Can this game be beaten in single player, normal to hell, without using cheats...

Can this game be beaten in single player, normal to hell, without using cheats, without grinding (if by that we understand going through the same zone/bosses more than once to get drops/exp) and while keeping it fun (not having to beat a boss by going to town time and time and again through TPs during the fight)?

I played it a long time ago, mainly just messing around on bnet, and I enjoyed but now I'm wondering if should I replay it would I have any fun, if it was just merely a carrot on a stick thing + the social aspects.

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>without grinding
Quite likely not. The only classes I can see doing it are Summon Necro and Hammer Paladin. They're both far from being gear dependent. However, hammer paladin would greatly suffer from the lack of resists in hell and likely be completely unable to kill the ball wave 2 adds. Summon necro then again faces issues with bosses like Diablo that just shit all over the summons on Hell iirc. And...

>and while keeping it fun (not having to beat a boss by going to town time and time and again through TPs during the fight)?
Yeah, absolutely not.

>without using cheats
And given the no grinding, definitely not if you count setting the player count to 8 as a cheat too.

You'd be fine if you just ran baal for levels and loot for an afternoon or something.

Normal to nightmare is easy with any char. Hell is Hell and thats a no for almost every char.

That's too bad. I guess I'll try Normal and NM and stop once it starts getting tedious.

>without grinding
>not having to beat a boss by going to town time and time and again through TPs during the fight
This might actually be pretty hard to accomplish.
Although not impossible like in vanilla when bosses fucking regenerated. I spent like two hours trying to kill Diablo on Hell with my lvl 54 Necr, and I still couldn't do it, and almost got late for an exam.

The game is designed around grinding and I find it weird you'd set "no grinding" as one of your prerequisites for enjoying the game.

I very much found it fun to run Mephisto and to see what loot he'd drop each time. Granted, without teleport, it wasn't all that much fun on the other hand.

theres a guy who does speedruns of diablo 2: normal to hell and it takes him about 8 hours to kill hell baal.

he did it on a sorc, but i think its possible on a zon too

>opening town portals buring boss fights
youtube.com/watch?v=C8rFnefnKhA

>Sorc
How though?

Even if you run a build with two elements like Blizzard and Meteor, you're still going to be sitting around waiting for your merc to kill one of the council members and shit like that. With a merc with shit to no gear that's pretty suffering.

mana potions, and lots of them

>Can this game be beaten in single player
Yes
>normal to hell, without using cheats
Yes
>without grinding
Uhhh kinda not.
>while keeping it fun (not having to beat a boss by going to town time and time and again through TPs during the fight)
The first time you fight a boss you'll probably feel compelled to do this because you may not have the right gear/skills yet depending on your char level and shit's hard but after a while you figure out tactics and pick up a few bits and pieces of gear to make things easier.

>ARPG
>no grinding
What genre do you think you are playing, user? Please.

Completing LOD in a single playthrough without grind has been done countless times. Literally just yesterday the world record was broken.

It's impossible for someone new to the game, but mindless grind is definitely not necessary.

Hell is beatable with hammerdin. Fun? Not.

I'd rather have sex only with black men for the rest of my life, than play hammerdin.

I tried playing with vengadin, but it simply didn't work with ancients, so I respecced, bought some blue crap from vendors and went through them and baal like hot knife through butter. So just respec before final boss.

Yes.

After iron curtain got nerfed a lot of melee only characters became a lot more viable, specially in A4.

No matter what you need a good merc though.

Diablo Hell isn't a problem for summoners. The hardest boss for summoners is Normal Diablo.

Wave 2 adds are easily killed with a rank 1 Holy Bolt and resistances aren't a problem with cheap runewords

What? Since then? I remember Diablo's and Baal's fire novas instantly dispelling my summons as if it did x10 damage to them.

I don't know man, you probably had no idea how to build and play a summoner.

How the fuck can you fail to build a summoner?

But yes, they did that. Last I played a summoner was when we duo'd vanilla hardcore ladder online with a friend. At times shit like the Diablo fire nova just demolished all the summons instantly.

The way I feel about diablo is it's either people who grew up with it and are nostalgic or people like me who actually just enjoy grinding.

