-Low Level Dueling (LLD)- by Mist (ignore the other thread)

[Mist]

Here is my unorthodox rebellious personal guide to LOW LEVEL DUELING

NOTE: The guide is now finished, however it will continue to be abridged as necessary for spelling errors, formatting errors, and accuracy errors, and additions may be made to the FAQ.

UPDATE: 6/26 Removed Class-by-class guides. You can now find the new, improved class guides in the strategies forum.

UPDATE: 6/26 This guide's sorta dead, it's just here as a general intro to LLD guide + FAQ, the class-by-class guide is outdated and the formatting is all screwed. Look for my class guides in the strategies forum, they each have their own thread now. I've done zon and druid level 9-16, more soon to come. Level 18 builds will have their own thread.

UPDATE: 6/24 Fixed many errors. More fixes and more detailed charm info coming soon.

Table of Contents
search for a content's code (i.e. "1a.") in your web browser to go directly to it.

1a. Introduction: What & Why?
1b. Class Descriptions: Which classes are good Low Level Duelers?
1c. Rules: What you should know before you start Low Level Dueling

3a. Useful information: Tips, general strategies, and more
3b. Appendix: Miscellaneous links and extra information
3c. Glossary: Terms, acronyms, phrases

PART 1: PREFACE

1a. INTRODUCTION: What & Why?
Low Level Dueling is Diablo 2 dueling of characters who are very low level (9-24). The minimum level required by the game to engage in Plaver vs. Player combat is 9, so the lowest level PvP builds are this level. There are many good unique and set items in the game that can be used at this level, along with many socketed items and types of jewels. You'd be amazed how effective a level 9 player can be in PvP combat at level 9 with enough work on them. If you think you'll never be able to do enough damage to beat other duelers at level 9, you're wrong. With the help of this guide you can easily break 1000 damage at level 9. The reason people Low Level Duel is it is much more intense than high level duels. Because stats, skills, damage, defense, etc. are all limited, the fight is much more even and toned down without overpowered skills which can kill another player in a single hit. Also, there is much less equipment available at this level, leaving a narrower variety of gear used by duelers, which in turn evens out the competition. Finally, Low Level Dueling is very cheap, and though it requires dedication, it won't require the greatest items the game can offer. Some people are afraid that if they decide to start Low Level Dueling, there won't be many other people around who also enjoy this sport for them to duel. Though it's true that LLD is not exceedingly popular, it's not hard to find others who do LLD, just create or join games made specifically for that purpose.

1b. CLASS DESCRIPTIONS: Who's good at LLD?
Mainly, diablo 2's classes are broken down into Melee classes and Caster classes. Casters don't do well in LLD because they are fragile by nature, and while they are designed to eventually inflict devastating damage through synergies, at a low level these skills are undeveloped, cost too much mana to keep up with, and can't break other players' resistances effectively. This means that the Necromancer, Summon/Elemental Druid, Sorceress, Trap Assassin, Hammer Paladin, and Bowazon will be ineffective overall at LLD and thus are not covered in this guide. The key to LLD is to inflict massive amounts of physical damage, while keeping yourself alive. Therefore, Shifting druids, Martial Assassins, Combat Paladins, Barbarians, and Javazons excel at LLD.

1c. RULES: What you should know
Low Level dueling is just what it implies - dueling. It is NOT PK (Player Killing) and it is NOT a free invite to duel other players against their will. I am a supporter of dueling, but I am violently OPPOSED to PKers. These are the rules of LLD:

1. Duels must be consentual. DON'T duel someone unless they intend to duel you back. If you kill them when they didn't want or agree to duel you, it's PK.

2. No parties. Don't form parties in duel games unless a team duel is arranged. Forming parties is annoying, paves the way for Team PK and unfair teaming, allows players to buff eachother in ways they normally couldn't, and sparks chaos overall.

3. No stealing. There is never a good reason to steal someone's gold. I honestly don't care if someone steals my gold, but a lot of people do, and I would never steal another player's gold.

4. No potions. Unless the other player expressly grants permission to use potions in the duel, DON'T. If you think they won't know if you use mana potions, you're probably wrong. A level 9 sorceress shooting 50 fire bolts consecutively is not very discrete.

5. No Town Hugging. Townhugging is a term used for cowards who stand right at the entrance of town. they go out into the battle field long enough to hit you, then run back into town when you start hitting them, or they feel threatened. If you run back into town after the beginning of a duel, you LOSE.

