Naked As Sin

[Dezrok]

It would be awesome if you could hotkey Shadow Warrior and then it would cast its own Shadow ad infinitum

Terrifying!

And that is a wrap for Act 3.

Elexa was happy with her new bow and plinked away at everything without complaining. The Shadow was also happy and close to indestructible, unless there was a lot of elemental damage being thrown around. Here the shadow is laughing at the Bramble Hulks trying to pound her into submission.

Phoenix Strike became available at level 30, when we were just about to enter the Flayer Dungeon. Progress from then on was much prettier.

This was a little bit annoying, but thankfully nothing I really needed to get my hands on.

The only drop of note was Bloodthief in the Forgotten Reliquary, if I ever decide to switch to an act 2 merc. For now Elexa is doing a fine job and none of the Act 2 merc auras would help much with our predominately elemental damage.

And speaking of auras, Bremm had Conviction. I ended up parking him with some of his buddies in the entry room while I went on to clear the central area and the two wings. After that I was able to drag Bremm into space on his own to kill him.

Time for Meph and had meant to stop on level 2 of the Durance, so I could bring in some more big purples and that Fiery circlet for Elexa to wear. I forgot, so we took on Meph as we were, with maybe 4 big purples. We intercepted Meph near the stairs first up and I was a bit surprised at how durable the Shadow was. It still died and was recast to keep Meph in place but we were able to do decent damage each casting. We ended up here and Meph ended up here with a big pile of yellows.

On to Act 4

 

[Dezrok]

Buff-E and Elexa have made some good progress. I've been more interested in playing than writing, so there is a bit to catch up on.

Act 4 was mostly smooth going. The Shadow still not getting hurt much unless there is a lot of prolonged elemental damage being thrown around. Izual, for example, couldn't really scratch the Shadow. We couldn't really hurt Izual much either, however, 12 minutes later and victory went to the good guys.

The River of Fire had Maggots, Grotesques and Urdars. That was a lot of monsters to kill! Very glad to have Phoenix Strike's AoE attacks which made short work of baby maggots. Here's the Shadow tanking away while Buff-E plays Pooh Sticks on the bridge and Elexa takes a short break.

When we reached the RoF waypoint we took a quick break. The Hellforge had delivered us an Amn. I thought about making a Strength runeword and switching to an Act 2 merc, but Elexa was doing great so I decided to make Edge in a composite bow I had lying around. Elexa lost most of her elemental damage but gained a heap of physical damage and the Shadow had plenty of elemental damage for everyone. The Thorns aura and the faster attack rate helped too. It was now possible to watch monsters killing themselves hitting the Shadow!

CS was one of the easiest clears ever and then it was time for Diablo himself, on p8. Lots of recasting the Shadow and Elexa got herself killed 6 times by standing in the lightning hose. Insta death pretty much. Diablo down, the drop rubbish and Buff-E level 35.

Act 5 had some good drops. Face of Horror in the Bloody Foothills (could be end game for Elexa), Sigon's Shelter and another Amn in the Frigid Highlands (both handy if I switch mercs), then a Sol in the Arreat Plateau (so now we have the runes for Insight if we need it). The Frozen River coughed up a white Partizan and an ethereal Ume's Lament (Zod God?). The Glacial Trail a Death's Touch. The Frozen Tundra gave another Sol, Halls of Pain another Face of Horror plus the useless Treads of Cthon. Halls of Vaught gave Venom Ward, then we got another Death's Touch in the Ancient Way. A bit of a break before ToD gave us a Dol and then it was time for Baal.

But before we get to Baal, some pics of the Shadow tanking Frenzytaurs in Abaddon, and again and then Mind Eater the Impaler and his buddies queuing up for a piece of the action. I decided not to let the Shadow take them all at once and drew them around a couple at a time. Blood Claw also tried to hurt the Shadow ... and failed.

