Hi. This is my second try for HoH. My first was a lightning only sorceress that got killed in the summoners firewall while in a "lightning-lock". This one will be a paladin using sacrifice as combat skill and most likely holy freeze as aura. My aura-choice might change after time. I haven't played much with the paladin and he is (together with the necro) the character I don't know that well, which is he reason for that I'm not completely sure about if I'll use holy freeze. If I for some reason choose not to use holy freeze, I'll probably use fanaticism. If I get to level 30 I will put one point into salvation, maybe more than that if I live so long and my other skills are maxed. But otherwise you gain too little for additional points in it. My str will probably be around 100, but it's not impossible that I'll raise it to 170 if I see a reason to. I'm currently thinking that holy freeze will make it so I won't get hitthat often, and in that case 170 str might prove to be a waste. Dex will probably be between 70-100, depends on what kind of equipment I find. All spare points will go into vit. No points at all in energy. Since sacrifice don't cost any mana, mana steal is completely useless. Life steal is very important though, both since sacrifices steal 8% from me and then I need it for myself. I'm thinking around 15% should be fine, that leaves me with 7% for myself. It shouldn't be that hard to get a hold of two rings with life steal, or maybe some of my weapon, or I might be lucky and find the undead crown. I haven't decided whether I will use a shield yet, it all depends on how good holy freeze turns out to be. But weapon will most likely be a sword. I will not be doing full clears, all the wp:s and quests will be gathered/done though. I will not clear areas just to gain exp if I don't see a very good reason for it. All enemies I meet will be dealt with, but I will not look for more in that certain area after doing the quest of finding the wp. I expect Diablo in normal difficulty to go down around level 25. If I find it to dangerous I might level up here, but this is the only place I might consider doing that. Diablo in nm difficulty will go down around 35-40. In hell difficulty around 45-50. If I get that far that is (considering that my highest hc-char so far died in act 2 normal it's not very likely).
Normal - Act 1
As always it started out easy, DoE was no problem. I levelled to level 3 by clearing DoE, one point in might and one point in sacrifice. Stats distribution is: 2 str, 2 dex and 1 vit. After a while it'll probably be 2 str, 1 dex and 2 vit until I meet my goal str and dex-wise, but for now it's the first one.
Blood Raven was no problem. Of course I used sacrifice, I think she died from 5 hitting blows. Though I had a little trouble hitting her, I probably missed her like 20 times before she died. Fortunately she ran away from her minions (great AI, huh? :)) and allowed me to fight her alone. I was on level 4 when she went down. Then when I'm alt-tabbing out of Diablo 2 to write this in word, the computer freezes. And this if far from the first time it happens, but what can I do? So I reboot the computer and start the game up again, and of course the quest isn't done. :(
So I redo the quest, it's a little harder this time, but still no problem. She didn't run away from her minions this time. After killing her I went back to town to get my rouge, sell of items, heal up etc. The hireling I got used cold arrow! Finally a useful one. I discovered something though, she only shoots cold arrow sometimes the other times she shoots normal ones. I would estimate it to be about 1 in 5 shoots that's cold arrows. Another thing I noticed is that hirelings in fact regenerates life. I read a post about this at LL earlier today, now I got it confirmed. I think it would take about 3 minutes for her to get full life from almost 0. But it could just as well be 2 or 4 minutes, I didn't take time with a watch or anything, just a general feeling.
In stony field I found my first ammy: 3+ mana! Couldn't be more useless, I have no use for mana at all. I sold it when I got to town. Rakashinu was a piece of cake, two hits with sacrifice and he's dead. Though my hireling was in the danger zone from the lightning bolts, he had a little less than half life left. Well, maybe not really in danger, but she did lose more life in this fight then anytime before.
A while after this I found my first ring: 1+ mana, lol. Needless to say I sold this one too. The next item I picked up was better though, a scepter: 5-8 damage and very fast attack speed (also 2+ smite and 1+ defiance, but I use neither, so this will just raise the repaircost). I threw away the sword I had carried since the beginning and used this scepter instead. The repair costs of it are a little high though, but I found two staffs a while after that got me about 2000 each, so my finance is quite good so far.
