Fri Aug 29 19:39:49 2008

At 11 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 26th of the Month of the Ancient Darkness
on the Theran calendar Illyria perished, never to return.

Beroxxus -- Sorry. Just couldn't get into this character.

nt

nt

Man you were annoying with those Nightgaunts :p Didn't really get a chance to interact with you with any of my characters, but you were a constant hunter. Mind sharing your experience with conjie for me? I'm thinking of rolling one up once I can come up with a decent role idea.

Let's see. The Imp is highly underrated as a familiar. I was contemplating deletion around 17 when I got it (What do you mean no flying scout, mana regen, or detect hidden?) I'd already had some interaction with Beroxxus and couldn't justify it. Glad I didn't, I ended up being reasonably pleased.

Nightgaunts are a lot less intimidating once you've been on the sending side. It's actually fairly difficult to have a reasonably sized elemental, demon, have them both be happy, and still have enough mana to conjure and bind a strong gaunt. I don't think I ever successfully gaunted a fighting class (ranger, warrior, AP) despite many attempts with 1000+ mana gaunts. I'm sure this is meaner once you've got clairvoyance/clairaudiance to pick a good time to send them. Against mages and the like it seems almost cruel... a heartbeat after I sent it, it was back and the mage was nearly dead.

I think I was the queen of mobdeaths. By the end I was very good at managing my servitors, and only really soaked a death under the following (bugboarded) circumstances:
Extremely weak veil results in obscenely strong conjuration
Veil didn't seem to strength the circle or binding similarily
Meant a 500 mana bind wasn't going to land (twice in a row), and there was no way, even with slow, to try anything stronger.
You ended up having to manage the veil closely, and be careful to conjure weak when the veil was weak so you'd have some prayer of binding it.

Finding your wands, as an evil conj, is crucial. I found mine early, but the black was really hard to get. Must've taken 3-4 deaths from accidents trying to get them. And, of COURSE, I was in that process when Kharnial asked for my help raiding. Not very impressive to turn up 15 minutes later after dying trying to hurry.

Each of the demons, except Mors-Gravis, had their place. I was totally demon-specced (chaotic, abyssal adept, etc.) and they were just mean. But... lugging big demons around meant a lot of work to keep them happy. Mors-Gravis seemed impossible to keep happy outside of leveling, and there were usually better choices for that.

Never used devils enough to comment. Generally just as filler when I had to dismiss a demon early.

Sadly unimpressed with gear-mob-killing ability. Most tough mobs hit all, and kill the servitors quick.

Didn't really have a problem killing anyone. Generally cut through them scarily quick.

Lash blows. Think up an alternate strategy, and implement it EARLY. I had a little too much faith in lash, and it was hard to switch gears at level 40.

Ice/Ooze/Vapor -- Nice perks, and nicely balanced. The two 'sick' things about them:
1. No extra mana required. You always get a reasonably strong conjure... make it a lot easier to have a robust demon and gaunt. Might want to consider shifting this to be more like the normal conjure elemental.
2. Separate timers. If someone kills your elementall... well, call another. And another. And another. And another. Might want to link the cool downs.

I'm just dying to know, how'd you know how to play into people's roles like that? Did you get echoes or something?

Of course, if you're sworn to secrecy, I'll just keep wondering.

Beroxxus led me by my nose. That little scene was damned interesting... the only thing that would've been better is if I'd been able to ad lib a bit more.