[Invasion] Sarah the Self-found Solo Summoner
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Following along again enjoying the daily read, Ineffablebob.
How is it that you have your skills set up? I assume you just cast auras once and reset the key, but do you have enough slots for everything you are using? Or are you having to change skills during a fight? |
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" Excellent question. You're correct about the auras, all three are cast once then moved off the bar. If I need to resummon my spectres or re-animate the guardian, I swap in the appropriate skill during downtime between fights. The rest of the time, the skill bar breaks down like this: Top row: Move Only, Convocation, Summon Raging Spirit Bottom row: Enfeeble, Skeletotem, Flesh Offering, Raise Zombie, Desecrate It would be technically possible to have something else swapped in for the Move Only action or Raise Zombie, but I don't feel comfortable with either. When I need to run away, I don't want to accidentally click on a monster and end up standing still casting something. And when there's a serious fight going down, I can get by without my spectres or guardian, but the zombies are the backbone of the horde so I want the ability to bring them back immediately. |
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" I agree, secondary effect is lackluster. It feels almost useless. Maybe they should lower mana cost as it levels up or something. The healing just isn't cutting it. Either that or sharply increase the healing or duration or change it to % healing or even lower the cooldown timer. |
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Level 66-67
Went back to the Battlefront waypoint and made a quick, uneventful trip up to the Solaris temple. Hooray, flame sentinels that aren't 15 levels out of date! Found the Harbinger of Elements fairly near the Infernal Seal, so did a little maneuvering to take out the Harbinger first, then the Seal. Found a Sacred Chamber (bigger pack size, monsters immune to curses) but decided to skip it rather than risk a horde of curse-immune animated weapons from the Shadow of Vengeance. Killed off the Voltaic Seal, then headed downstairs. Spent a while roaming through level 2 before finding Dialla, but other than several rare statues that took forever to kill, the trip was uneventful. Time to backtrack to the Slums and Crematorium, then take the low road through the Sewers. Found Clarissa easily enough and the horde melted the guards. Spotted a Quarantined Quarters (monsters reflect elemental damage, monster gain endurance charges) and started in, but left in a hurry when I realized the boss was the Sunburst Queen. Incinerate Nova in tight spaces is not a good risk/reward scenario. No further incidents on the way to the Crematorium. Ugly trip through the Crematorium, starting with an encounter with The Firestarter in the first room off the waypoint. I didn't realize he was there at first because there were so many other fire-bomb guys and the screen was just solid fire. Purity of Fire to the rescue! Lost many minions, but they weren't dying instantly thanks to the resists, so I was able to keep resummoning zombies back into the fray. By the time the other monsters were down and I realized The Firestarter was there, he was already down to half and dropping. Killing him wasn't the last of the pain, though, as there were groups of fire-bombers everywhere. Lost more zombies in that zone than the last half-dozen other zones combined. After all that, finding Hatebeat was a relief as his firestorm is nothing compared to stacked fire-bombs. Piety didn't last long either, once again unable to kill any minions thanks to all the lightning resist they have, and again the horde ate all her hit points before she ran away. Maramoa gave me an awful ring for the quest reward. Slums Sewers started out with a room full of poison-bombers (including a rare), crabs, and Shivershell. Considered resetting the zone but decided against it, as Shivershell isn't too dangerous as long as you clear the corpses before he decides to Vaal Detonate Dead, and if I reset something worse might come up. Cleared the room by tossing skeletons and spirits through the door while using Convocation every couple of seconds to keep the zombies from killing themselves in the poison clouds, then dropped Flesh Offering a few times to clear the corpses and took care of Shivershell. Lots more poison-bombers in the zone, but the rest was fairly easy except for the stash room, where a bunch of blues plus a rare killed the horde and had me at half life before I could get away. Took about half of them down in the process, though, so once I came back with a fresh horde they didn't last long. Warehouse Sewers was an easier trip. Invasion boss was Pewterfang, spawned in one of those small connecting passages, so she didn't have a lot of supporters. Set up a totem, cursed her, and brought the horde to her with Convocation; she didn't last long. Found the stash easily enough, and had no trouble with the guards this time, which were mainly Sirens and squid spawn. Ran across a Walled-Off Ducts, but one of the mods was 25% slower life/mana/ES recovery...no thanks. Had a bad moment when I found the waypoint