06-21-2003, 10:30 PM
For me, there was something that wavered between challenge and tedium, and that was poison damage. That was an outlet around equipment, around the issues of cl/ml to-hit/be-hit, and I enjoy such outlets because they emphasize player ingenuity rather than treasure hoarding. As much as the equipment in D2 was 'nice' at times, it was the skills and qualities independent of equipment which enabled any of my D2 characters to go through the game. Here I'll present mini-story of how I to take rules to an extreme--How I got around the equipment, and character level issue.
Specifically...
[Begin story of one option outside the equipment and leveling rat race]
If anyone recalls Poison throwing potions, Poison damage would slowly drain monster life while negating regeneration. Throwing potions at shops would provide a ranged outlet to do this with. I took this to an extreme with a challange: to defeat all Act Bosses out single-handedly with the lowest character level Paladin I could.
[This happened before it was nerfed in vendors. No more throwing potions of all things, a big mistake for blizzard--taking away non-equipment dependant outlets]
There were advantages to below low cl with the current rules,
Ability to achieve high blocking % easily
--(makes a whole lot of sense a newbie Paladin could block better with far less dexterity, unless the character magically "grew" in size proportion with their hitpoints).
Poison throwing potions could not miss on contact
-getting around the whole to-hit issue
No concern for experience gain
-except to avoid it
--Additional character level would decrease the high blocking % advantage to low cl
No need to buy healing potions
-Town portal scrolls are cheaper for healing than healing potions
-Healing potions would also only be ineffective
I was portaled directly to the End-act bosses and bought the endless supply of shop vendor Poison throwing potions.
I ran around, ducked and weaved around Boss AI behaviour, all the while maintaining constant poison damage. There was set damage per second, higher difficulty (nightmare/hell), It was heart-pounding and thoroughly enjoyable to know this tactical option was available for all my characters--since a lowly cl 1-13 could take on Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo & Baal in Normal difficulty through Hell dififculty. It took... well less time than for me to level a character from 0-30, but around 2 hrs I think for some of the later bosses. I enjoyed being a legitmate Patriach in Hell.
I guess Blizzard thought this was too powerful (of all things), so throwing potions were nerfed everywhere, unavailable in shops.
The lesson in all this? In Balance, I enjoy options that allow one work outside the rat race of equipment and power.
Specifically...
[Begin story of one option outside the equipment and leveling rat race]
If anyone recalls Poison throwing potions, Poison damage would slowly drain monster life while negating regeneration. Throwing potions at shops would provide a ranged outlet to do this with. I took this to an extreme with a challange: to defeat all Act Bosses out single-handedly with the lowest character level Paladin I could.
[This happened before it was nerfed in vendors. No more throwing potions of all things, a big mistake for blizzard--taking away non-equipment dependant outlets]
There were advantages to below low cl with the current rules,
Ability to achieve high blocking % easily
--(makes a whole lot of sense a newbie Paladin could block better with far less dexterity, unless the character magically "grew" in size proportion with their hitpoints).
Poison throwing potions could not miss on contact
-getting around the whole to-hit issue
No concern for experience gain
-except to avoid it
--Additional character level would decrease the high blocking % advantage to low cl
No need to buy healing potions
-Town portal scrolls are cheaper for healing than healing potions
-Healing potions would also only be ineffective
I was portaled directly to the End-act bosses and bought the endless supply of shop vendor Poison throwing potions.
I ran around, ducked and weaved around Boss AI behaviour, all the while maintaining constant poison damage. There was set damage per second, higher difficulty (nightmare/hell), It was heart-pounding and thoroughly enjoyable to know this tactical option was available for all my characters--since a lowly cl 1-13 could take on Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo & Baal in Normal difficulty through Hell dififculty. It took... well less time than for me to level a character from 0-30, but around 2 hrs I think for some of the later bosses. I enjoyed being a legitmate Patriach in Hell.
I guess Blizzard thought this was too powerful (of all things), so throwing potions were nerfed everywhere, unavailable in shops.
The lesson in all this? In Balance, I enjoy options that allow one work outside the rat race of equipment and power.