Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Jan 26, 2008:
The Hellacious Adventures of Morgana and Dorkana - Twin Melee Enchantress Matriarchs
... and their even more hellaciously-long writeup...
Disclaimer: I'm gonna be very, very long-winded on this one, so why don't you grab a fresh beer and a bottle of tequila before you start to read this. 'Liquor makes it quicker', as the rhyme goes (i.e. the rhyme I just made up
). Don't say I didn't warn you.
History, and a Premise:
I spent about a year thinking about Enchantresses(essesessesessesesses- sorry... got sidetracked) before I finally got around to making one. The reason for the delay was I could never make up my mind on whether to do a Zeal/Passion, Vengeance/Kingslayer, or ranged/Demon Machine build. The more I thought about it, the more I flip-flopped on my 'favourite-du-jour'. Not long ago, I finally got tired of the voices debating in my head and decided to just build one. Even then, my debate continued all the way into Nightmare while I was questing. But eventually it was decision-time, so I finally settled upon Frozen Orb and a Demon Machine. Despite the success of that matriarch (
writeup), it didn't take me long to get back to the thoughts of which melee Enchantress I thought would kick the most butt, and if either one would match my ranger.
Now, I'm not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, eventually, my epihany was bound to happen. Since you've read this thread title, you can probably figure out what that moment was, but it's my thread, so I'm going to write it down anyways. The epihany was: "Wait! Why don't I try both at the same time! :scratch:... Yeah... and I can also try a few ideas that I've always wondered about with sorcs, and then do a 'contrast and compare' thread. Wow, everyone's going to think I'm super-smart now."
Actually, I'm embelishing a little bit; most of you probably know me well enough to know that I'll respect you, but I really don't give a hoot what you think of me (just so we're clear where we stand ;-).
What are the other ideas I wanted to test:
- What's an Enchantress' most reliable secondary damage type for fighting against fire-immunes? (don't forget, I've already tried Frozen Orb with my ranged enchantress)
- I wanted to see if an Act3 merc was a tolerable companion for a sorceress. Every time I've tried these mercs in the past, it was with a non-teleporting build and every time the merc got swarmed, he'd die. Now that I have teleport, it's easy to rescue the merc from a swarm. And since I'm a tank anyways... in theory this should work.
- Playing single-player, there aren't a lot of sorceress builds that have enough spare skillpoints to maintain two solid damage-types as well as have a decent investment in Energy Shield (a Nova/Frozen Orb sorc is possibly the best candidate to try ES in single-player, but I've already done the Nova/FO part). So, I've never tried ES before with any of my sorcs, and it was time to change that (well... there was once a one-point-ES failure, but that was a failure driven by my own ignorance).
So, what are the main differences between these two ladies?
- Primary Attacks: Vengeance vs. Zeal (oskills, FTW)
- Secondary Damage: Lightning & Cold damage vs. Enhanced Physical damage
- offensive-focused vs. defensive-focused
- 2-handed vs. max-block
- cold/casting merc vs. tanking/might merc
The Journey to Hell:
I decided that when I got to Hell I'd alternate each one's progress for an Act. They're sharing a few items, but swapping isn't a huge deal with ATMA, so what better way to get a feel for how they really match up? Before that though...
Both sorcs followed similar paths through Normal. /players8 all the way. Twinking gear + Act1 = dead monsters. 1.09 Ravenclaw + Enchant = more dead monsters. Shaeled Steeldriver + Enchant = even more dead monsters. It's really not rocket science. Fortunately, I was smart enough this time to put some FHR on each sorceress (no-FHR, caused by laziness, was the biggest difficulty I had with my ranged enchantress during the early-game; I guess I learned my lesson). Doing normal two times in a row was boring work, but eventually they each killed Baal around level 43-45.
First up for Nightmare, Morgana the Vengeance sorc. I leveled her to 49 on Normal /players8 Baal runs, so that I could equip my Treachery Dusk Shroud and Ravenfrost and set off. Act1 was fairly smooth cruising, but I found I used teleport a lot (to keep the merc close and to spread the monsters out - the mercs' Glacial Spike/freezing really helped keep things under control). As a team, the two of us could take down monsters very fast though.
Things started to slow down immediately upon entering Act2. There are more unleechable monsters, as well as a few that have some fire resistance. Although my merc was still kicking butt fairly well, my attack was starting to slow down, and I was developing a little bit of a chemical dependency on red potions. Mostly, those complications were dictated by my equipment - I'll explain...
I've played enough sorcs to know that they're relatively fragile. The Vengeance sorc was planned to be going into hell as a melee sorc, without a tanking merc to help, and attacking with a two-handed weapon. Needless to say, if I had to bet on her eventual fragility vs. the sun rising in the east, it seemed like a tough decision on which was more likely. So, to help counter that fragility, I was anal about pre-planning my equipment in Hell, including optimizing every single, tiny, measly, little stat point. Since I was counting on an additional +25 Stregth and +15 Dexterity (or thereabouts) from equipment that I couldn't equip until near-Hell, that meant in Nightmare I had a lot of equipment and charms that were focused on +stats instead of other useful things like attack power and survivability.
However, before long in Act2, I hit level53 and was able to equip my Vengeance axe. I also wised up and ~doubled my lifeleech. When you go from 4-5 hit kills against normal monsters to 1-2 hit kills against Champions, as well as making your lifeleech return about 400% more life, for some reason things tend to get easier. After that, it was relatively consistent sailing all the way to Ancients.
