[Tempest] Sarah the Self-Found Solo Summoner

Time to deal with the bandits. Ran up north to the Broken Bridge and buried Kraityn, then off to the Western Forest to do the same for Alira. I'm high enough level that it's not much of a challenge. I found Catarina on the way to Alira and got the mission to raise two corrupted monsters, which I did, but instead of returning them immediately, I took them with me into Alira's camp. They fought against her just as well as my own minions; nice to have a little extra help. After Alira, went on to open the pass, get my skill point, then clear out the spider lair. Found Catarina again there and did the same thing, only this time I found a full dozen of the corrupted monsters and they made quick work of the Weaver.

Lots of new gems available after getting the quest reward for the spike from Silk. Used up some chromatics to work my available links into Spirits-Minion Damage-Faster Casting, Zombies-Minion Damage-Faster Attacks, and Skeletons-Spell Totem-Culling Strike. That leaves out the Melee Splash, but I think more spirits is better than small AoEs at this point. The downside is that my mana will be used up even faster, but for now I can keep up with flasks.

Moved on into the Vaal Ruins, only mildly inconvenienced by a Shrinking Tempest. Killed many snakes on the way through to the Wetlands. Hit level 23 on the way, and picked up Lord of the Dead. Finally, my first minion buff node! I don't think I've ever gone 22 levels on a summoner without any minion buff nodes before. The extra zombie and skeletons, plus the other buffs, are immediately noticeable. There are less instability-explosions, and high-HP monsters are dropping much faster. Mana usage is also lower; I hadn't realized just how much all the zombie-resummoning was hurting my mana pool. (Spirits are cheaper without Melee Splash as well, but I'm also casting them faster, so that part of the mana usage isn't changing much.) Still think getting Deep Thoughts next is a good idea, though, to keep up with rising costs as I level.

Rolled through the Wetlands and into the Caverns, no tempests in either. Other than dodging the occasional devourer, an easy trip. Also found Minara Anemina in a strongbox along the way, and won the battle of the summoners easily. Hit 24 and got the minion damage node next to Lord of the Dead. Tried to enter the pyramid basement but I'd forgotten to finish off the bandits; had to go back and pick up my extra life from Oak first. Then I could move along. Mostly straightforward clearing in the pyramid, other than the occasional allies-cannot-die totem room. Found Catarina twice more, both in the pyramid basement and the pyramid itself, and completed both missions easily. Climbed to the apex and smote the Oversoul with many skeletons and spirits. All I really had to do with Sarah was stay out of melee range, and dodge the occasional lightning blast.

Here's my passive tree at level 25. I'll get Deep Thoughts next, then the left-hand side of the Death Attunement cluster (since spectres are coming up soon). Then down back near my starting area for Constitution. My general plan is to alternate getting minion buffs and life nodes from here on out.

Found a rare strongbox in the tempest-free City of Sarn, which spawned Zacharie Desmarais. Neither he nor the guard captain presented the horde with any difficulty. Zacharie dropped a rare jewel, but sadly it had no useful stats. Went shopping once I hit the Sarn Encampment, picking up Convocation and Temporal Chains. I could have taken Enfeeble instead, but I prefer the Chains since the slow effect makes it easier to run away in bad situations. Also helps against annoying monsters that like to scatter and/or have non-damage skills (i.e. necromancers). Damage negation is equivalent over time, although you do lose Enfeeble's help against the one-big-shot situations - that's one reason I plan to go with armor gear eventually. I'm thinking that eventually I'd like to run Haste as my aura, but with a 50% mana reservation it'll be a while before I can afford to.

Glacial Tempest in the Slums, but I bundled up and headed out there anyway. Lost a few zombies to the ice, but I saw a few monsters shatter as well, so probably a wash in the end. Found the Crematorium without incident, checked resists: 51/75/65. Probably OK since this is normal difficulty, but checked the stash anyway and found a fire resist ring that's almost as good as the low-level rare ring I had been using. Up to 75/75/65, much better. No complaints about the Energizing Tempest in the Crematorium, good for minion health. Found Vagan and beat him up handily, then the same for Hatebeat. Piety was little trouble with the Chains slowing her down, allowing the horde to get her down to half fairly quickly.

Headed down into the sewers and fought through a Ghastly Tempest in the Slums Sewers, and a Molten Tempest in the Warehouse Sewers. Both tempests are tough on the minions, but I also got some use out of them. In the Slums Sewers, Spinesnap spawned in the bust room, with a whole bunch of blues. I ran away as soon as I recognized the situation, and got away easily enough, but the horde was wiped out. The usual tactic of carefully putting a skeletotem out to draw aggro and pull the big group apart worked even better with various Ghastly Tempest minions working on the monsters, along with my guys. In the Warehouse Sewers, I opened a strongbox guarded by blues, which spawned a whole bunch of the posion bomb and discharge guys. Usually that would be an awful bunch to take down, but in this case they were mostly killed off by the Molten Tempest while I was busy resummoning a few rooms away. Even so, I took a break once I found the waypoint, no need to keep losing zombies to all the fire when I can wait for better weather.

