I did try Double Swing, just never mentioned it. It was about the same dps and not worth the extra effort to drive in switching back and forth. Double Swing is faster, but the problem is losing Frenzy's damage multiplier, only the speed carries over. Double Swing's AR is also lower. I can see Double Swing being better with more damage multipliers so that Frenzy's is relatively less of a loss (the big one is Fortitude armor, or some source of Might or Fanaticism), or if you had more per-hit stuff like CTC effects or Holy Shock (Dream), but as it was I needed Frenzy's damage.
There's a certain threshold of effectiveness for melee characters. You need to be able to kill one monster in about three seconds. When you run away from a pack to spread them out, that's about how long you get to attack the one on the leading edge before they conglomerate again into surrounding you. If you can't make a kill in that time, then you're in trouble when you have to break off the one you damaged and it's hard or impossible to lock on to that one again in the crowd, and then you're stuck not making progress against their regeneration. Frenzy needs higher end equipment to get to that three-second threshold and never quite did untwinked. (Vengeance did. Maul didn't care thanks to Shockwave. Phoenix Strike sometimes could but was tricky and touchy to get the timing right.)
Anyway, I'm here for one more postscript. I decided to continue after all with the sorceress. I had said how that's my least favorite class, but I did come to miss playing one as the team progressed.
The original one died in act 4 normal, and I had taken the rebuild that far before deciding not to continue. But I can't resist going back to her anyway now, after the team found so much good sorceress equipment that I can't let go unused. Two fire skill charms and the lightning rainbow facet are the major pieces, plus also Magefist gloves, Suicide Branch wand, and a great sorceress skills circlet and amulet. I saved these items with notes from where each came from, so she will take them at the appropriate times as if she'd been with the team all along.
This isn't exactly the same as being in the team environment concurrently. Her access to items is the same as if she were within the seven-team; she doesn't get any extra runs through acts, or any item earlier than it dropped, she's still untwinked by that view. But by playing afterwards she has the advantage of foreknowledge: she knows an amulet with big strength is forthcoming so can keep that low, knows to save a socket quest for the circlet and put the facet in it, to prioritize resistance items higher because she'll have two fire skillers taking up charm space, and to focus gambles and crafts on the slots that aren't covered yet (rings, boots.) So it's a slightly different challenge, and her Guardianship if achieved isn't quite on the same level and should be footnoted, but still worth doing and still a worthy Guardian if successful.
I held to my original plan of how to handle her rebuild: Discard all her items from the first four acts (up until her original version died), so there's no advantage to be gained from running those an extra time. Then equip her with surplus from the rest of the team at that point; I did that originally when it first happened, so I could just pick up from the same save file. This included a Razorswitch staff that normal Diablo had dropped for someone else, an interesting item and worth taking for a spin for a while. (+175 mana on that is crazy. She went all the way from the outer cloister to Andariel in nightmare without ever returning to town for potions.)
Item finds so far: She got her own Razorswitch drop from nightmare Duriel, appropriately enough, swapped to using that one just for kicks (its stats aren't variable at all.) Whitstan's Guard shield, so I could consider building her into a max-block build if I wanted, can defer that decision for a while yet. Darkglow armor which I upgraded to put on the merc. Also an Impaler spear for him. The nightmare hellforge rune was Ko, technically above average but doesn't really do anything helpful.
And this wild moment:
All of Lionheart dropped in a single screen in Canyon of the Magi. So of course I made one to wear. The first Cuirass base I found was ethereal... but I gave it a shot at the cube-socketing recipe anyway, and got the 3:
so I cheekily made that Lionheart in the ethereal armor. I like this as an extra incentive to not get hit, like the Delirium helm on both of the previous amazons, may even induce me to play more carefully. On a teleporting sorceress it should last a long time. Also there is another Lionheart available later, after act 2 hell, the one the assassin took off then for her Shaftstop instead.
And one more wild moment, a Mal rune dropped out of nowhere in act 5 nightmare. It took a moment to brain-process that. "That's not a real rune, it has to be Tal or Ral or what's the other one Fal... oh wait oh wow." I have no idea what to do with it. In the team environment, I'd keep it in case a Kingslayer or Call to Arms could happen, but a lone sorc doesn't need those. The options are a Sanctuary shield (though I'd still need another Ko), or Prudence armor... not sure if I want to try to build her around shield blocking, or armor defense, or neither.
I just finished nightmare difficulty. Her fire build is as strong as I expected, max Meteor and Fireball synergy even with only 1 point in Fire Mastery. Her lightning side is a lot weaker, up to max Chain Lightning and 10 synergy points so far in Nova, but that's quite a bit weaker than I had hoped on damage with only 1 point in Lit Mastery. Actually Static Field is doing most of the damage on her lightning side for now. We'll see how this holds up in hell; she really needs to pack on as much +skills equipment as I can manage, maybe even go with separate fire and lightning setups on weapon switch like the bowazon did.
I'm planning on full-clearing like the rest of the team did, from act 4 nightmare through act 2 hell. Somewhat less necessary since she isn't item-hunting for any teammates, but I want to do it that way to keep her on the same playing field, the items she's going to inherit came from full-clearing and so she should do the same.
