[Tempest] Sarah the Self-Found Solo Summoner

Off to beard Piety in her lair. No tempest in the temple, which is nice. Tons of Tentacle Miscreations all over the place, which means a lot of minions are dying, but also lots of good spectre targets. Have to stay on my toes to keep Sarah out of the crossfire, but otherwise it's a fairly straightforward walk through. Ran across Spinecrack, who barely lasted long enough to be identified. Got to level 35 just before Piety, who fared a bit better than her minions. My first assault with the full horde (including the Vaal skeleton army) took her to about half, but she killed them all pretty quickly. So then it was a matter of summon skeletotem, run away a bit, summon spirits, repeat with the occasional Enfeeble thrown in. She hit Sarah once or twice after a teleport, but it was mostly just ES damage.

Piety dropped a bunch of rares, but sadly none usable. Checked Clarissa's available gems and see that she's offering Innervate, so I picked one of those up and linked it to the spectres. Might move it around to another minion later, but this will work for now. As long as I'm raising spectres with wide AoE attacks, they should apply shocks pretty often and the occasional onslaught buff will be nice.

Hit the Gardens waypoint and headed north, fighting a whole lot of statues and porcupines, and dodging static tempests. Thistlesage made an appearance and destroyed pretty much the whole horde with his death explosion, but I had Sarah far enough distant to avoid any significant damage. Opened up the Sceptre of God (no tempest) and started in. I see nothing has changed with the overwhelming AoE here. Lost minions left and right, kept me busy resummoning. Very glad I'm +3 levels to these, otherwise it could get ugly. Speaking of ugly, I found Haku and attempted to rescue a spirit for him, but it was a timed mission and two minutes wasn't nearly enough. I didn't even get far enough to see the spirit before time ran out. Early-to-mid-game summoners aren't built for speed. I did kill Caliga without much trouble, which is a nice change from what I remember. The nerf to her that I saw in the patch notes is appreciated. Found the waypoint and headed back to town for now. I'd like another level or two before taking on Dominus.

Still need to get Fairgrave his fruit, so I headed back to the Gardens to hunt for the Hedge Maze. No tempest this time. Found the maze after clearing about half the zone, fortunately with no Thistlesage this time. Found Catarina again, and cleared the place out before triggering her mission. Ran across the Conqueror Wurm in the process and lost a few zombies, but kept him away from Sarah. Got the plum, took care of Catarina, and hit level 36. Took Shaper with the skill point...next up, Gravepact. Nothing useful from Fairgraves.

Side note on skill bar - I've decided not to keep Flame Dash on the bar for now. I find I'm only using Flame Dash in certain specific situations (mainly, to blip away from strongboxes right after opening them), and I can always swap it back in when one of those comes up. If I need emergency lifesaving, the limited range on Flame Dash isn't likely to save me anyhow; I'm better off using my panic logout macro. Instead, I'll put Convocation in that spot. As I went through the Sceptre of God and the Hedge Maze, I was reminded of just how useful Convocation really is. Remember guideline #1 - minions are stupid. It only takes a couple of times watching them wander down the wrong hallway, or get trapped and demolished on the wrong side of a door, to realize that gathering them all in the right spot is a great ability. And the regen bonus doesn't hurt.

Nothing left now but the Upper Sceptre. I'm 36 and the level up there is 33, so I'll be running through it a few times to get to 38 before facing Dominus. Probably overkill on normal mode, but I'd rather not take unnecessary risks. I hate that there's no other zone I can use to level up (at least, not without running into an XP penalty) but such is life on Act 3 normal. First run through, found Vorici and failed another of his missions - this time he wanted the boss left alive until last, but one of his minions got stuck on some stairs and my minions didn't target that one until the boss was down.

Clear run #2, nothing special except that I hit level 37. Clear run #3, ran into Zacharie Desmarais. He took a little extra work to kill, but between Enfeeble and strength of numbers, it wasn't really a fair fight. Found a couple of BBB-linked shields and tried chance orbs on them. Only blues, but with a few alteration orbs I turned one into an improvement over my current shield. Had to move Culling Strike over to the skeletons to make all the colors work properly for my gem slots. Clear run #4, nothing special. Clear run #5, same again but this time it was enough for level 38. Dominus readiness check: bleeding flask, yep; resists 70/75/54, reasonable but watch the lightning; plenty of portal scrolls, check.

