This is mostly written for ourselves as a sort of information dump of all the things we've been working on for a while now. It's mostly so we can link it from our profiles but figured we might share it with you guys in case anyone cares. The pronoun I will be used throughout this guide mainly because the different sections may or may not have been worked on separately.

original thread : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36210230&f=272
original repost : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36271128&f=272
original repost : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36376636&f=272

Fixes

- added 3,0
- added 6,0
- Inserted new images
- fixed grammar and syntax errors

to do

- complete bestiary

Probably won't update this for a while unless some other subject comes up that I feel I can address.

Table of Contents

1,0 Thoughts on Str/Dex ratios
1,1There is no magic number of dexterity
1,2 Your dexterity should not depend on your weapon type
1,3 Catacombs = Less dexterity, Arena = more dexterity
1,4 Build your character with a purpose, the type of armor you wear should affect your str/dex ratio (more true in catacombs).
1,5 The CS multiplier is calculated from your dexterity compared to the monsters dexterity, not the difference in dexterity between the two.
1,6 Maximize the later levels (55-71)
1,7 relation vit vs str/dex
1,8 rare scenarios where pure dex is better
1,9 Enhanced Effect armors vs str/dex armors
1,10 A tank in catacombs
1,11 Str/dex conclusions
1,12 Melee oriented Math formulas
1,13 Heavy weapons vs normal weapons
1,14 Str = EE, stat placement build

2,0 Casting
2,1 Offensive casting with charm in acc.slot
2,2 A mathematical approach at the hybrid healer

3,0 Character Builds
3,1 An introduction to everything.
3,2 Feeder classes, which to choose and why?
3,3 Buying gear with multiple passes in mind
3,4 The Fighter, A comprehensive guide
3,5 The Barbarian, A comprehensive guide
3,6 The Rogue, A comprehensive guide
3,7 The Magician, A comprehensive guide
3,8 The Guardian, A comprehensive guide
3,9 The Samurai, A comprehensive guide
3,10 The Paladin, A comprehensive guide
3,11 The Monk, A comprehensive guide
3,12 The Ninja, A comprehensive guide
3,13 The Warlock, A comprehensive guide
3,14 The Headhunter, A comprehensive guide
3,15 The Alchemist, A comprehensive guide
3,16 The relation between exp% as a stat vs more int/str/dex
3,17 Full Chains (hybrid builds) vs faster levels (15 kill chains)
3,18 Mana syphon / tank / healer build
3,19 Low level dueler guide
3,20 Life steal vs str/dex/ee

4,0 Bestiary
4,1 Monster name spawns
4,2 Images of monsters that can spawn
4,3 prefixes (X)
4,4 anixes (Y)
4,5 suffixes (Z)

6,0 Everything that didn't fit in a category
6,1 EE explanation, 200 EE does not = 2x more damage then 100 EE
6,2 HM charm in charm slot to get 100% efficiency in acc.charm slot
6,3 Mf drop formula
6,4 JB's handy dandy chart

5,0 Random Thoughts about Hardcore

7,0 Credits

Dexterity, strength and how they work together.

1,0 Thoughts on Str/Dex ratios

Ok this is probably the section with the most deductions and most amount of variability of different opinions. However, I spent an absurd amount of time trying to understand and figure out Str/Dex ratios and this is what I've found out. I'll also include some basic tree graphic type charts to provide guidance on how to stat your character if you decide to follow my point of view.

[B]1,1 There is no magic number of dexterity[/B]

This is one of the first assumptions I made while starting to get interested in the workings of Str and Dex. The reasonings behind this are quite simple. Your total damage comes from both Str/Dex at a certain ratio. The two numbers almost certainly have some type of multiplicative values however, how they vary with each other is unknown. The important thing to know though is that they do vary with each other and thats why a 120 dex - 70 str won't work as well as a 120 str - 70 dex ratio. Despite both builds having the same amount of stats invested in melee oriented stats when multiplied together the damage output will generally be smaller.

1,2 Your dexterity should not depend on your weapon type

Ok this one is a bit more complicated and the reasoning behind it is mainly mathematic. This said, statements such as more dex for swords are completely irrelevant. If anything axes would be slightly more beneficed from dexterity bonuses. Basically, the people saying this generally say stuff like, yeah but the higher end values get bigger crits so dexterity is more important. However this is also true for lower end values and when you look at the averages of all the weapons you see that they deal the same average damage so your crits will be boosted, in average, by the same amount of damage. It's important to note that because low end hits on a sword won't get entirely negated by monsters defense (can't have negative values, it stops at 0) swords will deal a higher average damage in theory. This said, critical strikes ignore defense so that point doesn't make any sense with dexterity and critical strikes when it comes to weapon choices.

The biggest part of the logic behind this can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31115563&f=272

1,3 Catacombs = Less dexterity, Arena = more dexterity

The logic behind this one is slightly more complicated yet still very approachable. Basically the argument goes as follow. Dexterity ignores monsters defense. Arena monsters have higher average defense then catacomb monsters. Therefore dexterity should be more efficient in arena then in catacombs. However just for the sake of being thorough it's important to keep some things into consideration. The critical strike multiplier is also affected by the amount of monsters dexterity compared to your own dexterity. This would then mean critical strikes would potentially do more damage on average in catacombs then in the arena. However, we would need to evaluate whether the added bonuses from higher critical strikes outweigh, equal, or under weigh the bonuses from the totaled damage potentially lost due to the monsters defense. Due to lack of information we are currently unable to calculate this. I do believe though that the bonuses are highly under weighed. Still, this point is debatable.

More information on this can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31419519&f=272

1,4 Build your character with a purpose, the type of armor you wear should affect your str/dex ratio (more true in catacombs).

Almost everyone I've talked to strongly disagrees with this point however here goes my reasoning. For the best possibly efficiency you should always look to maximize your characters positive points while not concentrating on it's negative points. Your character should have a purpose. As we all know Dexterity has offensive as well as defensive properties. Therefore if you are getting attacked less often, you have less chances of getting CS'd so you will get less of a damage reduction bonus from dexterity. Lets say your using a robe oriented melee character in catacombs. You will be sitting in the back row getting hit less often, the defensive bonuses from dexterity are being minimized. If you were using a heavy armor ( Enhanced Effect armor even) character sitting in the front row and tanking the damage your primary role would be to absorb the damage and not necessarily dish out the heavy damage. The robed characters could take care of that. It has also been shown that generally, point for point, str will yield a higher damage output then dexterity. There are some exceptions to this that I'll talk about later.

More information on this can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31286038&f=272 / http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31446921&f=272 / http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31419519&f=272

1,5 The CS multiplier is calculated from your dexterity compared to the monsters dexterity, not the difference in dexterity between the two.