In other images - double trouble with two Evil Urns next to each other. Would you trigger both at the same time? Nihlithak caused a bit of a mess but even Buff-E decided to get in there and melee him for a bit. The Ancients also had trouble with the Shadow. If all three of them ganged up on her they could slowly hurt her, but once they were separated they didn't stand a chance. Even the Minions couldn't stop the Shadow and this was safe enough for Buff-E to get in there and use Phoenix Strike over the Shadow's shoulder - fists don't have a long range though.

Okay, Baal. Was pretty frisky and summoned his clone a few times. The Shadow died, was recast, died, recast, etc.... The clones were killed. Baal was killed, his drop give us the Grim Reaper and Angelic Sickle. Not really very useful but nice to see some colour with our MF so low. Elexa didn't die once against Baal and we only had to feed her the one purple. Buff-E swallowed lots of blues, a few reds and no purples. Nice team work there and Buff-E hit level 49 with the kill.

The Shadow went through the Cows like a hot knife through butter, even on p8. PS caused massive carnage and the only time the Shadow took any sort of serious damage was when there was a Might aura boss in amongst a big pack. Good drops with both the Infernal Cranium and Hawkmail being useful.

For general play I put PS on the left mouse button and BoS on the right. That way the Shadow can use them as she wants. We use a normal attack to trigger the PS charges. It is both good and bad that the Shadow can use normal attacks at anytime - good because I don't need to worry about having it on a button (unless Buff-E is going to do some attacking), but bad because it is frustrating when the Shadow decides to use the normal attack to try and kill things and there is no way of forcing it to use a skill. FoF, CoT and BoI are also hotkeyed on the left, so that I can get the Shadow to "learn" the synergies for PS. I can also switch our attack to FoF if I don't want to be shattering corpses (although Elexa is a Cold Rogue so does a bit of shattering anyway).

Skills: 17 pts PS, 10 pts FoF, 12 pts Shadow Warrior, 3 pts Fade, 1 pt MB, CoS, BoS, CoT and BoI (plus prereqs)
Shadow now casts PS at lvl 12, FoF at lvl 9 and the 1 point wonders at lvl 5.
The plan at the moment is to get PS maxed and then Shadow Warrior to 18. Fade at lvl 3 will give Buff-E 3% resists in NM.

Alright, on to Nightmare!

 

[Brak]

Bonus points for doing normal with a Rogue. And of course you get a Sol and Partizan through Normal when you aren't looking for them. Diablo Gods are fickle that way

 

[japanzaman]

Nightmare should be smooth sailing for you and your crew. Nice detail in the write-up. I can never remember anything if I don't post regularly.

 

[T72on1]

Very well done !!! Good luck in nightmare .

 

[Dezrok]

Act 1 Nightmare, onwards at p8 full clears. Not sure what I can tell you. Not super fast, not super slow. Fallen Shaman were painful trying to get the Shadow or Elexa into a position where they would kill the Shaman instead of endlessly fighting the Fallen, especially where there was a Boss that couldn't be blinded.

Buff-E ran with Fade on the whole time, unless we were in town or crossing an area that had already been cleared. The Shadow started out with BoS, but by the middle of the Act we were getting her to use Fade most of the time, she was getting too much hurt from elemental damage.

I thought about getting rid of Elexa and getting a Fire Rogue instead. I don't need the Cold Arrows and the Fire Arrows have a longer range, but in the end decided to stick with Elexa, more out of loyalty than any good game reason.

Bloodraven took a bit of effort. This is the furthest I think I've seen her run from her tree, but when we were able to corner her here it wasn't too long before it was all over.

I decided to try gambling a new bow for Elexa, as the best way of spending all our coin. By some miracle we got Blastbark, which isn't actually an improvement but is a unique! After that I decided to do some research on which unique bows we might actually want and so now we are just gambling Hunter's Bows, hoping for Witherstring - the Slow will be amazing against Bosses, and when combined with Face of Horror will be quite the thing in Hell. Anyway, just after gambling the Blastbark, a Blastbark dropped in Tristram. Thank you Diablo gods!

