Enderbantoo's D2 Adventure: Episode Paladin

Ok so, thanks to the inspiration from Ghin (and the tons of laughs from his amazing D2 blog! http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=260390) and the love of d2 along with the thousands of hours playing this game, i have decided to start a d2 adventure. Also i would like some input and interaction with my followers (also i may stream a bit so you can enjoy the fun if that is something you guys are interested in) so i will have a few polls while i get everything figured out.
(also i am in china till the 6th, so i cant start until then)


It will be hardcore (if its something insane and i die really quick, you can always lol on stream and i can try again or a different build)

Polls:

Character!

+ Show Spoiler +

Want to watch stream?

+ Show Spoiler +
Mode:

+ Show Spoiler +
Bnet or single:

+ Show Spoiler +
*clarification: Bnet = i make games, if people join then they join. I will not accept freebies but can initiate/make trades (fair trades of course). I will not join any public game, or accept a rush/help of any kind (high level help)

Will probably add some more later, and suggestions always welcome below.

Also about my D2 experience. I have played pretty much every normal build imaginable and have had around 4 accounts + of fully built characters (minus skill lifers most of the time). Usually always make a smiter on resets (except last 2) and had a max of 25k fg at jsp, and usually hung out at dcloneirc.

*edit* added more polls

So because paladins don't start with a ranged weapon, i decided that to use any melee weapon would be cheating. My plans were to first obtain a ranged weapon as fast as possible, and then to try and get to level 6 so that i dont hit for 1-4 anymore. (Holy fire imba)


Aha!, the shrine that actually doesn't do anything, but makes you feel good


Well, i've got a bow....



So it Begins.

Ok, so now equipped with that sexy 1-4 damage, i really need to either get a crossbow, get level 6, or get a nice gemmed bow because honestly, i felt stronger punching. Anyways, on to Blood Raven, because i've decided that a ranged merc will be best for a long time considering she will be getting my sexy leftovers.


My life for ire?

Quick Note: these jewels will be my saving grace until i get a little higher level, because i can put that in some random armor and actually hit much, much harder.

So, while i was streaming OpticalShot asked me a pretty good question:


Also, sup flavie


My God!

this took me forever (i hadn't found a home from my jewel), but thanks to some epic kiting skills by me, and free damage from flavie, i finally killed them

Deciding that i never want to do that ever again (it literally took like 6 minutes), i went and visted charsi to find that she had some NICE things for me


That crossbow is seeeexy, also a 1os armor for my jewel.


Yeah, Raven's Burial Ground.


14-40, also Annor.

Ok, so, surprisingly i hit harder than nearly any other character i've played. I literally 1 shot any mob except uniques. It is kind of silly, but i'm going through this with a speed that is only matched by the best early game characters, eg: charged bolt, etc... We'll see if this speed keeps up, but i'm starting to really like this character. Also, Annor really hits quite hard and will slow as well (ice archer), I really think we are developing a great relationship, we'll have to see where this goes.

So i'm really turning into a glass cannon now, and to try to remedy this i've been trying to get resists and some defense, but its pretty hard. I'm really not finding any decent resist equipment, also trying to find some decent rings/amulet.


Who turned out the lights?


Cannon feels stronker now!


Killed too quickly to take a picture.

Got the scroll and am going to go back to save that nab got captured. You know, the one with infinite identify scrolls, yeah. I really feel like this is one of the strongest charactes i've ever played, although i know that won't last, but its a good feeling.


Let's do this... Leeeeerooooy....


5 hits, is all it took


Stronger castle, I CHALLENGE THEE

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ANNOR!

Glass cannon, for real.against melee mobs i'm totally fine, but against ranged enchant mobs, i get WRECKED. It's really dangerous. This particular mob was cold enchanted split shot. And this was my hp after 1 hit, 1 hit of 3. Annor never stood a chance, oh well. The first of many deaths. Annor, your pain is my victory, i thank thee.


Back in action, Back for blood!


like i'm siege expanding down a ramp


Hurts 'aint it.


Ral Tal, not bad.


Gems are actually overpowered.

I am really starting to like this gemmed bow + holy fire. I hit really hard , and slow to boot. I will probably run a bow like this for quite some time.


The Black Gate

So far, this has been a walk in the park, with only ranged enchant mobs giving me any sort of hassle. I really feel like i will run right through andy and all the way up to duriel. But duriel, im REALLY worried about him. I honestly have no idea how i'm going to handle him. It's gonna be rough.

