I don't know for a fact that Astra would have died on the first hit. Quite possibly. There's no question she'd have died on the second hit, once cursed, even from full health. She would also surely die if more than one arrow hit her, and from a distance they are tightly packed. Thus, I had about 0.2 seconds to react.
Apparently my training has paid off. My subconscious did not wait for a conscious decision, no more than it waits for you to recognize pain when you burn your hand. It pulls your hand back without you thinking. You only think about it later, as you try to calm down. Yep, that's pretty much what happened here.
Playing Happy Feet with a one-shot kill ranged opponent who sprays an arc of shots at you is not what I want to be doing with this Hardcore character. Maybe after she 3dotted, I'd go for a full clear and take such risks, but the dangers are EXTREME and odds are high that a misstep will be made, and my character slain. I am a smart and experienced player, but far from infallible. I slew this boss, but it was a dreadful scare.
Treefist was Magic Resistant Cursed. Fun stuff. I had room to work, so I just stayed ahead of him. That's another one-shot-kill situation. Is this going to be a theme today?
Tristram was cleared. Goat bosses and champs there died in stacked blaze while rocks fell from the sky. Cain reward was a half decent ring with some cold resist and +mana, and irrelevant combat bonuses. I decided to use it. Astra needed mana and cold res, so why not.
Marsh cleared. There's the Forgotten Tower. Yep, there it is. Astra passed it like a carriage passing a pile of dung along the road -- she wanted nothing to do with that stinky mess.
Oh look, EF Teleporting FEB in the Highlands.
She took a while to down, mainly due to all that rapid blinking around. Teleport is bad enough, but EF makes it double trouble, then give the boss max resist fire, too? Yeah. I had to lock her into chase mode without letting her catch me. Worked out OK, but I would have had a hard time with an archer or spike fiend boss with those abilities.
As I went to town with her drop, I did my usual pit stop at Gheed's. That old huckster tells me he's got a ring for sale. He says it's a bargain, but he won't tell me what it is. Hmm. I've heard that sales pitch before. Last time I got a ring with 6 Fire Resist and the time before that, +1 mana. Heh. But what else am I going to spend this gold on. "Yeah, sure, I'll take it. Give me those boots, too. Now, let's see what we've got here..."
Oh. So that's what The Stone of Jordan looks like. Interesting.
Say bye-bye to that quest reward ring. Who needs 36 mana and a smidgeon of cold resist when they could have over 100 mana and +1 to all skills? Yep, this a fortunate turn of events. A Stone in Single Player! Not only that, but on a mana hungry sorcie, and so early in Act 1 Hell, I'll have the chance to get a LOT of use out of it. I hope.
Well cool beans, mon. Now on with the show.
Ah yes, another Extra Fast FEB.
At least that one wasn't Teleportation. Even so, check out that blaze path. This speedy hag had me looping the large garden at cloister center. Took several trips around, too.
Into the Barracks, and everything changes. Why? Visibility gone, wide open spaces gone, tons of obstacles, ambushes that might kill Astra in one hit, goats that won't die in one shot. Time to bring out the hydras, defensively. Hydras will see what I cannot, and knowing whether something is there is half the battle.
There are several ways to apply hydras to scouting. There is the hydra cast on your own position to warn of any unexpected approaches from directions you aren't watching (not necessary if you haven't passed any intersections yet). There is the hydra cast through open doorways near the door, another further into the room. There is the hydra cast on a closed door, and the one cast in the room you are in, along the walls, to scout out if something may be on the other side of the wall.
Since your own position is fluid, the roles each hydra can fill will vary. Having slvl 1+3 Hydra allowed Astra to use her hydras effectively as weak support, also, rather than merely scouts, as slvl 1 would be.
So you can see, for Astra there are no surprise attacks in the barracks. The only question to be asked each time is: What have my hydras found? Mostly they found ordinary creatures. Mostly.
If I had found out that boss was there when he fired at me, Astra might be dead now. I took the screenshot because I knew the boss was there. If I had known WHAT it was, I might have been a lot more careful.
That's two cursed multishot archers in a row now, who have not been able to hit me. Close calls, though. Too many of those can wreck a person's nerves. Is it any wonder that people will borrow the Cats 2 waypoint from others, in Hardcore Realm games, and skip as much of Multishot boss territory as they can?
