[Tempest] Sarah the Self-Found Solo Summoner

Took a quick trip up to the Broken Bridge to grab the waypoint for future use, then headed over to the Chamber of Sins. No tempests present, making this a good time to take care of the area. Ran into an incredibly annoying spawn of a boss necromancer with the allies-cannot-die aura, hiding in a small room behind a wall of zombies. Couldn't pull the zombies away because they moved too slow, and couldn't get the horde to focus on him. Ended up engaging the minions, pulling back, re-engaging, repeat until he moved around enough that I could send spirits directly at him. Found a corrupted area with poison monsters, and cleared it, though I was very careful of Atziri's Pride in the boss room. Lightning Warp put Sarah in danger a few times, but a bit of dodging took care of that. Vaal Double Strike for the drop, nothing I can use. Hunted down the Black Death, then headed on to level 2. Found Fidelitas fairly quickly, after only clearing a few rooms. How to quickly clear a minor boss: Send 6 zombies, 2 spectres, 9 skeletons, and 27 Vaal skeletons at him. He died so quickly that I never even cast any spirits.

Moved on to the Riverways (again, no tempest) and cleared through it to grab the waypoint, and stepped into the Western Forest to grab that waypoint as well. Stumbled across Kall Foxfly again, who is certainly not my favorite ex-Invasion boss. Kept the minions busy for a while as I dodged his various arrow attacks. Hit level 50 along the way. Headed up into the Wetlands (no tempest...sensing a theme?) to pick up that waypoint, and beat the stuffing out of Oak while I was there.

Level 50 seems like a good time for a quick review of where I'm at in the summoner lifecycle. Back at the beginning, I said there were three main phases: early on where you have to deal most of the damage yourself, mid-game where the minions are strong but fragile and need resummoning often, and late game where you let the minion horde run wild while you direct the chaos. The first stage only lasted through about level 15-ish, in large part due to the way skill gems are available early on from the post-Awakening vendors. The mid-game ran from about level 15 to 40, although I'd say I'm still in the late stages of mid-game even at 50. Around level 40, the skeletotem and zombies hit late-game status where they almost never die, so I basically can just fire-and-forget with them. The spectres still need more management, though, in large part because I'm still moving through zones. They won't really get to the end-game status until I can rely on getting Flame Sentinels from A3 Merciless.

Western Forest looks like a good next destination, with no tempest currently in evidence. Found a Narrow Ravine corrupted zone affected by extra projectiles. That's dangerous for a summoner, but with a bit of extra caution to avoid being overwhelmed, it's workable. The boss, Kamaq, is a unique Devourer which is nasty for many reasons, so I was extra careful at the end also. Every time he dropped below the surface, I started Sarah moving and didn't stop until I was sure he wasn't coming up next to me. The horde took him down in the meantime. Found a Sacrifice at Noon map fragment...can't see myself wanting to ever fight Atziri, but I'll stash the fragment for later use. Back to the forest, found and demolished both Alira and Captain Arteri, then went to pick up my skill point. No real challenge with either; with my four levels and significant numbers advantage, it's just a matter of making sure to run away if they target Sarah.

Back to the forest again, this time hunting for spiders. Found the lair, cleared through about half of it until I found the Weaver, and demolished her. Used Vaal Summon Skeletons early in the fight to negate all the little spiders running around. (Side note: I can't recommend Vaal Summon Skeletons highly enough for this type of summoner build. Makes moderate but potentially dangerous fights easy, buys you some breathing room in tougher fights, and is a reasonable panic button for situations where something wipes out your horde unexpectedly. If you're not playing self-found and don't stumble across it yourself, it's worth buying one.) Got the spike and picked up a Generosity from Silk...might use that someday if I find the gem slots/mana to run an offensive aura. Killed the tree to clear my inventory space, then stepped inside the ruins so it'll show up on my map (and I can identify tempests there), but then backed out for now.

