1.08 Adventures

[soulgazer]

Hello I've been playing 1.08 for a couple years now (off and on). I'll quickly catch up to where I'm at now.

I started hoping to beat the game on HC with at least one character and to find a Harlequin Crest (Shako). Fast forward to now, I still haven't found a Shako and have not beat the game just yet.

Yesterday my lvl 77 sorc was killed by Hell Baal. It was such a surprise. Had him at ~5% health and he suddenly teleported right next to me and did his flame attack and I got one shot. While very unfortunate to happen so close to achieving my goal I still filled up my stash with some goodies so next character will be a bit more prepared.

Some notable achievements so far:
- Racked Tal's Armor
- Racked a wizard spike (This took FOREVER) (There is a big difference between set and unique drop rates for racks lol)
- Found a Buriza
- Beat Normal and Nightmare Baal
- Beat Normal, Nightmare, Hell Diablo
- Beat Normal, Nightmare, Hell Ancients
- Highest level achieved 77

Next character will be a bowazon to make use of the Buriza. Hoping to kill hell baal and get higher than 77! And would be nice for a shako to drop but I won't count on that .

 

[galaxyhaxz]

Ouch, that sounds very painful. I personally would avoid playing HC in 1.07/1.08 because of all the nasty bugs. Baal's flame attack is pure magic damage, and the -100% penalty on hell applies to it (this was removed in 1.09) making the attack super deadly. It's pretty much impossible to tank without tons of life and MDR gear. I wouldn't dare touch him without racking both shako+valor and having at least 2500-3000 life first.

Also note that while 1.08 does have a fixed TC, elite items have notoriously low drop rates, and magic find being completely busted (unless you do the dancing of the souls "cheat"), it's unlikely you'll ever see elite uniques drops. I personally think 1.07 is the better choice between the two, as a few elite uniques like harlequin crest can drop from cows in 1.07, and you can just rack the undroppable items. Plus crafting is 10x better with all affixes and 3 sockets.

1.08 is a very painful and difficult patch to play. I managed to beat hell baal with an untwinked assassin years ago, but I died a few times on ancients/baal. You mention bowazon. There is one interesting thing you can do with them in 1.08. 1.08 introduced elemental damage charms, and poison stacks the bugged way for all weapons still, this means a ton of poison charms with bow attacks is very strong. For a sorceress, fire wall is also super strong. I wrote a guide years ago about doing Icy Cellar runs to try to get Windforce.

 

[thrasher_565]

you can rack a shako too. with stacked mf can get it from an act 5 pot too thats how i got mine.
1.07 shako would be easier thow

 

[soulgazer]

Ouch, that sounds very painful. I personally would avoid playing HC in 1.07/1.08 because of all the nasty bugs. Baal's flame attack is pure magic damage, and the -100% penalty on hell applies to it (this was removed in 1.09) making the attack super deadly. It's pretty much impossible to tank without tons of life and MDR gear. I wouldn't dare touch him without racking both shako+valor and having at least 2500-3000 life first.

Also note that while 1.08 does have a fixed TC, elite items have notoriously low drop rates, and magic find being completely busted (unless you do the dancing of the souls "cheat"), it's unlikely you'll ever see elite uniques drops. I personally think 1.07 is the better choice between the two, as a few elite uniques like harlequin crest can drop from cows in 1.07, and you can just rack the undroppable items. Plus crafting is 10x better with all affixes and 3 sockets.

1.08 is a very painful and difficult patch to play. I managed to beat hell baal with an untwinked assassin years ago, but I died a few times on ancients/baal. You mention bowazon. There is one interesting thing you can do with them in 1.08. 1.08 introduced elemental damage charms, and poison stacks the bugged way for all weapons still, this means a ton of poison charms with bow attacks is very strong. For a sorceress, fire wall is also super strong. I wrote a guide years ago about doing Icy Cellar runs to try to get Windforce.

Ahh it being 100% magic damage explains it. Up to that point I felt pretty safe, had 500 life and 1k mana with energy shield and 75 all rez. Good to know! I will definitely take Hell Baal a bit more seriously now.

I've done the souls cheat a couple times; actually how I found the buriza. I don't really expect to find the shako without the cheat to be honest lol. Do you know if shako can be racked in LK?

