As per @Fruit, the damage scales in Classic. Given the grisly evidence, they seem to be correct - Immortal would have survived an unscaled Doll even at absolute max damage, but was obliterated by the blast from ~1100 HP.
I asked about this exact mechanic in an older thread, and was specifically warned upthread! Clearly, despite having a character that was immune to MSLE, I just had to go and find one of the two things in the game that could kill Immortal. I really should have just rerolled the Dolls off the Durance 3 map, but I suppose that I was feeling unstoppable after blasting through Act 3 so easily.
As per @Fruit, the damage scales in Classic. Given the grisly evidence, they seem to be correct - Immortal would have survived an unscaled Doll even at absolute max damage, but was obliterated by the blast from ~1100 HP.
I asked about this exact mechanic in an older thread, and was specifically warned upthread! Clearly, despite having a character that was immune to MSLE, I just had to go and find one of the two things in the game that could kill Immortal. I really should have just rerolled the Dolls off the Durance 3 map, but I suppose that I was feeling unstoppable after blasting through Act 3 so easily.
I just couldn't resist playing a Lancer; this time, I'll be more careful around Dolls Act 1 wasn't terribly exciting; Arioc picked up a Jagged Spear early and used it until a high-damage rare Spear dropped in the Tamoe Highland:
I really felt the difference playing without a shield - even though Arioc had solid damage (esp. since I'm boosting Spear Mastery instead of investing in prereqs), he wasn't quite as hardy as Immortal was. I particularly felt it fighting Blood Raven, who very nearly did Arioc in - not the most auspicious start!
30% damage resist and Teleportation in the Forgotten Tower! Thankfully, Bash interrupts Teleport, so I was able to lock them down in a corner once they tried to Teleport away.
Otherwise, Andariel was difficult - I burned through a lot of small purples, and TPed out a lot to refill at Akara - but Arioc emerged triumphant. I've had really great luck with +staffmod magics, which has kept Arioc rich; I doubt there'll be any problems gambling a Pike immediately at clvl 20.
His training against the pit vipers of Arreat was well-spent...
Act 2 Normal has been an awkward transition phase for my Classic characters. Monsters become more difficult, and certain configurations can be nasty (Unravelers + hordes of Burning Dead + Ghosts, anything with Leapers, the entire Arcane Sanctuary), but I don't have access to all of the items/skills that I'll be using after Normal. However, some pieces start to fall into place as I move from "random low-TC blues and yellows" to more respectable equipment.
Arioc was a little short of clvl 20 coming into Act 2, so I cleared the Sewers and Rocky Waste to gain a few levels. I had an NDE while running away from Leapers (the absolute worst to fight over TCP/IP); while racing out of the Rocky Waste, I ran headlong into a pack of Cursed Vultures Thankfully, Arioc hit clvl 20 fighting his way out, which meant that it was time to visit Elzix:
View attachment 15053
A crummy affix, but the failed set 2x durability isn't bad. Either way, a white Pike is enough to power through Act 2, so even this low-end magic was enough to get the job done.
Equipped with a more respectable weapon, I took on the staff quests. A Pike really cleans up in Act 2 Normal, and I had no issues dealing enough damage to move quickly through quests. I noticed that, despite having a range 5 weapon, clicking on a monster will cause Arioc to run up to close range and jab; however, Shift-attacking in a monster's direction will hit it at the full range 5. I used this trick to deal with the Viper Temple Level 2 - Arioc leapt to the altar, stood at the top of the stairs, and poked away at Vipers as they milled around at the foot of the stairs. Nothing like a flawless victory against Fangskin
I started to run into real problems in the Arcane Sanctuary. Arioc's equipment was starting to come together (Pike, MDR, minor resists), but was lacking any sort of leech. As such, monsters could chip away at his HP, and harder-hitting packs like Blood Clan could really put the hurt on him. I was spending an awful lot of time running back to town to refuel on potions, and was becoming concerned that I wouldn't have any leech by the time I fight Kaa/Duriel. I weighed my options - gambling more Pikes at 53k/shot, downgrading to a shopped Brandistock, gambling jewelry - and opted to start gambling Quilted Armors. At ~3300/gamble and 3% odds of Greyform, I felt that this was the cheapest way of getting off-weapon life leech, and having endgame-caliber armor now would let me focus on other slots later. I take roughly 80k to Elzix, start running to and from the Sewers, and 80k later...nothing.
I clear another branch of the Sanctuary, and throw the proceeds at Elzix. Nothing.
I clear another branch, kill the Summoner, and throw the proceeds at Elzix. Nothing.
I clear a False Tomb, sell some 10k-sellers I was saving for Act 3 merchants, and throw the proceeds at Elzix. Nothing.
