HELL - Act Three
Monsters in the jungles are all either slow or very low in health. The Cloud Stalkers resist fire but have so few hit points it hardly matters. Everything else dies easily to fire. I enjoyed this, compared to having recently done the Tombs with their burning dead swarms and the Arcane with those nasty goats.
Then I ran into the first monster I recall that was clearly and defininitively FASTER than Hotfoot, even with Fastest run and wearing light armor!
If you can't tell from the screenie, that's one of those giant mosquitoes. He was more bark than bite, but just the speed of the thing made me rather nervous. Everything else in the Spider Forest was routine, killed with blaze or hydra.
I found the Spider Cavern and braced myself for extreme danger. Sszark might well be able to one-shot me, even with 400ish life, and if cursed he surely would. I know that he and his pack always guard the chest, though, and in the Spider Cavern and Arachnid Lair, the chest is always to the south. So I came in, turned north, and with Blaze and some hydras I started killing Poison spiders. And then my plans went wrong. There was a spider LEB boss up top. I tried to run in circles in the one room up there but he had minions and I was nearly trapped twice. I finally had nowhere left to go but back toward the entrance. The spiders WERE coming after me, but they were not particularly quick, so I was able to backtrack over my trail to 3x the blaze in some segments, and I raised 7 or 8 hydras right at the entrance. And here come the spiders... I have to choose: bail now, and give up on the Spider Cavern this game, or stick it out. Once again, Teleport could have allowed me to fight safely, or at least more safely... but that wasn't an option for Hotfoot. There was only an instant to decide!
I decided to fight. The LEB boss forced me southward, and I knew instantly that this was bad bad BAD when I saw Flame Spiders rushing north to greet me. Dammit, Sszark was RIGHT THERE, as close to the entrance as he gets, and a LEB spider the same distance in the other direction. This was NOT a good draw. But it was too late now. I had to keep moving. The minions of the LEB had died in the blaze, so my choice now was to run past the LEB and back north, eating many sparks as I passed and likely taking a hit, or to rush headlong south into certain death. I ate some sparks and took the hit, drinking a rejuv, and then I was past him. Flame Spiders are now being shot by the hydras. The LEB is spitting like wild. I am running for my life and surely there isn't enough room to take on that many spiders. But I can't bail yet or this fight is over, because the entrance at the moment is JAMMED with spiders. I have to get them away from the entrance, at least the two bosses, so I just keep running. Behind me I hear the Jade Figurine drop and I know the LEB has died. I pause, and Sszark jumps out at me from some odd angle and nearly gives me a heart attack, that aqua-colored son of a bitch. I run. I'm running past giant lampreys now, and more poison spinners. I run into a dead end in the middle of the cavern and I know I've got just moments to hit my hotkey and raise that portal. OH MY GOD HE'S ATTACKING ME!!!
+bloink+
I'm standing on the dockside, and Cain is giving me the eye. WHEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!
After picking my courage up off the street, I say Hi to Ormus, then run back into the jungle. It's quite a way back to the cavern, but the run is much preferable to taking the portal, thank you very much!
I brace for a mob at the door, but no one is there. All of Sszark's minions were dead! Burning in that 4x blaze, most likely, since I don't think there was enough time left on the hydras to decimate them. Hydras are an extreme tactical weapon, but they do not kill as quickly as monsters standing in fire. :) I'll talk more about Blaze tactics in depth in my Fire Skills guide, but suffice it to say that in this particular fight, while the hydras provided invaluable artillery support, it was blaze that carried the day, unquestionably.
I worked my way back toward the portal. All the minions were dead, but there were bugs and spiders that I'd wakened along the way, and I had to deal with those. Sszark was camping the portal, that PK son of a... but I nailed him with hydras and, in his wounded state, did not even need blaze to finish him. Victory! :)
The Arachnid Lair was tame compared to this. Quite tame. There was a 4-pack of spider champs but not right away, and I had plenty of room to dispatch them.
The Black Marsh turned out to be my second bonanza. The first had come at clvl 30. Now I was clvl 48, and early in the Marsh I hit three consecutive Drowned Corpse bosses. Now the Drowned Corpses have high fire resistance, and they took some time to kill even in 3x, 5x, 8x stacked Blaze. You'd think their sluggishness would make them largely irrelevant, but I didn't find this to be the case. Between their natural speed (higher than other zombie types) and the boosted speed of Hell difficulty, these things were actually a bit spry. I had learned my lesson in NM Act 4, though. I made sure not to let any of them get behind me. At least that was the plan. In reality, sometimes some Fetishes had other plans and forced me to run into Zombie territory. I was very careful, however, and though I took a couple of hits, I never got into trouble.
