[Harbinger] Sarah the Self-found Solo Summoner

I've decided to try a bit of an experiment and run my Chaos Golem instead of Spectres. I don't have the links to give any support to whichever one I use, so I think I'm going to be better off with the rarely-dies golem over the often-fragile spectres. That extra bit of damage reduction doesn't hurt, either. If I notice any real slowdown in damage I can switch back, but I doubt it'll be a problem. Almost all my damage comes from spirits and zombies anyway.

Took the short walk from Prisoner's Gate up to the Western Forest and picked up the waypoint. Killed a Harbinger and a few rares along the way, helped Elreon, and defeated the Echo of Doedre (again). Kept on going up into the Riverways, grabbed that waypoint, and killed off the Animal Pack. They hit Sarah a couple of times pretty hard, but a flask and some judicious running away solved that while the horde demolished them.

Onward to the Wetlands, and wandered around until I found Ryslatha's nest. Took me a minute to realize that I had to find and kill the things on the lower level in order to spawn her, but once I had that figured out it was a fairly easy fight. Used a life flask once or twice when Sarah stood in a green puddle for a bit too long, otherwise straightforward.

I like Ryslatha's bonus (life flask charges) a lot better than old Tukohama, so I switched over. With the quest reward skill point, I started heading over toward the Grave Intentions cluster. I'll get that for zombie number 8, then pick up the Melding cluster for more life/ES.

Back to Prisoner's Gate, where I spotted Nessa again and then went after Abberath. The first section with the fire guy wasn't too hard, but I had to run around a lot since he went straight for Sarah while ignoring the minions. They killed him, of course, and then there was more running around to avoid the meteor strikes that followed. Through the valley while dodging more fire. Then up against Abberath himself while, you guessed it, dodging more fire. Sarah took a few hits again, although I don't think she was being targeted more than anything else...there was just so much fire that everything was getting hit. Fortunately the horde out-damaged the fire, killing Abberath before they burned up.

Abberath's bonus of fire damage reduction seems like the best one so far. Situational, obviously, but handy in the right locations. Another skill point from Bestel for the quest reward, making progress toward Grave Intentions.

Back to the Riverways, where I had to kill the Animal Pack again. No problem as long as you keep the minions from standing in those big circle things. I probably should have gone ahead through to the Southern Forest when I was here last time, but it's no big deal...more XP. Got about halfway through the Southern Forest and was doing the usual, let the horde spank all the monkeys, when Sarah suddenly lost half her life and Immortal Call went off. Hit flasks and ran away, regrouped, and went back to kill off Hollowskull - a bit more carefully this time. No real danger as long as I kept Sarah out of range. No other encounters of note the rest of the way to the waypoint.

Into the caverns, picked up the flag, and listened to Nessa's tale of woe. The water in the caverns looks pretty rough, crashing around the rocks, nice little bit of flavor there. I see the crabs have learned a new trick with that tremor-style attack, but it didn't do them any good. Brinecrack was no challenge to the horde and only hit Sarah once. Came across a Harbinger which managed to kill a zombie, between leaving patches of fire around and summoning sirens to use that wail attack. The other six took exception and demolished them all.

Moving on to the Beacon, came across a fairly involved spawn with several rares and a Harbinger. The horde seemed to be holding its own all right, but I did a few cycles of "back away-Convocation-send them back in" just to be safe. Also found a Jeweller's Strongbox, which contained squat. But then a random rare dropped a Belt of the Deceiver unique heavy belt, so the RNG evened out nicely. I put that on right away, as it's an improvement over the rare belt I've been using since about Act 2. Hit level 53 just before finding the fuel carts, which let me pick up Grave Intentions. Moving those carts didn't seem nearly as painful as similar mechanics in the Labyrinth, for which I was grateful. Finished off the summoning and met Weylam, charming fellow.

Onto the Brine King's Reef, where I see we have some new enemies that spread slowdown tar. Could have done without that. The animated reef rock-golem guys hit impressively hard, too. Killed a Harbinger and opened a strongbox along the way; nothing particularly impressive from either.

