Tales of the Single Player

[mageofthesands]

Welcome to my Tales of the Single Player. Since coming to the forums, I came to the realization that most everything is geared towards b.net. But that is just one part of Diablo 2. The Single Player aspect is all I have, and I will write of my experiences, my growth, and my frustration, so that others may learn. Since I get bored, don’t expect to have all the Tales soon. Furthermore, I start characters while I still play others. That’s why I’ll talk about 1.0 and then 1.09d and back again. I’ll go by characters. So without farther ado, I present my Tales of the Single Player Part 1: The Necromancer. (NOTE: Any and all comments about spelling will be considered to be attacks on my honor, and I expect you to have the sword to back it up with.)

Act 1, Normal: Night of the Not-So-Living Dead.

Having read CGM and Inquest, I decided to start with the necromancer. I always enjoyed summoning creatures to do my bidding and fighting, and Mr. Pale Skin is the best I got. Besides, he had the coolest animation on the character select screen. I then entered the world of warcra…Diablo 2. Hey lookie! This Warriv guy wants to talk! Nice guy. In fact, all the people in this camp was nice. Might scare that Gheed guy sometime. I was told to go to the Den of Evil, and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I complied.
The Blood Moor. Oooooo…Scary. Anyway, I looked my first Quill Rat in the eye. {Cue Western draw music.} I whacked him with my wand. I then raised my first Skeleton. I AM A GOD!!! Mwahahaha! We then scoured the Blood Moor for more victims. By the time I went into the Den of Evil, I had a second Skeleton following me about. When I left, I had three. Once I returned to the Rogue Camp, I learned how to cast Bone Teeth. Yeah, baby. Now I was off to kill Blood Raven. Apparently she’s been raising the dead. Ain’t no one going to steal my job. When I got there, I was level 6. I had 4 level 1 Skeletons, and a Clay Golem. I couldn’t be stopped. Not by some necromancer wannabe anyways. My growing army stomped her. I added a Rogue to my army and raided the tombs. My Rogue died, and I learned the mercs suck. She was also blond. Go figure. Anyway, I went along and started my trek to Tristrum. Apparently, Cain is part of the Horadim, a bunch of ubermages that kicked the Primes Evil’s ass’ long time ago. Since this guy is the last member of the order, he must have inherited all the ass-kickyness there is. I met my first Lightning Enchanted Boss in Stonehenge. You know, I think these guys are going to be annoying. Fast forward, and I have stripped the bark from an ancient tree of power. Wish I could turn it into a club…Well, I opened the portal to Tristrum. Oooooo…SFX. Feeling confident, I took my golem and three skeletons into Happyville. I charged in, expecting my troops to take the hits and stomp some monster ass like they have before. Nope. Aura Skeleton Archers and Griswold killed me. Yippee skip. After carefully building my troops up, I began to recover my body. I succeeded in that, looted Wirt’s body, took his socketed leg, and tried to jam his skull into it. Apparently, Cain is a weak old man that only power is to identify stuff. Pretty nifty. Fastforward to Andarial’s lair. Crap. This demon bitch really hates me. That poison attack wiped me out over and over. Only by using Town Portal and running back and forth between Demon Bitch and the healer was I able to win. More sparkles, and Warriv let me use his caravan to go to Lut Gohlain. Yippee!

Wrapup from Act 1 Normal:
Poison, bad!
Mercs, dumb!
Skeletons kick ass!

Act 2, Normal: Tomb Raider, Starring Me!

