Act 3 Normal
Symphony begins Act 3 with 21 strength, 25 dexterity, 56 vitality, 83 energy, and a stashful of rejuvs. Yes, she admits it: her time in Lut Gholein got her horribly addicted to grape juice. Her experiences there had its ups (she’ll really miss the black locusts) and downs (if she sees another horror archer again, it will be too soon). She doesn’t know how the jungles and Kurast will treat her but she is eager to find out.
Symphony’s Apparel:
Havoc Hood (rare skullcap): Poison Length Reduction 25%, +1 Light Radius, Enhanced Defence, Magic Damage Reduced by 1, Cold Resistance 8%, +9 to Life.
Death’s Hand (gloves).
Lapis Sash of the Tiger: Cold Resistance 5%, +24 to Life.
Leather Armour of the Fox: +9 to Life.
Dread Stalker (rare boots): Fastest Run/Walk, +1 to Light Radius, Heal Stamina +50%, 16% Lightning Resistance, +5 to Dexterity, 21% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items.
Angelic Halo: Replenish Life +6, +20 to Life.
Rare ring: Fast Cast Rate, +3 to Mana, +7 to Life, 41% Extra Gold from Monsters.
Glimmering Amulet of the Apprentice: Fast Cast Rate, +1 Light Radius.
Long Staff of the Fox: +5 to Life, +1 to Charged Bolts, +1 to Icebolt, +3 to Warmth.
Symphony’s Skills: 1 Warmth, 11 Charged Bolts, 11 Icebolts.
She knew it. She knew Drognan wouldn’t be cooperative about the Uberstaff anymore than Akara was. Fine then, she didn’t like gnarled staves anyway. Now though, unless Ormus comes through for her, she’ll be stuck with the two staves she got from Akara. She prays Ormus would be kinder to her. In her stash, Symphony hides Hotspur (courtesy of Elzix), her two staves from Act 1, and a lot of rejuvs.
Symphony runs out into the jungles, once again sent out to catch up with the fabled Dark Wanderer... and surprise, surpise! there he is! There goes her Easter Bunny theory... Symphony plants herself in front of the hooded figure and states in her most authoritative voice, "Stop in the name of the law. I am putting you under citizen’s arrest! You have the right to... HEY! I said stop!"
No fair, he used Teleport! And he leaves behind these dirty little perverts that tries to jump on her, too. How rude! She can now see why the other people were complaining so much about him.
The jungles boast some truly gorgeous sceneries, but the native cannibalistic midgets ruin the breathtaking views. The knife and spear wielding freaks are bad enough, zipping around like a cross between Speedy Gonzolas and Jack the Ripper, but the blow darters are worse, pelting painful spit balls that really gnaw down her life, especially at their hyperactive rates of blowing! Thankfully, the darters are few; she sees more thorned hulks (at Spider Forest), drowned carcasses (at Great Marsh) and winged nightmares (at Flayer Jungle) and those she can handle.
Jungle Reports
Symphony cleared the spider forest of its evil infestations, including the two spidery caves. Sszark was not terribly scary, once slowed down by icebolt; she could get away with shooting three icy shards per volley before it caught up with her from across the screen and forced her to relocate. Upon its death, a Jade Figurine falls beside its corpse. She wanted to keep the pretty little thing to decorate her dorm in the Zann Esu halls, but Meshif wouldn’t take no for an answer. He stuffed a cremation urn in her hand, swiped the statuette, called it a "fair trade," and ran! For a sea-faring sailor, he sure had some pretty fast landlubber legs!
Symphony sulked. She didn’t particularly want the burnt remains of some deceased guy. And she couldn’t just flush it down the toilet either. It was a good thing Alkor knew how to dispose of it.
"Mmmmm, yummy juice, Alkor. What was in it?"
"What are you, an amnesiac? Remember the ashes of Ku Y’leh you brought me" *sees Symphony’s blank stare* "I said I’d mix something from it?"
"What do you mean... You fed me the toasted corpse bits of a dead wizard?! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Alkor’s eardrums were never the same again.
