The ubers (Hardcore mini-guide)
Let me start off by saying I have not fought these guys in hardcore mode.
I collected the keys with YouHaveMail's hammerdin (softcore ladder east) and defeated all 3 mini-bosses (with varying degrees of difficulty), then spawned tristram and killed all 3 bosses 2-man.
Here is a brief summary of my experience.
1) Getting keys.
Key of Terror: This is a no-brainer. Kill countess a lot, she will eventually drop keys of terror. I would expect the market for these to be pretty easy to trade for. (Since it is one of the easiest bosses to run, and she also drops decent runes). Run it with a fire sorc (with a even-leveled merc), cold sorc (with a really well-equipped merc) or litning sorc (dont even need a merc ^__^). Countess is fire/cold immune, her lackies are all cold immune, but they have fairly low HP.
Key of Hate: Summoner runs. He drops nothing else of value, so you will only be killing him for the key. Very easy run, for pretty much any type of sorceress. I did at least 100 summoner runs , and he only dropped me 1 key.
Key of Destruction: Recieved from nihlathak. Obviously, this is the most dangerous key to get.
A few things to note here:
- His corpse explosions will not kill you in 1-hit. But he can get 2 or more off in a short period of time, doing massive damage within 1-2 seconds. Thus, some sort of "slain monsters rest in peace" type thing will be needed. Nature's peace is damn near absolute must. I recommend using a merc with low-damage weapon (perhaps insight scythe or something) so he doesn't make any corpses (your nature's peace doesn't apply to him)
- Orb = teh sux. Trust me. i have a decked out orb sorc and i tried a few nihlathak runs, it was an exercise of futility. I was successful about 1/2 the time. Sure, you aren't killing any of his lackeys so he wont be exploding anything on you. but at the same time they are tanking all your little ice bolts for him, so the only way for you to do any damage whatsoever is to get perfect orbs that explode on him. Bliz might work, but i would personally prefer fireballer or Litning sorc (using nature's peace of course) to clear the whole room. The reason being, you want this thing clear FAST. if you are running around chucking orbs for 1 minute trying to get nihlathak down, guess what!! his vipers are tearing you apart!! More on the vipers next:
- The vipers!!! OOH nooh these guys are brutal. Here are a few observations on these guys . THey are regular run of the mill claw vipers, with the charge attack, but with a twist: they also throw poison type javelins. If you are 1on1 with a viper, you will find that they really don't do that much damage!! The actual javelin is blockable, and the poison damage (while respectable) isnt anything more brutal than most other monsters in hell. But.... try running through the cloud (especially with your sound turned up) and you will hear something like a machine gun. This is you getting hit by about a million javelins contained in the poison cloud. This does not happen if you are standing in place and get a jav chucked at you. It will only hit you once. I have come up with a few ways to avoid this , none of which are 100% reliable but may help a little bit:
-Don't run around........ try and keep in one spot
-KILL THE VIPERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE
-If possible, pick a corner in nihlathak's chamber and stay there, this way you can't get charge-knockback-ed into a poison cloud.
Once you have 3 of each key, you then need to get ready to face the 3 mini-bosses.
More on this next thread.
Let me start off by saying I have not fought these guys in hardcore mode.
I collected the keys with YouHaveMail's hammerdin (softcore ladder east) and defeated all 3 mini-bosses (with varying degrees of difficulty), then spawned tristram and killed all 3 bosses 2-man.
Here is a brief summary of my experience.
1) Getting keys.
Key of Terror: This is a no-brainer. Kill countess a lot, she will eventually drop keys of terror. I would expect the market for these to be pretty easy to trade for. (Since it is one of the easiest bosses to run, and she also drops decent runes). Run it with a fire sorc (with a even-leveled merc), cold sorc (with a really well-equipped merc) or litning sorc (dont even need a merc ^__^). Countess is fire/cold immune, her lackies are all cold immune, but they have fairly low HP.
Key of Hate: Summoner runs. He drops nothing else of value, so you will only be killing him for the key. Very easy run, for pretty much any type of sorceress. I did at least 100 summoner runs , and he only dropped me 1 key.
Key of Destruction: Recieved from nihlathak. Obviously, this is the most dangerous key to get.
A few things to note here:
- His corpse explosions will not kill you in 1-hit. But he can get 2 or more off in a short period of time, doing massive damage within 1-2 seconds. Thus, some sort of "slain monsters rest in peace" type thing will be needed. Nature's peace is damn near absolute must. I recommend using a merc with low-damage weapon (perhaps insight scythe or something) so he doesn't make any corpses (your nature's peace doesn't apply to him)
- Orb = teh sux. Trust me. i have a decked out orb sorc and i tried a few nihlathak runs, it was an exercise of futility. I was successful about 1/2 the time. Sure, you aren't killing any of his lackeys so he wont be exploding anything on you. but at the same time they are tanking all your little ice bolts for him, so the only way for you to do any damage whatsoever is to get perfect orbs that explode on him. Bliz might work, but i would personally prefer fireballer or Litning sorc (using nature's peace of course) to clear the whole room. The reason being, you want this thing clear FAST. if you are running around chucking orbs for 1 minute trying to get nihlathak down, guess what!! his vipers are tearing you apart!! More on the vipers next:
- The vipers!!! OOH nooh these guys are brutal. Here are a few observations on these guys . THey are regular run of the mill claw vipers, with the charge attack, but with a twist: they also throw poison type javelins. If you are 1on1 with a viper, you will find that they really don't do that much damage!! The actual javelin is blockable, and the poison damage (while respectable) isnt anything more brutal than most other monsters in hell. But.... try running through the cloud (especially with your sound turned up) and you will hear something like a machine gun. This is you getting hit by about a million javelins contained in the poison cloud. This does not happen if you are standing in place and get a jav chucked at you. It will only hit you once. I have come up with a few ways to avoid this , none of which are 100% reliable but may help a little bit:
-Don't run around........ try and keep in one spot
-KILL THE VIPERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE
-If possible, pick a corner in nihlathak's chamber and stay there, this way you can't get charge-knockback-ed into a poison cloud.
Once you have 3 of each key, you then need to get ready to face the 3 mini-bosses.
More on this next thread.