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[Ozymandias]

Yeah, I'm completely serious. Diablo is a terrible franchise. It's the most boring piece of crap to ever be celebrated. The people who play it more than once, I'm reasonably sure have a debilitating brain tumor. You might be on the verge of one if you even manage to get through the game once without realizing you did the exact same thing 10 million times for 20 hours.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

[KvP]

An argument that reductive doesn't say anything at all. Mario's just as retarded, with no more than 3 different buttons you push to play the game. Or what about Metal Gear Solid? You push thumbsticks around, press 8 different buttons (getting pretty advanced here guys) and then you put down the controller and watch cutscene after cutscene of wooden dialogue / monologue.

Man, video games suck.

[Noct]

Ozy, while your argument doesn't hold much water with me (all pc games are nothing but clickclickclickclick, more or less, and pc games are my first love), I won't deny that my brain is broken in several profound ways.  I guess it all just boils down to preference in games; personally I've never been able to stand platformers unless it's something visceral like the first Prince of Persia remake.  I've never finished a Mario game in my life.  Jumping on ledges just holds no appeal for me whatsoever.  The closest I've come to beating a platformer in years have been the new Ninja Gaiden and Ratchet and Clank games (mostly for the combat and addictive gun upgrades, respectively). 

[will: wanton sex god]

Yeah, I'm completely serious. Diablo is a terrible franchise. It's the most boring piece of crap to ever be celebrated. The people who play it more than once, I'm reasonably sure have a debilitating brain tumor. You might be on the verge of one if you even manage to get through the game once without realizing you did the exact same thing 10 million times for 20 hours.
 

Uh what are you into on the PC that doesnt involve clicking?  FPS's?  RTS's?  both involve clicking mah frand.

[est]

Man, console games are all shit.  You just press buttons and move around.  They are all the same!  How boring!

[Ozymandias]

Oh hardy har har.

You know what I mean. The clicking is constant and monotonous. It always produces the same result in levels that are pretty much exactly the same as the last with no variation or surprises. You might as well be clicking an OK button over and over. Progress Quest is more satisfying than Diablo 2.

[Spluff]

Ozy's serious problems aside, I can see what the people who wanted the art changed meant, now that I'm playing through D2 again. The first two games had a much darker and eviller atmosphere than what was previewed in the video - the video looked like a cross between Wow & Diablo.

I think this is mainly because they've made the move from 2D to 3D. This tends to happen, I think it's because 3D is much more limited in what it can produce - I mean, look at the Van Buren screenshots compared to screenshots from Fallout 2, much less atmosphere.

[MusicScribbles]

I don't know man, there have been some pretty atmospheric 3D games with such an evil mood.
I mean, the Silent Hill series is one, the Thief series is another, but I'm looking at Resident Evil 4. I love that game.
The problem could possibly be stemming from Blizzard's unending work on their big MMORPG machine. They probably, accidentally started to turn Diablo into a blood and guts version of Warcraft without orcs and elves. We won't know this until we see the final product. I mean, Blizzard is one of those company's that let's the fan's voice in on the process. The fans have been whining about the WoW bits, for ridiculous reasons and valid reasons. Warcraft was always a blocky game as well. I think the main problem here is all of the blocky bits, because it gives the game a more cartoonish look, which D1 and 2 didn't have obviously.

[est]

You know what I mean. The clicking is constant and monotonous. It always produces the same result in levels that are pretty much exactly the same as the last with no variation or surprises. You might as well be clicking an OK button over and over. Progress Quest is more satisfying than Diablo 2.

What the fuck game are you playing?  The D2 I remember playing has multiple different character classes, each with a large arsenal of special abilities that can be bound to left or right mouse button, along with assignable hotkeys to change what each button does on the fly.  Sure, maybe walking around is click, click (or maybe click & hold in the direction you want to go, I think.)  But if you're doing it properly the combat in D2 is a combination of clicking and almost constantly switching between skills you need at the time, as well as getting into the right position to use certain skills, making sure you don't get trapped in a fucking corner, making sure you manage your mana usage properly, that sort of business.

