As the title says, I’m in nightmare difficulty (Completed and farming for hell difficulty) and my resistances are at max, yet my Sorc is still getting smashed by even Andariel.
I have Smoke runeword armour (Ghost armour), I have Ancients Pledge shield, Spirit sword, Tal rasha’s amulet, Magefist gloves, Lore helm, Random rings with +res to fire and lightning. Nats boots. All these should make Nightmare a breeze yet it doesn’t.
My stats are 80 str, Dex 45, Vit 303 and energy is at 50. My health is 1013, mana is at 308.
The council members hydras hit me once and I lose over 200 health, wtf?
I look on youtube guides and streams like MrLlama and yet they have crap gear and they speedrun through it all with crap low end gear and they seem to take a lot less damage from nightmare and hell, surely they’re cheating somehow, it makes no sense. I mean MrLlama did a Sorc speedrun, with rubbish gear when he did hell difficulty, his res was not even at halfway and yet he smashed it, how the hell? Don’t get me wrong, he is informative and quite helpful but this is screwed up.
Thats sorc… Stay away from enemies. Far away all the time.
Lost my Last HC sorc because of teleporting to near to an group of enemies.
You cant react fast enough. Instant death
Not at all. I do however, encourage you to watch his videos of his walkthroughs, all of his characters take hardly any dmg, that is very suspicious imo. Also, if you read the people following his streams (live) comments, they are even confused and have questioned it.
Like I said, MrLlama is very good, probably the best diablo 2 player out there but no way can he wear absolutely terrible gear in hell difficulty, lower lvl than even he suggests as well and not take as much dmg.
I do understand that the sorc is weak in terms of dmg taken but when it comes from magic and NOT physical dmg, which is what I kind of put in my topic (Hydra dmg from council members), that’s what confuses me as it’s telling me that max res is useless.
maybe there is a big difference between your max life and the max life of the chars in the vids?
if max res brings down an attack to 150 dmg its a big difference if you substract that dmg from 500 life or from 2k life
if thats not the reason do you have any src of fire absorb? trav runs are usually done with dwarf stars for the gold find, and I would expect Mr lama to use at least 1 of those as well, which makes a huge difference on hydras
e: one more edit, I’m at act 4 NM with my barb rn. 1k life resists somewhere around 40-60 each. Totally stomping everything in NM yet, without losing much life, maybe except on extreme unique combos like extra strong + cursed or might aura or stuff like that.
So I’m cheating as well it seems…
Texos - I know that mate, my comment did say Hydra dmg (fire) not physical, thats where teleport comes in handy. 1 hit took too much health on nightmare with max fire res, it should have scratched me at 50 health max not 200+.
Horateb - MrLlama had no fire absorb gear, he had stealth armour, lore helm and a ancients pledge shield with a wand (yellow/rare) with fcr. His res were under half all res. His characters had 800 health tops, he never had over 1000 health like I currently have.
You’re not cheating, your combos are visable, his aren’t, don’t forget his guides are all speedruns he rushed though all the acts and difficulties without doing a farm for gear except for runes, hence why it makes no sense. Barbs are more tankier than a Sorc as well so the comparison is weak.
Please all understand I’m not trying to cause an argument or be an ass, I’m just trying to find out what am I doing wrong to lose so much health from nightmare difficulty with max res at lvl 70, I have done playthroughs before with my paladin and never had this much trouble is all I’m saying.
I do appreciate any advice or tips that would help but not snide remarks please.
Barbs might be tankier, because they can skill resists and have more life per vit. but since you already said, you have 1k life and max resists, your sorc might be tankier than my barb on that department at least. I have LL and some damage reduction. both wont help much vs. hydras. Still I didnt experience much problems yet. Worst thing probably is beginning of act 5, where lots of skeleton archers are around which one can’t leech on.
So its hard to say, where you could improve, without knowing the playstyle, but usually NM isnt very hard for most classes and even with mediocre gear its probably a walk in the park, depending on your build. on llama, didnt see this special guide, watched a few hell trav runs by him this morning, and he was more often close to the brink of death than not. Maybe he is really doing something different on his walkthroughs then, idk. Maybe is really good at dogding missiles or use shieldblock in the right situations etc.
At least I wouldnt expect him to cheat here, never seen anything done by him, where this would actually be something I’d take into consideration tbh.
Well best mitigation is to avoid damage with good movement. You can basicly dodge everything by moving/teleporting correctly. ( Movement speed and faster cast speed is really important )
Later on you can build CTA and run around with 2k hp and 1k mana with alot of manareggen and manashield making you tanky enougth to not care about damage at all.
I wouldn’t recommend you spec into manashield to early. It can kill you very easily if you drop down to 0 mana and are unable to use teleport.
Also for HC it’s viable to go for max block cap early on. You can respec out of it later on.
As everyone else has already said. You should try to maximise your HP pool by putting alot of points into it and equipping items with +vitality or flat HP.
