A Blizzballer is a Sorceress that utilizes Blizzard and Fire Ball as her main skills. This is a variation of the Meteorb build with cold being the timer spell and fire the spamming spell, just a different type of cold spell being used. Generally this build should be able to deal with just about any monster encountered, and any CI/FI ones can be handled by the mercenary companion. The skill setup is as follows:
Firebolt - 1
Frozen Armor - 1
Icebolt - 1
Iceblast - 1
Static Field - 1
At level 6 some utility skills become available. Static Field is the most important, as this will be used from here onward to weaken any uniques or act bosses initially before they are finished off with other spells. Along with SF, Frozen Armor also becomes available. The Sorceress will have this spell running at all times as it is helpful when melee monsters get close enough that they are temporarily frozen after striking, giving the character time to react by either teleporting away, attacking or running in a different direction.
Telekinesis - 1
Frost Nova - 1
Fireball - 1
At level twelve one of the main offensive skills becomes available, Fireball. From here onward this skill is the main offensive weapon, especially due to it's splash damage. It is fairly mana intensive, so many mana pots will be used so the character should be stocking up their inventory with them for each venture into the wilds.
Fireball - 7
Teleport - 1
Glacial Spike - 1
At level eighteen both Teleport and Glacial Spike become available. Teleport is another utility spell that won't see much action early on. It will mainly be used to escape danger and reposition the mercenary to better tank the monster hordes. This is especially true in the Chaos Sanctuary as way to avoid death for the melee mercenaries. Glacial Spike is uses as a good way to dispose of corpses, of avoid resurrection, as well as freeze packs of monsters in their tracks.
Fireball - 13
Blizzard - 1
At level twenty-four the other main attacking skill becomes available, Blizzard. Even at one point it is a viable way to deal with packs of monsters, and those that are fire resistant. Blizzard is a quirky spell in that the areas it hits are very random and make it very possible for monsters to walk through a Blizzard wall without being touched. As such it is best to cast multiple times in slightly different spots to ensure that all areas are covered and no monsters gets by untouched. By this point Fireball is doing significant damage and monster packs don't last long, as long as the character has mana pots available.
Fireball - 19
Fire Mastery - 1
Cold Mastery - 1
At level thirty a single point is added to both fire and cold mastery, to give both main spells a boost to their damage. A single point is how they will both stay for the rest of the game, plus skill mods will have to make up any difference needed. By level thirty-one Fireball is now maxed and dealing very good damage, wiping out packs of monsters with only a few casts.
Fireball - 20
Blizzard - 20
At level forty-seven Blizzard is also maxed out and the character has two completely different ways to wipe out all of the monsters in Nightmare. Both deal enough damage to deal with any pack in short order. If the character is pressed a few SF casts and a Glacial Spike or two should slow any packs down enough to either retreat or reposition the character to better deal with them.
Firebolt - 20
Now it is time to max out the synergies for our main skills. At level sixty-three Fireball's synergy Firebolt is maxed out giving that skill an extra boost. As Meteor gives the same amount of bonus but requires a few extra skill points to reach, it is bypassed for Firebolt as skill points are at a premium with this build.
Glacial Spike - 20
At level eighty Blizzard's main synergy of Glacial Spike is maxed out. All of they synergies for Blizzard provide the same bonus, but Glacial Spike has the added bonus of being able to affect multiple monsters with it's splash damage when used. As such it can be used against monsters to freeze them in place to be dealt with by other skills. Glacial Spike by itself won't have enough power to take out many monsters in Nightmare/Hell.
From here on skill points can be used in a few different ways. Cold Mastery could receive the rest of the points to make Blizzard more dangerous. If CIs are causing issues then Fire Mastery or Meteor could receive the points to balance the character's damage out. It depends on where problems are being encountered for where to put the last few points.
Final Skill Distribution:
Blizzard - 20
Glacial Spike - 20
Fireball - 20
Firebolt - 20
Cold Mastery - 1
Fire Mastery - 1
Static Field - 1
Frozen Armor - 1
Teleport - 1
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Java: CharSi Update #24
While using the program I, and others, ran into a few equipment pieces that didn't add the bonuses they should. This was due to either typos on my part or miswording of the mod itself, such as the "+2 to Combat skills" mod was spelled "+2 to Combat" instead. These were all very minor changes to about a half dozen different text files. There might be more out there, but I haven't found them yet.
A code clean-up was also performed to remove some unused variables and code pieces as well as remove all of the "public" identifiers from the variables and methods, as it wasn't necessary. This shortened the number of code lines a bit, not extremely noticable but more a personal preference than anything else.
Next on my To-Do list was to add some additional checks to the system to ensure that when creating items in the generator or selecting a value for a variable mod the value input was valid. Up to this point a Breast Plate could technically have a defense value of 100k. That is no longer possible. Now there is a check that will only allow values that fall between the given minimum and maximum mod values. This required a couple code lines addition to the DetermineRangeValue method in all of the class files.
if(CharSi.userInput){
while(rangeWrong){
userInput = Integer.parseInt(JOptionPane.showInputDialog(helmBackPanel, "Choose a value between " + start + " and " + end, modName, JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE));
if(userInput > Integer.parseInt(end) || userInput <>
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(helmBackPanel, "Value given outside the allowed range. Retry.", "Input Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
rangeWrong = true;
}else
rangeWrong = false;
}
}
This piece is only active if the user is manually inputting values for variable mods. The rangeWrong boolean variable is initially set to True until the check is made. The user input is then compared to the given minimum and maximum values and if it passes is accepted, otherwise the error appears and the user has to try again until a valid input is given.
