Diablo II: Matriarch Nemesis

Nemesis is a recreation of a martial arts assassin I had started both on Battle.net and Single Player but never finished. On Bnet I quit and moved to SP, and on SP I restarted before I finished. As a result I've never even gotten an assassin into Hell, such an oversight had to be corrected.

As can be expected Normal was a bit difficulty to begin with, but once Tiger Strike was maximized the questing was fairly basic. Tactics weren't really required yet, even untwinkled. I did however have great difficulty once more skills became available. Up to this point I've always utilized the F* keys for my skills as normally I use no more than six skills overall. However for an assassin this simply wasn't possible. As a result I had to bind the A-S-D-F-Q-W-E-R-T keys, as I was finding myself getting more and more frustrated by the fact I couldn't select the needed skills quickly enough. Obviously this lead to some confusion for a while right after the switch trying to use potions, as my hand was in a different location. I can attribute a few Normal deaths to this issue.

Nightmare on the other hand, wasn't quite as easy as expected. A trip into the Blood Moor lead to a triple boss pack that killed off my poor barbarian mercenary and shadow master almost instantly and required lots of running around and trips back to town for potion restocks before they were eliminated. The mods weren't very dangerous, it was the cold damage the undead inflicted that was the problem. Being slowed simply didn't mesh with how Nemesis was intended to be played. So I muled on a pair of 20% faster attack speed gloves and a Ravenfrost ring to correct that issue.

Afterwards progress was fairly good. Charge-ups were used everywhere, no more normal attacks. The most dangerous monsters were either manaburn or undead, due to the inability to leech from them. Up until Act IV the normal packs were manageable, as were the act bosses. Duriel required some thawing potions as Nemesis still has zero, well now -30%, cold resistance. Duriel was also the only act boss to require a trip back to town to restock on health potions, both Andariel and Mephisto were easily dealt with due to the ability to leech from them.

Act IV lead to more problems due to the ramped up health/damage of the monster packs. Just stepping out of the staircase lead to a doom knight boss pack (extra fast, cursed) that killed Nemesis at least five times. They were accompanied by a few pit lords that took three sets of charge-up and release cycles to kill a single one. The weapon/boots Nemesis had were simply
lacking enough punch to deal with the monsters. So a few more items needed to be muled on; Gore Riders and a Bartuc's Cut-Throat. Afterwards Nemesis was able to deal with the monster packs, it still wasn't a breeze but manageable.

At arriving at the Chaos Sanctuary she realized something, Cloak of Shadows apparently doesn't affect Oblivion Knights, as they kept cursing her. This lead to several deaths to IM before the player settings were dropped to one for the rest of the level. The same held true in the WSK against the Oblivion knights that spawned there as well. Lovely. Ended up with a nasty roll for the 3rd level, Revivers coupled with a level simply full of Gloams. It was just plain silly, but being stubborn I refused to reroll the map, and died several times as a result.

Finally Hell was reached, which means Nemesis can be twinkled up to her eyebrows, and she was: helm, armor, rings, amulet, belt and a second weapon to join the twinkled main weapon, boots and gloves already present. After that she simply ran, literally, through Hell. With all of the bonus skill points given by equipment Nemesis had Burst of Speed up to a very respectable level, too much actually. Took quite a bit of getting used to how fast she could move.

One thing that did cause problems is the fact that more often than not I could not see how many light balls were circling her feet. This became a problem when using Phoenix Strike, I had no idea which elemental attack was going to be released. This lead to many of them being wasted due to being directed on immune monsters, but also to 17 skill points being unused at the end of the game. Since I couldn't control which element to release I didn't want to use the points in synergies when a need may arise for them later. No need arose however so I think I'll dump them all into Blades of Ice, since the last charge is a little easier to control even if Claws of Thunder was my first choice when planning the character.

Nemesis didn't encounter any terrible problems until the Chaos Sanctuary in Act IV, due to the Oblivion Knights and IM. Since Cloak of Shadows doesn't affect OKs she struggled greatly in this area and received her first death in Hell, then several more followed close behind. This was a signal for things to come in Act V, as in the Bloody Foothills Nemesis and her companions were greeted with hordes of ranged monsters. Cloak of Shadows was used liberally to allow Nemesis to clear out small packs at a time. Going was slow but steady until the Ancients.

The Ancients had a dangerous set of mods. Talic (Whirlwind) was extra fast and spectral hit enhanced while Korlic was extra fast and stone skin. Of course both of them zeroed in on Nemesis and completely ignored her companions. This resulted in several minutes of her running around (with BoS enabled) with both hot on her heels. Since they were just as fast splitting up the Ancients simply wasn't possible, so hit and fade tactics had to be used to eliminate Madawc first and then corner Talic and Korlic behind a pillar where they couldn't see Nemesis. At this point they engaged Alhizeer and the Shadow Master, mostly the Shadow Master. This was good as Nemesis had run out of purple and red potions by this point.

Eventually they fell, then the WSK gave an extremely challenging combination of monsters to test Nemesis' skill and courage. Level 1 was easy, level 2 had Souls and Snakes, level 3 had Oblivion Knights and level 4 was fulled with Souls, Hell Witches and Death Lords. The last level was virtually unfair, fighting cursed with Amplify damage constantly against multiple bosspacks and champion packs of Death Lords, who in my opinion are the most dangerous melee monsters in the game.

Needless to say many mercenary resurrections were required, but eventually Baal was engaged and defeated, even though he felt his clone needed to remain a constant companion. Nemesis used a little trick to deal her damage; she charged up on the festering appendages that Baal kept summoning then released their charges on Baal himself. Since she had issues hitting Baal this was the only way to drop the Lord of Destruction.

Stats:
Level 81
Strength - 94(161)
Dexterity - 86(116)
Vitality - 295(305)
Energy - 25(35)

Life - 1095(1267)
Mana - 145(184)

Lightning Resistance - 75
Fire Resistance - 75
Cold Resistance - 75
Poison Resistance - 75

Skills:
Tiger Strike - 20(29)
Phoenix Strike - 20(29)
Dragon Tail - 20(29)
Dragon Flight - 1(10)
Fade - 1(7)
Shadow Master - 1(7)

Equipment:
Weapon 1: Bartuc's Cut-Throat (Shael)
Weapon 2: Jade Talon (24% CR jewel)
Armor: Duriel's Shell
Boots: Gore Rider
Belt: +15 Strength, FR 25%, LR 25%, 24% FHR, PLR 25%
Gloves: PR 25%, 20% IAS, +2 Martial Art skills
Helm: +18 Resist All, 6% Mana steal, +2 Assassin skills
Ring 1: +7 Strength, +22 Mana, LR 28%
Ring 2: Nature's Peace
Amulet: The Mahim-Oak Curio

Mercenary (Holy Freeze Desert Warrior):
Helm: Tal Rasha's Crest
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll

Hellforge
NM: Um
Hell: Hel