Skull
(normal difficulty)
(normal difficulty)
[Skull is the first of my variant characters themed around the various Diablo II gem types. A necromancer specialising in Bone Spirit and Bone Prison, Skull operates under some skill and equipment restrictions detailed here.]
Dedicated to the memory of:
Skull the First - died when swarmed by a stack of apparitions and a
beetle boss pack in one of the false tombs.
Skull the Second - died to player stupidity fighting the Smith.
Act 1
Armed with the wand that would be his only weapon through the whole of this first act, Skull set out from the Rogue's camp. He and his skeletal companion made short work of the zombies and quill rats on the Blood Moor, quickly gaining Skull his first two skill points, which he put into Bone Armor and Teeth. With level one Teeth, and steadily increasing levels of Bone Armor, he cleaned out the Den of Evil and the Cold Plains. Down in the Cave, he reached level six, and got his uberskill, level one Corpse Explosion.
It wasn't an uberskill yet, though, since he didn't have the mana for more than occasional castings. For the moment he still relied mostly on Teeth and melee for his offensive capability.
Also down in the Cave, Skull found his first skull cap (of remedy), and gave up his wild old man image for the utilitarian chrome-dome foot-soldier look. On Cave Level 2 the enemy adopted a new tactic, claiming one of their number as a member of an endangered species. This might have worked on the old Skull, bare-headed and rebellious. The new merciless-killing-machine Skull was not impressed.
On into the Burial Grounds, where Skull had a piece of really good luck, getting the Arctic Furs dropped from one of Blood Raven's entourage. With 50 points in defense and +10 to all resistances, this was far better armor than he could have expected to be using this early in the game. He killed Blood Raven and picked up his free mercenary from Kashya, but she didn't survive long, falling victim to the lightning-enchanted Rakanishu, the bane of so many Act 1 mercs.
Into the Underground Passage, and Skull stumbled into some kind of undead family reunion. Steel Rend the Grim, aura-enchanted skeleton archer boss, and just around the corner was his brother, also Steel Rend the Grim, extra fast archer boss. Huh?
Skull rescued Cain from Tristram and got a ring of health from Akara for his efforts. Far more useful was the buckler of deflecting dropped by one of the Tristram monsters.
As he progressed, through the Black Marsh, the Tamoe Highland and on into the Monastery, Skull made increasing use of Corpse Explosion, developing the tactics he would use through the rest of normal difficulty -- find a group of monsters, let them beat up on his Bone Armor while he killed one or two of them with Teeth and/or meleeing with his wand, run around a bit waiting for mana to regenerate, and then explode the corpses, which would usually wipe out the rest of the mob.
Skull reached level 12 while in the Tamoe Highlands, and put his one skill point into Bone Wall, raising probably the only Bone Wall he would cast through the entire game so he could pose beside it for his level 12 screenshot.
By this time Skull had found three more Arctic Furs. Sheesh. Was his 11% Magic Find amulet really that effective?
Skull was careful to keep his Bone Armor up when fighting the Smith, and so avoided the ignoble fate of his immediate predecessor. Now at skill level 9, his Bone Armor was thick enough to keep him virtually invulnerable to physical attack, so long as he paid attention to it and recast before it expired. He cleared out the Jail, picking up a burgundy leather armor of warding which he decided to keep, in anticipation of using it for the Arcane Sanctuary later.
Skull reached level 14 killing off Flamespike in the Outer Cloister, and continued down into the Catacombs. Skull the First had found the Catacombs to be extremely slow going, with just his wand, level 1 Teeth, and occasional Corpse Explosions, and had been forced to resort to using Combat Shrines from earlier in the Act to deal with teleporting bosses. But Skull (the Third) had a secret weapon. Two rings of excellence! With his melee damage boosted from a pitiful 2-4 to a hefty 9-10 (before the undead damage bonus), he had a much easier time through the Catacombs and down to his fateful meeting with the demon queen Andariel.
Skull equipped all the 'of remedy' gear he had available (three items), and opened the door to Andariel's chamber. There was a slight hiccup in his plans when he first had to deal with a mana-burn ghoul boss, before he faced off against Andariel herself.
Skull defeated Andariel at level 15, using level 1 Teeth. Whooo!
