The Core of Diablo

[jmerry]

How about a mini-update? Between sessions progressing Bassilus, I've been doing Chaos Sanctuary runs with Cythandria. And those runs add up.

That is a level 92 hardcore character. She's been repeating the same run for quite a while; the River of Flame after the waypoint, the Chaos Sanctuary, the seal bosses, and Diablo. All on players 1, fully clearing, with about 200 MF. Plus a lot of gambling; she gets an infusion of gold every time I transfer her loot to the stashes, and all of that goes into gambling. Mostly rings and amulets.

It took 95 of these runs to go from barely level 91 to barely level 92. And I kept records of what I found. Over those 95 runs:
- 5 unique and 10 set items in the River of Flame.
- 28 unique and 21 set items in the Chaos Sanctuary.
- 12 unique and 11 set items from the three seal bosses.
- 61 unique and 37 set items from Diablo.
- 3 unique and 2 set items from gambling.

I do like this run for Hardcore; the threat profile in the Chaos Sanctuary is very predictable since the monster types are always the same, nothing is too high level to find, and of course there's that act boss at the end to reliably drop stuff. It's not particularly quick killing everything, but safety is crucial.

 

[jmerry]

My first character in this Hardcore project was a necromancer Prebek. While I had a few bits from older failed hardcore runs, he was almost entirely a self-found character. And he did very well, making it all the way to Hell act 5 before dying to my impatience; I ran out ahead of the army while they were bashing away at fortifications, and a pack of archers shot me down.

Now, it's time to revisit that class. Bassilus takes the stage, and he has seven previous characters worth of loot to smooth his way. Bassilus is still a standard skeleton summoner, but he's not quite right in the head - he thinks all those minions he's raising are his family, and refers to them by name.

I'm starting off with a wand and head with bonuses to level 1 skills, so the first four minions join the team very quickly. That's Steve, Sarah, Sanjay, and Sonia the skeletons. Then there's Chris the clay golem at level 6. By level 12, I've already transitioned to a better wand, wielding the full Infernal set and the four-piece partial Angelic set for +3 skills - so mages Mike, Melissa, and Matt all join immediately. And then things slow down. I'm splitting my points essentially evenly between Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery, and it's only one new skeleton every three skill levels, so it takes about six character levels to add a new skeleton. Scott joins shortly after I put on the level 12 gear, while the sixth skeleton Shijie doesn't come until the monastery and level 19.

But before then, the Dark Wood shows me some remarkable luck. First a random monster drops a unique buckler (Pelta Lunata). Not new to my collection, but quite rare; I only had the one before in this project. And then, from a rock:

Spoiler: Buckler Day

Apparently, it was buckler day. That one is new to the collection.

Nothing remarkable about the rest of the act, though I did it all in one session ... which led me to lower the players count for Andariel, since I couldn't retreat to an earlier area to replenish my forces if she wiped them out. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded.

Spoiler: Andariel

No losses. Bassilus enters act 2 at level 21.

Beginning act 2, I swap out some gear. No more Infernal set. Instead, I have Gravenspine (unique bone wand, +2 skills), Tarnhelm, and a rare plated belt (triple resists, 40 life). Trade the Preserved Head with +3 Amp/+1 skel/+2 mastery for a Zombie Head with +2 skel/+2 mastery. And bring in a Spirit sword and a rare Unraveller Head (+1 skills, +13 resists, +1 Decrepify) to swap in at level 25. That Decrepify bonus is my plan for act bosses going forward, at least until I can spare the three points to get the curse properly.
These gear tweaks push me to Raise Skeleton level 15, and Stan joins the team.
As for the mercenary, I go from A to Z. Amplisa out (she was the free one from Kashya, with Cold Arrow), Zanarhi in. Zanarhi has a Prayer aura, because that's pretty much always the best in normal difficulty. My army just doesn't need an AR or AC boost with the level advantage they have.

The Book of Skill point goes to Teeth, setting up Corpse Explosion at the next level. It's the key to making the tight underground areas of this act tolerable. And that level comes in the Rocky Waste.
All goes well for a while, and I enter the Maggot Lair. Then, after two floors, I pause and take a break. You see, the old laptop I play D2 on sits on a desk that gets late afternoon sun. When that reaches the screen, it's time to step away for a couple hours.

And then I hear a loud "pop" from somewhere outside. And the power indicator on my primary laptop switches to "running on battery". This is a problem. Because that old machine I play D2 on no longer has a battery. And it's plugged into the same power strip.
Oddly enough, this very localized power outage doesn't hit my overhead light socket. But it still stops me from returning to the game until the next day. After I tell the computer it's not 1970 anymore.

So that means the next session forces me to repeat part of the Maggot Lair. Ugh. The worst. Well, at least my army is overwhelmingly powerful for this part of the game.

Level 25, with the new sword and shield, comes in the Lost City. Then, I don't realize I have a new minion slot until the palace - that's when the fourth mage Marge joins.
My army crushes all before it, and soon it's time for Duriel. For him, I don't bother lowering the player count.

Spoiler: Duriel

Between Decrepify and Clay Golem, he's utterly useless. No skeletons die. And for once, he drops something useful - Razortine. Even more slow? Sounds good to me. Zanarhi gets that, replacing his vendor-bought weapon and derailing any plans I might have had for an Insight stick.

I enter act 3 at level 28, and that level gradually creeps up. Level 30 is a major milestone for many builds, but for Bassilus it's just another level in Raise Skeleton. Then in the Flayer Dungeon, another useful find comes up. Sure, Witch Doctor Endugu drops four items, but it's one of the other monsters in the room that drops the unique. Hawkmail. Zanarhi gets some bonus cold resistance and freeze immunity.
It can be hard to find a good break point in the middle of act 5, but I manage with the Kurast Bazaar waypoint. Clear the area in one session, then head down into the sewers for the next session and come up in Upper Kurast. No clearing repeated.

