Irene, the Infirm

[MongoJerry]

IRENE: THE FORGOTTEN TOWER



With some trepidation, Irene and Aliza entered the Forgotten Tower. The entrance room of the Tower Cellar Level 1 was empty, but past the first doorway, they found an unpleasant welcoming committee -- a ghost boss pack. (I must admit that I probably have an outsized fear of ghosts than most people right now after playing Maldar for so long). The boss was fire enchanted and even the minions hit hard. What's more, ghosts have natural mana burn attacks, and I could see the characteristic orange swirl showing that they were being healed every time they hit Irene. They didn't heal when they attacked Aliza, though, because she had no mana to steal.

It was difficult to fight the minions even two at a time, and it was impossible to fight the boss while there were any other monsters present. Luckily, ghosts move slowly, so their packs are easy to break up. Irene and Aliza ran back and forth between three rooms in order to break up the pack and find any possible two-on-one fights (Irene and Aliza on one ghost). After some time, they managed to kill all of the minions and began working on the boss. Irene had to quaff a lot of healing potions while she tanked and had to back off frequently to give her life ball time to recharge, but in the end they successfully defeated the boss.

There were also some normal devilkins and dark archers on Level 1, but they were dispatched much more quickly. In the process, Aliza turned level 9. Irene and Aliza then stepped down into Level 2.



Sheesh, what is this? A ghost boss convention? This might enchanted boss was even nastier than the fire enchanted ghost boss. To make matters worse, as Irene and Aliza ran back and forth between rooms to break up the pack, they woke up a separate group of normal ghosts. Our heroines ran deeper into the Tower Cellar Level 2 to try to find some room to work with. They ended up finding rooms with normal blood clans and dark archers. They were able to deal with those monster packs easily.

In the process, they found the stairs down to Level 3, and Aliza wanted to go down and leave the ghosts behind, but Irene said, "Nah, we can do it." "Yeah, you're right," said Aliza. With more room to work with, it was easier to divide the horde of ghosts. First, the normal ghosts were dispatched and then the minions. All that remained was the boss himself.



Irene and Aliza tried the standard practice of having Irene tank with Aliza shooting from behind, but the might enchanted boss hit too hard for that. Even with potions, Irene could take at most two hits before she was forced to retreat, causing Aliza to move and giving the boss the opportunity to heal. In addition, if the boss attacked Irene, he could heal himself with his natural mana burn ability.

So Aliza and Irene switched. Irene fed potions to Aliza while Aliza tanked, and that worked well. They got the boss down to 1/3rd of his life when Irene started running out of potions, so they returned to town to refresh potions. When they returned, they planned to do the same thing, but they couldn't get the system set up again. (The boss hadn't healed while they were in town). Every time the boss attacked Aliza, Aliza would retreat and the boss would start attacking Irene instead. Irene ran around and around the room trying to get everything setup, but Aliza stubbornly wouldn't cooperate. The boss completely healed himself. Irene and Aliza returned to town again to talk things over.

(At this point, I minimized the Diablo II window and looked at the screenshot above to see how the heck I had gotten things to work the first time). They returned to the Tower, and this time Aliza backed herself up against the health shrine in the center of the room, and Irene moved to the opposite side of the shrine. When the ghost boss attacked Aliza from below, Aliza found her back against the shrine and she showed more backbone. With Irene feeding her potions, Aliza finally took the ghost boss down.

The Tower Cellar Level 3 had a boss dark archer pack and normal devilkins and blood clans. These were all fairly straightforward to deal with. The dark archer boss was mana burn enchanted and once again, she healed every time she hit Irene. There's no doubt in my mind now that this whole mana burn converts to life leech thing is a real effect.



The Tower Cellar Level 4 had a cold enchanted blood clan boss pack and normal archers. The archers were taken out quickly. The blood clan minions were a little harder to deal with, because they ran so fast, making the pack hard to break up. But eventually, Irene and Aliza took out the minions and started to work on the boss.

Irene tried tanking the boss, but he hit too hard for that. Aliza tried tanking, and even though she was able to tank the boss when well supplied with potions, the plan didn't work. Since the boss was cold enchanted, Aliza would get chilled and would fire at such a slow rate that the boss healed faster than she could damage him. They then tried the "Griswold Maneuver" where Irene would run around the boss while Aliza shot at him from a distance. But the boss ran and attacked so fast that Irene kept getting pummeled. They tried positioning themselves behind various fixtures -- behind a casket, behind candles, etc. --, but the boss always found a way to get to them. Run-and-shoot tactics didn't work, either, because the boss healed too fast. After fifteen minutes of trying, Irene and Aliza finally had to concede that there was no way to kill this boss. Disappointed, they took the stairs to Level 5 to find the Countess.

(*Sigh* Too bad. As unrealistically crazy as it sounds, I really wanted to keep the "full clear" theme going. It's funny. I had always figured that the first boss I'd have to park would be lightning enchanted. I hadn't considered how cold enchanted bosses would slow Irene and Aliza down).

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