Skill-less tournament (3rd edition)

[SunsetVista]

Blood Raven had a bow with cold damage and knockback but no life steal. Early in the fight I was happy when she summoned more zombies because then I could blow them up to damage her. She eventually stopped summoning aid and she couldn't get away from Waheed while decrepified.

A 4 socket CV dropped in the Crypt. Waheed can wield this with Griswolds Heart (2 p amethyst, 1 ort).
-----
Insight
Colossus Voulge
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 61 - 511
Durability: 29 of 50
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 210
Required Dexterity: 55
Fingerprint: 0x70d7d915
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 13 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
210% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
218% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+5 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
-----

Yredelemnul and Waheed, lvl 77, Lost City
The Hole and Stony Tomb next

 

[Dezrok]

On another note, I'm so embarrassed - I vendored my +3 find item helm

Oops!

Unlikely and Vikhyat have defeated Mephisto and moved on to Act 4.

We started Act 3 by shopping a wand with +1 Decrep, +2 Attract and 35% fire res, then hit the Spider Forest. The first pack we met dropped Darkglow and Ichorsting. A short time later Hawkmail dropped, then Bloodrise and lastly Arctic Binding. Not a bad haul for one area.

Two skills dominated Act 3, Attract and Dim Vision. So powerful, even at lvl 2. Two nasty stair traps in the temples were easily dealt with using Attract. The monsters turned on each other and Vikhyat could then kill at his leisure, while Unlikely had the time to just stand around and wait, even though completely surrounded. Likewise for pesky dart blowing Flayers. A couple of Attracts and they didn't know who they were shooting at anymore. Then, anything with spells or special attacks, like Ghoul Lords, Hierophants, Council Members and Flayer Shaman, could be shut right down with a good dose of DV. They just stood around waiting for Vikhyat to get around to killing them. Not a single merc death so far.

More wand shopping saw Unlikley upgrade to a +1 Decrep, +2 Attract, +1 DV wand and then a bit later a +2 Summon Res, +1 Attract version. The Summon Res gave the Clay Golem much higher survivability against non-physical attacks. Wand shopping is aimed at getting me access to 8 skills: Attract, DV, Amp, CE, Golem Mastery and Summon Res on primary and Decrep and CG on switch. If I can get all of these on the one set-up I will be a very happy Necro.

A few more drops, the only one of note was Milabrega's Orb. At this stage we are very dependent on our shield slot for some of our skills, so have opted not to use it. 177% MF with an additional 65% on merc kills will have to be enough. Our weapon switch is a 3 socket comp bow with flawed rubies and a sapphire, which has been our only way of killing many of the Stygian Watcher type monsters that are out of Vikhyat's reach … so no shield possible there either.

The Durance dropped me nothing, until Bremm Sparkfist coughed up an Amn. Very early for an Amn to drop, possibly the earliest I've ever had it drop, no Ort or Thul yet either. So, that gives me the possibility to make Strength in a polearm so Vikhyat can get a bit of CB (except his current stick hurts just fine), or else Edge in a composite bow and switch to a Cold Rogue to take advantage of the Thorns aura with a Clay Golem. The CG was very squishy at the end of the Act, so not sure how well that will work without some more +skills (which I can get, but it involves giving up some MF). A third option would be for Unlikely to wield the Edge bow and give up his casting. Vikhyat and the CG could then tank while under Thorns. Many choices and all of them are likely to work at this stage, probably best not to overthink it.

Last part of the Act was of course Mepisto. Taken on p8. I had thought quite a bit about dropping the players setting but in the end, didn't. I switched in a Decrep wand for this battle, which meant I lost Summon Resist, resulting a CG which went 'poof' almost as soon as cast. After a few casts I decided I wouldn't bother and just let Vikhyat tank on his own while Unlikely kept Meph under Decrep. 3 reds, 2 blues and 2 purples later Meph was dead and Unlikely was the owner of another Dragon Chang, which he promptly sold.

The only other thing worth noting has been some small charm drops. 2x 7% lightning, 3x 7% fire and 1x 6% fire (not all of these were in this Act). With weapon and shield dedicated to providing skills, and the other gear slots all for MF, these are pretty much my only source or resists at the moment. Shield, belt and boots provide some minor extras and a couple of other charms contribute a pittance as well. Something which I'll probably need to change before Diablo.

Unlikely the Necro, Lvl 32, Normal Act 4

 

[SunsetVista]

@Dezrok - nice progress! It's neat to hear your strategies and how they are a little different from what I did. I really like the bow on switch to kill the river monsters, the early attract, and that you courageously killed Meph on /p8.