Fellshrine (no tempest) is next up, winning out over going up to Broken Bridge to kill Kraityn since the bridge has an active tempest. (I should point out, I don't mind pushing through tempests when necessary. It's just that I don't see any reason to take the extra risk if there's another way.) Pushed through, no issues. In the Crypt, cleared out level 1 easily and hit level 51, then found a Entombed Alcove with monsters immune to curses. It's really hard to stop casting curses when you're used to automatically hitting Enfeeble every time you see a monster pack, you know? Had no real trouble clearing it anyway, up until the last bit where I had to move forward very slowly to avoid triggering everything at once. Cleared a pack of blue Vaal Fallen, then a spider ambush, then a pack of blue snakes all within less than one screen's worth of real estate. Triggered the boss at the tail end of that last one, Shrapnelbearer, and moved Sarah way the heck back to the very edge of spirit-and-totem-summoning range while throwing them into the fight. He killed off all but one zombie, and I had to wait out his death throes, but in the end the horde was triumphant. Another map fragment, Sacrifice at Dawn.

Into the crypt level 2, where there was an Obscuring Tempest of Intensity (the tempests had shifted while I was in the corrupted area). This basically meant I had to move slowly and cast the skeletotem out in front at every doorway, to avoid walking into something nasty due to reduced visibility. Took a while, but eventually I found the Archbishop and smote him using the tried-and-true method of sending the horde up ahead while I waited at the bottom of the stairs. Took the Assassin's Haste jewel from Yeena for the quest reward...might never use it, but better than the other two options.

The map says the Vaal Ruins are tempest-free now, so off we go underground. That is one huge zone, and I saw all of it before I finally took the correct turns to find the seal. Ran across Tora and did her mission while I was wandering around. Didn't run into any particularly difficult monsters, though. Got up into the Northern Forest and found the waypoint. The forest had a Shielding Tempest of Intensity present, which worked nicely to my advantage since most of the horde is melee anyhow, so I decided to go ahead on through. Found a Secluded Copse corrupted area with -10% max resists, workable at this level, so cleared it out. Won the battle of the summoners with Kutec handily. Found yet another map fragment, Sacrifice at Dawn. Back in the forest, encountered Tailslinger, who sure picked the wrong tempest to come out in. With his ranged damage basically negated, easy pickings. Made level 52 while finishing off the forest, then entered the caverns (no tempest) and cleared to the waypoint.

Tempests shifted again and the Broken Bridge is clear, so off we go to finish off the last of the bandit bosses. None of the three have any buffs that I want in Cruel. He didn't last long against the horde, and with the skill point I finished off the Purity of Flesh cluster. Life is up to 1867 and my chaos resistance is back up to zero for the moment. Here's the current passive tree. Next I'm going to head over to Herd the Flock.

Time to climb us a pyramid. It's level 47-48 inside, and I'm already 52, so I don't feel the need to try to grind out any additional levels. No tempest in evidence. Smooth trip up the levels, outside of an encounter with Tora. In her mission, ran into the Mutated Maw, who actually killed a few zombies with his jumping around and whatever that purple rain thing is, but I kept Sarah well clear and let the spirits and skeletons do their work on it. Moved on to the Apex, where the Vaal Oversoul fight went pretty much the same as it did in normal difficulty: stay out of melee range, curse-totem-spirits, profit. I added a Vaal Summon Skeletons just because I could, and it actually went down before using the big melee slam so even the zombies survived.

No decent rare drops, though I did find a 4-link boots that I rolled into a rare and then tried a few chaos orbs on, hoping to get some move speed along with decent other stats. No such luck. (Why waste chaos orbs like that? Self-found, remember...they're useless as trade bait.)

The horde rolled on through the City of Sarn (no tempest), barely having to slow for the guards around Clarissa. In the Slums, there was a Seething Tempest of Poison, which means poison patches on the ground, posion from monster attacks, and a lot of fire buffs. I like the fire buffs on the minions, but the poison was a pain. Had to be very careful not to get caught in huge poison clouds when the minions wiped out a bunch of monsters. Had to hit flasks a few times to shore up Sarah's life after running through a cloud or two, but made it through OK. Found Vagan on my way through, and since he wasn't asking to fight me in the tempest-infested outdoors, went ahead and beat him up.

Found the Crematorium and headed in. This time Hatebeat spawned without a rare friend, so he was much easier than last time around. Toughest part was actually a rare strongbox that spawned three rares. My standard strongbox approach now is to first clear all the rooms nearby, then drop a totem, quicksilver flask-click box-run away-Convocation-Enfeeble, and fight normally from there. Works fine, although I'd like to swap the quicksilver flask for a quartz flask with faster movement on it, once I find one. Made level 53 along the way. Eventually tracked down Piety and chased her off, no major difficulty. Just had to dodge the lightning balls and keep the spirits and skeletons coming.

