The monsters were definitely getting harder in the Jail levels. Previously, Irene could kill normal monsters on her own, but she had a much more difficult time doing that here. Even Aliza could kill only slowly, and our heroines attempted to isolate monsters as much as possible so that they could concentrate their power on one monster at a time.



There were parts of the Jail that were very hard. For example, our heroines were met by a wraith boss pack near the entrance to the second level of the Jail. Not only could the pack members deal and absorb a lot of damage, but they could also leech mana which they then converted into life, too. (See the orange swirls in the screenshot above). Irene and Aliza almost gave up on killing any members of the pack, but after they had cleared out more of the level and had more room to maneuver, they were able to isolate and dispose of the entire pack.



Then there were parts of the Jail that were like shooting dark ones in a jail cell. The nice thing about the Jail levels was that they afforded a lot of terrain features to use -- including the cells themselves.



Progress was slow but steady as Irene and Aliza completed most of the clear of Levels 1 and 2. In the process, Aliza turned level 11. The only thing left in the first two levels of the Jail was Pitspawn Fouldog and his tainted minion horde.

Irene and Aliza found Pitspawn Fouldog and his horde already conveniently in a jail cell. Tainted can shoot lightning balls through the cell bars, of course, but their AI allows them to shoot their lightning balls only after they've been damaged in some way. By a fortunate accident, Irene and Aliza found themselves in a perfect orientation to whittle down the pack. Aliza would shoot at the minion in the uppermost corner of the cell. Meanwhile, the minion, the only tainted who was damaged, would shoot lightning balls toward Irene who was closer to the tainted than Aliza. But the corner pillar blocked the lightning balls, so Aliza was able to take free shots at all of the tainted minions, and she took them down without any trouble.



Then, it was Pitspawn Fouldog's turn and the same tactic was tried on him. He shot at Irene, but his shots were blocked by the corner pillar. Meanwhile, Aliza could take free shots at Pitspawn. After about a minute of this, however, it was clear that Pitspawn healed too quickly for Aliza to take him down alone. Pitspawn's attacks did too much damage to allow Irene to tank him -- and anyway his cold enchantment would have slowed Irene's punches down to a crawl --, so Aliza and Irene shrugged their shoulders and left Pitspawn where he was.



Irene and Aliza entered the Jail Level 3 to find a lightning enchanted bone mage boss pack in a cell right near the entrance. However, Aliza's range with her bow must've been farther than the range of the bone mages' lightning attacks, because Aliza was able to stand back and pick off the pack without any reprisals.



Irene and Aliza slowly made their way around the level. Some of the toughest battles were with death clans, and as if normal death clans weren't bad enough, they also ran into a death clan boss pack. Death clans move fast, hit hard, and can take a punch (so to speak), so it was always rough dealing with them.

However, Irene and Aliza used the jail cells and the fact that death clans can't open doors to their advantage. One method they used to break up death clan packs was to run into a jail cell, let the first death clan in, and then close the jail door behind him to prevent his buddies from helping him. Then, after the first death clan was killed, they'd let in another one and then another one and so on until all of the death clans were killed.



After completing a full clear of Level 3, Irene and Aliza walked up the stairs to the Inner Cloister and grabbed the waypoint.

MongoJerry,Oct 28 2003, 01:41 PM Wrote:One method they used to break up death clan packs was to run into a jail cell, let the first death clan in, and then close the jail door behind him to prevent his buddies from helping him.

Irene and Aliza used the Inner Cloister waypoint to return to the Rogue Camp and rest. When they returned to the Inner Cloister, however, they found that it was guarded by a party of four black archers. They quickly separated and disposed of the pack and then checked the rest of the Inner Cloister to make sure that it was clear. It was, so Irene and Aliza walked toward the Cathedral door.



The door opened of its own accord, and a boss wraith pack as well as a couple of tainted came pouring out of the cathedral. Luckily, tainted move much faster than wraiths, so Irene and Aliza were able to lead the two tainted well away from the wraiths and kill them.

Then they tried to kill the wraiths, but they had a very difficult time breaking up the wraith pack. An idea occurred to Irene, though. Ghosts may be able to fly through iron bars, but for some reason they can't fly through or open doors (the tainted must've opened the Cathedral door). So Irene and Aliza led the wraiths to the long thin alcove area that contains the stairs down to the Jail. Once all of the wraiths were there, Irene and Aliza walked back through an open doorway. As soon as one wraith went through the door, Irene closed the door to separate the wraith from his buddies. Irene and Aliza then led the wraith away and killed it. This process was repeated for each of the wraith minions.



