It's around this time that Sirian published the hell level exploits of his fire sorceress Hotfoot. It's quite an interesting read. I enjoyed comparing his experiences with mine, especially with regards to Hydra. Noticeably lacking though was any mention of my most hated monster - the burning dead in any of the false tombs. I wondered if Blaze (which was what he used most often) was effective enough on them to make him deem them not worth mentioning at all or if he got an extremely lucky draw and had burning dead free tombs. I paid particular attention to his experiences on Act 3 hell because that was where I was headed. He said that it was easier compared to Act 2 and I concur.

I once again hired a cold sorc merc. The fetishes were once again set up for me while I roasted them but the reduced freeze time was noticeable. The shortened duration was affecting my efficiency somewhat but I coped. Shooters were once again given Hydra while the GS/Inferno combo was served to the rest. The indoor dungeons were a problem for me. Experience in nightmare has shown that my mercs died often to LEBs and indoor situations. The indoor problem was somewhat my fault. Indoors was better suited for trapping as there were more potential trap areas there compared to the outdoors. I had to shift my attention somewhat from keeping them alive to executing my trap flawlessly. My first cold sorc fell to Sszark who fell in turn to my pets.

My next cold sorc turned out to be a fast caster named Jarulf. As I had already cleared out both dungeons in the Spider Forest, we spent most of the time outdoors clearing the rest of the forest, the great marsh and most of the Flayer Jungle. There were no maxed fire resistant Drowned Corpses in the Great Marsh so that went smoothly. By the time we cleared half the Flayer Jungle, I realized that I had perfectly adjusted to the shortened freeze duration. Combined with Jarulf's GS, I had been using Inferno more than Hydra all this time. The shortened freeze duration left little margin for error but as I said, I was able to adjust so that very few monsters were alive by the time they reached me; this included the fast running Flayers. Though the Swampy Pit was indoors, I managed to clear it and keep Jarulf alive. We finally reached the Flayer Dungeon. I completed the Gidbin quest and returned to town. Ormus gives me a crappy ring while Ashera gives me a new merc. I did this on purpose because I was sure that the merc I would bring into the Flayer Dungeon was toast and I wanted to give Jarulf a graceful exit. :)

The Flayer Dungeon had a bat boss somewhere near the entrance who was extra fast, strong and had spectral hits. I was cautious with this guy but I got killed anyway because he did something I didn't expect: he flew through a barred entryway and rammed me. I fell in one blow. I was now more cautious with him and let my pets handle him. I did the rest of the dungeon solo. I was taken aback somewhat by the number of traps that filled this dungeon. I couldn't go far with out setting something off. Even more amazing was that traps that used to fire if you were in front of them would now fire if you were at an angle from them.

Endugu was no problem. I always prided myself at having a longer jet of flame than any of the Shamans but we seemed about even at 11(+3). He was teleporting but he didn't do it much so he died quickly. Honestly, the traps bugged me more than the monsters.

It was here though that I realized that even though I had a single digit resistance to poison, it mattered little as I had +50% and +75% poison time reduction items on my equipment. Poison seemed ineffective on me because of these so I didn't worry about it anymore.

I continued with the rest of the flayer jungle with a new cold sorc. My experience at keeping them alive paid off because only cold sorcs were useful to me now and there were a limited number of them available. I could force Ashera to restock the merc pool by buying all the other mercs (yuck) or starting a new game. Keeping the one I had alive was the best option for me.

I had arrived at the gates of Kurast only to be met by Stormtree. I let my pets handle him while I kept my merc outside of the range of his charged bolts. Upon my entry into lower Kurast, I was immediately accosted by a teleporting ape boss. As I hadn't gained a secure area in Kurast yet, I led him back into the jungle wherein I cast Hydra upon him and teleported to the safety on the other side of the river.

