The atmosphere in D1 is particularly dark & morbid - something lacking in D2 & D3. Crucified corpses, dead children, dismembered body parts...
The 'gothic' art/design style is just timeless. Levels 1-4 have the best graphics. And, as @jjstraka34 said, the brilliant music really helps complete it.
From a marketing viewpoint, a much more efficient strategy would be to create a F2P or subscription-based sequel right away.
Well they're working on an interquel rather than a sequel, alright...
But, other than that, I knew exactly what Acti-Blizz was doing, 2 bloody damn years ahead of time
Let me introduce Vanessa, the assassin who would be a bounty hunter in BG.
Hardcore game without mods, i plan to go through it without grinding. Main goal is reaching guardianship however.
Vanessa started off with the now well-tried route at the start, which means tagging Cold Plain WP, then going back to clear Den of Evil. One of the first loot was a rare Katar,
with decent mods for our first weapon.
V' reached level 6 in the Den.
Fire Blast has this rare nice early AoE damage.
Vanessa followed one of the pathway at Cold Plain, and it lead to the Stony Field, so she searched for the waypoint before going back to the other path leading to the Burial Grounds.
First real opponent was Blood Raven, Fire Blast was very handy again against the undead with it's AoE damage and Burst of Speed let me catch BR in melee.
Aliza joined to our cause.
Nessy levelled to 12 just before confronting Treehead, choosing Cloak of Shadows for her first lvl12 skill. T put up good fight, but Nessy and Aliza were even deadlier.
We freed Decard and put an end to Griswold's misery.
Nessy fought toe to toe with Griswold, which i think is nice.
Bought this nice Stealth base by Charsi,
and found the Tower, where we left a portal to revisit after finding the WP.
That process turned out to be unnecessary however, because of a misclick i exit the game, so some trekking followed.
V' bought a superior Wirst blade, the WP was found succesfully and 2 jewel of Ire was putted in our new weapon.
In the Tower Cellars a dark rogue pack let V. reach lvl15.
At FT lvl 5 there was a tight packed dark archer horde. with heavy use of CoS it still needed one town visit.
The Countess dropped an Ith.
A mixed pack dropped me two small charm and a level.
The Smith was a tough guy at this point, Nessy had to visit town two times to resurrect Aliza.
Vanessa reached lvl18 right before entering inner cloister
Double Tainted boss pack at lvl2 catacombs , V performed good. Finding the stairs easy at Catacombs is always a boon. Also a nice rare WB with IAS, ED and some other extras.
Nessy reached lvl19 before entering Andy.
Than V. shopped some antidotes by Akara, and dropped some potions to the floor for preparing a long fight.
Yea, with Vanessa i go with player 8 setting exclusively till we enter Hell difficulty. So no rune-grinding at Countess at player 1, and the boss fights will be done on p8 too (at least until Hell).
Vanessa the "gamblemaster"
Andy dropped a Blood Crescent, a rare caster ring and some rare weapons.
One was a spear with amp curse,
i switched Aliza to a town guard at Luth Golein, the spear went for him.
In the Dry Hills V. got three grand charm drop in a row, one with a badass +5 strenght and some fire res.
A weird bug happened in the Halls of Dead, so had to exit and retrace to the hall.
On the way a unique ring dropped.
An almost perfect Nagel!
Halls of the Dead went well with Cloak of Shadow and Fire Blast.
Besides the Horadric Cube one Small Charm with life and another with +7 lightning resistance dropped.
After finding the Horadric Cube Nessy went for Radament and the bonus skill point. It was easy as pie.
Back to the desert, Maggots lair was searched and found.
Coldworm went down easily, dropped a rare ring, Beetleburst not much after a rare jewel.
Entered the lost city, but burst through it within seconds.
Fangskin managed to kill the merc, so V returned to the town for res. Now that she was there she gambled some skull caps (in the hope of a Tarnhelm) and a plated belt for moar drinking.
Fangskin dropped wirst blades, but V use his bombs almost exclusively.
Fire Eye was hunted down, then the library awaited.
First Vanessa followed the North path, which turned out to be a dead end.
Next path was East, and it turned out to be a dead end along with the South one.
West one must have been lead to the Summoner then, who took some more punch on P8,
and shoots some solid cold cones. Still, Vanessa deal with him without much problem and the way to Tal Rasha's tomb is clear.
Now nothing holds back Vanessa from the tomb.
https://youtu.be/xANjSH8MyEc
Duriel gave a good fight, still Vanessa's win was not a question.
Onward to Kurast.
Vanessa maxed Fire Blast at lvl26, the next four levels will be enough to learn Death Sentry's prerequisits and learn Death Sentry at lvl30.
At the Spider Forest the well named Doom Bang gave us the Jade Figurine,
Vanessa Found the first waypoint in the first umpa-camp,
and entered the Flayer Jungle after that immediately, leaving the Spider Cave for later and leaving out Death Marsh entirely.
A third Ith rune dropped in the jungle, so Vanessa could make her Stealth armor, increasing her speed massively.
In the Flayer jungle the first clearing was a dead end, but at second try Vanessa found the Giddbin.
The umpa pack spawned right on V, fortunately on Normal this was not near lethal, and Cloak of Shadows lowered the risk at minimal too.
Ormus gave a semi useful ring with +5 strenght, +1 dex and +30 poison resist.
Then i thought V should shop a teleport staff, because her offhand eqipment was meh, and in the Flayer dungeon (esp on the 3. level) it will be useful.
Second or third visit provided the perfect teleporting staff.
No extra mods, best price.
So back to the Flayer Dungeon entrance.
The teleport staff was put in good use immediatly, Dr. Endugu's hall was just beside the stairs, and the staff gave a convenient way to that.
Now to reach LK waypoint and a little backtrack for Khalim's eye (or whatever body part is in the Spider Cave).
Reached level 27, so V. can use now her first sentry trap.
Stormtree dropped a Ral,
and some monsters in Lower Kurast Cleglaw's Pincers.
Nice Gloves, but not useful for Vanessa.
Visited the ruined temple for Lam Esen's book.
There were some togh boss packs in the temple, and a Cathan ring.
We tried to roll a Partizan with five diamond, but no luck this time. The savage halberd was an upgrade for the merc weapon nonetheless.
Back in the Spider Forest we met with a tough Thorned Hulk pack, the boss has big hp pool with high regeneration, and gave us a fight like a real boss.
The Spider Cavern was in the most hidden corner of the forest, but Vanessa had found it at long last.
Szark gave us an ethereal Spire of Lazarus beside Khalim's eye and some tasty xp. Sadly, tha staff has no use for us.
Kurast sewers next. We found the stairs to level 2 in the sewers pretty fast.
Khalim's heart is ours, we can face the Council now.
We found a Cathan mask in upper Kurast, and our current helm is so humble , that it's still an upgrade.
Geleb Flamefinger was generous enough to drop an Ort rune to us.
The way to Mephy is open now.
Vanessa reached level 29. This time we store our skill point for the next level, Death sentry and shadow master both can be learned that way on level 30.
At Meph level the Council members in the middle managed to give some fright for us, but then we reached Meph for good.
Mephisto was deadly and on first try almost ended Vanessa's run prematuraly. Had to quit and retrace our way to Meph from Travincal, because we did not hit the last waypoint.
We reached level 30 this way and approached Mephisto with more caution this time.
In hell everything went well, Death sentry did it's work now, the gates were on the regular locations, and Izual greeted us with a long but uneventful fight.
Junks was plenty, so we stopped to cube away some gems.
Rolled some Katar's for skiller mods without success, but then rolled diamonds for savage Partizan, and the last one was that.
The Partizan will be good for the merc, until then Vanessa can use it for Blade fury (she will learn it next level).
Two handed damage is halved by Blade Fury, but the Savage Partizan still offer a good damage at this point.
The stairs from the city to the River was near, but Vanessa visited first the chatedral.
By the river of Flame first the waypoint was discovered, than Hellforge. level 31 was reached, and with thus Blade Fury was learned and all the necessary skills opened.
The Hellforge dropped an Amn, which is good.
Vanessa made way to the seals and got rid all of the guardians. Neither Bosses proved to be too difficult.
Blade Fury worked very good with the Partizan, it was especially good against fire resistant unique monsters like the wraiths by one of the seals.
Before facing Diablo it occured to me that i should make a Strenght weapon, the crushing blow should come handy against Diablo. I made it in a Brandistock (shopped by Fara), the merc can use that in the future, it seems that it's better than Bloodthief, his current unique Brandistock.
And now, facing Diablo! It's p8, Vanessa has limited lightning resistance, so it will be an interesting battle probably :I https://youtu.be/N856usyHGD4
Huh, there was a fright there when Diablo caged Vanessa in that bone prison, fortunately town portal worked.
Well that was some adrenalin rush!
Bloody foothills was still rushed through till we found Shenk and Eldritch,
but then we slowed down and made full map clears, to gather xp and make some better runes to drop.
And an early Sol find it's way to our pocket.
Frigid Highlands and Arreat Plateau went down slowly, along with Abaddon and Pit of Ancheron.
Aside from the Sol nothing really interesting dropped, but we shopped a sturdy ancient armour with frost nova procs for the merc.
Finally reached Tresh Socket, who gifted us with this lovely pair of plated shoes:
We cleared all maps till we found Anya. Frozenstein and his band went down without problem.
