It has begun...

Nightmare Baal has died. Hell awaits!


Gear/Stats:
















Worthless Merc:





Loot:





Not going to bother documenting all of the uniques/sets I've found thus far, but there isn't anything particularly notable yet. At the moment I'm keeping anything that I don't already have in an attempt to collect every item in the game or at least get a nice collection.


Solo Hell Blizzsorc Rules:

• Solo/self-found only (obviously)
• No cheating/maphack/etc. (to be clarified below)
• Ladder/online features enabled

Utilities/Client Info:

• Client/patch version 1.13c
• D2SE Mod Manager is being used so as to utilize PlugY plug-in
• A program called Cursor Lock is being used to lock my cursor to my D2 client window.
• PlugY enables several features, including expanded/shared stash (seen above), Ladder/Online features enabled in Single Player (Ladder-only runewords, ubers, etc.), improved stats screen (seen above), and easy respec/reskill.

"Cheating" Clarification:

As PlugY allows easy respec/reskill, I will from time-to-time reallocate a few stat or skill points in an effort to tweak my build or allow myself to use a new piece of gear. This is definitely "cheating" to some degree, but I consider it mostly harmless and not against the spirit of this challenge so I'm allowing it. However, what I will not do is massively change my skills to circumvent immunities, as that goes entirely against the spirit of this challenge (for example, I'm not going to change from a Blizz sorc to a Meteor sorc to be able to farm different areas or be able to more easily kill certain bosses or anything like that.) The goal here is to get a single-element (cold, in this case) sorc through Hell difficulty without any outside assistance.

Additionally, there are no maphack/item drop/whatever changes to the game. As I'm playing Single-player mode, my maps remain revealed and do not change unless I choose to change them by switching difficulty, and I will certainly "exploit" this by rerolling my maps until I get good layouts for certain boss runs or areas.


Observations/Comments/Goals:

When I last tried and completed this challenge, the latest version was 1.11b. I didn't expect much to be different this time and if anything expected it to be easier due to some changes made in 1.13c (improved rune drop rates, significantly lowered damage from fire enchanted mob explosions, Iron Maiden removed from Oblivion Knights), some improvements to my knowledge bank, and the fact that I don't have to deal with lag due to playing single-player mode. However, one thing I really noticed was a change in the difficulty of Normal difficulty. Perhaps it is just because of differences in item finds/gear and such, or perhaps it is due to the fact that I was really rushing through the game and not stopping to level/gear up, but I found Normal difficulty to be much more difficult this time around, particularly once I reached the Worldstone Keep/Throne. On more than one occasion I found myself running out of gold and being unable to supply potions to my incredibly thirsty sorceress, and had to sell items/gems I was holding onto for later. However, once I managed to get Normal Baal down and got a few runs through cows to get a few levels and get the item base I needed to make my Spirit runeword weapon, it was smoooooooth sailing from there. I didn't bother grinding out levels on Normal Baal this time like I did previously, and started Nightmare difficulty a solid 10 levels earlier this time than last (at level 30). With the exception of a few (~5) Nightmare Meph runs, it was a straight shot through Nightmare difficulty with no need to stop and grind/farm and no more running out of money to buy potions.

One big change that I've made is that I've come to value Faster Cast Rate and Faster Hit Recovery much more than I had previously. I was never one to completely neglect them, but I've learned and seen just how much of a difference these two stats can make, particularly when trying to teleport quickly and safely from Point A to Point B. At the breakpoints I've met currently, my character recovers from hits more than twice as fast (7 frames versus 15 without any FHR) and casts more than 30% faster (9 frames versus 13 without any FCR.) The FHR in particular has saved my ass more times than I can count.

From here going forward, I'll probably do either some Nightmare Meph or Nightmare Baal runs or maybe some Nightmare Cows to try to work on my gear situation. As you can see above, some of my gear is severely lacking and it shouldn't be very hard to find a few upgrades. As soon as I can, I'm going to want to push at least to Hell Andariel to start really working on my gear, as she can drop many of the things I will want before I try to push through Hell.

Ultimately, I hope to take on the Ubers with this character, and I may not consider the challenge "complete" until that happens. Beyond that, as stated before, I may be attempting to collect every item in the game. Updates to follow as they come!

Those pixels turn me on

Do you know about the /nopickup command? I played D2 for over a decade before I learned about it

I had forgotten about that, and it could definitely come in handy! For some reason I was thinking that was a plug-in feature, not a built-in one.

