Maltatais Archive Thread

Guardian Skadlotta the Cold
Once upon a time there was a cold witch that was called Skadlotta. She was not at all as ridiculous as the fire sorceresses but very collected and calm in most situations. She managed to keep her head cool during the long campaign against evil invaders of Sanctuary and foul heretical enemies of the winter. May she teleport to aid our world with the utmost expeditiousness.

Much to her baffledness she found an obscure clause in the witch license that stated that in the event of potential conquests and triumphs she would have to present her experiences to a very shady bureau of reviewers, known as "singular peculiarities". At least she thought that was what was said since the license document had been somewhat frayed and the ink smeared on that particular page. It could have been "simple players" too. Or "single places". No matter. Along with her trusty companion Healfdane, who was a sturdy northlander who could stand the cold and not some pansy town guard who couldn't duel a single tough melee uniqueling on his own, she planned for the arduous task. It proved to be easier planned than done.

Skadlotta: Finally! Here are three majestic comic boards of presentating information detailing our journeys and exploits!

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The discovery of that crown for you was most welcome, as was the shield for me which allowed me to switch into green and grey stabbing mode with the Spineripper! While I otherwise maintain the blue elegant and ominous casting mode. The staff would have been very interesting to use but my own precious Spectral Shard I would not part with for a second.

Healfdane: I like the triumphant thought that I, the mighty Healfdane, remained standing against the ever-stinking Andariel, bane of barbarian hirelings! The flesh spawners were a complete pain, though. Totally unbearable.

Skadlotta: Yes, they almost drained every gold coin with all the explosions needed to put them in their place.

Healfdane: The oblivious knights were almost as annoying. Running away, the cowards. And now that I think about it, did you have a thing for the lord of terror? Why do we have several pictures stored detailing the battle against him?

Skadlotta: That is pure coincidence... On an unrelated note, just out of the blue (of which I have plenty), Diablo isn't really dead, is he? He's just banished to another plane of existence?

Healfdane: Don't ask me, you are supposed to be the scholarly one.

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Skadlotta: Maybe so, but honestly - how much does it take to know that you should hide in the dark when traversing caves filled with chargers?

Healfdane: I must add that that comes from the same sorceress who decided to stand passive in one spot for many minutes on the summit while I fought Korlic.

Skadlotta: I was doing my best to remain discreet and not attract the extra fast Talic. Damn, that was nervous! Korlic took forever.

Healfdane: I know, I could barely hit him. In retrospect, since Talic proved to be such a weakling we should have nailed him first, perhaps, so our extra potions didn't expire. Ah! I like the last one! We had just gone down the stairs, no unexplored room to hide, and are immediately assailed by assailants! Cold immune, and while the cloaking shake most off, only the mighty Healfdane stood between the terrible cursed leader (nicknamed "Beardbane") and the witch!

Skadlotta: By all means, that was a nice save. I prefer the next ones, the strategy is so brilliantly dazzling it would be blinding lest the light was shut out. To think, that there are such N00b witches as those that would rush forward around the corner madly hurling glacial spikes! No, the proper witch only cast spells once the ambush is already neutralized (basic The Art Of Cold, verse 7). First cloak, so that the leader is blocked and imprisoned by his unseeing minions, Then you go around and cast and return, calmly waiting for them to be smashed to ice cubes.

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The last stair was of course also a fine example of proper emergency cloaking, as well as the exquisite flanking attack against the unravellers while you engaged their skirmishing line of light skeleton infantry.

Baal was in fact much more dangerous than his minions. Not least because his rapidly spawning appendages are cold immune and also could hit me very rapidly and lock me into hit recovery. Such an ambush almost nailed me once, it was quite unsettling. In retrospect, I could have used a wand of lowered resistance instead of life tap since you had little opportunity to land any hits on him.

Healfdane: I am afraid we do not meet the quota of humorous details in our presentation. It is far too much to the point to meet the requirements of the target audience.

Skadlotta: The target audience is lazy then, and attempts to excuse its poor scholarly efforts with feeble comments about walls of texts and whatever.

Healfdane: No argument there. But the requirements still remain. Couldn't you do something a little more populist that makes people connect to the presentation?

Skadlotta: I am a cold and distant cold witch, remember? Very well, what would that be?

Healfdane: I don't know, you could try singing something?

Skadlotta: With my voice? It's terrible! The birds will migrate to Aranoch in terror! The rabbits will dig down into the other side of the earth!

Healfdane: It's not that bad...there were only a few birds that fled last time and it was probably about time for their yearly migration anyway...

Skadlotta: I can't sing. End of discussion, minion.

Healfdane: But I have a plan! Here is the text to a song where you just need to hum. Almost. You can be all like "hmmm-mmm-hmhmmmm hmhm-hmhm-hmhmmm" and people will celebrate your beginning singing career in no time!

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While Skadlotta and Healfdane waited to see if any fan mails would arrive they sorted their numerous pieces of equipment. Healfdane carried a treacherous plate and malicious champion sword - the perfect combination with teleport support and his life stealing crown. Malice can really take down any enemy along with an easily found source of varied damage, even the humblest of circlets will do. He wielded a kings grace before but the malice quickly proved superior even against others than physically resistant foes. And how barbarian stunning and bashing and regeneration own the enemy leaders...

Skadlotta used the essential Nadir in many situations, particularly against spawners and charging enemies. She blew up corpses with a black flail and cursed mighty monster heroes with a wand of life tap.

Skadlotta found several items that could have suited an insanely mighty melee sorceress, like Draculs grasp and Bonehew. Unfortunately she never became insanely mighty enough to use them, although she did some early stabbing with the Spineripper in traditional sorceress fashion. Draculs is interesting for a caster though with the life per kill and I think it would have been notable if Skadlotta had a heavy PDR /MDR rig. Guardian angel could also have been utilised to great effect had she managed to fill all resistances to max. As it happened, only lightning was maxed at some times, but it was useful enough against burning souls in the Throne of Destruction. Poor souls, blinded and near useless. In the end Skadlotta found the very fitting bladebuckle that would probably had been a key component to becoming a more stable melee fighter.

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As with all my characters, I played with patch 1.13 and no rune word mod, ATMA or GoMule. So chest space was a serious issue.

Cold is nice, especially with the corpse control and lack of resistant enemies (thanks to cold mastery they are either immune or helpless) and the speed in late normal was staggering compared to most of my earlier characters. Skadlotta gained ten levels in one gaming session, and six more in another in nightmare Act IV (ending in level 66, most fittingly) where she also located the Lem rune and gambled a glacial amulet.

