Maldar, the Magnificent

[MongoJerry]

:lol: What's great about all of this is that people are really getting into the character both here and at diabloii.net. The idea is hilarious enough and insane enough that people are laughing hysterically at it. Plus, there's no bitching about cross-character skills or twinked items -- because there aren't any! When I thought up Maldar, I thought he'd be someone that people would love to read about. I'm happy to see I was right.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT III, THE JUNGLE

When Maldar and Cain sailed into the harbor of Kurast, they could not believe their eyes. Each had visited Kurast years before when it was a mighty city, but now it had fallen almost entirely into ruin. The surrounding jungle had reclaimed much of the land, and the only signs that a once-proud city had once been there were the cracked stone buildings and monuments that could be seen dimly through the thick foliage. The ship's captain, Meshif, stared in disbelief at what had befallen his homeland. He begged Maldar to find out what had happened and stop whoever or whatever had caused such destruction and decay.

The ship pulled alongside a crumbling dock, and Hratli, a shopkeeper sorcerer who specialized in metalwork, met Maldar and Cain at the dock. Apparently, what was left of Kurast's population lacked any sort of leader and lived in a state of subdued anarchy. Hratli informed Maldar and Cain that most of Kurast had been overrun by the forces and evil influence of Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred. A magical ward had been placed on the dockside to keep it out of the influence of Mephisto, but Hratli wasn't sure how long it would last.

The dockside was populated by an enigmatic mix of mercenaries, glory-seekers, and hermits. Asheara led a band of mercenary mages that protected the dockside and occasionally went out into the nearest parts of the jungle to hunt demons. Of the population, she seemed the most sane, but she was more interested in gold rather than any sort of higher calling. Natalya was a member of the Assassins, an ancient Order sworn to hunt down corrupted sorcerers. She seemed like she would be a useful companion to have in a fight, but she was awaiting "further news" from her order at the dockside and said she couldn't help Maldar just yet with his task.

Alkor, the alchemist, lived a hermit's life in his small hut filled with books, bottles, and potions of all kinds. Meshif said that Alkor didn't like to be distracted from his studies, but Maldor found Alkor to be surprisingly pleased to see him and Alkor asked him many questions about the potions and techniques used by necromancers to wake the dead and control spirits.

Finally, Maldar visited the tall enigmatic Ormus, who spoke in riddles. Most people on the dockside seemed to think he had gone mad, but Cain recognized the markings on Ormus's skin which bore the symbols of the ancient and secretive Taan mage-clan. He told Maldar that he did not believe Ormus to be as insane as he pretended to be.

By speaking with the dockside's inhabitants, Cain and Maldar determined that the evil seemed to be centered in the temple city of Travincal which lay in the heart of Kurast. In order to enter the main temple, Maldar had to obtain the body parts of Khalim, the last priest who remained true to the light and had been slain and torn apart for his unwavering faith, and then use them to imbue a magic flail to create Khalim's Will which could smash the Compelling Orb and open the way to Mephisto's Durance of Hate. Cain assured Maldar that he wasn't being made the victim of an elaborate practical joke.

Meanwhile, the ward that protected the dockside was failing, and Maldar needed to find the mystical Gidbinn knife that Ormus could use to strengthen the ward and hold back the all-consuming jungle outside.

Maldar had a lot to do, and he knew he had little time to do it in for Diablo and Baal were surely making their way toward their brother Mephisto. Maldar had to get there before they did and thwart whatever plans the three Prime Evils were conjuring up.

Maldar cast his bone armor about him and raced into the jungle.

I always like messing with the Dark Wanderer, and playing a necromancer seemed like my best shot at doing something to him. I first tried casting bone prisons on him, but the game didn't recognize him as a target, so the prisons didn't appear. So instead I cast Bone Walls in front of him. I expected him to walk through them, but instead he stopped and then kind of walk/sidestepped trying to get around the wall. I figured this was my chance, so I cast Bone Walls all around him and trapped him. Woohoo! I caught Diablo! Game over! Then, he disappeared in his cloud of smoke and released those worm thingies. I guess the Dark Wanderer is on a timer, then. Too bad. Seeing the little worms brought back both sad and joyful memories to Maldar, however.

When I was planning Maldar, I identified certain areas that I thought would be troublesome. Obviously the Arcane Sanctuary, Chaos Sanctuary, and the Throne of Destruction would be especially difficult, and the Maggot Lair and several areas of Act V would provide their own unique problems. But right up there on the list was the Spider Cavern. No joke. I really was worried, because it's a maze of narrow corridors and even blind spiders are big and can block your way and trap you in with boss and champion spiders that aren't blind.



So with some trepidation, I entered the Spider Cavern and immediately spammed Dim Vision all around. I didn't get assaulted immediately, so I moved fast, casting Dim Vision every chance I could get. I wanted to move fast, because even blind spiders will move around randomly, and I preferred meeting them while they were still in their computer-generated starting "clumps." It's a good thing I cast those Dim Visions, because the visiting monster type was maggots (it's always either maggots or bats). Blind maggots don't lay eggs, so I was able to keep the passages from getting clogged with little bugs.



I was surprised how easily I made my way to the chest. The "move at a good clip and slip by the spiders before they can react" strategy seemed to work. I ended up coming in the back way to the chest which was serendipitous, since I was able to get to the chest completely unchallenged by Sszark. Apparently, he starts off right in the middle of his minions, so when his blind minions didn't move, he couldn't get out of the prison made up of his own spider minions. I cast the Bone Prisons you see in the above screenshot to give me time to take a small series of victory screenshots. I could've just as well opened the chest, grabbed the Eye, and tp'd to town without casting any prisons on Sszark at all.

Not killing monsters gave me an unexpected opportunity to quickly explore the 1.10 Act III jungle areas. As I've mentioned before, I never take rushes, so I'm experienced with navigating the Act III jungles and have instinctively learned many of the features and quirks of the jungle areas' map-making routines. Doing so makes it easier to navigate the areas and find what one's looking for.

