Cinderella, Softcore Firebolt Sorceress (1.14 lod)

[Boro]

Alright, so, Normal Act V? A joke.

Cindy began Act V as a level 28 sorcie, with a bunch of skillpoints here and there, and one saved up in preparation for the massive jump in damage when Fire Mastery is to enter the game.

She was wielding her Leaf staff, a REAL stealth piece of armor (And wow, it ROCKS not having to watch durability, even if I enjoyed the finiteness of my gear to an extent.) various jewellery and some rare circlet from act 3... Enough fast cast to live by and a decently equipped (max resists, 25% fastcast) Iron Wolf named Thadar on her side.

Half of the bloody foothills was mapped during the session when I killed Diablo, the other half after a second chaos run, because now that I finally decided to use the leaf staff, why not get a little revenge on the fire resistant bastids of the CS? CS enemies died in three shots, it was WONDERFUL! Thadar lasted the full third of the fight with D, then he died to one unavoidable attack because I don't have teleport? meh.

So, the warmup done, I handled the foothills, stuff died mostly in one shot (spine-backs), or two (enslaved, unless they were softened a bit by barbarians), so I was going fast. The Frigid Highlands had one-shot imps, and slightly more annoying crush beasts, and some bosses, still none were an issue at this point. Arreat Plateau? More of the same, with a bit of spice from suicide minions.

The mini-hells had two-shot frenzytaurs, which was nice.

At the Arreat Plateau, I leveled to 30, so I could FINALLY have a point in Fire Mastery, and unlock Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery. It was a HUGE boon in damage, Just look at these numbers!




At this point I changed my leveling plan to go for Frozen Orb first, since I did have plenty of firepower. See? This is why Firebolt is so good. You can boost yourself up to power right from the start, and worry about pre-requisites later. Best of all, you don't need endgame gear and level-based mana to start enjoying nonstop shooting action. In a way it's like playing a rogue, except my arrows are firebolts, and automatically hit which is even better.

So that's what I did. I mapped out the Plateau and entered the Crystalline Passage. I was anxious to get Anya because I like gambling (+1 sorc skill circlets and +2 fire circlets are in the possibilities now), so I braved the frenzytaurs and whatever I got in the ice caves, picked up the Glacial Trail waypoint, and went down to the Frozen River.

The Furries were the biggest threat because of their stun, but they didn't really get me. There were witches too(Somewhere, maybe in the passage), which was nice, but since I had so much life, I only took the Defense Curse. That did... nothing. They on the other hand, took a firebolt each to kill. The undead? Some charges were eaten, reds were drunk, but I had so many on the ground in town that I wasn't worried.

Frozenstein took a few steps back? Behold the power of firebolts!




Anya's magic sorcie-orb was nothing sort of exceptional: +1 sorc skills, +1 Lightning (Staffmod), 10% fast cast and two resists, one in the high-end! (>30%) I couldn't bring myself



Gambled was also this beauty!



And a paladin circlet with 20% Faster Run/Walk and a Curses +1 necromancer circlet...

Pindle ate a few more firebolt shots than the others, but even those died in one hit, yay. Nihlathak was also easy. I didn't grab the Halls of Pain WP out of habit to keep the pindle portal (He's good for my evening warmups).

Glacial Trail, Frozen Tundra, Ancient's Way, Drifter Cavern... Yawn. There were enemies, there were loot, and I found the arreat summit before I found the ancient's way waypoint.

With that we come to the true test of act V, The Ancients. We have Korlic the Leaper, Madawc the Thrower, and Talic the WW. Korlic can close the distance, Madawc can be a pain since his shots are so hard to see, and Talic is a WW barb.



I tried spreading them out, and it didn't work. Thadar and I then ran in circles around the edge of the Arreat Summit, tempting Korlic, then shooting firebolts at whoever was exposed. Madawc was really low HP, and he died first, then Talic followed shortly. Finally, I was getting bored of doing footwork with Korlic, and just stood there, taking his swings, trading in firebolts of my own.




