The Core of Diablo

[O_Bruce]

@jmerry I just realized that Um rune is just Lum without the L. Which makes Um a W.

Anyways, cringe jokes aside, good progress. And, speaking from experience and the infinite depths of my compassion towards them, let Undean Stygian Dolls be cursed forever.

Also, I decided to do a challenge run, after being inspired by Zarfen the Loot Goblin. As I watched one of his streams, he got a question if he'd consider doing Necromancer golem-only run. I thought that's a good idea and went with it. And so, the Golem-only Necromancer challenge:

Let's establish the rules for the challenge:
- I can only put skill points in and use, golem skills, passive skills that empower golems and curses
- I am not allowed to use bone & poison skills or attack enemies directly
- The exception to the above: I can attack enemies by myself until I get level 6, at which point I can have my first golem.
- The character is hardcore. Needless to say, death = end of the run.
- I am not allowed to use mercenaries

With that said, the adventure of Cromwell, the master of Golems began.

Okay, so until level 6 the run is nothing special, outside of that I use mace to do damage to enemies, sometimes supporting myself with Amplify Damage. I decided to skip Blood Raven quest, as to never, even by accident, getting a mercenary as a reward for completing it. As a result, I hit level 6 while in the Underground Passage and started using the Clay Golem right away (I also switched my main attack to "throw" while not wielding thrown weapon, meaning I cannot attack even by accident). The pace of cleaning monster was miserable, so I decided to farm Rakanishu in the Stone Fields and got few levels. It wasn't wast, but the Golem got stronger and by seeling loot from Rakanishu I bought a wand with +2 to Clay Golem skill points. Just look at this freaking Gigachad:

Whooping 6-15 damage. Wow. Anyway, due to how the gameplay looks for now, I decided to mainly rush through the content and fight champions/unique/bosses on my way. I have rescued Deckard Cain and went onto Black Marsh where I intended to farm the Countess for a while. Level 12 is a huge step for the character due to access to Golem Mastery, as well as Iron Maiden. I would be very useful against act bosses and while not initially useful against normal mobs (due to them having hard time hitting golem in melee), it would be much more useful later on. And then... well, I won't spoil it. Though even so early on, it works nice on certain boss packs:

Anyways, I decided to rush through remaining act 1 quests and found two interesting things:

Additional levels to Clay Golem are nice, and the Blood Crescent gives me life and resistances. I wouldn't attack with it anyways, so that's all I need it for.
A fight against Andariel went well. Investing points into Iron Maiden paid off (for those who aren't aware: its a curse that reflects % of damage dealt back to the enemy), and the bonus damage modifier act bosses have against minions/summoned creatures made it even better. This is how much Andariel damaged herself in just one of her own hit:

Moving to act II, it started very slowly. Clay Golem's damage is not impressive, and while curses help, it isn't that much. I needed some patience to reach level 18 and unlock Blood Golem. It is one of the two golems I'll be using depending on the situation at hand: Blood Golem deals much more damage than Clay Golem, can also be supplied with courses and it also heals you with each of its own attacks. I'll be relying on this fellow for a while. Anyways, while clearing act II, two notable upgrades happened:

Stealth is practically a stample armor, especially for speedrunners. The head I found, on the other hand, has +3 to Iron Maiden and +1 to Golem Mastery (meaning, more life, attack rating, and movement speed for my golem). Before Duriel, I need to talk about the Summorer in the Arcane Sanctuary. Usually, he's nothing special, but with 1 Golem as my only source of damage, he can be annoying - he freezes the Golem with Glacial Spike constantly, and everytime he does, I needed to re-summon Golem in order to take the mage down. Anyways, Duriel. He wasn't problematic at all: he was easier than Andariel and died faster as well. He relies on melee attacks all the time, which makes him a perfect victim for the Iron Maiden.

Zombie Head wasn't good though.

Now for the act III. My plan was doing the the quests in the jungle part of the act and then just rush to the city part of the Kurast. There, I wanted and did farm Battlemaid Sarina and her minions until I was level 24. Meanwhile, I managed to buy a staff with teleport charged on it from Ormus. Then I immediately started using it in the Kurast Sewers.

Found good gloves in Travincal:

While the Council Members were problematic to deal with (their hydras kill the golem surprisingly quickly, even despite its bulk, and also they can heal each other. This combined with rather weak damage output by golem meant I needed to separate my enemies as much as it was possible), Mephisto was not. He went down even faster than Duriel. Granted, it was due good rng for me, as he kept hitting the golem with melee attack and Iron Maiden did its job. I haven't expected Iron Maiden to be that helpful and effective, as I practically never use it while playing summoner Necro. Though whether Iron Maiden can stay useful, we shall see.

Thank you, uncle Mephisto, for a nice pair of boots.

The start of Act IV was kinda cool: Balrogs are among the rarest monsters in the game, as they can only spawn in the Outer Steppes as a boss pack. And they did so right at the very beginning

I decided to rush through the act where and when I could. Izual took a while to take down, just because of his impressive health pool. I spend two skill points from the quest reward for Deceprify and Iron Golem. These are mainly pre-requesites for other skills and I figured I just might have them out of my head.

River of Flame was rather tedious, due to Flesh Spawner spawning their mini-mes. Iron Maiden proved to be useful once again. I don't remember a Hellforge drop being anything special.

Chaos Sanctuary went rather well and I wasn't in the pitch. The Oblivion knights were obnoxious to deal with: some of them use cold magic, they cast Deceprify on my golem, further slowing him down, then run away from him. I also couldn't ignore them, since they can dish out some elemental damage. As for seal guardians, the only one that was somehow problematic was Infestor of Souls due to sheer number of his minions and huge fire damage they can deal.

How I have dealt with Diablo himself? Splendidly. The rng gods blessed my butt once again, and Diablo was very eager to use melee attack on my golem, killing himself with Iron Maiden. I was worried since Diablo has larger health pool than Izual... But on the other hand, Diablo deals more damage and has additional multiplier vs. minions. So all in all, the fight wasn't long.

Before I move to act V: how do I spend my stat points? My plan is to target 110 strength, this enables me to wear something as heavy as War Belt, and there is a real chance of finding a rare one that's quite good. I don't think I can realistically expect to have Spirit runeword in Monarch shield, so I don't push strength further. As for dexterity, I want to maintain a good block rate. Unlike other summoner necromancers, I don't have an army of minions to tank hits and missiles for me, so I think having some block chance isn't a waste. With vitality, I want to keep it as high as possible, and it will be the highest stat. As for energy, nothing.

Now, to act V.

The plan:
- Kill Shenk the Overseer
- Farm Eldrich the Rectifier
- Save Barbarians
- Save Anya
- Skip Nihlathak
- Rush to the end of the act
- Profit

And the plan was executed. Notable things:
- Iron Maiden was extremely useful versus Abominations in the Frozen River. They stun lock the golem with their melee attacks, so other than damage they reflect back to themselves, I have no other realistic way to damage them.
- Nihlathak was skipped due to tedious nature of a fight I'd have against him.
- Ancients weren't problematic: Iron Maiden helped with two of them, leaving only Madawc to be slapped by Blood Golem to death

- Second wave of Baal's minions was the second to worst of them.
- Council Members were the worst, and it is the only wave I needed to skip, due to earlier mentioned problems with council members. Luckily, I still had staff with teleport charges.
- Wave 4 and 5 weren't that threatening, as long as the enemies targeted the golem. I needed to re-summon the poor fellow several times, though.

