Fishy Keyrunner

[chrisng]

hey you guys on the forums have been a fantastic help with my fishy so far, so i wanted to ask you guys more questions!

i recently managed to get enigma's and shako, and now i'm slowly building my way to marrows, arch's sash and 2 +1 rings. to get this wealth, i've been teleporting and doing runs of all 3 key droppers - namely countess, summoner and nihl.

the countess is pretty easy is straight forward. i'll tele along the edges of each level until i find the steps up. she isn't too tough to kill too. i'll tele straight in, then take a step back behind my creeps and wait for the first body to drop. boom boom, CE galore!

now, the summoner and nihl is a bit more tricky for me. besides the fact that both of they have long, tiring, routes, i only die when i try to farm these 2!

i don't die from the summoner himself, but while i'm tele-ing to find him. along the way, i sometimes tele right into a blob of ghosts, and they suck up my mana and i can't move or tele or anything. then i die, lol.

at nihl, i'm ok with everything unless tomb vipers spawn around him. now, these buggers are a real pain. they rip up my merc and whatever golem i have out and kill half my skeles, and usually kill me at the same time too. and even if his spawns are ok, his corpse explosion kills my merc half the time, and kills me 10% of the time!

i have 2 questions to ask now,

1) does anyone has any suggestions on improving my survivability when i tele around and when fighting nihl? which will help more, FHR or FCR to tele away? or do i need both? is there a certain breakpoint that isn't too tough to reach without compromising my +skill items?

2) i've heard that fire golem can draw away aggro. but if i tele into a mob with a fire golem, will he draw aggro and leave me pretty much unhurt? do fire golems benefit as much as iron golems when golem mastery is pumped? i've heard people suggest to only pump mastery if you're using IG. perhaps this is because fire golems can be summoned and it doesn't matter if they die? i plan on making an insight irom golem and max out golem mastery once i get an obedience for my merc, but i would like to know if this is wise. because if i'm going to die with my insight IG, i might as well not even try, haha

to help give an overall picture of how my fishy is like, here's his gear!

helm: shako
ammy: +3 summoning, +76 life
armor: enigma breast plate
wand: AoKL
shield: homo
belt: gloom's trap
rings: 2 X manald
glove: magefist
boots: sandar's rip rap
and i've a ntorch in my invo.

thanks for taking the effort to read and reply! :smiley:

[Gagge]

I am no expert, but I am quite sure that you need some more FCR. I don´t remember the break points(I restarted three days ago), but there are many guides here that can help you with the BPs and ideas for equipment. Another way to increase your surviveability is to get some mor DR to counter Nihlas CE. An old school String of ears for belt maybe? If you´re loaded you could Ber the Shako too. You could possibly add some Fire absorb, the Rising Sun amu for example?

Good luck, and hope you get some more experienced players view as well!

//Gagge

[rizzlan]

Hi there fellow fishymancer

I see that you use an Homo, you wanna consider getting max block with this - this would be very helpful when teleing around (If you dont have it already)

When killing Nihlathak, try to tele up just by him and quickly cast AMP, he or one of his minions will die within a second (corpse!!) and then it's up to you for those CE's which will pretty much kill everything in the room. For this i suggest you have a strong merc

Gear-wise i would strongly suggest a caster ring with 10% FCR before those Manald heals
And if you need resists i would say try and keep eyes out for a cheap Hoto 30-32 to replace AoKL. This will solve any FCR problems you might have. The resists bonus ain't bad either.

I assume you have a pdiamond in your homo?

[synx]

Just made a fishy as well, thought it'd be gimp as hell but it absolutely tears through everything.

For the summoner, just teleport slower. I was having the same probs with the ghosts until I slowed it down a tad.

For nihil, I suggest spamming clay golem into a group of vipers until your skeletons can drop one of them, then waste them with come CEs.

If you're fast, you can drop all of nihils minions with some CEs and then tele away. Spam your clay golem near him until he is done with the corpses, or just CE yourself/summon skeletons.

I'm usin AoKL as well with a hoto in the bank, can't give up that +5 skele + mastery ><

[Greyeagle]

I'll throw in my two cents.

For tele purposes, I usually favor FCR + FHR vs max block. You can get this with two items - Wizard spike + spirit shield. That gives you at least the 75%fcr break and 55% fhr (just shy of one more break I think - but it is enough).

There are other ways to get the FCR + FHR or you can choose to go with max block on the homo.


As for running nilly - that shouldn't be a long process. From the halls waypoint there are only three layouts to memorize. Then once you get to the bottom level you can pick nillies direction by the diagrams on the wall. All in all, you should be able to complete nilly in under 30 seconds easy.


I usually just run nilly and trade my D keys 2 for 1 for other keys.

[shijo]

FCR would help immensely, especially against nilathak. However, you might try using your army like normal when you get close to nil. Here's why:

He has a lot of minions that turn into corpses very fast, since they suicide, so he can CE you pretty easy. If you stay far enough back (as far back as possible, but not so far that they don't follow you) and CE the corpses yourself, or revive them, you'll have a much easier time and die a lot less against him. Don't teleport onto him since one or two CE's is usually enough to kill you in Hell.

