Hello! Another Single Player fan here who wants to join in the fun

After recently concluding that I prefer to build Sorcs using Fire (Fireball) and Lightning (Charged Bolt) skills, I of course went ahead and played another Cold Sorc, just to see if I could do something different from what I've done before. I've been working on this character on and off for a couple weeks in between MF runs and recent forays in LK runs. She completed Hell difficulty last night, so say hello to my 12th Pat/Mat:

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Matriarch elsa wanted to test how well a fully synergized Frost Nova would work, so that involved maxing Frost Nova, Blizzard, and Frozen Orb.

A build reliant on Frost Nova is not very fun until you or your merc can equip 'Insight'. elsa was heavily reliant on blue pots early on. I tried to equip as much +mana per kill stuff as I could before I got to 'Insight', but still couldn't keep pace with the amount of mana being spent. There were many trips back to town to refill the ol' belt. Oh well. I can drink beer like a fish. Me and elsa, we both have our vices :)

Once my merc got her first 'Insight' bow, life became much easier and much more fun. The tail end of Normal, and all of Nightmare, was a cake walk. Fling the odd Blizzard or Frozen Orb out ahead of you, make liberal use of Static Field, then teleport into the thick of things and spam Frost Nova. Quick and easy :cool:

Arriving at Hell difficulty, I had a choice to make: Skip cold immunes altogether (what I did with my previous Blizzard Sorc); or get a backup plan. I opted for the latter, and this is where things get a bit silly.

I first considered using Nova as my backup attack, as I could probably afford to max Nova, and put a few extra points into Lightning Mastery, by the time the build was done. Frost Nova, Nova, what a good match that would be! Ultimately, I decided that was boring.

Idea #2: Pump up Static Field so I can whittle down cold immunes HP from a safer distance, and then use _something else_ to finish the job. "Wouldn't it be great if a Sorc could use Corpse Explosion?" Hey, I think I have a Corpsemourn sitting in a stash somewhere...

And so it was decided, to heck with the repair costs, I would find a way to make the CE from Corpsemourn work. It sometimes took a bit of time leading monsters closer to corpses, because Corpsemourn only offers lvl 5 charges of CE, a relatively small radius, but it really worked quite nicely overall.

Additionally, I had a Demon Machine as my weapon switch, so at times when I didn't have corpses left to work with and had to deal with pesky cold immunes, me and my merc both let it rain with flaming arrows until we won out.

There were very few trouble spots during this play through. I did have to quit and restart the game a couple times to get more favourable monster spawns (eg, Frozen River, WSK) but other than that it was a rather smooth sailing. Nihlathak was somewhat of a headache, but we got him eventually. My battle against the Ancients was pretty funny. Talic and Madawc went down fairly quick to a combo of Blizzard, Frozen Orb, and Frost Nova. Finishing off Korlic took quite a bit longer, even if it wasn't difficult. Static Field took a chunk off his HP, and then I switched to my Demon Machine and started firing away. Fire a few arrows, teleport away from his leap attack, keep firing. We went back and forth across the screen for several minutes before Korlic gave up the ghost.

Baal was rather stingy with his drops:
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Finally, I think elsa looked pretty sharp with this gear! I had to socket my Nightwing's with a P Topaz to get the colour to match better with the armor and shield:
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Matriarch elsa, level 79, final skills, stats, gear, etc.:

Skills
Frost Nova: 20 (24)
Blizzard: 20 (26)
Frozen Orb: 20 (24)
Cold Mastery: 9 (13)
Static Field: 15 (19) {probably got a bit carried away with Static Field...}
1 pt to Telekinesis, Teleport, and all prereqs for Blizzard / FO

Stats
Strength: 170 (190)
Dexterity: 65 (103)
Vitality: 210 (232)
Energy: 35 (62)

Gear
Helm: Nightwing's Veil
Amulet: Saracen's Chance (+22 all res)
Weapon: Wizardspike
Shield: 'Spirit' Monarch
Weapon switch: Demon Machine
Armor: Corpsemourn
Gloves: Frostburn
Belt: Snowclash
Boots: Infernostride
Rings: Rare rings with resistances, life, dexterity
Assorted charms for resistances, life, etc.

Merc: Amplisa, level 79 Rogue (Fire / Exploding Arrow)
Helm: Rockstopper
Bow: 'Insight' Blade Bow
Armor: 'Smoke' Dusk Shroud

I rather enjoyed this playthrough of the game. Probably not the best planned build, certainly not the strongest, and I had to play in and out of a lot of tight situations (at least a handful of deaths) but that tension actually made it more fun.
 