as there was a monster group right outside, and I got the moment of lag that always seems to happen at that waypoint just as I spotted the monsters. Fortunately I hadn't actually clicked inside the monster room yet, so only a couple of them attacked me while my screen was frozen, and the horde came to my defense. Didn't take long to get to the Marketplace Sewer and find the last bust. No Invasion bosses spotted and nothing really dangerous encountered. Took the intelligence node just below the Influence cluster with the skill point; I'll get that 5% mana reserve reduction next, then head to the cluster of three life nodes to the lower right. I considered taking the Grave Intentions cluster, but I really don't feel like my minions need any further help right now, and I'd rather have the life nodes before I go back to pick up my last zombie. Back to the Battlefront and onward to pick up the ribbon spool. Passed a Neglected Cellar on the way, but just kept on walking...no Rima for this necromancer. No Invasion boss came out to play, and Captain Aurelianus just melted as soon as the horde engaged him. Moved on to the Docks and was having a fine old time killing many invading squids when my screen froze, and a couple of seconds later I was kicked out to the login screen. Logged back in quickly to ensure I hadn't died, which was fortunately the case. Not sure what happened there, but I took a break for a while just in case it was some weirdness with my Internet connection. When I got back, things appeared to be working fine again. Ran into Docere Incarnatis in my search for the sulfite, but had no issues with him as the horde could pretty much just stand in his fire and lightning spam and shrug it off. Lost two zombies in the process of the killing him off. Found the sulfite without further issues. Turned in the spool for an amulet that wasn't horrible, but had no life on it, so it went to the guild stash. Traded my sulfite for the talc, and grabbed the Eternal Laboratory waypoint, which will be my new spectre summoning ground. Cleared the blockage but then decided to go back to the Docks for a bit before proceeding. Hit level 67 in one run, which included a encounter with the Sunburst Queen that wiped out the zombies, but the spectres and spirits took care of her. Got my 5% mana reserve reduction node, so I now have 184 free. Level 67-68 Good time to take advantage of the Docks for one more level since the XP is still fairly good. Made it to 68 in 6 runs, including encounters with the following: Corrector Draconides: Jumped me shortly after the waypoint. He killed a couple of zombies and leaped directly onto Sarah once, but did little damage before the horde killed him. Bladeback Guardian: Actually kept most of the horde alive thanks to a well-timed Convocation just as his incinerate nova went off. Waited it out while resummoning the 3 zombies that didn't make it, then made short work of him once it died down. Wonderwalker: Didn't even notice him until the horde had all his friends down and I saw a discharge go off in the middle of the zombie pile. No damage done. Docere Incarnatis: Spawned behind a bunch of crates so that the horde got stuck fighting his friends on one side with him on the other tossing around fire and lightning. Once everything else was dead, retreated and resummoned the zombies he'd killed, then ran to his side of the creates and hit Convocation...the properly positioned horde made short work of him. Coniraya, Shadow of Malice: The AI must have been confused by the terrain, because when I spotted him, he was walking around in circles on one of the lower level areas while the horde was up top killing things. When I moved forward, he seemed to recover and started shooting, but by then he was alone and fairly helpless. Coniraya round 2: He must have wanted a rematch because I found him fairly quickly in the next instance. This time he was on the same level as the horde and started shooting right away, which meant he was able to put down enough shocking ground to be dangerous. Had to run away and resummon zombies while waiting for the ground to clear a couple of times before he died. Found an Ambu's Charge unique crusader chainmail, of no use to me. Was much happier to get an Ambush Boots with 4 sockets which I rolled into this rare: Allows me to link up my culling strike to the skeletons, handy against tough bosses, and I get a significant life boost. Now at 3184 total life. All I really lose is some chaos resistance, back down to -12. Nothing else of interest dropped as far as gear, though I did find several maps so my collection is coming along nicely, up to seven now. Took the intelligence node next to that life node cluster. Here's the current passive tree. " Certainly Convocation could use a better reason to level it up, but I hope they don't change the cooldown to be longer initially, and lower it as you level up the gem. I'm actually fairly happy with it now, even if the regen effect is kinda weak, because the gather-minions is so useful and you get that full effect right away at level 1. |
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Just want to say that I just recently started playing this again after not having played since moderately early in the beta process.