First two phases went easily enough...this is why I spent the time to get to 38. The minions still died to the various AoEs flying around, but not immediately, giving me time to resummon them, keep Enfeeble up, and get the spirits going. By the time phase 3 rolled around with first form Dominus, the spectres were gone, but I still had all five zombies and the skeletotem for distraction, and the spirits for damage. Kept up the same tactics, plus a bit more running away whenever a cursed zombie-bomb got too close or Dominus ported on top of Sarah, until he was down to about a quarter life (and I was down to just a couple of zombies). Then I hit the portal and resummoned the whole horde, and headed back into finish him off. Quick work to get him down, then it was just a matter of the final form. Made sure I had all my zombies and the skeletotem up while he was working his way up out of the ground, summoned a bunch of spirits, then as soon as he was targetable hit him with Enfeeble, popped Vaal Summon Skeletons, and summoned spirits like there was no tomorrow. He died in seconds, before I had to worry about the bleeding rain.

Half a dozen rares dropped, but nothing I can use at the moment. Talked to Dialla and hit the Aqueduct waypoint, so next session Sarah will make her first foray into Act 4.

Act 4! I've played through it once, but this is my first trip on a summoner. A Glacial Tempest was infesting the Aqueduct, making life difficult. Lost many minions to rains of ice or rampaging ice golems, and couldn't keep spectres alive at all. The actual monsters in the zone were easy enough, though. Found a Forgotten Conduit about halfway along, with monsters adding poison on hit, so I explored it. First time I've come across the Torrent of Fear. It destroyed many minions, but the old skeletons-and-spirits-in-the-face trick worked fine to take it down, while I was dodging all those vortex things it casts. Got a Vaal Power Siphon, meh, and also found the unique axe Reaper's Pursuit, something for the guild stash. Got a second Carrion Crow divination card as well. Back up for the rest of the Aqueduct, killed off the Hundred Foot Shadow with no special tactics required, and on to Highgate.

No tempest in the Dried Lake, but I did find Hagan, and smacked him around easily. Nightwane surprised me when he Blink Arrow-ed right on top of Sarah, but I ran away a bit and pulled all the minions back with Convocation, then he was easy pickings. Nothing else of consequence until I found Voll. His charge attack hit Sarah once right out of the gate, but was fortunately absorbed by ES. I paid more attention to dodging after that; will keep that in mind for future encounters with him. Other than dodging to avoid charges and stay out of melee range, standard tactics won the day. He killed a lot of minions, of course, but they took him with them. Hit level 39 on the Voll kill. No drops worth mentioning, just the banner so I can move on.

Took the banner back to Highgate, opened the mine, and got my reward from Oyun. Picked up Chaos Golem. If I'm reading it right, the golem buffs only affect me, not my minions, so damage reduction is the only one that will actually help Sarah. Had an extra spot on a 3-link, so hooked up zombies-golem-minion damage. I'll play around with it for a while, see how it goes. If it survives on its own, great, a bit more damage and I get a little defensive buff. If not, well, I can always get rid of it and find a better use for the gem slot. Might try Ice Golem at some point, too, to see if the slow effect from its attacks is useful, even though the acc/crit buff won't help.

Next, worked my way in succession through the mines levels 1 and 2 (Shrinking Tempest in both), and the Crystal Veins (Battering Tempest). Could not keep a spectre alive for more than a fight or two, no matter what type I raised, so I just picked up random corpses whenever I had a free moment, and otherwise ignored them. The rest of the horde was doing fine without them anyway. The Chaos Golem held its own just fine against everything except the Burning Man's big explosion, so I don't think there's any need to worry about its survival. Did another mission for Catarina in the first mine level and freed Deshret on the second. Fought Pikerivet, Hammerstorm, and the Burning Man...the last was the most dangerous, but I just enfeebled him and then stayed as far away as possible while the horde went to work. Hit level 40, and saw lots of rares dropping, but nothing I can use so the vendors got lots of business. Also found another divination card, a Gemcutter.

Here's my current passive tree. Finished off the Gravepact cluster (except that one 10% minion life node) so it's time to move on elsewhere. Next, I'm going back up top to get Cruel Preparation and its surrounding life nodes, for another 20% life and 5% elemental resists.

