The Committed Tournament

Danged double post. I'll play tonight and edit in any progress. So there, squid!

edit: I only had time to do the Infernal Pit tonight. It had hell witches, salamanders and oblivion knights. It wasn't hard, but involved lots of dodging missiles and generally running around, which is fun with this super-fast character. Some boss fights below.

@kestegs, I did get one plain Aegis but the cube only gave it 3 sockets. This was my second one in the journey, and since I am so close to the end, I figured I would use that reward to get the life now while the monsters are most difficult and danger is highest. I haven't seen any monarchs or other 4 socket capable shields yet, just the two Aegiseseses.

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Wow, those are some brutal monsters there, good work on them!

Glad to see you finally found your 4os shield. I think I found at least 2 naturally 4os aegis, so I was surprised.
 
Wow, those were some brutal bosses! Nicely done suriving all of them!

About the nasty Doom Maul, why did you not buy a weapon 'of Vileness', hit him once with that and then proceed to do whatever you did fighting him?
 
I was pretty committed to slogging it out, since I was making some progress on about half of my attempts. He got me down below 200 life once, which is critically injured, and it only took him a few swings to get me there. I decided to "tap out" when he killed Ajheed the last time, which is usually my trigger to portal out, but I'd forgotten to buy more scolls and so I had to retreat to the stairs from a frenzied up boss, and I didn't have any Feral Rage speed going. Visions of getting run down from behind a la Sharon popped into my head. While he was chasing me back to the entrance portal, he caught me twice and swung but somehow missed (maybe I moved out of range with my normal 40% FRW, I don't know). If he'd actually hit me I'd have gone into hit recovery and I couldn't stand toe to toe with him so it would have been the end right there. So by the time I did get to the portal, I decided to call it a draw, 400K gold poorer. If I'd had the belt at that time I would have tried it, but normal weapons are SO SLOW, I'm afraid that would have been a tough road also.

I guess the bottom line is that I'd already lost my full clears in NM and again in an Act III temple, so I just chickened out!
 
"Lord Diablo, I have bested you"
/Geezer the Cursemancer

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Fought him at 496 life, with maxed fire resist, 68% lightning resist and about 20% blocking (so the lightning hose had me drink at least a red each time). The Gnasher is useful against act bosses.

The only interesting fight over the last two acts. Everything else was super easy (and boring, since we can't work on MF and it's basically no chance that anything that improves Blaise's gear can drop, but that last bit will change in Act V).

I am Dimming every monster with annoying abilities (fleeing, spawning, resurrecting) and those that try to mob us. Bosses get Decrepified (and usually tanked).


[Highlight]Geezer the all-Vitality Curses Necro and Blaise the Fire Rogue, level 35, Harrogath[/Highlight]
 
Whitefang decided to get to the bottom of this Nihlathak problem before continuing on toward finding Baal. Anya didn't warn him very well about the entrance to Nihlathak's Temple, which Whitefang thought was pretty uncool. The undead pushed him back through the red portal twice, even killing Ajheed once. However, after a few went down, and the knockback from Lawbringer slowed their charge attacks, Whitefang gained the upper hand. Here is a shot of the fight with Pindleskin, which was far less harrowing than the initial beachhead fight.
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We also had a nice welcoming committee just inside the first set of stairs down into the Halls of Anguish. This level contained melee flayers, LI frenzytaurs, and skeletons. None of the bosses were frenzytaurs, thankfully.
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I am not a big fan of playing fair. All the bad guys are cursed and that's just the way I like it!
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Halls of Pain contained blowdart flayers, FI goatmen and Apes. Just like the previous level, nothing was CI and that's pretty unfair (to the monsters) too. Ajheed rocked these levels.
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Halls of Vaught contained Arachs, shambling dead and PI hell witches. They caused a bit of running around because they amped us and their balls hurt pretty bad, but we got them eventually. Nihlathak was a joke. We tried the lawbringer at first because of its rest in peace mod, but for some reason one of the shambling dead did not rest peacefully, and Nihlathak's CE hit me for about 1000 HP, so I regrouped out of his sight, led his summons out two or three times, and finally assaulted him. I think there were three of Baal's minions monsters in the room when I got Nihlathak. I just ran right past his minions and straight to him, ignoring all else. It took three fury cycles and about 6 to 8 seconds to kill him.
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Drops this session. The GC was rerolled with P Gems, and the Amulet was cubed out of rings.
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Conqueror Whitefang, level 84 Titan Wolf, still at the Frozen Tundra WP
 
