Diablo II: Strafazon Skill Layout

A Strafazon is an Amazon that uses the skill Strafe as her primary damage dealing skill. There is a lot of discussion about the merits of Strafe vs Multishot, I personally prefer Strafe due to the fact that every arrow carries any mods the character has and it auto-targets monsters. Which is very nice for hitting enemies that are off the screen without putting the character into any danger. The skill setup is as follows:

Critical Strike - 1
Magic Arrow - 1
Inner Sight - 1
Multiple Shot - 1
Dodge - 1
Cold Arrow - 1

At level six some very useful skills become available. Critical Strike will allow the character to deal extra damage for free and Cold Arrow slows down any enemies it strikes. This is especially useful in helping the mercenary survive any dangerous mobs. Cold Arrow is also ideal for use against mob bosses until something better becomes available at later levels.

Avoid - 1
Slow Missile - 1

At level twelve Slow Missile becomes available. This is a useful utility skill that makes ranged monster packs far less dangerous, again allow the mercenary to survive in situations he/she normally wouldn't.

Penetrate - 1
Guided Arrow - 1
Ice Arrow - 1

At level eighteen Ice Arrow and Guided Arrow become available. Both are useful against mob bosses and replace Cold Arrow in that regards. Ice Arrow also will completely freeze any non-cold immune monsters (not champions/bosses) which is extremely useful to keep mobs in check.

Evade - 1
Decoy - 1
Strafe - 1

Finally Strafe becomes available at level twenty-four. However a one point Strafe is a bit too mana intensive to use without some sort of mana leech. For now it remains a backup skill with the normal attack and Ice Arrow being the skills of choice for the time being. Decoy also becomes available and will be used constantly for the rest of the game. It is very useful as a scout to place on the opposite side of doors in the dungeons to see what awaits instead of the character walking through themselves.

Strafe - 7
Valkyrie - 1
Pierce - 1
Freezing Arrow = 1

At level thirty all the main skills become viable. Valkyrie is now available to help the mercenary tank and as a result the mercenary will survive fights with ease that before he/she was dying consistently. Freezing Arrow replaces Ice Arrow as the crowd control skill of choice, as it too will freeze most monsters in place and the splash damage makes Freezing Arrow more effective. Strafe is doing respectable damage now at level seven but still should only be used if mana leech is available or if the situation is dire.

Strafe - 20
Valkyrie - 11

At level forty-three Strafe is maxed and should be the main killing skill. The valkyrie has been increased as well and will be able to tank anything in the game at this point, including Act bosses without any issues.

Valkyrie - 20

At level fifty-one the valkyrie is maxed and tanking like a champ. Many people believe the Valkyrie should be increased only to level 17, including +skill mods. Personally I prefer my valkyrie to have as much life as possible, which is why I will max the skill out and then increase it further with +skill mods.

Penetrate - 20

At level sixty-seven the Penetrate skill is maxed. This will increase the Attack Rating (AR) of the character. While not really necessary in Nightmare, this will be very useful in Hell to ensure a high chance-to-hit percentage.

Pierce - X

Piece is then increased to a level that gives an excellent chance (~100% is best) of the attack piercing the target monster and hitting whatever is behind. The exact level of Pierce is subjective to how many +skill points the character has as well as what weapon is used. If the character is using the Buriza-Do Kyanon then no points are needed here as that weapon has a 100% chance to pierce automatically. If the character is wearing the Razortail belt, 33% chance to pierce, then that must be taken into account as well.

Once Pierce is completed the character may have extra points left over, which can be used anywhere desired. More points could be placed into Decoy to make it a more viable shield and also increase the life of the valkyrie. Points could be placed into Critical Strike to increase the chance of dealing double damage, and with so many arrows being shot per second those chances are pretty good. Or the extra points could be placed into Freezing Arrow to make a more viable backup skill, or into Guided Arrow for a more viable boss killing skill.

Final skill Distribution:

Strafe - 20
Penetrate - 20
Valkyrie - 20
Freezing Arrow - 1
Pierce - X

Diablo II: MFO #2

The Magic Find Olympics (MFO) is a contest run twice a year on the Single Player Diablo II forum. The basic premise is that each contestant picks something to run: Baal, Mephisto, Level 85 areas or Super Uniques. Then everyone has nine days to run those areas as much as possible, the person with the best items found wins their respective section and can then take a few items from the losers.

Last time I joined the Mephisto category and ran him until I was bored silly, and still lost badly. So this time I decided to run someone else since I had just about everything that Mephisto could drop. I choose Pindleskin since he can drop a ton of items I don't have. My one and only magic finder, Malice, was given the task of running Pindle until I couldn't run any longer. She was leveled up a bit more since last MFO, now at level 92 so surviving shouldn't be much of an issue.

