jiansonz
New member
Re: The Exposure Tournament
When you last heard from Smaragd the Necromancer, he had just gotten hold of his Savage Halberd of Burning and was dominating with this weapon, along with Poison Explosions on corpses that fell. The rest of Act II was basically a lot more of that, but with major exceptions for some bosses.
The ranged attackers in the Palace caused me to start my Attract experiments. I plan to try it out a lot, to really learn as much as I can about how it works in all kinds of situations, and how to best use it to avoid getting hit. It works nicely on this type of tight archer pack. It means I can use my long range weapon and still be further away from the other archers than the Attracted monster is.
The duration of level 1 Attract is 12 seconds. I will want at least that duration in Hell - say 15 seconds. That means I need a level of Attract that provides its effect for 60 seconds before the 75% Hell penalty kicks in. That´s Attract level 15. Ouch...
I also want a good level Bone Prison, so both Prison itself and my Bone Armor will be strong. Then I want a reasonably high-level Dim Vision to shut down e.g. Gloams (with only Attract use, lightning will fly madly in many directions, which is probably just as dangerous as not cursing them at all!) An effective level 12 in Hell is user friendly. Then there´s CE, which I want a good level of, so I can take down Poison immunes if I have some corpses.
Hmm, looks like I may have to sacrifice some Poison power to get a character that has a chance to tackle and survive Hell. Probably can´t let the poison skills hog up a full 60 points. Sigh...
Yay, Attract can sometimes fool bosses! Sometimes. Looks to me like you can´t really know what´s going to happen. Still, I feel like I´ve graduated from 'Attract for Dummies' and I am currently taking 'Attract 101'. Any experts out there who can write me a little essay on the topic of 'Mastering Attract'? :badteeth:
The Summoner scared the crap out of me with a Glacial Spike. Lost nearly half my life. Went to town to boost the resist with potions. Then I used my Knockback javelins on The Summoner so I could approach the stairs without him seeing me. I managed to kill all the monsters except for one Ghoul Lord. As it turned out, that was a good thing, because it was the perfect Attract target for this fight. With the wizard´s attention turned away from me, it was Amp + javelins and 'good riddance, freak' (oops, wrong character class).
Smaragd´s life is still low, so the Unholy Bolts from greater mummies hurt a lot, and I have a lot of respect for their melee strength (and melee poison). This was the best distance to fight them. Just poison breath and occasional Unholy Bolts to deal with.
This boss nearly drew me nuts. Very dangerous because of Smaragd´s crappy lightning resist. I bought a Spetum of Vileness from Fara and stabbed once with that. With the regeneration stopped, I could now kill this boss with Amp + javelins and lots of running.
Attract at full force here. Nice when they help me out by dishing out massive poison...
Another nasty Apparition boss. I got lucky here, as it got stuck in the doorway in a position where I could still hit it.
Ancient Kaa scared me, until I finally found a fighting postion where neither his sparks nor his melee attack could hit me.
I took Duriel on /players 1. Constant Decrep and a Combat Shrine made the fight much MUCH easier than expected. A Town Portal was prepared, but no town trip was needed during the fight. Not even close. Wow. The big damage (hey, for a level 28 character with no actual 'fighting skill' with halberds, anyway!) probably had something to do with it.
Interesting (and nice!) that I got a drop without any TP scrolls.
During Act III, it felt like Smaragd started to depend more and more on his Poison Explosion, and he started to miss with his halberd swings a lot more. I cubed a nice Savage Bill of Ease. The reduced requirement meant I could use it immediately, and it did a little better damage than the halberd.
This boss (Holy Shock) was very dangerous! It caused me to go back and put on my Coral Amulet, and also to use Poison Dagger to minimize the time I was fighting it. Quickly in, quickly out, and always with Decrep on the boss when I was trying to stab it.
Around this time, I found Goreshovel unique Broad Axe. It deals less damage per hit than my Bill, but the 30% IAS and 60% OW more than made up for it. When I miss more often, I may as well give me more chances to hit, and the bleeding was very very useful to get fresh corpses a while after I had been forced to run from a dangerous situation.
The first time that I really felt 'the power' of Poison Nova was in the Bazaar. It gets more effective if you do something that is the exact opposite to how I usually advance in this game - lure out a big pack and hit them all with Poison Nova. Smaragd herded this bug horde down a bit where an even bigger bug horde was hanging around. Two level 2 Poison Novas later, all bugs were dead. Cool!
