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

Act IV go!



This, in contrast to the last act, is on of my favorites. It's short and sweet, with lots of bad guys and pretty cool scenery.

To get the ball rollin', Tyrael asks Kraken to find some guy called Izual, and kick his ass. No problem!





Izual also took a very long time to kill. I had to go back to town to repair my weapon halfway through. He has a lot of health. By far more than any enemy Kraken's fought before now. (3 times as much as Duriel, twice as much as Mephisto, and only slightly less than Diablo himself!)

That done, Tyrael grants us 2 skill points! Awesome! I put them into Zeal and related synergies.

Huh. This is an ominous looking staircase.



I wonder where it goes?



...Oh.

Well, we're supposed to be down here smashing Mephisto's soulstone at the Hellforge, which is guarded by this guy:



Hephasto, the Smith's big bro. He can be quite challenging in the later difficulties, but right now he's no problem. Anyways, Kraken smashes the soulstone, and is rewarded with gems and runes aplenty! What fun!



Alright! Here we are, Diablo's Sanctuary. Hah! This'll be a breeze, just like the rest of the game up to now. Although, once in a while, a challenge would be-



Balls. Balls balls balls. I got cocky, and underestimated the power of Oblivion Knight curses. Oh well, let's just pick ourselves up and continue. Just gotta be more careful. Now that I know what to avoid, this shouldn't be too-



AUUGHH. Superunique Doom Knight + Fanaticism aura.

Okay, well at least he's taken care of now, the rest of this should be pretty-



DAMMIT. Well, that one was kindof expected. I always die in the Chaos Sanctuary, and it's always thanks to this guy and his minions. The Inspector Infector of Souls. He wasn't too difficult once I got rid of his minions. Once all five seals have been activated, and all three guardians defeated, Diablo appears.



Diablo's deadliest move:



Red Lightning Hose! IIRC, this is lightning and fire elemental. In any case it does a lot of damage, even with max resists. Nothing Kraken couldn't handle, though.



Boring fire. *yawn*



Oh, he's dead! And so is my mercenary. Well, that's normal during boss fights. (I found out recently that hirelings take more damage and deal less damage from/to bosses) He didn't drop anything at all, really. Not even a rare.

Death tally: 3

Well, that's the end of this update, readers! I hope you've enjoyed my contributions so far. I know I'm enjoying reading everyone else's updates, so let's keep it up!

Next time: Baal?!

Well the earlier the better for me (though I live in Newfoundland and thus my definition of 'early' is probably too early for most folks). So any time between 3:30 EST - 9:30 EST I'll be available to jump on.

I'm considering starting a second character on the ladder to use as a bank, though it will require two hours of play to make sure it won't get deleted I think. Still sucks that I need another person to help facilitate item moving online, god I can't wait for D3.

3:30 EST works for me, and I'll help with the bank-grinding if you'd like.

nooooooooooo

It's actually better to have the No Death pressure off, though. Makes things much more relaxed.

And hey, at least Oblivion Knights can't cast Iron Maiden anymore!

You guys are all doing a fantastic job, really. I'm certain at this point that I'll never finish my own LP, but I'm really glad this thing got started because this thread is great fun.

Wow, and I thought my Anti-Luck could be nasty at times...

BleakNigel had the worst luck of any character I've ever played. He got nothing. Nothing! When he beat Hell Baal, he had a vendor wand, three low-level rune words, two quest reward rings and no uniques or set items aside from the Tal-Rasha belt.

It was a weird run.

Whereas I've had uncharacteristic luck (at least by my standards). Take a look at my current accessory kit.



I usually never get anything even remotely that good. Hell, I had TWO Nokozan Relics at one point. Which sucked since you can only have one amulet on at a time.

I'd love to play a game where you could just tie extra amulets around your arms and legs. Or wear a ring on each finger!

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm sure there's some PC RPG out there that uses encumbrance instead of inventory slots. "Wear as much as you can possibly strap to your body" would be an awesome equipment system.