It was really really close.


The level up finally allowed me to "max" Frozen Orb at slvl5. This will be my maximum until I enter hell, and I'll only use it for cold immunes, as I promised (Ookay I sent a few off in a practice pindle match but that doesn't count)


Here is a rare screenie of Cinderella's character sheet. She's pretty beefy at this point, with 411 health.

Cindy then went back to finish up the Ancient's Way, found the WP, then entered to the icy cellar. Down here, I ran into a cold immune fellow by the name of Snapchip Shatter (Meh, I'm a fire sorc), and then I found myself in quite a situation:


Some Prowling Dead resurrected behind me, and cut off my escape route. Better yet, one charged me back to the waiting frosty furries' embrace, who "thanked" them by smacking me around with their stunning hits. You can see Thadar rather unmolested, trying to free me and a healing potion already taking effect (Super heal, no less).

It didn't last long, thankfully I escaped with only two super reds and a small purple used, but phew! In NM/Hell, this is a Save and Exit situation right here!

Then down at the south edge hid another bunch of frozen furries, who chased me around the middle island, where the stairs were located. There were more Prowling Dead in the way, but I managed to avoid being charged. Some footwork, some stringing out, and alot of firebolts later they were laid to rest.

WSK contained a Paladin Skiller (+1 pal skills) Shield, a +3 enchant io staff, Frenzytaurs on the Throne level, and a Fire Immune Colenzo.



Go Thadar! I killed the minions, Thadar handled the boss. I could have used frozen orb, but I liked playing the whack-a-fallen-one game!

Waves 2 and 3 were no problem, I even managed to keep the hydra problem in check by interposing myself between him and the hydras.



Wave 4 was fun, since Ventar is an Infector of Souls -lite, his minions can be leashed to an extent, and wow does this pic look good or what? One firebolt is missing the boss, a second one is currently putting a Venom Lord in stunlock, and a third flying and a FOURTH Cindy's just firing!



Of course it all comes down to Lister and his cronies. He is the absolute WORST thing in act V. He has Stun, an absurd MLVL of 50+, spectral hit, and stunning minions. Thankfully a sorceress can still handle her by running around, and thankfully Thadar is more than willing to keep his distance from them...



eexcept for rare cases when he fails. He got mobbed once and killed (not on this pic, I managed to save him by town portal replacement this time), and there were times I had to pull him to town with a sliver of life left.



Thankfully, nothing lasts forever, and a lot of firebolts later I met Baal.

He was a wimp, really, hiding in his corner while Cindy rained fire down on him.

He tried to orange, but failed.

Realizing his ineptness, he ran

and died offscreen.


And now, for the godliest of uberdrops for a firebolt sorcie(I wasn't even calculating this into my expected damage!):

FCR, Manaregen, +1 fire skills, what more can I want? Cindy Can't use it until hell, but when she finally goes there...

On an unrelated note I found my third paladin skiller! (First from diablo, you can see the purple shield below his feet, then one from WSK)


And once all has been settled, there was one thing left to do.

Wait.

What do you mean I can't access the portal?

No. NO!

Because I hit my town portal before talking to Tyrael, he opened Destruction's End in the hyperspace?!

oh well, if I can't go to the portal...



...then the portal will come to me.



Cindy and I will see you folks in Nightmare!

[KingOfPain]

Congrats!

I guess there wasn't much AfterActionReport on FireEngingRed except here and there on other peoples' posts. I find this post, Items are STILL for wimps, in the old network54 forum, 2003. Wow, has it been that long!

Items are STILL for wimps
July 15 2003 at 5:23 PM
Response to Some beta thoughts (long)



Finally found some time to play a round of beta for the first time. Naturally, I am more concerned about how variant play will be affected than I care what the next uber build will be. I will be recreating some of my naked characters over the next few days to see how they stand up in the patch.


