Wacky project: Gabrielle´s quest

Im noy going to be playing this build today but on the weekend i'll try to get to act 5. I think that a Skins of Vipermagi would be great for this Char. LOL Imagine a six socket War Staff with the Breath of the dying in it? :lol: Any of you interesting in joining my Mage-Barb Tourney? Got the idea from this.... and thanks for the help jiansonz
 
"Amarice-- look, for many years, I walked in Xena's shadow. I wanted to be her. She taught me something. It's warmer standing in the sun."

/Gabrielle (Them Bones, Them Bones)



That one was so short I decided to add a bonus scene:


Theodorus: “A beverage, my Queen?â€
Callisto: “You know I don’t drink intoxicants, Theodorus.â€
Theodorus: “I thought maybe just this once.â€
Callisto: “No - I like to experience life in all its agonizing glory. I don’t want to dull the sensations in any way.â€
(Theodorus looks lovingly at Callisto. She returns his look with The Callisto Lookâ„¢)
Theodorus: “What?â€
Callisto: “You’re not falling in love with me, are you?â€
Theodorus: “And what if I was?â€
Callisto: “I’d have to kill you. Love is a trick that nature plays to get us to reproduce. I want no part of it.â€

/(Return of Callisto)



Spider Forest: I drew melee Fetishes, Suckers and Thorned Hulks. While it was perfectly possible to take on two, even three Fetishes or Suckers, that was NOT the case with the Hulks. It was sometimes really tough even one-on-one. If the Hulk got into a Frenzy, I sometimes had to gulp 2-3 healing potions between getting some hits in. Really annoying and not without danger.

Gabrielle reached level 54 and that meant it was time to look for a staff with the next higher lightning damage prefix: Arcing. I took the waypoint to Akara because I wanted a Jo Staff (they are fastest). I shopped her for a while but gave up. I had a long session ahead of me, as I had planned to clear everything up to and including Lower Kurast in this session. I decided to wait until the next level-up, which would open up the Flaming (heavy fire damage, up to 120-180) prefix as well and increase my chances of finding either. I hung on to the Buzzing Quarterstaff of Alacrity for another level.

I played very well and carefully in the spider dungeons. Spiders and bats are rather easy to separate, even boss packs. They can´t see very far so you often see them before they see you (especially if you use Slow Missiles to locate enemies through walls). You can "wake" them up individually with a javelin. That will piss off the hit monster so much so that it will charge you without hesitation. If the rest of the pack is not "awake", the "boss leash" will not function. If you hit the boss first, the minions won´t follow in this case. Perfect.

The Poison Spinners forced me to make some rearrangements among the potions in the belt. Their poison is SO strong it must be dealt with WHILE Gabrielle is still fighting the particular spider who poisoned her. It´s not good enough to drink an antidote after each fight, the life drain is too quick. Otherwise, I am forced to drink several healing potions in quick succession just to make the life bulb move slowly upwards... Gabrielle has 0 in poison resistance (she only has posion resist help from the Tal rune in her 'Stealth' armor). I have different potion setups for all my characters (and that can also shift during their careers). For Gabrielle, the standard setup has become 8 greater/super healing potions and 8 full rejuves. Since one of the rejuve columns is mostly for storage (if she needs more than 4 (or even 2!) full rejuves, she should have gotten the f*** out of there a long time ago anyway!), I switched out four rejuves for andidotes as long as the Poison Spinners were around. Against some CE bosses and their minions, I´ve used the same method but with thawing potions instead.

Just like on Normal, Sszark got the javelin treatment. Good thing I had a long loop track ready...


Great Marsh next. Fetish blowdarters, Drowned Carcasses, Gloams and a couple of Swamp Dwellers. Much easier mix. I brought the Demon Spell with me and switched staves often because Gloams were the perfect target for the crafted staff. Highly lightning resistant (meaning the Buzzing staff was not at all good against them) undead that have a low amount of life. Against the zombies, either staff was good enough to take them down without much trouble. By the way, those narrow tree trunk bridges are a gift from the gods!

After the next level-up, I powershopped Akara trying to find an Arcing/Flaming Jo Staff. In Nightmare, all her Short Staves get upgraded either to a Gnarled Staff (92,2% chance at Gabrielle´s current level, 55) or to a Jo Staff (7,8% chance) which means that all staves that look like Short Staves are Jo Staves. It takes about 1 second for me to scan the staff menu and see if there are any Jo Staves, then a couple of more seconds to check the affixes on them.
Finally there was an Arcing Jo Staff for sale. No suffix but with a very good value, 1-349 lightning damage. They range from 1-(261-360) so this was very close to max. I bought it. I tried it. It rocked!


