04-19-2024, 08:23 PM
Like many of you, rediscovered the game after having played it in the 90s (in my case as a teen). What a joy and what great memories relived as I re-entered the town of Tristam and the dungeons below.
I wanted to stop by and say thank you. I defeated Diablo for the first time ever (on any difficulty) thanks to the wealth of information posted in this community and elsewhere. So, thank you! And below is my shabby effort to give back a bit :)
First, a bit about the type of player I am - easily frazzled (picture me shouting "oh shit, oh shit" as I inadvertently trigger mobs), not the biggest fan of grinding, I move slowly/hate chaos, and I like my modern comforts (read: Devilution). In other words, your standard intermediate player. I didn't expect to be able to complete Diablo on Hell difficulty - largely given a lot of the videos and walkthroughs I saw online were of players teleporting all over the place, with BiS gear, and level 50 specs. But I did - so this post is more for others who think killing Diablo in Hell difficulty might be unattainable. It isn't, play a Rogue.
A few takeaways/learnings -
1) I used a bow all the way. I've seen some posts re: shield/sword combos for rogues but bows are perfectly good even for lvl 16. Remember, you're the only class that can stunlock monsters from day 0, no special gear required. Just keep pumping dex.
2) Infravision is under-discussed, it's your biggest friend as a rogue and with your super high to-hit% you can kill/stunlock monsters from far away before they have any chance to move or even cast a spell. Don't be afraid to cast a town portal from time to time for better visibility as well. I can consistently hit anyone from about two screens away!
3) Windforce vs. Eaglehorn. I know this is debated and somehow I got both so thought I'd share my experience. Btw -not sure how that happened. Should be 1 in a million or something. I killed Diablo with both (reloaded and switched bows), and can say Eaglehorn is easily better for any casters. Windforce knocks them back and moves them out of stunlock. So for mages, it makes them disappear (very annoying) and for Diablo himself it makes him recast Apocalypse and then move around the screen while you try to retarget. For melee monsters, esp when there are multiple closing in on you, windforce is great for crowd control. It takes them a while to recover and re-path over to you. Meanwhile you are mowing down the others. The added dmg from windforce also helps you clear out melee with 1-2 less hits, helping you clear the herd faster before they can hurt you. Windforce is very expensive to run and repair. Eaglehorn is indestructible.
4) Armor is silly for Rogue, I re-rolled a few times (more below) for a Saintly full plate of xxx. It made no difference in Hell. Zero. It would have been better to take a different prefix (mana likely) and perhaps a field plate/gothic so I could take higher modifiers before maxing out Griswolds price limit. This was my biggest mistake in the game (130k for useless piece).
5) Hell difficulty - only three things really mattered, a) dmg - needs to be high enough to stunlock (base 63), b) resists (casters will hit you with consistency), and c) health/mana shield - i was weak on mana, if i replayed i would have invested more looking for dragons/drakes gear. Note: I didn't include to-hit because as a rogue your "to-hit" will be higher than you need because of high dex and bow modifiers.
6) Damage is the one thing where character level and stats matter much more than your bow. As an example, when I killed diablo, 75%-85% of my damage was because of my clvl, my dex and my strength. Only 15-25% was my bow itself (which each had a 100% and 200% dmg modifier)
7) Monster HP in hell difficulty is much higher than what Jarulf says. like maybe by 50%. This is the single biggest hurdle to running through, it takes 7-10 hits to kill one on average (vs 2-3 hits on standard difficulty), so you can easily get swamped. And therefore have to move slowly. Killing is rarely difficult. It's the getting hit part that rogues can't handle ;)
Now for my experience.
First playthrough - standard difficulty - character level 1-21, dungeon levels 1-13. Got the worst Rogue quests for item drops (butcher, zhar, anvil, halls of blind, ogden). And in general had pretty shit luck with item drops / grizzie till I hit hell itself. The playthrough was quite straightforward till I reached caves and started pulling too many monsters at once. Arkaine's valor helped with hit recovery (honestly I wonder if this isn't BiS for a rogue, sad I sold it). And discovering infravision was huge - "monsters in diablo hate this one hack". Once I was in hell, I was getting owned by succubi. Decided to complete warlords quest. And boy I'm glad I did. I picked up Eaglehorn (from one of his guards)!!! Realizing having 0% resist was shitty for completing rest of hell, I decided to call this a win and restart. I barely had any jewelry either.
Second playthrough - standard, clvl 21-26, dlvls - 8-16, killed diablo. this time got all the right quests that I wanted. Largely skipped cathedral and catacombs but for poisoned water quest (to get 10% resist all ring of truth, yes I was poor on jewelry and grizzie refused to generate me nice things). Got lachdanan for my veil of steel (50% resist all). Got black mushroom for a stat boost. Wirt gave me a nice amulet of perfection. Hell was frankly a breeze. Rarely was i going oh shit. Lazarus and Diablo were both a breeze. I stunlocked Diablo quite easy. This gave me the confidence to try hell difficulty.
