Diablo 3 Funniest Death

[Archenassa]

Hi there!

I don’t know if there are any Diablo players out there wanting to share some stories, but I just lost a toon this morning and I wanted to share my story!

Little info first: I only play in hardcore mode, so dying is, well, as final as dying can get. Secondly, I created a character just for the seasonal rewards, seeing that I kind of missed the last two seasons due to technical difficulties (yeah, don’t want to play hardcore with a shady connection ^^), and I enjoyed the first season. So even though I’m going to share a death story, this didn’t happen on one of my “regular” characters (hurray!).

So here I was with my little wizard, Asteria. She just got to level 70, she’s feeling all good with her new demon set that looks oh-so-nice. Girl’s got style. The game told me I had unlocked a mount in HOTS, I only had the seasonal torment achievements to finish, and Asteria was ready for the final bounty in Master in Caldeum: kill Belial. Now I had moved her to Master difficulty not that long ago (when she died, I only had about 13 or 14 hours play-time with her), because I’m a VERY careful hardcore player (I learned the pitfall of moving too fast with my first HC toon, so I am cautious now). Now the game was telling me to go all torment for the remaining seasonal achievements, and I didn’t feel comfortable with that, so I thought that completing Belial bounty in master would be pretty telling as to whether or not lovely Asteria was ready for moving up or not.

Rushing through Caldeum streets and avoiding the hordes of monsters, a little Templar in toe, Asteria stormed Belial’s castle. She burnt his minions like they were paper, and slew the first form of Belial with increasing power. She was ready for the final test. The Lord of Hell appeared before her and started laying pools of poison all over the place. Asteria’s rained ice blizzards on his face, disintegrating his tentacle-like arms, teleporting all over the place to avoid his venomous attacks. The foe was almost dead. Almost. In one desperate attempt to prove himself still worthy of his hellish title, Belial went all-in and covered the whole ground in poisonous puddles, killing in one blow the helpless Templar, and stunned poor Asteria rushing to the live-saving orb of life that was floating a mere foot away. The villain spit at her with his toxic breath, and Asteria fainted, for the first and the last time. In one fell swoop, all of her life drained away. Her last departing words? “Heal me…”

And then I laughed, because I’m kind of sadistic, for one, thinking that her last words were just perfect, and because considering she could ever be ready for Torment looked even more stupid at that point.

But Asteria lived a heroic life, and will be remembered for her deeds of valor, next to the mighty PowerRanger, deceased Demon Hunter, the first HC character to fall in the eternal fight against evil. His death was kind of idiotic too, thinking about it!

Oh well, maybe no one is playing the game, but I had fun telling the story!

[Sirrian]

Ouch! At least you got a great story from it though!

We play LOTS of Diablo here in the office (mainly Nimhain and myself). I don’t play much hardcore - it’s too stressful - and I like to play to relax, just spinning through bunches of demons on my very dizzy Barbarian.

Another death story for you though, from me a couple of nights ago:

We were on Torment VII, moving through everything pretty easily (we can get through Torment IX okay if we’re playing seriously) but we were in T7, just cruising around, doing bounties to collect all those new crafting materials. The game had been good to us too… LOTS of yellow Pools of Reflection so that we had enough stacked up for 3 or 4 more levels. Anyway, we’re in Dahlgur Oasis, just fighting some vanilla Champion who had Arcane. Spin, spin, spin… down he went. I saw a Legendary drop, went to grab it, noticed it was something I was after… and DIED.

WTF?

I looked on the map and saw I’d been looting while standing RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of an arcane beam… sigh goodbye bonus XP

[Archenassa]

Ahahah I get that one so much!

I’ve only lost two HC toons so far, but to be fair, I’ve never even dared going that high into Torment. All because of my first (and before today) only HC death, which was entirely due to me being a bit arrogant.