Oh yeah, here's the other use for Hydras. :)
Frozen Orb can get that job done, too, but only clumsily and at much greater cost. I love the fire tree. :)
Scratch another multishot assassin. Ah, but they say that things come in threes, don't they? I've had three fire enchanted rogue bosses. I've had two hard hitting multishot bosses, and two Cursed Extra Strong or Might Enchanted bosses. Better stay alert, this underground stuff is just getting started.
Oh look, a shaman boss pack. And Astra has how much fire resistance? Better fix that. Open inventory, swap wands. Ah yes, 70 Fire Res sure beats 28. Check out my noble hydra scout, who spotted the danger.
With no way to dispose of corpses, there is no choice but to kill the boss first. Only... Extra Fast shamen do NOT sit still and wait for meteors to drop on them. Ten minutes later, with little progress made, I had been forced to town twice to heal up and to grab more of my spare healing potions from the ground in town. Ten minutes? Yep. This was a battle of patience, theirs vs mine. The boss didn't have Fire Enchanted or Magic Resistant, but he didn't need it. These shaman have max fire resist built in, in Hell difficulty. EVERY such boss is a FEB. Heh. Are we having fun yet?
Actually, we are. I enjoyed this chess match. Trying to time meteors, having to manage the minions, dodge sparks, stay out of melee range (they DO swing hard) and so on... I ended up getting two minions separated from the pack, killing them, then leaving the area to fight on elsewhere. Why do that? So the game will recycle the corpses and get rid of them for me.
This is a tactic I employed heavily with Ember, as you may remember. All that gloom in Tal Rasha's tomb? The best way to get through, lure out and kill a few, then run off to some other spot, fight a bit, the corpses rot. Back and forth, work the fight, deprive the resurrectors of their source of might. Without their swarms of restorable troops, without the cover afforded by groups, you spin their demise one on one. The battle ends in victory, what glorious fun!
They say things come in threes? Here's number three, and the third time is the charm.
An interesting challenge, but no thanks, I'll pass. The Smith was parked in a back corner of the Outer Cloister. Moving on now, malus returned, and Astra heads down into the Jail.
On level one, I ran into another FEB archer, but this one not multishot, not extra strong, not cursed. Well, that ought to be manageable. So I dodged back and forth in a very short space, dancing the dance of Happy Feet, firing off one meteor per move. Dodge left, drop a rock, dodge right, drop a rock, perfectly safe now with only one opponent shooting at me, and his shots not strong enough to kill in less than three hits anyway.
Don't you love the graphics? I do. That's one of the best rewards of playing a Hot Babe: the fire tree graphics are among the best in the entire game. Lots of pyrotechnics going all the time. And by now, Astra's Meteor is nearing max, in fact it's at slvl 20, counting skill bonuses. As such, I was growing giddy with the power of it, and I have already concluded that overall, meteor actually is stronger than hydra, at least stronger than the buggy hydra that isn't properly backed by Fire Mastery. I will have to play a new incarnation of Hotfoot in the Expansion pack, if they fix Hydra up to what it should be. I will just HAVE to!
Meteor has its limitations, and it is certainly weakened by lag in multiplayer in ways Hydra works around beautifully. However, high level Meteor does a lot of damage on that initial hit, and the flames persist to help further damage the targets, particularly those that are large or slow. Meteor as it now stands in v1.05 and earlier can also be rained at high speed, dealing simply massive damage to a whole area of targets in a few moments. As such, meteor is the fastest killer in the fire tree, and that puts it ahead by leaps compared to all the other fire skills when it comes to dealing with mobs, especially those in tight places like the barracks, jail, tombs of act two, and dungeons and temples of act three. Meteor is also the only fire tree skill that can save your ass if you get swarmed. Hydras are the ultimate sorceress finesse skill. Meteors are the brute force. Hydras are THE best defensive skill, while Meteor ascribes to the principle that the best defense is a good offense. If it's already dead, it can't hurt you any more, can it? More to the point, Hydras can still play a crucial, invaluable role even at slvl 1, while Meteors are ONLY useful at high level (or the highest level you can get at the time). So the Meteor Sorcie with Hydra support has the best of both worlds, nearly, while the Hydra Sorcie has it rough in some situations and must rely on help from Blaze and Firewall. That is my final conclusion about the strengths of these skills, the way they stand in v1.05 and earlier.
