Unfortunately, I wouldn't raise my hopes from zero at all. There were cosmetic wings before that reference Druids from Diablo 2. Therefore it was supposed to mean Druid as new playable character to Diablo 3 or D2 remaster.
Hello everyone. So, Sebastian was killed in the lower cellars on the way to Hell Countess. He reached as far as the Hell Maggots' Lair beforehand.
After him i sent other classic composers in the battle.
Wolfi reached Hell too, but again, he was killed in the Forgotten Tower.
Ludwig felled at Nightmare teleporting into the chamber of Radament.
Franz was the most succesful, he reached as far as Hell Act 5. He was slained by a FrenzyTaur champion on the way rescuing Anya. (It's always odd to see her name, it's perfectly equal with the hungarian word for mother.)
The fight with Franz and Hell Diablo:
https://youtu.be/KAYcclCuFZo Fun fact: if you google Franz Liszt you must admit, that he is the second likely suspect on "Who was the base for the necromancer's animation?" right after David Waner.
After Franz i wondered who could i send to earn the Guardian title, and decided to take the role myself. To my demise:
But that was just part of my well planned... plan!
From the ashes of my destroyed mycelium rises the Ultimate Necromancer
Banging the bothersome bugs with brilliant brisk bright blazing bone spears
First target is the cold plain waypoint, then back to clear the Den of Evil. Checked meanwhile Gheed, that i'll need some one thousend gold to gamble a javelin, which will be the perfect weapon for low levels. We will have acceptable damage output with that to be able to press through the monsters on p8. Gambling it, because it provides a magical javelin at least: it's cheap to recharge and may have some useful affix. First skill point went to skeleton warrior, second to amp. curse.
Den of Evil Cleared. Next skill point goes to skelly too. The javelin comes with +1 mana/kill, which is not bad. Next skill point goes for teeth, which is a prerequisite for corpse exploision and bone spear, our two main would-be attack.
Blood Raven gave a good fight at level 5, but after reaching lvl6 and gain control of a clay golem she falled with ease. She also dropped a good array of magic items, along with my first preserved head with a nice +2 amp curse amongst them.
Kashya lent me a mercenary, Aliza. I gave she a hunter's bow with three sockets and cup.
A moon clan pack on Stony Field gave us another level up, and now we have corpse explosion in our arsenal.
We hit Stony Field waypoint, rushed through the Underground Passage and hit the waypoints of Dark Wood and Black Marsh. In Dark Wood Treehead was dealt with along with another bunch of monsters. We are on level 10 and quite deadly with the javelin and corpse explosion. Treehead dropped a nice rare cup,
and we went back to rescue Cain with the Scroll of Infuss.
Griswold let us reach level 12, now we have skelly mage too. Next we gamble a belt for additional potion space and go on till the Inner Cloister gathering experience on the way. There Bone Ash can drop some useful items like socketed rares. The time i reach the Inner cloister i go back and visit The Countess for runes. We will need three Ral to the mercenary's bow and Tal-Eth for our Stealth armour.
A shiny ring drop near the Smith.
We have plenty of space in our stash for now, so i store this staff and items like this.
The next act will offer better prices on them. Bought a studded leather armour for the Stealth runeword at Charsi.
Inner Cloister at last. These jail levels are amongst my least liked maps. Now Bane Ash and runehunting. Not much later that we reach level 17 the stealth armour is made.
Stealth is the Robe of Vecna of Diablo 2.
The three Ral is collected with some more effort. Now the only task remaining is to level our rogue companion to 19, to be able to use those Ral-s in her bow. We hit the last waypoint in this chapter, search the way to Andy's lair, than visit Bane Ash for collecting xp. Bane Ash is the only opponent, who can drop something useful for us at this point like items with magic find affix, like this gloves:
Level 19 is reached, and before we face Andariel we gamble some boots and skull caps. The goal is boots with magic find and cap with sockets. (A Tarnhelm would be awesome too...) We compromise with low magic find boots and a good rare cup with +energy.
Andy went down without much hassle, level 3 bone spear was enough to manage her.
In Luth Golein we run a marathon to the Horadric Cube, stopping only by the Dry Hills waypoint. After finding the Horadric Cube we started to cube some wands and totems for gold. the first totem gave a +2 bone spear mod, which is nice at this point. We use cheap magic bone wands for the recipe, because they can come with two open sockets. And why we need gold? Because gold is life here we can buy our end game wand: a generic bone wand with +3 to bone spear (which we will socket for a future White runeword), but that can cost as much as 500 000 gold at Drognan sometimes. If we get an acceptable wand (with +bone spear, or +to mana mod) in the process, that would be nice too. The City gate is far from Drognan, so we must use the waypoint to refresh his wares sadly. We could use Multiplayer mode to regenerate the city map, but i consider that cheat at this point.
From the wand-cubing we got nothing extra interesting, just a +3 decrepify one, which would be useful against Duriel, if we will not learn that curse at that time already.
Let's go onward to Radament, and then to collect the Horadric Staff pieces.
Since a long time we enter the sewers through the entrance near the dock, because the stair to the next level is always near there.
Our journey is still a runfest. We use this super-clever way to spare time: when we find the corridor to the next area, and the entrance to the maggot lair in the far oasis, but not the waypoint, we open a town portal near the hole entrance,
and run foreward to search and hit the lost city waypoint, go through that back to Luth Golein and go back to the maggot lair with the portal. I know. Clever.
Also: -------------------------------------------------- Do you have always problem with bug infestation? The charges of certain tumble-dungs threatens your life? Maggots poison your organism? Clouds of insects hinders your movement?
If your answer is yes for any of the above question, we have the perfect solution for you! Let Sebastian, one of our customer introduce the best solution ever:
I had serious problem discovering the Maggot Lair. The charged bolts of the scarabs killed me always, my companions stucked all time in those narrow corridors, and exterminating those nasty maggots took ages. But since i use Bone Spear, all my problem are solved completely. It clears the army of bugs in no time, even on the highest difficulty settings. Now i never enter the Maggot Lair without Bone Spear.
Bone Spear!
The perfect and definite solution, if you visit the Maggot Lair! Use it today, and we give you Bone Armor as a gift.
See those maggots fall before your mighthy BONE SPEAR!
The dazing diary of the dashing diviner Retnaclamsuevla
Fortuitous finding in the foggy flow-system
We cleaned the viper temple fast, i like that it's only one levelled a lot. The palace cellars went fast too, since i know it's build up, i run through it much faster than in the past. THe arcane sanctuary is an another case, it's a gamble always. Fortunatly bone spear and the rogue perform there good too. We got lucky and find The Summoner at thesecond try, now onward to Duriel.
At 23 level we pumped our strenght to 60 for wearing a 16 slot belt, but as it turned out, it was insufficient, because two point of strenght was provided by our current belt. Nevertheless we reached 24 level on the way to the horadric chamber, so we gambled our belt at last.
Also, we spent our spare skill point on decrepify. No better wand, than the +3 decrep. one, so we equip that one for Duriel. Mana is very tight, we have to chug blue potions like a pro, and our skellyors die frequently too, but we take that for the extra bone spear damage. Let's face Duriel!
It went faster, than usual, thanks maybe the +2 bone spear from the necro totem. The rare chain gloves Duriel dropped:
Next is Kurast and it's dreaded umpa-lumpas. With luck we found the Spider Forest waypoint in the first umpa-camp, and the Spider Cavern in the second. First part of Khalim obtained. After that we run-run-run, run through the forest to hit the Lower Kurast waypoint. A dead-end on the map provided a good oppurtunity to buy a teleport staff.
It took some time, but it was a cheap one at least.
Reaching the waypont was not easy, because the Grat Marsh was a big dead end. After having a close call with a monster pack with might aura
we decided to slow a little bit and adventure further more safely. On the other way we could enter the Flayer Jungle right ahead. After all, we reached the Flayer Jungle waypoint earlier, than the Flayer Dungeon. On the way we gathered enough flawed gems to cube them and make our first cubed wand with item level 30. Chipped gems give only item level 25, and with 30 there's some chances for the +1 necro skill affix. It don't became that, just some + for energy, but we are in so desperate need of mana, that we change our current wand for that.
We have a hard point in decrepify, so all we lost some curse radius, time,and some summon resist. (Which is pretty bad after all, but mana is more needed at this point.) We grab the Giddbin, use our clever trick again at the entrance of the Flayer Dungeon, and hit that LK waypoint at last. Back at the flayer d. level one a big stacked umpa-company gave us quarter level xp,
then we dig deeper and got the second part of Khalim.
We then forgot to write the journal for some time, because the heat of the action took our attention. Fortunately we have screenshots the pictures of our adventures burned in our memory, so we can reconstruct the events.
We found a unique wand, Maelstrom in Travincal
and a Gull in the Kurast sewers.
The wand gave us +30 faster cast rate, and with that's maybe enough to reach the next FCR breakpoint. We have three jewel (two ring, one amulet) with +10 faster cast, a Stealth armor with +25, and now with the wand that's a sum of 85%. As we found only 75 is necessary for the breakpoint. With this casting speed we burn through our mana bulb real fast, but enemies melt before us almost as fast too. I wonder how would the next breakpoint at 125%145% (if i remember right) (checked) feel?
The Scintillating Story of the Scholarly Sage Retnaclamsuevla
Demolishing devious demons with durable determination
The Council went down without accident. They eliminates our army with disturbing velocity, but with some caution they can't do any harm against our swift bone spears. We fight our way through the to Mephisto. Our army is rather weak at this point, but we still stay strong, and Mephy goes down relatively fast. https://youtu.be/imHGC2gSaVo
Against Izual we still need to consume a dozen row of blue potions, but it actually don't took much time with our casting speed.
We gain two skill point, and with a level up we spent three points to gain our last essential skill: Revive. At normal p8 setting skellyors die constantly with our skill allocation. Revived monsters however got a nice bonus to their life and have the strenght to face some serious onslought. Later they will lose from their usefulness, but with some skill bonuses they remain a nice addition to our army till the end. Speaking about +skills, we may have to change our nice wand for a +necromancy skill one, we need that +1 skill level badly, and that is the only option without a lucky drop. We got an Amn before reaching Hell forge,
and it drops an Ort and a bunch of topazes for us, not the worst option.
Onward to Diablo.
Shopped the summoner wand:
Two seal broken, now the last one with the most fearful guardian. I always worry before this fight a little.
