Re: The 12 Labors Tournament
R.I.P. ThisIsMalaga.
Very well played to that point. I have been noticing that lightning is painful even with high resists, too -- I'll watch out for the gloams.
[highlight]Update:[/highlight]
Holy crap. I met my first major challenge: the Ancient Kaa was almost impossible. I had forgotten that the "no metallic objects" restriction applied to weapons, so I had not bothered to look for anything helpful. I therefore stashed Wirt's Leg and a few other replacement pieces of gear and went searching (hopping, of course) for the Ancient Kaa. I found him in the fifth tomb I tried. Since I was on /p1 for the searching, I saved, exited, and came back ready to fight. I worked my way to him at /p8, luring out anything he could resurrect and horking the corpses. Finally, it was just the three of us. I returned to town and donned my non-metallic gear. Then ensued a miserable string of futile attempts on his life.
In the first place, the merc died right away. The merc's lightning resistance was around 65, but he still went down extremely quickly. I had hoped to keep Kaa pinned against a wall with Leap while the merc took him down, but every Leap released bolts from lightning enchanted monsters (of which the Kaa is one), so that was a recipe for disaster. I decided that even if I started the challenge afresh, there was no way I was going to be able to keep the mercenary alive, so it was up to me.
The problem was that I went down just as fast. Kaa is fast and hits hard, and my maximized lightning resists did not do much. Toe-to-toe wasn't going to work (and my chance to hit was low, anyways), so I thought, "perfect, I'll do hit-and-run tactics with Leap Attack, which will boost my AR and keep me away from his claws, poison, and lightning." It was then I discovered what would be the central obstacle: life regeneration. Even with poison damage, I could not dish out enough damage to overcome his regeneration. I took many trips to town (knowing that I was forfeiting the battle by doing so, of course) to refill my potions and try different strategies. I shopped a weapon with PMH (metallic, but at this point I was just experimenting, anyway), but even after scoring two or three solid hits with it he kept regenerating. I shopped a throwing weapon with high poison damage, but my chance to hit was not high enough to keep the poison applied, and he regenerated completely between applications. I was at the end of my rope. I returned to town, exited the game, and went digging through my stash.
I decided the mercenary was going to have to be a key part of the puzzle. If I focused on resists and blocking, perhaps I could guzzle reds while the merc did the damage. If I positioned the merc well, he could avoid the charged bolts. That ethereal Septum-turned-Yari has some solid poison damage, so I gave it to my merc to stop the regeneration. With Battle Cry, the merc would be hitting often enough to keep the poison applied. I cleared the tomb again, switched to non-metallic gear, loaded up my inventory with red pots, and went after the Kaa. I ran up to his face, hit my warcry, and poised my finger over the potion button... and he did not even bat an eye at me. Instead, he went straight for the mercenary. I tried a few more times, using various combinations of gear. No matter what I did, the Kaa targeted my merc and killed him faster than I could pot him.
At this point, I was at the end of my rope. I plugged my current rune supply into a RW finder and browsed the possibilities. "Malice" caught my eye: about the only thing I had not tried to overcome his regeneration was open wounds. I also vaguely recalled a conversation I had read a long time ago about Diablo targeting someone's merc in CS runs, and the solution was to add more damage to the player's weapon. My Wirt's Leg wasn't doing much damage, but it's Tal+Tal poison damage made for a higher total than many early weapons. I went digging through my stash for the lowest damage 3os spear/polearm I could find (yes, I keep everything), loaded the game, and made myself "Malice" in it. I ended up with 68 damage on the polearm and 150 (poison) damage on Wirt's Leg. Crossing my fingers, I cleared the tomb again, switched to the Kaa gear, and went after him. Sure enough, he targeted my character! I knew I had him. Since open wounds has an eight second duration, my technique was to run up, cast battle cry, and tank until my merc followed me in and scored a hit. I would then run like mad, drawing my merc out of danger, counting in my head. When the eight second were almost up, I would repeat the process. Finally, he bit the dust.
Whew! The whole process took about four hours and burned close to 400,000 gold.
I have to hand it to you, Quickdeath. I didn't even give the Ancient Kaa labor a second thought when I read the rules, but you cooked up a doozy with that one.
Onward!
R.I.P. ThisIsMalaga.
Very well played to that point. I have been noticing that lightning is painful even with high resists, too -- I'll watch out for the gloams.
