How to reach level 99 in 400 hours (250 hours once /playerX is added)

[Rando-Calrisian-]

On 21/12/2021 at 7:13 PM, Eruyom said:

also some questions, where ca i farm:

 

Zakkarum Shield, Raven Frost ring, a skills amulet, shako, tal rasha set.

 

 

 

Andariel - Hell drops all of those items:

https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2-drop-calculator#p8,1;mf500;monster=boss,andariel,quest

 

On 21/12/2021 at 7:13 PM, Eruyom said:

My plat strategy is right or im missing screwing something?

 

Summoner Necro is a good safe build but slower for farming, especailly on higher player count.

 

Sorceress is fastest. Hammerdin and Smiterdin is also fast. Smiterdin is the fastest to solo ubers. There are many enemies with Fire and cold immunites on hell so less farming options for sorceress. Very few have magic immunity (hammerdin) and physical immunity (smiterdin). An infinity Runeword on your merc can make a lightnigh sorceress of a javazon viable options for hell.

 

What I recommend to get to L99 and for farming in general:

- get to nightmare countess and farm some runes. Duplicate until you have base runewords for a Hammerdine and Smiterdin. In Particular. Enigma, Grief, Last Wish, Spirit, Call to Arms, Heart of Oak, Fortitude, Chains of Honour, Insight (for Mercenary) and Infinity (for mercenary). 

- play as hammerdin until you get to hell andariel.

- farm hell andariel for all items in recommended smiterdin gear (see links below). It also show gear options. You can also get an SoJ in this step, but you will probably get all gear you need before SoJ drop. Skill charms also drop.

- farm keys from countess, nihlatharl and summoner. 

- farm phase blade base item in Act 3 Hell flayer jungel and dungeon. Hell cows is better for base items and socketed items but we want to save Act 5 ancients for the raw XP when we get to L98.

- respec to a Smiterdin.

- Farm ubers for torches.

- If still no SoJ, farm Nightmare Andariel for SoJ. You will need 1000 - 1500 runs approx to get an SoJ so you want the runs to be very fast (40-60s) using enigma and a good map roll (change difficulty to roll maps). Magic find and player count only change the chance for a unique ring to drop/ Once the ring drops there is a 1:31 chance it is an SoJ. MF and Payer count do not affect this 1:31 chance. So, if you have 50 unique rings drop there is an 81% chance you have an SoJ. if you have 141 rings drop then you almost certainly have and SoJ. However you only see a unique ring about 1 in every 30 runs with 7 players and 500 magic find. So you want runs as fast as possible hence why summon necro is not the best option.

- Follow OP's guide to farm Diablo clone once you ahve SoJ.

 

Useful Links:

Paladin Levelling Guide: https://d2.maxroll.gg/guides/paladin-leveling

Smiter Guide: https://d2.maxroll.gg/guides/smite-paladin

Sockets List: https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Sockets

Drop Calculator: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2-drop-calculator#p8,1;mf500;monster=boss,andariel,quest

SoJ Drop Guide: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=27012661

Edited December 22, 2021 by Rando-Calrisian-

[Eruyom]

thx for the info mate. Smiterdin is the one to get to lv 99 right?

[Rando-Calrisian-]

12 hours ago, Eruyom said:

thx for the info mate. Smiterdin is the one to get to lv 99 right?

If using the duplicating SoJ method to get L99, yes, yes it is. Smiterdin is best for killing ubers and bosses if you have gear outlined in guide.

 

Hammerdin is slightly faster in general as it does better AoE damage. 

 

I'm using my smiterdin to farm nightmare Andariel at the moment for and SoJ. Using last wish phase blade and I can do a run in about 40s (PS5).

[TomataEighty9]

On 2.12.2021 at 10:49 PM, NathanielJohn said:

Id bet good money that they’re not legit. In addition to the trophy order being absolutely bizarre, Sony’s servers show that they have only played the game for 57 hours. I’m not sure how much I trust Sony to accurately track that, but when combined with absurd things like getting his first SoJ 8 minutes after level 99, it seems pretty definitive to me.