First one out the gate is FireEngineRed, a naked Zon. Most of you probably remember Kyoko, aka Okoyk, a semi naked all passive zon variant, who was not only viable in hell but can play a key role in many coop games as well as great fun to play. FER is a completely naked version of Okoyk, all passives and not even charms are allowed.

You might think nakedness is weak, quite naturally... while that is certainly true (minus 80 resist all after Hell Anya quest, for example) they can be quite strong in certain areas. The strength of naked characters, especially true for FER, comes in being naked. Nakedness forces one to play more cautiously and pay more attention to thier surroundings, monster AI, minion AI, as well as coopers AI ;p When monsters have 80-90 percent chance to hit you even when you are clvl 99, and when you are negative 80 resists all - You don't want to get hit. One tends to be more alert and immersed.

IIRC, the same guy who says "Items are for wimps" also says "Vit is for wimps" (then again, he always says "Sleep is for the weak" but that's another story). As standard practice, I don't pump vit on my characters, not even when I have 3-400 stat points saved. I usually only put in enough Vit points to avoid one hit kills, as needed. My general philosophy is that if you build to take damage, you will play to take damage, aka sloppy (reason why you need to pump Vit to begin with). Having said that, however, Vit is the secondary strength for naked characters because you can dump all points to Vit (except a few in Energy for some builds). FER has 1200+ HP at clvl 60 (before BO and or Oak Sage from partners) which allows her to take a lot of hits, if she gets hit at all.

FireEngineRed was already tanking Hell Dury, Meph, Diablo when she was in the 50s then Ancients and Baal after hitting 60. Funny thing is she is my chat character - people I have played with know how slow I type, and I don't usually talk while I am playing to avoid typing deaths. Friends frequently prefix "Don't reply now" when they direct a question at me. ;p Ironically, I have all the time in the world to chat away while playing with such a supposedly weak character.

FER is weak ONLY in killing speed. Don't let the -80 res all and 90% chance to be hit fool you. 50-60% (lvl 10-12) D/A/E WORKS to save her behind against melee and missile attacks when she shows off that she can mix it up with mobs. She has enough HPs to take a few sucker punches and still be able to walk out of most situations. Her beefy maxed Valk (sadly without much, if any, killing power in 1.09, can tank most any mobs and act bosses) together with her lvl 10 decoy (one healthy spammable) lets FER trek anywhere without fear.

As a matter of fact, FER often acts as the lead person where other characters would have many problems such as RoF/CS where her decoy acts as an Early Warning System, and WSK2 where her decoy and valk act as Bomb Squad. That's 1.09.

Version 1.10 FireEngineRed - Created with Nobbie's character set.
- Testing - This was meant to be a quick test. It was more or less a series of repeated Eldritch and Shenk runs plus a few WP partrols in various Acts.
- Clvl - no difference since she uses no attacks to benefit from Clvl AR bonuses
- Stat - Only enough points to Vit for 1200 HP - equivalent to Clvl 60 without quest bonus stat points.
- Skills - D/A/E all at lvl 11. Valk at 20

Wow, Cheap Valk! 44 mana (1.10) vs 101 mana (1.09), now there is no need to put points in Enegy at all. In 1.09 at lvl 60, FER barely has enough mana to cast one valk per globe, and not enough mana to cast for a few clvls if Valk was pumped too early. She can now cast Valk and still have a decent reserve to cast more valks and spam some decoys. FER1.09 needed to collect Mana potions just in case of extra tough bosses.

- Merc - Since I am to lazy to gamble or shop for merc items my rogue merc was only doing 400ish top end damage and was pretty well useless, not even keeping up with monster regen rate in Act5 BF. She was surviving okay as a rogue merc would be, although, the one I had seems to take on a somewhat different AI than I have seen. So to make the tests more focused, I ditched her after the initial run.

- Decoy - Boo! Decoy gets no help this patch. Still makes a healthy spammable at lvl 10 but somewhat short lived due to New and Improved monsters.

