Maldar, the Magnificent

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part VI



The Infector's wing still had quite a large number of monsters in it. I drew away the normal monsters and parked them in several locations with the bulk of the monsters being parked in the Grand Vizier's wing.



I then ran over and hit both seals in the Infector's area (if you don't know why already, you'll see why I hit both seals in a minute) while dodging bone spirits launched by OK's in the area. I cast dim vision at the edge of the screen to blind all of the Infector's minions and then goaded the Infector to come out from his pack. When he did, I ran around him, and using Terror to make a path, I ran through his pack of minions to the other side where I would have more room to maneuver.

I kept the minions dim visioned and again goaded the Infector to come chase me. It worked. I led him around the corner which was clear of monsters and bone prisoned him there.



Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the "tether." The Infector's minions are connected to the Infector via an invisible tether that keeps them from running too far away from the Infector unless you take actions or use skills that override this behavior. So even though the Infector's minions could not see me, they still sensed that their boss had moved away and the tether pulled them along with him. If I had remembered about the tether, I would've thrown up some bone walls and prisons around the minions to hold them back. Oh, well.

So I ended up having to take on the Infector while simultaneously holding down his minions with dim visions and bone prisons. This turned out not to be a major problem, though.



In a short amount of time, Maldar took down the Infector.

Now, some of you may be wondering why in the above screenshot all of the Infector's minions are also disappearing in clouds of smoke. When all of the requirements are satisfied to bring out Diablo -- all five seals have been touched and the three bosses have been killed -- all of the other monsters in the Chaos Sanctuary are killed, or for Maldar's sake we'll say "dismissed," by Diablo. That's why I made sure to hit all five seals before taking on the Infector. This way, I didn't have to run through any more monster packs to get to the untouched seals.

The Chaos Sanctuary was clear. The only thing left for Maldar to do was fight Diablo himself.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, DIABLO

A deep thundering voice echoed through the sanctuary.

"Not even death can save you from me!"

Maldar uttered a hearty laugh. "Do you think your terror can work on me, Diablo?" he said. "I have bested you once before, and I will best you again today."

"Ah, Maldar, 'the Magnificent,'" the voice answered mockingly. "You have grown old and weak since you were the Demonslayer. In the meantime, the soulstones have made me more powerful with each passing day."

"We shall see who has grown old and weak, Diablo," said Maldar. "Let us begin."



Maldar charged forward, threw a bone prison around Diablo, and continued forward until he stood just outside the bone prison holding Diablo. Diablo breathed his legendary Lightning Breath of Death.

"Diablo, Diablo, Diablo," said Maldar while firing a series of bone spirits, "Haven't any of your minions ever told you that your lightning breath starts several yards away from you? It's totally ineffectual against someone standing as close as I am to you."

"You like to get close, eh?" responded Diablo. "Let this infernal bone prison fall and I'll show you something that will terrify your soul."

"Your wish is my command, my Lord," said Maldar. He let the bone prison surrounding Diablo collapse and moved forward. "Now what was it you wanted to show me?"



"Ouch, fire!" exclaimed Maldar, mockingly. "Why another three or four of those and I might have to quaff a healing potion. Really, Diablo, if the bards are to sing songs of this battle, you must give them something to work with."



Diablo reared back and smashed his claw down on Maldar, issuing what he thought would be a bone crushing blow.

"Look at what you did," said a laughing Maldar. "Why you made me have to refresh my bone armor. Tsk tsk."

Diablo roared again.

"Not your lightning breath again," said Maldar. "We've been through this!"



Without ever once being in danger, Maldar killed Diablo, and he only needed to drink three red healing potions and three blue mana potions to do it.

"Don't worry, Diablo," said Maldar as Diablo uttered his dying roar. "When I tell others of what happened here, I will speak of a great and terrifying battle in which you brought me to the brink of death. I wouldn't want your reputation to be tarnished by what transpired today."

As Maldar walked away, he shook his head, saying, "They don't make Lords of Terror like they used to."

Back in the Pandemonium Fortress, Cain congratulated Maldar on his victory, but Tyrael told Maldar that his mission was not over for while Maldar was making his way through hell, Baal had raised a terrifying army to assault Mount Arreat, deep in the land of the barbarians. Tyrael said that while the barbarians were fighting valiantly against Baal's army, they were taking heavy losses. Maldar needed to go to Harrogoth to stop Baal from assending Mt. Arreat and gaining control of the Worldstone. If he didn't, then the resulting death toll of both free peoples and demons would be uncountable.

Maldar stepped into the portal to Harrogoth that Tyrael had opened. Will he be able to stop Baal before Baal reaches the Worldstone?

Act IV Quest Screen

Act IV Waypoint Screen

[Crystalion]

What rune would Maldar get? An Ohm? An Ist? An Um?

A stinkin' Gul again?! Grrrr... (Gunter had also gotten a Gul as you'll recall).

I hope you're kidding (about being disappointed). IIRC Gul is the highest possible hell hellforge reward (1/11th chance and you got it twice). Two of them cube trivially to make a Vex. Having a Vex is approximately a mere Ist away from Silence, which, if I understand correctly, puts Hit Blinds Target +33 on a six socket bow for ~11 seconds of blind assured in hell difficulty at range on targets hit (e.g. use Multishot) with only a clvl 55 req.

In other words, getting 2 Guls is a phenomenally lucky draw, with great trading potential, if nothing else. Many (e.g. SP or non-corrupted realm) players would consider your *entire* time spent playing Gunter and Maldar worth it, for just those two runes as reward.

Nice work on Maldar. I've played a bone prison Necro before, but reading Maldar's journal has biased a build I wanted to play with (the teleporting minion-melee-focus kill-then-CE necro) toward using Dim Vision pumped early. I'm level 24 now (a long long ways from testing the tele-focus, even though I can now use a staff of teleport) and Dim Vision made getting there one of the easier play throughs I've had with a character... I've played a CoS Assassin (v1.09) but I hadn't realized until your reports that DV surpasses the utility of CoS substantially if you're willing to pump it enough (CoS is a one point wonder and doesn't lose duration in nm/hell, but you can't expand its radius or focus it effectively off-screen).

