HELL DIFFICULTY
Bluebonnet entered Hell Act 3 at clvl 48 with the following skills/stats/equipment:
Blizzard @ 20
Glacial Spike @ 20
Cold Mastery @ 9
Shiver Armor @ 1
Frozen Orb @ 1
Ice Blast @ 1
Frost Nova @ 1
Frozen Armor @ 1
Chilling Armor @ 1
Ice Bolt @ 1
Str 60, Dex 25, Vit 90, Nrg 150
Resistances, 60's for Fire/Cold/Lit, single digits for Poison.
Amber Helm of Colossus, +38 Lit Resist, +46 Life - bought from Fara in NM
Garnet Breastplate of Colossus: +21 Fire Resist, +58 Life - bought from Fara in NM
Dragon's War Scepter of the Magus, +37 mana - bought from Ormus in Normal
Gothic Shield, gemmed with two perf D: +34-36 resists - Act 4 NM after the Hell Forge
Rare Greaves: +44 Fire Resist, +22 Lit Resist, +26 Life, Faster Run - found Act 3 temple, Normal
Hidurare Plated Belt: +22 Cold Resist, +9 Mana, +17 Strength, +111% Gold - gambled Act 2 Hell
Frostburn: gambled at clvl 39, in extra innings so to speak (due to crashes) in Act 4 NM
Prismatic Amulet, +17-24 to all Resists - Maffer Dragonhand, Act 3 NM
Sapphire Ring of Might, +42 Cold Resist, +5 Strength - gambled Act 4 NM
Wyrm's Ring of Thawing, +51 mana, Half Freeze Dur - found Act 2 NM, Arcane Sanctuary
Assorted jewelry, rare boots with fastest run and fastest hit recovery, and plated belt +55 life, held in reserve for particular situations. One flawless diamond. Lots of full rejuvs, and a Nagelring.
Imbues Used: Nightmare. Normal and Hell Imbues remains available.
Imbue Result: nada, Cuirass armor sold for 25k
Strength help needed to wear those rare Greaves.
Bluebonnet on a Complete Game Run, full-clearing all areas of all difficulties once each, parking as few monsters and redoing as few areas as humanly possible from game to game. Deaths so far: zero.
ACT THREE
I began Act 3 in high spirits. This was the night before the v1.04 patch came online, and at the time I knew nothing of that. Bluebonnet had survived the first ten acts with no deaths, despite an ungodly number of close calls, even in Normal difficulty. She'd had a rough road in Normal, relatively speaking, and it had stayed pretty rough up through the middle of nightmare, but had since turned into an almost leisurely march to 3dots, with fewer and fewer close calls, a more steady performance was almost growing easier with time.
Fetishes are small and quick. They aren't impressed by Blizzard unless you stack several in one spot. They don't hit that hard singly, but a pack can take you down in one quick attack if you let several of them hit you all at once. So they were Glacial Spike bait all the way. So were the Cloud Stalkers. Thorned Hulks, I used some Blizzard on them. Just way too mana hungry to kill them with GS, with an occasional exception.
Bluebonnet's first challenge in Act 3 came in the Arachnid lair. A rather tough Extra Fast Extra Strong LEB spider boss was stationed too near the entrance, and dangit if he and his crew didn't run right through a hail of blizzards to chase Blue into uncharted territory. This was NOT QUITE up to level of the scare Hotfoot had when she got sandwiched between Sszark and a LEB spider in Hell Spider Cavern, but this was the next best thing! My oh my, spiders coming from three sides, GS too weak/slow/small to cover them all, seeing as how some would unfreeze while I shot at others. That LEB preventing any sort of stand. Bluebonnet had to stay on the move and I can't honestly describe how I survived this. The LEB I ran back and forth through the blizzards, him getting swings at me as I passed. I just kept GS-ing minions and other spiders, casting more blizzards as possible, and staying away from the LEB as much as I could. The whole fight maybe lasted a minute? It seemed like an eternity! I drank a whole row of lesser rejuvs (only reason I HAD a row of those is because I drank so many fulls in act 2). Teleport would surely have come in handy! Oh well. :)
There were SO MANY spiders in the lair. Nothing but spiders and the odd bat or two. It was careful going the whole way through this nest, with several trips to town (hauling junk) because some intense GS fights left me quickly drained. GS is THE safety skill against normal critters. It just makes sense to rely on it when going up against speedy opponents in tight quarters. I used some blizz, but I did not rely on it here.
