ACT THREE - Part Two
Skeletor continues Act Three at clvl 49, with 34 Str, 25 Dex, 111 Vit and 160 Nrg.
Raise Skeleton @ 3
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 9
Skeleton Mastery @ 20
Summon Resist @ 4
Iron Maiden @ 7
Dim Vision @ 5 (+3 from Wand)
Confuse @ 2
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
Rare Ring: +27 Lit Res, +13 Cold Res, +32 Mana, -2 MD, 4% Life Steal, 1-3 Fire Dmg - gambled Act 2 Hell
Civerb's Icon - gambled Act 4 Normal
Amulet: +1 Necro Skills, 50% Poison Dur Reduced - gambled Act 1 Hell
Rare Amulet with cold and lightning resistance - gambled Act 2 NM
Hotspur, Nokozan Relic, Nagelring
Effective Skill Levels:
Raise Skeleton @ 7
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 13
Skeleton Mastery @ 24
Summon Resist @ 8
Iron Maiden @ 11
Dim Vision @ 12
Confuse @ 6
Clay Golem @ 5
Golem Mastery @ 5
Amplify @ 5
Weaken @ 5
Terror @ 5
Life Tap @ 5
Decrepify @ 5
Lower Resist @ 5
Skel had leveled up to 48 soon after arriving in Act Three. I put his skill point into DV -- the last skill point that would go anywhere but into Confuse. From level 49 onward, and including Izual, all points would go to pumping Confuse. Slvl 1+2 had gotten me through the worst bumps in Nightmare, but I needed a whole bunch of skill points there to get back up to the same duration in Hell (about six seconds). I also expected that his hardly-able army would fall completely by the wayside once he reached the doorstep of Diablo's sanctuary, and that Skeletorr would have to face the final battles alone.
Establishing a foothold in Lower Kurast proved easier than I expected. No Hell Buzzards, so it was just a matter of time before I had recruited a full army. Cleared that whole area out, then moved on to the Bazaar. A fun boss greeted us at the gate.
Well well well. If this is an indication of how this session is going to go, maybe I ought to quit while I'm still alive? ... Nah. It's a good day to die.
The Extra Strong is what did him in. Yeah, that made him a dangerous threat for blinking next to Skel, but it also meant he took out huge chunks of his own life with reflected damage. As teleporting LEBs go, this one went down relatively quickly. Blinked around less than a dozen times.
On into the Bazaar, picking up replacements for the warriors smashed by the last boss. Just do get to full strength and here comes another boss.
Holy Fire Aura. Blah. Big pain in the posterior for Skeletorr. Check out what happens when starting a new session and I'm just a little slow on the draw:
Ooooops. Watching thirteen mages all crumple at the same time, THAT is a disheartening sight to a character like this. Don't screw up against bosses with elemental auras. Even if you think you have them dead, their last gasp might wipe out your entire platoon. Arg. Had been a long time since I'd let that happen to Skel. That picture is from a few minutes later, after I'd rounded up a couple new mages and gone back to finish him off. Take a good look at that carnage, a momument to my fallibility. :)
Boss Central. Another one was waiting at the entrance to Upper Kurast, and being Stone Skin, he was not Maiden bait.
I used Lower Resist on him, and as you can see, the carnage was complete on both sides:
With the Bazaar cleared, and Skel leveled up to clvl 50, it was time to tackle Sarina. First, however, I needed a new army. The sewer was my fountain of endless troops in Nightmare, and I expected to farm it ever so carefully for recruits once again. I'd enlisted nearly a dozen new armies from down there last time around, and I expected to manage that resource equally well here in Hell. Down we go...
Oh brother. Stone Skin undead midget LEB? Great. Lost a bunch of troops there, and had to be careful not to stand anywhere near the death explosion. That was frankly a piece of work, lost most of my army. Well, OK, the boss is out of the way now. I should be able to recruit replacements quickly enough and be on my way.
Hmm. Somebody forgot to tell the game that the Sewers were supposed to be easy recruiting grounds. You will note the large number of poison mages? Yuck. I had five or six of them now, and as you may remember, I like to keep those down to two or three tops, because their attacks won't stack. The fire mages get double damage boosts from skel mastery, so those are always my favorite, although it's best to keep a rounded mix on hand. I was not in position at the moment to be a chooser, though.