The Brine King himself wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Had a few friends tell me that he was on par with Malachai in the Black Core in terms of ability spam and lack of room to manuever. Certainly the tiny spot you have to stand on during high tide is a pain, but there's nothing close to the same level of damage-dealing abilities floating around. The horde did its job just fine, not losing so much as a single zombie, while I made sure Sarah didn't drown or get hit with those lightning bolts. No drops worth mentioning, but the Soul of the Brine King major god ability to avoid stuns looks nice to have.

The chaos golem experiment seems to be working out just fine. I'm not noticing any significant DPS loss without the Spectres, and it's nice that I don't have to go hunting for the right kind of corpses to raise. It'd be different if I had extra links to add LMP and other supports to the Spectres, but since it's just a question of which gem is more useful with no supports, the chaos golem wins.

Nice to see some familiar faces again in the Bridge Encampment at the start of Act 7. Not very upset about a chance to put some hurt on Greust, either, he always was kind of an ass. Went out and grabbed the locket for Weylam, and picked up that Quartz Flask I've been looking for from the quest reward. Spent a couple of orbs to reroll its mods and got extra charges plus immunity to freeze and chill, which is pretty close to perfect.

Picked up waypoints in the Crossroads and Crypt, with a trip through Fellshrine in between. The fire-arrow statue guys are new to me. Gave me a bad moment or two when the entire horde started burning, but they don't really do that much damage so I quickly learned not to pay much attention to it.

Went on to explore the Crypt, which seems mostly the same except for the new wraith guys with their Ethereal Knives. Did the Ascendancy Trial, without any minion losses this time. Found the hidden library sub-zone, cleared it without any real difficulty, and grabbed the map.

Back to the Crossroads and off toward the Chamber of Sins. The Harbingers were out in force, killed off three of them on my way to Silk and the waypoint. The horde killed off what I think was a rogue exile in a side chamber, though it died too fast to be sure and I accidentally exploded the corpse before I could identify it. Vorici made an appearance for the first time in ages, and only wanted a speedy kill of Ailentia Rac, so I was finally able to get him to level 2.

Maligaro's Sanctum isn't exactly an inviting place; guess that's what happens when you spend years hanging out down in the bowels of the Beast. The lightning-ball Undying guys he's got in there are annoying, kept me moving around to avoid crossfires. Found a rare strongbox, which sadly contained junk. Killed another Harbinger along the way.

Maligaro and his pets were throwing around enough damage that Sarah took quite a few hits. They didn't seem to do much to any of my minions, though, so I pretty much let them handle the offense while I focused on staying alive. All I did was throw the occasional ball lightning and keep the skeletotem up, with a few raging spirits tossed in when it looked safe to stop for a moment. Quite a few rares dropped, though none looked to be worth using.

The quest reward from Helena wasn't terrible, 4-linked boots with all three elemental resistances and 20% movement speed. No life, though, and I've already got 25% movement speed on my current boots. Picked up the key from Silk, listened to his disturbing wedding plans, and headed downstairs.

Still all kinds of lightning in the Chamber of Sins level 2, I see. Cleared the Ascendancy Trial easily enough, without any real trouble from all the bleeding floor saws. Another rare Strongbox found, another set of useless items. Used the key to open up my way to the Den.

Easy trip through the Den, nothing more dangerous than a few rares. Moved on to the Ashen Fields, which looks like someone did some slash-and-burn work. Found a rare with the Inner Treasure mod and picked up Kaltenhalt from it. Ran across a pair of Harbingers less than a screen's distance from one another, so the horde ended up fighting both at once. That went easier than I'd expected, no minions lost. Please to find an essence-locked ape as well, can always use more essences.

Walked into the Fortress Encampment and killed off a whole lot of bandits, at least one dire wolf, and eventually Greust. The giant totem's rain attacks didn't bother me much, nor did all the adds, but Greust hit Sarah pretty hard with that Barrage attack. Had to be careful to get out of the way and used up some flask charges. The Ralakesh ability to reduce or avoid bleeding looks decent, good when you know you'll have to deal with puncture enemies. With the quest reward skill point, I'm one node away from Melding.