The Spider Cavern started off quiet, and I went north, clearing what I could, knowing that Sszark waited to the south. About halfway through, I run into an Extra Fast Mana Burn flame spider boss. Another Extra Fast! Good grief. Can it get any worse? At least this time I had some room to work, and I stacked blizz so high and just kept stacking in front of that boss. Had to run around a bit, but overall did OK. Nowhere near as scary as the one in the Arachnid Lair. I pressed on, GSing the speedy minions. There were Lampreys here, too, so I blizzed those. Lot of maggot young went squishy! Lots and lots. And then... two more extra fast flame spider minions? Hmm, those were kinda far from where I met the boss. Strange. Killed some more Lampreys over along the west wall, and finally just about everything is clear except for where the chest and its guardian mob must be waiting. Plenty of room to fight, so this should be easy, right? Right??
Hmm. There's another really speedy Flame Spider minion. And another! Oh no. TELL ME he isn't Extra Fast! Someone please tell me I'm not going to have to fight a third extra fast spider boss, this one Cursed and Extra Strong! Anyone? Please?
Oh well. So much for that. And Murphy decreed that it WOULD get worse yet: Magic Resistant to boot. That would have been harsh on Hotfoot or Zap, to be sure. Hotfoot could have outrun the bastard, though, and let him burn in her blaze, and Zap could have used teleport to take the heat off, drag the fight out on her terms. Bluebonnet had only some feeble GS to barely slow him down, or lots and lots of Blizzard. Only, how do you cast blizzards when you DARE NOT stop running???
If not for the cavern being all but cleared out, I'd have bailed on this fight. There was an extremely long loop, up along the west, around the top corner, turning down along the north wall, halfway along that, then back down south. Bluebonnet tried valiantly to make a stand, to slow the beast, anything. But his Magic Resistance not only meant less damage, but shorter chill duration too. Blue took a hit! YIKES! Almost dead! But no curse, whew. Cursed plus another hit == dead sorcie. She lost 300 or so life as it was with an uncursed hit.
Around we go for lap two, and all of a sudden 220ish stamina is not sounding like all that much. This is one of those times I wished my nice rare greaves had Fastest Run, not just Faster. Good grief that spider is FAST! I manage to get a blizzard train started finally, in the west hall, after inadvertently Tempting Fate yet somehow avoiding the hit (maybe my 36% block?)... Sszark starts to take damage and I'm stacking those blizzards progressively in front of him. Then he's almost on me and the chase resumes.
Lap three, and that stamina is really suffering now, in the orange and dropping. I've got to make a stand. If I run completely out of stamina, it's game, set, and match on my effort to complete a Queen's Run. I could have gotten scared, but instead I got mad. Dammit, I'm NOT dying to this fool! I'm NOT.
Picked the largest "room", stamina in the red, just a few slivers, Tempted Fate, avoided the swing (it's tough vs Extra Fast, they attack quicker), cranked out a few blizz. Ran in circles, Sszark taking good damage, he's chilled but still quick, Tempt Fate again, OUCH! Got hit. Gulped a rejuv. No curse! Whew. More blizzards, more blizzards, OUCH! Another hit! STILL NOT CURSED! I am going to make it! I am! I am I am I am!
I did. The dang spider finally collapsed. Three Full Rejuvs used, one pixel of stamina left. Oh my.