Poison Nova seems to work differently than Frozen Orb: monsters can not take cover behind each other. If they are within range, they will get hit unless they take cover from some terrain. This feels like a really user friendly spell (well, once I have the mana for more than a few castings, that is...). You can pretty much escape, direct AI curses, drink potions and just be generally on the run and still find time to cast a Nova now and then.
Fighting + PE was still the big damage dealers, though. Smaragd made a stand in this doorway. No way I am going to let those Beasts hit me until I have given them all the poison treatment that I can (i.e. until the rogues blocking them from me have died).
Stairs trap in Forgotten Temple. Looks like I have learned to use Attract to buy time in quite dangerous stairs trap situations. I´m impressed myself. This Attract noob is catching on. Slowly.
I found two Resist Lightning Shrines in Travincal. Excellent resists for Mephisto fighting. I had planned to take him on /p3 but I forgot to change it before fighting Wyand. When you have advanced that far, it´s too late to change.
An extremely long and boring fight followed. My puny poison against his puny (vs. my resists) lightning and cold. With a little practice, I could dodge 80-90% of his big (i.e. non-CB) attacks. Tons of mana potions were bought and drunk, and I went back to Travincal SIX TIMES to refresh the shrine effect. Geez...
I think I have not ever spent so much time running in Act IV Normal as I did now. Most of the time, the master plan was to lure out a rather large horde back to old corpses, Lower Resist it and have it walk through Poison Explosions. Poison Nova (1-2 castings) was sometimes used against the young spawns, to start up a new corpse pile somewhere.
I was actually happy to see Souls on the Plains. Poison Nova pwns them hard.
I had found an interesting socketed weapon, and my next gaming session, I made this. I tried it out against an Amped Pit Lord. It died in five swings, and all swings hit! MUCH better than my axe! The -target defense sure helps me a lot at this stage. And if I hit once, the following hits will be easier to score. It´s a quite slow weapon, but not as slow as I had feared. Definitely good enough for now. The range is good, and if I swing at an incoming monster, I can often get the first hit in. The big damage ususally puts the monster into hit recovery, and I soon have the upper hand (and the bleeding has started).
Holy Freeze Hephasto was so dangerous that I led him and portal parked him here. Sometimes he wandered away a bit, out of Poison Nova range. I created a Bone Wall at the edge of the land to get him back. Worked every time.
For the Diablo fight (/p3), I put on my lightning resist jewelry, and
* gambled some 20% FRW boots (just for this fight)
* bought a Summoner´s wand. Got one reasonably cheap. Just 'of Piercing' and no staffmods.
* bought a Teleporting staff for the switch (in case he would Bone Prison me)
Fight was easy, and not too long. I know Diablo´s attack pattern well because I´ve fought him with javelins with all seven character classes. This was even easier, as Poison Nova does not need to be aimed.
Status Report
Level: 35
STR: 76+6
DEX: 52
VIT: 102
ENE: 25
Life: 336
Mana: 97
Resists: 70/6/23/7 (Lightning can be taken to 72 with stash jewelry)
Total MF: +202% :badteeth:
Current skills:
1 point in all ten Curses
1 point in Teeth, CE, Bone Armor/Wall/Spear (Bone Armor absorbs 65 damage)
2 points in Bone Prison
8 points in Poison Dagger (296-371 over 4.8s)
7 points in Poison Explosion (426-766 over 4.4s)
6 points in Poison Nova (281-382 over 2s)
Primary Gear:
* Circlet of Luck (30)
* Amulet of Luck (35)
* 'Malice' Maul
* 3s Breast Plate with regular topaz + 2 flawed topazes
* 27/24 Garnet Leather Gloves of Fortune
* Lizard´s (4) Ring of Chance (15)
* Rare Heavy Belt with +18 Life, 13% Resist Lightning, 7% Resist Poison, 17% FHR and 25% Poison length reduction
* Fortuitous Ring of Chance (22)
* Blessed Boots of Luck (34)
* Tangerine (10) Grand Charm
* Russet (20) Grand Charm
* Garnet (23) Grand Charm of Strength (6)
* Fiery Large Charm of Life (9)
* Small Charm of Life (10)
* Small Charm of Life (9)
* Lapis (6) Small Charm
Weapon switch:
* Victorious Gnarled Staff of Teleportation
In stash:
* Rare Dirk with PMH and 50% Monster Flee
* Ocher (20) Ring of Brilliance
* Coral (29) Amulet of Remedy
[highlight]Smaragd the Poison/Meleemancer, level 35, Bloody Foothills next[/highlight]
When you last heard from Smaragd the Necromancer, he had just gotten hold of his Savage Halberd of Burning and was dominating with this weapon, along with Poison Explosions on corpses that fell. The rest of Act II was basically a lot more of that, but with major exceptions for some bosses.