Waheed's new weapon is amazing. I miss the extra leech and the cannot be frozen, but most fights are much easier.
Creeping Feature was not a problem, even though he's cold enchanted. I led his pack over to a pile of corpses and blew them up. Waheed did die in Hole 2 when he ran right into a double bosspack of cursed brutes and cold-enchanted misshapen. After I ressed him I was able to pull them one at a time and then CE took over. I actually put full rejuvs in the stash this session! Better not get overconfident though.

I blew up half of the Halls of the Dead to prevent the mummies from resurrecting anything. Waheed kills quickly enough with Insight that it doesn't really matter much that he can't leech from skellies.

Had a NDE with a mob of Decayed and a cold enchanted Spear Cat pack stair trap in Halls of the Dead 3. Waheed died quickly. I used terror to chase the undead away from the stairs and dim vision to limit the damage from the spears somewhat. After several more merc resurrections, I decided to approach from another direction. I ran blindly into a random hallway, which turned out to be full of decayed and lightning bats. Yikes! Fortunately, some of the monsters from the stairs followed me. Also fortunately, I was able to put up a town portal and escape before they killed me. I came back through the Halls of the Dead 2 waypoint and immediately put down a new tp so I wouldn't accidentally go back to the deathtrap I'd created. This time there were fewer monsters at the stairs, and so Waheed could kill the decayed while I kept the minion spearcats blinded. Eventually the way was clear.

Note to self: Next time, remember the attract wand in the stash instead of running into the unknown. You could've died! ...but also, attract might have made it worse. So who knows?

Bloodwitch the Wild dropped a golden serpentskin armor. Sweet!

View attachment 639

Yredelemnul, exploder of many corpses, and Waheed, walking mana regen shrine of doom, lvl 77, Lost City
Viper Temple and Maggot Lair next

 

[HanShotFirst]

@SunsetVista - I've got your golden shiny 1.13 rune of hope right here .

View attachment 644

Or maybe it's really more of a golden shiny 1.13 rune of despair as there's really nothing to be done with it . . . A Lem, Fal, or Lum really would have been better for me . . .

I could create a Chaos on the spot which is really a shame that either I'm not playing an Assassin or that jiansonz didn't get my drops (well, yet). I think I speak for everyone when I say I would really, really, REALLY, love to see him play an untwinked, skill-less, Whirlwind Assassin through the near entirety of Hell. Alas . . .

. . . and now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

Hell Act I is complete!

I did a (nearly) full clear at players 5 except for the Forgotten Tower Level 5 and the Catacombs Level 4 (those areas were cleared at players 1). The 'full clear' is prefaced by 'nearly' because I was unable to defeat six unique monsters and a super unique. The monsters that bested Hazade and I were two Zombies in the Cave Level 1, Treehead Woodfist, and two Wraiths and two Goatmen spread one each across the first four levels of the Forgotten Tower. All these monsters were immune to physical plus seriously cold enchanted in some way. This was a problem because Hazade was using Boneflesh to defeat monsters immune to physical and Duriel's Shell to defeat monsters that were cold enchanted. So if a monster was both immune to physical and cold enchanted, Hazade could put on Duriel's Shell and preserve attack speed at the expense of being able to damage the monster or Hazade could put on Boneflesh and preserve being able to damage the monster at the expense of (basically all) attack speed . Obviously neither scenario was an option. A stashed switch weapon for Hazade with Open Wounds probably would have let me defeat most of those monsters but I didn't think that far ahead and didn't really have any extra room in my stash anyways (because my Sorceress also needed extra stashed switch weapons).

Before heading out the gate I changed out the MF gear on my Sorceress for resistance and damage reduction gear. A Smoke Ghost Armor was key to keeping her resistances at 75 and a Lore Circlet was the best I could manage for 'damage reduction gear' (because wouldn't you know it . . . I didn't have nearly as many Sol Runes as I'd hoped). The primary weapon continued to be an orb with Glacial Spike, Teleport, and Telekinesis. The switch weapons were an orb with Energy Shield and then a staff with Frozen Armor and Static Field and then some wands with various curses (though the wands didn't get much use). This meant a lot of gear switching . . . switching orbs, switching the staff, switching Hazade's armor . . . switching stuff from the inventory to the stash so I could carry enough loot to keep the venture funded . . . switching, switching, switching. I put up with this until the Outer Cloister when I decided to make an investment in my quality of life and gathered FOURTEEN RUNES, FIVE GEMS, and a staff I'd shopped when I first reached Act II (normal):

View attachment 645

and created:

View attachment 646

So now I had all the skills I wanted to use on EQUIPED equipment and that made all the difference. The non-stop trips to town . . . stopped. The monsters fell faster and safer (did I mention the fumbling in my inventory and sometimes the cube . . . RISKY). The air seemed cleaner and the food tasted better (you know what I mean) and I went from feeling that the end was near to full speed ahead!