The underground passage went by fast, no problems here. The guardian of the tree was easy too, I think I killed him with 7-8 blows. Though my hireling almost died here, but I went to town to heal her up in the middle of the fight, she is very useful to me at the moment. I take the scroll, and go for cain. Griswold was the worst enemy except Blood Raven so far; he was cursed as he often (always?) is. Not to say he was a problem, but he was the most dangerous so far. He took more than 10 blows though. Everything else went along quite nicely, Cain was rescued and returned safely. Hey, maybe I'll get a life steal ring from Akara. Guess what I got. an exact copy of my other ring I sold a while back: 1+ mana. How can I be so unlucky? Well, since I don't have any troubles yet I guess it doesn't matter that much.
When looking for the wp at black Marsh I got lucky and found Artic Furs, a very good set item armor (well it's very good in the beginning): 50 def and 10% resist all.
In the tower cellar level 2 I found my first rare so far, a dagger: 2-6 damage, very fast attack speed, +33 AR, -16 defence per hit and 1+ mana for each kill. It would have been better than the sword one starts with, but it's not comparable to the scepter I'm currently using.
In Tamoe Highland my beloved hireling died. I met an aura-enchanted boss, I'm not sure which aura, but considering how hard the boss and her minions hit it was probably might or something like that. Before I knew it my hirelings life was down to 30%, I quickly cast a tp to save her, but I'm half a second to late. She dies just before I can enter it. She did a very good work, and I really had higher hopes of her, but it's not much I can do about it.
I also found a magical bow in Tamoe Highland: 3-10 and very fast attack speed. I considered using it, I actually bought arrows so I could test it. It worked quite good, but I did prefer my old scepter more, so I sold the bow and arrows. Also I wouldn't been able to use sacrifice with it, so I guess it was for the better anyway.
The Smith was quite dangerous: extra strong and cursed, lucky it was normal difficulty. Each of his hits took about 30% of my life, and that's uncursed! Luckily he went down before he had the time to curse me, he took about 20 hits with sacrifice, there was a well nearby that I had use for. If he had cursed me it might have gotten a little dangerous.
After taking the wp from jail level 1 to town I realised I had about 15000 gold, time for some upgrading. I first bought a belt with +3 replenish life, not that good, but considering that the belt I was was using otherwise had +9 mana and +1 str (basically 1+ str, since mana is useless to me). I also bought a two-handed sword with 9-20 damage, +27 AR and +5 str for about 3000 gold, I wasn't sure that I was gonna use it since I couldn't use a shield at the same time, but it was worth the try. And after playing a couple of minutes I realise it works better with this one, though I do miss my 52% blocking I got from my previous large shield of blocking. In the future I will without doubt use a one-handed weapon together with a shield, but for know I can do without a shield. In my next visit to town I checked with Charsi again just to see if there was anything fun. There was. A two-handed sword with 9-20 damage, +22 AR and very fast attack speed, pretty much the same as I was currently using, except it has IAS instead of +5 str, clearly a better weapon, so considering that I still had good economy I bought it, and I wasn't disappointed.
Flamespike in the Inner Closter can be very dangerous at times due to his cursing and all the minions that surround him. But I got rid of him quite easily. I first ran around to avoid all the spikes, killed of one minion at a time, then I go for the boss, and when he's alone without his minions he's a piece of cake. Of course, having 120 life helps. At this moment I usually have around 70 with my other characters (sc). Yrok is at level 11 at this moment.
In catacombs level 1 I found my fourth jewellery so far, an ammy with 19+ mana. well, it's another 1000 gold at least. Now it's definitely getting hard to hit the enemies. It's often 3 hits to kill one enemy, when I switch to sacrifice I always kill the enemy with one blow, and I hit fairly often. I am definitely taking less damage when using sacrifice since I kill the enemies much faster, it's just that those 8% it takes from me evens it out. So at this moment it doesn't really matter which one I use, but sacrifice will probably be the better one quite soon. A normal attack is better against some of the smaller enemies with low defence though.
