Steelbeard, The Level 19 Dreadfell Clearer

[Credinus]

I finally cleared Dreadfell for the first time, and I never expected to be able to pull it off when I did. I was playing a dwarf bulwark and everything was going smoothly until level 12, when I entered Daikara 1 and was greeted at the door by a level 35 orc pyromancer. A quick death there sent me reminded me that I hadn't cleared any Tier 1 areas besides Deep Bellow and Kor'Pul, so I went and cleared a couple more Tier 1's, the Maze, and then got impatient and landed a couple clumsy suffocation deaths at the sandworm lair, so I headed back and cleared Daikara. At this point, I had one life left and was level 17, so I decided to give Dreadfell my best effort to see if I could pull it off and unlock some races. Crawled my way through the tower, very carefully, and by the time I reached the Master, I was level 19. Spent some time pulling him to the stairs, and battled away.

It was a long fight, and I nearly died about halfway through his first life, when a random rare forest wight showed up and joined the party. Dispatched it, went the stairs to regroup, returned and cleared his first life, stair'd to regroup, and went back at him to finish him off. Managed to pull it off, unlocking both the Vampire Crusher and Level 20 achievements simultaneously (glorious indeed!). To top it all off, I even unlocked the race I was hoping for: ghoul. At this point, I was feeling great; this character had been a blast to play, now that I finally figured out a good way to build a bulwark (and the Spidersilk Robe certainly helped), plus I'd met my primary goal that I've been trying to achieve for a while now: beat The Master. I knew from reading up on things that leaving the tower meant I'd face an orcish ambush, but I didn't know anything more than that. I was surprised to be greeted by a slew of level 35 orcs and a level 40 unique orc, and even more surprised that I managed to beat the encounter without dying. I continued my onslaught, managed to unlock sun paladins and anorithil, and finally met my demise at the entrance of one of the orcish pride bastions (didn't expect them to have the shout that pulls me toward them, which quickly cut off my escape route to the world map).


All in all, definitely the most enjoyable character I've played so far. Only encountered one rare that I had to skip with him (some sort of psionic squid that I couldn't do any damage to at all), had some incredibly fun encounters way under level, and got way further than I've managed to get with any other character. Here is a link to his online dump (some offline time played due to a disconnection from server): http://te4.org/characters/21953/tome/26 ... f729ac2673

[jenx]

Congratulations

[Innominate]

The psionic squid you encountered was likely a solipsist who had an ability which allows their psi energy to function as extra health. You were still damaging them, it's just that you were burning through their psi first (and as a result reducing the amount of damage they can do).

Solipsists are extremely dangerous. You need to kill them quickly if you can't avoid them.

[Credinus]

The psionic squid you encountered was likely a solipsist who had an ability which allows their psi energy to function as extra health. You were still damaging them, it's just that you were burning through their psi first (and as a result reducing the amount of damage they can do).

Solipsists are extremely dangerous. You need to kill them quickly if you can't avoid them.

It may have been a solipsist, I didn't pay too much attention to its stats. Other psionic rares I walked through pretty well, so I bet this one just had high physical resist on top of his shield. By the time I ran across him, I'd already cleared the rest of the floor and after the first 7 or 8 rounds of not damaging him, I just decided to move on to the next floor.




Now, one area where I'd love some advice on this build... What's the best approach for the orc prides that have a bunch of casters around the gate? I only attempted one of them (the orc corrupter death came from there); not sure what the best approach on these would be for a bulwark.

[phantomglider]

Generally what I do is teleport away from the entrance. Opening the door and letting them come through one at a time makes dealing with them a lot easier.

EDIT: Also, don't go there at level 27. The Orc Prides are basically the last thing you do before the final dungeon.