Symphony cleared the Flayer Jungle next, including the two flayer-y dungeons. The elite flayers, Endugu and his cohorts, were no match for her; her awesome skills with ice crushed Endugu’s evil voodoo-esque powers. She even infiltrated the little cannibal village headquarters and nabbed the Gidbinn. Ha ha! the sinister mafia of the flayers was broken. The forces of good emerged victorious once again!
Symphony presented the Gidbinn to Ormus. Ormus was so overcome with gratitude, he offered her a ring.
"Oh, please! I’m flattered, Ormus, really! But, I don’t think we know each other well enough for you to propose to me right now..."
Er, right... Anyhow, the ring turned out to be quite exceptional. Rare ring: 28% Lighting Resistance, 23% Fire Resistance, +30 to Mana, +3 to Minimum Damage; pretty juicy stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we have a keeper!
After acquiring the waypoint for the Flayer Jungle, she retraced through the Spider Forest for a tour of the Great Marsh. A LEB frog and magic resistance giant mosquito welcomed her. She was not impressed.
The marshlands hailed two glittery gold chests; one was the trove of the Lance of Yaggai.
"Look at those resists! And that lightning damage! I like it..." She took a closer look.
*pout* "Too bad you have to have be a He-man to use it. *Sigh* I wonder if Hratli will like it?"
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Unlike her sisters, she scoffs at the tentacle beasts. True, she emits the same anguished cry when poisoned by them, but it’s all show to fool her enemies. With Death’s Hand, Havoc Hood and Angelic Halo, she feels no pain.
Symphony finally finds the treasure seeker’s Eden: New Kurast City! Many adventurers have traipsed through this abandoned megalopolis and more often than not left toting some lovely items of canary-coloured engravings. She believes she will be as lucky as they.
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Icehawk Riftwing: Cold Enchanted, Teleportation. Charged bolt appreciation time.
After a thorough sweep of the city and the sewers, all Kurast does is make her cry. Indeed, she finds plenty of equipments blessed by rare properties... in fact, more than anyone else she knows! However, Big Catch: they come in the great helm, tower shield, gauntlets and greaves varieties, things she will NEVER use! She decides it’s not just Akara, Drognan and Ormus, the whole world of Sanctuary is mocking her!
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Remember those adorable black locusts of the desert? Sure, there are none in the jungles, but... drum rolls... there are their red cousins! Which were exactly like they were! Down for the count in an average of one point five shots of icebolts! She relishes moments like these, since she knows they will end all too soon.
Symphony doesn’t want to look *inside* the six abandoned temples; she’s perfectly happy where she is, OUTside of them. But, not knowing why, she suffers from an overwhelming compulsion to clean them. Insanity maybe? So, no choice but to stock her potions, clench her teeth and go.
You see, Symphony is quite claustrophobic. Small, small death traps crammed with many, many powerful monsters just don’t appeal to her, but that’s what these temples are. There are usually some boss critter and its chirpy minions just clustering around the entrance, ready to pounce on her the moment she enters. And, if she needs room to manoeuvre, running deeper into the thing will just excite the other super boss/minion pack. It’s a perfect lose-lose situation. Isn’t that just delightful?!
Later: she cleaned the temples, she found a book, and that’s all she has to say about that dreadful experience. She is going to have nightmares about Sarina (Extra Fast PITA) for a while.
Adventure Side Tangent
Symphony’s annual earnings increased quite dramatically since her immigration into this lush tropical country. As a direct result, she gambled more. Yes, yes, gambling is a bad habit, but it has its rewards. While the wilderness did not deem her worthy to equip rare fare, Alkor supplied her with more generosity. He presented her with a really great rare leather coat: Fastest Hit Recovery, Enhanced Defence, Requirements -20%, 16% Fire Resistance, 26% Lightning Resistance, +21 to Life. And she traded in her Havoc Hood ("bye-bye, dear skullcap, I’ll always remember you") for a rare skullcap of: Fastest Hit Recovery, Magic Damage Reduced by 1, Fire Resistance 18%, Poison Resistance 18%, +3 to Mana. She also eventually, right before facing Mephisto, received a rare light belt: Cold Resistance 17%, Lightning Resistance 23%, +14 to Strength, +25 to Life. She couldn’t believe how buff she felt just for wearing a belt!
