The Adventures of Nekkidromancer [by BongoFury]

[Vildecor]

Originally posted by BongoFury on Feb 22, 2006:

The Adventures of Nekkidromancer

I've been quite busy lately, and combined with Internet connection problems
I haven't been on the Realms except to refresh characters in the last 6-8
weeks. Played some Broodwars and PS2. As far as D2 though it has only been
SP. I had a totally pure character (once through the game, no twink, no
cheeze) that was in A2 Hell when 1.11 hit, but given the FE changes I
figured it wasn't 'pure' to continue her (Trapper/BF hybrid). So I had to
come up with a new challenge, and settled on a totally Nekkid character. The
only items he is allowed to use are scrolls/tomes and potions (drinking and
throwing). Along with my usual challenge rules; HC, untwinked (though I did
allow an ATMA stash), quitting the game only from town.

I figured a Skellimancer would be the best chance to make Guardian. Though I
have my doubts whether he'll have enough power to get past the Hell
Ancients. Given he'll have no items (hence no plus skills) the build will be
a little different from the normal Skellimancer builds. My plan:
Skellies - 20
Mastery - 20
Mage - 1
Revive - 5+
Clay - 1
Blood - 1
Iron - 1
Mastery - 1
Summon Resist - 6 (50%)
Teeth - 1
CE - 15
Bone Armor - 1
Amp - 1
IM - 1
Weaken - 1
Terror - 1
Decrep - 1
Dim Vision - 15
This takes me to L82, roughly the finish level. As I played, I never got
around to putting a point into Bone Armor, and after a while it seemed
pointless, so I never did it. Additionally, since I don't have items, the
plan is to eventually get Energy up to 100ish to help fuel CE.

I played through Normal at P5, and it was really not much of a problem.
Except for one spot. Yup, the typical Skellimancer speed bump, Diablo. I
made it to him at L30, but a couple mistakes made it impossible to take him
down. First of all, I forgot to switch back to P1 before he spawned, so he
was 'super sized'. And also, I played through all of A4 in one sitting, so I
had no beefy Revives to go get. I spawned him with a full army and raced to
the Pentagram. He fried most of my Skellies and the Merc in the first few
seconds, and the rest didn't last much longer. No problem I thought, I'll
just use the IM/Golem sleaze. Went back to town and filled up on potions and
raised a new army (though I knew their job was only to distract Diablo long
enough for me to get into position). Back down for the big confrontation.
Ran in, found a nice open spot and layed on the IM. Everything died really
quickly and it was all I could do to keep the Golems in Big Red's face.
Unfortunately I was a little too intent, and failed to move around enough.
Normally, with some FR/W boots this is no problem. But Nekkid I got a little
sloppy, and yep, he Bone Prisoned me. Holy ****, it was the longest 24
seconds I've experience in a long time. In my current state, I had no hope
of breaking out. And the big boy was right by me giving me the LBOD. Luckily
all my ability points had gone into Vitality, so I was a beefy little pasty
faced dude. So I could chug grape juice to stay alive, but without a belt,
those go really quickly. So I frantically cast golems to try to distract
Diablo. And I drank potions directly from my inventory, and refilled my
belt. My big, fat, old fingers haven't moved that fast in years. I don't
know exactly how, but amazingly I survived till my prison collapsed. And I
quickly ran back to town to get my heart rate down to triple digits. I
raised another army, and gave it another try. But it was obvious that I
wasn't even scratching the Lord of Terror. So I was forced to abandon the
fight and try him again some other day.

I leveled up to 34 this time, so I could get a few more points in Revive and
Summon Resist. And this time I remembered to switch back to P1. The second
time around it was anticlimactic. I didn't lose one Skelly and the fight was
over in a minute. The rest of Normal was a breeze and I finished up at L42.

