Greenies in nightmare

(Posted by Babe Bridou on May 14, 2004)

The Europe HC ladder set-only team (aka 'Green Team') gathered again on tuesday night to collect some fallen toes in nightmare.

After a quick check-up, Gunde's enchantress, Kris' fireclaws wolf, Ian's trapper, Hansi's nova sorceress, Hannes' barbarian, Jens' bonemancer and my priest roamed the blood moor for the second time. Kata's mageazon was missing, so we lacked a bit of firepower (as an enchanted piercing multishot deals only 'a bit' of damage... ;) sure...). Nevertheless, things dropped rather quickly.

IIRC, Hansi told me once : "you'll see, with 2000 life and 1000 fire damage per character including fully equipped mercs, nightmare will be a breeze". He was partly right.

We were unstoppable and sickly quick.
The trips were nice, clean and not so tidy, even though I took it as my duty to redeem corpses to allow the construction of a tourism complex around the far oasis (a secret quest given by Geglash). Actually, blood stains were rather hard to wash, not to mention the messy bubbles from Ian's death sentries. We found a lot of goodies, including a lem rune, a lum rune, silkweave boots, an impaler, a bloodletter, and the obligatory 6-pack of gems.

Nevertheless, I had an issue to deal with: skill switching.

Most of the team, including me, had resistance problems. My Salvation aura would be appreciated. Cursed boss might already be dangerous, because of the curse's long duration, so the cleansing might be of use, too. By wearing the death's sash, I accepted the 2-rows limit in pots. This forces the occasional redemption use. Meditation is still a must for my charging addiction (95 mana is not a lot) and to quickly refill my dear partners the mana-hogs (Ian, Hansi & Jens). Level 7 holy shield doesn't last long enough for me to cast it only once or twice per trip. I fight using FoH, holy bolt, charge, smite and zeal. And vigor to speed up travelling in towns. Town portal, of course, needs to be hotkeyed too. And I can always find a use for conversion, you never know...

...well okay, let's face it, at one time I went clearly over the line and completely messed my keys up. I went to the arcane sanctuary and tried to solo the southeastern path. Saw a pack of demons from the fire clan and charged them. All of a sudden, I'm surrounded, and they start to hit me while I zeal. Hannes' shout wears off. I realize that Gunde's defiant merc isn't around here, there's only my thorn merc, so I switch to defiance, mess keys and switch to holy shield. No more aura. Life starts to go down, slowly. That wasn't that bad, after all, my HS had worn out. I recast it. Now where's that defiance button? Uh, no more mana? that's because of the wraiths, let me quaff a potion so that I can fist you out of the planet. Mana potion... that's the "4" key. BUZZZ wrong key, man, you switched to redemption, and there's still no corpse. No problem, just zeal once and there will be one, whiff whiff whiff whiff, well you know, I think Gunde's enchant has worn off, too... now what to do with my 1000 AR, 50-100 damage zeal...

*dong*

no more BO. Now that's a problem. In no time I'm only down to a sliver of life left, quick! hit "1", that's the full rejuv...

All of a sudden, my screen is filled with red letters. This is it. Ian hasn't been quick enough, his shadow master has dragon flew over me and spams mindblast, but it's too late already... until I realize I pressed the 'esc' key instead of the '1' key. Yup, laptop keyboard are this small. Those red letters I'm seeing aren't RIP, but the 'save & quit' menu.

Alive. I'm still alive.

Talk about a lesson... Thank you Ian, I *definitely* owe you one!

Despite that close call and the can-I-bone-prison-Duriel-pleeeeeease argument between Jens and the rest of the team, we went up to act3 without a problem.

Levels are between 45 and 49. We are currently thinking about our high-end equipment.

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