I did manage to squeeze on a couple of +skills along the way, and each +6% damage per element gained by Vengeance really had a noticable effect once my masteries gave it a big boost. The progression through Nightmare actually played out fairly well for someone obsessed with twinking the best available equipment. I usually don't find it enjoyable to spend 15% of my playtime in ATMA, but this time things would just start to slow down, then I'd say "hey, level58! I can equip BKWB now.", and the +1 to Vengeance and leech would add
just enough to make things better for another 4 levels ("hey, it's shako time!!!", etc.). Of course, I was playing entirely on /players8, so I could've easily just dropped that a little and been perfectly fine. Considering all the time I spent adding +str and +dex on my equipment, lowering the /players setting would've been a wiser choice. Oh well, live and learn...
Ancients were not particularily easy. I've had better and faster times with some of my other characters in Hell, but the difficulties were mostly because I went in with the attitude of "it's only Nightmare, how bad can it be?" Once I realized that I needed to pay attention and drink a few potions, it wasn't that bad at all. WSK and Baal were pretty easy, and I learned once in WSK3 that I didn't quite do enough physical damage for IM to equal insta-death. Otherwise, Static Field is a faster Lister and Baal fighter than melee, so I acted like a typical caster-sorc for some of the time. I killed Baal at level73, and did a few more /players8 runs to hit level76 (Dracul's Grasp) before setting Morgana aside for Hell.
After that I returned to Dorkana. By that time, I'd decided that I was tired of fragile two-handed sorcs (that's what I get for playing her on /players8 full-time), so it was time to switch to a one-handed attack. However, her strength was too low to equip a 'good' one-handed weapon. After spending (literally) hours with Morgana searching through my ATMA stashes so she could find something with +stats and improve her gear in Nightmare, I was dead set against reapeating the "let's find +strength from equipment so we can wear something new" approach, and there really aren't many great mid-game one-handed weapons for this build anyways. Instead, I decided to see how hard it was to levelup to the mid-50's in normal Baal runs. It turns out, it wasn't difficult at all. You can pretty much gain one level per run up until about level49, and even until level55 it was still a level every 2nd run. Since I'd been extremely lucky on her map (5 teleports for WSK2, 2 teleports for WSK3), it was only an hour or two to get to level 55.
With my huge starting level entering Nightmare, the ability to block attacks, good resists, a tanking merc, and some end-game worthy equipment, Nightmare was a different experience with Dorkana. I simply focused on getting at least +4 to zeal (for 5-zeal hits per cycle), boosting my Enchant and Energy Shield as high as possible on prebuff, and having enough IAS to reach my maximum zeal-speed. After that, for the rest of Nightmare, it was pretty much:
teleport, teleport, zeal, teleport, zeal, etc. She was a little more fragile than I'm used to for melee characters, so I started to use ES in late Act2 and it took care of most of that. In the end, she was less frustrating than with the Vengeance sorc, but less interesting to play too.
The few fire immune monsters I faced in Nightmare with Dorkana were relatively slow fighting, so I leaned heavily on teleport and the merc for those. That didn't bode well for hell, even if I wasn't carrying any equipment to boost my physical damage at that time (no charms, no Duress, nothing). So after some consideration, I decided it was a good idea to try old-faithful on weapon switch - an upgraded, Shaeled ribcracker. Much better (except now I can't use CtA/Lidless on switch without a lot of swapping items, but I've had that CtA for quite a while now, so I kindof wanted to experience 'life on the poor side' again).
Ancients were a cakewalk this time, but one of them was manaburn, and it taught me that if your mana drops to zero, Energy Shield doesn't stay active (yes, I'm a noob). Not only is this extremely annoying, but it can be quite dangerous. After that, I realized that prebuffing my ES with a Memory staff was actually a bad fit for me - my mana couldn't handle a high ratio of ES. That meant it was time to start putting a few points back into Vitality too, since my absorb dropped about 25% (from 65% to 40%, IIRC).
Baal & Co. were easier than the ancients, except for a Lister wave or two. I did a few more /players8 runs to hit level76 and get her to the same point as Morgana, and it was finally time for Hell.
Act1 Hell
*Dropped to /players1 from here on out.*
Morgana's first again. 1-hit KO against non-FI's (even a few champion-class monsters), 2-hit KO vs most FI's. Griswold proved the most sturdy enemy in the entire act when he took 7 hits to kill (without the merc, who was occupied elsewise; Andy took 5 hits, but she was slivered after the 4th and the merc was admiring a pack of fallen). I managed to stumble across a couple of LI/FI monsters, but even those were relatively easy. The only real difficulties were a single extra-fast/mana burn pack, as they took away her mobility without teleport (which reminds me: I need to get and Enigma someday and build some melee chars with it). A couple other bosspacks hurt when they hit, but she hurt them much worse in return. Otherwise... :yawn:
Sidenote: Morgana was such an offensive juggernaut that I was wondering at this point if my estimate of her fragility was incorrect. Was it?
Dorkana was a little more of an issue. She started off just fine, but manaburn packs really aren't much fun for an ES sorc - one hit, and poof-goes-the-energy-shield; two hits, and poof-goes-half-your-lifepool. She also seemed to be perpetually cursed. A boss pack of archers & champions in the Tamoe Highlands managed to kill her, and unfortunately I wasn't going out of my way to find waypoints, so she had to start all the way back at the Cold Plains waypoint
. She managed a few other NDE's late in the act, including one battle that took all of my purple potions and left her with 68 life and poisoned when she killed the final monster. At least the ribcracker kicked FI-butt fairly well, but there sure did seem a lot of times she used it instead of her primary weapon, including one or two entirely-FI areas.
