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Well, I play mostly single player these days. Due to ATMA I have crazy shit on it, I could say I'm very rich right now.

Once in a while I play bnet, when I feel lonely. Same crap as always, but you get some nice guys to play once in a while. I mostly log on to refresh my characters. I've been doing this for over a year already. Man, time flies...

If you didn't know, the patch 1.13 beta was on PTR sometime ago, I'm not sure if it's open anymore. The new patch was kind of a disappointment, I'll put the changes according to Blizzard:

Patch Notes:

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- Patch 1.13
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A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again,
that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies
within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil
to the Throne of Destruction...


Major Bugs

- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.


Minor Bugs

- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it was created.

Specific changes/improvements

- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
- Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- Updated two Act 5 mercenary names to Klar and Tryneus.
- When creating a single player game, pressing the 'Enter' key now automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
- When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode. This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound in background.
- Added support for '-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed' command line options.


Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes


Amazon

-Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and Immolation effect by 50%.
-Immolation Arrow - Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.
-Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.


Assassin

-Shadow Master - Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.


Barbarian

-Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
-Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.


Paladin

-Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.


Druid

-Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
-Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.
-Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.


Necromancer

-Blood Golem - Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
-Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100% to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
-Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.


Sorceress

-Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and Blaze and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Blaze - Synergy receives 2% damage per point of Firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
-Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.
-Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.
-Lightning Mastery - Reduced overall effect by 15%.


In short: useless changes and respec. I disliked the respec idea, but I believe the way it was added here is nice, but I'd rather have it as a quest than a normal boss drop.

The Amazon changes were nigh useless: Immolation Arrow's damage is still too low. The damn timer's still there. The new effect is nice, twice the size of Firewall with 1/10 damage. They still need to fix this.

The much expected Hammerdin nerf is at hand, many complained that this still isn't enough due to the place where hammerdins are hated the most: PvP. I don't play PvP so I don't give a shit.

Sorceresses were hurt the most: a new bug, where instead of increased Hydra projectile damage, it is now decreased, making it far worse than it already is. The -15% lightning damage penalty is negligible, but still annoying, it shouldn't disencourage players from playing light sorcs though.

AND, the most requested: The removal of Iron Maiden. The most annoying PvM curse, the bane of melee builds and mercs. Good riddance.

You could cheat at the PTR and use commands to get max gold and lv99, I tried a bit and the changes weren't enough to make me keep playing so I changed back to 1.12. I'll wait for 1.13 final now. It went back to drawing board and Blizzard are keeping secret for the new changes, which is a relief. They mentioned that there will be REAL changes this time so let's keep our fingers crossed.

It is really too bad you can't play. I still plan on playing this with you one day.

PS: about our little business, I'm still reasearching the topic about it, so stay with me.

Whirlibarbs got boosted? Weird, it was already the main hell-viable skill for a barbarian, I'm surprised they didn't massively boost other skills.

Iron Maiden gone... I don't know how to feel about that. It was a gigantic pain in the ass, no question, and I loathed it, but I'm not sure that the game needs to be easier. The ease with which it can be completed gave rise to the rather odd way people play the game, which is to say, speedrunning+mfing. A whole new difficulty level would probably be a very good thing, but I guess that's a lot to ask for.

Respec, meh... it's only a few points at most. If your build is made or broken on three points, then you've probably made serious mistakes anyway.

So what's the "new mystery"? Does uber D still spawn through SoJ sales? That still makes me angry.

My thoughts exactly. It's not like they didn't have enough leech in the first place. EBOTD Berserker Axes and Griefs have insane damage that even 1% leech would be enough, but what the hell.

Whirlwind isn't the main Barbarian skill, at least from what I see in USEast, Frenzy is the main PvM skill, now if you're talking PvP, that's a no-brainer.

About Iron Maiden, I also have mixed feelings. I believe the game needs some adjustments. Notice that for some reason the OKs also do not cast Lower Resist anymore. Even easier. I hope they adjust the OKs difficulty level, because right now they are worthless enemies that are nothing more than "free exp." Or "Curse Bitches" if you will.



