The Core of Diablo

[Telumatan]

Greetings to everyone!

This thread is about Diablo Hardcore play.

I still play the old D2 game, because it runs smoothly on my old laptop operating with windows xp.
My first few posts will be the copy of my last run's first part from the old BeamDog forums.




Let me introduce Vanessa, the assassin who would be a bounty hunter in BG.

Hardcore game without mods, i plan to go through it without grinding. Player settings is on p8 till we reach Hell. Main goal is reaching guardianship however.


Vanessa started off with the now well-tried route at the start, which means tagging Cold Plain WP, then going back to clear Den of Evil. One of the first loot was a rare Katar, with decent mods for our first weapon.

Spoiler

V' reached level 6 in the Den.
Fire Blast has this rare nice early AoE damage, so V' chose it as her first 6 level skill.

Vanessa followed one of the pathway at Cold Plain, and it lead to the Stony Field, so she searched for the waypoint before going back to the other path leading to the Burial Grounds.

Her first real opponent was Blood Raven, Fire Blast was very handy again against the undead with it's AoE damage and Burst of Speed let her catch BR in melee.

After reporting Blood Raven's demise, Aliza joined to our cause.

Nessy levelled to 12 just before confronting Treehead, choosing Cloak of Shadows for her first lvl12 skill. T put up good fight, but Nessy and Aliza were even deadlier.
We freed Decard and put an end to Griswold's misery. Nessy fought toe to toe with Griswold, which i think is nice.

Bought this nice Stealth base by Charsi,

Spoiler

and found the Tower, where we left a portal to revisit after finding the WP.
That process turned out to be unnecessary however, because i misclicked and exited the game, so some trekking followed.
V' bought a superior Wirst blade, the WP was found succesfully and 2 jewel of Ire was putted in our new weapon.

Spoiler

In the Tower Cellars a dark rogue pack let V. reach lvl15.
At FT lvl 5 there was a tight packed dark archer horde. with heavy use of CoS it still needed one town visit.
The Countess dropped an Ith.

A mixed pack dropped me two small charm and a level.

Spoiler

The Smith was a tough guy at this point, Nessy had to visit town two times to resurrect Aliza.

Vanessa reached lvl18 right before entering the inner Cloister.

Against a double Tainted boss pack at lvl2 catacombs , V performed good. Finding the stairs easy at Catacombs is always a boon. Also a nice rare WB with IAS, ED and some other extras.

Spoiler

Nessy reached lvl19 before entering Andy, than she shopped some antidotes by Akara, and dropped some potions to the floor for preparing a long fight.

The fight with Andariel went smoother, than i expected.

Spoiler

Andy dropped a Blood Crescent, a rare caster ring and some rare weapons.
One was a spear with amp curse, so i switched Aliza to a town guard at Luth Golein, the spear went for him.
In the Dry Hills V. got three grand charm drop in a row, one with a badass +5 strenght and some fire res.
A weird bug happened in the Halls of Dead, so had to exit and retrace to the hall.
On the way a unique ring dropped.
Spoiler

An almost perfect Nagel!

Halls of the Dead went well with Cloak of Shadow and Fire Blast.
Besides the Horadric Cube one Small Charm with life and another with +7 lightning resistance dropped.

After finding the Horadric Cube Nessy went for Radament and the bonus skill point. It was easy as pie.
Back to the desert, Maggots lair was searched and found.
Coldworm went down easily, dropped a rare ring, Beetleburst not much after a rare jewel.

Spoiler

Entered the lost city, but burst through it within seconds.
Fangskin managed to kill the merc, so V' returned to the town for res. Now that she was there she gambled some skull caps (in the hope of a Tarnhelm) and a plated belt for moar drinking.

Fangskin dropped wirst blades, but V' use his bombs almost exclusively now.