Back out to the Slums, this time with a Scathing Tempest of Intensity. Found Tora before I found the sewer entrance, and tracked down her mission to a Musky Lair side zone. Lots of corrupted crabs, with a boss named Mutated Winterclaw that just demolished the horde with chaos and lightning damage. Had to retreat under cover of the skeletotem and resummon zombies three times. Same tempest in the Slums Sewers. Cleared my way through to the bust, fighting through Spinesnap on the way. He jumped on Sarah a couple of times, but I ran away quickly enough and the horde took care of him. Found a couple of rare strongboxes too, and one spawned Ash Lessard. Horde had no trouble with him.

No tempest in the Warehouse Sewers. Cleared fairly easily through to the waypoint and bust, then found Tora again. Much simpler mission this time, in a Sooty Lair with a bunch of ape chieftains. Didn't lose a zombie. Moved on up to the Warehouses, still no tempest. Cleared through easily enough until finding the Gemling Legionaires, who ran through the horde and hit Sarah a couple of times, but a quick retreat and Convocation got the battle back on the right footing and they went down quickly after that. Found a Three Faces in the Dark divination card.

No tempest again in the Marketplace, enjoying the good weather while it lasts. No remarkable battles other than the further defacing of Marceus, which went quickly. In the sewers, found a blue pack with the "Living Blood" mod that I hadn't seen before...once I killed them, a bunch of runes appeared on the floor and blew up a few seconds later. Fortunately I'd run away by that point, which is my default reaction to anything I don't recognize. Picked up the bust, got my reward, and headed back up top. Found a Gemcutter's Strongbox guarded by Thena Moga, but neither one dropped anything useful. Walked into the Battlefront long enough to find the waypoint, and killed just enough bad guys to hit level 54.

The Battlefront had ice patches on the ground, so rather than mess around with that, went back and found the Catacombs. Level 52s there, so I'm still +2 levels. Cleared it a couple of times and got about half a level from it. The only notable monster was a Rogue Exile that I'd never seen before, Wilorin Demontamer. He didn't seem to do much until the horde had him almost dead (which didn't take long), but then he unleashed some kind of red lightning that filled the screen. Ran away, pulled the horde back, and watched the show from a safe distance. By the time it was over, the skeletons and spirits that hadn't come with me had finished him off. No drops of interest.

Tempests shifted and it looks like clear sailing in the Battlefront and Docks. Went through the Battlefront up to the Solaris Temple to check what tempest was there, and it's a good thing I did because it was a Quickening Tempest. Love that one, lots of extra speed for the horde and casting of spirits for me, only caveat is I have to be careful not to run ahead of my minions when I'm speedy. Cleared through level 1, including the Seals, until I found the stairs without losing so much as a zombie. Found a Jack in the Box divination card on the way.

In Solaris level 2, hit a rare strongbox guarded by magic packs and Antalie Napora, who is not a summoner's friend. Lightning Arrow all over the place killed a bunch of minions, and I had to run a good way away and regroup before heading back to finish her off. Dropped a decent pair of boots with lots of resists and life, but still no movement speed and not 4-linked. Almost good enough to switch, but not quite. Found Tora yet again and had an interesting battle against some corrupted chimeras during her mission, which spawned right next to Dialla for some reason. Their massed fire wiped out most of the horde and took a good chunk of Sarah's ES before I could run away, but that initial contact took enough of them out that a resummon finished the job. Found an Ambu's Charge unique Crusader Chainmail, which is very interesting. Almost tempted to use it, but the lack of any life bonus made me decide against it. Good for the guild stash, though.

Went back to the Battlefront and grabbed the ribbon spool. The quest reward amulet Dialla gave me was decent, but not as good as my current one. Took the opportunity to respawn the temple instance a few times until I got Flame Sentinel corpses to revive, too. Then headed over to the Docks and cleared through it to the waypoint and sulfite. Beat up the Revenant along the way, who was nice enough to spawn at the top of some stairs so I could stay at the bottom while the horde fought him above. Got to 55 in the process. Also found Haku and cleared his mission, which unlike last time actually had a spirit to rescue. As soon as I picked it up, the ground started spawning exploding circles, so I made my way out as quickly as I could. Still had to stop a few times to fight stuff, but Convocation to the rescue again as it let me bring the horde to wherever I needed them.