Was completely over my head in where to start, read a bunch of guides on playing summoner but even the ones labeled as "low gear requirements, noob friendly" etc still left me stumbling around lost. Most do not make any mention of what gems to get from quests, what type of gear to look for or anything along those lines. Instead they list off 4-5 link combos for abilities using gems you never find, lots of ideal uniques you should get etc... all pretty useless for someone starting fresh. Was ready to quit summoner, I couldn't solo anything and was basically just leeching exp in groups hoping to eventually get stronger via levels. Then I started reading this and it really clarified everything I was not understanding about the build, fortunately my passives were mostly in line I just had no idea what I was doing. This play through journal is hands down the best guide on how to play through the game from scratch and I really appreciate it. I went back on a new character and got raging spirits and already like how that meshes more with the summoner play style, I am also looking forward to getting the skeleton+spell totem when I get to that quest reward on act 1 cruel because your descriptions made the reasoning behind the choice clear. Thank you! |
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" I know exactly what you mean. Many guides are good for someone playing their 5th character in a league, who has a bunch of items ready for use and understands the flow of the game, but are very difficult for someone just starting out. Part of the reason behind playing self-found for items was to be able to do exactly this...give an idea of how to go about summoning without a lot of pre-existing wealth. Don't give up on finding good new player guides, though. I particularly found the Groundslammer Marauder and Fireball Witch guides helpful when I was interested in those build types. " Thanks for the kind words. Very glad to be able to help! Playing a summoner can be great fun once you understand how it works. |
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Level 68-69
Since that last level didn't take too long, and I'm still in the full-XP level range (zone level + 7 for character level 64-79), went back for one more set of Docks runs. Hit level 69 after 6 runs, in which Sarah encountered: Corrector Draconides: Jumped on Sarah and hit her a few times with that fire strike before I could run away, but didn't get her down past half life. Once I got her out of range, kept bringing in zombies until he died. Corrector Draconides II: Easier fight than the first version as he never got to Sarah directly. Killed all the zombies but the rest of the horde got him. Grath: No special tactics needed as he didn't spawn near too many other monsters. He went down to the horde quickly with just the usual totem-spirits-flesh offering. Bladeback Guardian: Happy to see him spawn at the bottom of some stairs since that limits the range of the incinerate nova. Stayed above him and used convocation to save a few zombies once the nova went off, resummoned, and finished him off once the fire died down. Konu, Maker of Wind: Spotted the goats before I was too close, so I was able to stay well away from his Molten Shell. Was ready to dodge leap slam but he never used it, which was nice of him. Glassmaul: Had to manuever around a crate to get at him, otherwise a simple fight. I actually had more trouble with voidbearers than any of the Invasion bosses. A couple of the instances must have had them as invaders as well as standard spawns, as they were coming in huge groups at times. One particularly bad spot spawned two full groups each with a rare, just behind some crates so I couldn't get close enough to curse them without getting burned. Many, many zombies were charcoaled before I could get some of the dogs to chase me out of the bottleneck, where they could be dealt with separately. Made some significant gear alterations this level, triggered by finding a helm with 72 life and a belt with 86 life. Many orbs later, I'd gotten back to the gear links I needed and here's the result: Defensive stats now read: 3629 life, 499 ES, 2% armor physical reduction, 26% evasion, 79/77/79/-24 resistances, 32% chance to block. So I've basically traded 12 chaos resistance and my +1 to fire gems (on the old wand) for a bit over 400 life and 100 ES, which is a trade I'm happy to make. Level 69-70 So right after I change gear to