Bluebonnet - NORMAL DIFFICULTY

Bluebonnet is my prototype "Ice Kitten" Cold-Skills-ONLY sorceress. Some obvious points that come to mind for this character include:

* No access to Warmth.
* No access to Teleport, Telekinesis, Energy Shield.
* No help from Static Field.
* A late-blooming character who will be moving through Normal difficulty with minimal skills available.
* Considering the above factors, some urgency for additional Mana regen properties on items. The possibilities include: Lennymo, Skulled Helm, Wall of Eyeless, Frostburn, Civerb's Icon, Heavenly Garb, and possibly a stronger focus on building up energy.

In the same tradition as Hotfoot, I would take Bluebonnet on a Complete Game, full-clearing all areas in all difficulties, and repeating sections as little as possible.

My Skill Path Plan for Bluebonnet:

Staff melee ONLY, for first level.
2) Ice Bolt @ 1
3) Frozen Armor @ 1
6) Frost Nova @ 1
6) Ice Blast @ 1
12) Shiver Armor @ 1
18) Glacial Spike @ 1
19) Glacial Spike @ 2
20) Glacial Spike @ 3
21) Glacial Spike @ 4
22) Glacial Spike @ 5
23) Glacial Spike @ 6
24-33) Add to both GS and Blizzard
30) Frozen Orb @ 1
30-35) Cold Mastery @ 1-6
34-43) Increase Blizzard to maximum
Iz-NM) Cold Mastery @ 7, 8
DoE-H) Cold Mastery @ 9
Rad-H) Glacial Spike @ 17
44-46) Increase GS to maximum
47) Chilling Armor @ 1 (Why not? I'm gonna see if I can find a use for this skill)
48+) Increase Cold Mastery

Starting out, I mostly sent Bluebonnet into melee combat. In most cases, this was supplemented by a single shot, at first Ice Bolt, then later Ice Blast. I didn't pump everything in mana -- rather, as I often do, into Strength mainly, and some into Vitality and Energy. I debated long and hard about the merits of how much Strength I should get. I considered stopping at 34... enough to get a breastplate and a 3D large shield, to use helms, heavy gloves, chain boots, bone helms and shields, and 3-row belts. The alternative was to go at least to 60, allowing me to use Frosties and plated belts, mage plate, light-plated boots, crowns, field plate.

I decided that Frosties would be the way to go. They alone could gain me in excess of 150 mana, and for this particular character, that would not only be better than what I could gain by keeping Strength low, but they would open other possibilities for item use. Also, the farther I got, the more value the Frosties would offer. What else could I gain from gloves? Faster cast and some mana regen from Magefist? Some resists/life/mana from a rare? Frosties seemed my best bet.

Even so, I didn't feel they would be enough, they wouldn't be an option until near the end of Normal, and they might take a while to come through. I wanted to get a Wall of the Eyeless shield, which could give me faster cast and +5 mana per kill. That extra mana would make life livable through Normal and Nightmare, and hopefully by Hell, I'd have enough mana to do without it. Besides which, mana spent per kill by then would be much higher and start to render the WoE obsolete. On top of that, experience led me to believe that I likely wouldn't have more than 1 perfect diamond by the end of Nightmare anyway, barring good luck. So forgoing the Diamond shield until Hell seemed like the best plan.

I then had to decide whether to stop Strength at 60, or go on to 63, 65, 70, 75. 75 would be a tower shield, with the best blocking, but that would also slow me down a little. What else could I gain? Strength to use great helms, greaves, gothic plate, and cuirass. I decided I'd stop at 60, go with a gothic Diamond shield eventually (most likely), and forego the tower. I could make do without greaves and gothic plate, right? I could always change my mind later.

Skull helm? Maybe. I'd wait and see what happens with my item and gem luck.

Considering that I'd be largely meleeing to get through on minimal skill allocations until GS at clvl 18, I also decided to focus a bit on early melee: not to a point of any permanent investments, but with the idea of spending some early cash on good melee items: gloves with increased speed, sturdy weapons with high to hit bonuses mainly, but also faster attack speeds and more damage, if possible. Sticking to 60 Strength would give me 30 extra mana, and with frosties, that would rise to 42 eventually. That may not seem like a lot, but it is: an extra blizzard, and some slight increase in mana regen rate. Every little bit helps.

Compared to Hotfoot's journey through Normal, Bluebonnet had it much tougher. I started out with some really bad item luck: still wearing quilted armor and carrying my original staff at clvl 5. Coldcrow actually quite nearly killed me, as hard as that may be to believe. I think if I'd had better items there, though, she'd have gotten a lot less hits. I ended up killing her with spells because I hadn't yet found any throwing weapons, and that was tough, actually: a harbinger of things to come, with Cold-Enchanted bosses.

