ACT FOUR

Skeletor began Act Four at clvl 25, with 25 Str/Dex, 60 Vit and 95 Nrg.

Raise Skeleton @ 3 (+2 from wand)
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 3 (+3 from wand)
Skeleton Mastery @ 12
Summon Resist @ 2
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
Civerb's Icon (amulet): +40% Mana Regen, +4 Life Regen - gambled Act 3
Bone Shield: +2 Light, +20% Blocking - gambled Act 2
Rare Boots: Faster Run, +9 Cold Res, +23 Life - gambled Act 2
Rare Cap: +24 Cold Resist, +29 Lit Resist, +11 Life - gambled Act 3
Belt of Wolf: +17 Life - bought from Fara
Ring: +24 Lightning Resistance - cubed in Act 2 (two topaz + ring).
Ring: +28 Fire Resistance - cubed in Act 3 (ruby + ring + 4 Exploding Potions).

I had some concern that Skeletorr might encounter troubles getting started on the Outer Steppes. He did not. Venom Lords and Corpulents greeted him, and soon thereafter, an army of undead marched across Hell is search of victims. (Who knew that the undead would represent the good guys??? Heh).

Cliff Lurkers were a bit annoying, but if several mages targeted one and pushed it up against something, it was helpless and soon dead. Skel's army took a lot of casualties, but there were plenty of corpses from which to raise replacements.

Believe it or not, the Corpulents posed the most threat. They would skulk around the edge of the fight, grab a corpse to spit (robbing me of the chance to use it!) and then mow down some hapless warrior or mage in one shot, or else target Skel through the confusion and give him a good thumping. The leapers were not a factor except in large packs, due to the stun effect the mages had on them.

Down on the Plains of Despair, Skeletorr encountered the three fire resistant opponents: Venom Lords, Doom Knights and Doom Casters. These were all melee types, for the most part, and they were punishing my warriors so badly I decided I needed more artillery.

So once Izual was located and eliminated (easy to hold in place with a steady diet of golems to munch on, all the while being zapped by six mages) I invested a skill point into Raise Mage, the other into Mastery. Now when the big fights broke out, Skel had more firepower on hand and this did make some difference.

Clearing the Plains went a little tougher than the Steppes, but not even the worst beatings ate more than a third of the army. If I went short of replacements from one fight, I'd catch up in the next round.

The City of the Damned held (what else?) tons and tons of Damned, along with Stygian Hags and Abyss Knights. This seemed like a rather brutal draw and I braced for disaster, but the continuous supply of corpses from the Wyrms (pups) kept Skeletorr well-stocked. The only thing he lacked for, at times, was enough mana to keep raising more and more and more.

That picture doesn't look like much, but I went through two whole mana orbs from that one location, raising golems and warriors mainly, though a mage would get smacked here or there. You can see a couple inside the building, where a mob of damned was hiding out. I cast a golem in there, then raised some warriors from the first corpses, and before long that whole nest had been cleaned out. The real carnage here came mainly from the abyss knights, firing at me from behind the lines, and the swarms of stygian pups doing battle with Skel's infantry.

Skeletorr managed to gamble himself a Greyform and a Hsaru's Iron Stay (3-row belt, +20 Cold Resist, +20 Life -- finally something to replace that hopelessly obsolete belt I got at clvl 15!). I also found a bone shield of Colossus, +58 Life, from a boss -- and sold the Deflecting shield. Then I got a ring with -2 Magic Damage and put that on instead of the Garnet Ring.

The carnage continued on the river. Skel's warriors died by the scores, but as long he could raise more, as long as the front line didn't collapse, allowing vicious foes to crush the weak mages, everything was fine. Iron maiden did its share of damage, even doing the bulk of the damage to certain opponent types, but you could see how important the mage batteries were when the artillery was occupied with one target while the infantry engaged another. Most of Skeletorr's total damage output was coming from his mages.

Hephasto died quickly by his own hand. He pulverized anything he struck, but I raised more targets for him and before you know it, he's down for the count. The forge offered up a normal diamond. I sold the rest.

As Skeletorr and his army marched across Hell, nearing Diablo's sanctuary, they ran across a strange pavillion on the River (a segment not seen often, at least by those who don't spend all their time replaying the River over and over -- meaning me).

Shortly thereafter, Skel reached the river waypoint and ended that session.

To start the next session, he had to raise a new army, but that proved no problem in the River maze. Inside the sanctuary, between the two lava pools, he ran afoul of Venom champs backed by mage firepower.

I should note that Oblivion Knights are particularly dangerous to summoning necromancers because they are one of two creature types against which Iron Maiden is useless. (The other group being skeleton archers, but only the Burning Dead and Horrors, because their arrows are a magical attack -- and you may remember where I talked about how much of a rough time they gave Skeletorr in the Palace).

