IRONMAN VICTORY: Foxhound3857 and Attica!

[Foxhound3857]

As of last night, me (Foxhound3857) and Attica finished our 2-man Relaxed Fit game with a warr/rogue combo. I know it's nothing to really be proud of, but it marks my first victory in Ironman and I have finally reached Ironman Champion status. Now I can tackle future games with a lot more confidence, knowing that I've done it once before and can do it again.

Warrior: Fox_IronBlade
Rogue: Attikal

This is the story.

First session: Tuesday, September 4th, 2007.

Town purchases: Small Shield-6 and 2 half reds (no ID's available).

Floor 1.
Enemies: Usual enemies.
Important drops: Rags-2, Buckler-4, Club (magic), Cap-1, ID, Res.
Shrines: None.

As floor 1 is so easy, we entered together and romped freely. Attikal held back while I fought and tried to accumulate experience for later. There weren't even enough enemies to reach clvl4; I was short by almost 2k. It sucked.

Floor 2.
Enemies: Skeleton Archers, Fallen Scimitars, Zombies, Fiends.
Important drops: Rainbow Cloak, ID x2, heal scroll, book HO, cap-2, blade (magic), spiked club (magic), Executioners Blade, Falchion (magic), Scimitar.
Shrines: Eerie, Secluded, Spooky.

We loved seeing the Eerie shrine; it brought the HO book into range for Attikal without a stat commitment. Uneventful clear, but I got stung a few times due to the archers. No potion quaffing though. Butcher was stair-trapped by Attikal. We decided to save the Spooky Shrine for another day.

Floor 3.
Enemies: Skeleton Archer, Corpse Bow, Scavenger, Shadow Beasts, Blinks.
Important drops: ID x3, Heal scroll x2, Lightning scroll, Long Sword (magic), morning star (magic), book HB, ring, Buckler-5.
Shrines: None.

Careful teamwork due to two types of archers, and the fact that Shadow Beasts and Blinks could do a number to us. Attikal brought all shadow beasts to our set, and then let me charge archers when there was little risk of getting swarmed. I reached clvl8 by the time we encountered Leo; we got into Rogue-Shotgun formation and trashed him at the door he was behind. I got hit a few times, but still managed not to drink. Floor goes just fine after that.

Floor 4.
Enemies: Glooms, Horror Captains, Blinks, Burning Captains, Burning Dead, Dark One Scimitars.
Important drops: Heal scroll x4, ammy, morning star (magic), book-HO, ID scroll.
Shrines: Glimmering (!)

That glimmering shrine meant a lot to us, but we had to save it for later. No archers meant I could've solo'd this floor, but the Horror Captains were pretty nasty, so we used standard teamwork. No incidents, but a close call where I almost die due to discspin. Still avoided drinking though, and was able to fight my way free of the Horror Cap when my game normalized.

End of first session.

[Foxhound3857]

Continued.

Second session: Thursday, September 6th, 2007.

Note: We decided to id the Executioners Blade at this time; I wore it as I came down the stairs to 5 incase the neighborhood wasn't looking too friendly.

Floor 5.
Enemies: Blinks, Glooms, Dark One Scimitars, Flesh Clan Archers, Hiddens.
Important drops: Small shield-8 (magic), Cap-3, Skull cap-3, Claymore, Composite bow, small shield-3 (magic).
Shrines: Magical, Sacred, Enchanted.

Once I saw the enemies, I decided to put away the Exe blade and use the Claymore. Uneventful clear, but the Rogue had to be careful when scouting due to charging Glooms and potential Hidden ambushes. Rogue comes close to dying from glooms a couple of times, but she was able to break free each time. Blinks were annoying with their constant teleporting, but they were no match for my (low) AC anymore. Total of FOUR unique bosses on this floor: A unique flesh archer (the name slips me), Wrathraven, Shadowcrow, and Foulwing. Foulwing nearly had me for lunch, but still no drinking.

Floor 6.
Enemies: Familliars, Glooms, Horror Captains, Overlords, Flesh Clan Archers.
Important drops: Res scroll, book-Lightning, Studded leather-16 (magic), Heal scroll, Infravision scroll.
Shrines: Eerie.

Uneventful clear; the overlords meant Bilefroth, who was chopped to pieces with the Exe blade. Had to keep switching door sides because of archers, but nothing we can't handle.

Floor 7.
Enemies: Acid Beasts, Fire Clan Archers, Winged Demons.
Important drops: Composite bow (magic), Infravision scroll, Composite bow (magic), Res scroll, Ring, book-SC.
Shrines: Quiet, Eerie.

A THIRD Eerie shrine; that brought a second HO book into reading, as well as the HB and Lightning books (which she read later for mana). Uneventful clear; Acid Beasts and Winged Demons were left to me with my Exe blade, while Attikal dealt with Fire archers while I was sitting duck. Attikal is getting a leg on me in experience at this point.

Floor 8.
Enemies: Fire Clan Archers, Familliars, Horned Demons.
Important drops: Studded leather-17, ID scroll, Long Battle Bow, Plain Bastard Sword.
Shrines: Abandoned, Goat x2, Spiritual (Goat shrines were Creepy and Cryptic).

More archers for Attikal, more animals for Fox. The familliars were getting annoying with their auto-hit, but the Exe blade was still ripping their wings off nicely, and as Horned Demons are animals, they are easily stunned by the blade. Attikal had to be careful scouting because of charging Horned Demons, but it went just fine; Fire Clan Archers were her business, of course.

End of second session.

[Foxhound3857]

Third session: Friday, September 7th, 2007.

We decided to ID a ring, as we felt a stat boost would be very helpful at this point. It was Brill +14 mag (which meant more mana for Attikal and reading power for me, I read one HO book with it). Decent, but not what I needed.

Floor 9.
Enemies: Illusion Weavers, Toad Demons, Night Clan Archers.
Important drops: HO-stick (39), ring, Executioners Blade, Dex elixir x2, Full helm-6 (magic)
Shrines: None.

The worst possible situation in an Ironman game; I'm ambushed as soon as I come down the stairs. I warn to Attikal about this and he nods to stay in town. I see the battle with 5-6 weavers on and eventually kill them all, taking little damage. After that, I start scouting east (west is a dead end and south is cut off by a lava channel), only to spot the Toadies and the boss right behind the stairs. I alert Attikal to this and bail up the stairs to town. We had no room to fight, but there was a narrow choke just next to the stairs that I could fight the Toadies 1x1 from. I load up my belt and inventory with reds and go down again to get into position.

I misjudged the situation; it allows TWO toadies at me. I'm forced to fight 2 at a time with only 40AC to my name. Even with the Exe blade (giving me stun), it takes more than 10 hits to bring 1 Toadie down. I quaff red after red, hoping to outlast the swarm. When I'm left with just the boss (and 16 reds gone), I bail uop the stairs to allert Attikal, then we confer to come down at the same time. I go down first with full life and engage the boss, and am able to kill it before Attikal's floor even loads (he takes 30 seconds, I take less than 3).

We shrug, he gets his scouting gear on, and we use careful teamwork from there. Archers are entirely his business, and he brings Toadies and Weavers back to me, but has to be careful when drawing weavers. Things go just fine after that, but the hit to my reds really hurt, being cut from 39 to 25 in one floor due to my own stupid judgment.

Floor 10.
Enemies: Illusion Weavers, Bloodstones, Pit Beast.
Important drops: Splint mail-35 (magic), breast plate-23, ring, long war bow (magic).

Weavers AGAIN, and another ambush as soon as I came down, this time with a good 10. I had slightly better AC this time and brought them down 1 by 1. After that, I call attikal for some teamwork to see the enemies and the layout. After 1/4th of the level I decide to go solo for increased experience, and Attikal steps off the level. I begin clearing in a counter-clockwise fashion and am doing well until I come to the corral. There's a good 15 Pit Beasts inside with other enemies acting as watchers for the snipers. I round the corner and get noticed by 4 bloodstones; easy with the Exe blade, but the spitters are wearing me down with that damn acid. I tried to open the corral to let some out, but they refused to come out (most, anyway), and I was forced to kill the few I could then call Attikal down to deal with the rest. Attikal does that just fine.

Our first death; after Attikal deals with the corral, we start in our normal teamwork again, as I got a lvl from the soloing. She scouts north past the corral, turns a corner, gets discspin, and is killed by a swarm of all 3 foes, a group of at least 12. Oddly, there's no death sound, but I shrug it off and step forward carefully. First I get weavers to play with, then bloodstones, then dogs (who were close together, which was bad for my AC). Once the scene was quiet, I ressed her.

From there, we use careful teamwork from good corner sets, and everything goes fine.

We decide to id another ring here; it's "gold", +21 tohit. Very good.

Floor 11.
Enemies: Storm Riders, Death Wings.
Important drops: Res stick-6 (!!!!!), ammy.

We didn't see the res stick until the end, but it made us jump for joy and realize that victory was indeed possible. Careful teamwork here with emphesis on the rogue due to Death Wings, as even though Fox can take them in 3-4 hits, they hit him for nearly 30 damage each, which meant death in 4 hits. Storm Lords were Fox's business since he now had enough AC to manage one-on-one combat with them.

Floor 12.
Enemies: Vortex Lords, Pit Beasts.
Important drops: Breast Plate-22 (magic).

A slow-ass level if ever there was one. ONE vortex could take away my entire red globe, which meant some reds were quaffed here, so baby steps were necessary. I ask Attikal to blow our glimm now, as our game will probably end here, but Attikal gets a plan. She casts a tp over a lava channel, then we both walk to town to take it (i cast my own). We have a set now, and even though the Vortex Lords can nearly kill me in a couple of seconds, we manage to handle the floor without too much trouble afterwords. Windspawns group was singled out wth a nice corner set.

Too bad I had to drink so many reds on this floor (down to 22), but it's better than dying.

End of third session.

[Foxhound3857]

4th session: Tuesday, September 11th, 2007.

We blew an ID the session before on the Splint mail because of lacking dex/resists. It was brilliance, +14 magic again. Bah, it gave me the ability to use the res stick.

Floor 13.
Enemies: Succubus, Vortex Lords.
Important drops: Gothic plate-57, ring, blade (magic), claymore (magic), elixir str.
Shrines: Cauldron (cauldron was Quiet).

Vortex Lords again, so I look down thinking the game is going to end. Attikal swore to me that we'd use the glimm if we saw rogs again, and he held his word; we blew the glimm on our best items. We had.

Shield of Health (8AC) -1 damage from enemies.
Shield of the Moon (3AC) +7 all stats.
Breast Plate of sorcery: +19 magic.
Ring of might: +10 strength.
Helm of the eagle: +25 life.
Rainbow Cloak.
Long war bow of vim: + 1x vit.

I don't remember the rest of the items, but these were the better ones. Shifting gear around, I was able to get around 160 life with better tohit and damage. With this and the HO stick, we were able to face the Vortex lords on 13 without quaffing too many reds.

3 deaths on this floor. 1 and 2: the warrior dies from a vortex while trying to save reds. Attikal takes the vortex down and retrieves the stick. Once ressed, I tried to grab my equipment while Attikal was going to heal me. BAD MOVE: I take the Exe blade first, which equips automatically. Seeing as how it takes 10 HP away, I die again. Attikal laughs, calls me stupid, and resses me again, this time with the Exe equipped already. She heals me and I regear myself.
3: Attilak dies while facing witches near the stairs. She wanted me to come swing wide, but my moving brought her into range of their bloodstars, and she falls. Unfortunately, the witches aren't following; they're simply staying there camping her corpse, so I'm forced to chase them down 1 at a time, quaffing reds to stay alive because of no resistance. Getting very low on reds at this time. I res her and we reset at the corner.

Slow but careful teamwork brings us through the level, but it took babysteps again and my resources are low. We blew the spooky shrine on this floor as well.

End of 4th session: this floor took over 3 hours, it just took all our time.

Fifth session: Wednesday, September 12th, 2007.

Floor 14.
Enemies: Succubus, Blood Knights.
Important drops: Breast plate-24 (magic), full helm-8 (magic, indestructable), long sword (magic), full helm-6 (magic), book MS (happy rogue here), scroll MS, helm-4 (magic), ID scroll, leather armor-11 (magic), gothic plate-52 (magic).
Shrines: Cauldrons x2. (one was religious, other was tainted)

BK's were easier than Vortex lords; that's for sure. Still, they hit pretty hard, so Attikal was careful with scouting. Another death to note here (the last of the game); Attikal was scouting south when she was slain by a hail of bloodstars while typing back to me. I spot the witches, shishkebob them, and res Attikal with our stick; 4/6 left. Slow but steady teamwork after that; I solo the 2nd half of the level for experience.

Floor 15.
Enemies: Triple-Witch (DAMN!).
Important drops: ID, lightning book, ammy, Najs plate (!), ammy, ring, long war bow (magic), vit elixir, field plate-42 (magic), scimitar (magic), quilted-7 (magic), book Phasing, ring, dex elix, long war bow (magic), broadsword (magic, ring, magic elixir, plate mail-42 (magic).
Shrines: Cauldron x2 (One was Hidden, the other was GLIMMERING!!!), PURIFYING SPRING!!!!!

I have a bad feeling about stepping onto 15 as soon as I see the layout; it's too wide-open. I decide to round the perimeter of the quad in an attempt to flush out any potential ambushes. Nothing makes itself present, so I start with the east room. I step forward once and spot red bloodstars; Hellspawns! I retreat back trying to find cover to face them from, but they're not stupid. I call Attikal down to try and engage the Hellspawns with the bow, but as soon as Attikal steps down to 15, she gets ambushed by Soulies to the west. Before we can even decide on a course of action, we are swarmed by bloodstars! Attikal and I bail up the stairs immediately.

Attikal wants to quit this game and start over, chalking it up to experience, but I wanted to see it to the very end. Certain that our game would end in failure, we blew our last 3 ID's on a few choice items. We choose a helm-4, ring, and the gothic plate. This is what we ended up with.

Obsidian helm of Sorcery: 38/16!
Obsidian ring: 36!!
Plate of vigor: +16 vit.

Suddenly we had a different game altogether. Attikal suggested that I wear the equipment and chop down the spawns 1 by 1 while she acts as healer on 14. With this equipment, I could face those witches with 74 resist all and +200 life. It took a long time and a lot of HO's, but I was finally able to clean up that mess and deal with the east room, even though I got ambushed several times while scouting that room. Once the entire first quadrant was cleared, I switched gear with Attikal and she went solo while I waited in town as Hopper.

After clearing 2nd quad and part of laz's quad, we switched again and I soloed the rest of the level. After quad 3, the corridor that splits 3 and 4 had a nice pair of kebobs right next to eachother; I was able to handle all 3 types of witches from there. Slow but steady work until I get to quad 4's room and spot (dun dun DUN) a Purifying Spring! This changes our strategy yet again; Attikal can now switch to freely using HO and put up an MS for added defense. It was still slow and steady work to deal with the witches (I got ambushed again in the last room), but the PS gave us the edge we needed to conserve our potions and kill the last of the witches; it was just enough to get me to clvl 22. I didn't use a single red on this floor.

Black Jade gave up a Naj's Light Plate, which we decide to save for our last ID scroll found in 15. For Laz's chamber, Attikal deals with all the goons inside, then has me set at a corner for laz to "sense" me while she pin-cushioned him. He drops a two-hander; we leave it.

After all said and done, I grab as many items as I can hold and hit the 2 cauldrons on 15. One is Hidden, and it hits the current blade I have equipped; negligable.

Then I hit the 2nd cauldron, and our game changes AGAIN. Glimmering, baby! I come back to town with the following.

Knights Broadsword: 33/99 (!)
Scimitar of Gore: +12 damage.
Blade of vampires.
Naj's Light Plate (48 AC).
Long War Bow of giants: +16 str.
Long War Bow of precision: +20 dex.
Ring of perfection: +29 dex (!).
Ring of stars: +8 all.
Ring of stars +9 all.
Amulet of stars: +10 all. (!)
Amulet of tiger: +47 life.
Ivory helm: +34 magic res.
Full plate of the ages. (bah)

With all of this, victory is just about certain. I'm easily able to reach 33 damage with a high tohit rating, and JUST enough dex for perfect block against BK's. With the resistance gear, Attikal can easily face the Advos down. We pack up and meet back in channel, envying ourselves and how we salvaged a hopeless situation.

End of 5th session.

[Foxhound3857]

Sixth session: Thursday, September 13th, 2007.

As juggled our gear around so Attikal could have high resistance with hit power, as she starts 16 instead of the warrior.

Floor 16.
Enemies: Usual.
Important drops: Falchion (magic, indestructable), Vit elixir, Golem scroll, Ring.
Shrines: None.

Attikal starts the floor alone, and once she has some room, she calls me down to set at corner. She kills advos and brings BK's back to me for exp; I needed almost 600k to lup. After we clear outside of D's chamber, she decides to give me the rest gear and precision bow and let me clear the floor solo in an attempt to reach 23 (she's already 23). I oblige and start working the floor.

Quad 2 has about 8 advos tightly packed, so I call att down to deal with them; she was suprised to see them clustered so tightly, like I said. She kills the horde and I start scouting again. Clearing quad 1 is VERY close with the advos in such bad positions, but one hour and many HO's later, quad 1 is cleaned, and I work inner quad 2 easily thanks to invisible walls. Quad 2 is cleared, and I start working inner quad 3, which is actually easier for some reason. I get discspin and nearly die to some BK's, but 2 HO's and a weapon switch later, all is calm. many HO's later I finally wear down the advos in quad 3, a couple of which got into nice positions for me to snipe. Once quadf 3 was clear, I was 20k short of leveling up.

We decide to set in the middle area and deal with a few bodyguards before luring D to a parking position. I set, Attikal throws the levers, and she brings me several BK's. I finally reach clvl23 and dump the last 5 into strength, which pushes my damage to 35-51. Nice.

Att goes to the center of quad 2 and throws a tp, then I step off the level and she lures big D to the center without incident. After that, we both walk back to 16 from town and set at the same spot; Att brings BK's to me and kills advos. A few minutes later, the bodyguards are dead and only D remains.

We go to town, pack up our gear, load our potions and juggle our equipment for the ebst setup. I played fast/perfect blocker while Att played executioner.

Here were our stats prior to defeating Diablo.

Fox_IronBlade: 23 Iron Warrior. 2429520 experience.
AC: 42.
Tohit: 141.
Damage: 35-51.
Str: 95/122.
Mag: 10/37.
Dex: 60/116.
Vit: 41/68.
Life: 230.
Mana: 59.
All res: 10%.

Knights Broadsword 33/99.
Small shield of the moon +7.
Rainbow Cloak.
Helm of the eagle +25.
Ring of perfection +29.
Ring of the stars +9.
Amulet of the stars +10.

Attical: 23 Iron Rogue. 2683649 experience.
AC: 85.
Tohit: 112.
Damage: 35-39.
Str: 45/53.
Mag: 21/64.
Dex: 117/125.
Vit: 21/29.
Life: 149.
Mana: 156.
All resists: 58%.

Scimitar of gore +12.
Small shield of health -1 damage.
Najs light plate (48 AC).
Obsidian helm of sorcery 38/16.
Ring of stars +8 all.
Ring of brilliance +14 mag.
Ammy of tiger +47 life.

Att had me set at the very corner in the bottom of the inner quad 2. Att drew out D, D walked around and opened up on me, but doe to 116 dex and fast block, I was indesructable; D couldn't so much as scratch me. During this time, Att used the golem scroll then begin swinging with her gore scim, and together the 3-man team chopped diablo into sushi; he was spewing blood in 15 seconds.

Looking back, the game could have been disastrous as I had left the game to get my clearing character, which means Attikal was in front of me in the join order. Had she gotten closer while setting, she would've been the target for the BK's and could've gotten killed easily due to their high tohit, but we avoided that just fine. Diablo concentrated on me, so I must've been wrong about the join order deal.

Afterwords, we created a new game for the free ID from the grateful townsfolk; this is what we had.

Obsidian sword of blood.
Falchion of the ages.
Claymore of vigor.
Diamond platemail of the lion 52/59.

I don't remember the other items, but these 4 were very memorable; Attikal can probably remember the rest. Seeing as how we both still have some work to do on teamwork and discipline, we'll consider this game a victory, chalk it up to experience, and start a new game. This time we're doing another relaxed fit warr/rogue combo, except I'm playing the rogue this time. We'll see how it goes.

Excellent game Attica; I still can't believe we made it through.

[Attika]

This IM victory was a VERY tough one for so many reasons...

First and foremost, I don't know if others are experiencing lag/desync problems with Diablo on Bnet, but I've got nearly constant disc-spin should I or another party member chose to change weapons. This made for some extremely hairy scouting, and accounted for most of my deaths. It also made it difficult for the Rogue to help the warrior in most melee situations -- by the time she's switched to her melee weapon and the disk stopped spinning, the battle was over anyway.

Then there was the fact that we had no Blood Fountain or Purifying Spring for nearly 15 levels! (We found the PS on 15 when nearly all but Laz was done on the level). And we had only ONE Heal Other stick the entire game! That was it! (No Stone Shrines either.) This lent to the onerous task of saving books for mana to be able to cast HO, or asking Fox to lend me his splint of sorcery to squeeze out one more HO; Fox in turn had to ask for the ring of Brilliance from me to squeeze out a HO to cast on the scout. We were constantly switching gear to get as many HO's as we could. Man, that's tedium!

And remember when we used the Glimm shrine and our second Executioner's Blade lagged out when you tried to pass it to me? Now that was an evil omen. I was looking forward to using that on Diablo -- instead, Murphy decided to feed it to the fearsome Lag Beast.

Having Vortex Lords on BOTH 12 and 13 slowed the game to a crawl. Each level took over two and a half hours.

On 15 I thought we didn't stand a chance when you called me down onto the level and 3 Soul Burners immediately opened up on me while you were calling for help with the three Hellspawn that were attacking you. Since the Executioner's Blade you were using had the -LR, you didn't activate that many foes upon entry. When I entered...... ouch! Didn't think we stood a snowball's chance there until we used up those ID's, and we got the resistances we needed (ring and hat).

Odd that you say I called you "stupid" for dying after being ressed. Don't recall that at all. To my mind it went like this:

(Attikal resses Foxhound. Foxhound immediately dies again.)
Foxhound: wtf???
Attikal: you didn't ready the exe, did you?
Foxhound: shouldn't I have one life?
Attikal: the exe blade is like -10 vit or something . . .
(moderate pause)
Attikal: getting another res scroll. When I res you this time, DON'T pick up the exe blade until I have the chance to heal you.

And that was pretty much it. Besides, it occurs so rarely, I wouldn't expect you to know it. (If it makes you feel any better, Roede_Orm did the same thing once in pursuit of his triple crown IM win.)

Once we found the PS on 15 and the second cauldron on 15 turned out to be a Glimmering, the whole game did indeed turn around. With the gear we got, we could let the warrior solo nearly all of 15 and 16, buffing him up to clevel 23 for a nice Diablo sparring partner! Go, Buff warrior! (Note: after the win, in the town ID we had a Ring of Precision +20 Dex, for the record.)

Anyway, this has to be in my top three of most arduous IM games ever, Fox. Just imagine what a locked-in game would have in store for us!

Well-played though. You realize you cleared most of 15 and 16 by yourself? Nice job!

Attika

[Foxhound3857]

The events are somewhat unclear to me, and yesterday I was coming off of soda addiction, so I was a little crankier then usual, but without your PS and constant HO-ing, and ability to deal with Advos in massive packs, I wouldn't have been able to clear 16. 15 MAYBE if I was careful about ambushes, but I would've run out of reds LONG before I cleared 16; that floor was all you. Diablo was nice and easy though; we roffled his waffles.

I wonder how 16 would've been if the cauldron wasn't a glimm.

As for the tidbit about you calling me stupid, you probably didn't, but I sure felt stupid after doing that.

Edit: Also, the last death (where you got dropped by Blood Stars while typing) was actually my fault; had I just stayed quiet you wouldn't have had to respond, and thus could have avoided death because of a lack of attention. Now I feel bad about that death.

[FoxBat]

Bravo! A great accomplishment and well told!

Those were some amazing last-minute IDs, but clearly you two never would've got that far without your skills. I have trouble even clearing the cats without any drinks.

Since disc-spin keeps killing you guys (unfairly IMO), you might want to look into a way around it. Unless you really are *that* legit.

What, you folks aren't going to match KoP and go for Nightmare?

[Foxhound3857]

Oh, we'll go for a Double (and Triple) Crown eventually, but right now we want to hone our skills and continue to improve as a team, a single fighting unit. Once we're able to second-guess eachothers actions, we'll be ready for Nightmare. Of course it'll also depend on the items we have at the end of Normal, but our team skills will be the bigger factor.

[Foxhound3857]

Attika, I will be on tomorrow morning at 6AM Pacific (9AM your time); let's start our next game tomorrow. =P