Insane Wayne
Active member
Asteria is one of those rare melee characters that loves fighting spawners! They were abundant in the Outer Steppes. CS ripped through them. Assisting them were pit lords and LI doom casters. The pit lords were surprisingly tough. I checked their stats, all species have 75% lightning resist in Hell! Crap, they are draining my mana!
More of them turned up in the Plains, along with stranglers again and dreaded Burning Souls! Although the latter two types tend to drop mana, I was steadily losing pots and not able to replace them all. My arrows also ran out, when I needed them most.
Another tough roll in the City: LI Afflicted, LI Abyss Knights, and pit lords again. Thankfully I had another awesome valk. I've bragged about several lately, but this one was special: HUGE damage, IAS, frost nova, and cold/poison immune. She took out the LIs while I regened mana.
By the time I hit the River of Flame, I was nearly out of blues. Horrible timing; my monster roll was awful: Maggots, corpse-spitters, and stupid pit lords yet again. Lots of mana was wasted cutting through the baby maggots. The spitters have huge life which replenished after eating the corpses. More mana consumed. For the first time in Asteria's career, I really felt the "living-off-the-land" potion restrictions weighing down on me. I drank a full rejuv for mana. No problem, I'll replace it... Then I drank another, and another.
After clearing half the level, I nearly hit rock-bottom. One purple left. No reds or blues. Then I found a champ pack, and earned a small bounty of potions! Hope again! But then I lost my awesome valk, against a terrifying spitter pack: Cursed Extra Strong Fanat! I saw her lose some life and then she just disappeared.
I found a health and mana shrine near the next waypoint. I used them repeatedly while I backtracked through the rest of the river. Very slow-going. If I didn't have 500 mana, I'd have gone crazy. Hellforge dropped a Mal. A maggot minion dropped an elite crossbow. Cool find, but way out of Asteria's league. After the waypoint, more drudgery; against urdars, stranglers, and freakin' pit lords. At least this time I scored some better mana drops. I left behind a brutal double boss pack, in case I needed to farm them for potions.
Chaos Sanctuary was tough. I constantly ran out of potions, and had to adopt a strict conservative play style, which wore me out. I went back to farm the urdar bosses, a brief reprieve (if you can consider Extra Strong Fanat urdars a "reprieve"). Their potions helped me get to the center of the CS, where I struck gold: two champ packs of pit lords! :grin:
I parked them near the entrance, and used them to refill potions as needed. The Grand Vizier seal boss was easy. After they spawned, I snuck past them for a good position. The seal for the Infector of Souls was in the worst spot, a hopeless dead end. The valk was in jeopardy, so I used a teleport charge to escape back to the main area. Wow, thank you very much! Ditto for Lord De Seis. They were Extra Strong Fanat, destroyed my valk/decoy, and came straight for me. Perhaps I could've weaved throught them and escaped, but I didn't take that chance, opting for teleport again, straight across the lava.
Diablo nailed me with the bone prison. CS hardly affected it, it took me 20+ seconds to break out. It would've been quicker to switch hats and teleport out! While I chipped away, I also had to cast a couple new valks to occupy Diablo. Finally I was free.
Next approach, I wore the teleport helm and resistance rings. Although my mana was cut in half, it didn't matter. Diablo went down quickly. His drop was garbage.
Notable Find Left Behind:
Amulet of the Whale (93)
Durability update:
Gloves have 2 durability left. They will break soon.
Belt has 6 and Boots have 7. I don't expect them to last the entire Act.
Helm has 9, Armor has 15. Iffy.
Shield is OK at 37.
14 teleport charges left, which hopefully I won't need!
I have 3 Rals. If I have to, I'll ditch the boots. They have 34 lightning resist. I can recover most of that with a rare ring, sacrificing some mana. Should be exciting!
[highlight]Conqueror Asteria, 1.11 CS Amazon, level 82, Act 5 Hell, Bloody Foothills[/highlight]
More of them turned up in the Plains, along with stranglers again and dreaded Burning Souls! Although the latter two types tend to drop mana, I was steadily losing pots and not able to replace them all. My arrows also ran out, when I needed them most.
Another tough roll in the City: LI Afflicted, LI Abyss Knights, and pit lords again. Thankfully I had another awesome valk. I've bragged about several lately, but this one was special: HUGE damage, IAS, frost nova, and cold/poison immune. She took out the LIs while I regened mana.
By the time I hit the River of Flame, I was nearly out of blues. Horrible timing; my monster roll was awful: Maggots, corpse-spitters, and stupid pit lords yet again. Lots of mana was wasted cutting through the baby maggots. The spitters have huge life which replenished after eating the corpses. More mana consumed. For the first time in Asteria's career, I really felt the "living-off-the-land" potion restrictions weighing down on me. I drank a full rejuv for mana. No problem, I'll replace it... Then I drank another, and another.
After clearing half the level, I nearly hit rock-bottom. One purple left. No reds or blues. Then I found a champ pack, and earned a small bounty of potions! Hope again! But then I lost my awesome valk, against a terrifying spitter pack: Cursed Extra Strong Fanat! I saw her lose some life and then she just disappeared.
I found a health and mana shrine near the next waypoint. I used them repeatedly while I backtracked through the rest of the river. Very slow-going. If I didn't have 500 mana, I'd have gone crazy. Hellforge dropped a Mal. A maggot minion dropped an elite crossbow. Cool find, but way out of Asteria's league. After the waypoint, more drudgery; against urdars, stranglers, and freakin' pit lords. At least this time I scored some better mana drops. I left behind a brutal double boss pack, in case I needed to farm them for potions.
Chaos Sanctuary was tough. I constantly ran out of potions, and had to adopt a strict conservative play style, which wore me out. I went back to farm the urdar bosses, a brief reprieve (if you can consider Extra Strong Fanat urdars a "reprieve"). Their potions helped me get to the center of the CS, where I struck gold: two champ packs of pit lords! :grin:
I parked them near the entrance, and used them to refill potions as needed. The Grand Vizier seal boss was easy. After they spawned, I snuck past them for a good position. The seal for the Infector of Souls was in the worst spot, a hopeless dead end. The valk was in jeopardy, so I used a teleport charge to escape back to the main area. Wow, thank you very much! Ditto for Lord De Seis. They were Extra Strong Fanat, destroyed my valk/decoy, and came straight for me. Perhaps I could've weaved throught them and escaped, but I didn't take that chance, opting for teleport again, straight across the lava.
Diablo nailed me with the bone prison. CS hardly affected it, it took me 20+ seconds to break out. It would've been quicker to switch hats and teleport out! While I chipped away, I also had to cast a couple new valks to occupy Diablo. Finally I was free.
Next approach, I wore the teleport helm and resistance rings. Although my mana was cut in half, it didn't matter. Diablo went down quickly. His drop was garbage.
Notable Find Left Behind:
Amulet of the Whale (93)
Durability update:
Gloves have 2 durability left. They will break soon.
Belt has 6 and Boots have 7. I don't expect them to last the entire Act.
Helm has 9, Armor has 15. Iffy.
Shield is OK at 37.
14 teleport charges left, which hopefully I won't need!
I have 3 Rals. If I have to, I'll ditch the boots. They have 34 lightning resist. I can recover most of that with a rare ring, sacrificing some mana. Should be exciting!
[highlight]Conqueror Asteria, 1.11 CS Amazon, level 82, Act 5 Hell, Bloody Foothills[/highlight]
.
Quick and easy clear. There were two evil urns, both empty. :sad2:
