I. Introduction

This is the chronicle of Zophiel from her inception to her status as Baroness. It details some of her historic encounters as well as the tactics she employed. Her entire career was played on version 1.03.

Zophiel is my first sorceress and the last character class I tried with Diablo 2. The reason being that when I played Diablo I, I found myself enjoying the fighter most and the sorcerer least. I reasoned that I probably enjoyed melee more than ranged combat so I began Diablo 2 with a paladin. As I was learning things at the time, I naturally botched up his skill distribution (zeal-lock :p) as well as those of the amazon I made afterwards. I made several more failed paladins that eventually hit a brick wall in the upper difficulties due to poor planning on my part before I moved on to a barbarian. Him, I had no difficulty with but I gave up on him after nightmare because whirlwind (WW) was boring me. I moved on to the necromancer and he too bored me to tears after normal. While having a safe and easy time, I realized I wanted a more active role in dispatching monsters. So there I started over a month ago, my first sorceress and named her Zophiel.

After playing several botched/boring characters, I more or less had an idea of what to plan for now so before anything else, I immediately thought about what her skills would be and how she would overcome the obstacles my previous characters had problems with. I had watched my brother go through 2 sorceresses of his own: first was 1 point in almost all skills; 2nd was a Blizzard and Frozen Orb (FO) specialist with some static. Thus; I had some idea of how most of the skills worked. I also decided not to specialize on what he did because I wanted to try the things he hadn't. After a few minutes thought, I decided on the following:

Inferno: I'm still partial to a little melee so I decided on this. The high damage is impressive and I imagined that with enough skill points, it would resemble I gigantic flaming sword that I could swing from side to side. It sounds ridiculous but I really felt at the time that I would enjoy using it (and I have :) ). This would be one of my damage dealing skills, but I had no illusions that this would be sufficient or even viable in hell difficulty. Too many people have written against its use there. Still, combined with my second damage dealing skill, I believed that I could make do with this.

Known problems: It's slow to start and the flames move slowly towards the target. I must also hold my ground while it's active. My first solution to this was to find cast speed enhancers to see if it would help solve this problem (it didn't). My second alternative was to tank (old melee habits die hard). This meant high DR and some cold armor. I was aware of the 4xAR effect of monsters so I took the realistic stance that in the upper levels, my high DR's purpose was to allow me a chance to teleport to safety should I be mobbed.

A shield would help here too but I decided against it. I'm kind of put off by the notion that you need it to survive the upper difficulties as many people claim. To me, the game would be broken if that were so. I had a little faith that it may not be as bad as people make them out to be. The numbers are one thing but the experience may be something else. I wanted to do without it just to find out what it felt like. Prohibiting the use of a shield was one area of my plan I strongly didn't want to compromise.

Hydra: This would be my second damage dealing skill for a number of reasons. One was that it complemented Inferno nicely. Inferno would be my direct damage skill while Hydra would be my area of effect (AoE) skill. In the upper difficulties, I expect to use this more against mobs and clean up with Inferno. The second was that my brother hadn't used it yet so neither of us had any actual experience it (other than being on the receiving end of a council member's attack). Third, based on my understanding of how it worked, it seemed to me to present a great number of tactical possibilities that could more than make up for the cons of my chosen plan (i.e. specializing in Inferno; tanking, no shield). Lastly, no one was talking about it on the Lounge (at the time). I was curious to find out if there was something bad about it which I didn't know about.

Teleport: Aside from getting me out of danger, I envisioned using this skill along with Hydra when dealing with lightning enchanted bosses (LEB) as well as any other tough opponents I would face. My general strategy would be to lure them into some spot where my Hydras were and teleport over a wall to shield me from any retaliation.

Shiver Armor (SA): I wasn't sure about any of the cold armors but as part of my strategy was to tank, I decided on the one that would give me the most DR. I planned to raise this until I had +100% DR.

Energy Shield (ES): Again, since I plan to tank, I'll need all the protection I can get. I planned 50% absorption at least.

Fire Mastery (FM): For both Inferno and Hydra. My goal here is 80% extra damage.