Man, I've had drops like that from Duriel before, but that picture cracked me up :-)

Yeah, it does. I kinda gave up on the super death avoidance in Nightmare, mostly because I can't do it. While it only increases mob health, not damage, players 8 still makes things quite a bit more difficult (and the game takes alot longer). Since it takes longer to kill each mob, you'll get hit more. So being surrounded by a lightning enchanted cursed extra strong unique and its minions is a death sentence (even more so than normal).

Also, thank God for no Iron Maiden! I didn't know about that change, but that explains why I haven't had any seemingly inexplicable deaths.


Bungle, you have to finish! I loved what you've posted so far, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you have to say about the rest of the game! If you need any kind of help, I offer my services, such as they are. Just send me a PM.

Yeah Iron Maiden was a huge pain. Glad to see the back of it.



Holy crap guys, it isn't often you get a drop like this. Found off one of the random bosses in the Tower while doing Countess runs. Funnily I'd just hit L47 so I was able to equip right away. Now to decide what do with those sockets, maybe Um for resists, the mf is right in the middle of the normal item range which is alright, I can certain bump that up with Perfect Topazes.

That was quite an opportune drop, Toothache. I'm not familiar enough with the game beyond Nightmare to advise you on sockets, though.

Anyway, thanks to Aerdan I freed up some space in Frrrt's stash. Only to have a few more uniques drop shortly into Act III.



*sad trombone*

Not sure if anyone's interested in these, but let me know if you are. If there's anyone still in the really early game then the Venom Ward might be useful, it'd certainly make Andariel and Act II's 'POISON EVERYWHERE' a bit less stressful (assuming you're Lv20 which, now that I look at it, makes it a little less useful)

It could be feasible for Andy-NM with a base-item upgrade to exceptional, but yeah it's not really all that impressive.

Good thing he was a summon necro than, because for a lot of other class/builds that would mean horrible doom!

My sorc is getting her ass handed to her now in Act IV Hell. Meteorb lives and dies by how many +skills items you have and the defensive prowess of your mercenary, and I can't find shit for either. Trying to hunt items online as the only player in a room is terrible! I'm seriously considering just remaking the character in single player so I can use /players 8, because trying to farm the gear I need to continue effectively just sucks.

It's true! I've actually thought about doing a naked Necro run someday. It's totally doable.

But yeah, being a Sorc without gear sucks. It's my favorite class when equipped with good gear, but it can be a rough ride getting there.

It's really cool of you to offer help, but there's nothing anyone can do to ease the workload I've placed on myself for this LP. My obsession with game mechanics and minutiae means that every post would have to be as detailed as the first, which means each one would take three or four hours of work per day on a once a week update schedule. And that would last for over a year. I'd rather not do it at all than have it hanging over my head all the time.

I really do want to do it, but man. I'm really impressed with anyone who can complete an LP.

You've got the right idea for the sockets. I'd say Um it for now and then throw some Topazes in there if you can get your resists maxed out on Hell.

I'm blaming you guys for this Druid I seem to have here in the Inner Cloister.

Two fun things to say about him: Firstly, he has deposited every single skill point into summon raven. Secondly, the countess died helplessly while I leaned comfortably against the wall next to her chamber door for about 15 seconds.

A question and a silly fact: I know the classes have weapon proficiencies that determine their attack speed with a given weapon, such as the Sorceress having (very?)fast attack speed with Mauls. What are Druids good at using?

Their in the top-tier for attack speed with pretty much every two-handed weapon (including bows and crossbows, interestingly) except swords.

I had been slowly working my way through Nightmare Act I until I ran into Toothache tonight. I helped him do a countess run and he helped me beat Andy. We then proceeded to systematically dismantle Act II. Having a meat shield certainly takes a lot of the pressure off of sorcery. I also managed to max out chain lightning. I'm doing 1100+ maximum damage now and it should continue to climb as more points go into lightning and my mastery.

There were a few interesting pieces of loot along the way:

Is there anything worse than an ethereal unique?






