zemaj
Active member
- Jan 7, 2011
- 613
- 200
- 43
Annnnnnnnd, we're off! Ran the first half A3 in a session to go ahead and be done with that whole jungle bit. Very nice to hit the ground running courtesy of the Flesh Beasts left behind after The Dark Wanderer poofs. Was lucky and got the Jade Figurine before I had even gotten out of sight of the Docks. Spider cavern was very close as well, so really got into the swing quickly. Squishy eye recovered.
Flayer Jungle started off nicely, with a Gem Shrine.
So that's those Saftey boots we have been hoping for pretty much wrapped up, be a nice way to start off the next session.
After that, decided to go the way less traveled and cleared the Great Marsh as soon as we found that. Was slightly trepidatious for the Gloams, but after encountering the first pack had figured a way to mitigate that nonsense with something that has never occurred to me before; Bone Wall. As soon as I saw the wispy bits on the edge of the screen, or lightning bolts flying past, would drop a BW between the crew and the Gloams. Apparently BW is one of those 'summons' with ridiculously high priority for the AI, and they would routinely ignore the skellies, gumby, and merc to try and tear it down ASAP. On top of that, at the low slvl we are casting it, it was never enough to totally block the way, so the crew would just run around it and beat on the Gloams while they beat on the BW. Best of all, Gloams would beat on it, rarely throwing Lightning after it was down. Pretty sweet the way that worked... definitely have to remember that for A4 & A5. Anyway, during the clearings going on, we found something else of note.
(SS from IDing didn't take, so this is from after session)
Well, that's better than the gemmed BP we were currently wearing, no question. Had a Tir on hand, so we stuck that in and left the second open ftb. When we sold the gemmed BP, checked the Armor tab just to see what he would sell it back for, and he had spawned a Mechanic's(2os) Bone Helm of Brilliance(+9). Yep, we'll take that too, far superior to the 2os(unused) Helm we had been wearing since early A2. Put a Tir in that as well, and Mana issues are slowly fading memory.
Back to the Flayer Jungle, we shortly found the Gibdin and thusly Flayer Dungeon, which contained a second Gem Shrine! Luckily, we had the just enough gems to put together another flawless, and presto.
That'll be the Caster amulet I figured would be further off. While we were in town, passed the Gibdin on to Ormus, and got possibly one of the best rings I've ever got from him.
Dude's on a roll...
Back in the jungle we pressed on and the game played a lovely joke on us in the Marshy Pit... ANOTHER FREAKIN' GEM SHRINE. Well, this time we didn't have the gems to scrape together yet another flawless, but maybe if we press on through LK we can, then come back to milk this obscene lucky roll we are on...
Soon met Stormtree and was all aflutter to get to those tasty poppables. Very nice rune drops, but no luck on getting enough of any one type of gem to get that flawless, but maybe Bazaar will...
Well, it didn't provide the gems, but did continue with a windfall of runes, making me feel much better about socketing those Tirs. So much so, that my inventory space was getting rather tight... well, want to clear the temples anyway, let's see how that goes.
Stairtraps, that's how that goes. If it wasn't for the crew and CE, and the MPK provided by the extra sockets, that would have been very potentially game over... as it was, I still had to empty my belt of blues in Ruined Temple. Got the book and burned several TPs pawning all the drops worth selling. Still short on gems. Disused Fane wasn't as bad, but still not the gems we were hoping for and inventory is totally full at this point, so we bit the bullet and settled for a flawless ruby from the shrine back in Marshy Pit. Back to loot and it was getting tedious to rearrange everything, and late to boot, so decided to blitz to UK WP for S&E. Figured unsummoning half the skellies would be enough to be sure to not kill anything... don't think I'll try that sort of nonsense going forward, things got dicey when we ran out of stamina and were chilled from blizzards, but made it through.
It was only when muleing that I truly appreciated the total scope of how fortunate we were overall this session. Big upgrades to both armor and helm slots, couple of charm upgrades, 3 gem shrines, and a stunning total of 28 runes, with only 2xEl and 1xEld, just from the first half of A3... absolute nuts.