Updates:

Pushed to Hell Andariel and I've done couple dozen runs now that I've settled on a decent map layout (~14 teleports total to get to Andy). I had a better layout at one point (~10 teleports) but accidentally reset the map by starting a Normal game. Not much in the way of drops so far, but I did find a Raven Frost ring last night and I found a 5os Crystal Sword that I can use to make a Call to Arms if I ever acquire the requisite runes. I also have a 4os flail I'll use to make Heart of the Oak if I ever find those runes.

I actually avoided getting Andariel "quest bugged." While I typically wouldn't consider something like that cheating, for the purposes of my "collect one of every item" challenge it would be a pretty significant bug to exploit. I regret it a bit when she drops complete garbage sometimes, but oh well... Probably gonna push for Hell Meph soon so I can really make some progress.

Shitty merc is up to 70 Crushing Blow now that I found a couple of upgrades for him. Should have probably put different things in his weapon sockets, but oh well. The jewel was decent (30%ish ED, +6 min, +4 max) but I probably should have went with the tried-and-true AmnShaelShael for faster attacks, especially with Crushing Blow being his main source of damage. I may decide to wipe the sockets and go with that soon, but I'm not sure yet and it doesn't really matter at this point anyway because he sucks ass.




Also upgraded my Stealth armor to a breast plate base, not that it makes much of a difference other than making my character look cooler.

Hell Duriel down. I'm coming for you Mephisto...

Hell Mephisto down, and DIABLO WALKED THE EARTH!




Dclone is chilling nearby, gonna see if I can moat-cheese him or something. I'm guessing my damage isn't high enough to even keep up with his regen, but we'll see what happens...

EDIT: Dclone regen confirmed OP

Awwww yeah!




This should help a ton, I'm severely lacking in MF gear at the moment.

Some upgrades courtesy of Mephisto.

Hell Hellforge reward.

Not too shabby.

Hell Diablo Slain!

Chaos Sanctuary was SO MUCH EASIER this time without Iron Maiden. It was a bit tricky since my merc still sucks ass and he had to solo the Oblivion Knights, but with some clever teleporting to split them up and take them 1-2 at a time, it wasn't too bad. Worst part was trying to down Lord De Seis, as he is always cold immune and my merc could barely keep up with his regen, but I had a nice stockpile of Full Rejuvenation Potions that I kept feeding my merc and before long, Lord De Seis was dead. Diablo himself was a cakewalk, my Blizzard ripped him to shreds.

Act 5 is always the worst, as it has loads of cold immune enemies, and the ancients might be a real challenge, but I'm going to see how far I can push through. I should be able to at least open the Pindle portal so I can do some more efficient gear farming, and if I can manage to actually get to Baal he should drop relatively easily.

Of course, that will really only be the beginning. Taking on the Ubers will be the ultimate challenge...but I know it can be done.

Hell Ancients Slain!

HOOOOOLY shit was this obnoxious to do. So Korlic is ALWAYS Cold Immune, which meant that my merc was required to kill him. The other two ancients have a chance to be Cold Immune as well, so I basically had to keep "rerolling" the ancients until I got the right combination of modifiers on them. To complicate matters, the only way I could figure out to accomplish the task was to take Korlic out first, as there was no way I could kill the other two ancients while keeping my merc alive to handle Korlic, so I had to separate Korlic from the pack and in the process I couldn't really see if the other two were also Cold Immune. If Korlic rolled with the "Stoneskin" mod, it took far too long for my merc to kill him for it to be reasonable (it would have literally taken around 30-60 minutes just to kill Korlic if he had that mod.) In the event that I managed to successfully separate Korlic from the pack and he didn't have the Stoneskin mod, it still took around 5-10 minutes for my merc to kill him. On the plus side, for whatever reason Korlic would never target my merc, so all I had to do was run or teleport back and forth avoiding his leaps and attacks while my merc slowly chipped away at his health. The first few times I actually managed to kill him, I then approached the other two ancients and found that one of them was also Cold Immune, and there was no way my merc could solo either of them due to the nature of their attacks and the fact that they would actually target him, which meant I would have to reset. The first time that I managed to kill Korlic and then approached the other two ancients and they weren't Cold Immune, Madawc (the thrower) spawned with the Extra Strong mod and 1-shot me before I could even make a dent in them. This was around 3 hours into my attempts, at which point I almost decided to quit, but managed to maintain the will to carry on. Eventually after hours of trial and error, I managed to take out Korlic with my merc and then solo Madawc and Talic.

