Wacky project: Gabrielle´s quest
- Thread starter jiansonz
- Start date
jiansonz
New member
(X and G are traveling while playing Twenty Questions)
G: “Are you male or female?â€
X: “Male.â€
G: “Living? Dead?â€
X: “Oh, I am very dead.â€
G: “Were you killed by a certain Warrior Princess?â€
X: “Yes.â€
G: “Well, that narrows it down-- a little. Hmm. Atyminius?â€
X: “No.â€
G: “Hmm. Ah!" (tries to hit Xena with her staff. The whack gets blocked just in time) "I almost got you that time.â€
X: “No, you didn’t.â€
G: “What are you talking about? I was this close.â€
X: “You were this close ‘cause I let you get this close.â€
G: “We’ll see.†(sly grin)
(/A Day in the Life)
The hard work through act 5 continued. For the areas with the shambling undead, I took off Gabrielle´s cold damage charm. That is the one part in the game where you don´t want any cold damage, at least if you play the game like I do. I want these easy enemies to rise again as many times as possible. More XP and more drop chances.
In the area called Nihlathak´s Temple (a.k.a. Pindleskin´s Garden) there is a buttload of such skeletons. I actually dreaded that place, because Gabrielle is terrible against large mobs. I was right to be worried. Gabrielle tried to make a stand in what I thought was a strategic position but that soon became too dangerous. By the time I committed myself to make a run for it, it was almost too late. Gabrielle just managed to avoid getting completely surrounded. I ran to the upper corner of the garden and opened a town portal. I lured most of the skellies over there, picking off a couple here and there. I used the same main principle as I do in the cow level: always keep the red portal free from enemies. It worked out well from there.
Nihlathak was easy, even though his chilling was more annoying than ever.
Snapchip´s minions were incredibly annoying. I gave up on melee and killed most of the pack with javelins across the river.
For the fight against the Ancients, I put on Sander´s boots and a newly gambled Static Circlet of Dim Vision. I have decided to ban the use of Dim Vision. It doesn´t fit the character. If it was only the closest monsters you could affect, I might have allowed it.
In addition to the Fiery Javelins of Vileness and a pack of Static Javelins of Swiftness (which I started the fight with) I bought no less than five packs of Throwing Spears. Some with extra damage, some with extra speed, some with elemental damage. Basically, the first five packs I saw for sale that were halfway decent.
The plan was to let the speedy boots carry Gabrielle around the Summit while she turned the Ancients into pincussions. That plan worked flawlessly! I used up the two Javelin packs and two Throwing Spears packs and started on the third before the victory was secured. Talic was alive last and I was a bit curious as to how good Gabrielle would have been against him with her staff. Then I thought "why change a winning concept?" and avoided melee. Talic can be nasty when he whirls, even in Normal.
Worldstone Keep was a breeze, as long as Gabrielle didn´t fight more than one Death Lord at a time. She took on two at a time once and had to drink five healing potions to survive that fight!
Achmel and all of Lister´s pack were greeted by a Prevent Monster Heal Javelin at the start of those fights (to secure that the progress I made would not be lost). After every fight with a Minion of Destruction, I had to go to town and buy 5-8 healing potions. Replace that with 4 town trips for the fight with Lister himself. But the fact stands, Gabrielle did defeat him in melee. :flip:
Gabrielle was relentless and very stubborn against Baal. She laughed at his mana drain attack but respected some of his melee blows (which stung quite a lot!). Many town trips later, R.I.P. LoD! :yep:
"Who, or rather...what, was that?"
/Gabrielle, A Fistful of Dinars.
Three was the magic number in the cow level. If a pack of three cows were approaching Gabrielle, she had often killed the first by the time the third had joined the fight. She was of a much higher level than the cows, so she had a very high to-hit percentage and the cows had some trouble hitting her, despite her bad defense. So eveything revolved around breaking up the packs so that they had three cows or less. Some corners of the terrain "channelled" the cows and released them one and one in a steady stream, which was also a good way to fight them.
hermit_boy is right, pretty much any build can defeat Normal. Apparently.
Destroyer Gabrielle has now reached level 36 and is ready to take on Nightmare, where the real challenge lies.
to be continued...
G: “Are you male or female?â€
X: “Male.â€
G: “Living? Dead?â€
X: “Oh, I am very dead.â€
G: “Were you killed by a certain Warrior Princess?â€
X: “Yes.â€
G: “Well, that narrows it down-- a little. Hmm. Atyminius?â€
X: “No.â€
G: “Hmm. Ah!" (tries to hit Xena with her staff. The whack gets blocked just in time) "I almost got you that time.â€
X: “No, you didn’t.â€
G: “What are you talking about? I was this close.â€
X: “You were this close ‘cause I let you get this close.â€
G: “We’ll see.†(sly grin)
(/A Day in the Life)
The hard work through act 5 continued. For the areas with the shambling undead, I took off Gabrielle´s cold damage charm. That is the one part in the game where you don´t want any cold damage, at least if you play the game like I do. I want these easy enemies to rise again as many times as possible. More XP and more drop chances.
In the area called Nihlathak´s Temple (a.k.a. Pindleskin´s Garden) there is a buttload of such skeletons. I actually dreaded that place, because Gabrielle is terrible against large mobs. I was right to be worried. Gabrielle tried to make a stand in what I thought was a strategic position but that soon became too dangerous. By the time I committed myself to make a run for it, it was almost too late. Gabrielle just managed to avoid getting completely surrounded. I ran to the upper corner of the garden and opened a town portal. I lured most of the skellies over there, picking off a couple here and there. I used the same main principle as I do in the cow level: always keep the red portal free from enemies. It worked out well from there.
Nihlathak was easy, even though his chilling was more annoying than ever.
Snapchip´s minions were incredibly annoying. I gave up on melee and killed most of the pack with javelins across the river.
For the fight against the Ancients, I put on Sander´s boots and a newly gambled Static Circlet of Dim Vision. I have decided to ban the use of Dim Vision. It doesn´t fit the character. If it was only the closest monsters you could affect, I might have allowed it.
In addition to the Fiery Javelins of Vileness and a pack of Static Javelins of Swiftness (which I started the fight with) I bought no less than five packs of Throwing Spears. Some with extra damage, some with extra speed, some with elemental damage. Basically, the first five packs I saw for sale that were halfway decent.
The plan was to let the speedy boots carry Gabrielle around the Summit while she turned the Ancients into pincussions. That plan worked flawlessly! I used up the two Javelin packs and two Throwing Spears packs and started on the third before the victory was secured. Talic was alive last and I was a bit curious as to how good Gabrielle would have been against him with her staff. Then I thought "why change a winning concept?" and avoided melee. Talic can be nasty when he whirls, even in Normal.
Worldstone Keep was a breeze, as long as Gabrielle didn´t fight more than one Death Lord at a time. She took on two at a time once and had to drink five healing potions to survive that fight!
Achmel and all of Lister´s pack were greeted by a Prevent Monster Heal Javelin at the start of those fights (to secure that the progress I made would not be lost). After every fight with a Minion of Destruction, I had to go to town and buy 5-8 healing potions. Replace that with 4 town trips for the fight with Lister himself. But the fact stands, Gabrielle did defeat him in melee. :flip:
Gabrielle was relentless and very stubborn against Baal. She laughed at his mana drain attack but respected some of his melee blows (which stung quite a lot!). Many town trips later, R.I.P. LoD! :yep:
"Who, or rather...what, was that?"
/Gabrielle, A Fistful of Dinars.
Three was the magic number in the cow level. If a pack of three cows were approaching Gabrielle, she had often killed the first by the time the third had joined the fight. She was of a much higher level than the cows, so she had a very high to-hit percentage and the cows had some trouble hitting her, despite her bad defense. So eveything revolved around breaking up the packs so that they had three cows or less. Some corners of the terrain "channelled" the cows and released them one and one in a steady stream, which was also a good way to fight them.
hermit_boy is right, pretty much any build can defeat Normal. Apparently.
Destroyer Gabrielle has now reached level 36 and is ready to take on Nightmare, where the real challenge lies.
to be continued...
jiansonz
New member
Act 1 Nightmare
We see Gabrielle do some fancy staff moves. She has definately improved since she first started training with it ten episodes ago. Zoom out and we see that her sparring partner is actually Argo, Xena´s horse! Suddenly, there is a whistle, Gabrielle goes like "Uh, oh!" and Argo kicks the staff through the air, right into Xena´s waiting hand.
