Monday (21 May) - Pacing Myself

Monday (21 May) - Pacing Myself

The obvious eventually occurred to me over the weekend in Diablo. That first flush of excitement has worn off. No matter how large the pile of carcasses BW stacks up, there is always another dungeon and more mobs to kill. There is a plot line, of sorts, and for those who want to talk to each and every npc encountered, it's probably an interesting story. The gist, though, is that whether you know the story or not, the game is a series of dungeons full of mobs to kill. Every now and then we have to kill a particularly bad-ass one, and then back to more dungeons and more mobs.

I'm not getting bored, necessarily. The goal now is to reach the finish line. Which, when I think back on it, is pretty much how all of these single player games go. I suspect that even in multi-player it's much the same goal, only we can do it with friends. It's still nice to get new gear, but BW has to empty his bag many times now before seeing a new piece he could use.

For awhile I was saving gear that would be useful when I started up another character. The "Stash" where I can store gear is a common stash that all my characters can use. So, if barbarian BW gets demon hunter gear, for example, he can put it in the stash. Then, if I had a demon hunter, he could use that gear. Now, though, that doesn't seem necessary. Gear drops so routinely that saving anything but the rarest gear seems pointless. BW generally sells every magic item he doesn't need, and just throws away the junk that isn't magic. There are some npc craftsmen - there's a blacksmith and a jewel crafter so far. I spent considerable gold leveling the blacksmith and made three pieces of gear at additional cost. That gear was replaced so quickly it was next to useless, as BW quickly acquired gear far better than anything the blacksmith could make. I haven't decided yet whether to bother with the jewel crafter or not. The gems for sockets are nice, but I'm already seeing better and better quality gems, so it may not be worth it.

Meanwhile, BW continues to bash his way through the dungeons. Since BW is so attuned to staying alive, he has always gone with a single-handed weapon and a shield. Even when some pretty nice two-handed weapons started showing up, BW stubbornly stayed with his shield. I couldn't blame him - shields offer huge protection. However, when a very rare two-handed weapon dropped that had a socket (for additional stats) and a damage rating a full third better than his single-handed weapon, that shield went into his bags.

It was awesome how much faster mobs started going down. BW has to be more on his toes, always on the lookout for a free health bulb, and retreating quickly when things aren't going his way. BW also began trying out some of the newer abilities the game kept tempting him with, and a couple of those became a staple of BW's attack. Under the right circumstances entire rooms full of mobs now go down is seconds!

As of Sunday morning Barbedwire is now well into Act III and had reached level 27. I'm not really sure where the finish line is, but that remains my goal.