[2004] HC Tankazon Tourney [by AdunaCCDanimoth]

[Grisu]

DISCLAIMER: Migration finished

This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by AdunaCCDanimoth on Jun 20, 2004. Last post was made Aug 17, 2004. (link to original thread on diabloii.net)​

HC Tankazon Tourney

Hey hey hey! Welcome back to another exciting edition of "Aduna's Evil Tourneys!" So whats on the docket today? Why it's none other than the Tankazon, an Amazon that relies on weapons other than Spears, Javs, and Bows to kill stuff for all you new people out there. Here are the rules:

- Hardcore Only.
- Amazons Only.
- All Quests/WPs MUST be collected.
- You may mule off, but not on, your Tankazon.
- You must begin with level 1 characters.
- Single Player and Multiplayer friendly. If you play Multi, you may only play with other Tankazons.
- Only skills from the Magic/Passive tree are allowed.
- You cannot use spears, javs, bows, or crossbows.
- Highest Level Tankazon or First Tankazon to reach Guardian wins the tourney.

Put your Q's, Comments, and Death Threats below and Good luck!

- Aduna

 

[Grisu]

NOTE: These are posts 2-20 of the original thread

Sounds fun!

if i can find somebody to mp with i will join up no problem!

Hehe, fun tournies Aduna! =D

Let La-Zgurl enter the matrix, err the land of sanctuary! =D

oh and Aduna, will you be playing too?

Not this time, I'm afraid.

~ooOoOoh tankazon, now that's a fun build. I'll join up once I'm done my mfing paladin for the up and coming mf olympics. When does this hc challenge start anyway?

Now is a good time.

Never played HC before, but what the heck...

A round of applause for Psylocke, please...

edit: a few q's...

1) Is any players setting OK?
2) Do we have to actually DO the imbue immediately or can we leave that till we're ready
3) Can we use our initial javelin until we get something else or do we have to drop it and punch until we find a weapon?

I'm in. FoulKrack will begin killing tonight.

Allright, I'm in too
Granny - lvl 1
Tankazon
area / quest - Rogue Encampement / no quest.

:dirnk: Sint :drink:

- All players settings allowed as always
- You may stall out on the Act 1 and 3 Merc, Imbue, and Socket quests
- You may use your javelin until you find a weapon. However, even if its a crude dagger, the dagger must be used over the Javas.

Hmm, nothing like a tourney to get back into the game. I am in.

Act 1 - Rogue Encampment
Vixen - lvl 1

Let the games begin. :wink2:

Well.. I wasn't planning on playing anymore tonight so that pretty much failed :lol:

Granny - lvl 10
Tankazon
Area / quest - Stoney Field / Cain
skills - Inner Sight 1, CS 7, Dodge 2.

Happenings:
Well nothing really happened exept for that the blockrate and the hit recovery rate of the zon are REALLY slow.. I found a 12%FHR charm, so I think that that one will stay in my gear forever :lol: Bloodraven was a pain with her freeze and her poison and her minions.. (due to slow blocking etc.)

Good luck !

:drink: Sint :drink:

Happenings:
Well nothing really happened exept for that the blockrate and the hit recovery rate of the zon are REALLY slow..

I suggest that you either get a dagger (which uses the same animation as a javelin, and that means much faster blocking) or go two-handed with a big-*ss sword/polearm/maul.

Royal_Guardian Joins the tournament!

She'll start killing tonight...

FoulKrack made it up to level 13 last night on /players 8. Found the WP in the dark woods and called it a night. She found The Hand of Broc from a champion pack of carvers. Woo Hoo mana steal already for a character that uses almost no mana.

Her first weapon was a crude hand axe. She got rid of that the first trip back to town and bought a dagger. Now she's currently using a gemmed Dirk, go go cold damage.

She had a couple of close calls in the underground passage. The Archers are rough watch out for the boss packs.

I may have to try this. We'll see how I feel when I get home. It would be a good break from the never-ending HCL runs (which, btw, I am actually enjoying immensely).

@Jiansonz - I like the new tar. Must have taken a few tries to get the timing right on that one.

@Jiansonz - I like the new tar. Must have taken a few tries to get the timing right on that one.

Yep, I think I made 5 screenies before I nailed it. What is slightly annoying is that you can´t see about 35% of the staff.

Of course I couldn´t stay away from this tournament...


Enter Brynhilde the Battle Princess. She´s going to do a one-pass full clear and she will play on /players 8 in almost all of Normal.

