Izual Rogue strategy?

[DacianDraco]

I'm sure on Normal difficulty all of the 1st sets of recipes drop, not sure about the 2nd set, maybe but rarely, 3rd set (like 2nd pic i posted) start to drop in Hell dungeon levels of Nightmare difficulty and beginning with Hell dungeon levels of Hell difficulty all of them can drop (1st pic is from 4th set), but the best ones become rarer because of their high pool of all 4 sets, out of which they can spawn. But i wouldn't bother with crafting until Hell difficulty, they do make things easier but are not mandatory, i showed you those 2 so you can compare with what you have (or general stuff around that required level) and see that crafts can be good. Also if you want to farm for recipes Cathedral lvl 4 in Torment difficulty is the fastest place to clear, and you can get on average 4 recipes per run (max i got was , thou a lot of them will repeat so just hand them down to other characters or sell them to Griswold to get their best price.

[sandyb87]

Good to know, I'm rarely finding any gear better than what I have at the moment because I'm still stuck on normal.

What dex should I have to stand a chance against the blood knight boss?

[DacianDraco]

I don't know, i did it with less than 100 total DEX, but that's just me. Get the best items you have (i might share something better than what you may have), have with you tons of full rejuv potions and keep trying to dance with him, have the Golem up as much as you can and with practice and time you should do it regardless of your stats (which are not terrible, just could have been a bit better).

Also when he gets in melee it's best to use Teleport (or Phasing) rather than walking away, because in certain positions (left/right side walk for sure, sometimes diagonal) if you walk when he hits at you during your move animation you can actually take dmg twice, once in midwalk for the square you were walking to and again because you get set back on the square you were walking from, not to mention you still couldn't walk away from him by doing this, while Teleport (or Phasing) can get you out safer if it's not interrupted while casting.

Hope to hear you finished Normal difficulty soon, you spent enough time not progressing and it must be annoying at this point.

[pocket951]

I have all (if not all 95%) of the tier 1 rogue bows sitting in my trade stash so I would have gear if I ever decided to try and powerlevel a rogue

[sandyb87]

On to nightmare, Diablo was a walk in the park compared to him. I think I only used one rejuvenation potion.

[Ugily]

Keep collecting the bows for your rogue and keep the ones with the best stats of it's type. With crafting, you will eventually acquire Upgrade Rare Weapon and Upgrade Unique Weapon. That will be a game changer for many items.

Still hunting for Upgrade Set Weapon.

[Samson]

Well, I finally managed to beat Gam'ar, the other day. It was only possible by separating him from his army and spamming an entire belt of twenty-five Full Rejuvs after pretty much every hit he landed on me, smashing him with Fanaticism over and over again. The knight wasn't very fun either, but I naturally figured out your strategy, Dacian, and kited him around Gam'ar's arena while shooting Lightning or Fireballs at him, I forget which. The third elite, the mage, was incredibly easy and presented no problem.

Then Diablo wrecked me. I didn't realize he'd just be Gam'ar 2.0, more or less. Kind of odd and very unfortunate. He was fine for the first stage of his fight. The unblockable Apocalypse he can do through walls, the cold hand attack, the fast slams and slashes, the giant Fire Nova, the Firestorm in front of him, they were all manageable, but his Red Lightning attack was instantly - and I mean instantly - killing me, even with 75% Lightning resist. He killed me a bunch of times before I finally managed to get him down to 50% HP, and entered the second stage of his fight.

He wrecked me again, and then I gave up because the Map of the Stars was almost filled out. Plus, I was all out of my stock of Full Rejuvs. No time to go in and out of town to buy more. The only reason I managed to stand my ground against Diablo was by kiting him around the walls in his room, just like the knight. When the walls disappeared in phase two, imagine my shock, especially when he started calling down meteor storms that also instantly killed me from full HP.

I've gotten to the point where I'm looking forward to finish this Assassin playthrough I've found more gear that keeps my resistances at max while also giving me what I think is a ton of extra health. Maybe that'll allow me to survive his Red Lightning hits and not get annihilated in a split-second. I also lucked out and found a Teleport book, so I can finally bounce around! Once I buy and save up a literal mountain of Full Rejuvs, I'll try again.

[DacianDraco]

@sandyb87 Glad to hear you're moving forward.

@pocket951 Some don't even increase the req lvl when you upgrade them.

