First I just gotta say, *clap clap clap* this is a quality mod top to bottom from what I have seen so far.

Myself and one other friend have taken it upon ourselves to play this together, we are incredibly stubborn but even we are having a bit of trouble. To cover the facts, we play HC, we play offline, its just the two of us, we have no problems twinking out low chrs or what have you. He plays a fairly typical style of follow the syns to make a build, I play a more colorful style often lacking a bit in the dmg dept for the sake of my own fun factor.

We've been making our way through the game, a few deaths here and there, a batch of chrs in hand now, hovering around late act 3 to early act 5.

The two things I would deem fit to ask about on these forums are General Hatestorm and the ancients, or more specifically, Korlic. For their areas, both of them seem to dish out (seemingly at random for hatestorm) just absurd ammounts of dmg.

To be fair, we haven't really gone overboard against hatestorm to fight him at the appropriate time, we often bring in a high lvl to kill him for us. About 20 minutes ago however, a pair of paladins just met absolute doom at the hands of ancients, a 2 handed uped snap charger in rockfleece and 12% strings w/ 1900ish life, and my more tankish paladin w/ the unique 3 socket pally shield w/ 3 pskulls and rockfleece and 75 block.

Is there any little tricks we might be missing as far as these 2 fights go? the dmg that hatestorm dishes out seems to come from near invisible sources (i assume something in the form of the ninja stars he can throw) I assume his fanaticism is in effect to boost that dmg, making a dmg reduction skill near useless against it, the same would seem true for ancs. I have been as far as 2 down and only talic left standing after my friend died once, Talic still had that miracle might, so i know at least he has it, does he share it w/ the other 2 granting higher dmg to Korlics leap? if talic goes down does that make Korlics leap dmg more tolerable?

I'll cut it there cause i can get long winded, I expect at least one TL:DR but hopefully some one will sort through my crap and I can talk shop with them.

Cheers, and good hunting

Good post and 100% on target. Hatestorm has been a thorn in this mod's side for a long time with his very erratic dmg patterns. I got to the point on HC where I just lured him, parked him, and moved on when I was at the appropriate level. I believe it is something with is blade skills that triggers the mass dmg spike that wipes a character out. All I know is that it has been around for at least 5-7 patches without a good fix. I think it just has Soulmancer stumped.

Korlic is an entirely different situation. His leap attack is what is doing the big dmg hits and you can avoid (for the most part) by standing right at his toes and engaging him in melee. This of course is tricky with the other guy spiraling whirlwinds at you, but hey - life is full of hard situations The issue started when Soulmancer buffed the Leap Attack skill to epic proportions which makes for a really fun barb build, but a really nasty Ancients battle.

Also, now that you know it is the leap attack you can try to be fast on your feat and avoid it when he comes down. That isn't an easy thing to consistently do, but perhaps you can give it a whirl.

Happy gaming!

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Critical strike, that's the key word on Hatestorm. He can get in some kind of insane cs on his blade fury. Around 1k dmg aint unusual.

As for the ancients, I would say that you "need" a lifebuff or summons to distract them. Leap+ww does way too much dmg for a paladin with below 2k life.

As for builds, you will need to stick to one build if you want your char to be viable after mid nm.

You could also just change your strategy. Sometimes it's not best to block the unstoppable force using an immovable object. A Poizon or Blazer can solo both Hatestorm and the Ancients without much trouble. Both builds flee obstacles rather than tanking them. If you can outrun the enemy, you win (lag ftl).

i dont know how you twink your chars but you should be able to get oskill bo / oak on sp try that it will solve alot of trouble if you got 6k life bulb instead of 1900 around lvl 50sh vs ancients . that beeing said blue is right , korlic dishes out insane dmg , he can 1hit ko most chars with leap . get some bo / oak somehow.

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'may the force be with you' - Yoda??

How would they accomplish that?

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

hoto at 59 for a little oak love, cta is a little higher but you can (with some grinding) hit 62 in tundra. That is if they can twink or have access to those runes.

When you spawn then you wanna have one of you standing right at korlic's feet and stick with him. If he leaps away to attack the oak or your friend then get in his face again asap. Remember to switch to walk as you have 0 def if you run.

keep talic and korlic apart as long as much as you can. once korlic is down you should have a much easier time.

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Ya - that's the mystery part, how would you get those runes if you can't get past norm ancients? I suppose you could just edit the data files and cheat your way to those runes, but that's the only way I can see it.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

maybe a higher char?