Baal was surprisingly cooperative. Never creating a clone of himself and primarly using his melee attack. A high-level Iron Maiden curse made the fight short, which isn't something I have expected from summoner Necromancer.

Just like that, the normal difficulty with Golem only was cleared. I am curious how the rest will play out: nightmare difficulty seems doable. But Hell might live up to its name. Time and patience will tell this tale

 

[jmerry]

Huh. It sounds like the act boss anti-minion multipliers are working for you there. They take a fraction of damage from minion/mercenary attacks and deal multiplied damage to minions/mercenaries, which normally makes them big trouble for a summoner. And then you put in Iron Maiden. The damage to the minion is multiplied, Iron Maiden reflects and multiples that again, and it's treated as your damage so it's not reduced like the golem attacks.
If I were running the challenge, I'd allow Bone Armor at least - it's a pure defensive skill. Bone Wall and Bone Prison ... probably not any active use, because they'd allow you to kill things attacking them with Iron Maiden and they aren't golems.

And, speaking from experience and the infinite depths of my compassion towards them, let Undean Stygian Dolls be cursed forever.

No, no, don't let them be cursed! Cursed Undead Stygian Dolls (or Undead Flayers, or Bone Fetishes) are even worse!

[Added in edit]
That bit about balrogs being extremely rare? They can also show up as "guest monsters" in act 5 on Nightmare or Hell difficulty. I just saw them in the Infernal Pit.
Their rarity in act 4 looks like a mistake that no one ever cared to change; most of the act 4 monster types have three versions at levels 24, 27, and 30 (in normal difficulty) that you progress through over the course of the act. Balrogs are the level 24 monster of their class, but their normal appearances get the level 30 Venom Lords substituted instead. Oops.

 

[jmerry]

Time for the final update of Galvarey's run. He may be the most blinged-out character I've ever built - is it enough to overcome the challenges this game imposes on a melee build?

Well, I'm still clearing at players 5. That's a good sign. Though I forgot to turn off the auto-run I accidentally activated in the Baal battle (R is right next to one of my skill hotkeys) and that got me in trouble with a quill rat early in the Bloody Foothills. Fix that mistake, kill the rat ...

I got my first one of those off Diablo last session. Then my second right away this session. Sometimes, this game...

Nothing much of note happens until the Crystalline Passage, which has physically immune Blood Lord minotaurs. That's an enemy type I have to take seriously - hard-hitting non-undead physical immunes. I take the precaution of activating Vigor before opening the first Evil Urn ... and it's just snakes. Though I still decide to open any future urns with Vigor as well.
One Blood Lord boss rolls lightning immunity as well, and that leads me to find a combat use for an aura I haven't before:

Defiance. Because I decided that kicking my defense up to ~30K was better for this fight than amplifying my small amounts of fire and cold damage and boosting my chance to hit (Conviction). If a minotaur can't hit you, they can't charge up their Frenzy. And when I could find a spark-dodging spot, as in that picture, the whole thing worked particularly well.

The nearly-full XP bar in that shot? I hit level 88 just before finishing the area.

One enemy type native to act 5 that's more dangerous than they might seem? Those self-reanimating undead shamblers. Their charge attacks hit hard, and they get through my blocking and defense far too often. So when I visit Pindleskin? Redemption. Clear out most of those corpses before they can rise. I really don't want to face a crowd of those guys charging me.

The Halls of Pain bring back Heirophants and Zealots. That has me breaking out Smite a few times, to focus down individual enemies in a way that Zeal can't. Because if I spread the damage around, the healers just erase it before anyone dies.
And that's where my delve into Nihlathak's lair stops. I don't want to risk fighting the traitor without some considerably better corpse disposal. (But if I ever come back for that, Dracul's Grasp gets the personalization)

Forward progress resumes, and I find something nice in the Ancient's Way:

A Fine Small Charm of Vita. And I even have space for it; I don't need that Shimmering Small Charm of Shock after using the resistance scroll.

Against the Ancients, I start by focusing on the leaper Korlic. He's fire/cold enchanted, and I basically take no damage until he dies. At which point the death explosion deals a big chunk of damage, Madawc lands an axe throw and curses me, and the rest of the fight is much more annoying - all lightning immunes, with a curse mixed in. I run a lot of Cleansing. But it's not hard. 40 million XP earned (a third of the way from level 88 to 89), and the way forward is open.

How will the game test me in the Worldstone Keep?
The first floor is basically Travincal plus succubi. Sometimes it takes a while to get through the healing, but it's not too hard.
The second floor is beetles, Black Souls, and Frenzied Ice Spawn. Ah, the guest monster wisps, terrifying for many melee builds. They're immune to lightning and poison, highly resistant to physical, unleechable, and they have long-range piercing lightning bolt attacks. I've got the defensive angle covered with 85% lightning resist, but how do I hurt them? Sanctuary. Just ignore that physical resistance completely. And if Life Tap lands, I can steal life.
The third floor is back to Holy Shock territory. Oblivion and Doom Knights, Death Lord minotaurs, imps.
Finally, the Throne has snakes, succubi, and Burning Souls. The game is really throwing those wisps at me every chance it gets; they were also in the Frozen River and Icy Cellar earlier. They're a bit less trouble in the final dungeon, since they can't run away over impassable terrain.

I do run into some trouble at a corner room, with succubi and at least one soul boss pack. That has me hitting the panic button ... and somehow hitting Q, W, Tab, and 1 when I really wanted 2. Well, at least one of those was healing, and I was also walking away. Dismiss the quest screen, switch the weapon back, reactivate the map, and then re-engage. Pulling that cluster of foes apart takes a while, but it works.

Actually, that's a good opportunity to talk about hotkeys. For Diablo 2, I use what's basically a grid setup for my skill hotkeys - 5 to 0 in the top row, T to O in the second row, and G to L in the third row. Any other hotkeys that were in that zone get moved to the left side of the keyboard.

After that troublesome encounter, I bring back Azrael. And I manage to keep him alive through the final gauntlet. Go down to players 1 for Baal, because his HP pool is utterly enormous ...

And there it is. Galvarey becomes a Guardian at level 88.

