I started using sorc mercs again in Act 3 but limited myself to cold sorc mercs. Progress was smooth and Inferno was still useful due mostly to teamwork between my merc and I. He'd freeze them and I'd cook them. When darts started flying all over the place, I'd cast 3 Hydras ahead in the direction they were coming from and do my best to dodge them. When dangerous mobs or bosses appear, I'd just port over to the other side of the river and let my pets handle it. It was about this time that I decided to take the plunge and get ES so I spent a total of 4 skill points to get it.

After finishing the Spider Den quest, my brother asked for my sorceress to team up with his necromancer. I was okay with that because I wanted to see how her development handled in a multi-player environment. He had done all the quests in nightmare up to Izual so all quests were for me. He was there strictly for the experience. It played fairly well at the beginning. We were doing full clears and my Inferno was very effective now that I had his minions to tank for me. We stuck close together most of the time and were clearing areas fairly quickly. By the time we reached Upper Kurast however, things changed. I don't know if it was fatigue on his part after playing for several hours or what but now he wasn't doing full clears with me. Worst of all, he was leaving me behind. I'd tell him to wait up and he'd say he would but he just kept advancing. This was probably unintentional on his part as there were a lot of retreating Zakarumites and he didn't want to leave his minions who were giving chase thus bringing him further away from me. When I tried to meet up with him, I chose the most direct route between us only to find out that there was a boss and his posse blocking my way along with other monsters. Clearly he didn't pass this way. It was at this moment that I learned how she would fair solo in a 2-player game and it wasn't pretty. I died a number of times because Zakarumites weren't falling fast enough to my Inferno. At first I thought that it was because they were resistant but it was actually because they had high life points that were doubled for this game. I kept asking for help and he said he was on his way but I ended up recovering my body myself without his help. I thought he'd come join me so that we could continue clearing Upper Kurast (which was less than 20% clear) but again he advanced into Travincal. That was it I thought. I called it quits. Teamwork was out the window and I didn't want to suffer anymore deaths. I also wanted to kill the council members on my own and I most certainly didn't want him spoiling my Mephisto uber-drop. We'd done a full Saturday afternoon anyway so it was probably a good time to end it.

My next session had me deciding that I should finally use my normal difficulty imbue. Despite all the advice I've read against it, I decided to imbue a staff anyway. I'd been holding off doing this while I waited for a cedar staff to fall (I like the look of the gnarled staff more than the war staff) but I decided that now was the time. So I bought a gnarled staff from Drognan and went to Charsi to have it imbued. I would detail my exact reaction on the results but I think that there's only so much profanity Bolty is willing to put up with. Suffice it to say that it was crap. Livid, I tried to figure out a way to salvage this fiasco. I then remembered that I still had some failed characters with their imbues still intact so I had one failed paladin imbue a couple of gnarled staves as well. Both were duds so all that paladin was good for now was for storing equipment. I then proceeded to another paladin I was bored with. I hit pay dirt with this 38 level character.

I was pleased with this and had it transferred to Zophiel. She used it for a while when I thought of this. Would I ever imbue a staff again for my next sorceress? Probably not. Considering I had to waste 3 imbues to get this plus all the other arguments I've read against it, I wasn't inclined to do it again. And while my staff looked great, I realized that it was "above average" instead of "great". Of its 7 attributes (8 with the spell) I was only making use of 3: archangel, fastest cast, and +34 to mana. The rest was for melee and I wasn't using Thunder Storm (TS) in my repertoire. I tried it out since it was there but at skill level 1, it just wasn't worth the effort to refresh it every 30 seconds. At best, this was just 1 attribute better than an archangel staff of the magus. If that staff had warmth or any spell I actually use, then I'd consider it better than my imbue (I tortured myself after that by checking if any archangel of the magus appeared in any shop. It never did). Added to that was a rather boring name for it ("Havoc Spire"). Oh well, at least it came in the color I like. :p

With my new staff, I started redoing act 3 from lower Kurast figuring I could more than adequately handle the jungle by myself. The Zakarumites were manageable now that their life points were reasonable but I mostly resorted to trapping them because they were too fast and were usually upon me before I've had a chance to rev up Inferno.

