IndiraLightfoot

If you venture down into the underdark, you got to expect horrible creatures lurking in its deepest recesses. However, the ease with which a failed save can kill you when encountering Beholders is another issue.

My 2nd monk, the twin of tranquillity, has now made the same passage of horror and survived. Only difference is: She has a massive 40K healing. Even if this is just normal, the level was one higher than last time, and Malthael is no joke. Or is he? This sequence shows how Bliss facetanks Malthael without even taking any damage, just standing there in his chilling mist, and in his ice bolts and fire balls. It was a good feeling, and it certainly looks promising when adventure mode awaits for this mad healing monk.

A cab cap to die for, it seems. Great advice from a great thinking hat! Heed it, Bruce!

I agree, and I also think it's a brave move of Obsidian to include one, since it doesn't breathe old school CRPG. It's a wee bit of a compromise too. I look forward to trying it all out.

Hang on... Is this game even out yet? Isn't the release date set to April 25?

I have only passed Urzael twice on T1 difficulty, with my wizard and my WD. My wizard had some trouble killing him fast, but it was fairly easy to tiptoe between the steaming hot beams and his flame thrower bonanza. My WD, however, had a hard time. I was trying her out as a pet build too, even kiting with a poison dart and some acid rain. That's not normally my style, but it's fun trying new combos out. I managed to kill him on my first try that way on T1, but it took time. I thought he was going to enrage on me, and I was nearly killed a few times too. His not a boss made for kiting and pets, that's for sure. As for Adria, she was almost as hard as Malthael for my Wiz on hardcore, since my Wiz depends a lot on CC, and Adria just jumps around all the time. Given that I basically just try to get all of my toons passed Malthael and then I'll level them to lvl 70, it seems that I have quite some way to go before they are decently equipped.

Np! And I did change it to this lovely picture for a very specific and sad reason. Read this thread and weep: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65939-rip-david-trampier/

I really don't hope any of that counts as sucker punches, coz I expect such stuff to be part of a good CRPG! As long as I can escape or perhaps get a hint or two, most of that sounds like strategy and gameplay to me.

Perhaps that would be enough: Just ask how she's doing, and how she's coping with that new diet. If she gets defensive or too aggro, then you'll need to regroup and consider if, when, and how you should approach her on the subject again.

As someone that knows almost nothing about Japanese manga and novels, I must say that what I can tell, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit looks amazing! Thank you for that implied tip, Drudanae! The closest I've been to this kind of literature/art/media, is Aang: the Last Airbender, and its sequel, and I really think those series are brilliant.

Oh, and a personal reflection on which passives to take for your monk (on hardcore, for best survivability): I learned early on that One with Everything ain't that good and important anymore. I mean already (before lvl 70): these two are a must: Near Death Experience (it may be a welcome lifesaver, enough said) Transcendence (your healing gets a huge boost). Finally, I pick Exalted Soul (and get that spirit up and pumping - using a lot of skills, especially higher cost ones, now means that you heal yourself even faster. So even if you are stunlocked, you can use all sorts of skills until your free, and basically heal yourself big time!) Weird thing is, I saw stats that 80 % of all RoS hardcore players have One with Everything, I reckon that's not very clever at all. Also, plenty of them use Seize the Initiative, that's nothing compared to high toughness and life on spirit spent skills. Just my two cents.

BruceVC: This was a difficult one, but I'm pretty sure she knows, at least half-deep-down, how bad it is, especially after having been hospitalised for similar reasons. The crux is, I don't think it would make much of a difference if you talked to her, unless you two knew each other extremely well, going back a long time, etc. Obviously, if nobody reacts around her, and no professionals are given her strong advice, you would need to step in, more like a life-safer, but from what you describe, I wouldn't do it, I think.

Thank you! And indeed, better safe than sorry when you're unlocking adventure mode with your first hardcore character an all. My 2nd monk probably will be close to level 70 when she takes on Malthael, not necessarily by choice, though. It turned out that I had taken for a new run through the campaign and reset the whole thing before the expansion hit, so she was just about to enter those lovely (deep irony) deserts and couldn't switch to just before Diablo in Act IV. Ho-hum! Well, I pretty much ran through all the content, and finally reached Act V and Westmarch at almost exactly the same level as my first monk killed Malthael. However, I got some sweet legendary fist weapon with great life per spirit spent on them. In fact, this monk has almost 35K in healing, and I was happy with the other that had 18-19K. She got dogpiled and stunlocked really bad in Act IV by Mallors and Fallen Angels and what not, and she just stood in the arcane/toxic puddles of vortex frozen doom and laughed. Almost invincible, it seemed. When she faced Diablo, and she picks you up, no life whatsoever dropped on my meter, that was insane!! :D

It looks to be right up my alley, as I really dig Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. However, so far, many comments made are about FELH being better and more civ-like, with economics and a bit of diplomacy, while the art for AoW3 outshines that of FELH. Perhaps I'll get this, question is; at what price?

This is fantastic news! Ziets is one of my all-time favourites when it comes to CRPG narrative design. Yet another reason to get really excited about ToN.

The interview with Josh was great! Every time he opens his mouth, mine start drooling for the even more! And that tattoo on his arm, did it say "licet Omnia" (everything's permitted)? Is Josh in fact a nihilist? o.O

Yay! Malthael fell by my fist weapon (doesn't sound that good, huh?) on hardcore (normal difficulty)!!! I'm very happy about that. I practised with my softcore monk yesterday, and today I used my backup hardcore monk Tranquility to do the first test run, with her slightly crappier items, and she pulled it off. I tried to skip a lot, since I didn't want to reach too high a level, to make Malthael as soft as possible. Also, Hiro's tip on that Epiphany-rune, certainly helped. I use the sand one, and indeed, the monk goes ape on anything within 20 yards. I stacked a lot of healing, I had 18,000-19,500 at the end (via skills too, of course). Phew! Adventure mode in hardcore, here I come!

Deep down, you know you yearned for this: It's easy to get hooked on this game. Apparently a portal leading to Tron... I just found the pentagram murder mystery in Ultima 7. Oh, Coffee Stain Studios! I'll be back. After a tough time at bout camp, my goat is a juicehead. Then, he went and stole some mean equipment... This is Coffee Stain Studios after Arnold Schwarzbock hammered it with bean bags and a jet pack on his back. Just look at that score! "When push comes to shove, dweeb!" Goat jet fighter, later missing in action! This game Is hilarious. Once, I got stuck in corrugated iron for like ten minutes. I managed to shake myself loose by rocking my back hooves rhythmically .

Hehe! Those are nice ideas! There's only one thing, though: What you've made then is literally spells that are thrown, and you know what? Spells are indeed cast!

That ARM-wheel! M.u.s.t...h.a.v.e... I sense a new KS coming up, with a circular rune tablet as the piece of resistance. The animations were vey nice. I liked them all, but for some reason, that zombie topped them all. It was drop-dead gorgeous!

It sure is! Once I've gotten all my toons to it, they'll never look back, except for cheevo hunting now and then. It's almost a new game entirely.

Yea! It seems all this makes for one hell of an expansion. I can't wait! EDIT: Speaking of hell. I reckon D3 lacks proper hell sections. I don't think Azmodan's SM-paradise counts. I want varied levels, and loads of them. Think Hades or Dante's Inferno.

That will be interesting, though.

Gfted1: You are absolutely right, so that's a given. However, does this also imply...

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but I'm for one almost detested the phenomenon of throwing potions in D&D CRPGs. I didn't care for it, and I didn't use it unless some silly quest required that of me. Good riddance, I reckon. If I want to throw grenades, I'll just play COH 2.