ACT TWO

Skeletor began Act Two at clvl 29, with 25 Str/Dex, 65 Vit and 110 Nrg.

Raise Skeleton @ 3 (+2 from wand)
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 4 (+3 from wand)
Skeleton Mastery @ 16
Summon Resist @ 4
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 in Normal
Bloodfist: +40 Life, Fastest Hit Recovery, +5 Minimum Damage - gambled Act 2 Normal
Greyform: +20 Fire/Cold Resistance, -3 MD, 5% Life Steal, +10 Dex - gambled Act 4 Normal
Civerb's Icon (amulet): +40% Mana Regen, +4 Life Regen - gambled Act 3 Normal
Bone Shield: +58 Life - found Act 4 Normal
Rare Boots: Faster Run, +9 Cold Res, +23 Life - gambled Act 2 Normal
Rare Cap: +24 Cold Resist, +29 Lit Resist, +11 Life - gambled Act 3 Normal
Demonhide Sash: +59 Life - found Stony Field, Act 1 NM
Ring: +24 Lightning Resistance - cubed in Act 2 Normal (two topaz + ring).
Ring: +47 Poison Resistance, +21 Life - found Act 1 NM

Rare Quilted Armor: Fastest Recovery, +59 Life, +21 Fire Resist, +18 Lit Resist - gambled Act 1 NM
Ring: +28 Fire Resistance - cubed in Act 3 Normal (ruby + ring + 4 Exploding Potions).
Biggins Bonnet, Hotspur, Nokozan Relic, one flawless and one normal Diamond.

Count Skeletorr began Act Two with a string of supreme luck. I didn't realize how good his luck was at the time, but more on that later. In the sewer on level one he encountered Dried Corpses, Sand Raiders, and Burning Dead warriors. These made for ready victims and plenty of corpses. At times, the opponents dished out mighty punishment upon Skeletorr's own warriors, but he raised replacements without hassle.

Level two offered Huntresses, more sand Raiders and Burning Dead warriors. Melee? Yeah, Skel's bony boys can handle that.

Down on level three, I found a gem shrine and acquired the first perfect diamond. I would not even consider switching to a resistance shield for Skeletorr in Nightmare, but if he makes it to Hell, I would certainly need one there, so best to prepare just in case. I stashed the perfect and carried his other diamond in its place.

Level three held fire-shooting mages by the bucketful, but with slvl 4 Summon Resist, their shots didn't seem to hurt my troops much. The warriors mowed them down, and magefire helped speed the process. There were also more huntresses. Cats go "Mreowww! Fisk-Fisk! Ray-rowl! Rowl!" then they die. :)

Radament fell victim to the mage brigade. Once the warriors were all dead (that took about five seconds) I kept him busy with golems. I raised any of his minions that fell, to prevent resurrections.

I pumped Mastery to slvl 17 with that skill point. I figure by the end of Act Two, Skeletorr will have maxed his troop strength. Then what? Well, then it starts getting harder, I suppose. :)

Out in the desert, combat remained fairly calm. Vultures would often kill even Skel's Mastery boosted warriors in one hit, but they would they also kill themselves, offering an immediate replacement. Leapers liked to leap over the warriors and attack the mages in the back lines. Many a mage bit the dust this way, but that would also expose the leapers to concentrated magefire, and possible stunlock, which always spelled a quick death for a leaper. Even the boss leapers were stunnable, making them easy targets once all the minions had been addressed (slain or sent scampering with Terror).

Halls of the Dead offered tons of corpses to work with. I often had to consume many of them, but so it goes. There were plenty of fights with large mobs of undead, where Skeletorr would stick golly out into the middle of the next room, casting him through the doorway, then start raising warriors from the bodies of those that fell right there, attacking him. This move cost a lot of golems, and a lot of warriors, but using up bodies was often part of the strategy there, at least until I could thin the crowd enough to rush in, stick a golem in the face of the nearest Hollow One, cast Iron Maiden and watch the fun. Golly's sad 120 life was just enough to take out ONE Hollow One with Iron Maiden -- at least most of the time. Then I'd stick a new golem in the face of the next target and probably have to raise three or four warriors that had been mowed down in those few seconds. This was very mana intensive, and occasionally even lively, but between the ready body supply, the slowness of the enemy, and Terror's ability to forestall any jailbreak attempts, Skel had a comfy time of it here.

