Project BotD, Phase Two Complete
Having found a pair of Cham runes through some positively nutty luck, I have pressed onward towards making a BotD!
Patriarch Deathly Hamster and the Quest for a Cham
Considering I had no suitable weapon in my stash, I decided to go hunting, which lasted about an hour before I decided it would likely take forever to get a decent ethereal to drop from cows.
And anyway, considering I'll be blowing a Zod rune, it's probably worth getting the best one I can (reasonably) obtain without losing my self-found status.
So, we go back! to the future! Ok, so not the future, more like the second (or third?) movie when they take that snazzy car and end up in the wild west... Anyway, installing 1.07 from discs, please wait...
I hate playing sorcs so much, but I'm also highly impatient, and as they are exceptionally overpowered in 07, I made the standard Static/Orb cookie cutter. I cannot properly express the level of misery that comes from going untwinked with your primary killing skill at 30 in a version with no /players command. Life leech on mercs is broke too, so forget having them tank anything for you (and rez fees scale way quicker). Last time I attempted anything on this level, I ended up quitting for 6 months out of frustration, but considering I didn't have to work nearly hard enough for the runes, I persevered. Here's a rough timeline:
lvl 28 - Normal Ancients... Ding! 30, get Frozen Orb
At this point, impatience had peaked so I skipped Nihlithak (first quest/WP skipped)
lvl 30 - Normal Baal
lvl 30-32 - Run Meph for gear (no mf, bunch of set garbage, but better than what I had)
lvl 33 - NM Andariel
lvl 34 - NM Duriel
lvl 36 - NM Meph
lvl 37 - NM Diablo
Wow, this leveling is SLOW... Other than Nihlithak, up to this point I had done every quest/WP, and still gained roughly one level per act.
lvl 37 - Impatience sets in again, Teleport to Ancients... Kill ancients after about 10 tries, DING! 46!
lvl 47 - NM Baal
lvl 47-50 - NM Cows
At this point, I cracked and crafted myself a 29 MPK ring, which smells an awful lot like cheese, but desperation has skewed my sense of right and wrong. I can assure you that it won't be leaving 1.07.
lvl 50 - Teleport to Hell Andariel
lvl 50 - Teleport through Act II as quickly as possible, Kill Duriel (many deaths)
lvl 50 - Teleport to LK, breathe a huge sigh of relief (now I know why they call it "Breath of the Dying")
This took me two weeks, playing for at least a couple hours nearly every day.
After about 3 hours of flaky rack running, I was rewarded with a consistent War Pike rack.
*dodges incoming stones*
Hear me out here... I know War Pike is not a very popular choice for BotD. As my above Pat post suggests, I was planning on going the GPA route. War Pikes just look so amazing, so I decided to check the feasibility of it, spurred on by my success whirling with a Death Colossus Sword.
Data! Gosh, I love me some data!
I have a spreadsheet (on my work computer) that compares the various eBotD choices in 1.07 weapons and their damage throughout the whirl cycle up to 50 frames (2 seconds). No, the War pike does not come in first, but being an educated reader, you already knew that. Interestingly enough, GPA doesn't come in first either. While they have identical average damage, speed, and range, Ghost Spear comes out ahead due to the "enhanced maximum damage" property of 1.07 ethereals. Ghost Spears have a higher max damage, so a bigger portion of the damage is affected, meaning higher average, but not by much.
However, it's interesting to notice that War Pikes and Ghost Spears are pretty much neck-and-neck in the DPS race over the first second (next time you're whirling, see how many times you actually whirl for more than one second at a time - now see how many of those times you were frozen). Point being, in a controlled whirl, depending on what frame you consider, it can go either way between the War Pike and Ghost Spear. After one second, the Ghost Spear climbs fairly obviously ahead, but I wouldn't say it's drastic.
Anyway, if anyone has any practical experience with such things, or wants to check it themselves and tell me my numbers are wacko, please do. I haven't stuffed runes in it yet. I'll either upload the spreadsheet or post more in-depth data tomorrow when I can get at it.
Anyway, after 2 hours of running the War Pike rack, I was rewarded with:
Superior War Pike
Two-Hand Damage: 90 to 257
Durability: 13 of 13
Required Dexterity: 95
Required Strength: 155
Required Level: 70
Spear Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x22569bf8
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
<12% Enhanced Damage, doesn't show on the Flavie>
As an interesting side effect, I have two plain ethereal, one 3-socket ethereal, and one 4-socket ethereal 1.07 War Pikes I would be happy to give away to anyone with an interest in them. Not much to do with them besides make a BotD, but maybe someone can get creative?
Just drop a reply here if you want one, which one you want, and what you intend to use it for (not that I really care, just curious, and I would hope you have some intended use in mind). Then PM me your email, so I know where to send the stash.
The third, final, and hopefully easiest phase of Project BotD will be finding a Vex rune. Unless someone can supply some terribly compelling data to convince me against using a War Pike, that is...
Thanks for reading!