It was around this time that I received 2 drops close to one another:

The temple areas themselves gave me more of a problem, particularly the ruined temple. This was the hunting ground of Battlemaid Sarina and it was here that I felt I've reached my first brick wall. Aside from the usual stair trap, she was extra fast; thus her minions were that as well. Add some fire resistant Wailing beasts into the mix and a boss Spider Magus with cronies and you pretty much have one epic battle on your hands. I stuck with my goal though to handle any situation so with some patience (and a lot of deaths) I managed to whittle them down. I did this by casting a Hydra, moving, then casting another Hydra. I'd repeat this as much as I could while circling the general area where my pets were. I came to the realization here that extra fast was something I should be worried about. Previous experience with melee characters disregarded this enemy speed because to me, it just meant a quicker death for them. I've come to realize however that for Zophiel, it was a huge problem. I became more wary when I met up with fast opponents from then on. I'd always deal with them by trapping them if I could. Eventually it was down to just Sarina and I. The temple configuration had the Tome and it wasn't the T configuration. It was more of an O configuration. The TK/Hydra combo was no option due to its unreliability plus the fact that she was extra fast; thus, I had only one shot at TK before she was upon me. She killed me a number of times with just a few hits. Running around while my Hydras went to work was no good because I had no fastest run boots and my stamina would eventually drain. My mana pool was also inadequate to cast enough Hydras to bring her down quickly. My best bet was again to set a trap. This I did in the northern most corner of the room southeast of the entrance but her hyper-activeness had my babies missing their shots a lot (I could tell by tracking her light source and watching for explosions which one can see through the walls). I spent about 20 minutes before I decided that it wasn't working. I thought that I would have to tank for my babies so I took the plunge and plopped 5 skill points for CA. Since I finally had a cold skill, I figured I might as well get 1 point in cold mastery so that my skill adders could boost it. Thus with 6 points painfully spent, I tried tanking while my babies went to work. After about 3 failed tries, I gave up. I decided that my tanking idea would work if I had a rare ornate plate to help with my DR. With that in mind, I skipped her vowing to return when I got my new armor. I guess I had found Zophiel an arch-enemy.

Travincal wasn't much of a problem; nor were the Council members who succumbed to trapping. Granted there were moments when their healing abilities were bothersome but the fight with my babies didn't last long.

The Durance of Hate council members were more of a challenge. My basic strategy was to clear the room in front of the stairs and lure the council members one at a time to the southwestern area where I'd quickly set up my babies after which I would port over the wall to the southern most corner of the main area. There'd sometimes be some Dark Lords waiting for me there to which I'd cast more Hydras. This turned out to be not such a good idea. The Council Members can cast pets of their own and, in a display of superiority over my own Hydra skills, they didn't need line of sight (LoS) to cast them. Thus in the midst of my Hydras on my side of the wall, Bremm Sparkfist cast a Hydra through the wall. I spotted it and began dodging their bolts. Unfortunately, I died and as I watched my babies expire, I saw that I failed to notice that another trio of Hydra heads were cast among my babies. The lesson learned here was to never stay in an area where your Hydras are while Council Members are about. One would have a difficult time discerning friend from foe. I continued trapping the Council Members in that area while dealing with anyone on my side with Inferno. They eventually, succumbed to my babies' onslaught. Wyand Voidfinger was a bit of a concern for me though because he had teleportation in addition to healing. Thus I let my babies have at him as usual for a short while before I entered the room where I trapped him. Having him with less than 50% health, I decided to use myself as bait while my babies went to work on him. I was hoping that my presence would goad him into attacking instead of healing or teleporting. He still teleported once or twice during this but he too fell soon afterwards. Whether my strategy had worked or not was difficult to tell at the time. My experience with the hell level Council Members leads me to believe however that it made no difference but I'll get to that later.

Mephisto was child's play with Hydra. The lava pool in the main area can be though of as shaped like a man. What I did was lure him to the man's left shoulder while I stood at the "underarm". I cast my babies on him after which, I took cover in the nearby northeastern room. Very easy. As I watched his death animation, I suddenly took notice of how it played. I know that when Radament falls, his corpse is continually bombarded by the skill Fist of the Heavens. Mephisto's death animation had the ground erupting with boulders shooting for hither and thither while fire (lava) snaked from it in all directions. Could this be a glimpse of the Druid skill eruption or volcano?

Anyway, it was off to act 4.

I drew a bad lot on the outer steppes: Cliff Lurkers, Venom Lords and Doom Knights. There were fewer places to set up a trap here so most of my strategy here was casting 2 to 3 Hydras on a spot and leading my foes through them. When one was left, I'd resort to TK. It was very slow clearing up that area. I proceeded to the Plains of Despair and it didn't take long for me to find Izual. I lured him back to a clear spot (so that we wouldn't be disturbed) and proceeded to try the TK/Hydra combo on him. Aaargh! While TK did set off the stun stars, he wasn't getting knocked back into the Hydras. I guess I can't use this strategy on super bosses (it still works on ordinary bosses though). Fortunately, nearby was a good place to trap him. That I did and after a long wait, he finally fell to my darlings.

So far, no ornate plates had dropped and I was still peeved about my encounter with Sarina. I had completed as many quests as my brother's necromancer and in my eagerness to get my ornate armor and have revenge on her, I invited my brother to another session where our goal would be to slay Diablo. Yes it meant a shared uber-drop from Diablo but all I wanted at that point in time was an ordinary ornate plate to imbue. The memory of our last session together was not forgotten however. I would stick close to him no matter what (forget the gold lettered gauntlets on the ground for instance because he's moving away). As a precautionary failsafe, I'd also bring along static. I had long ago sold the +3 static staff. Wanting to waste no more time shopping for a replacement, I decided to invest a point in it. The combination of static and his revives pretty much sped us through the whole of act 4 with little danger. I cast static on Diablo while my brother's remaining revives kept him busy so he fell pretty quickly too. She was a Lady by level 37. During that whole time, no ornate plates dropped.

