For the past several weeks, I’ve been playing Diablo 2 for an average of 8-10 hours a day, broken up into two and sometimes three sessions, with breaks about every half hour to an hour, plenty of water to keep hydrated, lots of walking in between missions, listening to my favorite Press Keys, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck or Charles Lloyd album as I whip the Diablo levels into a total frenzy with my combination punch — traps plus fire bombs from my trapper assassin and ravens, wolves and blasts of arctic air from my elemental druid.
The point is, when in combat, don’t dawdle. Pour it on as fast and as heavy as you can, with great efficiency and fervor, then dodge the return fire and do it again until nothing moves and all is quiet on the Western Front. In short, rain down death and destruction like some Hindu Gods I could mention, then have a sip of tea and do it again.
Yes, death and destruction. If you’re going to get into the God Business, you can’t be squeamish about what happens when a universe runs down from Big Bang to Very Very Dark and Quiet. There’s a lot of death and destruction in the normal course of events. Hundreds of micro-organisms die every year, and you wouldn’t believe the statistics in the vegetable kingdom.
So I’m knocking about in various modes, a wide variety of character classes, an even wider spread of character levels from level 1 to level 61, my highest ranking char in hardcore in this most recent run of ladder characters, although I have dozens more in non-ladder, going all the way back to the very first year of Diablo 2, about fifteen years ago, by my admittedly shaky reckoning — maybe 20 years, could be, during the course of which I’ve put in several thousands of hours of experimental game play, with the idea in mind of developing a course of self-study and self-mastery that used gaming as a basis, and that’s what I’m presenting now.
Video gaming requires a very complex set of technological and philosophical conditions. You can’t have video games in an atmosphere of fear and superstition, such as what existed only a few years ago. Not that many years back, experimenters were hanged, burned, tortured, drowned and torn and quartered for mentioning the possibility that there might be planets outside our solar system, or that the sun might be the center of the solar system, or that most of the stars in the sky are actually galaxies, each containing billions of stars.
The video game technology must be available and I need an engine and editor of my very own so I can put the things into it that need to be there both magically and technically, and I need a staff of folks able to help me create the games and make them work, then bring them to you for download games and play them with others and in solo mode for additional homework assignments and yes, the gaming rehab is handled just like high school and college classes, with theory lectures, along with practical lab and personal experiments personally conducted.
As a team, learning and working in a group, we get a reality check and help from each other.
For it all to work, we need an internet, a communication linkage network that enables us to work together from thousands of miles apart, and even in some cases from dimension to dimension — the internet, like radio, cuts across dimensional barriers like a cake knife cuts cake.
Then there needs to be plenty of leisure time, and that can only come from a prosperous and friendly economical and political environment, a luxury that we won’t have very soon, but still exists somewhat, enough to work with for the moment, but when you’re no longer permitted to get into a video game online, that’s when the party ends, and it’s coming soon enough to be uncomfortably crowded in this very disturbed 21st century, which will be known as the Age of Terrorism in the history books of the future.
At the moment, we’re allowed to meed in video games online, so let’s take advantage of it while we can.
How is this training delivered? I’ve covered this before, but let me take a moment of your time to go over it again:
- SOLO MODE — You perform these experiments in online SOLO mode, so that a coach can either get into the game with you or watch you over the shoulder. As you work through the game timeline, you will receive in-game BOT coaching from the NPCs — Non-Player Characters — who will give you advice, tell you what to do next and help you understand what you’re trying to accomplish at that stage of the gameplay.
- ONLINE COACHED — A live coach will JOIN your game and type in comments, questions and suggestions as you go. This is a very good way to receive this training, and allows you to remain at home in comfort and security while taking the training.
- SIDE-BY-SIDE COACHING — A live coach will sit at a computer to your left. The coach will JOIN your game and coach you verbally. This happens at a training center or the Ashram.
- OVER-THE-SHOULDER COACHING — The coach sits or stands behind you as you play, giving suggestions, asking questions and offering advice or giving orientation and exercise information as you work through the level.
Normally, coached gaming sessions are 2 hours long, and the time is kept as close to exactly two hours as possible, within the limits of the gaming requirements and the specifics of the game being run. In short, AROUND two hours long per session, give or take ten minutes, so here’s the rundown of the timing of COACHED game sessions:
- TWO-HOUR BLOCK — This is the basic building block of the gaming session. Two hours is long enough to get involved and to actually accomplish something. Less than two hours, and you’re likely to have a lot less involvement, and entanglement and involvement in activities going on in another dimension is the basic technology that makes it work and drives it home. A 2 hour block is broken up by at least one tea or pee break on the hour or on the half-hour.
