Livexia is a dedicated multi-shot amazon with a rogue mercenary and a one-point valkyrie and decoy. She runs up to most stronger foes and slashes them with a halberd before engaging in ranged combat. What kind of stupid character is this that Maltatai is trying to push on you, or is there something sensible behind his words? Read on if you have a lot of time to spare.
First, the part that everyone here apparently find most interesting, judging by how many Guardian threads that are dominated by one big heap of copied GoMule dump file or something similar. Who am I to break such a fine tradition? Here we go:
Statistics
Code:
Naked/Gear
Strength: 132/133
Dexterity: 153/173
Vitality: 205/205
Energy: 15/63
HP: 829/975
Mana: 138/140
Stamina: 351/577
Defense: 38/513
AR: 735/1050
Resistances
Fire: 192/152/92
Cold: 128/88/28
Lightning: 176/136/76
Poison: 97/57/-3
Skills
Naked/Gear
Magic Arrow: 1/6
Multiple Shot: 20/25
Inner Sight: 1/4
Critical Strike: 8/11
Dodge: 9/12
Slow Missiles: 1/4
Avoid: 11/14
Penetrate: 20/23
Decoy: 1/4
Evade: 1/4
Valkyrie: 1/4
Pierce: 20/23
Equipment
I played untwinked without any ATMA stash or similar, with patch 1.13 and no mods.
Livexia used a vast wardrobe of gear, this was the main setup:
Spoiler
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“Lore” Grand Crown
Livexia's “Smoke” Gothic Plate Cleglaw’s Pincers
Wilhelm’s Pride
Aldurs Advance
Dwarf Star
Corruption Finger Ring
+73 to Attack Rating
4% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +4
+6 Maximum Stamina
All Resistances +5
Damage Reduced by 2
Eagle Talisman Amulet
+1 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)
+12 to Attack Rating
4% Mana stolen per hit
+8 to Energy
+6 to Life
Lightning Resist +39%
Lycander's Aim Ceremonial Bow. socketed with a Shael Rune.
Livexia's Woestave Bec-de-Corbin
Charms for a total of:
Fire Resist +44% + Fire Resist +16% (reserve grand charm in the cube)
Lightning Resist +39%
Cold Resist +33%
Poison Resist +12%
+26% Faster Hit Recovery
+50 to Life
+1 to Strength
1 - 5 Lightning Damage
+5 Defense
+105 to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana
and...
Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
127% Extra Gold from Monsters
Reduces all Vendor Prices 13%
36% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Equipment on Switch(es)
This is what the character was almost all about – the ability to use a wide variety of items for different situations.
Spoiler
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Magic Finding Gear:
Socketed Ancient Armor with 4 Perfect Topazes
Livexia’s Chance Guards
Circlet of Luck (later sold to make place
Blood Spiral Ring
Cold Resist +19%
Poison Resist +30%
Damage Reduced by 2
10% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Chaos Knot Ring
Replenish Life +5
All Resistances +11
Lightning Resist +11%
+1 to Mana after each Kill
9% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Valkyrie Casting Gear:
“Peace” Breast Plate
The Stone of Jordan
Athletic Amulet
Rattlecage (used by Kyoko against bosses)
Hellmouth (good against Diablo and great against immune foes, as well as burning herself)
“Nadir” Cap (used to neutralize potential stairtraps, see below)
War staff of Teleportation (later sold, used to get to the snakes altar)
Statistics for Kyoko, her annoying little sister (also known as a rogue scout with icy arrows)
Code:
Naked/Gear
Strength: 133/133
Dexterity: 200/210
Life: 1346/1346
Defense: 1118/1228
AR: 2146/2362
Fire: 138/98/38
Cold: 168/128/68
Lightning: 138/98/38
Poison: 138/98/38
Her Equipment:
Howltusk
Treachery Ring Mail
Magewrath, socketed with a Shael
Rune Bow
The Tale of Livexia
(at last I can drown thee in my own musings instead of mindless copied readouts)
Spoiler
Livexia is a proud, arrogant and greedy mercenary, a queen of archery and ranged combat (avoid, multishot and pierce) but skilled with almost all kinds of weapons. She has no qualms about using vile poisons or heretical curses to gain the upper hand. She is obsessed with treasure (up to 427% gold finding and personalised Chance Guards).
