Tournament: Envious of the Green and Gold

[jiansonz]

@Gunther: I hope you find a reason to go back to Fireyogi later.

@Dezrok: Nice progress, and I am envious of your nice Sigon's 3-combo.


Eric the Werebear played with two diffent setups during Act V, and both worked out very well. Cold Iron Wolf in combo with Mauling with my upgraded Soulflay was used in areas with imps and with suicide bombers. Freezing from a distance is convenient there, and the imps died from about 4 shots of ice. In some areas, I unsummoned the HoW so we could have better control over when the enemies could see us. The HoW moves around randomly which can be bad in some situations. Unsummoning it gave me better chances to get as much loot and XP as possible from the boars (fewer of them mutate, and we can often kill and get XP even from the ones that do) and the imps (you get no XP and MF isn't working if they die on top of a tower that's destroyed).

The other setup is Eric with Cleglaw's Tooth + Claw and a barb merc with Soulflay. This was used in all areas with shambling undead plus the areas without imps or suicide bombers. I think you understand how powerful this merc is when he's backed by level 22 Heart of Wolverine.

Slightly before halfway through the act, I had completed two perfect topazes and put them in a 3s Hawk Helm I had found. The +skills it had were next to useless, though (+1 Fire Claws, +2 Solar Creeper). I found Infernal Sign early in the act but the next S/U item did not drop until WSK level 1. It was Arctic Horn. At this time, I was of course playing with a barbarian merc, and had planned to switch back to the cold dude for the remaining areas in Normal and also for Act I Nightmare - I thought it would be nice having him ice all the Fallen...

Arctic Horn changed this because I am MF hungry. I invested the 11 points in DEX I needed and equipped this bow. Now, the only way I can make decent progress with this setup is with the current merc, so I have kept him and intend to so until another game-changing weapon drops. I did fail to kill a couple (3-4) of bombers on WSK level 2 but my merc could kill all the others because Eric Shockwaved them. Baal dropped nothing interesting (three rares and three failed set items).

Angelic Sickle dropped in the cow level (that I played on /p5) and then the King dropped a green Cap that got me excited. Alas, it was Infernal Cranium (which is still a decent item, I suppose). Now I had to sell my nice 48% MF Hawk Helm (that would have been fitted with one more topaz here in the cow level if the Cap had not dropped). All the more reason to keep using the Arctic combo as that is now the only MF I have. None of my armors or helms feels like something I plan to use in the late game so I am saving the socket reward for better stuff. Otherwise I could have put a topaz in an armor/helm now and change to something else later.

So no ice cube making in the next act. OK, I can have Solar Creeper destroy Fallen corpses instead.

HoW is maxed, Maul is level 17, Lycanthropy is 8, Shockwave and all the vine skills are level 1. I think I am going to boost Shockwave a bit now and add the next half a dozen or so skill points to it.

Primary Gear:
* Infernal Cranium
* Arctic Horn
* Cathan's Mesh
* Sander's Taboo
* Cathan's Seal
* Arctic Binding
* Hsaru's Iron Heel

Switch
* Cleglaw's Tooth
* Cleglaw's Claw

Merc
* Isenhart's Horns
* Soulflay Dacian Falx
* Venom Ward


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 49, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Blood Moor next[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Halfway through the first act in Nightmare, and it's pretty easy for us. Shockwave is now level 3, and it's getting increasingly more important, at least if I want to kill everything while holding my Arctic bow. Looks like it does not affect bosses or champions at all (they get no 'swirlies' around their heads), something I need to keep in mind.

Three more uniques, two of them were only mildly interesting: another Stormguild and Spire of Lazarus. OK, my lightning resist is only 12% (27 on shield switch) but I do not see myself equipping the staff for just the big lightning resist. Third unique is Wizendraw Long Battle Bow.

A green item has also dropped (in The Hole) and that is a winner. Cleglaw's Pincers, which means I have completed the set and have Crushing Blow on my switch! Very nice, especially for act boss fights. Taking off Sander's gloves meant a large drop in life so I invested over 30 stat points to get back to and above what I had before. 20-something points still saved and Eric's max life is now 999.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 50, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Tamoe Highlands next[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

@jiansonz - I'm very jealous of your S/U bows and the CB switch! Also in awe of your patience with the exploding boars and imps on the towers.

For us, Nightmare started well enough, if a little slowly. A Sol dropped in the Mausoleum which allowed me to upgrade Griswold's Edge to a Battle Sword for Brom the Barb merc. Then a string of underwhelming S/Us: Isenhart's Lightbrand from the Stony Field, Bloodrise (Dark Wood), Cathan's Seal (Tristram) and Beserker's Hatchet (Tamoe Highlands). At least the Cathan's Seal gave me something to fill my second ring slot with (for what it was worth).


