Good job, Zaraki (btw, Bleach has ended recently, so this thread is the only place to see any news on Zaraki's adventures).
Congrats on the first beating the Act II, lolien!
The adventure of Hexxat
@CrevsDaak , lol, I indeed mixed the screenshots (now fixed). Posting something from the Act II was not in my plans yesterday
So, Act II. As soon as Hexxat reached the 18th level, she created a helmet with 48% Magic Find chance.
Radament was dealt with while Hexxat still had an Act I mercenary. After that I remembered that the Act II offers mercenaries with auras, and took a defensive one. While merging in the Horadric Cube all rings and amulets previously found in the game, Hexxat created a ring and an amulet with Magic Find chance.
In the Maggot Lair Hexxat found a unique mace - Crushflange. At that time I already started thinking about a possible respec and needed a good non-claw weapon just in case.
Thanks to Cobra Strike the Summoner wizard didn't pose any threat to Hexxat. Hexxat choose Fade, not Burst of Speed, as her preferred aura - although increased weapon speed was vital for Dragon Claw, this is a no-reload run, so safety > conviency.
Duriel. Duriel was the one who made me realize why Dragon Claw is not for me.
Check the video - it's seen that Hexxat just cannot hit Duriel with two claws - his constant attacks stop her own.
Although Duriel was defeated, I decided to reset stats and skills.
I decided to put points into Dragon Talon, instead of Dragon Claw. This skill offers VERY fast attack (on later levels - attacks, as the number of kicks increases), and lets you use any weapon you want. I decided that on Normal I will keep points in Claw blocking, as if compared to Shield Blocking, claws block magic attacks. But Hexxat is always free to use anything she wishes now - a good shield, any weapon. In other words, now Hexxat was not limited in any equipment and weapons she could use.
The main thing here is Dragon Talon, of course, due to its amazing speed.
Check a new video with the fight against Duriel - it's much, much faster. The length of the fight is much shorter, and everything feels much more stable. And it still lets to use Cobra Strike as the charge-up skill.
It was so easy to defeat Duriel now, that I decided to repeat it several times, in order to get nice drops (after all, 2 perfect topazes should work).
And I was rewarded! Among other items, Hexxat found Hawkmail - a unique scale mail with offers resistance to a frozen status and ups maximum cold resist to 90% (instead of 75).
The Amazing B' Act III (Normal) The Spider Forest provide a new boot for B':
It was hard for me to change the boot with magic find, but why find magic items, when you don't use them? B's gold chest was overflowing with coins, so she gambled some jewelry. A handy amulet amongst them:
It's useful despite B' doesn't own asassin trap skills. In the Flayer dungeon B' found a (green labeled) longsword:
With the gloves it proved to be an acceptable second attack weapon:
In Travincal B' found a rare gem shrine, but a flawless topaz was the best she could earn from it.
Usually, I keep only small charms, but i made an exception with this one:
B' defeated Mephisto with caution:
And advanced to Act IV. Her stats after "freeing" Izual:
Check the video - it's seen that Hexxat just cannot hit Duriel with two claws - his constant attacks stop her own.
When someting like that happens, stop attacking for like half a second, then start attacking again. The point is, in situation like this you are synchronizing with Duriel by attacking at the same time - and he is so strong he can stun you. Hence you must not attack at the same time.
@lolien Before visiting Diablo, I recommend finding something to boost your fire and lightning resistances. Otheriwse, it's gonna hurt.
Well, as we used to say, that's mantle after rain @O_Bruce , i'm after Diablo with 'cheese, but on nightmare i'll definitely search for some resistance booster. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
The amazing B' Act IV (normal)
Hephasto was too slow to make any harm. B' destroyed the soulstone at hellforge, and got some pretties.
Before facing diablo i decided to make the imbue at Charsi. I choose a maiden javelin:
The demons with fire breath guarding one of the seals cought B' by surprise, she almost died by Fzael side. But she managed to escape, resurrected her mercenary friend, and cleared all the seals with caution now.
Diablo made some serious damaging attacks, but with the slowing ability of Cleglaw's gloves and the plague javelin skill B' could manage the demon, and she had not been in real danger along the fight.
Diablo dropped two uniques, but neither was truly useful for B'
And so B' reached act V and the barbarian's town. Note, that this is my first play with the expansion, so everything is new for me on the road to destroying Baal.
B': Act V (normal)
After some chat with the locals B' gone to the Bloody Foothills, where she found two uniques amongst the corpses of the demons. An axe, and a shiny shield. The shield was a fine replacement for her less stylish bone shield.
Zaraki's Nightmare IV To Hell with this Nightmare!
Freeing the barbarians went well, as expected
While doing quest 3, I naturally encountered Thresh Socket. Just like that time with Hephasto, I failed to notice Fire Enhanced affix. That hurt.
But even with my Life Orb looking like that, I still had like ~300 hit points left. On his way to the Frozen River, Zaraki has found a nice stuff/staff for Sorceress:
Frozen River consisted mainly of Fallen Rouges and Ghosts. Things got interested when I reached Frozenstein. He and his minions possesses a stun attack that can stun-lock your character. So I was forced to use Concentrate skill instead of Berserk, since Concentrate cannot be interrupted.
After freeing her, Anya was very grateful for her rescue. Look!
Look, woman. If you just don't want to help me, fine. But you can at least be honest about it, okay?
I've reached the Uncle Pindleskin with intent to farm on him for a while. But soon I realized that the rate of dropping unique items from him was even lower than on normal difficulty. What the hell, what the hell? I deemed it not worthy of my time and soon I continued doing act V quests. Meanwhile, Zaraki reached level 66 and was able to wear Tal Rasha's Mask uncle Mephisto gave me. +15% all resistances, 10% mana and life leech, +60 life, +30 mana was more than enough to be interested in this item.