His name was PowerRanger, he was a proud DH, and I had just equipped him with some awesome leg items. He was my one and only HC char at the time. (I played softcore with a friend before RoS). I was playing in T1 difficulty, and I was just cruising, vaulting around and doing insanely high damage. I felt invincible. The new legs were absolutely amazing, and I really felt like I was king of the world and could just up the difficulty with no problem, finally going T2 with my character. And so I did. I started slowly with a few bounties (no problems there), then I went for a rift, no problem either. Over-confident, I decided it was time to get serious and launched a greater rift. The first level was all fine until I met this huge elite yellow boss who brought me to a very low-life level. I eventually managed to kill it but it took a while and I almost died. I should have been smart and TPed there and then and call it a day, but I didn’t. I went to level 2. It was the layout of the act 5 pandemonium fortress, with its teleporters all over the place. PowerRanger was still shaken up from the previous encounter, but didn’t have much trouble at first in this level. Then all the mobs started piling up, and it became increasingly difficult to escape. And he saw it: the teleporter, blue and shiny and life-saving. Without a second thought, he lunged forward, with absolutely zero visibility as to what was waiting for him on the other side. He emerged. OH-MY-GOD-MAY-YOU-HAVE-MERCY-ON-MY-SOUL. Elite blues. Jailers. Stunners. Wallers. With poison pools. And Arcane beams. PowerRanger died in less than 3 seconds. I didn’t even have enough time to see if there were one or two packs to have that many abilities, but I know the fatal blow was delivered by a blue Executioner. I’m scared of them ever since, even in their non-elite form!

My husband was sitting next to me, waiting for me to finish so we could do stuff together, and I remembered turning to him and say: “Well, looks like your wait will be shorter than expected.” The funny thing is, he seemed sadder for me than I actually was. I thought losing my first HC character would make me feel really sad, but I felt weirdly fine with it. (His successor, the revengeful and lovely Lorelei, is doing very well.)

But almost dying because of a shiny leg or set piece on the ground? Almost happened. More than once.

Like I said to the friend I’m usually playing D3 with, I also wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of HC deaths were due to mischievous goblins. I don’t know how many times one of us spotted a treasure goblin and screamed at the other to kill it, and the other trying to reason and say that no, we’re not going blind into the obviously massive boss mob the goblin is ALWAYS dragging us into…

As for playing HC, I have to say that I refused for a long time, but once you get hardcore, you can never go back! The adrenaline rush of losing health, the need to really balance your character out, the caution you need to exert and the i-love-you-so-much-my-friend-for-saving-my-ass moments (and its counterpart, what-would-you-do-without-me-you-reckless-warrior-?) are so satisfying!

(Oh and if any GoW players out there feels like trying HC out with me, my Bnet tag is Arca #2387 - and since I’ve just lost my seasonal wizard, I’m in for a new toon anyway! ^^).

[dhjl]

A bit belated, but…

---

Elegy for Asteria

In a land far away from the shores of Krystara
Between the angels and demons at war eternal
There was a lone wizard, and the last Nephalem

Though her power was great, far beyond any mortal
Mortality was one thing Asteria could not transcend
Like her many foes vanquished, she too would fall

The city of Caldeum, oasis amid the harsh desert
It was here that she did succumb to a great evil
However noble a life, in the end it mattered not

The fatal battle, against none other than Belial
Her magic overwhelming, victory seemed certain
Alas, the hell-lord had in store one more rebuttal

With the end of his strength came a final onslaught
Through a flood of poison, and his breath most vile
Did Asteria meet defeat for the first and last time

[Nimhain]

I’ve try to play hardcore but as Sirrian said we find it too stressful, not to mention I suffer from random lag spikes which means I tend to die a lot in regular mode.

My funniest death was joining Sirrian to do some bounties (which he had started). I used his banner to jump to his location, which placed me right in the middle of an explosion which finished before I had a chance to realize what was happening and died.

Otherwise my other funny-ish Diablo story is that fact I have a lv70 Barbarian called Barbie, whose armor I dyed bright pink, I never lose sight of her in the thick mobs.