Flayer Jungle next. I got a lucky draw because the Jungle was absolutely swarming with vultures. I have never before seen so many there. Those are dream enemies for Gabrielle: low amount of life, low lightning resistance, not particularly dangerous and they even separate themselves from each other quite often without me having to do it! Other monsters were Slime Princes and melee Soul Killers. The latter got more numerous the closer I got to Kurast or when I entered the side areas.

Contrary to many other players here at the SPF, I don´t mind the flayers or the jungle areas in act 3 at all. In fact, I like them a lot! I think it has something to do with me always doing full clears once. I view every new area as being an important part of the journey, not something you must pass to reach Mephisto or the acts beyond. I can understand the frustration with the level layout and the enemies if you are only interested in getting past them. That´s not me at all. I don´t look at the destination. The journey itself is the destination. I´ll get to the next area when I´ll get there, when everything in the jungle is full cleared. Simple as that. I thoroughly enjoy exploring the jungle at a slow pace and to see how the different areas are connected.

Gabrielle likes fighting flayers for four reasons:
* They are cute and have cute sounds.
* They don´t have a lot of life. Even underpowered characters like Gabrielle can kill them in a few hits.
* Individually, they don´t do much damage (well, except for Berserkers and bosses with nasty abilities).
* Almost everywhere you fight them, you have a lot of area to fall back on (especially if you play the entire jungle in one session). The only exception to this are the starting areas of levels 1 and 2 in both Flayer Jungle dungeons.

Stormtree´s minions were a pain, but doable one at a time. They didn´t give me any clue about Stomy´s extra ability. It turned out to be Cursed. Melee? No thanks! I think I repaired the javelin pack twice before he had enough.


I saved the Flayer Jungle dungeons for later. I had something in mind. But first, clearing Lower Kurast was the task at hand. There were lots and lots of boss packs there. I counted four Zakarumite boss packs, three ape boss packs and two leaper boss packs!

While poking around in the central part of the place, I Gabrielle turned over one of those soldier corpses and was greeted by one of the sweetest sounds there is for a D2 player, the sound of a rune that falls to the ground. Most of the time it´s nothing special (but is nearly always of some use for the untwinked player anyway) but this was a Lum! That is a weird rune, because it is pretty much useless by itself. Come on, who needs +10 Energy that badly?

All I need now for an excellent end-game armor is a 2-socketed Elite leather type armor. Before I get that, I must now remember to always keep a Nef rune (or 3x Tir) in the stash and not use up the last one.


After clearing Lower Kurast, I saved. You see, I figured that the Arcing Jo Staff was pretty much as good a staff as I was going to see in Nightmare. The highest elemental damage prefixes (Condensing and Shocking) can´t be bought until Gabrielle is level 70-71, i.e. a good way into Hell act 1. Sure it´s possible to buy an Arcing Jo Staff of Readiness/Alacrity, but the chances are slim. I took the Arcing Jo Staff to Larzuk in Normal and prayed for some good luck.

Damn Larzuk, I only got one socket! Why can´t he cut my really underpowered characters some slack?!? It was the same with Mike the Mojomancer´s Light Plate of the Whale...Anyway, in with my Shael rune! The staff now has a 14-frames attack (it would have been possible to get it to 12 frames with ShaelShael).


Have Gabrielle´s fighting seemed non-dangerous in this update? Good, because that has certainly been the case so far. That was about to change in the Flayer Jungle dungeons. Drastically.


Swampy Pit first. Easy to get to, as it´s right by the waypoint. First enemies I encountered: normal undead flayers. Oh, crap! I got a bit too bold and smashed one. Gabrielle lost about 60% of her life! OK, that is NOT a good way to handle them...

I had to develop another way to deal with them. Cast Slow Missiles to keep track of where in the darkness they are and do your utmost to take them on one at a time. Smack it once or twice. Watch the life bar. If Open Wounds triggers, run like Hell, otherwise wait until the hissing midget runs away. I had already aimed in the direction it would run and threw javelins when it ran away. I was a bit clumsy with this at first but got better quickly.

There was an FE pack of mummies on the first floor as well. The minions very clearly dealt FE explosion damage when they died. That´s not nice (it must be a bug, they´re not supposed to act like this, right?) and it hurt! I felt some bad vibes from this and stayed far away from the boss.

Level 2 was even worse. The good thing was a free loop track at the start, albeit a small one. The bad thing was a Cold Enchanted Undead Stygian Doll boss pack. Being chilled called for even more precision when using the method described above. After I had successfully lured out and killed three minions, the boss arrived with one minion and one normal melee Flayer (not undead). The boss was FE + CE! That is THREE types of major damage when it dies! Talk about a running bomb... I decided to get rid of the normal Flayer and the minion before even hitting the boss. Where is the non-undead one, I don´t see it? Oh yeah, I hit it once before, it must have died from Open Wounds. Good. I was racing around the loop track looking for a way to kill the minion without being hit too much by the boss (those blows STUNG, let me tell you!). I finally managed to do that. Now for the boss. Hit it a couple of times. Gosh, it´s tough being chilled! There, it has about 25% life left and no Open Wounds has triggered. Get to town, buy some thawing potions and then immediately drink one and apply the javelin tactic when it runs away. Success! And I could breathe again.