But I've never seen a map like this! Holy cow. There were whole new map pieces (corners, turnoffs, etc.) that I've never seen and paths where normally there's solid rock. I didn't notice these changes with Gunter, because I was probably too focused on dealing with the monsters on my screen to study the automap. Without the need to kill monsters, I was able to race around and map out most of the jungle areas quickly. Normally, there's one connection between the Spider Forest and the Great Marsh and one connection between the Great Marsh and the Flayer Jungle (or sometimes one connection between the Spider Forest and the Flayer Jungle and the Great Marsh is a big dead end). This time, there were three separate and independent connections between the Spider Forest and the Great Marsh, two far flung connections between the Spider Forest and the Flayer Jungle, and one connection between the Great Marsh and the Flayer Jungle. It was really wild to see, and it was obvious that the map generator for the jungle areas had been massively changed. This brought up two questions for me:

1. Why go through all the work of improving the map generator for an area that few people except for a few nuts like me bother going to?

2. And if you're going to go through all the work of changing the map generator, why not make it so that people have to actually fulfill the Compelling Orb quest to get to Mephisto so that people will see these nice new areas that you made? (And why not give a hellforge level rune to those nuts who actually do the quest?)



Anyway, I ended up finding out something else new while adventuring in the Great Marsh in nightmare difficulty, when Maldar wasn't a pacifist, and I was able to get a screenshot of it in hell as you can see above. Look carefully at the frogs. What are they doing in the middle of the river? If you Dim Vision frogs, they randomly slide around -- on the ground and on top of the river. They seem to go into a parallel universe, because even when they're on land, you can't target them when they're blind. Bone Spirits will pass back and forth over their heads without hitting them, Bone Prisons won't appear around them, and neither you or your merc can attack them. The blind frogs can, however, via random motions, make it across the river and when the blindness wears off, they will appear whole on that side of the river as if it were perfectly natural that one could cross a river by sliding around on its surface. It's funny to see, although it's an important bug for necromancers who actually want to kill the frogs to know about. You can't kill a blind frog. You have to wait for the blindness to wear off. (That sounds like a mystical saying. "One must never try to kill the blind frog" or "The blind frog never dies").



The going was smooth through the Flayer Jungle. When I got to the main tribal village, I used Terror to move some of the little flayers and winged nightmares away from the Gidbinn area, threw up some bone prisons, and tried to keep everything Dim Visioned. When I triggered the Gidbinn flame, I got a Ghostly Rat Man, so I Bone Prisoned him and cast Bone Spirits at him. It didn't go completely smoothly, though. Some of the flayers and winged nightmares came off Dim Vision, so I had to dodge around a little and reimprison and Dim Vision some of them. But on the whole I was able to get the Gidbinn without too much trouble. The ring from Ormus was of the usual lousy kind, unfortunately.

[MongoJerry]

Then it was time to drop into the Flayer Dungeon. Everything started smoothly as I passed a few blind flayer packs. I ran past a boss flayer shaman and cast a Bone Prison on him by rote after I passed him. Big mistake. Flayers came in from the next room and pinned me in while the shaman blew his inferno at me. No need to panic, I thought. I cast Terror on the little flayers, but they kept running into each other and then back at me to stab me. I still couldn't get out. I kept casting Terror and tried to get the flayers in the back to flee so that they would let the ones in front to flee. But just then, I heard an all too familiar high-pitched cry.

Ghosts. I thought I was ghost-free until Act V. I forgot about the ghosts here. A ghost boss pack bore down on me, and I quickly cast Terror to disperse the minions while I tried desperately to free myself. It wasn't happening, so I cast a TP and luckily was able to click on it and go to town.



I took the Flayer Jungle waypoint back and ran the long way around to the Flayer Dungeon entrance. After Dim Visioning all the regular monsters, I led the ghost boss back to the entrance and used the old Bone Prison/tp trick and booked it out of there. I found the stairs to the second level pretty quickly and jumped down them. I didn't want to wait to see if any ghosts were chasing me.



Luckily, levels 2 and 3 were comparatively uneventful. I lucked out in finding the stairs to level 3 pretty quickly, and level 3 rarely has many monsters in it. It seems to be designed as a benign maze for non-sorceresses, who have to run through winding passages extending through most of the level to get to the gold chest. The Witch Doctor was fanat aura enchanted, and the orange on his mass of flayer minions looked scary, but since I could blind the whole lot of them and then bone prison everyone after I raced passed them, I had no trouble getting to the chest and snatching the brain.



Maldar managed to navigate through and complete all of his tasks in the Kurast jungle areas. He had retrieved two components of the flail, Khalim's Eye and Brain, as well as the Gidbinn and he only had to kill one being to do it all. Maldar promptly gave the Gidbinn to Ormus who used it to strengthen the ward protecting the dockside. Both Ormus and Cain warned Maldar to continue on quickly for Diablo was surely close to reaching the famous temple in Travincal. Can Maldar collect the remaining pieces of the flail and get to Mephisto before it was too late?

[jahcs]

Just curious, have you gotten the golden bird yet? Or will it drop from something you have to kill later?

[MongoJerry]

Just curious, have you gotten the golden bird yet? Or will it drop from something you have to kill later?

As of the point Maldar reached the Lower Kurast waypoint, he hadn't. You'll have to wait and see about that.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT III, KURAST

The surface areas of Kurast were pretty trivial to deal with. They're sparsely populated with wide areas to run around in, and the monsters in them are slow. However, it was kind of funny dealing with hell swarms (itchies). I've always thought their "drains stamina" ability was useless, but when you're playing a character that depends on his running ability, suddenly that "drains stamina" mod can make some encounters more interesting than they otherwise would have been.