That was it for the skills. The only discernable problem at the time (besides those already mentioned with Inferno) was that both my damage dealers were fire skill spells. I've heard people say about how the fire resistance of hell/act 4 monsters would make fire sorcs difficult to play there. My solution was to leave open the possibility of getting glacial spike (GS) or static. I wasn't inclined to do either since the skills I listed above were going to take up a lot of skill points. My second option was to deal with it; just deal with it. I'm hoping that skill and proper tactics will help overcome this.

For equipment, I planned to use a staff and some exceptional armor that gave high DR like ornate plates and grand crowns. I would get Magefist however for power and fast casting and a Stone of Jordan (SOJ) to make up for my expected mana deficiency.

For stat points, I would never raise dexterity. I would raise strength to 170 (bad I know but it was necessary for tanking). Tanking also entailed high vitality. I wanted to raise this regularly but I decided that with a lot of points invested in strength, I would devote the rest of my points in energy.

My mandates for her would be:

1. Do full clears of each area at least once.
2. Find a way to beat a situation no matter what. Basically this was in response to people who've reported difficult or "impossible" situations such as Temple stair jumps by 2 bosses and their gang, Teleporting LEBs, Teleporting LEB Hephasto, etc. These were the kind of situations I wanted to solve. Basically, if there's a problem, think it through. Do not make the solution to be to "re-roll" the boss' attributes or dungeon layout by starting a new game. I did leave the possibility open for using static but as much as possible, I would find some other way using the plan I made for her. I also made allowances for skipping the problem only if I had a clear plan on how to do it but couldn't at the moment because it wasn't available to me yet (no Hydra for example).
3. Slay a hell level Diablo; something I still haven't done with my past characters.

Well, that was my plan for her.

II. Normal Difficulty

Starting out was mundane. I went through the usual motions until I got Inferno. I raised it to about skill 6 when I felt the range of it was adequate before I stopped. I had no target in my plan on how much I should raise this. The more the better of course but I decided to follow one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (Star Trek geek alert :p ). It went "Never pay more than you have to for anything" or something like that (okay so I'm not a total Star Trek geek). In their case it meant barter like mad, or wait until the price goes down if you're sure it's coming and can wait. In my case, it meant that I wouldn't be spending any skill points on it if I feel that it's dropping monsters just fine at its current level. I would apply this rule to Hydra as well since I didn't have a level target for that as well. My other target at the time was teleport. I held off investing in ES and SA since the rare staff I would be using (at level 12) would suffice for some time. I raised my strength first all the way to 45 just so I could wear the Garb then continued by raising vitality to 20 (I died a lot from spells then). From then on, it all went to energy for a while.

I've made Inferno my primary attack from then on. It was permanently set to my left mouse button. I started practicing it and working with its nuances. The basics involved looking for choke points such as doorways, stairways and stacks of kegs against a wall. With a high DR due to the Garb and a high damage skill such as this, I wasn't in any real danger from then on. It was more than adequate in taking out all the creatures in Acts 1 and 2 save for the Act bosses. For these guys, I bought a +3 static staff. I didn't want to have Static as part of my repertoire but I made exceptions for these guys because I figured to use Hydra on these people anyway in accordance to my plan.

I've been gambling for Tarnhelm, Magefist and rings all this time. I got both the Nagel Ring and the Manald heal from Elzix. "The stone of Jordan would soon be mine" I thought.

Act 3 got more interesting. I got teleportation and replaced the rare staff with the angel staff. I went without ES for the entire act as I wasn't ready to sink 4 points yet just to get it. The FA given to me by the rare staff was no longer available so I had to make do with the CA given to me by the angel staff. I was put off by its performance compared to FA due to the fact that melee monsters kept hitting me without retribution now. It did help with the blow dart fetishes but it didn't seem to help me as much as FA did overall.

