There is no spoon ... ehrm wall :)
Hannes Brunner
I went through my mules looking for a better weapon. It should have more
physical damage and more life leech. Their were 3 candidates:
A rare Tomahawk (elite axe) with 297% ed, 40 IAS, 125 str
Rune Master (unique elite axe) 265% ed, 5 sockets, 145 str
Heaven's Light (unique elite scepter) 272% ed, 20 IAS, 2 sockets, 33%
crushing blow, -33% target defence, 125 str
Some nice weapons with good damage, but how to get str high enough with
having only 55 'natural' points in str ?
+25 Lionheart
+17 magic ring with +10 all res
+20 charms (4 +5 large charms)
+10 ammy
That's 127 :).
I played around with the idea of putting a Hel, 2 Shaels and 2 Amns in
the Rune Master. But after looking at the weapon speed calculator I
found out that the speed would be the same as with Heaven's Light (13
fps) resulting in slightly more damage over time, but lacking the
crushing blow and reduced target defence. So I choosed Heaven's Light
with 2 AMNs. With 7% life leech from both Vamp Gaze and String of Ears,
+4% from a rare ring (+70 AR +4 energy +58 mana) I ended up with a total
of 32% ll :). With 431 average physical damage and the 2/3 leech penalty
in Hell every successfull hit should add 46 hit points to the red bubble.
The downside of the equipment tweaking: Slightly reduced defence, life
and mana, only 65% cold resists, and I had to give up cannot be frozen
from Duriels. I tried to replace Whistan's Guard with a Rhyme Grim
shield, but the chance to block dropped from 75% to 52% even with the
+15 dex from Lionheart. That's taking nearly twice as much damage, I
kept WG of course.
The merc needed more life leech, a Crown of Thieves or Tal's Mask would
have been perfect but I don't have any. I gave him the Tiara Kyradina
used in Nightmare: 7% ll, +27 str, +19 dex, +1% AR bonus per clvl, +1
sorc skills. Combined with the AR bonus from enchant he certainly has a
95% chance to hit everything (too bad this isn't displayed).
After having muled over some full rejuvs I was ready to tackle the Hell
Ancients again. As on my first attempt, I reseted them whenever I saw
bad mods or the merc took too much damage early on, and did so this time
too. After some 10 tries I got a combo I could handle. I lured them to
the upper corner and started whacking on them. Before running out of
healing potions I teleported away to the potion depot located at the
other side of Arreat Summit. Teleported back, focused on Korlic to
finish him off first. With the huge life leech I could compensate the
taken damage pretty well. Most of the potions went to the merc. I
managed to kill Korlic, but the merc had to take several hits at some
point and died too before I could give him a full rejuv. Hmm. I started
to whack on Madawc, but only a few seconds - he was fire enchanted.
Kyradina won't survive the death explosion.
Ok then, reroll them again. I got used to activate the altar with
Telekinessis, switch to teleport, listen to the sound of being cursed or
Conviction or Fanaticism or Might (instant reset), monitor the merc's
life bar, trying to read the stats (which is hard), run away, and rescue
the merc from death by teleporting and feeding him life potions. This
time it required a lot more rolls until I got one without deadly mods
(at one try the merc died instantly after activating them, I had a
moment of panic until I managed to open a TP). I teleported around a bit
and found myself confrontated with Talic (extra fast/immune to magic/FI)
at the upper corner. I started my treatment on him waiting for the other
two guys to show up. But - they didn't. Can it be ? Is it possible to
fight them one by one ?
Yes ! Until now I was convinced that they track you where ever you are
on the Arreat Summit, but this is not true ! It's possible to isolate
them from each other and fight them one by one ! (I'm quite exited that
I found this out ;).
So after Talic was gone, I tried to apply what I just learned. I was hit
by Korlic one time which emptied the red bubble to about 1/4, I checked
his mods - extra strong. Too dangerous. Reset.
Another bunch of rerolls. I got one without _any_ bad mods. By fighting
them one by one, it was a piece of cake. Talic: Mana burn/FE. Korlic:
CE/LE/CI/LI. Madawc: Extra fast/Extra strong/LI. In less than 3 minutes,
all three went golden. The merc survived, it required no more than 6
healing potions ...
Worldstone Keep I was populated by Heirophants (it took a while until I
realized that the lightning bolts are not comming from Gloams, they
never spawn in WK I according to d2data.net), Zealots and Vile
Temptress. No fire immunes, no problems. I could teleport over to the
stairs to level II early on too. WK II: Cadaver, Serpent Magus and -
Black Souls. Hmm. This will be a pain. But I had to deal with it, at
least until I found the waypoint. I started to hide behind walls,
avoiding free areas when ever possible. I got hit by the bolts several
times, half of the red bubble was the most damage I took. That means:
You have to lure them to you one by one, which is a pain sometimes.
After 17 minutes of hit and run (ehrm retreat ;) I found the waypoint.
