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16-Hell ain't a Bad Place to Be
Today: Marius still has nothing better to do than to follow his master and refuse to admit he has better friends now. He then stares into a screamgate, and this is why last update I asked the question of why the hell did we just walk into that? Diablo did. It's screaming. Look, if the devil goes to the devil's house, why would you just fling yourself right to it and expect nothing bad to happen? It gets stupider hold on.
Now, everything I said about these cinematics and story so far? Alright. This scene right here, bolds and highlights my biggest issue with Diablo.
It's campy. As hell. And not in the good way.
This cutscene, is two parts Mepheesto monologues and waxes teenage poetic, which this series really loves to do, and one part Diablo smashing skulls cause he loves the kronch noises. That's it. Oh no wait, Marius waxes poetic as well. Everyone fucking does this in Diablo. There was a story? No there wasn't. We're expressing angst here.
I've made comments about the writing before, but here it's just uuuugh. Nothing about this was cool, and this was a time and age where Mortal Kombat existed. This is largely because 100% of the dialogue in this cutscene is a monologue. There's no interaction, no establishment. It's just here's Darth Vader he's gonna talk about how evil he is. Be offended by his evilness.
Speaking of that story, we're just left with a massive cliffhanger. I'm certain I'm suppose to be curious what happens next and show, uhh, concern? Emotion? But no, it just sounds like you ran out of time, money, and thought power for this story.
We are nearing the end of the original Diablo 2, and I can finally say the following: "FUCK Marius and FUCK your storytelling." It's skin and bones. Marius has no weight to the story at all and literally only exists to be, the reporter reporting on Godzilla destroying the city. I would let this slide if every single cutscene was not from Marius's eyes, someone we have, not interacted with, never had any reason to care about because he was written to be a useless bakehead, and literally only exists to keep the story plugging along.
This story has potential, not merit. I have already offered a handful of ways to improve upon this, but all of it is moot if they can't write relevant characters in any way shape or form. Hell not even the Primes are interesting characters. I've even dabbled in some Diablo literature from the times. It never gets better. Sanctuary puts itself in an unfortunate genre that every writer they've had write Diablo stories for could never get out of: it's a campy action show with heroes and villains. Villains do villlain things. Heroes stop them. Heroes save the day. It's the bane of storytelling: writing to fulfill the story, instead of telling a story. Everything exists because that's the genre. In a field of literature dominated by Sturgeon's Law, this story never knew how to rise above that.
Also what is up with Diablo's strut?
Music-Pandemonium Fortress
Mephisto's the Lord of Hatred because he turns everyone against eachother. Diablo's the Lord of Terror because he feeds off people's nightmares. Baal's the Lord of Destruction because he's Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man loves blowing stuff up. That's their characterization. There is nothing more. You can easily fill this character void in yourself even if you're not a writer.
Instead of saying everyone's gonna die in every way the author's brain can fathom, good stories spend that time and air giving us an idea of who these characters are and illustrating why they're villains. Showing, not telling, why they're acting the way they do. I get that villains aren't, like, normal people, that's the trope, but the best villains of this time? Had characterization. It was already happening. Even Anikin had internal conflict over having to kill his own son and watching him get killed by the emperor before finally deciding, "No fuck this this wasn't what I wanted." Star Wars (specifically the first three films) isn't an amazing story either, but it hit on things that are very good things to have in stories even if you are an action flick!
But no, it's never about who we are, or what we're protecting. It's about evil being afoot, worlds being threatened, and demons running amok. We are no one and we have nothing. It's a random comic book on the shelf. It's a video game. Everyone only exists and doesn't live, which makes any stakes or dangers pointless. It's a kid's show. Diablo's a kids show. I know I am calling your edgy gorey epic a children's show, for children. You can't stop me.
Wait, uhh, where are we?
However, your journey is not yet over. Diablo still roams free in Hell, marshalling his demonic forces. Only when he is beaten will our world finally have peace.
Hurry now... the sands of time slow for no one!
Oh good. You're here. Because of course you are.
