LadyCrimson

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.

After watching a couple of live streams of inferno difficulty (2-4 players), I'll say that those who want more difficulty...you'll get it then. It's actually been hilarious/fun to watch. Looks a good deal harder than D2's Hell difficulty (which wasn't that hard once familiar). You'll be max clvl long before you get there most likely, too. So seems like longevity for many will be the tough level of item hunting in Inferno.

I watched a lot of D3 videos and Ustreams while snuffling into a snotrag. I also found amusement in my very needy and tall black cat (he gets soooo lonely when left alone for more than a few hours), who has now developed a habit of standing up to "hug" my hip/waist whenever I come out of my office room. I swear he's a dog. Oddly, while I am allergic to cats, it's largely via skin reaction (itchy welts). They don't bother my nose too much as long as I dust regularly. Luckily.

I can see how, since I was one of them. I had fun with Fate (the precursor to Torchlight) but it was very limited. So I thought I'd like Torchlight more...and it wasn't bad. I didn't dislike it. But for some reason....it didn't capture me. There was no thrill/fun. Couldn't tell you why in explicit terms, it just didn't. At any rate, I didn't play it that long. I'm willing to try TL3 since it's $20, but the classes don't interest me much from what I'm seeing, so I'm not sure if I'll like it that much either. We'll see. I do like the pet ferret. Hah. If D3 had been $20, I'd have been more inclined to grab it for solo play at least. But it's not, so I was going to wait. But a bit like Enoch, I'm starting to feel some peer pressure, as well as curiosity about this Inferno difficulty. Doesn't help that I'm not currently really into another game at the moment, either. Blargh.

Interesting. *must....resist....buying this game...just on curiosity impulse*

Is it weird of me that the only thing that grabbed my attention on that story's page is the picture of the cute squirrel on one of the "earth news" links? ... the picture of the dead sheep, why is it painted with blue?

Hehe, yeah, I still have my 2 CD's of D1 too. But for those who might want it for some reason (never played it, their disc broke, etc) it just feels weird that Blizzard doesn't sell it officially. Well, maybe not weird...most ancient games do become hard to find eventually. Still....it's a highly requested game on GoG. I wonder if Blizzard would ever allow it there. Heh.

It's Blizzard, not Steam....I doubt very much they'll drop the price of the game for at least six months, if not closer to a year. Y'know, Blizzard doesn't even sell Diablo1 on their site, retail or digital. I think that's weird. I guess it's because it's not workable with their new battlenet stuff and they don't want you having it? You can get it from some other places occasionally but it won't usually be super cheap, considering it's age.

On YT? Two ways: type a comma, then the word today after your search terms. example: diablo 3 gameplay, today Or, once a search has been done, there's a small "Filter" clickable box/arrow above the list of results. Click it and you'll see options, one of which is "Upload date."

Yup. Altho there is some up on YT by now as well. Just be sure to filter search results by "uploaded today". Some people upload their ustreams to YT when done, too.

I'm on Nightmare videos now and it looks like the combat difficulty isn't too much higher for most things, but Yup. That's where you go make a sandwich and take a shower. Did that a lot in WoW, off and on. Build a campfire, sing some songs maybe.

*looks at pic*

Eh? Is Diablo supposed to be female now? Guess she just had a really masculine voice in D2 then... The video's I've been watching often have music or people talk-talk-talking over the game, can't tell what's going on plot/story wise. Edit: not sure I'd consider a demon's gender a spoiler either....

Just saw Diablo. Looks like a wuss (which isn't to say he won't be fun to smack). Haha I love the internet.

Just skimmed through a video of a live stream of up to clvl early 20's (into Act2). And I'd guess....it won't get more difficult (in Normal). 4 player co-op, hardly took any damage seemed like. The mages did have some trouble here and there but...well, they're mages.

Perhaps that's the actual bug then....that they could do so.

I think at the moment I'm having more fun reading about what others think of the game then I would have playing the game. So is the difficulty in the early stuff on par with the beta? Saw one person say they thought there were a few more general mobs then before and that the SK was a bit harder.