Got the Talc, cleared the blockage and on to the Barracks. Grabbed that waypoint, then ducked into the Gardens and found a Shielding Tempest, so I took advantage of that to grab the waypoint and find the Hedge Maze. Found the plum there easily enough, although I did have to fight the Conqueror Wurm. Kept Sarah away from him, and the horde took care of him quickly. Found my first 6-socket drop, sold it for the Jeweler's Orbs.

Backtracked to the Marketplace to find Fairgraves' hip flask. Had to go through the entire zone before finally finding it right near the Warehouses entrance. Also found Vorici, but failed his mission since it was another "leave one guard alive" and Augustina Solaria did not cooperate by dying quickly. Picked up another unique, The Princess sabre. Nice little low-level sword for new characters. Got a truly horrible ring from Fairgraves for the quest reward.

Back to the Barracks and onward to the Lunaris Temple. Map says no tempests in either at the moment. The horde rolled through, beating up Gravicius, Fleshrend, and Kole in quick succession. All I did was throw out a totem, Enfeeble, and then stay out of the way with the occasional spirit cast while the minions overwhelmed each of them. Got a shield from Maramoa for the general-kill quest, but my current one is better. More of the same in temple level 2, rolled over Spinecrack and everything else in the way. The spectres are surviving a lot better now; when I did this zone in normal it was nigh impossible to keep one alive for more than a couple of fights, but now all I need is the occasional Convocation to pull them out of some compromised position.

Considered going straight at Piety, but I only need 10% of a level, and it makes sense to run level 2 once more to get it. I'm 90% sure Piety would be no problem at +3, but when it's that easy to get +4, why not? Plus that skill point gets me to Herd the Flock for my 7th zombie. Breezed through the level a second time, hit 56, and demolished Piety. Totem, Enfeeble, Vaal Summon Skeletons, cast spirits for a few seconds and she was down. She didn't even make it to a portal to change forms. Useless drops, surprising approximately no one. With the skill points, I decided to head toward Written in Blood for more life/ES.

Next stop, Library. There was an Enlarging Tempest in the gardens as I made my way to the library entrance...giant zombies! Not as cute as tiny zombies, but still fun. No tempest in the Library, and no trouble finding the waypoint and then the Archives. Saw Trinian's cyclones before I saw him, and mostly just dodged while the horde smote him. Got close enough to curse him once before he died, but just barely. Found the pages, turned them in, and took an Innervate from the list of fairly useless gem rewards.

I realize the last few updates have for the most part read as pretty boring. "I came, I saw, I zombied them to death." There's a lot of truth in that, but it's intentional. For one thing, this is a hardcore league, and if I die I don't want the reason to be "too impatient to grind out one more level" or "tried to fight through that obviously dangerous tempest." Another reason is the nature of this summoner build; because it relies on strength of numbers, you tend to either win big or lose big. If the minions all live, they're gonna clean the monsters up fast; if they don't, you better be gone quick because the end is nigh. There's not really a lot in between. And last but not least, this is a symptom of the unfortunate difficulty spikes in PoE. Because the big bosses hit so hard and require such huge damage output to defeat, a hardcore player is forced to push their power level as high as possible to have a chance against them. A build that can handle both the offense and defense needed against the big bosses isn't going to have much trouble with non-boss content as long as the player pays attention.

Nothing left now but to climb the tower. Opened up the Sceptre of God and waded through all the chimeras and Undying. Found Caliga and engaged in the usual running battle with her - send in the horde, back away before they get demolished by all the lightning traps, repeat. Didn't lose any minions, which would not have been the case before the nerf she got in Awakening. Hit 57 and found the waypoint.

Upper Sceptre clear runs is all I have left. The zone is level 54, so in theory I could get all the way to 60 without hitting an XP penalty, but I think I'll get to 59 and try Dominus at +5. This isn't just a matter of level difference; I'll also hit the Written in Blood notable passive at 59. Unless otherwise stated, no tempest in the zone during these runs. (Which is no accident. I did these runs over several play sessions and chose my spots carefully.)

