[1.05b] Baron Totoro (Barb) [Level 60 | Softcore | Player-based SSF | Extended Stash via TCP/IP]

[fearedbliss]

Hello all, after my last two barbarians [1] [2], and taking a short break to work on Cactus's Automatic Backup Support, Cactus 4.0.0, and the new Cactus Installation Video, I'm back to playing good ol' Diablo II and decided to finally start a fresh universe called: My Neighbor Totoro, which will be my first stash in my 2026 list of universes that will be Player-based SSF. Therefore, all characters in this universe will abide by the following standards:

- 1.05b w/ Singling
- Softcore
- Player-based SSF
- Extended Stash via TCP/IP

This means that items found by any character will be shared across all other characters in this universe. Furthermore, extra stash space will be available through the use of mules via TCP/IP.

Totoro is my first character in this universe and is also a Lance Barbarian, specializing in WW and Leap Attack. He's currently level 26 and has defeated Normal Diablo and received his Sir title at level 24. I'll be chilling with him in Normal till around Level 38-40 before I start taking him into NM. Based on my experience building Baco and Susuwatari to around the same levels (and reaching A1 Hell), I've been able to continue to refine my early and mid game strategies in pre-lod, so mentally I'm prepared for it. The worst is already over though and I was luckily able to get a really nice Pike Imbue with massive damage (around 123 max dmg for the Pike)! I've also been able to find and gamble a few nice little uniques which I've already started using and muling away for other characters. This includes me already muling away a Hellforge Hammer for the next character. I love twinking new chars with a hellforge hammer lol. Although the nice thing about pre-LOD is that Uniques don't have level requirements so as long as you reach the attribute requirements, you can equip the item. This means that with around 60-65 str, you can equip some weapons that deal some serious damage. I'll also start to collect unique rings in order to gamble SOJs. Every time I get an SOJ I will mule it away so I can easily get another one on the same char. Once I have 2 SOJs I can always use those for a nice boost to initial twink damage since that means at level 1 my chars will get +2 all skills, +2-24 lighting damage, +40 mana, and a nice boost to their initial maximum mana pool. Can't go wrong with that, and that's not even counting all the other unique gear they will be wearing (and quickly they will be able to start wearing set items as well... so I'll want to collect the entire sigon set since there are no partial set bonuses in pre-LOD. I'm very excited about this and it's time I stop resetting my universes/stashes for a while (hopefully! Will this finally be the time the community actually sees me play a character into the endgame? Who knows.. I think we are all gonna find out together). In addition, my next universe may be in 1.08 Lod w/ Singling, Softcore, also Player-based SSF w/ Extended Stash via TCP/IP. I'm also excited to start playing that version again, but I'll make the final decision at a later date, that's what my emotions are feeling atm though. That universe will most likely also be named after another movie made by Studio Ghibli <3.

Video Playlist

 

[369th]

That universe will most likely also be named after another movie made by Studio Ghibli <3.

If I may throw in a suggestion: Valley of the Wind

 

[fearedbliss]

You already know @369th. This is how my Studio Ghibli collection looks like in my Plex (ripped from my discs).

 

[fearedbliss]

Finally grinded my way to 30. Will keep grinding till 38-40 before heading to NM. Level 1 WW is nice but there is so much room for improvement. Things are speeding up now that I can kill multiple monsters faster. One thing I forgot about and anyone playing pre-LOD needs to be careful (not sure if this was fixed in 1.07-1.08), but if you let's say cube 3 chipped gems in your cube and you have another item in there (let's say a pike), the gem recipe will work and it will swallow your pike! This happened to me. Luckily thanks to Cactus' Automatic Backups, I was able to open an older version of my Barb and recover the item into one of my mules before continuing with my actual Barb.

 

[fearedbliss]

Lord Totoro has arrived. NM has been defeated. RAWR!

 

[fearedbliss]

Totoro has been hungry today, and has eaten a lot of demons. Currently level 50! Lessgooo! Found a bunch of nice uniques both through gambling and killing monsters. Once I make a sorc or a necro, they gonna be happy. But any melee will also be happy haha. On another note, an interesting thing I discovered was that Lances actually already drop in A2 NM (Tal Rasha's Tomb). I thought they would start dropping minimum A3 NM or even A4 (similar to how pikes start dropping in A3 Normal). So I was pleasantly surprised when it dropped in A2 NM when I was doing Tomb Runs to get closer to level 50. I picked it up and imbued it and got a nice damage increase all around . It's currently main weapon which allowed me to start farming NM p3 RoF and CS. With my previous pike which was around 50 max damage lower, I was only able to farm p3 A2 Tombs at a good speed.

Link to video of Hungry Totoro Eating Demons!

 

[TWolfMech]

The Lance seems like such huge upgrade. Would love to try one on an Amazon, too, just for slaying bosses.

 

[fearedbliss]

Lol yea it was and it’s not even that good of a roll. Imagine one with higher ED, dual leech, and AR? I want MOAR!