It's also got a lot to do with the planning out of your character to kit it out with the correct equipment and skills for your play style.  You can take your base character class in completely different directions based on the skills and eq you kit it out with, as has already been touched on by McTaggart talking about the unique and challenging builds he's played around with.  A lot of the depth and complexity of the game lies within the planning out of your character so that it plays the way you want it to and in choosing skills that complement/strengthen the main skills you want to use.

Basically if you seriously think D2 is all "click click click" you've probably either watched someone shitty playing it or perhaps played a character through the first few levels and given up on it because it's not your kind of game.  If it's not your kind of game then that's a shame, but it's totally understandable.  It's one thing to not like a game, but it's another entirely to completely write a massively complex game like D2 off as simplistic just because you can't get into it.

[Dimmukane]

What I did like about Diablo 2 was the item stuff and the loot.  That part was fun for me.  But the more I played, the more it felt like they were making the levels bigger for filler.  I thought the first two acts were well-paced, and then everything just slowed down to a crawl.  There was suddenly nothing interesting to do other than hold down the left mouse button for 8 minutes to get to your destination and hoping your avatar didn't get mowed down by the hordes of enemies you were aggroing.  After a while, the combat ended up being pretty bland, too.  Not because of the clicking (wellll, maybe a little), but because you (or at least I) had a tendency to end up relying on a limited number of special attacks. 

The Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games handled this a little better, I think, and tried to mix things up a little with some puzzles and stuff.  I was also not a fan of the Diablo art direction, adding more to my dislike.  Diablo 3 looks like some kind of improvement, but I still expect there to be pacing issues and combat entropy (to a lesser degree, though).  I'm also thinking that 'combat entropy' may be behind my dislike of nearly every MMO, upon reflection.  I'd get a new attack and use it once to see what it looks like, and then never use it again...whatever.

I'm thinking Too Human will perhaps handle the combat entropy better. 

[Noct]

I feel exactly the opposite you do regarding the one BG: Dark Alliance game I played.  The art didn't appeal to me at all and the character designs seemed extremely rigid without much room for crazy builds (I loved my throwing barb sooo much).

On the other hand, Baldur's Gate 2 is the shit.

[0bsessions]

Ozy's serious problems aside, I can see what the people who wanted the art changed meant, now that I'm playing through D2 again. The first two games had a much darker and eviller atmosphere than what was previewed in the video - the video looked like a cross between Wow & Diablo.

I think this is mainly because they've made the move from 2D to 3D. This tends to happen, I think it's because 3D is much more limited in what it can produce - I mean, look at the Van Buren screenshots compared to screenshots from Fallout 2, much less atmosphere.

I think it's more a matter of technological limitations being overcome than anything. A lot of these people seem to be ignoring the fact that Diablo II was developed close to a decade ago. I'd bank more on the light radius and dark atmosphere being more a result of the hardware not being able to handle color and light and fully illuminated environments than an actual artistic choice for the sake of "atmosphere."

Suffice to say, these are the people that bitch about Mario and Zelda going 3D because it "goes against what the series is SUPPOSED to be." Who cares if it's an improvement or a natural evolution? It's not the same exact game they played ten years ago and that's scary!

[KvP]

I think this is mainly because they've made the move from 2D to 3D. This tends to happen, I think it's because 3D is much more limited in what it can produce - I mean, look at the Van Buren screenshots compared to screenshots from Fallout 2, much less atmosphere.

Man that is untrue.

[Ozymandias]

It's also got a lot to do with the planning out of your character to kit it out with the correct equipment and skills for your play style.  You can take your base character class in completely different directions based on the skills and eq you kit it out with, as has already been touched on by McTaggart talking about the unique and challenging builds he's played around with.  A lot of the depth and complexity of the game lies within the planning out of your character so that it plays the way you want it to and in choosing skills that complement/strengthen the main skills you want to use.

