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

Well, I'm chilling in the Talkingtime room, so pick up your armor whenever.

I'm still using a +1 to Druid Skills Circlet, and I like having the +100 to Magic Find Gull dagger too much to swap it out for some extra attacking power. I probably won't drop the Gull until I get more pieces of the Aldur's set. Thanks anyway though.

EDIT: Slowly advancing through Act I Hell. It's my first real attempt at Hell and it's, well, hard! While I've only died once so far (to Corpsefire of all things, how embarrassing) my Merc sure has died a lot.

Oh, and I hit a Physical/Cold Immune unique before even finding the Den of Evil. Thankfully, no more yet.

All 'n all I've found I need to be a lot more careful, as a lot of uniques CAN and WILL tear Frrrt apart with his current defenses if he runs blindly into them with Hurricane up like he was wont to do in Nightmare.

But considering Frrrt steamrolled all over Nightmare (with the exception of that unfortunate trip through the second level of the Durnace) the challenge is a nice change of pace.

I've hit the usual wall with my build - stuck until I get a half-decent weapon for Hell. Right now I'm doing 500-700 damage, which is barely getting me kills in Act 1. Farming The Pit for items hasn't born much fruit in that quest, and it takes me a good 20 minutes per visit because of my slow kill speed.

Current weapon is Coldkill, which is barely doing anything right now. If someone happens to come across a Berserker Axe that looks nice, even if it just a basic one with Cruel prefix, let me know.

On the plus side, I'm doing nicely in the defensive department. When entirely buffed up Muntak has over 2100 Life, and over 15500 Def. Decided to make Prudence runeword armour until something better comes along. Hell resists are all good, 62 being the lowest.

Spoony, you say you're looking for the Aldur set pieces? Because I stumbled upon this thing yesterday:

I'll gladly take that off your hands, yes.

I'll hop on tomorrow to give you the helm. Just give me a timeframe, and keep in mind I'm running on PST.

Really, I can be on almost any point in the day, except for about 4-6pm EST where I probably won't be able to. Just let me know when you'll be on.

You still after this shield MrBean? I tried getting your attention in IRC yesterday but I guess you were busy. Let me know a good time to drop it off for you.

Also, is anyone interested in the helmet from the Tal Rasha set? Picked that up yesterday. With the amount of sorceress gear I've picked up since playing, I think the game is trying to tell me something...

Speaking of gear, Radamant's Sphere dropped for me. I may hang onto it until I get to the end of Act I Hell, just to see if I need the extra poison resist against Andariel, but otherwise if someone wants to lay a claim to it it's theirs.

I figure it might be an idea to post specific wants for each character, and if someone happens across them then we could sort each other out for equipment. Many people playing the game offers better odds of us all outfitting our characters with the best equipment after all.

So for Muntak, here's my wants, with some alternative choices:
Main weapon: Elite Unique Axes, Cruel Berserker Axe, or a 5 or 6 socket Berserker Axe (gotta try for that BotD! or Grief!)
Shield: 3 socket Hyperion (Sanctuary), or Stormshield.
Switch weapons: not needed (both give +3 warcrys)
Helm: Arreat's Face
Armour: 4 socket light elite armour (hauberk or archon plate) for Chains of Honour
Belt: Verdungo's Hearty Coil, Thundergod's Vigor, or String of Ears
Gloves: Dracul's Grasp, although I may just attempt to make some blood gloves with +IAS
Rings: Bul-Kathos Wedding Band, and Ravenfrost
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath
Boots: Gore Riders, although War Travellers would be nice too

I'll sort my own runes and charms out, although the highest I want to find is Ber which will be tricky. I only have a mere 129 mf atm which is giving some uniques and set items, but I've been pulling out mostly garbage lately and gave most of my good stuff away - although I did get a Guillarme's Face which could serve as an alternate helm if Arreat's isn't forecoming, would give me more ways to damage stuff.

At the moment, I'm shooting for Griswold's Legacy, but I'm fully aware that the minimum I need for the rest is Lv66 (Griswold's Redemption).

Speaking of which, I have Hellclap and Stormstrike (though I won't be surprised if nobody wants Stormstrike) up for grabs.

Getting some good items really early is making it tough to upgrade Eyepeckers equipment. I've found two druid helms that give a boost to summon raven, but neither one can compete with Biggins Bonnet, and I would like a heavy belt but +30 defense and 40% cold resist are too good to give up.