I enjoyed this write-up! Corpsemourn as the armor is a fun and interesting choice. It hadn't occurred to me, though I have heard of using a double Hel-ed Bonehew on switch for similar purposes.

Nihlathak is a pain surrounded by all those cold immunes. On the other hand, if you can't kill the cold immunes, only Nihlathak then he has no corpses to explode, so... :LOL:

Congrats on an interesting build and a fun playthrough!
 
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I do like the idea of using Bonehew instead! It has higher level CE charges than Corpsemourn, allowing for a better radius. And I found one just the other day while running LK. But switching from Wizardspike + ‘Spirit’ to Bonehew would tank my resistances, so I’d have to be more cautious if I try that. Ultimately I’m glad I shoe-horned Corpsemourn into this build. It’s fun playing around with the less commonly used items. If I find an interesting-ish unique or set item, I want to find a way to use it! :)
 
What an interesting build and accomplishment, little birdy! Thanks for showing another intriguing use of an item I might overlook. My Corpsemourns usually end up getting used by mercenaries.
 
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Wow... it has been a while since I last finished questing a character through the game! After elsa earned the title of Matriarch, I shifted my focus to MF'ing, and then hardcore characters, and then the Random Tournament. But in between all of that, I was working away at another Paladin. Tonight I finally got 'round to finishing Hell with galuf, so I can now present to you, Patriarch galuf:

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galuf is, of course, named after none other than Galuf, the King of Castle Bal, a Warrior of Dawn, and a Warrior of Light, from Final Fantasy V. (FFV is without doubt the best FF game IMHO, and it is one of my all-time favourite games 😎)

galuf went through several evolutions throughout this playthrough and was, quite honestly, a very poorly planned character... but, despite my inability to think ahead, he made it through the game just fine!

In the beginning, I was pumping points into Resist Fire and Holy Fire and using a combo of Holy Fire and Zeal to plow through normal. I gave him the full Cathan's Traps set at level 11, and I thought it worked very well. I eventually broke up the Cathan's set and changed the staff to The Salamander, which was a nice little improvement. At level 27, galuf made an even nicer upgrade to an 'Insight' staff.

In Nightmare, I took some inspiration from the Abbot Paladin guide and re-spec'd to an Abbot build with Blessed Hammer as the primary attack skill. This was foolish because I know I don't like hammers. If you try something enough, you'll acquire a taste for it, right? Nope! Fed up with hammers, I soon burned my second re-spec to become an Abbot with Fist of the Heavens / Holy Bolt as the primary attack skills. That was much better.

Sadly, in part-way through Hell difficulty, I felt like my gear options were limiting me from really making good on the idea of the Abbot build, so I again re-spec'd to what would become the final build for galuf:

20 pts Fist of the Heavens, Holy Bolt, Holy Shock, Resist Lightning (well, 19 pts in this one, but it will be 20 pts if/when I hit level 81)
1 pt to all pre-reqs and 1 pt to Holy Shield and Salvation

Throughout the latter half of Hell difficulty, the game plan was simple:
- FotH on packs of demons/undead
- Holy Bolt on stragglers
- Zeal on animal type monsters

Holy Bolt was also the skill of choice against bosses. Holy Shock was the main aura, with the occasional switch to Salvation in tough spots.

galuf's end-game gear was:
- Weapon: Heaven's Light unique Mighty Scepter
- Shield: 'Spirit' Kurast Shield
- Swap: 'Crescent Moon' Phase Blade and 'Spirit' Akaran Rondache
- Armor: Que-Hegan's Wison
- Helm: Peasant Crown
- Gloves: Dracul's Grasp
- Belt: Nightsmoke (upgraded for extra slots)
- Boots: Aldur's
- Rings: Raven Frost, rare with Lightning res.
- Amulet: rare with +2 Pally skills

My preference was to switch to 'Crescent Moon' when Zeal'ing, but there are some annoying animal type Lightning Immunes strewn about the game, so for those I just whacked them with my scepter instead.

Finally, galuf's mercenary was the trusty Yrmenlaf, the Bash Barbarian, who was equipped with:
- Weapon: 'Unbending Will' Colossus Blade
- Armor: 'Lionheart' Wyrmhide
- Demonhorn's Edge unique Destroyer Helm

Yrmenlaf soaked up a lot of damage and attention from monsters without dying, allowing galuf to operate quite easily.