Act2 Hell
I decided to 'leap-frog' their progress, so Dorkana got the first crack at Act2.
After ducking through the bottom entrance to the Sewers and finding the stairs down quietly, there was a nice welcoming party at the first intersection of Sewers2 - a champion pack of Dried Corpses and a triple-boss pack of FireImmunes (2x BoneArchers and SandRaiders, each pack with manaburn and cursed). I was too busy dodging arrows to take any screenshots, but Neeraj & Dorkana managed to pull through with a few trips to heal in town. Sewers3 had another triple boss pack, but with Fanaticism instead of manaburn, so it was actually a little safer. The rest of the act was pretty straight forward, except I don't know what Fire-Eye spawned with, but he soloed/killed the merc, then Dorkana, in about a second each - two times
.
Morgana started Act2 like she finished Act1 - by kicking butt. She drank a few potions early on, but most times it was partially because I'd forgotten to refresh Battle Orders. Most monsters were still being completely obliterated though. The Claw Viper temple was the first the first hint that things weren't always going to be a teleport through the park - she teleported around a pillar, and BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!... 4 quick charges from a champion pack of vipers took about 2/3rd of her life - and since they were Cold-Immune, it made Yashied nothing more than an inneffective meatshield (since he likes to runaway at the first sign of melee). She teleported around the other side of the pillar, and managed to string them out to one-at-a-time, which made things quite easy.
No severe difficulties after that until PalaceCellar3, which was where I found Morgana's achilles heel. I was teleporting through, searching for FireEye so she could avenge Dorkana's difficulties, when she encounted a small room stuff full of large pack of extra-strong, extra-fast, cursed archers. The results of that first pass are rather succinctly summarized
here. She managed to die a second time when trying to get her corpse (Yashied died fast to them too), but the third time was able to grab her corpse, heal, load back up on potions, and pick off a couple before retreating to town. Rinse, lather, repeat, and about 8 town trips later, the last archer was dead.
Duriel proved a much more difficult battle with Morgana, but not too miserable. It was obvious that Vengeance's interruptability is at a significant disadvantage to Zeal though - there were a few times where Duriel's mini-charge/knockback interrupted her attack. LifeTap wouldn't trigger either, which meant plenty of potions were drank.
Act3 Hell
Morgana went into act3 leary of all of the blow-dart flayers, but it turns out my concerns were mostly unfounded. Her attack is strong enough to one-hit kill them, and teleport makes it hard for them to run away for long, so those all dropped fast. The only real concerns for this act turned out to be hard-hitting packs, especially when she was cursed (i.e. Sszark was 'interesting') - and Dolls (I hate those guys). By luck though, it seemed the LifeTap on Dracs would kick in at just the right time, or I was able to use the natural terrain to her advantage (an example of both was
this doorjam). There were still a few tough battles that required a few potions, but nothing too strenuous.
One thing that I didn't mention about Morgana was she managed to avoid the Great Marsh (and Gloams); Dorkana had no such luck. That first encounter went something like this: BAM-BAM-dead. "Shoot, now I have to get my corpse". Ressurect merc, then teleport + teleport + teleport... TP scroll... cautious teleport, cautious teleport, BAM-BAM-dead... "frig"... ressurect merc, tp scroll, cautious teleport, cautious teleport, BAM-dead... "****!!!"... yep, 3 deaths in 5 hits (and about 2 seconds). After the third time I decided to focus entirely on surviving, and let the merc do whatever he can to pitch in... it worked - barely (one stray hit took off ~90% of her life before she could get her corpse).
After that Dorkana retreated to thoroughly explore the Spider Forest to see if she'd missed a direct route to the Flayer Jungle. Dorkana's cowardice was rewarded appropriately by the D2 gods (i.e. she was stuck going through the Great Marsh
). Some slow progress, a few NDE's, and a lot of potions later, she managed to grab the Great Marsh waypoint, which meant she was able to take a break and mule on some more purple potions. To my relief (and a small amount of chagrin), there weren't any gloams after starting the new game. I felt somewhat cheap, but figured there'd probably be plenty of Gloams in later acts to make up for it, so she pushed ahead. Of course, after the fact I realized that her resists were geared towards a much higher level of ES. ~30% lightning resistance and a low level of ES wasn't one of my brighter moments, so I ended up twinking a little resistance gear on during the next break.
The rest of the act went about as well as could be hoped. A few NDE's, a lot of potions, and avoiding mana-burn (and Dolls) along the way. Nothing more exciting than a Windhammer drop in LK.
Act4 Hell
My favourite act. Two great quest rewards, some quick questing progress, and some challenging monsters. What's not to love (besides IM)?
*Sidenote: I wrote that opinion before completing either Hellforge. *
Outer Steppes started with 4 bosspacks near to the entrance, but only 2 of them were closely grouped (and only one was FI), so it didn't turn out to be a big deal. Leapers and Breeders (or whatever those damn things are called) aren't my favourite monsters, but neither are FI, so at least they died fast. Dorkana started cautiously into the Plains of Despair, and that caution paid off. The first thing she encountered was a nice circle of Burning Souls surrounding the stairs, so she managed to get hit a couple of times. But, it's amazing what a difference maxed lightning resistance makes - with her improved resistances she was sturdy enough to clean up the stray Souls and drink a couple of potions and move along. Definitely rewarding after her experience in the Great Marsh.