This point I personally tested with the help of tondor222. Basically what this means is that the CS multiplier will not be the same if you have 90 dexterity with a 20 dexterity difference of the monster then if you have 120 dexterity with a 20 dexterity difference of the monster. This information isn't extremely useful, however it did prevent us from calculating experimental values (it would still have been possible but would have required easily 20-30x more work so I decided to not continue the testing). Just some fun information to note I guess.

1,6 Maximize the later levels (55-71)

Pretty straightforward to have the fastest climbs you want to maximize the speed of the parts that are the slowest, the limiting factor. In this case it's the later levels. Thats why I believe your build should be oriented to excel at levels 55-71. I will be using level 65 as my target (10 initial stats + 65 additional stats + x amount of stats from gear = 75 stats + x amount from gear)

1,7 relation vit vs str/dex

When you first start your melee character you are confronted with a dilemma. Do you want your first 10 stats points to go into str/dex or into vitality. I have personally come to enjoy putting the first 10 stat points of the character into vitality. The reason why this question is only important to us in the beginning is that you get +1 life per level per hard point of vitality invested and a +2 life for every hard point in vitality invested (only once). This means that adding points into vitality will be the most cost effective at the beginning of your climb. Most people decide to not put points into vitality because most melee characters already have a high starting amount of vitality and they find it unnecessary to add any more. It's more valuable to them to invest in a stat that will increase their damage output, increasing their killing speed. However, investing the first 10 stat points into vitality will give you a 22% increase if life compared to only about 5% increase in damage. The 5% increase in damage depends on how much str/dex you get from your gear. The higher the amount the lower the damage % increase you get. You have to ask yourself the question, is 5% more damage > 22% more life? I have found that yes it is, especially that I play HC the extra vitality always enables me to get at least 1 kill per regen. If your gear isn't top of the end and you are having trouble killing monsters in arena at higher levels, I recommend you try putting your first 10 points into vitality. Not anymore then 10 though.

It's also important to note that since you will have higher life, your regens will be longer and your kills will be slower, only slightly slower but still. As far as getting vitality as a main stat on a charm/armor I think it's a horrible idea. A point of vitality adds less then 1EE% to your armor. It would be much more cost effective to simply get EE on your armor or even an offensive stat instead of vitality. I would not reccomend this in any way and can't see any scenarios where it would be more beneficial then str/ee/dex.

1,8 rare scenarios where pure dex is better

In the odd scenario that your weapons damage is being mostly absorbed by the monsters defense, it would be better to go all dexterity. This is because dexterity ignores defense and your combined damage from CS would be higher then your combined damage from normal attacks. This is probably why some people report to be having more success with very high dex builds then very str. Still I remain skeptical of exactly how useful this is as even a basic tier level weapon with no Enhanced Effect should deal enough damage to outweigh this effect if you invested a decent amount of stat points into str, or at least thats what I believe. Feel free to prove me wrong

1,9 Enhanced Effect armors vs str/dex armors

I believe that at lower budget levels Enhanced Effect armors will work better then str/dex armors as far as killing in arena goes. This is mainly because there is a very present effect of overkill that can be achieved with Enhanced Effect armors. If you are using a plate mail I wouldn't recommend getting more then 140 EE and no more then 160 EE on a chain mail tier 14. This is because monsters will deal you damage in three ways. Magical, physical, CS. Your EE armor will only reduce the physical damage you eat and at those levels of EE you can already nullify almost all of that damage. Getting much more then that amount of EE would simply be an overkill and would be wasted. This is purely my guess but I would have to say that 140 EE plate = 35-40 str plate as far as killing efficiency goes. If your able to purchase plates with more then 40 str I think you'll get faster levels then going to EE route. The opposite is also true.

Again, it's important to keep into consideration that if your getting EE as a stat on your armor if means your going to be killing slower and it might translate into slower levels. It can very well be faster to have a slightly lower MCC but you are killing the monsters and regening faster then using the Enhanced effect route. If your going to choose to go catacombs both options are viable and very useful.

1,10 A tank in catacombs

This is slightly off topic but I fits nicely in this section I think. If ever you decide that you want to make a pure tank in catacombs wearing an EE armor and having high dexterity will not be enough. You will also need to get intelligence. For your tank to be the best it can be you'll need high EE, dex and int (about 100 in each should do). If you do get this though you'll quickly realize that you have a low amount of points left to distribute into str and it might be a better option to be a healer instead of a damage dealer. HM on weapon, EE on armor, HM on charm, EE on acc.charm. I haven't personally tested this though. Your character would be extremely good at tanking hits, allowing your catacomb group to last longer. However you will be unable to solo and you won't have the insane high heals of a normal healer.

1,11 Str/dex conclusions

Ok now I'm apply the following information and logic to give what I believe would be good guidelines to start your melee journey. However, let me strongly emphasize that these should not be taken as stone and I hope you question these results and figure out your own builds and do your own tests much like I and others have

Ok, before deciding how much stat points you want to invest in str and dex you need to answer the following questions. Since not all the characters have the same amount of base str + dex starting stats this will just give a ballpark range of a ratio I'd recommend you get.

Do I want to play mainly catacombs or mainly arena?
Will I be wearing an EE heavy armor? Do I want my role to be to tank or deal damage?
How much stats will I be getting from my gear?



Again, these are guidelines and my opinions. I encourage you to disagree (and post why you disagree).

1,12 Melee oriented Math formulas

Here are also some random formulas you guys might like, their not 100% accurate (I tested them) but still the best things I've found so far.



This is the guys profile, although some of the other stuff he says I strongly disagree withhttp://forums.d2jsp.org/user.php?i=535197

1,13 Heavy weapons vs normal weapons

There is only one thing that will affect heavy weapons average damage over a normal weapons average damage and that is that fact that you are attacking a monster half as many times so the damage reduction caused by the enemies armor is only factored in once.

Everything else affects the weapons average damage the same. Many people have said that heavy weapons will gain a higher boosted effect from str and EE thus increasing their multiplier by more then 2x and making them more effective. This is false. That base damage compared from a heavy weapon to a normal weapon is exactly 2. Therefore whatever multiplicative value the str/EE gives the heavy weapons it will be divided later by it's speed factor, which is 2. This then negates those effects.

However one factor that should affect your choice when going heavy weapons or normal weapons is the overkill factor. In fact, the higher EE your weapon has the greater the chances of overkill outweigh the undercut effect of monsters defense. This means that a 280EE normal weapon will outperform a 280EE heavy weapon as far as killing efficiency goes. I believe this phenomenon is even more evident in catacombs. Seriously, a 4k crit in catacombs is just a huge amount of wasted damage.

I'll throw this out very loosely but heres how I believe you should choose your weapons if your only factor in mind is killing efficieny.

Low EE weapons (0EE-100EE) -> wide range heavy weapons
Mid EE weapons (101EE-229EE) -> wide (medium) range heavy weapons if your going arena, wide (medium) range normal weapons if your going catacombs
High EE weapons (230EE-280EE) -> low range normal weapons

However the difference can probably be disregarded and I would foremost recommend you go with a weapon you enjoy or that can be used by a larger number of classes.

