Screenshot Tryhard plays Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

[Tryhard]

When people ask me about my favourite music, movie, book, tv show, etc, I have a hard time deciding. When asked about games, the answer is unashamedly Diablo II with total conviction.

This is basically me just doing a somewhat informative playthrough or log, even for people who haven't played the game, it is 16 years old after all. Diablo II came out in 2000 and an expansion, Lord of Destruction, quickly followed in 2001. It's hard in some respects to say why I like the game so much, because I'm going to be outlining its flaws here just as much as its strengths, but this game was pretty much the definition of crack cocaine throughout my adolescence and I still go back to play it to this day. I understand that there may not be the same interests especially on a site like this but really I'm just trying to have some fun myself and if anyone is interested in the game, I will try to do my best to explain some core mechanics without going too far into it, but the beginning may be a little slow for those familar with it. If you want to play along in a log-style as well, I would absolutely encourage that too.

If you would like to buy it, then it should be relatively inexpensive, and playable without the discs, if you create a Blizzard Battle.net account and then buy it from the store:
https://eu.battle.net/shop/en-us/product/game/legacy-games

Plus, I was looking through some old character logs of challenge runs in Diablo II, and I was pretty inspired from them. Check out this page, last updated 2001. Jeez, long time ago.
http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/diablo2.html
http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/ember.html

Or, probably more accurately, I just want to play some fucking Diablo II. If you want to hear someone who isn't even really that good at a game they played for 16 years and clocked well over 10,000 hours at an estimation embarrassingly gush about it, then I hope that you do enjoy.

Here's my overview on the classes, in order of how much experience I personally have with them.
[spoiler=Classes]

Paladin
Defensive Auras
Offensive Auras
Combat Skills

The paladin is the man, man. I'm pretty sure I will never get tired of playing this class, and he's my favourite by a good margin. He is primarily a melee character, having the secondary focus of being able to give his party members 'auras' as support. I would definitely call him the most versatile character. The paladin generally will use a certain attack from the Combat Skills tree, and there's quite a few attacks that entire builds are based around. Since the idea of auras is pretty integral to the paladin, they have two tree devoted to them, Offensive and Defensive Auras. They generally can help party members in some ways, such as greatly increasing mana regeneration rates for everyone in the party, or increases melee damage and attack rating. While most do benefit the entire party as long as they remain in range, some of them will only affect the paladin. Regardless, he is always greatly appreciated in any group.

I definitely have played paladin the most. In fact, I'm playing one on the side of this currently.

Sorceress
Cold Spells
Lightning Spells
Fire Spells

The sorceress is considered one of the stronger characters in Diablo II, and for pretty good reason. Her ability to use three elements of spells sufficiently without having to rely too much on gear makes her a prime candidate for searching for gear (known as 'magic finding' in the community) for other characters. The reason for this is that she has two of the most ridiculous skills in the game, teleport, which can allow for very fast runs and avoidance of tough enemies, and static field, which is used to immediately take off 25% of a remaining enemies health in range - including bosses. And it used to be even stronger. With exceptions, Cold tends to be the most useful defensively for freezing enemies on higher difficulties, Fire is the most consistent but quite often has enemies that are immune to it, and Lightning is the biggest range of damage but not necessarily consistent or the most accesible. However, she is rather fragile and will require some decent cast rate and hit recovery gear in order not to be instagibbed in some cases.

Sorceress is very effective past early mana problems and so I've played quite a bit of her. Her massively useful teleport spell means that she is usually the fastest to run specific areas of the game without high-end items.

Barbarian
Warcries
Combat Masteries
Combat Skills

The most prevalent melee class, the Barbarian is one that can definitely be strong, but does struggle on higher difficulties if his gear isn't particularly good. Warcries are his buffs to allies and himself, and his debuffs to his enemies respectively. His Battle Orders shout is one of the most useful in the game as it gives huge bonuses to life, mana and stamina to himself and his party. They generally focus on a few combat abilities from the Combat Skills tree and almost exclusively deal physical damage for most of them. Combat Masteries is a tree that allows specialisation into a particular weapon, including the ability to critical hit with that weapon. The masteries can also include physical selfbuffs, such as higher natural resistances, or increased running speed.

I like the Barbarian, but he is rather standard. I think of his skills as mostly basic or just statistical improvements even if they are very helpful. Despite that, I've played a decent amount of him and like I said unless I'm doing something terribly wrong I would say he was one of the most gear-dependent classes.

Amazon
Javelin and Spear Skills
Passive and Magic Skills
Bow and Crossbow Skills

The amazon is a character mostly focusing on javelins, spears, bows and crossbows. They are a character that is a hybrid between melee and ranged combat, and can be effective at both. Bow and Crossbow Skills is exactly how it sounds, and enhances their bow or crossbow ranged attacks to include different elements of damage, such as cold, fire, magic and physical. Javelin and Spear skills are the same for the latter, except in this case some javelin skills are ranged as thrown weapons, and others are close range. While some of the attacks remain as physical damage, they also use lightning and poison. Passive and Magic skills is a tree that has some very useful effects in regards to having a critical hit chance, avoiding enemies attacks, hitting or piercing the enemy, or gaining utility abilities such as a follower Valkyrie. Also known for having huge tits and barely wearing thigh armor until heavy armor sets.

I've played a bit of Amazon, but that was mostly a long time ago, and was usually using bows. I've never really seriously tried a javelin using amazon, which I've heard is very effective without the greatest gear, but I don't have experience of it.

Assassin
Martial Arts
Shadow Disciplines
Traps

The assassin is a character that I've always found to be rather unique and cool looking, but never really played them very much. They typically use claws, which is their class-specific weapon, and some abilities do encourage them to use them (Claw Mastery, Weapon Block, some attack skills). They primarily focus on two aspects, though one is generally more common. The cooler one (in my opinion) is the Martial Arts tree, which allows for close combat skills, some of which generate up to three 'charges' which can then be spent on a finishing move, or a normal attack if you wish, for greater benefits. The other more common type of assassin is one that uses traps, which can be placed on the ground and fire at nearby enemies, but are stationary. These are either lightning or fire damage, and most players tend towards the lightning traps as they are capable of higher amounts of damage, so a trap assassin works quite well as being able to stay at a safe range and just place traps to kill enemies. The Shadow Disciplines tree is a tree that has some great supporting skills, and the assassin gets two great buffs from this tree, Burst of Speed, which increases running and attack speed, and Fade, which increases resistances heavily, physical damage reduction, and lowers curse duration. They also get access to two 'shadow' clone skills which inherit quite a few assassin skills themselves.

Like I said, I've not played that much of the Assassin. I have played a trap assassin before, but haven't really dedicated the time to a martial arts assassin. I don't know why, because that seems pretty awesome.

Necromancer
Summoning Spells
Poison and Bone Spells
Curses

The necromancer is a caster class like the sorceress. Their Summoning tree can be a major part of their class, allowing them to hide behind a wave of minions, which can be very effective. Their other offensive tree, Poison and Bone skills, is direct damaging abilities when compared to minions which, as expected, usually deal poison or magical damage, though there is an exception. A necromancer specialising in direct damage spells can do well into higher levels. The third tree, Curses, is a spell that is placed over a certain range, and will debuff any enemies within it. These usually work well in combination with the other two trees to either boost damage from other sources, severely cripple the enemy, or for utility purposes.

I surprisingly have played very little of the necromancer. Ashamedly, I have not really played a summonmancer seriously, ever. Usually they tend to be more passive, so I generally liked more active characters, but the necromancer is very powerful in his own right.

Druid
Elemental
Shapeshifting
Summoning

The druid is a strange sort of hybrid class that has summoning abilities, elemental abilities (though primarily fire and cold, some are counted as physical damage) and the ability to shapeshift. It's definitely the class that I am least familar with. I saw a lot of the time that people said that the druid sucked, and I'm almost inclined to agree because I have no idea how to build them. That said, I have seen some very effective builds that utilize either Elemental abilities like Hurricane and Tornado, and physical-oriented builds that use either the werebear or werewolf forms in their Shafeshifting tree. Their Summoning tree tends to be more of a support tree that benefits both, but does have a lot of useful summons that give various buffs.

i don't know how to play the druid okay. And I rarely have.