Agreed. But it is in every damn MMORPG these days, including WoW. Blizzard wants to get with the times, kiddies were begging for this. I don't really care that much, I usually plan out characters these days. This is nice for having fun early in non-rushing, non-soul-breaking games, which, let's speak the truth here: rushes really need to go away. It sucks playing in bnet because kids just want to skip most of the game instead of playing it.



Respecialization. The bosses can now drop "essences" which after cubed become a consumable item, much like Anya's thawing potion. After used, ALL your stats are reset.
You can respec through Den of Evil quest in all difficulty levels, plus unlimited through the consumable item that you will gather from the bosses.
This is what I complained earlier: I wanted a more elegant respec option. This is just a hack, and one that interferes with your drops. I don't really like that.
Duriel is bugged as hell now, and sometimes he might drop only TOWN PORTALS!! How horrible is that. Good thing nobody runs him...

The 1.13 beta bug list is massive. Check out this thread for more information: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=754786


The Diablo Clone is still there and I really doubt they will change it... who knows what's in their heads?

How about that. I remember Frenzy barbs but whirlwind was usually the one I'd see on Eur. Tbh so few people play barbs that it's probably just my memory going. I ran with a couple of uber-geared whirlibarbs, they can be a surprisingly effective build. I intended to make a gf barb to run travi, had a lot of very high-level gf gear, never got around to it though.

What. The. Fuck.

Why bother with the teeny Den of Evil respec if bosses can drop something infinitely better? Are the odds astronomically low or something?

By new content I thought they meant actual new encounters. That would've been worth mentioning. Instead they're just making the game much more newb-friendly, and honestly - it's nearly a decade old, chances are everyone knows what they're doing by now. Making fucked builds is essential for the learning process.

I used to run Duriel if I was killing time in a trade thread. Never dropped anything of note, obviously...

I'll give that thread a read.

Edit: yep, that's a shitload of bugs. Most are from earlier revisions, but still.

No, you got it wrong. There's no difference in the respecs. They're the same. The one you get from the Den of Evil quests is the same you get from the consumable item.
The odds for the essences are pretty good. In fact, too good. They constantly take over a good spot that could've been an unique.

You'd be surprised by the amount of people I see in bnet playing "wrong" builds and asking for advice in stats. Just today I had three guys asking for advice. I believe DIII is responsible for the newer players. Blizzard knows that and that's why a new patch is coming.



Yeah forgot to mention that. Still, 1.13 introduced some new bugs. Hopefully they will get fixed, Blizzard went back to the drawing board for this patch.

This in march, 23th. Ladder reset! Plus, the official 1.13 patch release.

I confess I'm disappointed. There's no way they fixed all the issues that plagued the current patch and some of the older ones in such a small time. I expected the release for so much later...

All the whiners that wanted a reset(dumbasses) now get their fill. I wanted this crap to stop, the ladder system is pointless, but some people seem to like it, even if it only lasts a week after the market is flooded by dupes.

But I digress. I'm now running against the time to make ladder-only runewords. I was trying for trading my HRs for Ohms, for Chaos Claws, but then I realized that Chaos is not ladder-only. What an idiot. So far I can only make Fortitude, and I'm not in the mood for scavenging socketables. God, I hate ladder resets...

So I just pat'd a skelliemancer... without using a keyboard or mouse. I used a head mounted mouse, a foot pedal, and voice control. It works surprisingly well; almost all other builds would be far too hot key intensive, but this one is just lazy enough to work. The first video game I've been able to properly enjoy in about six months, feels great.

Iron maiden's absence does feel weird in chaos sanctuary. Atma is an amazing program, but I wish it would integrate more directly with the game. I also found my first ever Ist - I'd found several each of the runes around it, but never an Ist, if I remember right. Popped on the hell forge.

The only difficult locations were the bug lair and the arcane sanctuary in act 2/hell. Playing untwinked, I didn't find a teleport source until very late, so these were more boring than they were hard. Aside from that the build is extremely powerful and easy-to-use. I ended up really enjoying it.

The Summoner is a great build. It can go anywhere in the game. I've played several.