All in all, Vanessa and co. are strong enough now to enter Nightmare, they don't really found much opposition nowtimes.
We procastrinate Anya's quest and go further to Bhaal to gather experience and level for the class specific item-reward.
We are clearing all the maps till the Arreat Summit without surprises, somehow the Frozen Tundra waypoint eludes us, but nothing much else to report.
The Ancients does not put much a fight, however Vanessa must consume some mana potion till they all give in to the fire bombs.
Then we cleared the WSK level 1 and 2. We couldn't get a decent helm for our Ort and Sol runes, we keep getting one socketed or plain white/ ethereal ones.
We check in at level 45 by Anya, when we found the level 2 waypoint.
We got a lousy blade talon, but shopped a magekiller katar at once as a compensation.
Clearing fully Nihlathak's domain was a tedious and ungrateful work.
Halls of pain has an Amn rune and an interesting blue amulet, but not much else.
Halls of Vaught provided us Nilly, who gave us good xp and another Amn.
We found old Nilly in the first tunnel, but visited the others out of curiosity.
Nothing interesting came from the other tunnels however.
We went on to the Throne of Destruction. Built the Lore runeword in a full helm before facing the minions of Bhaal.
And finally the Worldsone Chamber. And i managed to turn on the sound this time (after some delay). https://youtu.be/BuyFr1nh0QA
Vanessa visited the cows to finilize her work in normal mode.
We decided not to visit back to Normal from Nightmare, so we used the socket, imbue and personalize quests.
We had to gather the Horadric Malus, because we forgot that earlier.
We give Carsi a circlet to imbue and she gives us a decent one with teleport charges, life leech and resistances.
The merc can use it for good, and the teleport Vanessa can use instead of her current teleport staff. Some levelling is needed for it however, it has level 48 requirement, V. is with 1, merc is with 2 level short for it.
We didn't found any decent gear for the socketing quest. First we try to shop a magekiller blade talon by Anya (preferably with some ias), but the red portal is closed, and with no luck we decide to gamble our money away.
We go for blade talons (for the above mentioned affixes) and skull caps for Tarnhelm.
We got a pair of nice rare magekiller talons with +20 IAS. We socket it and personalize it by Larzuk.
And Nightmare is here!
We cleared slowly the Den of Evil and Blood Moor.
Cold Plains was plain and cold, and we visited the crypt, what we have not done in ages.
We almost left our favourite Grand Charm on Cold Plains, fortunately it doesn't diminish before we retrieve it.
Blood Raven tries her best to stay alive (or a...undead), but we wear her down slowly. I let her recruit some zombie horde and kill our merc and Shadow for xp.
If i would use Ladder runewords and if i would play with a paladin this shield would be a nice Spirit base.
Bone Breaker, the long-not-visited chap.
Almost got an upgrade for our Stealth armour.
Looking at V-s character sheet, we shall work on our fire and cold resistance in the future. it's not a problem at this point however.
Mausoleum was uneventful, it contained better monster density than Crypt however and Vanessa reached level 48. Now another long not visited place, The Cave.
It was a somewhat exciting place actually, Coldcrow almost even managed to kill our merc.
Stony Field,
Underground Passage.
We surfaced into the Dark Wood just right beside the Tree of Infuss,
so we went back and rescued Cain.
At Tristram the merc reached level 48, and could equip the nice Circlet instead of that ugly berserker helm at last. In the Spirit of full map clears we went back to purge the second level of the Underground passage.
A gold wand after the green one.
But the more useful item was the partizan laying besides it with two socket.
Black Marsh,
The Countess
and The Hole.
We found nothing interesting in the Forgotten Tower, but got a nice Shael in the Hole.
A sweet grand charm dropped by the entrance of the Tamao Highlands,
sadly, it has not much use for Vanessa.
Found two decent jewel on the Tamao highland,
the one with higher cold res. went into our personal talons.
In the Pit an Amn dropped.
With that, a perfect sapphire and an Ort we could upgrade our blade talons to greater talons.
It's not a huge upgrade, but it has somewhat better attack speed with the traps.
We cleared the Pit, then entered the Outer Cloister. In the barracks we met an extra fast black hunter boss pack, wich made me scare. They were really fast, killed our shadow in seconds and Vanessa could not escape from their boss.
Fortunately it's Nightmare, and we could handle the problem without accident. The Smith came to us like a blue-skinned marvel boss, but had little success in opposing us.
We reached the next level, death sentry is maxed, so we have to choose another skill. We choose Lightning sentry, we will need shear damage without grinding.
Clearing Jail level 2 gives it's reward in a Hel rune.
Level 3 is down, and we reached the Inner Cloister.
Catacombs level 2 upped it with an Io and an ethereal Trellised armor.
We got two socket and upped defense with the cube recipe, so we have a new Stealth armour now.
Catacombs level 3 gave us a Sol and a Cathan amulet,
then soon we were at Andariel's doorstep.
Now, against P8 Andariel we are a little bit underpowered, but that's the fun, and fire damage should work against her. Vanessa buffed with a Skill shrine before fight for extra boost.
https://youtu.be/BKSGWO6fcJI
And Andy went down with surprising ease, to tell the truth the double ghoul/misshapen boss pack at the entrance gave us more sweat. The way to Luth Golein is free! (Again.)
Guys, ANY mod who adds necromancer to Diablo 1 without additing cooldowns and with strong minions? I mean Belzebub was interesting. But the late stages, my skeletons was useless. They was with less than half of the damage, hit points, armor class and numbers of enemies. The end game becomes another sorcerer run thanks to that(actually i prefer the regular . And the hell 2, another mod. 5 seconds cooldown on basic spells? Sorry, i respect the hard work of the modder, but i rather play hellfire... At least on hellfire, guardian, nova, etc has no CD...
I din't finished Belzebub mod because i don't know how to face diablo.
Soon as i find a good necro mod, i will do a no reload / no gear(naked) run.
I decided to give D3 a chance. Created a seasonal HARDCORE character. I was thinking on playng D3 with a non RPG mindset and maybe the game will be good
Well, my necromancer looks EXTREMELY androgynous. I was wondering if i really had picked a male necro... And the game is too easy. I literally got a decent weapon and was two hit shooting "rare" enemies. Unlocked corpse explosion. Was sad that it was scaling with my weapon, not with enemy hp who fits more the manipulator of master and death, using the lifeforce of enemies against thenselves. And no progression on range, always hit a specific area.... When i got skeleton mage, i was thinking "why i can't use it and the bone spear?" I an hating more this loadout system
Literally when i found a little gear, my hit points moved from 150 to 600. That ludicrous number inflation... For almost no gear improvement and few levels... At lv 11, i finally got a decent skill that siphons blood. i found a amazing big and heavy mace, do you know what it means? That i can siphon much more blood from enemy skeletons My skeletons also will become much stronger.
Leveled a little more, unlocked golem BUT or i have a golem or skeletons since i can only have one skill on the "reanimation" bar... Again this FPS like loadout...
Then faced the Skeleton King. Faced him on 1x1 but thanks to my heavy club, he was no match for me. I din't even needed to do anything except let my skeletons attack him while i drain all skeleton's blood. Decided to try change the difficulty. I now that the game will just inflate damage/health and will not trow more uniques, let enemies have more spells, give immunities, so skeletons can't be poisoned to death, or anything interesting. But at least will be less boring.
Now the game is on EXPERT. Was a little more fun, but even by standing in a ultra telegraphed explosion, i only lose half of my health.,,, After leveling i got corpse lance. A cool skill. IMO better than corpse explosion but again. Why i can't have one for single target and another for multi target? I hate this loadout system. On D2 i can have dozens of skills...
I an thinking D3 on expert extremely more easy than any other isometric ARPG that i played. I an literally playing while watch video lessons, even writing annotations with a hand and editing this post and my health NEVER reached closer to 50%(except when i tried) And the combat? always spam the same rotation, over and over... Generate essence -> Skeleton mages -> get corpses so corpse lance, next encounter, generate essence -> skeleton mage -> corpse lance (...) Looks like i an playing an MMO... The unique encounter who broke this monotony was VS jailers.
IS not that necromancy is bad. I mean, it is mostly thanks to the D3 mechanics, we can't have a summon like Iron golem, nor curses like attract. but they did a good job considering D3 limitations. Blood skills and frost golem(loved both) but IMO they should drain health based on a percentage of enemy health, like Bone Spirit on D1 but obvious weaker and you should't be able to use this skills on creatures without blood.
I've been away for the forum for a few weeks, between an internet outage (still ongoing) at my place and having the main laptop in the shop for a swollen battery. So, then, I dusted off the 15-year old machine and got out D2. Inspired by this thread, I decided to give hardcore a go. I had played a bit of it before, but not much; in the "Hardcore" project of my muling program, the highest level character was just barely a Destroyer, and possibly dead.
So, then, a new necromancer. With only a little hand-me-down equipment, Prebek gets started. He's a classic skeleton build, using players 8 for basically everything and doing single-pass full clears. Ladder-only equipment is enabled, and the muling program ensures all gear is recoverable after death.
Normal and Nightmare were a breeze; Duriel is scary when underleveled, but Decrepify really takes the fight out of him.