 

You see that from his trophies popped? Because you can get the trophy from someone trading you a SOJ  

[Eruyom]

8 hours ago, Rando-Calrisian- said:

If using the duplicating SoJ method to get L99, yes, yes it is. Smiterdin is best for killing ubers and bosses if you have gear outlined in guide.

 

Hammerdin is slightly faster in general as it does better AoE damage. 

 

I'm using my smiterdin to farm nightmare Andariel at the moment for and SoJ. Using last wish phase blade and I can do a run in about 40s (PS5).

 

PS5? you cant dupe runes in ps5 right?

[NathanielJohn]

13 hours ago, TomataEighty9 said:

 

You see that from his trophies popped? Because you can get the trophy from someone trading you a SOJ  

He also could have gotten it by having a stash full of unidentified rings that he for some reason didn’t identify until right after reaching level 99.

 

I never said it’s impossible — I said it’s bizarre and I don’t believe it. Spending hundreds of hours grinding to level 99 and then someone trades you a SoJ 54 seconds later? Kk, sure.

[TomataEighty9]

5 hours ago, NathanielJohn said:

He also could have gotten it by having a stash full of unidentified rings that he for some reason didn’t identify until right after reaching level 99.

 

I never said it’s impossible — I said it’s bizarre and I don’t believe it. Spending hundreds of hours grinding to level 99 and then someone trades you a SoJ 54 seconds later? Kk, sure.

only asked because i myself have The trophy from someone who traded to me and back ? 

 

didnt know if you knew it was possible 

[Rando-Calrisian-]

11 hours ago, Eruyom said:

 

PS5? you cant dupe runes in ps5 right?

 

The method in OP no longer works but the one outlined below does. 

 

I got it working a few times then it stopped. Then I tried with a new character and it seems to be working consistently. 

 

 

[Rando-Calrisian-]

@Vextens @NathanielJohn

How important is it to have Guilliam's Face helm for fighting Diablo clone? Will it increase speed of killing DClone enough that I should spend time farming for it? 

 

I have Harlequins Shako instead and all other gear listed in your OP's. 

 

In all my farming it never dropped. I have been reading nightmare flayer jungle and dungeon is the best place to get it despite no xp at L90. Don't really want to farm for no xp again after it took 75 unique ring drops from andariel before I got my SoJ. 

 

I would appreciate your thoughts. 

[NathanielJohn]

7 hours ago, Rando-Calrisian- said:

@Vextens @NathanielJohn

How important is it to have Guilliam's Face helm for fighting Diablo clone? Will it increase speed of killing DClone enough that I should spend time farming for it? 

 

I have Harlequins Shako instead and all other gear listed in your OP's. 

Its really not important at all. Your Dclone kill time will only vary by a couple of seconds as you adjust your equipment, since 99% of the damage you do will come from Crushing Blow, which you cannot alter the damage of. As long as you have something to trigger crushing blow and lifetap, you’re fine.

[Geridian]

On 24.12.2021 at 5:02 AM, TomataEighty9 said:

You see that from his trophies popped? Because you can get the trophy from someone trading you a SOJ  

Also the SoJ or SoH must NOT  be traded for real. Just show the item to someone who needs the trophy in the trade window >> Trophy will pop.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Geridian
Info

[Eruyom]

i got problems finding bases for runewrords, how bad would it be to use the quest of ancients now, and farm cows, how much time would i save saving the quest for the final 99lv farming?

[Vextens]

38 minutes ago, Eruyom said:

i got problems finding bases for runewrords, how bad would it be to use the quest of ancients now, and farm cows, how much time would i save saving the quest for the final 99lv farming?

 

The 40 million exp from the quest of the ancients will save probably anywhere from 10 to 15 hours of grinding. So probably worth just completing the game if you think you need to farm the cows for runeword bases. 

[Gattusso02]

23 hours ago, Eruyom said:

i got problems finding bases for runewrords, how bad would it be to use the quest of ancients now, and farm cows, how much time would i save saving the quest for the final 99lv farming?

You're better off duping runes if you're doing the offline character method. You can do this with any set of runes as they upgrade all the way to Zod. This gives you access to any rune word in the game.