Later, on the same floor, there was one more such boss, this one had Conviction. That is also a highly dangerous boss because the fire part of the death explosion will be amplified by the Conviction. I led it back to the starting area and got a lucky break. The boss got trapped behind a single segment of bars. It didn´t realize that it only needed to take two steps to the side to get to Gabrielle. She could calmly kill it with a barrage of javelins.

The third floor was piece of cake, as always. The Golden Chest of Joy (thanks to Stony for coming up with that term) left a great gift: a flawless sapphire. Now I FINALLY had all the parts needed to make a rare Harpoon. Let´s see what you can bring me, Alkor...

After I had gambled up around 1/3 of the gold I had, Alkor handed me a pack that was so good, I figured the odds of gambling something better with the rest of the money were very slim indeed. I saved the cash for other purposes and did the upgrade. What, only one lousy Harpoon in the pack? Hratli, can you fix this? Oh thanks, and it only cost about 2000 gold to refill the pack. What a beautiful weapon!

Havoc Scratch
Harpoon
Throw Damage: 53 to 161
Quantity: 80
Required Dexterity: 118
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 33
Javelin Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
+197% Enhanced Damage
+37 to Attack Rating
+1 to Maximum Damage
30% Increased Attack Speed


Now for the hard part, getting to the Flayer Dungeon. Since I had been on Normal, I had rerolled the map and had no idea where the Flayer Dungeon was located. But since I had already cleared the surface in the Jungle, I don´t consider that a part of the game. It´s not my fault the damn game doesn´t realize that those monsters are already killed! Because of this, I allowed myself some desperate measures:

* I bought a staff with Teleport charges.
* I allowed myself unlimited Saves & Exits (as per the rules I listed at the start of this thread).

In other words, get to the Flayer Dungeon by any means necessary without killing anything. There was a problem I hadn´t thought of, the incredibly slow Teleport casting animation of an amazon without any FC gear. It got dangerous because of this a couple of times. Gabrielle ran through swarms of flayers. I had brought all the stuff with me. That was good since I had to Save & Exit no less than three times. I also used up about 15 Teleport charges before I finally got to the Flayer Dungeon, in the very last place it could possibly be located. Typical.


I had to work a lot and I had to take it very slowly in the beginning. There were sooo many Flayers down there. But I played well and clearing the dungon was nowhere near as adrenalin-inducing as it was getting to it....


Next update, Gabrielle takes on one of the most challenging places for the HC full clearer, those dreadful act 3 temples. Remember how Ruined Fane humiliated her in Normal? Back then, she was typically owning packs with 2-3 normal critters. That is not the case now. Not even close. Six risks for nasty stairs traps, six risks of being mobbed by boss packs, six risks of losing the final Save & Exit. Will she make it through? Stay tuned!

(Oh yeah, we can start naming Gabrielle Ms. RuneLuck. That Lum was only the beginning...)
 
Great Story, but I have had some problems with Gabrielle... She died :rant:
I was facing the Infector of Souls and I tried to save and exit but someone ambushed me... So I died a slow painful death. Well your doing awesome, very awesome indeed, now I know how hard this build is :grrr: Anyway since I joined this why don't you come and do my Wacky Build

http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?p=2050664#post2050664

It's a Vitality Barbarian, we can maybe play mp through the acts.
 
Act 3 Nightmare, second half

(Just before going to sleep, Xena and Gabrielle are looking at the stars)

X: “That bunch up there looks like a big dipper.â€

G: “A dipper?â€

X: “Yeah, you know-- like one of those cups that you draw water out of a bucket.†(yawns)

G: “It looks-- it looks like a bear to me.â€

X: “A bear?â€

G: “Yeah.â€

X: “How do you get a bear?â€

G: “Look it-- look-- there’s the body; look-- see the little ears, and-- tail.â€

X: “Oh.â€

(Gabrielle suddenly grabs her staff and tries to hit Xena, as she has done several times this episode. To her surprise, she actually does hit her. Right on the nose. Hard.)

G: “Xena? Oh, no-- I’m so sorry. Are you all right?â€

X: “I’ll live.â€

G: “I’m sorry. I-- I never thought I’d-- I’d really hit you. I--â€

X: “It’s all right. Let’s just try and go to sleep, now, OK?â€

(a couple of moments later)

G: “Did you just let me hit you?â€

X: “No, you nailed me fair and square.â€

G: “You did, didn’t you? You-- you let me hit you, because you feel sorry for me.â€

X: “Go to sleep.â€

G: “All right."

