Median XL For Dummies v2

__________INTRODUCTION__________
Hi, I am iwansquall and i like turtles. Joking aside, these probably will be my only guide in this forum as there are already tons other guide that covered much more than I could. Firstly before I get into to all of the Knowledge-Bombardment, I would like to said that this guide are designed with Median XL : ULTIMATIVE in mind. If you are playing older version, you might find couple of stuffs that are not accurate. Second, Im dont know much about formating between lo-fi, low resolution and high resolution, so I will just try my best to make the guide easy to read to everyone as well as reduced amount of wall of text. And lastly, have fun reading this guide until the end.

__________TL;DR GUIDE__________

Spoiler:

__________TABLE OF CONTENTS__________

1. 5 Elements of Gamer
   1. Fortitude
      
   2. Playing Skill
      
   3. Knowledge
      
   4. Luck / RNG
      
   5. Time
      
   6. Summary
   
   
2. Build & Playstyle
   1. WDM user
      
   2. Caster
      
   3. Summoner
      
   4. Design your own build
      
   5. Powerleveling
   
   
3. Section for Dummies
   1. Tips & Tricks
      
   2. Noob Mistakes
      
   3. Single Player Guide
      
   4. Useful Gears
   
   
4. General Gameplay Guide
   1. Act 1
      
   2. Act 2
      
   3. Act 3
      
   4. Act 4
      
   5. Act 5
      
   6. Terror Difficulty
      
   7. Destruction Difficulty

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As you probably know, i love theorycraft. Sometimes it isnt about skill mechanic alone, but on how to present idea properly so it can be understand by other people. If you looking for in-game guide, i suggest to skip this part as this section mainly focus the player itself. Several information can be applied in real life which might help you gameplay tremendously.

__________FORTITUDE__________
Strength and Vitality. This element are mainly on HOW LONG you able to play with GOOD mental state. Preseverance will you make continue despite dying and failed couple time. Have you tried play the game after you exercise or doing some workout? If you are tired, it is guaranteed that your game will become sloppy and you might make more mistakes than usual.

Spoiler:

__________PLAYING SKILL__________
Dexterity and Agility. Since median XL is all about skills and click-fast, you will have disadvantage if your hand move slowly or your reflex is slow as turtle. Thankfully, you doesnt need high APM like korean broodwar player but you still need to maximize all hotkeys properly. I guaranteed you that playing medianXL is much harder than playing other MOBA game.

Spoiler:

__________KNOWLEDGE__________
Intelligence and Wisdom. Currently, it is the MOST IMPORTANT elements to play median XL. Sometimes you might learn your lesson after dying to certain encounter, but it just much better to seek knowledge either from documentation or forum. Rather than giving you a fish, teaching you how to fish are much better, so you could survive on your own.

Spoiler:

__________LUCK / RNG__________
Probability and Chance. These are the MAIN FACTOR variables when playing diablo 2. It cover from damage rolls, drop chance, monster position, stats on your items etc. However, this is one of elements that you cant control because it is all in programming probability.

Spoiler:

__________TIME__________
Duration and Progress. Time factor that I want to talk here are the time you have for playing the game". People said as long you spend the time in-game CORRECTLY, you will automatically will become better player. Time is also one of the elements the CONTINOUSLY FLOW FORWARD, so spend wisely.

Spoiler:

__________SUMMARY__________
If you have high amount of 5 elements I said above, you are pretty much a HARDCORE PLAYER (and shouldnt need to read this guide). In this summary part, I will talk about on how to play if you are only have certain characteristic and some tips on how to improve your gameplay. I will factor out Luck/RNG and time because it is external factor.

Spoiler:

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In this section, I will talk about couple of build design in MedianXL. Always assume that this is not a guide that you need to follow 100% but rather just take couple of useful information and tweak it as you play the game.

__________WDM USER__________
WDM stand for Weapon Damage Modifier which used by a lot of skill in medianXL. Technically speaking, this playstyle is using their weapon to do damage. The sharper your knife, to more damage you do. Same like some heavy weapon, the stronger you are, the more damage you can deal.

Spoiler:

__________CASTER__________
Caster is a class that focused on spell damage which available in various elements. Normally caster use energy as their main stats and have multiple elements in their build. They also able to improved their damage greatly by getting -% enemy resists.