I took a break from her after that. I read the 3rd Harry Potter book during that break (I've been reading the whole series during her entire development) :). The break gave me renewed energy so I decided to redo the whole of acts 3 and 4 on my own; full clears on dungeons as well. Again I hired a cold sorc merc and together we cleared the jungles pretty quickly. Of notable exceptions were the flayers whose onslaught took me aback for a while. I countered by casting Hydra among their shooters but it did slow me down a bit. The Drowned Corpses were another notable nuisance to me. Their maxed fire resistance slowed my progress some. On a whim, I tried out chain lightning (CL), a pre-req I needed for ES. It seemed pretty effective; more so than my fire skills.

Kurast was less problematic. All Zealot type monsters were now running away from me. Aaargh! I had read that they would do this once the compelling orb was smashed which makes sense since they were supposed to be under its influence. I thought, however, that this would reset the next time you played but apparently not. Once the orb is smashed, they'll forever run away from you. Killing them like this (while not under the influence of the orb) would amount to killing an innocent. ;P It was such a chore cornering the little buggers and I think that took more time than disposing of the rest of the monsters in Kurast. There was one good thing out of it though. One of the bosses encountered was a teleporting Zakarumite. This was a perfect chance for me to brush up on my techniques for handling teleporting bosses outdoors. It was harder than I thought. His quick speed would have him zooming out of my pets' range before I knew it. I cornered him to a side of the map but it had little effect. He'd sometimes teleport behind me and run away to the center of the map. It took some doing but I finally got results by spreading my Hydras about the trap area as opposed to stacking them on one spot. That way, he'd be harassed no matter where he landed. I also stayed a bit of distance from that area ready to herd him back there should he teleport out of there.

Finally, I had my rematch with Sarina. It was the same temple layout but this time, I took extra precaution not to awaken her until I was good and ready. She was stationed in the southern most room where the Tome was housed so I cleared the other areas first. I decided to use the northern corner of the room she was in as my trap area since my previous trap area didn't work out so well. Her being extra fast, I had to lure her out of there first then lose her by porting over walls. Then I'd set up as much Hydras as mana would allow before leading her back there and porting over the northeastern wall. Without much fanfare, she died quickly. I supposed that some areas were more suitable for trapping than others. So much for her as an arch-enemy.

I merely repeated the strategies I had used on the Council Members and Mephisto when their time came. No problems were encountered.

Murphy was more merciful to me this time during act 4. At most only 1 fire resistant monster was present in any of the areas and none of them were cliff lurkers. Izual was disposed of in the typical fashion (i.e. trapping).

Though my progress was steady, it was still too slow for me. I looked at my fire mastery (including all item skill boosters) and noticed that with 1 more skill point, I could raise my mastery from 81% to 85% which would be halfway towards 90. The monotony of my pace bugged me enough that I invested the point. Then I noticed that with 1 more point, I could raise it from 85 to 87: about halfway towards 90. ;p I moved on to the River of Flame (RoF).

The RoF had Urdars which were suppose to be fire resistant. Inferno (at 11(+3)) was still effective enough to take them down one-on-one before they were upon me though. While exploring the river, I was already scouting for places to set up a trap for Hephasto. My last encounter with him had me casting static while my brother's minions accosted him. Adding to my apprehension was the possibility of teleportation or LEB as his enchantments. Fortunately, neither was on him this time and I had found a good spot for my trap. I was safely watching him from across the river while he was cornered in a peninsula trying to reach me. He was hyperactive though so he'd occasionally retreat. It was then that I'd port across the river to where my pets were in order to lure him back. Once I see him on the screen, I'd just port back to my safe spot and refresh my pets when they expired. The peninsula was an excellent spot because it impeded his movement in 3 directions so that he was still most of the time my pets were assaulting him. He was fire enchanted though and with his huge life pool, it took a while. I panicked after a while when I noticed that my computer was starting to lag. Worse than that, his name had disappeared from the life bar and pretty soon his life bar disappeared too. This was the first time I'd encountered this and I thought that the game was about to crash. I immediately town portaled (TP) back and thankfully, the lag disappeared. I refreshed my mana pool before heading back. Everything seemed back to normal when I returned. I continued my assault on Hephasto but before long, my system started lagging again. I now thought rationally, "Why would it do this?". I had heard that Hydra would cause lag but my experience prior to this said otherwise. I thought that the lag had to be caused by an increase in the sprite count. That made me take note of the blood splotches around Hephasto. I retreated a bit until they couldn't be seen. The lag went away and when I returned, the splotches were cleaned up and the lag stayed normal. Something new learned everyday. :) Eventually he fell and I proceeded to the Chaos Sanctuary.

