Welcome to Vincent and Shifty! Good luck and stay safe!
Well, Atalanta's nightmare is ended.
The last time we saw her, she had just finished clearing the Canyon of the Magi with her upgraded rare sword. The 7 Tombs of Tal Rasha were a struggle, even with the new weapon damage. The biggest cause of the slowdown were groups of unraveler bosses. These guys like to have meet and greet parties down here. You rarely come across just one by himself (except for Ancient Kaa, as it turned out). My biggest damage output is still the Valkyrie, but I had to keep her on skeleton magnet duty while I took the rogue on an unraveller assassination spree.
The hardest part is usually getting in the room in the first place. Gotta throw up some decoys behind the pack of skellies/bugs while also resummoning Valk away from the door to clear the way in.
This screenie pretty much sums up the order of business once we establish a foothold:
As long as my rogue is attacking the same target as me, we're good. I didn't have any poison damage at this point, and even with my upgraded weapon, it was slow going on
these bosses. Still, it was nice going
toe-to-toe with
these guys.
Four out of the seven tombs had unravelers. The rest (true tomb included) were a nice break from the grind. All said, I think it took over 4 hours to clear them all. The true tomb had a
nice reward waiting for us though. My merc was overjoyed at the
upgrade.
Here's a quick comparison of her damage versus mine:
With the new Harmony bow, the rest of the true tomb was a breeze. Even
Duriel got to feel the pain of Itonya's new weapon. Let's just say I'm glad if I make it to the tombs again in Hell, at least it'll be on p1.
The jungles of Kurast were a welcome respite from the tomb grinding. Screenfuls of enemies with low life, dropping quickly to both the Valk and Itonya's awesome damage. It hurt so bad it made even
Sszark run in fear.
Besides the sheer amount of drops I saw this Act (see end of post), not much to report here. Killing speed was great, danger was low. I could tank
explodey dolls just fine, and didn't run into any horrible stair traps in the temples. The fight with the Council went better than I thought it would. The Valk survived all the Hydras and we took them out one at a time. The close quarters of the Vampire/Council fight in Durance Level 3 got a bit hectic, but nothing a good run/TP/regroup didn't fix.
Mephisto fight wasn't difficult. Got him down on the third Valk I believe.
Act IV wasn't the usual challenge. I never saw any spawners, so that made life easier. The worst draw was the maggots in River of Flame. Hellforge netted me another Hel rune.
Infector was released first. Got lucky in that he spawned on popping the seal closer to the middle of the room, so no need to use the WP to run back. I even got to
tank him for a while. De Seis fell next. His buddies didn't want to stray out of aura range, so I just let the Valk and decoy soak up their attacks while I hacked away from behind them. Grand Vizier was a joke. He was toast within seconds.
Diablo had a thing for Itonya, which I kinda guessed he would. It wasn't gonna be worth it to keep reviving her, she didn't stand a chance against p8 Diablo. Once she was out of the picture, he pretty much ignored the Valkyrie and kept his attention on me. I was up to it. Not the best angle here, but at least it looks like I'm avenging the corpse of my fallen comrade:
During the beginning of Act V, I periodically checked out Larzuk's wares looking for a socketed magic armor of the whale.
This one replaced my Coral Studded Leather of the Whale and got stuffed with Thul and Sol runes. Right outta the gate I got greeted by Burning Dead archers. They didn't hurt too bad with 75% fire resist and 16 PDR. Still, they got the standard decoy-in-the-face treatment. Rogue archers were among the monsters in the Frigid Highlands, along with their sister lancers. These archers were a bit more of a pain, only because they liked to run away with their 700% FRW. Well...maybe not that much, but I was sporting both 40% FRW and level 10 Vigor and still ran only as fast as they did. Cheaters.
The first scary monster draw was in the Infernal Pit. I got frenzytaurs, witches and boars/blood bosses. No frenzytaur packs in here though. Found I could take them one-on-one okay. Second struggle was on the way to Nihlathak. First level wasn't too bad. Just poison mages and beetles, mostly. The Halls of Pain, however, lived up to its name. It had more Frenzytaurs, along with Unravellers and Heirophants with their Temple Guards. The last group was the worst. Valk stayed on the Guards while I attempted to get to the Heirophants (almost always in groups of three or four) and hope I could get my rogue positioned to help me out. We had one frenzytaur pack in here. No clue what the mods were on them though. Valk took them all out while I was busy with a Heirophant/Guard group.