 

[fearedbliss]

It has been done folks. Totoro completely swallowed Diablo in Hell and has received his Baron title. I'm very proud of him, he did good. This was a very fun run and it's been a while since I've Baronned a character in 1.05b (last chars I baronned were prolly a few years ago and it was ContriClu (Necro) and Emu (Sorc). For whatever reason I thought I had actually Baronned a Barbarian before in 1.05b but atm I can't find any records of this so it's possible I'm misremembering. So for now let's consider Totoro as my first barb that I've ever Baronned in pre-Lod. Before I fought Diablo, I found a Superior Lance, which I immediately took to Charsi to imbue. This lance rolled with a good amount of ED higher than my previous lance so my damage went up by about 80-100 points. When I killed Hell Diablo he dropped 2 lances, 1 magic and 1 rare. When I IDed the Rare Lance it was a significant amount higher ED than the Lance I had just imbued. My damage went up another 180-200 points after that lol. So I literally only used my second imbued lance for like less than 3 minutes LOL. It's all good though, I couldn't have known Diablo was gonna drop a better lance. But with the substantial damage increase, I should be able to push myself to even higher levels in NM CS (before it was p3 but I think I can do p5 or even p8 now). I can also do Hell CS on p1 or even higher, but the problem is I feel I'm missing more than what I would like. So I would need to get more AR to see what happens. But Totoro is off to a great start for his end game.

You'll see in the screenshots that when I got to Maggot Lair Level 3, that map seed had WAY TOO MANY maggots in the staff area. I wasn't able to get in lol. I actually S&E and tried again but there were still too many maggots. So that map seed was not good. I re-rolled the map and that one was much better. There was like 2 maggots and the mom in there so I just walked in, got my staff, and got my revenge lol.

I also noticed that it seems that getting a skill shrine and having that shrine increase natural resistance doesn't actually increase my resistances any further. The skill screen seems to have it in effect, but the character sheet doesn't display the increased defense. So I'm not sure if that's just a visual bug and it's actually working or if it's nuked.

I've placed my ending stats/skills/gear in the screenshots as of Baronning. Next steps is to keep playing Diablo II lol, as usual. I would like to max out Natural Resistance, and then max out Leap Attack. After that remaining points will go into Battle Orders. There is a lot of room for improvement for the gear. I also want to get more str so I can wear stronger armor with higher defense. I know people say defense is useless because of the AR monster bug, but honestly idk if it's psychological, but I feel having higher defense still helps me.. so I want to play as if defense did work fully.. but I just need to play more defensively if I feel the defense isn't good enough. I also want more dex for the AR, and rest will go into vit.

Another thing for pre-LOD players, since we don't have shift+click, I would recommend buying tomes (TP/ID) when trying to replenish your tomes. All these years I've been clicking the scrolls 20 times to replenish each of them, but I did the math for buying tomes and you just pay a little bit more but it's rougly a similar/fair price for getting the tomes rather than individuals. Plus, gold isn't really an issue later on so if you need to buy 3 TP tomes of 6x each to replenish your Tome of 2 TPs, just pay the premium, and save your fingers lol. It's much more comfortable and enjoyable to replenish using tomes instead of single clicks. The same applies to keys.

 

[Manny]

Imagine the horror the big D must have felt when my dawg TOTORO waltz'd up to him with that menacing grin of his! He had a small panic attack no doubt *shudders*

 

[fearedbliss]

Lol I'm dead, but not like Diablo.

 

[Manny]

I've placed my ending stats/skills/gear in the screenshots as of Baronning. Next steps is to keep playing Diablo II lol, as usual. I would like to max out Natural Resistance, and then max out Leap Attack. After that remaining points will go into Battle Orders. There is a lot of room for improvement for the gear. I also want to get more str so I can wear stronger armor with higher defense. I know people say defense is useless because of the AR monster bug, but honestly idk if it's psychological, but I feel having higher defense still helps me.. so I want to play as if defense did work fully.. but I just need to play more defensively if I feel the defense isn't good enough. I also want more dex for the AR, and rest will go into vit.

Wow, you're going to keep playing Totoro? I am proud of you bro! You don't typically go the distance, lol. (That's what she said). JK JK

Keep us posted on Mr T -- this was an EPIC journey, and I love the screenshots!

 

[fearedbliss]

@Manny Lol I know... I've been bad at sticking with a character for a long time, it basically has never really happened in all these decades in a way ...

The hell video is now available here. Check this part out lol.

 

[TWolfMech]

The Maggot Lair filled to the brim again! Never gets old!

I tend to put more points into Battle Order. Feels too unsafe for me without the longer duration.

That Lance, though! That's a big one!

 

[fearedbliss]

Nothing too crazy going on. Grinded a few more levels, so currently level 60. I got all the sigon pieces except the shelter, so I'm looking for that. I'm also still gambling for SOJs. Atm I have one Nagelring, so I'll still need Manald before I can get SOJ. Although I might not wait to get all of that before starting out another char. I might take a short break and then come back in either 1.05b (with the twinked gear), or start a 1.08 char. I also found a nice Ammy [+1 Barb Skills and 5% Mana Leech]. Before I was using a 7% Mana Leech and like 7% Fire Resist Ammy. So the new one gave me a small bump to damage. I also decided I wasn't gonna max Natural Resistance. I left it at lvl 16 since it starts becoming like 2 hard points per 1 resist, so that's not worth it anymore. I started pumping Battle Orders instead.