By the time I got to Dark Wood, I was using Ice Blast as a short Stone Curse and attacking the immobile target while other live targets took swings at me. Frozen Armor wasn't a lot of help, either. Whenever I found mana regen shrines, or refilling or mana shrines, I'd be more liberal with the Ice Blast. With no warmth at all, there was no hope of using the skill to get kills outright, unless I was willing to run back to town a lot, which at this point, I was not. On bosses/champs, I was actually using Ice Bolt, because it chilled for longer. I didn't use much Frost Nova.

Yetis were a mild annoyance with their modest cold resistance, but they aren't numerous, showing up only in small numbers at the Outer Cloister. Of more concern were the Bone skeletons. Still nothing serious, nothing close to what Coldcrow did to me, but they forced to do even more melee, since killing them with Ice Blast alone was pretty expensive. At this point, I found a Snake's ring with +12 mana, and that helped out a lot. I figured I'd upgrade that ring in Act 2, but I figured wrong, dead wrong. More on this later.

Pitspawn Fouldog presented quite the annoyance, and I had to slay him with javelins. Used a good many potions there, and this is without lag. There's definitely no time in which an Ice Kitten has a rougher time, relatively speaking, with Cold Enchanted Bosses than in Normal Difficulty prior to getting Blizzard. I had a similar problem with several more CEBs. In fact, the game decided to be cute with me and gave me FIVE of them in the first half of Act 2, only one of which was not random: Creeping Feature. Him I slew with javelins also, and I used some throwing knives at times on the others, or melee to weaken them and knives/spells to finish them off from a safe distance.

You might think that things eased up once I hit clvl 18, but you'd be wrong. With no warmth and still modest mana, it was slow going. Lots of potion use and also lots of trips to town carting whatever junk dropped. The vipers weren't too bad despite their cold resistance because their health is just not that robust, but it was slower going in the Arcane, where the cold resistance of the Ghoul Lords at times led me to use a whole mana ball up on only two or three of them. More junk drops there, though, so I just made more trips back to town with it, and the mana potions were fairly numerous, although I had used up a lot of my extras cubing gem chips into rejuvs.

At clvl 20 I began to gamble, and my first order of business was to get a Wall of the Eyeless. I went over to Elzix, he did in fact have a bone shield there, I gambled, it was the Eyeless, and my sorcie nearly wet herself! Good grief, what luck! First attempt and I struck gold! It was a good omen. :) My luck held and shortly after I got a belt from Fara that added 28 mana and 23 life. Wowee! That sure helped a lot. I also eventually gambled some Faster Run rare boots with a few modest resist bonuses on them.

Ancient Kaa... with just gspike? Yikes. Took some patience, mana pots, and town trips. I was wishing I had blizzard, but I didn't. Just had to muddle through his maximum resistance and LEBness. He died. Eventually.

Now Duriel... I didn't know what to think. This was my first time fighting him with Cold only, yet I didn't have Blizzard. All I had was some clvl 5 glacial spike and faster cast from WoE. So what to do? Well, I thought of going toe to toe. I'd done that with Sissy and lived. However, Sissy had nothing in Energy, had better melee equipment, had Enchant, and lots of Dex, and actually had high enough level Shiver Armor to have a weak sort of thorns going. I decided to try hit and run, to run, fire GS behind me, run again, repeat. To my shock, this worked wonderfully. It wasn't QUITE as safe as doing the same thing with Blaze, as I did take a hit once, but otherwise it worked beautifully. There was enough chill duration against Duriel to actually matter, although I likely wouldn't have enjoyed this fight nearly as much online.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: not a single skull had dropped all game, and the FIRST diamond I got was a chip that dropped from the second-to-last monster in all of Act 2, in the chamber with the Orifice for the Horadric Staff. Woop-te-doo, a diamond chip I'd never have hope of upgrading except via shrine. -sigh-

I'd actually found THREE gem shrines thus far, too. I'd ended up upgrading a ruby chip all the way to a flawless, then selling it. Joy! What a waste. Bluebonnet's luck was at once both terrific and terrible. No skulls? No diamonds?? Sad, even pathetic items on most counts, but then hitting WoE on the FIRST try, and also getting the best belt Fara has ever sold to me for any character in Normal. Weird I tell ya! Weird.

At this point, I had my Strength at 60, Vit near 40, Energy about 65. Done pumping Strength forever, most likely. Time to get some Energy going. Did I mention that Fetishes make for pretty ice sculptures? :)

Glacial Spike DOES work against river hydras. Those of you who have read the Hotfoot report may remember that fireball will not hurt them. GS will, so I didn't have to resort to Ice Bolt the way I had to go to Firebolt for Hotfoot against those beasties. Even so, only the direct damage of GS works in these cases. The area of effect does not, meaning that there is no splash freeze or damage.

And then I had Blizzard finally. What did this do for me? Well mostly nothing. GS was clearly still the bread and butter skill and getting better by the hour. For now. But Blizzard, even at slvl 1, offered me the potential to stack em hard and high against bosses, then run around luring the offender through the shower and finish them off. This was of particular interest against CEBs, who were no longer impressed with my 25 Dex javelin skills.