drop my chaos resistance, of course it's time to go visit the sewers. Lots of poison bombs, and of course Spinesnap made an appearance for more chaos damage. Did a good amount of running away and casting Convocation to save the zombies, and hiding around corners where I could cast spirits and the skeletotem to kill off the bombers. Forward into the Barracks, where I encountered Evocata Apocalyptica. Waited until she had a few totems out then ran away and cast Convocation. She followed, and the horde smote her before she could drop another set. Found the Gardens entrance and went in to grab the waypoint before facing the General. Rough trip with another Spinesnap encounter that destroyed the horde and came close to killing me, but I was able to run away with about a quarter of my life left. Had to run and resummon three times before he finally died. Found the waypoint then back to the Barracks, where the horde destroyed Gravicius in short order without any special tactics needed...just curse, cast spirits, and let the undead go to work. Found the Lunaris Temple without further incident. Evocata Apocalyptica was lurking in the Lunaris Temple level 1, and didn't fare any better inside than she had outside. Did have to resummon zombies a couple of times while the horde cleared out her friends, but once she was alone Evocata wasn't much of a challenge. No trouble with Fleshrend either, who is pretty easy when you're denying him corpses with Flesh Offering. Lunaris Temple level 2 started with Kole in the first room, who stands no chance against the horde. Just had to keep my personal self on the far side of the screen and they ate his brain. Had a tougher time a bit further in with Bladetooth, who had an awful lot of poison out by the time the horde killed him. Ran away from his death-fire to let it die down while I resummoned. Found the waypoint, then headed downstairs. Spinecrack greeted me as soon as I walked away from the door in the Lunaris Temple level 3. Poor choice on her part. Fought a lot of whipping and tentacle miscreations packs that were killing a zombie or two, which probably means I'd better think about picking up some more minion life. That's next after the life nodes on my agenda anyway. Fought my way through the zone without seeing an Invasion boss and headed through the Piety portal. Took off about half of her life with the initial horde before she killed most of the zombies, but it was fairly easy to resummon them when she teleported off someplace off screen. Second set of zombies finished her off once she got back in range. Used the skill points for the other two life nodes, bringing my total life to 3822. Took another walk in the Gardens and roamed around aimlessly until I found the Library entrance. Had to kill Pewterfang inside, then found the waypoint and headed back outside. Ran into Thistlesage and killed him pretty easily because there weren't many other monster spawns for him to run into, which is a nice change from his usual aggro-the-entire-zone behavior. Found the Sceptre of God entrance and used the key, but didn't go in...in no rush to go in there. Saw the Hedge Maze along the way, but I'd rather not go in with only a two level advantage. Still needed about 1/3 of a level to hit 70, so decided to go back to the Lunaris Temple since it's a bit lower than the Garden and Library. Plus if I'm going to see a corrupted zone, an Arcane Chambers is one of the better ones. Had to fight Docere Incarnatis in the first room off the waypoint, which turned into an epic battle as he kept killing the zombies while they went after his buddies. Ended up leaving three times to resummon before I got him alone and took him down. Also killed Kole on the way to level 3. Cleared out both Spinecrack and Atziri's Pride in the initial area, then had a really rough fight against two rare tentacle miscreations which both had the faster attacks aura. They killed a whole lot of zombies despite being cursed, but finally I directed enough spirits at one to kill her, and the other soon followed. Got to Piety and killed her again, even easier than the last time. Drops were useless, sadly, although I did at least get a white map. Hit level 70 on the Piety kill, which seems fitting. Unlocked the Undying achievement, which is pretty cool; never got a hardcore character to 70 back in beta, so it's all uncharted territory from here. Started in on the Grave Intentions cluster with the skill point. Here's my level 70 passive tree. |