6. No Town Camping. Town camping is repeatedly laying traps / casting spells right outside the entrance to town so that anyone who walks out will immediately die. This is just cheap and stupid, and it's annoying as hell. Don't do it.

7. Don't call anyone a noob. If I could, I'd castrate everyone who calls other players "Noob" in a duel game. If you fought them in a fair fight and you lost, then you lost. You have no right or reason to assume anyone's newer to the game than you are.

PART 3: CONCLUSION

3a. USEFUL INFORMATION: Tips, General Strategies, and more
Low Level Dueling is a sport. As such, it will take practice and preparation. Be prepared to pay good items if you plan to buy the equipment you need for your characters (Jewels of Wrath are about a Pul a pair). For the normal items, picks, hammers, armors, shields, with a lot of sockets, I suggest running around act 1-5 in normal visiting each NPC, looking for a Normal version of the item. For armor, though, try killing large amounts of mobs in Normal.. foothills and cows are GREAT places to find items like Gothic Plate, Gothic Shield, Crown, Military Pick, and War Hammer for socketing. To socket these items to their full potential, use one of your characters' act 5 socket quests in Hell difficulty. To find all of the charms you'll need, simply run through act 1 in normal killing almost every enemy with an orb sorceress, pick up every charm, and you will have PLENTY of str and dex charms when you're done.

It's a good idea to make a separate account for LLD. You might enjoy it and want to make several characters you don't have room for.

To duel strangers, just create a Normal game called "Low Level duels" or something like that, and plenty of people will come. Remember that most people who LLD are not extremely devout, and probably won't be a challenge and will call you a hacker when you beat them. Just ignore these idiots

-perhaps more to come in this section.

F.A.Q.

Q: ROFL LVL 9 DUELER... NOOB
A: Come duel me sometime, then...

Q: WTF?! Why does each of your builds have 20 skill points???????? My level 9 char only has 8 skill points!!!!!!!!!
A: For each build I assume you have grushed each char up through hell and have done his skill quests. Grushing means that after your rusher kills Diablo, you create or join a Baal for Quest game and sit in town while others do baal, and you get credit. You can do this for Normal and Nightmare to get access to all difficulties and skill quests.

Q: So what about the 55 stat points?! I did all my skill quests but my char only has 40 stat points.... so WTF.....
A: The Lam Esens Tome quest (quest#4) in Act 3 gives you +5 stat points per difficulty upon completion.

Q: OK, people keep calling me a hacker because I'm beating them "with no armor on." WTF? I have armor on, I can see it, but everyone says im not wearing any armor?????????
A: This is a glitch. If you don't have enough base strength to wear an item such as a helmet, armor, shield, or weapon (this means that if you took off all items EXCEPT that piece of armor, you wouldn't be able to wear it because you rely on charms / items to get the required STR), then any other player in the game can't see you wearing it. For example, if you are wearing the Sigons Shelter armor but can only wear it because of the Sigons Gloves which add +10 str (this is the most common case), you will appear as if you're wearing no armor at all to other players.

Q: OK I explained that to them, NOW they're calling me a hacker because they say I am disappearing when I attack. WTFH no im not!!!!
A: Yes you are, you just can't see it. This glitch happens often when using Double Strike as a barb or sometimes kicking as a kick asn. The glitch makes your character disappear while you are attacking if your attack rate exceeds a certain point, which can be done using Double Swing (swings extremely fast) or Dragon Talon (kicks extremely fast). I don't know exactly how this works yet, but I know that it relates to your attack speed being too high.

Q: Well, they're still calling me a hacker. What should I do?
A: Duel them naked and let them kill you, or show them your items so they can see how good they are, or just ignore them. It isn't really worth it if they're stupid enough to think you're hacking.

--More FAQs to be added as questions arise, so ask at will.

3b. APPENDIX: Useful links / bibliography

This guide, and any guide, would not be possible without The Arreat Summit at Battle.net. It has a definitive, accurate list of every item and magic prefix/suffix in the entire game.

This is a useful tool for calculating which Runewords you can make with your items if you don't have RunewordWizard - http://tomatoman.net/cgi-bin/d2runes.pl

This is a VERY useful skill calculator for when you don't have an editor handy or don't feel like wasting the time editing - http://www.d2items.com/skills.php

This is a mid-quality diablo 2 resource site. It has some accurate trade charts, which are nice - http://d2freedom.com/index.html

This is an extraordinarily useful chart with very accurate information about Experience gained at different places depending on level - http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=512

Your handy-dandy HotIP Notebook - http://counts.dcloneirc.net/

LEEROOOOOOOOOOOY - http://www.leeroyjenkins.net/

3c. GLOSSARY: Terms, Acronyms, & Phrases

PvP: Player vs. Player
LLD: Low Level dueling
AR: Attack Rating
Str: Strength
Dex: Dexterity
Gc: Grand Charm
Sc: Small Charm
Asn: Assassin
Barb: Barbarian
Pally: Paladin
Javazon: Javelin Amazon
Bowazon: Bow Amazon
Ele: Elemental
PK: Player Kill

More will be added as necessary.