I used golems to distract the mages while my army focused on taking down the champions and other melee types. Dealing with mages one at a time was no problem. Dealing with more than one became serious work, as they ate away at my troops with curses, spirits and direct missile attacks.

I should also note that my expectation that my skeletal warriors would be whiffing all the time, and offering no help from direct melee hits, turned out to be wrong. Yes, they do miss a lot, but they hit much more than I expected, and with damage now at 27 per hit, their hits were far from meaningless. I really got to see this in action a few times when warriors mobbed an Oblivion Knight while the mages were still occupied with other targets.

This MIGHT make a warriors-only character possible, but I would expect a heavy need for AI curse support (especially Dim Vision or Confusion, and possibly Decrepify). One would also need to keep Amplify LOW so that only a select few could be Amped at a time while the rest were left to wait under Dim Vision. Also, the DV vulture bug would be endlessly annoying. If any of you decide to try this without Skeletal Mages, let me know how it works out, will you?

The Oblivion Knights were such a pain for Skeletorr, that I decided to open De Seis's seal first, and to do so without even clearing the side branches all the way out (leaving a chance to restock troops if need be).

Well, with dilligent golem decoying, I managed to down over half the minions before they decimated my mages. I got down to just a couple mages and raised a couple more but those didn't last long. When my troops were all dead and the corpses all consumed, there was only De Seis and one minion left standing on their side. Rather than run to gather a new army, I changed to Normal Attack on left mouse, cast Amplify and waded into battle, Skel with his 40ish% chance to hit and feeble damage. I managed to take out the minion, then to corner De Seis and, raising ONE mage from the minion's corpse, to keep that bastard cornered, using not only Golly but Skel himself to tank, and slowly ever SO slowly to kill the boss mage.

In that picture, I was taking a break from swinging myself, and using Weaken to extend the life of the golem. This actually worked out, and I added Weaken back into my repertoire of active curses, replacing Amplify on F7 with Weaken. Sometimes the best thing to do is Weaken the enemy so they chew through the infantry less quickly, buying time for the mages to do more damage.

The other bosses posed little problem. They smacked the daylight out of Skel's infantry, but they never broke the line. If you ever get recruited into the ranks of a Necromancer army... pass on the chance. The survival rate seems to be less than five percent. Those are not good odds. The only ones with worse odds are the hired mercenaries.

So we come down to the battle with Diablo.

Skeletorr took pains to ensure a full army for battling Diablo. I knew the whole lot of them would buy the farm rather quickly, but I wanted to get in as much "free" damage as I could before the endless round of Iron Maiden plus sacrificial golem began in earnest.

So Skel opens the last seal and leads his army into battle. Diablo emerges from the pentagram, casts one fire nova, and that was that. Not a shot fired by Skel's mages. Not a warrior even came close to him. One fire nova and blam, the slate is wiped clean. Diablo did not even so much as spit at Skel's "mighty" army. They did not even rate being laughed at. They were not even that relevant!

+sigh+

OK, so much for that idea. Skeletorr must now avenge his army's gruesome slaughter. And how is he going to do that? By allowing Diablo to slaughter hundreds of golems. It went something like this:

Yes, you can see in my desperation, the sight of rancid gas in Skeletorr's hand. That may have won the day for Ember against the Vizier's minions, but Diablo was not impressed. As far as I can tell, all it did was make him turn green for a short time.

Skel ran out of mana, ran out of mana potions, ran low on heals, and was not willing to consume his rejuvs just for mana, not here in normal. So I ran him all the way to the far end of the Infector's wing and opened a portal in the corner. (If I came back down to a caged portal, well, I'd probably have to quit and save, so I made sure to avoid that fate). Now back with renewed resources, the long, painful battle continues.

Yes, that's a whole new pile of golem corpses. The trip to town had wiped out all sign of the earlier victims. Golem after golem, and only three out of five actually inflicted Iron Maiden damage. Many died from lightning or fire instead, and a few died from melee hits in between cursings, thus dying in vain.

The only thing worse than being a skeleton or mage in a necro's army, is being the golem. Yikes!

Eventually, though, and at great cost to the troops, the day is won on determination. Slvl 1 Clay Golem, slvl 1 Golem Mastery, slvl 3 Summon Resist (for all the good that did the skeletons), and slvl 1 Iron Maiden.

Well, Skeletorr has made it through Normal. He seems strong enough to continue for a while yet, and I plan to take him as far as I can, perhaps even to King, though I doubt he'll make it that far. We'll see.

The quest will resume in Nightmare.

- Sirian

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