In level 2 at one place I meet some bosses. The first one I saw was a shaman, after running around for a while, I realise there's another shaman boss there! Two shaman bosses at the same place! After running around a little more I draw attention from a third boss nearby - an afflicted. So three bosses in basically the same area. I can't recall this ever happening to me before. It wasn't to dangerous though. I fooled the banished to follow me so I could take them without having to worry about the shamans. They went down easily. The shamans were a bit harder though since they won't move away from their minions, and the minions won't move away from the boss. So I basically run over to the boss and taking hits from fireballs all the time, the boss went down with few blows, two minor healing potions and I'm fit for fight again. The other boss went down the same way, the minions wasn't any trouble after the bosses had be taken care of.
In level 3 I met a boss pack of the banished. The boss was a LEB, my first random LEB so far (you always meet Rakashinu).
I took care of the minions first of all, even though I had 10 lightning resist I wanted to kill the boss one on one. His lightning bolts hurt a lot, I killed him by hitting once (or maybe twice sometimes), run away, drink healing potion if needed, hit again, run away and so on. If I was unlucky with my placement his bolts would take about 40% of my life, so I had to be careful. But I was never really close to death or anything.
Then down to level 4. Let me begin with saying that I feared the meeting with Andariel from the beginning. She can be very dangerous when meleeing her. Then it hit me, why should I melee her? There is no good reason to. With my lightning-only-sorc I killed Blood Raven with javelings, I only stopped using them cause my AR was to low back then. But this is a pally I'm playing, he has way more AR than my sorc had, I should be able to kill her with throwing weapons. I had a stack of javelins in my inventory that I had pick up to sell, these I was gonna use. I went to town to buy some antidote potions and some more javeling (that single stack I had wasn't gonna be enough) before facing her. But I still had to clear the room before Andariel. So I opened the door and started fooling the enemies to the first room where they wouldn't be resurrected. So after clearing the first room I hotkey throwing as left click so that I still could use might, then I equip the javelins. WTF!!! Might doesn't work with throwing weapons! Maybe this is a known fact among pallys, but since I don't keep up with pally news it was at least new to me. I'm thinking it has to be a bug. Well, I'm still doing 8-20 damage with the javelins, and it's a lot safer than if I would melee her anyway. So I open the door and the first thing I see is a bosspack of afflicted. The boss is a FEB. At this point I'm getting a little worried, if Andariel comes after me together with those, I might be in for some trouble. Luckily Andariel isn't activated, so I can fight these ones without any interference from her. I retreat to the first room to take them one on one, no trouble her. Of course I switch back to my sword temporary. It's always a little nervous killing a FEB, at least in HC. You never know how much damage that CE might do. But I think I have still to die from a CE in singleplayer, in games with more player I would skip them in HC, though. This time I had about 130 life and 17 % fire resist, so there never was any danger, but I still get a little nervous.
Now it's only Andariel left. I equip the javelins again, this time I hotkeyed it on the right mouse button since my aura still wouldn't do any good. When I finally meet her I'm almost surprised about how easy it goes. I'm just running, stop to throw two javelins, run, stop, throw javelins. After repeating this maybe 20 times she is down, one antidote potions used, no healing potions at all! She drops a normal diamond, a socketed shield with diamonds is a possibility for the future.
I was level 13 when killing her, with the following base stats:
49 str
39 dex
42 vit
15 energy
134 life
Normal damage with might: 17-37
Sacrifice damage with might: 45-100
Defence: 82
Items:
Fine Two Handed Sword of Alacrity: 9-20 damage, +22 AR and very fast attack speed
Crimson Chain Gloves of Light: 7 % fire resist, 8 def and 1+ lightning radius
Light Belt of Regeneration: +3 replenish life and 3 def
Ring of the Jackal: +4 life
Artic furs, quilted armor: 50 def and 10 resist to all
Amulet of Health: damage reduced by 1
Skull Cap of Stability: fastest hit recovery and 9 def.
Time for act 2. I don't really expect any troubles here, I expect better items. I would really want life steal so I can use sacrifice without it costing me too much.