In The Hole our first polearm S/U, The Battlebranch, thank you. Upped it to a partizan, then went back to Normal and traded Brom in for Azrael the Defiance merc. Not that there was anything wrong with Brom, I quite liked how he went about his work, but Battlebranch over Griswold's Edge any day. Also switched the merc helm from Undead Crown to Duskdeep. Now he had another source of life leech, the 15% all res would max his resists.


The Pits saw another polearm S/U: Woestave. Was tempted to keep it handy in the stash for bosses and other troublemakers, however, decided I needed the extra 8 spaces more. Another piece of the Sigon's set, the belt, dropped in the Jail. Tempting, but the MF from Arctics wins for now. Rite of Passage also dropped in the Jail - seriously underwhelming mods.


In the Cathedral, there were plenty of Pitspawn's relatives (lightning), Carver Shaman (fire) and Bone Ash (poison) and suddenly my low resists were a problem, so I moved Sander's wand to switch and brought Blood Crescent to main weapon for the extra 15% all res (losing 20 much needed mana). Isenhart's Case dropped in the Catacombs, followed by The Chieftain and then it was time to face Andy. Still no CB anywhere, but we'd been killing things pretty easily so we stuck with p8. Swapped in Undead Crown for the big boost to poison res, as well as guzzling some antidotes. I was planning on using the Decrep plus OW strategy that had worked so well on Bosses in Normal, however, it wasn't making an impression on Andy's life and she was making an impression on Envy's life. So the tactic switched to running around the pond using Lower Res and Poison Nova. Andy chased me stopping every now and again to fire off some poison and ignoring Azrael completely. Azrael chased Andy, but I'm not sure he got any hits in (but he did live the whole battle). After a few castings, I stopped bothering with the CG, Andy's poison ate him too fast. Anyway, there was a trip back to town in the middle of the battle to restock blue and red pots plus antidotes, and then Andy was dead. No S/Us despite my whopping 117% MF (I found a Lucky GC of Life for an extra 3% MF somewhere in the Act).


Generally we did good in Act 1, especially with the upped weapons. Resists are still underwhelming and I'm not looking forward to all the beetles in Act 2. PN is maxed with 10 pts in the PE synergy, so is doing decent damage. Generally I use Amp (to boost the merc and give him more leech) or DV (to crowd control, silence ranged attackers and stop special attacks) instead of LR, however, some monsters are getting noticeably high poison res, so LR might come more into play.


Have swapped Azrael for Pratham the Holy Freeze merc and upped the Rockfleece armour (mostly cause I have the runes and nothing else to do with them). Also had a couple of Hel runes drop in Act 1 which might come in handy at some point.


[highlight]Envy, Necro, Lvl 53, NM, Act 2, Lut Gholein, 14 S/Us equipped[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

Act 2 started with a Holy Freeze merc but while clearing out the Sewers I realised that HF leads to corpses shattering and Poison Explosion is a pretty critical part of play at the moment (Envy doesn't have enough mana to spam PN yet), so I like having as many corpses as possible. We traded the HF merc in for a Might merc, much better. Shadowfang dropped in the Sewers, and then Witherstring (my first ranged weapon, now that I don't need it) and Cleglaw's Tooth dropped in the Rocky Waste. Heartcarver and a 35 mana GC dropped in the Dry Hills. The Heartcarver put on switch with Steelclash to provide a decent damage and ITD melee attack, with 1pt Poison Dagger giving an extra 140 poison damage or so. This proved to be very effective in taking out single targets that I couldn't get the merc to close with. The extra mana from the GC was also a big boost and these two drops at the start of the Dry Hills have been fairly significant.


Decent drops in the Halls of the Dead, with Magefist and Manald Heal. Manald Heal straight on the finger to replace one of the Cathan's. Magefist's would be nice, but not worth losing the MF from the Sigon's combo. So now with a decent physical damage weapon, ll and ml, Envy has an alternative and quite effective way of filling the life and mana bulbs other than the potions. The mana leech more than covers the cost of Poison Dagger. I noticed that Heartcarver has been used by some of the other chars in this tourney and they had big issues with repair costs, but because I'm only using it for the odd surgical strike and generally relying on spells to do Envy's killing, this isn't really a problem.