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Sigh. Let me explain what happened.

Whitefang continued on from the Frozen Tundra into the Ancient's Way, besting all foes along the way. In the Ancient's way, the entrance to the Arreat Summit was pretty close to the entrance from the Frozen Tundra, which meant that I could do the Ancient's Way and Icy Cellar and start a new session when ready to face the Ancients. Here are some of the boss monsters in the Ancient's Way.
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The Icy Cellar started a bit scary. It was not a stair trap but gave Whitefang pause nonetheless when he saw this guy. There were no bosses of this particular persuasion though.
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Here were the bosses and a special champion encountered in the Icy Cellar. Lawbringer's elemental damage and Ajheed got the possessed hell witch. Probably mostly Ajheed, faithful comrade.
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Here I finished killing the monsters before facing the ancients and I used this opportunity to try one last time with all but the last million of Whitefang's gold pieces to acquire a better amulet. The +93 life one is good, but a +3 SS skills one or something with skills and comparable life, or something with comparable life and good resists would be that much better. The balrog blade was found, the rest were either cubed from rings or gambled in a single run of about 15 amulets, tops.
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After muling off the gear and getting what I wanted (i.e. putting on the Spirit Shroud, placing the Smoke in the stash, donning Cleglaws Gloves and doffing the blood gloves, filling all available slots with Full Rejuv potions, I went back to the Frozen Tundra WP, which is far closer to the Arreat Summit door than is the WP in the Ancient's Way, and I went for it. I'd only been transformed about a minute at this point so I figured I would have plenty of time (still over 10 minutes) to get it done with my level 31 Lycanthropy. My combat continuation is about 400+ life less.
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Here is Talic.
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Here is Korlic.
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Here is Madawc.
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Here's what happened. I dropped all my spare rejuvenation potions on the ground near the altar, and stepped close. I tried to get a look at their mods right after I pressed the altar, but this split second meant that they were able to drop Ajheed before I could pull the leash, so it was a 3-on-1. I was able to separate them with my 50% FRW (40% boots, 10% charms) and I took on Madawc first. He was cursed but had nothing else going for him, really, in terms of tough mods. Once I realized we were all alone, I basically stepped up to him and got him cursed too, and we went back and forth. My life went to below 500 once and I hit a rejuvenation but the rest of the time, my 80%+ CTH (LCS, actuality seemed more like 60%) and high Feral Rage kept my life in good shape. I'd say Feral Rage was more effective because of the Fury miss-after-being-struck thing. Regardless, he went down and I waited for the curse to time out. It took a long time! Then I slowly inched my way to the bottom of the screen, hoping only one of the other two would follow, and I got them both to show up. So I ran high to the top and when they were both close, I beelined it to the bottom. Korlic followed. He jumped around a few times, and got a couple of hard whacks in on me, which caused me to hit a panic rejuvenation. Shouldn't have been a panic, but I checked my life, and it was 119. When I did that, I must have panicked hard enough to somehow hit the F4 key, which I've been using for my TP hotkey. F3 is my Fury hotkey. Well Korlic went and got himself stuck on a pillar right at the entry door and I was Feral Raging him hard, keeping an eye on my life bulb, and decided once I had Feral Rage at max, to Fury him, per my usual. And so I opened up a portal and he disappeared.