Normal - Act 2
The first thing I did was getting better weapon and shield. After some looking I bought these two: Military pick - 7-12, very fast attack speed, 1-16 lightning damage and +17 AR and a large shield with magic damage reduced by 2. This character will not die from the summoners firewall that my previous character did :).
In the sewers I'm using normal attack and sacrifice about equal much. Some enemies (mostly the mages) have low defence so that I can hit them without the AR-bonus I get from sacrifice, others have higher defence and sacrifice is the better choice. I had to work a little to kill Radament. I started with fooling most enemies a bit away, turned out it wasn't far enough since he resurrected them after a while, so I had to lure them further away. And of course there was some skeletons who refused to be fooled and stayed with him. But most were dead after a while and I could take care of Radament while taking shoots from those mages without too much trouble. The skillpoint went into sacrifice. I was level 14 when killing him.
Every time I'm in town I look for better equipment, I bought a heavy belt with +19 life and +2 light radius, it replaced my other belt with 3 replenish life, I also got 4 additional spaces for potions.
One of the first things I met in Rocky Waste was an undead scavenger boss - extra strong. Even normal scavengers hit hard, when they're also extra strong you should be careful, I wasn't. I survived the battle, but only barely. I was down to around 30 life before I realised how hard he hit, after that I was a little more careful and he was taken down without further danger.
When I got the cube down in Halls of the Dead I started collecting mana potions so I could transform them with some chipped gems I had found in act 1. I had 6 of them.
In Far Oasis I found my first uniqe - Lance of Yaggai. IMO this is a very rare uniqe, I haven't seen many of them. Unfortunately it's junk, the damage of it isn't that bad, but it has slow attack speed and it's two-handed. So I just sold it.
Down in the maggot lair level 1 I found a really nice rare kite shield: 48% block, magic damage reduced by 2, cold resist 21 %, fire resist 7 % and +4 str. I threw away my other magic shield with only magic damage reduced by 2.
Coldworm was rather simple, there was more bigger maggots then there usually are, about 10 of them. But after killing them I could take care of the smaller ones and then Coldworm. This place might be much harder in later difficulty without any crowd control skill, but we'll see when/if I get that far. I was level 16 when killing him.
In the Lost City I found Cathans Visage, it has 25 % cold resist and +20 mana. The mana is of course useless to me, but I figure that 25 % cold resist is probably better then the one I have now with fastest hit recovery. I wasn't sure it was worth the change, but after some testing I realized I could live without fastest hit recovery without trouble.
Claw Viper level 2 was easy, it often is with a melee character. I managed to run around and get in the middle where I could take them one by one. After all the minions were taken care of it was between me and him. His lightning bolts sure are dangerous, but with a skill like sacrifice , most bosses are easily dealt with, he was no exception.
In Harem level 2 I finally reached level 18 and put my point in holy freeze. I had previously used might, but with a weapon that does 7-12 physical damage, those 40% was transformed to 2-4 (the game rounds down) additional damage. Needless to say I didn't really miss it. After some testing I realize (not that surprising) that holy freeze isn't very useful at level 1. Its radius is too small. The aura seems to work in that way, that every fourth second or so it sends out the freezing, and the enemy has to be in my radius for it to work. So when facing 1 or few enemies they are almost always dead before the aura begins to work. In bigger groups it's more useful though since I have no chance of killing all those in less than 4 seconds.
AS was quite fun, even though those goat hit rather hard. Thanks to my shield's mdr I can stand in the firewalls without taking any damage, of course my 67% fire resist helps a lot too, but you have to have mdr to not take any damage at all. The Summoner was very easy due to this. He's very dangerous when you don't have any mdr, but when you do, he's no problem. He does have something similar to Glacial Spike, but that's more annoying than it is dangerous. I was totally immune to his FW, btw :).
I wasn't really worried about Duriel. He can be very lethal at given situations, but when you play in single (lagless enviroment) and as a warrior he's rather simple. It's really his charge that is dangerous, and when you play as a warrior it's just to stand close to him and melee him. His other attacks are quite harmless. Both of us were frozen due to eachothers auras, so it evened out quite well. I think I used 3 healing potions and 5 normal rejuvenation potions.
