Abandoning Quasimodo makes me sad... he was my starting character. Plus now that Jalal's sitting in my stash is only good for one character. I was going to post a little bit on his Act1 adventures, but I suppose I'll leave the details for Brak to sort out. I'll send you the pictures and some info later on tonight.
Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge
- Thread starter skunkbelly
- Start date
skunkbelly
New member
Yes, alas, Quasimodo was a strong character. It's sad to see him go.
purplelocust
New member
That is going out with a whimper- no Deeds, which is sad. And having lost two druids is a bummer for those of us with good druid gear. Butzull will be bummed as he personalized a Dark Clan Crusher and now probably won't see a Druid for ages, if at all, barring a huge spate of deaths.
Ohomemgrande1
New member
Question about Mercs now that they are starting to become expensive to bring back to the battle. Is it required that the merc be alive when we pass the character along to the next act? I thought I saw something about that but can't seem to find it in the thread anywhere.
sirpoopsalot
New member
Ai is no more. :sad2:
I'm not certain what the exact cause of death, and kindof suspect a bug - but such are the risks of HC.
I'd already killed Andy and completed all of the A1 quests, I was just running Countess to try to get a Lum to make 'Smoke' (all I needed was a Hel, or a chipped emerald to cube some Dol's). I'd already leveled from 50 to 54.5 on /p1 Countess, so I was pretty much on autopilot at this point. I'd tanked the Countess probably hundreds of times by now, and she'd never taken more than 25% of my life bulb in any battle (including the other 20+ times she spawned FE and I tanked that explosion). Judging by graphics, she wasn't cursed, or with a conviction aura, or LE/CE, as none of these visuals/animations triggered at any point, and I'm always more leary of 2 nasty mods like FE/Conviction. I had already cleared the rest of her chamber and had a full lifebulb... but she hit me twice very quickly (0.5 seconds - at most), each time removed 1/3 of my lifebulb, and as my merc & I finished her off the FE death explosion killed me. I'm pretty certain the whole thing took less than 0.75 seconds.
I wish I could know what her other mods were. I was pretty careful in my early Countess runs, and my confidence grew as I killed her repeatedly and she never once did significant damage (unfortunately, my reaction time was pretty lethargic too, simply because I wasn't expecting any trouble). I did have a couple NDE's from cursed archers, but as I said, I'd already killed everything but the Countess for this battle. I'm suspecting that she was convicted but the aura graphic didn't trigger. Any one else have any theories?
I'm quite disappointed too. After attaining 'Smoke' for end-game, I had intended to hide behind my merc and his Amn'ed Kelpie Snare, not do any more 'runs', and enjoy a leasurely trip through NM. Countess was the last area that I planned to be agressive, so I think with the merc able to kill almost everything, I could have made Hell fairly easily. Oh well.
I'll be returning my stash to Skunkbelly soon - I'll snag the rejuv's/gems/runes first. I'll also send the .d2s to brak too for making a progress summary.
Big thanks to Skunkbelly - it was a lot of fun to try some different builds/skills than usual, and since the time with any character was minimal, burn-out wasn't as much of a concern.
Good luck everyone. :wave:
I'm not certain what the exact cause of death, and kindof suspect a bug - but such are the risks of HC.
I'd already killed Andy and completed all of the A1 quests, I was just running Countess to try to get a Lum to make 'Smoke' (all I needed was a Hel, or a chipped emerald to cube some Dol's). I'd already leveled from 50 to 54.5 on /p1 Countess, so I was pretty much on autopilot at this point. I'd tanked the Countess probably hundreds of times by now, and she'd never taken more than 25% of my life bulb in any battle (including the other 20+ times she spawned FE and I tanked that explosion). Judging by graphics, she wasn't cursed, or with a conviction aura, or LE/CE, as none of these visuals/animations triggered at any point, and I'm always more leary of 2 nasty mods like FE/Conviction. I had already cleared the rest of her chamber and had a full lifebulb... but she hit me twice very quickly (0.5 seconds - at most), each time removed 1/3 of my lifebulb, and as my merc & I finished her off the FE death explosion killed me. I'm pretty certain the whole thing took less than 0.75 seconds.