The Northern Forest still has devourers and now some of those drop bears, too, neither of which I particularly enjoy. Not terribly dangerous, though. Beat up Tunnelworm and a Harbinger, then found Haku and completed a mission for him. Took me a while to find the shrine for Greust's necklace, and then I was most of the way up north anyway so I went ahead and pushed through the Causeway to the waypoint there. The quest reward from Helena was actually usable, an amulet with cold and lightning resist plus mana, and I added some life with Elreon's craft table.

Back to the Northern Forest and into the Dread Thicket. Found a Secluded Copse corrupted area with extra cold resistance and reduced recovery. Hit level 57 while in there and picked up Melding - now at 1922 life and 541 ES. Outsummoned Kutec with ease and picked up a Vaal Immortal Call. Back in the thicket, beat up Dreadstone, along with innumerable snakes, monkeys, and drop bears. Also found an Arcanist's Strongbox which I was able to roll into a +8 items mod, so it dropped 15 different orbs, best of which was an Alchemy and a Scouring. I found all the fireflies and took them to Yeena...developers, would it be very difficult to make those things stack? Takes up a good chunk of inventory space carrying seven of them around.

Came across the Den of Despair and dropped in to beat up on Gruthkul. She hit Sarah once, and killed two zombies with those big swipes. Used my Quicksilver flask to stay out of her way while the rest of the horde finished her off. I like her physical reduction bonus, think I'll use that unless I know I'm facing fire or bleeding enemies. With the quest reward skill point, I took Retribution, with the intent of going through Discipline and Training to Sanctity.

Back to the Causeway, fighting through the horde of snakes and Vaal constructs. Lots of Convocation usage to keep the minions focused in the right spots. A Harbinger spawned in one of the little offshoot sections, making for an interesting fight as the horde kept wading in and standing right in the middle of all the area damage. Picked up Kishara's Star, got another skill point from Weylam for the quest reward.

On to the Vaal City, more of the same. Even more need for Convocation here as the minions tend to wander into the little boxes of ruins and stay there. Fought one Harbinger on the way to Yeena, otherwise just the standard stuff. Kind of weird to see Yeena transform, then take the waypoint back to town and talk to her.

The Temple of Decay looks...sticky. All those webs, yuck. Spiders aplenty, of course, and yet more Vaal constructs. Mostly easy pickings on the first level, but Blightblade hit Sarah fairly hard. The horde was largely busy with a rare that had spawned nearby at first. Once it was down, Blightblade dropped quickly enough. Hit level 58 and picked up Discipline and Training, pushing Sarah over 2100 life. More of the same in level 2, plus the occasional poison spitter, until I reached Arakaali's lair.

Expecting lots of poison damage, I prepared to face the spider goddess by temporarily swapping an Amethyst flask for my Quartz flask. Lots of purple stuff floating around indeed, so I used that flask regularly just to be safe. Arakaali killed a couple of zombies with some kind of explosion, and it was a bit of a challenge avoiding all those purple line things when she also summoned adds. Sarah only got hit a couple of times, though, and never seriously. Looks like Arakaali took Silk with her on the way down, which doesn't bother me too much. Play with the spider goddess, get eaten by the spider goddess. She dropped a rare wand that might actually be pretty good if I was a cold caster, but not great for a summoner. Arakaali's soul ability seems pretty good, although for now I think I'll stick with the stun avoidance from the Brine King.

The Undying guys in the Sarn Ramparts that throw out a rain of blades were a bit of a surprise. I was afraid they'd be doing enough area damage to hurt the horde, but it wasn't bad at all. No zombies lost on the trek out to the stairs and back along the wall.

This seems like a good point to try the second Labyrinth. Found a Darkshrine in each of the first two areas, giving me a Brutal Shrine effect and disabling traps in the Aspirant's Trial. The first isn't great for a summoner, although watching Ball Lightning push mobs out of the way is kinda amusing, but the second is very handy. Went through a few trap-laden areas for an extra treasure key and a Labyrinth trove. Came close to dying once to the spinning pole traps, but managed to sneak out alive. Izaro killed several zombies, but I focused on keeping Sarah out of his way and the horde took him down fairly easily all three times.

Ended up with three treasure keys, which got me a ton of currency drops. Not much in the way of items, but I'll sell 'em. Got an Edict of Reflection on my gloves from the font. Picked up Mistress of Sacrifice with my ascendancy points. I considered Flesh Binder for the defense, but this isn't hardcore and I really like getting the Flesh Offering cast speed bonus.