Both the City and the River of Flame spawned without FI monsters, so they were a real pleasure to quest through.
Hephasto proved a challenge, but not for the usual reasons (he hurt, but really wasn't
that dangerous). Dorky had to retreat to town and inspect her equipment before remembering that Zeal isn't the only oskill on Passion. Static + Berzerk = dead Hephasto... After collecting my Ko rune, it was on to every melee characters favourite area - The Chaos Sanctuary.
The welcoming party at the entrance had me thinking "c'mon game, I'm not
that dumb; I remember now, so give me a break" (
looks familiar, no?). Lots of Fire Immunes here though, so some slow progress and lots of red potions. She went in almost at level80, and was determined to get to it without dying, so progress was very cautious. Neeraj?
Not so much. It turned out, with teleport, the OK's were much less of a problem than FireImmunes though, so it wasn't with a ton of difficulty that she made it to level80 (relatively) incident free. Lord de Seis had manaburn, and he was anal about casting IM (after the fourth consecutive time Neeraj died, let me tell you that Lord De Seis wasn't the only one cursing), but teleport-as-a-leading-monsters-along-tactic works so well that dorky managed to squeek through by stringing out the tougher packs. BigD was one of the easier battles for that area.
Morgana's progress through Act4 was mostly dependent on two things. Was the monster Fire Immune? If not, it quickly became a dead monster. If the monster was fire immune, did LifeTap trigger quickly? If not, things quickly became difficult (otherwise they were just slow). The Plains spawned without Souls, so that area was no problem either. After Hellforge dropped my fourth sub-par rune in a row (a Hel - making my 4 forges: Shael, Io, Ko, Hel) I let forth a stream of profanity that would've stunned a pack of Oblivion Knights into silence ("curses?!? I'll show you curses").
The Chaos Sanctuary was actually pretty decent. Yashied's Glacial Spike froze all of the slow-to-kill Fire Immunes, and we tele-bombed all of the Oblivion Knights while the Abyss Knights were still frozen. Morgana did manage to get cornered by one manaburn, cursed, extra-fast pack, and didn't last long in the midst of that. Otherwise, it was somewhat easier and faster than Dorkana. And fortunately, she managed to get 'inside' the range of BigD's LBoD, so he went down fast and easy too.
Act5 Hell
Going into this act, Morgana was a little weary of all of the ranged guest monsters that spawn early on, but it turns out those fears were somewhat unfounded. Even FI VileArchers were a 2-hit kill (they must have low lightning resistance), so she was able to use teleport to pickoff enemies and avoid their attacks. The Act3 merc was once again a blessing, as were red potions. Crystalline Passage was her first introduction to Gloams in hell, and happily that went quite well too... until Frozenstein.
On top of his usual Cold Enchanted/Manaburn, he had ExtraFast and Cursed. Since Yashied couldn't chill/slow him (or his pack), it was hard to not get swarmed (and one hit removed her mana & ability to teleport away). Then there were the ~dozen Gloams floating around taking potshots. FHR (and purple potions) were her saviour here, as she was able to get away and kill a few gloams, then as Frozenstein's pack came near she teleported the other way and killed a few more Gloams. Eventually there was only a stragler or two from the Gloams, so she was able to pick away at them too. No deaths for her or Yashied, but tons of action (and even more potions).
After that, it was fairly routine progress until the Ancients - a few potions, a few retreats, a lot of dead monsters. As soon as I found the Ancient Way waypoint, I took a minute to make sure Morgana had
enough potions stashed, then spent a few minutes littering them all around the Summit. After refreshing all of her prebuff, it was time... She immediately teleported straight up, and all three ancients followed along willingly. I was hoping to separate them, and to my amazement, only
Madawc the Whimperer followed the first time I teleported down. I had no idea what the mods on the other two were, but Madawc looked wimpy enough, so I decided to take him down. It still took ~8 potions, but he didn't hit hard or fast enough to make anything scary. With a little coaxing, Korlic the came next, and he also had some pretty wimpy mods (something like Blessed Aim aura - I forgot to take a screenshot). Finally, it was time to tackle
Talic the Wussy... I don't know if I've ever had a luckier first spawn of Ancients - she had a harder time with them in Nightmare.
WSK1 was pretty much like every other area - cautious teleporting, GS from merc, a few potions, and many dead monsters. WSK2 started the same, but there were Gloams and Beetles, so I was a little more cautious. However, one time I came around a corner, and insta-died. The second time, the same thing happened. And the third. After that I decided to wait around long enough to see what the problem was, and
this guy explains my difficulties. Even more cautiously, Morgana returned to the scene, using pillars as shields, and she managed to lure out a few beetles, one by one Yashied would slowly take them down, and I was feeling pretty good about my persistance. And then...
this guy decided to come out and see what was going on. Yashied tried and tried, but he couldn't do enough damage to counter the beetles regeneration. And he was faster than morgana's teleport, so he chased her all over the place... in fact, I was so focused on trying to ditch the beetle that I didn't notice the Gloam boss had drifted over to have a better angle of attack... you can probably guess what happened next.