Spoiler:

__________SUMMONER__________
Summoner is a class that mainly use their minion as primary damage dealer. Unlike other 2 build, you pretty much can sleep while your minion do the dirty job. However, playing summoner alone isnt enough in medianXL because monster damage scaled to high compared to your minion life.

Spoiler:

__________DESIGN YOUR OWN BUILD__________
In this section I will guide for you to design your on build. It just a template.

Spoiler:

__________POWERLEVEL__________
Powerlevel in my term here is the capabilities of your character to perform the certain actions in the game. Since medianXL are all about progression, the higher your powerlevel, the faster your character able to progress. Think the powerlevel is a indicator that tell you how much

Spoiler:

In this section, I will take about WHAT I THINK for all class that available in MedianXL. Some of them might be bias and you might disagree with me, but my current focus is just to list each class with their own playstyles that already listed before. Some of the information might be outdated as Im currently referring from old guide for Median2008.

__________AMAZON__________
DEVOTER, Amazon class in medianXL have 4 different devotion that define her playstyle. All of devotion are powerful passives that much stronger with more points into. Each devotion have their own pro and con, but usually as long as you stick one tree, you can be guaranteed that is best way to play it. Hybrid is possible, but she will loss that tremendous power for more skill and weapon choice.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : Bow, Javelin, Sceptre, Spear
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster walk / run, Faster recovery & cast speed with spear, Faster cast speed with swing weapon
  
• Stat Bonus : 25 Health per level. 15 Mana per level, 2 Health per vitality, 4 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Wont work unless some oskill build. Although pounce have STR-bonus on it, it still not worth it because spear-class weapon only DEX to improve its' weapon damage. Not to mention that all amazon's skill have weapon specific requirement making it harder to combo with STR-based weapon
DEX-WDM	Best skill tree to use would be Javelin and Spear tree. Javazon have benefit from DEX as they can easily reach 75% chance to block with it. Alternatively, she also can go paragon build with amethyst to reach maximum survival with cheap gear
FLAT-WDM	Bowzon is best here. Her devotion basically give free tri-elemental as long have the same element from your gears. Gear like Jitan's Kamon and Sunstone of Elements can easily remedy that.
LONG RANGE CASTER	This mean the bloodzon tree. She capable to shooting from across the screen with bloodstorm. Other blood are good spell that are much stronger once the her devotion trigger. She mainly focused on fire and magic spell
MELEE CASTER	Only skill she have to use this playstyle is Hyena strike only which deal TONS of poison damage. Probably you could try flower oskill from rare amulet, although She lacked of %spell damage source as it only came from bloodlust and Spirit of Vengeance.
ENERGIST	Haha, no. Just no real benefit, there isnt dex-based spell either.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	With powerful fire elemental, she quite excel in this area. You can pretty much combine any tree and it still work with Fire Elemental. Not to mention that fire elemental inherit all of your passive. Skill like Defense Harmony which trigger when strucked, are valuable and doesnt require player to tank the shot.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	Fire Elemental can trigger powerful fire cannonade when death, making it excellent skill to spam on top of enemy. Other than Spellbind and Bloodlust, she doesnt really have any good skill to play passively.

__________ASSASSIN__________
VERSATILE, Assassin basically have various skills that are useful to all her playstyle. She general associated with being fragile but she can easily remedy that by being like a ninja. Most of her skillset rely on speed and being nimble, making her perfect class for player that have quick reflex and good playing skill.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : Katar, Throwing Knife, Naginata
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster attack with fist / katar, Faster attack with throwing knife, faster attack with polearm
  
