Chapter One: The Best of Times

Sparka, the Charged Bolt Mistress, began her career by firebolting a few critters and clubbing the rest... until she leveled up once and got her spell. A rare hand axe was found in the moor, which did 5-9 damage, had minor AR bonus, and added one to mana after each kill. The firebolt staff was ditched.

Zap, zap, zap zap, zap zap zap, zap, zap. (That pretty much describes the rest of the action in this chapter).

I used some crude javs I found to assist on the Raven kill. Did about half damage with zap and half with javs.

As is my usual in single player, I cleared all areas of the game as I went. Tristram was fun. I zap-zapped everything there, although I did have to make nearly three laps around town with Gris in tow... zapping as I could with my mana ball resting on empty.

LEBs are clearly poor Sparka's nemesis. They resist her attacks, both CB and even Static, and they spit out nasty gobs of their own charged bolt if hit with multiple bolts from my spells. I ran into a LEB in the Den of Evil, then Rak, then two more later in Act 1. Each of them was killed with a combo of magic and mundane missiles (javs, throwing knives, whatever I had onboard or could pick up off a dead monster). I may in the future rely on nova and lightning, to some degree, to take down these nasties, when my default dexterity falls so far behind the curve that I can't hit them with javelins any more.

At clvl 9 I bought a short staff +3 to CB, for only 7k. This led me to alter my skill plans a wee bit. In the Pit I found a rare amulet, which gives +5 Str, +1 light, +7 Life, 5% resist to something or other, and +11% chance to find magic items.

Arriving at the Outer Cloister, I was clvl 12, with the following skills:

Charged Bolt @ 6 ... (9 with staff)
Warmth @ 3
Static @ 2
Frozen Armor @ 1

Never, and I do mean never have I had an easier time soloing in latter half of Act 1 than I did with Sparka. This was her day in the sun, when her powers are nearly at their peak but the foes are still quite weak.

Sparka literally annihilated the entire level 2 of the Pit in 10 seconds, and we're talking at least 40 monsters here: three boss packs and two carver groups. Anything right in front of her catches most if not all the bolts. Gargoyle traps died in ONE shot if she was firing point blank. So did everything else except bosses and champions. She quite literally mowed down entire mobs... sometimes more easily than a single monster, since the bolts spread out quickly and, now and then, can miss a single target entirely, or hit him with only one or two.

Only LEBs, hell hound boss packs, and shaman boss packs, offered up any credible threat. Goats would die in one shot. Zap, dead. Zap, dead. Zap zap zap, whole room dead.

Clvl 13: Static @ 3
Clvl 14: Charged Bolt @ 7
Clvl 15: Charged Bolt @ 8

Sparka literally leveled up to 15 by killing Andariel. Total score: one antidote used, no other potions of any kind required. LEBs were easily far more dangerous than poor Andi proved to be.

There was no shortage of potions. In fact, I never once bought any health potions, and occasionally sold some surplus or just left them behind.

One decision I reached has to do with a change in plans for Warmth. I'm at lvl 3 in that right now... and I will take it to 4 and stop there. Rather than investing more into warmth, I will instead invest it (eventually) into Lightning Mastery... which is a reverse sort of Warmth for lightning spells only, but which also works in conjunction with mana potions, in that I can cast more spells before I need to use a mana potion, as well as being able to cast at the same rate as I could if I pumped warmth. The only question is whether or not Sparka will survive that long.

Act 1 was a total gravy train for Sparka: the best of times. I know that much more difficult challenges lie ahead for her. The good news is that high level Charged Bolt appears to shine best against large groups. She only has to survive until clvl 18 to get to Teleport... and that's a sure thing.

Zap zap zap zap zap... Look at the sparks fly!

- Sirian

| Sparka's Page | Chapter Two | Main Page |