Things are going pretty well for Mago and his army. But there are some bumps along the way. Like the Summoner (stupid name, he's more a wannabe Sorcerer that can also cast Weaken). I had cast a TP close to the stairs up to his platform to try to concentrate my army onto him. Golem and skeleton took the stairs up while Mago ran up the other stairs to try to pull some mages up there as well. Then the Summoner and crew
tore through my army like it was nothing! I almost panicked (I still have less than 200 life and only so-so fire resist) but I was smart enough to click the tome and take the red portal out before it got too dangerous:
"Uh, I think I'll take the Arcane WP and go from there..."
This build is great in the areas with resurrectors. Typical fighting scene:
The doorway provides a little cover, then I just raise the bones as my own whenever they are dropping.
Sometimes the situation gets worse, usually when the golem makes it a step or two further into the room. This makes it harder for the mages to find a target (through the doorway) and for me to see what's going on. Unless it's surrounded, I can sometimes pull the golem back, but that never works with skeletons. Once committed to battle, they never care about where I am moving. In the late game, Teleport charges will be crucial.
Topazed armor is such a standard for me now that I am almost confused as to what to wear in those slots. Headgear is pretty straightforward for a caster build like this. A nice gambled circlet or maybe a Lore helm a little later. Armor is more open. I was thinking Stealth, as I would appreciate most of the mods it has, even the poison resist and the +6 DEX. I am more than halfway there, with a nice Superior 2s Breast Plate and the Tal rune. However, now I am more leaning towards giving this armor to my merc. I don't actually need Faster Run or Faster Cast at the moment, plus I found a really nice piece in one of the tomb's sparkly chest (it rolled desired quality of rare - dropped three rares and nothing else).
As Charsi would have said: "Hey, nice armor".
Players 8 Duriel is looming now. Not sure if I am going to take the same fighter approach as I did against Andariel or if I should bring a ton of metal stuff there and summon a string of Iron Golems. Fighting is probably best, because I have gambled a nice Static Circlet. My current headgear is a Ruby Circlet. I don't need fire resist against Duriel.
I gambled quite the number of circlets, gloves and boots. Really freaky outcome with the boots. Not sure how many I gambled, maybe 50. BOTH Tancred's Hobnails and Hotspur were among them! Unbeliavable.
Mago the Golemancing Lord of Mages, level 28, Tal Rasha's Tomb next
@logoutzero: no, I did not know about the Find Potion thing. But I know that even if you can use Find Item on maggot young and spawner babies (the latter in Act IV) you never get anything from them. But Find Potion on them can work succesfully.
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