Diablo II

[Crandaeolon]

*dusts off thread*

Well. Since RTW multiplayer turned out to be a no-no, I ended up playing this old flogged-to-death horse a bit more than was the intention. Anyways, I finally finished the objective that I decided to do when the expansion came out: to complete the game from Normal to Hell difficulty with a Hardcore character unaided by other players, items from other chars, cheats or exploits.

It was quite a journey, actually. Yes, sometimes repetitive and boring, but often fun and challenging. Especially Hell difficulty, where death was close at least a dozen times. I _really_ hated Maggot Lair. I _truly_ hated Burning Souls. And most of all I hated Hell Ancients...

The character was a necromancer specialising in summoning, of course; most other chars would have serious problems without outside aid. Guardian Calimski is now a 84th level necromancer, and will enjoy happy retirement days filled with scantily clad women and shots of tequila.

Looks like I'm pretty much done with Diablo 2. If anyone needs assistance in the form of items or boosting on Europe Hardcore Ladder, gimme a note.

[Kraellin]

hehehe. i love it, crand. i think we've all gotten some pretty amazing mileage out of that game.

K.

[Blodrast]

congratulations, Crandaeolon.
Unfortunately, I'm probably not gonna play HC anytime too soon (I would just get too stressed, and the game would stop being fun, it would be an additional source of stress).

What's wrong with the Maggot's Lair, why did you hate it so much ? I would have expected the Chaos Sanctuary, or some parts in Act 3...

Anyway, well done ;)

[Crandaeolon]

What's wrong with the Maggot's Lair, why did you hate it so much ?

I hated the place because of the narrow passageways. Not at all possible to use minions there, so I went down there with only my merc. My resistances were far in the negatives because of the crappy gear, and one hit from a Spectral Hit or double-element enchanted monster could easily deal 500-1000 points of damage. I had to keep the merc in front by nudging him forward inch by inch; the merc can't pass through the character but the char can pass through the merc, so I waited for the merc to take a step, took his place to block him from wandering back, waited for the next step etc... until the merc hit a bunch of monsters.

If they were scarabs or miniboss packs, I had to keep feeding the merc health potions and to keep casting my weak Clay Golem to provide a few seconds of shielding for him, but he still died often. Resurrecting him costs about 50k at level 80, and I ran out of money a couple of times, forcing me to go to another area to hunt for cashable loot. And, because I don't use maphack, I had to explore the levels manually; the exits to levels 2 and 3 were _both_ times in the last damned unexplored corner of the level! Miserable luck...

I would have expected the Chaos Sanctuary, or some parts in Act 3...

CS was positively challenging, not nerve-wracking or boring. Oblivion Knights casting Iron Maiden were the biggest threat, often reducing my army of ~30 minions to a half, but other than that it was OK because the minions had room to maneuver. Diablo himself, like all the single bosses, is a piece of cake for a summoner necro.

Act 3 was a long and boring trek like always, but the dungeons allow at least some minion usage. Fortunately the minions made short work of the swarming fetishes. Gloams could have made the place much worse, but I didn't encounter any.

[Blodrast]

thank you for clearing it up, C. I should have thought of that, since I've had the same kind of trouble with my merc, trying to ush him ahead mainly because he had better defense than me.
And I've also killed myself a few times with IronMaiden in the CS ;)
Now all I need is some time to be able to login and play some ;P
oh, btw, so why were the ancients a problem ? no corpses to summon stuff ? but then wouldn't you have the exact same problem with Duriel and Baal at least (there's no corpses in their rooms either) ?

[Crandaeolon]

The Ancients are tough because, unlike main act bosses, they get random mods. It's like 3 minibosses next to each other. On Hell difficulty, that translates to 9 random mods. The first time I tried 'em, I got at least Might enchanted, Fanaticism enchanted and Cursed among the mods. Not good. I kept them on constant Decrepify, but the battle was over in a couple of minutes and I had to retreat.

On the second try, one was Might enchanted but no one was Cursed. I was still narrowly defeated.

For the third try that finally succeeded, I created a new game and hunted for some tough Revives. One of the ice caves was full of minotaurs, and those did the trick. Still, the timer of the Revives ran out, and I had only three skeletons and the merc left when the last ancient finally went down.

I also nearly died in that last battle when the Extra Strong, Cold Enchanted Korlic suddenly decided to Leap Attack out of the melee to strike me. Thwack, the life globe (1100 hitpoints) looked empty after a single blow and I gulped down a few full rejuvs in panic, running madly about the place until Korlic waded into the melee again. Fun!

