Hey yall, I picked up D2R recently after two decades passed since my last log in into classic. I’m currently enjoying the game playing amazon using lightning jav build I found online. I quite like it and everything was peachy even in nightmare which pleased me greatly however I’m having a difficult time now in hell.
Because everything being lightning invulnerable I was barely able to kill the blood raven (all zombies and skellies immune), I pretty much just ran through most of areas from teleport to teleport only killing what I need for quests but now I’m truly stuck on Andariel. Lightning invulnerable afflicted swarm me all the time, my merc and valkyrie can more or less deal with regular immune mobs for me but but when an unique one + adds comes they just reap right through them and take me to poundtown.
What would be the better option to do now for possible getting some better runes and gear, go back to nightmare or stay in hell? My luck never fails me so I have zero recommended gear even easier ones like razortail, titan’s or aldur’s and I’m nowhere near completing smthing like infinity for merc or CtA and CoH for myself. I have runes for spirit shield but I don’t haven’t found a monarch shiled for it yet.
Same here for sorc. People say it is way harder to find the shield itself then runes 
yes. especially if you want a high roll monarch.
To OP, make another build that can go farther. A summon necromancer or dual elemental sorc are good picks.
Lightning jav is an expensive build that needs some endgame pieces to shine.
edit:typo
Also having a bow on swap with some freeze arrows skilled may help to deal with those lightning immunes in the meantime as long as you do not run into dual immunes too much.
Might not be optimal, but might enable him to continue and progress on his amazon and keep away a bit from those bosses so they will focus Valkyrie and not overwhelm him.
If you play single player, just reroll your map. Afflicted group is not always in level 4 catacombs. You could try 7-10 rerolls to get desired result.
Guys, farm Hell Cows(not nightmare as I initially said) .
Nightmare cows is the easiest way to drop a 4 soc Crystal Sword spirit base(not Monarch…mea culpa) Because of the ilevel limit of Nightmare cows, a cs base dropped base is guaranteed to get 4soc from Larzuk. This is how I got my spirit base with my blizzsorc. After 20-30runs i dropped a white CS.
Was it for 8 players or for 1?
Don’t focus on the ideal build yet. Focus on survivability. Don’t follow the guide to the letter…you need to improvise to maximize survivability and than start focusing on optimizing. Use Lore as a helm until you get Shako or Griffon…use Stealth for chest until you find something better like a duriel, skullders,shaft, CoH)…Until you get spirit make a Rhyme. Get some 30%ias random javs to get to at least 50%ias until you get a 40% blue, or gold one or thunder or titan…gloves(ias),belt boots with res. Focus on light and fire. Some random rings and ammies and you should survive hell.
By the way…if you haven’t yet do a respec, I would do one and fully commit to a light java build,with a point in Jab, Pierce and Slow Missiles and maxing Lightning Fury, Charged Strike, Lightning Strike, Power Strike, Lightning Bolt,
I have a javazon lightning and can kill andy. I use moser’s shield socketed with 2 pdiamonds. It’ll really really help if you can boost your merc to withstand more attacks so you can focus on hitting with charged strike, preferably with a weapon that has other elemental dmg. I have titans but switch over to demon’s arch balrog spear, base dmg is close to titans but includes over 300 fire dmg. Also, if you’re desperate just stack as many crappy charms as you can that boost any other elemental dmg.
The council in act3 is still a PITA for me, as are those blasted lightning spamming souls.
Kind thanks for so many suggestions on “unstucking” myself friends, I’ll be sure to put them to good use 
If I may have one more side question out of curiosity, what do yall think about credibility of drop calculators or drop listing sites like for example “rankedboost”? Last time I played the only way to get info about particular item dropping, was talking to one of 3 other ppl in town that also played the game since I had no internet then. So initially I was thrilled for a chance to see where/what to grind to get item “x” but having spent quite few hours grinding according to rates however with poor results … I’m beginning to tilt to opinion they’re all talk and no action.
I can give you a free monarch if you want but you need to socket it with larzuk.
They’re good to find out which items can drop where and what the odds are.
Remember though; a 1/1000 chance are just odds, doesn’t mean you’ll find that particular thing guaranteed every 1000 kills.
Go that way and you’ll start claiming drops are bugged in no time 
edit: syntax
Indeed…this is the most common fallacy that makes people think loot is bugged. Unfortunately(?) D2 is not a game that rewards the time you invest in the game. Look at it as a slot machine. It really is 90% about luck and 10% about clear speed.(subjective statement). Some are lucky even with shitty gear and low mf…others…I won’t say names…cannot drop a berserker axe after months of playing. Just a dry spell and bad luck.
Yes, i think thats was most people get wrong. Even with 4000 Kills there is still ~2% chance that the drop didn’t happen.
Yeah and when you look at that stat in a different way, it basically also means that of every 100 players most likely 2 of them will be more or less guaranteed not to have that drop in 4000 runs when the pool of players is big enough to mostly take out randomization over total population of players.
Solid tips in this thread already. Just wanted to say best of luck to you Tarrok. It definitely sounds like you’ve got the right attitude already and no doubt that will serve you well as you continue to improve and overcome your current challenges. Keep it up!
is this an auto generated message?
According to the internet and several reddit threads, Monarchs cannot drop until after the first few acts in Hell. No idea if this is true, just reporting what I am reading (everywhere). I assume one dropped for you in NM since you are so sure about this advice? EDIT: Oh yeah you actually said it did.
Monarchs only drop in hell,not NM. Earliest 4s shields are paladin shields.
Surely you don’t mean Zaman lied about getting it from NM Cows, and spread misinformation to all the poor noobs that were spending ages farming NM cows for one? That would be shameful. Say it isn’t so. 