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Level 70-71
The store was having a sale on the Seraph Armor skins, so I bought Sarah a new outfit. Snazzy!  Back to the Lunaris Temple to work on the next level. There are other places I could go, but this seems the most balanced in terms of risk/reward, for the following reasons: -- Level 65/66 zones, so I have a 4/5 level advantage. I'm trying to keep at least a +4 level advantage versus zone level, now that I'm up in the 65+ rarified air. -- The mostly open layout of the zones is good for minion movement and damage output, and allows me to run away when necessary. Only the cells area of level 3 is poor terrain, and even there the spectres and spirits can attack through the bars. -- I haven't had too much trouble with the unique bosses native to these zones: Kole, Spinecrack, and Piety. -- Large zones means I have to reset less often, minimizing the number of Invasion bosses to deal with while I work on gaining XP. -- The Arcane Chambers is a reasonable corrupted area to deal with (depending on mods), and Beheader Ataguchu is a mostly-melee boss so the horde should be able to handle him. Other possible areas to level include the Gardens (but the monsters there are more dangerous, especially Devourers), Library (smaller zones so more Invasion bosses to deal with), Catacombs (smaller zone and higher zone level), maps (rather wait for a +5 advantage to deal with mods easier), and the Sceptre of God (hahaha, not feeling suicidal just yet). First Run: Found Kole after just a couple of rooms and let the horde loose on him. Then came across an Antagonist's Arcane Chambers of Vulnerability: players cursed with vulnerability, rare monsters have a Nemesis mod. Not a big fan of the vulnerability, but I can work around it. Took it nice and slow until I spotted Beheader Ataguchu, then ran far away to get him to follow me away from his pack of blues. This worked nicely and I was able to get him alone in a spot where I could hide through a doorway and send spirits/skeletotem at him. His Whirlwind just destroyed the poor vulnerable zombies but the rest of the horde handled him. Vaal drop: Sacrifice at Noon. Spent a while reworking gear to use a slightly improved gloves (192 evasion, +55 max life, 11% cold resist, 26% lightning resist) and the zone reset on me, so didn't make it into level 3 this run. Second Run: Ran into Kole first again, no issues. Then found Docere Incarnatis, which was a rough fight as he was in one of those chapel rooms with a raised area on one side and a bunch of long benches. The horde kept getting confused and running around the benches or on and off the raised area. Had to resummon a bunch of times, but finally got him to come out near the room's entrance and then it was all over. Lots of tentacle miscreations in level 3, where Enfeeble really was the star of the show, keeping the horde alive long enough to take them down. Evocata Apocalyptica made an appearance, causing severe zombie loss in the initial skirmish since she got off a ton of AoE attacks while the horde was killing her friends. Resummoned and took her down easily after that, though. Easy fight with Spinecrack since she spawned with only a few other monsters nearby. Fairly straightforward Piety fight, only one bad moment when I was unable to dodge a ball lightning, but it didn't do much damage thanks to the Purity of Lightning. Third Run: First major fight came against Corrector Draconides. He fried a bunch of zombies, but never jumped onto Sarah or the spectres, so went down fairly fast while the skeletotem kept him busy. Found a Arcane Chambers (34% more rare monsters, 33% extra cold damage) and cleared it, though not without major minion loss against a room full of tentacle miscreations. That fight was much worse than Beheader Ataguchu, who died much more quickly than last time since the zombies lived longer without vulnerability. Vaal drop: Sacrifice at Dusk. Destroyed Kole then moved on to level 3, where Beheader Ataguchu made a non-corrupted-zone appearance. He spawned on one of the narrow intersections in the first area where he couldn't really do much with his Whirlwind, so I just dropped a totem out of his range and let the horde go to town, calling the zombies back occasionally with Convocation to keep them alive. Had a bad moment when Spinecrack appeared since she ignored the horde and came right for me, but