@Ugily I'd trade you a Upgrade Set Weapon for something else. If interested make an offer or i'll check all my characters and see what i'm missing.

@Samson Almost there, you must have gotten the adrenaline pumping just not the relief of completion, but you'll get it next time i'm sure. And i personally drink 1 or 2 potions to get back at full health and don't move during his red lightning spit, because i take more dmg if i do, and just Teleport when i see he starts his Meteor Cluster. And i always position myself directly N or S of him, because on the sides his spells get condensed i end up being hit harder. Anyway if you decide to play other characters it won't be as hard, also you'd know how to best these situations.

[aleeque]

With crafting, you will eventually acquire Upgrade Rare Weapon and Upgrade Unique Weapon. That will be a game changer for many items.

How do you get those? Are they found on scrolls, like other recipes, or do you get them some other way?

[sandyb87]

Well I'm glad I didn't pick the warrior, this would be painful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUhDkoNOmA

[aleeque]

Nah, Warrior is awesome. Very tanky and mobile class. I love the charge ability from WoW .

[Samson]

Huzzah! I finally finished my first playthrough I'm not sure it was all me, though. I did get some new equipment that gave me a lot of extra HP while keeping my resistances at max, but I also lucked out and found a shrine that gave me Mana Shield, which I think gave me a ton of help. My mana isn't so high that it doubled my HP, or anything, but Mana Shield also gives you extra physical resistances, so that could've played a part. I still burned through half of my mountain of Rejuvs, though.

Gam'ar was so much easier in melee combat this time around, it was surprising. The knight was also easy, although I did still kite him around and hit him with Lightning, yet my Lightning also seemed to do more damage. The mage was just as easy as before. And Diablo, while tanky, was not particularly dangerous - his Red Lightning and Meteor Storms barely dented me, surprisingly. Plus, Diablo dropped Iratha's necklace, which should be nice on my Rogue And yes, Dacian, killing Gam'ar the first time around definitely got my adrenaline going For now, though, I'm interested in trying another class before doing anything in Nightmare with my Assassin. I'm not sure who to try, but I've already dabbled a little with the Rogue and Necromancer, so likely one of those two.

I do like the changes that were made to the ending sequence! In vanilla, the game ends pretty much the instant Diablo's death animation finishes. In Belzebub, you actually find Albrecht's corpse, take the soulstone, and damn yourself with it, rather than just walk out with it and try to have it destroyed. It's a nice, if depressing, touch, that the player is forced to actually go through with making the same tragic mistake that the hero canonically did.

[DacianDraco]

@aleeque Yes you find them like all recipes, thou they have a different graphic and are not as common as others.

@sandyb87 That's a really good vid showcasing the strategy, what i mostly do and know works well for me, the only other thing i do is also buff with Sacrifice, i see he did itemized with leech so shouldn't be a problem.

@Samson Congrats man, you may not realize it right now but you did is really awesome, not many could stomach the first playthrough with an Assassin, she's hard to master, you didn't knowing what to expect, didn't have handed down gear, etc. Pretty big thing you did right there, definitely earned bragging rights.

As for trying another class i'd go for Necromancer, he's a new addition to explore (blood mage concept) and quite safe, shouldn't take you long to beat Normal with him. You can play him as melee the first few levels and blow corpses then switch once you get more skeletons and it becomes harder to maneuver around them, so go full caster (which is what he's intended to be) and just sit back and spam spells. My 1st character was a Sorcerer and trying all spells helped me with other characters as well, they're a big part of the game and i don't get why many players ignore them when playing melee, even with the new skills all the characters got the spells are still good in certain situations.

And for the final level of this mod besides the level redesign and the addition of the Soulstone i like that Diablo also got the skills he has in Diablo 2, in vanilla D1 he wasn't really the Lord of Terror, the fight took just a few minutes, but now you can truly savor the accomplishment after being able to defeat him. The generals, the Map of the Stars countdown and Diablo himself make up a great and challenging finale to the the story.

[sandyb87]

What I did for the map of the stars is clear terror domain first and then go back and pick up the scroll. This gave me plenty of time just to focus on diablo.

[DacianDraco]

It's not getting the scroll that starts the timer, it's completion of Archbishop Lazarus quest (killing Archbishop Lazarus) that starts it. You can not pick up the scroll at all and Diablo will still become more powerful after 1h passes.