The Gauntlet

[Orcryst]

The ****ing gauntlet man. I once had a :frank nightmare :frank I was playing D2 and found a place like this. Then it happened when I made time to explore the lands.

How the **** do you beat this place? What is it you have to do? You can't click on anything, there's a wierd aura that makes mana = 0, energy = 1 stamina = 0...

So many things that stun and knock you back...

give me a HINT at least...

[Johnny]

Don't attempt norm gaunt until at least 130 or so. When I was first starting, I kept lots of stamina potions (they make you have infinite for like 30 sec or something). Just keep on going, when you get to be higher, you don't get knocked back at much and the only things that slow you down are the dumb blow up dolls getting in your way.

[Vadriel]

****, Johhny...you killed all the posts I was responding to, and I added a lengthy description of how to run the gauntlet in my post. Lol, time to bring it back haha.

EDIT: Here we go.

The Gauntlet is a long and grueling area where you can't use any offensive spells. Monsters are not targetable, they ceaselessly attack you, there are aura orbs that drain your stamina and energy, you're bombarded by aerial attacks similar to the act 5 catapults, and parts of it are one helluva maze to boot.

When getting ready for the Gauntlet, you'll want to have a defensive character, not an offensive. Since your attacks literally can't do anything, you'll want to have some good defensive stuff. So you'll want high life and vitality, damage reduction, resistances, and if you want to do anything more than just tank through, a fair bit of energy/mana. Parts of it are fairly straightforward, parts of it are confusing as hell. Here's a brief walkthrough.

In the opening room, there's only really one way to go. Follow the corridor until you get to your first fork, it should be in an area that's kind of oddlooking, like a road in space, no walls. You'll want to take the forks on the left side of your screen, a couple of them make you have to loop around a little bit and take a couple U-turns, but after two lefts you'll get to another intersection where you have to do a little sidestep changeover in the road to go straight. There are a few turns in the road that you just have to negotiate, they're not too hard. Find the right path and take a long road around till you get to a long corridor that actually shows up on your map.

This thing is probably the worst for getting knocked back...there are Poison Spitters, Blow-Up Dolls, and Molten Boulder Traps all through it, as well as all the other basic irritants like Treasurebuses and aerial attacks. If you can trudge on through it, you'll take a left at the end and go along a long corridor till you get to a right turn, it makes a U with the Knockback Cooridor. This is the start of the winding Duriel Maze. It's a cooridor that winds back and forth, filled with the usual BS, but every few turns there's a Duriel's Ghost who chases you around...be careful these guys can do the most damage out of anything in this area...their Charge attack SUCKS.

Anyway, you get through that, and you come to a room with a teleporter in it, just go through it and you're in another area like the first, with the wall-less path in space. Follow this one, and you'll have a couple options at a new fork in the road. This shifts a little bit from game to game, you never know which one it is, and you'll have to check each one. Usually I get the correct one the first time, but sometimes it fools me. Anyways, now you're in a pickle. There is a pretty big area with these spaceroads in the shape of a bunch of 3x3, 8-tile donuts that are connected to one another here and there to make a bitch of a maze. This is one of the two places I always get lost...just trudge through and remember, you generally have to pass through each of the donut areas that has a Mana/Stamina Drain Orb, so that little key helps.

Get through the Donut Maze, and you have to take a left on two parallel SpaceRoads that have Blow Up Dolls and Gargoyle Traps, with several side roads hanging off the upper road. Only one of the side roads leads onwards, the rest of them end in dead ends with Gargoyle Traps. Find the right one, (it's usually several to the left of the entry point), and take a longish road up, take a left to a long road left, another left to a long road down, and a right to a long road up, there may be a little zigging around, but you'll get into another area that shows on your map. It's pretty straightforward, just take the path until you can go right, and you'll end up in a room with a lot of obstructions in it, along with entirely too many Treasurebuses and Acid Spitters. Navigate through it to the door on the other side, and keep going into another very short version of the Duriel Maze. There's only one Duriel's Ghost waiting for you at the end, but he can prove to be a real hassle so try to lose him before getting into the next room.

And the next room is probably the worst one in the level. It's the other one where I get all fouled up and turned around. You're in a BIG room that looks empty except for a buncha Aura Orbs and Blow-Up Dolls, but what sucks is that there are invisible walls where you can't pass, but the monsters can. So the following Duriel or the BUDs will just run across it to attack you, but you have to do a very frustrating winding maze where you can't even see the walls. Now, if you have enough mana to withstand the Aura Orbs' effects, this is where you'll want to use Teleport, because you can go right over the invisible walls with this, in spite of the general inability to use it elsewhere in the Gauntlet. The door onwards is up and to the left, so make for that with Teleport. If you choose to just run it, the path takes you all over the place, and you actually spend most of your time running along the right wall, up to the north wall, over along it, and down to the exit at the top of the left wall.

