Great new resource from JuxtaPoser to house his tier list and a ton more info. Know there are a lot of awesome resources as we head towards S14 launch day, but definitely another one work bookmarking!

MAD LAD IN THE MAD LAB

He has links listed to each build IF it has an underline under it. He is still working on adding guides more list

Here the link to his twitch. He is currently going over it now
https://www.twitch.tv/darkhumility

DH’s Ultimate Farming Guide

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/137uC_CHqDKdwvTDDhHCaMRpmPeResTjf6L2U4SCDdDE/edit?usp=drivesdk

Oh well, well deserved I guess. Emilio is back on the menu boys

lost potential on slam for bow but check out those stats

Adman’s Day 1 assassin guide - PD2 season 14

Hi and welcome to this guide on the season start assassin! The goal of this guide is to start farming as soon as possible without using any respec. This is in order to get early currency and buy that sweet, sweet gear! The guide is more directed towards newer players that will need help in how to allocate stats, skills and what gear is good during leveling, but hopefully any player can find it useful.

I want to start by saying that while I plan to do this for season 14, this is not usually my preferred way of playing during season start. I'm a believer that finding a group (check Discord LFG channels) and running the game normal through hell is the most fun way to begin the season. However I'm not sure I can be available at launch this season, so I figured I'd make a plan for the solo run.

I also want to say that I don’t claim to be an expert on this. This guide is just my thoughts and notes from trying to learn this strategy. Any tips or suggestions are more than welcome!

This guide will cover the campaign from start until A2 hell, where we will go to Arcane Sanctuary to begin farming. The strength of going this route compared to the normal strategy (complete hell, then farm whichever zone fits your build best) is that we can spend the time leveling from ~50 while farming in a good farming spot, since the build we're going for is very strong in arcane sanctuary.

After you have farmed for your first key items, some charms and maybe even a torch and anni, you can respec to whichever build you’d like. Assassin has lots of options!

A HUGE shoutout to BubblesPD2 - this guide is very much inspired by his speedruns and I take no credit in the strategies mentioned here. Give him a follow, he’s worth it! I will also recommend his map reading sheet, it helps a lot during the run.

I created a cheat sheet to use during the run. The idea is that you will read the guide, then you can print this cheat sheet or leave it on the second monitor to make it easy to follow along while playing. It contains what quests to do, how to distribute stats and skills, target level for each act, what gear to look for and any comments for that act.

It also includes play time for the different acts. The pro time is based on Bubbles video, with the “good” time being my first test run. My personal best for now is at ~3:45.

Tips, tricks and reminders:

• Try to always keep moving! What takes the most time during the campaign is running. Any FRW you can get on boots is fantastic!
• Save chipped gems from A1 normal to reroll claws when you start using traps in A3 normal. Recipe is 3 chipped gems+Magic item in cube.
• Loot items worth gold, teleport staff and charges are expensive! Remember that if an item would sell for the gold cap in the first acts, you can store it in your stash to sell it later.
• Experience is king, loot not so much. Any time spent getting gear upgrades during the campaign is less time spent farming in hell. When using blade sentinel or traps you can kill monsters while moving, you don’t need to loot all their items.
• Use Cloak of Shadows, especially when you face dangerous ranged enemies like souls.
• When shopping in NM/hell, try to look for a lower resist charge wand. It’s useful for bosses. Another option is picking up a lightning throwing potion. You keep these in your inventory and swap with the teleport staff for bosses.
• Save FCR gear you find for your A3 merc.

Act 1 normal:

Until level 6, you will need to utilize your normal attack or low level throwing potions if you find them. Skip Den of Evil (you will get this later), Blood Raven and Cain. I like to kill Countess once as the tower provides good experience with several elite packs on the way. Focus on killing elite or champion packs as well as big groups of enemies, and ignore single monsters.

As you reach level 6, put one point into Blade Sentinel (BS) and Burst of Speed (BoS). BS is your main skill until Charged Bolt Sentry (CBS) begins to pack a punch. Since it's based off of weapon damage, you don't need to put more than one point to it, thus saving you a respec.

