D2 Resurrection Difficulty

[seta-san]

so i've been playing diablo 2 off and on since it first came out and a lot in the last couple months...then i got resurrected last night and it kind of shocked me. not because of any of the graphics or anything like that..

i'm getting my ass kicked in act 1 normal mode and i can't figure it out.

it seems like there are boss and champion packs everywhere and they can seem to have limitless hp...

and i'm even getting my ass kicked by imp packs.. there seems to be more of them in a pack and the shamen seem to be resurrecting the imps at rates that are incredibly hard to keep up with and even more packs with multiple shamen. also it feels like the shamen are resurrecting from half way across the map.

i thought.. maybe it's just my gear or something. i finally got to andarial at the end of act 1 and it's totally the normal difficulty i would have expected..

anyone else experiencing this stuff or know what's up?

[zehzao]

Not really, to be honest i'm on the opposite side of that, game seems easier than what i experienced on the original game.

[ldev]

Uhm, only Duriel is hard in the beginning, but is countered with giving thawing potion to your tanking merc.

[MrKnubbles]

Seems fine to me.

[Biomega]

It's pretty much exactly like the original (bugs and server issues aside, of course; not that the original was free from those...). Difficulty-wise I don't notice a difference at all.

But D2 is full of mechanical pitfalls, if you don't know what you're doing it's easy for things to look like they're really hard when it's just about some simple thing like e.g. not putting enough points into VIT early on or whatever.

[Mojo03]

It’s been fine for me.

Duriel is annoyingly significantly harder than everything else still though.

It’s possible to have bad loot luck too, that makes things a bit harder.

[Vespian]

so i've been playing diablo 2 off and on since it first came out and a lot in the last couple months...then i got resurrected last night and it kind of shocked me. not because of any of the graphics or anything like that..

i'm getting my ass kicked in act 1 normal mode and i can't figure it out.

it seems like there are boss and champion packs everywhere and they can seem to have limitless hp...

and i'm even getting my ass kicked by imp packs.. there seems to be more of them in a pack and the shamen seem to be resurrecting the imps at rates that are incredibly hard to keep up with and even more packs with multiple shamen. also it feels like the shamen are resurrecting from half way across the map.

i thought.. maybe it's just my gear or something. i finally got to andarial at the end of act 1 and it's totally the normal difficulty i would have expected..

anyone else experiencing this stuff or know what's up?

Nothing is up. It's actually this hard to solo on a first character without outside help. Even when I started the game (and this was only a few months after launch), people were already making games where they were cleaning out their inventory of low level items (mind you, this was D2 original, not LOD, so no runewords) and picking them up could boost your first 20 levels significantly. This is the first time I'm completely "clean", completely self found.

I almost got wrecked three times in Nightmare yesterday (playing HC) and it's thrilling. And much better balance compared to PoE.

Be careful
equip resistances
farm countess normal
build low level runewords. I started with Nadir & Stealth (me and the merc), later on added Ancient's Pledge and in A1 NM I added Insight to my A2 merc. Which by the way, is such a game changer.

https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Runewords

[Caperfin]

Seems ok to me, we have a lot of resources at our disposal, it's hard to imagine it as being difficult.

[pinglong]

Go Sorc, make Stealth & Leaf, easy mode.

[Vespian]

Go Sorc, make Stealth & Leaf, easy mode.

Potion-quaffing mode, until you get insight xD

[Santti]

You haven't accidentally set it to /Players 8, or something? That's what I'm hearing from "limitless hp".

I don't know how the remaster does it, but in the original, you could simulate the difficulty of having multiple people by typing /Players 1-8 (1 meaning you play alone, 8 being with 8 players). It would then drastically increase the hp of the monsters, but also the amount of loot and experience they give. You can set it at any time during gameplay. It's a fun way to play, but it's a bit of a lurch, if it's set from the get-go.

You might also consider where you are putting your skill points. Think of a build you want to make, like say, a Blizzard spamming sorcerer, and then put points into skills that boost the co-efficients of Blizzard, while you work the levels to acquire Blizzard. You definitely do not put points all over the skill tree, like acquiring some cold spells here, some fire spells there, and topping it off with some lightning spells (unless we talk about some specific utility spells, like Teleport).

If this is your first ride with Diablo 2, I recommend looking up some builds before you start. Something easy and simple at first. Original Diablo 2 builds should work just fine, as I don't think much has happened, balance-wise.

[Vespian]

You haven't accidentally set it to /Players 8, or something? That's what I'm hearing from "limitless hp".

I don't know how the remaster does it, but in the original, you could simulate the difficulty of having multiple people by typing /Players 1-8 (1 meaning you play alone, 8 being with 8 players). It would then drastically increase the hp of the monsters, but also the amount of loot and experience they give. You can set it at any time during gameplay. It's a fun way to play, but it's a bit of a lurch, if it's set from the get-go.

You might also consider where you are putting your skill points. Think of a build you want to make, like say, a Blizzard spamming sorcerer, and then put points into skills that boost the co-efficients of Blizzard, while you work the levels to acquire Blizzard. You definitely do not put points all over the skill tree, like acquiring some cold spells here, some fire spells there, and topping it off with some lightning spells (unless we talk about some specific utility spells, like Teleport).