After that, Morgana and Yashied tried and tried, and tried and died. And tried and died some more. But nothing they did could put humpty-dumpty together again (or get them back to Morgana's corpse or do enough damage to one of those bosses). Finally, demoralized and almost a million gold poorer, I saved and exited. Morgana could've probably hired a temporary tank for replacing Yashied and possibly squeeked by, but that would've felt like a hollow victory anyways. After all the times Yashied's GS saved her butt, it didn't really seem like a better choice than the easy way out.
The respawn was more friendly and they quickly made their way down to the throne. WSK3 and the throneroom were like the Oblivion Knight Family Reunion, but the GS merc and teleporting sorc took them fairly easily with all of the frozen Abyss Knights standing around. The minions were all quite easy, except
Lister spawned especially sturdy (Dorkana probably would've crapped her pants). Baal dropped Zakarum's Hand (unique RuneScepter), so he was only 98% stingy this time.
As for Dorkana, she cruised along to rescue Anya just fine. In the Crystalline Passage she encountered Succubi (and Hell Witches, IIRC), which made me realize that somehow Morgana managed to avoid this monster type entirely. Too bad too, since it made me curious how she would've faired. Dorkana didn't have any real difficulties with them, but she did have her share of potions. Neeraj decided to do an encore performance of his behaviour in the Chaos Sanctuary ("hey Ma, watch me die again!!! I'm getting good at it, don't ya think?"), so he actually didn't get ressurected for a while, leaving Dorkana to clear much of the path solo.
Another monster type that Morgana somehow avoided were FI Deathlords. Dorkana's first encounter was in the Glacial Trail, and if Morgana's achilles heel is archers, these guys were Dorkana's (actually, I think with their chill/slow resistance they would've been very tough for Morgana too). A champion pack spanked her pretty silly - repeatedly - until she was able to separate them one by one and have Neeraj do all of the heavy lifting.
First spawn of the Ancients proved a little more difficult to separate for Dorkana. Two of them had ExtraFast, so they could pretty much keep up with her teleporting back and forth. However, with a little effort she was able to separate them, and her and Neeraj managed to takedown Talic... only to learn that his Fire Enchanted death explosion was too much for her energy shield and lifepool and she was standing a little too close. What a lame way to die. It happened the second time with Korlic (reaction =
). Third time's a charm, as the saying goes, and this time it proved true. Neeraj was able to safely solo
Madawc. After that Dorkana and Neeraj were able to gang up on
Talic (who seemed to have a defective attack since her life or manabulb didn't budge once, and neither the Neeraj's). Finally,
Korlic proved no more difficult than his cohorts, and thus, the Ancients were conquered. FYI, the number of potions used: 0.
WSK1 managed to produce a lovely
welcoming party right at the stairs. Dorkana temporarily ditched them with teleport, cleared out a side-wing, and came back and lured them away one by one. Surprisingly, that didn't take very long with Neeraj tanking, but he did take 4 purple potions while Morgana's openwounds and elemental damage drained the boss... oh well, she had a few spares left over from the Ancients fight. The stairs down to WSK2 were fairly close, and WSK2 had an easy spawn too (Serpent Magus', Horadrim Ancients, and Flayers, so that was pretty uneventful. WSK3 had Hell Temptresses, SkellieMages (whatever they're called), and DemonImps, so it wasn't too bad either (though Neeraj once again proved himself so adept at dying that Dorkana decided to find her way down alone).
The throneroom spawned with Burning Souls, Snakes, and something else inconsequential. Neeraj, once again, was quickly overwhelmed by souls. I don't know what this guys problem was (other than equipment
, but I got pretty sick of him near the end. Dorkana teleported around and managed to pick them off one by one. The minions were relatively uneventful, except for a cursed Ventar that required all of my remaining purple potions (I was too busy trying to stay alive to take screenshots). What a great way to be going into battle with Lister & friends - with only red potions. Fortunately, Lister spawned with some (relatively) harmless mods, so with a little persistence Dorky and Neeraj took the final wave down. Baal, of course, proved his usual self... dying slowly but fairly easily. And, also as usual, he might as well have dropped a turd as opposed to the 'treasure' he provided.
So how do these ladies compare?
*I'm including my previous ranged Enchantress in this section*
I'll refer to them by their names:
Alice = Ranged (Demon Machine), Frozen Orb backup
Dorkana = 'Passion' Phaseblade (for a Zeal attack), Physical Damage backup, EnergyShield and max-block
Morgana = 'Kingslayer' SE-Axe (for a two-handed Vengeance attack), backup damage not required, ColdWolf merc.
Lowest Cost of Equipment: Alice
Generally the items for a viable ranged enchantress will be a little cheaper than for a melee Enchantress. That said, Dorkana could've gotten by with some cheaper equipment than what she had. Morgana obviously was the most expensive with a Gul, Mal, Um and Fal tied into the weapon alone.
Of course, they all seriously benefit from being wealthy. I'm not sure if they'd be fun untwinked, even if you could realistically pull it off. Personally, I wouldn't want to try it.
Questing through Nightmare: Dorkana
Simple, straightforward, fast, and safe.
Questing through Hell: 3-way-tie
They each have advantages and disadvantages, and not one seems to significantly dominate the others.
Best Merc: Morgana
... seriously... The freezing/chilling from Glacial Spike is an amazingly strong compliment to this build - as long as your sorc can reliably kill everything you encounter. Predominantly you need your merc to provide crowd control - moreso that than anything else (i.e. killpower from the merc is secondary). Furthermore, even if the blocking on a Spirit isn't that great (23% in his case), I did notice that Yashied did fairly well against archers (maybe the
+500 defense against missiles from dual Spirits helped too).