My last encounter with Catarina got her to level 3, so she's now offering to create my hideout. Undead theme, perfect! This hideout stuff is all new to me, since it didn't exist a year ago. Got Catarina set up and did her daily mission, which was only level 32 so easy enough to complete. Played around with decorations a bit; I can see this eating up some time in the future! Then went out and invited Elreon, and did his daily mission too...even easier at level 26. Was able to add some minor life mods to my gear with the crafting options - every little bit helps!

Moved on into Kaom's Dream and Path. Mostly standard tactics here, not much that needs special handling. The Hyrri's Sisters make decent revives for this level, not as good as Flame Sentinels but they stay alive a lot longer. Did take some damage to Sarah from the Torchoak Grove, as they were spewing fire out in pretty much every direction, but I kept moving and they barely got past my ES. Barely even had to dodge Triskeriaki as the horde kept him busy for the short time it took to finish him off. Found the waypoint, then went back to switch over to the other path.

Found a 4-link Sage's Robe and used an alchemy orb on it. Nothing spectacular but it's workable for now. Trying to get all the links that I can in anticipation of a few more support gems becoming available as I move through Act 4. I noticed as I was rearranging gear that I'm bumping up against strength and dexterity limits again. After Cruel Intentions, I'll have to head east on the passive tree toward Alacrity and Physique.

There was a Static Tempest in Daresso's Dream, which actually worked to my advantage since I'm smart enough to retreat away from the lightning (and use Convocation to save the minions), but the monsters aren't. At least two different rares were much easier than usual because they got stuck in the middle of a lightning storm. The horde went nuts in the trap areas and just decimated the ambushes, especially since I kept using Vaal Summon Skeletons. With so many kills, it was nearly recharged by the time the previous army disappeared. Steelchaw managed to hit Sarah and cause bleeding, but I still have my bleeding flask so it wasn't a major concern, and the horde ate him shortly thereafter. Eyepecker and Barkhul barely caused a slowdown. Made it to level 41.

Headed into Kaom's Stronghold (no tempest) and found not much different from the earlier zones, nothing needing special tactics. Ran into Ion Darkshroud again, but he didn't last long enough for me to do anything more than Enfeeble him before the zombies ate his brains. By the end of the zone, I was still about 1/4 of a level short of 42. I don't really want to take on either Kaom or Daresso until I'm at 42 and thus 4 levels above them. Technically I could wait until 43 and +5 levels without suffering XP penalties, but I think +4 is enough as they're not end-of-Act-level dangerous.

The Grand Arena (no tempest) is a fun zone. The devs did a great job with the feel of the place, from the look to the sound of the crowd to the constant assaults from all directions. On entering each new arena section, I immediately summoned a skeletotem, cursed whatever was closest, then took Sarah back toward the wall. Once there, I cast Convocation and set about the usual chain of skills. Other than dodging the occasional rare or unique guy coming after me, I tried not to move too much more, in order to minimize the additional adds until all the current mess was cleaned up. The unique gladiators in the last arena before Daresso did give me a bit of trouble, and I was forced to move more than I liked and thus take on a lot more adds. Wore them down eventually, though.

Daresso wasn't easy. Did a whole lot of running around to avoid getting caught by his circle of ice clones. Whichever attack looks like animated swords was especially tough on Sarah, knocked her down around half life several times and I had to use flasks to recover. Meanwhile, though, the horde was doing a good job on Daresso himself. I used Vaal Summon Skeletons once to buy myself time to resummon zombies, but outside of that it was skeletons and the spirits doing the heavy lifting. He went down just before I was about to retreat to refill my flasks and resummon.

No decent drops from Daresso, but I did find a 4-link mask earlier in the arena, and used an alchemy orb on it.

Decent roll! Especially since I was low on lightning resist. Higher life would have been nice, but can't have everything. I've got the spectres in it for now, though I'll probably swap that to zombies once I get more support gems for them (most notably Faster Attacks).

Back through Kaom's Stronghold again, this time affected by a Transmogrifying Tempest. Not a big fan of that one, I'd rather choose what items I want to sell. Kaom himself didn't present much of a challenge to the horde, but I had to keep Sarah moving around and hit a few life flasks to make sure she survived all the fire splash. The tempest affected his drops so I got a lot of alteration shards, but no items. Quest reward from Dialla was a Multistrike, which I don't really have a use for at the moment.