You should try PlugY mod, you can start a strong sorc MF and then send all the shit to your alts.

But yeah it's literally near impossible to solo hell "without grinding".

There's a chance there might be the case, because I played ages ago when I was a kid. But I'm more inclined to think they actually just patched it at some point. I remember breezing through the game with my summoned Necr, but getting stuck on bosses, because they seemed to do increased damage to summons, and I was frustrated how the boss fights were biased against summoners.

Don't ask me, if you build correctly Diablo will only have 2-3 frames of animation per seconds and his fire waves will only kill the mage, at that point in hell the warriors are tanky enough that they won't be destroyed by 2-3 fire circles

/players 8

you now can get to Diablo at level 35 without grinding. dunno about equipment though

>related videos
>"Mortal Kombat Is Not A Tournament"

Wow, that actually made me laugh.

thats actually hilarious to think this whole time we've been leaving portals to fucking hell and the chamber of bone just in town

>normal to hell
Yeah easy, I got plenty of characters to hell, it's not a big deal. But getting through hell is another thing though.
I've only once beaten hell completely with a necromancer. But it took months and months of grinding

>isn't a problem for summoners
Nothing is a problem for summoners except for FUCKING MAGGOT LAIR ACT 2 FUCK THIS SHIT MAN FUCK IT

Proof that summoners were a mistake.

Playing on Hell difficulty is no fun anyway.

Playing on Normal isn't fun either. In fact, most of D2 isn't fun.

Which build is the most comfiest and why isn't it BoneMancer?

>Max Level Teeth taking out the trash
>Max Level Bone Spear on boss fights

>necro
>20 summon skeletal warrior
>20 summon skeletal mage
>20 skeletpn mastery
>1 decrepify
>1 amplify damage
>win game

But then how are you going to make corpses to summon skellingtons from?

>buy merc
>go to cold plains
>summon 1 skellie
>snowball the fuck out

I like Pimpmancer.
Those large skull shoulders look like lush fur jacket and golden glowing rod is 101 pimpin love stick. Wait till your goons beat them whacko ass crackers and then loot the dosh.
Old school gansta rap doubles the fun

>necro
>20 summon skeletal warrior
>20 corpse explosion
>20 skeleton mastery
>1 decrepify
>1 amplify damage
>win game

fixed that for you

You actually only need CE for act2, everywhere else you should be just fine with one point on it

t. Summonancer main for 8 years

8 years and you still haven't realized CE is the best skill in the game?

It's absolutely fantastic, just saying you don't have to waste 20 points on it as it only increases its radius. One point + whatever bonus you have from items should be enough.

this, arcane sanctuary, and maybe halls of vaught.

dim vision for gloams.

however if the merc dies you are fucked, skellies are just meat shield. merc is there to get the first kill so you can CE everything else. but unfortunately you can't order him to stand still while vipers bugged cloud stacks exponential damage each second.

anyway, i think i'll reinstall it now and start a frenzy barb.

you can comfortably waste 20 on ce, it's not like summoner has anything better to put points into.

>frenzy barb.
How do I barb into hell? I can never get past pretty much act 1 in any build I've tried. Are barbs just bad?

The bigger the radius the fast you clear levels. You don't have to put 20 points in it but putting only one point is completely ridiculous.

>Can this game be beaten in single player, normal to hell, without using cheats, without grinding
depends on your class, but prolly not. DII has aged really badly anyway

I don't know, I've never played it.

Well shit.

Yes, melee characters in general are awful and extremely reliant on gear

>without grinding

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the probability of going through single player without ever grinding a single time in at least nightmare in preparation for hell difficulty is slim to none.

Only a Paladin or a Barbarian could probably do it, but good luck with it still being fun on a Barbarian to be brutally honest.

Barbarian on single player, the first 30 levels are incredibly boring.

Paladin has a bit more interactivity.

But to not grind at all whatsoever means your Hell difficulty will just not be fun unless you literally kill every enemy in every area, which again won't be fun honestly.

You are asking too much to be honest.

He said "and while keeping it fun."