Nihlathak was rather pathetic opponent, when you manage to "deactivate" monster's corpse with Find Potion/Item skill. However, his level was full of Serpents that were using attack akin to poison javeiln. This thing does insane damage, and is just cheap way of increasing difficulty. But let's be honest - it just prepares me for all the bullcrap I will see in Hell difficulty.
Now, time to face the Ancient Ones. First, I focused on killing Talic, since he was Extra Fast and his Whirlwind could potentially deal a lot of damage.
Korlic turned out to roll Stone Skin as his abillity, which in turn made him immune to physical damage. Not a bid problem for Berserk barbarian (since Berserk converts all your physical damage to magic damage), but I still decided to take out Madawc first. Madawc had very low ammount of HP, so killing him was pretty easy.
Killing Korlash Korlic took a while. I might deal Magic type of damage, but Stone Skin trait also gives Korlic tons of HPs. He went down eventually, and Zaraki could proceed.
I didn't bother to make screenshots of first wave of Baal's minions and I forgot to do so with the second. Clearing the second wave took me a while - both Baal's curse and skeleton's Ice Bolts slowed me down considerably. Due to having 75% fire resistance and huge ammount of HP, I could tank wave 3 with little to no problem:
As in case of wave 4. I did, however, stepped back so that Baal's curse won't affect me.
But wave 5 was much fun. Lister rolled an Extra Strong as his second affix, which meant that not only him, but his minions as well hit extra hard. I won't lie when I say that I had to use some Full Rejuv Potions!
Baal was always pathetic in comparison to his Minions of Destruction. I wish I could say something about this battle, but I just can't. It was too boring.
Congratulations, @O_Bruce - you're following the @lefreut 's footsteps in terms of reaching Act I Hell. Ganbare, Zaraki-san!
@lolien, can't wait to hear about your experience of completing the game on Normal
The adventure of Hexxat
Our vampire assassin didn't encounter problems nor in jungles, nor in Kurast. The meeting with the Travincal High Council resulted in finding an awesome two-handed axe, The Chieftain.
Although Hexxat is an assassin, it was so fun to switch to this weapon, at least temporarily - the look of a small lass with a huge axe was worth it. +6 to mana after each kill was exatly what Hexxat needed at that time of the game. It also gave Hexxat amazing resistances: 75, 86, 75, 75.
Dragon Talon gets the best from a used weapon - its enhantments.
I was really glad to experience Hexxat with a new weapon, and decided to farm the High Council. In one of those runs I found Sigon's Guard - probably the best shield at that stage of the game, with 69% block rate (nearly maximum in the game) and +1 to all skills. High level claws are far away (Nightmare and Hell), so getting an item with skill increase was a wonderful thing.
Also, it is a set item, so it could become even better. Hexxat didn't have 75 STR yet, so had to wait till using this shield, enjoying her two-handed axe to the max.
"Uncle Mephisto" (lol, I will never be able to call him differently now) was an easy opponent.
He was generous to Hexxat, just as he was to Zaraki.
Another unique two-handed weapon, even better than the previous one. Soulflay, the claymore. 5% mana stolen per hit, 4% life stolen per hit - I saw these two enchantments as the best attributes a weapon could offer to Hexxat at that moment of the game. With no points spent on Energy, she needed mana for her Talon kicks. She also needed life because of being a contact fighter.
Also, look how cool our petite assassin looked with a two-handed sword:
With her new sword, Hexxat had so much fun in Act IV. Thanks to life and mana leech she breezed through all enemies up till Hephasto the Armorer. But the Hellforge didn't bring Hexxat the rune she had wished - instead of an Amn rune, she got only Ral.
Hexxat still didn't reach the 30th level granting her an access to Shadow Master and Venom and decided to power up a little bit. Also, she still didn't have enough STR to use her Tower shield.
"Uncle" Mephisto and the High Counsel of Travincal granted a lot of good items for the assassin. Among them, she found 2 other items from her Sigon's set, making it even better - +30% to Attack speed, 10% life leech, 100 defence...
Another good item was Sparkling Mail Chainmail, which immediately went to Kasim, Hexxat's companion.
As soon as Hexxat reached the 30th level, she was ready to face the Lord of Terror. It was an exciting battle, and for Hexxat it was much easier than for Xzar before.
Diablo dropped a unique amulet, Nokozan Relic, with which Hexxat now had 85% resistance to Fire. Like @lolien said, why Magic Find chance if not using magic items? So this amulet replaced the previous one with 14% Magic Find chance.
Seeing how much good items mean in this game, enjoying her Sigon's set (not completed), Hexxat went on with making Mephisto and Diablo runs. This process is still unfinished (I would like to find greavers from the Sigon's set), but it already has brought a weapon for Kasim - Razortine, a unique trident, which slows a target and takes away 50% of its defence .
@JuliusBorisov Nice work. I was positively surprised at how smoothly your fight against Diablo went. Had you had some healing and mana potions on your belt instead of ful rejuvs you could have won the battle without going to town.
One quesiton, thou. What kind of software were you using to record the game?
@O_Bruce I'm using Fraps for recording and then Wondershare Video Editor for changing the video format.
As for mana and life potions - yeah, it looks like I have to find strength and drop those violet potions... I promise I will do it... eventually... (so hard to drop anything)
The adventure of Hexxat
During numerous Mephisto and Diablo runs Hexxat greatly improved her equipment, although the boots from the Sigon's set evaded Hexxat.
Now, Hexxat had a gothic plate with huge armor class and crushing blow. Crushing blow is such a useful enchantment, making boss fights much easier because it substantially reduces their hitpoints).
Also, Hexxat gatherer 3 Thul runes, and by adding a chipped topaz she created an Amn rune. Now she was able to forge Strength runeword blade talons (these claws are the fastest normal claws). Additional 25% chance of crushing blow, life leech and mana after each kill. This is an ideal runeword, I've been liking it since Xzar.