(we fade out)

G: "I know you let me hit you...â€


/A Day in the Life



This session started out easy enough. Kurast Bazaar first. The Thrashers were annoying but they are so slow that you can easily arrange one-on-one fights with them.

Kurast Sewers were also a breeze. That is my favourite place in the whole game. Again, I have none of those "I never find those damn stairs to level 2"-problems people complain about. Instead, I enjoy a nice and steady full clear. The visit to level 2 is just something that happens in there somewhere. I got lucky with the enemies, no Undead Stygian Dolls (well, there were three normal ones on level 2).

The vacation was now officially over. Now it was serious business. Before entering the starting area of any of the six temples, I decided to pick up most of my important gear I had stored on the ground, in case I would need to make the last Save & Exit. Also, I had Gabrielle wear her Amulet of Life Everlasting.

First up: the Reliquary in the Bazaar. Upon entering, Gabrielle got into a stairs trap. Five Flesh Hunters. Only normal ones, so I hung in there. I dared not move an inch, since a pack of Flesh Hunters normally only has four of them and I was afraid to wake up the rest of that second pack I concluded I must be on the other side of the doorway. Switching amulets turned out to be a very solid decision. The rogues didn´t do that much damage to Gabrielle. I concentrated on one of them and actually managed to hit her every now and then. A couple of healing potions had been consumed when she fell. Every killed Flesh Hunter made the rest of the fight exponetially easier, until they were all dead.

I cast Slow Missiles and true enough, there were more enemies through that doorway. I took one step forward and three more rogues came running, just like I had suspected. What I hadn´t counted on was that two Wailing Beasts would follow them. Oh, crap!

OK, so I can´t stay in that first room. I ran through the other doorway and wanted to fight the enemies through it. However, that room also had Wailing Beasts! What followed now was a crazy series of portal parkings, one of them deep into the dungeon. Gabrielle was chased by like a dozen of enemies, including some Champion Wailing Beasts. She was very close to being trapped but managed to escape through the portal just in time.

I entered from the stairs every time, luring Hunters and Beasts sometimes left, sometimes right and I made more portal parkings. Finally I had a chance to meet them in the left doorway. Or so I thought. There was one more Beast coming in from the right. I tried to lure it into the room and run around it but the Flesh Hunters blocked me. Damn them! I decided to retreat but the Beast blocked the doorway and by now two more Beasts had joined the fight. I couldn´t move! Gabrielle had 3 Wailing Beasts and 2 Flesh Hunters beating on her. Is this her final S&E? In the very first NM temple, no less.

I saw that if I could only kill one particular Flesh Hunter, I would manage to break free. After some serious potion drinking and oh so much Dodge, swings and Hit Recoverys, I did it! Free at last! I parked them just a bit further into the room. That turned out to be last portal parking in this temple. Upon return, I could fight them in the doorway, at last.


OK, Ruined Temple next. That place is usually WORSE than the Reliquary. Not so now. I drew the "large" layout (not any of the more deadly T-layouts) and it also had normal Flesh Hunters in the first room. In the next short hallway, there was a spider boss pack. Time to equip antidotes again. Thanks to my careful advancing, I could throw javelins and lure out one at a time.

I cleared some more and approached the Book Room from two sides. Some Champion Night Lords were waiting. I drew them out and killed them. I could now enter the room and there was still no sign of Sarina´s pack. I threw javelins blindly towards the other end of the room and managed to wake up a single minion a couple of times. They were CE and a real pain to fight. Next time, I happened to wake up four at a time. That was not what I had wanted. I retreated through a doorway and turned around to face them. Crap, two of them could hit Gabrielle now. But I saw that if I killed the closest one first, it would be possible to take the other three one at a time, which is eaxctly what happened. Gabrielle was lucky to score an Open Wounds hit early in the "fight two minions"-situation.

Sarina herself attacked together with a minion. I ran to the other end of the dungeon where I had a portal waiting. Upon return, I could get to fight only the Battlemaid. With the dungeon layout and her speed, there was no safe way around the death nova. I figured Gabrielle could take that damage and she could. Easily.


New "vacation" in the Upper Kurast, but that place had Thrashers. They were really starting to get on my nerves, the buggers. Good thing Great Marsh didn´t have any, at least. Upper Kurast also provided a really nice find. A chest only dropped one item, a Fal rune. Cool, now I´m only a Hel rune and a 3-socketed armor away from 'Lionheart'.


