08-11-2003, 09:26 PM
GRIZABELLA: ACT II
Act 2 was a little more exciting for Grizabella, but I'm happy to report that she's now safe and sound on the Act III Kurast docks.
Before I describe Grizabella's Act II adventures, I have to say a few words about 'Delirium.' After having used it for a while, I now have great reservations about potentially writing a melee sorceress guide that describes a build using 'Delirium,' because there is no way that this runeword does not get nerfed. If it doesn't get nerfed in the final release of the patch, it'll get nerfed in a followup patch, because 'Delirium' is the most powerful item in the game. That's right, not a 'Breath of the Dying' weapon or a or a Cruel Ethereal Colossus Blade with a Zod in it. If 'Delirium' allows a severely underpowered character like mine to walk through the first two acts of hell unscathed, think about it in the hands of a cookie cutter build. At least my sorceress has to run up and take a few whacks on a monster before the Confuse aura goes off. A bowazon could shoot guided arrows off screen or around corners to start up the Confuse aura and never ever be in any danger. Ideas I had to fix it would be to make the chance of the Confuse aura going off much less, make the level of Confuse lower so that the radius and time length of the curse is smaller, or make it so that it gives off a high level Decrepify instead. I'll tell you, though, after seeing Confuse in action, I think we have all been seriously underestimating this necromancer skill. It might be time to start making some necromancer Confuse specialists.
And now, Grizabella's adventures in Act II!
Most of Act II was as straightforward as Act I. The skeletal archers and spear cats made things a little more interesting, but on the whole Act II went pretty smoothly. I did have a few observations and adventures this time:
1. While attacking Radament, I found out an interesting, funny, and somewhat dangerous thing regarding the Confuse aura given off by 'Delirium' that one needs to watch out for. When going after Radament, my strategy was to take a few whacks at the first skeletons to start up Confuse, teleport past them, take a few whacks at the skeletons in the back to Confuse them, and then teleport to Radament and start whacking him. That sounded like a straight-forward plan and for the most part it worked. However, Radament was also Amp curse enchanted and Confused monsters are considered enemies. Therefore, when his Amp went off, all his minions got Amped by him. That sounds like a good thing, except that it also means that the Confuse got taken off them and the minions started to swarm me. I had to teleport out of there and restart the whole process over several times in order to take down Radament.
2. There was an amazing room full of monsters in one corner of the Halls of the Dead. I didn't realize just how incredible it was until about halfway through the battle, so I didn't know to take a screenshot until it was too late. But in one room there was a champion Hollow One (the guys who raise undead) pack and *two* Hollow One boss packs with all of the skeletons that would go with them. Plus there was a sarcophagus pumping out zombies like mad. Plus there were Hollow One/skeleton groups in the hallways leading to the room. It was wall-to-wall monsters! I would've teleported past it all, but I'm stubborn and had to accept the challenge. It took 10 minutes, but I finally cleared it.
3. The maggot lair was surprisingly easy. I was expecting it to be worse with all of the baby bugs and the lack of effective crowd attack skills at the melee sorceress's disposal. But nothing in there was fire immune, so everything died efficiently. I also think I got lucky in the final chamber. It spawned with a lot of itchies which die in one hit from fire damage. It was therefore easy to get to and deal with the smaller number of maggots before they laid too many eggs.
![[Image: Grizabella6.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Grizabella6.jpg)
4. The viper temple was also pretty easy with the its lack of fire immunes. I've never been as afraid of Fangskin as a lot of people are, because I always have max lightning resist and always wear magic damage reduction items. In this case, the battle was the easiest one with Fangskin I've ever had. The Confuse aura caused all of his minions to attack each other, and Fangskin himself charged out of the group alone to take me on. He wasn't fire immune, so my merc and I took him down quickly. Without his buddies to back him up, Fangskin was a piece of cake.
