Proceed, Heroes, Into Terror's Lair! Diablo II Freestyle Group Slamdance Thread!

Oh totally. Back in the pen-and-paper days, I was the guy who dug through the rulebooks to find every possible detail I could use to my advantage. I don't like to break rules, necessarily, I just like to bend them. Violently.

I also have a burning passion for min-maxing.

Up for grabs: Hwanin's Splendor, Hwanin's Justice: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...#hwaninmajesty

Aldur's Rhythm: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...4.shtml#aldurs

Gerke's Sanctuary: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp...ushields.shtml

Magefist: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp.../ugloves.shtml

I will happily take Magefist off your hands.

Hell yeah I'll take Aldur's Rhythm.

Got nothing else from the set yet but hopefully someday! It'll probably stay banked till then (or, at least, in my alternate weapon slot)

When will you be around?

I might be on later tonight, definitely on tomorrow as I work through Act 2-H. Account name Kohlmar, if I'm not in TalkingTime.

So, Kraken is having a tough time in nightmare. Mephisto took an outrageously long time to kill. At character level 62, dealing 700-1000 damage per hit, more than 5 times per second, it took around 5 minutes of constant clicking. (also, nightmare mephisto can't be drained?) Kraken's got survivability, so that's not the issue, but I'm slogging my way through Act IV, and I'm kinda worried about the Chaos Sanctuary... /players 8 is kinda tough.

Another thing that points to Act I as "Diablo I Revised". There are some "Secret Doors" that are marked like the rest in other Acts.
Gheed has a lot of good lines, but this is the best.

And Nagelring's not bad just for the MF. You say that like they are a thing of the past.

That's true, but on the other hand, the ring it replaced had +26% to find magic items, so essentially I was swapping a bare cake for one with icing on it.

As someone who has never played Diablo II before, and is probably using their skill points poorly, let me just say that Act II with /players 8 is really quite nasty. ^^; Never have I seen a game of this type try to kill me with such fervour; not even the swarm-happy Din's Curse compares to the onslaught of enemies I saw out there.

...I'm entirely certain I would have died a lot more often than I have, had I not found those Set gloves with amazing anti-poison properties to them. I have the Horadric Staff assembled, and I've died twice. :P I don't suppose I might get a hint as to a better summon-centric Necro build?

SOMEONE LIGHT THE BUNGLESIGNAL!

So that info is two years old, but it's the first thing I found.

Hmm... I like most of what I see here, except the Corpse Explosion bit. I think I might put those points into Bone Armor and its synergies, just in case. Other than that, it's very helpful!

I finished Nightmare with my Trapassin, Explodia, today. After getting completely screwed for item drops all game, I've finally been having almost good luck after barely half an hour on Hell. These are the best items I've found yet on this playthrough. Hahahahahahaha yeah.

Immortal King's Will - I see that Toothache already has one of these. Well, now we have another if anyone else wants to play Barb some time.

Spineripper - Sadly, this has actually replaced the dual claws I've been sporting since Nightmare Act II. However, I'm totally willing to part with it if there are any Necromancers here who are hurting for decent weapons.

Natalya's Soul - This one isn't up for trade, of course. I'm just so, so happy that I finally found a replacement for the rare Greaves I'd been using since Normal Act III. And an Assassin specific one, at that! Its stats are all near minimum, but I'm certainly not going to complain.

Fire Blast/Death Sentry has been a fun combo to play with so far, but I'll probably need to respec into something a bit more reasonable to finish Hell. I might do a complete 180 into a Martial Arts build when/if I manage to find some better equipment. I hate grinding, so donations from fellow Tyrants would be greatly appreciated. There could be a Mal rune in it for someone.

You, uh... You do realise you can just hold down the left mouse button to have your character continually attack, right? (About the only thing this doesn't work too well with is Assassins' strikes & finishing moves.)

That's not nearly as viscerally satisfying though

Hopefully I'll be around at some point this evening then.

I'd also like to make a general request for anyone on the US Ladder in late-Nightmare or early-Hell, a decent belt. Awhile back I found one of the Amazon set pieces, M'avina's Tenant. I've been using it myself since it beat the belt I found at the time, as I was into the Mana restoration, but I don't really need it anymore thanks to the Insight Runeword on my Merc, but I haven't found a good drop to replace it either!

My Cold Resist is a bit low, and that'd be useful to have against Baal. So if anyone finds a real good belt with some good cold resist and any other little bonuses I'd gladly take it off your hands, so I can hand Joshua the Tenant if he would like it. Maybe he doesn't, since it's a Bow set, not a Jav set, and if not then that's ok.