Re-rolled for some armor from grizzie. Took me about 30 mins to get a Saintly FP of vigor. Worst decision to buy it, but at the time I thought I was looking bomb. lol
Third playthrough - hell, clvl 26-30, dlvls 1-6, farming for exp and money - I wanted to accomplish three things before I did a full runthrough - 1) enough money for better jewelry, 2) higher clvl (since it affects dmg), 3) money farming for elixirs. Money drops on hell difficulty are sweet. I got ~40k per level. Meanwhile item drops were useless.
Re-rolled for some rings/armor from grizzie. I ended up picking up a zod ring (no prefix) and an obsidian of the stars (to replace my ring of truth). As a rogue you want to reduce your light radius as much as possible. Man it takes 30-60 mins of rerolling griz to get something even close to what you like. This was perhaps the worst and most boring part of the game for me. I almost gave up playing it was so bad. I wish you could ask griz to refresh inventory for 50 coin or something and specify type (I want a ring or whatever). Btw - saw some insane loot along the way, sadly no use for shields, axes, or kingly swords of haste.
Fourth playthrough - hell, clvl 30-36, cleared all dungeons and quests. killed diablo. Was a breeze through catacombs. But my seed was weird. I was hardly making ~25k a level but getting a bunch of items. I did the poisoned water quest again and got constricting ring. LOL - apparently very hard to get but useless for a player like me. I had enough tension as it is, didn't need the added auto HP decay to make my life more stressful. BTW - I wonder if quests where items are generated in town (e.g. magic rock, anvil of fury, poison supply) give nicer drops once you level up because they are based on clvl vs. monster drops from quests on lower levels are based on dlvl. Just a side-note for you item farming crew out there. Caves got hard. Horned demons are the worst. Died and reloaded a few times. Vipers also suck from a targeting standpoint. One bad thing about a high to-hit% is that you wake up monsters inadvertently when you fire in the wrong direction. But... I made it to lvl 13. Used all my money to drink elixirs and max my dex/str/vit. But I'm still dying whenever i trigger too many monsters. I go slower, Adria has become an infra scrolls / elixirs billionaire. Wonder why she hasn't upgraded her hut or built a pool yet. Random lvl 13 knight drops me Windforce! Sweet. I used windforce for melee crowds and eaglehorn for casters. The succubi in lazzies tomb are much harder, many potions were drunk! L16 itself was perhaps easier than completing lazzie. Diablo was once again easy. Tried with both bows and Eaglehorn was 10x easier than Windforce. Funnily enough I also picked up Demonspike (Sir Gorash). Of course sold it. haha
My ending stats attached. Do remember these are Devilution displayed stats and so numbers for to-hit% and AC are higher since they include bonus and clvl modifiers.
And again sincere thank you. What a great community for keeping this game alive. Happy to have stayed a while.
I wanted to stop by and say thank you. I defeated Diablo for the first time ever (on any difficulty) thanks to the wealth of information posted in this community and elsewhere. So, thank you! And below is my shabby effort to give back a bit :)
First, a bit about the type of player I am - easily frazzled (picture me shouting "oh shit, oh shit" as I inadvertently trigger mobs), not the biggest fan of grinding, I move slowly/hate chaos, and I like my modern comforts (read: Devilution). In other words, your standard intermediate player. I didn't expect to be able to complete Diablo on Hell difficulty - largely given a lot of the videos and walkthroughs I saw online were of players teleporting all over the place, with BiS gear, and level 50 specs. But I did - so this post is more for others who think killing Diablo in Hell difficulty might be unattainable. It isn't, play a Rogue.
A few takeaways/learnings -
1) I used a bow all the way. I've seen some posts re: shield/sword combos for rogues but bows are perfectly good even for lvl 16. Remember, you're the only class that can stunlock monsters from day 0, no special gear required. Just keep pumping dex.
2) Infravision is under-discussed, it's your biggest friend as a rogue and with your super high to-hit% you can kill/stunlock monsters from far away before they have any chance to move or even cast a spell. Don't be afraid to cast a town portal from time to time for better visibility as well. I can consistently hit anyone from about two screens away!
3) Windforce vs. Eaglehorn. I know this is debated and somehow I got both so thought I'd share my experience. Btw -not sure how that happened. Should be 1 in a million or something. I killed Diablo with both (reloaded and switched bows), and can say Eaglehorn is easily better for any casters. Windforce knocks them back and moves them out of stunlock. So for mages, it makes them disappear (very annoying) and for Diablo himself it makes him recast Apocalypse and then move around the screen while you try to retarget. For melee monsters, esp when there are multiple closing in on you, windforce is great for crowd control. It takes them a while to recover and re-path over to you. Meanwhile you are mowing down the others. The added dmg from windforce also helps you clear out melee with 1-2 less hits, helping you clear the herd faster before they can hurt you. Windforce is very expensive to run and repair. Eaglehorn is indestructible.
4) Armor is silly for Rogue, I re-rolled a few times (more below) for a Saintly full plate of xxx. It made no difference in Hell. Zero. It would have been better to take a different prefix (mana likely) and perhaps a field plate/gothic so I could take higher modifiers before maxing out Griswolds price limit. This was my biggest mistake in the game (130k for useless piece).
