Ten weeks later, and here we are!

For official scoring, a brief result with a scoring summary is due by the end of Tuesday. Time extended on full reports through March 22 (next Sunday) in case anyone needs time to get it together.

My own report needs one more editing pass and I'll get it up later today.

This may have fit better in a PM, but...

What ever happened to Doc?

Edit:
. . .

You know, I love being psychic and all, but that just makes it all the more embarrassing when something like this happens. Teach me to catch up on my reading before making posts.

So, yeah... Hiya Doc! Glad to "know" you're still alive.

(I suppose the mods can delete this post if they so choose.)

Hey. I was contemplating a get-back to this game, but when I consider how it can get repetitive after a time, I'm wondering what is that that makes you thrilling to play it. I know some of you MF, but even with some really nice gear I was getting craps after craps. And without gear you can't play many fun characters (the only that comes to mind is a Polearm barbarian who is a really cheap and fun build, 'cause Bonehew and IK stuff is cheap). And everyone seems to be in their own little spaceship U.S.S. Grinder, where they grind for items and experience all the time, so the fun teamwork aspect also seems to be gone. My blizz sorcie got pretty dull when I just couldn't do anything else but kill Mefisto and Andariel over and over again. So... any suggestions, or should I just dig up Diablo 1?

I actually did this before I got sick, in single player. Single player with players set to eight is kinda interesting. Game is tough, you can level fast. Heck, you can be level 20 before reaching Andy.

I was just being a screwball when I did this, but I was surprised at how well it worked. When I get my coordination back, I'm thinking about rebuilding him and having another run, and perhaps refining him a bit.

I wanted a Paladin who was more or less an undead hunter. I know it has been done dozens of times in dozens of ways. I didn't want to do fist of the heavens. Not in players 8 mode. Specifically, I wanted holy bolt. But then when I sat down and thought about previous bolt blasters I've made, I thought about all the non undead there are and the troubles associated with those. I'd have no team mates to deal with non undead.

There's been a couple of builds that detail smite and holy bolt. I looked over various guides and decided those weren't what I was looking for. They were shopping lists and I was playing single player, with no guarantees for equipment.

About holy bolt. It is really powerful. You really don't need to fully synergise it, even on players 8. You only need to add to a synergy when it takes more than a bolt or two to kill something. It is a surprisingly flexible skill when you want to blend it with something.

The build wound up being maxed out holy bolt, a point in smite, some points in blessed hammer, (but it wasn't maxed) some points in holy shield, and I maxed out sanctuary even though I wasn't actually attacking anything with a weapon. No points in sacrifice, or zeal, or any of those skills. I did fill out the offensive aura tree to get one point in fanaticism and 1 point in conviction. Also, filled out the defensive aura tree to get redemption.

So, you are asking, why sanctuary? Since I wasn't attacking anything and sanctuary is a broken skill? Well, sanctuary rocks, broken or not. I think it was about level 25ish or so, undead off screen would be doing the thriller shuffle. Nothing undead could reach me. I could walk into a room, start bolting, and do so in complete and total safety. I'd flash redemption to get rid of bodies so they couldn't be revived. But the effect was awesome. I'd walk into a room, and suddenly it would turn indo an undead disco. Mirror ball sparklies all over, and dancing undead shuffling to the funky beat. I could walk through the chaos sanctuary and destroy it with no real effort. The venom lords concerned me a bit though, but my merc could deal with those just fine. (Holy freeze merc, armed with an ethereal woestave)

When I was forced to deal with the living, I'd swap over to fanaticism swap weapons. On the switch, I had a strength cutlass and a rare +1 pally skills elite targe I found. (Resists were an issue though, no resists on the shield at all) One point smite backed with a fairly decent of holy shield is enough to wear something down reasonably. I made short work of act end bosses, and never had to worry about AR or missing.

I was able to play though most of the game on players 8. A few times in hell I was forced to reduce the player count and reload a map. Most of hell act 5 was single under players 1 or 2. I was able, by some miracle, to defeat hell ancients. It took many, many tries. I finally just got lucky.

The character wound up being much stronger than I had anticipated, flexible, and not such a half baked idea. Sanctuary and holy bolt work very, very well together. If I was in a team situation, I'd max out holy bolt, sanctuary, and then cleansing to raise sanctuary's pulse damage. Here's the odd thing, even under players 8, sanctuary's pulse damage was killing things, even in hell. Things I hadn't bolted yet. I have a suspicion that it does a lot more damage than the skill suggests, and the LCS reports. I started noticing that in Nightmare A2, when I walked through the tomb in the rocky waste and stuff was dying with out me doing a thing. Slowly, but dying. As I raised up the skill with more points, it was more noticeable. I'd even go as far to say that sanctuary acts as a passive synergy for holy bolt. Wearing stuff down and keeping things away from you so you can safely cast.