G: “I hate it when you do that. I have to practice.â€
X: (Throws back the staff) “Not on my horse. I wish the two of you would just get along.â€
G: “It’s not like we’re at constant war or anything. Argo doesn’t like me.â€
X: “Sometimes you have to have patience with things that annoy you.â€
G: “Oh, I never said she annoyed me.â€
X: “I wasn’t talking to you.â€
G: “Oh, funny-- very, very funny.â€
X: “There’s a road on the other side of those trees. I’ll meet you there; bring Argo.â€
G: “You go on. We’ll catch up.â€
X: (Whispers to Argo) “Be nice."
(/The Greater Good)
Playing on /players 1 (compared to a much higher setting) affects the levelling a lot (no kidding!) and that´s most pronounced in Act 5 Normal and Act 1 Nightmare. A full clear of Normal on /players 8 gets you to level 48 or 49. That is such a high level that you get very little XP and level very little in Act 1 NM. A full clear on Normal on /players 1 leaves you with level 36 or 37. However, you get at least 7 level-ups in Act 1 Nightmare, catching up pretty well.
That was what happened to Gabrielle. She had it very tough out on the Cold Plains and in the following areas, but her quick levelling (following the DEX + Penetrate plan I mentioned earlier) and some key gear improvements made the later parts of the act easier, with one clear exception, the part of the Act that always seems to be the hardest BY FAR for me. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Halfway through the Cold Plains, I discovered that Akara had started selling staves with the Glowing prefix (1-(121-180) lightning damage). Such a staff with decent speed would pretty much own her current 6-23 physical damage, 2-100 lightning damage, speed -20 staff. Problem is, NM Akara mostly sells the slow Gnarled Staves and only the occasional Jo Staff and Quartestaff. I shopped her a LOT and finally managed to land a Glowing Jo Staff of Readiness. Same speed as the former staff, slightly less physical but more lightning damage.
I had been looking at Charsi´s and Gheed´s trying to find a Mesh Belt for crafting (I want to have 16 potion slots, you know...). After oh so many tries, I was ready to give up on that in this act. Then I thought of the excellent shopping calculator I read about on this forum a while back and tried it out:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dcarson/shopcalc.html
Oh, so at least Charsi should be able to sell me one. I shopped some more. And more. And even more. Finally! It was definately worth the effort. The crafting produced an excellent result, with the two random abilities I wanted the most, FHR and cold resist. Wow!
Viper Winding
Mesh Belt
Defense: 39
+11 to Life
+6 to Mana
+15 to Attack Rating
Cold Resist +16%
2% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
24% Faster Hit Recovery
7% Chance of Open Wounds
Open Wounds is great, even with this small chance. This belt may very well be stuck on her until the end. I was very pleased that the first try was so good. That saves me jewels, Tal runes and perfect rubies for other purposes.
Gabrielle struggled on. I had to develop a certain tactic against the Fallen and their more advanced relatives: the chain killing. Fighting one is easy, fighting two is OK, fighting three is bad, fighting four or more is really, really bad. Smack, smack, smack and poor Gabby is down to less than half life and has to drink potions and retreat in a humiliating way...
I took advantage of a certain feauture of these foes: that they run away when they see something get killed. Other enemy types always had priority over the Fallen, be they corrupted rogues, goats, crows or skeletons. One enemy gets killed, and the Fallen back off. When it was time to fight the Fallen, I did like this:
* Attack one the nearest ones, preferrably a torch carrier (they don´t have a shield so they are much easier to kill).
* When that one dies, immediatly attack the nearest next Fallen. Sometimes they don´t run away so if there was one with this behaviour, I´d attack that one first.
* Repeat until they are all dead.
This gave me enough time to overcome them, for the most part. It´s a method I first discovered in Hell with SniperBlazie, my Blaze Enchantress. Since all the Fallen types are fire immune in Hell, Blazie took them on in melee. She was about as good against them in Hell as Gabrielle is here in Nightmare.
When Gabrielle reached level 40, I saw a Buzzing staff for sale at Akara´s. That is the next higher lightning damage prefix after Glowing. It´s a level 46 affix and shouldn´t be for sale now, I thought. I remember reading something back in the Classic days that wands/scepters/staves had a bonus of 1 to their affix level (just like Circlets have a bonus of 3). I guess that must still be true... Time for some more shopping, then! I was lucky, after not too many trips (around 50) I bought a Buzzing Gnarled Staff of Alacrity. Slightly slower than her current staff but with a high-end value to the max damage, 251 (it varies between 181 and 260 so this was very good). It only had +1 to Nova so it was cheap as well. The repair cost if it´s broken is just over 700. Pretty reasonable, huh?
Treehead WoodFist´s pack was CE and I had no intention of fighting them in melee. I threw javelins over a fence to kill them.
Cain got rescued without too much of a fuss. Griswold was scary enough for me to avoid melee totally (I don´t remember what extra ability he had, though). He dropped a Falcata. That´s right, an Elite item! How high IS his level, anyway? Why didn´t he drop a Walking Stick instead, that is in the next higher TC.
I have started to fight all CE bosses and minions with javelins, that´s how tough and annoying they are. Same with Holy Freeze bosses and Extra Strong bosses of hard-hitting monster types (zombies, Brutes).
It´s not too many levels until Gabrielle can use a Harpoon and I wanted to gamble a good pack of Throwing Spears. The Static Javelins of Swiftness don´t really cut it anymore and the pack vanishes too quickly. However, there were more important stuff to gamble first, most notably getting better resists. I had about 1.2 million in gold and went on a gambling spree that would be very succesful. I started with boots. The fifth pair were keepers:
Wraith Greaves
Boots
Defense: 5
Fire Resist +33%
Lightning Resist +25%
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Hit Recovery
Holy smokes, what boots! They lack Faster Run but I have not needed that before (other than in specific situations and I have Sander´s for that). If I find the need, I can always make myself a 'Stealth' armor, or gamble a circlet that has FR and some other goodies. And would you believe it, after about 400 000 more were spent, I landed:
Glyph Brow
Circlet
Defense: 20
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +36%
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
20% Faster Run/Walk
Well OK then, I´ll gladly take that. Running around with 70+ Magic Find is probably a good idea here in Nightmare.
So there was a lot of cash left to gamble some Throwing Spears with. The best I came up with were these:
Eagle Wood
Throwing Spear
Throw Damage: 21 to 53
Quantity: 102
+79% Enhanced Damage
+21 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-27 lightning damage
Increased Stack Size
Decent damage and increased stack size. Nice.
That was one the best gambling sessions I´ve ever had.
Having two items with FHR greatly improved Gabrielle´s fighting and tanking abilites.
During the act I crafted three Hitpower Jo Staves. The best one had around +50% damage, 18-54 fire damage and 7-17 cold damage, along with Ruby fire resist, and of course the Frost Shield ability. I only used it against very specific foes: boss packs of spitters. They are almost immune to lightning (some bosses were actually immune) so the Buzzing Staff sucks against them. It´s good enough against normal spitters, though. Thankfully, spitters are rather easy to separate from each other. They can still be dangerous. Sometimes spitters do a surprising amount of damage. My guess is that they have a lightning based melee attack and like (almost) all lightning attacks, the amount of damage is highly variable.
Forgotten Tower only had one troublesome area. There was an Extra Fast something goat boss pack camping the stairs at the level 3 entrance. I portal parked them in the next room and came back from the waypoint. I was lucky to be able to lure back one minion at a time (or on one occasion, two minions).
Now for the worst battle in the act. Where? You guessed it, The Pit level 2. What a dreadful place that is! Four Devilkin shamen and their warriors, always a boss pack of melee rogues and often one or two more boss packs, possibly with archers. In a sardine can.
I killed some Devilkin when suddenly melee rogues attacked. Yup, the boss pack: Fire Enchanted + Holy Fire. I had already chosen the bottlenecked area near the entrance to fight in, but I failed to stop in time on my retreat and two minions and the boss could all rush through and attack Gabrielle. The ONE chance I had and I blew it. Crap!!
I tried to do some dancing around and fighting but they were too fast and dangerous. Two Devilkin also joined the fight. I don´t know how it happened but I ended up back at the stairs, completely surrounded (boss + 2 minions + 2 Devilkin). I could get up the stairs, though. Phew! Good thing Gabrielle has maxed fire resistance now (thanks to her good gambled items and a newly found perfect (30%) Ruby Grand Charm).
