Slacker Variant rules

[Zed-F]

The Slackers team on Sun night seems to have had little trouble making its way through the game so far. I originally intended to make the team variant version of this tough, but not too tough, and I think it has succeeded in that regard. However, back in 1.09 I played a slacker-esque variant that was much more restritive -- almost insanely so. I played a hardcore trappassin with base stats, no gear other than some charms she found herself, no more than 1 point per skill, and no mercenary. She managed to defeat Diablo on Normal diff before I gave up on her. The reason? Too darn tedious to keep going. She had no mana ball to speak of, and so was 100% reliant on mana potions to be able to do anything... but in 1.09, you couldn't buy mana potions. She would have to farm easier areas where she could punch her way through the game to find enough mana potions to tackle the harder areas where punching was just too dangerous. It took an entire day of gaming to get from the Pandemonium Fortress to the City of the Damned waypoint.

The Slackers Sunday night team was in part inspired by this earlier character, and in part formulated at the end of 1.09 with the intention that the characters could be molded in 1.10 into whatever we wanted to play once the patch came around. Well, migration to the ladder nixed the latter part of the idea, but the team game proved to be popular nonetheless. Still, with 1.10 adding the ability to buy mana potions back into the game, I decided I wanted to try something closer to the original concept again. Hence was born AssIsGrass, my suicidally slacking assassin. This time I chose to make a couple of changes to the formula, the biggest one of which is that the character is Softcore, not Hardcore, of which I got enough with FoS.

So here's a draft of my proposed Slacker variant. I want to make this variant very tough, but not outright impossible. I'm not aiming quite at an Infirm Irene level of challenge here, but I don't want to be too far off that mark either. I would like to solicit suggestions in this regard, especially from others with experience playing heavily restricted characters. Two factors to consider are the ability to do enough damage to break monster regen, and one-hit-kill potential. The former is a significant factor, given the possibilities for substantial +skills or granted skills from twinked gear, which I don't want to expressly disallow -- part of the fun of collecting gear is making use of it for unusual builds, and I don't want to shut that option out. At the same time, I want to structure the variant in such a way that twinking specific gear is not required for the character to progress, with the caveat that some slacker characters will of course be more gear-dependent than others.

Note that according to these rules, the Slackers of the Sun night team variant are over-acheivers as Slackers go. Please post your thoughts and comments!


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Slacker Variant v1.01:

Go down to the beach some day, and you'll see lots of full-grown Slackers wandering around with nothing much in particular to do. Where do they come from? Why do they look so relaxed? Well, adult Slackers come from baby Slackers, of course, and they look so relaxed because they've already bested the worst Diablo and his buddies could throw at them!

There are 3 versions of the Slacker presented here. None of these subclasses are very much given to studying or exercise, and approach life in a very laid back manner. If they run into trouble that proves to be too tough to handle, they simply say 'Whatever', pick themselves up, and continue on their way. The Geek Slacker is the default version, which tends toward having some nifty toys and can pick up some skills intuitively, but is pretty wimpy physically. The Nudist Slacker eschews all forms of visible gear, but is relatively buff as she must have some stuff to show off. The Stoner Slacker is also relatively buff physically and has access to a variety of nifty toys, mainly stolen from her Geek peers, but years of abuse of The Weed have left their toll, and she tends to be slow to pick up even the most rudimentary skills. A growing Slacker can "grow out" of one subclass and change to a different subclass, providing that they can still meet all the criteria of the new subclass for the relevant age bracket.

Slackers tend to prefer the company of other Slackers, or similarly challenged folk. They prefer not to associate with anyone that can show them up by blazing through Diablo's minions faster than they can.

Here's the Slacker life cycle:

A. Slacker Infant
Goal: Defeat at least one Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Complete Nudity (including jewellry & charms)
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Stoner: You are allowed non-visible gear, but may not allocate skill points at all.
  

B. Slacker Toddler
Goal: Defeat Baal on Normal difficulty.

• Visibly Nude (no visible gear incl. weapon/shield), with no exceptional/elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Stoner: You are allowed any gear you can equip, but may not allocate skill points.
  