I wish I could know what her other mods were. I was pretty careful in my early Countess runs, and my confidence grew as I killed her repeatedly and she never once did significant damage (unfortunately, my reaction time was pretty lethargic too, simply because I wasn't expecting any trouble). I did have a couple NDE's from cursed archers, but as I said, I'd already killed everything but the Countess for this battle. I'm suspecting that she was convicted but the aura graphic didn't trigger. Any one else have any theories?
I'm quite disappointed too. After attaining 'Smoke' for end-game, I had intended to hide behind my merc and his Amn'ed Kelpie Snare, not do any more 'runs', and enjoy a leasurely trip through NM. Countess was the last area that I planned to be agressive, so I think with the merc able to kill almost everything, I could have made Hell fairly easily. Oh well.
I'll be returning my stash to Skunkbelly soon - I'll snag the rejuv's/gems/runes first. I'll also send the .d2s to brak too for making a progress summary.
Big thanks to Skunkbelly - it was a lot of fun to try some different builds/skills than usual, and since the time with any character was minimal, burn-out wasn't as much of a concern.
Good luck everyone. :wave:
Code:
LIVING PLAYERS:
Forum Name Starting Char/Class Email address
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Skunkbelly Ai - Assassin tworiversreviewATjunoDOTcom
2) Milb Dickinson - Sorceress jimbomilburn(at)hotmail.com
3) Ohomemgrande Eliot - Necromancer ohgrande at gmail.com
4) Brak Frost - Barbarian [email protected]
5) waflob HD - Assassin waflob at hotmail dot com
6) Butzull Ignatow - Paladin gavin_warwick (*at*) hotmail (*dot*) com
7) EJB Jarrell - Druid ejbxraytedATgmail.com
8) Wolron Kenyon - Sorceress [email protected]
9) PurpleLocust Lowell - Necromancer purple_locust (*at*) yahoo (*dot*) com
10) Crazy_Bear Milosz - Barbarian flyingplatypus30 (*at*) yahoo (*dot*) ca
11) Hp_Sauce Notley - Amazon mighty_hp_sauce @ hotmail.com
12) Hrus Olga - Assassin [email protected]
13) Hoop76 Pound - Paladin [email protected]
14) JoeBruce Quasimodo - Druid [email protected]
15) Billybgame Sidney - Necromancer [email protected]
16) Freekje Tennyson - Barbarian freekje18(*at*)hotmail(*dot*)com
17) Gabriel Updike - Amazon [email protected]
DEAD/RETIRED PLAYERS:
Forum Name Starting Character/Class Character Killed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smilts Charles-Wright - Druid Charles-Wright
Tensaiga Rosetti - Sorceress Rosetti (abandoned)
Scarred_life Bishop - Paladin Quasimodo (abandoned)
sirpoopsalot Gertrude-Stein - Amazon Ai (NM FE Countess explosion)purplelocust
New member
Sorry to hear about her death! Many more of my HC deaths have come from rerunning areas (that I thought would be no problem because I had done them before ) than from questing into new terrain, and this fits that pattern. I'm sure the first time you killed the Countess you checked her mods and were very careful, but doing it over and over builds too much confidence, in my experience. It's too bad that there is no way to know what the mods were, but Extra Strong/Spectral Hit could be possible factors. As dangerous as Conviction is, at least you can see it coming.
skunkbelly
New member
There is no rule demanding that you send your character forward with a living merc.
RIP Ai! She was my starting character. I'll look forward to seeing what others did with/to her.
Ohomemgrande1
New member
Thanks for the clarification.
I had fun with Ai as well. She took down the big D while I had her. I think I only put on 1-2 levels. Ai got an El from the HF quest and that's about all I remember.
Wow poops really sorry to hear about Ai, especially so close to your Lum goal. I'm also thinking extra strong/spectral hit or something along those lines.
