ACT ONE
Skeletor begins Hell Difficulty at clvl 38, with 25 Str/Dex, 85 Vit and 140 Nrg.
Raise Skeleton @ 3 (+2 from wand)
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 5 (+3 from wand)
Skeleton Mastery @ 20
Summon Resist @ 4
Clay Golem @ 1
Golem Mastery @ 1
Amplify @ 1
Weaken @ 1
Terror @ 1
Iron Maiden @ 3
Life Tap @ 1
Decrepify @ 1
Lower Resist @ 1
Dim Vision @ 1
Confuse @ 1
All Skills +2, from Wormskull and Eye of Etlich
Superior Yew Wand: +2 Raise Skel, +3 Raise Mage - bought from Drognan in Normal
Wormskull: +1 Necro Skills, +10 Mana, +25 Poison Resistance - found Canyon of Magi, NM
Bloodfist: +40 Life, Fastest Hit Recovery, +5 Minimum Damage - gambled Act 2 Normal
Rare Quilted Armor: Fastest Recovery, +59 Life, +21 Fire Resist, +18 Lit Resist - gambled Act 1 NM
Eye of Etlich: +1 Skills, +3 Light, 1-3 Cold Damage, 5% Life Leech - gambled Act 3 NM
Bone Shield: +58 Life - found Act 4 Normal
Rare Boots: Fastest Run, +13 Fire Res, +14 Lit Res, +16 Mana, +98% Gold - gambled Act 2 NM
Demonhide Sash: +59 Life - found Stony Field, Act 1 NM
Rare Ring: +24 Lit Res, +40 Fire Res, -2 Magic Damage, +1 Light - Gidbinn reward in NM
Ring: +49 Cold Resistance - gambled Act 3 NM
Civerb's Icon - gambled Act 4 Normal
Rare Amulet with cold and lightning resistance - gambled Act 2 NM
Hotspur, Greyform, Nokozan Relic, Nagelring, two perfect and one flawless Diamond.
When I started this character, I did not expect to play past the end of Nightmare. Three factors have led Skeletorr into Hell Difficulty: 1) He is enormously fun to play, 2) He is still alive, 3) I underestimated the power of the skills themselves.
Skeleton Mastery pumped to its max may still leave an individual skeleton or mage in the puny range, but in numbers and with prudent strategy/tactics they can provide a force to be reckoned with. Also, my main necro experience had previously come from the Realms (my only 3dot Realm char at this time is my EST Necro) and it turns out that the jump to lagless play here in single player empowers the curse tree more than I anticipated. Finally, the combination of curses and a decked out skeletal army works wonders. Without full support from the curse tree, this would be much tougher if not impossible.
Thanks to Bolty's recent skill progression formula tables published on the Lurker Lounge, I finally have the inside info on necromage damage. The damage increase is one point per slvl of Mastery, and the initial range for damage is in the 1-7 range, generally. This means that with my slvl 20+2 mastery, my mages are doing somewhere in the range from 23-29 damage per hit against nonresistant targets. However, it turns out that firebolt-shooting mages get a double damage bonus from mastery! Their power is increased by two points per Mastery level. This makes the fire mages the most valuable, by far, for general use, as they are doing 45-50 damage per hit with my level of mastery.
Why not try to get all fire mages then? Well, theoretically that sounds nice, but in practice you don't have the corpses to waste most of the time. Poison does not stack, so I prefer to keep two or three poison mages at most. I will unsummon extras if there are bodies to spare. At times when going up against known LEBs, like Fangskin or Stormtree, I will unsummon the lightning mages, too, if I can. Otherwise I live with what I get. There are a wide variety of enemy resistances, and you never know what kinds of boss abilities the enemy will have, so the best mix is usually a well rounded mix. A couple extra fire mages can be nice, but mostly this happens out of luck, not planning. You also occasionally get a large army, even ten or more mages, with none of a particular element -- including fire. You can still be highly effective, as cold mages chill the enemy and few things resist both lightning and poison at the same time.
Having said all that, my plans for Skeletorr in Hell include mainly pumping up his Curse tree: specifically Dim Vision, Iron Maiden, and Confuse, in that order. I also plan to get a +2 skills wand and add more points into mages to increase my artillery power. I have ten mages now. Twelve to fourteen looks like a good target. I have little or no need to add to skeletons, as seven seems adequate there. Better to add to Dim Vision and Iron Maiden for keeping threats at bay. The only purpose for the skeleton warriors is to form a wall of protection for the mages to buy them the time to get the kills -- that and to protect Skeletorr himself from being targetted.