[highlight]Update:[/highlight]
Holy crap. I met my first major challenge: the Ancient Kaa was almost impossible. I had forgotten that the "no metallic objects" restriction applied to weapons, so I had not bothered to look for anything helpful. I therefore stashed Wirt's Leg and a few other replacement pieces of gear and went searching (hopping, of course) for the Ancient Kaa. I found him in the fifth tomb I tried. Since I was on /p1 for the searching, I saved, exited, and came back ready to fight. I worked my way to him at /p8, luring out anything he could resurrect and horking the corpses. Finally, it was just the three of us. I returned to town and donned my non-metallic gear. Then ensued a miserable string of futile attempts on his life.
In the first place, the merc died right away. The merc's lightning resistance was around 65, but he still went down extremely quickly. I had hoped to keep Kaa pinned against a wall with Leap while the merc took him down, but every Leap released bolts from lightning enchanted monsters (of which the Kaa is one), so that was a recipe for disaster. I decided that even if I started the challenge afresh, there was no way I was going to be able to keep the mercenary alive, so it was up to me.
The problem was that I went down just as fast. Kaa is fast and hits hard, and my maximized lightning resists did not do much. Toe-to-toe wasn't going to work (and my chance to hit was low, anyways), so I thought, "perfect, I'll do hit-and-run tactics with Leap Attack, which will boost my AR and keep me away from his claws, poison, and lightning." It was then I discovered what would be the central obstacle: life regeneration. Even with poison damage, I could not dish out enough damage to overcome his regeneration. I took many trips to town (knowing that I was forfeiting the battle by doing so, of course) to refill my potions and try different strategies. I shopped a weapon with PMH (metallic, but at this point I was just experimenting, anyway), but even after scoring two or three solid hits with it he kept regenerating. I shopped a throwing weapon with high poison damage, but my chance to hit was not high enough to keep the poison applied, and he regenerated completely between applications. I was at the end of my rope. I returned to town, exited the game, and went digging through my stash.
I decided the mercenary was going to have to be a key part of the puzzle. If I focused on resists and blocking, perhaps I could guzzle reds while the merc did the damage. If I positioned the merc well, he could avoid the charged bolts. That ethereal Septum-turned-Yari has some solid poison damage, so I gave it to my merc to stop the regeneration. With Battle Cry, the merc would be hitting often enough to keep the poison applied. I cleared the tomb again, switched to non-metallic gear, loaded up my inventory with red pots, and went after the Kaa. I ran up to his face, hit my warcry, and poised my finger over the potion button... and he did not even bat an eye at me. Instead, he went straight for the mercenary. I tried a few more times, using various combinations of gear. No matter what I did, the Kaa targeted my merc and killed him faster than I could pot him.
At this point, I was at the end of my rope. I plugged my current rune supply into a RW finder and browsed the possibilities. "Malice" caught my eye: about the only thing I had not tried to overcome his regeneration was open wounds. I also vaguely recalled a conversation I had read a long time ago about Diablo targeting someone's merc in CS runs, and the solution was to add more damage to the player's weapon. My Wirt's Leg wasn't doing much damage, but it's Tal+Tal poison damage made for a higher total than many early weapons. I went digging through my stash for the lowest damage 3os spear/polearm I could find (yes, I keep everything), loaded the game, and made myself "Malice" in it. I ended up with 68 damage on the polearm and 150 (poison) damage on Wirt's Leg. Crossing my fingers, I cleared the tomb again, switched to the Kaa gear, and went after him. Sure enough, he targeted my character! I knew I had him. Since open wounds has an eight second duration, my technique was to run up, cast battle cry, and tank until my merc followed me in and scored a hit. I would then run like mad, drawing my merc out of danger, counting in my head. When the eight second were almost up, I would repeat the process. Finally, he bit the dust.
Whew! The whole process took about four hours and burned close to 400,000 gold.
I have to hand it to you, Quickdeath. I didn't even give the Ancient Kaa labor a second thought when I read the rules, but you cooked up a doozy with that one.
Onward!
And the socket quest is not available until Act5. This makes me think that we are intended to go back to the CS to perform the Labor. The OP does not say otherwise, but it does have some language that at least hints otherwise ("if you have not found the runes by this point," as well as the allowance for single-pass play). I would just like a bit of clarification before I get there.
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