The Way of the Blind
The Army of the Blind Way
by Drasca

Class: Any
Tag: Blind or AoB

Introduction

“The Blind lead the Blind, so why not join the Bandwagon?”

We have bad news and we have good news. Some people were born into this world normal, and raised as happy healthy children to grow up to become serfs, vassals, merchants or tradesmen. Then there are those who are among those who are the vision-impaired. Whether born this way, brought upon by accident, punishment or divine influence, in these days without glasses, contacts or laser surgery this is worse than death. Luckily a new breed of enlightened evil overlords have been making huge donations toward local guilds and academies to train blind apprentices and warriors to hire as mercenaries in the future to stave off darkness and blinding related effects their enemies attempt on them. You’ve been trained as one of the elite soldiers in the army of the Blind.

* * *

In Diablo 1, shift-click battling was practiced by all experienced players. This is a salute to that technique. The standing still modifier is most highly unused in Diablo 2. I wanted to create this variant to make use of the standing still and its range to its fullest while still maintaining some challenge.

Rules

You cannot use the highlight-item feature of Diablo with the following caveat. You may use it...

- If you have hired a lackey (mercenary) with you to help pick up the items
- In town
- If one has the eye of Khalim (combined parts in the form of Khalim’s will do not count)
- If one has a total of >100% find magic item.
- the unique chain gloves chance guard are being worn.

This is not a key feature towards the spirit of this variant, and in a party, and is optional. But the next is a key uncompromising piece towards this variant.

Never put your cursor over the enemy (includes corpses). You cannot see their statistics and you must depend on your friends or knowledge and observation ability to know the boss enchantments.

The Art of Blind-Fighting

If I’m blind, how do I fight?

Welcome to the art of Blind-Fighting. Use the stand-still modifier (shift-key on most computers) to stand and swing in the general direction of the enemy. You might not be able to see them, but you can use good intuition to know their direction from their smell and sound. A good tactic is to point the cursor behind the enemy. This way one can still swing in the general direction.

The program automatically targets for you if you’re in range on the server side. Note the word server-side. Meaning, if you're not close enough on Blizzard's computer, you won't be close enough to hit. Lag and other problems will arise and you will have to move if you do not hit when you swing.

There are ways to tell if you are hitting enemies, or are in range of them, that will help you in the Art of Blind-Fighting.

Life and Mana steal items. Just watch for the blue or red spiral graphic that appear on successful hits.

Weapon skill mana usage can also help determine whether or not you're hitting. A nice little phenomenon about weapon skills is that they will not use mana if there is no monster in range. If the enemy is in range but one misses, you'll still lose mana. However, this still confirms that the enemy is in range and one is swinging in the correct direction.

Enchantments that cause an optical effect can help determine if you're hitting. Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison, Monster Flees, and Blinding are ways to confirm if one is hitting.

1: Autonerf is a term Lemming came up with to describe things that are made useless due to game design, such as how Amazon's skill selection is minimal when she chooses to shun Bows/Xbows, Javelins, and Spears. -Lem

End Notes

Obviously some play-types will be easier than others, but those playing will immediately know what they are doing and what others are doing. In Diablo 1, being a Sorcerer-SNOB is inherently going to be easier than a Warrior-SNOB. I’ll let the player decide what skills and what degree of difficulty they’d like to use in order to overcome the obvious handicap.

Potential team (joking): League of Blind Football players, erm… I mean League of the Blind, or maybe more likely: vision impaired (in an age where glasses, contacts and laser surgery didn’t exist!) Blind_Faith seems like a good name… inspired by The Lone Gunmen on Fox.