I pumped him to 44 before venturing into NM. Which was a whole new ball
game. With resists of -30 all, and no defense, any stray spell or missile
was very hurty. So I backed off to P3 and proceeded with caution. No NDE's
till A3. I got caught in a Flayer Shaman's Inferno once and that took me
down to a sliver. And a few times I was too close to a CE monster and the
Frost Nova death explosion was extremely painful. The crossfire of Knight
spells in the RoF was also a very dangerous place, but I survived without
any undue trouble. The rematch with Diablo was a breeze. A sticky spot was
the Ancients. I took them down, but by the end of the fight I was down to my
Merc, Golem and two Skellies. The Durance was a slow, dangerous journey. But
eventually I made it to the Minions and eventually Baal. CE made the waves
of Minions go a lot quicker and Baal was a slow fight, but never in danger
or doubt. I made Conqueror at L72.

Big problems to this point were the Golem. With only a single point, he was
showing serious problems in late Normal. By late NM he was tissue paper, at
times I could barely cast him fast enough. He mainly serves as a distraction
at this point. Throwing potions are a total waste in this game, useless
beyond A3 Normal. Gear for my Merc is also a problem. Currently he is
wearing: Skin of the Flayed One, Circlet w/ FR & CR, a little Life and Repl
Life, and an Eth. Lance of the Lamprey (40-171).

Started off into Hell at P1. It's even more dangerous. Damned near died to
another CE death explosion, now I'm even more aware of boss mods than
normal. And if they're CE, I stay WAY back. Also, the Skellies are showing
signs of running out of gas. More than once in A1 I got into too thick of a
situation and had to run away and gather a new army, then take on smaller
groups. I'm really wondering if I'll have the power to make it to Guardian,
especially with such a weak merc. I made it to Andy. Cleared out the outer
room and drew her out. It didn't go too well, even with a belly full of
antidotes my merc couldn't last very long. And the Skellies fell pretty fast
too. Again I made the mistake of clearing the last 2/3 of A1 before the
battle with Andy, so no good Revive material. I made about 3 trips back and
forth with Andy. I was making some progress when unexplainably the game
froze up on me. Haven't seen that in quite a while. But I wasn't too
disappointed since I wasn't really prepared to face her. So that's where I
stand, L75 and facing the A1 Hell end boss fight. I have a Venom Ward in my
stash, that might help the merc live a little longer. But he could really
use a better weapon. Not sure if it's worth it to try to MF the Pit without
gear on my Necro. And the best runes I have are an Um, Hel and Amn. I've
saved every gem that fell, so maybe I should try some rerolling. Oh well,
whenever I get some time I'll give it another try.

 

[Vildecor]

Finally got a little time to play the game over the weekend, so I put some
time in on Nekkidromancer, my totally naked necromancer. I started off with
another shot at the final battle with Hell Andariel.

I started off by making a few games till I got a spawn with good Revive
material throughout A1. I didn't have a good map layout, as the paths to
Cats 3 & 4 were far and twisty. So I had a tough time leading an army
through the maze. Eventually made it to C4 and cleared the two outer rooms
(leaving a good many bodies around as raw materials. Got lucky in Andy's
room too as there was only one boss pack at the entryway. Dispatched that
pack, then stirred up the two Fallen packs and triggered Andy. At this point
I was only using whatever was at hand for Revives, mostly those 'big head'
lightning ball spitters. I got a nice envelopment of Andy with my army, and
Fallen fighting on the fringes. So Andy was taking a nice pounding while I
got the occasional chance to pile on with the CE. But it didn't last long. I
couldn't feed the merc blacks and purples fast enough, and the skellies were
melting away surprisingly fast. So I bailed out for a refit. But Andy was
down over half. So I quickly rearmed, with lots of Wookie types as Revives.
Got Andy to come out to the outer room so it was just us, and the battle
went pretty smoothly. I got dosed a couple times with the poison nova, but a
quick purple-black-purple would fix that. I spent most of the battle
refilling my belt and feeding the Merc, keeping the Amp on paramount though.
Andy fell rather quickly, I still had 5 Skellies and 4 Revives, and leveled
up to 76 as a bonus. Crap drops, so it was on to A2.