During Acts 1 and 2, I briefly tried making use of the mercenaries. After playing with several characters, I tend to completely ignore them unless I'm off to fight Duriel. Anyway, my first paladin did have good teamwork with a cold sorc merc the first time. Somehow though, I never considered using them again after that with any of my characters. This was because they usually died too easily or they get stuck somewhere and disappear if you wander too far from them. Since it seemed to me that such a nice feature was being wasted, I just, for the heck of it, hired mercenaries left and right starting from the cheapest to the most expensive. They were doing a pretty good job of assisting me at this level but once we meet a boss or enter a dungeon, their life expectancies go down. Still I hired them. I mostly had fire and lightning sorcs because the cold ones were expensive. My Inferno was still working all right. Because the fetishes were hard to spot and fast, they were usually upon me before I have had a change to "rev" up my Inferno. I compensated for this by immediately teleporting behind me twice whenever I heard their chatter and shift clicking in the direction they're approaching from. This starts up Inferno so that it's in full stream by the time they make an appearance. A swing of the mouse from left to right while shift clicking would cause her to swing her Inferno left and right like a fire hose. This would drop all of them before they've had a chance to go near me again. It's particularly satisfying when there's a whole bunch of them.

Some time in the middle of the Flayer jungle, yet another merc dropped. While waiting for my mana to regenerate, I analyzed the situation. My mercs keep dying because they don't retreat when they should. Once they're surrounded, they'll surely get killed unless I help which is something I can't do all the time. I idly thought "if only there was some other way to get him out of there" when the answer came to me: teleportation. When a sorceress has a merc and she teleports, the merc will immediately be moved to the spot where she lands. This realization opened up a lot of possibilities with mercs for me because I now had the means of retrieving my merc from a mob and also specifically positioning my merc so that our combined shots were more effective against mobs. I usually find, for instance, that when I'm hiking through the jungle with my merc in tow and I meet a monster, and I stop to attack, my merc will usually walk a little further ahead and to the side of me before attacking. The net result is that, given a clock, the monster will be at the center while I'm at 6 and my merc is at 3. This results in a lot of missed shots by my merc as the monster is walking laterally from his position towards me. I could now easily correct this by porting in place (teleport to where I'm currently standing) or a little behind me so that my merc could be in a better position (he usually goes behind me when I do this which is good).

This turned out extremely well; so well in fact that the only reason I was losing mercs from then on was because I was the one who died. Since practicing this technique, I made it a point to preserve the life of my merc from then on which meant going back to town when he had 50% health or less left. It was a hassle when I'd just arrive from town and 10 seconds later I'd have to go back because he took too much damage again. But this turned out to be good training for me in the upper difficulty levels where going through the jungle with a merc made it a whole lot easier.

By the time I arrived in Kurast, I was accosted immediately by tree lurkers. Using Inferno on them was problematic to say the least. Any hit will cause them to bump themselves back and beyond your range. I got around this by pinning them to a house or the map's edges with Inferno but it was quite a chore. I got the impression that they were fire resistant; highly fire resistant at that even though the Chaos Sanctuary doesn't list them as so. The (somewhat obsolete) official strategy guide does list them as fire resistant though so that settled it in my mind. I then remembered about 1/4 way though lower Kurast that I had GS on my staff. I decided to give it a try since I've never tried it. OH MY GOD! The tree lurkers were dead in 2 hits (as were most of the other monsters in the area) and I was moving along at a significantly faster pace. My level 6(+2) Inferno wasn't anywhere as efficient as the level 3 GS in that area. When there were about 1/4 left of Kurast to explore, I reverted back to Inferno. I knew that if I relied on GS too much, I'd never want to go back to Inferno. I didn't use GS for the remainder of her career.

Nothing else significant happened in Act 3 aside from that and Alkor giving me Magefist (Hoorah!) and Ormus giving me a nice ring for the Gidbing (that's a first) which I used for the rest of her career. Everything else still fell quickly to my Inferno; even the council members and Mephisto.

Act 4 didn't give problems either save for the bosses. I located Izual and decided that despite his huge life point pool, I would take him down strictly with Inferno alone. He isn't a fast walker so it was pretty easy keeping ahead of him. I cleared a large area before I found him so what I usually did was run until I couldn't see him anymore. Then I would shift click Inferno in the direction I expected him to approach and move before he swung at me. I'd then repeat this process all the while whittling down his life. There were times though when my timing was off and he would get me either with his sword or his nova. To this I drank potions galore on my 3-row belt. This went on for several minutes until his life bar was reduced to a sliver of red. He again gravely injured me so I pushed the potion button only to realize that my belt was out of healing and rejuvs. I panicked for a moment and that was all Izual needed to put me down. I was furious with that. Some incidents scar you for life and this was one of them. As I looked on my corpse and the itsy bitsy tiny little sliver of red left on Izual's life bar, I swore from then on that I wouldn't care if I found a "prismatic belt of the ultimate mana pool of the fastest casting sorceress". If it didn't have 4 rows, I wouldn't wear it.