Using some of that currency that just dropped, I finally crafted an improvement to my boots. 30% move speed and four sockets. Lost some health bonus, but I'll take that for the better movement speed and fourth socket. Four-linked, but I'm only using two: Hatred-Generosity. The other two sockets are used by Flesh Offering and a recently-returned-from-weapon-switch Animate Guardian.

Posion everywhere in the Toxic Conduit, unsurprisingly. The minions mostly shrugged it off, but I had to be careful not to let Sarah stay in the clouds for too long. Killed a Harbinger, and cleared a Walled-Off Ducts corrupted area for a Vaal Reave. It had Elemental Equilibrium again, hooray, and Cava died almost immediately before the onslaught of the horde. Opened a rare Strongbox which dropped three silver coins. Found another Ignomon unique gold amulet off a random rare guy.

Eventually I found Doedre, and defeated her easily. All I did was hit the valve every time it was clickable, and run around like crazy while casting spirits with the occasional pause for Ball Lightning or a skeletotem. Terrible drops and quest reward item, oh well.

Hit level 60 as I was sewer-diving, which gets me to Sanctity. Next I think I'll go down toward Faith and Steel and Devotion. I'm not taking the Sovereignty cluster because I don't get a lot of value for the points when I'm only running Hatred (well, also level 1 Clarity, but it barely counts). If I someday decide to also find a socket for a Haste gem, then it would make sense to respec some points into the aura-boosting nodes.

I'd portaled back to town after the Doedre fight, instead of going forward and taking the waypoint back. I spent so much time patting myself on the back for such an easy kill and looking at the passive tree that my portal disappeared, so I got to go all the way back through the sewers again. Let this be a lesson to you...get waypoint first, faff about in town second.

The Quay looks like a nice dockside area, except for all the ghosts and undying and such. Some kind of big ghost foreman hit Sarah for about half her life, and some of the undying have learned a new trick, popping up like groundhogs as you walk by. Found a Blind Alley corrupted area, again with Elemental Equilibrium as the only mod. Sometimes the RNG is feeling merciful. Killed off M'gaska and picked up a Vaal Fireball. Explored the whole zone, and picked up the Grain Gate waypoint, before finally coming across the Ankh of Eternity.

Took the Ankh over to Clarissa. Returning Tolman from the dead didn't go as planned, who could possibly have seen that coming? The horde was perfectly happy to return a bunch of fellow zombies to their rest, including shambler Tolman.

Decided to check out the other side of town, back from the sewer waypoint to the Grand Promenade. Some of the ghost legionnaires use raging spirits; how rude, using my own tricks against me! Defeated Ondar despite accidentally face-tanking him with Sarah - didn't see him at first, and didn't pay much attention until he's gotten through my ES and took a chunk of life. Immortal Call kicked in and a flask fixed it, though, and the zombies ate his brain before he could do any more damage.

Bath time next, but I didn't spend long in the Bath House since I almost immediately found the Lunaris Concourse exit. Tons of cold-based enemies, no surprise on the way to the Lunaris temple. I see the gods here are just repurposing any old miscreation or soldier or ribbon that they happen to find lying around. Found the waypoint and took out Nightbringer Lucius, plus the Plaguemaw followers that popped up after he died to fulfill a prophecy. Found Vagan and beat him up, then headed into the Lunaris temple.

Found my first map drop in the Lunaris Temple level 1. Hit level 62 while clearing out a whole lot of mobs, but none of them were particularly memorable. One strongbox was the only notable encounter, but it had nothing useful inside. Found the waypoint and headed out, level 2 can wait.

Back to bathing. I found Hector Titucius and the Wings of Vastiri easily, but killing Hector was another matter. There was a Harbinger in the same room, so the horde was busy fighting that spawn while Hector ran around behind his shield. I moved back to another room to separate them, and got the Harbinger down, but Hector was gone when I went back. He'd charged himself into yet another room, where I had to clear yet another enemy group while avoiding his rushing around. It took a while, but eventually the horde was able to focus on him and he dropped soon after. Lost a zombie along the way, but no significant damage to Sarah. Took Conqueror's Efficiency as the quest reward, another thing to stash for a while.