You may have noticed something about these descriptions, and that is that a lot of the classes contain one 'support' skill tab that isn't generally used as a primary build source. Even for the classes that don't, like the sorceress, they generally want to focus on two skill tabs heavily at most because while going into all three is possible, it isn't going to make any of your skills very effective at higher levels. That's a problem that I think a lot of older Diablo II veterans overlook - I've heard quite often about how the build variety and versatility was great in Diablo II, but I have to disagree. Generally classes are locked into 3-4 builds each at most if they want to be effective in Hell, and even then a lot of them can struggle. Sure, most builds will be able to clear Normal and perhaps Nightmare even if they are completely stupid, but I would consider beating Hell as 'beating the game'. Alas, I will expand on this later, probably.

Now, I think there is a thing worth noting: there is a character type called 'hardcore', and I feel that playing it will make this a tad more interesting.


What this means is that once that character dies, they are dead permanently. One chance, one life, you die, nada. The game warns you of this before you start a hardcore character.


So why should we (I) play hardcore over softcore?

• People who play hardcore statistically have big dongs.
• It's a little more interesting for a playlog. If I die in softcore, it's kind of anti-climatic by saying "oh, i died to these enemies but I came back so it's good". At least there would be tension in every update as I could potentially die permanently at any time.
• It's not really something I'm well adjusted to and I tend to play normally quite reckless, as all that's on the line is gold and an experience loss potentially.
• Hardcore is more about the journey than the destination - a lot of softcore involves getting to the endgame where you can gear up for successive runs. And the endgame is pretty poor in Diablo II. Hardcore is about seeing how you get through hell, literally with shit gear.
• It gives me a chance to play a character that I'm less experienced with and learn as I'm going along myself. Though I will be referring to tips on what I should be doing to survive in hardcore.
• It is considered an ultimate challenge for a reason, not dying once over the course of a playthrough is something that I'm not sure I've ever done... I've always made mistakes.
• There is much less focus on the trading and economy. Far less, in fact, because once again it is more about the journey. Thus I could play singleplayer if I choose to with no worry about trading with other players.
• I have a big dong. I swear.

Hopefully I survive long enough for me to make a decent amount of observations or rants at least. If not, you can laugh at me dying very early.

I've played very little of hardcore, but the last time I did I played an assassin who made up the final boss of Act V, and eventually died due to running out of resources. Now, on that occasion I was following additional 'Ironman' rules which included not being able to speak or buy from NPCs except to hand and receive quests. I'm not going to go that far this time. Since I have barely played hardcore through the 16 or so years I've been playing this game, I was going to lean towards one of the so-called "easier" classes to play with, so I'm not exactly gimping myself. So who can we eliminate?

Barbarian: Hard to play without sufficient gear on higher difficulties/levels, so if there was going to be any I would cross out, would be him.
Paladin: Played to death, and can struggle on Hell. I'm playing one at the moment and I don't really want to go overboard with the paladin, even though I do love him. He owns.
Sorceress: While she's probably the best character for beating the game on softcore, she's extremely fragile and you would need to be very careful playing her on hardcore. I have also played one recently so once again not really too interested comparatively.
Druid: i don't know how to play him. probably not the best idea

I would say that three easier options for a relatively inexperienced hardcore player would be the necromancer, the amazon and the assassin. Here's why. The necromancer, when specialising in summons, can be very passive in their playstyle and allow for their minions to clear most enemies. Actually, sometimes I can just afk and be writing this and taking screenshots they are so passive. They are also pretty gear independent and that's why they are considered the "easiest" choice. The amazon is a little trickier, but using javelins I've heard that she's also good at literally throwing bolts of lightning and clearing rooms. The assassin is pretty similar, as she would use lightning traps and try to stay at a relatively safe distance. So of these three, I was pondering which one to use. If there's no preference, then I might just decide myself.

The other things I'm deciding on is whether to play single-player or on multiplayer Battle.net ladder. Okay, so for those don't know, Battle.net hosts different "realms" for Diablo II to this day, generally for different regions (USWest, USEast, Europe, etc). These characters on each realm are separate. On each realm, you can create a "ladder character" which is a character created in a specific time period (as ladders are reset periodically) that will gain access to exclusive items and content only available on ladder. I always thought that was pretty lame for anyone not wanting to play on ladder, so one of the mods created for singleplayer, PlugY, allows ladder content to be accessed there, with some other game changes. I'm wondering if I should play singleplayer with PlugY instead of the realms because I would hate to lose a character to lag or something, which does happen. Another thing is that singleplayer allows the use of a certain function, the /players function, in order to spoof the amount of players in the game. When someone joins the game in Diablo II, the enemies become stronger, but give more experience and I believe an increased chance for better quality items. You can't set the number of players manually in a Battle.net game but you can in single player, allowing for up to /players 8 (as the maximum number of players in a single game).

If you've got any opinions on that or what I should do, let me know, but I'm currently leaning towards playing (with a summon necromancer) on singleplayer with PlugY (potentially disabling the other features added outside of the ladder exclusives) without the use of manipulating how many players in the game i.e using /players command. And if you have anything else to say or yell at me about, then I'll be glad to hear it. Hopefully you aren't completely confused if you don't know what the hell Diablo II is, and if so then maybe I will be able to explain why in future updates. Lastly, it may be a little strange to be doing a screenshot or narrative let's play or whatever you would call this of a game like Diablo, and I agree it will be a challenge, which is why I am recording my playthrough externally to upload some animated parts as well when necessary. Edited August 31, 2016 by Tryhard

[Jedi]

AWESOME some D2! I used to play this all the time, I even helped people with Baal runs back in the day, I need to find my discs again in the mess that is my gaming collection.

Martial Arts focused Assassin is really fun, but I also mostly played the Pally (usually go with a Zealer) or Sorc (I tend to focus Ice Magic, but since the higher difficulties start adding in those random elemental immunities I have to put some in others). I like hardcore runs too, I think I'll put in a vote for an Assassin.

[Serpent of Sheol]

FOLLOWED

awww yis

still haven't found a windforce yet ;__;

my main character is a martial arts focused assassin and i can confirm they are really fun. my vote is on an assassin because of this

Edited August 31, 2016 by Knight of Egg

[Tryhard]

I feel as though I've played almost every form of Paladin. Sorc is great too, I usually stuck with the reliable fire+ice, meteor and frozen orb or such.

as for windforce, it just ain't happening. ever. though I do believe it dropped in value after a while, it's still considered the "best" for a maxed out bowazon, right?

if the people will it, I can definitely do a martial arts assassin. though you'll have to forgive me about wanting to do a little bit of prep softcore testing with one first, yes? wouldn't want to embarass myself. though the other thing is that I believe that the MA assassin is rather gear dependent, while the traps assassin is not.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Tryhard

[Jedi]

I feel as though I've played almost every form of Paladin. Sorc is great too, I usually stuck with the reliable fire+ice, meteor and frozen orb or such.

as for windforce, it just ain't happening. ever. though I do believe it dropped in value after a while, it's still considered the "best" for a maxed out bowazon, right?

if the people will it, I can definitely do a martial arts assassin. though you'll have to forgive me about wanting to do a little bit of prep softcore testing with one first, yes? wouldn't want to embarass myself. though the other thing is that I believe that the MA assassin is rather gear dependent, while the traps assassin is not.

Yeah! Frozen Orb with a bit of Fire is how I tended to go about things.

I don't mind if you go with a more trap oriented assassin for this, I was just saying MA Assassin is fun. I think the traps would be nicer in the beginning as well.

[Tryhard]

Hmm, I'll think about it. Pretty much everyone I've seen has done a trapper build, maybe a kicksin or something more interesting like that could work without any great gear. I honestly don't have a clue.

