Lupus
(normal difficulty)
(normal difficulty)
[When the Expansion came out, I played a Realms hardcore werewolf/summoner (Conqueror jt-Wolf) to level 65 before becoming disillusioned with public Realms play. In single-player, I still wanted to play a wolf (by far my favorite character archetype), but for the purest form of the game, Lupus is going to be a much purer werewolf. See his skill plan and restrictions here.]
Act 1
Like pretty much every other druid, Lupus started out on the Blood Moor, whacking a few zombie skulls with his freebie club.
Down in the Den of Evil, level 2! Triumphantly, Lupus shrugged off his doltish human-ness, and switched to his true sexy lupine self. Whooo-hooo! Go wolfy!
Lupus put his level-up skill points into Werewolf and Lycanthropy alternately. Within a few levels he was able to maintain his were form more or less permanently.
Cold Plains. The Cave. Lupus was level 5 when he fought Coldcrow the archer,
almost coming to a grievous end in her death explosion. On level 2 of the
cave he took particularly delight in putting an end to a shambling zombie
boss who had stolen the name of the divine wolf.
Lupus cleared out the Crypt and the Mausoleum before facing Blood Raven
and her undead army. He returned in triumph to the Rogue Encampment, where
Kashya gave him a young fire archer of Germanic stock, by the name of
Klaudia.
Together, Lupus and Klaudia cleared the Stony Field, traversed the
Underground Passage to the Dark Wood, and rescued Cain from Tristram.
Lupus got his first polearm, a three-socket bardiche, and gemmed it with
two chipped skulls and a chipped sapphire.
The Black Marsh. The Hole. The Forgotten Tower. The Countess dropped
a crystal sword of quality, which Lupus adopted for his little-used
sword-and-shield setup.
Lupus found the Arctic Furs, his first really nice piece of equipment. A monster shrine in the Highland created Vile Jade, a multiple shots spike fiend.
Down in the Pit, Lupus reached level 12, put a point into Feral Rage, and adopted it as his default attack.
Outer Cloister. Barracks. Lupus and Klaudia swept all before them.
Well, almost. Sometimes Lupus bit off a little more than he could handle, and some strategic retreating (run away!!!) was needed..
They cleared the Jail. Lupus was level 13 and Klaudia was level 12 when they reached the Inner Cloister.
In the Cathedral, Lupus had his first real setback. Klaudia was killed when the pair were ambushed by an extra strong wraith boss while fighting with Bone Ash.
Also in the Cathedral, Lupus found his first two wolf head helms, a cracked wolf head with +1 to Werewolf and +1 to Lycanthropy, and a superior wolf head with no bonus skills. Lupus chose to use the cracked wolf head.
Lupus proceeded alone down through the Catacombs. He was level 15 when he fought with Andariel.
[Lupus's player would like to disavow all knowledge of what was going on in that screenshot!]
Act 2
Lupus did some gambling when he arrived in Lut Gholein, replacing his gloves and belt and boots. He started off in act 2 using this equipment: gemmed bardiche (two chipped skulls, chipped sapphire), cracked wolf head (+1 Werewolf, +1 Lycanthropy), Arctic Furs, tangerine heavy gloves, chain boots of balance, 'Plague Chain' rare belt, amulet of the fox, iron ring of thawing, ocher ring.
Alternative weapon tab: crystal sword of shock, sturdy small shield.
Plague Chain: replenish life +4, poison resist 9%, fire resist 7%, +2 to strength.
Charms in inventory: bronze grand charm of greed, small charm of flame, tangerine small charm.
Sewers. With Feral Rage using all his mana, Lupus didn't always
have the mana to convert immediately back to wolf form if he reverted
unexpectedly. He discovered that the glowing red Feral Rage ball
doesn't disappear if the wolf form times out (but does if you convert
back deliberately). He wasn't sure that he was getting any
effect from it, though.