[NathanielJohn]

1 hour ago, Gattusso02 said:

You're better off duping runes if you're doing the offline character method. You can do this with any set of runes as they upgrade all the way to Zod. This gives you access to any rune word in the game.

 They're not talking about finding runes, but rather finding good items to put those runes into. Unfortunately, offline duping can't help with that.

[Rando-Calrisian-]

On 15/01/2022 at 1:03 AM, Eruyom said:

i got problems finding bases for runewrords, how bad would it be to use the quest of ancients now, and farm cows, how much time would i save saving the quest for the final 99lv farming?

 

Just find the normal item (no sockets) then use the cube to create sockets.

 

Make a backup before you create sockets in case you don't get the amount you need. Have a look at the link below to see max number of sockets that can be created for an item at iLvl.  

 

For example, lets say you want to make Heart of Oak. Keep and eye out for a 4 socket flail with iLvl greater than 26. Once you have it, back up, use cube to create sockets. Reload backup if it does not create exactly 4 sockets. Note, item must not already have sockets.

 

Most normal items you need with required iLvl should drop in normal and nightmare.  The only normal item I had to farm was the Phase Blade (Act 3 flayer jungle - Hell).

 

As mentioned, you really want to save Ancients for the raw XP boost at Level 98. Eveything you need should drop beforehand.

 

Sockets:

https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Sockets

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Rando-Calrisian-

[Gattusso02]

11 hours ago, NathanielJohn said:

 They're not talking about finding runes, but rather finding good items to put those runes into. Unfortunately, offline duping can't help with that.

Oh right! Sorry I misread and didn't see the "bases" part lol. But yeah, the grind to 99 on Chaos Sanct or Baal Runs will drop you almost any base along the way. Just a matter of time while putting those hundreds of hours in. Make sure to keep an eye out for white plain items too as you can horadric recipe socket those. That helped me a lot compared to looking for a straight up socketed weapon. You just need one plain white item of that kind and you can save scum to get the number of sockets you are targeting for. @Eruyom My vote is also just straight up finish the game. It will help you with variety too doing chill Baal runs.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Gattusso02

[hm_Antern]

Ok. Level 95.

 

92544 exp and ~55sec per run. Let's assume you are not a perfect machine, this would average to about 60 runs per hour, making 5.55m exp per hour.

 

Uber-organs-dupping method gives to me ~9m exp per 55-60 minutes (including time to dupe these organs) on /players 1.  p2 is actually slower, requires 50% more time to grind enormous hp bars of the ubers. And that's without any xp shrines.

Cons: that's boring af. Move 6 organs into the inventory, open cube, put 3 in, transmute, put another 3, prebuff, "press square to win" and wait. Relog, transmute, square. Rinse and repeat.

Pros: you will have a set of perfect torches for all of your characters; no brain required: you can listen audiobooks or watch a tv show in parallel.

 

P.S. picking up a shine matters if only you spent less than 30% time on it, compared to just doing the run without it.

[Vextens]

11 minutes ago, hm_Antern said:

Ok. Level 95.

 

92544 exp and ~55sec per run. Let's assume you are not a perfect machine, this would average to about 60 runs per hour, making 5.55m exp per hour.

 

Uber-organs-dupping method gives to me ~9m exp per 55-60 minutes (including time to dupe these organs) on /players 1.  p2 is actually slower, requires 50% more time to grind enormous hp bars of the ubers. And that's without any xp shrines.

Cons: that's boring af. Move 6 organs into the inventory, open cube, put 3 in, transmute, put another 3, prebuff, "press square to win" and wait. Relog, transmute, square. Rinse and repeat.

Pros: you will have a set of perfect torches for all of your characters; no brain required: you can listen audiobooks or watch a tv show in parallel.

 

P.S. picking up a shine matters if only you spent less than 30% time on it, compared to just doing the run without it.

 

I'd briefly considered trying to farm ubers as an xp source prior to confirming that DClone gave xp. I ultimately decided against it. My personal opinion is that Mephisto is too risky with his conviction aura to try and reliably farm for long periods of time. In the time it took me to get my paladin torch, Mephisto was able to pop me quite a few times. If I had the Wisp Projector Ring it may have been a different story, though. 

