New Clothes

Alice went to bed late last night around 2:00 am after we played our game for a while. I did my chores and took an evening nap starting at 7:00 pm. (That's one hour later due to the time zones.) I woke up and created our game about 12:30 am and Alice awoke and joined about 9:00 am. (Half hour later for those who get confused by the time difference.)

There are two things we are looking for now. A Shael Rune for Alice so she can make the Peace Rune Word armor and a 2 socket Ghost Armor for me. I'll make Stealth in it just like I have in my Studded Leather, but with more defense. (Yes, I know there are other armors I could use which would have even more defense, but it's a fashion thing for me.)

We ran Pindleskin and Eldritch and neither happened to have the Shael. We then went into the Pit of Acheron looking for my armor and there is the possibility of Shael dropping here.  In this picture I am slowly killing the monsters on the other side of the molten lava pit. Alice snuck around behind them while I kept them distracted.

A little closer to the sparkly chest, Alice lost her connection.

I went ahead and cleared the rest of the area while waiting for her to come back into the game. Ah, look, here she is now.

By now it was breakfast time for Alice. She left the game so I could re-create it and when she got back we did Pindle again and then Eldritch.

From there we went to the Arreat Plateau and some random monster dropped a crude, non-socketed version of the armor I wanted. Being the brilliant Sorceress I am, I plopped it into my Horadric Cube along with an El Rune and a Chipped Gem.

After transmuting, it's a normal Ghost Armor with 115 defense. (The possible defense range is 102 to 117, so it's nearly perfect.)

I need sockets in it to make the Stealth Rune Word, so I visited Larzuk and called in a favor he owed me. Here I've put the armor in the thing-a-ma-jig for him to punch a couple of holes in it.

And now I have a holey, normal grade Ghost Armor.

I then dropped in the Tal and Eth Runes and it became Stealth. My base defense was 156 with the old armor and is now 230 with this one. (That's not counting the bonus I get when I use my Frozen Armor aura.)

This next picture shows me wearing my old Studded Leather Stealth. Notice the arm coverings and the silver lace trim.

And here I am wearing the new Ghost Armor Stealth. The only visible difference between it and naked (gamewise) is the shoulder pads.

Alice approved of my new, nude look and then we ventured into the Temple to hunt down an evil necromancer. In this picture we've found the stairs.

Here we have found Nihlathak himself. We took him down quickly.

He dropped some nice gloves for Alice. The +20% Increased Attack Speed lets her promptly pluck her bow quite quicklier now.

Ok. That last sentence was a bit silly. I guess I'm more tired than I thought. I'm going to bed now.

Arreat Summit

Alice and I started playing our game about 10:30 pm my time yesterday and we played for about 6 hours. We took the Arreat Plateau waypoint and quickly found the Crystalline Passage. Here we are using applied psychology on some Champion Snow Drifters.

We also found some frozen creepers there.

In this screenshot we are in the Frozen River and there was a large welcoming committee as soon as we arrived.

Still in the Frozen River area, we used some good strategy to kill Dragon Grumble The Hungry and his minions by staying on one side of the river where they couldn't get to us.

In this shot we've awoken Frozenstein and his hoard. I was able to keep the lead minion frozen for a while and that blocked the others from getting to us, but once Frozenstein (who I can't totally freeze) got thru we had to lead them around and try to separate them cause they hit rather hard.

Unfortunately Alice's connection got buggy at this point and I finished him off before she could get back into the battle.

She lost her connection again, so in this picture I am patiently waiting for her to return. Anya shivers while we wait. When Alice got back, she went to town and got a thawing potion from Malah and then released Anya.

Anya then opened a red portal leading to Nihlathak's Temple. After we cleared the outer area, Alice ran in and led Pindleskin and his group out so we could teach them a lesson. I'm using my Glacial Spike to keep him chilled while Alice uses her big fire blaze thingy. She let me know as a BTW, that it's called Immolation Arrow. Thanks dear. :)

We ventured into the Halls of Anquish and cleared most of it. We found the entrance to the next level right when Alice's connection dropped her again.

When she got back this time, I remembered she hadn't tagged the Crystalline Passage waypoint, so I went there and opened a portal for her. We continued on to the Frozen Tundra, then thru the Ancient's Way and found the Arreat Summit atop the mountain. We did not release the Ancient Barbarians since I want to be much better prepared for them.