The most notable items found so far: Skin of the Vipermagi in Nightmare's Underground Passage, Pul from the Nightmare Hellforge, Mal in the Glacial Trail... now we're thinking that the next character will use an Oath. Then some Baal runs, with side trips to Nihlathak's temple to gather the army... Ist from the temple on one run, Vex from the temple on another. Now he's looking for a four-socket flail and a Ko rune- a much better solution to the Hell resistance penalty than switching to a plain 3-diamond shield.
Prebek has yet to enter Hell, but I have a good feeling about him when he does.
More to come, preferably when I can do this inside instead of walking over to the library.
A brief update: Prebek finally got that Heart of the Oak made. Clearing Hell Act 1 earned a pair of Ko runes, and then he revisited Nightmare for that flail. Clear everything before the monastery, find two three-socket flails... but also two white flails from early in the act. Bring out the cube, apply recipe - four sockets on the first try.
Then, of course, he personalized it. Any item that takes that much effort to acquire deserves that much. He resumes his trek through Hell with the new flail, bringing him to a total of +10 summoning skills and +5 others.
I must regretfully inform you all that my HC necromancer Prebek has died. Cause of death? Player error and hubris. Don't run out ahead of your summons when in an area of Hell act 5 overrun with archers. He died with a town portal open and just waiting for him to step in - but he still died. The full story follows:
Prebek is not quite my first hardcore character, but he's close; no previous character (since I've been tracking) has gone beyond the bare minimum to reach Destroyer. Still, there's enough in the hardcore stash (I keep the items segregated) to get him some nice starter gear. A wand and preserved head with +3 to Raise Skeleton and +5 to Skeleton Mastery between them go a long way toward making the early levels easy. Then in the second session (starting at level 17), he gets more gear including an Eye of Etlich.
The build plan is fairly simple: base Raise Skeleton level is half of character level (rounded up) until I'm done picking up single points in everything I want. He's playing at players 8 and fully clearing areas, so he stays well ahead of the level curve. Most things get Amplify Damage, bosses (starting with Duriel) get Decrepify. Even most act bosses don't put up much of a fight when under Decrepify, with a Clay Golem whacking at them. The exception to that? Normal difficulty Diablo. He's level 40 (to level 30 for most of the Chaos Sanctuary monsters) so the skeletons have a hard time hitting him, and he has those area of effect elemental attacks that shred the army. Still, he drops a worthy reward: Goldwrap. Prebek puts that on immediately and never takes it off.
Raise Skeleton is maxed at level 36, in act 5. The next priority, of course, is Skeleton Mastery. Baal goes down at level 48; he got off a few annoying cold waves early, but did very little once he was decrepified. Then it's a few Baal runs (still at players 8) along with the cow level. Prebek only picks up two pieces worth using: a rare +2 summoning wand from Pindleskin and a rare +2 summoning circlet from Baal, both in the first run. The former will soon be obsolete, but the latter will last. He enters Nightmare at level 52.
Once in Nightmare, the next equipment upgrade comes quickly. A four-socket crystal sword drops from a chest in the Blood Moor, and Prebek has a Spirit runeword. He will never use a wand again. Late in the act, Prebek reaches level 54 and maxes out Skeleton Mastery. The discretionary part of the build is next, and I'll go with a mix of Skeleton Mages and Corpse Explosion, weighted toward the former.
For Nightmare act 2, a mercenary upgrade is the big deal. Replace the old Prayer with Might, and give him an Insight partizan. It's a dramatic upgrade in killing speed. For act 3, the most notable gain is an item he gambles at the end - a Golemlord's Amulet of the Centaur (+3 summoning, scaling life). Finally, something worth taking off the Eye of Etlich. Act 4 adds a Pul rune from the Hellforge, and Prebek reaches level 67.
Nightmare act 5 brings new challenges; even the Bloody Foothills require concentration, with piercing slingers and glare from the rare November sunshine. Still, it all goes smoothly enough. Nihlathak was dealt with by exploding all the corpses before he could get to them. The best item found? A Mal rune, in the Glacial Trail. Now I'm thinking Oath...
This act also marks a milestone, with an Arctic Mitts found in the Icy Cellar completing my first HC set.
And then, a few loose ends before moving on to Hell. The cow level forces Prebek to retreat the first time; the portal spawns in a corner, and he can't keep the wall of beef from advancing. Returning a second time with some pre-summoned revives to tank, he takes them out and clears the area (still p8). After that, it's more Baal runs, with Pindleskin to gather the army. I drew a short route in Worldstone 2, and the absolute minimum in Worldstone 3. After an Ist rune from Pindleskin's friends in the first run, the jackpot comes in run 7: Vex from Pindleskin's friends, and Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest from Baal. Those boss runs were starting to feel downright routine; I could actually do crosswords while fighting Baal, since Decrepify neutered him so well. The Vex gets me thinking, and I begin the quest for the remaining pieces to Heart of the Oak: a Ko rune and a four-socket flail. So then, the Countess and her tower... no luck. I look some things up... the special rune drop only goes up to Io in nightmare. I wasn't going to find a Ko rune that way anyway. I do one last run of the act bosses and their dungeons, then move on. Prebek enters Hell at level 78.
Once in Hell, the Ko runes show up. One in the Mausoleum, another in the Jail level 2. Also, he maxes out Skeleton Mages in the Den of Evil and turns his focus entirely to Corpse Explosion. He still needs that four-socket flail, though - so he goes back to Nightmare for a bit. Clearing out act 1 before the monastery - two three-socket flails, two white flails with level below 40. I try the socket-adding cube recipe, and finally succeed. Prebek has his Heart of the Oak, and immediately personalizes it.
With the new flail, Prebek retires the 3-diamond shield and goes back to his +1 skill, 13 resist rare. He's at a full +10 summoning now, for 12 skeletons and 12 mages. Also, he picked up an ethereal 4-socket Partizan, so the mercenary's Insight gets an upgrade. The Oak Sage dies very quickly if anything attacks it - but with so many other minions, it still lasts pretty well in most areas. At about 1300 gold per charge, it's well worth keeping out.
There are a couple places in Act 2 where I lower the players count to 1 - the Maggot Lair and the Arcane Sanctuary. The narrow paths just make it too hard to bring the army to bear, and that means exceedingly slow progress if I don't do that.
And now, on to act 3. Good things come quickly, with the Jade Figurine and Spellsteel dropping practically on top of each other even before I'd finished gathering my army. Level 87 is reached in the Arachnid Lair, and Prebek maxes out Corpse Explosion. Without equipment, its radius is now the whole nine yards. With my current gear, it goes to eleven.
I soon come on a real challenge - a double boss pack of Sszark the Burning (Extra Strong, Cursed, Cold Enchanted, Holy Freeze) and a random Fiend (Extra Fast, Fanaticism, Stone Skin). They take out half the army and the mercenary before I can retreat to town and regroup. On returning, it's Decrepify all the way, plus letting a narrow space work in my favor. That does the trick.
The Great Marsh brings Gloams, which are rather hard on the Oak Sages. Still, they're not much danger to Prebek - he's got solid lightning resistance. Later, in the Flayer Dungeon ... a four-socket flail finally drops. Not that I need it now.
Prebek finds another powerful rune in Gul - but it's not good for much at the moment.
The sewers come with an annoying combination of Horadrim Ancients (with Horrors), mummies, and undead dolls. Poison-immune enemies that can be resurrected - oh, joy. They're not terribly dangerous, but they can take a while to kill if the army spreads out too much. Icehawk Riftwing manages to single-handedly kill most of Prebek's army, but he doesn't deal a single point of damage to the man himself. Cold Enchanted/Lightning Enchanted/Conviction is a deadly combination.
The challenge of Travincal is all that healing from the priests. The summoner can find it difficult to deal damage fast enough to take down enemies with healer backup, especially at higher player counts with multiple priests. Then again, one particularly troublesome battle with about three priests catches us a green Spired Helm. It's always nice to be properly rewarded. The council themselves are better at dealing damage, but less resilient without so much healing; less trouble, on the whole. On we go, into the enormous Durance. Clearly, Mephisto's power has run rampant twisting the space here.
Level 88 comes at the end of level 1 of the Durance, and brings a dilemma - what do we invest in now? I'll pick up the curses I neglected first. Dim Vision gets a point. I manage to explore all of Durance 2 before finding the exit; I would have cleared everything anyway, but as it turns out that was just natural with my choice of paths. Mephisto himself is harmless as usual once slowed to a crawl by Clay Golem and Decrepify.
The act ends with a gambling spree, for a little under seven million gold. We have a chance at +2 skill amulets, and roll two - a Priest's Amulet (+2 paladin) and a Hierophant's Amulet (+2 druid). Neither has a suffix. On a more productive note, Prebek finally found a second rare ring he deemed worth wearing over a Nagelring.
For the act 4 session, I start with a visit to act 1 to gather the army and hit a couple level 85 areas. Naturally, I lose nearly half the army as soon as I enter the Outer Steppes; they get hung up on the stairs behind a mage shooting at enemies, I run ahead, and they vanish before I can summon them to me with a town portal.
In hell, I finally start using revives regularly. I prefer aggressive melee attackers such as Doom Knights, Pit Lords, and Urdars. The Izual quest reward is used to pick up Confuse and Attract. Prebek now has points in the whole curse tree.
