Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II
Pete´s Dim Vision button was getting hot, since he had to deal with
these buggers. He has a pretty good DV that covers a large area and has a 5.7s duration.
Of course, the ctc. Static Field on Crescent Moon does nothing against them, and they have high physical resistance, so they took a while for Drus to kill if they were Dimmed. Usually, I would hit the one he was fighting with Decrepify instead, to speed it up. There were two Soul bosses on the Plains. One was easy, but
the other one was 'unbreakable PI'. Open Wounds from Drus' sword did nearly all of the damage. Pete added a couple of his weak Poison Novas (~250 damage per hit). I don´t know why I forgot I have Bone Spirit, seeing as that is permanently mapped to the left button...
City of the Damned was fun, with Stranglers, Stygian Hags and Corpse Spitters. At one time, I met a double boss pack of spitters and spawners.
CE cleaned up nicely. BTW, you can see one of my favourite Revives here, Stygian Dogs. They are fast, 'no-nonsense' tanks that are also small (= unlikely to get in the way of Drus).
Hephasto was Might + Spectral Hit + CE + Cursed. Very very powerful hitter, and there was an annoying Grotesque with him that simply
refused to die and just kept spawning. Good Revive fodder, sure, but they demanded attention from Drus, causing him to stop working on Big, Green and Ugly.
I thought I had a
good choke point going here, but when the golem died 0.5s after the screenie, Drus became Hephasto´s next target, and he died for the 4th time in this fight. Good grief...
My solution: after Drus had applied OW, drag him with me to keep him safe, keep recasting golems and let Hephasto taste some Iron Maiden.
HF gave me an Io rune. Meh, I had one already.
Pete is the only character I´ve ever played that has decided to take on the whole of Infector´s pack instead of separating out a few at a time. I just had to move back a little so Drus wasn´t right in the middle of the thickest battle. Once I had two of the minions on my side, it was
a pretty comfortable fight.
Isn´t this the quintessential idea of a Necromancer ability - waking up dead enemies and get them to fight for you? I haven´t used Revive much before. It truly is a great skill for this tourney. I was lucky to get it reasonably early (5 prereqs!). I would probably have used a staffmodded wand with it otherwise.
I copied my good act boss plan from the previous act. I was lucky to roll some
Crushing Blow brutes here, too. Diablo ignored them, and went straight for Drus. But he opened up with some useless Lightning breaths (they start so far away from him that they don´t hit) so Drus got many hits in. Diablo eventually got him, and then the Urdars expired. Oh well,
there were more where those two came from. He
never had a chance, really.
So four acts of Hell full cleared on /p3. Sweet.
Bloody Foothills was tricky, with Quill Rats and Burning Dead archers. I had to be on my toes, recasting golems, planning our assaults, bringing out Life Tap a lot to help Drus. Rats and archers made bad Revives (the fire shots of "my" archers were confusing, too) as far as tanking went, but I still had some use of them. However, this area also has some corpses of the two monster types native to this area. The Enslaved were the best because they are melee-only and move up next to enemies.
A mixed bag of foes in the following two large outdoor areas, and rather easy draws in the two RoF bonus areas (imps, boars, Unravelers, Blunderbores and Hell Witches). The latter were the trickiest, but there was no boss of this monster type.
On the Highlands, Pete
paused for a moment to pay respect to my recently fallen hero in the Gold Diggers tourney.
[Highlight]Conqueror Pete the Necromancer and Drus the Barbarian merc, level 86, Hell Crystalline Passage next[/Highlight]
Vague said:
Good god. I can't do this! I never realized how much of a control freak I am. this tournament is killing me! points into poison dagger!!!! NOOOO. 35 energy! ARGHH!
Well, then you can do more Poison Dagger hits without drinking mana potions...:jig:
Control and planning flies out the window in this tourney. You must embrace that if you want to enjoy it. It´s all about doing the best you can with the dull tools you have, with the rags you are dealt, etc.
But if you aren´t enjoying it, then of course you should stop. It´s all about having fun.
Vague said:
I don't think I can continue... I feel silly for joining, but now I think I know why nobody has finished the game in this tourny. It's not the difficulty... its the points spent on energy.
Well, what do you really miss by not spending the points that goes to ENE on other stats? As a Necromancer, you are quite likely to get enough STR for what you want to wear anyway. Getting good blocking is hard, but it´s probably more important to get some useful staffmods (or +skills in general) on the shield instead of good blocking. Less VIT means you have to compensate with more +life on gear. My Pete has a +182 life armor, two Whale items, several big +life charms etc.
And having 500+ mana does have it perks. Pete can use CE like crazy without potions needs...
! So, without further ado meet Brainless the necro who will be accompanied by a desert def merc if I can get him past the first act. We will see...:whistling:
