Diablo General

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Vault Boy said:
The only trouble I'm having is figuring out where to go as the map doesn't give directions (so far I've been going south east from the Rogue's Camp as that's been where all my quests are, no clue if anything flares out from that direction).
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Each area is basically a randomly generated rectangular zone with a connection to later zones on one of the walls somewhere. Any caves/temples/dungeons/waypoints are spawned somewhere in the zone (with the exception of the first waypoint you find; that's always more or less in the same place - some caves/dungeons are quest related, others are entirely optional), but if you want to find the other zones quickly hug the walls. In singleplayer, the map is consistent for your playthrough (until you go to a higher difficulty by completing the game) but multiplayer will see a new map generated every session (thus why finding waypoints is an even better idea).

There's a few areas that are static and won't change with every playthrough; you'll figure out which ones they are quickly and generally for those the intended direction of travel is rather obvious.
 
Exceptionally Exceptional said:
Apparently Diablo Immortal just got banned in China because one of their marketing team used their official account to make an anti Xi Jinping post.

Might also lose Blizzard their ability to release new games there.
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Perfect, that game was practically tailor made for Chinese whales. Losing out on that market is going to fuck over that game and (further) humiliate Blizzard. Probably wouldn't have made as much money as Immortal theoretically could've, but that Diablo 3 expansion sure would've been the better choice to make in hindsight.
 
I tried playing Diablo Immortal, and the character mechanics aren't bad, but that's all it really has going for it. I really miss the old style talent trees of Diablo 2 where you could make different builds over time, as it doesn't seem like you can do much of anything to customize how your character plays currently, and so much of the game is just handholding that it got boring after I did the first dungeon. Maybe I just have rose tinted glasses but I remember as a Necromancer you could build heavy into skeletons, golems, or revived monsters for summoning in D2 and then you had other talent builds on top of that, but this game just feels like you get your two skeletons and autopilot the rest.

I'm also just tired of seeing Leoric, he wasn't even that interesting in D1 and in D2 he didn't show up at all, stop bringing him back. Really I just wanted to ditch Xul or whoever and join forces with the evil necro woman who wants ambition to win the day.
 
Vault Boy said:
Just started with Diablo 2 as a Necromancer (offline as I'm not sure how the online option fares in comparison), and it's been pretty smooth sailing so far. My skeletons are steamrolling just about everything in their path, but I'm certain the game will get hard at some point. The only trouble I'm having is figuring out where to go as the map doesn't give directions (so far I've been going south east from the Rogue's Camp as that's been where all my quests are, no clue if anything flares out from that direction).

Game controls well with a controller, although inventory management has been a little clunky (what's with the keys?).
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You'll be okay up till about Act 4, where your skeletons will start to be less effective than they used to be. The act bosses will also make pretty quick work of them as well. Beyond that, IIRC, they're not great.

It's been a decade since I've played though so I have no idea if they've been buffed and are now viable or not.
 
Coldgrip said:
You'll be okay up till about Act 4, where your skeletons will start to be less effective than they used to be. The act bosses will also make pretty quick work of them as well. Beyond that, IIRC, they're not great.

It's been a decade since I've played though so I have no idea if they've been buffed and are now viable or not.
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They’re definitely more viable now if you build properly. You can breeze through normal, do decent in nightmare and ok in hell. Summonmancers were never really my thing but you can still do fine as a solo build. You do also get the three free respecs from Akara on each difficulty if you fuck up

Barbarians are still worthless in hell difficulty though
 
Coldgrip said:
You'll be okay up till about Act 4, where your skeletons will start to be less effective than they used to be. The act bosses will also make pretty quick work of them as well. Beyond that, IIRC, they're not great.

It's been a decade since I've played though so I have no idea if they've been buffed and are now viable or not.
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You can get through normal running pure skeletons with a little trouble, but the later difficulties will start to make things interesting as your summons will no longer be able to 1v3 common mobs. Though, if you don't run 8 player mode it may be much more challenging as you really want those skill points from leveling ASAP.
 
Retink said:
I'm also just tired of seeing Leoric, he wasn't even that interesting in D1 and in D2 he didn't show up at all, stop bringing him back
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They wanted to bring skeleton fuckers onboard, judging by that art they comissioned in 2015.
...Then none of the models looked like this, so nobody cared.
 

Man lost all hope in diablo immortal, still batting for blizzard and believe D4 will be a good game.

I mean, I hate scummy monetization practices as much as the next guy, but at some point you have to admit some people deserve to get milked dry. Seriously, dude sound like he's on the verge of tears thanking his blizzard overlord for the opportunity to waste his time for free perfecting the next predatory product.
 
Namesarehardtocomeupwith said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f6qwS0qNxYM
Man lost all hope in diablo immortal, still batting for blizzard and believe D4 will be a good game.

I mean, I hate scummy monetization practices as much as the next guy, but at some point you have to admit some people deserve to get milked dry. Seriously, dude sound like he's on the verge of tears thanking his blizzard overlord for the opportunity to waste his time for free perfecting the next predatory product.
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I also remember hearing something (I don't remember if it was in this video, or something else), that some games have done this cycle when it comes to a hated release:

-Release the game in a state where it's either super Pay-2-Win, or is extremely buggy.
-Game company gets their money from sales and microtransactions, until the sales begin to slow down.
-Company then "apologizes", and makes changes to lessen the Pay-2-Win or buggy state. (I think it was the Lost Ark example)

The fact that some companies that do the same route, and don't even apologize for, or acknowledge, buggy or super Pay-2-Win game, is even more infuriating. EA comes to mind, with how Battlefield 2042, and The Sims 4 was handled.

