Figured I’d mess around with that “Smoke” runeword everyone keeps mentioning for chest armor today. Heard it was good for survivability, especially if you’re poor like me and don’t have fancy gear. So I grabbed my trusty Necromancer, the one who keeps getting obliterated in Act IV, and started hunting.
The Hunt Begins (Mostly Failure)
First thing, needed a two-socket armor piece. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Spent like an hour trudging through Act I Normal killing zombies and fallen shamans. Dropped junk. Lots of junk. One socket? Plenty. Zero sockets? Yeah, tons. Two sockets? Nada. Got bored stiff.
Tried switching to Countess runs in the Forgotten Tower on Normal. Figured she coughs up runes anyway. Ran her maybe a dozen times. Dropped enough Tal, Eth, and Tir runes to build a small fort, but still no freakin’ two-socket body armor. Got annoying. Almost gave up.
Finally Got the Thing (And Blew My Runes)
Then, bam! Some random quill rat pack leader in Cold Plains dropped it. A simple Breast Plate. Grey text. Two sockets. Cheers! Felt like winning the lottery for a second.
Now, the runes needed: Nef and Lum. Had a stash full of Nefs from earlier Countess misery, so that was easy. Lum? Tougher. Needed to push higher. Countess on Nightmare took a few runs, but finally she spat one out. Felt like a real victory.
Here’s where I messed up. Got excited, ran back to town, popped open the Horadric Cube. Put the Breast Plate in. Slid the Nef rune in first… then the Lum. Clicked Transmute. Poof! Smoke Breast Plate. Awesome stats, +50 to all resists! Threw it on my mercenary Ahan the Desert Warrior immediately.
Big mistake.
The “Uh Oh” Moment
Took my newly fortified merc and Necro into Act I Nightmare for a test drive. Big problem. Ahan turned into a suicidal maniac. Seriously! Saw a pack of moon lords? Charged straight in. Spotted a unique dark ranger? Leaped into the middle of her minions. He died faster than before wearing this “awesome” armor.
Why? The “Smoke” gave him big resists, sure. But it also has that Level 6 Weaken (18 Charges). Turns out, mercenaries use that stupid curse like it’s going out of style! Every single fight, he’d blow a charge of Weaken instead of just fighting smart. Made him aggro everything, and he wasn’t tough enough to survive the attention. Total waste.
Back to the Drawing Board (And Stash)
So yeah, felt pretty dumb. Wasted my hard-earned Lum rune on a glorified mercenary suicide vest. The Breast Plate itself was useless trash for him. Learned my lesson: read EVERY affix, not just the shiny resists. Mercs + automatic curses = bad news.
Ditched it on a mule character, gathering dust now. Went back to farming for something else for Ahan. Maybe that cheap-ass “Treachery” armor instead. Heard Fade is smarter than Weaken. At least he won’t actively try to get himself killed with that one, hopefully.
Moral of the story? Smoke is probably great… for YOU. Stick it on your own fragile spellcaster. Just keep it far, far away from your merc unless you like resurrecting him every thirty seconds. Back to the grind for me. Lum rune, I miss you.