Best Against non-FireImmunes: uh... whichever has the fastest attack
Dorkana probably wins with an uninterruptible attack, but I'm not a huge Zeal fan. And the 25% flee on Passion can slow things down when a monster runs away and you have to chase it down though. Overall, this was pretty close.
Best Against Fire Immunes: Alice
I love the powerful aspect of Vengeance + Lightning Mastery, but the safety advantage of Frozen Orb is just too nice. Of the three, Alice definitely had the least troubles with most fire immunes - even if she was a little slower than Morgana was at times. Dorkana was definitely the worst in this department.
Best Against Bosses: Dorkana
This is the one area where she really stood over the others. She had a harder time with swarms, but could tank single monsters relatively well. The higher crushing blow (and faster delivery) obviously is a factor here.
Best in HC: Alice
For survivability, ranged > melee. I'm not saying it would be easy though.
Least Debilitating Weakness: Morgana
Dorkana gets pretty completely hosed by manaburn and FI swarms in Hell, and in case you haven't noticed, those are fairly common. Alice and Morgana each had problems with ranged attackers, but I'll give Morgana a slight edge because she would typically use teleport to attack aggressively (often forcing the archers to run away - and they don't attack while they're running). Alice would teleport, but by the time she re-targeted the archers were often recovered and shooting at her again... the margin for error with Morgana just seemed a little higher, and the powerful attack took archers out faster.
Overall Champion Enchantress (so far): Morgana
Perhaps it's the 'novelty' aspect of trying something different, but I simply enjoyed playing Morgana the most. She also had possibly the most-powerful melee attack that I've used yet (with uber-fire, strong lightning, and solid cold & physical damage), and that goes a long way. Plus, you gotta admit that a two-handed-axe-wielding melee sorceress accompanied by an Act3 IronWolf is a pretty stylish lady.
So, knowing what I know now, how would I build the "Ideal" bad*ss Enchantress?
duh... a dual-dream bearsorc, of course... However, like most SPF'ers, I seem to be short a rune or two for making that happen.
In the certainly-expensive-but-possibly-attainable category, I'd start with a 4-socket, ethereal 1.07 Berzerker's Axe, then make Oath in it, then remove the Oath just to get the indestructible mod, then make Kingslayer. Then, get a shield with good block (probably Whistan's Guard or an upgraded Moser's), throw on Drac's gloves, and stuff on as much IAS, Resists, FHR and lightning damage as possible, then basically rebuild Morgana (possibly socketing IAS instead of 'other'). I'd also strongly consider going ~50% or ~60% block.
In the moderately-attainable category, I'd probably rebuild Alice (including a Frozen Orb backup), but with a little more FHR, and with a Passion/blocking weaponswitch to deal with archers or other monsters that are more advantageous to fight up close. For the most part the monsters you'll want to melee will have lower life than the monsters you'll want to keep at range, so even a low-damage weapon like Passion will work fairly well (focus on speedy attacks more than damage, and simply cope with ranged attackers that are FI).
Morgana's Setup:
LCS (without Fade Active)
... surprisingly, I didn't even notice how low my AR was until I saw that screenshot. It never seemed to be a problem, so that -25% Target Defense on Kingslayer must've been huge
. I'm also wondering if being frozen by GS lowers a monsters defense.
SKILLS:
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Lightning Mastery
6+ Cold Mastery
1 Static
1 Teleport
1 Frozen Armor
+5 skills for cold and lightning
+7 fire skills
+18 Enchant prebuff
EQUIPMENT:
'Kingslayer' Silver-Edged Axe (246% ED)
'Treachery' Duskshroud
Harlequin's Crest (13 resists, 8 dex) - shared this with Dorkana
Mara's Kaleidoscope (25)
Dracul's Grasp
String of Ears (14%pdr / 13mdr / 8%ll)
Ravenfrost (19/244)
Rare boots (20 FRW, 10 FHR, 34 LResist, 22 CResist, stuff)
Rare ring (6% MLeech, 4% LLeech, +3 minDmg, 67 AR, 9% LResist)
Switch: CtA + Spirit
Prebuff:
'Leaf' staff (inherent +3 Enchant)
2x Burning skillers (additional)
Ormus Robes (+3 Enchant, 16% with facet)
BattleCommand
Charms:
2x Burning skillers of Sust (+33, +25)
2x Shimmering GC (30 resists, 18 life, 4 str)
1x Sharp GC of Sust (9/70 / 33)
1x Steel GC of Balance (125 / 12)
1x Poison Resist LC of Balance (12 / 8)
1x Shimmering LC of Vita (7 / 34)
1x Shimmering SC of Strength (5 / 2)
1x Amber SC of Balance (11 / 5)
1x Fine SC of Balance (2/18 / 5)
3x Fire Resist SC (+26 resist, +26 life, 3% FRW)
1x Arcing SC of Life (1-42 / 7)
MISC. RESULTS:
60 Faster Hit Recovery (8 frames, barely enough too)
75 IAS (10 frame attack - tolerable when you're still getting an occasional 1-hit kill in Act5 hell - against champions
)
-25% Target Defense *
Prevent Monster Heal *
20% Bonus to Attack Rating *
50% Open Wounds *
33% Crushing Blow *
* these were entirely from Kingslayer. Many people focus on the +1 Vengeance, and don't notice the other fantastic melee mods on that runeword. Sure it's expensive, but at least it delivers some pretty sweet returns for that cost (unlike, say... 'Wind').