Healfdane died at least once, to an intermingled bosspack of horror archers in the palace cellar in Hell. Might, fanaticism, curse, multishot and possibly the conviction from a nearby bosspack. He fell in one shot which was incredibly annoying. I am not altogether satisfied with Skadlotta because she didn't really succeed in dealing with the cold immunes as well as I would have liked, but at least she and Healfdane managed to defeat every enemy coming into their path and prove once again the decisive superiority of skill charges for a modestly equipped character. Some day I have to try a character setup focused on gold finding and using charges routinely instead of reserving them for emergencies.
 
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Guardian Izzor the Leapfrog
Muahahahaa (evil megalomaniac laugh)! I finally beat the game without any casualties!

My first Barbarian guardian, Izzor of the leaping frog tribe, and Wulfgar, the undefeated hireling!

Statistical equipment and such
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I took a lot of pictures of the Barbarian travels. I'll post them a few at a time. So it will be like a story where everybody knows how it will end. Which I think is good because too great surprises can be severely shocking. As usual I played patch 1.13 completely vanilla, no rune word mod or extended stash for the poor northlanders.

Part I
The UMT (United Mercenary Troops) basic survival guide for the informed hireling of today

1. Avoid irresponsible characters such as Amazons.
2. Avoid irresponsible players such as Maltatai that forget to turn the player setting down from 8 before engaging dangerous walking trees.
3. Enter into service of a broadly built meat wall...hrm, melee character, such as a Barbarian.
4. Remember that employer stupidity and gullibility are tools to use rather than obstacles for the modern informed hireling.
5. Allow the meat wall to engage the enemy and draw all the attention of critically lethal creatures such as normal Diablo while you stand at the side in silent amusement.



Maltatai: What!? Telash!? Out of my thread!

Maltatai: Now then, I am happy to present the leaping frog tribe Izzor. The frog tribe is much cooler than the dull Wolf and Bear and whatever weapon mastery tribes. Their signature attack move is leaping. All the time. Very good for staying in one piece. All the time.

Clearing the game without ever losing the hireling is and has been the ultimate achievement for me in Diablo II for several years as earlier I considered it utterly impossible. I have gotten [post=8661818]close[/post] a couple of times [thread=922317]before[/thread], and also [post=8667119]maddeningly extremely close one time[/post].

I don't recall ever seeing a guardian thread or walkthrough that mentions such a goal so I guess it's an eccentricity that people generally don't care about. I was in any case very happy to finally have one comrade make it through, and Izzor and Wulfgar cooperated really well facing all sorts of enemies side by side.



Izzor: In Hell we started to run into the hard stuff that you don't want to get close to if you have a choice. Wulfgars mask and skin armour saved our hides against the lightning enchanted creepers. We started to see the really severe stuff in the crypt and mausoleum with conviction and high physical resistance.

In Act II things were sometimes outright ridiculous and constant leaping was absolutely necessary to stay in one piece with hordes of mages and stacked enchanted bosspacks and whatever nasty beetle breeds you can imagine. Places like the Ancient Tunnels and Palace Cellar were unnerving as many a mercenary have met their doom there.

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Wulfgar: In one tunnel we faced one weirdo called Bane Shifter. That name was really spooky because once we had nailed it, the creature went all "if you strike me down I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine" on us and returned shortly after. Same colour and all.

Duriel had a bad day. We found a combat shrine before his little burrow and Izzor used it just before we went in. Like in the tales of old, it was not Duriel but other monsters that were the most dangerous, like Ancient Kaa. I went in while Izzor stood shaking with his back turned.

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Izzor: We were far from done, though, because we had stomped down Duriel in one of the earlier tombs we found and there were many tombs to clear after that. These heaps of skeletons and poisonous mummies and unravelers are just the big pain of the close range warriors world. And don't get me started on the sarcophagi.

In one room here there were two boss packs of unravelers and one was this totally insane creature with the total maximum of corpse explosion enhancement. Not a fight I was sad to stay out of. Finally we could leave the dried desert and go on to the meaty leeching living jungle, the promised land of glitter and riches that is Lower Kurast, if you can get past an overcharged Stormtree guarding it. Promised land, yeah right...that mockery was worthy of Duriel!

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Wulfgar: Strange forces circulated over Kurast, wrapping me in a their hiding cloak of transparent nothingness. Fair enough, we would use every advantage we came across. That became along, long and exhausting trek all the way down to Mephisto. Like Duriel, he had the disadvantage of a combat shrine too close to his lair...

It's hard to say if the invisibility was really an advantage since Izzor had less opportunity to fight as he had to leap more of the time. Certainly a predictable enemy behavior to counter, at least, so it was easy to think of how to deal with it. Just before going, or jumping if you wanted to build on your tribal image, to hell we did after all manage to grab a nice lucky charm from Lower Kurast.

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Part II
Wulfgar: In the grey dust heap known as the burning hells we met the doom knights that were rather dangerous when supported by their bosses. Luckily we had raided Lower Kurast a bit before and gathered some extra equipment. Izzor had a new charm with fire resistance and stability and an amulet that added less resistance than the one before but some welcome damage reduction.

Izzor: The foes damage is first cut in half by my battle cry and that makes integer reduction quite notable as only a small amount of the damage is left to reduce, compared to percentage damage reduction. It also proved quite useful later against fast physical attacks like Diablos firestorm that deals physical damage every frame (a frame is 1/25th of a second).

Wulfgar: We know these facts thanks to the great frog shaman.

Izzor: Obviously.

Wulfgar: That is why the frog tribe is more tactically apt than the other tribes.

Izzor: Our expectations were high before the hellforge and for once in many characters careers it did not disappoint! I had until know wielded my trusty sword empowered by the grace of the king - easily obtained and decent power. Now we promptly removed those and added some more interesting content.

Wulfgar: We both wield legend swords which are the fastest, if also weakest, of the two handed blades and that is very useful along with the crushing blow from Izzors helm and the lightning effects from the new runes. I also benefit a lot from the speed since more speed means more hits to stun the enemy knock him off balance. Ignorance of target defence was also notable since the lazy Izzor no longer had to shout at people to be able to hit them. You could therefore say that he became quite ignorant of sound battle tactics after finding the Crescent Moon - a moon crazy lunatic.

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Izzor: There was one of the famous Black Hacks in hell too! And of course also the infamous types like the burning souls. They hit hard despite resistances and their lightning is pretty hard to dodge. We made for the hellforge first and then came back to clear out the earlier areas after claiming the waypoint further down.

Wulfgars: Then came a lot of pesky doom knights in the chaos sanctuary.