It's been funny, with all the talk about horrible lightning enchanted uniques, that I've found 4 sources of "10% chance of level 3 charged bolt when struck". Funny, but no longer useful.

Welp, it's time to take down Baal! It's time for

The Adventures of FRRRT! the Windy Druid, part the Ninth: Frrrt totally saves the Worldstone.


I nearly forgot, Malah has a scroll of Resistances for Frrrt, since he saved Anya and all. Right now his resistances are pretty good, but it'll be a welcome sight in Nightmare and Hell.


Frrrt dives into Nihlathak's temple to find the trecherous... um... elder? Sage? Retired Warrior? Freeloader?

What IS Nihlathak anyway? Besides a douchebag I mean. I can't remember if there was any relevant lore to the guy.

Anyway, it turns out that Ackbar was right and it IS a trap, as a bunch of skeletons spring to life as soon as Frrrt approaches the gates. I remember reading the manual of Lord of Destruction, and feeling a bit disappointed that one of the 'NEW' enemies was another type of skeleton. I mean, we've fought skeletons already!

These guys are kind of similar to those Red Skeletons from Castlevania that keep getting back up. These guys might get knocked down, but they'll get up again, nothing's going to keep them down.

Except being shattered by cold damage. And Hurricane is cold damage.


Nihlathak's got some nice digs, at least compared to his hovel in Harrogath. Wonder why he didn't just hang out here all the time. I mean, it's essentially a crypt, but it's a NICE crypt.


Oh hey there Superunique. I'm not sure what 'Pindle' is, but this skelezombie has skin made of it apparently! Maybe he's related to Rumplestiltskin. Maybe Frrrt can win something if he says his name backwards... and swap the letters out with their opposite on the alphabet.

Nah, that's just silly.


The Halls are twisted and confusing. Usually I make a dart for the nearest outer edge and circle the perimeter of each floor, which ultimately lets me see the majority of the floor, and I fill out the rest afterwards. If you just want to beat Nihlathak quickly then just finding the next floor down can be frustrating.

But if you're playing for speed you're night going to be here at all, since killing Nihlathak is entirely optional!


The various areas have such whimsical names.


Ohohoho. One of these dropped. Anyone who wants to build an early magic finding set knows about the Gull. Right now Frrrt's weapon is largely a stat stick, and Frrrt eventually swaps his current axe out for the Gull's magic find.

Hell, Frrrt STILL has it equipped. For now.


Ah, and here's the traitorous bastard himself. Nihlathak killed the hell out of me on my first expansion character. I didn't have very good fire resist, and his corpse explosion kept ending me. The battle with him was so miserable I was not looking forward to doing it again. And then I learned Nihlathak isn't even necessary!

But on later games the battle went a lot smoother since I knew what to look out for. Hell, this attempt was over before I even noticed. I was lucky to get a screengrab of his nameplate, it ended so soon after I took it. Nihlathak is ripped from this world and pulled into hell with one of the most satisfying shrieks in the game.

But it turns out he DOESN'T have the relic anymore! Looks like Baal's gone on ahead! Ohnoes!


Then Frrrt is going after him! Absolutely nothing will stand in Frrrt's way!


Ohhh shiny red portal!

Y'know, there's something beautiful about the hellfire and snow being together. You could write a song about it.

A song of Ice and Fire, even!

*ow*

Sorry.


Never get tired of killin' dudes with Hurricane. They run up to me, and then they die! It's great!


One of those little Gremlin dudes teleported out of bounds just as he died. Thus this gold is forever out of reach, though I dunno if a Sorc could get it with Telekinesis. Well, at least it wasn't a unique!


Getting closer! Somehow moving DOWN some steps into this area brings us closer to the summit.... I dunno, it's as weird as the end of Act I.


This is a Way Waypoint, with 100% more Way than any other!

Not to be confused with the rejected idea of the Whey Waypoint for the Moo Moo Farm.

More frozen river, more side areas, more useless items.


But this one has a Superunique!

He may be immune to Hurricane, but Tornado kills him just as dead!


Say, what do we have here? A Magical Demonide Sash, a random Jewel, a Perfect Emerald, and a Tal Rune? What on earth could I plan to do with...


ZOMG ORANGE TEXT! Crafted items now share their originally super special text with Runes, but still, sometimes these things can be awesome and sometimes not.

I remember back when I created a Safety helmet for my first expansion character and lucked into a +1 to that class's skills as a modifier. It was super lucky.

This belt isn't that great, but it'll do for now!