After that boss finally went down (Lower Resist, yay!) I made it a priority to replace a few of those poison mages. I was trying to gather troops to fight Sarina, and I could not afford to enter stair trap land unprepared. Finally got some fire mages going. Oh, look, found level two.
Arrrrrgh! Extra Fast and Magic Resistant on that heal-a-portation bat bastard. Gah! Well there went 15 minutes of my life, chasing the little fart all over the sewer, him blinking around high on drugs. Lost a buttload of troops in the process, as he would eat any mage he popped on top of. My precious fire mages... NOOOOOOO!!!
*sigh* Well, finally downed him. What a piece of work! Well, I'll just pop down to level two real quick, grab my Khalim's Kidney.
OK OK OK, already. I came here for a two minute recruiting drive. Will you PLEASE stop with the endless chain of army-eating boss packs? Please? Good grief.
Finally have a whole army recruited. Looked at the map showing MORE THAN HALF of Sewer level 1 cleared, and I just shook my head. I haven't even started on the temples yet, much less the Durance, and my recruiting grounds are half dried up? Wow. So much for my big plans, eh?
Someone once said that skill is when preparation meets opportunity and results in execution. If that's true, then I managed to handle Sarina "skillfully". Took some casualties, of course, but for once I drew the right-facing T and had a relatively easy time of it. Turn the black book in to the old fart, invest five more points into Vitality.
There had been a second and a third boss in there, and still my army prevailed decisively. A beefier golem, relatively speaking, made some of the difference, as did stronger curses, but also it just wasn't that brutal of a draw.
And then there was the Disused Fane.
Ouch.
By now, Skeletorr has accumulated another pile of goods. I'm awaiting the next crushing defeat to stop to take time to sell it all off. (CANNOT afford to waste minions in town, unsummoning them as they get in my way. Another good thing about the Expansion -- two good things, actually -- no more minion collisions, and you can take your minions from act to act).
On to Upper Kurast, where the pickins were fairly easy above ground. Cleared about half the city, found the Forgotten Reliquary and decided to bite the bullet there without delay.
Spider champs and lots of rogues. That was a brutal engagement, absolutely brutal. The whole fight lasted just a few seconds. Spiders are serious IM bait, I tell you. Even the bosses expire themselves quickly. Look at all my fire mages! Yehaa. No wonder I was rippin them a new one.
Cleared out all of Upper Kurast except for the top corner. No sign of the dreaded Forgotten Temple yet. Well, that's OK with me. On to the Causeway. I'll come back for the worst temple later. :)
Might enchanted Temple Guard boss (ape class). Let's not talk about those monsters in act three, sheesh. Get's some people up in arms.
The Ruined Fane had quite nearly stumped me in Nightmare. Remember that sassy archer boss? Yowza. Not this time around. This time, those archers would get their comeuppance.
On to the Disused Reliquary now. Yep, another archer boss, this one was pretty tough. I had to corner her and spam golems in her face, while waiting for my mages to get the job done. It was harder than it looks.
Amazingly, no need yet to make a second trip into the sewer. Thank goodness, as I had no idea how many armies were left down there. A few, for sure, but I could not afford to waste them. Everything now cleared up to Travincal, except part of the sewer and that dreaded Forgotten Temple. You can see on the map below, the spot where the temple sits in the top corner, not yet explored.
Down goes Skeletorr, so far so good. Lookee what I found: a full rejuv dispenser!
In the Expansion, there always seem to be more uses for gems: two shields (one for each slot) can keep you busy a long time just on diamonds, unless you have a two handed weapon. Plus there's always merc equipment, and the Larzuk quest, and more socketed stuff in general. Yep, always more use for gems there. Not here. Skel was done with his shield, so now the gem shrine was nothing but a source of ingredients for full rejuvs -- something else not necessary in D2X, since there you can cube minor purples into full ones, and purple rains like water in Hell. Anyway...
Ah yes, now it's hitting the fan. Forgotten Temple has not disappointed me this time. Oh boy, and how. Despite my DV, the archer boss picked off my entire army and sent Skel packing.