Anyway. It's time for

The Adventures of FRRRT! the Windy Druid, part the Eighth: Defending Mount Hyjal Arreat and the World Tree Stone


So here's the image you never got to see in the last update because I used a frownyface. Welcome to Harrogath! The final town in Diablo, it's a far cry better than the Pandemonium Fortress or the Kurast Docks. It lacks the bustle of Lut Gholein, but it definitely feels like a Fortress Town.


Little touches like these dudes, for instance. Can't interact with them, and they'll forever be cooking their little whatever the hell it is on their spit, but still, none of the other non-interactable NPCs in the other Acts were half as interesting.

Still, Frrrt high-tails it out of there before they think he's some kind of delicious goat.


This is Harrogath's resident Klingon Barbarian Warrior, who sells mostly useless Barbarian mercs (are there any builds out there that would want one?) and revives your own mercs for you.

Come to think of it, it's a shame Tyreal never sold mercs in Act IV, but I guess running around with an Archangel at your back would be a bit broken.


Here's a change that was added in the recent patch! Cain used to hang out by the Klingon, which meant trips to identify and then sell items from the Waypoint or Town Portal were fairly long, longer than any other act actually. But they moved Cain to hang out near the Waypoint. This was either done to make lives easier for the players, or because the Klingon was sick of his stories.


There's also this douchebag who does Gamble and has no story significance whatsoever.


Anyway, enough of the town tour, time to open their only line of defense and charge blindly into the armies of Baal.

They're all so trusting. I mean, did they know Frrrt was sent by Tyreal? He's a large, axe-wielding goat-headed man that came out of an orange portal from hell.

"Sure! We'll open the gate for you so you can go out and join Baal's armies, obviously demonic creature!"

Fortunately they lucked out, and Frrrt is really here to help.


The first area of Act V is a slow and steady climb up Mount Arreat, which is pretty much like almost every outdoor area of Act V, actually. The first area has an interesting caveat in that the path gets narrower and narrower as you climb, until you reach this little bottleneck where you'll come across this superunique. Afterwards the path starts widening again until you hit the first Quest boss.

These little gremlin dudes teleport around and chuck fireballs at you. Every act needs a little annoyance!

Most of the outdoor parts of Act V feel like a warzone, though I'm still not sure on what Baal's fighting. Harrogath? Sure, the first area of Act V is certainly an assault on the fortress, but what about all the rest of the fortified camps you come across further up? Now and then you see a lone Barbarian wandering around killing stuff, but that's all. But I guess I'm overthinking. It still succeeds in making Act V feel more active than the other areas of the game.


Such as Catapults. They fire various sort of cold/lightning/poison bombs at you as you progress each area. When you reach a Catapult you can kill it, they're inanimate so they're immune to poison and have a lot of HP but drop loots like anything else!


Shenk here is the object of the first quest, which is mostly incidental. At this point Tornado is really strong and all of Shenk's mooks die if they even come within sniffing distance of Frrrt's windy blasts. Shenk himself soon follows.

After beating Shenk, you get a quest to rescue Barbarians up in the second area of Act V, of which I neglected to get any relevant screenshots of.

So you all can take my word that Frrrt saved 15 Barbarians.


That name sounds an awful lot like a Mega Man X boss.


Hellooooooo, what have we here?

Hey we're back in Hell!

There are three hellportals in the outdoor areas of Act V, that take you to little River of Flame-esque side areas. Like I've said, Blizzard likes to reuse assets where possible. I don't really mind here, though, the River of Flame looked pretty cool, it was a shame it was confined to one area.


Nuffin good drops though.


This was a pleasant surprise. Like the Great Marsh, it's possible to come across glowing chests just out in the open in a few places in Act V. What drops here?

See above.


Much like the Foul Crow nests in Act I and the Mummy Sarcophioguseses in Act II, these are objects you can (and should) destroy, else they'll keep spitting out baddies until you do. Tornado wrecks them easily since they're stationary.


Another hellmouth!


Another useless chest!


Here's another Superunique, he'll always be guarding the entrance to the first ice cave. Most enemies at this point are falling to Frrrt pretty easily, this dude is no exception.


I should also point out that after Frrrt totally saved those Barbarians, he was asked by Malah (the resident healing and potion vendor in Harrogath whom I couldn't be bothered to screencap) to look for a girl named Anya in the Frozen River, just adjacent to this Crystalline Passage. She suspects that SOMEONE in the town may be responsible for her disappearance.

Now who could THAT be?


I WANT TO OPEN IT! I WANT TO OPEN IT!


Bam! Unique spawn! Evil Urns are pretty common throughout Act V, and more or less serve to provide the player with more unique monsters since they spawn one with a group as soon as you open them.