[MongoJerry]

I hope you're kidding (about being disappointed). IIRC Gul is the highest possible hell hellforge reward (1/11th chance and you got it twice). Two of them cube trivially to make a Vex. Having a Vex is approximately a mere Ist away from Silence, which, if I understand correctly, puts Hit Blinds Target +33 on a six socket bow for ~11 seconds of blind assured in hell difficulty at range on targets hit (e.g. use Multishot) with only a clvl 55 req.

In other words, getting 2 Guls is a phenomenally lucky draw, with great trading potential, if nothing else. Many (e.g. SP or non-corrupted realm) players would consider your *entire* time spent playing Gunter and Maldar worth it, for just those two runes as reward.

Yeah, but when you're playing one-time only untwinked single player characters, Guls are worthless. You can't use them in any decent runewords and the +5% to maximum poison resistance is totally worthless. Anyway, I understood that in 1.10, you can get up to an Ohm from the hell helforge anyway. Is that not the case?

Nice work on Maldar. I've played a bone prison Necro before, but reading Maldar's journal has biased a build I wanted to play with (the teleporting minion-melee-focus kill-then-CE necro) toward using Dim Vision pumped early. I'm level 24 now (a long long ways from testing the tele-focus, even though I can now use a staff of teleport) and Dim Vision made getting there one of the easier play throughs I've had with a character... I've played a CoS Assassin (v1.09) but I hadn't realized until your reports that DV surpasses the utility of CoS substantially if you're willing to pump it enough (CoS is a one point wonder and doesn't lose duration in nm/hell, but you can't expand its radius or focus it effectively off-screen).

Cool, yeah, I meleed with Maldar through all of normal and the first half of nightmare and found dim vision to be very useful while doing so. The trouble is that its duration is cut by a quarter in hell, so if you're planning to use it there, you'll have to pump it up a bit. Good luck with your character and let us know how it goes!

[Crystalion]

Yeah, but when you're playing one-time only untwinked single player characters, Guls are worthless.  You can't use them in any decent runewords and the +5% to maximum poison resistance is totally worthless.  Anyway, I understood that in 1.10, you can get up to an Ohm from the hell helforge anyway.  Is that not the case?

Yes, I understand your self imposed restrictions. But that's a bit like saying that getting one of the new elite uber uniques from hell Baal is "unlucky" because your character's career is now over, eh? As to the Gul, yes, I remembered correctly. See: LL thread on Countess and Hellforge rune drops

Cool, yeah, I meleed with Maldar through all of normal and the first half of nightmare and found dim vision to be very useful while doing so.  The trouble is that its duration is cut by a quarter in hell, so if you're planning to use it there, you'll have to pump it up a bit.

Since I understand how to (notwink) put decent weapons into my hireling's hands, I found DV to be useful immediately upon getting it at clvl 6 (CoS is clvl 12 but that's still pretty early). By cutting down on the monsters beating on (me and) my hireling and using the clay golem (slows monsters when they hit him) at slvl 1 + bonus from rod and shield (weapon switch on summoning) I found that most battles were over before I could even think about "saving the day" with CE. Had things not gone so easily I would have socketed a Nef into my hireling's weapon (for knockback of blinded monsters to take even more heat off of him--I switched to a Blessed Aim merc as soon as I hit act2).

The problem with the build I'm curious enough to be doing, is that I can't tell ahead of time what mix of skill points into SM, Skelie and Revive is optimal. As such I've not put any points into any of them yet (I've 12 unspent points at clvl 24, and, iirc, 83 unspent stat points--edit: 92 stat points actually). I suppose it would be easier to do an -act5 clvl 33 or other "fake" clvl character to toy with it a bit first.

Still, my point was, after reading Maldar's tales, that using DV is really easy and fun (the special "attacks" of monsters going away is such a huge boon, as you've noted). Of course, at clvl 24, I've just gotten to the act4 River of Flame, so soon I'll be dealing with OKs for the first time. When CoS fails for an Assassin vs. these guys, Dragon Flight or Psychic Hammer comes to the rescue quite nicely. Eventually my solution would be to either imprison them and walk away ala Maldar, or to teleport my whole army into their face (with everything else blinded or imprisoned). For now I'll see if level 3 bone spear is good enough (as I doubt a ring of telekinesis would be as effective as PH).

Apart from "one time" difficulties as I advance through the acts, I'm not bound by Malderesque oath to complete all quests and get all waypoints, so I'm largely free to avoid trouble areas while I level up and get goodies. I think if I had to make a character purely to deal with OKs all the time I'd pick a Leap Attack Barbarian. I am, in fact, still considering whether I would enjoy making a leap specialist in any event.

One thought that crossed my mind reading your tales was whether Necro Terror Herding with DV/BP retention might not be an amusing way to kill a huge horde of monsters all at once (lay down a few corpses in the eventual "herd" area first and blow them up once everything is gathered). For example, herding a few "corpses" into the seal spawn area would make for a very nice CE, CE start/finish in the Chaos Sanctuary. Hmm. I'll have to go try this now.

[Thecla]

I found DV to be useful immediately upon getting it at clvl 6

Sort of an obvious and parenthetical remark, but I find dim vision useful with my lvl 84 bowazon for corpse recovery (not that I ever die, of course ;) ): I keep a ring of dim vision in her stash (just in case I should die sometime).

Actually, with the increased power of the 1.10 valk and the emphasis on elemental arrows, my bowazon is remarkably equipment independent anyway (buy the cheapest available bow and off you go to get back your xps); but dv is still very nice to have in reserve -- d2's equivalent of d1's items of the dark.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, BLOODY FOOTHILLS

Maldar and Cain arrived at the barbarian stronghold of Harrogoth and saw a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, outside the city walls, Baal's army was ravaging the countryside and barbarian forces were in seemingly endless retreat. On the other hand, Harrogoth itself seemed untouched by the corrupting influence and destructive power of Baal. Clearly, something more than barbarian might was keeping Baal's army at bay.

