Belial's Defeat

Finally defeated Belial at the end of Act II (Torment II) but it took the combined might of Gerry and I to bring the bastard down. Gerry's been having problems defeating the Lord of Lies himself for a few days now, same as me. He messaged me earlier and asked if I'm up to ganging up on Belial and, of course, I was raring to go.

The beasts between the gates and the Imperial Palace were easy enough. I'm a Paragon Level 97 Barbarian and Gerry's a Paragon Level 71 by this time.

Battling the minions were relatively easy (we were in no danger of dying) as well as Belial's initial form.

The killer really was Belial's ultimate form.

We actually died the first time around. Truth be told we still died at our second attempt but with his dying breath Gerry managed to land the killing blow (I was already dead at this point...my Barbarian's high on damage but relatively low on hitpoints, Gerry's is the opposite I think).

It was such a surprise that I forgot to take screencaps. Oh well!

On to Act III!

The Fowl Lair

I've been to Development Hell which I found in Act 1 (sadly I didn't have the presence of mind to take a screenshot of) where the demons and monsters inhabiting it are named after the team behind Diablo III (quite clever actually). I can only assume that the elites were named after supervisors and team leaders.

Recently, I've been to the Fowl Lair.

It's a relatively small dungeon found in Act 2 filled with chickens (at least I think they were chickens). The objective was to kill a pig (don't worry, it doesn't fight back) and collect the loot it drops.

I have no idea how to find the lair actually. I just assume it's all a mater of luck.

Going to need an Upgrade SOON!

I'm currently on Act 2 Inferno Difficulty, Monster Power 2 with my Barbarian on Paragon Level 34.

I'm still managing to hold my own but the demons and monsters are getting tougher and tougher to beat. Aside from the higher vitality of these infernal creatures (not to mention the bigger DPS), the darn things are traveling in bigger packs.

With the odds stacked against me, I am forced to fight smarter AND harder.

Even that's not going to be enough after a while though. I can feel it in my bones. I'm currently merging my gems together (I've got quite a few socketed items). The improved jewels will hopefully bolster my stats so I can progress further to earn a bit of gold (merging gems are expensive) and chance upon better gear.

The last resort is the Auction House of course but things are so frikkin' expensive.

Diablo 3 Thoughts

In spite of what I wrote in my last post, I did continue playing Diablo 3 on and off (10 minutes there, 20 minutes here). And in a couple of weeks I seemed to have farmed enough to get better gear at the Auction House to be able to play Act 1 of Inferno without much difficulty.

Used to be the wall of difficulty was Act 1 and I couldn't progress because I was getting killed all the time. But finding better gear was able to push this wall further back to Act 2.

And now I can't even step into the first area of Act 2 without the first Elite pack literally pulverizing me to submission. It's crazy. The difference between the level of difficulty between Act 1 and Act 2 of Inferno is just crazy.

So for the past couple of weeks or so all I have been doing is farming Act 1 to get better gear. A nice spear did drop for me while farming, which is quite of a rare thing. In all my months of playing, this was the first time I ever got a really nice weapon that I could actually use. Did the designers really intend on getting good items this hard or this rare? Or does the existence of the Auction house affect the quality of drops for both AH users and non AH users?

Whatever the case, it makes farming for items tedious, laborious and not fun.

And I do find myself playing the game even less than before.

This does not mean to say that the game is bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty great the first couple of months I played it as I leveled up my characters. Now I have two classes at Level 60. A Monk and a Barbarian.

It seems that as soon as I reach level 60, the fun just well....stops. From here on in, it's just all about finding GEAR. The designers thought that item hunt would be fun...but it's only fun if you do find good items every so often. I hardly get any really cool items at all. Sure a lot of rares drop, but much of it is just worthless, really. I've had a few Legendaries drop, but as I previously mentioned, there's nothing legendary about them at all. And I've yet to see a single "set" or green item drop. In all my months of playing....not a single green item.

When I get bored with the game I go to the official Blizzard forums because sometimes reading posts there is even more fun than playing the game.

But lately, even the forum is starting to bore me.

Hardcore Barbarian, Level 21

My Hardcore Barbarian is still alive at Level 21!

I'm currently on the search for Zoltan Khule in Act 2 and it's going good so far.

I must admit, I almost died a couple of times. One time was against those huge Elite Bull Creatures and that huge mace weilding monster guarding the gate to Alcarnus. I thought I was a goner that last time but I managed to pull through.

I've been going very slowly making sure to search every part of the map, opening chests, and breaking pots. I do this so that I would level up more before progressing further. This makes my character stronger and more durable.

Whatever gold I make, I buy the best armor and weapons I can find at the Auction House. Low level items generally costs dirt cheap on the AH, as compared to Level 60+ items that range in the millions.

My hardcore character would most likely be dead long before then so I'm not really worried about spending that much.

I figure this character will die when he goes up against Belial, the boss of Act 2. I died there plenty of times with softcore characters before but since I've been really buffing this character up level wise and gear wise, who knows?