My uberdrop was real nice: splint mail - 115 def, fastest hit recovery, cold resist 25 %, fire resist 29 % and +25 life. At least it beats Artic Furs.
I was level 19 when finishing act2 with the following stats and items:
61 str
51 dex
48 vit
15 energy
230 life
Normal damage: 17-35 (Yes, this is lower than before, but it's a one-handed sword and faster attack speed)
Sacrifice damage: 53-79
Defence: 190
Items:
Sharp Military Pick of Lightning: 7-12 damage, 1-16 lightning damage, very fast attack speed and +17 AR
Rare splint mail: 115 def, fastest hit recovery, cold resist 25 %, fire resist 29 % and +25 life
Garnet Mask of the Wolf: +18 life and 23 % fire resist
Lapis Amulet of Excellence: +3 minimum damage and 15 % cold resist
Rare kite shield: 48% block, magic damage reduced by 2, cold resist 21 %, fire resist 7 % and +4 str
Burgundy Heavy Gloves of Skill: 18 % fire resist and 5+ dex
Garnet Ring: 29 % fire resist
Ring of the Jackal: +4 life
Belt of the Tiger: +23 life
Light Plated Boots of Haste: Faster run/walk
Normal - Act 3
Sshark the Burning (or whatever that spiders name is) wasn't very dangerous due to holy freeze, it really starts to shine now. And it's great against bosses. I'm starting to think this "variant" maybe isn't a variant, I think he will be able to hold on to hell difficulty unless I screw up somewhere. And since the radius from holy freeze increases for each level up, I'm getting safer and safer.
Then my first really good ring droped. No, not life steal, but very good even though. 45 % lightning resist and magic damage reduced by 2. Considering that I had 0 lightning resist before and those LEB's really hurt then, this was like a gift from heaven. And those mdr 2 won't hurt against Diablo later. I have 45 % lightning resist and magic damage reduced by 4, I think that should be enough to make his lightning quite harmless, but I may be wrong.
The ring I got from Ormus was worthless: magic damage reduced by 1, +17 AR, 1+ mana and 1+ str. If it would have had some higher numbers to AR and str it would have replaced my Garnet ring, but since it hadn't I just sold it.
The Flayer Dungeon is quite dangerous. There are a lot of Flayers that comes in groups of around 10. Thanks to my holy freeze, they aren't a real threat, but without that aura they would be very lethal.
As you probably notice, the first half of act 3 went by quickly and painless. Let's see it the second half is as easy.
When I reached Lower Kurast I decided to full clear all three Kurasts. The chests inside the houses here are known to give good treasures. And I sure could need some of those.
Well after clearing Lower Kurast I hadn't found anything good, just some junk to sell for good money. Same thing with Kurast. Strange, it is my experience that those chests give very good treasures, of maybe that is in harder difficulties, we'll see. Upper Kurast didn't give anything better.
It's pretty annoying to have so many rejuvenation potions, and almost never use them. I currently have 15 free spaces, stach and cube are filled with rejuvenations potions. So I have to return to town every couple of minutes or so to sell the two or three items I see fit to take to town to sell.
I found a rare Gothic Shield in Travincal, unfortunately it was pure junk, some small resistances and other useless mods.
The council was easy. With risk for repeating myself: Holy Freeze is an excellent aura against single target, I e bosses and uniqes. Geleb Flamefinger was LEB, but I had my ring with 45 % lightning resistance and I had picked up a helm with 42 % lightning resistance, so against my maxed lightning resistance he didn't have much to put up against me. Guess my 4 mdr helped a little too.
Now it was time for Durance of Hate. I'm really glad for my maxed fire resistance and 4 mdr, I was practically unaffected by all fire attacks, and there were many. Especially down on level 3, the firewalls there can be extremely annoying if you take a lot of damage from them, but when you don't those lords are just another target. Mephisto. I didn't expect trouble here, and there wasn't any. I just went up there and meleed him. He had some attack that I couldn't see what it was since I was so close up that did take about half my life (about 130-140). But since he was frozen and for some other reason I don't really know, he only used that attack 3 times under those 40-50 seconds it took to kill him. So I had good time to drink a healing potion, taking me to full life before the next hit. My uberdrop... not so uber. A rare gothic shield with 46 % blocking, 7 % cold resistance, +16 mana and +2 life. I sold it as soon as I got to act 4.
