Still Living off the Land

[Toverkol]

Hi again, I'm the fellow from the LoL rogue a few pages back, and i'm still having fun with the LoL variant.

I've recently started a LoL sorcerer, but i find it pretty hard. But more than that, i'm very much in doubt in how i should take this on.

It's especially about how to use my level-up points, normally i'd spend nearly all of it on magic, but the problem is that in starting up the character (i'm only just l4 right now) there is so few mana pots to be found that i'm not able to constantly use firebolts or charged bolts.
I'm wondering whether it's useful to spend several points on the physical stats, to be able to take on more monsters with a bow or stick. The standard starting package of a sorc has so few hps, dmg, to hit that it's very tedious taking on monsters in melee (even the zombies and FO's), and i'll have to because i run out of mana in no time if i use it to kill the enemies.

I;ve been looking around for any advice on this today, but couldn't really find useful information. First of all there don't seem very many sorcerers played in Ironman or LoL (i suppose Ironman strategy is somewhat comparable to LoL strategy) but more often the ironman sorcerers are played in a team, and since i play solo, there is no meat shield to allow me to put every point in magic.

Anyone around here know of a good faq/guide on solo LoL/Ironman sorcerers, or has some advice from their own?

[Jane]

I don't have any hands-on experience in this matter. I did use to play Ironman teamed with a sorcerer.

He seemed to rely on staves a lot. There is no rule preventing you from recharging them until they run dry, is there?

It does take some practice to recharge in a confrontation, but it is possible.
They do take up quite some inventory space, which may be a problem in LoL.

I'd try and get dex up to a point where you can use a basic bow that can do some damage, maybe hunters? With a bow you avoid taking hits from melee foes. There will be a lot of running away and lining up foes involved, but than again you have to do that using magic too, so you should be quite good at it ;-)

my two cents ..
have fun in LoL

[Hureg]

hi there.

I have a friend on europe gateway that made a sorceror[slol] who's in the low 30's. I forget his equipment, but i think maybe -light radius items, which would be a key in getting through say normal hell with a potion limit. To begin with, he added his points to dex and strength if i remember correctly. I could send you a link to a forum post but the particular forum is down at the moment. If i bump into him, i'll send him here to reply something.

My advice would be to play it really patiently. Leoric's going to be the easiest chance of decent items and your spell levels are obviously going to be vital. Firewall and Lightning both drop early enough so replaying late church early cats until you are kicking butt is going to probably be the go over attempting the harder foes of late cats and caves. As for staves, they should be used primarily on levels that you are out of your depth in, wasting a staff for a few potential good drops is always going to be a good trade off. Also, there handiness will be more evident when potions aren't dropping so readily. So i would think twice before wasting even say a nice 70+charge firebolt staff in church.

I very much enjoyed playing my SLoL warrior, who ended up as a mule :(, and my sorceror skills can definately do with some fine tuning for ironman, so i think i might give this a go. I'll let you know how i do, or if i get bored and give up :)

Also - just because you seem to be interested in pushing your sorceror to the max - http://p205.ezboard.com/fthedsfcommunityfr...picID=368.topic - marvel at the wonder that drags me through ironman games :)

Oh and Jane, if you are interested, i'm always looking for Ironman partners.

[Toverkol]

thanks, i'm having a hard time with it, some days ago i tried taking on the butcher, but ended up not having enough pots to take him down (and emptied two sbows n him) seems i'll have to skip him the coming time.

Mainly been spending my points on str & dex indeed, because it gives me less pain going trough the upper parts of church. Found a staff of Healing with a good amount of charges, which makes a lot of difference too.

But it's indeed slow going, much slower than my lol rogue (who is around 30 too)

First up, i think, is getting enough levels in HB to have a chance on Leo. (about 4 levels should do)

I play on europe too btw, the char is called toverlol (how original :)), i usually take a look in TLL and NLD 1 before playing, but since it's usually rather late (i'm a NightShifter) i dont meet many players there.

I'm making this log of this character btw, i'll upload it as soon as there's a real story to tell, and when the character has become a character, not a trial of an experiment ;)

[Scrape]

I'm making this log of this character btw, i'll upload it as soon as there's a real story to tell, and when the character has become a character, not a trial of an experiment ;)
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Good fortunes on your journey, Toverkol.

Keeping a log can be a good thing. I look forward to your story.

