Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Modnar the Barbarian is now level 11, killed Blood Raven and moving on to the dungeons in the cemetery before going to stony field.

Things of notice:

-A frickin' ethereal Knell Striker dropped in cave level 1!!! Big Damage and 25% crushing blow! This thing bashed /players 8 Blood Raven into a pulp. Saving it for future boss fights, got to save it's durability for as long as I can.

-I'm not doing the "save your talent points" thing, whenever I get a talent point I throw it into the mix instantly.

-Since we can't re-run areas I'm taking full advantage of every area and doing full clears on /players 8 as long as I think I can get away with it.

-I have 4 points in Bash. I'm ok with this, bash is serving me well when I'm surrounded. It's a good versatile skill. I imagine I'll be using some sort of a high damage two handed weapon with bash (I have at least 1 skill point in all masterys except spear) in the future. Right now I'm dual wielding scepters and have an ethereal rare javelin on weapon switch for when things get crazy.
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Modnar the barbarian is now level 20, I just killed Andariel!

The good:
-Doing full area clears on /players 8 is giving me tons of exp. Smashed Andariel at level 20.
-Knell Striker!!!

The bad:
-3 damn points in leap! What a waste...
-My strength is pretty low and I'm getting too many energy points. Yup, a low strength barbarian...

The ugly:
-I don't have ANY warcries aside from find potion. Unless I roll a 1 in 17 it looks like this barbarian won't have any shouts. But this is making my dude really combat heavy in skills. Right now I'm duel wielding swords because I have 2 points in double swing and 4 in bash as a synergy.

Overall it's going well, although I have to be more careful. Playing on /players 8 and bumping into a boss group is dangerous and I had a close call already in catacombs when I got surrounded!
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Randi_TrueBlood has pushed through the jungles. One NDE to Szark the Burning (that spider thing guarding Khalim's ?eye?.) Was cursed, and on full health, but suddenly, to one hit, the whole life bulb turned clear. I didn't even have time to check how much life she had left, but she just scraped out there.
She gambled a lovely circlet, after so many useless ones, and is one Ral away from Ancient's Pledge (1 Tal, 3 Ral's.)

Rainbow Circlet of Luck
Circlet
Defense: 25
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x932c251d
Item Level: 31
Version: Expansion 1.10+
All Resistances +11
26% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

[highlight]Randi_TrueBlood, level 31, Mephisto next[/highlight]

Bad luck with 3 points in leap! The amount of useless skills these characters get is funny. Level 31, and Randi has no idea what she can do. Still no points in CoS, BoS or Cobra Strike yet!
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Someone like Szark needs to be deal with from far away in hardcore, he's ****ing scary. Are you on /players 8 too Drystan? Great level to fight Mephisto!
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Yeah, /players8 all the way. Andariel was at /pl5, and Duriel was at /pl3. Meph will probably be done at /players3, since I have CB from the Eth Crushflange. Resists are all quite high. But I just shopped a Staff of Teleportation, so I'll probably just Moat Trick it, and let Blaise the fire Rogue kill him. :)
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Drystan said:
Yeah, /players8 all the way. Andariel was at /pl5, and Duriel was at /pl3. Meph will probably be done at /players3, since I have CB from the Eth Crushflange. Resists are all quite high. But I just shopped a Staff of Teleportation, so I'll probably just Moat Trick it, and let Blaise the fire Rogue kill him. :)
Click to expand...

Shouldn't be a problem for you. Meph is never really a problem, but I am scared of Duriel :tombstone:



 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Kenneth the Paladin exited Act 1 after punching Andariel square in the gut. This ushered in the era of Mizan, the Blessed Aim Desert Merc. The majority of the killing duties now fell squarely on his shoulders. Although Kenneth bumped up his own damage with a newly found Griswold's Edge, Mizan's weapons are far more powerful.

The polearm cube recipe yielded a Savage (80) Lochaber Axe of the Locust (6), which will be followed by a Savage (70) Bill of Alacrity when Mizan is a bit stronger. Ultimately he will grow into this gem. Perfection! :cool: That should suffice for quite a while. Mizan is knocking them flat (with only a slight bit of help from Holy Bolt).

