Preparations for this Behemoth of a task

[Ypsiruonu]

I’ll give the situation straight: I started playing Diablo with 3, not 1 or 2, I’m aware there’s a stigma in the fanbase due to 3 being so different, so I’ll say that upfront.

Now, what is someone that got the plat in Diablo 3 RoS has to expect for pursuing 2’s plat? I’m aware that items don’t drop as easily  as in 3, and that you more or less require to beat the expansion boss 4,500 times, more or less. Is there anything else? What’s the most cheap PvP build I can pull off easily gear wise in order to farm those pesky ears? Am I allowed in HC offline to pause the game  and quit like in 3, before  I’m killed?  How’s the difficulty and level system   working? Is it like 3, where enemies scale to your level regardless of difficulty, or do they stop getting stronger at a certain point, and you just need to go on a different difficulty?  If I were to do this with Summoner Necromancer, what are some vital items to get, and where to farm them For my HC level 99 run?

[Deadborne]

Enemies don't scale to your level.
I'm not sure if the 4500 number is accurate, but whatever the case, it's 4500 if you don't die. In non-hardcore, dying in hell sets you back 10% of the experience you need towards the next level.

Ears are easy to collect. As far as I know you could just collect ears from people fighting even if it's not you who killed them. Or, if you want to be a real bastard, you can join lower leveled players games and murder them and leave.

I'm pretty sure you can pause and quit in single-player. If you intend to do the HC in single-player, you could just back up your save.

 

Farm items in Mephisto Nightmare, or Andariel Hell or Mephisto Hell.

A summoner necromancer is a good build to clear the game in pve, but is a pretty garbage build for finding items, since they're slow at getting around and killing bosses (until you get really good stuff). You could always make a sorceress first, get the stuff you need, then make your necromancer.

Some mid-tier / decent items for summoner Necromancer:

- Spirit runeword shield / Homunculus
- Leoric's Wand or Heart of the Oak runeword flail (depending if you want more powerful skeletons vs survivability)
- Harlequin Crest (colloquially known as Shako)

Or, if you want to go all out and grind like crazy for the best necromancer stuff:

- Enigma runeword armor
- Beast runeword weapon

Good luck. Most people don't consider this platinum realistic, but that doesn't stop you from having fun trying.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Deadborne

[NathanielJohn]

8 hours ago, Ypsiruonu said:

Am I allowed in HC offline to pause the game  and quit like in 3, before  I’m killed?

 

You can play HC offline (which lets you backup your save file, for example), but don't expect to be pausing before you're killed. To actually pause the game you have to open the menu and then go over 3 tabs (*exactly* 3 tabs -- if you accidentally go over 2 or 4 tabs, the game won't pause, and it won't pause just by opening the menu). It takes too long to do that in frantic life-or-death scenarios.

[Entrepreneur9535]

Yes u should Plan 500+ hours for 99 Grind hc offline with /players x command. They will Patch it next month. Back up save is a big advantage to this time u have to invest. 

[dieselmanchild]

The short version is that when it comes to comparing the amount of time and grinding required to obtain the platinum, Diablo 3 doesn’t prepare you at all, it doesn’t even exist in the same realm as Diablo 2. D2 is an absolute beast of a platinum!

 

You can do the vast majority of it solo, but if you’re serious about doing it then finding a good, skilled team of likeminded players would help tremendously in preparing for your journey and cutting down the grinding team. It would be a good idea to try and make contact with some of the other trophy hunters pursuing this platinum so you can help each other and share tips and whatnot.

 

Also, from my own experience with Diablo 3, I’d highly, highly recommend checking out Reddit for various resources & to answer the kind of questions you’re asking here. There is a large, active community of extremely experienced players who know the game inside out and can offer you much better help than you’re likely to find here, since this sites focus is specifically on trophies. I used them a lot for my Diablo 3 journey and there are some very friendly folks over there.

 

r/Diablo2

 

r/Diablo_2_Ressurected

Edited November 24, 2021 by dieselmanchild

[Quink666]

One word for gear. Pindleskin. Unfortunately they nerfed his drop rate in the OG game and I assume this remaster has done the same .

 

Pindleskin could drop any item in the game but blizzard didn’t like that because of botters, so the nerfed him some. 

[Vextens]

31 minutes ago, Quink666 said:

One word for gear. Pindleskin. Unfortunately they nerfed his drop rate in the OG game and I assume this remaster has done the same .

 

Pindleskin could drop any item in the game but blizzard didn’t like that because of botters, so the nerfed him some. 

 

He can still drop every item in the game except three: Tyrael's Might, Arachnid Mesh, and Azurewrath. Regarding trophies, only Arach would be really useful in the grind to 99 and that you can farm off of Hell Mephisto. That said, I agree with the recommendation to farm Pindle for gear.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Vextens

[Rando-Calrisian-]

On 11/24/2021 at 2:21 PM, Ypsiruonu said:

 If I were to do this with Summoner Necromancer, what are some vital items to get, and where to farm them For my HC level 99 run?

 

Summoner Necro Guide

 

The link above will answer your question. It goes through early game, mid game and late game as well as hardcore. A summoner necro has great survivability. However, to get through hell with speed (farming L99) you need a lot of the high end gear they recommend which is very expensive or will take a lot of farming. The following items arn't too expsensive on trading sites and proivide great buffs for a summoning necro.

- arm of king leoric

-homunculus

-graverobbers charms

 

I have been following guide that and have a L88 Summoner Necro (HC). I am going for L99 Hardcore. I thought about playing offline to but decided against it so I could trade for high end items. Servers are more stable than at launch where the game would crash and your character would die for no reason.

 

Offline mode you can use player X command and also duplicate items I have read. If using Player X to increase number of players you get more XP (which will be patch into PS version soon), however monsters are buffed. If you don't have high end gear this slows you down even further.

 

From personal experience, I can confirm that the build they suggest (minus some of the ridiculous items e.g. Enigma) destroys hell on hardcore. 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Rando-Calrisian-