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!