After the break, no tempests in Warehouse or Marketplace zones. Smooth sailing most of the way. Spotted a Neglected Cellar corrupted area and very carefully cleared it, being especially careful not to get caught in Rima's ice storm. Got a Vaal Cold Snap. Found the sewers and stumbled upon the bust room immediately, which was nice in terms of time spent searching, but was also dangerous since what felt like half the zone descended on me. That included both a rare and Torr Olgosso. Took a while to clear that mess out, including a couple of retreats to the zone doorway to use Desecrate to resummon zombies.

Hit level 29, and finished off the left half of the Death Attunement cluster. Changed my mind slightly on the next target, going to get Quick Recovery instead of Constitution. The mana regen isn't a big deal right now but will be as gem costs go higher with level.

Took a side trip to the Catacombs, which were also tempest-free. Found Vorici and was actually able to do his mission, a simple defeat-boss-within-time-limit one. Said boss was Jonah Unchained, so I didn't have to worry about him running away. Other than that, nothing particularly interesting. Then I walked into the Battlefront long enough to pick up the waypoint, but didn't like the Transmogrifying Tempest, so decided not to go further until after a break.

Plenty of buff tempests in the next few zones: Stinging Tempest in the Battlefront, Shivering Tempest in the Solaris Temple, and Galvanizing Tempest in the Docks. All buff the horde, so I don't mind seeing them...just have to be extra careful not to get hit by big monsters with buffs.

Solaris Temple first, where the only somewhat difficult fight I encountered across both levels was the Goddess of Purity. Together with her elemental spawns, she was blowing up minions left and right. Had to kite her a bit to give the skeletons and spirits a chance to finish her off. Found Dialla and the waypoint.

Back to the Battlefront to pick up the ribbon spool. Found Vagan on the way and smacked him around; he took out the zombies pretty easily, but their death explosions knocked off about half his life and the rest was easy for the skeletons and spirits. Temporal Chains really helps against him. Turned in the spool to Dialla, got a mediocre amulet.

Next up, the Docks. Slower going here, with a higher monster level, and a whole lot of Voidbearers burning up zombies. Had a couple of places with large packs that required some retreat-and-resummon tactics, but nothing really dangerous. Found Fairgraves and the waypoint, then the sulfite. Stepped back into the Marketplace briefly to find the flask, fortunately didn't have to look far. Turned the sulfite in to Dialla, cleared the blockage, and onward into the Barracks.

Clear weather through all the zones in this area, so no tempests to be concerned with. Demolished Gravicius in short order; slowing his attacks with Temporal Chains makes avoiding the fire attacks easy for Sarah, and allows plenty of time for skeletons-and-spirits-in-the-face to take him out. Then moved on through the Lunaris Temple level 1 to the waypoint.

Picked up Summon Spectre and Animate Guardian after turning in the quest reward, although I had to buy both from Clarissa since Maramoa didn't offer anything useful in the actual reward itself. I know from experience that I'm going to be raising spectres regularly for a while, becaues they just don't have the health to live very long until higher gem levels. So rather than try to set up gear links for the long term, I just went with what I had available: BBB for spectre-minion damage-increased critical strikes. The Guardian is a nice addition for now, though I may not keep him long term. He's much more tanky than the zombies at this point, and besides it's kind of fun to find gear for him from the junk I'd otherwise ignore or sell. While I was rearranging gear, I also capped out my resists by getting a fire/lightning two-stone ring from Clarissa to replace the fire/cold one I had been using, since I had more cold than needed and not enough lightning.

On to the Imperial Gardens, where I only saw a few monsters before finding the waypoint and the Hedge Maze. No such luck in the Maze, where I hit the Conqueror Wurm almost immediately. He wiped out the whole horde, but I was able to keep Sarah hidden behind a wall and summon skeletons and spirits to attack him without being exposed. The rest of the maze was slow going, with lots of devourers and statues to deal with, but not particularly dangerous. Got the plum and turned it in to Fairgraves, though sadly the ring quest reward was pretty bad.

No battles of note on the way to the Library and down to the Archives. Trinian was a bit of a pain, destroying most of the horde with his tornado things. Easily replaced, though. Found all the papers and took a Fortify from Siosa, which I may try out on the zombies if I find gear with appropriate links.