- 10 HOUR INTENSIVE — Usually given over a period of two days, generally a weekend, although private intensives are available any day of the week. Intensives are divided into three gaming sessions per day, broken down into 1 session where you coach a game, 1 session where you get coached in a game, and 1 session practicing coaching techniques just by themselves, or performing a SOLO task given by the class instructor. Coaches are students, not instructors, but leadership and class instructors can function as coaches for the purpose of demonstration.
- TWO WEEK INTENSIVE RETREAT — You spend two solid weeks at five hours per day in-game, with snack breaks and meals in-between.
- MASTERS PROGRAM — You intend to be a coach, to open a dojo or center in your hometown, to teach the method to others. You receive a Masters Certification at the successful completion of this course, which takes as long as it takes, generally about three months, to complete to graduation and certification.
- DOCTORATE PROGRAM — You want to take part in the leadership of the Ashram Community and to participate 100% in the work of the Institute. At the completion of this program, you receive a certificate and award of completion of the Doctorate Program, which includes a few other items besides the gaming, it should be noted.
Those are my notes on the training program, but the rest is up to YOU folks to determine times, places and possibilities. The training space should contain artwork, bookstore, tea and coffee counter, movements area, lecture stand, and a spot for the teacher to sit down.
Here are a few more notes from the left side of my desk:
- Anxiety, worry and depression can be combatted by giving yourself plenty to worry about, and in HardCore, failure to deal with something results in perm death.
- Sometimes you just don’t have the energy, interest or health picture to do anything else, but almost always you can get up enough stuff to get into a lightweight easy game and with some effort, you can engage yourself in the action to the exclusion or partial exclusion of anxieties, worries and depression.
- You can test your mental powers in the game by performing very intricate tasks and complicated maneuvers and strategies, thus stretching your mental muscles and keeping your neuro-paths elastic and plastic.
- Empower your magic and learn the ways of the shaman through game play.
- Improve your magical influence by making your real magic follow your game magic in strength and energy, not it massive overwhelm or domination.
- Make magic work, get real results in real life by giving yourself the ability to make instant good decisions and calculated risks, where reward is greater than risk.
- Results of delving into another dimension are incalculable and unmeasurable but are visible and feelable in the generative sense.
- You get a real sense of running a body from outside it, slightly above and behind the body, which is the normal way a Being runs a body, not from inside the eyes, but go tell that to the mountain.
- Treat each session as a complete action cycle in itself. A game period is a slice of YOUR life somewhere, in some far-distant universe, and yet, you can participate in that life by taking the controls into your hands, reaching across the Branes to other worlds, other lifetimes, other manifestations of the One.
- Science is very close to coming across the Universal Grid, and when they do, the concept of the universe as a giant video game will enter into the consciousness of human beings of Planet Earth.
- Rooted Single-Pointed Attention can be easily self-trained into your Essential Self via HardCore gaming in ever-ascending rapidly increasing degrees of challenge and difficulty.
- There exists no better feedback device than HardCore to tell you when you’re off.
- Good habits gained in game play can and do transfer to daily life.
- What is the SPECIFIC LESSON we are learning with each exercise? Spell it out, tell yourself what the point of the exercise is, and if you don’t know or can’t figure it out, get help from your coach or from an instructor or senior student and find out.
- Can you tell the difference between an ammy drop, a ring drop and an armor drop just by hearing the soundbyte? If you can’t, it’s time to teach yourself to hear the differences between the types of drops.
- Do you know which drops to leave alone? It’s more important to know which drops you don’t ever need to pick up than to figure out which ones you should. Recognizing types of shields, types of armor and types of weapons before putting them through ID is an art and skill you’ll need to develop.
- Do you know how to balance the assignment of points when you level up? You should be aware of synergies and you ought to know how to balance the points out so your character doesn’t get imbalanced and out of whack.
- When you first spot a group of monsters, get them while they’re still in a tight group, before they disperse, and if possible, keep your distance. Don’t be a hero — remember that this is HardCore.
- Your main job in HardCore is to stay alive, which means DON’T DIE, even once, just a little.
- Treat each gaming session as you would a hiking expedition or a serious trek into parts unknown.
- Maps in D2 are puzzle pieces, thrown together on demand when you enter a level, which is why monsters appear in different places, and they vary in strength, size and numbers from manifestation to manifestation, like it says in the Handbook.
- Energy strategies are necessary even when you have an Insight Merc.
- Killing Demons can be considered a Healing Action against bad things in the body.