Yashied:
level 81, Iron Wolf (cold, normal)
Life: 1910 (with BO)
Resists: 75 all
Equipment:
'Spirit' Crystal Sword
'Spirit' Monarch
Skin of the Vipermagi (33/9, socketed with a PRuby)
rare circlet (+32 Strength, 20 FCR, 11 resist all, +8 maxDmg, stuff), socketed with PAmethyst
... would've swapped the circlet for an Andy's Visage once he could equip it at level83.
Various Notes about Morgana:
1. Other than that one gloam & beetle pack, my theory about the Act3 merc was an amazing success; he performed significantly better than expected. Even aside from IM/Oblivion Knights, Yashied died less than his Act2 counterpart (with Dorkana). He wasn't as reliable of a killer (and was virtually useless against bosses), but this sorc slows down a lot against fire
and lightning high-resist/immune monsters - which is precisely when GlacialSpike's freeze works to full effect. It was even a better compliment than a Reapers/HF merc in regards to crowd control.
2. It was the first time I've tried relying (somewhat) upon treachery/fade for resistances. It was more reliable than I expected (of course, sorcs are easy to hit, so it makes sense it would trigger often), but it definitely wasn't 100% reliable. I would say it was more like 80-90% reliable (for example, when I started Act4 in Hell, it didn't trigger until after I'd quested through to the City of the Damned, even though VenomLord's were breathing fire on her a lot of the time).
3a. I'm very glad I didn't make the Kingslayer in a superior axe. The repair costs for each trip to town were already 10-30k, so it would've been outrageous if it had been a superior item (I'm guessing 200+k every time - I would've burned some Orts on that one).
3b. That said, I wish I'd remembered the indestructible bug... I'd have gladly blown the runes for Oath for another 50% damage from an ethereal axe. When I did remember, it was after I'd already made the axe.
4. I didn't know it before, but Glacial Spike (at least from a merc) does not trigger a beetles lightning bolts until their death explosion. I tried to let Yashied take care of those guys after finding that out.
5. In case someone mentions 'Delerium' as a good helm for no-shield meleesorc, I'd like to clarify that it was always my intent to NOT use it. It's a fantastic helm that will provide all the crowd control any character ever needs, but that was the problem; I wanted to try to make this viable without guaranteed success because of one item.
Dorkana's Setup:
LCS
Weapon Switch
SKILLS:
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Telekinesis
3+ Energy Shield
1 Cold Mastery
1 Static
1 Teleport
1 Frozen Armor
+4 all skills
+15 Enchant prebuff
EQUIPMENT:
'Passion' Phase Blade (189%)
'Sanctuary' Tower Shield (68 resists)
Harlequin's Crest (13 resists, 8 dex) - shared this with Morgana
'Duress' Archon Plate
Highlord's Wrath
Wilhelm's Pride (needed leech somewhere
)
crafted Blood gloves (20% IAS, 9% CB, 13% fResist, 19 life, stuff)
Stone of Jordan
Ravenfrost (20/179)
Goreriders
Switch: Ribcracker (upgraded, Shael, 289%)
Prebuff:
'Leaf' staff (inherent +3 Enchant)
2x Burning skillers (additional)
Ormus Robes (+3 Enchant, 16% with facet)
Charms:
6x Sharp GC (82 life, 7 FRW, stuff)
1x Shimmering GC (15 resists, 18 life)
1x Shimmering LC of Vita (7 / 34)
1x Fire Resist SC (11 / 9 life)
1x Shimmering SC (5%)
1x Foul SC of Sust (50 Poison, 14 life)
3x Fine SC (20 life, 2 str)
MISC. RESULTS:
50% Energy Shield
60 FHR (110% with Ribcracker)
max-block
39% Crushing Blow (89% with Ribcracker)
45% Deadly Strike
43% Open Wounds
65 IAS (10/7 Zeal)
Neeraj:
Level81, Might Town-Guard
1688 Life
Resists: 65f/75c/65l/75p
'Insight' Cryptic Axe
Duriel's Shell (IAS jewel)
Vampire Gaze (IAS jewel)
Various notes about Dorkana:
1a. The
25% flee on Passion was bearable. Teleport made up for it ~98% of the time, but there were always a few monsters with realy high life (or really fast movement) that were annoying at running away.
1b. That said, there were also a few times where Open Wounds scored the finishing damage as a monster was trying to run away - these times were a real treat, and were fair compensation for the few super-fast monsters that fleed and regenerated.
2. I didn't think my equipment choice for Neeraj was that bad, but he was really, really fragile. He was a very good FI killer though.
3. Near the end I used the Ribcracker less and less. I was tempted to switch over to the CtA, but I wanted to get a feel for what a sorc was like without it (since I can't remember the last time I didn't have one available). It's amazing how much more fragile she was with that ~50% less life and mana.
4. As for my testing of Energy Shield, I have to say I was very underwhelmed. If I did it again, the ~25 points spent on Energy Shield, as well as the 115 hard points I spent in Energy would go into something else (skillwise, probably Frozen Orb for keeping dangerous monsters at range, and Vit for the stats, obviously).
5. This build would've been better with Dracul's Grasp. Looking at it though, that most likely would've meant using Treachery (dropping OW & CB from Duress), or the belt (lost leech), or the helm (lost shako), or... this build just feels like it needs one more equipment slot to really finish it correctly.
