ACT FOUR

To begin Act Four, Vilehand had Str 60, Dex 53, Vit 47, Nrg 45

Stats had to be spread out (one might even say spread thin). I got +10 Str/Dex from Twitchthroe, and another +11 Dex from three rares.

Poison Dagger @ 10
Bone Armor @ 9 (providing 100 points of physical absorption, no help against elements).
Amp Damage @ 1
Weaken @ 1
Iron Maiden @ 1
Terror @ 1
Life Tap @ 1
Decrepify @ 1
Clay Golem @ 1 (rarely used, and only as a weak decoy or occasionally with IM for Vile's only ranged attack).

Rare Blade: +176 AR, 8-34 Base Damage, IAS - gambled by accident, Act 2
Twitchthroe armor: +10 Str/Dex, SIAS, +25% to shield block - gambled Act 2
Rare Bone Shield: -2 Magic Damage, +8 Mana, +7 Life, Fastest Recovery - Duriel
Sigon's Visor: +30 Mana - found Act 3
Rare Amulet: Vulpine, -1 Dmg and MD, +20ish Lit/Poison Resist, +1 Dex
Rare Ring: +1 Light, +23 Fire Resist, +7 Lit Resist, +19 Mana - Gidbinn reward
Rare Boots: Faster Run, three minor resists, +2 Dex - gambled Act 2
Rare Gloves: Half Freeze, +18 Cold Res, +8 Dex, +9 Stamina - gambled Act 3
Plated Belt: +22 Life Ring: +49 AR, 5% Life Leech

Vilehand still had little need for curses in general. I could have used Weaken on any sizable mobs or particularly tough opponents, but generally I just... didn't. His Bone Armor was thick, and rather than continually spend mana on Weakening opponents, I'd just let the armor protect him, recast it when it got down to only one of the three spinning shards. Sound familiar? It should. That's how it's been going for a while now. The Venom Lords on the Plains of Despair, with their max poison resistance, would change that a bit, but it continued the same for other critters. I could have used Life Tap or Amplify but those weren't really needed. Vile can still kill almost everything with one hit (and some patience, waiting for it dawn on them that they are already dead).

He drew Doom Knights, Casters, and Corpulents for the Steppes. The Doom Knights were the worst for three reasons: they do have some poison resistance (being undead), their Spectral Hit ability cuts past bone armor to do some elemental damage, and their blocking rate can be highly annoying, causing me to miss far more often than I am used to doing with Vile's near-autohit attack rating. Thus, I can't just proceed with clicking on them once, then clearing out. Far too often they block, and it is less dangerous just to stand there (most of the time, not always) and take whatever hits come, to make sure I have the targets poisoned.

The Venom Lords took longer to die off, but not by much. Enough to require more than one hit, though, so I would often either hit them twice with poison dagger (wasting mana, per se, but my non-boosted attack rating for regular melee is starting to suffer a little since I stopped pumping Dex so hard). Or I might use some normal attack on them, or even just let the poison play out while I worked on other targets, and hit them again later. Everything else died quickly.

Well, everything else except the Flesh Spawners, especially this champ pack near the start of the game:

I got an unpleasant taste of things to come from those champs. It took a long time, and multiple poison hits, to kill each one, during which time they bred an army of pups. This was actually a lively fight and I had to use Terror once or twice to break out of being cornered.

The Plains held more Knights (good grief), and the Venoms I mentioned (also tougher than the average bear), and also Burning Souls, who lit up the night sky with their magicks.

In that picture, Vile is being chased by quite the mob. Some are poisoned, waiting to die, some are poisoned Venoms who will live for a bit longer. This is another instance where I had to use some Terror.

Then came Izual, and though he posed no serious threat, I got tired of standing there with Life Tap running and switched (mostly) to Amplify to try and get this over with more quickly. I stabbed him so many times, my dagger almost broke.

The City was populated with Corpse Spitters, more Knights (Abyss variety) and mob after mob of Stygian Hags. The green color of the hags and their wyrms proved troublesome occasionally. The poison green is much brighter, but even so, I couldn't always tell which pups were poisoned or not. The mothers bred SO many pups. Vile handled them all, but it took considerably more work even than Knights and Venom Lords.

The Abyss Knights were more troublesome. At melee range, they were virtually irrelevant, but their missiles stung, and more so for cutting right past the bone armor, making them seem deadly compared to other threats. Melee critters pretty much had swarm Vile, get past his high blocking, and do enough damage quickly enough to down the bone armor and start hitting flesh. That didn't happen often. These Abyss Knights were insignificant alone, but put three together and the threat level rose considerably. Online, even moderate lag would make for inescapable deaths in that situation -- and I have been there, too!