I clear two more False Tombs, throw the proceeds at Elzix, and...finally gamble Greyform! My "cheap" source of life leech ended up costing roughly 200k - well below average odds (23 gambles is the 50% breakpoint), but I'll take it. Naturally, in the next room of the False Tomb, a Ring of the Leech drops - this game sometimes!
With 11% life leech and 6 MDR (but poor lightning resist), Arioc was able to Leap Attack -> flee the bolts -> poke them at range 5 -> repeat until Kaa fell. Not the most exciting way to do this fight, but I didn't feel confident in tanking the bolts; frankly, Arioc felt awfully flimsy for a 400 HP Barbarian.
Speaking of flimsy, here's Arioc's LCS before Duriel:
I don't have access to any fixed-speed attacks yet, so I leaned on the stand-and-poke plan for Duriel. Despite having a sizable life pool, 11% life leech, and SIAS gloves, Arioc was missing any sort of FHR going into the fight. Between Pike's slow speed, Holy Freeze, and constant Smiting, his attacks kept getting interrupted; doubly awkward were the times when BO would be interrupted mid-yell. I ended up needing to pop back to town to refuel potions, since the fight was such a grind - Arioc was dealing decent damage (thanks to slvl 19 Mastery providing 38% criticals), but so many hits were interrupted that it was difficult to actually land a hit. Thankfully, Duriel wasn't dealing that much damage compared to ~550 HP, so it was just a grueling slog that pit my potion supply vs. his HP. Eventually, Arioc emerged supreme - on to Act 3, where I can hopefully shop myself a nice Pike from Asheara.
The minions of the Three had invaded even Zakarum...
Act 3 Normal taught me a hard lesson - while Immortal did very well, much of his power came from Bonesnap. Arioc, on the other hand, was using more quotidian weaponry to get through Normal; so far, his Pike of Performance (worse than a Superior) was the best that I found. My hope was that Act 3 would improve his firepower: I did some powershopping at Asheara, hoping to pick up a magic Pike, but she doesn't seem to carry blue Pikes in 1.05 - only white/grey. I gambled Pikes whenever I raised enough money, but the best that I was able to manage was a Jagged Pike of Strength - barely better than Superior. Needless to say, the game is much more difficult when you don't have a comically powerful weapon
I mentioned before that Arioc felt kind of fragile, and this continued through Act 3 - I tried to fight through the Spider Cavern, but Sszark the Burning was too deadly to fight toe-to-toe. Part of what made Immortal so powerful was that Bonesnap easily put monsters into hit recovery; Arioc couldn't, so monsters like Sszark were able to attack him freely. Between Amp Damage and Extra Strong, Sszark hit for ~72 damage, which was a lot against Arioc's ~430 HP; criticals were even scarier! I opted to clear out enough Spiders to make some room, then Leap Attack over Sszark and hit the golden chest. No point in dying to a few big hits by a Cursed Extra Strong boss so early.
The jungles were slow going - individually poking Fetish isn't fast work - and Arioc had to split up packs of Flayers/Vultures/etc. to survive. Whirlwind can't come soon enough! Thankfully, the map was somewhat short, so I didn't have to spend too much time slogging through Hawks and Fetish. The Ormus ring wasn't stellar, but it's an improvement over the crummy blues I've found:
I would've preferred leech and/or MDR, but one resist + life + AR ain't bad at this point.
The Ruined Temple was oddly painless - there was no stairtrap, so I was able to slowly make my way through and split up packs without much headache. There's one map layout that's a bit more spacious than the others, so I was glad to see it on this time down. There was a bosspack of Dolls* in Sewers Level 2; needless to say, I did not fight them The Council gave me a hard time with their healing skill, but Bash did the trick - Bash auto-stunlocks non-special monsters, so it's possible to clobber healing/Teleporting/etc. monsters with it. I still haven't found any sources of mana leech, so Bash was fueled by blue potions and town trips; I'd love to use it as a primary attack, but the drops haven't been kind in that regard.
One of the Blood Lords in Durance 3 dropped this lovely amulet:
Arioc's resists were starting to fall a bit behind, so this + Natural Resist should put him at near-MAX for Act 4
My only real plan for Mephisto was to stand and poke, which was risky - his melee attack is no joke! Once again, Bash came to the fore; while it can't stun Mephisto, the additional damage was much appreciated, and made a noticeable difference in wearing down his health bar. I was concerned that Arioc wouldn't be able to deal damage through hit recovery cycles, but Bash + a fair number of purples did the trick. I pulled the towns-sitters through the red portal, and it's on to Act 4, where I expect Arioc to really come into his own.