There's lots of ranged attackers in A2 (mages, archers, spearmen, snakes),
so I made liberal use of DV here. Made those off screen volleys a lot rarer
occurrence. The lightning Beetles were also a challenge, with -80 LR they
can be very painful. In fact I had a few NDEs by catching a single spark
from some nasty Bosses. The outdoor, desert areas were great. My army could
fan out and kill very well. Combined with liberal use of CE, it almost made
things easy at times. But the indoor areas were quite different, a lot
tougher to manage. I'm use to playing an aggressive Summoner, running into
dangerous places to draw my army into the action (or teleporting). But here
that was out of the question. I had over 850 life, but a single hit from the
most innocuous monster would take out a big chunk of my life globe. So there
were a lot of those slow (but safe) battles in the doorways, choke points.
Unless the merc was up front, the Skellies took forever to get that first
few corpses going. All punctuated by the Maggot Lair, a long slow slog. I
unsummoned at least a hundred Skellies to keep getting the Merc up front.
The Arcane Sanctuary was difficult, but I got lucky too. Started off with
the teleport path. It was tougher than I thought. It was nice to keep the
army together, but it put me in some sticky situations. Made it almost up to
the first intersection going right, but ran into a nasty pack of Ghosts. I
couldn't string them out, and the boss was stoneskin (in addition to the
innate PI). So after a while of trying I gave up and tried left. Again made
it almost to the first intersection, when I ran into a bad boss. It was an
extra strong, cold enchanted Goatman. He was right across a TP pad, and it
was a bit tricky to avoid death while my army whittled down the minions. But
after a bit the minions were down, and my posse was slowly killing the boss
when I started looking around for a safe place to avoid the death nova.
Going back through the TP to the previous pad would be no good, no army to
deliver the coup-de-gras. That left me with only the forward path. But when
I moved a safe distance down the path I stirred up two more groups, one a
boss pack. I ran back to the pad, but my army stayed on the first boss for
the most part. So the reinforcing goat army was soon to be on me. No choice
but to TP back to town. I walked back, but the far pad was thick with
enemies, no way I was going down there. Admitted defeat and went back and
tried another path. It was the twisty, merc hooking one so I said screw
that. The third one was the steps one so I gave it a go. Went smoothly up
the left side and was elated to find it contained the Summoner. Backed off
and fought a little more down the right side till I had a full army, with a
good many Ghosts for Revives. I ran up, zig-zaging to avoid any spells and
popped a Golem onto the Summoner's platform as a distraction. Made it to the
bottom of his stairs and threw up a TP to go to town to focus my horde. I
was a bit tense going back down so close to the Summoner, but it was no
problem. Came through with plenty of time to pitch a golem forward, and the
Ghosts and Skellies rushed after him. Boom, boom, dead and I was on to the
Canyon. After the cramped confines of the CVT, Palace and Arcane, I was
happy to be in the great outdoors again, so I cleared the Canyon 3 times.
This got me to 78. Had a NDE on the way to Duriel when a teleporting/CE boss
popped right next to me in time to die and Nova me, 74 life remaining.
Duriel was easy, ate him in a single sitting with half my army left.