Ah, the desert. The Mage of the Sands likes the desert. Quick, where’s my Sand Golem? I decided to explore this town. When I arrived at the palace gates, this guard ran up to me with urgent information. Boy, was he ever eager. Too eager. I was prepared to receive my first task in my quest to destroy the Dark Wanderer. What could it be? What evil shall I smite? What lonely, desperate virgin shall I rescue? I can hardly wait! “You may not past!” (dun-dun-dunnnnn!) Umm, okay. Why? The more I talked to this guy, the more I realized he should live in Cornelia. I visited the local healer/smith then decided to quench my thirst at the tavern. Ah, my first wench. My, isn’t Atma in a bind. Well, I asked for a horny woman in distressed, and I suppose I got one. At least I get to explore the sewers. I wander if I’ll find turtles in there? The answer is no. Only skeletons, more skeletons, and-skeleton-like-things-that-aren’t-really-skeletons. To make a long story short, I wiped Radiment out. Time for the reward. Atma, here I come! What?! NOTHING?! I risked my life for your petty vengeance, and all I get is 20% off my next Town Scroll? Grrrr… You’re lucky I leveled up and now have a pair of Skeleton Mages with me or I’d show you the true meaning of Corpse Explosion. Bitch. At least Andy flashed me. Anyway, where was I? Aw, yes, raiding tombs. More Skeletons. Yippee skip. I got a Horadiric Cube and learned the inventory is good. Real good. By this time, I had a butt load of chipped gems, but socketed stuff was getting harder to find. Typical. I’m going to skip to after the Tainted Sun fiasco. All you’re missing is three hours trudging through Maggot Caves. I hate that place. Hey, lookie! Mr. Personality wants to talk to me! I bet Blizzard was just saving money on the voice actor by using him for what’s coming up next. Why else would a balloon be above his head? “You may enter!” Wow. No wonder Jared had to hire mercenaries. Not that they’re much brighter. As I explored the first level, I noticed the irony of horrors in a whore house. Hehe. Blizzard most have been smoking the mako. I got some neat swag in this place though. I got a mask of horror unique, a speed shoe unique, and some other unique. Can’t remember. Probably a staff. Great stuff here. But don’t attack those big hulk guys! They hit like Tyson. The boxer, not the chicken. Remember Punch-Out!!!? Great game. Come to think about it, the big guys are more like Bald Bull. The big thing I remember in here was getting killed. Yeah, that sucked. But I had a point in Confuse. I popped into the room full of archers (and my body), confused them, and ran. I did this for an hour, and by the time I got bored, they were all dead! By the time I got to the Arcane Sanctuary, I was level 17, had a Blood Golem, and was plowing Bone Spears into everything I saw. Corpse Explosion was getting very expensive to cast. Inquest be damned! I don’t have the mana to keep casting this spell! Fastforward to the duel with Duriel. Crap. This guy is Tyson. Rule #1: Have a lot of money for revives. Rule #2: You will get you ass kicked. How did I beat him? Running from him to the healer, and poking him with my Poison Dagger. Strange, but it worked. To recap Act 2, Normal: Atma is a tease, Guard #1 is a great conversationalist once you get him drunk, don’t walk into corpse gas, and when Queen Maggot bursts; RUN!

Act 3, Normal: Or Why Blizzard Should Remove the Flayer Jungle in the Next Patch

This place sucks. Really sucks. My skeletons are getting their asses kicked, leveling is slow, damned fetishes and flayers revive their minions while taking pop shots at me with flamethrowers, all the while I’ve turned into the human pincushion. I hate this place. It’s so big. And I have to back track when I get to a dead end. And the flayers. I fear them. It’s like a bunch of psychotic children with butcher knives, blowguns and spears swarmed you like you were Mickey Mouse giving away Pure Sugar-Crack. And their mamma’s there to revive them when you whack ‘em. Try to take them out and they turn a flamethrower one you. I HATE THIS PLACE!!! God help you if you run into a Thorns-enchanted pack. I ran screaming through this place, stopping only to grab various body parts of some punk named Khalim. Things pick up when you reach to the city. Now the problem is more revivers that cast Blizzard. Yippee skip. I hate this place. Good looting though! Still, my summons are crap. Only my two Skeleton Magi can stand much abuse. Starting to think I should add more points to them. But then I couldn’t pump Bone Spear. That spell got me through this place. Pow! Pow pow! Take that! Zoom! Screeech!!! Halt. WTF? Be vewy caweful. You’we hunting Council Membews. And they are baddasses. Don’t let those three and their goons gang up on you. They’ll rip you up fast. The regenerate, throw Hydras around, cast heal spells, and each has a different annoying ability. Ugh. Well, I pump them with my bone. That did the trick. I then went all Hulk and smashed the glowing orb thing. Strange, but I was expecting the temple to self-destruct. Pity. Enter the Durance of Hate. Guess what kids? The Flayers are back, and they are kamikaze! Yay! At least this time around they don’t revive, thank God. But the place is filled with the third version of the vampire. This time they’re armed with Meteor. And Firewall. And Fireball. Good thing I have fire resist of 17%. The vamps aren’t as bad as they were in the Sanctuary, due to the fact you don’t have to stand in a firewall. Get to the bottom and you meet three more councilors. One of them is Fast. I call him Chuckles. Kill him! Kill him now! It is very hard to retrieve your corpse with him guarding it. After I cleared the area of minions, it was just me, my Iron Golem (Robocop), and Mephisto. I thought taking on one of the Prime Evils, the oldest of the Three, one of the strongest creature in Heaven and Hell would be hard. I was right. This guy is cheap. Not it the slow-chargelock of Duriel, or the super poison of Andy. Nay. Meph likes to fire freezy balls at you. Or are they lightning balls? Whatever. No tricks to this battle; just a slugfest. Have fun! Act 3, Normal in a hat: Have I mentioned how I hate this place? Loathe it. As the wise cat Garfield once said, “The person who invented Act 3 should be dragged into the street and shot.” I tip my hat to you, o sage of kittens.

