Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2,alt.games.diablo (More info?)
The last thread about Ironman (in agd) reminded me that I had started an
Ironman project a few months ago. She was born after I had read about a
German Ironman team which made it to Guardian. Their basic rule it that
going back to town is only allowed for proceeding to the next act, which
implies a lot of restrictions similar to 'classic' Ironman play. I was
curious how far one can get following their rules in solo play.
The decision which char to play was an easy one: it had to be a Dragon
Talon Assassin. Why? Well, see below ...
A good thing of solo Ironman is that you don't need much preparation. No
muling over of starting gear, no thinking about 'should I really put
that Ravenclaw in stash in order to shoot enchanted arrows once lvl 15
is reached'. You only have to find a decent name for your char. I named
her Irongirl-II (one of my other Assassins is called Irongirl, she is a
Tiger Strike/Dragon Tail build I had started as an Ironman project too.
She couldn't beat normal Duriel, I converted her to a fully twinked char
and had a lot of fun with her afterwards).
So let's leave the camp and only come back after Andariel is dead. The
early stages of Act 1 normal are not much different from solo untwinked
play. Except that you don't pick up any gold because you don't have a
use for it. And TP scrolls are left on the ground too. Actually I
decided to hold a single TP scroll in the inventory though. When playing
solo, you don't have party members that guard you char in case of an
urgent interruption like doorbell, phone call, whatever. I allowed
myself to TP to safety in those situations. Of course, any interaction
with NPCs or stash access or even to go back via waypoint was still
forbidden.
Things worth to mention early on: I had some luck with item drops. First
was the belt from the Death's Disguise set. Although it has just two
rows, the cannot be frozen might be usefull at some point. Because it
has only 12 durability I directly moved it into the inventory. Second
nice drop: a Felloak. 60% lightning and 20% fire resists, yeah!
After having cleared the Den of Evil, I realized the first implication
to the 'don't go to town' rule: I was not allowed to get the quest
reward. Methinks this is a bit stupid. But I had decided to play after
this rule, I had to live with it.
Neither the next quest could be completed. No merc on my side after
having killed Bloodraven
. Not to speak of Cain's rescue, you have to
talk to Ashara to be able to activate the Cairnstones. At that point I
realized that no less than 5 quests in Act 1 will remain unfinished ...
Bad luck in Jail and Catacombs: Not a single Tome of ID scrolls dropped
for me. I had expected to gather at least one. Maybe I will allow myself
to buy one later one. For now, their is no need, as all ID scrolls are
consumed immediately anyway.
For compensation, I found some a pair of chain boots with self repair
(woot! 6-12 kick damage!) and the third gem shrine already. Which means:
I was the proud owner of a flawless skull at this early stage of the
game! With the next gem shrine, I will have mana and life leech!
Why putting a PSkull in a weapon that will break anyway you might ask
(Ironman play does not allow repairs). The not so well known answer: the
left hand claw in dual claw mode doesn't lose any durability. The plan
is to have a claw with self repair in the right hand and a claw socketed
with PSkulls in the left hand. Weapon damage doesn't matter (DT gets the
damage from the boots) so this plan can come true easily.
Without major incidents, Irongirl-II made her way to Andariel. Even the
end fight was easier than expected (only 2 healing potions consumed).
More trouble in Act 2. Mainly due to the hordes of non leechable
skeletons. I had to use Cobra Strike all the time. Which of course only
makes sense if their are leechable critters among the skellies. If not,
you can only drink mana potions or fall back to normal attack. Which
isn't very effective with Katars. Another problems were the Beetles. I
had to switch to the Felloak/2 chipped diamond shield setup several
times before running out of healing potions.
Another gem shrine resulted in my first PSkull (I'm always a bit scared
when I drop all the gems on the ground in order to get the right one
from the shrine, I might lose all in case of a game crash). Without much
thinking, I placed it into the 2 socket Wrist Blade I had collected in
Act 1. It would have been a better idea to try to cube a claw with the 3
chippy recipe hoping for 2 sockets and good extra mods. I should have
started that right from the beginning, due to the limited space
(remember, no Stash access) I had left quite a few chipped gems on the
ground early on ...
The 4% mana leech amulett found in the Claw Viper temple speeded things
up quite a bit (7% ml in total now). I could use Dragon Talon nearly all
the time. Not enough leech to keep Cloak of Shadows active though. But
that's what the Shadow Warrior is for. Just don't forget to assign CoS
to the right click even if you don't use it yourself.
After a scary fight with Fangskin (thanks to Felloak with max lightning
resists), the Palace and especially the Arcaine Sanctuary went by
smoothly. Clearing all the false Tombs was a bit tedious (BTW I played
with full clear visiting each and every area leaving nothing alive). The
Shadow Warrior tends to fight in the doorway which is a bit dangerous
here. But without the Warrior, it's not much easier either. Retreats and
sometimes even recasting the Warrior has to do it.
Anyway, at least I ended up with level 24 before entering Duriel's
chamber. That was the point where all my previous solo Ironman projects
had failed (except once when I played a Skellimancer), mainly because of
huge attack rating problems. But the higher level this time (I had not
played with full clear before) and the fact that Dragon Talon gives
nearly 300% AR bonus at slvl 12 required only 2 normal rejuvs to send
Duriel into oblivion.
Stay tuned ...
