The set, unique and rare items found around Sanctuary are almost always worthless, and this further increases the frustration of Diablo II endgame.Īs I said, at level 89 experience points improve with maddening slowness – even when facing the toughest foes and the most troublesome bosses like Baal.
In his current setup, Abellion can inflict 1385-4458 damages (Zeal plus Fanaticism) with a defense of 10712 (thanks to the recently acquired Stone armor), while resistances are maxed out except for the secondary weapon setup (Black plus Ancient’s Pledge).
Charge (level 10) is the attack skill that does more damage and is very fun to use to assault or chase after a distant foe (or to quickly roam through Sanctuary), even though it must be used cautiously to avoid ending up in a group of demons too strong to be dealt with at the same time.Ībellion’s support skills are Fanaticism (level 22), an essential aura to maximize damage and attack speed together with Zeal, Holy Shield (level 17) to enhance defense, Vigor (level 5) to increase speed while exploring the game’s world when there is no need to fight. The most interesting gear stored in Abellion’s Stash includes the Griswold’s Heart armor, the almost complete Orphan’s Call set, the Duress runic armor used until a few days ago before making Stone, a lot of runes and other stuff.Ībellion is a Zealot Paladin, therefore his main attack skill is Zeal (level 22, to quickly attack multiple enemies one after another) Vengeance is a secondary (and essentially almost always useless) attack skill (level 9) which adds a bonus to elemental attacks, while Smite (level 3) is useful to stun one or more enemies with the shield or, more frequently, to go through a crowd that surrounded the brave Paladin.
Black and Ancient’s Pledge, ie the weapon and the shield used by Abellion at the beginning of Hell difficulty, have been downgraded as secondary weapon set in the (rare) cases that the paladin would find himself surrounded by foes a bit too cocky and he had the need to break through (thanks to Knockback) and temporarily retreat. The other particularly significant pieces of Abellion’s equipment include the well known Harlequin Crest unique Shako, with its great bonuses to skills, life, mana and to the chance of finding magic items, Venom Grip unique gloves, the essential Raven Frost ring which prevents freezing, Thundergod’s Vigor unique war belt.
His main gear consists of Gimmershred, a unique flying axe capable of inflicting a lot of elemental damage and hitting fast, an extremely effective combo for a zealot build and an essential one to survive in Hell difficulty the Stone rune armor, which I was able to create just during the latest game session in the past weeks after getting a long awaited Pul rune (and a Balrog Skin armor I was keeping in the Stash for months) the Sanctuary rune shield, capable of providing extremely high bonuses to resistances and defense. Considering the results, and above all the fact that trying to further level up has become far too frustrating to be considered still a “video game”, during the past months I decided to put an end to the adventures of the first “important” character developed after reinstalling Diablo II on my new gaming laptop.Ībellion is now a level 89 zealot paladin, one level less than the goal I had in mind at the beginning of his journey through the haunted world of Sanctuary. It was just a matter of time, as I had set myself the goal of “maximizing” the Diablo II experience after years (decades? Yes, decades) of building off-line characters that were very personal but not very effective in facing the most difficult challenges of Blizzard North‘s ARPG masterpiece.
This post is part of the series Stories, memories, gaming heroesĪfter almost two years of wiping out the demons of Hell and hunting the Prime Evils in the free time between dungeons, Paladin Abellion has finally reached what I consider his ultimate stage of development.