I found the Ruined Temple, popped in, and immediately spammed Dim Vision. I got the "Safe Map" and nothing swarmed me immediately (for a full discussion of the "Safe Map" vs the "Death Map," see Grizabella's adventures). It probably wouldn't have mattered which map I got in this case, but it was nice to know that the monster packs would be spread between two medium sized chambers instead of being all bunched up in one big chamber.



I sprinted to the entrance of the chamber that held the tome, casting Dim Visions every couple of seconds. I cast Dim Vision into the room and went inside. As planned, all of Battlemaid Sarina's minions had been blinded, and Sarina herself came charging up to me. I ran around her and then bone prisoned her and all of her minions. As I was starting to take screenshots, a small group of gargantuans came over from the other chamber, so I Dim Visioned and imprisoned them as well. I snatched the book and tp'd out of there.

I put the 5 stat points from giving the book to Alkor into Vitality. In addition to the charms I've found along the way from chests, that brought Maldar up to an even 1000 life.



I had a pretty easy time of it getting through the Kurast sewers, and after searching about half of the sewers, I finally found the entrance to the second level and entered it. I've always liked this room whenever I'm playing untwinked characters, because with all of its chests, I usually find something useful there whether it's something as simple as decent charms or gems or something better like a good set of armor or a weapon. So, I cast bone walls by the water's edge to keep from getting hit by poison from the Water Watchers and opened all of the chests. Unfortunately, I ended up not getting anything useful after all.

A boss ancient horodrim with his undead flayer pack guarded the gold chest. I Dim Visioned the pack, Bone prisoned everyone in, ran around the little pond, hit the chest, grabbed the gold, took the screenshot, grabbed the heart and tp'd out of there.

So Maldar had collected all of Khalim's body parts that he needed to imbue the flail. It was now time for him to enter Travincal. Can Maldar face down the Council of Zakarum and put an end to the evil that had been corrupting the once-proud city of Kurast?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT III, TRAVINCAL

"You have done well, my friend," Ormus told Maldar. "But now the time has come to face those responsible for the evil that has stifled our land. You must destroy the High Council of Zakarum! Once they are gone, Mephisto's hold over this land and its people will be broken!"

Maldar knew he had no other choice. Only once the High Council was slain could the people of Kurast and the demons who had been stirred up by Mephisto and the Council live in peace. He entered Travincal ready for battle.

In both Grizabella and Gunter's adventures, I expounded on the benefits and importance of doing a full clear of Travincal before facing the High Council if you're playing an underpowered character. While you're fighting a Council member, you don't want Heirophants casting Blizzards on you or Blood Lords casting meteors down on you. Plus, you certainly don't want Heirophants healing any Council Members you're trying to kill.

Now I suddenly found myself in a funny predicament, playing a character for whom doing a full clear of Travincal is forbidden.



So, I did the next best thing. I went down the center path of Travincal and led all of the monsters in the middle of the city and in front of the temple back to the two corners of the city farthest from the temple. I Dim Visioned all of the normal monsters and threw bone prisons around the blood lord bosses. The Heirophants were the most difficult to deal with, because they don't automatically follow you. I had to alternate casting Terror and Dim Vision on the normal Heirophants to herd them to the corners. In addition, there was a boss Heirophant halfway between the center of the city and the Travincal waypoint. I couldn't do anything about him other than bone prison him to make him stay put and then carefully avoid the area.

I then walked up to the temple entrance and baited Council Members to come out. The first three Council Members to come out were minions, so I led each of them back to the corners and imprisoned them there.



The fourth council member to come out was Geleb Flamefinger who I imprisoned in the middle of Travincal and killed with Bone Spirits. Strangely, once he was imprisoned, he just sat there doing nothing. He didn't cast Hydras or attack the bone prison. There seems to be some quirk with the council members' AI routines that makes them shut down sometimes, if they get trapped. It doesn't happen every time, so I don't know precisely what triggers the behavior, but I've seen it enough times to know that this wasn't some one time thing.

Also, you can see in the screenshot that the boss Heirophant is casting Blizzards at the bone prison around Flamefinger. He was just close enough to the center of Travincal to be worrisome but far enough away that he didn't actually cause any real trouble during this fight.

Flamefinger dropped the flail, so I picked it up, tp'd to town, imbued the flail, and equiped it on weapon switch. When I came back, I thought, "You know, there are only two boss Council Members left, why not see if Maldar can take them on in the temple itself?" I figured it'd be better to do that than worry that that boss Heirophant might come close enough to cause real trouble.

So, I rushed into the temple and found that in addition to the two Council Member bosses, it still had three minion council members, a boss pack of blood lords, and two Heirophants. This was too much to handle at once. Retreat!

The one good thing about this maneuver, though, was that the boss blood lord chased me, allowing me to draw him back to the back corner. I then led the other three council minions back to the corner, although in the process I slipped up and didn't cast Dim Vision ahead of me enough and a "jailbreak" ensued. Zealots, Blood Lords, and Heirophants scattered. Some Zealots charged me (and Dim Vision and Terror didn't stop them until they actually got to me), and everything else went in all directions. I managed to use Dim Vision, Terror, and Bone Prisons to contain the damage and keep monsters from chasing me, but that was the end of being able to use the corners furthest from the temple to park any more monsters. Luckily, there wouldn't be any more need to do that.



I then led Ismail Vilehand out of the temple and imprisoned him away from the temple but far enough away from the corners to keep from drawing any now freed monsters to us. While he didn't shut down like Flamefinger, he fell without much trouble.



I thought for a moment and realized that the temple itself now only had the one boss Council Member and a few normal Blood Lords and Heirophants. I charged back in there, Dim Visioned the Blood Lords and Heirophants, cast Bone Prison on Toorc Icefist, and took him down. I then weapon switched to the Khalim's Will, smashed the Compelling Orb, and raced down the stairs into the Durance of Hate.