Along the way, I recall that Prebek has some imbues stored up, and decide to use on on an item that I can't gamble - a shrunken head. Result... no +skills, so not worth keeping. The Hellforge grants an Um, one of the most useful runes and one I didn't have yet in Hardcore.
The River of Flame also brings a near-death scare, as I set up a repositioning portal without room to retreat. Prebek drank a fat purple in panic, before retreating far enough that some of his army teleported over to help.
There's a rare opportunity in the Chaos Sanctuary - a Fire Shrine nearly in sight of where Diablo is summoned. I could take off half his hit points... if I pulled him over there rather than playing it safe, and at the cost of weakening my whole army. Nah.
Diablo himself is easy; once the fight stabilizes, it's a slow mixture of melee attacks that don't do enough damage to matter, fire rings that sting a little, and lightning hoses that miss completely. Decrepify is really an amazing spell. Prebek didn't level up during this short act; he's still about 45 million XP away from level 89. The act-end gambling spree (about 3 million) doesn't net any +2 skill amulets, but it does pick up two set items and a really nice +1 necro/15 all resist amulet. Prebek would rather keep his +3 summoning amulet, but that's still a really nice piece.
And now, on to the greatest challenge: act 5. The very first item I find is a good one - a Pul rune. That opens up runewords such as Oath again. A combination of an Oath weapon and a Duress armor looks good for a melee character, doesn't it? Act 5 starts smoother than most others, since there are free corpses in the Bloody Foothills. When you've got a few skeletons up before even entering combat, things get a lot easier for the necromancer. Then it slows down at the barricades, where the minions take the time to batter down every barricade and tower even when there are enemies actively shooting at them.
It gets so boring that I start doing crosswords... and then it happens. Just as I move around a bend, with my army stuck behind, I cast a town portal to reposition the army, and the Burning Dead archers get me. Dead, at level 88.
Enemy draws: Bloody Foothills - Foul Crows and Demon Imps. Frigid Highlands - Burning Dead Archers, Lashers with Slayers, and Vile Archers.
I've been tracking all the items found. In the course of this run, Prebek found 87 set and unique items that I hadn't found in Hardcore before. The next character will be far better prepared ... whenever I get around to playing them. I've been playing a mod (Median) instead.
Yehh, level 88. Hexxat was level 82 (only) when she beat Baal. Really sorry to see it ended this way! But - you'll get there! A really nice run, @jmerry!
After watching those videos, I got an itch to try D2 again - when I had switched to a new PC a few years ago I had totally lost all the saves with Cernd and Hexxat.
PlugY doesn't work on 1.14d, and 1.14d is the version that works nicely on Win 10. I've had this problem for a while. Turned out, there is a great GoMule app - http://gomule.sourceforge.net/ - which is working on 1.14d and will serve as a great solution for my hoarding habits. Also, on Win 10 under my Nvidia graphics, I've had that odd issue where black colour in the background has been rendered red instead. Turned out, by using Glide, I could pick "no gamma" in the settings, and it fixed the issue.
So another assassin - Cabrina - has already started to explore the path her good friend Hexxat had followed till the end (the screenshot was still from the version 1.13c).
I actually played a Diablo 2 crusader very recently. I only made it to the end of Act Two, though, before I switched to Sacred 1 and Sacred 2 again, with a gladiator and a battle mage going in Sacred 1, and a dragon mage I got started in Sacred 2.
I found the dark color scheme and D2's overall tone to be somewhat depressing over time, and I started to really want to spend my time with brighter colors again. I couldn't get PlugY to work, so the very small inventory space compared to more modern clones of this classic got kind of tedious to manage after a while, although I think the game was originally designed to have you choose carefully what to hang on to and what to let go.
Those lightning beetles in the desert, and the mummies that shoot poison and black Unholy Bolts at you were quite "shocking" to encounter. Most of the games in the genre that followed D2 weren't anywhere near as dangerous and hard to survive in on the first difficulty level as was D2. I think I wore out on it in Act Two because of the difficulty spikes getting too intense for my taste.
My first and only death was to Duriel at the end of Act Two. I had never played D2 past Act One before, and so I went into my first Duriel fight blind, not knowing it was a cold damage fight. I reloaded and did it with my crusader cold protection aura up, and it was still hard, but I made it that time.
I got restartitis after that, and also wanted to try a different build path on my crusader tree, plus dying at any time in a game makes me want to restart anyway. So, I played all the way through Acts One and Two again, this time with a slightly different crusader. Yeah, I'm kind of crazy that way. I'm definitely an eccentric breed of gamer.
Twice through Acts One and Two, and I was ready to play another game.
It was very fun to relive this old classic, the grandfather of so many games I love in the genre, even though I didn't feel like finishing the run. I'm sure I'll come back to it again eventually, and maybe I'll try that other storage utility you suggested.
Thanks for putting this thread up top where it's easy to find again.
I wouldn't have expected you to enjoy this game, as it's indeed dark and grim - actually, its dark style is what a lot of people (including me) have been missing in Diablo 3. D2 is quite different from the peaceful and heroic Mandate of Heaven.
But it's totally alright to play different games - I paused my turn-based adventure in D:OS to play old hack&slash here.
I don't think hoarding items changes the difficulty greatly in this game - it's just my personal preference is to try and gather all I can find. I respect people who play as it was originally designed to choose carefully what to hang on to and what to let go.
Thanks for a reminder about shocking enemies. I remember they were a pain back when I played Diablo 2 in my childhood. Now, my approach to playing it has changed - the game rewards you greatly for grinding - in this case, killing boss enemies again and again to get better loot. And not only bosses can drop them. And then you can upgrade unique items with Cube recipes.
Here is how I found Gorefoot, the first unique normal boots for Cabrina - it was a common demon who dropped them. On level 32, I'll be able to put on the exceptional version of this item, sharkskin boots (and since my main attack depends on the boots I wear, this is a just a great find).
After about ~15 Andariel runs I thought I was happy about my items and proceeded to Act II. She didn't drop anything special except for the Pelta Lunata (a unique normal buckler). +10 to Energy is a massive boost. In fact, coupled with a few other mana-restoring items, I was able to specialize Cabrina into a proper KickSin in Act I. I remember it took a while for Hexxat to get there. By specializing, I mean that the kick attack is now the main attack (left-click) - it costs 6 mana, but with the items, it usually means I spend only 2 mana per attack. With enemies dropping potions here and there, it's usually possible to just travel from one potion to another.
Andariel also dropped a unique normal spear for my new companion.
Along with a few levels (and thus skills), this lets me feel more or less comfortable against Act II enemies. Cloak of Shadows - a 1-point wonder skill - blinds all nearby enemies, stopping shooters from shooting and making enemies wait till you approach them and kill, instead of attacking you together. And Fade (so far with only 3 points in it) greatly improves resistances of the Assassin.
Fade in action (both against the beetles and the hollow ones)
Here are Cabrina's stats (and a few new items) at Lvl 21, just after she finally captured the Cube.
On a side note, you can respec once per each difficulty in the Act I camp (pick the line from Akara). And if you're playing a non-hardcore character, that's totally normal to get back to your corpse and try again in case you die.
The current MF chance is 74%. Duriel was sweet enough to drop Crushflange (a unique normal mace with a 33% chance of Crushing Blow, works with the kicks, an ideal choice to switch to when fighting a boss), The Eye of the Etlich (a unique amulet adding +1 to All Skills and 6% Life Stolen Per Hit; The Eye of Etlich has a hidden 2-10 Second Cold Duration. The Cold Duration on this amulet will combine with other Cold attack spells), Lenymo (a unique normal sash providing +5 All Resistances and 30% Regenerate Mana) and Coif of Glory (a unique normal helm for my companion, Hit Blinds Target).
Here are Cabrina's stats (and those new items) at Lvl 25, at the start of Act III.
I then went on farming him and Travincal Council members and got the following items:
- Hawkmail (a unique normal scale mail, providing the "Cannot Be Frozen" enchantment, good for my companion)
- Swordback Hold (a unique normal spiked shield, with a default 55% chance of blocking, good for my second weapon set)
- a rare bone wand with Life Tap charges (the curse which makes you heal when hitting an enemy)
- +10% and +5% MF rare rings and +19% MF rare light gaulents
- the whole Berserker's Arsenal set
- 2 items from the Isenhart's Armory set
- 2 items from the Cathan's Traps set
- 2 items from the Arctic Gear set
Nothing truly special there, to be honest, but still nice. The current MF chance is 98%.
Here are Cabrina's stats and items at Lvl 28, at the start of Act IV.
Here you can watch a Lvl 29 assassin taking on Diablo in less than 1 minute. I felt Cabrina needed better loot at this stage, especially since Hexxat had got the Rattlecage armor from Diablo. And in 5 subsequent levels Cabrina got from the Chaos Sanctuary, everything changed, item-wise. All redundant Act I & II items now were changed to much better options:
- the first drop was probably the most important for this stage of the game. Wall of the Eyeless, this ominously looking unique normal bone shield, provided insane mana leech: 3% mana stolen per hit, +5 mana after each kill. Basically, with this shield, Cabrina no longer needed Gorefoot boots and Lenymo sash. Now, Cabrina's mana is nearly always at its maximum.
