How do you like to grind?

Grinding for levels, grinding for runes, grinding for keys, grinding for torches, grinding for bases. I think it's fair to say that a large part of the D2 experience revolves around the grind, so how do you like to do it? Do you grind in short bursts whenever you have time, 10 runes here, 15 runs there? Or do you sit and grind for 5 hours straight? Do you

Concentrate fully on the game or do you listen to music, maybe dial into a work call?

I usually don't get much time so it tends to be short bursts for me, in which case I just

Concentrate on the game, but if I get a few hours for a proper session then I have two setups: firstly with the Switch, and something mindless on the TV, usually something I've seen before but still enjoy. Secondly, on the PS4 with some music; yesterday I had film soundtracks on,

Chaos Sanctuary makes a ton of sense to Duel of the Fates but less so to Forrest Gump.

Even so, I can't usually manage more than 3 hours in one go, I haven't got the patience for any more!

What about you?

I play diablo 2 every day after work. so around 2 or 3 hours.
sometimes i go for keys, sometimes i do pit runs. But it can also happen that i do public

Baal runs to level up a char a bit. So i always do something different. when there are many dclone walks, than i will do some homework between the walks. So diablo will never get boring to me. and of course, we all have to check diablo2.io for our trades

Good topic! I'm currently leveling as far as possible before the end of ladder, so you can imagine what that entails. Lots of time spent in public

Baal runs and occasional solo Diablo runs within those

Baal runs about a third of the time while the others wait for the throne portal or pick up the first few minion waves.

I don't like idling and leeching in the throne room unless I picked up an experience shrine along the way. Even then, I'll probably fire javelins off-screen toward the throne steps.

Sometimes, I'll work in 5-10 straight Diablo runs in my solo private games just for the heck of it.

I think what you brought up about playing habits is the most interesting part of this. For that, I only play about 3-5 evenings out of the week for a few hours each session.

When I play, I have to listen to my own music playlist or, on rare occasion, a stream of something, like HeidiPlaysDiablo or DuaneBS on days when they have multiple DClone walks planned.

I can't stand listening to the game's soundtrack for hours on end. I couldn't stand listening to it so much in LoD many years ago either. When I first got D2R, I let the game soundtrack play for about a week for nostalgia before I shut it off. I actually think it's a great atmospheric soundtrack, but it's just not pleasant for me to listen on repeat.

I'd rather play music from TheFatRat or soundtracks from Yuzo Koshiro or Tee Lopes on repeat instead. I've even accidentally left HuskyStarcraft and Kurt Hugo Schneider's Banelings parody of Justin Bieber's Baby play on repeat in the background after failed video recordings of my DClone speedkills and not thought much of it. Just anything but this game's own music.

Grindcore was the most extreme music,Napalm Death,Terrorizer,early Carcass and 90's Brutal Truth That's how I grind. (Skid Row's "Slave to the Grind" is out of topic)

Manowar wrote: 2 years ago

Grindcore was the most extreme music,Napalm Death,Terrorizer,early Carcass and 90's Brutal Truth That's how I grind. (Skid Row's "Slave to the Grind" is out of topic)

I never went that far, a bit of thrash always works a treat though!

Snakecharmed wrote: 2 years ago

Just anything but this game's own music.

Interesting, I find it fairly unobtrusive. But I still prefer my own sounds, mixed with the Death cries of slayed demons, of course.

Janet the Java wrote: 2 years ago

Interesting, I find it fairly unobtrusive. But I still prefer my own sounds, mixed with the Death cries of slayed demons, of course.

The best way for me to describe it is that it never fits my mood. Like I said, the music is great, but generally very slow-paced and/or foreboding rather than energetic. It's not something I would seek to listen to on my own.

What Matt Uelmen did for the soundtrack of Diablo II was capture the game's mood perfectly when you're traversing through all of its different environments. However, I feel like that doesn't match well with the actual task, especially since we're all beyond the game's story and have been for years. For the repetitive task or series of tasks of grinding that we're so familiar with, the environmental ambience of the soundtrack adds nothing to the experience for me, so I prefer my own playlists.

Snakecharmed wrote: 2 years ago

I've even accidentally left HuskyStarcraft and Kurt Hugo Schneider's Banelings parody of Justin Bieber's Baby play on repeat in the background after failed video recordings of my DClone speedkills and not thought much of it.

Hey guys, H-to the -usky Husky here with another shoutcast for you...

I used to watch that guy commentating SC2 years ago, kind of awesome to see him mentioned here of all places! I also remember the baneling video lol.

This is grind, the rest is just playing videogames

Back in 2005ish I would grind from 9:30pm to 4am every day, get to bed by 5, to high school around 2 or 3 to meet up with friends, go to work and think about diablo, get home from work at 9:30 and repeat. Then on the weekends it was from 2pm solid until 4am again. I often would voice chat with my best friend, who played about half as much as me over MSN messenger chat. I was hard addicted to D2. Back then it was sound off and blast all the music I had.

I just did boss runs with my sorc. On the weekends when there were more players I'd do public

Baal runs to level. Basically I was addicted to the gamble. I had umpteen number of HRs and was working my way to an Infinity. Never got one.

Nowadays I play for an hour after work, and maybe 4 hours on the weekends. Now I grind CS and WSK for HRs with my zon.

To be honest, I'm on here more than I play. I love the game, but I fall in and out of it now.

This is the kvlt grind.

I'd like to play a new char, level him/her, farm with where that char is suitable. Then when I get bored a little, level a new one. Between these sessions, I'd like to try some niche builds like summon/poison Necro or triple hybrid Pala. And of course, trade is another undeniable part of it.

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

I'd like to play a new char, level him/her, farm with where that char is suitable. Then when I get bored a little, level a new one. Between these sessions, I'd like to try some niche builds like summon/poison Necro or triple hybrid Pala. And of course, trade is another undeniable part of it.

I love to start new chars as well, so many possibilities. My inspiration for a new build usually comes from finding an item when farming with one of my others though.

Lacerator? Time for a throw barb!

Arioc's Needle? Let's try a Fendazon.

Got to farm sometimes but it really depends on my mood, occasionally I'm totally in the zone and enjoy the rinse and repeat nature, other times if it feels like a bit of a slog.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

Hey guys, H-to the -usky Husky here with another shoutcast for you...

I used to watch that guy commentating SC2 years ago, kind of awesome to see him mentioned here of all places! I also remember the baneling video lol.

I never played SC2 and didn't follow the scene, but I understood the game fairly well from playing the other RTS franchise, C&C. I did watch some of his old casts after I first saw the Banelings video though. It's a shame that he deleted his content when he moved on from the game. He explained why he did it in a Q&A on his new channel, but I would have kept the old channel around for the residual monetization.

I tied my personal best speedkill time while I was playing the song in real-time today. I originally grabbed the audio from Banelings 11 years ago when his channel was still up and put it in my music playlist. The most viewed re-upload of it on YouTube has a couple of audio glitches, so I'm glad I sourced the audio from the original, only-once-compressed video upload.



Sometimes, recording a good speedkill run for a new personal best feels like its own grind. Still not as bad as trying to get a 19+/19+/10

Annihilus though.

I never do this but yesterday I was in the mood for something quick and repetitive so I whacked on some 90s rave classics and hit up the Council for a couple of hours. Nothing to show for it but I enjoyed the dance!