Finally!

These are the images for part 2 that I seem to be unable to edit the post of...

Images of parts 4 and 5.







This post was edited by Maltacus on Apr 26 2024 04:49am

Back on track.

6. Mobs


With the sorceress academy indefinitely closed for renovation the students have been sent to Lut Gholein for a hastily conjured field project course in comparative conjuration. With the lack of public school transportation available the main route is by caravan with Warrivs World-Encompassing Wayfaring, quickly dubbed the "false WWW" by the WWW. Unfortunately, the road is dangerous and everything from sparse demonic incursions to unwashed peasant mobs litter the way.

In civilized areas the term "witch-hunt" is a derogatory dismissal of investigators paranoia and chasing of mere phantasms and insubstantial prejudice. In the rural backwaters that cover much of Sanctuary like the otherwordly Zerg creep or warcraftly undead blight, it is a favorite pastime taken most seriously.

"A witch!"

"A witch!"

"Burn her!"

"Buuurn her!"

"Not you again... Listen, these are my passengers, travelling with my caravan through your...picturesque...lands. We will soon be out of your way, if you would just let us pass along the road."

"We don't take kindly t' yerrr kind here!"

"No, that is plain obvious. You don't take too kindly to anyone but yourselves here, you have made that transparent on many occasions. Fortunately, if you just let us part ways we won't be here anymore."

"Burn the witches!"

"Aye, burn them!"

"Listen, how do you even know they are witches?"

"She turned me into a NEWT!"

"And me into a frog!"

"And me into a pig..."

"..."

"I got better..."

"Burn her anyway!"

During this high point of the intellectual debate the WWW decides to join the constructive discussion.

"ENOUGH! Will you hillbilly headholes get out of the way and go back to your pet worms and mud plantations or whatever it is you fleas do for fun, so we can get out of your stinking countryside where nobody would want to set foot even if they were paid to do so?"

"The witch!"

"The witch!"

"Yes, we ARE witches, we are sorceresses of the Zann Esu, elementary. MAGIC IS MIGHT! Now get out of our way."

"Burn her!"

"You are practically begging for it now..."

"ZAP!"

"ZAP!"

"ZAP!"

"Ow! Wha's going on?"

"That is the spell called static field. It is guaranteed to be non-lethal, but by now perhaps my light thwack with my staff won't be, so why not crawl back to your little slimy burrows under the local rotten logs, hmm?"

"Uuuuuh..."

"Bo!"

"A witch! Run! Aaaaiiih!"

The rest of the journey passes on without major interruptions having to be dealt with forcefully. Really, static field is such a useful little skill that any witch...sorceress...could find useful in some situation.

7. Concerning Iron Wolves

The weakest of the mercenaries in the eyes of most, the iron wolves offer quite the challenge for any employer wishing to use them as protection. In my opinion they do however possess three important qualities that a cunning player should be able to take advantage of.

First, the iron wolves retreat gradually like the rogues and don't rush into enemy mobs like a madman like the barbarians or wander aimlessly like a confused sheep in the manner of a town guard. This behavior can in fact turn out to work very well with an employer who is a ranged combatant and wishes to whittle down the foe with a fighting retreat.

Secondly, the iron wolves do not swing their swords. Why is this ludicrous habit an advantage? Since they never attack with the sword itself, they can dedicate the weapon slot to purely defensive purposes without ruining their attacking power as would be the case if they wielded the weapon. This effectively adds another armor slot.

Thirdly, they are the only mercenary with a shield. While they do not block (which would have been tremendously nice and balanced them with their colleagues), a shield can never the less be a formidable asset.

All in all, the WWW:s future companions must make use of their four armor slots instead of two to compensate for their low life and lack of combat abilities and gear effects that can cripple opponents. With no blocking available, the way to save their red clad hides will be mainly resistances, damage reduction and extra life. Let's take a closer look at what sort of equipment that could be available.

Swords



Armor



Helms



Shields



The employers will likely rely a lot on rune words, like memory staves and smoke armor, which is great for the iron wolves since they are much likelier to make use of magical or unique items. That leaves socketing from Larzuk to be spent on enhancing a unique or magical armor piece or two. Drill a hole in the iron pelt or two in a magical shield and pile up on damage reduction.

