05-24-2003, 03:41 AM
It has been an age since I've played Diablo, but I'm feeling like sharing some memories about taking a rogue to 50.
At the time, never one to too often make things difficult for myself I donned enough gear to get my strength high enough to wear an awesome or saintly full plate, so that when I was wandering around hell I wouldn't have to worry much at all about melee critters being the end of me.
With that safety (and resists managed anywhere possible), I recall playing a lot of nightmare/hell games. Equipment finds are basically as good as hell/hell, experience earned per kill is just about as good, and I seemed to be able to find an occasional cooperative game there too.
Every once in a while I'd take a trip around the first 8 levels in hell difficulty. Mostly looking for useful shrines (to increase fireball, CL, and teleport spell levels, and my Civerbs Cudgels durability). Useful to be on hell levels, because CL earns a few really quick and easy XP's.
To be fair, and as Pete basically said, it isn't always particularly thrilling stuff. Levels come extremely slowly, and most games result in a chance of a useful shrine, and a couple of potential equipment drops that 999 times out of a thousand are bog standard bore. Thing is though, with a few useful shrines, and just a couple of lovely equipment drops, the route to 50 then becomes somewhat safer, much easier, but probably even more boring still!
Once I was finding that nightmare/hell wasn't always giving great experience, and once my spell levels were all quite large, and I was basically tanked to high heaven, I spent a while doing something akin to a laz run, but also taking in level 16, on nightmare difficulty, and then playing a game in hell/caves, where the experience points tend to come quickly and easily.
The last few character levels though, I completed mostly in hell/hell games. It isn't the fastest, but the slight, slight, chance of careless deaths at least kept me thinking about what I was doing. And there is that glimmer of hope that something like an awesome full plate plate of the stars, or obs-zod will drop, useful for bragging rights, perhaps.
Most of the time I played in a very high magic mode (heavy armour, thinking cap, high AC shield (probably storm shield), dreamflange, and whatever jewelry that was required). A big pool of mana, mana shield, and high level fireball and CL makes most of hell/hell a walk in the park. There are annoying enemies, but none have to be dangerous, especially when stone-curse is always an option.
For cooperative games, and pesky tripple immunes, I also carried around a bow of some description (... lucky Griswald eventually offered up a nigh on perfect obs heavs), and Civerbs Cudgel.
Unfortunately, the more immune to death one becomes, the less challenging the game becomes, the more inevitable it becomes that 50 is just a matter of time, the less urgent it seems to actually get there, the more rapidly the boredom sets in.
A vaguely interesting distraction on the way to 50 is to walk into hell/hell, teleport arond a bit, let yourself die, and then attempt to resque your equipment. Eventually you'll fail to do it, and have to rebuild your characters equipment from nothing! For me, I find I rapidly get bored trying to laz-run my way back to invincibility, and I jump into overly difficult situations, which at least puts some healthy challenge back into the game, if only for a while.
Paul (Spear)
At the time, never one to too often make things difficult for myself I donned enough gear to get my strength high enough to wear an awesome or saintly full plate, so that when I was wandering around hell I wouldn't have to worry much at all about melee critters being the end of me.
With that safety (and resists managed anywhere possible), I recall playing a lot of nightmare/hell games. Equipment finds are basically as good as hell/hell, experience earned per kill is just about as good, and I seemed to be able to find an occasional cooperative game there too.
Every once in a while I'd take a trip around the first 8 levels in hell difficulty. Mostly looking for useful shrines (to increase fireball, CL, and teleport spell levels, and my Civerbs Cudgels durability). Useful to be on hell levels, because CL earns a few really quick and easy XP's.
To be fair, and as Pete basically said, it isn't always particularly thrilling stuff. Levels come extremely slowly, and most games result in a chance of a useful shrine, and a couple of potential equipment drops that 999 times out of a thousand are bog standard bore. Thing is though, with a few useful shrines, and just a couple of lovely equipment drops, the route to 50 then becomes somewhat safer, much easier, but probably even more boring still!
Once I was finding that nightmare/hell wasn't always giving great experience, and once my spell levels were all quite large, and I was basically tanked to high heaven, I spent a while doing something akin to a laz run, but also taking in level 16, on nightmare difficulty, and then playing a game in hell/caves, where the experience points tend to come quickly and easily.
The last few character levels though, I completed mostly in hell/hell games. It isn't the fastest, but the slight, slight, chance of careless deaths at least kept me thinking about what I was doing. And there is that glimmer of hope that something like an awesome full plate plate of the stars, or obs-zod will drop, useful for bragging rights, perhaps.
Most of the time I played in a very high magic mode (heavy armour, thinking cap, high AC shield (probably storm shield), dreamflange, and whatever jewelry that was required). A big pool of mana, mana shield, and high level fireball and CL makes most of hell/hell a walk in the park. There are annoying enemies, but none have to be dangerous, especially when stone-curse is always an option.
For cooperative games, and pesky tripple immunes, I also carried around a bow of some description (... lucky Griswald eventually offered up a nigh on perfect obs heavs), and Civerbs Cudgel.
Unfortunately, the more immune to death one becomes, the less challenging the game becomes, the more inevitable it becomes that 50 is just a matter of time, the less urgent it seems to actually get there, the more rapidly the boredom sets in.
A vaguely interesting distraction on the way to 50 is to walk into hell/hell, teleport arond a bit, let yourself die, and then attempt to resque your equipment. Eventually you'll fail to do it, and have to rebuild your characters equipment from nothing! For me, I find I rapidly get bored trying to laz-run my way back to invincibility, and I jump into overly difficult situations, which at least puts some healthy challenge back into the game, if only for a while.
Paul (Spear)