*Takes a deep breath.* "Okay, let’s go tour Travincal."
It’s a beautifully structured city, she reads on the vacation guide. The city is very symmetrical, acclaimed by many critics as an architectural marvel to behold. It’s also home to many hostile, holier-than-thou Zakarum’s Witnesses. A superlative experience guaranteed!
With tentative steps, Symphony enters the temple capital. One step, two steps, three steps, four... Before she even knocks, she finds a population of avid Travincallians, all fighting for a piece of her. Some of them swing polearms, others invoke blizzards and lightning, but either way, they really know how to maim a body! Oh, and let’s not forget the meteor invokers... And the Hierophant boss, Symphony swears that he is unjustly powerful! No, it’s not multishot, but still, with 5% cold resistance, a hierophant blizzard is very close to fatal! Now combine the boss with a merry band of let’s-heal-each-other-continuously minions, so that the killing time for any one particular individual is extra extended, and you have (ta-da!) a very unproductive and unpleasant experience. The belt is emptied, repeatedly. Symphony goes through so many potions, you’d think she is a potion-holic! Anyhow, she clears the front dais of Travincal, and then the walkways around it, finally tackling the council members last. None of the tumultuous trio is particularly threatening, but it doesn’t mean she wants to deal with all them all together. Hence, with some careful footwork, she draws them out, one by one. Toorc chews on charged bolts; the other council members eat ice. What can Symphony say? Their membership expired!
Symphony takes one last look at a cleared Travincal, ‘cause she ain’t coming back again, at least not until Nightmare.
Symphony enjoys a rare moment: she is holding a weapon made to melee and she is going to hit something. Ok, here goes, swing the flail! Umm, isn’t the Compelling Orb supposed to break? She knows her attack rating is no Bowazon but c’mon, this is an inanimate object! She can too hit the broad side of the barn! She’ll pretend this didn’t happen and that she made the orb break on the first try...
Symphony Hates, she repeat, absolutely Hates the Durance of Hate. She thought she’d never have to look upon another fetish again after the Flayer Jungles, but no, they return with a vengeance in the form of their bony cousins. And what’s more, these skeleton versions kick the bucket with nasty death explosions that give Symphony scores and scores of excruciating bone splinters. Even Ormus has a hard time picking all the skeleton slivers out of her skin. And there’s a big boss bony fetish, too, by the name of Rot Vex the Dead. Not dead enough for her but certainly very vexing! The worst part about the Durance, however, is the cursed council committee around Mephisto. Symphony cannot avoid the Terrible Three, not if she wants to get to Mephisto, and they are the bane of her current existence. With many accompanying ghoul lords, a mean bite in their melee, inherent super speed, and the ability to heal at an alarming rate, they are almost impossible to kill! Symphony runs through her potions (red and purple like her bruises) like water!
Sparky’s radiating lightning hurts, as all LEB’s, but his brother Maffer is by far the most dangerous to her. Even iced, he is ungodly speedy; and the extra strength of his punches knocks a lot (of e.g. blood, guts) out of her! Eight rejuvs and four greater healing potions later, she discovers that she had decimated barely a quarter off his life! He is healing himself much too fast and she isn’t doing enough damage with her icebolts to counter that. Only a dose of her concentrated charged bolts has a chance against him. Considering how closely he is following her, (CB is the most effective when cast in their face), charged bolts turns out to be more feasible anyhow. Symphony almost weeps with relief when she finally sees Maffer croak. Let’s not record just how many potions were used. Voidy is just plain pure annoyance.
Symphony thinks she has cleared the durance of Mephisto’s children, so she focuses her attention on Mephisto. Shoot icebolts, sidestep lightning. Shoot icebolts, ignore charged bolts. Shoot icebolts, uh-oh, horrible white sphere--run, dodge, get out of its way! Shoot icebolts, sidestep... All is going fine when suddenly, meteors! Aack, there are Ghoul Lords stashed in the back! She tries ignoring them, but asides from the bit of fire damage, the flaming flying boulders and their burning aftermass are extremely distracting. She has to run to the lobby again and deal with the followers there, without Mephisto’s interference.