Heres a thread with discussion about heavy weapons vs normal weapons :http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36311118&f=272

1,14 Str = EE, stat placement build

A lot of people have been promoting this approach at stat placement. Basically the main idea behind it is that in order to maximize your damage you want to have the biggest area possible as far as a square would go. Having your str match your EE would be the ideal ratio where every point of str is maximized to it's full potential. However, there is a lot of very evident flaws in this theory. One of them being the fact that this stat placement only works in very precise scenarios. Whenever you start applying this to someone using either a very high EE weapon (230 EE) or a very low EE weapon (60 EE) you'll quickly realize that your stat ratios become absurd.

ie: 60 str - 210 dex
ie2: 230 str - 40 dex

This happens for the simple reason that your EE can be treated as a constant. You cannot adjust the value of your EE without buying a new weapon (the perimeter of your square would be variable, undefined).



Heres two threads with some interesting back and forth about this build : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36311118&f=272 / http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=31286038&f=272&o=0

2,0 Casting

2,1 Offensive casting with charm in acc.slot

Recently I have been seeing questions about using an int charm in charm slot and your EE charm in acc.charm slot for offensive casting in arena. This idea seems good and that it will provide higher efficiency however this is almost always not that case.

This is the formula for your damage.

Spell Damage = base* (.95 + int/100)(1 + (EE+prof)/100)

Multiply this by 0,75 since it's in acc.slot.

base* ((.95 + int + x (acc.slot)/100)(1 + (EE+prof)/100))*0,75 > base* (.95 + int/100)(1 + (EE+prof)/100) ?

This means that th amount of int you will need on your charm slot for you charm on the acc.slot to be greater will depend on your current intelligence level (before factoring in the acc slot).

It will almost always be better to keep your EE charm in main slot. Heres a simple rule of thumb to know if it's worth it or not. Take your total int divide it by 3. If that number is higher then the amount of int you'd be getting from an int charm in charm slot, it's not worth it.

the -25% damage/cost effect doesn't work in arena it's 75% damage - 100% cost.

This post was edited by arxyn on Nov 30 2009 09:34pm

2,2 A mathematical approach at the hybrid healer

Basically this just calculates the aspect of a damage dealing healer. Whether or not you find the extra damage to be worth it is up to you. Personally I don't think it's worth it.

1- Lets assume it's a mage as it's starting stats are more designed for melee then those of a guardian.
2- Lets assume the mage is level 65 with all his points invested into int (75 extra points).
3- Lets assume he has no proficiencies
4- Lets assume he has the gear of an average healer
5- Lets assume monsters don't have defense
6- Lets assume CS don't happen, because I wouldn't know how to calculate them. However since Dexterity isn't changing the % in damage should stay the same so it shouldn't make a noticeable difference (correct me if I'm wrong).

Mage base stats

Strenght- 20
Dexterity- 50
Intelligence- 60
Vitality- 20

Our Mage HEALER stats at level 65

Strenght- 20
Dexterity- 50
Intelligence- 135
Vitality- 20
Heal Mastery- 135 (Equal to his Int for best possible effectiveness)

Our Mage's gear

Magicial Ultimanium Dagger
64-113
+45 Heal Mastery

Magicial Spiderthread Robe
+45 Heal Mastery

Magicial Focused Heal 14
+45 Heal Mastery

Acc.Charm
Magical focused Heal 14
161-193
130 Enhanced Effect

Ok so our average damage attacks are doing 89 damage and our average heals are doing 312

And so our total heal/damage output over 100 actions will be 13360

Ok now lets check out the other option you guys are saying, replacing the HM dagger by one with say 100 enhanced effect as thats how much a 45 heal mastery dagger is worth in enhanced effect about.

Our Mage Hybrid stats at level 65

Strenght- 20
Dexterity- 50
Intelligence- 135
Vitality- 20
Heal Mastery- 90

Our Mage's gear

Magicial Ultimanium Dagger
129-225
100 Enhanced effect

Magicial Spiderthread Robe
+45 Heal Mastery

Magicial Focused Heal 14
+45 Heal Mastery

Acc.Charm
Magical focused Heal 14
161-193
130 Enhanced Effect

Ok so our average damage attacks are doing 177 damage and our average heals are doing 252

And so our total heal/damage output over 100 actions will be 19200

So your being about 70% more effective However the amount of total heals you can give drops by a lot.

At level 65 your mana pool will be 6780. So you can give 67 heals so thats :

Healer - 20904
Hybrid - 16884

Your losing 20% of your healing ability for 70% more overall effectiveness.

Personally though, Guardian tank + mana syphon + healer will be the best possible healer if built correctly as it basically has infinite mana pool as well as serving 2 purposes in a cata, tank and healer. I'll admit though they won't work on a budget.

Full thread can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=35555834&f=272

3,0 Character Builds

3,1 An introduction to everything.

It is after reading many comments, guides and suggestions in the Ladder Slasher forums that I realized a vast amount of people do not know how to build a character or how to give advice on how to build a character. Too often people just give recommendations on ways to build your character in a biased and naive fashion. Sure going hybrid will yield incredible results, however, is it viable to the person your giving this advice? The answer will be no, 95% of the time. It seems like the people dishing out this so called advice are simply bragging about their gear or repeating things they have seen said before.

ie: Go hybrid on a samurai, it rocks dude!
ie2: Get base 60 int, 110 dex minimum and rest of stats into str

ie: Going hybrid on a samurai will be a horrible option for almost everyone reading your statement as you need a huge fg investment in gear to be able to make this work. Also the samurai isn't the best option when it comes to going hybrid so why would you recommend for someone to do this? Why not instead teach the player how to maximize his stats for the best possible efficiency?

ie2: Wow, just wow. You just recommended for someone to invest 110 stats before even thinking of investing in str. At level 65 he would have to get at least 45 stats from gear to even complete this build. That leaves him with nothing to put into str unless he has some serious fg to invest, something the person your giving this advice to will not have, or will not be willing to spend. He just wasted 50 stat points on int and will have a dex/str ratio that is incredibly wrong.

In this section we will attempt to give out intelligent, rational, comprehensive advice to help you maximize the potential of all your characters. We will give you guidelines on how to build your character, which feeder class to choose and which items to buy. Or at least, thats the plan.

3,2 Feeder classes, which to choose and why?

At first glance all the feeder classes may seem equivalent in terms of pros/cons. This is wrong. Your feeder class will be the first character you play with and thus the first character you pass a MQ with. When buying gear for it you should be thinking down the road to the other classes you will encounter. You should choose a feeder class that will run smoothly with your equipment setups.