[Baceolus]

Hi,
my Sorcerer is clvl 32 now and still proceeding.
At the very beginning of this char, I used the Staff of CB and firebolts to lvl up fast. As far as I remember, I spend most of the lvl up points to magic (I rued this later on). To tell the truth: I didn't planned something special. Maybe thats why I handled to stupid.
After some trouble in dlvl 4 (nearly died ^^), I started a new game and continued in dlvl 1. That was the point I found out that a shield is the best melee weapon for a low lvl sorc. On the one hand it adds protection with Ac and block, on the other hand it lets you swing as fast as a warrior with a sword. So I leveled up to maybe clvl 10. I played the dungeons extremely often to get some pots.
Late on a friendly warrior (was it Hureg) gave me a Sword with some TH adder so I was able to do catas on my own using melee mostly. There I found a Shield with 30 AC and a realy nice plate so I had about 110 AC all in all (pretty much for such a low dlvl!). I leveled easily using Firewall in dlvl 13+. I didnt had to swing my weapon or something, just let the firewall do the work and stand still while 3 monsters attacked me ^^
20-30 was easy in NM mode, thou the time from 27 to 30 seemed to be endless. (30 to 32 in Hell mode dung ofc ^^)

All in all the sorcerer is a bad char for (S)LoL as the spells cost too much to used the all the time. But using melee mostly (with high AC only!) and Spells from all founed staffs its easy to get pots in the dungeons and go down to caves or hell to level there and get items.

[Jane]

Oh and Jane, if you are interested, i'm always looking for Ironman partners.
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Thnx for the offer Hureg. However, I don't play that much diablo anymore these days, as I'm pregnant and my baby does not appreciate me sitting at my desk long.

[Hureg]

wow! pregnent!

Good for you! There are rumours of a tournament in the summer ;). shame you will not be able to take part. If you know of any others with the time and experience be sure to send them here.

But pregnent is cool!

Hope all goes well!

And if you don't mind me prying, when are you due? is it a baby boy or a girl? and is it your first? How exciting!


If you are still after some d playing, i am happy to hell hell coop, meaning you can come and go as you please, still get a little d in your life, and can take full care of the baby, as required.

Diablo Le - on east, Diablo tll-1 on europe and Diablo jpn-1 on asia (though with japan, blink and you will miss us :).). Hope to see you around, and if not, then good luck with the pregnancy and the little beautiful baby that follows!

And who knows, maybe we can level to 50 together one day, though, you have to wait for me to catch up, 3 years seems a bit ambitious, i'll likely take another 10 years! :)

[Jane]

And if you don't mind me prying, when are you due? is it a baby boy or a girl? and is it your first? How exciting!

And who knows, maybe we can level to 50 together one day, though, you have to wait for me to catch up, 3 years seems a bit ambitious, i'll likely take another 10 years! :)
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I'm due May 8th. The baby is the first. I'll let you know what the sexe is when the baby is born ;-)
I need to move and get organized, so there won't be time for any D at all the next few months. An IM tournament during summer would be nice. I'll definitely follow up on that. Can't promise I'll play though. That kinda depends on how demanding the baby is :-)

The only people I know who play IM are Attika, Sabra and Orogion (all at Jim's), so I guess I don't have to point them in the right direction, they'll find out there. There is of course my D-partner, but he had been MIA for a few months now. I dunno whether he still plays. He's not your average IM-player. We like to charge ;-). I'm not getting my hopes up on seeing him at the D-scene anytime soon though.

As far as the 3 years is concerned. I think that won't work ... since I wrote that sig in april 2003 and I'm not even close. It has been ages since I played my main character. My last encounters with Diablo were IM games last year. I think Jane has not stretched her legs in about a whole year. I don't even remember her level. I think she is in her very mid 40's. So experiencewise that is not half way there ... Maybe a new partner will get the ball rolling again. My diablopartner leveled to 50 and switched to some IM. I joined him there and kinda forgot about Lady Jane.

[Toverkol]

update!
linky to log

[NatNit]

Thanks for this post and your updated log, Toverkol. :)

As a result of reading this, I started my own LoL mage on Sunday night, and he's doing quite well (hit 13 a little while ago). I'm having lots of fun, and thought I should thank you, at the very least. :)

Though I do have one question:

What do you guys think about res scrolls? Since there aren't many people around these days in channels, I tend to just carry around res scrolls, and burn them if I die. Generally, I keep one to two, just in case. I could keep going this way, or I could make a counter somewhere with each res scroll I find, and save inventory space. Either way would work, but I can't decide which way to go. :) Thanks for the advice.

--NatNit

P.S. If you want to join up for some LoL fun, my char name is NatAmused(LoL)

[Toverkol]

:) thanks for the praise.