Unfortunately, our heroines had a very difficult time with the boss wraith. They decided to leave him alone for the moment and focus on the rest of the Cathedral, so they trapped the boss again in the alcove and returned to the Cathedral.



Next a pack of three champion tainted came charging out of the Cathedral. Irene and Aliza divided it up and picked it apart. I was going to show a screenshot of one of the battles with the champion tainted, but none of them were that good, and I thought that the above shot of a normal tainted in its death throes was much funnier (in a morbid kind of way). That would make a great avatar, wouldn't it?

After the champion pack was disposed of, some normal wraiths and tainted were led out of the Cathedral and killed in the Inner Cloister.



As they walked deeper into the Cathedral, our heroines kept whispering to each other, "Where are the shaman?" There were no dark ones or shaman in the alcoves on the right or the left, and none in the center up to the altar. Finally, they found one shaman to the left of the altar. The dark ones were led out of the Cathedral and killed, and then Irene and Aliza killed the shaman while Bone Ash looked on. Irene and Aliza completed their sweep of the Cathedral, leaving only Bone Ash to deal with.

Bone Ash turned out to be tough -- really tough. He's cold enchanted and hits hard with his poison attack, so Irene and Aliza went to town and stocked up on poison and thawing potions. That's when a bug in the game was discovered (which I hope miraculously was on Blizzard's list of bugs) regarding potions. One nice new feature of thawing and antidote potions is that they give you +50% to cold and poison resistance for 30 seconds, respectively. Plus, they increase your maximum resistance to these elements by 10% for that time (not important for Irene or Aliza, obviously). As an experiment, Irene quaffed an antidote potion. Good, she had a 50% resistance to poison. She then quaffed another one -- and her resistance went to 0%! A similar thing happened with the thawing potions -- drinking multiple potions brought one's resistance to cold to 0% and it would stay that way no matter how many more potions one drank. Irene had to wait for the potions to wear off before she could get the +50% bonus to resistances again. (Incidentally, this turned out to be a real effect and not just a display screen error. There didn't seem to be any doubt that Bone Ash dealt a lot more damage to Irene after she quaffed her thawing and antidote potions twice than when she only quaffed them once).

Why was this important? It meant that Irene had to wait for the effects of her first potions to wear off completely before she should quaff her next set of potions. In the time between the potions wearing off and when she quaffs the next set of potions, she can get hit by Bone Ash and receive the full damage from his attack. What's more, she would have to have her attribute screen up to watch for her resistances to change, but she also would have to have her inventory open in order to quaff the potions, so she wouldn't be able to see what's going on in the battle or contribute punches. This was not good.

Still, Irene and Aliza tried, and the added resistances from the potions helped. When they were active, Irene could tank reasonably well while quaffing potions, as long as she quaffed a light healing potion occasionally (they heal faster than minor healing potions). But as soon as the resistances wore off, Bone Ash damaged Irene too quickly. She would have to back off, which would then cause Aliza to stop shooting and start moving, which would then allow Bone Ash to heal. As it was, Irene and Aliza were having difficulty delivering enough damage to offset Bone Ash's life regeneration. Allowing him a few free seconds to heal was devastating.

Irene decided to change tactics. Instead of tanking Bone Ash, she'd run around him and let Aliza whittle him down. The idea was that he'd constantly miss with his attacks, so it wouldn't matter if the potions were working or not. Unfortunately, Aliza delivered just about the same amount of damage that Bone Ash healed. It really helped to have Irene adding some damage, even if it came from slow punches. Worse, Irene's running sometimes prompted Aliza to move, and sometimes Bone Ash moved, which caused Aliza to miss. Irene and Aliza just couldn't deliver enough damage to offset Bone Ash's healing rate this way.



Then Irene had an idea. She led Bone Ash out to the Inner Cloister waypoint, and then she and Aliza went to town. Irene bought thawing and antidote potions from Akara and quaffed one of each right before returning to the Inner Cloister. Irene tanked Bone Ash as before, but this time when the potion effects wore off, instead of backing off and fumbling with potions and letting her life ball (and Bone Ash) heal, she walked over and took the waypoint back to town. Bone Ash did not heal while Irene and Aliza were in town, so Irene and Aliza could heal themselves, get themselves re-potioned, return to the Inner Cloister, and continue where they left off. They did this more than a dozen times and finally whittled Bone Ash down and killed him.

There was one last piece of business left to take care of.



