I have the best sword and shield available. I did try hiring a mercenary, but he lasted less than 10 minutes. I'll get a longer lived one next. They don't seem to do much damage.

I am in the Flayer Jungle now. Hope I can stay alive till I find the waypoint.

When you look at the character sheet, what are your resistances like? It's getting important to ensure that your resistances to fire/cold/lightning are at least 20% or more by now.

Did you equip your mercenary? You can give them better helmet, armor and weapons.

And it's not just sword and shield either. You should double check your helmet, armor, boots, gloves, rings and amulet. I keep hoping to find some more stuff that's both useful for my character and has sockets (I have a lot of runes/jewels/gems now) but magic items or ones with sockets are all good.

I didn't think to equip my mercenary. Will try that. I have the best equipment I can get. I am doing everything to get my resistance up. Gems are really in short supply.

...I don't know how to tell what equipment he has or how to change it.

Right-click the picture of your hireling. That will bring up their character sheet and inventory window. Hirelings in Act III can specialize in fire or cold. I'd take cold, that can slow monsters quite nicely.

Did you install just Diablo 2 or the expansion as well?

Nope, right clicking the picture doesn't work. I have just Diablo 2. I just lost my best hireling. He did 4-10 damage fire. Will take the one for cold now. I found the blade I'm looking for but left it alone till I find the waystation.

Drat, I'm sorry, I've been misleading you because this is only stuff you can do when the expansion is installed and you are using an expansion character.

Most of it has been very useful, especially the hireling using cold. Much easier to hack the flayers when they are frozen.

My hireling sometimes uses cold arrows, which is why I know cold is good.

Do you have any good ways of taking out some in a group from a distance? Exploding potions or choking gas?

Yes, the cold is working really well. Finally found the waypoint at the very end of the jungle. Now to go back and get the blade. Don't want to shutdown and have all those things come back again.

...I just checked and it looks like I have to come back to the same area to get the brain, which means do it tonight or leave the game running all night. There are so many things about this game that I don't like.

Could be worse. Sacred regenerates monsters while you are still there, in 10 minutes realtime, they are back up to full numbers. Then again, Sacred does remember your location properly so you don't have to run back to a cave from a village when starting the game for the day. That is annoying.

I have Kalim's brain. Now I can turn the computer off and go to bed. The witch doctor must not have been tough. I saw him once but don't recall killing him.

I have never had any luck with the thrown potions. I decided not to try ranged weapons either because I would get confused trying to change weapons quickly.

Hi all,

Sounds like you are doing great.
Did you know that you can also use the letter O to get your hireling's inventory? You can.

I give them armor and helms that are hand-me-downs or one I find that I can't use but tried to give them weapons and they say that they can't use them. Hmmm.

I just wondered why it is that you find these huge charms that take up half of your
Inventory?? Wish they were smaller.

Well still in Chapter II with all my people and heading to the Dry Hills now with all
of them.

Got a long way to go before I am where you guys are.

I probably should just play one or two but its hard to chose since I like the different
skills they have so will have to continue the way I am for now.

Not being able to save more often so you don

I just cleared out Lower Kurash. Hmm, the monsters weren't too bad and there was some nice stuff. You have to enter every building in the ruin to get it all, but that was worth a lot of gold. I was teleporting every few minutes, but my stash is bulging now!

VHLMagic,
the hireling from Act 1 can only use bows. The hirelings from act 2 use spears and javelins. The hirelings from act 3 also have specific weapons.

And yeah, it will take a very long time to complete 4 games vs players who only do one at a time.

I'll be heading to Kurast today. Nice to hear it has some good stuff. I haven't picked up anything in quite a while. I could sure use some gems. Of course your game probably has diffferent stuff. I regretted getting that free hireling. Shouldn't have talked to her. I lost my great cold one and got a poorer one using fire. I finally went back and hired a cold one, but not as great as the first. If I keep hiring, will the list run out--no more available?

Can't help with the hirelings, in the expansion you can give them healing potions and you can pay to resurrect them. So I have the same one I started with she's leveled with me through the game.

As for the stuff I picked up in lower Kurash, there were lots of potions (horadic cube recipe; three healing potions - three mana potions = one restore potion), a large charm, chipped skull, lots of fairly valuble weapons and armor. Maps are random, but I'll bet you'll get plenty to sell and stuff your stash with cash.