Finally, what can be expected from all this? Assume that a normal monster deal 100 damage. The sorceress has cast the cheap weaken curse from her Smoke armor.
The monster is left dealing 66 damage.
The iron wolf has a 3 sol'd helmet + 4 sol'd armor + 2 sol runes in a socketed shield, with resistances covered by shield magic and weapon socketing, a not unreasonable low end mercenary gear.
63 PDR in total.
The monster deals 3 damage. Case closed.

Now assume a mean monster dealing 200 damage.
Weaken cast from Smoke leaves it dealing 132 damage.
63 PDR in total.
69 damage is inflicted. Ouch, but not catastrophic. The iron wolf can take a few hits before the employer needs to teleport.

8. Sailing Sea Witches

In Lut Gholein, Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina suspiciously subscribes to a sailing course. It is supervised by the master navigator, or waypoint-finder as the local term is, Moana. Moana is a ruthless taskmaster worse than Shenk the Overseer, who notes the slightest mistakes and berates them loudly. She is assisted by her two sisters Whinea and Complaina who are similarly inclined to voice their displeasure.

N00bs and ignorant rookies believe that having a plotter onboard will solve all navigational problems. Their lack of understanding is made apparent when Moanas fleet suffers the calamities from having not one but three plotters commanding vessels and plotting new mischief and creative ways to demonstrate their disapproval of their sailing instructors narrow-mindedness. For instance, Wilma has learned how to conjure chilling gale winds, nearly a veritable blizzard, in the desert climate no less! Wilhelmina on her hand summons a fierce thunder storm. Moana, Whinea and Complaina moans and whines and complains for days about the mess caused and promptly consigns the WWW to the course Basic Careening For Dummies And Insufferable Witches. The WWW grumbles and vows to prove just how troublesome a disgruntled sea witch can become.



At least Moanas pet island boar is funny and can be sent to raid and jump into Moanas and her sisters fruit baskets and lunch boxes, which the WWW encourage with all their heart.

The big finishing event of the sailing course is navigating across the sea to Kurast and back. Many dangers lurk under the waving waves, and there may be a tiny expectancy present that the WWW will end their careers as underwater sea witches instead. Unfortunately that is not to be. The Kurast eels or whatever they are that sticks their heads up to spit slime at the newcomers are promptly melted and blasted into fish food. Quickly understanding who is the master around, the rest of the eels bow to the sea witches like the born sycophants that they are. The WWW appreciate the break from the daily sailing routine that the pet project of electrically charging the eels present. Studied as they are, Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina know that there is nothing like field testing to determine if ones hypothesis is correct, and so send their buzzing eels towards Moanas vessel.


This post was edited by Maltacus on Apr 29 2024 10:28am

9. Terrors of Tristram

The Sorceress Academy is finally restored! Students and teachers flock to its halls once more...except three of the former. Theodora Tape has managed to find the ultimate perilous group assignment to send the WWW to. It turns out that the Zakarumite cathedral of a small town in the western kingdoms houses a labyrinth cellar, leading to some murky catacombs, leading to some damp caves, leading to...in any case, deepest down is a gateway to Hell itself and a corrupt bishop has kidnapped the prince of the realm to house the lord of terror himself, breaking free from the confines of his imprisoning soulstone that has been buried underneath the cathedral.

In any case, adventurers flock to this hovel, Tristram as it is called, and with Vizjerei sorcerers being among them it would not do for the Zann Esu to not be represented as well. Now, if the demons and undead servants of the burning hells can't get rid of Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina she doesn't know who could. Outrageously enough, the WWW cheats in an appalling way and has contracted three unscrupulous mercenary mages - Haphet, Narphet and Vanji to act as henchmen for them.

Together with a banner of rogues under their captain Blood Raven and several default warriors the WWW rampages through the halls of the hellish residents. Spells fly and hideously imbalanced melee attacks rain upon the heroic party of heroes and their moderately obnoxious spellcasters. Finally the lord of terror himself stands before them and everyone screams. Cowards to the core, the WWW take turns attacking, after much fervent debating on whose turn it is.