With the exception of Urns that appear too close to a passage to a new area. There was one right next to the entrance to the Crystalline Passage, for instance, that only dropped a bit of gold.

It also is worth pointing out that the harpy enemies are pretty flimsy, especially when stacked against physical attacks, and die to Tornado laughably quick.


Well what do you know, Frozen River. Let's go looking for an Anya!

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK

Ok, while running around the Frozen River killing everything and open every Evil Urn he saw, Frrrt finally hit the magical LEVEL 30!

You know what THAT means!

Final tier of skills!


The Grizzly is Frrrt's new best friend, a pretty potent tank that deals.... well... not embarrasing amounts of damage. It's not GREAT, but I'm not using it for its claws, I'm using it as a decoy. I'm in Act IV Nightmare and the Bear is still proving its use.


D'awww. I think I'll call him Basorami.

(cookie to anyone who gets that little bit of obscurity)


But THIS is the real cream of the Lv30 crop. Frrrt got his final Windy Druid tool, Hurricane!

The damage is quite a bit higher than shown in that shot since I didn't put a point into it yet and Synergies weren't being taken into account.

Hurricane is always less potent as Tornado, assuming all levels are equal, but it does Cold damage instead of physical (or maybe it's physical AND cold, either way the second element is useful). While Tornado is ranged, though difficult to aim, Hurricane surrounds Frrrt like a damage dealing barrier, and can even clip thourgh walls (sometimes). Its range is also greater than you may think.

Ah yes, and I almost forgot to mention. My reasoning for hoarding skill points is revealed here. I had about 7 build up when I hit Lv30, and this allows me to put points in both Tornado and Hurricane every level until I run out, instead of putting those points entirely in the 'only for synergies' Twister, or Sperm Armor or something.


There's Hurricane in action. Anything that runs into melee range of Frrrt takes a hit, usually several. Most foes take a moment to recover from the hit of Hurricane too, giving Frrrt plenty of time to move away.

Mostly. Some enemies are so quick they can run right up to Frrrt's feet before the Hurricane hits them. Frickin Undead Flayers.

The biggest downside to Hurricane I've discovered, though, is the noise. You want to keep Hurricane up, but the accompanying noise drowns out most of the music in the game. Not a huge loss, I just wish I could manually turn down Hurricane's SE volume, but not all the rest.

Still, Hurricane is pretty great. Imagine one of the shield weapons from a Mega Man game. Now imagine they function like you always hoped they would, with almost none of the drawbacks they usually have. And that Mega Man could still fire a powerful secondary weapon while always keeping the shield up.

That's the Hurricane/Tornado combo. At this point Frrrt still cant' spam Tornado like he would like, but he'll eventually get enough +Mana/Mana Restore/Mana per hit/Mana after kill gear that he will be able to. And that day will be glorious.


Hey it's reskinned/colored Act 1 Yetis! At least they're thematically appropriate here. Hurricane and Tornado rip through their tightly packed numbers really fast.


Hurricane may not hurt this guy, but Tornado sure does!

The one type of enemy Frrrt will have to be wary of are foes that are immune to BOTH Physical and Cold. I haven't seen any yet, but I know there'll be some in Hell waiting to ruin my day eventually.


Well here we... Oops.

Sorry lady, I'm just looking for plain ol' Anya. You're clearly Frozen Anya.


Oh ok fine. I go back to Malah, get a thawing potion, and save her.

You'd think the rapid thawing of her icy prison would be kind of fatal with how the ice would crack. But whatever. MAGIC!


Before heading back to town, Frrrt clears out the Crystalline Passage, because running headlong into packs of enemies with Hurricane activated never ever gets old for him.

Should I also mention that currently in Act IV Nightmare Hurricane does about 800 damage, and Tornado about 1300? And he now has enough mana to spam Tornado all day long? The Frrrt of the past is gone. The windy druid build maybe be gruelling at first, but once you hit Lv24, and then Lv30, it's a whole new ballgame.


Anyway, Anya always rewards players with a rare version of their class specific equipment. Sadly, the unique headgear Frrrt gets doesn't beat his current one.


We also learn that, GASP, Nihlathak is behind everything! How completely out of left field and--

Screw it, enough with the faux surprise, you all knew this was coming. While Nihlly wanted to save Harrogath by making a deal with Baal, his actions went and cost the rest of the world since he wants to hand Baal the key he needs to enter Worldstone Keep without having to fight three angry ghosts and get their blessing.

We'd better go stop that from happening, then! Will Frrrt be able to find Nihlathak in time before he makes the trade-off? I sure hope so!