- Valk - Nice to see Valk gets random armor also. Now that I have enough mana, I want one with colors to suit my moods Previously in 1.09, Valk is pretty well useless as far as killing power is concerned, but 1.10 Valk is very capable of killing off boss mobs although no uber monster processor by herself.

- Valk with life bonus from lvl 1 decoy (prereq) - Equivalent to 1.09. Original Valk lived through the runs against Eldritch and Shenk with various enchantments including LEB and Fanatism. She can be damaged to around 3/4 life but manages to regen to full health. (Assuming it's regeneration since health replenishes consistently with different valks) With Monster hitting much harder now, she probably survived better than she would have due to unknown bonuses from D/A/E.

- Valk with life bonus from lvl 10 decoy - Unmoving HP bar for most inteneted purposes.

- Penetrate - Valk at lvl 20 seems to have no problem hitting Eldritch/Shenk and co, most every strike registered a hit with out any points in penetrate.

- Critical Strike - Grants Valk CS. Form lack of description, I would assume Valk gets increased chance of doing double the Phy Dmg as the skill is increased.

As I mentioned FER was merc-less, so Valk was the only one doing any damage. She manages to kill Eldritch and Shenk's mob and anything in between. It takes the Valk an avg of 4-5 minutes to process Eldritch and co, single-handedly. That's without synergy bonuses from neither Penetrate nor Critical Strike. This may not sound too impressive for most folks but it is a rather huge boost from 1.09.

Is it worth pumping Penetrate and/or Critical Strike to up grade Valk, even if you have more points to spare than a normal character because you are naked and all passive? And, because your life depends on it? The quick answer is NO. More testing in deeper Act5 and tougher Act bosses is needed before I would draw a finally conclusion. As it stands, against the likes of Eldritch and Shenk, with Penetrate and Critical Strike both maxed at 20 the difference in killing speed is not noticable, not enough for even just a handful of extra points - Valk still processes Eldritch and co in 4-5 minutes. For most if not all other builds, Pene and CS would be wasted points if pumped only for Valk. It is not even worth the points for FER, unless she ends up totally dependent on Valk with no merc, and only if Valk finally lose the balance in later Act5 monsters when she fails to deliever enough damage to negate monster regen.

If it hasn't been confirmed yet, minions DO take on some boss attributes. I have managed to single out and kill a Mana Burn boss leaving its minions alive (not an easy task, btw, for a valk only zon ;p ). Every sucessful hit from them drained mana. However, they did not drain the whole globe, iirc.

FER1.10 herself is still very viable, but slightly more of a (welcomed) challenge. She seems to get hit more often than FER1.09 probably due to increased monster speed. And now that monsters do a lot more damage and hit more often, you'll all have to excuse me if I don't talk as much in game ;p


KoP
AliceCo-oper (naked traffic control necro) up next

AliceCo-oper is also naked and passive (Curse) only with the exception of Corpse Explosion for those inpatient moments.

But we were talking about tweaking/twinking. My most heavily twinked toon turned out to be one of the most fun, and difficult to play variant. Not only he's got a long wishlist of items the community helped to fullfill, he also needed frequent handouts (in gold) from his rich aunt McTyraelGal.    This is his family portrait with Tyrael @ 53 after he solo'd NM Baal. I will let you have some fun figuring out what is going on

[Boro]

Ah yes, GoGoGadgetz! It was him, InspiredHope, and ofc Hardly Able that first introduced me to realms beyond. I still have that thread archived on my iPhone using a combination of shellscript and wget (There was a november day last year when I needed just that to keep me company while waiting for a train).

At this point even the images have disappeared from the internet. Unfortunately, not even my archive has them... :/

[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.

[Boro]

Act Two, Nightmare could be best summed up as:

9 frame firebolts are intoxicating.

To my surprise, the burning dead in the sewers were merely fire resistant, not immune, so while progress was slower on levels 1 and 2 (full cleared), it was not only possible, but fun! Oneshot kills are good when one's going for speed, but having enemies that put up resistance is a welcome change of pace here.



