Wussie embarked on Nightmare in earnest at clvl 31, with 25 Strength and Dex, 10 Vit, the rest in energy.
Frozen Orb @ 2
Cold Mastery @ 2
Static Field @ 12
Teleport @ 1
Lightning Mastery @ 1
Hydra @ 2
Warmth @ 4
All necessary Prereqs @ 1
Hotkeys:
Control - Press and Hold to Run
A - Orb
S - Hydra
Z/X - Static (Two keys so I can just press anything in that area and pull up SF)
Spacebar - Teleport (Easiest key on the keyboard to hit, can be reached with thumb)
Q - Glacial Spike
W - Blizzard
E - Telekinesis
Y - Quest Log (easy to find with my MS Natural split keyboard)
V - Char Screen (to move it away from C, to prevent accidental use when reaching for SF)
F8 - Town Portal (hardly ever used - not when I have Teleport on hand!)
This is a new hotkey system for me: no use of Function Keys at all. For all previous chars, I would reach up to the top of my keyboard to change skills. I still do so with most chars, but the need to switch melee skills instantly without moving my hand, on chars like Ribinak, Eksor and Lytra, pushed me to revise my hotkey setup. That I can now rely on A-Z-S-X-Q-Spacebar for primary skills even for my spellcasters, and W-E for secondary ones I don't need in the heat of battle, all without ever lifting my hand off the Control key while running or being ready to run, has been a significant boost to my tactical capabilities. Not that those were lacking, but they are even stronger now.
I often hear of players using Q-W-E-R and A-S-D-F for all eight hotkeys. This sounds, in theory, a little better than the Function keys, but how then do these players reach the control and alt keys for continual toggle between walk and run modes (essential to tactics of all kinds) as well as check the items on ground regularly to see what's there? I do not see how they can do all that. To me, speed management is the essential tactical element, and a constant moment-by-moment readiness to walk or to run as needed (tempting, maneuvering, happy feet dodging, even melee chars need to move effectively)... that readiness is indispensible to me. Ineffective movement spells death. Period. So the QWER ASDF arrangement won't cut it for me. I had to come up with something in which Control Key was the cornerstone.
Also, some people might look and say "Only four Warmth, are you crazy???" No, I'm not. For single player, I have no serious worries about mana. Wussie Girl has everything in energy. She has SF to hurt mobs or tough bosses. SF/Orb is, frankly, overpowered for this venue; it can hold it's own in solo-8, for crying out loud. Also, I'm a dreadful cash scavenger in single player, where item drops aren't beefed up to ridiculous levels like they are in solo-8. With no twinks or trades, I must gamble for most of my gear. So I end up making lots of trips to town anyway, selling off not just those 25k items, but those 800 and 1200 gold weapons, 500 gold plated belts, any armor worth more than 1k (even cracked plated armors)... not always, but rather often. Anything worth 2k+ is a must sell. If mana happens to be low, I get a refill. Those times when I don't care to visit town and I don't have items to sell? Use potions. I always have extra of those lying around. I know you can't do that on realms -- not in public games anyway. Drop a stamina potion on the ground and some greedy punk will snatch it up and sell it for 6 gold, I kid you not. Anyway... I will get more warmth as I need it. I will probably need some more, as orb costs rise faster than my mana pool, but we shall see. There is always Xinhuan's universal advice for "not enough mana": More Static, Less Orb. :)
Finally, there is the matter of how much Orb to get. I remember studies of the math of spell damage vs warmth refresh rates showing that Frozen Orb was the ONE skill which would be made more effective by leaving it at slvl 1 and maxing Warmth, instead of leaving Warmth at 1 (or at least low) and pumping the attack skill. Well, guess what? Even that is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. There are NO times when pumping warmth over your attack skill will make your sorcie more effective. None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
Why not Warmth, even with Orb? Mana efficiency isn't the vital statistic. So what is the vital statistic? Chill Duration. How long does the cold last? Slvl 1 Orb lasts two seconds in Hell. Slvl 21 Orb lasts seven seconds. Do you have ANY idea what I can do with seven seconds? With Mastery at slvl 5+, that's still in the area of five seconds of cold duration EVEN AGAINST RESISTANT TARGETS. Yes, Mastery not only increases damage, it increases chill length too, or rather, cuts down on the chill-reduction of resistance.