Wilma teleports close to the demon and casts a weakening curse from a pair of rare gloves she has gambled from a suspicious-looking innkeeper. She follows up with static field and must then run screaming from Diablos lightning, circling in order to close in again. Haphet the fire mage rolls and dodges fire that is used to fight fire, very illogically. Wilma tries to sneak close to cast blizzards and retreat. She then change tactics to sniping with hydras. It is hard to tell which spell is best at hitting the elusive lord of terror. Blizzard strikes immediately but hydras mean more chances to hit with a fire bolt and they can aim on their own. Wilma finally manages to fins a corner and summon hydras around it so Diablo cannot strike back.

Wanja follows up with a much simpler approach, content with setting Diablo on fire from afar. Even though he usually doesn't stay in place for long the fire walls are powerful enough to deal serious damage during that short time. Narphet the cold mage chills out from a distance.

Wilhelmina mimics Wilmas approach and teleports close to strike first with static field. It is a close call when Diablo nearly fries the impetuous witch with his imperial lightning. The force of Vanji the lightning mage is with her though when she hurries away and skirmishes with the demon, darting close to call down a meteor and back again while storms darken the sky. Which was of course a sky, and not dark, previously. Being in the pits of hell and so. A lord of terror can only stand so much insufferable vandalism and wearily disintegrates before the three Prime Insubordinates. The WWW are victorious and both witches and mercenaries have survived the encounter! They can now contently watch as the foremost warrior wisely cuts out the red stone in which the spirit of the lord of terror dwells, and thrusts it into his own head. That will show him!

10. Concerning Early Sorceress Progress

The early caster sorceress career is in my opinion hampered firstly by a lack of mana and secondly by a lack of skill points that means less damage per mana point that the spell costs. Caster sorceress in this case includes all sorts of damage-dealing by casting spells, which is most of the sorceresses builds. Going for a casting-only approach from the start is tedious and ineffective. Even the earliest bloomers like charged bolt and ice blast need a few levels of focus and a mana pool reinforced by sapphires or Tir runes. Despite this, progress need not necessarily be slow or boring early on. In the forgiving environment of early normal there are a number of underhanded approaches that even a frail witch can make use of.

There aren't many skills that can have a huge impact so early without focus in them, but frost nova is certainly one. It is in my opinion totally game changing in early normal and I can definitely recommend a point in it just for that convenience early on. Static field, our epic boss killer, may be overkill against common enemies but it is quite the bargain against a pack of brutes or goatmen. Probably best used if you are going for a shield setup.

Acquiring a minion...trusted ally...is obviously the first step on the road to world dominion. There isn't terribly much that can be done until that but once she has bludgeoned through the Blood Moor she can usually count on having enough gold to buy large axe or a bardiche and some armor, which will have quite the effect so early on. Investing heavily in strength is thus rewarding. Keep in mind that the sorceress swing very fast with two handed axes and mauls. Javelins and throwing knives are plentiful and quite effective, even though the sorceress is no expert with those speed-wise. The same goes for scepters for those who prefer to have a shield available.

If you prefer to take your time on 8 player settings it is easiest to level up and hire a rogue from Kashya. More impatient witches might want to take on Blood Raven as early as possible. An efficient way to do that is to level up to level 6 and bombard her with poisonous potions which are fairly common in the earlier areas. Since they are thrown in an arc the mob of hungry dead will not be an obstacle and the cloud they cause ensures a fair chance to hit when Blood Raven is standing still. The way to use throwing potions is to herd large groups of monsters together and thanks to the frost novas the sorceress shines. Generally speaking you want to run in a circle around a pack of scattered enemies to make them bunch together.

The WWW did all throw pointy and foul smelling things in every direction until they could hire a rogue after clearing out most of the cold plains. Wilma and Wanja had it easy with their frost novas, being a prerequisite for their cold skills, but Wilhelmina had to do without.

From Act II and onward some casting starts to look mandatory. For the late bloomers that specialize in level 24 and level 30 spells the best options are fiery, thanks to the easily available Leaf rune word. Fire wall can deal respectable damage with just five or six skil points in it, and an early enchant together with some warlike circlet and similar equipment is enough to play as enchantress throughout the act. The even more available Steel rune word is a useful addition. Going ranged, it may be worthwhile to cube an Ort rune in order to craft a Zephyr'd composite bow to quickly deal out damage from a circlet and enchantment. A bow with three Ral runes may deal more damage but the speed and hit rate of Zephyr are important additions as well. The general idea is that spells damage groups of monsters to maximize efficiency and single enemies are slain by the hired help and weapons to conserve mana. Last but not least, having teleporting available opens the door for all sorts of interesting maneuvers to separate unravelers from their minions and similar things.