Brynhilde punched her way (she ditched the javelins) through the first part of the Blood Moor, found a Crude Club which she used. Then the club broke and she was forced to use a Low Quality Short Staff. That weapon really sucked. It was so slow that it was only slightly better than punching. A few monsters later, another Crude Club dropped. Sigh. Then she found a Short Sword. Much better! Then a Superior Short Sword with one socket. Partway through Den of Evil, she reached level 7 and had the stats required for a weapon she had been longing for: a 2-socketed Two-Handed Sword. Insert a chipped sapphire and NOW she had a real weapon. Good and consistant damage (with cold added), good speed and reach. Very nice.

Kill Raven (which took a while, she had a cold damage bow) collect mercenary, hire a better one (level 7 fire). Shop 2-socketed Helms and 3-socketed Ring Mails for both of them, and a 3-socketed Long Bow for Floria. A Jewel on Envy in her armor and 2 chipped emeralds in the bow (waiting for one more sapphire).

Brynhilde and Floria cleared Cold Plains and all associated dungeons. A total of 3 chipped topazes have been found. There is space for 6 more in the equipment for character + merc. Also, I´m waiting for something cool for the second socket in the sword.

Name: Bryhilde
Level: a fraction away from 12
Next area to play: Stony Field
Total MF: +38% (she gambled some nice rare gloves )



This is going to be a really interesting tournament, I think. I am still undecided what mercenary to go for. I think all the different types have their uses in this tournament. Decision, decisions...


Did I get this straight:

* As long as I only put points in the P/M skill tree, anything is allowed, right? Even Valkyrie?
* Any merc is allowed with no equipment restrictions. Correct? Are mercenarys allowed to use javelins, spears and bows?
* Any equipment except "traditional" amazonian weapons is allowed for the amazon.


This character will be like my Gabrielle, but beefed up in so many ways compared to her. Decoy, Valkyrie, mercenary, gloves, fantastic equipment freedom, shield or not, and much much better weapons to choose from. She is SO going to "pwn" for quite a while to come...

(...he said enthusiastically, and then some random boss will smack her silly :lol: )

Did I get this straight:

* As long as I only put points in the P/M skill tree, anything is allowed, right? Even Valkyrie?
* Any merc is allowed with no equipment restrictions. Correct? Are mercenarys allowed to use javelins, spears and bows?
* Any equipment except "traditional" amazonian weapons is allowed for the amazon.

Yes, all that is correct.


Well, I guess I might just have to join....

Xenia has entered the tournament and will start playing shortly.

Just lost my other HC tourney character to a computer glitch. So, I would like to join this one with "Mone". I will start later this evening.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #21-40 from the original thread.

Well, this tournament was too intriguing to pass up... tonight I will create Anex... yes, just an anagram of Xena, give him points for creativity.

I always only play Ams with the P&M tree, so I have a chance (never figured out how to shoot a bow).

GL to all.

I guess i might as well join....

Typhoon will start killing shortly

if anybody wants to MP with me just pm me or reply here

Typhoon
Level 5
Quest-Sister's Burial Grounds
Area-Cold Plains

I just got lucky and found some rare quilted armor off of a boss pack of dark lancers crappy mods but still :lol:

i took a screenie of it if any of u want to see my first rare with my char!

Ok this sounds really fun so i'm gonna join too.

SupremeTankazon
Lv 7
Area - Cold Plains
Quest - Blood Raven

I will start a small session right about now....
Hey I'll MP with some of you guys if you want... but I can't host just tell me your ip adress if you want to make

i will play mp tomorrow im hangin with my friend at his hood so i dont have my char here..

Character Name: Xenia
Current Level: 16
Current Act/Diff: Act I Normal
Current Location: Timoe Highland
Next WP: Outer Cloister
Next Quest: The Smith

I have 39% FHR so far!!!!!!

Xenia has made awesome progress so far in Act I. She has gotten all of the WP's up to The Black Marsh, and has defeated the Countess. Countess gave me tir, I am going to run her until I get quite a few of runes. I gambled Rare Heavy Boots and Rare Heavy Gloves along with a 17% FHR normal belt. I use a 3 socket ring mail with 2 emeralds and 1 ruby. 2 socketed normal helm with 1 amethyst and 1 ruby. I use a 3 socket 2 handed sword with 2 topaz and 1 sapphire. I am now in the Timohe Highland crusin.

Heres my charms so far:
Grand Charm 1: 4 dex
Grand Charm 2: 4 dex +22 stamina
Grand Charm 3: 12% FHR
Large Charm 1: 3 str +7 ar
Small Charm: 5% Light Resist

Merc:
Hannah lvl 11 Fire Arrow
Superior Ring Mail
Rare Skull Cap
3 Socket long bow (2 emerald 1 sapphire)

SupremeTankazon
Lv 10
Area - Stony Field
Quest - Search for Cain

I have not been doing so well.. my killing speed is slowing down and I had 1 hp left when I was facing Rakanishu /players8. Right now i'm looking to see what my gamwe end str is gonna be. Right now i'm thinking somewhere between 100 - 115. I will have a nm might merc if I get that far, to help me damage the enemies. But it seems that we will be doing very low damage and the only thing that will help us is the Valkrie. My crit strike is at 6... maybe because i'm going the one handed shield route.