You can run all the math you like. This is a no-brainer: max that Orb, baby, yeah!
Besides which, it seems to me that increasing the skill level of Orb slows targets down more and more, just like with Holy Freeze. I wouldn't bet my life on this, but after playing with Orb finally, I am confident this is true. There was a sizable difference in effectiveness of chill between slvl 1 and slvl 6+. Why has nobody ever mentioned this that I have heard of? Why does nobody actually TALK about how to use this skill? They're all busy presuming you already know, or that it doesn't matter. Just tweak yourself out, spam the orbs, you don't need to know how to do it effectively. Well, perhaps that's true, you CAN just spam the orbs in open situations like act four, and run or teleport as needed, no further strategy or tactics necessary (add SF for Solo-8, big whoop there, heh). However, that you don't need to understand this skill to use it, does not imply there is nothing to understand. I learned quite a few things in short order that nobody has ever mentioned, that I've seen.
Anyway... more theory about Orbs later. For now, let's shoot monsters and break things! YEEHAA!!!
First up, Woodhead Treefist again. (I had completed up through Tristram in between clearing out Act Four Normal five times). Treefist got the Cold Shoulder: that's what I have started to call the "near miss" aiming tactic. More on that later. Treefist got planted, that's the sum of that story. Extra Strong == one hit death for softcore wussies. Normally, we don't talk about that here (OK?) but in this case, Extra Fast met Paint-You-Blue and in the wide open spaces of the Dark Wood, Wussie had no trouble running from the big Brute like a... well, like a little wussie girl. :) Big Strong Brute go "Urrr! Urrrr! Urrrrrrrrrrr!" He fell down and could not get up. Poor guy needed one of those medic alert call boxes that summon doctors and ambulances. Too late now.
I went ahead and full-cleared. Sure, lots of traps and such underground, some nasty bosses to jump out, smack you down and such. Yeah, waking in town face down is something over which to frown, but you can't very well do much thrill seeking by farming the slow, safe, well-lit areas over and over, can you? As for the experience penalty, ouch. Let's not talk about that, OK?
Smith go boomboom. He got the Cold Shoulder. Wussie girl takes Malus to Charsi, then imbues a Demonhide Sash (happened to be superior, but that's irrelevant). This is what she got (clvl 32 at the time):
Blah. +Life was the stat I wanted boosted. Give me a 4-row belt of colossus that I can wear with only 25 Str please! Instead I get the "of Life" suffix with it's grand bonus of +5. I guess that's better than +0. That Fire Resist was needed pretty badly (I would be at zero, but for that Ruby wand). Bonus Mana wasn't what I needed, but it would come in handy anyway, even if only marginally so. Replenish life would mean some small counteraction of slow poisons, as well as autoheal of minor nicks and cuts. It can't save your life (or isn't likely to) but it wouldn't hurt. The vital bonus was that +11 to Strength. Since I did not intend ever to increase base Strength beyond 25, I either needed +9 Str or more (to get a 3D large shield) or else I would have to go with a 2D small shield or a rare buckler with +Life (I already had the Pelta Lunata in my stash, yes I HAD been gambling for rare bucklers despite Wall of the Eyeless. I'll be selling that junky WotE at the end of Nightmare, I promise you. Or... at the latest, early in Act 1 Hell. Wussie isn't going to become your standard 7fps tweaker sorcie, sorry).
So all in all, that belt was pretty good. It's best quality: four rows! Four more potion storage slots, less worries about running out of juice in a fight, and just the idea, FOR ONCE, of actually using an Imbued item, particularly one well short of uber status. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've done that? Even so, it was a step down in Life from the +29 Tiger belt I had been using, and Wussie's survival rate (already shocking, but let's not talk about it, OK?) could potentially worsen. However, softcore wussies don't much care about that, do they? I mean, maybe they care, but not enough to change how they play. Right? Right. Let's kick some ass and take names! Woohoo! Bring it on.