The City, with all its mothers and pups, and its more dangerous variety of knights, too more time/effort/risk to clear than the previous two areas combined. I used Terror several times. Even so, the clear pace was healthy.

The River held Urdars, Pit Lords, and Grotesques. These mothers were less numerous than the hordes in the city, thus a bit less dangerous. The Urdars turned out to be annoying, though, and even dangerous in packs, due to their stun attack. I am used to smashing them from range, or getting into their faces with a melee character who stuns them back and can easily handle several at a time. Vilehand had a different situation. He'd get one hit, then be waiting for the thug to keel over (which would happen eventually), but between the grotesque pups and a high concentration of Urdars, I had some lively moments. I soon stopped underestimating the Urdars. For Vile, they got an asterisk on his opponent list, denoting foe types to give a wider berth and more respect.

There was an abyss knight boss pack down there, but I managed to off them without any great pain. I passed the forge, cleared to the waypoint, then noticed that I had about 200,000 gold above what could be stashed. I went on a gambling spree and spent that whole lot. The only thing I landed was a Sigon's Wrap, with traded 2 Life for 20 Fire Resist. I took that bargain. Everything else was junk. I only got two cracks at a Gauntlet, both junk. I spent ten minutes back and forth to the waypoint, refreshing the gambling screen (can't wait for the Xpack, when that won't be necessary any more) and slowly spent the cash on boots, mainly, a bit here or there on caps or plated belts. Oh well. 200k down the tubes, but I won't complain. I've got my gambling and item/gold management worked out enough to make do even if luck is lean for a particular character. Vile already had fantastic luck in previous acts, so it balances out, you know. Accepting the math is part of the fun, but you do benefit if you are educated in probability concepts and equations.

I did find an upgrade from Hratli, though. I traded in my backup Amber helm with 34 resist and -50 poison length, for an Amber Great Helm with 47% resist and Fast Recovery. I'd be using that for Diablo.

My plan for Heffer: Decrep, Decrep, Decrep. Now that his poison vulnerability has been fixed, I didn't expect much of a fight from him. Decrep has short duration, but it's plenty in single player for this purpose, even at slvl 1 and 2 sec length. Curse the bastard, step in, stab him, get out. He's slowed, he takes +50% physical damage from my blow, and his own damage is cut in half. I had to Decrepify him repeatedly, and also to walk around a bit (yes, even tempting fate with the Fat One -- DO NOT try this with lag) waiting for his green to wear off. The more damaged he became, the faster walk/run speed he gained. Is that a feature built in? I wonder. I've noticed that before, too. Anyway, it took maybe ten hits to kill him. That's all. Twelve tops. He landed several hits, even one while I was cursed, but I never gave him a shot at me except when Decrepified, and he was not even able to get past the bone armor. From the forge I got a flawless emerald and normal diamond, and sold the other two.

More Grotesques on the maze? No problem. Urdars? Not much problem. Pit Lords... it finally occurred to me that only the Venom Lords have Poison Resistance. I already knew this, but it had not registered. All the way across the River I had been treating them like Venoms, and could not understand why they died SO easily. Now I figured it out. They aren't resistant to Vile's poison. They are just normal critters.

So we come to the sanctuary entrance. Out come some mages. Aha. Well I know that their bone spirits are neither physical nor elemental, so my bone armor can't shield me, and there is no way to resist. What's worse, if hit with Lower Resist curse, their damage is amplified a bit. That puts the Oblivion Knights into a special category for Vile. They will die if I stab them, though, right? So no big deal. Or... is it? Hmm.

No wonder the shots sting more. No wonder there are so many bunched up. That's a boss. Well, well, well. Hmm.

Sszark was dangerous because I had my head in the sand. This lawyer was REALLY dangerous, as in screw-up-and-die-in-a-hurry kind of dangerous, like fighting Laz in D1 in higher difficulty without fire resistance. Do not screw up or you are toast.

There were too many monsters over there. Not only the boss and seven minions, but also some grotesques, breeding, and some Urdars and Pit Lords, too. This was not looking good. I tried to rush in, got SMACKED by mageshot and spirits, managed to stab ONE PUP, drank a rejuv to keep from dying (close call) and limped out of there under the influence of their decrep, taking more spirits up the tail pipe as I fled.

Well what do you know, an honest to goodness WORTHY fight in Normal difficulty. Will wonders never cease?

I tried three more times to get a decent opening, playing it more cautiously now, and there were no openings to be found. I then tried to use golems as decoy but those were instantly eaten, and I lost as much time casting them as they gained for me. Net gain: zero. Now what?