[NathanielJohn]

That 5.55m XP per hour becomes about 10m XP per hour once you factor in XP shrines and /players2 (both of those slow you down a bit, but that's factored into the calculation; if they didn't slow you down then it'd be 5.55*1.45*1.5 = 12m XP per hour). You should be able to check for XP shrines in something like 5 seconds with a good map layout -- way less than 30% of your time.

 

If you are going to farm Ubers though, then I think the best way to do it is:

 

- Do the DClone route mentioned in the first post on /players2.

- If you do not get an XP shrine, just quit after killing DClone.

- If you DO get an XP shrine, go back down to /players1 and then kill the ubers before it wears off.

 

I never seriously tried this though since (a) it was far too risky for me -- my equipment wasn't good enough for Ubers to be safe, (b) the ubers took me a loong time to kill (typically 2.5 minutes or more to kill all 3, which was too slow to be better than DClone), and (c) the XP shrine effect always got taken away by curses from the Ubers. If you could find a way to avoid those curses and keep the XP shrine on, it might be worth it.

Edited January 25, 2022 by NathanielJohn

[hm_Antern]

4 hours ago, Vextens said:

 

I'd briefly considered trying to farm ubers as an xp source prior to confirming that DClone gave xp. I ultimately decided against it. My personal opinion is that Mephisto is too risky with his conviction aura to try and reliably farm for long periods of time. In the time it took me to get my paladin torch, Mephisto was able to pop me quite a few times. If I had the Wisp Projector Ring it may have been a different story, though. 

It's very hard to die on ppl1 ubers if you gear your smiter properly. I've got killed only once, on 74 lvl, when forgot to prebuff and enable my own conviction aura. Up to ppl4 you just teleport into a house (yeah, engaging 3 at the same time), kill mef, switch to fanaticism and kill other. Zero risk. Chugging 1 full rej bottle per ~300 runs.

 

LW (CB, life tap procs), Exile (more consistent life tap procs), enigma (dr, mana on damage, teleport, walk speed), shako (hp/mana, ias jewel), highlords (+ias), draculs ( for OW ), goblins toe ( for 95% CB ), verdungo (life+dr), 2 SoJ for mana. That's it.

 

Would be better to wear gore-riders, replace draculs with some nice crafted gloves ( +10% CB, +20% IAS)and shako with CoH (two ias-jewels). 70ias > 65ias => 6fpa smite without fanaticism.

But no luck getting CoH, and don't want to spend time trying to craft the gloves. Also might consider 4xBer 2xShael Phaseblase, but it's too risky for me, needs to pay attention, can't faceroll ubers consistently.

 

> reliably farm for long periods of time

It's completely reliable, just make a save backup and try few times. And yeah, you don't need to dupe keys and farm whole uber quest. Just dupe organs and farm uber-tristram exclusively.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by hm_Antern

[hm_Antern]

2 hours ago, NathanielJohn said:

That 5.55m XP per hour becomes about 10m XP per hour once you factor in XP shrines and /players2 (both of those slow you down a bit, but that's factored into the calculation; if they didn't slow you down then it'd be 5.55*1.45*1.5 = 12m XP per hour). You should be able to check for XP shrines in something like 5 seconds with a good map layout -- way less than 30% of your time.

 

1) 55sec per run, Dclone final XP = 92544 on level 95, 2429 runs to level up - that's your data, not mine.

2) You can't just multiple xp/hour  by 1.5  from xp-shrine. Moving around with low fcr breakpoints takes time.

3) You can't just multiple xp/hour  by 1.45  from /players 2. It takes exactly 1.5x more time to kill 1.5 beefier DClone.

4) According to my numbers, dclone must give 112.1k exp with shrine and 77k without on players 1. Dunno where 92.5k comes from.

 

Ok, let's do some numbers. Assuming 168k per dclone kill (includes shrine, ppl2; dupe time is not included) from my data, and ~90sec per run.. 6.7m per hour

80sec per run => 7.56m per hour; 70sec => 8.7m/h.