Next place, Forgotten Temple, home to the potentially second worst stairs traps in the game, after Throne of Destruction. I go in and I´m ready for some wild stuff. Empty first room. What´s the world coming to? Then came the snakes. Normal snakes, Champion snakes, FE + CE snake boss and crew. That large first room was a godsend. I kept a portal up just outside this first room. I lured the boss into the entrance room and got out by the stairs, then entered by portal and killed the remaining two minions from there. Then I had enough space in the first room to kill the boss with javelins, at a safe distance.

I passed a hallway and heard a lot more hissing. Slow Missiles revealed a veritable MASS of enemies in the next room. That´s it. I´ve had it with whacking those damn snakes! I decided to make a bold move, to wake them all up at once, retreat through the short hallway and throw at them. Since they must pass the two doorways, I can easily hit each one of them several times.

OK, lets go!!!

Oh my, that´s a crapload of snakes! I retreated and got into position. Let´s see what those Harpoons can do, shall we? I threw and threw and then some. After the Harpoon pack had been about halved, the hissing stopped.

Pwned!!

I counted 12 snake corpses, lying in a neat line. Only 3-4 Harpoons were needed to kill a snake and the level 3 Pierce was really shining here.


The other Upper Kurast Temple was pretty easy, after I had killed an early CE archer boss pack. Slow Missiles + javelins really makes those fights quite comfortable.


No enemies on the Causeway surface. I braced myself for the last two temples.

First up, Ruined Fane, the only place in Normal which managed to defeat Gabrielle. I enter. There are bats everywhere! Gabrielle is hit with Conviction and a pack with beetles is closing in. I had no choice but to plunge deeper into uncharted territory. Only three beetles followed into the next room. Normal beetles do not scare Gabrielle anymore. Very careful play from here made it possible to work on that first room. I woke up a bat at a time with a javelin. There were actually two bat boss packs in that first room: CE + Mana Burn and Conviction + Extra Fast.


The last temple was the easiest of the six. Gabrielle cleared them all, without using the final Save & Exit. Woohoo!!


I rushed to the Travincal waypoint and ended the session. The rest of the act was to be done in the next session.

Travincal was absolutely no trouble. I made sure to separate the Zealots a bit (Gabrielle could take on 3 at a time with only some healing drinking needed) and to attack from a direction that would force the Zealot into a corner if it started to flee. Worked like a charm. I killed Geleb from a distance since I was afraid the explosion would be lethal.


There were Undead Stygian Dolls in Durance 1. By now, I had the fighting technique against them down next-to-perfection. One of the hissing little snots dropped a Lem rune! Amazing rune luck in this act, no? That 'Passion' dream is suddenly not so far away...

No Dolls in the huge act 2. Woot! I could take it easy and I almost dozed off during the clearance. I don´t know how many Maulers Gabrielle killed in doorways. It felt like they would never end.


Now for level 3. Empty first room. I cast a portal in the lower left corner of that room and carefully approached Bremm´s room. Two minions came in. They lumbered back and forth guided by their "boss leash". Gabrielle blocked their passage on the way back and hit them when they circled around her. She needed a couple of tries but once Open Wounds triggered, there were toast. Then both Bremm and the last minion attacked. Bremm had Might. I decided that I needed more space. I led them over to the stairs, got up and took the portal back. In the lower part of Bremm´s room, there was a boss pack of Blood Lords waiting. With help of Slow Missiles, I could lure out one at a time and kill it. The other vampires threw all they had through the wall. How do they do that, anyway? My sorcies can´t cast spells through walls (well, other than Teleport). They were Spectral Hit + CE, so it was some really cold Fire Walls and Meteors going on. By the way, Gabrielle actually Avoided some of the Meteors. Pretty slick if you ask me.

Bremm´s minion got killed after some hectic running. Then I did something stupid. I noticed that Bremm´s extra ability was Cursed. I realized that it would be next to impossible to avoid being cursed by the sparks. What I didn´t register was that Might + Cursed is a DEADLY combination! I guess I was too tired. Without thinking, I entered a melee fight with Bremm while cursed. Some sparks and two received hits later, I SAW NO RED AT ALL IN THE LIFE ORB!!!

Oops...

Near does not even begin to describe how close that was. That was Gabrielle´s worst NDE by several orders of magnitude!

I slammed my hand on the potion buttons and then rushed up the stairs. When my heart was back where it should be, I continued the fight but stayed away from Bremm and only used the Harpoons for the rest of the fight. Phew!


After that dreadful incident, the rest of Durance 3 didn´t scare me. Wyand and Maffer were both pushovers. I used the 'Strength' staff for most of the Mephisto fight. He forced me to drink a couple of rejuves. His melee attack is sometimes not to be sneezed at. Mephisto surprised me by using two attacks I didn´t know were in his repertoire: Frost Nova and Blizzard. Is that new in 1.10?

