At first I thought I'd enter the current MFO with him, but since there is no way I could compete with everyone else in that category, my runs are far too long, I decided to forgo that idea. Still, I decided to make this a purely twinkled character, which is very different from what I normally do. The point was that Fishymancers can slow down a bit and I didn't want that as I've already played this character before. Secondly I'm curious how long it would take me to play a twinkled character through the game, as I haven't done that in years. And so Hades was born.
Hades started off twinkled with the Infernal set, giving him some nice +skill mods
early on. He also started off as a melee character, right there on the front lines with his minions whacking away at monsters. This worked quite well as Hades could concentrate on the Devilkin shaman while his minions kept their minions at bay. As he progressed through the first Act I continued to twinkle on gear, such as the Tarnhelm and a pair of Nagelrings. I wanted him to be magic finding as much as possible as early as possible, as well as getting as many +skills as I could.Once in Act II Hades decided to forgo getting a Desert Warrior mercenary and instead stayed with the Rogue. He already had eight melee minions at that point, so didn't need another one. Besides which, none of the available auras would help out his army much, but a powerful ranged attacker would be very useful in places like the Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary. And boy wasn't she helpful there, those areas went by quite quickly, although it helps when you drop the player settings down to P1 too.
Hades wasn't in any sort of danger through Normal, not from the monster packs nor the Act bosses. Diablo did catch him with the edge of one of his lightning hoses and dropped his life down to one third, but that was about as close as things came. By the time Hades completed Act IV, he had ten skeleton warriors, four mages, a clay golem and his rogue mercenary companion beside him. Backed up by Amplify Damage they were quite the wrecking crew. At this point Hades is wearing quite a bit of magic find; two Nagelrings, Chance Guards, Tarnhelm and a Goldwrap belt. Still, he hasn't found much of anything, but I do expect this will help him complete some of the tasks in the Christmas tournament.
The army size stayed the same all through Act V as well, as I didn't mule on anything else. Mainly because I was playing the entire act through in one sitting and didn't feel like stopping to mule more on, as well as the fact nothing was really needed at that point. Hades breezed through the rest of Normal and took out Baal with zero difficulty. A clay golem plus Decrepify means no Baal clone, no teleporting and no froze wave. Just sit back and cast Decrepify every 8.2 seconds until Baal fell.
Nightmare was pretty much a continuation of the end of Normal. However things did start to slow down a bit in the Catacombs as monster's hit points increased. Still, they all fell without too much trouble and this lead the way to Act II. Here is where Hades parted with his Rogue companion and sent her back home to help her sisters. He replaced her with a Might Desert warrior, the aura is simply too enticing for this particular build to go with anyone else. Coupled that with the Insight Partizan I muled onto him and we're set to go. Along with the Insight I muled on a Arm of King Leoric. This will allow Hades to have a full dozen skeleton warriors and a half dozen mages. However there is a catch, the item has a chance to cast Bone Prison when Hades is hit. I'll just have to ensure he's never in melee range of any monsters.
Hades continues to progress nicely, things really did pick back up again once I switched mercenaries. He definitely isn't a fan of tight spaces, but in wide open areas he is king. At the moment not spending my extra skill points, as I'm not sure where to put them. I was thinking CE but that only increases the mana required and at P8 it isn't very useful. The other option was Skeletal Mage but they aren't the most useful and I have twenty minions right now. At the moment I think I'll just hang onto them. I do want to enter Hell with CE maxed so will store the points until I can ensure that happens, then the rest go into Skeletal Mage.
AoKLR is as dangerous as they say. Got stuck with a Fallen when attempting to raise an army. Thankfully it was a Fallen and could beat it away with the wand. Still, almost got stuck with a few Dolls in Act III, which wouldn't have been so much fun. The Durance was a bit tricky, as every doorway held the potential for disaster if Hades were trapped in a Bonewall prison. Still, he made it through and eliminated Mephisto without much trouble.Hades cruised through the rest of the difficulty without only one snag. In the Ancients Way he encountered the undead that keep rising after they are defeated. Thinking nothing of this Hades continued through the area staying behind his troops and out of danger. All of a sudden one of the monsters raised from the dead behind him and charged. Hades died in a single hit. After that he learned to explode every corpse as he went to ensure that didn't happen again. Hades had to do a few Baal Minion runs to get his level to the norm for going into Hell, 75. Then he was able to twinkle on the rest of his equipment.