Ah, but what a morale booster! Nice hard fight, but strategy defeated brawn. Gotta love it! :)
That'll get the old juices flowing! Way WAY too much fight even to take screenies. Now that's when you know it was "Serious Business" (R). hehe :)
On to the Marsh, and back to being able to use a goodly amount of Blizz. Blizz particularly devastated the Drowned Carcasses and Bramble Hulks. Not many fetishes here, just at the "totem pole" entrances to the three clearings. Then up pops this tasty treat:
Gloams aren't too tough, and particularly dislike fire and cold (no resistance to them). Yet a boss is another story, with that 8x health, and all his invisible minions running around. Wasn't a long fight, but Blue ate a goodly bit of Lightning from those swarming things.
A little farther in, another tasty LEB (that's three of five so far, but at least it wasn't Extra Fast!)
That screeny is a bit of a misrepresentation. The LEB was off the top of the screen. I pasted him in from another shot I took a couple seconds later. But you get the idea. Normally I don't actually alter any screenies, other than to insert the boss name somewhere if it was cut out, but I did here. I've got QUITE the collection of screenies going now on all my chars at my Diablo 2 page: over 5MB now. And that's even considering that I cut out, shrink, or otherwise minimize waste with all my screenies, showing only the essentials. 20k here and 50k there adds up to MB's after a while.
I was hoping for a gem shrine, frankly, because I hate the idea of socketing a flawless, but that was EXACTLY what I was going to do if I didn't find a gem shrine before I got to the Ruined Temple. I was not going down there without max Fire and Lightning Resistance. And seeing as how Bluebonnet will retire after full-clearing Hell Acts 3 and 4, it won't matter for long. Better to shoot for that Queen's run than be picky with items in a way consistent only with an ongoing char, such as multiplayer, where you might use her again. So it was gem shrine or bust, and I was praying for the shrine.
Flayer Jungle, what can I say? GS GS GS GS GS GS and more GS, against swarms of flayers and soul killers. Pop! Pop! Shatter! Tinkle-tinkle, melt. Got the idea? :)
And what's this??? A Gidbinn reward worth keeping?? Oh my!
+45 mana, +13 life, +12 Strength, 16% Fire Resist, and +1 mana per kill
I replaced my Wyrm's of Thawing with the new rare. This freed me from needing a Str boost from belt, but I was not quite ready to give up that Cold Resist and gold bonus. In retrospect, perhaps I should have switched right then and there to the Lizard's Plated Belt of Colossus. It would have bought me 55 life at the cost of lowering Cold Res to about 40. I had over 400 life, though, and figured that was enough for now. I continued to gamble plated belts, as well as rings.
What I was REALLY missing was Fastest Hit Recovery. I kept trying to get a good rare with some of that, but it was not coming through. I also faithfully checked Ormus, but still no wand upgrade. The war scepter I had is displayed graphically as a war hammer. Looks, I dunno... looks OK, but wands look better.
Stormtree hates Blizzards. That's a fact. :) So do Tree Leapers. I had to use some GS in Lower Kurast, but I used more blizz. Still no gem shrine.
You might think blizz would be strong against zakarum priests, but I found GS better. They just don't move around enough to take extra blizz hits, and of course if they teleport away, you need a whole new stack of blizzards. GS had a hard time if there were more than one healing a target, but even there it could get the job done so long as you didnt run out of mana. As with most other areas, Kurast was a solid mix of situations where GS did better here, but Blizz worked better there. It surely was nice to have both at slvl 20!
Got a mage plate, imbued it, sold it. Blah. Only one imbue left now, in Normal difficulty.
Bazaar now cleaned out, still no gem shrine. Now Upper Kurast cleaned out, still no gem shrine.
Normally I will do the temples before the sewers, but not this time. I had one last chance, in the sewers, to turn up a gem shrine and I was going to take it! So down I go, and almost immediately I found the entrance to the second level. Riftwing was not in a cooperative mood:
Blizz is good against teleporters and healers because it chills them, slowing their reflexes and their animations, giving more chances for a killing blow to finish them before they recover health. It's not nice when they spit sparks at you nonstop the whole time, however. :)
And down on level two, in literally the last possible place I might find one... a gem shrine! My third perf diamond just in time! I socketed that puppy and came up with 53-52-54-51. Ah yes, max resists on the main three, and some extra poison resist. Blue was now poised to complete her Queen's Run!