Here's the offending evidence, which I captured when I went back after the initial shock had worn off. I tried a couple more times and killed the first two pretty easily but Talic is a beast with a melee character, and he was extra strong and fanaticism enchanted, so my guess is that I'd be in trouble, but I will never know now.
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I am not sure if I will continue. I am certainly disqualified from the tournament. Perhaps I will finish him and write about being scorned by his love after the ordeal. I hate to just throw away this much time, especially since he still survives, and a 0 MF melee guardian would be a nice feather in my fur. Let me know your thoughts please. I understand I will no longer garner eternal praise from the OP but I will continue to post his experience if you all desire it.

Conqueror Whitefang, level 84, DQed at the Ancients because of my spazzing
 
Ouch, that is a tough break @OldSoldier. I say definitely continue with him, and keep us updated on the progress. This has been a great journey, and I think we would all like to see Whitefang save Sanctuary once and for all.

Shame about the tourney DQ, but Guardianship is nothing to sneeze at! If you do continue, I'll be watching. :)
 
Ah, that sucks. I think when I did it I actually undid the hotkey, because I can also be a spaz when panicked.

You should certainly finish up, as it's a very impressive character still. Would hate to see you just stop now!
 
Well, Whitefang girded his loins one more time in search of his love's hand. After all, she hadn't seen him in ages, and maybe the old saying Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder does really ring true? He was willing to risk life and limb in search of her forgiveness and faithfulness.

He went to the Frozen Tundra, stepped forward to take a few whacks at the nearest imp tower to sharpen his acuity and speed his feet, and sped through the wilderness toward the ancients.

Without wasting a moment, he grabbed the altar with authority and muttered something to which we may be privy later. As the ancients sprang into battle, Whitefang leapt away from the podium and searched their abilities. He ran around the summit a fair bit in order to shake two of the old Barbarians, and finally found himself alone with Korlic.
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After Korlic fell, he was able to finally manage to separate Madawc, who he determined would be sacrificed next.
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Finally Talic, the whirlwing specialist, bane of melee journeymen.
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Whitefang's tactics had been simple: one-on-one and toe-to-toe. Korlic and Madawc were not a match, requiring maybe two or three rejuvenation potions between them. Talic seemed easier than before, maybe if Whitefang backed up against the edge of the cliff, he could get the mighty Barbarian to lurch over the precipice? Let's try it.
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Talic did not fall for it! But the tactic negated his most potent attack and with the help of the Cleglaw's gloves, he went BOOM and the explosion barely scratched Whitefang. Mission accomplished on my first try (since the fateful Day of DQ)!
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Uh oh, this was one of m worst fears come true: unfreezable frenzytaurs. Well maybe we won't get any bosses...
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Not so lucky. Cursed, extra strong. We got him though after some artful dancing.
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This was a tough guy and he made me glad I had the Cleglaw's gloves. The 25% slow tames his power and the knockback interrupts his attacks. Deal!
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This guy was very difficult to kill. Fanaticism, extra strong. He got Ajheed probably 8 times, a couple times before I was able to even raise the portal again, which I normally did right after coming through it from Harrogath. He killed Ajheed very fast, sometimes in a single double swing. A couple of times I was able to get Decrepify going on him, which made him tamer, but even then he killed Ajheed a time or two, even under that curse. I started to run low on money, but eventually we got him.
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My drops this session included a cruel thunder maul, which I won't use because it is too slow, but it is the highest damage weapon I have in my HC stash. Perhaps there is something with more damage on one of my guardians, but in the stash this is the new king of the heap. I'll never use it, sadly. If it had a nice suffix or sockets, maybe.
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Conqueror Whitefang, level 84 Titan Wolf, still DQed but at WSK2 WP anyway
 
Nice work! Those are some really disturbing Death Lord packs!

I was worried when I saw the FE ancients. I had a paladin with 90% fire resists, 15% DR, and max block get one shotted by korlic's death explosion once. Not a tournament character, but it was HC. Ever since then I've been terrified of FE ancients.
 