Acutally, why are you here? Why am I here? We aren't in Sanctuary anymore.
We're in, uhhhhhh
Mephisto's defeat is a great victory for the Light. I knew that you would eventually find your way here. The Pandemonium Fortress is the last bastion of Heaven's power before the Gates of the Burning Hells.
This place has been hallowed by the blood of thousands of champions of the Light, many of whom were mortal, like yourself. Now the final battle against the Prime Evils draws near... and you must face it alone.
I have been forbidden to aid you directly, save for a few bits of wisdom. For this is the hour of mortal Man's triumph...your triumph.
May the Light protect you and the powers of Heaven shine upon your path...
Pandemonium Fortress is big. I don't think Diablo II or III ever really describe it accurately. Here we're...technically not even in it. In III we go inside because it's been broken into. What it actually is is the landing point for angelic incursions into Hell. While I like how it looks, this is another case of being much larger than in-game can ever portray. Maybe next time in III.
Yet, against my wishes he led an ill-fated assault upon the fiery Hellforge, itself.
Despite his valor and strength, Izual was captured by the Prime Evils and twisted by their perverse power. They forced him to betray his own kind and give up Heaven's most guarded secrets.
He became a corrupt shadow of his former self - a fallen angel trusted neither by Heaven nor Hell.
For his transgressions, Izual's spirit was bound within the form of a terrible creature which was summoned from the Abyss. His maddened spirit has resided within that tortured husk for many ages now.
It seems to me that he has suffered long enough. I implore you, hero, find Izual and release him from his cruel imprisonment.
Put an end to his guilt and suffering.
So why did the screamgate put us here? And if it put us here, doesn't that mean Diablo just bellyflopped here? But, this looks perfectly fine. Look, what I'm saying is the easy answer is, "No we went to different locations," but I don't want that. That, that doesn't make any sense. I need a better explanation. 
(I absolutely flebbed recording this dialogue. Luckily that's what the quest log is for, and now's a better time than any to showcase it.)
Only by doing this can you prevent Mephisto from manifesting in this world ever again.
Tyrael. Stop using the words "never" and/or "ever".
Anyway, at the start of Act IV we get two quests. ...And you may have already figured out the deal with Act IV: it's the end, and there's only three quests. Get those done already.
But wait, what about the Fortress? What other people can we meet?
The correct answer is stop asking questions.
The game has given up. There's two NPCs, they have names I guess, and they have a whopping 0 lines of dialogue. They have voices for greetings at least! All of two! But these are our vendors so you don't whine. Now get your shit and get out. Are they angels? ...Probably not. But the game just wants this over with stop asking questions go. Go. Go.
Music-Mesa
The start of this update had a lot of subjective takes on Diablo II, and just Diablo in general, where I'm disappointed at how little thought they actually put into most of what's shown in game. I know two ways I am wrong, the first is if you immerse yourself and pretend you're the hero in the comic book this is everything you could ever ask for. If you brush aside story and characters and just envision you being a powerful Barbarian slaying demons...like DOOM...then this game has you covered. People can enjoy this game.
The second is if you leave the game and go look at books like a square then Diablo does a better job at setting the mood. The manual is a treasure trove of lore and I've already used it as reference material for updates. It does a much better job establishing our player characters than the game ever will, and I hope in the future to showcase parts of it...or just link the entire manual in the thread because it's publicly available.
Diablo's story so far isn't strictly terrible. It's just lacking. This here on the other hand is objectively bad. Pandemonium Fortress? Thanks for stopping by now get out. It's not for you. Angel architecture? History? The Angels inside? Stop. Caring. About things. Other than killing. You big nerd.
I can't help but feel like a lot of this dialogue just feels like a Dungeon Master in a tabletop game just giving you fluff as you stare at your character sheet and think about what other act of satanism you're going to do next. It's that bad. I can't even really grill Diablo about it because there wasn't a whole lot to work with in this ballpark at that time. I say this is a bad DM trying to keep me interested as an explanation, not an insult. If I time-traveled to 2000, I wouldn't be expecting much more. At this point, the check is larger than they can cash, and as much as I can be disappointed, I'm just gonna have to hold that they dreamed much larger than they can do.