Maldar and Cain attempted to speak with various leaders of Harrogoth, but few had any time to spare for the new arrivals. The barbarians had heard of Maldar's legendary deeds from years ago and honored him for them, but they had also heard of Maldar's strange decision to give up demon hunting because of his new pacifist philosophy. This philosophy so contradicted hundreds of years of barbarian tradition that the barbarians couldn't understand it. Most assumed that Maldar had gone mad and some went so far as to call him a deserter or worse.

Of all of Harrogoth's leaders, Malah, the head of the city's halls of healing was the most generous in her greeting. She told Maldar and Cain the truth of how desperate the situation was for Harrogoth and said that while pride made it difficult for barbarians to accept aid, Harrogoth needed help all the same. She told them that all of the city's elders, save Nihlathak, had sacrificed themselves to place a protective ward around Harrogoth and that was why the city had remained untouched for so long. Nevertheless, the siege outside the city's walls was taking its toll on the city and its inhabitants all the same.

While Malah told Maldar and Cain much of the happenings within Harrogoth, she unfortunately did not have much specific information about the battles being fought outside or about Baal's possible location or motives in this conflict. She only knew that Baal was on Mount Arreat "searching for something." Maldar and Cain continued to ask Harrogoth's other leaders for information, but none of them were as free with their time as Malah had been.

When Maldar and Cain walked into the city's main smithy to question Larzuk, the city's head smith, about what he knew, Larzuk dismissed them at once. He couldn't see how Maldar, the Pacifist, could help the barbarians in their war against Baal. Maldar stood his ground and said that he was on an important mission and that he was going to defeat Baal for the good of all creatures -- free people and demons.

Larzuk scoffed at Maldar and said, "If you're here to defeat Baal, you must prove it! As we speak, Harrogoth is under siege by Baal's demons. Catapults rain death just outside the town walls. Baal himself travels up the sacred mountain, having left in charge here one of his most vicious generals, Shenk the Overseer. If you wish to prove yourself to us, destroy the monster, Shenk, that commands those infernal catapults outside Harrogoth." Then he ushered Maldar and Cain out the door.

Fury rose inside Maldar, and he told Cain that he was tempted "to leave these infernal barbarians to their fates."

Cain calmed Maldar down and told him to think of the greater good and not let his mistreatment by a few individuals deter him from his mission. Maldar took a deep breath and told Cain that he was right.

When Cain was certain that Maldar was ready to listen, he told him, "Despite his rude behavior, Larzuk may have had a point. To stop Baal, you need information about the local terrain and Baal's possible whereabouts. I believe that stopping the siege on Harrogoth is the only way for you to earn the trust of these people. When the siege is broken, perhaps they will be more willing to give you the information you need."

Maldar nodded. Cain was right. Besides, the ruthless Shenk was hardly an innocent bystander in this affair. Upon his death, his enslaved minions would scatter. The siege could be lifted and the catapults destroyed with minimal loss of life.

Maldar took out his wand, cast a fresh bone armor around himself, and walked out of Harrogoth's main city gate.



The Bloody Foothills were populated by slingers and carrion birds. Sheesh, the "legendary" barbarians of Harrogoth were lame. These were about as easy opponents that one could get. I ran past everything, casting Dim Vision ahead of me as I went. Like most people, when I'm killing things, I usually hug one of the walls so that monsters can only attack me from one direction, but I found that it was easier for Maldar to travel down the center. When he hugged the wall, he had limited options when the path was clogged up by monsters (sure, he could use Terror to move monsters, but that takes time and effort), but when he ran down the center, if a path was clogged up, he had multiple alternate routes to choose from.

Maldar quickly and without much trouble made it to Shenk the Overseer and bone prisoned him. Then, I thought, "You know, this isn't a challenge worthy of Maldar." So, I restarted the game, letting Shenk live.



This time, I got overseers and quill rats. Eh, not bad. Overseers and their enslaved minions take up a lot of room, so I had to do a lot more monster manipulation with Terror and Dim Vision to move them out of the way. Plus, quill rats can hit pretty hard with their poison quills.

Still, everything worked pretty straightforwardly, so I again got to Shenk quickly and bone prisoned him. This still didn't feel like a good enough challenge for Maldar, so I again restarted the game.



This time, I got burning dead archers and foul crows. Like quill rats, foul crows can sting a character pretty badly with their poison attacks, and any area with burning dead archers can be considered a challenge.

I had to bone prison a few boss and champion burning dead archer packs and sometimes run around a bit to find a decent path through all the archers, but on the whole, making my way through the Bloody Foothills wasn't too hard.



I found Shenk the Overseer and bone prisoned him, myself, and everything else in sight. Then, I fired bone spirits like mad at Shenk and took him down without any trouble. After the bone prisons expired, I ran up the slope and found the Frigid Highlands waypoint. Mission accomplished.

When Maldar returned to Harrogoth, he found the city's residents stunned by what they had seen. Maldar seemed to walk out of legend right into their midst. This was indeed the great Maldar, the Magnificent.

Maldar returned to Larzuk who stammered while trying to come up with the right thing to say. He finally blurted out, "You're an even greater warrior than I expected... Sorry for underestimating you." He offered to place sockets in an item of Maldar's choosing (something Maldar had no need for at the moment) and to give Maldar the best prices for all of his wares.

Maldar instead asked Larzuk to escort him and formally introduce him to the city's leaders. He wanted information and if Baal was to be stopped, he needed it without delay.

Larzuk led the way to Qual-Kehk, Harrogoth's Senior Man-At-Arms. Now that Maldar had lifted the siege, perhaps he would be more willing to divulge his battlefield intelligence and give some idea of where Baal may be found.

[MongoJerry]

The problem with the build I'm curious enough to be doing, is that I can't tell ahead of time what mix of skill points into SM, Skelie and Revive is optimal. As such I've not put any points into any of them yet (I've 12 unspent points at clvl 24, and, iirc, 83 unspent stat points--edit: 92 stat points actually). I suppose it would be easier to do an -act5 clvl 33 or other "fake" clvl character to toy with it a bit first.