As I watched my pets deal with him while he teleported about, I received an epiphany. I have dealt with a lot of enemies this way. On more enclosed spaces, I called it trapping. And among the many victims I've used this upon, a fair number of them were teleporters. As I watched the ape from across the river, I knew that I was safe from him just as deep down inside, I knew I was safe in my hiding spots from a teleporting Kaa and teleporting Radament when I battled them. Why? Because subconsciously I knew what the whole of my experience had shown me:

Teleporting monsters cannot teleport through walls or over obstacles that one cannot normally walk on such as the river, crevices, or the elevation differences such as the top of a Kurast pyramid to the ground below.

It seemed to me that a teleporting monster could only land somewhere if there was a straight LoS to there where he could normally walk to without making any turns. Ancient Kaa for instance had an open doorway near him that lead to a room where he would be protected from practically all shots from my Hydra yet he never landed there. Had he been standing perfectly in front of the door and his chosen destination was in that room, then I think that he would have landed there.

I decided to test this theory on the ape. I noticed a small hut near the entrance and proceeded to secure it and the surrounding area. The hut was the smallest variety in the Kurast area. It had 2 entrances, one in the southwest and another in the southeast. I then lured the ape towards it. It was slow going though because my (dumb) merc was continuously freezing it. I had to port occasionally just to interfere with my mercs "efforts" to kill it. When we were near the hut, I let my merc keep him busy while I set up the pets. I then ported in place so that my merc was standing in the hut with me. The ape entered and I ported over the north corner wall. After a few seconds, the ape started teleporting like crazy but he died soon afterwards. He never escaped the tiny hut.

Although I probably had been taking advantage of this before, knowing about this fact removed a lot of apprehensions I had about teleporting bosses from then on.

As if to celebrate this realization, Murphy made it so that the other 2 bosses in the area were teleport enchanted as well. I routinely trapped them in small enclosed areas with my pets and they both fell quickly.

Addendum: Additional testing with a bowazon plus, a now remembered encounter with a teleporting beetle in the maggot's lair and some other people's accounts of teleporting bosses landing in out-of-bounds locations indicate that this theory isn't airtight. There may be a pattern on where they will land or are influenced by your location relative to them. More study is needed here. As far as Zophiel was concerned however, her experience has been consistent with the theory (i.e. when teleporting monsters were trapped somewhere, they stayed there until death).

Tree lurkers were a pain as usual but my merc's cold spells made it easier.

By the time I had cleared the Kurast Bazaar area, my experience was about 98% full. Though the hour was late, I figured that clearing the next temple would gain me another level and I'd call it a night. Murphy had other ideas. The Disused Fane temple had a stair trap but I was able to recover for a while. It had fire resistant Wailing Beasts and spiders. Thinning out the numerous beasts around the entrance area with Hydra was slow. I wasn't dropping monsters fast enough and I got overwhelmed. Considering how close I was to leveling up, I was fuming at this. This wasn't a good state of mind to have as recovery efforts resulted in another death. I suffered a third death clearing out the rest of the place. My experience bar was reduced to 75% full. To say I was furious was an understatement. That combined with a weary mind due to the lateness of the hour pushed me to try and clear the Ruined Temple so that I could release this frustration. The results of that were interesting.

Well the configuration of the temple was as follows:

Wailing Beasts, Spider Magi, and a teleporting boss spider (Stone Tongue) were present in the hallway in front of the entrance. My semi-crazed state gave me some courage despite this. I cast 3 Hydras in front of the entrance and proceeded to teleport to the southwestern end of that hallway (the hallway is area A on the map) where I cast more Hydras there. I basically ran/ported to either end while leading my numerous pursuers close to my pets. I'd refresh the Hydras as necessary all the while. Eventually I'd run out of mana so I'd just exit the temple while my pursuers parked themselves at the stairs. :p I used the nearby waypoint to refresh my mana. Then, again in my semi-crazed state, I'd go back to the temple fully expecting an ambush. Surprisingly, even though I saw my pursuers approach the stairs as I exited the temple, they weren't there when I returned. They had moved somewhere near the center of the hallway. Anyway, I just repeated the whole process again and occasionally exited the temple when mana was low. Much to my surprise, they all eventually fell save for the boss spider; and I didn't die. I parked him there while I went to area C where Sarina was and set up a trap in the north corner after which, I'd port over to area B.