- then Cabrina got another (!) unique shield - a unique normal kite shield Steelclash. This shield provides +15 to all resistances, so it's a great shield for the second weapon set (when I am switching to a Life Tap wand).
- the third item looked great even at the non-identified stage. Diablo dropped 2 unique items at once, and one of them were light plated boots. Yes, THOSE boots. Goblin Toe provides 25% Chance of Crushing Blow. With Crushflange, the chance now is 58%.
- "Chance Guards" chain gloves were a great addition, boosting the MF chance by 33%.
Here are some other items Cabrina found in the Chaos Sanctuary (it was such a great feeling breezing through this usually difficult area or standing still against Diablo's fire+lightning attack):
A few of those items reminded me about the Hexxat run, especially those two-handed weapons.
Cabrina is at Lvl 34, at the start of Act V. The current MF chance is 113%. Her STR is already enough for a normal -> exceptional upgrade of Goblin Toe (which will boost the kick damage significantly), but she needs a Shael rune for that. In the Sanctuary, the maximum I got to was an Amn rune (as a result of conjuring previous runes), so it'll still take a while. Cabrina couldn't find Rattlecage but managed to grab Goblin Toe. So each assassin gets her own unique, I guess.
In my games, Baal rarely drops anything worthwhile. Maybe it's because I'm not patient enough to farm him for a long time - after all, the next difficulty is looming. A flail, a voulge, a spetum, and a set round shield from the Orphan's Call.
But the biggest surprise from Act V happened earlier. A common monster in the Halls of Vaught dropped a Shael rune. This was just a gift. I needed that to upgrade the Goblin Toe.
Such a high-level rune for the Normal difficulty was a welcome surprise, especially since earlier I was very unlucky in the Hell's Forge (getting an Eld rune there).
I also switched to the Strenght runeword for my weapon (since I found Blade Talons which have the highest speed among assassin's weapons till their exceptional version) - the Crushing blow chance decreased from 33% to 25%, but now the weapon adds 7% Life Stolen per Hit, 10 Vitality and 2 Mana after each kill.
When you get into the next difficulty, you immediately feel that. Resistances decrease a lot, monsters (especially uniques) start being dangerous. Especially those that could freeze you.
In order not to die, you have to react, improving your items substantially. Hexxat was lucky when she got a lot of neat unique items from Nightmare Andariel but I can't rely on luck. So I decided to try and use runewords I could create.
Finding a Sol rune as early as in the Den of Evil made me realize I can go that runeword route (Ort + Sol could create a great helmet).
I also found a rare amulet providing +16% to Fire, Poison and Lightning resist, as well as +48% to Cold resist. That is nearly as great as conjuring your own Prismatic Amulet in the Cube.
In one of the many visits of the Countess, Cabrina found a unique trellised armor, Iron Pelt. Not only it looks stylishly black (fitting for an Assassin), it's actually one of the best, Defense-wise, armors among Exceptional items. And that will be relevant till the Hell difficulty.
But this armor didn't provide neither Mana Regeneration nor Magic Find chance. So I had to farm more runes.
The end result? The Rhyme runeword for a bone shield (All Resistances 25; Regenerate Mana 15%, 25% Magic Find chance; Cannot Be Frozen), the Lore runeword for a mask (+1 to All Skills; +2 to Mana after each kill). The base items were not ideal but I took what I had. Not using the PlugY doesn't let me hoard items without restrictions - the GoMule app helps to save 1 or 2 items when I finish the session but not everything.
Then I returned to the Normal difficulty and added a socket to the Iron Pelt (for a perfect Topaz).
Cabrina at Lvl 48 has a 75% chance to block, a 95% chance to hit, monsters get only a 30% chance to hit her. She has 75-53-75-75 Resistances. And that even didn't require that rare amulet. The current mana and life leech still lets her not use any potions except for really rare cases. The current MF chance is 114%. And of course, the stylish black look.
Then it was time to farm them. My companion had a default cuirass with 2 normal topazes in it - that was very old. He also had a rare partizan - good damage, but nothing else.
I found an ancient armor (the best normal armor) and added 4 sockets to it. Then I put in 2 perfect topazes (don't have a 3rd topaz yet) and one perfect skull. This would serve as a new armor for my companion.
In the Tal Rasha's Tomb I found a unique normal pike, The Tannr Gorerod. It's damage was quite high, nearly the same as the rare partizan (which is an exceptional weapon). So I upgraded the pike to a lance (an exceptional weapon). Now Ilzan had 90% resistance against Fire.
I found a unique normal mask, The Face of Horror (+10 to all resistances; hit causes monster to flee 50%), put it on my companion.
So all 3 equipped items on Ilzan were now changed.
For Cabrina, she found Langer Briser, a unique exceptional arbalest - 53% Better Chance of Getting magic items, 1-212 lightning damage. The damage works with my kicks, so this is a great item to change to when Cabrina is next to killing a boss. From then on, I switch to the arbalest AND let Ilzan kill the boss, thus greatly improving the magic find chance.
And a good surprise, Nagelring on the way to Andariel.
Another good find, a Ko rune in the Sewers. Now Cabrina only needs a Lem rune to upgrade her exceptional Goblin Toe to the elite (highest) version.
Of course, Cabrina got a lot of other neat items, some of them are shown below.
I managed to find a better rare Prismatic Amulet, will save it for the Hell difficulty.
How much do you farm in general to get better items? I am slogging through with a sorceress but my gear is abysmal. I do not wish to rerun bosses too much to be honest.
Still in act 3 though.
Comments
The 'gothic' art/design style is just timeless. Levels 1-4 have the best graphics. And, as @jjstraka34 said, the brilliant music really helps complete it.
Honestly, probably playing hardcore is just not for me. No matter, I still did it with Bart and with no-grinding rule anyways. The goal is complete.
and I stumbled upon this old statement of mine: Well they're working on an interquel rather than a sequel, alright...
But, other than that, I knew exactly what Acti-Blizz was doing, 2 bloody damn years ahead of time
Let me introduce Vanessa, the assassin who would be a bounty hunter in BG.
Hardcore game without mods, i plan to go through it without grinding. Main goal is reaching guardianship however.
Vanessa started off with the now well-tried route at the start, which means tagging Cold Plain WP, then going back to clear Den of Evil. One of the first loot was a rare Katar,
First real opponent was Blood Raven, Fire Blast was very handy again against the undead with it's AoE damage and Burst of Speed let me catch BR in melee.
Nessy levelled to 12 just before confronting Treehead, choosing Cloak of Shadows for her first lvl12 skill. T put up good fight, but Nessy and Aliza were even deadlier.
We freed Decard and put an end to Griswold's misery.
Nessy fought toe to toe with Griswold, which i think is nice.
Bought this nice Stealth base by Charsi,
At FT lvl 5 there was a tight packed dark archer horde. with heavy use of CoS it still needed one town visit.
The Countess dropped an Ith.
The Smith was a tough guy at this point, Nessy had to visit town two times to resurrect Aliza.
Vanessa reached lvl18 right before entering inner cloister
Double Tainted boss pack at lvl2 catacombs , V performed good. Finding the stairs easy at Catacombs is always a boon. Also a nice rare WB with IAS, ED and some other extras.
Nessy reached lvl19 before entering Andy.
Than V. shopped some antidotes by Akara, and dropped some potions to the floor for preparing a long fight.
The fight with Andariel went smoother, than i expected.
Though a question... are you using /players command? Because level 19 when reaching Andariel without grinding seems inprobable.
Vanessa the "gamblemaster"
Andy dropped a Blood Crescent, a rare caster ring and some rare weapons.
In the Dry Hills V. got three grand charm drop in a row, one with a badass +5 strenght and some fire res.
On the way a unique ring dropped.
Halls of the Dead went well with Cloak of Shadow and Fire Blast.
Besides the Horadric Cube one Small Charm with life and another with +7 lightning resistance dropped.
Coldworm went down easily, dropped a rare ring, Beetleburst not much after a rare jewel.
Fangskin managed to kill the merc, so V returned to the town for res. Now that she was there she gambled some skull caps (in the hope of a Tarnhelm) and a plated belt for moar drinking.
First Vanessa followed the North path, which turned out to be a dead end.
Next path was East, and it turned out to be a dead end along with the South one.
West one must have been lead to the Summoner then, who took some more punch on P8,
and shoots some solid cold cones. Still, Vanessa deal with him without much problem and the way to Tal Rasha's tomb is clear.
Now nothing holds back Vanessa from the tomb.
Duriel gave a good fight, still Vanessa's win was not a question.
Onward to Kurast.
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VPN Sai Mannat AnyDesk
Vanessa the cheater
Vanessa maxed Fire Blast at lvl26, the next four levels will be enough to learn Death Sentry's prerequisits and learn Death Sentry at lvl30.
At the Spider Forest the well named Doom Bang gave us the Jade Figurine,
The umpa pack spawned right on V, fortunately on Normal this was not near lethal, and Cloak of Shadows lowered the risk at minimal too.
Second or third visit provided the perfect teleporting staff.
So back to the Flayer Dungeon entrance.
The teleport staff was put in good use immediatly, Dr. Endugu's hall was just beside the stairs, and the staff gave a convenient way to that.
Reached level 27, so V. can use now her first sentry trap.
Visited the ruined temple for Lam Esen's book.