While I am showing off items, let's display this prize:
Dayum! Now that was sweet! Faster Run not ideal, but for Fastest Recovery, Tiger, and three resists, I'll deal. However, I did not trash my Tireless Boots of Speed just yet. I would want Fastest Run and +50% Stamina Heal vs Duriel, so I stashed those. These rares were gambled on the same trip to town where I got my Imbue, and 24 Life was the exact amount I had lost off my belt, now found on these boots. Amazing. So by trading in my old boots and belt, I broke even on Life, but gained a fourth belt row, +3 Life Regen, a Fastest Recovery, 11 Strength boost I'd need for a shield in Hell, and bonuses to ALL FOUR resistances. Yeah, that was a pretty good deal. The only things I lost were a downgrade to Faster Run and the loss of Stamina healing boost. Well, those did matter. With 10 Vit, Wussie had less stamina than a dog with no legs, so I had to do a lot more walking to keep from tiring her out. So it goes. Still a good deal for her.
Finally, I have to show you this tidbit, picked up off the Infector in one of my Act Four Normal clears:
Blah and blah, low life on that one, too, but another moderate mana boost. Hardcore sorcies might shun such trinkets, but softcore wussies don't care. Sure, bring it on. Who needs that +33 Mammoth ammy anyway? Let's get +skills and r0x0r those monsters! Yeehaa! Magic Find won't hurt either. :) By the by, sorcies in D2 scoff at +14 Dex, but in LoD that is going to be a welcome affix to any shield user! (If you haven't heard, blocking in D2X will depend largely on Dexterity! I kid you not).
On through Act One we go. Orb orb orb, don't you know. Light em up, chill em out. Give them the Cold Shoulder treatment, no doubt. Pitspawn growled like the dog he is. Smack him with Orbs, no need for blizz. Static won't work well against lightning spitters, but Cold Mastery turns chill spells into the heaviest hitters. Flamespike was hung out in the cloister to dry. Bone Ash succumbed when the orbs shot on by. That Cold Shoulder treatment cleared a path through the Cats. Nothing scared Wussie Girl except for the rats. Down to the cellar a-spamming we go, to paint Andi blue and summon hydras, you know. Send that old witch back to Hell in a flash, then sell off her items for a pittance of cash.
How many times did Wussie perish today? We're not going to talk about that part, OK?
Act two, one picture:
That was an ED. (Extra Dead Enchanted: he hit the floor before I could see who he was).
Here's a look at Wussie's general stats, as she nears the end of the true tomb:
Now here's a look at the one and only time in the entire game when I can afford to max out her +life gear at all costs:
Wow! Yep, no kidding! Over 400 life, with 10 vit. Look at those resists, though. I had on a colossus belt with 58 life, colussus helm and armor, mammoth rings and amulet, Bloodfist, and a Dragon's Wand of Magus. Nada for resistance, except the +20 poison from the unique shield. A colossus buckler could have taken it even higher, but still not enough to safely absorb a Duriel charge. Thrower got killed by Duri in Nightmare with more life than that. Oh well. All that life wouldn't matter, as it turns out, but let's not go there, OK? I mean, sure, it LOOKS like a lot of life, probably more than many sorcies have at this juncture, but a death means all that bonus lost, don't you know. Ever tried to recover your body with less than 100 total life and no fast boots on, in Duriel's chamber? OK OK, this time I mean it: let's NOT talk about it any more! Duriel eventually died, that's the important part.
The spider caverns in act three are not a safe place to venture with low vitality.
Would you like to see the dictionary definition of "Crap Gidbinn Reward"? Here you go:
OK, if I thought undead flayers hurt a no-vit sorcie in normal, take a look at THESE puppies here in nightmare.
The devastation they can inflict is noteworthy. Beyond that, I don't care to talk about it. OK?
