Irene, the Infirm

[MongoJerry]

But one big problem with this plan was that Aliza would often miss the speedy Andariel whenever she was chasing Irene on the opposite side of the pit. Sometimes Andariel would get hit if she stopped to spit poison, but she didn't get hit often enough for this tactic to be effective.



The plan worked best when Irene led Andariel in straight lines either toward or away from Aliza. Also, it was best when she kept Andariel fairly close to Aliza. That way, all of Aliza's arrows would hit their mark.



The drawback to this approach, though, was that Andariel would often switch targets and go after Aliza instead. Aliza had to be resurrected often. However, after a little practice, Irene learned to time things well. Whenever Andariel went after Aliza, Irene would start up a townportal while Aliza continued to shoot at Andariel from point-blank range. Then, she'd wait until Aliza's life bar turned red and would then enter the portal just in time to save Aliza. This tactic allowed Aliza to shoot a few extra arrows at Andariel each skirmish and made a big difference in the speed that Andariel was being whittled down.

Also, it allowed me to notice one new thing in 1.10. No more mercenaries dying in town! It used to be that if your mercenary was poisoned, you'd have to race to the town healer to keep him or her alive. If his or her life went to 0 before you got there, he or she would die in town. But not anymore. Cool!



Irene and Aliza continued to battle Andariel. Of course, most of the screenshots show a nice orderly battle. That's the nature of screenshots. I was too busy running to take screenshots during the times things went bad -- and they went bad a lot. Sometimes, Irene and Aliza would get hit so hard right away that they'd have to return to town without Aliza being able to get even one shot off. In addition, Irene had many narrow escapes. Most skirmishes lasted about 10-20 seconds before Irene and Aliza would be forced to return to town. But slowly, Andariel's health bar was being whittled down, and about 25 minutes into the battle (about half of which was spent in town), Andariel's health bar had been cut in half.

But one skirmish went terribly wrong. It started like all of the couple dozen skirmishes before it had. Irene and Aliza quaffed antidote potions in town and stepped into the portal. But unbeknownst to them, Andariel was standing right next to the portal, so they landed practically on top of her. Andariel reared back to spray clouds of poison, and Irene ran. Aliza took the brunt of the poison cloud attack and died instantly. Because Irene had a couple of yards head start -- or perhaps because Aliza blocked some of the clouds -- Irene didn't take the full force of the attack. However, her life ball reading dropped to the low single digits. A stumble through a flame would be fatal.

Irene ran while quaffing health potions, because there was no time to start a townportal. If she tried to start one, Andariel would be able to get in another attack and kill her before she got to town. Her only hope was to get to the entrance room, duck behind the wall, and start up a safe townportal there.

But as Irene raced toward the doorway to the entrance room, Andariel started up a second poison gas cloud attack. The clouds screamed toward Irene. They were nearly on top of her when she was less than a yard away from the door...

UP NEXT: The Death Screen