~~~Tunnels Barb~~~
Character: Zerk/Conc HybridArea: Ancient Tunnels
Playersetting: 1
MF: 504
Hork: 53%
Runs: 500
Character Overview
I've never played this guy, and it seems like zerker is made for the pits, but since I like ancient tunnels so much more than pits, I figured I should give him a try! I spent a bunch of respecs on him experimenting. At first I spec'd him up just like @ffs did, with my easyzerker setup on main, with a second grief and azurewrath on swap for plague bearers only. Well this felt wayyyy too hectic and confusing and I was like I have to figure out how to make an easier version.
So my goal was to give him the easyzerker treatment, and come up with a no weapon swap variant. I also wanted to just max conc damage and not have to use two skills. None of that worked out. First off, I dropped an mf breakpoint to wear rings with high resists, so that I didn't lose hp so fast on azurewrath swap. Then conc-only was ruled out as soon as I met my first stone skin invader. I then respec'd to the conc/zerk hybrid, but was still trying to use no weapon swap. To do this, I had to go down to 63fcr, which i was ok with. However once my brain finally started firing again, I realized I had both dropped an fcr breakpoint AND a berserk ias breakpoint. That felt like too many compromises to me, so I decided to just play him the "right" way and spec'd back to ffs's version.
By the way, I made a simulator for this guy back in the day as an extension of my pitzerker simulator, in order to find an optimal placement of points between berserk and conc synergies. I went with splitting points between howl and BO.
Fortunately by this time, I was familiar enough with the map and the character that I could actually do the runs ok, and the increased speed felt good. I still had some issues visually differentiating plague bearers and embalmeds quickly, but that got better throughout the set as well. So at this point I just stuck out the runs and eventually really enjoyed the character. And he had some sick finds and an awesome map.
@drmalawi told me that in D2R, sanctuary works on magic resists as well as physical, so this character gets an upgrade in d2r. weapon swap will still be needed, but not two skills and the berserk damage will be maxed, which would be great. But if anyone can think of a good idea to easy-fy this build, definitely let me know.
Also, sidenote, I only had 53% FI. I was thinking my easyzerker build had 54. Maybe I used to cast bc on him? Anyways, probably would've been better to drop another mf bp or two and run with a skiller to get to 54% FI, but I didn't do that.
Sample Runs and Gameplay
Gear
Helm - Shako (cham)
Amulet - Highlords
Weapon - Grief
Body - Enigma
Shield - Wizzy (ist)
Gloves - Trangs
Ring1 - fcr/res
Ring2 - fcr/res
Belt - Arachs
Boots - War travs
Charms - Gheeds and mf
Swap - Grief/ Azurewrath(ist)
Merc - Infinity, fort, andys
Max berserk, find item, sword mastery, and concentrate. One point in one point wonders. Split the rest between BO and howl.
Map
I rolled this beauty that might be my best AT map ever.
Finds
No grailers, but holy heck what a set.
Items I've found zero of: Tyrael's and Fathom
Items I've found one of: Dweb and Mangs
Pretty respectable I think.
Efficiency
Average runtime was 58.7s, with 6.34 average packs and 53% hork, for an adjeff of 2.27 (~680 hours per tyraels). Using the old counting method, thats about 2.34. Super nice and very similar (but slightly better) to what I was doing with the easyzerker.
What's next
This is probably the last build I'll do in this thread. Never know, but I got a new laptop and D2R, and so far have decided not to forward characters. So I'll be starting from scratch and posting my exploits in a new thread sometime soon!
I planned to farm a jah before moving onto d2r (to fill out my flavie report ot have everything except tyrael's and fathom), but haven't done that. Maybe I'll boot up lod for a set next rfl.
Also twitch streamer enpherno is hosting a little mf tourney (very similar to mfo) here in a few weeks, and since my sorc won't be ready in d2r, I'll probably go lod and run my favorite and most efficient mf build (blizzball/fizz sorc in AT) for that. I could probably post the results of that here too, so maybe one more set to post! Holding out hope for fathom!
I would have really liked to find fathom before moving onto d2r, but no worries! Definitely proud of my lod accomplishments, untwinked 99, runeword grail and grail -2. Now time to do it all again in d2r!
Status Table
Code:
Start Date: 30-Mar-2020
Approx Approx 9.3+ pts
Set Char Loc Holy Grail End Date MF Time Bosses Adjeff MFO Items Grailers
--- ------ --- ---------- --------- --- ----- ------ ------ --------- --------
1 blizzy AT -15 to -13 8-Apr-20 532 11.8h 6200 2.53 8 blkhnd key, exec justice
2 hdin pit -10 to -10 1-May-20 595 18.0h 8100 2.89 9 none
3 windy AT -8 to -7 28-May-20 488 14.3h 6000 3.18 3 bk ring
4 cenecro pit -7 to -5 24-Jun-20 656 16.4h 8000 2.62 8 dweb (1/44)!, griffons (10/19)!
5 trapsin AT -5 to -5 19-Jul-20 513 12.6h 5700 2.98 2 none
6 pitzerk pit -5 to -5 30-Aug-20 727 20.5h 11600 2.26 10 none
7 blizzy AT -5 to -4 2-Sep-20 563 10.2h 5800 2.31 5 veil of steel
8 fizz AT -4 to -4 5-Sep-20 486 9.5h 5800 2.23 2 none
9 fire AT -4 to -3 17-Sep-20 480 10.5h 6000 2.28 7 ravenlore (-14/16@)
10 singer pit -3 to -3 2-Dec-20 573 23.7h 12200 2.60 5 none
Totals = 147.5h 75400
Code:
Fewer runs per set in table below
Eff* Old Est Approx
Char Loc Runs End Date MF Time Bosses Bosses* Adjeff Big Finds
------- --- ---- --------- --- ----- ------ ------- ------ ---------
fohdin AT 500 5-Dec-20 462 8.1h 2900 2800 3.98 steelrend, azure, garg bite, cran bash, cham
javazon Pit 500 31-Dec-20 402 10.4h 3900 3800 3.92 spir keep, gris shield, bkwb, eth boneflame
bombnec AT 500 16-Feb-21 584 6.6h 3000 2900 2.95 steel pillar
litesrc Pit 500 23-Jul-21 504 8.9h 3900 3800 3.14 3x grandfather, exec just, cran bash, knell, sur
nova Pit 600 23-Sep-24 504 10.5h 4800 4700 3.01 shwdnc, stlplr, exjst, griff, grzcad, coa, drgsc, cham, ohm
fova Pit 500 13-Oct-24 632 8.9h 4200 4100 2.78 gflame, stormspire, gargbite, death cleaver
ezzerk Pit 500 30-Oct-24 513 10.4h 5900 5700 2.44 wndfrc, strmspr, gargbite, vex, spkpr, bonefl
fazon AT 500 11-Nov-24 462 7.8h 3000 2900 3.67 gris shield, wisp
fissure AT 500 18-Nov-24 513 7.8h 3000 2900 3.61 lash, gfather, nwv, shwdnc, sur
fsr/nado AT 500 30-Nov-24 576 7.0h 3000 2900 3.14 none :(
windy AT 500 16-Dec-24 595 6.5h 3100 3000 2.86 boneflame, ber
at barb AT 500 31-Dec-24 504 8.2h 4800 4700 2.34 darkforce, gargbite, griffs, astreons
Totals = 101.1h 45500
*Started counting bosses with new runcounter. An approximate conversion to the old system of estimated
bosses is included and is used to calculate adjeff, so adjeffs can be compared to the original table.