So on to the Blood Moor. With Dim Vision at slvl 1+2, my once-healthy 5.4 second duration in Nightmare has been cut to 2.7 seconds here in Hell. Now that may seem like unplayably short duration, but I can recurse a single target or small group of targets over and over. I did this with the quill rats and zombies once I had a few mages to work with, but I found that Lower Resist worked better against the rats and Iron Maiden vs the zombies, when it came to keeping my warriors alive. You see, Dim Vision does not blind enemies against targets that are standing right next to them. So dimming zombies when I had only mages was one thing -- get a free ride at risk to no one but the readily replaceable golem -- but skeletal warriors will charge right up to any nearby targets, so unless there is some dire threat from ranged attackers that is more urgent to quell, Dimming is not the best option. Against hard-hitting melee opponents, Iron Maiden (even low level) is a good choice, while Lower Resist works better for getting the kill more quickly against weak-hitting opponents. One exception to all of this is certain enemy AI behaviors. For example, rogue archers and lightning spitter dogs, they won't run if Dimmed. Same with Spiders, Vampires, Apes, Fetishes and Zakarumites. Shamen and Hollow Ones will not raise their slain minions, and Fetish shamen will not use inferno while Dimmed.
Surprisingly, Skeletorr did not have a complete army until he'd cleared two thirds of the Moor. Many warriors died to zombie blows. This did not bode well for Skeletorr's long term survival. If he could barely stay ahead of the corpse curve with normal critters in the Moor, how was he going to deal with actual threats? However, I was not dismayed. If worse came to worst, I could abandon full clears and run through the mandatory areas with mages-only and plenty of DV, or in the worst cases of all, even perhaps Terrorize things out of my way and simply run through or past whole areas, if there was no way to clear them.
Skel's poor maintenance curve continued in the Den of Evil, with almost every body that hit the floor needed to replace another fallen warrior. Corpsefire, for example, smashed all my warriors, and he had fire and cold enchantments plus his Spectral Hit for some resistance, so I ended up holding him still with golems, using Lower Resist, and standing well back out of the explosion radius as my mages wore him down. I was able to restock my army before I quit the Den, though, and the skill point was immediately added to DV, upping duration to 3.2 seconds and adding another bit of radius.
The Cold Plains held rogues, fallen, and garg beasts as always, yet I ended up Dimming more than I expected to, in order to shut up the shamen. Other times, I stuck golly in their faces, as their melee attack in Hell mode rather stings, and they will suicide against Iron Maiden more quickly than you might expect. This can only be done when there are warriors to shield the mages, though. At times, my warriors were all dead, and I had to go with DV nonstop until enough new bodies dropped from which to recruit new infantry.
Skeletorr leveled up and I added another point to Dim Vision, extending the duration to a playable 3.7 secs. I also faced the harsh reality that Skeletorr's resists were dismal. Dismal! Cold -1, Lit 8, Poison -25. Only Fire had positive double digit resistance. That was all fine and dandy in Nightmare, but this is Hell. Random bosses will have three abilities, while most Super Uniques (such as Bishibosh) will have their fixed stats plus up to two random abilities. Thus, as already seen, I might have to deal with Fire/Cold enchanteds with a double death explosion, or extra strong spectral hit types who can lay a serious smack on you with any element, or multishot archers, possibly MS with cold or lightning. Yes, my minions can shield me, but they will also mindlessly target anything in range, thus setting off sparks and explosions or attracting multiple shots that might penetrate them to hit me, so it just won't do to ignore the risks.
Good thing I collected diamonds, yes? "Just in case" I survive to Hell mode? :)
This presents a problem for Skeletorr, though. He lacks the strength for a 3D tower shield. In fact, at this point, if I put all my points into strength, it would take me another nine levels to have enough for that. That was never an option. No, the real choice now is whether to go with a Small shield, with only two sockets and a Str req of 25, or to boost strength to 34 and use a socketed Large shield. You may laugh, but the Small shield was a real option when I planned the char. If I had not had diamonds waiting, I would have gone with the Small, no hesitation. However, with two perfs and a flawless, the likelihood of finding a gem shrine in time to matter seemed reasonable. And if not, I could socket the flawless and it would still give me another 14 or 15 resist to all (not sure of the number). Looking at my sad resists now, that seemed worth 9 points into strength. The only question left now was whether or not I would survive through another level up, as this one could only get me halfway to that Large shield Str req of 34.
