TEAM VICTORY
Due to insufficient time and energy, my weekly reports on EST progress fell into complete disrepair. The gameplay continued uninterrupted, twice a week, with the team full-clearing the whole game, all areas, all difficulties, all bosses, all quests, at least once each.
Our final session was held on February 27, 2001, in which we completed all of Hell Act Four in one fell swoop. Our victorious Final Roster included:
Cy_Cleric (Paladin played by Cyrene)
Flame_Vixen (Fire Sorcie played by Jaffa Tamarin)
StaticField-X (Lightning Sorcie played by Chukles)
Trefflix (Elemental Bow Amazon played by zParticle)
Leader-EST (Poison Necro played by Sirian)
FrostyBeer (Cold Sorcie played by EspyLacopa, transferred to Charis in mid Nightmare)
Other valuable team members included:
Mieryu-Taeme (Elemental Javelin Amazon played by Spiderdrake/Taeme from Normal Act 3 to end of NM)
Chesspiece_Face (Protector Barbarian played by Chesspiece_Face through Nightmare Act One)
Rogjia (Elemental Javelin Amazon played by Rogjard through Normal Act Three)
I took a screenshot with the original team when we started our first session, but it must still be on my old computer. I'll try to turn it up soon. Below are the final pictures. First, our last team photo on top of the Pentagram in Hell. Then, a shot after the big guy was taken down in about fifteen or twenty seconds by smite, lower resistance, meteors, blizzards and immolation arrows. We were missing Static or it would have been more like three seconds.
Chukles had to take some extended time off and was unable to make the final session. Rather than wait an indefinite period of time for the chance to complete the EST, we finished without him, but he was there with us in spirit.
The rules went unchanged throughout the duration. The only significant design flaw that turned up was a conflict between all the ice on the team (including two Iceblinks we found, although one was soon retired) and the Barbarian character's reliance on corpses for Find Potion and Grim Ward. I strongly urge any future EST teams to take this into account, either by having their barbarian characters avoid focusing on the Find Potion tree, or having their amazons avoid the Freezing spells and their cold sorcies go easy with (or avoid) the Glacial Spikes. I may try to revise the rules to fix this, but I haven't decided. Our barbarian retired from the team and was not replaced, leaving our Paladin as the primary (and eventually the only) tanking character.
Below is a screenshot of the team in Nightmare, about to engage Diablo. There were still seven of us then, but Spiderdrake was growing increasingly fed up with Realms, especially the dismal performance of USEast (which the team universally agreed we won't use again, we're moving to West for our next event). Spider retired from the team after that session and we went on with only six of us remaining.
Here we are in chat afterward, the two support chars (Cy and myself) flanking the team's offensive power.
The EST worked out as planned, with the sorceress specialists each providing their own angle of power. StaticField-X was the great equalizer, as you can imagine, thinning the health of whole rooms or tough bosses with Static Field, and finishing some here or there with Thunderstorm bolts. Chukles is still in high school, though, and so had to turn in earlier than most of the team. As such, his char missed the most play time, and we commonly had to play without his help. Flame_Vixen was unmatched for raw killing power, from the start of the run right to the end. Jaffa wisely specialized in Inferno for starters, which made our life considerably easier through Normal, and continued to be useful later on, although he switched to Meteor for primary attack eventually, with some minor hydra usage. FrostyBeer had less offensive punch but the ice power helped immeasurably in other ways. Bow Amazon provided invaluable support early in the run but really started to shine once Freezing Arrow came on the scene, a good bow was imbued, and an Eye was gambled. In fact, the character became so strong with her ice, zParticle got a little flustered and repeatedly contemplating switching to a lighter bow to maintain ice yet do less damage. We managed to talk him out of that, particularly for those times when Chukles couldn't be around, the extra offense came in handy.
By contrast, Cy and I were walking protection for the rest of the team. By early nightmare, Cy became the focal point of most battles. "Just fire at the Paladin, you'll hit something." Unable to wield a piercing scepter by rule (unless we found an eligible rare, which we did not), and unwilling to invest much in Dex, Cy got to a point where even his strongly invested Sacrifice skill just whiffed way too much (and did only inconsequential damage anyway) and he switched over almost exclusively to smite. My poison had a fixed rate of damage, which could not be improved with more levels. (I opted not to go the dagger route, and the other skills only increase duration with more investment, not damage rate). Most of my contribution came in the form of curses, either Lower Resist to magnify (significantly) everyone else's damage, or crowd control skills to manage crowds and protect the team -- especially if the ice queens weren't around. So together we were the Hardly Able Crew, Cy and me. Without a sorcie or amazon present, we were hardly able to kill barrels, much less monsters. This became a running joke. :)
To read the conversation above, start at the bottom and work your way up. This happened in the sewers in Hell Difficulty. The sorcies and Tref had pushed ahead, mowing down all in their path (even the undead flayers), but I spotted a water hydra they missed and tried to fight it myself. Having -50 Poison resistance and little offense, I was frankly getting my ass kicked and called for help with voice hotkey. Cy caught up with me and we two together fought this thing and, well, it won. The whole team was laughing for weeks, and Charis mercilessly shouted warnings to "LOOK OUT! EVERYONE RUN! IT'S A DEADLY STYGIAN WATCHER!" at the most inane times. :)
In point of fact, though, that WAS a deadly Stygian Watcher! It got as many kills against our team (one kill) as Hephasto in Hell, and more than poor Andariel, Duriel or Diablo, who all got their lunch handed to them on a platter. We spanked them and sent them all home to mama!
Even underpowered variant characters like these can whoop some serious demon hindquarters with precise teamwork. We had some coordination difficulties at first (Rakanishu in Normal killed more EST players by himself than Hephasto and the four Act End bosses in Hell Difficulty combined). By the end of the run, though, the six remaining players were a well oiled machine, and I'm proud of all of them. :) They have been a great bunch to play with.
It takes both guts and restraint to stand by helplessly and just watch as your teammates fight a tough opponent, but sometimes that's the right thing to do. Below you see Flame_Vixen looking on as the Hardly Able Crew (Cy and myself) deal with a tough customer. The Ice Queens (Frosty and Trefflix -- by mid Hell Difficulty, Trefflix's Freezing Arrow backed by a 100 damage Gothic bow and Eye of Etlich was the equal of Frosty's Glacial Spikes if not more) had left for the night. Cy had the boss hopelessly stunlocked with Smite, so bad the poor spider could not even spit his sparks most of the time, but if Vix had used her fires, there would have been endless sparks and Cy would be dead or forced to let the thing loose. So... with some poison and curse help, we took our time and got the job done safely. The EST had no fear. If it breathed (or even if it didn't) we killed it. Somehow. :)
Here's a shot of what Vixen was capable of when motivated to do some damage:
If you were in the minority of legit players and ever played in a guild or with a circle of friends, this last picture may harken you back to the glory days of Diablo 1, with Cain at the fountain in the town square surrounded by all manner of junk that players turned up and dumped in town. Here's something you will NEVER see in a public battle.net game:
My EST teammates have promised to write up their thoughts, stories, anecdotes and insights about our adventures, so I will add those to the EST section here. Check back later to read more about our team's completed quest.
- Sirian