So i am entering the evil citadel of Andariel, and honestly Act 1 is a piece of cake. A piece of delicious cheescake even. I am pretty sure i can do it without any skills, and it really feels good doing act 1 lol. Act 2 i suppose will be alright with a few hiccups, but then again.... Duriel. I am really not looking forward to him. His slow will just make it ridiculously hard, but we will see when we get there.


One of the 3 waypoints that is impossible to miss.
(props if you know which 3 im talking about (act 1))


Throw your pots in the air like.....


Oh man, Gore Bang Banged by JANGBANG

Ok, so lets talk about some history of this character. Honestly, lets just say i was inspired. I was inspired in the ro8 OSL by a prince. It feels like a fairy tail, but this player (Jangbi). It really felt like he didnt have anything left in him, and then he straight JANGBANG's flash 2 games in a row. He plays again tonight, and i hope he can take it to the finals.


Ah too bad he's so slow he cant even move

Now charsi, she has such a cute voice. But man, she is a man. Kritty would approve, but she is cool for giving us a rare of our choosing. I think i shall save these until i get stuck (which might be sooner than i think... ugh Duriel) . But i hope not to use them until hell on some boots or armor or gloves (maybe i might use them in act 4 or 5 if i need to).


Wrong on so many levels

"Cold Enchanted." Something not really talked about in the D2 community, but one of the most important things in playing this game, is knowing what mods the enemies you are facing have.
Be it Fire enchant, where if you let them die near you, you WILL regret it. Cold enchant where getting hit once will REALLY hurt. Cursed where you really want not to get near them, or even extra strong, where you want to kite at all costs.

Personally i think for this character, my personal demon is cold enchanted, extra fast and ranged.
If i am not careful, this demon could hunt me down till i bleed and theres nothing left.


Anya, Flavi, Amplisa.

Hrm now that one is tough...


Look at that draw

Ok, so i have personally decided to stay with annor until at least Act 2 NM (holy freeze might just be too good.) she really draws a bit on what this character lacks. She does about as much dmg as me and really helps the speed of killing (i only have single target attacks.) the only problem i foresee is her not being able to take 2 hits from a boss ><.


Bone Ash... makes no sense

Extra strong, cold enchant. Luckily he is poison (poison dmg is rarely deadly and you can almost always tp home before it kills you) and also the poison projectily is realllly easy to dodge at farther ranges.


The red sun rises...


Andariel... that fire probably hurts.

So i straight left clicked andy and didnt let go till she burnt through. It only took like 3 pots and 1 rejuv, although annor died from the poison/fire afterwards. I am in no way able to pull this tactic out on any other boss.


So useless, i hope i don't get another unique/set weapon that isnt a bow.

Gear update:
Weapon: Gemmed Bow (sapphire for cold, topaz for damage, and whatever else i can find, in this case emerald)
Armor: random 10% fire resist rare (need to replace)
Helm: +1 light radius (replace!)
Gloves: Half freeze, 14% lightning
Boots: 19% poison, 25% less poison duration (eh, looking for new ones)
Amulet: Useless
Rings: 8MF, some ar (replace) and Useless

Act 2, not worried about most things, because i am not melee. the lightning enchanted don't really bother me, and as far as projectiles, not a lot of mobs in act 2 really have an especially annoying projectile, and the only real problem will be maybe summoner or Duriel. Summoner is abnormally strong and i don't have a lot of resists, but 3 arrows should be all it takes. I want to find Annor some nice lifesteal if possible, but she cant take a hit from someone that matters so i don't really know if it will help. More importantly i need to find some new resist gear because, while i can deal the damage. I certainly can't take it.


Feelin' like a Templar


Flawless Sapphire, Act 2 Normal


The ring of death


Stony Tomb, not often traveled.

Act 2, A pretty fun act overall, mostly because each dungeon is different enough, and there is not a lot of time between them. That being said, no one ever goes into the stony tomb, and even halls of the dead isn't often traveled by those with friends, or those not bored.


My faith of fire


never even reached me


How does the cube work.... ever think about it?


Flawless Sapphire, sup


How can i possibly fit in that


Some kind of.... brain bug


gross

Duriel, oh duriel.... something every signle hardcore character needs to worry about. Every ... signle.... character. i know i've mentioned him about a million times, but honestly this guy will end this character. Although i dont know if NM Duriel will be any easier to be honest. I'll try to record a video off my stream of me fighting Duriel. Most of the time when i solo, i kill duriel by dropping all my gold, buying a ton of pots and a bunch of town portal scrolls, and throwing myself at him about 15 times till he dies.

