ACT THREE

Skeletor began Act Three at clvl 22, with 25 Str/Dex, 50 Vit and 85 Nrg.

Raise Skeleton @ 3 (+2 from wand)
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 3 (+3 from wand)
Skeleton Mastery @ 12
Clay Golem @ 1
Golem Mastery @ 1
Amplify @ 1
Weaken @ 1
Terror @ 1
Iron Maiden @ 1

Superior Yew Wand: +2 Raise Skel, +3 Raise Mage - bought from Drognan
Bloodfist: +40 Life, Fastest Hit Recovery, +5 Minimum Damage - gambled Act 2
Arctic Furs: 48 Defense, +10 Resist All - found in the Black Marsh, Act 1
Bone Shield: +2 Light, +20% Blocking - gambled Act 2
Rare Boots: Faster Run, +9 Cold Res, +23 Life - gambled Act 2
Cap: +23 Cold Resist, +11 Life - gambled Act 2
Belt of Wolf: +17 Life - bought from Fara
Amulet: +13 Poison Resistance, +9 Mana - found Act 2
Ring: +9 Mana, found Act 1
Ring: +24 Lightning Resistance - cubed in Act 2 (two topaz + ring).

The Spider Forest was filled with Cloud Stalkers. This made for a plentiful supply of bodies, which were needed to counter the hordes of blowdart Fetishes. I stuck the golem out front as much as possible versus the fetishes, but they still shot down a lot of my troops. There were even times when I did not have enough corpses to raise replacements, although the next encounter with the jungle crows would fix that.

Sszark's strong attack meant only that he killed himself more quickly against Skeletorr's army. One good thing about Iron Maiden is that even at skill level one, its damage continues to scale up as the enemy damage scales up. The spiders ate a lot of my troops, though.

The Great Marsh was fairly routine, in that the corpse supply continued to be adequate. I used a bit of terror on boss's minions and on fetish shamen. Gloams shot up quite a few troops. I remember one in particular who downed about four mages with two well-placed lightning bolts in a row. Ouch. Skeletorr felt the pain of his troops just listening to the energy racking their bones, searing through them in quick succession.

Then came the Flayer Jungle.

Not far inside the Flayer Jungle, just north of an alcove, Skeletorr's army got wiped off the face of the map for the first time. No survivors, no corpses to raise, and plenty of enemies still gibbering for blood.

Skel had drawn flayer blowdart packs AND soul killer blowdart packs. So many darts flying, you might have mistaken them for swarming insects. Add in a few Flayer Shamen and mix thoroughly in a dense multipart encounter, and this was too much for Skeletorr's "Hardly Able" crew. They were hardly able to get anything done. I tried terror but that came with a cost. In fact, using terror on part of the previous encounter is what made this one so bad. I had pushed some blowdarts back into the jungle... to join up with yet more of them.

Skel did not have anywhere left to go to farm up more troops. I realized that this was a mistake and vowed, if possible (if he survives into nightmare) to avoid this error in the future. For Skeletorr to overcome the most dangerous areas, where casualties continuously outstripped the conscription rate, he would have to "save" some weaker areas, where he could go to rebuild his army for another round at the harder area.

This time I was able to slog through, but "slog" is an apt description, with lots and lots of sacrificial golems making slow, slow progress. Each body that fell would get raised as a troop, usually a mage unless I was working across the river from safety, when I'd raise a warrior instead. At times I would get some momentum going, get several mages raised, only to have another blowdart army mow them down. A few times I even filled up the mage ranks and started raising warriors, too, but that never lasted long.

You might think I found this annoying, but I didn't. I enjoyed the challenge of managing my troops in the face of stiff odds. Little things made a big difference, such as using golly to decoy, or even playing decoy myself when I managed to contain the enemy to one front. Skeletorr's artillery batteries (his mages) worked very well so long as infantry or the general himself provided cover. However, if the enemy pulled off any sort of flanking maneuver at all, the artillery could be smashed and quickly so. There was just no way to stop them sometimes. So many blowdart flayers, and they are speedy lil pests, too, sprinting around with their whiny little war cries. Even one or two from some odd angle could slay several mages before I knew what hit me. Retreat does not work, either. You can get mercenaries to break off and retreat with you, but minions are more mindless in their attacks. Once committed, your chances of extracting them are slim to none. You have to decide when its best to sacrifice some to save others. You also have to decide when to use restraint on raising replacements. Past a certain point, it is often better to let the last few die off and handle the fight with golem alone, saving up the bodies for a new army when that fight ends. Other times, golem and iron maiden just won't cut it (not with all those skills at slvl 1) and you NEED some mages to get the kill at all, even if you scrounge them up one at a time and continuously recast golem to provide cover for your one piece of artillery.

Skeletorr added five more to energy and increased his Mastery to level 13.