Rocky Waste. Stony Tomb. Lupus found his first spiked shield.
He rather liked the crystal-sword-and-spiked-shield look
Creeping Feature turned Lupus blue.
Dry Hills. Halls of the Dead. Lupus started off by leading the returned hordes away from the hollow ones to destroy them. Then he had a look at his character screen.
Average chance returned will hit you: 18%.
Well, with odds like that, Lupus found he could run in and kill off the hollow ones while mostly ignoring the returned.
Mostly. A mob like this needed a little thinning out first..
Lupus found a new wolf head. One socket, and +2 to lycanthropy. After retrieving his cube and combining all his stashed chipped gems, he socketed it with a flawed ruby (+17 to life).
He also bought himself a new bardiche (vicious bardiche of gore), increasing his Feral Rage damage from 7-63 to 6-93.
Lost City. Level 18. Ancient Tunnels. Claw Viper Temple. Level 19. Lupus's Werewolf skill was now at level 10, as high as he was planning to take it for now.
On level 2 of the Temple, Fangskin was sharing the altar room with no less than four guardians. The bone warriors with the guardians were a lot better at hitting Lupus than the returned had been.
At the end of this session, Lupus had more cash than he could hold. So he went gambling. Elzix offered him a couple of scythes, one of which was a decent rare.
Next session, down through the Palace Cellar. Lupus did less damage with his new scythe, but the increased attack speed more than made up for it.
In the Arcane Sanctuary, Lupus matched his scythe against the scythes of the hell clan and emerged victorious.
Canyon of the Magi. The Tombs. Lupus was suffering a bit with his resists (39/20/34/33), and the ghoul lord fire walls were a mite painful.
With the knockback on his scythe, Lupus found it advantageous to use shift-attack against mobs of skeletons and such. He discovered that shift-attack doesn't work if you accidentally click on a sarcophagus at the far side of the room (instead of empty space). And it seemed to be bugged. Every so often he would end up with a single opponent right beside him which shift-attack just wouldn't hit, and he would have to stop and target that skeleton manually. It was almost like Realms desync, but this was single-player.
Lupus went back to the Maggot Lair to pick up his staff. He was level 22 when he went in to face Duriel, with 536 life in his wolf form. He fought Duriel with sword and shield (iron crystal sword of flame, superior spiked shield socketed with a jewel of +6 to life and an Eld rune for increased blocking).
Duriel dropped junk. Chain boots of self-repair and a Tir rune? Sheesh.
Act 3
On arriving at the Kurast Docks, Lupus visited Alkor for some gambling. This was largely unproductive, but he did manage to upgrade his amulet.
Lupus also visit Asheara, convincing one of the Iron Wolves, a level 19 cold mage called Geshef, to accompany him on his quest. He outfitted Geshef with a rare breast plate he'd found in act 2 and used when fighting Duriel, and a newly bought kite shield of deflecting.
Starting equipment: 'Soul Gutter' rare scythe, gemmed wolf head (+2 Lycanthropy, flawed ruby), Arctic Furs, 'Shadow Fist' rare heavy gloves, 'Bramble Spur' rare heavy boots, belt of equilibrium, shimmering amulet of the tiger, steel ring of the leech, ocher ring.
Alternative weapon tab: iron crystal sword of flame, gemmed superior spiked shield (jewel +6 to life, Eld rune).
Shadow Fist: poison resist 11%, fire resist 10%, +2 to dexterity,
15% better chance of getting magic items.
Bramble Spur: half freeze duration, heal stamina plus 25%,
cold resist 6%, fire resist 7%, +1 to dexterity,
10% better chance of getting magic items.
Lupus was now using four inventory columns for charms: shivering grand charm, grand charm of balance, crimson grand charm, lapis small charm of frost, tangerine small charm, two bronze small charms of life.
Lupus and Geshef set off into the Spider Forest. Lupus got his jade figurine from the first boss they encountered (blowpipe fetish boss Dragon Widow the Unclean, extra fast).