* Undead Soul Killers have 31-51 HP in Normal; multiplied by 8, this would have been ~240-400 damage from the boss, or enough to kill Arioc on a critical. No thanks
Now that's a stick! Lord's is the second-best ED% affix, and mana leech is going to come in handy very soon. I was thrilled to sell Arioc's old Jagged Pike for this, and immediately appreciated the huge damage boost. Being able to replace Normal Attack with Bash also provided a nice boost to damage, and the knockback was helpful in staving off swarms.
The grey sections of Act 4 were going very well; Arioc was running a bit behind Immortal level-wise, so he wasn't at clvl 30 when I found the City of the Damned. The City spawned Stygian Hags - difficult, since it's easy to get overwhelmed by hard-hitting Dogs - but I was making steady progress. Things were going well, until my worst nightmare struck: severe desync while cornered by Dogs, Abyss Knights, and a Cursed Venom Lord. There's nothing quite like the "excitement" of running away from monsters, only to see your HP bulb precipitously drop with nothing on screen I had to Save & Exit out; I'd really hate to lose Arioc to lag, especially so close to Whirlwind.
My second time through they grey sections, Arioc hit clvl 30. I knew that WW would be powerful with a Pike, but I was really amazed at how strong it is compared to a Maul. Range 5, coupled with 1.04's small search radius, means that nearly every attack is a guaranteed valid attack - none of the auto-missing that plagued Immortal! Range 5 also allows for hitting monsters earlier into a Whirl, and later out of it - while Pikes/Lances are less damaging than Great Mauls/Martels, the number of extra hits more than compensates. There's something joyous about Whirling through a dense pack and hearing the crackcrackcrackcrack as you rack up critical hits I mentioned before that Maul Whirling felt artful; Pike Whirling, on the other hand, has been leisurely in comparison: just right-click, and monsters fall over.
Arioc sped through the River of Flame, smashed Mephisto's Soulstone, and made his way to the Chaos Sanctuary. Once again, I swapped over to Leap Attack to prevent Iron Maiden from ending the adventure early. I did Whirl through some larger packs, but only when I was absolutely certain that no OKs were within a few screens of Arioc; after single-attacking so many monsters, it felt nice to Whirl through dozens of Doom Knights. I cleared the CS, fought De Seis & Co., then Whirled through Vizier and Infector's packs without breaking much of a sweat.
Diablo himself was more difficult than expected, but for a somewhat odd reason. Due to his block rate, I would often Whirl through him, only to come out the other side without enough mana to Whirl again. I had to run back to town a few times to refill mana, since Bashing wasn't landing enough hits to be worthwhile. He was also oddly aggressive with the lightning hose, which stung but wasn't deadly - it's amazing what MAX resists and 3 MDR can do. Regrettably, he only used his chilling hand attack a few times, which dramatically increased Arioc's damage output when it hit - being chilled slows how fast you move, but doesn't impact Whirlwind's attack rate, so it maximizes the amount of time spent on a larger monster. Being chilled by Diablo felt like he was casting Amp Damage on himself, which was awfully kind of him After enough Whirls...
What a drop! The rare Greaves were failed uniques, making this the only time that I've ever seen the exact same item drop twice in a single drop. The Mask is solid (1 MDR, +56 life, minor resists), and while one of the Pikes was junk, the other...
I was concerned about Normal Cows, given Immortal's struggles here, but Arioc tore through the dense packs effortlessly. The Cow Level really demonstrates the power of range 5 compared to range 0: while Immortal dealt more damage per hit, he wasn't able to hit anything while Whirling, whereas Arioc almost never misses. I expected a challenge, but instead the Cow Level let me refill my purple reserves and do some powergambling at Gheed's - not at all what I anticipated! The King dropped a junky rare Crown, but I appreciated the extra Chipped Sapphires to port forwards to 1.07 eventually.
The Goldwrap is an odd choice - the SIAS is useless for Arioc - but I wanted the MF% while the game hits its easiest stretch. I also haven't managed to gamble/find anything worth using - really, just look at those resists! - so my hope is that the 30% MF helps out a bit. The gloves are kinda junky, so I went gambling and picked up Chance Guards (with a fixed stat of only 24% MF), which I immediately equipped.
My hope is that, with 95 base Strength and 60 base Dexterity, Arioc will be able to hoist a Lance as soon as possible. I'll need to gamble some gear of the Titan/Perfection to do so, but I'd like to skimp on non-Vit stats as much as possible. The bonus of each point of Vitality - +6/point after BO - is so great that I want to put as many points there as possible.