As an alternative weapon, Hexxat has a wand with Level 1 Life Tap - she can use it on bosses to curse them so that she could heal in the process.
After finally reaching Hell difficulty, Zaraki's basic facial expression was like this:
All thanks to the fact that this difficulty was going to provide him plenty of worthy opponents!
The first special monster pack Zaraki has encountered had a boss that was immune to physical damage. At times like this, Berserk build really shines!
Zaraki made sure to use Find Item on corspe of every mini-boss or champion packs. He wielded ordinary sword in one hand, and the Gull dagger in his offhand, granting him permanent 100% magic find (and additional 32% from one of his rings he was wearing). To clarify - Zaraki was using Berserk as main attack all the time and skills like this are using only primary weapon to roll attack rating and damage outpout, ignoring off hand. I had those 100% magic find for practically free, as I wasn't going to wear a shield anyway.
Quest 1 was not really difficult. Corpsefire was mana burn, so I had to replenish that imporant resource multiple times:
The fight against Blood Raven lasted long, due to the fact that she not only slowed Zaraki down with her arrows but also was moving around constantly. Only after slaughtering her minions and after mercenary joined Zaraki in pursuing Blood Raven, she could be killed.
The rewards were totally worth it!
As for Quest 3, I had only screenshot from fighting Griswold, and nothing else to refresh my memory as to what boss packs I was encountering. I remember Treehead Woodfist to rolled Mana Burn. And Griswold was Cursed, Magic Resistant and Extra Strong. Nice combination, he hit really hard. Bur Zaraki prevailed and rescued Deckard Cain.
On my way to met the Countess, Blizzard surprised me with it's brilliance:
The Countess had Extra Strong and Aura Enchanted as her additional modifiers. After taking out her minions, she wasn't much a problem, and her aura - Blessed Aim - was not a threat either, because Berserk Barbarian's defense is super low anyways - so enemies additional attack rating doesn't matter.
Exploring the Barracks, Zaraki found the following Scythe:
It deals more damage than that of my mercenary, but it doesn't slow down monsters by 75%, so I still decided to keep the old one.
The Smith was dangerous, as he was Extra Strong, and rolled both Cold Enchanted and Extra Fast as additional modifiers. He hit hard (even in Zaraki's standards) and fast, slowing me down in the progress. Help from my mercenary in slowing the bastard down was priceless. Nonetheless, the Smith has fallen.
The traverse through 3 levels of jail was not much of a problem. Nothing unusual happened. Inside Cathedral Zaraki said hi to Bone Ash. Still to this day, I wonder why monster that uses spells in combat always has "Extra Strong" modifier. Blizzard's brilliance strikes again.
Afrer getting back to town, I've decided to let Charsi enhance Ornate Plate. The result was.... this
Good resistances, but literally nothing more. Neither Zaraki nor his companion wished to use this armor. Well, it's not much of a deal in that point of the game, one rare item in one way or another doesn't make any difference.
On Catacombs level 2, Zaraki encountered a boss pack with lightning-shooting demons, whose boos possessed Convinction Aura, decreasing Zaraki's resistances considerably. Zaraki defeated the foes, but I didn't take any screenshoots. Was too busy keeping myself alive.
Finally, Auntie Andy is here. Zaraki's mercenary did the tanking and slowing down, Zaraki did buffing and dealing damage. Andy died, after Zaraki used 2 Full Rejuvenation potions and 3 Super Healing Potions.
And the rewards were as usual. But hey, chipped topaz could be used to upgrade a runes, so in a way it was a useful drop.
Zaraki's Hellish Paradise Part III Auntie's gifts and the dude who has fallen.
Zaraki visited Auntie Andy multiple times before dealing with Act 2. Here's what she gave him:
Nice for necromancers. 40 Hit points (abut 75-77 after buffs) and fire absorption percentage is definitely going to be useful This savage item is "normal" unique, meaning it could be potentially upgraded with Horadric Cube to it's exceptional and elite versions, giving of an item that has huge damage output, has huge crushing blow chance and provide resistances. Had Zaraki was skilled with maces.... That would be nice for some amazing amazons. And this is just awesome. Grants Zaraki strength, and it's sockets enabled me to put two perfect rubies into it for life boost and perfect topaz for magic find. Yay! Rottlecage was still in my possesion, and Zaraki handed it to the Mercenary for time being.
After all that, Zaraki went to Act 2 and cleared Quest 1. Really, believe me. I forgot to take screenshots from battle against The Dude Who Has Fallen Known As Radament, so at lest I can share this:
I think I make note before that I won't be stating if my character die in the title of a post.
It's time to assemble parts of Horadric Staff. First, Zaraki needed to go to Far Oasis. The travel there wasn't very dangerous. In Maggot's Lair, Zaraki encountered physical immune insect swarms, but once again proved that there is no thing he can't cut throught.
Finally, there is Coldworm the Burrower. The fight took a little while, but it ended up in my win.
The staff of Kings was now mine. On his way to the Claw Viper's temple, Zaraki encountered enemies immune to magic damage.
Fortunately, he still had Concentrate skill to deal with them, but killing enemies with it takes significally more time than usual. This will come in play later, in the Claw Viper's temple. Speak of the devil!
Here's the welcome party:
Notice that Guardians are immune to magical damage, meaning I cannot use Berserk skill against them, but Concentrate instead, which takes significant ammount of time to kill one Guardian. And they are more often than not, surrounded by their skeletal minions. This wasn't much of a deal in normal and nightmare difficulties - I could leapt to the nearest Guardian/Greater Mummy/Unraveller and just kill it swiftly. Not in Hell difficulty. Leaping towards them is dangerous, as you can be easily surrounded by enemies and Howl skill doesn't always work for some reason. The greater mummies are always magic immune, and as most monsters in hell difficulty, have physical damage resistance - killing them takes a while. The only action left is to kill their minions, and then Guardians themselves. But, I found out that Find Potion/Item skills doesn't prevent minions to be raised once again anymore. As a result I had to divide my attention between killing minions, and guardians, which took time and sometimes even going back to town for additional health potions.