There was still a good bit of sewer lvl 1 to clean up, and an unexpectedly tough danger lurked there:
I managed, somehow, to avoid this menace until I could get some water between us. A target that small, you know it's going to be GS. The kill was already made, though, by the maneuvers that got me to this position. Now just a matter of pressing the button.
I cleaned up the rest of the sewer, went to town and switched out that row of lesser rejuvs for fulls. It was time to take out Sarina and complete Quest 4.
I knew I was in deep trouble the moment I entered. A four-pack of Spider Magus champs was RIGHT THERE, just two steps away, huddled in a corner and laying out their next play. They were going to blitz, try to get a sack, and Bluebonnet was holding the ball.
OK, a few champs. Dangerous but doable. I step inside, past them, and start to cast blizzards. Whoa! What's this HORDE of spider magus doing coming from the other direction?? The champs are awake now and Blue is already cut off. Can't retreat back up to the city, can't press ahead. She runs to the wall and casts a hail of blizzards, then switches to GS. Lots and lots of GS. OUCH! A champ, chilled, hits me for about 250 damage in one swing, and now I'm poisoned. But it's OK I tell myself. Just drink a rejuv. There's one champ on me, and I can drink a rejuv after each hit. It's tough to see through the blizzards but GS is keeping the nonchamps frozen. Another rejuv, then another. Still that wacky v1.03 life orb, so it's going up and down like a fricken yoyo and I have no idea what my true health is. Another rejuv. Some spiders are shattering, a champ is running away... another hit on Blue, another rejuv. Then another hit and...
"You have lost experience. Death takes it toll of 80,000-some-odd gold."
Rats. :(
That champ must have gotten a good roll AND a critical hit, doing over 450 damage in one blow. Rats. Or maybe a second spider I couldn't see through the hail of blizzards got a second hit at the same time? Rats.
Darn.
Crapola!
-sigh-
Well, this ain't gonna be a deathless run now. And I can finally point to Blue's endless close calls and legitimately say to myself, "See? SEE? She's no stronger than Hotfoot!"
I get that belt of colossus out of stash, fill it up, and otherwise return naked to the Temple. Heh, nothing left alive in there now except for one lone spider champ. How sad. The clock had run out on Blue, and she had been oh so close to surviving that fight. Somehow that made it sting worse.
I GS'ed that almost-dead champ and recovered my stuff, switched belts to the hidurare, and took this picture:
"Here lies Duchess Bluebonnet" - that's what it would have said if she were hardcore.
Over in the next room, cowering in a corner, I found the last survivor of the battle that slew Bluebonnet:
I must have stood there for two minutes scolding this poor beastie before I butchered him finally. I was not quite pissed, but I was definitely frustrated, and Bluebonnet herself was none too happy. The spider was begging for death rather than more scolding, and I had to intervene to get Blue to finally finish him.
This was a hubris death, plain and simple. If I had been playing hardcore, I'd have bailed at the first sign of such a devastating trap. Hotfoot couldn't have done this fight either. It could ONLY have been done with teleport help. But Hotfoot suffered her hubris death in Act 4 NM, and thereafter I protected her. I even bailed once on a quit-n-save, and honestly I should have done that here. But Bluebonnet was already more "ahead of schedule" than I liked, being more than a level and a half ahead of my usual full-clear pace thanks to untimely and repeated crashes, which forced some do-over areas. I didn't want to have to redo the Bazaar and Upper Kurast, and I didn't want to lose all my potions in town, because I might need them to take out the council. Blah, pushed it too far. It was my own fault, this unwinnable stairs trap draw notwithstanding. So one hubris death apiece for Hotfoot and Bluebonnet. I guess that puts them back on even footing. :)
Sarina was an anticlimax. I added the stats to Vit, taking it to 100! And as if the game were trying to make it up to me for killing me, it dropped this from a spider magus:
The mask I found just minutes later, from a chest in Upper Kurast. I changed belts to the one of Colossus, and came out with 499 life, nearly maxed resists, and a goodly bit more of defense than I would have ever hoped for so close to the end of Blue's career and two imbues used.
