My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Diablo2LoD.html
Ricky 'LeWoVoc' Mitchell's Druid run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Finally, a run that doesn't use the Assassin or Sorceress.
Ricky 'LeWoVoc' Mitchell's Druid run
Verifier Responses
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Video cuts out in transition between act 4 and 5. Inventory can be checked at 1:01:03 in act 5 for continuity, everything matches up from the last time the inventory was opened in act 4 during Diablo fight at 59:42, so we're all good.
Shopping could have been faster, you can automatically buy stuff without going through the yes/no prompt, but it adds a miniscule amount of time.
Minor hiccups here and there that the runner mentioned in the comments.
One major mistake for me that wasn't mentioned in the comments is that the runner should have bought 1 or 2 antidote potions on the way to resurrecting the merc before killing Colenzo. Regardless whether they were needed or not, it would have saved a lot of health pots and would have allowed for more aggressive play against Bartuc.
Other than that, A/V was good except for segment 40, where the audio gets really low for some reason. Easy accept.
I'd just like to mention that I really love the idea of doing a Druid run for this game. The Druid's spells are by far the most cost effective in the entire game in terms of their AOE damage, as is shown by the very little shopping the runner has to do for potions. Potions themselves are quite optimal in that the runner makes it a point of using stuff that drops after killing monsters quite frequently. In a longer, say 100% run, a Sorceress would likely beat out a Druid run because of Teleport, but the Druid definitely has the edge over the Sorceress in terms of mana efficiency of spells. It would probably be close, but I'd still give the edge to the Sorceress.
Shopping could have been faster, you can automatically buy stuff without going through the yes/no prompt, but it adds a miniscule amount of time.
Minor hiccups here and there that the runner mentioned in the comments.
One major mistake for me that wasn't mentioned in the comments is that the runner should have bought 1 or 2 antidote potions on the way to resurrecting the merc before killing Colenzo. Regardless whether they were needed or not, it would have saved a lot of health pots and would have allowed for more aggressive play against Bartuc.
Other than that, A/V was good except for segment 40, where the audio gets really low for some reason. Easy accept.
I'd just like to mention that I really love the idea of doing a Druid run for this game. The Druid's spells are by far the most cost effective in the entire game in terms of their AOE damage, as is shown by the very little shopping the runner has to do for potions. Potions themselves are quite optimal in that the runner makes it a point of using stuff that drops after killing monsters quite frequently. In a longer, say 100% run, a Sorceress would likely beat out a Druid run because of Teleport, but the Druid definitely has the edge over the Sorceress in terms of mana efficiency of spells. It would probably be close, but I'd still give the edge to the Sorceress.
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Firstly, big kudos to the runner for choosing a Druid. It's an undervalued class with a lot of potential, even if it gives away some pure speed compared to an Assassin. All these DIILoD runs rely on fire magic though, so I wonder how the physical classes will eventually hold up. Most of the weapons available around Lv20 suck.
General comments:
-Really clever use of Poison Creeper in those early segments, and then again later on for distracting enemies. I didn't even know +3 items could drop that early. It's a shame abilities like this become useless so quickly in normal play
-Got boxed in a bit on the way through the Underground Passage. Not sure he needed to re-cast Poison Creeper so often in the Tower, it ends up using a heap of mana. Really might have helped to set some of those mana pots in his belt as well... or perhaps get an actual belt. Segment 9 went very well though. I have always had horrible luck with rune drops, and still feel amazed any time I see anything higher than a Tal
-Goes out of his way to hit the Catacombs Lv2 waypoint, but that was probably to get the boot drop off Andy. Also seems to have horrible luck with doors in general. Nice use of the mana recharge shrine though.
-Fissure continues to be incredibly powerful, and Act II goes by very quickly. Same deal for Act III. Pretty standard stuff through these, decent play but nothing unexpected.
-His Chaos Sanctuary run is a bit average, but the Diablo fight is great. He spams lightning hose what, eight times in a row? Twice? There's also a small freeze-up after he dies, but nothing major.
-Ancients fight was excellent, Madawc sits in one spot the entire fight.
-The run up to Baal was somewhat less so. The room takes a while to be cleared, his merc dies early against Colenzo because he didn't deal with the revives, and as verifier #1 says some Antidote potions could have been very helpful. Takes nearly 10 seconds to kill that last Venom Lord, and the final summon bunch gets 'lost' once before he can lead them out. The Baal fight is good though, aside from some small item mismanagement. Such a cheap spammy tank boss
Overall, this run really looks to have made the most of the Druid's potential in terms of item and skill planning. I think a couple of points in Energy might have helped, or even some cheap gear with +Mana on it, but that's about it. Potion management could have been a bit better in general but it's nothing worth holding back an accept for. Quality-wise there are some small spots of lag and the audio is randomly quieter on some segments, but it's nothing I'm bothered about. So that's an accept from me. Sorry this reply took so long, I got sidetracked by uni work and completely forgot about it for a week there.
General comments:
-Really clever use of Poison Creeper in those early segments, and then again later on for distracting enemies. I didn't even know +3 items could drop that early. It's a shame abilities like this become useless so quickly in normal play
-Got boxed in a bit on the way through the Underground Passage. Not sure he needed to re-cast Poison Creeper so often in the Tower, it ends up using a heap of mana. Really might have helped to set some of those mana pots in his belt as well... or perhaps get an actual belt. Segment 9 went very well though. I have always had horrible luck with rune drops, and still feel amazed any time I see anything higher than a Tal
-Goes out of his way to hit the Catacombs Lv2 waypoint, but that was probably to get the boot drop off Andy. Also seems to have horrible luck with doors in general. Nice use of the mana recharge shrine though.
