Adriana and merc also reached destroyerhood.
From the last update things have gone smoothly, but, increasingly, Adriana takes active part in battles. Frozen Tundra provided merc with a rare pike which also has a significant boost to Attack Rating. Having slightly larger average dmg per frame, it has been kept (the previous weapon had been a high savage halberd; go ahead, laugh at merc
). The Ancient Way hid another Angelic Ring, as I was saying before, and that meant a huge deal to our MF. It subsequently reached jiansonz's grade values: 317% for merc kills, 251% for chests.
At Frozen Tundra WP, I broke the play session to mule in the fighting gear (for ancients and Baal), but when equipping for ancients I realized I forgot the Cleglaw gloves! Darn! Again Save&Exit, but the Ancient Way WP was way off the exit to the Summit. Adriana put on running boots and managed to lose all monsters on way, but in doing so she also lost merc. That is when the merc bug hit. I think it hits when merc wants to follow but can't because of monsters blocking its way. At a certain range monsters lose interest in fighting so, with merc present, they go to a "ignore merc" state.
Anyway, I was ready to S&E again, but then I realized I could use that very much in our advantage. It' much more easy to wake up one monster at a time when only the character you directly control has effect on it. As Adriana still needed a tank for dangerous lord packs, she kept confusion/attract wands on switch and that worked out perfectly including for Baal's minions. That got her into a urban guerilla warfare tactic impression, moving close to walls and using terrain for cover. The most obvious advantage to this choice was when confronting the Hollow One pack. The resurectors kept raising the one skeleton they had in range (which Adriana promptly killed) while merc was hacking at them. Very easy fight.
Lister and pals were approached one at a time (ok, I got bored and extracted two of them once as merc was quite fast in dropping them). The Jade Tan Do saw ample use to stop the regeneration.
Baal himself was only a matter of time and not a very much time, really. As merc was ignored, Adriana only kept an eye on her own life bulb. Some healings were used and 2 Full Rejuvs when consecutive hits connected. The drop was unimpressive.
Large shield (already found), some rares, and two blues.
Nightmare will be an entirely different story. Attempts to cube a partizan have failed and Adriana has not found any of the high runes she needed for the merc weapon. If she really tried, she could cube a Thul, but no more. I hope cows will be generous or else Adriana will have to give up MF and equip fighting gear from Act I Nightmare onwards.
Everything up until now has been on /P8 so Adriana now stands just a hair shy of level 49 (the previous update mistakenly presented her as 44, but she was really 45 then).
We seem to have a lot of skill-less destroyers
. Here's hoping skill-less Guardians are not impossible.
Code:
Alive characters:
Forum Name Class Char Name LVL ACT WP Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SunsetVista Necro Yredelemnul 68 A5(N) Crystalline Psg 1.13
HanShotFirst ***Sorc Two 64 A5(N) Harrogath
japanzaman Barb Babs 55 A2(N) Palace Cellar 1.13
jiansonz Assassin Helena 53 A2(N) Lut Gholein 1.13
felixbavaria *Paladin Incompetentus 51 A1(N) Inner Cloister 1.13d
Dazliare *Barb Vladimir 48 A1(N) Rogue Enc
epaminondas *Assassin Adriana 48 A1(N) Rogue Enc 1.11
Sput Sorc Skilllass 30 A3 Flayer Jungle
Southpaw8668 Necro Goulash 14 A1 Black Marsh 1.13
imakeigloospat Druid Glenn 1 A1 Rogue Enc 1.13d
xXxGrimmxXx Amazon WaffleStrike 1 A1 Rogue Enc 1.13d
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dead ones:
Forum Name Class Char Name LVL ACT Place of Deeds Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southpaw8668 *Paladin Lucious >19 A2 Duriel 1.13
xXxGrimmxXx **Druid Roland >=17 A1 Monastery 1.13d
xXxGrimmxXx **Assassin Noctyria 9 A1 Cave Lvl 1 1.13d
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
* = this class has been randomly chosen
** = this class has been somewhat randomly chosen
*** = this character needed a random decision that it would not be random :)
My goal going into this is not to guardian, but to just make it to hell. Anything else would just be gravy. But at this point, I could see it taking absolutely forever just to get there.
. The young then tended to be in the way of future Glacial Spike blasts . . . and then the screen would get full . . . and then the end result was pretty much needing to wait them out (thank goodness they don't keep spawning indefinitely). Beyond the River of Flame, the only problem in the Chaos Sanctuary was a group of champion Oblivion Knights that really liked to spam Decrepify (more or less completely stopping Hazade cold). Still, it really wasn't a big deal though . . . I simply broke them up and tele-stomped them. Players 3 Diablo also got tele-stomped (so Hazade was only threatened by Diablo's Firestorm) and that made confronting him safe and easy.
).