Alright! The Plateau! Time to play Ghostbusters and invite myself into the Worldstone Keep!



TEN SECONDS LATER


The ancients were a speedbump.


FINAL LEVEL TIME! For realz!


I always liked the floor pattern of the Worldstone Keep. It looks like it's supposed to be jigsaw puzzle pieces at a glance, but on closer inspection they're not. Tricky.


Pretty much nothing stands a chance against Frrrt at this point. What Hurricane doesn't take care of, Tornado finishes.

And Basorami helps too, he's such a helpful bear.


Ok! This it! Baal is just up ahead! So far the score is 2-0 for Frrrt against the Prime Evils, let's shut em out!


Baal hangs out all untouchable up on his throne. The entrance to the Worldstone's chamber is right behind him. But thankfully he'd rather play mustache-twirling villain and watch us die in an elaborate trap.

And by elaborate I mean enemy gauntlet.


The gauntlet summons a unique and some friends based on a signature enemy from each act.

This here was Colenzo, one of the heroes of the Fallen that Bungle mentioned. He died too fast to get a clear shot of him.


This was the second guy, whose name I can't even remember!

Basically Frrrt is killing them all by standing where they spawn with Hurricane going. So far it's working!

Number 3, another council idiot. But at least I got a pic of his name! Like all the others, a point blank Hurricane upon his spawning, with a few Tornados, does the trick.


This was Number 4. Don't even remember what it was called, except that it was a Pit Lord type enemy.


And here are the enemies created JUST for this event! I was always kinda bummed by that. So do they die all the same like the others?


Uhhhhh....

Yeah I guess I got a little cocky. The Minions of Destruction are a bit tougher than the rest. Thankfully the rematch goes smoothly, and I don't have to re-fight all the others.


Seeing that his minions weren't good enough, Baal quickly turns tail and flees, he has a Worldstone to destroy!

And I have a Worldstone to try and save!


And thus begins the FINAL BATTLE!

I didn't get a clear shot of all of Baal's attacks, but this is the worst one as far as I'm concerned. It's essentially a super mana-burn. I down Mana Potions like crazy in this fight.


He can also summon tentacles to hit you from the ground, toss fireballs around, and summon an odd ice-based attack that can keep knocking you back. Oh, and summon a clone. And the only way to tell which is a clone and which is not the clone is to see which one dies faster (that one's the clone)

My Merc and Bear pile on the damage along with me. All 'n all the battle with Baal isn't nearly as panic-inducing as the battle with Diablo. Baal has nothing like the Crimson Lightning. It takes a bit, but before long...


Baal goes down. The Maul is Bonesnap, the other items are gold in item form. Hooray!


This always confused me. It implies Baal's Soulstone shattered, but I thought that could only happen at the Hellforge. I mean, otherwise we don't see Baal's soulstone shatter, so what was to stop him from just reviving again?

Bah, whatever, the Prime Evils are now DEAD FOREVER and that's that!

Yup. That's that.


Oh, except the world is boned since Baal still corrupted the Worldstone enough that it needs to be destroyed.

Frrrt is a hero.

Tyreal tells Frrrt to hurry and GTFO and he does so, giving him the title of SLAYER Frrrt, and letting him access Nightmare mode!


These are his basic stats at the end of Normal. Hurricane and Tornado are considerably more powerful now, but even then that was enough to absolutely wreck everything.

Anyway, Frrrt still has one other task, but other than that it's off to Nightmare mode! I may not be as enthusiastic about screenshots from now on since it's essentially the same game all over again, just a lot harder.

In fact... it's a bit like...



And then all the Fallen are replaced with Buzzy Beetles.



Next time: Moo.

TO BE CONTINUED

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Nihlathak was one of the fifteen Elders of Harrogath, and when the other fourteen and he went to sacrifice themselves to create a protective barrier over Harrogath (apparently the only reason Harrogath still stands), he was the only one to come back alive. Anya is the daughter of another one of the Elders, which is why there was a lot of tension between them even before she vanished.

Oh yeah, that rings a bell.

When I first played the game I pretty much read all the dialogue, but then I never touched it again.

I foresee D3 will go much the same way.

You can also distinguish them by looking at the names in their life bars. If the B in "Baal" lines up perfectly with the D in "Demon", that one's the clone. The real Baal has his name offset slightly to the left. Like so:


In other news, FUCK Sand Maggot Lair. It wouldn't even be all that bad (in fact, it's kind of funny to hear the corpse explosions chaining down enemy-packed corridors farther than I can see), except that I keep running into Fire+Lightning immune uniques without enough corpses on hand to kill them. That's basically an instant forced restart unless there's a convenient side passage or looping corridor on hand to let me bypass them (which, of course, there never is).