Onward to the Belly of the Beast. Hit level 43 on level 1. The slowdown tar-pool attacks are very annoying, but outside of that nothing really caused any problems. At the end of level 2, took care of Piety without much trouble at all, which was a nice surprise. I'd expected her to wipe out the horde and force me to leave to resummon a few times, but after only one cycle of the Rotating Beam of Doom, she was down. I think I have Minion Instability to thank for that, as when the dust cleared the only minions left were a couple of skeletons. Everything else died and blew up in her face.

And now I'm stuck at the end-of-act grind again. The Harvest is a level 40 zone, so I can get to 45 before worrying about XP penalties, and I need all the advantage I can get to avoid dying against Malachai. No other level 40 zones available, so I'll be doing this one repeatedly for a while. I'll avoid the bosses until I'm near 45, since you have to kill them all in the same instance that you use to move on to Malachai. The most dangerous monsters here are the ones detonating corpses. They've wiped out most of the horde a few times. Best defense is a well-timed Flesh Offering or two, but I can't count on timing it right, so I also keep Sarah well back from the fights. Picked up a unique quiver, Craghead, on my first run through...guild stash.

Did some rearranging of gear and gems, using a shield that's been sitting in my stash for a while. Improves my health/ES/cold resist, while losing only 5% lightning resist. Moved the zombies up to my helm, now linked zombie-multistrike-minion damage-added cold damage. (I'd prefer faster attacks/added physical damage to multistrike/cold damage, but don't have the gems available for now.) The spectres are now in the shield linked spectre-innervate-LMP, dropping the fire penetration for now - no big deal since I'm regularly re-raising spectres at this stage anyway, and they don't all use fire. In the end, we're looking at 1254 life/446 ES, 24% block chance, and 75/75/74 resists.

Harvest clear run #2. Ran into Minara Anemina, who did not fare well in the battle of the summoners. Didn't drop anything good, either. Got to level 44 and finished off the Cruel Preparation cluster, now up to 1315 life. Harvest clear run #3, found Minara Anemina again, and she didn't do any better this time. Dropped some rares this time, but nothing usable. Harvest clear run #4, no notable monsters. Harvest clear run #5, beat up Ash Lessard and all the usual monsters to get to 45, and then started in on the bosses. Maligaro: hit flasks a couple of times to offset the chaos damage he was spreading around, otherwise just curse-skeletotem-spirits while moving around until he croaked. Doedre: stayed out of the purple circle as much as possible to avoid being slowed, kept moving to avoid being spat upon, and the usual skill rotations. Shavronne: dodge the lightning circles, let the horde go to work. Good number of rares dropped but nothing I can use.

And finally...Malachai. I knew this fight was going to be a pain and it did not disappoint. The initial phase wasn't too horrible, as I was able to dodge the tentacle attack, cast the usual curse-skeletotem-spirits, and the minions were mostly holding their own. I did get hit once with his teleport-tunnel, dropped me down to about half life, and you can be sure I was careful not to let that happen again! Didn't really have to worry about Piety when she turned on me since the horde was just as happy to attack her as they were Malachai, so I just kept dodging and casting.

The second phase, though, was awful. I had to portal out to refill flasks and resummon five different times, because the horde just could not stay alive due to the massive amount of AoE damage being tossed around. I'd be in the fight for about 20 seconds and all the spectres/zombies would be dead, leaving only skeletons. I also couldn't summon very many spirits because of all the craziness that needed to be dodged. Partway through I used Vaal Summon Skeletons, and that helped somewhat to move things along. The fire circles particularly were a real pain, since they reduced the already-small area available to move around in. Very glad I waited until I was level 45...would have been nice to be even higher, too bad there's no reasonable way to do that. Finally all the hearts were dead and he went down. Drops: bupkis.

Onward to Cruel. The early stages of Act 1 were just as easy as one would expect, after the insanity that is Act 4 on the prior difficulty. Hardest part is not getting complacent, which leads to doing stupid things. Beat up Hillock, marched through the Coast, killed Hailrake, opened the Tidal Passage, and cleared the Fetid Pool in quick succession. I see there are now fire dogs in the Coast sometimes, unwelcome for a summoner, but no big deal at this stage. The pool was a bit more challenging than usual due to a Electrocuting Tempest of Influence, but I basically just had to resummon a few more zombies than normal.