Act 1 NM itself was...kind of boring. Whirling with a high-damage Pike is as strong as you've heard it to be; I thought that perhaps the 2000-era hype was overblown (esp. after 20 years of theory/research), but 1.04 Spear Whirlers are absolutely devastating. Immortal really was severely hampered by Whirlwind's search mechanic; Arioc's higher hitrate (plus longer reach) means that Pikes/Lances will always outdamage even the hurtiest Mauls/Martels. I right-clicked a lot, monsters fell over and coughed up loot, and I pressed through the Act with minimal hassle. The only real problems that I encountered were Teleportation Stone Skin bosses and Mana Burners. Stone Skin prevented Bash from landing reliably enough to Bash-lock the boss, and Teleport did its usual nonsense; I had to Whirl and hope for the best against these monsters. Mana Burners, on the other hand, would quickly drain Arioc's blue bulb and force me to Normal Attack, all while hoping to steal enough mana to start Whirl cycles again. Other than these monsters (and a combo pack of Cursed + Extra Strong bosses...), nothing really gave me much pause in Act 1 NM.
His travels took him to Lut Gholein, where he hunted Destruction...
Act 2 NM felt much more difficult than Act 1 did. I suspect that part of the reason was that I was comparing against Immortal, who benefitted from +50% ED against undead; in addition, the monsters are just studier/harder-hitting in general. Leapers continued to be the most obnoxious monsters in the game, and Itches and their 70% physical resist made for a challenge in the Far Oasis/Maggot Lair. Thankfully, Whirlwind continued to be as powerful as expected, which kept up with the challenges of the Act.
All told, I wasn't thrilled, but I also wasn't unhappy. The -40% requirements is important, as it gives me more time to find +stat items (or grudgingly committing points) to hoist a Lance; Arioc could equip this immediately with minimal gear-shuffling. The damage is okay - 60-70% ED tier - and outdamages my current Pike by over 40 points at max, although I'd like better eventually. On to the negatives: the Hit Causes Monster to Flee is irritating, since I want monsters to stand in Whirls instead of running from them, and a lack of mana leech means I need to find a source elsewhere. You'll notice the Hand of Broc in the screenshot: I had just gambled it a few minutes before imbuing, which was remarkably timely, as I could replace Chance Guards with a source of mana leech. All told, while I'm hardly unhappy with this Lance, it's on the lower rungs of acceptability for me; I'd really hate to be using this all through Hell.
The Arcane Sanctuary was amusing, thanks to HCMTF and Whirlwind: Ghosts would fly over to Arioc, get hit, and beeline their way back out to space I did have to Save & Exit out when Arioc was cornered with no mana, and the dreaded potions-don't-enable-after-Whirlwind bug struck. That was the second time this playthrough where a bug caused an S&E - not a great record so far.
As always, I cleared the Tombs, looking for this fellow:
I had to clear all six False Tombs to find the big map, but Arioc was moving so quickly that it didn't really matter much. Once again, MAX resist + 4 MDR carried the day; I don't want to test it, but I suspect that Arioc could bathe in MSLE and barely notice.
Duriel himself was much more difficult than I would have liked. I knew from Immoral that it would be a knock-down slugfest, but I had hoped that Arioc's longer reach would help end the fight quickly. This time through, while Duriel didn't warp quite as often as he did against Immortal, there were still a lot of Charges being thrown around. Even at over 1000 HP, a Charge would knock off 40% of Immortal's HP I Whirled, Duriel Charged, and we danced like this until one of us emerged victorious - while there's probably a smarter way to go about this fight, I decided to just grit my teeth and go the high-damage route. Thankfully, Arioc won, although I had to pop back to town to restock on small purples; I didn't want to dip into my fat purple stash yet for minor healing. Duriel was kind enough to drop Goblin Toe, which isn't immediately useful but isn't a bad stash item.
Act 3 NM wasn't terribly interesting, so I've bullet-pointed the major highlights:
Whirl, Whirl, Whirl - with the occasional Bash to refill mana. Dark Shapes and manaburn bosses can quickly drain Arioc's blue bulb, so I often fell back to the big ol' fist
I was lucky in that there was a back entrance to the Spider Cavern's golden chest - I was worried about fighting Sszark!
Arioc had no problems with non-boss Dolls, but I ran into bosspacks in the Sewers and Durance 2. Needless to say, I fled/Leapt/Portaled out of there ASAP - not dying like that this time!
I had a good scare in the Ruined Temple - while my Ice Iron Wolf did tremendous work in managing the stair trap, the sheer number of monsters on the map caused an awful lag spike. I thought that Arioc was right near the entrance - and the game was responsive - when he suddenly appeared a few rooms over Thankfully, most of the monsters had been whittled down by then, but I could easily see something like that getting him killed.
Durance 3 wasn't terribly threatening - no Dolls this time - although the Blood Lords and Council took a lot of Whirling to finish off. Maffer Dragonhand spawned Cursed, and put some real damage on Arioc, although it was nothing that 11% life leech couldn't recover mid-Whirl. Mephisto himself wasn't bad - I don't even think I had to use a small purple - since only his melee attack could deal any appreciable damage.