Somewhere in here, I started to wonder if it was worthwhile to continue full-clearing. Like, what was the reward for doing this anyway? Then I remembered that softcore wussies don't care! Hahahaha! What a load off that proved to be. Like, sure. Softcore wussies do suffer some loss of time, in the form of gold and xp, but who's carrying gold? As for experience, there's always the next game. No worries. So here you see Wussie Girl touring the Swampy Pit. Oh look, a gold chest. :)
Have I mentioned how unreliable Frozen Orb can be for defense in the tightest places? I haven't? Well, normally I'd just gloss over this part with a moan about not discussing it, but this part is important, as not understanding it can very well get you killed. You see, the orb itself does not chill a bloody thing.
That bears repeating: the Frozen Orb itself DOES NOT chill anything.
The orb will do damage, but not chill. If you actually hit a target with the orb, you get the same effect as if one of the ice bolts shooting out had scored the hit, except there is no chill inflicted. And nobody has ever mentioned this??? WTF?
Anyway, that's only part of the problem. The other half is, while an orb is piercing a target, it won't emit bolts. That sounds confusing, I realize, so I will try to illustrate.
Suppose you have a wall-to-wall mass of Returned skeletons in the Halls of the Dead. They just fill the room and they are in your face. You shoot an orb, that orb will not be able to spew bolts. The orb itself will fly through the pack, and it will damage each target it hits, but you get no chill effects and only one damage per target. You get no spray of bolts. This is not good.
This sort of case is rare in practice. More likely, you will aim your orb at a target or a small mob, and the orb will hit some targets and pass through them, and while doing so, some of the spray will be shut down. Once the orb emerges out the creature's back, it would start spraying again unless there are other targets hampering it.
So there are two separate effects going on here: the orb itself, and the bolts sprayed out. Those bolts are fairly numerous, maybe half a dozen at a time going off every few frames. Then at the orb's termination, there will be a big explosion of bolts in all directions, like a big pinwheel. However, you cannot control when this happens. The orbs have a specified range and will ALWAYS travel out to that range, then detonate. Like Inferno, there is NO AIMING FOR DISTANCE. You are aiming ONLY the direction of the skill. Why has nobody every mentioned this either?
So the orb is almost like inferno in another way: the orb itself pierces, damaging each target it hits once and only once, but continuing to its full range unless a terrain obstacle intervenes. You CAN use orb to send damage into packs of monsters, but this is ineffective -- NOT because the orb is any less effective, but because it stops spraying when it is itself doing direct damage. You are better off to shoot off to the side of most targets, if there is room to do so, and let multiple bolts spray out and hit that target in passing. You are even better off to aim your bolts past the sides of mobs than to shoot into them, in almost all cases where both options are possible.
There are not as many bolts as it may appear. I've seen some talk about hitting targets with eight or ten bolts. No way! Not with one orb. If you are adept at aiming, or merely lucky, you might hit with three bolts in passing. That's a single target. Against more targets, obviously, more bolts may hit. If the orb itself touches anything, though, it stops spraying until it passes through, when it will resume the spray, or at the very least, it will continue to full range then explode. That explosion is the only significant part of sending orbs into mobs, your only chance to chill, other than a single bolt released before the orb itself contacts the enemy.
The Cold Shoulder tactic comes down to two things: how to get two or more bolts to hit a single target in passing, and how to maximize your hits from the pinwheel detonation at the end of range. Using Cold Shoulder on mobs means getting several bolts to hit various targets in passing, then many more to hit on detonation, resulting in reliable damage: for SF sorcies, a reliable chiller or finisher; for pure orb use, your best damage rate.
As I explained before, do not shoot the orb directly at terrain obstacles or targets; shoot the orb past approaching critters thus that the targets line up on the port side of the orb. Any targets moving away from you, shoot the orb so they line up on the starboard side. This will get you the most hits in passing and the most on detonation. Everything depends on how the target is moving, though, and to some degree on target size. Trying to hit flayers with a single orb can be problematic, and trying to hit flying scimitars is actually difficult.