For the Hillock reward, got a nice rare ring with 10% to all resists and an additional 58% (!) to lightning resist. That's lightning resist solved for a while. Found a Geofri's Baptism, nice drop if anyone in the guild ever wants to make a 2-handed maul guy. Ran into Elreon and completed his mission, which got him to level 4. And I found a Reduced Mana gem, which in the past would have been cause for celebration, but now that it can't affect reservation cost, it's just going in the stash.

Took a few minutes to rearrange my Raging Spirit support gems. Probably could have done this earlier, but hadn't thought much about it until now. I can get Spell Echo to replace Faster Casting and Multistrike to replace Melee Splash. I don't need the melee splash anyway, the horde is so big that there's usually a minion for every monster, even without area effects to expand the damage. A couple of chromatic orbs yielded BBBR links on my chest armor, so I can add a Minion Damage support gem as well. While I was messing around in the inventory anyway, also upgraded my belt to one with better life and some cold resist, which means I'm capped on all elemental resists even with the Cruel penalty.

Went through the Submerged Passage (hit 46 on the way) and into the Ledge, which was infested by a Glacial Tempest of Summoning. Had to use Convocation a lot to pull minions out of the ice storms, and kill the occasional ice elemental that spawned behind me. Found the waypoint then backtracked to find the Flooded Depths, and killed the crab. Also found Vorici there and did his mission. It was another "leave a guard alive", but I got lucky since the target and guards were Blackguard Arcmages, who like to scatter. Was able to control the horde sufficiently to target the boss first. Then headed back to the Ledge to finish it off. No problem with Kuduku; led the horde past it to clear out everything nearby, then let them pile on and win by strength of numbers.

Seething Tempest of the Ancestors in the Climb, meaning more fire damage for those affected which works nicely for the horde. Totems are mildly annoying, but in this open area it's easy to avoid fighting mobs right next to them when necessary. The horde is big enough now that goatmen aren't nearly as bad as they were in Normal; with so many targets they don't jump over and hit Sarah nearly as often. Ironpoint died quickly enough that he only used his Rain of Arrows once, no real damage done. Found Tora and did her mission, which was just enough to put me over the top for level 47. Grabbed the Prison waypoint and headed back to town. Took Concentrated Effect from Nessa for the quest reward; not sure I'll ever use it but nothing else was any better.

Started this session by going to the Climb to summon zombies and raise a couple of Goatmen Shaman as spectres. There's really not any great spectre choices in Act 1, but these are about as good as I'm liable to find. Onward into the prison, where there is a Quickening Tempest of Fire. Burning patches, annoying, but I can dodge them and use Convocation to keep the minions out for the most part, and the occasional speed boost is nice. Found Chatters in a poor location, through a small corridor and a doorway into a larger room where he was waiting with a ton of lightning archer skeletons. Dealt with them by hiding around the corner, putting down the skeletotem right at the door, throwing spirits into the room, and using Convocation as often as possible to keep the zombies and spectres from getting themselves killed. Also found Vagan and beat him up, without too much trouble though he did use Lightning Warp to chase Sarah around. Found an Ashrend unique buckskin tunic, another one for the guild stash.

More of the same in the Upper Prison, plus a lot of necromancers. The usual strategy of denying corpses and winning a war of attrition worked fine, though I lost a few more minions than usual thanks to the burning patches. Not an ideal scenario for fighting Brutus, with all the fire on the ground and the potential for him to get hit with speed, but he didn't last long enough for it to matter. Cursed him, summoned the Vaal Skeletons, then just avoided the fire and his grab until he fell down. The rare gloves from Tarkleigh for the quest reward were decent, but not good enough to displace my current gloves.

Prisoner's Gate, my least favorite Act 1 zone. No tempest this time, and with a +4 level advantage it's not too difficult, but all the fire dogs and goatmen are still annoying. Came across Guardian of the Mound, and was pleasantly surprised at how little damage he did. I remember him as a serious menace from a year ago, though this is only Cruel difficulty...might still be bad in Merciless. Got rid of the Blazing Menace with even less difficulty later on.

Moved on to the Ship Graveyard, again with no tempest to worry about. Made my way through to the caverns, grabbed the waypoint, talked to Nessa (nothing I can use), then headed back to find the Allflame. There was an Infernal Tempest in the Ship Graveyard Cave, and that was painful. Fire everywhere, to the point where I gave up trying to keep spectres going and focused on just making sure to keep the maximum 6 zombies upright. The actual monsters weren't that dangerous since I was careful not to aggro too many of those flicker-strike ghosts at once, but all that fire kept me on my toes. Found an Ezomyte Peak unique iron hat along the way. Made it through eventually, resummoned, and went to kill Fairgraves. Easy pickings, and I hit level 48 during the fight.