Of further note is the discovery of 2 Angelic Halo Rings, a promising start to some major MF, if I get lucky... :greedy:

Here is Kenneth at level 30, with a boatload of unspent skillpoints. The odds for hitting Salvation were 1 in 14, as good as possible for only having spent 3 points. I nailed it early on, then waited until level 31 for another opportunity. I hit it once more, on my last shot. At this point, my odds are 1 in 23. Hopefully I can hit some other useful skills. I landed a couple in Holy Freeze, Concentration, and Sacrifice. No Vengeance yet.

Also, I found a Hawkmail in the Forgotten Temple. This is an occasional end-game armor for me or the merc. Nice to have this in the arsenal.

[Highlight]Kenneth, Concentration/Sacrifice Paladin, Act 4 Normal [/Highlight]

Welcome to the tournament DiamondSoul. :thumbup:
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

How much MF have you got so far, IW (and current level?)

Randi_TrueBlood used the Staff of Teleportation and the moat trick to defeat Mephisto safely at /players3, with 302% Magic Find, and still only one green item. Currently, level 31 in Act 4.


Edit: Level up early Act 4:

Random.org said:
Here are your random numbers:

3 3 3 3 3
Click to expand...
*squee*
 
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Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Doesn´t Leap get a longer stun time (or is it radius?) with more skill points? So it could have some use. Maybe.

@DiamondSoul: Try to get a barb helm with Howl. That will make you far less prone to 'death by mobbing'. If such a helm doesn´t drop (it´s almost too late in the game now), try 'normalizing' low quality barb helms with chippie + El rune. Those get ilvl=1, which makes level 1 skills very common on them.


@Drystan: Unless he´s made progress in Act IV, I could bet a decent sum of money that IW´s paladin is level 32. All the v1.10+ characters I´ve ever played have been level 32 after beating Mephisto.
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Modnar the Barbarian is level 22 hanging out in act 2 now...

The good:
-Thank you for the warm welcome Insane Wayne. I was thinking about the tourny while I was playing it... it's just so much fun. It's nice and simple, if anyone in the single player hasn't tried it yet, go for it, it's still very active and it's a lot of fun. You'll get hooked!
-Killed Radament, gave me some more useless skills. Still on /players 8. Double swing is amazing. At first I thought I'd be using Bash with a two hander, but now that I have 2 points in double swing and realizing that bash gives that synergy I'm dual wielding swords... plus my dex is super high. As well as my Energy, haha.

The bad:
-Beware my leap? I now have 3 points in leap and 2 points in leap attack. I've never used leap attack as an offensive skill (usually just used to it to run away) but I think it's time to try. Still, seems like a massive waste. But playing flawed characters is the whole point of this tourny... somehow I'm enjoying it when I get a useless level up in a strange masochistic way.

The ugly:
- I think my dexterity is higher than my strength at this point. Throwing weapons rock.
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

jiansonz said:
Doesn´t Leap get a longer stun time (or is it radius?) with more skill points? So it could have some use. Maybe.

@DiamondSoul: Try to get a barb helm with Howl. That will make you far less prone to 'death by mobbing'. If such a helm doesn´t drop (it´s almost too late in the game now), try 'normalizing' low quality barb helms with chippie + El rune. Those get ilvl=1, which makes level 1 skills very common on them.


@Drystan: Unless he´s made progress in Act IV, I could bet a decent sum of money that IW´s paladin is level 32. All the v1.10+ characters I´ve ever played have been level 32 after beating Mephisto.
Click to expand...

Leap gave me a longer... LEAP, haha. And a synergy for leap attack. Pure ****. :coffee:



 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

@Drystan, I'm around 33 or so, early-mid Act 4. Full clears all the way. MF is about 210 for merc kills. Gear is mostly MF, chip/flawed topaz helms/armors, Fortune rings/boots/gloves
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

I checked the AS now. In addition to make you able to leap longer distances*, more points in Leap increases the radius of the knockback effect when the Barbarian lands. With a few more points, you might have a decent 'group knockback' tool to use in place of Howl. Probably works on bosses/champs, too, which Howl doesn´t.

(* this part of the skill is pretty useless once you know Leap Attack...)


EDIT: I now see that Leap Attack has the same knockback effect on landing. The two skills start off at almost the same radius, then LA gets about twice the increase per skill point compared to Leap.
 