I run one more session after that. First, my composite picture of stats and equipment:

All standard buffs (Venom, Enchant, Holy Shield) are active.
Now, skills. With relevant stats included.
Defensive auras: 1+7 Prayer, 1+7 Cleansing (-67% duration, 8 heal), 1+8 Meditation (+475% mana regen, 8 heal), 16+7 Defiance (290% defense), 1+7 Vigor (+33% speed), 1+7 Redemption (65% chance, 60 life and mana), 20+7 Resist Lightning (+10% passive max lightning resist), 1+7 Salvation (+93% resistances)
Offensive Auras: Might 1+6, Blessed Aim 1+6, Concentration 1+6 (150% damage), Holy Fire 1+6, Holy Freeze 1+6, Holy Shock 20+6 (1-4623 attack damage, 1-770 area damage), Thorns 1+6, Sanctuary 1+6 (330% damage), Conviction 1+6 (-75% defense, -60% resists)
Combat skills: Sacrifice 1+9, Zeal 3+9 (120% attack, 60% damage), Vengeance 1+9, Holy Bolt 1+9, Blessed Hammer 1+9, Smite 1+9 (150% damage, 2.4 sec stun), Charge 1+9, Holy Shield 20+9 (+93-96 smite damage, 730 sec duration, +685% defense, +37% base block)
Other: Enchant level 23 charges (672 sec duration, 87-111 damage, +218% attack rating)

But that's not quite the end. I also play some. Clear out the cows (except the king), and then head for Baal again. On the way, I make it to level 89:

More Vitality, more Defiance. I see no reason not to stop boosting my defense. It's not a great stat ... unless you have a whole lot of it. And Galvarey does. I've talked up a lot of Galvarey's gear, but not so much the body armor. A perfect 260% Gloom in a high-defense base item ... that really is a big deal. All those percentage modifiers don't help if you don't have a good base to multiply.

Now that I've run every character class once (including the two failures), I'll give Diablo 2 a bit of a rest. I'll come back some time to try the necromancer and druid again, but this is enough for now. Five guardians complete.

 

[O_Bruce]

@jmerry Congrats, good job at making another guardian! It was nice seeing you putting some life to this thread, and I'll be waiting to see more from you in the future!

 

[O_Bruce]

Let's continue Cromwell's adventure

Before going into Nightmare difficulty, I farm some stuff, cow level included. Some more notable improvements/finds regarding gear include:
- Stealth runeword in Serpentskin Armor
- Sigon's Shield (+1 to all skills, if needed)
- Sash from Death's set (cannot be frozen as an attribute)
- Crystal Sword found in the cow level => asking Larzuk to make sockets in it => Crystal Sword with 4 sockets. Will use for Spirit runeword later.

Since Hardcore characters don't tend to live forever, I have no reservations from using Act V quest reward for things like this. Anyways, I don't have screenshots showing my exact level when I went into Nightmare, but I reckon it was something in a range of 36 to 39

Good news is that Iron Maiden tactic still wokrs well in Nightmare difficulty. For ranged enemies, Blood Golem does ok damage. Fire Golem isn't being leveled up yet. Just ask most recent settlers of Tristram of that:

Extra Strong Griswold, my Golem being cursed, and Iron Maiden being in effect. The damage reflected was beautiful to witness

After dealing with Tristram and saving Cainy, I decided to keep visiting the Countess for some time. This resulted in three nice upgrades for me:

Overall, progress was good and soon I was done with the most notable challenges in Act I

Andariel went down a bit slower than in normal difficulty, but I didn't need to re-summon the Golem often

Act II Radament was interesting, as in I needed to tactically re-position myself, re-summon the Golem, make sure the Golem is within Radament's melee range etc. Little tedious, with all the minions, resurrecting said minions etc, but not difficult.

Found a nice helm in the Far Oasis. Will be able to use it soon

In act II, I noticed the Iron Maiden started falling off in terms of damage, but I have planned ahead. You know, I have Tir, Tal and Amn runes in my stash, and I just needed to find a good ranged weapon with 3 sockets in order to create the Edge runeword. And in Tal Rasha's tomb, I finally did:

Level 15 Thorns aura combined with Iron Maiden works amazingly well. To be honest, there is a way to make Edge work even better with Golem-only challenge, but I'll talk about it later, once the past me realizes the possibility. Turns out, Duriel went down really quick, about as fast as in Normal, if not faster. I didn't do screenshot of a loot, since there was nothing worth looking at.

In act III, my tactic was the following: since dealing with fetishes/soul killers is really tedious in Golem-only challenge, I rushed through the jungle part of the act as quickly as I could, visiting only locations I needed and fought only when it was beneficial. For instance, while being chased by 10-20 little guys, I re-summon the Golem and use Iron Maiden/Edge combination to kill multiple enemies relatively quickly.
Found an interesting item in the Spider Cavern:

It's going to have some use while farming for better loot . Possibly Eldrich the Recifier being the prime candidate. Or maybe Nightmare difficulty Cow King.

Some special words of acknowledgement I need to direct towards this guy:

He was bugged and didn't attack, making the combination of Iron Maiden/Edge useless. With his cold aura, Golem's attack speed was quite low. And with multiple fetishes coming in and out of Golem's melee range, it was annoying to make the Golly attack particular enemy.

I think it was in Kurast Bazaar that the revelation hit me regarding the Edge runeword. Level 15 Thorns aura reflects 810% damage (+some flat damage). Level 20 Iron Maiden (which I didn't have; its level was about 12-14 or something along those lines) reflects 675% (and no additional flat damage reflect, but then again and as always, Paladins do receive special treatment). In total, that would be 1485% reflected damage with a bit of flat damage added on top. Now, what if instead using Iron Maiden, I decided to use Amplify Damage? Effectively, the reflected amount of damage becomes 1620%, and the flat damage is also doubled. Not only that, Amplify Damage can remove immunities to physical damage, making previously physical-immune enemies do damage to themselves and it also makes Blood Golem hit harder. As you can see, there's much to gain by this.

And all that without a need to invest more than 1 point into Iron Maiden. With that, I decided to respec my character. Attributes-wise, it was the same. Skill points wise, Clay Golem and Iron Maiden were reduced to the required level of 1 and I re-distributed the points among Golem Mastery, Blood Golem and Fire Golem.

I tested new and improved Thorn build on Council Members. And this time around, in contrast to normal difficulty, I experienced no problems. The damage was great!

Now, I need to mention the risk that comes with using the Edge and that is: to use it, I need to switch my weapon set to it. That means I lose protections and all utilities from my first weapon set, including the shield. All in all, it is a much more risky tactic, but it works when enemies focus on Golem.

Mephisto went down faster than in normal difficulty

With Mephisto done, Cromwell will continue his challenge in Act IV Nightmare

 

[O_Bruce]

Cromwell takes on rest of the Nightmare difficulty!

Very early at the beginning of Act IV, I have found a 3-socketed Dragon Shield and made a Ancient's Pledge runeword in it. It enables me higher gear flexibility, and besides, my Rhyme shield was made in +3 to Iron Maiden necro shield, a skill I don't use anymore.

Will get 91 strength very shortly

There were no issues with super unique monsters in act IV

The rune from the hellforge quest was Lum, which is great. I'll have need for it in the future

Chaos Sanctuary was unproblematical due to the vast majority of enemies hitting the golem in melee and thus being eliminated quickly. Oblivion Knights were the exception due to their tendency to run away from the confrontation and attacking from a distance. But overall, I wasn't in any danger.

Diablo was very uncooperative at the beginning, using mostly spells to damage the golem. Only much later he decided to yolo and started hitting the golem in melee. As you can guess, he died shortly afterwards

I started Act V by rushing to Shenk, killing the commander and finishing the first quest, then farming Eldrich the Rectifier for some time (without any notable loot, however). Afterwards, I decided to clear the whole act rather quickly and skip many enemies, since frequently they were using ranged attacks. The barbarians were freed along the way. And just before the Crystalized Passage, the Tresh Socket dropped an interesting thing:

Mal rune. A freaking Mal rune! I'll be holding to it for now, as if I can find a good ethereal elite armor with two sockets, then I'll gladly use Mal to create Prudence runeword. But that's for the future and only IF I manage to find a good base.