Fire Eye was hunted down, then the library awaited.
First Vanessa followed the North path, which turned out to be a dead end.
Next path was East, and it turned out to be a dead end along with the South one.
West one must have been lead to the Summoner then, who took some more punch on P8,
and shoots some solid cold cones. Still, Vanessa dealt with him without much problem and the way to Tal Rasha's tomb was clear.
Now nothing holds back Vanessa from the tomb.

Spoiler

Duriel gave a good fight, still Vanessa's win was not a question.

Spoiler

Onward to Kurast.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Sweet. I did a Hardcore Sorc run of D2 as far as Diablo (normal only) the other day - first time playing for about 10 years, was just as fun as the game I sank 4 years into back in the day.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Exciting drops were pretty rare on my playthrough - though Countess dropped Tal Eth on first kill so I went and made Stealth pronto. I think that was my only bit of grinding since I ran her 5-6 more times before moving on. I think my best items were pretty not-best: Sander's Boots and Wand; add in a diamond filled shield and some FCR and resistance stuff and it was enough to get me through "potion-chugging the game"

 

[Antimatter]

Diablo II Resurrected looks absolutely stunning and plays perfectly. It's so fun to just walk around areas looking into all the details that I haven't been able to see or even notice back when I played Diablo II. And gameplay-wise, the game is just as good, or even better (considering some bugs have been fixed).

Here are a few screenshots of my Wind Druid (yes, the character introduction screen is just amazing):

 

[O_Bruce]

Hey! Good to see such a topic getting a recent update. I will definitely wait for more . Also, I want to contribute.

Behold, Tatianna.

Looks as if she was wearing Tal-Rasha's set, but it is just the mask.
​

I really like playing amazons in D2:R. Due to one bugfix their evasion passives now actually help you instead of being in the way. Anyways, I decided to post about her only if she makes it to Hell difficulty. She did quite safely, with only one close call during a pre-hell grind.
So far, she made it through the first three quests of Act I with no serious problems and no close calls. Makes me cautiously optimistic.

Spoiler: Coldcrow

Spoiler: Bonebreaker

Spoiler: Blood Raven

After Blood Raven, I made Tatianna clear the mausoleum as well: it is level 85 area, meaning all sort of rare things can drop there. Unfortunately, nothing interesting dropped for me.

Spoiler: Griswold and Cain

Before facing a Griswold, my mercenary perished in battle against two boss packs, both were cursed. Tatianna hasn't paid enough attention to her companion with a huge mighty spear, so he ended up dying. Whoopsie.

Oh, btw there were two guys before all this. Rakanishu and Treehead Woodfist. Unfortunately, I have no screenshots to share.

As a token of his gratitude, Cain will now identify my items free of charge.

Lastly, some stats are welcome, are they not?

It seems some screenshots of equipment weren't saved somehow, so I'll just share the most important things.

Spoiler: The Items

Aside from the screenshots, there is:
Amulet +dexterity and all res
Gauntlets, Plate Belt and Greavers from the Sigon's set
Raven Frost
Rare Ring with fire and poison res, mana leech and some other minor stuff

 

[Antimatter]

Purple suits Tatianna! One needs to add some fashion if they want to become a Guardian, you know!

Nice items you have there!

 

[O_Bruce]

Hey, small update for Tatianna.

Together with her, we spend some quality time, doing Pit runs and Countess runs... our effort resulted in Smoke runeword in Scarab's Husk armor, the item belongs to our third-wheeling mercenary now... But that's not the reason for the update.

This is.

Spoiler

It dropped from some random boss pack after I got bored with grind and decided to move on to Andariel. But that's not the most interesting part. In Nightmare difficulty, when Tatianna was having fun with multiple visits to uncle Mephisto, he spit out this:

Aside from being the GG drop (after upgrade is one of the best, if not the best weapons for javazon, period), it seem like the game wants me to play pikazon/javazon.

Since, as seen above, the game offers me things for Amazons that don't use bows or crossbows, I am seriously thinking doing character reset and go for the spears. As for details, I would like to possibly discuss with people here after I got some rest.

Cheers!

