The adventures of Gurney Halleck, the dagger wielding barb.

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Ok, so some of you may recognise the name Gurney Halleck from the book
Dune, by Frank Herbert. Gurney was the House Attreides Master at Arms,
and personal combat trainer to Paul Attreides. He was a master dagger
fighter, and a decent bard. Hence, the name.

Now that that's out of the way, things are progressing slowly through
normal with gurney. He's dual wielding Kris knifes (ironically, there's
a Kris knife in Dune, too!). Right now they are rare types, but he
hopes to upgrade them to Strength (AmnTir) and Malice (IthElEth) before
he meets up with Mephisto or Diablo.

Right now he's slogging through act 2, on /players 8, so it's slow
going. I've decided to give him 10 points in double swing. At 9 points
he stopped using any mana at all to fight, but I couldn't just leave
the skill on an odd number like that. He's got one point in leap
attack, and it building up his war cries now.

Combat is amazingly easy, since Battle Cry reduces the enemy to
fumbling idiots, and double swing is amazingly fast. Damage is light,
but the speed of attack more than makes up for it.

One thing that is a bit frustrating is durability. I've had the knifes
break at least once, and that's really no good. I'll need to start
carrying spare knifes. The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
preference given to that item. odd...

More to follow...

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Oliver Wenzel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> "Jason" <marlaque@hotmail.com> wrote in news:1122832794.107832.39370
> @g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> >
> > Right now he's slogging through act 2, on /players 8, so it's slow
> > going. I've decided to give him 10 points in double swing. At 9 points
> > he stopped using any mana at all to fight, but I couldn't just leave
> > the skill on an odd number like that. He's got one point in leap
> > attack, and it building up his war cries now.
> >
> I guess you know this, but Double Swing only raises AR. To boost damage,
> you need to put points into Bash. As there is no dagger mastery, you might
> want to max Bash asap.
>
> Or go with max Frenzy. At least, your points in DS will act as synergy for
> Frenzy.
>

I am well aware of this. My goal is to see if it is possible to
solve the game in SP, using no weapon mastery. I chose double swing
over frenzy exactly because it is very fast, and uses no mana at level
9+. This will be very important in hell, since I'll be able to
basically ignore mana burners.

I am using battle cry to make up for my lack of AR, and fun mods like
"Crusing Blow", "Prevent Monster Heal", and "Open Wounds" for my main
damage. (See my previous posts under the Fleshripper thread). If I
can't go completely untwinked, then I have a Fleshriper dagger waiting
for me at level 68. I hope I won't need it.

-Jason

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Michael Vondung wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2005 10:59:54 -0700, Jason wrote:
>
> > The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
> > damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
> > preference given to that item. odd...
>
> Is the one in the off-hand losing durability at all?
>
> It sounds like an interesting experiment! Are you doing this in HC or
> SC?
>

The off-hand does lose durability, just not nearly as fast as the
primary. And, yes, this is HC.

-Jason

(Single Player, but still HC).

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Jason wrote:
> Ok, so some of you may recognise the name Gurney Halleck from the book
> Dune, by Frank Herbert. Gurney was the House Attreides Master at Arms,
> and personal combat trainer to Paul Attreides. He was a master dagger
> fighter, and a decent bard. Hence, the name.
>
> Now that that's out of the way, things are progressing slowly through
> normal with gurney. He's dual wielding Kris knifes (ironically, there's
> a Kris knife in Dune, too!). Right now they are rare types, but he
> hopes to upgrade them to Strength (AmnTir) and Malice (IthElEth) before
> he meets up with Mephisto or Diablo.
>
> Right now he's slogging through act 2, on /players 8, so it's slow
> going. I've decided to give him 10 points in double swing. At 9 points
> he stopped using any mana at all to fight, but I couldn't just leave
> the skill on an odd number like that. He's got one point in leap
> attack, and it building up his war cries now.
>
> Combat is amazingly easy, since Battle Cry reduces the enemy to
> fumbling idiots, and double swing is amazingly fast. Damage is light,
> but the speed of attack more than makes up for it.
>
> One thing that is a bit frustrating is durability. I've had the knifes
> break at least once, and that's really no good. I'll need to start
> carrying spare knifes. The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
> damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
> preference given to that item. odd...
>
> More to follow...