Run #1: Found Tora and cleared a nest of corrupted broodqueens for her, otherwise no fights of interest. Found my first Cartographer's Chisel.
Run #2: Found Vorici, who was feeling generous and gave me a mission to kill all the guards before his main target. The horde handled that easily.
Run #3: Ran into Eoin Greyfur, who hit Sarah once but then was almost insta-killed by the horde. Dropped a bunch of rares, though sadly none usable.
Run #4: No fights of interest.
Run #5: No fights of interest.
Run #6: No fights of interest. Found a couple of 6-socket items, no links of interest but good vendor bait. Hit 58.
Run #7: Saw two rogue exiles: Antalie Napora as I was making my way from the waypoint to the Upper Sceptre entrance, and Ash Lessard in the Upper Sceptre. Had to be cautious in both cases to avoid losing large chunks of the horde to AoEs (lightning arrow and ethereal knives). Using the skeletotem to keep them busy and occasionally pulling the rest back with Convocation kept everyone upright.
Run #8: Found Haku and tried his mission, but failed. It was a 2 minute version, and I cleared the monsters easily enough, but chose poorly at one intersection and wasted about 30 seconds on a dead-end hallway. I still reached the end boss and killed it with just seconds to spare, but ran out of time before I could click on the spirit.
Run #9: Transmogrifying Tempest of Influence in effect. Not my favorite, but it's not dangerous. No fights of interest.
Run #10: Found Haku again, same 2 minute mission, and this time no wrong turns. Grabbed the spirit with more than 30 seconds to spare and ran out easily. Hit 59 right at the end of the run, perfect. With Written in Blood I'm now at 2256 life, 610 ES. Here's the current passive tree.

Dominus time! Ran around like crazy avoiding everything possible, while dropping the skeletotem, spirits, and occasionally a curse. Decided to use the Vaal Summon Skeletons right at the start, and I think it was the right call because the first group of bosses went down really quickly. Or maybe it had nothing to do with that, because the next group went just as fast, and phase 1 Dominus took only a little longer. Weird goat-dude Dominus lasted all of about 15 seconds. I lost about 10% of my life once when the final phase boss hit me, and one zombie had to be resummoned. Even the spectres lived. I suppose maybe +5 was a bit overkill, but I'm not complaining.

Whole bunch of rares dropped, mostly bad, a few decent but not useful for Sarah. Found a Drunken Aristocrat divination card, and an Inertia unique jewel. Transforms passive node Dexterity to Strength...interesting, but again nothing that Sarah can use.

Made my way through the Aqueduct (no tempest) without encountering anything too horrible. Fought the Hundred-Foot Shadow without any trouble, just made sure to get Sarah moving as soon as it took off so she wouldn't get squished. It dropped..wait for it...an Eagle Claw. Har! Not a good one or anything, mind you. Into Highgate without further incident. Initially I started the Dried Lake right away, but I was getting all kinds of lag-induced stuttering as soon as I stepped out of town. Odd that there were no problems earlier in the Aqueduct, but the lake was awful.

Came back later to find the lag gone, and conveniently no tempest in the Dried Lake. The monster population was very high, which doesn't bother the horde any, but it did take some time to clear my way to the back of the zone. Ran into Nightwane spawned right next to a rare, which was very dangerous. The horde wasn't dying, but having two targets meant they weren't winning very quickly either, and Nightwane kept hitting Sarah with big chunks of damage plus bleeding. Got a workout on the old bleeding flask while staying out of his way and trying to keep him cursed. Eventually the rare went down, and from that point the fight went my way quickly. Voll was by himself except for a few archers, so he was a lot easier. Just kept my distance and avoided his charge while the horde wore him down.

Moved on into the mines, infested by a Morbid Tempest. Annoying but workable, though it did throw Vaal Skeletons at me three different times. Between the tempest, the lantern guys throwing fire, and the big guys who throw little guys at you, Sarah was taking a lot more damage than just about anywhere in the previous acts. Definitely more caution required! Found a Haunted Mineshaft corrupted area with extra lightning damage and cleared it out. The boss actually went down really easily, had a much harder time with the normal monsters, though I did have to pull all the minions back when it threw out a big fireball explosion as it died. Found a Vaal Arc.

Took long enough with the first level of the mines that the tempests had shifted by the time I got to the second, and it was clear. More of the same, just without the tempest and thus much less nervewracking. Hammerstorm didn't throw nearly as many hammers as I expected him to, and the horde made short work of him. Rescued the spirit and moved on to the Crystal Veins, which was almost all the normal miner guys and thus quite a bit easier. Very few of the lantern bearers or giants. Found a Gemcutter divination card, that makes 2/3. Killed off the Burning Man...staying well back to avoid being fried...and found the waypoint. I was just barely short of level 60, so I stepped into Daresso's Dream just long enough to finish it off.

With the two skill points from the level and quest reward, picked up Practical Application. The extra 20 strength and dexterity should keep me from having issues with gear requirements, even if I need to swap out some gear that has those stats on it. Next I'm going to head for the Melding life/ES cluster.

Back to Daresso's Dream (no tempest). Got Steelchaw and Eyepecker right out of the gate, and this time avoided getting Sarah bit. Made short work of the ambushes by simply standing right in the middle of each area while using the totem and casting spirits, and occasionally using Convocation if something started hitting me. Vaal Summon Skeletons made the last fight against Barkhul easy, same as it worked on Normal difficulty.

Switched sides to Kaom's Dream (also no tempest). Found a rare strongbox almost immediately, guarded by an exile. Antalie Napora spawned, so I had to run away and hit Convocation a few times to save the horde from being wiped out by lightning arrow. Got her eventually, and I got a ton of rares from her and the box, but sadly none were any good. Kaom was apparently dreaming of dogs and bears, because they were everywhere. Cleared through them and took care of Torchoak Grove by running around in circles while the horde chopped it down. Moved on into Kaom's Path, less animals but still plenty of targets. Didn't see Triskeriaki, must have missed him on the way, so it was an easy trip through.

I don't want to face either Kaom or Daresso until I've maxed out my non-XP-penalty level, so I'll be going through the Grand Arena and Kaom's Stronghold for a while. Both are level 56 zones so I can get to 62. No tempest unless otherwise stated.

Run #1: Grand Arena (Quickening Tempest of the Ancestors). Same tactics as Normal difficulty are still working: move as little as possible to avoid extra aggro, use Convocation when something won't leave Sarah alone. The tempest is a nice boost for the horde. Lost both spectres and half my zombies to the triple uniques at the end, something that hasn't happened in quite a while. All three have bad AoE attacks: Cyclone, Flameblast, Poison Arrow. Confirms my decision to get as many levels as is reasonable before going for the big bosses.
Run #2: Kaom's Stronghold. Nothing too dangerous, although if I didn't have max fire resist I suspect I'd feel differently, with all the firestorm guys and voidbearers. Hit 61. Found a Gemcutter's Strongbox with 6 extra items, but found nothing decent out of it.
Run #3: Kaom's Stronghold. Only interesting fight was an encounter with Orra Greengate, which confused me at first as I wasn't sure where the rains of arrows were coming from. The horde was already working her over by the time I spotted her among a bunch of melee guys. Found my first Granite flask, and rolled it into increased charge recovery and immunity to curses.
Run #4: Grand Arena. Smooth sailing again until the three uniques, who again took out a big chunk of the horde, but two of them died doing it. They were certainly dealing out plenty of damage, had to use my hybrid flask to refill my mana a couple of times because Mind Over Matter was eating it up.
Run #5: Kaom's Stronghold (Blasphemous Tempest). Not too concerned about the random curses, and overall I like this side better than the arena. No interesting battles.
Run #6: Grand Arena. I'm just short of 62, so I can move on to Daresso at the end. Hit the level about halfway through, and did much better against the trio of uniques since I remembered to hit Vaal Summon Skeletons at the start of the fight, then Convocation the main horde out of the way. They hit the Vaal Skeletons pretty hard, but that left the others intact to beat them down.

Daresso was actually easier this time than he had been on Normal difficulty, because he wasn't doing a lot of damage to the horde. I only lost one spectre and one zombie through the whole fight. That meant that I could focus on dodging with Sarah, which was good since he came right at her out of the gate. Took some frantic running around and dropping totems before he switched targets. After that, it was back to curse-totem-spirits with a Vaal Summon Skeletons tossed in about halfway through for good measure. For some reason almost everything he dropped was a melee weapon, weird RNG artifact. Got the unique dream mace Flesh-Eater, something for the guild stash.