At this point I also decided to take the Duskdeep off the merc and put it on Envy for that extra 15% all res, and put Undead Crown onto the merc. Envy had been feeling a little fragile around all those sparking beetles and poisonous undead. With life around the 500 mark there wasn't that much room for error. A 15% lig res LC and 9% fire res SC provided an additional boost to the resists and fire is now 47%, lightning 53%, cold 75% (still) and poison 34%. Much less fragile feeling.


Griswold's Edge dropped in the Far Oasis and then the IK helm in the Viper Temple. Pity I'm not a barb … oh, hang on, it can go on an Act 5 merc. 38% MF plus 2 PTopazes equals 86% MF!!! With the 117% on Envy, that would be 203% MF on merc kills! Crazy. Okay, the best sword I've got is Shadowfang, which I can up to an Espandon. Not great, but maybe good enough. Shame about the corpse shattering cold damage on it, but the plan is to let the merc kill and Envy just provide support, so hopefully I will need less corpses. Alright, back to Normal and grab Klar the barb merc.


Now on to the Harem and Palace Cellars. It was all fairly safe, if somewhat painfully slow and no S/Us. I'd felt that I'd been getting pretty good drops so far in Act 2, so my unrealistic expectation was that it would start raining S/Us. My more realistic expectation was that something would drop. I'd been super cautious about making sure that the merc killed everything and so barely using any damage spells. Mostly just casting DV to keep everything quiet and Amp on the monster Klar was currently taking down.


For the AS I decided to be a bit more proactive with poison spells and do my best to get their life as low as possible without killing anything, if a few monsters died along the way, then so be it. Altogether not too bad. It sure sped up killing speed and there were only a few casualties along the way. One of the reasons for the increased speed was just the fact of stopping monster heal with the poison. Iratha's Coil and a 1%MF GC (no I didn't keep it) dropped early in the first arm, which gave me hope, and then nothing till near the very end of the last arm. However, that drop was Bonesnap, so finally I get a source of CB, and quite a source it is! Unfortunately, I'm never going to hit anything with it, but still…


[highlight]Envy, Necro, Lvl 58, NM, Act 2, Canyon of the Magi, S/Us equipped 14[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

In The Hole our first polearm S/U, The Battlebranch, thank you. Upped it to a partizan, then went back to Normal and traded Brom in for Azrael the Defiance merc. Not that there was anything wrong with Brom, I quite liked how he went about his work, but Battlebranch over Griswold's Edge any day.

Good old Battlebranch. A staple in these tourneys.

Rite of Passage also dropped in the Jail - seriously underwhelming mods.

Agreed. For an exceptional S/U, these boots are just so...boring.


Interesting Andy fight. Did PN work well when she was Lower Resisted? I have no idea how high her poison resist is, but I remember it was a reasonably easy fight for my Exposure tourney poisonmancer.

I noticed that Heartcarver has been used by some of the other chars in this tourney and they had big issues with repair costs

Yeah, I used it in Act I NM with my amazon. Had only an Act III merc with me, so I did a lot of stabbing. In some areas, I lost more gold that I found...

and then the IK helm in the Viper Temple. Pity I'm not a barb … oh, hang on, it can go on an Act 5 merc. 38% MF plus 2 PTopazes equals 86% MF!!! With the 117% on Envy, that would be 203% MF on merc kills! Crazy. Okay, the best sword I've got is Shadowfang, which I can up to an Espandon. Not great, but maybe good enough. Shame about the corpse shattering cold damage on it, but the plan is to let the merc kill and Envy just provide support, so hopefully I will need less corpses. Alright, back to Normal and grab Klar the barb merc.
Now on to the Harem and Palace Cellars. It was all fairly safe, if somewhat painfully slow and no S/Us.

Shadowfang sure isn't Soulflay, but at least it has life steal and you have Amplify Damage.

However, that drop was Bonesnap, so finally I get a source of CB, and quite a source it is! Unfortunately, I'm never going to hit anything with it, but still…

GIMME!!! :badteeth:




You are pulling away fast, and between work and lots of watching sports on TV (Euro champs in handball (Go Sweden!) and Aussie open in tennis) I won't have much playing time for a while now.

I did play Tamoe Highlands and The Pit today. I cast a TP just outside the monastery gate, ran in and grabbed the WP without any kills, used it and got back through my TP.