C. Slacker Child
Goal: Defeat at least one Nightmare Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Gear allowed, but no exceptional/elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may not allocate skill points.
  

D. Slacker Pre-teen
Goal: Defeat Baal on Nightmare difficulty.

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except two skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may not have more than 1 point in any skill
  

E. Slacker Teen
Goal: Defeat at least one Hell Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except three skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have one skill that is up to slvl 10
  

F. Slacker Come-of-Age
Goal: Defeat Baal on Hell difficulty.

• Gear allowed
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except four skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have two skills that are up to slvl 10
  

G. Slacker Adult
Do what you like, you've earned it! Slack on, or crack some books, buff up at the gym, and enter the work week, as you prefer.

[KingOfPain]

Tough on the melee characters but that’s just 1.10. Pretty well balanced (between subclasses) variant with a high level of challenge and many possible builds

Do quests need to be solo’d, or coop with similar strength char(s) good enough?

No stat points all the way except for Stoner and Nudist is a good balance.
Good training phase (Norm Diff). Spell casters and rangers always have it easier so the Stoner allowance helps the meleer a bit. Caution to Stoners – decide right from the start if you would allocate skill points, once you use any skill points you cannot be a Stoner until you are in Pre-teen phase going after NM Baal.

Some notes on skill point allocation - especially for the non nudist subclasses: Skills are for WIMPS. ;p You can get through NM at a reasonable pace (by variant standards) if you be a little creative in equipping your character. (Hint: GoGoGadget – some limited info can be found in another post). You need not go throw blown gadget dependant like GGG, there are many little gems normal characters would not bother to pick up but be of great value to a Slacker. Some of these gadgets are also usable by the visibly naked nudist (from NM diff and on).

Everything looks good. I wouldn’t change a single thing (except for the last phase when 2 skills are allowed 10 points each and one skill with unlimited points could be a little to lax for some builds), although I would caution the would be Slacker this variant needs a little preplanning – make every point and item count. Normal difficulty should not be all that hard for anyone willing to use some tactics with a little patience. NM does not always mean the going will get harder. Characters will be at their prime as far as the availability of skills/items vs monster difficulty is concerned. Hell, as always, will be the real judge of your skill and/or buiild.

I will upload the rules once you give the word you don’t need to make changes. Good Job!

KoP

[Zed-F]

Do quests need to be solo’d, or coop with similar strength char(s) good enough?

Co-op with similar strength characters is sufficient. However, finding a similar strength character may be a challenge, given the stringency of the restrictions.

EDIT: The following changes were suggested:

E. Slacker Teen
Goal: Defeat at least one Hell Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except three skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have one skill that is up to slvl 10
  

F. Slacker Come-of-Age
Goal: Defeat Baal on Hell difficulty.

• Gear allowed
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except four skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have two skills that are up to slvl 10
  

The original version allowed mercenaries in hell difficulty and allowed a single slvl20 skill for some subclasses, as follows:
E. Slacker Teen
Goal: Defeat at least one Hell Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except two skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• Mercenary optional
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may not have more than 1 point in any skill
  

F. Slacker Come-of-Age
Goal: Defeat Baal on Hell difficulty.

• Gear allowed
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except two skills which may be up to slvl 10 and one skill which may be any slvl
  
• Mercenary optional
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have two skills that are up to slvl 10
  

The amended version was suggested to increase the challenge. Some character builds are at near full power with a single clvl20 skill.

[Zed-F]

I kind of expected at least some comments from the current slacker crowd by now. Is this overboard, does it look ok, or what?

We have at least one other person other than myself trying this out now (cheers, BamBam! so maybe we'll find out the hard way...

[Bam-Bam]

Thanks, Zed. Realizing that normal is not a real test--there is one area where I am not completely slacking--I am not ready for a one row belt, so I am wearing a no-dur sash. My necro is too mana-hungry, and too many trips to town/inventory refills is too tedious for my blood. Got to love the shift-click belt refills.