Going to Act 3 I was watching out for the Shaman's inferno breath and the
blowgun dudes. Both could be deadly, so I paid them special heed. The Spider
Forrest and Szzark were no problem, but I learned a whole new horror upon
getting to the Great Marsh. Gloams! Went in and suddenly got quarked by an
off screen lightning blast. Almost got the deeds screen. Refilled my belt
and went forward, leading with DV. But after a little way, I caught another
blast from a different direction, running and chugging I got hit again. This
is suicide. I had been playing since Andy in one sitting, so I justified
quitting at that point and trying again later on (and hoping for a Gloam
free spawn). The gods smiled on me, so the next time I sat down to the game
there was nary a Gloam in sight. So the journey to Kurast was uneventful
(though I did give the exploding dolls in the Flayer Dungeon due respect).
Treehead was fun at the gates of Kurast. His lightning sparks fried my merc
and most of my minions, so I had to run aw...., perform a strategic retreat,
and reform my swarm. Kurast, while more open than the jungle, was no welcome
sight. Here lived Sextons and Lords, who tossed spells, and hurt, a lot.
Good and bad; there was no stair trap in the Ruined Temple, but I had to
cover almost the entire Sewers before I found the way down. Travincal was a
tough one. Spells coming at you left and right, the buildings obscuring
sight lines. With a DV smaller and shorter than what I'd like. I took far
too many hits clearing a kill zone before the Council. But overall it went
well, especially the Council. I lured them out in ones and twos, and swarmed
them with numbers. Mephisto's level was another toughie. It took me 4 refits
to clear the foyer and the area in front of the moat. One close call, but I
TP'd out the far side so I was able to walk back and clear things up nicely.
Mephisto was a frightening prospect, a single BBOD or a stray Blizzard and
I'd be toast. I led with golems and tried to direct Mephisto where I wanted
him (not near me), and he took the bait. Got a nice envelopment and was
pounding him nicely, but I TP'd back once when my army was only lightly
damaged. Didn't want to risk any gaps in my line where a spell could leak
through. When he died, Mephisto dropped a Lightsaber and Grim's Scythe. The
latter better than my Merc's current weapon, so that one got a happy dance.

Act IV has been enjoyable, lots of open spaces. Once you get to a new area
and establish a dead zone, it's fairly relaxed as you'll never get in one of
those killer pinch points. And none of those damned Gloams. The RoF was
particularly enjoyable, Urdar and Knights for mondo Revives. Heyfatso ran
out right away, and walked into death. All alone because everyone else was
blinded by DV, he never stood a chance. Got another Um from the forge.
Worked my way down to Diablo, I have the whole Sanctuary cleared up to
Ventar. Him and his boys are waiting there with an unbroken seal behind
them. And that's where I stand. Gotta love playing SP, you can just 'pause'
the game and come back to it when you like. I have a Skill shrine handy in
A1, so my Skellies are all super sized. My plan is to hit the shrine, pick
up a full load of Urdar Revives, then take the TP back to Vetnar and Co.
Revive as many minions as I can and immediately jump on Diablo. Here's where
I stand:
L80
S and D at base, 350 V and 100 E.
893 life and 333 mana
all resists at -80
Skills:
Skellies and Mastery - 20
Revive - 8
Summ. Resist - 6 (50%)
1 in the rest of Summoning
CE - 11
DV - 10
1 in all the other curses except LT and LR.
I've also got the two skills from Izzy to spend. Haven't decided where to
put them. CE, DV and Attract would all be a big help, but Revive could be
huge for the toughest fights. It's tough at times to keep 8 good Revives
going. So bumping it to 10 will be of limited use. But 10 Revives for the
Bosses and Ancients (if I get that far) could be the deciding factor.

 

[Vildecor]

I've only been able to play sporadically lately, and most of my D2 time has
been spent working on my naked Necromancer, Nekkidromancer. I've reported on
his progress, so I figured I owed it to you to tell you about his ending.

Started off with the battle against Hell Diablo. I had all but The Inspector
of Holes (got that wrong in my last report and kept calling him Vetnar)
cleared in the CS. Summoned a fresh set of Skellies from a Skill shrine, and
when it regenerated I hit it and went for some Urdar revives in the RoF.
Unfortunately they were mixed with Bugs and Maw Fiends, so I could only get
a few of them before engaging the Inspector. And my plan didn't go exactly
as planned. The IoS and his buddies wiped out my Skellies with their inferno
breath like they were snowmen. And the Urdar didn't last much longer. I only
killed 2-3 minions before I had to reload. And reload again. And again. So I
didn't have a nice set of Venom Lord minions for the Diablo fight, just a
hodgepodge of misc stuff, mostly Dark Lancers from around the Skill shrine
in A1.