Izzor: And then came Lord de Seis, which was doubtless the most dangerous situation so far. I had to leap constantly to keep the group in check while Wulfgar cut them up one at a time. Leaping takes focus. You need to hit the spot right where you stand to keep the leap as fast as possible and therefore the knockback as frequent as possible. You have to watch out for accidently targeting an enemy because then you will leap following him and that can lead to too long and time consuming leaps if it moves around.

Wulfgar: Even if Izzor helf the more dangerous weapon Diablo focused on me all the time. The firestorms hurt a lot and I had to live on our purple potions. It was starting to look nasty after three potions but we managed to take Diablo down before he us.

Izzor: After going through the foothills outside Harrogath - where the amulets damage reduction totally rocked against the spike fiends - I tried to figure out a way to use the String of Ears I had found earlier without losing too much other bonuses. I had Sigons trusty belt and gloves. Eventually I settled for dropping 10% attack speed since I had recently added a jewel of fervor to my shield, so it would mostly be going back to what I was used to. Fire resistance was harder to give up, even if the new belt had magic damage reduction. You can get caught in fire enchantment explosions and after all and other hard hits where you need huge reduction of that one hit. After long bartering with Elzix he finally located an old pair of gloves from his dusty attic. Now my gear was complete!

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Wulfgar: The treks through the highlands weren't very dangerous. Izzor amused himself by dodging the catapult projectiles by leaping out of the way. It's such a shame that our kinsmen could not do the same.

Izzor: I know, right? That fence is like, tiny.

Wulfgar: I think it would break if we would lean against it too. One thing with all the crush beasts standing guard and such but once we had chased them away it would have been nicer to see some more initiative here.

Izzor: In the crystal ice caves we had little to fear, with the exception of vipers and buffed reanimated dead. Mostly the vipers, as the latter are usually so slow so you can spot and control them before they reach you. But the vipers strike suddenly like lightning. Luckily there were none there, and neither at the frozen river.

Wulfgar: Which is not frozen by the way but runs calmly next to the frozen banks. I would like to have a word with that cartographer some time.

Izzor: We had already encountered succubi on the plateau. In small groups their blood star projectiles seemed to just bounce off Wulfgar and be blocked by my shield most time. Down there at the river where not one but two tribes of those, perhaps gathering to play beach volleyball next to the river with their volleys of balls. These long range harpies are quite deadly if they have good tanks or chargers to protect them but alone they are weaker. And also easily taunted once you get into hearing range.

Wulfric: Izzor made many politically incorrect comments about the enemy, for example mentioning their diplomatic ensnaring skills in a derogatory manner.

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Part III
Izzor: In the glacial trail we finally ran into the vipers. And the reanimated hordes. That was so stupid, they serve the same tactical purpose, almost. With them were the silly bats.
The vipers weren't as dangerous as they could have been but at Bonesaw Breakers place there were no less than four other boss packs of reanimated warriors defending. One of them in the back ranks sporting a might aura...

Wulfgar: Those fellows are quite resistant to our damage and sported some nasty enchantments too.

Izzor: So this called for some deliberate tactics. Leaping can be used in several ways. The centre of the knockback is always where you land. That way you can direct the force and thereby also move the enemies where you want them. Leaping where you and your friend are is only really useful if there is an obstacle to catch enemies on, unless you are archers or just want a moments hit recovery to get away.

The best tactic is often to leap somewhere at the side of the enemy group so they disperse. Then you follow your party to leap the other enemies away so you can focus on one or two at a time. Sometimes you are forced to leap right into the enemy horde for this. This is very cool, but dangerous so best avoided when possible. Stealing individual minions from their master in this way is absolutely hilarious!

You can also alternate between leaping and swinging your weapon. Here it helps to have a fast one like our legend swords and lot's of extra speed. I could usually get away with two hits between each leap and keep the enemy in hit recovery. This does of course require and obstacle that the enemy you hit is pushed into.

On the frozen tundra there were more succubi, which were of no particular danger, along with goat men and imps. The only risky moment was when Wulfgar levelled up. When a hireling does that, the bonus hit points from battle orders are removed and he must drink a potion or be otherwise healed before his regeneration can push past the natural limits again. Obviously not very welcome in a tight spot.

Wulfgar: When we had claimed that waypoint we decided to pay the treasonous Nihlatak a visit. Izzor had great fun turning as many of his resting corpses into grim wards before they could rise. We had little trouble down in the first two halls although the zealots and their caster friends took some time and there were many returned skeletons that were quite resistant. In the third hall, however, we were welcomed by the dreaded hiss of the tomb viper...

Izzor: The great weakness of leap is that ranged combatants befit from getting away from you, so if there is no wall behind them you will have to think twice before using that approach. Also, being knocked back offsets the luring effect of taunting enemies. This was especially true with tomb vipers and their dreadful clouds, dealing about half a hundred physical damage each frame (that amount multiplied by 25 each second). However, should they run into a hireling equipped bedecked in Sol rune plate and helm, the clouds deal only about a meekly fifth of their damage. They were still quite unnerving and we took great care to taunt them as much as possible to distract them from unleashing their poison clouds. In melee they are fragile if you can only survive the clouds and charge attacks.

Wulfgar: In the first alcove we encountered Nihlatak. We had to be extra careful to lure out his minons, including a group of tomb vipers, and make sure their corpses were thoroughly messed up so they could not be raised again. It took a long time but went fairly well but we got hit once and Izzor lost a third of his health. I engaged the remaining minions while Izzor jumped at Nihlatak who tried to escape with his teleporting. When cornered, he was of little danger without his underlings.

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Izzor: Just like Duriel, Nihlatak turned out not to be the most dangerous foe around the place. When we had cleared the second alcove our eyes fell on something that would freeze the heart of the boldest.

An evil urn.

Now, tomb vipers are lethal enough when you can see or hear them from a distance and do not have any enchanted leaders commanding them. Now add that and the group appearing potentially in your face. Needless to say, we were not optimistic.

What preparation can be done then when meeting tomb vipers like this? Not too much. Well, most of all we needed time to react so we could retreat to Harrogath through a portal and come back to lure out smaller parts of the group. So I used my sword to summon us five spirit wolves. Each would perhaps at least attract one projectile instead of us.

They hissed at us, their dreaded sound filling the air. The wolves whimpered and I cast a town portal as fast as I have ever cast anything. We survived!