Well I had to thin those melee types out of there. If I was going to try a potion-gulping charge, I needed it to count for something, namely, to score some gains against the Oblivions, not their meat sheilds. So I moved around to the eastern loop, with lava between them and myself, cast my slvl 1 Iron Maiden on the melee crowd and stuck poor Golly in their midst a few times in a row. I had to run like Hell to dodge more spirits than you could shake a staff at, but the melee troops started dying off. Now if I had some Corpse Explosion, I could have wiped out some of those mages right then. Oh well. At least now I'm down to mages only. There were four in each of two packs, jammed up on the "high ground" where they could direct all sorts of firepower my way while I ran up, around, and BACK DOWN into their niche to fight them. Arrgh.

Here goes. Vile runs up the left outside, turns the corner, casts Decrep on the nearest target, gulps a red, stab-stab-stab, gulp-gulp-gulp, purple-red-purple-red (minor purps, full reds -- the poor man's full rejuv solution). One down. Belt almost half empty. Time to retreat.

Fortunately, I had a stockpile of reds and extra minor purps from clearing the rest of the act. Those reds all got used here, repeating this Pickett's Charge type of move, over and over, but it worked. (Hell, I bet it would have worked for the Confederacy, too, if their troops had belts full of instant-cure rejuv potions. I'd be living in the CSA now, if that had happened. Rejuvs are powerful stuff -- just like all the potions were in D1. You could pull off miracles, it's true).

Have I mentioned why I hoard so many potions? Why I bother to keep carting them back to town, even when the surplus gets ridiculous? You just never know when you're going to start guzzling them like water. This isn't the first time I used an entire Act's worth of surplus potions on one fight. Probably won't be the last, either.

Into the CS, and the mages are now TOP priority. Iron Maiden curse ignores my own bone armor? Yikes. That was news to me. Oh well, no big deal. If I had a shot at stabbing a mage, all other concerns went out the window. Life? Mana? That's what potions are for! Stab-stab-stab, die, boy, die. Yes. Why not one stab? Because some of them were sturdy enough to survive one stab, them and their 60% resistance. The bastards. Two stabs at least, just to be sure, and three or four if I wanted them dead NOW. Die, die, die.

The Infector and Vizier were dissed by Vilehand. He just opened the seals, Terrored the mob and ran right through them, then fought them in open territory. Actually, with the Infector, he terrored the mob, stood there and killed the boss, THEN terrored the minions again and ran past them, out of the corner where the seal had him trapped. Heh. I tell you, after that mage boss fight in the maze, these melee pests were none too intimidating and I whipped them like the dogs they are.

De Seis I knew better than to disrespect, not with this character. I opened the seal, ported out, returned upriver, then set about a plan to divide and conquer.

That's what made that CEB mage so tough: no way to divide and conquer. They were holed up in those maze niches and had free aim at me over the lava. I tried some patience, hoping some would wander off, but they declined. I had to brave all eight at once, and it was brutal. With this mob inside, I could play the role of the cheetah: stalk the herd, bide my time, wait for one to run itself lame or wander too far from its mother, cast Life Tap on it, dive in and feed. Yum yum, mages. Mmm-mmm, good.

Diablo amazed me. How? With his inability to pose a threat at all. I had -5 total Magic damage, max lit resist and 73 fire, 65% blocking, 110 points of bone armor, and three levels of fast recovery. I started the fight, ready to drink, then stopped and watched the bright green Lord of Terror breathe lightning on me to NO EFFECT. The resistance plus -magic NEGATED the elemental half of the attack, while the blocked stopped most of the physical half and the bone armor absorbed the rest. I let go of my mouse, sat back, and watched for several seconds in disbelief as Diablo googled and gurgled and bawled like an infant.

He finally wised up. That, or his random attack routines finally rolled different numbers. He switched to melee and, in three hits, took down the bone armor. I raised it again and resumed stabbing him. The poor guy. I think only Guided Arrows and Hydras can humiliate him worse than this.

He wasn't even worthy of a full size picture. I've seen quill rats that were more dangerous.

I didn't exactly plan it that way. I'm sure next difficulty level, he'll sting more. Vile was just way overpowered for him from a defensive standpoint. I drank four potions: one red and three blue. Running out of mana was the worst problem I faced, if that qualifies as a "problem" while wearing a belt full of potions.

Poison Dagger is not the uberclear path, but it's stronger through Normal than I expected. Much of that is due, I know, to that incredible Blade I gambled, and with a misclick! A lesser physical weapon would have left me relying more on the poison, so I know that helped Vile out a LOT. I mean a LOT. Rather like your typical whirlwind barbarian: put a standard broadsword in his hand, see how he does, then put a godly pike with two +damage affixes (pike, not lance) in his hand and watch the difference. Well, sometimes luck is kind that way. Vilehand will see you in Nightmare.

- Sirian

| Vilehand's Page | Next Chapter | Main Page |