With Geshef freezing everything, the pair progressed quickly. They found the Spider Cavern, and tamed the evil Sszark. [Lupus didn't get cursed at all while fighting Sszark, which I think is the first time I've managed that with a melee character.]
Lupus was using his sword-and-shield setup for most of the jungle sections, for the added defence that 25% blocking gave him against the mobs of irritating little midgets. In the Arachnid Lair, fighting a giant lamprey boss and her swarm of young, he had his first major experience with block-lock, and decided it was time to upgrade his armor. He went gambling, but Alkor was not being cooperative, so he took his 86-defense rare breast plate back from Geshef (who got a 73-defense rare chain mail in exchange).
Lupus now had 153 defense. Geshef had 205. Lupus thought this was a bit unfair, since he was the one doing all the close-up fighting.
The Great Marsh only had one golden chest. There was a second alcove, but it contained only a small pond with a river stalker. Lupus argued with the stalker..
Lupus found a new crystal sword for himself (consecrated crystal sword of gore), and an ethereal full helm which he gave to Geshef, giving the mercenary an even bigger advantage in defense.
Down in the Flayer Dungeon, Witch Doctor Endugu dropped Isenhart's Case. Lupus put it on. 106 defense was better than his old breast plate, and -2 magic damage would help with the shamans' infernos (with just 41% fire resist, Lupus was suffering a bit).
[It seems much more difficult to get good resists in the Expansion, compared with Diablo II v1.06, at least through normal difficulty. 41% was Lupus's highest resist at this point.]
The Swampy Pit. Shifter-druids get ridiculous amounts of life (Lupus had 620 life at level 24, and he's not using Oak Sage). This is good when you stupidly decide to play hardcore when too tired to keep your eyes open.
When they reached Lower Kurast, Lupus switched back to using his scythe. Lower Kurast was full of tree lurkers and doom apes. The Bazaar had hell swarm and a champion pack of sexton.
Lupus and Geshef cleared the Ruined Temple and the Disused Fane.
Lupus reached level 25 at the gates of Upper Kurast. With the aid of two grand charms of +4 strength, he now had enough strength to wear a plate mail of balance (defense 114) that he'd been saving.
Thrashers in Upper Kurast. Champion serpent magus in the Forgotten Temple. Champion wailing beasts and a night lord boss (Gloom Rend, mana burn) in the Forgotten Reliquary. Exploding midgets in the Sewers.
Kurast Causeway, two more temples, and on into Travincal. Lupus discovered the benefits of knockback on his scythe for separating a heirophant boss from the healing powers of her pack.
Lupus had a small moment on the Travincal wall. Stacked Blizzards and a pack of zealots beating on him while he was chilled, bringing him down to under 100 life by the time he extricated himself and portaled back to town.
Lupus led Geshef to the Blackened Temple. Geshef shot his cold magics between the pillars and killed off Geleb Flamefinger and most of the council minions without Lupus needing to raise a paw.
Lupus did help a bit with the other two bosses, Ismail Vilehand and Toorc Icefist.
Equipped with Khalim's Will and its 50% increased attack speed, Lupus briefly enjoyed his new super-fast attack, chasing down the last of Travincal's zealot population.
Into the Durance of Hate. More exploding midgets.
On level 3 of the Durance, the entrance area was empty. Lupus and Geshef advanced cautiously into the central part.
Council minions appeared. Geshef killed them all. "Hmmm," thought Lupus, "if all the Iron Wolves are as studly as this Geshef, how did they get driven out of Kurast in the first place?"
[Wyand Voidbringer must have been in this pack that Geshef killed, too, as he never appeared anywhere else on the level.]
Lupus and Geshef dealt with Bremm Sparkfist (now without his sparks) and Maffer Dragonhand. And then it was time to face Mephisto. Lupus equipped a sharp maul of shock (slower than his scythe, but considerably more damage) for the big fight.