The Oasis was more of the same: lots and lots of bodies, way more than Skel needed. I could, if I had a mind, level him up easily (albeit not quickly) in this part of act two.

Clvl 30 and another point into Mastery. Slvl 18 now, and those skeleton warriors each considerably more sturdy than golem. Golly continued to be the focus of my attack plans, though, not only for conserving bodies, not only for shielding mages, but also for emergency shielding against aggressive bosses and champs, for decoys when the warriors were decimated, for targetted elimination of pesky targets, and for more other uses than I can name. He may have been the weakest link in the army at this point, but his mobility (and thus his speed -- cast him instantly, anywhere on the battlefield) made him far greater of a threat to the enemy than any five other troops combined. Trying to run a skeleton army with NO golem would be a tall order indeed -- though perhaps it could be done with other skills that Skeletorr passed up, like Bone Wall or direct damage attacks.

For some strange reason, the poison potions thrown by the cats in the lost city rarely seemed to affect the troops. Is this a new bug? Does anybody know about this? There were times when some of my troops turned green and took poison damage, but not often. Compare that to mummy gas, which never fails to poison most of Skel's warriors. They run from miles away to hurry through the poison gas before it dissipates. You'd think it was some kind of narcotic, the way they flock to it like junkies. Even some of the mages inexplicably rush hither and yon, through mummy gas, for the Hell of it -- the same mages who stand around staring at the walls when there's a target just five yards away. Oh well. Managing troops of this caliber is part of the fun. I don't even mind nursing them along through doorways and most mazes, although there are times when it pays to shortcut through a town portal and right back down, rather than go back for lost sheep. Let the teleport effect take care of that for you! That can be worth 100 gold in averted aggravation to pay for the TP. Other times, if corpses are plentiful in the area, I will abandon lost sheep. Sometimes the game will teleport them to your current location, but more often it just wipes them out. Oh well, too bad for them. Darwin at work, culling the stupidest from the herd. So it goes.

In fact, this can also be an important battlefield tactic. There are times when your army gets stuck and you need them RIGHT NOW, right there with you as you charge into battle in some narrow confine. One move you can do is rush in, raise a portal, visit town (you need not stop to call on merchants, although you might if there is reason), then back down and your whole army will be there with you in the room, nicely surrounding you to shield you from any nearby foes.

Holy Fire and Holy Shock bosses are another reason to use portals. They can wipe out your entire mage contingent with a few flash attacks. Well, sometimes you can afford that, sometimes you can't. But if you are to save your troops, you have to know how much punishment they can sustain, port out to town to heal them, then return for more fighting. You may even have to repeat this several times in quick succession, but if the corpses are running too thin, this is a better option than losing your whole army and trying to fight on, perhaps against steep odds, with just your golem.

The Ancient Tunnels held some large mobs of undead.

Heavy casualties on both sides.

The Viper temple offered more of the same sort of fighting as the rest of act two: hard-hitting low-health enemies (vipers) or hordes of slow, relatively weak undead. Skel had few problems, even with bosses.

Fangskin toasted much of Skel's army but died quickly.

I decided to imbue another Sharkskin belt, but to do so I had to stop after completing Quest 3, so I could go back to Normal. The imbue failed -- another junky result -- and I sold it to start my next gaming session.

Skeletorr was a bit behind in my usual full-clear pace. He had finished Normal at clvl 26, only halfway to 27. That's the lowest any character for me has ever been after full-clearing Normal in single player. I've had a couple others at 26, but they were closer to leveling. Most have been 27. Skel didn't reach clvl 30 until almost to the Viper Temple. I'm not sure why he was behind the curve. Perhaps fewer Experience shrines? Or luck of the draw on low-experience monsters like skeletons in acts two and three, or crows and bugs and bats and such?

Anyway, with the imbue attempt, the Nightmare map had been changed, and I decided to repeat some of those easy parts of Act Two for a bit of extra cash and experience. I had had enough replaying areas with Ember for experience, in Acts one and two, but this new map offered less tedium. I started out by venturing into the sewer once again, only this time I drew Burning Dead archers on level one and, to be honest, they kicked Skel's army in the ass, and how. With no bodies left to raise more mages, no hope of iron maiden (useless against burning and horror archers), and golem doing a massive 2-5 damage per hit (when he hit at all, more often he whiffed) I took my cue to exit that arena. Having already cleared the sewer once, albeit without any archers down there the first time, I had no obligation to do it again.

