[Tempest] Sarah the Self-Found Solo Summoner

Time for a break from maps to go through the tempest-free Kaom's Dream and Path. I'm glad I waited until 74, because there was some pretty serious damage being handed out in the Dream. Part of that was the new 2.0.2 patch additions, especially those meteor golems. A rare one nearly wiped out the whole horde single-handedly. Found a rare Gemcutter's Strongbox, rolled a couple of Chaos to get extra quantity, and cleared out Torr Olgosso and his friends guarding it. Nothing useful, but a couple of quality gems to sell later. Also found a Cameria's Maul, a unique gavel that was new to me. Then there was Torchoak Grove, which spawned in a corner of the map so I couldn't use my usual run-around-in-circles tactic, plus three or four packs of other monsters were right behind it. It wiped out three full horde resummons before I'd cleared out the other monsters and enough of the saplings that it could be finished off. The Path wasn't nearly as bad, partly because there were no meteor golems, and partly because Triskeriaki spawned by himself in an open area that made it easy to maneuver. Also ran across Damoi Tui, who is annoying because of his life leeching, but wasn't a problem once I had him slowed down with Temporal Chains. Found a couple of uniques, Wurm's Molt and Last Resort.

Daresso's Dream was affected by a Resisting Tempest, which seems like a good thing. A bit less damage from the spectres and spirits, but better defenses. I was a little nervous going in, after what happened to the last Sarah on a map much like this area, but it went easily enough. Took out Eyepecker and Steelchaw early on with no loss of minions. I didn't have much trouble with the cage-match areas, with the usual tactic of cursing everything and using Vaal Summon Skeletons. In one of those cage areas, Minara Anemina was waiting, but fortunately I'm in the habit of always summoning a skeletotem into the area before I step in. She attacked it, so I let the hoard kill her before I set foot inside. Also fought Orra Greengate as a strongbox guard later on in the zone. Barkhul took out a couple of zombies before dropping, nothing the horde couldn't handle.

Arcane Tempest in the Grand Arena, which won't do much for either side. I like the new lion statues that were added in 2.0.2, add a bit of variety. The horde mowed through the arenas without too much trouble, but I started seeing lag about halfway through the zone and decided that I'd better not push my luck. Came back later and found the weather clear. Went through the zone again, no trouble, but Daresso nearly killed Sarah several times when I couldn't get out of the way of his floating swords and circle-of-ice attacks. She lived, but barely, and I had to portal out to resummon and refill flasks a couple of times.

After that close call, I think it's better if I just leave Kaom alone for a while. In earlier difficulties, I've gotten past him primarily by killing him before all the fire craziness in his little area can kill me. I don't see that happening now; these bosses just have too much life. Besides, progressing to the end of Act 4 isn't exactly a priority for me. Lots of risk, not much reward. So, back to maps.

Slithering Channel Map of Giants (increased monster AoE, sea witches) with Glacial Tempest of Influence: Not good weather at all, lots of ice from the sky and not a lot of room to hide from it. The sea witches aren't a bad group to deal with, though. Killed Magnus Stonethorn out of a strongbox, though not without losses...he wiped the horde out completely once with those big Flameblast circles. Never did see the boss; I cleared a whole lot of the area but ended up making a big circle back to the start, and didn't really feel like roaming around in the tempest to find the other areas I'd missed. Found one map, though only level 68.

Overlord's Sewer Map of Insulation (monsters can avoid status ailments, faster unique boss) with no tempest: Cobras, snake constructs, fetid maws, porcupines, sand spitters, and sea witches. Found one pack of blue maws with Union of Souls that took forever to kill, but otherwise nothing particularly interesting. Hit 75 partway through and took Warrior's Blood. The horde finished off the Pirate Lord boss before I realized we'd found him. Ran across Elreon and did his mission. Found a couple of maps, including a blue level 70.

