I started out with the concept -- most variants are skill-based, but I wanted to play an equipment-based variant. A couple of possibilities seemed likely, but the one I chose was based on the BNR from Diablo. I would play an Amazon, "naked" but for a bow.

I didn't want to stop there, however; I remembered from pre-1.04 play that strafe was a very powerful skill that pretty much mowed through everything. Later on I discovered that many people think the bowazon is now, post-1.04, one of if not the most powerful class, because of the power of strafe and multishot combined with dual leaching, and because they (in open play) can pretty much pump dex to the exclusion of everything else, and thereby gain the single-stat focus of the magic-based classes without sacrificing the to-hit and damage bonuses of the weapon-based classes.

So, I chose to avoid multi and strafe for the most part. Instead, looking at the skill chart, there seems to be a good match for a naked amazon -- guided arrow. It is tactically flexible, allowing me to hit targets that are offscreen or otherwise blocked from normal attack, which will probably be important for my defense-challenged amazon. Additionally, it goes down in mana consumption with increasing skill levels, which will be important as I will only have my bow to leech with. Hopefully I can buy/find/gamble for bows with at least limited mana leeching -- life leeching is less important since I can rely on not getting hit, and potions for when I do. Guided will also help with my being hardcore as I need vitality and won't be able to put as many points in dex as an open character might. The extra damage of guided arrows will help too; it might not put out as much as multi or strafe when there are several monsters on the screen, but it should compare favorably when there are only a couple.

I also took a look around at a couple amazon sites (e.g. Amazon Basin) and none of them seemed to think that Guided was any good for normal play -- they only mention it as a PK skill, and otherwise stick with just 1 point. Hopefully I can show that Guided is a worthwhile skill as more than just a pre-requisite or special purposes skill, in a similar fashion to to Sirian's having done so for Charged Strike.

One final challenge I wanted to attempt was to try to finish Normal difficulty without using any skills whatsoever. I figured that since the most any non-boss monster could inflict on me was 15-30 (melee, anyway) there really shouldn't be that much of an issue -- hopefully. We'll see how much of a difference it makes in ActIV...

Incidentally, my low (read non-existent) defence will produce some special challenges on its own -- for instance, stair traps will be harder to fight out of, with no way short of happy feet of avoiding any of the damage and no fastest recovery or fastest run to help things out. I'll also have to be extra careful anytime elemental damage is being dished out.

Now that I've outlined the broad strokes of the restrictions I've set on myself, I'm going to note that I'm not going to hold myself to the letter of the law in every case. For instance:
- I don't want to pick up and wear every piece of equipment I come across just because I'm playing "naked", so I actually will wear some normal equipment of the weakest kind -- only I'll let its durability go to zero and not repair it. That way it won't show up on my character and mostly won't have an effect on play. I say mostly because I will get the extra slots in my belt in any case. That's one of the challenges I'm not incorporating into this character: restricted belt size.
- Act bosses pose a special challenge -- at least Duriel and Diablo do. With no skills and no equipment other than a weapon, Duriel would be very tough to beat; possibly it would be tougher even than it was for Ember. That's a little bit more than I really want to chew. So, I'll bring it roughly to the same level: I'll allow certain equipment when fighting act bosses. On normal, I only plan to take advantage of this for Duriel and Diablo; as I will still have no skills it should be challenging enough.
- Finally, I really don't have a good idea if Guided alone is going to be enough to get me through Nightmare, with no equipment to back it up; in fact, I'm confident but not *certain* I can make it through Act4 Normal with no skills. I don't normally play much hardcore so I don't have a good idea of when the challenge level is going to really start to ramp up. I expect to get to a point where excessively dangerous situations are the norm rather than the exception, and, unlike Sirian, there is a limit to how slow I'm willing to let the game pace get just to add challenge. At some point, I'm going to have to relax some of these restrictions and start wearing at least some equipment; hopefully, I can finish Nightmare first.

Oh, by the way, my character's name is ZedAF-I; I have this thing for acronyms and name sequences. Her nick is AmaZed (cute how that worked out, huh? Didn't even plan it.)

