Defeating a fallen angel, he realized the secret of the Tribe of Thunder...
On to (Normal) Hell! Immortal started the Act at clvl 29, so I spent the Outer Steppe still bashing monsters with Bonesnap. There were a few dicey moments, due to Flesh Spawners creating large packs of Flesh Beasts; once again, I really felt the lack of block compared to Marle. Single big monsters haven't been much trouble yet, but swarms of small monsters are - it just takes so long to clear them, even one-shotting with Bonesnap, and Immortal is taking damage all the while. Thankfully, this wouldn't be
too much of an issue starting at clvl 30...
After fighting Izual (who took ages, even with Immortal's inflated damage), clvl 30 was finally reached. I immediately put one point into Whirlwind, one into Natural Resist, and two into Mace Mastery (slvl 20!). I didn't want to start Whirling until I had a source of mana leech - Immortal only had 32 total mana, and Whirlwind required 25 at slvl 1. Needless to say, I had no interest in using Whirlwind once every 90 seconds
After much more gambling, Gheed finally coughed these up:
2% is about as paltry as it gets, but it's infinitely better than 0%. Still, only having one WW in the mana pool meant that I had to Whirl with care - if I whiffed, or didn't deal enough damage on a Whirl, I'd end up with an empty tank.
The Plains of Despair spawned Finger Mages and Souls - needless to say, I didn't get much Whirling done
Starting in the City of the Damned, though, I was able to finally take it for a spin; even with the -50% damage penalty at slvl 1, the absurd rate of attack and area coverage made it absolutely devastating to use. In addition to the mana issue, I quickly learned two things about Classic Whirlwind:
- There's a real art to using it effectively
- I'm nowhere near being competent at it
I tried my usual setup - WW on left-click, Leap Attack on right - but that wasn't working out at all. Misclicking on a monster would cause Immortal to go into the dreaded whirl-right-up-to-a-monster-and-stop-at-its-feet attack, and having to left-click in odd places just broke flow for me. In addition, the lag that's been so pervasive this playthrough made it hard to line up good Whirls against big packs. I swapped to Normal Attack on left click, WW on right, and it just felt much better - it feels really nice to click on the screen to move, then right-click to immediately kick off a Whirl. Having ready access to Normal Attack also helped a lot when needing to refuel mana; I had hoped that the attack from trying to Whirl on empty mana would be enough, but there's nothing worse than doing that and kicking off a useless Whirl.
I started to really feel in the WW groove in the River of Flame; while I had a few miscues (running out of mana next to a pack of Doom Knights...), I felt that I was getting a grasp on it. I've started to approach it a lot like playing Marle: fire your big attack right along the edge of monster packs, as if Immortal was a Frozen Orb. This has kept Immortal much safer than the greedy mid-pack Whirls, but I'm still getting a handle on making it effective at range 0. Hephasto fell without much issue, proving that Immortal is truly the king of hammers:
I swapped off WW and on to Leap Attack during the maze part of the River of Flame. This NSFW (Not Safe For Whirling) image explains it all:
If Immortal attacks any monster - even with Normal Attack - while under Iron Maiden, he's toast. His ~300 average damage gets multiplied, thrown back in his face, and would drop him in a single blow. Whirlwind is completely out of the question; many a Classic Barbarian has fallen to the dreaded mid-Whirlwind IM cast, which kills you with quite literally no possible reaction/defense. I could Normal Attack through the entire Chaos Sanctuary, but even that's risky, as Immortal could be cursed mid-swing and die to his own attack. Any melee attack near an Oblivion Knight would be lethal - what's a Barbarian to do?
Swap to Leap Attack, which counts as a ranged attack in all Classic versions*, and start hopping.
Even at slvl 1, Leap Attack provides a nice +100% ED, auto-hits**, and has a screen's range. With Bonesnap, the +50% undead bonus, and skill bonus, Immortal could Leap Attack to most monsters in the CS and drop them in a single blow. The comparatively low cost (9 mana) meant that it wasn't burdensome to continue using; even if his mana pool emptied, a single (risky) Normal Attack would regain enough mana to fire off another Leap Attack. There's a lot to love about Leap Attack, although it suffers from one major problem - it's
very buggy in multiplayer. It ought to auto-hit monsters and deal huge damage, but I noticed that it only seemed to actually hit about half the time - the other half, the monster would be knocked back, but lose no health while Immortal leeched no mana/life. Needless to say, this made for a frustrating trip through the CS, as half of my single-target attacks completely missed. It got the job done, though, albeit slowly and with lots of retreat to the front hallways -> furtively hope that no OKs are still hiding behind a nearby pillar -> Normal Attack.
I'm really not sure what I'm going to do in NM/Hell CS, where I can't lean on raw power to get through. Immortal can still one-shot most monsters in late Normal, but that isn't going to last, and they're only going to get more and more dangerous. I might have to take a very slow approach of Leap Attacking monsters one at a time outside of the CS, since even the unlikely risk of an OK hiding offscreen is too scary to not account for.
I cleared the CS, then took on the seals. De Seis & Co. were Leap Attacked away; after that, I could freely Whirl again, and made short work of the Infector and Grand Vizier. I took a LCS screenshot right before hitting the last seal:
Diablo himself was tough, but not as tough as I had feared. After BO (+47% HP/mana), Immortal could eat a lightning hose without breaking too much of a sweat. I Whirled when possible, although Diablo's blocking meant that I couldn't guarantee refueling; awkwardly, I kept clicking on his tail when trying to line up a Whirl, which led to a lot of really bad Whirling. Lots of short Whirls, lots of Normal Attacks, lots of cursing as I click on his tail
again, and pretty soon...
Nothing exciting, although the ring was a minor upgrade over Immortal's old +55 AR blue ring.
Welcome to Nightmare, Count Immortal.
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*
@helvete I checked this on the Lurker Lounge before entering the CS - I'd hate to find that I was wrong the hard way.
** Even though it provides an AR bonus - this game sometimes!
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