NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY
Bluebonnet began Nightmare at clvl 27 with the following skills/stats/equipment:
Blizzard @ 4
Glacial Spike @ 10
Shiver Armor @ 1
Ice Blast @ 1
Frost Nova @ 1
Frozen Armor @ 1
Ice Bolt @ 1 ...and 11 skill points unallocated.
Str 60, Dex 25, Vit 40, Nrg 90
Amber Crown of Life: +42 Lit Resist, +5 Life - bought from Hratli
Blessed Splint Mail of Mammoth: DR 186, +35 life - bought from Hratli
Dragon's War Scepter of the Magus: +37 mana - bought from Ormus
Wall of the Eyeless Bone Shield: +5 mana per kill, faster cast, +20 Poison Resist - gambled Act 2
Rare Gauntlets: +17 Lit Resist, +14 Life, Half Freeze Duration - gambled Act 4
Rare Plated Belt: +9 Fire Resist, +16 Life, +14 Strength, +83% Gold - found Lower Kurast
Rare Greaves: +44 Fire Res, +22 Lit Res, +26 Life, Faster Run - found in Act 3, Forgotten Reliquary
Amulet: +37 Life, +1 Minimum Damage - found Act 4, Plains of Despair
Sapphire Ring: +33 Cold Resist - found Act 4, City of Damned
Snake's Ring: +12 mana - found Act 1, Barracks
Yes indeed, STILL wearing that crap ring from Act 1 Normal. So much for my expectations of upgrading. :)
This is not even indicative of how bad my jewelry luck really was. Until I found those other two bits in mid Act 4, I was still wearing a ring with +12 life from Act 1 and an amulet of health, if you can believe that! I had worn the Viper Amulet while I had it, and missed it much when it was gone. :) My fire resistance was ZERO all the way through Normal, leading me to some issues of compromised safety and even close calls! It was not until the very end that I got some Fire resistance, and this at the immediate expense of cold and poison resistance. I wasn't happy about not having Fastest Run on my boots, either, but that was made livable by having a penalty-free shield.
Diablo smacking my zero-fire-resistance sorcie around the CS had convinced me to finally let go of the drake belt and switch to the rare plated belt and greaves. This got my fire resistance up to a good level and also boosted my life a small bit, but cost me some poison and cold resistance and mana. Such are the compromises of life. All in all, the right move to make at this point. I also gained four more inventory slots.
I hoped that I was leaving the close calls behind. I'd had way more of them in Normal than I expected or wanted to, but had survived them all. However, I quickly ran afoul of Magic Resistant and Cold Enchanted bosses in Act 1 Nightmare. Yikes. Starting right off the bat, too, with an MR Corpsefire to contend with. Then it was Bishibosh, and then Coldcrow and another boss in the Caves, then Bonebreaker and a CEB-LEB in the mausoleum. On the up side, I actually noticed a real impact from the +83% gold! Critters and especially champ packs were dropping extra gold in sufficient quantities to matter. Not that I would ever sacrifice more meaningful, survival-oriented affixes for ones that add gold, but I don't say Arrgh when some gold bonus turns up on my rares. No, not at all. :) And IMO this is more significant than +% chance for magic items. Why? Well, mainly because sale prices of items are determined far more by the base type than by magic enchantments. And a large number of the magic items that drop are automatics anyway: gold chests, bosses, champs, certain "disguised" chests that always act like gold chests, etc etc. % Magic Item doesn't affect those. All that's affected is standard critter drops. I think the real difference in money added is higher from +gold affixes. YMMV. You're weighing extra chances at gambles against the slight, oh so slight bonus chance of a valuable magic item you can USE dropping at random, mainly.
Anyhow, for Bluebonnet, the story was GS GS GS GS GS, and Blizz only against the toughest foes, mainly the few resistant ones. Pitspawn was hairy... I had to kill him with a combo of blizz and gs, and lots and lots of mana. He and his crew actually charged me right after I got down to Jail lvl 2, before I had a real foothold, and I was dancing around in a fairly tight space with hostile spitters and a boss that was Extra Strong, Cursed, Cold Enchanted. What a situation! :)
Then down on Cats 2, I ran into a fun situation with a CEB teleporting boss. This took a bit of time to handle and, frankly, involved a close call. I pulled it off, though. The thing that made this fight tough was the close quarters, the large numbers of critters I had here, the lack of Cold Mastery and my Blizzard still relatively mana inefficient. I had to consume multiple mana potions.
