Newbie takes on D2 for the first time

[KingOfPain]

Completely solo (and not multiplayer), no.  If it was done by hiding behind a Decoy and Valkyrie, yes, those can soak up basically unlimited amounts of damage.

Solo and Multiplayers

In multiplayers, FER was always leading the group. One of the habit I have when a toon happens to have done a quest with certain difficulties while running around with the RB gang, I would also make a solo game to do it again. That was my proof of concept to myself.

This was my 1.10 beta report back at the old RB forum.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/realmsbe...5-s50.html

[haphazard1]

My sorceress cleared the palace and its cellars, and opened the way to the Arcane Sanctuary. That was an interesting place; very Escher. Eventually found and eliminated the Summoner, and now have entered the Canyon to seek the tomb of Tal Rasha.

A few gear upgrades have helped: finally got enough strength for a 3-row belt, bought some better boots with faster movement, and replaced armor and helm with better versions with better gems socketed. I am still looking for an orb with lightning skill boosts rather than the fire and cold ones that keep dropping.

Overall, I am fairly happy with how my sorceress is doing. Most enemies are handled without much trouble, just bosses and their minions giving occasional difficulty. This probably means I am about to run into something very deadly.

[superdeath]

My sorceress cleared the palace and its cellars, and opened the way to the Arcane Sanctuary. That was an interesting place; very Escher. Eventually found and eliminated the Summoner, and now have entered the Canyon to seek the tomb of Tal Rasha.

A few gear upgrades have helped: finally got enough strength for a 3-row belt, bought some better boots with faster movement, and replaced armor and helm with better versions with better gems socketed. I am still looking for an orb with lightning skill boosts rather than the fire and cold ones that keep dropping.

Overall, I am fairly happy with how my sorceress is doing. Most enemies are handled without much trouble, just bosses and their minions giving occasional difficulty. This probably means I am about to run into something very deadly.

Small spoiler-

You are about to enter the hardest part of the game, starting with the end boss of act 2, and finishing by the end of act 3. I have died more times in this section of the game, than the total deaths in the rest of diablo 2 combined.
Arguably the hardest boss in the game, is the act 2 boss.

[Nelphine]

All this talk sparked me to go back and play d2.

And I tried a frozen orb sorceress, which I had forever refused to use.

My old self refused to use it because too many people did, and now I understand why.

Prior to level 30, I constantly ran out of mana because my spells didn't do enough damage. Literally my best plan was to teleport to an enemy and let my act 2 Merc kill it. I used this tactic up to and including Diablo. (Although I also used static field on act bosses).

Then I got frozen orb. Now I just massacre everything, on players 3-7 up to nightmare act 5. Killing things like normal Baal on 7 players 'weren't no thang'.

Frozen orb is ludicrously good, and the only gear I need to make it work is +6 or so mana per kill. (Yes I've still died several times, things like cold immune lightning enchanted, or nightmare undead Stygian dolls that I don't see and 5 die right on top of my at once, or spamming level 1 static field on nightmare Diablo with 20 lightning resist and not reacting when his lightning starts)

[haphazard1]

Arguably the hardest boss in the game, is the act 2 boss.

How are you supposed to defeat Duriel? Appear in chamber, charge -> hit -> stunned/frozen -> death, all in about 1 second. I can sometimes, maybe one time in three, manage to teleport a couple times and extend the time to death to all of three or four seconds. Not that any damage is being done, so this does not actually achieve anything.

[Nelphine]

thats one of the reasons mercenaries are a major boost, particularly for sorcerers. the game is designed around you having a mercenary pretty much all the time.

but yes, duriel is very hard. personally, i find diablo harder, but i have slow reactions to his lightning, whereas with duriel, it's all about the start of the fight, so i'm prepped going in.

[superdeath]

Arguably the hardest boss in the game, is the act 2 boss.

How are you supposed to defeat Duriel? Appear in chamber, charge -> hit -> stunned/frozen -> death, all in about 1 second. I can sometimes, maybe one time in three, manage to teleport a couple times and extend the time to death to all of three or four seconds. Not that any damage is being done, so this does not actually achieve anything.