If you do find your discs again, all you need is the CD keys, my discs were scratched beyond recognition and thankfully you can redeem and download it from the Blizzard site. (though they do change your 20-character CD key into a new 26-character one)

Edited August 31, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 1]Alright, I've settled on a couple things: I'll be trying to make a hybrid kick assassin (that is, primarily using one of the kick martial arts skills) and traps. While she won't be as strong in one specific tree, she should make both a decent melee and utility character, and we'll see as we go along (though that isn't the most assuring). That all said, resets to skills and stats are available if I want to use them. Secondly I'll be almost exclusively using the /players 8 option I talked about earlier should I remember. For those unaware, this increases the enemy monsters hit points, damage, attack rating and other such things, but grants more experience and item drop chance as if more players were in the game. This should allow for a more brisk leveling pace but will also make more difficult enemies even stronger (and the HP increase can take quite a while as well). The exception to this would be any areas that I go back to farm on if necessary, but further information on the players setting can be found here.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Player_Settings

The other thing is that I will be using the PlugY mod that I discussed earlier, that allows for ladder exclusive content. Additionally, Diablo II has a limited 'stash' for each character that allows storage of items. It is rather limiting and probably the reason why Diablo III included a shared stash, and PlugY is set up that it can enable an extended stash with multiple pages. While on the realms it is relatively easy to make level 1 'mule' characters that store a lot of the items you want to keep and trade between them, but this is not really possible in singleplayer. Otherwise, PlugY changes nothing about the gameplay. Hopefully no-one really considers this a cheat, as I tend to be a hoarder. Here is an overview of PlugY, which needs to be run on a slightly older version of Diablo II, but that isn't really an issue.

http://diablo.gamepedia.com/PlugY

Now for a name. Of course, I now can't make any hilarious 'boner' puns with the necromancer, which is truly disappointing for everyone.

Clever, but no, not this time. Let's go with something a little more serious and edgy.

And so, the Diablo II opening. Blizzards cinematics in Diablo II and Warcraft III were nothing short of amazing for the time.

Here's an excerpt from the Lord of Destruction manual about the assassins:

In the third century, two brothers rose to dominance from within the ranks of the Vizjerei clan of mages; their names were Horazon and Bartuc. Both were equally powerful and ambitious, and both were fascinated by the power one could obtain through the practice of Demonic Magics; however, the two differed in their views regarding how best to study demons. While Horazon viewed demons as a great source of power, he felt that in order to use that power best, you must harness a demon and bend him to your will. His brother, on the other hand, grew to sympathize with the demonic powers and felt (with no small influence from the demons) that the demonic forces were best understood by allying with the Hellish authorities so their secrets could be shared freely, and that is exactly what he did. Their diametrically opposed philosophies caused a great schism that split the ranks and tore the Vizjerei clan apart.

When at last their fierce rivalry culminated in inevitable violence, the combatants learned too late that they had both been played as pawns by the demonic host. The ensuing battle was so great it set the very firmament aflame, and when it was complete and the stillness of remorse was all that remained, Bartuc lay dead, Horazon had vanished into self-imposed exile, and the Vizjerei had learned a costly lesson. The small surviving group of sorcerers, the remnants of the once-great Vizjerei clan, resolved forevermore to spurn Demonic Magics and set about renewing their studies in the Elemental Magics. To further ensure that a similar tragedy could never happen again, they formed a secret order whose sole purpose was to police the mage clans, destroying corruption wherever they found it. This was the birth of the Viz-Jaq'taar, the Order of the Mage Slayers otherwise known as the Assassins.

Knowing that such an order might itself be corrupted if exposed to the power of magic, the Vizjerei deemed it of the utmost importance that these Assassins maintain the purest, most focused minds. They should live in meditation and draw their power from within, not from external forces that could easily mask demonic interference. To this end, the Order would not employ the magic arts directly; rather, they would use ingenious devices and enchanted items to battle those possessing great magical powers. To further their campaign against demonic corruption, they concentrated on honing the natural martial abilities of their bodies, both physical and mental.

Because the Order remains veiled in secrecy, few people, even among the mages, know more than rumors about this mysterious organization. Their reputation has been one shrouded in ambiguity. Legends of their stalwart vigilance, and the widespread fear of their retribution, have kept many mages away from the temptations of corruption, so actual sightings have been rare. However, with the reemergence of the Three, and the subsequent increase in demonic manifestations in the world, the Order has shown a greater public presence of late.

I like how they are defined as anti-mages and yet there is no particular advantages compared to other classes like barbarian or paladins for taking down sorceresses or spellcasters in PvP.

With that out of the way, starting the game, you can click or use the help hotkey to see this screen. We find ourselves in a run down walled-off Rogue Encampment.

This is all the 'tutorial' that you're really going to get, and it's fairly light on the details. Here's what newer players have to know: every character has a health and mana pool, conveniently displayed for you in the bottom left and right corners. There is two skills keys, corresponding to left and right mouse button. Diablo is a hack and slash series and as you know there will be a lot of clicking. Beyond that, there are various windows you can open, and stamina meter and experience bar, and your belt containing potions, corresponding by default to the hotkeys 1, 2, 3 and 4.

So what do we start with? Not a lot.

Here's our starting weapon, a Katar. This is an weapon that is part of the 'Claw' class, which is only usable by Assassins, fittingly. As you can see, they have some very low requirements in terms of stats to use the weapon, and durability means that we will occasionally have to repair it. The damage and attack speed (though "very fast" is somewhat vague) can also be seen.

On our other hand, we have a simple buckler. This instead of damage, has a defense rating and a chance to block physical attacks.

We start off with two basic scrolls in our inventory, and these are the Scrolls of Identify and Scrolls of Town Portal, respectively. The former is used to identify magical items that often drop, and the latter is to open a portal that will immediately lead back to the nearest town. Lastly, we have four minor healing potions on our belt that each heal our assassin for a whopping 45 hit points.

Behind us, we can see the 'stash'. As I described earlier, this is your storage, and if you are playing an unmodded version of the game, there is both less room and no ability for several pages, so you have to be far more scrupulous in item management.

As we can see, there is a man somewhat excited to talk to us immediately after we begin. Let's see what he has to say.

Greetings, stranger. I'm not surprised to see your kind here. Many adventurers have traveled this way since the recent troubles began. No doubt you've heard about the tragedy that befell Tristram. Some say that Diablo, the Lord of Terror, walks the world again.

I don't know if I believe that, but a Dark Wanderer did travel this route few a weeks ago. He was headed east to the mountain pass guarded by the rogue monastery. Maybe it's nothing, but evil seems to have trailed in his wake. You see, shortly after the Wanderer went through, the Monastery's Gates to the pass were closed and strange creatures began ravaging the countryside.

Until it's safer outside the camp and the gates are re-opened, I'll remain here with my caravan. I hope to leave for Lut Gholein before the shadow that fell over Tristram consume us all. If you're still alive then, I'll take you along. You should talk to Akara, too. She seems to be the leader of this camp. Maybe she can tell you more.

Warriv here is talking about the Dark Wanderer, who was present in that opening cinematic and is the canon protagonist of the first Diablo game. Akara herself is found to the eastern side of the camp, beside a tent.

I am Akara, High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye. I welcome you, traveler, to our camp, but I'm afraid I can offer you but poor shelter within these rickety walls. You see, our ancient Sisterhood has fallen under a strange curse. The mighty Citadel from which we have guarded the gates to the East for generations, has been corrupted by the evil Demoness, Andariel.

I still can't believe it... but she turned many of our sister Rogues against us and drove us from our ancestral home. Now the last defenders of the Sisterhood are either dead or scattered throughout the wilderness. I implore you, stranger. Please help us. Find a way to lift this terrible curse and we will pledge our loyalty to you for all time.

...

There is a place of great evil in the wilderness. Kashya's Rogue scouts have informed me that a cave nearby is filled with shadowy creatures and horrors from beyond the grave. I fear that these creatures are massing for an attack against our encampment. If you are sincere about helping us, find the dark labyrinth and destroy the foul beasts.

May the Great Eye watch over you.

This gives some backstory, but I won't quote what everyone in the game does say. It isn't really necessary as in Diablo the story is somewhat anemic. It does its job, at least, but don't expect anything brilliant other than the atmosphere being on point. More importantly, she gives us the ability to buy and sell from her.

Akara sells a number of magical items that include sorceress staves, paladin scepters and necromancer wands, and introduces us to the concept of a merchant or trader. We start out with absolutely no gold, so this isn't very helpful right now.

We can open our quest log and see that we have our first (optional) quest. The 'I' at the top signifies what 'Act' we are in, which is the chapters of the game, more or less. Including the Lord of Destruction, there are five acts in total.

There is some other characters in the encampment, namely Kashya, who oversees the rogue mercenaries, Charsi, the blacksmith who can repair your equipment, and Gheed, a pretty hilarious merchant that can allow you to gamble, which means trading gold for randomly rolled stats that you don't know beforehand. Alright, enough exposition. Let's go kill stuff dead. Because that's what Diablo does best. Heading out to the first area outside the Rogue Encampment, the Blood Moor and... music. There isn't a huge amount of music in Diablo II, but what is there is fantastic.