PS. Tatianna is currently here

Spoiler

 

[Antimatter]

Hmm, a character reset sounds a bit counterintuitive in terms of the initial challenge (correct me if I'm wrong): beat the Hardcore Hell difficulty with an archer.

But then, it's Hardcore. Everything works if it... works. You got really good drops there, like, insanely good. Maybe you can try completing the current run as an archer and then roll a spearzon?

 

[O_Bruce]

Well, to be honest, the challenge was to beat the hell hardcore with a character I didn't yet, which would be either Amazon, Assassin, Paladin, or Druid. I choose Amazon and planned an archer, sure, but the choice of the build was to have a game plan to begin with. But since I have a viable strategy of changing the build now, I'm considering it.

But first, what I hoped to achieve with the current build.
The plan was to use Valkyrie (lvl 14) and the mercenary as shields, while Tatianna would Strafe (lvl 12)/Multishot (lvl 8-9) from the safe distance. She would use Magic Arrow (lvl 20) to deal with physical immunities. She would invest 2-3 points into dodge skills, some into Critical Strike, 12 into Penetrate and also 3-5 into Pierce to work well with Multishot and Strafe. The benefit is relatively safe play with a countermeasure against physically immune enemies.

The drawbacks are:
- Low damage. Bowazons don't have much in terms of +damage % from skills in comparison to other classes whose skills are often reaching +200% or more. This makes the bowazon to rely on Might aura from the Mercenary a lot.
- Magic Arrow is excellent to deal against physically immune enemies, true... if you have a powerful bow like Windforce. Otherwise, the damage is simply to low to deal with physical immunities. To fix it, one can get the Harmony runeword, since it offers quite nice elemental damage that would go well with repeated attacks from Strafe. The thing is, I have no luck with Ko rune despite trying - I either was finding runes that are too low to use resources for their upgrade or rarer than Ko, which I can't downgrade.
- Neither Multishot nor Strafe have +% to attack rating, which makes investing in Penetrate mandatory to hit anything.
- Each build with no shield suffers from some potential troubles with resistances, and this one is no different. Valkyrie and Merc help with survivability, sure, but they won't protect me from Gloams and their variants.

Why would I want to respec?
- My damage would skyrocket. Not only because of better weapons, but also because of more damaging skills overall.
- My attack rating wouldn't be so dependent on Penetrate passive.
- I wouldn't be so dependent on the Might aura from the merc. While it gives me damage, I think that change the Merc to the one with Defiance or Holy Freeze would give me viable survivability benefits as well.
- Lower resistances due to lack of shield problem can be negated with Stoneraven + Smoke combo. This gives me +80 to all resistances, which not only maxes my current resistances but also gives me more freedom in regard to my other loot choice. +18 all res amulet I currently have can be replaced by something else. Maybe charms can be replaced by different ones. Things like that.
- Stoneraven gives a good bonus to defense. Would work well with Defiance aura.
- Stoneraven can be brought to Larzuk to make a socket in it, which gives me some options.
- My overall loot, minus weapons, works well for both Bowazon and Spearazon, so after respect I wouldn't have problems with optimalization of the build.
- Stoneraven has some additional magic damage, which could help against physical immunes, if I don't decide to invest in any elemental skills.

Why wouldn't I want to respec?
- Pretty much because I would be fighting in close combat, which brings more risk to it. The risk can be minimalized with Merc, Valkyrie, right aura, tanky build etc, but overall, the risk is greater (even though DPS is the reward).

Any thoughts on all that are welcome.

 

[Antimatter]

Ok, just from the list of pros and cons you've created, it's obvious you should go for a respec. To preserve her archer specialization, you basically have only 1 big factor, and it's not important for you - to be consistent and finish the game as an archer. Because from what I've seen, fighting in close combat with better resistances is safer than being at a distance vs Gloams.

