10-02-2003, 08:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-02-2003, 08:36 PM by MongoJerry.)
MALDAR: ACT V, THE ANCIENTS
There I was on the Arreat Summit, fresh from a muling session where Maldar received the "council's" shipment of full rejuvenation potions. The only other time he had been twinked potions was when he got a shipment of twenty potions at the start of Act IV. I wasn't going to fool around. I gave him sixty this time. Incidentally, Maldar has never had to be twinked cash.
Before describing the strategy I used to fight the Ancients, let me discuss three strategies that may sound reasonable but nonetheless would not work or at least in one case would be much more risky than one might think. How do I know that they don't work? They were the first three strategies I tried against the Ancients in 8-player nightmare difficulty. If they didn't work then, I didn't expect that they would work in hell, even in 1-player mode.
1. The most obvious strategy would be to bone prison the Ancients and fire bone spirits at them from a safe distance. Only Korlic, the leaper, could get to you and he could be battled one-on-one.
Unfortunately, much to my surprise and consternation, I discovered that the Ancients in 1.10s move right through bone prisons and bone walls as if they don't exist. They don't jump over them, teleport around them, or weave their way through a kind of maze. They just move right through bone walls and prisons -- like ghosts . However, players get stopped by prisons and walls, so casting them only makes it harder for you to dodge the Ancients yourself. Yikes!
2. OK, forget the prisons. You have a good stack of potions on the ground and you've got bone armor. Why not go toe-to-toe with the Ancients? They mostly do physical damage which the bone armor can absorb. Why not get in the face of one of the Ancients and use a "bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor, bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor..." pattern. The bone armor will absorb most of the damage you take and you can take out at least one of the Ancients pretty quickly.
Unfortunately I found out in nightmare difficulty that when you have all three Ancients wailing on you, they do a lot more damage than your bone armor alone can absorb unless all you do is cast bone armor. Plus, a couple of Ancients typically spawn with some sort of elemental enchantment and that elemental damage does not get absorbed by the bone armor. Finally, there are plenty of times when the Ancients will put you in hit recovery or disrupt your casting, so your rhythm can easily get disrupted. This strategy just doesn't work.
3. Let's go to the opposite extreme, then. Let's play chicken! Your character runs fast, so let's run a distance, fire some bone spirits in the Ancients' directions, run some more, fire more bone spirits, and repeat as long as necessary. Bone spirits don't need to be aimed, so they can even be fired blindly. Surely, this would be a safe and effective way to take out the Ancients.
Maybe. But it's a lot harder than you may think. First, the Ancients move fast, especially in hell. Even if you could keep decrepify on all of the Ancients all the time, Korlic, the leaper, can catch up to you quickly with one leap attack. Plus, Madawc can throw his axes from a long distance. You have to keep moving, and the more you move, the less you can fire. When I tried this in nightmare, I was able to average two bone spirits fired for every running stint. It was taking a long time to dish out any significant damage.
That's fine, you may say. You're patient. As long as you can kill the Ancients safely, that's OK with you. Unfortunately, when we think of theoretical strategies, we often make the mistake of believing that we will play perfectly and that nothing will go wrong. But we don't play perfectly and things do go wrong. Despite my best efforts to dodge and keep away from him, Madawc was able to hit me with his throwing axes from time to time. Plus, sometimes I'd get tripped up on a rock formation and Korlic would be able to get a swing on me and trap me for a second or two. Sure, I would then quaff a potion, move away, recast bone armor, and get back into my rhythm. But that meant that I had been forced to quaff one of my precious rejuv potions while simultaneously I was not dealing much damage per unit of time.
And that gets to the last problem. The killing speed is so slow that any potions you have on the ground are likely to be cleaned up long before you get a chance to use them. So you're basically stuck with only being able to use the potions in your belt and in your inventory. You're not taking much damage per time, but you're also not dealing much damage per time, either. Which will run out first: Your potions or the Ancients' life? With practice, you might be able to make this strategy work, but all I can say is that I tried this strategy for a little bit in nightmare and decided that I didn't like my odds of winning the battle using it.
I knew going in that these reasonable sounding strategies wouldn't work individually, so instead I decided to try a combination of all three! You'll see what I'm talking about in a moment.
