Lira Lindriel
New member
Matriarch Arianrhod, Staff-wielding Tri-sorc
I've not made any Mat/Pat-threads here at all lately - but I'm really proud of this girl.
Today, this 22nd of June, my first (and probably only ever) staff-wielding sorc made Matriarch.
She did not touch anything but staves all game long - with the exceptions of quest-items and a wand of lower-resist on the switch. I didn't use the latter a lot, though, as my merc's Decrepify kept overwriting anyway. Also most things died quickly enough so I didn't really need it.
Her first staff was of course a +1 Firebolt.
At level 5 she gladly took up Baneash which got wielded till lvl 15 when she got Arcanna's Deathwand. This on its turn yielded to Spire of Lazarus at lvl 20 which she exchanged against Iron Jang Bong at level 29. At lvl 35 finally she could put on Chromatic Ire. A 33%-one got her through all of NM. For Hell she used this one:
I normally don't personify anything - but here I had to!
I got the 40%-staff as a gift; I added "only" a 10%-jewel - as that gave me exactly max-resists with the rest of my gear.
Her main-skills were Frozen Orb, Fireball and Thunderstorm. Supporting skills were of course Static Field, Teleport and Shiver Armour. Further, against immunes I also used the following: Glacial Spike, Hydra and Lightning. The latter three didn't do a lot of dam, though - but still proved helpful against immunes. I was very surprised at how well underpowered skills can kill after all.
Normal was the same as with every sorc: annoying/boring till ~30, boring/too easy from then on. I even had two deaths before I reached 30 - both of them due to carelessness.
I played on p8 for all of it (including Act Bosses and Ancients.)
She also breezed through most of NM easily. Again it was done on p8 - with one exception: I went down to p1 for Ancients - though they were so easy I'm pretty sure she could have handled them on p8 as well. Only A5 started to get a bit harder - and she had a few thrilling near-to-death experiences: in particular at one time when she opened an urn and was suddenly surrounded by half a dozen vipers. :shock:
Her favorite enemy were of course any kinds of archers. Not having a shield hurts!!!
I tried p8 for the first quest in Hell. She did manage to kill all monsters in the Den though it was hard - in particular as my merc kept getting owned by zombies. :roll: I had not yet given him the equipment for Hell. So she ended up cleaning most of it on her own - which was not easy, seeing as there are lots of CIs there and FO is simply the most powerful spell she had. So after that I went back to p1.
She had her "first" real death in the Black Tower - from an FE-archer... :roll:
From there on she was in an mp-game till the beginning of A3. (On p8 for the most part of it.) She could have done that part easily alone - but mp was a lot more fun. It also brought her to lvl 80, so she could finally equip the last piece of her gear, Arachnid Mesh.
After the first quest of A3 she continued on alone. A3 wasn't too hard - and FO is very overpowered. Unless monsters were CI, she often just ran around, spamming FO.
Her "second" death was in Flameriver. I don't really know what caused her death. She might have been caught in an FE-explosion. My mind was wandering for a bit and one moment she was alive and at full health, the next I was staring at the death-screen. :roll: The floor was covered in gory bits which might have been from an FE-explosion but also might have come from one of those corpse-spitting thingies. Anyway, corpse-recovery was no problem and she continued on happily towards CS. That was a breeze! - Due to OKs killing off her merc all the time, she cleaned large parts of it on her own.
I expected A5 to be really hard with her. But the game was nice and gave her all the easy monsters. The ranged attackers in BF weren't CI and so she just spammed FO and ran through. Frigid Highlands had some CI-archers but they didn't cause her too much troubles. If TS or her merc didn't get them, her Hydras or Fireballs did. Even though Hydra was an accident originally and I never placed more than the one point in there, I started to like it more and more. You can just throw it anywhere and it aims automatically.