So, to begin. Well, Act 1 Normal is pretty much a cake-walk (but then so is the rest of normal, with a few exceptions.) Cleared out the Den with no problem -- in a former life AmaZed did it with nothing but her fists, but she didn't bother this time. In the cave level 2 she met her first LEB, a rogue archer, but that was no problem. Blood Raven was easy to kill, though she did a bit more dancing around the zombie pack than normal. The rogue (don't remember the name, though it started with a B -- call her Belle) was a cold arrow type, and she actually survived longer than most of them do. Usually they seem to want to run right up to Rakanishu and bash him in the face, and Belle tried that once, but quickly learned the error of her ways -- at least she followed AmaZed when she ran to get Belle off of him. Somewhere in the Stony Plains Amazed found a set of Arctic Furs, which provided a nice cash bonus. Then on to the UGP, which was pretty standard. Treehead was up to form but it didn't help him any, and Belle got smacked a couple times but came out all right. On the way to Tristram AmaZed found a second set of Arctic Furs under a rock she had missed earlier -- glad she went back for that one! Belle also got into a bit of trouble once in Tristram, mainly because AmaZed had hit an experience shrine and was running a bit more aggressively than normal. She had had a couple close calls so far but was still kicking.

That was about to change, though. Through the Marsh we went to the Tower, and here Belle met her end, surrounded by an extra fast Goat boss and part of his pack while AmaZed dealt with the rest of the pack. It's just as well, as AmaZed had gotten tired of absorbing archer shots just to keep Belle in good shape. :) The rest of the tower was more-or-less uneventful; the Countess was as easy to dispatch as ever. Since she runs away whenever you leave the room it was easy for AmaZed to run in quickly to get the Countess to charge and out again, then nip in for a couple quick shots at her back as she heads back up to her starting position. The Hole wasn't difficult either, and neither was the Highland, though AmaZed was starting to notice her bow was no longer measuring up -- she actually had to take more than one shot to kill regular monsters! (Oh, no...) So, she nipped back to town and picked up the bow that she would finish the act with, a brutal long bow of maiming. She then proceeded into the Pit level 2 where she used it on the first boss she encountered -- a FEB Devilkin boss who died in 3 shots :) Oddly enough, over half the bosses AmaZed fought in Act 1 were FEBs, and I've noticed that in several of the other stories there would be repeats of the same enchantments on multiple bosses in the same act. Perhaps there's some bug in the boss generation code?

From there it was pretty standard; AmaZed went on to the Outer Cloister where the annoying Black Rogues were blocking a goodly percentage of her arrows. They still died though, as did the Smith. AmaZed saved her imbue for later -- not much point in using it now. She continued through the jail, where she found her 3rd Arctic Furs, setting a new record for number of the same unique/set item found in one gaming session. Someone really wanted for her to have those Furs... but she sold them anyway. The only other thing of significant value she found in the Jail was Civerb's Ward, and she wasn't selling that -- she had a plan for it! Up at the Inner Cloister, Flamespike proved to be an annoyance, because he and his minions wouldn't sit still. They kept firing from offscreen, and every time AmaZed killed one the others would all move somewhere else and keep up the barrage. Nevertheless she prevailed, moved on to the Cats, and cleaned up there as well. Interestingly enough, she met not one but 2 Rat Man boss packs, once in the company of an Afflicted boss pack. This gave her a good chance to practice tempting before getting to more dangerous monsters in Act 3.

Finally it was down to Andariel, who pelted AmaZed with multiple poison spreads before going down. All in all AmaZed wasn't too happy with her performance (relative to past lives) and she had to drink about 9 light heals during the fight but she emerged victorious. AmaZed reached level 15 in Act 1 just barely while clearing out the rabble in Andariel's throne room, and found just enough good stuff to push her over the 50K mark in gold before leaving Act 1, which for a while looked unlikely as she found virtually nothing worth picking up in the Cats.

Act 2 Normal Starting stats:

Str 40, Dex 50, Vit 40, Ener 15.
Life 138, Stamina 118, Mana 35.
Skills: none. 15 points remaining.

Equipment: Brutal long bow of maiming (5-19 damage), which AmaZed would replace almost immediately with a Warrior's composite bow of Lightning (+55 AR, 6-12 damage, +1-16 lightning.)

On stat distribution: AmaZed plans to keep roughly a Dex = 1.33 to 1.5 x Vit strategy going, with points going into Str as needed to equip better bows. She shouldn't need too much more Str until she can get exceptional bows, however, as a Long War bow only takes 50 Str.