• Stat Bonus : 25 Health per level. 15 Mana per level, 2 Health per vitality, 4 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Nope, see doesnt have much skill that benefit from pure str nor she have a good source of %ED / %EWD.
DEX-WDM	DEX is main stats for assassin as she have class-specific which allowed her to achieve 75% block easily. Naginata is good here as she also have Laserblade which improved with pure DEX.
FLAT-WDM	She is queen of blades and flat WDM. Most of her passives give a lot of free flat passive damage that allow to deal tons of damage even being naked. She the most excel class in this playstyle
LONG RANGE CASTER	She can be long range caster by investing into sentry/bomb tree. Good aspect of being caster sin is she doesnt need to focus much on energy as she can get high %spell damage easily, so spreading stat points into DEX and VITA can improved her survivability a bit.
MELEE CASTER	Currently only melee caster skill that she have is Twin Fang which deal dual fire and poison damage. Combined with bonus from Ways of Phoenix and Snake, she also able to deal flat damage at same time. You are free to go either katar for speed or naginata for AoE attack.
ENERGIST	In ultimative, energist have given a summon that able to cast powerful spell. Combined with her passives, she have a bit more survival even she invest all point into ENERGY
ACTIVE SUMMONER	Staple skill to play active summoner would be playing batstriker. Best part of the summon is that they inherit all of your passives and able to deal high elemental damage on melee attack.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	Although she have 2 summon skill and bunch full of good debuff skill (blink, psychic scream, doom), she really need to deal damage by herself as she pretty lacked in number to play as passive summoner.

__________BARBARIAN__________
POWERHOUSE, that best word to describe barbarian. He practically can use all type of weapons that available in game although he generally based toward STR-based weapon. Characteristic of barbarian would be his stance, which is kinda like chinese's kungfu style. Then have couple other skill tree that can combined around with stance to make unique build.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : All melee weapon, Throwing Axe,
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster swing / cast with 2hand swing and dual-wield
  
• Stat Bonus : 30 Health per level. 10 Mana per level, 3 Health per vitality, 2 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Barbarian is best class to play with pure STR as he have a lot of skills that rely on hard points into STR. Lion stance and Earthquake is best example for this build. Other stances and weapon setup still can work flawlessly here.
DEX-WDM	DEX barbarian currently doesnt work well compared to other class because he have lower innate block. It might work, but he will lose more of the good bonus. He got a lot of %ED / %EWD to make up for it though.
FLAT-WDM	Barbarian can easily get high tri-elemental from Nephilim Weapons and Kraken stance oskill. Additional to that, he also can get very high lightning damage from Thundergod skill and good flat damage from Wolf Companions. Skill that rely on high missiles count like fortress and overkill work well here as well. You also can go pure VITA with this build and still have good killing speed.
LONG RANGE CASTER	He doesnt have innate caster skill but he can get various oskill from gear. To make this build work, he can combine with bloodlust from protector spirit, high regen from eagle stance and go pure STR with high STR factor gear.
MELEE CASTER	He doesnt have melee caster skill, but he can go with elemental proc melee weapon and bloodhatred. Bloodhatred give all stuff you need like %spell damage and life on melee striking for survival. He can pretty with any stat setup for this.
ENERGIST	Nope cant work for energy, by via pure STR and high STR factor can work abit. Dont count much on it though as there is no STR-based caster spell.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	Barbarian probably one of best class to play with active summoner as he can get all good stats for minion from Shamanic Trance alone. Combine with stance dancing, he can pack a punch on monster wall.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	It is hard to play passive summoner other than thunderslamming and jumping around with spirit walk. He got couple of debuff like Eagle Dive, Wolf's Doom, Thunderslam and to some extend, Shower of Rocks that reduce enemy defense rating.

__________DRUID__________
ADAPTED, druid various skill tree that can be combined depending on your situation and play style. He got 2 shapeshifter tree that have very different playstyle which kinda similar to cLoD. He also have other 3 skill tree that mainly focused on destroying enemy from a far making he among that class that have highest ranged spell.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : Axe, Hammer, Maul, Dagger, Staff, Crossbow, Bow
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster cast with staff
  