So your argument is that the fun in the game comes from the thought experiment of making characters rather than actually playing the game?

[KvP]

That's true of a lot of games, actually. Most all of them. There's a limit to the immersive factor of all games, such that if you're reductive enough you can pass them all off as stupid, pointless bullshit, and all gamers as deluded and sad. Think about roleplaying games. Planescape: Torment is a slog to play, really. The combat is awful. But the fun in it is all the different possibilities you can explore for your character, and the revelation of the character personalities in the game.

[Jimmy the Squid]

What shits me the most about Diablo 3 is that, having never really had a PC until I was just finishing high school means I've never played Diablo 1 or 2. And considering that I am now in postgrad university studies and have the same computer I did in late high school...well I don't think it can handle any of those games to be honest. It basically shit the bed when I downloaded photoshop.

Basically if you guys could, when you're finished playing, describe the experience of playing Diablo 3 (with the stealth/ranged attack type characters (rogues/rangers?)) in painstaking detail that would be just peachy.

[Dimmukane]

If you've ever played or even seen footage of World of Warcraft, it's very similar except that it's a much darker setting, you can only play with up to I think 8 people, and uses an isometric camera.  Your character selections are limited to classes, there's no pre-game stat configuring or appearance tweaking.  Essentially an MMO with less people but the same amount of items.

Also, semi-random dungeon layouts.

[Jimmy the Squid]

Uh...nope. Maybe I should clarify...I have never (as in "not ever") played a game on a PC (minesweeper, solitaire etc don't count). I tried to load Morrowind on my mum's computer when I was 15. The dang thing froze up. To me a computer is just a trash can with sparks coming out.

[KvP]

Maybe you ought to try older games. Morrowind might look comparitively shit by today's standards but it's a huge game that requires some good power to run. Diablo 1 is pretty easy peasy in comparison. But it still might not work.

[Vanuch]

Alright. I just read through this whole thread. 3 pages doesn't seem like much, but damn people like writing long posts about diablo III

Here's what I think.

If d3 was released with the style of art it has now, I would not be disappointed. However, if light radius was returned or things were a LITTLE darker, I also wouldn't be disappointed. Another thing we have to remember is that we saw TWO AREAS of a game presumably in its ALPHA phase. There's still plenty of room for GRIMDARK colors and gritty visuals. Anyone who signed that petition is an idiot.

Now, the classes! I'm pretty sure it's been revealed that there are going to 5 classes in D3. Presumably, it will be a straight up combat dude, a spell caster, a spell sword, a ranged fighter, and the dark magic/summoning guy. So far we have the returning barb as the combat player, and the witch doctor as the dark magic summoner guy.

For me, the witch doctor is a bitter sweet addition. The Necromancer was my favorite class from diablo II (UNDEAD ARMIES POISON NOVAS FUCK YEAH) and I will be sad to see him go, but I really don't mind the new guy. The witchdoctor's skills are cool as hell (soul harvest, WALL OF ZOMBIES) and still has the potential to raise my undead army that I love so much. The way I see it is this - assuming there's three skill trees like d2 - I see it mapped out like this - Summoning, Alchemy (elemental stuff - fire bombs) and Voodoo (spirit magic - horrify, soul harvest). If WALL OF ZOMBIES and mongrols are the WD's only summons, I will be severely disappointed. However, if they keep the tree system from the previous game, there HAVE to be more powerful summons. Maybe a zombie army? Shit yes, one can only hope.

As for the other classes, what can I say about the barb? He's a barbarian! He slices, he dices, body parts go flying. It's impossible to mess him up.