- Repairing and Improvising Weapons and other items are dependent on knowing how to use the Alchemical Cube to craft, repair, upgrade and alter items, a feature of the game of which most folks never become aware.
- Subtle adjustments of the skill points can create amazingly exponential results.
- Managing allies and spirits is an integral part of learning the magic and using ritual to empower your actions and gather force and energy.
- Managing your resources on the battlefield includes LIFE, MANA and RESISTS, and it’s wise not to forget it. The question of resists becomes more and more important as your character goes up the ladder to higher and higher levels of manifestation.
- Have a Plan, a definite easily stated very specific GOAL for EACH gaming session, such as “gaming for two hours” or “leveling the character” or “getting the waypoints”, something definite, tangible and measurable.
- Circle the edges of the area counter-clockwise, clearing or avoiding as required by the exercise, but always circle in the same direction, counter-clockwise, unless specifically instructed to do otherwise for a specific exercise.
TOWN RITUAL:
- USE A SCROLL OF IDENTIFY to ID any items picked up on the battlefield or, if you happen to have released Deckard Cain from that hanging cage, you can ask him to do it for you — he’s an expert antiques and weapons and armor dealer and can give you the exact market values for just about anything you find.
- GET POTS and SELL IDENTIFIED ITEMS.
- REPAIR any items that have suffered damage during combat.
- CHECK your Stash Box and square it away nice and neat.
- DEPOSIT any cash you have in your belt pouch.
- POWER UP before returning to combat.
- Magic Users tend to be weak and almost helpless in the early stages. They can improve their chances of survival by outfitting themselves with a bow and arrows or a crossbow and bolts to get some distance from the foe. These can be made quite deadly with the addition of gemstones or runes, but be aware that most runes demand a higher character level, and so do FLAWLESS and PERFECT gemstones.
- Having trouble with MANA? Try wearing a double or triple socket helm with as many sapphires as you can cram in there, the higher the level the stones the better, to get an additional 80 or so points to MANA.
- Want to level a “tween” character from level 20 to 24? Why not take the Trapped Souls Run as an Essence-Task? You’ll level up as you free a bunch of trapped souls, the very basis for the Bodhisattva Vow.
- Bored with repetition? Well, stop it. There’s no room for boredom, so throw it out of your repertoire.
- Learning to Like What Is rather than Yearning For What Isn’t.
- COUNTLESS COUNTESS RUNS is the answer to most of your questions. You’ll find runes and other items in these runs, and you’ll build character at the same time, leveling up quiet nicely, if you’re not watching the clock or measuring your progress in relation to some imaginary stopwatch.
- Take out as many foes as you can with each swipe or shot, going for the bosses first, then the stooges.
- SLOW DOWN — my Number One recommendation. This means to achieve a walking meditation, a state of bliss and observation, of non-identified full participation, to actually be where you are. This requires that you slow down. See my videos on fast-draw of the Colt .45 Peacemaker for more details, but basically you start out slow, get certainty and precision, THEN speed it up a bit at a time over a long period of time, slowly building up the speed. Observer speeds up, thus slowing down that which is observed by taking a higher rate of samples over the same period of time.
- Take Your Time. Do things in a relaxed manner. A battlefield is a wild complex explosion of equally explosive events, but familiarity gained by repeition is the key to SEEING and TRANSCENDING the battlefield with all its distractions and turmoil.
- Treat each new game as a view of an alternate reality in which you are living at this very moment, somewhere in time and space, not in this dimension.
- RITUALIZE YOUR PREP — F9, F10, F11, F12 keys, which represent various tools, are pressed in ritual precision and motion, using the natural lag of the internet and the computer as part of the timing and spacing of the move.
- SET UP YOUR TOOLS — F1 for left mouse button, F5 for right mouse, F6 for teleport if you have any, F7 is your ALLY such as a bear or your double, F9 is Armor Up.
- IMPROVISED WEAPONS — In HardCore, you will have to make most of your own weapons, armor and other items, through the use of the Cube and insertion of gems or runes or jewels into socketed items. You will therefore want to cultivate a level of awareness of socketed states of items so you can recognize them and bring them in.
- Every item, whether it’s a shield, weapon, armor or helm, can drop in several states — unique, magic, socketed, normal and sometimes bugged. You can improve an item by having it socketed, imbued or by crafting it with gemstones and other alchemical devices in the Cube.
- You cannot find four-socketed items in NORMAL, but two sockets are plenty for the initiated gamer.
- You cannot find high level items in NORMAL, but you can UPGRADE them.
- You cannot find high runes in NORMAL, but you can MAKE high runes in NORMAL.