Cindy took the minions away from Radament, then mugged the big mummy in his own room.

The rest of the act was routine, fast casting oneshot firebolts, just like in Normal.


Situations like this could be held by barraging the chokepoints with firebolts.

Palace, Lost City, Far Oasis, Dry Hills, Wastes, Arcane, were easy, and full cleared, Same for the Canyon, but at that point I decided to hurry up and skip the false tombs, since I was doing the whole act in a day, and I was getting stressed. The chamber was quickly found, then a trip to the far oasis later (It was no biggie, I didn't clear yet the maggot lair, just stumbled down to the coldworm chamber) the staff was assembled, and the battle with Duriel was joined.



He decided that sorcies make a good snack, so he ignored Thadar (Who is also a sorcerer, by the way!), and went for poor Cindy. However, Sander's Riprap's (Dropped from my andariel warmup runs) 40% faster run, plus my 25% faster run with the stealth armor was too much for him. Cindy routinely tempted him, and even his big bad hits did little damage. He's not that dangerous without his charge anymore

When I returned to town for some reason, (potions most likely, and some last minute (heck, post last minute) gambles, as I didn't want to waste purples on the big bug) I noticed that Sander's Riprap actually requires 18 strength, not 15. Best of all, I wore it through the entire act, without noticing it, so I broke my variant rules without intending to simply because I failed to read it right! Oops. Well, at least it was less tedious.

I quickly switched first to a gambled boots of wealth, then to a gambled boots of 23% mf. It sucked, but them's the breaks. If I didn't sell my previous boots, I'd have +35% run speed, not 25%.

Since I wanted Sander's Riprap, I needed to go to act III.

Act III went just like Act III on normal, except now having the leaf staff was the same experience as back then with the starter one.

Jade figurine was an easy find.

The jungle part was of a Trident shape: The central prong and the short shaft was the spider forest, branching to the left was the Great Marsh, and to the right went the Flayer Jungle. The Great Marsh had a nasty fire enchanted Bramble Hulk boss who kept regenerating almost as fast as I could firebolt him, and since he was LE too, Thadar had a hard time hurting him. He croaked eventually, but that was a tough encounter. I had an XP shrine, and it expired before the boss. It was a good thing I also bagged a gloam boss at least.

Lower Kurast lacked leapers, and I full cleared it without trouble. Bazaar had the Lam Esen Tome, but no stairs traps. The sewers were thankfully devoid of the exploding dolls, so that was an easy, if lengthy run. Flanking horadrim anchient horror troops while the troops sought to flank me was an enjoyable game to play. After finding Khalim's third part on level 2, I broke towards Travincal, destroyed the council, and broke the orb before ending the session.

Next time, I cleared the Bazaar and the remaining temples. There were bosses, two in particular had nasty archers, but Cindy wasn't even close to the oneshot territory. The archers on the other hand... Upper Kurast was easy, but this time Travincal had a multishot hierophant boss who really ate Cindy's health bar with a good hit. The problem was that I was working my way down from the Travincal waypoint, and the architecture did block most of the enemies from being visible on my screen. Needless to say, not seeing a deadly boss before it shoots me is a big problem when one wants to avoid the deeds screen

I destroyed the council the second time, they dropped Mavina's Tenet, which I had no use or inventory space for, at least until act V, and I was not going to wait that out, but Durance level 1 stopped me. There were too many undead stygian dolls, and I was too tired to handle them properly, AND they ignored Thadar (Who is immune to their explosion, whereas I take 200 damage...)

I mulled over stygian dolls for the next day before getting back to the rest of Durance 1. See, they aren't a bad idea. They explode upon death, and that's a great way to punish careless AoE usage, however, with the changes to monster health in 1.10, the death explosions ramped up in lethality, even more so on hell difficulty than on nightmare, to the point where a death explosion can potentially take off 1200 life if it hits! Best of all, it's physical, it can be blocked but not really resisted (at least not by a pure character: ber runes, shaftstop, harlequin crest, string of ears, blablabla, even physical resist is maxed out at 50%), and unless you have some kind of life booster, AND you are at max life ON A a maximum vitality character, there is a chance you'll eat an explosion and go from full to deeds while you are on hell. Not the best kind of challenge, is it?

