Offline D2E

I have been offline for a couple of weeks because of a change in my coordinates. So I haven't touched D2E online for ages... might just start off the game offline Single Player.
With an application I downloaded for offline item muling (ATMA), it should not be much of a problem to do item runs and build characters with good items I find.
With the duping problem, and the fact that I play in single player games online too anyway, I think single player offline is a good option.
Yes, levelling up is slow and might be a problem, but it is fun as well.
I would suggest (and try) working up with a character like a poison/bone or summoning necromancer or a sorceress, then do NM difficulty item runs, get medium quality items, then get going with stronger character builds which need these items, but can kick more ass. Then do the high level item runs. And the beautiful thing is that you have your characters forever... they will not get deleted when you don't log on for 90 days, and your hard work won't be wasted.
Happy gaming.

the new ladder and a spanking new character!

So the new ladder season for D2E started this week. It meant that my 2 high characters (lvl 92 necromancer and lvl 87 Amazon), one mid level character (lvl 43 mace barbarian) and 12 low level characters all slipped from ladder to non-ladder. All my hard earned items slipped from mildly valuable to completely worthless (because non-ladder is full of duped stuff! and why not? it has been around for ages!!)
But what excites me is the opportunity to start afresh, all spanking new items, totally empty stashes and inventorand no annoying mid level items clogging 8 squares of precious inventory space. No more flawless and perfect gems clogging up loads of space. No more mediocre small charms clogging up space, because you don't want to let go of a 7% LR charm in case you don't find any better, and 7% is anyway better than none :)
I started a summoning necromancer - this time on the Europe server. Already level 22 and way into act4. It's slow going because not a lot of high level players are around to help with a rush. Still, I'm in no hurry and am enjoying going through the motions. Yesterday I soloed Duriel in act2 at character level 21. It was tough... my skellies were dropping quite quickly before him, mainly because of my low level skeleton mastery (not to mention no points in summon resist). But not much longer. At a high level, my skeletons can tank and whittle down even hell Duriel :)
This time, I will also make a blessed hammer paladin... it's a very strong character build, and can be quite useful with a nice spirit shield and spirit crystal sword. Quite cheap set up as well.
At the moment, I'm looking forward to getting to Pindleskin in hell, so I can start running him for awesome items :)

the last few drops before the new ladder season

Haven't been finding nearly enough stuff recently - I guess it's a loooong lean patch :)
The new ladder season starts tomorrow... and I will start playing the ladder. I will not be playing as frequently as before, because I'm probably travelling in the coming week and an internet connection might not be available :(
The new ladder season is exciting - it means some initial pains to get to a decent level to do item runs. But the items I find will be worth much more than the current situation with countless dupes. It seems Blizzard have counted in the fact that so many people use duped stuff - especially the insanely overpowered rune words. EBOTDs are as common as Isenhart's breast plates nowadays. The new world quest has super monsters which are invincible except against players with these super runewords. Sad. It'll be better for sometime in the new ladder - until people start finding the high runes and duping them once more.
Anyway - on with the finds... like I said before, not a lot of stuff dropped in the past few days.
Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye.


Horazon's Tornado. Too bad - Stormlash is a better scourge.


And Pindle drops my second Shadow Killer, unique battle cestus.


Ahhhh now we're talkin! Steelrend Ogre Gauntlets. Very nice gloves. This one spawned with very low mods tho. Still, very nice find :)

addendum to recent finds

The long coming addendum to my earlier post - finds from my other PC :)


This is where Baal dropped my second Hellrack

And here's Frostwind... a nice-ish sword.

The lean patch starts

Recently there has been a lean patch... maybe something to do with the latest patch (1.11) being released. I have done lots of runs, and found very few interesting.
Amongst those which will not be represented here... peasant crown (unique war hat) and greyform, quilted armour - a very low level armour (I think the lowest possible unique armour there is). I saved it just for that one reason... might be a nice twinking armour for my low level chars :)
The second day the patch was released, in my first game - a pindle run as usual, Pindle dropped this -


Yes sirree - one of the rarest weapons in the game - Astreon's Iron Ward. A nice weapon. Didn't spawn with the best possible ED, but it did spawn with +4 to Paladin combat skills. Nice :)








It seems like Blizzard have changed the temporary ban message from "Realm Down" to this -


I got a few of these messages, but no more interesting items :(











So what do you guys think about 1.11? Personally I think the new world event (fighting new demon Lilith, Izual and Duriel and then the 3 prime evils again in Tristram) is essentially for fully powered up and super strong characters packed with high end rune words. Not for guys like me who're still finding semi-good stuff to stick on my characters. Not to mention the absolute need for teaming up with other similarly superstrong characters with uber gear! I think it will just be easier to trade one of them new Hellfire charms than to try and get one by myself :)
As far as I am concerned, I'll just continue my item running and try and grow my characters as and when I find good stuff!