Irene and Aliza let the wraith boss out of the alcove and led him back into the Cathedral. They remembered the strategy they had stumbled upon while dealing with a ghost boss in the Countess's Tower. Irene couldn't tank the wraith boss -- both because the boss was capable of delivering too much damage and also because the boss could burn mana and thereby leech life for himself off Irene. It was Aliza who had to do the tanking, and Irene and Aliza needed to find a spot where Aliza would stand still and allow herself to tank the boss.

They searched around the Cathedral and tried to back Aliza up against various objects around the altar, but nothing around there worked. Finally, they found the perfect spot near the stairs down to the catacombs, where a pillar and a torch made a nice barrier. The wraith boss pushed Aliza back into it, and while Irene fed her potions, Aliza took him down -- thus completing the clear of the Cathedral.

NOTE: The following adventures of Irene occurred in 1.10s. By coincidence, Irene met her fate on the same day 1.10 came out. All that remains to do is write up her final adventures. These updates take a while to write, so you'll have to be patient. Besides, I have a reputation for milking the suspense to maintain. :lol: Meanwhile, I have now upgraded my computer to the final 1.10 release and have started a new hardcore ladder character. If you come across Grizabella_hcld, say "hello!" She's going to be an enchantress, although because I'll be playing over a modem, she'll probably use missile-fire attacks -- bows and probably eventually javelins (so she can use a shield). She's a character I'm going to play just for fun and to be social, so her adventures won't be written up. If you play hardcore ladder and want a powerup, look me up!



Irene and Aliza walked down the stairs to the Catacombs Level 1. Almost immediately they were set upon by a pack of champion tainted -- two champions and one berserker to be exact. As some people have mentioned, the catacombs are harder than the Jail levels, because they don't have jail cells in them. That makes it much more difficult to deal with and separate monster packs. Irene and Aliza had to run in and out of several rooms and around various corners before they were able to finally break up the tainted pack (note: tainted can open doors). Once singled out, the champions were handled easily, but the berserker was another matter. He took 2/3rds of Irene's life away in one hit. Irene had to back off and feed potions to Aliza as Aliza engaged and eventually won a shooting match with the berserker.



But the biggest difference between the catacombs and the jail levels were the shaman. There were no dark shaman in the jails, but they seemed to be everywhere in the catacombs. And in the Catacombs Level 1, there weren't just normal shaman -- there was a boss and a champion pack as well.



As I and others have remarked before, shaman seem to have an incredible range with their "revive minion" spell. Dark ones halfway across the level were revived. Irene and Aliza led the dark ones to distant corners of the level and killed them there. After they disposed of the shaman, Irene and Aliza would return to find most of the dark ones revived. Some dark ones had to be killed four or five times. Making progress was a grueling affair through the entire level.

However, one big event happened. Irene earned her sweet 16th level. I figured that with at most three more dungeon levels to go, that would probably be her last level up in Act I one way or the other.



Near the end of the clear of Level 1, our heroines came across a boss tainted pack. The minions were quickly disposed of, and then Irene and Aliza went to work on the boss. Worried that the boss would hit too hard for Irene to tank, our heroines tried to make it so that Aliza would tank instead. She was placed in a corner with the tainted boss, and then Irene went through a door, shut it, went around a corner, and fed potions to Aliza. Aliza and the boss fought and fought. Occasionally, Irene had to feed Aliza light healing potions (which heal faster than minor ones) to counterbalance the damage the boss was dealing. Finally, Irene returned to check on Aliza's progress.

Nothing. Not a thing. The boss was hardly damaged at all. It seemed from how Aliza's health bar moved during the battle, however, that Irene might be able to tank the boss for a little bit, so she tried it. For a moment, the plan seemed to be succeeding. Irene's punches added a little bit of damage and most importantly, Aliza was not getting chilled by the boss's spectral hit attack. Unfortunately, when Irene had to back off to let her life ball refill, the boss quickly regened all the damage Irene and Aliza had been able to deliver. The fight was at an impasse.

So, Irene and Aliza parked the third monster of their adventure, finished the clear of Level 1, and stepped down into the Catacombs Level 2.

Irene and Aliza stepped down into the Catacombs Level 2 and found dark shaman, dark shaman, and more dark shaman. The number of dark ones Irene and Aliza had to kill repeatedly was incredible.



Sure, the occasional arach or tainted pack would come along to provide some variety, but pretty much the whole level was made of dark ones and dark shaman.