I quickly went back there and sure enough, my next jet of Inferno took him down.

My opinion on CA started to change when Megademon type monsters started to Inferno me. Considered a streaming range attack, their Inferno set off my CA such that it was shooting ice bolts at them like a machine gun. It was sufficient to bring down a fully healthy Viper Lord down to half health. Fun! I also noticed that it helped a lot with the undead knights that were throwing spells. This was the first time I considered making CA my cold armor of choice.

Hephasto also gave me a bit of a problem. I found an island platform where I could safely port to while my Inferno fried him but he wouldn't keep still. Hydra would do it but that was still some levels away. After running out of ideas on alternatives, I just cast Static on him and finished him off with Inferno.

The 3 Chaos Sanctuary (CS) bosses gave me no problems either. I played tank and cast Inferno at the Infector and his Venom Lords. I basically lured them to the center of the pentagram and held my ground on one of the points. The points of the star acted as a choke point where I could Inferno the one engaging me as well as those behind him. For the Vizier, I used Inferno as well but backed off when someone was attacking. I didn't want the mana draining attack to affect me. Lord De Seis and company were disposed of by Inferno/tanking as well.

Taking down Diablo wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. I played around with the idea of baiting him to use his Lightning Bolts of Death (LBOD) (it's not coming from his mouth so it isn't a breath weapon) and then teleporting to the other side of him once engaged. I noticed that his LBOD moved slowly when I was circling him with my other characters so I thought that he would be LBOD-locked for a couple of seconds while he slowly rotated to my position. It didn't work. He did a complete 180-degree turn and continued it from there. I shouldn't have been surprised though because that's exactly how Inferno does it as well. When I lock on a leaper and it jumps over me, I too would turn around immediately. Having no other recourse of action left, I cast Static on him then finished him off with Inferno.

I did the cow level next. Not much to report there except to say that the barbecue was good. A bit more caution was necessary but they too fell rather quickly to Inferno.

I played act 4 over and over till I hit 30. I then put some points in FM and HYDRA!!! Then I tried Diablo again this time using Hydra exclusively. I cast them in the center of his pentagram while I circled around one of the "holes" in the pentagram design keeping it between him and me. This allowed me to keep him near the Hydras as well as protect me from his charge attack. His lava flow attack was difficult to avoid though. When it approaches the hole, it disappears only to reappear on the other side where I'm usually standing. His LBOD was also a problem. Unless I see him casting it, I usually react too late if I'm not too far away from him. I didn't die though and he quickly fell prey to my new pets. I knew from then on that I was going to like them.

I've been raising my energy to 100 before I resumed raising my strength. My milestone was to raise my strength to 100 before continuing raising energy. I still didn't have a clear idea when I would raise my vitality at the time. I put an extra point in warmth though now I don't recall why. I suppose I felt the crunch of a mana drought at the time. I still had a lot of skill points saved to invest in both FM and Hydra. With Hydra finally in my skill set, I moved on to nightmare.

III. Nightmare

Act 1 served as the training ground for proper Hydra usage. Out of habit or practicality, I still used Inferno as my main attack. There were few reasons to use Hydra at the time. Its mana was one reason why I used it sparingly. Various sources give the impression that Inferno is a mana hog. Actual experience on my part showed that it isn't so when used properly. Actually it was usually more mana efficient than Hydra at that point in time as monsters still fell reasonably quickly to Inferno. Still, I knew I should figure out some tactics at that early point of her career. I basically used in on tough bosses like LEBs. Using them provided me very little risk. I also used it on occasion on ordinary monsters. Pretty soon, I settled on a particular SOP when it came to using it. When dealing with ordinary monsters, I'd stack 2 to 3 castings of Hydra on a particular spot and lead monsters through them or assist my pets with my Inferno. If it was a particularly difficult boss, I'd stack as much as mana would allow and lead them through the Hydra stack.

