Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[MongoJerry]

As I explained in the story of Grizabella's adventures, it's a good idea for underpowered characters to do a full clear of Travincal before taking on the high council. One especially wants to kill all of the Heirophants in the area, because you don't want to wail on a council member for several minutes only to have him be healed by a Heirophant.

I've always despised Heirophants. They're collectively my nemesis. They cast spells on you from a distance, heal their minions, and teleport away when you try to kill them. How dare they! I mean, it's OK when *I* do that with my sorceress, but it's not fair when they do that.

But in Gunter's case, the Heirophants were pieces of cake. Gee, guess what skill I used on them. When you Taunt a Heirophant, they stop teleporting, casting Blizzards, and healing monsters. They do seem to continue to use their lightning attack, but that's a lot better than their other attacks. Plus, if they can find a path to you, they'll walk right into the range of War Cry where they can be stunned. I've never had such an easy time clearing Travincal with a variant character. Incidentally, Heirophant boss packs have also been nerfed. In previous versions of D2, a Heirophant boss would appear with five Heirophant minions and the pack would be monstrously difficult to kill, because the pack members would keep healing each other. But now, a Heirophant boss pack consists of a Heirophant boss with Zealot minions and is much easier to kill. Similarly, Oblivion Mage boss packs consist of an Oblivion Mage boss and Doom Knight minions. Also, Carver Shaman boss packs consist of a shaman boss and Carver minions. These changes definitely make all of these packs easier to kill (which is kind of a shame in my humble opinion).



After clearing Travincal, it was time to start luring out the council members -- preferably one at a time. I taunted the entrance to the temple to try to get some of the minion council members to come out and it worked. There's been some speculation on the Lurker Lounge that Taunt would stop a council member from casting hydra or heal. That seemed to fit with what I saw. It seemed like the only attack the normal minions used was their normal melee attack (and maybe the lightning one?). Then, I drew out the boss council members one at a time and killed each one a safe distance away from the temple.

I was particularly interested to see how Gunter would do against Ismail Vilehand. Other than the Cow King, Vilehand was the monster that took the longest for Grizabella to kill -- 25 minutes of uninterrupted attacks. Gunter does basically the same damage as Grizabella does against single opponents (obviously, Gunter's much better against groups). Well, perhaps he deals 50% more damage, but he uses the same attack forms -- physical and fire. I wondered if Gunter would have the same difficulty dealing with Vilehand that Grizabella had.

He didn't. Vilehand fell in roughly 20 seconds. This adds to the mystery. Perhaps there was a bug of some kind in 1.10 that got fixed in 1.10s. Or perhaps it has something to do with fire enchantment, because both Vilehand and the Cow King were fire enchanted for Grizabella and both seemed to take much longer to kill than one would expect. Vilehand wasn't fire enchanted this time (he was fire immune, but not fire enchanted), so maybe that's the difference. Also, Vilehand and the Cow King both had that weird bug for Grizabella in that they died well before the hit point bar would seem to indicate that they should have died (e.g. Vilehand died with 20% of his life left when Grizabella killed him). I don't know.

All of the boss council members died relatively painlessly -- each taking one mana potion run to town to kill. Inside the Durance, the monsters also fell pretty easily. There were Stygian Dolls, Cadavers, and Blunderbores which means from Gunter's point of view that there were no missile fire monsters and therefore no dangerous monsters. I killed a champion doll pack here and again took very little damage from the doll explosions.

There was a small group of normal blood lords in the entranceway in the Durance Level 3 who were easily stunned and dispatched. I then taunted Bremm Sparkfist's pack into the entranceway. It took several trips to town to refresh mana potions and my mercenary died once (a conviction, lightning enchanted Bremm Sparkfist is nasty), but ultimately the pack fell. In the main chamber, there was a pack of boss blood lords. The minions were taunted and taken care of quickly and then the boss was dispatched.



I tried a new strategy for me with Mephisto. I bought a wand of Life Tap from Ormus. Life Tap works on Mephisto and Diablo even though normal leech doesn't. I figured that it would help keep my mercenary alive and save on potions. I also wanted to experiment to see if the idea would work for future fights. I cast Life Tap on Mephisto and then Battle Cry. Hmmmm... The Battle Cry animation seemed to override the Life Tap animation. I cast Life Tap again and then Battle Cry. The same thing happened. I wasn't sure if the Battle Cry actually overrode the Life Tap or if it was just an animation problem, but just in case, I cast another Life Tap and left it at that. It definitely saved on healing potions. I only had to go back to town once. I stayed right next to Mephisto to keep him from using his blue ball and charged bolt attacks. He fell quickly.

Afterward, I tested the Life Tap and Battle Cry combination with Grizabella. Sure enough, Battle Cry overrides Life Tap, so the game seems to treat Battle Cry as a curse. That's too bad. I was hoping to use the Life Tap/Battle Cry combination with the Ancients if Gunter makes it that far.

Incidentally, I did one magic find run on Mephisto after that and got a second Vampire Gaze out of it. Magic finding on Mephisto is definitely not dead.


So Gunter freed Kurast from the evil corruption of Mephisto. Gunter's accomplishments, including a victory against one of the three Prime Evils, brought astonishment and wonder to the eyes of the few remaining residents of Kurast. There was no longer any doubt in their minds that this strange barbarian mage had special gifts of courage and determination that far outstripped the power of his spells. The mercenary leader Asheara made Gunter an honorary member of the Iron Wolves.

But Gunter's work was not over for Cain told Gunter that in order to save the world, Gunter must go into the very heart of hell itself and battle Diablo in his own realm. Gunter shuddered. How could any mortal man battle the demon hordes of hell and live to tell the tale?