[QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

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Devastatius
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[QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by Devastatius » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:35 pm

Title states all, the runners main focus must be lvl 10 ofcourse.

Thanks in Advance,

-Devas
The simplest thing to do, is to attack, and if something gets in your way, blow it up. (Strong philosophy)

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Ulthrion
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Post by Ulthrion » Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:20 pm

Probably a sorceress or amazon. They can both get all the elemental damages and with temepered items you can get a very high damage potential on all three elements at the same time.

The amazon has physical and poison damage as well, which can be useful at some points (although there is usually one elemental immunity
that can be removed with a conviction aura), and the sorceress has teleport (although I know there is at least 1 item that also grants the teleport ability).

I use my paladin for it, but he is actually quite slow because you need to select the
enemies you want to kill and you also have to repair you weapons quite a bit. On the other hand, the only creature in the underdark that can harm him decently is the final boss in level 10 and some lightning / fire enchanted creatures (due to a bug with the combination of these two enchantments). And you can get a nice +x% gold and magic find aura to compensate (although I believe that sorc/ama can have better mf due to more freedom in equipment choices).

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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by cc » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:43 pm

The problem with a Sorceress is that you will die really fast if you stand still for a moment or two in front of the lvl10 boss. Those bonespirits will take you in stun recovery or block lock and even with a lot of life you can't take that for long. For damage output, socket a rune with conviction somewhere and wear enough +skills to break most immunities and with enough skill potions you can max out one or more skills from every tree. Then it's not too hard to make it, I can clear it on players 8 with my sorc, but you've got to live with the risk of running into something (Extra strong, extra fast, curseing, mighty teleport spiders come to mind) that will just one-hit-kill you. And with some of the runes and gems, you can pack insane amounts of magic find on your gear, because you don't really need much except skills and sockets on your equipment.

An Amazon has got the big advantage of being able to leech life and putting enemies into stun with knockback or similar stuff. I never played an Amazon long enough to take her down there, guess Vhaeghar would be the expert on them, but I think they should do nicely. I don't really look out for physical immunities with my Sorceress, but I guess it could be a pain to keep mana up for extended use of glacial arrow or something against them. As for magic find, I guess a bit less then Sorceresses because there are more modifiers you will need to get high enough damage.

As for the other chars, Necros aren't worth mentioning (good luck summoning in a cave and only poison/bone won't cut it), Druids can't use more than one damage type at a time, which will get you stuck at lvl4 the latest, Barbs can get insane life and deal probably enough damage with a combination of frenzy and berzerk, but will probably share the fate of Paladins, simply being slower than Amazons or Sorceresses. Assassins have a combination of phyiscal damage (kicking), fire and lightning in traps, so they should be able to do the task, if they avoid any monster with immunity to those three.

But in the end, I think the decision, as Ulthrion stated, boils down to Amazon if you prefer it a bit safer but slower, or Sorceress if you want to kill fastest and scramble to hit Escape fast enough from time to time.
"Niemand darf mir glauben, wenn ich lache oder weine,
Niemand darf von Zukunft reden, denn ich sehe wirklich keine,
Nur wenn ich die Augen schließe geh' ich jedesmal zu weit:
Es ist nur eine Frage des Momentes und der Zeit."
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7w1573D M1nD
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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by 7w1573D M1nD » Mon Jan 23, 2006 9:30 pm

As I know the conviction aura just lower the elemental resistances of monsters not removing their ummunities...

1.Bow Amazon I think its imposible (if we talk about hell Undergound)
Freezing arrow and immolution arrow gets bonuses just from 1 other cold/fire skill max dmg is not so good ( talkin about 1500 ) which is nothing for hell mode if you try killing monsters with multi arrow or strafe also immposible ( only strafe does 100ED% on lvl 20 with a bow of max 400 dmg youl get 800 dmg which I think is nothing for hell )

2 Jav Amazom not so bad lighting immunity monsters are ...... :(
(maybe try killing them with some poison but I'm not sure)

3 Sorceress I think is the best runner (if you have fireball and blizzard maxed with conviction and lower resist.) some point in mana shield and maxed warmth so that it's the same think as replanish life

4 about the melee heroes I think it would be hard to go through those monsters with thorns aura if U have a good phisical dmg U'll kill yourself in one hit. May be Paladin could do it well if have put some points in Blessed Hammer (not sure how useful is in Pagan Heart mod)

5 Havent tried trapper assasin but I think It will rocks with the sentry trap doing 50 % fire and 50% dmg of corpses life

6 Necro also with corpse explosion kill one and the other are dead :)

7. Maybe druids can beat underground with tornados cause tornado does 50% phisical and 50%magic dmg there is not a monster with these both immunities together and U dont get with melee contact with the monsters.