I reach the next milestone in the Durance, hitting level 32 for the eighth skeleton Susan. Mephisto is utterly trivialized by my triple slow:

Spoiler: Mephisto

A fairly nice drop, though of course nothing new. There really aren't many normal unique and set items left that I don't have.

(Post length limit reached. Continued in next post)

 

[jmerry]

(Continued from previous post due to size limit)

On to act 4. I reach Izual while still level 32, and those two skill points go to Weaken and Terror. Then the level 33 point goes to ... Skeleton Mastery? Oops. I had a skill shrine active, and I forgot I wanted Decrepify. But it's not a long delay. I hit level 34 right by the Hellforge, and that actually is Decrepify.
Wait, did I say Hellforge?

Spoiler: El-forge

I meant the El-forge.

One more level in the Chaos Sanctuary, and then it's time to fight Diablo.

Spoiler: Diablo

He does better than previous act bosses, and even manages to kill Zanarhi with a lightning hose after that. But it's still an easy fight with all of that slow, and most of my army survives. Diablo drops two uniques, one of them a polearm (The Battlebranch). No! I won't be tempted by mere damage!
But Zanarhi can still use an upgrade. And now, he has enough levels for one. Kelpie Snare. It only requires level 33, and it's a weapon for the long haul.

Bassilus also gets some new gear. New wand and shield, waiting until I have the levels. Gloves, belt, and boots; that's two rares and an upgraded Goldwrap. Clear out the weak self-found charms, bring in some charms for resists and MF. I now have over 200 total MF, 73 fire resist, and the other resistances maxed. Without compromising any of my skill bonuses.

Level 36 comes early in act 5, and that's the wand. Arm of King Leoric. Yes, the CTC Bone Prison isn't great, but it's got all the right skill bonuses and a good chunk of mana. Skeleton #9 Simon joins the team.
The socket quest? Spent immediately. I have a shield I'll be using soon. It gets a diamond.
Levels come fast in act 5, and I add the tenth skeleton Serena at Eyeback the Unleashed. That's character level 39.

Having played with it a bit, I now know that the Bone Prison from the Arm is centered on the attacker. Not too bad when it's a ranged attack, trouble if it's melee. Note to self: don't enter melee range with enemies, ever.

One spot actually manages to slow me down: a pack of Extra Strong minotaurs (Hell Lords) at the end of a bridge in the Pit of Acheron. They actually manage to kill two melee skeletons before my forces can break through. That's mostly about the terrain, of course; my army doesn't do well when it has to fight single-file.

Just a few monsters after Anya's rescue, I hit level 42.

Spoiler: Homunculus

And there's the shield. Cythandria found it a while back, and it's just obviously the best. This one's even a perfect roll, not that anyone cares about the one variable stat (defense). Bassilus will personalize it, of course. He's never getting rid of this shield.
The additional +1 skills on the shield also pushes me over the threshold for a new minion - a fifth mage. Mahmoud joins the team.

Thinking about the future, should I invest into dexterity for blocking? I do the math, and it would cost me around 150 stat points to get 60-some block at endgame levels. Those are stat points that would otherwise go into vitality, for 300 life. For this hardcore character, I'm more worried about single big hits than anything else, and so I choose to not invest in dexterity. But if I change my mind, a respec is always an option.

Anyway, one more skeleton before I max out the skill. Shafqat joins at level 43, and I have eleven. That's all, until I get more +skill bonuses.

Nihlathak? Just blow up a bunch of corpses, then beat him down while he's isolated. Ancients? No need to even lower the player count. Baal? He can't kill a single minion.

Spoiler: Baal

In this fight, it really looked like the slow broke his AI. He'd start something, then cancel out of it before the animation completed.
That kill is level 49 for Bassilus. And now that Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery are maxed, he's working on the rest of the curses and summons.
Lots of unique and set items dropped in act 5. Nothing new, though.

After that, one more session in normal difficulty. The victory lap starts with the cow level, and the cow king has a nice drop:

Spoiler: Cow King

A second copy of Hsarus' Iron Fist.
Then it's a rock that actually drops something new for the collection: the unique light crossbow Leadcrow. The cow level in normal is a level 6 area with level 25 enemies, putting it in an odd spot - the containers drop act 1 stuff, while drops from the cows match early act 4.

After that, I go after some act bosses. Andariel drops six blue and yellow items. Duriel drops one yellow, two stacks of gold, two town portal scrolls, and a stack of keys. Mephisto drops a near-perfect 46% Tarnhelm ... sorry, I'm already wearing a 47% Tarnhelm. Diablo is skipped since my stash is already full. Baal drops a unique Partizan ... sorry, I've already given my mercenary an exceptional unique weapon. No need for a different one.

And that's it for normal difficulty. Bassilus is level 50, and ready for Nightmare.

In the course of this project, I've now found all but ten of the normal unique weapons and armor. Here are those ten, in the order my tracking spreadsheet has them (weapons before armor, alphabetical by item group, light to heavy within groups):
- Gull (Dagger)
- Knell Striker (Scepter)
- Bane Ash (Short Staff)
- Serpent Lord (Long Staff) (missed when I initially posted this)
- Torch of Iro (Wand)
- Greyform (Quilted Armor)
- Blinkbat's Form (Leather Armor)
- Hotspur (Boots)
- Biggin's Bonnet (Cap)
- The Ward (Gothic Shield)

One of these things is not like the others...

 

[jmerry]

And here's Nightmare. Bassilus starts strong, putting the Den of Evil skill point into Lower Resist and regularly finding unique and set gear. With particular note to one in the Underground Passage:

Spoiler: Upgrade

Well, that is an upgrade. A 48% Tarnhelm is better than a 47% Tarnhelm.
The Dark Wood even manages to provide two notable items from the same champion pack:

Spoiler: Champions

Neat.