I may be able to help with that. These bad boys dropped on the way to Nightmare Duriel:


And finally, this was a gift from the Spoony One and I shall treasure it always:

Chromatic Ire is a pretty hefty staff.

Say hello to the last weapon you'll ever need, Joshua!

Hooray!

I approve of your alternative Druiding methods.

Bean, you're awesome I'll be on by 3:00pm EDT to 6:00pm for sure.

Yup. An Ethereal Unique that's one of the best items for your spec and you really want to use. Hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm sure it's bound to happen to SOMEONE by the end of the LP.

(Also, what the hell is a 'Weird'? Did they just run out of fancy ways to say 'Amulet'?)

The Chromatic Ire dropped from Nightmare-Duriel, none of the rest of his junk was all that useful, but at least someone got some use out of it.

ANYWAY, it's that time again!

The Adventures of FRRRT! the Windy Druid, part the Seventh: What the Heck?!


Frrrt leaves the steps of the Pandemonium Fortress and enters Hell-proper. Though the place still doesn't look all that hellish. The first three areas of Hell are barren, desolate places that more emphasize a lonely terrible existance that awaits most souls who wind up in hell, rather than the rather blunt RIVERS OF FIRE and BRIMSTONE and LAVA EVERYWHERE that most people expect when they imagine Hell.

Oh no, that comes later.

Also, don't get used to seeing the Dire Wolf out. I eventually stop using it altogether by the end of Act IV. It did fairly well in Act II, though its damage dropped off considerably in Act III, and through most of Act IV it was dying so often it simply wasn't worth keeping out.


Huh huh huh.

(Didn't Sharkey make fun of that once upon a time? Or am I misremembering my ancient internet websites...)


There. See? See how low the Dire Wolf's HP is compared to the others? It hasn't even really gotten close to the enemy yet.

Poor Ghost, your usefulness was so shortlived.


Anyway, here's the fallen angel Tyreal sent me to beat up free. As Kraken was saying, Izzy has the highest HP of any monster you've seen so far. If your Cold Resist is good he's not particularly hard, but if you're playing with /players 8 on an Open Realm then BOY does he take forever to die.


And the jerkass drops absolutely nothing of value. AND goes on about how HE was the one who told the Three Prime Evils about how they could use the Soulstones and etc etc etc.

Jerkass.


Tyreal gives us two Skill Points though! However, Frrrt holds onto them instead of spending them. Why? Well you can only put so many points into a skill as you level. So while I would like to pump Tornado up, it is maxed out for now until I level again (At which point I get another skill point anyway). So why continue hoarding the points when I could at least put them into Twister or Cyclone Armor for their synergies?

A reason.


Anyway, moving on past Izual's battle site, Frrrt heads down into the more Hell-ish River of Flame.

Oh Lava, what would video games do without you? Even though the molten rock down here is all scenery and there's no way it can hurt you, unlike pretty much every platformer ever, it still adds to the atmosphere of the place. THIS IS A PLACE A PERSON SHOULD NOT BE. Hell aside, the mortal danger any normal person would be in simply being this close to this much lava is huge. The heat alone could be fatal.

Thankfully that's almost never addressed in video games, and most heroes can get as close to lava as they want, just as long as they don't TOUCH it.

Or until they get the Varia and Gravity suits.

Anyway.


What's missing here? That's right! The Wolf and the Oaken Sage. The Sage won't really be getting any more points until I max out all the wind skills, so while the bonus to life it provides is always useful, it's pretty flimsy and will die if most enemies beyond this point so much as look at it.

This is also where I pretty much stopped calling my wolf out. It just wasn't worth the mana anymore.


Hey, it's Smith Jr.! And he also has a hammer for us!

Hephasto can be dangerous if you let him get close, but fortunately Frrrt doesn't need to let him get close. Though Tornado still has a nasty habit of missing hilariously, as you can see in that picture. Though to the skill's credit I was slightly off in my aim.


Anyway, Frrrt goes smashysmashy on Mephisto's Soulstone, forever destroying the Prime Evil and guaranteeing* he'll NEVER EVER come back.