- 4-Socketed Poleaxes and Swords can be found as early as STONY FIELD in Nightmare but don’t be holding your breath for a 4-Socketed shield anytime soon.
HERE ARE YOUR BASIC RUNEWORD STRATEGIES FOR OPEN SOCKET ITEMS IN NORMAL:
- NADIR HELM — This is any 2-Socket helm or headgear loaded with NEF and TIR in that specific order. This runeword might not work on items with already existing attributes, such as double socketed magical items. Simple two open socket helm is what’s wanted here.
- STEALTH ARMOR — You can get a LOT of great attributes such as Regenerate Mana, 25% Faster Run, 25% Faster Cast, 25% Faster Recovery and more, in the STEALTH ARMOR, an easily found and easily made runeword item that you can put on almost as soon as you spawn in as a newborn baby. It needs a 2 Open Socket Armor, as high in DEFENSE as you can find at the moment. Don’t worry, there will be more chances to make more with higher defenses as you go through the game world. Fill the two open sockets with a TAL and an ETH, both easily found in Countess Runs, and you have a hell of a good armor to last you at least until you get something better in HELL.
- SMOKE ARMOR — Easily made from a 2-socket armor of any kind, along with a NEF and a LUM, not that hard to make or find, which yields a whalloping +50 points to RESIST ALL, plus a lot of extras you’ll appreciate as a HardCore gamer with a newly arisen character to arm and outfit.
- LORE HELM — Yields +1 to All Skills and more, with a requirement of ANY double socketed helm of any kind, plus an ORT and a SOL rune. You might prefer to save the precious SOL rune for an insight, however.
- INSIGHT POLEAXE — Requires a 4-socketed polearm class weapon, which cannot be found in NORMAL, but is easily found in NIGHTMARE. Load it up with RAL + TIR + TAL + SOL in that order and you will have a fabulous never-ending supply of MANA as long as you can keep your MERC (mercenary helper) alive.
- SPIRIT SWORD — A Fabulous sword that will delight you if you are able to find and make it and then wear it. Several versions of the four-socketed swords you’ll be finding will have very large STRENGTH and DEXTERITY requirements that you might be unable or unwilling to match, and there are alternatives, but only the elegant gamer will know of them and be able to take advantage of their existence.
- RHYME SHIELD — 25 to All Resists, Regenerate Mana and more, all on a simple 2-socket shield of any type, loaded with a SHAEL + ETH, both easily findable in NIGHTMARE and possibly makeable with what you can find in NORMAL, if you care to go through the agony of countless Countess runs, which by me is just fine, but you might not have the cure for boredom. The cure is, don’t give yourself permission to be bored.
- STEEL MACE — This can be made from any double open socketed mace, sword or axe class weapon, by inserting a TIR + EL into the open sockets, yielding a weapon that features lots of attack advantages plus a whalloping 25% Increased Attack Speed (IAS) that can’t be gotten as easily anywhere else. Your Attack Rating gets a boost, and you get 2 points of Mana per Kill, to restore energy.
- STRENGTH MELEE WEAPON — VITALITY, STRENGTH and LIFE & MANA STEAL are features of this weapon for your Merc. All you need is a double open socket Melee weapon of any kind — there are plenty of them around — which you’ll load up with AMN + TIR, both easily found runes in early areas.
- ZEPHYR MISSILE WEAPON — Increased Attack Speed — IAS — by an additional 25%, pretty good by any standards, plus Increased Run Speed by 25%, Penetrate Target Defense, Lightning Damage and more, all for the low, low price of just an ORT and an ETH rune placed into the sockets in that order. Both runes are very plentiful and easily found anywhere, even in early areas just outside Rogue Encampment.
- WHITE WAND — An Absolute Essential for the Bone Necro, this wand is easily made from a DOL + IO rune, not that readily found, but definitely attainable by crafting if not found by sheer luck.
- KING’S GRACE SCEPTER — What to do if you blunder across a 3 open socket scepter — Find or craft up an AMN + RAL + THUL and you have yourself a King’s Grace, which features tons of Enhanced Damage and Attack Rating advantages for very little out, just three easily obtained runes and a commonly found 3-socket scepter.
- HOLY THUNDER SCEPTER — Enhanced Damage, Penetrate Enemy’s Defense, Fire Damage, Poison Damage, Lightning Damage, Lightning Resist of +60% and +3 to Holy Shock and more are features of this easily made improvised weapon — just add an ETH + RAL + ORT + TAL to make the magic work.
