Cinderella, Softcore Firebolt Sorceress (1.14 lod)

[Boro]

Nightmare, Act I

Cindy enters Nightmare as a level 36 sorceress, with a bunch of rares, a leaf staff, a burning amulet with 25% poison reduction, and other assorted junk. It's lord of destruction, I'm surprised my resists are still positive at this point.

Firebolt damage is 455-526 , Fire Mastery is being pumped up towards slvl 5 (without bonuses), since I have enough damage for the meanwhile. Pumping Fire Ball for synergy would be optimal now, but being so ahead of the curve (everything dies in 1-2 hits), I'm not THAT worried about optimization.

Den of Evil went easy, just like a less stressing version of the ice caves from act V normal. Skill point went into Fire Mastery. Cold plains? Burial Grounds?



Piece of cake.

Mausoleum was easy. Slow melee enemies, powerful firebolts, meh loot. The cave was more fun, there were two CE/LE archer boss packs. One was coldcrow, the other a random. Guess what? they both eat fire damage very nicely.

Level 2 had a nice archer boss, who made me work for the treasure. Bosses require three times the shots of normal enemies, while fire enchanted quadrupes THAT.



Once I reached level 37 and had my slvl 5+4 fire mastery I aimed for, my damage was 492-568. Not much. 18.5-21.25 damage per skill point, the absolute lowest we could get! On the other hand, since the mastery bonus is applied AFTER synergies are added, this'll make adding points into fireball and meteor more effective at boosting my damage.

Case in point, next level up, a point in fireball, Firebolt Damage goes up to 540-624.

What next, what next? I feel a bit too powerful again...

With the Cold plains and the Cave done, it is time to head to the stony field and get Cain!



These girls had something else in mind. Double pack of MSFEB and Teleporting FEB, yikes! I didn't pay attention for a split second, and I get surrounded. It took some fancy footwork to get Cindy back to the Cold Plains and deal with them on my own terms, not in their sardine can.

The rest of the plains was unremarkable. Things died as fast as they died in normal, except the bosses were nastier, and I didn't need blues anymore. Rakanishu had fanaticism, and died offscreen. Cindy grabbed the waypoint and headed down to the underground passage.

I drew the entrance that looks like a zero that has an intersecting line, from NE/SW with an inlet in the northwest, and all three boss packs (A vile hunter extra dead enchanted, a LEB/something skeleton archer, and finally a vile hunter champ pack) were jammed into this small area. It was good I went left, because that let me deal with the packs on my terms. Still, approaching the archers from the straight narrow corridor was a big mistake, and they punished me hard for it.



Another level up, another point in fireball, firebolt damage is now 588-679. So each level adds ~48-55 damage? wow. Isn't this almost as much per skill point as Ember's final damage? Scary. Level 2 had carver bosses, end of story.



Enter dark wood, find treehead woodfist, who really tore Thadar a new one. Of course, once I pulled him out with a portal, handled the minions separately, the boss was a lot less threatening.



For Tristram I picked up the nearby skill shrine, and wow did Cindy tear through that place. 844-950 damage? My bone spear/CE necromancer had less damage when he entered hell...


Griswold didn't cooperate though. He was hiding in the southern corner for some reason. Ah well...

FE too? Nice!

Thadar did a lot of tempting the big guy. Thankfully, his high fire resistance minimized the dangers of this role, but I had to put extra care into my footwork to keep him out of Griswold's reach. Whatever you say, Gris did his best to delay his demise.

He even lasted until after the shrine expired! If he had any regeneration I'd have started to worry, but since he doesn't have any, it was only a matter of firebolts.

A bit of footwork later, Cain was free, and I got my reward ring from Adria.

Perfect. Previously I wore a plain ring of the apprentice, and this one added everything I needed: three resists and strength on top of the fastcast. Cindy was on a roll.

The black marsh was a piece of cake. The tower was next to the waypoint, perfect for countess hunting (I'm looking for a sol rune to make my Lore runeword in a Skull Cap), so I jump in to see what's down there.

