Hi,

I know what you mean Pib about clearing out a room because my fire spells do a lot of damage and seem to spread out to get a lot of them at the same time. Love it.

I am now in the Monastery with my Druid and just got the hammer and going on down now to Andariel next.

This should be interesting with my fire spells since Deckard Cain said that she doesn't like fire.

I have been using mostly my crossbow with 2 fire gems and one poison gem and my fire spells to get everything and loving it.

I think I may have used that fire trap with my assassin and it helps a lot.

I like the gorillas too and no you don't get more than 1 skill point at a time. Choose wisely is the best policy.

I usually pick just one or two areas depending which one will give me more damage next.

I have the horadic cube and so on to the next place.

I seem to spend a lot of effort tracking down teleport spots. I learnt in Sacred that you should try and find them all. It saves much time. Especially in a game where you can't save your current location.

Choosing skills wisely is a key to almost every rpg. Just some of them are even more limited then others!

When you die, al your equipment will stay on your corpse. The items in your belt will go into your inventory. If your inventory is full, they will drop to the ground.
When you died, did you use other equipment before getting your corpse back ? If so, that explains why you lost some equipment. The game won't let you pick up any more equipment from your corpse while being equipped with something else. If you exit and come back later, only the last corpse will be saved.

Okay, I guess that answers the question I had a about numerous corpses. There is only one.

I am in the Spider Forest now and I definitely prefer the desert to this. I finally found the waypoint but haven't located the next area yet.

I think lots of people try various character classes, but it is a rare and brave soul who does that simulataneously! I think I would just get perpetually confused about which one was meant to do which attack.

My assassin is either close or at level 20. We've made it to the end of Act II, but boy is that one tough monster at the end. He's very fast and puts cold spells on you.

Well, I'm still kind of lost in the Spider Forest. It is so hard to find your way around. I did finally stumble on to the Great Marsh, but haven't found the Flayer Jungle, which is where I need to go next.

I finally finished Act 2 and am looking for the Flayer Jungle. The Spider Forest is a bit twisty.

Level 22 I think. Building my gold reserves after needing to resurrect my companion lots of time for the end of Act 2. Then again, she died so I didn't have to.

I just made myself fiend stalker boots from info from the strat guide. Cool, very very cool. Only possible if you are playing the expanded game version though, it requires a rune and a jewel.

If you see my poor body lying around the entrance to the Flayer Jungle, would you give it a proper burial? I worked so carefully to get to that entrance, when I was surprised by a band of powerful enemies, of a type I hadn't seen, who killed me in a couple seconds. I have restarted many times, but the enemies seem even thicker now and I don't know that I have the patience to hack through them again. Tried running with stamina potions--didn't work. I hate this jungle and I don't like the way Diablo 2 penalizes you on death.

The Flayer Jungle is accessed through the Great Marsh.

Flayers are nasty, so many of them and so tiny! If you're a paladin you'll want a good shield to block some of the damage and maybe the Thorns aura to reflect damage.

PIB, I hate that Duriel fight and always expect to have to resurrect my companion numerous times.

As an assassin, I opened a teleport to town, then laid down some fire traps, then teleported out again. My companion would actually fight Duriel while I did that. I'd hit the teleport and resurrect my companion. Rinse, lather repeat.

I have found everything needed from the Flayer Jungle. I'm off to the next place.

Diablo is pretty cool usually but dying isn't fun. I learnt to put all my money in my stash any time it gets above 1000 gold. Not to mention turning on every waypoint no matter how much searching it takes to find the things.

I'm still back by the Great Marsh waypoint. Seems like since I died, everything has gotten much harder. I bought the best sword and shield, but they are not helping much. I do use thorns for the hulks and fire resistnce for the shamans. I wish they were all hulks--I would do much better. Once I killed so many of thm on the log bridge to the waypoint that I couldn't get across the log. Had to restart the game. Is the Flayer Jungle waypoint far from the entrance? I hope not.

I was wondering two things. One was had you checked your equipment because at the village you can get some serious upgrades to stuff. I find it annoying that I have to visit two people, the one guy who can repair stuff and the mercenary captain who has gloves/boots/belts and other armor and weapons.

The other is do you have a hireling? I have kept the rogue/archer from chapter one and having a hireling can help with those horrible odds.

Can't tell you where the jungle waypoint is. Random maps, remember.

I finally got a good item from gambling! The gold worth of the weapon isn't as high as what I gambled, but the actual damage done by it was higher than an item I had recently bought. My assassin is truly deadly with her claws.

IMO, the best hireling for me was the guys from Lut Gholein, with a good polearm weapon they do a whole lot of damage.

I have the best sword and shield available. I did try hiring a mercenary, but he lasted less than 10 minutes. I'll get a longer lived one next. They don't seem to do much damage.

I am in the Flayer Jungle now. Hope I can stay alive till I find the waypoint.

When you look at the character sheet, what are your resistances like? It's getting important to ensure that your resistances to fire/cold/lightning are at least 20% or more by now.

Did you equip your mercenary? You can give them better helmet, armor and weapons.

And it's not just sword and shield either. You should double check your helmet, armor, boots, gloves, rings and amulet. I keep hoping to find some more stuff that's both useful for my character and has sockets (I have a lot of runes/jewels/gems now) but magic items or ones with sockets are all good.

I didn't think to equip my mercenary. Will try that. I have the best equipment I can get. I am doing everything to get my resistance up. Gems are really in short supply.

...I don't know how to tell what equipment he has or how to change it.

Right-click the picture of your hireling. That will bring up their character sheet and inventory window. Hirelings in Act III can specialize in fire or cold. I'd take cold, that can slow monsters quite nicely.

Did you install just Diablo 2 or the expansion as well?

Nope, right clicking the picture doesn't work. I have just Diablo 2. I just lost my best hireling. He did 4-10 damage fire. Will take the one for cold now. I found the blade I'm looking for but left it alone till I find the waystation.

Drat, I'm sorry, I've been misleading you because this is only stuff you can do when the expansion is installed and you are using an expansion character.

Most of it has been very useful, especially the hireling using cold. Much easier to hack the flayers when they are frozen.

My hireling sometimes uses cold arrows, which is why I know cold is good.

Do you have any good ways of taking out some in a group from a distance? Exploding potions or choking gas?

Yes, the cold is working really well. Finally found the waypoint at the very end of the jungle. Now to go back and get the blade. Don't want to shutdown and have all those things come back again.

...I just checked and it looks like I have to come back to the same area to get the brain, which means do it tonight or leave the game running all night. There are so many things about this game that I don't like.

Could be worse. Sacred regenerates monsters while you are still there, in 10 minutes realtime, they are back up to full numbers. Then again, Sacred does remember your location properly so you don't have to run back to a cave from a village when starting the game for the day. That is annoying.