I woke up at about 6 in the morning the next day thinking that I had about 2 hours to clear everything from the RoF waypoint to Diablo. The pace was slow going now that all monsters encountered were fire resistant. No deaths occurred up to the time when the seals were to be opened. By that time, about an hour had passed.

The Grand Vizier was first. I opened the seal and immediately ported like mad to the pentagram area. There I set up my pets on one spot while leading the Vizier and any of his minions through them. Being naturally fire resistant and Fire Enchanted, the Vizier was maxed resistant to fire so he was the last to drop. It was a long arduous encounter wherein I had to go back to town several times to replenish both mana and potions. So far though, no deaths...until the end. A mis-clicked teleportaion right next to the Vizier put me in jeopardy but it wasn't the Vizier's attack that killed me. My pets had landed the killing blow at that instant and the resulting corpse explosion did me in. Sigh, that's okay. I still loved my babies. It took about 30 minutes for him to drop.

The Infector of Souls was next. Bad news for me: he was teleport enchanted. I used the same tactic as I did with the Vizier seeing as there was no good place to trap them in the CS (or so I thought at the time). His cronies eventually fell to my pets but he was teleporting like mad. Not only did he heal himself like this but it was difficult for my pets to hit him given that in addition to teleportation, he was already extra fast. He had the ultimate skills for mobility and that was bad for my pets. After suffering a death at his hands, I finally pondered this while jogging back to retrieve my corpse. I needed some way to hamper his mobility so that my pets' concentrated onslaught can bring him down. Fortunately for me, I was passing through the very area that answered this conundrum.

|......^.....|
|......|.....|
|To pentagram|
|............|
|............|
|......---hhh| , - lava
|......|,|hhh| h - Hydra
|...---|,|hXh| X - Infector
|...|,,,,|hhh| Z - Zophiel
|...------hZh|
|............|

I lured him to the area of the CS described above. His movement was limited by the cramped corridor as was his teleportation because the lava on both sides limited the number of places where he could land. His aggressive AI quickly lead him back to the corridor should he had teleported out of it. Teleporting to either end of that short corridor kept me away from him and he soon fell afterwards. About 30 minutes had passed.

The last was Lord De Seis. My babies took care of the minions. They didn't move so much because they hovered around De Seis. De Seis was his own man though so he moved around a lot. I noticed that he kept moving laterally relative to my position. I simply repeated my tactic with the Infector and he fell pretty quickly. His AI would have him stand a certain distance from me, never approaching, which was ideal for this tactic because he'd be right in the middle of my pets. Should he fire anything at me, I'd simply duck behind the corner where bolts would fly past and Bone Spirits would crash into the wall.

Diablo was problematic. I employed the same strategy I used in normal. Although it worked, I died many deaths to him due to his LBOD. Once contact was made, it was all over for me. I lost about half my experience bar to him. :p Oh well, I didn't gripe or try to figure out a better strategy for him because I was already an hour late for work (ha ha). ;)

Zophiel had finally earned the right to do hell difficulty. I still had no ornate plate and my numerous gamblings for a SoJ yielded nothing. My gambling luck seemed to have run dry. She started hell difficulty with the following stats:

level 43  
str...............110(+12)=122
dex...............25(+1)=26
vit...............20
energy............145
 
life..............142(+32)=174
mana..............339(+61)=400
 
fire(+3)
firebolt..........1
warmth............2
inferno...........11
fireball..........1
enchant...........1
fire mastery......8
hydra.............4
 
cold(+2)
ice bolt..........1
frozen armor......1
ice blast.........1
shiver armor......1
chilling armor....1
cold mastery......1
 
lightning(+2)
charged bolts.....1
static............1
telekinesis.......1
lightning.........1
chain lightning...1
teleport..........1
energy shield.....1
lightning mastery.1
 
8 spare skill points

IV. Hell

I'd like to say that starting out was mundane but the Den of Evil was a pain in the neck. Everything was fine until I encountered the Fallen Shaman. High hit points and maxed fire resistance really made a difference with these guys. They didn't really come close to killing me but they harassed me more than I thought any ordinary act 1 monster should. Hydra obviously took care of them but 4(+3) was agonizingly slow. Still I held off investing any skill points thinking that I just needed adjustments in my tactics to deal with this. I cleared the den and got my extra skill point. I also cleared the first area before heading off to the cold plains. If I hated the Fallen Shamans before that, I really hated them there. The first boss encountered was a teleporting LEB Shaman close to the waypoint. Any minions slain would be raised by the boss so he had to go first.

