Skull
(nightmare difficulty)
(nightmare difficulty)
[Skull completed normal difficulty at level 26. You can read his normal difficulty report here.]
Act 1
Skull started off in nightmare difficulty with this equipment: grim wand (+1 Bone Spear), 'Loath Hood' rare bone helm, bone shield of deflecting, burgundy leather armor of warding, 'Bramble Fist' rare heavy gloves, 'Ghoul Spur' rare heavy boots, 'Bramble Lock' rare belt, amulet of warding, 'Chaos Circle' rare ring, and a coral ring.
Loath Hood: requirements -20%, +3 to light radius, cold resist 6%,
lightning resist 28%, +5 to life.
Bramble Fist: +1 to light radius, cold resist 17%, fire resist 17%,
+2 to life.
Ghoul Spur: poison length reduced by 25%, fastest run/walk, cold
resist 43%, lightning resist 29%.
Bramble Lock: cold resist 23%, lightning resist 13%, fire resist 19%,
+5 to life, attacker takes damage of 3.
Chaos Circle: +1 to light radius, magic damage reduced by 2, lightning
resist 7%, +118 to attack rating, +9 to mana, +4 to strength.
Alternative wands: grim wand (+2 Corpse Explosion, +3 Amplify Damage), superior grim wand (+1 Clay Golem, +1 Iron Maiden), grim wand (+1 Bone Prison, +1 Dim Vision). This last wand he had found in act 4 and not yet used.
First, Skull decided extra mana was more useful then resists, at least for now, and swapped his amulet of warding and coral ring for a wyrm's amulet and dragon's ring. He set off into the Blood Moor with 272 points of mana.
Skull cleared the Blood Moor with his Bone Spear. In the Den of Evil,
Corpsefire was cold-enchanted. On into the Cold Plains, Skull dealt with
Bishibosh (stone skin), and an additional fallen shaman boss, Haze Rend
(extra fast and mana burn). There was a monster shrine on the Cold Plains,
and Skull triggered it while fighting a dark hunter, but it had no effect.
Maybe monster shrines only work if the target monster hasn't yet taken
damage?
The Cave was full of dark ranger bosses. On the first level, in addition to the expected encounter with Coldcrow (multiple shots), there was Snot Bite the Wraith (fire enchanted and holy fire aura) and Wrath Slime the Witch (spectral hit and blessed aim aura). Level 2 was the home of the Unclean clan. Another dark ranger boss, Ash Widow the Unclean (extra fast and multiple shots), hanging out with the skeleton boss Sharp Widow the Unclean (fire enchanted and spectral hit).
In the Burial Grounds, Skull reached level 27 just in time for his
encounter with Blood Raven. Three more levels before Bone Spirit!
He cleaned out the Mausolem and the Crypt, with one nasty-ish moment
when he was trapped in a corner by Bonebreaker and his mob.
On into the Stony Field. Skull lured a troop of skeletons to a Fire Shrine, and detonated it with most satisfying results. Rakanishu was cursed in addition to his usual abilities, but didn't present Skull with any significant problems. Down in the Underground Passage, a teleporting holy freeze skeleton archer boss gave Skull the run-around for quite a while before succumbing to Skull's mighty level 2 Bone Spear (ha!)
Bone Spear might have been struggling a bit, but Skull's
Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion combo was just as effective
as ever, here seen dispatching a group of vile hunters out
in the Dark Wood.
Treehead Woodfist was was the first of several lightning enchanted brute bosses occupying the early part of Act 1. After a short and futile attempt to do any significant damage running around taking potshots with his Bone Spear, Skull dropped a nest of Bone Prisons on top of Treehead, and let him Iron Maiden himself to death. There were a lot of sparks, all safely absorbed by the Bone Prisons. Skull was beginning to see how Bone Prison was the ultimate safety skill for the hardcore necromancer.