Skeletorr boosted his strength to 29, then added the last point to Vit, taking that to 86. Might as well, right?
Now on to the business of Act One. Skeletorr had cleared out the Den and the Moor, but I had NO intentions of doing that in the Cold Plain. Remember how Act Three went in Nightmare? Skeletorr ranging back and forth from the Flayer Jungle to the Marsh, or from the Kurast Temples to the Sewer, where he could recruit new armies? I knew I would have to work that way here in Hell, particularly in Act One, where there are so many bosses -- and worse, many of them in tight spaces, many of them archers (nasty nasty stuff, there, especially multishot. ANY Mutliple Shots archer boss poses an extreme threat, and some can be dire enough to one-shot-kill your character when cursed even with 500 life, as Hotfoot found out).
So why bother to full clear at all? Why not skip all those nassssty nasty fights in the caves and push on through? Well, because I'm feeling my oats, you might say. I'd never have considered full clearing past Nightmare when I started this character, but dammit, I LIKE playing Skeletorr, and the most exciting thing about him is how MUCH different the bosses play out. Every ability they have poses a different challenge to Skel's army, and I want to enjoy the ride. Call me daring, call me foolish, call me reckless... just don't call me chicken, because that I'm not. :)
Got a full army? Yep. So down into the Cave we go. Coldcrow awaits.
Ah, there she is. DV to quiet her minions, warriors and golems to occupy the old crow while my mages shoot down the rest of the targets. Warriors dropping in alarming numbers, now all dead. I have to keep refreshing the golem or she will target ME, and that double element hit, particularly with -1 Cold Resist, is not a slap I care to endure. My mages took over a minute to wipe out most of her minions and the assorted skeletons and hungry dead in the area, all the while I'm standing there having to balance refreshing DV with its 3.7 duration, and occupying Coldcrow. This was quite the active minute, I must say, and the adrenalin does flow. Finally the minions thin out and Coldcrow loses her courage. I herd her into a corner, where Golly will keep her pinned while Lower Resist softens her up for the artillery barage.
Normally it would be good to have so many fire mages, but like Corpsefire before her, she is FEB, and even lower resist does not cut through her fire shielding enough to compare to the damage being done by that lone charged bolt necromage, who is laying into her with lightning, against which she now has negative resistance. So you see, it almost always is best to have a rounded balance. You just never know which elements will do you best. Better to be steady and rounded, able to deal with any threat, than to be uberstrong against some threats, and shut out from others through resistance. (This is ultimately why the Cold Tree is a steadier ride than the Fire Tree, thanks to their Mastery effects. Of course, steady rides aren't always the most fun, but a skeleton army already represents the antithesis of the steady ride, so no need to exagerate that by looking to specialize your mages in one or two elements).
Down now to the lower level, where there are sure to be one or two boss/champ encounters. What will fate provide for me here? Ah yes, Fanaticism Teleportation. Well, that is not quite as bad as Extra Fast Teleport (those things teleport SO much, it's hard to get a handle on them. Remember Wyand in Nightmare?)
Skeleton melee boss. That's a slow-moving monster type, so that helped a bit. Still, it was disconcerting to have him blinking all over the place. Most of my warriors got smashed in the process.
I pressed on through the lower level. I know it's small, but this one in particular has dead ends, while the other three Level 2's all have a more open flow to them. Restocked my forces from the bodies of the Fallen in the lower right. Ah, there's the chest. This area seems to be clear.
Huh? I just got CURSED?
"OH SHIT!" I said out loud.
I had Hotfoot flashbacks like you would not believe. Poor Hotfoot died in part because I didn't run like bloody Hell the moment she got cursed by a multishot archer. That one turned out to be Extra Strong on her third ability. I didn't stop to check what this one had. I GOT SKELETORR THE HELL OUT OF THERE.
She decimated my troops, but two mages survived. I raised more from the leftover bodies around the level, got maybe six more? I don't remember. I wasn't about to run, but I would be VERY careful. I occupied her with a golem, but that multishot ability is a real pain. She shot at the golem and some of her arrows flew past to strike down mages. I finally spotted her third ability: Cold Enchanted.