Antagonists's Sewer Map of Venom (monsters poison on hit, more rares) with no tempest: Fetid maws, sand spitters, Voll dudes of various kinds, blackgaurds both living and undead, and maelstroms. Hit the most dangerous rare I've seen in quite a while when a rare maelstrom spawned with faster attacks, multiple projectiles, and storm bringer. Wiped out two full sets of minions before I found a spot where I could hide around a corner and summon spirits in relative safety, while keeping it occupied with a skeletotem. Again, no trouble with the pirate. Found one L69 map.

Incombustible Wharf Map of Deadliness (monsters have fire resistance and more crits) with no tempest: Necromancers with skeletons, dockhand wraiths, voidbearers, plumed chimerals. Nothing of much note until the end boss. Bramblemist hit Sarah for a good chunk of life with that AoE poison attack, so I beat a hasty retreat and came back more carefully. The horde had no trouble finishing him off. Found yet another L68 map. Traded a few in to the vendors for some more L69s.

Incombustible Mountain Ledge Map of Power (monsters have fire resistance and gain power charges) with no tempest: Drop bears, devourers, goatmen, leaping chimerals, cannibals, and zombies. Lots to avoid for Sarah, kept me on my toes. Had several spots that slowed me to a crawl with large packs of blues, taking longer than usual with all the fire resistance. No trouble with the Champion of Frost. Found a nice +2 minions necromancer circlet, but can't use it yet due to wrong socket colors. Rolled more than 50 chromatics, every one I had, looking for BBRG and failed...guess I should have used Vorici's crafting. Also saw Haku and started his mission, but when I saw unkillable lightning totems in the first room...walked right back out again. Found another L69 map.

Rare Mountain Ledge Map "Haunted Core" (increased monster variety, more monster crits, monster fire resistance, two unique bosses) with no tempest: Goats, skeletal mages and archers, rock elementals, bears both alive and undead, and spiders. No devourers or drop bears, making for a much safer trip. Hit 76 partway through, another 5% life node. Other than a couple of rare bears with the cannot-die aura, which required quite a bit of kiting, no encounters of interest. Even the boss fight was pretty simple; two Champions of Frost aren't much more interesting than one, and all they managed to take out was one zombie. Found six maps, though only two L69.

Antagonists Channel Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, more rares) with Electrocuting Tempest: Originally this had a chain mod for monsters, but I rerolled that as I have no plans to ever set foot in one of those maps. Any multi-target buff for monsters is a bad thing for summoners. It turned out not to matter much, as I couldn't finish the map anyway. I gave it a good effort, clearing about a dozen monster groups, but I was spending more time dodging all the tempest lightning and resummoning minions than I was actually clearing out monsters. The last straw was a group of spine snakes that wiped out half the horde as soon as they got in range, then while I was pulling the survivors back, a tempest popped up and destroyed them. At that point, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

Mirrored Arcade Map of Bloodlines (monsters reflect elemental damage, bloodline mods on magic packs) with Molten Tempest of Precision: Another dud. The first pack I found had poison bombers, which are bad for the horde in the best of times, and gut spikers, which puncture you making it hard even to run from a bad situation. Bad monster types, bad tempest, lots of bloodline mods: I could have handled one or even two of those in safety, but trying to deal with all three was too risky.

Antagonists Wharf Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, more rares with nemesis mods) with Blasphemous Tempest: Rock elementals, dockhand wraiths, various types of undying, cannibals, and some thugs. Much better than the last two map attempts. The curses from the tempest didn't do any harm, and other than one Storm Herald rock elemental, neither did the nemesis mods. Avoided getting hit by Bramblemist this time by putting a lot of Vaal Skeletons between us. Found Catarina and did her mission along the way. Found a blue L70 museum map.

