HELL - Conclusion

ACT FOUR

My luck in Act 3 had been mixed. Some very good, some mediocre, some very bad. I had survived it all, though, and except for the Resistant bosses and that one temple with the HOPELESS stairs trap that I flipped the bird to, I had slain everything. Full-clear. And... I had not died.

By contrast, my luck in Act 4 was good, nothing but good all the way, start to finish. Not always the easiest draws, but never a bad draw, not in any area, not even once.

My good fortune started right away. I drew Cliff Lurkers, of course, and Doom Knights, and... Corpulents. That last was one of only two non-resistant foes in the Steppes, and I was grateful. With those, and with the slow Doom Knights, I knew that I would be all right; no swarms of speedy finger mages or venom lords would chase me into danger or push me out of my hydra nests. I could concentrate on the leapers. In truth, it was the Venom Lords in combo with the Leapers, not the leapers alone, that had humbled me in NM.

My first battle, was against a small pack of leapers, right at the gate. I raised many hydras, and when a leaper was pinned against the gate, stunlocked, I stacked two or three firewalls on him and he would die within moments. I did not take any hits, I did not stir up a large horde nor any bosses/champs, and I held my ground, standing right in the middle of the hydra mass. Before long, the leapers were dead. I cheered! My strategy was working brilliantly now, and what had at one point worried me as a potential disaster in the making, turned out to be a controlled fight with low risks only, thanks to my change in tactics.

The second battle, against four leapers, took place just barely to the right of the gate, and once again my pets pinned those nasties against the gate and firewalls finished them off.

I felt confident now, but not overconfident. I stuck to the plan, advanced slowly, fought carefully, and did not move around much even when attacked. Bit by bit I gained ground, until I had cleared the whole side of the Steppes along the gate and had an alley to blaze in if necessary. Well it turned out to be necessary, as I soon hit on a 4-pack of Balrog champs. Yes, actual Balrogs -- though they do seem to show up only as champs and boss packs. I think that's a bug: I think it was intended to be Balrogs there on the Steppes and the Plains, and Venom Lords only in the Chaos Sanctuary. I mean... why have Venom Lords there, then go to Pit Lords, then back to Venom Lords? It doesn't make sense, in that no other monster type does that. Oh well.

After I had the west end secured, I ventured to the south a bit, cleared a little of that, then moved north. Over on the north side, I was able to fight leapers one at a time several times, and in some of these fights I did use blaze to kill the thing. It took almost as many hydras to isolate and kill just one, as it did to take care of four or five, and took more time per kill than just blazing. So I blazed when that seemed best, but only against one or two at most. Against more, I used hydra. It was tough going out in the middle. I needed a wall or other obstacle to pin them against for quick killing. When I didn't have that, I made do, but it took longer. They hydras slowly whittling the beasties down, or else a few firewalls cast in open space, some of them at range the hydras knocked them back to, so that they'd stand in the fire at least a little bit. Other times in spots where they would pass through, get knocked back through from hydra, pass through again, repeating, taking a little extra each time. Still other times I simply missed, wasting firewalls.

On the north side, I had my largest leaper battle yet, seven at one time. Here was the result:

As you can see, they got one hit on me. My life orb is down a bit. That's about 90 damage done on one hit. These are still not monsters you want to be trifling with!

A bit later, over on the far left in a niche along the south wall, I ran into a frightening sight: a huge mass of leapers bunched in one spot. But... they were unable to reach me. I am not sure how they got there. Maybe there was an AI pathing bug and they got stuck there? I doubt they started here. But as it turned out, staying over on the left, and raising an army of pets down below, where they could shoot at the leapers, proved devastating to them. The outside one would be pinned by the mass of hydrashot, against the others stacked behind, and none of them could move!

They died one at a time, fairly quickly, right where they stood! Here you can see the last one about to bite it. What a humiliation for them! Poor things, I almost felt guilty. Then I remembered that they were leapers and I grinned. :)

Progress was steady, careful, and though there were a few exciting moments, there were no problems. One thing of note: not a SINGLE mana potion dropped at all at any point on the Steppes. I full-cleared the area and there was one minor rejuv, lots of reds, and not a single blue potion. Not that I needed them, but I am used to seeing a lot more mana potions drop, even in single player.