Not that it stopped me from trying anyways. See, tempting "works", but not well enough to keep them out of explosion range, especially if a boss pack covers for one another. However, going behind a doorway, portaling out, then suppressing the doorway upon my return with firebolts did the trick: Anything they didn't kill first, the firebolts stunlocked and kept in place. This second time they also started to target Thadar, much to my pleasure.

It turned out that most of level 1 was already cleared, and level 2 was devoid of these exploding issues, so while it was loooong (and I full cleared it), it was also rather tame. There were boss packs of this or that monster (Cadavers, Maulers, Vampire 'Lords), but nothing too threatening. A few times I got smacked by a Mauler when rounding a corner, I'll have to keep that in mind for hell difficulty.

Then we arrived at level 3: The stairs weren't trapped, but they might as well have been. The entrance room had TWO vampire boss packs, so there were a lot of pyrotechnics going off, I had to retreat twice, rush from one end of the room to the other, do loops, dodge, happy feet etc, but somehow I got that done. One was Fire Enchanted Extra Fast, the other I don't remember.

Poking my head out, I managed to kill one of bremm's minions before the moderately sparkly one (at least here on nightmare) showed up. I ducked behind the doorway, and used the same trick I used on dolls. He came, he got caught in the firebolt stunlock, and he died. The other two councilors fared little better, because Cindy's firebolts were just better than their hydras.



Eventually, it was down to the really sparkly boss.

I'd love to say he was one epic battle, that I had to dodge cold shots, that I had to gulp full rejuvs, that I almost got mugged in a corner... But I can't. Mephisto locked onto Thadar, and pelted him with elemental damage. Thadar had full resists on all counts, so even the nasty cold shots did at most a third of his life. I name-locked Mephisto, fed Thadar potions, and in time even the Lord of Hatred fell. He dropped a Carin Shard, which was nice of him, although Cindy had no use for such trinkets, being a sorceress with a staff.

[Boro]

Oh and by the way, I decided to poke my head out to the Outer Steppes. Guess what? No leapers again! (This game loves me I swear). The night was young, so I went with the mobs I drew: Venom Lords (I could barely stun them, same experience as in normal with starter staff), Doom Knights (Immune... I isolated them, mostly by having killed the other enemies then orbed them down. It wasn't a very clean solution, as I much preferred Firebolt, but no such synergyless skills were in the cold tree, and immunities, when encountered en masse, Take too long for Thadar to kill. As such, a low level frozen orb was the order of the day here.) and corpulents, who were a nonissue

By this point, Firebolt was dealing respectable damage. Fastcast setup provided 1261-1456 damage at 9 frames per casting 2+7/9 (2.77...) bolts per second (~3773 dps), and the burning amulet brought this up to 1527-1738 , 10 frames, 2.5 firebolts per second, 4081 dps. Still on the whole, I preferred the fast cast setup up to this point, since the speed I gained allowed me to have less overkill in acts I and II and to kill faster. But now, with heavy resistances and high health totals, I had to make the switch. I kept my 10% fast cast crafted belt until I'd find or gamble a better rare.

I also managed to land back in act III a Glacial staff (no staffmods) from Ormus, and also a wand of Lower Resist, that cost me somewhere between 180-240k, and had to be used sparingly (Bosses). Oh, of course, a wand of lower resist would have made Ember's quest WAY easier, but remember that the price to pay are immunities. Speaking of immunes, Doom Knights took 2 or 3 frozen orbs, and one of the reasons to separate, ball up then orb them was to conserve my mana.