And this time we were in some trouble too. Infector buddy and his minions started to owerhelm our army faster, than i anticipated, and we started teleporting in panic. Fortunately no accident happened, and we get rid with the remaining demons, as we went back.
Diablo always put his best fight at normal p8 (however i did not tried hell p8 so far), and he is the most fearful boss with his red lightning attack. https://youtu.be/_s6nQu3oVkE Well, that wasn't our best performance ever, but we do the job
Alluring Adventures of the Ablazing Animator Retnaclamsuevla
Breaching the Brainlessly Bold Barbarian's Border
We went on to the barbarians. Shenk from BG1 gave us a cameo appearenceWe parlored with Shenk
, then we hit the first barb waypoint and Eldritch. We did not bother with involving in too much fight on the highlands, just freed the barbarian slaves
and run for the Icy Cellars. In the caves we went forward with caution and reached the Frozen River. There we got a superb Sol drop
and Anya was rescued. With the Sol we made a very nice Crown:
Also, we upgraded our rogue's bow with some spare Ort,
and cubed some wands to make space in our stash. Onward to the Area Summit! (We left out Nihlathak's quest, because we want to spare Anya's gift for later level, when she could give us a shrunken head with possible +necro skill affix.)
Frozen Keepers are amongst our least favored enemy: they are sturdy, and they don't drop a corpse to animate or explode. But the +1 skills from the Lore Crown means +1 revived monster and +1 skelly mage, besides some other nice bonuses. In the Glacial trail we got some runes (mentionable is two Thuls), our first flawless gem drop (not counting Hellforge), and two evil urns with... Frozen Keepers XD
Also, we stumbled into the walking dead treasure.
We left out the Drifter Cavern, it's just xp, we better gather that at later.
We run through the Frozen Tundra as fast as possible, which is very fast with some teleport charges. We find the exit to the Area Summit near the entrance, and decide to go for the Ancients as soon as possible. We have two nice frenzytaur revives and they do a good work tanking the barbarian guardians.
The fight goes smoothly, onward to Bhaal.
I never really understand what these defilers do, but they surely have some common ancestors with the zerg overlords.
A unique amulet!
Rarely see those drop lately. It's a Nokozan Relic surely.
Yep. +50 fire resist is good, but we need other properties in an amulet. A misclick made me exit the game at this point, so we have to fight our way through from... the Crystalline passage... oh, ok, i lower the difficulty to p1 and run like a headless chicken back to Worlds Keep... We considered to go straightforeward to the third level, because we don't really want to farm normal Bhaal, but with the latest accident we rather hit the waypoint first. Fortunately it's not too far from the level 2 exit.
We did not bother with capturing the fight against the Bhaal waves. The only threat from them is the Council and their broken Hydra spells, but Gwinni avoid it better, than a town guard mercenery would do it. Lister and his bunch is just a borefest, it takes time to burn through their enhanced hp pool. And with our Decrepify curse, clay golem and ice arrows Bhaal is just a huge pincushion too, he don't have much threat against us. Gull help us to make some unique drop, but nothing useful this time. https://youtu.be/Y28JveVw_2c Now we can enter Nightmare as Destroyer Retnaclamsuevla, the level 42 necromancer!
Mesmerizing Memoir of the Magnificient Mage Retnaclamsuevla
Spending Suitable Seconds with the Supportive Smith
In nightmare, the drill goes as usual: hit the Cold PLain waypoint, clear the Den of Evil, leave the Burial grounds untouched, search for the Stony field waypoint and Raikinishu, go through the Underground passage, search for the Dark Wood waypoint and Treehead Woodfist, back to the Cairn stones and Tristram, free Cain and kill Griswold. Meantime we reached level 44 and 100 strenght point with that. Honestly we don't really need that much strenght, it's just for convenience, to be able to use better armor pieces. We also maxed out Bone Spear for some time, now we pump Bone Wall (for Bone Spear synergy, Bone Armor strenghtening is a gift) and Skeleton Mastery (for toughen our summons).
Along the way we visit back to normal Luth Golein to cube some sellable wand, and to shop our +3bonespear wand at Drognan for our future White. We got a plain +3 one without sockets and other staffmods, but it took some time already, so we return to nightmare. At Stony Field we bump into two Gem shrine, so we make two perfect Amethyst. One we need for socketing our wand, but with the other we can craft a caster item. We choose belt, because the +faster cast with it, but Greed and Charsi refuse to sell a sharkskin belt for us (maybe we are underleveled for it?) so we go further on the drill. Ok, actually after we write this we visit them one more time, and Gheed save the day.We lack the necessary Ith rune of course, but fortunately can make one fro Eth's, and we craft a belt with +8% FC, and some below average mods, but the +mana and mana regen. will be still useful.
We manage to chose the wrong path in the Underground Passage, so must backtrack to search the exit on along the other way. We teleport one to try and find a shorter way (and to get some adrenalin rush) and it works: we arrive right beside the Dark Wood exit!
A nasty skelly archer pack hiding under the cover of woods destroyes my army, so we retreat, reanimate our army and search for another way. I waste a bunch of time clearing the monsters from the orchard insted just leaving them alone.
But we reach level 45, and can search for Necromancer wands by Akara now.
We finish the drill, Treehead-> Griswold and Cain, and go to The Countess for the needed runes to our White wand. The runes drop from only two visit.
But we have some problem. The socketing recipe did not work on our wand...
it took some minutes when we realize, that it's a superior wand, and can only be socketed with Larzuk. Well, we sell it, and go back for a shopping trip to normal Drognan. After an hour shopping we wish if we did not sell the superior wand, and at this point we would bring any we find to Larzuk to punch those two holes. Fortunately we find not much later one with two ready hole!
Here comes our White Bone Wand, with +8 to Bone Spear amongst other delicious mods.
Now we spared one perfect amethyst, so back to nightmare Gheed and Charsi, to shop another belt and try for a +10 FCR, because with our new wand we are with 2 %short from the breakpoint.
Again, Gheed provide us the necessary belt. We were lucky before and on that two visit at The Countess got a new Ith rune too, so we can craft our belt already. And it's a +10FCR one! Nice.
We moved foreward a little bit in the quest, reaching the inner cloister waypoint. On the way we had hit the previous waypoint too, and there was a rare constellation: The jail waypoint is near the entrance to this level,
and the entrance is just beside the smithery.
I always would like to farm The Smith, he has some nice drop possibilities, like useful uniques and runes up to Vex. With very low odds of course. We do 100 run, to fulfill our curiosity. It give us two levels, a new helm
two new caster items
(as we visited shrines too for perfect amethysts), this boots while selling the loot,
a Partizan with two sockets
and this precious little wonder with two ready open sockets.
Filled with Lum-Eth, that's some quality end game shield right there. We found that on the 98. attempt, and the two after that did not add any value to us, but we are pleased with the result of the 100 Smith run nonetheless. After this, we went and faced Andariel. https://youtu.be/nGVX0ZAPXfs
There weren't any accident, so we traveled to Luth Golein. There first we visited Ratface Radament, then hasted to the Far Oasis, and the Maggot Lair. We enjoyed our laser beam in the narrow caverns, but did not spent too much time with bug roasting.
In the meantime we bode a tearsome and tearful farewell to Gwinni and hired Durga, our new merc, a defensive town guard. He got a Steel Partizan.
Breezed through the Lost City and the Vipers, and the Palace cellars as well. Found the Summoner only on our third try, but we gained some levels at least. After discovering some dead ends in the true tomb of Tal Rasha we found Duriel and dealt with the demon. https://youtu.be/CoOfy21nYbo Yes, that was a Craw Caw there, which is nice, and goes for Durga.
Frantic Fable of the Fantastic Fortune-hunter Retnaclamsuevla
Perpetually Pushing Past Phantasm Predicament
We made a new Stealth armour for us too. With the socketing bug that ethereal Trellised armour got some nice defense.
We made a Rhyme shield too, it will suit us until we find a Lum for Splendor.
In Kurast we got impatient and rushed through all of the umpa-lumpa jungle to Lower Kurast. There we found two umpa-lumpa campfire, which we visit on every load time.
We could left out the Great Marsh altogether because of a loophole between Spider Forest and Flayer Jungle. Then we backtracked first to the Flayer Dungeon, than to the Spider Cave. It was hard to found the entrance to the latter, we had to explore the whole Spider Forest, the entry of the trail leading there was very well hidden in a crossway.
After collecting two part of Khalim we went through Kurast city, checked in by Travincal waypoint, grabbed the necessary tome and delved into the sewers for the final body part of Khalim. Back in Travincal we dealt with the Council, and after finding the right directions in the maze of the Durance of Hatred we faced Mephisto. https://youtu.be/negYfvfQo8k Meph dropped a nice Circlet, not for a Necro though
We did not have the patience to stop farming anything, so we went on, freeing Izual and destroying Meph’s soulstone by the Hellforge. Hellforge dropped us a shiny Um,
we just don’t know what for to use it. We would need only another three, to fullfill our need Also, Hephasto (or some monster around him) dropped a Shako
Not much later we reached Diablo’s pentagram, activated the seals, and summoned the Lord of Terror to face us. We learned from previous experience, that Infector’s minions as our revived can tank Diablo with great effort, so we used that knowledge and saved some of their corpses for the battle. https://youtu.be/JUUuj5uX4X8 The battle went very smooth, it was our easiest combat with Diablo since a long time.
With not much patience we traveled forward to Harrogath, fight our way fast but safe to the poor Shenk cameo, setted the barbarian slaves free and melt Anya too from her frozen prison. We could stop farming Pindle, but felt confident enough to reject any delay. After some sightseeing and spelunking we got the upper hand against the Ancients and could move into Worldstone Keep. On our way to Baal we picked up a Tal mask for Durga, then cleared the waves and finally put up a jamboree with our old demon fellow. We change gear for faster cast despite more mana, and enter the Throne. https://youtu.be/K_zmPcuKXaM We always plan to do some agricultural exercises with Baal at this point, but the lure of the treasure in the deepest pit of Hell always make us decide otherwise.
Commoving Chronicle of the Coruscating Conjurer Retnaclamsuevla
Fallacious Fortune of the Foul Fetishes and Flayers
Before entering Hell we collect our shrunken head from Normal Anya, but it's nothing real interesting for us.
Here's our stats at the beginning of Hell,
it seems acceptable for us. Playing on p8 on Nightmare has the advantage, that after switching back to p1 the arrival to Hell feel as a difficulty drop. Our summons got a considerable life boost and exploding corpses bacame much more fun than before.