The first thing I did was create two stashes of rejuv potions near the altar. With Grizabella and Gunter, I had made my stashes out of the way so that I could run over and pick them up while not being simultantously attacked by the Ancients. But this led me to constantly fret about when those potions would be cleaned up. Drakken at diabloii.net made a good suggestion. If I had instead put the potions near the field of battle, I could have picked them up at more regular intervals and would not have worried so much about when the potions would get cleaned up. I could guarantee that whenever they did get cleaned up, I'd have a mostly full belt of potions to work with for the remainder of the battle.
The clock would start ticking on the potion cleanup routine the moment I dropped the first potion, so I wanted to create my potion stashes as quickly as possible. I first filled my cube (which I carried) and eight inventory spaces with full rejuv potions. It meant sacrificing 22 life points worth of charms to carry those extra potions, but I felt it was well worth it. That meant I'd be carrying 36 full rejuv potions into battle (16 on my belt, 8 in inventory, 12 in my cube) -- and that's without counting the ones I'd drop on the ground.
With my belt and inventory full of rejuv potions, I returned to the Arreat Summit, and removed my belt and put it back on. Poof! A 12-potion stash instantly appeared on the ground. I tp'd back, refilled my belt with rejuv potions from my stash, returned to the summit, and removed my belt again, creating another stash of 12 potions. I tp'd back, refilled my belt, returned to the summit, and got ready to touch the altar.
![[Image: Maldar5_ancients1.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Maldar5_ancients1.jpg)
"Professor MongoJerry?"
Yes, you in the back.
"Uh, you said that the Ancients can walk through bone walls and prisons as if they aren't there. Why did you cast all those bone walls and prisons around Madawc before you hit the altar?"
Ah, excellent observation! You are correct that I said that all of the Ancients can walk through the bone walls and prisons, but bone walls and prisons can still block Madawc's throwing axes. Not only that, but Madawc doesn't seem to realize that! As long as you don't get too close to him (which would cause him to back away) or too far away from him (which would cause him to chase you), he's perfectly content to stand in a field of bone prisons and throw his axes at you despite the fact that they get harmlessly absorbed by the bone prisons surrounding him. This is the part of the plan that was like strategy #1.
Yes, you with your hand up.
"Yeah, I'm wondering about the golem. It's a 1+2 point clay golem with 1+2 point golem mastery, right? Won't it die in like two seconds? Why bother?"
It'll die in one second, actually. I'll discuss the golem in a minute. Now, if there are no more questions, let's begin.
![[Image: Maldar5_ancients2.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Maldar5_ancients2.jpg)
I hit the altar and backed off to get a chance to check the Ancients' mods. My plan was to take on whatever Ancients came out as long as none of them were fanatacism, holy freeze, or might aura enchanted. They weren't. I drew the following set of Ancients instead:
Korlic (leaper): Cold immune, Extra Fast, Amp Cursed
Talic (whirlwinder): Fire immune, Extra Strong, Spectral Hit
Madawc (thrower): Lightning and cold immune, Spectral Hit, Cold Enchanted
It was a pretty normal draw. The spectral hit enchantments meant that my bone armor wouldn't be absorbing all of the damage I would receive, and the extra fast and amp cursed combo on Korlic wasn't nice and I wouldn't want Talic, with his Extra Strong mod, to hit me very often while I was amp cursed. But on the whole, it wasn't a terrible draw.
![[Image: Maldar5_ancients3.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Maldar5_ancients3.jpg)
So what's the deal with the clay golem? He couldn't really act as a tank, because he typically died in one second -- maybe two if only one Ancient attacked him and that Ancient was decrepified. Why did I bother casting him then? He wasn't a tank, but he was a distraction. It took time for Korlic and Talic to move to him, attack and kill him, and then switch targets and move toward me. So even if the golem only lived for a second in a battle, he really bought me about three seconds during which time I could safely fire bone spirits. What's more, I didn't have to run nearly as far to get away from Korlic and Talic as I did when I tried the "run and shoot" method without the golem. Instead, I only had to cast a new golem, take a few steps back, and start firing again. This was the part of the strategy that was like a modified form of strategy #3.
Incidentally, the bone prisons in the above screenshot were not for Korlic and Talic. They were there to intercept Madawc's throwing axes. Madawc was just offscreen to the lower left.
![[Image: Maldar5_ancients4.jpg]](http://www.idiom.com/~gmonsen/diablo/Maldar5_ancients4.jpg)
Having determined that I would fight this set of Ancients, I led them back to the altar to give me maximum maneuvering room and also to let me be closer to the potion stashes during the battle. I bone prisoned Madawc and started a long battle with Korlic and Talic that I waged while circling around Madawc. I made sure to stay close enough to Madawc to make him stay put, and I refreshed the bone prisons around him whenever part of his prison fell.