So out to the desert. Yes, this is more like it. Rocky Waste, Dry Hills, Halls of Dead, Stony Tomb, Lost City, Viper Temple... everything but the Sewers and the Maggot Lair (which had yet to be visited at all) was cleared out again. Skel was not caught up to the usual pace, and even a bit ahead of the curve. I skipped level two of the viper temple and led a full army into the Palace.

What do you think I found there? You guessed it: Harem Level 2 filled end to end to end with Horror archers. I worked hard to battle them. I had one army wiped out, then raised it back to full from the ashes. Lost that army, raised a few mages, kill by painfully slow kill I rebuilt the troops to a small force, which got wiped out in moments by a pack of archers despite my best effort. I remained determined, but the progress was too slow, too painful, and some of those nests of archers were too numerous to overcome with Skel's current skill options. I managed to raise a complete third army only to have it wiped out yet again.

Enough was enough.

With half of Harem 2 still infested, I abandoned my notion of full clear and pressed on into the Cellar. There were archers on level 1 so I ran past them all, grabbed the waypoint, then down to level 2, which also had archers. A mad sprint through heavily infested rooms drew lethal amounts of fire but Skeletorr was on the move and managed to outrun all but two hits. Now to level three, where there were no archers. Yay!

On Cellar level three, Skeletorr began to rebuild his army, against ranks of Blunderbores, desert apes, and Invaders.

Look at all those poison mages. Yuck.

The way poison works, it won't stack. So having more than two, maybe three poison shooters max, becomes a waste. If they target the same enemy, the extra mages are essentially useless. For this reason, I generally try to keep the numbers of poison mages low. Having SOME poison can be a lifesaver, as it not only cuts past boss resistances (there are no Poison Enchanted bosses) but also puts a halt to regeneration of normal monsters. If I get more than three poison mages, though, I will unsummon the extras if there are coprses to spare, and raise replacements until I get a mix more to my liking.

In the shot above you can see numerous poison mages. This shows how desperate things were, in that I left them alone for lack of replacement parts.

Skeletorr cleared out most of Cellar 3, including a Cursed Fire Eye, but in the last room there was an archer boss pack and I flipped them the bird as I ran past to the Sanctuary portal, losing four troops to their fire in the process. Ouch. I didn't even fight them and they inflicted casualties.

The Sanctuary layout I drew had the rotation of Straight, Stairs, Teleport, Winding, which has recently always offered me the Summoner to the North. Well, the Straight path led north (yuck) but I went with it anyway. If the Summoner was in that direction, I'd either have to brave that path eventually, or force a new map. Since I was already out of full-clear mode, and the Sanctuary is a pain in the ass for a high-minion summoning necro, I went north, into the teeth of the worst quadrant.

One of the things that makes this the worst is the proliferation of Lightning Spires. Tons of them, almost one per segment. You can see that some of my mages spotted the target, stopped at the edge of their attack range, and clogged up the aisle. That's the biggest problem with skeletons in tight spaces, the mages will clog doors, halls, aisles and other choke points. That's a nasty problem for a coop necro, especially if he makes his living off of skeleton armies.

I worked up the left side of the quadrant, come around to the top and there he is, the Summoner, just like I expected. Oddly enough, prior to this recent stretch of North branches (upper right of screen), I had not seen the Summoner in the North for ages. He had been mostly to the south or west through December and January, for me. This makes three games in a row where I correctly deduced his location to the North, though. I am starting to think I'm getting a handle on some of the variables... but I could be wrong. It could just be luck (one in 64 chance, but that's possible).

The Summoner's magicks are too strong for Skeletorr's troops. I could not afford to leave most of them behind as I ran up onto the platform. So I worked to lure out the goats first, then I Terrorized the ghouls and specters and, in two successive portal jumps, transferred my army first to the lower platform, then up onto the main platform with the targets. By portal jump I mean opening a portal, then turning right around and coming back down, with my army now gathered around me. This was the only way to concentrate strength against the Summoner before he could mow down all my troops.

As you can see, his frost nova is wreaking havoc on my troops. He actually won that round, killing off all my forces with a sliver of life left. I considered opening the red portal and rushing out of there, skipping Quest 5 (that's possible) and moving on to the Canyon, but my golem actually finished him off with melee.