We hit the Cold Plain waypoint again, and clear the Den of Evil for the last time.
On the Cold Plains we find the Stony Field passage first and explore the whole map to find that second WP. Back to the first we follow the other trail to Blood Raven and the Mausoleum.
While clearing the Mausoleum and ending Blood Raven’s unlife nothing interesting drops, despite some high level items that are indicating we are in hell. The Mausoleum seems as a good place to spend our time: lot’s of containers, slow opponents without any ranged attack, the only danger being we nuke ourselves with exploding a cold enchanted boss monster.
Of course we can’t help ourselves by continuing the story line, but we will visit this cozy place on every load. And that turned out somewhat fruitous with a magical diadem drop. It has the capability to have +2 skills or +20 Faster Caster Rate (or even both at the same time) affixes amongst other nice ones, and we can reroll it with the 3 Perfect gem Cube recipe.
Also, we run out of flawless amethysts, so it was time to run into multiple gem shrines…
Further we went, explored the Tower cellars. Here we went on with much caution, the enemy can be dangerous, and to prove that we got the first mercenary death. We found this two socketed Thresher on the fourth floor, so Durga got a weapon upgrade.
The Countess died without any memorable drops.
We visited The Countess too for some times between load times, but still nothing exceptional. We continued our way foreward without huge surprises. We cubed this nice diadem before reaching Andy, it's a shame we are not amazons.
We fought all the bosses on p8 thus far, now on Hell we fight on p1. This shows up in the lenght of the battle too. https://youtu.be/_piGKSDRDOg
In Luth Golein we head first to Radament to get that skill tome. On the way we got a Magefist, the second best gloves for us after the Trang-Oul one.
Here's a selfie with Rada-guy:
We reached the Far Oases, and found the Maggots Lair in the far corner of it, beside the waypoint and the Lost City exit.
It’s a convenient arrangement, because we have to split our playing sessions to short times, and we don’t have to track back too much next time we return. On next load The Countess gave us a Lum
along with an Eth rune, so we Hel-ed out our Rhyme totem and made a Splendor one from it.
We will miss those resistances from Rhyme We don’t need to explore the Maggot's Lair, because we find the holes leading to the lower levels with ease.
Coldworm’s magic resistance was not adequate to survive our Bone Spears.
In the Lost city we did not spent too much time because of the magic resistant undeads, however we could manage them with the help of Durga and Corpse Explosion.
By the vipers there were magic immune mummies too, but they are always surrounded by explodable skeletons conveniently, so we could defeat them without much effort too. Another Lum dropped in the Viper Temple (which is not a great feat of course, but still rare for us, so we mention it).
After garbbing the Viper Amulet,
we returned to Nightmare to ask our reward from Anya. In Harrogath we met with an odd occurance. By arranging our inventory we dropped the Horadric staff acuired previously in Hell on the ground, and could not put on evermore.
So, after Anya gave us a somewhat useless fetish Trophy,
we went back to Hell and gathered another Staff in the Maggot Lair.
We gambled some coronets/circlets
and made Charsi imbue one Tiara too
without any reverberating success (however Tiara of the Titan sounds good at least). Found a grey Great Hauberk, but it's not ethereal, and even one socketed
Our ethereal Stealth armour starts to wearing down, but hopefully it will last till some time.
And Here comes Duriel. https://youtu.be/Rzr_qVbqH-c During the fight you can observe, that we return to the town and search our stash for nothing. It seems, that we left and lost our Gull dagger somewhere along the way.
Kurast.
In the Spider Forest we thought that these umpa-lumpa's are dead fast, and we don't feel too secure about our progress, the skellyors die faster than we like.
And on the other corner from that last screenshot we run into another umpa-lumpa pack,
Which made Retnaclamsuevla to join to the Hall of the Dead.
Next time we try to use Dim Vision curse, to lessen the pressure on our Necro. Resistances were low too, that could be something we should work on. Don't think that either higher defense or blocking rate would have been enough, to prevent the umpa-lumpa group mopping the floor with poor Suevla.
Not that it's impossible, but of course not. Let's check the screenshots... 18.04.24 12:52 is the first, 18.05.20. 11:25 is the last, so that's roughly four week. I can say, that posting my run in a week was a feat alone however And i did bunch of the writing part while playing...
Otherwise, since then another Necromancer strenghtens his army of dead. Papaver died in the Hell Tower Cellars too. Dim Vision gave a much safer game experience, especially against ranged monsters. But, as it turned out, it doesn't defend you, when you forget to cast it.
Something about that playthrough first: - Hardcore - Amazon - With mercenary - Unmodded - Mostly meele oriented Amazon. Primary skills would be Fend, Power Strike, Charged Strike and Lightning Fury. In passive and magic skill tree, I will invest only in Critical Hit and Penetrate. The dodge skills will be only in the way due to the bug. - I will use both spears and javelins. Throwing javelins will certainly help me with dealing against You-Know-What-Bastards-Designed-By-Freaking-Sadist-Or-A-Madman-Or-Possibly-Both. - Unfortunately, no roleplaying. Once, it would be tiring to tell the same plot in another way. Second, it takes time. - Unfortunately, my PC handles things poorly, so no battle recordings either
Normal difficulty, Act I The Den of Evil went as smoothly as it could have been expected. The only possible thing worth mentioning was that Lapame used throw on tougher enemies like Corpsefire and its minions, as well as some escaping enemies like Fallen.
At the end of this quest, Lapame had 1 skill point invested in Jab and 3 in Critical Strike
She then faced Blood Raven at level 5. The fight went quickly and smoothly, swift attacks with spear using Jab were more than enough to finish her quickly.
When searching for Cainy, Treehead Woodfist was quit annoying, because it and its minions prevented Lapame from striking by interruptinmg her. Their attacks were just that strong. But all she had to do was to re-synchronize her attack pattern. Power Strike made short work of them.
The Scroll I got showed an pattern I would never had guessed. Good job, Blizzard.
Before freeing Cainy, Lapame dealt with Griswold. Normal monsters were more dangerous, because of Curse he inflicted on our brave and well-blessed by nature Amazon.
Of course, before giving a smith a visit, Lapame decided to explore a Forgotten Tower. Due to number of elite monsters in there, she grew up 2 levels, reaching level 11. After which, she invaded the monastery and found the Horadric Mallus, guarded by the Smith. At level 12 and with several points put in Power Strike, the Smith was not that dangerous.
Lapame traveled further into the Monastery and finally, she has faced Andariel. Being on level 14 and with Power Strike being even more powerful, it wasn't a very long battle. Although to her credit, Andy knew how to throw a punch. That's expected with Lapame's relatively low poison resistance and defense.
Lapame will have to do something about it in Act 2.
Not that it's impossible, but of course not. Let's check the screenshots... 18.04.24 12:52 is the first, 18.05.20. 11:25 is the last, so that's roughly four week. I can say, that posting my run in a week was a feat alone however And i did bunch of the writing part while playing...
Ah, ok, was going by when you'd posted to the thread.
Even 4 weeks is crazy fast, I don't think I've ever cracked L70 before I lose interest and (re)play something else.
Welcome to the party @O_Bruce ! It's good that i'm not adventuring adriftly alone anymore. And let's write from the playthrough i'm currently playing.
Augustus
"Practice, dominus omnium rerum."
Again, i run a necromancer. As you may noticed by Suevla, i returned to unmodded game too. Hardcore, because for what else would be we here?
Augustus runned first to the Cold Plains waypoint along the yellow brown road, as always, where he found a Brute boss pack with some Dark Hunters.
As the old proverb say: "the man who runs away, may fight again." The Den of Evil was cleared anyway.
Augustus sold the loot
and gambled a javelin by Gheed.
Went on to the Burial Grounds, made a short end to Blood Raven.
She dropped a rare studded leather, just for Augustus.
On the Stony Field Augustus found another useful rare, a javelin this time.
He ran through the Underground Passage, disposed Treehead,
freed Cain, then gambled a belt at Gheed.
Barracks,
Jails, Inner Cloister, and after reaching the Catacombs' waypoint
Augustus went back to make a Stealth armour by runes from The Countess.
With that upgrade he defeated Andariel with ease.
Mentionable drop was an ethereal Ring Mail for the merc.
I switched between players1 and players8 mode on accord i would like to gain experience or move foreward faster. Won't take a video capture from every boss fight this time, on Normal i will face them all at p1 for faster pace.
With this Augustus reached Act II at level 17, and visiting Drognan at Luth Golein gave me an idea. At this level i could see the wands with fourth tier staffmods highlighted with red background. This helped considerably to find a proper base for a future White wand. I looked for a wand with +3 to Bone Spear mod. The problem was that some of these wands can come as expensive as half million gold. That is a rare cost, but i would like to gather some 350 000 gold for not missing a wand with useful mods. The real problem lied in the fact, that i had to gather that wealth without gaining too much experience to level up. To accomplish this i decided to open containers on p8, without killing monsters. On that setting a considerable amount of chipped gems dropped, which i could use cubing cheap magic wands and selling them. I could sell other class items and iron-made armors (from the container drops) for good price too.
First Augustus delved in the Halls of Dead for the Horadric Cube
without much fight. Then he rushed through the desert areas till he reached the Lost City waypoint.
There he camped and started to farm containers. It was a new game experience, i had to avoid monster packs, because i didn't want to kill any and gain experience. To prevent overwhelming by monsters Augustus used Dim Vision for normal monsters and minions, and Clay Golem for champions and bosses. The mercenary died time to time at the Lost City, and killed some monsters too, so i left her unresurrected after some time. Augustus cleared the bunch of the Lost City, then went back to Act I to visit some shrines and a super chest on the Stony Field. Some extra loot, while farming were: a nice jewel in a future elite weapon,
a Gargoyle head, nothing exceptional, but useful mods at least,
Perfect Amethyst (from Gem Shrines),
Cleglaw's Pincers (sadly not useful for Augustus),
a shimmering jewel,
an apprentice amulet,
Gorefoot (it adds speed, which is nice at this point).
After gathering enough gold Augustus went shopping. I didn't regret the delay, what the container opening without killing took, the shopping went much faster this way. So much so, that after i found a plain +3 BS wand
I felt that i can go for another one in the hope of better mods, and to get a spare one if the cubing provide a one socketed wand for the first try. Gathered some gold again, to be on the safe side. Another unique dropped in the Lost City, a Dethspade,
sadly nothing use for Augustus, aside fropm bragging rights. The next wand turned out a plain one too,
so i called that a day, and went on with the questline. Or not really, i gathered some Ral runes first by the Countess, to make an acceptible bow for the rogue merc, Kyle.