Something tells me I'm never gonna stop. I hate this. ...Oh new friend!
Megademon | CR: ****
==Can cast Inferno
==Fire Resistant
You know, for a big demon that's meant to be Hell's Uruk-Hai, I think they did a pretty good job. I like this design and the monster isn't a pushover. They will typically do their firebreath only at close range, and they are fairly fast. I know it says Venom Lord but the fire breath is still fire. It's a demonic ploy, you see. Anyway, eating multiple fire breaths is ill-advised. It's no Fetish Shaman Inferno but it still does heavy fire damage. ...It is also much shorter range so walking away does work to avoid it.
But let's say you don't want a big musclebound winged red guy.
We got skinny, confusingly armored guys instead.
Doom Knight | CR: ***
==Melee hits can add magic damage of a random type.
==Elemental Resistant
==Very Fire Resistant
==Can block
This is a very confusing monster because each tier is going to function wildly differently. You know what's even more confusing? Their hover-over text will tell you either fighter, mage, or both. There's no point or purpose, and you can use your eyeballs to see what they do. As such, this is probably the single exception where I will showcase every tier of the Oblivion Knight. Each of them are scary in their own different way.
Anyway this one isn't particularly sturdy but can be dangerous to get tapped by because it has built-in Spectral Hit at 60% chance to do so.
Act 4 has a handful of new monsters and it brings most of them to bare right away.
Vile Mother/Vile Children | CR: *
==The mother Spawns Vile Children
Were you terrified by Sand Maggots but thought, "Man, they never get the chance to spawn additional monsters! Lame!" then I have the monster for you! It's a monster that's capable of spawning more, really bad and frail monsters...one at a time...and it doesn't even have a ranged attack. No. They're superchumps.
Anyway, the start of Act 4 is three areas, which if you don't know what to look for I suppose are very expansive and easy to get lost in. We start out in the Outer Steppes, and the next two exits are going to be on the edges of these massive plateaus of outer Hell. Going along the edges of the map is good advice here, especially since there's all of three waypoints this act, and the second one is at the end of outer Hell.
If it wasn't for the fact that there's a bounty in the Plains of Despair, beelining through the first half of the Act would be a good idea.
Regurgitator | CR: *
==Consumes corpses to launch as projectiles
==Avoids melee
On paper, this is scary, because I've been trained to fear anything involving using corpses since it means the bulkier they are the more damage they do. In practice, it doesn't do much damage with the corpse shot and it actively avoids doing monster things until you kill something and it gets the chance to eat it. As such, it's extremely easy to hit it and kill it before it ever does anything.
Fun fact, uhh, and another testimony to the confusing design direction of Diablo II: long ago your Mercenary, if they died, were permadead, and you would lose whatever was on them and have to buy a new one. Very early in patches your merc became tied to your character and you can resurrect them and keep their level and stuff. Except, their corpse could be consumed either by a Regurgitator eating it or someone exploding or consecrating it. If this happened, you still permanently lost the merc and whatever they had on them. Fun!
These monsters always kinda confused me, both in form and function.
Finger Mage | CR: ***
==Casts Magic Missile
==Fire, Cold, Lightning Resistant
These things take a hilariously long time to attack, but that isn't a terrible problem because they'll opt to use their missile spell from afar and, while slow, it will home in on you. Upon successfully hitting you, you'll get a penalty to mana regeneration for a brief moment...it's not even a drain until later difficulties. I guess if you eat multiple at once. It's more the attack will deal high fire damage along with physical.
But, wait, who's that in the shot?
Oh. Well that was easy.
You cannot help me!
Izual | CR: *
==Superunique
==Deals added cold damage on melee hit
==Casts Frost Nova
==Very cold resistant
==Resistant to all other damage types
How did you fuck up making Duriel again?