For the first time in years, it were skeleton and mummies that annoyed me more in that area than claw vipers. With Zaraki having buffed 2300 life points, Claw Vipers weren't that scary. Finally, I found the entrance to level 2.
Fangskin and the rest of his pack spawned around the altar. Of course with one Guardian as well, and the altar itself was surrounded by skeletons. Sweet. That took some time, and one or two trips to the town for potions, as I didn't want to waste Full Rejuvenations too much. But Amulet of the Viper was eventally acquired, and after that transformed into Horadric Staff
...Because who's going to explore all seven of them....
After arriving in Jerhyn palace, Zaraki had the following question:
Navigating through Palace Cellar levels was rather quick and not very difficult. Zaraki reached the Arcane Sanctuary pretty soon.
Zaraki checked out east, west and south routes. Naturally, the Summoner was on north route. He, as usual, never provided any good fight.
Zaraki made it to the Canyon of the Magi and didn't waste any of his time to get to the true tomb of Tal Rasha.
I won't lie. I'm to proud to pray. But nonetheless, the monster spawns in the true tomb worked in my favour big time. Gorebellies, Ghoul Lords and the Mummies (ordinary ones, not Unravellers). It made exploration of the Tomb pretty smooth in comparison to Claw Temple. But of course, it's still Act 2, Hell difficulty. Caution for Hardcore character is advised. Finally, I got to the Duriel the Doggie.
The doggie charged in fury run at Zaraki and his mercenary in order to recieve a hug.
But Zaraki was too cold for that and attempted to pacify the demon. He didn't like it. Not one bit.
Eventaully, Zaraki's Mercenary died, which reminded the barbarian of something. He should try to kill Duriel with his magic-item gear on. So, Zaraki teleported back to town to change his gear, effectively having 214% magic find and defeated the Doggie of Pain.
The dropped Axe could be quite good in Nightmare difficulty, for those skilled in axes of course. Especially against undead. It could be quite nice in Hell difficulty as well, after being upgraded to "Elite" version of this item.
Act III, here we go!
I considered getting to Act 2 on Hell difficulty with hardcore character a challenge. Now, I wonder if I will be able to actually finish the Hell difficulty with this barbarian. I'm not gonna lie, I got attached to this character.
After arriving to the Rogue Camp the first thing Hexxat did was resetting her skills (for the second time already).
The reason was that Hexxat no longer needed 2 claw weapons for her protection - she got used to her Tower Shield (Sigon's Guard) and sat at 75% chance of blocking. The free skill points went into Venom and Shadow Master.
On her way to rescuing Deckard Cain, Hexxat found unique field plate for her companion, Kasim (BTW, companions of both Zaraki and Hexxat are called Kasim - reveal the truth, mercenary, are you serving two masters simultaneously?) The field plate, Rockfleece, offered damage reduction not only at 5 points per hit, but also at 10% per hit.
Hexxat reached the old town of Tristram and took Wirt's Leg with her. She used it to explore the secret Cow level on Normal. It didn't provide her any major loot, only one unique axe and gems.
The Countess dropped Tir and Amn runes, so now Hexxat could forge new Strength runeword, if she wanted (or better, if good NM claws were available).
Hexxat found 2 gem shrines and became an owner of two perfect topazes as a result.
Hexxat found 2 unique weapons (nothing superb for her or her companion).
The battle against Andariel took less than half a minute. Hexxat let Kasim to strike the demon down for better drops.
It was worth it, because Hexxat found a unique casque, Stealskull, with Increased Attack Speed, Increased Hit Recovery, Mana and Life stolen per hit and 47% better chance of MF (!). Basically, these are the best enchantments I can think of (besides the Crushing blow, of course).
This new helmet changed a socketed full helm (with 2 perfect topazes), which Hexxat had been wearing since the start of the Act II Normal.
Frostburn gaulents, also dropped by Andariel, were of no use. But the fact "aunt Andy" dropped Sigon's Gage, from the Sigon's set, may mean Hexxat would like to visit her again, still hoping to find Sigon's Sabot (boots).
Below are screenshots of Hexxat's skills, stats and inventory. Her attack rating is 3570, with 81% to hit. Her defence (with Kasim's aura) is 2246, with enemies' chances to hit at 26%. Her blocking chance is 75% (maximum). She has 546 HPs, her resistances are 85-45-57-55. She has 12 points in Dragon Talon, 7 points in Fade, 11 points in Venom and 12 points in Shadow Master. She's of the 43th level.
in Jerhyn palace, Zaraki had the following question:
Come to think of it, it always really bothered me there were no terrified screaming wenches and palace guards fighting for their lives in that harem of Jerhyn's. Bad, bad Blizzard.
Uh, I guess it's another feature to put on the D2EE wishlist!
Come to think of it, it always really bothered me there were no terrified screaming wenches and palace guards fighting for their lives in that harem of Jerhyn's. Bad, bad Blizzard.
They lost their edge somewhere on the road to D2. And winded up completly lost with D3. Diablo1 on the other hand, the atmosphere was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The Butcher's room is the best example.
@O_Bruce at which level did you transition to hell ?
They lost their edge somewhere on the road to D2. And winded up completly lost with D3. Diablo1 on the other hand, the atmosphere was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The Butcher's room is the best example.
As a fan of all three Diablo games, I have to admit that unlike D2 and D3, D1 can only offer me this atmosphere you mention. And literally nothing more.