Sign-up Thread
Progress Thread
Results Thread

I ended up 4th of out seven participants, so I was basically average of our group. Malice made around 2300 Pindle runs over the nine day period, averaging a run every twenty-nine seconds. Unfortunately my magic finding luck has been fairly poor as of late, and that carried over to the MFO. I averaged one qualifier every 79 runs, which is about four times higher than my past two Pindlethon averages. Needless to say my finds weren't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, but at least no one above me wanted them so I could keep what I found.

Qualifiers:
IK Stone Cruser - 3
Laying of Hands - 2
Credendum - 1
M'avina's Embrace - 1
Wizardspike - 1
Shadow Killer - 1
Windhammer - 1
Hellslayer - 1
Lightsabre - 1
Viperfork - 1
Demon Limb - 2
Jade Talon - 1
Baranar's Star - 1
Rune Master - 1
Tal Rasha's Guardianship - 2
BK Sacred Charge - 1
Cranebeak - 1
Widowmaker - 1
Fleshripper - 1
M'avina's Caster - 1
Steel Shade - 1
Spirit Ward - 1
Alma Negra - 1

The Tal Rasha armors were the highlight of my stash. This ensured I only need to find the amulet to have the entire set. For non-qualifiers I did find a Paladin combat skiller and a Vex rune. However due to a mistake on my part my stashes for the past eight months were lost a few days ago so those items, along with quite a bit else were lost. Not to fret though, I still have all my items from the last Pindlethon and Mephathon so I don't need to do any magic finding to replace lost items.

I think for the next MFO I'm going to run something else, Pindle is a boring target. I'm thinking the Level 85 areas may be my next attempt. There I can add variety to the runs as well as use different characters if I want. That way socketables and so forth will increase my stash and after I lose I'll still be quite a bit richer than before.

Diablo II: Matriarch Clotho

Clotho is the second of three planned bowazon characters. The first was Atropos, and following in the theme Clotho is named for the second of the three Fates in Greek mythology. Clotho will be a pure physical bowazon that is determined to utilize the Lycander's Aim unique bow as her main weapon. I've already matted two bowazons that used the Buriza as their weapon, so it was time for a change. My personal rules for this character is limited twinkling until Hell, basically only her weapon can be upgraded. This lead to bows like the Rogue's Bow and Skystrike being utilized, when normally they simply sit in my stash collecting dust.

Clotho started as a melee character, mainly because that is what her starting gear allowed and also because she wasn't too worried about facing the monsters in Act I toe-to-toe. Against normal mobs this worked well, but against bosses such as Blood Raven she utilized a one point Cold Arrow to deal with them from afar. This worked very well up until Act II, where Clotho was able to hire a desert warrior mercenary to tank for her and she changed her main weapon to the Rogue Bow. While her mercenary was doing the vast majority of the damage, Clotho was able to support him with timely Cold Arrows and a rapid hail of normal bolts that ever so slowly picked away at the monster's health. The Cold/Ice Arrows came in quite handy in the Tombs of Act II and eliminating all of the skeletons before the Unravellers could resurret them.

Unfortunately Clotho wasn't able to obtain level thirty before facing Mephisto, so her desert companion didn't survive the encounter as he was without Valkyrie support. However a game of hide-and-seek around the columns on the level allowed Clotho to pick away at Mephisto's health while dodging his cold and lightning attacks. Diablo on the other hand was faced with a valkyrie, but that still didn't help the mercenary survive. However the valkyrie tanked quite well and a volley of Freezing Arrows dropped Diablo after a short struggle. The same could be said for Baal, as nothing of note occured on the way to him.

Onward to Nightmare difficulty. Reaching it around level 45 but waited until Clotho finished off Baal to equip the Lycander's Aim, more a point of pride than anything else. I aim to make Lycander's the final weapon for Clotho. Due to the twinkled weapon most of Nightmare was fairly uneventful. This was also greatly supported by a nice mercenary weapon drop early in the difficulty.

Bone Prod
Pike
Two-Hand Damage: 25 to 113
Durability: 51 of 75
Required Dexterity: 45
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 13
Spear Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x78cbffd7
+79% Enhanced Damage
+58 to Attack Rating
+1 to Maximum Damage
Adds 1-3 fire damage
5% Chance to cast Level 1 Amplify Damage on striking

Not the fastest weapon but the chance to cast Amplify Damage was spectacular and greatly enhanced Clotho's destructive abilities. Judicious use of decoy and valkyrie kept Clotho's companion alive enough to keep him viable, as his Might aura just makes things that much more devestating. The rest of the difficulty was fairly simple and completed without much hardship. Nothing of real note fell, but that was ok since all of Clotho's twinkling gear is set and equipped for her travels through Hell.