As mentioned before, all of my NDE's have also come from runs, you just get too complacent. With Updike, I was standing right next to an MSLE pounding away at it and watching my life ball drop 1/5th each hit I delivered thinking 'that's odd' but I kept attacking because I wanted to verify the correlation. The other time I was Amp'd and surrounded by Fallen. Didn't think they could do much to hurt me, 1 second later half my life bulb was gone.
If people wanted to share their experiences with Ai, email me the info. I've already got something from Ohomemgrande. She should be more interesting than Quasimodo who was very straight forward. BTW only received Quasimodo info from Skunkbelly, so I'll just post that tonight if nothing else comes.
@Ohomemgrande, I was going to tell you not to worry about it because I always rehire the merc whenever I receive one from you
, but I guess it won't matter. That's another fun thing about this tourney, is seeing other people's play styles.
As mentioned before, all of my NDE's have also come from runs, you just get too complacent. With Updike, I was standing right next to an MSLE pounding away at it and watching my life ball drop 1/5th each hit I delivered thinking 'that's odd' but I kept attacking because I wanted to verify the correlation. The other time I was Amp'd and surrounded by Fallen. Didn't think they could do much to hurt me, 1 second later half my life bulb was gone.
If people wanted to share their experiences with Ai, email me the info. I've already got something from Ohomemgrande. She should be more interesting than Quasimodo who was very straight forward. BTW only received Quasimodo info from Skunkbelly, so I'll just post that tonight if nothing else comes.
@Ohomemgrande, I was going to tell you not to worry about it because I always rehire the merc whenever I receive one from you
, but I guess it won't matter. That's another fun thing about this tourney, is seeing other people's play styles.crazy_bear
New member
Sorry to hear about AI!
I also have lost many a HC char by rerunning when I should have been questing. Running areas definitely builds complacency.
HD is finished act I NM. It was a quick run for her as she was already lvl 55 when I received her. It is tempting to try and pick up a few runes from the countess, but with this warning, maybe I better not! I also have yet to choose an item to imbue. But she will be sent along shortly.
CB
I also have lost many a HC char by rerunning when I should have been questing. Running areas definitely builds complacency.
HD is finished act I NM. It was a quick run for her as she was already lvl 55 when I received her. It is tempting to try and pick up a few runes from the countess, but with this warning, maybe I better not! I also have yet to choose an item to imbue. But she will be sent along shortly.
CB
The life and times of Quasimodo
Quasimodo ended up a pretty straightforward fireclaws druid, who was moved out of the tournament to no fault of his own.
Quasimodo was the starting character of JoeBruce. He used Civerb's Cudgel throughout most of Act 1 and was primarily a summoner pumping Oak Sage. With the few points that were leftover before sending him on, JoeBruce decided to set in motion the prerequisites of a fireclaw druid, with a few skill points going into the fissure synergy. Don't know the exact skill point set up but if you like to fill in please do.
Act two was played by Billybgame. Don't know what happened here but if you'd like to fill in that'd be great.
By the end of Act three with Freekje's contribution Quasimodo was level 27 and looked like this:
-Elemental-
Fissure-3
-Shape Shifting-
Werewolf-1
Lycanthropy-2
Werebear-5
Feral Rage-1
Maul-1
Fire Claws-1
-Summoning-
Raven-1
Poison Creeper-1
Oak Sage-1
Spirit Wolf-1
Dire Wolf-1
Stats:
Str-84
Dex-51
Vit-60
Eng-20
Act four was played by Gabriel. Don't know what happened here but if you'd like to fill in that'd be great.
Skunkbelly had Quasimodo for his final act in Harrogath. By the time Quasimodo bowed out of the tourney he was a level 41 fire claw druid with the following Skill sets:
-Elemental-
Fissure-3
-Shape Shifting-
Werewolf-1
Lycanthropy-2
Werebear-5
Feral Rage-1
Maul-5
Fire Claws-15
Shockwave-1
-Summoning-
Raven-1
Poison Creeper-1
Oak Sage-1
Spirit Wolf-1
Dire Wolf-1
Grizzly-1
His stats were
Str-106
Dex-67
Vit-92
Eng-20
That's the story of Quasimodo, he was a pretty unexciting (though likely unique) nice-nice character.