Pit level 2 had a difficult start, with a 4-pack of champion melee rogues. Eric had to tank half that pack for his barbarian buddy, then I needed to pick up and use the healing potions that dropped when each one of them died. When two were dead, a couple of Devilkin entered and confused Unferth as to what enemy he should attack. The little annoying snots kept getting resurrected, too. Nothing that was majorly threatening, though. One find of the day, the useless Berserker's Hatchet. That set is almost laughable except for the fire resist on the helm.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 51, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Outer Cloister next[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

Interesting Andy fight. Did PN work well when she was Lower Resisted? I have no idea how high her poison resist is, but I remember it was a reasonably easy fight for my Exposure tourney poisonmancer.

I'm not sure that it worked well, but it definitely worked and was quite easy and safe. Given my low mana pool (about 150 for this fight I think, maybe even a bit below) for there to be only one trip back to town to get more blue pots it can't have taken very long. 4 blue pots in the belt plus 2 purples plus maybe another 4 blue pots lying around from other monsters. For a skill that only reduces enemy resistances by 37% at the moment, it sure can make a huge difference to the rate at which monster's life goes down from the poison.

Shadowfang sure isn't Soulflay, but at least it has life steal and you have Amplify Damage.

It's not, but I wish it was. A better sword would be a great boost to the team.

You are pulling away fast, and between work and lots of watching sports on TV (Euro champs in handball (Go Sweden!) and Aussie open in tennis) I won't have much playing time for a while now.

Sorry to hear that, I have been enjoying playing a tourney at the same pace as someone else, it somehow adds to the experience. I've been playing pretty hard because I have a bit of spare time right now and am going to have a lot less time from next week. However, now that I've reached the end of Act 2 it seems like a good place to take a pause. Go Sweden!

So, the rest of Act 2 went like this:

Envy and Klar (good name for a Barb that) cleared the Canyon of the Magi and then started grinding their way through Tal's Tombs. Unravelers were present in about half the tombs and those were definitely the slowest. I still don't have a great tactic for dealing with them and their hordes of skellies. Usually DV the Unraveler and then drag the skellies away to kill them, explode the corpses with PE and then back to take out the Unraveler, usually by sticking it with Heartcarver. Drops were quite good, but nothing that I'm using. Tomb 1-Hwanin's Justice; Tomb 2-General's TDL; Tomb 3-Stormstrike; Tomb 5-Deathspade; Tomb 6-Coif of Glory. Kaa the Soulless was in the first tomb, always nice to get him out of the way early. Some of the other tombs seemed to be a constant chain of overlapping boss packs, good experience but quite scary at times. Just as I'd stabilise one situation, the next pack would join the fray, then the next and the next …

I got a bit tired of waiting for Klar to kill everything, he kept on dying when I did that, so there was plenty of poison use and once the packs were cut down Klar could mop up.

Then it was time for The True Tomb. Was dreading more Unravelers as I was really getting tired of the grind. No Unravelers! Instead we had Ghoul Lords, Apparitions and Steel Scarab. This was possibly the easiest combo for Envy to have. Apparitions and the Scarab wilt under poison and don't have strong physical attacks, and while it seems Ghoul Lords have quite a bit of both poison and physical resistance, they can be kept quiet under DV and then isolated and killed one-by-one once everything else is dead. No S/Us dropped and then it was time to swap in the Bonesnap maul and take on Duriel. Both Envy and Klar had max cold resist already, so I didn't bother with thawing pots. Through the wall from the orifice room, a quick tp and then Decrep on Duriel before taking up positions like this. Duriel would attack the CG by preference, then Klar as a second choice. The battle went something like, Decrep, three swings with Bonesnap, Decrep, three swings, and so on. Recast the CG whenever it dies. Bonesnap takes a long time to swing as a Necro, even with 30% IAS from the gloves, so Klar got hit a few times when the CG died at the start of a swing cycle and it seemed to take forever before I could recast it. One trip back to town to get more pots when Duriel was about 75% dead and then death for Duriel and a big fat nothing in the drops.


15 S/Us for the Act, 11 of them uniques. Envy has max Poison Nova, 18 Poison Explosion, 8 Dim Vision, 3 each in Clay Golem and Golem Mastery, 1 in the other Curses and Golem Resist. After I've maxed PE future points probably into Lower Resist, maybe a few more into DV and then maybe Corpse Explosion to help with unbreakable poison immunes.


[highlight]Envy the Poisonmancer and Klar the Barb merc, Lvl 60, NM, Act 3, Kurast Docks, 14 S/Us equipped[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Since Jail and Catacombs are some of my favourite areas, I preferred D2 to watching sports for most of yesterday's evening, and played through the rest of Act I.