Amazed started off in Lut Gholein by clearing out the sewers, as per normal. Most of the monsters down there were relatively easy to deal with, although the archers proved to be nuisancesome. Amazed would typically try to lure them around a corner so she would only have to deal with one or two at a time as they rounded the corner. Radamant himself was no problem although there were a couple dried corpses that refused to be lured out of his room and had to be periodically re-slain.

Out in the desert, with lots of running room, AmaZed had few problems. Generally AmaZed only has problems in cramped areas which limit her running room, so her tale will only recount the various tombs etc. she visited on her journey. The Stony Tomb, however, has no greater mummies so it presented no problems. Next up was the Halls of the Dead; the first level was no problem, but the next level had a stair trap with a boss Unraveller pack plus a few Desert Wings thrown in for good measure. AmaZed ran around for a while trying to get a bead on the Unravellers, and finally gave up and ran off to one side into unexplored territory. There she found a couple more Unravellers, but she managed to kill them and their minions off, giving her a small cleared space to work with. From there she was able to head back toward the boss pack, lure off all the minions, and finally do the Unraveller boss in.

In the Far Oasis, AmaZed found another nifty piece of gear -- Gravenspine, a unique bone wand. This, along with Civerb's Ward, would form her anti-Duriel setup. Why Gravenspine? Well, while it may not do much damage, it has two advantages: 1) it has a quick attack speed, so AmaZed can get a good number of swings in even with Duriel's Holy Freeze aura up, and 2) it does cold damage, and Duriel is not immune to cold on normal difficulty, so he can be chilled. AmaZed's goal is not to do a lot of damage, but to minimize the rate at which Duriel can do damage to her. Thus, she can rely more heavily on red potions and portals back to town, and not consume a barrel of full rejuves in order to kill Duriel.

The Maggot Lair and the Ancient Tunnels were no problem, but in the Viper Temple, Fangskin got a couple of hits in & 2 of his buddies nearly cornered AmaZed close to the stairs because she kept attacking even when she should have been running (couldn't click past them; ported to town, came back via stairs, alt-clicked to get around them to the altar.) The Palace Cellars had more archers, so once again AmaZed found herself trying to lure them around corners to only attack a couple at a time. She also managed to Grille-trap a few bosses while she was at it.

In the Arcane Sanctuary, AmaZed started off with a bang; while the WP wasn't trapped, the first monster she encountered after setting off down one of the paths was a Specter boss. AmaZed had to run around the WP platform a few times in order to kill him and his pack off. The remainder of the Sanctuary was pretty mundane, and the Summoner was pretty easy once his minions had been disposed of, although his Glacial Spike hurt...

Next up: the True tomb. Hey, no-one ever said AmaZed had to clear out the false ones first! :) Like in the Arcane Sanctuary, it wasn't stair trapped, but it might as well have been. AmaZed went left from the entrance, and found a boss Beetle pack + Gorebellies + an Unraveller, making for a crowded fight around the stairs. It was a bit dangerous because of the minion Beetle LEBness, and because there really wasn't anywhere to retreat to. Then AmaZed went the other way, and found a Unraveller boss pack, which was less dangerous but more annoying because the Unraveller boss AI chases more, so it was harder to lead the minions away and out of resurrect range of the boss.

Down AmaZed went to Tal Rasha's chamber, armed with only Gravenspine and Civerb's ward, with no skills to back them up! Did Duriel stand a chance? I think not! :) Judicious use of a town portal set up in Duriel's chamber provided a ready escape anytime the belt started getting a little empty; she would always return to the fight through the main entrance so as to not need to recast the portal. Amazed did need to use a minor rejuve from time to time but mostly she relied on light heal potions.

While AmaZed was able to handle Duriel with aplomb, Fate (or Diablo) conspired against AmaZed in an attempt to gain a measure of revenge in the first false tomb. Here, the stairs were trapped with 3 Unravellers plus a couple of Apparitions, with the next room (being very close by with an open doorway) having 3 more Unravellers. With no crowd control ability & a ton of skeletons to deal with, it was easy to get trapped, as there was nowhere to run. AmaZed ran around the corner to lead the skeletons a bit away, & had to portal to escape. Coming back in via the stairs, she managed to kill off about 1/2 the skeletons & the 1st 3 Unravellers. Going after the 2nd 3 Unravellers, more skeletons arrived from unexplored territory via another open door, and AmaZed got trapped again & portaled to escape. Going back in once again via the stairs, Amazed once again lured the skeletons back to the stairs, killed them, then killed Unravellers. This pattern continued throughout the tomb. Looking back on it, it's not like every room and hall had an Unraveller pack in it. More like every room and hall had at least 2 Unraveller packs in it, and usually 3. The boss pack before the treasure chest was, of course, an Unraveller boss pack. On the plus side, AmaZed started getting Act3 item drops (esp. greater heals,) probably because Duriel was dead, though it could be because of her clvl.