Lastly I wanted to ensure that runewords could not be created in the generator in illegal base items, such as a Spirit shield in a buckler that allows less than 4 sockets. This required several changes to the GenerateRunewords class file. First I had to decide how to store the information for how many sockets each piece of equipment allows. This I did with several array of arrays. Each sub-array was two values long, the first for the name of the item and the second for the maximum number of sockets. The array of arrays were grouped by item type available in the item generator, so one for armor, another for hammers and so forth. This method was called when the GUI is created.
Next I needed to be able to obtain the number of sockets the runeword required. To do this I altered the text file of each runeword item so that it displayed the number of runes used in the description in parentheses.
Runes(3):
Thul + Io + Nef
When the runeword is selected in the GUI this number is saved in a variable in integer form for later comparison.
Lastly I needed a way to compare this rune number with the number of sockets that each item could have, then eliminate from the available list those items that don't qualify. This was done with another method, ComapreSocketNumbers. Basically this method would see which JRadioButton was selected in the GUI and compare the rune number with each available item. Those that had less sockets than runes needed were removed from the DefaultListModel.
if(shieldFlag){ //if shield radiobutton marked
for(int i = 0; i <>
if(Integer.parseInt(shieldSocketArray[i][1]) <>
if(baseListModel.contains(shieldSocketArray[i][0])){
int index = baseListModel.indexOf(shieldSocketArray[i][0]);
baseListModel.remove(index);
}
}
}
}
This method is called when either the Display Base JButton is pressed or a runeword is selected from the available list. However to ensure that items removed from the baseListModel can be returned a doClick() call is made on the Display Base JButton to repopulate the listModel fully before it is checked for illegal items. Otherwise once an item is removed, it is gone until the program is closed and reopened, which isn't too convenient.
My next projected changes to the program is to take into account aura bonuses from equipment and also the +O skill mods.
A code clean-up was also performed to remove some unused variables and code pieces as well as remove all of the "public" identifiers from the variables and methods, as it wasn't necessary. This shortened the number of code lines a bit, not extremely noticable but more a personal preference than anything else.
Next on my To-Do list was to add some additional checks to the system to ensure that when creating items in the generator or selecting a value for a variable mod the value input was valid. Up to this point a Breast Plate could technically have a defense value of 100k. That is no longer possible. Now there is a check that will only allow values that fall between the given minimum and maximum mod values. This required a couple code lines addition to the DetermineRangeValue method in all of the class files.
if(CharSi.userInput){
while(rangeWrong){
userInput = Integer.parseInt(JOptionPane.showInputDialog(helmBackPanel, "Choose a value between " + start + " and " + end, modName, JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE));
if(userInput > Integer.parseInt(end) || userInput <>
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(helmBackPanel, "Value given outside the allowed range. Retry.", "Input Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
rangeWrong = true;
}else
rangeWrong = false;
}
}
This piece is only active if the user is manually inputting values for variable mods. The rangeWrong boolean variable is initially set to True until the check is made. The user input is then compared to the given minimum and maximum values and if it passes is accepted, otherwise the error appears and the user has to try again until a valid input is given.
Lastly I wanted to ensure that runewords could not be created in the generator in illegal base items, such as a Spirit shield in a buckler that allows less than 4 sockets. This required several changes to the GenerateRunewords class file. First I had to decide how to store the information for how many sockets each piece of equipment allows. This I did with several array of arrays. Each sub-array was two values long, the first for the name of the item and the second for the maximum number of sockets. The array of arrays were grouped by item type available in the item generator, so one for armor, another for hammers and so forth. This method was called when the GUI is created.
Next I needed to be able to obtain the number of sockets the runeword required. To do this I altered the text file of each runeword item so that it displayed the number of runes used in the description in parentheses.
Runes(3):
Thul + Io + Nef
When the runeword is selected in the GUI this number is saved in a variable in integer form for later comparison.
Lastly I needed a way to compare this rune number with the number of sockets that each item could have, then eliminate from the available list those items that don't qualify. This was done with another method, ComapreSocketNumbers. Basically this method would see which JRadioButton was selected in the GUI and compare the rune number with each available item. Those that had less sockets than runes needed were removed from the DefaultListModel.
if(shieldFlag){ //if shield radiobutton marked
for(int i = 0; i <>
if(Integer.parseInt(shieldSocketArray[i][1]) <>
if(baseListModel.contains(shieldSocketArray[i][0])){
int index = baseListModel.indexOf(shieldSocketArray[i][0]);
baseListModel.remove(index);
}
}
}
}
This method is called when either the Display Base JButton is pressed or a runeword is selected from the available list. However to ensure that items removed from the baseListModel can be returned a doClick() call is made on the Display Base JButton to repopulate the listModel fully before it is checked for illegal items. Otherwise once an item is removed, it is gone until the program is closed and reopened, which isn't too convenient.
My next projected changes to the program is to take into account aura bonuses from equipment and also the +O skill mods.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Java: Hotline Update #11
This time around the Hotline program did not lose any current options. Instead only two options were added, which made things extremely simple to update. In the OptionPanel class the new JButton variables were created and added to the very end of the GUI. Then the file output was updated to add the number of calls taken for these new categories to the very end of the file, so as not to displace any current call values.
This took care of the OptionPanel, the ReportPanel required just as few changes. Basically a new qualifier had to be created that covered the time from the last update (April 2009) to the new one (June 2009). Then the default qualifier, everything from June 2009 onward, covered the two new call categories. Those were the only changes required to include the new call categories. Now the page actually is full, before there were empty spots for JButtons in the display as I didn't have the correct number of options for full rows. Now I do so the GUI looks more complete.