Not to mention, that some of the more specific classes (Guardian, Rogue) can be harder to play and will only be good in certain scenarios (compared to another class).

Basically, I would recommend that you either choose a Magician and play it as a caster or choose a Fighter and play it as a melee using swords.

The reasons for this will be explained in the following section.

3,3 Buying gear with multiple passes in mind

Why buy multiple sets of weapons when a few can do just fine? Price? Swords / Daggers are more expensive? Well yes they are, but they will last you longer, be more versatile as well as keep their value longer then the less desirables mods. Also a low end sword / dagger will still be very affordable.

As far as Reset equipment sets goes there are currently 2 options.

Option 1 :

Magician - Caster
Samurai - Melee
Paladin - Melee or Caster
Monk - Caster
Ninja - Caster
Warlock - Caster
Headhunter - Melee
Alchemist - Caster

Using this option you will need to buy :

A light armor int set
An int staff set (if you plan on making it to warlock) or int dagger set (if you don't plan on making it to warlock)
A sword set
A heavy armor (EE/str/dex) set
A charm set (str/dex) Consider buying lightning or wild heal str/dex charms if you plan on making it to headhunter
Either a light armor (str/dex) set or a int sword set. Buying melee robes for low levels and int swords for high levels is a possibility.
An axe set
An offensive charm set

Option 2 :

Fighter - Melee
Samurai - Melee
Paladin - Melee
Monk - Melee
Ninja - Melee
Warlock - Caster
Headhunter - Melee
Alchemist - Caster

A heavy armor (EE/str/dex) set
A light armor (EE/str/dex) set
A charm set (str/dex) Consider buying lightning or wild heal str/dex charms if you plan on making it to headhunter
An axe set
A dagger set
An int staff set
A light armor int set
An offensive charm set

This information can be especially useful if your guild wants to get organized and buy a few sets of equipment that can be shared with all it's members.

3,4 The Fighter, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your fighter based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

As with any character you want to view it's pro's and con's and see why you should choose this character over another one and then build it around that. Let's take a look at the fighter.

Str - 50
Dex - 40
Vitality - 50
Intelligence - 10

Armors - any
Charms - any
Weapons – Sword, club, axe, longsword, spear, polearm

Well as you can see the fighter has pretty balanced str/dex ratio from the start, slightly lower vitality then the barbarian and 5 more int. It can use heavy armors and swords which will be usable on the next classes in case you pass.

Using this information we can deduce that the fighter could make a good tank in catacombs, be a nice option as a straight up melee character and possibly be a decent hybrid if your gear allows it. The fact that it has lower vitality means that it would be better suited for players who are willing to invest some fg into the game as you might not be wanting to invest in vitality anyways. If you would want to invest in extra vitality choosing a barbarian would be a better option.

Building a hybrid on a fighter would be a decent option for a feeder class as unlike the rogue it can use heavy armors and unlike the barbarian it has higher melee oriented stats to begin with and higher int. The guardian would also be a decent option however it's gear possibilities are a lot more restricted. An important thing to not with hybrids is that unless your going to be getting 150+ stats from gear and level ups, it will suck. For these reasons I will only cover hybrid builds starting from 150+ stats. When choosing to build a hybrid it is also important to look for stats such as HealMastery where you can find it. However you shouldn't sacrifice too many points for this. The reasons behind this are quite simple and will be further explained in 3,17. I will not be going over the str/dex/int/HM ratios however I wouldn't recommend you get HM unless it's 30-40% higher then the normal amount of stats you would be getting. As far as equipment goes this is generally how you build your hybrid.

Weapon - EE main mod
Armor - Str/dex main mod (plate ideally)
Charm - Str/dex main mod
Acc.Charm - EE main mod

Your weapons and acc.charm should have 150+ EE for the build to work efficiently. Again, mods like HM on armor or charm are just a bonus, a very good bonus granted, but you shouldn't sacrifice an equal amount of str/dex for HM. It's important to note that you should add the points to intelligence initially.

So using all this information lets go over the possible builds that would work for a fighter and how to place your stats depending on your budget/gear.



3,5 The Barbarian, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your barbarian based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

As with any character you want to view it's pro's and con's and see why you should choose this character over another one and then build it around that. Let's take a look at the barbarian.

Str - 60
Dex - 25
Vitality - 60
Intelligence - 5

Armors - any
Charms - any
Weapons – sword, club, axe, warhammer, battleaxe, polearm

The barbarian is the second melee class available at feeder level. It boasts similar equipment choices to the fighter however it has lower int, lower starting melee stats but higher vitality. Sure it can make a nice melee character but what makes it a better choice then the fighter? Essentially nothing. The only reason you should choose the barbarian is if your running on a very tight budget and where you would have needed to invest extra points in vitality anyways. It's hybrid potential is less then that of it's counterpart the fighter so I won't be covering that. I'll instead show you how you could build your barbarian if you are on a very low budget and need the extra vitality. I won't go over the other options of a higher stat level barbarian as the fighter is just simply better. Make a fighter instead if thats your case.

Your going to invest your first 10 points into vitality since you'll need to extra high life to compensate for you very low damage output.



3,6 The Rogue, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your rogue based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

Awww the rogue Probably the most underused class in LadderSlasher yet one of the most versatile. A new player with a limited amount of fg should consider choosing rogue as first class. Here are it's stats.

Str - 30
Dex - 60
Vitality - 25
Intelligence - 35

Armors - light and medium
Charms - any
Weapons – Sword, club, axe, dagger, staff, spear

We can quickly realize that if your going rogue and you want to cast you'll have acces to Very cheap gear but you will a smaller mana pool, however you will be able to afford stronger int weapons/armor. I've seen 45 int swords go for the same price as say 30 int staves. Lets say your getting +15 extra int off each weapon/armor thats 30 extra int from gear.

Rogue base int - 25 (+30) = 55 int
Magician base int - 60

They will have similar int

Rogue base vit - 35
Magician base vit - 20

So as far as going pure caster goes, I'd recommend using a magician instead of a rogue if you plan on doing a lot of catacombs. Reasons for this are.

1- You will have lower life, but this isn't as big of an issue in catacombs since there will always be healers ( in this case you, god forbid you go offensive caster in catacombs)
2- You will have a bigger mana pool (around 2k more at levels 55+) which translates into more heals, longer catacombs, better groups.

However if your going to go pure caster but plan on playing arena with a small budget I'd recommend going rogue. Reasons for this are.

1- Assuming your on a budget you may not have enough fg to buy a healing charm at which point you'll need your vitality to be higher to allow decent amount of kills before regen.
2- Scale int armors are super cheap and also offer some better defense vs mobs. In catacombs you can stand in back do receiving damage isn't as important.

If you have a decent budget though to build your caster (2k+ fg ready to invest) I'd have to say a magician will be a better caster.

Another important thing to keep in mind when going caster on rogue is that it can melee the lower levels 1-20 much more efficiency then the mage with similar gear.