If this is your first ride with Diablo 2, I recommend looking up some builds before you start. Something easy and simple at first. Original Diablo 2 builds should work just fine, as I don't think much has happened, balance-wise.

I would advice against leveling as Frost though. Imho, the best approach would be to either level as Fire (into Leaf runeword > Meteor until hell) or lightning (better AoE compared to Frost, but Fire gives better control). Frost will not deal a lot of damage early on and its AoE is worse.

I personally respecced from Lightning to Frost at lvl 24 (unlock Blizzard).

[Sinured]

this game is, and was: very easy on normal.
only struggle i had was hell with a necromancer when you need to kill stuff to summon stuff, but you struggle against act 1 monsters xD

[Vespian]

this game is, and was: very easy on normal.
only struggle i had was hell with a necromancer when you need to kill stuff to summon stuff, but you struggle against act 1 monsters xD

I just ran into these two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJrM2UZI1IQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-gE_fgEvVE

Now, the first one, I get to a point. If you don't know these, you will get surprised, especially the ones on the way to Baal, but the second one, I'm not sure if this guy is just an idiot, or doing it on purpose.

[Coldkil]

this game is, and was: very easy on normal.
only struggle i had was hell with a necromancer when you need to kill stuff to summon stuff, but you struggle against act 1 monsters xD

Just dump some points into either bone spear or poison knife and you'll be fine.

I totally need to drop Blackbog's. Couple it with the Bone runeword and then the usual combo of stuff like Jordan, Frostburn etc and i'll be blitzing through everything with my skelly army.

- - - Updated - - -

Now, the first one, I get to a point. If you don't know these, you will get surprised, especially the ones on the way to Baal, but the second one, I'm not sure if this guy is just an idiot, or doing it on purpose.

I like to think this shows exactly how many so called "Diablo hardcore fans" have never actually played it back in the day. I'm playing offline all the time so i don't have to deal with stupid lag and i can crank up the difficulty when i want or feel the build is progressing while also getting better xp and loot.

/players 8 is awesome.

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

The game is the same as before, nothing strange happening. Most if not all builds are just "get str/dex to equip endgame gear, then dump everything into vit". So maybe you're wasting points in useless stats. The damage comes from leveling your skills (the right ones) and from the right gear.

Some builds/skills are good, others are just underpar, so best bet for you is to follow a guide.

[StillMcfuu]

so i've been playing diablo 2 off and on since it first came out and a lot in the last couple months...then i got resurrected last night and it kind of shocked me. not because of any of the graphics or anything like that..

i'm getting my ass kicked in act 1 normal mode and i can't figure it out.

it seems like there are boss and champion packs everywhere and they can seem to have limitless hp...

and i'm even getting my ass kicked by imp packs.. there seems to be more of them in a pack and the shamen seem to be resurrecting the imps at rates that are incredibly hard to keep up with and even more packs with multiple shamen. also it feels like the shamen are resurrecting from half way across the map.

i thought.. maybe it's just my gear or something. i finally got to andarial at the end of act 1 and it's totally the normal difficulty i would have expected..

anyone else experiencing this stuff or know what's up?

If the majority of the time you played D2 was before patch 1.10 the game will seem harder. Patch 1.10 made the game more difficult in general and I believe patches after that kept making it harder in other ways.

I'm somewhat in the same boat, I stopped playing around the 1.10 patch time and outside of the laptop I had in the military which only had D2 on it in Afghanistan, that's the only reason why I'm used to the "higher" difficulty. Still certain builds are pretty easy from normal through late NM/eary hell when you start to need specific items. Trapsin is a big example, Bowazon can brute force a lot as well, Zealadin is face roll from lvl 30 as long as you pay attention to resists and keep holy shield up (Nadir helm allows you to face tank a lot of bosses with Cloak of Shadow through NM as well).

[Sinured]

sorry, i was talking about OG D2, back then when i was 12 and there were no guides on everything
game was very easy for me, but killing stuff took a minute on hell untill you could summon your army, thats, what i meant.

now people will ruin the games with reading guides, like they ruined "classic" wow for themselfes.

[Vespian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6MAQcKqxz4

Hahahaha, that Amazon did him dirty...

[Edge-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6MAQcKqxz4

Hahahaha, that Amazon did him dirty...

I'm so glad to see Quinn still ripping like an idiot in other games than PoE. I have to assume he does it on purpose at this point, but he still has great reactions.

[javierdsv]

I got my ass whooped my first try around. But then I realized I was selecting my attributes wrong (most classes favor vitality only), and you could use some abilities other than simple melee attacks in the beginning. AOE abilities will be almost necessary if you can get any. Remember you have a free respec, so try to go for a beginner build instead of those min/max builds of hardcore players. Those are meant for high end content.

Also, when you see an "elite-boss/rare" (golden or blue name tag), you NEED to keep distance, and deal with the pack around them first, unless you have some way to quickly kill it first (if you're ranged).
If said enemy is also applying cold to you, you definitely need to avoid it at all costs and try to not get hit.

Hear a shaman? instantly forget whatever you're doing and go kill it/them.

If you're a beginner Barbarian, just get used to die, it can't be helped, play with friends or something :P