Mephisto dropped a whole bunch of stuff. None of it was useful, but it was at least a better selection then Duriel had managed.
Act 4
Lupus visited Halbu and Jamella for shopping and gambling. He bought himself a strong gothic shield (defense 48), and gambled on plated belts, gloves and boots.
Starting equipment for act 4: 'Soul Gutter' rare scythe, gemmed wolf head (+2 Lycanthropy, flawed ruby), plate mail of balance, 'Corpse Fist' rare light gauntlets, 'Pain Shank' rare heavy boots, plated belt of might, shimmering amulet of the tiger, steel ring of the leech, garnet ring of dexterity.
Alternative weapon tab: consecrated crystal sword of gore, strong gothic shield.
Corpse Fist: half freeze duration, cold resist 5%, lightning resist 9%,
+1 to dexterity.
Pain Shank: poison length reduced by 25%, 10% faster run/walk,
heal stamina plus 50%, lightning resist 11%, 16% better chance of
getting magic items.
Charms: crimson grand charm, grand charm of balance, grand charm of strength (needed to wear his armor), lapis small charm of frost, tangerine small charm, two bronze small charms of life.
Geshef's equipment: long sword of readiness, kite shield of deflecting, ethereal full helm (defense 40), Isenhart's Case.
Lupus was level 25, Geshef was level 24.
Lupus and Geshef cleared the Outer Steppes. Lupus found a damaged spirit mask with no useful skills and decided on next level-up he would take it back to Charsi for imbue.
Burning Souls, Venom Lords and Corpulents in the Plains of Despair.
Also Izual..
Lupus reached level 26. He put some points in strength, enabling him to swap the grand charm of strength he was using for a lapis grand charm, and popped back to act 1 to visit Charsi.
"Hmmm," thought Lupus, "that could have been worse." The bonus
to Fire Claws would be useful later, and the socket was .. interesting.
Lupus pondered what to put in it.
While pondering, he and Geshef continued on into the City of the Damned, fighting abyss knights, pit lords and corpse spitters. The level 1 Heart of Wolverine from his new spirit mask was useful more in providing a (somewhat fragile) extra target for the monsters than in any of its aura effects.
Lupus gambled on some amulets to use up his overflowing cash reserves, and got his first Druid amulet! Unfortunately, +1 to summoning skills wasn't particularly useful.
The River of Flame. Maw fiends, more pit lords, and urdars.
Lupus and the resurrected Geshef searched out and killed Hephasto.
Lupus smashed the Soulstone on the Hellforge, adding some assorted gems and a Thul rune
to his collection.
Before proceeding any further, Lupus decided it was time to fill
the socket in his helm. With no Ort (lightning resist) runes available,
he chose a Ral rune for 30% fire resist. Swapping his garnet ring
of dexterity for an ocher ring of dexterity gave him resists of
44/50/49/14.
Geshef got killed again as they cleared the Chaos Sanctuary. Lupus left him dead until after he had dealt with the Lord de Seis, resurrecting him to assist with the other two seal bosses.
With just Diablo left to kill, Lupus was still a few points shy of level 27.
He went back to the Flayer Jungle waypoint (where he had started
this session) and killed a few flayers to get his level-up. Putting a
couple of points into strength enabled him to swap his plated belt of
(+4) strength for a coral plated belt of (+2) strength and max out his
lightning resist before he faced Diablo.
Geshef probably did more damage to Diablo than Lupus, with his magical attack unaffected by the mlvl/clvl penalty, and ignoring Diablo's enhanced blocking ability. Indeed, it was something of a struggle for Lupus to finish off the last quarter of Diablo's health bar on his own, after Geshef was killed by a stray lightning blast.
Diablo dropped nothing of interest. Lupus did get the Nokozan Relic unique amulet from the Grand Vizier, though, when he remember to go back and check what the seal boss had dropped.