Act 2
Skull started Act 2 using this equipment: his original wand (+1 Raise Skeleton), skull cap of stability, Arctic Furs, buckler of deflecting, burgundy heavy gloves, ocher heavy boots of the fox, tangerine sash of balance, fortuitous amulet (11%), and two rings of excellence.
Down into the Sewers he went. He hadn't killed too many skeletons before he remembered that Drognan sold bone wands, and he rushed back into town to do some shopping. Soon he was equipped with a bone wand giving him level 2 of Amplify Damage, which vastly increased the power of his Corpse Explosions. Most normal creatures now went down with a single explosion, if he remembered to curse them first. And, as his mana pool was also increasing, he was able to kill some melee-oriented bosses with a chain-explosion of their minions.
Skull did notice that Corpse Explosion (presumably post 1.03 nerf) doesn't seem to scale with the increased hitpoints of minion, champion or boss monsters.
Down at the bottom of the sewers, Skull killed Radament, and got an extra point of Bone Armor from the book of skill. Deciding impulsively to walk back through the sewers instead of portaling to town, he happened upon a dried corpse hiding in a corner that he must have missed earlier, and killing (or re-killing, he guessed, since most corpses are already dead) this monster brought him to level 16, with level 14 Bone Armor.
Out in the Rocky Waste and Dry Hills, Skull laughed at the undead scavengers, taunting them with their inability to break through his Bone Armor and set up the stunlock-death which makes them one of the more dangerous monster types in the game. Even an extra fast undead scavenger boss could do nothing against him.
Skull went down into the Halls of the Dead and picked up his Horadric Cube. He also upgraded his amulet, swapping the almost pointless 11% Magic Find amulet he had been wearing for a so much more useful 13% Magic Find amulet. Yay.
After the Halls of the Dead Skull went back to the Dry Hills and cleaned out the Stony Tomb, which he'd skipped earlier in his hurry to get to the Cube. There was a gem shrine in the Dry Hills, but he didn't have any skulls to upgrade yet, and his player forgot to send him back to it at the end of that day's session. Bah.
In the Maggot Lair Skull reached level 18, and Bone Spear. Whoooo! Finally he could put away his rings of excellence, and give up on this tiresome melee lark. He selected the throw skill for his left mouse attack, so he wouldn't go around accidentally hitting things, and Bone Spear-ed his way through the rest of the Lair. [At least, not hitting things was the theory. In practice, since the left mouse got reset to normal attack every time he changed equipment, he still ended up with the occasional accidental melee attack.]
Deeper in the Maggot Lair, Skull found this:
Even a crude bone shield had 40% blocking, and so was just as good as the buckler of deflecting it replaced, but Skull had his pride. He didn't want to be using substandard equipment any longer than he had to, so next trip to town he went and did a spot of gambling. His very first bone shield gamble gave him the attribute he most wanted for his shield! Unfortunately it didn't have any other attributes, but still a plain blue bone shield of deflecting (60% block) was entirely adequate for now.
Lost City, Ancient Tunnels, Claw Viper Temple. Skull reached level 19, and put his 16th, and last, skill point into Bone Armor. Unless he reached level 50 before he finished, Bone Armor was now maxed for the game.
On level 2 of the Temple, Corpse Explosion owned Fangskin.
The Harem and Palace Cellar were uneventful. Skull had cleared out two wings of the Arcane Sanctuary before he remembered the burgundy leather armor of warding he had been keeping for just this part of the game. Skull was beginning to suspect that his player hadn't got entirely the best memory for little in-game details.
And then (finally!) Skull found his first chipped skull. At last he could start his collection, and would have something to use if he ever found another gem shrine.
Bone Spear made short work of the Summoner. Skull didn't quite reach level 21 in the Arcane Sanctuary, but a few crushers in the Canyon of the Magi put him over the mark.
The Canyon was easy. Crushers and cats just had physical attacks, and
couldn't penetrate Skull's Bone Armor. He had to be more careful in the tombs.