Act 4, Normal: Fire = Bad!

Welcome to Hell. Actually, compared to Kurast, I like this place. Oh, it’s much harder. But nowhere near as annoying. Sure, the native have less personality than Binky, Jared’s guard (!) but they have their uses. And the critters in this place eat each other and then spit at you (eww…), and big bad demons will use flamethrowers at you, and some Super Skeletons will target you for war crimes, but still, no flayers. Yippee! I so wish I could summon an Oblivion Knight. Or upgrade some of this crap equipment. You see, kiddos, I don’t have the luxary of trading for good stuff on Bnet. Stone of Jordon, currency of D2? Hell, I haven’t even seen a Stone of Jordon, much less refer to it as mere currency. I would polish it and call it my precioussssss. Stupid bnet people, with their high fluetin’ ways…grrrrr…There are five, yes five unique bosses besides Diablo himself. They can all kill you. Izzy likes to use Frost Nova and then smack you with Azurewrath. Smithy simply tramples you. And if you make it to the inner sanctum of Big D, you find three more bad guys. By this time, I was on 1.04, so Desais didn’t steal from me. Infact, I have yet to encounter someone that has the steal trait. Smash them and prepare to meet the biggest badass this side of a very big ass gone bad. And die. And die again. Again. AGAIN! After awhile, I learned to place the town portal away from Big D. Haha! Pump him full of Bone Spears/Spirits. Yay! Who’s a demon killer? Wrap up: Stay away from Diablo’s Lightning Breath of Doom.

Secret Cow Level, Normal: MOO!

Moo. Moo? Moo moo moo moo. Moo. I can still hear the Hell Bovines. Their bloodcurdling war cries still haunt my dreams. MOO! So many. So strong. Break out the Revives. This is the only time in the game where I liked Revives. Since Hell Bovine’s AI is kill target, Bovine Zombies don’t wander off to play in the flowers like Balors. Moo.

Act 5, Normal: All hail Poison Nova!

I waited a few months before playing Act 5. Had to buy the expansion, you know. I had a hit list going. Two Prime Evils dead, two Lesser Evils slaughtered. One more Prime Evil to go. I learned that many of my skills suck. I didn’t invest into Curses at all. My summons were bad. I banked most of my points into Bone Spear/Spirit. I decided to add the next to Poison Nova. And the Heaven opened and Tyreal did speak: “An acidic rain shall devour your foes.” Use Poison Nova. I can’t tell enough how cool this spell is. It kills all but the undead like they were fallen. It’s just not right the abuse you can use inflict with this spell. The minotaurs died like flies. Those guys the shove their hands into the ground? Dead. Shrek? Dead. Frozenstien (shame on the person that named this creature) dies with his buddies. Seen it in 1.10? Over 3000 poison damage minimum. Oh, yes, all hail to the king, baby! That’s how this act went. Punks run into my four mages, and my barb merc (give the man that created the new mercs a raise.), and I would cast two or four Novas, and move on. Simple, really. Except for that time I thought I saw a cow. That scared me. I looked at his name and it said Lister. How hard could someone named after mouthwash be? Two reloads later, and it was down to me, Harold, my Fire Golem Nathen, and Bhall. (cue Western draw music.) What a battle. That snow plow of his made me quiver. My Nova didn’t do a thing to him. His Clone trick engaged my minons. By Bone Spear barely fazed him. His Chaos Bolts fried me. My Bone Spirit nailed him. That’s what I did. Popped in, pumped a mana orb’s worth of Spirits into him, and TP’d out of there. Cheesy, but effective.