Mmmm, they really are followers, Symphony did not think that they would have followed her all the way to the entrance of level 3 for her to kill them there.
Anyhow, she has to deal with them. One of Mephy’s glowing ball of death eviscerates more than 2/3 of her life globe. She tries to avoid contact but sometimes, accidents happen and she finds herself suddenly very close to R.I.P. ... not fun. She has quite adequate fire resistance (around 55%), but even though the meteors do little damage, they can take out the remainder 1/3 and end her career. As the old cliché goes, better safe than sorry.
After what felt like an eternity of frantic footwork, Mephisto ultimately succumbs to the power of icebolts. Symphony sighs. This entire ordeal has been nightmarish, and it’s not even Nightmare! She scraped by... barely... with the skin of her teeth... but she survived, Mephisto didn’t, and that’s what counts!
"Watch out Diablo. I am coming to Hell and you’re next!"
The curtains of Act 3 closes. Through the pretty (in a gory sort of way) portal, Symphony arrives Act 4.
Act 4 Normal
Symphony starts her rampage in hell with 22 strength, 25 dexterity, 68 vitality, 90 energy, and a stash not quite so full of rejuvs, as many of the prune shakes were used previously. Mephisto, the useless blob, dropped her Rakescar, a great item useless all around, at least for her. Fortunately, the one of the baskets next to him was more useful and dropped Nagelring, essentially a ring of sentinel, something she is stashing beside her Angelic Halo. She also stashes Hotspur (from Elzix), Hands of Broc (from Alkor), Death’s Hand and the two staves from Act 1.
Symphony’s Apparel:
Rare skullcap: Fastest Hit Recovery, Magic Damage Reduced by 1, Fire Resistance 18%, Poison Resistance 18%, +3 to Mana.
Burgundy Heavy Gloves of the Tiger: Fire Resistance 12%, +26 to Life.
Rare light belt: Cold Resistance 17%, Lightning Resistance 23%, +14 to Strength, +25 to Life.
Rare leather armour: Fastest Hit Recovery, Enhanced Defence, Requirements -20%, 20 % Fire Resistance, 26% Lightning Resistance, +21 to Life.
Dread Stalker (rare boots): Fastest Run/Walk, +1 to Light Radius, Heal Stamina +50%, 16% Lightning Resistance, +5 to Dexterity, 21% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items.
Rare ring: Fast Cast Rate, +3 to Mana, +7 to Life, 41% Extra Gold from Monsters.
Rare ring: 22% Fire Resistance, 29% Lightning Resistance, +30 to Mana, +3 to Minimum Damage.
Glimmering Amulet of the Apprentice
Long Staff of the Fox: +5 to Life, +1 to Charged Bolts, +1 to Icebolt, +3 to Warmth.
Symphony’s Skills: 1 Warmth, 13 Charged Bolts, 12 Icebolts.
Cautiously, Symphony treads into the Outer Steppes. She has no idea what to expect from this supposedly fatal place, rumoured to deluge afoul myriads of mutants of lightning resistance. How will her charged bolts fare here? Her foot steps echoes across the mesa. Noone home so far. With nothing else to do, she attempts to liberate some nearby damned souls. Without warning, a regiment of corpse spitter boss/minions and vile mothers/children advance on her. So much for the awakening-one-opponent-at-a-time principle.
She would have liked to execute a trial run of charged bolts on fewer and less hard-hitting monsters but, life and lemons and lemonade. Surprisingly enough, CB still seem very viable, not as ineffective and draining as she had feared. She forgets just how conductive these particular species of hell are to electricity though, so they could just not be very lightning resistant. Whatever, as long as she can continue to rely on her galvanic might.
The corpse spitter boss, after consuming and regurgitating all of the corpses she leaves in her voltaic blaze, finds itself mortally wounded. It turns in a bid for escape.
"Come back here, I’m cleaning up the mess you made!" Symphony expels some icy cones to slow its flee.
It is fire enchanted; its violent death explosion just adds to the mess. "Oops." Symphony looks around, sees no witnesses, so she backs away and goes to explore the rest of the stark plateau. "The mess will clean up after itself, right?" Unlike her Zann Esu dorm, yes.
She clears the rest of the steppes uneventfully.