• Stat Bonus : 20 Health per level. 20 Mana per level, 1 Health per vitality, 6 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Aside from barbarian, druid is another class that get TONS of benefit from investing into STR. With his main weapon focused on STR and an uber that give you free damage and power up proc from STR factor, you cant go wrong with this. You go treewarden for melee or bowdruid for ranged.
DEX-WDM	Pure dex work wonder with trap rat. He have to rely on high missiles count skill because he innately slow and dagger arent the best DEX based weapon. Combined with %cb from from elfin arrow, he can put down toughest foe with merely a second
FLAT-WDM	Druid doesnt have much free flat bonus other than Force of Nature (ultimative only). You can however try to get the flat damage from gear, but technically you can only combine it with missiles proc and mythal for lower resist alone.
LONG RANGE CASTER	As i mentioned before, druid excellent with his long range spell. Whole tree are really powerful and immunity doesnt hurt him much as he got couple of utility skill to help him. Using skill like mythal, elvensong, and uberskill Tremor, he push through crowd like hot knife through butter.
MELEE CASTER	Treewarden combine with wildfire and poison flash is an excellent among the melee caster in median. Treewarden have so much faster attack speed and casting animation, he able to jump between enemy group in blink of the eye.
ENERGIST	Pure energy might not work, but playing caster with pure STR might work abit although you will have problem with high mana cost spell. This also mean that you have choose Force of Nature only though.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	Acid fiends is good summon that work with all types of druid. Combined with their aura and full synergies, acid fiends can clear the enemies with their deadly poison flash.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	Playing passive summoner with druid now is much harder compared to old version. He already lost his signature charm and support skill, leaving you only elvensong and mythal as support spell. Losing blindside as main stunner skill also had made druid crowd control a bit weaker.

__________NECROMANCER__________
UNITY, necromancer have various of powerful skill that seem a bit weak on their own, but can become much more powerful when it combined with each other. Necromancer also have couple different playstyle that fit everyone taste. He remain truthful with his minion controlling background as most of his spell rely on minion to either empower his alles or weaken their enemy.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : Scythe, Dagger, Crossbow, Staff, Wand
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster cast with staff
  
• Stat Bonus : 20 Health per level. 20 Mana per level, 1 Health per vitality, 6 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Scythe is necro's main dedicated STR weapon. However he doesnt have any other that benefit from STR investment, but that doesnt mean you cant invest into all STR. With enough support from minion and totem, he can go full rambo.
DEX-WDM	Necro can use dagger and their class specific shield to retain powerful affix. But like pure STR build, he doesnt have much skill that give high return per DEX investment. However, he can go pure DEX for maximum block, deathward and minion wall for ultimate survival combo.
FLAT-WDM	He can get couple of elemental damage from various source. One is tri-elemental from deathfire totem. Next is fire damage from his passive, dragonfire oil. Lastly is the doom from his summon, lamia which increase physical damage taken by enemy. For skill that high missiles count, then voodoo shot is best way to go.
LONG RANGE CASTER	He doesnt have any active caster spell except for his spell totem. Although it doesnt stop him from having fun as he can easily obtain them via oskill. Combined with his high mana regen from embalming and high mana per energy gain, he even can most expensive spell with ease.
MELEE CASTER	Melee caster doesnt work as he doesnt have skill for it, but he go for pure melee proc build by using massacre added as it can dish 5 attacks in rapid session. Combined with %spell power from shadow and burning veil, as well as -% enemy resist from djinn, seem like it just take a bit effort to use this playstyle.
ENERGIST	Despite his high mana gain per energy, there arent spell that he can benefit from.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	He already have tons of active skill and powerful minion. Just throw bunch of different skill here, and it still can work as long as you wear the dedicated gear for it. Necromancer will fall too easily without his summon as it pretty much served as second layer of protection.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	Necromancer is only class that can true fully sit in the corner while giggling as his summon tear apart the enemy. Various element from spell totem, support skill that improved his summon and powerful summon itself, he can pretty go naked while his enemy awe with his powerful little friends.

__________PALADIN__________
CHOSEN, Paladin is a class where you need to make a choice when purging your enemy. Either it holy, unholy and neutral, each of skill tree have their own playstyle that much different from each other. Regardless on what your choice, it can be guaranteed that you will rewarded accordingly. So it is important to make good choice so that you wont regret it.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : All melee weapon, Sceptre,
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster cast with sceptre, Faster attack / cast with spear weapon
  