The first boss dropped a rare plated belt, the second dropped a Cuirass, and the third dropped junk but one of his boys gave me a superior mage plate, imbueable. Just after this, in town, I gambled a rare hat (yes, plain lil old Hat) with +26-29 resistance on Fire, Cold, and Poison, also +32 life and -1 from both damage and magic damage. The ONLY problem with this item is that I lacked the requisite Lit Resist from other options to keep my Lit Resist maxed. Same with that Cuirass, which turned out to be Ocher of Colossus, +6 Lit Resist and +58 life, with 198 DR. The Plated Belt had high fire resist, high +life, and some modest bonuses. The problem with it was that it did NOT have fastest hit recovery, so I stashed it for later.
(On a side note here, many players are of the opinion that DR is completely useless and not worth bothering with, thanks to 4xAR bug. Strictly speaking, this is not true. DR certainly has to take a backseat to other matters, but it CAN make an important difference, taking as much as 10% or more off your be-hit chances. If you figure 44% block for a gemmed tower shield, that leaves 56% chance to be hit, and some decent DR can easily knock your base be-hit chances down from 95% to something in the 70-80% range. 70% of 56% comes out under 40%. So if your DR can knock be-hit down to 70%, then in combo with a shield you can avoid three of every five hits. Now I don't know the actual numbers and what they do; this is only an example. But if you can get your resists up adequately, have some +life on your rares, keep fastest run on your boots and have at least one fastest hit recovery in there, and STILL manage to get some DR boost from a cuirass or mage plate, you should do so, IMO. It can make as much difference as going from a spiked shield to a tower, in terms of the blocking. If you wouldn't settle for less than a tower, for its blocking, then you shouldn't overlook DR either, even as a sorceress. I can't imagine choosing to imbue anything else besides a light exceptional armor: you can gamble for endless chances at rares on 4-row belts, cheap hats, gloves, and boots, where a few DR points won't matter. But 200-300 DR on armor (plus bonus from cold armor, if you are using it) vs 10-30 from a rare quilted/leather, is another matter. That's significant enough in terms of lowering your be-hit to actually matter, even though it will never be good enough to rely on in a tanking sort of way.)
So I finally hit the jackpot once again on a gambled rare. The last one that had done me proud was the boots at clvl 30. This hat had only 12 dur and 4 AC, but I didn't care. I WAS going to be using it as soon as I could arrange for max lightning resistance. I also wanted to use that cuirass, and this hat would allow that, replacing the 24% fire resistance I got from my imbued cuirass. What I needed, then, was two things: I needed a ring, any ring, with 25% or more Lightning Resistance on it, and I needed that third perfect diamond. Those two things would allow me to use both the hat and the cuirass, dramatically increase my Life and my other resistances, keep Lightning Res maxed, and keep my DR high.
Well I only had to wait MOMENTS for the ring. I'm standing at Alkor, gawking at my new hat, and there's a ring there, too. I gamble on that, and BINGO: 33% Lit Resist, and -2 Magic Damage. So all my luck was coming at once. What I needed now was two Gem Shrines.
I had (foolishly) used my Hell Imbue earlier when I could have stopped the game before I went to the Canyon, gone to Normal to use that Imbue, then resume without having to redo any fights nor suffer from lost map area. Too late now, though. If I stopped to imbue this Mage Plate now... I'd have had to redo one fourth of Act 3: most of the spider jungle and all of the marsh I'd completed. What's more, the config would change: the map would change by switching difficulties. So I might have to redo even MORE than that, trying to find my way around on a new map. I held off. I decided I would press ahead to Travincal, clearing all up to that point, and stop there to imbue, before I took on the Council. With luck I'd only have to redo the Causeway and some of Upper Kurast. So onward I went.
At the tail end of the Marsh, my final bonanza: another diamond dropped. This gave me two, and if I could find just one more, I'd then only need ONE Gem Shrine to complete my shield.
