[1.07] Slayer Ananda's Path of Purification (Paladin) [Level 27 | A1 NM | Retired]

[fearedbliss]

Ananda, come my child. It it time for another birth, another round of suffering.. unfortunately.

Ananda has awaken in 1.07, has currently finished A1 & A2 Norm, and has currently retrieved Khalim's Eye in A3. The rules for this round are simple:

- Singling
- Softcore Expansion
- Muling and twinking is allowed.
- No Dancing of the Souls Trick.

I'll be posting updates and videos as I progress, they can be found here.

I was able to find some rares and surprisingly the Rare drop rates have been better than in 1.08. I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence but I've definitely found more Rares (IIRC) in these first 18 levels than in 1.05b or 1.08. Since I was lucky enough to find a Tir Rune and a Jewel early on, once I got a cube, I was able to use a chipped ruby and a magic heavy glove to make my first pair of blood gloves. 9% CB! (only 1% LL though, but something is something to start off). Having ez crafts and full rejuvs makes a big difference, and the gameplay definitely feels a lot faster, easier, smoother, and dare I say ... more fun. I suppose because I actually don't have to worry about resource management as much and can focus on killing monsters and getting gear. But resource management is definitely something I like to do, if the game implemented resource management in the right way.. I suppose 1.09b has the best balance of that, I only ever really ran into mana issues in 1.09b at end game when I was trying to power level my Nova/FO sorceress in Hell Cows on p8 I think, that build uses so much mana that I had to do eldrith/shenk runs to farm mana pots, load up my whole inventory and stash, and then consume them all through cow runs. The mana run portion definitely wasn't fun, but the cow part was. It will be interesting to do Hell Cows on p8 with a sorc on 1.07 since the full rejuvs means I don't need to do that as much anymore, and having uncapped SF in LOD and Cows with no resistances means that it's good game. Basically EZ 99 I'm predicting. Anyways, I'm excited to get to LK and start doing p8 chest runs using Singling's players command, that should definitely help me get more Jewels/Charms and other things. Many years ago I had a Barb in 1.07 that reached LK and was around level 31, I did remember getting some Rares and stuff like that from the LK chests, so it was interesting.. but it will be even more interesting coming back to 1.07 with a lot more knowledge of this patch, and this is just the beginning.

Given my new found interesting in 1.07 and finally diving into these "launch patches", I'm interested in tackling 1.00 directly in the future and taking advantage of all of that stuff, which it will also be interesting using Singling's players command on there as well. I've used it primarily in 1.05b so I know that prelod p8 isn't necessarily the most exp giving, so imagine p1 lol. But something is something, and there is a lot of powerful stuff in 1.00. I also want to take advantage of the infinite cow runs for rare item generation. It would be funny if after all these years of time traveling, 1.00 and 1.07 end up being my favorite patches.. I didn't even have to do anything, just install the 1.00 and 1.07 disk and play, but regardless, I think there will ultimately still be room for my love of 1.05b and 1.09b (and let's not forget 1.10) in there.

 

[fearedbliss]

The path of purification continues. I was able to pick up the Khalim's Brain, and made it over to Upper Kurast. Will get the heart and then head on over to Trav/Meph. I found some nice little upgrades, was able to craft another pair of blood gloves, and found a 4x4 belt, so now I can carry 16 full rejuvs ;D. Unfortunately Ormus quest's ring wasn't good.

 

[fearedbliss]

I finished A3 Norm and am now in A4. Before continuing, I decided to finally do some p8 LK runs to farm up some gear, and get crafting materials. After re-rolling the map a few times in TCP/IP, I was able to find a beautiful LK map, first bonfire close to WP, and second BP essentially right next to the first one in a straight line. You can check out the screenshot below. I'll soon lose the map when I transfer but it's ok, I'll get another one, I'm not interested in using the seed command to restore it. Either way, as expected, the players command is beautiful in this patch (thanks to Singling). Surprisingly I get 3-5 jewels within the first few runs, then I didn't find another jewel until maybe 45 min later. Jewel drop rates are lower in this patch than later patches, but the players command helps given the increased drop quantities. I did get a bunch of sapphires and other stuff as well so I'll need to level up a new char to level 8, and then craft MPK rings on them. I also was able to relatively easily max out the gold in my stash and inventory at my current level (150k in stash, 210k on body). The A3 video and A3-A4 Interlude 1 videos is also up.

 

[fearedbliss]

Did another hour of LK runs and they were nice to me. Also gambling yielded a nice ring. Fire res is almost maxed (around 58) and cold/light are maxed. So I'm basically ready for A4. I'm pretty happy with the 38/10/6 GC, and I also got a jewel of envy, 9-22 psn dmg over 2 sec, no level req... it's already a nice jewel in 1.09 twinking, but it will be better in 1.07 twinking since I can also use the psn dmg stacking bug in melee weapons.. which I'm already taking advantage of it with this paly's sword lol. Atm it has 3 flawed emeralds but I'm working on getting something with 4 p emeralds.

 

[fearedbliss]

Baal has been defeated in Normal, and I've also picked up the skill point for DoE in A1 NM. A few interesting things were that I never really noticed the interesting names the A5 Mercs had, I really only started using them more when I was playing 1.08 since I normally use the A2 Holy Freeze NM Merc, but in 1.07-1.08 the A5 mercs are the only good ones due to them being the only ones having health regeneration. But there names may have always been like that and I just never noticed. I also noticed that I can higher mercs that are higher level than me. I was only level 23 when I got to A5, but I hired a level 32 merc.