5. The Summoner was also easy -- easier than I expected. I drew his minions away and pummeled them (which took a while, because Blood Clan's are fire immune). Then, I teleported onto his stage area and whacked him. Dead Summoner. I want to take this moment to say something about the wonders of magic damage reduce. I've run into a lot of people on bnet who don't understand it and think it's a "junk" stat. However, what they don't get is that it is applied *after* resistances and works on every frame of an attack. I remember reading somewhere that firewall attacks every other frame, or 12 times a second. If so, then a 1000/sec firewall becomes a 250/sec firewall after 75% fire resistance and then my 12 mdr saves me 144 damage per second of that damage, so I would only take 106 damage/second. That's only 40% of the damage I would have taken without it. People who fear lightning enchanted bosses, the Summoner's firewall, the Infestor's inferno, the cold breaths from those monsters in Act V, or Diablo's lightning breath should seriously look into wearing a little mdr equipment. OK, off my soapbox now.
6. The Canyon of the Magi was a pain as there were approximately 10,000 spear cats. After making a valiant effort to make some headway here and after quaffing several full rejuv's and reviving my merc once, I said, "Forget this!" and teleported past everything to the tomb.
![[Image: Grizabella7.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Grizabella7.jpg)
7. Ah, Duriel. Surely he will teach some humility to this young brash upstart of an underpowered melee mage. 'Delirium' won't save her here! Ah, but you see, there is something that you may be forgetting. Do you see that little red fuzzy ball on top of Duriel in the above screenshot? That's the result of the underused cry Battle Cry which is included with 'Call to Arms.' With +7 all skills added to the +10 Battle Cry on the 'Call to Arms,' that comes to a level 17 Battle Cry which reduces damage by 41%. So, Grizabella entered Duriel's lair, teleported to just the other side of Duriel so that he couldn't charge her or her merc and the battle went like this:
Teleport next to Duriel, battle cry, static, static, static, static, static, battle cry, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, battle cry, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap... etc.
She spent at least two minutes in his room and only quaffed one healing potion. That probably wasn't necessary, either. Her mercenary didn't need anything. As if we needed another reason why everyone will own a 'Call to Arms' weapon.
Act 2 was a little more exciting for Grizabella, but I'm happy to report that she's now safe and sound on the Act III Kurast docks.
Before I describe Grizabella's Act II adventures, I have to say a few words about 'Delirium.' After having used it for a while, I now have great reservations about potentially writing a melee sorceress guide that describes a build using 'Delirium,' because there is no way that this runeword does not get nerfed. If it doesn't get nerfed in the final release of the patch, it'll get nerfed in a followup patch, because 'Delirium' is the most powerful item in the game. That's right, not a 'Breath of the Dying' weapon or a or a Cruel Ethereal Colossus Blade with a Zod in it. If 'Delirium' allows a severely underpowered character like mine to walk through the first two acts of hell unscathed, think about it in the hands of a cookie cutter build. At least my sorceress has to run up and take a few whacks on a monster before the Confuse aura goes off. A bowazon could shoot guided arrows off screen or around corners to start up the Confuse aura and never ever be in any danger. Ideas I had to fix it would be to make the chance of the Confuse aura going off much less, make the level of Confuse lower so that the radius and time length of the curse is smaller, or make it so that it gives off a high level Decrepify instead. I'll tell you, though, after seeing Confuse in action, I think we have all been seriously underestimating this necromancer skill. It might be time to start making some necromancer Confuse specialists.
And now, Grizabella's adventures in Act II!
Most of Act II was as straightforward as Act I. The skeletal archers and spear cats made things a little more interesting, but on the whole Act II went pretty smoothly. I did have a few observations and adventures this time:
1. While attacking Radament, I found out an interesting, funny, and somewhat dangerous thing regarding the Confuse aura given off by 'Delirium' that one needs to watch out for. When going after Radament, my strategy was to take a few whacks at the first skeletons to start up Confuse, teleport past them, take a few whacks at the skeletons in the back to Confuse them, and then teleport to Radament and start whacking him. That sounded like a straight-forward plan and for the most part it worked. However, Radament was also Amp curse enchanted and Confused monsters are considered enemies. Therefore, when his Amp went off, all his minions got Amped by him. That sounds like a good thing, except that it also means that the Confuse got taken off them and the minions started to swarm me. I had to teleport out of there and restart the whole process over several times in order to take down Radament.