As far as mana pool in arena goes, I find it to be negligible as you may get 30% less kills but your regens will be 30% faster, so it should even out in the end, I think.

Melee

The rogue already starts with a base of 60 dexterity, so if your planning on going melee with rogue I'd recommend you put all points into str and get dex on one peice of equipement str on the other. Some people have had good experiences using EE on scale armors, however I personally have never tried it but do know that they are cheap as dirt.

One thing that separates the rogue from the other feeder melee classes is the fact that it can use staves and daggers.

Staves - Probably the 1st or 2nd cheapest EE weapon to buy (clubs being first).
Daggers - Assuming you pass on your rogue you can use them on samurai So for those of you that like consistent damage when you go melee this is an intresting option as axes can't be used untill paladain. Not a big deal, but still.

I'd recommend putting first 10 points into vitality if you plan on doing lots of arena, if you plan on going catacombs put first 10 into str and stand in middle/back row depending on group. It's base int also helps a lot vs caster hits that you can receive, so it's not entirely wasted.

All in all, the melee rogue is an interesting alternative and can be could for certain people but definitly not the best choice, in my opinion, as far as melee feeder classes go.

Hybrid Rogue

Now this is where to rogue gets all it's power and usefulness. I'm surprised there aren't more hybrid rogues honestly, I'm guessing it's because Hybrids take a decent amount of knowledge/fg investment to make and most *noobies* don't have either of those. The more established players that do, probably have already unlocked the other classes.

When building a Rogue hybrid there are 2 alternatives in my opinion.

The catacomb hybrid - When you catacomb the healer is always the limiting factor, however using a hybrid healer rogue you can dish out some decent damage as well as be able to heal which is a nice idea. If your building this type of character I would personally put all points into intelligence, get EE on weapon, Str on armor, HM on charm, EE on acc.charm (healing).

There are some really nice mods on scale armors that can sell for extremely cheap as nobody cares so you should look out for str/hm armors, str/int, dex/hm etc... They will probably be very cheap.

Using this build you can basically deal an acceptable amount of damage and be able to heal whenever the mage in group runs out of mana.

Arena hybrid - Well as any hybrid you will need some nice gear and some thought put into it. Again for for the obvious EE on weapon, EE on acc.charm (healing). As far as armor and charm goes, you'll need to find some good stats that will help you. Find out what your limiting factor is, if you need more damage go for Str, if you feel you need better heals go for healmastery and so on.

You should aim at least, 80 hard stat points into intelligence, 100 str, 60 dexterity, 35 vit ( you should leave this base as hybrid needs a lot of stats which can be better used elsewhere).

Assuming you dump all points into int until your level 55 you'll have 85 int at level 55 and can stat rest of points into str. Meaning you'll want to look for armors/charms with 45+ str for it to be a viable arena hybrid.

One thing to keep in my when deciding to go hybrid is that unless your gear is not up to par getting kills at levels 55+ will be painfully slow as you just won't have enough damage to sustain a good killing rate. However in the current version of LadderSlasher hybrid is the only way to go if you want to no regen from 1-71.

Some other things to keep in mind when choosing a rogue is that gear is also a lot easier to find. You will have much more diversity in the equipment you want to get. If time is a limiting factor for you finding things on the marketplace will be easier done with a rogue. ie: finding a 45 int dagger can be a bitch

If your planning on playing hardcore though I wouldn't recommend going melee/hybrid Rogue, despite the fact that gear will be easier to find (something very annoying in Hardcore) I believe it's inability to use Heavy armors as a melee class do not make it a viable Hardcore character.

The fact there is almost no catacombs either can be a challenge for all you catastars out there as well.

As far as going rogue caster though, here are my thoughts. Never forget one of the most important rules about HC. Never play a character with less then 50 hard points into vitality.

This means that you would need to invest your first points into vitality, so you will have a base of 50 vit at level 5. So for those 5 levels your getting 25 mana to your mana pool which the magician is getting 60.

When the magician gets 50 vitality level 20 it will have 60 int, while your rogue caster will only have 40 int. This will make your mana pool very small. It's up to you to decide whether it's worth it or not, I'm going to have to say no though.

So for all this being said we need to ask ourselves the most important question. What makes the rogue a better class to play then the fighter (melee) caster (magician) or guardian (hybrid). Sadly the answer is practically nothing. The sole reason you could consider making a rogue is that it's gear is cheap. This contradicts the very essence of a hybrid though which is meant to be pricey and expensive. And as far as melee or caster goes even though it's gear will be cheaper the fact that you can already find 1fg items on the marketplace with decent stats that can be used for the more *expensive* classes make the rogue a completely unusable class when compared to your other options. However building a rogue adds an undeniable cool factor as well as being a unique class to play.

I won't be adding a chart on how to stat this character as I straight up don't recommend playing it.

This post was edited by J_B on Nov 30 2009 09:34pm

3,7 The Magician, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your magician based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

Nothing tricky here folks, your going to be going caster and all your stat points will be heading directly into int. If you plan on using your magician for wells put your first 10 into vitality. You might want to consider doing your first 10-15 (20) levels as melee until your mana pool gets higher.

If your going arena

weapon,armor -> Int
charm -> EE offensive
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

If your going catacombs

weapon,armor,charm -> Int or HM
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

You'll want to add Int or HM depending on how much of each you have. For best possibly results you want these values to be as close as possible.

3,8 The Guardian, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your guardian based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

The guardian provides some interesting and unique features. Lets look at it's stats.

Str - 30
Dex - 10
Vitality - 55
Intelligence - 55

Armors - heavy
Charms - heal charms only
Weapons – club, all heavy weapons

We quickly realize 3 things about the guardian.

1- It has very limited equipment possibilities.
2- It has a high amount of base int and vitality.
3- It can use heavy armors

These 3 things lead me to deduce a few. things. The first one would be that the guardian would make an awesome hybrid character. It's high base int and vitality make it perfect for this. However finding the gear to make your hybrid guardian could prove to be very difficult.

Another thing we might come to consider is using the guardian as a healer in catacombs. Indeed this would be a pretty swell option however lets ask ourselves this question first. What makes it better then the mage for a healer? essentially nothing. Sure it can use heavy armors which could possibly make it able to tank as well but it has very low dexterity which makes it vulnerable to crits. And besides, wouldn't a normal melee oriented build have better defensive stats then your guardian? Probably. This means that if your going to be healing the fact that you can wear heavy armors is somewhat neglected. For these reasons I wouldn't recommend choosing the guardian as a healer.

Another option that is quite interesting with the guardian is it's ability to be able to make a very unique type of character build seen in 3,18.

Now that we've learned all of this fun information it leads us to this simple conclusion, the guardian may be sexy but it can really only be used as it's best in a hybrid character or in a tank/mana syphon/healer build. So I'll go over the stat distribution I would recommend if you so choose to go hybrid on a guardian.