I probably would be avoiding more deaths if I chose not to go after all those archer bosses in places like the caves. I think Coldcrow's bunch mowed me down at least twice last night

It should be interesting to progress through normal with only one skellie, one mage, and a golem

Once Zed joined in last night, we had to tone his pally down--he was killing way too fast for a slacker game . Thus is born Zed the stoner punching pally

Having now played for about a grand total of a week with the RBD crowd--you folks FLY through the game, even when slacking. It's going to take me a few more weeks to get used to all this "knees bent running about advancing behavior" . That said, thanks for the warm welcome to RBD B.net gaming over the last week. It's been a blast!

[Zed-F]

If you think we are fast, you should see a pubbie game.

More seriously, a large part of the reason we are faster is that we know what is worth picking up and what isn't, from experience. We don't stop to smell all the roses along the way because, well, we've smelled them before.

[Bam-Bam]

Bamslacker awoke to find his face covered with some sort of brackish, marshy substance. "What do ya mean it's time to go to work? I'm not old enough to have a job, man!"

Such is the life of a slacker, even as a child, they have to have a little prodding to keep moving.

"Whatever, man. Just get on with the story."

Ok. Some background. Summoning necro is the game here, with curse support, some teeth artillery, and some bone armor protection. Slacker found some of the optional areas a bit rough. Why go to caves? "Caves are cool, man. Makes you appreciate the beach." Ok, well, I guess that makes sense. So Time to wake gollie and start trapsing round the march--soon enough, some dead guys, and now we have a party with skellie and mage. On to grab some loot, after all, a slacker needs cash, too.

Slow going in the tower, but no major problems. Countess fell without any fuss.

On to the highland--mages, archers and rats. We're not very fond of ranged foes, but lots of room to dodge, curse, and send teeth at bosses. I'm beginning to notice a bit of addiction to blue pots.

The Outer Cloister took at least five minutes to get a foothold. Shamans kept raising devilkins, and gollie couldn't kill them fast enough. Some Corpse explosion and sneaking about to cast Dim Vision on the shaman finally won the day. Bamslacker is pretty busy for a slacker, but this is not completely unusual for a necro. With so few minions, however, the pace can get a bit busy--reminds me of how a previous summoner builds would go when an Act Boss crushed all the skellies, and it's just me and the golem. Lots of need for dim vision, or terror to keep the mobs down.

Barracks had a few tough areas, but selective DV seem to tame the shaman packs.

The Smith was a joke--IM did him in almost as fast as he could belt out his signature line.

No major problems in the jail, just slow going--same for the cathedral. Bone ash took some teeth. I think I was still at one or no deaths at this point for the evening.

Then there is the cats--let's just not talk about that. I had at least three tainted boss packs that made for 4 or 5 deaths. Could have been bad golem technique, but their combination of melee and ranged attack was giving me fits.

Most fun fight of the night was finding a way to separate a vampire boss pack, since I could not handle them more than one on one. Lots of knees bent running about advancing behavior.

Just cleaning up Cats4 to get to Andy made me have to stock up on blues again, but I managed to avoid death.

Andy was a good fight--she did not want to lock on the golem, so there were several close moments when I was running around, dodging her poision spray and trying to lead her to the golem. Once she locked on, IM did her in with about 4-5 recasts of the golem.

Now on to Act 2. May or may not ease up on the restrictions. "Whatever, man. At least tonight I can sleep in town."

Fun variant, a bit tedious playing single, but that's not unusual for necros in general. The cats' deaths helped with my golem placement/curse skills, which allowed for a death-free remainder of the act.

Slacker is now level 15 with points in all available curses (5 pts), all available summoning skills (5 pts), and teeth, bone armor, and corpse explosion. Two points saved.

Long term plan--an army of slacking skeletons! Let the man tremble!!!

Bam-Bam

[Zed-F]

Glad to hear you're making progress.

