![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Diablo: Nihlathak the Wuss
Nihlathak. What a stupid name. Can anyone actually pronounce it?
Nonetheless my sorceress feared him - and with reason. His exploding corpse-minions killed her over and over and over. He was second only to Duriel in the number of deaths caused.
So when Cronan was ready to approach him, I was understandably a little nervous. True, Cronan's track record has been a hell of a lot better than what's-her-name, but all the Diablo websites I read said that Nihlathak was deadly even to heavily-armored barbarians - and Cronan's armor is only so-so. Plus his hit points aren't great, since I haven't put much into Vitality yet. Heck, some sites recommend skipping Nihlathak altogether!
So what did I do? I cruised through the Halls of Pain quite quickly (I'd hit that waypoint the night before) and was soon in the Halls of Vaught. Now, there are four corridors in the Halls of Vaught, and Nihlathak is randomly placed at the end of one of them; inevitably he was in the last one that I searched.
I knew he was there by the process of elimination (hmm, I never noticed before how funny that phrase is), but also because exploding minions started coming at me.
I should take a second to explain that my sorceress hardly ever saw Nihlathak. She'd get near his corridor, and then exploding minions would come and blow her away. She eventually got him by casting hydras at the very edge of her range, over and over; she probably died about thirty times (really!) before she got him.
So when the exploding minions started charging me, I did what any insane-yet-stupid barbarian would do: I charged right back at them. At top speed. Running, in other words, which guaranteed them automatic hits on me.
Except that I'm pretty fast, and ran around them. I figured that once I saw Nihlathak I would do a Leap Attack and hope to kill him up close before he could get his exploding minions near me. After all, they'd all be charging towards me, right?
WRONG! I don't know if it's because Nihlathak can raise an infinite number of exploding minions, or if the AI was just being clever (or stupid), but when I finished my leap I saw that I was literally standing in the middle of a sea of exploding minions. There must have been thirty, at least, packed so densely around me that I couldn't move. And Nihlathak wasn't quite within reach.
I could still fight, though. Battle Command, Shout, Double-Swing, Frenzy, and then Double-Swing like mad. I kill a minion and it explodes; nearly half my hit points go with it. Another, and I'm almost dead. Suck down a full rejuvenation potion without stopping for a second with the double-swings. Boom, boom, potion. Boom, boom, potion, boom.
Etc., etc. etc.
Within 45 seconds I'd cleared enough space to be landing blows on Nihlathak. Fifteen seconds later he was dead, and both I and my hireling were fine. Total cost: four or five full Rejuves at most, which are nothing to a barbarian with the Find Potion skill.
Bite me, Nihlathak! Oh, I forgot, you can't - because you're dead! :D
Okay, I may be taking this too seriously. Actually the best thing about all this is that it only took about twenty minutes last night, so I was actually able to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
And then I lay there, unable to sleep for most of the night, but at least I was in bed.
Nonetheless my sorceress feared him - and with reason. His exploding corpse-minions killed her over and over and over. He was second only to Duriel in the number of deaths caused.
So when Cronan was ready to approach him, I was understandably a little nervous. True, Cronan's track record has been a hell of a lot better than what's-her-name, but all the Diablo websites I read said that Nihlathak was deadly even to heavily-armored barbarians - and Cronan's armor is only so-so. Plus his hit points aren't great, since I haven't put much into Vitality yet. Heck, some sites recommend skipping Nihlathak altogether!
So what did I do? I cruised through the Halls of Pain quite quickly (I'd hit that waypoint the night before) and was soon in the Halls of Vaught. Now, there are four corridors in the Halls of Vaught, and Nihlathak is randomly placed at the end of one of them; inevitably he was in the last one that I searched.
I knew he was there by the process of elimination (hmm, I never noticed before how funny that phrase is), but also because exploding minions started coming at me.
I should take a second to explain that my sorceress hardly ever saw Nihlathak. She'd get near his corridor, and then exploding minions would come and blow her away. She eventually got him by casting hydras at the very edge of her range, over and over; she probably died about thirty times (really!) before she got him.
So when the exploding minions started charging me, I did what any insane-yet-stupid barbarian would do: I charged right back at them. At top speed. Running, in other words, which guaranteed them automatic hits on me.
Except that I'm pretty fast, and ran around them. I figured that once I saw Nihlathak I would do a Leap Attack and hope to kill him up close before he could get his exploding minions near me. After all, they'd all be charging towards me, right?
WRONG! I don't know if it's because Nihlathak can raise an infinite number of exploding minions, or if the AI was just being clever (or stupid), but when I finished my leap I saw that I was literally standing in the middle of a sea of exploding minions. There must have been thirty, at least, packed so densely around me that I couldn't move. And Nihlathak wasn't quite within reach.
I could still fight, though. Battle Command, Shout, Double-Swing, Frenzy, and then Double-Swing like mad. I kill a minion and it explodes; nearly half my hit points go with it. Another, and I'm almost dead. Suck down a full rejuvenation potion without stopping for a second with the double-swings. Boom, boom, potion. Boom, boom, potion, boom.
Etc., etc. etc.
Within 45 seconds I'd cleared enough space to be landing blows on Nihlathak. Fifteen seconds later he was dead, and both I and my hireling were fine. Total cost: four or five full Rejuves at most, which are nothing to a barbarian with the Find Potion skill.
Bite me, Nihlathak! Oh, I forgot, you can't - because you're dead! :D
Okay, I may be taking this too seriously. Actually the best thing about all this is that it only took about twenty minutes last night, so I was actually able to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
And then I lay there, unable to sleep for most of the night, but at least I was in bed.