Stuck at Hell Claw Viper Temple

[dan neely]

My L76 open bowazon's been stuck at this quest for over a week while I
leveled 8x hoping the extra skill points would make a difference.
Part of the problem might be that I've focused on Immolation and
Freezing arrows instead of a more conventional build, but the only
other spot I've had trouble was with the barb gods in nm. I have both
skills in the midteens with a few points in cold arrow once synergy
started giving more damage per point. I have 8-10 points each in
valk/decoy/cs/pierce/penetrate, 3 each in d/a/e, and one each upto
guided arrow. I'm using a rare gothic bow with ~30-130 damage, 20%
IAS, and +2 skills. I have annother +1 skills from a amulet, and upto
+4 passive between a charm and etherial circlet that I'm only using in
the entrance areas to keep it usable. Since this is my 1st >lvl50
char, the rest of my equipt is equally unremarkable.

I've managed to clear the entrance area to the 1st level a half dozen
times, mainly by drawing a mix of monsters heavy on the undead giving
me space to run around while picking off the vipers one at time im
arrow before TPing out the back, and reentering via the lost city WP.
Unfortunately, the tighter quarters of the 2nd level have ended up
with my body trapped around a mess of vipers and the entrace sealed up
every time I've attempted it. I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

[David Carson]

Post by dan neely
I'm using a rare gothic bow with ~30-130 damage, 20%
IAS, and +2 skills.

<snip!>

Post by dan neely
I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

I fear your bow might be letting you down there. I just got my first
character to Hell, a bowazon with similar skill mix to yours. I'm in mid
act 1 and finding it hard going, with a rare Shadow Bow that does 42-168
(which Hell Bloodraven dropped, I had to fight her with a godawful 35-84
damage Spider Bow I made with the 3-chippies recipe!). At your level you
might have some luck gambling for bows perhaps? Do you have the runes to
upgrade if you get a rare bow with excellent mods but only of a Normal
bow type?

Cheers!
David...

[David Besack]

Post by dan neely
Unfortunately, the tighter quarters of the 2nd level have ended up
with my body trapped around a mess of vipers and the entrace sealed up
every time I've attempted it. I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

Maybe try recasting valk and/or decoy several times past the opening
(far enough in so they don't bash her back toward the enterance) and in
between keeping a fresh decoy present, fire immolation a lot.

Another option... cast decoy near the vipers, and run past them, kick
the altar and grab the amulet and portal out. I've gotten the thing
several times without killing much in the room. Just make sure you have
a few potions with you.

[Angus Davidson]

Post by David Besack

Post by dan neely
Unfortunately, the tighter quarters of the 2nd level have ended up
with my body trapped around a mess of vipers and the entrace sealed up
every time I've attempted it. I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

Maybe try recasting valk and/or decoy several times past the opening
(far enough in so they don't bash her back toward the enterance) and in
between keeping a fresh decoy present, fire immolation a lot.
Another option... cast decoy near the vipers, and run past them, kick
the altar and grab the amulet and portal out. I've gotten the thing
several times without killing much in the room. Just make sure you have
a few potions with you.

Another trick is to race in and turn right. head for a corner and cast a
tp and head back to town. This should allow for you come back in from
the temple side (a long jog sometimes).

With a zon you should also be able when you first go in to shoot GA and
kill some of the creatures in the room. It wont work for fangskin as he
often lurks in the corners. And GA doesnt bend as much as it used to.

Also an item with teleport , staff, amulet , enigma armour etc can get
you to the podium before much gets to you.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Angus

[David Besack]

Post by Angus Davidson
Another trick is to race in and turn right. head for a corner and cast a
tp and head back to town. This should allow for you come back in from
the temple side (a long jog sometimes).
With a zon you should also be able when you first go in to shoot GA and
kill some of the creatures in the room. It wont work for fangskin as he
often lurks in the corners. And GA doesnt bend as much as it used to.
Also an item with teleport , staff, amulet , enigma armour etc can get
you to the podium before much gets to you.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Angus

I've also come into the room a few times and seen Fangskin and his
minions actually up around the altar, trapped (since they aren't smart
enough to go backward down the stairs) for you to fire at all day. It
doesn't happen often though :)

[Jaakko Raipala]

Post by David Besack
I've also come into the room a few times and seen Fangskin and his
minions actually up around the altar, trapped (since they aren't smart
enough to go backward down the stairs) for you to fire at all day. It
doesn't happen often though :)

They also aren't smart enough to climb *up* the stairs, even if you're
standing on the altar and firing at them. Once you get there it should
be trivial (unless there are skeletons around, they'll follow you up).
(Hmm - perhaps the snakes are too large for the stairs?)