Maldar defeated the High Council and freed Kurast from their evil influence. Can Maldar reach Mephisto in time to stop the designs of Diablo and his brothers?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT III, THE DURANCE OF HATE



The trip through the upper levels of the Durance of Hate was uneventful. I entered the third level and found a boss pack of Blood Lords in the corner of the level 3 entryway and Bone Prisoned them. I then woke up and led Bremm Sparkfist and his minions to the entranceway, imprisoned them there as well, and ran past them. I hoped I wouldn't see them again. Another Blood Lord boss pack was just on the other side of the arch you have to run through, so I Dim Visioned and Bone Prisoned it, too.



My plan was to imprison Maffer Dragonhand in a corner somewhere, run past him, and get to Mephisto as quickly as I could. But as I dodged around Dragonhand, I noticed that Mephisto had already been woken up for some reason. I don't know if it was just an unusual placement for him or if he now has an increased radius of awareness. Either way, there he was out on that little peninsula looking like one big juicy target.

So I threw up Bone Prisons around Dragonhand and Mephisto and started firing. I figured with my block and resistances, I could handle Dragonhand's Hydras. Mephisto couldn't do anything to me at all.

After a little while, though, I got annoyed by Dragonhand and went ahead and imprisoned him in the back corner of the room where he spawned. Then I came back out onto the platform and continued firing.



At some point, though, a jailbreak occurred. I started getting rained on by meteors. Luckily I was able to stop most of them with Dim Visions cast at the edge of the screen, and I threw up some bone walls to keep monsters at bay.

Somehow, though, Bremm Sparkfist managed to find his way out of the entryway, so I had to decide if I was going to stay where I was and keep up the Dim Visions and Bone Prisons or instead Bone Prison everything and run around to where Mephisto was standing.

[MongoJerry]

Mephisto was pretty close to death, so I decided not to let Bremm Sparkfist bother me. I threw up Bone Prisons around me and let the Bone Spirits rip, Hydras be damned.



As the last Bone Prison around me fell, Mephisto died. I Bone Prisoned Sparkfist and ran around to Mephisto's body. Unfortunately, he hadn't dropped anything useful, so I picked up a couple of items that I could sell for good money at the shop, and jumped into the portal.

Maldar defeated Mephisto and picked up his soulstone. This was a great victory, but Maldar was too late to stop Diablo for Diablo had already entered the portal to gather his minions and prepare for an assault on the mortal realm. Maldar had no choice but to enter the portal to hell as well and vanquish Diablo before all was lost. Even Maldar, the Magnificent, shivered at the thought of making his way past the hordes of hell and battling a Prime Evil in his own realm. Was Maldar up to the task?

But wait! What about the figurine quest? The jade figurine never fell! The figurine quest has always been flaky. The figurine is always supposed to fall when the first boss or champion is killed in Act III, but there are several things that can mess this up (this list is as of 1.09 -- I haven't played multiplayer enough in 1.10s to know if these things are still true):

1. If the person who kills the first boss has already done the figurine quest, the figurine won't fall.

2. If your mercenary kills the boss, the figurine won't fall (I found this out the hard way).

3. If the boss drops another quest item, then the figurine won't fall. E.g., the figurine didn't drop when the Gidbinn boss (who dropped the Gidbinn) was killed and even though I had taken a break and restarted the game, it didn't fall when the first council boss (who dropped the flail) was killed.

These restrictions wouldn't be so bad, except that if the figurine doesn't drop with the first boss or champion killed, it will never drop! Therefore, the figurine didn't drop when the other council bosses were killed.

So I was in a quandary. Maldar is supposed to fulfill every quest, but he's also not supposed to kill any monsters unnecessarily. How could I reconcile these two things? I exited and restarted the game.

When Cain arrived at the Pandemonium Fortress, he had an urgent message for Maldar from Captain Meshif who urged Maldar to return to Kurast before making his way into hell. Maldar took the waypoint back to Kurast (which kind of makes you wonder why he couldn't have taken the waypoint from Lut Gholein to Kurast in the first place) and spoke with Meshif.

Meshif told Maldar that a group of monsters had come to the docks "and, uh, stolen" a jade figurine that was imbued with "powerful magic." A nervous looking Meshif said that if the figurine got into the hands of Diablo, it would be disastrous. If Maldar could get the figurine back, it would be the last piece of a "powerful item" that Maldar could use while he was in hell.

Maldar was suspicious of the nervous-looking Meshif but asked Meshif what the alleged thief looked like. "Uh, like an ape. A really massive one. Or it could've been a mosquito-like thing. You know, those big ones in the forest?"

"Well, which was it?" demanded Maldar. "An ape or a mosquito?"

"Uh, an ape," said a stuttering Meshif. "Definitely an ape."

"If you're lying to me," said Maldar menacingly.

"No, no, no," said Meshif. "I'm telling the truth!"



So Maldar ventured into the Spider Forest and soon came upon a pack of apes with one dominant ape who looked larger and stronger than the others. "If this ape doesn't have that figurine," said Maldar, "a certain ship captain will pay for this ape's life with his head."

Maldar killed the enormous ape, and did indeed find a jade figurine. Maldar returned to town and gave the figurine to Meshif.

"Praise you!" said a delighted Meshif. "That jade figurine will complete the set I was collecting."

"What did you say?" demanded an infuriated Maldar. "You had me kill an innocent ape just so that you could complete a figurine collection?" Maldar took out his wand and began an incantation.

"No, wait, please!" said Meshif. "I'll give you this statuette of a golden bird. I've had it for years, but I consider it a fair exchange."

Maldar glanced at the bird Meshif shoved into his arm. He then whipped his wand in the air and a white ball emerged from it's tip. The whimpering Meshif dove to the ground as the ball sailed by his head. The Bone Spirit struck Meshif's ship, gouging an enormous hole in its hull.