In fact, all three bosses in the level were dark shaman. Irene and Aliza started using a system whereby Irene would run back and forth in front of the boss shaman to induce him to shoot at Irene (and miss) while Aliza shot at and killed him from a safe distance.

Despite all of the dark shaman, Irene and Aliza eventually cleared the whole level, and in the process, Aliza turned level 12.



Our heroines then stepped down into the Catacombs Level 3 and immediately found a ghoul boss pack. They learned one thing here. Ghouls, even normal ones, hurt! Luckily, they also move really slowly, so our heroines contented themselves with staying a safe distance away and having Aliza doing all the killing.

However, there was nothing even Aliza could do against Blight Spell, the ghoul boss, and there was no way Irene was even going to attempt to tank him. He was quickly parked.

Next, Irene and Aliza came upon a champion afflicted pack. They broke up the pack, and Irene tanked the two champions while Aliza shot at them from a safe distance. However, the berserker afflicted was able to deal too much damage for Irene to tank him, so our heroines used the same technique they used against the boss shaman. Irene ran back and forth in front of the berserker afflicted while Aliza shot at and killed it.



Then, our heroines found a lightning enchanted afflicted boss pack. Ouch! It took a lot of running around, but they eventually broke up the pack and killed all the minions. Then, they went to work on the boss. Aliza got in a spot where she could shoot at the boss without being hit by his lightning while Irene stayed far back and fed potions to Aliza. At first, it seemed like our heroines might win this fight, but then the afflicted boss moved, and Irene and Aliza had to scramble. By the time they got setup again, the boss had completely healed. They tried killing him for a little while longer, but it became clear that it just wasn't going to happen. So, our heroines shrugged their shoulders again and parked him in the same room as Blight Spell.



Level 3 had one new monster type that Irene and Aliza hadn't met before -- the banished. I had wondered how our heroines would do against them, but it turned out that the banished didn't give them much trouble. In a continuing theme, Irene ran back and forth in front of each of them while Aliza shot and killed them.

Our heroines then found a second champion afflicted pack and disposed of it. Level 3 seemed to be wall to wall boss and champion packs!



Another champion pack? Sheesh! Irene attracted the attention of each of the champion ghouls in turn while Aliza systematically whittled them down and killed them. One kind of funny thing happened during this battle that you can see in the screenshot above. Irene got the ghoul to chase her around the casket while Aliza shot at him, but on one pass, the ghoul stubbed his toe on the casket and got stuck. Irene just stood there, the ghoul just stood there, and Aliza finished him off. I don't know if it would be possible to cause this to happen purposely, but it could be useful to find out if it could be done -- and whether other monsters could be trapped this way.

But other than the two previously mentioned bosses, Irene and Aliza successfully completed the clear of the Catacombs Level 3 and prepared to enter the Catacombs Level 4.



Kind of makes you want to yell, "Don't go down there!" doesn't it?

Irene and Aliza, against advice, stepped down into the Catacombs Level 4, and Aliza immediately began shooting at the wall. That meant that a dark shaman was probably right on the other side of the wall, which meant that it would be difficult to kill dark ones in the entrance chamber and not get them revived right away. Argh.



Irene pulled Aliza to the back wall to make her stop attracting the attention of any more monsters that might be on the other side of the front wall. It turned out that there were three slow moving ghouls in the bottom corner of the entrance chamber. Ghouls are slow, but they hit hard, so Irene and Aliza stayed as far away from them as they could while simultaneously trying to stay against the back wall.

As Aliza started to whittle down the first ghoul, the door opened and a couple of dark ones and an afflicted came barging through it (dark ones and afflicted can open doors). Aliza had woken up some monsters with her antics after all.

At first, Irene and Aliza had difficulty dealing with the now larger number of monsters. Irene could tank the afflicted, and given enough time, kill the dark ones. But the hard hitting ghouls kept interfering with attempts to kill the afflicted and dark ones, and the faster afflicted and dark ones kept interfering with attempts to kill the ghouls. Meanwhile, Irene and Aliza had very little room to work with, because they had to stay close to the back wall to prevent the shaman from waking up the dark ones when they did get killed and, most importantly, to prevent more monsters from waking up and entering the room.

After running back and forth a few times, they did finally manage to kill a couple of the ghouls. In the process, though, a couple more dark ones came through the door and were killed. Irene thought for a minute and figured that if Aliza could keep the remaining monsters in the entrance room busy, then perhaps she could sneak out the door and kill the annoying but now very much alone shaman.

The plan almost worked. Irene whittled the shaman down to about 20% of his life, but by that time a ghoul and tainted from the main room had closed the distance to Irene and were dealing damage too quickly to be healed even with light healing potions. Irene had to withdraw back to the entrance room.