AH! The continuing voyages of the starship Arioc, "These are the voyages...". Remembering Immortal, if the worst you have to report is a lack of replacement Lances...
Much appreciated, my friend. I love the shared adventures, and await more.
Minor update - I've given NM Hephasto a couple of tries, and I've given up on the quest. I hate to leave a quest behind, but after trying both a brute-force and more tactical approach, I'm calling this one completely impossible to do without staggering risk to life and limb.
I tried Whirling down Hephasto (extra mod: Fire Enchanted), but just charging at him was too risky - Amp + whacks took off most of Arioc's HP, and a single critical would almost certainly have laid him out from full HP. Worse, since I couldn't use purples while Whirling, there was a real chance of eating a second hit, which would be guaranteed death. I tried more tactical play by keeping Hephasto at a Lance's length away while Whirling, but while this was somewhat successful, desync made it too risky: Hephasto would raise his hammer, and Arioc would suddenly warp under it and eat a blow. I thought that perhaps I could drop a TP, run up the stairs to the City of the Damned, and pop back down after shaking off Amp Damage (and thus be able to reliably attack him while not Amped), but after running up the stairs and furiously clicking the exit...desync struck. Arioc stood there like a moron, Hephasto warped up the stairs, the hammer was raised -- and I Save & Exited before it fell.
I thought about it and considered my options. One would be to try and Bash-lock Hephasto, but this would be a dicey plan of attack, as it would only take a few misses (or one desync) to break the lock and Amp -> hammer -> deeds. Thus, I formulated a new plan, which would be slower but would expose Arioc to no risk at all. I tested it out - even on players 2 Normal to simulate self-hosting! - and all seemed to go well. I fired up Nightmare, filled the game with 8 characters, and went down to the River of Flame again.
This time, I scoped out good sites akin to how I approached this before - small rivers that Hephasto was too dumb to cross, but from where I could launch my attack. I cleared the River, found a good site, and walked up to the Hellforge. Hephasto charges - only Spectral Hit, so no scary extra mod - and I fall back. I Leap Attack over the gap that I found, Hephasto walks up to the bank of the river -- and I breathe a sigh of relief, as all's going to plan. From here, I could Leap Attack over to him, land a hit - which, crucially, would put him in hit recovery - and pop back over to the other side before he could counterattack. So long as I click on Hephasto, this plan is almost completely risk-free, as Leap Attack is a guaranteed hit + knockback + recovery; Hephasto doesn't have the same "special" flag that act bosses have, so he's stunnable/knockback-able/etc. While the Leap-in-and-out strategy feels a bit more like a prank than a masterful tactic, I'll take whatever works. In addition, by using Goblin Toe + Clegaw's Pincers, I could apply Crushing Blow + Slows Target to render him helpless while dealing huge percentage damage.
I Leap Attack over, land a hit, and Leap Attack back before Hephasto recovers. Perfect - this should be easy...
I Leap Attack over, land a hit, and Leap Attack back; Hephasto swings at the air, and I smile at his foolishness...
...and halfway over the river, my smile turns into shock, as Arioc is warped back next to him, right into his hammer's swing.
I Save & Exit.
I don't mind a challenge, and I don't mind risky play, and I certainly don't mind dying. I do, however, refuse to lose Arioc because the client and server desynced at an inopportune moment. I'm calling off clearing the Hellforge with Arioc; there's just no way to do it safely with 1.04's desyncing.
Well, that was not optimal, but at the least Arioc is alive to try again at a later time! I have to wonder if the 7 extra players might be something that needs to be forgone when fighting bugged baddies? It would be one thing too opt out of 8 payers because it was easier, but quite another to get around bugged/death, at least to me.
As always, I love the story and especially the details. Looking forward to more...
I too was thinking the same thing as @Void Stalker - would tackling Hephasto at /p1 solve/minimize the desyncing problem? Personally I would rather complete the quest at an easier setting and get the gems than skip it altogether, although I don't think either option diminishes your accomplishments in this endeavor at all.
Act 4 tends to come with a nice boost in wealth, and NM was no different. Monsters drop high-end armors and +staffmod items quite frequently, so Arioc's coffers quickly filled up. Unfortunately, despite aggressively gambling belts/jewelry, I had absolutely dreadful luck - Arioc ended the act with the same gear that he started with. I've also only seen three Lances in all of NM (one white, one blue, and one grey), so I haven't had the opportunity to try and upgrade his weapon. Thankfully, his sky-high resists+MDR, BO-boosted life, and decent weapon damage were enough to get through the grey sections of Act 4 without much hassle. I put the Izual skill points into BO to get the +life% to near-max and gain a few more seconds of duration - nothing's worse than running out of BO during a long fight!