Also noticed that gloams didn't bother me as much with a high level of sanctuary. They kept getting knocked back and spending time in a hit recovery animation loop. I still got gloam bolted many times, but I killed them quite readily. There were no deaths in my run. (But many close calls)

Oh, and my equipment was JUNK.

I kept finding ethereal uniques, like Woestave. I had bad item luck for most of the game. I did find a Nightsmoke, it was part of my normal Diablo drop, and I wore that until the end. I did find a nice +2 skills paladin sceptre and a other assorted junk bits of gear. I wore Stealth armor until the end of the game. I am amazed that I survived and thrived as well as I did with the gear I had. Then again, most of the really dangerous monsters in the game are undead, and I could blast them to cinders. There were a few rough spots in hell, including a nasty pack of frenzytaurs. To deal with those I actually had to put smite on my right mouse button so I would auto attack. I managed to keep the pack mostly contained and seeing stars, while my merc whittled them down with Woestave. (Which is an unbelievably awesome weapon)

One point in conviction proved useful far to many times to count. Merc had a circlet with oooooodles of lightning and fire damage, as well as life leach. With conviction, holy freeze, and the elemental damage he did, pretty much anything could be killed, worn down over time. Open wounds helped. So did prevent monster heal.

Hell Lister was a really scary experience. I remember that well for some reason. Hell Baal was a disapointment. Smite and crushing blow took him down in a very short time.

All in all, I'd say to give it a try. It is rather variant-ish, but it strong to the point of overpowering under the right circumstances. And if it works in single player /8, it should work on the realms. A spirit sword and shield would have been great.

Hi, I'm Thog. I'm a warrior (that means I hit stuff). Here's what I've been doing for the past couple years.

I was out one morning doing my excercises when some loudmouth started yelling something about the charr getting ready to attack and how we have to get ready (another nutjob). Knowing the way the Ascalon military likes to train people (by having sparring matches) I decide to join up and... uh... train myself (it's a good excuse to hit people, anyway). After beating up some helpless little skale (hahahahaha) they tell me I should learn to use the other weapons of a warrior to be more versatile. I've got a freaking hammer, screw versatility. That all gets put on hold though, some chick named Devona needs help finding a bathroom or something. A chance to get lucky, maybe?

Nope. Stupid chick wants me to help her beat up some grawl. Oh well. At least she knows how to use that hammer of hers (even if she did almost take my head off a few times). Hammer chick sends me someplace else but I ignore her and wander off. I run into some old guy that wants to teach me how to use a sword. Screw that, I've got a hammer. I tell him he waves that sword of his around like a feather duster and he just stands there looking stupid so I tell him he fights like a dairy farmer and he starts crying. Wuss. I keep wandering and wind up at this old guy's place (he's a duke or something). He has hammers, I like him. He says he'll pay me to go beat up some ettin or something, so I do (getting paid to beat stuff up? can't get any better than that).

Back in Ascalon that shouting guy has calmed down a little (he's also got a black eye and is holding his stomache... might have something to do with it). He's saying something about me needing a secondary profession. Screw that, I punch him in the face (he was asking for it) and head to the academy for... uh... training. Yeah, training. After beating the tar out of some stupid academy recruits Prince Rurik shows up and tells me some cave needs scouting. Whatever, we beat up a bunch of grawl (they're really just baby charr) and then this self-important charr (he's all "hahaha I'm a big boss-charr" and I'm all "hahaha you're a carpet"). After that these crazy glowing rock things start falling. Oh crap.

Just stumbled over this while checking some news:

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?top...1&sid=3000

It indeed baffles me that Blizzard seems to plan new game content, not just a bunch of fixes.

Dr. Disaster

After taking that long hiatus from D2 to play Hellgate: London, I had forgotten a fair bit about the game. And one of the things I had forgotten was the nifty scenery in some of the areas. Playing again has got me noticing again.

And, to share some of that joy of nifty scenery, I have to share this link. Pebblerocker was the leader of one of the group games at the AB. When they finished their game, she made this post as a farewell to the team.

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/...t&p=892433

Read All About It

Playing Diablo that is.

I've had an extended AFK. I haven't been well. I've been recovering a bit though and trying to play a few computer games to help me restore some of my coordination.

I don't know if I should try to play online, but you might see me there.

My first HC Guardian




Dual necros vs dual Baal - Shishak was driving DrivingMeInsane (summoner) and I was driving AliceCooper (arty), both clvl 87.

ForgeRunner is also a Guardian now, have some for my mules.

RIP Umbo

Dem are truly dangerous. They had Alice's HP down to a third only a screen away....


KoP