Spawned Diablo and ran to the pentagram so my army could envelop him when he
arrived. I wanted to be as far away as possible, so I didn't get as much of
my horde into position as I'd have liked. But they quickly swarmed in on him
and the battle was joined. I went with Decrep as the curse-du-jour, figuring
it was better to slow him down than go with the raw damage of Amp. I had to
do some quick foot work to avoid a LBoD, and that drew off some of my
minions. And that let Diablo put the hurting on the rest. I was down to
about half a load, but I figured I could quickly refit so I ran back to
town. Luckily the skill shrine had regenerated and I went to the Dark Wood
to reskeleton. Fortunately Treehead and Co was close to the WP, so I picked
up a nice group of Wookie revives. The return trip to Diablo was tricky only
until I could dodge and get the army re-engaged. Then it was just a matter
of time. We were off to the side of the pentagram, where it's more open. So
I could keep the battle safely in the corner of my screen. Diablo tried
repeatedly to get me with his 'burning ring if fire'. Most of the time I
could time it and step into the gaps that opened by the time it made it to
me. But even when it hit me I was able to survive and chug a purple. Buy the
time Diablo died and dropped crap I still had 7 skellies and 4 revives.

On to A5. The Bloody Foothills were a new experience. Quill Rats needed
generous use of DV to keep them from getting me from off screen. But the
trickiest part were the catapults. They struck somewhat randomly so it was
tough to anticipate where they would land. Eventually I learned to run
around and when they appeared at the top of the screen I'd dodge left or
right to avoid them. I made my way along the left side and eventually made
it to Shenk. Who was nice enough to drop a Cruel Ogre Axe, which did about
twice the damage of my merc's Grim's Scythe. The Frigid Highlands were
deadly, populated with Archers and Mages. I tried to give it a go with ample
use of DV, but after a lot of NDEs in the first 10 minutes I decided to go
for a respawn. The second try I only got the Archers, so I gave it a go. A
couple close calls again this time but eventually the Barbs were freed and
it was on to the Plateau. Nothing really remarkable here, so I made it to
the Crystalline Passage. Here it was tough. Ice Beasts that left no corpses
to pop or raise, and witches throwing their deadly stars. But there were
Blood Lords, which make excellent Revives. It was a long deadly battle, but
eventually I made it to the WP for a much needed rest. After a walk and a
snack I went back at it to the River to save Anya. Luckily I got a good
spawn with no Gloams. More Witches and Ice Beasts, but I had the hang of
them now so I methodically made it to Anya. Woo Hoo, my resists were now
improved to -70 all. I started into going for Nilathuk, but in the Halls of
Pain I hit Hierophants, Zealots and Unravellers. They literally tore my
Skellies to pieces, especially the Blizzards. So after several refits I came
to my senses and realized I didn't need this quest to make Guardian. All
along I figured the Ancients would be my ending, so I fatalistically made my
way towards them. By now I had the feel for A5, so I relentlessly made my
way through the Glacial, Tundra and Ancient's Way. The AW had Blood Lords,
White Wookies and Big Heads, so it was a nice spawn. When I made it to the
Summit entrance I had a full load of 10 Revives, so I figured I'd give it a
try and see how it would go. Ran up, TP to town and back to focus my
minions, and hit the altar. No prep, no scattering potions, more a
reconnaissance trip than anything. Again I chose Decrep to help calm them
down, especially the WWer and Leaper. For the most part I just sat in the
corner and kept the curse on. But it quickly became apparent that it was
futile. The Revives expired first, then the Skellies dwindled, and finally I
was too slow feeding the merc and he died. So I was forced to bail out.
Scorecard: Talic was slivered and the other two about half each. I was NOT
very encouraged. I spent the next several days looking for a good game spawn
and hoping for a nice weapon drop for my merc. It was tough to get a game
with a skill shrine near a WP. And then get nice Revive material at a few
spots. Then also get a do-able spawn in the AW. I ended up leveling from
just 82 into 83 fooling around like this. I made another half hearted
attempt at the Ancients, but I had crap Revives; cold mages and dark
lancers. And I let the merc die almost instantly. Barely scratched them that
time. I was more convinced than ever that this was the end of the line for
Nekkidromancer. So I went for a serious attempt, do or die. Got a good game,
and came to the Summit with Urdar and Treehead's boys for revives (12
total). And the battle was joined. One of them spawned LE, so I had to deal
with dodging sparks, which while VERY painful were not fatal with one hit.
This forced me to run around a lot more. Which turned out to be the key. By
moving around I strung the Ancients out more, and my army could then focus
more on one or two at a time. Talic died while I still had some Revives, and
the other two were halved. I went with Amp at this stage, as my army was
dwindling, as well as my stash of potions. It was imperative to keep the
Merc standing, without his Might aura we had no chance. With some running I
was able to get my remaining group to swarm Korlic. And with me throwing
poison pots to slow his regeneration he soon took his place back on his
pedestal. Then it was down to Madawc and my 7 Skellies, Merc and Golem. He
was the sparker, so I had to be careful where I stood. 6 Skellies, 5
Skellies, this wasn't looking good, especially down to no red pots and only
4 purples left. 4 Skellies, 3. ****, so close, yet so far. At this point it
was all or nothing, I was prepared to go it with just a Golem and IM if need
be. 2 Skellies, 1. When suddenly his last sliver of life disappeared and I
had 'bested the Ancients'. I couldn't believe it. I honestly though this was
it, that I was dead. Amazing how you can still get such a rush from such an
old game.