Notable Finds:
I didn't keep track of who found what, so this is combined:
- the aforementioned cursed hellforge: Shael & Io (Nightmare), Ko & Hel (Hell)
- Dol rune was the best rune while questing
- Felloak
- Fine LC of Sustenance
- Goldwrap
- Graverobbers GC of Life (+9)
- Guardian Angel
- Iron LC of Life (38/15, and quite nice for a LLD'er)
- eth Kinemil's Awl
- 2x Nagelring (26, 29%)
- Nosferatu's Coil
- Razor's Edge
- Sharp GC (9 / 58)
- Snowclash
- rare boots (30 FRW, 23 ColdRes, 32 PoisonRes, stuff)
- rare ring (6% LLeech, 2% MLeech, 20 ColdRes, 6 FireRes) <-- possibly the best item Duriel's ever dropped for me
- Perfect Superior Thresher (15% ED, +3 AR, and likely to make 'Obedience' someday)
- 2x Tal's Helm
- eth Grim Reaper
- eth Tread's of C'thon
- Ume's Lament
- Windhammer
- Zakarum's Hand
... and the best of the bunch...
Titan's Revenge
Ceremonial Javelin
Throw Damage: 78 to 209
One-Hand Damage: 78 to 153
Quantity: 140
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 109
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 42
Javelin Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xdbe373ec
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
+195% Enhanced Damage
+25 to Minimum Damage
+50 to Maximum Damage
9% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Amazon Skill Levels
30% Faster Run/Walk
+2 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)
Replenishes Quantity
Increased Stack Size
Bonus Section (with 1337 itamz):
... no, not cows. Neither of these ladies is really capable of taking hard-hitting swarms, which pretty much sums up cows. Instead, I had something different in mind...
me: "Hey Joosh, how about you let me take that fancy-smancy Infinity for a test-spin with my newly matted Vengeance sorc?"
Joosh: "no. you suck."
me: "I know. But my sorc doesn't... Please?"
Joosh: "maybe... but you still suck."
me: "ok. Did you see Thyiad's thread about nominating 'tars? I might have to post one of you riding a donkey (in the biblical sense, if you know what I mean)."
Joosh: "...ok... but you can only borrow it if you recite teh lord's prayer backwards."
me: "Nema. Reve rof dna won..."
Joosh: "... you still suck..."
me: "thanks."
Joosh: "np."
... or something like that (and in case it wasn't clear, I'm embelishing again, with a little dishonesty and misinterpretation thrown in for good measure). Sue me.
Nevertheless, Joosh did lend me his Infinity. Which brings me to my next point: This is not only the Bonus Section, [highlight]this is also the thank you section[/highlight] of the thread since Joosh was by far the most significant contributor to this experiment (the authors of the Enchantress guides in the sorc forum deserve honourable mention, as do InsaneWayne, Jiansonz, and Superdave for their numerous adventure-threads).
My thanks again.
As for the runs, my ambitions were relatively minimal (I don't want to get hooked on the weapon, I just want to see how much of an improvement it makes
)., so I didn't keep the polearm for long. Just long enough to try a couple of runs against some areas I haven't run in years. I was going as fast as is reasonably safe, and doing (roughly) full clears. The areas:
- Icy Cellar (Act5)
- The two tombs in the Causeway (Act3)
- The two tombs in the Graveyard (act1)
... one pass with Morgana and Yashied on /players1
... a second pass with Morgana and Yashied on /players3
... a pass on /players1 with the Infinity (on a Holy Freeze merc, with Duress & VampGaze)
... a fourth pass with the Infinity on /players3
*no, I didn't load up on MF - that's not quite the point here. The point is to get a reasonable idea of how much of an improvement an Infinity adds to a Vengeance sorc. *
First pass with Morgana and Yashied was relatively uneventful (as far as monsters). Icy Cellar had some Siren's, so she finally got to meet that monster type. She said: "ooooh wow, I want to kill you", and that was that. So she did - in one hit each. There were a couple of random hard-hitters though, so she drank a few potions along the way. The monsters in Act3 and Act1 were much more friendly, and died without much difficulty.
Time: 14:19 (higher than I expected).
Sidenote: One of the Act5 bosses dropped a magic Archon Staff, so maybe I should've had MF on afterall. Another of the bosses in Act1 dropped a magic Legendary Hammer, as well as a third dropped a certain etheral Fanged Knife (post at the end). With some MF, I might've set the record for the highest waimea factor in one run in quite a while.
Second Pass was relatively easy too, except Yashied got pwned by some Gloams in the Icy Cellar. There were few hard hitters in there this time too, but Morgana managed to drink a few potions just in time, and she squeaked through.
Time: 17:39
Third Pass
Wow, that was quick. The spawn was worse (Dolls, Harlots and Hell Lords in Icy Cellar), but lots of things died in one hit (I think Snapchip Shatter took three hits). Demon Limb dropped too.
Time: 11:47
Fourth Pass
Pretty much ditto. 13:42
Oh yeah, that ethereal Fanged Knife...
Fleshripper
Fanged Knife
One-Hand Damage: 73 to 285
Durability: 19 of 19
Required Dexterity: 76
Required Strength: 32
Required Level: 68
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x65a6f9a2
+236% Enhanced Damage
-50% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
50% Chance of Open Wounds
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Deadly Strike
Slows Target by 20%
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
... time to build a BF sin.
Finally...
Are you still reading? Wow, you're dedicated. And courteous. Thanks.
Don't worry, I'm done now. You don't have to read any more.
Have fun.