Time for Piety. Rolled through the Lunaris Temple level 2 with little difficulty, just a few places requiring caution when a bunch of tentacle miscreations were massed together. Lots of good spectre material. Piety herself didn't last too long, just a couple of transformations into her fire fast-attack form. She still was moving fast even with Temporal Chains, but she only killed one minion, so I'm guessing a bit of slowdown did a decent job lowering her damage output.

I've now finished off the Quick Recovery cluster and have started on the Gravepact cluster. Here's the current passive tree. I also went back and picked up the minion life/regen node up by Death Attunement, since that bit of regen really helps to keep the spectres around longer. They still get hammered in big fights, but at least they tend to survive through many smaller fights in succession.

I could use another couple of levels before going to see Dominus. Preferably three levels, actually, to allow me to get Gravepact and also pick up Mind Over Matter. Decided to do another Piety run to get to 34, mostly just because that will mean slightly less of the monotony of the Upper Sceptre over and over. Easy enough trip through the Lunaris Temple level 2, and pretty much a repeat of the first Piety fight. No useful drops, but it got me to level 34 and Mind Over Matter.

Fought through a Molten Tempest in the Imperial Gardens to reach the Sceptre of God, which fortunately was tempest-free. Ran across Caliga in the lower floors, possessed by a Thug spirit. Lost all the minions fairly quickly, so I did a lot of running around and resummoning while dodging lightning traps. Took a while to get rid of her with all the extra life. Other than that, no significant encounters on the way to the waypoint, and then a few clear runs through the Upper Sceptre. Hit 36 on the third run, and picked up Gravepact.

I'm missing a bleeding flask, and don't yet have enough currency to gamble for one, but otherwise things look good against Dominus. If he survives long enough for the bleeding rain to be a problem, I'll have to use a portal. Turned out to be a non-issue. The first wave wiped out most of the horde, as expected, but left a good number of corpses while I took them out with skeletotem and spirits. Second wave was easier, and gave me time to use those corpses to recover the zombies. First form Dominus kept teleporting away from me so I had to chase him around to keep Temporal Chains up and the spirits on target, and of course I had to dodge the exploding kamikaze minions. Took some time but Sarah never took any significant hits. Final form was fairly easy as usual, just lots of minions of all the types I could manage to keep out, pounding away at him. The rain did fall, but I was able to stay in the safe area easily enough.

Either Dominus or one of his minions was kind enough to drop a +1 to minion skills bone circlet, so I blew through the small stack of jeweler and fusing orbs I'd saved up to 4-link it. Ended up with Summon Zombie-Animate Guardian-Faster Attacks-Minion Damage. The guardian is kind of a placeholder for now...I might move in the Fortify later if I think the zombies need more defense, or a Melee Physical Damage. Also moved the spirits into a 4-link full ringmail chest armor that had been sitting in the stash, with a empty red slot waiting for Multistrike. I'd been waiting on that because it costs me some lightning resistance, down to 51% now, but now that I'm past Dominus I can live with that for a bit. Hopefully will find gear to fix it up soon, preferably better gloves, shield, or amulet.

No tempest in the Aqueduct, but I did find a Forgotten Conduit corrupted area with extra monster fire damage. Cleared most of it easily, but the boss room was rough. The Torrent of Fear is bad enough by itself, but there were also a bunch of blue projectile constructs and water elementals. Glad I put out a skeletotem ahead as I approach the end room, so the initial attacks hit the skeletons instead of Sarah. Lost all the minions except the guardian multiple times, as I'd put out the totem, send the zombies in, back up, resummon and repeat. Eventually the elementals were gone and the Torrent of Fear had moved away from the constructs, allowing me to finally finish it off. Got a Vaal Arc. After that, rest of the Aqueduct was a walk in the park. Even the Hundred-Foot Shadow only managed to cost me one zombie.

Found a tempest-free Dried Lake as well, and was able to clear it easily though slowly. Sheer weight of numbers slowed things down. Tons of Voll's army out there. Came across Nightwane, who didn't actually do a lot of damage. I know he gets ugly in later difficulties, but in Normal the horde made short work of him. Pretty much the same with Voll, just a matter of staying out of his charge path and big melee strike. Also ran into Vagan and beat him up. Got Chaos Golem from Oyun for the quest reward, another minion for the horde.