This took care of the OptionPanel, the ReportPanel required just as few changes. Basically a new qualifier had to be created that covered the time from the last update (April 2009) to the new one (June 2009). Then the default qualifier, everything from June 2009 onward, covered the two new call categories. Those were the only changes required to include the new call categories. Now the page actually is full, before there were empty spots for JButtons in the display as I didn't have the correct number of options for full rows. Now I do so the GUI looks more complete.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Diablo II: Frost Zealot Skill Layout
A Frost Zealot is a Paladin that utilizes the Holy Freeze aura to deal cold damage to his enemies. A side effect of this aura is that it slows down 90% of the monsters movement rate as well. This type of character has a few different avenues for skill placement available, for my purposes I am dealing with only the pure cold damage variation that has minimal backup skills. As a result the mercenary is relied upon to help out against any Cold Immune monsters encountered. The skill setup is as follows:
Might - 1
Sacrifice - 1
Smite - 1
Holy Fire - 1
Holy Bolt - 1
At level six the character has a single point Holy Fire aura active that adds additional fire damage to all attacks. Might is also available and depending on the equipment found Might may be more damaging than Holy Fire. Either one will allow the character to deal decent damage to the monsters encountered and progress should be fairly smooth.
Zeal - 1
Charge - 1
At level twelve one of the character's main skills becomes available, Zeal. With Zeal the character is now attacking multiple targets at a time and dealing out damage faster than before. It does require mana, so if any mana steal equipment can be found this would be very helpful. However Zeal requires so little mana that such equipment isn't absolutely necessary and the character could simply drink a mana potion from time to time instead.
Holy Freeze - 1
Zeal - 4
Resist Cold - 1
At level eighteen the main damaging skill is now available, Holy Freeze. This will add increasing amounts of cold damage to all attacks as well as slow down any monster's movement within a certain radius. Along with this Zeal has been increased to the point where the maximum number of attacks per cycle is achieved at five. This allows the character to attack many targets at once, or a single target multiple times faster than using the normal attack. Thus increasing his killing ability and speeding up progress through the acts.
Holy Freeze - 20
The first thing that is done is the main skill, Holy Freeze, is maxed out. This is achieved at level thirty-four. At this time the character is dealing significant damage to enemies and they are all slowed by by at least 54%. This significantly increases the character's survivability as monsters don't hit him as often while he is hitting back rather hard.
Blessed Hammer - 1
Holy Shield - 5
Resist Cold - 20
The next thing to do is to max the main synergy for Holy Freeze, Resist Cold, and this is accomplished by level fifty-two. Maxing this synergy boosts the damage done by the character even more and allows his progress through the acts to remain steady as the hit points of the monsters encountered increases accordingly. Up to this point blocking has not been an issue, but moving forward through the end of Normal and into Nightmare it becomes a necessity. As such Holy Shield is given enough points so that a single cast lasts a respectable amount of time and it won't fade in the middle of a heated battle.
Holy Shield - 10
Salvation - 20
By level seventy-six Holy Shield is given enough points so that the duration is significant, as is the bonus to blocking percentage. It isn't require to max this skill as the character still won't be able to boost defense into the ten thousand range and this build is rather tight when it comes to skill points. But level 10, along with any plus skills from equipment, is sufficient to protect the character. As this build is going for pure cold damage, Salvation is the next Holy Freeze synergy to be maxed. While it doesn't provide as much of a bonus as Resist Cold, it's contribution is significant enough that maxing it is desired.
At this point all of the main skills have the hard points they need to make the build viable before entering Hell difficulty. Everything from here onward is simply gravy. To that end I suggest putting points into Zeal. The character is relying purely on cold damage to deal with monsters, and there are plenty of CIs in Hell. Against them the character is depending on the mercenary to handle those types of monsters, however some help against them would be welcome. To that end Zeal is given all additional skill points to increase the character's physical damage, as well as increase the attack rating of the character to ensure a decent hit percentage. The damage done by the character physically won't be massive, but every bit will help when encountering CIs. Simply understand that fights against those types of monsters will take a little longer than against non-CIs.
Might - 1
Sacrifice - 1
Smite - 1
Holy Fire - 1
Holy Bolt - 1
At level six the character has a single point Holy Fire aura active that adds additional fire damage to all attacks. Might is also available and depending on the equipment found Might may be more damaging than Holy Fire. Either one will allow the character to deal decent damage to the monsters encountered and progress should be fairly smooth.
Zeal - 1
Charge - 1
At level twelve one of the character's main skills becomes available, Zeal. With Zeal the character is now attacking multiple targets at a time and dealing out damage faster than before. It does require mana, so if any mana steal equipment can be found this would be very helpful. However Zeal requires so little mana that such equipment isn't absolutely necessary and the character could simply drink a mana potion from time to time instead.
Holy Freeze - 1
Zeal - 4
Resist Cold - 1
At level eighteen the main damaging skill is now available, Holy Freeze. This will add increasing amounts of cold damage to all attacks as well as slow down any monster's movement within a certain radius. Along with this Zeal has been increased to the point where the maximum number of attacks per cycle is achieved at five. This allows the character to attack many targets at once, or a single target multiple times faster than using the normal attack. Thus increasing his killing ability and speeding up progress through the acts.
Holy Freeze - 20
The first thing that is done is the main skill, Holy Freeze, is maxed out. This is achieved at level thirty-four. At this time the character is dealing significant damage to enemies and they are all slowed by by at least 54%. This significantly increases the character's survivability as monsters don't hit him as often while he is hitting back rather hard.
Blessed Hammer - 1
Holy Shield - 5
Resist Cold - 20
The next thing to do is to max the main synergy for Holy Freeze, Resist Cold, and this is accomplished by level fifty-two. Maxing this synergy boosts the damage done by the character even more and allows his progress through the acts to remain steady as the hit points of the monsters encountered increases accordingly. Up to this point blocking has not been an issue, but moving forward through the end of Normal and into Nightmare it becomes a necessity. As such Holy Shield is given enough points so that a single cast lasts a respectable amount of time and it won't fade in the middle of a heated battle.