The first enemy I came across is a Fallen, a cowardly little goblin-like creature that runs away more often than not. I always found it interesting that the hero characters start out with no spells or skills inherently (as the sorceress and necromancer get weapons that give them a level of a starting skill), though. Like many games, it seems you're inexplicably pest control at the start of the game. Very quickly, I become level 2. Let's take a look at the skill trees.

Here's the first skill in the Martial Arts tree, Tiger Strike. It's worth noting that the skills at the top of the tree are unlocked from level 1, while each space down the tree is an additonal required six levels, so level 6 for the next, level 12 for the next, etc, up to level 30. Tiger Strike is a basic charge skill that does damage on next martial arts skill or basic attack after building up charges. For reference, the highest level you can put a single skill to with points is 20.

The other skill is Dragon Talon, and is probably going to be one of our main attacks. It's a kick that can knock some enemies back and boosts the damage and chances to hit, and when leveled up can kick multiple times. It is worth noting that damage and attack are different, the former being self-explanatory but the latter is actually increasing your attack rating i.e chance to hit.

Moving to the Shadow Disciplines tree, there is Claw Mastery first. A rather simple skill that boosts Claw damage, chance to hit and critical hit chance. A critical hit will give additional damage to an attack, but since this is when attacking with claws, this won't work with our usage of the Dragon Talon ability as we are kicking. Still, it is required to get some very useful abilities under it in the tree, and we are mostly using the claw weapon to attack currently right now anyway because of mana concerns, so this is what I put my first point into. One of the interesting things about claws is that you can dual wield them, which is exclusive to the Assassin and the Barbarian. I end up using two katars as I believe that it does slightly increase attack speed when you do dual wield.

Next up is Psychic Hammer, and now we get to discuss a pretty useless skill. It's a skill that does low magical/physical damage and pushes an enemy back, and doesn't scale well at all. Diablo II has quite a few abilities that are just either terrible in general or don't gain that much benefit from being leveled more than once. Psychic Hammer happens to be awful, but it is a prerequisite to some useful abilities, so we may end up having to get it just for that.

Last, in the Traps tree, is Fire Blast. It's a fairly low damage spell that is thrown from a distance, and for most purposes is unneeded. It can be helpful for lightning trap assassins to use some fire damage, but very rarely. You may have noticed all those "receives bonuses from" underneath the skill. Those are called synergies and mean that leveling other skills will boost the effects of this skill. A lot of other trap abilities for the assassin boost the damage of Fire Blast of 9% per level, as you can see.

Gaining another level shortly after from just wandering in the Blood Moor, I put it into Dragon Talon. Here I am, showing what Dragon Talon looks like against a zombie. It isn't the flashiest skill, but it does work well, especially when we level it up to gain additional kicks.

It is worth noting that Dragon Talon damage is based on the boots that you have equipped, and so I will be hunting out new/higher levels of boots when available as they will generally do more damage.

After gaining that level, let's take a look at the stats page that you get.

Strength increase melee damage, and is required to equip various gear. Most of the time it is advised that you only put as much strength as is required by the gear you want to use, unless you have an excess of points and want to increase your melee damage.

Dexterity increases attack rating (which influences chances to hit), block chance, and defense. There are weapons that require dexterity, such as bows or javelins. Dexterity has a usage depending on if you want to be able to block physical attacks, otherwise is probably left at base value unless you need to use something that requires an amount of dexterity.

Vitality gives you life and stamina. For every character, almost all their points is going into vitality, as life is essential, especially on hardcore.

Energy is last and determines how much mana a character has. Almost everyone who has played Diablo II for an extended period thinks that energy is more or less useless past the opening part of the game. The reason for this is that later on mana almost becomes a non-issue, and even more so if you are prepared to use mana potions. There are two times it may be useful - one, a sorceress that uses energy shield, therefore takes damage to their mana rather than their health. Two, a character that uses the respecialisation option in order to reset points later on and needs mana continuously at the start of the game. Otherwise, even for a sorceress who doesn't use energy shield, energy is pretty worthless compared to vitality.

So four stats, where energy is basically useless for most builds, strength is mostly for requirements of equipment, and dexterity is that too, but you may want to pump for chance to hit or blocking chance, and everything else goes in vitality. Not exactly great.

Also worth noting is the PlugY pages at the bottom of the stat sheet that were added. These summarise the statistics given by equipment for your character, and are very handy compared to counting up faster cast rate or such.

Getting another level, I put one into Tiger Strike. Here I show off how you use the three charge combo system and switch to my kick to do very good damage for this early in the game.

Shortly after, I get my first magical item, and it's a ring. Identifying it, I find that it is a +5% poison resist ring. Yes, that is a 5. They look rather confusing in the font for this game, but you will see the difference between it and 6. You'll notice that I've went back to town and sold items to buy tomes - tomes are those books in the right of my inventory that can store up to 20 scrolls of identify and town portals. Obviously necessary for saving space, and you can buy them at Akara.

Eventually, I find the Den of Evil cave and go inside to clear it.

A little easter egg that others might not know: in the Den of Evil quest, when the remaining monsters update comes up, if you let a Fallen Shaman revive, it will jump the number to 666, pretty much confirming that Shamans are the devil. I also hit level 5, putting another point into Dragon Talon for now.

You'll find a superunique boss in the Den of Evil called Corpsefire. A superunique is a boss monster that always has the same name and usually the same modifiers. For example, Corpsefire is a (blue) zombie that has the spectral hit modifier, which adds elemental resistances and extra elemental damage. There are also regular unique monsters, which are randomly generated enemies. Both of these types have some minions in their pack that benefit from their bonuses.

After clearing the Den of Evil, I return to Akara who grants me the use of an additional skill point free of charge. I hit level 6 by the end of the Den, but before I put points into a potentially new skill, I go ahead and sell everything I don't need that I picked up. Tip: non-magical (that is not magic, rare, set or unique, which is all different types of items with modifiers on them that we will see later. Their rarity (and worth) tends to be in that order, as well.) throwing knives always sell for 480, and its an easy way to make a little bit of gold early on.

New skills have unlocked, and Fists of Fire is the first. Like Tiger Strike, it is a charging ability that has three separate effects. After one charge, it does fire damage in a small radius. Two will increase the radius and explode, and three will increase the effect and give a slight lasting flame effect. Unfortunately, it doesn't tend to be that useful when compared to other skills in the tree.

Dragon Claw is also available. While it's not especially noteworthy to us, it is required for a later ability that we do want. It does have a decent damage bonus on it but it also requires dual wielding claws to work. That said, Dragon Talon is generally more versatile and does multiple attacks eventually.

Next is Burst of Speed. This is the first of the Assassin's self buffs and a great one at that. The increases to running and attack speed can make things so much quicker at the start of the game. I dump my level six point into it, as it is always useful to have up currently.

Lastly, in the trap tree, these two can go together. Shock Web is a skill like Fire Blast that isn't fantastic on its own, but does synergise another lightning trap that can be core for a trap assassin. Blade Sentinel, on the other hand, does not synergise and has pretty low damage, but is a prerequisite for another skill that certain assassins can use.

Slow going, I know, but I'm going to be briefer in following updates. This is just for an initial basic explanation of the game and the first quest. If you want to ask anything, please do so, but I am going to skip over some of the duller parts from now on. If you haven't played the game, play it.

Edit: some technical/image trouble in getting this posted. Should be fixed now.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 2]After we pick up again, I head to the Cold Plains and pick up the first 'waypoint', allowing us to go back to town freely without using a town portal scroll. I also fight Coldcrow in the cave subarea in the Cold Plains, and she's cold enchanted, which is terribly because it slows you drastically as a melee character from attacking (or running), and causing her to frost nova as they die, hurting you more. It was annoying.



One of the first things I go ahead and do after I reach the Cold Plains waypoint is go and gamble at Gheed for some chain boots. They'll give me higher kick damage, and the faster hit recovery isn't actually a bad modifier on them too - it allows character to recover faster from being hit, obviously, but Diablo II uses 'breakpoints' in order to determine frame advantage for things like faster hit recovery and faster cast rate. So reaching certain thresholds percentages can be important on some characters.

You know, Blood Raven is usually a pain at the most, but this time she got absolutely destroyed by the tiger strike + dragon talon combo.


I was pretty shocked to see that I found a set item before a unique, though, in one of the side areas beside Blood Raven, the Mausoleum.



Arctic Furs armor. Set items aren't usually very special on their own, and there are a lot of sets that are just really not worth it, but this is a good item for low level characters if you can find the entire set.

