Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Beta Synopsis

If you’re into the game that will get a serious overhaul this summer with an expansion that guarantees a significant change to the way you play the game, Diablo II’s expansion pack Lord of Destruction, you might like to hear about how the beta that just a couple days ago went live has been going… for my high level ‘Zon at least:

Just wanting to get into the game to see if I could snag a few new… or even one, of the highest quality “elite” items, I started immediately in Hell/Act 4. I was level 78, have some pretty godly (have to make this qualification now… unduped) gear for my level, and thought it wouldn’t be all that hard to grab some new loot and head into the new final act.

Was I ever dead wrong about that, nearly literally. Walking down the steppes out of the Pandemonium Fortress into Act 4’s first area, I was immediately confronted with a group of (and as is fairly common when you reach a new level in Act 4) minions and a boss. Out of the ordinary though, were the elemental descriptions under their names… “Immune to Cold… Lightning, Fire” or what have you. That wouldn’t have bothered my ‘zon normally as her goth bow, though not “Carrion Song” is good nonetheless… but two things made the boss virtually a guaranteed impossibility to kill. The additional Hit Points, and the little tag under his name, “Immune to Physical.”

If I was hitting him at all I couldn’t tell. A few points of elemental damage off my Eye of Etlich on average wasn’t doing a thing to him not surprisingly, and after 5 minutes, two quarrels of arrows and countless level 22 Valkeries, I decided to high tail it out and live to fight another day, recasting my Valk in another spot close to me well out of the vicinity of that boss. Didn’t do any good… because the very next boss (now there can be numerous bosses per level) was right around the corner and was also immune to any physical damage.

So left Hell/4 and decided on Hell/5… yeah that seems a good strategy, being that 4 was too much for her. Well much to my amusement (not!) every beginning monster in Act 5 was immune to physical. All I could do was slip by them… if I could make an opening… didn’t get very far before my machine locked up, I rebooted and tried Nightmare/Act 5.

So what are the improvements? Items. Mass quantities of new and improved items… though I’ve yet to find a Hydra Bow… probably because I’m too squeamish to try Hell/5 and solo it like I did Nightmare/5 (in which the monsters did not have “Immune to Physical”). I did see quite a few nice items, including just an average Amazon magic circlet that gave 19 mana, 19 life and 1-69 lightning damage… but I’ll still wear my 49% Tarn over that.

Summary:

too tough to be even a little fun soloing in Hell/4/5 mode (which is the name of the game after all… fun)
item selection is incredible and item hunting is fabulous; everything seems new and modifiers can be extremely insane (which would help in hell no doubt but still…)
the new mercenaries for hire are wonderful. You can bring them with you wherever, deck them out in gear and they last much longer than a maxed Valkyrie. You can also resurrect them.
Can’t wait to try the Assassin and Druid, they seem capable at the early stages according to others
And Act 5 is a much longer than is 4. It’s more like a combination of all acts actually with more emphasis on Act 3…
Windforce! Eaglehorn! These uniques are back.

I’ll be sure to add my thoughts to any D2 news regarding the beta as time goes on… in the mean time, the site that covers most of the beta action is and will continue to is Diabloii.net.