If there is one thing I´ve learned about Hell Ancients, is that there is no shame in rerolling them. I did that today. Many times.
The key to success lies in keeping the merc alive as long as possible. After he´s dead, my only real weapon is level 6 Iron Maiden (without the ability to lessen the physcial resistance). Durga died a number of times. After every resurrection, I would kill some critters near the Ancients´Way and Arreat Plateu waypoints. I even picked up expensive stuff to fund merc reserrections. The Plateau was good for this, with lots of puny Carvers and skellie mages.
Going back to an earlier area is going against my prinicples, but I felt the need for it here. I
needed the merc to switch on Thorns, and I needed the time my mages could buy me the first chaotic seconds of each attempt against the Ancients. I started to get better at recognizing "hopeless" Ancients situations, even before the merc died. Sometimes even before I had fed him a full rejuve. Still used up my final three regular gems to cube three more full rejuves.
Very scary moments a couple of times. Got whirled at once and got way below 50% life in a hurry. Another time I had Korlic smacking me. With everything going on, he had sneaked up on Freddie without me noticing him. I had NO idea about his abilities! He was Holy Shock something (and
not FE).
Finally a promising start. Two Stone Skin Ancients. Annoying, but not too dangerous right from the start. I managed to keep Madawc busy with some Bone Wall/Prison blocks. Merc fought the LE + Mana Burn Korlic (assisted by constant Life Tap) and could stand up to him pretty well. Talic ate golems and mages for breakfast. I kept him Amped. Talic was Extra Strong Stone Skin. He must have had a powerful weapon, because even though he had Stone Skin, he still died rather quickly. Madawc came running about the same time. Hmm, what if I feed Korlic a golem? Yup, stable fighting situation there. What to do against Madawc? His Stone Skin made him tough for Durga to leech from. Even Life Tap couldn´t help Durga to break even against him. His tendency to move around didn´t help either. I changed my plan. I started to run loops around Korlic and the golem. I stayed close enough for the golem to stay put. Korlic seemed content with just hacking away at the golem. My running allowed Durga to be left in peace, because Madawc was busy chasing Freddie. With well over 1000% damage returned to him for a couple a minutes, Korlic died.
Madawc was Magic Resistant + Stone Skin. Hard to damage, but pretty much a wimp.
There, pushed up against a pillar, merc behind golem. Perfect! It took many minutes and two golem recastings, but he fell. YES!!!
The fun was far from over. I felt cocky and continued on /players 3, mostly because I was addicted to the drop rate and because I wanted to know if I would gain another level.
A hectic (but relatively problem free) WSK level 1, with numerous Zealot/Heirophant packs, with Amp-casting Hell Witches, and Defilers.
Level 2 was populated by critters that suited us perfectly. All meleers with no unpredictable behaviour: Serpent Maguses, Greater Hell Spawn and Cadavers. Pwnage...
Level 3 was a lot worse. Death Lords, PI Hell Temptresses and more Defilers. Luckily, the Defilers were the first monsters I met on the floor, including a double boss pack of them. They were almost comic relief!
The second Death Lord boss pack killed my merc three times, and all my mages. The boss and the minion that chased me and the golem hadn´t been poisoned either, so their life regeneration was extreme. I started to curse those damn bullheads (me, the player! Not Freddie, he curses everything anyway...) Then it hit me; I have the socket reward left! Oh crap, the Emerald got used when I cubed a rejuve. But wait, I still have the Tal from the reward in this act!
Good, now we´re talking!
(BTW, I shudder at thinking of taking this dude on in melee. Might + Cursed + CE. It
hurts, ask the poor golem...)
Throne level was all quiet at first. Too quiet...
The it showed its true face. Two vampires was the simple warm-up. Then add lots of Burning Souls and some dangerous and extremely well-camouflaged bone fetish. Two Soul bosses, one Extra Strong something, one Conviction + LE + FE! I was really scared of this last boss. Luckily, I had some vampire corpses around. I lured the boss over to the corpses by casting golems, then I ducked around a corner and just held down the CE button. Down you go!
Baal´s bosses posed no real threat but Baal himself had one last ambush prepared: Festering Appendages. LOTS of appendages! Freddie had to drink 3 full rejuves before he was free. Then I got into a good rhythm, casting a Clay Golem to the side of Baal, Amping him, backing off a few steps so the merc follows, and bring up some Bone Walls on Baal´s bridge to stop the merc from getting up to Baal. That way, I could keep him alive. Even when Baal surprised us with a quick golem kill followed by a sudden Flamethrower/Hoarfrost in our direction we were safe, because he was only attacking the Bone walls. For a Prime Evil, he isn´t particularly clever...
Just to be safe, I got a bit more aggessive with my golem recastings. That was good. Baal had only interest in the golems. He never left his bridge or summoned his clone. He dropped
this. Ah, another one of those 'homage to D1' unique item names. I knew there is a Windforce in D2 (I still don´t know its abilities, though) since its get talked about a lot, but I didn´t know there is also an Eaglehorn. I´ve found neither in D1, but I always thought Eaglehorn seemed to be the cooler bow, looking at the abilities they had in D1.
Cows next. Getting the first corpse wasn´t always easy. The golem would be slughtered SO quickly if too many cows were hitting it. And if it fell too quickly, the merc often did the same. I had a very tight starting sequence, involving some wild Dim Vision and Terror castings, Bone Wall spamming and
enormous Corpse Explosion fests. I quickly learned the best method:
Keep ~5 mages around. Their job is to concentrate the cows and soften them up with Thorns damage, while I let a small pack (1-4 cows) move towards the merc. All the mages will soon die in the large cow pack, but since I have the cows Dimmed, they stay put. Merc gets golem assistance (so he can survive better) and brings down a cow or two. By now, the mages have died. I switch to Amp on the cows, they see merc and golem and move over to them. Here are 1-2 corpses, some cows are softened up and I play on /p3. Guess what happens next?...
Then resurrect 5 mages. Move to the next large cow pack. Rinse and repeat.
I found a merc armor improvement in the cow level. Rare Boneweave with 622 Defense, +14 STR and some posion resistance.
After I was done, I went to Gheed to gamble some more War Scythes. I had an idea that I wanted to celebrate with a Cruel rare Grim Scythe. I managed to do that, on the last possible gamble (I had sold everything I had except what we were wearing, the Ort, the Amn and the PSapphire):
Dire Scratch
Grim Scythe
Two-Hand Damage: 104 to 238
Durability: 30 of 55
Required Dexterity: 140
Required Strength: 140
Required Level: 48
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 82
+2 to Strength
+241% Enhanced Damage
+2 to Minimum Damage
Required Level +5
+4 to Mana After Each Kill
Not quite as good as the Colossus Voulge, but pretty cool.
So Freddie struggled all the way from late NM and throughout Hell to get his merc a good weapon, and never quite succeeded. If we hadn´t been forced to use rares, I can say that with the finds I made, my merc would be using either Arioc´s Needle (unique Hyperion Spear) or an ethereal 'Strength' Mancatcher.
Guardian Freddie, Lord of Mages
Level: 87 (87.9 to be more exact)
Complete Game Clear
Final score: 221 pts
(btw, I think the scoring system is flawed. Insane Wayne has been much more brave and hard-working than me and played on /p5 pretty much the entire Hell while I have been going on /p3, and now he´s punished for it. That doesn´t seem fair to me. If he defeats the Cow King, I will regard our efforts as equal.)
Now I have to decide whether or not to kill him again, or just go on through act 5.
