NORMAL

As many of you know, I've got enough sorcie characters to run my own softball team, complete with bench and bullpen -- as many, probably, as I do the other four classes combined. And those who follow my ramblings know that I tend toward full clears, and for some characters have done a complete-once-clear right through. Well, lately I've had numerous crashes in single player, running the gamut from all sorts of things, and I've taken the usual remedy if any particular crash seems to be repeating. However, the frustration is particularly high when this happens repeatedly to a character on a "straight run" since items lost, even surplus potions on the ground, are gone for good, and a crash often forces a do-over of a whole game area, if not more, skewing the result in other ways, most particularly surplus experience.

Right now, I've got Thrower, Bluebonnet, and Zap all on hold after multiple recent crashes. Poor Zap even lost her Diablo uberdrop from Normal, thanks to a crash. So I've been piddling around with other things, mainly my PD-Necro. I might have gone back to playing more on Realms, but East is in such sorry shape, I've been sticking almost exclusively to single player lately. I have also started yet another new sorceress, and that's the subject of this thread.

Spedara is her name, and speed is her game. Not killing speed, not even completion speed. No, rather, the dead opposite of a full-clear: advancing with as little experience as I can safely manage. Safely being the key: I'm still not keen on dying.

It's been a fascinating experience so far. One of my self-chosen rules is completing all quests. Whether or not to tackle bosses has depended on three things:

1) Do I need to kill them, either for a quest, or just to get past them safely and press onward.
2) Is this boss a particular challenge I want to undertake.
3) How relentless does the boss pursue if I attempt to ignore him.

Act 1:

DoE completed at clvl 3.
Raven slain at clvl 4.
Cain saved (and Gris slain) at clvl 6.
Countess slain at clvl 7.
Malus retrieved (and Smith slain) at clvl 8.
Andariel slain at clvl 10.

2-4) Warmth @ 1,2,3,4
6) Inferno @ 1
6) Frost Nova @ 1
7-9) Static Field @ 1,2,3
10) Warmth @ 5

Act 2:

Radament slain at clvl 11.
Cube obtained at clvl 11.
Staff obtained at clvl 12.
Amulet obtained at clvl 13.

Two-pronged Disaster in the Arcane Sanctuary: firstly, I chose the wrong paths first, all three of them, so total I ended up clearing over half the entire Arcane Sanctuary. Result? Arrgh! Three levels gained! And this is just HALF the Sanctuary. Oh well. I came out the other side at clvl 16 and with some item upgrades.

The other half of the disaster: a death. In the teleporting quadrant, I tried to rush a little too far, stepped into a teleporter, ending up mobbed by over a dozen specters all at once, got cut off almost instantly and could not teleport back to safety, and it became clear that I could not escape. This left two options: TRY to save myself with frost novas and perhaps some static, maybe bust through and make it to the teleporter, or else Quit n Save. That latter would have only mean redoing many fights, further adding to Spedara's total experience, which I did not want to do. So I tried to fight, held on a good 10 or 11 seconds, and died with "phantom" life by the orbful while actual life could not keep up. Ah, I DO miss the days of D1 with the instant-heal potions. So it goes.

Duriel slain at clvl 16.

11) Telekinesis @ 1
12-16) Blaze @ 1-5

Act 3:

Sszark slain and eye obtained at clvl 17
Run run run through the jungles!
Endugu slain and brain obtained at clvl 18.

And finally, FINALLY, Spedara has Firewall and Teleport at slvl 1 apiece. Should be able to avoid even more fights now! Yay!

I honestly have no idea what sort of leveling I will be doing from here out. I managed to find the waypoint at the far end of Lower Kurast without killing a single monster in that area.

Spedara was five clvl's behind my usual pace at the end of Act 1, and is currently six levels behind my usual full-clear pace. Only one death so far, but the close calls! OH MY, the CLOSE calls. I've had more in 60% of Normal with this one character, than I have had with ALL my other characters COMBINED, all the way through Normal difficulty. I find that extraordinary!