3,9 The Samurai, A comprehensive guide

It's a fighter with 5 extra stat points. Read fighter section.

3,10 The Paladin, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your paladin based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

The paladin is, in my opinion, the best reasonably conceivable class in LadderSlasher. The warlock is of course the best however it might be out of reach for most slashers out there. Lets take a look at it's stats shall we.

Str - 55
Dex - 30
Vitality - 55
Intelligence - 20

Armors - Heavy
Charms - any
Weapons – Sword, club, axe, spear, longsword, batteaxe, warhammer, polearm

Pretty dam hot. The paladin boats the amazing starting stats to be a viable melee, caster or hybrid character. You can't go wrong with this class. You could even potentially use it to build a tank/mana syphon/healer type character.

It is also an incredible option to do well monsters with. It has the best caster possibly out of all the heavy casters which makes it very durable and hard to kill. Especially on hardcore where welling can be quite a dilemma.

I'll go over the different possibilities to use this character.

If you are going caster you'll want to put every single point into intelligence.

If your going arena

weapon,armor -> Int
charm -> EE offensive
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

If your going catacombs

weapon,armor,charm -> Int or HM
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

And if you choose to play the paladin as a melee or hybrid character.



3,11 The Monk, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your monk based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

The monk is a very peculiar class to say the least. Lets take a look at it's stats.

Str - 40
Dex - 65
Vitality - 40
Intelligence - 20

Armors - light
Charms - any
Weapons – dagger, staff, spear

At first glance it would seem that the monk has melee oriented stats. However this is nicely counterbalanced by the fact that it can only wear light armors making it a pretty horrible option for anything along the lines of tanking. This said when we look at it's intelligence we see it's somewhat low considering it doesn't have the fun factor of being able to wear heavies like the paladin. This leaves us with 3 possible, mediocre, choices. We could go melee, hybrid or caster on this atrocity of a class.


Assuming we decide to go caster.

If your going arena

weapon,armor -> Int
charm -> EE offensive
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

If your going catacombs

weapon,armor,charm -> Int or HM
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

Now if your going to go melee or hybrid wearing EE plates it out of the question which leaves us with this.



3,12 The Ninja, A comprehensive guide

It's a monk with 5 extra stat points. Read monk section.

3,13 The Warlock, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your warlock based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

Nothing tricky here folks, your going to be going caster and all your stat points will be heading directly into int. If you plan on using your warlock for wells put you might debate putting first 10 into vitality although it's not really needed, in my opinion. You might want to consider doing your first 10-15 (20) levels as melee until your mana pool gets higher.

If your going arena

weapon,armor -> Int
charm -> EE offensive
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

If your going catacombs

weapon,armor,charm -> Int or HM
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

You'll want to add Int or HM depending on how much of each you have. For best possibly results you want these values to be as close as possible.

3,14 The Headhunter, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your monk based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

Aaaahh!!! Run for your life. Lets look at the Headhunters stats.

Str - 55
Dex - 75
Vitality - 35
Intelligence - 5

Armors - medium and padded robe
Charms - light and wild heal only
Weapons – axe, battleaxe

The headhunter has quite an interesting arsenal of stats at it's disposal for what could possibly be considered the best melee class. Indeed, melee is the way to play this character as it has horrible starting intelligence combined with the fact that it's usable casting gear is quite limited. Hybrid might be an interesting possibility however I would recommend you simply go melee on it. Although to be fair, I've never made it to headhunter.

Depending on whether or not your going to be playing arena I would recommend you consider investing your first 10 starting stats into vitality. This aspect would make your stat distribution slightly different from a chart I would propose. That combined with the fact that if your a headhunter you probably shouldn't be reading this right now is enough motivation for me not to make another chart. And besides, I'm sure your starting to see a very familiar pattern emerge from them.

3,15 The Alchemist, A comprehensive guide

This guide will teach you how to build your alchemist based on your budget and items available. We will attempt to teach you how to optimize your build for maximum efficiency, translating into faster levels. Nothing said here will be simply opinions or thoughts. Everything will be based on some concept or logic viewed in other sections.

Nothing tricky here folks, your going to be going caster and most of your stat points will be heading directly into int. I have never played an alchemist but I think it's common practice to add at least some points into vitality. I would add until you have a base of 30 or possibly 40 if your going to be doing wells. Although seriously, if your an alchemist and reading this guide something is very wrong...

If your going arena

armor -> Int
charm -> EE offensive
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

If your going catacombs

armor,charm -> Int or HM
acc.charm -> EE heal charm

You'll want to add Int or HM depending on how much of each you have. For best possibly results you want these values to be as close as possible.

3,16 The relation between exp% as a stat vs more int/str/dex

I have been asked a few question regarding Exp% as a primary stat to look out for. Is it worth it or not? This is a somewhat difficult question that need to be analyzed in different aspects.

1- Exp% in Catacombs when driver

Yes, it is worth it as long as you are the driver and you are not sacrificing more then 20% of your normal equivalent stats to get this. Assume 20% = 12% exp gain.

The reason I would say it's worth it in catacombs when your driver is that you will level up faster, your group will be facing higher level monsters which translates into more exp, so faster levels. It could be thus considered as a positive modifier on the whole team.

2- Exp% in catacombs when not driver

No, just no.

3- Exp% in arena when melee

No, I find that it is not worth it. Your limiting factor here is your life and sacrificing offensive stats for exp% will translate into slower kills and slower levels. I would almost never recommend it unless the difference in offensive stats sacrificed is very small. 5% for 12% exp gain.

4- Exp% in arena when casting and achieving AMP

Yes, your mana is your limiting factor here (generally) and your already hitting the max AMP (150%). This means that each succesive point from your int gibes you less of a positive bonus. I would recommend sacrificing 10-20% int for 12% exp gain as long as your are still hitting the maximum AMP value.

Heres where the find AMP values for amounts of int.

http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=28388849&f=272

5- Exp% in arena when casting without achieving AMP

No. If you aren't already hitting the 150% amp chances are your gear already sucks. Sacrificing anymore of it would be quite silly indeed.

3,17 Full Chains (hybrid builds) vs faster levels (15 kill chains)

Ok I'll keep this section short. Sure getting full chains on a hybrid is hot, but is it useful? No, it probably isn't. We all know that going hybrid can yield incredibly results but this at the cost of a slower killing speed. Assuming you can achieve 15 kill chains already why would you want to go hybrid? You can just pick up the items that drop, shrine them and *no regen* your way to the end of the level.

The only real advantage of of 40 kill chains, in my opinion, is that added bonuses from MCC as well as the sexy factor which is undeniable.