Well, as full speed ahead as was possible considering Hazade needed a better weapon! The Insight Bec-de-Corbin that had seemed so great at the end of NM Act V seemed weak, really weak, at the start of Hell Act I. And it really only got worse because I couldn't find an upgrade . I had (and still have) two socket quests, a Ko Rune, and an Um Rune, BUT NO ELITE ITEM BASES. I didn't see a single white or grey elite polearm (come on elite Insight). I didn't see any elite two handed swords (jiansonz, I am open to your Act V Merc idea ). The only potentially useful elite bow that I found would require a socket quest to be used . And I didn't see a single elite armor (Duress?). Aargh! Still, we managed.

Interestingly, the only really interesting places were the two areas that I did at players 1. The Forgotten Tower Level 5 was done at players 1 because I wanted more rune drops . . . and that saved my life. Upon entering Level 5 I was greeted by three unique monster groups (Fallen, Goatmen, and Wraiths) all pressed up against the entrance! Hazade died instantaneously and in the same moment I was cursed and blind teleporting to the center chamber where there was a fanatic group that necessitated a blind double teleport to a side chamber where there were yet more monsters but enough space to tp out without taking too much damage . I resurrected Hazade, dispelled the Amplify Damage curse, and returned, and was pleased to see that I had not only moved fast enough to survive but had also moved fast enough not too draw all those monster groups into the side chamber behind me . We cleared out the random monsters in the side chamber and then started on the unique groups one by one. Turns out we had been up against a combined double cursed, extra strong, extra fast, fanatic mob . Yikes! At players 5 it would have been game over . . .

The Catacombs Level 4 was done at players 1 because NM Andariel had been a beast and Hazade's weapon really needed improvement. So much improvement that this time around I decided I better plan on bringing in a designated hitter. At the Catacombs Level 2 waypoint I brought on the Witchwild String, a Rattlecage, and a couple Shaels. Then in the battle against Andariel Hazade began by tanking long enough for me to use Static Field (for as much as I could use it for ). I then returned to the Rogue Encampment, hired and equiped Heather, and then returned to face Andariel. And then things were easy! Andariel was lead to the widest part of the chamber and then Heather and I began doing tele-strafing runs back and forth across the Demon until she was dead. No fatalities! . . . you know, except for the Demon . . .

Andariel dropped an Undead Crown Crown. Other set/uniques included: Sigon's Helm (from the Blood Moor), Hwanin's Splendor Grand Crown (from the Den of Evil), Ichorstring Crossbow (from the Crypt), Undead Crown Crown (from the Cave Level 1), Cathan's Ring (from the Dark Wood), Magnus Skin Gloves (from the Forgotten Tower Level 3), Goblin Toe Light Plated Boots (from the Countess), and Heart Carver Rondel (from the Jail Level 1). Not much, but with only 79 MF I wasn't expecting much . . . I was expecting some elite whites and greys . . . Hell Act II had better produce!

Hanshotfirst, Sorceress, Two, Level 80, Act II Hell, Lut Gholein

 

[HanShotFirst]

Um. In case you couldn't tell . . . I've been having serious technical difficulties . . .

When I attempt to embed an image or add a hyperlink or add smilies or edit my post I get three flashing (apparently loading) bars in the upper right corner of the screen and nothing happens . . .

What gives? Does anyone else have this problem?

I've wasted the last hour trying to figure this out. Everything was working and I was adding the pictures as the very last thing before I posted and then my whole post was LOST and then more and more things stopped working . . .

I recreated as much of my original post as possible and apparently what you see is as good as it is going to get . . . So when you see ** add the emoticon of your choice. And picture a sweet screenshot of an Ohm Rune from the Forgotten Tower Level 2 at the top of the post.

Cheers!

EDIT: Fixed it! The ad that had been running at the top of the page when things started to get whacky has been replaced and suddenly everything is working again now that they're running a different ad . . . weird . . . but I'll take it!

 

[Dezrok]

I thought I'd push on.
And so ends Act 4.

Started out making Edge RW in a composite bow and farewelling Vikhyat, replacing him with Gwinni the Fire Rogue. I'd never tried the Thorns aura with recastable tank before, so was interested to see how it worked.

In order to provide the buffest CG I could, to work with the Thorns aura, I did a bit of gear swapping as well. On went a Graverobber Amulet of Chance (6% MF), a wand with +1 Attract and +2 Summon Res, and a Head of Defelcting with +2 Golem Mastery. Switch was a wand with +2 CE and +3 CG and a head with 2os and +2 CG. This would give me a lvl 6 CG with lvl 3 SR and GM.