Back to Tristram. More Bone Prisons dealt with an Extra Strong
goatman boss, and the unfortunate Griswold. In his enthusiasm
to keep Griswold contained, Skull rather overdid his Bone Prisons..
The Tower Cellar had one bothersome encounter. Dragon Sludge the Destroyer, a dark archer boss (multiple shots and holy fire aura) lurking near the level 2 entrance. After being forced back into the alcove in front of the door, Skull resorted to smothering the archers with Bone Prisons to absorb their arrows while he Bone Speared them to death.
Skull used Bone Prison and Iron Maiden to dispose of The Countess (stone skin). By now, he was getting just a little frustrated with the limited damage output of his Bone Spear, and impatient for level 30 when he could start developing Bone Spirit as a more powerful attack spell.
Skull cleared out the Tamoe Highland, where a lightning enchanted dark stalker boss defeated his attempts to corral her in Bone Prisons by sneakily picking teleport as her secondary ability. Eventually he just used Bone Spear and tanked her sparks. He cleared the Pit without problems, and just made level 28 before picking up the Outer Cloister waypoint. He ended this first nightmare session with a spot of gambling at Gheed's, picking up a rather nice rare quilted armor (Death Jack -- lightning resist 22%, fire resist 12%, +48 life).
Next session, there was a yeti boss in the Outer Cloister. It claimed it was a relative, but Skull didn't remember there being a furry branch to his family tree.
In the Barracks, Skull swapped to the junk ring Akara
had given him when he met up with a pack of devilkin shaman, the boost
to his fire
resist taking most of the sting out of their fireball volleys.
Hmmm. This ring wasn't completely useless, it seemed
As he progressed, Skull found the monsters taking an increasingly long time to kill with his Bone Spear. He used Bone Prison and Iron Maiden on a death clan boss, and again on the Smith (who had a might aura when first encountered, but had somehow managed to convert to holy freeze after Skull made a brief trip back to town).
Down into the Jail, things were becoming more dangerous for Skull. Death clan hit hard and took a long time to kill, taking some big chunks out of his life ball when he wasn't paying attention to keeping his Bone Armor up.
The toughest fight through this section was with Storm Fester, a skeleton archer boss (extra strong and multiple shots) guarding the door to the first room on level 3, with a group of death clan running interference.
In the Inner Cloister, Skull stopped to pay his respects to Flamespike the Crawler, an inoffensive beastie sadly removed for the Expansion (boo! hiss!)
The Cathedral was guarded by two tainted bosses, both cold enchanted, one combining this with the might aura and the other with mana burn. And Bone Ash, of course.
On the first level of the Catacombs, a tainted champion dropped
a grim wand with the Poison Explosion skill, giving Skull the opportunity
to turn some of his opponents a pretty shade of
green
There were two arach champion groups near the entrance on level 2
of the Catacombs. The green team lurking in one of the little corner rooms that
always contains champions or a boss of some sort, and the brown team
that he accidentally woke while chasing down a fleeing spider from the
first group. Things got a little hairy for a while, dealing with two
champion packs simultaneously, until Skull got them safely trapped in
his Bone Prisons.
Also on this level were two lightning enchanted dark shaman bosses, Blade Lust the Unclean (extra fast) and Blood Growler the Sharp (extra strong).
Catacombs level 3 was afflicted territory. No less than three bosses, and a champion pack. Skull discovered that the range of the afflicted's lightning blobs was less than they thought -- with careful positioning he could stand just outside of their range, and they would sit and spit at him harmlessly while he Bone Speared them with impunity.
Murphy smiled on Skull for his encounter with Andariel.
A sarcophagus in the first room on level 4 contained Death's Hand (50% poison
resist and 75% poison length reduction). With this and a rugged amulet
of defiance he had been saving, he was virtually immune to Andariel's
poison attack, his life ball barely blinking green each time he was hit.