We went back down through the waypoint and stairs. Approaching through the left path north I taunted in each and every direction to attract the minion vipers. They followed us down, one or two at the time, too. We were making it! Distracted from the taunting, they thought of neither charging nor hurling their poison. Then their leader was left, the arch-viper itself, the Black Snarl. His hiss was truly fierce. His strengths were even worse! A fire enchanted and extra strong viper! All missing would be a might or conviction aura, or maybe lightning enchantment or speed... This was serious. He was too fast for leap to work reliably and Wulfgar had got stuck hiding behind a wall to the right, out of sight in the picture.

Wulfgar: While Izzor tried to dodge poison projectiles while leaping the viper away and into the wall I advanced and closed in thanks to my Sol runes. He still hit me hard and without purple potions I might as well have ended up a corpse. No foe was ever more fearsome than the viper lord o this, the darkest of pits.

Izzor: We had survived Nihlatak and the lord of tomb vipers! We felt hope that we just maybe would be able to make it through this after all. The test of the ancients lay before us now.

Wulfgar: Many are the hirelings that have perished on the mountaintop. But we had one last trick up our sleeves. We had a teleport amulet. And we had the Skin of the Vipermagi. Just like with the evil urn, we immediately left once the enemy materialized. South, and then around to the northeast following the upper rim of the summit.

Madawc had followed closest to us and came at us alone. We managed to lure him away and corner him next to one of the great pillars, ever worried that the others would come to his aid as Madawc has the habit of falling back. But he stood his ground and despite his extra strength he was no match for our combined might! Lightning enchanted too, which was very fitting as the vanquishing of those had been a constant challenge of our journeys. Izzor switched back to his damage reduction amulet and we advanced south.

Talic was the most dangerous with extra strength and cold enchantment. We were unable to corner him where he could not whirl through us but could block his attacks and Korlic, much weaker, flanked him.

Izzor: My battle cry unnerved even such seasoned warriors but I wanted to slow them down with the Kelpie Snare too for the ultimate humiliation. That proved to be a mistake. While I got the hit in Talic hit me badly with a well timed whirl and cost me a purple potion. With sword and shield though, I cut the foul old piece of filth and refuse apart along with Korlic and Wulfgar stood strong and defiant in their pompous faces!

Wulfgar: RrrruaaAAAARRGH!!! RAAAAH!!!

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Izzor: All peoples have their own fighting style. Amazons, except when impaling, battle with grace and agility, paladins with fervor and intensity and druids pound away like the lumbering oafs that they look like and are.

Barbarians fight like a bully. We leap into the enemy's formation, STEAL his minions and push him wherever we like, scare him, taunt him when he runs away, shout battle cries that makes him tremble and knock him senseless. We raise repulsive totems of the bodies of his friends, rob them of their possessions and drink their blood like water.

After the ancients had fallen there was great taunting and disregard of their illustrious position, especially so for Talic, well deserved.

Like with Duriel, there was much left to go back and explore once the ancients had fallen. In the yet unknown parts of the Ancients Way we encountered a most fierce spearwoman and her pack. Still drunk on our triumph we were slower to react and she rammed her trident deep and slowed us down - usually it is me doing that! Cursing and holy freeze is indeed a troubling combination. Unfortunately for her, it had no effect on leaping.

Wulfgar: Down in the Icy Cellar we did for the first time encounter the dangerous minotaur packs which had been mysteriously absent until now. On the other side of the first little river they pressed us hard as they were supported by gloams and we retreated and came back through the cave entrance so we would not get drawn further into enemy packs by the gloams. Now, on the contrary, it was we that were able to draw out the overconfident leader of the minotaurs. Bullheaded as he was, his grasp of tactics was as rusty as the name he went by and he charged at us alone ahead of the pack. We cut him apart easily despite his damage resistance, before the eyes of his minions.

Izzor: We then brandished his head and roared insults across the water.

Wulfgar: We are bullies after all.

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Part IV
Izzor: The Icy Cellar had a superbly balanced combination of gloams, minotaurs and lastly succubi. At last Baals captains showed some reals ense of strategy and organization. The thin strip of coast along the upper side of the cave was held by a boss and champion pack of minotaurs, intermingled with succubi and a champion pack of gloams. That was slow grinding and seemed very dangerous as the ranged enemies constantly forced us deeper into the enemy formation. We went back and Izzor attempted to lure out the succubi from the southern shore. Some came but the gloams could not be lured. It would have been such a fantastic opportunity if one were a ranged attacker. Especially if one happened to have the games best bow, Riphhok.

Why the difficulty level not?

Wulfgar: Izzor must have spent half a dozen quivers or so. His poor accuracy was most amusing.

Izzor: After thinning out the ranks we approached from the west again and nailed them without much trouble.

Wulfgar: Only the Worldstone Keep was left. The first levels were fairly bland, having no doom knight packs that would have been our least favorite foes to meet. We found an interesting axe along the way.

Izzor: The last leap down to the Throne of Destruction was not through the terrible stair trap that we had expected. With immense relief we breathed out, knowing that only carelessness could stop us now.

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Wulfgar: There was in fact one last critical moment as I leveled up one more time, causing my health to drop temporarily. We had been facing burning souls and had we been fighting a boss pack things may have been risky.

Izzor: The warped ones and undead were most amusingly lured from teir masters and their corpses desecrated. Achmel became so furious that he charged headlong out from Baal and allowed us to dispatch him with ease. While we had worried a bit about the hydras our concerns proved unfounded as the council members were easy to goad into charging us one by one.

Wulfgar: Only Lister and his pack proved troublesome as they reacted too fast to be reliably locked into hit recovery by the leaps and could stun me for long time. Once we separated them, they were insignificant despite the strength boost.

Izzor: Baal himself was a pitiful joke after battle cry and Kelpie Snare slowing had put him in his place. I did not even need the skill boost from a shrine that I used, taking advantage of the unwisely, for Baal, short path from the waypoint and down. We could probably have taken him down on any player setting had we wished to try.

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Conclusion

The main skills of Izzor are simplicity itself.

Battle orders give life and mana.
What you can't hit after striking with maxed battle cry nobody can hit and half as strong enemies are better than normally strong enemies.
Leap attack allows attacking anywhere without regard for attack speed.
Leap lets you knock out just about every enemy in the game for the price of 2 mana...

Taunt is a one point wonder often used, especially on ranged foes.
Grim ward is fun and good for when surrounded or for flank protection.
Find potion was very good when lots of unleechable enemies were around.
Find item allows corpse control.