The WWW all used leaf staves and one or two magical ones before that to get a workable spell for early groups. Together with frost novas and ice blasts and their rogues, no enemy pack was really very troublesome.

11. Spelling Snow

The autumnly autumn of Tristram gives way to winter, and the WWW return in triumph to the sorceress academy with a finished report from their group project, titled "Burn you all to Hel - a case study of applied elements and practical evocation".

While professor Theodora Tape is tearing her hair in dismay over the return of the insufferable brats, the WWW are somewhat grudgingly awarded their diplomas for having passed the basic elemental magics courses of the academy, the Zann Esu Elementary. The next step on the road towards becoming a full-fledged sorceress is to apprenctice oneself to a mage to learn from the tutors specialized skills. Influential sorceresses are highly sought by ambitious apprentices and cultivate their present and future influence meticulously. Being an influencer is the pinnacle of trendiness and popularity.

The requirement that an apprentice should choose, mimic and aspire to become like, a senior sorceress has been regarded as so obvious that it has never needed to be formally codified. On paper, one need only find a spellcaster of some sort. Surely no one but a sorceress can properly instruct the green n00b in the finer points of spellcasting.

Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina promptly proceeds to shock the entire academy by blatantly breaching this established convention. Instead of a stale and stuffy elder witch, they each submit their respective mercenary mage as tutor, having maintained their employment by means of looted treasure from the dungeons below Tristram. The academy is forced to accept this irresponsible decision but some mutter that it is just as well that none of the distinguished senior sorceresses need to experience the displeasure of dealing with the WWW.

Being the employer of their so-called "mentors", the fresh apprentices begin their terms with moderate fervor. As the other students struggle frantically to keep up with the tasks and expectations of their assigned sorceress, the WWW begin the coming year with a long, long winter holiday skiing and snowball fighting with telekinesis and teleporting.

While none of them would stoop so low as to actually study, in the way the school expects, the WWW are easily bored and busy themselves by researching and practicing some of their favourite destructive spells. While certainly not in any way obedient or serving, the witches seem to be inspired in a way by their respective hired mage.

Wilma has managed to summon and befriend five absolutely adorable hydras. They do of course immediately take to Haphet, being a fire mage, and he shrewdly points out the benefits of having someone else do fireball-casting while you yourself laugh manically from afar. Especially if the caster in question is a fiery three-headed dragon impervious to enemy weapons and spells...



Narphet is a cool fellow, always knowing what to say against wise guys and self-proclaimed advisors of their neighbours and nexts. When the enemy is frozen or chilled, the caster can chill out and do a precautionary sweep of the surrounding areas, while taking the time to invent a devastating retort or insult. Wanja notes the merit and also the fact that frozen orbs offer intriguing opportunities in the perpetual snowball wars against Wilma and Wilhelmina.



Vanji has been assigned to be the companies chef. The vote was unanimous after the presentation of his spicy hallmark specialty "Spinach Vanji", served with sticky Kurast rice and the circular Van' bread. The voters do however not meet his signature greeting with quite as much enthusiasm. You can only stomach so much of "Hellooo witches! How's it going?". Vanjis nerdy affinity for electrics is far more appreciated, especially by Wilhelmina who has become quite fascinated by thunder storms. Imagine if one could conjure a lightning flash and a thunderclap just as professor Tape was going to bed? Priceless!



Life is awesome in the northlands once you have made it through a hellish hell. Everything is easy and you can feel your skills improving almost daily.

12. Concerning Statistics and Equipment

Well, now the WWW are in a living nightmare and thus having the time of their lives like the material snobs they are. Like any true Diablo II player their keepers thoughts revolve around the fundamental philosophical question of life: what sort of equipment should they aim to procure and where would be most efficient to hunt for it?

