The Core of Diablo

O_Bruce · May 23, 2026

Interestingly though, both D3 and D4 had more friction on the release day, and in D3 case, you could feel the difficulty curve just by how monsters were designed in terms of gameplay. I've spend a quite bit of time in Act IV of the game, despite it not being the most effective place to hunt for loot, just because enemies were the most engaging*. Then, the Reaper of Souls was released and the difficulty was much more flat.

*Also, D3 Izual actually was what many D2 player claim Duriel to be

Anyways, Fajer and the Act 1 of the nightmare difficulty in Diablo 2: Ressurected

I haven't shared my Warlock's stats at the end of Act V normal, so let's do that right after he arrived at act I nightmare:

Just look at the Apocalypse damage! Flame Wave was, however, nerfed in the recent patch, and I think that's a good thing. For other things that patch did that were important for this playthrough, Summon Tainted synergies were fixed, and the skill is now considered a fire skill. Other than that, Symbol: Lethargy no longer decreases enemies' physical damage resistance, meaning I won't have it that easy in hell difficulty. For that though, I have an unusual plan.

Also, since I feel like being funny today, since Fajer is using Consume, does that mean he's Consoomer?

Let's take a look at my mercenary, especially additional stats provided by his equipment:

Amazing, isn't it?

I am still playing at players 8 setting, and still, the game is a breeze with a build like that. I have found a new spear for my merc, he then used to thrust into Blood Raven.

Got an Io rune in the Underground Passage:

Saved Cainy:

On may way to finish the Countess sidequest, I've got a nice comfort charm in the Forgotten Tower:

Killed Will and retrieved the Horadric Mallus. With Sigil:Lethargy it looks as if it is some kind of demon summoning ritual

In the Catacombs, I have found Razorswitch:

I think it is interesting item, even more so for the Warlock. +1 to all skills isn't amazing for a 2-handed unique items, but as long as the warlock has an tome as a off-hand, he can wield it in one hand. The staff has faster cast rate, nice survivability bonuses such as life, massive bonus to all resistances and magic damage reduction, as well as very comfortable bonus to mana. For my current fire-based build, it isn't amazing (since Leaf runeword gives me +3 to fire skills), but it will be useful when I'll be changing build in Act IV of the nightmare difficulty. This is because despite Apocalypse's abillity to pierce monster's fire resistance, and confirming that it is capable of dealing damage even to fire immune enemies, I don't think think the -% to enemies fire resistance would be great enough in a casual playthrough to achieve "immunity piercing" effect, even with the bonus from consuming the Tainted. In the endgame, howeve,r I can easily imagine it working well!

Anyways, even on players 8 setting, Andariel died swiftly due to her weakness to fire. She also dropped a weak loot.

Afterwards, I decided to farm Andariel some more, on players 1 difficulty for comfort (also, I didn't want to earn too much experience, since the character is hella strong anyways). The results weren't as stellar as I would have hoped for. Some highlights:

I guess if nothing else, my Mercenary got some nice upgrades.

Fajer's stats and skills at the end of act I. Once again, Apocalypse

And at the end, interesting challenge video I saw today:

O_Bruce · May 27, 2026

Fajer blitzing through Act II Nightmare Difficulty

If in previous post it was apparent how easy Fajer had it with his current fire-based build, then the beginning of act 2 made it even easier. Just look at this find:

+3 to Apocalypse is great on its own, but if taken to Larzuk in Act V on Normal difficulty, he can add 2 sockets into the tome, which will make it an excellent base for a Rhyme runeword:

Also, in between me finding the book and upgrading it, I have finished Radament quest and earned one skill point. While being out in the desert, one of the enemies have dropped another Magefist. I already have one, but it was nice from the game to spoil me like that.

While searching for the Staff of Kings, I managed to confirm that Apocalypse does in fact pierce fire immune enemies if their resistance aren't that much above 100%. Coldworm the Burrower served as a guena pig for that

All damage it suffered was due to my Apocalypse. Take a note that my mercenary is behind me, thus is unable to contribue to the fight.