This means you don't want to aim just anywhere. You CAN, and still get some hits, but there is a specific way to get the most hits. Also, it matters how much of a "near miss" you create. Too narrow a miss, your orb itself may graze a target and interrupt the spray, likely cutting your total damage by a lot, and perhaps allowing targets to go unchilled. Not good. However, too wide a berth is also bad, in that the sprayed bolts do fan out, and you'll only hit with one, or maybe even miss entirely, with too much arc on your aim. Unfortunately, lag blur and monster "estimation" can lead to desync, and ANY attack form where you aim at the ground instead of highlighting a target and aiming directly at it, means you lose the "protection" of the server redirecting your attack for you. In other words, you may end up shooting at ghosts. In fact, you WILL end up doing so, which may explain why people just spam spam spam and don't seem to know -- or at least never talk about -- the tactical details of orbs.
Thus, you want just exactly enough of a near miss, equivalent to a shot across the bow. Because orbs are cold, have a nice long chill length, and you want to fire them just past the shoulders of your enemy, I call this attack the Cold Shoulder.
You always always always want to aim the same way, if you have room and time, when facing charging opponents. When tackling runners, you must shoot the other way. You have to train yourself to do this automatically, as you can't stop in the heat of battle to figure out your best aim. And many times, there's no time to aim at all. Just shoot, hope to chill, or try to recover control of a situation where a direct orb hit has robbed you of chill effect.
Contrary to some opinions, orbs DO NOT stop damaging and do not permanently cease spraying once they make direct contact. Just that direct contact is so much less efficient than Cold Shoulder as to make players fogged by lag scratch their heads in confusion. Even so, there are times (particularly at doorways and similar choke points) when you have no choice but to shoot those orbs directly into the enemy mass. Don't hesitate, that's better than nothing.
There is one exception to the range rule: if an orb impacts impassable terrain features (walls, chasms, pillars, etc) then they will detonate on the spot. You will then see a partial pinwheel explosion, with the bolts "leaning" in a clockwise slant. You can use this to your advantage. You can aim specifically at walls, just make sure the target is on the starboard side of the orb. That will lead to the clockwise pinwheel effect striking the target with multiple bolts, usually two, maybe three or more if the target is large. If you aim with the target on the orb's port side, you will get one hit at most, and more like none at all. Try it and you will see.
Take another look at this shot involving Sszark the Burning:
This represents a series of Cold Shoulder attacks. Wussie Girl fired off orbs to the right of the screen (now already expired) and picked off all the spiders to the port side of the orb. Ones farther away (down in the lower left part of the screen) were shielded at first by the bodies of their fellows. Once those front line spiders died, the next Cold Shoulder attack chilled and wounded the remaining spiders. You can see the final shot in flight now, but my aim was off by a little. That orb will end up hitting that chilled spider on the point, will stop spraying, and even though that spider died, the one behind it did not... and it would have if I had aimed a little wider. So I had to shoot again. Arrgh. You MUST ensure that the orb misses all targets to get the maximum spray effect, yet still keep the spray close enough to hit. This doesn't take long to master, although even once you train yourself to it, you will not aim every shot perfectly. Doesn't matter, as long as you get the job done. Understanding how and WHY to aim effectively for the Cold Shoulder treatement will help your efficiency, though, and perhaps also your survival. This will become far more urgent in the expansion, when the spell timer on orbs will prevent tweaked spamming, which is currently the "solve problem with brute force" method that doesn't require any thinking.
I have NO experience trying to adapt this through the fog of lag, but I know I could do so. People often dismiss single player as "easier" or "too easy" but it is only here, in the complete absence of lag blur, that the true tactical essense of the game can be worked out. From there, you can add lag tolerance. Trying to figure out the truth from the lag side will, at best, leave you with an effective method but without understanding of how and why that method is effective, leaving you in a poor position for adapting beyond the situations you engineered that solution to handle.
You may be shocked to learn that Wussie Girl isn't dying quite as much as I have been leading you to suppose. :)
Or maybe you won't be shocked. Maybe you picked up on that. I haven't really been hiding it. Frozen Orb is incredibly strong. It is so much stronger than any other single skill (including Static Field in almost all cases, but for its scaling factor in multiplayer) as to defy comparison. The damage output is incredible, the chill length is unmatched, Cold Mastery disarms all otherwise troubling opponents, and the ability to spam the skill can devastate entire regions in short order. There are still limits to what Orb can do, but damn. Damn! DAYUM! You know?