I think that was the poit of Phrozen to be very hard for all character classes (thorns for melee, immunities for elemental, specieal bosses doing magic dmg not elemental as we all know magic resist is hard to get to 95% etc..

But whats the point to run in hell mode if U can run it normal. If U want some Expirience and Items go hunt Baal or Meffi :)

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Ulthrion
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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by Ulthrion » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:22 pm

7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:As I know the conviction aura just lower the elemental resistances of monsters not removing their ummunities...
Conviction works at reduced effectiveness (1/6th or something like that) against resistances over 100% (i.e. immunities). If, with that reduced effectiveness the resistance drops below 100%, the immunity is removed and all other -x% resistances (like cold mastery and tempered items) are at full effect.

Only the conviction aura and lower resistance curse can break a creature's immunity I believe. All other -x% resistances don't work on immunities.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:1.Bow Amazon I think its imposible (if we talk about hell Undergound)
Freezing arrow and immolution arrow gets bonuses just from 1 other cold/fire skill max dmg is not so good ( talkin about 1500 ) which is nothing for hell mode if you try killing monsters with multi arrow or strafe also immposible ( only strafe does 100ED% on lvl 20 with a bow of max 400 dmg youl get 800 dmg which I think is nothing for hell )
But don't forget that you can get a lot of great items in this mod, as well as tempered items that can eventually give huge bonusses to elemental damage. This all adds to the damage that those skills do.
Don't underestimate the amazon. Vaeghar posted his damage stats once and I was quite surprised that they were that high.

Take your cold/fire skill damaga max as you said, and then add 30-40% (if not more) from your average tempered item to that. Reduce enemy resistances by around 100% with conviction, and throw in either an armour with +4 skills or one that gives you +1 to fire mastery (which would probably give you the equivalent of another +100% fire damage with wnough +skills), and you get the idea of the damage potential of the amazon.

This mod has more tricks up it's sleeve than you think. Of course, with all of this, the underdark still won't be a walk in the park probably, but that's just the idea of it.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:2 Jav Amazom not so bad lighting immunity monsters are ...... :(
(maybe try killing them with some poison but I'm not sure)
No character in this mod should ever rely on one type of damage. If I remember Vaeghar's amazon, he had massive damage for all elements (fire/cold arrow, poison/lightning javelin) using it with weapon switching. This might seem dumb to do for most diablo players, but remember that you can compensate your spreading of skill points with finding more skill potions, better +skill gear, and tempered items that boost all elemental damages.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:3 Sorceress I think is the best runner (if you have fireball and blizzard maxed with conviction and lower resist.) some point in mana shield and maxed warmth so that it's the same think as replanish life
I'm building a sorceress now (level 74 now and just finished nightmare) and they indeed die quite fast. Keep moving, keep casting, so far I was fine. The only ones that I had problems with were the ancients, but I got them at my second go though (damage dealing capability was fine, by survivability largely depended on the survival of my henchmen).
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:4 about the melee heroes I think it would be hard to go through those monsters with thorns aura if U have a good phisical dmg U'll kill yourself in one hit. May be Paladin could do it well if have put some points in Blessed Hammer (not sure how useful is in Pagan Heart mod)
You really need extra damages from items to deal with the monsters in the underdark so blessed hammer isn't the best skill here. I always skip the thorns creatures (there is only one of them luckily) because even with my vengeance (no thorns return on most of my damage) I still feel the hurt from the small bit of physical I deal.

If you want to deal with them, go vengeance + holy shock or conviction (or both!). Zeal is usually better with holy shock, but in the case of thorns, you'll need to control your attacks as 5 consecutive hits could kill you if you have a too good weapon or too high strength.