Clear weather underground, so no tempests to deal with in the Mines or Crystal Vein. These zones are a pain at this level. Between the cramped tunnels and those lanternbearer guys throwing fire patches around, it's nigh impossible to keep spectres up, and even the zombies will get caught occasionally. Ran into all the uniques: Pikerivet, Hammerstorm, Voidscream, and the Burning Man. The first two weren't much trouble, but the last two each wiped out the horde at least once. Voidscream was positioned across one of those narrow bridges, so the horde was ignoring him and attacking all the summoned bats. Eventually I backed off, resummoned, and then ran across the bridge and cast Convocation, at which point they took him down. The Burning Man killed everything with his death explosion, of course, but I knew it was coming and had Sarah well away. Found a Kaltenhalt unique shield, which is interesting with all the evasion and cold resistance, but it's only two-linked and I'd prefer armor/ES anyway. Stashed it for now, good to keep around just in case.

Avoided any tempests again in Kaom's Dream and Path. Still have to raise new spectres every once in a while, but the rest of the horde is staying alive except against heavy massed damage (such as from strongbox spawns). Fought the Torchoak Grove with the simple tactic of running around it in circles, casting the occasional skeletotem or spirit, until the horde had chopped it down. The trees like to throw lots of fireballs at me but not many at the minions, so as long as I stay away from them and keep moving, it's an easy battle. Didn't see Triskeriaki in the Path, which is fine by me since the crossfire he puts up can be painful. Hit 39 along the way and picked up Constitution; now up to 1094 health/278 ES.

Switched over to Daresso's Dream, with a Restorative Tempest. Mostly uneventful, including easy kills on Steelchaw and Eyepecker, but the cage match areas were difficult. I miss Vaal Summon Skeletons, which made those a whole lot easier. Can't be picky playing self-found, though! The final caged area with Barkhul was especially rough, as he took out most of the horde before dying. That left me frantically raising zombies and trying to keep the skeletotem up, while a huge crowd of archer roosters shot at me. Temporal Chains was the big winner here, slowing the incoming damage to a crawl while I got all my minions upright. After that, I figured maybe I should go ahead and use that Fortify on the zombies, to hopefully reduce the minion wipes. Swapped it in, and moved the Guardian down with the Spirits for now.

No tempest in the Grand Arena, so onward we go. The zombies did indeed survive well against the arena crowds, so it looks like Fortify is doing its job. Revived a couple of bulls as spectres since they're high HP monsters, and they survived pretty well too. Had to resummon occasionally after a horde of fire dogs when a minion wasn't smart enough to move out of the fire, but otherwise uneventful until the uniques. I was pleasantly surprised how well the three-uniques fight went; once I hit them with Temporal Chains and got the skeletotem out, they didn't do much. Daresso was tougher, though. Got him down to about half fairly quickly, but then the minions started dying off, and I had to do a lot of Desecrate-Raise Zombie in between dodging. He only hit Sarah once, when I was a little slow on the Temporal Chains refresh, and he decided to go straight for her while ignoring the minions. Took about 1/3 off my life, but by then he was almost dead and a curse refresh plus a little bit of keep-away allowed the minions to finish him off.

Another lucky break in the weather with no tempest in Kaom's Stronghold. Gigantic zone, and I chose poorly on my navigation - made a huge circle back to the waypoint before finding the right way to Kaom. That worked out OK, though, since it got me to level 41. The Kaom fight itself was very quick. With Temporal Chains, avoiding his attacks with Sarah was pretty easy, and the minions had him down below half in seconds. But then all the fire splashing started, and Sarah was hit hard, down below half life, so I hit the portal, intending to resummon and come back with full life and flasks to finish the job. But when I zoned into town, I see "Pick up the Eye of Fury" - apparently the horde had finished him off just as I zoned out. So I just walked back through the portal and cleaned up the junk he dropped.

With the quest reward from Dialla, picked up Multistrike, and then bought Spell Echo as well. Eventually I want to link the Spell Echo to the spirits, but for now I'm going to level it on weapon switch because my cast speed is slow enough that Sarah gets stuck in place doing the double-cast animation. I need that mobility to stay alive more than I need additional spirits. So the spirits are linked to Faster Casting-Minion Damage-Multistrike. That means I need a spot for the Guardian, and since the spectres are still pretty weak, I decided I'll use my links on the guardian and golem for now. So I have Summon Chaos Golem-Animate Guardian-Fortify-Minion Damage linked up, and the Raise Spectre gem is off by itself.

Forgot to mention in my last update that one of the triple uniques in the Arena dropped a Sidhebreath unique amulet, very useful for summoners. Put that in place of the Aruku Tiki that I'd been using for a good long while. Also, I finally buckled down and fixed my lightning resistance. (You might ask why I'm not using a resistance aura, like I did on the first Sarah...it comes down to mana. Without Clarity, I use mana like crazy in bigger fights, so I don't want to reduce it any more than absolutely necessary.) The RNG hasn't been giving me anything to help, so I created my own rare Topaz ring: bought an Iron Ring, sold it together with a random green gem, rolled a Alchemy orb. It's not great, but the ring's 22% together with a 12% magical gloves is enough to max it out. Bit more armor/ES from the gloves, too, though I did lose a bit of cold resist. Current totals: 75/74/75 resists, 1070 life, 284 ES.