Gloams were present in the Frozen River and that required caution from me. Luckily, I have more than plenty of Full Rejuveation Potions. Fire Golem combined with Lower Resist curse worked well; even its aura damage wasn't for nothing. I realized that at high level with Lower Resist, Fire Golem could dish out some respectable damage. I wonder how effective (or not) would it be in hell difficulty with fully optimized gear for it.

Anya doesn't usually grant anything useful as a reward for saving her butt. Though this time around, this particular Sexton Trophy can have ocassional use.

+3 to Fire Golem isn't nothing

Nihlathak was skipped, similarly to normal difficulty, which meant I was free to rush towards the Ancients. And I mean it. I have skipped out optional areas and fought enemies only when I decided it was worth my time or if I haven't got other options.

Ancients themselves were rather easy, due to Cromwell not being the one targeted. Edge + Amplify Damage did its job with Talic and Korlic

Madawc meanwhile was punched to death by the Fire Golem:

After my Golem was acknowledged as the worthy hero by the Ancients, I was free to finish up Act V. The second level had Burning Souls as enemies, of course, but just like before, Fire Golem did good job at taking them out.

Baal's waves of minion weren't much of a problem. The second wave has been dealt with Fire Golem with Edge + Amplify Damage curse. Greater Mummies were unsubscribing themselves from existence with their melee attacks, meanwhile their skeletal mages were receiving AoE damage from the Golem's aura. Just to prove the effeciveness of Edge + Iron Maiden combination once again, this time around I've dealt with High Council directly, without needing to luring them away from the chamber

And Baal was more cooperative than his younger brother

Cromwell conquered the Nightmare Difficulty and became a Conqueror.

I'll need to farm some levels and equipment for Hell difficulty though. In the meantime, Cromwell's stats:

 

[Antimatter]

Looks like a breeze walk!

Also, I need to say this: I really appreciate cropped images. The focus on the item/monster/action, very handy. Well-done!

 

[O_Bruce]

Blood and Fire Golems are attempting Hell Difficulty... Because let's be honest, Cromwell doesn't do much

But first, pre-hell grinding. In terms of notable loot by going through the terrorized zones and the secret cow level:
- Found a Lidless Wall and asked Larzuk to make a socket in it. Then, I used perfect diamond to gain +19 all resistances

- Natalya's Totem. It doesn't grant +1 skills, but it has great defense, attributes boost (dex in particular helps with block rate) and has all resistance bonus.

- Trang-Oul's Scales. Great defense, but weak in terms of resistances. It grants bonus to summoning skills, and faster movement speed. Depending on the gear combination, I can make use of it

With that and some level ups, I entered the Hell difficulty with a nice level and following stats:

Golem Mastery, Blood Golem and Fire Golem are maxed out. Iron Golem and Summon Resistance gets 1 point, and Clay Golem got more due to attack rating synergy.
From curses, the only one that got more than 1 skill point is Lower Resist, though I'll be adding some skill points into Dim Vision to help with some monsters.

For Hell difficulty as a whole, I decided to do a doctor Dolittle tactics: do as little as I can, and mostly ran through the content. In act I, I have saved Deckard Cain and cleansed the Den of Evil, but as for the rest of the optional quests, I had little need do them. I can hardly get stronger with levels, since my main skills are maxed out, and getting more +skills from items would require a grind that's way too lengthy, especially given the nature of this playthrough. And let's be honest: Edge aside, the Golems' damage output is pretty weak for Hell difficulty. After Lower Resist, Fire Golem was only one capable of dishing out somehow respectable damage, but those didn't do anything against fire-immunes.

What made me happy is that after using Amplify Damage, I still can use Edge runeword to make normally physical-immune enemies (like ghosts) to ran out of their free life trial.

Speaking of which, act bosses bonus damage vs. minion still carries me hard, as you can now refer to Andariel in past tense

Act II, I decided to do Radament quest and I had no idea how much of a pain and danger would await me when facing horadric mummy. The burning skeleton mages were the wors: Fire Golem couldn't do anything (if they were not fire immune, then Fire Golem could take them out in reasonable time), Blood Golem did little damage and mages were often running away. Luring them away from the Radament was difficult and tedious, and the damage from their fire spells wasn't to be scoffed at with my current max HP value.

(moments after Radament has fallen)

The experience made me realize I should not wait any longer and made myself a Smoke runeword:

Not a base I'd like to use for this runeword, but beggars can't be choosers

My map just after leaving Lut Gholein was pretty funny:

The next area is just behind the corner, and the Stony Tomb is in-between. I though it would be a nice place for grinding, being easily accesible level 85 area, but my attemprs at this made me reconsider. So, I ran to the Far Oasis, Dim Vision curse helping me with avoiding enemies.

In the Far Oasis, my goal was to find the waypoint and then entrance to the maggot lair. While I was doing so, I noticed that luckily, Fire Golem was enough to deal with physical-immune insects swarms, as they are very weak to elemental damage. About Fire Golem though, I nearly forget to mention one annoying thing about using it:
his mana costs on higher skill levels is all but reasonable, especially when compared with a value you get. Fire Golem is neither a Bear, Valkyrie or Shadow Master: it cannot dish out as much damage as they can, and is not that flexible like they are. And yet, mana costs are insane. I hardly have enough mana to summon it once; and each resummon for repositioning means I need to drink 1-2 mana potions. Even worse, remember that +3 Fire golem rare necro shield I got from Anya? I cannot use it, as if I do, the mana cost would become way too high to even use the skill once.

Overall, I think the golems were still being done dirty in this game, even in the newest patch. Let's say I can add additional 10 or more skill points to Fire Golem if I gear up the necromancer optimally. Mana cost would be insane, and the benefits I doubt would be worth it. Or maybe I'm not good at playing necromancer, I am not sure.

What I am sure about is that Maggot Lair is annoying for such Necromancer. Scarabs, I can deal with Edge + Amplify Damage. Swarms, I can use Fire Golem. But egg laying maggots were the worst. The adults are tanky and rarely use melee attacks and their little spawns waste your time. Progress through all 3 level would be way of a chore, and I was impatient. Luckily, I still have the staff with teleport charges on it I bought in the normal difficulty way back. With this, I could, with some risk, skip most of the dungeon. I won't lie, I spend some full rejuv potions on my way there. Finally, I decided to quickly zip through level 3 to the main chest. Coldworm the Burrower aside, there was a boss pack of Scarabs and it seemed they'd focus on my Golem.

Which was great, I opened the chest, put the Staff of Kings in the Horadric cube, opened the portal, was about the click to get out of there aaaaand...

Spoiler

It seems one of these bugs was not after the golem at all. I haven't noticed that and was surprised at how fast I died. I didn't have time to react. Most likely, I was still holding the teleport staff, and so my resistances were lowered, and I didn't have a shield to help me block attacks.

That's that. I could beat Nightmare difficulty, but I failed in Hell. Still, it was an interesting playthrough and I think that challenge runs can be quite fun. Maybe in the future I'll be doing these on non-hardcore characters. But first, I still need to make two Guardians: one Paladin, one Assassin.