Izzor is a remake of the first barbarian I had that managed to get past normal. Back then I thought leap attack was the coolest and whirlwind cost too much. Initially I had a bit different idea of how he would turn out. I thought that I would make it as simple as possible skill wise so I could use almost any weapon I came across. I counted on being able to shop and gamble some fairly high PDR gear with Sol runes from the nightmare countess making up the bulk of it. Thanks to battle cry I would not need to worry about attack rating and thanks to leap attack I would not need to worry about attack speed and being frozen. Battle orders, leap and taunt would add the rest of the safety. For weapon I thought I could at least gamble some huge rare maul if nothing else.

Then the loot came in the form of very conventional high attack and offense oriented stuff. Best of all was the Lem rune for treachery - I actually found another later and managed to make a passion phase blade just to try it out. And the ultimate tool of boss fighting that goes by the name of Kelpie Snare! And the equally ultimate Riphook. Quite lucky. Legend swords are quite common in early hell and among the easiest elite weapons to find in late nightmare. Weak but fast. Guillaumes faces offensive mods helped a lot, as did the high blocking. Battle cry does work wonders with PDR since the remaining damage can be almost negated but damage reduction benefits everyone, no matter how equipped. The blocking was quite helpful too. I am often skeptical to relying on blocking too much since you will get hit sooner or later anyway and that hit can be enough if you don't have enough other protection. Barbarians have so much life though, not to mention the battle cry in this case, that the hits that go through generally pose little threat on their own.

With the blocking came a change of tactics too. With the maul I intended to leap between groups and spread battle cry when landing and then be off - like a charger alternating between enemies. Now there was no need to minimize contact with the enemy and then it was better to be more stationary so that no more groups were alerted. Also, leap rather than leap attack proved to be the most important offensive skill.

Izzor is the strongest tank I have made so far and could probably not be better except by shifting points from leap attack to concentrate. Wulfgar was superb like all the other Barbarian mercenaries of my characters (that stun!) and kicked around enemies that would have eaten every town guard for breakfast. It really felt like playing as part of a team rather than with a minion.

Izzor and Wulfgar must now move on and support one another through new tests of courage. Knees shake, throats parch and Icehawk Riftwings pack of gloombats are flying around in the belly as heavy hammer strikes echo from the stone walls.

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Over and out!
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Guardian Thant, Reviver of iron Maiden
Here is presented the moderately succesful guardian Thant specifying in attract and iron maiden in combination with revived monsters.

I played the game on patch 1.14 with no mods and on 1 players setting through hell, clearing all areas.

Thant is an old character like more or less all my Diablo II characters. He was and is supposed to combine disruptive cursing through attract and iron maiden with the summoning of revived monsters. Thant is originally one of the necromancers in Heroes of Might and Magic III where he specializes in a spell that revives your own undead troops, called "animate dead". The closest thing in Diablo II is revive, although revive bears more similarity with how "animate dead" was altered in the sequel HoMM IV, a game that despite several interesting novelties was disappointing.

I had tried out skeletons on several occasions but never focused particularly in revive before. Likewise, I hadn't used iron maiden as a main curse since the early patches with far less overall physical resistances. Revive is generally as hyped as iron maiden is generally disdained. My own experiences didn't correspond with either sentiment, more on that later.

Let's bore you all with some statistics of Thant, based on the endgame main setup with Duress armor;

Life: 1045
Mana: 268

Strength: 79
Dexterity: 73
Vitality: 348
Energy: 31

Fire resistance: 75
Cold resistance: 62
Lightning resistance: 43
Poison resistance: -25

Skills (with equipment)

25 Skeleton Mastery
20 Golem Mastery
7 Summon Resist
25 Revive
1 Iron Golem
6 Prerequisite skills

24 Iron Maiden
14 Attract
5 Prerequisite skills

Thants equipment
Grims Burning Dead Grim Scythe (socketed with a perfect skull). Is this necromantically stylish or what?
Duress Breast Plate
Thants Goblin Toe
Thants Death Casque Tiara. That name on a summoner tiara!
Laying of Hands Bramble Mitts. Found those late in the game.
Chromatic Amulet/Hexing Amulet of Life Everlasting
Crafted rings and belt with a bit of resistances and life and mana.

Thants extra equipment
Thants Heart Carver (socketed with a perfect skull)
Golemlords Grim Wand
Rhyme Bone Shield
Prudence Hard Leather Armor


Abhaya the rogues equipment
Riphook with a rewarded socket and a Shael rune
Treachery armor
Rare circlet "Bramble Visage" with
1-118 lightning damage
9 to life
damage reduced by 5

Story
The beginning of Thants career was fairly unremarkable but normal Duriel was quite funny. I focused on iron maiden early on, with the revived army growing in earnest from late nightmare I think. Thant hurried through nightmare and being the summoner he is the minions did the job well enough even without any noteworthy help from their master. Consequently Thants equipment was a joke. When entering Hell that had become painfully apparent. While revived monsters work well in higher difficulties since their strength are proportional to the enemies, getting those corpses to revive is another matter.

Some worthless town guard whose insignificant name I have forgotten accompanied Thant, wielding a lackluster stick with not very great effect at all and proving as vulnerable as they always are. He probably emitted a might aura or something as unsubtle. Thant made it through most of Act I, with some areas skipped, and possibly into Act II until I lost interest in him totally due to the overall lack of effectiveness and style.

I picked up the character years later and managed to rethink and rearm him into something resembling fun. That comeback is really the best thing with Thants career. The countess had been very kind and given up a Mal rune. Into a socket it went with a Tir rune and Thant had a prudent defense. With a little compromising he could use an amulet of life everlasting with around 20 PDR without dropping too much of resistances, but I had a chromatic amulet for elemental areas too. Out with the garbage (town guard) and in with fresh meat...that shoots bloody arrows from her Riphook. Just as with Galthran earlier, a rogue was the ideal choice as teammate. I had had some misgivings about a rogue with no real tank but Abhaya disproved them all. She did extremely well getting the first corpses and with the main skills nearly maxed, Thant had started to put spare points into golem mastery to use an iron golem since he had come across a few fancy items. Over time that golem grew to respectable strength indeed. Thant wielded the Heart Carver and a Rhyme bone shield from nightmare but in hell I switched to a skill boosting and very grim burning grim scythe. Thant had also found the Peasant Crown war hat, later replacing his magic finding crown to complete his grim reaper look.

To get a feeling for the new wardrobe and get level with the levels I replayed many parts of Act I. At one time I mistook Flavie for Abhaya and panicked when she got surrounded by nasty corrupted rogues! The smith was of course very comical to curse and Andariel could do fairly serious damage to herself too, but her poison clouds ate up the army so much that it was an even, if not too dangerous, battle.