On a side note, kinda felt weird putting words in other people's mouths (or did they put the words in my mouth:scratch: ), maybe next time we can use a template for skill/stat progression of a character and just have each person add that in with a reply until all of the info is in one place.
Also if we're doing this again with Ai, either email me or post info up in thread.
Quasimodo ended up a pretty straightforward fireclaws druid, who was moved out of the tournament to no fault of his own.
Quasimodo was the starting character of JoeBruce. He used Civerb's Cudgel throughout most of Act 1 and was primarily a summoner pumping Oak Sage. With the few points that were leftover before sending him on, JoeBruce decided to set in motion the prerequisites of a fireclaw druid, with a few skill points going into the fissure synergy. Don't know the exact skill point set up but if you like to fill in please do.
Act two was played by Billybgame. Don't know what happened here but if you'd like to fill in that'd be great.
By the end of Act three with Freekje's contribution Quasimodo was level 27 and looked like this:
-Elemental-
Fissure-3
-Shape Shifting-
Werewolf-1
Lycanthropy-2
Werebear-5
Feral Rage-1
Maul-1
Fire Claws-1
-Summoning-
Raven-1
Poison Creeper-1
Oak Sage-1
Spirit Wolf-1
Dire Wolf-1
Stats:
Str-84
Dex-51
Vit-60
Eng-20
Act four was played by Gabriel. Don't know what happened here but if you'd like to fill in that'd be great.
Skunkbelly had Quasimodo for his final act in Harrogath. By the time Quasimodo bowed out of the tourney he was a level 41 fire claw druid with the following Skill sets:
-Elemental-
Fissure-3
-Shape Shifting-
Werewolf-1
Lycanthropy-2
Werebear-5
Feral Rage-1
Maul-5
Fire Claws-15
Shockwave-1
-Summoning-
Raven-1
Poison Creeper-1
Oak Sage-1
Spirit Wolf-1
Dire Wolf-1
Grizzly-1
His stats were
Str-106
Dex-67
Vit-92
Eng-20
That's the story of Quasimodo, he was a pretty unexciting (though likely unique) nice-nice character.
On a side note, kinda felt weird putting words in other people's mouths (or did they put the words in my mouth:scratch: ), maybe next time we can use a template for skill/stat progression of a character and just have each person add that in with a reply until all of the info is in one place.
Also if we're doing this again with Ai, either email me or post info up in thread.
Oops, I've got all the characters as I've received them (still in e-mail), but I haven't got copies of those I've sent (or screenies *blush*). Hopefully EJB has kept all the mails he's received from me to plug the gaps. Sorry, and I'll definitely do so from now on. 
Sorry guys.
Butz. :dunce:
Oh, and don't worry about the DCC, it's already seen use, but the low durability is frustrating.
Sorry guys.
Butz. :dunce:
Oh, and don't worry about the DCC, it's already seen use, but the low durability is frustrating.
The life and times of Ai the Assassin.
Ai was the starting character of our tournament host Skunkbelly. I'll leave him to fill out the details of his original thoughts and intentions of Ai's build, but from what I can surmise she was intended to be a fire trapper.
She then passed from scarred-life(26) to Milb(30) to Ohomemgrande(31) to me(49) and finally to sirpoopsalot where she met her demise. Here is a hopefully handy dandy table where we can see her progression.
Her stat progression went like this:
Similar to what Milb told me about his playing Ai, I played her as a BFsin, due to the weak fire traps. This worked especially well since I had a big hurty stick with a lot of life leech. That's part of the reason why I added all of the points to venom as all of the poison damage really tore through things in normal difficulty.
I hope everyone else that had Ai can add their thoughts.
Ai was the starting character of our tournament host Skunkbelly. I'll leave him to fill out the details of his original thoughts and intentions of Ai's build, but from what I can surmise she was intended to be a fire trapper.
She then passed from scarred-life(26) to Milb(30) to Ohomemgrande(31) to me(49) and finally to sirpoopsalot where she met her demise. Here is a hopefully handy dandy table where we can see her progression.