By the way, diabloii.net has a package of untrained 99th level characters you can download from their 1.10 beta page. The characters are 99th level, but the stat and skill points are unassigned. I've found them useful to experiment around with while trying to figure out what my builds are going to be. For example, if I want to simulate what a 78th level character just entering hell would be like, I'll take one of the 99th level characters and assign only 85 skill points, leaving 25 points unassigned. Doing this gives me an idea of what skill point distribution I eventually want my real character to have. The package also includs items, but unfortunately most of the items were created for 1.10 and not 1.10s, so most of the items disappear in 1.10s. However, the runes and normal and socketed items still work in 1.10s, so you can try various runewords out. You can also convert the other items to 1.10s, but that involves a hack, so I'm going to politely not talk about it.

The link to the package of characters can be found at http://www.diabloii.net/items/v110/news.php. Look about half-way down the page for the news item titled "v1.10 Item Download."

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE FRIGID HIGHLANDS

The five barbarian prisoners, stripped of their protective outer clothing, shivered in the chill of their outdoor cell. Their faces were raw from the icy wind blowing down from the snow-capped peaks and through the primitive prison wall made of wooden spikes held together by massive iron chains. But the barbarians shivered less from the cold than from the contemplation of their fates at the hands of the demonic army that had captured them. Hordes of vile archers and spear throwing cat-like creatures guarded the plain where the prison was located, but worst of all were the huge club carrying blunderbores who only spoke in grunts but always seemed to have death and destruction on their minds.

The prisoners had about given up all hope of rescue when a deathly silence fell around them. Their normally loud, obnoxious, and horrifying guards stood still and seemed to peer out unfocused into the distance. Suddenly, two great barriers of bone rose on either side of their prison cell and a strange figure unlike anyone they had ever seen began shooting balls of white light at the cell door, knocking it down.

Then they heard a loud roar behind them and saw Sharptooth Slayer, the vicious warden of the prison camp, charging toward them, unaffected by whatever was afflicting the other demons. But he suddenly found himself entangled in a prison of bone and all he could do was rage at the stranger who had so brazenly walked into the middle of his camp.



"I am Maldar," said the stranger. "Take this portal to Harrogoth before it's too late."

The first stirrings of the demonic guards around them removed any lingering resistance the barbarians had to following the stranger's instructions. Even if the portal was a direct link to hell, it would be better than staying in that prison cell. The five prisoners entered the portal and found that the stranger had been telling them the truth. They arrived safe and sound in their home of Harrogoth. They were free!



Meanwhile, Maldar continued his mission of rescuing all of the barbarians who had been taken prisoner. The meeting with Qual-Kehk had gone well. The breaking of the siege brought renewed hope to the despairing population of Harrogoth, and the name of Maldar, the Magnificent, was on everyone's lips. Qual-Kehk told Maldar and Cain all he could about the deployments of both enemy and friendly forces and the intricacies of the local terrain. Malah had said that the war was not going well. That was putting it mildly. In fact, the barbarian army was on the verge of collapse.

At the end of their meeting, Qual-Kehk told Maldar that with the breaking of the siege his thoughts had turned to his men taken prisoner on the battlefield. He hated to think of what Baal's demons were doing to them and asked Maldar if he would look for his men on his journey up Mount Arreat and rescue them if he could. Maldar couldn't decline such a mission of mercy and gave his word that he would do everything in his power to rescue the men.

Back in the Frigid Highlands, Sharptooth's roar attracted the attention of the other demons on the plain and soon the entire camp was alerted to the presence of a mysterious intruder. Sharptooth's minions tore down the walls and prisons of bone, but the intruder was nowhere to be seen.

Maldar quickly made progress through the camp by dimming the visions of the monsters in his path. When he came upon the second prison cell, he allowed the guards to see him in order to draw them away from the cell. Then he blinded them and again threw up bone walls and prisons to keep the guards from interfering with the rescue attempt. Maldar broke down the prison door, started up a portal for the prisoners, and soon five more barbarians prisoners found themselves back home in Harrogoth.



Next door, Maldar found the third and final prison cell. He again drew off and blinded most of the guards and threw up bone walls to protect the prisoners during their escape. A small group of vile archers spotted Maldar and started shooting at him over a low wall, but Maldar was able to blind and imprison them before they caused too much harm. The last five barbarian prisoners entered the portal Maldar had opened for them. Maldar had completed his mission of mercy, and he turned his attention toward the assent of Mount Arreat.



Maldar did run into one issue when traveling across the Frigid Highlands. There were many barricaded doors and walls in the demon camp and if Maldar destroyed some of them, he could travel more quickly. However, Baal was known to frequently imbue inanimate objects with the spirits of demons, so Maldar couldn't know if he was merely wrecking an inanimate object or murdering an innocent living being. Just in case, he tried not to destroy any of the walls or doors. However, one long complex of walls and buildings in the Frigid Highlands had no open path around it or through it, so Maldar was forced to destroy one barricaded door to make any progress. He hoped that the door was merely made of reinforced wood and wasn't imbued with a demon spirit.

After making his way across the Frigid Highlands, Maldar portaled back to Harrogoth to rest and restock his supply of potions for the journey ahead. The people of Harrogoth thanked Maldar profusely for rescuing the prisoners. As a sign of his appreciation, Qual-Kehk gave Maldar a set of magical runes that he said could make a powerful shield. Maldar accepted the runes with a smile and didn't tell Qual-Kehk that he had better runes stored away and that his own shield was much better than the shield that the runes would make.

Maldar needed to rest, but first he headed toward the halls of healing for Malah had sent word that she had something urgent about which she needed to speak with him.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, ANYA

"There is a matter which I hesitate to share," said Malah. "But I believe you are the only one who can help me now."