Most of act 1 in Nightmare has a very slow level progression, because I'm too far ahead of the monster levels. But equilibrium is restored by the end; I finish the act at level 53, exactly ten levels ahead of the normal monsters. There's just one more thing I do during the act:

Spoiler: Staff of Teleportation

I shop for a Staff of Teleportation. That's my weapon switch now. Getting past an obstruction and collecting my forces can greatly improve my speed ...

Andariel herself is no trouble.

Spoiler: Andariel

She takes down a few minions, because poison does that. But once the slow sets in, she really can't do much.

For act 2, I have Greiz retrain Zanarhi in the Might aura. Well, not right away; it takes a couple of trips before I remember to do it. The Book of Skill goes to Fire Golem, and Fred replaces Chris or most situations. That also basically closes out my one-point wonders; after Revive, I move on to boosting mage skill. Molly joins the team at level 56, in the Ancient Tunnels. Then Martin at level 59, in the false tombs.
Duriel? He kills one mage.

Spoiler: Duriel

It's not showing, but he dropped one unique. Nothing special.

In act 3, I find something useful again: Blackhorn's Face. Well, Zanarhi is focusing on slow; that's a great fit for him. Level 62 hits in the Bazaar, bringing in the eighth mage Melanie.
The end of the act brings something special: a short path from the Durance waypoint to the stairs down:

Spoiler: Short path

That is a good map for running Mephisto. And after I take him down once ...

Spoiler: Mephisto

... I start those runs. Since I'm only nine levels ahead of the Durance monsters, I decide to run Mephisto until I level up. Which ends up being twelve times. I finally move on to act 4 at level 65, with the ninth mage Maksim newly joined.
In those twelve runs (all at players 1), Mephisto dropped five set and five unique items. None of them were particularly interesting.

Act 4 begins with a boss pack of Venom Lords right at the foot of the stairs. I fight them for a while, an eventually just teleport past. Which releases my whole army to join the fight, and things go well.

Then it's the entrance to the Outer Steppes, and enemy packs bottle up my army on the stairs again. So I teleport past ... and my army doesn't spread out. And there are a lot of monsters coming in. Try to make a bit of room and open a town portal ...

Spoiler: Deeds of Valor

I think the Doom Lord pack there was cursed. I basically died instantly once I stepped out of that army pile. Lesson I clearly need to learn: don't teleport forward unless it's actually clear around the target point.

And that's it for Bassilus. Dead at level 65, first in the project not to even make it to Hell difficulty. Teleportation overconfidence hurts.

 

[Antimatter]

Yeah, seems like teleportation will lead to the loss, sooner or later. It's the most common reason, according to this thread at least.

A worthy effort, and thanks for sharing your progress.

 

[O_Bruce]

Teleport, a blessing and a curse at the same time.

 

[jmerry]

It's been a month. Time for another run. And again, I'm repeating a class that didn't make it on my first attempt. My druid Osmadi fell in Act 2 of Hell, to a beetle in the Maggot Lair. Fire enchanted, I think.

Well, Dalok is my second try at that. Essentially the same build, a werebear using Fire Claws and attacking very fast. I'm even using the same weapon, Osmadi's personalized Oath runeword Feral Axe.

Dalok used my standard low-level gear throughout Normal. Angelic, Sigon's, Tarnhelm. For his weapon, he used Khalim's Will in act 1, The Chieftain in act 2 (decent speed and damage, 6 mana per kill), and Steeldriver in acts 3-5 (not the fastest, but tons of one-hit kills).
I also gave him some gold at the very beginning, and ...

Spoiler: Wand

That's what I was looking for. Well, I would have preferred it as a white item, but I still bought that wand. The best way to get wands with bonuses to Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery is to shop for them at Akara with a very low level character.

Then I got on with quest progress, and picked up a couple of notable items along the way:

Spoiler: Greyform

Spoiler: Gull

That's two more checked off the grail list. Greyform even went directly into use, on the mercenary.

Still in act 1, I found a rather impressive rare:

Spoiler: Rare

For a level 3 jewel, that's amazing. Three good affixes. Definitely a keeper, even if I'm not likely to use it.

Through all of this, I'm dumping all of my stat points into strength. And I still have over 600 hit points when I reach Andariel. Then there's the life steal, the carrion vine ... basically nothing can meaningfully hurt Dalok in normal difficulty.

Skill-wise, I start investing in Fire Claws immediately when I reach level 18, and never stop until it's maxed. Also, a few points in the synergies. Nothing else has more than one point. I hire a Prayer mercenary in act 2, and give him Insight when I reach act 3 - that's what lets me use Steeldriver without running out of mana.

At act 4, I swap out my charms from self-found junk to lots of resistances. 79(75) fire, 60 cold, 59 lightning, 21 poison. That lasts me the rest of the difficulty. And there's only one more equipment update:

Spoiler: Upgraded

Steeldriver gets the exceptional upgrade as soon as I hit level 34. That's the beginning of the River of Flame, as it happens.

I've been clearing everything at players 8, but I turn that down to 1 for Diablo. I just don't want to deal with that lightning hose, which is actually dangerous to melee characters in normal difficulty. So he goes down in seconds, and drops barely anything.

After maxing Fire Claws, I grab a few more one-pointers and then start dumping skill points into the synergies. I'm aiming for 20 total points in the fire elemental skills for the synergies before I re-evaluate and pick up some other stuff. Also, starting at level 35, I invest into vitality instead of strength. I have my 186 strength for an ethereal Feral Axe, and that's all I'll ever need. So, then, my hit points start going up rapidly in act 5; I reach 1000 at level 43. Which is the same level I hit 1000 skill damage on my Fire Claws.

Nihlathak? Dead.

Spoiler: Nihlathak

Now, if I just had something worth putting Dalok's name on. Or something worth putting a socket in.

I hit level 49 against Lister's pack, but no Oath yet. That'll be next session. For now, my upgraded Steeldriver is up to the task of killing Baal.

