I went back to playing my Paladin. He is a FoH/Conviction character, currently in the company of a Cold Act III merc.
Merc shots helped by Conviction, plus lots of bleeding from Blood Crescent were the main damage dealers, because Mirex' mana situation is still too bad to use much FoH. I had feared Act IV would be a long slog because of the marked increase in monster life vs. Act III, but it wasn't that bad. Spawners were bad news, though, unsuprisingly...
I placed a point in Smite. With an earlier Paladin, I've seen what it can do, both for safety and for fast applying of Crushing Blow. I do have Crushflange, you know...
Smite made this boss a lot less annoying. I found a spot where the bolts didn't hit.
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Infector got the same treatment:
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Grand Vizier of Chaos had only three minions with him. Haven't seen that before.
I like that some of my randomly found gear provide useful mods I didn't think much about when I found them:
- Cleglaw's Pincers' slowing. Combined with constant chilling from Thadar, some enemies turn
really slow.
- Cleglaw's Claw's poison length reduction. Made e.g. the poison hits from Doom/Abyss/OB Knigths much less dangerous. Thadar also has one, so it's the same for him.
- Damage-to-mana on Angelic Wings. Often when Mirex was wading in spawners and their pups and he had burned the two Fist of the Heavens he can from full mana, the many hits (he has 6% blocking...) would soon give him enough mana for another FoH.
I took very little risk with Diablo. Resists were OK (53 fire, 50 lightning) but I still fought him on /p1.
I kept a good distance (often too far away from him for Conviction to work) and killed him with many Fists. I needed more than 20 of Jamella's big mana potions.
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You see my items reward there. Even with Milabrega's shield, MF went down because Cathan's Visage was my second helm.
Those three were the only SUs I found in the entire Act IV and Bloody Floothills.
After killing Shenk, I had Larzuk socket Cathan's Mesh. For now, I put a perfect topaz in it. I was thinking ahead and about resists. If I find either of the two Cathan's jewelry pieces now, both lightning and fire resist will get a nice boost. (And I can't think of a single character I've ever played that hasn't found Cathan's ring...).
The only items that aren't SUs now are my rings (crappy Akara + Ormus rewards) and my boots (now Demonhide Boots). For the next session, I've brought Shadowfang, a Ral and a perfect emerald. Need a Sol for upgrading it, and then I'll switch to an Act V merc.
[Highlight]Mirex the FoH/Conviction Paladin and Thadar the Cold Iron Wolf, level 37, 22 S/U items found, Frigid Highlands next[/Highlight]