Malah told Maldar that the night before he arrived, she heard Anya, the alchemist daughter of one of Harrogoth's most respected Elders, and Nihlathak, the last remaining Elder, arguing about Anya's father's death. Anya had not been heard from ever since. After the other Elders sacrificed themselves to create the city's protective ward, many had shunned Nihlathak, because they suspected that he remained alive only because he lacked the courage to sacrifice himself as well. Before her disappearance, many people had begun to turn to the young but spirited Anya as their de facto leader. Malah suspected that Nihlathak was behind Anya's disappearance and asked Maldar to look for her and find out what Nihlathak was up to.

This wasn't the first time Maldar had heard unkind words spoken of Nihlathak, and even after all that Maldar had done, he had never once had an audience with Harrogoth's purported leader. Maldar felt it was time to pay him a visit.

When Maldar was ushered into the dimly lit Hall of the Elders, Nihlathak gave him a cold greeting.

"Ah, a necromancer," he said. "While I admire your courage in seeking out the darker side of magic, we really have little need of your skills. The battle will turn soon enough without your meddling. Yet, I should have expected to see your kind here. You are like a moth to the flame -- drawn to all this death. It feeds you in more ways than one, does it not?"

"The fool!" thought Maldar. "True necromancers study death in order to discover the secrets of life. Only charlatans and amateurs study death for its own sake."

Maldar gritted his teeth, but he chose to let Nihlathak's words pass for now, since he had more pressing matters to attend to. He told Nihlathak what Malah had overheard and asked him what he knew about Anya's disappearance.

Nihlathak dismissed Malah's comments as rubbish. He said that he had indeed had an argument with Anya, but it wasn't about Anya's father. Instead, he said that he had tried to stop Anya from going on what he considered a fool's errand. Anya had told Nihlathak that she planned to climb Mount Arreat and stop Baal herself, he said. Anya couldn't be persuaded to give up her plan, and in the morning, she was gone. Nihlathak told Maldar that he should concentrate his efforts on saving Harrogoth -- not on lost causes like Anya.

"Interesting," thought Maldar. "Just a moment ago, you said that my skills weren't needed to turn the tide of battle and yet now that you've heard me talk about Anya, you ask me to focus my efforts on saving Harrogoth."

"Thank-you," said Maldar. "You have been very helpful."

Maldar left the Hall of the Elders. There was no time to rest, he thought. The future of Harrogoth and perhaps the world might hinge on Maldar finding out what Nihlathak was up to, and the only person who could tell him that was Anya. He recast his bone armor and entered the portal he had cast which dropped him off in the Frigid Highlands near the entrance to the Arreat Plateau. Maldar had to find and rescue Anya before it was too late.



Making progress through open outdoor areas is usually pretty easy, and the Arreat Plateau was no exception. This time, the plateau had imps, blood bringers (siege beasts), and slingers. They were easy to blind and imprison, so I found the waypoint and the entrance to the Crystalline Passage quickly.

I did learn one interesting tidbit, though. You can cast Bone Prison on imps and you can cast Bone Prison on siege beasts, but if an imp jumps into a siege beast, you can't cast bone prison on the combined monster. It's like the computer doesn't know the siege beast is a target anymore. You can still imprison the siege beast using Bone Wall, but this inability to cast Bone Prisons on imp-mounted siege beasts seems like a clue that something strange is going on in the game code with regard to imp-mounted siege beasts.



I had to be a lot more careful in the Crystalline Passage, which had bone mages, dark archers, and claw vipers. Like in the countess's tower, I had to resist the temptation to cast too many bone prisons, because it's easy to trap oneself in the narrow passages of the Crystalline Passage. Also, if you imprison claw vipers, they will attack the prison. In tight spaces, it's easy to become the victim of randomly shot bone spears.

I was able to make pretty steady progress, though. Probably the biggest key to avoiding danger was casting Dim Vision well ahead of me in the direction I was going. Whenever I didn't do that, the monsters would see me and start moving toward me, clogging up the passage. Sometimes a route would get so clogged up with monsters (especially when a champion pack was around) that I'd cast bone prisons around the monsters, back off, and find an alternate route. Still, without too much danger, I found the waypoint and the entrance to the Frozen River.



When I entered the Frozen River, I was nervous, because I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into. Before making Maldar, I used one of Nobbie's 99th level characters to test out potential pacifist skills and equipment, and I tried to rescue Anya multiple times with that character. After fifteen attempts, here were the results: 14 deaths and one successful rescue. I'd like to think that I have a lot more skill and experience playing a pacifist character than I did then, but I knew this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. In fact, now that I've gotten Maldar past the Chaos Sanctuary, I'm firmly convinced that rescuing Anya is the most difficult quest in the game for characters built like Maldar. I've revised the rankings of my top four most difficult places in the game:

1. Rescuing Anya
2. The Ancients
3. The Chaos Sanctuary
4. The Throne of Destruction

Why is rescuing Anya so hard? The Frozen River has narrow paths to walk on, lots of nasty missle-fire and swarming monsters in it, and no places to effectively park a large number of monsters. You basically have to walk around in "stealth mode" -- hoping you can get past monster packs with Dim Vision and the Terror and praying you can find a nook where you can park champions and bosses.

Oh, and if you get past all of the monsters on the way to Anya's platform, there's the minor issue of Frozenstein's horde that you meet on a narrow bridge. The horde can stun and surround you in an instant, and if its members see you before you Dim Vision them, they'll keep right on coming at you the way gargantuans in act 1 do.



The moment I entered the Frozen River, I cast Dim Visions all around the edge of the screen. I then moved over to see what I was about to face. Sirens, claw vipers, and gloams. "Good," I thought. "At least people can't accuse me of getting an easy draw."

I made my way around the map. It was critical to cast Dim Visions on the edge of the screen in the direction I was going and in any direction across the river where monsters might see me. Sirens and gloams can shoot from an extraordinarily long way away off screen, so I couldn't haphazardly cast Dim Vision near me and expect its merely screen-sized radius to take care of everything for me. Plus, anytime I got delayed by an obstructing monster pack, I had to remember to cast Dim Vision behind me to make sure I wouldn't get shot at from behind.