Act 2
Skull started nightmare Act 2 at level 28, with his experience bar around two-thirds full. He was using mostly the same equipment as at the start of Act 1: grim wand (+1 Bone Spear), 'Loath Hood' rare bone helm, bone shield of deflecting, 'Death Jack' rare quilted armor (gambled in Act 1), 'Bramble Fist' rare heavy gloves, 'Ghoul Spur' rare heavy boots, 'Bramble Lock' rare belt, wyrm's amulet (+53 mana), 'Chaos Circle' rare ring, and 'Skull Spiral' rare ring (from Akara).
Down into the sewers. The first monster Skull encountered was a sand raider boss, Flame Wing the Slasher (magic resistant and teleportation).
A while later, Skull had cleared the level, with just one monster remaining. That same sand raider boss, who had foiled his every attempt to corner and destroy it, constantly teleporting around corners and healing before he could regain line-of-sight for his Bone Spear.
The battle was eating into Skull's blue pot supply, and he was about ready to give up, but eventually sheer stubbornness paid off. One of Flame Wing's teleports failed to find an architectural obstacle, and Skull's Bone Spear barrage was at last able to finish the monster off.
[If I didn't know better, I'd swear the 'magic resistant' ability granted bosses some extra resistance to Skull's Bone Spear and Bone Spirit attacks. It always seemed that bosses with this ability took Skull an extra long time to kill.]
There were two gem shrines in the sewers, which Skull used to enhance his skull collection, obtaining his first perfect skull.
Skull killed Radament (extra fast and extra strong), and then a few monsters outside the gates of Lut Gholein put him up to level 29. Skull was all for pressing on immediately, but his player insisted on having him full-clear the sewers three more times, gaining approximately one-third of a level each time, until he had reached level 30.
At last! Bone Spirit! Triumphantly, Skull sold off his wand of +1 Bone Spear, and equipped his wand of Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion.
Out in the Rocky Waste, Skull soon discovered that, for the point in the game where you can acquire it, level 1 Bone Spirit is unbelievably pathetic. He struggled through the Stony Tomb, killing off a conviction aura Creeping Feature on level 2, and progressed on into the Dry Hills.
The entryway to the Halls of the Dead was packed with undead, three hollow ones and their attendants in the strip of passage circling the entrance. Skull experimented briefly with his Dim Vision wand to blind the hollow ones, but the duration of level 1 Dim Vision was too short to be useful, so it was back to the usual tactic of Corpse Exploding the skeleton mob as they fell to his Bone Spirit.
The rest of the Halls were cleared without incident, with Bone Spirit and occasional use of Bone Prison. Afterwards, with his gold carrying capacity maxed out, Skull went on a gambling spree at Elzix's, picking up some more or less useless magic jewelry, and the unique Nagelring.
Next session, in the Far Oasis, Skull reached level 31. The increased power of level 2 Bone Spirit was immediately noticeable. Skull had no problems dealing with a lightning enchanted Beetleburst, or either of the other two beetle bosses that were sharing the Oasis.
In the Lost City, Skull tried for a while to kill Dark Elder with his Bone Spirit. Really he did. But level 2 Bone Spirit against the plague bearer boss's 75% resistance to magic damage was just too tedious. Skull dug his Iron Maiden wand out of mothballs, threw up a couple of Bone Prisons, and it took almost no time for Dark Elder to wipe himself out.
Ancient Tunnels. Claw Viper Temple. Skull was developing a particular loathing of mummy sarcophagii, which took forever to destroy. He adopted the tactic of killing each emerging mummy, and using Corpse Explosion, aiming to catch both the next mummy and the sarcophagus itself in the blast.
On level 2 of the Temple, Fangskin was a much tougher opponent than he had been in normal difficulty. Skull managed to avoid getting too badly mobbed at the entrance, using Corpse Explosion to clean out the minions before he dealt with the salamander boss.
