Are Rares realy useless?

[Fragbait]

Couple of minor points:

Melee opens up a couple of new attack options for Baal which signifantly impacts on the likelihood of casting his festering appendages. The appendages really become an annoyance to the Zeal and Fury based characters who suddenly find some of their attacks diverted.

My solution: try and get him in the path in the middle. Then he has not too much room for his tentacles.

Really? I find that getting caught a the crossfire can really start hammering the potion supply.

Solution: don't get caught. B) Seriously: It most often is possible to approach from one direction where one of them is blocked. It only takes quick reaction.

Actually the worst of Baal's attacks is quite finite in its reach, with a range maybe slightly longer than Diablo's LBoD

Yeah, but if the room you're fighting in is smaller, this actually gets to a problem.

That Charge attack is weak. You can even outmanoevre him so that you won't have to face it and once closed to melee range he can no longer Charge.

True, but when your resists don't allow you to stay in his lightning or fire attacks, you occasionally have to flee and take potions. Melee characters must get close afterwards, ranged mustn't.

No, but you can hide behind pillars and scurry off into far corners and that room up the top. There's really no difference in the fighting venues

I disagree. You can't shoot either when behind a pillar. As a melee character, that won't help you much either, and in Diablo's room, there's plenty of space to hide, too, if you really want to.

So you've never been positioned dead centre, without time to react, in that fiery river he shoots? It's even worse in Hell level at beyond visual range when it's invisible sometimes . . . you just run in looking for the first fire ring to indicate his position and watch your character's life bar plummet to 0 in less than a second.  Getting stuck in a Bone Prison while he's still in view is another unpleasant experience

No, I've never experienced this. I did fight him in Hell/act4 quite often, but I never experienced this. Maybe your resists and reduce magic damage weren't too good? Then again, I just recently (a few months ago) upgraded to 1.09d. It could have been improved very much.

As you mentioned, we have different opinions, and it's obvious. I hope this further post didn't annoy you too much with yet more babbling, but I find the knowledge exchange very interesting indeed.


Greetings, Fragbait