Contents:
Beginner info:
What is Group 1-MQ
Minimal requirements
Stat builds
Normal group setup
Auto vault deposit/Hotkeys

Advanced:
Screen layout
Ability builds
Be competitive!


Beginner info:
What is Group 1-MQ?
You may notice open groups sat at level 1. These are waiting for the full 5 players for a group climb.
In general this is a lot faster than trying to solo, These climbs should take between 50 mins and 2 hours, depending on events, players in your group and if there's any issues (someone may need to afk/connection issues)

Minimal requirements?
What's expected of you these days is:
1. Have a minimum of 2 hours to spend on the game.
2. Own a vault and use it to store the gear for the run.
3. Have completed at least 1 mq or are known (in a good way) by the other players.
4. Be active, if you're clicking and using abilities often, then you should be ok. If you're afk'ing for large portions and people start doubling your actions then players might not be so happy.
5. Have Gear.
My suggested "minimum gear" would be something along these lines:
Weapons:
t3: 50 ee
lvl 5: 60 ee
lvl 10: 70 ee
lvl 15: 70 ee
level 20: 70ee
level 25: 80ee
level 35: 80ee
level 45: 90ee
level 55: 90ee

Armors tank set (leather/scale/chain/plate will all be ok):
tier 3: 50ee
level 10: 60ee
level 20: 60ee
level 30: 80ee
level 40/45: 80ee
level 50/55: 80ee
Ideally should also have a tier 3-4 armor with 15-20 strength/dex and a level 30ish armor with 30-40 str/dex. As you only need 1 tank per game, if there's 2 people able to tank, one should use these instead for extra damage.

Charms: (SEE STAT BUILDS to see if you should be using str or dex)
tier 3: 10+ str/dex
level 15: 20+ str/dex
level 35: 30+ str/dex
Ideally you want better than this but we realise not everyone can afford the items.

Stat builds
Casters should generally hit 30-40 vita at some stage during the run, all other points into int.

For Melee whether you go strength or dexterity depends on your weapon type:
Club/Sword : All points into strength
Dagger/Staff: All points into dexterity
Axe : Doesn't matter at all.

If you are the designated tank using Leather/Scale/chain/plate with 80ee+ at MQ, get 75 vita before level 35 and then rest of the points dependant on your weapon
If you are asked to tank and are NOT using an EE armor, Get 80 points of vita if your armor is level 55 Padded robe/leather/scale/chain/plate. Otherwise get 100 vita by level 55


Normal group setup
In general a standard group is made up of 1 person tanking, 1 person healing, 3 people pure damage.
Ideally your healer should be a Warlock/Alchemist or mage.
Tank is ideally Fighter/Barb/samurai/Paladin/Headhunter.

Auto Vault deposit
open settings (shaped like a gear or press Esc)
Tick this (unless you REALLY like clicking that button):


Hotkeys:
Equip an item from inventory: Ctrl + Click (you'll need to manually do accessory charm if you're using one)
Deposit an item: Shift and click item in inventory (Vault needs to be on screen with deposit selected)
Withdraw an item: Ctrl + click item in vault (withdraw obviously needs to be open)
T: uses the Whistle
C: opens/closes character screen
V: opens/closes vault screen (should be left open, but useful to remember if you accidently close it)
I: opens/closes inventory (should be left open, but useful to remember if you accidently close it)

Commands:
/Leader Playername - Transfers the leadership to that player (for example if my character TEHTANK is in the game /Leader tehtank )


Advanced
Screen layout
This one is debatable how you do it but in general to be efficient you will want Vault and Inventory to be open the entire run for quickly changing your gear. Here is one setup:


I personally will open and close the character screen as required. Ideally so that you can see some of the left side mobs so you can click on them whilst dealing with your stats.
You'll also notice I've got as many items as possible i need out of my vault (on my current Dagger/Robe setup i do not need many items past level 20). You should try and be efficient when putting items in, do 5-8 items at a time rather than as soon as you've finished with something to immediately move into vault.
Lastly you'll notice my item drops size is larger than standard, you do not want to use that horrific slider so either you ignore anything which goes in the second row or you make it bigger

Ability builds
I will suggest you ignore the fact you can use 3 abilties and only use 2. This allows these 2 to build up faster. You should also bear in mind that using an abilty will never give charge to other abilties. Based on both of these, I personally think 2 abilties is optimal.

Fighter: Better for Axes: Bottoms up until level 20, rest of the points into multistrike. (alternatively go multistrike till level 50, then get points into bottoms up)
Barbarian: Better for clubs/swords (can use axes here also if you prefer knockdown over bottoms up). Bottoms up until level 20, rest of points into multistrike
Samurai: All points into Multistrike until level 50, rest into knockdown. (alternatively, all points into multistrike no 2nd ability even needed)
Paladin which is TANKING: Multistrike until level 30 (you don't take enough damage for revenge yet), Revenge till level 55, rest as you want
Paladin which is BACK RANK: Multistrike until level 50, rest into knockdown
Monk: Balance CrossStrike and Multistrike as you see fit. Suggested: CrossStrike until level 20, Multistrike until level 60, rest into CrossStrike.
Ninja: Multistrike until level 30, rest into Jumpattack
Warlock which is not healing: Multicast until level 55, rest into Doublecast. Alternative: all points into Multicast
Warlock which is healing: Multicast until level 20, Multiheal until level 70, rest into multicast.
Headhunter: Balance Slapdash and Multistrike as you see fit. Suggested: Slapdash until level 20, Multistrike until level 60, rest into Slapdash.
Alchemist: Do you really want my help?