I tried to go down and run past them (for a possible portal parking) but Gabrielle couldn´t move a single step. Back up again, because her life was hacked away very quickly. What to do? I shopped a Wailing staff, thinking I could get some of the critters to flee. However, the nearest area was too small and the fleeing monster came back too soon the few times I actually managed to get a hit in. But there was a glimmer of hope, Gabrielle didn´t get hurt so quickly now. I stopped fighting and observed the situation more closely. It looked like the boss was out of the action for the moment. Only one minion and the Devilkins could reach Gabrielle. I brought the Buzzing staff and returned with grim determination. They are ALL going DOWN, dammit!!
Good, we´re still in the same position. Kill a minion, the next filled up that space, kill the other minion and then go for the Devilkin. Finally the boss. I got her down to a sliver of life. Would it be safe to take the FE explosion? Probably, but I didn´t want to risk that. I actually managed to tempt the boss, get some distance and kill it with a well-placed Throwing Spear. Victory!
Potions used: 7 Greater Healing and 5 Full Rejuves.
In the final area of the act, Catacombs 4, I got startled by a spitter boss pack when I peeked into the second room. Remebering Lucky´s (my random amazon) cruel experience in this situation, I got scared and ran up the stairs immediately. When I came down, I rushed to the corner between the stairs and the second room and cast Slow Missiles. A great feature of this skill is that you can actually see monsters through walls (they light up). By keeping track of these light spots, I managed to lure one minion at a time into the first room and kill it with the Jo Staff.
Against Andariel, I mainly used javelins. I tried melee a couple of times. It wasn´t that bad but sometimes Andariel does impressive physical damage with her blows. Also, you don´t get posioned as much if she chases you. It was never any real danger.
Gabrielle reached level 44 after the first act and thanks to some new items (ring and charms) she already had reached 118 DEX. Penetrate is now maxed. She is probably at her height, to-hit wise, now. From now on, almost every point will go into vitality.
I can´t upgrade the Throwing Spears now. I don´t have an Ort or a perfect sapphire. The sapphires have been used for staff crafting and the Orts were used in the old staff. Besides, I hope to gamble an even better rare pack. Cruel damage and extra speed, anyone?
to be continued...
We see Gabrielle do some fancy staff moves. She has definately improved since she first started training with it ten episodes ago. Zoom out and we see that her sparring partner is actually Argo, Xena´s horse! Suddenly, there is a whistle, Gabrielle goes like "Uh, oh!" and Argo kicks the staff through the air, right into Xena´s waiting hand.
G: “I hate it when you do that. I have to practice.â€
X: (Throws back the staff) “Not on my horse. I wish the two of you would just get along.â€
G: “It’s not like we’re at constant war or anything. Argo doesn’t like me.â€
X: “Sometimes you have to have patience with things that annoy you.â€
G: “Oh, I never said she annoyed me.â€
X: “I wasn’t talking to you.â€
G: “Oh, funny-- very, very funny.â€
X: “There’s a road on the other side of those trees. I’ll meet you there; bring Argo.â€
G: “You go on. We’ll catch up.â€
X: (Whispers to Argo) “Be nice."
(/The Greater Good)
Playing on /players 1 (compared to a much higher setting) affects the levelling a lot (no kidding!) and that´s most pronounced in Act 5 Normal and Act 1 Nightmare. A full clear of Normal on /players 8 gets you to level 48 or 49. That is such a high level that you get very little XP and level very little in Act 1 NM. A full clear on Normal on /players 1 leaves you with level 36 or 37. However, you get at least 7 level-ups in Act 1 Nightmare, catching up pretty well.
That was what happened to Gabrielle. She had it very tough out on the Cold Plains and in the following areas, but her quick levelling (following the DEX + Penetrate plan I mentioned earlier) and some key gear improvements made the later parts of the act easier, with one clear exception, the part of the Act that always seems to be the hardest BY FAR for me. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Halfway through the Cold Plains, I discovered that Akara had started selling staves with the Glowing prefix (1-(121-180) lightning damage). Such a staff with decent speed would pretty much own her current 6-23 physical damage, 2-100 lightning damage, speed -20 staff. Problem is, NM Akara mostly sells the slow Gnarled Staves and only the occasional Jo Staff and Quartestaff. I shopped her a LOT and finally managed to land a Glowing Jo Staff of Readiness. Same speed as the former staff, slightly less physical but more lightning damage.
I had been looking at Charsi´s and Gheed´s trying to find a Mesh Belt for crafting (I want to have 16 potion slots, you know...). After oh so many tries, I was ready to give up on that in this act. Then I thought of the excellent shopping calculator I read about on this forum a while back and tried it out:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dcarson/shopcalc.html
Oh, so at least Charsi should be able to sell me one. I shopped some more. And more. And even more. Finally! It was definately worth the effort. The crafting produced an excellent result, with the two random abilities I wanted the most, FHR and cold resist. Wow!
Viper Winding
Mesh Belt
Defense: 39
+11 to Life
+6 to Mana
+15 to Attack Rating
Cold Resist +16%
2% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
24% Faster Hit Recovery
7% Chance of Open Wounds
Open Wounds is great, even with this small chance. This belt may very well be stuck on her until the end. I was very pleased that the first try was so good. That saves me jewels, Tal runes and perfect rubies for other purposes.
Gabrielle struggled on. I had to develop a certain tactic against the Fallen and their more advanced relatives: the chain killing. Fighting one is easy, fighting two is OK, fighting three is bad, fighting four or more is really, really bad. Smack, smack, smack and poor Gabby is down to less than half life and has to drink potions and retreat in a humiliating way...
I took advantage of a certain feauture of these foes: that they run away when they see something get killed. Other enemy types always had priority over the Fallen, be they corrupted rogues, goats, crows or skeletons. One enemy gets killed, and the Fallen back off. When it was time to fight the Fallen, I did like this:
* Attack one the nearest ones, preferrably a torch carrier (they don´t have a shield so they are much easier to kill).
* When that one dies, immediatly attack the nearest next Fallen. Sometimes they don´t run away so if there was one with this behaviour, I´d attack that one first.
* Repeat until they are all dead.
This gave me enough time to overcome them, for the most part. It´s a method I first discovered in Hell with SniperBlazie, my Blaze Enchantress. Since all the Fallen types are fire immune in Hell, Blazie took them on in melee. She was about as good against them in Hell as Gabrielle is here in Nightmare.
When Gabrielle reached level 40, I saw a Buzzing staff for sale at Akara´s. That is the next higher lightning damage prefix after Glowing. It´s a level 46 affix and shouldn´t be for sale now, I thought. I remember reading something back in the Classic days that wands/scepters/staves had a bonus of 1 to their affix level (just like Circlets have a bonus of 3). I guess that must still be true... Time for some more shopping, then! I was lucky, after not too many trips (around 50) I bought a Buzzing Gnarled Staff of Alacrity. Slightly slower than her current staff but with a high-end value to the max damage, 251 (it varies between 181 and 260 so this was very good). It only had +1 to Nova so it was cheap as well. The repair cost if it´s broken is just over 700. Pretty reasonable, huh?
Treehead WoodFist´s pack was CE and I had no intention of fighting them in melee. I threw javelins over a fence to kill them.
Cain got rescued without too much of a fuss. Griswold was scary enough for me to avoid melee totally (I don´t remember what extra ability he had, though). He dropped a Falcata. That´s right, an Elite item! How high IS his level, anyway? Why didn´t he drop a Walking Stick instead, that is in the next higher TC.
I have started to fight all CE bosses and minions with javelins, that´s how tough and annoying they are. Same with Holy Freeze bosses and Extra Strong bosses of hard-hitting monster types (zombies, Brutes).
It´s not too many levels until Gabrielle can use a Harpoon and I wanted to gamble a good pack of Throwing Spears. The Static Javelins of Swiftness don´t really cut it anymore and the pack vanishes too quickly. However, there were more important stuff to gamble first, most notably getting better resists. I had about 1.2 million in gold and went on a gambling spree that would be very succesful. I started with boots. The fifth pair were keepers:
Wraith Greaves
Boots
Defense: 5
Fire Resist +33%
Lightning Resist +25%
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Hit Recovery
Holy smokes, what boots! They lack Faster Run but I have not needed that before (other than in specific situations and I have Sander´s for that). If I find the need, I can always make myself a 'Stealth' armor, or gamble a circlet that has FR and some other goodies. And would you believe it, after about 400 000 more were spent, I landed:
Glyph Brow
Circlet
Defense: 20
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +36%
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
20% Faster Run/Walk
Well OK then, I´ll gladly take that. Running around with 70+ Magic Find is probably a good idea here in Nightmare.