Into the Belly of the Beast. The trickiest non-boss fights here and in the Harvest are those Eye Hatchery things that create exploding ground circles. Whenever I see one of those, I back up and use Convocation to keep the horde from bunching up around it and getting themselves blown apart. With Minion Instability, it'll usually kill itself pretty quickly by blowing up skeletons. Ran across the Bone Queen, and had no trouble with her. Piety did her usual trick of killing off most of the horde with the Rotating Beam of Doom, and killed herself in the process with all the explosions.

Now it's grind time. I need to hit 44 in order to pick up Herd the Flock. That will also be 4 levels above the level 40 Harvest zone, just within the XP penalty range, so it seems like a good target. Ended up doing 4 clear runs. On the third run, found a couple of uniques: Hrimnor's Hymn (sledgehammer) and Fluid Motion (Viridian Jewel). Neither useful for Sarah, so into the guild stash. Also found a rare shield that's better in pretty much every way than my current one, except links. Blew through about 25 chromatics without getting the colors I needed, though, and eventually tried a Vaal Orb hoping for a white socket, but no luck. But with a little rearranging of gems between shield and boots, managed to get it to work anyway. I've now got my skeletons linked to spell totem-culling strike-item rarity, and the Animate Guardian and Chaos Golem linked to Fortify (no more Minion Damage). Now I'm capped on all resists, and up to 1140 life/330 ES and 24% physical resist from armor (26% with Chaos Golem). Just short of 44 after the fourth run, so started one more clean zone and went after the Godless Three. No trouble with any of them, just kept Sarah moving around while the horde swarmed 'em. Hit the level and took Herd the Flock. Found yet another unique, The Stormheart, which went to the guild stash. The RNG seems to drop this stuff in streaks.

Just before going after Malachai, here's what the passive tree looks like, and here's my gear:


Into the Black Core to face Malachai. No trouble in the first phase, just kept Sarah running around the outer areas and kept summoning skeletons and spirits. Second phase was a pain in the rear, as usual. The first two Hearts went down very quickly, then it got ugly. Minions were scattered all over the place, attacking Malachai, the third Heart, random adds...and I couldn't do anything to help focus them since keeping Sarah alive was taking my full attention. The spectres were gone almost immediately, of course, and the zombies were going down by ones and two. I tried to raise a couple of them, but eventually I had to portal out and do a full resummon. Came back in, and this time finished the job. Nothing of great interest in the drops, although one belt might be useful later, with life and fire resist.

There was a Seething Tempest of Lightning on the beach, but that didn't bother the horde as they made quick work of all in their path on the way to Lioneye's Watch. Hillock lasted about 5 seconds. Quest reward was a pretty mediocre ring, but at least it has both fire and lightning resist. Dropped in the stash in case I need that particular combination later. My current belt is pretty awful, plus I'm starting to run up against strength requirements for my Fortify gems, so I bought a Heavy Belt from Nessa and hit it with a Chance Orb. Good roll, got a rare with fire and cold resist plus a bit of life. 74/75/46 resists at the moment, so I'll keep an eye out for any gear with some lightning resist on it.

Enlarging Tempest of Poison in the Coast, so I spent a lot of time using Convocation to pull minions out of poison clouds. Found Vagan partway through, and did his mission...first time I'd seen the dummy-killing race mission. Won 19 to 2, kind of an unfair fight with the horde. Took down Fire Fury, who was easy enough alone but had so many friends and poison clouds nearby that it took the horde a while to work through them. Demolished Thena Moga later on in the zone, so quickly that I had to ID the corpse to see who it was. Found a nice ring which is a strict upgrade over one I'd been using: more life, more resists, more mana, even some item rarity. Pushes resists up to 75/75/50.

Walked over to the Tidal Island, happy to find a Shielding Tempest of Intensity. Not that there was much danger anyway, but that particular tempest is great. Barely affects my mostly-melee minions, and some extra protection for me. Hailrake had no chance. Worse weather in the Mud Flats, with a Infernal Tempest of Influence, but I dodged the fire and used Convocation to mostly keep the horde out of it. Found a strongbox guarded by Ion Darkshroud and made quick work of him. Ran across Oozeback Bloom, same deal. Hit the passage waypoint and picked up the quest reward from Tarkleigh, but nothing useful.