Good luck. Lost my first sorc on hc by blinking into might aura ghuls. Didn’t have much time to react there.
Also using health and mana potions correctly is key. If you are not topped and you constantly use potions it might seem like you don’t take much damage. While in reality you constantly heal the damage you take.
Horateb & Xentis - Thank you both for your comments, I’ll try out some different gear and give it a whirl as well as practice more movement tactics. I’ll take on board what you both have said, thanks once again.
Anarasha - No need to be an ass mate. If you read my comment I said I like his vids, he helps out with how to level each class, very good guides but in terms of his speedruns, the fact that his characters have crap (low end/level) gear on and he is face tanking mobs higher level than his character without struggling too much, is very suspicious as even the people typing in his comment section during his live stream even point out. I don’t doubt that he is skilled but face tanking with very weak gear on at lower levels than what hell needs you to be at should not bring skill into it as the mobs dmg should easily overpower that character is all I’m saying. It’s just an opinion of mine.
You can say I suck but I bet you’ve struggled when playing through hell for the first time haven’t you but you won’t admit that. I’m only asking for some advice on things that I’m struggling with and am telling you that I’ve watched all these guides and they all do hell a piece of piss without struggling with crap gear on that isn’t hell viable and yet they seem to breeze through it.
I’m not a sore loser, I’m just confused to how all these streamers do these speedruns with weak gear when I have much better items from what I have seen. I do admire these streamers but at the same time I’m scratching my head thinking how the …
You repeatedly accusing a content creator of cheating just because he’s better than you is definitely being an ass So perhaps some introspection would be in order.
Right, firstly I have researched some of his playthroughs and in 2 of the 5 vids I watched Mr Llama said ‘Rules of the playthrough is collect and use what I find ONLY’. In the 2 out of the 5 vids he went into his Pluggy extended stash tabs and used some runes and a pair of gloves, meaning he cheated in his own game to an extent regardless how you see it.
Secondly, I am not an ass but will admit that calling him an outright cheater without any examples was dumb of me but at least I can admit that. What would be some clear introspection would be for you to do the same.
Thirdly, as I said to the previous people, I’m not here to argue or be an ass with anyone, I’m just here for some tips for my Sorc. If my topic isn’t for you then look at someone elses topic please. I’m asking for advice not an argument.
Presumably he found those on other characters. You are beyond a sore loser at this point.
That’s not for you to decide. That will be decided by your peers. And I maintain that you are.
Then stop doing it and you won’t have a problem.
If you don’t want an argument you should stop calling people cheaters and picking fights. It’s that simple
As for your sorceress, make sure you have shield skills active, you use a well geared merc with high attack speed and Treachery(or whatever you can find, but Treachery is my favourite) and keep your distance. Sorceress is a squishy class - elemtal absorb helps but in the end you are gonna die a lot.
You came in picking a fight, I didn’t put a knife in your back to do that.
Secondly read my comment about him using items from other characters when HE made the rule not to use it as he said it wouldn’t be a fair playthrough and would class it as a cheat to do so and then he did and in act 5 of one of his games a voice over came from a commenter about this and Mr Llama admitted it and agreed before apologizing. This is like saying there is a cheat code for 1 mil gold and using it as it would marry up with him if he was taking 1 mil from a ‘modded’ stash tab (pluggy). A mod is technically a cheat so he was cheating to a extent no matter which way you look at it.
Like I said, his guides are great and he is definitely one of the most (if not the most) skilled D2 players out there but cheating is cheating, no need to stick up for someone regardless of how skilled they are. This doesn’t make me a sore loser it makes me a realistic player.
Lastly, thank you for the advice and I have got energy shield active now and it’s making a world of difference. That was all I was after.
I may not seem like I don’t appreciate it but I do. All I want is to improve my Sorc and learn from my mistakes whilst admitting them as I acknowledge that I’m a noob at this game as it has changed alot since the original D2 LOD game (before all of the 1.14D patches), it’s gotten much harder and that’s a good thing. It’s just not knowing where and why the mechanics are like they are. For example, in original D2 LOD pre patches I could solo a 2 handed barb all the way to hell with minimal struggle, now 2 handed barbs are pretty much obsolete.
I won’t argue any more if you won’t. I’ll wait until patch 2.4 comes and hopefully I’ll try out the nova build or even the hydra build. Have a nice day and have fun playing.
Are you not using Energy Shield? That is one thing that may make someone else look like they are immortal (until they run out of mana).
Eitherway agree with most replies that you need to kite (avoid) shit with teleport and positional play. That’s how the sorc (and any spellcaster) works.
I have 1 respec left, so I think I’ll play it smart and wait until I research what build I want to go for for endgame content. I do know that I can gather mats to create a respec token but I wanna play it safe. Thank you for the advice.
You’re welcome - and personally I suggest Blizzard, it’s the one I found to be the best farming build without having insane gear. Just make sure to hit the FCR threshold for Teleport and you’ll be fine
So perhaps some introspection would be in order.