I got out of Dodge, barely one eighth of the Arcane cleared out. Oh well. Full Clears went by the wayside, and now Skeletorr is back to being slightly behind the experience curve again.

My next session, I decided to head straight for the True Tomb. Skel was on the verge of clvl 32 and I figured he would reach it by the time I got there. I still needed the Staff of Kings, so I went to the Maggot Lair to retrieve it. That was a close quarter pain in the butt, with numerous unsummonings. I got armies built up but decided after too much aggravation to stop herding lost sheep. As such, more minions got lost along the way than died in combat. I did full-clear the maggots, though.

I marched across the Canyon mostly trying to avoid Crushers (who crushed my poor troops all too easily) and Hell Slingers (who slung Hell at my mages from all angles). The True tomb was the square, and I got there with only half an army. Inside I found new recruits immediately, though, in the form of countless burning dead, preserved dead, and other types of undead that I was able to reanimate. (What does that make them? Un-undead? Doesn't a double negative imply a positive? Does this mean my troops were alive somehow?) There were also a few Gorebellies.

For some reason, I turned left and hugged the left wall. The tomb wound to the west, then south, south and farther south, room after room in a long straight line, ever south. At the end of that long line lay the Orifice chamber, and one of the mummies there dropped me the unique war scepter (my first time seeing it).

I donned my rare armor with the 59 life and fastest recovery, switched caps to Biggins Bonnet for its life and mana (resists are useless against Duriel), and stocked my belt appropriately. I hired a mercenary and, with my fourteen total troops and slvl 1 Iron Maiden, prepared to go bug hunting.

You can see my sorry resistances. They are coming from just three items: 47 poison resistance from a ring, 9 cold resist from boots, and 21/18 fire/lit resist from the rare armor. I had a ring of tiger on the other ring hand for the moment.

Into the chaber we go, and Duriel is mowing down my troops. I managed to keep him busy for a good while with golems, but then he slew the last of my warriors and started eating mages while I tried to keep Iron Maiden active. When those were gone, it was just me, my golem, and Duriel, and he got three charge hits in against me. Bad luck MIGHT have killed Skeletorr here, with a critical hit on a charge, but fortune had other plans. Even so, my vow to "be more careful" with Duriel in Nightmare turned out to be, in my estimation, a failure. I do not believe I will have that luxury in Hell, should I reach that far, so I will have to be far more cautious there, and be willing to run a loop, and to tempt fate, choosing my openings carefully. By then I should have better than slvl 1 Iron Maiden, though, so it should not be as hard, because I won't have to refresh the curse nearly as often. Duriel's mighty blows and higher level Iron Maiden may even finish him off before I run out of troops, if I am quick enough with the golems... but I won't chance that.

Look at all those dead golems! A few were widely scattered as I finally came to senses and ran more, cast less. The uberdrop was another rare armor and I sold it.

I thought briefly about pressing on to Act Three, or calling it a session here, then decided that the False Tombs (and the rest of the True Tomb, for that matter) should not be too difficult. This was one of the best decisions I've made in single player. Why, you ask? Because back in the Canyon, on my return path to the true tomb, one of the Crushers dropped me a new helm:

I thought, as I showed off my new toy, that I'd also show you my full belt. Just seeing the bottom row does not tell the whole story. You might think I have a row of each. Well, it starts that way, but as the rejuvs pile up and storage space runs out, I start storing them right on the belt itself. I keep one or two mana potions and minor rejuvs on hand, for instant access in typical fights, but if a fight runs beyond that range, there is a whole supply of full rejuvs ready for thick action. This works well for conserving them but still having them available when they are needed. Chances are, if you need one, you will need several, because a situation has be pretty far gone for rejuvs to be needed at all.

The switch to Wormskull cut my cold and lightning resistances down to single digits (yikes! In Hardcore no less!) but that +1 to all Necromancer skill was WAY too sweet to pass up. Just like that, I get not only an extra warrior and mage, but another level of mastery and summon resist to make all the others stronger, and now a golem with 175 life and ALL my curses raised to slvl 2. There are no characters out there for whom +skill items can mean more than the summoning necromancer.

Those used to playing very high level characters might scoff at a single +1 skills item, but for single player, with my playstyle (I don't much hang around to level up, I just get right down to business) it's actually an uncommon, and character-altering, item find.