As long you have enough resistances, even Gloams are no threat. You can pack quite an amount of MF on it as well. Great finder.

It's a good thing you are able to play this again finally.
Just be careful of Atma, it is known to corrupt characters with essences. There's a thread in DIII.net about it and how to fix it.

Also, since you're in single player, make sure to install the Runeword mod to get the ladder-only items and runewords.

at the moment I've got about 150% mf, and somewhere in the region of 500% gf. A good stack of +skills (helped by a newly found shako) and lots of resistance; I'm trying to work some pdr and increased max res in there somewhere, since I'm so clumsy with this control scheme and can't dodge for shit.


yeah, I'd already got those.

You playing any builds at the moment?

Bad shit happened to me lately, mainly an ex-girlfriend being a bitch about not feeling secure with me or some crap, whatever, so I'm not really in the mood for almost anything. I really miss the sex...

I tend to play bowazons mostly. The Summoner is a staple when I feel lazy, and I use a Blizz sorc to run Ancient Tunnels exclusively. I still want to play a Barb seriously, but I stray and end up playing another Amazon variant...

That's always going to be tough. Keep your head up.

Ever heard of a taunt barb?

http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums ... opic=64644

The pacifist especially sounds like fun - turning berzerk's 0def into an auto proc is a stroke of genius. And hey, if you're in need of your spirits lifting, SSoG's guides are good for that at least...

My apologies for the tone, it wasn't on purpose, an obviously not aimed at you, I do that sometimes.

I'm recovering. It was a huge illusion, the woman was a joke and treated my like a king at first and later as a clown. I'm trying to keep my head up, but she's trying to torture me in those social sites and MSN. Hard to believe a 30 years old woman can be so juvenile...



Yeah, sounds like fun. I could trade my non-ladder gear to make one of those builds. I'm not really sure if it's worth though. I always wanted to unleash the insane power of a Berserk Barb, but the skill is so boring.

Good to see you back in the game, I really enjoy talking about this game with a friend. My mates over here, can't stand the graphics. It's all about Crysis, Crysis, Crysis. So annoying.

That sucks. Hope the situation resolves itself soon. Sounds like attention seeking behaviour to me - it'll blow over.

yeah, I don't really have anyone to talk to about it in real life either. I'm having to give it a rest at the moment though, my knee started hurting from the clicking the other day. My fucking body is a mess.

Yes, that's for sure. I just don't know why. She was posting "platonic love" messages about some guy she met before me and had a crush. Apparently, she got the cold shoulder from him and started posting messages like "it's time to start liking guys that like me" and other similar stuff. Not directly aimed at me, but everyone in MSN contacts. Long story. I would love to tell you about it, but knowing you, I'm pretty sure I'd just bore you to death.



Sorry, I laughed at the last part. It isn't funny.

It's terrible to see how it is for you. How are you living lately? Are you working? From what I am understanding, you aren't able to do many things.

By the way, the Bow-wielding Amazons, specially strafers are very lazy builds as well. They're one of my favourites, also because of that. After you find a decent bow, try one. Strafe is auto-lock so you don't even need to aim.

That Ist you found in Hellforge is nothing, compared to the drops players are claiming they got. I got lucky once and got a Gul from HF.

Don't forget that the high rune drop rate was doubled in this patch, so you will find high runes eventually.

I'm still not motivated enough to play, I need to get out of this blues soon, but then, I will do some serious rune hunting.

I'm a firm believer in laughing at life when it throws shit at you. No offence taken.

No, I'm not. I have been volunteering at a local magistrates Court, and I'm training to do Samaritan volunteer work (answering phone calls on a suicide line). Keeps me busy.

Interesting, I had most Amazon builds down as being very hot key/click intensive. I'll bear that in mind.

The more I read about the high rune drop rates in the last patch and previous, the luckier I consider myself for having self found a Sur back then. They were just insanely uncommon. Amusingly, I've read some players refuse to upgrade, because the new drop rates are "too high". There are some pretty strange people playing d2.

I imagine you are aware of lower kurast running? That seems to be the best place to find them.

A little request - if you know of any good point and click games, preferably with minimal keyboard use, let me know