So there was a lot of cash left to gamble some Throwing Spears with. The best I came up with were these:
Eagle Wood
Throwing Spear
Throw Damage: 21 to 53
Quantity: 102
+79% Enhanced Damage
+21 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-27 lightning damage
Increased Stack Size
Decent damage and increased stack size. Nice.
That was one the best gambling sessions I´ve ever had.
Having two items with FHR greatly improved Gabrielle´s fighting and tanking abilites.
During the act I crafted three Hitpower Jo Staves. The best one had around +50% damage, 18-54 fire damage and 7-17 cold damage, along with Ruby fire resist, and of course the Frost Shield ability. I only used it against very specific foes: boss packs of spitters. They are almost immune to lightning (some bosses were actually immune) so the Buzzing Staff sucks against them. It´s good enough against normal spitters, though. Thankfully, spitters are rather easy to separate from each other. They can still be dangerous. Sometimes spitters do a surprising amount of damage. My guess is that they have a lightning based melee attack and like (almost) all lightning attacks, the amount of damage is highly variable.
Forgotten Tower only had one troublesome area. There was an Extra Fast something goat boss pack camping the stairs at the level 3 entrance. I portal parked them in the next room and came back from the waypoint. I was lucky to be able to lure back one minion at a time (or on one occasion, two minions).
Now for the worst battle in the act. Where? You guessed it, The Pit level 2. What a dreadful place that is! Four Devilkin shamen and their warriors, always a boss pack of melee rogues and often one or two more boss packs, possibly with archers. In a sardine can.
I killed some Devilkin when suddenly melee rogues attacked. Yup, the boss pack: Fire Enchanted + Holy Fire. I had already chosen the bottlenecked area near the entrance to fight in, but I failed to stop in time on my retreat and two minions and the boss could all rush through and attack Gabrielle. The ONE chance I had and I blew it. Crap!!
I tried to do some dancing around and fighting but they were too fast and dangerous. Two Devilkin also joined the fight. I don´t know how it happened but I ended up back at the stairs, completely surrounded (boss + 2 minions + 2 Devilkin). I could get up the stairs, though. Phew! Good thing Gabrielle has maxed fire resistance now (thanks to her good gambled items and a newly found perfect (30%) Ruby Grand Charm).
I tried to go down and run past them (for a possible portal parking) but Gabrielle couldn´t move a single step. Back up again, because her life was hacked away very quickly. What to do? I shopped a Wailing staff, thinking I could get some of the critters to flee. However, the nearest area was too small and the fleeing monster came back too soon the few times I actually managed to get a hit in. But there was a glimmer of hope, Gabrielle didn´t get hurt so quickly now. I stopped fighting and observed the situation more closely. It looked like the boss was out of the action for the moment. Only one minion and the Devilkins could reach Gabrielle. I brought the Buzzing staff and returned with grim determination. They are ALL going DOWN, dammit!!
Good, we´re still in the same position. Kill a minion, the next filled up that space, kill the other minion and then go for the Devilkin. Finally the boss. I got her down to a sliver of life. Would it be safe to take the FE explosion? Probably, but I didn´t want to risk that. I actually managed to tempt the boss, get some distance and kill it with a well-placed Throwing Spear. Victory!
Potions used: 7 Greater Healing and 5 Full Rejuves.
In the final area of the act, Catacombs 4, I got startled by a spitter boss pack when I peeked into the second room. Remebering Lucky´s (my random amazon) cruel experience in this situation, I got scared and ran up the stairs immediately. When I came down, I rushed to the corner between the stairs and the second room and cast Slow Missiles. A great feature of this skill is that you can actually see monsters through walls (they light up). By keeping track of these light spots, I managed to lure one minion at a time into the first room and kill it with the Jo Staff.
Against Andariel, I mainly used javelins. I tried melee a couple of times. It wasn´t that bad but sometimes Andariel does impressive physical damage with her blows. Also, you don´t get posioned as much if she chases you. It was never any real danger.
Gabrielle reached level 44 after the first act and thanks to some new items (ring and charms) she already had reached 118 DEX. Penetrate is now maxed. She is probably at her height, to-hit wise, now. From now on, almost every point will go into vitality.
I can´t upgrade the Throwing Spears now. I don´t have an Ort or a perfect sapphire. The sapphires have been used for staff crafting and the Orts were used in the old staff. Besides, I hope to gamble an even better rare pack. Cruel damage and extra speed, anyone?
to be continued...
jiansonz
New member
Johney said:
In Nightmare, you mean?
Yeah, I can understand why beetle packs may be a problem in wide open areas, with their speed and unpredictability. Beetleburst and his pesky posse are always waiting in the Oasis. If they get FE, I will be very scared of the bolts (FE bug warning on those...).
good idea, really!
may i point out that runewords will be your best best for "end-game" weapons? yes, those cheap runewords nobody uses! :uhhuh:
for weapons:
"passion" would definitely be the best, as it would give you zeal and berserk, aswell as pretty good dmg.
eld shouldn't be hard to find, or cube from 3xel, ort is given to you by Qual-Kehk.
for dol and lem you just have to hope to drop them from hellforges though...(or, why not, monsters, especially dol) :uhhuh:
i'd recommend shillelagh, as it has a [0] speed, nice base dmg, and can have 4 sockets max(so basically you can find a non-socketed one, and get 4 sox at larzuk, which increases the chances to come accross a superior one), but it has a high lvl req.
Or maybe elder staff, better dmg, but [10] speed, 4 sockets max too. lower lv req.
a cheaper nice alternative would be "strenght", amn and tir rune shouldn't be that hard to find. dmg is quite low, but 25%CB is really nice(aswell as 7%LL maybe). and the dmg is pretty low, but! you have a the perfect candidate for it: walking stick! as it's the first elite staff, the lvl req is "very" low(lvl 43), aswell as the stat req, and even if "strenght" provides only 35%ed, it would be 35%ed of an elite staff, so dmg wouldn't be that shabby.
same as above, walking stick comes with 2 sockets max, so it would be pretty easy to get one, and maybe you'd be lucky to come accross a superior one aswell.
maybe "honor", since the runes are quite easier to find/cube, but it's finding the staff that would be hard, as you'd have to find a 5 sockets war/rune/archon staff. hard indeed, as they have 6 sockets max.
"Malice"(ith+el+eth) maybe, too. easy-to-get runes, 100%ow, -100monster def, -25%monster def, a bit of added dmg...but the drain life might be annoying on your char...
Let's be realistic, and forget "fury" and "silence" :lol:
"strenght" would definitely be your best bet, at least the most viable "easy-to-get" option.
as far as helms are concerned, "lore"(ort+sol) would be an option.
while the +1 skills wouldn't be of much help to that build(apart from dodge/evade/avoid), the 30%light res and "dmg reduced by 7" could come in handy. cheap too.
an another option: nadir (nef+tir)
it would only provide you with decent def bonus(75%def+10def), aswell as charges of cloak of shadow(dunno if you'd allow them on your build), and +5str. the -33%gold might be annoying though.
and last but not least, "radiance"(nef+sol+ith) would be your best bet as far as helms are concerned. here again, runes aren't hard to come by.
and the mods are quite good for a cheap helm!
75% Enhanced Defense
+30 Defense Vs. Missile
+10 To Energy
+10 To Vitality
15% Damage Goes To Mana
Magic Damage Reduced By 3
+33 To Mana
Damage Reduced By 7
+5 To Light Radius
almost everything will be of use to your char! especially the dr and mdr might really come in handy!
regarding armor, the cheapest would be stealth(tal+eth); what would be really of use would be the 25%frw and the 25%fhr, aswell as the 30%poison res and the mdr3.
your end-game armor could probably be "smoke"(nef+lum). it would provide you with decent def, and 50%res all, but the hard part might be to find the lum rune...which will probably be dropped at hell hellforge, if dropped!
so runewords might not be the best solution for armors, but a nice&cheap option for weapons and helms!
hope that helped a bit!
good luck! :howdy:
may i point out that runewords will be your best best for "end-game" weapons? yes, those cheap runewords nobody uses! :uhhuh:
for weapons:
"passion" would definitely be the best, as it would give you zeal and berserk, aswell as pretty good dmg.
eld shouldn't be hard to find, or cube from 3xel, ort is given to you by Qual-Kehk.
for dol and lem you just have to hope to drop them from hellforges though...(or, why not, monsters, especially dol) :uhhuh:
i'd recommend shillelagh, as it has a [0] speed, nice base dmg, and can have 4 sockets max(so basically you can find a non-socketed one, and get 4 sox at larzuk, which increases the chances to come accross a superior one), but it has a high lvl req.