• Stat Bonus : 30 Health per level. 10 Mana per level, 3 Health per vitality, 2 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Pure STR only work with holy melee skill tree. It got tons of skill that improved per hard point STR and powerful dedicated class specific 2hand weapon. If you being MANLY MAN is your choice, you come at right place.
DEX-WDM	DEX investment for pally is a bit tricky because he doesnt have benefit from and his block a bit lower than other class. Even though sceptre is based on DEX, he doesnt have any other method to gain decent %ED / %EWD to fully benefit of this playstyle
FLAT-WDM	Pally doesnt have flat damage bonus except from plague and Merkabah which still require STR investment. However, people manage to make a crossbow build in older medianXL before, so you might want to try that.
LONG RANGE CASTER	He can go caster with any alignment, All of them are different, but they have their own way to deal with immunity easily. Pally however have a bit problem with skill choice as his mana gain per level and per energy invested are quite low.
MELEE CASTER	Both melee alignment have this playstyle. You can go with hammerstrike in holy tree or various other spell in unholy tree. Pally's 2hand spear might your best your choice here as it been designed as a "staff" for pally.
ENERGIST	Jedi and Sith mindtrick wont work here. You wont get discount for spaceship parts.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	Scourge is good meatshield that benefit from blessed life. Best of it is that the scourge are synergized with all your points into either holy or unholy, making all your investment. Although be adviced that holy focused on offensive while unholy focused on defensive, so you might need proper to counter the balance.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	Playing as passive summoner is a bit hard here. His crowd control are good, but a bit limited and pretty much require you to go active with it. Crowd control that he have are retaliate, Colosseum, Searing Orb, Black Sleep, Slayer and Divine Apparition. To be more passive, you have to obtain other sources for buff and debuff from your gear.

__________SORCERESS__________
COMBINED, Sorceress able to choose two out of four from her elements skill tree. Each elements have their own pro and cons making that each skill tree more unique. Sorceress however, doesnt give you the choice of varied playstyle, making that only wise and creative player will be able play her differently.

Characteristic

• Main Weapon : Staff, Orb, Crystal Sword, Warpblade
  
• Innate Bonus : Faster cast with staff, Faster attack and cast with 1hand swing weapon.
  
• Stat Bonus : 25 Health per level. 15 Mana per level, 2 Health per vitality, 4 Mana per energy.

Playstyle	Playstyle Description
STR-WDM	Manliest sorceress? Nope, doesnt work. Her main weapon only focus on DEX alone.
DEX-WDM	Warpblade have high DEX bonus and high base damage for 1hand weapon in whole median! Making that investment in pure DEX are worth it. Except her melee skill a bit 1 dimensional. Most of time, you will only spam 1 spell from start and until the end game making her totally a easy build for new player
FLAT-WDM	For this one, she really have to rely on elemental damage that available a lot on her gear. From there, she can just combine it with any skill that can give %spell damage to get full benefit of flat damage.
LONG RANGE CASTER	She is the queen of caster. All of her skill tree are screaming caster spell and be used in almost all situation. Some of them are even casted PASSIVELY, making she casting spell while casting spell is like eating cookie while eating cookie.
MELEE CASTER	Combined with her passive automatic spell, she can only go melee caster with help from proc of her gear. She probably wont have problem using any spell proc with decent damage, but he still one dimensional
ENERGIST	The term energist are pretty much designed for her. With 2 main spell that sitting in magic tree, which accessible with all type sorc, she pretty much can go any combo of build to cover weakness that usually related to this playstyle.
ACTIVE SUMMONER	Summons tank for you while you preparing to cast powerful spell is standard situation that happen in various game. However, her only active summon would ice elemental only as familiar cant really tank for you, making that you can only pick 1 more of 3 other elements tree.
PASSIVE SUMMONER	She can play as passive summoner a bit, but she need much more minion than ice elemental. There are acid fiend oskill that availabled on crafted armor that perfect for this. Combined with her crowd control of forced wall, fus ro dah and chronofield, her minion can happily making snowball out monster body without much problem.

__________USEFUL GEAR__________
This section would be general section of useful all-around gear that all character can use.
Generic

• Jewelword - Put jewels in all sockets of grey item.
  
• Gemword - Put all jewels except the last slot, put gem which bonus will be multiplied.
  
• Honorific - Best for %all resists, +str/dex jewellery.
  

Weapon

• Enyo RW - +1 skill, %minion life, %str, %vit
  
• Azrael RW - FCR, IAS, +str, +life, +life after each kill.
  
