Toggle Background Color
19-Under the Ice / Necro's Delight
Music-Harrogath
I think at this point, provided my past observation of the stereotype is correct, two quests done mean you can put us down as "friend of strong" to these people. And sure enough, Malah has a quest for us now that becomes available after finishing the second.
Anya, the young alchemist and daughter to one of our slain Elders, has been missing for some time. She is a strong, crafty woman with a spirit like no other.
One night, just before your arrival, I overheard her and Nihlathak arguing about her father's death. The next morning she was gone.
Nihlathak has his own tale as to where she went and why. Don't believe him! I fear he is at the root of her disappearance.
Please, if you can, search for Anya and bring her back to us. She'll know what to do about Nihlathak.
It's rescuing but for one specific person. The backdrop between Anya and Nihlathak is, actually simple enough that we effectively know it already. Anya's dad died setting up that barrier, Nihlathak is a loser. Anya thinks Nihlathak is a loser, same as everyone else.
Really, no one likes Nihlathak and only puts up with him because it'd be a lot more annoying if he was a traitor than not.
Music-Siege
Here's our chance to fix that. Now, I'm not saying that Nihlathak had something to do with this...but everyone ELSE thinks Nihlathak has something to do with this. Them being at odds with eachother because Nihlathak is a loser doesn't help.
Here you can actually find Barbarians are "corrupted" yet they look the exact same, so I think they're just traitors.
Also, apple.
Potassium.
The first part of the act is, I would say, 3 areas long: the foothills with Shenk, the highlands with the prisoners and a bonus dungeon, and then here with...I guess a bonus dungeon as well and a waypoint but you can just zip through here. Each area does have their subtle differences, but it's mainly a battlefield in the Frozen North as Barbarians attempt to fight what is portrayed as an unstoppable flood of demons.
Set piece wise it's really cool. Immersion wise you're out here doing your part in something very important to not just here, but the whole dang world. It took a bit, but we're actually doing heroic things. I wouldn't call hunting Bigfoot heroic, even though we did a lot of cleaning up on the side what with helping the Rogues, Lut Gholein, and Kurast that you can call heroism. What can I say? You tell me to complete a quest, I just treat it as an oddjob. Whereas aiding a war effort inspires a better feeling of heroism than, "Yeah, so there's this book I want?"
Gameplay wise I am mixed because man I hate going through these structures without a solid means of teleporting through it. The barricaded towers I like to call catposts because my minions will target them, and not stop until they are dead, and they take a very long time to destroy.
And finally, for Median XL, at the end of the plateau you'll always find this jerk. He's like other barbarian traitors, except he also throws a fan of hatchets and hits pretty hard. He's definitely not a pushover.
Unlike...
Thresh Socket | CR: *
==Superunique
==Cursed
==Maybe better with Imps???
I'm gonna finally admit this here that there's actually a lot of superuniques in this act and previous acts that I've just outright ignored, because it's very hard to notice or even care about them. I know I definitely missed one that's right at the beginning of Frigid Highlands. It's worth mentioning too because it does mean one waypoint puts you very close to two superuniques for grinding purposes.
But that doesn't stop me from commenting on the ones that are in your way no matter what and are notable, like this thing, which only has Cursed and is still just as ineffective. There was a nerd called Eyeback the Unleashed, a Death Mauler that tends to spawn near the end of the Frigid Highlands but I don't think across any of my runs I have ever acknowledged his importance.
Also until later patches Thresh Socket wasn't at the end of the area and was just somewhere in it at random. Yeah.
I engage with the chaff around us more than Thresh Socket, which is what happens when you're zoomin' through the area.
Pictured to the right of Arty is a special chest called an Evil Urn. These are special containers that, open cracking them open, most of the time you will have a champion or unique be summoned nearby, sometimes even on you. If it's a champion, it'll just be by itself and be pretty disappointing all things considered, but most of the time it'll be free loot and experience, with the small risk of a fun combination of monster type and "is in your face" happening.