-Hammy
Having found a pair of Cham runes through some positively nutty luck, I have pressed onward towards making a BotD!
Patriarch Deathly Hamster and the Quest for a Cham
Considering I had no suitable weapon in my stash, I decided to go hunting, which lasted about an hour before I decided it would likely take forever to get a decent ethereal to drop from cows.
And anyway, considering I'll be blowing a Zod rune, it's probably worth getting the best one I can (reasonably) obtain without losing my self-found status.
So, we go back! to the future! Ok, so not the future, more like the second (or third?) movie when they take that snazzy car and end up in the wild west... Anyway, installing 1.07 from discs, please wait...
I hate playing sorcs so much, but I'm also highly impatient, and as they are exceptionally overpowered in 07, I made the standard Static/Orb cookie cutter. I cannot properly express the level of misery that comes from going untwinked with your primary killing skill at 30 in a version with no /players command. Life leech on mercs is broke too, so forget having them tank anything for you (and rez fees scale way quicker). Last time I attempted anything on this level, I ended up quitting for 6 months out of frustration, but considering I didn't have to work nearly hard enough for the runes, I persevered. Here's a rough timeline:
lvl 28 - Normal Ancients... Ding! 30, get Frozen Orb
At this point, impatience had peaked so I skipped Nihlithak (first quest/WP skipped)
lvl 30 - Normal Baal
lvl 30-32 - Run Meph for gear (no mf, bunch of set garbage, but better than what I had)
lvl 33 - NM Andariel
lvl 34 - NM Duriel
lvl 36 - NM Meph
lvl 37 - NM Diablo
Wow, this leveling is SLOW... Other than Nihlithak, up to this point I had done every quest/WP, and still gained roughly one level per act.
lvl 37 - Impatience sets in again, Teleport to Ancients... Kill ancients after about 10 tries, DING! 46!
lvl 47 - NM Baal
lvl 47-50 - NM Cows
At this point, I cracked and crafted myself a 29 MPK ring, which smells an awful lot like cheese, but desperation has skewed my sense of right and wrong. I can assure you that it won't be leaving 1.07.
lvl 50 - Teleport to Hell Andariel
lvl 50 - Teleport through Act II as quickly as possible, Kill Duriel (many deaths)
lvl 50 - Teleport to LK, breathe a huge sigh of relief (now I know why they call it "Breath of the Dying")
This took me two weeks, playing for at least a couple hours nearly every day.
After about 3 hours of flaky rack running, I was rewarded with a consistent War Pike rack.
*dodges incoming stones*
Hear me out here... I know War Pike is not a very popular choice for BotD. As my above Pat post suggests, I was planning on going the GPA route. War Pikes just look so amazing, so I decided to check the feasibility of it, spurred on by my success whirling with a Death Colossus Sword.
Data! Gosh, I love me some data!
I have a spreadsheet (on my work computer) that compares the various eBotD choices in 1.07 weapons and their damage throughout the whirl cycle up to 50 frames (2 seconds). No, the War pike does not come in first, but being an educated reader, you already knew that. Interestingly enough, GPA doesn't come in first either. While they have identical average damage, speed, and range, Ghost Spear comes out ahead due to the "enhanced maximum damage" property of 1.07 ethereals. Ghost Spears have a higher max damage, so a bigger portion of the damage is affected, meaning higher average, but not by much.
However, it's interesting to notice that War Pikes and Ghost Spears are pretty much neck-and-neck in the DPS race over the first second (next time you're whirling, see how many times you actually whirl for more than one second at a time - now see how many of those times you were frozen). Point being, in a controlled whirl, depending on what frame you consider, it can go either way between the War Pike and Ghost Spear. After one second, the Ghost Spear climbs fairly obviously ahead, but I wouldn't say it's drastic.
Anyway, if anyone has any practical experience with such things, or wants to check it themselves and tell me my numbers are wacko, please do. I haven't stuffed runes in it yet. I'll either upload the spreadsheet or post more in-depth data tomorrow when I can get at it.
Anyway, after 2 hours of running the War Pike rack, I was rewarded with:
Superior War Pike
Two-Hand Damage: 90 to 257
Durability: 13 of 13
Required Dexterity: 95
Required Strength: 155
Required Level: 70
Spear Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x22569bf8
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
<12% Enhanced Damage, doesn't show on the Flavie>
As an interesting side effect, I have two plain ethereal, one 3-socket ethereal, and one 4-socket ethereal 1.07 War Pikes I would be happy to give away to anyone with an interest in them. Not much to do with them besides make a BotD, but maybe someone can get creative?
Just drop a reply here if you want one, which one you want, and what you intend to use it for (not that I really care, just curious, and I would hope you have some intended use in mind). Then PM me your email, so I know where to send the stash.
The third, final, and hopefully easiest phase of Project BotD will be finding a Vex rune. Unless someone can supply some terribly compelling data to convince me against using a War Pike, that is...
Thanks for reading!
-Hammy
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