Side trip into the Fetid Pool, with a Consuming Tempest of Animation to deal with. Not too dangerous, just have to watch out for any big groups with rares affected by the Soul Eater bonus. Dealt with Kadavrus as usual, denial of corpses followed by minion swarm. Found a Strange Sinkhole corrupted area and cleared it easily enough, with the horde taking out Mother of the Hive without incident. Found a Sacrifice at Dusk.

Hit level 45 and picked up Retribution on the passive tree. The cast speed and strength is nice, and more importantly it opens up access to Discipline and Training below, and later Sanctity. Also swapped out the Faster Casting on the Spirits for Spell Echo. Sarah still gets locked in place slightly longer with the cast animation, but it's not as bad now as it was back when I first picked up the gem, since I have a bit more cast speed. Plus things are safer here in Act 1, so I can get used to it with less risk. The upside is that I can keep 8 spirits out now if I'm chain-casting (up from 6), and the mana usage is less since I'm effectively casting it half as often.

No tempests underground as I headed into the Submerged Passage. Cleared my through to the Flooded Depths, killed the crab and helped Catarina with a mission, then onward to the Ledge. Did my best to dodge the Electrocuting Tempest there while the horde made short work of the enemies. Found Vagan again, another dummy-killing race, and beat him 21-0 this time. Walked onward into the tempest-free Climb, and was immediately attacked by Zacharie Desmarais, all by his lonesome. That ended about as poorly for him as you might expect. Other enemies in the zone were no great challenge, even Ironpoint, although he did at least manage to hit Sarah a couple of times with his Rain of Arrows.

Hit the Prison waypoint and picked up a Lesser Multiple Projectiles from Nessa for the quest reward, and bought a wand from her with a BG link to hook it to the spectres. Clear weather as I went back into the Prison. Ran across Chatters and a rare necromancer right away, but after that it was clear sailing. Brutus was a pushover, just kept Sarah at range and alternated Temporal Chains, skeletotem, and spirits.

Walked out into the Prisoner's Gate, clear weather here too, and immediately hit a giant pack of goatmen and fire dogs. Took the horde a while to clear it, which was concerning me a bit, until I realized that the last dog standing was the Burning Menace. Later in the zone, found Guardian of the Mound, at the top of a cliff where he could shoot fire down at the horde while they were busy fighting other stuff at the bottom. Not a good situation, so I retreated, pulled everyone back with Convocation, and went around to the side where the horde could get at the Guardian. That cleared things up quickly enough.

Ugly weather in the Ship Graveyard with a Morbid Tempest of Poison, so I kept the horde moving as quickly as seemed safe to get through it. Even so, I still saw two of the Vaal Summon Skeletons spawns, which are a royal pain because they cause the horde to scatter all over the place. Got to the caverns, grabbed the waypoint, and picked up the quest reward from Nessa. Decent helmet with +1 to minion skills, but only one socket, and my current helm is almost as good, so I decided to just sell it back.

Braved the tempest again to find the Ship Graveyard Cave, which fortunately was clear. No troubles inside with Stranglecharm or any of the rest. Did a mission for Elreon, too. Then back out and smote Fairgraves handily, even with a few extra tempest skeletons wandering into the fight. Also hit level 47 along the way. With the two skill points, made my way down the passive tree to Sanctity; here's how it looks currently. Next I think I'll get the Puppet Master cluster.

No bad weather in either Cavern. Found and demolished both Amarissa and Ambrosia. Outside of those two, no encounters of interest. The horde made short work of Merveil; she didn't manage to take out even one minion. Lots of rares in the drop, but nothing useful.

Been a while since I remembered to check my hideout to see if any of the masters could be useful with crafting. Turns out Elreon was happy to add lightning resist to one of my rings, which caps out my resists. Catarina is willing to help with 15% minion damage, but only on gloves, and my current gloves are pretty weak and not 4-linked. Not worth spending the two Alchemy Orbs on those. Whenever I find some decent gloves, I'll add that mod. Also did Vorici's daily mission, which was right at my level. Able to complete a leave-the-target-alive mission (after removing Culling Strike from the skeletons), which probably wouldn't have been possible if I'd been much higher in level.

Cleared out the usual barrels of monkeys in the tempest-free Southern Forest, plus a few drop bears and thugs. Reached the Encampment, then followed the good weather. The non-linear nature of early Act 2 makes it easy to avoid most tempests, if you want to. Hit the Old Fields, the Crossroads, the Chamber of Sins, and Fellshrine; picked up all the waypoints while mowing down all opposition. No interesting encounters other than the uniques - Calaf in the Crossroads, Black Death in Chamber level 1, Fidelitas in Chamber level 2 - and none of those posed any difficulty. Took a Amethyst Flask from Gruest for the quest reward, since I didn't have one yet.