 

[Antimatter]

That's sad. It reminds me of how one of your Sorceresses died after teleporting. Seems that is a dangerous thing to do at that difficulty level.

Still, the run was fascinating indeed.

 

[jmerry]

Putting Smoke in an exceptional item ... for this build, that's not something to worry about. You don't have any multiplicative defense boosts, so you can't get enough defense to really matter anyway. Especially given your relatively low level; if the level ratio in the hit chance formula is against you, you really can't win.

But yeah. Teleporting into an uncleared room, when you don't have massive life and other defenses, just isn't a workable Hardcore tactic. There are just too many ways for burst damage to happen in this game.

It reminds me of my lost necromancer at the beginning of my HC project; Prebek ran out ahead of his army because they were taking too long on the act 5 fortifications, and got whacked by a pack of archers. Impatience is the enemy.

 

[O_Bruce]

I do agree, especially with the last sentence. It was because of impatience that I failed the run on the Hell difficulty.
About defense, I am not sure about it being utterly useless in most scenarios (even without multipliers). Just in case in which enemies outlevel me by 14 levels, yeah, I can see what you mean.

 

[O_Bruce]

It is time to make an honest attempt to make a Guardian out of character I haven't succeeded before - Paladin. Meet Arkveld

The plan for him is to be a Fist of Heaven/Holy Bolt Paladin with a Convinction aura. Act II desert mercenary will be his companion - I haven't used these guys for a while, and they are still the best endgame option - so, they're a valuable pick for this attempt.

The beginnings of act I aren't much to talk about. Before I have access to the Holy Bolt, I just attack things in melee and since Sacrifice and Might aura are pre-requesites, I take advantage of it. Den of Evil was cleared and the Blood Raven was taken down. Afterwards, the fun with Holy Bolt began. A significant number of enemies in act one is either demon or undead, which works great for me. Finding a scepter with +2 to Holy Bolt makes my time even better.

First really nice find awaits for me in the Forgotten Tower.

Great armor for the early game.

And this time around, I did the countess before I did Tristram and I think that might be my go-to route from now on. Just ask Griswold

Smith is considered by game as a demon, so Holy Bolt makes short work of him

What's funny about this screenshot is that it looks as if a mighty Paladin is covering in fear behind a Rogue, who takes on Smith in close combat

Before finishing act I, I discovered something quite cool (in my opinion, anyways). So, if you switch to the classic graphic, decrease the resolution from 800x600 to 640x480 and then switch to the Ressurected graphics, the camera will be a bit zoomed in, as it was the case in 640x480 resolution on classic graphics. For me it is very cool because I can appreciate all the details of the envoirment and character models much more than usual. I'll be using that mode to play for a while. I recognize it isn't meta thing to do, since it limits my view of what's around me, but I don't care. Meta's boring anyways.

Act I is completed without problem

Severs of Act II were done in quickly, as majority of enemies there are undead and a few that's not can be dealt with reasonably quickly in melee combat.

(Why this animation makes Paladin look like he's covering in fear? )

Because there are much more non-demon and non-undead enemies out there in the desert, I thought it would be a great time to hire a desert mercenary. Durga joined Arkveld in his quest, supplementing the Paladin with his vigorous thrusts and Prayer aura.

Searching for the Horadirc Cube

First really interesting enemy:

Physically immune enemy is a rare thing to witness in normal difficulty. Luckily, my melee attack had some poison damage. And of course, I had 1 point invested into Holy Fire as a necessity to eventually reach Conviciton Aura. So, such enemy is not a problem

Surrounded by flies in the Maggot Lair, about to get the Staff of Kings

Durga taking on Fangskin in an attempt to get Amulet of the Viper

Jerhyn's Palace and then Arcane Sanctuary went out without much problem. I on of the Tal Rasha's fake tombs (I cleared out all of them) I have found a nice weapon for Durga:

(no screenshot of it identified though!)

Also, soon after:

Duriel was not a problem:

For me, he never seems to be.

Arkveld's stats after reaching Act III:

 

[O_Bruce]

Arkveld's adventure through the normal difficulty continues

Act III contains a plenty of enemies that are neither demons nor undead, so I wasn't able to use the Holy Bolt as much as I'd like. Luckily, even 1 point into Zeal and Might was more than enough, especially with a support from Durga. I stuck to mainly the non-optional content in here.

Spider Cavern, where Khalim's Eye is found

The Gidbinn in the Flyer Jungle and a reward for finding it:

No screenshot from the Flyer Dungeon, unfortunately. But I found Sigon's Visor from the Stormtree:

Fighting Icehawk Riftwing in Kurast Sewers. As you can see, I changed the aura from Might to Holy Shock, since it is a synergy for Fist of Heavens, and also adds flat lightning damage to my attacks, which IMO works well, at least for now. Got Khalim's Heart soon after

I forgot to mention the Golden Bird and Lam Esen's tome side quests, I did them all. Got 20 additional hit points and +5 to vitality.

The Council Members count as demons, so they were an easy to deal with

Mephisto, as every act boss, is a demon, and therefore Holy Bolt makes short work of him. I also managed to keep Durga alive at the same time

Lochaber Axe wasn't good, unfortunately. My mercenary didn't end up using it.

Getting into Act IV. The vast majority of enemies in this act are either demons or undead, so with some lucky spawns, I was able to progress quickly and without any difficulties. The only enemy that I couldn't hurt with Holy Bolt was Izual. It took some time to take him down, but he proved to be no danger. The +2 skill points I gained as a reward for killing him went into Conversion and Sanctuary aura (those are pre-requsites for the Fist of Heaven and Conviction Aura).

Covering in fear of Hephasto:

Got a Thul rune from the Hellforge quest. Nice, I think I will need two of them in total for double Spirit runeword (which is easier to achieve with a Paladin than any other class, becuase 1)of course it is 2) actually, because Paladin shields with 4 sockets can drop earlier than Monarch shield).

Found an upgrade for my mercenary right after I reached the Chaos Sanctuary

This place was no problem, because every single enemy can be brough down with my Holy Bolt. It's damage may not be as good anymore, but this is going to change after I reach level 30, as each point invested into Fist of Heaven will raise Holy Bolt's damage by 50% (additive). Anyways, the most dangerous was Infector of Souls, as usual, so I was little cheeky. "Covering in fear" animation is fitting here so well:

Diablo, however, gave me the best fight in this playthrough so far. I wasn't able to keep Durga alive due to Diablo's Red Lightning attack. I needed to be very careful between dishing out Holy Bolts and dodging Diablo's attacks. But eventually, the Lord of Terror T-posed and cancelled his life subscribtion.

Now, onto Act V. This act has surpisingly many non-demonic and non-undead enemies. The first area, aside from Shenk and superunique Imps pack, has no demon enemies at all. So, Zeal + Holy Shock it was. Durga helped a lot. After killing Shenk the Overseer, I decided to visit a side area before rescuing the barbarians, but I found out that minotaur demons aren't considered demons as well. It is funny that corrupter Rogues are considered demons, but spiked bastards, axe dual-wielding minotaurs and the Lashers' minions aren't. I did save Barbarians, found a waypoint on the Arreat Plateu and then... decided to farm Chaos Sanctuary until I was level 30. This enabled me to unlock Fist of Heaven and Conviciton aura. I had a reliable way to deal with enemies immune to the Holy Bolt (although Fist of Heaven is mana-costly) and also, Holy Bolt's damage started skyrocketing as predicted. Overall, I had easy time with the remaining of act V. Fist of Heaven in action:

Found a nice armor for Durga:

I have decided to skip Nihlathak and just focus on finishing the Act V. I was kinda worried about Ancients, but Fist of Heaven was enough to deal with them. Talic and Korlic seemed to be much more vourneable to it than Madawc, which was surpising. Maybe Madawc has more lightning resistance.