Spoiler: Baal

As usual, I run one more session in normal difficulty. Oath comes in (better than doubling my attack speed), and I take on the cows. Then a run through all of the act bosses ... and that pays off this time.

Spoiler: Serpent Lord

So that's three items crossed off the grail list in this run through Normal difficulty. Only seven normal unique weapons and armor remain.

My sessions playing Dalok were interspersed with MF runs; my sorceress Cythandria continues running the Chaos Sanctuary and gambling away my excess gold. She added seven items to the collection in 35 runs: Lacerator, Blackoak Shield, Earthshaker, Stoneraven, M'avina's Embrace, M'avina's Icy Clutch, and Alma Negra. Nothing immediately useful there.

 

[jmerry]

After two weeks, Dalok's story continues with Nightmare. Various distractions have slowed me down, including hot weather; I have no AC and my D2 computer is across from a west-facing window, so it gets intolerable when outside temperatures go up past about 30 degrees (Celsius). But when it comes to the gameplay, there's not much that can stop this bear.

The first step in Nightmare is a major gear update.
Tarnhelm -> rare Wolf Head; +2 skills, ethereal, self-repairing, 2 sockets with Ort+Thul, no other relevant mods.
Angelic Mantle -> Skin of the Vipermagi (30 resist, 11 MDR)
Angelic Wings -> Communal Amulet of Life Everlasting (+3 shapeshifting, 19 PDR)
Angelic Halo -> Raven Frost (18 DEX, 174 AR)
Angelic Halo -> Stone of Jordan
Sigon's Gage -> rare gloves (20 IAS, dual leech, a bit of cold resist)
Sigon's Wrap -> Immortal King's Detail
Sigon's Sabot -> Aldur's Advance (perfect 50 fire resist)
And, of course, lots of resist charms to fill out my stats. I've got everything I need to survive and some pretty solid skill bonuses, but no MF at all.

Act 1 is uneventful ... but I realize something. The table of werebear speeds I have been using is wrong. Most of the sheet is accurate, but somehow I had the wrong numbers for the Feral Axe. I'm not looking at 7 frames upgrading to 6 with a bit of off-weapon IAS. I'm actually getting 7 frames period, with no reasonable way to reach 6. Off-weapon IAS, in reasonable amounts, does absolutely nothing for me. So, late in act 1, I swap out those gloves for a new pair. Crafted gloves with dual leech, crushing blow, some life, and both cold and poison resistance. That lets me swap around some resistance charms, and I max out all four of them. Also, the mercenary gets Stealskull and Skin of the Vipermagi, instead of the Face of Horror and Twitchthroe he used to get the stats for his Insight at level 27.
I'm also thinking about maybe switching to a one-handed weapon for Hell, but I don't have a suitable base for a one-handed Oath. Cube an ethereal War Spike and an ethereal Cryptic Sword ... nope. Still looking.

A Lightning+Extra Strong rogue in the Barracks, along with its minions, knocks off a few hundred hit points. Time to start using my crowd control skills. And while I try out Maul, Shockwave is what I settle on. The enemy I'm hitting right now isn't the one I need to shut down - it's all their friends that need to stop. The enemy I'm hitting can usually be handled just by hit recovery lock.

Once I reach act 2, I swap out mercenaries. The new one Haseen has a Might aura; physical damage is one of my primary elements, and I don't have a lot of skill ED.
In the middle of the act, I hit level 54. That lets me swap out the Sigon's Guard for a Spirit shield on my switch. One more level on my summons and the bear shift. Then I start actually investing in Shockwave. The damage is tiny, but the stun length is long. 0.6 seconds per level? I'm maxing that out, instead of investing in Fire Claws synergies.

In act 3 - the sewers, specifically - I finally find something worth taking a picture of:

Spoiler: Charming

A skill charm with a good suffix is always welcome. Too bad I've already run my bow amazon for this project.

Around this time, I also decide that I don't have enough attack rating - only around 2000 with Fire Claws. So I put some points into dexterity. Five points of stats can convert into either 35 hit points or 135 attack rating, and right now I prefer the latter. 2000 life is enough for now.

The Hellforge pays out well this time:

Spoiler: Hellforge

I'm pretty sure that's the highest rune you can get from the Hellforge in Nightmare, and it's just a very useful rune in general.

Diablo in Normal difficulty scared me a bit. In Nightmare, he's no trouble; the lightning hose misses, and he never uses the firestorm. I recast my bear and Oak Sage once each, but that's all. Other than that, I just keep attacking until he goes down.

Act 5 in Nightmare can be a step up in difficulty, but I don't notice it on Dalok. Shockwave, with all the points I've dumped into it by now, is just too dominating. So I see nothing wrong with going for Nihlathak. Though I do lower the difficulty to players 1 for that floor. Haseen goes down to the death snakes and I clear half the floor without him. Then Nihlathak himself ...

Spoiler: Nihlathak

The corpse explosions were doing a couple hundred damage. Manageable. I don't think I'm going back there in Hell.

Everything is going smoothly as I approach Baal ... and then my life suddenly drops down to double digits! What?
Okay. That was Bartuc, with Fire Enchanted on top of his natural lightning. And he wasn't seriously hurt ... but I think I tagged him with a Shockwave. What, does the stun effect trigger a doom explosion on a fire/lightning boss? Actually, I think that's exactly what happened. And it really makes things hard on a werebear. In retrospect, that's probably what got Osmadi too. New rule: avoid Shockwave and Maul in the presence of cold/lightning or especially fire/lightning bosses. And beetles count as lightning enchanted. So without any werebear-specific skills I can use in those fights, all I've got is Fire Claws for lots of damage at high speed.
I wonder if that bug is fixed in D2R?

I get through that fight without any further trouble. A couple more minion packs, and then it's Baal's turn. He has a ton of hit points at players 8, and he takes down lots of minions. But he's never actually threatening to Dalok himself.