AmaZed was hoping for an easier draw on the next tomb, and she got it -- Preserved Dead and Apparitions. These were not too much trouble with no Unravellers around to resurrect things. In fact, it turned out to be Kaa's tomb, but he and his LEB enchantment were no problem, as she was able to shoot him from offscreen. The other tombs were similarly straightforward; AmaZed encountered further Unravellers of course, but never in the same density as in the first false tomb. The only other memorable encounter was with an Extra Fast Ghoul Lord boss pack, which was nuisancesome because AmaZed had to reposition constantly to avoid firewall damage. As a result, her arrows were being spread amongst the ghoul lords, whose fireballs sucked her life to replenish theirs, so she was worried that she might not be able to kill any. However, when she went to the surface to restock her belt, after she came back only the boss and 2 minions were in sight & thus awake, while the rest of the pack was out of sight down a hall; she had no problems killing them before waking up the other minions.

AmaZed finished the act with the same bow she started with. She planned to purchase a new one when she got to Kurast.

Act 3 Normal Starting stats:

Str 50, Dex 70, Vit 50, Ener 15.
Life 182, Stamina 135, Mana 45.
Skills: none. 23 points remaining.

Equipment: Started with a Warrior's composite bow of Lightning (+55 AR, 6-12 damage, +1-16 lightning) but immediately replaced this by purchasing a Soldier's short war bow of Gore (+79 AR, 10-30 dmg), which she expected to use for the remainder of the Act.

AmaZed started off her adventures in the Spider Forest with a bang; she found the Spider Cavern almost immediately and, after descending, walked a little ways to a chest and opened it. When nothing appeared to attack her, she wandered off a bit to the side and found a couple of spiders to attack -- just in time for a group of 4 she must have woken up when she opened the chest to ambush her from behind. AmaZed panicked, which was the wrong reaction as she could probably have fought off the group with a bit of potion use if she'd kept her head. However, instead she ran deep into the cavern in a vain attempt to avoid getting trapped by spiders, and wound up having to save & exit. Oops. Those spiders are just too big; it only takes a few to trap a momentarily careless adventurer.

For the most part, the Spider Forest was full of blowdarters, with the occasional cloud stalker thrwon in for variety. Yuck, but AmaZed can handle even fairly large groups of blowdarters by shooting blindly at them once and then dodging before shooting again. If she gets the timing right she barely gets hit; sometimes, however, the timing doesn't work out, so she is still drinking a fair number of reds. The Great Marsh is much better, having Gloams and Drowned Carcasses, but AmaZed needs a break, so she heads to town for some sleep. The next day, she heads back to the Marsh, and finds Drowned Carcasses, Bramble Hulks, and Swamp Dwellers -- easier yet. Oddly enough, a Swamp Dweller boss vanishes into thin air after she briefly takes a WP back to town to restock. The Flayer Jungle had Flayers (of course) and Slime Princes, but nothing AmaZed couldn't handle. The dungeons were not particularily memorable, nor was Lower Kurast. However, while clearing the latter, Ashaera was kind enough to sell me a Knight's Long Battle Bow of Slaughter (+98 AR, 6-47 dmg)! This was an awesome bow, and AmaZed could hardly expect to be able to get much better in Normal -- this would be the bow she would slay Diablo with.