In the end, this was a pretty fun play through. I liked where it ended up, with FotH and Zeal and Holy Shock. I am imagining a build with dual 'Dream', max FotH, Holy Bolt, and Conviction. I think that would be great fun! If I ever luck into two Jah runes, I'll try it out and tell you all about it.
 
Nice write up! You guys will convince me to make a FoHdin yet... seems like a cool skill.
Do it! Even with budget gear, much of this game is child's play for the FoHdin. He can clear Chaos Sanctuary, The Pit, other places with just demons/undead like it's nothing. He's a pretty solid Trav and Pindle runner too. Animal types are more of a nuisance, but there is flexibility in the build to have a secondary attack skill (Zeal, Smite, Hammer) to deal with them, and of course a merc with OK gear helps a lot too.

Like any other build, your mileage may very, different strokes and all that, but I think it's definitely worth a try since the changes in patch 2.4.
 
Agree with @little birdy , he's good fun IMO.

I went 20 holy shock, 20 holy bolt and 20 FoH for fully synergized FoH, and merc is carrying Infinity for lightning-resistant enemies. Also 20 holy shield and 1+ Smite for Ubers and other bosses, and other auras and skills to taste. He can run the Pit and AT well, River of Flame, Chaos Sanctuary, Pindle, WSK & Baal, keys and Ubers, and those are just the places I've tried. He's great at /p1, and I'm running 500 MF when not taking on Ubers. Sort of a Jack of all trades.
 
Next character up in my questing backlog: pokey the Melee / Golem / Corpse Explosion Necromancer.

I finished Normal with this guy months ago and then forgot about him. He was sitting at level 41 early on in Nightmare, having just rescued Cain, so I guess I was going on p8 pretty much all the way in Normal. When I picked him back up again I continued at p8 and it's been a breeze so far. Just polished off Duriel at level 58.

Current setup, which just got a bit of an overhaul levelling up from 41 to 58, includes:
  • 'Obedience' Mancatcher (and previously a Hone Sundan) -- pokey will only use Spear-type weapons
  • 'Lionheart' Wyrmhide
  • Wormskull
  • Angelic ammy and two Angelic rings
  • Death's Hand
  • Death's Guard (upgrade for more belt slots)
  • Nat's boots
I also have a 4os Mancatcher that I could use to make 'Passion', but I'm quite pleased with 'Obedience' for now.

Skills are max Golem Mastery, 1 pt in each type of Golem and Summon Resist, about 15 points in Corpse Explosion, 1 pt in Bone Armor, and the rest dumped into Bone Prison for a bit of crowd control and to beef up the Bone Armor.

Merc is Act II Might with 'Insight', Duriel's Shell, and a random magic helm with a bit of life steal.

Finally, pokey is currently accompanied by an Iron Golem that I don't even know what it was made out of. It refuses to die. Whenever it does bite the dust, I have an extra Hone Sundan kicking around to make a new and improved IG.
 
I seem to have forgotten about my melee Necro... I gotta get back to playing him! I think he left off somewhere near the end of Act 3 NM.

Today I finally started working on a Bowazon. The game has been hinting pretty strongly at me for months now that I should play a Bowazon. I keep finding all these bows. I think my bow- and crossbow-specific Holy Grail must be at a very low number.

iman, named after the supermodel that was married to David Bowie for many years, blitzed through Normal difficulty today. It was a blast. Super fast pace on p8 all the way. The first bit was a little slow, but at level 14 I was able to equip this nifty 5os Superior Stag Bow that one of my MF characters found recently:
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+3 to Bow Skills is very strong for so early in the game. And, as you can see, I loaded it up with Tal runes at level 17. From that point on, iman was unstoppable.

Mana was at times a problem, but I had an 'Insight' bow readymade for my merc when she hit level 27, so that resolved our blue pot problems.

Normal wrapped up around level 40, then I briefly visited the Moo Moo Farm, and then did the first two quests in Act 1 NM.
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Current gear and skills:
Kuko Shakaku
'Peace' armor
Tarnhelm
Razortail
Magefist
Hsarus boots
+1 Amazon skills rare amulet
Manald Heal and Raven Frost (juuuuuuust hit level 45 before I stopped playing earlier)

Max points into Exploding Arrow and Fire Arrow, and now working towards maxing Immolation Arrow.