So that leaves the Spell Sword (ex-pally), the Spell Caster (ex-sorc) and the ranged fighter (ex-zon). I could totally see an assassin/zon mix as the ranged fighter. Some kind of ranger or maybe a returning rouge from A1 D2. The Spell Caster could be anything, a returning sorc, a new magic class all together, it doesn't really matter. With spell casters, it's about the SPELLS and not necessarily the one casting them. And then there's the spell sword. A Cleric or Monk would probably do well here, but I don't think that Blizzard will go in that direction. Diablo II was all about being able to PvE with every character, and not having to rely on a healing class.

As for the druid, I can't see him making a comeback.

There's my long, long post about D3 that was probably extremely incoherent. enjoy!

[Dimmukane]

Well, in short, there's a lot of clicking...I don't suppose you can watch web videos?  I guess not, otherwise you wouldn't be asking us to describe it.  I don't suppose you've ever played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 or 2, or Champions of Norrath?  They were console games, that were somewhat similar.  Or perhaps God of War or Ninja Gaiden?  It's kind of like those, except there's a lot of weapons and armor and stuff that get dropped by enemies, and the camera is at a fixed point away from the player, at a 30-45 degree angle from the ground.  And significantly more enemies.  Plus magic spells.

The loot drops were a considerable draw of the game.  A lot of people really enjoy getting better equipment for their characters.  The way that worked was that most enemies dropped average stuff for your level, and every now and then you'd come across more powerful versions of those enemies, who had much better stuff dropped.  There were also 'boss chests' that were usually in a room full of baddies that had even better stuff.  And unique enemies and bosses who also had lots of cool stuff in their intestines.  There were maybe 15 enemy types in the game, that they just recycled and gave different colors and better stats.

The other big draw was the skill trees.  Basically new attacks and stuff you could learn that would offer bonuses depending on how much points you spent on them and other skills in the same path.

There was also a relatively deep item crafting system (which wouldn't give you better stuff than what you could find).  There were also shrines littering the playfield and dungeons that either healed you, summoned monsters, or gave a stat bonus. 

I think that sums up most of it. 

It was excessively bloody for a 2-and-a-half-D game, though.

Diablo 1 and 2 should be able to run on your computer relatively easily, even if it is very old.  If you are in any way intrigued, it's pretty cheap now.  When it came out, it ran on 4-year old computers just fine, so that means it could run on...12-year old computers?  Something like that.

[imapiratearg]

Yeah, it doesn't take a lot to run Diablo II.  My brother and I used to play it on an old Pentium II or Pentium III IBM desktop.  The thing had a 15 MB graphics processor and like, 32 MB RAM or something like that and an eight gig hard drive.  Ran it flawlessly.

[will: wanton sex god]

Shit can get hectic and laggy in Act 5, though.


to Vanuch:
I wouldn't rule out a Monk.  It actually was a class in diablo 1 expac Hellfire.  I didn't actually play d1 much at all, to be honest, but iirc the Helllfire expac wasnt by blizzard (or something kinda wonky like that.)  But yeah.

[KvP]

Nah, it was by Blizzard, they just disavow any knowledge of its existence. I don't think they even have a page for it on their site.

[Ozymandias]

Nope, it was officially licensed by Blizzard, but they didn't make it. Sierra did.

[KvP]

Ah, you are correct. I have an image of it. It's not all that great.

[teh pwn queen]

I have just one word. One word to describe why I am excited about this game.

NECROMANCERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is all.

[will: wanton sex god]

I have just 21 words.  Read the whole thread or watch the gameplay videos and realize that necromancers are unlikely for diablo3, plausible for the expansion.

[est]

You're excited that Necromancers won't be in the game?  Ok!

And Ozy, when you're choosing one of my points to argue against and ignoring the meat of my post I don't see any point in continuing.  Let's agree to disagree, I guess.

[TheFuriousWombat]

Necro's aren't going to happen in D3 or the expansion. It would be way to redundant. Gonna have to wait for mods.