Armed with this bow, most monsters in Lower Kurast and the Kurast Bazaar were dying in 2 hits, assuming reasonable luck on the damage rolls. However, AmaZed has never had much of a problem with straight-up offense; it's crowd control and defense in general she has a problem with. The only monsters that took serious amounts of punishment were, of course, the Hell Swarms, with their high physical resistance. The Disused Fane had an LEB Dark Lord boss pack, but luring them out 1 and 2 at a time into another room, then running to the surface and back in to break their through-walls meteor targetting lock served to break them into manageable chunks. In the Ruined Temple, Sarina didn't greet me right at the stairs, which was a blessing; instead AmaZed was able to set up a portal run, so that she could repeatedly enter the temple via the stairs, kill off one or 2 minions, then escape through a portal. Eventually this sufficed for Sarina as well. Next up was the Sewers, but the Horadrim Ancients and Preserved Dead there were no problem at all. Gloomwing was trivial and never even got a chance to teleport. Upper Kurast held Cantors, Faithful, Zealots, and Thrashers, but the only thing even remotely challenging was a Cantor boss pack. AmaZed was able to kill most of the minions and substantially wound the boss with offscreen arrow-fire while dodging or staying just out-of-range of their return lightning bolt fire; the boss eventually dropped Stone Horn, a rare long battle bow -- it was decent enough in some respects, with 6% mana steal, a weak extra damage modifier, and an extra 1-16 lightning damage. The problem was it just didn't do enough physical damage (which is multiplied by AmaZed's Dex bonus) and had no AR bonus other than a +5 Dex modifier. If AmaZed eventually needs a mana steal bow in Nightmare, she can probably buy a better Long War bow once she gets there. She stashed it anyway. The remainder of the temples in Upper Kurast and on the Causeway were unremarkable, except for one instance where AmaZed nearly got surrounded by Spiders (again) and had to portal out of a tight spot.

Travincal's general population of Hierophants, Night Lords, and Zealots were little trouble for AmaZed but the Council Members with their self-heal ability were a little tougher. The minions were not particularily difficult to slay and Ismail Vilehand cooperated by succumbing easily to arrow fire, but the remaining two bosses decided not to allow themselved to be sniped to death, and AmaZed had to draw them out one at a time and allow them to chase her. Eventually, though, she finished them all off and smashed the Compelling Orb.

Both levels of the Durance held Undead Stygian Dolls, Dark Lords, and Cadavers, but nothing seemed overly dangerous. On Durance 3, Sparkfist proved to be his usual nuisancy self, but Maffer was a bit tougher than AmaZed expected. Fortunately he restricted his self-healing antics to the first 30 seconds of the fight or it could have been a long battle. Voidbringer was no trouble as AmaZed was able to retain lock-on and keep pummelling him even after he teleported. AmaZed, in keeping with time-honored tradition, lured Mephisto to the edge of the lava/blood pit and shot him from just barely off-screen until he squealed. The uberdrop was a worthless unique warhammer.

On to the Pandemonium Fortress!

Act 4 Normal Starting stats:

Str 50, Dex 80, Vit 60, Ener 15.
Life 238, Stamina 148, Mana 50.
Skills: none. 26 points remaining.

Equipment: Started with Knight's long battle bow of Slaughter (+98 AR, 6-47 dmg), and ended with the same.

AmaZed started off her visit to Hell with a trip through the Outer Steppes. Here she encountered Doom Fighters, Venom Lords, and Flesh Spawners; the latter were annoying because AmaZed has no crowd control and so has some trouble getting through the puppies to get to the spawners. She can't afford to ignore the spawnlings because they move too fast and hit too hard. In the Plains of Despair she drew Burning Souls, Doom Fighters, and Doom Casters. The Burning Souls did the most damage with their fast-cast lightning bolts, but none of these monsters were particularily hard. Izzy was of course present as well, and AmaZed lured him back out into the Steppes to do battle. It was, of course, long and drawn-out, but also a foregone conclusion. Izzy is a test of patience and nothing else.

The City of the Damned was damnably annoying. Amazed found the WP almost right away, which was a good thing, because she also found enough Stygian Beasts and their puppies to pave a road from here to kingdom come! She panicked, ran, wound up trapped, and had to save and exit. The next time around she drew no better and wound up leaving the City by WP almost as soon as she entered by it; time for a third draw. This time around, she drew Damned, Corpse Spitters, and Dark Familiars; it looked like 3rd time was the charm, until she came across a Flesh Spawner boss pack after she had cleared only a small oval racetrack. Around and around she went, killing off puppy after puppy, until, finally... they stopped coming. The spawners were still all there chasing her, they just stopped spawning -- they must have a limit to the number of puppies they spawn. AmaZed wasted no time in killing off the lot of them. After that, the rest of the City was a walk in the park.