Code:
Skill Act1 Act2 Act3 Act4 Act5 NMAct1
[B]-Shadow Disciplines-[/B]
Claw Mastery ? 1 1 1 1
Psychic Hammer ? 1 1 1 1
Burst of Speed ? 1 1 1 1
Weapon Block ? 1 1 1 1
Cloak of Shadows ? 1 1 1 1
Fade ? 1 1 1 1
Shadow Warrior ? 1 1 1 1
Venom 0 0 0 0 18
Shadow Master 0 0 1 2 2
[B]-Traps-[/B]
Fire Blast ? 6 6 6 6
Shock Web ? 0 1 1 1
Blade Sentinel ? 1 1 1 1
Charged Bolt Sentry ? 0 1 1 1
Wake of Fire ? 11 11 11 11
Blade Fury ? 1 1 1 1
Lightning Sentry ? 0 1 1 1
Wake of Inferno ? 1 1 1 1
Death Sentry 0 0 0 2 2Her stat progression went like this:
Code:
Act1 Act2 Act3 Act4 Act5 NMAct1
Str ? 50 75 75 88
Dex ? 45 45 45 75
Vit ? 80 90 95 95
Eng ? 25 25 25 72Similar to what Milb told me about his playing Ai, I played her as a BFsin, due to the weak fire traps. This worked especially well since I had a big hurty stick with a lot of life leech. That's part of the reason why I added all of the points to venom as all of the poison damage really tore through things in normal difficulty.
I hope everyone else that had Ai can add their thoughts.
But she spent an awful lot of time in NM Act 1. What happened there? What were her deeds when she met her end??
purplelocust
New member
That was described in post #525 from sirpoopsalot and he's not actually sure what mods there were on the Countess when her death explosion killed Ai.
skunkbelly
New member
Ai did indeed start out as a fire trapper. She rocked through act 1, and I have to think she would've continued to excel had people stuck to my original vision. Sigh.
sirpoopsalot
New member
Sorry for the delay - I just returned my stash to Skunkbelly.
And yeah, I guess it probably was FE/Extra-Strong/Spectral Hit that did me in. Oops. Anyways, the final stats of Ai:
Shadow Disiplines:
Venom 20 - I was simply using a normal attack with this because I didn't have good mana leech
Shadow Master 3
everything else 1
Traps:
Fire Trap 7
Wake of Inferno 11
Death Sentry 2
everything but Blade Shield 1
Martial Arts:
None
Spare Points: 1
Str: 90
Dex: 75
Vit: 118
Ene: 72
Items when she died:
W1: Bartuc's
S1: Radament's Sphere
Sigons Belt, Boots, & Armor
magic Crown (+3 Shadow Disiplines)
Rare Gloves: 10 IAS, +16 AR, 1/2 Freeze Duration
Rare Amulet: +13 Res all., +65 Mana
R1: Cathan's Seal
R2: rare ring (+48 AR, 4%LL, 28 CRes)
Charms:
+AR, and +Life
The gear was actually pretty solid (26% Life Leech) - I shouldn't have died.
And yeah, I guess it probably was FE/Extra-Strong/Spectral Hit that did me in. Oops. Anyways, the final stats of Ai:
Shadow Disiplines:
Venom 20 - I was simply using a normal attack with this because I didn't have good mana leech
Shadow Master 3
everything else 1
Traps:
Fire Trap 7
Wake of Inferno 11
Death Sentry 2
everything but Blade Shield 1
Martial Arts:
None
Spare Points: 1
Str: 90
Dex: 75
Vit: 118
Ene: 72
Items when she died:
W1: Bartuc's
S1: Radament's Sphere
Sigons Belt, Boots, & Armor
magic Crown (+3 Shadow Disiplines)
Rare Gloves: 10 IAS, +16 AR, 1/2 Freeze Duration
Rare Amulet: +13 Res all., +65 Mana
R1: Cathan's Seal
R2: rare ring (+48 AR, 4%LL, 28 CRes)
Charms:
+AR, and +Life
The gear was actually pretty solid (26% Life Leech) - I shouldn't have died.