After that, I get my first mercenary from turning in the Blood Raven quest. The Act 1 rogue mercenaries are fairly weak, but having a cold arrow one can slow enemies, which is helpful.


I do find my first rare shortly after in the Crypt, however, but it isn't really worth using. Rare items do tend to have more modifiers on them compared to magic items, however, and if luck is on your side you can find some really good rares that rival or even surpass uniques for a character.


Everyone who plays this game knows lightning enchanted on monsters is the worst thing ever. It disperses charged bolts every time you hit them, and without good lightning resistances it can kill you very quickly.


I'm continuing to put points into Dragon Talon and work on prerequisites otherwise, and when reaching the Dark Wood for the third quest, I hit level 12.


Cobra Strike is the martial arts tree skill and the one I'm going to put my level 12 point into, as it allows for life and mana leech from enemies. This will stop me having to use potions so often. It's a pretty great skill just for that, so we're going to leave it at level 1, and can help during the lower levels.


Weapon Block is useful if you are using dual claws, but I'm mainly getting it as a prerequisite. That said, an assassin that doesn't use a shield and instead uses dual claws will find this skill great for survivability. There is no way to externally raise the block chance, unlike with a shield where you can just raise dexterity, however.


Cloak of Shadows is useful, but has a strange effect. It reduces the immediate range of light while it is active, raises the assassins defense, lowers enemies defense, and blinds nearby targets. It's a crowd control debuff, then, and it is quite handy for later on. That said, you will probably not need more than one point in it even if the duration is low. One of the most useful things it can do is stop/reset ranged enemy attacks momentarily.



Charged Bolt Sentry and Wake of Fire are the first two placeable traps. They both sit stationary on the ground after placed and will shoot their abilities five times before expiring. Stationary traps universally have a limit of five of them being active on the ground at a time. Respectively, they do lightning and fire damage of course, but we won't be focusing on either of these traps.

Going through the Dark Wood, Cobra Strike can really be helpful against enemies in conjunction with Dragon Talon because you can charge life and mana leech quickly and then push the enemy back. And of course with Burst of Speed, that increases your attack speed as well. Up to level 6 on Dragon Talon now, which means two kicks for every usage.


Here's what Cloak of Shadows looks like, too.


Rescuing Cain after getting the Scroll of Inifus and returning to the Stony Field, and heading to Tristram. Definitely one of the most memorable music tracks from the first two Diablo games.


That Amplify damage curse hurts, man.

After freeing Cain I get this ring as a reward from Akara. 10% faster cast rate on rings can be very useful, so I start wearing it for now.


Not the first shrine I've come across, which gives temporary boosts or regeneration etc, but this one always made me giggle in the most juvenile way. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )


I find a decent rare katar that I now switch to primarily using. I also find a 12% faster hit recovery grand charm, which is pretty nice as well. I'll keep it in my inventory for now.



Killing the Countess got me a Ral rune, which is my first, and a pretty good one considering the Countess on Normal. I may run through here a few more times on Normal after I finish Act I to get some more runes.


I also gamble some light plated boots. I'm going to probably be doing this often to have some of the best boots I can have at the time because it directly affects Dragon Talon damage.


The Smith pretty much gets stunlocked by the Dragon Talon. He's not as cool as The Butcher anyway.


Getting through the Jail brings me to this guy, who I hate. He managed to kill my mercenary, cursed and cold enhanted. I really want to get 'cannot be frozen' as quickly as possible.


Get this decent wrist blade before I go down to the catacombs, though the knockback modifier on it might actually be detrimental. Haven't put the points in dexterity for it yet.


I do level up to level 18 right before fighting Andariel.

Claws of Thunder could probably be a decent attack considering its damage, and seems to follow using Lightning for one charge, Nova for two and Charged Bolt for three. It would probably be more effective when compared to Fists of Fire because lightning tends to be extremely damaging and there is ways to deal with lightning immunes, as fire immunes tend to be common.


Dragon Tail is the other kick finisher move, and can do well as it additionally does fire damage. However, it is one attack as opposed to Dragon Talon's multiple kicks, and seems to give a lot less attack rating, even if it might do more damage, so Dragon Talon is still preferred.


Fade is one of the best defensive moves in the game. It's the second self-buff for the assassin, and it is extremely useful. Fade gives a large amount of resistances to the assassin and cuts down curse duration. Another thing is that it has an unspecified physical damage reduction % with each level up to 20, giving 20% physical damage reduction, which is also great. Unfortunately it can't be cast at the same time as Burst of Speed so we will switch to it later when survivability becomes more of an issue.


Shadow Warrior summons an assassin clone as a minion that will use the two abilities that the assassin has selected at the time. This is what I'm going to put the first point into as it gives the most immediate effect, but it's nice to have a tank to hide behind somewhat. Its damage isn't particularly impressive at level 1 in the skill, but that will be all it has for now.


Blade Fury is interesting as it can be useful as a one point skill as a ranged option for the assassin, as it deals weapon damage. It is actually capable of doing good damage while still remaining relatively safe, even if you need to be stationary to use it.

I didn't even know this until recently, but antidote potions can be used to give poison resistance, and drinking a lot of them stacks their duration. Because of that, you can get a bunch before the Andariel fight, and I already had around 30 before this from my gear. Also yeah, I leave stat points unassigned. It's a bad habit of mine.


Man, Andariel is so easy when you have high poison resist and some manner of life leech. It can actually be a pretty challenging fight for a low level character that has to kite her around. Unless you have some sort of fire attack, which she is incredibly weak to. Featured: my Shadow Warrior struggling to kill a few fallen in the background.


Act 1 completed, and looking pretty good.

After all that, I run the Countess a few times just to get some additional runes before moving on to Act 2. I make the Stealth runeword (Tal + Eth runes) in a Studded Leather two socketed armor I picked up. It's a very good low level runeword, especially for casters but any character can use it. I give my mercenary the Arctic armor for now.



RECAP
LEVEL 20

MARTIAL ARTS:
9 Dragon Talon
1 Tiger Strike
1 Dragon Claw
1 Cobra Strike

SHADOW DISCIPLINES:
1 Claw Mastery
1 Psychic Hammer
1 Burst of Speed
1 Weapon Block
1 Cloak of Shadows
1 Fade
1 Shadow Warrior

TRAPS:
1 Fire Blast

Edited September 2, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 3]First thing I do is head down to the Sewers to kill Radamant. What is annoying is that I can't life leech off skeletons, and there's a decent amount of them in this act, too. I get a new Act 2 mercenary (Defiance aura) but he dies for the first time here. Well, a skill book that gives me another free skill.

Interesting drop of Hrasus' boots here, the faster run walk is nice but since they are chain boots I believe they do less damage than what I've got currently. It's unfortunately that usually by the time when you complete one of the lower level sets with a new character they tend to outlive their usefulness.

I get Dragon Talon up to level 12 as my primary skill, which allows it to do three kicks. The damage it adds is decent and it gives a pretty huge attack rating buff. It feels like the Paladin's Zeal in that regard.

I've been picking up a few runes from enemies, but they're mostly the very low ones such as El, which is to be expected. I'm looking out for any decent socketable items as well but not really sure which runewords I'm particularly looking for. Lore (Ort + Sol, in helm) can be a very good lower level one as it gives +1 skills.

Poison can be pretty annoying. I think I came across a random unique Unraveller and he poisoned me for like literally three minutes. While you can't die from poison, it will take you all the way down to 1. Even though I could have easily used a town portal scroll and went back to town I was impatient because I was almost done with the area anyway, so I just waited in an area with no enemies.

Getting the cube isn't too much trouble, though I do try to clear the areas for some extra experience, and with enemies having extra health, it takes a while to kill compared to Act 1.

Now that I have the cube, I can combine the gems and rejuvanation potions and sort out the stash in case I ever need the ones I have, which is nice.

I find a ring with half freeze duration on it. While I would prefer something with 'cannot be frozen', I don't believe either work for this Act boss anyway. It's worth using for now anyway.

The maggot lair is a horrible, terrible area that everyone who has played this game hates. It's bad enough that all the normal beetle enemies are lightning enchanted, but the tight corridors make this area pretty unbearable, especially as a summon necromancer or in a party in general. You can't navigate for shit. At least I can life leech off the beetles, so it wasn't as bad.

When you step on the pimple, it's gross.