Or at least they didn't do that before 1.10. I don't *think* this has
changed. In any case, it should be possible to run for the altar first,
grab the amulet and *then* see if you can kill the snakes safely.

[Angus Davidson]

Post by Jaakko Raipala

Post by David Besack
I've also come into the room a few times and seen Fangskin and his
minions actually up around the altar, trapped (since they aren't smart
enough to go backward down the stairs) for you to fire at all day. It
doesn't happen often though :)

They also aren't smart enough to climb *up* the stairs, even if you're
standing on the altar and firing at them. Once you get there it should
be trivial (unless there are skeletons around, they'll follow you up).
(Hmm - perhaps the snakes are too large for the stairs?)
Or at least they didn't do that before 1.10. I don't *think* this has
changed. In any case, it should be possible to run for the altar first,
grab the amulet and *then* see if you can kill the snakes safely.

On the plus side this quest saw the most script kiddie , Pindle botty
deaths on the realms. It was worth sitting in a game and just watching
the comments go by.

regards

Angus

[Stephen R. Marsh]

Post by David Besack
I've also come into the room a few times and seen Fangskin and his
minions actually up around the altar, trapped (since they aren't smart
enough to go backward down the stairs) for you to fire at all day. It
doesn't happen often though :)

Yeah, but is sure is fun when it does <g>


Stephen
http://adrr.com/hero/diablo.htm
http://adrr.com/story/

[Mike]

Post by dan neely
My L76 open bowazon's been stuck at this quest for over a week while I
leveled 8x hoping the extra skill points would make a difference.
Part of the problem might be that I've focused on Immolation and
Freezing arrows instead of a more conventional build, but the only
other spot I've had trouble was with the barb gods in nm. I have both
skills in the midteens with a few points in cold arrow once synergy
started giving more damage per point. I have 8-10 points each in
valk/decoy/cs/pierce/penetrate, 3 each in d/a/e, and one each upto
guided arrow. I'm using a rare gothic bow with ~30-130 damage, 20%
IAS, and +2 skills. I have annother +1 skills from a amulet, and upto
+4 passive between a charm and etherial circlet that I'm only using in
the entrance areas to keep it usable. Since this is my 1st >lvl50
char, the rest of my equipt is equally unremarkable.
I've managed to clear the entrance area to the 1st level a half dozen
times, mainly by drawing a mix of monsters heavy on the undead giving
me space to run around while picking off the vipers one at time im
arrow before TPing out the back, and reentering via the lost city WP.
Unfortunately, the tighter quarters of the 2nd level have ended up
with my body trapped around a mess of vipers and the entrace sealed up
every time I've attempted it. I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

You don't mention what you have for leech gear, and I'm not sure what
you have in Guided Arrow. Put those two together, and you can refill
your health and mana quite quickly, though it won't work on skeletons.

My 'Zon survives very well in Players 8 Hell Single Player. She uses
just Immolation and Guided (just to prove it's possible!) But, she
also has a Buriza! B-)

Mike
O-

[go_d2]

zon is my most favorite char, i'm no "expert", but have good exp with
zon.

In my personal opinion:

1. don't waste skills in fire skills
2. max FA.
3. max valk. valk can do great dmg and serve as awesome tank.
4. alway cast decoy
5. freeze them when u can, and watch ur valk put them down
6. max GA
7. I don't see u got any leech. dual leech is a MUST for zon, not only
refill life and mana, but also the leech whirling effect tells there
is something off screen.
8. carry psn charms as many as possible.
9. fire MS or GA early, don't wait until u see them charging u.
10. Just run to get the ammy is good idea, but if u cann't clear claw
viper temple, Duriel is even tougher.
11. yell for help, many ppl say 1.10 makes d2 too tough for solo runs.
it's mean to be a team thing now.

gl

[dan neely]

Post by go_d2
10. Just run to get the ammy is good idea, but if u cann't clear claw
viper temple, Duriel is even tougher.