I left act 3 at level 23 with the following stats and items:
71 str
61 dex
53 vit
15 energy
251 life
Normal damage: 15-61
Sacrifice damage: 43-155
Defence 191.
Maxed fire and lightning resistance, 61 cold resistance and 0 poison resistance.
Upgraded items since last act:
Warrior's Long Sword of Lightning: 5-26 damage, 1-16 lighting damage, very fast attack speed and +48 AR Amber Full Helm of Simplicity: -40 % requirements and 42 % lightning resistance Amber Ring of the Sentinel: 45 % lightning resistance and magic damage reduced by 2
Still no life steal... that's for me saying that it probably wouldn't be a problem getting it :)
Normal - Act 4
The first thing I did was check the vendors for better equipment, I learned that they didn't sell another one-handed type weapon that was better than the one I had. I don't seem to be able to buy a helm with the colossus suffix.
Izuael was dealt with quite easily as most bosses are. He actually hit pretty hard, I had to use 7 greater healing potions while fighting him. Since I couldn't put the two skillpoints into Holy Freeze I used them to get Sacrifice up to level 18.
I really need life steal. As it is at the moment, I have to get to town about every five minute to fill up healing potions. I'm using about 10 greater healing potions in those five minutes, and it's not the enemies hits that do the damage, it's those 8 % from sacrifice.
Every time I'm in town I look for cheap items to gamble, once I was lucky and came up with rare heavy boots: fast hit recovery, fastest run/walk, 27 % lightning resist and +28 life. Very nice.
Then it was time for Hephasto, he was the most dangerous enemy so far, cursed and extra strong. If I were to get hit two times in a row without drinking a life potion I would probably die. Holy Freeze gives me another option against these enemies then just standing there exchanging blows with each other. The melee version of Tempting Fate. You stand still and wait for the exact moment when he starts his swing, then you run a bit forward so that the hit misses you. Then you quickly run back and hit him once or twice before running away from his second blow, and so on. Without Holy Freeze this would be nearly impossible, especially against a boss like Hephasto who hits very fast otherwise. With this technique he goes down quite easily, he did get in a couple of hits before I got the rhythm in. And those hits did take my life way below half of my total life, but it was very unlikely he would get in two hits, but if he did, sayonara Yrok.
Unfortunately I got no diamonds from the Hellforge, got some flawless and one perfect though. Not that it makes any difference, they are cubematerial just like the chipped anyway.
I'm really low on space now, even more than before. I have about 10 empty spaces. Then I realize, why do I carry around on all this rejuvenation potions? The only reason I have them is that I may need them later in the game. But why not drop them in the town while playing, then just come back for them later? So after this I do, it's real nice to have the extra space again. You just have to pray the computer won't crash. It's not in the habit of doing that, so I think I'm fairly safe. And I also make sure to only drop normal rejuvenation potions, I have about 20 full in my stash that I won't risk.
In general the whole act was basic fighting. But now it was time for Diablo. I was a little worried at the beginning, even though I have 72 % lightning resistance and 4 mdr. So when finally meeting him I had my fingers ready to press on a couple of full rejuvenations potions, turns out I didn't have to worry. His lightning wasn't dangerous to me at this difficulty. Each of the lightnings takes around 100 life, I have 300, you do the math. So I can just stand there meleeing him without any worry, everytime he uses his lightning I take one greater healing potion and I'm OK again. One thing I really noticed was that I was having very hard hitting him. Probably a combination of his high blocking, him being 16 levels above me and my AR not being that high. Mostly due to the blocking I would presume though. He dropped a rare great sword. For the first it was two-handed and required 100 str, I'm not gonna use a two-handed sword and I won't have 100 str for many levels yet. Second, it had lousy mods, high poison damage, that was about it.
