is it me?

[kandrathe]

I moved my artillery necro from the Maggot Lair to the start of act III. As soon as I entered the Far Oasis, we were jumped by two boss packs which dropped Hsarus belt, and Cathans Helm, then 1/2 a screen away another boss dropped a Coldcrow crossbow. I also saw and had to sell many decent rares (considering this is normal), and plenty of runes. I was able to upgrade my runes to make a Tal, so I made a set of "Stealth" armor.

There was noticable change in difficulty once we got into Tal Rasha's tomb. My tactic became using my summons and merc to herd together all the skeletons around their masters, spam bone spear until a few died, and then CE, CE, CE,CE. Then me and the merc would rush in and finish off the bosses before they could reanimate the troops. Once we cleared the tomb, and opened the portal to Tal Rasha's chamber, my merc and I toasted to each others health with a thawing potion, and jumped right in. The skeletons, and mages bought it quickly, I was able to get the Amp Dmg curse off and spam about 10 BS until I ran out of mana, I was Shift healing my merc about every 10 seconds, and finally bailed to town. Duriel's life bar hardly moved, so I decided that "Players 8" may not be such a good idea for this fight. Players 1 then.

The Iron Golem had died, so I shopped for another good axe, and we toasted with thawing potions again, and we jumped back in. He went down a third of his life this time, and 30 seconds later we were back in town with the IG surviving this time. Then two more times like that, with a total of 4 shots of antifreeze each, then it was me and the merc heading back to town to pound down a few cool ones at Atma's and bragging about our leetness. Duriel never laid a claw on me, so I'm pretty pleased. Nothing is quite as humiliating as being biatch slapped around a tiny tomb by an overgrown crustacean. Duriel dropped the "Umbral Disk" but I'm not sure where to use it, and a really sweet rare maul (+55%ed) plus some other useful affixes, but I have no room and I doubt I'd use it soon, so I sold it.

So now I'm starting Act III at level 26.

Edit: BTW MEAT, I suspect this is more what you had in mind for this thread rather than just some obnoxious flatulance sounds, right?

Edit II: Conquored the Spider forest, and wonder of wonders, the little statue fell from a unique boss there, I went 1 click north and there was the Gidbinn and the Flayer Dungeon. As for Drops, again many good rares which I habitually turn into Iron Golems now, and a unique ring dropped... I held my breath and ran back to town to find... a Nagel ring, w/18% MF. I gambled for a couple rings and got, Angelic Halo. Huzzah. Still haven't gotten to my favorite normal item farm of Travincal, yet. I made a detour to do another countess run, found Stoutnail in the black tower and the countess dropped Tal, Tir, and Eth.

Edit III: Fought through Kurast, and Travincal only item of note was another Helm, crafted at Cathen, Inc. Fought Mephisto at Players 8, no problem. He dropped 5 rares and Deaths War Sword. I replaced my Helm, Gloves and Boots with Rares from that Mephisto drop. The helm has 5% Bonus to AR, 30%ed,Fire Res 28%, Cold Res 24%, Pois Len Rdc 25%, +5 Light Radius; light gauntlets have 12% chance cast lvl 4 CB when struck, +60 AR, 26% Ed, 16% MF; and the Heavy boots have 10% FHR, 1/2 Freeze Duration, 11% MF. So with 34% mf Ammy and Nagel ring I found this morning, am now at 79% MF with resists at 75/69/39/69.

Continued on to Izual, and fought him at players 8 no problem. Somewhere on the plains of despair I found a Shael, so I crafted a Rhyme head with +2 Bone Spear, +1 Confuse. Continued to the River of Flame where we ran across a Venom Ward, found Hephastus and kept him trapped in Bone Prison, cast IM on him, and spammed him with Bone Spears quaffing 5 mana pots. Skeletons and Golems are no longer useful on Players 8, but my merc is kicking A and taking names. Now we are poised at the gates of the Chaos Sanctuary, ready to face off with Big D. So now me and the merc are both at level 30, with BS at Level 15 (210-223 dmg) Str 52 Dex 52 Vit 76 Nrg 62.

Edit IV: OMG! I found a plain old white bone wand, and I decided that this just being beta test why not try out the Charsi imbue on it. Here is what I got; +1 Summoning, +3 Golem Mastery, +1 Life Tap, 20% Faster Cast, 7% Life steal, +19 NRG, +35 Mana, LR 39%. Fought through the Chaos Sanctuary -- using a combo of Amp, BS and CE. In the end we fought Big D at players 8, and my merc died twice to the lightning breath. I had to finish off Big D alone with Amp and BS and about 1/4 health. Diablo's drop was pathetic compared to the others so far, a rare Pilum and a rare thowing axe, and a couple useless blue items. Fought through the Bloody foothills, and Shenk's drop was also non existent, but Dac Farren dropped me my new rare Light Gauntlets; 20AR, 2 Str, CR14, LR29, 78% GF, 23% MF.