Adventures of the Cookie (-Cutter) Monster
Hello everyone!
I played Diablo II Classic many years ago; I think it happened before one could purchase the expansion, even. I returned to it a few months back and noticed it seeming much harder than it did back then in the days when my Core i7 would seem like fantasy. *chuckles* I tried making a from-scratch Bowazon, and flopped rather unequivocally. I had also tried making an FO/ES Sorc, only realizing too late about the reality of immune mobs. I've learned a lot since then, not least of all to consider every skillpoint precious and to think a bit into the future.
I had tried a fishymancer after admitting to myself that I had basically no understanding of how to make a viable build. And it did do pretty well, I have to say. I had made it into Hell with him and it looked like I might actually pull off a patriarch.
But due to reasons I won't outline here, I decided to delete all my characters and ATMA stashes and begin fresh. Once more I decided to employ some established builds, instead of winging it.
First, I made a fishyzon (maxblock LF/CS with FA on the switch, for the three forumites out there who don't know). This character will, hopefully, run the WSK, as Nightfish intended the design.
Next, I cobbled together a straight-vanilla Meteorb, with this one focusing on max life since I hope to use a Spirit monarch some day (over the rainbow... etc. etc.). She will, I feel pretty confident, run Meph --and perhaps Countess-- once she reaches the land of Technicolor.
I've only progressed as far as Normal Act III with the Sorc, but so far it seems well. A nice Leaf and her Fireball has done surprising damage. I believe I will favor FB over Meteor later. I feel the same about Meteor as I do about Firewall: namely, I don't cherish the thought of surgical strikes when spamming fulfills a primal need with me.
My fishyzon seemed to have some difficulties, however. Right now I find myself in Act IV NM, leveling. One more level and I can equip that lovely Harlequin Crest this one munificent gentlemen sent me a while ago, and I look forward to that (well, aside from the --imho-- garishly ugly shako graphic).
She has died about four time so far, which rather surprised me. Even my atrocious square-peg-round-hole earlier builds didn't have that hard a time of it. I suppose because the Sorc could blanket the field in the Orb and the Bowazon had points in Strafe (and MA and MS and GA and CA and Immo and need I go on? hehe). In Normal, she (the fishyzon) perished once to a beetle in one of the false tombs. To my credit (?) I felt rather tired at that point, and probably would have survived elsewise.
(As an aside I do have to say that neither of these chars had any problems with Duriel. Perhaps they drank one or two pots, but I didn't have to use a TP once, nor did the Act II merc die. I consider that a nice testament to the power of proven builds, and would throw my five or six contiguous randomzon deaths out there as corroboration, if not for the sucky nature of that "build".)
Ahem, so yes. My fishyzon's attempted exploits in NM Act III taught me new meanings of the word frustration, much worse than the difficulties I had with my original suckazon. First, I what-the-huh died to a lone doll in the Sewers. I hate those dolls. Then I died to ol' Icefist himself, and surrounded by very much alive council members and Zakarumites. Trust me, Diablo II's mouse navigation doesn't make very well for running-back -like feints and maneuvers through hordes of mobs to get to your corpse, ha. I died in the same manner to the same monster on my previous run through the game with my crapazon, but didn't have to worry about other mobs --I had killed them.
I then died again to a Doom Knight in Act IV. Sometime since I managed to make an Insight; better late than never. It helped immensely as I found myself able to focus more on the battle and less on my belt and pot drops.
LF simply slayed when I first unlocked it. It even impressed me more than FO, which came as a bit of a shock, forgive my ignorance. But in NM it began to cool down in the awesome factor and suddenly didn't eviscerate everything in one or two tosses of the jav. This has slowly turned around again, however, since I've surpassed the 20 FA/10+ CA synergy in order to prepare for Hell --as Nightfish suggests in his guide-- and have started topping out LF and CS again. The +1 Jav/Spear skiller (my first skiller find, and the right class too, woot!) might help a tiny bit as well.
I think I've improved my abilities in this game twofold in the last seven levels' worth I've spent in Act IV. Decoy decoy decoy, for one, has become a bit of a motto for me, especially against packs of those damned Abyss Knights.
I've encountered Gloams, but aside from my deciding to stand in once place chewing the cud they don't threaten me too much. I've also learned to STOP. RUNNING. AHEAD. (I should tape that to my monitor). I have an HF merc, but an itchy index finger, and find myself forcing myself to slow down and let my squishy companion catch up to my sexy-if-I-say-so-myself enhanced running speed.
I've also obtained a bit of skill in moving by a handful of pixels instead of a third or a half of the screen at once. See above for itchy index. I do this by almost clicking directly on top of my Zon, just outside her sprite, so that she moves by baby steps. This requires a lot more clicking, but eh, what else do they make mice for?
Hopefully my new-and-improved skills will make it possible to actually go back and run NM Meph, instead of nigh-dying a dozen times over (did I mention I hate those damned dolls?). We shall see, I suppose.
I haven't asked any (non-rhetorical) questions yet, I see. All right, my ears practically gape in their eagerness to hear your input on this: what simple techniques, not related to skillpoints or godly equipment or such, do you gentlemen use to improve your play? I mean, physical playing style, or conducive hotkey assignments, or your method of approaching the battlefield, and so forth. I'd like very much to hear about this, since mainly I see discussion limited to a more "abstract" sphere.
My apologies to those I've bored with this little outpouring, and my gratitude to those who would like to toss in some words after reading.
Thank you, gentlemen. I'll go back to my little corner and relax for a bit.
