ACT TWO

Skeletor began Act Two at clvl 15, with 25 Str/Dex, 40 Vit and 60 Nrg.

Raise Skeleton @ 2 (+2 from wand) Raise Skeletal Mage @ 2 Skeleton Mastery @ 5 (+1 from wand) Clay Golem @ 1 Golem Mastery @ 1 Amplify @ 1 Weaken @ 1 Terror @ 1 Iron Maiden @ 1

The only item of note that Skeletorr owned was an Arctic Fur he had found in the Black Marsh.

I forgot to mention that I intend to full-clear Normal with Skeletorr. If he survives into Nightmare, I will keep on full clearing unless and until the difficulty curve ramps up past a sustainable level, at which point I would start cutting some corners. Now on to Act Two...

For the sewers, I relied mainly on Amplify. I had more warriors than anything else, and though they whiffed a good bit, they also landed many hits. With that damage amplified, the mobs of burning dead were cut down rapidly. I resorted to iron maiden any time a really large mob attacked.

From Elzix, I bought a Snake's small shield of Warding: +18 mana, -1 MD. I found a belt of the wolf, +17 life, from a boss on level two. I checked Drognan every visit to town, looking for a wand upgrade.

When Skeletorr and his army reached Radament's lair, I used a bit of Terror to frighten away some of the minions, then iron maiden on the rest. My warriors swarmed him, and their 60ish life kept them alive through several hits. I raised more from Radament's minions, summoning a new warrior the moment a corpse hit the floor, whether I needed a replacement or not. This minimized his greatest threat: reviving his minions. Before long, the fight was over. I read the skill book and invested another point into Mages.

Skel leveled up again near the start of the Rocky Waste. I invested that point into Mastery and, with vultures and leapers all over the place, made a permanent shift to Iron Maiden as my primary curse of choice. Vultures have little health but hit hard and fast. That makes them perfect Maiden bait. Leapers are too slippery to attack efficiently, and they too hit hard.

Never before have I had Skeleton Mastery this high. The shots from my mages seem rather potent. Any target that draws the fire of all three of them does not live long. That wouldn't hold true in multiplayer, but this isn't multiplayer.

On a trip to town from the Dry Hills, Drognan offered not one, but two nearly identical wands. One was Superior, the other had an AR bonus, both had +2 Raise Skeleton and +3 Raise Skeletal Mage. I bought the cheaper one, the Superior, price was about 43k. This cost me a level of Mastery but added three more Mages to my army, doubling the magical brigade. The net bonus to my skills rose from +3 to +5, and I was so pleased I took a screenshot of my new and improved army out on the desert.

Now that I had more minions, I would be focusing the next several level-up points into Mastery (unless an even better wand, with a different balance, turned up).

In the Halls of the Dead, I pitted my skeleton armies against those of the Hollow Ones and showed them what real necromancy looks like! I even turned many of their own warriors against them -- a feat they could not match.

Below, you see a picture of my army ambushing a hapless Mummy Sarcophagus. Once my minions block its door, the party's over. The mages tore it up from there.

Coldworm's children could not breed fast enough. Every one of theirs that fell dead, rose again as one of mine. The big fat girl herself could not withstand the chop-chop of skeleton scythes, but her death goo ruined a few of my warriors.

Vipers are another crew that fall quickly to Iron Maiden. I expected some fight from Fangskin. Instead, that whole lot dropped like stones at the line of engagement. Skel's army took many casualties, but they inflicted many more on the enemy.

I switched to the Viper amulet, and I also tried my hand at gambling bone shields. Several tries over the course of two level ups yielded mostly junk, but I did get a keeper: Glowing of Deflecting, +2 Light and 60% block. I sold the Snake's shield.

Believe it or not, the Palace was probably the toughest area of Act Two for Skeletorr. All those archers and mages, iron maiden doesn't impress them all that much, and more than once in the Palace they chewed up most, if not all, of Skel's army.

Now that I had a decent shield, I started gambling for Bloodfist. My second attempt turned up a heavy gloves of Tiger, +24 Life -- Bloodfist Jr! I sold my old junk gloves from Act One finally. I think they had 8 life and 8 Fire Resistance.

Without a Blood Golem and with only level one Iron Maiden, Skeletorr opted to employ his mages in the Arcane Sanctuary. He had to use some Terror a few times when his brood trapped him up front with some goats or specters, but the mages made the killing go much more quickly. The Summoner decimated the army, forcing Skel to climb up onto the platform with him and stick Golly in his face a few times. This also bought room to raise a mage or two from the last of the corpses, and soon enough, Summoner was toast.

That seemed like a good time to take a break.

My next gaming session with Skeletorr, I stepped outside the gate to the Rocky Waste and let the boss pack of cats there suicide against Golly's thorns. Tada! Instant mage factory. Now with a golem and five mages, we entered the Canyon and began the march through the false tombs. Skeletorr turned up a few rares, but none useful. Still had only 10% lightning resistance and using a Glowing ring of Apprentice that was next to useless. So for the first time ever, I made deliberate use of the ring-making cube recipes. I took two topaz chips and a junk ring, and cubed myself a Coral ring, with +24% Lightning Resistance. I figured that I'd find something better before long, but this seemed like a more useful application of two gem chips than making two more rejuvs -- I already had a growing stock of those. Lightning Resistance is what I needed most. Skel's other ring was a +9 Mana he'd found early in Act One. I'm tellin ya the straight dope, his jewelry luck so far sucked. His best amulet had +8 mana. I kid you not.

In the second tomb, I ran afoul of the Ancient One.

He pretty much chewed up my warriors, but some of my mages found sweet spots and pounded him while I continually stuffed golems in his face. He did ultimately wipe out all my minions, but it took him until nearly his last breath to do so, and less than a minute later Skel's army was back at full strength.

This was the first "big" fight with a LEB in which some of my troops held up for a sustained attack. Any LEB fight, you can write off the warriors, they are all toast. The mages are pretty fragile, but sometimes they can escape attention for a while, especially if I can keep the boss occupied with plenty of golems to eat. What humiliation for poor Kaa, getting taken out by a bunch of second-rate undead. Hahaha!

If you can't tell, I'm having a total blast playing this character. I figured this would be about the end of the line for his dominance, though. Act Three would be fairly tough, first with fetish blowdarts by the swarm, shooting down my troops. My boys have lots of health, for troops of their type, but let's be honest, they are still weak. They need curse help continuously, die often, need to be replaced, and only kill things by ganging up on them. Loads of fun, though. Then the second half of Act Three, magic users all over the place. I wonder how well these juiced up skeletons will do when meteors and blizzards and raining from the skies. Not a pretty sight, I don't expect.

At clvl 22, I invested another point into Raise Skeleton. Still no sign of a better wand, and time is running out. I've got 5, 6, and golem. For Duriel, I also hired a merc. Hey, that's another body that will hit the ground before mine, so why not?

Every time he smashed Golly, I raised another. Little by little, though, he turned his attention to the other minions. All of a sudden, they are all dead (all the melee types, still got my mages) and Duriel charges at Skel. I wasn't prepared and took quite the hit. Ouch. I raised a golem but he was immediately slain. I had to do a little looping. Duriel ate two mages, got in two more charge hits on me (ouch) and finally croaked. I was not particularly happy with my performance (this is a hardcore character, keep in mind) but it was good enough to get through on Normal. I'd better be more careful if Skel makes it back around to him again in Nightmare.

- Sirian

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