While this sounds like Duriel round 2, Izual has a fraction of Duriel's stopping power, meaning it is very difficult for him to take you down. You can easily just sit there and chug potions and he'll never be able to get you to care.
Instead, Izual's claim to fame is that he takes, for, ever to kill. He has a massive health pool and resistance towards everything. I am using Immolation Arrow, famed demon shredder, and it's not doing much. For some reason they made a tank superunique, in that he's bad at playing the game but very good at not playing the game. This makes this quest annoying and a slog to do, because if you aren't dishing out high damage already, Izual takes, a while. A long while. A boring long while. It's not even worth showing the other characters because Izual's damage is so slow, so pathetic, that not even Median XL giving him better spells make it noteworthy. I double-checked. Chloe can also just sit there and babysit Izual.
Music-Izual Dies
(Click here for the full, slightly burnt animation.)
Eventually, I'm set free. But wait, his ghost popped out.
"Tyrael was a fool," is a correct statement.
You see, it was I who told Diablo and his Brothers about the Soulstones and how to corrupt them. It was I who helped the Prime Evils mastermind their own exile to your world.
The plan we set in motion so long ago cannot be stopped by any mortal agency. Hell, itself, is poised to spill forth into your world like a tidal wave of blood and nightmares.
You and all your kind... are doomed.
Goodbye, Izual.
(my thoughts exactly 
)
Okay, so, Izual is relevant here because he is a traitorous angel. ...Not that that's a new concept in this LP, but he turns out to be the mastermind behind the whole situation!
And we just laid him low.
But, if what you tell me is true, then I fear that we have been played for fools all along.
Izual helped Diablo and his Brothers trick me into using the Soulstones against them... Now the Stones' powers are corrupted.
With the combined powers of the Soulstones under their control, the Prime Evils will be able to turn the mortal world into a permanent outpost of Hell!
Shut up.
I have varying degrees of want of all these characters. I think Cain never shuts up and Tyrael is the stupidest being in existence. But Izual. Holy shit do I want Izual to not exist.
(By the way you get 2 skill points for finishing this quest.)
The story so far has been a matter involving the soulstones and trying to use them to seal great evil. There is a problem with said evils having no personality and no real depth other than 
, but you could believe that these evils were at their lowest point and are just now trying to figure out how to get back into power.
So what does the game do to try to generate drama? Have an asshole angel pop up and go, "It was MMEEEEEEEEE! Surprise! I tricked you all!"
Trapped Soul | CR: *
==Annoying
Oh these are there? Well. ...I guess. They're really good at distracting your minions and...not much else.
But no seriously fuck Izual. Fuck you. I spent so much time trying to sell this story and then you just have a character whose middle name is "plot device" show up and reiterate that everything was planned and nothing matters. Keikaku douri. No. You had nothing. You had no buildup, and now you just ruined the possibility for that because if I ever have to explain, "why did anyone do any of this?" you just gave me a very dumb answer. That isn't a satisfying conclusion nor a solution to a great mystery. That sucks. You suck.
I wasn't using the Dungeon Master comparison as an insult, I was using it as an explanation. And this is the DM's imagination hitting its limit in a very ugly way.
I tried to hype this up, people. 
I have a much easier time thinking about Diablo's lore pretending Izual never existed. It's quite easy too. Izual is extremely ignorable. Introduced out of the blue, leaves just as quickly as he entered. That is the exact same case in Diablo III as well. In fact, failing that, my solution is to just believe Izual is lying out of his ass because he's that vain of a motherfucker. Makes him and the people around him a better character if an idiot who got himself killed for glory is still lying to himself that he's more important than he is. But that would require the writers to understand what weakness is!
I'm here. Let's just get this over with.
I'm actually out of monsters now. They were all actually in the first area, so this is why I am splitting up the knights into their own entries.
Abyss Knight | CR: ***
==Melee hits can add magic damage of a random type.
