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21-The Lord of Destruction
It's the end.
Music-Intro
Worldstone Keep feels, complicated to me. This is gorgeous. It's fun to go through. I can hardly ever remember much about it. If you get a good feel of its map generation you can blitz through it. The staircases down and the waypoint on Level 2 is always going to be after a bridge across a chasm, of which there's only one or two per floor.
Like Act IV before it, the worst of the act is here: Reanimated Horde, Succubi, Blood Lords later on. I guess Imps are here as well and the bad corpse monster I forgot the name of already. The thing that catches my attention the most and will probably catch yours is the Succubi here are quick on the draw with those Bloodstars.
You'll also just find Suicide Minions here with no Overseers. They are, thankfully, not super dangerous, and you can bait out their explosion and run away from it.
I think the main reason why Worldstone Keep passes by me so fast is because, now at least, any monsters here aren't tightly packed together. They have all the elements of a good challenge but until you hit the bottom, there's just not enough of them to really impose you. You can get through this so fast you may never see that the dungeon will occasionally have lightning or whatnot fired on you while Baal thinks it's hilarious. I think I only ever had this happen once so far, across the like 20 times I've been here as of writing this update. It's like Level 3 Durance of Hate, but notoriously hard to get on tape.
Course, the Throne of Destruction proves more interesting.
Music-Baal
For starters, you'll probably get a helping of Succubi or Blood Lords in your face. Second, the layout's fixed, which really hammers in the point that the monsters are now much more tightly packed.
To be fair, Blood Lords and Succubi are really all you need to have a good time. Good melee monster with good range/support monster to back up is a good challenge.
There may or may not be a reason to clear out the sides. If you're grinding, then you do, but outside of that any monsters that spawned in the side halls won't particularly chase you unless they're Blood Lords. You can just ignore Succubi if you want.
Now's another good time to put a portal up about here, right under this archway. Just, anywhere outside the metaphorical throne of destruction.
Because yep, Baal's there.
To start, we need to clear out the throne room of any gagglers. We need a private audience with the lord here.
...Where's the monster card for Baal, you may ask?
It's not here, because we can't hurt him right now.
Once we get the room cleared he'll laugh, and then throw us something more interesting to play with.
Colenzo the Annihilator | CR: *
==Superunique
==Fire Enchanted
==Casts Firebolt
==Raises dead Warped Ones
...Is this a joke? ...Actually it makes sense. Baal is quite the yuckster.
However, you may have noticed this the moment you got up to Baal.
Baal's cursing you, with Decrepify, repeatedly.
The only way to have this stop is to stay out of Baal's range, which is possible to kite the monsters away from Baal but still be out of curse range. This can be hard to do though, especially with the starting monsters in the room and slow nerds like Colenzo and, the next thing.
Because this is a boss rush we've walked into. Each time a new wave spawns, we need to kill the superunique and its pack to get the next one to show up.
Achmel the Cursed | CR: *****
==Superunique
==Adds poison damage to nearby minion's attacks.
==Has a chance to lethally poison on melee hit.
==Can do a poison breath attack.
==Casts Unholy Bolt
==Can revive any undead that's not a Greater Mummy or a champion/unique.
Achmel is a mystery. He's still just as much of an asshole as other Greater Mummies, but he doesn't get a monster mod. Instead, he gets a unique aura, exclusive to him, that adds a very hefty amount of poison damage to attacks, including his.
This isn't particularly relevant if you're at range. What IS relevant was back before they nerfed shaman-esque uniques. Now they come with a pack of monsters they support. (Before they came with, themselves, as a pack.) However, that's not relevant here, because he'll show up with Greater Mummies who will show up with their own Skeleton Mages. The problem here is that these are the worst shamans that have no reason to move whatsoever. So you may have figured out that, if you're melee, you're doing this boss rush and spending time being slowed, vulnerable, and weak. Did I mention the Mages will always use ice projectiles so you'll get chilled on top of getting Decrep'd?
Also, is called the Cursed. Never curses you.
What's next on the list? Oh it's High Council round 3!
Bartuc the Bloody | CR: ***
==Superunqiue
==Lightning Enchanted
==Casts Blizzshock, Hydra
==Can heal eachother
Considerably less dangerous than other High Council encounters because all he is is Lightning Enchanted. Still another fun adventure in Hydras, but, unlike the first two waves, Bartuc and his band will run up to you, so it's easy to get them and your merc away from Baal. If you don't have precious minions then what you do instead is just chill behind a pillar and wait for them to come to you.