I suppose I should mention something about AssIsGrass. She also was a blue potion fiend for most of her infancy. I got an earlier start with her so she's a bit further on than BamSlacker. Act 1 involved a lot of running around punching stuff, and tossing out the occasional trap, especially before reaching clvl12. By that point, slvl1 Wake of Fire became a staple, mana usage went way up, and addiction to blues commenced. Things proceeded in that vein pretty much throughout the reaminder of act 1 and act 2. WoF does better in some areas than others, of course; the maggot lair and the Arcane Sanctuary were annoying. Charged Bolt Sentry at slvl1 is pretty pathetic and didn't help much, and neither did the fact that I didn't have the mana pool to spam them properly. Portions of act 2 were played with others, most notably Bamowolf, an equipment-challenged werewolf. Duriel in particular was a pain in the tush, as he could one-hit kill the shadow warrior, 2-hit kill AssIsGrass, and Bamowolf wasn't faring much better due to lack of both a decently damaging weapon and a lack of quality potions. Still, after many deaths, eventually he succumbed.

Act 3 saw AssIsGrass's erstwhile travelling companions begin to rapidly outstrip her in terms of progress, as their damage output continued to increase while hers remained stationary, so she completed most of the act solo. No areas in particular stood out as being particularily difficult, though the blue addiction continued. Eventually Lightning Sentry and Wake of Inferno were picked up and LS became her main trap rather than WoF. She had tried Blade Fury out, but with no gear and no AR, it was mostly a waste of mana at the time. The Travincal crew was fairly tame once split up to be dealt with in small chunks. Bremm was LE and a pain to deal with as a result, killing off shadows with disturbing ease, but Mephisto went down to many many LS traps from long range with much blue consumption but few problems otherwise.

Act 4 was slow, albeit not nearly as slow as my previous HC effort. At this point the blue addiction was to the point where everything she could find that was worth selling was being sold, the money used solely to the blue addiction, and she was losing money. I think she spent over 50k gold on potions in act4! It took about 2-3 hours to get to the City of the Damned waypoint, another hour to get to the RoF waypoint, and another 1-2 hours to get to big D. Big D himself again just took a lot of potions (and a couple deaths) as she used the "hide and use LS to shoot around the corner" trick on him. A more direct confrontation would have taken a lot longer and could potentially have run her out of cash for potions; the fire nova alone was sufficient to drop her to around 1/2 life, so contact with the fire snakes or the LBOD would have been near-instantly fatal.

Finally, with Diablo dead, AssIsGrass graduated to toddlerhood. She managed to scrape together some rings to increase her AR and mana totals, a Mahim-Oak Curio and some charms, belt, and gloves for strength to total 50, and Goblin Toes for boots. Now she could add BF as an alternative to LS for damage and expect it to actually do something! And, wonder of wonders, what should she find early in a5 but a 2-socket circlet! Now she could add a Lore hat to buff up her traps and shadow a bit, as well as giving her a bit of lit res. Things started to pick up slightly, albeit not a lot. Her to-hit and damage with blade fury were still too low for it to really be that effective; LS was still largely the better option. Still, she knew that this was the direction she ultimately wanted to go anyway, so she started getting more practice with blade fury and with cloak of shadows (necessary not just to prevent mobs from using special abilities, but also to decrease their DR.) Eventually clvl30 was reached, and points were added to Death Sentry, Venom, and Shadow Master. SM didn't prove to be any more durable than SW had been, but so far AssIsGrass has continued to use it anyway. Venom, however, was an instant success for adding a substantial amount to BF's effectiveness. DS was also a welcome damage boost over slvl2 LS as well. Blue consumption dropped to more tolerable levels relative to income from sold items. Progress through a5 was fairly slow, but steady. The Ancients were not particularily difficult, as they mostly focussed on the SM. Baal was a lot more troublesome, as he kept on popping out clones, which AssIsGrass couldn't afford to ignore while concentrating on the real Baal. A full-on hit from the cold wedge would nearly kill her, and if both Baals were to attack at about the same time with either fire novas or cold wedges aimed in her general direction, she would die. She initially tried BF out on him but it proved fruitless, as she lacked sufficient AR and damage to make much of an impact, and it left her too vulnerable to counterattack. She eventually returned to the old standby of setting traps while hiding behind an obstacle, which worked quite well against the clone (which doesn't summon tentacles), if a bit less well against the real Baal (which does.) She did die once or twice, and she had to return to town many times for more potions, but she eventually prevailed.

