Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-05-29 03:22:45 pm

2005-05-29 03:21:17 pm

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Quote:

Not bad -- having a level 1 area of effect spell is pretty nice. Plus, you get some early meatshields AND extra health from the oak sage. And the druid is a decent tank.

But, wouldn't you have the same problems as the sin later on (against the fire immunes)? Also, I think the shadow would be better than the summons later on, although I may be wrong (gonna get a grizzly? They're nice).

Problems? Likely. There are only 2 fire immunes I have to kill (Grandvizor in CS and Colenzo at Baal), I'll manage somehow. I intend to boost Dire Wolfs to level 7 and put everything else into Fissure, so that will be my main spell for the rest of the game. The dire wolfs should in theory be better blockers than the one lv1 shadow, because I can cast them while the other two take hits. Grizzly... dunno... I don't think I'll hit 30 on 4pl.

About the tank: the hit recovery of a druid is the worst in the whole game.... you get hit once and pray for your life.

Quote:

Spend more time on the Tamoe Highlands is my guess.

My guess at the moment and from reviewing my videos is that single ordinary monsters give almost no exp at all. Champs or bosses are the main things I should look for as well as really big mobs. Tamoe Highland is a bit of a gamble, the archers there do not crowd, neither do the spiked stuff and the fire mage skeletons are resistant to my spells. The only good exp there comes from rqoues which I do only get in one game out of four.

I'm still fiddling with other player settings. I've recorded a 16'xx" on 6pl, where I get to lv10. Obviously better, but slower later on. I think I'll play both 4pl and 6pl simultaneously and see whichever is faster in the end.

[quote]Not bad -- having a level 1 area of effect spell is pretty nice. Plus, you get some early meatshields AND extra health from the oak sage. And the druid is a decent tank.

But, wouldn't you have the same problems as the sin later on (against the fire immunes)? Also, I think the shadow would be better than the summons later on, although I may be wrong (gonna get a grizzly? They're nice).[/quote]
Problems? Likely. There are only 2 fire immunes I have to kill (Grandvizor in CS and Colenzo at Baal), I'll manage somehow. I intend to boost Dire Wolfs to level 7 and put everything else into Fissure, so that will be my main spell for the rest of the game. The dire wolfs should in theory be better blockers than the one lv1 shadow, because I can cast them while the other two take hits. Grizzly... dunno... I don't think I'll hit 30 on 4pl.

About the tank: the hit recovery of a druid is the worst in the whole game.... you get hit once and pray for your life.

[quote]Spend more time on the Tamoe Highlands is my guess.[/quote]
My guess at the moment and from reviewing my videos is that single ordinary monsters give almost no exp at all. Champs or bosses are the main things I should look for as well as really big mobs. Tamoe Highland is a bit of a gamble, the archers there do not crowd, neither do the spiked stuff and the fire mage skeletons are resistant to my spells. The only good exp there comes from rqoues which I do only get in one game out of four.

I'm still fiddling with other player settings. I've recorded a 16'xx" on 6pl, where I get to lv10. Obviously better, but slower later on. I think I'll play both 4pl and 6pl simultaneously and see whichever is faster in the end.

marshmallow

2005-05-29 08:14:00 pm

Jack of all Trades

Yeah, I was just spouting out random thoughts. I haven't played D2 hardcore for quite awhile. So level 7 wolves will be that useful? Are you just going to run through the entire CS with an army chasing you? Cheesy

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-05-29 11:51:27 pm

2005-05-29 08:36:16 pm

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To be honest... I have no idea Roll Eyes

The pl6 vid is up. Less obvious stupidity and nice exp from Rakanishu. I should kill him on 4pl too.

EDIT: Tried again 4pl, got incredible 4 exp shrines in the first 3 maps (!), killed Rakanishu and finished the thing in under 17 minutes with pretty much the same level as before.

I also did some research, calculated a bit and am now pretty convinced that reaching lv10 until outer cloister in 4pl is a waste of time, so every improvement will only be timewise.

marshmallow

2005-06-03 06:20:56 pm

Jack of all Trades

How did the druid run fare?

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-03 08:18:17 pm

2005-06-03 08:18:05 pm

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Still on it....

I had not much time this week due to a crappy Verilog design not doing what I wanted it to do...

