Maldar, the Magnificent

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE SECRET COW LEVEL

9.77% of voters on diabloii.net said that Maldar would die in the Secret Cow Level. While I wasn't as cocky entering the cow level with Maldar as I was with Gunter, I felt much more confident than those voters clearly were. I figured that the most difficult problem would be finding the Cow King's corral. My plan was to lead cows packs to some general area -- a corner, for example -- to thin out the herd, so to speak, and give me breathing room to work with when I did find the Cow King's corral.



I entered the red portal and did a double take when I saw what was on my screen. The King's corral was right in front of me! Wow. I wasn't going to look this gift horse, er... cow, in the mouth.



I thought if I could blind all the King's minions before they saw me and lead the King away from them to the red portal, this fight might be over in two minutes.



I entered the corral, spamming Dim Vision all the time. I didn't find the King, but I found two other boss cows. Argh! Where the heck was the King?



I parked the two bosses in the corner above the corral and went back to find the King.

[MongoJerry]

In the process, I ended up waking several packs of cows. Darn it! I'd lost the initiative.

One annoying thing about cows is that they seem to have a similar AI to gargantuans. Once they see you, they'll keep coming after you relentlessly even after you blind them, so the only way to stop them once they see you is to cast bone prison on them.

I found a "minion" cow, but where was the King?



Ah, there he was! He finally separated himself from the pack.



I bone prisoned the King and did my best to keep Dim Vision on the normal cows. A third boss was in the area (Blood Fist the Impaler, Extra Strong, Stone Skin, Magic Resistant, Immune to Physical), so I bone prisoned him in with the King (see the screenshot above).

I took the opportunity to take some shots at the King. By the time I'd taken off about a quarter of his life, though, I started getting really nervous. The King and Blood Fist were slowly chopping their way through the bone prisons toward me and despite all my attempts to keep the normal cows back, they were creeping up on me from both directions. Like I said above, if Dim Vision ran out on a cow and the cow saw me, the only way to stop it was to cast bone prisons on it. My potential escape routes were clogging up, cows were slowly advancing on me, and I wasn't sure that I could kill the King in one trip even if I got a chance to try. If I got pushed back to the red portal, I'd have to escape through it and restart the game.



So before my escape route on the left side closed, I threw up some extra bone prisons around the King and booked it up the left side. I then drew a large pack of cows to the corner where I had parked the first two cow bosses. Again, I wasn't trying to clear out every cow. I just wanted to "thin the herd" around the King's corral.

[MongoJerry]

I came back down into the corral and found the King with a few of his buddies. I bone prisoned them, started firing at the King, and thought to myself, "This is fine. I can do this two or three times and whittle the King down with hit-and-run tactics." Then, a realization dawned on me. The King was healing! I had thought he was like an End-of-Act boss, so I didn't think he healed. My other 1.10 characters had poison charms or mercenaries who dealt poison damage, so I had never seen the Cow King heal before (and before Maldar, I'd always killed the King's minions first before taking on the King, so the fights were usually too quick to notice the healing).

Oh, man. This also meant that I should try to kill the King in one trip and not go back to town to refresh potions in the middle of the battle -- or at least if I did go back to town, I should make the trip very quickly. As a last resort, I could switch to using the Pus Spitter I've had on weapon switch this whole time but had never used.



Time to stop fooling around. I led all the cows near the King's corral up to the corner that was a little further away from the corral than the corner where I had parked those first two cow bosses. I Dim Visioned the normal cows there, cast a few bone prisons around them to get them to stop chasing me, and did what I could to attract the attention of the Cow King. There were two other cow bosses in the area who started chasing me but careful casts of decrepify and bone prison separated them from the Cow King.



With all of the other cows blinded or imprisoned, it was easy to lead the Cow King away from the rest of the pack back to the red portal. The area around the corral had now been completely cleared of any other cows.



I then bone prisoned the Cow King and started firing.

[MongoJerry]

The Cow King slowly made progress through the bone prisons toward me, and as I backed up, I started getting nervous. I had never traveled very far in the right-hand direction, so I didn't know how far I could go without waking up new packs of cows.



So I circled around through the corral to position myself to shoot at the Cow King from the other direction.



As I quaffed my last mana potion, I saw that the King's life bar was really low. Which would last longer: My mana ball or the Cow King's life?



My mana ball ran out first, but I decided I'd rather use my full rejuv's than risk having the King heal while I was in town buying potions. I quaffed a rejuv potion, and the King fell soon after. Sadly, all the items turned out to be junky.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: FINALE



So Maldar managed to get through all of hell without dying. It was a sometimes nerve-wracking journey, but I had a blast playing him. The playing style and strategies I had to use were so unlike anything I'd ever used in Diablo II before. It was like this whole new game opened before my eyes.

In case you're thinking about creating a pacifist character but are scared by the descriptions of some of Maldar's slow encounters, all I can say is don't be. In fact, his adventures were very fast -- not killing things is a huge time-saver! It took three times longer to write up Maldar's adventures than it took to play them.