One more trip to the Bath House. Found a essence-locked monster on the way. Found and cleared the Ascendancy Trial, though it took a while since it was one of the burning-floor types with a bunch of switches scattered around. Missed one switch the first time through and had to go back searching for it, slowed by waiting on the floor to cool off. Eventually I found the garden exit and headed outside.

The High Gardens spawned with a Crushing Squall tempest due to a prophecy, which was a pain. But hey, added item drop chance. I lost a lot of zombies on my way through, largely due to that tempest. Helped Elreon, beat up a Harbinger, and killed an essence-locked leaper. A random rare dropped the Apparations unique jewel, which is interesting but I don't think movement speed and chance to dodge is what the minions really need. If it was also attack speed, I'd find a way to use it.

Then there was Yugul, and he was rough. Slows are no fun at any time, and when you've got an angry god hopping on you they're a real problem. I tried to keep Flesh Offering up, using Desecrate for corpses, and that helped quite a bit. Still, I was having to resummon zombies more than I like and couldn't keep the spirit population as high as I wanted. I was out of flask charges and just about to portal out to refill when he finally dropped.

Yugul's ability to reduce reflect damage is probably popular with the weapon-focused crowd, but doesn't do anything for me. With the quest reward skill point, I picked up Faith and Steel. Here's the current passive tree.

Well, now I know what they did with the Warehouses assets when they removed it from Act 3 - just repurposed it into the Grain Gate in Act 8. The rats that show up occasionally are a nice touch, exactly what you'd expect in a grain storage district. Found the Gemling Soldiers, but they just kind of stood there until I walked right up next to them. The aggro range is a little short, maybe? Once they noticed me, the horde demolished them in short order. Started on my way toward Devotion with the skill point quest reward.

Onward through the Imperial Fields. Lots of animals: rats, those rooster guys, centaurs, devourers, carrion bugs. And the occasional skeleton. Helped Haku out, took care of the Effigy of Fear, and defeated Zacharia Desmarai on my way to the Solaris Temple.

A few new tricks in the Solaris Temple, such as solar elementals and the occasional animated weapons. Still plenty of statues and ribbons, though. The horde rolled through level 1, found the waypoint, and kept on going through level 2. Helped Elreon out along the way. Dawn fell before the horde in a matter of seconds, but that was still long enough for him to put down four zombies with various fire beams. Still enough minions left to handle the animated weapons that popped up afterward, though.

Back to the Lunaris Temple for the moon orb. Dusk must have had all those ribbons working overtime to clean up all the blood down here. Found a rare Ribbon that dropped a Tear of Purity unique amulet thanks to a prophecy, which looks interesting for the Purity of Elements skill. Would have been good about 40 levels ago. No encounters of interest until Dusk, which took a bit longer than the fight against Dawn but the horde took less damage.

Back to the Lunaris Concourse to head for the Harbour Bridge, and without thinking I headed completely the wrong way. Ended up by the Lunaris Temple again, but it wasn't a complete waste since I found Catarina up there and helped her out. Turned around and went the correct direction to find the bridge.

Lots of cold-themed ranged enemies in the Harbour Bridge zone, conveniently located to make it a pain to get to them. The horde kept splitting up, half on the bridge and half down to one side or the other. I never felt like Sarah was in danger, but it slowed me down. Found a Ewar's Mirage unique rapier from a rare with the Inner Treasure mod. Found the Sky Shrine and headed in.

The battle against the Sun and Moon is pretty well done, I thought, with the alternating big attacks and ambient light going up and down. Lost quite a few of the zombies to one or the other of the big strikes, enough that I spent a few seconds dropping Desecrate corpses and resummoning them. Probably could have gotten by with just the skeletons and spirits, but I figured having more targets in play was safer. Solaris went down first, with Lunaris not far behind. Can't say I'm terribly impressed by either of their pantheon abilities, too hard to make that "enemies in range" part work consistently.

After I got the Blood Aqueduct waypoint to start Act 9, took a brief trip back to go through the Solaris Concourse. I'd skipped it entirely on the way out, figured I'd get the waypoint in case I ever want to go back. Killed a Harbinger, helped Catarina, and took down Regulus on the way to the waypoint.