Why do I stack them on one spot as opposed to spreading them around? I suppose it goes back to my experience with Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. Given 10 enemy units vs. 10 equivalent units of your own, you generally get better results (i.e. take them down faster thus suffer less casualties) if you have all your units gang up on one enemy unit at a time. I applied the same principal here. Since I have no direct control over who my pets will target, I put them close to one another. Based on the notion that they will target the closest enemy (experience shows this to be true), stacking them greatly increases the chance that they will all target the same monster. When not assisting them with Inferno such as in cases where the enemy is very fast and upon me before I can rev up Inferno or when they're highly resilient, I usually run around while trying to lead my pursuer through the Hydra patch. I run through them so that their shots are in line with our path when both approaching them and withdrawing from them once we've past through the patch. Then I'd simply double back and repeat the process. If I have mana to spare (rarely the case), I'd teleport back and forth across the Hydra stack. It is of course a bad idea to circle the stack with your pursuer because then you'd both be continuously moving laterally to your pets' shots causing them to almost always miss. I would also almost never go more than half a screen away from the stack if I can help it. The farther away your pursuer is from it, the more likely the shots will miss. As much as possible, I try to find ways to keep the victim at the center of the stack. Shamans for example don't pursue much so I cast the Hydras on top of them. Once he's down, I lead the surrounding fallen to my pets in the manner described above.

Other tactics used involved leading them inside a cabin; casting as much Hydras as I could and teleporting outside through the wall opposite the door. So far no monster was smart enough to get out of the house. This technique, which for the remainder of this chronicle I will refer to as "trapping", was instrumental when dealing with LEBs and other nasties I didn't want to deal with face to face. Trapping in the wilderness was more difficult if a cabin wasn't around, especially when LEBs were present. I'd resort to wall corners then wherein I'd cast Hydras on one side and port to the other side. Practically all monsters though could find their way to me from this but it did protect me some from LEBs. Repeated execution of this would eventually bring them down. Indoors were better for trapping as you could lead them to a corner of a room or a dead end corridor (where your Hydras await) and then teleport over a wall. Of course I made sure that there was some place I could port to (my escape route) where they can't (or won't) follow me before I lead them to this area.

Setting up the Hydras was done in 3 ways. The first was to cast them before leading my opponent there in which case precious time on my Hydras is wasted while I fetched my prey. I rarely did this. The second was to cast them after I've trapped them. This could only be done when I've trap them in an area surrounded by obstacles I could shoot over/through such as crevices, rivers or barred walls. While trapped I simply cast Hydras over on their side, preferably on top of them. The last was, if the second option wasn't available because the only place to trap them was surrounded by solid walls, to lead them to the trap, cast as many as I could before they were upon me, and then port out of there. The last scenario happened more often than not during her entire career. High DR helped a lot in this case as they were usually able to get in a swipe or two before I teleported out of there. This last maneuver is dangerous however, especially when my pursuer was LEB as the Hydra's attacks could send sparks flying before you port out of there. This should be your last resort. There were a number of occasions when I had no other choice but to do this with an LEB. Fortunately, Hydras don't start firing for a second or 2 after casting them. I was able to get around 3 castings off before the sparks started flying. If my prey was still alive after the Hydras expire, I'd have my prey chase me out of that area, before repeating the process again. They usually never survive past the second wave. If my prey was extra fast though, I'd always use method 1 (if 2 wasn't an option of course).

Given the success I enjoyed keeping my sorc merc alive, I decided to give the rogue mercs another chance. A bug in nightmare (and hell) allowed me to hire them before doing the Blood Raven quest. I decided to wait though until after that quest before hiring some. For some reason though, they weren't as hardy as the sorc mercs were in the previous difficulty level nor did I feel that they were useful to me. I thought cold rogues would help but they didn't do much for me either. After the first one died to an LEB, I didn't bother with another.

I didn't suffer any deaths until I met the Smith. I paid the price for twinking with the Garb, tanking and roasting him with Inferno in normal difficulty by thinking that I could do it again. On my way to retrieve my body, I started scouting for places to set up a trap. I found that the outer cloister waypoint was actually a good place to do so. The central area was separated from the perimeter by walls with arches. There are of course entrances through this near the center of each wall. These entrances were a pretty far distance from the corners formed by the wall and so it proved suitable. I therefore spent a little time leading the Smith all the way back to the outer cloister waypoint and trapping him in the corner. I then proceeded to cast Hydras through the archways (IIRC you had to be angled just right to cast through the archway) and watched him burn. It wasn't a perfect trap as a couple of times he did find the route towards me but it was a simple matter to return him to the trapped area.

