@Pb_pal: Those end-of-act levels are what I always have, with one exception: I've never managed to reach level 33 in Act III.
I have started my character before finishing what I said I would. She called out to me, and I followed.
She is in part inspired by
Sirian's write-up of this character. Now here's a guy who is awesome at fleshing out his characters with cool stories! His main
D2 page here. Any fan of D2 should read his ecapades, those with Ember, Skeletorr and Subpoena in particular. Be warned - they are very long! Lytra's chapter is also very interesting and not as long. It's almost as if it's at that time players in general came to understand that Charged Strike actually does not suck.
I really wonder what became of Little-Sister in the end. It is unsusual for Sirian not to follow through with the write-up of a character.
It's interesting to note some differences the game has gone through. When he describes what I strongly suspect is Ancient Kaa, he says this boss is cold enchanted, which he was back then (Classic V1.03). Also, purple Fangskin, Yay!
Sissy the Axe Enchantress-to-be put all the stat points from her first five level-ups to STR so she could use a Large Axe and 'get into character' asap. After that it was vitality like crazy for many levels to make it possible for her to tank shieldless for her merc when the monsters started to get more dangerous (Barracks).
Here is what eventually became of her first axe - I like that it's 'a little bit of this and that':
I have to say that this weapon was far more effective at killing fallen shamans than the Scepter I usually go with. Yes, even before Enchant was available. Later in the act, my level 5 Shiver Armor was an actual threat to the fallen warriors. Just attack me a few times and you're done for.
Found a very unusual item. The big selling price made me take a closer look:
A 3x +3 item! Those are 1 in 10000 (unless it's an imbue). I can only remember one more I've seen - a Clasped Orb I collected in Scavenger Hunt #4.
Andariel was a painful experience, but our damage output was so good that the fight went quickly. I was wearing Death's Hand for most of this fight, and that must have helped.
Hired Waheed the Defiance merc, and after the Halls, cubed some polearms for him. He's currently using an 80% Savage Poleaxe and I have Bill and Partizan waiting for when he's stronger. Sissy's current axe is a 'Steel' Battle Axe.
In one of the tombs, we encountered the rarely-seen-outside-Sewers Burning Dead boss:
I found a 3% MF jewel, which made me switch my current Bone Shield of Deflecting to a 3s Kite Shield. I plan to have this shield to collect MF jewels in and hold it while Waheed kills most things. Current weapon along with the shield is a stack of ethereal Pilums.
It's a pity it pays off so well to have the merc kill monsters. What if we could always count the MF from both player + merc no matter who got the kill? Then I could be stylish all the time with only 3% MF loss!
The amount of life against (/p3) Duriel was 40 more because I used Bloodfist in that fight. Needed two full purples and 4-5 greater healers. Pretty smooth fight overall, much better than I thought for a shieldless Sorceress without Static Field.
Sissy the Axe (+javelin) Enchantress and Waheed the Defiance guard, level 28, Spider Forest next