Go through the doors, across a short bridge, and you're in the last room! It's also pretty damn easy, it's just a copy of Tal-Rasha's Prison, the place where you talk to Tyrael at the end of act 2. It's populated entirely by a few BUDs, but they're usually avoidable if you run fast enough. Get across the room, and step into the Gauntlet Prize Chamber!

Don't get excited yet. You've still got a couple bosses to contend with, Belial and Leviathan. Now, these guys you CAN fight, so you just take em out quickly. Leviathan uses cold spells like hurrican, twister, frozen orb...he's not too hard, but be wary of his Frost Nova he casts when he dies. Belial used to be ok, but he's a bitch now, because if you take too long to kill him, he'll summon a ridiculously huge wave of those irritating Blow Up Dolls...and you'll spend the better part of thirty seconds getting knocked about as they all impact on you before you can get back to killing him. He's a lightning enchanted, and emits Charged Bolts when he gets hit, and I think he Novas when he dies, but he's really not that tough, just irritating with his BUD summons.

Take care of them, and go around hitting the Dungeon Prizes to (hopefully) pick up some of the best items in the game!

[Orcryst]

I tried a little harder, got to the invisible wall room and found this guide. So I tele'd, found Lev and Belial (he summoned his BUDs but i killed him) and i just used D fire to wipe em out. Got some stones and quite a bit of space frags. id like to see some of my ladder friends try THIS out, ha

[Chris]

IF they can survive... that is.

[Orcryst]

nez's strategies are a lot harder thats for damn sure.

[little-cheeze]

I CAN DO THE GUANTLET

[Orcryst]

Originally Posted by little-cheeze

I CAN DO THE GUANTLET

big deal, vad already spelled it out for you.

[little-cheeze]

ok well wots ur ip again ill join ur game

[Orcryst]

Originally Posted by little-cheeze

ok well wots ur ip again ill join ur game

i already PMed you, tell me what time youll be on.

then ill host the game and ill wait for no more than 5 minutes after the time you stated. ill also need to know what timezone youre in because my 900pm can be your 400am.
if you fail to show up five minutes after the time you say youll be there, i will close the game and consider you owned.

mm... 7 minutes. 7 minutes tops. and YOU get to pick when.
its easy.
it is... 9pm over here right now.

it might be your bed time.

[little-cheeze]

sorry its 6:11 PM here i had 2 get off cuz u take so long to reply

[Orcryst]

Originally Posted by little-cheeze

sorry its 6:11 PM here i had 2 get off cuz u take so long to reply

takes so long for me to reply? you didnt reply to me until 9 hours after i did. its 6pm to you and you posted this message like 2 mins ago. its 11pm over here. ill make the game and ill be waiting. you have my ip.

cheers.

[little-cheeze]

its not connecting fool tell me ur i.p. again make sure its right

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Orcryst

takes so long for me to reply? you didnt reply to me until 9 hours after i did. its 6pm to you and you posted this message like 2 mins ago. its 11pm over here. ill make the game and ill be waiting. you have my ip.

cheers.

Well thats how forums kinda work .

[little-cheeze]

chris is indeed right

[Chris]

But seriously, you are better off getting Cheese's AIM or MSN and communicate that method.

[little-cheeze]

chris i got ur msn so just chill plz

[Orcryst]

Originally Posted by Chris

Well thats how forums kinda work .

I would've, but you know... I wanted it to be out in the open for everyone to see and laugh at... like William Shatner's 911 call.

I knew all along he wouldn't show up and its obvious he never really tried. The only reason I even bothered to make a game is to prove that.

He started posting ignorant **** everywhere I made a thread. So there you are. I showed him for the spineless douche he is and he still doesn't accept it. He even lied to himself saying "Well I guess that means I win lololol pwnzorz!"

Yeah. He needs to stay at bnet where the margin of intelligence isnt so high. It's depressing to look at him; every time I see his name I know it's going to be something pathetic that comes out his mouth and yknow what? It always turns out to be true.

So forgive me for mocking him, but all I had to do to mock him was tell the truth and show what really happened. Whats sad is that his own posts mock him more than MINE do.

For anyone who didn't like that I brought this up, or thought it was boring or uninteresting, no offense, but it really isn't my job to entertain or please you;
I'm on this forum because it's fun for ME. Furthermore I don't think I was even hurting anybody and nobody was forcing them to read that thread. The title is clear and if I get warned just for stating my opinion about something, then this forum is censored and no better than CNN or FOX.

Ok, I've heard most of everyone else's opinion, and I know that there's no need to flame. Nevertheless, since I wasn't really doing that while everyone else fit the definition of flaming I opened that thread. I did not want him in my contact list and you can figure why.

Unlike Cheeze I'm a higher life form than plankton, and show it.

[Chris]

Btw, you cannot explicitly flame at him after this point. Or I will have to warn you.

[Orcryst]

Originally Posted by Chris

Btw, you cannot explicitly flame at him after this point. Or I will have to warn you.

I dont think its ok to flame anyone at any point. I didn't return to BF just to start fights with people.