- HONOR MELEE WEAPON — Just the right ticket for those with an unexplainable surfeit of five-socketed melee weapons. Stick in an AMN + EL + ITH + TIR + SOL to make this delightful crafted improvised weapon, featuring LIFE STEAL, REPLENISH and STRENGTH along with Mana after each Kill and more.
- BLACK CLUB — Any 3 socket Club, Hammer or Mace Class Weapon will do to make this simple but effective weapon with an amazing amount of combat advantage including KNOCKBACK, CRUSHING BLOW, INCREASED ATTACK SPEED and more, by simply inserting a THUL + IO + NEF into your open socketed item, in the order specified.
- ANCIENT’S PLEDGE SHIELD — Any 3 socketed shield will work, plus the standard reward you get for the Highlands Mission, a RAL + ORT + TAL rune, all of which come automatically when you complete the Highlands Quest, or pick them up almost anywhere in NORMAL, especially on a Countess Run.
- PEACE ARMOR — This nifty little Zon Armor takes a 3 open socket armor with not too high a STRENGTH requirement — 100 STR is too high, you can’t afford the points into STRENGTH unless you make allowances or need this armor real bad. It confers a nice +2 to ALL SKILLS and more, with VERY easily found runes, SHAEL + THUL + AMN to complete this improvised runeword weapon.
- You can easily find 4-socketed polearm class weapons in Act IV in the Outer Steppes.
- Level up in areas that are not dangerous and that have no explosive or arrow weapons against you. Beware of monsters that explode on death, such as the one at the Portal leading to Tristram, Rakanishu, Lord of the Fallen, who can take you with him when he passes if you’re too close when he goes supernova.
- Hunt and Furnish a HardCore Shop to get your crafting skills up to par.
- 4-socket items will commonly drop in STONY FIELD and BLACK MARSH in NIGHTMARE, but never in NORMAL.
- SOL RUNES have been found in STONY FIELD in NIGHTMARE, so don’t give up hope.
- The SPIRIT SWORD is made from ANY four-socketed sword. There are several varieties, and each can have requirements up to 85 STRENGTH and 60 DEXTERITY, but you can find the LONG SWORD and ANCIENT SWORD with much lower requirements than the CRYSTAL SWORD, so keep on looking until you find one you can wear before loading it up with runes or putting too many points in STRENGTH and DEXTERITY. They’d be better used in VITALITY, so find the lower requirement item before you make this.
- ENIGMA ARMOR requires a 3-socket very high level armor, along with a JAH + ITH + BER combination of runes. The ITH you might find with no problems, but you’ll probably have to craft up the high runes with lower ones combined with gems, a long and involved process that might, in the end, prove pointless. The ENIGMA allows you to teleport, but there are plenty of teleport mechanisms, especially amulets, that you can use, of course paying the price of usage in gold coins when you repair your equipment. If teleporting is your passion, be a Sorc.
- FAITH BOW — You’ll need an OHM + JAH + LEM + ELD in a four-socketed Matriarch Bow. Good luck finding any of those things except the ELD rune.
- CHIP RECIPES are important. One example is 3 AMN runes + 1 Amethyst Chip makes 1 SOL rune, and 3 THUL runes + 1 Topaz Chip makes an AMN rune, to give two instances of rune manipulation with the Alchemical Cube and a knowledge of rune recipes.
BOTTOM LINE:
You’re looking for the following open-socketed items in NORMAL and NIGHTMARE:
HELMS
- NADIR — 2 SOCKETS
- LORE — 2 SOCKETS
ARMOR
- STEALTH — 2 SOCKETS
- SMOKE — 2 SOCKETS
- PEACE — 3 SOCKETS
MELEE WEAPONS
- INSIGHT — 4 SOCKETS
- STRENGTH — 2 SOCKETS
- HONOR — 5 SOCKETS
CLUB, MACE & HAMMER
- STEEL — 2 SOCKETS
- BLACK — 3 SOCKETS
SWORDS
- SPIRIT — 4 SOCKETS
WANDS
- ZEPHYR — 2 SOCKETS
SHIELDS
- RHYME — 2 SOCKETS
- ANCIENT’S PLEDGE — 3 SOCKETS
I have many more notes, but this will clear the desk of bits of stick-it papers stacked everywhere all over the left side of my desk. I hope that you can use this information to help you to tackle some of the stickier wickets involved in Spiritual Rehab.
If all goes well, you can achieve TOTAL ADDICTION to spiritual gaming, and this will replace a lot of old, very heavily established and rooted, very harmful habits. When you get to the place where you say “My Habits Will Carry Me Through”, let’s hope those habits are good habits.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby