Slacker tales: GearSlack1

[Zed-F]

Here's the continuing story of my first test slacker: a female Engineer named
GearSlack1. (Original name, I know. Sue me.)

The Slacker variant rules can be found here:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....ostcount=1

[Zed-F]

Zed1GearSlack1 cleared Russel Square with her fists. Easy as pie. This demonic invasion can't be as bad as people are making out, everything dies in one or two punches. She gets to Holborn Station, and grabs a couple quests. Murmur suggests maybe she should get some training. Training? Who needs training? It's been a walk in the park so far; she has no idea why everyone else seems to be so worried about these demons.

Ability points acquired: 5 (5 saved)

She then goes to clear Tottenham Court Road the same way, with her fists... and after killing a bunch of zombies, meets Tantorus. What's this, a monster that won't die in one or two punches? A demon that in fact takes many punches to kill, and can actually hurt her somewhat when it hits back? She actually needed to use a bit of run-and-g... err... run-and-wait-to-lure-it-in so she could get a few hits in before it popped a collected on disgusting maggots out, and she had to take off to avoid them. She also had to use a number of health packs, but ultimately prevailed. After killing Tantorus, and recovering Joey's leg, wondering what the foul thing had wanted with it anyway, she decides that maybe there is something to this training idea after all.

Ability Purchase: Equippables 1 (White items). 4 Ability points saved.

Next up, she clears the Holborn Access Shafts, then the Covent Gardens Approach, completing more quests along the way. She also finds a unique rocket pistol entitled Iliaster's Majestic Sun, but this seems far too complicated for her to be much interested in. A simple, plain white XM55 automatic rifle suits her better. Reaching Covent Gardens, she finds she has more exploration to do and clears out the Covent Garden Train Depot and Steam Tunnels, as well as the Kingsway Sewers, collecting a couple bounties and fulfilling quests as she goes, as well as finding a nice white XM107 Firefox launcher and finally filling out all her armour locations with white pieces.

Her next trip is to the Covent Garden Markets, where she finds a Hellgate which takes her to fight Shulgoth. He proves not to be terribly dangerous, dropping Shulgoth's Breath and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that's way too complicated for her to care about right now. Shulgoth proves not to be a terribly hard opponent to fight. Is this supposed to be a challenge or something, she wonders? Sure, he takes a fair number of bullets from her machine gun to whittle down, but in the end the result is a foregone conclusion. She finds Fawkes's corpse, and brings back the device she finds on it, showing it to Lann, who tells her to take it to the British Museum.

Fine, she thinks, and heads there next. More quests to do and errands to run. Getting to the British Museum is no problem. It's overrun by monsters, of course, so she clears them out. Once done there, she proceeds through the rift and finds more demons to fight, led by a particularly nasty one called Sekworm. Well, perhaps nasty isn't the word; more like annoying, since he regenerates. After popping back and forth through the portal several times to regenerate shields (don't these guys know how to use their own gates?) she manages to eliminate his bodyguard, and confront Sekworm one on one for a ranged duel. It's trivially simple to dodge his lightning balls, since he winds up so much when throwing them, but no sooner does she have him whittled down and approaching death than he regenerates completely back to full again. Humph. Finally, after blasting away at him for a good long time, he eventually neglects to regenerate further and she steps over his corpse, looking for somewhere to place the device... and thinking that maybe a little more firepower wouldn't be a bad thing. She decides to think about it later.

So, after clearing the area behind the gate, and placing Fawkes' device, she runs back out into the museum and immediately heads for the main area with the circular stairwell. Her instincts tell her she could be in trouble if she doesn't. Making sure that the area around the stairwell in the center of the museum is clear, she realizes that her instincts were correct -- another beast called Emperor Gulkar has somehow followed her out (She thought these guys didn't know how to use their own gates... and why didn't she see him earlier if he followed her out?) along with his coterie of fiend masters. Actually several fiend masters in different places throughout the museum -- cute trick, that. Well, Gulkar might be tough, but he's not clever, and after a merry chase around and around the center of the museum, she finally pumps enough lead into him that he drops. This leads her to meet with a strange-talking woman called The Sage -- who apparently is something called a Truth. Someone's been doing too much bad drugs, she thinks.

Anyway, the fights with Sekworm and Gulkar prove one thing for certain... the monsters are starting to hit a bit harder, and her own damage potential could stand some beefing up. Maybe a bit more training wouldn't hurt, she thinks. But what training should she take?

Ability points acquired: +1 (6 Total, 5 saved)

[Zed-F]

Post-Act 1 thoughts:

Currently GearSlack1 is holding her own against regular mobs and going slow against bosses. Especially bosses that regenerate... seemingly not an uncommon property on quest bosses.

Upcoming problems:
- Not being able to equip better weapons due to not enough accuracy.
- Not being able to hit monsters due to not enough accuracy.
- Not being able to damage monsters effectively due to not damaging enough weapons.
- Not being able to survive being hit due to insufficient hp (stamina).
- All these combine primarily when either facing a named boss or when damage rate drops below point where respawning becomes a serious problem.

Upcoming complicating factors:
- Not being able to use vendors (abililty: equipment sources 2) means not being able to buy analyzers. So far this isn't a big deal since she can only use white items. Could be a problem if she wants to start equipping green items; so far she's been salvaging everything she can't use, for later crafting.

Selected solutions:
- Putting an ability point in Skills will let her unlock some one-point wonders and put out some pets for extra damage and protection. This will give her an immediate benefit.
- Putting a second ability point in Equippables will allow her to start looking for green gear that gives +attributes. This is a more long-term solution as she still needs to find the gear she's looking for, and will be limited to the rate she can scrounge them and analyze them, since she will still be in LoL mode until she unlocks Equipment Sources 2).

Rejected possibilities:
- Adding a couple ability points to Equipment Sources will get her out of LoL mode and allow her to shop for or craft the equipment she needs, plus give her access to mods for increased weapon damage. At this time, however, it seems premature.
- Adding an ability point to Attributes will give her access to some of her saved attribute points, for an immediate benefit. However, since her clvl is still fairly low, the benefit will be relatively small.

Conclusion: GearSlack1 will be assigning an ability point to Skills and one to Equippables as her next points. She could probably hold off on this for a while yet but it's probably better to enable wearing +attribute gear sooner rather than later, so she has a bit of time to rustle some up before she really needs it.

[Zed-F]

Ability points acquired: +1 (6 Total, 5 saved)

GearSlack1 sits in Covent Garden Station, deciding what training she ought to pursue. Lann isn't much help; he's all about 'being the best you can be, 'cause you're in the army!' He needs to get that stick out of his butt, she thinks. But Nemo, aside from dispensing halloween treats, has some good advice.

'You know, when I spot one of those demons, I just run for it. I run like I was on fire!' he replies to her questions.
'You mean, without taking a hit of speed?' she wonders. 'I mean I can run faster for a while, but I have to pop a pill to do it, and I only have a handful of those.' Being able to speed up at will would be useful, she thinks.
'Yeah, and what happens when those run out? If you don't have the strength to fight, or the stamina to survive, or the will to live... well you'd best not stick around when the demons come calling, or you'll become no more than a ghost. You'd just have to hope you kit can keep the demons off your back while you high-tail it out of there.'
'Hm, better kit...' she thinks, looking at the white stuff she'd been using. Maybe some of this enhanced stuff she finds so regularly would help with keeping her alive, she considers.
'A good set of kit is near-crucial if you want to survive out there,' Nemo confesses. 'And a buddy to watch your back is even better. I'll show you.' He produces a disgusting amalgam of meat and machine that somehow moves about under its own power. 'See?'
Fascinated, she stares at the thing. 'How do you build something like that?' she wonders.
'Here, I'll show you...'

So, GearSlack1 set out from Covent Garden Station with her head full of strange ideas and distant hopes. Ideas like building some robots and maybe a drone to keep her company on her journey. Hopes like finding some enhanced equipment which would let her shoot more accurately and survive being hit better.

Ability Purchase: Equippables 2 (Green items), Skills 1 (Slvl1 skills totalling up to 5 points). 3 Ability points saved.

Skills points assigned to Drone 1, Rocket Bot 1. With Inhibitor Bot 1 and Sprint 1, that makes 4 skill points; her limit is 5 skills at slvl 1, so this leaves room for a weapon with a single skill point on it if she finds one.

Her first goal is to make it to Charing Cross station. Along the way she winds up doing several tasks for the people of Covent Gardens, but the trip is not terribly difficult overall, though she does have an interesting moment trying to figure out how to use a tranquilizer gun at one point. Next up she tries to visit Picadilly Circus, but gets sidetracked along the way, first discovering a small passage under the streets of Picadilly approach where someone had left a lot of money lying around, and then finding a mysterious hellgate that no-one had told her about. Exploring it, she discovers a passage to some place in Hell called 'Ancient Blood', but then the world dissolves around her before she can explore it. She re-awakens in Covent Gardens. 'That was strange,' she thinks, but when she sets out toward Picadilly again, the gate is nowhere to be found. Shrugging, she continues on to Picadilly Circus, and finds the gate she'd actually been told about there, eventually visiting a large edifice in Hell where she retrieves the head of the Oracle.

Next up she makes her way to Green Park station, encountering no difficulties enroute, and from thence to Oxford Circus station, where the locals have some additional work for her to do. Heading back to Green Park station, she explores Death's Sewers, Death's City, and Death's Tunnels, finding little there to cause her too much grief, and ending with the reconstruction of the Oracle and attachment thereof to Techsmith 314's face. Ouch. Poor Techsmith 314, she thinks, feeling uncomfortable with her part in Lucious Alden's tormenting of the poor fellow.

After that comes Admiralty Arch, enroute to Chocolate Park, where she discovers another mysterious unexpected hellrift. Taking this portal, she finds it again leads to a place known as Ancient Blood... and this time there is no sudden blackness and reawakening in Charing Cross. Instead she clears the way to the portal to hell and passes through, where she encounters a regenerating Epic Tormentor boss practically camped on the doorstep. Fortunately, while she can't seem to kill the thing due to its regeneration ability, it is at least slow enough that she can evade it, and most of the other demons and undead in the place are not too challenging in comparison. The visit to Hell seems rather anti-climactic, however, as there is nothing really there except for more demons to fight and one lonely chest of goodies in a corner.

At Chocolate Park, she has few difficulties; though the Chocolate Fog proves to be a nuisance from time to time, she opts to clear the park before speaking to Lucious. This proves fortuitous as Techsmith 314, understandably not impressed with the idea of a face-first dunking in molten lava, flees rather than go along with it. Gearslack1 reluctantly chases him down and convinces him to cooperate, despite being troubled herself about the ordeal he is being put through. Amazingly enough, the techsmith survives the experience, and begins ranting in a demonic-sounding manner... Gearslack1 wonders if this is Lucious's idea of an improvement, what will the madman have in store for the hapless techsmith next?

She then takes a break from assisting Lucious's torture of his techsmith, and proceeds on a mission to relieve the stranded fighters at Millenium Battle. Enroute she discovers another mysterious hellgate in Downing Street, but this time after clearing the area behind the portal, she discovers no further entrance into Hell itself. Pity. Continuing on, she eventually reaches the Millenium Battle site, which is on the bed of the former Thames river. Almost immediately on entering the zone and speaking with the trooper there, she find the entranceway under attack by something close to a dozen demons of various types, including a massive Vortex Lord. Either she and her drone were insufficiently careful about waking up more demons, or else they were destined to attack just as she emerged from the doorway. By repeatedly running back and forth between Milenium Battle and Downing Street, she was able to take frequent enough breaks from combat to heal and reconstruct her drone that she was ultimately able to defeat the ambush force. From there, it was a matter of turning on enough turret emplacements that they finished the bulk of the demons for her. Curiously, after reactivating the first five turrets, Gearslack1 found that all the remaining turrets activated on their own... and there were a lot of them. The first battle to clear the entranceway was quite difficult, but once all those turrets activated themselves, the rest of it was a piece of cake. She wondered if it was supposed to be that way.

After that, it was off to Embankment Approach to assist another group of stranded Templars reach home, this time in the role of commanding officer. She made it to the correct location without too much trouble; a couple random bosses proved to be nuisances, but not too much to handle. Along the way she managed to find some boots that gave her an accuracy boost, which allowed her to equip a volt gun and a sniper rifle, as well as her trusty Firefox launcher. The volt gun also had a +1 to Beacon on it, which would prove useful against a number of bosses. The battle at Embankment approach needed none of these, however, since here she was fighting strictly through others -- not very competent others, as it turned out. However, since she seemed to have as many reinforcements as she needed, and since once pushed back the demons tended to stay pushed back... there was little chance of her ultimately failing to get some of the survivors out. Nevertheless she did not feel very sanguine about her first performance as commanding officer; she felt much better about ticking to grunt work.

Finally, once the survivors of Embankment Redoubt were safely evacuated, she returned to Charing Cross, and from thence discovered that somehow the Oracle's admixture with Techsmith 314 had caused a curious portal to open into the latter's mind, or at least his brain. Very surreal, she thought. With nothing for it but to hop through, she did so, cleansing the Techsmith's mind of a variety of demons which had taken residence there. She found the beam attacks of the various floating monsters within were the hardest for her to deal with, but on the plus side the twisting passages offered her lots of cover to hide behind while her rocket bot took out the monsters for her. Finally, after speaking with Nightmare Lucious, she discovers that she must destroy Techsmith 314's psyche, along with its cadre of bodyguards! A fighting withdrawl allows her to eventually wear down the bodyguard, and then it's just 314's Psyche she has to deal with. But to her surprise, defeating that only causes it to split into Id, Ego, and Superego! Another fighting withdrawl allows her to split off the Id, the most aggressive of the three, and she is able to deal with it one on one. From there, she confronts the Ego and the Superego, which are less aggressive and don't chase her as much. First she takes down the Ego, which is the more damaging of the two, and finally the Superego. Once that is done... a portal opens to another Truth, this one named The Father. After speaking with him, she finds herself back in Charing Cross Station, wondering what she's done, and feeling somewhat sick. Has she destroyed Techsmith 314's mind? Is he now a vegetable? The fact that he no longer speaks, and yet still has that Oracle creature stuck to his face, does not bode well for his ultimate fate...

GearSlack1 feels that there must be some sort of lesson she should learn from this. But what?

Ability points acquired: +1 (7 Total, 4 saved)

[Zed-F]

Post Act 2 thoughts:
In all of act 2, I only found 2 green items that give extra attributes, for a total of +4 stamina and +3 accuracy. The latter was just enough to equip the volt gun and the sniper rifle, but there are a lot more weapons than that waiting in the wings which she currently cannot equip due to lack of stats. Also, she is getting tired of haunting low level areas looking for spare analyzers; with the plethora of better stuff that can drop in higher level areas, she is not finding as many as I had hoped she might. I suppose she could always go on boss runs to find more green items to identify, but that only exascerbates the analyzer problem.

Ultimately I know I want GearSlack1 to get off the LoL path and be allowed to purchase from vendors and crafters. Plus, her stash is full of mods and weapons that are waiting to be used. But rather than allocate two ability points to Equipment Sources straightaway, I think I will allocate just one for now, to enable her to clear some of those mods out of her stash and into her weapons, giving her more of an offensive punch. I would like to see if she can complete act 3, which seems fairly short, without buying anything from a vendor.

As a note, I think she could have finished Act 2 without any green items whatsoever. By the end of Act 3, I will have wound up spending 3 ability points to be able to equip Gearslack1 in whatever green weapons, armour, and normal mods she can afford from a attribute feed point of view. Would it have been more effective to slot those ability points into something else? Possibly... for instance, she might have gone with using only white equipment and no mods, or white equipment with mods, and sock the other ability points into enabling attribute allocation to as to equip higher quality items. I can't help but feel that my current approach is a bit more flexible in some ways, though. Plus it gets annoying not being able to buy what I would like to have from vendors after a while.

Conclusion: GearSlack1 will be assigning one ability point to Equipment Sources, so as to be able to use some of her accumulated mods. She could probably hold off on this for a while yet but a bit of extra damage certainly won't hurt, and she would like to free up stash space for more found items.

[Zed-F]

GearSlack1 looked once again in the contents of her storage locker, shaking her head in puzzlement over how to fit in her latest finds, picked up from the demons in 314's head. Unfortunately her locker was full of all these gewgaws she'd found over the course of her travels, and just couldn't seem to bring herself to get rid of. She was sure they did something, maybe even something useful... but the effort of figuring out just what had never seemed all that necessary before. The main thing was that they were pretty, right?

Well, maybe not. Rooting out the demons in Techsmith 314's mind hadn't exactly been the easiest thing she'd ever done, after all. She sat in Temple station, puzzling over this conundrum for a while, until this guy with the strangest speech patterns wandered over and started telling her about how he once defeated a giant lizard-man by building a bow and some arrows out of some sticks he'd found lying around. The story was quite unbelievable, and the guy's storytelling style was really outrageous, but it did give her a thought. Maybe she could try to improve her weapon in some way?

Only then did she notice that those little knickknacks and gewgaws she'd been collecting all this time for a home decor show somewhere down the line seemed tailor-made to fit in a variety of slots and hardpoints on her weapons. Who knew?

Ability Purchase: Equipment Sources 1 (Mods). 3 Ability points saved.

So GearSlack1 left Temple Station feeling a bit more sanguine about her weapons, and a bit happier with the amount of space left in her stash. Naturally it didn't take long for her storage space to start filling up again, as she continued helping out some of the poor saps around the station with their problems. She wandered through a bunch of access ducts clearing them out of whatever demons had happened to reside there. She paid a couple brief visits back to Charing Cross station to perform a few last tasks for them. She explored a few tunnels under Aldwych, black as a pit though they were, to find a gate and collect a sample of mucus. (Gross!) Then she tracked down the source of the stuff and knocked it out, shot an Exospecter out of the sky, and went inside it to recover another specimen. (Even more gross!) None of it really seemed all that tricky, except that a lot of the battles took place on the bed of the Thames... and that meant she could potentially be attacked immediately upon entering the zone. Even with her newly customized weapons, she found she needed a significant amount of room to work in to be successful in combat, preferably free of demons; starting out with bots and a drone to build and boss packs right near the gate generally were not good for her health. Still, while she was having increasing problems with enemies hitting hard, and with not really finding all that many items which boosted her stamina, she dismissed these difficulties as temporary. Eventually things would work themselves out, right? After all, she had found a couple items that boosted her accuracy and allowed her to use an Arclite Thermite rifle and a Talon launcher...

It was the passage through Angel Street to Monument Station that really opened her eyes as to just how problematic things were getting. First of all, she had to use this really complicated gun-like thing that some woman called Ser Sing had given her just to make any headway at all. Nothing else seemed to work to clear her path even a little bit. She had no idea how the thing worked, and it sounded really gross, so she tried avoiding using it at first -- but with absolutely no success at all on that score, back to town she went to get it figured out enough to use. After explaining it about 18 times, Ser Sing had finally given up and just told her to hold it like her assault rifle and just pull the trigger.

Then, she had to fight this even more gross thing that spat out eyes like spitwads. Eyes! Eww! What's more... they HURT. Not only did they zap her with some kind of funky beam, they left this purple stuff all over the ground... well, the less said about THAT fight, the better. They say experience is a harsh teacher, and GearSlack1 stumbled into Monument Station feeling like experience had just hauled off and belted her across the face. There had to be *something* she could learn from that encounter...

Ability points acquired: +1 (8 Total, 4 saved)

[Zed-F]

Act 3 notes: A short act, as expected... and overall not all that memorable, I found, despite there being a couple relatively unique zones/encounters in the area. Most of the unique areas seemed relatively straightforward, until Angel Passage. Even that was pretty straightforward, but GearSlack1's lack of firepower and stamina really showed through that time. Still... if one is willing to accept dying, the act 3 boss is eminently killable with little more than persistence. The whole 'restart in station after death' is proving not to be much of a handicap with judicious use of PRDs. I could clamp down even harder on death-related options, but I'm not sure how to do it or how far to go and still stay with the flavour of the variant. Being a slacker is not automatically about being hardcore -- if anything, quite the opposite.

I don't want to make multiple deaths a constant feature of GearSlack1's experience, though, so I will have her use at least one and possibly more than one ability point over the course of act 4. It seems to me the first and most obvious thing to do is end her LoL days and allow her access to shops and crafters, in a search for better gear than what she's been able to find. She may start needing to allocate some attribute and/or skill points at some point as well, especially to combat tedium due to lack of options on the skills front... we shall see.

Conclusion: GearSlack1 will spend an ability point to get Equipment Sources 2 and then will progress through the act before deciding if/when to spend further points.

[Zed-F]

After stumbling into Monument Station, it didn't take long for GearSlack1 to conclude that she needed more firepower. She also needed more defense. Really she needed more of everything. She decided to start looking around to see if anyone could help her.

As it turned out, there were some people who were willing to help... for a price. There were these people who sold stuff, in exchange for some of those shiny round things she'd been collecting. GearSlack1 hated to give up her shinies to these guys, but she figured some of the stuff they had might be useful. Time to go shopping!

Ability Purchase: Equipment Sources 2 (Vendors). 3 Ability points saved.

Well, GearSlack1 shopped. And shopped. And shopped some more. In fact, she was something of a shop-aholic throughout her time in Monument Station, always on the lookout for better equipment. Her primary focus was on gear that provided extra stats -- accuracy, strength, stamina, and willpower. Also, she wanted weapons that would teach her new skills to use. She could only use one weapon at a time, but if each weapon granted her a different skill, she could pick the one that was most appropriate for the situation she found herself in. She settled on a XM57 assault rifle which had instructions for how to make her rocket bot explode written on the side for her primary weapon, a long range 'Talon' rocket launcher with advice for how to crouch for a better firing positon for her secondary weapon, and a pair of pistols for backup, one of which doubled as a cutting laser to help her repair her drone when it got damaged. She did experiment with other weapons throughout her time at Monument Station, but these were what she ultimately settled on.

Eventually, satisfied with her gear, she spoke with Lord Arphaun about his concerns regarding Lord Maxim, and agreed to head over to Templar Base to check out the situation there and work her way into the latter's graces. Brandon Lann, who she'd last spoken to back at Covent Garden Station (seemed like ages ago!) had returned to Templar Base, only to get himself in trouble almost straight away, and Arphaun wanted to draft her for the rescue operation. Shrugging, and considering that she didn't really have anything better to do, she agreed.

With her new equipment, weapons, and weapon-based skills, she had little difficulty killing most of the demons she encountered. That's not to say she encountered no challenges, however; there were some demons and some situations which continued to give her trouble. Her biggest challenge was that just about everywhere she went, the city was on fire. She found herself entranced by all the flames, and in many cases unable to pay sufficient attention to her surroundings. In fact, time seemed to slow to a crawl anytime there was a substantial amount of fire about, and she found it somewhat difficult to keep track of her surroundings or aim accurately in those circumstances. The other difficulty remained the open areas of the Thames riverbed, where almost inevitably she would be beset by several demons as soon as she entered the area, leaving her little if any room to maneuver.

