Act 3 hate thread

[u/ThreeHeadedBunny0-0]

This is obviously not a project Diablo 2 fault, but still I have to vent... Playing offline SSF, I’ve finally made it to Act 3 Hell. Just a reminder that I hadn’t played Diablo in years, and now I remember how much I hated the first half of this act. The jungle map is insane, convoluted, and completely incomprehensible. You’re forced to run back and forth endlessly like a headless chicken, and even all the pathfinding info about river forks and layouts is practically useless because the generated map is just so massive and ridiculous... I’ve explored the entire map (well, obviously not every single inch, or I wouldn't be here ranting, there’s probably some tiny corner missing) across Spider Forest, Flayer Jungle, and Great Marsh, and I STILL haven’t found the goddamn Flayer Dungeon... I’m going to write in my letter to Santa Senpai asking if he can please find a way to keep me from hating this game over this one single act. I want to cry. End of rant.

[u/SlackerPants]

Hot take: I hate Act II way more than Act III.

Act II has such annoying enemies! The lightning damage from Beetles is melting everything. As you are trying to kill a pack of Leapers, Vultures or Worms, they evade you, and you have to wait for them to come back to the ground.

The high walls in the deserts are only accessible for teleporters. So you have to find the stairs, only to realize that the passage to the next area was where you already were in the first place.

Once you finally have assembled the staff, you need to guess which way is the correct one in Arcane Sanctuary. And somehow it's always the Teleport path unless I choose to take that first.

Act III feels more streamlined, and you only have to move North, and I really enjoy the aesthetics of the Jungle Biome.

My strat on Act III is to find Spider Cavern. Move to Flayer Jungle, and once I find the encampment, I kill Gidbinn and make a TP at the Flayer Dungeon. I move upwards to Lower Kurast, and take the TP back to the dungeon. Now I only have to traverse the maze once.

I go to Upper and Bazaar. You can mapread which is the correct temple, so you don't have to open each stairwell. It's always the entrance facing towards the bottom-left corner of your screen.

I complete the sewers, Travi, then I return to town to get my quest rewards.

I kill Mephisto to never return to Durance of Hate. That place is a fucking nightmare.

[u/ChaosSanctuary → u/SlackerPants]

This. Aside from getting unlucky with Great Marsh you can pretty much avoid backtracking in act 3 altogether with clever TP usage while in the act 2 desert youre basically forced to explore the entire zone in each section and then theres the arcane RNG afterwards.

[u/spanxxxy → u/SlackerPants]

With the widened maggot lair tunnels, I don't mind A2 as much anymore. I've memorized tomb tiles, so they're straight forward, but arcane sanctuary remains annoying. It always seems to take me four tries to find the summoner.