I tried Blizz on Andariel. She laughed. Duration still too short to really get her attention, damage not much better, no cold mastery. I went to GS and used it, then ended with stacked blizzards. All in all, even with her max fire resistance, Blaze killed her easier, for Hotfoot. So it goes. She died, Bluebonnet didn't, I was happy.
Hmm... no gem shrines or diamonds in Act 1. Well, my luck HAD to improve in Act 2, right? Am I right??
And finally, the first place in the game where Bluebonnet had it noticeably easier than Hotfoot: the Lut Sewers in NM. Burning Dead DID NOT APPROVE of my use of Glacial Spike. You could hear them whining with every shattering corpse. Pop! Pop! BANG! Tinkle-sprinkle... melt. Ah yes! Not something you might notice generally, but sweet sweet revenge for a Hot Babe player. :)
Then, too, the noticeable ease of smacking whole armies of weak skels with GS, leaving nothing to be resurrectable. That was nice. Then there was the advent of cold mastery! Bluebonnet's life immediately took a turn for the better, and resistant bosses started giving way before the increasing might of her Blizzards.
Now at clvl 30, is when Hotfoot had her breakthrough on item luck, including Magefist. Well clvl 30 came and went for Bluebonnet, and no Frosties. What's worse, she was STILL using that crappy Snakes ring from Act 1 normal! What a farce. And the close calls with death, they continued, one here, one there. Good grief, you'd think a cold sorcie would be safer than a fire sorcie at this stage, but no, not even close. Many more brushes with disaster! Many many more. All fended off, but this was a peice of work. Let's not forget that even with WoE, I still had no warmth and had to make frequent trips to town with assorted junk for sale and a mana recharge. Mana potions and various mana-helping shrines assisted, at times letting me cut loose with wild and deadly abandon, but the fury would be short and sweet and then, often enough, time to hit town again and sell off the crap.
Out in the Dry Hills, I kicked an Urn and out popped the Treads of Cthon. I stashed em.
Vipers did not approve of Cold Mastery. They whined, they froze, they shattered, and the Cold Mastery only at slvl 2 was already seriously cutting down their resistances. Fangskin bought the farm with no fuss and no muss. Then, finally, a breakthrough of sorts: an amber helm of colossus on sale, followed shortly by a garnet breastplate of colossus, and then in the Arcane, a Wyrm's ring of Thawing to FINALLY replace that weak Snake's Ring from Act 1 Normal! Whee! Three item upgrades, but still no diamonds, no gem shrines, no Frostburn. I actually lost a few % of Lit resist in this bargain, and some DR, but I gained 66 Life! Also gained some much-needed Fire resistance and relieved myself of 5% speed penalty. Most of all, I picked up 39 more mana!
I also got a cuirass and decided to imbue it. Used my NM Imbue. It came out with 296 DR, Fastest Hit Recovery, and 12% Fire Resistance: crap. Crappity crap-crap, I say, but I kept it anyway, in storage. For now. Needed 65 Str to use it, and this item had definitely NOT inspired me to give up vital fire resistance and 58 life for DR I pretty much didnt need and Fastest Hit Recovery.
Clvl 31... clvl 32... still pumping both Blizz and GS, and now also Cold Mastery. I toyed around a little with some slvl 1 Frozen Orb, with the intent of using it in certain situations, but frankly there was no NEED for it at this time, so that soon fell by the wayside. With each passing fight, the odds were turning, and my Ice Kitten was moving more and more away from an underpowered identity into full bloom. The Arcane was easier against goats, harder against ghouls, so it worked out even. Call it a tie between Ice Kitten and Hot Babe, here. Those tough resistant bosses were now dying in half the time. Blizzard duration had finally climbed to a point of mana efficiency in many situations, and also reliability: stack several, then Run the Circle to keep targets inside. I had heard that some players used GS to keep targets inside, but I found that the critters took far more damage when they were moving around. GS itself was topping out, now at slvl 15, near its max damage and freeze duration, and still going strong as an all-purpose skill, supplying most of my kills. And then the true test arrived, the test that Hotfoot had passed with flying colors: a teleporting Ancient Kaa in Nightmare.