After losing two more mages to stray arrows, I was down now to four and wondering if I was about to get booted out of there. I knew that Iron Maiden/Golem would NOT cut it alone against an archer boss. I wised up and recast my golem to her side, so that her spill-over shots would be directed away from my surviving troops. She ran a bit, then ran some more, up into that dead end above the chest, where she had started. I killed some of her minions, then some Fallen, that had been cowering up there, and raised a couple more mages. Then she fled almost all the way into the corner, and I cast my golem BEHIND her to keep her attention occupied while Lower Resist and my few mages shot her down.
Now that's a fight to die for! :)
Sometimes, sometimes I really love this game. There are moments worth experiencing, like this one.
With the Cave cleared out, I followed the road through the Cold Plain to the next area. Turns out I chose the road to Stony Field, which was fine with me. I was content to save as much of the Cold Plain as possible, and would do the same with the Field. I would follow the road right to the UGP, not even bother to look for the waypoint or Rakanishu.
Remember in Nightmare, I ran into a second Leb with Rakanishu, and my army was slaughtered, including dozens of fresh recruits, and I finally beat the second LEB with just a mage or two? What do you think are the odds of encountering another dual-LEB formation in the Field?
To make matters worse, that is a Holy Fire aura, too. Gah!
Holy Fire and Holy Shock are usually just annoyances. Holy Shock is double strength compared to Holy Fire, so it can be a particular pain, but mostly these just force more potion use. To Skeletorr, though, they present a DIRE threat. His mages have 61 life each. 61! That ain't much! Summon Resist helps, and each necromage gets a resistance boost to its own element, but 61 life does not last long against these flash attacks. There is no defense. The only choice is either to let your mages die, or repeatedly port out of there for a town healing. In some circumstances, the town port works fine. In others, you just can't do it.
I would have done it here, but all the sparks slew my troops anyway. The stones were near the entrance and Rak was also on the loose, so with two LEBs, the Holy Fire didn't have time to matter. Fortunately, lots of crows and fallen ones to recruit more troops, so I just hung on and managed the fight as best I could.
You can see in the picture that most of the Cold Plain remains unexplored. I might have gone back there for more troops, but the Stony Field was just as good for that. Once I raised all the bodies, including Rak and the Crow boss that you see in the shot above, Skel's army was nearly back to full strength anyway.
I followed the road up and to the right. Only had to clear about a quarter of the Field to get there. I ducked into the Passage, intending to make a beeline to Tristram, get Cain online, get through the tough boss encounters along the way with minimal waste of resources -- backtrack to recruit new armies if required -- then only later clean up the Raven quest and crypts, the rest of the UGP and anything else I skipped. I would likely get wiped out several times in the Forgotten Tower, though, so I wouldn't full clear the early parts of the game until at least the Marsh was cleaned out. That would probably be my stopping point for the day.
So what does the game give me in the Passage? A tasty boss treat! Yum yum.
Have I mentioned how annoying Extra Fast Teleportation combo can be? The only thing worse would be to add Lightning Enchanted. EF Teleporters are so itchy. Good grief. This puppy took a while to down, and I had to use a combination of Decrep and LR. At least he wasn't magic resistant. That Stone Skin ability is annoying when you are relying on Iron Maiden, but it was harmless here.
I pressed on through the UGP mainly with Dim Vision. This took its toll on my warriors, but my mages loved it. Rogues and spitter dogs kindly stood around in blissful ignorance while my troops shot them down.
I found the exit having cleared only about half the Passage. Out now to the Dark Wood, land of Dim Vision. Dim those quill rats, Dim those skeleton archers, Dim those antsy rogues and carvers. DV DV DV.
Whoops, there's Treefist. Cursed, too. Just what I need, a speedy little Hephasto or Sszark running loose in Act One.
This is one of those times I'm glad I have an army of minions instead of one lone golem.
You know, that would be another interesting Hardcore Necro to try: a golem specialist. No skels or revives, no bone walls or prisons, minimal direct damage (maybe some low level Bone Spirit and CE for support) -- and see how that compares to Skeletorr. Yes, I think I'll do that. You know would might also be cool? To try Revives with no Iron Maiden. That might get really interesting, managing that sort of army. I'd have to allow Iron Maiden at slvl 1 as prereq to get Life Tap, and I might allow its use to help get the FIRST body to drop, but once a body drops, no more IM. Rely on the Revives as a melee force (magic too, I suppose). I still, as yet, have no experience with Revive skill, though, so I will probably make that char softcore and use Iron Maiden freely up to clvl 30, when the real fun can begin. Might also stay in Normal until clvl 30, then run through NM and Hell with the Melee Revive army, see how much fun that is. (Softcore, so that if I kick the bucket, the fun isn't gone. This would be my Hotfoot equivalent: exploring part of the game being slightly more important to me there than not ever dying. I get the sense that the Revive skill could be a LOT of fun to play with, if used for more than just making sturdy targets for Iron Maiden).
