Grizabella, the Realistic Fighter Mage

[MongoJerry]

GRIZABELLA: NIHLATHAK'S TEMPLE



I entered Anya's portal to Nihlathak's Temple, and I was on my way. I teleported over to the first Prowling Dead I saw waking up and Zealed to start up the Confuse. Prowling Dead are hilarious when Confused. They slam into each other and look like stumbling drunks. They aren't fire immune, so they can be picked off easily.

Pindleskin and his minions were another story. I was too used to the wimpy 1.09 version of Pindleskin and that almost cost me. I teleported right into the middle of the pack, figuring that would save me from the pack's charge attacks, that I could take the pounding from their melee attacks, and that the merc and I could take them down fast. Boy, was I wrong. My merc died and I had to quaff 3 full rejuvs before the Pindleskin's crew was subdued. If she didn't have 75% block and her cold armor up, Grizabella would've met a premature end right then and there. Once again, a little cockiness was making me take unnecessary risks. I entered the Halls of Anguish, tp'd to town, and revived my merc.



The Halls of Anguish had Scarabs, Night Lords, and Horror Mages. None of them were fire immune, but the Night Lords were particularly tough. I took on the regular Night Lords, but each time I did, I had to give thanks for Grizabella's block and defense. The might enchanted boss pack pictured above kicked my butt. I'm sure that if I spent enough time at it, eventually I would've picked it apart, but it wasn't worth it. I teleported backwards and went a different direction.

The Halls of Pain had easy stuff -- Flayer blowdart shooters, Blood Maggots, and Temple Guards. Flayers are fire immune, but when they are Confused, they aren't dangerous since they shoot at each other. After wasting time trying to hunt down packs of Flayers, I decided to stop bothering with them and instead just teleport past them. I killed the Blood Maggots and Temple Guards, though.

I found and touched the Halls of Pain waypoint. Yeah, yeah, Pindleskin, blah blah. This isn't a magic find character, and I was expecting that I would have to reroll the monsters in the Halls of Vaught a few times. Anyway, I said from the beginning that I needed to do every quest and find every waypoint, so I hit it.

I took the stairs down to the Halls of Vaught and an enormous smile came across my lips. Returned Archers, Flayers (blowdart version), Flayer Shamans, and the usual Slayers. There wasn't any need to reroll those monsters. That's about as good as it gets.

Why? Because Returned Archers and Flayers are aggressive. As everyone knows, Nihlathak's most dangerous weapon is his corpse explosion, so it's important to draw out as many monsters as possible from his main room and kill them well away from him. This is especially true for Grizabella, since I'm planning to keep her merc alive for this. Normally, when I take on Nihlathak, I get my merc killed so that he doesn't accidentally kill anything in Nihlathak's main chamber. But since Grizabella's merc does more damage than she does, I want to use him to attack Nihlathak. It's easy to coax Returned Archers and Flayers from the main chamber. Plus they don't have a lot of hit points, so if a corpse explosion does go off, it would be survivable. Bad monster rolls would include Vile Temptresses and Defilers. It is incredibly difficult to coax either of them away from the main chamber (Temptresses can be coaxed, but it takes *forever* to get them all out). Defilers also have a lot of hit points, so their corpse explosions can be dangerous.



I spent 15 minutes coaxing out every monster from the main chamber, except for one Flayer Shaman who was easily ignored. Then, I ran in, teleported next to Nihlathak, and took him apart in about 20 seconds.



It's been a day full of adventure for Grizabella. She must rest in Harrogoth and recuperate her strength before she makes the assent up Mt. Arreat.