Spoiler: Baal

Conqueror status achieved at level 74. I do one more victory lap session after that hitting the cows and Baal again; that gets me to level 75. Next time, Dalok will proceed to Hell. After a major gear update, because his resistances are nowhere near Hell-ready.

Dalok didn't find any new items for the grail in Nightmare. But I also did another 37 Diablo runs with Cythandria, and she found five. Wisp Projector, Tancred's Hobnails, Bartuc's Cut-Throat, Natalya's Soul, and Darkforce Spawn. That last one is exceedingly rare as a TC 87 class-specific item ... but it's useless. Half the skill bonuses of the Homunculus I already have, no resists, and all it has to counter that is a mana boost.

 

[O_Bruce]

Really nice progess, and great drop from Hellforge. Um in nightmare is a splendid drop!

 

[jmerry]

Oh, it gets better. Here's two more acts of progress. I could have posted this yesterday ... but meeting my nephew for the first time was more important. (OK, that was only an hour or so. Just ignore the rest of the day.)

The first thing to do going into Hell was that gear update. I could have gone for a thorough revamp, but I ended up settling on three things.
Skin of the Vipermagi -> Smoke runeword
Communal Amulet of Life Everlasting -> rare amulet with +2 skills and 14 all resist
Stone of Jordan -> Scintillating Amulet of Worth

Less skill bonus, resists still maxed. I though about swapping to a one-handed weapon, but no. Not yet.

Players count will be seven for this act. I'm stepping down from the eight I ran with in all of normal and nightmare gradually.

And with that, the game immediately gets challenging. Even Blood Moor zombies hit noticeably hard. Then out in the Cold Plains I run into a fire/lightning elite ... wing it with a Shockwave, take a modest hit that feels like a single FE explosion. Great. So that's uncertain death, with the multihit doom explosion depending on some unpredictable factor.
Still, I keep making progress. And I start finding things.

Spoiler: Luna

That one's not new for the grail, because I've found one with Cythandria. But it's still neat.

I've been mixing up the area order, delaying some of the elevated-level dungeons so that I can continue to get decent experience from the monsters in the main-sequence areas. So the graveyard and Blood Raven come after the Stony Field. And she's quite the slog. Knockback, a huge life pool, and she constantly runs away. Fortunately, she doesn't heal any of the damage I deal, so it's just a matter of time.

Down in the Underground Passage, another rare find.

Spoiler: Failed

A triple-durability rare, of a base item type that does have a unique. It would have been one for the grail, but the Underground Passage monsters just didn't have enough levels to drop it.

The second floor of the Underground Passage? That got seriously hard. Two rogue boss packs are close enough to crowd the entrance. One of them is cold/lightning, so I'm not willing to risk indiscriminate Shockwaves. I end up having to go forward into uncleared areas to open a portal out, and drink an emergency purple. Then use that portal again, and another purple. But I am wearing them down, and the third time's the charm. Then the rest of the area just goes smoothly. Once I had a bit of room to work with, no trouble.

Finally, after hitting the Black Marsh waypoint and deciding that the session needs to end, I come back to the Mausoleum. And ... you know, there are some things I don't want to get anywhere close to.

Spoiler: Scary

That aura was Conviction. Nope. Just let Haseen and the bear deal with it, resummoning the bear every time it goes down.

On to the next session of the act. I've been paying more attention to Shockwave ... on one level, it's even better than I thought. Stun duration doesn't go down in higher difficulties. Hit them once, and that's >15 seconds of stun, even in Hell. But on the flip side, it's blockable. Throw it at a pack of skeleton warriors or melee rogues or any of the other enemies with block chances, and you'll only get some of them. Also, it rarely works at all on champions and elites.

Anyway, I'm delaying dungeons again, so I go straight from the Black Marsh surface to the Tamoe Highland. And there, Haseen goes down frighteningly quickly to some skeleton archers. Some time later, working around from a different angle, I figure out their thing. Double boss pack, Cursed/Multishot/Cold and Extra Strong/Holy Freeze. Gradually pick them apart, drawing out individual threats and small groups, because Shockwave's other limit is short range and these archers can definitely shoot me from farther away than I can stun them.
Another fight to give me pause in the Outer Cloister - a Fanaticism+physical immune Razor Spine and a Cursed Devilkin Shaman. Neither was that bad individually, but I definitely had to fight them separately.
And then Haseen goes down again in the Inner Cloister. What is it this time? A Might mage and a multishot archer. Divide and conquer.

That Inner Cloister waypoint is finally where I turn back to the Forgotten Tower. Archer elites can get scary in there, but ... not this time. The worst I run into is a dual-immune goatman that just takes a really long time to kill.

Back to progression after that ...

Spoiler: Devil Star

Wow. That changes things. The old-school top-end shapeshifter weapon. Solid damage, 50% attack speed, rainbow elemental damage, and 200% to attack rating. If I put a Shael in it, I get 9-frame attacks. That's my new weapon. No respec needed, unlike Lightsabre.

Andariel herself ... I hit hard, but so does she. In the end, the strategy that works is to repeatedly summon the bear to take hits in my place.

Spoiler: Andariel

(No particularly interesting drops, just a normal unique)

Clear the deferred Pit, finish the act at level 82. Build-wise, it's all discretionary now. Stats can go to dexterity or vitality, skill points can go to life or fire damage. And I choose on the spot each level, with no larger plan.

Now, Dalok spends his normal and nightmare socketing and personalization quests. Baranar's Star with a Shael. Stormshield with a perfect diamond. Since I have resistances now from the shield slot, swap out some other things too. Immortal King's Detail out, String of Ears in. Smoke out, Skin of the Vipermagi back in. Helm sockets cleared and refilled; Ort+Thul -> Ral+Ort. Charms shuffled - no need for cold resistance anymore, overall resistance charm count down one so I can put in a Fine Small Charm of Dexterity.
5431 attack rating, maxed resistances plus 22 MDR, 2561 life, 49% physical resistance. 36% block chance. And all I had to give up was about 40% of my damage, with attacks both slower and less damaging.
Haseen also gets an update; he gets Bonehew and Duriel's Shell instead of Insight and SotV. I wanted that PMH, he needed strength for the new weapon, and his old armor is now on Dalok. The new merc armor is borrowed from Telka's merc, who gets a low-roll SotV as a replacement.

