Intro

This is the second time that I have attempted to defeat Hell Diablo with a level 30 mage. This is also the second time that I have played a game in Hell difficulty. I will most likely be retiring this character after this game. To be honest, I find the prospect of facing enemies I can not damage with my mage's magical attacks about as interesting as pounding large stone blocks into rubble.

Here is a summery of my character at the start.

Stats:

Str 45(68)
Mag 199(240)
Dex 28(51)
Vit 20(43)
Life 82
Mana 578

Equipment:

Emerald Staff (+48% Resist all)
Cobalt Armor of Harmony (+49% Resist Lightning, Fastest Hit Recovery)
Royal Circlet (+10 All, +40 mana, +10 light)
Jade Amulet of Sorcery (+26% Resist All, +18 Magic)
Obsidian Ring (+31% Resist All)
Ring of the Heavens (+13 all)

I hereby state on my honor that all of the following items were obtained legitimately. Observant readers will note that I have a lot more resistance than I can benift from. This is mainly because I bought my emerald staff late into level 29 and have not found replacement jewelry yet. I'll be looking though!

Spells of Note:

Fireball 9
Autokill (aka Chain Lightning) 8
Stone Curse 9
Teleport 1

I've got a lot of other spells, but these are my planned workhorse spells. My golem spell is at a pitifully low level, and I do not intend to use it really. Yes, this is going to take a while.

No shrines capable of perminently dropping my life and mana maximums were harmed during the making of this character. In fact, I took great pains to keep as much distance from them as possible. The same can not be said of black deaths, which I gleefully obliterated at every opportunity.

Level 13:

I start off by dropping a flame wave in a direction that looks nice and open. No ouchies. I ready autokill and in a few steps find some dogs that die nearly instantaniously to cascading sheets of azure fire. There are also some balrogs that standing there, look around confused, meander here and there, and after a while realise that the azure fire is actually starting to sting a little. My first death comes pretty quick, but it wasn't to that swarm of dogs that turned the whole ground green. And it wasn't to the huge pack of balrogs that fricken refused to start dieing until I was drinking out of my inventory. It was that one final balrog that was left after I had used all my potions, and I overconfidently decided that I could take him since I had full mana.

That balrog was a college professor. He taught a course on how to die. I was a quick learner.

Just to be a prick, I decided to stone curse and beat him to death. I got bored and used lightning instead.

After this fiasco, I made the switch to large blue potions. Until now, I had been using the more cost effective small blue potions. This greatly increased my durability, now I can truely spam with wild abandon! I also found a breastplate of harmony. I don't need the lightning resist on my current armor, and I've already lost one armor of harmony to stunlock. The breastplate has a very healthy durability, so I made the switch. This has the nice perk of giving me some more badass looking graphics.

The stairs were found after cleaning out about half the board.

Level 14:

Demons are my toys. Death and destruction is my playground. I eat danger for breakfast. *stubs toe* OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!

Hell raisers and Counsilers, which I'm sure I misspelled. Since I opened the level with a flame wave and heard ouches, it took me a while to catch on that the mages died just as readily to autokill. Anyway, mages are too immoble to draw out with flame wave, so I would run ahead and retreat as soon as I saw the blood stars. Once around a corner, I'd mow the hell raisers down as they came around the corner single file. The mages would then be pretty easy to fireball into oblivion.

For those who don't like the scarity of purple potions in Diablo 2, I really don't think you appreiate what a smart move that was on blizzard's part. I should not be able to walk into a room packed with monsters and spam autokill until I'm the only thing that isn't a bloody corpse. Here I can, but it's also pretty heavy on potion use. I stick to hiding behind walls and killing hell raisers in single file just so I won't have to go back to town as often.

I still don't have enough magic to read 255 books yet, so I had to purchase a staff from Adria so I could read another book of Fireball. I left it on the ground in case I need it again, but I'm not worried about losing it and I don't want to give up inventory space.

The stairs were found after cleaning out almost all of the level.

Level 15:

Balrogs and Soul Burners. After autokilling the balrogs, I proceed to stone curse and love tap with my little bonk branch. Golem replaces Teleport on my hotkeys pretty quick. This is going to take a while... In an amazing stroke of luck, Lazarus was right next to where I started. It takes almost an hour to kill him too. Some immunes are great, they add favor. Immune to all is just cheap. Next time I'm taking a Rogue. Resist that!

After I finally kill Lazarus, I decide I've had enough of this crap (and it is crap). I drop my gold in town, put all my equipment in inventory, and set my hotkeys to town portal, mana shield, healing, and teleport. Now THIS was a whole lot more lively! In fact, it was quite a rush to be running for dear life from massive swarms of creatures. Entrance to level 16 was found and entered. This one almost makes up for the hour spent on Lazarus.

Level 16:

Blood Knights and Advocates. You probably already knew that though. I drew the floor plan with a long hall in the center. I let loose a flame wave, but clever use of doors blocked most of it. Aw... I was hoping that I would wake up a million blood knights or something. That would have been FUN! My goal was very to the point. Get in, get out, minimum exposure. After I verified Diablo's location and the room that opens his room, I cleared enough to wake up and battle him without any outside interferance.

Preparation time. I sold the wizardry staff I bought to read books and filled my entire inventory with large blues. I set my hotkeys to fireball, firewall, mana shield, and town portal.

Telekinesis got both levers. I used a few flame waves to try and lure out some blood knights. I got two. Well, it's a psycological advantage. I woke up Diablo with a holybolt and ran to put my back to a wall so he couldn't knock me back. Once he had engaged in melee, I made a zillion firewalls under him. When I wasn't firewalling, I drank out of inventory. This saves my potions for when I am firewalling. It didn't take long for Diablo to turn into a fire hydrant type fountain of gushing blood.

Then I get the joy of watching myself fall right into his trap and become a pawn in the sequel. *shrugs*

I didn't realized until after the fight that I had done something very stupid with the flamewave. Oh well, it worked out.

I apologize for sounding so down at the end. I was just pissed at the triple immunes. I'll be better in the future. Honest!

Completion time was 2.5 to 3 hours.
Total number of deaths: 1
Number of deaths taken honorably on the field of battle: 0
Number of deaths caused by personal stupidity: 1

-- Landon

http://www.vulpiandominion.com

C2