II.

On the way to Tal Rasha's Tomb, one of the slingers dropped a unique
dirk - The Diggler. ROFL. I've thrown this away so many times in the
past that it's not even funny. However, this time I was leaping for
joy. I found the Diggler! The Diggler! Wow, how things have changed.
Ok, so now I've got Blood Fist, a requisite Nagel Ring, and The
Diggler. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it's good
for now. I've also found an Ith rune. All I need is an Eth, and a 3
socketed Kris, and I've got Malice.

-- the road to Duriel --

As soon as I entered Tal Rasha's Tomb, I noticed that the bad guys had
gotten SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful. A pack o f Gorebellies almost did
me in. Their boss cursed me and my merc with amp damage, and we started
getting pummeled. I lashed out with a Howl, and sent the minions
running, but there was nowhere for them to go and they just ran back at
me. I wish that I had put a point in Grim Ward already, but I've been
pumping Battle Orders and Battle Cry (since this is untwinked /players
8 mode, I'm already level 25 and still in act 2).

My merc bit the dust. I finished off the boss, but his regen was crazy,
and the low damage from the daggers was barely able to compensate. I
can already tell that I will NEED prevent monster heal, soon. Malice,
where are you?

(Have I mentioned how much I really hate poison yet? The damned
Unraveler's in Tal Rasha's tomb are really making me miserable. One a
different note, I managed to cube 3xNef runes into an Eth, so now I
have Ith El Eth. I just need to find a 3 socketed Kris now. I found and
bought a superior 2 socketed one, so when I find Amn, at least I'll
have Strength - with crushing blow! In the meantime, I've burchased a
"Sharp Kris of Vileness", so I do have PMH, and it seems to be
helping).

I reached Duriel at level 26, set the players back to /players 1, set
the staff and entered. The fight was... uneventful. Switching to
/players 1 made a huge difference. The gorebellies guarding his tomb
were more ferocious.

For my efforts I received a rare spiked shield, and a scimitar. Wow.
Thaaanks. Now it's off to act 3, and a return to /players 8.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Hi,

"Jason" <marlaque@hotmail.com> wrote in news:1122832794.107832.39370
@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> Right now he's slogging through act 2, on /players 8, so it's slow
> going. I've decided to give him 10 points in double swing. At 9 points
> he stopped using any mana at all to fight, but I couldn't just leave
> the skill on an odd number like that. He's got one point in leap
> attack, and it building up his war cries now.
>
I guess you know this, but Double Swing only raises AR. To boost damage,
you need to put points into Bash. As there is no dagger mastery, you might
want to max Bash asap.

Or go with max Frenzy. At least, your points in DS will act as synergy for
Frenzy.

Regards,

Oliver

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

On 31 Jul 2005 10:59:54 -0700, Jason wrote:

> The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
> damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
> preference given to that item. odd...

Is the one in the off-hand losing durability at all?

It sounds like an interesting experiment! Are you doing this in HC or
SC?

M.