So, now I'm a Count for the first time ever. I decided to take a break to eat and take a shower. In the shower I realized something. I didn't take any screenshots! Well, since it wasn't dangerous fighting Diablo I decide to kill him again so I can get the screenshots. If I thought it would have been an unnecessary risk I probably wouldn't have done it, but since it really isn't a risk I guess I don't mind. I'm in the middle of level 24 at the moment, I wouldn't mind a little more exp before the cow level and nightmare difficulty.
So I redo the River of Flame, a little harder this time since I had to fight against Abyss knights. I also gambled for belts and came up with Nightsmoke. I though for a while what's the better choice, 10 % resistance to all or +23 life, I figure Nightsmoke is the better one, so I switch to that. I still check at the vendors every time I'm in the town, and this time I came up with a long sword with 9 % life steal - hey, that gives me 1 % leech to myself :) - it does have less damage though, but I figure the life steal is worth more. Just like before Diablo went down easily, this time I only used 4 greater healing potions, due to the life steal I presume. This time I took the appropriate screenshots too. Just before the countdown went down I gambled for another belt, got a rare one: fastest hit recovery, 28 % lightning resistance, +28 mana, +8 str and attacker takes damage of 2. I replaced Nightsmoke with this one. Those 8 str for instance can be transformed into 24 life.
Next thing - The Cow Level. So I run through Tristram to get the leg and transmute it. It seems to be a nice start, I'm in a corner, no enemies in sight. So I move forward very slowly trying to get a few against me, I didn't really succeed as you see.
And there are about 3 times more enemies than you see on the screenshot. I was just wondering why I hadn't read anything about the Cow Level in Sirians stories, guess I got the answer here. The Cow Level is extremely dangerous when you don't have any crowd control (WW, SF, FO, MS, Strafe, CE and all those), and sacrifice isn't nearly crowd control, although Holy Freeze helps a lot, without it I wouldn't have stood a chance.
I did manage to clear out those enemies you see on the screenshot, even though it was a lot more as I mentioned. I ran around, trying to form the cows in an arrow, so that I could take out the first on in that arrow, worked quite good. But to clear the whole level would have taken hours. It just happended to be that the Cow King was among that group, guess he was lured there sometime when I didn't notice it. Anyway, I managed to kill all of them including the Cow King, he drops me this: War hammer - 17-30, 8 % life steal, 1-16 lightning damage, normal attack speed and +111 AR. This is a good weapon, only thing is the relatively slow attack speed, but I think I can live with that, so I sold my other sword and used this instead. I saw no further reason to fight in the Cow Level since you gain lousy experience and it just takes to long time, so I left for nightmare.
Nightmare - Act 1.
Yrok entered nightmare act 1 at level 25 with the following stats and items:
75 str
65 dex
55 vit
15 energy
301 life
Damage (with sacrifice): 115-187
Defence: 207
All resistances are around 70 (including those -20 %), except poison that's -20 %.
Upgraded items since normal act 4:
Rare War Hammer: 17-30, 8 % life steal, 1-16 lightning damage, normal attack speed and +111 AR Cobalt Great Helm of the Mammoth: 29 % cold resistance and +35 life Rare Heavy Boots: fast hit recovery, fastest run/walk, 27 % lightning resist and +28 life Rare Belt: fastest hit recovery, 28 % lightning resistance, +28 mana, +8 str and attacker takes damage of 2
It's quite a different playing at nightmare and normal, the enemies hit a LOT harder. I usually say that nightmare act 1 is easier than normal act 4, but that has mostly been with sorceresses, where the damage isn't the biggest issue. But this time I think that nightmare act 1 is a lot harder than normal act 4.
Even Den of Evil was a little hard. I have to get used to the extra damage they inflict, otherwise some bad things might happen. It might be the new weapon that makes it harder, it's a very big difference between normal attack speed and very fast attack speed. For instance, when the enemy is chilled, you can with very fast attack speed, hit once, then run before getting hit, this is a lot harder, if not impossible, with normal attack speed. But I guess I'll get used to it.