But yeah, to the left of Arty is the next area.
Music-Icecaves
Ice caves. The Crystalline Passage...and all ice caves in this act, are twisty little timewasters and this one is particularly bad because there's a waypoint and two exits here. We need all of the above, preferrably in the order of waypoint, first exit to take, then second exit to take.
But it isn't just ice monsters that are here...though you'll find ice monsters here.
Succubus | CR: ****
==May use a magic damage attack that always hits.
==Fires physical Bloodstar spells.
==Casts a curse depending on whether you have more max Life or Mana.
The ladies are introduced properly here, and they are very effective caster monsters. In groups some tiers can fire vast quantities of projectiles, and while not boasting high damage, it's a physical spell, as in, something that will always hit and always ignore block, that you can't really reduce the damage of. They're zippy as well so groups are pretty nasty to deal with.
Their other claim to infamy is that, if they're here, you are inflicted with a curse. If your Life is higher than your Mana, then it's Defense Curse, and your Defense gets cut by over half, and it's even more potent in higher difficulties. For characters relying on Defense, they're a nightmare, since you can't do much of anything to stop getting cursed. In case you aren't sold on Defense being a bad mechanic yet, Succubi will literally snap it in half in front of you to make you cry about it.
...Course that's nothing compared to if you have more Mana than Life, which I think the only feasible way to do that is if you're a Sorceress and you make use of Energy Shield, which diverts damage taken to your Mana, meaning you put many points in Energy. I had to get a picture of someone else with this because you will never see me do this.
Blood Mana makes it so whenever you pay Mana to cast a spell, you also lose that much Life. When you're a Sorceress and you overrely on expensive spells to play the game, your controller is also slapped out of your hands.
Turn the corner and here's another monster.
Frozen Horror | CR: **
==Casts Arctic Blast
==Slow
==Cold resistant
==Will always shatter on death
By themselves they're not dangerous. While their Arctic Blast does potent damage unresisted they are very sluggish. If that sluggishness is patched up by, say, an aura or a unique with Extra Fast, then they get considerably more dangerous. If you are at range though they'll tend to never do anything before you shoot them down.
Continuing along we...wait, is that a cow?
Blood Lord | CR: ****
==Frenzies upon hitting you
Megademon standin??? Naw, these are Thorned Hulks but good, which means uh oh. They have none of of the problems of Thorned Hulks, actually cover distance pretty well, and swing fast enough to get a hit off and then start swinging really fast. All this and they have above-average damage per swing. Their only weakness is they are terrifying to melee characters and otherwise they're a priority target for ranged characters, where they don't have quite enough bulk to power through, or ways to catch you if you start running.
Pulling up the map you can see how this can be. This is not a trivially sized map and if I go to the Glacial Trail first, I have to go back with no way to speed it up, because it's Frozen River I want first. It's actually advised you be on the third quest because that's the only way you'll get a hint that the Glacial Trail is for later. On the upside, there's plenty of waypoints along that way, and if you don't forget this area's, you can always come back later when you hit the wall that requires quest progress to get over.
Let's go ahead and move along though. The Frozen River, to me, has vibes of Act 3 "god frick where's the right direction?" but thankfully it's not quite a massive maze. If it ever branches it connects back to progress. It has to try really hard to have larger dead-ends, and I've developed a good sense of following the river to get to my destination, since most times it will make a snake-shaped river of going one direction, u-turning, then u-turning back.
...Oh, these guys.
Reanimated Horde | CR: ****
==Can Charge
==Very slow
==Has a chance to revive itself after a duration
These things stand around, shuffling very slowly, and by the time you're done laughing they close distance Charging and kick your butt backwards while doing a large chunk of damage. They're not slow when charging. Their Charge actually got buffed with patches, and it does comparable damage to a Blood Lord hitting you, not to mention you're knocked back and it always hits.