On to the Outer Steppes. Other than casting golems, our only skills were Attract and CE. CE I find under-whelming at lvl 3 on p8 and Attract just wasn't being as awesome as it had been in Act 3. Different monsters I guess and these ones were needing DV, which I just didn't have anymore. Also, the CG would survive the weapon switch but would randomly 'poof'. Not what I was after, so I changed Unlikely's primary shield to that rare head with +1 CG, +1 CE and +2 DV, which I had thoughtfully left in the sash, just in case.

Now the CG stayed around and I had DV to play with. Took a bit of getting used to, very different from playing with a Desert Merc, but it was fun and effective. A GC with 23% cold res dropped to help out our resists and we shopped a staff with tele charges … just in case.

Izual was the feature of the Plains of Despair, we had a nice safe fight against him, although it was rather long and boring. The CG slows by 41% and with a bit of chill from Gwinni as well, he hardly swings at all. No exciting drops, but we shopped some Amber(35%) light plated boots of Luck(29%).

Hell Forge dropped an Eth, along with 2 flawless topazes. These combined with the flawless and perfect topaz I already had to give a nice boost to MF when placed in a breast plate.

More shopping found us a +2 SR, +1 PE, +3 CE, +63 mana wand (I wish I had remembered to swap the Edge RW to Unlikely for the purchase though, would have saved me 60k gold).

CS saw a nice head drop, with +2 SR, +2 Decrep and +2 IM, while Lord de Seis dropped a Face of Horror. Some pretty awesome fights, with stacks of monsters piling in on top of the CG and some monsters under Attract. OKs blasting in from the sides and Gwinni calmly plinking away with her bow, killing them all.

For Diablo, I switched in a wand with +1 Decrep and 35% fire res. Resists were now 75 fire and 59 lightning, but I wasn't convinced that Gwinni was doing enough damage, so I dropped the players setting to p5. Glad I did, the first lightning hose hit Unlikely full on and a quick full rejuv was all that saved him. Some very rusty skills on display to get in that spot of bother. Anyway, we struggled for a while to get into a nice position and at one point Diablo used his Bone Cage which we quickly tp'd out of. Quite good timing as we were needing to restock pots anyway.

Back for the second half and things went a bit smoother. I found a decent spot, got my timing down with recasts of the CG and Decrep, and Gwinni just kept on plinking away with the bow. Eventually Diablo did the decent thing and died. Another Milabrega Orb was the only S/U.

Unlikely the Necro and Gwinni the Cold Rogue, Lvl 35, Normal Act 5 Harrogath

and inspiring progress from SunsetVista and HanShotFirst! Gratz on the Ohm to HansShotFirst! (and thanks for the technical difficulties explanation, I'm not going to even try doing anything fancy).

 

[SunsetVista]

@HanShotFirst - wow! Great progress and congrats on Ohm. Although, you need another high rune to do anything with it. Golden shiny rune of hope AND despair, all in one! Now I'm hoping you can eventually make Faith with it. Awesome Andariel kill, too. Will you keep Heather around? Can we see the quality of life boosting Memory? It was a great writeup even with technical difficulties.

@Dezrok - grats on Diablo kill, and good foresight to grab a tele staff early. As soon as I can safely lose my maps, I'm going back to buy one in Normal, too. If I live that long without it.

 

[jiansonz]

Yeah, great progress, people.


Helena has had her worst dog days for, hopefully, ever...

Other than the fact that both Meghan's bows are pretty wimpy for /p8 in Nightmare, the main problem in early Act III was a double boss pack of maggots in Spider Cavern. They were out in a large room and so spread out that I could not reach them all with CoS. I could tank + CoS the little ones in a narrow entrance to this room, something which I did for minutes on end on several occasions. I had to go back to buy packs of potions, usually something like 8 red and 3 blue. First time this character has needed any mana potions - I had to keep the CoS constantly up or the little ones would overwhelm us. I have a couple of screenies that look like this one:

I have four in a series that span over 19 minutes. Other than that the orange boss is actually dead in the last one, there is very little difference between them - very little progress made. And I did not take one during many minutes at first either. I had to take a break from this grueling fight to stay sane, and tackle some poisonous spiders and regular packs of only about 3 maggots at a time. This screenie:

shows where I have come from the 'back door' so to speak, and finally have some control. The boss is done with its eggs and I can affect every minion and regular maggot with my CoS. This screenie is taken 57 minutes after the first...

Once that mess was cleaned up, Sszark was an afterthought. I had only feared Extra Fast (and maybe HF) but those did not spawn (I think it was Spectral Hit). When it was chilled, it was easy to keep the distance to the scary spider.