The Flayers and Soul Killers moved in huge packs in the Flayer Jungle as they always do. I ran into an Extra Strong, Cursed, LEB Soul Killer boss right inside the Jungle and he chased me, through my Blaze, back up fully one third of the entire Great Marsh. Then he bit it, not having laid a scratch on me. Down in the Flayer Dungeon, then later in the Swampy Pit, I ran afoul in a big way of the Hydra-Shaman bug, whereby a shamen slain out of line of sight leaves an invulnerable flayer behind, which cannot be killed by the hydras nor take damage until you "activate" it by line of sight. This increased my danger, as I had to walk into rooms I shouldn't have needed to, to wake up the invuln flayers so they could be killed. On an up note, Endugu and his pals were humiliated. My pets ate them up. :)
Also on a bright note, I found a Gem Shrine on level 2 of the Flayer! I passed it up, hoping one more diamond would drop, but none did and I decided finally to use it. This gave me one flawless and one normal. I now needed either one more gem shrine or five more diamonds. I assumed my chances for five diamonds were slim, so it would likely be a shrine or bust.
Stormtree was FEB and took a while to kill. And then finally it was Leaper time! All my wrangling analysis after my death in NM Act 4 had led finally to the conclusion that avoiding Hydra to make Blaze effective had been a dismal strategic choice. Now I was going to rely on Hydra, with Firewalls to slay any Leapers my pets stunlocked against a wall or object, and Blaze to take care only of any meleers who happened along.
It worked beautifully! Hotfoot kicked Leaper ass up down and all around Lower Kurast. A large pack managed to get a lick in on her once, but only once. Another time, some vultures forced me to move and leapers got a hit or two before I could raise more hydras in my new location, but this was nothing like the dangerous mobs I'd stirred up here in NM Act 3 relying on Blaze to kill leapers.
In the Kurast Bazaar, I had a fairly easy time of it. There was one boss that chased me around a bit, but fortunately I had cleared enough room that I didn't get into a hairball.
Then it was time for Lam Esen's Tome, and I prepared myself for a hairball. The Ruined Temple has several possible configurations, but two of them are that T-shape that generally offers up a nasty stairs trap, and which has no circuit you can run. No matter which way you go, if you are being chased, you'll get cornered. My usual response here with a Sorcie is desperate but measured use of teleport. Well, that's not an option for Hotfoot. In Nightmare, in the Ruined Temple, there had been no stairs trap and I'd had time to raise a mass of hydras and lay down lots of blaze before I lured the monsters to me. It was a piece of cake.
I hired one of only two available cold mercs, and went down into the temple. It was a T, leaning left, with the main room in the lower right of my screen. There was nothing waiting for me in the foyer, so once again I had avoided a stairs trap here. I raised my hydras, laid my blaze, and here come the monsters. Wailing Beasts! OH NO! Those are max fire resistant in Hell! This pack is Extra Fast, too, and the boss is Extra Fast Mana Burn FEB to top it off. My hydras are firing like mad, my merc is standing back and casting Cold Armor, the blundering idiot, and now the pack is on me and I have a choice to make: retreat up the stairs and surrender, trying again in another game, or stay and fight. Well, dammit, staying to fight had worked out in the Spider Cavern, and there was only this one boss pack; Sarina was still dozing. I ran to the left, leaving my merc to cover my ass. The guy got off one gspike then bit it. There are four minions, plus the boss. I should have run straight to the corner and opened a TP, but I was trying to fight instead, casting more hydras and doubling up my blaze trail. The speedy things are already in the far room with me! I open a TP finally, but I click on it and my sorcie says, "I can't." Arrrrrrrgh! But I am not yet trapped, so I don't bail. I keep moving. Then the boss comes into the room and I am hit. Mana ball now empty, I drink a rejuv, get hit two more times by minions, drink another rejuv, then manage to circle back to the TP and through it. Close call there!
I am not frightened, however. Fire resistant and stacked with incredible hit points, there is still room to fight these things as long as I don't wake up any more. I'd never have tried this on Realms, but this is single player, the way the game OUGHT to be played (lagless) -- the way Diablo 1 used to be, when skilled use of happy feet and smarts could prevail in tight situations. If only I can kill the minions, I can then blaze the boss back and forth across the top of the T until he gives up. Nothing dead yet, but several of the minions badly wounded from the initial charge when I'd had my artillery and blaze trap waiting. I hire the other cold merc, WP back to the Bazaar and return to the temple. I have some slim hope that if I run immediately left, not all of the wailers will see me and I can win the fight. Well so much for that. They all come charging out at me, the boss first, my cold merc casts one gspike, then another, then he is dead. I took this time to 7x my Blaze and raise some hydras. The boss is right on my tail as I run right. There's a lightning resist shrine at the end of the line, and I'm circling this while I try to open a TP. I can't step right into the portal because the boss is in the way so I circle around the shrine, he chases, one minion died in the blaze, the others are arriving, now more wounded, I hit the TP and I'm out of there.