As I have hinted before, I don't count on finding any armor more useful than Smoke. As for headgear, the obvious dreamy goal is some kind of insanely overpowered circlet. Although...it is a bit boring if they all wear the same kind of headgear, isn't it? Lowering the expectations a skill level or so leaves one with looking at the well balanced Lore rune word, which is also a bargain. It has the very welcome lightning resistance to save the WWW from gloams and beetles that cover the screen with sparks. Now, with both hat and coat being rune words, the witches can look the part. Wilma will aim for the finest and flashiest gilded elegance, so a full plate it is. She will aim to crown it with an equally golden crown. Wanja finds it dull and goes for the metal spellpunk look, achieved from scale mail. Completing the vision of badass rebel witch will be a bone helm, whose horns are in fact slightly grey and matches the iron. Wilhelmina yawns at the posers and chills out in common clothing and an unrestricting circlet instead. She will thereby have a chance to get far superior bonuses from her hat.

With +3 to all skills from the Memory staves, +1 from the hat and a modest expectation of +1 from an amulet the astute observer will conclude that the WWW will be expected to make do with a meager +5 to all skills together with whatever staff mods comes from the staff itself and possibly a skill charm or two if they are lucky. I expect to need to dedicate all other equipment towards defense and mana. The latter is the object of a lot of consideration. How much mana is optimal to aim for?

Can you have too much? Probably not. Even past the point of casting more or less indefinitely, mana is always required for the energy shield, not least by those who lack its economical improvement from the telekinesis synergy. Lowering the expectations to something approaching the reality of untwinked play, is there then some threshold or limit past which more mana investment becomes significantly less useful? I'm not nearly experienced enough to know beforehand how much mana will be required to cast enough of the main spells of the WWW to knock out the typical enemy pack. Another factor is however the effect of the available mana potions. If you have at least as much mana as can be restored by the local mana potions you end up with a decent economical balance early on I found out. At least 80 mana by Act II, 160 y Act III and above 200 by Act V has been what I aimed for in normal, which worked out surprisingly well.

I have initially kept one of each lower rune and chipped gem, anticipating the ability to cube up some runes to speed the way towards the first Lum. Unfortunately I have also hoarded magic finding setups for each of the three, without really thinking about it. The stashes are now growing full and I realize there won't be room for both approaches. I am leaning towards throwing the runes out and dealing with the hassle of having to dig up any missing lower rune later in the game. While my equipment ideas are mostly based on rune words and socketed magic items for the iron wolves, there are a few really cool unique items that would add variety, and stuff like the iron pelt or skin of the vipermagi would be godly for the hired help.

The WWW will prioritize vitality, while investing just enough strength to wear their ideal equipment. That being more precisely 63 strength to be able to use any staff in the game. However, with their different fashion ideas, Wilma finds herself camping at the academy gymnasium a bit more than the others, going for no less than 80 strength to be able to don her gilded full plate. The weeds Wanja and Wilhelmina will do some silly gymnastics or something and invest 17 more points into dexterity instead to keep even. By now, some sort of endgame shopping list...eeeh, equipment plan and specification...is starting to take form.

Hat: Lore or comparable rare circlet.
Coat: Smoke armor.
Staff: Memory.

All these will be comparatively easy to come by.

Amulet: +1 to all skills and preferably tons resistances, life, mana, regeneration...
Rings: Hugely important sources of mana, and resistances, and regeneration...

These will decide a lot. The potential of rare and crafted jewelry is nearly limitless. Finding it is another matter.

Gloves: Unique caster gloves would be stylish, rare resistance gloves would be needed.
Belt: Some rare thing with resistances and life, perhaps even a magical with huge life.
Boots: Rare boots with huge resistances. Running speed is nice but not vital thanks to teleport.

These spots will have to fill much of the need for resistances. It would be extremely stylish if one witch wore the magefist and another the frostburn gloves. Crafted blood boots would be interesting for the added regeneration.

Life: 1000.
Mana: 500.

This is high for untwinked play, but not impossible with good rolls on some charms and jewelry. This is a somewhat loose goal. Damage reduction can compensate for lower life and I might find the WWW doing fine with less mana.

Fire resistance: 75.
Cold resistance: 50.
Lightning resistance: 75.
Poison resistance: 10.

This can probably be managed, but the real question is at what expense?

Regeneration: 10.
Physical or magic damage reduction: 20.