Once Fire Immunes become a thing, I will probably re-spec to a Freezing Arrow / Exploding Arrow hybrid build, but for now it is not necessary. A combination of Immolation Arrow and Exploding Arrow slays.
 
An update on iman: Still absolutely slaying 💯

Early-ish in NM, somewhere during Act 2, I managed to get enough stat points into Dexterity to be able to equip a Matriarchal Bow. I created this 'Melody' bow to replace the Kuko Shakaku:
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+6 to Bow skills. Pretty nifty! You can see I also swapped out Hsaru's boots for Aldur's. All of the other gear is still the same as above though.

I zipped through Act 3 last night, mistakenly playing through most of it on p1, having dialed it down to p1 for the battle with Duriel the day before and then forgetting to bump it back up to p8 when I started working on Act 3. Oops 😅 I fully cleared the Durance of Hate on p8 to try to make up for my mistake. No deaths but one or two close calls. Dolls... 😱

The players setting yo-yo'd a bit in Act 4, which I finished today, depending on the abundancy of fire immunes in each area. I've got a few points in Freezing Arrow now, so dealing with FI's is not an issue. It's just slow on the highest players settings. Diablo didn't give me anything useful, but I got a Pul from the Hellforge, which is nice.
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At the start of Act 5, I was sitting at level 65, only two levels away from being able to equip a 'Mist' bow. I decided to do something I normally don't like to, and grinded a couple levels running Eldritch and Shenk on p8. Didn't take long to hit level 67, and now I have my super duper new bow. The +40 all res from 'Mist' really helps.
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I have a Kira's Guardian waiting for when I hit level 77, and that should solve any resistance problems awaiting me in Hell difficulty. I doubt I'll have the patience to grind to level 77 in NM though, so I will have to dig around in my stashes for a Rockstopper to bridge the gap over to Kira's once I move on from NM to Hell.

I am having tons of fun playing this character. Never thought I would have enjoyed Immolation Arrow this much!
 
NM is done. Act 5 was a breeze. Noteworthy finds from NM include 2x Pul (one from Hellforge, one from a random monster in Act 5), Titan's Revenge from Shenk, and a Javelin/Spear skiller.
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I finished NM at level 73, and did one NM Cows runs which got me close to level 74. Decided to try my luck in Hell with the players setting dialed back down, and things are going smooth so far. Lightning and Poison resists are in the red so I have to be a bit cautious, but no close calls yet. I got as far as saving Cain this evening and hit level 75 in the process. At 77 I can equip Kira's, then it's full steam ahead!
 
iman has achieved the title of Matriarch 😎 I will do one of my wall-of-text reports about it later, but long story short: Hell was smooth and easy for the most part, and this character was super fun! So fun, in fact, that I have already started working on another Bowazon--this time a Multishot Bowazon, to see how a physical build compares to an elemental build.

In other news, my Nintendo Year in Review thingy says I played 628 hours of Diablo 2 this year o_O
 
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Here we have it, proof that iman is now Matriarch iman!

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I had to play cautiously at the start of Hell because my resistances were very low. I carefully ran The Pit enough times to hit level 77 so I could equip Kira's Guardian. It didn't take too long, and I lucked into getting an Ohm rune as I was approaching level 77. A nice surprise!

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From that point on, it was mostly a cakewalk. A fully synergized Immolation Arrow with high chance to pierce is an awesome thing. Flames everywhere--nothing is safe! Anything that wasn't fire immune was dead in a hurry. And Freezing Arrow was perfectly fine (not to mention very safe) for cleaning up the FI monsters. I only ran into a handful bosses that were both cold and fire immune. I took them down with plain old arrows. Those encounters were a bit slow, but the damage from my 'Mist' bow including the buff from Concentration worked well enough in those instances.

I never put points in Valkyrie, but I must say I was fairly impressed with how solid the level 15 Valkyrie was that I was getting from my 'Peace' armor. Even later on in Hell, the Valk's survivability was not bad at all, and having her there took a lot of heat off me and the merc.

I was a bit concerned about the Ancients, but they all went down rather easily on the third try. It took a little bit of running around to split them up, and then we took them down one by one. I never lost my Valkyrie even once against the Ancients, and I think I only needed to drop one Full Rejuv on my merc. Overall, it was a pretty safe fight.

Baal and his minions were not too much trouble either. Both my merc and Valkyrie bit the dust on the third wave (those pesky Hydras!) but managed to stay alive the rest of the time. It was pretty easy to keep the last two waves frozen with Freezing Arrow.