Lots of bosses, lots of fun.


Might archers?

Stairs traps? (They were on top of me, by the way. I ran all the way to the first side treasury I saw to get a safe foothold.)

Piece of cake I tell you.

Piece of cake

I hit level 40 too, Firebolt damage is 636-735. Nasty. There are some archers who don't like me, there is potion usage, I'm having fun. Countess drops two orts and a shael. Not bad, I'll come back for her a few more times it seems. I sold the shael, I have no use for it.

Next up I clear the hole (Level 41, Firebolt damage is 684-790), the forgotten tower again (Countess drops a Tir), map out the black marsh, get two amn runes (neato: one more and I can cube them up with the amethyst chip I've been saving up), gamble for circlets, get a 20% fast cast one for Thadar.

I head for the pit...

You would be right to think Thadar is calling it quits in this picture, but he isn't, because even if that rogue lady is ES/EF, she dies to a few firebolts, stunlocked, helpless. No. Thadar is IGNORING her, she is dead after all, she just doesn't know it yet ...

And since I leveled up, firebolt damage becomes 732-846. I head for the outer cloister, save and exit, clear the Tamoe Highland, do another countess run... (Levelup, firebolt damage becomes 781-901)

eventually she drops a Sol AND two amns! JACKPOT! I put the freshly made skull cap on, and while it isn't as stylish as a a sorcie circlet, it gives me a good deal of lightning resistance. And look at the firebolt damage! 946-1076. I also cube up three amns into a sol, for a second lore.

Alright, since everything dies so quick at this point as to be a footnote, I'll try to keep this a bit shorter.
Level up in jail, Firebolt passes the four-digit barrier: 1004-1142
I somehow manage to trap myself in the cathedral. I come out of the side corridor, see boss packs, turn back, accidentally click on the door, close it behind me, and find myself in a sardine can. This cost me a resurrection bill AND a full rejuv, but it was doable.

The Cats I was speeding through. I gained enough power already, the only thing that could slow me down was a champion pack of dark shamans, since they had so many minions that I almost couldn't get a shot off at them because it hit a minion. It was VERY tempting to switch to Frozen Orb, but since they weren't immune, I didn't. Thadar did a fine job in keeping minions off my back. Of course, that's only natural for him
I leveled up again, this time the damage went up to 1062-1208

And for a finale, I decided to try something special. See, since I deal 1135 average damage, and Andy has -50% fire resistance, I take her 24800 hp out in huge 1702.5 (rounded down) chunks. The map I drew is pretty good. I only need to do a few bosses at most to get to her. Everything is just right for Andy running.

Cinderella is the fourth firebolt sorceress that I know of. Ember of course is the first, an unnamed firebolter mentioned on diabloii.net is the second,  Destroyer Arethusa of a basiner named Sprunkit is the third.

That unnamed firebolter was said to be built for Andy running. I just had to try it out. I looked up some resources, and heard mentions of "quest bugging" the demon queen, which is apparently something most normal people do in their normal playthroughs without knowing. This "bugging" sets Andy on the difficulty she's played in to drop her quest drop (that's right, her uberdrop) every time you kill her. Gems, Rares, uniques, 1/2300-ish chance for a stone. Wow. Not that I want a stone right now (I'm already ahead equipment-wise with that magefist drop), but that's something too tempting to pass up.

So I hit Level 4, Beat up Andy (She's rated 14-16 (15 avg) shots RIGHT NOW, poor girl), talked to warriv (and didn't talk to anyone else), went east, S&E.

I return in a fresh game, beat up the poor girl again (with no interruptions and always hitting, I'm killing her in 6 seconds without Thadar's damage), the drop's full of rares again. YES!



By the way, Andy dropped an Undead Crown at first, then a mid-ED Steeldriver on her second death. I sold the crown, kept the great maul. I play Cindy pure, but I'm certainly giving that piece of drop to the paladin stuck in act II hell the moment I retire her and reinstall gomule.

Cindy will see you in nightmare act II.