Aftewards, I have found a great charm for my character, helping with his mana problem (due to FoH being rather costly)

Due to all of Bhaal's waves containing demons and undead, I don't think I have to describe the fight. Only the last wave had more lasting power than sumo wrestler

The fight against Baal wasn't much, but it was a honest work

I decided to not farm before going on to the Nightmare difficulty, so I just made an Ancient Pledge runeword in a shield and called it a day

Arkveld's stats after coming into Nightmare difficulty:

 

[O_Bruce]

Arkveld's blitz through Nightmare difficulty, part I

Okay, so I have no idea how to begin this post, so I'll say this: I finally get myself BG3 and I intend to start my playthrough once I'm done with Arkveld. To this end, I really am hoping for the succesful way to become Guardian. I have done a lot since the last update, so you can expect probably a daily updates at this point

Starting Nightmare difficulty was pretty easy. I was focusing on maximizing Fist of Heavens almost as fast as I could, sometimes investing a skill point or two in Holy Shield/Holy Bolt instead. Did quest 1 and 2, found a waypoint in a Black Marsh and then finished the Forgotten Tower quest, before rescuing Deckard Cain. In the meantime I have found an upgrade for my mercenary as well as interesting weapon for myself

Spectral Shard is basically a budget Wizardspike and I have always hoped I could make use of this item at some point. Since I don't have Spirit runeword in a sword as of yet, I'll gladly use this opportunity to wield Spectral Shard. That cast rate and mana is much appreciated, resistance boost is as well.
Also, Akara awarded me with a nice ring:

This one is a keeper. Damage reduction, resistance and mana, all things being valuable to Arkveld.

Afterwards, I decided to run a Countess until I had enough runes to create the following runewords: Lore (Ort + Sol), Spirit (Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn) (x2) and Insight (Ral + Tir + Tal + Sol). I have leveled up a plenty and got all runes I hoped for. Now it is only matter of finding good enough bases for my items. It should be easy with Paladin, as I wouldn't have to wait for Monarch shields to start dropping in order to make a spirit runeword in shields. In short, I expected to dual-wield Spirit in no time.

Will the Smith smith something for Andariel anytime soon? Nope. Poor fellow died very quickly.

And somewhere between him and Andariel, I created Lore runeword for myself:

Andy herself departed the Sanctuary in a very rash and brutal manner:

This time around it looks like Paladin is about to stab Durga in the back with a knife. Paladin's casting animation won't stop being funny to me!

I'd like to say Durga was stabbed by Arkveld, but it is only Andariel that managed to do something before dying.

Moving to Act II, I want to showcase the stats, and how my damage outpout changed since the beginning of the Nightmare difficulty:

Holy Bolt damage increased ONLY because all the points invested into Fist of the Heavens. And +1 to all skills from Lore.

Anyways, Radament the Fallen has fallen easily, granting me +1 to skill points, which I think was most likely invested into a Holy Shield

Found a unique bow somewhere in the desert. Useless for this character, but I'll showcase it regardless:

My Conviction Aura wasn't able to take out Beetlebursts' lightning immunity. I think I needed to keep Durga alive with Holy Bolt instead. Saying all that, after maximizing Fist of Heavens, I'll do my best to max out Holy Bolt and the Conviciton Aura

Some bug hunting next and the Staff of Kings was acquired:

Claw Viper's temple was my next target and I managed to find a helmet for my mercenary in there:

All that lightning resistance didn't prevent Durga from dying from Fangskin and its minions. It was actually dangerous and I needed to get the high ground on the altar to help me defeat Fangskin

With the Horadric Staff completed, all was left was to go through the Jerhyn's palace to the Arcane Sanctuary and then to the Canyon of the Magi. There, I decided to clear all the fake tombs before fighting Duriel, since Fist of Heavens and Holy Bolt made that quite easy. And when I was in the true Tomb, the game decided to be nice to me and showed me de wae:

The light shaft is where the Horadric Staff is supposed to be placed

Duriel didn't do as good job as Andariel, since I managed to keep Durga alive. On the other hand, the Lord of Pain was kind enough to drop a nice armor for me:

Blue armor with blue Spectral Shard looks quite cool:

Rare Battle boots were also nice:

And at the end, my stats before moving out to act III:

 

[O_Bruce]

Time for Arkveld to deal with the rest of the Nightmare difficulty.

Nice, but useless for Arkveld find:

I like set items with sockets in them, it allows some neat customization (in the business we call that foreshadowing)

I don't have a screenshot of finding Khalim's Eye, but as a distracion, look, I have found a Lem rune in Flyer's dungeon:

That is quite neat, as it could be used later on for a Treachery runeword for my mercenary

Finding Gidbinn:

And Khalim's Brain:

Stormtree and its minions were powerful enough to kill my damage sponge that is Durga. However, Arkveld prevailed and then asked Asheara to ressurect the poor spearman.

I always find it funny how Khalim's organs aren't decomposing, especailly the heart which is hidden inside of a sewer in a city taken over by a jungle...

Taken care of the Council Members and opened the way to the Mephisto. Found a Lum rune while traveling through Durace of Hate

As for Mephisto himself, once again I was able to keep Durga alive during a act boss battle. It was harder than Duriel, though due to Mephisto's spell usage. He ended up dropping not much, but the armor was an upgrade for my mercenary.

In Act IV, Izual was dealt with and freed by combination of Durga's vigorous thrusts and Arkveld's Fist of Heavens. I think the quest reward skill points were invested either to maximize Holy Bolt or increase potency of Conviction Aura

In the Hellforge, Arkveld found out he was no longer afraid of poisons

Shael rune might not be that much, but it IS a component of a Treachery runeword, so I am thankful for that

Chaos Sanctuary, much like most of Act IV, was pretty easy for my build, as most of the enemies are demons and undead. This is why I don't describe much of what took place in my gameplay. For the most part, combination of FoH and Holy Bolts enabled me to clear hordes of enemies in no time at all. This is a strong build in certain conditions, but limited for other. And I think that is interesting if nothing else.

Diablo did a better job than Mephisto and managed to unsubscribe Durga from life. His victory wasn't long however, and as always in case of his failure, the Lord of Terror T-posed in a last ditch effort to establish his dominance.

Act V is not as friendly to Fist of Heaven/Holy Bolt Paladin. If the mix of monsters isn't favorable in a given area, it encourages either a slow progression or running throught the area. After Shenk is defeated, Eldritch the Purifier was next and he dropped an interesting item. The Battlebranch seemed like a good candidate to upgrade to exceptional quality in a Horadric cube, and I did that.

