I’m putting this here because Diablo 2 questions usually lead to discussions on the game.
I was chatting with a friend who is having problems with the guardians in act 5. She asked me how I got through it and I told her that I died several times before they were dead. She told me that each time she died the barbs turned back into statues when she came back. I’ve always done the quest on-line with others to help, is that the way it’s supposed to be?
As I understand it, if you create a town portal on the summit, triggering the champions closes the portal. Anybody who dies is locked out until the champions are defeated, or all the PC’s die, in which case everything resets to full hit points. The basic tactic of “kill them all” may be difficult for some character types, in which case you need to modify the tactic to “run like hell, and kill them one at a time, slowly.”
My characters tend to be somewhere from 30th to 40th level (single player) before they can take the champions in act V; the level difference is mostly dependent on raw damage–a spinning barb with a rare lance doing 300 pts. is going to chew them up faster than a paladin doing 120.
Can’t speak firsthand, I’ve yet to have any problem with them on normal single. According to the hint book, they turn back into statues when a portal is used so I wouldn’t be surprised if the same happens when the player dies.
I know Weirddave did the quest by himself, so hopefully he’ll respond.
Yes, you have to kill all 3 of them w/o leaving the mountain top. If you die, or if you portal out, they reset to statues, and you have to re-animate them again and beat them when you come back. I’ve done it twice-once on normal and once on nightmare, both with a mage. Normal was actually a piece of cake. My Barb minion held their attention long enough for me to kill two of them with frozen orb before going down, and the trird was pretty easy. NM was a different story. The minion was immediate toast, and one of the Guardians was cold AND Fire immune, and I have very few points in the lightning skill tree. Basically, what it boiled down to was me running in a huge circle on the mountain top, teleporting ahead when they got too close to save stamina, and repeatedly casting Frozen orb until the 2 non-immune Guardians were dead, then doing the same with my weak Chain Lightning spell on the last guy while Thunderstorm did it’s own thing. Believe me, it took a while.
Tips:
Cast a portal just before assending to the mountain top; if you die, at least you can get right back. Any portal cast on the mountain top before animating the guardians is closed when you do so.
On NM and above, don’t go up until just after you level up. This is good advice for any tough monster. You can not lose experience points that take you below whatever level your character is at.
Have patience, hit and run.
Thanks, I’ll relay the message.
Oh, Ethilrist, players can get back when playing multi-player and continue to fight. Just place a TP on the bottom of the stairs to get there and as long as someone stays alive until you get back, you can get back in the fight.
One last bit: you have to be to get the quest you need to be lvl 20 and above on normal, lvl 40 on nightmare, and lvl 60 on hell. Many a time I’ve seen a just-under character spend 10 minutes repeatedly dying on the summit, only to discover they only got 50 exp for their trouble.
And for those of you who don’t know, the guardians’ characteristics reset every time they do. So next time you get a fire and cold immune, and you don’t have much poison or lightening offense, just cast a TP and come back.