After she died, I tried to lead Stone Tongue to area D but it was difficult to maneuver and keep him there. So I battled him mostly in area B. When he was sufficiently damaged, the "run away" routine in his AI kicked in. I got lucky and he retreated into area D where I flooded the room with Hydra from B. He teleported as expected but he always landed within area D so eventually, my babies got him.

This entire dungeon encounter was noteworthy because it went against the cautious tone I usually employed in my strategies (aside from the tank/Inferno maneuver). The recklessness of my actions here in my semi-crazed state paid off. Though I was still about 75% full in my experience bar, I ended that session on a high note.

I cleared out the bazaar again in order to recoup my lost experience during my next session. I then proceeded to upper Kurast and cleared it. I did this before redoing the Disused Fane and Ruined Temple because I wanted to level up. Upon leveling up, I pondered on what attribute to raise. I had been raising energy since I last raised my strength to 110. I thought back on Sirian's Hotfoot and remembered that she had less mana than I did. Of course her warmth was better and how she used her mana was different than mine. But I felt confident that if Sirian could work with Hotfoot's smaller mana pool, then I could live with what I had. So I stopped raising energy and started raising vitality.

I then returned to the Ruined Temple and repeated the "semi-crazed" strategy I used the last time I was there. It still worked. Emboldened by this, I next tried to figure out how to beat the Disused Fane temple where I died 3 times. I remembered Sirian's account of a temple he entered where the whole area was packed with monsters as far as the eye could see. I pondered that problem and thought that if the monsters were there, surely the back rooms would be near empty. From this I reasoned that the presence of a stair trap (i.e. monsters near the stairs) may mean that the back rooms were (near) empty. Upon entry into the Fane, I was accosted by a flesh hunter boss and her goons. I immediately ported (blindly) in the direction of where I remembered the back rooms were. It worked out well as I ended up in an empty room where I had some foothold. Some monsters I had awakened while porting there were able to follow me into that room but they were easily disposed off. That room was also an ideal place to set up a trap so I had no problems clearing the temple.

I applied this same principal on the other temples. If no one greeted me at the stairs, then I'd proceed as normal. If it was a stair trap, then I'd blindly teleport to the room farthest from the entrance which was hopefully empty and work my way to clearing the temple from there. I'd done this on all temples and then I did it again once more for all six just to test it out. So far it worked on all tries. I didn't bother to recreate new temple maps though so your mileage may vary (YMMV) if you try this.

The sewers were one place I didn't like much because it was dark and huge. It was an excellent place for trapping though. There were Undead Flayers there but it was a simple matter to port over a canal and let my pets deal with them. Icehawk Riftwing had teleportation so I had to lure him out of that wide open area he usually haunted. I lured him to where the X structures were (to impede on his teleportation) and summoned my pets. His death frost nova got me though. Due to my terrible cold resistance, it did a large amount of damage to my full health. Idly hovering my cursor over my life ball, I found that I had 8 points left. Investing the 5 vitality points during my last level up and the 5 more from Lam Esen's quest had given me an extra 20 points in life. The investments saved my life (Oooooohhh).

I woke up late one morning so I didn't have time to clear any area before I had to go to work. I just spent the time I had doing gambling runs. I don't really do gambling runs as I prefer to just visit them whenever I'm in town but that was all the time I had for. I gambled for Nightsmoke but when a ring showed up, I couldn't help but go for it. I got the following belt and the SoJ.

Since both my current rings were crucial for my resistances, I just kept the SoJ in my backpack. Oh well, it was my first SoJ and I finally had it. The belt gave me better lightning resistance so I replaced my current belt with it. It brought my DR down some and was only 3 rows but I just lived with it since resistance was more of a concern with me now.

Travincal was a challenge. I hated Heirophants. They were problematic as they attacked with both lightning and cold: 2 areas where I had poor resistance to (about 55 for lightning and 6 for cold). I dealt with them by stacking 3 Hydras on their position before making a hasty retreat. They were usually dead by the time my babies were done. Did I mention that I hated the Heirophants? Well there was a boss Heirophant with his minions there too. I employed that same strategy I used on the ordinary ones. It was slower with them though because they would heal each other as well as teleport. They never give chase so trapping wasn't a viable option. After a while though, they had teleported so much that they ended up far apart from each other. It was easy to deal them now because I took them down one at a time.