The real Baal is the only one that can teleport, so that's another giveaway.

If you want a hand with the Maggot Lair Muntak needs to do that anyway in Hell. Until he gets a much better weapon he can't really solo Hell at the minute, but I can at least act as a meatshield, since he's quite invunerable at this point (2.2k life and 16k def is not to be sniffed at).

EDIT: Bah, I hate that place solo. Too many Physical Immunes start piling up in those cramped spaces, and Berserk takes forever to kill because the accuracy isn't great at L1. Anything that has PI and Mana Drain basically ruins me.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

THE BEST

EQUALLY THE BEST

WHAAAAAAAAAAT

Yup, that is completely true. In fact, despite the "official" strategy guide's failings, the one that includes expansion information also covers that too.

YES.

Spoony, I'll jump on at 8 EST today to give you your helm.

Also:

Hell yes.

EDIT: I think I'll let Bean have first dibs on Tal Rasha's helmet, come to think of it. He could probably use it more than I can right now.

A certain Druid might appreciate this:



Picked it up while doing Nightmare Baal runs. I'm finding that easier going than Hell The Pit atm, might pick up a better Exceptional Axe while doing so.

Already have one, Toothy, but thanks all the same. I need the Armor and the Belt still once Feynman hands me the Gaze. Though I imagine the armor won't be showing up very soon.

Also I'll be on at 8pm EST for the trade, Feynman.

The last time we saw Owfirehot, she was taking Warriv up on his offer to journey east, in search of Diablo and his minions.



Welcome to Lut Gholein, home of sand! The sultan himself comes out to greet us, out of a sadistic desire to make us read more words. Oh yeah? We'll see about that, buddy!



With the magic of skipping ahead, we ignore the words of both the sultan, and some random innkeeper who started babbling about monsters in the sewers blah blah blah. So here we are, in the sewers, ready to kill more skeleton palette swaps.



Hey, a new enemy! Sand Raiders and their many variations are offense-focused melee types. They don't hve much health, but they can do a fair amount of damage if they hit you. "If they hit you" being the key phrase here, as melee enemies have a very hard time so much as laying a finger on Owfirehot.



Here's another new enemy type! Dried Corpses are cousins of the common zombie, having very low movement speed, but high health and a respectable melee attack. Unlike a typical zombie, however, these guys burst open and release a small cloud of toxic fumes upon death, poisoning anyone caught in range. Good thing we can kill them from a distance!



It's a bird! It's a plane!



It's a speed bump!



That guy in the lower right corner of the screen is Radament, the target of our sewer excursion. He's an undead Anubis wannabe, who will be appearing as a regular enemy type later in the act. They act like Fallen Shaman v2, resurrecting defeated undead class enemies and attacking with bursts of shadowy energy from a distance. Up close, they have a poison breath attack that is quite powerful if you lack poison resistance. Fortunately, Fire Ball's AoE damage radius cuts through the hordes of undead with ease, which makes bringing down Radament simple and straightforward.



When he dies, we obtain two important items. The first is the Horadric Scroll, which will be given to Deckard Cain, and begins our quest for the Staff of Tal Rasha, which is a massive, multi-stage quest that will last for almost the entire act. The second item is a skill book, which offers a more practical benefit. Reading the book grants Owfirehot a free skill point to distribute! Nice! I place the skill point in Fire Ball, as that attack needs to be as strong as we can make it for Normal mode.



Returning to town, we get one final reward for defeating Radament: a small discount at all the local shops. Not a bad haul for the very first quest in the zone.



We also show the Horadric Scroll to Cain. Apparently, to gain access to Tal Rasha's tomb, we need his staff. The pieces of the staff have been split and scattered around the dungeons out in the desert. To reassemble the pieces, we'll need to harness the power of a Horadric Cube, and ancient device for the magical synthesis of items, which, of course, is also locked away in a dungeon. Looks like Owfirehot has her work cut out for her!



Leaving the safety of town for the desert, we immediately bump into two new enemy types. The first is the Carrion Bird. This enemy is completely nonthreatening. They have terrible health, terrible attack, and can only attack with melee strikes. Their main purpose is to be annoying as hell, as they have the ability to fly around, rendering them invulnerable until they land, and causing any minions you might have to stumble around like drunken idiots trying to chase them around.