This is the fun stuff that makes a character enjoyable and comfortable to play. I am addicted to regeneration in Diablo II and having it somehow makes me play a character much smarter. 10 will be noticeable but more would be very welcome. Damage reduction just owns, because it lets you maneuver much more unhindered and shoot where you cause the most trouble.

This post was edited by Maltacus on May 5 2024 12:22pm

13. Magic Monday

Heretically enough, even winter vacations come to an end. What a nightmare. Back in the bleak and dull confines of the Sorceress Academy the WWW entertain themselves in whatever ways they can. They have heard rumors about a new safe delivered to professor Tapes office, presumably containing scandalous correspondence and arcane artifacts. It would be a stimulating group activity trying to reach that safe. Unfortunately it is placed in the cellar underneath her office and the only passage is through a long, straight tunnel with no cover at all. Even for an intruder that could teleport, it is all but impossible to avoid being spotted, and Theodora Tape is bound to have sentries and watchers guarding that passage. There is simply no way to approach save through the passage once you have entered by the stairs down just in front of it. Just like a dungeon of demonic or undead lordlings, when one thinks about it.

This ingenious design can only be the work of the foremost security sorcery firm - Franzesca Jaeger. The Franzesca Jaeger safes are world famous. Only the foremost adventurers repeatedly taking up insane challenges, such as the @jiansonz band, are believed to ever pose a threat to such deposits. Indeed, the tip about the safe is more than a little bit suspect. What if...what if it is in fact leaked by professor Tape in the first place? To lure Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina to try to crack a true Franzesca Jaeger safe and be caught in the act, and thus expelled from the academy? It would be just like that stuffy old desert wing bat! The WWW will not tolerate such provocations and promptly decides to break into the safe, just to show her. But how? There is simply no way to approach undetected through that long passage and even with the fastest cast rate possible to potentially teleport past prying eyes they would still be stuck trying to melt or freeze the safe for ages. However...the WWW do have those old building plans. They show that the areas around the passage and safe are rock and earth, with no other rooms, which makes it safe from surprise teleporting. But it is also safe to say that the safe location of the safe makes it safe from detection if one should decide that the academy needed an extra underground room or two, or perhaps a tunnel that happened to lead to the safe from an unexpected direction...

The witches have a plan. A brilliant plan. Everything is well timed and ready, to the smallest detail. They will tunnel parallel to the main entrance but at a safe distance to keep sounds minimal. Then they turn around and tunnel to breach the safe from behind. Approaching undetected will give them time to freeze the metal and crack it apart with telekinesis. But the work required is grueling! First they have to dig a deep shaft, so that the tunnel will go steadily upwards. That way they can construct a small rail and have a tiny mining wagon rolling down to the shaft with dug out rock and earth. Digging through earth is easy with telekinesis but takes such a time. Rock and stones are another matter. They must be cracked by heating and cooling the stone until it breaks. A slog of ice and fire awaits. Will such and endless crawl ever end?



And so Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina go to work, masking their insubordinate intentions as deepened studies while they go to stupefying lengths to thwart the school rules in general and professor Tape in particular. They smile mischievously and glance from one side to the other in a most suspicious and shifty manner. It's just another magic Monday for the WWW.


Wilma:

Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissing with Haphet
While my hydras were blushing off-screen

But I can't be late
'Cause our fine plans have just been laid
These are the days
When you wish that your tunnel was made

It's just another magic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day
It's just another magic Monday


Wanja:

Have to catch the mining train
Rolling down the rail just fine
And if I had a flying mount
I still couldn't make it on time

It takes the writer so long
Just to figure out what we're gonna wear
Blame it on the train
Wilhelmina is already there

It's just another magic Monday
I wish it was Tuesday
'Cause that's my ruse day
My pranks to choose day
It's just another magic Monday


Wilhelmina:

Of all of my nights
Why did the others have to pick last night to get down?
Late night, last night
Doesn't it matter that I work for the three of us
Employment's down

We try out our new arch-angels toys
I hope no one will hear all the noise
Digs isn't going fast
Mornings aren't fun

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Friday
'Cause that's my ride day
My kayak won't be dry day

It's just another manic Monday
All about one day
Boring I dare say
It's just another manic Monday