There's a certain threshold of effectiveness for melee characters. You need to be able to kill one monster in about three seconds. When you run away from a pack to spread them out, that's about how long you get to attack the one on the leading edge before they conglomerate again into surrounding you. If you can't make a kill in that time, then you're in trouble when you have to break off the one you damaged and it's hard or impossible to lock on to that one again in the crowd, and then you're stuck not making progress against their regeneration. Frenzy needs higher end equipment to get to that three-second threshold and never quite did untwinked. (Vengeance did. Maul didn't care thanks to Shockwave. Phoenix Strike sometimes could but was tricky and touchy to get the timing right.)
Anyway, I'm here for one more postscript. I decided to continue after all with the sorceress. I had said how that's my least favorite class, but I did come to miss playing one as the team progressed.
The original one died in act 4 normal, and I had taken the rebuild that far before deciding not to continue. But I can't resist going back to her anyway now, after the team found so much good sorceress equipment that I can't let go unused. Two fire skill charms and the lightning rainbow facet are the major pieces, plus also Magefist gloves, Suicide Branch wand, and a great sorceress skills circlet and amulet. I saved these items with notes from where each came from, so she will take them at the appropriate times as if she'd been with the team all along.
This isn't exactly the same as being in the team environment concurrently. Her access to items is the same as if she were within the seven-team; she doesn't get any extra runs through acts, or any item earlier than it dropped, she's still untwinked by that view. But by playing afterwards she has the advantage of foreknowledge: she knows an amulet with big strength is forthcoming so can keep that low, knows to save a socket quest for the circlet and put the facet in it, to prioritize resistance items higher because she'll have two fire skillers taking up charm space, and to focus gambles and crafts on the slots that aren't covered yet (rings, boots.) So it's a slightly different challenge, and her Guardianship if achieved isn't quite on the same level and should be footnoted, but still worth doing and still a worthy Guardian if successful.
I held to my original plan of how to handle her rebuild: Discard all her items from the first four acts (up until her original version died), so there's no advantage to be gained from running those an extra time. Then equip her with surplus from the rest of the team at that point; I did that originally when it first happened, so I could just pick up from the same save file. This included a Razorswitch staff that normal Diablo had dropped for someone else, an interesting item and worth taking for a spin for a while. (+175 mana on that is crazy. She went all the way from the outer cloister to Andariel in nightmare without ever returning to town for potions.)
Item finds so far: She got her own Razorswitch drop from nightmare Duriel, appropriately enough, swapped to using that one just for kicks (its stats aren't variable at all.) Whitstan's Guard shield, so I could consider building her into a max-block build if I wanted, can defer that decision for a while yet. Darkglow armor which I upgraded to put on the merc. Also an Impaler spear for him. The nightmare hellforge rune was Ko, technically above average but doesn't really do anything helpful.
And this wild moment:
All of Lionheart dropped in a single screen in Canyon of the Magi. So of course I made one to wear. The first Cuirass base I found was ethereal... but I gave it a shot at the cube-socketing recipe anyway, and got the 3:
so I cheekily made that Lionheart in the ethereal armor. I like this as an extra incentive to not get hit, like the Delirium helm on both of the previous amazons, may even induce me to play more carefully. On a teleporting sorceress it should last a long time. Also there is another Lionheart available later, after act 2 hell, the one the assassin took off then for her Shaftstop instead.
And one more wild moment, a Mal rune dropped out of nowhere in act 5 nightmare. It took a moment to brain-process that. "That's not a real rune, it has to be Tal or Ral or what's the other one Fal... oh wait oh wow." I have no idea what to do with it. In the team environment, I'd keep it in case a Kingslayer or Call to Arms could happen, but a lone sorc doesn't need those. The options are a Sanctuary shield (though I'd still need another Ko), or Prudence armor... not sure if I want to try to build her around shield blocking, or armor defense, or neither.
I just finished nightmare difficulty. Her fire build is as strong as I expected, max Meteor and Fireball synergy even with only 1 point in Fire Mastery. Her lightning side is a lot weaker, up to max Chain Lightning and 10 synergy points so far in Nova, but that's quite a bit weaker than I had hoped on damage with only 1 point in Lit Mastery. Actually Static Field is doing most of the damage on her lightning side for now. We'll see how this holds up in hell; she really needs to pack on as much +skills equipment as I can manage, maybe even go with separate fire and lightning setups on weapon switch like the bowazon did.
I'm planning on full-clearing like the rest of the team did, from act 4 nightmare through act 2 hell. Somewhat less necessary since she isn't item-hunting for any teammates, but I want to do it that way to keep her on the same playing field, the items she's going to inherit came from full-clearing and so she should do the same.
![[Image: noidea.gif]](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/noidea.gif)
In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
My imagination doesn't go as far as to guess all the builds, but I'm guessing Starshatter could relate to Freezing Arrow bowazon, and Starlava to Fissure/molten bolder druid. What build options do you even have left for the barb? Full on berserker is always a fun build for me, I'll go him as the Starmash.