Ava's SuperDave-imitating challenge

[Ava]

Ava's SuperDave-imitating challenge

Hi everyone,

A few days ago, I read a thread by SuperDave where he took on the game with an amazon wielding no weapon and only cracked gear. While it seemed impossible at times, he seems to have an endless patience and great playing skills. While I have neither of those two, I want to try something similar here. Now since I don't want to be a complete copycat, I thought of another challenge that I'm going to try.

I'm going to make an shadow assassin and I'll play by the following rules:
-No weapon
-Only lower-quality (cracked/crude/low-quality) gear without sockets
-No charms
-No rings/amulet
-Only skillpoints in the Shadow tree
-No points in Mind Blast
-Untwinked
-One player games only
-Hardcore

The following is allowed:
-I can change to other lower-quality gear as the game proceeds
-My merc can use anything
-I play Single Player (not BNet) to avoid lags
-I can play any area as many times as I want

I'll post updates and screenshots regularly (if I don't die within the hour that is).

So let me know, how far do you think I'll come?

Ava

 

[petriomelony]

i can see that being pretty viable with mindblast, fade, cloak of shadows, and shadow master. lots of good shadow skills.

 

[Ava]

i can see that being pretty viable with mindblast, fade, cloak of shadows, and shadow master. lots of good shadow skills.

Hmm, you do have a point; MB does make life a lot easier.

I'll edit the challenge with the following condition:
-No points in Mind Blast

Thanks for the input.

 

[Silent Shaddow]

erm, me thinks you could do quite well with max vemon....

 

[ilkori]

Shadow skills and no Mind Blast? Yowza. The only way I see this flying is Psychic Hammer with a merc to pin things to the wall and a beefy merc and high level Shadow Master to pound out the damage.

With that route, I'd wager you can make it to Act 2 Hell.

 

[Master Zap]

So it's been 5 months , whats the verdict ? where you able to pound out the game using those minimal skills? Where's the story? :fortuneteller:

Dave's Saga has now played its course and I need to another daily thread to keep up on

 

[prion]

These kind of threads remind me, I had some people over a few weeks go playing on m Atari, i got into Laser Blast and showed them how you could robot the game and never lose till your hand was just to sore, and they started making up handicaps like "you have to let the tanks shoot at you at least once" and then "you have to let EACH tank shoot at you at least once" and that made the game too hard an then it just sucked.

Actually that game just sucked to begin with. There's no comparison, I don' kno why i posted this.

 

[Summerfun]

These kind of threads remind me, I had some people over a few weeks go playing on m Atari, i got into Laser Blast and showed them how you could robot the game and never lose till your hand was just to sore, and they started making up handicaps like "you have to let the tanks shoot at you at least once" and then "you have to let EACH tank shoot at you at least once" and that made the game too hard an then it just sucked.

Actually that game just sucked to begin with. There's no comparison, I don' kno why i posted this.

You obvious did it for me!
I love posts like this.

 

[Ava]

Yeah, I kind of lost interest for awhile after I forgot to back up the saved games before I formatted my hard drive.

I started her up again and I'll keep you posted.

So far, everything has been relatively easy. I did the Den of Evil quest and pounded through the
Cold Plains until I was level 6. I then took on Blood Raven which turned out to be a cake. Even
when it's just a lvl1 skill, Psychic Hammer and a dozen mana potions can easily kill her. When I
finally got my rogue, I gave her a bow with 3 gems in it which was enough for her to make short
work of any monster(pack) I've encountered so far.

I am level 12 now and just got the Jail waypoint after getting the malus. I have one skillpoint
in every available Shadow skill so far and I have put almost all points in vitality and a few
in strength, so I could wear the cracked gear I found.

There haven't really been any screencap-worthy moments, but when they do, I'll post them.

-------------

Current level: 12
Last waypoint: Normal Act1 Jail

 

[Nazdakka]

/players 1 will make your questing easier, but it'll mean you'll have to do a fair bit of rerunning to get to a decent level for Hell.

 

[Ava]

I'm not even thinking about hell. I'm trying to come up with a way to take on Duriel without having to first be level30.

Anyway, now that I've reached level 12, Cloak of Shadows is making my life a lot easier. I never noticed how incredibly annoying a rogue merc is indoors though.

When she has a clean shot though, it works wonders.
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/001_CloakOfShadows.jpg

I was surprised that she can even tank a group of those nasty fireball throwing dudes. http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/002_Tankazon.jpg

I finally managed to reach the lowest level of the catacombs to face Andariel. I expected her to be simple, like Blood Raven, but after I packed up and loaded up (http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/003_AndyPreps.jpg), I start hammering away... turns out she's not pushed back and not put into hit recovery. I had to tank while my merc fired from the other direction, but eventually she fell (http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/004_AndyDefeat.jpg)

Now that I'm in act2, I immediately got myself a defensive act2 mercenary called Mizan. Say hello to Mizan (http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/005_ANewMerc.jpg). While I Cloak of Shadowed everything, he pounded his way through the sewers and killed Radament (http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m148/avenema/diablo/006_RadamentsDemise.jpg).

-------------

Current level: 16
Last waypoint: Normal Act2 Sewers

 

[stephan]

Duriel is actually not so difficult. He'll usually target your shadow before he'll target your merc, so if you recast her often enough your merc should be safe.