It was ages since I made this character so I don’t remember too much about her early career. Originally, I had an idea of an amazon that could use any weapon skilfully – hence the large investment in passive skills. I decided to try out multiple shots and pierce, envisioning Livexia weakening approaching enemies so much that when they reached her she could finish them off with her melee weapon even if she wasn’t particularly skilled with it. Obviously that would require some rather good items, as with any combat character focused on pure physical damage.
In the early game, multishot was good and expensive. For once, a skill that stayed the same throughout the whole journey! In act 5 normal she found a rare war scythe which was rather effective. Not to mention cool!
Early nightmare was slow because she lacked a good weapon like all my characters entering nightmare. Almost, at least. I don’t remember anything of how she fared against Duriel or Mephisto but they would hardly have been much of a problem since she had collected the runes for Peace in act 1. As you have probably guessed, the level 15 valkyrie from this armor was a key component in her strategy. Keeping it alive was sometimes difficult, sometimes not worth it and sometimes imperative but impossible. The latter were the dangerous occasions.
As Livexia marched through nightmare it became increasingly apparent that it was bows that would have to be her main weapons rather than an even mix between bows and melee. Andariel had given her a nice unique hatchet which was fun but the blocking peculiarity of amazons made it horrible to use in crowds. I think Kyoko went with her from the start or at least for most of nightmare. She was quite competent most days. Rogues have always been either complete idiots or highly useful for my characters.
Somewhere late in nightmare she found Magewrath and I was very happy. Now she was a little bit of the process’zon I intended. It was a little low on damage though. In an icy cave in act 5 – I think it was the crystalline passage or glacial trail – she stumbled on a unique Ceremonial bow. Later in the game she found it again... This is a strange phenomenon I have seen sometimes (like my cleric Sigfrid and his Dwarf Stars). Is it intended that you should find several copies of a select few unique/set items? Woestave had also dropped by this time.
What are the odds of finding two unique bows, one of them class-specific, with an archer character? Livexia was lucky with items. Really lucky. Perhaps personalising the Chance Guards appealed to a hitherto unknown god of magic finding? Livexia used Magnus skin as gloves for a long time and used the socket reward in normal to put a Nef Rune in her bow. Knockback is really game-changing for missile characters. Just saying that if someone didn’t know.
Anyway, by now she had become the exact opposite of what she was intended to be. Woestave was and is superb to make big and dangerous enemies more manageable and Lycander’s Aim was quite devastating. So she weakened enemies by meleeing them (or rather striking them while the foe in question was busy with the decoy or valkyrie) and then stepped back and ran around shooting them. A bit weird... I actually upgraded the woestave for no apparent reason. It just used up more strength points that could have gone into vitality. The halberd still dealt pathetic damage in itself, it was the “open wounds” and “prevent monster heal” effects that really took down the enemy.
Prevent Monster Heal. The offensive mod of all offensive mods for all my characters. Slowing comes close but this one beats all and everything in my opinion. This Guardian would never have come close to finishing without those two. And woestave looks incredibly cool too.
Hell, then. Act 1 was not especially difficult, after I had remebered the Lem Rune that was collecting dust in my stash. Back to normal to buy a socketed armor. Twice. All my savegames became corrupted one time when Livexia was somewhere in act 1. My backup saves where from when she entered Hell. Sigh. At least it gave her an excuse to butcher even more helpless fallen ones. Once venom had been casted, Kyoko could wear the Treachery and Livexia dressed in a smoking gothic plate. Smoke is usually hallowed for its resistances but the weaken charges aren’t bad either. At least not for a character without other curses at her disposal. Weaken actually helped a lot against nastier boss packs. It was also at this time Livexia found the epic and ideal Cleglaw’s Pincers. Out with Nef and in with Shael in the bow. Gheed’s Fortune dropped when magic finding somewhere in the beginning of this acts.
The large open areas of the Western Kingdoms are ideal for this kind of character. The chilly catacombs and crypts are hideous, UNLESS she happens to run into an enemy pack at a doorway where her valkyrie can stand and be engaged by only one enemy at a time.
Andariel was the hardest thing in the whole act I think. Her poison just eats through valkyries like the original strafe skill ate through the quivers of arrows. I think Kyoko fell quite quickly too (can’t imagine how she could have survived for long). So it was up to Livexia and her recastable joke of a decoy and Valkyrie and the excellent combination of 40% faster running from Aldurs advance and the slowing gear to handle the situation. It was annoying and took a lot of potions and scrolls but as far as I remember not very difficult.
