Diablo I is short

[Vandro]

I have played alot of Diablo I when I was a kid, from 1997 to 2000. I remember doing endless Hell runs with my sorcerer (he had 1 hp and a legit Arch-Angel staff of Wizardry, it sure was fun) on battle.net. But when I retrogamed single player yesterday with a warrior it struck me how short it actually was. I might have had lots of itemluck, but I breezed through the single player. Only when 5 knights in hell and 10 succubus hit me at the same time, I got stunned to the point of it being hard. It was actually a matter of hours till big D dropped, I recon 3-4.

I got insane quest rewards like Undead Crown, Arkaine's Valor and Veil of Steel and found a 30 resist all 57 life amu, a 16 to hit half trap damage ring and stormshield. The only thing I wasn't totally happy with was my ring of +14 all stats and my 6-15 sword with +8 damage (I prefer either Civerbs Cudgel or a fast sword) and my Full Plate of harmony.

I can remember getting all the stuff in Diablo I for my sorcerer on battle.net was actually quite hard, took some real time getting all the dragons/obsidian of wizardry jewelry and getting my thinking cap to 80 durability, but my warrior had in 3-4 hour the equipment needed to do hell difficulty.

It is actually so short and so easy to gear up, that I wonder why I played it for so long :) Was clearing Hell really that addicting? Was getting perfect block and insane hit rating on my warrior to do warrior vs warrior duels really that fun? Was the Needler really underrated and one of the best ranged weapons in game? I remember it was :)

[Zarniwoop]

Single player is considerably easier than multiplayer (bnet) and you only get those quest rewards in single player.

Sounds like you found some great stuff!

As a sorc, I find it hard on bnet past level 11.

[mouseman]

Yeah.. All monsters have 2x hitpoints in MP mode. Also your max XP from a kill caps in multiplayer and you don't get most of those quest rewards. So welcome to the again growing community of b.net players :)

[Swiffer]

As a sorc, I find it hard on bnet past level 11.

Farm levels 1 to 4 for spell books. That is what i usually have to do with a new sorc.

[mouseman]

If I understand correctly, you won't get any XP from levels 1-4 if you're level 10 or higher, so with level 11 sorc I'd run level 5 repeatedly if it's not too hard. It's funny how mages' are struggling in low levels whereas warriors own the place. Later they change places :) It reminds me of Caramon and Raistlin... ;)

[Lanthanide]

Wow, that is stunning equipment to get in 1 play through of SP, Vandro. I *never* found anything like that amulet that you got. The +14/stats ring is also very good in SP, as are the Stormshield and FPM of Harmony.

[Zarniwoop]

All those pieces of gear are only found in single player and are quest rewards you get every time if you do the quests.

I got the same thing except the amulet and stormshield.

My final gear was a 10 resist all ring with minor stats, a 15 resist all ring with + some minor mod, Naj's light plate, Veil of steel, and just a staff of fireball which I never used a charge of.

All of it except one ring and the staff were quest rewards available in all single player games. I was max resist with the veil and the rings. Oh yes, my amulet was junk. + 16 magic or something.

Once you're about to face off with the big man, you may as well just get a staff of wizardry or something else. Maybe even golem. Because you're going to have your hands too full to mess with a staff.

I found chain lightning worthless by the way. Never saw it branch once. Fireball is much better. And level 15 is harder than level 16. Because everything on 15 is highly resistant. Level 16 most mobs take 2 fireballs max.

[Lanthanide]

The fixed quest rewards in single player are always unique items. If you get a blue (magic) item from a quest, then its stats will be completely random.

Actually for the record, I only ever found 8 jewelry pieces of the zodiac (about 3 of the +20), but I never found a single one with a prefix, of any sort. I did find 8+ windforces, lots of Demonspike coats and Naj's light plates, but only ever found 1 dreamflange and 2 RCs, kind of annoying.

[mouseman]

Back in the '90s we had a legit party with awesome stuff. The mage had two self found obsidian ring of zodiacs, even. I found windforce for our rogue and someone found champion's sword of haste for me (was playing a warrior). Great memories.

We didn't find the royal circlet, but I think everything but that. So don't get depressed, legit players - it's possible to get the best gear without cheating or without trading ;)

[OverUsedChewToy]

"I found chain lightning worthless by the way. Never saw it branch once. "

Was oneself surrounded by monsters at the time? Chain lightning is fairly effective at higher levels for larger crowds.

[SaroDarksbane]

Ahh, I had a legit level 40 back in the day with a KSoH (Broadsword), and a Obsid/Zod amulet (lower end, but still very nice).

Back then, you couldn't move your multi chars from one comp to another, though, and he got lost when my parents bought a new computer.

So sad.

[Lanthanide]

"I found chain lightning worthless by the way. Never saw it branch once. "

Was oneself surrounded by monsters at the time? Chain lightning is fairly effective at higher levels for larger crowds.
Chain lightning only starts to be good from about slvl 5 or 6 onwards, before that you're better off just using regular Lightning. Note that it doesn't work the way that it does in D2, it works more like the Amazon's Lightning Fury skill.

Higher slvls (and clvls?) increase the length of the bolts, the number of the bolts, the targetting distance and the damage done per bolt, which all adds up to a very geometric increase in damage, compared to other spells like Fireball which is pretty linear.

[Bubba]

I recently played through on multiplayer (I played solo, but went mp for the extra difficulties). It is still very short when compared to D2. Brought back memories though; my first mp experience was B.net. I remember wondering why half of my stuff dissapeared from the floor when I died while questing with some folks. Ah, sweet, blissful ignorance!