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Act II was troublesome on occasion when the order of battle was disrupted and when most of the army disappeared when having to advance. Leapers are a pest. Thant had a teleporting amulet but it was of course not a desirable solution as it meant sacrificing a lot of defensive strength. Hell Duriel, the obvious target for this kind of build, did certainly hurt himself... Thants smug laughter echoed in Tal Rashas chamber.

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Act III greeted the party with two very welcome pieces of equipment. First and most important was a Lem rune in the jungle, meaning treacherous clothing for Abhaya, and Thant should I bother to switch to it, and thus about double the damage for her! She had been using a Duress armor and I contemplated switching between Duress and Treachery to combine venom and cold damage and crushing blow, but the speed of Treachery proved so superior, or so it seemed to me, that I rarely bothered. Thant however donned his old Duress plate from time to time when it seemed safe. Secondly, a hexing amulet of life everlasting.

As is well known, armies are no guarantee against lightning. True enough, Thant stepped into a damp cellar room with a very unsettling aura and lightning bolts flying out of it. That was not a comfortable part of the game. Far more hilarious were the flayer hordes, who both hit hard, are sensitive to their own damage and can be gathered in myriads with attract. Extremely effective, but I sorely missed some sort of area damage skill to add tot he mess. Revived armies are great against the temple stair traps, but you have to be very careful still, since they engage erratically and it is entirely possible to be swarmed from all sides. Icehawk Riftwing had conviction too, which was very scary. That crusty old bat killed one of my first hardcore characters to ever make it to nightmare, possibly the first, a hybrid Amazon that died when her idiot mercenary mage shot the bat and triggered the explosion prematurely. I consequently hate Icehawk Riftwing, contrasting to for example Beetleburst who can often be more dangerous but hasn't managed to inconvenience me seriously and which/who I quite like.

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Hell held some numbingly tough demons but nothing was extremely dangerous until the Chaos Sanctuary. Burning souls caused a tense situation but there were none with one-hit-deed attributes at least and Thant dodged them reasonably well. Hephasto seemed to be a bit off. Not only did his workforce start brawling with each other, he managed to punch his thumbs every time he tried to nail something with his hammer. How curious.

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Contrasting to his dim-witted sentinels, Diablo lived up to his title.

The battle started reasonably well. Thant had a sizeable army and had managed to get it into position. Diablos spells washed over them but the monsters endured surprisingly well. What they did not do well was deal damage to him. Even with the superior stats compared to skeletons, the revived were so slow and sluggish and bulky that they just chipped at the lord of terror. I sadly lacked any urdars, which would have been useful here. Diablo stood his ground and soon the time was up and Thants army withered into piles of dust. This was going to be a long affair but act bosses don't regenerate... Thant went back to the flayer jungle to easily gather a second army. That took longer than expected but eventually he was back with his new host...only to find out that act bosses do regenerate their health when you travel to another act. Daaaaamn.

Diablo swatted the flayers aside and roasted them with his spells. The iron golem melted and Thant ran out of spare weapons. Okay, no army. Back to the basics against overgrown bullies. Golems and iron maiden. I can do this all day.

I can not do this all day! Diablo decided that the blood and clay golems were uninteresting bores not even worthy of sneezing at and went after Thant and Abhaya all the time. Abhaya lost health insanely fast and died. The despairing Thant engaged Diablo with his scythe, absent any weakening curse or bone armor. Smart... He could withstand a hit but possibly not two, and that discounting any spells. This was the scariest boss battle I have had in years in the game. As Thants gold was running out I grabbed the Riphook from Abhaya so he could at least fire uselessly instead of strike uselessly. And so, as Thant switched weapon, Diablo shifted his priorities to the golems. In the misfortunes of the moment I had completely forgotten how the lord of terror goes after the party members with the biggest and baddest sticks. The danger was far from over, and it took an eternity of buying potions and running around dodging spells and recasting golems, but at long last Thant survived Diablo. I resist the word vanquished in this case as it hardly feels appropriate.

But then, that reward from the vizier...

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Act V was obviously easier (what could have been harder?) but far from safe. Ranged enemies abound and attempt to snipe the valiant commander bravely leading his spirited army from the back. Revived armies of archers and most of all succubi are the most effective, especially the succubi. Unfortunately that means that enemy packs are also very effective and in the middle of a firefight it is not so easy to see whose blood stars are where. Absolute chaos.

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Attract was vital to take the heat (ah! the majestic pun!) of burning dead archers off Thant.

Who designed these stupid wall things? So ugly and pointless. Thant teleported liberally to avoid the depressing monuments to anti-human architectural styles. Like, say, all the new buildings in central Stockholm.

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The ancients didn't go as I had hoped. I thought that without the area spell wrecking of an act boss the grumpy old wise guys would be easy prey to the revived army. As it turned out, the ancients spawned with nasty curses and auras some five or six times at first, costing me valuable time. Once I had a more manageable trio, it turned out that they could easily outlast the confused and ineffective revives. The army did some damage, but not nearly enough to decide the battle. Someone that did that however, was Abhaya. Diablo could catch her with his spells but the oldtimers chased her and Thant in vain, being irritating and irritated by the elusive archery. This was actually a very nice surprise in its own way; no matter the character build you can count on beating at least weaker spawns of the ancients with just a rogue and slowing gear, with lots of time and patience. Thant did engage them at times but his hit rate is miserable, even with the defense reduction from the scythe. Korlic was especially troublesome with his leaping after Thant. Thant had to retreat to avoid the leap attack and Abhaya couldn't fire while Korlic was airborne. Once Thant was relocating, Abhaya usually followed, further impeding her shooting.

Had I had more patience, it would probably had made a big difference to go hunting for trees, minotaurs or urdars to beat up the ancients but I was getting a bit too tired of the revived shortcomings to try it out.

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The Worldstone Keep held a nasty populace in the form of black souls, vipers and sirens among others. Tense and dangerous. Thant was nearly slain by lightning bolts. Baals waves were slow but manageable. The first three were rather easy, even the minion-eating hydras didn't stop Thants army. By the end, especially against Lister, attrition had taken its toll. The few remnants in the end just stood stunned while Abhayas arrows scratched them to oblivion.

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The duel with Baal was utterly unsatisfying and dangerous but not quite so dangerous as that against Diablo. Thant teleported to Baal with a full army, ran past him to make his monsters follow...and watched Baal effortlessly wave them back and calmly walk away while the morons stood on the spot like a confused town guard. Even when they broke through the barrages of hoarfosts, the damage was negligible. Fires, frost and appendages took a huge toll on Thants life.