Act 2 also has fine outdoor areas, and nice leechable creatures. Some idiot did sadly also decide to dig out enormous tunnels under the ground and build a silly cellar under the architecturally dubious palace. This was not a major problem in itself, but for some reason these places were always filled with stinking rotting creatures that caused huge amount of poison damage which killed the valkyrie. Booo! I hate poison! The Claw Viper temple was scary enough to deserve a section of its own. Livexia hated the place completely so I wont give it one, though. The place was filled with bone warriors paired with guardians, which should surprise nobody. The trouble is that the bone warriors are
1) highly resistant to both poison and physical damage and
2) immune to cold damage, meaning no corpse control by Kyoko’s ice arrows.
She did of course have to run into one boss and his pet skeletons on one side of the entrance and a pack of champion guardians on the other. Aaaah! Agony! It took her a looong time to work up the nerve to run past the skellies and slash the guardian boss with her halberd. Before that, he regenerated so fast that he was more or less invincible.
Quote:
Livexia: I say! But then I tore through it all and crushed his false hopes! What kind of loser puts his faith in regeneration to prevail?
Sigfrid the Cleric: Shut up!
After a long and hard journey through the temple she came to the second level. She casted a decoy to attempt to lure a lone salamander into her sight. Nothing yet. She stepped forward a little and casted it again. BAM! In one flashing flash Fangskin was upon the intruders. He did not instantly slay the valkyrie, but knocked her back time and again and did the same with the decoy. Soon Livexia had her back against the wall and no way to keep the serpents away. It looked hopeless and the Omniscient Ruler of Characters wisely decided to save and exit. New try, new temple but at least not the same two packs initially. After long and slow battles she once again stood in the cellar. Trying to be a bit more careful, she directed the decoy to the right, luring a couple of bone warriors to her. So far so good. No, valkyrie, don’t go there! BAM! Knockback, knocked back, nowhere to run. Save and exit.
Quote:
Livexia: Did it really happen that way? I don’t remember all those unwomanly worries and the valkyrie messing everything up.
Maltatai: Allright, maybe not entirely. But it made a thrilling section of the story, didn’t it? The important thing is that I/you failed twice, as far as I recall, after finishing the first level. It was only then that I finally saw sense and acquired a staff of teleporting to get into the middle and grab that stupid trinket before Fangskin woke up.
Livexia: Wait a second, what do you mean “you” did this and that? It was I who went through that hellhole! You probably sat in comfortable chair enjoying yourself in the meantime, or something equally lazy.
Maltatai: Now calm down! I happen to be the Omnisci...ah, just shorten it to ORC.
Livexia: You’re going to describe yourself as “orc” in an rpg game? And you expecting to survive for even four minutes?
Maltatai: Come on, this is Diablo II, not Baldurs Gate II or something. There are no classical fantasy monsters here. Nobody has ever heard of orcs or goblins or whatever. We could perhaps talk about risky behaviour if I said I was a “disgusting defiler” or “putrid heretic” or something like that. All monsters are either spawned from religious mythology or slime-oriented. The same goes with names. If I would select from the most evil and badass of names in the history of fairy tales nobody would recognise it. I could call myself Morgoth Bauglir, or Palpatine or just Grom, and nobody will lift a finger. If, however, I would introduce myself as “Blade Snarl the Axe” or something equally absurd, I would face an army of D2 characters in no time. Not to mention if I would call myself “Putrid Snot the Goo” – that would trigger prophets to announce the coming of apocalypses and end of days. Again, the more slime-oriented something is in this game, the more powerful is it in the hierarchy of the Prime Evils.
Livexia: I am speechless. You may be on to something. We do actually treat our enemies like objects...
So, the next time Livexia entered the second floor she teleported to the middle, grabbed the loot and opened a portal home. Then she hesitated. Fangskin was still there. Undefeated. And her little army held a castle of sorts with only one entrance, blocked by the valkyrie.
Quote:
Livexia: Loose the arrows and hold your ground! Fire at will, that is, MY will - NOW! Livexia wills it!
Kyoko: “Livexia wills it”? We are not templars, you know. Don’t you think you should have been a Paladin the way you command and bark at us? Or a barbarian...