Turns out, its raw damage is about the same as Durga's current weapon. But on the other hand, the improved Battlebranch has life stolen per hit and increased attack speed, which means better overall damage and abillity to recover life when attacking enemies. Sometime later, a nice rare coronet dropped, an item I might hold on to just in case I needed resistances. But some life and dexterity are nice too - the latter would increase my block chance.

After I've done with rescuing the barbarians, I went out to rescue Anya and finally found 4-socketed Paladin shield!

But with quite crappy auto-mods! Due to this, I decided to keep myself from making a runeword into it. It's kinda funny: I think Paladin is objectively in favourable situation when cit omes to Spirit runeword in shields. He can find 4-socketed ones earlier, and his class shields often come with auto-mods for all resistances. I was convinced I will be able to dual-wield Spirit sword and Spirit shield by Act V nightmare. And not only I have found a crappy base for a runeword in a shield, I am still using Spectal Shard as a weapon. Game punishes me for bashing Paladins and I'm gonna take up on my chin.

So, I have recued Anya and then continued climbing Mount Arreat. One enemy dropped a nice armor:

Nice hit recovery, life and dual resistances. Defense is okay too. Well, I got myself a new armor now. Arkveld is looking red in it and it is qute cool. And in one of the side-areas, I have found an Armor from Trang-Oul set. This one went to my mercenary for now, as it had plenty of defense.

The Ancients ganged up on Durga, and because of that the poor warrior hasn't survived the skirmish. Arkveld did, however, and the battle ended when the last of the Ancients, Madawc, was put down.

One bit of a lore in here. I think Ressurected graphics are cool and all, and I appreciate them for the most part, I really do. But at points you can say additional details are... uneccesary. See the skeleton above? There are more signs of human remains on top of Mount Arreat. On one hand, they do tell the story of people possibly failing against Ancients. On the other hands, lore-wise Barbarians don't even dare to scale this mountain - at least people like Quel-Kehk claims so. They are unlikely to be outsiders, as those more often than not don't survive against Barbarians protecting the mountain. So who those remains belonged to?

With that question asked, all that was left to do is to face Baal's minions and Baal himself in a heroic battle of just being in a range of my attack

And that's that.

Arkveld's stats:

Next time: preparation for Hell difficulty and maybe Hell act I

 

[Antimatter]

The actual skill of a hardcore player is to be able to find and discuss lore inconsistencies in Diablo. I'm not able to find anything about this in online discussions.

It's indeed funny about the RNG punishing you for bashing the Paladin class before.

A great update, as always!

 

[O_Bruce]

Arkveld's preparations for Hell

This is going to be mostly updated via screenshots. Before entering Hell difficulty, I've been grinding mostly in Terror Zones, since I needed to find good bases for two Spirit rune words. Bosses aren't optimal for that.

Finding a grand charm like that one is precious before Hell difficulty

Something I haven't mentioned yet: I've been collecting magic amulets and rings, and use Horadric Cube to reroll 3 rings into an amulet and 3 amulets into a ring. Eventually, I was rewarded with this:

In theory, an ok pair of boots for a caster character, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice resistances for mana

In the terrorized Halls of the Dead (I think), I have found a great helmet for my mercenary. Stealskull has increased attack speed bonus, faster hit recovery, nice defense, life leech, and bonus to magic find for additional utility.

In the meantime, I have found a good base for the Rhyme runeword. Heraldic Shield had +33 all resistances auto mods, and the Rhyme runeword increased that to 58. Noice.

A good magic find amulet. Max magic find roll, if I recall correctly.

Found the Cloudcrack, a unique gothic sword. It is interesting, but rather useless. In theory, it can be used for Holy Shock Paladin (as that aura is a synergy for Fist of the Heavens procing on striking), but I don't see that sword being viable in the Hell difficulty. Also, Paladins heavily rely on their shields for defense, so 2-handed weapons are far from ideal for them.

A definitive upgrade for a belt slot:

A second item from the Immortal King's set. Unfortunately, I am playing Paladin for this run.

Interesting, but impractical weapon. The max damage is huge, but the strength requirement means Durga won't be using this weapon. And what's more, with a better enhanced damage roll, this weapon could be really powerful in terms of raw damage per hit.

Instead, I managed to find a base for the Insight runeword:

The bonus to Critical Strike rolled low, but I am satisfied with the weapon regardless. Level 14 meditation aura will stack with Durga's prayer, giving me a double the healing from the aura. I heard of this combination and I really wanted to try it: so, here it goes.

Baal gave me a gear from Tal Rasha's set. Not going to use it.

And freaking finally, and fanfares!

The Spectral Shard has served me well, but I'll gladly move on to Spirit. The most challenging difficulty awaits me, and I don't want to fail and be forced to make another Paladin run.

Found a Raven Frost. Not useful to me, at least not while I have Rhyme runeword. And even without it, being chilled doesn't affect Arkveld's spellcasting rate.

Meanwhile, I gave Charsi a Circlet for her to upgrade to a rare item. The results weren't to my liking:

A Gravenspine

Bhaal dropped a nice armor from the Griswold's set

Now, this one needs an explanation. I wanted to keep the armor in Arkveld's stash, but I ended up selling it to Larzuk accidentally. It couldn't be bought back, since Larzuk had no space left. But, as it happens, I already have another Griswold's Heart in my stash, and so I decided to use it as a replacement. I am saying this because I'll end up modifying the armor, and the defense value between this armor and the other one is different. I wanted to be honest about it.

Skiller for the Necro:

And a Superior Crown Shield. At this point, I was really impatient with my bad luck in finding a good base for a Spirit shield. I asked Larzuk to made me 4 sockets into it, so that I might have dual Spirit.

Shortly after, I found a 3-socket Dusk Shroud and I ended up making a Treachery runeword in it, then I gave it to my mercenary:

Decided to use some runes on Griswold's Heart to make myself an armor for the Hell difficulty. It helped that it looked nice on Arkveld

I have decided to enter Hell difficulty, and here's Arkveld's stats once he get there:

Let's see if he can become Guardian

 

[O_Bruce]

Hell for Arkveld begins

... Or so I'd like to say, but in all honesty, it isn't that bad. Demons and undead can be dealt with without issue, usually. AS for non-demons, Fist of Heavens combined with the Conviction aura deals okay damage. More often than not, I am also able to break monsters' immunities to lightning damage. This doesn't do as much as I'd like, as it takes over 10 Fists of Heavens to deal with one enemy. Fortunately, I have a mercenary helping me out.

Don't believe me? Just ask Blood Raven

Or Rakanishu:

I'm not going to lie, Treehead Woodfist was the first serious enemy in this act. He and his minions deal a huge amount of damage, they slow you down and are neither demons or undead, so I can't kill them quicky. They, on the other hand, can deal with Durga just fine. Thanks to my usage of tactical retreats, I was able to overcome that obstacle.

As per my new routing, I went to complete the Forgotten Tower quest before rescuing Cainy. The Countess dropped two Thul runes and a Dwarf Star ring.

Now, to Cain's rescue!

Recovering Horadric Mallus for Charis and dealing with the Smith, who was mad at me for not taking his wife's name out of my mouth.

