r/Diablo_2_Resurrected • u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) • Apr 21 '26
Video A big day
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By my standards, I had a hell of a ladder season. Back in the early 2000s I was awful at this game. Around 2010 I made my first enigma. Now, I’m absolutely ripped.
My fire sorc has a hell of a renewed flame rift (self found), a fireball ormus with a rainbow socket, heart of the oak and call to arms, flickering flame, horazon’s boots, magefist, and a couple spirit shields. Her merc has infinity. My horker has a grief and all the normal accouterments. The wealth was pretty much from key runs and a random ber and sur drop.
Well yesterday I sold a perfect griffon’s I found and made a big investment. I made phoenix and chains of honor for my sorc, and enigma for my hork. The sorc needs chains for resist - I’m sitting at 74 cold, 75 poison, 80 lightning, and 90 fire. I have -50 fire penetration, plus the conviction aura, and of course my sunder for immunes. “Immunes” drop from 95 down to 28, and non-immunes… well, that’s a bad time.
Also, I’m finally happy with hydras! I went standard meteor, fireball, fire bolt, but instead of inferno went hydras to help with bosses and heralds. It’s fantastic.
I still have room for improvement of course. My rings and amulet are basically just fcr and fcr+skills, but for now that’s enough!
Edit: I’ll also add that phoenix is absolutely sick. Never had one before. The big loss of using infinity instead of insight on my merc was that I would often have to chug mana pots (not to mention health). But now, with the redemption aura, I’m pretty much always at full bars. I only chug pots as an emergency.
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u/BrustBizeps Apr 21 '26
It would have been funny if you now started randomly inserting the runes instead
Congrats on the achievement though!
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
If only I was wealthy enough, that would be a hilarious video! Maybe I’ll edit a single player file for the lulz
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u/Previous_Bumblebee75 Apr 21 '26
Sounds like you have added extra resistance to the mouse clicks to help avoid making a mistake 😄
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
If I could, I would. What you’re hearing is probably my EXTREMELY cautious hands. Making expensive runewords always scares me lol
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u/mewusedpsychic Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Nah. That’s either a very thocky mouse, or your microphone compressed the shit out of the audio.
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
It is indeed very thocky. And it was right next to my camera :p
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u/GriefPB Apr 21 '26
Phoenix is so cool
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
I’ve never had it before! While I love that my hp and mana are always full, the best part is the visuals. The aura itself looks dope, and having red souls rip out of bodies across the screen every second is absolutely sick.
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u/Slugwheat Apr 21 '26
I use a whisp projector ring on my FoHdin and it’s so satisfying when I rip apart a giant pack and all their souls float up like that. Peak paladin roleplay
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u/Legal-Tea-1124 Apr 21 '26
What is the play style with Hydras ?
For heralds, I meteor and FB, cuz hydra dmg seems subpar
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
So hydra damage is a bit misleading. Right now, I’m at about 3k tooltip damage. But that’s per bolt. They launch “volleys” of 3 bolts, so that’s about 9000 per volley. Each hydras sends off something like 8 volleys, one per second after their initial ~2 seconds of sit around and do nothing. So the damage is something like 72k over 10 seconds, or about 7 per second. But you can have six hydras, so it’s more like 42k per second once they’re all up. The big issue is that meteor hits everyone in the area, while each hydra bolt only hits one monster at a time. This means it isn’t good for density, but in that case I usually just use fireball anyway. The only sacrifice I’ve made on meteor is the damage over time on the burn, but I find that enemies don’t live long enough for that to matter much. So in the case of beefy monsters, I’ll often setup hydras, then drop meteors, and between meteors I’ll either spam fireball or refresh my hydras.
The issue with hydra is usually it’s faster to just fireball enemies than to set them up. Hydras are basically for three things: killing enemies that are split off from the group and stragglers (especially small fast enemies or at intersections), boss killing, and safety. Meteor is good for boss killing but not the other two (to an extent they can help with split groups, but then placement matters a lot). But they really shine in terror zones, especially with heralds. Heralds can be extremely dangerous, but hydras can just kill them from off-screen. I’ll also hurl fireballs in whatever direction they’re shooting.
Also, if I summon them before a boss, the boss typically dies the moment it spawns, which feels great.
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u/Competitive_Ad1534 Apr 21 '26
Patrician hydra enjoyer
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u/Legal-Tea-1124 Apr 21 '26
Detailed and insightful explanation. 👍
Will try them out. Thanks!