It's definitely living life on the edge! Not only from being lower clvl/mlvl ratio, not only from having worse items, less stats, not only from functioning on fewer than normal skills and skill levels -- but also because there is a concerted effort to AVOID making any nonessential kills, which quite frequently gets my character into some seriously nasty jams.

How low can I keep the clvl and still get to three dots? How far can I do that and STILL avoid or minimize deaths? I have no idea, but so far it has been a nice change of pace and an interesting compromise of conflicting goals. In other words, it's been fun.

Spedara got through the rest of Act 3 pretty quickly. I only had to fight a few opponents in Kurast and the Sewer, although the sewer was absolutely riddled with fetish undead, and I WILL have to fight those with significant respect and caution in NM and Hell, if I draw them, because that crap I pulled tonight, ignoring them, letting them beat on me, and blindly teleporting around... AIN'T gonna cut it next time around.

I also ended up killing all but one thing in the Ruined Temple. Those rogues just too quick and numerous to ignore, and I drew a champ pack and crew along with Sarina.

I also had to kill a swarm of Zealots on the causeway, but then was able to run/teleport over to the waypoint, clear the area between the waypoint and temple and combine slvl 3 SF with slvl 1 FW to slay the council without any real fuss and complete Q5. I mostly ran through or past everything in the Durance, with a few exceptions, but again, I think I will have to take considerably more care there next time around. I parked the downstairs council, all of them, then fought Meph with, frankly, virtually no resistances. As such I had to drink a lot, because I had to get close many times to use my SF, then finish him off with FW. High danger fight but only one close call. He dropped a 20k sale item and all told, I gained about half a clvl.

So the pace of my level gains has slowed to a complete crawl since I reached clvl 18 (and Teleport) early in Act 3. I anticipate more gains in Act 4 as I will have to kill more things just to stay alive. I particularly dread the idea of Abyss Knights, because they may force me to kill most or even all of the ones I run into to stay safe. And of course, I will have to either kill everything in the CS or take extraordinary measures to park them, and I'm too lazy to take any extraordinary measures. I'm hoping to get out of Normal still at clvl 19, but we shall see. The only things I absolutely must kill are Izzy, Heph, the Seal bosses and big D. But realisitically, I will have to kill a lot more than that, I think.

I had bad luck in the Steppes, in that I circumnavigated nearly the entire border before finding the stairs. I relied mainly on Frost Nova to slow the chasers, but I did get too large a mob going once and had to thin it out. Also had to use multiple teleports to get out of trap situations. All in all, managed to get away with minimal kills.

And then I got absolutely bushwacked, mugged in one of the most serious traps I've seen at the entrance to the Plains. I think only Hotfoot's Hell run had a bigger, meaner mob in place. There were six or eight Venom Lords, half a dozen Doom Casters, ten or more Burning Souls (can you say OWTCH) and Izzy was RIGHT THERE. That's the first whole-belt fight I have ever had in D2 single player. The souls were definitely not impressed with my 6% Lit Resist. I absolutely dreaded the possibility of waking more souls, so I had to work within a fairly tight area and Izzy was Nova-ing the daylights out of me.

I killed him off still at clvl 18 and put the points to Static, to take it to slvl 5 -- probably as high as I will go, though you never know.

I then tried to circle around to find the way to the City, but those Burning Souls were simply TOO dangerous under the circumstances and I had to kill almost all the ones I woke up, with some balrogs and finger mages biting it in the process. I got a bad vibe when four or six lightning bolts shot at me all at once and turned back, backtracking the full length of the west and north outsides of the Plains, to try along the east wall, and sure enough, I found the exit there without having to fight that soul boss pack or champ mob or whatever it was.

I ran and ran through the City, Frost Nova and Teleport, and it was pure foolhardiness. Swarms of damned, of Strangers, of Stygian Hags and their brood, and a Pit Lord fanatacism aura boss pack. I had to drink and drink some more, to teleport over and over and over again, but I managed to find the waypoint finally, without killing a single thing in the City.

I am completely convinced that the same strat in NM will not be viable. Firstly, the Frost Nova duration will drop from 8 secs to 4, then there's the enemy to hit and damage, not to mention clvl/mlvl will be absurd and THAT will be backed by 4xAR.

