Quote (Belarathon @ 18 Nov 2013 11:11)
This is pretty stupid and it was more just for myself, but I got to thinking about when I started LLD and actually how long ago that was. And how different things were. So I decided to write down LLD as I remember it through my experiences. Many of you may remember it differently, but this is just how I encountered it/what I experienced on East. Anyone else who remembers any of this or has their own stories post up! And Jim I'd like verification on your membership in Pirate Crew lol. Bolded dates/important events
2000 - Probably 3/4 of anyone dueling on a low level is still using a unique item setup at this point, some 18s and mid 20's melees but really no serious lld casters. In level 9 duels if you are up against a TS sin, it's considered GM to run around in circles throwing poison/fire pots at her while she has 3 charges up, so most would release after 2 charges.
2001-2003 - Prime LLD101 days, v1.09 (no synergies, leech worked in pvp) level limits were as follows for what we would consider the "30 bracket" today:
-FoF sin: 20 (FoF was bugged to be uninterruptible and do extra damage in this patch)
-Bowzon: 20 (pierce/leech worked pvp)
-Throw barb: 20 (barbs/sins had mastery glitch in 1.09; 100% crit even with only 1 point in mastery. There was another damage glitch related to throw directly, I think it took only half the pvp penalty or something. But even at 20 they were op)
-Jabberzon: 21 (taken down from 27 initially, blocklock was a big issue in 1.09 melee)
-Conc barb: 24 (the c/c build used Blood Cresent unique scimitar, mine was named Fatal-Existence [lol])
-Kicker sin/other melee sin (no fof): 24 (only person I saw with a kicker pre-1.10 was Cepheron from West.)
-Melee pally: 27 (zeal was interruptible back then)
-Maul Druid: 29 (most used 5 spirit wolves, combined with the stun from Maul and the block lock of 1.09, this made them terribly op in melee, and then spirit wolves were banned, bringing them to about even as #1 melee with 24 conc barb.)
-All casters: 30 (only casters around were blizz sorcs, necros, hammerdins, I made a firewaller lol. No synergies for damage melee could leech in combat, plus frw charms dropped as 5% back then. And a full invent of 15 life/10+ mana sc was unheard of. Blizz was the only one that had much of a chance at first)
Biggest duped/hacked item problem of this time: A jewel I can't remember the full name of, but they were known as "havocs". Level 26 req, +45 to max, +10% life, +10% mana, xx res all. Mass duped.
My most memorable LLDs of this time period:
scruffy the level 9 unique item ts sin
xXBelarathonXx the level 14 throw barb
Fatal-Existence the level 24 conc barb
SuperNoobSorc the level 30 firewall/blaze/fb staff sorc
In 2003 came patch 1.10 and the introduction of synergies and so many other things. The biggest game changer to D2 ever. In this patch casters reign, and melee are left standing in the corner fake afking until another melee comes in
Ladder 1 of this patch had so many llds there were always multiple full games up. You could log on and try Low Level Duels, Low lvl duels, Low duels, 9-30 duels, etc etc and you would find many games to choose from. Don't remember many item stores, definitely none with lld stuff, no in-game advertisers only channel ones, unlimited duels almost any time of day/night, was the Glory days.
As for dueling, there was a much wider variety of things to duel with this patch, and the best part was it was all new. So at least for awhile, you had no idea what you were going up against or how strong it was, and there were no templates or advice other than experience as to how to build your character with this new game-changing patch.
I personally remember being amazed at the damage CS zons could do, the damage Tornado could deal out, and I steadily became obsessed with my necro and making him perfect.
In-game LLD crews started popping up. I don't remember them all unfortunately. There was one who tagged all their chars PC (for pirate crew lol! I think Jim and Tric were in it???), they had a decent size like 10 members. One was FaT, and there was another main one I'm forgetting. (This may have been on NL after ladder 1 rolled over, having a tough time remembering)
Before ladder ended I was introduced to all of the modern lld builds, and I myself had made:
lvl 9 ts sin /TheGreatEnigma
lvl 27 zealer /LessCryMoreDie
lvl 30 wind druid /name????
lvl 30 100% cb 6 frame smiter /name????
lvl 30 necro /TheScarsOfTime
Ladder one ended in 2004 and I never went back to ladder. By this time LLD101 was mostly just an info reference site, and d2jsp lld section had taken over as the main place to find duels and trades.
What followed was a great time in lld aswell. Lots of lld games up on NL, there were lots of team duels, and lots of ladders to reroll and constantly refresh our pool of active duelers.
During this long period of NL dueling I spent a lot of time experimenting with different builds to see what I liked best, wanted to branch off from necro.
I teamed up with a fellow LLDer HFCX and we started sharing accounts and pumping out mass characters to check out. We basically made every character, discussed builds and tactics and tried to decide what we liked best for our accounts. Was a gay old time XD. It was probably the most fun I had in D2.
After testing, we decided we liked ww barb, fb sorc, plague/bowzon, hammerdin and trapper the best. So we pimped out those 5 chars (I liked fb, plague, barb. He liked trapper, hdin). Spirit runeword came out in early 2005 I think, and changed hammerdins and indeed all caster builds forever. It was a lot of fun but then HFCX eventually quit. I got more into MLD and Elusive became my new D2 BFF. By this time builds were established and it was more about perfecting them.
My most memorable LLDs from this time period:
TheScarsOfTime the lvl 30 necro
DizzyDeath the lvl 30 ww barb
Gandhi the lvl 30 fb sorc
Defenestration the lvl 30 light trapper
This glory time of super active lld/mld lasted until probably like 2008. Although by 2008 it had severely dropped off. I quit for awhile probably a year +.
Came back sometime in 2009 to semi-active lld but it was a prime time for Mistakes/LLDpk/L i B (if lib was created yet?) rivalry and pride so it was still fun. Lots of new people to meet since a fairly talent loaded ladder had re-rolled.
LLD was still fairly active, I quit and came back again 2 more times between 2009 and now, and it seems LLD has gradually decayed to a state of chaos, random llders occasionally clumping together to form a tvt. I guess the game is just too old now lol, but I find it timeless. There is still talent out there and duels to be had, but much like our universe, the LLD universe seems to be heading towards a big freeze.
I'll probably be here until the end , which is pretty sad, but no matter how busy I get I always seem to find time to check jsp or log in for some duels lol.
And that's basically how I remember the last 13 years of LLD playing out lol... I quit off and on a lot but I did my best to keep it all in order lol. And now off to work if anyone's on in 12.5 hours I'll be iso LLD duels XD
e/ ps a lot of these time frames were rough estimates from the top of my head so I hope they aren't too off lol
hai. wjat r u m4d bout?