Of course, a melee character with those resistances is a safer bet, and feels just more "meaty". And you most likely wouldn't like to repeat the game with another Amazon just yet, so put those items to their good use. But an option exists where you can just pass them to another hardcore character for storage, while you're still alive as Tatianna.

Might vs Defiance or Holy Freeze aura is another obvious choice - Defiance or Holy Freeze are much more suitable for survivability in Flame River and beyond.

Just be careful about those Act 3 little scary things that return damage in melee if you respec. But I would still say that them vs melee if you're cautious, are safer than Gloams. Gloams are so bad that with an assassin wielding a shield I always dreamed of switching to claw+claw, just to block their ranged nasty attacks.

One factor for a respec relates to my own gaming habits - I sometimes want a change in the character. This is why, for example, I sometimes start adding additional classes to my characters in other games after a certain stage, so that while the character story was the same, the gameplay changed a bit, if this makes any sense to you.

 

[alice_ashpool]

When I was a super D2 noob, probably about age 12, I had literally no idea what I was doing but I loved it, playing a terribly constructed Skellemancer. A random person I got chatting to in the rudimentary text chat on Normal Act 4 (still remember it) then unloaded tons of end game gear on me, probably out of pity - bringing in various mules and just dumping stuff until I was full (I had no idea of the concept of mules, that how noob I was). He game me SoJs, Shako, Leorics arm iirc, Homonculus, Mara's, basically a ton of end game gear which I had no idea of the real value of or how much work would have gone into collecting. He said he was quitting the game after too much time. That gear got my stupid noob ass through Hell.

 

[O_Bruce]

I have done some theorycrafting about how to respec the Amazon skill-wise.
Keep in mind that Critical Strike, Dodge, Avoid, Evade values transfrer to the Valkyrie as well.

level 81
Avaliable skill points: 80 + 9 = 89

Spoiler: Variant 1 - Balanced

Inner Sight (1)
Critical Strike (7)
Dodge (6)
Slow Missiles (1)
Avoid (5)
Decoy (1)
Evade (6)
Valkyrie (17)

Jab (1)
Power Strike (9)
Poison Javelin (1)
Lightning Bolt (1)
Charged Strike (20)
Impale (1)
Fend (12)

We have:
Valkyrie (1936 HP, +400% DMG, +680% AR, +160% DEF, 34 all res)
Dodge chance: 40%/45%/40%
Critical Strike chance: 49%
Fend: +150% AR, +180% DMG
Charged Strike: 1-322 (2-644), 7 bolts.

Spoiler: Variant 2 - No Valkyrie

Critical Strike (7)
Dodge (6)
Avoid (5)
Evade (6)

Jab (1)
Power Strike (20)
Poison Javelin (1)
Lightning Bolt (2)
Charged Strike (20)
Impale (1)
Fend (20)

We Have:
Dodge chance: 40%/45%/40%
Critical Strike chance: 49%
Fend: +230% AR, +260% DMG
Charged Strike: 1-322 (3-1030), 7 bolts.

Pros:
- Bigger DPS, both physical and lightning

Cons:
- No additional meatshield in form of Valkyrie.

Spoiler: Variant 3 - Pure physical

Inner Sight (1)
Critical Strike (9)
Dodge (6)
Slow Missiles (1)
Avoid (5)
Penetrate (10)
Decoy (9)
Evade (6)
Valkyrie (20)

Jab (1)
Impale (1)
Fend (20)

We Have:
Dodge chance: 40%/45%/40%
Critical Strike chance: 54%
Fend: +230% AR, +260% DMG
Attack rating: +125% bonus
OP Valkyrie: (2200 HP + bonus from Decoy, +475% damage, +800% AR, +360 AR from Decoy, +190% DEF, 40% all res (+18% from Decoy = 58% total). F*cking tank.

