Matriarch Teebling

So I finally beat the game on hell difficulty Wanted to post about my experience here briefly as I've seen people do before.
My playthrough was pretty typical - early game I went for a

Fireball Sorceress with Leaf Stealth and Lore equipped.

Fireball was disgustingly fun and efficient up to about level 50 for me, which is when the immunes started appearing a lot.


Bricktop describing the effects of

Fireball in Normal and Nightmare modes ^

At this point my progress slowed to a stop. Me and the homeboy Mizan kept on dying over and over again, struggling to

Teleport away from packs of fire immunes in Nightmare Act IV.

I was level 50 but my gear hadn't changed much - still with Leaf and the starter runewords. Tragic tbh. Managed to shop some maxroll MF

Boots (35%) from

Fara, and some 27% MF gloves from

Elzix. Other stuff was just MF rings/ammies, nothing good dropped at all for me at the start.
Things were looking pretty bleak for

Fireball, a skill I'd really grown to enjoy using, and for my motivation to play tbh. Since I was still 20 levels away from being able to use

Flame Rift (70), I knew I'd have to do something else.

I respecced to try the classic Blizzard/

Meteor build with just a few points in synergising skills like

Glacial Spike,

Cold Mastery,

Fireball,

Fire Mastery. Even with the new push-hotkeys for spells, I found it hard to time

Meteor attacks... so I used my second respec and modified the build to max

Fireball damage, whilst still being able to use

Meteor.

This was the perfect balance for me as I got used to using mainly Blizzard and

Fireball (with

Meteor for big slow crowds/when I knew I could land a shot easily) and it felt a lot more fluid and fun to kill again. I beat Nightmare

Baal and entered Hell difficulty for the first time since LoD v1.14.
Then... I remembered that I built a trading site for diablo 2 so I started using it to get access to some free listings, and managed to exchange my collection of

Perfect Gems for various low level but useful items, including a

Duriel's Shell and Insight for my mercenary, as well as a

Skin of the Vipermagi and two 29% MF

Nagelring. I also spent a while trying to roll a nice Spirit

Crystal Sword by using

Recipe: Remove All Items from Sockets - highest FCR I got was 31.

One day everything changed in a second. On my very first run of Hell

Tower Cellar Level 5 either

The Countess or one of her minions dropped a

Ber rune which was totally unexpected (and very welcome! ) I exchanged it for 15

Ist soon after - I know they are worth a bit more than this - I just needed the Ists for liquidity asap.
With some of the Ists I managed to buy up a number of really good items.

The Oculus, 4/5 Tal Rasha's Wrappings, and

Chance Guards were mine. I also bought

Gheed's Fortune 31 MF, a bunch of MF charms, and some kind soul gave me an

Annihilus. I was level 70 at this point and already feeling like a fucking Beast.
Last problem I had to hurdle was the homeboy dying all the time again, over and over and over again, to the point of gold depletion. I had to do something about him and quick, if I was going to continue. This was Act 3-4 Hell sort of time. I met @Queegon for an amulet trade I think and he gave me a free Fortitude for my guy when I started moaning about Mizan dying. Thank you Queegon.

With Mizan back in the game, wading into hordes of demons without a scratch on him, I did eventually become unstoppable and made it all the way to

Baal, beating the game at level 80. I could have switched to a cold sunder build earlier at 70 in hindsight, but glad I stuck with the cold/fire thing as it felt more 'D2 Classic' for me personally.
My final loadout was:

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest

Tal Rasha's Adjudication

Tal Rasha's Guardianship

Tal Rasha's Fine-Spun Cloth

The Oculus + Rhyme in

Gothic Shield

Gull +

Milabrega's Orb (on swap)

Chance Guards

Light Plated Boots of Luck
2x

Nagelring

Annihilus

Gheed's Fortune

Total possible MF with merc last hitting: 580 (!!)

Mizad:

Griswold's Valor with 2

Perfect Topaz
Insight

Partizan (wow so much mana, loved it)
Fortitude in

Great Hauberk

Skills (base points only) at level 80:

Blizzard 20

Glacial Spike 15

Cold Mastery 9

Fireball 20

Meteor 11

Fire Mastery 4
The rest were just 1 pointers like

Teleport or prerequisites.

So yeah, that was my journey. Nothing special and entirely ordinary but enjoyed it immensely all the same. Now the question is what's next? Shall I try and farm for a

Griffon's Eye, Lightning Sunder, Infinity etc. and go for full Lightning power onwards to 95?

I guess some people will see this post and think 'lol noob with noob gear', which is true lol, it's just that I hadn't really played the game since starting the site so this felt like an achievement for me. Also, think we need a real-time chat feature for trading on the site (wow the in-game chat is dreadful), and a Purchase History section/line on graph... and a shorcut button to see watched listings on one's own stash. Interesting what you find when you take your own medicine!

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

Congratulations, and a great story. We've al been there and when things finally break in your favor it feels pretty darn good.

Thanks dude, and thanks for donating the Annni! Legend