Fangskin and his pesky minions where finally broken. Unable to storm the citadel in the middle of the room they fell for the mighty arrow flurry of Livexia and Kyoko. None of the serpents thought of digging or crawling over the little sand dunes. Stupid serpents... I don’t remember the fight against Duriel very much. His lair is naturally very un-archer. But he is still only one and was distracted by the decoys. On to act 3 it was!
The little rascals that populate the jungle like to wear nearly nothing on their bodies. They also like to run in huge groups and not carry shields. Livexia liked that custom too. They were almost as fun as the carvers. Now, gloams waited, ready to blast her into oblivion. The valiant amazon approached the great marches with a heavy heart.
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Kyoko: Why are you so miserable today? We have lots of leechable targets and we are done raiding the treasure chest of those pesky spiders. I never knew spiders had big shining treasure chests with eyes inside. Perhaps I should have taken that extra classes about bestiaries.
Livexia: Soon we will have to venture into the great marsh. There we will face terrible spirits who can shoot all-piercing lightning from out of sight.
Kyoko: How do you know that?
Livexia: I have lived through it in a past life, or rather, the same life in an easier world when I was younger.
Kyoko: If you lived through it, then it sounds like something we could handle now as well. What do you mean with “past life” by the way?
Livexia: It’s like, first everything is rather simple, then it becomes a nightmare, and now it’s hell.
Kyoko: You mean the taverns, right? Yeah, I agree. I mean, Akara had some quite decent potions but
Lysanders where just dry and Alkors are just liquid manure.
Livexia: No! I mean life itself. First you have, like, good resistances and then they are lowered and you can’t leech properly and...
Kyoko: “blank stare”
Livexia: Ok, I know you are a bit messed up when it comes to memories, having died so many times. Let’s continue.
They went and went and suddenly saw a large sign and a billboard.
“Welcome to the Flayer Jungle! We are one of the fastest growing forest communities – in fact we have maximum population each new day!
New here? Wash carefully and rub your skin with the salt and pepper in the pot below. Please await a tour guide inside the big kettle to the left”
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Kyoko: The flayer jungle was the place where the heart of Khalim would rest in a murky dungeon, right?
Livexia: Yes.
Kyoko: So now we could, theoretically speaking, perhaps postpone the visit to the dangerous marshes?
Livexia: A prudent idea. I think we could postpone it to...let me check my calendar..."when pigs fly".
Kyoko: Aeeeh, a bit early. How about “when hell freezes over”?
Livexia:
“Hell” actually derives from the norse “Hel” or “Helheim”, which was cold and frozen. But I see your point. Sadly, I’m busy at that time. But I have a free spot here...”never”.Kyoko: [writing] visit Great Marsh N-E-V-E-R.
Livexia: Excellent! Let’s continue. I feel better already!
Thus, the first potential encounter with gloams was cancelled out. Livexia and Kyoko handled the rest of the act quite well until they entered Travincal. Dragons ate valkyrie breakfast, valkyrie lunch and valkyrie dinner. At least the place has a lot of space. More than can be said about the Durance of Hate. I do indeed hate the little dolls that thrive in those places. This area is completely exhausting to play through. It’s freaking enormous and of course the waypoint had to be in the room I looked last. Livexia decided to go and finish Mephisto the same session since the waypoint was so far away. But his immature habit of throwing snowballs could turn out to be very unpleasant for a shieldless character with under 30 in cold resistance.
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Livexia:
Hmmm, hmmm, that armour Kyoko is wearing looks interesting. I wonder if it could somehow, say, gather and store the heat from a fire if I wear it and stand in a fire. Then I would be protected from the cold. Let’s go to the cold plains (ironically enough) and try it out in one of the ruined houses.The prebuff from fade helped a lot. Especially combined with a thawing potion or two. Standing in the flames aren’t that bad with a dwarf star on your finger. I am unsure whether I had Hellmouth by this time. Those gloves made Livexia almost immune to the little indoor campfires. Mephisto went down after a very aggresive fight – I have rarely seen him casting and moving so furiously. Perhaps he thought Fade was cheating?
Act 4 welcomed her warmly with two packs of doom knights that forced Livexia back to the stairs of the Pandemonium fortress. The rest of the act was easy since the burning souls of the plains of despair had burned up. Some venom lord bosses were a bit scary because of their speed and flesh spawners were slow to kill and disgusting.