It was amazing to feel the difference during the moments when I wasn't able to get my golem up (like in the above screenshot). Talic and Korlic would chase me relentlessly and it would feel like they were constantly on my heels.
There I was on the Arreat Summit, fresh from a muling session where Maldar received the "council's" shipment of full rejuvenation potions. The only other time he had been twinked potions was when he got a shipment of twenty potions at the start of Act IV. I wasn't going to fool around. I gave him sixty this time. Incidentally, Maldar has never had to be twinked cash.
Before describing the strategy I used to fight the Ancients, let me discuss three strategies that may sound reasonable but nonetheless would not work or at least in one case would be much more risky than one might think. How do I know that they don't work? They were the first three strategies I tried against the Ancients in 8-player nightmare difficulty. If they didn't work then, I didn't expect that they would work in hell, even in 1-player mode.
1. The most obvious strategy would be to bone prison the Ancients and fire bone spirits at them from a safe distance. Only Korlic, the leaper, could get to you and he could be battled one-on-one.
Unfortunately, much to my surprise and consternation, I discovered that the Ancients in 1.10s move right through bone prisons and bone walls as if they don't exist. They don't jump over them, teleport around them, or weave their way through a kind of maze. They just move right through bone walls and prisons -- like ghosts . However, players get stopped by prisons and walls, so casting them only makes it harder for you to dodge the Ancients yourself. Yikes!
2. OK, forget the prisons. You have a good stack of potions on the ground and you've got bone armor. Why not go toe-to-toe with the Ancients? They mostly do physical damage which the bone armor can absorb. Why not get in the face of one of the Ancients and use a "bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor, bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor..." pattern. The bone armor will absorb most of the damage you take and you can take out at least one of the Ancients pretty quickly.
Unfortunately I found out in nightmare difficulty that when you have all three Ancients wailing on you, they do a lot more damage than your bone armor alone can absorb unless all you do is cast bone armor. Plus, a couple of Ancients typically spawn with some sort of elemental enchantment and that elemental damage does not get absorbed by the bone armor. Finally, there are plenty of times when the Ancients will put you in hit recovery or disrupt your casting, so your rhythm can easily get disrupted. This strategy just doesn't work.
3. Let's go to the opposite extreme, then. Let's play chicken! Your character runs fast, so let's run a distance, fire some bone spirits in the Ancients' directions, run some more, fire more bone spirits, and repeat as long as necessary. Bone spirits don't need to be aimed, so they can even be fired blindly. Surely, this would be a safe and effective way to take out the Ancients.
Maybe. But it's a lot harder than you may think. First, the Ancients move fast, especially in hell. Even if you could keep decrepify on all of the Ancients all the time, Korlic, the leaper, can catch up to you quickly with one leap attack. Plus, Madawc can throw his axes from a long distance. You have to keep moving, and the more you move, the less you can fire. When I tried this in nightmare, I was able to average two bone spirits fired for every running stint. It was taking a long time to dish out any significant damage.
That's fine, you may say. You're patient. As long as you can kill the Ancients safely, that's OK with you. Unfortunately, when we think of theoretical strategies, we often make the mistake of believing that we will play perfectly and that nothing will go wrong. But we don't play perfectly and things do go wrong. Despite my best efforts to dodge and keep away from him, Madawc was able to hit me with his throwing axes from time to time. Plus, sometimes I'd get tripped up on a rock formation and Korlic would be able to get a swing on me and trap me for a second or two. Sure, I would then quaff a potion, move away, recast bone armor, and get back into my rhythm. But that meant that I had been forced to quaff one of my precious rejuv potions while simultaneously I was not dealing much damage per unit of time.
And that gets to the last problem. The killing speed is so slow that any potions you have on the ground are likely to be cleaned up long before you get a chance to use them. So you're basically stuck with only being able to use the potions in your belt and in your inventory. You're not taking much damage per time, but you're also not dealing much damage per time, either. Which will run out first: Your potions or the Ancients' life? With practice, you might be able to make this strategy work, but all I can say is that I tried this strategy for a little bit in nightmare and decided that I didn't like my odds of winning the battle using it.
I knew going in that these reasonable sounding strategies wouldn't work individually, so instead I decided to try a combination of all three! You'll see what I'm talking about in a moment.