[Archenassa]

Yes, connections issues are the bane of the HC player I think. And Blizzard does not always have the most stable servers either. To be fair, I just stop playing entirely when the game starts lagging or if I suspect some connection problems on my side. I completely get that. ^^
And my first male Barb was called CuddlyBear. Male version of course. The woman one was callled Red Sonia, because of course she freaking was. (I say was because I don’t remember if I deleted those characters or not - the Barbarian is kind of my friend’s class and I’m not going into that territory The world is too small for two barbs!).
I won’t list the names of all my characters, but I’m pretty good at making up ridiculous ones. ^^

@dhjl thanks for the elegy, she’d be happy to know she’ll be remembered as faaaaaaaar more heroic than she actually was!

[Gems-of-War]

We added ‘off topic’ for talk of all things (within good taste), so go wild!

[Archenassa]

It was already in the Off Topic category though… did I miss something?

[Gems-of-War]

Hehe no no, just more saying Off Topic is here for this kind of thing, so all topics are welcome

[Sirrian]

Back on the topic of funny Diablo stories… just got one from a game tonight.

Nimhain jumps into a game, and is waiting for me to join… goes and starts doing a bounty, and spots a Blood Shard Goblin. Now Nimhain is very kind (and perhaps wants a pay rise… not sure) so I get a message on Skype: “Come quick, come quick, Blood Thief!”. I jump in the game - takes me 5-10 minutes or so - and make it before the Goblin gets triggered… we kill it, and BAM! PORTAL TO THE VAULT!

At this stage, you’re thinking “What awesome luck!”. BUT Nimhain accidentally clicks on the portal and vanishes through BEFORE the Goblin drops his payload of Blood Shards. SO… after waiting all that time for me, poor Nimhain now has NO Blood SHards to show for it, and I have a nice pile of 300!!!

Diablo 3 is so cruel sometimes.

[Jainus]

I am also a (pretty regular) D3 player… I play Witch Doctor the most with an army of pets (current count is 6 Zombie Dogs, 3 Gargantuans, 22 Fetishes, 1 Enchantress… and a harmless decorative Ghost Dog)… I don’t really die very often (nothing gets close enough) and play at a Torment level where I can stroll comfortably rather than get too stressed… and I’ve never been into Hardcore - some very bad experiences long ago in D2!

[Archenassa]

@Sirrian Ouch, poor him, must have been disappointed.
Well, at least blood shards are easy to come by and the vault is much more fun!

@Jainus I think hardcore is an acquired taste. I used to avoid it because I was too scared of disconnections, but I just feel bored in softcore now, I feel like there is no actual challenge because I can always change the difficulty or do something else if I die, and there is zero real downside to dying per se . I completely understand playing in soft, I was one of these players for a long time, but it just doesn’t work for me any more. I replaced Asteria with a DH, I’ll see if he can finish the seasonal achievements or if I’ll be back with another death story. ^^

[Nimhain]

I was so upset about the damn Vault. It’s not the first time I’ve accidentally ended up the Vault either, though normally it’s because I was trying to click loot near by it.

I also suffered a second annoying death from a combination of lag and arcane elites… just after we’d gotten the yellow xp pool, and I had manage to keep alive with like 5 pool currently going. I came very close the quitting the game in frustration, only the collector in me wanting to fill my powers in Kanai’s cube kept me going… until we switched to our seasonal heroes and I discover the witch doctor skill Hex (CHICKENS EVERYWHERE!).

[Archenassa]

My favourite skill ever is the ability to turn yourself into a chicken. I just can’t play WD, I just make myself run around in circles until I explode. I love it faaaaaar too much. I used to drive my D3 partner crazy.
Also at one point I had a bow that was shooting chickens… The bow kind of sucked but I kept it for months just because I loved it so much. Any time chickens appeared I would be shouting “cotcotcotcot” in the mike. He made me change it.

[Jainus]

You need help…

[Archenassa]

I know I do.