With no other better bows around, I decided to try getting 3 sockets in a cracked Double Bow using my only PAmethyst. Only 1 socket, so fail. Instead I used a 3os Edge Bow for another Edge runeword - style points and still an improvement over the Edge Composite Bow. Of course, just after that a 3os Double Bow dropped in the Tower. Thank you Diablo gods!

Andy at p8 put up a good fight and Elexa had her first (and only) death of the Act. Otherwise, the Shadow tanked, died and was recast. Elexa shot arrows with a new Edge runeword I made in that 3os Double Bow. The End. Andy's drop not exciting at all.

Drops generally were pretty good, given our low MF: Tannr Gorerod, Kinemil Awl, Sigon's Visor, Blastbark, Steelclash, Manald Heal (even though rings are completely unusable they are always exciting unique drops for me), Bonesnap (lovely! useless!), Doomslinger, Isenhart's Sword, Steelclash (again), Sigon's Sabot (my 3rd piece of Sigon's set), Death's Touch, Swordback Hold, a 4os Partizan and 2 Io runes.

Leveling is always very slow at the start of NM. Entering at level 49, we reached The Hole before making level 50, The Pits for level 51, level 1 of the Catacombs for level 52 and hit level 53 just before killing Andy.

Act 2 up next.

 

[T72on1]

Good luck in Act 2 !!!

One question: can a cracked Double Bow get 3 sockets with the cube recipe? I thought there was something peculiar with cracked items, but I'm not sure.

 

[Brak]

I know if you uncrack them with the cube recipe it gives them an ilvl of 1. So you can take advantage of this if you want the minimum number of sockets for a particular item

 

[Dezrok]

Good luck in Act 2 !!!

One question: can a cracked Double Bow get 3 sockets with the cube recipe? I thought there was something peculiar with cracked items, but I'm not sure.

As @Brak mentioned, uncracking them with the cube gives them an ilvl of 1. This means that Double Bows have a maximum of 3 sockets, instead of the usual 4 for ilvl 26+ Double Bows (which are normally ilvl 39). This in turn translates to a 4 in 6 chance to roll 3 sockets, instead of the usual 1 in 6.

I didn't make it clear that I used the Eld + Chipped Gem + low quality weapon cube recipe to uncrack the bow and set its ilvl to 1, and then the Ral + Amn + Perfect Amethyst + normal weapon recipe to put sockets in it.

 

[Dezrok]

Nightmare Act 2 done, all on p8 and full clears.

Good work Buff-E and Elexa, no major problems, although a couple of areas took a bit of time.

The Stony Tomb tarted with a triple boss pack. Here and here are screenshots of two of them. Then another welcoming party in the Halls of the Dead. Thankfully just one this time.

In the Palace Cellar I noticed that the clubs of the Blunderbore are actually humans wrapped in chains! Sick or what!

The Summoner didn't cause us much trouble, and it was shortly after defeating him that we found our first 4os Gothic Plate and immediately put two PTopazes into it. We were able to cube a 3rd PTopaz before finishing the Arcane Sanctuary. The 4th PTopaz was cubed in the 5th Tal's Tomb. So we now have our full complement of MF on Elexa - 168%.

Back in the AS, Plague Pox lit the screen up. While in the 5th Tal's Tomb we had another triple Boss pack which took a long time to break up and kill off. Here and here are two of them. And then just in the next room was this guy! The last of our Boss shots for Act 2 is Grief Grumble. Good name that!

Duriel turned out to be not much of a problem on p8. The Shadow didn't get too many hits in with PS, but Elexa's Edge bow and the Thorns aura on the Shadow seemed to do the trick pretty quickly. Elexa wore Hawkmail and a lightning dam + all resists circlet and I even remembered to switch back into the Mf gear for the kill. Not that Duriel was going to drop anything nice.