Hell didn't start out too difficult and Clotho and company made steady progress all the way until Act III with no incident. Up to this point Clotho has been playing HC apparently, as she hasn't had many close calls and zero deaths.

All of that changed in the Spider Forest unfortunately. A hawk boss (cold enhanced, extra fast) streaked past the Valkyrie and nailed Clotho with a devestating strike that reduced her life to about 1/8 its total value. The timing was terrible for the attack, as Clotho was just in the process of firing off a round of strafe shots, several of which hit the boss. It exploded right at Clotho's feet and the cold nova wiped out the rest of Clotho's life before she even knew what hit her. Not bad really considering I've only placed 20 points into Vitality total with the rest going to Dexterity and Strength. So she has close to her base vitality currently, and with a low cold resistance that was simply the wrong boss at the wrong time.

This ended up being her one and only death. After that Clotho got annoyed, and ripped through the rest of Hell until Act V, even Big D couldn't stand up to the one-point-wonder that is Freezing Arrow (my bosskiller).

The wide open spaces of the barbarian homeland slowed Clotho down a bit, as she wasn't able to bottle up the monster packs so well and ended up having her damage spread 360 degrees around her instead. Regardless progress was steady, even against the Ancients. They only had to be rerolled four times to find a group that wasn't cursed, all other mods were not deemed worthy of a reroll. Splitting them up was a bit of a challenge, especially since Clotho has zero Increased Run/Walk. But after much running in circles and spamming of Decoy she was able to draw them off one at a time to be deal with.

After that the WSK was fairly simple, OKs and Souls made their traditional appearances but with Decoy used to scout ahead, they were picked off from a distance with only a bosspack of Souls giving Clotho a rare NDE. By far my favorite level as 2, where Flayers made an appearance. Just like Act III, it was far too much fun to strafe the hordes of small, low life monsters into oblivion. Quite satisfying after all those characters that had to chase them down one at a time.

Baal proved to be a sturdy fellow, but none too interesting. He didn't fall quickly, as it took three trips back to town to restock on potions, but he didn't defend himself very smartly either. The clone made a single appearance and no appendages could be seen, nor did he teleport very often at all. As a result Clotho's companion was actually able to survive this fight, a rare occurance indeed.

Side Note: The mercenary's weapon was vital to this build. With Decrepify casting on a farily regular basis this allowed Clotho to mow down monster packs without too much difficulty.

Stats:
Level 83
Strength - 73(98)
Dexterity - 377(453)
Vitality - 40(60)
Energy - 15(45)

Life - 334(502)
Mana - 138(223)

Lightning Resistance - 42
Fire Resistance - 51
Cold Resistance - 43
Poison Resistance - 6

Skills:
Strafe - 20(27)
Valkyrie - 20(25)
Penetrate - 20(25)
Pierce - 5(10)
Freezing Arrow - 1(8)

Equipment:
Weapon: Lycander's Aim (Shael)
Armor: Lionheart breastplace
Boots: LR 22%, CR 40%, PR 33%, 14% MF
Belt: Razortail
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Helm: All Resist 13%, +38 life, 7-27 cold dmg,
+2 Amazon skills, +15% IAS
Ring 1: Ravenfrost
Ring 2: Mandal Heal
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath

Mercenary(Might Desert Warrior)
Helm: Tal Rasha's Crest
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll

Hellforge
NM: Shael
Hell: Io

Java: Hotline Update #6

For the upcoming month (August) one of the call options needs to be switched out. This is something I haven't had to do before. I've added options but never removed one. Specifically the Lucene call option is being removed and an options titled Only Online is being put in its place.

The work in the OptionPanel class was simple. All I needed to do was to rename the variable that is used to title the Lucene JButton to "Online Only". It was the ReportPanel class where more work was required.

A new If-Else clause needed to be added to the ButtonListener. Specifically the previous last clause that was handled by the simple "else" command needed to clarified for which date range it would cover, which in this case was November 2007 to July 2008.

Once this change was in place the same code block was added onto the end without the If portion of the statement so that all dates after July 2008 would be covered. Then the slot in the issue array for the Lucene option was replaced with one for the Online Only option, for the last clause in the If-Else statement only. This way all months prior to the change in August 2008 could still have reports run looking for the Lucene option while everything afterwards would only look for the Online Only option.