[Vanuch]

Shit can get hectic and laggy in Act 5, though.


to Vanuch:
I wouldn't rule out a Monk.  It actually was a class in diablo 1 expac Hellfire.  I didn't actually play d1 much at all, to be honest, but iirc the Helllfire expac wasnt by blizzard (or something kinda wonky like that.)  But yeah.

I played hellfire. It was shitty because there was no battle.net for it. You could only play multiplayer through LAN. If you entered a certain code into the command thing, it unlocked a new quest and 2 new classes - the Bard and the Barbarian (I think). The bard used the skin of a rouge and the barbarian used the skin of the warrior, but the Monk was the only "new" class that was ready to play straight from the box. I liked playing as him, it was fun for a bit, but I don't think he'll return. If he does, awesome. I like monks.

[Spluff]

I think this is mainly because they've made the move from 2D to 3D. This tends to happen, I think it's because 3D is much more limited in what it can produce - I mean, look at the Van Buren screenshots compared to screenshots from Fallout 2, much less atmosphere.

Man that is untrue.

Not when you're talking about a low/moderately powered 3D game (ie. not Crysis). Because the backgrounds in the old isometric RPGs are painted, you can add as much detail, and lighting effects as you want - and it won't lag any more than if there was just a big black background. Can you imagine how laggy Baldur's Gate 2 would be, if every single detail was painstakingly rendered into 3D?

[KvP]

I was more referring to the last part. IWD is probably the best argument for pre-rendered environments in games, but the Van Buren engine was actually really good (if exceedingly difficult to work with from a production perspective) you ought to try out the tech demo. It's buggy, but the engine was pretty much a beautifully natural progression from 2D to 3D.

[Boro_Bandito]

hey guys new character class. Not sure how old this info is, but i just found out about the wizard. cool stuff, I like the teleport and slow time spells. There also seem to be something that makes multiple versions of yourself and whatnot. I'd say upgrade over the sorceress.

[Surgoshan]

The video just doesn't look as finished... I mean, my sixth graders can approximate a sphere with a 2-dimensional decagon...  Are they rushing things out the door?

[Alex C]

I think it's too early in the development to worry too much about that. Besides, I didn't really mind the spell effect at all; it's simple and you can see through it clearly, which is nice considering that the times you'll want to use it the most is when there's tons of effects on screen and things are getting hectic. Of course, I'm the rare breed that thought the D2 sorceress was too "busy," so I'm not surprised we disagree on this.

[Katherine]

If I get any more excited for this game, I might spontaneously combust.

[Boro_Bandito]

I mean, she seriously looks like she'll have a lot of new tricks, which is good for me because I found the sorceress the hardest character in the world to solo with, and I always felt like I wasn't doing anything in multiplayer....

[est]

I have a feeling that the other three of the first five will be something like: Mage/Sorceress meld (etc)

Hooray for the Wizard!  I honestly expected it to be a male Wizard to distance themselves from the Sorc, but then the final two would probably have to be female to balance it out.  From here I really believe there's going to be one more ranged character like a ranger (probably male) and one nimble damage-based char like a rogue/assassin combo (probably female).  I originally thought they would throw in some kind of cleric, but with the health orbs dropping all over the place that seems a little useless.

Anyway, after watching that video it's clear to see they are going with beam spells to make it seem different to the sorc's ball-based spells.  I approve, I think.  Hopefully it'll be non-targeted, and it'll be fun to wave a beam back and forth over a crowd or lower-power enemies to hose them down.

Also, the sorceress was pretty hard to begin with, but once you got her past a certain level she was probably one of the most powerful characters.  With Frozen Orb and some of the accompanying ice spells you could clear a room very quickly.

[imagist42]

I think it's too early in the development to worry too much about that. Besides, I didn't really mind the spell effect at all; it's simple and you can see through it clearly, which is nice considering that the times you'll want to use it the most is when there's tons of effects on screen and things are getting hectic. Of course, I'm the rare breed that thought the D2 sorceress was too "busy," so I'm not surprised we disagree on this.