After the tempests shifted, more clear weather in the Broken Bridge, where Kraityn was easy pickings for the horde. The Riverways was the only non-clear zone, but a Restorative Tempest of Influence is no problem. Cleared through there, got the waypoint, then turned north into the Wetlands. Beat up Oak without losing a minion, and found the waypoint. Backtracked to head west, dodged the usual mass of kamikaze thugs in the Western Forest, and found Alira. I could have killed her easily enough, but I decided to help her for the cast speed bonus instead. Possibly not the most optimal choice, but it helps with the spirit-casting and I'm not desperate for another skill point. Found a Fertile Mind unique jewel along the way, interesting but not particularly useful. Moved on to beat up Captain Arteri, then back to Lioneye's Watch to get my skill point and pick up Puppet Master.

Found the spider lair and destroyed the Weaver easily. The horde actually killed her before she had a chance to do her jump-up-out-of-reach thing. Took the spike to Silk and got a Cast When Damage Taken...not sure if I'll find a spot to use it someday, but it can't hurt to have just in case. Killed the tree and headed into the Vaal Ruins, rolling over everything easily other than a side mission for Haku. That was a 2-minute timed spirit rescue, and I was fortunate to choose the correct path and have enough time, but it was still a pain when I grabbed the spirit and everything started reviving around me. Fortunately my Quicksilver Flask was fully charged and I could just run out past them all. Got to the end of the ruins and found the Northern Forest waypoint.

The next tempest shift cleared the Crypt, so that's the next destination. Found an Entombed Alcove corrupted area and cleared it, with great caution near the end to avoid Shrapnelbearer's projectiles and death poison. Worth the trouble, since I found Vaal Summon Skeletons, hooray! Had to go back to an older shield to get usable slot colors, and moved Desecrate and Flame Dash to my weapon switch, but eventually I found a way to fit it in. Cleared the rest of the Crypt without incident. Easy battle as usual against Geofri, no trouble for the horde. Hit level 50 on the way, and spent the skill point on another jewel slot (just south of Mind Over Matter) so I can use the Assassin's Haste from the quest reward.

Back to the Northern Forest, with Echoing Tempest in effect. Doesn't affect me much. Rolled through the forest and the tempest-free Caverns without incident, outside of having to dodge a few Devourers. Found the waypoint, then took a side trip out to the Den, which I'd skipped earlier. Cleaned it out and did another side mission for Haku, which was easier this time because the area didn't have any branches - no chance to make a wrong turn. Found a Belt of the Deceiver unique, second one in the guild stash. Quest reward belt wasn't any good, sold it back to Yeena.

Time to ascend the pyramid. Nothing much of note on the way up, although there was one room with three rares and a couple of totems that had monsters everywhere. The horde spread out so much that I was afraid they'd not be able to finish any of them off, so I had to walk back and use Convocation a few times to regroup. Never was in any real danger, though. The Vaal Oversoul stood no chance, finished it off after only one cycle of its disappearing act.

Hit level 51 on the way through the pyramid. My next goal on the passive tree is Devotion, for the life and strength, and on the way I'll pass Purity of Flesh and Faith and Steel, which I can pick up later. Here's how it looks right now. Possibly also Sovereignty, later on, although I still don't have an aura due to mana concerns. I also am running short on dexterity, but I'm going to try to deal with that through items since there's not really any easy access to more dexterity from where I'm going on the tree.

Easy walk through the City of Sarn up to the encampment. No encounters of note outside of the Guard Captain, who fell to the horde in seconds. To deal with the dexterity issue, I bought a Turquoise Amulet from Clarissa and rolled it into a rare, plus added life to it with Elreon's crafting. The obvious downside is that I can't use Sidhebreath any more, and that also lowered my cold resist, so I ended up swapping shields again (puts me at 75/74/75). In turn that meant I'm short a green socket, and I'm still short on chromatics, so LMP has to go to the weapon switch for now. The good news is that there's more life on that shield, plus what is on that amulet, so I'm up to 1654 life. Ah, the joys of dealing with self-found-only gear.

Unlike Act 2, you don't get much choice of zones in Act 3, at least not early on. So despite the Molten Tempest in the Slums, out we went. Convocation once again was a huge help, pulling spectres and zombies out of danger regularly. No tempest in the Crematorium, so a much smoother trip. Never saw Hatebeat, and the horde demolished Piety so quickly that she was actually at zero health before teleporting away. Vaal Summon Skeletons probably helped with that. Nothing useful from Maramoa for the quest reward.

