Blizzard's Diablo

No release date has been set for Diablo III yet, but it exists. What this means is that I would rather upgrade my computer for this one game than buy an xbox 360 and no amount of price chopping at Microsoft will convince me otherwise.

The mere taste of Diablo III has brought me back to Diablo II though all my former characters have long since expired. What made and still makes Diablo II great? A few things. The first is the core concept of the game, described by one gaming magazine as "clicking on monsters until they burst like loot filled pinatas". This is the Vegas lure; one more pull of that one-armed bandit could result in the jackpot... or another pair of Crude greaves of the weasel. The downside of this mechanism was a lot of in game litter which would fill up the screen and cause players to ruin their eyes squinting to see if there were any valuables amidst the junk. Hopefully Diablo III will have an improved loot distribution system that is more fair than "quickest closets clicker" wins. Since Blizzard implemented a better system for World of Warcraft, my confidence is high that this will be so.

The next great thing about Diablo II is that there are many interesting decisions in the game. Interesting decision has a very particular meaning, which you can read about through this link. In short, an obvious choice (between Mighty Sword of Slaying and meager sword of rust) is not interesting. Neither is an uninformed choice. Neither is an unimportant choice. But, an important, informed, non-obvious choice (between the sword of slaying and the spear of slaying) is interesting. I mean, I can use a shield with the sword, but the spear has better range. If I slay my foes before they get close I wouldn't need a shield, unless my foes have bows and arrows, but I could invest experience in dodging... and so on.

The most fascinating decisions in Diablo II involved what skills to invest in. Unfortunately, most players settled into some easy habits: Barbarian classes invested in whirlwind for massive physical damage, Sorceress classes invested in frozen orb or meteor for massive magic damage, Necromancers invested in meat shields and corpse explode for massive chain reaction damage, Paladins invested in hammers for massive damage, Amazons... I don't think they are capable of massive damage, but they would go with the next best thing: spread shot / guided arrow with knockback. All these class builds have three things in common: high damage, damage at a distance (even the barbarian's whirlwind is more drive by shooting than it is toe-to-toe brawl), and damage to handfuls of monsters at a time. None of these builds greatly benefit teammates.

Basically, most people played selfishly. They played for the most kills, which rewarded them with the most experience points and the most items. Few people experimented with unintuitive skill combinations and few people designed their characters with teammates in mind, which is a pity because the third leg of Diablo II's awesomeness was it's cooperative play, but before I move on, some note worthy exceptions.

There are exceptions to the generalization that players guided their characters' skills along well-trod paths and designed them as if they were soloing even though this game was all about team play. Fascinating experimentations with character builds can be found here and here. My favorite is the Glutton for Punishment Paladin build. It's basically health and thorns (return received damage to attacker) to the max. The Glutton for Punishment is roto-rooter. He is napalm. He parachutes in to the worst hot zones and gets the job done. The creator of the GfP wrote:

he has become my go-to guy for declogging stairs, entering hot wp, and making a clear landing zone on the cow lvl.

I laughed my ass off at the thought. The Glutton is an extreme specialist. His major failing is his inability to level major damage against ranged attackers, and the fact that he has to take damage to deal damage. But what if he was combined with a pure healer paladin? This is a truly rare breed because the only experience the healer would earn would be the tithe he gets for simply being in the presence of another player's kills. The healer focuses on holy bolt, meditation, and possibly fist of heavens at later levels. For those unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, though I'd be shocked if you were still reading, that is, holy bolt (healing and damage to undead), meditation (regenerate mana for casting holy bolt rapidly), and possibly fist of heavens (massive lightning bolt that spews holy bolts in all directions). I met a pure healer recently. He was a blast to play with. I could focus on killing much more effectively with his support, but he admitted, it is hard to level up.

The last great thing about Diablo II is the team play. Though a maxed out sorceress or barbarian can hold their own pretty well in most cases, a good team cuts through the game like a hot knife through butter leaving a trail of loot in their wake. A good team can adapt to more situations than any solo player possibly could. Ice immune fast movers and the sorc is probably in a pickle. Physical immune with charged bolt thorns and the barbarian is up shit creek. Despite how good the hodge podge teams that joined up on battle net were, I submit that I never saw a truly great team. Yes, I probably needed to join a clan for proper team play, but I don't want to schedule my Diablo time so it syncs up with other people. I don't have that kind of schedule or gaming disposition. I want to be able to drop into a team and immediately be useful. I want to easily find players of a similar level who want to accomplish similar tasks. Blizzard says the updated battle net will make this possible. I hope they are right.

Lastly, here are some awesome parties I would love to see tried. The first is eight paladins. Why the hell not? Paladin auras are automatically shared by all party members, so the more paladins, the more power to go around. Here is the group I would try, listed by primary aura / primary skill - and a description of the aura:

• Might / charge or conversion - multiplies damage
• Concentration / hammers - multiplies damage
• Fanaticism / zeal or conversion - improved attack
• Conviction / vengeance - reduce enemy health and magic resist
• Holy Freeze / zeal - slow the enemy down.
• Meditation / holy bolt - use as a healer
• Thorns / whatever - The Glutton for Punishment
• Whatever in the 8th slot.

The most devastating party that I can think of is this one:

• Sorceress - Primary: fire. Secondary: lightning.
• Sorceress - Primary: lightning. Secondary: ice.
• Sorceress - Primary: ice. Secondary: fire.
• Paladin - focusing on conviction and fist of heavens
• Paladin - focusing on holy bolt and meditation (the healer).
• Necromancer - focusing on lower resist, some revives to use as meat shields, some corpse explode, and poison nova.
• Barbarian - focus on whirlwind, but with the skill boost yell and a strong life/mana boost yell.
• Again there is an open 8th slot.

Of course the following party might be even stronger. A paladin with high end Might almost triples damage, effectively turning one barbarian into three. As long as the addition of one paladin is equivalent to adding more than one other character, then more paladins should be added! Following that logic, we have:

• pal:might (2.3* barb) (also has defiance and an element resist as defensive alt).
• pal:concentration (3.45* barb) (also element resist and vigor as defensive alt).
• pal:fanaticism (1.86* barb + other bonuses) (also has salvation as defensive alt).
• pal:conviction (barb and sorc boost) (also holy freeze and element resist defensive alt)
• barb: damage dealer and skill boost yell.
• barb: damage dealer and life/mana boost yell.
• necro: provides living shield, amplify damage, corpse explode (terror and decrepify as defensive alt).
• sorc: ice to slow down monsters, static, and fire spell that adds elemental damage to party's weaponry.

The above party is pretty flexible, but if you think about it, most of the afforementioned are. Most parties with more paladins are better than parties without paladins, but the pals are not as fun to build because (excepting the lame hammerdin) they can't deal enough damage to get a lot of kills. I think Diablo II would have been fascinating to play without any health potions. Healer paladins would have been a vital component (and the player wouldn't have to click constantly to keep quaffing potions). I was pleased to learn that Diablo III has done away with the potions-for-health-recovery system and is even more focused on team play

Blizzard really has the potential to hit a home run with Diablo III. I for one think they will. I can't wait to see the end result.

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