EPTWarning: Lots of pictures!
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Ignite begins her journey much the same way her companions did. She’s a little girl in a big world.
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The red velvet curtain rises. Throats clear. Whispers. Coughs in the audience. The lights dim, and the hum of the crowd dims in unison. (Aunt Akara and Iggy enter stage left, conversing as they enter.)
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“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Aunt Akara’s dark brows furrow as she wonders if Iggy started her training too late in age. Iggy is impatient. Iggy is prideful. And her mind wanders to other things – thoughts of traveling to faraway lands on adventures.
Over the years, her aunt has always been quick to chastise while teaching Iggy the ways of magic. Iggy begrudgingly obeys in her studies, all the while thinking, “I’ll never use this in real life. I should have gone into Psychology or Mathematics like my friend Akagi did.”
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“Adventure. Excitement. A Sorceress craves not these things.”
To the surprise and dismay of Aunt Akara, after earning her graduation Iggy declares that she will leave these rickety walls to explore beyond. Akara tries to warn her of places of great evil, but she refuses to listen. The allure of dangerous excitement beckons to her like a Siren’s song to a sailor out at sea. She confidently goes out to explore, wide-eyed and innocent.
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Taking none of her Aunt’s warning to heart, she quickly falls in with the wrong crowd. As Iggy walks into a new underground bar to meet her “friends,” she pays no heed that the place is called The Den of Evil. In a better state of mind, it should have set off some alarm bells.
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A TRAP! Her friends turn on her in an instant, to plunder her of a valuable magical staff Iggy kept with her from training. Outnumbered and afraid, almost as an involuntary response, Iggy responds with fire and brimstone magic out of thin air. As her betrayers lay at her feet. Iggy feels sick to her stomach and heart, but simultaneously enlightened from her experience. In the fray, she concocted an armor of ice for protection which she has never done before. From this day forward, Iggy resolved to use her powers to fight against the evil demons of the world.
A hero is born.
(End scene)
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We begin today as IgniteMemories’s renewed heroic resolve also bolsters her strength enough to wear heavier armors. She dons a red metal helmet - not necessarily to her style but in stark times, function is needed over form.
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Aside 1:
Sorcs start w/ 10 base STR, which is the lowest of the 7 chars. 20 life actually costs 10 stat points, so it’s more efficient to trade 5 stats into STR to wear items that give +life, with the upside that more STR allows me to wear other items as well. I plan to hit 30 STR and then redirect all stats into VIT until 100 VIT. There is a hidden percentage chance on health potions to heal double based on your VIT stats. If you have 50 VIT, it’s 50%. The same goes for mana potions and Energy. Once I get to 100 VIT and 30 STR, I stop using any stats until I need them.
Also, it’s rare to find anything good in the shops in Act 1, so it’s better to make your own items with socketed items and gems. A lot of melee chars use a gem’ed 3 socket mace as their weapon when climbing the initial chaos on the new ladder.
My first skill is Frozen Armor for melee range protection. My main offense will be a melee attack until the power of my skills catch up around LVL 9-10. A Sorc’s damage output does not actually ramp up until at least level 30+ (for example, near max out of Fireball w/ 1 pt in fire mastery), if not 50+ (max out of 2 skills), and in the early game even after LVL 9-10, the high mana cost of spells coinciding with the Sorc’s naturally low stats is also a big hindrance on speed.
Future skills points go into Warmth, Static, Telekinesis, and the rest into Frost Nova for AOE kill speed.
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Alucard sends something in his inventory to his teammate.
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Aside 2: If I had STR charms, she would have had this beginning LVL 1. But I don’t so she gets it at LVL 4. Up to this point, I’m still in Blood Moor, leveling to get more STR stats. A 3-6 dmg single target spell and 1-5 dmg staff would be pitiful in Cold Plains. With this scepter though, the tables turn.
Time check: 6 minute deficit for picking up waypoints. + 6 minutes leveling up to LVL 4. 12 minutes.
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One of the most valuable shrines. Ignite wanted to have it early, but I told her to save it for the boss pack in Cold Plains.
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Ignite randomly gets a Gargantuan boss pack, much tougher than Rogue Spearwomen, but still wrecks in style.
“I am holding the steel flame hammer, not thou!”
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Aside 3: That 1/2 EXP bar jump is from the boss pack alone, not including the Unique that’s about to go down. The amount of EXP surprised me since I’m already LVL 4. I’m 1-shotting most monsters from here on out.
Having Frozen Armor was instrumental to safely leveling up here. It will also be instrumental later on as you teleport through dangerous mobs and take on Baal’s throne room. You can see from my belt I have been chugging pots. The pots should be drank non-stop now as long as you keep your progression speed up.
On a side note, I was stupid and didn’t repair my helm, so my HP total dropped back to 43 making the fight even tougher than it should have been. Bah!