Stacked apparitions could do enough damage to wear out his Bone Armor
quickly (as had happened to Skull the First). And then there were the
ghoul lords with firewalls and other elemental attacks, unravelers
(including Ancient Kaa the
lightning-enchanted), and a variety of other bosses. Skull relied
a lot on his bone armor, tanking the hits of skeletons and other
resurrectables while he took out the unravelers, and then a single
Corpse Explosion would deal with the skeleton mob. Skull knew this
tactic would likely not work in nightmare, and certainly not in
hell difficulty. But for now, it worked fine
Skull cleared out all the tombs, and was now officially doing better than either of his predecessors. For his encounter with Duriel, he put on all his equipment that had any life bonus (giving 210 total life), equipped a gold bone wand he'd bought from Drognan earlier (+1 Weaken, +1 Clay Golem, +2 Iron Maiden), and picked up a sacrificial mercenary from Greiz.
Skull used the tried and tested 'hit Duriel with Iron Maiden and throw Clay Golems at him until dead' strategy. In retrospect, he decided he would have been better off without the golems. His Bone Armor was thick enough to protect him even from Duriel's charge, and with just Bone Armor and Iron Maiden to worry about, there would have been less confusion over hotkeys.
Skull made one trip to town to restock his sash midfight. He would have made more, but his stupid player sent him back down the second time with an empty town portal tome, and he ended up having to drink mana potions out of inventory. Bah. Skull decided it was time to get a bigger belt.
Duriel dropped a bone helm! Whoooo! Unfortunately it was just Tancred's Skull, with an entirely useless +40 attack rating, but it was still a significant symbolic moment, as Skull finally got the all-important 'look'.
After defeating Duriel, Skull made a large donation to Elzix's Foundation for Orphaned Children and Innkeepers. Elzix kept promising him 'good stuff', but all he ended up with was a selection of not very interesting belts.
Act 3
Skull started Act 3 at level 22 using this equipment: bone wand (+2 Amplify Damage), bone shield of deflecting, Tancred's Skull, Arctic Furs, leather gloves of the tiger, tangerine heavy boots of the fox, belt of balance, dragon's amulet of accuracy, ring of warding, and drake's ring of regeneration.
Out into the Spider Forest. The Jade Figurine was dropped by an aura-enchanted Jungle Hunter boss. Shortly after this encounter, a cloud stalker dropped a flawed skull, which Skull added to his (so far) tiny collection.
There were a lot of cloud stalkers in the Spider Forest today. Them and suckers. Skull didn't mind, he just fired off a few bone spears, and they dropped like, well, flies.
The first junction Skull found was the entry to the Great Marsh, guarded by a fire-enchanted gloam boss. Skull killed the boss and his pack and retreated, continuing to explore the Spider Forest.
Next was the alcove with the Spider Cavern. Mostly the spiders were easy prey for Corpse Explosion, but Sszark and his pack did manage to chase Skull around a bit (when cursed, even in normal difficulty Sszark could probably wipe out his Bone Armor in one hit, though he might have needed a critical to do so). Eventually Skull wore Sszark down to the point where the spider ran off and tried to hide in a corner. How pitiful.
The Arachnid Lair had a bat boss. Skull was not impressed.
Unusually, the second exit from the Arachnid Lair alcove led straight into the flayer village area with the Gidbinn and the Flayer Dungeon. Skull took advantage of this layout to get his Gidbinn ring and free mercenary before heading back to the Great Marsh. The ring was nothing special, but had -2 magic damage, so it was an easy choice to replace his current ring of warding.
Asheara gave him Jelani, a lightning mercenary who proved exceptionally adept at locating stray gloams.
Jelani survived the battle for the first Great Marsh chest. Barely. He had just a sliver of life and was still green when Skull got him back to Ormus. The second chest battle proved too much for the poor mercenary, and Skull continued on alone. After clearing the Great Marsh, he put off doing the Flayer Dungeon for the time being, pressing on deeper into the Flayer Jungle. In the Swampy Pit he found a gem shrine, and upgraded his chipped skull to flawed. His skull collection now stood at two flawed skulls.
Skull cleared the whole of Lower Kurast before he returned to the Flayer Dungeon. Things were progressing smoothly enough, until suddenly, this happened:
Skull got out of there in something of a hurry, and berated his player for not paying more attention. Bone Armor didn't protect him from everything.
Back in town, Skull swapped his Arctic Furs for his burgundy leather armor of warding, and put back on his old burgundy heavy gloves. With this equipment, the shamans' infernos ceased to be life-threatening. Indeed, he was able to stand in the flames, drinking just the occasional red pot while his level 1 bone spear dealt with Witch Doctor Endugu.