As for the summoner, he should be a joke. Get enough fcr that you can teleport through the area quickly.

Bone armor is also useful when teleporting. It's typically physical crap that kills you, so a 400 point bone armor is pretty handy.

[IntellectSucks]

If the ghosts are killing your mana and getting you killed, you may want to consider throwing an insight pole on your merc. Your mana will regenerate so quickly that you will be able to teleport regardless of manaburn.

[nerdly]

Here's a technique I've found to be very effective for Nihlithak:
Basically find a generally clear area right next to his platform, tele in there with merc+skeles+golem, then run against the back wall. Your merc should drop one of the minions quickly. You should already have switched to CE and be clicking on the area around your merc. Now, 1 ce will create many corpses. If there are any near you, CE them first so Nihlithak can't use them against you, and now just hover over nihlithak and ce away.

As for the summoner:
Make sure your merc has insight.
or
Be prepared with a belt full of rejuvs or mana pots. FHR or Max Block is recommended.

[bruticus]

i've got 2 or 3 mules full of Dkeys just running Nihlithak. i don't even bother running Countess as it takes too long to get to her.

i rarely die when i get down there - have a decent amount of FCR (75 breakpoint is nice) .. you can get this with Wizspike and a couple other pieces .. if you have arachs and wizspike, you only need a 10fcr ring :)

by all means, prebuff your army with AoKL, but you can't deny how useful the wizspike is .. tons of resists and FCR, plus a mana bonus!

when you find the correct branch for Nihilithak (you should know which one by looking at the walls) tele as far as the room, but don't enter the room; you shouldn't even be able to see him. Amp, and spam CE, leaving no corpses behind. Advance slowly. you should be able to spam CE and kill Nihlithak without even getting to the platform and without being hit at all.

if you're hit by vipers, try not to move; i believe the bug applies all of that poison damage to everything moving within the area of effect. either quit and start a new game, or get back to town and resurrect merc and give it another shot.

[money]

I'll just emphasize using wizspike(it's cheap!) to run these guys. FCR will do wonders, especially for nihl, faster cast means you're CE'ing faster, which means less time for nihl to get off a CE.

I personally tele into a corner of nihls room and step off a bit to let my merc/summons get a kill, and why they're walking over to get that kill, amp and just keep clicking CE. A lot of times you can't see if nihl is dead or not, keep clicking, just to be sure.

And actually once you get your merc geared up nicely, you can run nihl with just your merc and golem(Infinity on the merc makes this work very well though I did do it with Insight on my merc as well)

[synx]

Just started a new strat for nihil tonight, pretty insane but I've wracked up 5 hrs worth of crap from selling 1 dkey for a t and a hkey, and then getting organs.

Tele into the top corner in his room, amp him, tele right on top of him, and your skellies/merc should instantly kill one of his minions, 2-3 fast CEs should drop him.


What do you mean by look at the markings on the walls to tell which room nihil is in? I haven't been able to find any consistent pattern to show which room he is in, the markings seem random.

[Greyeagle]

<snip>

What do you mean by look at the markings on the walls to tell which room nihil is in? I haven't been able to find any consistent pattern to show which room he is in, the markings seem random.

Guide with more details:
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=595668

Also if there are snakes, use confuse on the room. Then the snake poison missiles will stop at the nearest confused monster - hopefully staying far away from your merc.

[synx]

Oh man, you cut my nihil running time in HALF.

Rock on!

[kykle]

FCR is important, but the main thing when fighting nihl is to make sure you explode the bodies before he does. Telestomping works well if you have big revives to cover for you and enough FCR is get out in a hurry if things go wrong.

[glisses]

Dim vision could help.

Cast ahead of yourself and tele as fast as you can past the vipers.

[Cast_Raider]

I don't have a keyrunner nec (I will soon hopefully), but I do have a keyrunner sorc that does ok.

Teleing there is never a problem, even with only 800 life. Then again, she has 45% damage reduction, from shako and stormshield, plus 75% blocking.

Once there, the only thing that really kills me is ce's. You can reduce their effectiveness a great deal as long as you remember that ce is half physical, half fire.

For the physical half: blocking (I think? or so battle.net says, iirc), damage reduce (you can max this at the cap of 50% with stormshield, using shako and enigma, and SS is cheap)

For the fire half: keep a spare set of infernostrides handy, or better yet, hotspurs. Use hoto or wizardspike to jack your resists and FCR to acceptable levels.

With the physical and fire mostly negated, you can actually survive a few pops.

[i am war]

i would recomend getting some more FCR, gamble rings until you have 2x 10%fcr rings, this will help alot more than manalds rings, also if you can make enough money, buy a low hoto, as the fcr will help alot more than aokl, if not then you can always try a wizzard spike even though it lacks in +skills it has 75+ all resi and 50% fcr if im right :p

also with nith you just need to teleport to the side of his monster pack and amp damage them, and spam CE, aslong as you get the first CE you should be fine, hope i helped

theres my 2 cents :p