Down through the Palace Cellar, Skull practiced the art of firing his Bone Spirit blindly through doorways, letting the auto-aiming deal with horror archer packs before they could target him with their arrows.
Skull reached level 32 in level 3 of the Cellar. He finished this session after venturing down into the Arcane Sanctuary and dealing with the Specter boss (Flame Hack the Shade, magic resistant and fire enchanted) that had spawned right beside the waypoint.
Next session the specter boss was back, with a new name but the same abilities.
Skull donned Greyform, the unique quilted armor, before venturing deeper into the Arcane Sanctuary (he had picked this up in some earlier gambling session). With maxed fire resist, and -5 MDR, even The Summoner's firewalls couldn't hurt him. Skull killed The Summoner without ever seeing him, firing off a stream of Bone Spirits in roughly the direction of his platform.
On the third leg of the Sanctuary, Skull found his first grim helm. Whooo! He saved this in town, intending to take it for imbue later.
But then, disaster struck. Skull was dutifully (and slowly) killing off lightning spires when he was ambushed by a pair of ghoul lords and a pack of specters, the ghoul lords managing to trap him on the walkway where the specters beat up on him, leaving him with nowhere to go and nothing to do except a quick save-and-exit before he used up his purple pot supply.
Skull lost everything he had on ground in town, including his new grim helm, and the Amulet of the Viper. A quick trip back to the Temple to visit Fangskin got him a replacement Amulet (and also level 33), but he finished clearing the Arcane Sanctuary without finding another grim helm.
Having skipped the Maggot Lair earlier, Skull now went back to get his Staff. Coldworm was spectral hit, which seemed a little pointless.
The Canyon of the Magi had crushers and devourers. The tombs had a lot of unraveler bosses, with a few gorebelly and beetle bosses thrown in for variety. Skull found a grim wand with +3 to Confuse, and tried getting some unraveler minions to help in killing their boss, but it wasn't particularly effective.
Skull found Steelclash, the unique kite shield, in one of the false tomb chests, which would have been nice if he'd been a paladin. He also found Sigon's Guard, dropped by a random apparition, which would have been very nice if he hadn't been determined on using a bone shield.
Skull was level 34 when he went to face Duriel. Equipping all the life-boosting equipment he had available gave him a total 457 life, but this turned out to be irrelevant. His sacrificial merc died immediately, taking the first charge like a good merc should, but then Skull got Duriel locked down..
Skull killed Duriel with a combination of Iron Maiden and Bone Spirit. With a chamber full of Bone Prisons, Duriel never came close to hitting Skull.
Duriel dropped a rare bone shield. Yay! It had a couple of nice resists, and Skull kept it for possible use later.
Act 3
Skull started off in Act 3 using (almost) exactly the same equipment as at the start of Act 2. With just one exception. Having sold off his Bone Spear wand, he was now mostly using his wand of Corpse Explosion and Amplify Damage.
Skull set off into the Spider Forest. He killed a cloud stalker boss (Chaos Brow, cold enchanted and mana burn), and looked around for his Jade Figurine. It wasn't there.
The fetish boss Spine Cloud the Jagged (cursed and mana burn) wasn't carrying Skull's Figurine either. He had cleared a sizable portion of the Spider Forest, and the entire Arachnid Lair, before he found his Figurine, dropped by a giant lamprey boss in the Spider Cavern (Bone Kill the Hammer, cold enchanted and cursed).
Progress through the jungles of Act 3 was easier in nightmare than it had
been in normal difficulty. Skull's inreasingly powerful Bone Spirit (level 7 by the time
he reached Kurast) was more effective against the nightmare monsters than his
single point in Bone Spear had been against the monsters in normal, and he had
Bone Prison to safely contain the more dangerous beasts (Sszark and Stormtree
and a few others).
Strangely, there was only one gold chest alcove in the Great Marsh. Skull ran round the entire area a couple of times looking for any openings he might have missed, but could find none.