The fight with Baal himself was slow but not difficult. This was one situation where the Valkyrie could not stay alive, but I was OK without her. Baal dropped me a Windhammer, which will perhaps turn into an Iron Golem someday.

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Final gear:

'Mist' Matriarchal Bow (+3 all skills and +3 Bow Skills, level 8 Concentration aura, +20% IAS, 100% pierce, 333% ED, 20% AR bonus, +40 all res, +24 Vitality... I really like this item!)
'Harmony' Diamond Bow on switch
Kira's Guardian (Um) (+81 all res and Cannot be Frozen)
'Peace' Mage Plate (free level 15 Valkyrie was surprisingly nice!)
Magefist
Razortail (no longer needed the Piercing Attack, but the +15 Dex was nice)
Aldur's Advance boots
Manald Heal and Raven Frost rings
Rare Amulet w/ +1 Amazon Skills (pretty trash but I never found something better)
Misc. charms for life, res, +max damage, AR, etc. (whatever I found along the way)

Final stats and skills:

Level 83
Strength: 105 (107)
Dexterity: 190 (227)
Vitality: 195 (219)
Energy: 15
Life: 1062
Mana: 271
Fire/Cold/Light/Poison Res: 75/75/75/65

Fire Arrow: 20 (30)
Exploding Arrow: 20 (30)
Immolation Arrow: 20 (30)
Cold Arrow: 8 (17)
Freezing Arrow: 20 (29)
1 pt to Magic Arrow, Multishot, Ice Arrow, Critical Strike, Penetrate, and Pierce

Once I was able to equip 'Mist', I could have re-spec'd the 1 pt out of Pierce, but that seemed like a hassle to re-purpose 1 pt. Maybe I could have taken the 1 pt out of each of Critical Strike and Penetrate too...

Merc: Annor, Act I Rogue (Cold)

'Insight' Great Bow w/ level 16 Meditation aura
'Smoke' Archon Plate
Darksight Helm

Her resistances were all topped out at 75% and she died very infrequently. A very loyal sidekick!

I was very pleased with this playthrough. It was a lot of fun, and it gave me a new found appreciation for Bowazons. I was also quite pleased with myself for making it through the game without using a single re-spec. I rarely plan things out that well 😅
 
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Boy am I having fun playing these Bowazons. My Multishot Bowa blasted through Normal difficulty at an incredible pace.

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She is named after artemia, the keeper of the Ranger asterisk in Bravely Default. (Not to be confused with my HC character with the same name from the Random Tourny that sadly was killed by Dolls in Act 3 NM.) The Ranger's last job skill is Multiburst, which is reminiscent of Multishot, so the name seemed fitting. For some reason I have been naming several characters after Finaly Fantasy and FF-adjacent characters lately.

I took some hints from this Mat thread and pumped all my skill points into Magic Arrow early on. Magic Arrow performs really well and it's great when you hit the zero mana cost threshold.

My starter gear included a Tarnhelm, Angelic Mantle, 2x Angelic Halo, Angelic Wings, and Death's Sash. At level 17 I equipped my super duper awesome Stag Bow w/ +3 B/C Skills and 5x Tal runes, which easily carried me until level 27 when I could equip an 'Insight' Razor Bow. With the set bonus from the Angelics, the Tarnhelm, and the 'Insight' bow, I was sitting at over 150% MF, which I thought was pretty nifty.

'Insight' seems like a sneaky good budget option for a physical Bowazon, with solid ED, a big AR bonus, up to +6 to Critical Strike, and of course a little big of MF thrown in for good measure.

At level 39, I swapped out the 'Insight' Razor Bow for a 'Harmony' Gothic Bow, which easily outperforms the 'Insight' Razor Bow in damage. I also had an 'Insight' Bill that I could give me A2 mercenary, so Meditation was still readily available.

Normal was a breeze on p8 all the way, and I moved on to NM at level 45. I can't see there being much of a struggle anywhere in NM either.

I just did a re-spec to remove all the points I had in Magic Arrow. Now I've got around 15 points in Multishot, 20 pts Guided Arrow, 9 pts Pierce, and a few pts into each of Critical Strike and Penetrate.