Finding Treefist means finding the Tree, and the scroll. I searched around for the waypoint, too, found it, then it was off to see Akara, translate the scroll, return to the Cold Plain waypoint and walk up the road to the Circle of Stones. Cain, here we come! The Hardly Able Crew to the rescue!
So I head counterclockwise around the perimeter of Tristram. That is usually (not always) the safest way, and it avoids waking Griswold for a while. There were Night Clan champs but these were dispatched. There were Carver Shaman champs and these exacted a heavy price from my warriors. I grabbed Wirt's gold, freed Cain, then wound around the far side of town and hit a brick wall. Yikes!
Let me tell you, at -1 Cold Resistance, those arrows STING. They also made short work of my battle worn troops. With no army left, I fled. I lured Griswold after me, then dispatched him with Golly/IM and got out of there.
"I'll be back," I told the MS teleporting archer, in my best Schwartzenegger voice.
Akara handed me a junkety junk junk ring. I handed it back, took my 1.5k in gold and went gambling. My gamble turned up a Summoner's Amulet of Amelioration. Well... that's not too bad. I kept it, as it gave me a choice between -50 Poison Length or +3 Light Radius (from Etlich) on my +1 skill amulet. I figured that in Act Two, there would be places I'd rather have the poison help.
Back now to the Cold Plain for more recruiting. I rounded up an army out of the rogues and fallen, then returned to Tristram to tackle the multishot boss. I'll spare you the details: he won that second round, too. Next time I am skipping the Lower Resist and going all Decrep all the time. We'll see what he thinks of that!
Back once more to the Cold Plains. Just as I got a full army going, I ran across the Fallen Camp. Now seemed a good time to engage them, as I would need that full army to tackle Bishibosh. The infamous shaman boss was in a bad mood today and refused to cooperate with Skeletorr.
I ultimately had to slay all his minions first (and immediately raise them as warriors, to prevent their resurrection). Then a combination of Decrep and LR assisted the mages in taking him down. Stubborn little bastard. On the other hand, while he was tough to kill, he did not pose any significant threat, either. So he does not quite compare to these Multiple Shots archers I've been encountering.
The Burial Grounds lay a short distance east of the Fallen camp. I led a full army in there to slay Raven. Once my troops got her pinned, she fell easily, amid much growling and scowling.
With a full army now, and my Rogue companion Klaudia, we cleared the Mausoleum. The Hungry Dead boss down there was of little note. Skeletorr emerged from there with a full army and decided to head back to Tristram for the third time. They say the third time is the charm, right?
Behold the power of Decrepify!
Klaudia survived that blast. This made me wonder if mercenaries benefit from the Summon Resist skill. I would think not, but such a bug in this game would not surprise me.
At last, Tristram was clear.
I rounded up replacements from the mobs of undead around the perimeter of the Burial Grounds, clearing that area, then went down into the Crypt in search of Bonebreaker.
On my way back to the Stony Field, I cleaned up the last of the Cold Plain. Might as well, there were only a few critters left. Once again I followed the road to the Underground Passage. Clearing the rest of the first level offered no trouble, although my warrior head count rose and fell from battle to battle. I stuck mainly with DV. Down on level two, the boss proved to be a dangerous beast. Yep, you guessed it: an archer.
Things looked OK when I took that screenshot. Five seconds later, all my ground troops, half my mages, and Klaudia were all dead. I took a cursed arrow hit that gave me a Hell of a scare, drank a rejuv, fought on with golems decoying and mages firing, did not give up until my last mage was slain. Ack.
I opened a portal on level one near the stairs down, healed in town, restocked belt, gambled a bit, then ran from the Plain waypoint to the Field, where a new recruitment drive was launched. I hurried the best I could, found the Stony Field waypoint finally, and had a full army, but by the time I re-entered the portal (taking the shortcut -- my other travel went through two waypoints) the boss was back to full health anyway. Just took too long! I tried to find a sweet spot and lead my mages to it. I switched from LR to Decrep and that helped. The boss was taken down, finally, and I recruited new troops from all the fallen ones down on that second level. So now the UGP has been fully cleared, and Skeletorr is still alive. He is nearing another level up, at which point I will socket the two perfs I have, surrender the 58 Hit Points on the bone shield (though I will stash the shield for Duriel use later) and finally get some positive resistances.
