ACT TWO
Skeletor begins Act Two at clvl 41, with 34 Str, 25 Dex, 91 Vit and 140 Nrg.
Raise Skeleton @ 3
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 6
Skeleton Mastery @ 20
Summon Resist @ 4
Iron Maiden @ 3
Dim Vision @ 4 (+3 from Wand)
Confuse @ 1
Clay Golem @ 1
Golem Mastery @ 1
Amplify @ 1
Weaken @ 1
Terror @ 1
Life Tap @ 1
Decrepify @ 1
Lower Resist @ 1
All Skills +4, from Necromancer's Wand (+2), Wormskull and Eye of Etlich
Necromancer's Wand: +2 All Skills, +3 Dim Vision, +9 Mana - bought from Akara in Hell
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
Rare Boots: Fastest Run, +13 Fire Res, +14 Lit Res, +16 Mana, +98% Gold - gambled Act 2 NM
Gemmed Large Shield: +57 Resist All - completed in Black Marsh, Act 1 Hell
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
Amulet: +1 Necro Skills, 50% Poison Dur Reduced - gambled Act 1 Hell
Bone Shield: +58 Life - found Act 4 Normal
Rare Amulet with cold and lightning resistance - gambled Act 2 NM
Hotspur, Nokozan Relic, Nagelring
Effective Skill Levels:
Raise Skeleton @ 7
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 10
Skeleton Mastery @ 24
Summon Resist @ 8
Iron Maiden @ 7
Dim Vision @ 11
Confuse @ 5
Clay Golem @ 5
Golem Mastery @ 5
Amplify @ 5
Weaken @ 5
Terror @ 5
Life Tap @ 5
Decrepify @ 5
Lower Resist @ 5
For Skeletorr, the sewer in Lut Gholein meant one thing: Dim Vision. What a world of difference between going without this skill in Nightmare Act Two, and having it at high level arriving in Hell Act Two. Skel's warriors took a pounding, but DV kept the mages alive, with an occasional exception.
There were no noteworthy challenges until arriving at the Radament encounter. Here I had to feed golems to Rad to distract him while I kept the masses of minions Dimmed and worked through them slowly.
When enemy troops fell, I had to raise them as warriors immediately, to use up the corpses. This came to feel like trench warfare, spilling buckets of my troops' blood (so to speak) for every inch of ground gained.
I lost some mages to Radament shots, others to their own eagerness, stepping within melee range of Dimmed targets. When I finally had all his minions destroyed, I used the now familiar tactic of occupying his attention with a golem on his back side, to keep him facing away from my mages and let them needle him to death with their colorful missiles.
I invested the book point into Iron Maiden, taking it to slvl 4+4. My next level up would also go to IM, then I intended to put two points into Mages, to increase my artillery count.
We're not quite done with the sewers, yet. On the back side of level 3, I encountered a zippy little boss who smashed all my shiny new warriors. I gave up on Iron Maiden with him -- way too slow pecking through his Stone Skin -- and switched to mage plan one, once again: Golem Behind Enemy Lines to Decoy, Lower Resist to speed the artillery effect on the distracted target.
Notice that I let the burning dead lie. Better to raise them all at once, once the boss was gone. Otherwise he would just pummel them to no useful purpose.
Entering the Waste, a double boss encounter that nearly wiped out my army. Getting those last kills with just a few mages took some creativity.
I could not safely use Dim Vision in the Waste, thanks to the Vulture bug (they will stay aloft, yet go into walk mode and turn invulnerable until they land). So I relied on Iron Maiden or Lower Resist, as needed.
Dim Vision allowed me to make short work of the Stony Tomb, although Creepy turned up with Teleport ability, which could be serious trouble if combined with some bad luck.
Once he was dead, I thought the worst of the tomb was behind me. I thought wrong!
The boss guarding the chest had the great Necromage Slayer enchantment: Holy Shock. Yikes.
I had no choice but to run to town after every third flash, heal up at Fara's, and return. I must have repeated this process nine or ten times before the minions were removed and the boss finally slain.