Act 3 finished, after some really scary moments. I can´t see anything that would be nearly as threatening in act 4. As long as Gabrielle can establish a foothold (enough secured space to fall back on) the two times she needs to (Outer Steppes and River of Flame), she will probably make it through just fine.

to be continued...
 
Good story :thumbsup: HC players always impress me. I've never seen Meph do a blizzard before too, guess I always stay too close to him.
 
The Frost Nova and Blizzard are indeed new in 1.10 - the Blizzard was, I believe, intended to prevent the Moat Trick (TM) but it, like so many other planned foilings-of-plans, failed. I've never seen him use it either... I think I've seen the Frost Nova a couple of times though.
 
I haven't been keeping up with your thread, but I was just sure you would have given up by now. How I was mistaken...

You have taken Hardcore to a new and exciting level, and have given us all a spark of hope.

Good luck, and god speed.


GG
 
Shade said:
The Frost Nova and Blizzard are indeed new in 1.10 - the Blizzard was, I believe, intended to prevent the Moat Trick (TM) but it, like so many other planned foilings-of-plans, failed. I've never seen him use it either... I think I've seen the Frost Nova a couple of times though.
Click to expand...

Shade it's easy to see the Blizzard attack of Meph use a char with out teleport and run back toward the entrance. If he follows you and gets to the near side of the moat he will use it on you. He uses it like mad too.
 
Uzziah said:
Shade it's easy to see the Blizzard attack of Meph use a char with out teleport and run back toward the entrance. If he follows you and gets to the near side of the moat he will use it on you. He uses it like mad too.
Click to expand...

That might be why I haven't seen it, I just run up to him and beat him up :lol:
 
X: “Gabrielle, that mother whose baby you saved the other day--â€

G: “Yeah.â€

X: “Ask her to put you up for a few days. You know, guard the village.â€

G: “Huh-- oh no. No, no-- that’s your way of saying: "It’s too dangerous to be around me right now, Gabrielle". Well, have you ever considered that there isn’t a safe time to be around you? Now, that village doesn’t need my help, but you might-- and I’m going with you. Now, if that’s all, I’ll just be practicing with my staff-- end of discussion."

/Death Mask



Gabrielle looked out over the desolate wasteland that is the Outer Steppes. No monster in sight. No monster for 2-3 screens upwards either. Nice. She actually reached the upper corner of the place before seeing her first enemy: a Cliff Lurker minion. She went the other way. Fighting a boss pack of leapers might require lots of space...

The other two enemy types here were Doom Knights and Flesh Spawners. The spawners were a real pain, of course. If she was lucky she could kill one with only 2-3 beasts spawning but that was rare. More often, she had to retreat, lure some beasts to her and kill them, then assault the mother again. Very frustrating. Several times, she was pushed back to the stairs to Pandemionum Fortress, where she could meet the enemies in the doorway. She had to kill a lot of spawns. She encountered a boss pack of Flesh Spawners and ONE minion forced her back and she had to kill over 20 pups in that doorway before she could reach the mother with her staff (over a spawn). A change of tactics was definately in order. I started to use the Harpoons against the mothers. Any beasts that spawned would run in a straight line towards Gabrielle and get killed by 1-2 harpoons. This excessive use of the harpoons, along with the need to restock potions (she got hit a lot by the knights and leapers) made it so that she actually LOST money over the course of several town trips.


Plains of Despair had Venom Lords, Corpulents and more Knights. That was much easier to deal with. Izual got the 'Strength' treatment. Gabrielle was down to half life a couple of times against him, but she only needed to run around a while for the healing potion to work a bit, then back to the fight again.


City of the Damned had Abyss Knights, Stygian Hags (crap!) and the Damned. The latter are lightning immune, so I brought the crafted Gothic Staff with me. The Damned are not undead but they do not have a lot of life either. The Gothic Staff does decent physical damage. It was not effective against them, but it worked. Since I was throwing at the Hags and the Gothic Staff was better than the Arcing one against the undead knights, I left the Arcing staff in the stash while clearing the City. The Harpoons owned the Damned, so if they were around when I fought Hags, they went down at the cost of a couple of more harpoons. I didn´t want to exploit this too much, though. The javelin throwing is intended to be used mainly where it´s impossible or very hard and/or dangerous to make progress with a staff.


River of Flame now. I dreaded the start. This could easily go very wrong. I was lucky, because only two Maw Fiends were waiting to the left of the stairs. There were also Urdars and Pit Lords on the River. Everything was big, bad, slow and (almost) melee-only. Perfect.

Hephasto´s aura turned out to be Holy Fire. That would certainly be doable, if not for his extra ability: Cold Enchanted. No thanks to meleeing him! I portal parked him on a platform, got back via waypoint and threw at him. He wandered around randomly and Gabrielle had to get out there, lure him back and duck through the portal and come back from waypoint twice more before he was defeated.