My bright idea here is to just put my face in the Hydras so they don't shoot at my merc. Hey it works. Since the High Council isn't terribly dangerous here, I'll talk about how you get through this. Obviously, you do not want to be near Baal, and most of the time you can stand just out of range of Baal but in range of the superunique he spawns in, allowing you to kite them away and deal with them without Decrepify support. Course, the first two waves won't really move, so you can't do this with melee, but you can do it with the rest.
Ventar the Unholy | CR: ****
==Superunique
==Extra Fast
==Casts Inferno
You may remember this encounter from Act IV. The same principles apply, but this one's considerably weaker because it's only Extra Fast. It's honestly kind of a mercy that these superuniques only have one modifier each. They can be dangerous but they aren't brutal. ...It's honestly kinda weird especially since you can break for supplies at any time.
And you may have noticed that each superunique is from a previous act. So what's gonna come after Ventar?
The main course.
Lister the Tormentor | CR: *****
==Superunique
==Spectral Hit
==May knockback on hit
There is only one reason why this isn't the worst thing in the game. It can't run up to you immediately. It is otherwise the beefiest, hardest hitting monster in the game. They are jacked in stats, can stunlock you by virtue of knockback, swing very, very fast by default, and pretty much require you to kite them effectively as melee. It and its minions are also completely unique. You don't find them anywhere else.
I do not try to keep my merc alive here. If she doesn't get away she is dead.
If you play this game like an idiot and let them get up to you, you are likely to get swarmed and die horribly. That's to say nothing about the fact that Lister has the best monster mod to have for a monster who already has very high per-hit damage: Spectral Hit.
Luckily it's only him that benefits from it, but did I mention they're VERY beefy? Each one has around 2,000 Life on Normal, (Base. Being a minion or superunique jacks that up even further.) and will do around 20 to 25 damage per swing, with a high of 59. It's not shameful to have them push you all the way back to the stairs, like here. Their only weakness is their lack of fast movespeed. You can outrun them and either chip them from afar, or engage with one or two at a time before breaking away and kiting again. It's a fitting monster for the Baal special. (Also that whole low damage thing makes this take a while. Poor Vanir.)
Lister, thankfully, is the final wave. When you kill him and Baal has one more chortle, he retreats to his office, leaving the door open.
So, since this is the end, let's go over my characters. Arty has been one of my easiest runs, thanks mostly to Resurgence's Withersting dropping. Some days RNG smiles upon you and unlocks the door for you.
I think even without Withersting giving me free Lower Resist, Immolation Arrow does very good damage in this mod at this point of the game. In the future I'll talk about damage types for the long run and why fire is usually tauted as one of the worst to pick, but we're still in green pastures now and this will work swimmingly for a while. If I ever need to conserve Mana, Resurgence gives me different golf clubs in Fire Arrow and Explosion Arrow. The first is literally free and the second isn't nearly as strong but costs way less Mana. Eventually though, I'll just exclusively use Immolation Arrow. I'll have enough Mana and the means to sustain it that it should keep up for the rest of the game.
Anyway, Baal is expecting you. Don't keep him waiting.
The Worldstone!
Here we are, and there it is. ...Okay we can't get a good look at it yet, but trust me, we're at the Worldstone. There is only one problem.
Tentacles. If you are anywhere except the bridge that goes up to the stone, these tentacles will pop up. They hit fairly hard but are made of paper-mache, thankfully. So long as you don't stand near them or have any sort of crowd control they are pretty much non-factors.
So it's a good idea to get up to the bridge immediately, because he's waiting for you.
The giant enemy crab.
My brothers will not have died in vain.
Baal | CR: *****
==Act Boss
==Casts Teleport, Incineration Nova, Hoarfrost, Mana Rift, and either Defense Curse or Blood Mana, depending on your Life and Mana total
==Uses Vile Effigy, which creates a clone of himself
==Elemental Resistant
The caster boss but done right. Baal has considerably nastier spells, arguably no bad spells, and a variety of tricks he can layer unto eachother to crush heroes, especially those who melee, because half of these things and his bap can really fuck you up if you're up close.
First, the teleporting. This fight is made or broken by where Baal goes with it. He'll teleport regularly. If he's nice he will teleport I guess on the other side of the bridge or up to the Worldstone. If he's not nice he'll leave the bridge and never get back on it, which means you'll have to do the fight while tentacles constantly pop up to distract you.
