LadyCrimson

Hubby's sister+husband came down for the weekend to clear out their house here. They can't afford to keep house here (even rented out) and the one in OR anymore so out the old one goes. We spent a couple afternoons having lunch with them. They wanted to sit in our yard under the sun.....sadly it hasn't been all that sunny/warm this past week, but apparently still more so than in OR. heh.

I'd take a picture of my handsome neighbor's jean clad butt with my telephoto lens, but I figure no one here would be interested.

The Grey...that movie with Liam Neeson and wolves. The movie was more "serious" in tone than expected, with lots of musing on meaning/purpose of life or something, but still falls into the eyeball-rolling "ludicrous thriller" category. I love Liam, but lately I'm starting to feel like he's falling into Nicholas Cage territory. Liam's a much better actor than Nick, I just mean in terms of quality of films he chooses. I mean, he took that cameo role in Battleship, of all films, after all. Don't get me wrong, stoic faced angry-action Liam is almost as fun as over-acting/chewing scenery Nick, but.... Is Liam in massive debt now, too?

Yeah...they seem to have designed the game to actually "force" one to use the AH. eg, the drops you get are always a bit behind what you actually need, hence people go to the AH. So only people who are/have become strong enough (alone or in groups) get drops that are decent for those who may not be strong enough to do that yet....it's a bit of a catch22, where you're too weak to get items you need, and by the time you can get them, you don't need them. My lvl 53 Monk is still doing ok in Hell but I'm very tired of Molten fire trail Elites. In Act1/Act2 you can still often outrun/avoid them (not always, but sometimes) to get to the next level or something, but in Act3/Act4 that would be iffy at best. P.S. Arcane/Frozen dudes also suck big time in Hell. My resists are up at 70 now, and "Plagued" I can often deal with, but firewalk/arcane lasers are still awful, even with almost 24K life.

I don't know....my Wiz is lvl 24, just got to Act3. DH is only 15 and Barb 19. They all kick butt but that's early Normal. I think if you build the Barb right, he can seem OP'd until somewhere in Hell, like the Monk somewhat. But I don't know what that build might be. Demon Hunters do seem one of the better classes for soloing Hell, perhaps. Ranged, natural high dodge, etc. That said, one person I know who is a DH, said Act3 Hell was almost a rage-quit fest, but the Act-bosses were still weak/easy. I think all classes are going to have problems solo in Hell, unless you spend all your cash on uber gear from the AH or something. Even with the initially OP'd Monk I died several times in NM, all to Elites...that I couldn't avoid/were in the way of the story goal. Stupid arcane laser turret and molten fire trail dudes...

Does anyone know if resists go up higher than 100? I had 60ish resist all in NM and those poison tossersin Act3 would still leech all the life away in a few seconds (12-13k at the time). Anyway....most of NM wasn't that hard - there were several good Elite battles with a lot of frantic running/kiting, even with 15-16k life - but the Act bosses were all snoozefests again. I've started Hell now. I need to up my dps once more, it's only 1080. It'll work for a while but probably not too long. So far in early Hell I use my healing spell fairly frequently against even non-special normal mobs vs "almost never" before now. It's actually about the difficulty I like. Hopefully I can find/make some better dps gear, because I'm going to need it. Guess I'll have to grind farm again. Got max Stash done, blacksmith to lvl6 and jeweler to max available in NM. And no, I'm not going to "just go buy better gear on the AH." Can't stand that mentality...hated it in WoW too. I like self-sufficiency, it's more rewarding when I win. At least I'm finally in Hell...which at least by Act3 shouldn't be cake and pie. I might start to have more fun now.

Yes....the Act bosses are pretty silly compare to Elite fights. I know they want people to farm items via other means than "boss runs." So you'd want those Elites to be tough. Still, they could have just nerfed boss drops (which they did to some extent) but still make the bosses more....interesting. Belial is the worst. In mid-Act3 NM now and feeling bored. Ah well, maybe it's time for a break.

Said so long to the House series. The series in general may have become old and stale long ago, but the House/Wilson relationship was still worthwhile, so I liked the way it ended. That, to me, was always the best aspect to the series. Those two actors had a great working chemistry.

I'm already sick of people complaining about difficulty in Hell/Inferno re:classes and skills and all of that. "(insert skill or monster here) isn't fair." "It's not balanced." "(insert skill name here) doesn't give enough of a bonus, change it." I may never make it through Inferno myself, but that's why it's an optional difficulty. It wasn't meant to be rushed through cake and pie. Nightmare overall has been fairly easy for the Monk, with a lot of life, dodge, some life on hit, life regen, life steal, and of course having the extra healing spell as well as potion etc. with only the occasional random Elite mob giving a lot of trouble. Died a few times to those. Just starting Act3 now. Got behind on Monk because I've been leveling Barb, Wiz, DH thru Normal as well, now. I've been using Crippling Wave on l-button and Hundred Fists on r-button. One for mobs, one for tougher singles. Working great so far. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WUYgTh!bdV!ZbbaZa

So will the expansion bring back Baal? And yeah, I keep finding items for other chrs. that motivates me to level them up, but then I get bored doing Act1/2 yet again and I go back to my main chr. Plus, the other characters aren't the Monk. But I've reached the point now where I can't play for more than a couple hours without turning it off - not because of the game, but because I'm not 20 (or even 30) anymore. Marathon gaming wears me out, physically and mentally.