Realizing that the mercs are just bodies, really, and that the cold ones didn't actually make a difference, I hire the cheapest merc there, a low defense, low level, low damage, low health fire merc. Back we go. Down in the temple the three remaining minions come charging at us. The boss is NOT with them. My merc is casting fireball, then inferno. I ran left already, and am raising hydras. The merc takes a hit. A minion DIES from hydra fire. The merc takes another hit, then retreats to follow me. The minions step into the blaze, they are taking hydra shots. Another one dies. The last one is on top of the merc, who stands there heroically casting his little inferno. I'm still expecting the boss, but no sign of him yet. The last minion dies! What a heroic stand by this merc. Not only did he keep them off me for eight seconds, but he survived to tell about it. If I could have sent him back to town, then, I would have. He deserved to retire in style! Oh well.
The boss was stuck on the far side of the shrine, it turns out. I was able to raise many hydras and pound the crap out of him from outside the room. He's wailing (that's what wailing beasts do) but finally he finds his way out of the room, still has about 3/4 health, smashes the poor merc in one hit, and then I am sprinting with blaze burning. We run to the far left, I do a little loop and double back on the blaze trail, for 2x fire. We run all the way to the right, around the shrine, then back left, right, left, right, left, right, left, and he finally dies. I didn't take a lick after the initial close call on the first try. FEBs in Hell are no joke!
Now it's Sarina time, and this could still go horribly wrong. She is of course extra fast, and if FEB, could be a real threat. Her minions are going to die, though, all of them. This I know. I raise hydras at the stairs, drink a blue to raise more, then another blue. I've got about 15 hydras with 3 heads apiece, and some blaze laid down. I run into the main area, wake the horde, retreat. Flesh hunters are charging at me like bullets but they are getting a faceful of hydrashot and they are dying as planned. There are spiders, too, and vampires. Meteors are dropping at me now and here comes Sarina. I had raised an exit portal on the left, but a flesh hunter cuts me off and I am forced right. She dies in the blaze, I circle around Sarina and run left. Hydras are now focused on her and she is really taking it. I run left, there's nothing left alive now from the massive enemy charge except the boss. I run a small loop and head back out toward the stairs and Sarina dies. A little bit of clean up of stragglers and vampires and the battle is over. I put my five attrib points to Vitality. :)
This fight is definitely one of my proudest. It's a damn shame I can never do things like this online, where hard drive grind and general lag issues simply make this kind of maneuvering amidst the enemy impossible for me. Monsters get out of synch, I get out of synch, I lag and take hits and get killed, and any synch problems mean the monsters aren't where they appear on my screen to be, so how I can work around THAT?. Blah. Sometimes I can pull it off. But there are simply times when lag gets me killed, and the only way to avoid that is not to play, or to stay out of the truly hairy fights like the Act 3 temples. Too bad, really. Except for the lag, the last half of Act 3 is definitely my favorite part of the game BY FAR and offers up the most interesting strategic challenges in the game, IMHO. Chaos Sanctuary has some, too, but that's one really bright moment in an otherwise dull act. Act 3's challenges are numerous, varied, and exciting. I sure hope the upcoming Act 5 resembles Act 3 more than it does Act 4.
The Disused Fane was also free of stairs trap. However, the first thing I encountered was a Blood Diver boss, Extra Fast, Extra Strong, Spectral Hit. The SOB was faster than Hotfoot, his hits STUNG, and it was all I could do keep running to avoid as many of his hits as I could while Blaze worked on him. He actually scared me, with that speed, and unlike the quick mosquito in the forest, this one laid into poor Hotfoot several times, forcing some potion use. After that, the rest of that temple was routine.
