7.19.2014 Burning Crypt Map of Hordes

Yarmilla - Standard
Mods - Monsters deal extra fire damage, Increased pack size
Quantity: +12%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation

Currency Gained:
1 Transmutation
3 Alteration
3 Augmentation
3 Chromatic
1 Chance
1 Scrap
2 Whetstone
1 Blessed

Maps Gained:
Dungeon (L66)
Orchard (L66)

I had cleaned out 5 remove only stash tabs, and decided that I deserved to run a map for doing that.  I grabbed one and decided that I'd give the extra fire damage a try.  As a summoner, I've got lots of other things on the map to absorb damage other than me, so I thought this was one I should be able to do.  I have fire resistance, so I wouldn't be taking the full force of the added damage, and the minions will explode when they get low on life, so it's not a disaster if they get hammered on.  The low quantity mod is a little scary, but with the increased pack size it tends to work out.

The first thing I decided is that I need to invest in a desecrate gem, because picking up minions in Docks hit a snag when there was a storm herald that shredded all my zombies while I was looking for good spectre corpses.  On try two, I got my minions and headed over to the Eternal Laboratory.

This was really a very easy and low stress run.  The first pack of monsters I encountered dropped a Dungeon map, so knowing you aren't going to blank a run from the get-go is fun.  The few times I took hits, I could see the effect of extra damage, but since I usually had a wall of undead between me and the crypt dwellers.

The map boss and tougher rare monsters would wipe me out of zombies, and I did have to summon new spectres a few times, but they held up pretty well against the extra damage they were taking.  I really didn't notice when I was losing zombies because my skeleton totem was doing so well.  A few times I would start to move into unexplored areas, only to realize I was several zombies down and that I better back track to raise new ones.

No great loot, although I get get a Blessed orb.  However, that's OK since I didn't spend much crafting this map.  In fact, the only way I could have spent less was that if it had dropped as a blue and I only had a Wisdom scroll invested in it.  Now that I've blogged about this run, I guess it's back to stash tab clearing.