Some time ago, I was reading a WSK zon guide by Nightfish, and the next part of my "make a pat/mat with each character" project, Sara_Sparks, got started. That part is now finished, when Sara fed Baal a bunch of electr-o-nuggets.

The details:

Character info:
Title: Matriarch
Name: Sara_Sparks
Class: Amazon
Level: 86

Stats (base/weap1/weap2):

LCS and LCS2

Strength: 75/104/84
Dexterity: 125/179/159
Vitality: 220/220/220
Energy: 15/57/57

85 Stat points left. I'm saving these, because I haven't decided her future gear yet, other than that she'll be using a Melody Matriarchal bow.

Life: 880/958
Mana: 142/284

Lightning Fury damage: 1-1171 (29 bolts)
Charged Strike damage: 1-1619 (8 bolts)
Frozen Arrow damage: 1638-1672
Defence: 995 (39% blocking)

Resists (weapon1/weapon2):
Fire: 75/43
Cold: 67/24
Lightning: 75/53
Poison: 45/-3

Skills (base/with eq):
Lightning Fury: 20/28
Charged Strike: 20/28
Cold Arrow: 20/28
Freezing Arrow : 20/28
Decoy: 3/7/9

One point in prerequisites
1 point in crit strike/penetrate/pierce, 4/6 with eq.

2 Skill points left. To Decoy, very likely.

Final equipment:
Helm: Rare Bone Circlet <-----twink
Amulet: Chromatic Amulet (30 res all)
Weapon1: Titan's Revenge <------twink
Shield1: Ancient's Pledge Gothic Shield
Weapon2: Arcadian Ceremonial Bow of Frost (+3 bow skill)
Shield2: --
Ring1: Scintillating Ring of Sorcery (15 energy, 14 res all)
Ring1: Rare Dread Spiral
Gloves: Crafted Viper Hold
Belt: Razortail <------ twink
Boots: Hsarus' Iron Heel

Charms were really bad, in general. One exception though;

Harpoonist's Grand Charm of Strength
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 51
Fingerprint: 0x56226163
+4 to Strength
+1 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)

And she found it herself!

Merc:
Zanarhi (A2 prayer)
Tal's Horadric Crest
Insight Battle Scythe
Holy Dusk Shroud (917 def)

Finds:
I must say there were a few nice moments with Sara, the javelin skiller right up there of course.
HF: I really don't remember. I thought it was a Mal, but she doesn't have one.
She does, however, have a Pul and an Ist.

Gimmershred, String of Ears, The Cat's Eye, The Oculus, plus:

Code:
Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x338e9e80
+40 to Life

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x4e6feb36
+40 to Life
+112 to Attack Rating

Sacred Rondache
Defense: 147
Chance to Block:  48%
Smite Damage: 35 to 58
Durability: 37 of 68
(Paladin Only)
Required Strength: 109
Required Level: 52
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0x1bb2a85
+63% Enhanced Damage <---- just how high can it get?
+111 to Attack Rating
Discussion:

Like her friends, Sara was going players3 all the way, and also went untwinked until Hell, where she was allowed 3 items to be twinked on. I went with the obvious Titans and Razortail, but regretted it later. Sure, it's nice to have ~90% pierce, but I would have changed it for a bit sturdier merc in a heartbeat. Zanarhi was having some serious trouble staying alive with the *cough* less than optimal gear. Luckily I scored the Tal's mask, which helped some. I could've done way better itemwise with some shopping/gambling, but Sara was broke all the time due to the merc and the fact that she pretty much needed to have the meditation aura on.

Gameplay was twofold, in a way. With large groups of monsters going was pretty easy, just herd them a bit and end it with a couple of LFs, or freeze the lot of them with FA. Things got a lot tougher when facing only few monsters. Preferred method for me was to use FA, but with CI's you'd have to get personal, and Sara does not have enough life to get personal with monsters in hell. Toughest part was definitely the ice caves in A5. I had to reroll monster spawns a few times, because at this point, Sara can't take frenzytaurs and gloams by herself, and Zanarhi wasn't about to get useful all of a sudden.

I died a lot on the way. Most situations were just because I was just trying to rush along and not take necessary time to think. She had a funny (and scary) fight with Nihlathak. I thought that I might have a chance to just run into Nihlys chamber and spam LF, since the room is filled with the boars and Nihlathak in the middle, just like LF wants them. Well, the boars all died quickly of course, but Nihly still had 1/3 life left. Still, I think it worked better than I really thought. Now to get the last hits with all those corpses in there... *bam* there's a CE and I was left with just a sliver of life. *chuck* a purple went down. *bam* I had 60 life left. *chuck* *bam* *chuck*... and then I had to get more rejuvs from town. Casting decoy next to Nihly made him use the cold breath and allowed me to close in on him.

Ancients were hard, of course. Five first tries there was cursed -> no dice. Took a few tries more but eventually got a set without curse and no CI/LI, though Madawc was LI. For some reason the Ancients paid absolutely NO attention to the decoy and came straight for me and Zanarhi. For a while I tried using LF but three enemies is just not enough for it to shine. CS, on the other hand, doesn't work too well with the smaller size monsters and none of the released sparks were hitting anything. Oh well, luckily I had collected a decent stash of rejuvs for Zanarhi.. Madawc, with his lightning immunity was last. He, failing his combat-awareness check, managed to get stuck between a hard place and a cold shower. The pic also shows I'm all out on potions. Including those dropped on the ground. Phew..

Fighting Baal was annoying, since Baal thought that he'd delegate all the fighting to his tentacles. Only now I really realised that those appendages actually hurt! Sara was killed by them once, after one of Baal's tentacle-casting frenzies. She was surrounded, failing to get away and unable to kill them. But of course, in the end she was victorious.

Future plans:

Sara's planned primary goal is getting me the Cow set. But first off, I'll be gearing her properly and see what she's like then. Then it's probably WSK/Baal or Pits for a while, or just straight to cows. But not until I make her a certain runeword… I'll be posting more about it later.