Pros:
- Slightly better physical damage, more attack rating resulting in overal better DPS
- Valkyrie is extra powerful tank.
- Decoy is more useful skill in itself

Cons:
- Limited ways to deal with physical immunes:
- Small magic damage from Stoneraven.
- Maybe Passion runeword, if I manage to find a 4 socket elite spear.
- Wand with Amplify Damage charges.
- % that Valkyrie will spawn with gear that adds elemental damage or with chacne to cast amp. damage on striking

Probably not going to find the following:
- Atma's Scarab (% chance of casting amplify damage on attack/strike)
- Reaper's Toll (for Merc, % chance of casting deceprify on striking)
- Demon Arch (good elemental damage, 1-handed, fast attack speed)
- Dream runeword in helm (holy shock aura)

Personally, I think I'll go towards variant 1, but I am open for the feedback.

 

[m7600]

I always liked the Tankazon build for the Amazon. I typically build her for melee combat, usually with a single-handed weapon and a shield, heavy armor, and almost all of the points spent on passive skills, and also Valkyrie.

 

[O_Bruce]

Hmm... If I can get Lem rune and Stygian Pike, then I would be able to craft 4 sockets into it using Larzuk. That would enable me to create Passion runeword, which would negate the biggest problem with pure physical build.

 

[O_Bruce]

Update for Tatianna

It looks like the game just really want me to respec:

So I did go for the "pure physical" variant for the build.

Now, look at this damage! Pure poetry in comparison to my previous ones! Not to mention defense and all res at 75%. Not only that, on switch I have a Passion runeword in Stygian Pike, which gives me a Berserk skill, meaning a viable way to deal with physical immune enemies. Oh yes. And not to mention hidden bonuses, such as dodge chance or crit chance...

Anyways, the way to auntie Andy was rather swift under those circumstances. The fight was swift, but Andy could still dish out some heavy damage with her Poison Spray.

Unfortunately, her drop leaves much to be desired.

Radament the Fallen soon falls again.

Now, together with Tatianna I made a decision to clear out the entirety of level 85 areas, so I did just that with the Maggot Lair, level 3. This resulted in Coldworm the Burrower's chamber looking kinda crowded:

Luckily, Fend was a great skill for the occasion and soon, the giant worm could do nothing but die by Tatianna's hand.

Fangskin was like "Oh no, you're hurting me!"

With that out of her way, Tatianna could recreate Horadric dil-... Staff and enter the royal palace. Being the only girl in Harem level 2 alive, she made her way to the Arcane Sanctuary. She faced the Summoner, who hid in the fourth way that Tatianna choose with help of my unparallel sense of direction.

Circle marked the symbol of the true tomb of Tal Rasha and due to playing this game for years I could nail the tomb's location on the map, despite never attempting to formally remember where each symbol is. Regardless, Duriel. Oh, Duriel.

I really don't know why there are so many myths and misconceptions about this boss... but on hell difficulty and even in nightmare, I find him much easier boss than Andariel. He slows you down and besides of that, all he does are physical attacks with some cold damage. He even doesn't have some mythical made-up "charge" people are claiming it to have. All of this, combined with the fact that I've seen a speedrunner dealing with this boss pretty easily in the vanilla 1.0 version makes me think he never was that tough. I genuinely think that when people first encountered this boss, me included, they just sucked at the game and were unprepared for such a fight. It definitely explains why for years I don't find Duriel particularly challenging.

In response to the above, Duriel guaranteed the drop to suck.

Before moving to the Mephisto's jungle, here are some stats:

As you can see, I invested additional 5 points in strength, just to be in a position to equip a different ring than my current rare one (among some things, it gives me +5 to strength and some resistances).

 

[Antimatter]

A very nice update and interesting numbers. Of course, your character is now much more secure. Just be careful in Act 3, please.

It's inspiring your all-phys build is working. As long as there is a way to provide magic damage, you're all set.

All 3 members of your party use spikes. The Spike Buddies.

 

[O_Bruce]

An update for the three Spike Buddies in act 3.

Act III is pretty standard. Did a Golen Brid quest and then kicked Sszark's arse to get the first Khalim's organ. I think I should have used Weaken curse that my Smoke armor provides me with.

