Brother Laz
New member
Median XL released!
After 11 months, Median XL, the sequel of Median 2008 has been released! Many agree that this is the best D2 mod to date, but I'll let you judge for yourself.
NOTE: DISABLE ANY OTHER MODS like the RRM or RWM or it'll break!
After 11 months, Median XL, the sequel of Median 2008 has been released! Many agree that this is the best D2 mod to date, but I'll let you judge for yourself.
- New skills
The big new thing in Median XL over classic LoD. Every skill of every class (as well as several tens of item-only skills) is new, allowing a lot of new builds. You get bloodwitch amazons, summoner barbs, throwsins, bow druids, crossbow necromancers, unholy paladins (blackguards, shadowpriests) and poison sorcs.
Many of the skills use new mechanics: the sorceress has feedback spells that do damage based on how much mana you have lost; the paladin's holy melee skills are used to retaliate against enemy attacks; there are many 'autocast' spells that automatically shoot things like ricochet blades, bees and atomic bombs when enemies are nearby; and corpse management is more important, with skills like the druid's corpse eating heal spell and the amazon's Spirit of Vengeance which summons its own corpses and reanimates random monsters on your side.
- Bling
Base items are the same as the regular (non-exceptional, non-elite) items in D2, but now have six tiers (eg. short sword (1) to short sword (6)), each with better stats and higher requirements than the last. There is a seventh hidden Sacred tier that cannot be bought or cubed.
But not all items are the same! There are a lot of new class-specific items that augment every build you could think of: amazon shields and helms, dex-based sorceress armors, druid caster staves (by the way, using a staff now increases base cast speed) and the assassin naginata and sorceress warp blade with built-in splash damage.
- Monty Haul
With new items comes new uniques. Tiered items have their own uniques that improve at higher tiers, and sacred items have their own uniques - which only drop in level 121 uberquests (the level cap and regular monster cap are 120). High-end class-specific sacred uniques are the rarest items, though still more likely than a Zod.
Sets have also been replaced with 28 sacred sets that also drop only in level 121 uberquests. They are high-end equipment and have stats that make them viable as endgame gear. Some will change the way you play, like the amazon bloodwitch set which makes your spells cost life instead of mana and regenerates +1000 life when you kill an enemy.
Runewords are also new, and there are tens of runewords at any point in the game. The novelty here - aside from the fact that there are now 53 runes - is that you only need one rune to complete a runeword. You can put things like rare or crafted jewels into every slot except the last and then finish with the rune. Number of sockets doesn't matter either. This allows you to customise runewords!
Crafting! You find Portable Shrines with a D1 theme (Eerie Shrine, Fascinating Shrine) that, when cubed with an item, reroll the item as a craft with some random modifiers and a random amount of 'themed' preset modifiers. Between the high power of the preset modifiers and the high output level of the item, crafts are easily endgame viable. If you get lucky... Zakarum is a fickle ally.
There are also plenty of other cube recipes, from the basic uptier recipe to a recipe to create uniques... by sacrificing 20 other uniques, and a recipe that allows you to use the (dropped, bought) Mystic Orbs to add extra modifiers to items at the cost of a higher required level. This works at double power on crafted and 'honorific' items, too. You can even take the modifiers off a rare or crafted item and put them onto another item of the same class.
- Monsters
The regular game has been spiced up with new monster abilities, like quill rats with homing spikes and frogs that spawn a prince on death which proceeds to frost nova the hell out of you. There are also a few new monsters (fear the mushroom people) and most importantly, elite monsters. Elites are rare, randomly placed and much stronger and with different attacks and AI than their lesser brothers.
There are special 'heroic' side areas with even harder monsters with a green name and two legendary bosses, one of which undefeated to this day. But if new bosses are what you are looking for, try the...
- Uberquests
22 new encounters, levels or dungeons. This is the new endgame of Median. There are dungeon uberquests, small levels with a tough boss at the end. Summoning uberquests require you to summon the boss yourself at a magical place. Uberlevels are huge sprawling levels with multiple bosses and minibosses.
Many uberquests require special tactics to beat due to immunity shields on many bosses. Sometimes killing all their underlings is enough to remove the shield from the boss. Sometimes you need to kill a minion and then you have 5 seconds to deal some damage to the boss, or just keep the minions near the boss. There are other challenges as well: one uberquest requires you to kill a boss in less than 3 minutes, and another has invulnerable edyrem ghosts that summon the boss if they manage to pound the hell out of you.
But your reward is a lot of experience and on Destruction difficulty, a special unique charm for each boss.
Most uberquests are based on the Diablo lore: invade Ureh and kill Juris Khan, break into Tran Athulua as a pirate, fight your way into Toraja at the side of the edyrem or replay the binding of Baal by the Horadric mages... with you as Baal.
- Challenges
Still too easy? There are several voluntary 'challenges' which require you to do things like kill a boss before a certain character level or with a certain amount of unspent stat points, or kill two bosses in the span of 30 seconds.
Your reward is usually an upgrade to a reward charm, but two of the challenges reward you with a new skill.
- Multiplayer
There is a multiplayer section on the official forum for tcp/ip and open b.net games. Closed b.net obviously won't work... there are third party solutions but they are not legal and will not be supported.
- Official site & download
>>> Modsbylaz
NOTE: DISABLE ANY OTHER MODS like the RRM or RWM or it'll break!
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