In addition, progress was complicated by gloams -- but not for the reason most people think about. Sure, their lightning attacks hit hard, but gloams also have a less well-known melee mana burn attack. For most characters, this attack is usually no big deal, but for Maldar, it could be deadly.

How? Let's take a typical case. I'm making away along the Frozen River at a decent clip, casting Dim Vision every few paces along the way. Everything's going well. I pass through a pack of blinded gloams and a couple of gloams clip me as I pass. No big deal, since the attack doesn't cause much damage. I step forward a few paces, right-click to cast Dim Vision, step forward a few more paces, right-click to cast Dim Vision, and then stop. "Wait a second," I think. "I didn't hear the Dim Vision sound. What's going on? Oh, I'm out of mana. Those gloams must've drained me. OH MY GOD, THERE ARE 5,000 LIGHTNING BOLTS AND 10,000 FIRE BALLS COMING RIGHT AT ME!"

Clearly, this situation could pose a potential problem, and it happened to me -- twice. I managed to narrowly escape both times by running, quaffing a mana potion, casting new Dim Visions, quaffing rejuv potions, casting a tp when I got a free chance, and going to town.

[MongoJerry]

After a few narrow escapes, I finally made it to Anya's platform. Frozenstein's horde sensed me before I could get a Dim Vision on it, so the frozen abysses came down from the platform (which lies just offscreen to the upper right in this screenshot) and crossed the bridge. I cast a couple of bone prisons on the ledge across the river from me to try to keep them busy. Most of all, I wanted to give Frozenstein himself something to keep him busy. With judicious use of Dim Vision and Terror, I hoped I could make a narrow path through the frozen abyss minions and sneak across the bridge to Anya.

However, something big must've gone wrong. I don't remember specifically what, but whatever it was, it was something so fast that I couldn't take the opportunity to take a screenshot. The next screenshot I have is one of me running like crazy down to the bottom corner with some claw vipers and sirens hot on my tail. I have a vague recollection that while I was busy trying to deal with Frozenstein and his minions, I didn't cast Dim Vision enough or cover enough of the off screen area with it and I ended up getting shot at from all directions.



Also, this guy might've had something to do with it.

I recollected myself down in this corner and managed to ditch the gloam boss here. However, when I returned northward, there were so many monsters gathered up there that passage was impossible. The next screenshot is one of me in town, at 25% health, with no health potions. I exited and restarted the game.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, ANYA, ATTEMPT #2

I restarted the game, took the Crystalline Passage waypoint, and quickly made my way again to the Frozen River.



And found it populated by claw vipers, gloams, and... succubi. At least the game's consistent. What are the odds of that happening twice in a row? What's the difference between sirens and succubi? Well, one has blue wings and the other has green wings. OK, I guess sirens are immune to cold, but that doesn't make any difference to Maldar.



I made my way around the Frozen River again. This time I had a map, so I knew which way to go. I had to go to town twice to refresh potions, but since I was better prepared and knew which way to go, I had an easier time getting to Anya's platform. I was very meticulous about keeping the Dim Vision up and making sure my mana ball didn't get drained.



It's a good thing I was so meticulous. When I got to Anya's platform, I found that Frozenstein's minions had been Dim Visioned before they had seen me, and since Frozenstein starts in the middle of the pack, he had gotten stuck, too. I quickly Bone Prisoned the pack to hold it down while I talked to Anya.

Before tp'ing to town to get Malah's potion, I cast a fresh Dim Vision and several fresh Bone Prisons. The clock keeps ticking on Dim Vision while you're in town, and I didn't want the pack to wake up and not be imprisoned by the time I got back.



I got the potion, came back, and other than having to dodge a couple of unblinded gloams and succubi, I freed Anya without difficulty.

Anya thanked Maldar for her rescue and told him that Nihlathak was going to give Baal the Relic of the Ancients, the barbarian tribe's most holy totem. If Baal got a hold of it, he would be allowed to enter Mount Arreat without being tested by the Ancients. Nihlathak needed to be stopped at all costs.

Anya created a portal to Nihlathak's temple, and Maldar jumped into it. If the traitor couldn't be stopped, his actions might cause the deaths of millions.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: THE RESCUE OF ANYA PLAY AT HOME GAME!

Announcing the new and exciting Maldar game that you can play at home! After I rescued Anya, I kept saying to myself, "Dang! That was fun. I want to do that again!"

So, I thought, "Why not?" A couple days ago, I had made a backup copy of my hard drive's data files, when Maldar was in a state of having just killed Shenk the Overseer. So I copied the "real" Maldar to several backup folders (because I wasn't going to lose him!), and copied the older version of Maldar to the Diablo II save directory. I then played this Maldar all the way through to finding the Crystalline Passage waypoint (which didn't take long, since I knew the maps), exited the game, and saved this version of Maldar in a backup folder of its own.

I then proceeded to rescue Anya over and over again. God, I had so much fun. You guys didn't get an update yesterday, because I spent all afternoon rescuing Anya. It got so addictive that I decided I had to let you guys try it out. What's fun about this is that it's both incredibly challenging and really fast. It's not like the Chaos Sanctuary which took eight hours to conquer. With Anya, it's over in 5-10 minutes. You either rescue Anya or you don't. Then you can try again.

I've zipped together all of the files so that you can use the same map layout I had. You can download the zip file from the following link:

The Maldar Rescue of Anya Play at Home Game

This week, when I get busy doing silly things like graduate school homework, you can get your Maldar fix by playing Maldar himself! Keep tabs on how many times you rescue Anya and how many times you die or had to quit out and report back. Post screenshots if you can. I'm serious! It's just that fun.

I kept statistics of my results over a 20-game stretch and got:

8 Successful rescues
6 Town-portal quit-outs
4 Save & Exit quit-outs
2 Deaths

Yes, I died twice. Let it never be said that I'm not willing to post my failures as well as my successes:

Death Screen #1 (by a siren with help from ghosts and gloams)
Death Screen #2 (by Frozenstein himself)

Don't worry. Our hero is safe and sound in Harrogoth. The ones who died were alternate universe copies of Maldar, not the true Maldar.