Even with the dreaded Hulks in both Spider Forest and Great Marsh, they (together) did not take longer to clear than the Spider Cavern did. Curious monster draw in the Marsh, btw: Hulks and both frog types. I switched to the rare Rune Bow and that helped quite a bit if I made sure to hit every beast with a PMH arrow. I have noticed that I start having troubling hitting with those arrows before Meghan has applied Inner Sight on the monsters.

It was now past bedtime yesterday night. I put the computer to sleep mode and continued today.

Flayer Jungle had large packs of melee Soul Killers, Soul Killer Shaman packs and vultures. As I had expected, the 'Edge' bow was good against all flayers. I found a second Ko rune in the jungle, so now I decided that a Harmony bow was due. I changed focus in what to look for. With all that elemental damage (including a little added by the Static Circlet), I decided that a fast bow would be more important than usual. Double Bow would be the best among the ones that can drop now, and they also happen to have 4 sockets max. Nice. I saved a white one, and it did get four sockets with the recipe! (I also had a backup in the form of a 9-25 damage Superior Razor Bow with 4 sockets. Double Bow does 11-26.)

I have played Arach lair, Swampy Pit and LK with this new bow. Major improvement! Now the gameplay does not feel like Hell anymore (which it has done from mid-Act I NM), I feel more 'in the game' now. I think I want a Harmony for myself also
I borrowed the bow and cast a Valkyrie in town. Of course it poofed when I switched from the bow, but not until then. Are you saying she can poof at other times? And what about the Revives?

I have sacrificed a few MF points for better resists. My amulet is now an 11/32 Ocher/Luck and my boots are 24/34 Cobalt/Luck Light Plated. Fire resist is still single digit value, but a nice 7% small charm has at least taken it to 9%. With the added Vigor, I felt I could afford changing to the only 4s armor I have found, a Full Plate (3 perfect topazes this far) and a Rhyme Tower Shield instead of Bone Shield. She is really slow moving in town (Vigor is not shared in town) but I can get rid of half the penalty by switching to my bow.


[Highlight]Helena the Assassin and Meghan the Cold sister, level 62, NM Kurast Bazaar next[/Highlight]

 

[epaminondas]

Adriana is still moving forward (albeit slower due to RL issues), but it feels like a table post is needed to show the world what impressive progress we have here (especially you guys in Hell and I don't think that it's attributable to increased rune drops):

Alive characters:
Forum Name      Class       Char Name    LVL   ACT     WP             Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SunsetVista      Necro      Yredelemnul   77   A2(H)   Lost City         1.13
HanShotFirst  ***Sorc       Two           80   A2(H)   Lut Gholein       
felixbavaria    *Paladin    Incompetentus 60   A3(N)   Lower Kurast      1.13d
jiansonz         Assassin   Helena        62   A3(N)   Lower Kurast      1.13
japanzaman       Barb       Babs          57   A3(N)   Kurast Docks      1.13
Dazliare        *Barb       Vladimir      54   A2(N)   Far Oasis
Sput             Sorc       Skilllass     51   A1(N)   Outer Cloister
epaminondas     *Assassin   Adriana       49   A1(N)   Black Marsh       1.11
Dezrok           Necro      Unlikely      35   A5      Harrogath
Southpaw8668     Necro      Goulash       14   A1      Black Marsh       1.13
imakeigloospat   Druid      Glenn          1   A1      Rogue Enc         1.13d
xXxGrimmxXx      Amazon     WaffleStrike   1   A1      Rogue Enc         1.13d
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dead ones:
Forum Name      Class       Char Name    LVL   ACT     Place of Deeds  Version
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southpaw8668    *Paladin    Lucious      >19   A2      Duriel           1.13
xXxGrimmxXx    **Druid      Roland      >=17   A1      Monastery        1.13d
xXxGrimmxXx    **Assassin   Noctyria       9   A1      Cave Lvl 1       1.13d
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:
*  = this class has been randomly chosen
** = this class has been somewhat randomly chosen
*** = this character needed a random decision that it would not be random :)

 

[Dezrok]

Just a quick and somewhat rhetorical question ... why do so many monsters in Act 4 drop keys? In fact, why do any monsters in Act 4 drop keys given that there is almost never a chest (or anything that could possibly have a lock) anywhere in the entire Act! It felt like every second monster was dropping keys on this latest play through.

And for epaminodas - I am playing 1.13d (so you can complete the table)

and jiansonz ... dual Harmony will be lovely! (I'm not going to even talk about maggots)

 

[epaminondas]

@Dezrok: Well, it seems logical that if not a lot of locked stuff is available, then a surplus of keys should be ascertained. It is offer and demand really. More so, a random monster should drop what he has, not what you need . But I have no reasonable explanation for a cloud of flies carrying a poleaxe.