***
Next session cleared out UK without any major difficulties and with much trepidation approached the first temple
Total cakewalk. Well, that just means the other one will be a total pain. Nope, easy as pie, no stairtraps in either and the crew is just slaughtering everything... had to double check, and yeah, it's on/p8. No drops of particular note, but exp is going good.
Sewers next, and I'm always jumpy anywhere that has dolls, so we ease along, taking it as it comes. Found stairs down within 3 screens of entering, and cleared that out, scoring a Ral from one of the chests. Back to town to stash the heart and Ral, and pawn the accumulated junk. Back in sewers we inched along, but never really had any terrible problems, and netted several more runes, 2xTal and another Ral among them, plus gems to cube up 2 more flawless. Sweet, we always like smooth sailing.
Back topside, we head on to Causway and go to enter the first temple with Decrep on the ready, because we just know it's a stairtrap waiting... but it's not... and its tiny, one champ pack (rogues or Flesh Hunters, iirc, is thier name at this point) and one bosspack of bats. Next temple. No stairtrap. Ok... inch along waiting for it. Champ pack of vampires is annoying, but not dangerous, though I have to be careful of meteors, as fire res is still in the teens. Boss pack of serpents, aura enchanted, HF. Slow going, but still nothing dangerous, though did have to fall back and reraise a couple of skellies. And just as I'm relaxing, BAM, mob of beetles around the next corner. Sticky situation that, as Necro was out in front to pull the crew along and got hit a couple of times rushing to get behind the skellies. Chugged two health bottles, but probably could have not downed the second... oh well, pots are cheap, and have only been using one here and there to keep red bulb full. Get past that, and that's pretty much the end of the temples.
Travincal next, and I know I don't want to get anywhere near the Council until I have cleared out the rest of everything so we have room to maneuver away from Hydras, so we start along the outside wall. Just as we are getting to the rear of the map there is a Fire Res Shrine... well damn... Council should be much easier now. We go ahead and clear the lower half of the map, skirt the Council house, and grab that FR Shrine, because I'm just wanting to get to it. Inch up and pull Toroc. Almost immediately gumby bites it and I'm starting to worry about rushing it... but that was totally unfounded as Toroc is down before I can refresh Amp... Inch forward, and end up pulling 3 no-name Councils, who die twice as fast. By now I'm feeling a little ballsy, and worried FR Shrine will expire if I drag this out. Run up on the porch bit and all the rest are inside. Skellies run in and I drop a quick gumby and Amp. This is more sketchy... lots of Hydras going off, but the crew is engaged so I just dodge and keep Amp up. Then FR Shrine expires. The stray Hydra bolt hurts, but not bad enough to bail, and directly Ismail is only one left, then none. Well that wasn't nearly bad like I was afraid. Pawn the drops and stash the flail, go back to finish clearing the rest of Trav. I had been thinking you had to smash the Orb before zealots would run away from you, but that was entirely incorrect... so spent the next ~30m finding, then chasing down the cowards after killing the Hierophants and vamps. Tedious, but I'm close to dinging a level and I'm keen to do that before engaging Meph, so we plug along.
Durance 1 comes and goes in the blink of an eye, with about the only excitement being the moment of panic that comes with the scurrying of bony little feet. Durance 2 is about the same, and I stop and reflect before jumping down to lvl3. Outside of like 2 more Ith, there really hasn't been any good drops, though gems are coming, so I'm just assuming I used up my luck on the first half of A3, which was good enough for me to not feel too rough about it. Also dinged level33, so can't complain too much. We take the plunge down to Durance 3. Councils at the door are kind of a pain, but only because they line up in the doorway and the crew can only stand so that two are attacking while the rest just mill about. Annoying, but not dangerous. Reraise the three skellies that died and go on to clear out the two sides quickly and smoothly, surprisingly so, in fact. Ok... time for it...
