03-27-2004, 09:48 AM
A friend of mine (a long time lurker, won't post a thing though (maybe this will finally persuade him)) and myself decided to try out almost naked rogues.
His build: any vanilla bow, any magic book or spell he can read with natural magic (i.e. no Teleport). Clvl 22.
My parasitic build: vanilla short bow, scrolls only. Clvl 21.
No other equipment is allowed.
We've already made a couple of Laz runs prior to last night's game, basically just to see how long it would take us. It took long enough that we knew we couldn't attempt to get a dot without Telekinesis. It would just take forever, and that gets tiring a bit. But last night he wasn't that far from leveling up which allowed him to reach the 33 magic points requirement. Off we went.
Level 13 was a breeze, we found stairs very soon. Lava maws, snow witches and succubi made for a pretty easy level.
Level 14 was a bit more tedious, with a couple of deaths on my part. Vortex lords and snow witches. Love the witches, hate the balrog types. Their prancing around makes them difficult to hit, but fortunately we had a nice long corridor that saved my butt at least one time when we got split up when we activated a large bunch. If it wasn't for his slvl 1 firewall, it would be a very long level. Of course, vortex lords are fire immune, but at least witches dropped fairly easily. We cleared about 1/3 of the level before finding the stairs down. I leveled up to 22 on the level.
Level 15, and a good layout. We started out a couple of paces from old Laz's chamber. Enemies weren't that bad either: snow witches (again) and steel lords. A major improvement from the vortex lords. At least they walk in a straight line so we could fell them fairly easily. Our first volley of arrows into the lair of Laz brought out one of the hell spawns. Next it was Blackjade's and Red Vex's turn, might have been an advocate there as well. Then my friend activated Laz and IIRC all 3 advocates teleported themselves around the entrance to Laz's room. I positioned myself so that they couldn't hit me, but I could hit them and they dropped like flies. Strong flies. Took a couple of arrows, but they mostly just stood in place till they got killed. I won't complain.
Laz himself was a tough cookie. One of his fireballs hit me when I was at full health and almost knocked me over. I guess I was lucky. What with the fireball bug, a good roll could kill me. We did manage to clear out his room though, and my friend leveled to 23. TK time! He walked around a bit and noticed the pentagram right across the wall in the quadrant to the SW to Lazarus' nest, and we trod carefully, ready to dispatch any and all foes that would try to prevent us from reaching dlvl 16. We might as well ran because all we meet was a single steel lord and a stray snow witch or two.
Level 16. The bad layout. A long vertical corridor down the middle. Actually, it turned out pretty well because there weren't that many nasty packs of advocates. Usually, with the wide open space in the "corridorless" map, you get annoying packs of 3-5 advos that just tear everything with no resists apart. We didn't get that.
We did manage to die a few times though. But eventually we cleared everything around the third switch room and DeeDee's room as well. My friend flipped the switches and went off, hugging the southern wall, to wake up the Dark Lord. I forgot to move into a corner at once so I might have snafu'd the attempt by preventing a couple of FW's being cast. We died.
Waking up in town, I stupidly charged back down again. Reaching the dlvl, I thought it would be wise to look for a nice place for a new TP. It wasn't. Diablo came charging at me. I tried desperately to cast a new TP, but before I knew it, I was dead again, bringing Diablo right to my friend's TP. Talk about stupid. My friend was greeted by the horned one as soon as he stepped out of his TP, but managed to escape and finish off Diablo, earning the dot.
We did die quite a few times during that game, but it's not as if we didn't expect it. A great success would be doing it without TK & FW, but that would take forever. With our damage being around 20 on average, Diablo would take ~90 hits, without regeneration. Since we'd very likely die once every couple of arrows, it would be a very long night. I'm not sure about when we'll attempt the second dot. We might just go straight for a 3@30 (not solo, but still).
I can't see us doing that without stone curse, though. Even with maxed str and dex, our damage would be around 45-50. It is certainly possible though, and I just might give it a solo shot eventually.