And then came Ismail Vilehand. The only notable enchantment he had that worried me was "magic resistance".

Although Travincal had some places that could serve as trap areas, they weren't as confined as I wanted them to be. The more confined the trap area was the less movement my opponent would make; thus, the more effective my babies were. More effective babies means taking down the prey quickly; and taking down Vilehand quickly with his healing and magic resistance was the order of the day. A small enclosed structure, platform, peninsula or dead end was more confining than a corner; which in turn was more confining than the side of a wall or river. Travincal had corners that served as trap areas but they weren't too confining in my assessment for this particular battle. They served well in previous difficulty levels, but now, I knew that they wouldn't be enough.

So I lead him to upper Kurast where I had located 2 small buildings to use as traps. The first building was a very small one that had an entrance to the southwest and an ivy-covered entrance on the southeast. One can't pass through the ivy-covered entrance but one can cast/shoot through it. I lead Vilehand here where my pets waited and ported outside. Vilehand demonstrated his superior usage of Hydra by casting it through walls. I simply retreated a bit further from him and waited. He surprised me some more by casting another Hydra on me. I was surprised because my distance from him was almost 2 screens away. Anyway, I went back to him to cast another wave of Hydras through the ivy-covered entrance before retreating again. The small building seemed a poor choice as a trap area because it was too small and he could usually find the entrance even if I was standing outside the opposite wall. I had to lead him back there every now and then. I eventually gave up on that place though because he had escaped more often than I liked. All this time, he had been healing himself so he still had over 80% of his life. The next building I lead him to was bigger but still cramped. This one he never escaped from and I put my pets to work. His healing and his resistance forced me to recast Hydra a lot. Since the trap area was enclosed by walls, I couldn't recast from a safe place. I had to lure him out, park him outside, recast Hydra, and lure him back in. After about 30 minutes, I saw that he still had full health on. I changed my strategy by attempting to tank while my pets went to work (if he's attacking me, he's not healing himself was my train of thought). Several deaths showed me that my DR (at 1800+) wasn't sufficient enough for this maneuver. I decided to change venue. Next to the upper Kurast waypoint was a Kurast pyramid. The top was ideal because I could easily recast Hydras there from the safety of the surrounding area. The top also had this stone structure (an altar?) that further impeded movement. Best of all was that there was a well north of it. I proceeded to punish Vilehand with my babies there. After casting as much as I could, I'd hit the well, cast another wave of Hydras, empty the rest of the well, then cast a third wave. The well was nice in that it didn't take long for it to recharge. Vilehand took his lumps, but he was still healing himself. I repeated this process whenever there was something in the well so that for the entire time, there was at least 5 Hydras present (not sure of the count as they were stacked). He'd cast Hydras of his own but they weren't a problem for me. Near maxed resistance plus dodging plus healing whenever I hit the well made this a minor annoyance. After about half an hour more of this relentless punishment, he was still in good health.

I pondered this. Sirian had given up when he met a similar situation and just bypassed them. I didn't have that option as Vilehand had the flail. Anyway I did have something he didn't have: 10 unspent skill points. I had given up the notion of raising ES because of the problem I was having with it (i.e. unwanted discharging at glancing blows). I had also given up the thought of raising CA. By my calculations, raising it to my targeted +100% DR would give me about 400 to 500 more DR. That's not bad but the price would be 9 skill points. Too rich for my blood. So I had more or less settled on the idea of dividing the 10 points between Inferno and Hydra bringing both to 16(+3). The Izual quest reward would also be divided between the 2. That settled, I spent 5 more points on Hydra. I continued my assault on Vilehand and after about 10 more minutes he was still in good health. I was frustrated now. It seemed that more was needed. After all the time spent on this, I wanted nothing more than to bring him down. I maxed Hydra with 4 points and spent the last point I had on Inferno. I continued my relentless assault on him and NOTHING! NADA! ZIP! Nothing had changed as he was still in good health after another 10 minutes. I worked my brain further on this problem when I remembered the SoJ. It would give me 24 level Hydras and boost my mana past 600. Still more time passed as I continued my relentless attack with 24 level Hydras. Still he was resilient. After what seemed an eternity, I finally started to consider the options I didn't want to consider: Static or restarting the game. One was as undesirable as the other for me. But what could I do? He was already being relentlessly assaulted by a 24 level 30th level skill with no results whatsoever. I wrestled with these ideas for a while when the unexpected happened: Ismail Vilehand finally keeled over.