Currently, AssIsGrass has graduated to childhood, and is in Act1 NM. She is using dual Strength katars and Rattlecage in addition to her Goblin Toes, which should give her 100% CB, and has donned an Angelic Wings and Halo for some much-needed AR. The fact that she is dual-wielding claws also gives her some innate blocking despite her marginal Dex, as well as some additional bonus AR from claw mastery. As a result, BF is doing much better and has become the primary killing skill. Game progress has sped up a bit more, though is still far from overwhelming. She has a pair of +skills wrist blades for the switch, which (when she gets the levels to equip them) will give her a great boost to precast skills like SM, Venom, and BoS/Fade, and a Shadow mask waiting in the wings for a further boost over Lore. I am hopeful that those will be enough to get her past big D again without needing to first graduate to Pre-Teen, but we shall see. Planned skill investments - she will probably need to boost either SW or SM for a more durable shadow suitable for Hell. My original plan was to go with a boosted DS for better damage and explosion radius, but that might be revisited. Another possibility is Venom.

[KingOfPain]

Way cool to hear some battle reports these days.
If only we write more of our exploits, we might see more variant activity. Keep them coming



KoP

[Zed-F]

Yesterday, after a long break from playing her, I finally took the time to take AssIsGrass from toddlerhood all the way to adolescence.

Her main damage source is blade fury-delivered crushing blow, which of course means it takes several hits to kill any monster, but monster hp is largely irrelevant to how many hits it takes. This is supplemented by a modest venom skill, a weak death sentry, and, of course, her shadow. Generally speaking she operates with 2 Strength katars, Rattlecage, Goblin toes, and crafted KB gloves on her main setup, with a pair of +skills wrist blades (+2 all, +3 shadow) on the switch. Combined with a +3 shadow mask, during toddlerhood this gave her BoS, Venom, and SM at 9 with precast. Of course, she wasn't able to actually equip these claws and hat until around the end of act 2 and the beginning of act 3. Before that, she was using a Lore circlet.

I don't remember too much about Acts 1-3 anymore. As I recall, so long as there weren't more than 2-3 players in the game, things were manageable, though progress was of course slow by conventional standards. Like most ranged characters, for the most part her biggest worry was having enough room to maneuver. Even at slvl2, in NM act 1, SM makes a reasonable tank. She did have some problems with the shadow waking up mobs she wasn't ready to deal with yet, especially boss packs, but ultimately she managed. Resurrectors were occasionally a nuisance as well; she does have some tools to make handling those a bit easier, such as CoS and DS, but her defenses were weak enough that she was frequently forced to scare away things like fallen using blade fury to apply rattlecage terror, rather than concentrate on the resurrector like she would wish to. Still, with DS around to blow up corpses, it was always just a matter of time. She did suffer the occasional death, but was not very frequently. Andariel was not a great challenge, she was pinned with shadow master and blade furied. It did take a number of SM recasts and a couple trips to town IIRC but no deaths were incurred.

In act 2 I was a bit concerned that skeletal archers might pose a problem, but their damage was less severe than I had expected, and slvl 2 shadow master was still performing adequately (if barely so) as a tank. Frequent recasts were required. In normal diff, before she could equip her CB gear, AssIsGrass was trap-dependent and drank like a fish; in nightmare she still had to drink fairly frequently, though less so as time went on and she got the levels to use better +mana gear. More dangerous were the beetles in the a2 deserts, since their sparks were sometimes difficult to evade and AssIsGrass had only the Lore hat for lightning resists. The maggot lair was painfully slow, but not super-dangerous. What WAS dangerous was the Temple of the Serpents. AssIsGrass is a slow killer that can handle threats from pretty much only one direction at a time. Unfortunately, when she entered the 2nd level of the temple to get the amulet, as she was heading toward the upper part of the temple, some serpents came from the lower side and trapped her, killing her and guarding her corpse. Lack of maneuvering room = a bad thing. She had quite a time trying to recover from that situation, leading to many deaths, as there always seemed to be some mobs blocking the stairwell up to the altar. Eventually she managed to retrieve her corpse and find the path up to the altar open, and from there she was able to pick off the rest of the mobs in the altar room, before claiming her amulet. The remainder of the act was fairly standard. She levelled up to 42 just in time for Duriel, so she was able to use one of her switch wrist blades to give her slvl4 SM for that fight, which was sufficient to take a couple hits before going down. Duriel forced her to use her TP escape route a number of times, but she was never killed.

