Aramaki the Druid
Final update
The first area of Act V rolled pretty easy to defeat monsters, including Imps. While to some character build they can be annoying, for wind druid, they were no problem. Neither was Shenk.
Aramaki continued his trek to the summit of the Mount Arreat, clearing optional areas around the way, until he reached the Cristaline Passage. Here, the very first group of monsters proved to be an unexpected challenge:
On Hell difficulty, this variant of minotaur demons always is immune to physical damage. Additionally, they have tons of HP, hit hard, and have a Frenzy attack, which increases their movement and attack speed. Additionally, this particular unique specimen is also immune to cold damage, so only Elexa could harm it. That didn't make Aramaki useless, however: he was very much busy with re-summoning his pets, as they were swiftly being slaughtered by minotaurs. What can I say? Most people would just re-roll the monster spawn by save & quit methods, and this is an utterly sensible thing to do. But O_Bruce is lacking common sense, so he powers through.
Onto saving Anya:
She is grateful as always. But more seriously though, I can't recall when the last time it was that I found her reward actually useful.
I thought I could use Larzuk's quest reward to make a socket into a rare druidic pelt, had Anya provided me with something useful. So, instead, Larzuk added a socket into Elexa's Kuko Shakaku, and Aramaki inserted Shael rune into it for additional attack speed. More attack speed equals more or less more elemental damage, which is Elexa's job description.
The world mocked Aramaki for this decision soon enough:
The mockery, however, was not very successful. The Eaglehorn provides a lot of physical damage, which isn't quite what is fitting for Elexa. Aramaki decided to keep the bow, though, because its raw damage could be useful against some powerful, fire-immune enemies.
Onto the Nihlathak fight. Luckily, it went more smoothly than anticipated:
Later on, traveling through Ancient's Way, Aramaki found something good for Sorceresses:
And it's eatheral, no less! That makes it a more valuable drop due to its rarity.
The fight against the Ancients:
Satisfied with his victory, Aramaki entered the Worldstone Keep. Well, fate laughed at Aramaki once again, since the Ancients weren't the true bosses. These were:
Cursed unique minotaur, extra fast and immune to physical and fire damage:
And this freak of burning hells:
Not to mention their minions. What happened was, that Aramaki encountered these two groups almost immediately after the first turn left. Aramaki was forced to fight two strong monster packs at once (with no place to run, due to the possibility of running into yet another unique/champion), whose bosses were both immune to physical damage and one element respectively. What resulted is Aramaki needing to babysit Elexa into attacking the right kind of enemy with her elemental arrows, all while being forced to constantly re-summon his pets due to them dying very regularly. This was, without a doubt the most difficult and tense fight yet.
And just to remind you, a normal human being would be content with just save & reload in such instances. But me? Nah. Anyways, I don't usually do this, but this time around I decided to record the fight against the last two waves of Baal's minions:
And now, the fight against the Lord of Destruction. Sometimes, Baal can be really annoying to battle against.
And so, rise, Guardian Aramaki. Deckard Cain looks so proud of you!