Hellforge reward coming up. This is the first time Dol and Hel have been highest on my wish list. And I got: another Lum. Well OK, now I can make one of the two armors that require a Lum and still be able to make the other.


Chaos Sanctuary remained. The Doom Knights and Venom Lords were familiar territory and no trouble. Storm Casters are almost immune to lightning and undead so I used the crafted staff against them. Iron Maiden would be very dangerous when hitting with this staff. Luckily, Storm Casters are very keen on following you and I lured them way back every time. I threw harpoons at the Oblivion Knights.

The Infector´s seal was conveniently located so I didn´t have to portal out. I woke up the pack and immidiately ran a long way away. This has a very good chance of breaking the "boss leash". I fought the minions one at a time. The infector was FE. I lured him out on the mazy part of the River, portal parked him, came back and killed him with harpoons.

The Vizier is of course also FE, along with Extra Strong. Against him, I took advantage of the behaviour of Storm Casters, where, if you stand at a halfway distance, they will stand in place and keep firing their draining missiles. Mana drain does not scare Gabrielle.

I used the "move away to get rid of boss leash" tactics against De Seis as well. That pack was actually the easiest of the three, although his Extra Strong minions hurt a bit.

Gabrielle equipped herself with the 'Strength' staff, the Amber amulet and one column of Thawing potions and went Diablo hunting. The fight started and I was amazed at how little danger she was in. I ran away and to the side every time he used the Firestorm (you can recognize that it´s coming because Diablo raises both arms when casting it) and the Lightning Inferno. Every time he hit with the cold-hand-smackage, Gabrielle drank a Thawing Potion. I had to go back to Jamella quite a number of times, to buy healing and thawing potions, but in the end, there was no real danger. Not in the entire act, actually.

Diablo dropped two amazon-themed exceptional uniques that Gabrielle is not allowed to use: Valkyrie Wing and Kuko Shakaku.



Status Report at the start of Act 5 Nightmare:

Name: Gabrielle. Last name unknown.

Nicknames: The Battling Bard of Poteidaia, shorty, small irritating blonde, Blondie, Gabby, Gabs, Blabbrielle, Sweet Pea, etc...

Birth place: Poteidaia.

Family: Herodotus, Hecuba, Lila, Hope, Sarah, Xena and Eve. Not all family is by blood.

Age: around 19-24 in the first four seasons.

Height: 1,61m (5' 3 1/2") (For some strange reason, most NPCs in D2 seem to be really short...)

Weight: 55kg (120 lbs)

Hair color : blonde...reddish shade, strawberry blonde... light brown one time...ehr...

Eyes: Sparkling emerald green (according to most fanfic writers). Sometimes they have golden flecks as well.

Weapons: Staff, Javelins, Charm, Words.

Occupation: Sidekick, Bard, Warrior Bard, Amazon Queen and Cook.

Specialty: Those dumplings with the red stuff inside (Xena luvs 'em).

Skills: Telling stories, sweet-talking Xena and getting in and out of trouble.


Level: 60
(All stats with primary gear)
STR 61+1, DEX 111+13, VIT 173, ENE 15+4,
25 stat points saved (since I have no idea what end-game armor Gabrielle will be using. The highest STR she could possibly need is 111 (Wire Fleece))

Life 715, Mana 115, Defense 220
Resistances: Fire 75, Cold 57, Lightning 47, Poison 0
Attack Rating: 2639 (To Hit chance is about 70-80%
Total Magic Find: +68%

Skills:
Inner Sight 1 (prerequisite only)
Slow Missiles 2 (18 seconds duration)
Dodge 18 (55% chance)
Avoid 12 (58% chance)
Evade 1 (18% chance; I regret this point. Gabrielle prefers to evade attacks by movement)
Critical Strike 10 (56% chance)
Penetrate 20 (+225% bonus to AR)
Pierce 3 (42% chance)

Primary Gear:
Glyph Brow (Circlet) (Defense 20, +20% Faster Run, Resist Fire 36, MDR by 2, +25% Magic Find)
Lapis Amulet of Chance (Resist Cold 15, +13 % Magic Find)
Shael-socketed (with reward) Arcing Jo Staff (weapon speed -30, damage: 6-21 physical (9-31 vs. undead) and 1-349 lightning)
'Stealth' Serpentskin Armor (Defense 125, 25% FHR, 25% Faster Run, +6 DEX, Resist Poison 30, MDR by 3)
No gloves (as per the restrictions)
Ghoul Finger (Ring) (+5 DEX, +8% Magic Find, +108 AR (in reality, that +108 translates into +433 after Penetrate is factored in)
Viper Winding (Mesh Belt) (Defense 39, 24% FHR, +15 AR, 2% life steal, 7% chance of Open Wounds, +11 life, Resist Cold 16, +1 light)
Rune Grasp (Ring) (+99 AR, +1 STR, +2 DEX, Resist Cold 17, Resist Lightning 12)
Wraith Greaves (Boots) (Defense 5, 10% FHR, Resist Fire 33, Resist Lightning 25, +22% Magic Find)