The river of flame had maggots that (again!) killed the valkyrie time and again. Livexia burned scrolls to keep her minion alive like it was the early days of classic Diablo II. Hephasto was hilarious. By this time Kyoko had Howltusk so the pair knocked him back and pinned him to the shores of the flaming river. I’ve got to hand it tohim that he never fell in though, despite all those hits. Hellforge yielded a rare and impressive Gul Rune which was utterly useless for Livexia. Why couldn’t it had been, say, a rune to upgrade her bow with?
The Chaos Sanctuary wasn’t really bad with decent space to move on. De Seis minions were scary with their fanaticism and curses. Livexia lured them out in the open and took them down slowly one by one from a safe distance. The venom lords had the honour of being the last ones and split up eventually, only to gather again once they had seen the valkyrie. Weaken was especially useful here.
The battle with Diablo was truly epic and worthy of a better tale than this. In seconds, Kyoko and the valkyrie lay dead and rose unsummoned, repectively. Livexia headed back to the fortress and had Tyrael resu...what! No gold?! The slimy angel has been reading too much about the medieval Catholic Church! Demanding money for resurrections. What is he spending them at? The worst of it all was that Kyoko had been carrying The Treachery armour. Against most odds and better judgement Livexia went back and started to skirmish Diablo. Taking down D without crushing blow (didn’t want to take the risk which dropping Smoke meant) and the venom is a long affair. All while running away from lightning and fire. The fire wasn’t especially effective (Dwarf Star+Hellmouth) but the firestorm is a spell of legendary fearsomeness so Livexia ran away anyway.
The beginning of act 5 was easy with nice, leechable monsters and open ground. Then came the prospect of being stairtrapped in the icy caves. Here is where the Nadir played its part.
Cautios tactic of caution: Prebuff fade to get resistance up. Drop Lore and wear Nadir to be able to cast Cloak of Shadows as soon as you enter the cave. Run to the side if someone happens to be there.
No minotaur packs lurked in the shadows of the crystalline passage but physically immune ones waited a bit further away. Livexia was lucky to have a lot of cave to run across to split them up. She decided to rescue Anya after hearing she was in the Frozen River even if nobody knew where she was. The Frozen river was a despicable pit of misery. Gloams. Witches shooting red balls of off-screen-line-of-sight. Multishot shines here, with the ability to hit foes beyond the screen too. Sadly, the mana cost is too high to make it a viable tactic with such low damage as from Lycanders Aim. Running up to gloam packs on the opposite bank of the river to lure them to you – such a primitive tactic unworthy of any bowazon worth the title. That’s what being dependant on Woestave processes does for you. “Shudder!”
Somehow Livexia survived the place and released Anya. In return, she was tasked with assassinating a fallen magician named Nihlatak. What the...isn’t this the kind of things you send assassins for? Apparently not. There where none of those fabled venomous vipers in Nihlataks halls but there were ghosts (dual immunity) and witches and reanimated hordes. Time and again Livexia and her companions were pushed back to the entrance to regroup. Then, how to approach Nihlatak? His minions are cold immune. Livexia lacked any form of corpse control. And I thought the frozen river was scary?
Nihlatak may be a traitor but he keeps his quarters quite clean and admirably well tended. He even has the habit of blowing up unused corpses even if they could be of use when uninvited guests appeared. After many long minutes of running between the two entrances to his room, Livexia found one of them cleaned up and could cruise between the outer corpses and face Nihlatak face to face. I mean of course bow to face. He did manage to hit Livexia once with his corpse explosion and tore away a third or so of her health, or maybe half.
The other icy caves did not hold any stairtraps or any impossible monsters. So it wasn’t long before Livexia stood before the altar of the ancients.
First try: Kyoko and valkyrie dies before Livexia had even spotted anything else than the writhing flames of amplify damage. Resurrect Kyoko, recast and try again.
Second try: Curses again, valkyrie dies. No, no, never against cursed enemies. Reroll.
