! OMG - Don't wear the Annihilus Charm !

[rriggs]

Well drats!! I finally had the clone show up in a game I was playing solo, Hell of course, working up my summomancer whose a pitiful 78. So I call up a friend and asked him "Do you want to come die with me?" Naturally, he knows I want hiim to come play Diablo. He says, "No, I'm busy right now" I tell him, "Gee, Too bad. Because DiabloClone is walking the earth." He says, "I'm suddenly not busy!" He hops online. He tries to call another guy in our group, but can't reach him. We decide we'll give it a shot. He's a lvl 78 lightning/cold sorcy. I tell him I need a nice wide open area for my zoo. We decide on Bilibosh. I tell him he's always in the middle of the Cain Stones. So he says we need to hit the Cold Plains. I'm like, weird, I would have swore that the Cain Stones are in the Stony Field. He says, "No, I'm looking at the guide book, and it says he's in the Cold Plains." Well, we wipe out the entire Cold Plains, no Bilibosh. Go figure?! So, we try the Stony Field, and find him in about 30 seconds. Of course, the entire map is still fillled with zombies, fallen, etc, which my zoo takes off after in 12 directions at once. We pop back to town, and decide the first order of business is to clear out all the riff-raff. We head back and mop up all around him, trying to avoid him until everything else is dead. We still can't get ahold of our other friend we know that has a Hell character. Most everyone in our gang is still in Nightmare. We all had played back before LOD, but just started playing again about three weeks ago. We decide to go for it and see what happens. Of course, my entire zoo is toast in about 5 seconds. I'm recasting my clay golem every 10 seconds. I cycle through all of my curses to see what does the best. Golem/Decrept do a great job of slowing him down, but we can't damage him, or at least damage him faster than his regen. If I use Lower Resist, we can get him down to about 50%, but we're dying left and right and we can't budge him past 50%. Really I should say, the sorcy can get him down to about 50%. I'm just sitting there cursing & running & cursing, but I'm talking about the other kind of cursing now. My wife has to come into my office to see what all the fuss is about. How do you explain the rarity/magnitude of DiabloClone to a spouse? "Yes Honey, I know it's late, but I *really* want to keep playing tonight." She gives me a "hmpf!" and walks out. Normally I try to be very thoughtful, and if she wants some attention I'll bail out of any game at any time to be with her, so she's not used to this. Anyways.. back to the action! Great news! We've gotten ahold of our other friend!! He pops in, and we run around like ants trying to take out Mr. T. (Uh oh, you know its bad when someone brings up Mr. T in a post!) No dice. We still can't get him to budge below half, even with another sorcy casting away. Man, those guys lag me out. They laught at me and ask me what I expect with 20 skellies. I tell them, "I play solo all the time with 20 skells and never lag. Its only when my screen fills with Frozen Orbs that I lag." No sympathy. Somewhere in there, I decide it would be a good idea to fire up Roger Wilco so I can coordinate with my buds, instead of trying to type. Not that it makes any difference. Well, except now they can hear me cursing. So we can't take him. We decide to put out the call for help. The last guy knows a friend who has a lvl 90 amazon. He pops in a laughs at us lvl 70-80 types trying to take him. He says we need to level up. Well, duh. But it's not like I can just go level up 20 levels and come back and try again. Did I mention I had loooong ago quit trying to rez my merc. Or even bother getting more skells. Its just me and a new clay golem, oh, every 3 seconds now. I totally tap myself out, I've sold off everything crappy in my stash to buy more pots for more runs at him. Did I mention I still have like -50 resists to everything in Hell? Did I mention that its not even because I have maxed MF. Did I mention that I love the phrase "Did I mention?" If I could twink this guy, I would in a heart beat. All I find is crap for Amazons. No one in my group even plays an Amazon. Maybe this is Diablo telling me I need to make one. So I have to beg the guys for gold so I can buy still more pots. Seems everyone is in the same place, we've all died a million times and burned through all available gold, pots. I'm wondering if I can offer my first born to someone. I make an oath to everyone that I'm going to go find the normal Diablo and kick his butt to kindom come in my next game. Anyways, this one battle we're making a dent. What's going on? I see his health bar drop down below the A. Crist!! Then I see why. There's a barb going toe to toe with him. Where'd he come from? Seems our friend of a friend had a friend of his own. I was so busy watching my health/mana, drinking pots, dodging fire & lightning blasts, recasting golems, keeping DiabloClone cursed, I totally missed someone new joining the game!! This dude is just in there swinging away. I don't know what he was swinging, he was behind DC from where I was standing. DiabloClone is giving him everything full blast and the barb's life bar is barely moving. Slowly but surely this barb keeps hammering on him. He's slivered!! I'm hold my Alt key down. Boom! He pops and wooooosh, the barb and the charm are gone. I didn't even see the charm appear. My buds said they did, but that barb and snatched and left. Didn't even say a word the entire time he was there. I thought that was kind of rude, at least say thanks for giving him an invite! Is that too much to ask for?!? We won I guess. But a every empty feeling. I can't be mad. We tried ourselves, it just wasn't going to happen. That barb beat him and undoubted could have solo'd him. *sigh*

Anyways, I'm still hoping to get a charm so I can test my original hypothesis! I'll keep you informed! Cheers!