Diablo 2 Steemit retro-gaming project! Steemcules the Strong Act 1, Episode 1

This is the tale of Steemcules the Strong. A Steem exclusive playthrough of the iconic Diablo 2 hack n slash game.

Last time on Breaking out the good old classics! Diablo 2 - Lord of Destruction I started the character Steemcules.

I will be doing a bit of play-through. It's partial walk through and strat-guide. I am planning on focusing on Steemcules and if all goes well then I will go for another character once Steemcules finishes Normal mode.

Acts and Quests

Diablo 2 is divided into Acts. Each Act has 6 quests. No more, no less.

Act 1 has the following Quests:

• Den of Evil
• Sisters' Burial Ground
• The Search for Cain
• The Forgotten Tower
• Tools of the Trade
• Sisters to the Slaughter

Den of Evil

This is a pretty straightforward beginner quest. A local grotto has become a staging point for monsters to attack the Sisters of the Sightless Eye, who run the camp you find yourself in. You clear the cave, gain experience and probably your first magical item and Akara gives you a free +1 Skill.

Also important is Akara gives you the ability to reset your skilltree. Don't use this at all. You can only use it once and you might need it much later in your development. You can always travel back to Act 1 to use this ability when you so see fit.

Steemcules breezed through this quest no issues.

Sisters' Burial Ground

A quick five or six chops from his axes and Blood Raven perished. This quest asks you to slay a fallen Sister in the Burial Grounds. Always remember to check the two crypts below this area, the loot is always good.

Steemcules then gained a mercernary friend called Aliza. A sister of the Sightless Eye. She tags along and shoots stuff with her bow.

Here is what Steemcules looks like at this stage of the game:

Steemcules stands victorious over the bodies of his foes!

Character Profile at Level 6

Character Profile at Level 9

As you can see, my points are going into Strength mostly. The more Strength, the more the damage gets as well as being able to wear better armor. This puts your defense up before other classes so you do not need the Dexterity.

Usually you would need to put points into Dexterity which helps you landing hits (accuracy), but with a Barbarian's Masteries which gives a boost to Damage, Hit rate and Critical chance there is once again no need for Dex.

Some more Vitality and Energy is important so you don't run out of either.

The Search for Cain

This is a bit more of a trickier quest in that it requires you to travel to Old Tristam. This was the village where your character was based in Diablo 1. I played that game btw. Finished the game with all 3 characters in a weekend.

So you travel through the Stony Field and notice some stone-hedge type menhirs. Here you fight Rakinishu a blue skinned Demon-kin that the other Demon-kin mention from time to time. He is fast and has lightning attacks but you can kill him fairly quickly.

Then you pass from here and go through the underground passage to the Darkwood to find the Scroll of Inifus, which was lodged into a tree. It is guarded by a trio of Brutes, the leader of which is Treehead Oakfist. Tough and much faster than an ordinary Brute.

Take this scroll to Akara and it will reveal the order you need to tap the stones in the Stony Field rolls eyes in order to open the gate to Tristam. You don't need to read the scroll, there are five stones, just keep tapping them now that you gave the scroll to Akara. They randomly change the order for each character but you just keep clicking them all and they will all light up and a red portal will open up to Tristam where you can find Cain.

So there are a couple things to look out for in this location:

• Cain - He's been there since Diablo 1 and heis locked in a cage in the center of town. Somehow after you free him he opens a portal straight to the Rogue encampment and leaves you to battle whatever monsters are still left.
• Griswold - This unique, super-tough zombie used to be the blacksmith in Diablo 1. Used to buy from him.
• Wirt's corpse - This trickster used to allow you to gamble for high level items for large amounts of cash. You get a lot of this money back by turning his body over. Also you get his leg... keep that. Or wield it as a club.

So Griswold dropped me a Green Set item!

Super lucky it is the Berserkers Headgear! That's a barbarian set! I am now wearing that.

Just look at my swag!

And now i am level 10.

That's it for now. I will follow up with the other 3 quests in the next post!

Keep on questing!

@zakludick