More later...

[mageofthesands]

Now for skills. Remember all those guides that tell you to put one point in a skill, and let skill boosters do the rest? Forget them. They are so full of #$%& that you could make a weapon of mass destruction from their hair. If a skill isn't worth it unless you invest x points into it, you better be willing to invest those points into those skills, or go without. This includes the curses. I highly recommend going heavy on Bone spells and Poison Nova. Against bosses, these skills are what will carry you through. Four points in Skeleton Magi, and five into Skeleton Mastery will be enough for elemental pounding. Choose a golem, I go with Fire, and put points into that and Golem Mastery. Revive is useless. The AI is crap.

[ImpressiveOne]

What about Amp? Amp does not increase in damage per level, merely duration and radius. With merely +3 skills and 1 point you get level 4 amp. That's good enough. Why waste any more skill points?

[mageofthesands]

What about Amp? Amp does not increase in damage per level, merely duration and radius. With merely +3 skills and 1 point you get level 4 amp.  That's good enough.  Why waste any more skill points?

WRONG!!! +3 skills? How the hell are you going to get that? Gamble untill you run out of gold? I suppose it is possible to get a currect wand, but a major point of Single Player is that

You cannot expect to have anygiven item at any given time. You must judge each skill based solely on how many points you are willing to spend on it. Amp damage only helps physical damage. It helps only my Skeletons. It does nothing for Poison Nova, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Magi, Fire Golem.

[Dyntheos]

mala sells +1 necro items in normal and +2 necro wands in nm, you can buy one there.

Even moderate gambling will get you at the very least a blue +1 necro amulet, or circlet. There's your +3 right there.

[TriggerHappy]

WRONG!!! +3 skills? How the hell are you going to get that?

It's all too easy to buy a wand with +2 to Amplify Damage and other skills in act1, before you reach level 10 even. The wand can cost as little as 5k gold or as much as 50k, depending on what other skills it has on it.

Second, with very little luck, a +1 or +2 to Amplify Damage (and again, other skills) bottled head can be found in act1.

Third, buying a +1 to Necromancer skills wand (possibly with Amplify Damage on it, though that's harder to spawn) is very easy to do by checking the store every time you're in town (you'll likely start seing them in act3), and that's before level 30 even.

Fourth, Ort+Sol runeword awaits you somewhere in Nightmare (+1 to all skills), once you find a Sol rune (one dropped for me in the underground passage in NM).

In your (level) 40s, you should regularly see +2 to Necromancer skills wands for sale in stores. These can cost as little as 60k if there are no other skills on them. Can cost much more if there are other skills on it, but that's what you actually want ;) . Besides, by that level you should be swimming in gold even if you sell things rarely.

Easier than Ort+Sol, is gambling a +1 to Necromacer skills circlet. This will take luck and gold.

It's also possible to find a +1 to Necromancer skills amulet, or gamble one, again before level 30.

As well, it's now possible to get +1 to a single tree (curses, for example) on rings. Luck with finding or gambling one can get you yet another +1 to Amplify Damage.

Only the last three require good amounts of gold or luck.

Therefore, placing extra points in Amplify Damage isn't the best use of points, considering that one gets the full effect of increasing damage with one point . While increasing the diameter and duration of the effect is fairly easy with + skills that are readily available.

What's more, all the Necromancer curses are one skill point wonders. There is no need to place further points here unless one finds the duration in NM and Hell too short, but then one can just re-apply the curse.

[WarBlade]

WRONG!!!  +3 skills?  How the hell are you going to get that?