We discussed other armor Rune Words and decided it would be very good if we could find a Shael Rune so Alice could make Peace in a 3 socket armor. We already have enough Orts to transmute into the Thul and I had two Amns and gave her one. This screenshot is borrowed from the Diablo Wiki and shows the mods Peace will have.

From Silospen's Drop Calculator , it looks like about anywhere in Act 5 can drop the Shael Rune with equal probability but the odds aren't too good for finding it from them. (Like 1 in 30,000 for any of the normal monster's which can drop it.) The odds get better from Champions, Unique monsters and Super Uniques. Eldritch the Rectifier and Pindleskin show the best odds and have the added benefit of being super easy to get to. (We won't be tagging the waypoint in the Halls of Pain when we find it, so Anya's portal to Nihlathak's Temple will stay open and give us quick access to Pindleskin.)

It's now about 9:40 pm for Alice and I don't know when she will be able to play again. I'm going to create a game in a few minutes and see if she pops in.

Storm Brogues Greaves

Alice finally got her DSL fixed. We got to play our game for a couple of hours before she had to get ready for school. I took the Arreat Plateau waypoint and opened a portal so she could tag it too. Here we are finishing off a Champion Lasher. Right beside Alice is Sigon's Tower Sheild. I don't know if she kept it or not.

We found Thresh Socket a short while later and he was no match for us.

After killing off Thresh Socket, we jumped into the Crystalline Passage and ran into some Moon Lords. Since they weren't Champions, I could freeze them in their tracks and Alice and the girls killed them off.

Soon after that, things got a bit wiggy. Alice had run around to the right hand passage and found Bile Hawk The Slayer and his minions while other monsters started pouring out of the left hand passage. As a group, they were a wee bit difficult to handle.

Somewhere along the way, we found the rare Storm Brogues Greaves.  I'd dearly like to change my shoes for them, but they require 70 strength to wear and I'm only at 60. I do have 5 stat points saved up, but that still wouldn't get me there. Alice's strength is at 67, so she is much closer to being able to wear them and she put them in her stash for later.

By this time it was 5:45 am on her side of the world. We chatted till 6:00 and then she had to go get ready for school.

Pit of Acheron

Alice and I got to play our game tonight ... wait ... early tomorrow morning on her side of the planet. We jumped to the Frigid Highlands waypoint in search of some lost Barbarians which Qual-Kehk had misplaced. On the way we fought with little Imp Demons who kept teleporting to and fro.

And there were these big Crush Beasts upon which the little Imps would ride and shoot flames at us. In this next picture the flames make my hair look red.

Here we have found a group of the missing Barbarians. They are mingling around and shouting for help so we explained the concept of the door latch to them and sent them back to town.

Along the way we found a red portal leading to Abaddon and went inside looking for the shiny treasure chest. It had a +24 to life grand charm for Alice. In this picture we are still on our way to finding the treasure. There were Blood Lords and Imps who thought they could stop us. They were wrong.

After rescuing all the Barbarians, we went on to the Arreat Plateau and just outside of the Pit of Acheron, we stomped Snot Blister the Howler.

Inside the pit were Champion Overlords who were no match for us. My glacial spike only slows them down rather than freezing them in their tracks but it still helps.

 
The shiny chest there had a Sol Rune for Alice. Moments later she had power problems and lost her connection.  Since it was time for her to go and get ready for school, she didn't come back into the game. I hadn't noticed when we went in the pit, but it turns out the next waypoint we wanted to find was nearby.

I suspected that since it was 5:41 am her time when she dropped and we had agreed to quit at 5:45 that she wouldn't be back. I stayed in the game anyhow just in case she came in to say goodbye. (I didn't know then if it was a momentary b-net thing or what.)

So, like any girl with time and gold on her hands, I went shopping. I found a nice 2 socket bone shield with 35 defense and its standard 40% block rate (for a sorceress).  The only better block rate for my class available now is a tower shield, but I don't care for it since it is heavy whereas the bone shield is lightweight.

In this next screenshot you can see the shield I was using. It did its job when I needed it, but since we found a Shael rune and I already had an Eth, it was time to replace it.

