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Diablo!
I've been taking a break from my level 70 sorceress, because I hit, not exactly a brick wall, but a tough patch; Mephisto in Hell level. Actually, I haven't actually reached him, but I know that I'll have trouble dealing with the council members in the Durance of Hate.
The whole end of that act is a problem for me, actually, because due to some mysterious glitch my system crashes whenever it tries to play the ending cinematic. As a result I have to play the whole ending in windowed mode, which is kind of like putting a bag over your head, cutting two dime-sized holes approximately where your eyes are, and taking a high-speed drive.
In other words, it sucks.
Anyway, I decided to try something a bit different and started up a barbarian. Or rather, re-started. I'd created him a while ago just to test out the class, but only leveled him up a couple of times before going back to the sorc.
Here's the thing that amazes me: so far, it's MUCH easier to be a barbarian than a sorc. As a sorceress I had an incredibly hard time with Duriel; basically it took about two solid hours of playing to kill him, along with about twenty deaths. If you were wondering, I basically just kept running away and casting Blaze behind me - very tedious.
My barbarian, on the other hand (Cronan the Barbarian - the "r" is not a typo) basically just waded in with a Shout and some Double-Swings and polished the big maggot off in about fifteen seconds. I took a couple of greater Healing potions, and one full Rejuvenation, but it was hardly necessary. Duriel was candy.
As a sorceress, I kept running into roadblocks; points where I just couldn't get through without dying over and over. I usually ended up stepping back, going to an earlier level and leveling up a few times; after that I'd wade into the battle with a full belt of full rejuve potions, and often as not it would still take five or six deaths before I managed to kill the boss in question.
No such problem with Cronan. It's just Shout, Leap Attack, and chopchopchop. Right now I'm wandering around in normal Hell, and although the music and graphics creep me out, I've really had no serious challenges. Even Izual didn't take more than a minute and some Heals.
I must admit that I have an amulet that gives me mana for each strike, which is extremely helpful. If it weren't for that I probably would have had to suck down a few mana or rejuve potions. Still, Izual was, well, candy.
Of course, a melee character would be expected to do better in combat than a ranged character like a sorceress, but I assumed that there would be counterbalancing weaknesses - probably a vulnerability to ranged enemies. So far, though, there's no sign of it.
Speaking of the scariness of Diablo (which I've talked about before in Chatter), I've noticed that I get much more nervous when I play Diablo at night. Mind you, I'm a big 39-year-old man! I'm not at all superstitious, and don't normally get nervous. But when Teri "pssts" for me at night while I'm playing Diablo, I often jump half out of my skin.
It's weird. Probably something to do with adrenaline and simulated combat, I guess.
Today in Salon I read the pithiest description yet of the modern Republican party. It came from Texas state senator Gonzales Barrientos: "Those people don't want to govern. They want to rule."
The whole end of that act is a problem for me, actually, because due to some mysterious glitch my system crashes whenever it tries to play the ending cinematic. As a result I have to play the whole ending in windowed mode, which is kind of like putting a bag over your head, cutting two dime-sized holes approximately where your eyes are, and taking a high-speed drive.
In other words, it sucks.
Anyway, I decided to try something a bit different and started up a barbarian. Or rather, re-started. I'd created him a while ago just to test out the class, but only leveled him up a couple of times before going back to the sorc.
Here's the thing that amazes me: so far, it's MUCH easier to be a barbarian than a sorc. As a sorceress I had an incredibly hard time with Duriel; basically it took about two solid hours of playing to kill him, along with about twenty deaths. If you were wondering, I basically just kept running away and casting Blaze behind me - very tedious.
My barbarian, on the other hand (Cronan the Barbarian - the "r" is not a typo) basically just waded in with a Shout and some Double-Swings and polished the big maggot off in about fifteen seconds. I took a couple of greater Healing potions, and one full Rejuvenation, but it was hardly necessary. Duriel was candy.
As a sorceress, I kept running into roadblocks; points where I just couldn't get through without dying over and over. I usually ended up stepping back, going to an earlier level and leveling up a few times; after that I'd wade into the battle with a full belt of full rejuve potions, and often as not it would still take five or six deaths before I managed to kill the boss in question.
No such problem with Cronan. It's just Shout, Leap Attack, and chopchopchop. Right now I'm wandering around in normal Hell, and although the music and graphics creep me out, I've really had no serious challenges. Even Izual didn't take more than a minute and some Heals.
I must admit that I have an amulet that gives me mana for each strike, which is extremely helpful. If it weren't for that I probably would have had to suck down a few mana or rejuve potions. Still, Izual was, well, candy.
Of course, a melee character would be expected to do better in combat than a ranged character like a sorceress, but I assumed that there would be counterbalancing weaknesses - probably a vulnerability to ranged enemies. So far, though, there's no sign of it.
Speaking of the scariness of Diablo (which I've talked about before in Chatter), I've noticed that I get much more nervous when I play Diablo at night. Mind you, I'm a big 39-year-old man! I'm not at all superstitious, and don't normally get nervous. But when Teri "pssts" for me at night while I'm playing Diablo, I often jump half out of my skin.
It's weird. Probably something to do with adrenaline and simulated combat, I guess.
Today in Salon I read the pithiest description yet of the modern Republican party. It came from Texas state senator Gonzales Barrientos: "Those people don't want to govern. They want to rule."