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

It can be a serious pain in the rear, but I'll seriously doubt it's the absolute worst death mechanic ever, because there have been some terrible ones. (For example, Hardcore, where there is no corpse to retrieve because now you are dead for good. And you were so close to beating Diablo, too...)

Except, isn't the only real reason to retrieve a corpse in D2 to get the exp lost back?

I seem to recall that, if you only have one corpse out there, s+q and entering a new game brings your corpse to town...but only the last one; others would be lost.

You are correct. Would have mentioned that, but I am not too experienced with online games and I'm not sure if they work the same way, though I can't imagine why they wouldn't.

Yeah, exactly. Depending on your progress, it's typically easier to just go get your corpse rather than having to reexplore an entire area. If you misjudge how easy it'll be to get the corpse, you could be stuck trying again and again to get it for a long, long time.

Hardcore is fine. If perma-death makes things more fun and exciting for some people, it's cool that they have that option. If I don't choose that option, I'd rather that permanently losing all of my equipment due to an unretrievable corpse weren't a possibility.

Anyway, last semi-successful run didn't work out, so I'm back at the waypoint. I've basically decided to start pulling the enemies out one by one and portalling back after each kill.

You know you can delete posts?

Oh, and town portals only dissipate if you go FROM town (and were the opener of the portal). So, you can WP in, use the same TP out, over and over

Not after someone posts a reply.

Not until just now!

I used to think so too until just now! Now let's everyone delete everything and never speak of this again. This post will self-destruct.

Thanks post delete function, for making me appear to be slightly less of an idiot than I actually am!

Huh, they must've changed that. It used to be that way in the past though.

But wait, the phantom pages! Noooooooooooooo~

Looks like everything's going to turn out alright... eventually. I've managed to clear everything to about the halfway point, and haven't died in quite a while.

So anyway, before my little hissy fit about corpses, things were actually starting to go really well. I found two good claws with + skills to Lightning Sentry and Shadow Master almost as soon as I started today, as if the game were intentionally trying to prove Bungle right. Things were going very well until I hit the Inner Cloister and its 1,000,000 lightning immune monsters that included several cold enchanted, extra strong, extra fast and lightning enchanted uniques.

This story is happy end! Explodia retrieves all of her corpses, and nothing in the dungeon survives her wrath. Andariel goes down like a chump and gives up Hexfire, which is up for grabs if anyone is interested.

Incidentally, I thought that the corpse which the game saved wasn't the most recent one, necessarily, but the one with the most 'value'. I think the game calculates the sell value and preserves whichever corpse has the highest. Which, under any normal circumstances, should be the original.

I'm not the D2 guru, though, so I could be wrong about that.

Feynman, I acquired a +1 Cold Skills Grand Charm, if you're interested; Bean already passed on it.

Yup. Your original body will always be the one that spawns after a save and exit, unless you somehow managed to get yourself decked out with an entirely new set of amazing gear while trying to get your original corpse and then died again. Due to this system, I have two rules for corpse running:

1) Never put on any extra gear just to collect a corpse.
2) If the first two corpse runs fail, save and exit.

The secret third rule is that if you ever get tired of corpse running you should play a Necromancer.

Corpse running is still a horrible mechanic, though.

That rule is a secret? I had no idea.

+skills for everyone!

I gambled up a +1 barb general amulet, and 1 each of +1 lightning (sorc), +1 fire (sorc), and +1 poison and bone (necro). The skill tab amulets each have additional random properties, including at least one decent resist.

I'd like a look at that Barbarian amulet, if it is better than the Mahim-Oak Curio it might be worth equipping.

Also, new gear for grabs:

SHH DON'T TELL ANYONE

Nah. My cold skills aren't a priority, just a way to deal with fire immunes. It's my fire skills that are the real source of my damage.

And now it's time for another episode of Stuff You Guys Might Want!






Tiamat's Rebuke in particular offers both damage and resistances, which might be very handy for a certain barbarian. I also found a spare white Monarch shield, which can be potentially turned into a 4-socket monstrosity... pretty handy!

The Monarch does kind of interest me, if I can get 3 sockets on that I can put Sanctuary runeword in and be sorted for shields. I'm about 20 Str points away from using it though, so I may look to a shield with lower Str and slightly higher blocking, will save on Dex that way too - Hyperion is almost as good as Monarch in the defence, has 2% higher blocking and has max sockets of 3, precisely what I need for Sanctuary (KoKoMal).

Man, you're incredibly lucky to have those runes already! I have... a Vex, and that's basically it for runes aside from the incredibly common stuff (Ort, Ral, Thul, every Amn on the face of the planet, etc).

However, in breaking news, my focus on Magic Find is beginning to pay off, for I have found a thing. And it's up for grabs!

I have discovered the joys of the Hammerdin. I went from having a hell of a time with the bosses leading up to Diablo to waxing his butt in a few minutes flat without ever being in danger of dying and (for an encore) clearing the Cow Level with no deaths as well.

Welp, Nightmare Baal is down, and he went down rather easily! Frrrt is now Champion Frrrt!

Before I head off to the Moo Moo Farm a second time, though, Frrrt's bags are full once more. So I guess I'm back to hangin out in the talkingtime game for someone to come along and help me transfer.

I'd like to take a look at that +1 to lightning skills ammy.

I'd also like to call dibs on the sorcery shield. I'll make a nice upgrade on my secondary weapon set.

I'd also like to request everyone to keep an eye out for a pair of Frostburn gauntlets or any gloves or boots with either a large + to mana or energy or a large + to mana per kill. I am running into serious mana starvation issues again. I've got so many + to skills things now that it only takes 5 casts of chain lightning to completely drain my mana pool. My short term solution has been to guzzle potions like Gatorade, but I'd really prefer to be a bit more mana stable.

Well, you could try crafting some if you have any junk jewels.

*makes grabby-hands at Griswold's Heart*

I could really use +Attack Rating stuff, too. (I'm running around with Salvation on because the Salvation Army resists all except Poison, which is fucking useful beyond Act III. Seriously.)

Griswold's is all yours, just let me know a good time to hand it to you.

I'm on right now.

Sorceresses: I have a +2 Thunder Storm/+3 Meteor sacred globe for you.
SpoonyBardOL: I have a +2 Hurricane antlers for you. (And a jagged club with +1 elemental skills.)