-BF2042 launches in a very incomplete and very buggy state, and the game feels like an alpha release. The devs don't apologize at all, and say dumb things like "expecting a working game is a BRUTAL EXPECTATION" and "we will work to try to improve the game", in response to people feeling HURT, due to the game's release state. And while Exposure is a much better map, compared to the release ones, it does show how the game is running with just a skeleton crew, when it took 7 months to release one new map, one new Specialist, two new aircraft, and two new guns, even though DICE claims that they're "ALL IN" on BF2042.

-The Sims 4 launched in a similar state that BF2042 did, incomplete and buggy. However, the game didn't receive as much hate, and sales were very good, as expected for a Sims game, so the game is still updated, to the point of milking the franchise. The My Wedding Stories GP launch had numerous controversies, i.e. the refusal to release it in Russia, and then backtracking on that (that all occurred right before Russia's attacks on Ukraine began), and had an extremely buggy release where almost everything didn't work properly, and was a new low for the franchise. And the team responded in a way that gaslit the community, saying that Sims doing things that you don't expect (or doing the opposite of what you command them to), is "what makes The Sims SPECIAL".

Going back to Diablo:

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This is surely not going to make people happy, given that people are already getting tired of DI.
 
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Some more Diablo Immortal news:

The game has made $49 million in mobile sales in it's first month of release. Those numbers look disappointing for a mobile game, especially one that was expected to be a cash cow.

Blizzard posted Diablo Immortal's First Post-Launch Update notes, which is mostly bugfixes. People won't be happy about that either.

And Blizzard's CEO goes into damage control, regarding DI's relentless microtransaction pushes.

“The monetization comes in at the end game,” Ybarra continued. “The philosophy was always to lead with great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs. From that standpoint, I feel really good about it as an introduction to Diablo.”
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And I though EA's quotes of "pride and accomplishment," "brutal expectations", and "this is what makes The Sims special", were all terrible spin quotes, compared to this.
 
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Thiletonomics said:
The game has made $49 million in mobile sales in it's first month of release. Those numbers look disappointing for a mobile game, especially one that was expected to be a cash cow.
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Who? Who expected this to be a cash cow? The fact that it was not an abject failure and just considered a "disappointment" shows exactly what is wrong video games in 2022. The fact that they can make $49 million nickel and diming people is a travesty. I'm glad I don't have time for vidya anymore to be quite honest.
 
Summonancer is perfectly viable in Diablo 2, even through Hell, even naked (though obviously it's "better" to get gear that gives you +skills). It's my favorite class and I've made like 100+ Summonancer characters over the course of my life, many of them in Hardcore, some of which are still alive.

Just max Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery (in that order) and Corpse Explosion. Your CE will actually be doing the majority of the damage throughout. One important thing to note about CE is that it does 50% fire damage and 50% physical damage (of the CE'd monster's total health). You always want to Amplify Damage whatever you are trying to kill with CE, as the physical damage does get boosted. This makes killing entire screens of enemies a cakewalk with a maxed CE and a corpse or two.
Make sure to get at least 1 point in Summon Resist, as they'll need it. It's your choice whether you want to invest another couple points here and let +skills take care of the rest, but never max it, the diminishing returns are punishing.

Get one of each Curse, specifically Amplify Damage, which you will be using 99.99>% of the time, and Decrepify, which you will be using on bosses. Lifetap (even briefly) is useful for doing exactly what it says on the tin (i.e. when your skeletons/merc take damage and you need to top them up).
The other curses are largely irrelevant if you're playing solo. The only other one that's actually fairly good (especially in Hardcore, where you should max it) is Dim Vision, which, when maxed, will cover an area larger than your screen and WILL save your life if you spam it while running around. There are ranged enemies that can pierce through your skeleton wall, and this will fuck you up if you don't see them (they can see and shoot you from further away than you can). If not in Hardcore mode, you can safely ignore it.

Beyond this, you can pretty much choose whatever else you like. If you like having even more summons, then maxing Revive is actually useful now (in Resurrected), because they fixed the annoying habit of these minions dying when they got too far away from you, which they inevitably did in the original game. Now they'll teleport around, much like your skeletons. Urdars/Maulers etc. (the giant dudes with the stun attack) are one of the best minions for fighting bosses as they not only have the ability to stunlock, but also have a built-in Crushing Blow (if memory serves). Again, your choice if you want to max it or let +skills take care of it.

Another option is to max Clay Golem and Golem Mastery, but this is mainly for fighting hard-to-kill bosses like Baal, since the slow from the Clay Golem stacks with the slow from Decrepify, which makes killing Baal (and others) easy as pie. Any boss afflicted in this way will barely be able to attack, let alone move.

You'll also want to pick up the Might Aura mercenary, first available in Nightmare Act 2. He does boost the damage of your summoned minions considerably.
 
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