Second, the nova. It's around 63 fire damage, but with fire resist it'll be fairly weak. It might hit multiple times if you eat several of the projectiles up close but I still wouldn't mark it as dangerous, even if Vanir here is getting up close to it.
Hoarfrost is a wave of cold that, if you do not position yourself correctly, can repeatedly hit you, chill you, and knock you back. This is why fighting Baal in the open sucks: it's much harder to prop yourself up against a wall in case you eat a Hoarfrost and it juggles you across the entire arena. At least it's only cold damage, but it does mean please bring in cold resist. Luckily the knockback is buggy so that, if you run up to it correctly, you'll get hit once by it and go nowhere. I wouldn't recommend this though.
The attack after? Hate it. I hate Mana Rift so much. It is Inferno, but it is purely magic damage and it also applies mana drain per hit. This will delete your Mana if it hits you. If you rely on expensive skills and getting close to Baal he will snap that build in half in front of you and you'll have to chug Mana Potions on end to get through the fight.
He is nice enough to stop using Decrepify but he'll then use the curses Succubi use. This combined with his baps doing hefty physical and fire damage means meleeing him is...well, I've had a long list of things you shouldn't melee because you have to be REALLY STRONG to ignore. Baal can be the final addition to that list. I mean he doesn't even try to get up to your face. Please don't melee him. Please don't melee period.
Finally, he may decide, he's so nice, we're gonna get him twice. Vile Effigy clones Baal, and the only difference is the clone will have half of Baal's current life. The only way to tell them apart is to notice one of them is dropping down much faster than the other, because their visual healthbar will be the exact same until you make a gap. It also gets weaker the less health Baal has, so, again, Baal can be nice and almost never use this or be mean and fire this off really early in the fight. This is bad if he does this, because two Baals with no differences except for Life is especially dangerous, and, takes forever.
Baal's a final boss. Baal can get hampered by his own dumb AI but he has everything he needs to tear through just about everyone. Baal definitely can teleport up to you and Mana Rift you point-blank. Baal can also just decide he's gonna spam Incineration Nova over and over again instead of do anything.
...So for Arty, Baal's fatal weakness is that he really only ever moves by Teleporting. I guess he can walk but he tends to not do this, and it's usually only to just shuffle a bit to the side. However, the fight is involved enough and he used Vile Effigy a couple times that this wasn't a cakewalk. Regardless, tonight, Arty dines on crab soup.
But, let's move on to the others for now.
Vanir helped gather screenshots for the first run of the fight, and Project Diablo 2's Baal, like Resurgence's, is minimally different from vanilla Baal. Holy Shield makes Paladins. It's fairly cheap to get, gives a Defense bonus, and a large increase to block chance. Oh no wait it gives one more thing not mentioned: nearly instant block recovery. Block chance becomes a viable mechanic to use because it will be very, very hard to get locked in place blocking everything, not to mention we can almost block everything (that's physical) as well. So long as you don't get yourself surrounded on purpose max block will work as intended and you'll largely ignore a vast number of attacks in this game.
Vanir actually lives a very simple life. Zeal, Holy Shield, Charge to move around, and an aura of my choice. I've settled on Might, but in practice I should've settled with Holy Freeze because Might only cares about physical damage i.e. weapon damage, and good weapon damage is hard to come by.
Because I know the pitfalls of going physical, I am trying to use an alternative in the form of Fist of the Heavens. I think it's really bad without the right gear because I'm once again breaking the rule of attacks and spells not mixing in a build. You focus on improving one or the other. Can't really do both. I stop doing this after a bit.
Included for posterity's sake again, Withersting dropped here as well. Not nearly as cool, unfortunately.
But anyway, there is one benefit to only pushing the Zeal button: it takes minimal mana. We have some amount of mana leech, and it's fine if we do a basic attack on accident if we don't have the mana for Zeal. (Which is what you default to doing if you try to use a skill without the Mana to cast it.)
Instead, the problems lie with the fact that Baal's level is SIXTY. (Somehow lower than Nihlathak's!) Our attack rating is going to struggle to keep up (It's 67% and I'm using Zeal which multiplies the base amount by like 4.) and Baal is going to hit us if he melees, with a heavy-hitting bap. I think it's actually one of the most heavy-hitting baps a monster can have, and Vanir has max fire resist. It doesn't matter, Baal bapping Vanir is the worst thing that can happen in this fight. ...That and double trouble.