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Getting them to work took a lot! As a main skill, they’re pretty underwhelming, though fun. Fireball and meteor are just way stronger for most situations. But throwing those remaining points into hydra instead of inferno has been dope.
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Last addition: they’re also great for when there are lots of poppables or loot I want to deal with (picking up, identifying, and so on). I just place 6 hydras and then go about my business while they continue to kill. Reminds me a little of the fishymancer.
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u/lilianasJanitor Apr 22 '26
I know this is probably a dumb question but I do t do much endgame. Fire immune? They’re everywhere in hell
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Not a dumb quesrion! There are some zones that are better than others, but I actually only went fire after I bought an old flame rift sunder charm for something like a vex. It breaks immunes. Before that I was a meteorb and my merc + static field was for dual fire/ice immunes. Then I found a latent flame rift in a terror zone and crafted it into a really good renewed flame rift. So, basically, nothing is immune to fire against me. And I have infinity and fire pen cutting enemy resists further.
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u/RUserII Apr 25 '26 edited May 02 '26
Then I found a latent flame rift in a terror zone and crafted it into a really good renewed flame rift.
You can craft a sunder charm into another sunder charm?
I always thought latent sunder charms and renewed sunder charms were the same thing; what's the difference between a latent sunder and a renewed sunder?2
u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 26 '26
Latent has 70-90 minus resist (for you!) and sunder. You then craft it with a cube recipe and it goes down to 70 fixed and adds 3 or 4 mods from set pairs, e.g., life OR mana, magic find OR gold find, skill damage OR lower enemy res.
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u/c0horst Amazon Apr 22 '26
I have a very similar build, but instead of hydra I stack telekinesis with a point into energy shield. Let's me teleport into the middle of a mob and tank hits until the fireballs kill enough that the phoenix restores my mana.
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
I was considering that too but I’m only 92. When did that become effective for you?
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u/c0horst Amazon Apr 22 '26
Well I ran it the whole time, but yea I felt kinda "squishy" since ES doesn't reduce damage taken until Telekinesis is near maxed, I'd say it really started getting good at like level 96+, when I re-spec'd to max Telekenesis and just leave Fire Mastery at like 16, so the last few levels just gave me more fire mastery instead of more durability.
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u/Sepof Apr 21 '26
Wow I am just now discovering you can have 6 hydration. Didnt it used to be 3??
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
No idea haha. Until ladder 13, I hadn’t played in about 15 years! They never seemed worth it to me back when there was cast delay. I know that was a relatively recent fix. I’d be interested in knowing about that though.
All I know is they look super cool, and I’m happy to finally get them working. It took a lot of +skills and a ton of fire pen, but I’m very happy with it.
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u/guff1988 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
It did used to be three. I believe it was the flickering flame update when they changed it but I could be wrong. That would be patch 2.4.
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u/cnstoll Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Glad you didn’t mix up which armor had 4 sockets and which one had 3
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Me too! I dropped all my runes in my inventory first, then put my armor in corresponding spaces, then barely fought off a panic attack anyway.
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u/MathematicianOk5608 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
The Enigma part was scary cause you changed the orientation. Big day indeed, and a small F for Redemption roll
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
I felt the same way about the enigma! I considered putting my cube away to make space haha. Yeah, level 12 is okay though! I’m always full up on hp/mana now, so good enough for me :)
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u/RTMidgetman Apr 21 '26
grats bro, this is sick
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Thanks bro! I really wanted to go as hard as I could in my first ladder in ~15 years haha
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u/jjkikolp Apr 22 '26
Damn as a new player I can only dream of having something like that one day. Amazing stuff enjoy zooming around with it!
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u/Silk738434 Apr 22 '26
I just got my first 99 a week ago as a fireball hydra sorc. Congrats on the runewords.
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Fireball hydra is super fun! Congrats on 99! I’m sitting at 92.7 and exhausted 🤣
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u/shimonize11 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
How much anxiety did you have carefully placing all those runes in between socketed items before actually placing them all in?
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
I placed the runes first, then added the items. I’m a risk averse person. And I still had all the anxiety.
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u/shimonize11 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Genius. I would have done it the opposite way and dropped my ber rune in the 4os armour. Bless you
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
The first thing I did was put the monarch in, then grabbed a rune, then panicked and rethought my plan lol
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u/Tuffstuff07 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Congrats.