Another update has been made, finally took the butcher and dl2. (scroll up for the linky)

My opinion on res scrolls, well, apart from the start i dont pay much attention to them, first i hauled them to town with the rest of the treasure, and later i started writing the down if i found them. But as soon as you can live trough the church (or probably even earlier) you will find enough res scrolls to reasonably die a lot, there's no need for writing down imho, since there are enough anyway, and in the
rare occasion that you'd need more than 6 or so, you're probably never going to
save your body anyway. (Damn stair surrounding Balrogs...)

As you probably noted, my charname is ToverLol, i'd gladly hook up with you if i come by you, i play on Europe. (you can also PM and we might set a date of course)

[Hureg]

Hey Nat -

What do you guys think about res scrolls? http://www.angelsofhell.com/lol.html

Shame that there aren't many players left - but i think the new game if dead is a good rule if you are looking for some sort of penalty, but if you aren't all that serious about it, your res solution seems like a good one. Another good rule i think that isn't fofund in the link is the coop restriction of (+-) 5 lvls of your own, including use of repair and staff recharge skill.


Bessaaf(mslol) - sorcerer - mortal and superstiously living off the land
The mortal lives!~ lvl 9 from one session - cleared 1 and 2 (including butcher with a fbt staff), most of 3, including leo (with a hb staff), killed a few foes on 4, and a few on 5 before the resources were low.

The kicker of course is that i found 7 staves in 3 dlvls! - fbt, 2xh, 2xhb, tp, cb - a nice little start in which i also picked up a ring of magic +10. My good luck makes up for nat's bad luck who didn't find a book until he was lvl 6 or something and then 3 of the first 4 were healing :).

As for strategy - i tired to bow as much of dlvl 1 and 2 as possible - burnt a cb staff to get rid of nasty corpse bow packs on lvl 2 - burnt an fbt staff on butcher (stair trap), burnt other cb staves and hb staff on 3 (there were horrors and they were scary) - used about 10 small blues on 2,3,4,5 before deciding enough was enough. Can't help with stat points yet as i've not added any.

PS - Toverkol - it is a shame that tll-1 is as dead as it has become, you should try searching for Nat and I on us east gateway diablo le - it very well may match your graveyard shift hours.

[Baceolus]

You opinion on res scrolls?

Well, they help to get your buddys online again :)

To be serious:
Burn res on yourself is against the rules, at least at SLoL, I think, but could be wrong in the normal LoL rules too, donno ...
To have a counter to save room is cheating imo. The difficult with (S)Lol is to have only one small Inventory. Add slots by adding a counter for res would be an increase of the inventory and is therefore forbidden.

[NatNit]

To be serious:
Burn res on yourself is against the rules, at least at SLoL, I think, but could be wrong in the normal LoL rules too, donno ...
To have a counter to save room is cheating imo. The difficult with (S)Lol is to have only one small Inventory. Add slots by adding a counter for res would be an increase of the inventory and is therefore forbidden.
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While thinking about this in the last couple days, I came to more or less the same conclusion. If you keep a counter after maybe clvl 5, you'll realize you have more than 10 or some res saved up, and the number only keeps growing. That takes a lot out of the experience of a LOL char.

Normal rules apply under solo: i.e. you can res someone if you have a scroll, or they can pick up your stuff and give it to you in another game I guess.

What I do in solo now:
I carry in my inventory all the resurrect scrolls that I think I will need. If I die, I restart in town, burn one, and go on to retrieve my corpse. If I die again, I repeat the process. If I die with 0 res scrolls in my inventory, I can restart in town, but I cannot reenter the dungeon, effectively losing all my gear.

-Nathan

[NatNit]

An update on my status, for those who care to read. :P

Update 00:
2006-03-31

This character been around for a while now (a little less than 5 days), and he's grown quite well. These updates are inspired by those of Toverkol (and his LoL mage Toverlol). Great idea on his part. :) I won't keep them after every gaming session, but probably only when extremely good/bad things happen to my character.

Ground Rules for LoL:

In general, I follow Bolty's rules at http://www.angelsofhell.com/lol.html, with a few modifications of my own. Changes and clarifications are as follows:

No use of Pepin
No recreation of shrines - If you're too lazy to click a million times, you don't deserve the mana
No partying with players that are too strong/too weak for me (subjective)
Can only utilize warrior weapon repair if we're in the middle of coop-ing
No trades or gifts of any sort (although I don't mind giving away some items)
Special ressurection rules:
- In coop, partner can ressurect, but only if I give them a res scroll directly afterward
- Solo, if I have a res scroll in inventory, I can start in town, burn it, and attempt to save corpse. If no res scroll in inventory, I must quit the game.