I certainly did not plan on Wormskull. You can't do that in single player. I could, if I had dilligently gambled for it, turned up a Tarnhelm, which would be just as good, but I had opted not to do that. However, seeing how much difference this Wormskull made to Skeletorr, I may in the future decide to incorporate Tarn into my summoning necro builds. With so many minions, the resistances were not quite as urgent as they are for my usual melee or magic characters.

Wow, two high-caliber uniques in a short span. First Stormeye, now Wormskull. I continued to gamble amulets, too. A Summoner's amulet would be nice, or... I already had the Relic, so an Eye of Etlich was not beyond reason. I gambled several times and hit upon a new pair of boots: fastest run, +13 Fire Resist, +14 Lightning Resist, +18 Mana, and +98% Gold from Monsters. Ooh! I switched to those immediately. Definitely having a nice stretch of luck here!

I also saved every last ring and amulet that dropped, or that I gambled, and I cubed them three into one, waiting, hoping, praying for something useful. Skel's rings were so crappy, I was still using one cubed from gems, and had another such for heavy fire areas.

Here's a shot of town square. I've found that I can reliably store anything I care to on the ground in town, so long as I return to town regularly before too much time passes or too many monsters are killed in one trip. I have not lost my perishables (potions, keys, scrolls) in town in months, and I have never lost the more hardy items like weapons and armors and rings, and uniques kept for gambling reasons, unless I have gone afk while out of town and accidentally let the game sit for hours. How do I keep the potions in town? I simply cart almost ANYTHING that will sell for more than 500 gold back to town. This may seem like a silly waste of time to those who twink a lot -- they have little use for gold anyway, because they already have all the items they need -- but in single player where you must turn up all your own items, it can be invaluable to make reasonable use of every resource the game offers you, so that you not only have enough gold to gamble for items, but also are kept busy visiting town regularly so your backup potions there aren't erased and you get more cracks at the merchants, for their offerings. More often than not, I end up selling the spare potions, but there have been numerous times when I needed them and would have been in deep trouble without them (especially the minor rejuv stash or the super mana supply, as those can't be bought). The only danger I face from town storage is a crash. Anything on the ground is lost in a crash, so... there are still some limits. Anything vital must be kept in stash. However, since upgrading my computer in recent months, and switching to D3D or (at times -- I've had some video troubles) software acceleration, I've had far fewer crashes and lockups than I did with Glide.

The false tombs provided some interesting boss fights at the gold chests, as usual. Here was one such:

In a different tomb, Skel ran into a nasty Multishot Cursed boss who decimated the army. As with Fouldog back in the jail, I had to work hard to get just a corpse or two available and then bend my will to keeping one or two mages alive long enough to get more kills. This was quite the intense battle here, and below you see the fight winding down, with only minions left to kill.

For once, I did not encounter the Ancient One until the last corner of the last false tomb. He offered me one final challenge in Act Two to overcome.

A couple of Skel's mage troops found sweet spots and rained punishment on the big guy while he fed on golems. He did eventually wipe out all the mages, even those I raised from his minions, but by then he was so weak, I soon finished him off with Iron Maiden.

Now halfway to clvl 34, Skel is on track with all but his full-clear plans. His Mastery is finally maxed (slvl 21, with +skill). His army size is strong, and with Wormskull offering a free level to all curses (including Iron Maiden) and boosting my golem to a hardier range, the urgency to add to Iron Maiden has passed, and I have decided to rush to getting Lower Resist curse to help out my poor mages when they are the only hope for defeating tough bosses (which happens more and more with each passing game session -- there will come a time when I must play my best cards, but that time has not yet arrived). I have already invested my clvl 33 skill point into Decrepify and hotkeyed that in place of Amplify on F7. The next point will go to Life Tap (prereq only -- I have no other use for it, I'm afraid), then Lower Resist will be available, and it will start out at level two!

I could REALLY use some resistance help, though -- from rings. I have some hope of getting a decent ring from Gidbinn quest (even a crap ring might be better than what I have now!) or from gambling. Good grief, I would be SO happy to turn up an Amber of Tiger ring or a Ruby of Sorcery or a Sapphire of Sentinel.

Skeletorr is going to be in for it in Act Three. Remember how the flayers decimated his troops in Normal??

The best of times are yet to come. Stay tuned!

- Sirian

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