Still, there is a great mobility to Orb use that I find enjoyable. Glacial Spikes MUST be spammed and directly targetted. Blizzards must be stacked, and then you must keep the targets inside the area of effect (mostly by looping that area with them inside it, somewhat risky to do). Plus there is that speed-up bug with GS: unfreezing monsters move faster and faster each time they unfreeze. Blah to that, you know? But Orb... Orb you can stay on the move. To my astonishment, it almost feels like a Fire Tree skill, but for the chill effect. If there was a Fire Orb skill, it would be HELLUVA fun to play. I would probably play it over and over and over and over. My goodness, this skill has style to it. In a sense, it's almost a shame it's so strong. People wield it like a bludgeon, instead of a rapier. Blech. Well, what can you do? Not much. It's so strong, it CAN be used as a bludgeon, at least in D2 with no timer. Heh. Going to be a whole new ball game in Lord of Destruction, though.
Here's a look at a nasty Temple fight in Kurast where both Wussie and Thadar survived intact.
That's an extra strong extra fast boss on the floor. You'll forgive me, I trust, for not stopping to take pictures while it was alive. I had to use much teleport to yank Thadar to safety over and over. That gets risky when fighting in a sardine can. Not even spamming can save you there. Even chilled, some of these beasties can still move at a half decent clip, and the Fast Ones can still haul ass. Good grief. I'll try, next time, to get a picture, even though it may kill me. I've always believed that taking pictures WOULD get me killed someday. Fortunately for softcore wussies, the penalties for such a misstep would be minor at worst. :)
I said I'd get a picture? Ha! Didn't take me long. Here's another bastard in the next temple, where I stopped to pad five more Energy to my stats, thanks to Lame Esen's (May the Black Book Bring a Black Day to Hell) Tome.
Yeah, go Thadar! Get him! Good grief, he gave me a scare. Not that softcore wussies get scared, but hey, *I* get scared, OK? Let's not talk about that, OK?
In Hardcore these would be some tough-ass draws. Anything that is fast is a threat, but give it one-shot-kill ability against my no-vit sorcie and that makes for interesting times, to say the least. Did this particular beastie put Wussie Girl down? Let's not go there, shall we? :)
Below, you see Wussie's sleek pets addressing their complaints at a LEB archer.
Yeah, that's a chicken strategy. Sue me. Another word for that is "victory". Wussie lived, boss died, end of story. I never said I WANTED to die on purpose, you know, just that I wasn't going to back down from any fights. Wussies defy death. It's not the characters who are the wussies, you see, but the players who play them in softcore -- or so some seem to think. Maybe so. Who's to say? Not me, surely. I play to live, but I live to risk. If you don't lay anything on the line, it's just boring, and even though the char can wake up face down in town and try again, there is still pride on the line. I don't like to die. As for how often Wussie Girl does things I don't like, hey, we're NOT going to talk about it. Capice? :)
Woo, yeah! Another temple cleared. This one wasn't so bad. Hey Thadar, just one more to go. ... ... Um, Thadar? Thadar, where are you hiding?
Oh no, you've GOT to be kidding me. Thadar survived from the lower Flayer Dungeon all the way through Kurast to the gate of Travincal, and I turn my back for one minute and this idiot game ERASES HIM off the face of the earth in a cleared-out temple with no remaining threats??? Grrrrr. The game better not pull that crap on me in D2X and then expect to charge me 50k in gold to "resurrect" the "lost mercenary". I would be letting Blizzard hear of my displeasure with THAT, I assure you. Not that they would necessarily care, but let's not talk about that, OK?
Geleb was LEB, the other two Magic Resistant. Nightmare scenerio for a Hot Babe, not much fun for an LoS either. Wussie introduced them all to the wonders of Frozen Orb and on into the Durance of Hate we go. Oops, wait. Not quite yet. Forget to grab my Khalim's Little Toe from the Sewers.
Whoa! Check this out! Awesome rare, and with reqs of only 13 strength, Wussie Girl has herself some fancy new headgear!