 

[Sput]

Impressive progress by many. Well done. I wonder if the Ohm might find a home socketed in a nice rare or unique weapon. +50% ED is nothing to sneeze at.

Azrael and Skilllass have cleared act I and now sit in Lut Gholein at level 53. Thanks to Insight the clear up to Andariel on p8 went quickly. It was immediately obvious that Azrael in his topazed armor and helm was not able to tank Andy, so Skilllass had to step and distract while Azrael jabbed away. With 76% poison resist and 54% block, she was up to the task though there were a few trips back to town to restock. The only drop of note from Andy was Endlesshail the unique Double Bow. After not finding a single Tower Shield for Rhyme, I finally broke down and made one in a Bone Shield.

 

[felixbavaria1]

Great progress everyone, the most successful Skill-less Tournament so far, with at least two participants getting far into Hell.

@jiansonz: I once played a Strafer with Harmony and the revives poofed from time to time, but maybe +all skills could fix it. The charges cost an arm and a leg to repair, so use wisely

On a related note, would you be able to get a CtC Valkyrie from Peace that doesn't poof while you wield Harmony?

As to Incompetentus, the duo has reached mid Act IV in NM. All of Act III was easy. No doll boss packs in Durance 2 (only champ packs). Bremm had the wimpiest possible aura (Holy Fire), and Mephisto was easy to dispatch with life tap charges (didn't drop Razan below 1/2 health), but he dropped junk.

The first two areas of Act IV, on the other hand, were quite brutal. Outer Steppes didn't have spawners, so I increased the player setting to /p7, but then this guy achieved what Mephisto could not achieve: kill Razan about 4 times (in like 2 hits), despite being under influence of Life Tap. First NDE too, with a Lightning Enchanted Corpse Spitter. I believe there was some damage glitch in this area.

Plains of Despair had spawners and gloams. Yikes. Level 2 Dim Vision doesn't cut it any more at this stage of the game.

City of the Damned was easy (the wimpiest possible monster draw: damned, bats, and corpse spitters), and we were rewarded with a Pul rune.

[highlight]Incompetentus and Razan, level 64, City of the Damned (NM)[/highlight]

 

[SunsetVista]

Yredelemnul and Waheed are fascinated by the Arcane Sanctuary. We have a Horadric staff.

Dim Vision reduced the damage the vipers could deal to Waheed, and then I blew them up with CE.
Fangskin was cold enchanted, and I didn't notice until I killed him with CE, so I got hit by the cold explosion. One of the vipers survived and attacked me for a NDE. mmm, purple pots.

I got a great monster roll in maggot lair. The first 2 levels had scarabs, death beetles, and black locusts. No maggots. =) Some of the locust bosses had unbreakable physical immunity, but CE and elemental damage on charms and Insight took them down. The 3rd level had lots of maggots. I bravely faced Coldworm and did not back away, so she didn't spawn too many more maggots. Blood and guts everywhere.

No NDE's in the palace, and I even made money despite a few merc deaths. There was a cursed, cold enchanted, conviction archer pack on palace 3 that I stayed away from (or if that combo isn't possible, there were 2 packs close together with those mods). Not worth the risk!

Finds were 2 white cryptic axes, hel, io, and a Dwarf Star on Claw Viper 2. I'll have to swap some res gear, but I should wear that thing.

Yredelemnul and Waheed, lvl 78, Arcane Sanctuary (Hell)
I predict decrep on goatmen, dim vision on vamps, and terror on ghosts...

 

[Noodle]

This is a really fun thread to read. Great write-ups.

 

[HanShotFirst]

@SunsetVista - Good eye for detail! After I shut my computer down last night I realized that while I had addressed the missing Ohm Rune screenshot I hadn't addressed the missing Memory screenshots. I thought about turning my computer back on and making a third post but decided that might start to look really pathetic. Plus, I was pretty mad about my much better (and so, so, close to being completed) posts freezing and disappearing that I decided I better stay away from this site for a bit . . .

Anyhow, here it is:
(I still can't edit or post screenshots . . . is this a problem for anyone else?)
EDIT: Fixed it! (See above.) The problem seems to be related to the type of ad the site is running . . .

Memory
Battle Staff
'LumIoSolEth'
Two-Hand Damage: 15 to 16
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 37
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x52c6b63e
+10 to Energy
+10 to Vitality
+50% Enhanced Defense
+9 to Minimum Damage
Magic Damage Reduced by 7
Increase Maximum Mana 20%
+3 to Sorceress Skill Levels
33% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Static Field (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Frozen Armor (Sorceress Only)
+3 to Energy Shield (Sorceress Only)
-25% Target Defense
150% Damage to Undead
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Nothing too special in terms of a base. Just exactly what I needed. I used a Ral Rune, an Amn Rune and Pamethyst to socket it. Had the base been any better, say, +3 Frozen Armor and perhaps +3 Static Field and or +3 Telekinesis and I would have been compelled to use a socket quest. So, ho-hum actually worked out well here.