Obligatory trip to the temple of the Claw Vipers for the second part of the Horadric Staff:

I've got two nice items from this:

I've got to give the Summoner a credit though: he did survive one cast of Apocalypse! It's players 8 difficulty setting of course, but still!

And now, Duriel fight

See the amount of life he's missing? That's from the one cast of the Apocalypse. In short, on players 8 difficulty, act bosses are becoming tough cookies in terms of survivability. I underestimated this fight, and before I managed to kill Duriel, I ran out of potions I had on myself and my mercenary died. Symbol: Lethargy no longer decreases Duriel's damage and physical resistance (only attack speed, which still helps), so it isn't as good at helping my mercenary. As always though, the most devastating attack of Duriel is loot drop.

And with that, Fajer's adventure in act 2 reached its end!

Also, speaking about Duriel, for the entire time I was convinced that his apparent charge attack was a myth: that people misjudged the monster approaching them and using smite as one attack, instead of two different actions. I thought it was a misconception, but apparently I was mistaken. Recently, I learned that in 1.0 version of the original game, Duriel actual had said charge attack, and furthermore, was extremely dangerous because of it on higher difficulties settings.

O_Bruce · May 29, 2026

Fajer's blitz through normal difficuly continues, this time on act III

I'm not going to sugar coat it. Khalim's Eye:

Brain:

And heart:

In the meantime, I did all the usual things to do in Act III: completed the Golden Bird quest, earning 20 HP at the end of it, as well as returning Gidbinn for a disappointing reward - the rare ring I've got had only lightning resistance as an useful stat. I also recovered the Lam Esen's tome for +5 attribute points I spend into strength. I am preparing myself to be able to wear Monarch shield in Hell difficulty. Even though Warlock can wear 2-handed items with off-hand book, there's no guarantee I'd find a excellent 2-handed staff and great book to date. Therefore double Spirit combo seems like a viable solution still.

Minor complain about game balance: because Warlock can Have +4-5 to all skills staves in one hand, while also having +1-2 to skills book in off-hand, they aren't relying to Spirit shield, meaning they don't have to put much points into strength. As result, they can dump almost everything into vitality, and since they get more life than any other caster, they are effectively a powerful spellcasters with endurance of physical combatants. Some game balance it is.

Fajer have arrived in Travincal and encountered the High Council of Zakarum. If one of them spawned fire immune, then the Apocalypse + Consume combo wasn't enough to pierce through the immunity, and so Chalan needed to do the dirty work.

I have found a very nice small charm in the Durance of Hate:

And slaughtering Bremm earned me some cool boots:

In terms of the endurance, uncle Mephisto was a tough cookie. Unlike when I fought Duriel, I was prepared for it and so managed to keep Chalan alive on players 8 difficulty setting

The item drop was not impressive, though:

Fajer's stats at the end of Act III of Nightmare difficulty:

I then decided to do some Mephisto runs (on players 1), since Durance of Hate map layout wasn't terrible for that. I wanted to prepare for a build change in Act IV, but unfortunately, I haven't found much to help me with that. For a highlights, I have only 2:

I think next update will be interesting, since I'll be changing build and therefore will have more to say. I just hope the new build won't be that much weaker than my current one ~~(in the business, we call that foreshadowing)~~.

O_Bruce · 2026-06-11T18:35:51+0100

A new way of Fajer's life in Act IV on Nightmare difficulty

Let's start with the changes for Fajer. I've used up a free character respect from Akara to try a new build for late nightmare and hell difficulties. I wanted achieve a build capable of dealing dual-type damage and I predicted a overall damage per second drop. To compensate, I did some other things, like quip previously found Razorswitch staff and making a Lore runeword in a sallet for +1 to all of my skills.