Spoiler: He does not.

TO BE CONTINUED

More items up for grabs!



One of the sorc players may appreciate this little gem. Also my old shield is up for grabs:



Been upgraded once and had a Perfect Diamond put in for the resists. Elite version has 72/67/62% blocking, if that interests you.

EDIT: Shield has been claimed!

Unless someone is going to buy a Heart of the Oak from another player, that Oculus is as good a weapon as they're ever going to get (and there's debate about whether or not HOTO is actually better than Ocu anyway). Excellent find!

They are for me! I don't have the time or group for it anymore.

Trust me, Bone Armor isn't going to do you any good, even with max synergies. The amount of damage it absorbs is miniscule, and more importantly, it only absorbs physical damage. It will have no significant effect on your survivability.

Corpse Explosion, on the other hand, kills everything within (and beyond!) visible range. It's a far more valuable tool than Bone Armor. In fact, most Necro players max CE out, but I prefer to get ten points in Revive before I start pumping CE. But extra points in CE are nice, as the added explosion radius means more dead monsters.

My favorite endgame Assassin uses Fire Blast/Lightning Sentry/Death Sentry, so I'd say that you're safe sticking with Traps if that's what you want to do.

Actually that set looks pretty strong; I'm playing a LF/FA hybrid because it's so much less frustrating when you come up against immunes. In particular, were I able to complete it, the resist bonus would mean that using a shield for resists wouldn't be quite as dangerous. As it is, I'm still dropping to just under zero Poison, and single digit positive Lightning when I pull out FA.

Hey Bungle, are you planning on discussing Champion Shamans? I'm sure that the uninitated would love to hear about them.

Eyepecker continues to let his ravens deal all the damage to bosses, Andariel and Radament are down.
I'm thinking of investing in dex to snipe all of the helpless blinded enemies, but I'm not too impressed by the ranged weapons. Are crossbows worth the slow speed/composite bows worth the low damage?

Oh, cool. Then Explodia can continue to live up to her name.

I just now finished maxing those 3 skills, and I'm not sure where I should go from here. My damage is starting to fall off sharply, so I want to spend more points in traps to get more synergy damage for Fire Blast/Lightning Sentry. On the other hand, my Shadow Master is now completely useless as a tank and dies instantly to everything, so I kind of want to put more points there too. On the other other hand, my resistances are all negative, so I kind of also want to put more points in Fade. Suggestions?

I will totally snag that Occulus.

Sure thing. Just give me a time when you're likely to be on, as long as it isn't after midnight GMT.

Well, whatever would be a good time for you is fine. I'm running on PST, so I'm running 8 hours behind you, I believe. I guess I could hop on around noon my time tomorrow (around 8 PM for you)? Or if you have a better time in mind, let me know.

Even so much as thinking about Champion Shamans makes my brain explode with rage.

POP

Yeah, see? There it goes.

There are some good bows/crossbows, yeah...though I'm not certain about how the Raven + ranged weapon combo is going to work out. It's worth a try!

I'd say focus on your trap synergies for now. Maxing out Charged Bolt Sentry will boost up both LS and FB significantly. As for Fade and Shadow Master, I usually put only one point in both and let bonus skill levels do the rest.

While Fade is awesome, it doesn't have to be a very high level in order to be useful. Even at level 5 it gives an extra 42% to your resistances, and getting those extra 4 levels from your gear isn't usually too difficult. Plus, resistances can come from just getting better gear as well.

As for the Shadow Master, she gets a fairly sizable automatic boost to her life on Hell difficulty that helps her survive. If she's still dying too frequently on Hell...well, with a Trap Assassin I prefer to focus on offense rather than defense. If you can kill everything in the room with a few traps then you don't have to worry about having a good tank anyway.

Of course, now that the game offers respecs you could drop a few points into the Master for the time being and then take them back out later on when you have more skill levels on your gear.

Oi. Grinding my way through Act 1 Nightmare. And what do I find? Why, a duplicate of me own mace, o'course!

Nearly. Beast is too generic. It would have to be something more specific like 'Crush Grizzly' or 'Crush Rhino'.

edit: Oops. Uh, I never played X4.

(Psst, X4 had a boss called Slash Beast)

So, at this point I feel pretty safe in saying, without the slightest bit of hyperbole, that corpse retrieval is absolutely the worst death mechanic in the history of videogames.

EDIT: Yup, all of my equipment is pretty much gone for good. Bye everyone!

EDIT II: Okay, after 20+ deaths I managed to sneak past the millions of lightning immune monsters in front of the stairs to the catacombs. This might turn out alright in the end.