After that Augustus visited Radament,
and grabbed the skill tome.
He gambled a magical mask for crafting a caster helm, which will give him some bonus mana.
Augustus was some level short however for wearing it,
so it was stored for future use. Coldworm,
the Viper Temple,
and Arcane Sanctuary.
And from there, Duriel's Lair was just a jump. Augustus gathered enough experience to equip his new helm,
Normal difficulty, Act II To make up for her relatively weak defensive abillity, Lapame bought herself some better armor and also bought herself a company of a mercenary with a very long spear in his hands. That, combined with Lepame's notable breast plate rised up her defense considerably.
Anyway, Lapame went into the sewers to make Radament the Fallen pay for killing Atma's family. And she did. Before she faced him in battle, she had to deal with burning archers, one special packs posed a problem due to Cold Enhanced affix. Radament himself went down relatively quickly
After which, it was time to look for Horadric Cube and to curse some Scarabs and their lightning discharges.
Lapame cleared Maggots Lair without large problems, and Coldworm the Burrower died quickly from Lapame's Power Strike.
Fangskin was less lucky, as Lapame got access to Charged Strike. She also got all Horadric Staff components.
In Arcane Sanctuary, Lapame faced the Summoner. Needless to say, he went down in one hit. Meh.
Before meeting the Lord of Pain, Lapame grew to level 22 and her Charged Strike was now releasing 4 charges. This was a significant help, as against such big creatures like Bosses, all (or almost all) of these charges hit them all at once, resulting in huge damage. Duriel was not safe from that.
Next time, we will follow the "plot" some more into act 3.
Normal difficulty, act III Lepame made to the act 3. The act that gives me headache for multiple reasons, despite being quite good otherwise. Anyway, soon Lepame got her +20 to HP due to Golden Bird quest and she also found Khalim's eye.
Lepame then searched for the person's who wrote the plot of this game Khalim's Brain and managed to both find Gidbinn and said brain.
Soon after, Lepame entered the city of Kurast and proceed to search for the Forgotten Temple and LAm Esen's tome. Well, that's interesting. I could have sworn Kurast was still populated few years ago, so how is that temple forgotten exactly? Nevermind... The tome is Lepame's.
How is the quickest way to the man's heart? Throught the Kurast sewers, apparently. And through my favourite monsters in this game.
Now, Council Members and obtaining Khalim's Flail. They died quickly, but Lepame needed to watch her own HP carefully in the process.
Our poor, handicaped uncle Mephy (just look at him, he can't even feel his own legs...) faced Lepame in battle and he did not found himself victorious. Despite his lightning resistance, Charged Strike proved to be deadly. This skill really IS a boss killer.
As Augustus arrived to Kurast he went to Asheara to buy a belt with 16 slot. It needed some visit, when finally Asheara had one.
A teleport staff was bought also by Ormus, as soon as Augustus found the first waypoint.
From then on, nothing much remained to report till Mephisto. Spider Cave, fighting through Great Marsh, Flayer Dungeon, Lower Kurast, Ruined Temple, Travincal, Kurast Sewers, than Augustus fought with the Council.
After delving through the Durance of Hate
he fought with Mephisto too, and won.
Don't ask why throws Augustus boots at Meph.
Nice boots.
In the Pandemonium Fortress Augustus shopped a Summoner's wand,
then went to hunt down Izual
and Hephasto.
Found a semi-useful Unraveller Head
and got an Eld from Hellforge.
Mana was very tight, so Augustus crafted a pair of caster gloves
He found a Face of Horror by the River.
I thought it will be good for Paige, but terror was triggered too often, overwriting the curse of my necromancer.
And the the monsters' running away was annoying at 99% of time. Augustus visited Hepahasto once more, to reach level 30 before facing Diablo.So, against Infector's bunch he could use Revive already.
Revives are much sturdier than the skelliors, but they don't last too long against Diablo either at this point. Fortunately Diablo don't last long on P1 against Augustus' Bone Spears either.
Act V was really without any exciting event, at least according to my screenshots. An Amn drop by the other River,
, some friendly fight with the Ancients,
and Augustus was right away at the Throne to defeat Baal.
Unfortunately, due to @O_Bruce playing like a idiot Lepame died like a weak little female dog, wolf, fox or otter while looking for loot.
But fortunely it made @O_Bruce realize that he should be more careful in hardcore mode and that he never beat all of Diablo 2 on that mode ever. He decided to try Barbarian, the most tanky class, once again.
Act I Normal Mode
Wawrzyniec is a barbarian that is going to use Concentrate as his main attack. There was nothing really interesting about beating act I on normal difficulty, so let me share the screenshots of Wawrzyniec's battle against the Smith and Andariel
Act II Normal Mode
For now, Wawrzyniec invested few skill points in Shout, then proceeded to heavily invest in Mace Mastery. He got an additional skill point into it after making Radament the Fallen fall once again.
Shortly before getting into Claw Vipers temple, Wawrzyniec reached level 18 and so he could invest one skill point each in Concentrate and Iron Skin. Wawrzyniec got his main attack at this point, but he still decided to improve his proficency with Maces. He greeted Fangskin with a crushing blow to its skull before destroying the altar, finding Amulet of the Viper and crafint Horadric Staff.
Before reaching the Summoner, Wawrzyniec along with his mercenary (act II with defensive aura) farmed exp and some rare items out of Fireye, who is usually guarding portal for Arcane Sanctuary. During the process, the Barbarian commented on how one could get lost in there more than plenty of times. With level 21, Wawrzyniec visited the Summoner and slapped him in his fake face. That was enough.
The battle against Duriel went out rather smoothly, even if it was longer than it should be. His aura was slowing Wawrzyniec down, but on the other hand Duriel rarely managed to score a good hit on the Barbarian.
I have mixed opinion of this act. On one hand, it has cool visuals and music. On the other hand, I do not appeciate re-using the ideas from act 2. Anyways, as for my playthrough, Wawrzyniec swiftly completed the Golden Bird quest before heading out to find Khalim's Eye.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take screenshots from this act and remembered it only when fighting the Council Members. Wawrzyniec found a rare and useful Maul, thanks to which his damage rose considerably. Wawrzyniec also found the Gidbinn and two other of Khalim organs (and met his biggest fans in Kurast's sewers. You know what I'm talking about).
Now, for the council members. The fight really wasn't that hard, but then again it is normal difficulty.
After gaining the access to Mephisto's lair, Wawrzyniec faced the Lord of Hatred (and relatively easy loot) in combat and ended up victorious.
But, plot twist! Wawrzyniec decided not to visit the demon several times in a row. He just decided to go to hell...
Act IV Normal mode
... or to Pandemonium, depending on the retcons. The first task was to kill Izual's demonic body and Wawrzyniec did just that. There is nothing to be said about this battle, since duels with Izual are usually long, but not very dangerous.
As I recall, 2 skill points I got from this quest went to the Mace Mastery. As for my skill points, I decided to max that skill as soon as possible, before investing something in Battle Orders, Shout and maxing out Concentration.
And here's Hephasto and some maggots:
At character level 25 or 26, Wawrzyniec went to kill Diablo himself. The barbarian needed to be cautious due to Oblivion Knights and their curses. They were particularly annoying when engaged in meele - casting curse to slow Wawrzyniec down an running away. Now, I did not take any screenshot from Venom Lord's seal boss pack because I was mostly focusing on staying alive.
Now, for the Diablo himself... the fight was very nostalgic for me because when I fought Diablo for the first time as barbarian, I recall using Maul. Only this time I couldnt' afford to die once, not to mention 4-5 times. Now, I was afraid of Cold Touch + Lightning Breath combo due to its deadly potential and I was right in doing so. The fight against the Lord of Terror was, in fact, my biggest challenge on Normal difficulty but Wawrzyniec managed to prevail.
Sad end for Lapame, but good progress with W'. Level 26 is a good challenge against Diablo, at least resurrecting the merc is relatively cheap I'm far from complaining, but it would be nice to see some item and character statistics too.
Thank you for your feedback. In future, I'll make more effort to describe items and statistics. There will be problem with that in my current playthrough for some reasons. I think it will become clear sooner or later.
But after Wawrzyniec, I think I'll implement your feedback.
Wawrzyniec Act V Normal Mode
Wawrzyniec's first steps in Act V were to kill Shenk the Overseer and then Eldritch the Recifier. That's when leveling up to clvl 31-32 began.
It turned out to be quite profitable, as Wawrzyniec managed to found an unique item - Goblin Toe boots. It provided nice 25% chance of crushing blow on hit and the barbarian knew he will not part with them quickly.
Wawrzyniec then proceeded to do quests 2 and 3. Ufnortunately, due to me rushing things and wanting to make as much progress as I could (due to Lapame's death) I haven't made any screenshots from those quests. What I remember is that Frozenstein gave me some trouble due to Mana Burn + Cold Enhanced combo and that the reward from Anya was really useless. Nothing new there.
But like that I got access to uncle Pindleskin on normal difficulty and Wawrzyniec visited him plenty of time and earned some nice rare items as rewards. Notably, Wawrzyniec found a rare Hammer that dealt about 50 damage per hit, with some other mods like +attack rating and mana drain. The rare maul Wawrzyniec used against Diablo dealt up to 70 damage, I think, was slower and 2-handed. The barbarian switched to hammer/shield combo.
Being armed better, and ritcher with experience, it was time to beat the rest of act V. Wawrzyniec found Nihlahtak an dealt him a death blow. It is interesting, actually, what made the traitor think that pact with Bhaal was a good idea. It was not explained... I mean, we know that it was to spare Harrogath, but its unwise to think the demon would keep that promise. Being Lord of Desturciton, wanting to unleash hell on mortal realm and all...
Now, the Ancient Ones. I was a bit worried there since I forgot to stock additional potions before the battle. In the end, Wawrzyniec ended up beating the three mighty warriors andit turned out my fears were not justified.
The last thing to do was to kill Baal. But first here's a screenshot from battle against Minions of Destruction and... some statistics! Apparently I made that screenshot, even though I utterly forgot about it.
What I can say about fighting Lister is that it proved to be more challenging that final boss itself. Due to that, Baal always feels like a dissapointment.
The amulet was from Angel's set. Nothing too interesting. Before going into Nightmare, Wawrzyneic will search for more interesting loot.
