Diablo II: Guardian Atropos

Note: Proper repost from a previous one

Atropos is my second character from the No Vitality Tournament, and as it turns out also my second only Guardian. Some of you may remember Bob.

For those that aren't in the tournament, the basic premise is that no stat points may be placed into vitality. Equipment and charms that give vitality are fine, just no hard points. This is a single pass, no twinkling tournament (as is the norm).

Atropos is a level 82 Frost Maiden that uses Magic Arrow for cold immunes, so:
Cold Arrow - 20
Ice Arrow - 10
Freezing Arrow - 20
Magic Arrow - 13
Valkyrie - 20
Pierce - 1
Decoy - 2

Also one point in all prerequisites. As you can see I did make a major mistake with the Ice Arrow points. At the time, in Normal, adding points gave me the ability to freeze enemies and deal more damage quicker. I figured that maxing all three cold skills was necessary anyway. After reading up on Frost Maidens a bit more however I realized the freezing length it provides is basically negated in Hell and therefore the 9 extra points there would have been much better off in Magic arrow and Decoy.

Obviously +life and +vitality items were prized and those were equipped before anything else, except maybe lightning/fire resistance items. This resulted in some interesting stat numbers:

Strength: 100 (100)
Dexterity: 330 (345)
Vitality: 20 (20)
Energy: 50 (55)
Life: 272 (749)
Mana: 189 (294)

Equipment
Weapon: Stag Bow - 10-14 cold dmg, 99 poison dmg, +2 bow skills
Boots: Heavy Boots - 40% LR, repair
Helm: Circlet - 27 mana, 14% FR, 14% LR, 44% CR, 14% PR, 17% MF
Armor: 93 life, 30% FR, 30% LR, 21% PR
Amulet: 98 life, 21% resist all
Ring 1: 64 AR, 23% CR
Gloves: Vampirebone - 14% FR, +77% Gold, 23% MF, 5% AR
Ring 2: 9 dex, 30% FR
Belt: Plated - 97 life

Mercenary (Defiance):
Weapon: Cryptic Axe - Malice
Armor: Mesh - 23% FR, 26% CR, 17% FHR
Helm: Tal Rasha's

Bonuses from charms:
189 life, 71 mana, 20 LR, 43 CR, 5 PR, 13 FR, 3 sources of cold dmg

Overall she was a blast to play, but definitely underpowered. Due to being untwinkled the main concern was the dismal amount of non-cold damage she inflicted, so cold immunes in Hell gave her constant headaches. As a completely opposite to Bob, she favored the indoor and cramped areas that forces monsters to bunch up and therefore one arrow would freeze huge packs.

In the beginning only Atropos was a bit overpowered, cold enhanced arrows simply made short work of any monster/boss she encountered. Then Andariel dropped a Dimoak's Hew and suddenly Emilio was even more overpowered, so much so that Atropos wasn't able to add much to any battle before Emilio finished everyone off. As a result until Freezing Arrow was available Atropos was a cheerleader.

As expected cold immunes were terrible, starting in Act V Normal. The terrain had to be used constantly to bottleneck the monster packs so Emilio and the valkyrie could deal with them 2-3 at a time. More than that and Emilio would be in serious need of a doctor...or mortician. This trend continued into Hell until Emilio could get a better weapon. My rune finding was terrible, as I wanted an Insight but never found a Sol nor enough Amns to cube one. So we went with a Malice instead for the OW and increased damage.

For the most part things were safe, but that may have been due to me being extra careful than anything else. Decoy was used liberally as both a scout and a, gasp, decoy to split monster group's attention. Probably cast is a couple thousand times in Hell alone. Also picked up the trick of running away slightly from battle, just enough to get Emilio to follow but not the valkyrie. Allowed me to position him so he wasn't the main focus of attention for the monsters, since he was quite fragile.

There were a few scary moments. City of the Damned contained Stygian Hags, which are cold immune and so are their spawn. They multiplied faster than my crew could kill them. So I took to sprinting through the level looking for the WP. Really not a good idea as I did get cornered at one point, but managed to work my way out. Second troublesome spot was the Ancients, as I just couldn't split them up for the longest time. As a result I almost ran out of gold resurrecting Emilio. Finally I equipped some FRW and that allowed the Ancients to be dealt with one at a time.

Baal himself was an epic battle worth of song, dance and the consumption of much recreational beverages. Atropos had more NDEs than the rest of the Acts put together. Appendages littered the area, Baal was cloned more often than not and Emilio took a dirt nap early (slacker!). But eventually Atropos whittled down Baal's life to nothing after at least 30 trips back to town to restock and heal.