For act 2, the players count goes down to 5. Kill speed is down too. My blue potion button is getting a workout. But my life total? It barely budges. Now this is the tank I was always meant to be.
Radament does get me to retreat at one point healing in town. Some of the stronger poison hits in Hell are just ridiculous, and Radament was physical immune for a slow fight. Other than that, the sewers were very safe. It no longer feels dangerous every time my Shockwave protection lapses.

The Stony Tomb has beetles. We know what they did. Always take them seriously.

Then, clearing another optional dungeon ...

Spoiler: Ohm

No use for it right now. There's just nothing I particularly want in reach.

I clear all the way to the Lost City and the snake temple, before coming back for the Maggot Lair at the end of the session. Beetles on all three levels. One fire enchanted on level three. I spot it. I don't use Shockwave. No trouble. Coldworm is a slog, but not a dangerous one.

One more session for this act ... but before that, Cythandria finds something.

Spoiler: Double

Two new elite uniques for the collection, and Haseen gets the Reaper's Toll. Full gear swap; Bonehew -> Reaper's Toll, Stealskull -> rare circlet with +2 paladin skills and lightning and poison damage, Duriel's Shell -> SotV (swap with Telka's merc again).

Dual-immune Blunderbore elites in the palace? Slow. Not dangerous.
The Arcane Sanctuary has the usual annoyances. Hey, Haseen? The stairs are over there. Please come up to where I'm fighting? Please? But I've got two strong elements, and Shockwave to stun the ghosts. No real trouble, just some slow fights.
Out in the tombs, it's Unravelers that are the big annoyance. They block. Their minions block. Their minions are fire immune. And they're in five out of seven tombs. Well, at least they never got a chance to resurrect Apparitions. I find a Skin of the Vipermagi ... same resistance, better MDR than the one Haseen's using. Easy swap.

And finally, it's Duriel's turn. With the hardest fight I've ever had from him as a melee character. Holy Freeze slow is just brutal on a shapeshifter, and Duriel was very much focused on Dalok instead of any minions. Three times my health drops below half, three times I drink a fat purple. Never an emergency situation, but I still drink those potions.

Spoiler: Duriel

That ring is just a Nagelring.
And that brings me to the end for now. Dalok is level 86, going into Hell act 3.

New items found for the grail:
- Dalok: Baranar's Star, Ohm, Dark Adherent, Guillaume's Face.
- Cythandria: M'avina's Caster, Eaglehorn, The Reaper's Toll.

 

[Alesia_BH]

I’m not familiar with the game, but I’m glad to see you active and thriving, my friend!

Best wishes for a successful run!

 

[O_Bruce]

Great drops, Baranar's Star is useful for your character (Dalok), and finding high rune always feels amazing

 

[O_Bruce]

Guys... I made it to level 99 for the first time in my life

 

[jmerry]

Level 99 is truly impressive. Definitely made easier by the existence of Terror Zones that scale with the character's level, of course. My level 92 character has to content herself with farming a level 85 area (and the level 94 boss).

Anyway, here's the next two acts. Act 1 was played at players 7, act 2 at players 5. I'm down to 3 now for act 3. And ... it goes smoothy. Very routine, until I enter the Swampy Pit and immediately run into some cursed dolls.
So I stand back and throw shockwaves, leaving Haseen and the bear to fight that pack.
Normal dolls, at least, aren't much of a concern. Carrion Vine eating a corpse heals more than the death explosion deals, and I block the explosion nearly half the time.
This was an optional dungeon, but such places have their rewards.

Spoiler: Hellslayer

Elite gold. But neither new to my collection nor particularly useful.

On the actually useful front, there's the quest reward from Ormus:

Spoiler: Ormus' ring

62 points of resistances, more than my current scintillating ring. I don't make the switch, but it's an option. Including for future characters.

Meanwhile, my usual runs with Cythandria ...

Spoiler: Repeat

No, I didn't need another Baranar's Star at this time. It's just funny; I went all this time without finding any of them hardcore or softcore, and then I get two just a few seconds apart.
On a point of trivia, Baranar's Star has exactly one variable stat. It's the hidden stat of cold duration, and as it happens Dalok's copy is better than the one Cythandria found.

In the Durance, level one is doll-free. Level two isn't, but they aren't bad except a couple cursed packs I run into at the very end doubling back to clear sections near the entrance. Those have me stand back and play support again.
I also found another piece of elite gold in the Durance - Viperfork. No picture this time.

Mephisto? He doesn't make me drink any purples. I do back off at one point to pick up some reds and heal, but other than that I just beat on him and drink blues when necessary.

Spoiler: Mephisto

Since that felt smooth, I continue at players 3 into act 4. There are a lot more fire immunes, but that shouldn't do more than slow me down a bit.
Early act 4 also brings me to level 87. More dexterity brings me to 45% block, and I put another point into Oak Sage.
The Plains of Despair brings a real threat - a Burning Soul with Conviction. Haseen goes down, I drink a purple, and I retreat to town before returning. Fortunately, I'm able to draw it out onto the stairs from the Outer Steppes, and corner it there where it goes down quickly. Up next? A fire enchanted/lightning enchanted/physical immune Flesh Spawner. Right, clear out some minions, remove my bear, and beat down without any stuns...
Izual comes at the end of the area, and the skill points go to Volcano as a Fire Claws synergy. I'm up to about 3K damage on that skill now.