• Berith RW - Speed booster, +str, +dex, %gold find
  

Body

• Jitan's Kamon TU - Tri-elemental damage and %damage reduction
  
• Queen of Glass TU - -%enemy resists, %frw and some %resist
  
• Victory RW - All attribute, %spell damage, %MF
  
• Mirage RW - +1 skill, 60% FRW, all resists.
  
• Dragonheart RW - high %defense and +500 life
  

Headgear

• Summit RW - Good discount and gold find at early level
  
• Cannonball RW - High FRW coming from a cheap rune
  
• Lily RW - +2 skills and +1 life on striking with decent +Life after each kill
  
• Eulenspiegel RW - +2 skills and couple of good %stat bonus
  

Belt

• Aerin Orbiter TU - spell damage and all resists.
  
• Prodigy RW - Regen mana, Mana after each kill
  
• Fuse RW - Immolation Bomb proc, Blast wave oskill
  
• Truce RW - 10% damage reduction
  

Glove

• Police Verso TU - Life and mana after each kill
  
• Kali RW - +2 skills, 10% max fire resist
  
• Skald RW - FCR, bloodlust oskill
  
• Lai RW - 80% FRW, +vit, +energy
  

Boot

• Death Spur TU - Max damage, +str and dex
  
• Lionpaw TU - too useful
  
• Epicenter RW - %max life
  
• Craton RW - +all attribute, flat damage reduction, %TCD
  
• Megalith RW - +1 skill, +str, %damage reduction, +FHR
  

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You can pretty much get all information about mercenaries from guide. There are details there about the skill and stats of the mercenaries. On this section, i will give my personal feedback on them and how to match them with your playstyle.

[spoiler]
__________THE SISTERS__________
Ranger
She is fairly offensive that focused on physical damage. However the AI a bit stupid, like casting barrage when it clearly cant reach the target. Once she the warspirit, she pretty is a good proc-machine. She however a bit fragile without survival skill
Recommend for : Melee class either Flat-WDM or caster, tanker, summoner

Priestess
A bit more defensive than Ranger. She quite a supporter type that cast couple spell that useful for summoner. However her Pagan Rites might clash with any build that rely on corpse.
Recommend for : Caster, Summoner

__________THE TOWN GUARD__________
Exemplar
Exemplar is self-sustained melee fighter that doesnt require much attention or your potion. His skillset pretty much allow him to focus on either crowd control or passively dealing WDM attack. Physical immune is not a problem for him as both Retaliate and Disintegrate dealing magic damage.
Recommend for : Ranged / Fragile Class

Shapeshifter
Shapeshifter is one of tankiest mercenaries by having large health pool. However he lacked of regen skill, so he need to rely from your potion or having large amount of life leech. Bloodlust good all around damage buff that affecting all your allies.
Recommend for : Caster, Summoner

Fighter Mage
Figther Mage is one of excellent mercenaries that focused on crowd control. His skill set focus multi hitting WDM skill, so he also are good to become a proc machine. With chronofield and glacial Nova, player can just focus on offensive
Recommend for : Ranged class, Summoner

__________THE IRON WOLVES__________
Bloodmage
Bloodmage is caster mercenaries that help a lot for sustainability with his Gift of Inner Fire skill. His skill focused on fire and poison making it excellent as alternatives damage dealer for immune. However most of his skill are designed for short range, while he mostly try to be far away making his skill a bit waste.
Recommend for : WDM, Cold / Lightning Caster, Summoner

Necrolyte
Necrolyte is mercenaries that excellent in crowd control and dealing spell damage. He is focused on cold and poison as well as able to manipulate the enemy with charm. However he need a proper tanker to making his spell able to hit properly.
Recommend for : WDM, Tanker, Fire / Lightning Caster

Abjurer
Abjurer is least favoured mercenaries. His skill set focused on lightning damage debuff on enemy. Although he have faster breakpoint compared to other iron wolves, his main skill are not designed for long range making he deal lesser damage then he capable of.
Recommend for : WDM, Ranged Class

__________THE BARBARIANS__________
Barbarian
He is powerful melee fighter with decent skill set and able to summon some minion. He also have quite good %stat gain, making he good in dealing physical damage at higher level. Shower of rocks and Ancient Hands is proven powerful AoE WDM skills.
Recommend for : Caster, Summoner.