I moved on to Upper Kurast and had a pleasant time clearing that. Not even packed Healers could stop me. I had by this time pumped my Firewall up from slvl 4+1 to slvl 6+1, in anticipation of meeting the Council. The stronger firewalls, stacked under a Cantor, got a kill pretty easily. Some would teleport away, but I kept at it, and also used hydras, and generally had an easy time of it.
Now it was time to do more temples. My usual method, when performing a full-clear, is to do the surface first, do the temples in each area once that area is clear, do the Causeway and its temples, THEN move on to the sewers. I then usually stop and reboot, particularly in multiplayer, either as a session end or even just to refresh the ram and reduce lag for the crucial fight in Travincal.
I hired another merc, entered the Forgotten Temple, and what do I see? Sardines. MONSTERS PACKED SHOULDER TO SHOULDER in every single square inch of space within my light radius. Wailing beasts and vampires. I caught only a glimpse, and my instant reaction was to click on the stairs again. Staying meant certain and instant death at the hands of this rape gang. This is by several ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE the worst stairs trap I have ever seen in Diablo 2. I have many times seen A FEW monsters right there at the stairs, or a boss pack in the room, with one or two right on top of you. But never, never have I seen them like that. It is a verified and ordained MIRACLE that I got out of there at all. First, that I was alert enough to recognize the DEGREE of the threat instantaneously, and second that clicking back on the stairs was possible in that instant and that it worked.
OUT OF PROTEST against this unbelievable trap, I considered it no longer my obligation to clear that temple, and I put it out of my mind. I could have come back for it in a later game, but screw that. I mean, in single player I fear very little: there is no lag to slay me. I can handle most stairs traps. The only one that has killed me so far, ever, was Hotfoot in Act 1 Hell with that Cursed, ES, MS archer boss. So it goes. But here, this... this was truly impossible, so I skipped it.
The other temple in Upper Kurast was a cakewalk. In fact, so were the two out on the Causeway. I took mercs to each (the merc supply was by now drying up) and there WAS danger, but nothing even close to what I had faced in the Ruined Temple with those wailing beasts.
And lo and behold, out on the Causeway, right at the gate to Travincal, lay a Gem Shrine! :)
I upgraded my flawless diamond, socketed my shield for an end result of 51-52% resistance on each element, cubed the remaining diamond into a rejuv, and I was in business. I put on the Ocher Cuirass of Colossus, the rare hat, the lightning resist ring, then sold my imbued cuirass and amber helm of mammoth.
Now I was set. Fire Res 69, Cold Res 68 (57 if I switched Ammy to Negation), Lit Res Max, Poison Res 49. Total DR about 275, -3 MD, Fastest Run, Fastest Hit Recovery, and over 450 life. I could trade 38 Life and 11 Cold Resist (plus 2 LR and some Find Magic Item boost) for an additional -4 MD from amulet and a total of -7 MD. I planned to do just that in two places: fighting the Council (their hydras, any LEB sparks) and against Diablo. The rest of the time I would go with the -3 MD and the higher Life.
I was now truly ready for the hardest parts of Hell, equipment-wise, and as it would turn out, this WOULD be my final set of equipment, these eleven pieces, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Down in the Sewer, I got a fortunate draw. There were no undead flayers at all, only zombies, bats, and horadrim ancients with horrors. These are all slow foes, and combined do not begin to approach the threat level of the undead flayers. Clearing the sewer was a piece of cake. Even Riftwing volunteered himself. He had Holy Freeze aura, and this slowed me down, which resulted in me stacking a ton of blaze in a very very small area, into which he flew to attack me, dying instantly. No teleport, no nothing. Just dead, his frost nova barely denting my 68 resistance, 450ish health.
Travincal was a thrill ride. The zealots were fast, very fast, and they hit HARD. Every time one connected, I'd take 80-100 damage and be stunned pretty soundly. I avoided hits in general, but sometimes the buildings hid some from me and they'd pop out and smack me. The Heirophants were much much tougher than their little cousins, requiring many many firewalls or hydras, doing a lot of teleporting and healing of each other. I got around to where once I got a bead on them, I'd hold down my right mouse and just keep casting firewalls. By not letting go of the button, new firewalls would quickly be raised on the target even if it teleported, and I found this strategy the most time and mana efficient, believe it or not, even though it meant completely emptying my mana on each target. I cleared the right side first, careful not to step within range of the Temple, then cleared the left and went to take on the council.
