Back from a break, some questions

Hello all.

I havn't touched this game in about 5-6 years I think.

I have a new roomate at the house, and saw that he plays D2 multiplayer with friends over IP. I was compelled to dig out my game and I still have my 'save' folder with my characters.

After playing WoW and maximizing my chars for so long, I can now see that my amazon was a disgusting 50/50 pike/bow hybrid. I have reallocated her stats via the witch in act I.

She is an 83 now.

I have focused my talents toward Penetration, Frozen arrow (for phy immunes and named mobs), Strafe (for 2-3 mobs, bosses, named) Multishot (for 4+ mobs) and Valkyrie based on all the material here. I have +3 to all skills, and an additional +2 to bow skills. So I put a few points into evasive talents as well. Putting 5 in all three gives me a total of 8 after bonuses. Its a little diverse but the intent is solo play as well as multiplayer w/ friends.

I'm really pleased with valk - my last memory of her in 1.0x was that at 20 skill points, she'd still get 1 or 2 shotted in nightmare difficulty. Now shes tanking piles of mobs including uniques in the fortress of hell difficulty. What an improvement. I dont know if they rehauled her or buffed her, but the difference is night and day. I can actually play again lol

(If Im doing something horribly wrong so far, tell me. LOL)

OK so I have Lycanders Aim with a socket I added with the quest in nightmare difficulty. But i never put anything in it because unlike WoW, sockets are permanent. I dont know what to put into it

Ohm would give me a 50% weapon damage bonus. I assume this is base damage, not total damage. But I think this would be -the- most DPS gain I could achieve. Its not a "chance" at extra damage but a fixed rate I will always recieve.

(Other rune would offer deadly strike chance... but I dont think that works out to more DPS than Ohm rune)

1-75 lightning damage jewel would help for the cold immune, phy immune mobs. Those types of mobs take me 10 minutes and 12 mana pots to kill. When I chose FA I didnt think I'd run into TOO many Cold/Phy mobs, but the first FOUR I met were. How ironic. (With this jewel, the 2-3% to lightning skills would go to waste though)

The other unique jewel, offer 3-4% frost skills which would buff my cold arrow

Any thoughts / guidance?

Also, is there a way I can track my characters DPS in game / in combat?

Lastly, Im not sure where to grind xp. I remember that I quit playing because Myself/Valk couldn't handle hell difficulty. Now that my Valk doesn't die in two hits, I can go much further in hell. I was in pandemonium fortress, but I keep dying whenever I see 4-5 lightning dudes, then die a few more times retrieving my body so I think maybe I should farm MF for a while and the durance of hate =S Everything in act 4 seems to take a long time to kill.|||Quote:




But i never put anything in it because unlike WoW, sockets are permanent.




You can now with a hordric cube. All the different transmutes you can do are

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/cube.shtml

there.

As for the socket choice of your lycanders, you shouldn't put a ohm in it because you can trade the ohm rune for a much better bow. One high rune should get you a windforce or if you can get a jah as well you could make the runeword faith. If you like using it you should at least upgraded it to a grand matron bow with the cube formula in the link I posted. There's an IAS chart in the stickies by Kyja which you can use to see if you need IAS in your bow(shael) for a faster frame if not knockback(nef) or the best %ed jewel you can find.


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Also, is there a way I can track my characters DPS in game / in combat?




There's your character screen although sometimes inaccurate it will tell you your damage and with a IAS chart you can find how fast you're doing that damage. Then factor in block, AR, resistance and whatever else, you could come up with a dps number. Alternatively you can just watch your screen and see how fast you're killing ****.


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Lastly, Im not sure where to grind xp.




Hell Baal runs. And I think the biggest problem is the weapon you're using.