__________TIPS & TRICKS__________
I will share with some of the tips and tricks that will make play medianXL much easier.

1. Give cookie to guide writer will make them happy.
   
2. Stocking potion faster - Usually people would just use shift + left click to fill the belt then double left click to buy potion rapidly. I got method which i used because multires messed the left click process. You first use shift + left click to fill your belt, then PICK UP and put back your belt. All extra potion you have on belt will transfer to inventory nicely. Best with 4 rows belt.
   
3. Gold maker - Put any rune in throwing weapon with socket and sell it for massive gold.
   
4. Rerolling rings and amulet if easiest way to get decent stats that you will use until late game.
   
5. +all stats and -%requirement is best way to use decent gear at low level
   
6. Each uber have their own bias, although farming various place is still best method
   
7. Good map reroll for durance act 2 is the best way to farm unique and stock up on Arcane Cystal
   
8. Nihlahtak drop signet in all difficulty that help with your progression. Beware of picking waypoint at level 2 because it gonna close the red portal and making farming jitan much harder
   
9. When you saw large crowd of monster, generally it advised to run back a bit so can kill them 1 by 1.
   
10. Stock up health, mana potion, town portal and keys, as it gonna make farming much more easier.
    

__________NOOB MISTAKES__________
This section will talk about couple mistakes that most people did when playing medianXL.

1. Running all the time. Running will reduced your defense, making mobs easier to hit you.
   
2. Didnt open town portal at all. This will make your body retrievement much more harder and longer
   
3. Wearing another gear while in ghost mode. Once you died, please refrain from equip random gear, there is chance for you to lose all your gear.
   
4. Not reading uberquest level warning. Well at least each new player will make this mistake once.
   
5. Stop hugging witch. She like you but she have AIDS that will gonna kill you.
   
6. Didnt read your in-game description properly. Like using character orb at lvl 120, using phase bomb with WDM skill.
   
7. Rushing area blindly. This usually riskier than traditional clearing area before move forward, so you tend to die a lot.
   
8. Didnt learn about encounter on elite. Each elite have their own set of gay skill.
   

__________SINGLE PLAYER GUIDE__________
Since Im personally only play alone, and never play multiplayer, i can share you couple of tips that might help when you playing the game.

1. When you starting a new character, try to choose a character that have much more potential by using cheap gear. Rely on some specific gear will tough as you can only rely on luck. Try to find a guide that it is designed for newbie, chances are, they are designed with cheap item as well
   
2. Try to make all class character even though you trying to focus only on one character. For best result, you want to level them up until you can reach griswold as he dropped Gift Box which give 3 different item for each class, some of them are really powerful versatile Tiered Unique.
   
3. While playing solo, it might easy to get lonely or bored, try to listen some music while keeping the game sound effect on as it might hint you couple of things like a trap.
   
4. Try to get all type of tools that improved your game. Since you are not playing on the server, you can play with any version with any add-on / tools you want.
   
5. Forum is your best friend, since you cant get answer immediately via chat in multiplayer, so always keep a browser open for the forum so you can ask there directly. You can also open the irc channel.
   
6. When you playing single player, you wont have any lag or delay problem, so it the best platform for you to play some tricky build or playing hardcore without fear of dying because of lag. (not recommended though).
   
7. Even though you playing solo, you still can trading via using a mule that you upload to file hosting website. So basically you just trading link to the file. And try be honest and not to share the link with other.
   

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When I was writing the general gameplay section, I noticed that I keep mention same strategies from certain mobs. So to make that the general gameplay cleared out of same redundant strategies, you might want to read this section and adapt the strategies when you play the game. I will split the section into various encounter, and strategies to beat them.

__________MELEE / SHORT RANGE__________
Melee is a type where they will come toward you and try to surround you. Some of them have various proc on attack, which mean they able to do things that might help their allies, or kill you easier.

Spoiler:

__________SHOOTER / LONG RANGE__________
Their strategy is always been "shoot to kill" whenever find you. Generally you want to rush them and kill them fast because they are pretty fragile, but it better to take precautions as when you moving toward them, you might lure some other mobs packs come and make your life harder.

