Diablo 2 Steemit retro-gaming project! Steemcules the Strong Act 2, Episode 2 - Giant bug!
Stay a while and listen! This is the tale of Steemcules the Strong. A Steem exclusive playthrough of the iconic Diablo 2 hack n slash game.
Last time on The Tale of Steemcules the Strong Steemcules ran through the first part of Act 2 swinging his dual axes without much effort, decapitating skeletons and squishing maggots and somehow through it all, he gathered books and clues which he promptly passed off to Deckard Cain to summarize for him.
Bottom line is that the wrapup of this Act is much like any other - point the Barbarian in the right direction and slay his way to where the Horadric Staff gets jammed in to open the way into Tal Rasha's tomb. And kill a Big Bug.
The Quests
So the remaining Quests to complete are as follows:
- Arcane Sanctuary - Go into a magical safehouse that looks like it's in space
- The Summoner - Kill a skilly magician
- The Seven Tombs - Find the right symbol if you read the book and go kill a bug.
Arcane Sanctuary and the Skinny Wizard
The Arcane Sanctuary 'tis a silly place. Full of funny portals and ghosts that drain your mana. Bring potions and hack and hack and hack... That's the strategy guide.
The Summoner actually puts out a lot of damage so if you are low on health then he could be a problem. He does not have a lot of health himself either so for the Barbarian it is no problem. He has enough health to survive a couple attacks, get in quick and belt that skinny wizard quick.
Once this is done, you get to read the Summoner's book... well I am not even sure that the book belonged to the Summoner in the first place. Anyway, it tells you which of the Seven Tombs is the correct on to go to.
Of course you can go into the other tombs for loot and EXP but it's generally a waste of time. Just go ahead and go for the proper place.
Tal Rasha's Tomb
Getting into Tal Rasha's Tomb is not difficult. The Valley of the Magi is just a kind of bowl. North, West, and East there are cliffs and set into these are the entrances of the 7 Tombs. As shown above, the correct symbol is shown to you in your Quest Log. Of course, you cannot just use the one I show you, because that will change for each character.
The tomb is nothing special. But it does contain a little room where all the fireworks happen It looks like this:
Fighting the Big Bug
Duriel is one of the toughest bosses that you will find earlier on in the game. I have not mentioned the Portal trick for fighting bosses yet because even Andariel was not much of a challenge to Steemcules.
Duriel is some Hell-grub bug thing. He does huge amounts of damage. He is exclusively melee and travels pretty fast. The man trouble when fighting the Big Bug is that he freezes on a direct contact and as I said - High Damage.
He is so fierce that there was no time for a selfie with the beast... alive at least...
Here is a little pic of him.
So here is the Portal trick: If you do not already know, if you die in Diablo 2 then you respawn in town... naked... Well OK, not totally naked. But you have ZERO weapons and armor. Now you need to find your corpse and go pick it up to get all your stuff back. This becomes a huge problem as you need to run unarmed and unarmored to the area where you died.
If there area is a boss fight then it becomes even more problematic. You might have to fight your way there again and you may die in the process.
The Portal trick is simple: As soon as you go into a very dangerous zone, open a Portal. If you do die then the Portal will remain open and you will be able to skip straight to the area in full health and grab your corpse and the associated equipment. You then open the portal again quickly because going back through it will close the portal.
Also, by dropping the Portal first, you save critical time that you need for when you need to get out of there quickly!
Next time on Steemcules the Strong
Jungle Fever!
A new Act awaits Steemcules!
What dangers await him?
What unsuspecting creatures dare stand in his way? Only to be slain by his mighty axes!
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This brings back memories from my ancient past when I played Diablo, the original version or was it version 2...honestly cannot remember. I’ve only played a few games in my life and only because my brothers played them, Hereos of Might and Magic being another I loved. Anyway, it looks fun and I wished I had the time to play these old games. :)
It is awesome... Heroes of Might and Magic is awesome! Now the question is this: Which HHM was the best one that you played?
Okay, that was testing the memory. I had to go back to my approximate age back then, cross reference the releases, and then check the images on google search to compare what I remembered. I never played no DOS version, so possibly started with HMM II, but definitely HMM III, and maybe one later version too, since I was still playing it when I met hubby at Uni, and he was also a fan of HMM. But checking out the pics has me all nostalgic now... When I replace my laptop, I might actually hunt it down and play it again for old time’s sakes...
Edit: I have to say it was II or III was the best, I just can’t remember which. But I think they messed it up in a later version, and that might have been the reason myself and my hubby lost interest. :(
Perfect!
HMM 3 was definitely the best one! At 4 and 5 they messed up big time.
I finally posted a sequel linny! :)
Congratulations @Zakludick,
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Awesome! Archdruid Gaming for the win!
Thanks @enjar!
My memory is so bad I don't even recall most of that. I think I recall a little bit about the tomb but that about it.
Great to see those old style graphics again. Some stuff just seems to age ok and other not at all. I kind of miss it. Nothing trying be silly over complicated it just needed to be amazing.
I do recall using the poral trick quite a few times. In fact I still do in games to this day that let have that kind of game mechanic.
It is essential to use the portal trick!
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Thank you so much once again!