Wawrzyniec had no problems in cleaning first areas of act 1 nightmare. Blood Raven:
Griswold also was not much of a threat.
Unfortunately, I have no screenshot of Wawrzyniec's meeting with the Countess. The Smith was more challenging and he hit hard.
And finally, Wawrzyniec met Andariel, the biggest challenge of this act. The Maiden of Anguish proved to be quite dangerous despite Wawrzyniec's general tankiness.
The Barbarian won however and found that auntie Andy left him a unique item!
Jackpot! At the end of act I, Warzyniec found a weapon sufficent to clear entirety of Nightmare difficulty Encouraged by that fact, the Barbarian contiuned to visit the Demon Queen for items, and so, eventually...
Shaftstop Mesh Armor
Defense: 635 +197% enhanced defense +250 defense against missiles +60 to life Damage reduced by 30%
The best thing: Damage reduced bt 30%. As in physical damage! That makes Wawrzyniec's chance against Undead Stygian Dolls and their explosion skyrocket. The barbarian decided to use the armor right away and he planned to upgrade it in the future.
@lolien Thanks for commenting. I'll wait with socketing the armor for quite a while. What if I find Immortal King's set armor while doing Pit runs on Hell difficulty? Not very likely, but possible. Hence I prefer to wait (naturally I still going to keep Shaftstop in stash to later use against.... you know what).
I think I did less than 50 Andy runs, to be honest. I stopped shortly after I got the Shaftstop, feeling quite blessed already.
Wawrzyniec Act II Nightmare Difficulty
Since the screenshots I made some time ago don't tell me very much, aside from providing them I'll explain how I wanted Wawrzyniec to go. What I had in mind for our Barbarian was to raise skill levels of Concentrate, Shout, Battle Order to 10, right after maxing out Mace Mastery. I had two idea variants what to follow with: one, max out Concentration or invest 10 points in Whirlwind. What would fallow will be maxing out Battle Orders and adding some points into Berserk so that physical immunities could kiss Wawrzyniec's arse.
The logic with dividing 20 skill points into Concentrate and Whirlwind was because the skill damages are based around my weapon's damage and other modifiers, such as strength. As such, I didn't think that it would make as much of a difference as in instance of Sorceress spells etc.
Anyways, here is the progress of act II:
Radament:
Coldworm the Burrower:
The Summoner and Tal Rasha's symbol
And finally, Duriel. He was actually easier to beat than Andariel, at least for Wawrzyniec. This is because Duriel does not use spells, but rielies on close combat instead. With a mix of Concentration, Shout and the Mercenary's aura he had trouble to make a clear hit on the Barbarian.
Act III Nightmare difficulty
As in case of act III, I don't have much to say besides sharing some screenshots. Here are some:
Some words about Undead Stygian Dolls, undead Fetishes, destroyers of my dreams, my biggest fans, creatures boiling my blood etc.... Thanks to Shaftstop they weren't that bad. Granted, it was Nightmare difficulty only and I primarly tried to make them occupied with my mercenary, but overall, it was not that bad. It seems I learned from Zaraki playthrough. Or maybe also from Lapame's death: BE FREAKING CAREFUL.
Anyway, here's uncle Mephisto!
I don't recall him dropping anything I could use. And Wawrzyniec decided to not visit him again for now, as @O_Bruce had other plans in mind. For now, welcome in act IV.
Comments
Neither happened.
So, Sebastian was killed in the lower cellars on the way to Hell Countess. He reached as far as the Hell Maggots' Lair beforehand.
After him i sent other classic composers in the battle.
Wolfi reached Hell too, but again, he was killed in the Forgotten Tower.
Ludwig felled at Nightmare teleporting into the chamber of Radament.
Franz was the most succesful, he reached as far as Hell Act 5. He was slained by a FrenzyTaur champion on the way rescuing Anya. (It's always odd to see her name, it's perfectly equal with the hungarian word for mother.)
The fight with Franz and Hell Diablo:
Fun fact: if you google Franz Liszt you must admit, that he is the second likely suspect on "Who was the base for the necromancer's animation?" right after David Waner.
After Franz i wondered who could i send to earn the Guardian title, and decided to take the role myself. To my demise:
But that was just part of my well planned... plan!
From the ashes of my destroyed mycelium rises the Ultimate Necromancer
@SHANDUIN
the Destroyer
the Conqueror
and well... the... Fallen.
Oh my. Who? Who would prevail where even the Mighty Shanduin proved to be insufficient?
I thought to send The Doctor, Kaled, or Tom.
In the end i choosed...
The Thrilling Tales of Retnaclamsuevla
Banging the bothersome bugs with brilliant brisk bright blazing bone spearsFirst target is the cold plain waypoint, then back to clear the Den of Evil.
Checked meanwhile Gheed, that i'll need some one thousend gold to gamble a javelin, which will be the perfect weapon for low levels.
We will have acceptable damage output with that to be able to press through the monsters on p8.
Gambling it, because it provides a magical javelin at least: it's cheap to recharge and may have some useful affix.
First skill point went to skeleton warrior, second to amp. curse.
Den of Evil Cleared. Next skill point goes to skelly too.
The javelin comes with +1 mana/kill, which is not bad.
Next skill point goes for teeth, which is a prerequisite for corpse exploision and bone spear, our two main would-be attack.
Blood Raven gave a good fight at level 5, but after reaching lvl6 and gain control of a clay golem she falled with ease.
She also dropped a good array of magic items, along with my first preserved head with a nice +2 amp curse amongst them.
Kashya lent me a mercenary, Aliza. I gave she a hunter's bow with three sockets and cup.
A moon clan pack on Stony Field gave us another level up, and now we have corpse explosion in our arsenal.
We hit Stony Field waypoint, rushed through the Underground Passage and hit the waypoints of Dark Wood and Black Marsh.
In Dark Wood Treehead was dealt with along with another bunch of monsters. We are on level 10 and quite deadly with the javelin and corpse explosion.
Treehead dropped a nice rare cup,
and we went back to rescue Cain with the Scroll of Infuss.
Griswold let us reach level 12, now we have skelly mage too.
Next we gamble a belt for additional potion space and go on till the Inner Cloister gathering experience on the way. There Bone Ash can drop some useful items like socketed rares.
The time i reach the Inner cloister i go back and visit The Countess for runes. We will need three Ral to the mercenary's bow and Tal-Eth for our Stealth armour.
A shiny ring drop near the Smith.
We have plenty of space in our stash for now, so i store this staff and items like this.
The next act will offer better prices on them.
Bought a studded leather armour for the Stealth runeword at Charsi.
Inner Cloister at last. These jail levels are amongst my least liked maps. Now Bane Ash and runehunting.
Not much later that we reach level 17 the stealth armour is made.
The three Ral is collected with some more effort. Now the only task remaining is to level our rogue companion to 19, to be able to use those Ral-s in her bow. We hit the last waypoint in this chapter, search the way to Andy's lair, than visit Bane Ash for collecting xp.
Bane Ash is the only opponent, who can drop something useful for us at this point
like items with magic find affix, like this gloves:
Level 19 is reached, and before we face Andariel we gamble some boots and skull caps. The goal is boots with magic find and cap with sockets. (A Tarnhelm would be awesome too...)
We compromise with low magic find boots and a good rare cup with +energy.
Andy went down without much hassle, level 3 bone spear was enough to manage her.
In Luth Golein we run a marathon to the Horadric Cube, stopping only by the Dry Hills waypoint. After finding the Horadric Cube we started to cube some wands and totems for gold. the first totem gave a +2 bone spear mod, which is nice at this point. We use cheap magic bone wands for the recipe, because they can come with two open sockets.
And why we need gold? Because
gold is lifehere we can buy our end game wand: a generic bone wand with +3 to bone spear (which we will socket for a future White runeword),but that can cost as much as 500 000 gold at Drognan sometimes.
If we get an acceptable wand (with +bone spear, or +to mana mod) in the process, that would be nice too.
The City gate is far from Drognan, so we must use the waypoint to refresh his wares sadly. We could use Multiplayer mode to regenerate the city map, but i consider that cheat at this point.
From the wand-cubing we got nothing extra interesting, just a +3 decrepify one, which would be useful against Duriel, if we will not learn that curse at that time already.
Let's go onward to Radament, and then to collect the Horadric Staff pieces.
Since a long time we enter the sewers through the entrance near the dock, because the stair to the next level is always near there.
Our journey is still a runfest. We use this super-clever way to spare time:
when we find the corridor to the next area, and the entrance to the maggot lair in the far oasis, but not the waypoint, we open a town portal near the hole entrance,
and run foreward to search and hit the lost city waypoint, go through that back to Luth Golein and go back to the maggot lair with the portal.
I know. Clever.
Also:
--------------------------------------------------
Do you have always problem with bug infestation?
The charges of certain tumble-dungs threatens your life?
Maggots poison your organism?
Clouds of insects hinders your movement?
If your answer is yes for any of the above question, we have the perfect solution for you!
Let Sebastian, one of our customer introduce the best solution ever:
I had serious problem discovering the Maggot Lair. The charged bolts of the scarabs killed me always, my companions stucked all time in those narrow corridors, and exterminating those nasty maggots took ages.
But since i use Bone Spear, all my problem are solved completely. It clears the army of bugs in no time, even on the highest difficulty settings.
Now i never enter the Maggot Lair without Bone Spear.
Bone Spear!
The perfect and definite solution, if you visit the Maggot Lair!
Use it today, and we give you Bone Armor as a gift.
See those maggots fall before your mighthy BONE SPEAR!
The dazing diary of the dashing diviner Retnaclamsuevla
Fortuitous finding in the foggy flow-systemWe cleaned the viper temple fast, i like that it's only one levelled a lot.
The palace cellars went fast too, since i know it's build up, i run through it much faster than in the past.
THe arcane sanctuary is an another case, it's a gamble always. Fortunatly bone spear and the rogue perform there good too.
We got lucky and find The Summoner at thesecond try, now onward to Duriel.
At 23 level we pumped our strenght to 60 for wearing a 16 slot belt, but as it turned out, it was insufficient, because two point of strenght was provided by our current belt. Nevertheless we reached 24 level on the way to the horadric chamber, so we gambled our belt at last.
Mana is very tight, we have to chug blue potions like a pro, and our skellyors die frequently too, but we take that for the extra bone spear damage.
Let's face Duriel!
It went faster, than usual, thanks maybe the +2 bone spear from the necro totem.