I allocated Fajer's attribute points in exact the same way as before, just changed the skill. Basically I went for:
- 10 points into Demonic Mastery, allowing me to summon and control up to 3 demons in total
- Over 10 points into Blood Pact, increasing survivability of my demons and Fajers, also being synergy for Blood Boil
- About 10 points into Summon Tained. It will serve as my main summon, both as damage-dealer and a subject to Blood Boil
- Over 10 points into Blood Boil: my main dual-typed area-of-effect attack. It just so happens it requires me to have demons under my control to work: by sacrificing some of their hit points, I am capable of damaging area of effect around them, somehow similar to novas or corpse explosion. The more demons under my control, the more "novas" are released per cast at once.
- About 10 points into Engorge. It consumes a corpse, healing my demons and buffing them for the duration, synergizes with Blood Boil in two ways: it heals damage dealt to my demons, and also makes Blood Boil stronger per hard point invested.
- 10 points into Bind Demon. This isn't a necesary skill, and I even consider spending points here as a mistake. However, I wanted to showcase it here. With 10 hard points invested, my demon will always be Extra Fast and Extra Strong. 10 hard skill points invested means I can bind a champion quality demon.
- Aside from that, I invested a skill point into 1-point wonders, like Warp Blade, Death Mark or Sigils.

As I said, I expected a damage drop-off... However I have not expected the damage to drop off so much. With previous build, players 8 difficulty setting was a breeze; now it becomes painfully slow in comparison. To progress at reasonable rate, I was forced to go down to players 3 setting. I think this is partially due to me making the build wat too generalized. I wanted bind demon, I wanted Tainted to serve as dual function, meanwhile it would probably be better to focus primarly on Blood Boil. But that's enough of a ramble already, let's see the progress through Act IV.

Before entering Plane of Despair, Fajer found a great charm:

But not for him!

Battle against Izual.

Notice at the first screen rather sorry status of my demons' hit points. Thankfully, there were planty of corpses around for me to use for healh restoration. Without them, I would have lost my bound Pit Lord - pictued above with chains around it - whos still hella strong in terms of physical damage.

Izual has fallen again, and I've got 2 skill points for finishing the quest. They went into Blood Boil - at this point while playing I recognized my mistakes and went into course correcting the build.

Haphasto was not a problem. To balance this out, I received only a Shael rune for my trouble from the Hellforge quest. That's not very much,

Nice find on my way towards Chaos Sanctuary. Not for Fajer, obviously, but Steeldriver.

In the Chaos Sanctuary, I have decided to flex my abillity to bind champion demons and I have bound a berserker Venom Lord. Now, it hits even harder and is much faster.

After all of 5 seals were opened, Diablo arrived in person and the boss battle began. It made a certain weakness in my character's build apparent

Since Blood Boil requires me to damage my own demons, they'll die unless I have a means to heal them. In Diablo boss fight, I didn't ave access for any corpses. For Tainted, this is not a problem, as they can be re-summoned easily. However, this also means my bound bersekrer Venom Lord is going to inevitably die. well, I could just heal it by going back to the Pandemonium Fortress via town portal, but I opted not too, simply because I personally consider that a bit lame for my playstyle.

Above means that bound demon doesn't necessary work well with Blood Boil. I think this mistake can be corrected at the begining of the Hell Difficulty, but until then, I guess I'll take an opportunity to use different types of bound demons.

Also, Diablo's Red Lightning Hose can now do harm in close melee range!

Obligatory dying T-pose

The nice thing about loot from Diablo is that the set gloves are actually from new Warlock-intended set. However, by themselves they won't do me much good:

I wouldn't mind fint these gloves as a melee character. Some elemental damage, attack rating, dexterity, life bonus and crushing blow on top of that. Nice combination overall.

The unique Jagged Star is the Moonfall:

Sorry, I don't have screenshots with Fajer's stats. I was convinced I took them, but appaently I did not. Maybe I mistook it with how Steam works, and instead pressing Print Screen button, I instead pressed F12 to took a screenshot.

Instead of that, I have other neat thing to share. Since I've lost my Pit Lord, I went out into Inner Steppes to bind new demon. I did, and I learned something awesome in the process:

The bound grotesque mother can still spawn its offspring, which is fighting for you. That's super neat! The offspring does not react to Bloob Boil, neither listens to Death Mark for instant repositioning. But still, that's more overall damage and safety

The Core of Diablo

O_Bruce

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O_Bruce

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O_Bruce

Habitué

O_Bruce

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