DiabloLand - Monster Super Unique [Act I:Blood Raven]

Monster INTRODUCTION

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Monsters

Blood Raven

Blood Raven is a heretic Rogue Priestess that has turned against her former sisters from the Sightless Eye sect. In the quest Sister's Burial Grounds, Kashya, the leader of the rogues, gives you the task of finding and defeating her former best friend. In return, Kashya will allow you to hire mercenary rogues from her, as well as giving you a free mercenary right off the bat.

Blood Raven is dressed in white and red, with horns and the whole bit, wielding a bow. In addition to being blindingly quick and elusive, she can fire both regular arrows and fire arrows in rapid succession. Her third special trick is her ability to raise new Hungry Dead zombies from the ground. She does this usually when the player is within range but isn't attacking. Though zombies are painfully slow, Blood Raven is capable of raising a small army of them if the player isn't careful. The undead can actually get pretty dangerous, so it's best to manuever Blood Raven out of their way before trying to pin her down. She's sort of the Butcher of Diablo II, appearing early on and doing big damage with her arrows. In general, she will stay within the cemetary itself, but she may pursue the player outside the gates on occasion. Once killed, her body arcs backwards, and a spectacular lightning light show commences. Any remaining undead monsters caught within this lightning is killed instantly.

Monster ATTRIBUTES
[Not available]

Monster STRATEGY
Artificial Intelligence
For the most part, Blood Raven shares the same AI as regular Rogue archers; however, her vastly increased speed creates major differences a player should take into account.

Like normal Rogues, she will attack as soon as you get within her detection radius, which is about 1 1/2 screens in length. However, the range of her bow attack is actually a bit farther - up to 2 or 3 screens, so during the course of the fight you'll notice her lobbing arrows out at you from seemingly miles away offscreen. Also like normal Rogue archers, Blood Raven has a sort of "threat" radius around her, where if any player approaches within this radius, she has a percentage chance of either standing her ground or running away; most of the time she will run away.

The majority of her attacks are regular arrows, but she will shoot a Fire Arrow once in a while that does significantly more damage. However, these glowing red projectiles are a lot easier to see, so dodging them becomes a lot less of a chore. When not shooting with either of these attacks, she has a percentage chance of holding still and raising a new Zombie from the ground. This is actually the best time to hit her, as she doesn't move from the spot and doesn't attack for a second or two.

Strategies
The different types of attack for players - melee, projectile, magic, and minion - each require different approaches to defeating Blood Raven.

Melee
Out of the 4 types of attacks, melee is definitely the easiest. As with rogue archers, Blood Raven's strength is the range of her attack; take that distance away, and her slow firing rate is no match for the rapid thrusts of a sword or an axe. There are two key things a melee player should keep in mind; always try and keep Blood Raven close, and at the same time avoid the knot of Zombies in the center. This is harder than it sounds, as Blood Raven spawns in the middle of the this pack as you approach the Burial Grounds, and ends up running through it several times during the course of the fight. Usually you want to get close enough to make her notice you, then back off a bit to get her moving out of the throng of Zombies. Once she's out from the center, run in close and try to get a lock on her, then hold your mouse down as she runs away. If she starts going into the center region, release your mouse and skirt around the Zombies, then try and lock her down again as she reemerges on the other side. Running lowers your Defense Rating considerably, and the monsters in center can give you several good whacks if you pass by at full speed. Eventually you will be able to pin Blood Raven down against the fence or against a tombstone, and you can get in a few good hits before she squirts away.

Tailing her around like that is the simplest approach, but it can get you nicked a few times by her arrows as you approach her. For a little more finesse in dodging her attacks, mix in some running patterns instead of just charging in a straight line. Zigzagging works quite well if you want to back her off towards the perimeter; if she catches you in a corner or at a bad angle, edging out sideways and spiralling towards her will help to reverse the situation. Positioning is an important factor in the fight, and because Blood Raven is unique in that she retreats instead of chasing after you like most monsters, you can dictate where you want the fight to lead if you play your cards right.

Once you catch her, you want to take the opportunity to deal out as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time. Mana is not usually a concern, since you'll probably end up recharging it all back after she escapes and you have to chase her around again. Sacrifice, Poison Dagger, Jab, and Double Swing all work well; Sacrifice and PDagger with the big damage on tap, and Jab and Double Swing at the opposite extreme, with rapid, stunlock-inducing hits. Bash and Smite sound good on paper, but they both do knockback, and after you chased Blood Raven around the cemetery 3 times, the last thing you want to do is knock her away from you again. If you manage to pin her against a fence, a building, or even against her own Zombies, these skills become very viable.

