As a kid, there were two things I loved doing: maths, and slaying demons.
Unfortunately, the classic Diablo that started it all isn’t as immortal as the wildly successful
Diablo 2, and it’s much harder to get these days. But, for those of us who remember, this
is our nostalgia trip straight from hell.
Ah, Tristram. The foreboding, hollow music that played each time you stepped foot in
town. The eerie red glow of the cathedral, and the first steps into the dungeon below.
I kid you not, this game gave me nightmares as a kid.
Blizzard’s Diablo was a revolutionary dungeon-crawling RPG, combining elements of dark fantasy with
a then-impressive level of customisation. Players could choose between three classes
in the original game: the Warrior, Sorcerer and Rogue. In retrospect, the Rogue was actually
the only class I never played myself in single player or online, and I only did this playthrough
purely for this episode. Caught between the reliable sword-and-board style of the Warrior,
and the incredibly overpowered Mana Shielded artillery mage builds, the Rogue was perhaps
the most challenging of the classes. But since we’re toxophiles and this is Archery Popshots,
we’re doing this no matter what.
While all classes can use bows, Rogues have unique benefits and synergies. Firstly, bows
require both strength and dexterity to equip, and Rogues have the highest maximum dexterity.
Secondly, Rogues get more damage from increasing dexterity. Thirdly, Rogues have the fewest
animation frames when attacking with the bow, effectively giving the Rogue the highest rate
of fire with a bow, though in turn the Rogue has a slower attack speed with melee weapons.
This essentially means that, for the most part, every Rogue is going to be an archer.
This, in itself, presents many challenges for new players, especially in single player.
Since there’s no one to tank for you, you’re fairly unprepared for most encounters. While
your high dexterity gives you some protection by improving your evasion, you lack the strength
to equip the heaviest armour, and you also lack the mana reserves to exploit the Mana
Shield spell that makes Sorcerers nigh unkillable. You pretty much have the worst of both worlds;
your only advantage being a ranged attack that is actually difficult to hit.
The reason for this is the isometric view. We’ve seen much more fluid ranged combat
in the following Diablo games, but the original game only had set angles of attack, and hitting
a target moving across these angles meant that your arrows simply wouldn’t hit. It
took a lot of practice to correctly aim at a moving target, and with early equipment,
it would take multiple hits to bring an enemy down.
The pro-tip that most players wished they knew decades ago was holding the Shift key
to keep the character stationary, preventing them from moving when clicking on the ground.
This simple keypress was the difference between being slaughtered after stepping into a new
level, and being able to clear out enemies on the edge of aggro distance. And believe
me, you really needed that edge as you got deeper and deeper.
With the loot-based mechanics of dungeon-crawlers, players are at the whim of random number generators
to get good drops. The Rogue is hit particularly hard – next to the Warrior, the Rogue is
very gear-dependent, and you can play hours without getting a decent bow. Much of the
Rogue’s gameplay is about careful navigation, not aggroing too many enemies and making the
most of straight hallways.
This becomes all but impossible as you get to the Caves and later Hell, as the dungeons
open up to become wider with more ranged enemies. Yet, while ranged enemies are the bane of
Warriors, they are very advantageous to Rogues, who can shoot at them while kiting enemy missile
fire. If anything, the micromanagement of the Rogue makes it the toughest class to play,
compared to spamming left-click with the Warrior or spamming Chain Lightning for Sorcerers.
Fights are a race between picking off enemies before running out of HP and potions.
This is really classic Diablo.
To be honest, I was quite nervous stepping into Hell. I had been here many times before
as a teenager on Battle.net, running Nightmare and Hell difficulties with a bare naked mage.
But creeping down the bony stairs with an under-equipped Rogue was intense. Every step
could trigger an entire mob of balrogs or succubi. Each room was preceded with a barrage
of arrows to make sure as many enemies were whittled away before they closed in for the
kill.
It was terrifying. Oh man, even after all this time, seeing the screen filled with lightning
bolts was panic-inducing. Death in Diablo meant your corpse and items remained where
they were. Throwing up Town Portals was crucial, you know, JUST IN CASE. Otherwise it was a
long walk back, and good luck getting past all the enemies guarding your corpse with
no equipment.
With a decent bow and building confidence, the walls of hell began to be painted red.
Or yellow, or blue, depending on which specific enemy was spawned. The familiar quests were
cleared out. Lazarus was slain, and the portal to the final level of Hell opened. The four
corners were cleared out in turn, each exposing another set of high-level enemies and bosses
before the final section was opened.
Big Red himself. No tank, no overpowered Fireballs. This was going to hurt.
…actually, that was a lot easier than I thought. Huh.
I don’t know about you, but Diablo 1 was really what started my interest in Blizzard
games. Before Warcraft, before StarCraft. I spent many hours on dial-up internet in
the late hours of the night crawling through the dungeons. More so as a Sorcerer or a Warrior,
with a sprinkle of Rogue for a change.
While most of us will probably agree that Diablo 2 aged much better, and combat in the
original game wasn’t as…mobile, we can’t forget where the series came from – the
heart and soul of Diablo on PC.
Thank you for following my nostalgia trip. This is NUSensei, and as always, shoot straight
and aim for your best.