Spedara is still clvl 18, though just barely. I am of a mind now, that should I encounter Abyss Knights in the river, I may well bail. Not out of fear, but rather out of the probability that I'd have to kill them all to get past them. That, and my resists are pathetic. We'll see.

Spedara enters the River, and is quickly forced to fight a few Stranglers and swarms of maggot young. No Abyss Knights, so that's one thing going for her.

Oddly enough, she leveled up to clvl 19 with the deaths of some MAGGOT YOUNG. I found this strange, and proceeded to study them briefly, noticing that I was scoring experience from them at times, and other times not. What's up with that anyway?

Hell Forge was as close to the City stairs as I have ever seen it, and since I was trying to avoid killing things where possible, I ended up in a massive hairball at the forge, with several Urdars, Stranglers, and maggots + youngins running me around in a circle of Blaze with some Frost Nova help and a little static field. No close calls, but it WAS quite a mess there. Heph got in three licks but none of them resulted in curses. He dropped me a nice rare ammy, with 24% Lit Res, -75% Poison Length, +8 mana, +26 life, and +1 Amazon skills (useless to Spedara). All in all that is quite a decent rare, unfortunately that +1 zon affix means I can't use it until clvl 22, which could well not arrive until well into NM diff. Also on the down side, no diamonds. None yet at all at any point, and none from the forge. Oh well. I do have a perf emerald and sapphire in the stash. It's not completely inconceivable that I might socket those on a shield at some point. We'll see.

Spedara ran/teleported through the rest of the river, at least to the waypoint, really with no close calls, but there was quite a mob of stranglers and a few urdars who followed me that far and had to be eradicated.

I then did something foolish: I tried to skip past the rest of the River. The Stranglers didn't like that and swarmed me, and there were packs of urdars and some maggots around and I got cornered near the CS. I did live, but it was nassssty stuff and I ended up having to kill more than half the critters in that area anyway, just to get a foothold behind enemy lines. Arrgh.

Despite this warning, I decided to push the limits to their max and try to teleport/run/frostnova my way past the first half of the CS. Result? I got swarmed by the entire population, including an extra strong mage boss, got brutally mobbed, took an endless array of hits from Storm Caster seeker missiles, lost mana at key points, got cursed and recursed and cursed again, smacked by multiple bone spirits, drank drank drank, needed purples to survive, ran out of potions and by the virtue of luck alone, or else divine powers watching out for a drunken fool of a sorcie, I made it out of there with THREE life left and an empty belt.

Lesson: DO NOT rush it in the CS. Go ahead and clear the whole thing, because you'll have to do that anyway, might as well do it more safely. In nightmare and hell, I will certainly just full clear everything from the River waypoint onward.

I actually did manage to avoid killing over a dozen targets at the end of the CS by slaying the last boss with all the seals open. The game automatically kills off any remaining monsters. But I had been forced to kill EVERY critter in the first 80% of the CS fight and I learned some lessons there.

Diablo, frankly, was a nonevent. Between slvl 6 Blaze, slvl 5 SF, and slvl 2 FW, he really had little to say. The only thing of note about the fight is that, for the first time ever for me, I saw Diablo actually heal himself. Or rather... I went to town while he had a sliver of life left, I come back and he's fully healthy. NEVER seen anything like that before. Even so, killing him a second time (in effect) was no more trouble than the first time. However, strangely enough yet again... I did NOT earn any experience points for the kill. WTF??? Anyone else ever seen that??

I wonder if it had anything to do with still being only clvl 19? Not that Spedara is complaining, but her quest to avoid experience points does NOT want any sort of help from unusual game bugs.

Even clearing about 95% of the CS only garnered half a level's experience, and Spedara quite easily made my goal of Dame status before level 20.

Still only the one death for her, but NOT for lack of my own trying. I did a lot of reckless things and continued to have repeated close calls.

I gotta tell ya, after having played so long now with Hot Babes and Ice Kittens, I sure do have a new appreciation for Teleport skill, as well as a solid sense of when I do or don't REALLY need it's help.

Next up, Nightmare...

- Sirian

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