Be Competitive
I get something out of seeing how much damage i deal compared to everyone else. I would consider the most important stat to be Total Damage. The next most important is actions taken.


I'll finish this in a bit, but posting for now.

Nice guide

This is THE guide I've always wanted to write but never found the time for.

It's something every new player should read. Best guide.
Can confirm those item requirements are well within reason for a new player that wants to learn. Players with gear twice as good as that but don't click and don't improve will often get passed up for others who do.

Thank you for writing this. It's everything a new player really needs to know when they ask the question "Why am I not allowed into groups?"

Please add to have the chat window open all time

Press L for it
And if you have low ee on tank armor, just go all vita as you no noteable damage anyway as new player
This enables all casters to do more damage as they spend less time healing

E: also abilities for warlock and higher should not be used as suggested. This is not optimal

This post was edited by Meridius on Mar 7 2020 08:53pm

First of all, this unfortunately cannot be modified as this part of the forum only has a 30 min window to edit first post. I'll rewrite it when I have further feedback.

Thanks Linux/bdan for the support



out of curiousity what is optimal? As imo this should be on there for players whom haven't had those classes should have some form of guidance. Also i don't feel that all warlocks are making best use of multicast.
HH i've made obvious presumptions as I've tested slapdash on other classes and it seemed acceptable IF it was on a HH.
I'll put it this way, i'll refuse to change it unless i've got something else to put there. I'd rather have something which will work there, than nothing at all.

I'm personally leaving having chat open as optional. I will add it though. I personally find it MUCH easier to track chat when it appears on screen rather than in a box, especially when you've got the box somewhere further from the mobs. I could possibly squeeze it in between the mobs and my inventory.




In anticipation for players saying i should be suggesting using the ratio's for swords/staffs, i suggest you either do your own research or check other peoples research:
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=80541143&f=74&o=0
Yes, adding the "wrong" stat will increase your critical strike, but getting the "ratio" is simply a waste of stats, unless you really think sacrificing 30 str or dex for 3% crit is a good exchange
It's not awful, it's just not optimal. If you really want those crits, get critical strike on your gear


Things I need to add to finished guide:
More info on leader, i think it deserves it's own heading. It won't be very long as it's basically spamming T and exploring the maze which i generally recommend.

Changing position:
Use the blue arrows to change position, These are found next to your character in the top left
In chat if someone says "B" or "<<" this means someone in the group should move to the back rank, if you see any chat, just check your position.
Similar to B, If someone says "F" or "T"or ">>" means whomever the designated tank is, should move forward.

Hotkey for chat log is L
Should try having it open for at least a full run. In particular it's important to see when players have been pushed to the back/front.



There's more that i've forgotten, as i keep telling myself "ooo i need to add this" during a run and then forget

^mclarke

I was on phone when writing, sorry for the short answer.
Here is the longer version:

If you use multicast on warlock and put points into it untill level 50, you have 89% charge rate. If you stop at 35 you have 81% charge rate. This is already plenty and more is simply not needed. It is better to invest the remaining points into something else.
The best option in my opinion is to go multicast untill level 25, which is 72% charge rate and all other points into chaos. This is definitly the most efficient and best way to play a warlock in group climbs. It yields the most actions possible with high damage output. Since you don't encaunter any EPs in whistle climbs, doublecast is lot of the times just wasted damage

Same is true for HH and alchemist. For HH you use Slapdash and multi , slapdash till level 20 or 5 points and rest into multi. Alchemist is 5 points in chaos and rest multi. It is preference what you want first on these two classes.

Also for feeder classes it is Knockdown > bottomsup on all of them. You don't really want to use any ability that locks you into a specific row/column/pattern. Only exception on these is crosstrike on monk and revenge on tanking paladin. And on paladin always go multi first as you most likely get a lot of 0 hits in the early levels with tanking armors which doesnt charge revenge at all.

On windows locked in groups. That is my way to do it. I always have these open and only open vault to place items into it when needed (see below).

Having the chat open all times, makes it much easier to see people writing in it when you tank and are put into the back. I see a lot of people these days taking 5-10 levels to realize they are in back row as a tank.
I know the struggle to pay attention to you character on the top left, as there is no reason to check your and groups health as a tank. But the chat is moving a lot during climbs and having it open makes you see it pretty quickly if someone writes in it

Also some hints on hotkeys:
you can change them! I have whistle on X and engage on space bar as it makes it much easier for driving for me. It is personal preference though. But having whistle on x is much closer than T to the ability hotkeys (which cannot be changed)

Will update WL/HH/Alch. Thanks.
One other interesting one that you've made me question, Should samurai's use slapdash? This could be more efficient than knockdown. Obviously hit 81% in multi first. I would avoid recommending samurai's use crossstrike as there's enough monks using it as it is.

Will add a section on how to change hotkeys. This is also great and something i'd forgotten about and will personally steal your hotkeys as they make sense

I still find it easier to see when someone types without having the chat log open, but i'm certainly not suggesting my way is best for everyone.

if you tank on sami, use multi + revenge imho

Good work on this men

^mclarke

If you're going to talk more about leader, you should probably include the command to pass leader to another