I actually had to do this multiple times throughout the final dungeon. Our damage output is low. Very low. I already explained why. My only virtue is this bad set gives such good defenses that I'm fine with taking my time, because if Baal starts bapping me I can always just flee. Remember when I said he has a hard time moving? Just walk 5 feet away and he'll stop doing the worst thing. At the very least, I can stay in Mana Rift all day because my build does not care about not having mana and can just get it back in 5 seconds. So aside from some hiccups Vanir gets through just fine.
Zoul has maxed Raise Skeleton Warrior a while ago, and I don't feel an explicit need to work on Skeleton Mastery, yet. The Barbarian mercenary does wonders to bring this build together, and for later levels, this skill here is what I'll be getting next. Raise Skeleton Archer, is about the same as Mages, except they just do physical damage, which mean they benefit from Might, unlike Mages which benefit from...nothing. (MAYBE +X% Elemental Skill Damage? I'm not sure.) Get a Bloodwarp here and a Golem of your choice because two of them are prerequisites for Bloodwarp, and we're in business.
Oh wait there's one more thing: get a REALLY good stick and head, that will give like 6 points in Skeleton Mastery combined and, a curse. A good curse.
Terror and its like will force monsters that aren't champions, uniques, or bosses to do something different instead of hit us. Terror is the most straightforward and usable: it causes monsters to flee. Why would you want this when the point of the game is to kill monsters? Well, when it's not you doing the killing, but your minions and mercenary, they love to pick bad fights. This is how you break those up and allow your minions to easily get through mobs as fast as they can without getting overwhelmed. You can also use this to get those monsters off you. In PD2, it's been messed around with in that levels do...nothing but slow them down further, which I guess if you hate them running...why would you make this slow them down? I don't know. One point is enough for its purpose. There's some others as well but I don't care because they too only work on normal monsters, but also they only work when there's more than 1 monster, because it's things like "attack random targets including allies" and "everyone else attacks you".
Things like the boss rush have speedbumps because there is no way my bones aren't getting cursed by Baal unless I kite the waves waaay back. Fun fact: The Minions of Destruction aren't curse immune, but minions and uniques are immune to AI-modifying curses like Terror, so unfortunately I cannot break them up.
This fight isn't the most straightforward because there is a chance he'll clone himself or warp off the bridge. In PD2 I have all the tools necessary to rescue and set up my minions, and keep them coming. In vanilla it'll probably take some retreats to farm up more minions when Baal kills them all. But at least, at least, you're allowed to leave.
This is why I think going all Skeletons, while a good build and easy to play, has issues. There's a much better build to go for that will come online at this point, and you can actually play the game as well with it. I'll explain it later though. It's not something I'm using now.
No matter what I've said and will say about melee, this skill melts bosses. It's Crushing Blow so it has flaws if you get into multiplayer or turn player count up, but combined with Werewolf's ludicrous attack speed you can tear bosses apart doing nothing but hitting them. You don't even really need to do damage. You just need to hit.
As mentioned before, Firestorm is used to handle crowds. To support that, I have a lava serpent pet whose exact name I cannot recall which boosts fire damage and it affects Firestorm. Then there's Oak Sage and I can finally gush about how stupid good Oak Sage is. It summons a minion that doesn't attack, but instead multiplies the life and mana of nearby allies, by something like double. That's ridiculous. Oak Sage is so good and in Eastern Sun they are very tanky as well.
It's also worth mentioning Cyclone Armor, which is a vanilla skill. Bone Armor is on Necromancers and it provides an extra buffer against physical damage, breaking after taking enough of that damage. It ignores everything else. Cyclone Armor is similar, but it only works on fire, cold, and lightning...or most nasty damage you'll find. It is possible to stack both, and maybe I'll look into doing that later, but for now, since Cyclone Armor is very cheap and effective, I use that as the last piece of defense to soak up bad elemental damage.
That's about it. I use Firestorm to thin down crowds, (very badly because I do not have good cast speed) and then I tear them apart by using Feral Rage to build up attack speed and then Iron Claws to tear through anything big. The two-handed sword does provide a high amount of base damage, enough to make this less pain. I will, however, need to see about better crowd control though, because attacks and spells do not mix well together.
Unfortunately, Firestorm does get stonewalled by ES's Minions of Destruction because they're upgraded to be fire immune...from the getgo. Yep. They're always fire immune too so I have to face them the good old fashioned way of kiting onesies twosies until they're all dead.