I had a somewhat scary fight early in Catacombs 3, where I met a Conviction spitter pack, which had me fleeing back to a very small starting room. I went upstairs (to pull Unferth back), then back down and managed to meet the boss in the doorway. Unferth took a LOT of damage from shots that the minions fired from the other side of the door - my Shockwaves could only hit some of them. This took a toll on my rejuve supply, and Unferth died twice anyway. During this, I did not dare to help with tanking because of lightning resist way down in the negatives.

After the second resurrection, the boss slipped through the doorway as we arrived. I was lucky that Unferth attacked the boss a bit from the side, his first Bash pushed the boss into a wall and Unferth followed up with more Bash/Stun. Eric Shockwaved the minions that tried to come through the door. We barely took any more damage.

The Knockback on Cleglaw's gloves is useful sometimes. I often pushed Dark Shamans into Unferth so he would attack them earlier. Main tactics against those packs were still to draw away the Dark Ones a long way and mop up corpses with Solar Creeper (or Carrion Vine if I had taken damage).

For the Andi fight, I borrowed Venom Ward from Unferth. After potion boost, I had 95% resist (and 75% duration reduction). So the poison was not a threat but Andariel's melee hits were still painful. A little more than halfway through the fight, I suddenly had a HUGE drop in life - it almost qualified as an NDE! Oh crap, Werebear had timed out and I had shifted back to my meager human form, the one that has just 400-and-change maximum life and I was almost halfway down on that when she hit me. Big mistake by me that I had not refreshed Werebear before the fight...

Anyway, we still won the fight (with two full purples left - I have a large supply stashed away so no problem for the next session). Another 3 rare, 3 failed set items drop (including failed set jewel...). A green and a gold had dropped in the Catacombs instead: Isenhart's Parry and Crushflange.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 53, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Act II Sewers next[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

I have been enjoying playing a tourney at the same pace as someone else, it somehow adds to the experience.

Yeah, me too.

I've been playing pretty hard because I have a bit of spare time right now and am going to have a lot less time from next week. However, now that I've reached the end of Act 2 it seems like a good place to take a pause.

I hope to be there in a couple of days.


First third (or so) of Act II is completed, with only minor hiccups (merc resurrections, etc.)
Looking at the number of greens and golds Dezrok found in early NM and comparing it with my 'just a handful' in Act I, I changed my mind about the Larzuk reward, went back and put a perfect topaz in Infernal Cranium (an item I may use long-term if I am hurting for resists). I also stashed an 11% fire resist Grand Charm (still at 51%, with 66% on shield switch) in favour of a 6% Lucky Grand Charm of Life. So I am up to 70% MF now. BTW, I would love fiding an IK helm...

Two uniques dropped, both in Sewers: Crushflange and Swordback Hold (ethereal, 21 durability). I am definitely bringing this shield with me next session. Not sure, but I think a Stone Skin swarm will be PI. And then there will be Specters and Apparitions later in the act.

An annoying thing happened in Rocky Waste. I was robbed of a boss drop. There was a Slinger boss (FE + Cursed) that was unusually passive. Just the occasional thrown javelin (that cursed us). All of a sudden, it had slipped over the border into Lut Gholein. Eric could still hit it (his Maul was building up) but since it was 'out of bounds', the damage did not register and the boss was stuck at about 20% life. Since I know that if you move a long way away from a monster, it may sort of "reset" and go back to full life (and if it's aura enchanted, it may change to another aura type) and sometimes its position is adjusted, which is of course what I wanted. When I got back there (including all the way from where I left it to where I first met it), the boss was nowhere to be found. It was putz weg, as the Germans say.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 54, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Far Oasis next[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

I hope to be there in a couple of days.

No rush. I've regeared my recently Guardianed Kodiak Bear and been taking him for a few runs, so have something to keep me occupied if I feel the need for some D2. Although at first it was difficult not to "take Envy for a little spin" ... just to see what might drop next. I think I get a bit of "next drop" addiction sometimes.

Looking at the number of greens and golds Dezrok found in early NM and comparing it with my 'just and handful' in Act I

From Act 1 NM I make it 10 S/Us (6xS; 4xU) for me and 7 S/Us (3xS; 4xU) for you.

Two uniques dropped, both in Sewers: Crushflange and Swordback Hold (ethereal, 21 durability).

I'd be more than happy with either of those, Crushflange is on my realistic wish list.

An annoying thing happened in Rocky Waste. I was robbed of a boss drop.

What a way to be robbed!

 

[jiansonz]

Reached the last WP in Act II, but of course there is still plenty left to do here. My barb merc is doing most of the damage, and Venom Ward has been really useful for him in this act. I have upgraded it to Cuirass.

