Playing this game the RIGHT way

[Wolfgang Abenteuer]

When I used to play this game a lot, Warrior was (and still is) my favourite class, and when I would look for equipment I would focus entirely on boosting strength. I used to think that if I killed things quickly enough I wouldn't need any other stats.

Fast-forward to me taking on Hell difficulty with a Warrior that had a sword with no +hit%, armour with no resists (unless I used the Veil of Steel...I predominantly played single player), and no +Vit, +Dex, or +Life gear. My AC was trash and I would get block locked by just about any melee monster. I would have to quick save after every couple of enemies, especially in Hell/Hell because if there were more than two knights taking me on at once I was block or stun locked every time. And a room full of Advocates? That equated to me bum rushing in, taking a swing at one and trying to lure him out of the room while getting pummeled by Fireballs and typically I could kill maybe 2 or 3 Advocates this way before having to return to town after having run out of potions.

Fast-forward to now when I'm older and wiser. I reinstalled this and Hellfire a few weeks back and I told myself I wouldn't abuse the save-anywhere feature and would only save either in town or at the very start of a dungeon floor, making me learn how to survive and actually build a decent character. I went with Warrior (again) and this time I beat Normal just using gear I found or Griz happened to sell, and it was fairly easy. I found a Blessed Full Plate somewhere in late Caves/early Hell which basically meant that no melee attack would even have a chance at hitting me. Again fast-forward to Hell/Hell and this time I decided I would try to look for some gear that helped with resists and life and maybe see what this KSoH everyone kept talking about. I keep running Griz for some Obsidian/Zodiac jewelry (ended up settling for Jade on the ammy) and eventually a KSoH (Broad Sword).

Wow. I can now usually clear the first three floors of Hell with one belt of potions and can finish the game in about 45 minutes. Being able to stunlock Advocates and not even allow them time to tele away is insane. This has made the game so much more fun and so much less tedious it's a wonder I even enjoyed the game at all playing the way I used to. I used to think that the Warrior was severely underpowered for Hell/Hell because of how easily he would get creamed by Advocates. Now I pity the Sorcerers more than any other class simply because of the triple-immune Soul Burners and Advocates. Long live the Warrior! :thumbup:

Side note - last night during a clear of Hell/Hell I was lucky to get just snakes and knights on floors 13 and 14 so I knew karma would come back to me on that one. Sure enough, floor 15 had Snow Witches, Hell Spawn, and Soul Burners...nothing but Succubi on the entire floor. I still was able to clear it without returning to town until the end to turn in the staff of Lazarus.

It's amazing how much more fun this game is when you play it the right way.

[FireIceTalon]

Yea once you learn the game mechanics the game becomes much easier, but still challenging enough that you have to use tactics and wit to outsmart most of the foes in hell. But as you found out, you have to build your chars RIGHT. Eventually you want to max all your stats, but the order of which you do so is very important. As a Warrior, believe it or not, you should max DEXTERITY first, rather than strength. Dex is almost as important for a warrior as it is for a rogue. It determines not only your AC and to hit, but your block as well. If your dexterity is too low, you can have all the ac in the world but still get hit constantly by melee monsters. Then put some into magic so you can learn a few important spells but focus primarily on strength. For Sorcerer, max magic first, then vitality is last. For rogues (my favorite class), strength first, then dex/magic, vit last.

A common misconception for new players that have made it to the later stages of say normal hell, seem to think warrior is the weakest class and sorc is the strongest, but its not the case at all. Warrior happens to be just more item dependent than the other classes. Sorc is the most powerful class cause spells in this game in general, are over powered, but a warrior with the right gear is extremely efficient and its fun to telekill things :)

Still, Rogue is my favorite. Love their versatility (they are better with melee than a Sorc and better with magic than a Warrior, and the absolute master of archery) and dynamics, and overall, they are the hardest class to master IMO because of the skill required and they can be fragile at times. A true gamers class.

[Wolfgang Abenteuer]

I haven't even tried telekilling yet...my teleport is only level 2 or 3 (whatever I can get with ~110 magic and not using any shrines) and I typically save my mana for Reflect and Healing (good lord this spell costs a lot of mana...even at slvl 8 it's costing I think 64 mana per cast).

When building the char, I pretty much did like you said - max Dex first and pump Vit along the way. I put a few points into strength here and there so I could use better gear, but otherwise I would drop all 5 into Dex one level and then 5 into Vit the next. Magic, though, I pretty much just got through finding/buying elixirs since I didn't even really use it until later on. I haven't even maxed Str yet despite me throwing away tens of thousands of gold at the end of every run which I could be spending on elixirs...it just hasn't even mattered since everything gets stunlocked already. At level 42 I only have 230 strength.

As for the other classes, I enjoy them both about equally. Mages are great when you get lucky and get a whole floor of enemies that aren't resistant/immune to the same thing and you can spam-kill them by the ton, but quickly get annoying with dual and triple immunes. Rogues are also a lot of fun but I've always preferred the big-hurty-stick physical damage classes to the ranged ones. Thankfully with Hellfire I have a legit way to transfer items to my other SP chars so if I find something good I just CotW-it over.

[irontigran]

glad youre having fun with the warr! :D
sounds like great improvements over what you used to do. you should really come and play with us on b.net :)

and yeah mana really defines the warr. this game = mana to a large extent. being able to telekill as FIT said is important. also stone cursing is handy. heres a situation where that shows poor form in hell-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HjxhCJavFs

the really good warrs Ive dueled have mana pools bigger than a rogue.

[FireIceTalon]

glad youre having fun with the warr! :D
sounds like great improvements over what you used to do. you should really come and play with us on b.net :)

and yeah mana really defines the warr. this game = mana to a large extent. being able to telekill as FIT said is important. also stone cursing is handy. heres a situation where that shows poor form in hell-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HjxhCJavFs

the really good warrs Ive dueled have mana pools bigger than a rogue.

Nah. Shade and Thomas I think use somewhere between 410-425 mana on their warriors, Silmaril has around 380 in PvM, which are all pretty crazy numbers. But a rogue with same quality eq as them will have 50-100 more mana easily. A naked lvl 50 warrior has 98 mana, a naked rogue at same lvl will have 173...plus warrior only gets 1 mana per magic attribute, rogue gets 1.5 per.

[irontigran]

I meant that to be an overstatement.. as if they can tele all day ;)

but in truth yeah Warr is super low mana compared to anyone else.