Skull pointed out, in case his player had missed it, the importance of elemental resists. He also reached level 24 while down in the dungeon, and put his first skill point into Bone Prison.
Time for another donation to Elzix's Foundation. At least this time Skull got some
half-decent rare gloves (cold and fire resist), and fastest run boots with good cold and
lightning resist. The boots came in a stylish blue color, too.
Before proceeding into the Kurast Bazaar, Skull swapped his belt of balance for a coral belt, giving him resists of 33% for fire, and 60% each cold and lightning.
A zakarumite in the Bazaar dropped a superior bone helm, which had better defense than his Tancred's Skull, so he switched helms, since the attack rating bonus on the Tancred's Skull was irrelevant, even though he did rather like the way it looked on him, yellowing and slightly decayed.
A sexton boss and her minions gave Skull some small trouble, healing each other faster than he could damage them. He resorted to luring the minions away and dealing with them individually. Without her pack the boss was helpless.
The Ruined Temple had flesh hunter champions as well as Sarina. The Disused Fane had a spider carrying a flawed skull. Skull took his three flawed skulls and cubed them, reducing his collection to one normal skull.
On into Upper Kurast. The gate to the Causeway was guarded by infidels, who weren't a problem, and a heirophant boss, who was. Repeated attempts to lure any of the minions away from their boss proved fruitless. Skull stood in the gateway and blasted one of the minions with bone spears while he tried to think of a plan.
He was still thinking when the heirophant minion he was targeting took it into her head to teleport around behind Skull. Suddenly out of range of the healing powers of her compatriots, she quickly crumbled into a heap of ashes. "Aha!" thought Skull, "The stupidity of my enemies shall be their undoing!" He repeated the process with the other minions, and soon secured the gate.
Skull cleared out the two temples in Upper Kurast, and then down into the sewers.
Around this time, on one of his visits to Ormus he noticed for sale a superior grim wand
(+1 Clay Golem, +1 Iron Maiden). Skull wasn't sure yet what strategy he would use
against Duriel in nightmare, but decided to pick up this wand in case it proved
useful. He sold off all his bone wands, and switched to using grim wands
exclusively. Subsequent visits to Ormus added two more grim wands to his
collection, one with +1 to his Bone Spear skill, and one (his uber-wand of the moment)
with +2 Corpse Explosion and +3 Amplify Damage.
Travincal. Ghoul lords and meteors. The high council. Well, half of the high council, at least. Skull experimented a bit with Bone Prison to restrain the council bosses, but soon realised that Bone Prison isn't that useful against monsters that can teleport. Still, he killed them all with no real problems.
Before he went down into the Durance, Skull stopped off at the two remaining temples on the Causeway.
Skull cleared out the first two levels of the Durance, and stepped cautiously down the stairs to level 3. The screen dissolved in a mess of pyrotechnic effects. Eep. Skull decided he needed more fire resist. He made a hasty strategic withdrawal to town, where he swapped his fastest run boots for a pair of garnet heavy boots of the jackal, and his second (drake's) ring for a coral ring. He now had 55% resists for fire and lightning, 17% cold, and -3 magic damage reduction. With this, he was able to deal with the blood lords swarming the first section of the Durance level 3.
It wasn't enough for Bremm Sparkfist though. He had to return to town again, adding another point of magic damage reduction from an amulet of warding before he could stand up to Bremm's charged bolt field long enough to bring him down.
Next up was Wyand Voidbringer. His mana burn was annoying, but not exactly dangerous. But the combination of teleport and the council boss's innate healing skill was just too much for level 2 Bone Spear. Skull replaced his amulet of warding with a crimson amulet of the apprentice, but that still wasn't enough.
What to do?
In a moment of inspiration, Skull returned to Asheara and bought himself a cold-skilled mercenary (Ajheed). With the help of Ajheed, the healing power of the council boss was tamed. In his chilled state, Wyand fell quickly to Skull's Bone Spear, and Maffer Dragonhand soon followed.