I believe the reference was to the "orb" she is carrying when she reaches the undead baddie's chamber. In the first close-up (of her, not where you can see the dude reflected in the orb) it is pretty jagged.

But, I'm not complaining, because I am pretty sure that pretty much all of that footage (probably not the aforementioned shot where he is reflected) is actively rendered using the in-game engine, not pre-rendered cinematics. And for being up-close, with eye-level cameras, when the game is normally isometric from a much greater distance with tons and tons of shit going on, it is pretty decently detailed.

Also, est: All classes can be both male and female. I expect you might have been referring to the "canon" gender they are presenting them to us with, but I'm not sure.

[satsugaikaze]

Surprisingly the developers of the Diablo series have retconned very little.

I'm glad to see Blizzard have rid themselves of sprites once and for all. While I enjoyed Diablo II to the end of fackall, Diablo III looks potentially refreshing. The official trailer (which I downloaded... silly size for a high-def version) looks fun. I'm not sure what to say about that character at the end who looks like she might be playing a significant role.

Nevertheless, we should learn more.

[est]

Oh man, I totally forgot about the male/female thing.  Awesome.

[Alex C]

Yeah, I'm totally going to be a male wizard. It will rock.

Also, yeah, sorceresses were really good in D2, but starting out did kind of suck, and as necessary as it was, I never did like Static Field. I just hated how susceptible she was to lag spikes, mostly, and the infamous Duriel loading time was essentially a death sentence to sorceresses (it killed its fair share of other classes too, but a Sorc was basically meat in that scenario).

[imapiratearg]

Dang, Duriel was probably the hardest boss in the whole game.  I would rather take Mephisto, The Countess, and Andariel on at the same time rather than fight Duriel one on one.

[est]

I don't know about that.  For the level you usually are when you get to him he is pretty hard, but if you come up against him again after you get a few more levels on you he isn't quite so tough.

[est]

Oh god, I am not sure if he qualifies as the hardest boss, but the fallen seraphim in Hell is annoying as all hell because he has a gazillion hitpoints and is resistant to most things.  It took me forever to kill the bastard.

Also:



Weee!

[Spluff]

Yeah, duriel is pretty much the worst.

[Boro_Bandito]

Its Duriel's slowing attack that does it, beyond that he's not really all that special, but even being in the midrange of hitpoints and attack it makes him extraordinarily difficult just because he's got more than you of both and can move three times faster than you. Bah. I remember going up against him with a summoning druid and being nearly defenseless, kills every summon so easily.

[0bsessions]

See, I didn't nearly as much trouble with him. I was a hybrid Summoning/Shapeshifting Druid who completely ignored spellcasting. As I recall, I just kept running my Oak Sage and a bunch spirit wolves/ravens and shifted into bear and tanked the living shit out of him. He took a while, but I had a lot more trouble with Andariel. Her poison spells and the fact she's way early in the game made her an absolute bitch.

[Alex C]

I should mention that if you only played the game after the expansion or after few patches, you really didn't get the full Duriel treatment. For whatever reason, some genius at blizzard decided it'd be a good idea to have the entrance to Duriel's lair require pulling some information off the hard drive and CD rom the first time you entered it. Depending on the quality of your PC, it was entirely possible that during the subsequent load time (during which you could see and do nothing) that Duriel would get several attacks in. I guess there were plenty of situations where even paladins and barbarians loaded his lair up only to find themselves crippled or already dead. For my sorceress, unfortunately, it was no contest; he could take out half her health just off one of his charges, so basically I never got to fight him without having to step into his lair naked first. Plus, he really is as close as an NPC can come to being the rock to the sorceress's scissors: he does high damage and he snares, while Sorceresses didn't really have the tools to hit and run properly yet at that level. He was certainly beatable, but considering the relative strength of the sorceress vs. other NPCs, he stands out as a real son of a bitch.

Edited for silly grammar mistake.