Season Journey: The First Crusade

When I was at university, one thing I made sure I had time for was playing computer games. My genres at the time were real time strategy games and roleplaying games - as a general rule, you got a lot of play out of them, either due to skirmish modes or long storylines. As a result, I found myself playing and enjoying Diablo II quite a lot, tracking down runes and upgrading my gear, even if the story wasn't the strongest.

Fast forward to last year, and a friend of mine convinced me to pick up Diablo III during a sale. I'd resisted picking it up when it was first released, partly due to the "real money" auction house, and party because my PC at the time was not the most reliable. My current one, however, was able to run it without a problem, and we had a fun time over a number of evenings, playing through the game as a team.

Demon Hunter, looking badass

Around Easter, after taking a break for a while, I started a new Demon Hunter, and tried to complete the initial four tiers of my Season 13 journey. As it happened, this Season finished while I was at UK Games Expo, and I was one task away from getting my final bits of free gear - curse my lack of DPS!

June 15 marked the launch of Season 14, and I'm determined to do better this time. I'm going to be doing a series of semi-regular posts chronicling my progress. This time, I shall not be denied - and maybe we'll see what lies beyond tier 4 as well.

The first thing I needed to do was make my mind up on what class I'd be playing. To date, the only characters I've gotten to level 70 have been ranged - a Wizard and a brace of Demon Hunters. As a result, this time I wanted to try with a melee character. As the season goes on, I may add another ranged character to my ranks, to help clear up some achievements, but my melee dude will be my focus.

At the time of writing, there are three melee classes in Diablo III - the Barbarian, the Crusader and the Monk. As the friend I was playing co-op mode with was using a Barbarian, I've seen quite a bit of their progress, and I've played a Monk to mid-levels. As I was wanting to play something a bit new to me, that left me with the Crusader - a class that encourages a classical sword-and-board fighting style.

Surprisingly dapper - though not a match to the art

With that in mind, I created a new character, and dived right in. When creating a new character for Diablo III, there are four choices to make, other than the class - gender, name, whether the character is for a season, and whether you want to activate Hardcore mode (where dying is permanent). This character was obviously for a Season, though I decided against Hardcore mode. HenryJonesJr, a male Crusader, was born.

The only other choice I had to make before getting started was what difficulty level to begin at. The first time I played, we started in Normal, though after a while that proved to be too easy. My Season 13 character started at one difficulty level up, at Master. This time, I thought I'd challenge myself, so I kicked things off at Expert. Doing so makes the monsters tougher, but also means I get more gold and XP.

My other objective for this season is to try to clear off some outstanding achievements within Diablo III - as with World of Warcraft, Diablo III has a very thorough achievement system, and I'd made a reasonable stab at it previously:

My achievement progress at the start of Season 14

This season I'm expecting to make progress on the Adventure Mode and Challenges bars, and possibly the Crafting one too. I know there are a number of lore books within the different Acts that I've missed out on previously, so as I progress through the game I'm going to be trying to pick them up. There are also certain dungeons and instances I need to complete. Some of these I'll do with the Crusader, but I know that for some of them there are a low spawn choice - as a result, after a few attempts I'll move on, but I'll create a second character later in the season to farm for them.

My first session was on Saturday morning, and was only for about an hour and a half. By the end of that time, I'd reached Tristram Cathedral, rescued Deckard Cain, and got myself up to level 9. As you can see from the picture to the left, my gear certainly made me look a bit more like a crusading knight than my starting gear did, and I was keeping on top of things.

When I'm starting a character in Diablo III, I tend to look for abilities on items which are going to keep me alive more than which are going to help me kill quicker. I'll still lean towards my primary stat - Strength, for the Crusader - but if given the choice between getting health back from killing my enemies or doing a little extra damage, I'll take the health every time. That might make me a bit odd when it comes to this game, but it also avoids early deaths while I'm figuring out the character.

Speaking of avoiding early deaths, my first session as a starting character on Expert was death-free. I followed this up with a spot of farming, as it turned out I needed quite a few lore books from an Old Keepsake Box, which spawns on Old Tristram Road or in the Old Ruins. With all bar one of them collected - and several levels higher than I was - it was time to push the storyline forwards.

I hate these things...

My second storyline push occurred on Sunday evening, ending with the demise of the Skeleton King. While killing him isn't the end of the Act, he is one of the bigger villains you need to eliminate before you finish Act I.

This session saw my first deaths of this run, which was a bit of a surprise - with my range characters, avoiding death outside of boss fights has generally been pretty easy. As a melee character, however, my options are limited - and it becomes more likely that your enemies can box you in. This is particularly evident when facing bosses with the Arcane ability, as you can be boxed in when someone manifests a purple wheel of death under your backside...

It chafes.

Fortunately, I've picked up an ability which, if used carefully, can get me out of such jams. The fact is adds a large area-of-effect damage pulse on impact is also handy, as it has been blowing up the chaff I'd otherwise be needing to kill manually.

One backscratcher...

As is often the case, killing a major villain led to a gear upgrade, and I'm now rocking three pieces of Legendary gear - The Crudest Boots, which will be getting replaced soon, I'd imagine; Leoric's Crown, which I believe is in the EULA as compulsory gear at some point; and the Pledge of Caldeum, a spear with a socket. It's a cool-looking pig-sticker, and I imagine it'll be even better once I have a suitable gem to plug into its socket - a damage-increasing Ruby, probably.

The spear is a big damage upgrade over my previous weapon, though it means changing my fighting style. I'm going to try going without a shield for a bit, and see how that works out. If I like it, I'll keep going until gear upgrades bring me back to a one-handed weapon and a shield. If I don't, I'll use the passive skill which will let me use the spear in one hand - though at the cost of doing less damage.

As things stand, I'm happy with my progress so far. I'm probably not going to get to play again until Wednesday now, and I'll be looking to make more progress through Adventure Mode then. If I can have cleared Act I by the end of next weekend, I'll be very happy with my progress.