The rare chain gloves Duriel dropped:
Next is Kurast and it's dreaded umpa-lumpas. With luck we found the Spider Forest waypoint in the first umpa-camp, and the Spider Cavern in the second. First part of Khalim obtained.
After that we run-run-run, run through the forest to hit the Lower Kurast waypoint. A dead-end on the map provided a good oppurtunity to buy a teleport staff.
Reaching the waypont was not easy, because the Grat Marsh was a big dead end. After having a close call with a monster pack with might aura
After all, we reached the Flayer Jungle waypoint earlier, than the Flayer Dungeon. On the way we gathered enough flawed gems to cube them and make our first cubed wand with item level 30.
Chipped gems give only item level 25, and with 30 there's some chances for the +1 necro skill affix.
It don't became that, just some + for energy, but we are in so desperate need of mana, that we change our current wand for that.
We have a hard point in decrepify, so all we lost some curse radius, time,and some summon resist. (Which is pretty bad after all, but mana is more needed at this point.)
We grab the Giddbin, use our clever trick again at the entrance of the Flayer Dungeon, and hit that LK waypoint at last.
Back at the flayer d. level one a big stacked umpa-company gave us quarter level xp,
We then forgot to write the journal for some time, because the heat of the action took our attention.
Fortunately
we have screenshotsthe pictures of our adventures burned in our memory, so we can reconstruct the events.We found a unique wand, Maelstrom in Travincal
As we found only 75 is necessary for the breakpoint. With this casting speed we burn through our mana bulb real fast, but enemies melt before us almost as fast too.
I wonder how would the next breakpoint at 125%
145% (if i remember right)(checked) feel?The Scintillating Story of the Scholarly Sage Retnaclamsuevla
Demolishing devious demons with durable determinationThe Council went down without accident. They eliminates our army with disturbing velocity, but with some caution they can't do any harm against our swift bone spears.
We fight our way through the to Mephisto. Our army is rather weak at this point, but we still stay strong, and Mephy goes down relatively fast.
Against Izual we still need to consume a dozen row of blue potions, but it actually don't took much time with our casting speed.
We gain two skill point, and with a level up we spent three points to gain our last essential skill: Revive.
At normal p8 setting skellyors die constantly with our skill allocation. Revived monsters however got a nice bonus to their life and have the strenght to face some serious onslought.
Later they will lose from their usefulness, but with some skill bonuses they remain a nice addition to our army till the end.
Speaking about +skills, we may have to change our nice wand for a +necromancy skill one, we need that +1 skill level badly, and that is the only option without a lucky drop.
We got an Amn before reaching Hell forge,
and it drops an Ort and a bunch of topazes for us, not the worst option.
Onward to Diablo.
Shopped the summoner wand:
Fortunately no accident happened, and we get rid with the remaining demons, as we went back.
Diablo always put his best fight at normal p8 (however i did not tried hell p8 so far), and he is the most fearful boss with his red lightning attack.
Well, that wasn't our best performance ever, but we do the job
Alluring Adventures of the Ablazing Animator Retnaclamsuevla
Breaching the Brainlessly Bold Barbarian's BorderWe went on to the barbarians.
Shenk from BG1 gave us a cameo appearenceWe parlored with ShenkIn the caves we went forward with caution and reached the Frozen River.
There we got a superb Sol drop
Also, we upgraded our rogue's bow with some spare Ort,
and cubed some wands to make space in our stash.
Onward to the Area Summit! (We left out Nihlathak's quest, because we want to spare Anya's gift for later level, when she could give us a shrunken head with possible +necro skill affix.)
Frozen Keepers are amongst our least favored enemy: they are sturdy, and they don't drop a corpse to animate or explode. But the +1 skills from the Lore Crown means +1 revived monster and +1 skelly mage, besides some other nice bonuses.
In the Glacial trail we got some runes (mentionable is two Thuls), our first flawless gem drop (not counting Hellforge), and two evil urns with... Frozen Keepers XD
Also, we stumbled into the walking dead treasure.
We left out the Drifter Cavern, it's just xp, we better gather that at later.
We run through the Frozen Tundra as fast as possible, which is very fast with some teleport charges.
We find the exit to the Area Summit near the entrance, and decide to go for the Ancients as soon as possible.
We have two nice frenzytaur revives and they do a good work tanking the barbarian guardians.
The fight goes smoothly, onward to Bhaal.
I never really understand what these defilers do, but they surely have some common ancestors with the zerg overlords.
A unique amulet!
A misclick made me exit the game at this point, so we have to fight our way through from... the Crystalline passage... oh, ok, i lower the difficulty to p1 and run like a headless chicken back to Worlds Keep...
We considered to go straightforeward to the third level, because we don't really want to farm normal Bhaal, but with the latest accident we rather hit the waypoint first.
Fortunately it's not too far from the level 2 exit.
We did not bother with capturing the fight against the Bhaal waves. The only threat from them is the Council and their broken Hydra spells, but Gwinni avoid it better, than a town guard mercenery would do it.
Lister and his bunch is just a borefest, it takes time to burn through their enhanced hp pool.
And with our Decrepify curse, clay golem and ice arrows Bhaal is just a huge pincushion too, he don't have much threat against us.
Gull help us to make some unique drop, but nothing useful this time.
Now we can enter Nightmare as Destroyer Retnaclamsuevla, the level 42 necromancer!
Mesmerizing Memoir of the Magnificient Mage Retnaclamsuevla
Spending Suitable Seconds with the Supportive SmithIn nightmare, the drill goes as usual: hit the Cold PLain waypoint, clear the Den of Evil,
leave the Burial grounds untouched, search for the Stony field waypoint and Raikinishu, go through the Underground passage,
search for the Dark Wood waypoint and Treehead Woodfist, back to the Cairn stones and Tristram, free Cain and kill Griswold.
Meantime we reached level 44 and 100 strenght point with that. Honestly we don't really need that much strenght, it's just for convenience, to be able to use better armor pieces.
We also maxed out Bone Spear for some time, now we pump Bone Wall (for Bone Spear synergy, Bone Armor strenghtening is a gift) and Skeleton Mastery (for toughen our summons).
Along the way we visit back to normal Luth Golein to cube some sellable wand, and to shop our +3bonespear wand at Drognan for our future White. We got a plain +3 one without sockets and other staffmods, but it took some time already, so we return to nightmare.
At Stony Field we bump into two Gem shrine, so we make two perfect Amethyst. One we need for socketing our wand, but with the other we can craft a caster item.
We choose belt, because the +faster cast with it, but Greed and Charsi refuse to sell a sharkskin belt for us (maybe we are underleveled for it?) so we go further on the drill.
Ok, actually after we write this we visit them one more time, and Gheed save the day.We lack the necessary Ith rune of course, but fortunately can make one fro Eth's, and we craft a belt with +8% FC, and some below average mods, but the +mana and mana regen. will be still useful.
We manage to chose the wrong path in the Underground Passage, so must backtrack to search the exit on along the other way.
We teleport one to try and find a shorter way (and to get some adrenalin rush) and it works: we arrive right beside the Dark Wood exit!
A nasty skelly archer pack hiding under the cover of woods destroyes my army, so we retreat, reanimate our army and search for another way.
I waste a bunch of time clearing the monsters from the orchard insted just leaving them alone.
But we reach level 45, and can search for Necromancer wands by Akara now.
We finish the drill, Treehead-> Griswold and Cain, and go to The Countess for the needed runes to our White wand. The runes drop from only two visit.
Well, we sell it, and go back for a shopping trip to normal Drognan.
After an hour shopping we wish if we did not sell the superior wand, and at this point we would bring any we find to Larzuk to punch those two holes.
Fortunately we find not much later one with two ready hole!
Here comes our White Bone Wand, with +8 to Bone Spear amongst other delicious mods.
Again, Gheed provide us the necessary belt. We were lucky before and on that two visit at The Countess got a new Ith rune too, so we can craft our belt already.
And it's a +10FCR one! Nice.
We moved foreward a little bit in the quest, reaching the inner cloister waypoint. On the way we had hit the previous waypoint too, and there was a rare constellation:
The jail waypoint is near the entrance to this level,
and the entrance is just beside the smithery.
I always would like to farm The Smith, he has some nice drop possibilities, like useful uniques and runes up to Vex.
With very low odds of course. We do 100 run, to fulfill our curiosity.
It give us two levels, a new helm
two new caster items
Filled with Lum-Eth, that's some quality end game shield right there.
We found that on the 98. attempt, and the two after that did not add any value to us, but we are pleased with the result of the 100 Smith run nonetheless.
After this, we went and faced Andariel.
There weren't any accident, so we traveled to Luth Golein. There first we visited
RatfaceRadament, then hasted to the Far Oasis, and the Maggot Lair. We enjoyed our laser beam in the narrow caverns, but did not spent too much time with bug roasting.In the meantime we bode a tearsome and tearful farewell to Gwinni and hired Durga, our new merc, a defensive town guard. He got a Steel Partizan.
Breezed through the Lost City and the Vipers, and the Palace cellars as well.
Found the Summoner only on our third try, but we gained some levels at least.
After discovering some dead ends in the true tomb of Tal Rasha we found Duriel and dealt with the demon.
Yes, that was a Craw Caw there, which is nice, and goes for Durga.
Frantic Fable of the Fantastic Fortune-hunter Retnaclamsuevla
Perpetually Pushing Past Phantasm PredicamentWe made a new Stealth armour for us too. With the socketing bug that ethereal Trellised armour got some nice defense.
After collecting two part of Khalim we went through Kurast city, checked in by Travincal waypoint, grabbed the necessary tome and delved into the sewers for the final body part of Khalim. Back in Travincal we dealt with the Council, and after finding the right directions in the maze of the Durance of Hatred we faced Mephisto.
Meph dropped a nice Circlet, not for a Necro though
We did not have the patience to stop farming anything, so we went on, freeing Izual and destroying Meph’s soulstone by the Hellforge. Hellforge dropped us a shiny Um,
Not much later we reached Diablo’s pentagram, activated the seals, and summoned the Lord of Terror to face us. We learned from previous experience, that Infector’s minions as our revived can tank Diablo with great effort, so we used that knowledge and saved some of their corpses for the battle.
The battle went very smooth, it was our easiest combat with Diablo since a long time.
With not much patience we traveled forward to Harrogath, fight our way fast but safe to the poor Shenk cameo, setted the barbarian slaves free and melt Anya too from her frozen prison.