The dark ones that had been killed previously in the entrance room had, of course been revived. Irene and Aliza again ran back and forth along the back wall of the entrance room and finally killed everyone. They then ran out the door to take on the shaman. Unfortunately, the shaman had moved farther away from the door, so charging the shaman meant waking up more monsters.

A couple of afflicted came barreling down on them, a group of dark ones from the far wall ran menacingly toward them, and several ghouls walked purposefully toward them. Still, Irene and Aliza killed the annoying shaman before the main monster pack arrived. They then retreated into the entrance room and killed the two afflicted there. A couple of dark ones in the entrance room had been revived and the dark ones from the far wall walked through the door and joined the fray.

They killed the dark ones and then encouraged the ghouls in the center of the main room to come be killed in the entrance room. They then explored further into the main room and got most of the dark ones along the far wall to come and be killed in the entrance room. Of course, this meant waking up the three shaman along the far wall who then quickly revived the dark ones who had been previously killed in the entrance room. (Remember what matters is not whether the shaman can see the corpse. What matters is if the shaman can see you). Still Irene and Aliza once again quickly disposed of all the dark ones they had gathered in the entrance room. The propensity of dark ones to run away when one of their fellows dies made this a safe and easy thing to do.



A few more ghouls along the far wall had to be encouraged to come be killed in the entrance room -- and in the process some dark ones were revived and then killed again. Finally, Irene and Aliza had a clear shot at the three shaman along the far wall. They killed them all in one sweep.



Irene and Aliza returned to the entrance room, killed the dark ones who had been revived (again), and made a sweep around the first two chambers to make sure there weren't any hidden ghouls or other monsters. Once they were satisfied that the first two chambers had been completely cleared, they prepared to open the wooden door to Andariel's throne room.

Irene opened the wooden door to Andariel's throne room and waited. Nothing immediately charged out of the door, so she took a few steps inside to the right and woke up the group of dark ones who always spawn with a shaman just to the right of the doorway. Irene and Aliza drew most of the dark ones away to the entrance room and killed them there. Then they returned to the throne room, keeping to its right side and took out the shaman and the dark one who had been left behind.



Irene and Aliza then moved to the left side of the room, keeping well away from where they knew they'd wake up Andariel, and woke up some normal afflicted and ghouls. Interesting. There didn't appear to be any boss packs in the level. Irene and Aliza had planned on having to ditch a boss near the top of the throne room, but apparently, that wouldn't be necessary.

Anyway, Irene and Aliza lured the afflicted and ghouls into the main chamber and killed them there. Then they returned to the throne room and inched forward, hoping they could get lucky and kill the shaman who always hangs out halfway up the throne room with a volley of arrows.



Whoops! Here she comes!

Irene and Aliza weren't ready to battle Andariel just yet. They wanted to kill all of the other monsters in the Catacombs Level 4 so that they could be sure that they wouldn't be disturbed by other monsters during the final showdown. So, Irene led Andariel to the entrance room, and after snaking around the room, she bolted out the door and sprinted inside the throne room. However, Aliza had been left in the dust in addition to Andariel, and Irene worried whether Andariel might end up being led back to the throne room by Aliza. So, Irene started a townportal, went to town, and came back. That instantly "teleported" Aliza to Irene's side, and Andariel remained safely parked in the entrance room.



Then, our heroines completed a thorough clear of the throne room. They lead the dark ones at the top of the throne room down to the throne room's entrance, killed them there, quickly ran up and killed the two shaman in the area, and then returned to the throne room's entrance to kill the dark ones who had been revived. Then, Irene and Aliza finished off the three normal ghouls who wandered around near the top of the throne room.

When they had finished clearing the top of the throne room, Irene made a thorough check of the entire level -- including popping her head into the entrance room, which contained Andariel -- for any leftover monsters. She found that they had been thorough. The only monster left alive in the Catacombs Level 4 was Andariel herself.

Irene and Aliza townportaled to town, bought healing and antidote potions, returned to the center of the Rogue Camp, and stood next to their open townportal back to the Catacombs Level 4.

gimlisam,Nov 3 2003, 05:53 AM Wrote:If he gets past Andariel, I think that Radament and his mega-horde of reviveable mages and archers would be it.  If not, probably the Maggot Layer.  Lots of poison=bad for naked sorceress.  Duriel is the absolute farthest that this character could make it.  Too much damage dealt by him, too little health for her.