The Plains of Despair is despairing devoid of noteworthy landmarks. Oh well, she didn’t come to hell for the tourist attractions anyhow. After unveiling a good half of the stony savannah, exterminating the offending vile mothers, corpse spitters and finger mages there, the magical red block of quest logs pops up before her eyes. Following closely is Big Blue. Izual is not a hard foe to defeat, one-on-one. Decelerated via the frosty properties of her bluish white projectiles, he can barely keep up with her in a stroll. He cannot touch her; she is never even within range of his infamous frost nova, which he casts quite liberally. He just took a bloody long time to kill. Symphony almost cries when she eventually saw his life down to a sliver (which still took her 18 more frozen pelts to lapidate). "Tyrael better appreciate this."
Tyrael does; as a reward, he proposes to tutor her. Oh, goody! Not that she isn’t grateful, but from now on, until the Elemental Masteries become available to her, she’ll have to live with the New Skill red block always floating behind her, marring her visibility. A minor but definite pet peeve. She wishes she knew a spell to make the red block disappear.
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Never cook and adventure at the same time, not unless you like burnt charcoal bits for dinner.
Oh ****! Oh****! Oh ****! Symphony takes her first step into the City of the Damned and wakes up a Finger Mage boss, its minions and some of the Damned... and she makes a mistake! Instead of retreating to the plains, which would have been SMART, she runs into the city. Not knowing the first *****ing thing about the terrain, she runs herself into a little corner, now surrounded by more than 20 Damned, plus the Finger Mage gang! She can’t run away. There is neither the room nor the time to cast a town portal and escape. If she doesn’t save and quit now, she is going to die!... in hindsight. But in the franticness of the moment, she forgets she has that option and instead just stupidly stands there, sucking on purple bottles and zapping charged bolts non-stop. After cleaning out her entire belt, (no time to drink out of the inventory either), she finally decimates the population enough to forge a path for movement and runs out of there. That was not good! Nightmare will not forgive stupid errors like that. Yes, she’ll chalk this one up to experience, lesson learned and all, but it will not happen again, not if she wants to live to tell about it!
Symphony loathes the Damned. They have too much lightning resistance; in fact, their lack of conductivity is tangible! However, even though they approach her in hordes (despite her best efforts to awaken only one at a time), it still becomes necessary to use icebolts exclusively to deal with them, to keep her mana supply above zero and to prevent inciting them. Incite, you say, what does that mean? Well, you see, the damned will try to bite you (melee attack) when they first detect your intrusion upon their territory. This is when they are at full health. Injure them in any way, however, and you will incite them to spit lightning balls (ranged attack) at you instead.
Of the two, the melee is more manageable because it means that not all ten is attack at once. Gunning icebolts means that 9 are chasing her, thus not hurting her, while only 1 is dying and thus spitting on her. Icebolts also mark that particular individual in blue so she knows whom to finish off before the next target (:)), an additional nice feature. It is not a particularly easy or injury-free process, but compared to what she’ll face in the Chaos Sanctuary, she imagines this is like a cakewalk.
Symphony finally clears the City of the Damned and stakes her claim on the Waypoint. *Sigh of relief* Whew! that was long and exhausting. Time to take a well-deserved coffee break.
*Returns five minutes later* Ummm, something is not right here. She orders her body to move, but it isn’t registering?!... No! NOOOOOO! The world of Sanctuary froze!
*Sob, sob* And there were stuff on the ground, too! Symphony lost her Fists of Broc, Hotspur, and, worst of all, Death’s Hand. Life is so cruel. Symphony decides to take a vacation now to console herself.
Well, the show must go on! Symphony resumes her journey and clears the immediate area around the Waypoint of the City of the Damned, just in case she gets chased out of the river. She doesn’t want any nasty surprises to wait for her there when she is injured and vulnerable and just wants to run crying to Jamella.
Symphony carefully ventures into the River of Flame and prays fervently that no Abyss Knights will be there. A sextet of Stranglers rushes at her and she dispatches them with icebolts. So far so good. A further look, unfortunately, reveals bolts of fire and poison. Someone up there ignored her.