Holy Shield - 10
Salvation - 20
By level seventy-six Holy Shield is given enough points so that the duration is significant, as is the bonus to blocking percentage. It isn't require to max this skill as the character still won't be able to boost defense into the ten thousand range and this build is rather tight when it comes to skill points. But level 10, along with any plus skills from equipment, is sufficient to protect the character. As this build is going for pure cold damage, Salvation is the next Holy Freeze synergy to be maxed. While it doesn't provide as much of a bonus as Resist Cold, it's contribution is significant enough that maxing it is desired.
At this point all of the main skills have the hard points they need to make the build viable before entering Hell difficulty. Everything from here onward is simply gravy. To that end I suggest putting points into Zeal. The character is relying purely on cold damage to deal with monsters, and there are plenty of CIs in Hell. Against them the character is depending on the mercenary to handle those types of monsters, however some help against them would be welcome. To that end Zeal is given all additional skill points to increase the character's physical damage, as well as increase the attack rating of the character to ensure a decent hit percentage. The damage done by the character physically won't be massive, but every bit will help when encountering CIs. Simply understand that fights against those types of monsters will take a little longer than against non-CIs.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Online Game: Castle Age
Recently I've gotten involved in a Facebook application named Castle Age. It's a realtime text-based game centered around the medieval age. In this game the player is king and hires soldiers and buys land as well as equipment for the soldiers. The main point of the game is to complete a series of quests to reap the rewards given as well as engage other players in combat. Players can choose which aspect they wish to concentrate on however, as neither combat nor questing is absolutely required.
A player has a certain amount of health and energy available to them, and these regenerate over time. The energy is used to complete quests, a certain amount is necessary to attempt a quest and a quest needs to be completed a certain amount of times before the player may move on to the next quest. This is called gaining influence in that quest, and the player needs to reach 100% before they can move onto the next quest.
Health on the other hand is used only when battling another player. This can be done in one of two ways, either invading or dueling. Invading involves bringing your entire army to combat the other player, winner takes all. Conversely dueling is a one on one fight between your general and the other players active general. After each fight both sides lose a random amount of health and if either reaches zero that player is "eliminated". Being eliminated doesn't affect the player more than making them lose six experience points. A player can be eliminated multiple times with no derogatory affects onto their account.
Personally I'm not so interested in battling strangers for the off chance I can steal some of their gold. Instead I only concentrate on completing the quests and building my defenses to repulse invading armies from my kingdom. As a result this means I level my character slower than others as I'm not gaining experience from fights and only from quests. As this game isn't really a race, this is fine by me.
To this end I've invested some of my stat points into Energy to ensure I can perform multiple quests at a time. I wanted to make sure that I could leave the game for extended periods of time and not have to worry that I lost energy, so I plan on having 120 Energy total that means I can be gone for ten hours with no ill effects. All of the rest of my stat points go into Defense, in the attempt to win more battles than I lose when defending. I am willing to retaliate against those that attack me, but if I can't when I notice the attack, if the other player is too low in health, then I ignore them and continue on my merry way with questing.
Overall the game is pretty entertaining, and not too much of a time sink. In the beginning one is forced to login often to use up the small store of Energy that accumulates, but as stat points are put into Energy logging in becomes a less frequent occurrence. It is a fairly quick game however, as after a month of playing I have completed four of the five currently available quest areas. The last one should take two months to complete but with no reward at the end isn't something I have to worry about much. So as long as I don't concern myself too much with my battle stats or win/loss ratio it is a decent distraction from time to time but not something I have to feel is taking over my life, as I am rather limited in terms of what I can do in the game.
A player has a certain amount of health and energy available to them, and these regenerate over time. The energy is used to complete quests, a certain amount is necessary to attempt a quest and a quest needs to be completed a certain amount of times before the player may move on to the next quest. This is called gaining influence in that quest, and the player needs to reach 100% before they can move onto the next quest.
Health on the other hand is used only when battling another player. This can be done in one of two ways, either invading or dueling. Invading involves bringing your entire army to combat the other player, winner takes all. Conversely dueling is a one on one fight between your general and the other players active general. After each fight both sides lose a random amount of health and if either reaches zero that player is "eliminated". Being eliminated doesn't affect the player more than making them lose six experience points. A player can be eliminated multiple times with no derogatory affects onto their account.
Personally I'm not so interested in battling strangers for the off chance I can steal some of their gold. Instead I only concentrate on completing the quests and building my defenses to repulse invading armies from my kingdom. As a result this means I level my character slower than others as I'm not gaining experience from fights and only from quests. As this game isn't really a race, this is fine by me.
To this end I've invested some of my stat points into Energy to ensure I can perform multiple quests at a time. I wanted to make sure that I could leave the game for extended periods of time and not have to worry that I lost energy, so I plan on having 120 Energy total that means I can be gone for ten hours with no ill effects. All of the rest of my stat points go into Defense, in the attempt to win more battles than I lose when defending. I am willing to retaliate against those that attack me, but if I can't when I notice the attack, if the other player is too low in health, then I ignore them and continue on my merry way with questing.
Overall the game is pretty entertaining, and not too much of a time sink. In the beginning one is forced to login often to use up the small store of Energy that accumulates, but as stat points are put into Energy logging in becomes a less frequent occurrence. It is a fairly quick game however, as after a month of playing I have completed four of the five currently available quest areas. The last one should take two months to complete but with no reward at the end isn't something I have to worry about much. So as long as I don't concern myself too much with my battle stats or win/loss ratio it is a decent distraction from time to time but not something I have to feel is taking over my life, as I am rather limited in terms of what I can do in the game.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Diablo II: Matriarch Esmay
Esmay will be a Fishyzon, which is an Amazon that utilizes the Freezing Arrow and Lightning Fury skills to damage her enemies. She will not have a valkyrie available to tank monsters, so will have to rely on her mercenary and a low level decoy to keep herself safe.