Drops: Milabrega Diadem, Wormskull, Hellcast, Bladebuckle, Arctic Binding, Isenhart Sword, Naglering (21%) and 2x Lum runes.

One crash in Tal's 7th Tomb due to CoS and a Mummy Sarcophagus. I had to rerun some areas a second time on p1 to get back to the portal room. Didn't pick up any of the loot that dropped.

Level 60 now. PS maxed (20), FoF (10), CoT (2), BoI (1), Shadow Warrior (18), Fade (6), BoS, Cos and MB all (1).
The Shadow casts PS at (16), FoF (11), CoT (7), BoI (7), Fade (9) and the 1pt wonders at (7). With Fade active the Shadow has 49% PDR and immunity to elemental damage (it is very frustrating when the Shadow dies because it decided not to cast Fade). The lightning and ice charges don't do much damage at the moment but the fire charges cause absolute carnage! Delightful to watch.

Next up for skills will be to get Claws of Thunder up to around level 10, so the PS lightning charge might do some noticeable damage, and I might use the Izual quest reward to get Dragon Claw so that we have a finishing move that isn't a normal attack. At the moment I think the Shadow is hitting okay, but Buff-E has a 20-30% chance to hit most monsters with PS and around 10% with the normal attack finishing move (not that Buff-E should be attacking). Once we reach lvl 70 I'm going to start investing in the prereqs for Death Sentry, so we should have it by the time we enter Hell.

I've been keeping 1 million gold on hand and gambling the rest on hunter's bows. After about 4 million gold we had success! Witherstring ... and then I realised that the mods weren't quite what I was looking for and that I was after Riphook, not Witherstring after all. Back to the gambling (at least I was on the right base).

No rush on the gambling as Elexa's Edge Edge Bow is doing fine still, especially against Demons and Undead - can be a little slow on other monsters. We have enough runes that if I cube everything Dol and higher I can get a Ko and make Harmony. Not sure if that is the way I want to go or not just yet. Having Elexa do physical damage and the Shadow do elemental is working pretty well so far.

On to Act 3.

 

[Dezrok]

NM Meph is dead and that is a wrap for Act 3.

Chance Guards dropped in the Spider Forest, just to taunt our naked progress. Elexa thought they looked pretty and someone should wear them, but Buff-E was having none of that clothing rubbish and packed them off to the GoMule stash. Of course, Gloams made an appearance in the Great Marsh, but CoS kept them pretty quiet and there were no bosses around so Buff-E had plenty of life to take the odd hit now and again. A Fal rune in the Spider Cavern means we can now make an Obedience if we feel like it and can find a 5os base. Good to have plenty of options for the few bits of gear we can use on the merc. The 3rd level of the Flayer Dungeon gave us Rockstopper, another pretty sight!

The fighting was good this Act! Here we are burning down the Flayer Jungle and toasting Stormtree and his gang who thought they could stop us crossing the bridge to Kurast. In Kurast we had lots of Tree Lurkers ... which was the most frustrating part of the journey so far. It took a long time for Elexa and the Shadow to catch them and kill them. FI/LI Bosses like Seethe Weaver and Dragon Wing really didn't fit our strengths.

This guy wins the most inappropriate name competition.

What would life be without some stair traps in the Kurast temples? The Shadow has lightning reflexes, much faster than me, so putting CoS on the right button before we come down the stairs gives a really good chance that the trap will be disabled before I even realise that the monsters are there. These guys didn't even see us coming.

