Anti-Swarming Kung Fu

[kandrathe]

Two Ideas;

I'm having some success in NM by equiping my Act 2 Merc with 2 "Hit Causes Monster to Flee" items, Rattlecage and Howltusk. Tough for hell as you would need better equipment, and IIRC, your level needs to be near or exceed the monsters level. Anyway, causing many of the bosses minions fleeing in terror away every few seconds helps to reduce the convergence, but you can still be overcome.

Also, you might need more meat. Add a Necormancer or a Druid to your party, or stoop to use conversion. It has been my experience though that conversion is not optimal unless you have a (very)high chance to hit with every swing. The biggest downside is that Conversion is so much slower than Zeal.

Blizzard has claimed to have reduced the problems with desync, but we shall see. Otherwise, along with Holy Freeze you might also add "Hit Slows Monster" gear. Holy Freeze is not the panecea as it removes your other auras which may be more important to your survival.

One last strategy idea. I team play almost exclusively with a group and for the toughest of boss packs we always employ multiple town portals. Employing one until it gets too mobbed, then reverting to the second placed well away, and if neccesary a third or fourth. If your Amazon knows that one TP is mobbed, she can safely manuever to within two screens and fire blindly toward the portal. My Amazon has two important indicators for distance killing, she wears items that steal life so I know if I hit something (not PI), and she has an item that adds mana per kill. So red swirl, red swirl, etc, until I see a blue swirl. She can employ the portal strategy alone by using WP's. She runs around until she is swarmed, TP's out and then returns safely via a WP to sneak up on those lurking by her TP.