The River of Flame itself was unremarkable, although I did capture this odd screenshot:
Dunno what happened here, but it's not something I've ever seen before. I've already posted about Hephasto, so we'll just leave that as it is - I don't think I'll fight him on players 1, in part because it's trivially easy (Whirlwind would defeat him before there's any threat), and in part because I'd like to save the quests for 1.10s.
On the Chaos Sanctuary approach, I ran into a Stone Skin Teleportation Spawner - thankfully, Bash-lock saved the day I tried Whirling it down, but the combination of Teleportation + physical resist was too much to deal with; stunlock, however, did the trick. The CS itself was a headache, since I once again had to rely on Leap Attack to fight near Oblivion Knights. While LA was plenty damaging in Normal, one- or two-shotting monsters, in NM it was much less effective: between its auto-miss buginess and generally lower relative damage, I often had to 4- or 5-shot monsters. This wasn't great when picking off OKs, and certainly untenable for larger packs; my patience would often run out, and I would run back to the front halls -> Whirlwhind and hope that the Storm Casters/Venom Lords ran faster than OKs. I did ultimately prevail, though, in part because the CS spawn was light on OKs - I think there were maybe 8-10 total in the entire area, which is really unusually low. I had a few scares due to just getting pummeled: Arioc is functionally immortal while Whirling, so I'm used to being able to take a lot of hits and not really worry. With LA, however, I don't have that constant stream of life being leeched back, so I do need to play a little more carefully than I've become used to. One more thing that I noticed: Leap Attack doesn't trigger HCMTF, which I was very grateful for!
Leap Attack down De Seis & Co., Whirlwind away the other two packs effortlessly, and it's time for Diablo. While Arioc had none of the mana issues that he had in Normal (save for completely whiffing a Whirl here and there), the fight was much more intense: the lightning hose, if fully taken, would deal ~40% of Arioc's post-BO HP, and I couldn't necessarily count on leech to replenish it due to Diablo's blockrate. Factor in his huge HP and blocking, and this fight took a long time, most of which was spent Whirling and hoping that I wasn't walking into a lightning hose. I really found myself wishing that I had some source of cold damage, since slowing Diablo would be a tremendous help; I'd need to check if Clegaw's Pincers do anything against act bosses. The fight took long enough that I had to repair Arioc's Lance, despite the fact that I started the fight at full durability - it takes a lot of Whirling to wear down 131,320 HP!
After lots of Whirling, lots of purples, and a few tense moments:
Lancers are good against Cows; film at 11. I was grateful for HCMTF, as it helped clear a foothold around the red portal; from there, it was just a matter of moving out -> Whirl down a herd of Cows -> sift through loot. I did find an Umbral Disk off a plain Cow, and The Grim Reaper from the King, in addition to piles of chipped gems. Nothing thrilling, and poor experience, but I'll be happy to port those chipped Sapphires into 1.07.
Note that the damage is a total fiction - it doesn't calculate Mastery properly. It should be much higher than what's listed. Overall, I'm very happy with Arioc's resists+MDR, which allow him to tank most elemental damage without taking piles of damage. His main skills (WW, Mastery, pre-diminishing-returns BO/Natural Resist) are all where they need to be, so extra skill points from here on out are mostly luxuries.
I expected Hell to be nasty, but generally it wasn't as bad as anticipated. Normal monsters are still managed by Whirlwind + HCMTF, so Arioc was never threatened by mobs of non-boss Fallen/Rat Men/Arachs/etc. Bosses that didn't have nasty affixes fell easily enough; after playing through Hell with Marle, it was nice to be able to ignore Magic Resistant I did run into plenty of Teleportation bosses, though, with affixes mixes like:
Extra Strong Stone Skin
Cursed Stone Skin
Multiple Shot Lightning Enchanted
So far, Arioc's damage output has been high enough that anything short of Stone Skin + Teleportation wasn't a major speed bump. His AR and attack speed are too low to support Bash-locking Teleportation monsters - even before the Stone Skin defense bonus - so I had to rely on pure Whirling to do the trick. A good run of criticals was usually sufficient, so I haven't had to park too many monsters yet. In the case of the MSLE Teleportation boss, though - a Tainted pack in Catacombs 2 - I made a terrible noise (IRL - not a War Cry!) and ran very far away. Arioc probably could have survived the fight, thanks to his MAX lightning resist + 4 MDR, but I really did not want to suddenly learn that my math was wrong.