Heading all the way to get the amulet was fairly uneventful, too. The serpents charge can be pretty annoying and eventually deadly, but thankfully my Shadow Warrior and mercenary were able to tank.

Reach the Arcane Sanctuary, and while looking for the Summoner and killing him, I reach level 24.

Blades of Ice seems nice because it freezes, but the duration of freezing and chilling effects is lowered in Nightmare and Hell I believe, so it'll become somewhat less effecitve from what I can see. Still, it can be nice to have to freeze a certain upcoming boss if you have no other means of doing so, but I'm not interested in the elemental martial arts tree, and I don't have the other skills.

Dragon Flight is the reason I've been putting a point into Dragon Claw and Dragon Tail, and one point here as well. It functions as a teleport, though you need line of sight and an enemy to target, but even though in that regard it is basically an inferior version of teleport, it is still useful for escaping

Mind Blast is an interesting skill. Its damage is wholly useless like Psychic Hammer, but it stuns in addition to pushing back, and has a chance to convert them temporarily as a minion. Probably one of the best crowd control abilities in the game, though only one point is really necessary, even if the conversion rate is low. I'm not so sure if it can stunlock certain enemies but I would imagine it can at least for regular enemies, I haven't really tried it out before but have seen it used by other assassins.

Lightning Sentry is the most damaging lightning trap, and one that trap assassins will use a lot. It also fires ten times before expiring. Not really anything special about it other than it from 1-X damage, so it is highly inconsistent.

Wake of Inferno is the last fire trap and a decent skill, though it can have trouble hitting enemies. While it doesn't have as high damage as Lightning Sentry, it does do more consistent damage, but fire immunes are also more common than lightning immunes. Strikes me as a skill that is more useful for leveling with traps then respecialisation into lightning traps, but perhaps it has some place in a fire/lightning trap build I'm unaware of along with Wake of Fire.

Duriel is an asshole. Mercenary and Shadow Warrior don't last long, but it does last long enough for me to charge a three hit Cobra Strike combo and then kick Duriel and get some leech back. I keep summoning, chugging mana potions and constantly having a town portal scroll up to return to town/buy potions. This has always been one of the most difficult fights in the game, especially for new characters on Normal. Duriel is not an easy boss at all, especially for melee characters. Even if my character is doing okay damage, it still takes a long time before he finally goes done taking a lot of previous Shadow Warriors with him.

Not really much of note happened, no spectacular drops even though I didn't really expect them, but good progress. A lot of Act II was just clearing out those tombs, skeletons and beetles. Took longer than it should have probably.

RECAP

LEVEL 25

MARTIAL ARTS:

12 Dragon Talon

1 Tiger Strike

1 Dragon Claw

1 Cobra Strike

1 Dragon Tail

1 Dragon Flight

SHADOW DISCIPLINES:

1 Claw Mastery

1 Psychic Hammer

1 Burst of Speed

1 Weapon Block

1 Cloak of Shadows

1 Fade

1 Shadow Warrior

1 Mind Blast

TRAPS:

1 Fire Blast

[Integrity]

i don't think i've ever killed duriel solo with a paladin without despair

except this one time i had a sick crossbow paladin with holy freeze and ran around panicking for like 10 minutes pegging him with bolts

[Tryhard]

duriel is always a bitch

well, one holy freeze has got to win, kinda reminds me of the most ridiculous run I saw which was a /players 8 run on hardcore amazon passive tree only no armor and just using a cracked bow, beat hell baal with it

some people are just legitimately insane

Edited September 5, 2016 by Tryhard

[Integrity]

what the fuck???????????????????????

[Tryhard]

http://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/how-far-can-superdave-go.480035/

yeah man, it's fairly old and some of the images are either defunct or take a while to load, and I imagine areas in hell took like hours to clear, but it's a thing

edit: though reading through parts of it, seems as though I was at least partly mistaken - he does wear cracked/damaged/low quality armor, but that pretty much doesn't matter at all.

as a group effort, probably this. damn germans

Edited September 6, 2016 by Tryhard

[Integrity]

video games people are incomprehensible

[Tryhard]

still haven't found a windforce yet ;__;

fucking lol I was magic finding and found it from baal

first one I've ever seen too.

no update right now but it is worth to brag

Edited September 8, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 4]Act III happens to be my least favourite act, mainly due to how expansive and kinda boring the starting few areas are. Even if in Act I and II there can be really shitty areas like the Maggot Lair that everyone hates, there's also cool ones like the Arcane Sanctuary. Thankfully, the second half of the Act past the Flayer Jungle going into Lower Kurast, Kurast Bazaar, Upper Kurast is a lot better, relatively small areas that always have a square formation that make it easier to navigate. It's just the first few areas of the Spider Jungle, Great Marsh, Flayer Jungle that can be irritating. I know that I stopped quite a few characters here and never went back to them simply because I couldn't be bothered.

The first quest in Act III isn't bad at all, just collect the Jade Figurine from one of the first unique monsters you kill and then return it to Cain, Meshif, Cain again, and then Alkor. By the way, Alkor is a funny character with a lot of great voicelines that isn't a stereotype at all.

You get a nice little permanent 20 life boost, which can be fairly significant at this point.

After that, we're off to get the the pieces needed for access into the Durance of Hate where Mephisto is. The first is found in one of the first side areas, the Spider Cavern, and is guarded by Sszark the Burning, who has a pretty nasty combination of modifiers, extra strong and cursed.

Enemies can hurt, even on Normal, especially with players 8 and modifiers like Extra Strong, Cursed, Fanaticism/Conviction Aura Enchanted, Lightning Enchanted and such. After killing Sszark, we take Khalim's Eye from the chest behind him.

While looking for the second piece, we run into the Gidbinn shrine, which spawns a new unique that will drop it on death. This is the second quest that you return to Ormus for a rare ring as a reward. The one we get isn't particularly impressive.

I've been working on points going towards traps currently when leveling up. Since I hit level 27, greaves are now available from gambling. I pick up a pair from Elzix, but I can't wear them yet because I don't have enough strength. These are the last type of boots that are available on Normal.

The second piece, Khalim's Brain, is guarded by a superunique called Witch Doctor Endugu, who is Magic Resistant and Fire Enchanted.

Heading up to the better areas of Act III, Stormtree is another annoying superunique that always blocks the path to Lower Kurast.

I took the time to grab a couple Tir runes from the Countess in order to make both the Steel and Nadir runewords. They aren't particularly amazing, but since I haven't found any decent weapon or helm in a while they are slight upgrades. Open wounds on Steel is interesting because it causes a damage over time and stops healing for the duration. I could have also made the Malice runeword, which is better than Steel, but it also has a Drain Life modifier on it, which causes continually life deterioration, which I figured would not be good for hardcore. Nadir actually gives me enough strength to use those greaves that I gambled, so that's nice.

Looking for the fourth quest in Kurast Bazaar, my mercenary and Shadow Warrior get surrounded by the superunique in this area, Battlemaid Sarina, and another spider unique. Pretty annoying.

I grab the Lam Esen tome and return it to Alkor for a free 5 stat points.

The sewers is always a pain in the ass because its so expansive, but the trip down to get Khalim's Heart was mostly uneventful. Now to head to Travincal.

The council members are a group of three superuniques, with three more in the Durance of Hate before Mephisto. These ones drop Khalim's Flail, which can be combined with the other pieces in the cube.

The saddest part is that it is better than my current weapon. Unfortunately, we have to use it to break the compelling orb to enter the Durance, so it's immediately destroyed afterwards.

These bastards are probably one of the most lethal enemies in the game, the Undead Stygian Dolls. Not on normal so much, mind you, but when they die they explode, causing percentage damage of their maximum health. Thankfully, mercenaries and minions aren't affected by this so they can kill them safely, but they can kill very fast.

Finding my way down to level 3 of the Durance, I find the first council member, who is of course lightning enchanted. They can really be a pain.

Mephisto takes quite a bit of time just like Duriel, and quite a few trips to town. He does do quite a bit of damage, but unlike Duriel is a least not fought in an enclosed space. You do have space to run and teleport back to town more freely.

The set item is Isenhart's helm, which isn't useful to us at all as a low level set.

The rare flail I might use over Steel primarily for the lifeleech, but everything else Mephisto dropped was uninteresting.

Taking Mephisto's Soulstone and the portal in the middle of the area, we are in Act IV.