We skirt the inside of the moat trying to not get so far in we spawn Meph and the vamps at the same time... get all the way to the ramp to the portal and still haven't spawned Meph. Well, crap... inch forward, straight up the middle, still trying to only get Meph without vamps. Meph spawns, and we run back to the portal ramp but the crew doesn't even pay attention and straight bum-rushes him. Then vamps spawn. Great. Skellies and gumby melt quickly under a barrage of meteors and firewalls while they are all totally focused on Meph, while I'm trying to keep everything Decreped while mana-pool keeps emptying faster than greater blue pots can keep it filled. Damnit. Run back while merc is still standing with the intent to reraise the crew and try this again... but all the corpses from Council and vamps in the first half of Durance3 are gone. DubyaTeeEff. Pop back up to Durance2, but there are no corpses there either. So either this didn't go nearly as quickly as it seemed, or there's some mechanic that makes all corpses in Durance poof when Meph spawns... Ok, new plan. We moat-trick and recast gumby by Meph as merc plucks away and necro spams Bone Spear and keeps Decrep up. Reengage. Quickly becomes apparent this is going to be as drawn out as the Duri fight, as merc may as well be launching spitballs, and necros lvl4 Bone Spear does even less, not to mention that gumby gets one-shotted pretty much as soon as casting animation finishes. Also, that lightning hurts... bad, really bad, like, 1/3 of my hp bulb bad. Merc agrees with that sentiment and bites it after taking two lightning bolts then a cold orb. Retreat, back to town, rez merc and change belt to 1 row of health pots, 2 rows of mana pots, and the reliable row of purples. Back to the good side of the moat and the crummy situation that this is, do the thing, burning 3 blue pots for spamage and a purple keeping merc on her feet, then pull back to breathe and restock belt before reengaging. Mistake. As soon as we get back in range Meph shoots a cold orb at necro, and we don't dodge it this time. OHK. Deeds of idiocy remebered.
Active
Deeds
Flayer Jungle started off nicely, with a Gem Shrine.
So that's those Saftey boots we have been hoping for pretty much wrapped up, be a nice way to start off the next session.
After that, decided to go the way less traveled and cleared the Great Marsh as soon as we found that. Was slightly trepidatious for the Gloams, but after encountering the first pack had figured a way to mitigate that nonsense with something that has never occurred to me before; Bone Wall. As soon as I saw the wispy bits on the edge of the screen, or lightning bolts flying past, would drop a BW between the crew and the Gloams. Apparently BW is one of those 'summons' with ridiculously high priority for the AI, and they would routinely ignore the skellies, gumby, and merc to try and tear it down ASAP. On top of that, at the low slvl we are casting it, it was never enough to totally block the way, so the crew would just run around it and beat on the Gloams while they beat on the BW. Best of all, Gloams would beat on it, rarely throwing Lightning after it was down. Pretty sweet the way that worked... definitely have to remember that for A4 & A5. Anyway, during the clearings going on, we found something else of note.
(SS from IDing didn't take, so this is from after session)
Well, that's better than the gemmed BP we were currently wearing, no question. Had a Tir on hand, so we stuck that in and left the second open ftb. When we sold the gemmed BP, checked the Armor tab just to see what he would sell it back for, and he had spawned a Mechanic's(2os) Bone Helm of Brilliance(+9). Yep, we'll take that too, far superior to the 2os(unused) Helm we had been wearing since early A2. Put a Tir in that as well, and Mana issues are slowly fading memory.
Back to the Flayer Jungle, we shortly found the Gibdin and thusly Flayer Dungeon, which contained a second Gem Shrine! Luckily, we had the just enough gems to put together another flawless, and presto.
That'll be the Caster amulet I figured would be further off. While we were in town, passed the Gibdin on to Ormus, and got possibly one of the best rings I've ever got from him.
Dude's on a roll...
Back in the jungle we pressed on and the game played a lovely joke on us in the Marshy Pit... ANOTHER FREAKIN' GEM SHRINE. Well, this time we didn't have the gems to scrape together yet another flawless, but maybe if we press on through LK we can, then come back to milk this obscene lucky roll we are on...
