Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

@Thomh: Actually, I wouldn't call it that bad, especially for a second char after restart. Lots of room for improvement, but the weapon and shield give you a ton of leeway (congrats on those rolls, btw). Yeah, the MF is a little low, but with that much improvement possible it shouldn't take long at all to see some progress. Good luck!

@Pandadude and Protomagus: Thanks!

@poops: That's a really good question. Had to think about it a bit. This will probably be a lot longer than you wanted and, most likely, not helpful in the least. But let's give it a shot.

It's a little tough to say just how things would have gone at a lower level with this char, because I didn't really start AT running until she was >=91. I did maybe 200 AT runs before the alvl85 tournament, and those were probably in the 2 minute plus range because I didn't know what I was doing.

Whenever I started the tournament I watched bassano's vid a few times and tried to emulate him best I could, but was still doing ~80-90 second runs at the start. Quickly got down to averaging 70 seconds within the first 5 hours or so of that tourney (did a lot of short runs in that tourney to keep the runs per hour up). Afterwards, I did another 1k-1.5k between there and the MFO, and was staying around the 65-70 second range.

The MFO was the big break in terms of runtimes, because real life constraints forced me to get faster to squeeze in as much as possible. Got down to about the same runtimes I'm at now, but picking up fewer items.

So, really, it didn't take a lot to get down around where I'm at in terms of run times, considering a concerted effort to get faster. I have done some AT runs with other cold sorcs that were lower level, and found them to be safe enough at a little slower pace (mostly not teleporting directly on top of stuff like I do with Blizzy).

I imagine the FN sorc will do better than you imagine. If you're not really attached to that idea, I'd suggest you give the GS sorc a go. too. I gave mine about 10 runs in AT and she was almost as fast as Blizzy (granted, that was with Nightwing's, HotO, Vipermagi, etc. - in other words, no MF) but I think you could do really well with one that has 105 FCR and 3 part Tal's. Maybe DF + 3 part Tal's + 35 spirit + trang's gloves + FCR ring? Or, that crazy circlet of yours and drop Trang's for chancies, for style points.

I'm actually interested in seeing how well the FN sorc works out. I honestly don't think it'll be as inefficient as most people would think. The lack of a casting delay and assured hit can make a big difference. I'd like it if you kept me informed on how it works out for you.
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

@poops:
For argument's sake, a backup attack is kind of unnecessary. I assume that if you're spamming 105FCR (or even 200FCR??) FNs and are going with ES you'll probably have an Insight merc. Even still, I'd say a Might merc with an eth Insight will be just fine against the random unique PIs you encounter. My AT Blizzer keeps forgetting to change her merc every time she rerolls, and even with a HF merc wielding eth Insight, no unique has taken more than ten or so seconds at /p1. ...Then again, if you have the points to spare, where else would you put 'em?

I have no experience with Energy Shield, but personally I'd never rely on my mana reserves alone to save my character. I'd absolutely get high-ish resists and do as much Vit as possible.

As a wacky idea, how about this: Scrap ES, and instead invest the last ~25 skills points into Frozen Armor and a synergy? It gives you ~5.x seconds of freeze length when smacked, but is nerfed by 3/4 in Hell. If you're running FNova, that means you WILL get hit. If you use ES, two mana burn attacks could leave you completely defenseless. However, with Frozen Armor, your enemies are incapacitated for better than a full second, giving you plenty of time to heal, regain mana from a burner/FN them to death/run/tele away.

...If you don't like the idea, I may just do it myself 'cuz I think it makes sense. :whistling: It'd be interesting to see how the builds compare. And ever since your 200FCR Glacial Spike sorc, I've been very curious as to how to make a different AT runner besides the cookie cutter style. Either way, let us know how yours turns out!
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

With whatever unknown/undocumented differences in our playstyles, maps, the stuff we pick up/inspect, our equipment, etc, there's a lot of caveats to any attempt at comparison.

But still, thanks for the info. It's precisely what I was looking for and gives me some rough levels of expectation of how much of an improvement practice & experience can make. If I'm still doing 3 minute runs after 5 hours, it'll be nice to know that I should probably just buck-up and use the Blizzsorc instead. If I'm looking at ~75 second runs around that point though, that'll be a promising development.


I'd like it if you kept me informed on how it works out for you.

Will do.

I've got the plan pretty close to figured out, I just need to decide on the boots and 7 more SC's, as well as whether to go with ES or a 2nd attack, or maybe even a bigger radius static field, or some combination of all three. I may resocket the Tals armor if I think a Facet's worth more than the PTopaz at some point, but I doubt it.

So far, it'll be DFathom & Nightwings (+43% Cold Damage), 3-piece Tals, 1xSoJ, 1xFCR/MF ring, 35 FCR Spirit, Trangs gloves, Gheeds, & 6xChilling skillers. CtA switch. That's 105 FCR, 250 MF, and +17 cold skills.

Resists at the moment are 5f, 75l, 39c, -31p, which obviously needs a little work. I just can't decide quite yet whether to go with Treks & Energy Shield, or Aldurs/rares and a 2nd attack. I figure the 7 remaining SC's can provide a reasonable minimum on the necessary resists from whatever's left, but obviously not everything will be max'ed unless I start changing a few other items around or drop a skiller or two.