Now Hotfoot killed this beastie without so much as a scratch, no potions used, slvl 4+1 Hydra at clvl 33. Bluebonnet found Kaa in the first Tomb she tried and was still clvl 32. No matter. Slvl 9 Blizz and Slvl 3 Cold Mastery made short work of him. In fact, they killed the old fart even faster than Hotfoot's pets! This, to me, was a surprise. I can't say that Bluebonnet did better, because she didn't. She had to be closer to keep Kaa inside the blizzard stack, and thus ate sparks, enough to force drinking of reds. Also, without Warmth, she had to use mana potions. All in all, though, I'll call it a tie. Both characters had an easy time here.
Bluebonnet continued to have an easier time in the False Tombs... at least in terms of the kills. Yet, somehow, even though the kills came easier, those pesky close calls continued to plague me now and then. This was disconcerting, since I expected better defense from cold use. So what exactly was increasing the close calls? What was it about cold skills, or my use of them, that sometimes increased the danger compared to fire skill use? At this point, I was not sure yet. Some was luck, but not all of it.
I switched temporarily to Treads and a plated belt of colossus, hired a distraction from Greiz, stacked the blizzards high in the middle of Duriel's chamber and ran circles around him. Bug go squishy! :)
Hmm... no gem shrines or diamonds in Act 2. Still no sign of Frostburn. Still no decent rare rings. Well, my luck HAD to improve in Act 3, right? Am I right??
Clvl 33 entering Act 3, and my once-mighty pool of reserve skill points, which had been at 10+ for most of the game, had now dwindled down to only 2, and those would be going to Cold Mastery. Glacial Spike was now maxed... at slvl 16. I didn't plan to add to it again for another ten levels -- well into Hell Difficulty. Even so, it was as strong here as it could be without +skills items, I'd been adding to it nonstop since it came available. This is the ONE advantage of the Ice Kitten over your typical Cold Sorcie: the ability to MAXIMIZE damage from both GS and Blizz, and back them with solid Mastery, early enough to pack a deadly punch starting here, in Act 3 NM. I might not be able to SUSTAIN a fight for very long, but you know what? It didn't matter. My strength allowed me to end all fights quickly. I'd surely have traded a few skills points for some Warmth, but trade away a dozen or more? Not on your life! A blizzard sorcie is far far far better off pumping Blizz itself, than to pump Warmth. Did I mention that Fetishes make for pretty ice sculptures? :)
I managed to avoid any close calls in the jungles: lots and lots and lots of GS. As such, there's not much to say about this section, no interesting tales to tell. I'll leave you with one picture:
Now Hotfoot... breezed through Normal and the first half of Nightmare without so much as sneezing at the idea of any danger. She got through without any deaths. Bluebonnet sometimes struggled with underpowered skills in Normal, ran into many close calls, drank a lot more potions, including some full rejuvs, and had slightly less good item luck, overall. She, too, got through with no deaths. It is arriving at the gates of Kurast in Act 3 NM that the contest to see which way is stronger/better/safer truly begins. The game is afoot! :)
I continued to use GS as main attack through the city of Kurast, but I did use Blizzard in more situations, not just when facing bosses. Opponents were dying from two to four Glacial Spikes, though, so primarily my tactic was to bunch them up a bit and try and take them out with fewer rather than more spike shots.
Hotfoot had troubles with the leapers, Bluebonnet did not -- but I had been using the wrong tactic for Hotfoot, so that was a wash. Hydras were more proficient at safely killing the priests; however, GS and blizz killed the boss packs faster. Not safer... had another close call here, and also several points where I took solid damage. But I didn't die.
