Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[MongoJerry]

The rerolled Halls of Vaught spawned with Arachs, Returned Archers, and Hell Temptresses. Hell Temptresses are physical immune, but I could deal with having one monster type that's physical immune. Taunt, War Cry, and Firewall easily took care of the Hell Temptresses, Returned Archers, and Arachs and after a small search, I finally found where Nihlathak was hiding.



I tp'd back to town and put on my Rising Sun amulet. Since corpse explosion partly involves fire damage, I figured it might help a little. Then I came back and drew away and killed all the monster minions in Nihlathak's main chamber. Taunt was very helpful with this as you can imagine. I also ran Find Item on all the bodies to make sure they couldn't be corpse exploded.

I then ran in to take on Nihlathak himself... and found that there was a group of four returned archers hiding in the back of the room. Abort! Abort! I Taunted them, led them out of the room, and ran Find Item on them, too.



Gunter had a much more difficult time with Nihlathak than Grizabella did. I think the reason for this is that for both of them, most of their power against individual targets comes from their mercenaries and Teleport is a huge advantage when one wants to quickly move one's mercenary and get him to attack a specific target. Every time Nihlathak teleported, it took time for both Gunter and his mercenary to respond. Meanwhile, Nihlathak had time to raise up a few minions who would then keep the mercenary busy and provide fodder for Nihlathak's corpse explosion.

The battle raged around the room. Sometimes, I managed to run Find Item on some of the corpses of the monsters my merc killed before Nihlathak cast his corpse explosion, but I still got hit with corpse explosion a few times and it did hurt. I had to back away a couple of times to heal myself with potions.



But through persistence and tenacity, Gunter did manage to take Nihlathak down.


Gunter killed Nihlathak and searched his body and the entire Temple. The Relic could not be found anywhere. He returned to Anya and told her all that had happened.

Anya said, "He must have already given the Relic to Baal. Now, Baal will not be tested when he reaches Arreat's summit. Damn Nihlathak!

"We have only one hope now. You must ascend Mount Arreat and take the test of the Ancients that will allow you to enter Mount Arreat and stop Baal before it's too late. The fate of our people and indeed the world rests in your hands."