The goal in this chapter is to either find a rune, or a set/unique item. I know its all up to chance, but there are a bunch of tombs to farm in if i can't find one. That being said, i dont expect the item to be necessarily useful, but, nearly any armor will be useful for me or my merc.


diso twich ulti

So i am pretty much running through lost city and other places looking for dungeons, which is a real,y bad habit, from normal rushed play. I usually run through things as fast as possible, which is an instinct that i really need to surpress if i will ever make it to Baal, let alone hell.


insert black joke here


YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME

Oh... My... God, Another freaking berserker double axe. SO USELESS (even for people that CAN use it). Well my quest is over at least, +10 exp, but really....? Come on. The RNG god's laughin all day at me.


WHO PUT THESE MOTHERF******** SNAKES....

I don't expect much trouble from these, mainly because i do a decent damage from far away. And honestly, as long as your careful not to get surrounded, i find that snakes aren't that bad.


Floating Amulet Technology


It's bigger on the inside...

Yeah, on to Arcane Sanctuary! (Well after i run through the Harem and Palace sanctuary). Oh man, My play style is definitely not one that goes well with hardcore harem/palace because i just run through them towards the next levels because its a static (or nearly static) map. But, i dont think that will be a problem for normal anyhow.


I'm going WHERE?!


What horrors drove these men down here...

Weirdly enough, i didn't find the super unique down here. I don't know exactly why, but I've never not run into him (that i can remember of course).



I never, EVER go the right way first. I started going up, but then OP suggested on stream to go south first, then counterclockwise (his strategy for summoner runs). well i took his advice,failure of course he was the way i was going. but it was quite easy even though it took a while. Any sort of ranged characters will never have a problem because the ramps are so narrow, and they are broken up so you can feel like a siege tank. Real op on ridges.


Even with the wraith body guards....

Summoner was a pain, let me just say. I can not take 2 hits from him without exploding because i have like 20 resists... yeah i need to fix this badly. However i ended up being able to kill him by running around him, while my merc shot him like twice. Real glass cannon.


Canyon of which magi?

This is the first on the right of the corner (sun). I know this because i'm an alpha nerd who knows nearly everything about this game. I was thinking about farming the rest of the tombs for experience and items, but i decided against it as i don't think it will be that helpful for this character.


DEM JEWELS (Merc hawts)

My jewel luck is not reflected by any other luck on this character.


Partners4lyfe

Oh Annor, how i cherish thee... She really is the Bonnie to my Clyde.


Getting ready to do the dirty


I CAN DO THIS!

Ok, so the plan is to feed my 12 rejuvenation pots to Annor, and hopefully she will live long enough for me to blast that fiendish beetle back to the underworlds. If i ever let him get near me though. The fight will last too long for me to kill him, and i will end up just dying. I feel pretty confident in my ability to dish the single target damage tho, but we shall see.


RUN AWAYYY!!!

So, that didn't work at all... Annor was killed in 1 hit and left me to tank the beetle, which i couldnt do whatsoever. Hrm, i need to rethink my strategy... Yeah, i think its time to go off a variation with which i normally do Normal Duriel with all my other characters (That being just buy 20 tp scrolls and suicide into him until he breathes no more). The variation shall be something i love to call, Annor: The White Man Strategy. What i'm going to do, is Resurrect Annor, and then put a tp down, run away while annor dies, shoot Duriel around 5 times, then run like a little girl. Rinse and Repeat till dead.


White man strategy, Buy your way out of trouble


Ok, just keep on trying!


Killed WAY OFF Screen.


Vasilli Zaitsev pose

Man, that last shot was so sick. I killed him from ridiculously far away, and you can barely even see the death animation that takes up a whole screen.

14 Annor's were killed in this production


Dat Fear Bat

Pretty cool item, for a caster of sorts.


Thats right, I'm Captain Black Sparrow!


[sarcasm]FUN TIME![/sarcasm]

My friend Irene, Storm Sludge Irene.

All jokes aside, these guys HURT. Inferno is so ridiculous. Also an inferno that SLOWS. If you get hit by even the side of it, its all over. I think a great part about diablo 2, is how ridiculously strong monsters can be, its not all easy, but at the same time, its not all silly hard. It's really something about this game that i love.

So act III, no one really likes. I think that's partly because in the back of your mind you know you can do it in about 5 minutes with two waypoints, Also, its annoyingly non-linear and confusing. The jungle is quite confusing and it's really easy to get lost as well. That aside, It all starts in the spider cavern, and then on to the wretched flayer jungle.

Indiana Jones 12: The Little Midgets who Could.

As can be seen in this picture, i went the wrong way at first and went into the flayer jungle until i realized that the spider cavern was back