Finds have been pretty dull. Berserker's Hauberk popped out of a Far Oasis chest, and it was a freky chest because there was also failed unique Claws in it. Additionally, I have found two failed unique Hatchet Hands. I am not matching my 'unique rolls' with suitable item types...
Another Isenhart's Parry and Eric's first Isenhart's Case were the only other S/U drops.

Best find: a 13% Shimmering Grand Charm. That got my lightning resist up to 25 (40 on switch) so I am slightly less concerned about gloams now. Would still like to find a few more good resist charms (or something like Sigon's Shelter).

Oh, I learned something new today. In the lower left corner of Fangskin's lair, there is a nice little fort that I have not noticed before. I am not sure if it prevents skeletons and mummies to enter from the side, but the snakes are certainly too big to fit through. That's good to know.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 58, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Canyon of the Magi next[/highlight]

 

[Grisu]

Nice going, Dezrok and jiansonz! Didn't know about that fort either, jiansonz - nice catch!

I made some progress over the last 6-8 months - 1 entire Act!!! ;-)

But I got one nice Immortal King's Will for my Barb merc with PTopazes in it and found Langer Briser from a chest, which is a nice backup weapon for The Diggler (used against normal monsters) or Deathbit (used against bosses or to fill up my mana).

I still haven't found the perfect timing for Phoenix Strike, so 50% of the time I use the wrong charge...but hey! What do you expect with an average gaming time of 1 hour per month!

Btw, I'm still missing the boots...hoping for some Goblin Toe!

[highlight]Meronym the Phoenix Striker and Ethelred, the Barbarian, level 53, 13 S/U items equipped, NM Rocky Waste next[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Grisu, welcome back. I had completely forgotten that you are playing my favourite build in this tourney.


MUCH better finds in the last parts of Act II:

Canyon:
* Isenhart's Lightbrand (set now complete; I won't use it but a future merc may)
* Skystrike, with an excellent roll (+199% ED - varies between 150-200)

Tomb 1:
* Darkglow (equipped for better lightning resist)
* Steeldriver! Great weapon, but crappy roll on it (+162% ED - varies between 150-250)

Tomb 4:
* Iron Pelt

Tomb 5:
* Razortine

Duriel:
* Griswold's Edge
* Hwanin's Refuge (equipped on merc now that poison is not everywhere - looking forward to those ctc Static!)

Also found a Grand Charm with good lightning resist. Up to 56% now, very nice.

Shockwave has seen heavy use lately. Crucial for my merc's survival against large skeleton- and Apparition packs, and for shutting up Unravelers until it's time to kill them (yeah, and when we kill them, too!). I have also used all three vines a lot. Carrion Vine and Solar Creeper for corpse cleaning and for saving potions, Poison Creeper for boss fights (the dangerous ones and after I had stashed my poison charm) and for speeding up killing of Apparitions and Ghoul Lords. The vines do not die much when most monsters are stunned.

I have used Swordback Hold (along with Cleglaw's sword) three times - against three Stone Skin LE Ghoul Lord bosses.

Amulet slot and one ring slot are still empty.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 60, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Spider Forest next[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

@jiansonz - there is some amazing stuff in those finds! I've never found a poor Steeldriver roll to be a problem, it is still a great weapon and super easy to upgrade for even more awesomeness due to the big -requirements.

And welcome back Grisu. Hope we don't have to wait another 6-8 months for the next update.

 

[Dezrok]

Envy and Klar are back in action and have cleared the Spider Forest and Cavern. Nothing exciting from the Spider Cavern, but three greens from the Forest: Angelic Sickle, Iratha's Cord and a green amulet from a regular Flayer Shaman. Deckard Cain said the amulet was Tancred's Weird - the magic find amulet. Envy would have danced a little jig of happiness but Necromancers just don't do that sort of thing. He was pretty happy though and put the amulet on straight away, filling his last S/U gear slot. Of course the MF doesn't kick in until we equip a 2nd Tancred's piece and we didn't have one on hand. There is the Crowbill in the GoMule stash but we have to wait for a good S&E spot to be able to get it. Happily we had just about finished clearing the Forest by this stage and we had a good map for quitting with a second exit from the waypoint clearing heading towards the Great Marsh (hopefully) and only a short run to the Flayer Jungle (opposite directions).


To equip Tancred's Crowbill we had to swap a few things around. We now have the Crowbill and Sigon's shield on main for MF and +skill, with Blood Crescent and Steelclash on switch for a big +30% all resists. The Heartcarver is sitting in the stash in case Envy needs to get in and poke the odd boss that is being difficult. MF is now 195% on main and 67% on switch, with Klar adding an extra 86%. 281% MF on merc kills makes me fairly happy.