In addition to lots of Teleportation bosses, I ran into an oddly high number of Cursed packs. Frighteningly, Treehead Woodfist was Cursed + a duplicate affix; I fought him and his pack by Whirling away in a zigzag, keeping the pack at Lance's reach all the while. HCMTF kept the pressure low, and eventually, Arioc was victorious without needing to risk a sudden hurty critical. Even more terrifying was The Smith, who spawned Cursed Extra Fast Extra Strong - in other words, a mini-Hephasto Luckily, the Barracks map had a useful layout:
Park the Smith, TP out, and grab the Malus - easy! I also had the good fortune of finding my second white Lance, which went back to NM for imbuing. Did Charsi give me something even nicer than the trusty Storm Impaler?
Thankfully, despite these difficulties regarding bosses/gear, Andariel fell easily - lots of Whirling, lots of leeching, and she just couldn't keep up. It bodes well for Act 2's two superbosses, although both will provide quite the challenge...
Next up - the desert, Ancient Kaa, and the physical damage prizefight in the Tombs.
It's been a while since I've posted an update - blame travel and other games - but Arioc is still making progress through Hell. I started to take bosses much more seriously than before; while Arioc has few problems against normal monsters, a nasty Mana Burn/Cursed/Extra Strong/Might-y/etc monster could end the adventure immediately. Mana Burn in particular went from "mildly irritating" to "red alert" - in the Sewers, I ran into multiple Mana Burn bosses that gave me some good scares. The 4x(!!!) damage multiplier, coupled with the ability to drain Arioc's tiny mana bulb and leave him Whirl-less, meant that I couldn't just endlessly Whirl at the boss and rely on leech to overcome them. I've come to realize that a Classic Lance Whirler plays like a shark - you're more or less an unstoppable monster-slaying machine, so long as you don't stop Whirling. As soon as the Whirling stops, you stop dealing thousands of damage per second, stop leeching back hundreds of life per second, and have to rely on things like slvl 1 Bash to try and regain mana. Thankfully, by the end of the Sewers, I had more or less gotten the hang of this, so Mana Burn Radament didn't present a major challenge. My strategy against him was to Whirl until I was out of mana, then fall back, let him revive some undead, and wallop them to recharge Arioc's batteries.
I was dismayed by this imbue, but the +1 skills, huge mana leech, and AR boost intrigued me. I wondered how severe the difference in damage would be versus Arioc's current Lance (45-189), so I ran the numbers, factoring in the +1 skill into the Whirlwind and Spear Mastery bonuses:
Yowza! I expected a large difference in average damage, but didn't expect ~150 per hit. It really goes to show just how important base damage on a Lance is, since the multiplier on damage is so huge that even minor reductions have major impacts.
The desert was harder than anticipated, although it was mostly my fault - I just had to try and fight Stone Skin Leapers. I also had a NDE when leisurely Whirling through a Vulture bosspack; as Arioc moved away, his life bulb dropped ~90% within the span of half a second Thankfully, he survived long enough for me to Save & Exit out before the Vultures could land another - and lethal - hit. In addition, the 70-90% physical resistance on Swarms made them an absolute headache to fight, since Arioc leeched so little mana from them.
I expected the Maggot Lair to be simple - just Whirl around until the monsters fall over - but it was surprisingly difficult. Maggots were obnoxious to deal with, as they could quickly flood the tunnels with Young, and Black Locusts were a nightmare to fight. Given the tight quarters, there were a few times when Arioc would Whirl into a line of Locusts, not leech back enough mana to Whirl again, and stop halfway through the pack (thanks to the smaller screen resolution) - the absolute worst-case situation for a Whirler! I started carrying blue potions, since I was dipping into my small purples more often than I liked. It took about an hour to get to Coldworm's chamber, which held the most grueling fight of my Classic career. Clearing the entry tunnel wasn't bad - just Whirl a lot until the Maggot Young fall over - but actually making headway into the chamber was impossible. It took 2-3 hits to kill a Maggot Young, and the adult Maggots would spawn them much faster than I could clear them. I tried a number of strategies - focus on the mouth of the tunnel, try and Whirl at the adults, trying and maximize area coverage - but the end result was always the same:
Whirl, Whirl, Whirl, Whirl
See the durability warning appear for my Lance
Go back to Fara, repair, come back down
All the Young respawned, undoing steps 1-3
It was clear that I had no real option for clearing the chamber. I had picked up the Staff before too many Young flooded the room, so I could quit at any point, but stubbornness + seeing blue Lances and yellow Plated Belts kept me going. After an hour of making no progress at all, I hit the emergency button. I left the game with the seven town-sitters, which dropped the HP of new Young to functionally nothing. With this change, Arioc was able to make real progress into clearing the chamber, and after ~10 minutes, Coldworm was finally defeated. Another 20(!) minutes of sifting/selling/IDing items, and I was glad to be done with maggots for a long time.