The first trip down to the River of Flame wound up with a passel of Abyss Knights in shooting range of the stairs, with high-hp Maw Fiends near the stairway blocking the path out, and a mis-click causing AmaZed to wake up a bunch more monsters than she intended. Oops. She wasn't about to try a stand on the stairs with a bunch of Abyss Knights pelting her, not when she has zero resists. Up to City WP and to town to get a new draw. This time: Stranglers, Maw Fiends, and Pit Lords. This was better; not that AmaZed really minded the Abyss Knights all that much, she just didn't like the trap situation. AmaZed cleared the River, including Hephasto, whom she parked at a Hephasto trap and pelted with arrows until he keeled. Up to the Chaos Sanctuary... Oblivion Knights, Doom Knights, Storm Casters, and Venom Lords were the opposition here, as usual. The OKs are for AmaZed the most annoying of the lot because they have the most potential to do damage to her, especially with no resists. One shot from a fire OK takes ~60% of her life. Nevertheless, she clears out all the monsters but the last one, an OK up in the corner with the Vizier's seals, and... mis-click on the Vizier's seal when AmaZed is not ready with a port. Quickly AmaZed runs a bit away and casts port, but by then the Vizier's pack is on her, there's no where to run, and AmaZed can't go through the port because of all the monsters standing around/on/under it (can't click on the port.) Save & exit, *sigh*, now she has to clear the whole last part of the River and the Sanctuary, for a second time.

Ok, this time around she draws Abyss Knights, Maw Fiends, and Stranglers. Not too much more difficult despite the Abyss Knights because AmaZed can shoot them from offscreen and dodge their return fire for the most part. Once again, she clears the Sanctuary, and once again, mis-click on a seal... fortunately this time it's the other seal, and the Vizier doesn't come flying out again. Whew! Next, the seals: De Seis's crew was not really too much of a problem, thanks to off-screen arrow barrages, but a few hits were absorbed none-the-less. The Vizier was not too much of a problem once his pack was split up by the simple expedient of damaging them. Finally, the super-fast Infector was led out onto the River and trapped there for elimination from across a lava pit.

Ok, time for the big boy himself: Diablo. AmaZed knew that trying to tackle His Lightning-Hoseness would be nearly impossible if she didn't have at least some way of reducing the damage -- even nicks would be disastrous, and while it's usually pretty easy to avoid the bulk of the damage, it's next to impossible to avoid it completely every time. So, she availed herself of some jewelry she had found during the course of her journeys through Hell: an amulet of Guarding, a ring of the Sentinel, and a ring of Protection, for a total of -5 magic damage and -2 physical damage. This was enough to render her nearly immune to Diablo's fire nova and fire snake attacks, even with zero fire resist, and to take the edge off the lightning hose attack. In fact, it was an easy, if long, fight, requiring only patience and a few trips to the Fortress for more reds. The uberdrop was useless to AmaZed and entirely forgettable.

Final Stats:

Str 50, Dex 85, Vit 65, Ener 15.
Life 257, Stamina 155, Mana 52.
Skills: none. 30 points remaining.
With the Knight's long battle bow of Slaughter: AR 410, Dmg 11-86.

Closing thoughts on Normal: I can see that I really don't have the right mindset for Hardcore. I am too slow on the potions when I need to use them, as I try too hard to conserve resources. In fact, I never used a full rejuve throughout Normal difficulty, though I used plenty of reds. This makes the game unintentionally harder than I intentionally chose for it to be, and exascerbates my next problem: I have a nasty tendency to panic when I am about to get in serious trouble, which leads to more save & exits and portal escapes than I would like. Part of the problem is a sticky mouse which sometimes interferes with fine control, but I can't honestly claim that's even remotely close to the whole problem. Also, even with a fairly well-developed vitality stat, the lack of gear really hurts my life total. I remember Ember felt it when Nightmare Duriel hit her even with 400 life; I doubt AmaZed will be able to make it much above 300 by then.

Plans for Nightmare: While AmaZed still has enough offense right now to tackle the early stages of Nightmare, she is rapidly reaching the point where she will not be able to buy a better bow and will be forced to gamble, find, or imbue one. Additionally, she will soon be facing a large number of archer-type creatures that she won't be able to afford to simply trade shots with. These problems are going to require the use of skills to counteract, which means mana will become a significant factor for the first time. AmaZed will almost certainly need a good mana-steal bow, which means it's time to go shopping again. Also, there is the question of whether I invest in all the skills I expect AmaZed to use now, or only invest in some and save the remainder for when I start really feeling not having them.

Catch ya in Nightmare!

- Zed

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