Never have hit 99 on a character in 20 years of playing Diablo II.

Have you? I plan on hitting my first and only 99 in D2R.

Me neither. My highest chars were / are level 97 necromancer, level 97 paladin, level 96 druid

I got to 99 on a Fury Druid back in the 1.09 patch. After that, the highest I would level to was 95. I did have a number of characters I hit 95 on, though. Perhaps in D2R I will get to 96.

Harrogath wrote: 2 years ago

I got to 99 on a Fury Druid back in the 1.09 patch. After that, the highest I would level to was 95. I did have a number of characters I hit 95 on, though. Perhaps in D2R I will get to 96.

Yeah, I'm around 95-96 as my highest character. The number of

Baal/Chaos runs needed to hit 99 just burned me out every time before.

Reaching level 99 requires thousands and thousands of run. It’s definitely a grind. Most pro players settle for 96-98.

The highest I've reached are 98 on my Hammerdin and 97 on my Tele-Javazon. Most of the time I get to 90-92 and call it a day.

I had a level 99 paladin a long time ago, back when there used to a block bug. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something like a greatly reduced chance to block for paladins once they hit something like level 93. I had to delete and start over again, lol. Never again.

99 was a lot easier to get to back in 1.08 and 1.09 before they lowered the level of cows, nerfed the exp radius, and added the level based exp penalty. I really didn't see anything wrong with the original exp system since people still werent rapidly getting to 99. It still required a good number of hours and dedication. What used to take a few weeks, now takes a few months basically.

D2 classic (original patch) I hit lvl 99 a shit ton of times because there was no penalty for getting super low level characters to Hell Cows. In about 2-3 hours (maybe more? it was really short/easy with 8p) I was lvl 99.

But after the penalty patches were added, rushing wasn’t a big thing anymore and so I tried to get to 99 myself. Pretty sure 89 or 90 was my max. Solo

Baal runs as a Frozen Nips Bowazon could only be done so many times. It got old FAST.

But D2R though. It WILL happen. Mark my GAT DAM words.

Fellowship wrote: 2 years ago

Reaching level 99 requires thousands and thousands of run. It’s definitely a grind. Most pro players settle for 96-98.

I think I read on Reddit that it takes 5000 runs. If true, that is an obscene amount of work for just 5 stat points and a skill point.

Imagine doing that every ladder? YIKES!

I hit 99 on a couple characters back in patch 1.09 when Cow Runs were the exp, and you could hit level 99 in less than a week. 1.10 and after the highest I've gotten to was 95 for sure, maybe even 96. Can't remember exactly.

I did a HC 99 sorc once when cow runs were popular after 3 90+ sorcs ripped. I heard those cow mooh mooh even 2 years later in my dreams...

I played during Cow Level days when the most efficient way to level was to do Cow Levels, back then you could get to lvl 99 in a few weeks grinding. I managed to get a sorc to lvl 99 and a java/bow hybrid also to lvl 99.
Back then you could also get bugged items, such as

Ith 2h swords for barb, bugged 6 socket

Windforce and oculus rings for sorc, there were other things as well but those were just a few that I managed to get.

waam wrote: 2 years ago

Harrogath wrote: 2 years ago

I got to 99 on a Fury Druid back in the 1.09 patch. After that, the highest I would level to was 95. I did have a number of characters I hit 95 on, though. Perhaps in D2R I will get to 96.

Yeah, I'm around 95-96 as my highest character. The number of

Baal/Chaos runs needed to hit 99 just burned me out every time before.

Same here. AFAIR 95, enough to gamble +2 sk circlets. And in those days Baalruns meant waiting for bot's tp and standing behind a column, so pointless indeed.

Years ago I had a lvl98 Necro, as well as other classes. My account got hacked and all my stuff was stolen. I stopped playing for ten years. I just got started back 2 weeks ago. Let's hope things are better this time.

New player here but longtime d3 player. Why did they patch/nerf the leveling? It seems like 90-95 is the self imposed max for people now.

TheMightyCfresh wrote: 2 years ago

New player here but longtime d3 player. Why did they patch/nerf the leveling? It seems like 90-95 is the self imposed max for people now.

Cause ladder rank is how you meassure your dicks in D2

I think the skeletons in Ubers used to give a lot more XP. I have a Memory of hitting 99 on a hammerdin because we could kite/lock Meph in the house and spin tons of hammers killing minions. You could hit 99 after a few hours.

Hoost07 wrote: 2 years ago

I think the skeletons in Ubers used to give a lot more XP. I have a Memory of hitting 99 on a hammerdin because we could kite/lock Meph in the house and spin tons of hammers killing minions. You could hit 99 after a few hours.

For sure it was used to boost level 1 characters which reached Hell through bugusing. Fortunately, summoned skeletons don't give exp anymore.

I never got there myself but “paid” for it haha. Highest I could ever manage was 96. I’ve never got into that grind but I sure as hell would love 99. My play time this late in my life is focused around 2 hours a day just enjoying myself, magic finding, trading, helping others, etc. Just hit 90 with my Sorc last night. All levels here on out will be through other ventures. Respect the grinders, I just don’t have the time!