I finished off Nihlathak last night after battling his endless horde of minions. When we got him down to just two--he kept summoning them--we rushed him and survived. Off to the Frozen Tundra now.

I don't understand some of the enhancements on weapons. I think "leech" means that the character gains that much life or mana per hit. What does "life stolen per hit" mean? Looking to get a better weapon for my hireling. I tried one earlier and he said he couldn't use it even though he had all the requirements in strength and dexterity and level. I don't understand why he couldn't use it.

Edit--I think I understand now. Life stolen is a percentage of the total life and is just damage to the enemy, no leeching.

Hirelings are quite specific in weapon abilities. The one I keep can only be equipped with a bow. Not even a crossbow, just a bow. So depending on which hireling you've settled on, that determines the weapons they are allowed to use.

I thought Life Stolen was pretty much the same as Leech? I mean, you steal something, it's yours

Hi,

Well played with my Necromancer yesterday and he can now summon 3 regular skeletons, 1 skeleton mage, Iron Golem and the hireling makes 6 helpers to do the dirty work for me hehe.

We will soon have an army working for us.

Will have to see how this goes as he gets to the end boss. Hmmm.

He also found 2 different set items where my other people only found 1 or 2 pieces of the same set.

Baal? Who's Baal? Oh yeah, he's that demon I killed tonight. Act V on normal has been completed! My character is known as Slayer Nicarra now.

Well, he did kill me once, but I did the run from the teleporter on to Baal and recover the body. You can go back and forth through a portal, he doesn't trap them like Diablo is known to do. In the end, I would lay down a lot of fire traps, then back away till they stopped. Go back and lay down fire traps....

And yes, if you run toward the entry, Baal doesn't seem to follow and you can heal.

The Strat guide says use your best ranged attacks, he gets nasty when you get close.

But doesn't he heal up if you leave and return? Mephisto did. It is going to have to be melee for me and the barbarian. That is about all we do unless I go hire a fire or cold mercenary. I'll have to check his resistances. I do recall that he is resistant to physical attack. We may have a problem.

I assume you drop both sets of weapons that you have equipped if you die.

No, he doesn't heal, or at least not fast. Portal at the ready is a recommended part of the strategy.

You drop all equipment when you die, yes. As an assassin, I put a skill point into shadow master so I can have both a rogue and a copy assassin at the same time. Useful for trying to retrieve your goodies. Basically, the equipment run really was, go resurrect my hireling (almost 20000 gold a pop now), teleport back, call up shadow master, run to Baal's realm, create a portal close to the edge of Baal's realm, run to body and back through portal. Now check, repair and distribute potions in belt. Portal back and fight. Repeat as necessary (only once for the equipment run for me).

I've reached the last waypoint. Worried too much about keeping my barbarian alive against the ancients and died myself. Next time I just let him die and did it myself. Not too hard.

If I choose another hireling rather than resurrect my barbarian, will he still be available later?

No, Pokey, once you replace your hireling, you cant get the old one back (as far as I know)

Thanks, I was concerned about that. Don't want to lose my barbarian, though I wish he had a cold spell.

Keep checking, you may be able to get him a weapon with a cold spell. If the spell is Frost Nova, he'll occasionally freeze the group for you.

The barbarian kept dying against that last strong bunch in the throne room. I traded him for a hireling with a cold spell after taking all his equipment. It was so much easier with the cold spell, but I may go back to a barbarian. I haven't seen any great weapons lately. Luckily when I died against that tough bunch, I was able to buy a pretty good sword and armor. Cash isn't a problem now.

Does cold work against Baal?

I'm pretty sure my Sorceress successfully cast some icy spells against Baal, but Static Charge did most of the damage.