Good journeying to you all.
-PQ
Hello everyone!
I played Diablo II Classic many years ago; I think it happened before one could purchase the expansion, even. I returned to it a few months back and noticed it seeming much harder than it did back then in the days when my Core i7 would seem like fantasy. *chuckles* I tried making a from-scratch Bowazon, and flopped rather unequivocally. I had also tried making an FO/ES Sorc, only realizing too late about the reality of immune mobs. I've learned a lot since then, not least of all to consider every skillpoint precious and to think a bit into the future.
I had tried a fishymancer after admitting to myself that I had basically no understanding of how to make a viable build. And it did do pretty well, I have to say. I had made it into Hell with him and it looked like I might actually pull off a patriarch.
But due to reasons I won't outline here, I decided to delete all my characters and ATMA stashes and begin fresh. Once more I decided to employ some established builds, instead of winging it.
First, I made a fishyzon (maxblock LF/CS with FA on the switch, for the three forumites out there who don't know). This character will, hopefully, run the WSK, as Nightfish intended the design.
Next, I cobbled together a straight-vanilla Meteorb, with this one focusing on max life since I hope to use a Spirit monarch some day (over the rainbow... etc. etc.). She will, I feel pretty confident, run Meph --and perhaps Countess-- once she reaches the land of Technicolor.
I've only progressed as far as Normal Act III with the Sorc, but so far it seems well. A nice Leaf and her Fireball has done surprising damage. I believe I will favor FB over Meteor later. I feel the same about Meteor as I do about Firewall: namely, I don't cherish the thought of surgical strikes when spamming fulfills a primal need with me.
My fishyzon seemed to have some difficulties, however. Right now I find myself in Act IV NM, leveling. One more level and I can equip that lovely Harlequin Crest this one munificent gentlemen sent me a while ago, and I look forward to that (well, aside from the --imho-- garishly ugly shako graphic).
She has died about four time so far, which rather surprised me. Even my atrocious square-peg-round-hole earlier builds didn't have that hard a time of it. I suppose because the Sorc could blanket the field in the Orb and the Bowazon had points in Strafe (and MA and MS and GA and CA and Immo and need I go on? hehe). In Normal, she (the fishyzon) perished once to a beetle in one of the false tombs. To my credit (?) I felt rather tired at that point, and probably would have survived elsewise.
(As an aside I do have to say that neither of these chars had any problems with Duriel. Perhaps they drank one or two pots, but I didn't have to use a TP once, nor did the Act II merc die. I consider that a nice testament to the power of proven builds, and would throw my five or six contiguous randomzon deaths out there as corroboration, if not for the sucky nature of that "build".)
Ahem, so yes. My fishyzon's attempted exploits in NM Act III taught me new meanings of the word frustration, much worse than the difficulties I had with my original suckazon. First, I what-the-huh died to a lone doll in the Sewers. I hate those dolls. Then I died to ol' Icefist himself, and surrounded by very much alive council members and Zakarumites. Trust me, Diablo II's mouse navigation doesn't make very well for running-back -like feints and maneuvers through hordes of mobs to get to your corpse, ha. I died in the same manner to the same monster on my previous run through the game with my crapazon, but didn't have to worry about other mobs --I had killed them.
I then died again to a Doom Knight in Act IV. Sometime since I managed to make an Insight; better late than never. It helped immensely as I found myself able to focus more on the battle and less on my belt and pot drops.
LF simply slayed when I first unlocked it. It even impressed me more than FO, which came as a bit of a shock, forgive my ignorance. But in NM it began to cool down in the awesome factor and suddenly didn't eviscerate everything in one or two tosses of the jav. This has slowly turned around again, however, since I've surpassed the 20 FA/10+ CA synergy in order to prepare for Hell --as Nightfish suggests in his guide-- and have started topping out LF and CS again. The +1 Jav/Spear skiller (my first skiller find, and the right class too, woot!) might help a tiny bit as well.
I think I've improved my abilities in this game twofold in the last seven levels' worth I've spent in Act IV. Decoy decoy decoy, for one, has become a bit of a motto for me, especially against packs of those damned Abyss Knights.
I've encountered Gloams, but aside from my deciding to stand in once place chewing the cud they don't threaten me too much. I've also learned to STOP. RUNNING. AHEAD. (I should tape that to my monitor). I have an HF merc, but an itchy index finger, and find myself forcing myself to slow down and let my squishy companion catch up to my sexy-if-I-say-so-myself enhanced running speed.
I've also obtained a bit of skill in moving by a handful of pixels instead of a third or a half of the screen at once. See above for itchy index. I do this by almost clicking directly on top of my Zon, just outside her sprite, so that she moves by baby steps. This requires a lot more clicking, but eh, what else do they make mice for?
Hopefully my new-and-improved skills will make it possible to actually go back and run NM Meph, instead of nigh-dying a dozen times over (did I mention I hate those damned dolls?). We shall see, I suppose.
I haven't asked any (non-rhetorical) questions yet, I see. All right, my ears practically gape in their eagerness to hear your input on this: what simple techniques, not related to skillpoints or godly equipment or such, do you gentlemen use to improve your play? I mean, physical playing style, or conducive hotkey assignments, or your method of approaching the battlefield, and so forth. I'd like very much to hear about this, since mainly I see discussion limited to a more "abstract" sphere.
My apologies to those I've bored with this little outpouring, and my gratitude to those who would like to toss in some words after reading.
Thank you, gentlemen. I'll go back to my little corner and relax for a bit.
Good journeying to you all.
-PQ
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