Ever.



*Not a Guarantee


The Forge also spews out a few gems and a Ral Rune. Super!


"Proceed, Heroes, Into Terror's Lair!"

NAME DROP!

I like to think this guy is the Flavie of the Archangels. Just barely worth having a name, yet is nothing more than a guardsman.

Hell, even Flavie shoots monsters that get too close, does THIS joker do anything? Not that I recall.

You're more useless than Flavie, Hadriel!


It's great having a reliable (?) long range attack. Much like the Arcane Santuary, monsters that rely on melee attacks are often sitting ducks for Tornado. Provided it decides to go anywhere near them.


ALRIGHT! Here we go! Endgame time! With a name like 'Chaos Santuary' it HAS to be epic!


You get to fight Diablo in this spot, after you undo five seals. The five seals are in the three corners branching off from this giant room (two in two corners, one in one). Why they didn't just make it six seals I have no idea. I mean, Six is kind of an evil number. A bit. More than wussy ol' Five, anyway!

Blugh... you guys are all already so much further than I am X_x I've got everything ready for the next update except text, so it shouldn't be long before I get that done, but I've had some RL issues that have distracted me from the priority that is Diablo.

Plus Suikoden is shiny and I may or may not be pining for Suikoden II. But that's a secondary priority after RL stuff, which makes Diablo my... thirdidary priority? That works, I guess.

Frrrt heads to the southeast seals first. In the two areas where there are two seals, one will unleash a unique and some minions while the other will just light up and look pretty. They all need to be hit. I like to leave at least one that doesn't spawn a monster up to be the last one I hit, though it's really not necessary.

Though it used to be. Back when I first played this game (on my old system, with the CDs) hitting the seal that spawned Diablo would cause my system to lag, and if it was one of the ones that still had a monster pack attached, well, I'd be dead by the time I got control again. Didn't matter if Diablo doesn't actually appear until the pack is dead, I still got the lag.

Nowadays though it's not necessary for me, though it's a habit that lingers all the same.

I wind up hitting the 'safe' Seals first in each wing. Doh!


This WAS the Infector of Souls. I never got a good screencap of him or his minions since they all died to several Tornados too quickly. It helps if you anticpate where they're going to appear and have several Tornados moving to that location beforehand. They were demolished.


I DO get a shot of Lord de Seis, though. All alone. His minions died as easily as the Infector's did, though Lordy himself managed to avoid some of Frrrt's deadly wind. Didn't save him from the second blast though.


And this was the third unique, whose name I can't even be bothered to remember.

So, uh... enjoy the rare screengrab of the underside of the potions during their drop animation!

Ok. Time for Frrrt to put on his game face. He's facing off against the Lord of Terror, and apparently NOT EVEN DEATH CAN SAVE FRRRT FROM HIM.


I try to keep Cyclone Armor up for most of the fight, though almost all of Diablo's attacks evapourate it immediately. Still, a tiny bit of mitigation is better than none.


As Kraken observed, the mercs have poor survival rates against the Act Bosses.


And here's Diablo's most deadly attack. I have no idea what it's officially called.

I always called it "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD"

Or, sometimes Crimson Lightning.

All I know is that it's incredibly potent, is fire AND lightning, and FOLLOWS YOU (sort of, rather the blast doesn't chase you, but Diablo fires a lot of it out in one big burst and will turn where you're running very quickly)

Taking the full brunt of this in the face without max resists is almost a death sentance. And even if you have max resists, you pretty much need Full Rejuv potions to not die immediately after from Big Red's next attack.


This is one of his less potent attacks, though don't get complacent. Incidental damage can build up quickly in this fight and the last thing you want is to have less than full health and accidentally take a full Crimson Lightning to the face.


Though Frrrt managed to clear the entire Chaos Santuary without dying, he did run into one odd problem fighting Diablo: Running out of Stamina. Despite his high Vitality, one round against the Lord of Terror went on so long that Frrrt started walking while trying to dodge his attacks.

