How powerful are Summoners?

"John Salerno" <johnjsal DeleteThis @NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
news:4796b97d$0$6357$607ed4bc@cv.net...

> Hmm, I'm not sure I have the desire to play through the game three times
> with the same character. Even with more powerful skills, it's still
> basically the same skill set. There doesn't seem like enough variety to
> make it all that fun.

For many builds, the skill set gets rather different, actually. For example,
a wind druid in normal won't be doing much of anything, because tornado is
basically useless damage wise if not maxed and synergized, whereas tornados
cast by a high level wind druid in hell will make short work of anything not
physical immune even in full games. Plus, at higher levels, things that
limit builds early on, like lack of mana, become much less of a problem.

And the better items and tougher difficulty are rather the incentive to
play. You won't be meeting monsters with elemental or physical immunities in
normal(except for very rare boss spawns), nor will you be finding the really
potent weapons and armors.
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John Salerno wrote:

> Hmm, I'm not sure I have the desire to play through the game three times
> with the same character. Even with more powerful skills, it's still
> basically the same skill set. There doesn't seem like enough variety to
> make it all that fun. Playing through again with a different character
> would be okay, but doing that won't let you get too far past level 30.

Besides equipment and other issues Shiflet suggested, IMHO, the
key difference in these difficulty levels are game play and tactics.

In normal, unless you play a summoning necromancer, quite likely
you'll just be using the most basic attack skills against simple
creatures. Except a few dangerous monsters such as Duriel,
Diablo, Ancients, it's quite like a demo, a warm up, a walk in
the park. You haven't seen anything yet after finishing this
difficulty.

Nightmare is where you start to experience the game. How you
allocate skill/stats, how you attack and defend (or retreat)
starts to make differences. Monsters become tougher, less dumb,
and occasionally will be immune to your mode of attack, forcing
you to go for plan B. IMHO it's the part with the most fun.

Hell is hell. An ordinary zombie outside the town gate may take
quite a while to kill, and can be un-killable if your char is
one dimensional and it's immune to your sole mode of attack.
They hit damn hard. A monster that does negligible damage in
Normal can dish out 500-800 damage under the 'right' situation
in Hell. Your mightily NM hero can be one hit KO'ed before you
know what's happened. Without uber equipment and extensive
experience, you will need caution, tactic, and patience to move
on. It's hard, but is challenging. It's a whole different ball
game compared to Normal.

To give an example, the Zombie named above has 7-12 life and
nearly no defense (50% poison resistance) in Normal. He has
551-787 life and 422 defense (75% poison resistance) in
Nightmare. In Hell, he has 3238-6168 life, 1k defense, and
immune to cold attack (has 50% resistance to physical attack and
75% resistance in poison).

Conclusion: You haven't played the game if you haven't been in
Hell yet. This is among the reasons why this game is still on
the shelves 10+ years after it was first launched.

Bing
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"Bingain" <bingain.RemoveThis@doYouYahoo.com> wrote in message
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> Hell is hell. An ordinary zombie outside the town gate may take quite a
> while to kill, and can be un-killable if your char is one dimensional and
> it's immune to your sole mode of attack. They hit damn hard. A monster
> that does negligible damage in Normal can dish out 500-800 damage under
> the 'right' situation in Hell. Your mightily NM hero can be one hit KO'ed
> before you know what's happened. Without uber equipment and extensive
> experience, you will need caution, tactic, and patience to move on. It's
> hard, but is challenging. It's a whole different ball game compared to
> Normal.

Oh, also, at this point in the game you have to start paying attention to
your resistances. In normal, you don't usually need big resistances except
for a select few areas(Diablo, Baal) and even those are doable with lowish
res. Now, get to nightmare, and your resistances START at -40(then -100 in
hell), making elemental damage monsters much more fearsome. The monsters
with elemental attacks will be doing more damage to begin with than their
normal counterparts, then add to the fact that your resistances are in the
negatives means you'll be taking substantially more damage than you will if
you raise your resistances up. Plus, many monsters, especially in hell,
start having elemental damage added to their regular attacks, making
something that only dealt physical damage in normal, such as a rogue
spearwoman, now able to deal lightning damage as well. And this is the
normal enemies, not even counting the bosses.

> To give an example, the Zombie named above has 7-12 life and nearly no
> defense (50% poison resistance) in Normal. He has 551-787 life and 422
> defense (75% poison resistance) in Nightmare. In Hell, he has 3238-6168
> life, 1k defense, and immune to cold attack (has 50% resistance to
> physical attack and 75% resistance in poison).

And if you get a boss one, they can spawn with more mods than bosses in
normal. If you got a boss version of the above zombie for example, his
regular life will be doubled for him being a boss, then he might spawn with
stone skin(making it immune to physical as well as cold damage and doubling
it's defense), fanatacism(boosting the attack speed, attack rate, and damage
of himself and all nearby monsters), and extra strong(multiplying his damage
by 2.5 and raising the damage of his mob by 75%) mods. Also, monsters heal
faster, meaning you need to either kill fast, have an item with "prevent
monster heal" mod, or have a source of poison damage/open wounds to prevent
them from regenerating.

> Bing
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"wizofwas" <wizofwas RemoveThis @nospamknology.net> wrote in message
news:e409a$4796fc32$1860f1ad$8221@KNOLOGY.NET...
>
> Very few builds can take on the
> "Dolls", "Okies" and "Glomes". Even if they can, nobody likes to
> battle them.