I was very afraid of the Anya-quest, remembering the trouble my last couple of sorcs had there. As she was close to lvl 82 by now, I went back to A1 and did one Pit-run on p4 to gain the lvl. I went to Frozen River - and what did I get? Neither gloams nor witches! Just claw vipers, archers, rot-walkers and cold skeleton-mages... :lol: Even though all but the vipers are CI, that was fun. I just kept Hydra on my right key and Fireball on the left and spammed them till I found Anya.
On to Nilathak. Not much problem either. And no tomb-vipers!
Spamming mainly FO, she ran through Glacial and Frozen Tundra. And reached Ancient's Way. I searched for the wp and then transported tons of purples up there. My first try gave me one cursed. All of them were immune against exactly one element. I cast my passive spells (TS, ES, SA and Enchant on merc), placed FO on my left key and TP on the right - and got started. I spammed FO and cast TP when anything got too close. I had already killed the FI one and the LI one was down a lot as well when my merc died. (Cursed and getting hit is no good.) Well, I kept on trying of course. The LI one was down to a sliver when I got one-hit-killed... Anyway, another try: this time no cursed one. One was LI, one FI and one FI-CI. Same strategy - only this time it worked. First one to die was the FI (the leaper I think). My merc kept the double-immune occupied, the LI one was just standing there, so I finished him off. By then my merc had the third already halfway down, so SF was no use anymore. I switched to Lightning and helped my merc finish him off. Then I picked up my full rejuvs (needed two travels to town to get them back! ) and continued onwards.
WSK was a breeze (again no gloams), Baal's minions were dealt with quickly and Baal himself was a wimp as always!
All in all this char did surprisingly well! I would have expected her to have a lot more troubles in late Hell, seeing as her skill-points are spread out a bit too much!
Anyway, here she is!
Her stats:
Arianrhod - lvl 83
Str: 85 (92)
Dex: 25 (base) (34)
Vit: 275 (282)
Nrg: 120 (134)
Life: 1252
Mana: 833
Frozen Orb: 20 (32): dam 445-466
Shiver Armour: 1 (13)
CM: 1 (14)
Glacial Spike: 1 (13): dam 273-302
prereqs: 1
Fireball: 20 (33): dam 2710-2967
Firebolt: 13
FM: 1 (15)
enchant: 1 (14) - for use on merc and in mp
Hydra: 1 (14): dam 374-455 - was originally an accident but a good accident
Warmth: 1 (14)
Static Field: 1 (16) - enough to reach the whole screen
Thunderstorm: 20 (35): dam: 1231-1569
LM: 1 (17)
Lightning: 1 (16): dam: 3-814
Teleport: 1 (16)
Energy Shield: 1 (16) - used against Nilathak and Ancients only
prereqs: 1
I was very surprised how well the underpowered secondary spells I used of each element helped with killing. I would not advise to go with such underpowered spells as primary - but as secondary Hydra and Glacial Spike were doing great. GS didn't deal a lot of dam but it froze the monsters. A frozen Lister is no problem for a merc!
Her gear:
Arianrhod's Chromatic Ire (50%)
upgraded Skin (Um: 44%)
Shako (res-all-jewel: 12%)
Mara's (20%)
Magefist
Arachnid
Silkweaves
2 SoJs
1 grand charm with 15% res-all, 20 life
1 sc with 4% res-all, 2 dex
4 lit-skillers
1 cold-skiller, 38 life
1 fire-skiller, 31 life
6 scs with 20 life
switch: lower-resist-wand + Moser's
(this gave her exactly 75% res with all Anya-quests)
Her merc was HF and used (as always with my questing chars):
upgraded Shaftstop with Um
Vampgaze with res-all-jewel
Reaper's Toll with Shael
Good finds on the way:
2 Mals - one from Hell Hellforge, one from Chaos Sancuary Nightmare
Funnily enough I had a lot less deaths with her than with my prior sorcs in 1.10 who were a lot more powerful (due to having skill-points less spread around). Part of it was of course luck with monsters (like with Frozen River!), part of it might also have been that I knew she was less powerful and thus played more carefully.