Note the overlay map to get a clearer idea of the battlefield's layout. I was lucky to get that kind of a layout.

I'm not sure what happened here as I was lost in my thoughts when it happened. And the only reason I noticed it happen was because my pets became quiet all of a sudden. I was relieved more than anything so I took my spoils and proceeded to engage Geleb Flamefinger.

It was difficult to ascertain which fight took longer between him and Vilehand. Being fire enchanted meant maxed fire resistance. I lead him back to the same spot where I fought Vilehand and proceeded with the same strategy. This time I made sure that I was absolutely relentless with him (I went back to town on occasion through the nearby waypoint when I needed a break from Vilehand because the fight was mentally exhausting). This time, I didn't return to town anymore and I made sure that there were always Hydras assaulting him non-stop.

After a while, lag got bad so I retreated a bit to get rid of the blood splotches. That cleared it up and lag returned to normal. I did this whenever lag got bad but after a while, his name disappeared when I highlighted him followed by his enchantments, then his life bar. Leaving the screen wasn't helping anymore and the frames-per-second (fps) was dropping but still playable. I wouldn't relent though so I kept up the attack for several minutes. All the while, I had no idea what his health was. I retreated back to town though when it got so bad I couldn't highlight the well anymore. On my return, the well was selectable, the fps was normal, and he had more than 75% health.

I started the assault again and after some time, the well was no longer selectable again. On my second return from town, I didn't attack. I considered using Static again while I watched him. Almost 4 hours were spent fighting him and Vilehand alone and I was mentally exhausted. As I pondered this, he kept strutting back and forth across the top of the pyramid without attacking as if saying to me "Bring it on!". Finally I just resumed the assault, going to the well twice and just watching him. I wasn't expecting anything so I idly observed the rate at which his life bar dropped. It looked like it would drain in around 7 seconds from full to empty; a far cry from the 2-second drop Sirian got with firewall (FW). I despaired a bit about how this level of Hydra could still seem inadequate. Fixing it so that FM worked with Hydra might solve it but that wasn't an option then. Hydra performed excellently with normal monsters and the other bosses (even before maxing it and without the FM benefits), but it didn't seem up to snuff with these guys. I continued thinking along these lines as I watched his life bar dip below 20%. When it went below 10%, I snapped out of it because something was really amiss. Ever since my return, he hadn't cast a single Hydra, nor had he tried to heal himself. As his life bar continued to dip, the part of Flamefinger's AI that told him to retreat kicked in and he started limping towards the far corner of the pyramid's top. I couldn't let this opportunity go so I ported to where my pets were. My presence seemed to attract him because he started heading towards me. I ported back to the ground as he ended up at the center of my babies' fury. He exploded a second after that.

Again, I'm not sure what happened there. Why did he stop? Somewhere inside me was the hope that the programmers were playing fair and implemented them in such a way so that they had a limited mana pool or that they could only use their spells for a limited number of times. I have no concrete answers though; just this anecdote.