This is the end of the guide for now. Look for more from me in the future and PLEASE reply to this guide with any comments or questions you have whatsoever. Thanks!

-MIST

[Mist]

this post can be deleted

[Shadow-Hunter]

Great guide!!!... I love the little pic of the Chars u putted there.
1 thing is: The name of the 9 max dmg jewels are "Jewel of Wrath"
"Jewel of Ire" can only have 2-5 max dmg.. thats the only thing I have seen ..
But "Great guide".. I like it..

[Mist]

yeah, you're right. I got owned. editing now
oh, thanks very much for the compliment!! I tried

[Johnny]

nice guide, i'd like to see the javazon/druids too; i bet they are very similar to the other guides though

try finding (control+F) all of the words "ire" so you can replace them with wrath, i think i saw a couple

gj mist

[Mist]

Yeh, as far as gear goes I have my favourites, but you are of course free to elaborate to suit your personal taste. And thanks

[Shadow-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Mist

3a. USEFUL INFORMATION: Tips, General Strategies, and more
Low Level Dueling is a sport. As such, it will take practice and preparation. Be prepared to pay good items if you plan to buy the equipment you need for your characters (Jewels of Ire are about a Pul a pair).

u fogot to change this
Looking forward to a Javazon guide :grunt

[FWI]

Looks great

-FWI

[Darkmatter]

Indeed so. If you like, you can post the other parts of this thread in different threads, I can move all your posts (save the ones with all the guide information out to a different thread, then merge this thread with your other guides so that it's presented as follows):

Guide 1
Guide 2
Guide 3
etc, up til how many posts you need.
Then it will show all the comments after each post of the guide itself.

Whatcha think?

[Mist]

When I make more guides you mean? sure. thanks, and thanks to fwi, and thanks to shadow hunter for pointing out a persistent mistake. I think there's a mistake with the fine gc's though, I think those are lvl 12... im looking into it.

EDIT: ok. im sort of abandoning this guide and making class-by-class guides. I finished my amazon one already, it's in the strategies & tactics forum. About the charms, I was right, it's Sharp at level 9, Fine at level 12.

EDIT: no, fine = level 6 if there are no other mods on it, fine + mods = level 17 I was right to begin with

The new guide looks much nicer and is easier to follow and read. Its got much more pictures, too. Check it out.

[Ntrik_]

This is sort of a person we should've had in LLD tourny, I could've had some challenging moments then... j/k hehe

[Mist]

I'm up for a LLD tourney anytime.

[chocofilez]

I liked it alot, but i think that maybe ciberves cudgel would be much better for the barb. i made a LLD barb (around the 1 i pmed u about) with bash and that. he had a max of 350 dmg i think it was. 300+ hp, and 1000+ AR and defense. I was going to make a guide but you made one that is alot better than anything i could have wrote. good job. i love it. keep it coming!!

[Mist]

indeed civerb's is a valid alternative, it has appealing AR and decent damage. I prefer the gemmed war hammer for its higher damage and speed. The class by class guides in this LLD guide are outdated either way, check for my new class by class guides, each with their own thread (zon ans druid done so far).

[Darkmatter]

Alright, so do you want me to close this then? I'll need to start cleaning up the forum real soon, you know.

[Mist]

clean it up? why? o.o

well I'm gonna remove the class-by-class guides from this thread so it's just sort of a general LLD guide I guess. Or you can delete it altogether if you want. I'm making new guides class by class which are much better.

[Darkmatter]

Well, I need the forum clean so I can easily move all the builds into one thread, though it's not needed.

'If you are making lots of better guides spawning off this one, want me to close it? Or no?

[Mist]

go ahead and close it, I don't mind. Whats the problem? why do I have to make a decision? lol I don't see a reason to close or leave it open either way. Go ahead and close it if there's any reason I have no problem with it at all, either way.

[chocofilez]

close it or merge it into your guide sticky

[memory]

idk if u said this but i couldnt find it. what r the max lvls for each kind of LLD character like a trap assassin whats the max lvl? if u can could u tell me the max lvls of each kind?