Pretty much exactly the same result on the other side with Kaom. Cleared on through the zone again to reach him with no fights of interest. He started off coming for Sarah, so I dropped totems and ran around a bunch until he lost interest and was fighting the horde. Kept dodging all the fire as best I could while working the usual curse-skeletotem-spirits. When he started yelling for help and the Hyrri's Sisters showed up, dropped the Vaal Summon Skeletons. Kaom was down seconds later. No useful drops.

Gave the eyes to Dialla, watched the highly unsanitary surgical laser procedure, and picked up a Lightning Penetration from the quest reward. Might use it eventually on the spectres, and nothing else was any better. All set up next time for the Belly of the Beast.

I've occasionally run out of mana in situations where I need to resummon a zombie or two (their cost is pretty high now), or when I've taken a few hits (via Mind Over Matter). So I allowed Clarity to level up a couple more times. I still may run out in those situations, but I also recover faster.

Took a look at my gem options, which are still somewhat limited even with everything the vendors will sell me, and decided to add Increased Critical Strikes to the spectres. (I'm ditching Flame Dash entirely to make room - haven't used it in ages.) Could have used Lightning Penetration instead, but for now I prefer something that's useful with any revived monster, not just the lightning-based ones.

On my weapon switch I've still got Lightning Penetration, Fire Penetration, and Melee Physical Damage. All things I might swap in someday, depending on what links I get and which other support gems become available. Also I have Purity of Lightning and Purity of Ice leveling up, so that if I end up in a situation where I can max two resists but not the third using gear, I can swap for my current Purity of Elements. (Still haven't found a Purity of Fire yet.)

There's a few decent revives in Act 4. I've been using Hyrri's Sisters up until now. They're a little slow, but reasonably useful. Gut Spikers work all right as well. The best are still the Stygian Revenants, once you get to them, despite recent nerfs. Too bad their sound effect is so annoying, but it's only a problem if you're trying to listen to something else (like a NPC).

Belly of the Beast levels 1 and 2 are both level 56 monsters, so I'm already 6 levels up, and the trip through was uneventful. No tempest in either. (Maybe there are never tempests in the Belly zones and Harvest? Never paid attention before. Anyway, I didn't see any.) Defeated Piety by the simple method of using my quicksilver flask to run around ahead of the Death Beam of Doom, and letting the horde eat her brain.

The Harvest has level 57s, so I can get to level 63 before the XP penalty. Cleared the non-bosses once, and found my first Gemcutter's Prism. Did a second run, found nothing of interest, although the horde did kill Torr Olgosso without me even realizing he was there. I had to identify the corpse to see what it was that dropped all the loot. Got to 63 on the third run and beat up the Godless Three without incident, same tactics as used in Normal difficulty. Between the three of them they dropped a total of one (bad) rare, everything else blue or worse.

Malachai time. First phase, not bad, just a few hits from the giant tentacle-portal that I could run out of, and no minions lost. Second phase is the one that had me worried, and it almost got me. Initially things went fairly well, with the minions doing their thing and me dodging Malachai, until the second heart was down. Then it got ugly. There was so much AoE that I was losing minions in seconds, and Sarah was taking a lot of damage. When the ring of fire showed up, I had to portal out and resummon. I'd only last about 10 seconds before all the zombies were down again and my flasks were empty, and I was down to less than half life a couple of times. I repeated the leave-and-resummon trick three more times, plus used Vaal Summon Skeletons, and he finally went down. Malachai dropped half a dozen rares, none useful for Sarah, although one heavy armor looked pretty decent and got dumped in the guild stash.

I am really glad that's over. I have no intention of going anywhere near Merciless Dominus, unless I get to the point where I no longer care if Sarah dies. End of the league, maybe, if I live that long. And I'm sure glad they nerfed the Normal/Cruel fights, because I can't imagine going through all that with even worse incoming damage. I still think the end of the second phase needs downward adjustment in terms of the sheer amount of area damage...making those fire circles smaller and/or slower would be a good start. I'm pretty sure I survived only through dumb luck as there was too much going on to dodge intelligently. And that's with a build focused heavily on life and ES, and having ground out every possible level short of the XP penalty cap. A player who doesn't do those things would be in a world of hurt.

Went ahead and ran through the Twilight Strand in Merciless to get to Lioneye's Watch. Only level 56s, another failure in the leveling curve which I expect will continue through most of Act 1. Hillock died before he even got his sword out. Got a mediocre fire resist ring from the quest reward.