Carpe Datum

Nightmare Preference

If you don't play Diablo II, skip this one.

In my spare time during the break before Fall term, I'm getting acquainted with the offensive Paladin in Diablo v1.10s, the new patch out from Blizzard. The patch enhances both players and monsters, giving players new things to play with (like better items) and augmenting player skills, and giving monsters more resistances and so forth. The changes are especially apparent on the Hell level.

The way Diablo works is that if you beat it in multiplayer mode (I always play solo on this mode, hosting my own game) on the "normal" level, you can replay the entire game again in "Nightmare" mode, where the monsters are jacked up in power and difficulty. If you beat "Nightmare", you can then replay the entire game in "Hell" mode, which is almost impossible unless you spend weeks building up your character (even then, it is tricky). The jump from "Normal" to "Nightmare" is not that bad. I was able to make the transition pretty smoothly, but "Nightmare" to "Hell" is another story.

I finished "Nightmare" a few days ago with my Paladin. I had to move away from my usual thorns strategy to do it. Thorns works *great* in normal mode, returning 10x damage to any monster that hits you. It is fun to wade through a swarm of flayers and have them die all around you (but have a rejuvenation potion handy for an instant heal in case you get in over your head ... and also jack your vitality way up to handle all the hits). I can even kill Diablo and Baal using mainly Thorns without swinging much.

But in "Nightmare", the monsters all have too much health, and so you have to go into offensive mode. I've got Fanatacism jacked up to the maximum now, and I'm working on Holy Shield (a great spell which lasts a long time to boost your defense and blocking, so it's like having two auras at once) some more. And when I killed Diablo in "Nightmare" mode, he dropped the jagged star weapon called Aldur's Rhythm, which swings incredibly fast, does a mountain of damage (which is nicely multiplied by my Fanatacism aura) and also has other great bonuses. When I got hold of that, my character basically became about two to three times more deadly.

I also found an Amn rune, which I stuck in Aldur's Rhythm (it has 3 sockets, yay!), so my total life steal is 21%. That means with every hit, I get 21% of my damage back in the form of extra health. My use of health potions has dropped considerably as a result. The upper level runes are easier to find in this version, which is giving me hope I might get to try some of the fancier Rune Words on my items at some point. If I find two more Amn runes, I can get my life steal up to 35%, which I probably need to survive in Hell, assuming I can make contact often enough with my swings.

So I blasted through the rest of "Nightmare", knocking off most monsters in two or three hits (which is saying something in the final stage of "Nightmare") and not facing too much danger. Even Baal, the final monster, and his various minions weren't that tough. I had an easier time on "Nightmare" than on "Normal", in fact. Especially once I got the perfect diamonds in my shield for maximum resistances to poison, fire, cold, lightning.

So I tried wading into "Hell" and got my ass thoroughly kicked. Almost everything you run into is a unique monster + minions, and they do a *lot* of damage. My resistances aren't maxed out in "Hell" either, though I've found some armor and an amulet which will help next time I try. For now, I'm trying to build up my character some more and find some better items by continuing to go back and re-defeat Diablo and Baal.

It probably sounds pretty silly, I know, but it's a good way to channel anger, which can happen when I read too much about politics. Games like this help recharge my mental batteries for work and politics, both of which can be draining.

Posted by Observer at August 17, 2003 10:58 AM