As Meshif's ship sank into Kurast's harbor, Maldar walked away saying, "Thanks for the bird."

Act 3 Quest Screen

Act 3 Waypoint Screen

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, IZUAL

After finishing his business with Meshif, Maldar returned to the Pandemonium Fortress, the last bastion of Heaven's power before the burning gates of hell. The Fortress itself was a marvel, but Maldar noticed that its inhabitants had some odd quirks. The Fortress had two shopkeepers, Jamella and Halbu, who despite repeatedly calling Maldar their "champion," charged Maldar outrageous prices for their wares. In addition, it seemed like they kept their best equipment in storage and were unwilling to show Maldar any quality elite weapons or armor. One would think that people worried about the future of the mortal realm itself would be more willing to help the one person capable of stopping the impending cataclysm. Also, Jamella kept offering to let Maldar gamble for equipment in her gambling parlor which seemed a strange business to conduct in an outpost of heaven.

Maldar gazed out of the Pandemonium Fortress archway that overlooked the plains of hell. To stop the cataclysm, he would have to slip by all of the minions of hell itself and battle Diablo in his own lair. The task seemed daunting.

As if that weren't enough, the archangel Tyrael gave Maldar an additional mission. Izual, a fallen angel who had once been Tyrael's most trusted lieutenant, had been punished for his transgressions by being bound within the form of a terrible creature which had been summoned from the Abyss. Tyrael had been forbidden by Heaven from venturing into hell, so he asked Maldar to free Izual for he felt that Izual had suffered long enough.

Maldar agreed to the mission, but as he walked away from Tyrael, he thought to himself, "This is a very interesting turn of events, my dear Tyrael. You went against the wishes of Heaven by giving the Horodrim the soulstones that Diablo and his brothers corrupted and in doing so you started the chain of events that led to our current predicament. Now you ask me to go against the wishes of Heaven by freeing your old lieutenant who showed Diablo and his brothers how to corrupt the soulstones. My motivation in this is clear. I have compassion for all beings, fallen angels or not. What is your motivation in all this, Mr. Archangel?"

Maldar passed through the Fortress's archway and walked out onto the Outer Steppes of hell. Could Maldar free a fallen angel in the middle of the horrors of hell?

The Outer Steppes had Corpulents, Doom Casters, and Doom Knights. These were easy to blind, imprison and get past, and I quickly found the entrance to the Plains of Despair.



In the Plains of Despair, I had to move more cautiously as it felt like there were wall-to-wall Burning Souls who liked to shoot from off screen. Every few yards, I had to cast Dim Vision at the edge of the screen in several directions to keep the Burning Souls nice and blind.



As I was dealing with a boss pack of Doom Casters, Izzy came out. I imprisoned him along with the Doom Casters and started firing Bone Spirits at him. Things went well until a boss Venom Lord pack and some Burning Souls also woke up. The Venom Lord boss was amp cursed, so whenever I Bone Prisoned him, the Doom Caster boss, and Izzy, they were able to chew through the bone prisons at a good clip. In addition, I had to keep casting Dim Visions in different directions to keep the minions and Burning Souls blinded. I spent so much time casting Dim Visions and Bone Prisons that I had to keep reminding myself that I was supposed to shoot Bone Spirits at Izzy, too!



Despite having to engage in a slow fighting retreat against the oncoming Izzy and the two bosses, Maldar managed to take Izzy down. Interestingly, Izzy's death caused the deaths of the monsters around him in the same way that the deaths of some other superuniques like Radament and Blood Raven do. With most characters, I usually kill all of the monsters around Izzy before engaging Izzy himself, so that's something I had never noticed before.



The City of the Damned had Abyss Knights, so I had to be careful again. Still, the going was steady, and I eventually found the waypoint and the entrance to the River of Flame.

Maldar returned to the Pandemonium Fortress and told Tyrael that Izual had been a willing participant in Diablo's plans from the beginning. Tyrael thanked Maldar for freeing Izual and then said, "But if what you tell me is true, then I fear we have been played for fools all along." Tyrael continued to talk about Izual's treachery and how now that Diablo and his brothers controlled the soulstones, they could turn the mortal world into an outpost of hell.

But Maldar stopped listening. He thought to himself, "No, it was only you, Tyrael, who had been played for a fool and only you who is responsible for our situation. Why do you keep meddling in the affairs of mortals against the will of Heaven? Do you think yourself wiser and more inclined to compassion than other angels? Are you therefore a simple fool unknowingly playing Diablo's game?

"Or are you the one orchestrating a game that not even Diablo and his brothers comprehend? I will continue to play the part of the obedient pawn, Tyrael. But know that Maldar, the Magnificent, is watching your every move for Izual was not Heaven's first fallen angel and won't likely be the last."

UP NEXT: The River of Flame

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE RIVER OF FLAME

Having successfully freed Izual from his bonds, Maldar continued his journey across the Plains of Despair and the City of the Damned. At length, he found a stairway leading down to a glowing red abyss. Surely, this could be nothing less than the entrance to the fabled River of Flame. No mortal hero, no matter how great, had ever ventured this far into hell. Any sane person would have fled this place immediately, for even the darkest terrors of a person's imagination could not possibly reach the scope of the horrors that awaited a visitor down below.

And yet the very future of the mortal realm itself required Maldar to travel along the River of Flame, smash Mephisto's soulstone at the fabled Hellforge, and battle Diablo in his lair. Maldar took a deep breath, closed his eyes to the terror that seeped through his veins, and took his first step down into the heart of hell itself.