What's that you say? 103 Strength??? Whoops. Uh, sorry, that's a little overpriced. Let's not talk about Wussie's lack of strength here, OK?
Has anyone ever mentioned that it's a bad idea to take bats for granted? Bosses don't always make themselves clear, you know. When you have no vitality, it just isn't wise to get lazy. At least the penalties for inattention aren't so steep for softcore wussies. Let's not discuss that any further, OK? I promise, at the end of the day, I'll let you know how much damage was done. I'm keeping track of deaths (did you ever think I wouldn't?) and I'll be sure to let you know, but death is such a painful subject, can we not talk about it for now? OK?
When it's all said and done, 3dots achieved, I'll go into detail about Wussie Girl's body retrieval strategies. You may be surprised, so stay tuned.
Now check out this oddity: a section of the sewer only accessible by Teleport? Wow. The game just keeps on finding new little bits to surprise me with. Amazing.
Have I mentioned how dangerous undead flayers are? I mean, normally they aren't so bad, although Hardcore chars can never take them for granted. Very easy to miss them with Orbs, though, even spamming them. Also not a good idea to stand still casting SF and let some of them jump you in a back alley. They are easily tempted, but having no vitality doesn't leave much room for error, does it? That's all I'm saying about that for the moment.
Take a good look at the pretty orb shards flying. You aren't going to see this in LoD, where the spell timer will prevent fast casting of orbs.
How on Earth a sorceress is supposed to deal with annoying Teleportation bosses when all her high damage skills are nerfed by timers, I do not know. Guess we'll find out. Most of the time, she can get by on damage spread out over time, but some of these critters demand a ton of damage NOW or it's a lost cause, as they will just heal themselves endlessly.
Wussie Girl's companion Iron Wolf Mercenary and that mean old Bremm Sparkfist, they expired at the same time, leaving poor Wussie all alone in the dark. She got a bit scared by that, but let's not talk about that, OK?
Maffer was a walking death machine. How many deaths, I'm not saying. He has that dreaded Extra Fast Extra Strong combination, though: the third in this act, not to mention a couple of Extra Strong Cursed types. Wussie had to drink a lot of potions to take down Maffer. On the other hand, he didn't seem to need any type of drink to smash feeble softcore wussies. Yikes. :)
Meph uberdrop was a Grim Reaper unique scythe. Ha! What an interesting drop for a softcore wussie! Useless, of course, but the irony value alone was well worth it.
I added my Izual skill points to Hydra, raising that to slvl 4. Orb had been getting my level up points, with the extras going to Cold Mastery. Wussie is starting to feel some mana pinch, but so it goes. Orbs are expensive. In the City of the Damned, Act Four continued where Act Three left off.
Like a foolish tourist, I stopped to take pictures. I have always believed this would get me killed some day. Did you know that teleporting wildly into uncharted territory to try to escape an ungodly fast one-hit wonder is a dangerous undertaking? That's all I'm saying about that for now.
Wussie managed to take down Hephasto, though. Yep. He died, she didn't. Fun stuff there. Gotta love Teleport. Heph, in single player, is about as dangerous as a barking puppy dog to a teleporting sorcie. Just don't start shooting until you have him parked where you want, because of course he moves much faster (and proves much more dangerous) when wounded. After all the no-teleport sorcies I've played, this was a piece of cake. I wish I could say the same for those Extra Fast one-hit bosses. At least Heph wasn't Extra Fast. That's when he gets nasty!
So that's about it for Nightmare. Learned a lot about Orb, still more to discuss on that. As for how little punishment a no-vit sorcie can stand, and how fat and lazy I've grown on those 500+ life sorcies I've played in the past, well... you ought to know by now that we're not talking about that just yet. OK?
Wussie has made it to two dots (like that was ever in doubt? Heh). Orb is plenty strong, but modest life points definitely keeps things interesting. This is a double first for me: first char of ANY class I've ever played with completely unrestricted offense: no nonoptimal skill choices whatsoever; and secondly, the first character I've played with no vitality investment. To call it "different" would not do it justice. I'm having a wonderful time. See you again soon. :)
- Sirian
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