That's right. Blizzard is going way too nowadays. A comparison in the spoiler. Seriously, it almost looks like the Butcher is preparing a veggie salad in that second video.
I'll just say that a mini-remake of Diablo 1 within Diablo 2 is also on the D2EE wishlist. Tristram, remade with D2 assets but based on the original D1 designs, would become an optional dungeon crawl parallel to the storyline, like the Watcher's Keep of BG2:EE. Of course, it's a colossal undertaking and hence very low priority on my list.
Comments
Congrats on the first beating the Act II, lolien!
The adventure of Hexxat
@CrevsDaak , lol, I indeed mixed the screenshots (now fixed). Posting something from the Act II was not in my plans yesterday
So, Act II. As soon as Hexxat reached the 18th level, she created a helmet with 48% Magic Find chance.
Radament was dealt with while Hexxat still had an Act I mercenary. After that I remembered that the Act II offers mercenaries with auras, and took a defensive one. While merging in the Horadric Cube all rings and amulets previously found in the game, Hexxat created a ring and an amulet with Magic Find chance.
In the Maggot Lair Hexxat found a unique mace - Crushflange. At that time I already started thinking about a possible respec and needed a good non-claw weapon just in case.
Thanks to Cobra Strike the Summoner wizard didn't pose any threat to Hexxat. Hexxat choose Fade, not Burst of Speed, as her preferred aura - although increased weapon speed was vital for Dragon Claw, this is a no-reload run, so safety > conviency.
Duriel. Duriel was the one who made me realize why Dragon Claw is not for me.
Check the video - it's seen that Hexxat just cannot hit Duriel with two claws - his constant attacks stop her own.
Although Duriel was defeated, I decided to reset stats and skills.
I decided to put points into Dragon Talon, instead of Dragon Claw. This skill offers VERY fast attack (on later levels - attacks, as the number of kicks increases), and lets you use any weapon you want. I decided that on Normal I will keep points in Claw blocking, as if compared to Shield Blocking, claws block magic attacks. But Hexxat is always free to use anything she wishes now - a good shield, any weapon. In other words, now Hexxat was not limited in any equipment and weapons she could use.
The main thing here is Dragon Talon, of course, due to its amazing speed.
Check a new video with the fight against Duriel - it's much, much faster. The length of the fight is much shorter, and everything feels much more stable. And it still lets to use Cobra Strike as the charge-up skill.
It was so easy to defeat Duriel now, that I decided to repeat it several times, in order to get nice drops (after all, 2 perfect topazes should work).
And I was rewarded! Among other items, Hexxat found Hawkmail - a unique scale mail with offers resistance to a frozen status and ups maximum cold resist to 90% (instead of 75).
The Spider Forest provide a new boot for B':
It was hard for me to change the boot with magic find, but why find magic items, when you don't use them?
B's gold chest was overflowing with coins, so she gambled some jewelry. A handy amulet amongst them:
It's useful despite B' doesn't own asassin trap skills.
In the Flayer dungeon B' found a (green labeled) longsword:
With the gloves it proved to be an acceptable second attack weapon:
In Travincal B' found a rare gem shrine, but a flawless topaz was the best she could earn from it.
Usually, I keep only small charms, but i made an exception with this one:
B' defeated Mephisto with caution:
And advanced to Act IV.
Her stats after "freeing" Izual:
@lolien
Before visiting Diablo, I recommend finding something to boost your fire and lightning resistances. Otheriwse, it's gonna hurt.
The amazing B' Act IV (normal)
Hephasto was too slow to make any harm. B' destroyed the soulstone at hellforge, and got some pretties.Before facing diablo i decided to make the imbue at Charsi. I choose a maiden javelin:
The demons with fire breath guarding one of the seals cought B' by surprise, she almost died by Fzael side. But she managed to escape, resurrected her mercenary friend, and cleared all the seals with caution now.
Diablo made some serious damaging attacks, but with the slowing ability of Cleglaw's gloves and the plague javelin skill B' could manage the demon, and she had not been in real danger along the fight.
Diablo dropped two uniques, but neither was truly useful for B'
And so B' reached act V and the barbarian's town. Note, that this is my first play with the expansion, so everything is new for me on the road to destroying Baal.
B': Act V (normal)
After some chat with the locals B' gone to the Bloody Foothills, where she found two uniques amongst the corpses of the demons. An axe, and a shiny shield. The shield was a fine replacement for her less stylish bone shield.A quick shot from level 28:
To Hell with this Nightmare!
Freeing the barbarians went well, as expected
While doing quest 3, I naturally encountered Thresh Socket. Just like that time with Hephasto, I failed to notice Fire Enhanced affix. That hurt.
But even with my Life Orb looking like that, I still had like ~300 hit points left. On his way to the Frozen River, Zaraki has found a nice stuff/staff for Sorceress:
Frozen River consisted mainly of Fallen Rouges and Ghosts. Things got interested when I reached Frozenstein. He and his minions possesses a stun attack that can stun-lock your character. So I was forced to use Concentrate skill instead of Berserk, since Concentrate cannot be interrupted.
After freeing her, Anya was very grateful for her rescue. Look!
Look, woman. If you just don't want to help me, fine. But you can at least be honest about it, okay?
I've reached the Uncle Pindleskin with intent to farm on him for a while. But soon I realized that the rate of dropping unique items from him was even lower than on normal difficulty. What the hell, what the hell? I deemed it not worthy of my time and soon I continued doing act V quests. Meanwhile, Zaraki reached level 66 and was able to wear Tal Rasha's Mask uncle Mephisto gave me. +15% all resistances, 10% mana and life leech, +60 life, +30 mana was more than enough to be interested in this item.
Nihlathak was rather pathetic opponent, when you manage to "deactivate" monster's corpse with Find Potion/Item skill. However, his level was full of Serpents that were using attack akin to poison javeiln. This thing does insane damage, and is just cheap way of increasing difficulty. But let's be honest - it just prepares me for all the bullcrap I will see in Hell difficulty.