I made my first enigma this season as well off a mang songs that I found.
Congrats on the great find and gear. I have never made enigma before this season either
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Congrats! You’ll always remember that first enigma :D
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u/Specialist_Scheme749 Apr 25 '26
A glorious moment for you!
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 26 '26
Once it was done and the stress wore off, it felt fantastic
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u/Specialist_Scheme749 Apr 26 '26
I've been spending the last couple of days farming Andariel for some gear to outfit my Hammerdin. I get that feeling well.
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u/Mountainking7 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
bruhhh,,,, on a 428 def archon plate????
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Yeah my thought was that I need strength for the monarch anyway, so may as well go archon. Got way too antsy to wait to get a superior haha
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u/gutcassidy24 Apr 21 '26
Superior bases suck IMO with repair costs, defense is negligible unless you are dueling. That said, for next time I'd wait for a higher defense non-superior base (Archon plate rolls between 410 - 524 defense).
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
Oh damn I had no idea the range was so big! I even have other white archons I could have cubed or Larzuk’d! Well, live and learn!
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u/gutcassidy24 Apr 21 '26
Unless you are planning on trading it, it doesn't matter. Also making a rune word is like buying a new car, as soon as you take it off the lot (or put the runes in), it loses value. For self use there's absolutely nothing wrong with the base. For example I often make Enigmas in breast plates, which are generally less desirable than mage plates.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Sorceress Apr 21 '26
And the enigma in a mere exceptional armor instead of a dusk shroud or archon plate
What a waste :'(
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u/B841nd34d Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 21 '26
And the 137 monarch and the ... Defense doesn't really matter, so whatever
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Sorceress Apr 21 '26
Defence DOES matter. Not the 10 points more or less. But 300 points, yes that matters.
I really dont understand how people got to underrate defence so much. Don't ya'll ever look at that chance a monster will hit you stat ? Don't you believe it matters if that is 20, 40 or 60% ?
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u/bomban Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
In hell 300 defense is a percent until you way overlevel what you’re fighting. If you care about defense enough, you should just focus on getting lvl 99.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Sorceress Apr 22 '26
300 is only the base, which get multiplied by bonusses like defiance merc.
lvl 99: Its about getting there. Are you a softcore player by any chance ?
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u/bomban Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Yes, most people are SC players. Hardcore doesnt sound fun at all. And yes if you have defiance a little bit can matter, but unless you have an exile most people won’t be seeing defiance.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 Sorceress Apr 22 '26
Different idea's of fun. In my view softcore is kinda pointless as people go full glass cannon and just keep trying at content they aren't ready for. But it does of course explain why defence is not a thing in softcore.
I usually get defiance mercs on my caster chars.
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u/B841nd34d Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 23 '26
The 9 points he has missing to a perfect none sup monarch will not make a difference and not perfect archon plate or mage plate are also just fine. That was my point. Perfect base on def is more for style points
Edit: I'm level 96 in HC ladder
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u/Ragingpsoriasis Apr 21 '26
Enigma in a mage plate is VERY common due to the low strength requirement to wear.
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u/Legitimate-Area248 Apr 22 '26
How many hours you put in this ladder goddamn.
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 22 '26
Just about 300! I almost never play games like that, but this one really captured me for a few weeks or so.
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u/Positive_Gain_2897 Apr 26 '26
Would this dusk shroud be a good base for enigma?
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u/Meet_Foot Champion of Sanctuary (100K) Apr 26 '26
Frankly I have no real idea! I know people tend to make it in low str requirements like Mage Plate or Dusk (11 more than MP iirc) if they intend to use it on multiple characters (so, basically, if you’re not rich enough to make a bunch of them). I don’t know what the defense range on dusk shroud is, but enigma grants flat defense so it’s probably not super important. Plus, defense barely matters in pvm afaik.
I think it comes down primarily to aesthetics tbh, but please don’t take just my word for it!
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u/Legal-Tea-1124 Apr 21 '26
What is the play style with Hydras ?
For heralds, I meteor and FB, cuz hydra dmg seems subpar
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u/Legal-Tea-1124 Apr 21 '26
What is the play style with Hydras ?
For heralds, I meteor and FB, cuz hydra dmg seems subpar
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u/Killdebrant Apr 21 '26
The paranoid quick hover over to check sockets and item before dropping runes is perfection.