RECAP

LEVEL 29

MARTIAL ARTS:

12 Dragon Talon

1 Tiger Strike

1 Dragon Claw

1 Cobra Strike

1 Dragon Tail

1 Dragon Flight

SHADOW DISCIPLINES:

1 Claw Mastery

1 Psychic Hammer

1 Burst of Speed

1 Weapon Block

1 Cloak of Shadows

1 Fade

1 Shadow Warrior

1 Mind Blast

TRAPS:

1 Fire Blast

1 Shock Web

1 Charged Bolt Sentry

1 Lightning Sentry

1 Point Saved

Edited September 9, 2016 by Tryhard

[Integrity]

honestly act 3 is probably my favorite act in d2 and games like d2 in general and i'm not really sure why

and that's accounting for how much the first three areas objectively blow

[Jedi]

I remember one time, running lower leveled people through, and one of them (One of the higher levels) thought it'd be a good idea to kite a bunch of Undead Stygian Dolls all together and Zeal'd them, (This was on Hell)

Needless to say it didn't end well. We all laughed about it though, apparently he didn't realize they did that somehow or he was just being a goofball, this was also ages ago so I may be misremembering what happened, I just remember someone grouping alot of them together for no reason.

[Tryhard]

honestly act 3 is probably my favorite act in d2 and games like d2 in general and i'm not really sure why

and that's accounting for how much the first three areas objectively blow

you're weird

though there is a certain appeal about a religious paladin church in the forest. bet yours isn't that cool.

I remember one time, running lower leveled people through, and one of them (One of the higher levels) thought it'd be a good idea to kite a bunch of Undead Stygian Dolls all together and Zeal'd them, (This was on Hell)

Needless to say it didn't end well. We all laughed about it though, apparently he didn't realize they did that somehow or he was just being a goofball, this was also ages ago so I may be misremembering what happened, I just remember someone grouping alot of them together for no reason.

they're always nasty. If I recall correctly, you can block their blast? still only a 75% chance at most, but it's better than nothing. Physical damage reduction % is also really good because I believe it's a fully physical attack. Edited September 10, 2016 by Tryhard

[Integrity]

you're weird

though there is a certain appeal about a religious paladin church in the forest. bet yours isn't that cool.

i mean kurast/travincal objectively own, so obviously there's that, but i think i really liked how the jungle felt really shitty to get around and really oppressive, it was a great switch from the open areas of acts 1 and 2 imo. plus the fact that how long it took you to get through the jungle was so random, you could even iirc skip a whole area if the map generation went right. plus how you kind of just arrive in kurast like "well, fuck, we're here, now what."

[Jedi]

they're always nasty. If I recall correctly, you can block their blast? still only a 75% chance at most, but it's better than nothing. Physical damage reduction % is also really good because I believe it's a fully physical attack.

Yeah blocks work, and if I recall its fully physical yep, but its been so long since I played.

[Tryhard]

i mean kurast/travincal objectively own, so obviously there's that, but i think i really liked how the jungle felt really shitty to get around and really oppressive, it was a great switch from the open areas of acts 1 and 2 imo. plus the fact that how long it took you to get through the jungle was so random, you could even iirc skip a whole area if the map generation went right. plus how you kind of just arrive in kurast like "well, fuck, we're here, now what."

actually happened to me in this case, skipped the great marsh completely. so that's the only waypoint i don't have and i have to say that i don't care about it.

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 5]Act IV is pretty awesome. It leads from the Pandemonium Fortress directly into hell and despite it being the shortest act by a fair margin, it's still great. It only has four areas outside of the Pandemonium Fortress, though they can be rather expansive and lengthy to clear.

One of the first things I find outside in the Outer Steppes is a unique item. First one I've seen.

Turns out it's Bloodrise. Not a particularly high level weapon, but actually fairly decent for me to use. Has open wounds, but the sacrifice bonus does nothing for me as it is a paladin skill only (though there a modifier for giving you skills from another class, too). Not that sacrifice is a particularly good paladin skill and is mostly used as a synergy for a damage bonus for Zeal. I'll use it for now.

I also came across a couple Thul runes, which is the highest rune level I've seen so far.

Izual is always somewhere in the Plains of Despair. He has life comparable to an act boss and therefore takes approximately fourteen hours to kill. Aside from that, he doesn't really do much damage.

The really nice thing about this quest is that it gives you two extra skill points. So that's four extra skill points per difficulty from the Den of Evil, Radamant, and Izual quests.

Before heading down to what is basically hell, I hit level 30 and reach the last tier of skills.

Pheonix Strike is an interesting martial arts charger. It takes from the pre-requisites on the left side of the skill tree and casts a Meteor-like spell for the first, a unique lightning attack that is similar to Blood Raven's death animation, and three charges will have a flurry of ice bolts similar to Frozen Orb. The ability to use three elements makes it more useful than the others in my opinion, but it does have synergies with those and so I think it would be more for a dedicated martial assassin.

Venom is a pretty simple buff that gives additional poison damage over the very short duration. The damage isn't totally impressive, but it does work with Dragon Talon and as far as I know every successful kick refreshes the duration.

Shadow Master is a different version of the Shadow Warrior before it, but is not necessarily better. One of the reasons for this is that while it is more defensive and able to tank compared to the warrrior, it can also use skills that the assassin does not know, which can be detrimental. Leveling this skill up will give the Shadow Master better equipment up to level 17, similar to the Amazon's Valkyrie.

Death Sentry is the main trap that I was going for. It does good damage, and also uses Corspe Explosion to deal additional damage. Lightning Sentry will do more damage eventually, but the explosion effect is very useful.

Blade Shield deals damage when an enemy hits the assassin. It does scale with weapon damage, but the damage itself from the ability is quite poor. Unfortunately, no defense bonus, and because of that it isn't really that popular. Points for looks though.

The next area after Izual is descending into hell. With hardcore ass lava and shit.

Hephasto is another Smith, essentially. For the second quest, he drops the Hellforge Hammer which you then immediately use for the second quest in the Act, to destroy Mephisto's Soulstone that you just picked up from killing him.

Smashing Mephisto's soulstone on the Hellforge gives you a set number of gems or runes. You can get some really nice runes on Hell, but you don't get much more than a Perfect gem on Normal really.

I get a Ring of Dim Vision. This always for usage of the Dim Vision curse, which may actually be useful in the future. I may as well keep it in case I would ever need the charges.

The Chaos Sanctuary is the final area of Act IV, and there are five seals around the area, three of them spawning certain superuniques that will then spawn Diablo if all seals and superuniques are cleared. There are some annoying enemies in here, like the Pit/Venom Lords with Inferno, and they are pretty fast too. There is also the Oblivion Knights, which were notorious for having the ability to cast the Iron Maiden curse, which could often instantly kill a melee or physical attacker because it reflected damage back to them. They can't cast Iron Maiden anymore.

I find a three socket Kite Shield while clearing out the third seal, and make Ancients' Pledge (Ral + Ort + Tal) in it. You easily get the runes for it from a quest in Act V, but the resists are going to useful right now. Great runeword that it is helpful and easily accesible.

AS you can see, almost all maxed resistances at 75.

Another Isenhart's helm. I always see this set, man. And it's bad.

After opening the seals in the Chaos Sanctuary, you fight Diablo (calling him Big D may not be preferable). And this guy really sucks, particularly because of his pink lightning attack. Even with almost 75 lightning resistances, it still hurts like hell. The really annoying part is that I had to redo this area as my recording software caused the game to crash and for me to lose progress. He is definitely difficult, especially for a melee character that will have to continously dodge that lightning attack.

Interesting other shield I picked up. The 30% faster block rate and 20% increased chance of blocking are actually nice modifiers. Keeping it as the offhand shield for now.

After that, talked to Tyrael, and took the portal to Harrogath, Act V.

So below I'm gonna list my current skills, but I'm wondering some things about where I should go next, as I have some points stored. Perhaps those more familiar with assassins could help me out in this regard. It seems like I want to definitely go to level 20 Dragon Talon. Then 20 Venom will give a good damage boost, which I believe is standard for kick assassins. Since I think Death Sentry will be my main trap used, I would also want to max that at 20. The remaining points I'm not sure about though. They could go into Lightning Sentry to synergise Death Sentry and I could use both of them (generally trappers use four lightning sentries and one death sentry for the corpse explosion), though that would be committing more to a trap assassin style. The other option is that I could perhaps go 17-20 Shadow Master, not sure what the preference is between Shadow Warrior and Master in that case for others that have played assassin. The rest on either side would probably go into Fade for survivability. Also on what the order should necessarily be - Dragon Talon, Venom, Death Sentry first? Any thoughts?