Ajheed survived just the first quarter of Skull's battle with Mephisto, condemned to an untimely death by the 10x multiplier applied to act boss damage against minions. Skull thought this was a mite unfair, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Elzix was in a generous mood when Skull visited him at the end of this game session, giving him the unique belt Nightsmoke, a potentially useful rare quilted armor (39% lightning resist, +33 life), and no less than two of Vidala's Ambush, gambled for 7K and immediately sold for 20K.
Act 4
Skull entered Act 4 at level 25 using this equipment: grim wand (+1 Bone Spear), bone shield of deflecting, superior bone helm, burgundy leather armor of warding (he had finally sold off the Arctic Furs), 'bramble fist' rare heavy gloves, 'ghoul spur' rare heavy boots, Nightsmoke, wyrm's amulet, 'chaos circle' rare ring, and a coral ring. [Stats for rare items can be found below.]
Skull dealt with the teleporting doom caster boss waiting at the base of the stairs, then switched to his alternate grim wand (+2 Corpse Explosion, +3 Amplify Damage) for more effective Corpse Explosions. He also replaced his coral ring with a dragon's ring, sacrificing some lightning resist for more mana.
The Outer Steppes had mostly cliff lurkers and flesh spawners. The Plains of Despair had more flesh spawners, doom casters and venom lords. And Izual, lurking not far from the entrance. Skull had already decided to use Izual for his first serious experiment with Bone Prison. This almost led to disaster when he was unexpectedly ambushed by a group of nearby monsters while he had Izual trapped inside nested Bone Prisons.
After this little interlude, Skull led Izual back to the Outer Steppes, where he could be sure of not being interrupted while he continued the experiment.
Using his Clay Golem and Iron Maiden wand, Skull confirmed several things. Firstly, in the 1.06 patch you still don't get any experience for Iron Maiden on Bone Prison kills (useful if you're aiming for a low-character-level game finish), Secondly, a non-teleporting monster inside a nest of Bone Prisons is very much not a threat. And thirdly, Izual takes a heck of a long time to kill himself with Iron Maiden.
Skull found a monster shrine, and promoted one of the baby flesh beasts to boss status. Blood Crow the Sharp. It was almost cute, flapping around after him on its stubby little arms. And for some reason it turned blue when it died.
The damned were not at home in the City of the Damned. Instead there were stranglers, stygian hags, pit lords, and a few maw fiends in cages. Skull had one nasty moment, getting surrounded by a motley horde of monsters while going after a skill shrine, but Corpse Explosion got him out of the mess.
Next game session the damned had returned to their city. Skull killed a few of them, clearing the area around the waypoint before heading down the stairs to the River of Flame.
Blood maggots, urdars and abyss knights on the river. Skull discovered that the 'stun attack' of an urdar would stun even if all damage was absorbed by his Bone Armor. He also discovered that the range of Bone Spear was greater than the range of an abyss knight's missile, and killed a few without ever seeing them onscreen, aiming for the point where the missile appeared. Some urdar champions got the Bone Prison and Iron Maiden treatment, as did Hephasto.
The Hellforge produced a normal skull and a flawless skull to add to his collection, along with two lesser gems.
Into the Chaos Sanctuary, Skull put back on his coral ring when he encountered a lightning-enchanted storm caster boss. Oblivion knights threw bone spirits at him. "Soon," thought Skull, "that skill will be mine."
The Lord De Seis gave him a moment of excitement, materialising right on top of him as he was portaling back to town after hitting the seal. None of the seal bosses proved significantly difficult to handle.
Before facing Diablo, Skull replaced his wyrm's amulet with his amulet of warding, and hit the resist fire shrine situated conveniently next to Diablo's pentacle.
Level 2 Bone Spear didn't kill Diablo particularly quickly, but it did the job, and Skull was never in any actual danger. Even a full stream of Diablo's lightning attack took off less than half his life.
Diablo's drop was junk.
Skull did a little bit more gambling before heading into nightmare difficulty,
picking up a rare belt with decent resists, and a rare bone helm (on a single bone
helm gamble). It wasn't a particularly good rare, but certainly better than plain
superior, and it had the same yellowing, aged appearance he had appreciated in
Tancred's Skull. For further details you'll have to wait for his
nightmare difficulty
report
Skull became a Count with a full clear of normal difficulty at level 26 with the stats shown.
Skills at this point:
Equipment:
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