ACT III

ACT III.  This is when things start getting good.  You actually catch up to the wanderer, for about 10 seconds.  You leave the city to explore outside the docks and you run into the wanderer.  There he is..in his ugly brown robe...wandering.  So you run up to him and you can't attack him, so you try to talk to him.  And try.  And try.  And try.  And then he POOFS and about 7 little demonic frog-dog things jump out of him and attack you.  Then you go around the jungle exploring swamps and crap looking for these parts of this ancient horodrum, Kahlim.  You collect his heart and his eye and his brain and this mace he used, and forge them in the cube, to create Kalhims will, this mace you use to destroy this stone thing which allows you access into the plane of hate (called the durance of hate in this game).  So you travel through hate and you get to this room where Baal, Mephisto, and Diablo (who was the wanderer..now revelaed as the evil 3rd great evil, Diablo) are having a meeting.  But they're done, they've gone, and only Mephisto is left.  So you kick his ass and move on.
 

This was my favorite screen shot to send to Ian, because's he's arachnphobic.  You fight a lot of these spiders in Act III.

Haha.  I guess the locals decided to make a soup out of some humans they captured.  Dr Livinstone, I presume?

Now, the assasin is the only class that can duel wield except for the barbarian (though for a time there was an exploit where most characters could dual wield..but I believe this has been fixed).  The advantage to duel wielding is that you can often get 2 hits in per attack.  The disadvantage to it is that with a shield, you get a % chance to block attacks.  Another disadvantage to claw class weapons is that they're low delay, but low damange.  So to make up for it, they get a "block" skill.  It's a martial arts skill and only works if you're wielding 2 claw classed weapons, but it gives you a % chance to block an attack.  Any kind of melee attack.  Even ranged...nothing's more fun than watching her block blow darts:

Mephisto has corrupted the council, the people who used to be in charge around here.  Now they're these big bad ass casters, who I farm for set items.  Anyway, they have little peons working for them.  Here's an example of their most common one, the Zealot.  For Aiur!  Oh..you'll also notice I switched hirlings.  There are 4 different hirlings in the game, Act I, II, III, and V.  I picked up the Act III hirling, which is a male caster of sorts.  He has armor and carries a sword, but shoots spells out of his sword only.  I picked him up because he was a cold caster.  So he'd freeze all my opponents, slowing them down so I could easily dispose of them.  He was a great hirling and stuck by me until 1/2 through Act V when I switched to a barbarian hirling, becuase I missed Lerhos (my barbarian warrior in Everquest).

Okay, so I've destroyed most of the council members (the rest are on the 3rd level of the durance of hate where Mephisto is) and I destroyed the stone with kalhims will and now I can enter the durance of hate.  It's one difference between EQ and D2.  In EQ you *need* a stone to enter the plane of hate, in D2 you need to destroy one.  Of course in EQ you need 20+ players to defeat Hate, and in D2 you can solo it.

Okay...so I don't have a screenshot here, but basically I run downstairs, beat up Mephisto, and a few other council members, and then there's this portal that opens which takes me to Hell. La la la..whatever.
 


ACT IV