The temples is where it really hit the fan. Hotfoot had a rough Ruined Temple and close call, her first ever, in the Forgotten Reliquary in Upper Kurast. Well, Bluebonnet fared no better. Her Ruined temple wasn't especially harsh, but the achilles heel of both GS and Blizzard is trying to take on a FAST and tough boss or champ pack in a really tight space. Sarina gave me quite a scare... more of one, honestly, than Hotfoot got in Nightmare. Remember, Hotfoot's heroic fight in the Ruined Temple came in Hell. I tried to make this fight easy, I really did. I stacked the blizzards right there in the antechamber. I hoped to catch and kill all the minions there, and leave me with just Sarina, but that didn't happen. Minions got through, close enough to take a swing, and I had to dance and weave. I took hits. I drank. I took more hits. And even after I got it down to just Sarina, she got a hit and pressed me hard. She was tough to control, and I feared running into the main chamber. I survived, though. That's what counts, right? Who needs points for style, anyway? :)
It gets worse, though. In the Forgotten Reliquary, there were three boss packs, and I drew that tight layout, the same one that gave Hotfoot troubles. Well, in there, we've got an Extra Fast CEB Night Lord boss and crew, and Bluebonnet with no -md and only modest fire resistance. Those meteors of their hurt, hurt a lot, and put me through three different close calls, include two of which sent me fleeing the temple. If that had been a melee situation, I'd not have been able to go back down there. I frankly took more splash damage at longer ranges than I expected to from exploding meteors. Been a long time since I had to fight something like that with poor resistance.
I had a close call in another temple, too. And surprise of surprises, I had two close calls with zealots in Travincal! Wow. And yet, with the council itself, I had an easier time. Cold Mastery really cuts through, and high level blizzards stacked hard keeps the targets chilled, reducing their opportunity to heal themselves.
And this led me finally to grasp just exactly what it was that left Bluebonnet so much more exposed to danger than Hotfoot: it was the style of the skills themselves. Blaze can't slow opponents, but it allows for the easiest imaginable application of points on target. It's passive in nature, but active in application, and allows for a completely comfortable separation from the target in almost all situations. In other words, you can stay safe, ALL the time, by only stopping to refresh the Blaze trail when nothing is close enough to get a swing in on you. When enemies are in range, I'm moving around with eyes always focused on the targets, evaluating their threat levels and how much blaze I need to kill them and what tactics to use. What's more, Blaze is reliable, steady, rock solid. If targets are in the fires, they burn. Period. Blizzard is more of a numbers game. With just one or two castings, you have to keep them exposed inside the area of effect to keep taking hits, and they are not constantly being hit. This changes if you stack the blizzards high, then the reliability increases, but so does the cost, and for a character built to survive, with high resists, high vitality, and making do on the luck of the draw of just ONE pass through each area... mana costs become problematic. The blizzards can be stacked high for particular fights, but NOT indiscriminately with every threat. Glacial Spike is even more exposed. Yes, it stops the target, assuming the target isn't a champ or boss. Yes, that freeze time is colossal in its effects. However, there is no persistent effect. Even Blizzard has a persistent effect that, once cast, allows you to stay mobile and still benefit. Hydra does, too, as does Blizzard and Firewall and to a lesser extent, Meteor. But GS is very direct and forces you to stop and shoot again to get additional damage. And THAT is what is leaving Bluebonnet more exposed and getting her into trouble more often.
That would also be my ultimate argument for why Meteor beats Fireball: the degree of separation, and of mobility, that it can afford you. Of course, the other reason that Fire skills are strong is quite simply their rate of damage, and their mana efficiency in applying that damage. This is only stymied by resistant opponents, and in ALL of those cases, the Cold skills jump to the fore, shining brightly. There are fewer things that resist cold, and the ones that do are much less bothersome thanks to Cold Mastery. So I honestly believe that Fire has the general advantage. In most situations, it is honestly stronger than Cold, given a highly proficient player, equal equipment, equal luck of the draw. Yet fire can have a relatively tough time in some situations where cold can just breeze through. So what will be the final evaluation of which path is tougher overall? The jury is still out. There is still Hell to pay. :)
And before I can even pay it, I must pay the piper, too:
If you've ever been in this situation, you know what that map and those bolts represent. The danger factor here is off the charts. It can get worse, but not by much. And if you've never been in this spot with this problem, here is what is spewing those globs of death:
I'd like to tell you that I survived this fight. I'd like to tell you that I had some close calls, got hit full on by one of those globs but drank a rejuv and kept on going. I'd like to tell you that I figured out some strategy for this situation that actually worked out. I wish I could say that I kicked his ass in the end, and sent him packing in a showering of ice crystals. I'd like to say all of that... so I will. Because it's true. :) I lived through this fight! And the truth is that I would not have, that I would have died at least twice, but for my general philosophy of strong investment in vitality, in resistance, and in items that boost life. I had to switch off my Wyrm ring to an Amber ring to max lightning resistance, but that additional change WAS needed to save my life, and it did so twice.