Trapping him wasn't an option because Shaman AI didn't seem to include pursuing me. Therefore, my attack strategy was to stack as much Hydra as I could on him. Spreading them around would cause my Hydras to lose focus on him due to the presence of the minions so I did it this way. His resistance made it slow and teleportation made it worse. Once he teleported, the Hydras I had stack would concentrate on the next nearest monster which was a minion he would raise soon enough. The lightning and his minions' attacks made pressing any advantage I had difficult. Frustrated, I considered investing in skill points again. I didn't want to raise Hydra yet as the added cost of mana per cast was something I wasn't sure I could handle with my current mana pool. The only thing that made sense to me at the time was FM as raising it would benefit both Inferno and Hydra (Right? RIGHT?!?). I plopped down one more point to raise it to 87 and when I saw that the next point would bring it to 90, I spent another point there. If there was any improvement in my attack, I sure didn't notice it. Eventually though, his continuous porting had brought him far away from the rest of his guys. Again, Shaman AI didn't include pursuing so his minions left us alone. I continued using the same strategy of stacking Hydras on top of him when I remembered my encounter with the teleporting Zakarumite described previously. I remembered that because of his teleport enchantment, I got better results spreading the Hydras around the area. Despite his continuous use of teleportation, I sensed that I was winning when all of a sudden, a stray charged bolt killed me. I took her back and continued the strategy and he quickly fell after one wave of Hydra castings. I then took care of his minions which was slow going. I ended that session there while I considered what it is I should invest the 7 skill points I still had in. My offense was suffering now so my options were: Inferno, Hydra, FM or Warmth. Inferno wasn't considered much since I had used Hydra exclusively with the shamans. Also, raising it wouldn't help me with the bosses whom I was pretty much sure would be handled by my pets.

Warmth was another option as it would help me overall besides in casting more Hydra. I plugged the Warmth formula provided by Jarulf in a spreadsheet and looked at it. The mana per second rates weren't very impressive for the foreseeable future. I then thought about maybe settling for a warmth level that would fill an empty one to full in around 30 seconds. The formula didn't provide for that so I had to figure it out on my own.

Aargh...math! I thought I left it behind after graduation. Let's see: I had the rate and I wanted to solve for the time...

Mr. De Los Reyes: So some time in the future, If you're playing Diablo2 and are solving for the time it takes for mana to fill up from zero, the formula is: time=full mana/mana per scond.

The rest of our class: Zzzzzzzz...

With that, I got the following tables with my current mana pool (440) and my expected mana pool at the end of her career (640). The figures listed include Magefists's 25% regeneration. Seconds is the number of seconds it takes mana to regenerate to full from zero. My Warmth level at the time was 2(+3).

From here, it seemed "settling" for a 30 second refill involved investing points up to skill level 22. I then went back to considering the rate of regeneration and setting a good milestone to target for. I thought about 15 per second which would allow me to teleport every second but that too involved a heavy investment of 7 points and that's if I reached my expected mana of 640. Just looking at the numbers put me off about investing any more points in Warmth at all.

FM gave very little in return for the points I would invest at that point.

So it seemed that Hydra was the obvious choice. At the start of my next session, I dumped all seven points in it. Looking back, maybe I should have gradually invested points in Hydra a little at a time instead all at once just to see if my mana could handle it but it turned out okay. It seems that I had built a good-sized mana pool since the last time I raised Hydra to 4(+3). The mana consumption wasn't as bad as I feared at 11(+3).

Shamans were more manageable now but I marveled at how little I took notice of just how much of those pain-in-the-necks there were in Act 1. Blood Raven gave me little trouble though at first I thought she would be difficult because she was hyper active and very fast. My pets had a hard time hitting her because she moved about like crazy. I tried to think of a way to hamper her mobility when the thought of using TK entered my head. I started using it on her and the 80% hit result I had was all that it took for my pets to nail her. By keeping my right button down on her she was pinned to a tombstone while my pets pelted her. I used the TK/Hydra combo more often after that. I did have near deaths when using it though because it was a hit-or-miss thing but after you get used to it and make allowances for it, it's not bad at all. Of course, I use it strictly for one-on-one encounters such as with slow bosses. I wouldn't use it on some fast enemies or LEBs though.

Lightning enchanted Rakanishu was a boss I thought I'd have a problem with but fortunately, there was something nearby that made him manageable: a cabin. I simply lured him there and cast 2 Hydras before porting out. I would have cast more but he was also extra fast enchanted and took a swipe at me before I ported out of there. It was sufficient to kill him though.