Also, these were the first times with Grizabella, Gunter, or Maldar that I have had to use Save & Exit to escape. I get queasy using that trick. I know that it's not any less realistic than rerolling monsters or maps, but I still don't like using it. But again, these were alternate universe Maldars rather than the actual Maldar, so that's OK.

Let me give you a quick rundown of the possible monsters you'll run into and what to watch out for when you do. You'll get three of the following seven monster types (listed in order from most dangerous to least dangerous):

1. Ghosts. These guys should send shivers down your spine when you see them. They fly right through bone prisons, and if they see you before you blind them, they'll keep right on flying toward you. Their attacks drain mana as well as life, so if you get stuck in a pack of them, you might find yourself empty of mana and unable to cast Terror to free yourself. In addition, as you run by blinded ghosts, they'll nip at you and take your mana away, meaning that you might suddenly find yourself out of mana and unable to cast Dim Vision before hordes of monsters start converging upon you and/or shooting at you. Champion and boss ghosts should cause you to scream in terror. There are only a few things you can do. These will be discussed below.

2. Gloams. They hit hard and can shoot at you from a long distance. They also have that melee mana drain attack I mentioned earlier. At least they'll politely stop shooting at you when you blind them.

3. Snow Drifters. They stun and take up a massive amount of room on paths. They'll look deceptively easy to deal with, and then you'll try to run by a blind snow drifter, and he'll hit you, stun you, and hold you down for the rest of his buddies. Champion and boss snow drifters can be a real pain on narrow paths. At least they can be bone prisoned, though.

4. Sirens/Succubi. It was a tough call deciding whether snow drifters or sirens should be ranked #3. Sirens can shoot at you from a long distance and come in massive packs. If you don't keep them properly blinded, you'll see red fire balls shooting at you from every direction. However, if they get in the way, they can be blinded and easily pushed out of the way with Terror. Also, their melee attacks aren't dangerous.

5. Claw Vipers. They take up a decent amount of room on paths and their bone spears and melee attacks can hurt. They move fast and can swarm a person pretty quickly. Also, if you bone prison them, they'll shoot bone spears at the prison and often hit you in the process. Still, they're not nearly as dangerous as the first four kinds of monsters.

6. Frozen Terrors. They take up some room on paths, but they're very slow. Easy stuff.

7. Rot Walker. The only things slower than Frozen Terrors are Rot Walkers and they don't take up as much room on paths. Count your blessings when you get these guys.


I lost count of how many times I ran Anya yesterday. There was one big thing that kept annoying me, though. Every time ghosts appeared, I always ended up quitting out or dying. Well, I did manage to rescue Anya with ghosts around once, but that was only because I got an amazing roll where I never ran into any champion or boss ghost packs. This situation wasn't sitting well with me. I took a break from the computer for a bit and thought about what I could do when I ran into a champion or boss ghost pack. I came up with some ideas, returned to my computer, and rerolled the Frozen River until I got ghosts. I wouldn't stop until I had rescued Anya with ghosts around.



This time, in addition to ghosts, I got gloams. I wasn't going to duck from a challenge, though, so I plunged on ahead. The third monster type turned out to be claw vipers which wasn't bad.



I ran into a champion gloam pack and Bone Prisoned it. It's easier to ditch champion gloams than champion ghosts. I haven't figured out if that's because gloams actually get trapped by bone prisons or if it's because gloams aren't as aggressive when chasing a character. Either way, the gloam pack was easily ditched.

What was not easily ditched was the champion ghost pack I found around the corner. As you'll probably understand, I didn't get a screenshot of it for a while. One benefit of the monster roll I got was that monsters didn't clog up the paths, so I could actually run quite quickly. I had to stop and Dim Vision when I could, but I still managed to outrun the ghost pack.



I got to the area in front of Anya's platform and found that Frozenstein's horde had seen me before I had gotten a chance to Dim Vision it. The pack members came down across the bridge. Oh, well. At least, I had ditched the champion ghost pack.



Or so I thought. (The ghost on the far left that isn't blind is a champion ghost and there's a "ghostly ghost" just off screen behind it). I lead the pack down to the bottom corner (read: ran in a blind panic down to the bottom corner as the pack chased me), and implemented my new plan.

[MongoJerry]

I had tried to use the "cast a bunch of bone prisons and tp to town and back trick" in the past and it never quite worked in the Frozen River. The ghosts there move fast enough that it's hard to get to town before they fly out of the bone prisons field, and they hit hard enough that they take down bone prisons quickly even when they do get caught. I needed to do something more.

I cast my 1+2 point clay golem in the middle of the bone prison field to give the ghosts something to target and also to make them slow down a tad. I then tp'd to town, cast a new clay golem, came back, cast decrepify on the ghosts, and booked it out of there. The ghosts managed to bust down one of the prisons and looked for a new target. However, they targeted the clay golem who lagged behind instead of me. By the time they took him down, I was long gone and the champion ghost pack was firmly ditched.



Now, it was time to take care of Frozenstein's mob. I again tried the "cast bone prisons on the ledge to distract the mob and then squeeze by it" trick. It had worked a couple of times before, but not this time. Frozenstein himself was on the outside of the pack and blocked my path.



So, I kept his pack Dim Visioned and let the bone prison fall. Now that the bone prison wasn't distracting him, Frozenstein charged me, and I was able to park him safely away from everything (although I just noticed that he was Teleportation enchanted. That could've made things interesting).



I returned to his minions and using Bone Prison (as a distraction), Dim Vision, and Terror, I made a path through them and squeezed by. Once I did, I threw up a ton of bone prisons and rescued the damsel in distress.

Ah... I had finally conquered the ghosts. What will your adventures be like?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, NIHLATHAK'S TEMPLE



When I first popped through the portal to Nihlathak's temple, I figured what the heck, why not run for it? Big mistake. When the defiled warriors woke up, enough of them managed to charge me and knock me around that I decided it was best to do things right. I backed off, cast several Dim Visions, made sure that everyone was properly blinded, and then made my way to the temple.