That about does it for that. Now, my current stats:

NatAmused(LoL)
clvl 17

STR: 32 / 45
MAG: 86 / 104
DEX: 39 / 50
VIT: 26 / 40

Spells:
Page 1: Fbt (12) CB (9) HB (8) Heal (10) HO (9) Inf (7)
Page 2: FW (2) TK (4) Lit (2) TP (5)

Equip:
Fine (Broad) Sword of the Bat: Dur 39/60 (+10% to hit, +43% dmg, 3% mana steal)
Small Shield: AC 7 Dur 8/24
Grand Cap of the Mind: AC 1 Dur 22/25 (+55% armor, +9 MAG)
Torn Flesh of Souls
Amulet of Might: (+9 STR)
Ring of Skill: (+10 DEX)
Ring of the Moon: (+4 ALL)

Inventory:
1 unid Sabre
2 unid Rings
Split Skull Shield: Dur 1/1 (stupid hidden shrines)
Staff of Healing: 20/40 Chrg
Steel (Claymore) of the Leech: Dur 36/36 (+11% to hit, 3% life steal)
Amber (Bastard) Sword of Bashing: Dur 35/60 (+20% res all, damage to armor)
(Falchion) of Magic: Dur 20/20 (+5 MAG)
Ring of Zest: (+8 VIT)
Ring of the Jaguar: (+19 HP)

-Nathan

[Toverkol]

another update

finally managed dungeons too, advanced to clvl 13.

i think i'll be cutting the session reviews down a bit, still every session, but a bit shorter, i think the Butcher kill session is a bit too long to stay interesting.


seems you had some more luck finding stuff though Nat ;)
most notably in continuing the session after the butcher kill, was a Leo kill with a HB staff, dropping a 2Hsw, and getting a pair of enchanteds, too bad i still had only six spells, of which two are without much use (tek and ho).
I also found another HB staff, so i can get into the next session with a CB and a HB staff (and the Heal one).


As for my rules, i usually do recreate shrines, for instance if i have to walk all the way to a glimmering on dlvl3 i don't feel like it, if it's only about the identifying.
as for resurrection, I take one with me from game to game, and drop the rest in town, like i do with other spare equipment, if i die i burn one. There's so few players around to coop or call for someone to res you, while you would be perfectly capable.
Dropping them in town is the same as in your inv to me, especially when you are carrying one there anyway, you've got your spare armor and potions lying around there to, so why not.
This mightnt be the official LoL rules, but i must admit i dont really care about that, plus i've finished the first dot with my way of ressing with a lol-rogue, so if you wouldnt agree with the way i deal with ressing, just call my variant Tlol or something ;)


[edit, i just saw the official lol rules wouldnt allow you to use any of the dropped in town equipment to rescue your body, i haven't used that rule, and to be honest i don't really like it, i have mroe fun giving my spare armor a try when i die, plus i don't want to carry the armor around in my inv all the time for the rare occasion i do die, because it would make so much difference in the number of town visits to drop items (which is especially cumbersome if your TP skills are too costful to use)]

[Toverkol]

managed to get partly into l7 and 8, going up to l17, recap to come

playing on US east now, i saw your sig on the bot btw, nat, we'll see each other somewhere next week or so, i suppose

[edit] updated!, look above for linky[/edit]

[NatNit]

I know these are infrequent, but it's been a fun night!

Update 01:
2006-04-08

So NatAmused(LoL) has been growing healthily now. The life of a lol mage can be quite repetitive, with all the pot runs, etc. Actually, was wondering if anyone has actually tri-dotted an LoL mage before...seems like a difficult task.

Anyway, the games have been going much better, what with increased levels, stats, etc. Only downside to the whole lol lifestyle is that there aren't very many other lol chars out there, so the games get kinda lonely. :)

Anyway, so in terms of recent level-ups, I started doing lvl 1-8 runs (full clears, where the blue pots from the church would keep me going through the pots) and once I amassed enough blues I did one dlvl 9/10 full clear. This put at level 20, and I got some kind soul in channel to make me a NM game for some easy exp. I'd be doing this for long enough, so I decided to move on today, and try to get my first dot at lvl 23.

So I made a new norm game. Ended up clearing dlvls 1-6 for pots and staves, and ended up with quite a hoarde in town. At total count I had 36 blues, 17 reds and 2 yellows, plus a few staves of CB, FB, and LIT.

Tried to see if any LoLers were in channel, but there weren't so I went ahead with it.