==Shoots Elemental Bolts
==Casts Bone Armor
==Elemental Resistant
==Very Lightning Resistant
This is the upgrade of Doom Knights, and they are upgraded because they get Bone Armor. ...not, particularly high-powered Bone Armor but it is an extra like, 60 Life, but only if you use just physical damage and don't know what you're doing is that ever relevant. ...Okay I got nothing. Same knight flavor, but can now launch their spectral hit from afar with bolts. They aren't beholden to one element either. They'll do every one, except strangely Lightning, which is replaced with Magic. Doesn't do enough damage for it to be super scary though. I'm just more concerned about the cold bolt than anything.
The last area will have a staircase down somewhere, and the waypoint will be right next to it. Once you find it, you're officially halfway there.
Also, prepare your eyes.
Because it's very yellow in the next area.
Outer Hell was a bunch of empty space with some groups here and there. River of Flame is gonna be stretches of land with massive groups of monster blends. It's the proper end. I actually think it's a good leadup: been introduced with what you'll be facing, great now they're bundled up together.
The second quest has to be done, and the Hellforge is here, in a dead-end somewhere in the river. This does mean you have to check every nook and cranny. A good rule of thumb is to remember progress is northeast, so you'll want to check directions other than northeast to see if the Hellforge's there.
Luckily Arty got it in one check. The Hellforge can show up anywhere from the first dead-end to the last dead-end before the checkpoint. But wait, who's that over there?
Your soul shall fuel the Hellforge!
Hephasto the Armorer | CR: **
==Superunique
==Has Conviction
==Spectral Hit
==Vulnerable to Poison
Why, it's Smith 2 Son of Smith. And hey! I finally found another monster that's weak to an element! Amazing! I make fun of him but he is kitted to make the most out of Spectral Hit, so he can actually hit pretty hard. However, he has all the issues of Smith 1, and while somewhat strong, he isn't sturdy enough to really pile on the blows. Conviction is just a nasty aura to deal with in general, because it's the lower resist aura. For now though, we can kick him aside with ease.
I just want to point out that Hephasto has 760 Life. Izual? Eleven THOUSAND nine hundred and fourty six Life. That's five digits!! On Normal!! With resistance to everything as well! That's gross. Izual's gross.
Once upon a time Hephasto had much, much nastier mods on him: Cursed and Extra Strong. This basically meant his base damage was multiplied by 4 once he got the curse off. On the hardest difficulty, this translated to, ehh, about 800 damage per swing.
Arty also had a very easy time. Some days Hephasto is going to spawn alone and run up to you. Other times you'll have to clear through a bunch of monsters near the forge and then Hephasto will just waddle on up. Hephasto with Knight backup can be scary, and there were Knights near him, but he was too far away from them to be relevant.
Anyway, take that hammer and go clear out the forge. (You don't have to do this but I don't wanna finagle with a key while there's still monsters about.)
Once clear, click on the forge to slap Mephisto's stone on there. By the way, if for whatever reason you didn't take it when you killed Mephisto on Act 3, Tyrael will have it when you start the second quest of the act. Thanks Tyrael, for being helpful.
Slap that hammer on, and...
Oh not again. 
Music-Soulstone Smashed
(Click here for the full animation.)
Destroying the soulstone gives us a cache of high-grade socketables, either gems or runes. Its usefulness is pretty random, but in mods that care about perfect gems and give you the ability to break that down into what you want instead, it's a good care package.
But also, we have officially destroyed banished sent away a Prime Evil.
This pleases Cain. Upon talking to him the final quest is available. ...Actually it always was because we just needed the saltlick smashed, but, dialogue.
Again. For the, uhh, third time???
But beware, the Lord of Terror is not to be underestimated. He single-handedly destroyed the town of Tristram and corrupted the last noble hero who tried to stop him.
This time, you must defeat him for good. Only by destroying the Soulstone which he carries will his spirit be banished forever.
Good luck! Though this be our darkest hour, it may yet be your greatest moment.
Tyrael hypes us up. There's no more barriers and Diablo has stopped heading east. It's time to finally do what we're playing this game for.
Next time: We kill Diablo.