One other thing I had a problem with was gambling. Town in general was problematic, with troops clogging up those ridiculously narrow plankways. I could at least get out of Hratli's or Asheara's with a bit of work, only rarely having to unsummon minions, but Alcor's place was a brutal trap. Skeletorr had gone there at first, but in the Flayer Jungle every minion was precious and this put a complete stop to my gambling. I continued to brave the hassle of visiting Hratli and Asheara... Hratli to repair sale items and increase profits, and Asheara to check for 3-row belts. Sooner or later she had to sell me SOMEthing better than this Wolf belt, right? Right? She had offered some nice plated belts and heavy belts, but I needed the standard belt, with my 25 Strength. Skeletorr pleaded with her to scrounge up something decent, but visit after visit, no belt. Ormus was playing coy, too. The clock was rapidly ticking down on Skeletorr's hopes of upgrading his wand, but Ormus seemed intent on selling me some crappy Poison Explosion wands instead of what he originally promised me. (Hmm... does this remind you of a certain game company?)

I tried, for a short time, to "race" my minions by sprinting directly from Hratli's up past Ormus and over to Alcor -- and though Skeletorr did manage to gamble this way once or twice, he also got caught and trapped other times and finally I gave up. I decided I'd just wait and gamble all at once later, when the opportunity presented itself.

Ormus offered a crappity crap Gidbinn ring: +1 mana per kill, +1 Strength, +1 Dex, +17 Poison Resistance, and +17% chance to find magic items. As sad as that was, though, it beat my +9 Mana ring from act one, so I used it.

I used terror to chase off the Witchdoctor's boys and my artillery shot him. The attack patterns of the shamen keep them out of range so long as you keep supplying golems for them to feed on.

By contrast, in the Swampy pit, a shaman boss and crew wiped out Skel's whole army in a narrow hallway and actually chased him hard, sending me running into a mob of zombies two rooms away. Skel had to drink half his belt, slay the Preserved Dead with golem and iron maiden, and raise new mages while I kept the shamen at bay with terror and more golems. This was by far the hairiest moment I've had in Normal difficulty in a long time, except perhaps for Vilehand's blunderous fight with Sszark the Burning. Keep in mind that Skeletorr is hardcore, so if I screw up too badly with him, his adventure can be terminated. With such a frail army at his command, the situation gets pretty lively more often than you might expect. We're only in Act Three Normal and already there are times when his troops are completely outmatched.

One last nasty in the jungle: Stormtree. Scratch another army. Well at least Skeletorr made it past him. The first half of Act Three was successfully full-cleared, even if it took some determination.

Lower Kurast represented a feast for Skeletorr. Leapers, apes, fanatics of all kinds... and the arrival of Summon Resist skill! Plenty of corpses, and back to a semblance of business as usual.

My tactic for Sextons evolved into stuffing golly in their faces. They have a surprisingly strong melee attack yet little health, so they will kill themselves fairly quickly against Iron Maiden, even slvl one, and if they start teleporting, the mages track them instantly. My troops took an occasional pounding from their blizzards, but overall not too bad.

In the ruined temple, I drew the left-facing T. I do not know why, but I always have better luck with this T than the one facing the other way. I kept Sarina penned into the main chamber and though she and her cronies tore through my infantry, I just raised more and more, making for quite the bloodbath there.

Some of my mages were just standing around twiddling their thumbs. That's one other problem with them: you have to take your necro close enough to the action to get them engaged. Many is the time when I've had only part of my artillery in battle because I wasn't willing to get closer to the action.

After a fight in the Forgotten Reliquary that decimated Skel's troops, I went on a gambling spree. Skel turned up several nice tidbits, including a rare cap with 25ish Cold and Lightning Resistances and +11 Life, a set amulet (Civerb's Icon) with +40% Mana Regen and +4 Life Regen -- about as good as a high end double-skull helm, as much mana regen power as a Frostburn would add. At this point, mana was becoming more of an issue, as Skeletorr had to raise more and more troops, cast golem more often, etc. I also decided to scrap that crappy Gidbinn ring and replace it with a Garnet ring, using the ring+ruby+4explosion-potions formula. I came up with 28% Fire Resist on that ring, which is almost as good as I could ask for. (29 would be max).

To my surprise, the troops held up fairly well against meteor attacks. ("Fairly well" means they weren't wiped out on the first hit -- don't laugh, this is better than I expected). Sticking golem in their faces would often shut up many Dark Lords, although some didn't like it and would flee.

There were times, fighting Dark Lords and Heirophants, where I considered investing a point into Dim Vision. I have used that skill SO much, though, that I wanted to play without it for now, see what else I could do to get the job done. I will probably put a point into it eventually, if Skel survives, but as for when, who knows. Likely not until well after I need it. :)

Iron Maiden chewed up the Council.

There were times in the Durance when meteor bombardments decimated Skeletorr's army. There were plenty of Cadavers for replacements, though. Bremm Sparkfist gave me troubles. His sparks quickly wiped out my warriors and half the mages. The other mages died one by one as he moved around a bit. I managed to finish him without a great hassle as he suicided against Golly #14 or so. The other two bosses went more quickly.

Mephisto shot down my few mages within moments. From there, it was a contest of renewing Iron Maiden and feeding him golems vs dodging his magic attacks. Having to stop often to renew the Iron Maiden is what left him so many openings. If I had higher level IM, not only would he do more damage to himself per hit, but also the duration would last longer and I could just keep spamming the sacrificial golems.

My uberdrop was a rare gothic plate. I sold it for 20k in Act Four.

- Sirian

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