Any extra elemental damage you can find synergizes very well with BS. If you can socket some gems into your weapon that is very helpful. My personal favourite at this stage is a 3 socketed bardiche.

You don't need to loot everything at this stage. The main thing you need is experience, so don't be afraid to throw a BS while running, ignoring the loot. Save any spare chipped gems you find - you will use them later on.

After killing Countess, head to Andariel and kill her, clearing elites and champion packs on the way. BS is very strong at this stage so this should be easy.

Act 2 normal:

Kill Radament. Find the cube, the staff and the amulet. Clear arcane sanctuary and head to Duriel. Focus on killing elites, champions and big packs of normal monsters, skip stragglers. Pick up items with high value (>10k for small items), as you will need the money next act.

When you reach level 18, add a skill point to Shadow Warrior and put the rest into Charged Bolt Sentry (CBS). Usually your BS will still be your main damage skill a bit longer, but the CBS are good vs bosses.

It’s easy to fall behind on experience at this stage. You have to be level 25 in early act 5. Bare minimum when finishing act 2 is level 19. In addition to the usual killing while running and clearing elite packs, clear the Maggot Lair as it gives good experience. You can also do some Tombs before Duriel if you’re still behind in level.

At level 19-20, head back to Act 1 and grab a Vigor merc. Movement speed is king! While in A1, head out and clear the Den of Evil for the extra skill point.

Act 3 normal:

In addition to completing the quests in A3, there is one more important thing for A3 - the teleport staff! At level 23, we will shop for a staff with teleport charges at Ormus. Any staff with teleport charges will require level 24 to use, so they will be with a red background in the shop, making them easy to shop at this time. Ensure you have money to buy it.

Utilize both BS and CBS during the act. CBS is good for when you face big packs of enemies on the opposite side of the ledge.

Act 4 normal:

Kill Izual. Forge is optional, but can provide useful runes. At this stage, you will mostly utilize CBS. You will start putting points into Lightning Sentry (LS) here. I find that CBS is still the stronger skill, especially if you have some +CBS claws.

Don’t forget about Cloak of Shadows (CoS)! It’s a very useful skill and will help with your survivability a lot, especially in the later stages of the run. When you use Shadow Warrior, I like to have CoS on my right click and then use quick cast for my skills. This way, the warrior will cast CoS often.

Act 5 normal:

Kill Shenk. Saving the barbarians is optional - hopefully you will find claws with good +skills, so you don't need the Ancient's Pledge.

If you haven’t reached level 25, you have to get to that level before Crystalline Passage, else you will barely get any experience. For solo play, Travincal runs are good here. If you’re playing online, you can see if there are any tomb runs up.

Save Anya, kill the Ancients and kill Baal. Well done! You should be level 26-28. Head directly to nightmare.

Act 1 nightmare:

Find Den of Evil, drop a TP, grab cold plains waypoint then take your TP to Den of Evil. Continue towards Andariel. The Charsi quest is optional. You can use either CBS or LS depending on the situation. When enemies are lined up, use LS. If clumped up, use CBS. Use CBS for bosses, just make sure to place them right on top of them.

Use your teleport staff a lot and pick up items worth lots of gold (25k+). The teleport staff will speed up the run, but it’s expensive to repair.

Act 2 nightmare:

Do all quests in act 2. As you get a higher level of LS, it will start outperforming CBS on all packs.

Act 3 nightmare:

Do all quests in act 3. I like to hire a A3 cold mercenary here before Travincal for good damage, crowd control and some life gain in the prayer aura. Give him any FCR gear you have gathered. You can buy staffs with good FCR from Ormus.

Act 4 nightmare:

Do all quests in A4. Starting here you can be a little more careful. Versus dangerous enemies you place traps ahead of you, let them do their work and then progress. Reminder to utilize Cloak of Shadows.

Act 5 nightmare:

Kill Shenk, barbarians are optional. Save Anya, kill ancients, kill Baal.