I've not made any Mat/Pat-threads here at all lately - but I'm really proud of this girl.
Today, this 22nd of June, my first (and probably only ever
) staff-wielding sorc made Matriarch. She did not touch anything but staves all game long - with the exceptions of quest-items and a wand of lower-resist on the switch. I didn't use the latter a lot, though, as my merc's Decrepify kept overwriting anyway. Also most things died quickly enough so I didn't really need it.
Her first staff was of course a +1 Firebolt.
At level 5 she gladly took up Baneash which got wielded till lvl 15 when she got Arcanna's Deathwand. This on its turn yielded to Spire of Lazarus at lvl 20 which she exchanged against Iron Jang Bong at level 29. At lvl 35 finally she could put on Chromatic Ire. A 33%-one got her through all of NM. For Hell she used this one:
I normally don't personify anything - but here I had to!
I got the 40%-staff as a gift; I added "only" a 10%-jewel - as that gave me exactly max-resists with the rest of my gear.
Her main-skills were Frozen Orb, Fireball and Thunderstorm. Supporting skills were of course Static Field, Teleport and Shiver Armour. Further, against immunes I also used the following: Glacial Spike, Hydra and Lightning. The latter three didn't do a lot of dam, though - but still proved helpful against immunes. I was very surprised at how well underpowered skills can kill after all.
Normal was the same as with every sorc: annoying/boring till ~30, boring/too easy from then on. I even had two deaths before I reached 30 - both of them due to carelessness.
I played on p8 for all of it (including Act Bosses and Ancients.)She also breezed through most of NM easily. Again it was done on p8 - with one exception: I went down to p1 for Ancients - though they were so easy I'm pretty sure she could have handled them on p8 as well. Only A5 started to get a bit harder - and she had a few thrilling near-to-death experiences: in particular at one time when she opened an urn and was suddenly surrounded by half a dozen vipers. :shock:
Her favorite enemy were of course any kinds of archers. Not having a shield hurts!!!
I tried p8 for the first quest in Hell. She did manage to kill all monsters in the Den though it was hard - in particular as my merc kept getting owned by zombies. :roll: I had not yet given him the equipment for Hell.
So she ended up cleaning most of it on her own - which was not easy, seeing as there are lots of CIs there and FO is simply the most powerful spell she had. So after that I went back to p1. She had her "first" real death in the Black Tower - from an FE-archer... :roll:
From there on she was in an mp-game till the beginning of A3. (On p8 for the most part of it.) She could have done that part easily alone - but mp was a lot more fun. It also brought her to lvl 80, so she could finally equip the last piece of her gear, Arachnid Mesh.
After the first quest of A3 she continued on alone. A3 wasn't too hard - and FO is very overpowered. Unless monsters were CI, she often just ran around, spamming FO.
Her "second" death was in Flameriver. I don't really know what caused her death. She might have been caught in an FE-explosion. My mind was wandering for a bit and one moment she was alive and at full health, the next I was staring at the death-screen. :roll: The floor was covered in gory bits which might have been from an FE-explosion but also might have come from one of those corpse-spitting thingies. Anyway, corpse-recovery was no problem and she continued on happily towards CS. That was a breeze!
- Due to OKs killing off her merc all the time, she cleaned large parts of it on her own.I expected A5 to be really hard with her. But the game was nice and gave her all the easy monsters. The ranged attackers in BF weren't CI and so she just spammed FO and ran through. Frigid Highlands had some CI-archers but they didn't cause her too much troubles. If TS or her merc didn't get them, her Hydras or Fireballs did. Even though Hydra was an accident originally and I never placed more than the one point in there, I started to like it more and more. You can just throw it anywhere and it aims automatically.