Oops.

I hightailed it out of there through a portal, not to recover or restock on potions, but to restore my Stamina Bar.


Diablo's on the ropes, not able to withstand the assault of Frrrt's deadly gas.


Pffft. I scoff at your attempt at grandstanding, Lord of Terror! I see how low your life is, those little floor flames pose no danger now!


And this is Diablo dying. I was fortunate to get a screengrab before he became obscured by his dying animation and became a bunch of bones on the ground.

It almost doesn't look like he's dying, it's like he's challenging the player to 'bring it'.


He drops no uniques or sets.



Though, I DO make use of that Field Plate for most of Act V, so it wasn't a total loss! Plus the Quarterstaff sells for a nice chunk.


And with the Lord of Terror dead, Tyreal unceremoniously sends us off to Mount Arreat through a red portal.

I was always kind if disappointed how the expansion took all the impact out of Diablo's defeat. Don't get me wrong, I love Act V, I just wish the game led into it a bit more dramatically than 'here's a portal, gtfo kthxbye'

I mean, to enter Act IV you had to cross a pool of blood on a bridge of skeletons to enter an elaborate flaming portal. C'mon, Tyreal, send us to Harrogath in some style!

Oh well, whatever. Welcome to Barbarian land! (NOT PICTURED: Barbarian Land, because the forum is insisting I have 16 pictures posted when I only had 15. WTF, it did the same thing to me Monday with my second post on that update too) Tune in next time for the first part of Act V!

TO BE CONTINUED

YES. SO VERY LONG.

I believe emoticons count as pictures.

...

I'd always avoided making a Javazon because of all the dudes on the internet griping about how overpowered Lightning Fury is and how boring and overplayed the build is because of that. Generally, i enjoy playing weird, quirky builds (i have, among my pats/mats, a singer, smiter and Magic Arrow 'zon) and stupidly overpowered builds don't really interest me.

But then, one day, an ethereal Titan's Revenge dropped.

I took that as a message from God to make a freakin' Javazon already.

Yeah, Titan's Revenge is one of the uniques that you actually want to be Ethereal.

Weird is the best noun.

The Sage stays pretty flimsy all the way through the game, too. If you get to Hell and it's still dying too often for your liking, you might want to consider not dropping any extra points into it and just letting +skills boost it up. Instead, those points could be better spent in Dire Wolf. Why Dire Wolf, you ask? Because points in Dire Wolf actually grant your Grizzly more life, whereas points in Grizzly do not. LOLSYNERGIES

So if both your Sage and Grizzly are dying too frequently, put your extra points into Dire Wolf. If your Grizzly is doing just fine, then dump your points into Sage.

(The truly hilarious thing is that a Necromancer, of all classes, gets the best survivability out of the Oak Sage. Because Necromancers are cheaters.)

You could say that Frrrt took the wind out of Diablo's sails.

Also, the Grizzly is doing just fine for now. We'll see how that is when I hit Hell. But my battle against Nightmare Duriel pretty much left the Grizzly to tank him. I had to resummon it since it would die eventually, but since the fight was so short even Duriel's big hits only took it out twice. Hurricane and Tornado ripped him apart fairly quickly, a far cry from how the Normal Duriel fight went.

But I'll consider beefing Dire Wolf up instead of Sage when I get to that point. I only just maxed Tornado, after maxing Hurricane, and I still got Twister and Cyclone Armor to fill out yet.

You all make me feel so bad for not really getting much time with D2 in at all yet. (Like, I've killed Blood Raven and got interrupted halfway into The Cave floor 1 one night. On Normal.)

At least I'm not LPing? =P (Plus since I'm not playing on Bnet I couldn't even trade with most of you.) I'm definitely enjoying all this though! Especially since even in the past I never did get very far. Maybe I'll get a little more in on my current character in at some point anyway... I like him fine (Paladin aiming for probably an Avenger build since Conviction interests me), just so many other games distracting me.

So... anybody need something completely awesome?