You can spend some time looking for good claws at Anya. You want +traps, assassin skills or lightning/chain lightning sentry. I try to get at least +3 skill in some shape or form. I’m super happy if I find one with Dragon Flight as well!

Congratulations on clearing NM! One more act to go, then it’s Arcane time!

Act 1 hell: 

Clear the Den of Evil and then kill Andariel. 

Act 2 hell:

No questing! Head straight to the Palace and all the way to Arcane Sanctuary. Well done, time to get farming!

Some notes on arcane farming:

• When farming arcane, I like to start on the flat path. It’s always the one opposite to the one with portals. If I don’t find the Summoner, I run back the other way around and pick one of the other non-portal paths. You can use a TP here, but as my goal is primarily to get experience and loot, not only keys, I prefer to kill more things.

I continue like that until I find the Summoner. After Summoner is killed, create a new game and go again.

• During early levels you will use Lightning Sentry. Try to line up the enemies so that many of them get hit by the same lightning. We’re a bit squishy but if you place the traps ahead of you, it will be fine.
• As you level up, Chain Lightning Sentry (CLS) will be your preferred trap. I like to switch when it’s almost maxed.
• Utilize your teleport staff here as well to avoid those annoying portals and stairs. After maxing CLS, I like to get one point into Dragon Flight for movement.
• Unless you are going to continue with a trap assassin build, I try not to trade for that much gear for this stage. What I do trade for is either items with a big impact for a cheap cost or items that I will utilize in future build.
• While arcane is good for the rune drops, I still like to have some amount of magic find. Buy a Lazruk hammer or two and socket your helm and armor with perfect topazes is a good way to up it a bit! 

Examples of what I might trade for:

Big impact for cheap cost: +3 trap amulet (usually 1-3 wss), +3 trap circlet (1 wss?)

Items that I will utilize for future build: Assassin torch, Ravenfrost (if you need the CBF, it’s good for MA sins), Natalya Boots (good res), +3-5 all res small charms (only if I find cheap, useful for a long time).

Wrap-up:

And that’s it for this guide. What comes after this is up to you! Clearing hell should be easy with your now freshly respecced and overgeared character.

For myself, I much prefer mapping to bossing, so I will follow this guide, farm gear and then respec into Fists of Fire or Blades of Ice and start blasting away on those maps.

If you do decide to follow this guide, please leave a comment here or message me with what you thought about it and how your run went! You can find me at:

In game account: Adman
Discord: Adman

Same goes if you have any questions, suggestions or thoughts on the guide. Like I said earlier, I don’t claim to be an expert on this, it’s just me sharing my strategy.

Hope this guide can be helpful and that you enjoy the new season, I for sure will. See you in Sanctuary!

General Changes

- Corruptions re-enabled

- Fortifying unique maps now grants the same 30% player velocity bonus as other fortified maps

Skill Changes

Poison Creeper

- 2 second casting cooldown removed

- Life scaling per level reduced from 100% to 25%.

- Level 16-22 damage scaling increased from 4-4 to 8-8

- Level 22-28 damage scaling reduced from 15-15 to 14-14

- Level 28+ damage scaling reduced from 30-30 to 20-20

- Damage synergies increased from 14% to 25% per level

- Fixed poison resistance reduction stacking incorrectly

Fissure

- Damage synergies increased from 12% to 14% per level

- Base delay between fissure spawns reduced from 6 frames to 5

- Delay between fissure spawns now decreases every 5 base levels instead of every 10

- Level 28+ damage scaling reduced from 34-36 to 28-30

Twister

- Next hit delay reduced from 10 frames to 4

Tornado

- Next hit delay reduced from 25 frames to 4

Blood Golem

- Casting cooldown reduced from 2 seconds to 1

Mercenaries

- Act 3 mercenary Static Field no longer deals percentage-based life damage

- Act 3 mercenary Static Field maximum targeting range reduced from 26 to 22

- Fixed mercenaries being able to level beyond their owner

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue with last collide that could cause incorrect damage and repeat hits