Heh. As others have pointed out, +3 is well within expectation, even for a Single Player environment. Thus far, the unluckiest Necromancer I've had in the +skills department is at +2 All skills as of Act 3 Hell (mostly single player) and even he can upgrade his helmet slot with little effort. A charm picks up one tree another level as well. Another Necromancer of mine (also mostly SP) has about +5 All Skills with a further +2 to both Summoning and Curses, plus a circlet granting +3 to Poison/Bone.

So based on what I've seen, it's entirely reasonable to expect +3 to All Skills by the end game, for a Necromancer. +4 is common, +5 within the realms of hope and beyond that the likelihood fades pretty fast. Other player experiences may even classify my hopes as being pessimistic.

You cannot expect to have anygiven item at any given time.  You must judge each skill based solely on how many points you are willing to spend on it.

True, you can't expect any item, but you can expect a +2 wand and therefore Necromancer players can also safely judge any skill as a level 3 skill with only one point invested. ;)

[mageofthesands]

I do see your points. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I got bored running into and out of town looking for the wand I want. The necromancer can expect to get decent staff mods. I still beleive my point is valid about +3 skill items. You can't just have a +3 skill weapon or helm. Remember, you also have other considerations, like resists, to worry about. I prefer to base skills on their own marits, not on what equipment I might get. Right now, with my 1.10 necro, I see lots of +1 to necro skills wands everywhere. But I'm still using the +3 raise skeleton wand I found in act 1. Why? Because haveing the extra skeleton and having them stronger out wieghes the benifit of +1 amp damage. I normally have enough mana to spam it anyways.

Addionally, what do you think of the writing? How could I change it for Tales 2: The Barbarian?

[kandrathe]

Other player experiences may even classify my hopes as being pessimistic.

I would. Untwinked, I think you can do better than +2 all skills with +2-3 in specific trees. Wormskull, +1 or +2 necro skills amulets, and heads are common enough as well. "Lore":Ort+Sol is doable, "White": Dol+Io in a good two socketed wand is not unreasonable to find in hell with enough play.

My untwinked realm necro carried a +1 necro skills rare head into Hell dificulty, and then finally found a +2 necro skills head with useful secondary affixes. He has a wormskull (+1), +2 necro skills amulet, a "White" bone wand (+2 all, +3P&B), and an etheral Torch of Iro (+1) as his weapon switch. So he is +4 or +5 all skills and with nothing very exceptional.

[mageofthesands]

I don't know where you got that quote, but it wasn't from me. Wormskull is unique. What are the chances of finding a certain unique without trading? I suppose if I reach Hell then some of those things are easy to come to. Note that that is missing 2/3 of the game. A character has to be viable during normal and nightmare. Farthermore, getting the right runes is one thing, finding a wand that can be socketed is anouther. Again, getting +skill items are great, but I would think that a character that dosen't need them is better than one that can't survive without them.

[kandrathe]

Well, I was replying to Warblade. Read his post carefully, you will find that text in his post.

Wormskull is unique. What are the chances of finding a certain unique without trading? I suppose if I reach Hell then some of those things are easy to come to. Note that that is missing 2/3 of the game. A character has to be viable during normal and nightmare.

Uniques drop at all levels of difficulty and the ones I cited are normal items with a low iLvl. You could find them in Normal difficulty.

Again, getting +skill items are great, but I would think that a character that dosen't need them is better than one that can't survive without them.

Why? Bragging rights? Unless you are playing with restricted rules, I don't agree. A character without +skills items will have skills capped at lvl 20, whilst one with +skills will gain the advantage of increasing an entire tree, or all skills. My highest level necro on the realm has +11 to all skills, and so those skills that are his focus are very good, and even 1 point invested in each skill gives him a level 12. Consequently he has 1 point in each curse, and that is enough.

[TriggerHappy]

You don't need to rely on uniques.

You can gamble a +1 circlet easily. Start at ~ level 27 and you'll get one much faster than you think. Or use any old 2 socket helm to make Ort+Sol runeword once you find the Sol rune (Act5 normal or Act1 NM most likely) which also gives +1 to skills.

You can buy a +1 wand easily (they show up on about 30% of my returns to town).

You can buy a +2 wand easily once of the right level (show up with same frequency).