When I first entered the River of Flame, I found maggots. My gut reaction was to restart the game to reroll the monsters, but I decided to give the maggot-ridden RoF a try. The going went well until I came upon a bridge blocked by two large maggots. I cast Terror on them to try to get them out of the way and at first, the idea seemed to work. But then one of the maggots managed to lay an egg on top of the bridge when the Terror curse wore off. The situation quickly degenerated as I tried to deal with the new baby maggots. The big maggots kept laying even more eggs and the bridge kept getting clogged up. There just wasn't going to be any crossing of that bridge. I tp'd to town and restarted the game.



This time, I there were maw fiends, grotesques, and stranglers. They would do. Before I entered the RoF, I had wondered how difficult it would be for Maldar to make his way along the RoF, but it turned out that the traveling wasn't bad at all. The paths there are wide enough to get around most monster obstacles and any narrow areas like bridges can be cleared with Terror pretty easily (if there aren't any maggots).



At the Hellforge, I knew it was going to be difficult fighting Hephasto while simultaneously not killing any of the monsters around him. At first, I tried to keep things simple by casting Dim Vision on the regular monsters and casting Bone Prisons only around Hephasto himself. But there were too many monsters in too many directions to keep that up. Several grotesques pumped out baby worms, and I couldn't keep control of everything with Dim Vision alone, so I sprayed Bone Prisons and Bone Walls all around to keep the monsters at bay.



It was difficult keeping both Hephasto and the minion monsters imprisoned at the same time. Hephasto himself gradually punched his way through Bone Prisons toward me, so I again found myself engaging in a "fighting retreat."



While retreating (after having gone back to town to refresh potions), I found myself trapped by one of the rock formations. At first, I thought it was the maw fiend who was blocking me, so I cast Terror on it to move it out of the way. That plan didn't work. It was the rock formation itself that was blocking me, not the maw fiend. Hephasto himself had me trapped in a spot I couldn't move out of and he was clobbering me. Having 75% block and good resistances (he's spectral hit) helped, but I wouldn't be able to take the pounding for long. So I started up a town portal and hoped it would appear in a spot I could get to. Luckily, it did and I went to town. *whew!*

I was in a quandary, though. Should I waypoint to the City of the Damned and take the long way around through all of the monsters I had already woken up? Or should I start the game over and try to kill a fresh Hephasto?

[MongoJerry]

I thought about the town portal I had cast. Even though the game had let me go through it when I had clicked on it, the portal had actually appeared on the other side of the rock formation. After refreshing potions, I decided to give the town portal a try. Sure enough, it dropped me off on the other side of the rock formation. I was free!

I Dim Visioned everything, threw up some Bone Prisons, and started firing.



The one problem with fighting this particular Hephasto was that he had the ability to Teleport so even when I seemingly had him trapped in an impenetrable fortress of Bone Prisons, he was able to get free. The fight raged all around the Hellforge.



But finally, I took him down.



The big moment came. I Dim Visioned and Bone Prisoned the area and brought Mephisto's soulstone to the Hellforge (I know you don't have to do that, but I like acting the ceremony out). 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).

Oh, well. I made my way through the rest of the River of Flame and touched the waypoint.

When Maldar returned to the Pandemonium Fortress after smashing Mephisto's soulstone at the Hellforge, Cain congratulated him.

"Surely, even Diablo, himself, sensed the fury unleashed when you smashed his Brother's soulstone," said Cain.

But Maldar was concerned with the task ahead of him. How could he get past all of the guardians of Diablo's legendary Chaos Sanctuary and find Diablo himself without inflicting any needless deaths?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY -- PREFACE

While planning Maldar's build, I made a list of the places I felt Maldar would have the most difficulty dealing with. The list I came up with, starting with the most difficult places was:

1. The Chaos Sanctuary
2. The Throne of Destruction
3. The Frozen River
4. The Ancients
5. Nihlathak's Temple
6. The Arcane Sanctuary
7. The Countess's Tower
8. The Spider Cavern

There's a poll on diabloii.net where people can guess how far Maldar will get without dying and 21% of people there said that Maldar would die to the Ancients while only 4% said that he'd die in Act IV. That's crazy. Even if Maldar makes it past the Chaos Sanctuary, I'll tip my cap to those who said he wouldn't get past Act IV, because I think they gave the most thought to the challenges that face a pacifist character, especially one built like Maldar. The Chaos Sanctuary is filled with monsters that Maldar is not allowed to kill and as if that weren't enough, it is also guarded by oblivian knights who can be thought of as "honorary bosses." They can't be Dim Visioned or Terrified, and while they can be imprisoned, they can shoot right through Bone Prisons with their Bone Spirits.

So, to me, the Chaos Sanctuary is the game. Sure, Act V will present plenty of challenges, but the Chaos Sanctuary is Maldar's biggest hurdle, and I wasn't going to mess around while dealing with it.

The first part of my plan for tackling the Chaos Sanctuary was creating space to park monsters. I wanted to try to thin out the number of monsters in the Chaos Sanctuary as much as I could. As you'll recall, the game in which I killed Hephasto had stranglers, corpulents, and grotesques in the River of Flame. I was tired by the time I reached the River of Flame waypoint, so I was tempted to turn the game off and take a break for a while. But I thought that this was a pretty good monster roll, so I decided to continue on.



I pushed back the monsters below the River of Flame waypoint using Dim Vision and Terror and then I started herding monsters from the bridges between the waypoint and the Chaos Sanctuary down to the newly vacated space. The corpulents and stranglers were easy to herd, because they aggressively chased me to their parking spaces. It was especially easy to ditch stranglers, since I was able to use the technique I used on the ghosts in the arcane sanctuary. I led the stranglers as far as I was willing to go, Dim Visioned them, got behind them, cast Terror on them and then the moment they get off screen (they run away fast), I cast Dim Vision on the edge of the screen. The stranglers usually kept running and I rarely saw them again.