The only two slow areas were the Arcane Sanctuary and the Chaos Sanctuary. About a third of my total game time was probably spent in just those two areas. You might think that you don't have the patience to deal with them, but all I can say is that when you're done with them, the sense of achievement is amazing. If you're looking to do something new, I highly recommend creating a character like this. It's an incredibly fun experience.

I hope you all enjoyed reading Maldar's story and once again I loved reading all of the messages cheering him on. I have a half-formed idea for my next character, but I am always looking for suggestions for new characters. Please feel free to post your ideas for new characters and maybe we can hash out a character together whose adventures people would be interested in reading about.

However, graduate school is really kicking into high gear for me right now, so I won't have as much time to devote to Diablo II for a while. Plus, it'll take some time to level up whatever character I choose to make, so you'll have to be patient.

In the meantime, you can keep yourself occupied by playing Maldar yourself! By request of Deadpan over at the Lurker Lounge, I saved a copy of Maldar right after he had defeated Baal but before he had killed the Cow King. This way, you can still open the Red Portal and play the "Maldar: Kill the Cow King Play-at-Home Game!" Enjoy!

Maldar

Upon the death of their king, the rest of the demon cows agreed to be relocated to a new home that would suit their needs and simultaneously keep them well away from the lands of the free peoples. The crisis had been averted and the treaty enforced. Peace and tranquility fell on all of the lands of Sanctuary.

But Maldar knew that this peace was only temporary for he knew that Tyrael was up to something. For the rest of his life, Maldar would keep watch over the happenings in Sanctuary, and all beings in Sanctuary, human or demon, knew that if trouble arose, they could count on one person to come to their rescue: Maldar, the Pacifist Hero.

[dudearonymus_32]

:D Great job!

Hmmm... We have 3 d2 write ups but no d1 write ups :o . Actually I might just take that job into my own hands....

[Chaerophon]

In my opinion, your most interesting character yet! Thanks for the read, I greatly enjoyed it and look forward to experimenting a tad with Maldar!

[SevenMass]

MongoJerry, curse you.
Why? Becouse I am playing a DV using necro, with max DV, (not a pasivist but still one who uses DV most of the time) and I thought it was special. I may not be the first and only DV using necro, but at least I was far from being a coocky cutter.

But thanks to your story here on this forum, now everyone who sees my necro will think that I was inspired by you, that I am copying your necro in some way. Darn it!

I'm not looking forward to comments in this direction.

Now I have to think of yet an other special, but still somewhat usefull character build.

[MongoJerry]

Now I have to think of yet an other special, but still somewhat usefull character build.

Don't make a max Inner Sight amazon, then, because that's next!

(Just kidding)

I feel your pain. I really do. I've had that happen to me twice, actually. Damn Sirian.

[Anuvii]

I would do a Diablo 1 write up, but, in my opnion, Diablo 1 is MUCH harder then diablo 2 Diablo2/LOD because of a number of reasons:

Tomes. There are no 'Tomes of Town Portal' for you to store all of your portals in, and I usually like to have 3~5 incase I run into items that may be useful.

Experience. I have had little(VERY LITTLE) experience, my highest character, Anuvii, level 7 Rouge.

Aquintences. Man, I don't think I could get through the game without a tank or someone to talk to.

Write up. I am not experienced, AT ALL in writing ANYTHING relating to anything, really, its true.

Other. Final Fantasy 11 will be out in...16 days? That is a big hinderance.

Homework. God. Ain't life a bitch.


So for all of the above reasons, I most likely will not do a write up, and even if I do, it wouldn't be very good, but if someone wants to do a write up, i would be glad to help, with what I can, I just got an exucutioners Blade Falchion for a Warrior in distress, I don't need it , so yeah B) Thats about all I can give away because I lost my ring to the butcher... and it was crap anyway...20% life radius....So if someone needs any help with a write up or somethin I'm always, somewhere, willing to help, to sum it all up.

[dudearonymus_32]

Experience. I have had little(VERY LITTLE) experience, my highest character, Anuvii, level 7 Rouge.

:ph34r: Just play a little more. I know what you mean though, the highest level D1 character I have is a level 33 sorceror. I like that experience is hard to get, it makes getting to level 50 all the more satisfying.

And by the way, light radius helps monsters see you from farther away so you should sell any +light radius rings you find. Unless of course you're playing a variant :D .

[schizoidmime]

oh, please say your next character is a maxed Ravens druid..... :D

[Occhidiangela]

It takes forever.

What do you do with the rest of the skill points? :)

At skill level 30: Assume A + 3 amulet, a +3 Raven and +3 summon skills hat (hard to find) and a Sigon's Shield. Or, a +3 Summon circlet and a +2 skills Club qnd a +1 skills armor.

5 Ravens X 41 attacks each X 32 = 6560 points of physical damage for a full casting and waiting for all 41 hits to take place.

That kills Hell Diablo on players on Hell Diff . . . eventually, and most monsters, with regen rates, might never die.

OK, add Poison Creeper for regen problems.

HoW does not work on Ravens.

[schizoidmime]

haha wow. i was more just joking around, i honestly don't know how someone could effectively use max ravens... but i always thought that they were cool, and if someone can do it, i'm sure mongo can! ^_^