The best tips are as follows : Act 2 merc. Heal potions, Thawing potions. He is considered one of the hardest ( for new players anyway ) because he is just a giant FU to anyone that clicks into that area. Ive seen him slowly plinked away by sorc's that pop a TP, let their merc tank, Fire away... and then tp out, and repeat till dead? His HP shouldnt reset unless u back out to character select iirc. If your hp is low enough to get 1-2 shot from him.. you will want to go grind a couple levels for Vitality. He isnt meant to kill anyone in 1 hit, but he is meant to be a "have a tank, or you WILL be tanking me  muahaha " kind of boss.


Act 2, and Act 3 i consider harder than acts 4/5. I have nightmares of flayers...

[Boro]

slvl1 blaze with a +3 blaze staff that is also made into a leaf runeword. It takes a while but it's pretty safe.

[Boro]

in fact, I'll double post it to link to the relevant part of my cinderella thread:

[...]

Eventually, the Orifice room was found and guarded by a champion gorebelly pack, but so it happened that I had enough firebolts for the task.

Anyways, it was time for the biggest of D2's bugs. Juiced up with speed and strength in hell difficulty, the king of the sardine can, lord of pain and killer of variants barred Cinderella's path.

Not wanting to go in there without a plan, I went back to town, drunk 15 minutes worth of thawing potions, gave 6 minutes to Thadar, loaded up on rejuvs, and it was time to go.

Round 1: Fight!

Welp, Thadar goes down to half health from a single attack?, half of the time my teleports just fizzle out, not good, Thadar is down, Duriel's on me, and I'm slowed, I and while I can outrun him, every time I cast he gets to swing at me with a speed that just can't be tempted. I try to make a stand, but even with resists, the damage is just too much. I run, I squeeze off a portal, drink a rejuv, another loop, and back to town.

Duriel - Cinderella
1 - 0

Get back to town, get thadar, try again...

Okay, Outrunning failed, Stand failed, I'm out of tricks. He isn't fire immune, so I won't be using frozen orb, as per variant restrictions.

What else could I do? I broke out my blaze staff.

Yep. It all happened back in Normal, Drognan had a 2socket staff with +3 to blaze, and I had the runes. It was an impulse buy, made and left in stash for nightmare, where I didn't need it.

And now it would serve me once, and only once.

Enlightenment plate on, fire amulet up, blaze staff in hand, Cinderella refused to back down.

Round 2: Fight!

Firebolts flew while thadar lived, and I opened the portal in advance this time, and soon, sooner than I'd have liked, the looping began. How's that song? The one that starts with "Round and round..." and is traditionally sung when fighting Izual. That's how I felt.

So round and round we went. Sometimes he got in hits, and I drank. Then I was out of reds, and the rejuvs too were going down... Nope, this won't do, so I called for a time out.

Duriel - Cinderella
2 - 0

Fill up with reds, get Thadar, go down... Portal up, firebolts in, and round we go again!

Round 3: Fight!

Then I ran out of stamina. Given how I had 345 Vitality, that was a LOT of running involved (Walking was a death sentence with his attack speed and holy freeze, even with 40% FRW). I ducked into the portal at the last pixel of running, and it was back to Lyssander for potions.

Duriel - Cinderella
3 - 0

But duriel was down to his last quarter health! Stamina potions in hand, Thadar back up again, I went down. 

Final round: Fight!
Round and round we went, (Thadar died as usual), and after another arduous loop sequence, the big bug gave up the ghost.

Cinderella won with a KO!




Uberdrop was Angelic Wings amulet and Griswold's Edge.

With that behind, I had no more use for my Blaze staff, so I gave it to Charsi for safekeeping, and stood up from the computer, as the whole ordeal took enough time for the thawing potions to run out

Cindy will see you in act III Hell.

[KingOfPain]

Good going there. Like I was reliving it