It's still worse than mine no-brainer ppl1 ubers 9m/h, which includes time when I go to smoke every hour, to make a cup of coffee, etc. Not a perfect series of ideal runs.

 

And 70sec means that the time you are actually killing dclone ~= 15*3 = 35 seconds (as delta for ppl2 hp 50% difference, which is increased by 15sec). Spending half of the time running around.. 

 

Actually, I did the same math 2-3 months ago, and has concluded that grinding ubers is a bit faster method. I guess, maybe your gear is the cause? I would be glad to see your calculations. 

 

 

 

 

[NathanielJohn]

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

1) 55sec per run, Dclone final XP = 92544 on level 95, 2429 runs to level up - that's your data, not mine.

 

Yes, that is my data. What is that in reply to? That "2429 runs to level up" assumes you're getting XP shrines, but only on /players1 (since I made the post before /players2 was a thing). If you're not getting XP shrines, it's going to take you longer.

 

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

2) You can't just multiple xp/hour  by 1.5  from xp-shrine. Moving around with low fcr breakpoints takes time.

3) You can't just multiple xp/hour  by 1.45  from /players 2.

 

I multiplied by 1.45 for shrines and 1.5 for /players2, not the other way around. And I didn't "just" multiply by them. I specifically said that I lowered from those multipliers to account for the extra time taken.

 

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

It takes exactly 1.5x more time to kill 1.5 beefier DClone.

 

No it does not. The vast majority of the damage you deal comes from crushing blow, which deals percentage-based damage. Each hit deals 1/8 of the DClone's health as damage, which means you have reduced a /players2 DClone's health down to the same as that of a /players1 DClone after literally just 3 hits. That's less than 2 seconds.

 

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

4) According to my numbers, dclone must give 112.1k exp with shrine and 77k without on players 1. Dunno where 92.5k comes from.

 

It comes from assuming you'll get a shrine approximately 45% of the time, which both Vextens and I saw happen in practice. Apologies for forgetting that this number includes XP shrines before -- I made my post months ago.

 

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

Ok, let's do some numbers. Assuming 168k per dclone kill (includes shrine, ppl2; dupe time is not included) from my data, and ~90sec per run..

 

I mean, I've tested this even on /players2, and it's still 60 seconds per run or less, not 90 seconds. Of course it's going to be slower if it's for some reason taking you 90 seconds per run.

 

15 hours ago, hm_Antern said:

And 70sec means that the time you are actually killing dclone ~= 15*3 = 35 seconds (as delta for ppl2 hp 50% difference, which is increased by 15sec). Spending half of the time running around.. 

 

So? The relevant metric is the total time that it takes to do the run, not the time spent actually fighting.

[Yukiko Miyamoto]

I might get this game level 99 hard mode doesn't sound difficult .

[Rando-Calrisian-]

14 hours ago, NathanielJohn said:

I mean, I've tested this even on /players2, and it's still 60 seconds per run or less, not 90 seconds. Of course it's going to be slower if it's for some reason taking you 90 seconds per run.

 

I can second this, I am playing with /players 3 and a full run takes about 60 seconds (loading, getting items, selling, running around and killing diablo).

 

I have a Smiter Paladin and my gear is:

Helm: Harlequins Crest

Body Armor: Enigma

Gloves: Laying of Hands

Boots: Gore Rider

Belt: Arachnids Mesh

Amulet: Highlord's Wrath

Rings: Raven Frost + Stone of Jordan

Sword: Grief Phase Blade

Shield: Exile Paladin Shield

Alt Sword: Call to Arms Sceptre

Alt Shield: Spirit Paladin Shield

 

Merc Has:

Helm: Andariels Visage

Body Armor: Fortitude

Weapon: Infinity Thresher

2 hours ago, gamercris066 said:

I might get this game level 99 hard mode doesn't sound difficult .

 

Assuming you play offline so you can backup your save in case you die, the hard part is the mental fortitude you need to grind all of high end gear and the grind to get to L99. 

 

The game is easy with the right gear, getting that gear to drop is a different story.

 

I read on a forum that the real boss of Diablo 2 Ressurected is not Diablo or Baal but RNG.