Generosity

[Longhunter]

I am in the process of building an Amazon, and my goal is to do so using only items that I have found myself or have purchased, gambled. I sometimes go online, mostly to give stuff away that I have found and is of no use to me. I almost always find people willing to give away very nice items and find myself torn between using them, because they are better than anything I have, or sticking with my original plan, IE, not using them.
I do not consider it cheating to accept a gift and use if it of course, if the gift is a legitimate item. I also realize that the giving/taking aspect is part of this game.
I guess the point of this post is to ask if many others have played through the game, IE, killed Baal in Hell, using ONLY items they found or bought. I would think it would be quite difficult, yet rewarding.
(No twinking either.)

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Longhunter,

Only a handfull of my characters have items I traded for: they found the bulk of their items themselves. I've got a purist Guardian and about five - I think - Patriarch/Matriarchs. It's not that difficult really: it's simply that people who do not know any better have built up this perception that if you do not play with the best items in the game, and get them immediately, then it is impossible to play! Well pfft to that idea: the day I listen to normal opinions on builds is the day I quit the game for good :P

Now, there are far harder ways to play than merely purist. Try not using anything that drops, or even more difficult... play LoL! *shudders* I've never got a LoL past early Nightmare - it's just sooo difficult!

[Longhunter]

I think you hit the nail on the head, and I have fallen into that trap myself. I've been playing for 3 years and got my first Amazon to level 81 before a very nice lady, and brilliant player, gave me a Gothic bow.
Whenever I read strategy guides they all seem very item dependant, so I started to wonder how they got all the nice items, because there is no way in hell that you would ever find them all.
Now I just use what I find and I'm enjoying the game for the first time in quite awhile.

Thanks for the reply, good answer, as for playing without using anything that drops, yikes, now that does sound hard, I don't have the will power for that test.

[Orbert]

It is absolutely possible. My first Matriarch was a bowazon, and since I play Single Player and this was before any of the muling tools out there today, she did it all on her own. Since I don't do the MF thing, she had almost no Uniques, or set items for that matter, and had to rely on wits and skill.

And yes, you're absolutely right. It is the most rewarding thing in the world to know you've done it all yourself, without twinking/muling/trading. Damned good feeling. I've since beaten the game many times with other characters, but that first one was still the best.

"The more difficult the challenge, the sweeter the victory."

Orbert

[kandrathe]

I think my answer would be "maybe". Some non-overpowered builds (e.g. summoning necro, elementalist druid, werebear, 2claw MA) may hit the wall in early to mid hell. They only become viable with the right combination of equipment to make up for the weakness in their "primary" skill tree.

On the other hand, it is all do-able if you are willing to spend many hours to accomplish what normally takes an hour or less.

The most fun in the game for me is getting a character through Normal difficulty to ~ clvl 45. I would be more keen on Nightmare and Hell difficulties if there were new maps, not just a repeat of Normal.