We found a Cathan mask in upper Kurast, and our current helm is so humble , that it's still an upgrade.
At Meph level the Council members in the middle managed to give some fright for us, but then we reached Meph for good.
Mephisto was deadly and on first try almost ended Vanessa's run prematuraly. Had to quit and retrace our way to Meph from Travincal, because we did not hit the last waypoint.
Uncle Meph killed the Shadow Master frequently, but otherwise the battle went smooth.
In hell everything went well, Death sentry did it's work now, the gates were on the regular locations, and Izual greeted us with a long but uneventful fight.
Rolled some Katar's for skiller mods without success, but then rolled diamonds for savage Partizan, and the last one was that.
Two handed damage is halved by Blade Fury, but the Savage Partizan still offer a good damage at this point.
The stairs from the city to the River was near, but Vanessa visited first the chatedral.
Blade Fury worked very good with the Partizan, it was especially good against fire resistant unique monsters like the wraiths by one of the seals.
Huh, there was a fright there when Diablo caged Vanessa in that bone prison, fortunately town portal worked.
Well that was some adrenalin rush!
Onward to Harrogath!
Bloody foothills was still rushed through till we found Shenk and Eldritch,
And an early Sol find it's way to our pocket.
We procastrinate Anya's quest and go further to Bhaal to gather experience and level for the class specific item-reward.
We are clearing all the maps till the Arreat Summit without surprises, somehow the Frozen Tundra waypoint eludes us, but nothing much else to report.
We check in at level 45 by Anya, when we found the level 2 waypoint.
Halls of pain has an Amn rune and an interesting blue amulet, but not much else.
We went on to the Throne of Destruction. Built the Lore runeword in a full helm before facing the minions of Bhaal.
Vanessa visited the cows to finilize her work in normal mode.
We had to gather the Horadric Malus, because we forgot that earlier.
We didn't found any decent gear for the socketing quest. First we try to shop a magekiller blade talon by Anya (preferably with some ias), but the red portal is closed, and with no luck we decide to gamble our money away.
We go for blade talons (for the above mentioned affixes) and skull caps for Tarnhelm.
We got a pair of nice rare magekiller talons with +20 IAS. We socket it and personalize it by Larzuk.
Time to go Nightmare.
And Nightmare is here!
We cleared slowly the Den of Evil and Blood Moor.
We almost left our favourite Grand Charm on Cold Plains, fortunately it doesn't diminish before we retrieve it.
It was a somewhat exciting place actually, Coldcrow almost even managed to kill our merc.
Found two decent jewel on the Tamao highland,
We cleared the Pit, then entered the Outer Cloister. In the barracks we met an extra fast black hunter boss pack, wich made me scare. They were really fast, killed our shadow in seconds and Vanessa could not escape from their boss.
Clearing Jail level 2 gives it's reward in a Hel rune.
And Andy went down with surprising ease, to tell the truth the double ghoul/misshapen boss pack at the entrance gave us more sweat. The way to Luth Golein is free! (Again.)
I din't finished Belzebub mod because i don't know how to face diablo.
Soon as i find a good necro mod, i will do a no reload / no gear(naked) run.
Well, my necromancer looks EXTREMELY androgynous. I was wondering if i really had picked a male necro... And the game is too easy. I literally got a decent weapon and was two hit shooting "rare" enemies. Unlocked corpse explosion. Was sad that it was scaling with my weapon, not with enemy hp who fits more the manipulator of master and death, using the lifeforce of enemies against thenselves. And no progression on range, always hit a specific area.... When i got skeleton mage, i was thinking "why i can't use it and the bone spear?" I an hating more this loadout system
Literally when i found a little gear, my hit points moved from 150 to 600. That ludicrous number inflation... For almost no gear improvement and few levels... At lv 11, i finally got a decent skill that siphons blood. i found a amazing big and heavy mace, do you know what it means? That i can siphon much more blood from enemy skeletons My skeletons also will become much stronger.
Leveled a little more, unlocked golem BUT or i have a golem or skeletons since i can only have one skill on the "reanimation" bar... Again this FPS like loadout...
Then faced the Skeleton King. Faced him on 1x1 but thanks to my heavy club, he was no match for me. I din't even needed to do anything except let my skeletons attack him while i drain all skeleton's blood. Decided to try change the difficulty. I now that the game will just inflate damage/health and will not trow more uniques, let enemies have more spells, give immunities, so skeletons can't be poisoned to death, or anything interesting. But at least will be less boring.
Now the game is on EXPERT. Was a little more fun, but even by standing in a ultra telegraphed explosion, i only lose half of my health.,,, After leveling i got corpse lance. A cool skill. IMO better than corpse explosion but again. Why i can't have one for single target and another for multi target? I hate this loadout system. On D2 i can have dozens of skills...
I an thinking D3 on expert extremely more easy than any other isometric ARPG that i played. I an literally playing while watch video lessons, even writing annotations with a hand and editing this post and my health NEVER reached closer to 50%(except when i tried) And the combat? always spam the same rotation, over and over... Generate essence -> Skeleton mages -> get corpses so corpse lance, next encounter, generate essence -> skeleton mage -> corpse lance (...) Looks like i an playing an MMO... The unique encounter who broke this monotony was VS jailers.
IS not that necromancy is bad. I mean, it is mostly thanks to the D3 mechanics, we can't have a summon like Iron golem, nor curses like attract. but they did a good job considering D3 limitations. Blood skills and frost golem(loved both) but IMO they should drain health based on a percentage of enemy health, like Bone Spirit on D1 but obvious weaker and you should't be able to use this skills on creatures without blood.
So, then, a new necromancer. With only a little hand-me-down equipment, Prebek gets started. He's a classic skeleton build, using players 8 for basically everything and doing single-pass full clears. Ladder-only equipment is enabled, and the muling program ensures all gear is recoverable after death.
Normal and Nightmare were a breeze; Duriel is scary when underleveled, but Decrepify really takes the fight out of him.
The most notable items found so far: Skin of the Vipermagi in Nightmare's Underground Passage, Pul from the Nightmare Hellforge, Mal in the Glacial Trail... now we're thinking that the next character will use an Oath. Then some Baal runs, with side trips to Nihlathak's temple to gather the army... Ist from the temple on one run, Vex from the temple on another. Now he's looking for a four-socket flail and a Ko rune- a much better solution to the Hell resistance penalty than switching to a plain 3-diamond shield.
Prebek has yet to enter Hell, but I have a good feeling about him when he does.
More to come, preferably when I can do this inside instead of walking over to the library.
Then, of course, he personalized it. Any item that takes that much effort to acquire deserves that much. He resumes his trek through Hell with the new flail, bringing him to a total of +10 summoning skills and +5 others.
Prebek is not quite my first hardcore character, but he's close; no previous character (since I've been tracking) has gone beyond the bare minimum to reach Destroyer. Still, there's enough in the hardcore stash (I keep the items segregated) to get him some nice starter gear. A wand and preserved head with +3 to Raise Skeleton and +5 to Skeleton Mastery between them go a long way toward making the early levels easy. Then in the second session (starting at level 17), he gets more gear including an Eye of Etlich.
The build plan is fairly simple: base Raise Skeleton level is half of character level (rounded up) until I'm done picking up single points in everything I want. He's playing at players 8 and fully clearing areas, so he stays well ahead of the level curve. Most things get Amplify Damage, bosses (starting with Duriel) get Decrepify. Even most act bosses don't put up much of a fight when under Decrepify, with a Clay Golem whacking at them. The exception to that? Normal difficulty Diablo. He's level 40 (to level 30 for most of the Chaos Sanctuary monsters) so the skeletons have a hard time hitting him, and he has those area of effect elemental attacks that shred the army. Still, he drops a worthy reward: Goldwrap. Prebek puts that on immediately and never takes it off.
Raise Skeleton is maxed at level 36, in act 5. The next priority, of course, is Skeleton Mastery. Baal goes down at level 48; he got off a few annoying cold waves early, but did very little once he was decrepified. Then it's a few Baal runs (still at players 8) along with the cow level. Prebek only picks up two pieces worth using: a rare +2 summoning wand from Pindleskin and a rare +2 summoning circlet from Baal, both in the first run. The former will soon be obsolete, but the latter will last. He enters Nightmare at level 52.
Once in Nightmare, the next equipment upgrade comes quickly. A four-socket crystal sword drops from a chest in the Blood Moor, and Prebek has a Spirit runeword. He will never use a wand again. Late in the act, Prebek reaches level 54 and maxes out Skeleton Mastery. The discretionary part of the build is next, and I'll go with a mix of Skeleton Mages and Corpse Explosion, weighted toward the former.
For Nightmare act 2, a mercenary upgrade is the big deal. Replace the old Prayer with Might, and give him an Insight partizan. It's a dramatic upgrade in killing speed. For act 3, the most notable gain is an item he gambles at the end - a Golemlord's Amulet of the Centaur (+3 summoning, scaling life). Finally, something worth taking off the Eye of Etlich. Act 4 adds a Pul rune from the Hellforge, and Prebek reaches level 67.
Nightmare act 5 brings new challenges; even the Bloody Foothills require concentration, with piercing slingers and glare from the rare November sunshine. Still, it all goes smoothly enough. Nihlathak was dealt with by exploding all the corpses before he could get to them. The best item found? A Mal rune, in the Glacial Trail. Now I'm thinking Oath...