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Another piece from Alucard’s armory. 50 HP now from items, more than doubling Ignite’s life total.
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I chrono boost out +1 armor for Ignite at LVL 5. Be afraid, Fallen. Be very afraid.
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Aside 4: Breastplates are the best low level armor if you want minimal investment into STR stats. Players will sometimes even make Enigmas in them. Great defense at level 5 and ability to put the item on many chars, unlike something like Splintmail which requires 51 STR that my chars usually don’t have. My high life total now also allows me to stand toe to toe against even extremely dangerous enemies like Rakanishu, so I don’t have to waste time kiting around.
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LVL 6, Frost Nova, and an EXP shrine. More adventure awaits!
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+1 Attack upgrade. This orb kicks my progression into the next gear faster than I could have hoped. A parting gift from the Smith in an earlier encounter.
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Aside 5: A long time ago, when I was trying to figure out how to level a Sorc without going through the tedious grind of either meleeing with full Sigon’s, or “Fireball-Fireball-Fireball mana pot…. Wait…. Fireball-Fireball-Fireball mana pot…. Wait….,” I ended with Nova as my answer. What Fireball could not handle quickly was a group of 20 enemies coming at you either from all directions or in an area larger than Fireball’s small AOE. Handling these situations with ease was what Sins excelled at with Fireblast and Wake of Fire, and allowed them to progress at a ridiculous rate.
However, like all Sorc spells, mana cost is always a problem. As I tried it out, the very high mana cost of Nova was an almost action-stopping problem. I might cast 2 Novas and then have to wait 10 seconds for my mana pot to kick in. I did not want to put points into Energy, both because that is very inefficient for end game and also because that takes away stats for VIT which is crucial when progressing fast. Keep in mind this was before we got stat/skill resets – whatever you did with your char was permanent. I also was tired of the “rush a char” game. I wanted to play and experience the actual game.
So came the experiments. Besides using chipped Sapphires for max mana, I had experimented with Tir runes when using Fireball and it was mediocre due to the number of enemies you could hit with Fireball. With Nova on the other hand, it was a completely different beast due to the huge AOE. With enough Tir runes, you could in theory never drink a mana pot.
As I tried it out, there came yet another problem. The minimum damage on Nova was awful and sometimes would whiff entirely so that my Tir runes did nothing. I had to wait until around level 14-15 before it was effective, which was impractical because I would have finished my Trist runs by then.
Prior to trying it out, I was very much against putting points into Frost Nova because at least Nova had some end game power. Frost Nova would probably become useless halfway through Normal. Eventually I decided there was no other way. So I tried it.
And was it amazing. It worked just like how I though Nova could work. Frost Nova still has enough punch through Act 2 and the cold slow effect was invaluable to a fragile Sorc against hordes of lightning beetles. Act 3 was somewhat passable, but Act 4 became impossible for Frost Nova due to the low damage output versus high HP.
Eventually I started making a hybrid Frost Nova/Nova Sorc for ladder resets. Once Nova was leveled up from Normal Baal runs however, I needed a second element to tackle NM and Hell. There are 2 ways to do it: Blizzard or Firewall. Both do a huge amount of damage for minimal skill point investment, both are fire & forget spells so you can get out of danger’s way after casting, and both can be used to moat trick Hell Mephisto. Just don’t do both – otherwise, Hell mode will laugh in the face of your low damage output. I tended towards firewall because I liked the idea of putting points into Warmth as a synergy to Fire Wall on a starting Sorc, shattered enemies from cold damage do not drop items when I go MFing, and it was an uncommon spell to play with unless you were playing Diablo 2 vanilla when it first came out and Fire Wall sorcs were all the rage.
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Sorc spells look so much cooler than others. She kills almost as fast as my Sin, but only almost.
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Kicking ass and taking names. My Sorc absolutely tears through Act 1.
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Aside 6: At this point, I’m doing the same thing that my Sin did, running through areas, AOEing everything to death.
You may be wondering why I don’t have more “in action” screenshots. Well, that is actually because my computer lags for 4-5 seconds after I take a screenshot, and in that time, my char just dies. Later on I try to do a better job, but for now I’m just a noob.
Time check: 12 min to 16 min on my Sorc. LVL 8. EXP shrines blended with massive AOE dmg make for easy experience.
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Madeline ships a +5 regen belt, +5 regen ring, and +5 regen ammy to Ignite to help her in her travels. Frost Nova is still quite expensive in mana cost, so a 2x ruby scepter is on switch, especially useful against Unique monsters after all their minions have popped.
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The red flames of the Countess are no match for blue rings of righteousness.
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Aside 7: I decide to continue doing countess runs to level. I found it more fun this way. 6 Countess runs total before eventually killing Andariel, but I spliced the runs in between here and there as I progressed towards the Catacombs.