But not so fast, I wasn't out of the woods just yet, I still had to make it
to the WK2 WP till I could rest. And this was almost as tough as the
Ancients. Near the steps of WK1 was a multishot Witch boss who literally
tore my Skellies to shreds. With little room to run this was a deadly spot.
I reskellied 5 times before I could clear a dead zone and eventually wear
her down. And I had at least 3 NDEs. But once I had a clear area to work
from it was just a methodical clear. Went down to WK2 and held my breath
awaiting an off screen Gloam blast and a 'Deeds' screen. But fate was good
to me again and I got a spawn of Imps, Boars & Bosses and Defilers. I found
the way down to 3 before I found the WP, but this game was heavily used and
I figured I'd need a fresh spawn to make the final push, so I settled for
finding the WP and called it a session.

When I resumed my adventure I was greeted by a Gloam blast upon entering
WK2. It must have been only one, because I survived with a sliver of life
left. And quickly ran back to town. Respawned till I got a gloam free WK2.
Again held my breath on going down to 3, but fate smiled again and there
were no Gloams. Lots of nice Blood Lords though, and with 12 of them on my
side the WK3 went quickly. Now it was butt clinching time again going down
to 4. Gloams or a stair trap could end it all right here. But again I was
lucky, sort of. The bottom of the stair was clear. In fact it was clear up
to the two passages leading north. And there were more Blood Lords for uber
revives. But there were also Gloams. I briefly considered a respawn. But I
figured the chances of getting 3 levels without them was slim. And WK4 was
small. And the threat of a stair trap on 4 clinched it. Play it out, live or
die. Made it to the first intersection on the left without problems. then
backed off and worked the right side. Here I ran into a nasty Blood Lord
boss, extra fast, extra strong and stoneskin. And while my guys were engaged
with him and his boys, I noticed they all suddenly had green feet. Ouch,
conviction ahead to boot. It didn't take long for my minions to melt away,
and when I ran I only had 2 revives remaining. It took many trips back and
forth to whittle down the baddies, and isolate the nasty boss. But try as I
may, I couldn't do much more than scratch him. So I parked him as best I
could and walked all the way back down to continue clearing WK4. I got the
lower right arm cleared after much work (and several close encounters with
Gloam breath). And this made a great place to permanently park the BL boss.
After walking back down again I proceeded to clear the whole left side. DV
and Fire Golem were invaluable in keeping the Gloams tamed. So after
clearing the center and left I went to the throne room. The density here was
light, so it was cleared quickly and safely. At this time I made sure to CE
all the Gloam bodies in the back of the room so Achmel and the boys didn't
awaken any unpleasant surprises for me.