All in all, this was among my most rewarding Diablo kills ever.
His build: any vanilla bow, any magic book or spell he can read with natural magic (i.e. no Teleport). Clvl 22.
My parasitic build: vanilla short bow, scrolls only. Clvl 21.
No other equipment is allowed.
We've already made a couple of Laz runs prior to last night's game, basically just to see how long it would take us. It took long enough that we knew we couldn't attempt to get a dot without Telekinesis. It would just take forever, and that gets tiring a bit. But last night he wasn't that far from leveling up which allowed him to reach the 33 magic points requirement. Off we went.
Level 13 was a breeze, we found stairs very soon. Lava maws, snow witches and succubi made for a pretty easy level.
Level 14 was a bit more tedious, with a couple of deaths on my part. Vortex lords and snow witches. Love the witches, hate the balrog types. Their prancing around makes them difficult to hit, but fortunately we had a nice long corridor that saved my butt at least one time when we got split up when we activated a large bunch. If it wasn't for his slvl 1 firewall, it would be a very long level. Of course, vortex lords are fire immune, but at least witches dropped fairly easily. We cleared about 1/3 of the level before finding the stairs down. I leveled up to 22 on the level.
Level 15, and a good layout. We started out a couple of paces from old Laz's chamber. Enemies weren't that bad either: snow witches (again) and steel lords. A major improvement from the vortex lords. At least they walk in a straight line so we could fell them fairly easily. Our first volley of arrows into the lair of Laz brought out one of the hell spawns. Next it was Blackjade's and Red Vex's turn, might have been an advocate there as well. Then my friend activated Laz and IIRC all 3 advocates teleported themselves around the entrance to Laz's room. I positioned myself so that they couldn't hit me, but I could hit them and they dropped like flies. Strong flies. Took a couple of arrows, but they mostly just stood in place till they got killed. I won't complain.
Laz himself was a tough cookie. One of his fireballs hit me when I was at full health and almost knocked me over. I guess I was lucky. What with the fireball bug, a good roll could kill me. We did manage to clear out his room though, and my friend leveled to 23. TK time! He walked around a bit and noticed the pentagram right across the wall in the quadrant to the SW to Lazarus' nest, and we trod carefully, ready to dispatch any and all foes that would try to prevent us from reaching dlvl 16. We might as well ran because all we meet was a single steel lord and a stray snow witch or two.
Level 16. The bad layout. A long vertical corridor down the middle. Actually, it turned out pretty well because there weren't that many nasty packs of advocates. Usually, with the wide open space in the "corridorless" map, you get annoying packs of 3-5 advos that just tear everything with no resists apart. We didn't get that.
We did manage to die a few times though. But eventually we cleared everything around the third switch room and DeeDee's room as well. My friend flipped the switches and went off, hugging the southern wall, to wake up the Dark Lord. I forgot to move into a corner at once so I might have snafu'd the attempt by preventing a couple of FW's being cast. We died.
Waking up in town, I stupidly charged back down again. Reaching the dlvl, I thought it would be wise to look for a nice place for a new TP. It wasn't. Diablo came charging at me. I tried desperately to cast a new TP, but before I knew it, I was dead again, bringing Diablo right to my friend's TP. Talk about stupid. My friend was greeted by the horned one as soon as he stepped out of his TP, but managed to escape and finish off Diablo, earning the dot.
We did die quite a few times during that game, but it's not as if we didn't expect it. A great success would be doing it without TK & FW, but that would take forever. With our damage being around 20 on average, Diablo would take ~90 hits, without regeneration. Since we'd very likely die once every couple of arrows, it would be a very long night. I'm not sure about when we'll attempt the second dot. We might just go straight for a 3@30 (not solo, but still).
I can't see us doing that without stone curse, though. Even with maxed str and dex, our damage would be around 45-50. It is certainly possible though, and I just might give it a solo shot eventually.
All in all, this was among my most rewarding Diablo kills ever.
"My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."
-- Ford Prefect
-- Ford Prefect