The close calls came when I tried to overstep myself and maximize damage. Ultimately I was forced back up the stairs, twice. I changed plans from constant attempts to hit him into a tactic of limited but focused offense. I went into a counterclockwise loop around the chamber, and at the bottom of the screen on the upward swing, I stacked blizzards in one spot only. Then round and round we ran, with me making SURE to stay far enough ahead, and also preserve the ability to get out of the way when death came screaming at me with white hot fingers grasping hungrily for my little Ice Kitten. The bastard healed himself many times, as is his wont, but eventually I figured a way to extend the blizzard zone northward a bit, and this increased his exposure without increasing mine, and he fell.
And then came Maffer, and he was far far far tougher to kill, and in fact put me through three more close calls. Why? Well, just that speed of his, along with the power of his melee blow. I think he was honestly tougher than Bremm, and came closer to actually killing me. He, too, fell, and left me a wondrous present: a prismatic amulet! Resistances were immediately improved! Wyand and Mephisto were cake, and the uberdrop stank.
Hmm... no gem shrines or diamonds in Act 3. Still no sign of Frostburn. Still no decent rare rings. Been looking for an upgrade to my magus scepter, checking Drognan and then Ormus EVERY time in town, and that was quite a lot of times, let me tell you. And... nothing! Nothing at all, unless you want to count that new amulet. Well, my luck HAD to improve in Act 4, right? Right?? Am I right???
The hardest part of the Outer Steppes came right at the gate. I was actually forced back inside! Those leapers and knights and finger mages actually pushed me back! I ran out of mana, I took hits, I had to drink reds and then a rejuv. My GS shots were sometimes hitting the stairs and not reaching targets. I was blocked at times from trying to cast a Blizzard. This was distinctly NOT good. I wondered if I might not even be able to break through! So I gathered myself, healed and renewed mana, repaired, cast my shiver armor and went to give it another go. I was pushed back into town yet again! But the crowd was thinning... I thought back on Hotfoot's first death, in roughly this same place, albeit after an initially TOUGH unending blaze loop fight that she survived, only to bite off too much and die in some corner, gangbanged by some venom lords and leapers. The problem there had been using the WRONG skills for the situation. I gave that some serious though and decided that it was time, finally, to shift my tactics and mindset from using GS as main skill and Blizzard situational, to the reverse. It was time to grow up and become a real Ice Cat. :)
I still used GS to finish off that mob, as they were on the stairs, but from there on through Act 4, Blizzard was the skill of choice. And it worked marvelously. No close calls in the Steppes or the Plains. Izual bit it and I pumped those two points to Cold Mastery, now slvl 8, 65% piercing. I had to take some risks Running the Circle, at times, keeping targets inside the blizzard. I did use some GS at times, but only situational, and mainly for defense. And then... the game crashed. Locked up! One third of the way through the Plain, it locked me up -- almost exactly where Hotfoot had an identical crash! Eerie. :)
I lost most of my spare red and blue potions. Spare rejuvs I keep in stash or carry on me, and virtually never trust to the ground, so I still had all of those. I gambled for some rings and turned up a Sapphire ring of Might, +42 Cold Res, +5 Str. That was 9% better than my old sapphire ring, so that was worth it. That now also put my Strength, modified, at 79, but not enough to forsake the plated belt without adding more to my base strength. So nothing else changed, yet.