The other screenshot I had intended to add was of three Dol Runes, five Hel Runes, two Io Runes, a Sol Rune and an Eth Rune (and associated gems needed for upgrading the runes). So, fourteen (not too shabby) runes for Memory? . . . turned out to be SO WORTH IT! So much so that I wasn't even annoyed when an Io Rune dropped right after . . .

On the mercenary front, Heather stayed at the Rogue Encampment and Mighty Hazade has reunited with my Sorceress for the start of Hell Act 2 . . . Though Heather might make a repeat appearance in the future . . . I considered hiring a Rogue and using tele-strafing as my main tactic but I'd need to use a better weapon than a double Shael'ed Witchwild String (the players 1 monsters behind Andariel didn't go down especially fast). I have a Ko Rune and a 15% ED white Blade Bow but I'm not really ready to spend a socket quest and half an Obedience (hey, I can dream) on something that may or may not be all that great . . .

Anyhow, congrats on your walking mana regen shrine of doom . . . At least for now, I'm holding out for one of those!

 

[Atroz]

This seems like a fun tourney to enter, and I've been wanting to get back into D2, so win win. I roll a 7 sided dice getting a 2 which is an assassin. This shall be interesting (please good claw drops!!!!)

 

[SunsetVista]

@HanShotFirst - thanks! That's a nice Memory. I like that we're having a corpse explosion vs teleport race. I don't want to lose. =)

@Atroz - welcome and good luck with your Assassin!

Arcane Sanctuary was difficult, but fun to play. As expected, dim vision on vamps and decrep on goatmen. Waheed tried to race amp'd specters, but wasn't always successful. He could, however, take 3 of them at once if they were decrepified. When there were more of them, I tried to lure them over to a big CE, and if that wasn't possible, terror them so there were fewer for Waheed to deal with. I did end up parking one Stone Skin, Conviction specter boss. Terror also helped get goatmen away from teleporters. I don't have any teleport charges, so I used a lot of town portals to get Waheed to his destination when stairs confused him. I had to use all my staffmod skills effectively on this stage. I felt so powerful!

View attachment 647

and there's a golden shiny rune of hope! Also found a Sureshill Frost.

Yredelemnul, staffmod mojomancer, and Waheed, ghostbuster, lvl 79, Hell Canyon of the Magi
I am looking forward to the false tombs, weird, huh?

 

[jiansonz]

There was a cursed, cold enchanted, conviction archer pack on palace 3 that I stayed away from (or if that combo isn't possible, there were 2 packs close together with those mods). Not worth the risk!

That combo can indeed spawn, but I think you could have taken those with not too much risk after clearing the rest of the level. It's quite possible to lure away and separate archers, even though it can take time and be tricky. The boss alone does not sound too nasty if you'd both boost resist with thawing potions, then use Life Tap and purples for the merc.


@HanShotFirst: wow, what a Tower Cellar level 5 welcome! I've had my share of nasty stairs traps there, but nothing this bad.

Why did you pick Frozen Armor instead of Shiver Armor? I prefer the latter because 1.) monsters get chilled already when they start the attack animation, you can often avoid the hit (FA requires you to get hit in order to work) and 2.) chill time for SA level 1 is 4 seconds (1 sec in Hell vs non-resistant monsters). FA does freeze instead of chill but the freeze time is extremely short in Hell.




Helena and Meghan move along nicely now. Harmony is a fitting name for that runeword
(IMO quite a bit OP though, getting Cruel damage and all that elemental for a Ko. Not OP in this tourney, of course, but otherwise.)
Twice in the Kurast city areas, I came upon Champion zakarum priest packs that we could not kill because they healed each other too fast (regular priests can be blinded by CoS). There is a standard solution for that, though, get them away from each other. So I left them for now but checked Ormus', Hratli's and Asheara's one-handed weapons for 'of the Bear' on my selling trips. No Bear weapon, but this worked just as well:

(it's hard to see the Champ - he is just above the word Dagger in the text block). There were just enough charges to get two of the three priests out of the building and far enough away.

Sarina's pack was met at an advantageous spot for us:

The purpose of this screenie is only to celebrate what I think is always a milestone for a character, the first elite drop:

Toughest fight for the rest of the act was the start of Forgotten Reliquary in Upper Kurast:

Quite the welcome. Good thing I could always click on the exit when I needed to. Those spiders are very poisonous!
There was also an Extra Fast Holy Freeze spider boss in here that was a bit of a pain. Annoying bugger, which fled when wounded and later did a suprise attack at a bad time when we were busy fighting its minions.