Third try: Apparently the valkyrie will never endure this fight – no point prebuffing it. No curses but conviction. Kyoko fell almost immediately while Livexia managed to run away from the middle. I paused to consider the alternatives. The ancients were just too strong. Another hireling? How terribly boring and what an epic failure it would be. Besides, I don’t have any equipment for that. Then Livexia just became pissed with the ancients and throw caution overboard in a display of reckless stubborness
Quote:
“To hell with you, I am an archer that can outrun any of you slugs! Magic arrows are endless arrows! Raaagh!”Thus began the longest and most exhaustive battle any of my characters have ever fought. Madawc chased her with conviction and cold enchantment. Korlic was lightning enchanted and Talic extra strong. Livexia only had eyes for Madawc. She was wearing Treachery and her cold resistance was something like – 70. Thanks to luck, divine interference or my supreme playing skills she only got hit once. That was more than enough. Madawc tore away at least half her life bulb and chilled her for what seemed like ten seconds or so. Outrunning ancients jumping at you when chilled...do people do this for entertainment? Her boots and gloves saved her. An added treat was that Madawc – being cold enchanted – could not be killed near her since the explosion would mean death and doom for Livexia. So she had to use the half second her decoy could last to run away and aim at Madawc, who had the nasty habit of running very close to her before throwing. When he at last blew up I thought the danger was over. It was at least halved with the conviction gone. Korlic was easy because Talic got lost somewhere south on the summit. The valkyrie could even stand against Korlic for some time.
Talic then. He had of course another mod besides extra strong. Stone skin. It doubled his defence to something that totally outclassed Livexias attack rating. I was sure he could block with his shield or something for this was just unbelievable. 1/20, at most, of the arrows hit him, doing 1/10 of their normal physical damage + half the poison damage from venom. The wretch took two hours and around fifteen seconds to bring down. Livexia had to lure him off with a decoy and run to the other edge of the summit to regenerate mana many times. Far too many times. The worldstone keep didn’t have any great dangers so Livexia could reach the waypoint and call for a break.
The last level of the worldstone keep held doom knights and some other insignificant opposition to fill out the ranks. After searching the entire level 3, Livexia stood before the Throne of Destruction. There she faced the first stairtrap. As if the game wished to compensate for the lack of such earlier, she was met by a pack of undead soul killers rith next to the stairs. Here, the cautious tactic of caution really shone. Cloaking and running to the side and firing multishot like mad took them down in short but horribly tense time.
A bit further north the next monster type introduced itself in the form of a dark lord boss pack. They took ages to take down because I didn’t want to provoke any more undead dolls lurking nearby. And what was the third monster type if not guardians. The ones that raises undead like the other two types. You’ve met them too? Charming trio, don’t you think? Especially when you lack corpse control... Knockback saved the day since dolls could be knocked back to their masters – clearing the path to shoot the guardians down. Thankfully, no guardian bosses or extreme crowds appeared.
Livexia made her best to knock the dolls back to Baal to make him clear away their corpses but and succeded in all cases but one. After the warped ones had been warped away at warp speed she would pay for that mistake. Achmel the cursed and stinking revived the doll time and again. What a childish enemy, playing with dolls at his age! Achmel was truly stinking because the very aura of him infected everyone with poison. Especially the valkyrie and Livexia who had – 53% poison resistance. Not the easiest to hit with Woestave. Now add cold immune horror mages and the unholy bolts flying. The second wave took more time than all the others together. Some day, perhaps even in my next life, I will try to lure these fellows out from Baal and see if I can split them up.
The hydras were hungry as usual but multishot shone and thrashed the councillors from a safer distance. Balrogs and Minions of Destruction were pathetic; they could barely take down the valkyrie. Pfefh!
In the first minute of the battle against Baal all went well. Livexia managed to hit him with woestave and Kyoko got in position. Then he threw spell after spell at the party and suddenly knocked everyone back with his hoarfrost. After that the place exploded in demon spells – tentacles all over and ceaseless cloning. Kyoko fell and all rejuvenation potions were gone. Livexia went to town and resurrected her and then tried again. But she just couldn’t get in position to hit Baal and keep him occupied. Slowly and steadily Livexia was pushed back and suddenly Kyoko fell again. Now she was out of gold to resurrect her rogue. It was extremely frustrating. To have it end NOW! Grumble...
After a minor tidal wave of less flattering epithets hurled at Baal I took some time to think a bit. The strength of Livexia was always her items and wealth. She is a greedy and arrogant mercenary and should be played like such. The lack of rejuvenation potions had also hindered her dramatically in the second round. So, off it was to act one to restock the supplies, hoard gold for Kyoko resurrections, prebuff and recast the valkyrie.