---
Hannes
The last thread about Ironman (in agd) reminded me that I had started an
Ironman project a few months ago. She was born after I had read about a
German Ironman team which made it to Guardian. Their basic rule it that
going back to town is only allowed for proceeding to the next act, which
implies a lot of restrictions similar to 'classic' Ironman play. I was
curious how far one can get following their rules in solo play.
The decision which char to play was an easy one: it had to be a Dragon
Talon Assassin. Why? Well, see below ...
A good thing of solo Ironman is that you don't need much preparation. No
muling over of starting gear, no thinking about 'should I really put
that Ravenclaw in stash in order to shoot enchanted arrows once lvl 15
is reached'. You only have to find a decent name for your char. I named
her Irongirl-II (one of my other Assassins is called Irongirl, she is a
Tiger Strike/Dragon Tail build I had started as an Ironman project too.
She couldn't beat normal Duriel, I converted her to a fully twinked char
and had a lot of fun with her afterwards).
So let's leave the camp and only come back after Andariel is dead. The
early stages of Act 1 normal are not much different from solo untwinked
play. Except that you don't pick up any gold because you don't have a
use for it. And TP scrolls are left on the ground too. Actually I
decided to hold a single TP scroll in the inventory though. When playing
solo, you don't have party members that guard you char in case of an
urgent interruption like doorbell, phone call, whatever. I allowed
myself to TP to safety in those situations. Of course, any interaction
with NPCs or stash access or even to go back via waypoint was still
forbidden.
Things worth to mention early on: I had some luck with item drops. First
was the belt from the Death's Disguise set. Although it has just two
rows, the cannot be frozen might be usefull at some point. Because it
has only 12 durability I directly moved it into the inventory. Second
nice drop: a Felloak. 60% lightning and 20% fire resists, yeah!
After having cleared the Den of Evil, I realized the first implication
to the 'don't go to town' rule: I was not allowed to get the quest
reward. Methinks this is a bit stupid. But I had decided to play after
this rule, I had to live with it.
Neither the next quest could be completed. No merc on my side after
having killed Bloodraven
. Not to speak of Cain's rescue, you have to talk to Ashara to be able to activate the Cairnstones. At that point I
realized that no less than 5 quests in Act 1 will remain unfinished ...
Bad luck in Jail and Catacombs: Not a single Tome of ID scrolls dropped
for me. I had expected to gather at least one. Maybe I will allow myself
to buy one later one. For now, their is no need, as all ID scrolls are
consumed immediately anyway.
For compensation, I found some a pair of chain boots with self repair
(woot! 6-12 kick damage!) and the third gem shrine already. Which means:
I was the proud owner of a flawless skull at this early stage of the
game! With the next gem shrine, I will have mana and life leech!
Why putting a PSkull in a weapon that will break anyway you might ask
(Ironman play does not allow repairs). The not so well known answer: the
left hand claw in dual claw mode doesn't lose any durability. The plan
is to have a claw with self repair in the right hand and a claw socketed
with PSkulls in the left hand. Weapon damage doesn't matter (DT gets the
damage from the boots) so this plan can come true easily.
Without major incidents, Irongirl-II made her way to Andariel. Even the
end fight was easier than expected (only 2 healing potions consumed).
More trouble in Act 2. Mainly due to the hordes of non leechable
skeletons. I had to use Cobra Strike all the time. Which of course only
makes sense if their are leechable critters among the skellies. If not,
you can only drink mana potions or fall back to normal attack. Which
isn't very effective with Katars. Another problems were the Beetles. I
had to switch to the Felloak/2 chipped diamond shield setup several
times before running out of healing potions.
Another gem shrine resulted in my first PSkull (I'm always a bit scared
when I drop all the gems on the ground in order to get the right one
from the shrine, I might lose all in case of a game crash). Without much
thinking, I placed it into the 2 socket Wrist Blade I had collected in
Act 1. It would have been a better idea to try to cube a claw with the 3
chippy recipe hoping for 2 sockets and good extra mods. I should have
started that right from the beginning, due to the limited space
(remember, no Stash access) I had left quite a few chipped gems on the
ground early on ...
The 4% mana leech amulett found in the Claw Viper temple speeded things
up quite a bit (7% ml in total now). I could use Dragon Talon nearly all
the time. Not enough leech to keep Cloak of Shadows active though. But
that's what the Shadow Warrior is for. Just don't forget to assign CoS
to the right click even if you don't use it yourself.
After a scary fight with Fangskin (thanks to Felloak with max lightning
resists), the Palace and especially the Arcaine Sanctuary went by
smoothly. Clearing all the false Tombs was a bit tedious (BTW I played
with full clear visiting each and every area leaving nothing alive). The
Shadow Warrior tends to fight in the doorway which is a bit dangerous
here. But without the Warrior, it's not much easier either. Retreats and
sometimes even recasting the Warrior has to do it.
Anyway, at least I ended up with level 24 before entering Duriel's
chamber. That was the point where all my previous solo Ironman projects
had failed (except once when I played a Skellimancer), mainly because of
huge attack rating problems. But the higher level this time (I had not
played with full clear before) and the fact that Dragon Talon gives
nearly 300% AR bonus at slvl 12 required only 2 normal rejuvs to send
Duriel into oblivion.
Stay tuned ...
---
Hannes
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