing. Once again feedback and comments are always appreciated of course. I've done my best once again to edit it.

Thanks again to D3FIANT for helping me with parts of the Advanced section. Hopefully this post will be stickied on the forum at some point.. if it is not I will attempt to revise it until it is. Also thanks to Zodijackyl, DSK, and everyone else who took the time to read and comment on my previous posts.


Thanks again and I hope to see you all out CSing soon!!

Nice guide, havent seen the third option tho

if u cs with me ull c the backdoor/trapdoor a lot if there no sorc taxing.


yea this guide is looking real good. your worked hard on this guide and its showing hope other ppl can appreciate

the efforts that kelli put into it

theres no need to make 3 remake topics of it, just post remakes in this topic until u create the final version

Yea I didn't mean to make so many versions and I didn't think of reposting them to a topic like that. Makes sense. Sorry about so many of them. This is hopefully the last revision..

But if I end up making yet a 4th one I will be sure to tie it to this one. Sorry, thanks.

x2

Last night, it was nearly a full run via backdoor as either we had a lower level sorc lagging and unable to taxi, or we had a barb leaping to the cs leaving a tp at the star.

If I'm really bored and raiding, I'll sometimes do this with my sorc on laptop to get me to the star for a backdoor as well. Makes it faster for if I'm trying to quickly get the raid done before folks realize it's happening, or if another Din is trying to fight his way through the river/gate area of cs to steal the raid.

This post was edited by IridescentPIG on Jan 14 2009 11:13am

OOOOOOOOH, thats how you cs. THANKS

yea its there multi uses for it out of cs too

now i know the basics of d2, ty

Excellent