The ranged attackers in the Palace caused me to start my Attract experiments. I plan to try it out a lot, to really learn as much as I can about how it works in all kinds of situations, and how to best use it to avoid getting hit. It works nicely on this type of tight archer pack. It means I can use my long range weapon and still be further away from the other archers than the Attracted monster is.
The duration of level 1 Attract is 12 seconds. I will want at least that duration in Hell - say 15 seconds. That means I need a level of Attract that provides its effect for 60 seconds before the 75% Hell penalty kicks in. That´s Attract level 15. Ouch...
I also want a good level Bone Prison, so both Prison itself and my Bone Armor will be strong. Then I want a reasonably high-level Dim Vision to shut down e.g. Gloams (with only Attract use, lightning will fly madly in many directions, which is probably just as dangerous as not cursing them at all!) An effective level 12 in Hell is user friendly. Then there´s CE, which I want a good level of, so I can take down Poison immunes if I have some corpses.
Hmm, looks like I may have to sacrifice some Poison power to get a character that has a chance to tackle and survive Hell. Probably can´t let the poison skills hog up a full 60 points. Sigh...
Yay, Attract can sometimes fool bosses! Sometimes. Looks to me like you can´t really know what´s going to happen. Still, I feel like I´ve graduated from 'Attract for Dummies' and I am currently taking 'Attract 101'. Any experts out there who can write me a little essay on the topic of 'Mastering Attract'? :badteeth:
The Summoner scared the crap out of me with a Glacial Spike. Lost nearly half my life. Went to town to boost the resist with potions. Then I used my Knockback javelins on The Summoner so I could approach the stairs without him seeing me. I managed to kill all the monsters except for one Ghoul Lord. As it turned out, that was a good thing, because it was the perfect Attract target for this fight. With the wizard´s attention turned away from me, it was Amp + javelins and 'good riddance, freak' (oops, wrong character class).
Smaragd´s life is still low, so the Unholy Bolts from greater mummies hurt a lot, and I have a lot of respect for their melee strength (and melee poison). This was the best distance to fight them. Just poison breath and occasional Unholy Bolts to deal with.
This boss nearly drew me nuts. Very dangerous because of Smaragd´s crappy lightning resist. I bought a Spetum of Vileness from Fara and stabbed once with that. With the regeneration stopped, I could now kill this boss with Amp + javelins and lots of running.
Attract at full force here. Nice when they help me out by dishing out massive poison...
Another nasty Apparition boss. I got lucky here, as it got stuck in the doorway in a position where I could still hit it.
Ancient Kaa scared me, until I finally found a fighting postion where neither his sparks nor his melee attack could hit me.
I took Duriel on /players 1. Constant Decrep and a Combat Shrine made the fight much MUCH easier than expected. A Town Portal was prepared, but no town trip was needed during the fight. Not even close. Wow. The big damage (hey, for a level 28 character with no actual 'fighting skill' with halberds, anyway!) probably had something to do with it.
Interesting (and nice!) that I got a drop without any TP scrolls.
During Act III, it felt like Smaragd started to depend more and more on his Poison Explosion, and he started to miss with his halberd swings a lot more. I cubed a nice Savage Bill of Ease. The reduced requirement meant I could use it immediately, and it did a little better damage than the halberd.
This boss (Holy Shock) was very dangerous! It caused me to go back and put on my Coral Amulet, and also to use Poison Dagger to minimize the time I was fighting it. Quickly in, quickly out, and always with Decrep on the boss when I was trying to stab it.
Around this time, I found Goreshovel unique Broad Axe. It deals less damage per hit than my Bill, but the 30% IAS and 60% OW more than made up for it. When I miss more often, I may as well give me more chances to hit, and the bleeding was very very useful to get fresh corpses a while after I had been forced to run from a dangerous situation.
The first time that I really felt 'the power' of Poison Nova was in the Bazaar. It gets more effective if you do something that is the exact opposite to how I usually advance in this game - lure out a big pack and hit them all with Poison Nova. Smaragd herded this bug horde down a bit where an even bigger bug horde was hanging around. Two level 2 Poison Novas later, all bugs were dead. Cool!