Act 5
Lupus arrived in Harrogath at level 27, using much the same equipment as at the start of act 4 (he had his new helm, of course, a different belt and second ring, and a slightly different selection of charms). Geshef had slipped behind a bit, and was only level 25. [Geshef may have still been level 24 when they arrived in act 5, I forget exactly. If so, he leveled up almost immediately.]
The Bloody Foothills were, well, easy. Even the two bosses, Doc Farren the imp
and Shenk the Overseer, were hardly challenging. The highlight of the area came
when Lupus found a Shae rune in a barrel. All he needed now was a good weapon
to put it in
Larzuk was selling gothic plates. Lupus was tempted by a gothic plate of the wolf, but decided instead on a sturdy gothic plate of equilibrium (defense 159).
The Frigid Highlands were frenetic, but still not particularly challenging. Lupus was reminded of a phrase coined by some hack poet, "..full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.."
Lupus reached level 28, maxing out his Lycanthropy skill. His wereform now had a healthy seven-minute duration, and never timed out on him unless he forgot to recast when visiting town.
Down in Abaddon, things got a little tougher. Lupus was grateful for Geshef's freezing abilities when fighting a boss pack of hell lord minotaurs (Storm Lust the Cold, stone skin). He found an azure large charm of inertia, with a useful bonus to his run speed.
The Arreat Plateau, and almost immediately the first real fight of the act. Lupus and Geshef bumped into the Hammer twins, a double boss pack of lashers. Geshef was killed, and Lupus had to lure the lashers back to choke points in the path leading to the Plateau.
Lupus reached level 29 in the Pit of Acheron (fighting with Chaos Horn, a cold-enchanted overlord boss). This was obviously the magic level for war scythe shopping. Larzuk had refused to sell him any earlier, but now he was offering two or three every time Lupus checked his stock.
In the Crystalline Passage, Lupus found his first evil urns. Several of them were occupied..
One of the bosses dropped the Angelic Sickle. Lupus gave it to Geshef to hold, taking Geshef's long sword of readiness for himself.
Lupus and Geshef cleared the Crystalline Passage and Frozen River, and rescued Anya before finishing this first act 5 session. Anya gave Lupus a rare wolf head. He appreciated that she'd gone to the trouble of getting him the right sort of helm, but couldn't she have come up with better magic mods? It was so junky, it sold for just 278 gold.
Lupus stopped at Larzuk one more time, and bought himself a vicious war scythe of gore, though it would be a few levels yet before he could meet the strength and dexterity requirements.
Next session, off to visit Nihlathak. Geshef was very useful, shattering the defiled warriors and unholy corpses with his freezing skills, preventing them from using their self-resurrection abilities.
Lupus reached level 30 in the Halls of Anguish. At last he got his Fury skill!
One problem with Fury immediately presented itself. Lupus had no mana-steal, and when out of mana, Fury (unlike Feral Rage) does not default to a normal attack. Grrrrr.
The Halls of Vaught. Nihlathak's lair.
With the benefit of hindsight, Lupus decided it had been an unwise move, trying to charge Nihlathak on his platform when it was still swarming with ice spawn.
Geshef was now costing 10K to resurrect.
Back down in the Halls of Vaught, Lupus adopted a more cautious approach. When the traitorous Nihlathak died, both he and Geshef levelled (Lupus level 31, Geshef level 27).
Average chance to hit Nihlathak: 45%. No wonder the skinny wizard had been so tough to kill.
Lupus and Geshef cleared the Glacial Trail and Drifter Cavern. Before finishing this session they went back and killed a few monsters in the Crystalline Passage, gaining another level for them both.
By stuffing his inventory full of strength-boosting charms, Lupus could now meet the 80 strength requirement for a lochaber axe he'd found earlier. He decided to craft himself a new weapon..
Lupus also made a new helm for Geshef. A crown socketed with Ort and Ral runes, giving the mercenary maxed fire and lightning resists.