Another 20 minutes and 2 boss packs later (Black Souls spectral
hitting/mana burn lol and Serpent Magus LE cursed extra fast) I could
leave that painfull area.
Out of the frying pan into the fire. WK III had Soulkillers (FI),
Oblivion Kights (FI warriors) and Specters. I had to switch back to the
Passion Phase Blade and Berserk to avoid suicide by Iron Maiden. Of
course, that way it required a lot more hits and time to kill all the
fire immunes around. 45 minutes actually to explore and clear all of WK
III until I finally found the stairs.
Hold your breath and step down to Throne of Destruction. Phew. Lucky
again. No stair trap :). Dark Lords, Hell Temptress, Oblivion Knights
around the corner - still using Passion/Berserk. Initially I wanted to
clear at least one of the side areas too. But I needed already more than
20 minutes to empty the path to the throne, I decided that this is
enough space for retreat.
Let the waves come. Colenzo (always FE, cursed spectral hitting) has to
be killed by Leharas. No big deal. Achmel was quite hard for my
enchantress. First: without cannot be frozen, the minions ice spikes
slowed her down. I had to lure them out of the throne room where they
are out of resurrection range. Second, the poison is a problem with only
10 poison resists. You have to drink Antidote potions all the time to be
cured and bring up the resists to 60. Third, you can't lure the
Unravelers away from Baal, you have to fight them with the blue clowd
over your head. And forth, they have lots of hit points and 66% fire
resists. But I could switch back to Heaven's Light which allowed to
fight the whole pack as long as the Antidote potions reduced the poisons
life drain.
Bartuc and his minions went down pretty quick. They have no resistances
at all (hmm sounds like a bug to me ;). Only Bartuc had to be handled
with care as he spawned FE beside LI/spectral hitting. For Ventar, I
switched back to the 'fight them one by one' strategy by luring them out
of the room. Standing in Inferno from 10+ Venom Lords might be to much
even with max fire resists and 24 MDR. Again, Ventar had to be killed by
Leharas due to FE. So on to Lister. I had feared them a bit, but there
was no reason when fighting no more than one at a time. I had to lure
Lister all the way to the entrance to isolate him though. Biggest
problem was a Blood Temptress that joined the fight at some point
resulting in being cursed, but with some teleporting around and a cure
from Malah this could be solved. Oh just to keep it up: it required 25
minutes to kill all of Baal's minions.
To make the end short: Baal was defeated in under 10 minutes without
serious problems. About 5 visits at Malah for potions were enough.
Getting close to him isn't a problem with teleport; a piece of equipment
with cannot be frozen (I still don't have a Raven Frost) would have
speeded up the progress quite a bit. Nothing usefull in the drop again.
The game doesn't appreciate my effort.
So this is my second Guardian after the Trapper. Yet again, the result
of another solo project :).
Thanks for reading.
---
Hannes
PS: final equipment and numbers @ lvl 84
Heaven's Light 272% ed 2 sockets 2 AMNs
Passion Phase Blade 205% ed and +77% AR
Lionheart Wire Fleece 454 defence
Rare ring +70 AR 4% LL +4 energy +58 mana
Magic ring +17 str +10 all res
Rare ammy 20/36/55/22 resists +10 str +15 energy
String of Ears 7% LL 10% DR 13 MDR
Laying of Hands
Natalya's Boots 22% CR 17% LR
Whistan's Guard PDiamond
Vamp Gaze 7% LL 7% ML 18% DR 11 MDR ORT
Hexfire/Sigons Shield on weapon switch
Str 127 (55+72)
Dex 166 (151+15)
Vit 289 (269+20)
Energy 64 (base + 29)
Dmg 412-584/3628-4518 after Enchant
AR 4259
Defence 6321
Life 884
Mana 346
Resists 75/65/62/10
20 Enchant
20 Warmth
20 Fire Mastery
20 Shiver Armor
1 Static
1 Teleport
1 Telekinessis
1 Hydra (I placed skill point 84 here to get scouting Hydras but never
used them)
Merc:
Honor Thresher
Tiara with 7% LL 27 str 19 dex +1% AR bonus per clvl +1 sorc skills
Ethereal Diamond Mail 17% fhr +3 defence per clvl (916 now) +17 LR +6 FR
1 MDR
Life 1790
Dmg 315-1426/1538-2922
Defence 7997
Resists too lazy to look up ;)
Lincoln Bauman
"Hannes Brunner" <bruh...@web.de> wrote in message
news:bsmqba$e871i$1...@ID-199901.news.uni-berlin.de...
> There is no wall. It's all in your mind. Keep trying.
>
I'll have to revisit this post when I get a spare weekend to absorb it all.
:)
Lincoln
Brian Brunner
>> There is no wall. It's all in your mind. Keep trying.
There is a wall, and it has a clock on it. It says I play Diablo too
much. I'm considering having the wall taken down, or at least
unplugging the clock.
>> Resists too lazy to look up ;)
Impressive read, crazy barstage! Thanks Hannes.
--
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