Act 3 was not too bad for the most part, though getting too close to a flayer shaman was a painful experience. Blowgun flayers were annoying but still didn't do enough damage to be more than that. Flayers in general didn't take too much punishment to kill since their relatively low hp total meant that venom made a bigger dent in it. Dolls were a bit more of a concern, though a manageable one so long as they focussed on the shadow. Around about the time she got to Kurast, she hit 45 and was able to use her +3 shadow claw on the switch and her +3 shadow hat instead of the Lore circlet, boosting her BoS/Venom/SM to slvl9. Combined with a clvl47 req rare ring with +83 mana and +10 strength she was soon able to equip, this meant a further reduction in the number of blues consumed. Sometime in Kurast she was able to equip this as well and her gear setup was, for the moment, complete. Once I got her to Travincal, I took a break to play other characters for a while. Eventually, however, I got around to playing her again. She started by clearing most of Travincal, ending up with the council, who were accomodating enough to separate nicely so AssIsGrass could deal with them individually. As a result she had no real problems getting the flail and opening the Durance. Once inside, she had a long fight to clear all of Durance 1 before she found the stairs, and almost all of Durance 2 before she found the stairs and WP there as well. In Durance 3, Bremm was a nuisance, but eventually he got stuck in a corner where his sparks were not killing AssIsGrass's SM too quickly and got blade furied. Voidbringer and Maffer were not nearly as big a threat. Mephy was lured to the edge of the moat and blade furied from a safe distance until he went down, which took a while and several mana potions.

Act 4 went slowly. She managed to find the stairs from the Outer Steppes to the Plains of Despair a couple of times before I had to leave the game and do something else. Eventually I was able to find a day where I had enough free time that I was confident I'd at least be able to get to the City. Fortunately she got good draws; at least I didn't have to deal with any gloams this time. She did die once to bats when teleporting somewhere she didn't intend to teleport, but otherwise was able to take it slowly and carefully enough not to die. It did take a long time to clear out maggot infestations, though, even with DS to help out. She made it to the River WP and went back to kill Izual in about 3-4 hours of play. After another break while I played other characters, yesterday I started again, and having most of the day available I decided to spend it on AssIsGrass. So I cleared most of the CS, and started on the Infector. I expected I might have to lure him all the way back to the river so I could park him and shoot him from another platform, but instead his minions all spread out, so I tackled them in ones and twos within the Sanctuary, eventually slaying the Infector. Then my game dumped; that was no good, so I started a new game with AssIsGrass, cleared the CS and Infector with my clvl 82 summoner necro, and then hopped back in with AssIsGrass. Next up was DeSeis. With fanaticism up, his Doom Knights could kill an slvl9 SM pretty quickly, so I tried to lure them away from him and outside his fanaticism radius, with mixed success. Eventually they all went down anyway, and DeSeis himself wasn't a big problem. Neither was the Vizier.

For Diablo, though, I didn't think I'd be able to count on my slvl 9 SM to tank, and blade fury leaves you vulnerable to counter attack since, like Inferno, you have to be stationary to use it. I decided on a different approach. I stashed all my blade fury gear, went to act 1, and shopped for fire resist gear, +hp armour, and faster walk/run boots. Then I swapped BoS for Fade and Death Sentry for Lightning Sentry (more efficient damage/time since it has 10 shots) on my hotkeys. I then proceeded to shoot nightmare Diablo around the corner using slvl 3 lightning sentry. It took a LONG time and many trips to town for potions to kill him, but no deaths were incurred. He dropped a Skystrike.