You can imbue Shrunken Heads.

You can use the 3 perfect gems + magic item formula to transmute a +1 or +2 skills magickal head.


Getting +3 skills is easy. My completely untwinked necromancer in the single player beta has +5 without a single unique item (+2 wand bought, +1 head transmuted, found rare +1 amulet and gambled a +1 circlet) and he's in act1 NM only.

[Brista]

Chipping in my SP Necro, with a very little TCP/IP multi-player in Normal has +2 all, + 5 summons

Lore hat
+2 summons ammy (found)
+3 summons, +1 mage wand (shopped)
+1 head (anya, normal)

Beefing up the summons is the heart of this build I think, I wouldn't worry too much about the other skilltabs

I very much like the story so far, press on and keep us informed :)

[AtomicKitKat]

Wormskull dropped for my brother while we were partied in the Frigid Highlands/Arreat Plateau. Io starts dropping around Act 1 Nightmare(or at least, I got my first and only one there), Dol around the same time(SOMETIMES in Act 5 Normal) Sol and Ort are medium to rare in Act 5(best chance of Sol would be in Worldstone Keep downwards) You can even get Amn, for crafting a caster ring. If you feel lucky, you can try crafting a caster wand. Then not only might you get a +2 wand with +3 to specific skills, you could get better mana regen, more mana, etc. My brother wound up with a socketed caster wand that didn't add skills, so he passed it to a druid(after adding in a jewel with enhanced gold/mf) Crafting is good once you get to about level 40-50. Anything more than that, the level requirements on the item could get ridiculously high. Even at level 35, you might wind up with an item requiring level 40 to use. Moral of the story? Craft medium early/late, craft often. ;)

[jahcs]

I enjoyed reading the play by play. I like guides/stories that incorporate humor.

A suggestion: maybe stay a bit more linear with regard to what patch level/expansion you are in at a given time. They can really change gameplay, especially in higher difficulties.

Your assesment of Act 3 was spot on.
*dim vision works wonders (if you can keep your minions from charging everything at once)

I look forward to the sequel

[mageofthesands]

Thank you. I'll keep that in mind. I guess that getting + skill items are easy; it just isn't that way for me. I like to also take into consideration resists and other things. I tried going with a +1 to all Necro skills wand, but the extra skeleton provided by the +3 Raise Skeleton wand was missed. A little too much. Also, some of you mentioned little partying and such; I have not the luxary. I also get bored easily. I rarly go into nightmare, and only then I switch games by Act 3. Only two characters made it to Hell, and they were slaughterd. Can't even get to Cain with them.

Be on the look out for the Barbarian. Hint: Frenzy kicks ass.

[WarBlade]

I would.  Untwinked, I think you can do better than +2 all skills with +2-3 in specific trees.  Wormskull, +1 or +2 necro skills amulets, and heads are common enough as well.  "Lore":Ort+Sol is doable, "White": Dol+Io in a good two socketed wand is not unreasonable to find in hell with enough play.

Err, if you read what you were quoting I was saying that +3 Necro Skills is expected, +4 is common and +5 is within the realms of hope. Then you switch that to "+2 all skills with +2-3 in specific trees"??? :huh:

:lol: hahaHAHAAHAahahaa :P

[kandrathe]

Heh. I guess. :)

I'm aiming for +11 all skills. My Necro is now +4 all, +3 to P&B. My nightmare Imbue of a Demon Head was STELLAR 103 def, +2 necro, +3 Bone Prison, +2 Bone Spirit, +14 resist all, and some other stuff!!! I've added a gambled +3 P&B circlet and a rare +2 Necro skills, +18 resist all ammy. Then my imbued rare wand from my Normal Charsi Imbue, was +2 Necro skills. I've still to find and good unique necro gear, but I can't complain about what you can get gambling or the rares that drop. I tried crafting a wand, and it is very nice... req lvl 89.

I've got my Dol+Io now, so I'm just waiting for the right socketed wand to drop.

[Refrigerator]

You're brilliant! It's hilarious! I'm squirming in my seat waiting for the next one (or maybe I have to take a trip to the loo!). Come on! I can hardly wait! :D