On the way to Flayer's dungeon I picked the Gidbinn and upon reaching the first level of the Flayer's dungeon I was greeted by my biggest fans, ready to explode in Tatianna's face.

That slowed down the progress, though the mercenary and my faithful Valkyrie were enough to keep the little guys at bay. So, when reaching level 3, Tatianna could exhale with relief, since undead flayers don't spawn there. All she needed to do was consult Witch Doctor Endugu about another one of Kahlim's organs location and then move on to the Kurast city propper.

Stormtree was a tough opponent, requiring a tactical retreat once.

Tatianna then searched for Lam Esen's tome and the said book was guarded not only by battlemaid Sarina but also with a boss pack of spiders, the leader was physical immune which made things problematic. Tatianna needed to use Fend to - surprise, surprise - fend off minions before switching to Berserk and get the rid of the most threatening spider. That required spending several potions on mercenary to keep him alive. I got a decent pair of gloves for my trouble, just in case I needed to change up my equipment.

I can upgrade those to exceptional or even elite quality if I need to. Regardless, they're in the stash now.

I wonder what my first opponent in the sewers would be...

*sigh* that curse could spell my doom.

The traverse through the sewers requires as much caution as it requires not having a sense of smell. Regardless, once I found the entrance to level two, things went smoothly.

Time for Travincal. This is the only screenshot I took from fighting the Zakarum Council, the only time at the very beginning that the fight was relatively safe, without me accidentally aggroing more of them and dealing with them as they heal each other.

I'm not going to kid any of you, you know what was the fist thing I encountered in Mephisto's durances and what it means.

Regardless, I can tell based on entrance to the dungeon, where to go to eventually reach level 2. And same applying to level 2, only finding a waypoint was an additional side quest. Regardless, in level 3 I encountered a boss pack of Blood Lords + first Council Members unique monster, which was tough nut to crack. So no screenshots from that battle. Eventually, I reached Uncle Mephisto, and first I needed to bum the Blood Lord.

Weaken came in handy. Overall, Mephisto was more dangerous than Duriel but still dealt less DPS than Andariel. I think this was due to Weaken plus the fact that Uncle doesn't use his most devastating spells in melee combat.

But the loot was definitely better.

The unique Ghost Armor gives +1 to all skills and prevents the wearer from being Frozen. Could be useful for my mercenary, even if its base defense is not that good.

Anyways, next time the Act 4 awaits.

 

[Antimatter]

Well done, a very calculated play through Act 3. Those gauntlets are nearly perfect, only missing the life leech suffix. The Ghost Armor is helpful indeed, considering you're not farming Act bosses and just continuing with what you have, so there is no guarantee you'll get anything better for your Merc.

 

[O_Bruce]

Edit: @Antimatter this character does farm bosses (I visited Mephisto in Nightmare plenty of times) and does farm in general (Hell countess, Pit runs). It's just that about right now I may just have gear strong enough to beat the game.

Tatianna and her Spike Buddies in act 4

Nothing of interest in the Outter Steps, let's move on to the Plains of Despair. Burning Souls aside, which can be really dangerous and was on one or two occasion, I would like to stop and discuss Izual a little.

I have noticed some changes in him after the recent patch. Now, his attack speed seems to be significantly increased and this change isn't documented in the patch notes, I believe. Now, at first one might think it is some kind of bug, but that's probably not the case. Izual also died quicker than anticipated, makes me think he was rebalanced. Izzy was usually not much a threat, he just took quite the time to kill. Now he can be dangerous and I prefer monster to being dangerous than being just a damage sponge. But that's my preference - what yours?

One more minor thing about Izual, that apparent change brings me back to days of Diablo III vanilla, before any balancing took place. I recall Izual could dish out much damage back then, could slow you down, freeze you down and could charge in a similar way Opressor demons could... Now if I think about it, he was just the way people claim Duriel was in Diablo 2. Of course, these days are long over.

