The Naked Truth

A phrase based off of a fable in which Truth and Falsehood go swimming. Falsehood gets out of the water first and puts on Truth's cloths. Truth, not wanting to put on Falsehood's clothes, stayed naked. A fable that fits quite well when talking about the Diablo 3 beta, and how not wearing anything might just give us a hint of what later difficulties might feel like. For now the truth is, the Diablo 3 beta is not hard, even when you play a "clean run." ( A clean run is the first run through the game without any help via gear or other players.) Early on the game can be challenging, if and only if, you encounter a particular group of rare/ champion pack. But those times are fleeting. In search for a real challenge a lot of players have handicapped themselves. One such handicap is called a "naked run." Although a naked run in real life can be an exhilarating (for some), it may land you in trouble. A naked run in the Diablo 3 beta has the same excitement with less legal ramification to worry about. So what does a naked run play like? Well, It plays like a completely different game.

A luxury you don't own.

First lets talk about damage output. With gear you just melt enemies you encounter. This is exacerbated if you hand gear down from one character to another. It also worsened with the Artisans. (Your artisan's level carries over from character to character. So unless you forgo using the crafting your going to be ahead of the curve.) Midway through a normal beta run it takes about 1-2 hits to take out trash mobs. But, In a naked run, you no longer feel like you are stomping on ants. Without gear it takes at lest four hits. Some times you feel like you're hitting a bear with a baseball bat. Big monsters that would go down in three to four hits take nearly twenty. It can be a harrowing experience.

Needed two ways.

As you are progressing in a naked run you will find yourself using health potions, as health globes don't drop after every kill. In some cases they don't drop at all. All the purple sub bosses outside of The Skeleton King don't drop health globes. Their fights are more games of hit and run. I find it odd that they don't drop any health. Even rare / champion packs drop health globes at key intervals. When you have gear health disappears as fast as ice cubes melt in a empty cup. You may only loss a small portion of your health from the biggest hits. Now pour hot coffee in that same cup, and that's what its like with no gear. (A Barb at ninth lvl has about 180 health no gear, with gear you can have more then 400 with out trying very hard.) You can loss about a fourth of your life from a big hit. Making health pots and their timer something to take into consideration before jumping into a deadly pack of monsters.

Rivers do run dry.

Another thing to take into account is your resources. As we talked about on the podcast last week. Resource management isn't an issue when you're playing the beta normally. Their are times where you can run out of resource but that's because you spammed a skill. Without the powerful weapons you have to use your stronger skills to deal more damage. Each class plays differently as the dev team said they would. The Barb wants to go from combat to combat as fast as possible to keep enough rage. If they don't move quickly they won't be able to use their rage spenders, whether it be for damage dealing or reduction. The Wizard on the other hand will not have that urgency. They will take their time to allow their Arcane Power to regenerate.

Not just for show.

That leads us to skills. In a normal run it really doesn't matter what skills you take. Some skills are completely ignored because they don't do damage. Not so in a naked run. You need those defensive skills to mitigate the damage or escape from a tight spot. The skills had meaning, finally. Skills like Threatening Shout, and Vault became life savers. (On a side note, Threatening Shout needs to be nerfed. 50% is just too much, don't know how they would balance it late game with the way it is) Combat evolved past pew pew. Its immersive and keeps you on your toes. This can lead to some tense moments when your fighting specific groups.

Beware of Monster.

Early on the worst thing to come across is a rare/ champion pack of scavengers. They have been the death of a few of my naked heroes, especially if they have the frozen enhancement. Its a terrible felling to see them run at you. You know your not getting away. The best thing you can do is stay alive for as long as you can. Another group that can lead to problems are the packs of Unburied. They have tons of health and hit hard. If you get cornered or surrounded by other monsters you might just find yourself dieing. The last time I fought a pack I was playing a Monk and had Crippling wave, Mantra of Evasion, and Cyclone Strike. A good group of skills for taking out large packs but not so good at taking out big hit point monsters. I spent 4 minutes fighting them using 2 chandeliers a Grotesques bomb and spamming MoE every three seconds, as well as, a health pot every minute.

A True Challenge.

The most challenging part of the game (for me) was one room that had a trapped chest. (As seen in the original demo vid back in 2008.) I knew what I was getting into but wanted to see if I could beat it, hell, I was looking for a challenge and I wasn't about to shy away just cause I knew it was going to be hard. Like a turtle's head the chest retreated and up came the four pillars (called gate keepers) that spawned skeletons, archers and shieldbearers. I tried to take down a gate keeper as fast as I could but the archers turned my Barb into a pin cushion. For the next few minutes I tried to get back into the room but I couldn't kill them fast enough to make headway. I also had to keep retreating due to the archers. I even went back to town and tried different skills to see if that would help. It did a little but not enough to turn back the tide of bones that I collided with each time I pushed into the door way. I changed my attack (and skills) and I no longer cared about dieing, I knew the only way I was going to beat this trap was to just focus on the gate keepers. I jumped in with Leap Attack and started to wail away on the pillar with Hammer of the Ancients. Using Ground Stomp to stun the mass of skeletons that were near the pillar. I destroyed it at the cost of my life, but I came back and did it again till the second one was gone. I felt good that I was making headway. Unfortunately I went from happiness to sadness for when I jumped on to the third gate keeper I agroed a rare teleporting bat. Him and his buddies blinked into the room and slowed my progression. After all said and done, it took me near ten minutes to beat it. It was by far the best feeling I have had while playing the beta. I had found something truly hard and I beat it.

A taste of things to come.

Playing the game with no gear (and no companion) in the beta could be a close comparison to the higher difficulties. For those that all think its too easy, I suggest you give it a try. For me, I might just play through normal naked and slowly add gear as I need it. This will keep the game entertaining through the "accessible" part.

The Eliminator