The first wave of minions were nothing special, kill them and revive to fill
my loses. The second wave was tougher. I had to use DV to keep them from
raising their skellies quickly. So that slowed things down. But Attract
helped here. It took 2 trips to town though to remove the poison and refresh
my minions. Bartuc and the boys were trouble. I was very wary of having a
hydra appear next to me. So again I relied on DV, and retreated to string
them out. In ones and twos they were bearable, so that was the order of the
day. Did the same with the next wave too. String them out and kill them in
small groups. But Lister's pack was immune to DV, so it was tougher to
string them out. I fought them at the doorway where it pinched them down and
I could get a numbers advantage. CE made it a lot quicker too. So with
remarkably little trouble I had cleared the throne room and was picking
through the remnants. Figured I go down for Baal right away, with whatever
revives I had at hand, and see how it went. Ran around to the walkway but
wasn't brave/stupid enough to run up to Baal. The minions were slow to
charge him too and were quickly decimated by cold wedgies and his other
ranged attacks. They weren't too nice for me either and my belt was quickly
empty. By the time I made it back to town I had 1 skelly with me. I hit up a
skill shrine for a load of super sized skellies, then hit it again for some
revives (Urdar and Treehead's boys again). This time I stood behind/beside
the pillar at the walkway and cast Decrep while my minions charged in. They
got around Baal pretty well and I was comfortable enough to creep down the
walkway. It was slow going. The Revives did a good job, but they all expired
before Baal was even down into his name. I kept a fire golem on the side of
Baal away from me and this attracted all of his attention and spells. I
thought I had no chance, all my revives were gone as well as one of my
Skellies. And Baal had over 3/4 of his health left. But his attention was
focused on the golem. So I figured 'ride it out' and see what happens. I
kept the Decrep on, and made sure the golem was always on the far side (I
once tried a CG figuring it would slow Baal even more, but this didn't grab
his attention like the FG, and it almost proved fatal, luckily I had a belly
full of thawing potions from my last trip to town). I also chucked poison
pots to tone down Baal's regeneration, which helped a lot. And I was making
progress, slowly but steadily Baal's life bar was going down. Through the L,
past the first A, then the second A, and finally past the B. And it
continued to dwindle. But so was my supply of potions. I had plenty of
blues, but Baal would occasionally use his fire nova which would hurt me and
the merc. So my reds were all gone. And the purples were going fast. And so
was my supply of poison. I started thinking if I could get away with a trip
to town to resupply. I'm sure I can do it quickly, without giving Baal time
to regenerate his life. But what would happen in that instant when I came
back down the portal and my army went to engage. That would be dangerous and
could ruin it all. So I hung tough. Baal was down to a sliver, but my
potions were gone. And he just hit me with a FN and my life was down to
half. Damn, run? or stay? Run? or Stay? In that moment of indecision ...
Baal screamed and barfed his guts out.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Guardian Nekkidromancer.
L83
S15/D25/V365/E100
Life 928
Mana 339

Skelly & Mastery 20
Revive 12
SR 6 (50%)
1 in the rest of the Summons tree
CE 11 (6 yd. rad.)
teeth 1
DV 10
1 in the rest of the curses except LT and LR
1 point unused.

Razan the Might Merc
L83
Cruel (225%) Ogre Axe of the Bat (91-471)
Skin of the Flayed One
Coronet of the Titan (+20 str)

This was definitely a tense, seat of the pants character. I can't count the
number of times I thought I was dead. I need to play something a lot more
relaxing now.

I take back what I said earlier about throwing potions being useless past A3
Normal. I used the poison potions quite frequently throughout the later
parts of the game to slow the regeneration of monsters. there were quite a
few tough bosses (mostly those with Stoneskin) who my minions wouldn't have
been able to beat without the help of my poison potions.

Oh well, now to think up another odd challenge to undertake.

Regards-
Mark

Bongo-Fury

 

[Vildecor]

WOOT!!!!

Nicely done. Patience and skill and more patience pays off.

You skill tree looks pretty much like I build which is just a defensive oriented summoner...except I treat myself to clothes and such.

Well done Mark.

 

[Vildecor]

Good read, good job, congrats.