Dlvl 13: Vortex Lords and Fire Drakes. God I hate the way they they dance around my lightnings. Burned a couple lightning staves in here, but definitely good. First time stepping into Norm/Hell, and like the 10th monster I kill drops a Naj's Light Plate (!). I was in awe...totally beats out my 2/17 durability Rainbow Cloak in town. With the find I gain a little confidence, and fight through more baddies with lightning. See a light radius in a small room (about 15-20 monsters later) and it turns out to be Gorefeast, unique Vortex Lord. I let him chase me for a bit, stone curse him, and let him have it. And he drops a golden crown. :P Withing 10 minutes of finding my first NLP, I find my first Royal Circlet. Hehe, an LoL mage's dream.

Continue through the level, slowly. Kill maybe 7 or 10 baddies before I find the exit to 14.

Dlvl 14: See the stairs over a very thin wall. Take my chances with phasing, and it does the trick. Down before I even had a chance to see the monster mix.

Dlvl 15. Stairs are practically on the pentagram. Monster mix is Balrogs and Hell Spawn. Bust out the FB staff for the witches, and cast Lightning from my ball for the Balrogs. Head southwest, and think I've found Laz's chamber, but it's really just a room full of barrels. Move back to stairs, and then move north, and dance with some balrogs. Find Laz's room shortly thereafter. Realized that I haven't played in Hell for about 2-3 years, and that maybe a LoL char isn't the way to try it out. Do manage to clear out the room. The girls drop me King's Club of Gore (+98% to hit, +161% dmg, +9 dmg) and a King's Sword (1-12) of the Ages (+79% to hit, +162% dmg). Think I'll keep the sword for it's indestructiblity. Laz dropped a FPM of the Tiger, I believe.

Anyway, after laz's run was cleared (took me way too long, and I still didn't manage to be cautious enough) bit of backtracking to the pentagram. Quick trip to town to pick up all the important stuff. I think at this point I had one FB staff with ~30 charges, and 10 or 12 blues of varying sizes. Enter dlvl 16. And start clearing out the areas. And then I remember that I don't remember the telekinesis "thingy" at all anymore. Hehe, been so long since dlvl 16, and I was a lot younger then. So I decided to scope out the area. Advos, and Black Knights especially, take way too many firebolts, even at level 16.

I keep fighting, but my supplies dwindle. Clear the outskirts of about 1.5 quadrants, but I'm really running out of blues. Handling 2 black knights is nearly impossible, since I need to stone curse, firebolt, rinse repeat, and I just couldn't seem to get it down. Anyway, I chug my last blue, go back to town, and collect my stuff. So my 1@23 didn't quite work out, especially since I hit clvl 24 on one of those black knights on 16, but it was good fun. :)

P.S. Can someone re-explain the whole dlvl 16 layout and TKing levers business again please?

And of course, stats:

NatAmused(LoL)
clvl 24

STR: 45/64
MAG: 121/167
DEX: 45/64
VIT: 28/47

Spells:
Page 1: Fbt (16) CB (14) HB (14) Heal (16) HO (16) Inf (15)
Page 2: FW (12) TK (11) Lit (10) TP (15) SC (4)
Page 3: Phase (4) MS (5)

Equip:
(more or less an arty set-up for now)

(Bastard) Sword of Brilliance: (+15 MAG)
Shield of the Moon: AC 9 (+5 ALL)
Royal Circlet
Naj's Light Plate
Amulet of Brilliance: (+11 MAG)
Ring of Brilliancel: (+13 MAG)
Ring of the Moon: (+4 ALL)

I have some melee weapons + jewels for church pot clears, including my old sword of the bat. :)

Guess that's it for now!

Hope to see you in game,
NatNit

[Toverkol]

you damnable lucky bastard, najs, rc and two kings in one game...

i think 3 dots will be ahrd indeed, my rogue is bit futher (l28 with one dot), but nightmare is very hard with it.

on the dlvl 16 layout, you've got those four rooms that link to each other with levers, the third room of those (the cross shaped one) has two levers that you can telekinese to open didi's room.
Usual procedure is going to the half of the lvl that has the cross and didis room, clear the center, clear around didi, go to the cross to tk open his room, and cast some holy bolts or alike towards hikm to lure him out.

haven't picked up my lol mage yet, few LoL players around indeed, although i think its the most fun version of solo. Played my first two ironman games, with two rogues and with rog/war. The last one Shadowdrinker dropped me a Holy Defender.
She seemed quite well to make it lower in the dungeon, but i got bored because i had no bow left and only a dagger to go with the HD, which took a bit too many swings. Might still make another LoL char out of her, HD seems a great find for LoL rogue too, especially this early.