Okay, I was committed to the first Ancients roll. There was quite a bit left of Ancients' Way (plus Icy Cellar) but I had several newly Revived teddybears, so it was time.
Uhh, I hear Amp and I see Conviction. Scary!
Ah, there is the source of both of those things, and OMG, HE'S HALF DEAD ALREADY!!
Double elemental-enchanted Madawc had a field day vs. all the mages suffering Conviction, and shorly after Talic was dead, the Revives had timed out (or some had actually gotten killed, I don't know) and it was down to just the three of us. Korlic took quite a while to bring down:
Madawc was not nice to my golems. I went with Clay Golem for a while, to save mana. Bad idea, as that made Madawc attack Mago instead of the golem! Back to Fire Golems, and drinking potions as needed:
I made sure to stay well away from the death nova (you automatically move towards the last one that dies).
Victory!
Big boss fight in Icy Cellar:
Not sure where the Amp comes from here, probably a gloam boss pack.
I had to be on my toes on two of the WSK levels, especially on one with Oblivion Knights. Huge brawl ensued here:
The front is frail at the moment, but more Doom Knights soon fell and joined. They are excellent Revives, with their good damage output (including a strong poison on some hits).
The boss had me retreat several times. HF Multishot is a tough combo on an OB Knight boss, plus there was a ton of flayer blowdarters distracting my army many times. At last, he was caught:
Throne level was also interesting, with vampires, Hell Witches and Death Lords. Another boss fight where I was glad I am not a melee character:
Note that the boss is Amped (not that it mattered against him...). That's thanks to a Hell Witch Revive. They were great here.
I had to split up Ventar's pack. They are fast and bulky, and spilled around the golem and hurt my mages. Only one Revived minion could be brought to the Lister fight, but he did a fantastic job there:
Minions of Destruction can not be revived, so I summoned mages from their corpses. They did not last long against Baal, however.
Clay Golem's level 11 meant enough slowing to shut down most of Baal's spells. But that also meant Baal could not do his hard-hitting melee attack (the Eye Poke) either. So basically it was just Ajheed damaging him, which barely moved his life bar over several minutes. Back to Fire Golems and more lively fighting!
He's almost done for at this stage:
So there you have it. All of Act V Hell completed over the course of one game. I had no reason to regret that I had not also muled in Wirt's Leg, because the whole army got killed by Baal.
It was a bit of a bummer I had not saved any magical head to reroll. As for the last socket reward, I decided to put a perfect ruby in Ajheed's circlet. Maybe he needs to make a stand against the cows?
I put on my teleporting circlet, and decided to not summon any golem before meeting the first cows. That way, I hoped to not wake up a huge pack the first thing I did. I used movement and a few TP charges to keep Ajheed's wanderings in check as well.
Alright, give me a corpse to revive!
They are not
that many, but it was scary to see how fast the golem's many thousands of life was going down. But I can summon almost an endless supply of gumbys, I just need to make sure to recast before it dies so the cows don't get any ideas...
One cow did get an idea, but since I had two revives up now, a golem recast solved this:
Just like in Nightmare, I refrained from making loot selling trips so I could keep a steady supply of Revives going.
Golem, 11 Revives and 12 mages were around for most of the place.
Ajheed died in the fight against the King's pack (Extra Strong, Extra Fast), but it never got scary.
Yay!
[Highlight]Guardian Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages and Ajheed the Fire Mage, level 85, Complete Game Clear[/Highlight]