None of Esmay's main skills are available for much later in the game so she started off life poking everything to death with her javelins. Luckily for her a set of rare javelins fell early, but still she had great trouble getting through the beginning of Normal. Even when she received a mercenary for support both were not using any special skills and instead only a normal attack to damage the monsters. As a result progress was extremely slow, and remained that way all the way until the middle of Act III.
Finally around the end of the Flayer Jungle Esmay started to use her skills. Up to this point her
mercenary was doing several times the damage per hit as she was and she was tired of being a second-class character. She had finally gotten Charged Strike up to a respectable level so that it would deal a great deal of damage. This was key as it is mana intensive and the reward had to equal the payment necessary. It turns out this was the case, even though Esmay had to start running around with half her inventory taken up by mana potions. She picked up every single one that dropped and still had to return to town often to replenish her stock.
However as a result Esmay began to simply roll over all monsters packs encountered. Between one to three pokes with a javelin and a monster was dead, and sometimes the ones behind as well if some of the bolts missed the initial target. She did have an issue with getting stun locked, since she didn't have any faster run/walk she had to try and keep her mercenary between her and the monsters so that she would not be interrupted. As long as that was done Esmay and co ripped through to the end of Normal.
At this point she was able to equip a few pieces of equipment that are intended for endgame use, such as Titan's Revenge, Moser's Blessed Circle and M'avina's belt and gloves. With these added Esmay's blocking increased dramatically and as such she was in much less danger of getting stunlocked. Act I was pretty much a continuation of the end of Normal in that nothing could stand in her way. She did run into one or two situations where the monsters were lightning resistant, such as Misshappen, and there she had to switch to utilizing Freezing Arrow. This worked because by this point that skill was pretty much maxed and the monsters dropped like flies.
As Esmay progressed through Nightmare she progressively began to use Freezing Arrow more and more, until it was her main skill near the end of Act II, which is when it was finally maxed. This came in handy when dealing with packs of skeletons, since the corpses shattered upon death they couldn't be resurrected. Esmay did have issues however with dealing with packs now that she didn't have a reliable tank in the valkyrie. The mercenary simply couldn't cut it by himself against the worst of packs and as a result Esmay have some issues. Most notable was in the Viper Temple where the first level had a stair trap of about two dozen snakes. Esmay tried to escape them by running farther into the temple to gain some breathing room, but every turn simply loosed more monsters upon her until she was cornered and eliminated.
That was more overconfidence than anything else, she should have taken things slower and would have survived her first attempt into the temple. Regardless she was successful the second time around. Freezing Arrow is much more mana intensive than Charged Strike however, so Esmay is running out of mana potions frequently, requiring more trips back to town. However once I got the hand of it she progressed nicely through to Act V, where she ran into more problems.
Her issues in the Barbarian homeland didn't start until the Crystalline Passage. There she kept encountering back spawns of snakes, frenzytaurs or some combination thereof. Her mercenary simply wasn't capable of tanking two champion frenzytaurs at a time and as a result Esmay found herself running dangerously low on gold for resurrections. She had to start picking up all the items that gave good money returns to keep things going, but it was quite close for a little while. Eventually she did finally make her way to Baal and dispatched him with relative ease.
Hell, it turns out, didn't start off so bad. Esmay started off at P1 assuming all the immunities would make it too difficult otherwise. That turned out to be a mistake, so she ramped things up to P3 from the Cold Plains onward. Now she could no longer stay with a single skill for the majority of the time. Esmay found herself switching from Charged Strike, to Freezing Arrow, back to Charged Strike and then a few Lightning Furies to finish things off on a constant basis. She is questing with FA as the primary skill, but that's as much for the cool aura that Mavinas set gives than anything else. Besides, she'd be a lightning Amazon otherwise and that's not her point. She's a Frost Maiden first, with a CS backup skill and I intend to play her that way as much as possible. Besides, the frozen monsters makes the mercenary job of tanking so much easier.
Things went smoothly for the most part, although single cold immune monsters take a while to eliminate with CS if they aren't very large (think vampires). Still Esmay wasn't noticing the fact she was questing without a valkyrie, something none of my Amazons have done up to this point. Esmay was having a grand old time until she was ambushed out in the desert of Act II. Apparently there was a vulture extra strong, might enhanced boss hiding behind a palm tree where it couldn't be seen. Esmay, thinking she had nothing to fear stood nearby and plucked away at the minions. Suddenly Esmay's life was practically zero and then it was gone, two hit knockout. After that Esmay was a bit more careful to stand out in the middle of nowhere so monsters didn't have anywhere to hide.
Everything through Act III was done at P3, but it was dropped down to P1 from Act IV onwards as it was time to end Esmay's quest. She ripped through Act IV like it wasn't even there. Hordes of maggots dropped in a single FA and LFs took out any CI stragglers. Diablo didn't even require a single health potion, although the mercenary didn't need about a dozen resurrections due to IM just to get to Big D. Nothing of interest was dropped of course, why would Hell be any different than the rest of the areas up to this point.
Act V was a bit tougher than the previous act, but not enough to give Esmay any real problems. She did find herself using the decoy to keep ranged monster packs busy while she dealt with someone else, something she rarely had to do up to this point. While that became common practice, for the most part everything else stayed the same, with one exception. From the Crystaline Passage onward Esmay no longer quested with her bow as the main weapon, instead her javelins were the main weapon as cold immune monsters outnumber non-CIs in all areas except the WSK. So while there was less freezing of monster packs to keep the mercenary alive, this was replaced by LF strikes that wiped out the packs faster than they could hurt the mercenary, so it evened out in the end.
No champion packs of Frenzytaurs were encountered so Esmay had no trouble all the way through Baal and his minions. The WSK threw at her the obligatory monster spawns of Unravellers, Dolls, Oblivion knights and Souls but in Esmay successfully engaged them all. The minions when down with a whimper and Baal, while he did remain cloned the entire fight, was defeated without too much hassle.