When I went to enter the Plains, I was met with an army of Venom Lords, Burning Souls, more Corpulents, and this Flesh Spawner boss and crew:

If you can't read that graphic, it says Extra Strong, Cursed, Magic Resistant. Do you see all the bodies on the stairs? I had 6x, 10x, 14x Blaze on those stairs. It was a brutal killing field, and even so, several Venom Lords managed to make it through that, and chase me back into the Steppes a short way. They also made it through the hydras. See the hydrashot in the upper right, at the gate? I just kept casting more and more hydras there, and blazing the stairs to kill off the things that got through to attack me. That mother boss pack spawned maybe as much as 80 to 100 young, there were at least two dozen venom lords that died on those stairs, and this standoff stretched for five minutes, ten, fifteen, with endless killing and endless more demons coming from goodness knows where, in an unending stream.

Finally the hydras killed that boss and still there were venom lords coming, I have no idea from where. I made four trips to town with items before I even set foot through that gate onto the Plains. You can see in that picture above that Hotfoot was almost to clvl 51 by now.

Now I know that most players dread the Burning Souls, but just as in D1 with Illusion Weavers and the Guardian spell, in D2 these mostly-invisible beasts are just cannon fodder for high level Hydras.

With the leapers behind me, and a critter draw of only one highly resistant foe (the Venom Lords) I expected the Plains to go more quickly than the Steppes had. I expected wrong. Those Venom Lords were quick, they were strong, and it took a lot of retreating room to kill them with blaze. They were honestly too fast for much blaze multiplication, so mostly I just ran far and steered wide of potential traps. The Burning Souls died easily to Hydras but their lightning did sting a bit, against max resist and -3 MD. I was careful not to move too quickly, and I had to work about as hard as I did in the Steppes. In fact, several times I opted to retreat down the stairs instead of running around, when several were on my tail.

Then there was Izual. He, too, was a bit speedy. Though there are many factors that make Hell considerably more difficult, and higher hitpoints, higher damage, and better to-hit have to be taken seriously, I think in the final analysis, the worst factor for a sorcie (in single player, where lag isnt an issue) is the SPEED. The extra speed everything gets really changes the way you have to play. Even with Izzy, who has ungodly health but not much offense, I had to sprint a lot. I opted for a single-line approach, with 2x flames. I would run a long line down most of the length of the Plains, along the south wall where the gate was, then do a short loop and backtrack along the same trail. With high level blaze, I could do this and get 2x flames the whole length, and completely minimize my risks. It took a while. I dedicated both bonus points to Warmth.

I found another Gem Shrine out here. Venom Lords continued to force me into long retreats but the work was fairly routine, and I never made any foolish moves. Finally cleared the Plains and it was on to the City.

I had another brutal stand at the stairs. There were Abyss Knights here, and Stygian Hags, and Pit Lords. Not the easiest draw, but not too bad. Abyss Knights were a threat, but hydras can peg them from a distance. Fire actually eats up the vile mothers nicely, and particularly the young. But once again, these Hell difficulty balrog types were both quick to move and slow to die. I spent at least ten minutes fighting right at the stairs. There was a Maw Fiend boss pack in a cage right at the stairs, and I played it cautiously, afraid of a one-shot spit kill. When I made my way into the City, I quickly found yet another gem shrine, and by now I had about six mana potions, so I hit the shrine for a chippie and cubed it. This makes five gem shrines found in Hell mode (all in acts 3 and 4), one in NM, and two in Normal. Eight total, and not a single one of them in Act 1.

The pace again was slower than I expected, but that was all right. In terms of the time and resources needed to kill the balrogs, it was honestly comparable to the leapers. If I were to have gotten both at once in the Steppes, as I did in NM, it might have been pretty tough. My item finds raised a good amount of cash but I found nothing useful.

