Hell Ancients

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Well, I finally did it.

After my previous post regarding my sorceress's disappointing attempt to
defeat the Hell Ancients solo, I took her through lots of Mausoleum and
Crypt runs, as well as some Countess runs. Amassing purple pots again, and
having acquired the lightning faceted Occulus, I felt she was ready to try
them again. The merc still had no chance, as I have no other equipment to
give him, so I knew this would truly be a solo effort. The power of her
almost fully synergized level 33 Charged Bolt and her level 31 Blizzard was
evident on the path through the Ancients' Way. The cold-immune skellies had
no chance whatsoever against the CB, and the lightning-immune beasts fell
swiftly enough under Blizzard. The quill rat types gave her a problem
because one of the mods on the Occulus is 25% chance to teleport on being
hit, which I find very annoying.

The Ancients spawned only 1 cold-immune (Talic), so after running the three
through Blizzard for a while, the other two fell in turns. Sadly, by that
time she only had two purple pots left, and one lonely Super Healing potion.
Since she must do only ranged attacks against the Ancients, and cannot stand
toe-to-toe to spam bolts (which would easily dispatch them), I had to
develop a new (for me) method for using CB. Running forward and casting one
volley back in quick succession seemed to be wearing Talic down, but she
ended up getting "stuck" a couple of times and getting hit. When mana got
low, she teleported from one corner to the other in order to rest and regain
mana. Down to 1 purple pot, Talic still had about 33% life. Patiently
using the run forward/cast back routine, he finally fell, and she was
finally able to make her way into the Worldstone Keep to activate the
waypoint.

Her Equipment

The Occulus (+3 to all skills)
Spirit Monarch (+2 to all skills)
Arch-Angel's Coronet (+2 to sorceress skills) (gambled)
Blue Amulet (+3 to lightning skills)
2 Stones of Jordan (+2 total to all skills)
Annihilus (+1 to all skills)
Blue Grand Charm (+1 to cold skills)
Duriel's Shell
Magefist
Waterwalk
Credendum


Merc Equipment

Ethereal Shaftstop
Ethereal Insight Thresher
Natalya's Totem



So now on to attempt to solo Baal and his minions to make Matriarch for the
first time.