Toorc Icefist was next and he had magic resistance (grrreat). Flamefinger's death had given me renewed energy though. I proceeded to lure him to the same spot where the other council members fell and proceeded with my usual strategy there. He didn't put up much of a fight though. He only let loose one casting of Hydra before he croaked. "Why?" I thought. The sandman came a-calling so I didn't think about it much. I knew though that I didn't want to go through that again any time soon. So I pressed on planning to quit when I located the Level 2 Durance of Hate waypoint. The only monsters I worried about in the Durance were the Stygian Dolls and the fire resistant Warped Ones. Thankfully, neither were there. I had hired another cold sorc and clearing levels 1 and 2 was easy. Compared to the last 4 hours, everything was easy. ;)

The next morning (actually... about 5 hours later), I decided to finish Act 3. The stairs down to level 3 were a teleport away from the waypoint. As I'd feared, my merc awakened far more monsters than I wanted to. He died quickly while I salvaged the situation with level 23 Hydras (I replaced SoJ with the Grim Knot ring as it gave me more resistance to fire and lightning).

My pets taking care of Bremm while I hide behind the wall.

I had employed the same strategy I had used in nightmare for handling the council members. Although they had healing and teleportation among them, none were resistant to fire or magic. I simply used the same trap area for Bremm as I always do. It took a while but he eventually fell. Since the other two weren't LEBs, I trapped them (one at a time of course) in another area. If we once again think of the pool in the main room as shaped like a man, I'd trap them between the legs while I'd stay in front of the southwest room casting Hydras. They'd cast Hydras of their own though so I would retreat to the farthest wall of the southwest room. Eventually though, I noticed that every time I did this, my babies would immediately expire. WTHeck?! I remembered Jarulf mentioning that places like towns, though one region, were still divided into several areas. I figured the third level of the Durance was also divided like that and that I had crossed a boundary whenever I retreated to the farthest southwestern wall. This in turn would cause my babies to expire. After that, I just hung around the main area and dodged their Hydras. Unlike the Travincal council members, they didn't take long to die. It looked like I wouldn't have to call in sick that day after all. ;p Mephisto was again a pushover. My babies brought him down with little fanfare.

Act 4. I still had no Nightsmoke, my fire resistance was okay, my lightning resistance was so-so, while the rest where in the single digits. I still had 1 imbue left but I couldn't decide what to use it on. I didn't like the resistances of my crown but it was one of the few items giving me cold and poison resistance. I was still holding out for Nightsmoke so the belt was out. I thought about boots but my current one sufficed. I decided not use it anymore so I proceeded as is.

The steppes had Vile mothers, Cliff Lurkers and Venom Lords. I tried a one-on-one tank/Inferno on one of the Venom Lords and it wasn't bad. He swung slowly so I wasn't in danger of continuous stun-lock and he missed every now and then. His Inferno breath would trigger my CA further slowing him down. One-on-one, I'd always win. Since one-on-one was rarely the case however, I relied on Hydra almost exclusively in the whole of Act 4. The Cliff Lurkers slowed me down a lot but after the plains, the pace picked up somewhat. The Lurkers were replaced by Abyss Knights in the plains. I'd stack 3 Hydras on a knight's location. Despite the knight's fire resistance, 2 castings would suffice at 20(+3) level but I preferred the rate of fire from 9 heads as opposed to 6. The mana drain took some adjusting to. I had been scouting for good trap areas for Izual while exploring the plains so that when I finally met him, I just lead him there and he went down without touching me. I invested the reward points on Inferno.

The City of the Damned was interesting. The area seemed darker than I remembered it from the previous difficulty levels. In fact, the Tainted Sun, Act 1 dungeons and night times seemed darker than I recall from previous difficulty levels. Perhaps the higher difficulty level reduces light radius in addition to lowering resistances and raising the monsters' speed.

Anyway, there were Venom Lords, Corpse Spitters, and Stygian Hags (Vile mother type). I died about 3 times here due to the Stygian Dogs (Vile baby type). They were small and dark colored so after a wild skirmish, I'd usually fail to notice them until they attacked me. What made it worse was these things always seem to hit me. Since they had a very fast attack rate, they'd easily get me in a stun-lock. An armor shrine boosted my DR to 4000+ and the babies didn't hit me anymore while it was in effect so I enjoyed my Inferno for a while.

I ended up moving very cautiously in this region though by using my Hydras as scouts before exploring a new area.