Paladins do have the advantage that they can become immune to just about everything. Mine only fears the magic damage (from Drizz't!) and the corpse-explosion triggers on lightning enchanted (there are hardly any creatures that can kill me with a single corpse explosion).

I never played a barbarian though. Seems hard with some physical immunes, but they are not too common, and you can still use berserk on them for added magic damage.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:5 Havent tried trapper assasin but I think It will rocks with the sentry trap doing 50 % fire and 50% dmg of corpses life
Sounds like a good build to me.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:6 Necro also with corpse explosion kill one and the other are dead :)
The problem is getting off that first kill. Also, there are no real elements that you can boost with tempered items a lot, only poison, and some are just immune to that. On the other hand, you'll eventually have the skillpoints to max out all the synergies on the summons chart, which could be of some help.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:7. Maybe druids can beat underground with tornados cause tornado does 50% phisical and 50%magic dmg there is not a monster with these both immunities together and U dont get with melee contact with the monsters.
The problem with Tornado, as I see it, is that this also means that the damage cannot be boosted by tempered items. Yes, those are that important when you want to run the underdark!
Remember that you'll need far more damage to kill things in the underdark than you need in act5, and tornado doesn't benefit from +x% damage, conviction or mastery skills. Boosting that damage high enough will be a problem.

On the other hand, they can get nasty fire damage with armageddon and fire claws, and adding poison claws(rabies?) and fury (the physical skill) to that should give you a nice base to deal with virtually every enemy. Tornado could be a nice skill for the random creature you have trouble with, but it does require an alltogether different set of skills to max.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:I think that was the poit of Phrozen to be very hard for all character classes (thorns for melee, immunities for elemental, specieal bosses doing magic dmg not elemental as we all know magic resist is hard to get to 95% etc..
Indeed. One of the ideas was to disallow one-skill characters to run free. You'll need multiple elemental damages to take on all that the mod has for you.
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:But whats the point to run in hell mode if U can run it normal. If U want some Expirience and Items go hunt Baal or Meffi :)
Underdark is far more fun, it's packed with monsters, and you have a far better chance of finding reagents for your tempered items and runes there. I find it infinitly more rewarding than boss-runs because of this.

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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by cc » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:46 pm

As for the Amazon question, hasn't Vhaeghar posted his stats somewhere in the "Post your Character" thread? Should be enough prove of the damage output you can achieve in this mod.

Conviction pierces immunities if the resistance of the monster was under 120% to start with. My Sorceress always likes the disappearing of those little text lines and I don't hallucinate (at least without adding some illegal substances into the calculation :))
Edit: Dang it Ulthrion beat me to it

The point of running hell Underdark is: it's an area with:
a) high treasure class
b) high monster density
c) quite nice droprates
I'd bet that you get more experience doing Underdark than doing Baal and besides, you've actually got the chance of not dying of boredom before all is said and done.
Mephistos treasure class is too low to drop the high end stuff and the way to Baal has not nearly as many high treasure class bosses than Underdark, if you want lots of mid-range stuff fast, Mephisto sure, if you search for the really good stuff, you won't get around Underdark forever.
Ulthrion" wrote:
7w1573D M1nD";p="256078" wrote:7. Maybe druids can beat underground with tornados cause tornado does 50% phisical and 50%magic dmg there is not a monster with these both immunities together and U dont get with melee contact with the monsters.
The problem with Tornado, as I see it, is that this also means that the damage cannot be boosted by tempered items. Yes, those are that important when you want to run the underdark!
Remember that you'll need far more damage to kill things in the underdark than you need in act5, and tornado doesn't benefit from +x% damage, conviction or mastery skills. Boosting that damage high enough will be a problem.
On the other hand, they can get nasty fire damage with armageddon and fire claws, and adding poison claws(rabies?) and fury (the physical skill) to that should give you a nice base to deal with virtually every enemy. Tornado could be a nice skill for the random creature you have trouble with, but it does require an alltogether different set of skills to max.
Just to clarify: Tornado only does phyiscal damage, no magic damage whatsoever. But yes, the damage is too low to prevent monsters from closing in on you. The problem with combining the elemental side with the shape-shifting is: that you can't cast while shifted, so you have to shift pretty often mid-battle if you want to use any of the skills. And the two sides want totally different equipment: skill/faster cast/mana or damage enhancment/increased attack speed, which would put huge strains on your equipment. So in the end you're stuck 2 kinds of damage, physical and fire (I doubt Rabies can be pushed to a high enough damage level to kill anything on it's own). And that's at least one too few for my taste if you want to clear Underdark without having to run away all the time.
"Niemand darf mir glauben, wenn ich lache oder weine,
Niemand darf von Zukunft reden, denn ich sehe wirklich keine,
Nur wenn ich die Augen schließe geh' ich jedesmal zu weit:
Es ist nur eine Frage des Momentes und der Zeit."
- Samsas Traum "Scherben bringen Glück"