Fouldog was on the loose on level two, and wouldn't you know, he'd be magic resistant and Extra Strong to go with his usual Cold Cursed. Well, nothing for it, I had to run around, blazing, and drop lots of meteors, some of which missed. He got close enough to bite at me once, when I had a misstep and got stuck on an obstacle, breaking free only by backing out to go around it. YIKES! Talk about tempting fate! I was under no illusions that I might live if he landed a hit, so this was another close call for Astra. She has had far too many of those in Act One already, and that's with me SKIPPING the worst areas of the act. Heh.
But wait, it gets even better. The worst one yet was waiting to ambush me at the start of level three.
I had so much room to work, I didn't even notice the multiple shots at first. I was blissfully operating on near automatic, pulling Happy Feet while I dropped rocks on the mob. Then I finally noticed the arc of arrows, and I thought I had better have a look at that boss's abilities.
OH MY GOD, GET OUT OF THERE!
Whew! Oh my. How many times is the game going to try to take me out with a cheap shot? Good grief!
Well one good turn deserves another.
Yep. Sometimes those endless piles of junk indoors in Act One serve an actual purpose.
Ha! How's THAT for multiple shots? Doesn't feel too good to be on the receiving end, does it? You can shoot five arrows at once? Whoop-te-do! I can shoot thirty firebolts, and I can shoot them around corners, too. Burn, you cheap bastard, burn.
Below you see some long range scouts locating a threat.
Astra did not clear the jail, but she did clean up most of it on her way through. Arriving at the Inner Cloister, I once again had to switch gear, to max out fire resistance for the fight with Flamespike. That little rat.
Notice that all my recent stats went to Vitality? With that Stone of Jordan, my mana woes are gone. Astra has enough mana to finish the game, although she might be able to use a little more by Act Four. We'll see. It all depends on my item luck (and whether or not I live to Act Four).
Flamespike hits hard in hell, and that inborn multishot ability can be rough. No easy task dodging that mess with Happy Feet. I cast hydras from long range, then backed off to let them work, and still got hit several times. I had to wait for the curse to wear off twice. Finally got the kill, though.
Back to town, and oddly, when I talked to Charsi, the curse sound went off and the effect appeared. Huh?
Flamespike cursing me from the grave? Wow. Never seen that.
Astra has strange luck that way. Remember in Nightmare, when Bremm sent a hydra chasing her on level two? Heh. These monsters will try anything to destroy you.
I'll be glad when I get out of act one and leave behind the tough multishot bosses. Good grief.
I ended up running back to town and grabbing my Ruby wand again. I had just put it away after dealing with the cursed quill rat, but no, no, have to get it out again, because getting hit by two or three of those fireballs at once HURT LIKE HELL.
Down now to the Catacombs, land of bosses and champions. Oh look, an Extra Strong Cursed LEB midget. Well isn't that special?
So special, and so dangerous, I didn't bother to get a picture until he was dead. That was no ED there, no sir, that there was one mean shorty. Hope he rots in Hell.
One good turn deserves another? Yep. Another ES midget, this time with Holy Freeze. Yikes.
There were three other bosses on level one, including two shaman bosses in the same room? Good grief. I don't know why I even fought that, but I did, and took them out.
Down on level two, they stopped giving me tough bosses to fight.
No, I mean it. No Fire Resistance? No Extra Strong Might Enchanted Multishot? Pssh. Give me a moment, I'll drop some rocks. That arachnid will hit the floor. Yep, told ya.
Bunch of non fire resistant undead on level three. Nothing worthy of immortalizing in living color.
Well... this will be my first time fighting Andariel with a fire sorcie since her Fire Vulnerability was fixed in patch 1.04. She used to be pretty easy even with max fire resistance. I suppose she's not going to last long against Astra.
OK, let her out. Here, Andi. Come and get me. Round we go, around the pool once, around the pool twice...
OH MY GOD SHE'S ALMOST DEAD ALREADY!
I barely got the screenshot. Wow. I have had harder fights against packs of Fallen. I swear!
I mean, seriously now, it even takes three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Poor Andi didn't even get to the third lick. Two laps and she went up in flames. Poor thing.
"The caravan is prepared. We may now journey east, to Lut Gholein."
- Sirian
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