However, the grotesques were a big problem. I couldn't afford to just let them chase me, because that would also allow them to pump out little baby worms. So instead, I had to herd them by getting behind them and alternatively casting Terror and Dim Vision on them. This would've been fine, except that the bridge area of the River of Flame has lots of small nitch dead ends and corners. It was a constant annoying struggle to herd grotesques through the bridge maze, and if I didn't keep up the casting just right, the grotesques seemed to take every opportunity they were given to pump out baby worms.



At first, the going wasn't too bad, but the farther I progressed up the bridge area also meant the farther through the maze of bridges I had to herd those annoying grotesques. Also the more progress I made, the more tired I got and I found myself making more mistakes which allowed the grotesques to pump out more worms -- forcing me to make even more long herding trips. In addition, the monsters I had parked below the waypoint looked like they were going to start a "jailbreak" at any time. Every time I herded a monster toward them, I had to use Dim Vision and Terror to force the monsters back. I foolishly used Bone Prison a few times, but that just encouraged the grotesques attacking the Bone Prisons to pump out dozens of extra worms which made the situation worse.

After an hour and forty-five minutes, I had progressed only 2/3rds of the way toward the Chaos Sanctuary. It was getting late, and I hadn't even started dealing with the Chaos Sanctuary itself. This was too much even for my patience. I needed to plan my assault on the Chaos Sanctuary more carefully and perhaps reroll the River of Flame monsters a few times to get something I liked. I also needed to start the assault when I had a full evening to devote to it. I exited the game and turned the computer off.

UP NEXT: The Assault on the Chaos Sanctuary

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part I

At six in the evening the following day, I started up Diablo II again, prepared for a long campaign against the Chaos Sanctuary. The first thing I needed to do was reroll the River of Flame monsters to get ones that could easily be led to parking spaces. There are seven kinds of monsters that can appear in the River of Flame:

1. Maw Fiends
2. Stranglers
3. Pit Lords
4. Urdars
5. Grotesques
6. Abyss Knights
7. Blood Maggots

The first four kinds are easy to lead to where you want them to go. The last three require a lot more work. There's an 11% chance of getting a RoF without any of the last three kinds of monsters in it, so one should expect to reroll the RoF nine times to get a RoF without them. Even better would be to get one without urdars as well, because they can be annoying with their stun attacks, but there's only a 3% chance of getting a RoF without them as well, so that would mean rerolling the RoF on average 33 times to get the "perfect" roll.

I rerolled the RoF about a dozen times and kept getting blood maggots for some reason. I kept going. I finally got a good roll and tried it. Maw fiends, stranglers, and urdars. Unfortunately, one of the first groups of monsters to meet me was a champion pack of urdars. I tried to park them, but it was hard with all the other urdars around. Even blind normal urdars could still take swipes at me and stun me when I tried to pass them. Then the champion urdars would catch up to me, and I'd get stuck in a series of stuns and have to run and tp to town. Then, I'd return to the RoF via the waypoint, find out that the champion urdars weren't parked far enough back, try to park them deeper and repeat the whole process including the being clobbered and stunned part. It just wasn't working, so I quit out and rerolled the monsters a few more times.

And got a roll with maw fiends, stranglers, and pit lords. Woohoo! Perfect! I had to make sure not to mess this one up. Below the waypoint, there was a boss pack of maw fiends and a champion pack of stranglers. No problem. I Dim Visioned the normal monsters and got the maw fiend boss and two of the champion stranglers to follow me. I led them deeper into the River of Flame in the northwest direction while casting Dim Visions along the way. When I ran into a new boss pack of stranglers, I figured I'd led the maw fiend and champion stranglers far enough. I tp'd to town and returned to the RoF via the waypoint.



Then I Dim Visioned the normal monsters again and got the other two champion stranglers to chase me down the southwest direction as far as I could go and ditched them there.



When I returned to the RoF via the waypoint again, I checked my handiwork and made the disturbing discovery that one of the champion stranglers who I thought I had ditched in the northwest direction hadn't followed me as far as I thought. That strangler would definitely cause problems if I tried to park monsters in that direction. I bone prisoned it and made a mental note not to come near that path.

But on the whole, things were looking pretty good. I used Dim Vision and Terror to push back all the normal monsters toward the southwest as you can see in the following diagram (look at the automap -- sorry, it's the brightest I could make it). Yes, I know, I'm a geek. If you're reading this, so are you.



I then began the painstaking process of drawing all of the monsters from the bridge area down to the indicated parking spot below the waypoint.



After a long while, I managed to move every monster from the bridge area to the parking spot. I'm not absolutely sure how long it took, but I would guess that from the moment I first turned on the game to this point took about two and a half hours.

After much exhausting work, Maldar finally reached the entrance to the Chaos Sanctuary. Will he be able to handle what he finds inside?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part II



A group of venom lords was the first monster pack to greet me from the Chaos Sanctuary. I led them back to the main parking spot like I had with the pit lords on the bridges.

My strategy for dealing with the Chaos Sanctuary was as follows: I would lead all of the venom lords, doom knights, and storm casters in the entrance wing (the length of the southwest wing of the sanctuary) back to the usual parking spot below the River of Flame waypoint. All oblivion knights would be held down with bone prisons. I would then park most of the monsters from the sanctuary proper in the entrance wing. Then I would take on each of the seal boss packs one by one. Once I had killed one of the seal bosses, I would be able to use that boss's wing as another parking spot for any remaining monsters left in the sanctuary proper. It seemed like a pretty good plan. Of course, I would have to dodge bone spirits launched by the couple dozen oblivion knights living in the sanctuary the whole time, but no plan could be completely free of danger. I plugged on ahead.



The plan worked pretty well in the early going. I managed to draw away doom knights and venom lords in groups of two or three. There were a couple of oblivion knights in the entrance foyer who were a constant annoyance, though. One of them was a boss, and his bone spirits stung. I should mention at this point that any bone spirits you see in upcoming pictures were fired by OK's -- not me.