I got a second chance at the front gate fight outside the Fortress, and this time, I met an even meaner group of foes, with a boss in there. I stacked the blizzards HARD outside the gate itself and only one monster ever got through there. I smiled. Act 4 was going to be a breeze, and I knew it. Here where the Fire and Lightning trees both come hard up against it with resistant foes, cold gets a free pass. Only the knights and the vile mothers/children have any resistance, and mastery cuts through that. Both those foes are relatively weak in health. Doom Knights, Venom Lords, Stranglers, the Damned... pure cannon fodder to blizzard. In fact, the greatest risk arose not directly from the monsters themselves, but from visibility problems spotting all the threats through the rains of ice.
This is not to say that Bluebonnet didn't have plenty of risks to manage. She did. But neither time in the plains brought Burning Souls, and these outdoor areas left plenty of room to maneuver. Certainly the risks were, overall, lower than Hotfoot's in the same situations. The River was interesting, too. Maggot young at times swarmed in such large numbers that they refilled an almost empty mana pool just on the +5 per kill from Wall of the Eyeless! That was something amazing to behold. Blizzards now costing 35 mana per casting, though, had to get a whopping seven kills per to pay for themselves, and on average this didn't happen.
I spotted the way to the Hell Forge and avoided it. I've really developed the eye for that lately, and it's been a long time now since I woke Heph by mistake. I cleared the way to the waypoint, then prepared to take on the big guy. Blessing of blessings, there were two factors going for me here that made a huge difference. One was a mana recharge shrine right there near the forge, and another was a nice open area with a lava divide, just like Hotfoot had had when she had fought first a teleporting Hephasto, then after giving up the ghost on that after 35 minutes, restarted and fought an Extra Fast Hephasto, who single-handledly was responsible for fully HALF of all the close calls she went through in her whole career. Bluebonnet drew a Mana Burn Hephasto and quite simply humilated him. The mana regen shrine provided for nearly endless blizzards and the poor bastard died without so much as getting a single swing at her nor forcing any potion use. Hands down, this is where Bluebonnet shone brightest of all to date. She slaughtered the ugly SOB and her reward from the forge was a perfect Diamond! FINALLY!!! :)
This changed everything. I now had one perf and one flawless diamond. This was an opportunity to max my faltering resistances for fire and lightning (I could boost lightning to full for situational purposes, but that required switching out my Wyrm's ring. Ouch.) and also to boost Cold resistance. Poison would be a wash because WoE had some. However, I would then need only one shrine to get another 17-18% resist all, and that would soon be NEEDED in Hell. Also, while WoE shone brightly against maggots, it's value was already diminishing overall. It had done it's job: it had gotten me to the end of Nightmare. I retired it with honor, sold it to Jamella. The replacement... a socketed Gothic Shield with 33 DR. Why Gothic? Because I still intend to keep my Strength at 60, and because with only Faster Run on boots, I can't afford to slow down with a Tower shield. I didn't want to go Kite, though, with too low of blocking. Gothic was the choice.
I cleared the rest of the river before I made the switch, but then it was done, and final! Onward now...
Oblivion Knight boss pack just inside the CS. Tough customers, but I avoided close calls, even though the danger was high. My boosted resistance helped! I cleared out the Vizier, and the Infector. I opened the De Seis seal and escaped to town via TP. I ran back to the CS from the waypoint... the game crashed. Arrgh!
Ticked me off to NO end! I lost not only all my extra reds and blues, but also a mage plate that had dropped and was left on ground in town, since I was almost done with this game and going to use my normal imbue on it just as soon as I got my Lady title! Arrgh!
Getting back to the CS actually was a minor problem! I didn't miss the WoE so much against most critters, but I sure did against the maggots. I had to use lots of GS to kill one baby at a time that got past my somewhat thin blizzards. So it goes. A little patience, an extra trip or two to town, back through another boss pack of mages, kill the Vizier, fight De Seis... game crashed, same place, different type of crash. Sprite error this time instead of assertion error. ARRRRGH!