Spoiler:

__________MASTER / LEADER__________
This type is kinda of combination between a boss with their minion. Usually the boss are ranged monster while their minion are melee and will rush to you.

Spoiler:

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Main purpose for monster in this are solely to kill you or make your life harder. In this section, i will breakdown the monster's damage type so that you will understand them better and get proper gear in order to survive them

Spoiler:

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__________ACT 1__________
General tips
Overall act is pretty mild compared to the rest.

Spoiler:

__________ACT 2__________
General tips
Act 2 in hatred is really first huge wall you have to climb. Monster here suddenly have a lot of powerful skill that can make you dead in a second if you are careful and didnt get sufficient amount of %resist.

Spoiler:

__________ACT 3__________
General tips
This will be time where you meet monster with immune. So at this point, it is better to have alternative spell that different element from your main skill. Act 3 is pretty much large especially the distant between each waypoint. I personally like to have at least 100% FRW here so i could clear it much faster.

Spoiler:

__________ACT 4__________
General tips
Although act 4 is the shortest, it also the more tedious act because the distant between each waypoint are much further. It is wise to always open a TP after small section and proceed cautiously. At this point forward, you shouldve max all resist to 75% and try to get decent life or damage migitation for physical attacker. You also might want to yourself a blink spell (pax mystica RW or character orb + median statue) to make your progress much smoother.

Spoiler:

__________ACT 5__________
General tips
This act have become much more crazy in medianXL. First thing that you should note, the moment that you reached level 50, you must immediately stop progress ESPECIALLY if you are fighting the ancient. You really dont want to miss the LC1 as it got tons of good bonus. Additional to add, I hope by now know how to read the warning on the entrance because you will need it. Lastly, if you want the barbarian mercenary, dont skip the quest.

Spoiler:

Wow @Iwansquall, this guide is really good...i think which finally dummys can play this game...Good and sadly, this guide is wrtitten now....not in older version..Still 1 of the best guides which I've readed...

damn u finally start this, good luck finish it, seems gonna take u a longggggggggggggg time

tomorrow i will give u a cookie if i still have 1

i run into buriel ground uber lvl cause back in d2 that's my farming place i go there 1 million times a day its like a normal live to me

so u need to put a big warning to all d2 players to get rid of their d2 memories first

edited various formatting.

Damn happy with tl;dr guide.
Table in this forum is damn good.

Im gonna add content and screenshot afterward.

That table is awesome

Also it would be cool to add in examples of WDM/elemental caster/summoner builds just to illustrate what they might look like for a newbie.

One criticism I will make though is the formatting in "General Game play guide" section - the colours here hurt the eyes and stick out too much :S maybe just use simple italics/underline/bold?

Overall, I think this will be a great addition to the guides we have atm since it takes a much more general approach... I was thinking just before that it would be great to have a guide that teaches newbies how to make their own guides. I hope you get into more detailed mechanics that most people will not know about so the mid-even endgame players will have something to learn! As an example:
-When making a char and wanting to get damage your first and foremost choice should be thinking where you can obtain damage from thats NOT from your character directly... This means mercs/summons/re-animates, buffs (Burning Veil/Blood lust/MotW/Hymn/Vindicate/titan strike/bloodbath for dual claws etc.) and ofc BUFF DURATION to further make these better. I kinda see these as "free" damage sources that don't require you to change build or anything like that.

Hmm, i knew yellow + white not the best on forum (my monitor always have low contrast, so it doesnt hurt my eyes).
*Probably that reason why my avatar have high contrast on certain setup.

I will find alternatives, it was to emphasize normal monster (white name) and elite (yellow name).

Keep the feedback coming.

Going to continue editing after dinner. :3
*I targeting myself to update before 12am midnight tonight. But i missed the deadline already

You have till 1 Feb to try again (I think?)

Also I added a little bit to my edit on feedback on previous post

I think this will be a great source of information if everyone in the community chips in their bit - including the silent newbies that might be reading this... post your questions and ask! It's easy for us to lose perspective and feel something should be CLEARLY obvious when it really isn't for a new/mid game player!

i will give another cookie when you post 'HOW TO KILL cave snapper for DUMMIES' video