3,18 Mana syphon / tank / healer build

I'll go over some aspects of this uncommon but oh so powerful build. I have never personally tested it as I just don't have the gear necessary to make this work. This build, much like the hybrid, will only shine in all it's glory when combined with very high end gear. Also keep in mind that it has a very specific role and will be completely useless for anything other then catacombs with a solid team surrounding it.

What your are trying to accomplish with this character is someone who will sit in the front row, tanking all the hits while your other team members are in middle or back dishing out the damage. It is very important for you to be the only person in the front row as mana syphon is an important part of your build so you might as well use it... Not to mention your going to be specifically built for taking hits.

You will however be asked to sacrifice stats from more normally used healing setups to achieve a nice tanking ability. This means that you will be healing less however possibly healing more in total the longer that catacombs goes on. This is especially useful for very late game catacombs where your getting slower levels, as in a normal healer would possibly run out of mana, (miror maze anybody?) and for evil presences. Granted the ability to use fish and comfrey somewhat nullifies this aspect.

And now how I would recommend building this.

Weapon - Heal Mastery main mod (mana syphon)
Armor - Enhanced Effect (mana syphon)
Charm - Heal Mastery (mana syphon)
Acc.Charm - Enhanced Effect

Choose a guardian or a Paladin for this. The frst mods will be your main mods however you will need to sacrifice some other stats for mana syphon. Your build would need a minimum of 20% mana syphon for you to start seeing all it's glory.

As far as weapon goes you could possibly sacrifice 20 HM for 8-10 Mana syphon.
As far as armor goes, you only really need a 160EE (180EE tops) plate. Look for mana syphon as a very important secondary mod.
As far as charm goes you could possibly sacrifice 20 HM for 8-10 Mana syphon.
As far as Acc.Charm goes -> EE damit

For your distribution of stats I would recommend you go all int on a paladin and all int on a guardian, possibly adding 30-40 points into dexterity or getting some from your gear. The role of your character isn't to have epic 1,2k average heals of 900 avg offensive damage. Instead it is to fufill multiple roles in your catacomb group allowing the rest of the team to become stronger.

3,19 Low level dueler guide

Recently we have seen ironman tournaments pop up. This section will just cover some general things to take into consideration when building your ironman character.

Considering most of these contest use tier 1-3 gear and most of the contestants are choosing melee oriented characters this means the defensive undercut from long range weapons, heavy weapons and critical strikes are extremely valuable. A 35EE tier 3 sword will almost always outperform a 60EE axe. The exception to this would be that your opponent is going caster for some reason...

So usefull mods that your looking for are +max life as your starting life is very low and the damage output of contestants is equally low, EE on your armor and dexterity. For the same defensive reasons as heavy weapons I believe that point for point dexterity will probably be better then str. This said, you still want to have a good ratio just maybe something a little more dex heavy then you would normally opt for. As far as using EE on your armor be vigilante. If the ironman contest is using say tier 1 weapons but tier 2-3 other equipment there is no need to get a 60EE plate. Just make sure that the minimal defense on your armor covers the maximum damage on a tier 1's weapon. Instead try looking for a 30EE plate with say... +100 max life or some other sexy mod.

Lastly, using your first 10 points. I would not recommend putting them into vitality in almost all situation. Try using common logic here though, see if the ironman is for levels 1 or levels 9 or something else.

3,20 Life steal vs str/dex/ee

Life steal has undergone a significant nerf not so long ago. This is now how LS is calculated.

1-x%

x being the amount of life steal you have. Having different gear pieces with life steal on them will be added to the final damage.

(1-x%) + (1-x2%) ... etc...

This means two things for you.

1- Having 2x 5% life steal (5% from armor, 5% from weapon) will work better then having 10% from one item only.
2- The more life steal you have the less effective it is in point per point %. ie : Having 1 life steal means your life stealing 1% 100% of the time, having 2% life steals means your life stealing 2%, 50% of the time etc...

You should also keep in mind that life steal only works as well as your damage output since your life stealing a % of the damage your dealing. What this means is that if your sacrificing main damage mods (str, EE, dex) for life steal not only are you getting less effect per Life steal point but your life steal is also being less effective considering your damage output has dropped.

Lastly life steal has a % chance to work in catacombs, I do not know what that % chance is but it is significantly low enough to be disregarded.

Ok, now that we know what were talking about lets evaluate what this means when choosing your gear. It means having Life steal as a main mod of your gear is no longer viable. You will simply not be killing fast enough or life stealing enough health to justify the points sacrificed from EE, str, dex. This said, life steal is still an awesome secondary mod however I would almost never recommend you sacrifice it for the main offensive stats. If you however still choose you want to try the life steal route this is the ratio in which it might be acceptable to sacrifice stats.

10-20% str/dex for 5% life steal.

This means say you have a 50 str armor, using a 40-45 str 5 life steal armor might be worth it. Again, keep in mind 10% life steal will NOT be 2x better then 5% life steal. It's only about 1,5x better.

4,0 Bestiary

4,1 Monster name spawns

This list isn't complete yet, I'll probably add some more if I do another climb. Heres how I think monster names spawn.

XY (+ Z)

The monsters always have at least an X and Y name and may sometimes have a Z name accompanied by word the None of the words X, Y or Z can be the same. Everything else is random.

4,2 Images of monsters that can spawn



4,3 prefixes (X)

Angry
Ankle
Awful
Bark
Beastly
Blue
Bold
Brain
Catch
Claw
Clever
Clog
Club
Death
Decay
Demon
Devil
Dread
Dreadful
Ear
Elbow
Entangle
Fang
Filthy
Finger
Flesh
Foot
Fraud
Glove
Gut
Hammer
Hard
Haunt
Head
Indecent
Infamous
Insane
Jaw
Knife
Knuckle
Lung
Metal
Necrotic
Noisome
Nose
Phantom
Razer
Rock
Scythe
Shady
Shoulder
Skin
Smudged
Snout
Spotted
Stinking
Stone
Strong
Tainted
Thigh
Tongue
Tree
Twig
Venom
Wraith
Wicked
wrist
Wood
Wretched

4,4 anixes (Y)

Ankle
Attacker
Bark
Basher
Beak
Bone
Boulder
Burster
Butcher
Chipper
Claw
Clawer
Cleaver
Clencher
Controller
Cracker
Cutter
Destroyer
Digester
Dismantler
Drowner
Elbow
Eradicator
Exterminator
Fang
Feather
Gasher
Glove
Gut
Hacker
Hammer
Hand
Head
Helmet
Knee
Knife
Knuckle
Leather
Lung
Maimer
Marrer
Masher
Muncher
Mutilator
Neck
Nibbler
Nose
Picker
Piercer
Poker
Queller
Razer
Ring
Ruminater
Saboteur
Scarrer
Scavenger
Shatter
Shield
shoulder
Shredder
Slasher
Slayer
Slicer
Slitter
smacker
Snipper
Snout
Snuffer
Splitter
Stamper
Stomach
Sword
Thigh
Tongue
Tree
Trimmer
Waster
Wounder
Wounder