The RoF had Abyss Knights, Urdars and Corpse Spitters. The knights were the biggest threat here but I had some practice with them in the plains. I also tried several one-on-one Inferno fights with Urdars. They usually had time for only one swing before they keeled over. Hephasto was near the RoF waypoint which was good. I wanted to use the area between that and the CS as my trap area for him. The confined space of some of the platforms there would hamper any teleport enchantments he had. LEB would be the only problem but I decided that keeping my distance would suffice. He had neither though so he again fell easily.

The CS had a boss Storm Caster guarding it. Not only was he a Storm Caster, he was LEB as well.

Storm Casters were a big problem for me for the following reasons: The first was because they're fire resistant. The second was because their average hit points was the highest in Act 4, Because of these two factors, Inferno was not an option for me so it had to be Hydra. The third was since there were no enclosed/walled areas in the RoF, I had been relying on the river itself to serve as the barrier that would separate me from the monsters while my pets went to work. Storm Casters would not be stopped by the river so there was effectively no place on the RoF to trap them; or so I thought. The closest thing to a wall that I could find was the wall behind the hell forge which was thankfully nearby. I fumbled around a bit using the wall as cover from the sparks he set off every time he got hit by my pets. It wasn't long before this lucky thing happened.

Both of them and I were close to each other and the wall was between us. Both Storm Casters, sensing that I was in attack range started attacking with their mana draining spell even though there was a wall between us. As long as I didn't move and stayed that close to them, they'd keep on attacking without moving themselves. It was a simple matter to cast, from where I stood, Hydras that could work on them while they "attacked" me. I was worried that their "chicken out when about to die" AI routine would kick in but it never did. Subsequent battles with Storm Casters showed that they would never run away as long as I was within attack range and they were in "attack mode".

Oblivion Knights weren't that big of a nuisance. I'd again stack 3 Hydras on their location and since they didn't move so much, they died while I stayed safely out of range. The Storm Casters were the biggest problem for me there but I was able to find a buttress in the CS that served the same purpose as the wall behind the hell forge. As long as I was near the Caster with the buttress between us it would attack and keep still for my pets while the buttress protected me from its attacks.

For the 3 CS bosses, I took out a page from Sirian's report. I'd set up a town portal and enter it after opening the seal that releases the bosses and make my way back there from the RoF waypoint. The Vizier was first. Because Storm Casters were my biggest problem there, I approached cautiously luring out his minions one at a time and leading them to the buttress where I dealt with them in the same fashion as I had the other Storm Casters. Finally, it came to the Vizier.

As can be seen here, he had teleportation and he started using it immediately. Unlike other teleporting bosses who'd only start teleporting when injured, this one started teleporting like crazy for no reason at all. He would, for instance, approach me and then teleport while I just stood there doing nothing. Thinking back on nightmare, I realized that the Infector behaved like this as well when he had teleportation. It seems the CS bosses have a different AI for teleportation than those used by ordinary bosses.

I panicked a bit (and died) because I couldn't figure out how to bring him down. I thought the buttress trick wouldn't work on him because of his teleportation but I was wrong. When he was near me with the buttress between us, he attacked non-stop just like the others. He did, however teleport when his health went down so I had to adjust my strategy a little. If he landed somewhere on his side of the buttress, then I'd just wait because his aggressive AI would lead him back to that very same spot where we would just continue our little dance. If he ported on my side, I'd just port to the other side and continue. If he landed southeast of the buttress, then I'd just do some fancy footwork and teleporting in order to maneuver ourselves so that the buttress was between us again. I returned to town for a mana refill and when I got back, he seemed all "ported out". That's because he didn't teleport again after I continued with the strategy so he eventually exploded.

For the Infector, I decided not risk any contact with him or his minions so I lead them to the platforms in front of the CS and set my babies upon them.

For Lord De Seis, I took another page from Sirian and cast my pets over the gaps. Setting up the first wave of Hydras was dicey because he and his minions all shot at me at the same time. I got reduced to a sliver of life left but I survived. Subsequent castings were easier. De Seis fell to this onslaught. I would have taken a screen shot but I never saw De Seis.