The thing that makes them very annoying though is that they won't stay dead. After 5-10 seconds, they'll get back up, right as rain. The good news though is that they will give experience and drops again, unlike normal revived monsters. The bad? You can move past them, get stopped by monsters, then these get back up, run up, and kick your butt again. They aren't dangerous in melee, it's just that approaching them can lead to fun times. They also have a limited amount of times they can revive, and if you do something like shatter their corpse or blow it up, you won't have to worry about any of this.
Other than that Wendigos return here. The biggest challenge of Frozen River is typically, you'll be facing these melee monsters and there'll be Succubi on the other side of the river supporting with curses. I don't believe these one throw Bloodstars though, they just curse you and then fly over the river.
It can get a little overwhelming at times, because while nothing save the ladies are great at running up to you, cutting through the masses can be difficult.
Then there's of course, the end.
Frozenstein | CR: **
==Superunique
==Cold Enchanted
==Mana Burn
You usually have to deal with this pack of Wendigos since they'll be right at our destination, but they don't have nasty mods unless you have to walk up to them and say hi, in which case they can be dangerous if you haven't really addressed getting chilled yet. ...I hope you have.
Clear that pack and, wait, who's this and why are they half frozen?
We found Anya! She's not only alive but she's a popsicle. Having no idea why we can't just kick the ice away, we're told to go back to Malah. ...It's a curse you see it's magic ice.
But also, I have to burn a portal scroll.
Music-Harrogath
Head back to Malah and one good mcguffin deserves another. She'll hand us a potion and we get to do liquid things with it to remove that ice.
(Click here for the full animation since it's long.)
This means going back to Anya, and clicking her. By doing so, she'll teleport herself out...and I have to portal back to town again.
This always annoyed me that I have to burn two portal scrolls to do this quest.
Please go talk to Anya. She has urgent news concerning Nihlathak.
The thing she gives us...
sounds like one of the best rewards you can get. But, well, you'll see. It does mean you get 10 to all elemental resists permanently, which means some wiggle room for your gear so that's great.
...Don't die anymore by the way because it's bugged so that while the permanent resists will still show as active, you lose it on death and only get it back when you start a new game. Fun! No idea if they ever patched this and it's not easy to tell if it's still a bug. I love this game.
Our Council of Elders is gone -- my father, Aust, among them. The one thing that keeps us from total despair is the promise of vengeance against Baal.
So Anya is part of the elder lineage, so it makes sense that she does know a thing or two about Barbarian lock and key and how we ca-
Oh. Thanks I guess.
...I don't use these.
The other quest reward is a random yellow class-specific item. If you're someone like Amazon, you have a very high chance to have this just be useless period instead of useless because you probably have something better already. Anyway,
Doing so will allow Baal to enter Mount Arreat unchallenged by the Ancients. I tried to stop Nihlathak, but he imprisoned me in that icy tomb.
Nihlathak must be stopped before he dooms the whole world. As much as I would love to strangle the life out of him, I'm afraid I haven't the strength.
You must go to his lair through this portal I've opened, kill him, and then bring back the Relic of the Ancients.
Stop Nihlathak from destroying what we have striven for eons to protect.
So remember when I said Nihlathak was a loser? Anyway, let's just walk up and what do you mean he flew the coop the moment I found Anya? ...What do you mean he just has a private pad as well?
Great. I'm not gonna ask how you can dial into his private pad either. Portals and waypoints are really super not explained by this game at all so I'm just gonna nod at the plot device and get back to killing monsters. Nihlathak actually was a vendor and our gambler for the act, but once we prove in a court of law that he is, in fact, a loser, that duty goes to Anya instead.
Music-Temple
Ah, the familiar scent of death.
So what else has Nihlathak been doing besides being a leader loser?
How about amassing a bunch of corpses?