With the improved firebolt damage, Thadar and Cindy were able to occasionally stunlock the venom lords we faced. Since they were faster, it was easy to deal with them separately, and slowly, but steadily we were making progress, and before you could blink (a bajillion times), the Outer Steppes were clear, and the stairs to the plains were found. (There were fun encounters, such as a boss I portal-parked across a chasm, returned, then shot with impunity, a fire immune venom lord boss that took a LOT of orbs to kill, and just in general the footwork required for the little "variant within a variant" minigame I played)

For the plains, we had more doom knights (nay), some kind of doom casters, and more venom lords. All in all the same draw of one immune, one resistant and one weak enemy. Since it was getting late, I started skirting around the edges of the area, and wow it turned out that after rounding the north corner, that itself was very close to the stairs, I found both Izzy and the city entrance. Izzy himself was again an easy boss. No immunities? No real danger? No regen? pff. Now, if he had multishot glacial spikes, instead of a piddly frost nova, or maybe a charge, or even a telekill attempt move... Ok let's NOT go there, I don't want to give Sullla nightmares. I saved up these points aswell for my entrance to hell where I can sink them into Frozen Orb. Slvl 5+4 is decent enough here, but I'll need more when the health totals shoot up.

City waypoint was quickly found, and since the draw was easy (Abyss knights, bats, and Pit Lords.), I decided to spend the rest of my session clearing out the city and hope for a better draw on the Plains.

The next session saw the city cleared. Sure the monsters were tougher (Pit Lords, Spawners and Spitters) and the going was slower (I wished here that I didn't sell my fast cast ammy, as it'd have sped up the pups by a huge margin), but this was another easy draw.

The Plains however... Forget the doom casters, here are some BURNING SOULS! yay. My lightning resists were in the 20s, so it was time to learn some footwork, when to shoot, when to run, where to run, running back, scouting with firebolts, looking for the "ping" visual of gaining mana from a kill... In short I used my brain instead of being a lightning tank with thundergods, nothing new under the sun.

The rest of the draw were Venom Lords (yay) and Doom Knights (nay), so all in all it was again a slow going map, but not too dangerous, as there weren't any dangerous bosses yet. Knocking venom lords to hit recovery (thanks to my increased damage per firebolt with my setup) was incredibly helpful down here. One good thing was that Burning Souls died in one hit.

Still I was more than happy to proceed down to the River, forget that these red gloam things exist, and get on with the last of my "15 str items only" section. This is why I decided to forget about the false tombs for the meanwhile: I desperately wanted that sander's riprap, and to a lesser extent the magefists.

The draw was: Pit Lords, Spawners (Grotesque I think?), and Abyss Knights. All in all another friendly draw, although the pups did their best to cover the advancing balrogs who forced me to constantly give ground, while I was constantly under the barrage of the knights, and pups were flanking me left and right

I had teleport by the way, just didn't use it. No teleporting until champion... I mean "Conqueror".

Heffer didn't draw anything too dangerous either, and Cindy raked in the rewards (Perf Emerald, Ko rune) with glee. Waypoint was close by, and the rest of the river (a small loop of four segments) was routine too. No immunes stick to my mind, and since the run was still fresh (It was the second session of yesterday), I went to the river maze, to get a "feel" of what the Chaos Sanctuary will be like.

Alright, it was as much as a "getting a feel" as Subpoena was just "taking a peek and some easy XP", as the place just drew me in. Sure it was a LOT easier than either of those variants, but hell it was still a ton of fun, since I still played the "only kill doom knights when the other non-immunes in the vicinity are dead" game too, that I had NO reason to play at all, but couldn't resist.

I cleared the vizier's wing, accidentally popped De Seis' seal, who was cold immune so I gleefully orbed his posse to death, it felt very rewarding. The old mage guy was a bit more difficult though. He had Magic Resistant as his boss modifier, which made him immune to fire, resistant to lightning, and he was immune to cold too. He was Thadar fodder.