Now, time to face the Ancient Ones.
First, I focused on killing Talic, since he was Extra Fast and his Whirlwind could potentially deal a lot of damage.
Korlic turned out to roll Stone Skin as his abillity, which in turn made him immune to physical damage. Not a bid problem for Berserk barbarian (since Berserk converts all your physical damage to magic damage), but I still decided to take out Madawc first. Madawc had very low ammount of HP, so killing him was pretty easy.
Killing
KorlashKorlic took a while. I might deal Magic type of damage, but Stone Skin trait also gives Korlic tons of HPs. He went down eventually, and Zaraki could proceed.I didn't bother to make screenshots of first wave of Baal's minions and I forgot to do so with the second. Clearing the second wave took me a while - both Baal's curse and skeleton's Ice Bolts slowed me down considerably. Due to having 75% fire resistance and huge ammount of HP, I could tank wave 3 with little to no problem:
As in case of wave 4. I did, however, stepped back so that Baal's curse won't affect me.
But wave 5 was much fun.
Lister rolled an Extra Strong as his second affix, which meant that not only him, but his minions as well hit extra hard. I won't lie when I say that I had to use some Full Rejuv Potions!
Baal was always pathetic in comparison to his Minions of Destruction. I wish I could say something about this battle, but I just can't. It was too boring.
The reward was as good as Baal is as opponent.
Congrats, Zaraki-taichou!
@lolien, can't wait to hear about your experience of completing the game on Normal
The adventure of Hexxat
Our vampire assassin didn't encounter problems nor in jungles, nor in Kurast. The meeting with the Travincal High Council resulted in finding an awesome two-handed axe, The Chieftain.
Although Hexxat is an assassin, it was so fun to switch to this weapon, at least temporarily - the look of a small lass with a huge axe was worth it. +6 to mana after each kill was exatly what Hexxat needed at that time of the game. It also gave Hexxat amazing resistances: 75, 86, 75, 75.
Dragon Talon gets the best from a used weapon - its enhantments.
I was really glad to experience Hexxat with a new weapon, and decided to farm the High Council. In one of those runs I found Sigon's Guard - probably the best shield at that stage of the game, with 69% block rate (nearly maximum in the game) and +1 to all skills. High level claws are far away (Nightmare and Hell), so getting an item with skill increase was a wonderful thing.
Also, it is a set item, so it could become even better. Hexxat didn't have 75 STR yet, so had to wait till using this shield, enjoying her two-handed axe to the max.
"Uncle Mephisto" (lol, I will never be able to call him differently now) was an easy opponent.
He was generous to Hexxat, just as he was to Zaraki.
Another unique two-handed weapon, even better than the previous one. Soulflay, the claymore. 5% mana stolen per hit, 4% life stolen per hit - I saw these two enchantments as the best attributes a weapon could offer to Hexxat at that moment of the game. With no points spent on Energy, she needed mana for her Talon kicks. She also needed life because of being a contact fighter.
Also, look how cool our petite assassin looked with a two-handed sword:
With her new sword, Hexxat had so much fun in Act IV. Thanks to life and mana leech she breezed through all enemies up till Hephasto the Armorer. But the Hellforge didn't bring Hexxat the rune she had wished - instead of an Amn rune, she got only Ral.
Hexxat still didn't reach the 30th level granting her an access to Shadow Master and Venom and decided to power up a little bit. Also, she still didn't have enough STR to use her Tower shield.
"Uncle" Mephisto and the High Counsel of Travincal granted a lot of good items for the assassin. Among them, she found 2 other items from her Sigon's set, making it even better - +30% to Attack speed, 10% life leech, 100 defence...
Another good item was Sparkling Mail Chainmail, which immediately went to Kasim, Hexxat's companion.
As soon as Hexxat reached the 30th level, she was ready to face the Lord of Terror. It was an exciting battle, and for Hexxat it was much easier than for Xzar before.
Diablo dropped a unique amulet, Nokozan Relic, with which Hexxat now had 85% resistance to Fire. Like @lolien said, why Magic Find chance if not using magic items? So this amulet replaced the previous one with 14% Magic Find chance.
Seeing how much good items mean in this game, enjoying her Sigon's set (not completed), Hexxat went on with making Mephisto and Diablo runs. This process is still unfinished (I would like to find greavers from the Sigon's set), but it already has brought a weapon for Kasim - Razortine, a unique trident, which slows a target and takes away 50% of its defence .
Nice work. I was positively surprised at how smoothly your fight against Diablo went. Had you had some healing and mana potions on your belt instead of ful rejuvs you could have won the battle without going to town.
One quesiton, thou. What kind of software were you using to record the game?
Nicholas CageOpen Broadcaster Software.As for mana and life potions - yeah, it looks like I have to find strength and drop those violet potions... I promise I will do it... eventually... (so hard to drop anything)
The adventure of Hexxat
During numerous Mephisto and Diablo runs Hexxat greatly improved her equipment, although the boots from the Sigon's set evaded Hexxat.
Now, Hexxat had a gothic plate with huge armor class and crushing blow. Crushing blow is such a useful enchantment, making boss fights much easier because it substantially reduces their hitpoints).
Also, Hexxat gatherer 3 Thul runes, and by adding a chipped topaz she created an Amn rune. Now she was able to forge Strength runeword blade talons (these claws are the fastest normal claws). Additional 25% chance of crushing blow, life leech and mana after each kill. This is an ideal runeword, I've been liking it since Xzar.
As an alternative weapon, Hexxat has a wand with Level 1 Life Tap - she can use it on bosses to curse them so that she could heal in the process.
After that, Hexxat breezed through the Act V.