I've tried another few runs and managed to get the times down a bit, but nothing worth bumping the topic every time.

Question marsh, how much did you encode your starcraft runs? I tried to copy the usual low/normal/high scheme of the console runs, but diablo is way to fine grained for these encodings. At the moment I keep a 1500kbit DivX5.1.1 copy of the runs, and I'll try h264 next.

marshmallow

2005-06-03 11:46:34 pm

Jack of all Trades

I ended up playing out my sin build, just for fun...not really for speed, but I ended up going very fast, I suppose, although not as good as you.

I wouldn't recommend messing with Claws of Thunder at all...I put in 5 points and it just sucked. Even against fire resistant guys the sheer power of FoF prevailed. The only place where it came into good use was against Colenzo...but I think I could have handled him just like the Vizier of Chaos (who died within seconds from the ice merc and shadow).

I ended up leveling more than you but I wandered a lot more. I don't know how you got so lucky with the maps unless you saved your files, explored/memorized them, then reverted back and just flew through.

I lost a LOT of time in A3. It was the cool situation where the flayer doesn't have an entrance that goes into the spider forest...so I 1) explored all of spider 2) all of great marsh 3) finally entered flayer.

I also "went left" in Mephisto's dungeons. Let's just say on one of the levels it was directly to the right of the floor entrance.

I was ~ lvl 27 going into A4...so I just ran through all of A4 and A5, pretty much. I still ended up lvl 31 after Ancients because in the ice dungeons it's hard to run around without getting swarmed to death by knights and yetis and all other sorts of fun beasties.

I underestimated the power of the ice merc before. They do suck later, but in normal they ROCK!

I don't know how you did the Ancients @ players8 with lvl 15 FoF...I was almost maxed and it took an eternity at /players 1.

Lister and co. obliterated me. I had to lure them out to continue on.

I didn't even bother with Baal...I mean, yeah, I could eventually take him down, but it would've taken FOREVER and lots and lots and lots of potions. And players 8? Fuhget about it.

After I finished with the sin I was thinking a sorc would be great just for the pure damage of say, fireball or firewall, especially since you can spam them and the damage is continous as opposed to the stupid charge ups (and having a 60% chance to hit in A5 is frustrating, and I had a LOT of +AR jewelry and charms)...and static would take down bosses like nothing. Maybe even lightning! But getting to level 12 is a pain in the rear end, and the lack of meatshields later on (I would presumably get another ice merc) would be devastating because my weak little frame would get surrounded and put down like nothing.

The Druid idea looks fun, though, I think I'll try that out. But he'll be so slow...the sorc could teleport through walls and acrossed all sorts of terrain and the sin could run extremely fast (which was a great asset in A3, 4, and 5). But the druid is clunky and slow...

I ended up playing out my sin build, just for fun...not really for speed, but I ended up going very fast, I suppose, although not as good as you.

I wouldn't recommend messing with Claws of Thunder at all...I put in 5 points and it just sucked. Even against fire resistant guys the sheer power of FoF prevailed. The only place where it came into good use was against Colenzo...but I think I could have handled him just like the Vizier of Chaos (who died within seconds from the ice merc and shadow).

I ended up leveling more than you but I wandered a lot more. I don't know how you got so lucky with the maps unless you saved your files, explored/memorized them, then reverted back and just flew through.

I lost a LOT of time in A3. It was the cool situation where the flayer doesn't have an entrance that goes into the spider forest...so I 1) explored all of spider 2) all of great marsh 3) finally entered flayer.

I also "went left" in Mephisto's dungeons. Let's just say on one of the levels it was directly to the right of the floor entrance.

I was ~ lvl 27 going into A4...so I just ran through all of A4 and A5, pretty much. I still ended up lvl 31 after Ancients because in the ice dungeons it's hard to run around without getting swarmed to death by knights and yetis and all other sorts of fun beasties.

I underestimated the power of the ice merc before. They do suck later, but in normal they ROCK!

I don't know how you did the Ancients @ players8 with lvl 15 FoF...I was almost maxed and it took an eternity at /players 1.

Lister and co. obliterated me. I had to lure them out to continue on.

I didn't even bother with Baal...I mean, yeah, I could eventually take him down, but it would've taken FOREVER and lots and lots and lots of potions. And players 8? Fuhget about it.