[dessa14]

the one boss i had the most trouble with was baal, but not because of him, but his insane minions, and with 10 people in the game with a lone paladan taking them on, trust me in the expansion paladins are half decent
and in multiplayer, people love them.
the way a paladin wins, is fanaticism and Zeal, super fast multiple attacks.

i went through the game with a paladin, on hardcore, i went through all the way from normal to the end of hell.
level 4 Zeal, and level 30 Fanat give you a huge attack speed and damage bonus, and the paladin gear i had kicked arse without other people interfering.
(heres a tip to get heaps and heaps of chipped gems)
go to the second act, and where you go to fight the boss, go through all the caves before the one you are mean't to.
that gives you heaps of them.
thanks,
dessa

[Togakure]

Heh ... looks like you were all giving this a go when I was playing it too. I wasn't aware of this thread, and that you all were Diabloing.

I play on USA West. My primary character, (Slayer) Melarion, is a level 72 necromancer, Ladder/softcore, in full Trang-Oul gear with an AliBaba, and an Arm of King Leoric on switch for summoning. His normal retinue includes 4-7 Skellies, 4-6 Skelly Mages, and a Fire Golem. I use him primarily for magic-finding as he's not really strong enough to take on Hell at this point, even at level 72.

I never use cheats or hacks of any kind.

I stopped playing about a month ago as someone hacked me and I could no longer chat with anyone :(. I was tired of it anyway. Only had a few cool friends, and the place is crawling with total idiots. I stopped joining public games after getting ambushed for my gold a few times (I have about 1.6 mil in gold and keep it that way, so I'm rich pickins for a hacking, looting twit). I either played solo online, or with guys that I knew who were cool. We did have some fun times, but it got old after a while. Hmm ... better log in at least to preserve my guys, lest they be retired. Anyway, interesting to see Org folks were playing D2/D2X online.

[Crandaeolon]

Dessa, have you played the game with the 1.10 patch? It makes Hell quite a bit more difficult, and the adding of skill synergies makes many of the old classic builds not valid. A couple of questions, if I may... First, how did you defeat physical immunes? Weapon switch, Amp damage charges on an item, Vengeance / Conviction, or...?
And with only 4 levels in Zeal, how did the attack rating stay tolerably high? Surely not by putting lots of points in dex...

I'm planning to quickly try a few interesting builds, a Zealot being one of them. But, instead of Fana, I'll use Holy Shock + synergies and a Lightsaber / Tiamat's rebuke to remove attack rating and immunity problems, and Fist of Heavens to deal with monsters that are too difficult in melee.

Also, chippies are now worthless. The old sword recipe has been nerfed, and the new one (3 flawless gems) is not worth it, because you can't get the highest mods any more. Perfect gems are now the poor man's currency, those are used to reroll charms and jewels.

Togakure, too bad that you ran into so many jerks out there. One of the reasons why I play hardcore only is that the kiddies who like to pick fights at random are much fewer than in softcore. Of course there are some idiots in HC too, but in general the people are more helpful and wouldn't start a fight over something as petty as gold. But, of course, some healthy paranoia is only good...

[dessa14]

if you put anymore then 4 into zeal, you get zeal lock.
another good combo for a zealot, is concentration, though the damage advantage isn't much more then fanat.
the vengence and conviction combo still kicks arse huh?.
the weakest thing about paladins is the lack of passives, really paladins were favoured for multiplayer teams, because auras worked over all of them.
i can't remember the items it was like a year ago.
multiplayer hardcore really does make a difference, people are far less likely to go around PKing (player killing) i used to play traditionally as well, so i didn't start with level 80s and what not and rush to act 5, i started with starters, and played all the way through like normal.
thanks,
dessa

[Crandaeolon]

if you put anymore then 4 into zeal, you get zeal lock.

Ah, you've played _that_ long ago. Zeal strikes were limited to 5 in the expansion or in 1.09, IIRC. Zeal lock hasn't been a problem in a long time.

[Sjakihata]

anyone playing on Europe NL?

my account name is... sjakihata

[DisruptorX]

Ack, Diablo II, one of the few sequels to actually have worse graphics than the original game.

If I never play D2 again, I will not regret it. It has none of the creepy gothic atmosphere that made the original a classic. In d2 I don't fear what I will encounter next or get spooked by the environment, instead I stare at the screen in a trance because my brain is not in use.