It was as usual Abhaya that won the day, now at a slugs pace. Baal was also attracted to the scythe and Thant could at one instance stand behind a pillar and distract Baal by alternating between the scythe and the wand switch setup. I did engage Baal but it was really little more than a costly distraction to keep his attention off the rogue. In the end he, obviously since this is a guardian thread, bled out and threw up all the matrix robots he had eaten over the years.

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Thants colleague Galthran had raised Baal as a skeleton. Thants would not allow himself to be outdone and promptly raised himself a new revived minion. The minions first task was to use his tentacles to break off one of the pillars and smash Baals remains to a pulp under it for good measure.

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Conclusion

As you probably have guessed, I am not altogether content with how this character turned out. I did manage to bring Thant back from premature retirement in a good way but failed to turn him into a really effective character. Thinking back, I think most of my failure is connected to my misconception that revives can be the dependable backbone of an army and a strategy in the manner skeletons can, which is not the case. Secondly, since I was blinded by the prejudice "revives are such a strong skill that guardianing a reviving summoner is no special feat" I failed to take into account how restricted Thant actually was by the theme and style choices.

This is a niche build. Revives are a good complement to many skills and at times they are mighty, like when you command armies of succubi and can teleport. Attract and iron maiden is also very good at times. The problem is that both of these concepts work best with something else to back them. The curses of Thant were limited to iron maiden, amplify damage and attract. Adding decrepify would obviously have made things significantly easier at times. Revives need amplify damage to work really well but Thants theme put iron maiden in that place and thus it is not a particularly effective combination. Iron maiden would benefit a lot from poison nova to prevent regeneration for a large group attacking itself. A revived army is not necessary to make the curse work well, a recasted golem is quite enough. Attract is however superb with revives since it summons more monsters to your army, but a simple one point bone wall will do the trick as well.

This is a themed build too. Thants equipment with the menacing scythe is not optimal for a summoner but I did not pay sufficient attention to build him into a meleer, which would have been needed. The Heart Carver was a good, and cool, start but the rest of his stuff is not enough to give the enduring power needed to go into melee. This is precisely the same mistake I did with Skadlotta the cold tree sorceress. Thant would have required a slowing weapon and Cleglaws gloves, along with Hsarus' set pieces or angelic jewelry or something else with scaling attack rating.

Abhaya was superb and if that has not sunk in by now the reason Thant beat the game. She was very safe behind the brain dead minions and died very rarely, possibly only against Diablo.

I will try out revives on more characters but not lean so heavily on them.

Well, Duriel was at least thoroughly tormented which is the builds main goal.

Over and out
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Guardian Rapunzel the Merc'less Six Damage Types Spectral Amazon
Woe to you, oh SPF, for Maltatai sends a wall of text
Because he knows not writing short...
Let those who hath understanding reckon the number of the post
For it is a guardian number
Its number is six hundred and sixty six

I fight alone, no hired help
I needed time to think, to solve the issue on my mind

What did I see?
Could I believe?
That what was told by them was real and not just fantasy

Just what I saw in statues blue
Was the reflection of my warped face staring back at you
Cause with the cold, they're always there
Blue arrows freeze and shatter and melt them to despair

The air was green, criss-crossing through the screen
And I just had to see, what the effects would be
In the mist dark figures move and twist
Was all this for real, so freaking good in hell?

666 the number of the post
Cold and poison neutralizes most

Arrows blazed as potion brands were praised
Like tinder that is dry, they immolate the sky
In the night the fires are burning bright
Explosions have begun, D2 work is done

666 the number of the post
Redling flames made short work of the ghosts

This feels so right, I must charge up the light
Can this skill be real, it strikes fast like a dream
And I feel drawn towards the lightning-zon
Wings seem to mesmerise...
Filling up the eyes

666 the number of the post
To act bosses charged strikes do the most

I'm coming back
I will return
I now possess the knowledge I did need to learn
I have the vote
I have the force
Now let the power of arbitration take its course​


Introduction
Sixes shall thou count and the numbers written shall be six. Neither shall thou limit thyself to two damage types, nor three, nor four, except to proceed to six. Five is totally wrong and insufficient. Upon deciding upon the sixth damage type, being the sixth chosen, deliver thou thy pointy object towards thy enemy who, having been naughty in the amazons eyes, dare snuff it.

Let those who have endured the ramblings so far have a small ration of clarity. So, Rapunzel is a hybrid amazon capable of effectively dealing all six types of damage and thus destroying any enemy no matter their immunities. She is built to be light and swift and can outrun almost all enemies. The characters idea was to be a spectral amazon capable of doing a bit of everything as far as possible and also equipped with as many colours and item types represented. In my opinion she succeeded very well on both accounts and is without doubt my coolest amazon character.

The game was played in version 1.13 with no modifications or additions. Rapunzel cleared every area, playing through normal and nightmare on 8 player setting and hell on 1 player setting, ultimately reaching level 86.

And yes, I have deliberately put off responding to your comments in other threads (many thanks for those) just to make this my post number 666.

Rapunzels story
The background story amounts to about 118 MB of pictures and 3,5 MB of text, of which about 1,25 MB centres on Rapunzel. Do not expect a meaningful summary of that story in a guardian thread... The main plot is that the ideologically coloured four amazons I have previously guardianed have elected Rapunzel as arbiter in their squabbles about whose elemental skills and political ideologies and dogma has the most merit. Rapunzel has approached the task in a methodical way and had each select one skill to represent their element. In order to field test them properly she has then obviously gone through the game, without any hireling as that might have compromised her impartiality.

[thread=843052]Snövit[/thread] the blue liberal capitalistic frost (yes) maiden (not) nominated the mighty freezing arrow to be invested in the contest.

[thread=842953]Rödluvan[/thread] the red, red-blooded and collective fire bowazon nominated the exploding arrows to show solidarity with the other skills.

[thread=867045]Askungen[/thread] the green grassroot environmentalist was unsure of whether to pick poison or plague javelin. After discovering a Lem rune, Rapunzel choose the former.

[thread=893624]Törnrosa[/thread] the illuminated celestial administrator (self)-righteously nominated charged strike to strike terror into the hearts of heathen disobedient demons.

Jabbing, strafing and archery in general provided physical damage.

A peaceful light plate gave Rapunzel access to a hearty valkyrie that could stand long enough in most situations when not poisoned.

Her discovery of the Witchwild String gave her access to fully grown magic arrows and her discovery of Kuko Shakaku enabled access to immolation arrows to support the exploding ones.

The immeasurably convenient lightning bolt skill allowed Rapunzel to cheaply destroy physically resistant enemies from a distance. It is a mystery why this skill is not more used, it is nearly a ranged berserk, which also automatically hits.