Or maybe elder staff, better dmg, but [10] speed, 4 sockets max too. lower lv req.
a cheaper nice alternative would be "strenght", amn and tir rune shouldn't be that hard to find. dmg is quite low, but 25%CB is really nice(aswell as 7%LL maybe). and the dmg is pretty low, but! you have a the perfect candidate for it: walking stick! as it's the first elite staff, the lvl req is "very" low(lvl 43), aswell as the stat req, and even if "strenght" provides only 35%ed, it would be 35%ed of an elite staff, so dmg wouldn't be that shabby.
same as above, walking stick comes with 2 sockets max, so it would be pretty easy to get one, and maybe you'd be lucky to come accross a superior one aswell.
maybe "honor", since the runes are quite easier to find/cube, but it's finding the staff that would be hard, as you'd have to find a 5 sockets war/rune/archon staff. hard indeed, as they have 6 sockets max.
"Malice"(ith+el+eth) maybe, too. easy-to-get runes, 100%ow, -100monster def, -25%monster def, a bit of added dmg...but the drain life might be annoying on your char...
Let's be realistic, and forget "fury" and "silence" :lol:
"strenght" would definitely be your best bet, at least the most viable "easy-to-get" option.
as far as helms are concerned, "lore"(ort+sol) would be an option.
while the +1 skills wouldn't be of much help to that build(apart from dodge/evade/avoid), the 30%light res and "dmg reduced by 7" could come in handy. cheap too.
an another option: nadir (nef+tir)
it would only provide you with decent def bonus(75%def+10def), aswell as charges of cloak of shadow(dunno if you'd allow them on your build), and +5str. the -33%gold might be annoying though.
and last but not least, "radiance"(nef+sol+ith) would be your best bet as far as helms are concerned. here again, runes aren't hard to come by.
and the mods are quite good for a cheap helm!
75% Enhanced Defense
+30 Defense Vs. Missile
+10 To Energy
+10 To Vitality
15% Damage Goes To Mana
Magic Damage Reduced By 3
+33 To Mana
Damage Reduced By 7
+5 To Light Radius
almost everything will be of use to your char! especially the dr and mdr might really come in handy!
regarding armor, the cheapest would be stealth(tal+eth); what would be really of use would be the 25%frw and the 25%fhr, aswell as the 30%poison res and the mdr3.
your end-game armor could probably be "smoke"(nef+lum). it would provide you with decent def, and 50%res all, but the hard part might be to find the lum rune...which will probably be dropped at hell hellforge, if dropped!
so runewords might not be the best solution for armors, but a nice&cheap option for weapons and helms!
hope that helped a bit!
good luck! :howdy:
jiansonz
New member
HardyZ said:
Nobody? Well, I´m a nobody then, since I often use them...
HardyZ said:
'Passion' in an Elite staff is a dream item, yes (well, second to Ribcracker :uhhuh: ...). It will be interesting to see the NM Hellforge rune, if I get that far.
HardyZ said:
Actually, both Elder Staff and Shillelagh have a speed of 0 and they have the same average damage, so both would be equally good. I don´t think level 59 is a high requirement. Gabrielle will reach that level around the start of Act 4 NM, way before these staff types can drop.
HardyZ said:
Wait for the next update...
HardyZ said:
This runeword has some nice attributes but no IAS and can only be a made in the slowest staff types, so no...
Finding a staff would not be that hard, though. Start with a Crude War/Rune Staff, make it normal with that recipe and the max number sockets will be 5 (since the item level is set to 1). There is a 1/3 chance to get 5 sockets from the socket recipe after that.
HardyZ said:
Yes, 100% chance of Open Wounds is good enough for me to consider this option.
HardyZ said:
Let´s not forget some extra AR from Penetrate and an extra 6 seconds duration of Slow Missiles...
Not a likely option, though. I think I will like crafting Blood rings too much to "waste" a Sol rune this way. But combined with 'Passion', maybe. Level 2 Zeal is a whole lot better than level 1 Zeal. Hey, one can dream, right?
HardyZ said:
I don´t know if I should allow it either. Maybe. If I encounter a really nasty stairs trap in the Kurast temples, I may try it for the CoS charges. I have to remember to buy a 2-socketed Full Helm in Normal and keep the necessary runes before that part of the game.
HardyZ said:
Uh, no thanks. I think the current Circlet is much better. Besides, it would have to be done in a Tiara or Diadem. You can go through the larger part of Hell before one of those drop (if ever).
HardyZ said:
Wait for the next update...
HardyZ said:
I have already found a Lum rune! (I´ll tell you where later) Yay!
The exceptional leather armors are easy to get 2 sockets in (5/6 chance with the recipe). The elite ones are harder, but that would make a yummy armor.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
jiansonz
New member
G: "Another one’s fallen for you.â€
X: “Again?â€
G: “Yeah.â€
X: “Why does this always happen?â€
G: “It’s the blue eyes, the leather. Some guys just love leather.â€
X: “I think a wardrobe change is in order.â€
G: “You could wear chain mail.â€
X: “Yeah, but I think that’d just attract a kinkier group.â€
G: “You’re probably right.†(both of them giggle)
X: “On the other hand, I could just stop bathing and wear a smelly wolf skin. That’d turn ‘em off.â€
G: “That’s true. Of course, you’d also be travelling alone.â€
/(A Day in the Life)
Not much worth mentioning happened in the Sewers. It was a steady progress, as it was in most of the act. There were, however, four REALLY tough parts.
Tough part #1: the start of Stony Tomb level 1. I came down and there was a pack of beetles right there. "Sorry, can´t stay guys, gotta go!" Gabrielle was out of their awareness range before they reacted. Cool. She neared an end room (as you may know, Stony Tomb has three end rooms on each of the floors. On level 2, one has the golden chest and Creeping Feature is in another, the one closest to the chest room) and killed two Horrors. Those are tough enemies for her, because they have high lightning resistance and a shield. She opened the door and was immediately attacked by skellies and beetles. The beetles were first and they were no real trouble because they are so big and and it´s easy to stop them in the doorway.
After that, the next enemy was a Champion Horror. I could not believe how much life Gabrielle was losing against that fellow! OK, there were some lightning mages shooting in the background but it could not have been them. Gabrielle had excellent lightning resist here because she was wearing an Amber (37%) Amulet of Amelioration (I just had a feeling there would be beetles in the Tomb). Then I saw that the major chunks of life she lost were not in synch with the Champ´s hits. Huh? I discovered the culprit, there was a sneaky Berserker Horror that also could hit her. The doorway made it so I almost couldn´t see it. Berserkers do more physical damage than Extra Strong bosses, hence the danger. Gabrielle was in too much hit recovery/Dodge/Avoid to be able to hit the Champ often enough and the situation was very dangerous (rapid potion chugging going on). I had to retreat. I went back towards the stairs, ran past the beetles and down into the next corridor, past another beetle pack (those were more alert) and into the next room and cast a portal, ready to leave. However, I changed my mind. It looked like there were only a few lightning-shooting mages in there. My gut feeling told me to block the beetles in the doorway. Gabrielle made THE most heroic stand in that doorway, taking down five beetles in succession, all the while being pestered by four lightning mages. After that incident, I had so much space at my disposal, the rest of the floor was easy.
The above incident illustrates what I think is one of my strongest traits as a HC player, to quickly recognize battles I can win and battles I probably can´t win. And then get the *%&# away from the latter, regroup and choose a better time and place for that battle. I may not be the best player in a hectic battle but I am very good at picking and arranging my battles wisely.
Tough part #2 was not a battle to be proud of. In fact, it was a really stupid move from me. It happened in Halls of the Dead level 3. I had almost cleared four rooms and the corridors between them. The last room had a Mummy Sarcophagus with TWO Hollow Ones standing right next to it. I finally got rid of the Hollow Ones by using javelins, as I didn´t want to stand close to them (because the sarcophagus produces Dried Corpses if it can "sense" your presence).
Since a Mummy Sarcophagus can produce mummies faster than Gabrielle can kill them, there are only two ways to defeat it (if you want any XP for it, that is):
* Block the sarcophagus with Gabrielle.
