I have need of some advice.I have finally gotten Lone to a nice lvl(79)after much hard "work"and have come up against a dilema.I hear much talk as to what many others can do with their mages,such as run balzack solo on insane,abby insane,and etc.Well if they can do it(so i thought)so can I.So up goes the difficulty,and fail,fail,fail.Its beginning to get frustrating.I was curious to know if I'm getting a load of crap from other players,or if it is just me.I am pretty much a fire mage,and outfitted as such(i do not know how to link to the character viewer-please forgive me-computer illiterate)and have been using crispy critters,ring of fire,and pyromania on my skill tray.I just dont know what i can do to make a better balzack farmer.My skills are all up to date with my current lvl,and I'm not sure if my build could be the problem as well.I kept to pure INT.Any useful advice is welcome,and thank you for reading such a long post.
LoneStrangette

Looking at your char at http://www.drplayers.com?LoneStrangette I don't see any real problems. Health is fine. Mana is fine. You stick to fire-gear and skills. (Btw, Abby is immune to fire.)
I'm leaving this for someone more used to Mages to help you out. There is often tricks to getting the monsters solo on higher levels, like pulling and stuff.

I have a level 78 fire mage and do just fine against Balzack. Perhaps its your tactics? Once I clear out the side rooms I run into the main room, put up monster bait and run around the back and kill the healer, then I destroy the portal. After that I go after Balzack himself until he is dead. I use crispy critters almost exclusively, I do spam a lot of pots but always come out ahead. There are some deaths but many runs I dont die at all.

His name is Tirlon if you want to view him to see how he is set up.

In my sig is a link to Dezda. It will show the build I use against insane Balzack. Thickheaded helps keep you on your feet, and I prefer to use a shield against bosses. I have a shield like the one I use in the link for each element, and I found them all at Amazon. 17% block is a big step up from the usual 3% often found on mage shields. (the growth gear is just from standing around in town). I usually wear purp jewelry that gives +end and +%fire.

thank you very much for your advice-all of you-ive tried to put it to use,and still no luck-but ive done better in the last few tries,so i think im going in the right direction.once again,thank you.
Lone

Well I've never liked Abby solo as mage... With his healer he heals almost as fast as you damage him...

When I do Abby (Grouped mind you) I use a +215 Intel Staff with +8% Ice and +150 something ice damage and a lot of fire resist gear.
I haven't played Abby much since the patch that f'd him up so badly, so I'm a bit rusty.

With Balz I use a Clicker and a Buckler of the Dreaded Brown Eye. I also use an armor with 400 poison resist.

I've found that Fire is most effective against him, also Monster Bait with Crispy Critters is a must.
Melee reflect is also very useful, my shield returns 95% and Retribution adds 110% to that.

If you have an extra slot drop in Thickheadedness but I find it's not really needed...

Also if your going high intel - high damage mage, take pots.

Hope that helps somewhat,
Darth

PS: Here's my build if it helps:
Linky



Edited by DarthNinja (08/24/08 03:39 AM) — reason: Link

I have solo'd both on insane with SmokinHotLady. Basically, I just wanted to see if it was possible and it is, although with the time it takes, you can easily run 2x on Formidable and increase your overall chance of a RB (when you factor in the chances from the chests). The amount of gold is greater when running twice on Formidable than once on solo.

I used to use a BSOL build with Abby, but found I could bring him down much quicker on the higher difficulties with a END build and a high melee reflect (277% before buff). The usefulness of melee reflect is diminished by BSOL (confirmed via a dev: http://boards.dungeonrunners.com/showthread.php?t=16977). On Normal and Formidable, a regular BSOL with lots of +ice dmg is fine. The main goal is just to out damage the healing Abby is getting. If you are running on Normal, you probably do not need the Fire Resist buff if you can get him down before he starts his fire storm.

Balzy can take awhile on insane to solo. I use BSOL and load up on the + fire dmg and + % fire. The strategy is the same as on Normal. I lay down a monster bait, run around back and take down the healer, then the portal, then get in the corner and focus on Balzy. When a new portal is spawned, drop a bait and go take it out. You will go through a lot of pots here, make sure to renew BSOL before its up as Balzy will 1-shot you without it.

As I stated before, I don't think it's worth it to solo on insane, in the long run you will do better with multiple runs on a lower difficulty (especially if you are < lvl 100 and can use the XP).

My Abby Build (use to run on Formidable and Extreme - still need some better equip too) - http://www.drplayers.com/net/dr/Show...?SmokinHotLady

once again-thank you to all who replied here-i made balzack push up daisies for the first time last night while soloing-w00t i feel like i really did something lol-once again-thank you
Lone

For those of you doing pure int/bsol builds to farm balz, id recommend three things:

1) have at least one of your rings give you pure +end and +health

2) Have your ammy give you pure +end and +health

3) use one of your skill slots for Gym Freak

Sure you will lose a little bit of mana, and a little bit of attack power, but you will generally almost double your HP this way, while losing minimal mana. at level 100, I can get over 10k hp and almost 55k mana still by doing this. This will allow you to survive through all of those balzack 1 hit kills that happen, especially at the lower levels.


edit: few other suggestions -- for each of the 4 side rooms, spawn the mobs by touching the shrine, then move directly into a corner and crispy critter outward, makes short work of all the mobs in each corner. For balz, once you run into the room, run to the closest corner right inside the door, and cast monster bait directly on your feet. Then crispy critter towards the healer, there will be alot of times you wont be hitting the healer if a few other mobs are closer, but it generally wont matter as they will either die (even with the healer there), or scatter as they move around a bit. Be sure you are spamming health/mana potions as well, you will prolly end up using a lot, but you should recoup your cost in items/gold dropped/sold.

Edited by NCSUSean (09/04/08 01:10 AM)

Sean u got a lot of BS there
if ur a pure int mage you should have a end shield thats all buff bsol and use crispy .
And soloing on insane is ment for lvl 100ths or in grps so no wonder u failed as did i when i was your lvl
Wasa lvl 100 All Knowing Arch Shadow Wizard
851 pvp wins

To each their own I guess lol, I stick by my recommendations though, only know a few people who can do faster runs and they mostly use very similar setups.

I'd love to get rid of my 2nd clicker though now that you mention it and pickup the +4% fire shield.