epaminondas
New member
Adriana has made some progress. She is now at the Jail Level 1 WP, and seeing that level 51 was obtained, she took a break to gamble massive amounts of gold (7 million - all the gold gathered from beginning of Act 4 until now). She began by aiming for circlets/coronets (scored a coronet of Teleportation which was very nice; might repair it later with the Personalization quest, if the cost will be too high), cestuses (which from my calculations should 1/10 yield an upgrade to exceptional - after about 20 of them I gave up, none were upgraded), balanced knifes (hoping for one with good IAS and, maybe, some extras), and, of course, merc weapons (polearm class and pikes). All these targets were gambled as, at the beginning with all that gold available, I was feeling very rich, but as the gold was flying, I was starting to feel poorer so I gradually stopped gambling other stuff and stuck to merc weapons. The rares were pretty rare and only 2 ferocious were seen (bardiches both). Even those were quite low (116 the most).
You are probably wondering how would Adriana begin gambling merc weapons. Has the Amn dropped if a break in play was instated in order to take on such an endeavor? Well no, but a few middle runes got Adriana in the position to cube one. By the way, the /p1 countess dropped an Ith, an El, and a Tir.
From the last update fights have been relatively safe. The devilkins again made a tedious fight, but, again, we managed. The highlight of Adriana's tactics was in barracks/jail where merc was again ignored. Adriana began luring monsters, running away and locking herself behind a door or in a cage. Not all monsters can open doors, so merc was left alone with them, slaughtering away undisturbed. The most funny situation was when the merc was locked inside a room with a double boss pack of wraiths. Adriana was standing not far from the door and eventually one wraith opened the door, but should she have moved a little further the entire fight would have been over with no help from her. One observation though: ranged attackers don't ignore merc.
Drops have been ok. A few socketed which could be useful, short war bow, gauntlets, scale mail (a candidate for the merc armor when MF run is over).
Still undecided what should I upgrade: the gambled rare bardiche that had 116% ED, +4 min, +9 max dmg, 1-148 lightning dmg, or an old pike I found earlier with 78%ED, 149 AR, +1 min, +7 max and ctc Ice Bolt. Dmg per frame seems higher for the lance, but the bardiche also deals good elemental. As this is only temporary until a Sol drops, it is unlikely that the lack of elemental would prove decisive. We have the poisonous kris to deal with highly physical resistant bosses, so I think I'll go with the lance.
You are probably wondering how would Adriana begin gambling merc weapons. Has the Amn dropped if a break in play was instated in order to take on such an endeavor? Well no, but a few middle runes got Adriana in the position to cube one. By the way, the /p1 countess dropped an Ith, an El, and a Tir.
From the last update fights have been relatively safe. The devilkins again made a tedious fight, but, again, we managed. The highlight of Adriana's tactics was in barracks/jail where merc was again ignored. Adriana began luring monsters, running away and locking herself behind a door or in a cage. Not all monsters can open doors, so merc was left alone with them, slaughtering away undisturbed. The most funny situation was when the merc was locked inside a room with a double boss pack of wraiths. Adriana was standing not far from the door and eventually one wraith opened the door, but should she have moved a little further the entire fight would have been over with no help from her. One observation though: ranged attackers don't ignore merc.
Drops have been ok. A few socketed which could be useful, short war bow, gauntlets, scale mail (a candidate for the merc armor when MF run is over).
Still undecided what should I upgrade: the gambled rare bardiche that had 116% ED, +4 min, +9 max dmg, 1-148 lightning dmg, or an old pike I found earlier with 78%ED, 149 AR, +1 min, +7 max and ctc Ice Bolt. Dmg per frame seems higher for the lance, but the bardiche also deals good elemental. As this is only temporary until a Sol drops, it is unlikely that the lack of elemental would prove decisive. We have the poisonous kris to deal with highly physical resistant bosses, so I think I'll go with the lance.
. Anyway, for now, all my Rals and most of Tals are gone (cubing the Amn). As I was checking the recipe to find the required type of gem, I realized I also needed an Ort 
.
but then a white Thresher dropped soon after! It was a one in six chance but it was as close as I'd gotten in an Act and a half of Hell. I cubed it at the next waypoint and got five sockets 
. I thought about making Honor but it really didn't seem much better and I was running low on Amn and Sol Runes. So on we pressed. Then it happened! We found a white Colossus Voulge that we could take to Larzuk! One problem though, I had found it while dreaming. Literally. That's how bad the situation had gotten . . . I was actually dreaming about finding white Colossus Voulges. And not once or one night . . . for three nights straight . . .
, all my Christmases came at once:
). I then returned to Lut Gholein, and then the Rogue Encampment, hired and equipped Heather (with a freshly made at the last waypoint Harmony Blade Bow), and then returned to face Duriel. And then, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either. I began by tele-strafing in circles around the chamber but quickly stopped after frequently falling into no-tele-zones. I then settled on tele-strafing straight left to right and right to left across the chamber and that worked just fine. In about ten minutes? . . . and sixteen or so mana potions later, the Demon was dead. No fatalities yet again! 