Things got more interesting in Kurast. Or, more accurately, under Kurast. The Ruined Temple had spider magus champions guarding the doorway, requiring some nifty footwork on Skull's part before he was able to safely trap them in Bone Prisons.
The Ruined Fane had a wailing beast boss (teleport and spectral hit).
Skull went to Asheara for first a cold merc (Geshef) and then a fire merc (Phaet)
to assist in taming his foe, but the teleporting beast just would not die.
Eventually Skull hit upon the idea of using his Iron Maiden wand, and with the beast's own strength assisting in its destruction, he and Phaet were able to bring it down.
Phaet assisted Skull in clearing out the Kurast Sewers and completing his collection of body parts, but met his fate in Upper Kurast, falling victim to Snot Fester, a stone skin and cold enchanted zealot boss.
The Forgotten Reliquary had a night lord boss with a familiar-sounding name. Stone Maul the Slayer? He was cursed and extra strong, and not nearly so difficult to dispose of as his wailing beast cousin.
On into Travincal. Skull reached level 37 shortly after entering the city. He went back to clear out the two causeway temples before attempting to deal with the high council.
Ismail Vilehand was extra fast, cursed and magic resistant. Skull hired the cold merc Narphet to slow Ismail down.
Skull had to go back to Asheara for another cold merc (Khaleel) to help with Geleb Flamefinger, who had also acquired the extra fast attribute. Toorc Icefist was merely extra strong, and Skull was able to deal with him without mercenary assistance.
Down into the Durance of Hate..
With the increasing power of his Bone Spirit, Skull hadn't been using his Corpse Explosion skill so much recently, but slow-moving cadaver groups were ideal Corpse Explosion targets. Skull had little problem clearing the first two levels of the Durance.
After a quick peek down at level 3, Skull went back to town for some of his alternative equipment. With an amber amulet of the mammoth and the unique boots Hotspur he had his lightning resist up to the 75% max, and raised his fire resist to 90%.
Back down to the Durance. Skull cleared the blood lords and undead stygian doll champions out of the first room.
Into the central part of Mephisto's lair. Bremm Sparkfist appeared and raised up hydras around him, while Skull shot Bone Spirits back across the pools of blood. Skull raised up Bone Prisons, attempting to contain Bremm's sparks, but the council boss was too close to the platform edge. However the mass of bone did distract Bremm from his self-healing enough that Skull's Bone Spirits were able to finish him off.
Next up was Wyand Voidbringer, the teleporting freak, who had gained extra strong as his bonus ability. Skull slipped back to town to hire Raldin, another of Asheara's cold mercs, and with his help Wyand was defeated.
Maffer Dragonhand killed Raldin. And Vanji. There was just one cold-skilled mercenary left in Asheara's list, an untried youth by the name of Telash, who had not yet mastered the art of fast cast.
Skull and Telash returned to the fray. It was a tough fight, but eventually, and somewhat to Skull's surprise, the pair of them prevailed.
After the council bosses, Mephisto was an anti-climax. Skull buried him in Bone Prisons, and even Telash survived the encounter without a scratch.
Mephisto dropped a rare grim helm! Its best attribute was its 25K selling price. Bah.
However, one of the council minions had dropped a superior grim helm, and when Skull took this back to Charsi for imbue, the results were much more to his liking..
Act 4
With the aid of an amulet of the titan, Skull was able to equip his new helm immediately. When he entered Hell, this amulet and the helm itself were the only pieces of equipment he had changed from the start of Act 3.
Skull stopped to talk to Jamella for a moment before heading down the stairs. She very kindly gave him a new Nightsmoke to replace the one he had lost in Act 2. With this, his resists were a quite respectable 74/61/MAX/-10. 373 life and 316 mana.
The stairs were guarded by balrog champions. Skull blocked the stairs with Bone Prisons, standing safely behind them while his Bone Spirit cleared the way.