With half the Stony Field and over half the Dark Wood yet uncleared, I ported to the Wood and followed the road to the Black Marsh. Skeletorr gets lots of exercise moving back and forth from place to place. Not only that, he can't move too quickly. He mostly walks, and even then he outwalks his troops and must pause periodically to let them catch up, or even go back to find lost sheep before they are eaten by the unforgiving game code. If lost sheep have become stuck in the mud somewhere, I will often just port to town to unstick them -- perhaps gamble and check for wands. I am always checking Akara now for wands, looking for that elusive "Necromancer's" wand with +2 skills. I have spotted some Arch-Angel's staves, so I know I'm in the range for the wands to show up.
Just inside the Marsh, my entire army is flashed with Holy Freeze. Um... yay?
I headed away from the road (looking for the waypoint, the Hole, or the Tower... but not the Highland). Working clockwise around the perimeter led me to both the Tower and the Hole, very near each other on the east side of the Marsh. They weren't that far from the Woods entrance (and waypoint) so I was content to prepare to head down into the Tower. Just a couple more fights and I should level up. I wanted that shield change before tackling the nasty encounters in the Countess's realm.
Fate smiled on Skeletorr and handed him a Gem shrine. I upgraded my flawless diamond, then leveled up three critters later. What perfect timing!
Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about: some real resistance. I added my skill point to Dim Vision, increasing it to slvl 4+2 for 4.2 seconds duration. The radius increase is also important. I can count on two more levels of skill from the wand when I get one. That would put me at slvl 8 total, and duration of 5.2 seconds. I might be able to live with that. We'll see. My life is no longer over 500. You can bet that my next level up points will go into Vitality.
I know that some players are fond of dividing their stat points a bit here and a bit there each level. Not me. I almost always put all five points into one stat. The only exceptions come when I am looking to meet a specific item requirement, in which case I may put some into Str or Dex, the rest to Vit or Energy to get some immediate extra benefit. I generally plan out my stat distribution ahead of time and know how much of each I will want to get. Rather than increasing gradually, I like the big hit of all five points into one stat. I don't think this is necessarily better, but I don't think spreading it out holds any advantage either. I'm just not big on the steady ride concept.
Time now to tackle the Countess. The first level of the temple offered me the stairs down almost right away. I had a bad feeling about that level for some reason and decided I'd make a beeline for the Countess, as safely as possible, then worry later about cleaning up the areas I missed. So down to level two already, and good thing I now have 57 more points of Cold Resistance. Can you say Yikes?? My third Multishot CEB archer this game, and this one in the tightest space yet.
That mana burn stung, and so did the hits in general. I could not avoid some hits, though. This made me wish I had Slow Missiles on hand. I tried valiantly to distract the boss with golems but she would NOT cooperate. One time she ran headlong into the heart of my formation and downed several mages with her next couple of volleys. Ouch ouch ouch. I finally got her away from my troops and finished her off with just a couple surviving mages and a golem decoy. I made well sure to stay out of the blast radius, as I have still not been able to determine definitively whether that frost nova on MS CEBs is multiplied or not.
I ported out, ducked through the waypoint to the Stony Field, and quickly rounded up some crows and a few goats as new recruits. Waypoint back to town, down into the tower cellar.
Level Three had a sad devil kin boss. He died.
To open level four, the game stuck me in a sardine can with an Extra Strong Teleportation Stone Skin goat blood clan boss. If he teleported next to me and got a critical hit, Skeletorr could be assassinated in one shot. Did I run? No. I'm a freakin lunatic. :)
Well, that, and the fact that I had all these mages around me. The odds of him blinking next to me and getting off a hit AND criticaling me seemed remote. I let Iron Maiden, even cut to one fourth effectiveness by the Stone Skin, do its thing.
Now see, this is where an Iron Golem rules the day: Stone Skin bosses. You can Amplify, cutting that physical resistance from 75% to -25%, quintupling the damage, and let Golly's own thorns teach the SSB a lesson he won't soon forget! Of course, Skel can only dream of Iron Golems. He is lucky to have a golem at all, even if it is a weak little Clay Golem at slvl 1.
Down on level five, another Extra Strong goat.
I Dimmed the Countess's minions and let my mages shoot them down. I lost all my warriors in the firewall. Blah. They are so stupid sometimes. I wish I had that feature from the game Dungeon Keeper: SLAP your minions to let them know you are displeased with them (or just to get them to work faster, hehe).