Nevertheless, she persevered, seeking and eventually finding Lann through a hellrift in Temple Place, badly wounded. Using a medkit on him, she brought him out of there, back to the Templar Base. Maxim, impressed with her rescue efforts, asked her to undertake another task. She was to take a hellrift detector and a hellgate revealer to Ludgate Hill, and destroy all the developing hellrifts she found there. Piece of cake, she thought, and so it was. Returning to Templar Base, she was assigned a third mission, this time to bring secret orders to Lann and Aeron Altair in Bishop's Court and Old Bailey. Also easily done. However, those orders spelled dire consequences for Aeron and Brandon, and so she returned to Arphaun in Monument Station to see what could be done to retrieve the situation.

First, with Arphaun's guidance, she travelled to the Tower of London to destroy the Beast of Abbadon. That could have been a tough fight, were it not for the instructions printed on the side of her assault rifle -- instructions she'd become increasingly reliant on over time. They served especially well here, and allowed her to make short work of both the beast and the creatures it spawned once she had figured out how to use the emplaced lasers to cause it to become vulnerable to her attacks. This allowed the use of the portal system to assist with rescue efforts, but it quickly became overtaxed, and so she traveled to Aldgate to seek a method of reinforcing it. This turned out to be a simple task, and subsequently Arphaun had yet another chore for her to perform -- help fix a train in Cannon Street. Also no problem. Once the train was repaired, she needed to clear the tunnel so it could proceed; honestly, she started feeling like she was the only one capable of doing anything around these parts. At least when she'd been helping out Lord Maxim, there'd been a bunch of Templar around to give her a hand...

At any rate, she cleared out the tunnel, and received word that the train was enroute. She waited in a side tunnel until it passed, and then discovered that they train had attracted the attention of a demon wielding a massive sword, by the name of Bloodblade. Huh, she thought. A demon that brought a sword to a gunfight! Compared to Oculis the All-Seeing, this guy was a joke; she just backpedalled and filled him with lead. A LOT of lead. And a few exploding bots for good measure. The recently-cleared train tracks made for a nice long corridor she could back up in and lead Bloodblade on a merry chase to his doom. Her reward for this was to visit a pair of brothers -- the fourth Truth. Bonus Round: she got to use a medkit on a bunch of injured Templar. Why can't the doctor who was STANDING RIGHT THERE do this instead? At least there were a few templar around to help stave off the demon attacks while she did someone else's job for them this time...

GearSlack1 is now back at Monument station, about to embark on a journey to Liverpool Station. She pauses to reflect on how long her journey has been thus far. Bloodblade wasn't too much of a challenge, but perhaps there is something she can learn from his pathetic attempt to eviscerate her. What not to do, if nothing else...

Ability points acquired: +1 (9 Total, 4 saved)

[Zed-F]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words....

GearSlack1's attributes, as of Act 4 Normal complete, both naked and fully equipped:



Her weapons:



Her gear:



Her skills, not counting skills gained from weapons:

[Zed-F]

Gearslack1 just didn't feel like studying after having bested Bloodblade; the fellow had proved not to be much of a challenge after all. She marched straight onwards to Liverpool Street Station, meeting an enigmatic Broker on the way who offered her all sorts of trinkets in exchange for completing tasks in a variety of locations well to the west, which she'd already visited before. It was annoying always having to come back to see him, since he refused to live anywhere within convenient reach of a portal station, but she persisted none-the-less. At Liverpool station, there were more errands to be done, the foremost of which was a visit to a place called the Necropolis. Naturally it had multiple levels -- no less than five, to be precise -- and naturally she had to visit the lowest one. She became increasingly worried about the lag demon or the disconnect demon making an appearance the farther she got from station, and indeed once it did rear its bloody head, but eventually she accomplished her objective and returned to Liverpool station.