Weapon Switch:
Havoc Scratch (Harpoon) (Throw damage 53-161, +37 AR, 30% IAS)

Charms taking up a total of 20 inventory spaces giving 2-3 cold damage, 12 poison damage over 3 seconds, Resist Lightning 40, Resist Fire 37, Resist Cold 39, +35% Gold Find and +37 Life

Alternate Gear:
* Demon Spell (Gothic Staff) (21-52 damage (56-137 vs. undead), 20% IAS, +294 AR vs. undead, 5% chance to cast level 4 Frost Nova when struck, attacker takes 7 damage)
* 'Strength' Short Staff (25% chance of Crushing Blow, +20 STR, +10 VIT)
* Garnet Grand Charm (Resist Fire 22; not needed in NM, but might be in Hell)
* Coral Ring of Regeneration (replenish life +4, Resist Lightning 22)
* Garnet Ring (Resist Fire 30)
* Cobalt Ring of Strength (+2 STR, Resist Cold 30)
* Amber Amulet of Amelioration (Resist Lightning 37, PLR by 50%)
* Ruby Amulet of the Centaur (Resist Fire 38, +45 life (based on Character level)
* Amulet of Life Everlasting (damage reduced by 20)
* Bone Scarab (amulet) (Resist All 15, PLR by 75%, Replenish Life +8)

Other stuff:
* Serpentskin Armor (Defense 113; a candidate for 'Smoke' should I fail to find any suitable elite armors)
* 6 crappy jewels for crafting
* Various gems consisting of 10 Perfect, 9 Flawless, 11 regular and 1 Chipped (the last one is for fixing a crude elite armor)
* Runes: El, Eld, Tir x5, Eth, Tal, Thul, Lum x2, Fal, Lem
* About 1,6 million in Gold

Areas skipped: none
Areas repeated: one large room and 3 hallways in Halls of the Dead Level 3 in NM
Monsters parked: none

Number of really close calls: 1 (Might + Cursed Bremm Sparkfist in NM)

Number of emergency Save & Exits used: 2 out of 3
* mobbed by 3 bats and 3 snakes in Ruined Fane, Normal
* mobbed by mummies from a sarcophagus, Halls of the Dead level 3, NM.

Imbues used: 0 out of 2 (I am waiting for Walking Sticks...)
Socketing rewards used: 1 out of 1 (the next one is close, hopefully)

Number of Elite items found: 4 (Falcata (dropped by Griswold), Truncheon, Spider Bow and Hyperion Javelin found in act 4)
Number of Unique items found: 18 (5 of them exceptional: Warlord´s Trust, Langer Briser, Moonfall, Kuko Shakaku and Valkyrie Wing)
Number of Set items found: 28 (1 of them exceptional: Natalya´s Soul)


Stay tuned for the final act in NM!
 
Indeed i would not be to amazed if you managed it.. only.. you already have a plan for the ancients? :scratch: i think they will be hard...very hard :)
good luck :thumbsup:
 
I say get a ridiculous amount of faster run walk, cast decoy a lot, and use a lot of harpoons. I hope she won;t run out of harpoons...
 
Slartibartfast said:
you already have a plan for the ancients? :scratch: i think they will be hard...very hard :)
good luck :thumbsup:
Click to expand...


Yes, I have three different plans for NM Ancients. The bad part is, I don´t really like either of them...




tl998 said:
I say get a ridiculous amount of faster run walk, cast decoy a lot, and use a lot of harpoons. I hope she won;t run out of harpoons...
Click to expand...

If you drop the Decoy (since that is a skill Gabrielle is not allowed to use) this is the plan I think would be the safest. Gamble/buy some fast boots and just litter the Arreat Summit with stacks of decent Throwing Spears and Harpoon packs. If I do like this, I must choose a place where I will dump the empty packs, so I don´t pick them up again...
 
Hi,
I've just read through the story so far, and I am really impressed with how far you have taken Gabrielle. :worship: The reports on her progress are great too. Best of luck with the ancients!
 
Wow. Wow. Wow.
(repeat ad infinitum)

Initially I was expecting her to kick it somewhere near Normal Abaddon (Champion Moon Lords-no thanks for me) but now...well, I'm not going to underestimate Gabrielle. Continue onward, brave warrior!
 
Good stuff.

You're one heck of a HC player. I would never have the patience or resolve to get such an underpowered character this far. Let's hope that Gabrielle makes it all the way. :thumbsup:
 
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