* Have a mummy block the sarcophagus. Then I have to let that darn mummy hit Gabrielle the whole time it takes her to perform the gazillions of swings needed to destroy the sarcophagus, so this method is only used as a last resort.
The space Gabrielle (or the mummy) must stand on for this to work is not large. I usually switch to walking for the last few steps, for better precision. There is one more complication to this. Even if I (or the mummy) gets into the right position, there may only be two (maybe three) mummies hitting Gabrielle. She must be able to survive the fight, too...
I had already succesfully destroyed a couple of those sarcophagi earlier in the Halls (it´s funny when they bleed like mad from Open Wounds! :lol: ) but this one was worse. It had spawned so many mummies because of the time I had needed to get rid of the Hollow Ones. I tried to reduce the number while staying away from the sarcophagus. Hit them once with javelins to "wake" them, and so on. I made several tries to block the sarcophagus but every time I seemed to fail and there were still a couple of more mummies I had missed.
I guess I was tired. I saw a chance to lure away a mummy that only partly blocked the desired floor space (that is a no-win situation, you HAVE to get him away from such a spot; he blocks me or another mummy from getting into the "right" position) and suddenly I had backed next to a wall and a newly spawned mummy decided to spawn on the exact floor space I needed to pass on my retreat. Bam! Jailed. Three mummies hitting and I can´t move. Four mummies, Five, six, seven mummies hitting poor Gabby! I had a choice, try to break free while chugging all my full rejuves and then S&E, or S&E now and save a couple of full rejuves. I chose the latter.
Darn.
I had items stored on the ground in town. Sander´s boots and the Static Circlet were the worst losses.
Darn.
What a clumsy move. Only one more Save and Exit is allowed now.
Darn.
This called for revenge! I ran past everything from waypoint to exit on the second floor and when I stepped down on the third floor, there was a FREAKIN` CHAMPION PACK OF HOLLOW ONES with a following HORDE of Returned waiting right at the entrance. You gotta be kidding me...
I ran like mad and finally, two rooms later I found a spot where only two bats and later two Returned attacked. Then it was calm. I took it very slow from there. I knew I had to reach the sarcophagus room from two sides to be able to kill eveything without triggering so much spawning. It worked out perfectly. Everything dead in there, I ran up to the sarcophagus, one mummy spawned and Gabrielle could calmly kill it, because she was already blocking the sarcophagus. Ah, sweet revenge!
I felt a bit ashamed after having killed that room and two corridors again (remember, no repeating of areas is allowed). But I had to do that to be able to tackle what was left of the level. Parking a monster or not clearing a room is worse than killing something twice, in my book.
Then it was a steady clearance in Far Oasis, Maggot Lair, Lost City and Ancient Tunnels. The Maggot Breeding Room is easy in NM as long as you have patience. Coldworm will only spawn a limited (but many) number of maggots and each maggot will only lay two eggs. So there is actually an end to the number of young you have to kill. I just stayed in the hallway and whacked away until the young were extinct, then carefully (so I didn´t trap myself) worked on the large maggots. Coldworm was FE so I stayed well away from her, killing her with javelins.
Three important equipment upgrades around here. I found a second Tal rune, which made me socket (with the recipe) a 125 Defense Serpentskin Armor I had stashed for a while now. I made 'Stealth' in it. Even more FHR proved useful, as did the Faster Run.
I also crafted an interesting Gothic Staff:
Demon Spell
Gothic Staff
Two-Hand Damage: 21 to 52
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 43
Staff Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Level: 48
+53% Enhanced Damage
Attacker Takes Damage of 7
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to Glacial Spike (Sorceress Only)
+ 255% Damage to Undead
+294 to Attack Rating against Undead
5% Chance to cast Level 4 Frost Nova when struck
That translates into a Cruel Gothic Staff of Alacrity (with some extra goodies) against the undead. Too bad I didn´t have this baby against those lightning resistant Horrors earlier...
Shortly afterwards, I found an Ort rune. Yes, just what I need to upgrade my nice rare Throwing Spears. Oh crap, that recipe also uses sapphires. D´oh! That´s not fair! OK, I´ll have to get another perfect sapphire, then. That can probably take a while.
I check Drognan every time I sell stuff and he had a beauty for sale: a Buzzing Quarterstaff of Alacrity. Only 1-207 damage but it´s faster than the current Gnarled Staff and that´s what´s most important. Also, it does better physical damage.
I was pleasantly surprised on the first floor (which is 98 % of the dungeon) of the Claw Viper Temple: there were no Claw Vipers. I almost cheered when a couple of Bone Warriors approached. This is the first of my characters that have felt this way. It´s not strange for Gabrielle, though. Bone Warriors are wimpy and she knows how to humiliate greater mummies. The Salamanders were present. I found out that their Charges do fire + physical damage. No cold. Yes!
There are several ways to handle level 2. With underpowered characters, the plan is always to get on the altar before taking on Fangskin´s pack and that can be done in several ways. I decided for the "tiptoe" approach: one small step at a time and back off quickly if something wakes up. No rushing until I have to.
I woke up three Claw Vipers and killed them. Not easy but what difference three items with FHR does. Next up, three wimpy Embalmed followed by three Salamanders who had picked up Might. Oh crap, Fangy must have Might! I backed off a bit and the Salamanders lost the aura help. That aura has a pretty long reach and from that, I realized that Fangy must be as far away as possible, i.e. in the lower right corner, probably close to the stairs to the altar platform. Indeed he/she was. And of course some minions stopped me from getting on the stairs and now Fangy was awake.
What followed now was tough part #3, an incredible spectacle that involved about four portal parkings (or running up the stairs.) and three NDEs with Charging Mighty LE Extra Fast Salamander minions. Charge is physical damage, right? It must be, as those hurt a lot here. I stayed focused and thought mainly of three things:
* Stay away from Fangskin. A boss Charge will not be nice...
* Always have two ways to the level, where at least one is free from enemies.
* Don´t hesitate on the potions.
There was one time I thought I would manage to reach the altar but one mionon suddenly blocked the way. It was not about to attack, it just followed the "boss leash" and was on its way to Fangskin. If I had stayed calm, I cold have just waited for it to pass and then proceed to victory. Alas, I had to go through more running first. Then I finally made it up on the altar in one piece. I punched my fist in the air and let out a resounding "Yes!". That normally only happens against the Ancients. Killing Fangy and gang from the altar with javelins was a formality. I could even avoid the sparks from Fangy by using Slow Missiles.
"I HATE snakes"
/Henry Jones Jr., "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
I had no problems in Jerhyn´s Palace or Arcane Sanctuary. Not in Canyon of the Magi either. That was mainly because I took it very slowly in the beginning, securing more and more important space. I had maggots, beetles and Crushers to deal with.
It was mixed bag in the seven tombs. There was only one really tough beginning, which involved some portal parkings and an Unravler with skellies, two packs of beetles (10 beetles in total) and an Extra Fast Conviction Apparition boss (the minions didn´t find me, thankfully!).
The true tomb had lots and lots of Unravelers and Gorebellies.
Tough part #4: not hard to guess, the big slug. I had been on an amulet gambling spree (10 of them) and scored one that was very good for this fight, an Amulet of Life Everlasting (damage reduced by 20). Is that suffix name cool or what!?!
What surprised me first was how little danger Gabrielle seemed to be in. Her Dodge seemed to be in hyper mode, triggering much more than ~50% of the time, as it´s supposed to. It felt more like 80-90%. However, Duriel didn´t seem to lose any life. After what felt like around two minutes into the fight (I had only needed two healing potions by then), Duriel turned green (from the 12 over 3 poison damage, a side effect from two resist charms). Was that really Gabrielle´s first hit? Oh, crap! This will take AGES! Having a 15 frames attack is apparently not good enough if you are Holy Frozen and in constant Dodge and hit recovery.
I had to do something. I had already anticipated something like this could happen and I had bought a 2-socketed Short Staff from Fara in Normal before clearing the true tomb. I made 'Strength' in it. In addition to 25% Crushing Blow, that runeword also has a bonus to vitality. That pushed Gabrielle´s maximum life to 666. :bow: It took that as a good sign.
This staff is even slower, a 16 frame attack, but what can you do? Sometimes I ran away from Duriel to try to get the first hit in when they met again. It actually worked a couple of times. She could also hit in normal battle, every now and then. Open Wounds was also encouraging when it triggered. Bleed, you bastard!