- Fixed some issues with channeling spells and teleport

- Fixed Blessed Hammer not dealing damage in PvP

- Fixed PvP charms not working

- Fixed items disappearing when using guild vault quick transfer

- Fixed guild hall tile and automap issues

- Old stackable runes and gems can now be deposited into the currency tab on non-ladder characters

- Fixed the Claw and Dagger Mastery critical strike display for Assassin charge-up skills

- Fixed some character saves failing to load

- Fixed the hotkey menu

- Fixed area names being cut off prematurely

I'm stuck away from home for the season launch for a while. Does anyone have any suggestions on builds that are easy enough to play with a controller/steam deck?

Looking for the simplest way to play the new season. I'm moderately techy, but would rather pay than try to find a bunch of workarounds.

I started leveling with smite for fun and I found out that amulets or rings that add +max damage or jewels with min damage don’t change sheet damage. Is that a visual bug in character sheet or is it the case and only +damage like astreon or redeemer work?

The last seasons I always played Vengeance Pally. This season I wanted to try elemental Sacrifice with Dragon items and HoJ.

I was wondering how to transition to that build from early game. As I understand, I need all 3 items to have the aura high enough. Do I play native aura and save runes until I can afford all 3 items? Or can I transition already with 1 or 2 of the items?

This is a wallpaper i made with all the Project Diablo 2 Season Thumbnails! Thank you Senpai! Big thanks to all the people working for this Project and fullfil our hearts with joy!

I just started playing pd2 for the first time last season and I really enjoyed it. I went HC with a mb es nova. I was planning on going es nova again, but SC this time. My question would be, now that a3 merc had static nerfed, what merc build should I use this season? Last season I used innocence, exile, skyfall. Should I try x4 eth stormlash instead of skyfall, or try a different act merc altogether?

Back on original LOD I really enjoyed Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Paladin or Sorceress.

But last PD2 season I totally mixed it up and I played Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Paladin and Sorceress.

But this season I'm really struggling. I'm not sure. I feel like I might really enjoy Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer or Sorceress. But there's just no way to know for sure?

Any advice?

Hey guys, just a suggestion/question: Would it be possible to add some kind of visual indicator for Open Wounds so we can tell when monsters are bleeding? Something similar to poison turning monsters green—maybe a reddish tint or a small blood icon above their heads?

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While I appreciate the deposit materials button, I've always kept stacks of the flawless gems/skulls in my inventory, so they're always in the same place--somewhat for organizing, but also always having a flawless skull for gem shrines. I also always keep a stack of shards for slamming.

That being said, can shift+right click automatically deposit materials into their respective materials tabs like before, rather than the regular stash tabs?

It it going to be uploaded later or he won’t upload it at all?

Hi all, im think im really bad at this game. Im always dying on quest 2 in Act 1. Did i miss something ? Is there any beginner Guide ?

Recruiting a team for launch - hardcore - tele sorc is from west so game will be made on US west server

Discord mandatory

We are a chill group, but very experienced players and know what we are doing, expecting similar from you. Doing full hell walk through, then splitting up to gear up, will have uber killer ready by day 2 to get everyone torch and annis as long as you provide mats. Some group mapping too.

Looking for these classes for launch walk through:

Salv Paladin

BO barb

Summon necro

1x dps ( javs zon/trap sin pref )

Please start a chat or DM and tell me a little bit about yourself and what you want to play. Thanks!

Every season I play WW barb, mostly because of the lazy play style and it's generally hard to die in maps.

Can anyone recommend a similar brain-dead build?

Hi everyone!

With S13 finished, I turned every trade listing PD2 Trader indexed this season into a Wrapped-style recap of the market. Ladder softcore, Apr 23 – Oct 19.

Our biggest update yet is coming for Alliance. More on launch day 👀

Also, if you're making your own PD2 tool for the upcoming season, feel free to use our price data. Docs are at pd2trader.com/developers. 

S14 SOON

What's the best sin build to start in your opinion. Best for key runs and lod content.

Will be switching to psn ww evantually.