The Anya quest reward wasn't anything special, you can check out the stats for the paly shield below.

It was funny that the Glacial Trail exit and Frozen Tundra WP were next to each other. It's happened to me before but just funny coincidence.

Besides that, Ancients and Baal went smoothly and easily. Ancients gave me 4 levels, so I went from 23 to 27. I also have lvl 5 vigor plus FRW shoes and 2 fastest RW grand charms, so my movement speed is on the better side (and they will continue to get faster).

The thing is that due to the full rejuv bug and me essentially being god, it's harder for me to be invested in the character and take the game seriously. So I may end up calling quits on the patch early and start on one of the other polished patches (1.05b, 1.09b, 1.10), ultimately speaking, it seems the more I time travel, the more I end up back to those same 3 patches. Although it was a good ride on 1.07... I'm retiring this character.

 

[galaxyhaxz]

It's funny how you arrived at such similar conclusions to me. While I greatly enjoyed some of the item aspects of 1.07, the full rejuv bug really completely destroys the game, especially since rejuvs are much cheaper than other pots when bought back because they never touched the price. You could of course not use it, just as you can avoid the dancing of souls, but it's certainly tempting when mana is annoying and you don't wanna farm potions. Nothing feels exciting if it feels like you cheated to get it imo. Then again, MPK rings, dual wielding any weapon, and 20%+ leech on a single item are also quite disgusting. I will say though, the aspect of crafts getting 3 sockets and having any affix greatly improves and broadens them to usable levels.

Despite all this I'd still consider 1.07 my personal favorite LoD patch. 1.08 nullified all the best stuff from 1.07, and 1.09 had no interesting itemization: no good pre LoD rares and worse rares than 1.10+, no godly uniques or crafts from 1.07/1.08, and no elite uniques/runewords from 1.10. It's just all around the most bland patch in that regard, not to mention the game feels even easier than 1.07 if you set aside the bugs. Then you have 1.10 which hyper-fixated on the runewords really killing any kind of unique gear setups. You could mod a newer patch to have some of the nice aspects but then it always feels "tainted". I feel a similar way about 1.00, it's fun for a bit, but milking the cow king (lol) and gambling easy SoJs feels like cheating.

 

[fearedbliss]

Lol there's a version for everyone.

 

[Manny]

Calling 1.09 "bland" hurt my heart a little bit (lmao), but you make valid points @galaxyhaxz. To me 1.09 is the best "stable" version of Diablo II before the major changes of 1.10+ came about, although it's definitely a lot more tame than previous patches. I think that's mostly why 1.09 is so appealing to use as a foundation to build on -- it just needs some old school/better uniques from 1.07/1.08, some better rares/item generation, and maybe tweak gambling a bit, and you have something that's lots of fun (IMO). This is basically what @fearedbliss is doing with Succulent, and what you did with the final fix update.

 

[galaxyhaxz]

I don't actually disagree, years ago when I made that mod, 1.09 was my favorite patch at the time and I abhorred everything they did with 1.10. 1.10 was all around very hostile to the single player experience as it disregarded that balance for multiplayer. However I later grew to prefer the challenge of 1.10. The mod I made made 1.09 even easier than what it was, and 1.07-1.09 are especially easy once you get a few high end items it's like being on god mode.

Then it's not to mention that 1.09 has the same glaring problem that 1.08 does but worse--area diversity. Because of the way they designed the TC, the best items in the game literally don't drop until the very end of the game, so baal/pindleskin/cows. And unlike 1.08 which at least still had some high end crafts and exceptional uniques, in 1.09 the best items are items which can only drop in those few areas. So while a lot of people reminisce on the glory days of 1.09, I think it's mostly just nostalgia as that patch ran the longest during the game's prime. But in reality, it's just rush to the end of the game and do cows for eternity, hit level 99 in a week and then maybe do 20,000+ pindleskin runs for a shot at windforce/grandfather. High runes may as well not exist because you won't ever see one.

In terms of itemization only, 1.09 is usually skipped when time traveling. I think the only truly unique thing it had was 5% FRW small charms, because they introduced a rounding feature in 1.09 which rounded 1-4% rate affixes up to 5%. But because of diminishing returns it isn't so godly. It also has that unique bow that gets a bugged fireball level if brought forward. Then lastly, there was that 3 socket magic sword recipe which only gives 2 sockets in 1.10+. Rares were so bad in 1.09 that recipe produced better swords.

So yeah, aside from riding down nostalgia lane to try out the legendary piercing guided arrow, I think it's one of the least interesting patches in terms of time travelling, but one of the best patches for modding and has the most potential for it. As you mentioned, 1.09 but fixup the TC/items a little and voila you've got something wonderful. I personally would like a version of d2 with 1.10 like challenge but 1.05/1.07 like items

 

[Manny]

I personally would like a version of d2 with 1.10 like challenge but 1.05/1.07 like items

Me too! Make one and I'll play the shit out of it

 

[galaxyhaxz]

I promised @fearedbliss a Diablo 1 mod back in 2017 and that's still being worked on. Can only do one thing at a time xD

 

[Manny]

I promised @fearedbliss a Diablo 1 mod back in 2017 and that's still being worked on. Can only do one thing at a time xD

 

[Manny]

@fearedbliss see what you did?! Tying up our resources like that. Have you no shame?

 

[fearedbliss]

@Manny You would think.