Dry Hills had more vultures, so DV was out, once again. With IM now juiced up at slvl 5+4, returning 400% damage instead of the 200% with slvl 1 I had in NM Act 2, and with the harder hitting of Hell monsters in general, the killing went rather swiftly. Vultures would mostly suicide in one hit, though some lasted two. This left Skeletorr ahead of the corpse curve, making progress both easier and less tedious.
In a way, this was almost disappointing. As my EST teammate Jaffa Tamarin reminded me, the curse tree is very strong in and of itself. You admittedly must invest a ton of skill points there to get the effect, but if you do, you end up with a powerful trick up your sleeve for virtually any situation, that could make any skill set viable. I must agree with that up to a point. My decision to invest heavily in DV was put into motion the moment I arrived in Hell, even though I had postponed getting the skill at all for as long as I could and still clear on one pass. My decision to start increasing Iron Maiden now that DV is good enough has a special purpose behind it: largely for the duration increase, to be honest. Very annoying to have to refresh IM over and over on Duriel, of all opponents, and the way I got hit by him in Normal and NM has me scared that Skel's run will END there in Hell unless I get those +skill items and beef up my IM a bit, so I can reduce my risks there. With the skill now effectively at level nine, the duration is more than double what it was at level one. I'm not done yet, either! On a full-clear pace, I should be clvl 46 or 47 reaching Duriel. Assuming 46, that's four more skill points. If I put the next two into mages, increasing those to twelve, I still have two more to invest. Those will go into Iron Maiden, also, taking the duration well over thirty seconds, ramping up the damage a bit more, and (I hope) ensuring that Skel makes it into Act Three.
Such are the pressures of Hardcore. In order to ensure getting past Duriel, I needed more duration on that IM curse, and with that comes more damage as well. Result? The simple critters of the land became far easier to kill (IM for melee opponents, DV/LR for ranged opponents, LR/IM/Decrep for bosses, mix in Terror as necessary).
Would Skeletons be viable through Hell with fewer curses? Yes. Full clearing on one pass would probably still be possible here in Act Two, even with minimal curses. Later parts of the game are another story. Would the risks be greater? Yes, very much so. And having gotten this far, and having this much fun with the char, I'd be rather peeved to stumble on the Duriel stupidity (I really dislike that whole concept -- I can deal with it, but I view it as one of the less pleasant parts of the game).
I suppose I could have invested into Bone Armor, or dumped the points into more troops, but I didn't. I had enough troops (or almost). What I lacked was unlimited corpses from which to summon them.
On to the Halls of Dead. Yep, I am still full-clearing. In Hardcore, that's pretty risky in Hell Difficulty, although much more so in Act 1 than Act 2, IMHO, due to those Multishot bosses. Those were particularly hard on Skeletorr's army, as you may recall.
I found the stairs quickly on level 1, so down we went. Level two got cleared out. Nothing special there. Lots of bodies got used up in a hurry in many of these fights. I also recast a lot of Iron Maiden on the melee pack, to be sure to curse any new arrivals or resurrected enemies. I would target the Hollow Ones with golems, then let them IM themselves to death. Terror allowed me to venture into places I wouldn't go with a Hot Babe or a Paladin, with little concern, although I didn't let that go to my head. The powered up Iron Maiden was doing more of the work now, although DV was still more valuable, cursing those dreaded spear cats and shutting up the Hollow Ones. Dimming whole rooms, then IMing only the ones I wanted to fight, worked wonders.
Down at the bottom, Bloodwitch turned out to have Extra Dead enchantment: she hit the floor before I saw her random abilities. Some Hollow Champs in another area gave me more of a fight.
Once level three was cleared out, I went back up to finish level one. Below you see a typical shot, where a couple castings of DV, refreshed every four or five seconds, kept a mixed mob of nasties quiet. Which curse ultimately preserved more of my troops was open to debate, but there was one up side to DV I have not yet mentioned: no invulnerable minions created.