At first I tried the Telekinesis stunlock thing, but that didn't work for me, even with him backed into a corner. Then I went back to town for more red & blue potions (TK eats mana, and De Seis' regeneration is strong, and I had quite a few potions scattered on the floor) and had the idea to bring the Lower Resist wand along.

That did the trick. Not only did it greatly increase Thadar's damage, but it also broke the fire immunity, so I could tag along with my firebolts. With our might combined, De Seis stood no chance.

The Infector's wing was easy, but the boss himself did put up a nasty fight. He chased Thadar and me down past the lava pools, and guess what? A champion Storm Caster decides he's regenerated enough hit points to try going for a sorcie snack! 800x600 saved me here, as I was able to steer past him onto open ground and take him out while Thadar did a fine job being a distraction.

He bit it at the tail end of the first lava pool, posting up the whole gang alone with his lightnings, and gave me ample time to weaken the minions some more.

A bit of fighting later, I took the minions down to size, and brought him back for the showdown with the infector himself, which he survived, despite the Lightning Enchanted he drew.

As for the Vizier? Lol. He is fire immune, no getting past that. His minions however? easiest of the bunch. Bereft of his support, I felt no remorse for orbing him to oblivion.

For the final encounter, Cindy donned no extra resist gear (she had none in stash), but dropped the Glacial Battle Staff for her wand of lower resist. While diablo isn't immune to fire, he has plenty of resistances across the board, and a curse here and there can make the fight go so much faster.

A bit of dance later (Thadar bit it pretty early, but he really had no place in this one), the golden one coughed his soul up.

Nightmare, act IV completed by a firebolt sorceress without a single death on her journey.

[KingOfPain]

You make it sound so easy

[Boro]

Well, when synergies enter the fray, sorceress damage shoots up to the heavens. Better yet, Leaf's +skills, some luck with a burning amulet and a fast cast/+9allres amulet, a stealth armor (+25% fast cast), two fastcast rings, and a caster belt really powered this girl up. She was low on resists, but even gloams had trouble when faced with my 600-700 health (600ish in act III, 700ish in the plains), and for icing on the cake, elemental damage can stun lock enemies!

Cindy was packing one HELL of a punch in nightmare, and was even free of mana problems that other "power" sorcies try to compensate with an insight staff (and losing damage in the process) or an insight merc (and finding themselves dry when diablo/ESFANATIC/cursedmight double bosses eat their dumb bubble boy for a snack) or even twinked +mana gear (which doesn't happen in pure play )

Mind me, there were moments where I needed full rejuvs... Once in a countess run when I ate a salvo of might arrows, then there were lightning shooting burning dead mages in the stony tomb, I was cornered in the halls of the dead and needed a some portalwork to save Thadar and finally flank the greater mummies and turn the tide of battle in my favor.

The hard part will come now, Act V is "mini-hell", with immunities everywhere, guest monsters (of beefed up statistics) galore, but thankfully none of the hell-tier uber-powerful health yet.

(By the way, Cindy finished up the false tombs in one more session, so everything up to act V is clear in nightmare.)

[KingOfPain]

Actually true, NM can be a easier game than Normal and Hell for lots of builds. In Normal, most build are just saving up skill points for those lvl 30 skills, and trying to mana and leech. In NM, you are of age to use the most powerful skills on the build up as you go, and hopefully finally dealt with your mana and leech needs.

Hopefully, you will see more obstacles in Hell

[Boro]

Well, well well, what do we have here?

I did the excel calculations.

Thankfully, the progression for both synergies and for mastery damage bonus are completely linear, and thus easy to handle in spreadsheet.

The result was, that while my guess that 30/10 distribution in Synergy/Mastery did the most damage with +5 to fire equipment was close (avg 2664), it's not the ABSOLUTE highest. It turns out, 28/12 is a better distribution, simply because at that level, mastery overtakes synergy in terms of benefits. The total top end of avg damage is 2672. The difference is only 8 points of damage, but this is concrete.

I... had a slow afternoon. I'll report the rest of my findings in the evening.