Just Sippin' Blue Mana Margaritas

There was a time in the not-to-distant past that I hacked and slashed my way through the realms of the sanctuary. I'm not sure if I should capitalize that or not; I'm not up on the lore. Perhaps, "I've been clicking monsters to death since 1998," is a better way to describe my endearment to the world of Diablo. At the time, I was amazed I could play both Diablo and eventually its sequel on my old desktop machine. But I am bummed that I've never had the chance to play Diablo on the PlayStation. Someday.

Nothing is better than swinging a sword or an axe into an army of skeletons, so I always played a warrior in Diablo. I tried the rogue once and hated her guts; I completely ignored the sorcerer. I'm an in-your-face demon slayer; if I'm not feeling the spray of blood then what's the point right? This trend continued in Diablo 2 with the barbarian. In fact, my first play-though was all barbarian, all duel-axes, and all whirlwind. The image of this armored giant with a battle axe in each hand spinning and flailing around in the middle of enemy hordes just made me laugh.

After my barbarian urges were satisfied, I explored the other classes and fell for the necromancer. It was love at first summon.

"You mean I can summon an army of skeletons to do my bidding?! I'll just sit over here and let Mr. Bones and his badass buddies do all my dirty work while I sip mana potion margaritas."





Again, a necromancer with a yew wand in one hand and a blue margarita in the other just makes me all happy and tingly inside. Then I discovered my true beverage of choice: poison.

Ever since the Lord of Destruction expansion, I've been running poison necromancers. Letting the monsters swarm around me then casting poison nova is one of the best feelings I've ever had in all my years of playing video games. Still so much fun.

With Diablo 3 landing next week, I am looking forward to the long-awaited sequel; however, I don't think I'll get the same gush of excitement that Diablo 2 supplied me since the turn of the millennium. With the little research that I've done, I know I'll play my first run as a witch doctor and I don't think that Plague of Toads or Acid Cloud will be as awesome as Poison Nova. Some of the doc's passive abilities look very compelling; for instance: Fetish Sycophants grants the chance to summon those jibber-jabbering little midgets from the jungle levels of Diablo 2, Act 3. I love those little dudes.

Then there's also the Firebats ability which summons a flock of flaming bats; I would rather chuck flaming cats at my enemies' faces. But whatever. That seems like something a crazy witch doctor would do, right?

Besides reading about the witch doctor and watching a sweet Diablo vs. Angels cartoon, I haven't looked into Diablo 3 that much. Maybe because I want to be surprised. This Diablo fan is hopeful.