Re: Project Profit – An experiment by Hp_Sauce
I'm not sure if anyone actually reads these updates, but I like posting them, so you're stuck with them.
Earlier this week, IFindStuff defeated
Hell Mephisto and is now in Act 4 Hell (though hasn't ventured from town yet).
Edit: The image is of Mephisto's crappy drop, it doesn't seem to be working though.
Some parts of Act 3 were extremely difficult compared to what I've dealt with so far.
Temples
The 6 temples (potentially disastrous) were actually fairly uneventful. The only stair trap consisted of 2 normal snakes and my army engaged them quickly, so I didn't have to find out of I could tank a charge or not.
This is where I started to notice a qwerk with Meteor though. I've always assumed that the initial 'hit' damage only applied to the radius of the graphic, but I found myself taking damage even when I was not standing where the fire graphics appeared. It wasn't a major problem, as the damage was never enough to endanger IFindStuff greatly. It was more of a nuisance simply because I often had to step back so far that I'd end up drawing some of my army away from the real battle.
Lower, Upper, and the Bazaar
I encountered a few unique packs of those tree monsters that were able to turn skeletons to dust, but with a few timely Juvs my merc was always able to produce a body to CE before I was the only one left standing.
The Hierophant's were certainly a bother. Their Blizzards weren't enough to decimate my army, but if I was too slow in removing IFindStuff from the area it was generally a mistake worth about 50% of his health.
The worst actually came at one point after the Hierophant in question was dead, but his blizzard was still active. I was impatient, decided the spell was nearly gone and charged up though the narrow path. I found out quickly that the spell had not run out by the time I arrived and was doubled tapped, juved, and was actually hit again after that. If not for the quick Juv, this would have surely been a Deeds post. I credit his survival to luck mostly, but also partially to experience (I always have at least one finger on a Juv key).
Travincal
Holy crap, what a
blood mess... This place was
hard,
hard,
hard!
I wonder if the folks who designed the layout of this area actually intended it to be
so good at dividing up ones army, or separating them from their opponent but still allowing them to take damage, or of the designers just got lucky. Every time I turned around there was a building, wall, or bottleneck buggering everything up!
The Hierophant were fierce! They were a) Unique and could not be DVed, b) Champions, or c) standing too far back to be DVed (unless I charged through their blizzard spells... which I had already learned not to do). There was never just one, or two... always three, or four. I would struggle forward and DV one only to find two more blasting me from an undisclosed area. Many retreats were made, many skeletons were lost and much cursing took place.
I had finally cleared out the area, found the WP, made my usual lap around the outside ledge to clear out any stragglers that might come back to bite me. I had killed those bloody poison snakes that come from the water, engaged the council, and after a long drawn out battle killed most of them. I believe there were two council members left, and a Hierophant inside the councils temple when I made a tragic error... MSN...
I often chat on MSN while playing SP because it has that handy pause feature. I had retreated to regroup, but had a message from a friend. I hit escape to pause the game, messaged my friend, and returned to the D2 screen. I pressed escape again to return the game to 'live', but actually pressed F1 rather then escape... Now I'm not sure if F1 counted as an acknowledging keystroke, or if my right hand simply didn't wait for my left hand to finish it's job and clicked (intending to move my character) but actually acknowledging the S&E feature... Either way, I ended up back at the main menu.
Soooo... I got to clear the Travincal again! And it was just as hard the second time around. Boy, I was not impressed with myself at all.
Other
1) I'm seriously considering upgrading my Goldwrap, as the extra row of Juves may mean the difference between success and deeds.
2) I'm currently running with 3x4 inventory slots open (the rest or mostly MF charms), but I'm considering going down to 2x4 in exchange for some LR charms vs the upcoming Gloams. The downside will of course be, more trips to town (as I'm IDing all Rares that drop). Charms are not against the rules, and I think with the four extra spots, I could bring IFindStuff's LR up to about zero.
3) I have no idea how I'm going to survive the upcoming onslaught of Gloams. It will be white knuckle all the way.
4) Long ago I put a point into Life Tap. I'm certain that (if I survive long enough) I will be thankful for this as my merc has no life leech.
Wish me luck.
-hps