Only 1 minute against the Ancients.
And less than 1 minute against Baal. In the end of this video I spend several seconds showing inventory, skills and character page.
Just as Xzar, Hexxat finished Normal while being of the 37th level.
So, Hexxat will henceforth be known as Destroyer Hexxat.
L approves!
After finally reaching Hell difficulty, Zaraki's basic facial expression was like this:
All thanks to the fact that this difficulty was going to provide him plenty of worthy opponents!
The first special monster pack Zaraki has encountered had a boss that was immune to physical damage. At times like this, Berserk build really shines!
Zaraki made sure to use Find Item on corspe of every mini-boss or champion packs. He wielded ordinary sword in one hand, and the Gull dagger in his offhand, granting him permanent 100% magic find (and additional 32% from one of his rings he was wearing). To clarify - Zaraki was using Berserk as main attack all the time and skills like this are using only primary weapon to roll attack rating and damage outpout, ignoring off hand. I had those 100% magic find for practically free, as I wasn't going to wear a shield anyway.
Quest 1 was not really difficult. Corpsefire was mana burn, so I had to replenish that imporant resource multiple times:
The fight against Blood Raven lasted long, due to the fact that she not only slowed Zaraki down with her arrows but also was moving around constantly. Only after slaughtering her minions and after mercenary joined Zaraki in pursuing Blood Raven, she could be killed.
The rewards were totally worth it!
As for Quest 3, I had only screenshot from fighting Griswold, and nothing else to refresh my memory as to what boss packs I was encountering. I remember Treehead Woodfist to rolled Mana Burn. And Griswold was Cursed, Magic Resistant and Extra Strong. Nice combination, he hit really hard. Bur Zaraki prevailed and rescued Deckard Cain.
On my way to met the Countess, Blizzard surprised me with it's brilliance:
The Countess had Extra Strong and Aura Enchanted as her additional modifiers. After taking out her minions, she wasn't much a problem, and her aura - Blessed Aim - was not a threat either, because Berserk Barbarian's defense is super low anyways - so enemies additional attack rating doesn't matter.
Until next time!
Exploring the Barracks, Zaraki found the following Scythe:
It deals more damage than that of my mercenary, but it doesn't slow down monsters by 75%, so I still decided to keep the old one.
The Smith was dangerous, as he was Extra Strong, and rolled both Cold Enchanted and Extra Fast as additional modifiers. He hit hard (even in Zaraki's standards) and fast, slowing me down in the progress. Help from my mercenary in slowing the bastard down was priceless. Nonetheless, the Smith has fallen.
The traverse through 3 levels of jail was not much of a problem. Nothing unusual happened. Inside Cathedral Zaraki said hi to Bone Ash. Still to this day, I wonder why monster that uses spells in combat always has "Extra Strong" modifier. Blizzard's brilliance strikes again.
Afrer getting back to town, I've decided to let Charsi enhance Ornate Plate. The result was.... this
Good resistances, but literally nothing more. Neither Zaraki nor his companion wished to use this armor. Well, it's not much of a deal in that point of the game, one rare item in one way or another doesn't make any difference.
On Catacombs level 2, Zaraki encountered a boss pack with lightning-shooting demons, whose boos possessed Convinction Aura, decreasing Zaraki's resistances considerably. Zaraki defeated the foes, but I didn't take any screenshoots. Was too busy keeping myself alive.
Finally, Auntie Andy is here. Zaraki's mercenary did the tanking and slowing down, Zaraki did buffing and dealing damage. Andy died, after Zaraki used 2 Full Rejuvenation potions and 3 Super Healing Potions.
And the rewards were as usual. But hey, chipped topaz could be used to upgrade a runes, so in a way it was a useful drop.
Welcome, Act 2!
Zaraki's buffed stats and skills:
Zaraki's inventory:
Good job on beating Act I Hell. You've already succeded further than @lefreut.
Auntie's gifts and the dude who has fallen.
Zaraki visited Auntie Andy multiple times before dealing with Act 2. Here's what she gave him:
Nice for necromancers.
40 Hit points (abut 75-77 after buffs) and fire absorption percentage is definitely going to be useful
This savage item is "normal" unique, meaning it could be potentially upgraded with Horadric Cube to it's exceptional and elite versions, giving of an item that has huge damage output, has huge crushing blow chance and provide resistances. Had Zaraki was skilled with maces....
That would be nice for some amazing amazons.
And this is just awesome. Grants Zaraki strength, and it's sockets enabled me to put two perfect rubies into it for life boost and perfect topaz for magic find. Yay! Rottlecage was still in my possesion, and Zaraki handed it to the Mercenary for time being.
After all that, Zaraki went to Act 2 and cleared Quest 1. Really, believe me. I forgot to take screenshots from battle against The Dude Who Has Fallen Known As Radament, so at lest I can share this:
insert joke here
I think I make note before that I won't be stating if my character die in the title of a post.
It's time to assemble parts of Horadric Staff. First, Zaraki needed to go to Far Oasis. The travel there wasn't very dangerous. In Maggot's Lair, Zaraki encountered physical immune insect swarms, but once again proved that there is no thing he can't cut throught.
Finally, there is Coldworm the Burrower. The fight took a little while, but it ended up in my win.
The staff of Kings was now mine. On his way to the Claw Viper's temple, Zaraki encountered enemies immune to magic damage.
Fortunately, he still had Concentrate skill to deal with them, but killing enemies with it takes significally more time than usual. This will come in play later, in the Claw Viper's temple. Speak of the devil!