Set's are different. Legendary just seems like D3's version of "Unique" (gold) items in Diablo2. Sets are still green, apparently, and I haven't seen any. The Blacksmith can make some (eventually) but I think there's ones that drop too...Blizzard's website game guide has a list of items, but I don't know if it's 100% complete (the guide seems to still be a work in progress for some things). Edit: I've had no "lag" in the game myself in terms of latency/ping, but the game does tend to jerk on a regular basis...that is, kind of like how FNV would "stutter." You walk a short distance it's fine, suddenly it kind of jerks a tiny bit, as it draws in new stuff maybe, then it's fine, repeat. It's minor and hasn't affected combat negatively for me but it's annoying. They're not supporting the catalyst 12.4 drivers either. Game may not even work if you use them.

They drop in Normal. That's where I found my first one, and I know someone else who did as well. Seems similar to D2, where there are probably low, mid, high lvl ones. More on the supposed hacking: seems tied to being in a public game and the way the achievement announcements work, enabling theft of "session ID" via the packets as achievements broadcast to everyone else. So they can then boot you out and control your character, bypassing the login. I guess the servers were down for a while as they maybe tried to fix that? Dunno...just reading about it 2nd hand.

Found my 2nd Legendary item...more useful than the 1st I found. Some normal zombie dropped on the way to the Butcher. Sadly, my Demon Hunter is only lvl 15.

Out in the yard cleaning up cat and racoon poo, weeding, hedge trimming, and other such fun stuff. I think my arms got a little sunburnt. I have a bit of natural tan since I'm Asian, but I am not a sun creature anymore....used to be able to sit in the sun for hours and not even notice, but I burn easily now. Side effects of becoming a PC and game nerd....

Oh I agree. The crazy hack n slash is what Blizzard has always excelled at. Even in single player when I'm faced with some giant mob and trying to wipe them all out it's horribly satisfying. It's just a bit irritating that I have to deal with all that stuff in order to do it. And I'm loving the Artisans. I want him to make me those sets and legendary items, please. I don't care if there may be some better items from drops only. Gives me something to work for besides farming bosses or whatever. Also, hooray for being able to unsocket items without destroying either gem or item.

Oh come on, it's part of the charm. When your super-geared character suddenly and unexpectedly dies... I'd say it's one of the strongest experiences in any computer game. You pause and think about the fleeting nature of life. Also, party HC is great fun. I played HC in D2 quite often. I'm not unfamiliar. Just not my general thing in online gaming. Besides, I tend to play with an partial ironman mentality to begin with, even in softcore. I buy from stores but I don't trade/buy from other players to get l33t fast and I try very hard not to die, even if dying means nothing.

What I dislike is how every big boss fight is an arena style set up. Cutscene, locked in tiny room/area, fight. This goes against most of the past history of Diablo boss fights. Oh sure the act bosses were always in a specific spot, but you had room to run and if you wanted, you could even run completely away. They weren't "arenas." Duriel was the one exception I think. Fine to have one of two like that, but it's every single one. And I was highly disappointed when Diablo's have always been linear, don't get me wrong, but the way they've made the game, D3 now feels even more linear. Complaints aside...did anyone else find the farmer with the reference to the movie Pyscho? That was hysterical. I also finally got the Gharbad the Weak set piece. Kind of funny.

Killing NM SKing with 320dps/3000hp. Took 3 minutes to whittle his health down but hardly broke a sweat. I even used the Scoundrel instead of the Templar so no extra healing/regen. When I got to the Drowned Temple quest it started to get a bit tough to kill things, so I tweaked and fiddled. I now have 480dps and 5400hp and it's fairly easy again for soloing. Also, seriously, the +life-on-hit, if you stock up on that like mad, you're almost invulnerable to anything that can't one-shot you. It seems to works on undead too since it's not life steal. For single player, massive dps seems like overkill to me. There's other attributes/tactics that will make having lower dps plenty viable. But...it does help that Monks have a good healing spell to go along with the slow-timered healing pots. I played my Barb to mid-Act2 and while he dealt damage like no tomorrow/was very fast, it was definitely more annoying because he had to pause/rely on potions a lot more between fights to heal up. But I'm starting to get bored of slogging through the game a 2nd time. Even when I switch chr. classes for a change of pace, there's a constant "Am I there yet" sensation. Repeating all the enforced quests and skipping all those cutscenes over and over gets wearying fast when there's little randomization to things. It was great the 1st time but it becomes a chore the 2nd time. D1 and D2 I didn't get bored of that process for a lot longer - took a while before I felt like "rushing" the game. In D3 I almost immediately feel like rushing the game ... that is, not exploring fully and just trying to go from point A to point B plotwise. Kind of sad really. I may have to start buying stuff from the AH so I can become a dps-twinker like everyone else and jump into some random MP games to see if that makes it any more fun...and to get to Inferno faster. I do love the artisans....what a money sink they are. At least I have two Stash pages now. I could play Hardcore, but I refuse to play Hardcore when it's online only. Perm death from my own idiocy is fine, but perm death due to sudden server disconnects or lag/latency spikes makes me toss keyboards through windows.

