Diablo 1 on GOG?

[haphazard1]

My warrior died on level 11, mobbed by a huge group of lava lords. Just too many attacks incoming, plus a huge barrage of their flaming rocks (or whatever it is that they throw). Only 20% fire resistance certainly did not help.

The effort to recover his gear was a long struggle, with only very poor equipment available. Lots of trips back to town for more potions after luring two or three lava lords away from the group and (slowly) killing them. It really makes clear just how important the accumulated gear is to total character strength. But finally the mob was eliminated and all gear retrieved.

I really need to find some gear with more resistances, especially fire. Lightning resist is decent at 55% but 20% for fire and magic are not going to be good enough.

[haphazard1]

For shallow_thought and anyone else considering getting the game, Diablo is only nine dollars right now during GOG.com's summer sale. A lot of classic gaming fun for a pretty small price.

[KingOfPain]

My warrior died on level 11, mobbed by a huge group of lava lords. Just too many attacks incoming, plus a huge barrage of their flaming rocks (or whatever it is that they throw). Only 20% fire resistance certainly did not help.

The effort to recover his gear was a long struggle, with only very poor equipment available. Lots of trips back to town for more potions after luring two or three lava lords away from the group and (slowly) killing them. It really makes clear just how important the accumulated gear is to total character strength. But finally the mob was eliminated and all gear retrieved.

I really need to find some gear with more resistances, especially fire. Lightning resist is decent at 55% but 20% for fire and magic are not going to be good enough.

Death Recovery builds characters

[haphazard1]

Death Recovery builds characters

It certainly made for some tense moments.

Finished clearing the caves. Onward to hell!   Had a couple more close calls against lightning demons -- their double claw attack causing blocking lock can be a serious problem. Ran into the storm rider boss and his mob, tough fight. At the end of it, the boss dropped -- rags. Great, just what I always wanted: some shredded old armor. Turned out to be cobalt rags (50% lightning resistance). I guess that did not work out too well for the previous owner.

Time for more re-rolling and visiting Griswold, up to 110K gold. Just in case (and because I needed to pick up my magic reading gear near the caves entrance) I visited Wirt. Weird sword of gore, +83% to hit and +11 damage. Too bad it was a two hander instead of a bastard sword. Over 90K gold but I had the money to buy it...if only it had been a bastard sword. Or even a broad sword or claymore, with those attributes. Wirt, you were so close to making a fortune....  

[haphazard1]

Lots (and lots and lots) of re-rolling Griswold. I lost count around 60 somewhere, and it was a bunch more than that. Just nothing useful, time after time. I got sick of seeing 'of Thieves' and 'of Structure' items -- the game just seems to love these, and they are pretty much useless. So many items that were almost right, but not quite: good attack and damage attributes on axes, great armor attributes on capes, etc. For example, a saintly cape of precision, +105% armor and a big dex bonus but on a base armor value of 1? Why couldn't that be on some plate armor?

At six items per reroll, I went through something like 500+ items. It does indicate that the gear my warrior already had was pretty exceptional, the best of the best he had found or seen at Griswold over the course of the game so far.

Finally got lucky with a major armor upgrade: plate armor of the stars, a big boost to AC and +11 for all stats. Worth the 99K gold, and now my warrior has the heavy armor graphic.

First foray into hell proved a tough draw (succubi everywhere), so I took the stairs up when I found them and worked backwards through caves 12 and 11. The improved AC (up from 62 t0 98) made a very clear difference -- enemies are missing more often, which means fewer blocks and almost no block-lock incidents. Very nice. Even found a couple useful elixirs (plus a couple of dex, which is already maxed). Still better was a viper boss dropping a crimson helm of the stars: fire resistance and boost to all stats. Finally have some decent fire resistance, and more stat boosts always help.

Second foray into hell went much better, clearing level 13 without significant difficulty. But now I am back up to 70K gold again. Back to re-rolling Griswold....

A question for the vets: are all unique items garbage? Or is my luck just terrible? All of the uniques I have found (armor of Aut, Bonesaw, a couple others) have negatives that outweigh the positives. They might be useful for certain specific characters/builds maybe, but mostly they have been nothing but sell bait. Kind of spoils the excitement of finding a unique.

[T-hawk]

A question for the vets: are all unique items garbage? Or is my luck just terrible? All of the uniques I have found (armor of Aut, Bonesaw, a couple others) have negatives that outweigh the positives. They might be useful for certain specific characters/builds maybe, but mostly they have been nothing but sell bait. Kind of spoils the excitement of finding a unique.

Yeah, most are pretty lousy, unique weapons and armor tend to have not enough damage or AC. The most useful angle on unique items is +1 to all spell levels (even beyond the usual max of 15), which doesn't exist as an affix for magic items. There are a couple interesting uniques in the helm and shield slots, and a ring or two I think.

[haphazard1]

Thanks, T-hawk. I was really wondering what was going on with the unique items.

Better luck with Griswold this time, only a half dozen rolls turned up a better bow. Not as useful as a primary weapon or armor upgrade, but still helpful. Especially fighting the succubi in hell -- trading ranged attacks with them is so much faster than chasing them all down one by one. Mixed melee/ranged mobs are tricky but can be handled with some positioning and movement.

Hmmm, which are more annoying: goat archers or succubi? Goat archers are lower level and less dangerous but you encounter them earlier. Tough question.

Another question: I am not there yet, but what actually changes in Nightmare? Looking through the guide, all monsters get a boost to their stats (monster level, health, damage, AC, and to hit chance). What else? Things like the amount of gold that drops is tied to dungeon level -- small gold drops in the church again, or is that adjusted for nightmare? Gold is already piling up fast enough that I have to stop and reroll at Griswold every few levels cleared. Although apparently when your character reaches level 26 elixirs will start to appear in town and that should absorb huge amounts of gold.

[T-hawk]

Nightmare and Hell buff monster stats, yes. Gold and item drops increase indirectly, from the higher monster levels, although almost every base item and affix is already available by the end of normal difficulty.

Mostly the reason to play NM and Hell is after you're too high a level to get full experience from monsters in Normal.

And yes, elixirs from Adria are the major money sink starting at character level 26.

[haphazard1]

Thanks, T-hawk. I did eventually find the gold drop info for nightmare and hell in the guide. There is so much info packed into that document it is easy to miss stuff. I should probably read it again now that I have played more of the game; a lot of things were not clear the first time since I was still very new to the game then.

I saw a notification from GOG.com that the Hellfire expansion for Diablo is now available. What do veterans think of the expansion? Good, bad, mixed? Am I understanding correctly that it was not made by Blizzard? (That would explain the different availability, as GOG would have had to negotiate rights separately.) Should I avoid installing it until I finish playing my current character? Some expansions do not transition existing characters well. (It sounds like GOG Galaxy users will get the update whether they want it or not, but I have Diablo installed standalone.)

[T-hawk]

Right, not Blizzard. The most important feature of Hellfire is running in town at double speed. I don't remember anything about converting characters.

Good: the new character classes, I particularly liked the Bard, can dual-wield melee weapons. There's no graphics for double-swinging, so the game adds up the damage and modifiers from both weapons into a single attack, which I remember making for some interesting interactions.

Bad: the one major quest line is somewhat silly. And a bunch of added items and affixes are mostly junk and dilute the existing pool.

Mixed: the new dungeon areas weren't very interesting or memorable, including the new end boss.