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.)