It does sound like 1.07 would be the better patch too play ... but I feel like I gotta finish 1.08 before changing patches hah. The MPK rings in 1.07 look so nice; would be great to have on my zon!

Thanks for the tips on the damage charms. I'll be sure to keep those now. I assume the best place to farm charms is cows?

My sorc was was fire/lightning with fire wall and nova. I agree fire wall is very strong. It was very annoying to use against mobile enemies yet very nice against bosses.

you can rack a shako too. with stacked mf can get it from an act 5 pot too thats how i got mine.
1.07 shako would be easier thow

Good to know!

 

[thrasher_565]

Ahh it being 100% magic damage explains it. Up to that point I felt pretty safe, had 500 life and 1k mana with energy shield and 75 all rez. Good to know! I will definitely take Hell Baal a bit more seriously now.

I've done the souls cheat a couple times; actually how I found the buriza. I don't really expect to find the shako without the cheat to be honest lol. Do you know if shako can be racked in LK?

It does sound like 1.07 would be the better patch too play ... but I feel like I gotta finish 1.08 before changing patches hah. The MPK rings in 1.07 look so nice; would be great to have on my zon!

Thanks for the tips on the damage charms. I'll be sure to keep those now. I assume the best place to farm charms is cows?

My sorc was was fire/lightning with fire wall and nova. I agree fire wall is very strong. It was very annoying to use against mobile enemies yet very nice against bosses.


Good to know!

shako can be racked in lk just a pain to get consistent. halls is way better and consistent for racking.

charms is lk chest. for most things. or any chest for that matter. chest bodys popables.

 

[soulgazer]

shako can be racked in lk just a pain to get consistent. halls is way better and consistent for racking.

charms is lk chest. for most things. or any chest for that matter. chest bodys popables.

Halls is way better? How so?

 

[galaxyhaxz]

LK is level 88 and the Halls are like level 90+ something. The only real difference are a handful of base types like Caudecus can't be racked in LK but can be racked in Halls. I prefer LK since you can pop stuff along the way. Best strategy is to use a sorc and cast hydra as it rerolls the rack, so instead of spending hours finding a Shako or Balrog map, you can reroll the same one a few times to cut down on time needed. LK is best for charms if not then the council, cows are good too if you do big TCP/IP games (unless you use a mod to add the players command).

 

[thrasher_565]

Halls is way better? How so?

halls is better imo because there 2 maps (more then 2 maps) got the wrong map re roll. and you can get any item rack. and you can roll a map with no monster near by making it consistent. also the angle to the rack is more consistent. lk random maps with random mobs and take more time tping around. ya like galaxyhaxz said you can do cheat and other popables along the way but ods of having a map to do it probably slim.

you also get an armor and wepon rack side by side so can get up to 4 items drop per map. i have a mon and thunder mal map.

the pool of rack in halls would be more thow so keep that in mind.

pros and cons i guess

better to do just racks then do just chest then try to do both imo time wises

getting a wizz spike as faster as posable might make other things you do faster like chests. other items it wont incress the speed of there things you do its just and item you want to collect.

 

[soulgazer]

Thanks for all the information on racks. I've done a good amount of racking in LK, haven't tried halls though. I don't plan on racking again anytime soon but if I find a shako rack, I may just have to! I'll be sure to include halls in my grinding rotation.

Some updates on zon:
- Level 22
- In act 3
- Multi-shot is op
- Mana is a problem (wish I had those 1.07 mpk rings!)

Progress is pretty quick so far. She does pretty good damage and runs fast. Using stealth, zephyr runewords. Have sanders boots.

 

[soulgazer]

Got some more game time in. Solid progress:

Defeated Normal and started A1 NM
- Defeated Baal at level 31. I was hit multiple times by Baal's flame attack, that is a rip in hell. I'll need to get better at this fight.
- Level 32
- Still have mana problems. Once I get a higher phys dmg bow I think I'll be alright.
- Decoy and Valk are great for boss fights. Decoy also was amazing in chaos sanctuary to attract iron maiden.

Attached are the items I had for Normal Baal and character stats.

Only like ~10 more levels until I can use my buriza!

 

[Manny]

Nice progress! Buriza is a goated item and a game changer for sure!

 

[soulgazer]

Nice progress! Buriza is a goated item and a game changer for sure!

Hope I can stay alive to use it!