I'm also noticing that enemies are getting a lot more life at this stage with /players 8 enabled, so I'm not sure if I'll continue to go with it past Normal, as it may make clearing too tediously long. It does give good experience, as level 32 is overleveled for this point in the game normally, which helps with skill levels but sort of balances out with enemy greatly increased health and damage. So I'm not sure right now.

RECAP

LEVEL 32

MARTIAL ARTS:

12 Dragon Talon

1 Tiger Strike

1 Dragon Claw

1 Cobra Strike

1 Dragon Tail

1 Dragon Flight

SHADOW DISCIPLINES:

1 Claw Mastery

1 Psychic Hammer

1 Burst of Speed

1 Weapon Block

1 Cloak of Shadows

1 Fade

1 Shadow Warrior

1 Mind Blast

1 Venom

TRAPS:

1 Fire Blast

1 Shock Web

1 Charged Bolt Sentry

1 Lightning Sentry

1 Death Sentry

4 Points Saved

Edited September 18, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tryhard]

[spoiler=Update 6]Back after being busy for a little while for Act V at least.

The first quest in Act V is to kill Shenk the Overseer at the end of the first area. It has the nice benefit of giving you the quest reward of being able to socket a normal item, though the number of sockets is randomised. Shenk was also known for lagging the fuck out of my shitty computer at the time because of the effects he has when dying.

There isn't much of a distance between the next quest, which involves freeing fifteen barbarians. For this, you get the runes Ral Ort Tal from Qual'Kehk in town, who is the mercenary leader for the Act V barbarians. These are the runes needed for the Ancient's Pledge runeword that I have already got, so it isn't terribly useful.

I've been placing points into Dragon Talon to get it up to level 18, which allows for four kicks. The rest of the points are currently going into Venom to boost damage.

After passing through some of the outdoor Act V areas, you go through a series of caves in the Crystalline Passage and Frozen River for the third quest. Probably one of my favourite superunique names in the game.

And right behind him, is Anya, the person you need to rescue.

The reward for this quest is a scroll that gives 10 to all resistances. This is pretty much required on all difficulties to allow for resistance penalties in Nightmare and Hell.

Anya opens a portal to get to Nihlathak, the gambler in Act V that betrays and imprisons her. First up is the superunique Pindleskin before you go through a few subsequent interior areas.

Decent damage boost for a small charm that I found that I may as well keep around for now.

Nihlathak can be pretty dangerous especially on higher difficulties, as he has the ability to continually cast corpse explosion, dealing damage in a radius based on the monsters hit points, as the necromancer variation of the spell which is more powerful than the Death Sentry effect. He dropped a unique Heavy Belt when he died. Anya will also offer the ability to "personalise" an item, adding your name to the front of it, but being otherwise useless.

Goldwrap seems pretty decent for me, not like I have anything better. Increased attack speed influences the speed of kick frames, I believe, so it can be useful.

I also find a pretty decent amulet due to it having all resistances.

After Nihlathak, back into the Crystalline Passage, through Glacial Trail and then through another outside area in Act V (with not much in it) before making the way up to the Arreat Summit where the Ancients are. The Ancients is a fight that you cannot use a teleport scroll during, otherwise you will need to start the fight over. The fight itself is against three barbarians, and they can be really annoying, such as Madawc, who throws weapons at a range and runs away like an asshole.

It isn't too difficult on Normal even though they do have some health, so it is a drawn-out fight.

After the ancients is one of the last areas, the Worldstone Keep, which has three levels before the Throne of Destruction, where Baal is.

After you reach Baal, you have to fight through five rounds of his minions, each representing a different Act. Colenzo, the Fallen Shaman is one that they chant occasionally. Ventar is especially annoying because they are Extra Fast, but Lister and the Minions of Destruction are some of the hardest monsters in the game and can knockback on attacks.

Baal is pretty annoying, as he has an attack that keeps draining your mana at close range, and has a lot of health. He has a freezing attack and a fire 'nova' attack similar to Diablo. Still, generally he's a little less dangerous than other things in the game as you are only fighting him as a single target. Well, when he isn't cloning himself into a weaker version, that is.

Mostly, it just takes a while on Normal. He drops a unique Falchion.

The unique is Gleamscythe, but it's also ethereal. Not that it's particularly worth anything, anyway.

thanks weird looking Cain, so we finished Normal.

RECAP

LEVEL 42

MARTIAL ARTS:

18 Dragon Talon

1 Tiger Strike

1 Dragon Claw

1 Cobra Strike

1 Dragon Tail

1 Dragon Flight

SHADOW DISCIPLINES:

1 Claw Mastery

1 Psychic Hammer

1 Burst of Speed

1 Weapon Block

1 Cloak of Shadows

1 Fade

1 Shadow Warrior

1 Mind Blast

9 Venom

TRAPS:

1 Fire Blast

1 Shock Web

1 Charged Bolt Sentry

1 Lightning Sentry

1 Death Sentry

[Tryhard]

Been a little busy these past weeks, so I apologise.

[spoiler=Update 7]Gonna be a little lighter on the details since I've already went through the game on Normal, but it does take quite a bit of time to get through these areas, doubly so because I'm trying not to be careless. It's worth noting that on Nightmare most unique monsters have at least two modifiers, which can be dangerous with combos like Cursed and Aura Enchanted with Fanaticism or such.

The best thing I pick up in this entire act is from Blood Raven, though.

Aldur's is one of the higher level set designed for Druids, though any class can use any pieces of it except the helmet (being a Druid pelt). While most full sets and their bonuses are really not particularly amazing in Diablo II with the exception of say, Tal Rasha's, and potentially some others, this is actually a really good weapon for me right now in absense of anything better. The Aldur's boots can actually be really nice for endgame equipment for any class, mainly due to the 40% faster run/walk speed and fire resistance, and partly because there isn't really an amazing choice between unique boots. Anyway, this weapon has nice added damage, attack speed and life and mana leech, which is all useful to me. Not really sure what I could put in the three sockets so I'm leaving them open for now.

Got a pretty nice fire resist charm - resistance stacking to attempt to get as close as possible to 75 for both Nightmare and Hell is going to be vital - that's why I'm still using that Ancient's Pledge runeword shield.

Nightmare also introduced the annoyance of certain uniques, such as this one. It is worth noting that Extra Strong only affects the damage of enemies physical attacks, but the Lightning Enchanted is always annoying.

I remade a Stealth armor in a Field Plate just because I had a lot of extra Tal and Eth runes lying about. The assassin armor definitely looks cooler with it on though, and aesthetics are what it's about.

Nothing particularly great dropped from the Countess, but I am going to want to kill her a few more times for a Sol rune for an Insight afterwards.

Of course some enemies can spawn with more modifiers. A lot of enemies can be more annoying for melee characters compared to range characters in general in Diablo II - melee has it hard. I've noticed that I've had problems with attack rating already on Nightmare and it becomes much hard to hit enemies with Cobra Strike or even Dragon Talon (which has a massive attack rating bonus).

Killing Andariel requires some kiting, as she kills my mercenary and Shadow Warrior pretty easily. She is also now in this weird blue and black recolour as the act bosses are in Nightmare and Hell.

She drops the upgraded (Exceptional) version of Boots, but they are ethereal and so I would prefer to get some that aren't. As you can see the damage is respectable compared to the Greaves I had.

Instead I go grab these Sharkskin Boots in Act II from a merchant for some decent kick damage.

Lastly, I go make the Insight runeword for a polearm for my mercenary. Unfortunately it does not have any life leech on it unlike the previous weapon I gave him, but the meditation aura is extremely useful for basically never needed any mana potions from this point on since it regenerates mana so quickly. Otherwise it gives a decent amount of damage for a rather inexpensive runeword that can be easily acquired as early as Act I Nightmare (since Nightmare Countess can drop a Sol rune and any of the others below). It is worth noting that this is a ladder-only runeword and so will need external modification for single-player or such.

While it isn't completely necessary, I've been getting owned by Mana Burn enemies and being unable to kick them or use Cobra Strike for mana leech charges, so this should solve the problem well. A level 17 meditation aura gives +700% mana recovery rate, by the way, which is a ridiculous amount. As for skill points, I've been putting them exclusively into Venom for a respectable amount of extra poison damage.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Tryhard