[highlight]Envy the novamancer and Klar the barb merc, Lvl 61, NM, Act 3, Spider Forest, 15 S/Us equipped[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Wow, that is some excellent MF! If you can keep making progress with that setup for most of Nightmare, you should get a couple of nice trinkets added to the 'toolbox' for Hell.

 

[Dezrok]

Today we cleared the Flayer Jungle and Dungeon and very nearly died. Things started out alright with the first clearing in the Jungle being the village, getting the Ghibdin out of the way and dropping Tancred's Skull. The Skull replaced Duskdeep and I was then able to switch back to my previous weapon combo, Blood Crescent on main and Heartcarver on switch while keeping the high MF. Resists are now stable between switches, although lower than I would like.


Down the dungeon and the first room was packed with Flayer Shaman and Flayers and some Gloombats and a boss pack or two. These were negotiated and then Klar went to the right chasing one of the last remaining Flayers while the CG went left. I followed Klar into a dead-end room with some Gloombats in it. The CG decided to join us dragging in some Flayers from the other way. Then the CG died, Klar died and suddenly Envy was mobbed by too many bats and Flayers, all of them minions. Figuring the previous fight was almost over and we were just mopping up I hadn't bothered restocking potions and most of them were already gone. The final two went very quickly. With 8% FHR Envy was spending a lot of time in hit recovery, life was going down fast and I was starting to panic. Tried casting DV and CG but was too slow and kept getting put back in hit recovery. Ouch! Okay run and hope that I haven't left it too late. Made it out of the room and into the previous room where two minion Flayers were lurking. Bamm! Back into hit recovery and hit pause to give myself a chance to think. The red bulb was looking very low by now. Nothing for it but to keep on running and hope to make the stairs. Whew back into the Flayer Jungle with 95 life left (more than I thought I had). Back to town, pause to calm down, resurrect Klar and restock pots then creep back into the dungeon. Pick the minions off one or two at a time, find the boss Gloombat with Holy Freeze Aura and Mana Burn (so that is where my mana went), still no sign of the Flayer boss. Down the left corridor and there was the boss Flayer Shaman, Extra Strong and LE with only one minion left. Okay, very glad it wasn't dragged in as well. The rest of the Flayer Dungeon was taken very slowly and turned up no further nasty surprises. Vidala's Fetlock dropped which did not seem like adequate reward for the stress involved.


Back to the Flayer Jungle for a slow but straight-forward clear, finding Goreshovel and Bverrit Keep along the way. Raced into LK to find and tap the waypoint before deciding that was enough for today.


Have left the Great Marsh, Arachnid Lair and Swampy Pit for later.


[highlight]Envy and Klar, Lvl 61, NM Act 3, LK, 15 S/Us equipped[/highlight]

 

[jiansonz]

Down the dungeon and the first room was packed with Flayer Shaman and Flayers and some Gloombats and a boss pack or two. These were negotiated and then Klar went to the right chasing one of the last remaining Flayers while the CG went left. I followed Klar into a dead-end room with some Gloombats in it. The CG decided to join us dragging in some Flayers from the other way. Then the CG died, Klar died and suddenly Envy was mobbed by too many bats and Flayers, all of them minions. Figuring the previous fight was almost over and we were just mopping up I hadn't bothered restocking potions and most of them were already gone. The final two went very quickly. With 8% FHR Envy was spending a lot of time in hit recovery, life was going down fast and I was starting to panic. Tried casting DV and CG but was too slow and kept getting put back in hit recovery. Ouch! Okay run and hope that I haven't left it too late. Made it out of the room and into the previous room where two minion Flayers were lurking. Bamm! Back into hit recovery and hit pause to give myself a chance to think. The red bulb was looking very low by now. Nothing for it but to keep on running and hope to make the stairs. Whew back into the Flayer Jungle with 95 life left (more than I thought I had).

Yikes, that was intense! Envy can quote Marius here: "What choice did I have? I ran."


Eric has cleared Spider Forest and Spider Cavern. He had to do a lot of Shockwaving on Thorned Hulks, plus hit them so his poison charm kicked in, otherwise they'd take a long time for Unferth to kill.

I secured some long loop tracks before taking on Sszark. Only one minion followed, and I lost that one with a Shockwave + retreat combo. Old buy-a-vowel was fiercly stunlocked by dual hitting from Eric and Unferth. Shockwave does not work on bosses but the Maul stun sometimes does, plus my Knockback on the gloves help. I backed off the last seconds because Sszark was FE.