Ultimately, I probably would have been better off just spending all of this time farming for upgrades for myself and my merc to make the fight easier all-around, but I'm glad I managed to take them out anyway. Now Baal awaits...

TOO EASY.

Now that I've unlocked Hell Cows, it should be a lot easier for me to farm some of the item bases I need, specifically a Monarch to make a Spirit shield for myself.

Next challenge will be Diablo Clone, but that is going to be a loooooong way away. In any case, I've now met the original challenge I set myself 9 years ago, and I must say it wasn't as easy as I expected but it was easier than before, particularly due to the lack of Iron Maiden in Chaos Sanctuary.

Got some pretty sweet upgrades in this latest batch.

^This is why you should ALWAYS reroll your rings/ammys with the 3 rings = 1 ammy and 3 ammys = 1 ring recipe!

Eth Gladiator's Bane for my merc when he can use it, maybe he'll suck less with that and the Bonehew...

Just as a heads up, if anyone feels like watching me waste hours of my life doing Lower Kurast/Meph runs or whatever else I'm doing at the time, I'll be streaming here from time to time. I most likely won't stream all of my gameplay as I like to watch TV shows and such while I play and I don't feel like getting banned or whatever for streaming that audio (not to mention the fact that nobody wants to listen to it.) However, if someone knows how to set it up so that I can watch Netflix or something while I play without the audio for that going through on the stream, I could switch to streaming all of my gameplay. I've tried to set it up that way previously and got frustrated with failure so I haven't bothered figuring it out.

I know that recent Windows let you individually manipulate programs' audio output. If the streaming software won't let you select just one, you'll probably have to set it to only stream mic, or get a second sound card or USB speakers so you can send Netflix and Diablo to separate devices, which you should be able to select for recording separately.

I actually attempted to use a program called Virtual Audio Cable to accomplish what I needed at one point, but failed. Supposedly that "simulates" having more than one sound card, maybe I'll have to give that another shot.

Been a while since my last update, so here are the good finds I've had since then. Note that not every good thing I find will be shown, simply because of the fact that it would take too much effort to log every good item I find. Anything that I find that is relevant to my character will be shown, and any really epic or interesting finds will be shown even if they aren't relevant, but I've found a lot of pretty decent stuff that I might use on other characters but don't care to document. Perhaps I'll make a video soon where I go through everything I've found.

The above eth polearm was used until I found the Andy's helm below, which enabled my merc to use the Bonehew I found previously. Now my merc is using Bonehew, eth gladiator's bane, and Andy's helm, so he's a lot less shitty these days (but still needs work before we push forward.)

Nice perfect ED (and 1% life leech off from perfect overall) Titans. Too bad they aren't eth Titans. I'm actually putting together a pretty decent set of Javazon gear, I might have to make one soon.

Just a quick update on my gear/stats/skills:

Don't think I ever showed that armor. Everything else I'm wearing is shown in previous updates. On switch I have my old Spirit sword and a Milebrega's Orb for some MF.

Current Wish-List:

Tal's gear (specifically armor/amulet, but other pieces wouldn't hurt)
Occulus
Gull dagger or Blade of Ali Baba
Skulder's Ire
(Perfect preferred) Nagels/high MF rings (a Stone of Jordan or two wouldn't hurt either)
(Perfect preferred) Chance Guards
(Perfect preferred) War Travelers
Gheed's charm
High runes (Ber Ber Ist) and item base (Great Poleaxe preffered, despite the common assumption that Colossus Voulge is better) for Infinity
High rune (Lo) and item base (Really anything decent that I can eth bug) for Fortitude
Wand with Lifetap charges (Pretty much a requirement if I want to take on Ubers)

I'm actually not doing too bad as far as MF gear goes, but I'm missing some pretty key items if I want to get to a good point.

FINALLY found a white Monarch, and it only took one reroll to get a perfect 35FCR roll! HOTO rolled +38 res-all, not too shabby either (max 40).

Updated Wish-list:
Tal's gear (specifically armor/amulet, but other pieces wouldn't hurt)
Occulus
Gull dagger or Blade of Ali Baba
Skulder's Ire
(Perfect preferred) War Travelers
Gheed's charm
High rune (Ber) and item base (Great Poleaxe preffered, despite the common assumption that Colossus Voulge is better) for Infinity
High rune (Lo) and item base (Really anything decent that I can eth bug) for Fortitude
Incremental upgrades (Perfect nagels/MF rings, perfect chance guards, eth Andy's helm for merc, etc.)