Re: Tournament : The Bountyhunter's heaven
The nasty archer boss theme continued in
the Hole. The good thing with this particular boss was that she was fully vulnerable to cold. Rhadge could take her down while I kept her stunlocked with Mind Blast. A full column of blue potions was just enough in this case.
This little pest stair trapped us on one of the Tower Cellars levels. Imagine the chaos when the room was full of his minions, too! It´s a good thing I have a habit of entering stairs trap risky places with Fade on. Those sparks still hurt like Hell, especially for Rhadge.
We met a Holy Freeze Ghost boss. Fire immune, because it was also FE. Lightning would damage it well, but melee was extremely dangerous. The mana draining is annoying, the Cold/Fire damage hurt, and the slowing and Stone Skin made Mavi very ineffective. I had to flee temporarily, and
then something interesting happened. Rhadge couldn´t hit in this situation, but the fight was completely stable. BF with my lightning weapon worked, slowly. I eventually gulped a full purple to get the needed last bit of mana. Felt sort of wasteful, but I didn´t dare go back to town for blue potions, because I wouldn´t know if I´d get a chance like this again...
Countess was FICI, so it was lightning all the way against her. I had to be careful to avoid two things: getting caught in the FE blast, and to have her drop happen too close to the loot pile from the chest. I needed to be able to see what was her drop.
She dropped Tir, Ort, some useless weapons and a Grim Helm of the Sun. This is Mavi´s first helm with SU status, so it must be used. Rhadge received it, which meant some losses to his cold/lightning resist now that I had to stash his rare Skull Cap.
Pit level 2 was very difficult and scary. Pit in general is tough for this build, because the main melee critters are Dark Stalkers and Bone Warriors. Both CI, so it´s all up to Mavi to damage them. That is hard because they carry shields, and they are 8 levels above her level (bosses are 11 levels above her!). So hitting them is hard.
Anyway, the first enemies I met in Pit level 2 were some rogue minions. Then the boss and two minions attacked: Extra Strong Cursed Stone Skin. Can you say YIKES! Very hectic and nasty fight in the tiny entrance room. Lots of Mind Blast to get the minions to tank for me, and several retreats up the stairs. After that ordeal, we could pick off the first two Devilkin packs without interruption. Some of them picked up Fanaticism somewhere from the area down-left. Since that aura has a short radius, the boss couldn´t be far away. I decided to try the righthand side first, where I ran into another nasty rogue boss: Extra Strong Extra Fast FE. The nightmare scenario now would be if the two boss backs would merge. Then this boss would be able to 2-hit kill me for sure. But I managed to keep this fight in the upper right parts. More Mind Blast, and I managed to sliver the boss with 2nd charges, then BF her to death. Whew!
Went down to the sparkly chest area and took out that Devilkin pack, and eventually the second one as well. The last boss was a Bone Warrior: Fanaticism Extra Strong FE (FI + CI). After some separation, fighting and portal parkings, I had just the boss left. I slowly took it down with BF, running back and forth (many times) in the wide low area of the place.
I fought melee rogues in Outer Cloister, but there were none in Tamoe Highland or in Barracks. The Smith was Cursed, so I led him out to Outer Cloister where a TP waited. Then we clobbered him from range through the fence.
Hm, what to imbue? The prospect of IAS was so tempting that I imbued some Crude Leather Gloves that I had kept all the way since Act I Normal. Result:
Storm Clutches
Leather Gloves
Defense: 42
Durability: 9 of 12
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x356430cf
+2 to Dexterity
+14 to Mana
Fire Resist +21%
43% Extra Gold from Monsters
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+39 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
No IAS, but a clear improvement. Mavi´s Fire resist is decent now even without Fade.
Fouldog had me worried. With those immunities, he would have to be burned. Good thing that only two immunities are allowed, otherwise he´d have 115% fire resist! That gets lowered to 75%, if I am not mistaken. These spitter guys have little life, so I figured two fires would be enough, if I could keep him in there. I got lucky. I had to lure several goatmen and Dark Ones back a few times, to thin out the monsters around Fouldog. Eventually, only one of each remained, and I got two Meteors going on the goatman. At the perfect time (for me), Fouldog decided to advance. Mind Blast kept him burning, and down he went.
The times after Jail has sometimes been scary, with three NDEs:
* The Banished boss that hit for a ludicrous amount of damage. Extra Strong and lots of elemental, I think.
* Andariel got a series of hits in. Yikes, that was scary.
* Radament (Extra Strong). I´ve have NEVER seen such a strong poison! Mavi´s life shrunk to 1 in less than a second. She fled behind Rhadge and opened a TP. When I got back from town, I tried BF a bit, but that was too slow. So I went in for more Phoenix hits. This time, he just breathed gas and shot Unholy Bolts on me. Huh? Oh yeah, I forgot to switch weapons, so I had hit him with my Morning Star (BF weapon). It has range 2 - that´s why I could hit Radament while still being outside his melee range! Ah, now I know how to fight greater mummies more safely. This will be especially important against bosses, champs and against Unravelers, who are CI and therefore can´t be frozen.
Mind Blast is now at level 4, which gives a 26% conversion chance. It´s much more reliable now. Futher points will go either into more MB, or Fade, or CoS (because I can really use some more enemy -Def, and I often want a longer duration, too).
If Mavi can defeat Coldworm, I will have broken new ground for Phoenix Strikers in this tourney. Rejuve supply is dwindling, though. Just 6 big and 2 small left. I´d better mule in my chippies and midsized gems, so I can cube more purples if needed.
Conqueror Mavi the Phoenix Strike Assassin and Rhadge the Cold Iron Wolf, level 78, Hell Rocky Waste next[/Hibhlight]