Twinned Channel Map of Desecration (two unique bosses, desecrated ground) with no tempest: Finally, a channel map without a nasty tempest. Skeletons, mindless scavengers, undying of various kinds, Voll dudes, spiders, and eye hatcheries. The desecrated ground didn't bother the minions much, but there were several spots where I had to move back to relocate a fight because there was no place safe for Sarah to stand. Found Tinevin Highdove in a rare strongbox and killed him without much difficulty. The dual bosses were fairly easy because I was able to stand Sarah outside their little area and summon skeletotems just inside. They attacked the skeletons, and the rest of the horde followed them in. Eventually the big birds did come out after Sarah, but by that time they were almost dead and the horde finished them off. Found four L69 maps, including one rare.

Armoured Channel Map of Balance (20% monster physical reduction, elemental equilibrium) with no tempest: Mindless scavengers, skeletons, a few sewage crawlers, ghost pirates, and lots of undying. All the nasty area undying guys were present, including the flameblast aristocrats, fire bombers, and posion bombers. Those last were particularly bad, especially when I ran into a blue pack with frenzy. Ended up having to resort to throwing a skeletotem at them, then run away to keep Sarah from being poisoned to death, repeated several times. Found another rare strongbox guarded by a rogue exile, but never did see who it was since I'd run far away immediately after opening it, and by the time I'd made my careful way back through the fire and poison, it was dead. Must have destroyed the corpse with Flesh Offering. Glad there was only one boss this time since it spawned with a blue pack of those fire bombers. Vaal Summon Skeletons took care of them, and then the same hide-around-the-corner approach worked for the big bird. Hit 77 during the boss fight and picked up Heart of the Warrior. Also found Vorici and was successful on his mission for a change; it was the open-a-chest one, and the horde was able to keep the group busy while I got the chest. Found a couple more L69 maps.

Now that I'm level 77, it's about time to move on to level 70 maps, but first I still have a rare level 69 to do.

Rare Mountain Ledge Map "Warped View" (totems, elemental equilibrium, 20% slower recovery, 40% monster fire resistance, two bosses, 25% increased pack size) with no tempest: Got lucky with the good weather, and the monster types weren't too bad: goats, fire dogs, skeletons, thugs, undead blackguards, and maelstroms. Had to work around a few totems that caused the horde problems, such as cannot-die auras and always-crit auras. One particularly bad spot came at a 3-blue-packs strongbox, which spawned several maelstroms right by an always-crit totem and a faster-attacks totem. That cost me several sets of zombies to get through. No trouble with the dual bosses, especially after I dropped the Vaal Skeletons on their heads. Found a Martial Artistry unique gem and a Hrimnor's Hymn unique sledgehammer, as well as five maps, including two L69s and a L70.

Also found Zana again in that last map, and this time her mission was untimed. All I had to do was find a map item, in a level 68 jungle area with only minor mods: freezing ground, monsters with cold damage and cold resist. Completed the mission fairly easily, although one shroud walker rare bear did give me a bad moment by repeatedly teleporting right next to Sarah. Kept moving and avoided any real damage, though. Ended up with a couple of L68 maps out of it.

Finally got the chromatics to fix the colors on that +2 minion helm. I lose some armor since it's ES-only, but gain around 100 ES and 140 life. All that on top of the extra zombie level, of course. I'd like to go back to an armor/ES version at some point, if the RNG feels kind enough to drop one, but this is just fine for now.


Now I can move on to L70 maps, at least as long as they last. I've only got seven, and nothing higher. Unless I get a whole lot of drops, I'll end up back on lower maps later. Maybe I'll get lucky, though.

Antagonists Mud Geyser Map of Deadliness (more rares with nemesis mods, increased monster crits) with no tempest: Bone rhoas, zombies, snakes, devourers, sea witches, and crabs. Was a bit worried about the devourers, but only saw two rares and neither were much trouble. Found the boss rhoa easily enough and the horde handled him, though I did have to run away a bit when he came after Sarah. Saw Tora and did her mission, which had one bad moment when the boss corrupted beast resurrected himself as a bone bear and smacked Sarah pretty hard. Flasks and some running away took care of that, though, and the horde put him down again quickly enough. No map drops, sadly.