Duriel was a pushover this time. In NM I took it down with a 20-70ish
bow running in circles continously because my valk died after 2 or 3
hits max. That was hard, this time I was able to stand in place
Shooting and recasting valk 85% of the time, it only died within the
casting delay a half dozen times.

Post by go_d2
11. yell for help, many ppl say 1.10 makes d2 too tough for solo runs.
it's mean to be a team thing now.

I play offline exclusively so that's really not an option. OTOH If
I'd gotten really desperate I could've declared a moral victory,
completing the quest and cooked up a viper amulet using a trainer.

Skill wise I'm probably going to stick a few more points into GA for
dealing with singletons and large monsters, but IA does wonders on any
monsters that pack tightly like flayers. With pierce stacking several
fires on top of each other they burn up quite nicely.

[Verker]

[slightly OT]

Dan Neely?

The same Dan Neely as from rec.games.computer.stars? Seems I am not the
only one having switched sides ;-) From battleships to swords, from tech
tree to skill trees - then again, I miss the slow pace and politics from
Stars!. And 12/9/16/3g ITs with OBRM. Sigh. Didnt we play in glory of
empires or in transwarp? Anyhow.

Hiho if u are, never mind if u are not one of my old Stars! companions.

Verker
[Stars! VML-mod author]

[Polarhound]

Staff of Teleport.

Buy it.

Learn it.

Love it.

Live it.

[dan neely]

Post by dan neely
I've experimented with GA and MS +
clegaws for knockback without success and am wondering if I'm missing
something or am doomed to running the maggot lair indefinately until I
can find a bow with significantly better stats.

I ended up clearing it after doing the latter. I used my last imbue
on a grand matron bow, and got +2 bow skills, +1 on all zon skills,
+10% ias, +230% damage, 1-85 lighting damage, 2 sockets, +5 light with
+5% AR. 4 out of 6 makes it the best imbue i've ever seen, and with
the odds of getting a high +damage pre and suffixes infintesimal it'll
proably be the best bow I have for a long time. While leveling for
the str I needed to use it, I found sigons boots, and am using them
along with the gloves for the IAS and life leech. Not having any
worthwhile runes or jewels I stuffed 2 perfect skulls into it. Both
of my rings have 5% mana leech, but I'm still short of sustaining
leech on monsters with reduced drain with FA. I tried swapping in a
+6% amulet, but it wasn't enough to hit the breakpoint so I went back
to swapping between a +1 skills and nokozon relic when running into
fire enhanced monsters.

I'm into the tombs, and is it my imagination or are greater mummies
able to revive ghosts? I can't chill them to shatter, and I've ran
into a few groups in areas I could've sworn were clear. My alt bow is
a composite with 1-200 lightning and 20% ias but even with it and FA I
have trouble pounding them down faster than they can regen.

Verker: Yep it is me, I was wondering if it was you or not. :)

[David Besack]

Post by dan neely
I'm into the tombs, and is it my imagination or are greater mummies
able to revive ghosts?

I'm pretty sure they can revive *anything* that is undead. Which wasn't too
bad in 1.09, but now with more monster diversity in hell in 1.10 it can get
ugly. In Baal's throne room in hell, they revive OKs, which is just
punishingly evil.

[Dalai Lama]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:11:02 -0500, "David Besack"

Post by David Besack

Post by dan neely
I'm into the tombs, and is it my imagination or are greater mummies
able to revive ghosts?

Yup- gets to be quite nasty for melee characters in hell mode, as
those ghosts are PI.

Post by David Besack
I'm pretty sure they can revive *anything* that is undead.

Hmm, I'll go out on a limb and trust my fuzzy memory here, but IIRC,
they can't revive each other (unless one is of lower level such as a
unique unraveller raising a regular unraveller). I don't recall them
raising them ever raising the vampire/witches, though it seems as
they should be able to.

Post by David Besack
Which wasn't too bad in 1.09, but now with more monster diversity in hell in 1.10 it can get
ugly. In Baal's throne room in hell, they revive OKs, which is just
punishingly evil.

--