Incidentally, the Claw Viper Temple was trivial - low-resist monsters don't stand a chance against Whirlwind. I managed to avoid Fangskin (Manaburn + some other affix) by Leap Attacking to the altar - the Vipers got stuck at the base of the stairs, and while I was tempted to poke at them from the top, I opted to just move on.
The Arcane Sanctuary was a pain, since Ghosts have such high physical resists (80% for Apparitions!), and HCMTF makes them fly out over space. I tried to clear out the paths, but the low risk from non-bosses (Blood Clan fell almost immediately to Whirlwind) and gruelingly long times to fight Apparitions really taxed my patience. I ended up just running through the Sanctuary, Whirling through Blood Clan, and just ignoring everything else until I found the Summoner's platform. Whirl away the Ghosts, Whirl through the Summoner, and we're on to the Tombs.
I had the great good fortune of finding Ancient Kaa the Soulless in the first branch of the first Tomb that I checked, which was quite a time-saver. However, the Tomb was packed with Apparitions (urgh), and there was a bosspack of Preserved Dead with them. I opted to pull the Apparitions back to the entrance, Whirl until I was empty, then pop back outside to refuel off Slingers. After winnowing the undead down enough, I could start on the Unravelers, followed by a duel against Kaa themself. Luckily, their bonuses were trivial - Blessed Aim + Extra Fast - so I was able to just Whirl, leech, repeat until they fell. MAX lightning resist + 4 MDR once again rendered Arioc nigh-invincible against Extra Strong lightning bolts, and his ~1700 HP soaked up the few that hit him while Whirling away from Kaa. One superboss down...
...but one more to go. I was right on the edge of clvl 59, so I fought monsters in the Canyon - can't have too much HP for Duriel. The True Tomb was completely packed with Apparitions - I didn't even bother fighting them, instead opting to just run and Whirl my way through. I "cleared" the Tomb in record time, despite the Orifice being in the very last corner that I checked. I emptied the Orifice chamber, hired a mercenary, topped up BO, and inserted the Staff...
(n.b. - this was taken without the Prismatic Amulet on!)
In one corner, we have Duriel, the Lord of Pain, with 181,000 HP, ~500 damage Charges, and a lightning-fast Jab. In the other corner, we have Arioc, the Duke of Damage, with 1,765 HP and ~1150 average Whirlwind damage. No tricks, no transformational strategies, no mitigating incoming attacks - this is the game's ultimate melee duel. And what a duel it was! I knew that this fight would be intense, but I wasn't at all prepared for what awaited me. Since Arioc, by necessity of Whirlwind, moved around the Chamber, I couldn't stop Charge from being picked off Duriel's attack list. While 1765 HP is enough to eat even a critical Charge and keep moving, a Charge+Jab, or double Charge, could send him to the grave. Meanwhile, Duriel's 0% damage resist meant that every successful hit landed full damage, which allowed Arioc to stay refueled during Whirlwind. However, when he wasn't landing hits, he was an easy target for Duriel - if I whiffed on a Whirl due to desync or just bad play, I would be unable to leech or hit a fat purple, and potentially die.
I popped down, let my mercenary take the first hit (poor guy!), and got to work. I Whirled, and Whirled, and Whirled, and things seemed to be going very well...but I ate a Charge while Whirling, saw Arioc's red bulb drop precipitously, and started mashing the 4 key. No luck - he's still Whirling...
...and Duriel walked right into it, letting me refill fully.
This was the story of the fight - I would start a Whirl, and pray that I would come out the other side with enough HP to Whirl again, or alive enough to quaff a fat purple. Duriel desync->Charged me a few times, landing some truly bone-crushing hits while I was lining up my next Whirl. There were more than a few times where I mashed the 4 key in a panic, probably drinking multiple fat purples in an effort to refuel->Whirl before the next Charge hit. Whirl, pray, Whirl, pray, Whirl, panic, 4444433333ohGodwhyisn'tthisworking333333okay, Whirl, Whirl...the cycle continued as we landed devastating hit after hit on each other. I went through the 8 fat purples that I brought down - gotta save some for later - and was about to TP back for more when I noticed that Duriel was down to ~10% HP. With only 4 small purples left, and a shockingly still-high-durability Lance, I decided to go for it.
I let out a sigh of relief, talk to Tyrael, then get up and walk around a bit to relieve the tension of the fight. I move the first town-sitter to talk to Jehryn, and...where's his "you have done well" speech? I realize, to my chagrin, that I had forgotten to party up before fighting Duriel It doesn't make a huge difference - I just can't cash in the Gidbinn quest, and won't get a megadrop from Diablo - but it's still frustrating, since I'm not doing that fight a second time.
Google