This act also marks a milestone, with an Arctic Mitts found in the Icy Cellar completing my first HC set.
And then, a few loose ends before moving on to Hell. The cow level forces Prebek to retreat the first time; the portal spawns in a corner, and he can't keep the wall of beef from advancing. Returning a second time with some pre-summoned revives to tank, he takes them out and clears the area (still p8). After that, it's more Baal runs, with Pindleskin to gather the army. I drew a short route in Worldstone 2, and the absolute minimum in Worldstone 3. After an Ist rune from Pindleskin's friends in the first run, the jackpot comes in run 7: Vex from Pindleskin's friends, and Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest from Baal. Those boss runs were starting to feel downright routine; I could actually do crosswords while fighting Baal, since Decrepify neutered him so well. The Vex gets me thinking, and I begin the quest for the remaining pieces to Heart of the Oak: a Ko rune and a four-socket flail. So then, the Countess and her tower... no luck. I look some things up... the special rune drop only goes up to Io in nightmare. I wasn't going to find a Ko rune that way anyway. I do one last run of the act bosses and their dungeons, then move on. Prebek enters Hell at level 78.
Once in Hell, the Ko runes show up. One in the Mausoleum, another in the Jail level 2. Also, he maxes out Skeleton Mages in the Den of Evil and turns his focus entirely to Corpse Explosion. He still needs that four-socket flail, though - so he goes back to Nightmare for a bit. Clearing out act 1 before the monastery - two three-socket flails, two white flails with level below 40. I try the socket-adding cube recipe, and finally succeed. Prebek has his Heart of the Oak, and immediately personalizes it.
With the new flail, Prebek retires the 3-diamond shield and goes back to his +1 skill, 13 resist rare. He's at a full +10 summoning now, for 12 skeletons and 12 mages. Also, he picked up an ethereal 4-socket Partizan, so the mercenary's Insight gets an upgrade. The Oak Sage dies very quickly if anything attacks it - but with so many other minions, it still lasts pretty well in most areas. At about 1300 gold per charge, it's well worth keeping out.
There are a couple places in Act 2 where I lower the players count to 1 - the Maggot Lair and the Arcane Sanctuary. The narrow paths just make it too hard to bring the army to bear, and that means exceedingly slow progress if I don't do that.
And now, on to act 3. Good things come quickly, with the Jade Figurine and Spellsteel dropping practically on top of each other even before I'd finished gathering my army. Level 87 is reached in the Arachnid Lair, and Prebek maxes out Corpse Explosion. Without equipment, its radius is now the whole nine yards. With my current gear, it goes to eleven.
I soon come on a real challenge - a double boss pack of Sszark the Burning (Extra Strong, Cursed, Cold Enchanted, Holy Freeze) and a random Fiend (Extra Fast, Fanaticism, Stone Skin). They take out half the army and the mercenary before I can retreat to town and regroup. On returning, it's Decrepify all the way, plus letting a narrow space work in my favor. That does the trick.
The Great Marsh brings Gloams, which are rather hard on the Oak Sages. Still, they're not much danger to Prebek - he's got solid lightning resistance. Later, in the Flayer Dungeon ... a four-socket flail finally drops. Not that I need it now.
Prebek finds another powerful rune in Gul - but it's not good for much at the moment.
The sewers come with an annoying combination of Horadrim Ancients (with Horrors), mummies, and undead dolls. Poison-immune enemies that can be resurrected - oh, joy. They're not terribly dangerous, but they can take a while to kill if the army spreads out too much. Icehawk Riftwing manages to single-handedly kill most of Prebek's army, but he doesn't deal a single point of damage to the man himself. Cold Enchanted/Lightning Enchanted/Conviction is a deadly combination.
The challenge of Travincal is all that healing from the priests. The summoner can find it difficult to deal damage fast enough to take down enemies with healer backup, especially at higher player counts with multiple priests. Then again, one particularly troublesome battle with about three priests catches us a green Spired Helm. It's always nice to be properly rewarded. The council themselves are better at dealing damage, but less resilient without so much healing; less trouble, on the whole. On we go, into the enormous Durance. Clearly, Mephisto's power has run rampant twisting the space here.
Level 88 comes at the end of level 1 of the Durance, and brings a dilemma - what do we invest in now? I'll pick up the curses I neglected first. Dim Vision gets a point. I manage to explore all of Durance 2 before finding the exit; I would have cleared everything anyway, but as it turns out that was just natural with my choice of paths. Mephisto himself is harmless as usual once slowed to a crawl by Clay Golem and Decrepify.
The act ends with a gambling spree, for a little under seven million gold. We have a chance at +2 skill amulets, and roll two - a Priest's Amulet (+2 paladin) and a Hierophant's Amulet (+2 druid). Neither has a suffix. On a more productive note, Prebek finally found a second rare ring he deemed worth wearing over a Nagelring.
For the act 4 session, I start with a visit to act 1 to gather the army and hit a couple level 85 areas. Naturally, I lose nearly half the army as soon as I enter the Outer Steppes; they get hung up on the stairs behind a mage shooting at enemies, I run ahead, and they vanish before I can summon them to me with a town portal.
In hell, I finally start using revives regularly. I prefer aggressive melee attackers such as Doom Knights, Pit Lords, and Urdars. The Izual quest reward is used to pick up Confuse and Attract. Prebek now has points in the whole curse tree.
Along the way, I recall that Prebek has some imbues stored up, and decide to use on on an item that I can't gamble - a shrunken head. Result... no +skills, so not worth keeping. The Hellforge grants an Um, one of the most useful runes and one I didn't have yet in Hardcore.
The River of Flame also brings a near-death scare, as I set up a repositioning portal without room to retreat. Prebek drank a fat purple in panic, before retreating far enough that some of his army teleported over to help.
There's a rare opportunity in the Chaos Sanctuary - a Fire Shrine nearly in sight of where Diablo is summoned. I could take off half his hit points... if I pulled him over there rather than playing it safe, and at the cost of weakening my whole army. Nah.
And now, on to the greatest challenge: act 5. The very first item I find is a good one - a Pul rune. That opens up runewords such as Oath again. A combination of an Oath weapon and a Duress armor looks good for a melee character, doesn't it? Act 5 starts smoother than most others, since there are free corpses in the Bloody Foothills. When you've got a few skeletons up before even entering combat, things get a lot easier for the necromancer. Then it slows down at the barricades, where the minions take the time to batter down every barricade and tower even when there are enemies actively shooting at them.
It gets so boring that I start doing crosswords... and then it happens. Just as I move around a bend, with my army stuck behind, I cast a town portal to reposition the army, and the Burning Dead archers get me. Dead, at level 88.
I've been tracking all the items found. In the course of this run, Prebek found 87 set and unique items that I hadn't found in Hardcore before. The next character will be far better prepared ... whenever I get around to playing them. I've been playing a mod (Median) instead.
@O_Bruce has been streaming his new hardcore sorcerer's run on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/zelgadisgw/videos
After watching those videos, I got an itch to try D2 again - when I had switched to a new PC a few years ago I had totally lost all the saves with Cernd and Hexxat.
PlugY doesn't work on 1.14d, and 1.14d is the version that works nicely on Win 10. I've had this problem for a while. Turned out, there is a great GoMule app - http://gomule.sourceforge.net/ - which is working on 1.14d and will serve as a great solution for my hoarding habits. Also, on Win 10 under my Nvidia graphics, I've had that odd issue where black colour in the background has been rendered red instead. Turned out, by using Glide, I could pick "no gamma" in the settings, and it fixed the issue.
So another assassin - Cabrina - has already started to explore the path her good friend Hexxat had followed till the end (the screenshot was still from the version 1.13c).
Cabrina will now farm Andariel a bit (the current MF chance is 47%)
I found the dark color scheme and D2's overall tone to be somewhat depressing over time, and I started to really want to spend my time with brighter colors again. I couldn't get PlugY to work, so the very small inventory space compared to more modern clones of this classic got kind of tedious to manage after a while, although I think the game was originally designed to have you choose carefully what to hang on to and what to let go.
Those lightning beetles in the desert, and the mummies that shoot poison and black Unholy Bolts at you were quite "shocking" to encounter. Most of the games in the genre that followed D2 weren't anywhere near as dangerous and hard to survive in on the first difficulty level as was D2. I think I wore out on it in Act Two because of the difficulty spikes getting too intense for my taste.
My first and only death was to Duriel at the end of Act Two. I had never played D2 past Act One before, and so I went into my first Duriel fight blind, not knowing it was a cold damage fight. I reloaded and did it with my crusader cold protection aura up, and it was still hard, but I made it that time.
I got restartitis after that, and also wanted to try a different build path on my crusader tree, plus dying at any time in a game makes me want to restart anyway. So, I played all the way through Acts One and Two again, this time with a slightly different crusader. Yeah, I'm kind of crazy that way. I'm definitely an eccentric breed of gamer.
Twice through Acts One and Two, and I was ready to play another game.
It was very fun to relive this old classic, the grandfather of so many games I love in the genre, even though I didn't feel like finishing the run. I'm sure I'll come back to it again eventually, and maybe I'll try that other storage utility you suggested.
Thanks for putting this thread up top where it's easy to find again.