Tristram was interesting. I headed towards Farnham's area as usual when I encountered a Griswold with LEB and an extra fast enchanted goatman boss. I didn't want to tackle them both at once so I quickly teleported back to the red portal before heading towards the old church. Some of the goatman's minions (also extra fast) still followed me. In between the portal and the church was a multi-shot Shaman and his party. Things weren't looking good. I made it into the church and saw that it was an excellent place to set up a trap. The entrances were nearest the easternmost corner so the westernmost corner served as a good trap for Griswold and the other bosses. I trapped my pursuers and those that were already in the church but the area surrounding it was teeming with more of them. Somehow I had managed to attract the attention of 2 returned champions as I was battling outside. I had whittled down most of them but the fight had left me drained of potions, stamina and mana so even though there were only a few left, they managed to corner me and bring me down. Recovering the body was a little tricky. The goatman boss was near the red portal so I had to lead him back to Farnham's area. I then teleported like mad through the ruined village waking up more monsters (no other choice in my mind at the time). I took revenge on my murderers and retrieved my body. The returned champions were killed prior to that so my next prey was the nearby multi-shot Shaman. Since he wouldn't follow me, I had to take the fight to him while suffering the attacks of his minions. Luckily, he didn't have any nasty enchantments so taking him down was easy. During that fight, I seemed to have attracted Griswold. I lured him to the church where I then set up the trap before porting over the west corner before his charged bolts flew. It was elementary from that. I lured him out while I recast the Hydras before luring him back in. The same went for the boss goatman. I think I got rid of the majority of the denizens of Tristram before the goatman boss fell because the remaining encounters were with a small number of Returneds and Carvers. For my troubles, Akara gave me this nice ring.

Now that I had 2 nice rings, gambling for a SoJ seemed moot so I quit gambling for now. I could've started gambling on amulets but the prismatic of warding that dropped in act 4 normal served me well. I wasn't inclined to replace it.

The Countess was no problem. Because neither she nor her minions would leave the room she was stationed at, it didn't matter what enchantments she had (she was LEB for me). I just let my pets loose in her room while I waited outside and roasted with Inferno any of her minions that would approach me (and then abruptly retreat).

Dungeons were dark and when I felt like playing safe, I'd cast a Hydra at the edge of the screen. If there were no activity from them then I'd stand in the center of the Hydra and cast another one in the distance. This way, I never got ambushed from anything emerging from the darkness. Level 2 of any dungeon in the wilderness was always a possible stair trap for me so without exception, I'd stack 3 Hydras immediately in front of me upon entering the second level. If there wasn't anything there, fine. But if there were something there, then the Hydras would be able to handle them or at least buy enough time for me to make a retreat. I never died in the dungeons using these precautions.

The Smith was no problem as well as I just repeated the strategy I used in nightmare (i.e. trapping him in the outer cloister).

Andariel was also easy. I used the same the strategy I used in nightmare only this time, I didn't need to go back to town. She was noticeably easier now compared to nightmare. One reason was that about 95% of the battle was spent with her chasing me instead of firing something. The animation when she dies is similar to Mephisto except that there's no ground eruption and a pillar of fire appears on the spot where she fell while lava again snakes outwards. Maybe this is the Druid skill volcano.

Act 2 started with me hiring a merc just to give these Act 2 mercs one last chance at being useful beside acting as Duriel bait. My first encounter was with the burning dead: both melee and archers. My merc immediately fell to the hail of arrows (so much for that). I then proceeded with my standard strategy of stacking Hydra on an archer while I cast Inferno on the approaching dead. Although I was aware that they were fully resistant to fire, I didn't expect my Inferno to be as ineffective as it was when I first used it against them. I quickly fell to them and 2 more times after that while trying to retrieve my body. I checked their health after my third death and to my horror, they seemed to be regenerating quickly. I switched tactics to those I reserved for tough bosses (trapping). While effective, it slowed my progress to a crawl because they were everywhere in the 3 levels of the sewers. I used the TK/Hydra combo when there was only one burning dead to contend with and Inferno when that burning undead was an archer. Inferno still dropped them but I had to keep it on them for about 4 to 5 seconds before they did. I couldn't last that long with a melee dead but I could with an archer. The rest of the time, I was luring them to traps. I suffered no more deaths there but as I said, it was slow going. I didn't note the time but I'd say I spent at least 2 hours clearing out the sewer.

Radament was teleport enchanted and he kept resurrecting the undead. My strategy here was to lure the undead far away from him before dealing with them and sometimes going to town hoping that when I returned, the garbage collecting routine would have disposed of many of the corpses. Eventually, it was just him and I, and because his teleportation was bugging me, I led him to a very narrow L shaped corridor nearby and set up a trap there. He teleported like mad but my pets quickly disposed of him.

The wilderness was a relief for me. Anything but the burning dead, I thought. I got some leapers but they were infinitely more bearable than the burning dead. The tombs were littered with horrors so they didn't give me much trouble. I just followed my standard routine of opening doors with TK and scouting with a Hydra as detailed previously.