Soon met Stormtree and was all aflutter to get to those tasty poppables. Very nice rune drops, but no luck on getting enough of any one type of gem to get that flawless, but maybe Bazaar will...
Well, it didn't provide the gems, but did continue with a windfall of runes, making me feel much better about socketing those Tirs. So much so, that my inventory space was getting rather tight... well, want to clear the temples anyway, let's see how that goes.
Stairtraps, that's how that goes. If it wasn't for the crew and CE, and the MPK provided by the extra sockets, that would have been very potentially game over... as it was, I still had to empty my belt of blues in Ruined Temple. Got the book and burned several TPs pawning all the drops worth selling. Still short on gems. Disused Fane wasn't as bad, but still not the gems we were hoping for and inventory is totally full at this point, so we bit the bullet and settled for a flawless ruby from the shrine back in Marshy Pit. Back to loot and it was getting tedious to rearrange everything, and late to boot, so decided to blitz to UK WP for S&E. Figured unsummoning half the skellies would be enough to be sure to not kill anything... don't think I'll try that sort of nonsense going forward, things got dicey when we ran out of stamina and were chilled from blizzards, but made it through.
It was only when muleing that I truly appreciated the total scope of how fortunate we were overall this session. Big upgrades to both armor and helm slots, couple of charm upgrades, 3 gem shrines, and a stunning total of 28 runes, with only 2xEl and 1xEld, just from the first half of A3... absolute nuts.
***
Next session cleared out UK without any major difficulties and with much trepidation approached the first temple
Total cakewalk. Well, that just means the other one will be a total pain. Nope, easy as pie, no stairtraps in either and the crew is just slaughtering everything... had to double check, and yeah, it's on/p8. No drops of particular note, but exp is going good.
Sewers next, and I'm always jumpy anywhere that has dolls, so we ease along, taking it as it comes. Found stairs down within 3 screens of entering, and cleared that out, scoring a Ral from one of the chests. Back to town to stash the heart and Ral, and pawn the accumulated junk. Back in sewers we inched along, but never really had any terrible problems, and netted several more runes, 2xTal and another Ral among them, plus gems to cube up 2 more flawless. Sweet, we always like smooth sailing.
Back topside, we head on to Causway and go to enter the first temple with Decrep on the ready, because we just know it's a stairtrap waiting... but it's not... and its tiny, one champ pack (rogues or Flesh Hunters, iirc, is thier name at this point) and one bosspack of bats. Next temple. No stairtrap. Ok... inch along waiting for it. Champ pack of vampires is annoying, but not dangerous, though I have to be careful of meteors, as fire res is still in the teens. Boss pack of serpents, aura enchanted, HF. Slow going, but still nothing dangerous, though did have to fall back and reraise a couple of skellies. And just as I'm relaxing, BAM, mob of beetles around the next corner. Sticky situation that, as Necro was out in front to pull the crew along and got hit a couple of times rushing to get behind the skellies. Chugged two health bottles, but probably could have not downed the second... oh well, pots are cheap, and have only been using one here and there to keep red bulb full. Get past that, and that's pretty much the end of the temples.
Travincal next, and I know I don't want to get anywhere near the Council until I have cleared out the rest of everything so we have room to maneuver away from Hydras, so we start along the outside wall. Just as we are getting to the rear of the map there is a Fire Res Shrine... well damn... Council should be much easier now. We go ahead and clear the lower half of the map, skirt the Council house, and grab that FR Shrine, because I'm just wanting to get to it. Inch up and pull Toroc. Almost immediately gumby bites it and I'm starting to worry about rushing it... but that was totally unfounded as Toroc is down before I can refresh Amp... Inch forward, and end up pulling 3 no-name Councils, who die twice as fast. By now I'm feeling a little ballsy, and worried FR Shrine will expire if I drag this out. Run up on the porch bit and all the rest are inside. Skellies run in and I drop a quick gumby and Amp. This is more sketchy... lots of Hydras going off, but the crew is engaged so I just dodge and keep Amp up. Then FR Shrine expires. The stray Hydra bolt hurts, but not bad enough to bail, and directly Ismail is only one left, then none. Well that wasn't nearly bad like I was afraid. Pawn the drops and stash the flail, go back to finish clearing the rest of Trav. I had been thinking you had to smash the Orb before zealots would run away from you, but that was entirely incorrect... so spent the next ~30m finding, then chasing down the cowards after killing the Hierophants and vamps. Tedious, but I'm close to dinging a level and I'm keen to do that before engaging Meph, so we plug along.