OK, I still felt like it when I got home so I present: Hermione.

She cleared the entire Den with nothing but a set of throwing knives. When she got to the Cold Plains she immediately met a Beast boss pack. This led to some Pythonesque running in circles. Happily, the boss dropped a nice sceptre, which should boost her killing speed significantly. Whatsisname in the Den also dropped a sash for her. Still waiting for some armour, gems, etc.

Hermione
clvl 7
Area - Cold Plains
Quest - Raven

Bedtime now. More later.

I have decided that I will have to go the two handed route to win this Tourney. I will have my Valkrie to Tank for me... I have noticed that, because it takes at least 30 seconds to kill one monster on /players8

I'm in

Enter...drumroll...Manwe-Tankazon (yes, I know, I'm real creative)

Kremena
Lvl 1
Area - Blood More
Quest - The Den of Evil

Character Name: Xenia
Current Level: 21
Current Act/Diff: Act II Normal
Current Location: Rocky Waste
Next WP: Dry Hills
Next Quest: Cube

Total of 64% FASTER HIT RECOVERY!!!!!

Well, another update for Xenia. I ahvent even found "ONE" green or gold yet in all of her playing but a MILLION RARES.... :grrr: . She got as Defensive merc, and I set him up pretty good. I ran the Countess until I could get the runes for my new "Stealth" Splint Mail. The FRW helps a million and now you can add the 25% FHR... :lol:. Well I finsihed Act I and nothing was a problem at all, not even Andariel herself. My merc died once against her and thats it. She dropped 5 crappy rares and a Amethyst, which comes in handy. I killed Radament which was easy and I am now looking for the Dry Hills WP and the Cube. I have been on /players 8 the whole game so far, which is surprising.

Character Name: Royal_Guardian, lvl 18
Current Act/Diff: Act II Normal
Current Location: Far Oasis (players1, will switch to players 8 when i can handle that in act 5...
Next WP: Lost City
Next Quest: Have the staff, now have to find the viper amulet

playing with a crystal sword now, but i am hoping for a better weapon. Already cubed about 15 rings and 9 amulets, but didn't cube anything usefull... have +10 replenish life, and it's nice!

I can play mp now if anybody wants to because i just got home

no updates for typhoon...i havent gotten a chance to use my sp chars

But im off to kill some stuff see ya!

Update!!

Typhoon
Level 10
Area-Stony Field
Quest-Search for Deckard Cain

I am very happy with my progress so far and i just found an awesome rare scimitar...which helps me do 50 dmg!!

Update (couldnt edit last post again)

Typhoon
Level 15
Area-Black Marsh & Outer Cloister
Quest-Tools of the Trade

Comment: Doing Countess runs to get a certain easy rune word than off to get the malus!

Near Death Experience:First time through the Countess she almost killed me but i got into a tp with 6 life left

SupremeTankazon
Level 13
Area-Dark Woods
Quest-Search for Cain

I haven't gotten very far because my monitor is going all screwy :cheesy:
I will have a session all the way to act 2 after school, I am in school right now. For now gl to al those in act 2!

Update:

Character: Royal_Guardian, lvl 20, currently playing /players2
Area: Cleared out one branch of the Arcane Sanctuary
Quest: Obvious: killing Summoner

Comment: Created myself a nice Stealth armor, def 59.
Near deaths: none yet, as i play mainly at /players1 sometimes /2. Before i will take on the fight with Duriel i will try to do a lot of arcane sanctuary runs to get as high a lvl as possible via players8, and then tune back to players1 for Duriel... although i don't think she will present with any problems...
To be continued!

Edit: found one special item so far: Isenhart's Case :s

SupremeTankazon
Level 16
Area-Outer Cloister
Quest-Tools of the Trade

I have progressed trough most of Act 1, when I reached the Countess I did some runs so I could create the Steel Runeword for my two handed sword. I was so fortunate that after 2 runs I had enough runes to create the steel Runeword twice. Right now with my Steel Two-Handed Sword I do 17 - 38 damage. With critical strike at lv 7 I have no problem with killing the monsters. Also with slow missiles and high dodge and stuff monsters can hardly hit me. Oh and I forgot to mention, back before Rakanishu I was fighting and an Arctic Furs dropped. Its a pretty good armor and I am still using it. I'm just gonna show you how I added my Stat Points so far. Please suggest anything is i'mn doing something wrong *i'm using 2-handed weapons*

Strength 48 Life 155
Dexterity 47 Mana 37
Vitality 45
Energy 15

hey barbarian would u be interested in mping right now?

im bored and tired of playing all by myself and our chars are on same quest

So everyone, how do you feel about this tourney?

its very fun

i hope after this one u host another one like it

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #41-60 from the original thread.