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Jason wrote:
> Jason wrote:
> > Ok, so some of you may recognise the name Gurney Halleck from the book
> > Dune, by Frank Herbert. Gurney was the House Attreides Master at Arms,
> > and personal combat trainer to Paul Attreides. He was a master dagger
> > fighter, and a decent bard. Hence, the name.
> >
> > Now that that's out of the way, things are progressing slowly through
> > normal with gurney. He's dual wielding Kris knifes (ironically, there's
> > a Kris knife in Dune, too!). Right now they are rare types, but he
> > hopes to upgrade them to Strength (AmnTir) and Malice (IthElEth) before
> > he meets up with Mephisto or Diablo.
> >
> > Right now he's slogging through act 2, on /players 8, so it's slow
> > going. I've decided to give him 10 points in double swing. At 9 points
> > he stopped using any mana at all to fight, but I couldn't just leave
> > the skill on an odd number like that. He's got one point in leap
> > attack, and it building up his war cries now.
> >
> > Combat is amazingly easy, since Battle Cry reduces the enemy to
> > fumbling idiots, and double swing is amazingly fast. Damage is light,
> > but the speed of attack more than makes up for it.
> >
> > One thing that is a bit frustrating is durability. I've had the knifes
> > break at least once, and that's really no good. I'll need to start
> > carrying spare knifes. The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
> > damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
> > preference given to that item. odd...
> >
> > More to follow...
>
> II.
>
> On the way to Tal Rasha's Tomb, one of the slingers dropped a unique
> dirk - The Diggler. ROFL. I've thrown this away so many times in the
> past that it's not even funny. However, this time I was leaping for
> joy. I found the Diggler! The Diggler! Wow, how things have changed.
> Ok, so now I've got Blood Fist, a requisite Nagel Ring, and The
> Diggler. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it's good
> for now. I've also found an Ith rune. All I need is an Eth, and a 3
> socketed Kris, and I've got Malice.
>
> -- the road to Duriel --
>
> As soon as I entered Tal Rasha's Tomb, I noticed that the bad guys had
> gotten SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful. A pack o f Gorebellies almost did
> me in. Their boss cursed me and my merc with amp damage, and we started
> getting pummeled. I lashed out with a Howl, and sent the minions
> running, but there was nowhere for them to go and they just ran back at
> me. I wish that I had put a point in Grim Ward already, but I've been
> pumping Battle Orders and Battle Cry (since this is untwinked /players
> 8 mode, I'm already level 25 and still in act 2).
>
> My merc bit the dust. I finished off the boss, but his regen was crazy,
> and the low damage from the daggers was barely able to compensate. I
> can already tell that I will NEED prevent monster heal, soon. Malice,
> where are you?
>
> (Have I mentioned how much I really hate poison yet? The damned
> Unraveler's in Tal Rasha's tomb are really making me miserable. One a
> different note, I managed to cube 3xNef runes into an Eth, so now I
> have Ith El Eth. I just need to find a 3 socketed Kris now. I found and
> bought a superior 2 socketed one, so when I find Amn, at least I'll
> have Strength - with crushing blow! In the meantime, I've burchased a
> "Sharp Kris of Vileness", so I do have PMH, and it seems to be
> helping).
>
> I reached Duriel at level 26, set the players back to /players 1, set
> the staff and entered. The fight was... uneventful. Switching to
> /players 1 made a huge difference. The gorebellies guarding his tomb
> were more ferocious.
>
> For my efforts I received a rare spiked shield, and a scimitar. Wow.
> Thaaanks. Now it's off to act 3, and a return to /players 8.


III.

Stupid Diggler. That weapon has only 20 durability. Even when it's on
my left hand it breaks! This time it snapped right in the middle of my
battle with the flayers for the Gidbin. What a great sensation, to see
the weapon icon go yellow, then *crash*, red. I was stuck stabbing the
remaining guys with one dagger. Argh. I can definitely see that
durability will be a big issue with daggers. They are much more fragile
than other weapons.

Working with daggers definitely takes patience. Lots of patience. I've
had no problems with most enemies, but the occasional champion can be
really frustrating, especially if they are stone skin. For example,
when I was entering Lower Kurast, I encountered those silly tree like
creatures that are always there. During the fight, I could literally
see their health rising as fast if not faster than the damage I was
causing! Basically, I was the meat shield, and my merc won that battle
with his trusty pike.

I'm going to need better weapons, and soon. Unfortunately, nothing
really powerful will be available to me until I enter Nightmare and can
get better affixes. Malice and Strength will be a good combination,
once I find an Amn rune. I have the runes for Malice, but it does not
look like the game can spawn a 3 socket Kris at this level (act 3).
I've been shopping in act 2 for the last hour, jumping from a wp to
town, so that the merchants reset, and every kris that spawns sockets
has just one or two! I know I can get three sockets from Larzuk, since
my poison necro used him for that exact purpose just last week, but
he's still quite a ways off, and I'll need Strength and Malice if I
have any hope of surviving Diablo. Maybe I'll get lucky and the Jade
Tan Do will drop. Yeah, right. Like all items, that only falls when I
don't need it and can't use it.