4,5 suffixes (Z)

The appalling
The attacker
The basher
The burster
The cleaver
The consumer
The contaminated
The corrupt
The crasher
The crusher
The death
The decay
The desecrate
The destroyer
The detestable
The devourer
The disgraceful
The dishonorable
The dread
The horrid
The horrifying
The impure
The monstrous
The mucky
The nibbler
The nuker
The offensive
The poker
The puncher
The ravager
The repellent
The revolting
The ruminator
The shade
The shredder
The sickening
The slasher
The sleazeball
The smeared
The soiled
The stained
The strong
The sullied
The vulgar
The walloper
The wicked
The zombie

5,0 Random Thoughts about Hardcore

Ok I know these rules aren't entirely coming from myself but I thought I'd add them anyways. Basically these are tools to stay alive in Hardcore

-Never play a class with less then 50 base vitality

-Never play when it is lagging

-Prefer EE armors to str/dex armors

-Always make sure you can tank at least 10 hits

-If your using EE armor run when life lower then the *L* or sooner

-If your a caster never go under 50% life

-Don't make a cry topic if/when you die

-Only use a heal charm if it consistently heals more then monsters can damage you

- 5+ evil presences = run

-Game where ambush can be started = run

6,0 Everything that didn't fit in a category

6,1 EE explanation, 200 EE does not = 2x more damage then 100 EE

There have been a surprising amount of misconceptions in the forums lately on how EE affects your damage. This is how EE affects your damage.



See how it is also multiplied by the weapons base damage and your str? This means that 200EE will not be dishing out 2x more damage then a 100EE weapons.

Using the logic found in the forums sometimes wouldn't it mean a 2 EE weapon deals 2x more damage then a 1 EE weapon? 4 EE = 4x more damage then 1 EE? 200 EE = 200x more damage then a weapon with 1 EE?

This is pretty straightforward stuff.

6,2 HM charm in charm slot to get 100% efficiency in acc.charm slot

This is another topic that had some debate lately. Basically people were trowing out a lot of random information again such as you need 60 HM to compensate for the -25% effect and 30 HM would make you heal 97,5% efficiency. All of this is wrong. Just like the previous problem you need to understand how your damage is calculated. This is how it is calculated.



What you need to realize from this is that there is no fixed number of HM needed to offset the -25% bonus at any given point. This number will depend on the rest of your stats which is what a lot of people were not understanding because they did not understand how your heal damage is created. It is not a simple multiplication of 2 things.

The following 3 examples are wrong and I later explain how to correctly calculate this. It is important to keep in mind though that when it comes to catacombs even if your not completely offsetting the -25% effect your still healing more efficiently as long as you have just 1 int or 1 HM in the charm slot.

This is how I thought it works:

Your heal charm originally heals for 100%.
Affected by the 30% heal mastery, it now heals for 130%.
Affected by the -25% effectiveness due to the Acc. Slot penalty, it now does 97.5% (which is 3/4 of 130%).


This is how she tells me it works:

Your heal charm originally heals for 100%.
This is boosted for 30% by the heal mastery, subtotalling 130%.
This is again decreased for 25% by the Acc. Slot penalty, totalling 105% (which is 130% - 25%).

500 base heal showing
using 52 hm + 61 hm
1065 heal from primary slot
798.75 from accessory slot


The question becomes, how much HM do you add to your primary slot to offset the 25%?

So what happens...
500 base heal showing
using 52 hm + 61 hm
1065 heal from primary slot
798.75 from accessory slot

If you add 50 hm to the primary slot;

Showing 500 base heal
52 hm + 61 hm + 50 hm 1315
1315 - 328.75 = 986.25

Thats why I say my original statement.

--------------------

Spell Damage = (base*(.95 + int/100)(1 + (EE+prof)/100)(1 + HM/100))0,75

so what your saying is

1065 = ((500)(1 + 113/100))

798,75 = ((500)(1 + 113/100))*0,75

And your asking

1065 = ((500)(1 + (113 + x/100)))*0,75

So in this scenario you would need 71 HM to offset the effect. But the amount of HM you need in acc.charm to offset your heals will depend on the rest of your gear/stats still, which is what I'm saying.

You actually need like 60% total HM to offset the 25% deficit
Lets just imagine this dude has horrible gear/stats.

100 int - 50 ee - 15 HM - 15 HM

Spell Damage = (77*(1,95)(1,5)(1,3)

so -> 293

293 = (77*(1,95)(1,5)(1 + (30+x)/100))0,75

only need 43 HM

Thread can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36587262&f=272&o=30

6,3 Mf drop formula

Nobody knows the correct % for items to drop. However just for a sake of giving some guidelines to prevent some more horrible information to be tossed around this is how we believe drops COULD happen.

1/((item mods+1l)*2)

So this would mean

Magicial - 1/4
Rare - 1/8
Mystical - 1/16

etc...

However this whole question is pretty irrelevant anyways because the % for items to drop could be changed at any moment with any update not to mention the fact that % drops in catacombs, arena, wells are different.

Then theres the whole aspect of tier levels, magic luck, MCC bonuses and all that good stuff.

Thread can be found here : http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=36798819&f=272&o=0
6,4 JB's handy dandy chart



7,0 Credits

Big shout out to J_B, coolbreeze, tondor222, bcmcknight77 for helping in one way or another.

Will read over time
Post up some comments also

Nicely put together...

second

nice guide

Only 2 options? Funny since the majority of people I know do:

Magician - Caster
Samurai - Caster
Paladin - Caster
Monk - Caster
Ninja - Caster
Warlock - Caster
Headhunter - Melee
Alchemist - Caster

All you need is: (if you start casting at 35 on non pure casters)

Melee Daggers 1-35
Melee Axes 1-35
Melee Robes 1-MQ (or just 35)
Melee Charms 1-35
Caster Staffs 1-MQ
Caster Robes 1-MQ
Caster Swords 35-MQ
Caster Charms 1-MQ
Heal Charms (10-15)-MQ

You could get a set of Melee (1-35) and Caster (35-MQ) Caster Plates, along with a Medium Armor Melee setup (1-MQ), but it is unecessary. Considering a set of Int Robes, Caster Charms, and Heal charms are absolutely necessary to reset, I'd so its the most efficient approach when talking about gear.

This post was edited by Meeker on Nov 30 2009 09:51pm

This is godly.

Meeker
you forgot 35-71 axes, either caster or melee
which makes it the same as build 1

Yeah I forgot to put 1-MQ for Axes. Also Option 1 is incorrect...unless you plan to cast from level 1 on a Monk. It should be a dagger set (which is cheaper anyways), and the option I proposed uses only 1-35 daggers, while Option 1 would have an entire dagger set.

This post was edited by Meeker on Nov 30 2009 10:05pm