We could stop farming Pindle, but felt confident enough to reject any delay. After some sightseeing and spelunking we got the upper hand against the Ancients and could move into Worldstone Keep. On our way to Baal we picked up a Tal mask for Durga, then cleared the waves and finally put up a jamboree with our old demon fellow. We change gear for faster cast despite more mana, and enter the Throne.
We always plan to do some agricultural exercises with Baal at this point, but the lure of the treasure in the deepest pit of Hell always make us decide otherwise.
Commoving Chronicle of the Coruscating Conjurer Retnaclamsuevla
Fallacious Fortune of the Foul Fetishes and FlayersBefore entering Hell we collect our shrunken head from Normal Anya, but it's nothing real interesting for us.
Here's our stats at the beginning of Hell,
Playing on p8 on Nightmare has the advantage, that after switching back to p1 the arrival to Hell feel as a difficulty drop. Our summons got a considerable life boost and exploding corpses bacame much more fun than before.
We hit the Cold Plain waypoint again, and clear the Den of Evil for the last time.
Back to the first we follow the other trail to Blood Raven and the Mausoleum.
While clearing the Mausoleum and ending Blood Raven’s unlife nothing interesting drops, despite some high level items that are indicating we are in hell. The Mausoleum seems as a good place to spend our time: lot’s of containers, slow opponents without any ranged attack, the only danger being we nuke ourselves with exploding a cold enchanted boss monster.
Of course we can’t help ourselves by continuing the story line, but we will visit this cozy place on every load.
And that turned out somewhat fruitous with a magical diadem drop. It has the capability to have +2 skills or +20 Faster Caster Rate (or even both at the same time) affixes amongst other nice ones, and we can reroll it with the 3 Perfect gem Cube recipe.
Also, we run out of flawless amethysts, so it was time to run into multiple gem shrines…
Further we went, explored the Tower cellars. Here we went on with much caution, the enemy can be dangerous, and to prove that we got the first mercenary death. We found this two socketed Thresher on the fourth floor, so Durga got a weapon upgrade.
We fought all the bosses on p8 thus far, now on Hell we fight on p1. This shows up in the lenght of the battle too.
In Luth Golein we head first to Radament to get that skill tome. On the way we got a Magefist, the second best gloves for us after the Trang-Oul one.
We reached the Far Oases, and found the Maggots Lair in the far corner of it, beside the waypoint and the Lost City exit.
On next load The Countess gave us a Lum
We don’t need to explore the Maggot's Lair, because we find the holes leading to the lower levels with ease.
Coldworm’s magic resistance was not adequate to survive our Bone Spears.
In the Lost city we did not spent too much time because of the magic resistant undeads, however we could manage them with the help of Durga and Corpse Explosion.
After garbbing the Viper Amulet,
So, after Anya gave us a somewhat useless fetish Trophy,
We gambled some coronets/circlets
Our ethereal Stealth armour starts to wearing down, but hopefully it will last till some time.
And Here comes Duriel.
During the fight you can observe, that we return to the town and search our stash for nothing. It seems, that we left and lost our Gull dagger somewhere along the way.
Kurast.
In the Spider Forest we thought that these umpa-lumpa's are dead fast, and we don't feel too secure about our progress, the skellyors die faster than we like.
And on the other corner from that last screenshot we run into another umpa-lumpa pack,
Next time we try to use Dim Vision curse, to lessen the pressure on our Necro. Resistances were low too, that could be something we should work on. Don't think that either higher defense or blocking rate would have been enough, to prevent the umpa-lumpa group mopping the floor with poor Suevla.
Otherwise, since then another Necromancer strenghtens his army of dead.
Papaver died in the Hell Tower Cellars too. Dim Vision gave a much safer game experience, especially against ranged monsters. But, as it turned out, it doesn't defend you, when you forget to cast it.
Something about that playthrough first:
- Hardcore
- Amazon
- With mercenary
- Unmodded
- Mostly meele oriented Amazon. Primary skills would be Fend, Power Strike, Charged Strike and Lightning Fury. In passive and magic skill tree, I will invest only in Critical Hit and Penetrate. The dodge skills will be only in the way due to the bug.
- I will use both spears and javelins. Throwing javelins will certainly help me with dealing against You-Know-What-Bastards-Designed-By-Freaking-Sadist-Or-A-Madman-Or-Possibly-Both.
- Unfortunately, no roleplaying. Once, it would be tiring to tell the same plot in another way. Second, it takes time.
- Unfortunately, my PC handles things poorly, so no battle recordings either
Normal difficulty, Act I
The Den of Evil went as smoothly as it could have been expected. The only possible thing worth mentioning was that Lapame used throw on tougher enemies like Corpsefire and its minions, as well as some escaping enemies like Fallen.
At the end of this quest, Lapame had 1 skill point invested in Jab and 3 in Critical Strike
She then faced Blood Raven at level 5. The fight went quickly and smoothly, swift attacks with spear using Jab were more than enough to finish her quickly.
When searching for Cainy, Treehead Woodfist was quit annoying, because it and its minions prevented Lapame from striking by interruptinmg her. Their attacks were just that strong. But all she had to do was to re-synchronize her attack pattern. Power Strike made short work of them.
The Scroll I got showed an pattern I would never had guessed. Good job, Blizzard.
Before freeing Cainy, Lapame dealt with Griswold. Normal monsters were more dangerous, because of Curse he inflicted on our brave and well-blessed by nature Amazon.
Of course, before giving a smith a visit, Lapame decided to explore a Forgotten Tower. Due to number of elite monsters in there, she grew up 2 levels, reaching level 11. After which, she invaded the monastery and found the Horadric Mallus, guarded by the Smith. At level 12 and with several points put in Power Strike, the Smith was not that dangerous.
Lapame traveled further into the Monastery and finally, she has faced Andariel. Being on level 14 and with Power Strike being even more powerful, it wasn't a very long battle. Although to her credit, Andy knew how to throw a punch. That's expected with Lapame's relatively low poison resistance and defense.
Lapame will have to do something about it in Act 2.
Even 4 weeks is crazy fast, I don't think I've ever cracked L70 before I lose interest and (re)play something else.
And let's write from the playthrough i'm currently playing.
Augustus
"Practice, dominus omnium rerum."Again, i run a necromancer.
As you may noticed by Suevla, i returned to unmodded game too.
Hardcore, because for what else would be we here?
Augustus runned first to the Cold Plains waypoint along the
yellowbrown road, as always, where he found a Brute boss pack with some Dark Hunters.As the old proverb say: "the man who runs away, may fight again."
The Den of Evil was cleared anyway.
Augustus sold the loot
and gambled a javelin by Gheed.
Went on to the Burial Grounds, made a short end to Blood Raven.
Barracks,
Augustus went back to make a Stealth armour by runes from The Countess.
With that upgrade he defeated Andariel with ease.
Mentionable drop was an ethereal Ring Mail for the merc.
I switched between players1 and players8 mode on accord i would like to gain experience or move foreward faster. Won't take a video capture from every boss fight this time, on Normal i will face them all at p1 for faster pace.
With this Augustus reached Act II at level 17, and visiting Drognan at Luth Golein gave me an idea. At this level i could see the wands with fourth tier staffmods highlighted with red background. This helped considerably to find a proper base for a future White wand. I looked for a wand with +3 to Bone Spear mod.
The problem was that some of these wands can come as expensive as half million gold. That is a rare cost, but i would like to gather some 350 000 gold for not missing a wand with useful mods.
The real problem lied in the fact, that i had to gather that wealth without gaining too much experience to level up.
To accomplish this i decided to open containers on p8, without killing monsters. On that setting a considerable amount of chipped gems dropped, which i could use cubing cheap magic wands and selling them. I could sell other class items and iron-made armors (from the container drops) for good price too.
First Augustus delved in the Halls of Dead for the Horadric Cube
Then he rushed through the desert areas till he reached the Lost City waypoint.
It was a new game experience, i had to avoid monster packs, because i didn't want to kill any and gain experience. To prevent overwhelming by monsters Augustus used Dim Vision for normal monsters and minions, and Clay Golem for champions and bosses. The mercenary died time to time at the Lost City, and killed some monsters too, so i left her unresurrected after some time.
Augustus cleared the bunch of the Lost City, then went back to Act I to visit some shrines and a super chest on the Stony Field.
Some extra loot, while farming were:
a nice jewel in a future elite weapon,
a Gargoyle head, nothing exceptional, but useful mods at least,
Perfect Amethyst (from Gem Shrines),
Cleglaw's Pincers (sadly not useful for Augustus),
a shimmering jewel,
an apprentice amulet,
Gorefoot (it adds speed, which is nice at this point).
After gathering enough gold Augustus went shopping.
I didn't regret the delay, what the container opening without killing took, the shopping went much faster this way. So much so, that after i found a plain +3 BS wand
Gathered some gold again, to be on the safe side. Another unique dropped in the Lost City, a Dethspade,
The next wand turned out a plain one too,
Or not really, i gathered some Ral runes first by the Countess, to make an acceptible bow for the rogue merc, Kyle.
After that Augustus visited Radament,
so it was stored for future use.
Coldworm,
The umpa-lumpas awaits us!
Normal difficulty, Act II
To make up for her relatively weak defensive abillity, Lapame bought herself some better armor and also bought herself a company of a mercenary with a very long spear in his hands. That, combined with Lepame's notable breast plate rised up her defense considerably.
Anyway, Lapame went into the sewers to make Radament the Fallen pay for killing Atma's family. And she did. Before she faced him in battle, she had to deal with burning archers, one special packs posed a problem due to Cold Enhanced affix. Radament himself went down relatively quickly
After which, it was time to look for Horadric Cube and to curse some Scarabs and their lightning discharges.
Lapame cleared Maggots Lair without large problems, and Coldworm the Burrower died quickly from Lapame's Power Strike.
Fangskin was less lucky, as Lapame got access to Charged Strike. She also got all Horadric Staff components.
In Arcane Sanctuary, Lapame faced the Summoner. Needless to say, he went down in one hit. Meh.
Before meeting the Lord of Pain, Lapame grew to level 22 and her Charged Strike was now releasing 4 charges. This was a significant help, as against such big creatures like Bosses, all (or almost all) of these charges hit them all at once, resulting in huge damage. Duriel was not safe from that.
Next time, we will follow the "plot" some more into act 3.
Normal difficulty, act III
Lepame made to the act 3. The act that gives me headache for multiple reasons, despite being quite good otherwise. Anyway, soon Lepame got her +20 to HP due to Golden Bird quest and she also found Khalim's eye.