Then the Countess, and I just knew she would have unfavorable abilities. Sure enough:
Well, there goes the rest of my army! That Stone Skin once again made things difficulty for Iron Maiden, and the sparks dramatically cut Golly's life expectancy. I raised mages from the Countess's minions to help me, but they didn't last long. Iron Maiden finally did her in, and the useless Tower quest was completed.
That quest offers you nothing essential, but you must admit, with all the nasty bosses you encounter down there, it's a bit of a proving ground for Hardcore characters. The meek, the lagging, and the inexperienced need not apply!
Back to the Stony Field to round up more troops. Levels two through five have been cleared, but there is still level one to check out. Probably no big deal, but it won't be a full clear if I skip it.
Ah, look. There was a boss there after all. See? Probably a good thing I passed her by until now. She looks like a tough customer to me.
Yep, she's a tough customer all right. She wiped out my whole army pretty quickly, between her sparks and her triple damage. I tried LR to smack her down, but she ate my golems so quickly I couldn't spam them fast enough. Just a momentary lapse and she would turn and target my mages, downing one per shot. Her sparks had already wiped out most of my troops anyway.
Well, this is why I play Skeletorr the way I do: working hither and thither, looking for the tough fights while I have a full army, saving the easy encounters for recruitment. I ported out of there, ducked to the Stony Field and quickly rounded up a new army. Back down the portal, and this time I made it in time for her health not to be restored. It's a good thing bosses do not regenerate. The game would be hopeless for low offense char builds like Skeletorr.
So round two. I lured her out of that cubby hole she started in and fought her in the main corridor. Most of my troops died in the first seconds, but I did keep a few mages alive long enough to sting her a bit. She did not cooperate, though. She ran from Golly repeatedly, and always seemed to find a vantage point from which to target more mages. She did not take long to shoot them all down.
I went again to the Stony Field, which was almost depleted now. I rounded up my third army to throw at her and returned to the battle. She was still wounded, but this skirmish went very badly very quickly, and soon my troops were all dead and almost no progress had been made. Well, dammit, enough of that.
I retooled my hotkeys, went to town and bought all of Akara's potion supply. Good grief, why is she still selling STRANGLING GAS and FULMINATING in Hell Difficulty? Can anybody explain this to me?? I bought them anyway, and refreshed her via the waypoint a couple of times to buy more. Oh, what I would do for Oil and Rancid potions. Oh well.
Back down now, and my plan is to pin the wench into corners, use Amplify on her and let Golly's sad little slvl 3 damage be at least doubled (he misses a LOT, but he can hit now and then), and hit her with potions.
Yes, I know that's a pathetic plan, but there's just no use throwing more armies at her. There aren't enough recruits left in the Field and Dark Wood to get it done.
You can see that she is getting low on health now. I can't give it up, I just can't. Even this ridiculous snail's pace of damage will eventually bring her down, her with no regen ability. I was determined to avenge my three slain armies! This boss alone has wiped out over fifty of my skeletons!
And what do you know, she eventually dropped dead. I'd had to run to town twice more for more potions, and I'd had to use healing and mana potions, too, but I got it done.
I'm starting to feel a bit worn out now. I'm thinking I will clear out the Hole, then the rest of the Stony and Dark Wood and the Marsh, then call it a day. This game already eaten almost half my Sunday.
Down in the Hole, I am once again stuck in a Sardine can with an Extra Strong boss.
This one also happened to be Extra Fast... so fast that she got a hit in on me, and OUCH did it sting! Not only did she take half my life, but her Spectral power poisoned me AND I WATCHED MY LIFE DRAIN FROM HALF TO ALMOST DEAD IN AN INSTANT! WOW!
I gulped a rejuv and Skeletorr lived, but wow. Wow. Did I say wow?
Wow.
Never, and I mean never have I seen poison that potent. Andariel's and Coldworm's poison are brutal. They go on and on and on, and the drain rate is high. But nothing drains 300 points per second. Nothing!
Except this boss. Wow.
Wow.
Is that something to do with Extra Strong combining with Spectral Hit? Or was that also a Critical Hit for double damage, somehow multiplying with the Extra Strong to create an Uberpoison? Wow.
OK, I'm over it. Time to deal with this saucy wench.