Jessie is now quite happy after making the Rhyme runeword in the new shield. With the 20% increased chance of blocking, it is now at 60% and will help protect my fragile little body. The all resistances of 25% is nice and the regenerate mana of 15% will help me be able to use my glacial spike with less delay between shots.

Next I made the Lore runeword in a two socket circlet. The 24 defense is lower than average (they can have between 20 and 30), but since no one sells them, I didn't want to wait until I found another one. Obviously the minuscule difference in defense is well offset by the +1 to all skills and the +10 to energy is good too since that increases my mana. The lightning resist of 30% lets me change my jewelry and swap in some different charms.

I went back to the Arreat Plateau and in the next screenshot I have used my enchant and frozen armor. My attack damage is 163 to 273 using the socketed flail I made.  Alice gave me a perfect ruby and when I finally get a perfect emerald I will use them and an Amn rune in a 3 socket War Scepter.

I went back to town and tidied up my stash and put my flawless skull in my backpack so if I accidently tag a Gem Shrine, I will get a perfect skull rather than some random chip. I'm also hoping to find another charm with at least 5% faster hit recovery. I have 25% from the Stealth Armor and 12% on a grand charm which gives me 37%. That puts me in the 10 frame recovery rate and I'd like to get to 9 frames which takes 42 FHR. More than that isn't likely for a while since the breakpoint for 8 frames is 60 FHR.

My fire resistance is a bit low at 59% and I'm hoping to find another charm or two to get that up closer to 75%. And 7% more for cold resist would be nice as well. I'm also desperately low on full rejuvenation potions. I need to send my pack mule barbarian out on a horking expedition.

Edit: Btw, Alice, I changed my blog to only display one day's worth of posts to improve load time. You can still get to the previous one by clicking "Older Posts" or from the post archive tree at the bottom. (I left you a comment last night on the "Dead Diablo" post.)

Dead Diablo

Alice and I picked up were we left off at the River of Flame waypoint.  We cleared the Chaos Sanctuary and then released the seals one by one.  Battling Diablo was a two part deal for me since I'm playing mêlée here to deliver my Static Field as well as pounding on him with my fast attack flail. My job is to keep him distracted while Alice and our Rogue Archer girls (Annor and Amplisa) pummel him with arrows.

I had to run away and restock my belt with potions while Alice kept him busy.  In this shot he is basking in Alice's flame thingy while still chilled from me.

Tyrael was pleased with us for vanquishing Diablo and this is where the original game awarded a title for completing normal difficulty.  The Lord of Destruction expansion adds Act 5 with Baal as the ultimate evil to destroy. So, a portal now opens leading to Harrogath.

In this picture we are in Harrogath (which I keep thinking of as Hogwarts for some reason) and are ready to leave town.

Here we are climbing the mountain and ridding the area of evil monsters. I'm still using Glacial Spike to freeze them in place while Alice gives them a hot foot with her fire blaze thingy. (I don't know what it's called since I've never played a Zon very far and I'm too lazy to look it up.)

We found and killed Shenk the Overseer and then climbed the stairs to tag the Frigid Highlands waypoint.  Alice had to go to bed, so this made for a good stopping point.

Hadriel

We strolled into the Outer Steppes from the Pandemonium Fortress, cleared a path to the Plains of Despair and encountered Izual the Traitor. In his demon form he has a lot of life, so the battle takes a while. I was beginning to think I wouldn't have enough health potions, but as you can see I just drank my last red and still had a full rejuvenation to spare.

Once we defeated his demon form, he appears as the fallen angel and was kind enough to grant us 2 skill points.

From there we found the City of the Damned and ventured into the River of Flame where we battled Hephasto the Armorer. (That's the Smith's bigger brother.) He has the Conviction Aura and Spectral Hit so I didn't get a picture of that battle since my fingers were poised on my potion keys. After we killed him, Alice picked up the Hammer and in this picture she is about to destroy Hellforge.

That released all the tortured souls and as a bonus, lots of nice gems popped out which Alice collected.

A short distance away we found the waypoint and then had a chat with Hadriel.

By now it was very late, or early depending on your viewpoint. It was time for Alice to have lunch and I needed to get to bed.