Pindleskin | CR: ***
==Superunique
==Fire Enchanted
==Can Charge
==Very slow
==Has a chance to revive itself after a duration
I will have words to say about this monster later, but for now it's just an annoying jerk with fire. He'd probably be more dangerous if it wasn't a narrow corridor, you, and him, so it's pretty easy to run up and tear up his minions before...
the many Reanimated outside get back up. It's hard for me to get a good shot of this happening because the correct answer for this intro area is that you kick Pindleskin aside and go. If you get captivated by the looks of this entrance and stand in the middle of this horde as it's reanimating, it tends to end poorly. There's no invisible tripwire to cross that raises them though. If you zip through you don't deal with this.
Nihlathak's crib is seperated into halls...and is also 95% halls. While it's very massive and a three floor dungeon, there's few deadends because each floor is a blob of twisty passages. The deadends are really only at the edges.
His crib is also special in that this is one of the highest level areas of the game, only losing to the final dungeon. This makes this a good place to grind for drops and experience, especially since there's no new monsters and just Reanimated Horde, skeletons are back,
uhhhh, that thing down there.
Putrid Defiler | CR: *
==Lays eggs in corpses, creating Pain Worms
==Avoids melee
Hey, you know what was a great monster? Regurgitators. You know how they tried to make a better Regurgitator? Make the corpse mechanic even more convoluted. It's still just as ineffective and these things are still just as bad.
What are Pain Worms? ...Don't ask me. I never got a snap of one. These things never get the chance to do that. I am told they beeline to you and bite your ankles off but first that Defiler has to survive, which uhh, they can't really do, and second the worms have to not get blown up before they reach me, which whenever they actually spawn, they tend to do.
The waypoint is here on the second level, but think long and hard before you touch it!!!
You see, Anya gives you a portal to the entrance of Nihlathak's crib, as a means for you to even get to it at all. Once you get the waypoint, that portal closes forever. This is a problem because then you will never reach Pindleskin in any fast amount of time, defeating the purpose of Pindleskin.
...Unless you use a mod that fixes this, like I do. Thanks mods. I'm not sure if Resurrected also fixes this, but where it's not fixed, this is important because it's a tradeoff between being able to get to Pindleskin very quickly, or Nihlathak quick enough.
To get through this dungeon, you'll ideally want to leave the entrance in the center and then head to the outer edge as quick as possible. From my experience the stairs down and even the waypoint can spawn anywhere along the outer edges of the map. You may get lucky and find it right away or you might have to run a lap around the floor.
-
The final floor is fixed, and if you liked the Arcane Sanctuary, the good news is it's the same gimmick, but not nearly as much an investment per wrong path taken.
This means this can take anywhere between 1 to 4 guesses to find the right end of the hallway, except running back doesn't take a minute or two. This can also be dangerous, and fun, because each of these halls will have Succubi, Minions, and those bad corpse eaters, in large quantities.
If you find a large quantity of Minions at what would normally be the end, you're in the right hall.
There's that loser. My Barbarian friend is already having words with his spine.
You have no idea of the power you face!
Nihlathak | CR: ****
==Superunique
==Casts Arctic Blast, Teleport, and Corpse Explosion
==Can summon additional Minions
==Has no melee attack.
==Cold and poison resistant
And finally, Nihlathak is a Necromancer. Like, straight up. What fucking priest of Rathma taught him a damn thing? Or did he just betray them like he betrays everyone else? Curiously, other things he'll say upon engaging is, "For my homeland!" Writers have a hard time trying to convey Nihlathak is not just a loser but an idiot in believing this was a better idea than the barrier. I'm specifically referring to handing Baal the car keys, to a car that Nihlathak acts like he knows but I'm gonna be real with you: he doesn't. He just knows it's a great power and Baal promises honest crab legs that he'll pretend the Barbarians don't exist. Has this man ever seen a demon in his life before? Probably not.
So that Corpse Explosion. It's terrifying because it's the exact same as your Corpse Explosion: that is, pick a corpse, detonate it, and it deals fire damage, but also extra physical and fire damage based on the corpse's life in an area. It is VERY good at shredding you, especially later! ...Except in my mods, it's really hard to capture the sheer terror of it because my mods nerf it in various ways!