Of course, CoS doesn't work against Champions. This battle is almost over in the screenshot but the four snakes had started in the corner to the right side of the screen. Luckily when I came through the door I ran to the left side and the Shadow and Elexa took the early beating. The Shadow held one of them near the Mana Shrine, Elexa got charged by three and smashed back to where the snakes are in the screenie. Buff-E was in the clear just past the baskets at the bottom of the screen. Not bad, but Elexa wasn't holding up well, so Buff-E popped a portal in preparation for a quick escape, while trying to give the Shadow as much time as possible to deal some damage. My timing was a little out and the snakes got one hit too many on Elexa and when we arrived back in town she was dead, her first death of the Act. A quick resurrection and some healing from Ormus and we jumped back through the portal and into the fray. The Shadow did the right thing and ran to take the three snakes. It looked like the fourth snake was also heading for the Shadow so Buff-E made a dash for the top right of the screen (aware that retreating further into the temple probably wasn't a good idea). That fourth snake was just fooling and quickly nailed Buff-E with a charge. A 4 or 5 charge train drove Buff-E across the screen with Buff-E permanently in hit recovery. Then suddenly the snake was dead (you can see it's corpse next to the Mana Shrine). I can only assume that either one of Elexa's arrows took it square between the eyes (from behind?) or else the Thorns aura proved it's worth and the snake beat itself to death on Buff-E's naked skin. After that, Buff-E swallowed a quick purple (although her life wasn't really critical) and we settled down into the positions shown in the screenie to finish the fiendish beasts. We were pretty careful going through the rest of that temple, but there wasn't a single other monster in the entire place. Those snakes must have already killed and eaten everything else!

Plenty of gambling during the Act. This was perfectly cruel!

Down in the bottom of the Sewers there were some Champion Horadrim guarding the chest with the brain in it. These three wouldn't separate and there had been plenty of other undead in the room for them to revive. It was a long and tedious fight, with the Shadow dying faster than they were being damaged much of the time. Eventually we shattered all the other undead corpses and got them in a position where we could keep everybody focused on the same one for long enough to kill it.

The Durance was a lot of fun! These guys near the start got things going from the beginning and there were plenty more like them along the way. The second level was absolutely huge. I'm not sure that I've seen a larger map. Somewhere along the way Elexa managed to get herself pinned in a different room and bludgeoned to her second death for the Act.

Down to the third level of the Durance and the Shadow wasn't impressed by the LE Bremm or his Hydra and happily tanked while Elexa made good use of her bow. Then one of the chests popped out some gold gothic plate! Elexa was super excited at the idea of wearing Rattlecage for the upcoming battle against Mephisto and the crushing blow proved to be more than the big demon could handle. We used about four more blue pots after this screenie was taken (keeping the Shadow cast) and then remembered to switch Elexa back into the MF armour for the final blows before it was time to sort through Meph's drop and move on to Act 4.

All pretty good going this Act, although a couple of moments that got the pulse racing and could have ended badly. Will need to start being a bit more careful if I want to see Hell.

Buff-E is level 64.

 

[Brak]

Congrats on getting through the temples
they can be nasty

 

[T72on1]

Very well done !!! O yes, and good catch on the Blunderbore's Clubs ... I never noticed myself. Lovely, all those little details !!!

 

[Dezrok]

Act 4 was long and slow for little reward. We had Grotesques vomiting up their babies in every area until the RoF waypoint. Along with large packs of high life, hard hitting monsters it wasn't at all pretty. As long as Fade was active, the Shadow would survive reasonably well with some MB support. However, the battles would be long and eventually Fade would expire and the Shadow would be in trouble. Getting the Shadow to cast Fade while it is still in battle is almost impossible and so we were faced with a few options, none of which made for fast battles. Ultimately it wasn't a particularly dangerous Act but it was long with a lot of recasting the Shadow, repositioning the Shadow, withdrawing the Shadow from battle, standing around waiting for the Shadow to heal, returning to town to heal the Shadow, etc... On the plus side, I did learn a lot about different monsters and their attacks, sometimes tedium and patience pay off.

So, the Izual fight was long, as expected, and at the end he dropped a pile of gold that would make Duriel envious! Yes, quite literally just a few thousand gold coins!

Hell Forge was defended by this massive gang of baddies! Needless to say it took us a long time to whittle them down so that we could collect our Hel rune from the forge. Sigh.