In v1.10, it was russian roulette to stand next to an FE ancient (with worse odds!). And that was even before their moment of death! When they started their attack animation, they would often deal the FE explosion damage to a character standing next to them (unless the blast was blocked). I once lost an Assassin in Nightmare. Almost 900 life, maxed fire resist. Instakill.
 
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Fire resist is 67% on ole Whitefang, and you saw the damage done. Maybe the latest patch brought the crazy damage down, I don't know. I have an update... My guess is that if I'd sustained lethal damage, with a transformed Druid, I'd instead have gone to 1 HP and transformed back into human form, saving my life anyway.
 
After a very uninteresting WSK level 2, Whitefang continued onward toward the end. He had to dodge a whole bunch of beasties, which as far as the tournament was concerned, didn’t exist. Fortunately the poison mages and baal’s minions were not terribly tough. We will get back to them in a moment…



Bosses in the WSK level 3. None of them were very difficult.
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Ouch! I was afraid of that. Unfreezable frenzytaurs again! I tried to throw up a portal to have a backup plan, but I had run out and forgot to buy more! And my trail back through WSK 2 was plugged with monsters. Well, let’s try to find a scroll in the TOD…
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Bosses in the TOD. These guys didn’t pack much of a wallup, but the axe had definitely slowed down a bit, until amp triggered, and then monsters, even the minions of destruction, went down FAST. There were also freezable horadrim ancients but no skellies, so that was not difficult.
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I was able to handle all frenzytaurs because there weren’t any bosses. In retrospect the lack of a TP scroll might have been pretty silly on my part, in case there was an extra fast pack, but I didn’t pay for it.

I decided to attack Colenzo’s group, and still hadn’t found a TP scroll yet. His minions got frozen and Colenzo died quickly. Notice Whitefang is lower on max life. He timed out and had to fight on with reduced life and AR through this pack.
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I switched to the lawbringer vs Achmel’s pack because the axe had broken. It was handy to allow the skeletons to RIP. After failing to secure a TP scroll at the end of the skeleton minions, I went back the long way to the WSK 2 waypoint, again dodging tons of enemies that technically didn’t exist. I got more scrolls, fixed the axe, restarted my wolf timer, and trudged back from the WSK 2 WP past them again. Doofus.
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Bartuc and his minions all got amped and dispatched with zero trouble.
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Ventar and his buddies got strung out a bit but not too terribly bad. I could handle three or four at a time.
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Lister was not terribly difficult. You can see that my life went down for his pack: I put on the Cleglaw’s gloves and the Hwanin’s belt for 25% slowing, knockback, and PMH so I lost the life bonuses from the gloves and belt. All worked well and I took Lister alone (he was a pussy cat) and his minions no more than two at a time. Ajheed’s ice blasts freeze them for a good long time and I hack away at whichever one is closest. When the other one comes closer to Ajheed than the first, he switches fire, and freezes that one. He never had to switch more than twice before the two minions were down. Repeat until they were all dead.
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I started with Cleglaw’s gloves against Baal and put on a damage charm and a life charm so you can see that I had over 2000 HP for the fight. Not bad for a no vitality character! The plan was to use Cleglaws and the Lawbringer to nerf Baal’s attacks and switch to the axe to do the major damage, but I couldn’t hit Baal with the Lawbringer consistently enough to get him decrepified, and I was burning through my rejuvenation potions faster than I wanted, so I changed tactics. I put the blood gloves back on and Furied away, sprinkling Feral Rage, mostly to keep my run speed up. I had on the Spirit Shroud so the hoarfrost wasn’t a problem, and every time Baal got some festering appendages going I attacked them to replenish my life, because he damaged me faster than I could replenish with life leech. The gloves were the key and I hit him with crushing blow a few times. When Baal was slivered, I went back to Cleglaw’s to finish him off.
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His drop. The ED% was not very good. I don’t recall if I have ever seen a Doombringer before, but it’s a great Barb merc weapon. Getting any elite unique from Baal with 0 MF is cool in my book.
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So Tyrael and the rest of the crew in Harrogath thought Whitefang’s victory was pretty sweet. Maybe Natalya will change her mind when he got back to Kurast? He had one last stop to make before going back to see her. He hoped against hope that she would back off of her pledge. After all, he did save Sanctuary… and she’s in it, right?

