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Brip

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I haven't played Diablo 2 that much but I did play a few years ago with my friend. My Bow Amazon was really weak, and now that I have the Diablo itch again, I did some research and decided to play a previous patch where Bow Amazon was known to be more functional (1.09). I also think an older version would also be closer to the original design philosophy of the game.

A few Questions:
- Are there any differences between 1.09 and 1.09b? It seems to only be Battle.net changes. (I'm playing Single Player.)
- Are there any significant bugs in 1.09(b) or 1.07?
- Is Melee Assassin good/fun in 1.09 or 1.07?
 
Welcome to the forum @Brip.

1. There are no significant changes between 1.09a and 1.09b, but I would recommend being on 1.09b since Singling supports 1.09b only.
2. There definitely are, too many to list here though, especially if we are talking about 1.07. 1.07 is the first official version of LOD that was only available on the CD, but it was actually an early d2 lod beta build (1.07.44 to be specific). 1.08 was also immediately available on the LOD launch day and was available when you connected to battle.net at the time. From my research 1.08 was basically a late beta build (around 1.07.48~). So 1.09a was the first "stable/polished" version of the original expansion, but there are relatively significant differences between the 1.07-1.08 era and 1.09 (and we aren't included the prelod era - pre 1.07 or the post 1.09 era (1.10) in this).
3. Any class can be good and fun, it just depends what you want to explore. There are some bugs with some of the assassin melee skills, I don't remember the skill at the moment but one of them has it where you will see the ice charge effect but it won't actually deal any damage IIRC.
 
Welcome @Brip!

1.09 is the greatest Diablo 2 patch of all time. That's not even up for debate. It's a quantifiable fact based on D Brevik's ancient scriptures. Ok that last part is a lie, but it's a damn good patch and many people's favorite (and definitely mine!). 😄

Also, there's a ton of info on 1.09 in Rogue Encampment including patch notes, and a really extensive leveling guide by our very own @Erayz!

Let us know how it goes,
Manny
 
@fearedbliss That is strange, I am on 1.09a and Singling appears to work fine. For instance I can run multiple instances and create Hardcore characters.

1. Is Chance to Cast functional in 1.09a? (I see it's bugged in 1.09d)
2. Can I migrate my character to 1.09b? If not no big deal, I play Hardcore and probably gonna die at some point lol
 
@Brip 1.09a-1.09d are very similar and are in a lot of ways backwards/forward compatible, but for best compatibility and to ensure no unexpected bugs, stick to 1.09b since that's what I've developed Singling on. I can't guarantee any sort of stability on 1.09a. CtC works on 1.09b, probably works on 1.09a. And yea you can upgrade from 1.09a->1.09b. If you are using Cactus (4.0.0), it should already be making backups of your chars, but you can make your own as well before you upgrade.
 
I think 1.09a & b are identical except for game.exe, but I haven't checked in a few years. Assassin is very weak in 1.07-1.09, her traps are a joke compared to 1.10. Bowazon is best in 1.09 whereas Javazon is best in 1.07, although crushing blow works at full force in 1.07 so bows can benefit from that. 1.10 was largely a vengeance patch against melee users as a lot of people during 1.09 were sick of bowazons/barbs being king, so they heavily nerfed melee and added synergies for casters, which is why virtually no one plays them in newer patches and think they always sucked. (1.10 gave monsters 5-10x more life, added synergies to compensate, but didn't touch weapon damage).

1.09 is the last patch that mostly stayed true to the original design of the game, before 1.10 moved it in the MMO direction. Although 1.09 still has some stuff like uniques being best in slot vs 1.05 rares. 1.07 is closer to the original design, and my personal favorite pre 1.10 patch, as you get sweet 3 socket crafts which basically combines 1.05 rares and 1.10 runewords into one, making for great itemization.

There are quite a few bugs in 1.07-1.09 that got fixed in 1.10, one such significant bug if you call it that is that if a druid casts a skill higher than level 33 the game will crash. Eth rune also sets target defense to a negative value and works on bosses, making attack rating completely pointless.
 