PS. As for the GS sorc, I've thought about it, but after a few trial runs with my old IceBlast sorc (once upon a time), I realized Blizzard's large area of effect is really, really critical to speedy progress. And area of effect is where FN is an obvious winner (even over Blizzard).



Edit:
@TRM, actually, if my damage is high enough with FN (and it should be), I expect to stunlock everything that's in range on /p1... and not get hit very much as a consequence (with the exceptions for tough spawns, it shouldn't be anything that Insight + red potions + FHR + teleport can't handle). My previous FN sorc was among the safest I've played because she had reliable stun-lock + chilling.

For the 2nd damage type, I'm figuring Static + Merc will be plenty to take care of things if I go with ES - basically the same limitation as most blizzsorcs have. Of course even a low-end backup spell has some appeal too.

Frozen Armor is not going to happen for me though, plain & simple.



 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

With the CtA, I don't see much of a problem with going the ES route. I think FN will have you pretty well defended against mana burn except for the instant you teleport into the pack. For that, I'd suggest a point in Shiver Armor (use it on Blizzy, myself). It won't help all the time, but it will help some of the time, and I think the potential benefits outweigh the cost of 2 skillpoints. Then again, with the boost from CtA you're probably not going to be in grave danger if your ES does get burned off, anyway, though I can assure you bolts from an FE/LE (or nova from an FE/CE) are going to hurt like all hell if it burns off.

Either way, keep in mind something I finally got pounded into my head after thousands of runs: if the mummies or cadavers hit you, just suck it up and drink some reds. I had so many deaths from getting poisoned, not drinking a pot until my health was super low, the pot not outpacing the poison and dying to an aura or elemental bolt early on that now I just drink every Super Healing potion on the ground when it happens.
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

A FN sorc is incredibly interesting for sure, I hope it works out great.
Did 150ish runs yesterday (mostly rolling my map, before I found a pretty decent one) on players5 just for the levels. It seems like my equipment will be fine, no real danger for my blizzy, but conviction horror mages melts my wonderful merc in seconds:(

I should also not that the merc is a HF dude, I considered going with your advice of an offensive one, but I like the added safety.

The very few players1 runs I`ve done has been slow, of course, and I`m not really sure if I will run on that player setting. I am just as interested in whites, charms, jewels, runes and gems as anything else, so I have to do some research to find a good player setting.
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

I've been running my FN/Nova through the tunnels, and she is phenomenal. She uses full Tals (with cold facets) and a stash full of cold skillers/cube/MF SC's. In my hands, and at /p1, she's significantly faster than my blizz-sorc. There's no aiming necessary at all, and if there is a strong boss she has FO to take them out. If there are any random CI's, then Nova gets them pretty quick. Her skills at level 88 are FN/Blizz/FO at 20, CM at 1, Nova at 20, Lite mastery at 11. Her Merc is a Prayer/Insight with fort/andariel's visage.

Her damage gets significantly less effective at /p7, so I think at that player count a traditional blizzie would take it.

I'll do a few runs and post times, but I think she's as good as it gets for tunnels (at least in my hands).
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

Any chance you could give me a rough guess on how run times have decreased with experience & practice throughout your career. Something like:

Code:
Runs 0001-0500     (level 82-87)     = 90 second average
Runs 0501-1000     (level 88-90)     = 75 second average
Runs 1001-2500     (level 90-93)     = 65 seconds
Runs 2501-5000     (level 93-94)     = 60 seconds
Runs 5000+                           = 57 seconds...


this is nice idea
I can add my table :)

Code:
Runs   001-  100         = 300 second average
Runs   101-  500         = 180 second average
Runs   501- 2000         = 120 seconds average
Runs  2001- 5000         =  60 seconds average
Runs  5001-10000         =  50 seconds average
Runs 10001+(15k now)     =  45 seconds average

but first 2k runs I did on slow comp with 128MB RAM so it is not regular :)

and I am now on level 96,5 cca


 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

You've made the best decision by telling SPF about this wonderful thing! A psychiatrist can't understand and won't appreciate your hard works. Now go take Blizzy to clvl99 then tell forum about it.

-sal
 
Re: Man does 5k AT runs ... tells forum about it.

Thanks for the extra info, bassano. It's nice to know that such a large improvement is possible with enough practice, and also that you were still able to gain even a little more improvement after 5k or 10k runs. That's good encouragement to keep running.

And thanks again maareek for the previous info, as well as the response to my PM (it helped clarify those points a lot).

I've managed to push my new FN sorc to level73 (yay DFathom) and the start of Hell, so first I'll be off to go through most of Hell and rescue Anya (probably later this evening), and then I'll start on AT. After the aforementioned PM from maareek (I didn't want to hijack this thread further just to hammer out a few points) I've decided to not use ES, and instead have a low-end backup attack (Fireball - I don't want a casting delay and my damage should be able to get high enough to force most random bosses into hit recovery on /p1).

I'll post an update with some results at some (distant) point in the future. :wave:
 
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