MongoJerry,Oct 13 2003, 09:46 PM Wrote:So, feel free to speculate on how far she'll get.  This should be fun, because obviously she's not going to make it all the way.

Quote:Sounds like you'er hardest build yet! I'm guessing you can get through part of act two, maybe further because you're merc will be doing most of (read: all) the work. Better start stocking potions and TP scrolls!

Quote:This is pure genius! I really like the idea of a naked sorceress running around killing stuff....  . Are you going to play her on battle.net or single player? If you ever play on battle.net, and end up killing someone, please post it! It would be a great laugh!

Quote:I'm guessing your sorceress will probably get to the end of Act III, and get killed by the High Council, or Mephisto. If she manages to beat them however, I'm pretty sure she'll die in the Chaos Sanctuary to those damn Oblivion Knights....

Quote:However, in another thread, it has recently been discussed that (at least in v1.10s) hirelings do *not* get the displayed damage bonus when they do not have a weapon equiped. Therefore your hireling is doomed to have weenie damage output, as do you.

Irene stepped out into the Blood Moor and promptly began punching the daylights out of every monster she found.



As you can see, she was not adverse to fighting dirty. Whatever it took to get the job done was good enough for her. She did a full clear of the Blood Moor and got to level 3 (42 hit points! Woohoo!) before she dropped down into the Den of Evil.



Inside the Den of Evil, some gargantuan beasts tried to bully her around, but a couple of sucker punches to their stomachs took the fight out of them. Normal monsters were handled easily, because Irene dealt enough damage to cause them to go into hit recovery. If she makes it out of the Den of Evil, that won't last for long.

She came across a monster shrine. Should I? Shouldn't I? Why not?



Doh!

Oh, well. Irene had to quaff a couple of potions and play hit-and-run for a bit, but she took down the lightning enchanted fallen. She then finished clearing out the Den of Evil of all monsters except Corpsefire's pack.

The first reaction I had when taking on one of Corpsefire's minions was, "Ouch! That guy hurts!" Worse, the minion could send Irene into hit recovery while conversely Irene couldn't damage him enough to send him into hit recovery. Egads. I developed a couple of techniques for fighting the minions, however, so I managed to take them down while only quaffing 1-2 potions each. I'll discuss those techniques when I describe the fight with Corpsefire.

Once Irene finished killing the minions, all that was left to do was kill Corpsefire. As other people have mentioned, Corpsefire regenerates life and hits hard. Plus, he's spectral hit, so sometimes he can hit you with a cold attack that can make it impossible to hit him. (By the time you slowly try to take a swing at him, he'll hit you again and interrupt your attack).

He hit so hard that Irene had to quaff a lot of potions. Since she could only hold four potions in her belt, however, that meant that after every four potions, she had to back off, open her inventory, move potions to her belt (shift-right click makes this faster), and resume fighting. In that time, Corpsefire regenerated life -- sometimes enough to heal all of the damage Irene could deliver during the previous attack.



However, I had discovered a couple of techniques for fighting zombies when I was dealing with Corpsefire's minions. The first technique is that if a zombie is walking toward you, you can shift-click to punch at the zombie as it's approaching. You can often get 1-2 free punches in before the zombie gets close enough to take swings at you. You can keep swinging until the zombie hits you a couple of times and gets you into a hit recovery/interrupt attack loop. Then, you can back off a tad and repeat the process.

The second technique involves fighting like a girl.



In other words, fighting dirty. (Whoever first used the phrase "You fight like a girl!" to mean that a person fights in a wimpy manner had never seen real girls fight). When you back off, sometimes zombies decide to wander aimlessly rather than chase you. This is your opportunity. Move just barely in range, and shift-click attack the zombie while its back is turned. Hit it in the back, hit it in the side, hit it any which way you can. However, do not move to right next to the zombie, since that would cause the zombie to turn and attack you. You can get in 4-5 free punches this way.



Irene had to quaff sixteen potions during the battle, but she finally took Corpsefire down and cleared the Den of Evil.

Quote:Since she could only hold four potions in her belt, however, that meant that after every four potions, she had to back off, open her inventory, move potions to her belt (shift-right click makes this faster), and resume fighting.

Quote:You do realize you can fight with your inventory open? Then you just need to right click on the potion to drink it. This doesn't work too well against multiple opponents or ranged attackers (due to hiding half the screen) but should be great for a situation like Corpsefire. The old drop the potions on the ground before starting the fight technique could also work here (I do know about the timer, but it would at least give you one or two belts of potions).

After clearing the Den of Evil and returning to camp, Irene ran back through the Blood Moor to the Cold Plains. She said, "Hello!" to Flavie and came up with a plan. She led monsters near the entrance to the Cold Plains back to Flavie. After all, Irene could only do 1-2 points of damage per punch, so the extra 1 point of damage per arrow that Flavie could deliver increased the damage output significantly. This made Irene wonder if it was possible to lure Blood Raven there. Probably not.

(Incidentally, I tried casting Enchant on Flavie when I was playing Grizabella, but it didn't work. Too bad. It would've been cool to see Flavie dealing 1k damage).



But the whole Flavie plan turned out not to be worth it, so Irene bid Flavie a fond farewell and took on the rest of the monsters in the Cold Plains on her own.



In the Cold Plains, the only hitch Irene ran into was Bishibosh. Irene killed all of the fallen and fallen shaman around him and then focused her attention on Bishibosh himself. Unfortunately, he dealt a lot of damage with his fire enchantment, so it was touch and go there for a while. He couldn't quite kill Irene, but he healed so quickly that it was difficult for Irene to deal enough net damage to kill him. Plus, whenever Bishibosh got a chance (i.e. when Irene would back off to refresh her belt with potions from her inventory), he'd raise fallen from the dead who would distract Irene, allowing Bishibosh heal even more.

Irene felt that with enough persistence, she could eventually take down Bishibosh, but it wasn't worth it. She had an appointment with Blood Raven to keep, so she left Bishibosh alone. She vowed to return, however.

Not long after leaving Bishibosh, Irene became a fifth level sorceress.



She then made her way around the Cold Plains and found the Burial Grounds. First things first. She killed everything in the perimeter of the graveyard. Then, it was time to face Blood Raven.