Before entering the temple, I cast several Dim Visions inside of it to make sure all of Pindleskin's minions would be blinded before they saw me. The tactic worked. Only Pindleskin himself wasn't blinded. He came charging out of the pack, and I absorbed one hit from him. I then ran around him, cast a bone prison on him, zipped by all the minions, and entered the Halls of Anguish.

Incidentally, if your home has places called the "Halls of Anguish," the "Halls of Pain," and the "Halls of Vaught," isn't that kind of a giveaway that you're a bad guy?



Anyway, the Halls of Anguish had scarabs, temple guards, and tomb creepers (leapers). Scarabs come in dense packs and take up a lot of room in narrow passageways, but otherwise, this was a pretty easy draw and I made my way around without much trouble.



The Halls of Pain had flayers (blowdart versions), temple guards, and quill rats. Again, it was easy to get around. I was thankful that I didn't have to deal with night lords and took the opportunity to open a lot of jars, chests, and undefiled tombs. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything useful except money.

I found the waypoint, and then it was time to drop down into the Halls of Vaught.

[MongoJerry]

The Halls of Vaught had returned archers and ghosts, or as I call them "g--d----- ghosts." Oh, well, I thought. As long as I don't stir up any boss or champion ghosts, I'll be OK.

I found Nihlathak's area in the second direction I looked, and luckily I hadn't stirred up any boss or champion ghost packs. *Whew* It's kind of funny to use Maldar to fight Nihlathak. Could there be a better character build for taking him on? After all, the usual strategy when taking on Nihlathak is to try to avoid killing his minions so that he can't use corpse explosion on you. Maldar is built with this philosophy in mind.



Usually, I try to draw off Nihlathak's minions before I enter his chamber to fight him, but I didn't bother this time. I charged right in, casting Dim Vision as I went, and then cast a maze of bone prisons among the minions. I ran around to the back wall where there was a space free of monsters and opened fire with bone spirits.



There was little Nihlathak could do. He teleported a couple of times. One time, I lost track of where he teleported to, so I let the bone prisons around the minions collapse and moved around until I spotted Nihlathak in a dark corner. Then, up came the bone prisons and I started firing again.

Some of Nihlathak's minions got into a frenzy state and suicided on the bone prisons (Maldar was very sad about this). Nihlathak then corpse exploded the bodies. That seemed unfair. First the monster explodes and then the body gets to explode again? Oh, well. The corpse explosions didn't hurt much. The physical damage got absorbed by the bone armor, and the fire damage was resisted by 75%.



In not a very long amount of time, and definitely without much trouble, Maldar took Nihlathak down.

Maldar thoroughly searched the Halls of Vaught, but he couldn't find the Relic of the Ancients. The fool, Nihlathak, must have already given the Relic to Baal! Baal could now enter the Worldstone Keep without being tested by the Ancients. Baal would surely be on his way there now.

There was only one desperate chance left. Maldar must ascend Mount Arreat, battle the Ancients, enter the Worldstone Keep himself, and challenge Baal directly. Can Maldar ascend Mount Arreat and stop Baal before Baal destroys the world?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE ASCENT OF MOUNT ARREAT



After a quick jaunt through the already mapped Crystalline Passage, I entered the Glacial Trail and found pit vipers, gloombats, and bone warriors. Sheesh, this game likes to give me snakes for some reason.



I ended up having to travel through most of the Glacial Trail before I found the waypoint. Along the way, I met Bonesaw Breaker and said "Hello" by Dim Visioning his minions, bone prisoning him, and stealing the stuff from his gold chest. I'm not a good house guest.



I had a devil of a time trying to find the Frozen Tundra waypoint and ended up mapping out every square inch of the darned thing.



During the course of the search, I came across a barbarian attacking a barricaded door. Maldar would not allow himself to profit from the suffering of an innocent being (the door may be possessed by a demon, after all), so I led him around the fortifications.

[MongoJerry]

This led to an embarrassing moment, though. As I was taking the side route around the fortifications, I wasn't being especially careful, and I ended up getting trapped by a hell spawn boss pack. I kept trying to cast Terror on these guys to free myself, but they kept running into each other and the hillside and wouldn't get out of the way. Plus, the boss himself was positioned at a very annoying spot and wouldn't budge. Those hell spawns look small, but they take up a lot more room than one would think. In frustration, I finally tp'd to town, took the Glacial Trail waypoint, and ran the long way around back to the Frozen Tundra.

I continued the search for the waypoint while being much more careful not to get trapped again. I covered every inch of the place and finally found the waypoint -- about 15 yards from the entrance from the Glacial Trail that I had walked through twice.



I then entered the Ancients Way, and I started to get anxious. I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to what was on my screen and not what lay ahead. The Ancients Way had bone mages, carvers, carver shaman, and frozen terrors, and the monsters were pretty thick here.



Not only were the monsters thick but their attacks also hurt. It was no longer a minor thing to allow blinded monsters to clip me as I passed. It wasn't necessarily frightenly dangerous, but I had to expect to quaff red potions on a regular basis. I could tell that the damage output of monsters had risen dramatically.

Even still, I found the waypoint and the entrance to the Arreat Summit.



Maldar portaled back to Harrogoth and walked purposefully through the waiting crowd. Harrogoth's residents shouted questions, inquiring about Maldar's progress and asking if he was truly going to battle the Ancients. But Maldar was focused and he refused to allow the din of the anxious crowd to distract him from his task. He walked into the halls of healing and without preamble asked Malah one question.

"Did the council's shipment of full rejuvenation potions arrive, yet?"

"Yes, it's right here," replied Malah.

"Good," said Maldar. "It's time."

[ildon]

So a pacifist is not adverse to stealing a poor (un)dead man's burial treasure? :P

[Bolty]

Even still, I found the waypoint and the entrance to the Arreat Summit.

*Waits with anticipation* :-)

-Bolty