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Post by Ulthrion » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:39 pm

In 1.10 you can actually cast armageddon (and armageddon alone) while shapeshifted. Since it also synergises fire claws it's a nice fire-based build. The werewolf form then also has a good attack for high poison damage and one for high physical damage, so that gives you three "elements" for the build, which should be sufficient in most cases.

One of the valid builds of 1.10 online was a fire/rabies druid with fire claws and rabies combined with the carrion wind ring (which gives a level 21 poison creeper and due to a bug, 21 synergy ranks for rabies). Fire claw was synergised by firestorm and level 16 molten boulder from a runeword armour (using the same bug to get 16 synergy ranks from the molten boulder charges). The rest of the skills are then spend on werewolf form lycantrophy and probably oak spirit. With the tempered items and the resplacement of the items with the actual skills, I think that rabies can still make it as a decent alternative attack.

But then again, I haven't tried this yet, so I'm not completely sure...

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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by 7w1573D M1nD » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:54 pm

U 2 are the bosses ......as you say ;)

Still new in this mod, have much more exp. in other mod projects.

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Re: [QUERY] What's a good Underdark Runner

Post by cc » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:36 pm

Ulthrion";p="256161" wrote:One of the valid builds of 1.10 online was a fire/rabies druid with fire claws and rabies. [...]
But then again, I haven't tried this yet, so I'm not completely sure...
Well there's also the difference between vanilla monsters and the stuff you get to see in the underdark.
I just ran the vanilla rabies through a calculater and fully synergized a lvl30 rabies gives 12k damage per hit. Over 15,5 (!) seconds. That's somewhere around 35 damage/frame. Even if you add in more +skill equipment then I assumed, you would be needing insane amounts of +%poison damage and -%poison resistances to get anything killed with that alone.
Given those values (ignoing the possibility of me screwing up the calculation for the moment) I stand by my original opinion of doubting it's possibility.
Re: Armageddon, yeah I missed it's usability while being shifted. So fire should be covered.
"Niemand darf mir glauben, wenn ich lache oder weine,
Niemand darf von Zukunft reden, denn ich sehe wirklich keine,
Nur wenn ich die Augen schließe geh' ich jedesmal zu weit:
Es ist nur eine Frage des Momentes und der Zeit."
- Samsas Traum "Scherben bringen Glück"

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Post by Ulthrion » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:03 pm

Just to be sure I'm building a rabies/fire claw/armageddon druid at the moment using only the items that I find (so none from my shared stash), and another thing that I discovered about rabies: It spreads over to any enemy touching one of the infested enemies. This means that in the more crowded areas rabies can affect quite a number of creatires. I'll have to see if that compensates for the low damage though, but the advantage of poison is also that even low poison damage will immediately stop all life regeneration a creature has as well, which could be nice in combination with armageddon on so that creatures get damaged by armageddon and don't regenerate any of the HP until you can finish them off with your attacks.

I've just turned level 19 though, so I'm nowhere near completing the game with it. I'll try to use only the stuff that I find until I finish the underdark (on /players 1) in hell with the druid, at which point I think that it has been proven a good build. Unless I get stuck somewhere along the way because the skills prove to be too weak to deal with everything. So far it's a nice build to play with, I'll keep you all informed on how it does.

Should anyone care, from the top of my head I use the following skills:
Werewolf shape (1 skill + 1 skill from helm)
lycanthrope (2 skills + 3 skills from helm)
Oak Sage (2 skills + 3 skills from weapon on weapon switch)
Fire Claws (2 skills)
Rabies (2 skills)
In addition, I have 1 skill in every elemental skill to get armageddon eventually, which gives +60% synergy to fire claws.

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