"Entering the Moo Moo Farm"... what a strange location for the
red portal! No need for me to pick a direction, because here comes the
first herd, and the first
first boss. My wolves were helpless. It was all I could do to keep 3 alive by spamming them. Jemali absorbed a lot of attacks. Three factors made progress possible:
Jemali's life pool protected him from hit recovery.
He never stopped jabbing.
He had 17% life leech (Bonehew Amn plus Tal's Mask)
Sometimes his life would drop to the red from a large number of individual blows, but I had a huge rejuv reservoir to save him. He steadily racked up kills, and as each bunch thinned out, the wolves could survive longer. I had to separate the Cow King; his
Cursed attack plus minion support was too strong. But not even the King could hit harder than this uber
Berserker Bovine!
Slowly and surely we cleared the level, as I ran about popping chests, flipping rocks, etc... The magical drops were pretty sparse. No charms, no jewels, no greens/golds. Mostly white/socketed stuff. And three runes: El, Tir, and
????!
Astonishing! My highest HC rune ever. Best rune I've seen since 1.10 came out. From a stupid dinky cow chest, at p1, with a single-pass character!
Crazy!
A while later, I was still buzzing about it, when suddenly I realized all the cows were dead. A quick lap around the farm confirmed it. Cosmo's journey is over.
I revisited earlier difficulties to cash in on a few worthless quest rewards. Cosmo is no longer naked! Now that Jemali has returned home, Cosmo protects himself with a
new weapon (impressively modified by Charsi). He even bought himself a
hat! Someday he might fill that socket, perhaps with a chipped skull, stamina jewel, or maybe a Vex rune... Any suggestions?
Guardian Cosmo, 1.11 naked HC Druid, level 88, retired
Endgame
Stats
Summoning skills
Elemental skills
Guardian Jemali, Desert Might Merc, level 88, retired
Endgame
Stats
Bonehew Ogre Axe
Jeweled
Shako
Jeweler's
Ancient Armor of Protection
Rare finds:
Vex (Hell Cows)
Pul (NM Forge, never used)
Horizon's (regular Hell WSK monster)
Shako (mage boss, Hell Lut Gholein Sewers)
Bonehew (Invader pack, Hell Kurast Causeway)
and 6 small vita charms: two 16s, 17, 18, 19 (with good Smoldering prefix), and 20.
--------------------
Complete game clear (single-pass)
Maps rerolled: zero
Monsters parked: zero
NDEs: Hell Act 1 Catacombs. MSFE Afflicted boss. I lost the armor and 1000 life.
Hell Disused Fane. Nearly trapped several times while blind running through/from powerful boss packs.
Hell Act 4 Abyss Knight boss pack ranged ambush. Very little red in the bulb. I needed every bit of the Cyclone Armor and Oak Sage boost.
Thanks for reading! Sharing Cosmo's story made it much more fun.
I'm taking a break from D2 for a while, but I'll stick around the forums if anyone has comments/questions.