I was very afraid of the Anya-quest, remembering the trouble my last couple of sorcs had there. As she was close to lvl 82 by now, I went back to A1 and did one Pit-run on p4 to gain the lvl. I went to Frozen River - and what did I get? Neither gloams nor witches! Just claw vipers, archers, rot-walkers and cold skeleton-mages... :lol: Even though all but the vipers are CI, that was fun. I just kept Hydra on my right key and Fireball on the left and spammed them till I found Anya.
On to Nilathak. Not much problem either. And no tomb-vipers!
Spamming mainly FO, she ran through Glacial and Frozen Tundra. And reached Ancient's Way. I searched for the wp and then transported tons of purples up there. My first try gave me one cursed. All of them were immune against exactly one element. I cast my passive spells (TS, ES, SA and Enchant on merc), placed FO on my left key and TP on the right - and got started. I spammed FO and cast TP when anything got too close. I had already killed the FI one and the LI one was down a lot as well when my merc died. (Cursed and getting hit is no good.
) Well, I kept on trying of course. The LI one was down to a sliver when I got one-hit-killed... Anyway, another try: this time no cursed one. One was LI, one FI and one FI-CI. Same strategy - only this time it worked. First one to die was the FI (the leaper I think). My merc kept the double-immune occupied, the LI one was just standing there, so I finished him off. By then my merc had the third already halfway down, so SF was no use anymore. I switched to Lightning and helped my merc finish him off. Then I picked up my full rejuvs (needed two travels to town to get them back! ) and continued onwards. WSK was a breeze (again no gloams), Baal's minions were dealt with quickly and Baal himself was a wimp as always!
All in all this char did surprisingly well! I would have expected her to have a lot more troubles in late Hell, seeing as her skill-points are spread out a bit too much!
Anyway, here she is!
Her stats:
Arianrhod - lvl 83
Str: 85 (92)
Dex: 25 (base) (34)
Vit: 275 (282)
Nrg: 120 (134)
Life: 1252
Mana: 833
Frozen Orb: 20 (32): dam 445-466
Shiver Armour: 1 (13)
CM: 1 (14)
Glacial Spike: 1 (13): dam 273-302
prereqs: 1
Fireball: 20 (33): dam 2710-2967
Firebolt: 13
FM: 1 (15)
enchant: 1 (14) - for use on merc and in mp
Hydra: 1 (14): dam 374-455 - was originally an accident but a good accident
Warmth: 1 (14)
Static Field: 1 (16) - enough to reach the whole screen
Thunderstorm: 20 (35): dam: 1231-1569
LM: 1 (17)
Lightning: 1 (16): dam: 3-814
Teleport: 1 (16)
Energy Shield: 1 (16) - used against Nilathak and Ancients only
prereqs: 1
I was very surprised how well the underpowered secondary spells I used of each element helped with killing. I would not advise to go with such underpowered spells as primary - but as secondary Hydra and Glacial Spike were doing great. GS didn't deal a lot of dam but it froze the monsters. A frozen Lister is no problem for a merc!
Her gear:
Arianrhod's Chromatic Ire (50%)
upgraded Skin (Um: 44%)
Shako (res-all-jewel: 12%)
Mara's (20%)
Magefist
Arachnid
Silkweaves
2 SoJs
1 grand charm with 15% res-all, 20 life
1 sc with 4% res-all, 2 dex
4 lit-skillers
1 cold-skiller, 38 life
1 fire-skiller, 31 life
6 scs with 20 life
switch: lower-resist-wand + Moser's
(this gave her exactly 75% res with all Anya-quests)
Her merc was HF and used (as always with my questing chars):
upgraded Shaftstop with Um
Vampgaze with res-all-jewel
Reaper's Toll with Shael
Good finds on the way:
2 Mals - one from Hell Hellforge, one from Chaos Sancuary Nightmare
Funnily enough I had a lot less deaths with her than with my prior sorcs in 1.10 who were a lot more powerful (due to having skill-points less spread around). Part of it was of course luck with monsters (like with Frozen River!), part of it might also have been that I knew she was less powerful and thus played more carefully.