Durance 1 comes and goes in the blink of an eye, with about the only excitement being the moment of panic that comes with the scurrying of bony little feet. Durance 2 is about the same, and I stop and reflect before jumping down to lvl3. Outside of like 2 more Ith, there really hasn't been any good drops, though gems are coming, so I'm just assuming I used up my luck on the first half of A3, which was good enough for me to not feel too rough about it. Also dinged level33, so can't complain too much. We take the plunge down to Durance 3. Councils at the door are kind of a pain, but only because they line up in the doorway and the crew can only stand so that two are attacking while the rest just mill about. Annoying, but not dangerous. Reraise the three skellies that died and go on to clear out the two sides quickly and smoothly, surprisingly so, in fact. Ok... time for it...
We skirt the inside of the moat trying to not get so far in we spawn Meph and the vamps at the same time... get all the way to the ramp to the portal and still haven't spawned Meph. Well, crap... inch forward, straight up the middle, still trying to only get Meph without vamps. Meph spawns, and we run back to the portal ramp but the crew doesn't even pay attention and straight bum-rushes him. Then vamps spawn. Great. Skellies and gumby melt quickly under a barrage of meteors and firewalls while they are all totally focused on Meph, while I'm trying to keep everything Decreped while mana-pool keeps emptying faster than greater blue pots can keep it filled. Damnit. Run back while merc is still standing with the intent to reraise the crew and try this again... but all the corpses from Council and vamps in the first half of Durance3 are gone. DubyaTeeEff. Pop back up to Durance2, but there are no corpses there either. So either this didn't go nearly as quickly as it seemed, or there's some mechanic that makes all corpses in Durance poof when Meph spawns... Ok, new plan. We moat-trick and recast gumby by Meph as merc plucks away and necro spams Bone Spear and keeps Decrep up. Reengage. Quickly becomes apparent this is going to be as drawn out as the Duri fight, as merc may as well be launching spitballs, and necros lvl4 Bone Spear does even less, not to mention that gumby gets one-shotted pretty much as soon as casting animation finishes. Also, that lightning hurts... bad, really bad, like, 1/3 of my hp bulb bad. Merc agrees with that sentiment and bites it after taking two lightning bolts then a cold orb. Retreat, back to town, rez merc and change belt to 1 row of health pots, 2 rows of mana pots, and the reliable row of purples. Back to the good side of the moat and the crummy situation that this is, do the thing, burning 3 blue pots for spamage and a purple keeping merc on her feet, then pull back to breathe and restock belt before reengaging. Mistake. As soon as we get back in range Meph shoots a cold orb at necro, and we don't dodge it this time. OHK. Deeds of idiocy remebered.
Active
Rich (BB code):
Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
-------- --------- ----- --- --------
Norcim Valryka Zon 60 A3 NM
Skiff ColdFever Sorc 56 A2 NM
PhineasB Orange Zon 49 A1 NM
OldSoldier GaranDarkslayer Pal 36 A5 N
Vildecor Rowena Sin 35 A4 N
Pb_pal Elding Pal 34 A5 N
Grisu Lugh Barb 32 A4 N
Babyhell ItsATrap Sin 21 A2 NDeeds
Rich (BB code):
Forumite Character Class Lvl Progress
-------- --------- ----- --- --------
zemaj OUGNecro Nec 33 A3 N
Last edited:
Google