A few parting thoughts about the Fishyzon. She's a very overpowered build. Even untwinkled she'd be able to handle all of Hell at P3. The equipment that Esmay wore wasn't the most optimal for her skills, as she was more a themed build for the Mavinas set than anything else. She could have been even more deadly with a few choice gear changes and could perhaps had dealt with Hell at P5. With this being my first Amazon without a valkyrie sidekick I found the experience odd but didn't notice her absence too much. The fact that FA worked even better for tanking monster packs had a lot to do with it, as did the chance to decrepify that the mercenary's Reapers Toll provided. Overall a very safe and powerful build, exactly as advertised.
Stats:
Level 84
Strength - 92(122)
Dexterity - 130(199)
Vitality - 273(273)
Energy - 15(15)
Life - 1035(1035)
Mana - 139(294)
Lightning Resistance - 75
Fire Resistance - 75
Cold Resistance - 75
Poison Resistance - 75
Skills:
Freezing Arrow - 20(26)
Cold Arrow - 20(26)
Decoy - 1(7)
Pierce - 1(7)
Lightning Fury - 20(25)
Charged Strike - 20(25)
Lightning Bolt - 4(9)
Equipment:
Weapon: Mavinas Caster (shael)
Switch Weapon: Titan's Revenge
Switch Shield: Mosers Blessed Circle (2 Pdiamonds)
Armor: Mavinas Embrace (cold facet)
Belt: Mavinas Tenet
Helm: Mavinas True Sight
Boots: light plated boots - LR 28%, PR 27%, 23% MF, 20% FRW
Gloves: Mavinas Icy Clutch
Amulet: All resist 30%
Ring 1: Raven Frost
Ring 2: FR 18%, CR 17%, 4 Dex, 24 AR
Mercenary ( Desert Warrior)
Helm: Tal Rashas Horadric Crest
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: Reaper's Toll
Hellforge:
NM: Sol
Hell: Ko
None of Esmay's main skills are available for much later in the game so she started off life poking everything to death with her javelins. Luckily for her a set of rare javelins fell early, but still she had great trouble getting through the beginning of Normal. Even when she received a mercenary for support both were not using any special skills and instead only a normal attack to damage the monsters. As a result progress was extremely slow, and remained that way all the way until the middle of Act III.
Finally around the end of the Flayer Jungle Esmay started to use her skills. Up to this point her
mercenary was doing several times the damage per hit as she was and she was tired of being a second-class character. She had finally gotten Charged Strike up to a respectable level so that it would deal a great deal of damage. This was key as it is mana intensive and the reward had to equal the payment necessary. It turns out this was the case, even though Esmay had to start running around with half her inventory taken up by mana potions. She picked up every single one that dropped and still had to return to town often to replenish her stock.However as a result Esmay began to simply roll over all monsters packs encountered. Between one to three pokes with a javelin and a monster was dead, and sometimes the ones behind as well if some of the bolts missed the initial target. She did have an issue with getting stun locked, since she didn't have any faster run/walk she had to try and keep her mercenary between her and the monsters so that she would not be interrupted. As long as that was done Esmay and co ripped through to the end of Normal.
At this point she was able to equip a few pieces of equipment that are intended for endgame use, such as Titan's Revenge, Moser's Blessed Circle and M'avina's belt and gloves. With these added Esmay's blocking increased dramatically and as such she was in much less danger of getting stunlocked. Act I was pretty much a continuation of the end of Normal in that nothing could stand in her way. She did run into one or two situations where the monsters were lightning resistant, such as Misshappen, and there she had to switch to utilizing Freezing Arrow. This worked because by this point that skill was pretty much maxed and the monsters dropped like flies.
As Esmay progressed through Nightmare she progressively began to use Freezing Arrow more and more, until it was her main skill near the end of Act II, which is when it was finally maxed. This came in handy when dealing with packs of skeletons, since the corpses shattered upon death they couldn't be resurrected. Esmay did have issues however with dealing with packs now that she didn't have a reliable tank in the valkyrie. The mercenary simply couldn't cut it by himself against the worst of packs and as a result Esmay have some issues. Most notable was in the Viper Temple where the first level had a stair trap of about two dozen snakes. Esmay tried to escape them by running farther into the temple to gain some breathing room, but every turn simply loosed more monsters upon her until she was cornered and eliminated.
That was more overconfidence than anything else, she should have taken things slower and would have survived her first attempt into the temple. Regardless she was successful the second time around. Freezing Arrow is much more mana intensive than Charged Strike however, so Esmay is running out of mana potions frequently, requiring more trips back to town. However once I got the hand of it she progressed nicely through to Act V, where she ran into more problems.
Her issues in the Barbarian homeland didn't start until the Crystalline Passage. There she kept encountering back spawns of snakes, frenzytaurs or some combination thereof. Her mercenary simply wasn't capable of tanking two champion frenzytaurs at a time and as a result Esmay found herself running dangerously low on gold for resurrections. She had to start picking up all the items that gave good money returns to keep things going, but it was quite close for a little while. Eventually she did finally make her way to Baal and dispatched him with relative ease.
Hell, it turns out, didn't start off so bad. Esmay started off at P1 assuming all the immunities would make it too difficult otherwise. That turned out to be a mistake, so she ramped things up to P3 from the Cold Plains onward. Now she could no longer stay with a single skill for the majority of the time. Esmay found herself switching from Charged Strike, to Freezing Arrow, back to Charged Strike and then a few Lightning Furies to finish things off on a constant basis. She is questing with FA as the primary skill, but that's as much for the cool aura that Mavinas set gives than anything else. Besides, she'd be a lightning Amazon otherwise and that's not her point. She's a Frost Maiden first, with a CS backup skill and I intend to play her that way as much as possible. Besides, the frozen monsters makes the mercenary job of tanking so much easier.