The first thing I did was create two stashes of rejuv potions near the altar. With Grizabella and Gunter, I had made my stashes out of the way so that I could run over and pick them up while not being simultantously attacked by the Ancients. But this led me to constantly fret about when those potions would be cleaned up. Drakken at diabloii.net made a good suggestion. If I had instead put the potions near the field of battle, I could have picked them up at more regular intervals and would not have worried so much about when the potions would get cleaned up. I could guarantee that whenever they did get cleaned up, I'd have a mostly full belt of potions to work with for the remainder of the battle.
The clock would start ticking on the potion cleanup routine the moment I dropped the first potion, so I wanted to create my potion stashes as quickly as possible. I first filled my cube (which I carried) and eight inventory spaces with full rejuv potions. It meant sacrificing 22 life points worth of charms to carry those extra potions, but I felt it was well worth it. That meant I'd be carrying 36 full rejuv potions into battle (16 on my belt, 8 in inventory, 12 in my cube) -- and that's without counting the ones I'd drop on the ground.
With my belt and inventory full of rejuv potions, I returned to the Arreat Summit, and removed my belt and put it back on. Poof! A 12-potion stash instantly appeared on the ground. I tp'd back, refilled my belt with rejuv potions from my stash, returned to the summit, and removed my belt again, creating another stash of 12 potions. I tp'd back, refilled my belt, returned to the summit, and got ready to touch the altar.
"Professor MongoJerry?"
Yes, you in the back.
"Uh, you said that the Ancients can walk through bone walls and prisons as if they aren't there. Why did you cast all those bone walls and prisons around Madawc before you hit the altar?"
Ah, excellent observation! You are correct that I said that all of the Ancients can walk through the bone walls and prisons, but bone walls and prisons can still block Madawc's throwing axes. Not only that, but Madawc doesn't seem to realize that! As long as you don't get too close to him (which would cause him to back away) or too far away from him (which would cause him to chase you), he's perfectly content to stand in a field of bone prisons and throw his axes at you despite the fact that they get harmlessly absorbed by the bone prisons surrounding him. This is the part of the plan that was like strategy #1.
Yes, you with your hand up.
"Yeah, I'm wondering about the golem. It's a 1+2 point clay golem with 1+2 point golem mastery, right? Won't it die in like two seconds? Why bother?"
It'll die in one second, actually. I'll discuss the golem in a minute. Now, if there are no more questions, let's begin.
I hit the altar and backed off to get a chance to check the Ancients' mods. My plan was to take on whatever Ancients came out as long as none of them were fanatacism, holy freeze, or might aura enchanted. They weren't. I drew the following set of Ancients instead:
Korlic (leaper): Cold immune, Extra Fast, Amp Cursed
Talic (whirlwinder): Fire immune, Extra Strong, Spectral Hit
Madawc (thrower): Lightning and cold immune, Spectral Hit, Cold Enchanted
It was a pretty normal draw. The spectral hit enchantments meant that my bone armor wouldn't be absorbing all of the damage I would receive, and the extra fast and amp cursed combo on Korlic wasn't nice and I wouldn't want Talic, with his Extra Strong mod, to hit me very often while I was amp cursed. But on the whole, it wasn't a terrible draw.
So what's the deal with the clay golem? He couldn't really act as a tank, because he typically died in one second -- maybe two if only one Ancient attacked him and that Ancient was decrepified. Why did I bother casting him then? He wasn't a tank, but he was a distraction. It took time for Korlic and Talic to move to him, attack and kill him, and then switch targets and move toward me. So even if the golem only lived for a second in a battle, he really bought me about three seconds during which time I could safely fire bone spirits. What's more, I didn't have to run nearly as far to get away from Korlic and Talic as I did when I tried the "run and shoot" method without the golem. Instead, I only had to cast a new golem, take a few steps back, and start firing again. This was the part of the strategy that was like a modified form of strategy #3.
Incidentally, the bone prisons in the above screenshot were not for Korlic and Talic. They were there to intercept Madawc's throwing axes. Madawc was just offscreen to the lower left.
Having determined that I would fight this set of Ancients, I led them back to the altar to give me maximum maneuvering room and also to let me be closer to the potion stashes during the battle. I bone prisoned Madawc and started a long battle with Korlic and Talic that I waged while circling around Madawc. I made sure to stay close enough to Madawc to make him stay put, and I refreshed the bone prisons around him whenever part of his prison fell.
It was amazing to feel the difference during the moments when I wasn't able to get my golem up (like in the above screenshot). Talic and Korlic would chase me relentlessly and it would feel like they were constantly on my heels.