Alright, as promised here is my update. It's a long one, so buckle up!
I was not particularly excited to start act 2, let's just say that. There are quite a few areas and monsters that are problematic for me. The plan was to do areas on /p1 until I saw the monster rolls and then up it to /p3 if I felt comfortable. I did most of the first half of the act at /p3. The most obvious problem is with skeletons, especially
archers. Mana burn on unleechable ranged monsters is just not fun at all. Pretty sure Fiona died right after I took
this shot 
Sewers 3 was an unexpected stair trap. After coming around the first corner I was greeted by an
extra fast skeleton pack. I got immediately surrounded, and when I tried to get away I drew in a bunch of saber cats. I did a lot of running around and the merc died a couple times before I could get them separated enough to go to work on them.
Radament was not too bad, apparently he was trying to read a book while we were fighting. I wasn't going to make that same mistake, so it stayed with his corpse.
Onward to the Rocky waste, where I quickly encountered another creature I disliked greatly: spear cats.
This one was very scary, they came close to getting me a few times. I decided to detail my pathetic AR, and show you
how painful my chance to hit is. I run conviction whenever I can so that I can actually hit things. The stony tomb also had a
skeleton stair trap, complete with a champ pack and
boss pack. These are an easy monster base, but I can't run conviction, and it's not uncommon for me to miss 4 hits in a row, so it gets tough when I don't have enough space to set up longer charge chains. Minor stair trap on level 2, but otherwise not too bad after the start.
Next up is something that I realized was very dangerous:
LE/CE bosses, or just CE beetles. The stone skin just makes it extra mean. I almost killed myself by charging her, as my cold resists are only 46 with salvation. After that scare I realized that CE bosses needed a potion buff. With 85 cold resists there was no problem. I bought a ton of thawing and antidote potions in this act, more than I've probably ever bought on a character before.
Bloodmoon dropped in the Dry Hills, my first elite S/U. Interesting, but not enough damage to be useful. Pretty sexy
charm find as well. It's a real shame it didn't get a suffix, but it still finds a spot in my inventory.
As soon as I set foot in the Far Oasis I was greeted by something terrible, and a known problem:
The PI beetle boss. Extra strong, stone skin, conviction. Wow, that's just brutal! I was pretty sure that my full clear was ending here. But I was actually
able to kill him! I would take on charge in to keep him at bay while Fiona plunked away. I just tried to make sure he stayed poisoned so he wouldn't regenerate. I got pretty good at dodging the bolts, but it was still very dangerous.
Beetleburst was not cool either, CE and extra fast is not good. I decided to take
this shot a bit too late, but I can tell he was CE for sure! Far Oasis also granted my second Elite unique, but it was
a bit depressing. I really like Jade Talon, and I'm sure any assassin in the tournament would love to see them as well.
I really hate the lsot city, the darkness really gets to me.
This guy might be scary for some, but not for this character, man do I love sanctuary! Nothing to major outside, but the CVT was high on my list of scary places, and it quickly showed me why
right at the entrance. No idea what
this guy's aura was, but the other two mods are bad in their own. I tried to have a plan for CVT 2, but in reality there wasn't really one, the plan was to really hope I didn't get swarmed. Got a pretty bad roll on
Fangskin, right by the entrance, and with mana burn. He was dangerous, but I got him alright. I figured it was smooth sailing after he died, but soon found there was
another fiend down in the pit. My carelessness was almost my downfall, I was quickly swarmed and had to do a lot of running and evading to get his pack.
Maggot lair was also not a good place for me, it's really a terrible place for a charger. I quickly found a
room full of maggots. But I was more worried about the itches type monsters. I found that they were not as bad as I thought they might be, and between Fiona and my Aldur's switch we could take them down quick enough.
Pulse fester was tough, I damage him so slowly that he kept burrowing and coming back out with more life, took quite a while to get him down. Look, let's be honest, every time I here a ring hit the ground I get a little excited, but when
I saw this I was scared to ID it. I already had two Cathan's, and I'm not the kind of guy to wear a toe ring. But alas,
it finally happened! I had to wait until the end of the session to put it to use, so more on that later. The rest of the lair was no too tough, just slow. After that I was able to swap my angelic in. I changed quite a bit. Angelic armor and amulet and ring were equipped, removing
Hwain's armor, Nokozan, and Cathan's ring. I also swapped Bladebuckle for wilhelm's to make up for the lost leech on cathan's. This change took my Ar from 2k to 6.3k, which is an amazing change, to say the least. I also got a +1 skill boost, and nice MF boost, which is currently at 144. Being able to hit things makes this character fun again!