The trip from there to Andariel was more exercises in trapping. When I reached her, I cleared the entire area in front of her throne room as usual and opened the door and waited for her to emerge from it. The basic strategy here was to lead her around the pool of blood that stood in the center of the room we were in and cast Hydras along the perimeter of it so that she'd walk through at least a trio of heads wherever she was. This was working fairly well except that I didn't have the mana capacity to make this strategy work for very long. With my chosen skill set at the time, I couldn't think of an alternative. I had to town portal (TP) back several times just to quickly refill my mana. I continued with this strategy though. I was pretty sure that it would eventually prove effective given that she was vulnerable to fire (Right? RIGHT?!?). Anyway, after several town trips, she eventually succumbed. I cleared the area, got Tarnhelm from Gheed and headed off to Act 2.

Act 2 was a continuation of my trapping exercises. I continued raising FM and Hydra in parallel until my Hydra was skill level 4. With the total of my +skill items raising it to 7, I started to feel the strain on my poorly developed mana pool. From then on, I just kept Hydra there while I raised FM until I had at least +80% damage output. I continued my gambling for the SOJ but so far, no luck. At about this time, I also adopted a policy of drinking a potion whenever it dipped below 50%. If there were any healing potions lying around, I'd gulp them down religiously.

My fondness for CA grew when the burning dead archers came out in full force in the sewers. At that point, I was almost sure that this would be the cold armor I would get.

LEBs usually make me switch from Inferno to "trapper" mode automatically. But when I was in the Maggot's lair, I noticed after a while that when I hit a beetle in the narrow tunnels and his sparks fly out, they usually never hit me. That's because the zigzag flight of each bolt would almost guarantee that it would hit a tunnel wall (thereby dissipating) before hitting me. So long as I kept a respectable distance, I wouldn't get hit; thus, I switched back to Inferno while in the lair.

Inferno was particularly effective in the lair since monsters were all lined up in the narrow tunnels and no one was resistant to fire. This was easily the easiest place for me in the whole of act 2.

When I hit the Arcane Sanctuary (AS), I continued using both Inferno and Hydra as needed. Inferno was still being used 80% of the time and it was here that I decided to continue raising it further not because it wasn't dealing enough damage but because the flames' range wasn't reaching across some platforms in the teleport quadrant of that place. I had a hefty number of skill points to spend so I decided to increase the range of my Inferno until the tip of it touched the edge of the screen. With my Inferno at 6(+3) (thus 9 at a range of 7.3 yards), the flames were almost there.

As can be seen, the flames almost reach the top and left edges of the screen and (expectedly) still some ways off from the corner. What surprised me though however was when I fired south as shown below:

As can be seen here, they just reach half the screen away going this direction. I thought that it was because I had Perspective on but turning it off didn't change anything. I conducted some visual tests with my brother in our local LAN where I'd have my character stand south of his just to see if there was really more visual distance south of a character than in any other direction. Our tests showed that this wasn't so. When he saw the top of my head, I saw his boots. So I concluded that Inferno was bugged with regards to range when facing southward.

Oh well. I didn't care. I click, it burns. Hours of fun for all.

From these shots, I reckoned the edge would probably be 8 yards away. I invested 5 skill points there so that my "natural" skill range would reach it.

I asked my good friend Geglash about the AS and this was what he had to say:

Sounds like a good motto for the Lounge. I met up with the Summoner and he fell quickly to Hydras cast at him from a distance. Before engaging him however, I had asked my bestest buddy Geglash about him:

I'm sure this helped somehow.

It was around the time that I was in the Canyon of the Magi that a Saintly Sharktooth armor with 461 DR dropped so I again raised my strength from 100 to 105 in order to wear it. The false tombs were no problem. Being indoors was better for trapping. So I continued my practice of it. I'd usually open a tomb door with telekinesis (TK) (which I have because it's a pre-req for teleport) and cast a Hydra through the doorway to avoid getting ambushed by mobs. If my Hydra acted up, I'd stack 2 more and Inferno anything that came through the door. I could've TKed the door close to make it a good trap but most monsters there can open doors so that was out the window. I did use this trap trick though on bosses who were of the types that couldn't open doors (beetles and blunderbore types). The undead were more numerous and smart enough to open doors so I didn't use this trick much.

