Diablo 2: Lawd o' Destruction [PC - RPG]
07-19-2018, 12:21 AM
We played this game enough back in high school that it's rather odd to find no threads about it on the old forum. In fact, we didn't mention it at all.
![[Image: diblo2.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/fWZG6y/diblo2.jpg)
Legitimate Acquisition --> http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/d2/
DL Path --> We Don't Do That Here. But life, ah, finds a way. I can upload if anyone wants it.
The codifying entry of the Action RPG genre, Diablo II is the template from which hundreds of derivatives were spawned*, introducing such mechanics as point 'n click hack 'n slash, completely randomized item drops, and that stupidly annoying grid inventory system.
Choose one of five(seven in the expansion) heroes to play in a top-down isometric "2.5D" point of view. Click on things really fast and watch them die! Click on the wrong parts of the ground in a boss fight and watch yourself die!
*Torchlight, Titan Quest, Path of Exile, Victor Vran's Garbage Can, Kingdoms of Beta Amyloid: Reckoning, etc.
I recently played through Acts I-IV on normal difficulty, hence the creation of this post. I shall now recount the tale of my journey!
Character Creation - I picked Barbarian for class as I like to mix things up, and it's the farthest away from the style that I used to play ARPGs in, which many would regard as the "wrong" way: Summon a massive army of dudes and let them bulldoze through all the enemies with sheer numbers while I take a scenic tour of Sanctuary.
Early on I decided to commit to a dual wielding Frenzy-based build, because shields are for pussies. The fear warcry is pretty useless because I actually want the mobs to be near me so I can hit them, but it's a prereq for the rest of the warcries.
Act I - Hours of mindless spamclicking fun. Quill rats and other ranged mobs proved to be of some annoyance to my pure melee character, while my necro could have just used bone spear or sicced the skelemans on them. Andariel was tough but fair, managed to kill her in one run with no deaths or portals
Act II - Ironically died a couple times to Radament, the very first boss that I underestimated because I didn't read the lore and thought he was just a giant sewer rat. I start itemizing for resistances, although I can't really tell what elements are in those black spiky projectiles those mummy guys are shooting out. This Act has the Arcane Sanctuary, which remains my favorite level in the game, and the Summoner, who went down rather easily.
Duriel was tough and painful by contrast to Horazon and pretty much everything else I'd fought so far. Took half my half in one hit, and I had to portal back to town about 3 times.
Act III - I figure the story team started running out of steam around halfway through this act. You don't get a quest to start you off when you arrive in Kurast, so you just have to kinda wander around the jungle aimlessly until you find something. Two of the quests have no intro, they literally start when you find some item and end with you returning the item to someone in town and them going "oh that's nice" (but not plot-relevant). The pygmy blow dart kids remained the most annoying enemy in the game, being small(hard to click on), ranged, and fast. The pygmy shaman nearly killed me every time he used the flamethrower attack. Fire resistance is important!
Mephisto fight was a straight up slugfest. It was pretty easy, but it took an eternity to whittle down his HP. The real challenge was killing all the elite council member guys right outside his room, they offed my mercenary a couple times.
Legitimate Acquisition --> http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/d2/
DL Path --> We Don't Do That Here. But life, ah, finds a way. I can upload if anyone wants it.
The codifying entry of the Action RPG genre, Diablo II is the template from which hundreds of derivatives were spawned*, introducing such mechanics as point 'n click hack 'n slash, completely randomized item drops, and that stupidly annoying grid inventory system.
Choose one of five(seven in the expansion) heroes to play in a top-down isometric "2.5D" point of view. Click on things really fast and watch them die! Click on the wrong parts of the ground in a boss fight and watch yourself die!
*Torchlight, Titan Quest, Path of Exile, Victor Vran's Garbage Can, Kingdoms of Beta Amyloid: Reckoning, etc.
I recently played through Acts I-IV on normal difficulty, hence the creation of this post. I shall now recount the tale of my journey!
Character Creation - I picked Barbarian for class as I like to mix things up, and it's the farthest away from the style that I used to play ARPGs in, which many would regard as the "wrong" way: Summon a massive army of dudes and let them bulldoze through all the enemies with sheer numbers while I take a scenic tour of Sanctuary.
Early on I decided to commit to a dual wielding Frenzy-based build, because shields are for pussies. The fear warcry is pretty useless because I actually want the mobs to be near me so I can hit them, but it's a prereq for the rest of the warcries.
Act I - Hours of mindless spamclicking fun. Quill rats and other ranged mobs proved to be of some annoyance to my pure melee character, while my necro could have just used bone spear or sicced the skelemans on them. Andariel was tough but fair, managed to kill her in one run with no deaths or portals
Act II - Ironically died a couple times to Radament, the very first boss that I underestimated because I didn't read the lore and thought he was just a giant sewer rat. I start itemizing for resistances, although I can't really tell what elements are in those black spiky projectiles those mummy guys are shooting out. This Act has the Arcane Sanctuary, which remains my favorite level in the game, and the Summoner, who went down rather easily.
Duriel was tough and painful by contrast to Horazon and pretty much everything else I'd fought so far. Took half my half in one hit, and I had to portal back to town about 3 times.
Act III - I figure the story team started running out of steam around halfway through this act. You don't get a quest to start you off when you arrive in Kurast, so you just have to kinda wander around the jungle aimlessly until you find something. Two of the quests have no intro, they literally start when you find some item and end with you returning the item to someone in town and them going "oh that's nice" (but not plot-relevant). The pygmy blow dart kids remained the most annoying enemy in the game, being small(hard to click on), ranged, and fast. The pygmy shaman nearly killed me every time he used the flamethrower attack. Fire resistance is important!
Mephisto fight was a straight up slugfest. It was pretty easy, but it took an eternity to whittle down his HP. The real challenge was killing all the elite council member guys right outside his room, they offed my mercenary a couple times.