Next session, on into the Frozen Tundra. With almost no monsters taking more than one Fury cycle to kill, the four point triumphant attribute on Lupus's new axe balanced nicely with the four point mana cost of his Fury, completely solving his mana problems (for now).
The Tundra was swarming with teleporting imps. These could be dangerous in packs, a massed volley of their firey bolts cutting quickly into Lupus's life ball, but mostly they were just annoying to chase down. Lupus let Geshef's ranged attack deal with them whenever possible.
Lupus found a lone barbarian warrior, stuck behind a wall. [Huh? I thought
these random barbarians were restricted to the Bloody Foothills.]
Strangely, there were no bosses or champions in the Infernal Pit, unless they were in one of the groups that Geshef killed, firing his cold magics across the lava streams.
The Ancients' Way and Icy Cellar. Lupus reached level 33, put his level-up stat points into dexterity, and was at last able to wield his war scythe (soon upgraded to a massive war scythe of quality from Larzuk).
To Lupus's annoyance, Fury seemed to be bugged when used with long-reach weapons. It seemed that the extra hits only checked for adjacent targets instead of any target in range (and if he attacked a solitary monster that wasn't adjacent, but was in range of his scythe, he only got one hit on it). Bah.
Also, he had mana problems again. He gambled on amulets, hoping for mana-steal, but had no luck. And Larzuk seemed unable to make a mana-steal war scythe with any useful prefix.
For his meeting with the Ancients, Lupus put on a vulpine amulet (he was
certainly going to get hit, after all). Also his old wolf head helm with
+2 to Lycanthropy, giving him 642 life.
Lupus used a few full rejuvs, but was ultimately victorious. The experience reward took him to level 34.
At this point, Lupus made a significant discovery. He swapped back to his normal helm, and noticed that his life total didn't go down. Hmmmm. It seemed the life bonus from Lycanthropy depended solely on the skill level at the time of transformation, and not on any later adjustments. [Probably this applies to the time bonus too, but I didn't check.] By swapping helms temporarily when he transformed in town, he could effectively be using level 22 Lycanthropy even though his normal helm had no bonuses to that skill.
After getting Geshef resurrected, Lupus continued on into the Worldstone
Keep. On level 1, he found Azurewrath, the unique crystal sword, clutched
in the cold fingers of a dead barbarian.
On level 2, Lupus gained level 35. Geshef levelled up soon after (level 30 in his case).
Level 3, and then the Throne of Destruction. The stygian furies proved surprisingly troublesome, swarming in such large groups that Lupus was in danger of being killed by the continuous barrage of bloodstars before he even got close to them.
Baal's minions. Geshef died just once, to the poison attacks of Achmel
the Cursed (unraveller). His freezing abilities were invaluable in helping
Lupus split up the packs of the tougher bosses (Ventar the Unholy, and Lister).
Then Baal. Lupus fought Baal using Azurewrath, hoping the 10% magic find bonus would net him some awesome drop (also so he could have blocking from his shield).
Geshef survived (barely) the fight with Baal. And the drop was decent. A rare lochaber axe with potential as an alternative weapon for use against demons, and the Angelic Halo, Lupus's second piece of the Angelic set.
Addendum
Lupus and Geshef visited the cow level before proceeding to nightmare. Lupus didn't get much experience from it (about a quarter bar), but Geshef levelled up twice (to level 32).
Item-wise, it was a bust.
Well, maybe not quite..
40% faster run/walk? Lupus wasn't going to argue with that
Lupus had one final thing to do before finishing with normal difficulty. If you want to know what that was, you'll have to wait for his nightmare report.
Lupus full-cleared normal difficulty and earned the title of Destroyer at level 35
with the stats shown (shown with Azurewrath equipped, and an extra eight points of
strength from charms that he wouldn't normally be using). Skills at this point:
Equipment:
Geshef's equipment:
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