My luck continued to hold. I got another fortunate draw. Only Geleb was FEB, and he always is. The others had no magic resistance. Toorc was Extra Strong and Mana Burn. Ismail was Extra Strong and Cold Enchanted. If he had gotten loose, I'd have been in REAL trouble, but I didn't plan to let them loose. Geleb was Extra Fast and LEB. This meant that two of the three were fully vulnerable to my fire attacks, and that I could likely overwhelm them with damage at some point.
So I approached from the left and raised a mass of firewalls through the windows inside the temple. I had to go around front to do this, but I was careful not to go too far. On the second round of such firewalls, the minions died. I tried several times with the bosses, raising some hydras, but mostly firewalls. Geleb spewed sparks and the bosses raised hydras, and eventually I ran low on reds from healing hydra and spark hits.
When I returned from town, Toorc was out in the front area of the temple (this happens sometimes when you go to town, I've noticed). This was actually good, though. It isolated him, I could attack him from the left without going around front. I raised firewalls and hydras on him, and used three blue potions to raise more and more and more and though he healed himself six times the damage overwhelmed him on that first try and he bit it. The flail was on the ground! One down, two to go.
With Geleb and Ismail in the main temple with the orb, I tried firewalls. I tried them over and over and over and over. But there were only two bodies in there now: no minions to trap someone in the fire. They moved around, they healed themselves. I'd go until their hydras and Geleb's sparks gradually wore me down despite my -7 MD and high resistance. I decided to switch tactics and went with all hydras. On the third attempt, Ismail finally died. Two down, but the toughest one (at least for Hotfoot) left to go.
During this time, I realized something. On arriving back from a lengthy visit to town, I noticed that the two council members there were low on health, but that they THEN healed themselves. It occurred to me that their casting of hydras only took place if they were "activated" and within range of the player. Might it also be that their healing effects worked the same way? It seemed likely. I could therefore attempt to cast Hydras and then move out of the immediate area. The boss would take damage and NOT be able to heal himself. His only window of opportunity for healing would come when I had to step back into range to cast more hydras.
So that's what I did with Geleb Flamefinger. I emptied my mana ball, casting eight hydras, then ran over to the building north of the waypoint, out of his range. I waited for my mana to recover about 2/3 of the way, and ran back to cast another 5 or 6 hydras. I repeated this about four times and saw that he was indeed losing health. But a couple of minutes later, he did heal himself from 1/3 back to full, and I had to start over. He had NOT healed himself while I was out of range, though. He did it while I was casting more hydras. So I simply repeated the process, persistently, hoping, even expecting to catch up with him sooner or later. After a total of about half an hour, I did, he died, and Quest 5 was completed. :)
In the Durance, I worked very cautiously, afraid mostly of undead flayer boss packs. None showed up, but I did have several tough bosses, including three teleporters, one of which was a Night Lord that took over ten minutes to kill. Down on level two, I found another Gem Shrine. That made three of them in Act 3, in this game. I didn't need that last one, though, and passed it up. I could perhaps have gotten a chippie off it and cubed that into a rejuv but I didn't, waiting to see what gems might drop. I really had no more need for any additional gems, except perhaps to upgrade for a bigger sale price. There were some undead flayers but not many, and my caution paid off in that these were all slain without getting more than one hit on Hotfoot at a time.
Finally it was time to face the music. I prayed that Bremm would be neither Magic Resistant nor Fire Enchanted, as I was confident I could slay the SOB as long as his resistance was not high. Well, my prayers were answered. Sort of. He was -not- MR or FE, he was MR *AND* FE!
You see him here as I am leading him around in a blaze loop. My blaze was now high enough level that I could 3x the flames sometimes, and for sure 2x them, even with a wide, long loop covering the length of the room and back. With max resist and -7 MD, the sparks that flew were a low threat. Bremm himself was a low threat, too, having only his blessed aim and the added fire/lightning damage of his enchantments, against which I had high resistance. The thing I would have feared most from him was Extra Fast, and next would have been Cursed. Cursed is really bad with LEB, because a spark will curse you. And frankly, with a Blaze tactic it is impossible to avoid the sparks, because you run into some of the slower ones when you double back -- ones that flew out the side and happen to be crossing your path on the way back. This is made much MUCH worse in 1.03 thanks to that HEINOUS invisible charged bolt bug. I pray to god they restore that to functionality, the way it was in earlier versions. If I could SEE the bolts, then I could avoid more of them.