After that he had a decision to make, what to do with 310 unused stat points and 25 skill points. Decided on dropping the strength charms and being able to wear all of the equipment outright, as well as dumping enough points into dexterity for maximum block. After that was done he increased Raise Skeletal Mage until ten could be summoned and then dropped the remaining 17 skill points into Corpse Explosion. CE will be maxed, followed by Raise Skeletal Mage and that will finish the build.
Hades made full use of his skillset in Hell. The army he would normally quest with was his desert warrior Might mercenary, a clay golem, 13 skeleton warriors, 12 skeleton mages and up to 11 revives. Obviously as long as Hades CEed every corpse that could be resurrected he was in no real danger himself, other than those monsters with piercing attack like Gloams and Slingers. And so Hades did either CE or revive every monster encountered. I found that my favorite revives were either the Rogues (of any type), Frenzytaurs, Snakes or Witches. All of them are fast, tank well and deal decent amounts of damage. On the flip side they do still look somewhat like their still-monster counterparts and I got confused may times thinking a pack had snuck up me somehow.
Progress through Hell went much, much faster than Nightmare. Of course Corpse Explosion was the main reason for that. It was used liberally and Hades practically ran though the entire difficulty. He did get caught up in the Arcane Sanctuary with all those Ghost packs. Being mostly physically immune they took quite a while for 1-2 skeleton warriors to take down. Oddly enough the Maggot Lair didn't have the same problem, as the lightning Beetles aren't PI and therefore a single skeleton kills one in only 2-3 swings.
Hades had a few close calls when Gloams appeared, and they appeared everywhere they could except the World Stone Keep. He did have only 60 lightning resist until the middle of Act V, which probably accounted for some tense moments. However I decided resurrecting monsters that give me a tough time isn't the best of ideas. With an army of 38 running around, keeping track of which lightning blast is from a minion Gloam and which is from a monster one is practically impossible. As a result I found myself dodging my own attacks until I simply stopped resurrecting Gloams and such. Oddly enough I didn't have the same issue with the Witches, which is why I'm willing to resurrect them.
Overall the act bosses were a joke. Decrepify and Clay Golem keep them pretty much immobilized and they all went down easily. Baal did clone himself immediately and as a result I had to take on both at the same time. Since one wasn't engaging a clay golem that one was able to use Baal's normal attacks, although teleporting didn't appear to be possible.
Decided this build is pretty much complete. I wouldn't know what to do with any more skill points, but I'm sure a few levels wouldn't hurt the minions at all. Since he is geared towards level 85 areas I still have to decide if the Skin of the Vipermaji or Skulder's Ire is the armor of choice. Will have to play around with it to see how low I can get my resistances and still feel comfortable with it. Either way if I'm going to the WSK then all I have to do is what I did this time around. Wander through with 11 Frenzytaur revives and absolutely nothing will give me problems, even Listers group went down extremely fast.
Stats:
Level 83
Strength - 95(105)
Dexterity - 180(184)
Vitality - 205(215)
Energy - 25(51)
Life - 608(628)
Mana - 351(361)
Lightning Resistance - 75
Fire Resistance - 74
Cold Resistance - 70
Poison Resistance - 74
Skills:
Decrepify - 1(9)
Dim Vision - 1(9)
Bone Armor - 1(8)
Corpse Explosion - 20(27)
Raise Skeleton - 20(33)
Skeleton Mastery - 20(33)
Summon Resist - 1(11)
Raise Skeletal Mage - 20(32)
Revive - 1(11)
Fire Golem - 1(11)
Equipment:
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric
Armor: Skin of the Viper Magi
Boots: War Traveler
Belt: Goldwrap
Gloves: Chance Guards
Helm: Tiara - +2 Necro skills, LR 29%, Teleport charges
Shield: Homunculus (socketed: Pdiamond)
Ring1: Nagelring
Ring2: Nagelring
Amulet: +3 Summoning skills
Mercenary (Might Desert Warrior)
Helm: Tal Rashas Horadric Crest
Armor: Duriel's Shell
Weapon: Partizan 'Insight'
Hellforge:
NM - Lem
Hell - Ko
1 comment:
This is a very nice blog I must say. I came across it at the diii forums in your signature .)
As soon as I get some time I will try to read those d2 guides.
BRKO
Post a Comment