Ceremonial Spider Lair of Ice (many totems, ice patches) with no tempest: Spiders, rock elementals, ghost pirates, projectile constructs, and eye hatcheries. Had to be careful not to get caught in a crossfire, especially with the constructs. No serious danger outside of that. The Hybrid Widow didn't flicker-strike to Sarah, for which I was grateful. Found Vorici and did his mission, another chest opening. Damoi Tui was the target, and I felt fortunate that the horde was distracting him enough to avoid being interrupted by his Cyclone while opening the chest. No map drops again.

Fecund Museum Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, 25% more monster life, 10% bigger packs) with no tempest: Skeletons of all sizes, necromancers, various miscreations, and tar-spitting ophidians. No real trouble until the end boss room, with those triple uniques, which are a real danger. I used Vaal Summon Skeletons right away, and stayed long enough to take down one of the three, then left and resummoned the horde. With only two of them, it was much less dangerous and they didn't last long. Found one L72 map.

Rare Mud Geyser Map "Cursed Panorama" (shocking ground, more magic monsters, bloodlines mods, increased monster crits, monster lightning resistance) with Arctic Tempest of Precision: Used chisels to make this 20% quality before hitting it with an alchemy orb, in hopes of getting some map drops since I'm running pretty low on L70+. And of course the tempests choose this map to show up with something horrible. Cleared only about 20% of it before almost dying to a Herald of the Obelisk pack combined with a poorly placed tempest, and decided that was enough of that. On the bright side, I did find three maps during that time, two L70s and a L69.

Hit level 78 and picked up 5% more life...unless something changes on gear that changes my mind, I'll just keep taking those nodes. I'd move on to higher level maps, but I have very few, and not enough L70s to trade up. So for now, more L70s since the XP penalty is pretty minor at only one level below optimum.

Savage Reef Map of Endurance (17% more monster damage, monsters gain endurance charges) with no tempest: Sea witches, water elementals, crabs, and ghost pirates. Moved pretty quickly through this one to the boss without clearing everything, so I can run a rare version before the tempest shifts. Didn't have any real trouble doing it, as the horde was rolling pretty well. Asphyxia killed a few zombies, easily handled. Found a L70 Quarry map.

Rare Reef Map (more monster crits, faster monsters, 19% more monster damage, monsters gain frenzy charges) with no tempest: Another crafted rare map, but this time I knew there was no tempest thanks to the prior run. Necromancers, skeletons, zombies, bears, monkeys, spiders, and water elementals. Asphyxia was a bit tougher this time but still didn't pose much of a threat. Found Zana again, was able to complete her mission though it wasn't easy: a shipyard map inhabited by demons with all three charge types and increased pack size. That meant a whole lot of miscreations, and several times I had to do some fancy maneuvering to avoid a horde wipe in a tentacle miscreation crossfire or big pack of burning miscreations. Found five maps, two L70 and one L71.

Multifarious Quarry Map of Deadliness (more monster variety, more monster crits) with Galvanizing Tempest: Miners, ghost pirates, leaping chimerals, necromancers with skeletons, zombies, and bears. The lanternbearers were out in force, so I used a lot of Convocation to literally pull zombies out of the fire. This was the first time I'd seen the Void Anomaly boss, and I was pleasantly surprised how well the horde survived all the chaos damage. Sarah hid as far back as I could get while still able to keep track of the fight. Had to pull everyone back a couple of times to fight off blue miners that came after her, but otherwise a fairly easy battle. Did a mission for Catarina. Found three maps; all were sub-L70, but two completed sets of L69s for vendoring.

Rare Quarry Map "Destiny Crest" (more monster variety, more monster crits, 40% monster lightning resistance, 63% lightning damage) with Galvanizing Tempest: Tons of lightning to be careful of; otherwise, pretty much the same as the last one. The monster variety definitely showed up in this one: mostly miners, ophidians, zombies, and gut spikers/flayers, but I also saw packs of miscreations, bears, spiders, undying, and leaping chimerals. My standard strategy of "move forward as little as possible once something aggros" paid off again against the Void Anomaly, as after taking it down I discovered that there were two rare chaos golems behind it. Glad I didn't have to fight them all together. Found only one map, but it was a rare L71 Phantasmagoria map.