Down in the River of Flame, Hephasto comes out Extra Strong Extra Fast, but his aura is just Blessed Aim. Easy. And then the Hellforge ...

Spoiler: Hellforge

A Gul rune. The highest rune you can get from the Hellforge. That brings me to five Gul runes and six Ist runes that I haven't used; I could cube up to a Lo without using my Ohm, and make a Doom runeword if I wanted. But I don't really want to use all of those runes, and I just don't need that with my current character.

In the Chaos Sanctuary, Oblivion Knights are vulnerable to stun. Hit them with shockwaves before closing, and I don't have to worry about Decrepify. Really, the worst the area throws at me is the no-retreat configuration for the Infector's seal. So when I see Might, I portal out and return from the waypoint.
For the Diablo fight, I drop to players 1. Much quicker that way.

Spoiler: Diablo

No T-pose this time. Or any notable drops. One act left.

New items for the grail:
- Dalok: none
- Cythandria: Blood Raven's Charge, Gimmershred

 

[O_Bruce]

No T-pose this time.

 

[jmerry]

And the final update for Dalok.

Just as I've been doing for the last two acts, I continue into act 5 at player count 3. That will be lowered only for the Ancients and Baal. It continues to be manageable even with the increased monster quality, though some bosses still manage to be threatening. Even in the first area, a Cursed Burining Dead Archer manages to take down Haseen, with an assist from Foul Crows and their poison.
I also find a notable item in the Bloody Foothills:

Spoiler: Spike

A four-socket ethereal War Spike, and it's even superior with enhanced damage. If I were still in the market for a new weapon, that would be made into an Oath so fast ... but no. Baranar's Star is personalized, and there's just not much of the game left. Save that for a future melee build.

After that, the Frigid Highlands are chock full of fire immunes. Head down to Abaddon for some relief from that ... physical immune Blood Lords. You know, that actually is better.
Progress is steady. The forces of Hell try to slow me down in the Pit of Acheron with an invisible wall blocking my exit, but it goes away with a portal cycle.
I finally get an area without fire immunes in the Frozen River. It just has gloams instead. So many dead Oak Sages.
Pressing on to a good waypoint to end the session at, a champion pack of Gloombats of all things inflicts serious pain. That's one of the quirks of this character; since stun is such a major aspect of my defenses, champions are a real threat. After all, that's four enemies I can't easily stun instead of one as in a normal boss pack.

After ending the session at the Frozen Tundra waypoint, I make my final equipment swap of the run. My blue resistance ring goes out, a new yellow ring with resistances and a bunch of other useful stuff comes in, and charms shuffle around leaving room for my sole druid skill charm. It's just summons, but I am using those on this character.
There is one area I skip: the final level of Nihlathak's temple. I don't have anything I really want to personalize, and that's just not a fight I want to risk on Hardcore.
The Icy Cellar pairs dolls with multiple Cursed bosses. I spend a lot of time there standing back and throwing shockwaves rather than joining the melee.

Finally, the Ancients. I go down to players 1 for them. First try ... Madawc is Cursed. Reroll. Holy Freeze. Reroll. Cursed. Reroll. Cursed and Fanaticism. Reroll. This time, I fight. And don't win. Five purples later, with Haseen fallen and none of the enemies defeated, I give up on that one. Not sure what it was that time; there was an aura I never pinned down, and it could have been something nasty like Might.
After fighting a bit in the Frigid Highlands to reactivate Haseen's aura, and restocking with a column of reds plus some backups, I return to the Ancients. Cursed. Reroll. Cursed. Reroll. And finally, on the eighth try, there aren't any mods that increase all of their physical damage. One of the three is Extra Strong, but that's nothing in comparison. I drank some of those reds - they aren't very effective on a shapeshifter druid - but that was all.

Spoiler: Ancients

That's level 88. Five more points to Dexterity, and one to Fire Claws synergy.

The Worldstone Keep? The worst it throws at me are Hell Temptresses on level 3. Physical immune, fire resistant, casts Amplify Damage. Yes, that's worse than the Souls I met on level 2. Especially when I run into mana burn bosses.
Of Baal's waves, Achmel is the worst. You see, he's basically impossible to pull away from Baal's feet, and that means I have to fight him under Decrepify. Plus there were Oblivion Knights to raise. I had to spend the first part of that battle drawing minions out and eating corpses.
Baal himself isn't too bad. I do have some Crushing Blow for that gigantic life pool, so I don't need to recast Werebear. All it costs me is a few blues.

Spoiler: Baal

Guardian status achieved.

Spoiler: Guardian

I do one more session after that, clearing the Cow Level. Back to players 3 for this. And while I think about preserving it to come back - Shockwave is extremely effective against cows - the king makes the decision for me, coming out before I ever spot the stockade.

Spoiler: Cow King

That unique (Skin of the Flayed One) is a new one for my collection, by the way.
Finish clearing the level, then take some pictures.

Spoiler: Stats and gear

The main shot there is taken outside of town in werebear form. Oak Sage and Might auras active.

Spoiler: Skills

The skill tree pictures are all taken with my main weapon/shield equipped. For the details on the seven skills I regularly used, it's whichever side I used them on - BStar and Stormshield for the bear combat skills, dual Spirit for Werebear and the summons. Fire Claws was my sole left-click skill, while my right-click swapped between the other six. I had some other things hotkeyed as well, but didn't use them.
Actual skill investments, since the numbers are hard to read in that shade of blue: 20 points Fire Claws, 20 points Shockwave, 5+5+5+18 elemental fire skills for FC synergy, 6 Lycanthropy, 8 Oak Sage, 1 all other unlocked skills.

Some final thoughts. This build really clicked into place when I made the switch to weapon/shield mode early in Hell. Just goes to show that the real key to any Hardcore build is the defenses.
Maul is such a frustrating skill. Even when you charge it up, all the benefits except the rather low attack rating bonus apply to every hit you make, so there's no incentive to use it for anything more that just renewing the charge. I've got a massive AR boost from my weapon so I can and do occasionally use it against fire immunes. And even then, most of my hits will be with Fire Claws for the higher AR. If Resurrected is still interested in rebalancing any skills, Maul could use a boost - either a higher attack rating or a damage boost that isn't part of the charge.