Even so, as you can see I really hurt him with the flames. Max resist and all, it didn't take that long to get him down to half health. He would then heal himself. But over the course of 35 minutes, there were three separate incidents where I had him below 10% of remaining health. He would clearly and definitely have been dead those times, BUT FOR his Fire Enchantment and the max resistance. While the MR was a wasted ability here, making no difference, and the combo of MR and FE left Bremm a tame, almost unthreatening boss to engage (just needed some reds now and then to heal up spark and hydra damage), it also left him too strong in terms of damage resistance to get the job done. With me on the screen, and his resistance slowing my damage to 1/4 effectiveness, it was litererally impossible to kill him. If he had not had resistance, or if I had maxed Blaze, either one of those would have left the SOB dead on the floor.
Finally I gave up. My effort was noble and with better luck it would have worked. I decided to park him and, if I could, come back for him later. I used Schlonglor's TP-elsewhere-park-him-at-stairs method and moved on. Wyand turned out to be Magic Resistant LEB to go with his teleport and mana burn. Yuck. Yuckity yuck yuck. I decided right away to park him, too, and I did so, parking both him and Bremm at the stairs. Maffer was just way too much risk with the other two and Meph all still alive, because I knew he would be faster than Hotfoot, and also Extra Strong -- with two more abilities that could be even worse. So it was time to kill Mephisto. I did so, luring him to the right, into Wyand's chamber, moving out to the main room, and humiliating the poor bastard with five minutes of nonstop hydras cast safely through the door without even moving my character. I took a stray spark from his charged bolts a few times, as they danced through the door and wiggled around, but just stood there and let them hit me. I dared not move for fear of losing the wonderfully safe sweet spot I had going. Meph died the same way he did in NM: TOO EASILY. Hydra utterly owns that poor bastard in a way that nothing else does that I have seen.
I took the opportunity to go through the portal to Act 4, establishing that, sold the junk crap rare Meph left me, then returned via the waypoint to Act 3 and took my TP down to Durance 3 again.
Now it was time to try Maffer. If he wasn't Fire Enchanted, I knew I could do it, despite his speed, by running from him until I could get ahead and park him somewhere. Well... the SOB was Cursed and FE. It could not have been worse! I got a DISMAL draw here on level 3, with two bosses FEB and the other LEB and MR with Teleport and Mana Burn. Sheesh. Nevertheless, Maffer was now on my ass and I had to run and run and NOT stop nor misstep lest he slaughter me. He was GOING to catch me, being faster. That was inevitable. I had only the length of his swing duration to run out of range, and it was a frightening thing -- with even minimal lag online, I bet I'd have died there. Two trips around the entire downstairs circuit, having to run through a few Blood Lords, and I finally got away from him without having been hit. He was now parked on the right, outside Wyand's room, and I was in the center aisle. I went to town, gathered ALL of the mana potions I had been saving up in town (I pulled an all-nighter and had done the entire Act 3 in one session) -- over 20 of them -- and returned. I cast fire walls, I cast and cast and cast and cast. I drank and drank and cast and drank and cast and drank and cast and drank. I raised some Hydras, cast and drank and cast and drank. I raised more firewalls. Cast, drank, cast, drank. My FPS was CRAWLING. Maffer's health was dropping at an incredible rate! He lost half his health in under two seconds. God knows how much health he actually has, and that on top of max resistance here, and the damage being done per second must have been in the 10,000's, not counting his resistance. Another second and he's down to 1/4, then he heals. Arrgh. But his health is dropping SO fast. He heals again. He heals again. He heals, he heals, he heals... the firewalls expire. My hydras are still lighting him up, but no longer is his health dropping. I cast more firewalls as my mana regens, but then he heals a final time and it is over. I had used every mana potion I had, and three or four of my full rejuvs. And I had struck out.
If only he hadn't been resistant, he'd have been toast. If only my firewall were stronger, he'd have been toast. If only I had teleport, so I could safely blink out of range, I could have left him parked there and worn him out with Hydras the same as I did with Geleb. If only I could have slain Maffer, I could have lured out and separated the other two and slain them too. If only, if only, if only. It was not to be. I killed the last couple Blood Lords with some hydras, then retired from the battlefield, leaving the council bosses intact.
On top of that, I'd used all my mana potions, so I didn't even go back to the gem shrine. I just left.
- Sirian
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