Re: The Certain Death Tournament.
Well I’ve finally done it! Hadriela performed a full clear of NM Act 5 at Players 7 avenging poor Mara and reaching Hell (at long last).
Heading into NM Act 5 I wasn’t sure what I should be most concerned about. Should I be concerned about Dolls (killed my last character), Frenzytaurs (always scary), Blood Mana (it is after all the Evil Black Magic Voodoo Curse), Cold Immunes (did I mention that I really didn’t have a good plan), Nihlathak (see Frenzytaurs), or maybe I should be most concerned about popping Evil Urns in my quest for the full clear (that almost got Mara before the Dolls did). In the end I couldn’t decide what was most concerning and instead decided it would be best to proceed with an extreme sense of paranoia . . . apparently it worked . . . though it might not have been necessary.
Dealing with the denizens of NM Act 5 wasn’t that bad. Hadriela had smooth sailing until she reached Abaddon and encountered mass cold immunes (Hell Witches). The Hell Witches presented a bit of a problem as their sheer numbers and decent magic damage made them unattractive to charge up to and static and dangerous to both Azrael and Hadriela. The solution, brute force (with a bit of finesse). Hadriela teleported around near the edge of the screen tempting the Hell Witches to break formation and charge and then when they did Azrael ripped them to shreds one by one (sort of slow but my paranoia stopped me from doing something more aggressive . . . probably a good thing).
After Abaddon it was smooth sailing into the Crystalline Passage (where there were only CI Frozen Creepers . . . thank you guest monsters for bumping out those Hell Witches). The Frozen River had more Frozen Creepers and Burning Souls. The Frozen Creepers continued to be pretty easy (they move so very slow) and the Souls weren’t bad either as the Frozen River is pretty much and indoor area and therefore has plenty of corners to hide behind. Anya was rescued and then it was Nihlathak time.
Guest monsters had bumped out the scary Frenzytaurs so the biggest problem really was that my computer’s frame rates per second drops way down whenever I have mostly explored a really large area (such as the Hall of Anguish and Pain) and am trying to keep the mini map up and operating. Anyhow, the monsters were easy and soon enough Hadriela had reached the Halls of Vaught where she was happy to learn that the Snakes had taken the day off and only Hell Witches remained as a source of real concern. As had been done in Abaddon the Hell Witches were drawn apart and soon only Nihlathak’s branch remained. Hadriela approached with caution engaging Nihlathak’s spawn at great distance and then tele’d past the sea of corpses onto the summoner and it was all over (perhaps only Hell Nihlathak is really dangerous . . . )
The remaining bits of NM Act 5 were pretty much more of the same. There were more Hell Witches and more Frozen Creepers (sometimes in the same place . . . the Icy Cellar). Evil Urns continued to be cleared (
here was the most dangerous thing that popped out of an urn . . . though
these guys popped out of an Evil Urn directly on top of Hadriela). The Ancients were done at Players 1 (why not) and were super easy. The WSK had Frenzytaurs and Burning Souls (but not really any super dangerous bosses). The Throne of Destruction had more Burning Souls (but not Dolls so Hadriela didn’t get to do the corpse dance). Baal’s Minions were defeated with great ease (only the Plucked Chickens forced Hadriela out of the main chamber). Baal used did some Mana Burning and Blood Mana Cursing but Hadriela’s potions and Azrael’s Kelpie Snare were too much for poor Baal to handle . . . he died in under a minute.
Baal
dropped nothing interesting (not one set/unique). The rest of NM Act 5 was about the same with the exception of
this early find! Ginther’s Rift (I love that weapon)
and it’s eth and 2% ed from perfect! I’d been hoping for an eth Ginther’s Rift for years and had never found one until about a month ago but sadly it had the worst ed of any Ginther’s I had found . . . but it doesn’t matter now (this new one is absolutely awesome)! The rest of the set/uniques were pretty boring and included:
Arctic Belt,
Iceblink,
Cathan’s Amulet,
Goreshovel,
Stormguild,
Gleamscythe,
Spineripper,
Fleshrender, and
Sigon’s Greaves.
Here were Hadriela’s stats at the end of NM Act 5.
Conqueror Hadriela then engaged the NM Cows and discovered that at Players 7 they put up a pretty good fight. Azrael bought the farm a few times and nothing interesting was dropping so Hadriela considered dropping the players setting but decided to tough it out at Players 7. Good thing too because she soon had one
great drop (so at present her small charm of vita nearly gives as much plus life as her grand charm
). The rest of the drops were useless. The
Cow King didn’t even drop a rare and random set/uniques from the Moo Moo Farm included:
Skewer of Krintiz,
Doomslinger, and
Sigon’s Armor.
Hadriela then checked out her
stats entering Hell (oh no, that won’t work). Hadriela then changed out her belt, boots, ring, amulet, some charms, and added eight new slots worth of charms so that:
Here were Hadriela’s stats entering Hell (and at present there are seven skill points in reserve).
[highlight]Hadriela, Frozen Orb/TK, (H) Rogue Encampment, Level 74[/highlight]
Ancalagon – Congrats on the great progress and best wishes as you near the end!
Morathi – A Berserker Barb!? I guess Blake won’t need to worry about style points! Good luck with the challenging build!
Ohomemgrande – Nice progress! Hope NM Act 2 treats Josephine as well as it did her sister! :thumbup:
Alfonso – Ouch :shocked: . I nearly had the same thing happen to my bone necro but got lucky. Hope to see you enter again (whether with an original build or not).
), i wont have to do the tedious act 1 again.