Halls of the dead had a few tough spots.
Seethe Pox. Mummies are not enjoyable, but redemption works well to clear the corpses to make them not so bad.
Steel web was tough, there's a sarcophagus in there, and it took quite a while to get this room cleared. I found a sigon boot in level 2, which is a nice upgrade, since I have more fire and less cold resists than I need with salvation on. I still needed to drink thawing potions on some bosses though.
Bloodwitch was a bit scary, but I used extreme caution to separate them. The nice thing about a level 20 Vigor aura is that I can run away from most things as long as I have space.
The palace was a little annoying. My poison resist is at -85, so antidote potions barely take the edge off.
Poison skeletons were annoying and dangerous.
This blunderbore boss was also extremely tough. He got similar treatment to the PI beetle earlier, but I had to run conviction to be able to damage him. He was just kept at bay with charges while we slowly whittled away at his life. I'm glad
this room ended up being at the end, it had two bosses in it, and it was tough to even get near the door safely. Lucky for me
Fire eye made an error in judgment on his spawn location. All those arms and you can't open a door?
The entirety of the rest of the act is all scary for this character. Ghosts and stair traps abound from here on out. At the start of the AS I was wishing I remembered the portal pattern a little better, because there was no way I wanted to end up right next to
this guy on accident!
Again? This looks familiar! So glad I have a ranged merc for these guys! He did tp across to me and almost made me ruin my pants at one point, but it wasn't actually that dangerous. Ughh, apparently
aura enchanted is the mod of the area. I found like this
charm, I like it a lot. The rest of the AS was not bad, the first leg was the only really tough spot.
I am well aware of the dangers of the Canyon, especially at the start where you can get swarmed. I have lost at least one character here. Unfortunately I was right to be worried. I did not get my biggest fear, which are whip cats that are stupidly fast, but I did get wendigos and beetles. I always head south to start, so that's what I did. It only took a few steps to find
the first boss. He almost ended my journey several times, he could take a good 7-800 in one shot easily, and that mana burn is so tough when you don't have space to evade. Then there was
pack #2. I don't know what I would have done if I had met
#3 earlier on, he was maybe the toughest. But maybe
#4 was worse, it's a tough call. 4 boss and 1 champ wendigo packs in the lower section. Somehow I managed to keep them all way from each other, but it was a brutal start.
I was very concerned with stair traps in the tombs, especially with ghosts. Ghosts are not really a problem if I have space and they aren't mixed in with anything else, but that's not usually the case. I guess I'm going to be cursed because there's no avoiding it with this duo:
1 and
2. A bit of a stairtrap on the next tomb here. I almost felt bad that
these beetles were trapped in by the chests. Almost. I soon got another nice drop: sigon's belt. That helps my resists a bit more, and the 2 piece set gives a bit of defense, AR, and 10% LL! That's a nice upgrade.
Another conviction beetle here.
Had a triple mummy pack
1 ,
2 ,
3. And another
PI blunderbore. I found
Ancient Kaa, but he wasn't too bad at least. I have another dozen or so shots of nasty bosses from the tombs, but my fingers are wearing out, so I'm just going to move on. The tombs were slow, annoying, and dangerous. The true tomb had greater mummies, ghosts, and vampires. Probably the worst combo I could get, so it was extra slow.
Duriel was a little scary, but not really that bad, only took a couple minuets, most of which was spend running back to town to resurrect/restock potions.
Drop was disappointing.
I'm still trying to gamble another angelic ring, as a second one would be awesome as well, as it is an improvement in every way over my nagel.
Finds:
Isenhart's sword -Sewers 3
Cathan's Rule -Stony tomb 2
Bloodmoon -Dry hills
Jade Talon -Far oasis
Ravenclaw -Lost city
Angelic Ring -Maggot lair 2
Boneslayer blade -Maggot lair 3
Sigon's boots -Halls 2
Iratha's crown -Tombs
Sigon's belt -Tombs
I will now be taking bets on what will kill me in act 3. High on that list are:
Temples, especially sarina
gloams
dolls
flayers
I just don't see myself making it out of this act, but I'm sure going to try! I would have a much higher chance of survival if I didn't try to kill everything, but I've still got a full game clear up until now, so I don't want to give that up unless I really have to.
Dauntless_Train the Paldain and Fiona the cold rogue, level 81 Act 3 hell
Google