I think dungeon siege is the game for you. Look up ross' gaming dungeon episode on it. It almost punishes you for going back since nothing respawns

>implying normal duriel and normal diablo is doable with a summoner without tps during the fight

Not happening. Don't care how good you think you are. Normal Duriel and Normal Diablo are made to fuck over summoners and make the otherwise cakewalk run not be a cakewalk.

>20 skeletal mage

Ah that explains why you are stupid. Mages are a waste of points.

I've got mine to 27 and it's really boring to me, but I've played already enough of a summoner. Maybe I try poison nova

>mfw recently played up to hell mephisto with a zealot

jesus christ what were the devs thinking?

i had to constantly skip packs like physical immune + lightning enchanted. meanwhile, sorcs and hammerdins will blink through the dungeon and fucking vaporize the boss in three minutes flat

that statement is an oxymoron. in ARPG if you don't like grind it is near impossible to have fun.

you can with a strong class

like summoner nec with a teleport amulet; blasts through anything. I was soloing hell in full player games without good runewords or anything

You can, as Sorceress.
>something something high council
I think you can skip them without killing.

Trapper may be able to do it.

But you are going to have to grind with any build to make it to hell unless you get incredibly, stupidly lucky with item drops.

Firebomb, Lightning Trap, and Death Sentry with Fade.

You'll make it, but at some point you are either not going to be having fun, OR you are gonna have to make a tp during a boss fight, OR you are going to ahve to grind.

You are going to have to forego at least one of these options in order to survive:

>stays fun entire time no matter what
>no tps during boss fight to town
>no grinding
>no cheating

No cheating means no playersX command. Since that cuts down on some of the potential grind, it can be the first to go.

Either way though, you are going to have to give up on at least one of those options or you won't make it to hell baal and win.

Read OP considers tps during boss fights cheating. And you aren't clearing Normal Duriel and Normal Diablo with a summoner without towning to get more skeletons. You just aren't, sorry.

Is the werewolf build early on just really weak? I get my ass kicked by almost anything at 16. My weapon is a slow polearm

Don't look at me, the OP is the one who said all the incredibly ridiculous rules.

>want to replay this and titan quest
>games are long as fuck
>Only want to reach final difficulty
Come the fuck on

>my weapon is a slo-

Werewolfs need attack speed.

Sorry bois but I'm used to old patch, millions of skellies everywhere

I havent played in a while but im p sure trapsins are the way to go with min gears. its has a good fun/challenging ratio as well

Damage tanks very hard by endgame. Takes several minutes to kill normal mobs in Act IV. That's without +skill items, but if you don't grind, you're not going to get them.

Thing is. With OPs ridiculous rules, he's going to have to break at least one of them at some point.

Death Sentry carries a trapper through Hell pretty much. One kill and it's all over for that group.

Especially since it will be players 1.

Werewolf is very weak, in endgame as well. But that is if you don't have good weapons. Same with frenzy barb: Berserk deals much more dps with a cheap weapon.

With a lifetap smiter build, maybe, but that requires you to have that lifetap item and a fuck ton of crush stats.
Crush isn't that hard to get if you're playing the expansion tho.

It's almost as if it's a randomized multiplayer game, and not balanced for every single build to breeze through it in singleplayer.

There are several speedrunners who do (hardcore) hell runs with all classes, the time it takes varies from under 5 hours with a sorceress to up to 12 hours for a barbarian. Basic rundown:
>Potions, lots of the gold you get will be spent on inventories full of health and mana potions, thawing potions too to stack cold resistance duration.
>Poison potions are great in early normal. IIRC when you're down to 1 potion left, you sell it to a merchant like Akara and buy it back to refill its quantity.
>Abuse Crushing Blow and Static Field in Normal, it melts bosses but scales poorly in Nightmare and Hell.
>Experience Shrines will gets you lots of levels, especially on elites' Minions, and especially on the lightning enchanted beetles and explosive skeleton pygmies.
>You'll be doing lots of Countess runs early on for levels and runes for stuff like Leaf, Stealth, Ral runes for Fire Resistance in Act IV, etc. Other rune words like Treachery, Zephyr, Rhyme, Lore, Smoke, White wand, etc. are also used depending on your class and if you get the slightly rarer runes for them. Others like Heart of the Oak are great but the rares are so rare and the level requirement is so high that it's not worth counting on them.
>A wand with Lower Resist charges will get more necessary the later you get into the game. A staff on swap with Teleport charges too if you want. Both will cost lots to repair.
>You'll need lots of resistance equipment. or you're just going to get one-hit later on. Treachery's chance of casting Fade is useful.
>Some builds are just plain not viable, others are theoretically viable but too reliant in min-maxed equipment. It's a waste of time trying to do a Martial Arts Assassin.
>You'll probably need to respec a few times, stuff that works early on won't work later, and even the synergy provided is a waste of points. Necromancer gets lots of Teeth but respecs to Bone Spear with Bone Wall synergy.
>Bare minimum stats for equipment, you need lots of Vitality.
(continued)

