Nudists
by LemmingofGlory

Class: Pal, Nec, Sorc, Dru suggested. Asn may be possible. (Ama, Bar not advised.)
Tag: None

Introduction

This is a description of what it's like to follow the Naked Way in Diablo 2. This is NOT something pertaining to you sitting and playing Diablo in your bare ass. Basically, the Naked Way is a description of characters that play without items.

I did not invent this playstyle. I have simply played using this style on various characters so I think I know enough about it to make a nice, informational write up. :)

Nudism Revealed

A Nude character is one without items, but why would anyone play in such a crippling manner? There are a variety of reasons. Some enjoy the challenge, some believe (and rightfully so) that playing crippled hones one's skills, and still others play for the role aspect. If you doubt that this can hone one's skills try this example: If you've used 8-16 slot belts your whole D2 career you'd probably feel naked without one. A nude character, however, is forced to deal with only 4 slots in their belt and is probably going to be more careful than a 8-16 slotter so they don't burn through their potion supply too quickly.

Rules of Nudism

There are no set-in-stone rules to Nudism, but here are my thoughts on it.

No Helms No Boots No Gloves No Belts No Armor No Weapons No Shields No Rings No Amulets No Charms Shrines and Wells are allowed. Potions, Keys, Scrolls/Tomes, and Gold are allowed. The Player Corpse is allowed to be "re-equipped" after death.

Mercenaries are optional. Some may find it vile to slay enemies with one who does not follow the naked way, but others may see it as a chance to show the item-using merc the folly of his ways and the power of the Naked Way. Whether or not to give them items is up to you.

Items required to be equipped to do quests, such as Khalim's Will to destroy the Compelling Orb, are allowed to be used for that reason only.

Throwing Potions are optional. Some would call them a weapon, yet they are not dependant on Attack Rating to hit their targets. In short, Throwing Potions are allowed because they're much like the scrolls of D1: They're used one time and that's it. They're also over-priced, as were the scrolls in D1. (Or, they were before Blizzard made them un-buyable.) A final aspect is that they're a type of potion!

General Tips

Some of us may prefer to keep "Run" mode toggled all the time. However, sometimes you may wish to toggle "Walk" mode and use the manual "Run" button (CTRL button for PC). The reasoning behind this is strategy. If you have a monster following you, it will move at either a Walk or a Run depending on how you move. If you're walking and then suddenly run, you'll have gained some distance on your pursuer because while you were running they were walking. This can be very useful. You also recover some stamina while you walk.

A player corpse has two uses to the nudist. The first use is that in a laggy environment it shows you where you really died as opposed to where you thought you died. The second use, while probably never going to be used on purpose, is that a player corpse provides a light radius, so, if you wish, you may die to provide extra illumination in a particular area.

Use terrain to your advantage and, at all costs, prevent monsters from using terrain to their advantage. An example of this is the forked path beyond the River of Flame way point. This particular area is very lethal to some nudists because of Abyss Knights. Abyss Knights often gather in clusters on a forked path and fire at you when you often cannot even see them. To make matters worse, the maze-like forked path can lead to dead ends in more ways than one.

Skills are the life of a nudist. IMO, Offensive Skills should be honed first. Defensive skills are situational and therefore less important. Neutral skills are somewhere in between. Putting skill points in non-damaging skills can lead to hardships later on when your skills need many repeat castings to kill a single monster. On the other hand, having some defensive skills (such as Salvation) can prevent you from dying after a monster lands a single blow on you. Still yet the neutral skills (Warmth, Redemption, Meditation) can keep you from returning to town as often.

You may wish to bind "Throw Item" to your Left Action Icon so that you don't end up charging into a mob because you have melee attack selected.

Sorceress Tips

The Sorceress is probably the class most weakened by the way of Nudism. There are many reasons for this, but I shall not go into them here as they are very numerous.

Know your enemies' resistances so that you dispose of them with the greatest of ease.

How much Warmth do you need, if any? Constant regeneration of mana is a good thing, but will you be returning to town often anyway (to sell things, get more healing potions, etc.)? Your frequency of town visits and reasons for town visits may be a good indicator of how much you need to invest in Warmth if you wish to invest at all. Remember that the opportunity cost for investing in Warmth is a weaker offense.

She does three types of damage: Fire, Lightning, Cold. You'll need at least one key attack spell in each tree. Be careful, however, to not pick a spell that is too mana-heavy for the limited amount of mana that you'll be working with. On the other hand, know that spell timers keep you from casting spells on-end, thereby allow you to regenerate some mana between casts. So a spell that has a timer but is mana-heavy might be more useful than you think.

Paladin Tips

Nude Paladins can do 3 types of damage: Physical, Magical, and Lightning. (They can do fire, too, though I would not recommend focusing on Holy Fire.) Due to the ways that they do this damage, their path is none-too-easy.

Physical damage can be mainly dealt with Thorns. Substantial investment is needed to be useful, and you will also need a good amount of life to withstand the damage. Alternatively, you could hire a mercenary to function as a meat shield, and the thorns will make him extra useful.

Magical damage is dealt by Blessed Hammer and Holy Bolt. Blessed Hammer damage can be enhanced by Concentration, but the effectiveness of Concentration is 50% of what is displayed.