Rare Quarry Map (inhabited by skeletons, shocking ground, more monster life, monster lightning resistance) with Galvanizing Tempest: The all-skeleton monster variety works great for me: mostly just the normal-sized fighters, archers, and mages, with a few bone rhoas thrown in. This map is much easier without the lanternbearers. Found a rare Cartographer's Strongbox with five maps, including one rare L69, but all below L70. Picked up two other L70 maps elsewhere in the zone, though. Found Elreon and did his mission easily enough. No trouble with the Void Anomaly, and the blue pack of bone rhoas with him was easier than the miner packs in previous maps.

Hit level 79, another 5% life node. Up over 4200 now.

Rare Cemetary Map "Forsaken Sepulcher" (2 rogue exiles, 20% monster physical reduction, 64% more monster lightning damage, monsters gain frenzy and endurance charges) with no tempest: Only level 69, but it's rare so I figure I should try it. Zombies, Vaal fallen, Voll soldiers, ophidians, bonewarped skeletons, rakangos, fury hounds, and Karui totems. First rogue was Magnus Stonethorn in the very first group; killed most of the zombies but I was able to avoid any real damage on Sarah. Found another Brute Force solution unique jewel. Did a side mission for Tora, no trouble clearing a corrupted den of spiders. The horde handled the boss room without issues. Never even saw the second rogue, but I guess I must have killed whoever it was, since the map had zero monsters left when I was done. Found three maps, all below L70.

Savage Spider Forest Map of Flames (burning ground, 18% increased monster damage) with Brisk Tempest: Zombies, skeletons, spiders, goats, fetid maws, and a few toxic spitters. Nothing much of interest until I found the Blacksmith, who jumped on Sarah once for about 1/3 of her life, but I ran away and he presented no trouble after that. Found Vorici, but it was another leave-the-guards-alive mission, so that failed almost immediately. The target was Antalie Napora and she did a number on the hoard, killing all but one zombie and the guardian before finally going down. Was pleased to find two maps above L70: L72 and L73.

Overlord's Promenade Map of Lighting (shocking ground, faster unique boss) with no tempest: Necromancers with skeletons, various types of snakes, miscreations, and statues. Found a strongbox right away with Wilorin Demontamer guarding it; took out his group with only a few zombie losses. Found an Efficient Training unique jewel. Rest of the zone went easily enough, though the Blackguard Avenger did manage to kill a spectre and a couple of zombies. Found Tora and hunted down 84(!) corrupted ape chieftains for her. I was glad that I'd waited to talk to her until after clearing the rest of the zone, because otherwise all those apes could have made some really nasty combinations with the other monsters. Especially the pack of a dozen or so that had Order of the Frozen Sky. Sadly, no maps found.

Incombustible Phantasmagoria Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, 40% monster fire resistance) with Shivering Tempest: Originally this was a rare, but I wasn't comfortable with the mods even after rerolling it twice. Kept getting stuff like two unique bosses, more monster AoE, huge extra monster damage, etc. So I scoured it and rolled it as a blue. Revenants, necromancers with skeletons, thugs, devourers, and Vaal bone wardens. Good thing I'd re-rolled, because even with these mods it was painful; good chance I'd have died with anything worse. The narrow corridors forced the horde right into the monster AoEs, and several times I had to use Flame Dash or my Quartz Flask to get out of big devourer packs. Did a mission for Catarina on the way. Finally made it to the boss, and that was much worse. She wiped out the horde twice, and they weren't doing much damage to her at all since all her raised minions were distracting them. When she hit Sarah with a couple of lightning bolts, I decided that was enough risk and gave up on the fight.