Recent finds:
Trang-Oul's Claws
13% fire resist large charm
26% Sapphire Jewel of Fervor
Enough topazes to fill my 4s Full Plate with perfects. Time to find another armor so Meghan can also get an MF upgrade.
Damaged Hand Scythe with +1 Fade and +1 Dragon Tail
2x low quality Knout. My third try at normalizing+socketing finally got me a 3s one. Only one Eld left in the stash now (but I think I can cube a few more if needed). The Black will have to wait because I have not found an Io or even a Hel yet.
Riphook (Mephisto) This may come in handy!
Tancred's Hobnails (Mephisto) I think this is only the second time these have dropped for me (but I have gambled them about 5 times).

Mephisto was taken at /p3 and was moat trick killed by Meghan (took less than 15 minutes).


[Highlight]Helena the CoS-addict Assassin and Meghan the powerful Cold sister, level 64, NM Outer Steppes next[/Highlight]

 

[Dezrok]

Destroyer Unlikely has defeated Baal, cleared the Cows and moved on to the NM Rogue Camp.

The Bloody Foothills were uninspiring, although I realised that I should have been using a Fire Rogue instead of a Cold Rogue. The Cold Rogue's special cold arrow has a shorter range than their normal arrow and often doesn't reach the target. So, before moving onto the Frigid Highlands we took Kyoko onto the team.

A few Normal S/Us dropped but nothing very exciting or useful until we reached the Pit of Acheron.
View attachment 649
One of my favourite sights in any single pass tourney. 30% MF is good enough and the gold find is always welcome.

Anya was rescued, her reward was terrible. Unlikely was level 42 so we decided to switch mercs again and get a Prayer merc (Jemali) to use the Savage Partizan of the Locust we had stashed. I thought I'd try things out with Unlikely using the Edge bow on switch, however, the Glacial Trail was enough to see that this just wasn't working well. The CG was now only lvl 1 and didn't last long enough for Thorns to do much, Jemali was hitting things hard enough that his Thorns wasn't doing much, and it was more useful for Unlikely to be casting curses rather than using the bow. So, we switched back to the lvl 6 CG set-up on switch and things progressed much more smoothly.

A 2os Partizan in the Halls of Pain was the only notable drop. So after defeating Nihlithak, we made a Strength RW for Jemali. Slightly less damage than the Savage Partizan, but the CB made the difference negligible on most monsters and a noticeable improvement for bosses. The Chance Guards were Personalized .. well, just because we could. And an Artisans Gt Helm of Nova Shield was shopped from Larzuk, although we dont have the PTopazes for it yet. Final gear touch up was to gamble a 34% MF circlet (being worn), and a 5% life leach circlet for the stash.

The Decrep wand was switched in for p8 Lister and co
View attachment 650

And then Baal was taken like this
View attachment 651
Decrep plus 41% slow from CG makes p5 Baal a pussy cat. Only 2 blues used in the whole fight. A 27% MF ammy was swapped in for the end of the fight and the drops were good: Bloodletter, String of Ears and Rogues Bow. although none particularly useful for Unlikely.

p8 Cows were tanked like this
View attachment 652
Jemali and the CG are in there somewhere. You can see 2 of the 3 Attracts that were put in a rough triangle around them, about 2 ranks away from them. That kept the cows closest to Jemali otherwise occupied while not allowing Jemali to kill the affected cows too quickly. Cows piled in from everywhere to be part of the fight creating huge rolling mauls, but then spent most of their time ineffectually hitting each other, while Jemali did the killing.

Finished at level 48, only a smidgen short of level 49. No merc deaths for the entire way through Normal. Sitting in the NM Rogue's Camp Unlikely has 201% MF, 31% fire res, 24% lig res, with the other two single figures but positive. 63 pts in Str, 40 in Dex and the rest in Vit. 457 life and 155 mana.

Not too much difference between the Rogue and the Prayer merc options for mercenaries. The Rogue combo feels a little more satisfying as each element of the team has their own role to play. With the Prayer merc, the tanking role of the CG is somewhat redundant much of the time, although a second tank is very useful against very large numbers of monsters and the slow effect shines against bosses. Obviously both worked well.

Dim Vision and Attract continue to star for the curses. Each has different types of monsters that they are most useful on. Getting the right one in place and seeing the monsters effectively doing nothing is most satisfying. Decrep comes into its own against the big bosses.

All up, a little rusty at times, a few mistakes made (like using CE on the reanimating dead types and missing out on some of their second drops) but overall a nice return to D2 and Unlikley is feeling much more likely than he was when I started.