The second enemy is the Sand Leaper. Another nonthreatening yet annoying foe, they jump around constantly, and are invulnerable while doing so. They also have a rapid movement speed, which makes pinning one down with ranged attacks annoying at times. They are no risk to the life of my character or her minion, but they sure are a pain in the ass.



I remembered to screenshot a shrine for once! Huzzah! This is a monster shrine, and activating it causes the nearest enemy to become a unique monster. This might sound like a bad idea at first, but unique monsters grant a plethora of XP and loot when killed, so monster shrines are a welcome boon.



Here's some Leapers getting exploded by fire. Just offscreen is the entrance to the Stony Tomb, a completely useless dungeon with no relation to any quests I have that I'm clearing out just because hey, it's there.



And here's the inside of the Stony Tomb! This is literally the first room inside the dungeon--you can see Annor standing by the exit stairs--and already I'm getting swarmed by enemies. This screen also features yet another new monster type, the Beetle! Beetles are assholes. They have average health and a respectable melee attack, but what makes them dangerous is that the entire Beetle family of monsters is lightning enchanted by default. Every single time you hit a beetle, they spew lighting all over the place as though you just hit the world's most dangerous pinata (I do not know how to type the crazy letter a, sorry. Just pretend it's there).

Like so! It may not look like much, but when you have a large amount of Beetles in a small area and they're all taking damage from AoE attacks, they become very dangerous, very quickly.



More levels! I've been saving two extra skill points up to now, and I use my three skill points on three all-new abilities! The first is Fire Wall. This was one of the most powerful spells in the first Diablo game, and while it isn't as useful in Diablo 2, it can still pack a wallop if you build around it. Simply point, click, and a wall of fire appears perpendicular to your character's facing. It requires a bit of practice to aim well, but it can be useful in skilled hands. That said, I won't use it, as my chracter build ignores the spell, taking it only out of necessity as a prerequisite.



The second new spell we learn is Teleport, also known as HAHAHAHA IN YOUR FACE GAME. Click where you want to go, and instantly appear there! You can teleport through walls, over rivers, into and out of enemy packs... Teleport is an amazing spell, and while other classes can gain access to it with a certain expensive piece of gear, only the Sorceress gets the spell by default. At this point, I now have the power to just skip any area I don't feel like dealing with. Very useful. In fact, Teleport is what makes the Sorceress one of the best Magic Find classes (in addtion to naturally high Magic Find and gear that directly supports it without sacrificing resistances or power), as you can simply teleport straight through levels and just kill the boss without stopping to deal with mooks, allowing high-speed farming with virtually no effort required!



And our final point is spent on Glacial Spike. This spell is basically Fire Ball, only frost-based and with a freezing effect. However, it does less damage, travels more slowly, and just kind of sucks. I don't much care for the Frost tree's attack options, and this point is being spent solely as a prerequisite for something useful later on.



Here's Fire Wall in action! As you can see, it appears perpendicular to my character's facing. Since it does damage based on how long an enemy stands in it like a dumbass, casting it as a wall they can just walk right through is inefficient.



Instead, you want to manuever your foes so that they walk through the whole damn thing like this. Doing so makes Fire Wall a respectable attack!



Here's an action shot of Glacial Spike, simply for the sake of completeness. Meh.



We finally finish looting the Stony Tomb and move on to The Dry Hills, which contains a dungeon that's actually useful to our progression through the game. Huzzah!

Next time: Owfirehot deals with her compulsive hoarding problem

I think our builds might complement each other really well, because my biggest problem is enemies with magic immunities/resistances on account of not having any reliable non-corpse-explodey physical damage. I'll probably be throwing myself at the Maggot Lair again and again through most of the evening, so Muntak's meat shielding and warcry buffs would certainly be welcome if you're online.

Even though I am so very much not participating in this LP, I thought I might share just how awesome synergies can be.



By default this skill does 160-164 damage at level 17; not bad, but hardly Nightmare-difficulty-worthy. Add in 20 levels of Blessed Aim, however, and suddenly that bad boy can one-shot most everything in Nightmare. By the time Hell difficulty comes around, most Hammerdins have 20 in Vigor as well, effectively making it the single most devastating attack in the Paladin's arsenal.

Synergies rock. Exploit 'em whenever you can.

Blessed Hammer's brokenness makes me feel better about loving Lightning Fury.