Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[MongoJerry]

GUNTER: ACT V THE ANCIENTS PART II

I went back to town, collected some more rejuvs from the stash, came back to the summit, and made one big stash of rejuv's. It seemed silly to take the time to make two separate piles of potions again. I recollected my charms, refreshed my Battle Command, Battle Orders, and Shout, took a deep breath, and hit the alter.

And got a fanat aura enchanted amp cursed Ancient pack. TP.

This was not going well. I regrouped and hit the alter again.



No physical immunes, no holy freeze, no fanat. Check. Instead, I got:

Korlic (leaper): Cold immune, Spectral Hit, Amp Cursed
Talic (whirlwinder): Fire immune, Mana Burn, Amp Cursed
Madawc (thrower): Lightning immune, Spectral Hit, Extra Strong

Fine. I decided to try it. With all the possible combinations of Ancients, it's nearly impossible to get a "perfect" Ancients roll. Grizabella managed to beat a set of Ancients when two of them were Amp cursed. I might as well see if Gunter could do the same thing.



This time, I was vigilant about keeping the Life Tap up. Now that he wasn't slowed down by Holy Freeze, my merc was able to leech back all of the damage he was taking. Being amp cursed meant that I was quaffing potions more for life than mana this time, but the battle went pretty well as you can see in the screenshot above.

At about this time, I started worrying about the potions on the ground. Part of me wanted to keep on fighting and finish off Korlic, but my belt was running low. If the potions got cleaned up before I got a chance to refresh my belt, I'd be up a creek -- facing at least two Ancients without any potions.



So I ran up to the corner to refresh my belt. And three seconds later, my merc died.

It turns out that in all the excitement of battle and vigilance about casting Life Tap, I had forgotten to refresh Battle Orders in the middle of the battle. So when I ran up to get potions, the Ancients all turned on my amped merc and killed him almost instantaneously. Not casting Battle Orders also meant that each rejuv was only giving me half the life and mana I could have gotten each time. I could have stayed in the battle longer.

Even though Korlic and Talic were significantly damaged at this point, I was still facing the prospect of fighting all three Ancients solo while amped. Disappointed, I started a town portal and recovered the remaining rejuv's.



I revived my merc, made another (smaller by this point) stash of rejuvs in the corner, and hit the alter again.

This time, Madawc came out Conviction aura enchanted and Talic came out lightning enchanted. I tried fighting them, because at least we weren't being amped. But after quaffing a couple of rejuv's, I realized that there was no way we were going to be able to take that kind of punishment. TP.

Gunter's store of potions, once enormous, was rapidly being depleted. I went out into the Frigid Highlands and used Find Potion on monster bodies to collect another half dozen full rejuv's.

This was getting frustrating. This was the fourth time the Ancients had turned Gunter away. And yet I felt I was close. If I played nearly perfectly -- kept the Life Tap and Battle Orders up, managed potions correctly, and kept my merc alive -- then I felt Gunter could eventually beat the Ancients.