Entering the River, it was quite hairy for the first minute or so. My draw here was a lucky one: Grotesques, Urdars and Maw Fiends. I played cautiously, but for the first time in Hell Act 4 my progress was actually quick. I reached a fork in the road and went south, but -thought- that I recognized an indication that I was heading to Hell Forge, so I backtracked and went the other way. I wanted to reach the River waypoint so that I would have two ways in just in case Hephasto forced me all the way to the stairs at some point. I was also realistic about the possibility of having to restart if he was a Teleporter.

It wasn't long before the River was cleared, and I had really only one option for fighting Heph: that fork in the road. It was the square kind with an island in the center, that has only one entrance, on the right. When Thrower had completed normal, he'd fought Heph in a place like this and simply run around the island in circles. I didn't think I needed to do that here. All I needed was to block his access to me and cast hydras until he died. So what I did was open a TP on the island, and planned to retreat there. If he did not follow, I could kill him from there. If he DID follow, or eventually find his way to me, I could duck through the TP and then return via the City waypoint and hope that he would be trapped on that island.

My luck held up! He was Stone Skin and Mana Burn -- an easy draw. I retreated onto the island, he did not follow quickly enough. I parked Hotfoot in the bottom left corner of the island and started raising hydras. It took a long time, Heph did a lot of retreating and constantly had me worried with his restless wanderings that he would find his way to me, but he never did. Some twenty-ish minutes later, he died. I sold the three big gems from the forge, cubed the other.

The remainder of the River, past Hadriel, was routine. There was a FEB Venom Lord boss not far inside the sanctuary, and he forced me all the way back almost to Hadriel, but I ran him in circles on a loop in the river and he eventually died. Rest of the Chaos Sanctuary took time, but frankly it was routine. Once all the monsters were cleared, it was time for the seals. I like to start with De Seis, so I did. And dammit, that SOB and his crew appeared almost instantly right ON the seal. Luckily for me, I had raised a portal RIGHT THERE was able to click on it just as the mages materialized. WAY too close of a call for my taste. You could frankly call that a stairs trap. Good grief!

But it did have one positive effect. It trapped the whole lot of them at the seal. When I came back, I stayed on the lower side and cast hydras across the split. My pets butchered them! :)

De Seis and crew are north of me in that screenshot. They all died up there, slain by hydra fire. This was a piece of cake but for the initial danger of the ambush right at the seal. I'd have been slain there if I hadn't had a TP waiting. You can't see in the shots, but he was Extra Fast and Mana Burn.

De Seis left me a nice armor: DR almost 500, and -40% req, making it usable for Hotfoot if desired. I kept it, but did not wear it.

I moved on to the Infector. Once again I had to use the TP exit trick, but this time it was not a close call at all. When I got back, I lured out a few minions or two at a time. They were a LOT faster than me, but just as with Maffer in Act 3, faster doesn't automatically mean I get hit. The Venom Lords' attack animation is actually a little slow, and I never took a hit from the minions.

As you can see here, the Infector was cold and lightning enchanted -- another easy draw, to be frank. I didn't even get hit by any sparks. I just kept sprinting, in long straight lines mostly. I was much MUCH more afraid of his melee than those piddly charged bolts.

My excellent luck in this Act 4 held up right to the end. The Vizier was the last foe before the end, and his extra abilities turned out to be irrelevant. My luck had been dismal on Durance 3, but not here. Not here. :)

The Vizier was slow enough that I could multiply my Blaze. I was careful not to take on him and his whole gang at one time, though. I lured them out in ones and twos. The Vizier died more quickly than I could have hoped. I had come, at last, to the end of Hotfoot's journey.

...

DIABLO

Hotfoot faced down Diablo at clvl 52 with the following skills:

Hydra @ 16 Blaze @ 15 Warmth @ 13 Fire Mastery @ 8 Firewall @ 6 Meteor @ 1 Enchant @ 1 Fireball @ 1 Inferno @ 1 Firebolt @ 1

Note: all skills +1 thanks to Magefist.