Well I guess technically, okies only really annoy melee chars like zealots
and fury druids, and pure cold sorcs(since they're cold immune, pure cold
sorc can't kill em, and can't rely on merc either due to IM), everything
else really doesn't have a reason to fear them.

> wizofwas
>
>
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"John Salerno" <johnjsal.TakeThisOut@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
news:4796b97d$0$6357$607ed4bc@cv.net...
> Shiflet wrote:
> > "John Salerno" <johnjsal.TakeThisOut@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:47968bb1$0$11604$607ed4bc@cv.net...
> >> royls.TakeThisOut@telus.net wrote:
> >>
> >>> The NM game is different, and the Hell game quite different again.
> >> Are they different in any way other than difficulty?
> >
> > Yep, lots of items only drop in the higher difficulties.
> >
> >
>
> Hmm, I'm not sure I have the desire to play through the game three times
> with the same character. Even with more powerful skills, it's still
> basically the same skill set. There doesn't seem like enough variety to
> make it all that fun. Playing through again with a different character
> would be okay, but doing that won't let you get too far past level 30.

IMHO, you haven't played the game till you've soloed Hell. Once you
get to Hell, it makes Normal and NM seem like a cake walk. Example,
I just got my Strafer to Hell, she just waltzed through the first 2 lvls.
But in
Act 1 Hell, I'm having a hard time keeping my Merc. alive and I have to
use different tactics in areas or I'll die real fast. Resistance's also
become
very important, esp. fire and lightning. The monsters may look the same
but they are anything but the same. Very few builds can take on the
"Dolls", "Okies" and "Glomes". Even if they can, nobody likes to
battle them. And the "Snakes" at Nillys are nothing to sneeze at either.
Never mind worrying about Nillys CE while you're at it. And then there's
the crafting, if you want to do it. Lvl 92 is the min. optimal lvl to
craft.
And MF if you want to do that for items. 400 FM is the optimal for
that. But more is still better.

wizofwas
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"Shiflet" <rshiflet.DeleteThis@charter.net> wrote in message
news:w5Dlj.771$QH2.603@newsfe05.lga...
>
> "wizofwas" <wizofwas.DeleteThis@nospamknology.net> wrote in message
> news:e409a$4796fc32$1860f1ad$8221@KNOLOGY.NET...
> >
> > Very few builds can take on the
> > "Dolls", "Okies" and "Glomes". Even if they can, nobody likes to
> > battle them.
>
> Well I guess technically, okies only really annoy melee chars like zealots
> and fury druids, and pure cold sorcs(since they're cold immune, pure cold
> sorc can't kill em, and can't rely on merc either due to IM), everything
> else really doesn't have a reason to fear them.

I guess I included them because most people use an Act 2 merc and
they do die easily to IM and of course any melee char. fears them.
Nobody likes a one hit and kill yourself.

wizofwas
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On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:48:18 -0500, John Salerno
<johnjsal.RemoveThis@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

>Shiflet wrote:
>> "John Salerno" <johnjsal.RemoveThis@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:47968bb1$0$11604$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>>> royls.RemoveThis@telus.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> The NM game is different, and the Hell game quite different again.
>>> Are they different in any way other than difficulty?
>>
>> Yep, lots of items only drop in the higher difficulties.
>
>Hmm, I'm not sure I have the desire to play through the game three times
>with the same character.

Your char grows and strengthens, as do the monsters. Mana becomes
less of an issue, while resistances and life become more of an issue.

>Even with more powerful skills, it's still
>basically the same skill set.

How you handle higher-diff monsters is often quite different, as they
can spawn immune to your major attack skill.

>There doesn't seem like enough variety to
>make it all that fun.

LOL!! Lots of people find that after long experience with the game,
Normal difficulty is too easy to hold their interest, so they go into
NM and then Hell as quickly as possible. OTOH, many people,
especially HJC players, level their chars to 45 or even higher before
they attempt NM. Try the Lam Esen's Tome or Nihlathak quests in Hell.
Or try HC.

>Playing through again with a different character
>would be okay, but doing that won't let you get too far past level 30.

I definitely recommend playing through Normal with all seven classes,
with builds that cover all four attack styles: melee, missiles, magic
and minions. Play through Hell with at least a few builds that use
your favorite attack styles. You really don't get the value out of
the game sticking to Normal diff.

-- Roy L
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On Jan 19, 2:09 am, Flank Groinpull <shr... DeleteThis @t-online.de> wrote:
> With some of the discussions lately about different builds, and giving
> advice to a struggling summoner, I thought I'd give one more example
> of how powerful summoners are.
>
> I'm playing one now (he's in Act V Normal), and using only what I
> find, buy, or gamble.  In Act I Normal, I luckily found the following
> two items:
> 1)  A wand with +3 Raise Skeleton, +3 Corpse Explosion, +1 Teeth, 1 OS
> 2)  A "handbag" w/+3 Raise Skeleton, +1 Amp Damage, +1 Teeth.
>
> Playing him untweaked, these could very well still be in use when I
> finish the game.
>
> Not too many builds leave Act 1 Normal with end-game weapons and
> shields.

I lead the ladder 3 times with a summoner, 4 if you count the LoD
beta... I'd say they do fairly well

Mickey
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