Rapunzel started off as an all-professional and stiff individual but the silliness of her squabbling colleagues and their sidekicks infested her over time.

Statistics and skills at her mightiest moment, upon reaching level 86
As you can see Rapunzel obtained rather high life compared to the investment in vitality, chiefly thanks to charms. She achieved max blocking throughout most of the game. Keep in mind that the [post=8778237]damage numbers for poison javelin are immensely understated[/post] for those unfortunate souls who are hit by the actual javelin.

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Equipment
Her inventory was filled with charms, a key, a cube and a tome of identifying. From charms she gained life, resistances, running speed and cold damage which increased the freeze length of Freezing Arrow considerably.

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Those boots were gambled in early nightmare, and remained her best item until Mephisto gave her the javelins. Rapunzel is not nearly enough of a mageazon to take full advantage of the Stone of Jordan but skill levels suited her immensely and it is an item of unmatched reputation and legend.

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The ring could certainly have been better but it is rather funny that she wore a ring titled "Viper Spiral" when vipers were the only enemies she could not control.

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Cleglaws Pincers and Treachery, some of those items that every single character could find a use for. Even the weakest caster could toss a fools javelin to poison and slow. Rapunzel specialized in light armor types that showed different colours; collecting a ghost armor, breast plate and light plate.

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The amulet was aggravatingly indispensable. Corrupting the wearer indeed with druidic influence. Find a more stylish helm than the Vampire Gaze socketed with a green jewel, I dare all. A mighty thing indeed, it is.

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Rapunzels shield is Rapunzels Chromatic Bone Shield of Deflecting, socketed by Larzuk and inlaid with two Sol runes for 14 PDR. Her switch weapon is the Titans Revenge, upgraded to matriarchal javelins.

Extra equipment in stash and cube
Rapunzel usually wore her breast plate and donned the peaceful light plate to summon the valkyrie and gain extra dodging against bosses. She had the Spirit Shroud ghost armor socketed with a red jewel of fervor when dangerous magics abounded.

She switched hats between the green Vampire Gaze and Blackhorns Face when slowing and lightning protection was needed.

Kuko Shakaku was extraordinary against ghost packs, like in the forgotten tower, or gloams.

The generals flail was almost never used. I thoroughly enjoy that weapon but it proved to have no obvious place in Rapunzels tactics. Foes dangerous enought o slow that much were usually foes dangerous enough to keep the distance from, which she could do well enough with "only" 45 % slowing from mask and gloves.

The Goblin Toe is always useful against bosses but Rapunzels gorgeous rare boots were so good I was very reluctant to switch them out.

Rapunzels extra amulet is for PDR, which was used when visiting Nihlatak to withstand viper clouds. Her main amulet was so useful despite the irritating lack of amazon skills that I could not find anything that could compete. I also kept a teleport amulet in the cube.

I kept M'avinas belt in stash for super-speed running but Rapunzel turned out to not require it to outpace the ancients, which would have been the main reason to use that belt. I also kept her Chance Guards for the event that she would need to make money urgently, which proved not to be the case.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Rapunzel is a skirmisher with an answer for every defense, capable of picking apart any enemy in the game on her own. When enemy regeneration is a problem she can poison, burn and prevent monster healing with her mask. Despite the mobility, she has solid defenses. Maxed blocking, around 40 % chance to dodge, 30 % damage reduction (45 % with Fade triggered) 24 MDR and by the end 14 PDR from the shield.

The closest Rapunzel has come to dying was in nightmare in Act V before such defenses were online and running. [post=8773367]8 player pit vipers spawned from an evil urn and charged[/post] her, one of them eating up more than half of her life with one charge. After that experience I promptly assigned the 35 stat points I had saved in anticipation of new equipment into vitality. The 8 player nightmare ancients did on the other hand fall without a potion needed and despite Rapunzel accidentally wearing the wrong circlet.

In hell, Rapunzel never [post=8779861]deliberately[/post] drank a potion before the Halls of the Dead. She was so nimble I actually kept count of hits taken during the first half of Act I. Andariel never scored a single one, not even with her poison spray, as Rapunzel roasted her with her arrows. Utterly superior in every location with space to manoeuvre, her only weak point was confined spaces. The spread out skills mean that apart from the posion javelins, overcharged as they are from venom, resistant enemies can take a long time to tear apart. Rapunzel also lacks a curse, such as weaken or cloak of shadows, that is easily cast from charges or has a high chance to trigger form weapons.

She was caught and defeated once, by the nefarious viper lord [post=8809026]Black Snarl[/post], the [thread=927643]terror of terrors[/thread] among serpents. The occasion was the most classical mistake possible when playing amazons - advancing too far and letting the valkyrie advance too far in the second level of the Claw Viper Temple, alerting the packs closest to the corridor. Black Snarl, fire enchanted, cursed and extra fast, charged the valkyrie back and Rapunzel was chased back to a corner awaiting his charge. I will always wonder if she would won that fight. I think she could, but I would not risk the story with those odds.

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The proper way to approach the situation is to snipe at the mound with guided arrows to see if vipers are present there (through the life and mana drain) and then sprint forward and teleport up. I have both committed exactly the same mistake earlier and conquered the mound on several occasions and should in every way be expected to know better. Also, not least, the second level should be dealt with before and not after you have exhausted your reflexes and creative thinking by clearing the entire first level.

The rest of the game went by comparatively slow and safe. [post=8856911]Hephasto[/post] was dangerous and fast but Rapunzel lured him to a fiery moat and escaped to the other side. [post=8858857]Nihlatak[/post] had prepared a solid defense with spiders, snakes and succubi, and cursing from himself along with his corpse explosions, but freezing arrows shut the whole party down. I dared not, however, open the evil urns in that place.

[post=8873347]The ancients could not catch her and Baal and his minons made a worthy effort but neither stair traps, uncancellable regeneration or fanatically stacked resistances would suffice[/post].

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Conclusion
Rapunzel was meant to represent all amazons in some way and in terms of skill choices and colour choices she is as diverse as she could be. She has experienced almost all archetypical amazon career episodes, from early gemmed hunters bow hunting to diminishing damage until recovering a class-specific unique from nightmare Mephisto and finding the most famous Stone of Jordan. In that sense it is perhaps fitting that she should have had to retreat one time, and nowhere more so than in the second level of the Claw Viper Temple. Despite such a setback and very much due to the fact that she beat the game without ever having a mercenary I still consider Rapunzel the coolest of amazons.

Resistance is futile.

Over and out!
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