Guardian Whitefang, level 85 Titan Wolf, Hell Cows next
 
Awesome job on the Guardian! It was a treat following along with Whitefang on his journey, super cool seeing a titan character obtain Guardian status. :) Well done and good luck in cows!
 
Congrats! 2k life is indeed pretty crazy for no vita. That doombringer would be a great weapon for a barb merc for sure, nice find!

I obsessively check my scrolls for that very reason. Terrible timing on that one!
 
Act V was mostly a snore fest, with some occasional interesting things happening.

I liked the imp areas, though. It's the one place in the game where an Act I merc kills faster than the melee guys.

Dim Vision in full force here:
Geezer06%20DV_zpsg9cjtsuq.jpg


You can't see all of them, but there are seven Blood Bosses here. I think it was just one boar that mutated in the whole area. Makes for a little more wealth.

I wasn't worried about Ancients, but I knew that if I got lazy/unlucky and Blaise were to die, it would be a long slog. On higher difficulties, it could mean game over. Better be prepared:
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Note that without the +STR from Gnasher, Geezer's belt slot is red. Makes little difference because the bonuses on the belt are small and the potion slots still work. I will however gamble + upgrade a rare Sash with some nice bonuses soon.

Teleport separated Ancients. I fought Talic first. No problem but I needed some potions. Never succeeded in keeping him from whirling. That's troublesome if we make it here more times. Geezer acted as target for Madawc's axes while Blaise killed him. Korlic was done in with a combined effort from the two of us.

Lister was less tough to fight than I thought he'd be. High level Decepify is great.

It worked nicely here, too:
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It slowed him down so much that only his mana-draining flamethrower and the Flame Nova did anything, and he couldn't teleport either.

Crappy luck with exceptional bows so far. OK, Blaise is currently using a decent rare Edge Bow with 20% IAS (means it has the same attack speed as a regular Composite Bow) and some damage bonuses, but the only exceptional non-Edge bows we've seen are a Crude Cedar Bow and a plain Razor Bow (that I didn't keep).


[Highlight]Destroyer Geezer the all-Vitality Curses Necro and Blaise the Fire Rogue, level 49, Moo Moo Farm next[/Highlight]
 
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My illiterate phoenix strike assassin in the Lack of Information tournament is so much fun, I think I'll enter another tournament.

I will enter with a summoner druid, even stat distribution, name Turgenev. Use a bow, or just stand back uselessly if I really need the resists that a shield offers. I expect it to be fun in normal and then get boring, at which point I'll start playing more recklessly, at which point I'll die! :D That, or normal diablo will kill me.

Rules clarification: The only way to use an Act 2 Nightmare Merc is if I can find one that has the exact same name as my Act 2 Normal merc? How much popping in and out of the sewers will I likely have to do in order to accomplish this, if I wanted to hire a might merc that was only 1 level below me? Maybe I'll try for a few minutes and if I don't get lucky I'll just use a blessed aim merc.

So other than 5 points in ravens, 20 each in grizzly, dire wolf, HoW... whats the best use of skill points? poison vine? spirit wolves? carrion vine?
 
Rules clarification: The only way to use an Act 2 Nightmare Merc is if I can find one that has the exact same name as my Act 2 Normal merc? How much popping in and out of the sewers <snip>

Are you sure this is enough? I think you need to start new games to shuffle the mercs-for-hire lineup.
 
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