After I finished with the sin I was thinking a sorc would be great just for the pure damage of say, fireball or firewall, especially since you can spam them and the damage is continous as opposed to the stupid charge ups (and having a 60% chance to hit in A5 is frustrating, and I had a LOT of +AR jewelry and charms)...and static would take down bosses like nothing. Maybe even lightning! But getting to level 12 is a pain in the rear end, and the lack of meatshields later on (I would presumably get another ice merc) would be devastating because my weak little frame would get surrounded and put down like nothing.

The Druid idea looks fun, though, I think I'll try that out. But he'll be so slow...the sorc could teleport through walls and acrossed all sorts of terrain and the sin could run extremely fast (which was a great asset in A3, 4, and 5). But the druid is clunky and slow...

marshmallow

Edit history:

marshmallow: 2005-06-04 01:16:17 am

2005-06-04 01:16:03 am

Jack of all Trades

Sorry, I never answered your question: I used 550 for most of my SC runs, I think. Maybe 500. I'm using 600 on some of the BW zerg ones.

It's amazing how much of a difference doing two passes makes. You do that, right?

killswitcher

2005-06-04 08:49:05 am

Just reading this is making me want to play it again...I had to uninstall D2X from my computer because I was so addicted I wouldn't do anything else.

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-04 11:07:48 am

2005-06-04 10:39:26 am

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Quote:

I ended up leveling more than you but I wandered a lot more. I don't know how you got so lucky with the maps unless you saved your files, explored/memorized them, then reverted back and just flew through.

Yep, I played ahead. I figure watching someone explore is boring, and since Radix officially allowed it by now...

Quote:

I don't know how you did the Ancients @ players8 with lvl 15 FoF...I was almost maxed and it took an eternity at /players 1.

I didn't. After spending almost an hour in CS, I trashed the idea of doing it on 8pl. I'd have lured Lister away, but Baal and the ancients would have taken an eternity, that's right.

Quote:

After I finished with the sin I was thinking a sorc would be great just for the pure damage of say, fireball or firewall, especially since you can spam them and the damage is continous as opposed to the stupid charge ups (and having a 60% chance to hit in A5 is frustrating, and I had a LOT of +AR jewelry and charms)...and static would take down bosses like nothing.

I thought about that too. Only for normal you could leave out str at all, have a bit luck with an orb and push energy...

Quote:

The Druid idea looks fun, though, I think I'll try that out. But he'll be so slow...the sorc could teleport through walls and acrossed all sorts of terrain and the sin could run extremely fast (which was a great asset in A3, 4, and 5). But the druid is clunky and slow...

I played one ahead until late act2, and fissure both rocks and sucks. I really depends on monsters to move into it. While in the desert you get literally beaten to death with exp just from running past monsters and casting one fissure behind you. Maggot layer though.... horrible. I also keep a list of stuff I need to get my hands on until act4: necro wand with lots of mana/energy, armor/rings/gloves/ with res and.... fast shoes

And about multi-pass encoding.... not yet, but if it's that a difference I will try it next time.

[quote]I ended up leveling more than you but I wandered a lot more. I don't know how you got so lucky with the maps unless you saved your files, explored/memorized them, then reverted back and just flew through.[/quote]
Yep, I played ahead. I figure watching someone explore is boring, and since Radix officially allowed it by now...
[quote]I don't know how you did the Ancients @ players8 with lvl 15 FoF...I was almost maxed and it took an eternity at /players 1.[/quote]
I didn't. After spending almost an hour in CS, I trashed the idea of doing it on 8pl. I'd have lured Lister away, but Baal and the ancients would have taken an eternity, that's right.

[quote]After I finished with the sin I was thinking a sorc would be great just for the pure damage of say, fireball or firewall, especially since you can spam them and the damage is continous as opposed to the stupid charge ups (and having a 60% chance to hit in A5 is frustrating, and I had a LOT of +AR jewelry and charms)...and static would take down bosses like nothing. [/quote]
I thought about that too. Only for normal you could leave out str at all, have a bit luck with an orb and push energy...