With the two skill points from the level and quest, picked up Alacrity and Physique, so I'm set for strength and dexterity for a while. Here's the current passive tree. I'm thinking Purity of Flesh next, more life is good and a bit of chaos resist to offset the difficulty penalty would be nice. I'm set up to grab the Grave Intentions cluster as well, but I think I'll wait on that until later, maybe even after going toward the Herd the Flock cluster, since minion life and chaos resist is less of a concern.

I've also been thinking about dropping Minion Instability. This is right around the point where I'd drop it in the past, the thinking being that the horde does enough damage now that keeping them alive (and attacking) for that last third of their life does more damage than the explosions. But having played through Act 4 and seeing the massive damage those bosses deal out, I don't think I'm going to see many minions living at low life for very long anyway, at least not in the big fights where it matters most. And the explosions do help to take big chunks out of those bosses, and wipe out adds...this was especially apparent in the Belly of the Beast corrupted Piety fight. So I'm going to hang onto it for now. It's an easy 1-point respec if I change my mind later.

Both levels of the caverns were infested with a Blasphemous Tempest of Fire. Wonderful, more burning ground. The curses could be mostly ignored, though. Cleared my way through without a hitch, and saw nothing of note except Amarissa, who was swarmed under by the horde so quickly that I had to identify the corpse to make sure it was really her. Got to Merveil's cave, stepped in...and was suddenly back outside, with no minions. I have no idea what happened but I wasn't going to stick around (and end up with a lag-caused death if it was something bad), so hit my logout macro to get the heck out of there. I did find a slightly upgraded shield with about 50 more life than the old one, so it wasn't a complete waste of a trip.

Logged back in a bit later and everything looks cool, so hopefully whatever caused that earlier issue was just a transient glitch. By the time I did, the tempests had shifted, with only a Molten Tempest in the caverns. Still not great, but better than anything "of Fire". Found Haku in the Cavern of Wrath, and his mission was one of those "find the spirit within the time limit", but the time limit was 30 seconds and there was no spirit in the starting room or the one next to it. Pretty sure it's supposed to be there and then you fight your way out, but I got a bugged instance or something. Found Tora in the Cavern of Anger, and completed her mission without trouble.

Finally got to Merveil again, entered the fight normally this time, and got through the first form easily enough. Her second form summoned two unique helpers, which was new to me...they didn't exist a year ago, and they didn't appear on normal. Had to do quite a bit of running around, dodging geysers and tempest fire, while dropping the totem/cursing/tossing out spirits as I had a chance. Was just about to portal out and resummon when she died, so apparently the skeletons and spirits did their job. Had one bad moment about halfway through that second phase when my game froze momentarily, then did a fast-forward catchup for half a second. I'm guessing that was the Lockstep code at work. Didn't cause an issue this time, but I hope it doesn't happen often because that could spell doom in the wrong spot.

Found a slightly improved chest armor from Merveil, more life/ES and 5 slots. Rolled a few fusing orbs to link 4 of them. That extra single slot is nice since I have so many gems that I'm using without supports: Flame Dash, Convocation, Vaal Summon Skeletons, Flesh Offering, Desecrate, Summon Chaos Golem, and Enfeeble. Plus the two auras. I'd actually moved Flame Dash to my weapon switch for a while, so this slot lets me put it back on the main gear. Eventually I'm going to have to cull that herd of gems, but for now I'm good.

The Southern Forest was infested with a Stinging Tempest of Ice, and of course, many apes. Cleared it out without any great difficulty, slowed only slightly by all the ice patches. Much prefer those to the burning ground. Went up through the Old Fields toward the Crossroads, which showed no tempest on the map, but when I actually went in there were Shivering Tempests. The help text you see when the map is up had the "10% more items" bit, but no tempest listed. Not a problem, but strange. Hit level 49 on the way through. There was really no tempest in the Crossroads, where I grabbed the waypoint. (And laughed a bit as I killed a rare with the unfortunate name of Beachkiller. Bet that really strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies!) Went back out to find the Den, no tempest there either. Finished off the beast and all her pals easily. Awful belt for the quest reward, gave it right back to Yeena.