Taking yet another page from Sirian, I flooded the pentagram with Hydras before I opened the last seal. When I got back though, all my babies had expired. I think that I had crossed over to another area when I opened the last seal in the Vizier's area.

It didn't matter though as I took one last page from his book by using the corner for protection from Diablo's attacks while my pets went to work.

I always wondered what corner amazons talked about when they said they used it together with guided arrow and now I know. Like Sirian's experience with this strategy, I too had an easy time with this. I did take damage once though because his lava flow attack somehow managed to snake through the corner but I survived. Other than that, he never got me and he fell within a minute's time.

His drop consisted of: a magical war sword, a magical sharktooth armor, and a unique giant axe (Humongous).

Success.

The plan I laid out for her carried me through to the end, though it didn't turn out exactly as I had planned then.

My DR wasn't as high as I planned since I replaced my rare war belt with a rare belt and my boots weren't war boots. 1800+ DR though was sufficient enough for my playing style. It allowed me to tank a bit and take more chances even in Hell Act 4. And a shield isn't necessary for a sorceress.

Inferno was, as expected, unsuited for Hell Act 4 for the most part but it had its moments even there. Throughout her whole career, I'd say that it was used over 85% of the time so it isn't even close to being a bad/useless skill. One must work with its nuances though in order for it to be effective.

Hydras performed as expected. The unique delivery of attack of this skill emphasized tactical mastery more than any other skill I've tried (including those of other classes).

ES disappointed me with the unwanted discharging in the end but despite that, I think it helped me survive. You can really feel it working when hit by the Undead Knight's projectiles. It's hard for me to give this an enthusiastic recommendation though. One could work around this by keeping it off if the monsters in the area are mainly meleers in hell difficulty. It works fine otherwise.

CA wasn't my original cold armor of choice but I found it useful with archers and the like. The DR boost is slightly lower than Shiver Armor (SA) but one can easily live with it.

TK was a surprise. It ended up being more useful than I thought. Opening containers with it helped minimize trap damage. Opening doors from a safe distance saved me from nasty ambushes. And the "TKing monsters away from me while my Hydras roasted them" helped save me a lot of time and running. Though unreliable, one can easily make allowances for it. I highly recommend using TK in this fashion though it's best used one-on-one.

Teleport. This was probably the most important spell I had. It got me out of jams and the improved mobility it gave me was crucial in implementing most of my tactics.

My hotkey set up was:

Q - Static (mostly unused)
W - Town Portal
E - Chilling Armor
R - Energy Shield
A - Telekinesis
S - Glacial Spike/Enchant/Thunder Storm (basically an unused spare)
D - Hydra
F - Teleport

Inferno was permanently set on the left mouse button. My hand rested on the D and F keys because these were the 2 most important spells I would be switching between 98% of the time. Q and S weren't really used so I basically only had 6 hot keys. This was the smallest number of hotkeys I'd ever had with any characters. Considering A, D and F were the only ones used during combat situations, I only had to switch between 3 keys which, compared to my necro for instance who switched between all 8, was more efficient. I felt that I was more effective in a fight when I switched between only 2 skills instead of 8 because it allowed me to focus more on the fight and not which skill I should use or where it was. YMMV but I think it's generally true that the less skill switching you do in combat, the more effective you are.

I don't know whether Nightsmoke would have helped with the ES problem or not since I never got it.

The only discernable weakness she has is cold resistance and to a lesser degree, lightning resistance at 6 and 55 respectively. I had -175% total poison length reduction so it didn't matter that my poison resistance was only 4. The upcoming 5th act would take place in the northern lands so I expect most monsters there would be cold resistant and cold using. It should be interesting.

Hit recovery is also weak. All I had was "fast". Although I made it through with that, I'd still prefer at least "fastest".

Zophiel will enter semi-retirement until the expansion comes out because I want to try the other classes again. I'll definitely start another sorceress somewhere down the line because I want to try out Meteor. I tried it a bit when I found a staff that had it. FUN FUN FUN!!

I have to say that despite some aggravating moments in her career, I had a blast with her. You rock, Baroness! :)

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