Things went smoothly for the most part, although single cold immune monsters take a while to eliminate with CS if they aren't very large (think vampires). Still Esmay wasn't noticing the fact she was questing without a valkyrie, something none of my Amazons have done up to this point. Esmay was having a grand old time until she was ambushed out in the desert of Act II. Apparently there was a vulture extra strong, might enhanced boss hiding behind a palm tree where it couldn't be seen. Esmay, thinking she had nothing to fear stood nearby and plucked away at the minions. Suddenly Esmay's life was practically zero and then it was gone, two hit knockout. After that Esmay was a bit more careful to stand out in the middle of nowhere so monsters didn't have anywhere to hide.Everything through Act III was done at P3, but it was dropped down to P1 from Act IV onwards as it was time to end Esmay's quest. She ripped through Act IV like it wasn't even there. Hordes of maggots dropped in a single FA and LFs took out any CI stragglers. Diablo didn't even require a single health potion, although the mercenary didn't need about a dozen resurrections due to IM just to get to Big D. Nothing of interest was dropped of course, why would Hell be any different than the rest of the areas up to this point.
Act V was a bit tougher than the previous act, but not enough to give Esmay any real problems. She did find herself using the decoy to keep ranged monster packs busy while she dealt with someone else, something she rarely had to do up to this point. While that became common practice, for the most part everything else stayed the same, with one exception. From the Crystaline Passage onward Esmay no longer quested with her bow as the main weapon, instead her javelins were the main weapon as cold immune monsters outnumber non-CIs in all areas except the WSK. So while there was less freezing of monster packs to keep the mercenary alive, this was replaced by LF strikes that wiped out the packs faster than they could hurt the mercenary, so it evened out in the end.
No champion packs of Frenzytaurs were encountered so Esmay had no trouble all the way through Baal and his minions. The WSK threw at her the obligatory monster spawns of Unravellers, Dolls, Oblivion knights and Souls but in Esmay successfully engaged them all. The minions when down with a whimper and Baal, while he did remain cloned the entire fight, was defeated without too much hassle.
A few parting thoughts about the Fishyzon. She's a very overpowered build. Even untwinkled she'd be able to handle all of Hell at P3. The equipment that Esmay wore wasn't the most optimal for her skills, as she was more a themed build for the Mavinas set than anything else. She could have been even more deadly with a few choice gear changes and could perhaps had dealt with Hell at P5. With this being my first Amazon without a valkyrie sidekick I found the experience odd but didn't notice her absence too much. The fact that FA worked even better for tanking monster packs had a lot to do with it, as did the chance to decrepify that the mercenary's Reapers Toll provided. Overall a very safe and powerful build, exactly as advertised.
Stats:
Level 84
Strength - 92(122)
Dexterity - 130(199)
Vitality - 273(273)
Energy - 15(15)
Life - 1035(1035)
Mana - 139(294)
Lightning Resistance - 75
Fire Resistance - 75
Cold Resistance - 75
Poison Resistance - 75
Skills:
Freezing Arrow - 20(26)
Cold Arrow - 20(26)
Decoy - 1(7)
Pierce - 1(7)
Lightning Fury - 20(25)
Charged Strike - 20(25)
Lightning Bolt - 4(9)
Equipment:
Weapon: Mavinas Caster (shael)
Switch Weapon: Titan's Revenge
Switch Shield: Mosers Blessed Circle (2 Pdiamonds)
Armor: Mavinas Embrace (cold facet)
Belt: Mavinas Tenet
Helm: Mavinas True Sight
Boots: light plated boots - LR 28%, PR 27%, 23% MF, 20% FRW
Gloves: Mavinas Icy Clutch
Amulet: All resist 30%
Ring 1: Raven Frost
Ring 2: FR 18%, CR 17%, 4 Dex, 24 AR
Mercenary ( Desert Warrior)
Helm: Tal Rashas Horadric Crest
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: Reaper's Toll
Hellforge:
NM: Sol
Hell: Ko
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Diablo II: Fishyzon Skill Layout
A Fishyzon is an Amazon character that utilizes Freezing Arrow and Lightning Fury/Charged Strike attacks to deal damage to her enemies. Along with this a backup skill of a single point Jab or even relying on the mercenary provide this character the ability to deal with any monsters encountered. Unlike many other Amazon builds, the valkyrie minion is not utilized, which does make this build a little bit more fragile than most, but not enough to cause any real concern. The skill setup is as follows:
Jab - 1
Inner Sight - 1
Power Strike - 1
Cold Arrow - 1
Poison Javelin - 1
At level six several interesting skills are available to the character. None of them however will be a final skill so for the time being none of them will receive more than a single point. As such the character will be utilizing normal attacks for the beginning of the game with a single Poison Javelin or Cold Arrow thrown in for tough bosses or large packs that can't be dealt with one at a time.
Critical Strike - 1
Lightning Bolt - 1
Slow Missile - 1
At level twelve only prerequisites are being filled so battles are still fought in the same manner. Mostly normal attacks with the odd Poison Javelin thrown in against packs or Cold Arrow against bosses.
Ice Arrow - 1
Charged Strike - 1
Plague Javelin - 1
Penetrate - 1
At level eighteen one of the main skills does finally become available, Charged Strike. However at such a low level the mana requirements for the damage dealt are not very character friendly and as such the skill is used only in dire emergencies. Otherwise tactics remain the same.
Decoy - 1
Charge Strike - 7
At level twenty-four a very good monster distraction becomes available in Decoy. With only a single point it won't last very long but the few seconds of peace should be enough at this point in questing to allow the character to regroup her wits. Charged Strike has become a bit more viable, still mana hunger enough that it isn't in use all of the time, but working it's way towards that goal.