Thanks for vast majoity of next enemies being either demon, undead or non-lightning immune, I was able to reach Andariel in a reasonably short amount of time. The fight wasn't that long either

The most devastating blow she dealt to me was her drop:

At the beginning of Act II, I realized I haven't given Charsi her hammer back, so I decided to fix that mistake. Maybe if I can find a non-magical circlet or something, then I'll use Charsi's quest reward on it. Anyways, Radament:

No serious problem, especially when you compare it to Cromwell's Golem-only run. That one was a hell. After getting myself +1 to skill points (spend on Holy Shock aura as a synergy for Fist of Heavens), I went on to collect Horadric Staff. My time in the Maggot's Lair was rather mana-costly and slow, due to all enemies in there being classified as animals, and Scarabs were immune to lightning by default. I was capable of breaking the immunity, but even then, over 10 casts of Fist of Heavens to kill 1 scarab was not encouraging. I needed to rely on Durga a lot in this one.

The Staff of Kings was acquired, so I went after the Amulet of the Vipers. And I was pretty lucky with the map layout:

I had some concerns regarding the fight against Fangskin, but it turned out to be less dangerous this time around - I managed to keep Durga alive!

With Horadric Staff complete, what was left was Jerhyn's Palace, the Arcane Sanctuary and Tal Rasha's Tomb. Two first places weren't much to speak of: the palace is usually done with very swiftly and all enemies, minus the Summoner himself, are susceptible to my damage. And even then, the Summoner is a pushover as he usually is.

As expected, the Scarabs were part of monster mix in the true Tomb of Tal Rasha. It slowed me down, but in the end I have reached Duriel:

Ladies and gentlemen: Durga may be still alive, but my hopes to get any good loot from the act boss aren't.

Arkveld's stats after arriving in Kurast:

 

[O_Bruce]

Will Arkveld be able to become a Guardian? Let's find out!

Act III of Hell difficulty with this character will be remembered by me as an Act in which Durga died over and over again, mostly when facing enemies I can't deal with quickly. I was really annoyed with that. But I did the old routine of finding Khalim's organs, doing the Golden Bird quest, retrieving the Gidbinn, and Lan Esem's Tome.

Council Members required some caution, but my damage output enabled me to deal with them relatively quickly. The Council Members by the entrance to Durance of Hate were much less problematic than Bremm in the Durance level 3.

But he has dropped a sick upgrade for Durga!

Of course, Durga doesn't have 195 strength required to use this weapon, but Hel rune fixed that problem for us. I added Amn for an life leech

I have managed to keep Durga alive in Mephisto fight. The loot wasn't really great though

Act IV contains demons and undead almost exclusively, which is always great for this build. I still needed to be careful in the Plain of Despair due to the Burning Souls and their lightning attacks. I have defeated Izual and earned myself +2 skill points into Holy Shock

By the way, Durga's new weapon really helped him with survivability. Great damage combined with fast attack speed and life leech really made a difference. I was relieved. Anyways, I visited Hephasto in the Hellforge, and even though Durga couldn't do much to him, my Holy Bolts certainly could. For my trouble in clearing second quest of this act, I was rewarded with a Fal rune.

Afterwards, by combining magical rings in Horadric Cube, I got myself a good amulet:

+3 to Holy Bolt, Fist of Heavens, and Holy Shield is very much welcome. Wearing this amulet requires me to sacrifice resistances to elements, but due to me not expecting to face Burning Souls anytime soon, I think I can make this trade. If I'm careful, it should be more than worth it.

Chaos Sanctuary was done swiftly due to my damage output. I was wary of Infector of Souls and Lord the Seis, since these two can end a run sometimes. So far, it appeared that Rose Branded Amulet was worth the trade-off.

Diablo surprised me a bit, as he clearly learned from the past two deaths. This time around, he actually imprisoned me within his Bone Prison about 3 times. I needed to act quick, as not to be exposed to Diablo's most devastating attacks.

This time, in addition to the traditional T-pose, Diablo showed his dominance by imprisoning me for the last time (and Durga eats the dirt).

Come act V, and I decided to say goodbye to Durga. I wanted to experience Insight rune word plus Prayer combination, and I got that. However, with Insight being replaced by Bonehew, the combination is gone. So, I decided to hire a new mercenary for the last act of the game. Meet Gulzar and his Holy Freeze aura:

The first area of Act V was annoying, due to no demons and no undead. I ended up avoiding most of the fights in that area, and specifically target Shenk the Overseer at the end of it. Following area had mixed enemies, some I could deal with Holy Bolt, some I could not, but due to no lacuni Slingers being involved in the mix, it was doable. After freeing the Barbarians and finding the next waypoint, I traveled back to Pandemonium Fortress and decided to spend money to gamble some circlets. After spending much of my gold, I have found a really interesting one:

Together with an amulet crafter earlier, it creates a powerful combo. Once again, I needed to trade some resistance, this time to lightning only. Lighting was my biggest resistance anyway, so unless I'm facing Burning Souls, it wasn't much of an issue, and the increase in my damage output was very high. Also, 21 damage reduction vs. physical isn't nothing. Looking good!

I have rescued Anya from the clutches of Frozenstein (that is a monster), and this time around, I could tell she actually tried to reward me:

I repeat: she tried. As if, there was an attempt. Thought in all honesty, this isn't absolutely terrible shield. I skipped Nihlathak once again and rushed towards finishing Act V. The Ancient's Way had a funny layout towards the Arreat's Summit:

I won't be complaining about that.

I needed to re-roll the Ancients several times, but eventually I had something I could work with. I still needed to separate them and somehow I succeeded.

(What are those skeletons on the ground, btw?)

I have faced Black Souls in the level 2 of Worldstone Keep, but I realized that after rescuing Anya, the scroll of resistances allowed me to cap my lightning resistance at 75% anyways. So, I got to keep my sweet damage. Most of the enemies I encountered could be dealt with Holy Bolts (first level of the keep was the only exception, with massive amount of Zakarumites being in there). And Bhaal minions were not any exception. Only Lister and his merry band of gigachads managed to kill my mercenary, and thus provide me with real danger.

One of waves left me with a nice parting gift.

It is absolutely not for this character, but a nice find nonetheless.

Bhaal was, well, rather anticlimactic:

I do really like how dramatic this screenshot looks like:

No good loot though. But I do get my reward... Arkveld, you will henceforth be known as:

Sorry, wrong game!

Before finishing the update, all of my gear and stats in the spoiler:

Spoiler

Now, some words to end this.

First, I am glad I did what I set myself out to do. Now I don't have to begin another hardcore Paladin playthrough.
Second, this playthrough made me realize something: how stale and predictable my gameplay experience has become. Which is why I really appreciated some minor things, like making use of Griswold's Heart instead of relying on Smoke rune word. I think I am overly relying on rune words, which makes things quite predictable and boring for me. Next time, I may consider banning rune words as a part of the challenge.
Third: Due to that, and the fact that I have Baldur's Gate III to play, I think I'll take a break from Diablo II for a while. That way, I'll experience a hardcore Assassin playthrough with fresh mindset, and maybe then I'll have some more interesting things to say or report.

Finally, thank you for following Akrveld's journey. I hope you enjoyed!

 

[jmerry]

Congratulations on the Guardian!

And don't worry abut this thread going fallow for too long. I've already started up my next character - my second shot at a necromancer, Bassilus. As a bit of a teaser ... it was buckler day in the Dark Wood.