Str 75, Dex 25, Vit 90, Nrg 160, Stamina 205, Life 477, Mana 436

Def 285, Blocking 44, Fire Res 69, Cold Res 68, Lit Res MAX, Poison Res 49

Equipment:

Ocher Cuirass of Colossus, DR 198, +58 Life, 6% Lit Resist - found off a boss in Great Marsh, Hell Act 3 Rare Cap, +32 Life, +Fire/Cold/Poison Resists in 26-29% range, -1 damage, -1 MD - gambled in Hell Act 3 Gemmed Tower Shield, three perfect Diamonds, resists +51-52% - completed Kurast Causeway, Hell Act 3 Rare Light-Plated Boots, Fastest Run, +26 Cold Res, +44 Lit Res, +14 Fire Resist - gambled in Act 2 NM Magefist - gambled in Act 2 NM Sharkskin Belt of Stability - Fastest Hit Recovery - found in Act 2 Hell Wyrm's Bone Wand of Magus, +49 Mana, Fastest Cast - bought from Ormus in NM Ring, +33 Lit Resistance, -2 Magic Damage - Gambled in Hell Act 3 Rare Ring, +39 life, +28 Fire res, +22 Poison Res, +47% gold, and two other minor bonuses - Diablo Normal Rare Amulet, +38 Life, +11 Cold Res, +2 LR, +24% chance magic item, two minor bonuses - De Seis Normal

...

To greet Diablo, I cast a full mana ball of hydras on top of his pentagram, then drank three blues (not all at once) and cast more hydras there. Then I opened the seal and the battle was joined. Diablo was somewhat pissed by my greeting for him, but all is fair in war. :) It was nice, for once, to turn the tables on the game and gave IT a stairs trap of my own devising! :)

Diablo took a beating from that initial barrage was already down to about 3/4 health. We danced around and I pretty much stayed off screen. He hit me a bit with some of his fire nova attack. His fire-river attack really made my frames crawl. I guess by now my RAM was really junked up, having played all of Act 4 in one play session. And then with still well over half his health, the poor bastard made a fatal move. He got into this corner, shown below, with me over to the right.

The pentagram is off the bottom of the screen there. Diablo sat in that corner, shooting at me but his attacks blocked by the wall. I cast Hydras where you see them, and his humilation was quite nearly complete!

He went from robust health down to barely a sliver before he figured out how to get out of there and charge at me. But I avoided him, and he ended up trapped in the OTHER corner now, the idiot. A few hydras more and he died there, trapped in a soft corner like a caged rat. You can see his ghost departing the body. I drank all of one minor rejuv throughout the entire fight, and even that was not NEEDED. I just liked the idea of keeping my health topped off in case he landed a melee charge somehow.

And so it ended. Complete-game clear by a Fire-Skills-Only sorceress.

Number of deaths incurred in Normal: zero.

Number of deaths incurred in Nightmare: one.

Number of deaths incurred in Hell Acts 1 and 2: two (including the absent-minded suicide in the Arcane).

Number of deaths incurred in Hell Acts 3 and 4: zero.

Monsters parked because I could not kill them: Three. Total. In the entire game across all difficulties. The survivors? All on Durance lvl 3, Hell Act 3: the council bosses. (Could have, would have killed even those if they hadn't all been Fire Resistant, or if my skills had been stronger). Rest of game, completely cleared.

Next up for me? Trying this in Hardcore with a Meteor specialist Hot Babe. Also, writing my guide on the Fire Tree, both for Hot Babes and for general use of Fire Skills -- the tree with style and strategy. :)

As you can see, you DON'T need Static Field at all, nor even Teleport, to finish the game in single player without any deaths. Of my deaths, all were easily preventable: Death 1 was my own inexperience and overconfidence combined with the wrong strategic approach. Death 2 was in the tower quest, Hell, something no hardcore character would bother with. Death 3 was just a brain fart. This COULD have been done without a death.

Hotfoot retires on a good note. I had a blast. :) If you decide to try your own Hot Babe, I hope you have just as much fun.

Peace.

- Sirian

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