I met a Gargantuan Beast FEB that was auraenchanted, considering how much damage his minons and the other enemies around did, I would guess it was might or something similar, I had a near death experience here :). But when I got his minions down, I could kill him without too much trouble, using Tempting Fate technique I described above against Hephasto.
Rakanishy went down easy as expected, no more than two hits. My maxed lightning resist is really important. A sorceress or another character who fights at a distance can live without it. A character with high life and high life steal can live without it, but a character like Yrok, can't.
I reached level 26 in the Underground Passage, imbue time. Level 26 seems to be the best level to imbue a weapon, only thing is, I didn't have a good weapon to imbue. The best thing I had was a hatched - fast attack speed and 10-21 damage! Even though I didn't have a good weapon to imbue I decided to imbue the hatchet. So I continued to get the wp at Dark Wood. Then I restarted the game in normal difficulty and made the imbue: 19-35 damage, fast attack speed, +1 mana per kill and 4-5 cold damage. Crap, crap and crap. Sold it right away. After this I decide not to imbue again till I find a good weapon. This is the times when I wish I could buy normal exceptional items.
Later in Dark Wood I met a CEB with cursed ability. I wasn't cursed when fighting him, but I was cursed from the Frost Nova after his death. When thinking about it I realize it isn't strange, but I was a little surprised at first.
Treehead Woodfist - the Guardian of the tree - was extra fast, extra strong and teleport. Extra fast and teleport isn't good for me to meet. My strength lies in that the enemies are very slow due to Holy Freeze, but when they are extra fast they are fast enough to be a trouble, combine that with teleport and you have one annoying boss. It took me a couple of minutes to kill him, took him down from half life to almost dead several times.
Over in Tristram I met Griswold. Cursed and teleport as abilities. That curse ability is a very nasty thing. He took me down to 50 life once, but after that he died quite calmly.
The ring from Akara was junk: Damage Reduced by 1, 9 % cold resistance, +29 mana and +4 dex.
Then it was time for the the Tower, a feared place in HC, even in singleplayer, and even more so over battle.net. Level 1 went by quite easy, nothing very hard here. Level 2 was a different matter.
As you see in the screenshot it was me and him, his minions I had taken care of without any problem. The boss was aura enchanted, might I realize after it's to late. I knew the boss was cursed, might enchanted I didn't think of at the moment, that was my biggest mistake. Even though I have low life in that screenshot, I had more fighting him later, I had some healing potions in my stash. I had about 250 life, no healing potions left (but a lot of rejuvenation potions as usually). He has almost no life left, I know he would have died from one or two hits. So instead of taking a rejuvenation potion or tp to town to get full life I head against him. Before I could react I was dead, from 250 life to 0, this was when I realized that he had might as aura. I don't really know how he could hit me before I hit him. He shouldn't had a chance being chilled, but he did get the first killing blow at me. It was my fault I died, no matter how much I would like to blame some other, it was my mistake that killed me. If I had drunk a rejuvenation potion, he would be the dead one instead of me. There are two reasons for this mistake. 1: I have never played over battle.net, so I have no experience with lag at all, in a situation like this, a player used to lag would have drunk that rejuvenation potion. 2: My inexperience with hc. I have played a little with hc-characters before, but never far enough to get used to anything like this. But it was my fault. I have learned from this death, next time I face an enemy like this I won't doubt to drink that rejuvenation potion.
There was one big mistake about this character. He required to much str and dex, there was to few points that could go to vit. Only having 55 vit - 300 life in nightmare act 1 is a mistake in hc I've come to realize the hard way. I was level 26 when dying btw. I hadn't gained anything worth mentioned since last report of items, stats, etc...
This was a pretty fun character, I did miss life steal in most part of the game. I got enough to to take it to 0 at the end, but never more than that. I would have enjoyed it more if I'd gotten life steal earlier, but what can you do when the game is against you?
Bye for now, I'm sure we'll see each other some time in the future with another hc-charcter. I'm currently thinking of a sorc using icebolt as only attack... we'll see how it turns out. I feel you can applay more skill as a distance-fighter, which is the reason I like sorceresses more than any other class.
- BelTorok
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