They still hit like dumpster trucks too. Maybe even more so, so I have to make use of my minions to direct attention so I can get in and wallop. I said Oak Sage was tanky. This is Oak Sage dying horribly to the MoDs. I don't want that in my face. This takes a while.
Eastern Sun really boosted this boss rush. From the start, it's Minions and they have two mods now, so yeah, them hitting like dumpster trucks makes sense. That and the fire immunity can be an unpleasant surprise.
Anyway, I eventually get through the Minions of Destruction. Now for the next wave.
"Wait, next wave?" I might hear you say?
Yeah.
The Minions of Destruction were the first wave.
Here's the second.
You may be able to guess what has changed by now: all the act bosses are back, beefed up and given extra mods and immunities, and also packs as well for good measure. These aren't MoDs to be fair and I can actually get through the pack just fine.
This is where that melee focus shines. This would probably take much, much longer if I couldn't just lop off any percentage of life per bap.
Duriel meanwhile has a pack of the old ladies. He's also Lightning Enchanted as well for good measure. And yes, he still has Holy Freeze. This fight can be, rough. Painful, even. Luckily, enough Crushing Blows bring his health down to the point where my baps can do the rest.
This is...different. Mephisto doesn't spawn with a pack. ...He spawns with a giant demon that tamed him. This is because of weird quirks with modding this particular part. Rest assured the Prime Evil tamer can be just as nasty as Mephisto, and well, it's a strong melee monster and a strong caster monster, and I've already talked about how that's all you need to challenge the player in Diablo. And before you ask, yes, Mephisto's the minion in this superunique pack. Mephisto also doesn't have any mods of his own because he's a minion.
Still explodes in fire though.
That just leaves the big D.
This should sound familiar. His Venom Lords are scarier than him honestly but luckily he himself isn't particularly special or different. I guess just don't get bapped by him or something cause he has Spectral Hit. I didn't have difficulty with him...again.
It doesn't end yet though. The Worldstone Chamber has monsters in it now, like council members, (normal council members!!!) dark knights or whatever, and those invisible lightning assholes, among others. They don't add a massive lot to Baal himself, but it does bring this area more in line with the tradition of bosses just being in rooms full of other demons. I honestly liked that more in these games.
Baal will also just, have clones already in the fight. You can experience Vile Effigy without having to roll dice for it. It's honestly better this way.
And that's about it for Eastern Sun. The new boss waves are definitely dangerous, but Baal is largely unchanged, just able to do his nastiest gimmicks better and his power level being brought in line with Eastern Sun's power curve. We've seen Bob scratch enough demons, and Baal doesn't hit nearly as hard as his minions or Duriel. This is largely due to the fact that those monsters will exclusively use heavy physical damage that is hard to reduce, but Baal is fickle about doing those same baps.
Blizzard but lightning sure is good in Eastern Sun. This is largely why, look at that damage range. Look at how many skills can synergize with it. This thing is going to deal hefty hefty damage. Eastern Sun's Barb also has many improved passives in this tree, like free magicfind, movespeed, and resistances. With the way ES works, one point in all of these is worth it to get all the skill bonuses from items. (Some of which require you actually put a point in the skill.)
Plasma Rain has been the focus and will be what I'm using. Phantom Hatchets is only taken as a very effective way to get the most out of Mana Leech. I am not using Warcries right now and this is a mistake that'll soon get rectified, but just Plasma Rain on its own is strong enough to carry. Much, much easier to use than trying to do melee with Druid lemme tell ya.
The boss rush experience is inverted for Greg the 13th super saiyan. Anything involving mobs melt in his rain. Anything involving a big bruiser tends to be painful for him. These things still suck but they die much quicker than Bob trying to bap them one at a time.
...
Oh right Duriel's Lightning Enchanted. That gives him, uhhh, yes resistance towards our single damage type.
Queue pain. This build rules but I'm pretty sure it's guaranteed to struggle here. I counted, it took me around 5 minutes and 45 seconds to kill Duriel. The MoDs did not take that long.
I think Diablo can also be painful because he's naturally resistant to elements and Spectral Hit will only improve that, but uhh, Diablo's not great at hurting me. ...Or anyone it seems.
The rest is down to whether or not Baal and his bodyguard which is also Baal cooperates. With maxed resists and a build that is not one to get into his crab legs on purpose, the hard parts are not the final boss...again. Eastern Sun is weird, honestly. Bizarre, even.
That just leaves...
TO BE CONTINUED.