Java: IP Analyzer Update #1

Up to this point the IP Analyzer has been used only by myself as I find it easier than an Excel spreadsheet. However that has just changed. The Sales team is now in possession of the application, and some changes have become necessary. It turns out several of them have used the Add button instead of the Compare button and now IPs that do not belong on the restricted list are in fact there. The temporary solution is easy, I can erase the misplaced information as it is only a text file. However a more permanent solution is needed.

And this is where the JPasswordField compoent comes into play. I decided to password protect the Add button so that I was the only one with access to this feature. At first I would have to wrap the entire Add method into an statement checking the password, that is until I realized I was making this so much harder than they had to be.

There were two things that needed to be done, obtain the password input from the user and then decide whether or not to display the Add dialogue window. The first portion took some doing to organize the dialogue window correctly.

JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(textPanel, passPanel, "Enter Password", JOptionPane.DEFAULT_OPTION, JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE);


Choosing a dialogue method was a bit difficult, and took several attempts before the above one was decided upon. The passPanel is a small JPanel that contains a JLabel and the input JPasswordField.

Once the password was input an IF statement was created that would decide what to do next.

if (password.compareTo(String.valueOf(input)) > 0 || password.compareTo(String.valueOf(input)) <>

If the password was correct (value = 0) then this statement is bypassed and the rest of the Add method is acted upon. However if the password is incorrect then the If statement does two things: displays a message stating the password is incorrect and Returns out of the Add method completely.

The change was fairly simple but should ensure that none of the Sales team adds anymore values into the restricted IP list without approval.

Diablo II: Avenger Skill Layout

An Avenger is a Paladin that uses the Vengeance skill to deal large amounts of elemental damage to his foes. The skill setup is as follows:

Might - 1
Sacrifice - 1
Smite - 1
Holy Fire - 1
Thorns - 1

At level six the character is utilizing the Holy Fire aura for added damage to all attacks. Starting gear is still in use and will be for some time, but monsters are not causing any dangerous situations.

Holy Bolt - 1
Zeal - 1
Charge - 1

At level twelve Zeal becomes available and gives added damage to all attacks, as well as the ability to hit multiple targets. However it does utilize mana and since mana leech is virtual impossible to find this early in the game the normal attack is still used often as well.

Vengeance - 1
Blessed Hammer - 1
Holy Freeze - 1
Resist Lightning - 7

At level 18 Vengeance, our main attacking skill, becomes available. However it is too mana intensive to use, and without the Conviction aura not as viable as the alternative. Therefore Holy Freeze is utilized to deal extra damage as well as slow down all monsters within melee range to give the character added defensive support.

Resist Lightning - 10
Holy Shield - 1
Resist Fire - 2
Sanctuary - 1

At level twenty-four Holy Shield becomes available. While it does help on the defensive end, it is far too mana intensive to utilize, especially with such a short duration period. Besides which with Holy Freeze active, blocking is not so important in Normal difficulty. We are pumping the synergies of Vengeance in preparation for Conviction becoming available. As a result progress will be slow due to using a single point Holy Freeze aura to deal all of our damage.

Holy Shield - 5
Resist Fire - 3
Conviction - 1

At level thirty we are ready to move to Vengeance as our main attacking skill, now that Conviction is available. The synergies will be pumped to increase its damage but also to keep mana usage as low as possible for as long as possible, since mana leech items are still rare. Holy Shield has been increased enough to make using it viable, if deemed necessary.

Conviction - 20
Resist Fire - 6

We immediately maximize Conviction as soon as possible. Here one must know what end equipment they will be using and how many +skills it gives. Since Conviction is maxed out at level 25 we do not want to add more skill points to it than absolutely necessary.

Resist Fire - 10
Resist Cold - 10
Holy Shield - 7

At level sixty-four all of the synergies are raises as far as necessary if you are planning on wearing as an armor Guardian Angel. Any more hard points will only increase the damage of Vengeance but not give any additional points to the maximum resistance of elemental damage. Since it is more skill point effective to raise Vengeance at this point that is what we plan on doing next. However if Guardian Angel is not going to be worn then here is where a decision must be made. Either go with Vengeance or stay on a more mana saving path and continue to pump the synergies. I choose to max Vengeance.

Vengeance - 20

At level seventy-nine all needed skills are maxed and damage output is as high as possible. From here the extra skill points can be used as deemed necessary. Vigor and Redemption can be gained as utility skills, Holy Shield could be increased for the additional defense and blocking or the Vengeance synergies can be raised for additional damage. All routes are useful, so the final determination is based on what the character will accomplish once he has solved the game.