When dealing with greater mummies and undead, I'd usually brave the room where they were in and immediately locate the revivers. I'd be counting on my high DR to buy me enough time to spot them in the darkness. This was extremely risky and I've died a few times from this during her entire career. Considering my success rate however with this maneuver, I didn't feel the need to look for another strategy. Once the revivers were spotted, I'd stack 2 to 3 Hydras on them then retreat to a safe place. I'd cast more Hydras on another reviver before retreating if I felt it was safe enough to do it but I usually took them down one at a time before mopping up the rest of the undead. If there were a lot of revivers (ex. Boss Greater mummies with minions and undead), I'd try to take out at least one reviver every time I executed this maneuver. It wasn't hard really. I'd also lead any undead that followed me far away from them where they wouldn't be revived before taking them down.

As I've mentioned before, one of my techniques with Hydra was to stack 2 to 3 of them in the direction of my enemies and leading the monsters through them if they're fast or resilient to my Inferno. The problem with this method now was that some of the monsters were lasting longer to my pets' assault. The net result was that I'd usually run out of stamina before they dropped. I had no speed enhanced boots since none were good enough to replace the resistances the boots I was wearing at the time had. More castings of Hydra was an option but that would result in more mana used leading to longer down time while it regenerated.

While taking a shower, I thought about this problem some more (yes I think about Diablo even when I'm showering :p). I basically needed some way to keep them among the Hydras (and away from me) while my pets went to work. Cold skills like GS and Blizzard was an option but I wasn't inclined to invest in one considering I still had to invest in ES and a cold armor skill in accordance to my plan. Then the answer came to me: TK. I had been using TK to open doors and chests (to give me a better survival rate with traps) but I never thought to use it offensively. When it does connect, it would stun and knockback the opponent which was exactly what I needed. I gave it a try after that and it worked splendidly; when TK worked. TK has a really big problem in that it wouldn't stun/knockback my target all the time. When cast upon a monster, there would be a chance of a stun/knockback that felt like 50/50 to me (actually 35% which doesn't go up with added TK skill levels according to Lurker Lounge (LL) postings). When it worked, the monsters would be pushed back to the Hydras where they would get a good pummeling at point-blank range. It was pretty hit or miss though so it wasn't a good idea to use it for groups of monsters. Even using it on 2 monsters was pushing it. It seemed to be best suited for one-on-one encounters with a highly resilient monster. Because of this, I didn't use it for the remainder of nightmare and had to resort to trapping again on the particularly tough encounters.

Ancient Kaa didn't give me much trouble since I found a nice place to set up a trap.

Duriel was another matter. My strategy for dealing with him was to spread around Hydras all over his place and to teleport and avoid him while my pets went to work. This didn't work out so well as I'd hope for a number of reasons. My limited mana pool for instance prohibited me from casting as much Hydras as I would have liked. After casting them, I would usually barely have enough mana left for 1 teleportation. My warmth at 2(+3) with Magefist didn't regenerate fast enough for me. I still didn't raise it though because up until that point, it had been adequate. I tried the blaze strategy of sorceresses wherein they stay just a little bit ahead of Duriel while he baked in the blaze but I substituted blaze with Hydra since I didn't have the blaze skill. This didn't work out so well either since I had to stop for a bit to cast Hydra every once in a while. The strategy also involved freezing when making turns (no cold spells so not an option) and probably some speed enhancers. I was still running at normal speed with medium armor at that time so it may have added to my failure to carry this out. During all of this, a good number of hired mercs were sacrificed while I tried to figure out a good strategy with him with what I've got. I kept returning to Greiz for more mercs.

Ten seconds later, I break my promise. Duriel's health had been declining all this time as well; slowly but steadily. I continued with my modified Blaze-on-Duriel technique and after many deaths of my own, he finally went down. It was a very poor performance on my part but I didn't feel any desire to go back and improve it. I decided to hold it off for hell difficulty and proceeded to act 3.