Seeing the green bolts, Symphony sorely misses Death’s Hand, but decides to give the river a shot anyway. Actually she gives it many shots, of icebolts that is (:p). Yes, this was a bad pun.
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Abyss Knights are curious creatures. They eject elemental projectiles at her on sight; that she understands, it’s what she’d do herself. But when chilled by her ice bullets, they stop casting spells and tend to want to melee her instead! Since their movement speed is now worse than a somnolent nudibranch, they’re basically dead before they can touch her. Strange... not that she is complaining.
Despite the presence of the knights, the river is not a bad place. There are more stranglers and pit lords, both easy icebolt fodder. Soon enough, Symphony is standing before the Hellforge, asking Hephaesto to come out and play.
Hephy is like Izzie, except slightly speedier, hardier, and damagy-er; in a nutshell, more dangerous. Symphony wishes she bought poison pots to facilitate this encounter, but she has high principles of pure icebolt-and-charged-bolt-ism and wants to adhere to them. She’ll just vanquish this sinister character the traditional way, chipping micro fraction by micro fraction using icebolts.
Sheesh, and she though Izzie was bad!
Ultimately, after a long, long, long, long, did-she-say-long? time, Hephaestus shuffles off his mortal coil. She really appreciates the river terrain, which turned out to be a huge loop, for this stint. The pretty gems she creates ("I though jewellers cut gemstones, not bash them into shape at a forge using hammers?") are a flawless ruby, a flawless sapphire and a perfect diamond. What is she going to do with them? Put them in her stash until she thinks of something better, of course.
Symphony’s Rant Fest
Her lucky trend with rares from Kurast continues, much to her utter disgust. She had no idea how Evil this world really is! She finds so far a rare gothic shield (Increased Blocking, Magic Damage -1, 29% Cold Resistance, etc.), a rare War Scepter (+Pally Skills, 27% Cold Resistance, +18 Mana, etc.), rare greaves (Faster Run/Walk, Fastest Hit Recovery, 47% Cold Resistance, 29% Fires Resistance) and a rare full plate suit of mail (Enhanced Defence, 75% Poison Length Reduction, +56 Life, etc.). They are not just rare, but they have USEFUL properties, especially the cold resistance (Symphony has only 17% and ice mages scare the pants off her, if she was wearing pants that is)! But they have such horrendous strength requirements... they only make her green with envy! Hell, her Barbarian and Paladin friends are green with envy, ‘cause they could equip them and they never found anything so nice! Sometimes she truly wishes she was born a warrior instead. Stupid Sanctuary of Spite!
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: Weirdly enough (or not), icebolt is the most effective offence in the City of the Damned, the River of Flame, and the catwalk in front of the Chaos Sanctuary, period. Everything have visibly more lightning resistance now, rendering the charged bolts that she depended upon in open crowded areas completely useless. Pure icebolts is the only way she can survive without draining her store of Mana every ten seconds. These times are excellent opportunities to solidify her strategies for icebolts vs. small groups and how-to-break-big-mobs-into-small-groups.
Symphony has negligible cold and poison resistance and she stands before the Chaos Sanctuary. You know what this means: Murphy’s law dictates that there will then be many Oblivion Knights hurling ice and poison bombs, and that de Seis will be a Lower Resist Curser and Cold Spike Wizard. There will also be a pack of champion Oblivion Knights or Oblivion Knight boss/minions pack immediately beyond the doorways. Are her expectations low enough so she can’t be unpleasantly surprised now?
Symphony has been gambling on jewellery exclusively, hoping to churn out some cold and poison resistant bijoutry. Piles and piles and piles of gold were wasted.
"C’mon Jamella! Don’t you feel sorry for me? All alone... facing the massive hordes of hell... with nothing but icebolts and charged bolts? And I lost my dear Death’s Hand..." *Puts on pitiful face!* Jamella finally relents and graces her with a good amulet and ring. In fact, a great amulet and ring!
"I love you, Jamella! Kiss, kiss!"
This is Symphony’s baby, rare amulet: 42% Poison Resistance, 16% Cold Resistance, 18% Lightning Resistance, 16% Fire Resistance, +29 to Mana, Replenish Life +5. This is the super ring: Cobalt Ring of the Mammoth (26% Cold Resistance, +39 to Life). All right! Symphony is ready for CS!