He said something about fun.

I managed to beat nightmare with a skelly necro and no grinding.

Hell was just unplayable.

There will be situations, where you don't have a corpse to explode, boss fights, for ecample. And lightning-resistant monsters are hard to kill.

Werewolf is a monster if you have the right weapon.

Eth Ribcracker is insanity on a Werewolf. One of their best weapons possible.

Now, without grinding at all or using town portals? Probably not gonna happen. Lots of speedruns end at around 67 so it's not like they're grinding to 90 or something, but you're not going to get the levels you need even by taking your time 100%ing maps and killing everything.

There are lots of other nuances to doing it like abusing Smite's 100% chance to hit with IAS to land lots of Crushing Blow on bosses and stuff. Watch streams/VODs of people on the speedrun.net leaderboards if you're really interested in trying hell runs out and seeing how it's done. It's more of a grind than you probably care for though.

Firebomb and merc for lightning enchant.

But yes, bosses will be a pain in the ass because of OPs no tps thing.

Doesn't matter I'm tired of trying to think of ways to solve ops bullshit to be honest.

Yeah, I didn't say the build is bad. But, spellcaster and bear rely less on items.

>that feel when you discover how crazy a fissure druid is in normal/nightmare

Start Game
Pick Druid
/players 8
Level up using Firestorm/MoltenBoulder/Fissure
Clear Den
Clear Blood Raven
Free Deckard
Get to Dark Tower
Farm Tir Ral for Leaf, and Tal Eth for Stealth
Steam Roll game with fissure
Get to ACT IV, Respec into Windy Druid
Steam roll game
Lose interest
Stop playing

Nightmare and Normal are fine

Hell is ruined because of the stupid immunity affixes. You really need to get a Lower Resist curse wand from ACT V vendor before moving forward or being lucky with a conviction aura item for your Merc or having Infinity Runeward

Or having a necro and debuffing shit like there's no tomorrow.

Start Game
Pick Assassin
/players 8
Get Tir Ral for leaf
Abuse Fire Wave Trap and Fire bombs
ACT 4 spec into Lightning Traps
GG

>Leaf
Leaf, what?

...

does that do anything for druid skills???

>+3 Fire Skills
>Left side of Druid Elemental tree is all fire skills

Yes.

Can someone link me the last patch they did BEFORE the one that nerfed the blood golem/iron maiden combo? I'd like to do a run with that build for nostalgia.

>Can this game be beaten in single player, normal to hell, without using cheats, without grinding

Uh yes of course. Diablo 2 is a game that becomes easy if IF you are good at it.

Doesn't matter which character. Use one of the viable builds and its doable. Some builds are so strong that Hell offers almost no challenge if you play it right.

If you suck or fuck around with builds/items it gets hard on Hell.

>and while keeping it fun (not having to beat a boss by going to town time and time and again through TPs during the fight)?

If spending a couple of minutes once per act on the final boss is not your thing then probably no.

You need very specific builds if you want to kill the bosses without having to go back to town (no grind).

Static Field

What the fuck?
My dad did from normal to hell with a barbarian lots of years ago, I used to watch him play. He didn't even use runes at all. All he did was explore all maps thoroughly.

>blood golem/iron maiden
holy shit i forgot about this

Sing barb is op

Game changed significantly after years of updates.

I just started playing again last night, i have a level 29 lightning trap assassin with shit gear
Is there any rune combos i can do to make it any better?

Lore, Smoke and Spirit

Yes, that's actually quite common though not every build can manage it.