Good luck on your no-reload, @JuliusBorisov !
But it's totally alright to play different games - I paused my turn-based adventure in D:OS to play old hack&slash here.
I don't think hoarding items changes the difficulty greatly in this game - it's just my personal preference is to try and gather all I can find. I respect people who play as it was originally designed to choose carefully what to hang on to and what to let go.
Thanks for a reminder about shocking enemies.
Here is how I found Gorefoot, the first unique normal boots for Cabrina - it was a common demon who dropped them. On level 32, I'll be able to put on the exceptional version of this item, sharkskin boots (and since my main attack depends on the boots I wear, this is a just a great find).
After about ~15 Andariel runs I thought I was happy about my items and proceeded to Act II. She didn't drop anything special except for the Pelta Lunata (a unique normal buckler). +10 to Energy is a massive boost. In fact, coupled with a few other mana-restoring items, I was able to specialize Cabrina into a proper KickSin in Act I. I remember it took a while for Hexxat to get there. By specializing, I mean that the kick attack is now the main attack (left-click) - it costs 6 mana, but with the items, it usually means I spend only 2 mana per attack. With enemies dropping potions here and there, it's usually possible to just travel from one potion to another.
Andariel also dropped a unique normal spear for my new companion.
Along with a few levels (and thus skills), this lets me feel more or less comfortable against Act II enemies. Cloak of Shadows - a 1-point wonder skill - blinds all nearby enemies, stopping shooters from shooting and making enemies wait till you approach them and kill, instead of attacking you together. And Fade (so far with only 3 points in it) greatly improves resistances of the Assassin.
Here are Cabrina's stats (and a few new items) at Lvl 21, just after she finally captured the Cube.
On a side note, you can respec once per each difficulty in the Act I camp (pick the line from Akara). And if you're playing a non-hardcore character, that's totally normal to get back to your corpse and try again in case you die.
Duriel lasted against Cabrina not longer than Andariel.
The current MF chance is 74%. Duriel was sweet enough to drop Crushflange (a unique normal mace with a 33% chance of Crushing Blow, works with the kicks, an ideal choice to switch to when fighting a boss), The Eye of the Etlich (a unique amulet adding +1 to All Skills and 6% Life Stolen Per Hit; The Eye of Etlich has a hidden 2-10 Second Cold Duration. The Cold Duration on this amulet will combine with other Cold attack spells), Lenymo (a unique normal sash providing +5 All Resistances and 30% Regenerate Mana) and Coif of Glory (a unique normal helm for my companion, Hit Blinds Target).
Here are Cabrina's stats (and those new items) at Lvl 25, at the start of Act III.
Uncle Mephisto went down too quick.
I then went on farming him and Travincal Council members and got the following items:
- Hawkmail (a unique normal scale mail, providing the "Cannot Be Frozen" enchantment, good for my companion)
- Swordback Hold (a unique normal spiked shield, with a default 55% chance of blocking, good for my second weapon set)
- a rare bone wand with Life Tap charges (the curse which makes you heal when hitting an enemy)
- +10% and +5% MF rare rings and +19% MF rare light gaulents
- the whole Berserker's Arsenal set
- 2 items from the Isenhart's Armory set
- 2 items from the Cathan's Traps set
- 2 items from the Arctic Gear set
Nothing truly special there, to be honest, but still nice. The current MF chance is 98%.
Here are Cabrina's stats and items at Lvl 28, at the start of Act IV.
Here you can watch a Lvl 29 assassin taking on Diablo in less than 1 minute. I felt Cabrina needed better loot at this stage, especially since Hexxat had got the Rattlecage armor from Diablo. And in 5 subsequent levels Cabrina got from the Chaos Sanctuary, everything changed, item-wise. All redundant Act I & II items now were changed to much better options:
- the first drop was probably the most important for this stage of the game. Wall of the Eyeless, this ominously looking unique normal bone shield, provided insane mana leech: 3% mana stolen per hit, +5 mana after each kill. Basically, with this shield, Cabrina no longer needed Gorefoot boots and Lenymo sash. Now, Cabrina's mana is nearly always at its maximum.
- then Cabrina got another (!) unique shield - a unique normal kite shield Steelclash. This shield provides +15 to all resistances, so it's a great shield for the second weapon set (when I am switching to a Life Tap wand).
- the third item looked great even at the non-identified stage. Diablo dropped 2 unique items at once, and one of them were light plated boots. Yes, THOSE boots. Goblin Toe provides 25% Chance of Crushing Blow. With Crushflange, the chance now is 58%.
- "Chance Guards" chain gloves were a great addition, boosting the MF chance by 33%.
Here are some other items Cabrina found in the Chaos Sanctuary (it was such a great feeling breezing through this usually difficult area or standing still against Diablo's fire+lightning attack):
A few of those items reminded me about the Hexxat run, especially those two-handed weapons.
Cabrina is at Lvl 34, at the start of Act V. The current MF chance is 113%. Her STR is already enough for a normal -> exceptional upgrade of Goblin Toe (which will boost the kick damage significantly), but she needs a Shael rune for that. In the Sanctuary, the maximum I got to was an Amn rune (as a result of conjuring previous runes), so it'll still take a while. Cabrina couldn't find Rattlecage but managed to grab Goblin Toe. So each assassin gets her own unique, I guess.
In my games, Baal rarely drops anything worthwhile. Maybe it's because I'm not patient enough to farm him for a long time - after all, the next difficulty is looming. A flail, a voulge, a spetum, and a set round shield from the Orphan's Call.
But the biggest surprise from Act V happened earlier. A common monster in the Halls of Vaught dropped a Shael rune. This was just a gift. I needed that to upgrade the Goblin Toe.
Such a high-level rune for the Normal difficulty was a welcome surprise, especially since earlier I was very unlucky in the Hell's Forge (getting an Eld rune there).
I also switched to the Strenght runeword for my weapon (since I found Blade Talons which have the highest speed among assassin's weapons till their exceptional version) - the Crushing blow chance decreased from 33% to 25%, but now the weapon adds 7% Life Stolen per Hit, 10 Vitality and 2 Mana after each kill.
In order not to die, you have to react, improving your items substantially. Hexxat was lucky when she got a lot of neat unique items from Nightmare Andariel but I can't rely on luck. So I decided to try and use runewords I could create.
Finding a Sol rune as early as in the Den of Evil made me realize I can go that runeword route (Ort + Sol could create a great helmet).
I also found a rare amulet providing +16% to Fire, Poison and Lightning resist, as well as +48% to Cold resist. That is nearly as great as conjuring your own Prismatic Amulet in the Cube.
In one of the many visits of the Countess, Cabrina found a unique trellised armor, Iron Pelt. Not only it looks stylishly black (fitting for an Assassin), it's actually one of the best, Defense-wise, armors among Exceptional items. And that will be relevant till the Hell difficulty.
But this armor didn't provide neither Mana Regeneration nor Magic Find chance. So I had to farm more runes.
The end result? The Rhyme runeword for a bone shield (All Resistances 25; Regenerate Mana 15%, 25% Magic Find chance; Cannot Be Frozen), the Lore runeword for a mask (+1 to All Skills; +2 to Mana after each kill). The base items were not ideal but I took what I had. Not using the PlugY doesn't let me hoard items without restrictions - the GoMule app helps to save 1 or 2 items when I finish the session but not everything.
Then I returned to the Normal difficulty and added a socket to the Iron Pelt (for a perfect Topaz).
Cabrina at Lvl 48 has a 75% chance to block, a 95% chance to hit, monsters get only a 30% chance to hit her. She has 75-53-75-75 Resistances. And that even didn't require that rare amulet. The current mana and life leech still lets her not use any potions except for really rare cases. The current MF chance is 114%. And of course, the stylish black look.
Then it was time to farm them. My companion had a default cuirass with 2 normal topazes in it - that was very old. He also had a rare partizan - good damage, but nothing else.
I found an ancient armor (the best normal armor) and added 4 sockets to it. Then I put in 2 perfect topazes (don't have a 3rd topaz yet) and one perfect skull. This would serve as a new armor for my companion.
In the Tal Rasha's Tomb I found a unique normal pike, The Tannr Gorerod. It's damage was quite high, nearly the same as the rare partizan (which is an exceptional weapon). So I upgraded the pike to a lance (an exceptional weapon). Now Ilzan had 90% resistance against Fire.
I found a unique normal mask, The Face of Horror (+10 to all resistances; hit causes monster to flee 50%), put it on my companion.
So all 3 equipped items on Ilzan were now changed.
For Cabrina, she found Langer Briser, a unique exceptional arbalest - 53% Better Chance of Getting magic items, 1-212 lightning damage. The damage works with my kicks, so this is a great item to change to when Cabrina is next to killing a boss. From then on, I switch to the arbalest AND let Ilzan kill the boss, thus greatly improving the magic find chance.
And a good surprise, Nagelring on the way to Andariel.
Another good find, a Ko rune in the Sewers. Now Cabrina only needs a Lem rune to upgrade her exceptional Goblin Toe to the elite (highest) version.
Of course, Cabrina got a lot of other neat items, some of them are shown below.
I managed to find a better rare Prismatic Amulet, will save it for the Hell difficulty.
Here are Cabrina and Ilzan after 1/2 of D2.
Still in act 3 though.