a little quicksilver-flask-enabled sprinting fixed that problem and she didn't last too long once the horde had her attention. Easiest Piety fight thus far, as she never roamed too far away from her starting position, allowing the horde to press the attack. Found an oddly large number of gems in this run: Searing Bond, Decoy Totem, Conductivity, Blood Rage, Bear Trap. Nothing I'd use now, although those first two would have been nice in the early levels. Fourth Run: Not much in level 2, just a quick Kole kill and no Invasion boss. Spinecrack made an early appearance and never made it past the initial zombie skirmish screen. Hit 71 shortly before finding the cells area and took the 7% minion life/5% minion chaos resist node. Then it got ugly...Evocata Apocalyptica spawned in the cells area and totally decimated the horde, plus nearly killed me when she spawned two totems in a tiny alleyway that blocked my retreat. Blew all the flasks and ran the other way past Evocata and circled around the cells until I was in the clear. Took three more full horde resummons and a lot of kiting before she finally died. Piety was easy after that, although she did run around a bit so it took the horde a while to finish her off. |
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Level 71-72
Time for a map. Picked out a Dried Lake to start with and rolled a chance orb on it. Got a blue with rogue exiles as the mod, but I'd rather avoid extra exiles when there's already a map boss and Invasion boss to deal with. Re-rolled until the mods turned into chilled ground plus nemesis mods on rare monsters. Used a few of my many extra sacrifice map fragments, so it's got a total of 33% IIQ. Nighteater made an appearance and melted two complete hordes with Firestorms before dying to the third re-summon. None of the rest of the map gave me any trouble. Found a couple more maps but nothing else noteworthy. Next map, tropical island. First roll got 26% increased pack size (good) and monsters fire 4 additional projectiles (death to summoners). Rerolled to 20% pack size and 95% extra fire damage, resulting in 37% IIQ with extra from the map fragments. Fought Blood Morpher and Blood Stasis, which initially was a pretty simple matter of dodging ice spears while the horde went to work, but got a lot more interesting when a giant pack of kamikaze Alira's Martyrs ran onto the screen and exploded right by the battle. Went from "easy fight" to "run away RIGHT NOW" instantly. Fortunately I had cleared everything behind me so it was easy to find a clear spot and resummon. After that I had no difficulty, even when Blood Progenitor spawned near a massive shrine. Just more monkeys for the zombies to eat. Next up, Twinned Dungeon Map of Hordes: two unique bosses and 41% extra monster pack size, with 10% quality for a total of 26% IIQ (with two map fragments). Twin bosses is a mod that depends on the map, but since Brutus-clones are fairly easy for the horde, two of them doesn't seem too bad. First monster inside was The Raging Mask, who killed a lot of zombies with his Firestorm but didn't do well against the skeletons and raging spirits. Found the twin bosses, took out their accompanying pack of blue soldiers with one run-and-resummon cycle, then killed the bosses without further incident. Rest of the zone was an easy clear, although several spawns of blue cinder elementals took a while to finish off. Headed back to the Imperial Gardens waypoint to look for the Hedge Maze. By the time I find it, I should hit 72 and be five levels up on the zone. Found the Sunburst Queen but took her down fairly easily with the skeletotem and spirits, though the zombies didn't last long. Hit 72 as I wandered around looking for the maze and took Grave Intentions, so the horde is now up to the full 8 zombies. Level 72-73 Roamed the Hedge Maze for a while, dodging devourers and running into dead ends. Found a Neglected Cellar, no thank you. Had just found the tree area and was starting to clear it when Ossecati and his skeleton army walked up behind me, so had to back up and regather the horde, then take him out first. After that, picking the plum was straightforward. Got a crappy ring from Fairgraves. Headed to the Library next. Came across a Restricted Gallery (Nemesis mod on rares). Prior to the 1.1.3 patch I'd probably have skipped it, but since I knew Ch'aska, Maker of Rain had been nerfed I decided to clear it. Ch'aska still killed all my