Yes, the most annoying thing about Iron Maiden is the invulnerable bug, and now that I am using strong IM and using it more often, I am seeing many more invulns turn up, requiring more vigilence on my part to heal or eliminate them.
With some practice, and diligence with refreshing the curse, you can stand scant yards from all sorts of threats in perfect, albeit very temporary, safety.
On now to the Oasis, where Beetleburst burst my bubble: look at the carnage!
Thank goodness for all those black crows. Plenty of recruits lying around, waiting to be summoned.
Nothing else of interest in the oasis, which was the land of milk and honey for Skeletorr. When he arrived at the City, things took an interesting turn. I got the "two bosses with one name" phenomenon. (I have yet to figure out if that is an extra boss being erroneously generated, or merely a bug in the boss naming routines that picks the same name for bosses that start out in the same map segment).
What a combination! The cursed boss was a potion thrower, so that had its own problems, while that drugged up manic with Extra Fast darted around like Hell's own Hummingbird. Yikes.
The Valley entrance was right there, and the waypoint not far in. Once I had the waypoint, and a full army, I headed for the Viper temple. Good grief, what a NASTY fight I had there in the entry room! Below you see the successful conclusion, but this came only after five minutes of hard work and a lot of town trips.
I don't remember the boss's other two abilities, but whatever they were, they paled compared with that Holy Shock. On the other hand, I got a great shot of being zapped with the boss's last hurrah, capturing his death throes rather nicely. I was tempted to keep that screenie full size. Note that I now have eleven mages.
I cleared about half the temple and found the stairs down. I continued to roam level one only until I had a full army, then down I went to face the dreaded LEB.
Aw, crap. Teleportation? Old Fangy is already EF LEB. Teleport will have him blinking around the room like a one-viper army of fireflies! Good grief.
Turns out it didn't even matter. Fangy didn't have to teleport. My hesitation in the entry hall left too many of my mages in the path of sparks and the next thing I know, my entire army is on the floor, bones scattered, and Fangy is eyeing me up as a potential meal. The sitatuation was so grim, I fled back up the stairs.
Round One to Fangskin. After that EF Teleporting LEB archer in the Pit that ate five of my armies and over 100 troops (counting golems), I am not in the mood to deal with an EF LEB Teleporting Fangskin in the sardine can of Viper Level Two. Sorry. LEB Teleport, yes. EF LEB, yes. EF Teleport, OK. All three? Sorry, no dice. I am willing to try it, but only up to a point.
So now what? If I go back there in a new game, chances are good that I'll get the same draw. Happens a lot in single player, when you replay a map. (If you've read Ember, you may remember the Mana Burn Spectral brute boss at the entrance of the Marsh that she encountered about 8000 times while leveling up from 27 to 32 in Act One NM).
Rather than let that happen, I decide I'll force a new map. But first, I am going to clear the rest of the City on this map, and grab the Ancient Tunnels, so that on restart I can focus on getting right to the temple and getting past Fangskin.
Yum. Teleporting Elder. That's probably the ONE Extra Fast boss in the whole game that I could handle turning up Teleportation LE. Heh.
Elder took a while to bring down. I held patient with the LR and waited for the mages to get it done.
There was little of interest in the Ancient Tunnels. Skel cleared them out. I took shots of the bosses there but deemed them unworthy. Time to wrap up this session. Can't wait for Round Two with Fangskin. Next time around, I have a different plan in mind.
One final note of interest: Skeletorr has narrowed his gambling selection to boots and rings, and it's been eons since Elzix offered any rings for gamble. He hasn't offered many boots lately, either. I've landed a Gorefoot unique heavy boots, and holding on to that now with Hotspur, to prevent them from turning up again, when I could get a hidurare instead. As such, Skel not only has a full stash of gold, he also has even more saved up in inventory. If I get more than 400k carrying, I am going to have to go on a shopping spree to prevent running up against the gold carry limit (50k per ten levels in stash, 10k per clvl in personal inventory).
- Sirian
| Skeletorr's Page | Next Chapter | Main Page |