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Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Can I get an exception to the rules. I've run into a buggy error. Randi_TrueBlood finally managed a point in CoS in early Act 4, but I keep running into Spawners. CoS has some annoying bugs with certain mobs.
The first bug is that if a Spawner is spawning a minion at the same time as you cast CoS, that Spawner is not blinded.
The second bug is that CoS can crash D2 in certain areas. The Ancients are apparently one (but I don't come across that very often,) and the Spawners are another time.

As per the rules, I'm not going to say "Ahhh hell, reroll," as that would mean I couldn't take loot. Plus, this is all about besting what you're given. I'm also tempted not the play Single Pass for this section, as I keep being forced to reroll the area, and I'm technically being given a different setup from D2, not my own choice. Opinions?

Randi can have 335% MF (Merc kill - used for uniques/bosses,) with nearly maxxed resists. Apart from the spawner challenge, she's actually progressing well at the moment. I would've had to drop the /pl settings down had I not had CoS yet.
 
I don't think you need to penalize yourself for the game dropping you. Just be as fair as possible, only looting what you don't think you killed before, and try not to get too much extra experience.

CoS would probably be the best skill in the game if it wasn't buggy :(

I think jiansonz has a list of known crashes with it, so maybe someone will post it for ya.

I need to pick my sorc back up
...soon!
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

I didn't get much of an advantage from re-running that area. No valuable drops overlapped, and the exp gain was actually quite low. After a few goes, I got a Spawner-free spawn, and had a map that allowed me to reroll it fairly reasonably. An early 3-way fork came up. First time, it crashed right before that fork. Then, left was a long path where it crashed a couple times (I didn't even make it to the end of that path!) Right, I found Hephasto right away, and killed him, then quit, knowing eventually it would crash again, and decided to just let it go. And the last time I gave it a go had no Spawners, and I took the route straight up, which went straight to the waypoint.
Right before the waypoint at the end, an Iceblink dropped though!

A list of what CoS can crash on would be an interesting read, if someone does have it?
 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Drystan said:
A list of what CoS can crash on would be an interesting read, if someone does have it?
Click to expand...

Oh yes, I´ve played a lot of Assassins so I know this very well.

The radius of CoS is 20 yards, which is a little more than the visible screen.

CoS causes the game to crash (every time, at least on my setup) if you cast it so it affects the following critters, and you are still within CoS radius from the critter when CoS times out:

* Hawk nests
* Mummy Sarcophagi
* Evil Demon Huts
* Trapped Souls (here´s your problem, Drystan - you should be safe now when you´re reached River of Flame)
* Ancients

If I think I can get away with not using CoS in the first three Act IV areas (Mind Blast, Shadow and/or merc can often be enough crowd control), I will usually unassign the CoS hotkey so I don´t cast it out of habit. If I really need CoS (it´s a great tool to keep bats from fleeing, for example, plus it shuts up spawners), I will bring monsters back to cleared territory and use CoS there. If I happen to cast it so I hit a Trapped Soul with it anyway, I will quickly run about 3 screens away. (I do not know if you are safe in town...)



 
Re: Tournament: The Randomly Challenged II

Hmmm. Nope, it isn't the same. On my setup, I can cast CoS on Sarcophagi and Trapped Souls without a crash. I don't know why, but I don't have that type of crash others have. It also isn't a guarentee. I got quite a way fighting Spawners, but there's something to do with them and CoS. Not every time, but they were involved.
I was in the River of Flame, where there weren't any Trapped Souls. It was always when I was casting CoS, while fighting the Spawners. Usually, the crash would occur when I killed one, othertimes when CoS wore off. Not every time, but only while fighting them.

Unfortunately for me, CoS is my only crowd control. No shadow yet, no mindblast, and an Act 1 rogue!

I'm going away for the weekend, but after that, I'll load one of my other Assassin's and do some testing. I'll do the Ancients, and Trapped Souls, spamming CoS as much as I can, then go back to the Spawners and see if I can pick when a crash will occur. I'll post back here if I find anything.
 
I don't think its ever crashed me outside of act 5. But its been a while since I played my last tournament assassin. The only thing that I think consistently does it for me are the ancients, that's a 100% chance.

It must depend on your videocard or something.
 
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