Final Skill distribution:

Conviction - 20
Vengeance - 20
Resist Lightning - 10
Resist Cold - 10
Resist Fire - 10
Holy Shield - 7

Diablo II: Patriarch Methos

Methos is an Avenger, a Paladin that utilizes the Conviction aura and Vengeance as an attack to slay his enemies. Due to his attacking style, mostly elemental, no monsters will be immune to him. This will be a nice change from Atropos where lots of monsters became immune in Hell.

Methos started out fairly slow in Normal. I decided that the only piece of equipment I will twinkle until Hell is reached is his weapon. I wanted to keep things interesting but ensure that his killing speed wouldn't suffer terribly. Of course his main attack won't become viable until level 30 when Conviction is available, so until then he has to rely on a normal attack, or two swing Zeal. As such I was able to see some weapons I normally wouldn't have, such as the Brainhew, Ginther's Rift and the Rixot's Keen. For most of Normal though Methos weilded the Brainhew, which is a two handed weapon. As such he was unable to stand toe-to-toe with any monster packs. Instead he allowed his Desert mercenary to do that, while Methos picked away from the edge at the swarming enemies.

Onward to Nightmare, which was very much the same as the end of Normal. Methos stayed on the outskirts of the monster packs while his mercenary tanked the mob. Due to being untwinkled, save the weapon, going is a bit slow and frequent trips to town are required to keep the potions stocked and the mercenary alive. My first death came fairly early in Act II, wasn't paying attention and misclicked to attack a monster. As a result Methos ran headlong into a boss pack and died very quickly. He's powerful, but fragile. Especially since Holy Shield hasn't gained many points and it's in use due to having a low blocking shield.

This theme held for all of NM until Act V, where Methos and his mercenary simply couldn't cut it anymore. Going was very tough and the merc died extremely often. As a result twinkling was allowed in Act V, as much as possible. This started right at the Ancients when I realized I couldn't beat them with my current setup. The merc died too quickly and Methos couldn't tank any of them. So all the endgear items that could were transfered to the character and he breezed through the rest of the Act. Some leveling was required on Baal's minions to reach level 77, what was needed to wear all the planned endgame gear.

Apparently I twinkled too much. After finishing off the end of Act V NM without much difficulty the same held true for the first four acts of Hell. Fully twinkled and set to hit the FHR breakpoint of 86%, Methos simply ran though everything. More often than not I didn't even realize I had killed a boss pack or two until I was looking at the dropped loot. Didn't matter what mods the boss had, nothing stopped Methos and his mercenary companion...especially when decrepify was triggered. Methos didn't even have any NDEs, besides one or two IM scares but even then he wasn't in jeopardy of dying, simply lowish on life (1/5 left). The main difference however is that Methos can tank anything with little fear of being overwhelmed instantly. With 75% block, a high FHR percentage and 90+ resistance to all elemental attacks he really is an excellent tank, which was the whole point of making him in the first place. As a result I am currently pleased with his durability.

The WSK proved to be quite the interesting place, and also the site of the only death in Hell for Methos. It was in the last level against both an Unraveller boss pack and an Oblivion Knight boss pack, with their associated Doom Knights. As per the norm, Iron Maiden was the source of the death due to my not reacting in time to stop attacking. I could have been running around with Glimmersheds and avoided the whole situation, but with a Demon Limb on switch (which was barely used) I simply didn't feel like stashing the item in the off chance I'd encounter OKs.

After that fight, and then the Fanaticism enhanced Lister pack the fight with Baal was anti-climatic. No clone, only a single teleport and zero returns to town to restock. Still, Methos was quite fun and now he's prepared to Baal run in multiplayer games.

Stats:
Level 82
Strength - 85(174)
Dexterity - 65(107)
Vitality - 320(345)
Energy - 15(20)

Life - 1162(1321)
Mana - 136(144)

Lightning Resistance - 95
Fire Resistance - 95
Cold Resistance - 91
Poison Resistance - 90

Skills:
Conviction - 20(25)
Resist Cold - 10(15)
Resist Fire - 10(15)
Resist Lightning - 10(15)
Vengeance - 20(27)
Holy Shield - 7(14)

Equipment:
Weapon: Baranar's Star (Shael)
Weapon(switch): Demon Limb
Armor: Guardian Angel (15% IAS jewel)
Shield: Herald of Zakarum (15% IAS jewel)
Boots: IK Pillar
Belt: IK Detail
Gloves: IK Forge
Helm: Kira's Guardian
Ring 1: Mandal Heal
Ring 2: Mandal Heal
Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope

Mercenary (Holy Freeze Desert Warrior)
Helm: Tal Rasha's Crest
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll

Hellforge
NM - Lum
Hell - Ko