Lightning Fury - 1
Freezing Arrow - 1
Charged Strike - 13
Pierce - 1
At level thirty all skills are now available, including two of the main ones in FA/LF. Also, Charged Strike has become powerful enough that it may be used on a constant basis. Half of the inventory will need to be filled with mana potions before venturing out, in order to ensure a decent amount of territory can be crossed before a trip back to town is required.
Charged Strike - 20
Freezing Arrow - 6
At level thirty-seven Charged Strike is now maxed and dealing significant damage. While CS is the main attack Freezing Arrow has been added to the skillset and comes into play whenever a pack approaches. One or two quick FA shots freezes the group for a short period of time, but normally enough for the character to eliminate a few with CS. Then the process is repeated until the pack is gone.
Freezing Arrow - 20
At level fifty Freezing Arrow is maxed. Finally the character has a choice as to which skill will be the main one, FA or CS. Either will work quite well and purely depends on the characters personal preference. Either way scouting ahead with the random Decoy from time to time is advisable, especially in areas such as the Durance and WSK were very nasty monsters can pop out of nowhere.
Cold Arrow - 10
Lightning Fury - 10
At level sixty-five the synergy for Freezing arrow is increased, as is one of the mains skills in Lightning Fury. As the character is still in Nightmare difficulty having LF maxed is not an absolute priority, Charged Strike and Freezing Arrow do quite fine at this point.
Cold Arrow - 20
Lightning Fury - 20
By level eighty-one all of the skills are complete and the character should be able to deal with any monster pack encountered. Liberal use of Decoy in Hell difficulty is suggested to avoid any nasty traps, although granted stair traps will still be unavoidable. But without a valkyrie to soak up the damage the character needs to be a tad cautious when moving through areas. From here on the extra skill points can be placed in a few different areas. Decoy could be increased to give a more powerful, and instantly summonable, tank. Or one of the CS/LF synergies could be increased to provide more power to those attacks. Or Pierce can be increased to add to the current percentage. Which route is taken purely depends on the character's play style and what situations have caused the character difficulties up to this point.
Final Skill Distribution:
Cold Arrow - 20
Freezing Arrow - 20
Lightning Fury - 20
Charged Strike - 20
Decoy - 1
Pierce - 1
Jab - 1
Inner Sight - 1
Power Strike - 1
Cold Arrow - 1
Poison Javelin - 1
At level six several interesting skills are available to the character. None of them however will be a final skill so for the time being none of them will receive more than a single point. As such the character will be utilizing normal attacks for the beginning of the game with a single Poison Javelin or Cold Arrow thrown in for tough bosses or large packs that can't be dealt with one at a time.
Critical Strike - 1
Lightning Bolt - 1
Slow Missile - 1
At level twelve only prerequisites are being filled so battles are still fought in the same manner. Mostly normal attacks with the odd Poison Javelin thrown in against packs or Cold Arrow against bosses.
Ice Arrow - 1
Charged Strike - 1
Plague Javelin - 1
Penetrate - 1
At level eighteen one of the main skills does finally become available, Charged Strike. However at such a low level the mana requirements for the damage dealt are not very character friendly and as such the skill is used only in dire emergencies. Otherwise tactics remain the same.
Decoy - 1
Charge Strike - 7
At level twenty-four a very good monster distraction becomes available in Decoy. With only a single point it won't last very long but the few seconds of peace should be enough at this point in questing to allow the character to regroup her wits. Charged Strike has become a bit more viable, still mana hunger enough that it isn't in use all of the time, but working it's way towards that goal.
Lightning Fury - 1
Freezing Arrow - 1
Charged Strike - 13
Pierce - 1
At level thirty all skills are now available, including two of the main ones in FA/LF. Also, Charged Strike has become powerful enough that it may be used on a constant basis. Half of the inventory will need to be filled with mana potions before venturing out, in order to ensure a decent amount of territory can be crossed before a trip back to town is required.
Charged Strike - 20
Freezing Arrow - 6
At level thirty-seven Charged Strike is now maxed and dealing significant damage. While CS is the main attack Freezing Arrow has been added to the skillset and comes into play whenever a pack approaches. One or two quick FA shots freezes the group for a short period of time, but normally enough for the character to eliminate a few with CS. Then the process is repeated until the pack is gone.
Freezing Arrow - 20
At level fifty Freezing Arrow is maxed. Finally the character has a choice as to which skill will be the main one, FA or CS. Either will work quite well and purely depends on the characters personal preference. Either way scouting ahead with the random Decoy from time to time is advisable, especially in areas such as the Durance and WSK were very nasty monsters can pop out of nowhere.
Cold Arrow - 10
Lightning Fury - 10
At level sixty-five the synergy for Freezing arrow is increased, as is one of the mains skills in Lightning Fury. As the character is still in Nightmare difficulty having LF maxed is not an absolute priority, Charged Strike and Freezing Arrow do quite fine at this point.
Cold Arrow - 20
Lightning Fury - 20
By level eighty-one all of the skills are complete and the character should be able to deal with any monster pack encountered. Liberal use of Decoy in Hell difficulty is suggested to avoid any nasty traps, although granted stair traps will still be unavoidable. But without a valkyrie to soak up the damage the character needs to be a tad cautious when moving through areas. From here on the extra skill points can be placed in a few different areas. Decoy could be increased to give a more powerful, and instantly summonable, tank. Or one of the CS/LF synergies could be increased to provide more power to those attacks. Or Pierce can be increased to add to the current percentage. Which route is taken purely depends on the character's play style and what situations have caused the character difficulties up to this point.
Final Skill Distribution:
Cold Arrow - 20
Freezing Arrow - 20
Lightning Fury - 20
Charged Strike - 20
Decoy - 1
Pierce - 1
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