I swapped back to my regular gear and, having achieved my goal of defeating nightmare Diablo while still a toddler, graduated to Child status. This meant that I could now actually have skills at more than slvl 1+! I took the obvious choice of SM 10 (+8), and decided that an improved corpse explosion radius was more useful than extra venom damage, so went for DS 10 as well. I then continued with the usual progression through Act 5. My resists were back to -30 pretty much everywhere, so Imp fire attacks actually stung, but otherwise she didn't encounter anything too unmanageable right away. Her new and improved shadow managed to kill off Shenk by herself, not from meleeing him but from repeatedly casting DS to chain reaction corpses from his mass of troops after I had killed one or two with blade fury. He wasn't even onscreen when he died! Further up the mountain, things started to get a bit more hairy when she started to encounter Slingers. Piercing javelins with elemental damage = ouch. Still she managed to make it through to the Crystalline Passage. This wasn't so bad, though the freezing arrow rogues were a pain, but the Frozen River had lots of gloams. Not nice! Lots of use of CoS and hiding around the corner when she could meant that she didn't die, but there were some close calls. The Glacial Trail was quite a bit easier for all it had serpents in it; the wookies and bone warriors were not that hard to deal with. The improved Death Sentry explosion radius was really making itself felt here, and in later areas as well, making CE chains a much more common occurrance. AssIsGrass cleared the Glacial Trail and the Frozen Tundra areas, stopping in between to visit the Drifter Cavern. There she got a rude surprise when her SM woke up a frenzytaur champ pack while she was working on a cursed-blessed aim frenzytaur boss pack. Ouch! Two-hit killed, with the second hit coming while still in hit recovery. Recovering her corpse was a bit of an adventure too since she couldn't rely on CoS to blind the mobs and let her reach her corpse unscathed. She did eventually dispose of the boss, though he could take even an slvl 18 SM down fairly quickly.

Next she backtracked to the Halls to go after Nilly -- I managed to locate the stairs quickly in both the Halls of Anguish and Pain, but I had to look for a while to find Nilly in the Halls of Vaught. He went down without too much trouble, however. Finally I went back for the Ancients Way, which had, among other things, Carvers. Those little guys were annoying as heck! They moved fast enough that even when I chased them off with terror they came right back, and they cold damage added to their attack meant I couldn't ignore them either. CoS helped, but it didn't last all that long, and sometimes I had trouble getting close enough to the shaman to use it. Nevertheless, I found the WP and summit without too much fuss. The Ancients themselves were actually quite easy, though they took a while to defeat. They focussed pretty much entirely on my shadow and never really gave me any worries as they couldn't damage her fast enough to really be a threat. I just kept whittling away with Blade Fury. Finally I proceeded into the Keep. WSK 1 had OKs and Fire Boars, but no gloams, so I was alright with that. WSK 2 had Cadavers, serpents, and witches, even better. I cleared that and found the WP. WSK 3 had OKs again, but I managed to find the stairs down quickly. WSK4 had the usual Death Lords, plus Pit Fiends and Vampires. There was even a Pit Fiend boss pack right at the entrance! That was interesting to deal with, but she eventually cleared it, and the rest of WSK4 as well. Baal's minions were not particularily difficult with DS to help out, though Lister & Co. were of course a bit harder. Still, CB eventually wore him down.

Then it was time for the final fight. I again decided to eschew blade fury in favour of traps for the fight against Baal. Back to act 1 to buy some more resist and +life gear, focusing on cold this time. For a trapper, Baal's most annoying attacks (other than the clone) are the tentacles and the cold wedge. I couldn't do anything about the tentacles, but I wanted at least some protection from the wedge. Once I was moderately happy with my gear I gambled a bit in case I should die, and ultimately picked up a moderately nice rare trapper hat with prismatic resists and +2 to traps! Convenient. I swapped that in and wound up with about 65 cold resist and 50 fire resist with Fade up. I knew Baal would take a while to fall to slvl5 lightning sentry even with 10 points of DS synergy, and he did. Still, in the end, there a couple semi-close calls, but AssIsGrass emerged victorious. The drop was crap, unfortunately, but she managed to make it to preteen!

The next question is what path she will take in Hell. I'm thinking she might start to really need more hit points. Accordingly, I'm not planning to take my 3rd skill and start pumping venom. Instead, I might hold off on that and wait until I have graduated to Teen, and then move her to the Stoner path and allocate a bunch of points to Vitality. Extra strength would also help give her a broader selection of gear to choose from. Time will tell.

Next up: A1 Hell!