It was around this time that I read on the lounge that Andariel was erroneously maxed in fire resistance. Bah, I didn't care since I was past that already. ;)

The maggot lair was again the easiest dungeon for me as practically everything there fell easily to Inferno. The swarms (thankfully) still dropped like...well flies, as if they had Act 1 normal hit points when met with my Inferno. Coldworm's room was interesting because it was packed wall to wall with insects. It was easy to defeat though as I just cast Hydra in that room (hopefully near an egg laying insect) and using Inferno on anything that went down the corridor. The battle was long due to the number of creatures there. When lag got so bad, I had to portal back to town. I'd restock first and when I got back to the lair, lag would return to normal as most of the corpses were removed. The number of insects in that room seemed limitless however as I found myself repeating this over 5 times just to clear the lag. Eventually I was able to step into the room. I quickly stacked 3 Hydras on each egg layer I could see. A mis-click on my part had her run right next to one where she met a quick death. :( On my return, their numbers seemed to me to have multiplied by a few more but it was hard to tell. I continued attacking with Hydra while being very cautious now. When I had a clear route to my corpse, I ran there only to discover to my horror that not only could I not see it, I couldn't highlight it as well. My map showed that I was in the right spot but I guess that there were too many corpses and objects on the screen. Fortunately, I really didn't need my equipment to finish of the 2 remaining egg layers and Coldworm. Continuous castings of Hydra killed all of them after which, I got the Horadric staff, Coldworm's drop and as much equipment as I could carry hoping that this will help alleviate the sprite count. On my return from town, all that remained were a few egg layers' corpses and, in plain sight, my corpse.

On my way to the Lost City, a boss leaper and his minion accosted me. I had cast 2 Hydras in the narrow corridor that connected the Far Oasis to The Lost City but he and a minion got through before they started firing. I again cast 2 Hydras between me and them in the narrow corridor when I saw something extraordinary happen. Both boss and minion were now paralyzed between the 2 stacks because attacks on both sides would have them knocked back and forth. I just refreshed the Hydras on both ends and that eventually roasted the helpless leapers.

The Tainted Sun brought about a new challenge. Because of the darkness, I couldn't see more than half a screen away. The monsters that inhabited the Lost City included the Night Cats. Because of their speed and dark coloring, I couldn't see them until they were well on top of me. I ended up casting Hydras in the distance to act as scouts for me. This slowed me down but it kept me alive.

The Viper Claw Temple was the second easiest temple for me in Act 2. All Viper Claw type creatures there weren't fire resistant and their hit points weren't high. My standard practice of: TK the door; cast Hydra in there; cast more if they act up; and Inferno any who come through was enough to take care of them. Using this technique, I never had a Viper Claw live long enough to attack me. The second level though was different. I don't know if it was overconfidence on my part but as my pets handled the numerous Vipers on their way to meet me at the foot of the stairs, one was able to charge through and chill/stun lock me. A second and third charge from his buddies finished me off. I watched my corpse for a while as my babies avenged me. On my return, I started to plan for Fangskin. My usual method of attack was to port to the altar area where I would be safe from the Vipers. This time however, Fangskin was there next to the altar. I cast some Hydras in the room to get rid of those still on the floor area but Fangskin was getting hit and emitting bolts so I waited safely by the stairs. I planned to flood the altar with Hydras while taking cover behind the cage in the western corner of the room but it wasn't necessary. By the time I got back to the center of the room, he was already dead. Hydras rock!

The cellars of the palace weren't that problematic. The barred doors allowed me to cast Hydras through them and take out anyone before seeing them. Archers were the only real threat for me here but casting Hydras around corners neutralized their threat. The only notable occurrence that happened here was that a Blunderbore finally dropped my first ornate plate ever. I quickly cleared the rest on the cellars and activated the AS waypoint. I then used my nightmare imbue on it. The staff debacle was still fresh on my mind but I thought: "What else am I going to use it for?". I got lucky.

The fire resistance put my fire resistance way over the max (while my other resistances suffered) and it lacked any hit recovery. Still, I counted my blessings and sold my old armor.

I decided to try out my new armor which, combined with 1(+2) CA gave me a DR of around 1800, on the nightmare cow level. Well it didn't turn out so well. It certainly performed below my hopes as far as tanking goes but I said to myself that the cows really hit hard. Anyway, It was too late to change the plan so I just lived with it.

I went back to the AS. I knew that the Hell Clan would be maxed in fire resistance in addition to being fast. My experience with the burning dead impressed upon me the need to be very cautious. I already had a plan involving using the first gap of the teleporter section as my fallback trap area. I cleared the area around it first to make sure that I didn't receive unwanted visitors. The most difficult section in my mind was going to be the section that was plain so I did that first. Sure enough, I found myself leading the hell clan back to that area repeatedly. I tried a tank/Hydra/Inferno combo when there was only one. It would work sometimes but should he land 2 successive blows, I would have surely been dead. I decided to resort to the (relatively) safer TK/Hydra combo for one-on-one encounters. In all other cases, I'd lead them back to the trap area. There were numerous Hell Clan members on that section alone. So much so that it took me over an hour to clear that quadrant with the techniques I used.