[quote]The Druid idea looks fun, though, I think I'll try that out. But he'll be so slow...the sorc could teleport through walls and acrossed all sorts of terrain and the sin could run extremely fast (which was a great asset in A3, 4, and 5). But the druid is clunky and slow...[/quote]
I played one ahead until late act2, and fissure both rocks and sucks. I really depends on monsters to move into it. While in the desert you get literally beaten to death with exp just from running past monsters and casting one fissure behind you. Maggot layer though.... horrible. I also keep a list of stuff I need to get my hands on until act4: necro wand with lots of mana/energy, armor/rings/gloves/ with res and.... fast shoes

And about multi-pass encoding.... not yet, but if it's that a difference I will try it next time.

marshmallow

2005-06-04 05:50:08 pm

Jack of all Trades

I played with the Druid on /players 5 all the way to the start of A5. You're right, fissure is both amazing and frustrating. It's terrible at taking out single targets, particularly the great mummies in A2...and going through narrow passages is time consuming (I'm glad my Maggot Lair and Arcane visits were relatively short; guessed right in both of them).

That definitely rears its ugly head against bosses...good lord, Diablo probably took 15 minutes of pain (of course, it felt like an hour or two). He would just wave his arms and all of my minions would collapse like nothing. I'd just run around him in a circle and cast a fissure on him between his pink lightning of death attacks...

Mephisto wasn't so bad. My wolves held him pretty well.

Duriel was similar, except I had to recast my wolves a lot faster to keep up and I went through the city's supply of mana pots for the next month.

Then again, I only put 3 pts into wolves the entire time. I figured with my oak sage that if they die fast then another couple points won't be any better, and I wanted more damage out of my fissure.

This build was insanely fast at the beginning though. I don't think I've ever done A1/2 so quickly before, especially in concerns with leveling up. Fissure just dominates in the open field!

I played with the Druid on /players 5 all the way to the start of A5. You're right, fissure is both amazing and frustrating. It's terrible at taking out single targets, particularly the great mummies in A2...and going through narrow passages is time consuming (I'm glad my Maggot Lair and Arcane visits were relatively short; guessed right in both of them).
 
That definitely rears its ugly head against bosses...good lord, Diablo probably took 15 minutes of pain (of course, it felt like an hour or two). He would just wave his arms and all of my minions would collapse like nothing. I'd just run around him in a circle and cast a fissure on him between his pink lightning of death attacks...

Mephisto wasn't so bad. My wolves held him pretty well.

Duriel was similar, except I had to recast my wolves a lot faster to keep up and I went through the city's supply of mana pots for the next month.

Then again, I only put 3 pts into wolves the entire time. I figured with my oak sage that if they die fast then another couple points won't be any better, and I wanted more damage out of my fissure.

This build was insanely fast at the beginning though. I don't think I've ever done A1/2 so quickly before, especially in concerns with leveling up. Fissure just dominates in the open field!

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-04 06:11:01 pm

2005-06-04 06:10:51 pm

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Since boss fights only make up a small fraction of the entire game I doubt a powerful bosskiller spell would do any good. It's just better to fry the masses, gain a level more and sit through the boring boss fights.

Since I'll most likely level only in open places (desert, jungle, most of act4) and be running most of the time anyway, mummies will be no problem. The Maggot Layer troubles me more... my test char had to switch to Firestorm again to get the maggots out of his way (Molten Boulder is almost impossible to cast in a straight line down there).

How did the CS in general work? It should be much easier compared to the Asn, but the Oblivions could be a nuisance.

My real concern is Baal, because he doesn't move at all. That would bring up the question if an additional point in volcano would do any good.

marshmallow

2005-06-04 06:30:15 pm

Jack of all Trades

The CS was a little slow, but easy. I tried to gather the biggest mobs possible and take them out and then just move on because trying to take out the stragglers was a real pain. I did put in a single point in Volcano, which helped a LITTLE...but not much. I'll probably need it for Colenzo, it does part physical dmg right?

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-04 06:45:11 pm

2005-06-04 06:39:16 pm

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I think it does 50/50 just like CE... wait a sec, I'll check up....

Yep it's 50/50 according to Arreat Summit, but like Fissure it's a gamble to hit the boss. This should be an application of the Dire Wolfs.

EDIT: I just noticed... A lvl1 Volcano even with 20 points in synergies does.... (*drum roll*) 19.2-26.4 while your lvl3 Dire Wolfs do 13-19 each.