But also, if YOU are a Necromancer, you probably have Corpse Explosion just as a joke. I do because it's a prerequisite for Desecrate, or my corpse generator. That means, in addition to PD2 massively nerfing Corpse Explosion which means massively nerfing Nihlathak, I can just delete any corpses in the way. It's why I'm Zoul first: the character that can just be a better Necromancer than this loser does not have a hard time putting this loser in the trash can, where he belongs.
If Nihlathak can't do the Necromancer meme than what else does he have? Being annoying because Arctic Blast is just cold inferno and, yep, it hits hard at this point unresisted. It's not quite enough for it to be dangerous to Vanir, but it's enough that I do have to keep an eye on the fight. ...But I think that's nerfed as well here.
But hey, Nihlathak is absolutely JACKED in levels, standing at, uhh, 68, on normal. This causes some fun things to happen. First, anything he drops has a good chance to be hilariously overleveled. Second, he's gonna be a pain in the keester to hit with weapons because his level is like twice ours.
This fight is very easy as a ranged character. Find a good spot free of corpses. Start shooting Nihlathak. Keep shooting Nihlathak. Go home. Unless there's a corpse next to you or you're close enough he literally cannot touch you. What can be difficult is you might forget Nihlathak's there and, clearing through his mob, you might walk too close to a corpse, have it detonate, and you go bye bye.
...Or even better, kill his mobs and then sit there and sip some tea. You see, Nihlathak is really bad at detonating the corpses while you're anywhere near them. If you're in range for his AI to activate, Corpse Explosion is the most likely thing he'll do if there's a corpse.
...Also Immolation Arrow absolutely chumps Nihlathak, even if the arrow itself doesn't hit, he'll melt from the fire stacking because he, really, doesn't move unless he teleports somewhere.
...I'm not making a good case for Nihlathak being hard am I?
It's mainly because players hate this one weird trick this loser found that just turns out to be a meta build players normally do. Corpse Explosion can deal damage. A lot of damage. Its only weakness is that you require corpses and that won't be possible in some scenarios. In the mods that give you free corpses? They nerf Corpse Explosion because they aren't dumb.
So in Median XL what changes?
Well for starters a Treasure Goblin spawn in the middle of the fight between us.
He still explodes corpses but the particles are black and with no monster data in front of my face I just have to assume it's still bad to be in but not too bad.
...Right I'm a ranged character so he gets chumped very easily. Uhh, let's try Jane.
(Also that's a lot of swag. 
)
Jane no NO YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE.
I think Nihlathak's non-corpse spells have been upgraded but that's about it. He's the same flavor.
That just leaves the Eastern Sun boys an-
...What? Where is Nihlathak? ...Where's his crib? ...What do you mean it's just gone?
....uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, go back to Arty I guess?????
(Click here for the full animation.)
Conspiring with Baal, what a tragic mistake.
There. All elders were suppose to be dead and now we have fixed this mistake. ...Look on the one hand there was a reason why they didn't axe him already but on the other boy he sure is a loser. To be fair, middle of a war, losing everyone you know and love, struggling to win it, I can understand why they didn't...even though it's been established now and forever that he's a loser and everyone agrees, but if he was willing to help then they couldn't say no.
And that's how Baal got in. Dang. Defeated by social engineering again. At least we stopped him right?
Music-Nihlathak Dies
...No.
...Damn Nihlathak!
I do thank you for trying, though. Please, allow me to honor your courage by magically inscribing your name onto an item of your choosing. It's the least I can do.
Unfortunately he and Baal has such a headstart on us and I was wondering how we would ever catch up. Continuing the meme of us always being in the shadow of evil, our attempt to at least stop Baal from just being let in to the secret cave has failed.
...Wait, what is he after again? Why is he here?
Well, join me next time, when I introduce a very epic word.
...
...
Oh the quest reward? Does absolutely nothing except attaches your name to an item. I'm serious. It is, actually, worthless, and is just for brag rights.
It's also something I can't get in Eastern Sun.
...
Not for a while.