The Blood Aqueduct has a lot of, well, blood. Monsters seem to mostly be similar to the Act 4 Aqueduct with a few Beast-related spawns thrown in. Found a Forgotten Conduit with Elemental Equilibrium (again!) plus unique boss bonuses. Bonuses didn't help the Torrent of Fear, and I picked up my first Sacrifice at Dawn. I was mildly surprised not to see any unique monster on the way through, guess the giant birds don't like the blood canal.

Made the rounds in Highgate - another vendor gone nuts and chasing after a god, imagine that - then it was on to the Descent. I like the snow wolves, first time I've noticed them...flashbacks to Baldur's Gate and hunting down white wolf pelts. Found a Desolate Track corrupted area with, you guessed it, Elemental Equilibrium. The RNG is just saving the terrible mods to hit me all at once, I can feel it. Quetzerxi did a big burst of lightning, killing a zombie and knocking Sarah down to about half, then fell over. Found a Vaal Discipline. Nothing else interesting, just a few rares, on the rest of the way down to the desert.

The Vastiri Desert is populated by all manner of lizards and undead. The rhex are new, and the adolescent ones are kinda cute, but that didn't stop me from littering the desert with their corpses. Came across the Storm Crest and let the horde go to town on the mummy ambush, no special tactics needed. After a lot of running around, found the waypoint and the exit to the Foothills.

Hit level 65 out in the desert. With that point plus the Storm Blade quest reward point, I finished off the Devotion cluster. I think I'll get another jewel socket next, which I can use with either Assassin's Haste or Conqueror's Efficiency until I find something better.

The Foothills reminds me of the Dried Lake, similar enemies and they often rush headlong in great numbers into the wood chipper that is the horde. Killed a Harbinger, found the waypoint, killed another Harbinger, and roamed around until I found Boulderback. He did not impress me, just kinda stood there while the horde laid the smack down.

Since I'd found the Tunnel entrance in my earlier wanderings, decided to go ahead and get that waypoint. There were a ton of those fire-bomb miner guys, which earlier on would have been a real problem for the zombies. Now, though, they're hardy enough to mostly shrug off such things. Opened a rare Jeweller's Strongbox (nothing good) and killed off a rare (or maybe unique) chaos golem that had a nasty blinding mod on its attacks.

Cleared the Ascendancy Trial in the Tunnel, too, but it was not easy. First I had to get past the bleeding-Roombas, which was fine until a line of three floating ones came right at me from out of nowhere and nearly wiped me out. Thank goodness for instant-recovery flasks! Just as I got past them and was about to enter the plaque room, Damoi Tui jumped me and killed a bunch of zombies, with backup from a Harbinger just around the corner. It was a mad scramble for a few seconds, trying to re-raise the horde while avoiding fire trails from the Harbinger and not moving back into Roomba-of-death range. It all ended well, but my flasks sure got a workout.

Back to the Desert and then to the Oasis. Mostly familiar monsters in here, although I don't remember the chimeras having quite so much firepower. Found a Shifting Sands corrupted area, with poison and extra cold damage. All that extra damage killed a few zombies, but nothing the occasional resummon couldn't fix, and Wiraq the Impaler got himself impaled very quickly. Found a Vaal Flameblast. Cleared the rest of the zone finding nothing else of interest.

Headed back through the Tunnel and into the Quarry. Pretty much the same monsters as the Tunnel, which means a ton of fire-bombs again. Opened a rare Arcanist's Strongbox and got a decent number of orbs drops. Also found a rare +1 to minion gems helm, but the other mods weren't that great and I would have had to roll links on it, so decided to pass. Killed a Harbinger, found the waypoint, then moved on to the Refinery.

Some of the Undying in the Refinery learned how to cast those stationary lightning balls, which are really annoying. Kept having to pull the horde away with Convocation so they wouldn't just get shocked repeatedly. Found General Adus and finished him off fairly easily, just had to keep moving whenever he decided to follow Sarah around. Picked up the powder and headed out.