I found one thing out about OK's that was useful, though. If you Bone Prison them, they will switch to attacking with bone spirits and continue to target you. That's smart of them. However, if you run out of their range or tp to town, they'll switch to attacking the bone prisons. So, I would often run into the CS, cast bone prisons on the OK's by the entrance as I ran past (dodging bone spirits the whole time), get some monsters in the next area to chase me, and when I returned, monsters in tow, the OK's by the entrance would be busy attacking the bone prisons, allowing me to pass unmolested.



As much as possible, I tried to encourage OK's close to the main part of the sanctuary to come further down toward the sanctuary's entrance where I would bone prison them to keep them out of the way.



It took a long time, but I managed to park most of the inhabitants of the sanctuary's entrance wing and even some of the inhabitants of the sanctuary proper down below the River of Flame waypoint. It was time to delve more deeply into the sanctuary and see what I'd find there.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part III



And what I found when I entered more deeply into the sanctuary proper was a boss pack of venom lords. No problem. I led the boss back to the usual parking place. However, having a boss down there did complicate things a little bit, because I would have to watchful of that boss while I parked other monsters from that point on.

One would think that by this point, I would've started to park monsters in the sanctuary entrance rather than way down below the River of Flame waypoint -- especially since by this time it was around two in the morning (partly because of some television breaks I took -- I wasn't going to miss Enterprise). However, while it may sound strange, parking monsters below the River of Flame waypoint got addictive. I'd bring monsters from the sanctuary proper down to the sanctuary's entrance and think to myself, "You know, I could park these guys below the waypoint and never worry about them again. This will be the last group, I promise!" Then, I'd get the next group and like an addict, I'd say the same thing. You'd think that I would've gotten so sleepy that I'd stop, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, "Yeah, it might take more time this way, but better to play it safe and do it right the first time than play it dangerously and have to start over -- or worse, die." Also, I may have been suffering from sleep-deprived giddiness.

So I kept going and parked more and more monsters from the sanctuary proper below the waypoint. I was just about to stop doing that (really!) when as I was making my way along the Grand Vizier's wing, a green aura appeared under my feet.



There was no way in the world that I was going to allow a conviction aura enchanted boss to remain anywhere near the Chaos Sanctuary with all those oblivion knights around.



So I led the boss toward the Chaos Sanctuary entrance. This screenshot is a good illustration of a common occurrence I had with normal monsters as well. Doom knights, venom lords, and doom casters often got distracted by the bone prisons around the oblivion knights, so I frequently had to wait for the prisons to fall before continuing the journey down to the River of Flame. "Come on, stop attacking the bone prison. Come chase me. That's a good monster!"



I parked the conviction enchanted boss below the waypoint and made two more parking trips to finish clearing the Grand Vizier's wing of all monsters except oblivion knights. All future monsters would be parked inside the sanctuary itself. It was time to do what I could to deal with the oblivion knights and then pop the Grand Vizier's seal.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part IV



The first thing I tried to do when I got back to the Chaos Sanctuary was park as many oblivion knights as far away from the sanctuary proper as I could. It's not easy to lead an OK to where you want it to go, but you can do it by keeping your target OK just on the edge of your screen. The target OK will often move toward you in small bursts.

I moved a lot of OK's into the entrance wing and bone prisoned them in. The ones I couldn't coax into the entrance wing, I bone prisoned in the center of the sanctuary. I especially wanted to coax away all OK's in the Grand Vizier's wing so that I wouldn't have them bombarding me with bone spirits while I was attacking the Grand Vizier. Unfortunately, two OK's seemed to be stuck behind one of the seals and couldn't be coaxed out no matter what I tried. Oh, well.



I threw up some bone walls to hold back the initial rush of the Grand Vizier's minions and bone prisoned the oblivion knights. I then tp'd to town and came back immediately to get the two OK's to target the bone prison rather than me. As an extra precaution, I cast a clay golem (for the first time) next to the OK's to give them something else to shoot at and then hit the seal. Unfortunately, the clay golem sensed my movement away from the seal and ignored the OK's completely. That was OK. The Grand Vizier ended up attacking the clay golem instead of me, so the golem ended up being useful after all. I Dim Visioned the Vizier's minions and fired bone spirits at the Grand Vizier.



The plan worked perfectly. The Grand Vizier died without any problems.



I Dim Visioned the Vizier's minions again, ran past them, and bone prisoned them to make sure they didn't follow me. It was time to move on to De Seis's wing.

Up Next: De Seis

(Sorry, guys. It's midnight, and I have an early class to get to tomorrow. I'll continue the updates tomorrow evening).

[Chaerophon]

I'll bet that you were just ITCHING to toss a nice blanket of confuse on that massive pile of monsters! :)

[MongoJerry]

I'll bet that you were just ITCHING to toss a nice blanket of confuse on that massive pile of monsters! [smile.gif]

Either that or lightning fury! :lol:

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT IV, THE CHAOS SANCTUARY, Part V



After killing the Grand Vizier, it was time to make my way up Lord De Seis's wing. I led all the normal monsters in De Seis's wing to the Grand Vizier's wing and parked them there. A champion pack of oblivion knights also lived up De Seis's way, and there wasn't much I could do about them except bone prison them and run past them. (Well, I could've tried to slowly lure them away somewhere, but it wouldn't have been worth the effort).



I hit De Seis's seal, ran around the corner, dim visioned De Seis's minions, bone prisoned everyone, and opened fire. There began a great battle between two powerful spellcasters. It was mano y mano with bone spirits flying in both directions. It was a struggle whose grandeur could only be adequately described by an epic poem.



Well, maybe not an epic poem, but it was certainly worthy of a sonnet.



Or perhaps a dirty limerick?

Except for having to go to town once to refresh healing potions, Maldar took down De Seis with very little trouble.

Next: The Infector of Souls