On the up side, I now had the freedom to sell off all that accumulated junk. Skel was raking in the big dollars now.
Sadly, all that gold went for naught. Skeletorr was unable to gamble anything better than what he already had. Looks like he'll be finishing the game with his current gear.
Back to the sewers now, to recruit a new army. After all the boss packs there earlier, the rest of the place was practically deserted! Arrgh. I cleared out more than half of what remained before I had a new army gathered together. That's not looking good. I doubt I can full-clear everything in this session. I will have to replay areas, and if so, I'll move on to act four first, and return later as the Skeleton KING to finish up, if I survive through Diablo.
Turns out that I had two bosses in the Forgotten Temple, with that odd-looking same-name phenomenon. (That has to be some kind of bug, but oh well).
I had thought the archer boss was cursed, since the curse is what did in my last army. I was happy to see that the curse belonged to the bat, and that once he was dead, I could fight that saucy wench without the burden of the curse.
What a gorgeous screenshot! Got the death nova and the other boss all in one picture. I bailed to town to clear the curse and hired a new merc, then back to finish off that archer boss.
On to Travincal. Aw crap, the gate is guarded by a NASTY LEB. Good grief. Well there goes another army. There goes another merc, too. Ouch.
With his leech ability, skeletons were just food for him. I lured him out to the causeway and painstakingly fought him with Iron Maiden and golem spam. This fight took at least ten minutes. Not only did it devastate my army, but it also did some damage to my morale. I was almost out of sewer, and the nastiest bosses (the council) were yet to come.
At least he was Extra Strong. That actually helped cut through his physical resistance with the Iron Maiden. So on into Travincal, and rather than clear the whole town as I usually do, I worked the town for troops (mages only, no sense wasting time with warriors in this situation), then tackled the Council. I managed to lure out Toorc without setting the others loose, and that allowed me to get right to work.
Holy Freeze? Yuck. Nasty nasty stuff. I got him all the way down to a sliver, but his hydras ate all my mages. I was going on nothing but a prayer as I kept golems spammed in his face and prayed he wouldn't heal.
For once, Lady Luck smiled on Skeletorr, and Toorc finished himself off, despite the stone skin. Whew.
Ismail and Geleb are easier. No stone skin, no need for mages. Just IM them and let them expire.
I would have liked to save part of Durance 1 for recruiting, but sadly, I could not. It was all I could manage to use the bodies that dropped to replenish my mage supply. The whole level got cleared out. Durance 2 had a couple of nasty bosses, starting with this PCP junkie. Wow was he high and zippin around or what!
After he wiped out most of my mages with fire attacks, I had to run to the sewer to recruit more, and I cleared that place out without even getting a whole army. At least I got 13 mages, though, and two warriors. Well, that's it for recruiting. I could run back to the jungles, but no, not going to do that. Returned, managed to kill the speed vampire. Then it was time for another Extra Strong Heal-a-portation. Oh joy.
Magic Resistant, too. Took me fifteen minutes and three close calls to take him down. Yes, three close calls! For a non-Extra-Fast, he sure was blink happy.
OK, so that's that. Skeletorr has full cleared everything up to Durance 3. If, and I say IF, he could manage to take down Bremm with just one army, as he did in Nightmare, I might just go back to the Marsh to recruit more troops and try to complete the full clear right here and now. Big IF.
If "if" was a skiff, we'd all row. Say goodbye to "if".
Extra Fast is already bad for Council, they are SO quick with the healing. Throw in Heal-a-portation and Lightning, yeah... riiiiight. I tried anyway, but after the inevitable slaughter of my army, I parked old Sparky there and moved on to Wyand. He was also extra fast AND LEB (and tel, of course). Sheesh. Parked them both at the stairs, didn't even bother to get more troops. I heard the Might aura go off in Maffer's direction, so of course I stayed FAR away from there.
Lure Mephisto to Wyand's room and then it's all just a matter of happy feet: don't get hit by the cold shot, don't get zapped, refresh IM as neeeded, and spam the golems. Lots and lots and lots of poor little golems, just lining them up to get bitchslapped one after the other.
Skeletorr will see you in Hell.
- Sirian
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