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Ignite never forgot her studies. Her newfound experience fine tunes her grasp of a second element. But it’s only just begun and her ice magic is still far superior.
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Ignite speeds through the Barracks looking for her bounty: the Smith.
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Enter Smith stage right. Her new elemental shock assists in taking down a dangerous foe, but she gets injured in the process. This is what happens when actors want to do their own stunts.
Ignite's HP pool is still precariously low when trying to go fast even with items.
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What’s this? Cold immune?! In Act 1 Normal?!?!
Such blasphemy.
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Ignite takes out her secret boomstick courtesy of Drognan’s overpriced shop to deal with cold immunity.
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And this from Alucard and Madeline for AOE kills.
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And this too.
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Aside 8: Time for a gear check:
+2 Nova/5 Mana per kill staff
2x Tir helm
3x Tir armor
1 mana per kill ring
+5 regen belt, ring, & ammy
+3 Frost Nova orb on switch (remember to use it for the slow effect in dangerous situations, and it still hits hard)
I get 16 mana returned per kill on a SLVL 4 Nova costing 18 mana. If I get 1 kill, I get almost all my mana back. If I get 2 kills, I gain mana.
I use Madeline to scout ahead like I did with my Nec through the Jails and Catacombs. While my Sorc was powerful up to the Jail areas, starting here her power started to drop off. Fighting Bane Ash in the Cathedral and the Smith in the barracks was just a way for me to test her strength, because I really forgot how strong a char should be at this point. I decided to hit LVL 15 before going to Act 2, but it was much easier on my Sorc than my Nec.
Time check: 16 min to 37 min including Countess runs, Smith, etc. – all progress up to Catacombs Level 4.
47 to 55 min on Madeline for scouting.
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After a streak of annihilation through the Catacombs comes the moment of truth. Final Exam for Ignite.
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Do zombies dream of electric sheep? We’ve got electricity but no polymorph upgrade on my Sorceress for sheep.
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Put on some clothes! Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to go out like that, Andy? Piercings and everything. What a rebellious one.
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Another secret weapon: Akara’s old-fashioned, home-made antidote potions.
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Aside 9: When fighting Andariel, her most dangerous attack is poison based and it deals an insane amount of damage over time. If you drink an antidote potion, you gain 50% poison resistance and +10% maximum poison resist for a short period of time. The same thing happens with thawing potions and cold resist. I keep extra antidote potions in in my inventory for the fight as well. And stock up on health and mana pots.
I did not mention this when we started, but I transferred a few stamina potions and some gold to my Sorc. The gold was to fund potions. The stamina potions were to prevent me from constantly standing around, out of stamina, waiting for it to come back up. Sorcs have such low stamina that it happens very often. Also, since my early stat points are going into STR and not VIT, I won’t have a lot of Stamina for quite some time, unlike my Sin who almost never needed Stamina pots.
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Ignite graduates from “the real world” Academy, gets new shiny boots, and into Act 2! Headmaster Andy is defeated!
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Ignite joins the party in the desert. Warriv should go see a chiropractor about that bad back he’s intent on not talking about.
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Ignite’s new shoes aren’t really her style. Madeline, do you want them?
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Those random staves and things in her stash are items with at least 5k sell value in Act 1. I keep them into Act 2 to sell for more gold. The grand charm is a +4 STR GC. It is the maximum amount of STR possible on a GC without LVL requirement, which is perfect for twinking. The ring by my GC is a random 10% FCR ring.
Oh and yes, I really got 5 Tals and 4 Rals in 6 Countess runs. The slot machine is seems forever rigged in my favor. If only this could happen in Las Vegas.
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Testing out my Sorc just like I did with my Nec and Leveling to 16. I love the smell of fried lightning beetles in the morning. Looks like this one just imploded from being too close in proximity to my awesomeness.
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Fazel w/ Defiance aura to synergize for more defense with my breastplate/helm/Frozen Armor. Sorcs have atrocious FHR, so not being hit is a very important thing. Later on, I will need to start thinking about getting my hands on some FHR for teleporting.
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Next goal: the overpowered Teleport everyone wants, but can’t have in a ladder reset.
Time and char check: 37 min to 41 min. LVL 16. All chars in Act 2.
Due to some technical difficulties and time constraints, I had to complete it over the course of a few days, but this is the end of my first “3 hour session.” Now that my chars are at a decent level and in Act 2, here is where Madeline will shine. I stack movement speed on her to quickly sidestep the scavenger hunt quests in an attempt to head straight through to Act 5 Baal, at the cost of making certain quests bugged and unable to be completed by Alucard and IgniteMemories. The ends justify the means.
I hand Madeline her orders and her new boots, armor, weapon, and eventually a new circlet for 88% Faster Run/Walk.
“They’ll never see me coming,” Madeline whispers.
And just like that… she was gone.
(roll credits)
Until next time,
Chapter 5: Tricks of the Trade
