<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Well, once USEast came back online at 7:20ish i created my new char on the HC Ladder and joined a newly created game that had all the quests available. There was a good group of 6 of us or so and we melted through act 1 doing all the quests pretty easily and going to act 2 where we did the sewer quest and the cube quest. After that people starting leaving so i left, too, and was about lvl 16.
I joined some act 1 games (so i could have act 2 to myself) and lvl'ed up solo to 20 in the sewers and the surrounding desert letting my merc do most of the work :) After that i decided to go for Duriel in a private game by myself.
I created the game and quickly got the pieces for the staff. With only one guy in the game, me, the monsters were easily getting killed by my merc. Now since i had the staff bnet 'allows' me to take a tp to the arcane sanctuary (other wise it will not let you in an arcane tp, one of Blizz's ways to stop the act rushing). Knowing this, i left my game and joined one where some guy gave me the wp and i left and created another private solo game. I took the wp (so i got to skip all that palace BS) and fought my way to the summoner who also died quickly to my uber-merc, regardless i was scared shitless since his ice attacks were hitting me very hard when they hit. I took the portal to the canyon and entered the correct tomb.
We, me and good 'ol merc man, got lucky and found the place to put the staff rather fast once inside the tomb. I stuck it in and went to Duriel and oh my god. Even with only one guy in the game Duriel is one tough bitch to kill. I had to hastily retreat after popping a few rejuv potions and rethink my strategy in town. My merc was dead so i revived him and then cubed as many rejuv pots as i had chipped gems.
Let me pause and say that i am a spearazon right now with a good shield and decent javalin on my switch weapon. I dont do much damage with the jav right now because no good skills are available so i usually use the pretty good spear thing i found that has increaed damage and mana leech. For this battle, though, i needed my bone shield that had the +block % and +blocking speed so that it was 55%. Thus i decided to use the jav and shield, have a belt full of rejuv, and tank for my merc.
We went back down there and i made a portal real fast just in case i needed to run. Duriel focused on my merc first and killed him in two shots, so i ran back to town. This happened about 5 times, he kept going for the merc instead of me. FInally, on the 6th try he focused on me. Every hit brought my full red life orb to like 1/3 and i needed to pop a rejuv. Luckily with the shield block he didnt get hits in everytime. It took like 5 minutes and i used all my rejuv pots but for one before my merc finally killed him, it was so intense. I got to lvl 21 in the process.
Now at act 3 i saved and went to bed. A few things i have noticed... This game is way harder. I've seen people die in almost every game i was in. Lag will frustrate a ton of people, i was lucky i never lagged during Duriel. It seems that games with 8 ppl makes the monsters hard and the bosses rediculous while games with 1 person makes the monsters easy, still, and the bosses doable. Right now the only unique i have found is a nagel ring, the good drops still are hard to come by. Overall, though, i am loving it. I like the fact that Ladder has its own new economy and uber items are not running rampant yet.
My plan for the amazon is to make her a LigStrike (not LigFury) zon. I know it will probably suck but i want to see how far she can make it. LigStrike gets +8% per synergy while LigFury only gets +1% so it will defenitely deal out more damage eventually. That means, though, that i have to be a melee char. I am hoping to get a good imbue on a jav so i can use a shield and jav to help defend while i shoot off the LS's. Valk, decoys, and merc will help a lot, once in NM i'll get the act 2 holy freeze merc. I'm going to pump str and life so i can use the heavy armors to help defend, too. I havent seen a lot of 'tankazons' with LS so it should be interesting. I realize i wont cut it in hell difficulty so she'll probably have to stay in NM, but this game is all about fun isnt it and a melee zon is keeping my interest!</div>
I joined some act 1 games (so i could have act 2 to myself) and lvl'ed up solo to 20 in the sewers and the surrounding desert letting my merc do most of the work :) After that i decided to go for Duriel in a private game by myself.
I created the game and quickly got the pieces for the staff. With only one guy in the game, me, the monsters were easily getting killed by my merc. Now since i had the staff bnet 'allows' me to take a tp to the arcane sanctuary (other wise it will not let you in an arcane tp, one of Blizz's ways to stop the act rushing). Knowing this, i left my game and joined one where some guy gave me the wp and i left and created another private solo game. I took the wp (so i got to skip all that palace BS) and fought my way to the summoner who also died quickly to my uber-merc, regardless i was scared shitless since his ice attacks were hitting me very hard when they hit. I took the portal to the canyon and entered the correct tomb.
We, me and good 'ol merc man, got lucky and found the place to put the staff rather fast once inside the tomb. I stuck it in and went to Duriel and oh my god. Even with only one guy in the game Duriel is one tough bitch to kill. I had to hastily retreat after popping a few rejuv potions and rethink my strategy in town. My merc was dead so i revived him and then cubed as many rejuv pots as i had chipped gems.
Let me pause and say that i am a spearazon right now with a good shield and decent javalin on my switch weapon. I dont do much damage with the jav right now because no good skills are available so i usually use the pretty good spear thing i found that has increaed damage and mana leech. For this battle, though, i needed my bone shield that had the +block % and +blocking speed so that it was 55%. Thus i decided to use the jav and shield, have a belt full of rejuv, and tank for my merc.
We went back down there and i made a portal real fast just in case i needed to run. Duriel focused on my merc first and killed him in two shots, so i ran back to town. This happened about 5 times, he kept going for the merc instead of me. FInally, on the 6th try he focused on me. Every hit brought my full red life orb to like 1/3 and i needed to pop a rejuv. Luckily with the shield block he didnt get hits in everytime. It took like 5 minutes and i used all my rejuv pots but for one before my merc finally killed him, it was so intense. I got to lvl 21 in the process.
Now at act 3 i saved and went to bed. A few things i have noticed... This game is way harder. I've seen people die in almost every game i was in. Lag will frustrate a ton of people, i was lucky i never lagged during Duriel. It seems that games with 8 ppl makes the monsters hard and the bosses rediculous while games with 1 person makes the monsters easy, still, and the bosses doable. Right now the only unique i have found is a nagel ring, the good drops still are hard to come by. Overall, though, i am loving it. I like the fact that Ladder has its own new economy and uber items are not running rampant yet.
My plan for the amazon is to make her a LigStrike (not LigFury) zon. I know it will probably suck but i want to see how far she can make it. LigStrike gets +8% per synergy while LigFury only gets +1% so it will defenitely deal out more damage eventually. That means, though, that i have to be a melee char. I am hoping to get a good imbue on a jav so i can use a shield and jav to help defend while i shoot off the LS's. Valk, decoys, and merc will help a lot, once in NM i'll get the act 2 holy freeze merc. I'm going to pump str and life so i can use the heavy armors to help defend, too. I havent seen a lot of 'tankazons' with LS so it should be interesting. I realize i wont cut it in hell difficulty so she'll probably have to stay in NM, but this game is all about fun isnt it and a melee zon is keeping my interest!</div>