Back into the Molten Tempest for a trip through the Slums Sewers. Spinesnap made an appearance and only killed off one zombie, a surprisingly good showing. I got Temporal Chains on him almost immediately, which helped. Found the bust and then did a side mission for Tora, clearing out a den of corrupted spiders and bears. Lost quite a few minions to all the poison in there, but plenty of corpses to replenish the horde. Found yet another unique jewel, Healthy Mind...change life to mana? No thanks.

Clear weather for the Warehouses and Marketplace, thankfully. The sewers trip was uneventful, found the bust and headed upstairs. Had one gigantic fight with two rares and three Gemling Legionaires in the Warehouses, total chaos all over the place. Dealt with that by using Vaal Summon Skeletons as a distraction, and then Convocation to concentrate the horde in a smaller area. No encounters of interest the rest of the way through to get the other bust and find the waypoint, other than a demolishing of Marceus by the horde. Found a 5-slot/4-link ornate ringmail that I rolled into a rare, improved my armor/ES and cold resist a bit, so I'm now back to the resistance cap.

The good weather ended with a Battering Tempest of Fire in the Battlefront, so I moved through it as quickly as was safe to find the waypoint and the temple entrance. The Solaris temple was tempest-free, and the horde rolled on through both levels easily enough. No real issues with either the Infernal/Voltaic Seals, or the Goddess of Purity, although the latter did summon a lot of elementals that made the fight drag out a while.

Went back to the Battlefront and dodged tempests and burning ground to pick up the ribbon spool. Captain Aurelianus really wanted to chase Sarah around, but some Temporal Chains slowed him enough that the horde could pick him apart while I ran away from him. Moved on to a tempest-free Docks, found the waypoint and the sulfite, then turned the loot in to Dialla. Nothing worthwhile from the quest reward amulet. Opened up the blockage and grabbed the Barracks waypoint.

Rather than deal with the Glacial Tempest of Influence in the Barracks, I decided to do a few Docks runs. I'm only 52, just slightly over the level for these zones, so it'll be nice to open up a bit of a cushion. Did 4 full runs, enough for just a bit over one full level. Killed the Revenant in each run, and handed Vagan a beating in one. Also stopped back into the Marketplace long enough to find the flask.

Clear weather in the Barracks. Wiped out Gravicius quickly and easily, didn't lose a minion. Nasty Glacial Tempest of Influence in the Imperial Gardens, so I just went straight to the waypoint, then out. The Lunaris Temple had a Scathing Tempest of Precision, which wasn't too bad, so went ahead and cleared the first level to get the waypoint. Neither Fleshrend nor Kole were any trouble for the horde, though the latter did try to yank Sarah into melee range. Quicksilver Flask got me out of there in a hurry.

After a tempest shift, clear weather out in the Gardens, so headed back there to track down the plum. Beat up Vagan on the way to the Hedge Maze. Lots of devourers in the maze, including the Conqueror Wurm, but none of them hit Sarah very hard. Armor paying off, I think. Got the plum and turned it in to Fairgraves, and got a pretty awful ring back. Did find a rare belt with good resists, though. With that and a little help from Elreon, able to use a rare Unset ring I've been keeping around for a while. Gives me a place to put Desecrate, plus a net gain of 31 dexterity and 46 ES at the cost of 9 life.

Took a side trip over to the Catacombs while waiting for tempests to shift in either the Lunaris Temple or Library. Found an Entombed Alcove and cleared it, being careful to stay away from Ossecati's big smash attack. Found a Vaal Detonate Dead. No other encounters of interest.

Library weather cleared up, and the Lunaris Temple now has a Shielding Tempest of Intensity, both reasonable to work with. Library first. Found a Restricted Gallery corrupted area, with monsters dealing extra cold damage. Moved extremely carefully through it, and as soon as the skeletons made contact with Ch'saka, cursed her, hit the Vaal Summon Skeletons and moved well back. They killed her off, with Minion Instability likely playing a large role, while Sarah hid around the corner. Found a Sacrifice at Dusk. In the Archives, found another Restricted Gallery, this time with totems. Same tactics, same result, with a Vaal Fireball this time. Found the pages, turned them in, took a Lightning Penetration since none of the quest rewards were very useful.

Off to the Lunaris Temple and Piety. The Shielding Tempest is always nice for the horde, and especially good when half the enemies are Tentacle Miscreations. Defeated Spinecrack as the horde rolled through everything in their path. Piety took a bit longer than I'd expected, because she kept teleporting all the way across that blood pool in the middle, but it didn't save her in the end. She dropped a bunch of rares, but nothing useful.

The Piety reward points were enough to get Devotion and the life node behind it. Here's the current passive tree. Next up, Grave Intentions for my 8th zombie. That will also open up the life/mana cluster by Heart and Soul, though I might get Purity of Flesh first.