[Togakure]

Yes, I understand your point Disruptor ... Diablo had great "Film Noir"-like graphics/lighting, and an EXCELLENT sound track. It was definitely more "scary" that D2/D2X.

A lot of D2/D2X takes place above ground, unlike D1. Also, different cultures were introduced in the different Acts, each having different sound tracks and graphic elements. While definitely not as scary, I thought it was well done. The novelty of it wears off after playing through it a few times though, so I can see how D2/D2X could bore some folks very quickly.

I prefer to play the game as intended for the most part, developing my character normally by playing through the game, not exploiting it by rushing or doing runs against the big bosses for XP. I do magic-find runs, but generally I clear maps instead of doing boss runs. This is definitely not the most effective way to MF, but I find it more entertaining. Melarion has 320%+ MF when geared for magic-fiding, so he does fairly well. His problem is, he already has nice stuff and doesn't need much. So, I just play "Santa Claus" a lot, giving what I find to the few nice, polite players around. Just before I stopped I began developing other characters (a pally, barb, and sorc) and used Mel to "twink" decent items to them to help them out in their beginning stages. But, I just got tired of it all and stopped about a month ago. Maybe I'll go back at some point, who knows.

[DisruptorX]

I have played quite a bit of Diablo II, and while it was initially fun, when you are done with the game after a year or so, it does not leave the impression of "wow, that game was a classic", instead it is more like "wow, I just wasted so much time".

I thought that act 2 had good atmosphere, and act 3 could have been cool, had the level design not been so painful. However, act 1 is a mess, especially the jail/catacombs, which are a painful attempt at being like the original, but instead being horrificly boring.

I never have done rushes or the like, and even on battle.net I generally play by myself. Single player gives you the immersion, while multiplayer makes you painfully aware that you are playing with other jackasses. It turns the game into a match of who can pick up items the fastest as they drop.

While I will admit that D2 took me a good year or so before I got sick of it, the game did not leave a good taste in my mouth.

They also took out the only fun things about Diablo multiplayer, tking and cheating. I have fond memories of Diablo multiplayer, but D2 just seems so mundane, it has no character and everyone took it so seriously, they even had jargon like "blood run" "omg u got soj?" etc..

[Crandaeolon]

Disruptor, perhaps you wanted the wrong things from the Diablo series. IMO Hack 'n' Slash is not a good genre for a deep roleplay experience.

I wouldn't (and didn't) play either Diablo for graphics or atmosphere. And sure, D1's graphics are sharper than D2 in 640x480, but 800x600 in the expansion looks tolerable in my book, with more variety than D1.

What makes both games classics is, IMO, not the atmosphere but the simplistic yet pseudo-deep gameplay designed to give a constant stream of little rewards in the form of levels, items, quests, waypoints and whatnot. From a game design standpoint, both are based on similar basic principles but D2 is far more refined.

As for the multiplayer experience, D2 is mostly better because of the closed servers and its larger scope (more stuff to do). D1 was cheaters galore, and not at all playable on public servers... personally, I hate cheating, and I can't imagine how someone could consider TK'ing "fun". For those who like to kill, Hardcore mode in D2 provides better thrills because death is permanent and hunting for prey or taunting them to agree to a duel takes at least some skill compared to using a TK hack.

I sometimes do boost my characters because I usually plan the character advancement to about level 75-80, when it's a good time to enter Hell difficulty, where the real action is. Boosting is just skipping the boring parts. C'mon, who played MTW on normal difficulty for more than a couple of campaigns?

Of course, too much of anything leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I got around the burnout by playing D2 in bursts; I never focused on it exclusively, instead it was "filler" entertainment when there were no interesting games to play or other stuff to do. Heh, I wouldn't have started playing it this fall if Blizzard hadn't released the 1.10 patch and CA had gotten Rome right. (I confess, I'm a multiplayer freak. But SP in Rome is good.)

[dessa14]

the main reason there was a lack of good items in multiplayer was that everyone wanted them, but everybody rushed the game, to get the most XP.
people like me that played the game right through doing everything, got heaps of great items, my entire team did. we worked in a team, which all started the game at the same time, and didn't let high levels into our games, we always played hardcore though.
my team consisted of, a paladin[zealot](me), an [ice] sorceress, and a barbarian.
there was another team in the game, which had an [elemental] paladin, a necro and an assasain.
thanks,
dessa