Then the final battle. This time Baal did nothing. He just stood there and cast no spells and didn’t strike down the valkyrie. The arrows whittled him down and the slowing kept him in the sluggish state. What had happened with the demon? After three minutes or so the fade ran out but Livexia stubbornly decided to stay despite the risk. After another minute Baal at last fell. I don’t understand this behaviour. Is it because of 75% is some sort of magical breakpoint for slowing? Is it just pure chance? Whatever it was, Livexia was a guardian!
While starting on this text I noticed that she hadn’t done nightmare Nihlatak. Such an incosistency could not be tolerated of course, so I sent her to nightmare. There she fell to his corpse explosion, sadly. At least she made it to guardian before. Sigh...
Nah, just kidding! Nihlatak had no monsters blocking the corridor leading to him so Livexia and Kyoko could get into firing positions and then multishot took down Nihlatak and the whole room. All quests completed!
Then I went away to make dinner. I was frying mushrooms with olive oil in a frying pan when they started to jump around and more or less explode! Mushroom Explosion (skill level 10 at least)! Beware Nihlataks revenge!
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Notable finds:
I can’t recall if there were any particularly great unique or set items along the way (except for the equipment) but with all the magic finding she did, there probably was some here and there.
Gul Rune (Hell Hellforge)
Lum Rune
Ruby Jewel
31% Enhanced Damage
Realgar Jewel of Bliss
25% Enhanced Damage
+5 to Minimum Damage
I waited forever for a nice item to use those jewels with but never found one. They collected dust until the end.
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Conclusion
As I have mentioned, Livexia became the opposite of what I intended with a weakening melee weapon and a damaging ranged weapon. Her huge emphasis on pierce and multishot was inefficient but the point for me is never to make the most efficient character possible. Multishot was dreadfully expensive and thus limited to desperate situations or really large groups of leechable monsters like the fallen ones. I often felt that pierce was the real crowd killing skill here. The dodge skills saved Livexia many, many times.
Going with a one point recastable decoy and valkyrie is certainly a challenge. Also going without a tanking mercenary was quite hard. Knockback with a bow is a very powerful crowd control method, especially since it can be combined with a curse.
Kyoko was often very good, but after the ancients she became scared and hid behind pillars a lot. Frustarting but I can’t really blame her. Kyokos deaths against Baal could maybe have been prevented had she had a decent helm with resists. Proper gear for the mercenary was an issue shamefully neglected by me.
Livexia was very lucky with some things and very unlucky with others. She found good gear and had some horrible monster rolls while others were blissful. She never faced a conviction gloam pack in hell. I honestly don’t know how that would have ended. I suppose either in victory by multishoting them from a screen away or in defeat due to lack of space.
Terrain is everything for this kind of character.
Halberds are the best-looking weapons in this game in my opinion, not least on amazons.
Thanks for reading this and congratulations on your great endurance if you made it this far!|||Holy cow! This is a wall of text! Did I say wall? I mean entire street block! I don't have the time for I am about to nap:Congrats on the guardian! Wacking them with a polearm? Nice! Look forward to reading about that! Looked like it was to prevent monster heal?
Look forward to reading about how you liked the Peace Runeword. I'm tempted to make for a nonamazon character soon. If ctc works with kick, may use for a kicksin.
Anywho: This is a long list of white words and doodaddies I will read after while!
Congrats again!|||Yes I know it's much. I like to write stories about game characters. I have formatted and edited the whole thing a bit to make it more readable.
Peace does NOT work with a non-amazon character because it requires the wearer to have at least one hard point in valkyrie. otherwise there will only be a casting animation but no valkyrie will be summoned. So even amazons need a point in the skill from the start.|||Are you sure about the peace stat?
I'm going to have to look this up!
Peace runeword test
The formatting looks great maltatai! I'll read it tonight after dinner!|||OK, I had to check what Woestave actually does:
Slows Target By 50%
Hit Blinds Target +3
-50 To Monster Defense Per Hit
Freezes Target
---------
What I don't understand is, why wouldn't you give it to A2 Moron. I mean, that's just bound to work out better, I think. Especially that your Rogue didn't have some very cool bow that'd add to your damage/safety too. With Valk & Decoy around he should be safe enough. And for a worst case scenario, if you were worried about moron dying? You could carry one as well...
And why wouldn't you put more points in Valk for a character like that? Pierce has some harsh diminishing returns, you know. And MS is so dense that a few arrows not piercing a monster is no big. Also, even I don't max MS. Pick a number of arrow that's enough and stick to it is my strategy. 26 is overkill for me. I agree your choice of D/A/E investment is right for this character.