I took a day off. Enough of that crap. I also, when I came back to it, recopied the mpq's from the CD's to my hard drive. Maybe there were errors in the file now. Back through the maggot masses, kill the mage boss and his pack for a third time, get over to the Vizier... OOPSIE! The Vizier's mob somehow appeared right on top of me! Never seen that before, not at that seal. OH MY GOD I AM GETTING SMASHED! Gulp, rejuv, scrambling for the GS hotkey, gulp another rejuv, GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS GS, all the while a slowed Extra Strong Fire Enchanted Cold Enchanted Vizier pounding me hard! Minions shatter, Bluebonnet runs, crisis over.
WHEW! That was close. Hotfoot woulda died there, that's for sure, or at least had to save and exit, at best. Lit-only sorcie might have, too. It's tough to teleport out of being completely surrounded. I had THOUGHT I was being careful. I've done that move so many times now, it's routine. But this was a wake-up call. It's just not worth it to fight there, not even a little bit with the option to retreat through a waiting portal. Open the seal and GET OUT before they have time to materialize. Live to fight another day, on better terms, and not chance a bad break like that taking you out. That's what I'll be doing from here on out, with all characters all the time.
Kill the Vizier and he drops a rare ring, as if to reward me for surviving. It's kinda crappy, has -2 dmg and -2 md, a little mana, some +LR. I kept it. Kill De Seis, no crashy-crashy thank goodness, kill the Infector. Back to town... clvl 39 now, more than a whole character level tacked on thanks to three hefty crashes in Act 4 forcing me into do-overs. Mage plate lost... and now it is finally about to end. I hope.
Yeah yeah, another teaser pair of gauntlets on gamble. As if! HA! I laugh at your cruelty to me, Jamella! But I am the fool who always believes the boy who cries wolf, in the hope and prayer that someday my gloves will come in. Yeah yeah, here's your 38k. Now give me the gauntlets of dex or whatever other crap they are going to be and let's be done with it. Ah yes, let's see here, these are a... Frostburn! WOW! FINALLY!
And just in time, too! :) I'll consider that an apology from the game for stealing my imbuable mage plate.
I'd like to tell you that Diablo was routine. I'd like to tell you he was no problem, and that Bluebonnet almost humiliated him as badly as Hotfoot. I wish I could say I didn't need potions, didn't have any close calls. I'd like to tell you those things... but I won't, because they aren't true. Once again three problems arise with Blizzard and Diablo. The first is the strange effect it has on his charge attack. When chilled, he goes through that entire charge in slow motion, even if the chill wears off, he stays in slow motion. You'd think this would be good, increasing safety, but it's not. The second combines with the first: it's hard to apply the damage to him. Blizzard relies on a target moving around inside it, continuously exposed. Diablo either stands still, or charges. He rarely just walks around while under attack. Firewall, Meteor, Hydra all do splendidly against a still target, but Blizzard does not. And with his slow motion charges, it's very hard to control him, to keep him in the blizzards. Stacking them right on top of him will work eventually, but it's inefficient. The third problem is the visibility. I've mentioned this many times. Now firewalls and blaze can pose visibility problems, but those are persistant. Blizzard's is in motion, distracting, and frankly far worse in the end.
As such I got caught and stunned by his LBOD, and quite nearly slain. Full health down to a sliver, and that was not even the whole blast. I broke away from some of it. Blizzard had obscured his movement and I lost track of him. That is by FAR the worst I have ever taken it in single player from LBOD. I continued to take some LBOD damage here or there, but never again a large chunk. Also some fire damage from novas, firewalls, rivers of flame. With no -md going, the fires actually stung.
Eventually I concocted a plan. Since the big bastard would go into slow-motion charges, and run out of the blizzards, I decided to try stacking a whole line of blizzards between him and myself and see what that would do. It worked. I applied that general principal for the rest of the fight, sold the crappy uberdrop, and got out of dodge in one piece.
The jury is still out as to comparison between Hot Babe and Ice Kitten.
Deaths incurred for Bluebonnet in Normal Difficulty: zero
Deaths incurred for Bluebonnet in Nightmare Difficulty: zero
Creatures parked: zero. Areas reloaded to get a different boss roll: zero.
Next up, the true test. Stay tuned...
- Sirian
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