what is the best way to kill mervil with a witch for hc race?

I've been doing the hc races lately with mara. It's easy as hell so i figured i'd try out the witch. Both times i got stuck on mervil unable to kill mervil. I was level 15. People were killing mervil at level 12. What is the secret to killing mervil with the witch?

maybe i should try using firestorm? is that the key to this thing?

just a mild guess: stack cold-resistence?

i think that should be the secret...

Stacking cold resist only helps so much. Compared to just smashing her with a Marauder, without some lucky drops I find that she can be pretty tedious with an early Witch.

If I don't take Fire Trap, she's a royal pain to do early. I find that FT helps keep her energy shield from recharging while I recover mine before going back at her with Ice Spear.

I'm sure theres a better way to go about it, but I don't know it.

spam Skeletons, summon zombies.

Are you people seriously using Ice Spear in races?!

Merveil is killed with all classes in same way. Stack life and cold resistance, run to melee range, spam abilities that work best in melee range or anything that uses a bow.

For witch that would be Frozen Pulse.

BTW, to learn how to play in races watch devmoon stream when he practices. You will be shocked how it is supposed to be done compared how you think it should be done.

Marauder is ez mode lol... 3 weeks ago I couldnt even kill merveil on a lvl 15 witch.

Learning that iron ring + blue gem gives you a cold resis ring is what allowed me to beat him at lvl 12-13 relatively decently.... Although I still feel like IMDissapoint has a secret tactic lol.

I also check NPC vendors pretty often (probably way more than most witch racers). I look for "... of Inuit" equip for cold resis, wands for +1 cold or fire gems, and bonus to max hp.

Having 2 cold resis rings by the merveil fight 100% of the time is pretty easy to do.

I buy my first iron ring at ledge for 3 id scrolls.. and then try to find the other one. If I havent found after brutus then I buy the second one. I use my ice spear gem for one ring.. and hopefully I have found another blue gem for the other ring. If I havent then I would kill hillock on a shadow or something for a blue gem for the 2nd cold resis ring.

Oh yeah.. recently I started using fireball vs merveil. The reason I choose that over freezing pulse is because with the fireball's explosion damage thing you can sometimes stop his energy shield from recovering in spots where freezing pulse couldn't.

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Torin wrote:

Are you people seriously using Ice Spear in races?!

I don't actually play in the races to win them.. I find that an unrealistic goal for myself at this point both because I tend to die in random places and because I can't give it the required hours. I think my longest-lived toon was only mid-40s at time of death.

I play in them for the fresh start with current itemization.

And because of this, I'd rather use a build I enjoy than an optimal race build.

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Torin wrote:

Merveil is killed with all classes in same way. Stack life and cold resistance, run to melee range, spam abilities that work best in melee range or anything that uses a bow.

I'm actually starting to think a lot of fights are better done at melee range even for a squishy.. it's faster to kill Oak at melee range with periodic recharge breaks than kiting (which has been made pretty much impossible now). I'll give Merveil a shot at melee too.. I generally have FP then as well. Perhaps even Kraityn.. that bugger flickers far too often for most of my health when I'm at range and I have to reset him or bail (didn't have any distractions for him this run and died), though I'm not sure I'd survive melee without a great deal more health either.

Just seems a bit weird being forced into melee with a ranged toon.

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Torin wrote:

Are you people seriously using Ice Spear in races?!

Merveil is killed with all classes in same way. Stack life and cold resistance, run to melee range, spam abilities that work best in melee range or anything that uses a bow.

For witch that would be Frozen Pulse.

BTW, to learn how to play in races watch devmoon stream when he practices. You will be shocked how it is supposed to be done compared how you think it should be done.

Have you actually tried what you posted there? Stacking life is very difficult for a witch and if you go for life nodes you lack the damage. Last race I couldn't kill her although I had 73 coldresistance. I had to go back to the ledge and do one or two more levels until I finally killed her at level 14.

Anyways, it IS possible to kill her at level 12 or 13 but it is very difficult and takes a lot of racing time.

Btw: devmoon just started practicing with witches today. Like every other race witch he doesn't like the witch starting area very much.

Edit:

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Durentis wrote:

Just seems a bit weird being forced into melee with a ranged toon.

Well, FP is basically a melee spell. ;)

walk side to side while shooting her, it's very easy to dodge all her ice spears