Regardless, 2 skill points went into Penetrate for additional attack rating. I've found this weapon, would be pretty useful for Paladin:

And look what I found on my way throught City of the Damned

Now, if only I had Tresher with 5 sockets in my stash and other runes I could do some really good runeword... Like Obedience for example... Sad it won't happen...

It's sad my Mercenary won't get to wear such a powerful wepon...

It's not like that combining it with his Tal-Rasha's set helmet + Guardian Angel armor I dropped back from farming Mephisto in Nightmare would result in all res of 90%, thus making him an excellent tank against elemental attacks... Too bad that won't happen. I guess I won't have any pretext to get rid of +1 skill, cannot be frozen Armor... What a shame...

On the other hand, I always dig coming down to River of Flame.

Hephasto had, among other things, Stone skin which made him immune to physical damage. Tatianna needed to Fend off trash mob before Berserking the Armorer, while bravely hiding behind her Valkyrie.

Gul rune! Nice! Too bad that, seriously, I have no use for it at all. To the stash you go.

Tatianna received a warm welcome party at the gate to Chaos Sanctuary. One Venom Lord boss pack and Oblivion Knights champion packs just behind the gate. Due to the isometric view and the gate, I had problems with seeing what exactly I was facing. Then again, it is Chaos Sanctuary in Hell difficulty, caution is always required in hardcore play.

Battle against Infector of Souls and his merry minions.

Before going further, I need to make a mental note. I've always thought of Infector of Souls and his minions to be the most dangerous pack that guards the seals to Diablo. Well, this is true on Normal difficulty - their Inferno enhanced with Spectral Hit is just that powerful. But, I need to finally understand that this is not the case in Nightmare and Hell anymore. No. Enter Lord the Seis.

No screenshot of fighting his minions? Oh, it's because they killed my merc in 2-3 seconds, fast enough for me to not realize that I need to Full Rejuv him. Well, I still had Valkyrie, an ultimate tank that brought me a few seconds. Then it was my turn and this is when I realized I fricked up. Only by spamming Full Rejuv Tatianna survived to re-group, her good run nearly ended right there. This was the closes call in the entire run so far. What actually happened? Lord de Sies spawns with Aura Enhanced (Fanaticism) and Extra Strong as default. He is also prone to cast many curses, Amplify Damage included. And while his Extra Strong doesn't do anything to him, it does strengthen his melee-combat-oriented minions. They hit hard on their own, but if you take Extra Strong + bonus from Fanaticism aura + Amplify Damage curse, then you have a strength to behold. Hence, Tatianna needed to re-group and split minions as much as possible, as to not fight more than 2 at the time. Eventually, it succeeded and Seis was all alone, being easy prey.

No screenshot from the last group of guardians as well, because in contrast, they were too weak. Time for Diablo himself.

He swiftly took my mercenary down with Firestorm or two. Said skill was much more damaging than I anticipated - and Tatianna has 71% fire resistance and an additional 15% fire absorb from the Dwarf Star. I am convived that without resistance and absrobtion, Diablo could one-shot my character from full health with it. That's over 1100 hp.

Luckily, I am well prepared.

With the changes that were implemented to Izual, I was curious if Diablo received some adjustments, but I doubt it now. His Red Lightning still doesn't hit at close range in the Hell difficulty, which makes the fight much easier than it needed to be. He still dealt the most damage from all the Act bosses so far. Maybe he had some damage adjustments. I am not sure.

What I am convinced of that Diablo just had to assert his dominance by T-posing, even as he was dying.

The loot was a good sell.

Finally, some stats because of course:

On last level up, I added: +1 point in dexterity (to get rid of +1 to dex small charm), the rest into vitality. I also added another skill point to penetrate.

 

[Antimatter]

How does it feel to play a spearzon? Are her attacks fast enough? I guess having a high Crushing blow chance helps tremendously, but is the attack speed enough, in your opinion? I've always hesitated to play with anything other than "fast" and "extra fast" weapons on a melee character.