Elexa was pretty happy with her Edge bow, but her eyes really lit up when she saw the Harmony Gothic Bow that Buff-E made for her at the RoF waypoint. Now she could bring the ultimate harmony to all those foul beasts! Noticeably slower than the Edge (16 frames vs 10 frames) but each hit takes a big chunk off the monster's life at this stage. I think I miss the Thorns aura though...

So, Diablo, players 8, long. Oh, so, long! Diablo himself was 74 minutes. From the RoF waypoint to Diablo's demise was over 3 hours. Maybe more like 3.5 hours - and this is only Nightmare.

A random shot of the twins, Buff-E and Elexa, getting ready for another foray against the Big D (although the Shadow isn't quite as naked as Buff-E).

So, we prepared for Diablo as best we could. Elexa had her new Harmony and put on the shiny purple Rattlecage. Buff-E stocked up on potions and scrolls. The Shadow was born ready (cast?). We hit the seal, rushed to the centre of the Sanctuary, Diablo appeared and hosed the Shadow and Elexa (who were standing in a straight line). Buff-E ran back to the wings and returned to town to resurrect Elexa. Take two, the same thing happened. Take three, I made sure not to allow the Shadow and Buff-E to line up, which took some fancy running around. Anyway, Diablo ignored the Shadow and hosed Elexa. Next. Diablo ignores Shadow and kills Elexa, and again, and again. So Elexa has died seven times and Diablo has barely been scratched. Time for Plan B. No more resurrecting Elexa, just let the Shadow go toe-to-toe with Big D. This was slow, but surprisingly it worked. Here we caught the Shadow in her moment of death. Eventually the pots ran out so we returned to town ...

... and decided to resurrect Elexa again. Maybe Diablo took offence at her ugly armour? Rattlecage is pretty offensive! Removed her armour and returned to Diablo. Nope, but at least we were ready for it and Elexa didn't die this time. So, maybe Diablo doesn't like the concept of Harmony? He is the Lord of Terror after all and that isn't very compatible with harmony, right? So we removed Elexa's bow and returned to battle, just to see what would happen. Yup, no Harmony and Diablo left Elexa alone and focused on the Shadow. Time to cry. I had almost left the old Edge bow in the stash but decided not to and now Elexa was bowless.

Back to town and gambled a Bow ... and got a Hunter's Bow of Gore ... with +10 to max damage ... and that is all. Elexa is going to kill Diablo with this? Back to battle. Yup, that bow works and Diablo mostly leaves Elexa alone. The CB from Rattlecage now kicks in and Diablo's death drops much faster. The Shadow continues to chip away and sometimes lasts long enough to get the odd PS charge off also denting Diablo's health. And so we went, on and on, until, eventually, Diablo, was, dead. Elexa had died 11 times. The Shadow had died innumerable times. But Buff-E had never been in trouble and Diablo was dead. The drop was not all that inspiring.

In celebration, Buff-E took up juggling. One, two, three. (Best to just scroll through them in Photobucket for the effect).

Level 67 and on to Act 5.

 

[Brak]

Yeah you've really got to have some crushing blow for bosses or it's just silly how long it takes to kill them.

pretty death shot

 

[T72on1]

74 minutes for Diablo, over 3 hours from the RoF waypoint? You sure have dedication going for you !!!

Lol on the juggling .

 

[Dezrok]

Okay, so I've deeded Buff-E to NM Nihlathak. Level 72. Further than Jacinta but not far enough. I'd forgotten how lethal Nihli can be. Poor form really.

My first time to use Phoenix Strike and I really like it. It goes on my list of builds to try at some stage, plenty of fun.

For now I'm going to take a break from this thread and refamiliarise myself with D2 a bit before making another serious attempt at a naked Guardian.

 

[maxicek]

No Hell again. Commiserations.

 

[Brak]

sorry about the deeds.
Nihli is really tough without controlable corpse disposal

 

[japanzaman]

Doing this naked is a pretty difficult task. I would expect more deeds before success- but it can be done. Best of luck in the future!