I haven't decided yet what my end-game bow will be. Some contenders are:
- Upped Goldstrike Arch (already have the bow plus a couple Puls to spare)
- 'Insight' in an elite bow base like a Hydra Bow or Grand Matron Bow
- 'Harmony' in an elite bow base (playing with Revives could be fun)

If I could find a Jah to go with the Ohm that iman found recently, then I would also of course consider 'Faith' as a very good option, but I have my doubts that will happen. Just putting that out there into the universe in case RNGesus wants to hook me up with a Jah sometime soon... :unsure: :ROFLMAO:
 
Yeah, I think 'Mist' is great! Having 100% pierce from the bow frees up the belt slot and some skill points, though I didn't take full advantage of that in the end. I still need to tinker with that.

In other news: artemia the Multishot Bowazon steamrolled NM and is about to take on Andy in Hell.

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There was a minor slowdown in progress part-way through NM, but once I hit the level requirements for some fancy new gear, we were off to the races again. The specific gear was a 'Fortitude' Archon Plate, Laying of Hands gloves, Tal's mask, and the upgraded version of my Goldstrike Arch bow.

NM Hell Forge gave me an Um. I can't recall anything noteworthy from Act V.

At the start of Hell, my resistances were pitiful. Cold and Lightning were in the red, and I nearly died more than once to the Frost Novas let off by dying Cold Enchanted bosses. I suppose it doesn't help that I have less than 500 life 😅 I moved around some charms from a couple decommissioned characters which at least got those resistances above 0%. Fire and Poison are quite a bit higher. I'm toying with the idea of socketing my Tal's mask and adding an Um to it.

Anyways, aside from this character being rather fragile in Hell, it's been smooth sailing.

For Physical Immunes, I switch to a Witchwild String and just fire away with magic arrows. Seems to work well enough.

Working my way through the Catacombs this morning, I got my first interesting find with artemia: Dark Adherent Dusk Shroud.

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Here we have it, Matriarch artemia!

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Finished Baal at level 82 and then took a quick romp through the Secret Cow Level.

Due to the all-Dexterity approach I took, plus the fact that my resistances weren't capped out, artemia was a more squishy character. I didn't find any parts of Hell especially difficult, but I had to stay on my toes. IIRC there was only one death.

The two things I some concern about, which I took care of today, were Nihlathak and the Ancients.

Nihlathak's Corpse Explosion was going to be a problem, no doubt, but I stumbled onto a pretty decent solution: I switched to a 'Harmony' bow for that battle and tried to revive every monster before he could cast CE. It seemed to work well enough! No deaths.

As for the Ancients, I tried several times to take them on with my standard gear (Goldstrike Arch bow), but the luck factors weren't lining up for me. I didn't have anything handy with Teleport charges so I was struggling to split those guys up just by running around. When they ganged up on my merc, it was a quick death for him. It was a bit uninspired of me, but I TP'd back to town, switched to the 'Harmony' bow, and came back with a team of revives. They were a very helpful distraction. Guided Arrows made quick work of the Ancients while they were focusing on the revives.

I got a very nice WSK map, with the waypoint very near the steps to level 3, and then a relatively short and direct route on level 3 to the starts to the Throne of Destruction. I also got lucky with the monsters present in the Throne level. No Souls and no PI's---easy peasy.

Baal very kindly hooked me up with an Essence. Now I can cube up a Token.

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Highlights from this play through:
Um (NM Forge), Gul (Hell Forge), Dark Adherent, Steelrend, Viperfork, M'avina's True Sight, Baal Essence, Eth Superior Colossus Voulge (Cow Level), 4os Colossus Voulge (also Cows)

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Stats
Strength: 145 (135 hard points)
Dexterity: 361 (330)
Vitality: 30 (20)
Energy: 21 (15)
Attack Rating: 9633
Life: 564
Mana: 215
Fire/Cold/Lightning/Poison Res.: 64/24/52/75

Skill Points
20 pts in each of Multiple Shot, Guided Arrow, Critical Strike, and Penetrate
9 pts in Pierce
1 pt in each of Magic Arrow and Cold Arrow
2 pts left unused
(I didn't plan it this way, but I had zero +skills gear)

Gear
Goldstrike Arch (Nef) upped to Hydra Bow
Tal's Mask (Um)
'Fortitude' Archon Plate
Atma's Scarab
Laying of Hands
Razortail
War Traveler
Raven Frost, rare ring with resistances
Various charms that were found along the way (resistances, life, damage, etc.)

Mercenary, Azrael, Level 82 Desert Merc. (Might)
'Obedience' Cryptic Axe
'Lionheart' Wyrmhide
Tal's Mask
 
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