 

[O_Bruce]

Congratulations on making another Guardian

If Resurrected is still interested in rebalancing any skills, Maul could use a boost - either a higher attack rating or a damage boost that isn't part of the charge.

Maul already got damage boost and also each charge adds attack speed. Werebear in general was buffed, as attacking or using skills while in werebear form is now uninterruptable. It's particularly nice that it negates a pretty shity hit recovery/block frame data while shapeshifted.

 

[O_Bruce]

Hello there!

I haven't made any assassin character a guardian yet, so with the following run, I am now attempting to fix that. Before I introduce the character though, I need to let everyone know of a important rule regarding this particular run: I am not allowed to make or use runewords. Also, the character is, as usual in my runs, self-found.

Without further delay, let's witness the career of Emma, the Violent Blade. She will be focused on using Blade Fury and Blade Sentry as the main damage dealers. She'll also use help of a Shadow Master, protectherself with Fade and use Cloak of Shadows as utility.

She begins her journey at players 3 difficulty, and the first quest is not a problem at all. While leveling up, I decided to be very conservative with spending my stat points: I go with 2 point per level up into vitality, and saving the remaining 3 for later. I do this because while being self-found, I have no idea what kind of loot I will find, and thus I have no idea what stats will I need. For act 1 of normal difficulty, I am mainly sticking to Katar as my weapons, although the plan is to use a 2-handed maul when I get to it. This is because Blade Sentry and Blade Fury damage is partially based on your weapon damage, and the attack speed is irrelevant: the stronger per-hit weapon is, the better.

One caviot to that: normally, 3/4 of your weapon damage is added. In case of two-handed weapons, for balance reasons I assume, it is 3/8 of your damage. It is still worth with weapons such as mauls.

Back to the track, Emma has killed the Blood Raven and saved Cainy; Blade Sentry is great skill for now and the assassin is shreding through enemies without taking a sweat

Emma then took care of the evil Countess, and contrary to most of my other runs, Emma won't be revisiting the Forgotten Tower on normal difficulty. She has a little need for farming runes, and leveling-up is swift enough for a players 3 run. It is not to say runes won't be useful for her; somewhere in Nightmare difficulty, she might want to use crafted items. It would be certainly nice for me to learn to make crafted items and to consider it a viable option.

Emma has slain the Smith, but she forgot to return the Horadric Mallus. Oh no... anyways:

Shortly before fighitng Andariel (literally inside the same room Andy is), Emma has found a replacement for assassin's katar she has been using:

Just look at this dramatic scene:

Emma is fighting Maiden of Anguish, and her hireling just doesn't care. She pretends not to notice! The loot wasn't very notable though.

In act II, Emma has upgraded for a nice armor:

Really nice defense at this point. And there's something interesting about heavily-armored, two-handed weapon wielding assassin.

Emma's hireling is cold as ice, as she ignores Radament's attempt to give her a high five:

The poor undead couldn't live such rudeness, and Emma helped him with that. Soon, the assasin reached level 18, and the Blade Fury became her second main attack. Continuing into the act II, Emma got the Horadric Cube and the Staff of Kings. Having plenty of money from selling loot, Emma decided to gamble for a while, browsing through the offers until she found stacks of mauls. She gambled several of them and she found a jackpot:

A very powerful weapon for Act II of normal difficulty! It requires 69 strength, which is nice, but due to my stat-allocating strategy, I was able to use it no-problem. It is funny how wielding a giant maul makes Emma's blade skills much stronger though! Just ask Fangskin, and the Summoner. And Diablo's dog or something. It's definitely not Lord of Hell, though.

This time around, the hireling decided to take a nap in the middle of a fight. Oh, such disrespect! I'm booting her out of the party next act, that's for sure! Jokes aside, this time around Duriel required slightly more caution than usual. I had Shadows Warrior as a tank, but she didn't lasted long and needed to be re-summoned multiple times. But as long as Emma managed to do that, she was never in a real danger.

Both helmet and a sabre will be of us for my next mercenary.

Emma's stats and skills at the end of Act II:

 

[jmerry]

Interesting plan there. I've never gone with primarily blade skills, instead just doing things like one-point Blade Fury with Bonesnap as an anti-boss tool on a trapper.

When it says it does some fraction of weapon damage, that includes everything that would add on to a normal attack; Venom, damage auras, damage from high stats, and so on. A Might aura mercenary is a massive boost here, especially since your "attack skills" here don't have any natural ED bonus.

Sadly, my own HC project looks to be dead. I tried to start up the game for a modded session yesterday, and my old computer objected. I tried several times, but that computer looks to be dead. It just won't start up; from the way it fails, I think the hard drive went. Rest in peace, 2005-model laptop.

I checked my other old machines, and looked up some things.
The 2009 model is running an OS version that is not compatible with any version of D2. (No support for the "Carbon"framework for converting pre-X Mac OS apps)
The 2015 model is running an OS version that could play patch 1.14, if I download that. This is a bit of surprise hope - I didn't know about that patch adding compatibility for newer operating systems before. But before I try anything with that machine, I have a hardware issue to address - a severely inflamed battery that needs to be removed.
My current 2022 model is running an OS version that is not compatible with any version of D2. (No 32-bit apps whatsoever)

So, I might be able to run something, with some work. It just won't have any access to the shared collection of the previous runs in the project. Starting from scratch again, if I go there.

 

[Antimatter]

I'm sure there is a way to get the info from your hard drive and transfer it to a new device. You should contact a PC/laptop service. Losing progress in the HC project due to the memory loss would be very frustrating, as it means years of trying are gone. Hopefully you'll be able to recover.