From there she travelled north to Finsbury Square, another station-like zone immediately adjacent to Liverpool Street Station, although it was above ground and lacked a portal point. This would be her base camp for undergoing five trials given by the truths to prove her worthiness to cast out the demons from the world. Like, whatever... in any case, each of these tests pitted her lonesome self against teams of enemy demons in somewhat artificial contests. In some cases she had some (largely worthless) help, in others not. She was informed that death was no particular obstacle in these tests, only incurring a small penalty, and this proved to be prophetic in at least one case. The Test of Beauty was particularly arduous for her, as the entire setup of the test completely overturned her usual relatively careful combat style. Nevertheless, with much tribulation, she eventually succeeded in passing all the tests, whereupon the final truth revealed himself.

Again, though the completion of all those tests could have merited some introspection on Gearslack1's part, she did not pause to take a break, instead rushing immediately onward to St. Paul's Station, where she had a number of other errands to perform. Finally, once done running errands for the foulest-mouthed person she'd met since encountering Arlo back at Oxford Circus Station, she braced herself for the assault on the Hellgate. The attack through the streets approaching St. Paul's Hellgate went smoothly, and once she got close she threw herself through. The blackened and cratered plain on the other side certainly seemed uninviting enough, but at least was not densely populated with enemies. Instead she wandered around, looking for the 5 'lies' she'd been told she would have to defeat.

She encountered Discord first, and he proceeded to lay a beatdown on her, as she hadn't had the forethought to prepare properly for the encounter by getting her shield boosts quickly to hand. (Relying on the ctrl key has its disadvantages!) Eventually she took him down, however, after a couple mishaps on her part. The next lie she encountered was Rash, and she again suffered as a result of not having learned her lesson properly with Discord. (Nobody ever claimed a Slacker was a quick study!) But after a couple more mishaps she finally clued in that maybe it would be a good idea to activate a shield boost before a fight, rather than during, and from that point on things weny considerably better against Rash. Her third opponent was Bedlam, who proved to be a quite easy kill, thanks to having a sniper rifle with instructions on how to adopt a better firing stance engraved on the side. She just remained far away and whittled him down slowly, rather than risking coming in range of its deadly progeny any more than she had to. Her fourth opponent was Flaw, who she fought next to a rock outcropping. He proved not to be much of a challenge and fell quickly to rocket bot suicide attacks. Her final opponent of this set was Despair, who was also not nearly as much trouble as she had expected, compared to Discord and Rash; rocket bot explosions made relatively quick work of him.

Finally, Sydonai himself appeared, and once again it was up to Gearslack1 to take care of business. He wasted no time with preliminaries and immediately jumped on her head, stunning her, and following up with another attack which killed her before she could do more than barely recover. After that the chase was on. She died a couple more times to that maneuver, before finally getting into a good spot where she had a shield boost up and could spend a bit of time kiting while her exploding rocket bots could do their work. Ultimately, however, she did prevail.

So GearSlack1 is now at Covent Garden Station in Nightmare, where she will probably remain for a while until FSS gives some word on potential upcoming changes to rebalance the difficulty level. Also, she needs to consider what lessons she can learn from her grudging victory over the 5 lies and Sydonai on normal; certainly there is room for improvement in both her equipment and her level of training! She'll have to start exercising in earnest in order to actually use any weapons or armour she finds from here on out...

At this point I found that there are in fact 6 acts, not 5, which necessitated a rebalancing of the ability point chart. I also noted that I had consistently been saving far more ability points than I had been using, which suggested I'd been too generous with them initially. I rebalanced the rules to start Slackers with 2 ability points and add one after each act; GearSlack1's progression pretty much aligns with this, as at no point did she use more ability points than she would have earned under this system. In fact she has yet to use any ability points since act 3. I am pretty sure she'll need to use at least a couple for Nightmare, though. She's at the limit of what she can wear, equipment-wise, without investing in attributes.

Current (rebalanced) ability points: 8 Total, 3 saved