Halls of Vaught had vipers, witches, and boars. At least the damage from walking into the poison clouds isn't crazy at this point. I still noticed it even with 16 PDR. Nihlathak's CE hit for at most 200ish damage, so that fight wasn't too tough.
Now it was time to take on the Ancients. Again, with the Valk and the Decoy, this fight was pretty simple. Madawc (Cursed) and Korlic (Tele) zeroed in on the Valkyrie, with Madawc occasionally throwing stuff my way as we wound our way around to a good spot here:
Just like our last visit, poor Talic tried his hardest to destroy my Decoy. Because of how he was positioned here, Talic ended up going down first. I was staying clear here for a bit while cursed, getting some use out of my new 'Edge' Rune Bow. That got kind of boring, so I decided to take charge of the fight. Once
Korlic and then
Madawc fell, it was time to take on
Talic (Stone Skin). Unfortunately, my Valk's ctc Amp weapon was not enough to get rid of his immunity. So, once Amp dropped off, Talic, the Valk, and I danced around for a while.
Eventually, Open Wounds, my lightning damage from my weapon (which thankfully lasted the whole fight...20 durability), plus the elemental damage from Itonya's Harmony was enough to
get the job done. Unlike last time, they properly awarded me with a level this time.
Oh, and his whirls? Not even 100 damage each. Pretty sad. Should I make it to the Hell fight, I imagine it'll be a different story altogether. To be honest, I was just glad they ignored Itonya.
The worldstone keep wasn't too bad. A nasty couple of witch bosses was about the worst it offered. That and Baal likes to laugh at and try to hurt my Decoy. Silly Baal, that's a Decoy, not me going afk.
The Throne room had Unravellers, witches, and vampires, so I just made sure to get the undead out of the throne room proper. Second wave was a bit of a pain until I got my positioning with all my forces just right. Waves 3 and 4 were just separate and conquer. I didn't have much luck breaking up Lister's pack. I spent a good deal of time recasting decoy to
keep half his group away. We ended up in a bad spot here:
That's me, being stunned like crazy trying to recast my Decoy. I eventually gave that up, downed a purple and was able to break out of the group above the Valk. Final stand was here:
They could only attack us three at a time at this spot. The Baal fight was a royal pain. I brought along my Cleglaw's Pincers, but the 25% slow and cold damage wasn't enough to prevent him from casting his clone. Went through a whole tome of TPs trying to clear out the clone. Half the time it worked, half the time he'd still be there.
I finally decided to hell with it, we'll kill 'em all. This was tough. Baal (and his clone) only cared about
killing Itonya. I spent a good deal of time using her leash to get her in a decent spot while attacking either Baal or his clone. We had to TP out a good number of times to heal her up though. I wasn't too concerned though, I still had a good stock of Full Purples for this fight.
It took three
clone deaths to finally claim victory. Just like his brothers
Mephisto and
Diablo, he left behind
nothing good. Once we claimed our title of
Conqueror, it was off to the Secret Cow Level.
This place was a headache at p8. After 10 acts of Normal Attack, I can tell you one thing. We don't kill groups of beasts all that fast. I'd have to repair my sword every 30 cows, switching out to the 'Edge' bow to finish off the rest of the current pack.
There's a Valk in there somewhere. She was the real champ of this place. She never went down once. With both Valk and Decoy maxxed out, she sits just under 4k health. I felt like I was doing a good job whenever I'd manage to target a cow at the edge of the pack and not have him and his buddy turn around and try to chop my head off. I could take one at a time (with pots), but 2...no.
About an hour and a half later, and we were officially done with both Nighmare and the /players8 setting.
I made a run through of Hell just to finish the first quest. Yeah, things are much better there at /players1. Still dangerous, but doable. I'll give a full report on the status of Atalanta's Hell-ready stats and gear in the next day or so. This post has been long enough.
Act III drops:
Act IV drops:
Act V drops:
Yeah, I'm still waiting on both Lem and Fal to show up. Lionheart and Passion would be greatly appreciated. While we're at it, I'll take a second Lem for Lawbringer. Oh, and an Um for Crescent Moon, just for good measure.
Conqueror Atalanta, Level 74 even-stat Passive-zon, Cold Plains (H)
(edit: had to double check my comment about Valk's health. She was
over 4k health when I looked at the skill after touching a skill shrine--@lvl 24)
That's a real shame, especially to lose them like that, and just when they were picking up steam.
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