-Fissure continues to be incredibly powerful, and Act II goes by very quickly. Same deal for Act III. Pretty standard stuff through these, decent play but nothing unexpected.
-His Chaos Sanctuary run is a bit average, but the Diablo fight is great. He spams lightning hose what, eight times in a row? Twice? There's also a small freeze-up after he dies, but nothing major.
-Ancients fight was excellent, Madawc sits in one spot the entire fight.
-The run up to Baal was somewhat less so. The room takes a while to be cleared, his merc dies early against Colenzo because he didn't deal with the revives, and as verifier #1 says some Antidote potions could have been very helpful. Takes nearly 10 seconds to kill that last Venom Lord, and the final summon bunch gets 'lost' once before he can lead them out. The Baal fight is good though, aside from some small item mismanagement. Such a cheap spammy tank boss
Overall, this run really looks to have made the most of the Druid's potential in terms of item and skill planning. I think a couple of points in Energy might have helped, or even some cheap gear with +Mana on it, but that's about it. Potion management could have been a bit better in general but it's nothing worth holding back an accept for. Quality-wise there are some small spots of lag and the audio is randomly quieter on some segments, but it's nothing I'm bothered about. So that's an accept from me. Sorry this reply took so long, I got sidetracked by uni work and completely forgot about it for a week there.
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video and audio quality was good,no problems there. run was entertaining for the most part, i especially like how he powered through the end of act 2 because i have bad memories of that place. i found the baal to be the worst part of the run, but that was mentioned in the comments so its fine. accept
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I apologize that this too me so long to finish, school got in the way.
Let me start off with saying that the a/v was great, no problems on that end.
The gameplay of this run was superb. I thought the runner optimized each of the segments really well. To go along with that, there were no mistakes in this run besides a few little hiccups that would have only saved seconds.
I really like the choice of Druid as the character class. Through my years of playing the game, I always felt that the Druids were underplayed and unappreciated. The runner shows just how easily the Druid can tear through the game; it just needs help from a boss killer skill.
Now for the actual run itself. Like I said before, the run has no major mistakes and only has a few minor hiccups.
Act 1 – Before this run, I never knew how powerful poison creeper could be in the early game. In this act it becomes a spell that the druid can just throw down and continue running for really effective leveling. I would also like to comment that buying potions can be done with one click, and I’m not sure why the runner doesn’t do this. Andy is taken down with no problems whatsoever.
Act 2 - I really like the use of Stealth and Leaf, that was a really useful trick that was discovered there. The faster run/walk from stealth is so important for the late game because you do need to run so far. Oh those scarab beetles, those were always the bane of my existence on hardcore, the runner handles them magnificently with only a few close calls which is great. Once again, this boss is a pushover for the druid.
Act 3 – I can honestly say that I have only completed the quests of act 3 only a handful of times, without the waypoints. Someone bringing travincal and durance waypoints would make this so much easier. A lot of running involved with this act and you can tell the runner knows his stuff pretty well because he doesn’t use his minimap for the first half of the act.
Act 4 - A great location for izzy, only takes a few seconds for +2 skills, a good trade-off in my mind. A lot of running and kiting followed by a pretty good Diablo fight.
Act 5 – Another great act as far as map manipulation go, all of the worldstone exits/wps were fairly close. One thing that kinda bothered me was the runner could have ditched the horadric cube after act three and one of the trips back to town during the baal fight may have been avoided.
There’s really no debate about this run, an easy accept. I am really excited to see a druid run finally, and I can’t wait until all of the classes have their own runs.
Let me start off with saying that the a/v was great, no problems on that end.
The gameplay of this run was superb. I thought the runner optimized each of the segments really well. To go along with that, there were no mistakes in this run besides a few little hiccups that would have only saved seconds.
I really like the choice of Druid as the character class. Through my years of playing the game, I always felt that the Druids were underplayed and unappreciated. The runner shows just how easily the Druid can tear through the game; it just needs help from a boss killer skill.
Now for the actual run itself. Like I said before, the run has no major mistakes and only has a few minor hiccups.
Act 1 – Before this run, I never knew how powerful poison creeper could be in the early game. In this act it becomes a spell that the druid can just throw down and continue running for really effective leveling. I would also like to comment that buying potions can be done with one click, and I’m not sure why the runner doesn’t do this. Andy is taken down with no problems whatsoever.
Act 2 - I really like the use of Stealth and Leaf, that was a really useful trick that was discovered there. The faster run/walk from stealth is so important for the late game because you do need to run so far. Oh those scarab beetles, those were always the bane of my existence on hardcore, the runner handles them magnificently with only a few close calls which is great. Once again, this boss is a pushover for the druid.
Act 3 – I can honestly say that I have only completed the quests of act 3 only a handful of times, without the waypoints. Someone bringing travincal and durance waypoints would make this so much easier. A lot of running involved with this act and you can tell the runner knows his stuff pretty well because he doesn’t use his minimap for the first half of the act.
Act 4 - A great location for izzy, only takes a few seconds for +2 skills, a good trade-off in my mind. A lot of running and kiting followed by a pretty good Diablo fight.
Act 5 – Another great act as far as map manipulation go, all of the worldstone exits/wps were fairly close. One thing that kinda bothered me was the runner could have ditched the horadric cube after act three and one of the trips back to town during the baal fight may have been avoided.
There’s really no debate about this run, an easy accept. I am really excited to see a druid run finally, and I can’t wait until all of the classes have their own runs.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Finally, a run that doesn't use the Assassin or Sorceress.
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