Back to the Foothills and into the Boiling Lake. Place looks slimy, and has lots of creepy crawlie enemies to match. Love the flavor of all the statues standing around. Killed Thena Moga and a Harbinger on the way to the Basilisk, which was a disappointingly easy battle. I was hoping for some kind of immobilize stunning gaze or something, but on the bright side the horde made short work of it. Even better, some of the statues came back to life and attacked, so they aren't just decoration! Level 67 now, and I have that jewel socket so I put Assassin's Haste in it.

With the powder and poison, Sin has opened up the Beast for me, but first I decided to take care of Kira. Killed a Harbinger and an essence-locked chaos golem on the way to find her in the Quarry. Entered the Arena and started the fight normally enough, but then the winds started up. The battle turned into a whole lot of frantic running around, liberally littering the floor with Desecrate corpses. Once I found an empty spot where it was safe, quickly resummoned zombies, cast spirits and Flesh Offering, and tried to score Ball Lightning hits. Got plenty of use out of my flasks, especially the Quicksilver one. Sarah only got hit really hard once, fortunately. Quite a few zombies were lost, but by the time Kira was down and Garukhan herself showed up, I'd raised the horde back to full strength. Doubt I'll use her Pantheon ability, unless there's a map somewhere that does a whole lot of savage hits.

I see Oyun didn't make it, so I gave the feather to Irasha. Seems appropriate to continue the matriarchy. Passive point starts me on the path to Written in Blood - here's the current passive tree. After that, it'll be time to go for the various aura bonus node clusters. I also grabbed a jade amulet and rolled it into a decent rare, with crafted life bonus. It has enough dexterity that I shouldn't need to worry about gem requirements for a while.

The Beast has definitely seen better days. The horde went through the belly and core with speed, stopping briefly to kill a Harbinger. That seemed awfully easy, which made sense once I got to the Rotting Core and Sin sent me off after Doedre, Maligaro, and Shavronne...again.

The path through Doedre's portal was moderately annoying to traverse with all those totems, but not really dangerous as long as I kept Sarah away from the green guys that exploded. Doedre herself was a pushover and lasted just a few seconds.

Maligaro's portal was rough, because those purple tempest things did a real number on the horde. Lots of small corridors where they'd get clumped up and the tempest would just slice them up. Resummoned a lot of zombies, especially when a Harbinger showed up in one of those corridors and clogged up the way forward. Maligaro himself didn't last long, and splitting into those apparition things at the end did him zero good.

Shavronne's lightning cyclones were much easier, plus her portal area was much more open without nearly as many chokepoints. The horde mostly ignored the lightning, even when another Harbinger made an appearance. Shavronne herself lasted just long enough to start one of floating-book lightning strikes, but was dead before it went off.

The Depraved Trinity looked at first like it was going to be rough, trapped in the tiny little Black Heart area. But they barely did any area effects, pretty much just that one blood-orb spitting attack. (As opposed to Malachai, who fills the whole area with burning circles, tentacles, etc.) That meant I had plenty of safe space to run around and use my various skills in support of the horde, which wasn't taking much damage and stayed at full strength throughout. Sarah took a few hits from one of the scorpion summon groups, but that was about it. The summons showed up three times, and then it was over. Terrible drops, par for the course there.

Act 10, here we come! Sailed on back to Oriath and headed right on up to the Cathedral Rooftop. These guys certainly hit hard when they get a shot in at Sarah, but those are few and far between. Rescued Bannon with ease from Plaguewing, just let the horde go wild on him. Took a Sulfur Flask from the quest reward, just because I haven't seen one in the wild yet, though I don't imagine I'll use it. Then back through the rooftops to find the exit, nothing particularly notable along the way.

The Ravaged Square is in pretty bad shape, as one would expect. The enemies are plentiful and seem to do pretty hefty damage. The shield charging soldier guys in particular are pretty dangerous, as they seem to aggro from a huge range and like to charge right at Sarah. I found a rare strongbox and the spawns actually killed a couple of zombies. It dropped something worth picking up for a change, a Kondo's Pride unique Ezomyte blade. Ran across Tora, of all people, and hunted down some beasts for her. Roamed all around the square and grabbed the Reliquary waypoint, then went into the Torched Courts.

Lots more of the same in the Torched Courts. I was kept busy trying to keep the horde from going through a door and getting beaten to a pulp by a mass of enemies hitting them from off-screen. Lots of Convocation to keep the band together. Opened a rare Strongbox (nothing good) and killed a Harbinger, which took a while since it kept running off and hiding in little side rooms. Eventually found the way into the next zone.