2. There was an amazing room full of monsters in one corner of the Halls of the Dead. I didn't realize just how incredible it was until about halfway through the battle, so I didn't know to take a screenshot until it was too late. But in one room there was a champion Hollow One (the guys who raise undead) pack and *two* Hollow One boss packs with all of the skeletons that would go with them. Plus there was a sarcophagus pumping out zombies like mad. Plus there were Hollow One/skeleton groups in the hallways leading to the room. It was wall-to-wall monsters! I would've teleported past it all, but I'm stubborn and had to accept the challenge. It took 10 minutes, but I finally cleared it.
3. The maggot lair was surprisingly easy. I was expecting it to be worse with all of the baby bugs and the lack of effective crowd attack skills at the melee sorceress's disposal. But nothing in there was fire immune, so everything died efficiently. I also think I got lucky in the final chamber. It spawned with a lot of itchies which die in one hit from fire damage. It was therefore easy to get to and deal with the smaller number of maggots before they laid too many eggs.
4. The viper temple was also pretty easy with the its lack of fire immunes. I've never been as afraid of Fangskin as a lot of people are, because I always have max lightning resist and always wear magic damage reduction items. In this case, the battle was the easiest one with Fangskin I've ever had. The Confuse aura caused all of his minions to attack each other, and Fangskin himself charged out of the group alone to take me on. He wasn't fire immune, so my merc and I took him down quickly. Without his buddies to back him up, Fangskin was a piece of cake.
5. The Summoner was also easy -- easier than I expected. I drew his minions away and pummeled them (which took a while, because Blood Clan's are fire immune). Then, I teleported onto his stage area and whacked him. Dead Summoner. I want to take this moment to say something about the wonders of magic damage reduce. I've run into a lot of people on bnet who don't understand it and think it's a "junk" stat. However, what they don't get is that it is applied *after* resistances and works on every frame of an attack. I remember reading somewhere that firewall attacks every other frame, or 12 times a second. If so, then a 1000/sec firewall becomes a 250/sec firewall after 75% fire resistance and then my 12 mdr saves me 144 damage per second of that damage, so I would only take 106 damage/second. That's only 40% of the damage I would have taken without it. People who fear lightning enchanted bosses, the Summoner's firewall, the Infestor's inferno, the cold breaths from those monsters in Act V, or Diablo's lightning breath should seriously look into wearing a little mdr equipment. OK, off my soapbox now.
6. The Canyon of the Magi was a pain as there were approximately 10,000 spear cats. After making a valiant effort to make some headway here and after quaffing several full rejuv's and reviving my merc once, I said, "Forget this!" and teleported past everything to the tomb.
7. Ah, Duriel. Surely he will teach some humility to this young brash upstart of an underpowered melee mage. 'Delirium' won't save her here! Ah, but you see, there is something that you may be forgetting. Do you see that little red fuzzy ball on top of Duriel in the above screenshot? That's the result of the underused cry Battle Cry which is included with 'Call to Arms.' With +7 all skills added to the +10 Battle Cry on the 'Call to Arms,' that comes to a level 17 Battle Cry which reduces damage by 41%. So, Grizabella entered Duriel's lair, teleported to just the other side of Duriel so that he couldn't charge her or her merc and the battle went like this:
Teleport next to Duriel, battle cry, static, static, static, static, static, battle cry, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, battle cry, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap... etc.
She spent at least two minutes in his room and only quaffed one healing potion. That probably wasn't necessary, either. Her mercenary didn't need anything. As if we needed another reason why everyone will own a 'Call to Arms' weapon.