Poison Nova seems to work differently than Frozen Orb: monsters can not take cover behind each other. If they are within range, they will get hit unless they take cover from some terrain. This feels like a really user friendly spell (well, once I have the mana for more than a few castings, that is...). You can pretty much escape, direct AI curses, drink potions and just be generally on the run and still find time to cast a Nova now and then.
Fighting + PE was still the big damage dealers, though. Smaragd made a stand in this doorway. No way I am going to let those Beasts hit me until I have given them all the poison treatment that I can (i.e. until the rogues blocking them from me have died).
Stairs trap in Forgotten Temple. Looks like I have learned to use Attract to buy time in quite dangerous stairs trap situations. I´m impressed myself. This Attract noob is catching on. Slowly.
I found two Resist Lightning Shrines in Travincal. Excellent resists for Mephisto fighting. I had planned to take him on /p3 but I forgot to change it before fighting Wyand. When you have advanced that far, it´s too late to change.
An extremely long and boring fight followed. My puny poison against his puny (vs. my resists) lightning and cold. With a little practice, I could dodge 80-90% of his big (i.e. non-CB) attacks. Tons of mana potions were bought and drunk, and I went back to Travincal SIX TIMES to refresh the shrine effect. Geez...
I think I have not ever spent so much time running in Act IV Normal as I did now. Most of the time, the master plan was to lure out a rather large horde back to old corpses, Lower Resist it and have it walk through Poison Explosions. Poison Nova (1-2 castings) was sometimes used against the young spawns, to start up a new corpse pile somewhere.
I was actually happy to see Souls on the Plains. Poison Nova pwns them hard.
I had found an interesting socketed weapon, and my next gaming session, I made this. I tried it out against an Amped Pit Lord. It died in five swings, and all swings hit! MUCH better than my axe! The -target defense sure helps me a lot at this stage. And if I hit once, the following hits will be easier to score. It´s a quite slow weapon, but not as slow as I had feared. Definitely good enough for now. The range is good, and if I swing at an incoming monster, I can often get the first hit in. The big damage ususally puts the monster into hit recovery, and I soon have the upper hand (and the bleeding has started).
Holy Freeze Hephasto was so dangerous that I led him and portal parked him here. Sometimes he wandered away a bit, out of Poison Nova range. I created a Bone Wall at the edge of the land to get him back. Worked every time.
For the Diablo fight (/p3), I put on my lightning resist jewelry, and
* gambled some 20% FRW boots (just for this fight)
* bought a Summoner´s wand. Got one reasonably cheap. Just 'of Piercing' and no staffmods.
* bought a Teleporting staff for the switch (in case he would Bone Prison me)
Fight was easy, and not too long. I know Diablo´s attack pattern well because I´ve fought him with javelins with all seven character classes. This was even easier, as Poison Nova does not need to be aimed.
Status Report
Level: 35
STR: 76+6
DEX: 52
VIT: 102
ENE: 25
Life: 336
Mana: 97
Resists: 70/6/23/7 (Lightning can be taken to 72 with stash jewelry)
Total MF: +202% :badteeth:
Current skills:
1 point in all ten Curses
1 point in Teeth, CE, Bone Armor/Wall/Spear (Bone Armor absorbs 65 damage)
2 points in Bone Prison
8 points in Poison Dagger (296-371 over 4.8s)
7 points in Poison Explosion (426-766 over 4.4s)
6 points in Poison Nova (281-382 over 2s)
Primary Gear:
* Circlet of Luck (30)
* Amulet of Luck (35)
* 'Malice' Maul
* 3s Breast Plate with regular topaz + 2 flawed topazes
* 27/24 Garnet Leather Gloves of Fortune
* Lizard´s (4) Ring of Chance (15)
* Rare Heavy Belt with +18 Life, 13% Resist Lightning, 7% Resist Poison, 17% FHR and 25% Poison length reduction
* Fortuitous Ring of Chance (22)
* Blessed Boots of Luck (34)
* Tangerine (10) Grand Charm
* Russet (20) Grand Charm
* Garnet (23) Grand Charm of Strength (6)
* Fiery Large Charm of Life (9)
* Small Charm of Life (10)
* Small Charm of Life (9)
* Lapis (6) Small Charm
Weapon switch:
* Victorious Gnarled Staff of Teleportation
In stash:
* Rare Dirk with PMH and 50% Monster Flee
* Ocher (20) Ring of Brilliance
* Coral (29) Amulet of Remedy
[highlight]Smaragd the Poison/Meleemancer, level 35, Bloody Foothills next[/highlight]
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