Symphony sees a group of monsters. She icebolts some and runs away. The uncool ones follow. Group broken.
Symphony stops at her safe zone and turns around. She kills the immediate followers, especially making sure no Storm Casters escaped her wrath. Then, she advances again and kills the rest of the group. All done. Next!
Symphony supposes she is lucky, no boss/minions pack at the entrance way of CS. But darker forcers lie inside...
Icebolt is good for everything in the Chaos Sanctuary, the Storm Casters, the Venom Lords, the Oblivion Knight Fighters, except for the Oblivion Knight Mages. Nothing is good against Oblivion Knight Mages. They curse, they elemental bolt , they bone spirit, and they hurt. They hurt lots! Dodge ball means nothing to BS; unless she runs far, far away, they will hit! And standing her ground, competing with them spell-for-spell... it’s a bad idea even one-on-one!
"It’s not fair! Their spells do more damage to me than mine to them!"
*Tears*
Symphony’s only solution is to kill them as quickly as possible: run up to them and discharged the full fury of her lightning crescents in their face! You can just imagine how many things can go wrong with that plan if she is facing a gaggle of such abominations... And yes, bless her luck, she finds many poison and cold mages!
Finally, her feet steps upon the pentagram.
!Symphony’s Discovery Moment: No, there was no boss/minion pack at the entrance way of CS, but she peers behind the walls at the de Seis Seal wing and what does she find? What’s-His-Skull, a green Storm Caster and friends! They were being sneaky and hiding... how impolite. At least she finds them now, not later at some more inconvenient moment.
In case you didn’t notice, the most abhorrent foes of CS to Symphony are the Oblivion Knight Mages. If she is to continue any further (and bring Diablo to his knees!), she needs to know if she can handle de Seis, right now! Hence, after she ensures that all of the sanctuary is cleared, the first seal that she breaks is the one of de Seis.
Symphony daintily pokes the seal and then immediately runs away, in case the mob descends on top of her. It turns out they are waiting for her at the pentagram, spell arm ready.
Symphony swerves through their ranks, dashing right and left, taunting them the best she can (hey, she’s no Barbarian). Then she retreats to the front foyer, hoping to have enticed only a few admirers along. Things can get very hairy if they don’t separate from each other.
*Glances behind her* Woo hoo! Success! She broke up the army! The mages are coming at her in twos and threes, and without their boss! She deals with them the way she dealt with all the other wayward mages.
Though de Seis is not a Lower Resist curser (Decrepify instead), as Murphy would predict, he is an ice projectiler. When all is said and done, Symphony’s cold resistance is around the mid-fifties, good but not great. She doesn’t dare to go literally face to face with de Seis, ice and bone spirits and all; decrepified, she needs to be further away to play dodge. This means that she has to charged-bolt him from further away, too, though, equating more missed bolts and less Mana efficiency. However, it is safer...
Eight rejuvs later, the seal is completely broken.
Symphony needs a break, a confidence booster if you will. Since there aren’t any insect swarms around, the Grand Vizier will have to do. "This is the summoner’s covenant: I made you come here, so I summoned you, so you’re my minions. You are supposed to obey my every command, and, especially, not try to kill me!"
The stupid things don’t listen to Symphony, so she has to kill them instead. She doesn’t find it hard to face the gang, for Storm Casters aren’t terribly fast, not at chasing, melee-ing, or spell-casting (at least not when chilled (:p)). She can dodge most of their combined attacks. They aren’t terribly cold resistant, either.
However, too many of them and you get a standoff, with Symphony not dying and the finger mages not either (stupid health regeneration), both sides just tickling a few points off each other’s life.
Symphony eventually grows sick of this, so she runs back to the foyer again, letting the foyer panels catch some of them so that Symphony can deal with smaller segments.
One rejuv later, the seal is completely broken.
Symphony forgot that the Infector is Extra Fast, but the contents of the fourth seal remind her in a hurry. Thankfully, their weapon swing speed is still manageable, so she can still tempt fate (by stopping to cast a spell) and not become balrog bait most of the time. Still, even chilled, they rush at her in a franticness that she doesn’t appreciate, hovering right at her heels every time she conjures a bolt. Symphony can’t wait for this battle to end...