At the back end of Lower Kurast, a rare plated belt dropped from a chest in a hut: 9% Fire Resistance, +16 life, +14 Strength and +83% gold. I stashed it, and stuck with my 3-row drake/tiger belt for now. I soon bought a crown from Hratli with +42 Lit Resist and +5 life. Down in the Forgotten Reliquary, I found a rare set of greaves that was awesome: Faster Run, +44 Fire Resist, +22 Lit Resist, +26 life. Wow. One problem, though: they required 70 Strength. To wear them, I'd have to give up the drake belt and switch to that rare I had stashed. This was problematic, since I had gone thin on Energy (not thin for ME -- actually that is typical for me -- but thin for this sort of no-warmth, no-static, mana-hungry-skills character). That 28 mana was making a real difference. So I stashed the boots for now. I also found a Dragon's scepter of Magus on sale and though it was costly, with some added Pally skeelz, I bought it, finally discarding all thought of melee in favor of more artillery power.

You might also think that GS left Bluebonnet safer than Hotfoot was at this point, but you'd be flat out dead wrong. I had numerous close calls with Bluebonnet in Act 3, ALL of them involving bosses or champs. The peons I could neutralize with GS, but the big boys were less impressed, and Bluebonnet at this point had 12 unallocated skill points. You bet that made a difference! Now close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenedes, and Bluebonnet DID NOT die at any point in Normal. Nevertheless, a handful of situations posed a real threat, and this can only partially be laid at the doorstep of going Cold-Only, without warmth and teleport. In my evaluation, the Ice Kitten is flat out weaker than the Hot Babe at this stage, and frankly all the way through Normal Difficulty.

GS clearly has its limitations, too, though. Even slvl 2 Blizzard was far superior against bosses, taking out the Council with some effort, the hardest actually being Maffer, believe it or not: tough to keep him in the area of effect. Bremm was not as tough and Toorc failed to heal himself enough to really drag out that fight. Getting hold of some Blizzard was the first glimmerings of light for times to come, even though at this point the skill was too costly and erratic to rely on for continuous use.

Mephisto died as easily to slvl 2 blizzard as to slvl 4 firewall combined with slvl 8 blaze. He dropped junk.

Now Act 4 was the first place I ran into where Bluebonnet, at times, actually had it easier than Hotfoot. Of course, at other times, she had it harder, but there was noticeable movement now that skill points that been being saved up were finally starting to be allocated. Blizzard helped in some situations, and GS was finally getting strong enough to be serious in its own right, with freeze times now approaching three seconds.

Hephasto is likely the one place where Blizzard really shined. Stacking them hard in a fairly open area and running rings around him with him continuously exposed, killed him a little more quickly than Blaze did in the same situation for Hotfoot, albeit with a bit more danger, too, since at times he got a swing attempt in and even got a hit once. I got the distinct feeling, however, that with more skill points and the backing of cold mastery, that Blizzard would truly shine brightly here in later difficulties. Time would tell.

Cold also had few problems in the Chaos Sanctuary, and an easier time to be sure with the Infector and his crew, and also with the Vizier. Not quite with De Seis, though. And then Diablo... that was quite another story altogether. First of all, I needed that Fire Resistance from the rare Greaves, so I should have given up the drake belt and switched to the rare with the strength boost. I thought I could make it without that, though, and cling to the extra mana. In retrospect, this was a mistake, though not a fatal one.

Bluebonnet expected better from Blizzard than she got! Where Blaze, Firewall, Meteor, Static and particularly Hydra make short work of Diablo, Blizzard did not. Distinctly so! What would often happen is that Big D would go into his charge-and-swipe move, but be running in very very slow motion, out away from the stack blizzards, and it was hard to get him to move back there. At only slvl 4, these blizzards didn't last all that long anyway. So I ate a lot of mana potions here! But to make matters worse, visibility was a problem, too. At times I lost track of Diablo through all the blizzard animations and this led to me taking more damage across the board from all his attack types. I even got hit with his swipe once. I got the kill without any real close calls, but I never did figure out a tactic here to overcome the problem of him charging in slow motion out of the blizzards. He did that so much that I quite nearly considered switching to Gspike but ultimately decided that would be no quicker and might be less safe.

I still had that diamond chip, and had found a flawed since then, in the Great Marsh, that I had then upgraded to a flawless with one gem shrine each in Acts 3 and 4. And that was it! No skulls at ALL through the entire difficulty. Hell forge dropped colored crap that got sold. Five gem shrines in Normal and all I had to show for it was ONE flawless diamond. I even gave up on the chip and cubed it. Figured why not, the chances of turning up another Diamond were just too good, and having just ONE drop would put me as far ahead as two gem shrines plus that chip. One would have to drop, right? The game had gone all the way through Normal and dropped two diamonds. It HAD to drop more in nightmare, right? Didn't it?

Deaths incurred in Normal: Zero.

- Sirian

| Bluebonnet's Page | Nightmare Difficulty | Main Page |