The spires easily fell to around 10 castings of 11(+3) Hydras while Specters and Ghoul Lords were handled with Hydra or Inferno as the situation warranted. I had to take off for work so I decided to put this off until the weekend where I can devote more time to clearing the entire AS in one sitting. It was around this time that I read that FM doesn't affect Hydra. I was pretty surprised by this revelation because my pets were very effective as is, even against maxed fire resistant monsters. The thought that they could be doing more damage boggled the mind. The_Company brought up an interesting idea in a reply. Since Hydras seemed to be treated like minions, did Enchant work with them? I tested this out on the spires of the AS and my general impression was no. Oh well.

I cleared the straight quadrant again when the weekend came. Good thing I did because a Ghoul Lord dropped this:

Sentimental reasons prevented me from using them immediately. The boots I was wearing then were with me since act 1 normal and was thus, the oldest thing I ever owned. Also, their resistances were slightly better than those in the new boots. I eventually wore the new ones though soon afterwards.

The straight quadrant took over an hour again while the next hardest quadrant (the one with the stairs) took maybe half an hour. The Summoner was there. The spatial distortion quadrant and the teleporters took less than 10 minutes each because each intersection was a good area to trap the Hell Clan. During that time, I suffered no deaths from the Hell Clan but I did from some specters probably because I was less cautious with them. I always tanked/Infernoed them. :)

The Canyon of The Magi was moderately challenging. The only real threats there for me were the Hellcats, the meleers more so than the spear throwers. Ridges made good trap areas here though I'd mostly resort to casting Hydras and leading my enemies through them. It was then that I noticed that my mana seemed to be dangerously low most of the time. It was soon afterwards that I caught on as to the reason why. I had read that ES will sometimes activate even though the opponent didn't successfully land the blow and I had noticed it happen to me before. It didn't take much mana before so I ignored it. Now, however, with these cats dealing almost 100 points per blow, their "glancing" blows were now taking off almost 20% of my pool. I experimented a bit by keeping ES off for the rest of the area and sure enough, my mana pool didn't deplete as much. "Dagnabit" I thought. I now had to figure out a way to compensate for this. Lot's of people recommended Nightsmoke for this. I had no experience with it but I had to do something about this problem. So I started gambling for it. Yes I know that it only had 3 rows and that I vowed not to settle for less than 4 but I felt that she was at a point in her career where potion drinking wasn't as crucial as before and can thus make do with 3.

The false tombs were a headache due to 1 thing: the burning dead. These nuisances had made a return. The first tomb was medium sized and packed with them. Thankfully I located a good trap area quickly and slowly lead the rest of the tomb's denizens there. Also present there was Ancient Kaa who was both LEB and teleport enchanted. He too was near that ideal trap spot. I first took some town trips and explored the rest of the tomb to give the game's garbage collector time to clear up all the undead corpses I'd killed there. I then lead his minions there one at a time. Killing them like that was no problem. Kaa was another matter. I lead him there after I filled the area with Hydras and then teleported to my safe spot.

It worked out okay until he started teleporting. It was pretty frustrating seeing that after 20 minutes, he still had his full health with him. I just kept at it though because I had no other idea in my head on how to bring him down. I couldn't recast Hydras from my safe spot due to lack of LoS so I tried casting around corners. He'd be able to track me though if I was just around a corner so I'd only get off about 3 to 5 castings before I had to hightail it back to my safe spot. Though he teleported a lot, he never landed on my safe spot. After about 30 minutes had passed, I pondered for a new strategy while my pets were working on him. All of a sudden, they stopped and I heard Kaa groan as he dropped. It seemed persistence finally paid off. All told, that medium sized tomb took over 2 hours to fully clear due to both Kaa and the Burning Dead.

I did 2 more burning dead filled tombs before I finally called it quits. I had used up an entire Saturday afternoon clearing up 3 tombs and I was tired. I had hoped to clear all 7 in one sitting but I didn't think I had the fortitude to play that long because the Burning Dead were slowing me down too much. My next session was more merciful as the next 3 tombs I had yet to do were devoid of the burning dead. I still died to apparitions though because my guard was sort of relaxed. The true tomb was once again filled with my now most hated monsters. Finding a good trap area didn't take long but clearing them out did. Finally, I made my way to Duriel.

My nightmare strategy of casting Hydras as I walked in front of him didn't work out so well then but, with fastest walk now on my boots, the strategy showed more promise. I had trouble starting out at first and died numerous times. I had whittled down his health to 75% during that time. After that I was able to get into the groove as I was successfully walking a bit ahead of him with him unsuccessfully swiping at me while my Hydras roasted him. I had brought him down to 25% health this way before he finally landed a killing blow on me. My next visit had me in the groove again and I was able to survive long enough for him to keel over. This strategy against Duriel seemed viable now but I had trouble getting back into that groove on subsequent rematches with him. The fact that the burning dead were usually on guard in that tomb soured me much on the idea of perfecting this technique.

Off to act 3.