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thanks for the input guys, as far as responses,

we do try to keep korlic from leaping by tanking him, however he seems to be able to leap w/o moving? or at least still pull some insane dmg, think he killed a 1.8k life 10 dr pally w/o leaping in 1 hit. My most recent tankish pally that went down was 2.2k w/ 31% dr tho he got mobbed by all 3 at time of death korlic was in real close and i didnt see him leap, i was however behind a pillar so there is a slim chance he did, Korlic was ofc the listed killer as well.

their weak point seems to be their life, if you can run and gun them they dont seem that bad, we were lined up to take a psn necro and zon at them but over tired play cost me my necro so...

mostly we are interested in enemy mechanics, how to beat them w/ any pair of characters rather than making a pair specifically to beat them. I recall seeing the boss section showing a walkthrough for Diablo, and we have only ever lost 1 chr there, whereas there is no mention of either hatestorm or ancs, and they are tearing us to pieces.

On a side note, any info on enemy IM these days? it used to be 1 hit KO for anyone even pretending to be melee, seems the dmg is way down now?

we have no problems handing down gear or passing gear between chrs, but straight cheating is out of the question, no making stuff we havent earned or god mode cheat or w/e else might be out there. My friend is about to crack and suggesting we use his Barb to BO other pairs when they goto fight them, but id rather avoid even that, if i can just learn or get better or what have you.

Cheers

IM has been drastically reduced, you can get away with 2-3 full damage hits with it as it is now.

As far as tactics go, I have a method I like to use to solo the ancients that i can share.

The basic idea is splitting them up so you dont get swamped. You want to have the lowest life char sitting in town while you set this up.
Make harmony in some javs for the first part also

Go up alone and spawn them. Make sure your harmony javs are in your hand so you can WALK at a really good speed. Start walking around the edge untill you have either talic or korlic close behind you and the other one a good way off. At some point you will lose one or the other by the entrance and the other one will be following you as you run to the north east. At this point, walk right up to the most north easterly corner and let the one close behind close in as much as possible. When he is right in the very top corner, save and exit and return to the game. Now switch your harmony for your propper weapon and have your friend join you for the actual fight. Take a lawbringer flail with you on switch and have it as your weapon (or your friends) when you go up. As soon as you go up Walk to the south west corner and the one you left behind should follow you. That will leave you free to decrep him and swarm him without having the other nasty one to contend with at the same time. Once he is down go for the other one (korlic or talic). Make sure you decrep him and the thrower if you pass him too. You really want to rush him so you keep him in the top corner. If you stand right against the wall with him directly below you he shouldn't use ww too much. Once he is down you are pretty much done.

Try it out and let me know how you get on. I've done it alot myself solo and it pretty much always works. I play HC also so it works for hc chars perfectly well. Even without lifebuffs.

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wow, points for creativity i must say, but unfortunately both me and my friend agree that S&E just isnt a valid option.

dunno if it makes me a super nerd or what, but the game should be able to work as much as though you are actualy living it as possible, magically disappearing to get back to town (when the magical blue portals have been purposely removed) just doesn't fit.

we have a few more pairs who will try it, and with some luck and alot of skill hopefully at least some of them will make it by and maybe be able to hand back some godlies that will help the others get by.

yeh, its pretty fool proof but rather sneaky. If you have no other options it will work though. I used it a few times last season when the teams were pretty much none existant on the realm. It's either that or you don't get past on multiplayer though. You can always try splitting them up by using decrep and try to lose one up at the top as you run to the south west corner with one close behind. That would require smacking one of them (wwer probs easiest to lose tbh) with lawbringer and leaving the others at full speed so you can lose the slow one up top. Have your friend wait just below the stairs and type a swift 1 as soon as you split them so he knows when to come up. they can be split that way but it takes a little more patience to do.

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To kill hatestorm use a2 merc or paladin and convert the heirophants, if you get even 1 you basically cant die. Against korlic try keep him occupied with summons and kite him.

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This only works in NM and Hell since they have no prayer in norm

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Norm is easy though so it shouldnt be a big issue.

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Norm is where his dmg is too high for the life you have there... Nm and Hell aint that bad.

summons taking on the ancients also seems like a valid solution for any group you try against them , my necro summoner can solo them on any difficulty , summons are kinda imba as they can be respawned or be 32 instead of just a bunch of chars beeing in front taking the heat .. using a edge javalin helps alot as thorns take out them very effectively , with decrep or amp , any amp source really.

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'may the force be with you' - Yoda??