I don't think this is a contest anymore

[Stealthmaster]

The deathstrike miraculously lands on my pointy little head no matter where I was two seconds prior to the cast.

Deathstrike's AoE (Area of Effect) is not small, I mean, the bolt creates a cloud of dust which will kill you as well. Thus, you should lure the witches that way so you can clear the right corridor of them and have a large area to avoid Deathstrikes. Also, The Countess has never been a target in MXL ever, unless you want to get a free rune. You just need to kill one of her minions, cube the charm and get out of the level (this has being said before)

summoning up a room full of ice elementals

Bad, bad, very bad idea. Don't try it. Ice elementals are not stationary - they will always try to move to your location (luring witches with them). Get a blue ring (any), buy a Mystic Orb with a +1 Summon Daystar , and use this minion to distract witches.

I hope this will you. I admit that you wrote your second post in a much better style then your first one in this thread (which looked like if you were rappping or being under an ecstasy overdose, typing over 9000 words per minute).

[Rishab]

If u wanna do the challange then open a tp before luring any minions, lure a minion and as soon as 1 of them die, u enter tp and go town... If u have the swirl effect on u when u r in town then u can finish the challange by cubing the rune. After that there is no need of ever going back to Countess.

[Moon Struck]

I accomplished the Countess by moving all witches in the main courtyard (and both anterooms) into the bottom left corner of the main courtyard. I cast 3 to 4 spaces of miasma and then threw lol summons on top of them for bait. The demise of the Countess minions didn't require me to be in proximity or line of sight - the malaise dosed them. When I saw the swirlies I successfully exited and cubed with the swirlies still up.

I went back two more times after that (still same game) to practice the mechanics of it for when I have to run some of my different class characters through it. I got nailed by a death strike and I am confused about its mechanics. I have understood death strike to be tied to a fixed location, the ground in the targeted area changes color when a strike is imminent.

The second minion I nailed with baiting her onto a miasma cursed space - was around a corner from me. When I saw the rate of drop in the minions health bar was going to do the job - I turned and headed toward my portal. I had to turn a corner to do this and I dropped dead from the death strike without proximity or los to the dead minion.

This appears to me to have followed my character loc, and to not have target a fixed location. There was no color change to the ground prior to the strike - one minute I'm walking to the tp and the next I am dead with that black colored circle of a death strike circling my character.

Does the Countess minions cast some type of character-fixed form of death strike as opposed to location fixed ?

[Marco]

it's location fixed and casted when each minion dies, if you move you shouldn't get hit by it.

[iwansquall]

Deathstrike are:

1. Have white dusty star shape effect at ground before they land.
2. They only "homing" once (usually at your character / summon, depending who the kill the minion / countess), then bazillion of black thing fall down from sky
3. It hit 25 times per second IIRC (at least that I think after keep getting insta-gib by infernal machine proc)


Also, beware of "invisible firewall" near door if you somehow died and come back there. Happen to me usually after died and trying to recover corpse (dead body with no gear + 0% fire resist = insta kill)

[Metalistas]

[kamird]

Not ranty enough. And next time, please avoid using so many line breaks, it makes reading so awkward.

Hahaaah! LOL Marco, what did you want? Death threats?
Anyway, I also didn't consider this a rant.(mostly because of those line breaks)
It was like reading some funny adventure story Anyway it was fun read.
Also as any other uber/challenge/boss it requires patience, observation, and experience.(Says person who hasn't done Countess on terror even once 3 years)

Edit:

(which looked like if you were rappping or being under an ecstasy overdose, typing over 9000 words per minute).

That's one way to put it