Brightstar

2005-06-05 04:09:56 am

My thoughts one this:

The game should be unpatched, so we don't have to track a new version each time one comes out.

marshmallow

Edit history:

marshmallow: 2005-06-05 06:46:54 am

2005-06-05 06:39:42 am

Jack of all Trades

Brightstar: Diablo II's last major update was quite a long time ago and Blizzard has pretty much moved on. This won't be an issue.

Gorash: I completed all of normal with the Druid on players 5...EXCEPT for Baal. Yes, the ancients and Baal's pets were just fine...but Baal himself is just a monster tank. After what seems like minutes of fissures and wasting mana keeping my wolves and oak up (only to have them die almost instantly) Baal's health remains almost untouched except for a tiny sliver at the end. Ewwww!

I ended up getting to 32. I'm thinking a one point Grizzly could be good...

zeus

2005-06-05 09:43:33 am

When will we see the first AVI or MPG video Files of Diablo II and LOD???

Gorash

2005-06-05 10:44:03 am

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Quote:

When will we see the first AVI or MPG video Files of Diablo II and LOD???

If you are impatient click on my link earlier in this thread and watch my first steps with my druid. Comments are welcome. When I'm back at home I'll try to dedicate some more time into this as marshmallow now more or less proved the char working. (Baal was known to be a tank, but I figure the last battle will be an all out... maybe I'll even put a point in werewolf, let him target my grizzly and hit him myself...)

ProtoMonkey

2005-06-05 12:04:15 pm

Watched your vids, yeah, some very impressive levelling and excellent choice of skills. I'd love to see the whole five acts!
Is the druid looking more solid than the assassin for this run then?

Are there no items that would help with Baal? Druid pelts, that sort of thing that you could keep a special eye out for?

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-05 12:27:00 pm

2005-06-05 12:24:58 pm

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Of course I'll have an eye open for pelts and stuff, but these give merely a push in the right direction. One pelt won't turn an elemental druid into a boss fighting machine.

marshmallow

2005-06-05 08:11:56 pm

Jack of all Trades

Although I had almost 500 health (with the oak) by the time I reached Baal, I was still fried by his attacks...not to mention Diablo's. So I'd be on the lookout for diamonds and a 2/3 socket shield. Make sure to keep the diamonds in your inventory so when you touch a gem shrine you get a better version of it (although it may not be a diamond...my memory is a bit hazy on that part).

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-05 09:12:21 pm

2005-06-05 08:21:45 pm

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I'll start that in act2 or 3... In act1 the gems are too necessary for money.

Small update: I have finally gotten a decent time in 6pl (making at the same time a very entertaining video) and will now move on. I'm also at the moment trying out 2-pass encoding... it takes 2 minutes to encode one minute of gameplay this way, so the quality better is stunning. Wait, encoding is done... can't see any difference and the file isn't smaller either Sad

I honestly don't know how you've done your Starcraft runs that fast. It takes so much space to record this stuff...

EDIT: lq video is up

ProtoMonkey

2005-06-05 10:17:51 pm

http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0016830/d2/

Gorash

Edit history:

Gorash: 2005-06-05 11:33:38 pm

2005-06-05 11:10:51 pm

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So, I spent the evening on maxing out the exp gotten from monsters from outer to inner cloister (I want to have fissure asap) and got a promising looking one on 6pl.

Problems: I still do not that much dam with my lv1 molten boulder, and the monsters start to get stronger (especially champs). Also the fire mages (both Skeleton and Shamans) annoy me by being fire enchanted and thereby fire immune. Well, abusing the raised monster spawn rate of 6pl I got a nice action and I'm almost lv12 now.

Video is up.

zebez

2005-06-05 11:58:12 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Hi!

I have been wondering if there ever gonna be a speed rung for d2, but it might take too long :-/

I have a suggestion though and that is everyone uses the same map seed.

You change the shortcut for the game:
"C:\Games\Diablo II\Diablo II.exe" -seed666

Where 666 can can be any number and if you have the same you will have the same map layout, thus it's a little bit more fair

Gorash

2005-06-06 12:11:53 am

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That could be an option for next time...

I never heard of that switch before, but now that you mention it, it seems to be a known debug option...