Pretty weird layout of Spider Forest this time. One early branch to the right leads to the Great Marsh, with the Arachnid Lair alcove opening to the north at the start of that branch. The main road forward on Spider Forest eventually leads to an empty alcove, while a later branch to the left has the Spider Cavern alcove going downwards early and the rest of that branch is a long stretch leading to a dead end.

Only find of note was a 30% Sapphire Grand Charm (stashed for now).

This game is going to be paused overnight now. I know there are Bog Creatures in the Marsh, but I do not know what other two creature types I rolled.


[highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 60, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Great Marsh next[/highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

Yikes, that was intense! Envy can quote Marius here: "What choice did I have? I ran."

Appropriate quote and yes it was intense. I really believed that Envy was going to deeds. Good lesson that I needed to switch back into tourney mode play.

May your Great Marsh monsters be good ones.

 

[jiansonz]

[/I]
May your Great Marsh monsters be good ones.

Both types of frog demons, plus Bramble Hulks. Hulks were tough, with three boss packs and some Champs (including a Berserker that I left for my merc to fight. Even with ~1200 life, I have respect for these guys because I know what they can do when their wooden trunk arm starts swinging like crazy).

I was a bit unlucky with sparkly chests in the Marsh - there was only one.

More frogs in Flayer Jungle, plus shaman packs and vultures (crap - regular vultures can't drop weapons and armors). Easy pickings for my merc.

Flayer Dungeon was quite dangerous at the start, with a dual boss pack of Dark Shapes. I actually did not know that there was a second boss pack at the time, but it was obvious that one boss had Might + Cursed! The starting segment was one of those that has two tiny rooms where the entrance stairs is in one of them. I tried to Shockwave and fight the boss pack but they soon ate both my merc and my HoW (Amp made it no longer PI). I was not in a panic or anything but I retreated to the other tiny room and portalled out. It took me a long time to get back from the Marsh WP. When I did, I saw 'boss glow' through the wall, and it was moving so it knew we were there. I ran forward in the dungeon and into the next room. Lucked out that all the ghosts got stuck on a corner obstacle in the little room they were in.

I made a stand in the next room. This was the remains of the other boss pack, plus a regular pack. I used Poison Creeper to stop regeneration but that backfired a bit because the stupid creeper woke up at least one more ghost pack ahead, maybe two. I had to juggle over a dozen ghosts with many, many Shockwaves while Unferth slowly worked on them. Some of them dropped mana potions, which was good because I needed to pick up and use those mid-fight. All this time I was afraid that nasty boss would find us. I was especially worried when the HoW moved back around the corner in that direction...
But yay, they never found us! That meant I could clear the rest of that floor before separating them. Alone, the Might boss was smacked repeatedly into a wall and barely got any hits in.

Then I screwed up with the second boss (LE + Cursed) and killed it while it must have been 'inside the wall' , and I was robbed of a boss drop again.

Stormtree was Cursed but we still almost killed him quickly on the bridge over the river. I had the minions locked in a stun but one of my Shockwaves must have been aimed wrong. One minion broke free and joined Stormy in the melee, Unferth started to attack it. Stormtree was no longer as stunned so he wailed on Unferth and stunned him something fierce. Rejuve needed. My nice front/battle situation had now fallen apart and I had to flee. Moved one lap around the river bridges and could work on the pack from the other side. Stormtree was still tough to kill, and I spent a couple of the big purples I had saved from earlier this session.

Three S/U finds in the jungle:
* Goreshovel (ah, Open Wounds secured on a non-eth item)
* Sigon's Wrap (always nice to collect from this set, it has potential. This is my first item from it.)
* Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest (Yowza! I believe I have my endgame headgear right here. More resists than Infernal Cranium, and the life bonus will be very large when I am a bear. Plus life steal is always nice (merc will use this, at least in Nightmare). The only drawback is the high level requirement - 66, and we are only level 61. So I'll have to wait with this until late Act IV.)

One level-up and another point to Shockwave. 7 seconds duration now. I will keep adding points until I reach the 10 seconds that's been talked about in this thread. When that is done, I will work towards maxing Lycanthropy (for more safety) and if I survive that long, put the rest of the points into Werebear.


[Highlight]Eric the Werebear and Unferth the barbarian, level 61, 12 S/U items equipped, NM Arachnid Lair, Swampy Pit and Lower Kurast next[/Highlight]

 

[Dazliare1]

I think I want to get in on this - anyone recommend a build? I was thinking a trapper, but I'm open to suggestions