zombies twice, but once I maneuvered her to a spot where I was out of direct line of sight, the skeletons and spirits handled her fairly easily. Vaal drop was Vaal Ice Nova. Back in the library, found the loose candle without further incident. In the Archives, found Evocata Apocalyptica in the midst of a big group of giant skeletons and freezing pulse archivists. Kept a fighting retreat going through several rooms to pull them apart, finished off everything that had followed except the boss, then left to do a full resummon before finishing her off. Just a couple of rooms later, ran into Trinian; much less effort required for him. The rest of the zone was fairly straightforward, just a matter of making sure the skeletotem was the first into a new room to avoid getting freezing pulses to the face. Found the pages and turned them in for Multistrike, which is now linked to the zombies. Animate Guardian moves over to replace the Increased Duration that was linked to Flesh Offering...I'll re-link that later if I can find a spot on the gear, but I can live without it. Back to maps. Rolled a Fecund Crypt Map of Suffering (21.4 chaos damage/second, 33% increased monster life) with 11% quality and 41% IIQ. Since my life regen is over 40 per second, that should be workable. The Judgement Apparatus made an appearance just after I entered the zone, but it did little damage because of the spawn location alone in a small room. All of its construct friends were in another room next door, so the horde could take out the boss first and the others after. Nothing else notable until I found the Pagan Bishop, who died quickly despite casting Temporal Chains on everything. No drops worth noting, but most of my gems did level up, bringing most to level 16 or 17. That crypt went well, so rolled up another one. Initial roll had 3 additional monster projectiles, no thanks. Changed the mods to 30.4 chaos damage per second and monsters cannot be stunned, with 30% IIQ. Lots of skeletons in the zone this time, including archers using lightning arrow and puncture, and spark mages. Very glad I didn't keep that extra projectiles mod. First rare I found had Storm Herald, so that killed off a ton of zombies while they took out all his friends. Got hit by a few charging bone rhoas as well, very glad to have 3800 HP since they were doing around 1000 per hit, and also glad they mostly hit the horde instead of me. Later ran into Wiraq, but he was pretty tame, didn't do much damage and went down quickly. Finished off the Pagan Bishop again without incident. Rolled a tropical island map next. Decided against keeping the initial roll with temporal chains; the constant slowing can be dangerous if an unlucky spawn of fast monsters happens to show up, and I don't see the need to risk it. Rerolled and ended up with a Punishing Tropical Island Map of Flames (burning ground, 18% physical reflect) with 29% IIQ. Found Guardian of the Mound about 3/4 of the way through and was pleasantly surprised that he didn't cause too much trouble, only killing a couple of zombies while I dodged his storm call and made sure the skeletotem stayed alive. High fire/lightning resist serving its purpose. The horde took care of his friends and then him in fairly short order. No problems with Blood Progenitor, either. Another tropical island map since it dropped during the last run. Rolled burning ground and nemesis mod on rares, 23% IIQ. Nemesis mods aren't my favorite since storm herald is a pain, but it might not spawn, and if it does I'll deal with it. Hit level 73 shortly after starting and took the 10% minion life node above Lord of the Dead; next will be the minion damage node next to it. Was fortunate and did not see a storm herald. I did see Grath and Blood Progenitor, and it was unfortunate for them as the horde made short work of them both. Again no significant item drops, although I'm starting to build up a collection of Alchemy Orbs so I'll be keeping an eye out for white items worth rolling. |
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If I may make a small suggestion it is to keep your fragments/chisels for the 70+ tier of maps. In the 66/67 pool especially you can't really go anywhere but up, while you'll need the IIQ later to preserve/advance your pool. I think some people skip 66/67 and just farm Piety till their eyes bleed. Kinda boring imo, but probably quite efficient.
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