The Outer Steppes were cleared without incident. There were hordes of cliff lurkers, and Skull really appreciated the tracking ability of his Bone Spirits. A random pit lord dropped a skull, bringing his collection to one perfect, two flawless, and one normal.
Izual was waiting right at the stairs down to the Plains of Despair. Skull lured him back onto the Outer Steppes, all the way to the stairs to the Pandemonium Fortress, to save time in his (many) trips back to town to get his mana ball refilled.
The Plains of Despair had flesh spawners, and both burning souls and doom casters, which Skull thought was overdoing it a bit. But one of them dropped another skull for his collection, so he let it slide.
On his trips back to town, Skull had been gambling regularly with Jamella, who produced first a pair of near-godly boots (Dire Brogues -- fast hit recovery, faster run/walk, poison resist 8%, cold resist 31%, fire resist 42%, +16 strength), and then a hidurare belt (Stone Buckle -- cold resist 21%, +23 mana, +21 life, +13 strength), as well as some useful rare rings and amulets.
With his new boots and belt, Skull was able to drop the amulet of the titan, replacing it with an amber amulet of the mammoth. He replaced his Skull Spiral ring with one of the new rings from Jamella, which had cold and fire resist and -1 MDR. This gave him resists of MAX/66/MAX/-12, 429 life and 319 mana.
The City of the Damned had the damned, corpse spitters and stranglers, a bat boss (Stone Shard the Slasher, magic resistant and lightning enchanted), and the obligatory one or two maw fiends in cages. It also had a gem shrine, giving Skull his second perfect skull.
Somewhere in the City, Skull reached level 38. Two points put in strength enabled him to take off his new belt, replacing it with his old Bramble Lock. He also switched to another of the rare rings from Jamella. The net effect of all this was an extra 4% cold resistance, and an extra -1 MDR, with just a small loss of life and mana.
Skull finished this session at the City of the Damned waypoint.
Next session, Skull had to kill a few stygian hags, stranglers and pit lord champions around the waypoint before heading down to the River of Flame.
The River was populated with blood maggots, more blood maggots, stranglers
and pit lords. Skull used Corpse Explosion a lot to thin out the swarms of
blood maggot young. He amused himself creating the rarely-seen blood maggot
young champion with the help of a monster shrine.
For his encounter with Hephasto, Skull put on a belt of the colossus, giving him a total of 465 life. Not that he had any intention of letting the Armorer hit him, but accidents could always happen.
Hephasto turned out to be lightning enchanted, which was cool with Skull, who just let his Bone Prisons absorb all the sparks. The Hellforge was a disappointment, producing no skulls at all, but a gem shrine further up the river gave him his third perfect skull. Yay!
Skull reached level 39 shortly before he reached the gates of The Chaos Sanctuary. Right at the gate was probably his toughest fight in the whole Sanctuary. Spirit Ripper, a storm caster boss (holy shock aura and extra strong), who pushed him all the way back to the River of Flame waypoint.
Skull and his Bone Spirits ripped through the rest of the Santuary with little problem. He took great satisfaction in downing the oblivion knights with their own favored spell.
Lord De Seis was lightning enchanted. Skull fired Bone Spirits from off-screen, and killed several of De Seis's minions before ever seeing them.
The Grand Vizier was a tougher fight. He had gained the multiple shots ability, and Skull was happy to let him waste those shots on a thick nest of Bone Prisons.
The Infector of Souls was cursed.
And Diablo? Ha! Skull returned to town to change equipment one last time before humiliating Diablo with his Bone Prisons and Bone Spirits. With maxed resistances and -7 MDR, Skull's shield and Bone Armor were sufficient to protect him entirely from Diablo's lightning attack, if the Lord of Terror even managed to score a hit.
Skull's adventures will continue in hell.
Skull full-cleared nightmare difficulty, becoming a Duke at level 39 with the stats
shown. Skills at this point:
Equipment:
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