Certainly not something I'd have done, but a cool idea. I love MS, so I'm always happy to see those ladies around. Didn't read your "Our Adventure" story, but it's an interesting character, made quite an accomplishment by playing her in Hardcore.
Grats!
--Greebo|||@coju
Thanks, and about Peace: I tried it long ago but it didn't work and the one-point explanation was something I read about and assumed was the case. Your link looks like more thourough testing. I am admittedly less sure about it now, but I have never gotten it to work without a valkyrie hardpoint.
@Greebo
Thanks. I did certainly not place points to make Livexia as effective as possible, nor hire the strongest possible merenary. This character was all about role-playing. Livexia is an arrogant mercenary that want's the glory of holding the enemy off for herself and would loathe to focus on a skill that summoned a helper for that. She is obsessed with being the queen of massed archery at any cost and obtaining treasure. So if the valkyrie comes from her fancy breast plate, it is another story... Furthermore, she is fond of her little sister Kyoko and would hate to part with her, who has died so many times for their sake.
Yes, I am well aware of the dimishing returns of pierce and 26 points in multishot was indeed overkill.
But as I said, the point was never to make the most effective character possible. Otherwise I would always go with town guards and maxed valkyries and that would bore me to the point it would hardly be fun playing anymore. I try to mix between skills and mercenaries. As for another woestave, I am unsure if I actually ever found one.
As I mention in the ""Our Adventure" story" Livexia was first intended to be a mix between archer and shieldmaiden, being able to tank on her own. The original idea was that she wouldn't need a valkyrie.|||Congrats
Quite the achievement to get this one to guardian.
But the real question is... did it take you longer to play it or to write it up? I kid, I kid
Never done the MS guardian, but I'm pretty sure I see it in my near future.|||Quote:
Then the final battle. This time Baal did nothing. He just stood there and cast no spells and didn’t strike down the valkyrie. The arrows whittled him down and the slowing kept him in the sluggish state. What had happened with the demon? After three minutes or so the fade ran out but Livexia stubbornly decided to stay despite the risk. After another minute Baal at last fell. I don’t understand this behaviour. Is it because of 75% is some sort of magical breakpoint for slowing? Is it just pure chance? Whatever it was, Livexia was a guardian!
I've had baal do that a few times. Never hell baal, but nontheless. Just standing there shouting his profanities. He'll act like he wants to do something, like wave, or just say hello, but thinks twice about it and stops.
Did a mp where Andy ran up and danced with everyone. That was pretty sweet. She threw her green glow sticks everywhere, run up to us, and we all did a little
(That's for you mal)Quote:
While starting on this text I noticed that she hadn’t done nightmare Nihlatak. Such an incosistency could not be tolerated of course, so I sent her to nightmare. There she fell to his corpse explosion, sadly. At least she made it to guardian before. Sigh..
I lost in on this one. Started laughing historically. Until I read you were joshing. Then I was saddened.
lol. I did start laughing though. Thought it being funny that you, didn't actually, died going back to nm!
I did like your story-line between the moron and the character and the ORC.|||... I should NOT have pressed that spoiler button!
Luckily my boss is out of town so I actually had time to read the whole thing - very impressive and entertaining write up!
Really really cool guardian with some quite nice gear as well (for untwinked). And no Atma/gomule aswell. awesome. Did I miss the part where you found your SoJ or did you not mention it?
Thanks for making the last ~20 minutes of my workday a bit more entertaining
|||Thanks a lot, I'm happy that people liked the story!@kestegs
Hehe, the writing didn't take that much time, at least it didn't feel like so much. I had quite some fun writing it all down and making up jokes. More than I can say about the battle with Talic...
This forum has struck me as quite unused to long texts and stories. I'm admittedly more used to Total War games forums where long stories are more common.
@coju
I have also seen Baal do it before, or rather not doing anything, but it was on hell actually. My first guardian had a totally anticlimactic fight with hell Baal.
@FredOfErik
You're most welcome. You didn't miss anything, I haven't mentioned where I got the historical SoJ. Livexia is my only character ever to have found that ring, but I don't remember where it was.
If you liked this story you may also like to read my first guardian thread (paladin one) which has a similar style, albeit a shorter story.
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