Blackblade lava pit

This little hidden area is somewhat troublesome for Melee, and perhaps it's meant to be so, but here are my observations:

1) Due to the (imho incredibly annoying) AI for ranged NPCs, engaging any of the mobs in that room will pretty much draw all four fire elementals, and the skeleton wizard's aggro, which means you will be fighting 5 mobs at once. Doable, and quite exciting, but I'm not sure that's what the designers intended.

2) Quite often, the fire elementals will randomly retreat into the lava pit, where you, as a melee fighter cannot damage them. Maybe this is intended, but it too is pretty annoying for someone without a ranged attack.

3) If you by accident happen to fall into that lava pit, you are stuck. Maybe there's a point where you can jump out, but in 3 tries, I've not found it. If I fall in, I just wait to die, which is really sad.

 

1) Wise maneuvering is paramount against ranged NPCs. You should position yourself so that if they flee, they actually flee away from their companions, and you can isolate and maim them in relative peace. And this is also true for...

2) ...Tactical retreats, so your enemy is moving toward you, out of their safety. A form of pulling, if you want.

3) Remember that the standar jump is not the higher you can do. If you keep the space bar depressed, the resulting jump is proportionately higher, upto around 1.5x of the standard one. The jump is actually triggered when you release the space bar. I don't know the specific of that lava pool, but other places must be jumped out of with what I call a power-jump.