Solo Socerer defeated Ascention (Spoilers)

Azim · Post by **Azim** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 10:37 am

Solo Sorcerer defeated Ascention (Spoilers)

After a long time and many, many tries, I have managed to solo ascention with a sorcerer. I've heard that its been done with a wild mage, but that is the only account I am aware of. Was mine a fair fight, no way. Was there cheese, you bet - lots. Have these tactics been used before - I'm sure some of them have.

I took this character all the way through SOA and TOB. Early, web and a wand of cloudkill took out everything. There are few bad guys who can stand up to 6 castings of web (an initial two via minor sequencer, then the rest) and then a few hits from the wand. Sunfire was the next greatest spell. Ignores magic resistance and a sorcerer can have a lot of them. Once I could cast Project Image was my new best friend. Once I got that and Chain Contingency, literally nothing could stand in the way. I set Chain Contingency to go off upon being helpless, loaded with 3 project images. Then cast Project Image and poof, there are now 4 sorcerers ready to obliterate anything. Actually, I only used this strategy for Improved Demogorgon, Improved Abizigal and Mel. With four socerers staggering time stop and improved alacrity, you in essence have 8 rounds where very little can touch you, even from those who are immune to time stop.

Upon reaching the throne, I had a spell trigger set with three sunfires - thanks User - and the chain contingency in place, along with fireshield red and various other enhancements to bring fire resistance to 100%. Immediately cast project image. Voila - 4 sorcerers, all loaded with 3 sunfires in a spell trigger. In order to actually reach Irenicus and the Deva, I used two of the images to dragon breath. Those images got wasted by the 6 sunfires that just went off. Poor Imoen never had a chance. I felt sorry for her, for a moment, but I had more work to do. Bodhi lasted 1/10th of a second. I think Irenicus managed to get a true sight out after the sunfires or the dragon's breaths went off, but before he was incinerated by them. Poof, there went my images.

On to the demons pools. I didn't want to use the cheese tactic, but four projected images with improved alacrity can put a lot of planetars in one place at once. Kill the images and then activate the pools. Rinse and repeat.

At the final pool, I loaded up again on the chain contingency, spell trigger etc. I created a minor army of planetars to keep the five busy. Then I brought Mel back for a little conversation. Sendai went down in exactly one second, with 6 planetars around her position. Mord. swords kept Abi, Balth and Illesera busy. The six that swarmed Sendai now had to contend with Yaga. Cast project image. The four mini-me's then cast improved alacrity. Abi, balth, Ill and Yaga went down with lower resistance x3, followed by a withering assault of the lowly 2d level spell, Acid Arrow. Sure Yaga only takes 1 hp from each. But when he's hit by four at a time, cast 8 times from the images, he ends up taking huge damage each round. Once the images no longer had much firepower left, I'd send them to get killed. Now it was just Mel vs. the original sorcerer.

Well, my sorcerer, plus a mini-me via simulacrum. Improved Alacrity, summon planetar, lower resistance and then, of all things, death fog 4 hp per round. Mel dimension doored away from my sorcerer once, and then she just kept finding my simulacrums charge up, death fog, lower resistance, sunfire, etc. She had a lot of fun killing my mini-me's several times. but she couldn't hold out forever. And she didn't.

Well, I think now its time to eat again. I might want to shower too. Holy crap, its winter!

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 11:30 am

Re: Solo Sorcerer defeated Ascention (Spoilers)

Originally posted by Azim
Well, I think now its time to eat again. I might want to shower too. Holy crap, its winter!

LOL!

Quite impressive, beating the MOD with a solosorc. I've a challenge for you, though: next time with a beastmaster?

Bloodmist · Post by **Bloodmist** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 4:28 pm

Very impressive!

I enjoyed reading it, too. I might consider giving ToB a try again, when I'm done with SoA for the nth time.

Again, very well done. Good work on the cheese too

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 4:35 am

Congrats!!!
And funny post

Cheese is a must for Ascension soloers!
hmm, do you have an unpatched game maybe?
In mine, images or clones don't mantain working triggers..

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 8:23 pm

not even multigenerational clones????

has that been tested???

Azim · Post by **Azim** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 8:48 am

Littiz, thank you for the clarification. You are correct, my images could not successfully activate triggers, nor can their subsequent images/clones - I just tested that. There was a lot going on in the battle, so I must not have accurately remembered exactly what happened.

Nevertheless, with that many images casting singlular sunfires and dragon's breaths Imoen, Deva and Bodhi went down immediately.

Sorry for the confusion.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 11:11 pm

spoiler

oopse, another damned thing i forgot to put into my super dooper cheese guide....

azim, if you feel guilty over killing imoen, when mel changes her into the slayer, simply cntrl-y her...she does not die, she gets changed back to normal...without having to handicap your party....imoen returns to normal if you kill off the 5....so the common tactic is to avoid hurting her at all, which can get very difficult indeed....

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 2:32 am

no problem Azim!
In truth I already heard reports that such a thing could be done...

Azim · Post by **Azim** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 1:22 pm

no problem Azim!
In truth I already heard reports that such a thing could be done...

It can be a little deceptive, in that the icon appears and the text indicates that the image is executing the spell trigger - just nothing happens.

I just read User's Cheese Guide - some of those would have been handy!! Alas, I did not select shapechange as a spell - that might have made the images more useful once their spells dried up.

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 5:03 pm

"I just read User's Cheese Guide - some of those would have been handy!! Alas, I did not select shapechange as a spell - that might have made the images more useful once their spells dried up."

have you read the cntrl-r trick? i have never tested this personally, but i think if you take a scroll of shapechange, cast the spell via scroll, and cntrl r your pc, it SHOULD give you the perminent shapechange special ability...try it, but be prepared to reload if it does not work....