 

[Vildecor]

VERY IMPRESSIVE!!! I wish I had the stones to attempt something like that.

 

[Vildecor]

very nice read, all of it

...but im bummed at no screenshots!

this should be a front page article

 

[Vildecor]

That is an awesome accomplishment bongo, give yourself a big pat on the back for that one! I know many have tried, but would this make you the first to actually achieve a naked Guardian?

 

[Vildecor]

Very fun read, well done with him!

 

[Vildecor]

Great read.

Congrats on the guardianship.

Tempts me to MAKE time to play my level 9 nec.

 

[Vildecor]

You have done it. Some have tried, but you are the frist one to make it.

Few of us got as far as hell A4, then deeds for careless or strange personal rules. My own naked fishymancer couldn't kill Andy for some reason (stopped been naked after lvl79 I think), I gave up, get him dressed.

 

[Vildecor]

Man, I'm so impressed! This is easily the coolest D2 related thing I've ever seen.

Nice run Bongo.

-hps

 

[Vildecor]

Well, I never believed it could be done. But it obviously can. In fact, this gives me much more respect for summoners. While most bnetters hate them, they're (probably) the only character that can solo the entire game naked. Feel the power. - Wow... just wow.

Oh yeah, congratulations on this wonderful achievement.

 

[Vildecor]

Is there any other character that could do this. I think a few could get through a good chunk of nightmare but even that would be difficult. Potential candidates (no weapons takes out all melee builds) might be a sorc of some kind (orb/tk with a high armour given that telporting anywhere other that escaping is out of the question...but how do you ever get to 30) or a caster druid (a windy but getting to tornado is the same problem...fire might make nightmare) a summoner druid (but druid summons would have a hard time killing in hell without skill boosts never mind act bosses), hammerdin but mana would be a huge issue as would be getting to 18, hammers are kind of close range for being naked....any other candidates?

Not that I would be so crazy as to try anything like this (certain death seems imminent).

 

[Vildecor]

but how do you ever get to 30

Well you could probably let your Merc kill for you up to 30, and just play as his "helper"...(read: Feed him potions a la Bongo).

But holy patience batman!

-hps

 

[Vildecor]

...but how do you ever get to 30)

Merc + Frost Nova + Time + Lots of potions.

Lucky

 

[Vildecor]

Merc + Frost Nova + Time + Lots of potions.

Lucky

Blood Raven is going take some sweet time. After you punch your way to level 6 that is. I dont see you casting ice bolt too much with your piddly mana pool. I guess you have to immediately drop your staff. Can you pick up and sell items or must you find all your potions through kills? Warmth might deserve some points as well on a naked build.

 

[Vildecor]

I dont understand...how long did this take you? Lol.

 

[Vildecor]

20 minutes Spade.

Lucky

 

[Vildecor]

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, I really wasn't fishing for compliments, just thought y'all might like the story. This was a good challenge, but I think my character Limbo was a tougher one (doing all quest and getting all WPs, killed Baal at L8 and NM Diablo at 12).

Is there any other character that could do this.

As I see it, the two biggest limiters are no resists and defense in Hell and being strong enough to kill at the tough fights like Hell Ancients. With no resists or def, any stray attack hurts a LOT (if not fatal). So arrows or spells coming from off screen are eventually 'Deeds'. With DV I could control this somewhat. An Assn with CoS could do similar. But otherwise, I see no chance of surviving. You have Fade or Cyclone Armor to help with this, but there are so many archer packs in Hell that it's just a matter of time. Melee builds are certainly out. As are Hammerdin or Windy, you've got to get too close to be effective. And CE death novas are really tough, if you get a boss with nasty mods the nove will be instant death. If someone could make Guardian with a fragile Sorc, I'll shake your hand. She'd have to be an Orb/fire build w/ a tough Might merc, and move VERY SLOWLY. IMO, the only other build that would have a chance of doing this would be a Trapper.

I dont understand...how long did this take you? Lol.

It was most of my playing time for the last 2 months. Maybe 5-10 hrs/wk, so call it 60-70 hours, at least half of it for Hell.