Here's the welcome party:
Notice that Guardians are immune to magical damage, meaning I cannot use Berserk skill against them, but Concentrate instead, which takes significant ammount of time to kill one Guardian. And they are more often than not, surrounded by their skeletal minions. This wasn't much of a deal in normal and nightmare difficulties - I could leapt to the nearest Guardian/Greater Mummy/Unraveller and just kill it swiftly. Not in Hell difficulty. Leaping towards them is dangerous, as you can be easily surrounded by enemies and Howl skill doesn't always work for some reason. The greater mummies are always magic immune, and as most monsters in hell difficulty, have physical damage resistance - killing them takes a while. The only action left is to kill their minions, and then Guardians themselves. But, I found out that Find Potion/Item skills doesn't prevent minions to be raised once again anymore. As a result I had to divide my attention between killing minions, and guardians, which took time and sometimes even going back to town for additional health potions.
For the first time in years, it were skeleton and mummies that annoyed me more in that area than claw vipers. With Zaraki having buffed 2300 life points, Claw Vipers weren't that scary. Finally, I found the entrance to level 2.
Fangskin and the rest of his pack spawned around the altar. Of course with one Guardian as well, and the altar itself was surrounded by skeletons. Sweet. That took some time, and one or two trips to the town for potions, as I didn't want to waste Full Rejuvenations too much. But Amulet of the Viper was eventally acquired, and after that transformed into Horadric Staff
The One Tomb
...Because who's going to explore all seven of them....
After arriving in Jerhyn palace, Zaraki had the following question:
Navigating through Palace Cellar levels was rather quick and not very difficult. Zaraki reached the Arcane Sanctuary pretty soon.
Zaraki checked out east, west and south routes. Naturally, the Summoner was on north route. He, as usual, never provided any good fight.
Zaraki made it to the Canyon of the Magi and didn't waste any of his time to get to the true tomb of Tal Rasha.
I won't lie. I'm to proud to pray. But nonetheless, the monster spawns in the true tomb worked in my favour big time. Gorebellies, Ghoul Lords and the Mummies (ordinary ones, not Unravellers). It made exploration of the Tomb pretty smooth in comparison to Claw Temple. But of course, it's still Act 2, Hell difficulty. Caution for Hardcore character is advised. Finally, I got to the Duriel the Doggie.
The doggie
charged in furyrun at Zaraki and his mercenary in order to recieve a hug.But Zaraki was too cold for that and attempted to pacify the demon. He didn't like it. Not one bit.
Eventaully, Zaraki's Mercenary died, which reminded the barbarian of something. He should try to kill Duriel with his magic-item gear on. So, Zaraki teleported back to town to change his gear, effectively having 214% magic find and defeated the Doggie of Pain.
The dropped Axe could be quite good in Nightmare difficulty, for those skilled in axes of course. Especially against undead. It could be quite nice in Hell difficulty as well, after being upgraded to "Elite" version of this item.
Act III, here we go!
I considered getting to Act 2 on Hell difficulty with hardcore character a challenge. Now, I wonder if I will be able to actually finish the Hell difficulty with this barbarian. I'm not gonna lie, I got attached to this character.
BTW, I've read that upgrading Exceptional to Elite works for the ladder characters only. Isn't it so?
According to Arreat Summit here:
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/cube.shtml
It works on ladder characters and in single player.
After arriving to the Rogue Camp the first thing Hexxat did was resetting her skills (for the second time already).
The reason was that Hexxat no longer needed 2 claw weapons for her protection - she got used to her Tower Shield (Sigon's Guard) and sat at 75% chance of blocking. The free skill points went into Venom and Shadow Master.
On her way to rescuing Deckard Cain, Hexxat found unique field plate for her companion, Kasim (BTW, companions of both Zaraki and Hexxat are called Kasim - reveal the truth, mercenary, are you serving two masters simultaneously?) The field plate, Rockfleece, offered damage reduction not only at 5 points per hit, but also at 10% per hit.
Hexxat reached the old town of Tristram and took Wirt's Leg with her. She used it to explore the secret Cow level on Normal. It didn't provide her any major loot, only one unique axe and gems.
The Countess dropped Tir and Amn runes, so now Hexxat could forge new Strength runeword, if she wanted (or better, if good NM claws were available).
Hexxat found 2 gem shrines and became an owner of two perfect topazes as a result.
Hexxat found 2 unique weapons (nothing superb for her or her companion).
The battle against Andariel took less than half a minute. Hexxat let Kasim to strike the demon down for better drops.
It was worth it, because Hexxat found a unique casque, Stealskull, with Increased Attack Speed, Increased Hit Recovery, Mana and Life stolen per hit and 47% better chance of MF (!). Basically, these are the best enchantments I can think of (besides the Crushing blow, of course).
This new helmet changed a socketed full helm (with 2 perfect topazes), which Hexxat had been wearing since the start of the Act II Normal.
Frostburn gaulents, also dropped by Andariel, were of no use. But the fact "aunt Andy" dropped Sigon's Gage, from the Sigon's set, may mean Hexxat would like to visit her again, still hoping to find Sigon's Sabot (boots).
Below are screenshots of Hexxat's skills, stats and inventory. Her attack rating is 3570, with 81% to hit. Her defence (with Kasim's aura) is 2246, with enemies' chances to hit at 26%. Her blocking chance is 75% (maximum). She has 546 HPs, her resistances are 85-45-57-55. She has 12 points in Dragon Talon, 7 points in Fade, 11 points in Venom and 12 points in Shadow Master. She's of the 43th level.
Dat equipment... Much free place. Wow.
Uh, I guess it's another feature to put on the D2EE wishlist!
Diablo1 on the other hand, the atmosphere was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. The Butcher's room is the best example.
@O_Bruce at which level did you transition to hell ?
Now
I'll just say that a mini-remake of Diablo 1 within Diablo 2 is also on the D2EE wishlist. Tristram, remade with D2 assets but based on the original D1 designs, would become an optional dungeon crawl parallel to the storyline, like the Watcher's Keep of BG2:EE. Of course, it's a colossal undertaking and hence very low priority on my list.