1.07 is my fave too. as i think crafts was the was foreword...just all the other op stuff...and a mix of cant kill it to frustrating teleport healing... to sorcery op cold skills were - cold resit works...but you cant find all the items and have to do other ways to get them. lots of the Unique were broken too level 51 after hell ancets so there's that....and ip multi player op boses dies on its own do to a bug... mf works well 1.08 basically useless... but 1.08 mf was broken, items drops fixed, rune words broken, crafting fixed. both 1.07 and 1.08 ruins used for crafting was broken making affixes not appear... so pros and cons i guess depending on who you ask. Grief damage on a blood 1.07 crafts is doable thow it take all your life to make...don't even think about a wf bow...1 in 65k runs... killing one mob to get... 1.07 ancients is dam difficult even on players 2...you have the reroll them to get one were you can life steal from...
 
Thank you all for the greetings and information.

@galaxyhaxz That Druid bug is very good to know. I don't mind the Eth bug too much because if it's game breaking, I just won't use it.

Also, I find it particularly insulting that in 1.10+ The AR is just bugged not to work for bow skills... especially now that I've learned that a lot of them always hit in 1.09. Beyond being weak and overnerfed, It bugs me that her skills just don't function :(

Do you think Assassin is still weak despite the critical Mastery bug in post #4? Wouldn't that give her a huge unintended damage boost? (2.00/1.03 ~ 2.00/1.20 = 1.94~1.67x from slvl 1-20)
 
@galaxyhaxz I always love reading your write-ups. Please make a cheat sheet for us with all the quirks/bugs you know about in the different patches!
 
Do you think Assassin is still weak despite the critical Mastery bug in post #4?
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It helps, but in general the sin/druid are just very underwhelming before 1.10. Granted, I've only ever played the sin in 1.07/1.08, but they aren't that much different from 1.09. The sin's elemental claws and traps just don't do very much damage, so she has no real area of effect and progressing takes forever. Death Sentry does all the heavy lifting but you can't buy mana pots. There aren't many good claws for her, so the best ones will be elite blood crafts (1.07/1.08) or shopped cruel magics (1.09). She can still solo hell no problem unlike many builds in 1.10+, but that holds true for most builds before 1.10 as the game is much easier.

I'd say the strongest class in 1.09 is going to be the amazon, followed by barb, sorc, paladin, necro, sin, and finally druid. Guided arrow + pierce with an Eth'd bow just absolutely destroys everything lol.
 
galaxyhaxz said:
I'd say the strongest class in 1.09 is going to be the amazon, followed by barb, sorc, paladin, necro, sin, and finally druid. Guided arrow + pierce with an Eth'd bow just absolutely destroys everything lol.
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Wait a min... the Eth bug works in bows too?! :eek:
 
Yeah but in practice all elemental arrows have no attack rating prior to 1.10 so it's mostly for strafe/multiple shot (guided always hits). In fact, I'm pretty sure the property "Target Defense %" is bugged everywhere so that it literally sets the target's defense to that % rather than subtracting for it, which was fixed in 1.10. This means a unique item with target defense 15% actually sets their defense to 15% of what it was, meaning lower values are better lol.

Edit: Yep, a post on the phrozen keep from 2003 goes about it in more detail. The entire property is bugged so that if you have 150% target defense, it gives the monster defense. I remember trying to fix this bug in my 1.09b fixer mod, but couldn't figure out how, so I just set Eth rune to positive 25%.
 
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Is the game start screen supposed to say "v 1.09" even if you're on v1.09b?
 
yeah, no patches display the letter except 1.14. 1.09a/b/d all 1.09, 1.13/a/b/c/d all say 1.13 etc
 
Brip said:
Is the game start screen supposed to say "v 1.09" even if you're on v1.09b?
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Just as a FYI - PlugY has a feature that adds this to earlier patches, namely "active_VersionTextChange"
For instance my 1.09d platform shows as such:
Screenshot_2.png
 
galaxyhaxz said:
yeah, no patches display the letter except 1.14. 1.09a/b/d all 1.09, 1.13/a/b/c/d all say 1.13 etc
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I think 1.10b and 1.10s might say it as well. I can’t remember 100%. But it’s also more obvious cause of the lack of battle.net button lol.
 
Welcome to the party! 1.09 is also my favorite. I've primarily played Zon during my revisiting over the past few years. She's 99 and just MFs for my other characters lol. Even with full MF gear, destroys P8 hell cows.
 
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