I discovered this purely by accident, but helps out a lot. A perfect emerald gives +29 poison damage. Put that in a socketed weapon and you merely get that value, added by whatever you choose to put in the object. Instead, I took a 'Artisan's War Axe' with three sockets and an included magical property of something like +12 poison damage over 5 seconds. I put in three perfect emeralds and the axe now has +659-703 poison damage over 7 seconds.
Basically, find a socketed weapon with a magical property, whether it be fire, lightning, cold, poison. Fill the sockets with gems that match that property and increase the gem's property exponentially.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Hint - Hireling Exploitation
I had not played D2 for many years, and so was really jacked by the way LOD changed the hireling set up. I like playing Single player and discovered something that works VERY well with the archer you can get in the 1st chapter. My character was a Paladin.
At first, I just leveled up normally, killing the little critters and taking few risks. After gaining a few levels, I ended up with some chips and gems, along with a 3 socketed longbow.
I put 2 emerald chips and a skull chip into the bow and handed it over to my hireling. Boy! When she said "I'll make good use of this", I had no idea! She proceeded to wipe out EVERYTHING I couldn't reach.
When I got a new helm or armour, I gave my old ones to her. She ended up like an armoured tank, quickly doubling and tripling her AC as she went up in level. By doing this, she stayed within one level of my own throughout most of the game. As I reached higher chapters, I found other, better, socketed bows and just changed the grades of the gems, rather than the type. She already has cold and fire so the double poison of two emeralds made her devastating. The skull allowed her to keep herself healed. Every hit allowed her a percentage back in life. Kept me from having to get off of potions for her 90% of the time. This combo worked so well that when I hit the maggot lair in Chapter two with low lightning resistance, I just baited the lightning bugs out of a room and ran and hid behind her in the narrow hallways. She even killed the queen maggot for me!! I also ended up with several sets of armour and helms that cast frost Nova under percentage. I put the ones that I wasn't using on her, comparing later finds to upgrade the percentage as I was able. Before I knew it, the two of us were freezing everything in sight - it was very amusing.
In normal mode, we were even freezing the last lackies in the game, like Mephisto and all the goons around Diablo. The high council in Travincal looked good in blue, too.
Anyway, I can't speak for later (nightmare, hell) levels, as I haven't gotten that far yet but I sure was impressed with the archers ability as done so far. It's a great way to help you stay alive as you push for the 30+ levels, assuming that you don't get impetuous and try to take on too much at once.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Hint - Socketed Crystal Swords
Ever find a 4-6 socketed crystal sword through out the game? Keep them! Runewords will be of good use with these low level, low requirement weapons. For starters -- a 4 open socket plain (grey text) crystal sword, etheral or non, can make a nasty elemental sword. Four perfect gems of elemental types: Ruby, Saphire, Emerald, and Topaz. Not to mention some easy Runewords as well.
Crystal swords that are plain text, and non-etheral, are best for the runeword "Call to Arms". Im sure many of you know this already. Its also good for the rune word "Greif". But this is where the fun starts. Using runes in this crystal sword(5), can prove dangerous. Ral(fire) Ort(lightning) Tal(poison) Thul(cold) and amn(7% life steal) can make this an easy to use, combat efficiant weapon in Normal difficulty and the early stages of Nightmare difficulty.
Non-etheral crystal swords with 6 open sockets are the BEST sword for those of you who are item hunters and use the sorceress. There is also a use for the 6 slots. Runeswords! But heres my suggestion for those of you who are player-killers. Use Rainbow Facet jewels of different death properties.
Do not use level up jewels. Believe me when I say this, using the 6 socket crystal sword in a duel can litterally earn you respect...especially in hardcore duels. Beware that hardcore duels are meant to be with friends only since you risk losing items to the winner.
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