Yep, ain't much army left there, is it? But I got her cornered, hit her with Decrep over and over and over, flashing between Decrep and Lower Resist (seems to me that Decrepify will stack with other curses for a second or two. Literally only a second or two, but that means you can continue to benefit from the Decrep briefly when you hit em with another curse). I had to refresh golem often, but my three mages took her down. Another tough archer boss, another close call.
I knew that Archers are the bane of sorcies, but they are just as bad for necros. I wonder if they bother other classes this much? I have not had a barbarian, amazon or paladin in Hell yet, so I have not seen it firsthand. I would guess that Amazons can pull their fangs out with Slow Missiles, and barbs have so much life they don't care, but paladins? Yes, I wonder.
A penetrated deeper into the Hole and made a shocking discovery:
What is up with the boss names in 1.05? Or was it always this way and I only recently noticed? There are a lot of instances lately where two bosses in the same small area have identical names, but different abilities and sometimes different creature types. This is the second time in this game that I've had something similar: two bosses in one cave sharing half a name. It was "Pit" this and "Pit" that in the Cave. Here in the hole it's this "Thorn" and then that "Thorn". Coincidence? Or something less than wholly random in the game code?
You have to admit, this game's random number generation is a bit shaky.
I failed to port out of there in time and my mages got wiped out by the Holy Shock. Ouch.
I decided not to recruit fresh troops. Instead, I tried to isolate the boss first, using Terror to chase away everything else. Only... for the first time in my memory, Terror pretty much failed me. The critters just would not go away for long enough. I ended up buying more potions from Akara and using Iron Maiden, Golem and poison potions to finish this boss, while I continually shooed away his determined minions. I had one potion left to throw when he finally died.
With the boss finally dead, I cleaned up the last of the Stony Field, then about half of the remaining Dark Woods, to gather troops for a new army. I then used Dim Vision through the rest of the Hole level one to clean out all those spitters and rogue archers.
Down on level two, yet another brutal archer boss. Good grief!
This one turned out to be the first triple elemental boss I can remember encountering: Fire, Cold, and Lightning enchanted: every melee character's dream fight. Not!
She reminded me of the Triple Witch levels in D1, on dlvls 14 and 15, where you could get all witches and nothing else. This was a triple of a different kind, but it certainly involved a witch!
This was a brutal, brutal encounter, but I stuck it out, hanging on with the barest contingent of troops, raised from her minions, and spamming the golems in her face to keep her cornered. I had no choice but to use LR curse, as she resisted everything but poison.
What a tough fight!
I had to clean out the rest of the Dark Wood to restock my troops after that one, but the Hole and Tower have both been cleared. All that remains now is to find the Marsh waypoint, clear the Marsh, and end this session.
I worked counterclockwise around the perimeter, past the Highland entrance, around the top of the screen. Still no sign of the waypoint, but here comes MS CEB Archer the Fourth to brighten my day:
Have I mentioned that the random number generation in this game seems flaky? Assuming truly random odds, what is the likelihood of encountering FOUR Mutlple Shots Cold Enchanted archer bosses in the first half of Act One in one game session? Good grief!
As you might expect, Skel's army was decimated again. Actually, decimated means "cut to one tenth strength", a word of Latin origin. I believe it was coined to describe battlefield losses among Roman legions who took beatings at the hands of certain barbarian tribes from the north. Heh.
So instead of saying decimated (which is often accurate, Skel limping away with one or two mages left, or his golem) I should in this instance say "wiped out". That's what the Multishot wench did: she wiped me out. I had nowhere left to run for easy replacements, either. So I Terrorized her minions, got her isolated, fed her a golem to occupy her attention, then ran, parking her up in that corner, alone, for the moment.
I then had to use ungodly amounts of Dim Vision to rebuild half an army the hard way: one at a time, first with Iron Maiden securing a few corpses, then Dim Vision shutting up several threats on different fronts while my couple of mages whittled away at the various targets. Wouldn't you know, each mage would pick a different target, too, further slowing progress.
With the boss now isolated, and everything else in the Marsh dead, I could distract her adequately with golems, and my small contingent of mages finished her. What a battle.
I considered how close the waypoint was to that boss encounter and decided NOT to stop there. I would press on at least to the Cloister, and perhaps even finish Act One. It was a Sunday and I had all day if I wanted. I don't often play more than a couple hours, but as with Ember, Skeletorr is Hardcore and sort of his own case. He can't just easily pick up and continue from anywhere.
However, while my game continued, this chapter will not. You will have to wait until next time to read the rest of my report on Act One.
- Sirian
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