5) Hell difficulty - only three things really mattered, a) dmg - needs to be high enough to stunlock (base 63), b) resists (casters will hit you with consistency), and c) health/mana shield - i was weak on mana, if i replayed i would have invested more looking for dragons/drakes gear. Note: I didn't include to-hit because as a rogue your "to-hit" will be higher than you need because of high dex and bow modifiers.
6) Damage is the one thing where character level and stats matter much more than your bow. As an example, when I killed diablo, 75%-85% of my damage was because of my clvl, my dex and my strength. Only 15-25% was my bow itself (which each had a 100% and 200% dmg modifier)
7) Monster HP in hell difficulty is much higher than what Jarulf says. like maybe by 50%. This is the single biggest hurdle to running through, it takes 7-10 hits to kill one on average (vs 2-3 hits on standard difficulty), so you can easily get swamped. And therefore have to move slowly. Killing is rarely difficult. It's the getting hit part that rogues can't handle ;)
Now for my experience.
First playthrough - standard difficulty - character level 1-21, dungeon levels 1-13. Got the worst Rogue quests for item drops (butcher, zhar, anvil, halls of blind, ogden). And in general had pretty shit luck with item drops / grizzie till I hit hell itself. The playthrough was quite straightforward till I reached caves and started pulling too many monsters at once. Arkaine's valor helped with hit recovery (honestly I wonder if this isn't BiS for a rogue, sad I sold it). And discovering infravision was huge - "monsters in diablo hate this one hack". Once I was in hell, I was getting owned by succubi. Decided to complete warlords quest. And boy I'm glad I did. I picked up Eaglehorn (from one of his guards)!!! Realizing having 0% resist was shitty for completing rest of hell, I decided to call this a win and restart. I barely had any jewelry either.
Second playthrough - standard, clvl 21-26, dlvls - 8-16, killed diablo. this time got all the right quests that I wanted. Largely skipped cathedral and catacombs but for poisoned water quest (to get 10% resist all ring of truth, yes I was poor on jewelry and grizzie refused to generate me nice things). Got lachdanan for my veil of steel (50% resist all). Got black mushroom for a stat boost. Wirt gave me a nice amulet of perfection. Hell was frankly a breeze. Rarely was i going oh shit. Lazarus and Diablo were both a breeze. I stunlocked Diablo quite easy. This gave me the confidence to try hell difficulty.
Re-rolled for some armor from grizzie. Took me about 30 mins to get a Saintly FP of vigor. Worst decision to buy it, but at the time I thought I was looking bomb. lol
Third playthrough - hell, clvl 26-30, dlvls 1-6, farming for exp and money - I wanted to accomplish three things before I did a full runthrough - 1) enough money for better jewelry, 2) higher clvl (since it affects dmg), 3) money farming for elixirs. Money drops on hell difficulty are sweet. I got ~40k per level. Meanwhile item drops were useless.
Re-rolled for some rings/armor from grizzie. I ended up picking up a zod ring (no prefix) and an obsidian of the stars (to replace my ring of truth). As a rogue you want to reduce your light radius as much as possible. Man it takes 30-60 mins of rerolling griz to get something even close to what you like. This was perhaps the worst and most boring part of the game for me. I almost gave up playing it was so bad. I wish you could ask griz to refresh inventory for 50 coin or something and specify type (I want a ring or whatever). Btw - saw some insane loot along the way, sadly no use for shields, axes, or kingly swords of haste.
Fourth playthrough - hell, clvl 30-36, cleared all dungeons and quests. killed diablo. Was a breeze through catacombs. But my seed was weird. I was hardly making ~25k a level but getting a bunch of items. I did the poisoned water quest again and got constricting ring. LOL - apparently very hard to get but useless for a player like me. I had enough tension as it is, didn't need the added auto HP decay to make my life more stressful. BTW - I wonder if quests where items are generated in town (e.g. magic rock, anvil of fury, poison supply) give nicer drops once you level up because they are based on clvl vs. monster drops from quests on lower levels are based on dlvl. Just a side-note for you item farming crew out there. Caves got hard. Horned demons are the worst. Died and reloaded a few times. Vipers also suck from a targeting standpoint. One bad thing about a high to-hit% is that you wake up monsters inadvertently when you fire in the wrong direction. But... I made it to lvl 13. Used all my money to drink elixirs and max my dex/str/vit. But I'm still dying whenever i trigger too many monsters. I go slower, Adria has become an infra scrolls / elixirs billionaire. Wonder why she hasn't upgraded her hut or built a pool yet. Random lvl 13 knight drops me Windforce! Sweet. I used windforce for melee crowds and eaglehorn for casters. The succubi in lazzies tomb are much harder, many potions were drunk! L16 itself was perhaps easier than completing lazzie. Diablo was once again easy. Tried with both bows and Eaglehorn was 10x easier than Windforce. Funnily enough I also picked up Demonspike (Sir Gorash). Of course sold it. haha
My ending stats attached. Do remember these are Devilution displayed stats and so numbers for to-hit% and AC are higher since they include bonus and clvl modifiers.
And again sincere thank you. What a great community for keeping this game alive. Happy to have stayed a while.