The bad news? Masks are butt-ugly! I'm serious. Blue was always fairly fashionable, with that hammer look, a nice HELM instead of goofy horns or pretentious crown or sad caps. Now she's got to wear this mask... was this punishment for dying?? Still... ugly or not, it had some Fast Hit recovery and some needed resists.
Just because Blue had died once, did not mean she was "safe" now. There were still five more temples to do, plus Travincal, plus the Durance. Still lots of chances to bite it again, and again and again. Here are three such chances which I managed to avoid:
That spider in the first picture was the SECOND boss, out of THREE, in the Forgotten Temple. That was quite the fight, and winnable only because it was NOT a brutal stairs trap forcing me to run willy nilly deep into the temple and bad troubles. I'm rather proud of that fight, actually. Winning it without teleport was tough, in such close quarters. It's really too bad that these temples are too dangerous with lag to be worth bothering with. In single player they are some of the best fights in the game.
The other two pics came from the temples on the causeway. I found an actual stairs trap in the Ruined Fane for the first time ever. Just a few serpent magus, but I'd never seen any stairs traps in that temple before.
I gambled a Manald Heal ring! Might Blue acquire my first-ever Stone?? One can only hope. :)
Travincal was fun, as it always is for me. I love it! The council was obstinate, but they always are. You have to be persistent to cut through their healing powers. Cold Mastery sure helps, and in that regard, Blue had it way easier than Hotfoot.
Not much going on in the Durance. It's hard to take a Warped One boss seriously, even one as juiced up as this baby:
Bremm was a tough fight. I beat him with a variation of the Blaze Loop tactic. I stacked the blizzards ten and fifteen deep on the east side of that front room, then ran a loop counterclockwise, leading Bremm through the thicket again and again, as many times as it took. Not too many, all things considered. Repeated the process with Wyand, and used GS to slay Blood Lords.
Maffer I wasn't touching with a ten foot pole! Not yet, at least. Mephy first, and secure the way to Act 4, in case Maffer kicked Blue's booty. So that's what I did, Meph first:
Once I'd been to Act 4, I came back for Maffer. No way was I chickening out! Just taking some precautions.
I had a plan, too. I've fought Maffer plenty of times, and I learned some lessons fighting him (trying to, at least) with Hotfoot in Hell. What I needed most was teleport, but barring that, I had to simulate teleport's effects, to get Maffer on one side of a divide and me the other.
Study this picture. You will note the location of the golden X, marking a town portal? I chose that location with great care, lured Maffer's INCREDIBLY fast tail out there (I even switched to my fastest run, fastest hit recovery boots temporarily), ducked out the TP, returned via waypoint. And there you see the result, him on one side, me the other. It wasn't quite that simple, because he would raise hydras and force me to retreat, and he would run when wounded, run into the back corners, and not want to come out. I had to go through that TP three different times before I finally got him mad enough not to run when I got him low.
Bluebonnet may have died once in Act 3, but she cleared them all out. ALL of them.
If I had known that v1.04 would introduce a range problem on Glacial Spike, I'd have finished Blue's run, just one act left to go, before upgrading. Such is hindsight. Now she's been shelved, as Sparka was in v1.03, pending the next patch and a restoration of a messed-up skill.
Bluebonnet enters Act 4 at clvl 51. I upped her energy to 160, and Cold Mastery to lvl 12. Even with the next patch, glacial spike will behave slightly differently than it used to. I can live with that. I think. :)
- Sirian
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