Burning Graveyard Map of Ice (ice patches, 65% extra monster fire damage) with no tempest: I'm out of L71 maps, so on to one of my two L72s. Necromancers with skeletons, zombies, undead Blackguards, maelstroms, ribbons, and poison snakes. A few of the maelstrom packs gave me some trouble, especially one rare that kept running away into other packs. Nothing major, though, at least until Merveil. That was a rough fight, with a lot of lost zombies. I ended up having to portal out twice to resummon, and used the Vaal Summon Skeletons, before she finally was down. Also defended a relic for Elreon. Good news on map drops: total of five, including one L72 and three L71s, one of those rare.

Rare Graveyard Map "Damned Core" (monster power charges, monsters poison on hit, 28% more monster life, 40% monster fire resistance) with no tempest: Crafted this one since I knew there was no tempest from my last run. Not sure how the Merveil fight will go with the poison, but the rest of the map shouldn't be too bad. Vomit birds, zombies, floating eyes, rhoas, thugs, and voidbearers. The horde was mostly rolling along, but Sarah got hit pretty hard in several spots, including one ugly pack with Bearers of the Guardian. Saw Elreon again, but failed in the relic defense for the first time ever. The first couple of waves were fine, but then it spawned multiple rare fire-bombers that wiped out the horde in seconds. Caused me a few bad moments, too, as I hit flasks and ran halfway across the map. Between that experience and the damage I was taking in every fight from the poison, decided it would be best to skip Merveil. Found two copies of The Lover fortune card, my first set. Got a fairly unimpressive belt from it. Found four maps, one of which was L72.

Fecund Shore Map of Giants (27% more monster life, 20% more monster AoE) with Morbid Tempest of Cataclysm: I have two more L72s from drops on the last two maps, but figured I'd save those until I'm out of L71s again. But it won't be this map, because that tempest is just too risky. I actually fought a couple of packs to see how it went, but skeletons and raging spirits were popping up everywhere and I couldn't keep Sarah clear. One bad spawn while the horde was engaged with a boss (or a lag spike hit) and it would be all over.

Fecund Overgrown Shine Map of Venom (25% more monster life, monsters poison on hit) with Glacial Tempest: Good thing there's no ill effects from being repeatedly flash-frozen, which happened a lot with this tempest. It's rarely a danger since it freezes nearby monsters, too, and there's always flasks if something bad does happen. Vaal fallen, skeletons, undying, and revenants with attendant bonewarped skeletons. Mostly easy fights until near the end, where I found a rare strongbox a couple of rooms away from the boss. Decided to open the strongbox first, which was a mistake, because as I was fighting Ion Darkshroud, the Hybrid Widow pops into the middle of it. Didn't think I'd aggroed her yet, but apparently she was just biding her time. Fortunately the Quartz Flask let me run away in a hurry, and then they both went after the horde, which proceeded to eat them both. Found a Carnage Heart unique amulet, and hit level 80 partway through. Found just one L71 map.

Found an improved armor, with the only drawback being that it already has a prefix mod so I can't put the extra zombie on it. I'm going to switch to it anyway, since it gives me almost 1000 extra armor (24% physical reduction, up from 19%) and 80+ more life, with no loss of resists. Also has an extra socket, so I can move gems around a little to put Fortify back on my guardian and golem.

Shocking Shore Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, 63% extra monster lightning damage) with Stinging Tempest: Goats, rock elementals, crabs, skeletons, bone rhoas, and a few zombies. Fairly uneventful trip all the way. Glace didn't give the horde any problems, and I was able to keep Sarah out of the line of fire for his Glacial Cascade. Found two L70 maps.

Rare Overgrown Shrine Map "Monster Cradle" (faster unique boss, shocking ground, 16% more monster life, monsters cannot be stunned, 20% more monster AoE) with no tempest: This one originally had monsters from beyond on it, but I rerolled it...still not feeling confident about that one. Plumed chimerals, blackguard soldiers and mages, skeletons, Vaal fallen, voidbearers, and undying. The Hybrid Widow came after Sarah pretty hard initially, got hit a few times and had to hit flasks and run. Once she latched onto the horde, they took care of her pretty quickly. Found two L71 maps.