So now I'm in Kurast. I need to get the Lam Esen tome, and Khalim's
Heart. The council will most likely be a real pain. I'm considering
switching to /players 1 before I face them. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Jason wrote:
> Working with daggers definitely takes patience. Lots of patience. I've
> had no problems with most enemies, but the occasional champion can be
> really frustrating, especially if they are stone skin. For example,
> when I was entering Lower Kurast, I encountered those silly tree like
> creatures that are always there. During the fight, I could literally
> see their health rising as fast if not faster than the damage I was
> causing! Basically, I was the meat shield, and my merc won that battle
> with his trusty pike.

Get some poison charms. Poison stops regen.

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

chaliban wrote:
> Jason wrote:
> > Working with daggers definitely takes patience. Lots of patience. I've
> > had no problems with most enemies, but the occasional champion can be
> > really frustrating, especially if they are stone skin. For example,
> > when I was entering Lower Kurast, I encountered those silly tree like
> > creatures that are always there. During the fight, I could literally
> > see their health rising as fast if not faster than the damage I was
> > causing! Basically, I was the meat shield, and my merc won that battle
> > with his trusty pike.
>
> Get some poison charms. Poison stops regen.

If they fall, you can be sure that I'll happily use them. However, this
little adventure is SP, and untwinked, so I'm quite limited in what I
have at my disposal.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

On that special day, Jason, (marlaque@hotmail.com) said...

> The knife in the right hand takes a lot more
> damage than the one in the left hand. There must be some kind of
> preference given to that item. odd...

Every owner of a Martial Arts assassain can tell you that the ethereal
Bartucs claw belongs to the left hand. The damage of left handed items
is only calculated when the object is hit *by* a monster (ie a shield,
used for blocking).


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[nobody]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Jason wrote:
> On the way to Tal Rasha's Tomb, one of the slingers dropped a unique
> dirk - The Diggler. ROFL.

The first time I found this I was ROFL, but because of the name and the
link to Boogie Nights (the movie).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Long ago, in the world without shrimp, "Jason" <marlaque@hotmail.com>, supreme
ruler of bunnies, hopped and flopped and said:

>Combat is amazingly easy, since Battle Cry reduces the enemy to
>fumbling idiots, and double swing is amazingly fast. Damage is light,
>but the speed of attack more than makes up for it.

It's light damage delivered at the speed of light, you could say.



Okay, so I had nothing constructive to add at this point.

 

[Jason]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

Michael Vondung wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2005 23:52:35 -0700, Jason wrote:
>
> > Working with daggers definitely takes patience. Lots of patience.
>
> It's a bit like the assassin's Blade Fury -- I got one through the game,
> solo and untwinked, in the 1.10 beta. The key here was crushing blow ...
> try to get some (a lot) of this, and things will get much easier. Okay,
> it's not THAT easy to get untwinked, but every bit can help.
>
> Don't give up.

I won't give up. I'm sure that once I have Malice (100% open wounds,
prevent monster heal), and Strength (25% crushing blow), and decent
blood gloves, blood belt that things will turn around. I just have to
fight the tedium of normal difficulty until I get these.

At level 68 I have a Fleshripper fanged knife (open wounds, prevent
monster heal, crushing blow and deadly strike) waiting for me. If I
can't survive with that, then I don't deserve to be a barb anymore.

-Jason

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

On that special day, Jason, (marlaque@hotmail.com) said...

> On the way to Tal Rasha's Tomb, one of the slingers dropped a unique
> dirk - The Diggler.

LOL. I have several of them, too. Then, some two weeks ago, I thought,
I'd try a Classic pally in SP. Boy, is (t)his chest small. He was in
Act2, entered sewers, and another golden dagger dropped. (dang, I hate
Digglers, I thought)

I brought it to Cain, however. A Gull. I've been hunting for it last
year so often, and now I get it for a character that can't really use
daggers. The RNG likes jokes.

At least there is still ATMA. My Necro will make better use of it...


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

On 31 Jul 2005 23:52:35 -0700, Jason wrote:

> Working with daggers definitely takes patience. Lots of patience.

It's a bit like the assassin's Blade Fury -- I got one through the game,
solo and untwinked, in the 1.10 beta. The key here was crushing blow ...
try to get some (a lot) of this, and things will get much easier. Okay,
it's not THAT easy to get untwinked, but every bit can help.

Don't give up.

M.