Yeah....4 player is a different beast altogether. I'd be no help there at all yet. The fire or poison ground emissions are the worst thing in the game so far, to me. If you're not an INT based character takes a while to find any +to resist stuff I guess (I've only found a couple things once in NM that have it, so far). So 3000hp drains away in seconds. It's quite brutal.

Beat Normal Diablo. I have 320dps so it took me about 10 minutes instead of the usual 1-2 boss-minutes, mostly because of running in half-circles waiting for skills to recharge between attacking him etc. Didn't die. The semi-long trek through all those areas/loading screens to get there (when you're solo) grew wearisome to me by the end. Was wishing I had teleport, haha. Entered Nightmare (clvl 32). The "normal" mobs are still cake, and some of the purple dudes are fine....but there's been a few that gave me fits of running around on a fine line between death and survival. Lucky for me, I don't have a desire to kill everything this time around. So I went and got the Crown (not hard) and then stopped. Want to see if my 320dps will take care of the SKing. After that I'll fiddle with gear and get up up another 100-200 I suppose. ... I'm sure I wouldn't last/be any help in a 4 player game but for solo, it's managable. I think D3's Nightmare is a bit tougher than D2's Nightmare...which is fine with me. Anyway....my other stats outside of dps + skills keep me alive thru the high hit point guys. High dodge and rapid fire punching. It's fun. Not sure I'd say I love the game itself, but I do love that Monk.

Dear diary: I did stuff today. Not a lot of stuff, but it was stuff I had to get done before I could get back to the fun stuff. It would be nice if I had born 100 years later so I could have a cyborg servant to do all of that stuff for me. Also, remind me to clip Mr. Black's claws. His increasing tendency to stand up and hug the waist is leaving me with too many scratch marks around my middle.

Bah. If he was really serious, he'd have a bigger screen to play them all on.

It's been interesting how much MF affects drops in D3. In D2 you could have 30% and feel like it hardly made much of a dent outside of boss drops. But once I had enough to get up to about 25% those Rares started dropping like crazy. Maybe I just got lucky tho. One of those treasure pgymy's dropped a Legendary 2H sword for me too. But alas I don't use those. :/ Don't know how much MP I'll do. The control-freak in me has a difficult time with MP. Never did a whole lot in D2 either, outside of random boss and cow runs to level up faster. Depends how much I feel like making another character too. Made one of each class to lvl7 just in case but ... we'll see.

What's your dps? You can have 400-700dps as a Wiz by then if you're item lucky. Gems, use lots of gems. Edit: and I know Normal is designed to be easy. I just wish they'd allowed one to skip it. It's funny how I can suck at hard combat in games like Risen but ARPG's like Diablo....I've always been good at them even in the Hell sort of levels. Not uber, but .... combat seems much more area/multi attack oreiented in D3, even for melee classes, and I excel at that (vs. one on one combat tactics).

Ok I caved and bought it, feel free to LOL at my inability to not buy it. It was the Inferno difficulty videos that decided me. I really really really want to get to Hell and Inferno and beat it...probably solo. The challenge or something. I don't know. I makes me think of WoW in terms of the "game doesn't start until you're max level" concept. No no, not saying gameplay is like WoW...just mean leveling is fast, you reach max level fast, and it's the super-hard combat in those difficulties that will likely keep most people replaying for a long while. Since I'm playing alone, I'm not terribly fast - and usually I'm slower than most even in solo - but for me this is going at a moderately quick clip. 16 hours in and I'm in mid-Act3. That's with taking my time exploring most maps fully, killing everything, side dungeons, spending too much time w/the blacksmith, etc. I haven't been rushing myself at all. Solo Normal difficulty is still a joke to me. Hell difficulty can't come quick enough at the moment. I want to die a few dozen times plus per area, please. :D Seems like equipment choices for me will end up being main stat + VIT + magic find + life per hit. The life per hit is great when combined with a skill that does multple hits per cast. I love the Templar. Don't need his healing/tank right now but I'm sure he'll be useful later. The Scoundrel was funny but not my companion style. Enchantress felt kind of weak. Mine lasts 10 minutes. I can't remember why. One of the skill runes for it boosted it to 8 min I think. Maybe an item stat gave it even more.