Found Zana in that last map, and she sent me to a L72 Village Ruin with four rogue exiles, lightning ground, and poison-on-hit monsters. With only one portal, too. The mission was to hunt down some corrupted monsters, which were pretty easy, but everything else in the map was pretty tough. Wilorin Demontamer, Magnus Stonethorn, Jonah Unchained, and Torr Olgosso were the four rogues. Only Magnus was much trouble, and he mostly killed himself when he Flameblasted six zombies while standing in range of their Minion Instability explosions. The area had plumed chimerals, pit dogs and roosters, skeletons, bone rhoas, and rock elementals. I did check out the bosses, and Gnar wasn't too bad once I pulled him away by himself, but I couldn't get close to Stonebeak without losing life at an alarming rate to his poison clouds. Decided it was better to leave him be. Found a Hyrri's Bite unique quiver.

Multifarious Tunnel Map of Balance (elemental equilibrium, more monster variety) with no tempest: Necromancers with tar zombies, miners, rakangos, fury hounds, and Hyrri's sisters. The lanternbearers in the narrow tunnels of this map were a royal pain. Several times I resorted to Vaal Summon Skeletons, just so I'd have enough numbers to make it through a narrow chokepoint and scatter them enough to disperse the fire patches. No trouble with Lady of the Brood, felt pretty easy compared to the lanternbearers. Found two maps, but neither over L70.

Multifarious Arena Map of Endurance (monsters gain endurance charges, more monster variety) with Poisonous Tempest: Can't say I'm enthused about doing another Act 4-based map, but I'm low on options. No way I'm going back in a Phantasmagoria map, which are my only other L71s. When I saw the tempest, that sealed it. No Arena for now.

Hexproof Bog Map of Smothering (slower recovery, monsters immune to curses, 15% bigger packs) with Crushing Tempest of Fire: Was saving my L72s until after hitting level 81, but now it's this or back down to L70s. The tempest sucks, but I can't afford to waste the map, so it's extra careful progression and pray that there's no lag. Ghost pirates, dockhand wraiths, floating eyes, zombies, cannibals, and gravel eaters. The reduced recovery was barely noticeable, probably in part since I wasn't using curses all the time like I usually do. I certainly noticed the lack of Temporal Chains whenever a speedy rare came up. Slitherskin was down before I even realized the horde had found him; too busy dodging tempests, I guess. Found Vagan, but he didn't have a separate area, and fighting him in the tempest isn't a risk I need to run. Found two maps, one of which was L72, and the other let me vendor some L70s for a L71.

Punishing Shore Map of Balance (monsters reflect 13% physical damage, elemental equilibrium, 10% bigger packs) with no tempest: Zombies, cannibals, sand spitters, rock elementals, spine snakes, sea witches, skeletons, and carrion queens with minions. The snakes in particular are a royal pain, and dangerous to Sarah. Best way to handle them is to drop a skeletotem slightly behind, so they don't mass all their fire in one direction, and of course slow them down with Temporal Chains. Hit 81 partway through. No trouble with Glace, particularly once I dropped the Vaal Skeletons on him. Found four maps, but none over L71.

Unwavering Dry Woods Map of Frenzy (17% more monster life, monsters cannot be stunned, monsters gain frenzy charges) with no tempest: My only L73 map at the moment; maybe it'll drop some more! Lots of various kinds of thugs, skeletons, and rock elementals. Plenty of archers, which was mildly annoying since they kept retreating and aggroing more packs, but nothing the horde couldn't handle. The monkey spirit bosses were taken down with a minimum of fuss. Was pleased to find five maps, including two L72s and one L73.