A Harbinger was the very first thing I found in the Desecrated Chambers, and it was fairly tough, spawning lots of those Heretical Ward charge guys. Its drops finally gave me enough harbinger shards for my first Harbinger Orb. Moving on, I see some of the window shards have come to life, nice little theme bit there. Worked my way around to the Chamber of Innocence and killed off Avarius, who did basically nothing and needed no special tactics. Picked up the Staff and back to town. Nothing impressive from drops or the quest reward.

Time for a trip to the Reliquary to find Lilly's teardrop. Looks mostly the same as last time, with lots of enemies that leave no corpses...annoying, but that's why I have Desecrate. Found one particularly crowded area with two Harbingers and several other spawns that all came together in one grand melee. My usual tactics worked fine, but it did take a while to finish them all off. Found a Kaom's Primacy unique axe and hit level 69 along the way to pick up the teardrop.

I suppose I should really explore the Ossuary to get the ghostly Spanish fly for Weylam. Don't really care about his love life, but I do need to find the Ascendancy Trial anyway. All kinds of undead, like the last time I was here. None of them were particularly interesting, made for an easy trip to find the elixir and the trial. Just a bunch of poison darts in the Ascendancy Trial, easy enough.

Off to the Square again to take the Kitava by the Horns. Innocence burned down the gate and off we go into the Canals. Warped Regurgitators, what a disgusting idea. Killed a lot of those as well as pretty much all the other warped Kitava enemies from previous zones. The unrighteous fire users are dangerous in big enough groups, lost a few zombies to them on a couple of occasions. Catarina was hanging out here, helped her out. Had to run back through a huge part of the zone to do so, but I found an essence-locked monster I'd missed in the process, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. More of the same through the Feeding Trough until finally reaching Kitava.

The Kitava fight was rough, which is no surprise. Sarah didn't die, but it was really close several times. I portaled out to refill flasks and resummon zombies no less than five times, and at least two of those were with less than a quarter of my life left. He seems to do a lot of over-time damage, which helped since I could see my life falling and flee before I died. The zombies were down quite a bit, so I focused mainly on keeping the skeletotem up and summoning spirits. It took a good long time to bring him down. The spots in the middle and at the end with adds were a lot easier for me, since the horde mostly took care of those on their own.

He dropped a bunch of rares that I picked up quickly before I got kicked out of the zone, though none were particularly exciting. Got my two passive points from Lani for the quest reward, which is enough to reach Written in Blood. Would have been helpful before the fight! Walked around and talked to everyone, seems like a fairly complete wrap-up for the story bits. Left a nice opening to do something with Innocence and the far south, if they want to continue someday.

With the merciless resistance penalty, I'm at 75/67/52 elemental resists and -40 chaos. Not great, but workable until I find some gear improvements.

Met Zana in the lab and picked the Jungle Valley for my first map. In addition to the usual suspects (monkeys, snakes, etc) there were a whole lot of those maelstrom elemental guys, which are annoying since their tempest attacks float right through the horde and hit Sarah. Nothing more dangerous than a Harbinger spawn, though, and the spider boss went down fairly easily. Took a few hits on Sarah in the process, thanks to my lack of chaos resistance.

I love that Zana is automatically granted as a Master now. Back in Legacy league, I ran a ton of maps but never did happen to run across Zana in any of them, so I never got her as a Master. Taking the RNG out of that equation is a great thing. I dismissed Elreon (he's level 5, no big deal if it takes a while to raise him higher) to make room for her in my hideout.

Did Zana's daily mission, which put me in an Atoll map with vulnerability and elemental weakness, plus hexproof monsters. Fairly difficult for the early going, especially without my resistances capped yet, but the horde was equal to the task. Found a bunch of lodestones for Zana and opened a Cartographer's Strongbox (10 maps with 7% quality each). Got to the giant totem boss and felt pretty good as the horde was taking him down, but then he did some kind of big attack directed right at Sarah and she died almost instantly. It happened right as they killed him, so maybe it was a death throes thing? He dropped a Rigwald's Charge unique sword.