Lo and behold, Gabrielle could actually (eventually) sliver the old slug with a freakin´ Short Staff!. I switched to the Buzzing staff and put on MF jewelry. That put cold resist back to less than 50% and I had to use 2 full rejuves (first ones in the fight, actually) but finally the Lord of Pain had been Crushed, Bled and Buzzed too much to continue. :yep:
I estimate that I used about 20 town portal scrolls and over 150 healing potions to win this battle, which took around 35 minutes in total.
Forth!
to be continued...
X: “Again?â€
G: “Yeah.â€
X: “Why does this always happen?â€
G: “It’s the blue eyes, the leather. Some guys just love leather.â€
X: “I think a wardrobe change is in order.â€
G: “You could wear chain mail.â€
X: “Yeah, but I think that’d just attract a kinkier group.â€
G: “You’re probably right.†(both of them giggle)
X: “On the other hand, I could just stop bathing and wear a smelly wolf skin. That’d turn ‘em off.â€
G: “That’s true. Of course, you’d also be travelling alone.â€
/(A Day in the Life)
Not much worth mentioning happened in the Sewers. It was a steady progress, as it was in most of the act. There were, however, four REALLY tough parts.
Tough part #1: the start of Stony Tomb level 1. I came down and there was a pack of beetles right there. "Sorry, can´t stay guys, gotta go!" Gabrielle was out of their awareness range before they reacted. Cool. She neared an end room (as you may know, Stony Tomb has three end rooms on each of the floors. On level 2, one has the golden chest and Creeping Feature is in another, the one closest to the chest room) and killed two Horrors. Those are tough enemies for her, because they have high lightning resistance and a shield. She opened the door and was immediately attacked by skellies and beetles. The beetles were first and they were no real trouble because they are so big and and it´s easy to stop them in the doorway.
After that, the next enemy was a Champion Horror. I could not believe how much life Gabrielle was losing against that fellow! OK, there were some lightning mages shooting in the background but it could not have been them. Gabrielle had excellent lightning resist here because she was wearing an Amber (37%) Amulet of Amelioration (I just had a feeling there would be beetles in the Tomb). Then I saw that the major chunks of life she lost were not in synch with the Champ´s hits. Huh? I discovered the culprit, there was a sneaky Berserker Horror that also could hit her. The doorway made it so I almost couldn´t see it. Berserkers do more physical damage than Extra Strong bosses, hence the danger. Gabrielle was in too much hit recovery/Dodge/Avoid to be able to hit the Champ often enough and the situation was very dangerous (rapid potion chugging going on). I had to retreat. I went back towards the stairs, ran past the beetles and down into the next corridor, past another beetle pack (those were more alert) and into the next room and cast a portal, ready to leave. However, I changed my mind. It looked like there were only a few lightning-shooting mages in there. My gut feeling told me to block the beetles in the doorway. Gabrielle made THE most heroic stand in that doorway, taking down five beetles in succession, all the while being pestered by four lightning mages. After that incident, I had so much space at my disposal, the rest of the floor was easy.
The above incident illustrates what I think is one of my strongest traits as a HC player, to quickly recognize battles I can win and battles I probably can´t win. And then get the *%&# away from the latter, regroup and choose a better time and place for that battle. I may not be the best player in a hectic battle but I am very good at picking and arranging my battles wisely.
Tough part #2 was not a battle to be proud of. In fact, it was a really stupid move from me. It happened in Halls of the Dead level 3. I had almost cleared four rooms and the corridors between them. The last room had a Mummy Sarcophagus with TWO Hollow Ones standing right next to it. I finally got rid of the Hollow Ones by using javelins, as I didn´t want to stand close to them (because the sarcophagus produces Dried Corpses if it can "sense" your presence).
Since a Mummy Sarcophagus can produce mummies faster than Gabrielle can kill them, there are only two ways to defeat it (if you want any XP for it, that is):
* Block the sarcophagus with Gabrielle.
* Have a mummy block the sarcophagus. Then I have to let that darn mummy hit Gabrielle the whole time it takes her to perform the gazillions of swings needed to destroy the sarcophagus, so this method is only used as a last resort.
The space Gabrielle (or the mummy) must stand on for this to work is not large. I usually switch to walking for the last few steps, for better precision. There is one more complication to this. Even if I (or the mummy) gets into the right position, there may only be two (maybe three) mummies hitting Gabrielle. She must be able to survive the fight, too...
I had already succesfully destroyed a couple of those sarcophagi earlier in the Halls (it´s funny when they bleed like mad from Open Wounds! :lol: ) but this one was worse. It had spawned so many mummies because of the time I had needed to get rid of the Hollow Ones. I tried to reduce the number while staying away from the sarcophagus. Hit them once with javelins to "wake" them, and so on. I made several tries to block the sarcophagus but every time I seemed to fail and there were still a couple of more mummies I had missed.
I guess I was tired. I saw a chance to lure away a mummy that only partly blocked the desired floor space (that is a no-win situation, you HAVE to get him away from such a spot; he blocks me or another mummy from getting into the "right" position) and suddenly I had backed next to a wall and a newly spawned mummy decided to spawn on the exact floor space I needed to pass on my retreat. Bam! Jailed. Three mummies hitting and I can´t move. Four mummies, Five, six, seven mummies hitting poor Gabby! I had a choice, try to break free while chugging all my full rejuves and then S&E, or S&E now and save a couple of full rejuves. I chose the latter.
Darn.
I had items stored on the ground in town. Sander´s boots and the Static Circlet were the worst losses.
Darn.
What a clumsy move. Only one more Save and Exit is allowed now.
Darn.
This called for revenge! I ran past everything from waypoint to exit on the second floor and when I stepped down on the third floor, there was a FREAKIN` CHAMPION PACK OF HOLLOW ONES with a following HORDE of Returned waiting right at the entrance. You gotta be kidding me...
I ran like mad and finally, two rooms later I found a spot where only two bats and later two Returned attacked. Then it was calm. I took it very slow from there. I knew I had to reach the sarcophagus room from two sides to be able to kill eveything without triggering so much spawning. It worked out perfectly. Everything dead in there, I ran up to the sarcophagus, one mummy spawned and Gabrielle could calmly kill it, because she was already blocking the sarcophagus. Ah, sweet revenge!
I felt a bit ashamed after having killed that room and two corridors again (remember, no repeating of areas is allowed). But I had to do that to be able to tackle what was left of the level. Parking a monster or not clearing a room is worse than killing something twice, in my book.
Then it was a steady clearance in Far Oasis, Maggot Lair, Lost City and Ancient Tunnels. The Maggot Breeding Room is easy in NM as long as you have patience. Coldworm will only spawn a limited (but many) number of maggots and each maggot will only lay two eggs. So there is actually an end to the number of young you have to kill. I just stayed in the hallway and whacked away until the young were extinct, then carefully (so I didn´t trap myself) worked on the large maggots. Coldworm was FE so I stayed well away from her, killing her with javelins.
Three important equipment upgrades around here. I found a second Tal rune, which made me socket (with the recipe) a 125 Defense Serpentskin Armor I had stashed for a while now. I made 'Stealth' in it. Even more FHR proved useful, as did the Faster Run.
I also crafted an interesting Gothic Staff:
Demon Spell
Gothic Staff
Two-Hand Damage: 21 to 52
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 43
Staff Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Level: 48
+53% Enhanced Damage
Attacker Takes Damage of 7
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to Glacial Spike (Sorceress Only)
+ 255% Damage to Undead
+294 to Attack Rating against Undead
5% Chance to cast Level 4 Frost Nova when struck
That translates into a Cruel Gothic Staff of Alacrity (with some extra goodies) against the undead. Too bad I didn´t have this baby against those lightning resistant Horrors earlier...
Shortly afterwards, I found an Ort rune. Yes, just what I need to upgrade my nice rare Throwing Spears. Oh crap, that recipe also uses sapphires. D´oh! That´s not fair! OK, I´ll have to get another perfect sapphire, then. That can probably take a while.
I check Drognan every time I sell stuff and he had a beauty for sale: a Buzzing Quarterstaff of Alacrity. Only 1-207 damage but it´s faster than the current Gnarled Staff and that´s what´s most important. Also, it does better physical damage.
I was pleasantly surprised on the first floor (which is 98 % of the dungeon) of the Claw Viper Temple: there were no Claw Vipers. I almost cheered when a couple of Bone Warriors approached. This is the first of my characters that have felt this way. It´s not strange for Gabrielle, though. Bone Warriors are wimpy and she knows how to humiliate greater mummies. The Salamanders were present. I found out that their Charges do fire + physical damage. No cold. Yes!