Fecund Pier Map of Flames (burning ground, 25% more monster life) with no tempest: Dockhand wraiths, voidbearers, skeletons of various sizes, revenants with bonewarped minions, ribbons, cannibals, and vomit birds. Found a Blackheart unique ring; not useful to Sarah. Other than the occasional pack of voidbearers, which required some Convocation to prevent zombies getting burnt to a crisp, nothing much that presented any serious danger. The boss fight with the Flame of Truth might have been trouble since he spawned with a bunch of blue voidbearers and a rare ribbon, but Vaal Summon Skeletons spread out the field enough to make it an easy battle. Found two more L72 maps.

Punishing Collonade Map of Giants (20% more monster AoE, 13% physical reflect) with no tempest: Necromancers with tar zombies, undying, spiders, blackguards, and various thugs. The undying included fire bombers, which made for a very nasty combination with the tar zombies. Lost most of the horde to the first pack like that, and had to deal with a couple of other similar packs later on. Also had a Herald of the Obelisk pack of blackguards, fortunately mostly by themselves. Vaal Summon Skeletons made life a lot easier in all those cases. Carnage was doing a ton of AoE damage with his ground slam thanks to the map mod, so I stayed well away with Sarah and kept throwing minions into the fight until he died. Found three maps, including one L73.

Savage Dry Woods Map of Desecration (desecrated ground patches, 15% increased monster damage) with Blasphemous Tempest of Influence: Rock elementals, shieker bats, porcupines, skeletons, and rhoas. The tempest didn't hurt too badly, although in one spot it did hit practically the entire horde with vulnerability just as a pack of porcupines were exploding. Had to resummon all the zombies from that one. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my regen is high enough that standing in the desecrated ground doesn't budge Sarah's life, although of course I still tried to avoid it. The monkey spirits bosses spawned with a group of skeleton archers, and the combination of fast ranged attacks and slow on the horde made it a difficult fight. Plus Aidan kept running right at Sarah. Summoned the Vaal Skeletons and ran around a bit, and eventually things cleared out. Found Catarina and killed some corrupted monsters for her. Found three maps, including my first L74.

Bipedal Waste Pool Map of Exposure (-12% max resists, inhabited by humanoids) with no tempest: Since I have this L74 map, might as well use it. Blackguards, thugs, and undying. The lowered resists didn't seem to cause any trouble for me or the horde, even with the Blackguard Mages throwing arc around and all the undying freezing pulse dudes. Found Asphyxia and took care of her quickly enough, in large part thanks to a lot of Minion Instability explosions from skeletons, both regular and Vaal versions. Good haul on maps, two L73s and one L74.

Titan's Strand Map of Frenzy (faster unique boss, monsters gain frenzy charges) with no tempest: Dune hellions, various types of sand spitters, necromancers with tar zombies, other zombies, and thugs. Barely broke stride the whole way through, with the exception of an early encounter with Jonah Unchained, who did require a bit of maneuvering. The map layout doesn't have nasty chokepoints, none of the monsters were particularly dangerous, no bad tempest...about as easy a map as there is. Horde had no trouble beating up Massier; I used the Vaal Skeletons, but they were just overkill on a fight already won. Found one L74 map.

Anarchic Labyrinth Map of Flames (burning ground, two rogue exiles) with no tempest: Statues, zombies, skeletons, and thugs. Not a lot of variety. Killed off the first rogue almost immediately. I assume it was Minara Anemina because I saw some skeletons, but the horde killed whoever it was so quickly that I didn't see them, and Flesh Offering must have gotten the corpse. Found Damoi Tui later, and he was more of a challenge, hitting Sarah a few times with leap slam and his whirlwind attack, but once I cursed him the horde had his number. Hit level 82 partway through. Never did see the boss; I'm sure I just missed a turn someplace that lead to it, but I ran out of obvious unexplored places in the maze and didn't feel like chasing it down. Found three maps, none over L72. Also found a Apparitions unique jewel, which buffs minions, but it's only move speed and block chance. Not really worth finding a slot for.