Why do you say it's too late? Don't you intend to play Diablo ever again? I actually thought so for a long time after BG1 was released, but now I'm playing Hellfire and I'm enjoying it. After all it was the first RPG I ever played.

Yes, you can try that. But didn't you just finish the game with a mage? Try some other class for example. If you have Hellfire use monk. It's my favorite class in the game.

I do not have Hellfire and I HAVE finished the game with the other two classes.

This time was fun because I won on an unlikely tactic (being denied most essential spells).

I might do an axeman once.

Well, I've tried to go back to Diablo/Hellfire, but Diablo 2 has me spoiled. My fave class in D1 was the rogue, and the Amazon in D2 just has too many nice abilities. Plus, my characters can run! And the store stocks turn over every time you leave and re-enter town. I can't go back to the older game :(

<center>Nightowl2</center>

Well, I started Manbolt the Muscle Mage and I must say: Never have I experienced such a grueling transition between level 1 and 2.

See, muscle mages may only equip items with a strength requisite (unless they are jewelry in which case they MUST work to increase either strength or hitpoints (preferrably both).

Also they disdain all spells except Healing, Town Portal, Teleport and Stone Curse (once they beat Diablo on core they might also utilize the Mana Shield).

What this means for a level 1 muscle mage is that:

1: You can't equip any items (until you reach level 2 and gain some strength).

2: You can't use any spells (since the one you start with is disallowed).

Thus I had to do with the sorcerer's lame 1 damage bitch-slap and a a whopping ac of 3. If I ever met more than two skeleton captains simultaneously I was in deep trouble (restart pending).

Hey, if my Muscle Mage dies and I don't have time to reclaim his stuff (I had to uni) do I have to start him over from scratch?

no but you do, have to go get new items. me and my friend were playing a cooperative game and some bug made us lose all our items and money. So we had to go back to the begining and start punching creatures. well actually me being a fighter i did, he was a mage so he could use spells

It's just because playing a level 1 naked sorcerer without using any spells is such a pain.

Having to build up a new EQ is an excellent excuse to try out some new combination.

BTW, I am playing a Diablo variant so I am deliberately playing by a set of made up rules. I read that Muscle Mages are very vain and would do almost anything to reclaim a good set of battlegear. I couldn't make out if this was an excuse for them to use otherwise forbidden spells or if I am actually obligated to fetch my equipment if it should be lost.

[ 03-28-2003, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Indemaijinj ]

Whoa sorry I'm a bit late here. Congrats on getting past those tough Blood Knights (Blood Knights are the toughest of their type and they resist Fire and are immune to Lightning & Magic), and then even beating Diablo. I was going to recommend that you cruise through with your Firewall but looks like you figured that out just fine! By the way, you can stack Firewalls on top of each other for extra damage. I'm guessing you used that tactic on Diablo [img]smile.gif[/img]

As for your Muscle Mage, it is actually a rather tough variant... and also a pretty slow one. You might want to try some other variant as your first one, but if you are ready for the challenge then it should be great fun. As with any spell restrictive mage variant, they are slow to start. I would recommend using a shield with no weapon to clear the first couple levels of the Church. Sorcerers swing faster when using a shield as a weapon, so you can usually dish out damage before receiving any. Shields only do like 1-3 dam, so this tactic doesn't work past the first few dlvls. Be sure to use the shift + attack to get the first hit in on the monsters.

When a MM dies, he is allowed to clear the area with otherwise restricted spells to reclaim his gear. This is usually a last case senario though, because as you already figured out, this allowance could lead to some cheesy game play. I once knew a MM who definately took advantage of this rule. He would attract a huge mob and have his mage die, then proceed to clear half the level to "recover" his items :rolleyes:

Anyways, for future characters I would strongly recommend playing in multiplayer mode. You can play by yourself (and indeed you should since Battle.net is full of cheating lamers) by using Network IPX, Direct Connect, Modem, or even a password protected Bnet game. The advantages of multiplayer mode are too vast to mention them all, but the biggies are: higher difficulty settings, chars can advance to L50, and levels/areas can be replayed at will (since only your char is saved at the end of a session)... not to mention cooperative play with trusted friends is why many people still play this game after 6 years. Send me an email if you want to play some time [img]smile.gif[/img]

My website hasn't been updated in a long time, but I have a pretty comprehensive Links page that has links to the best Diablo sites out there:
http://www.geocities.com/daslonghorn/linksnew.html

Since you seemed interested in spell strategy, check out the Spellcraft 101 guide at this site:
http://www.arewehavingfunyet.com/diablo/diablo.shtml

Oh and here's an excellent Firewall guide:
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/diablo/stratcdfirewall.html
More guides from this site here:
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/diablo/cd.html

And lastly, here's a good D1 forum for you (they also cover D2, but the D1 section is still pretty active):
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/

Let me know if you have any more questions. Have fun!

I chose the Muscle Mage primarily because his rules are simple and easily remembered.

Well, I did follow the rule about items having STR requirements rather strictly so I actually cleared first level of the church completely naked without the use of any spell what so ever (but some red potions).

Well, I think he picked up rather quickly from that. I just lost all my eq from a corrupted savegame, but it didn't really hinder my progress. I just did a short potion run through the first two levels of the church, bought some non-magical gear from Griswold and dived directly into the cats. In no time I had a dream setup with a glorious mail, a badass kite shield and the Bonesaw (plus some jewels of the Sky). He was about as effective as my warrior of the same level. Hit points was a non-issue since he didn't get hit. Only dogs (I avoided fast spit dog heroes) and familiars were sometimes effective. I did get stunlocked a lot by horror archers though.

Then disaster struck: As you know muscle mages are more interested in flexing their muscles than actually being good at combat and wirt suddenly spouted a big meaty Axe of the Titans. How am I to teach a MM common sense? He, of course bought it right away. So now I am stuck with an axe-swinging Level 16 mage that swings dreadfully slow and hits air most of the time (I did find a silver jewel that could help on this, but as you probably know, muscle mages refuse to wear any jewelry that does not aid STR or VIT). I had some pretty baroque situations with overlords. Overlords a peculiar that they have good AC and many hitpoints, but are otherwise worthless fighters. It commonly resulted in me being mobbed by overlords hitting air while I was hitting air too yawning at the lethargic swing-time of an axe-wielding mage. It was a relief not being constantly stunlocked by archers though, now I take the damage instead.

BTW, the monster type that has caused me most grief is in fact the skeleton captains (corpse, captains, horror captains und so weiter).

It sounds like you're getting along just fine, Indemaijinj [img]smile.gif[/img]

Here's a couple pointers to help you out with melee combat:
* Blunt weapons do 1.5X dmg to undead monsters (skeletons, zombies), but they do .5X dmg to animal monsters (scavengers, fallen, etc.)
* Sharp weapons do 1.5X dmg to animals and .5X to undead
* damage against demons (goatmen, knights, witches, mages, etc.) is 1X with both blunt and sharp
* doorways are great places to fall back to if you become overwhelmed with a mob because you can limit yourself to fighting only one opponent at a time!
* axes can be fun for a while, but in the long run you will want to find a good weapon & shield. +dmg/+to hit% weapons with useful suffixes are ideal.
* try to find a magical shield that gives Fast Block (of Blocking). These can be found in the Catacombs or bought from Griswold early on (before L20). There are also two unique shields (Storm Shield and Holy Defender) which give Fast Block.

Have a good one [img]smile.gif[/img]