Symphony casts and runs; Venom Lords swing and chase. She leads the crowd to the front foyer... around one of the panels... and runs smack into a Storm Caster.
"Aack, where did you *censored* come from?!" After all the care that Symphony had put into clearing the CS, this is what she gets? A stupid, flying, run-away-to-lick-its-wounds-at-where-you-can’t-find-it-and-then-return-to-haunt-you-at-worst-moment straggler? Oh look! The Venom Lords closing in and the Storm Caster is blocking the exit! A potentially dangerous situation just became a reality! As a reflex, Symphony opens a Town Portal and steps through.
Aargh! That was not nice! They forced Symphony to pull a TP when she was not psychologically prepared to concede like this, especially when it is not her fault that this mess happened! Steam comes out of her ears. Symphony sees red. Snarling, she returns to the Choas Sanctuary with a vengeance. Four rejuvs and two minutes later, the seal is completely broken.
The Infector dies; he bequeaths her a greater healing potion and a rare gnarled staff. Mmmmm, this is an interesting development.
*Fixes her hair* Phew, that was that! Symphony has completely eradicated the evil dwellers of the Chaos Sanctuary. She returns to the fortress to wrap up a few affairs, sells a few junk, and psychs herself up for the final confrontation--facing Diablo. She is not scared though, not at all; indeed, she believes that his minions gave her more trepidations than him.
Cain IDs the rare gnarled staff. Symphony takes a gander at it, not expecting much. *Jaws drop* To say she is surprised is an understatement! No, this is not the Uberstaff, and it is by no means perfect, but she can’t imagine that this perverse universe would gift her with one better. Ghoul Wood: FASTEST cast rate, +1 to All Sorceress Skills, 25% Lightning Resistance, Enhanced Damage, +2-8 Fire Damage, +1 to Maximum Damage, +1 to Telekinesis, +1 to Enchant.
This... this... this... Symphony is speechless. After nineteen (yes, she was that revoltingly lucky) dropped unusable rare artifacts of power, Symphony finds this... she is so happy! "Thank you, Uncle Infector!"
However, the die is already cast. She is going to finish Normal using the staff she is already wielding, the almighty Long Staff of the Fox. This heavenly staff is going to the stash for unleashing in Nightmare.
"Even death cannot save you from me!"
"That depends on whose death, sugar!"
Symphony hurls icebolts at the overgrown puppy. Diablo looks so pretty in blue.
Quickly she learns which action signals which attack and the timing of the appropriate dodge. With the practice of 4 acts of Happy Feet(TM) behind her, she can completely avoid the fire fork and the LBOD. And chilled, Diablo cannot hope to melee her, not that it stops him from a few pathetic tries. She feels the power of ice and the adrenaline of imminent victory course through her veins.
If she does get caught in the infamous pink lightning, as Symphony discovers in a small picture-taking booboo, it only hurts if she is moronic and just wallows in it... As if she’d do an idiotic thing that.
Three rejuvs later (1 for the booboo, the other two for the eventual build up of damage from the fire ring and the odd fire fork nips), she concludes the reign of terror. She watches in grim fascination as the evil lord moans and writhes in his final death throes. Ha! Symphony just proved she "owns" Diablo!
The world of normal Sanctuary may not be that difficult, but it was good for practicing, getting her strategies down pat for Nightmare.
Charged bolt is good for
- mob killing, provided the mob is not lightning resistant
- killing things you don’t want to have a direct line of sight to (like archers)
- bosses that don’t give you time to aim (like horrible Maffer) and/or follow too closely (like horrible Maffer)
- things that heal themselves too fast (like horrible Maffer)
Icebolt is good for
- boss monsters, provided they are not cold resistant or extra fast on top of naturally fast (like horrible Maffer)
- mob control by slowing down certain monsters you don’t like and don’t want to follow you
- normal hell and other lightning resistant monstrosities
- making everyone around her blue
This has been one hell of a ride. Symphony will report to you again in Nightmare.
*Wave hand!* "See ya people!"
- Junolei
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