Ranged
Ranged attacks don't fare as well against Blood Raven, but it's not too much more difficult than melee. Like a close quarters warrior, a ranged player should always try and keep well away from the mass of Zombies in the middle of graveyard. In addition, remember to never get into a static shoot-out against Blood Raven. It's easy to get caught just standing there (especially with a bow) duking it out with the Rogue Priestess shot for shot. At lower character levels, which is when you usually face off against Blood Raven, this method just does not work; she does way too much damage. A player really has to constantly strafe back and forth, getting off shots quickly, and generally trying not to stay in one place for more than a second. Not only do Blood Raven's arrows pose a constant threat, but the Zombies in the graveyard, as slow as they are, can act as a shield for Blood Raven if you let them get between you at your target. Because of her speed, the fastest traveling projectile attacks are the most effective against her. Bows and crossbows are the best choice; javelins are not bad, but they are slow and tend to miss her a lot more than arrows or some such. If you have Poison Javelin by this time, it's a decent skill to use when she hems herself inside her pack of Zombies. Thrown Potions are another good choice to use on her and her crowd of undead. Throwing knives and the like are adequate, but if you're using those things, it usually means you got at least some sort of backup attack, either a melee weapon or a spell up your sleeve. Use that instead.

Magic
In general, spell casters will have it the toughest with Blood Raven. With their low hitpoints, even 1 or 2 arrows from the Corrupted Rogue will bring the player's life forces down substantially. The early clvl 1 spells are, for the most part, too slow to be effective against her, and she also has heavy resistencies to all four elements to boot. Firebolt isn't great; but if you have enough mana, carpeting the graveyard with Charged Bolt is a great strategy to use. Similarly, Teeth and Corpse Explosion can take some of the aiming aspect out of it, making it easier on the player. On the other hand, remember not to use Ice Bolt as your main attack. In a supplemental role, either augmenting another skill of yours or helping another player in a multiplayer game, Ice Bolt isn't bad. The trouble is that the projectile is so slow, and the damage so negligible, that you end up connecting one maybe 1 in 7 or 10 shots if you keep a respectable distance from her. For the mana-dependant Sorceress, that's a lot of wasted mana. Even if you do connect (and this goes for all cold-based skills), the chill duration is cut drastically by her resistencies.

Minions
Fighting Blood Raven with minions can be a little unpredictable; it can either be easy or very hard, depending on a lot of things. Usually the first thing your skeletons and/or golem will do is just run headlong into the zombie pack, and Blood Raven will happily pummel away at them as they do this. During this initial stage, the Necromancer needs to do everything in his power to distract her, preventing her from shooting at the minions. You can poke her with a dagger, scoot up and whack her with your fists, or just run around waving your arms. The point is to give your minions enough time to get a few Zombie kills under their belts; by the time they finish off the first few, Blood Raven would have probably backed away, with you hot on her tail. Hopefully, your minions will take the hint and follow you on Blood Raven's trail. If not, just wait a bit longer until they're finished with the Zombies. Watch your overhead icons closely while you run around the graveyard, and if your golem falls, raise another one near Blood Raven. If a skeleton falls, run back to the center and raise a new corpse from one of the fallen Zombies. Eventually, your minions will return to your fold, and the automatic AI will take care of the rest for you. What usually happens is that they end up pinning the Rogue Priestess against something, then batter the heck out of her while you stand back and watch. The hard part is persuading the minion AI to lock onto her, but once that's done the rest is fairly simple.

Bravado
Skilled players can take advantage of a small loop-hole with Blood Raven's Zombie raising abilities. Since that she raises new Zombies instead of resurrecting dead ones, there is theoretically an unlimited amount of experience points to be tapped there. In addition, all Zombies in area will be killed upon Blood Raven's death (in the lightning display), and none of those experience points from the Hungry Dead will be deferred to you - so if you are really savvy, you want to take out as many undead as possible before getting on with Blood Raven. That's all in theory. In practice, you have to keep dodging the big damage arrows from the Rogue Priestess all the time, so it's not nearly as easy as it sounds. The key is not to get too caught up with killing the Zombies; take out one or two at a time, then run around a bit to keep track of Blood Raven's whereabouts and maybe get a few hits on her. If she runs away, run back to the Zombie pile and kill a few more, and so on. That way you don't get nailed by Blood Raven in the arse while you're preoccupied with the Zombies. If you manage to keep track of where all your enemies are, the bonus experience at the expense of the Zombies is extra little reward that becomes quite useful during the early levels.