Lepame then searched for
the person's who wrote the plot of this gameKhalim's Brain and managed to both find Gidbinn and said brain.Soon after, Lepame entered the city of Kurast and proceed to search for the Forgotten Temple and LAm Esen's tome. Well, that's interesting. I could have sworn Kurast was still populated few years ago, so how is that temple forgotten exactly? Nevermind... The tome is Lepame's.
How is the quickest way to the man's heart? Throught the Kurast sewers, apparently. And through my favourite monsters in this game.
Now, Council Members and obtaining Khalim's Flail. They died quickly, but Lepame needed to watch her own HP carefully in the process.
Our poor, handicaped uncle Mephy (just look at him, he can't even feel his own legs...) faced Lepame in battle and he did not found himself victorious. Despite his lightning resistance, Charged Strike proved to be deadly. This skill really IS a boss killer.
Augustus
"Sat celeriter fieri, quidquid fiat satis bene."As Augustus arrived to Kurast he went to Asheara to buy a belt with 16 slot. It needed some visit, when finally Asheara had one.
In the Pandemonium Fortress Augustus shopped a Summoner's wand,
Augustus visited Hepahasto once more, to reach level 30 before facing Diablo.So, against Infector's bunch he could use Revive already.
Act V was really without any exciting event, at least according to my screenshots.
An Amn drop by the other River,
Vastator Augustus is ready to enter in Nightmare.
But fortunely it made @O_Bruce realize that he should be more careful in hardcore mode and that he never beat all of Diablo 2 on that mode ever. He decided to try Barbarian, the most tanky class, once again.
Normal Mode
Wawrzyniec is a barbarian that is going to use Concentrate as his main attack. There was nothing really interesting about beating act I on normal difficulty, so let me share the screenshots of Wawrzyniec's battle against the Smith and Andariel
Normal Mode
For now, Wawrzyniec invested few skill points in Shout, then proceeded to heavily invest in Mace Mastery. He got an additional skill point into it after making Radament the Fallen fall once again.
Shortly before getting into Claw Vipers temple, Wawrzyniec reached level 18 and so he could invest one skill point each in Concentrate and Iron Skin. Wawrzyniec got his main attack at this point, but he still decided to improve his proficency with Maces. He greeted Fangskin with a crushing blow to its skull before destroying the altar, finding Amulet of the Viper and crafint Horadric Staff.
Before reaching the Summoner, Wawrzyniec along with his mercenary (act II with defensive aura) farmed exp and some rare items out of Fireye, who is usually guarding portal for Arcane Sanctuary. During the process, the Barbarian commented on how one could get lost in there more than plenty of times. With level 21, Wawrzyniec visited the Summoner and slapped him in his fake face. That was enough.
The battle against Duriel went out rather smoothly, even if it was longer than it should be. His aura was slowing Wawrzyniec down, but on the other hand Duriel rarely managed to score a good hit on the Barbarian.
Now, for act III...
Normal mode
I have mixed opinion of this act. On one hand, it has cool visuals and music. On the other hand, I do not appeciate re-using the ideas from act 2. Anyways, as for my playthrough, Wawrzyniec swiftly completed the Golden Bird quest before heading out to find Khalim's Eye.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take screenshots from this act and remembered it only when fighting the Council Members. Wawrzyniec found a rare and useful Maul, thanks to which his damage rose considerably. Wawrzyniec also found the Gidbinn and two other of Khalim organs (and met his biggest fans in Kurast's sewers. You know what I'm talking about).
Now, for the council members. The fight really wasn't that hard, but then again it is normal difficulty.
After gaining the access to Mephisto's lair, Wawrzyniec faced the Lord of Hatred
(and relatively easy loot)in combat and ended up victorious.But, plot twist! Wawrzyniec decided not to visit the demon several times in a row. He just decided to go to hell...
Normal mode
... or to Pandemonium, depending on the retcons. The first task was to kill Izual's demonic body and Wawrzyniec did just that. There is nothing to be said about this battle, since duels with Izual are usually long, but not very dangerous.
As I recall, 2 skill points I got from this quest went to the Mace Mastery. As for my skill points, I decided to max that skill as soon as possible, before investing something in Battle Orders, Shout and maxing out Concentration.
And here's Hephasto and some maggots:
At character level 25 or 26, Wawrzyniec went to kill Diablo himself. The barbarian needed to be cautious due to Oblivion Knights and their curses. They were particularly annoying when engaged in meele - casting curse to slow Wawrzyniec down an running away. Now, I did not take any screenshot from Venom Lord's seal boss pack because I was mostly focusing on staying alive.
Now, for the Diablo himself... the fight was very nostalgic for me because when I fought Diablo for the first time as barbarian, I recall using Maul. Only this time I couldnt' afford to die once, not to mention 4-5 times.
Now, I was afraid of Cold Touch + Lightning Breath combo due to its deadly potential and I was right in doing so. The fight against the Lord of Terror was, in fact, my biggest challenge on Normal difficulty but Wawrzyniec managed to prevail.
I'm far from complaining, but it would be nice to see some item and character statistics too.
But after Wawrzyniec, I think I'll implement your feedback.
Act V
Normal Mode
Wawrzyniec's first steps in Act V were to kill Shenk the Overseer and then Eldritch the Recifier. That's when leveling up to clvl 31-32 began.
It turned out to be quite profitable, as Wawrzyniec managed to found an unique item - Goblin Toe boots. It provided nice 25% chance of crushing blow on hit and the barbarian knew he will not part with them quickly.
Wawrzyniec then proceeded to do quests 2 and 3. Ufnortunately, due to me rushing things and wanting to make as much progress as I could (due to Lapame's death) I haven't made any screenshots from those quests. What I remember is that Frozenstein gave me some trouble due to Mana Burn + Cold Enhanced combo and that the reward from Anya was really useless. Nothing new there.
But like that I got access to uncle Pindleskin on normal difficulty and Wawrzyniec visited him plenty of time and earned some nice rare items as rewards. Notably, Wawrzyniec found a rare Hammer that dealt about 50 damage per hit, with some other mods like +attack rating and mana drain. The rare maul Wawrzyniec used against Diablo dealt up to 70 damage, I think, was slower and 2-handed. The barbarian switched to hammer/shield combo.
Being armed better, and ritcher with experience, it was time to beat the rest of act V. Wawrzyniec found Nihlahtak an dealt him a death blow. It is interesting, actually, what made the traitor think that pact with B
haal was a good idea. It was not explained... I mean, we know that it was to spare Harrogath, but its unwise to think the demon would keep that promise. Being Lord of Desturciton, wanting to unleash hell on mortal realm and all...Now, the Ancient Ones. I was a bit worried there since I forgot to stock additional potions before the battle. In the end, Wawrzyniec ended up beating the three mighty warriors andit turned out my fears were not justified.
The last thing to do was to kill Baal. But first here's a screenshot from battle against Minions of Destruction and... some statistics! Apparently I made that screenshot, even though I utterly forgot about it.
What I can say about fighting Lister is that it proved to be more challenging that final boss itself. Due to that, Baal always feels like a dissapointment.
The amulet was from Angel's set. Nothing too interesting. Before going into Nightmare, Wawrzyneic will search for more interesting loot.
Act I
Nightmare difficulty
Wawrzyniec had no problems in cleaning first areas of act 1 nightmare.
Blood Raven:
Griswold also was not much of a threat.
Unfortunately, I have no screenshot of Wawrzyniec's meeting with the Countess. The Smith was more challenging and he hit hard.
And finally, Wawrzyniec met Andariel, the biggest challenge of this act. The Maiden of Anguish proved to be quite dangerous despite Wawrzyniec's general tankiness.
The Barbarian won however and found that auntie Andy left him a unique item!
Sureshrill Frost
Flanged Mace
1-hand damage: 47-74
+180% enhanced damage
Adds 8-10 damage
Adds 63-112 cold damage
Freezes target (3 seconds)
Cannot be frozen
Level 9 Frozen Orb charges
+50% damage against undead
Jackpot! At the end of act I, Warzyniec found a weapon sufficent to clear entirety of Nightmare difficulty
Shaftstop
Mesh Armor
Defense: 635
+197% enhanced defense
+250 defense against missiles
+60 to life
Damage reduced by 30%
The best thing: Damage reduced bt 30%. As in physical damage! That makes Wawrzyniec's chance against Undead Stygian Dolls and their explosion skyrocket. The barbarian decided to use the armor right away and he planned to upgrade it in the future.
Edit: Don't forget to socket that Shaftstop at Larzuk.
Edit2: How many visits did you at Andy?
I think I did less than 50 Andy runs, to be honest. I stopped shortly after I got the Shaftstop, feeling quite blessed already.
Act II
Nightmare Difficulty
Since the screenshots I made some time ago don't tell me very much, aside from providing them I'll explain how I wanted Wawrzyniec to go. What I had in mind for our Barbarian was to raise skill levels of Concentrate, Shout, Battle Order to 10, right after maxing out Mace Mastery. I had two idea variants what to follow with: one, max out Concentration or invest 10 points in Whirlwind. What would fallow will be maxing out Battle Orders and adding some points into Berserk so that physical immunities could kiss Wawrzyniec's arse.
The logic with dividing 20 skill points into Concentrate and Whirlwind was because the skill damages are based around my weapon's damage and other modifiers, such as strength. As such, I didn't think that it would make as much of a difference as in instance of Sorceress spells etc.
Anyways, here is the progress of act II:
Radament:
Coldworm the Burrower:
The Summoner and Tal Rasha's symbol
And finally, Duriel. He was actually easier to beat than Andariel, at least for Wawrzyniec. This is because Duriel does not use spells, but rielies on close combat instead. With a mix of Concentration, Shout and the Mercenary's aura he had trouble to make a clear hit on the Barbarian.
Nightmare difficulty
As in case of act III, I don't have much to say besides sharing some screenshots. Here are some:
Some words about Undead Stygian Dolls, undead Fetishes, destroyers of my dreams, my biggest fans, creatures boiling my blood etc.... Thanks to Shaftstop they weren't that bad. Granted, it was Nightmare difficulty only and I primarly tried to make them occupied with my mercenary, but overall, it was not that bad. It seems I learned from Zaraki playthrough. Or maybe also from Lapame's death: BE FREAKING CAREFUL.
Anyway, here's uncle Mephisto!
I don't recall him dropping anything I could use. And Wawrzyniec decided to not visit him again for now, as @O_Bruce had other plans in mind. For now, welcome in act IV.