Lightning damage is dealt by Fist of the Heavens (it also deals some Holy Bolt damage) and Holy Shock (not advised). You can enhance your FoH damage considerably by using Conviction. Holy Shock damage might be enhanced by Conviction if you switch auras quickly and Holy Shock pulses before your enemies shake off the effects of Conviction. I wouldn't advise relying on HS/Convict pulsing to deal lightning damage, however.

I highly recommend pumping Energy early on. (A split for 2 vit/3 eng per level would work well.) Around 80-125 Energy is sufficient, in my experience. When your Energy has reached that value, I'd recommend pumping vitality non-stop.

Redemption is an awesome skill. It requires a few prerequisite points, but I think you'll find at least Vigor to be a useful prerequisite. Meditation is also extremely useful, even at very low levels.

Necromancer Tips

The Necromancer has many interesting paths before him, and like the Sorceress almost all of his skills are useful as a Nudist! (PD becomes useless, but everything else has potential use.)

The Curse tree is great. They require relatively little mana, and each skill has some degree of use. Amplify Damage aids any minion you have that does physical damage, and Lower Resist any minion that does magical (It'll also help if you use Poison Explosion or Poison Nova.). Decrepify has a variety of uses. Life Tap, even a single point, is useful to help a mercenary survive. (If them merc doesn't use a weapon, it may be less useful.) The Weaken skill I would consider less useful, though you might find a way to put it to use. Iron Maiden can be useful, too, so long as you have minions around. (Unless you plan on being a naked vit-only Nec who has enemies die by IM'ing themselves on him. ;)

As for Dim Vision, Confuse and Attract, I'd not use Dim Vision extensively because the duration is shortened in higher difficulties. Confuse and Attract I have little experience with, so I'll leave it to you. ;) I also leave Bone Wall and Bone Prison for you to tinker with on your own accord. ;)

Bone Armor is potentially useful, though it requires substantial investment. For that kind of skill investment you're losing on offensive power, and in my experience, the loss of offensive power weakens the nudist.

The explosives skills (CE & PE) could be fun, moreso Corpse Explosion than Poison Explosion. I've never been impressed by Poison Explosion, and don't consider it a very worthwhile skill. Corpse Explosion, on the other hand, can be very useful. You can even up the damage by using Amplify Damage or Lower Resist (Remember it's 50/50 Phys and Fire damage) on those who will be the recipients of the explosive damage. ;)

Teeth I'd consider a mere prerequisite for bigger stepping stones, though if you only plan to finish Normal Difficulty it could probably be viable. :) Bone Spear and Bone Spirit are the big boys. My personal complaint of Bone Spirit is that with the Necromancer's low mana regeneration rate, even at 800 mana (on a non-Nudist Nec) you can run out easily in higher difficulties. Bone Spear's lower mana cost, despite its lower damage, might make it more viable - though I have not tested this.

Finally, the Summoning tree. For play into later difficulties, I'd suggest using Iron Golem as your main minion. (His thorns could be useful, though only if pumped.) Though that brings up the item dependency, which you might consider very distasteful! ("I need an item to make my Golem?! BAH!") At any rate, each Golem can make a useful "tank."

Skeletons and Mages may run out of steam pretty quickly. Revives... Handle these minions as you will. I'm not particularly experienced with army-commander Necs.

Druid Tips

Ah. :) I've played a Naked Druid to clvl 60, so I have some decent experience in this matter. I'd suggest reading Antique Cupcake's tale (found on the Sylvan Cliffs) for commentary on this style. But from what I can recall...

Firestorm is merely a prerequisite crappy skill. Molten Boulder I consider broken: It knocks back enemies on explosion, and OUT of the flames it creates! Since the flames are what does the most damage, it seems like the skill nerfs itself! I might seem a little miffed here, but, ugh, yet another broken skill.

Fissure was fun, though I didn't pump it extensively. Not much to say about it. OTOH, I specialized in Volcano, which was a useful skill only if the enemy was sitting over it. To help him stay put, I had a Grizzly and a Merc. ;)

Armageddon I didn't like too much. It seems that to make it work, stuff needs to run after you (so the little meteors will fall onto them). Blech. Wasn't my style, but maybe you'll like it. ;)

Arctic Blast was cute, but it has weaknesses similar to inferno. (You've gotta stand still, during which time enemies could sneak up.) Hurricane I found more useful. It could be used to deal damage even when moving.

Twister sucks so horribly I don't even have words for it. Tornado I've seen used effectively, however, though I was content to rely on Grizzly and Merc to deal physical damage.

Cyclone Armor is the same trap as Bone Armor: Light protection, but at high cost of skills.

And that's the elemental tree. I didn't attempt a Nudist Were(Wolf/Bear), but since those skills rely on Attack Rating, I wouldn't suggest them anyway. (Shockwave might not, but I've never used it.)

As for summonables, I very much liked my Grizzly. The Vines were "eh." Oak Sage was nice, and he worked well even at only a single digit slvl. (Though leaving him too low a slvl resulted in him being pasted by monsters every few minutes.) Heart of Wolverine and Spirit of Barbs *might* have some use as far as Wolves, Bears, and melee Mercs are concerned, but I'd rather go with Oak Sage.

Assassin Tips

As I haven't tried a Nude Assassin, I have no suggestions for her.

Got Tips?

If you have experience with a Nude Asn/Dru/Nec/Pal/Sorc and would like to contribute tips, comments, or point out a flaw in my suggestions, feel free to e-mail me and tell me about them.