There are several ways to handle level 2. With underpowered characters, the plan is always to get on the altar before taking on Fangskin´s pack and that can be done in several ways. I decided for the "tiptoe" approach: one small step at a time and back off quickly if something wakes up. No rushing until I have to.
I woke up three Claw Vipers and killed them. Not easy but what difference three items with FHR does. Next up, three wimpy Embalmed followed by three Salamanders who had picked up Might. Oh crap, Fangy must have Might! I backed off a bit and the Salamanders lost the aura help. That aura has a pretty long reach and from that, I realized that Fangy must be as far away as possible, i.e. in the lower right corner, probably close to the stairs to the altar platform. Indeed he/she was. And of course some minions stopped me from getting on the stairs and now Fangy was awake.
What followed now was tough part #3, an incredible spectacle that involved about four portal parkings (or running up the stairs.) and three NDEs with Charging Mighty LE Extra Fast Salamander minions. Charge is physical damage, right? It must be, as those hurt a lot here. I stayed focused and thought mainly of three things:
* Stay away from Fangskin. A boss Charge will not be nice...
* Always have two ways to the level, where at least one is free from enemies.
* Don´t hesitate on the potions.
There was one time I thought I would manage to reach the altar but one mionon suddenly blocked the way. It was not about to attack, it just followed the "boss leash" and was on its way to Fangskin. If I had stayed calm, I cold have just waited for it to pass and then proceed to victory. Alas, I had to go through more running first. Then I finally made it up on the altar in one piece. I punched my fist in the air and let out a resounding "Yes!". That normally only happens against the Ancients. Killing Fangy and gang from the altar with javelins was a formality. I could even avoid the sparks from Fangy by using Slow Missiles.
"I HATE snakes"
/Henry Jones Jr., "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
I had no problems in Jerhyn´s Palace or Arcane Sanctuary. Not in Canyon of the Magi either. That was mainly because I took it very slowly in the beginning, securing more and more important space. I had maggots, beetles and Crushers to deal with.
It was mixed bag in the seven tombs. There was only one really tough beginning, which involved some portal parkings and an Unravler with skellies, two packs of beetles (10 beetles in total) and an Extra Fast Conviction Apparition boss (the minions didn´t find me, thankfully!).
The true tomb had lots and lots of Unravelers and Gorebellies.
Tough part #4: not hard to guess, the big slug. I had been on an amulet gambling spree (10 of them) and scored one that was very good for this fight, an Amulet of Life Everlasting (damage reduced by 20). Is that suffix name cool or what!?!
What surprised me first was how little danger Gabrielle seemed to be in. Her Dodge seemed to be in hyper mode, triggering much more than ~50% of the time, as it´s supposed to. It felt more like 80-90%. However, Duriel didn´t seem to lose any life. After what felt like around two minutes into the fight (I had only needed two healing potions by then), Duriel turned green (from the 12 over 3 poison damage, a side effect from two resist charms). Was that really Gabrielle´s first hit? Oh, crap! This will take AGES! Having a 15 frames attack is apparently not good enough if you are Holy Frozen and in constant Dodge and hit recovery.
I had to do something. I had already anticipated something like this could happen and I had bought a 2-socketed Short Staff from Fara in Normal before clearing the true tomb. I made 'Strength' in it. In addition to 25% Crushing Blow, that runeword also has a bonus to vitality. That pushed Gabrielle´s maximum life to 666. :bow: It took that as a good sign.
This staff is even slower, a 16 frame attack, but what can you do? Sometimes I ran away from Duriel to try to get the first hit in when they met again. It actually worked a couple of times. She could also hit in normal battle, every now and then. Open Wounds was also encouraging when it triggered. Bleed, you bastard!
Lo and behold, Gabrielle could actually (eventually) sliver the old slug with a freakin´ Short Staff!. I switched to the Buzzing staff and put on MF jewelry. That put cold resist back to less than 50% and I had to use 2 full rejuves (first ones in the fight, actually) but finally the Lord of Pain had been Crushed, Bled and Buzzed too much to continue. :yep:
I estimate that I used about 20 town portal scrolls and over 150 healing potions to win this battle, which took around 35 minutes in total.
Forth!
to be continued...
Silverbolt
New member
Wow. That's some awesome fighting. Well done! :worship:
--SB
--SB
TheUltimateBarbarian
Banned
good job
good Job I used to be a lurker but now I joined and i was thinking about this so i started a gabrielle too. So far she is lv 12 ...little too late i guess? But anyway coldcrow and bloodraven were both jokes for her with her 3 socketed staff. She is finding critical strike very useful. 31*2= alot for were she is. Right now she just finished the Cain Quest and will be much farther tomoroow. Act 3 perhaps? Maybe we can do some hell Wsk runs together after lol Cheers! :drink: :drink:
good Job I used to be a lurker but now I joined and i was thinking about this so i started a gabrielle too. So far she is lv 12 ...little too late i guess? But anyway coldcrow and bloodraven were both jokes for her with her 3 socketed staff. She is finding critical strike very useful. 31*2= alot for were she is. Right now she just finished the Cain Quest and will be much farther tomoroow. Act 3 perhaps? Maybe we can do some hell Wsk runs together after lol Cheers! :drink: :drink:
SnakeEye85
New member
Enjoy reading your stories as always
I didn´t wanna bet on were you will die cause i know that you would beat it somehow....
looking forward for next update!
I didn´t wanna bet on were you will die cause i know that you would beat it somehow....
looking forward for next update!
jiansonz
New member
whomhead said:
That´s not entirely true. Mordalles thought it would be possible to reach Hell and I´m not there yet.
And then we have Serdash who thought I would get to Worldstone Keep. In Hell! No matter what he said in his next post, I just can´t take that seriously.
Thanks for the kind words, all of you.
TheUltimateBarbarian
Banned
Lot's of Playing
Well i played a ton yesterday and now my Gabrielle stands undefeated in act 3 quest 4. She has a 2 socketed short staff with 2 ort runes in it. She has had no tough times, except for when she was facing Duriel... I almost used a save and quit but i found my full rejuv! Lucky He had the Holy Freeze aura. Somehow I managed to kill him with Javelins? :scratch: well anyways i don't think were gonna die anytime soon. But I do have my doubts around the Ancients. Also i have some yummy armor :drool: ... can't remember but around 65 defense? With like resists and life, and hit recovery. Not to good but it ok. Becasue it adds 24% fire resistance... now i have around 50 so i can survive a boss back of Shamans... maybe. The only thing annoying about this build is it has no Mercenary or ias gloves :rant:
Well i played a ton yesterday and now my Gabrielle stands undefeated in act 3 quest 4. She has a 2 socketed short staff with 2 ort runes in it. She has had no tough times, except for when she was facing Duriel... I almost used a save and quit but i found my full rejuv! Lucky He had the Holy Freeze aura. Somehow I managed to kill him with Javelins? :scratch: well anyways i don't think were gonna die anytime soon. But I do have my doubts around the Ancients. Also i have some yummy armor :drool: ... can't remember but around 65 defense? With like resists and life, and hit recovery. Not to good but it ok. Becasue it adds 24% fire resistance... now i have around 50 so i can survive a boss back of Shamans... maybe. The only thing annoying about this build is it has no Mercenary or ias gloves :rant:
I must admit that I've silently slid out of the picture. I was not enjoying the character at all, which is rare for me. I now officiallly retire Gaby *sigh*Online said:
I HAVE thoroughly enjoyed reading about Gabrielle though, and am amazed at her success!! GG jiansonz :worship: You are the l337 player!!
jiansonz
New member
TheUltimateBarbarian said:
Good going! Amazing luck finding TWO Orts this early. :clap: Around where you are now, vendors start selling staves with the Static prefix (up to 1-120 lightning damage). Look for one with high-end lightning damage and a good suffix and preferrrably not a slow staff type (Gnarled, War). The staff you use now has one big advantage, though. Because the lightning damage comes from two sources, it´s much less erratic than what a Static staff would be.
TheUltimateBarbarian said:
Do like I did, get some fast boots and stock up on good javelin packs. That´ll teach them...
TheUltimateBarbarian said:
There is more that is annoying with this build, trust me...
AlterEgo said:
The game is all about having fun and if you aren´t, retiring the character is the right thing to do.