So everyone, how do you feel about this tourney?

I like your tournaments Aduna, keep em comin? :lol: What would really be nice is that since you don't play in most of your tournaments (which I don't know why) you should try to do updates. Updates make tournaments much better. Just and idea..... :grrr:

what the hell, I'll join.

hey barbarian would u be interested in mping right now?

im bored and tired of playing all by myself and our chars are on same quest

gimme your ip address and we can play

IP ***

i guess other ppl can join if u really want to...

Edit:sorry barbarian...accidently hit 5 when i was using pots...game back up!

IP ***

i guess other ppl can join if u really want to...

im coming just wait i'll be there in like 5 min
u werent that close to dying
make a game again

Character Update

Typhoon
Level-19
Quest-Andariel
Area-Catacombs

Comments: Found deaths gloves (gonna be really helpful for andy), Made a Steel 2hS (very very helpful!!),Found Malus...accidently imbued a sword (still hitting myself over this one...),Had a great game with Barbarian(glad to play with u anytime!)

Near Death Experience: I had one of them in cathedral when i was drinking pots like mad and accidently hit 5 which exits game...

Near Death Experience: I had another one in my game with Barbarian where we were traveling through catacombs looking for wp and we ran into 3 packs of tainteds (one champion, one mana burn, one extra strong) We both survived!

Very fun tourny...why doesnt everyone play mp...its so cool...

Character Update

Typhoon
Level-19
Quest-Andariel
Area-Catacombs

Comments: Found deaths gloves (gonna be really helpful for andy), Made a Steel 2hS (very very helpful!!),Found Malus...accidently imbued a sword (still hitting myself over this one...),Had a great game with Barbarian(glad to play with u anytime!)

Near Death Experience: I had one of them in cathedral when i was drinking pots like mad and accidently hit 5 which exits game...

Near Death Experience: I had another one in my game with Barbarian where we were traveling through catacombs looking for wp and we ran into 3 packs of tainteds (one champion, one mana burn, one extra strong) We both survived!

Very fun tourny...why doesnt everyone play mp...its so cool...

Yeh that was a good game and I would like to make a few updates with this character.

SupremeTankazon
Level 19
Area-Sewers Lv1
Quest-Radament's Lair

Well I have a steel runeworded weapon too and I killed Andariel in about 15 seconds. (She is easier than I remembered) I have switched to players 3 for the sewers all the way to the Tombs. The I will do Tomb runs till lv 27 on /players8

Character Update

Hermione
Level - 12 (/players 8 all the way)
Location - just killed Blood Raven
Quest - Saving Decka Cards or whatever his name is :evil:

Got an amazing drop from Raven and company (Screenie here). I'm used to getting one rare and one or two blues so this was a real nice surprise. Only one item was useful but who cares. :lol:

EDIT: Got the pic uploaded.

EDIT2: Great tourney, Aduna. I had no idea she would be this strong. She pwned Raven. A much shorter fight than my last bowazon.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 16
Next area: Tamoe Highlands
Total MF: +91% for Brynhilde´s kills and when opening containers, +100% for Floria´s kills (she gets to kill all the bosses).


I have now been planning out this character. I know what merc I want to have at different stages of the game, I have a pretty good idea of how skill placement will be done and I have set my goals for how high STR/DEX Brynhilde will want at certain times (which of course depends of what item types she plans to use). I don´t want to give away too much at this stage, let´s just say that she has set some high goals for herself.

I like having good MF even this early. I notice a significant increase in the number of rares that drop and I like that.


How do you people (those of you who play on /players 8) decide what to keep before you have the Horadric Cube? I find way more gems, rings and amulets that I will be able to store before the act is over. I have decided to sell all rejuves that don´t fit in the belt, to keep only the rings/amulets that sell for less than 4000 gold (to do a cubing frenzy once I get the Cube). Also, I only keep the three types of gems (and use the topazes ) I think will be the most useful ones. I also keep items that are worth more than 5000 gold (two staves and one wand so far).

Do you have an SOP for this situation? I find it very frustrating having to waste anything...

How do you people (those of you who play on /players 8) decide what to keep before you have the Horadric Cube?

I try to keep all my gems, using only 5 topaz chips in my helm and armor, and 5 topaz for my merc's gear. I can always count on Charsi for the occasional 3-socket ring mail. If I run out of room in my stash and inventory, I sell my skulls, then rubies.

I sell all rings and amulets for gambling money (except for gold find and MF, which I wear ASAP). I used to save my jewelry, but at such a low level, I'd rather gamble weapons or circlets for quicker p8 kills than cube away $100,000 for a very slim shot at a 15% MF ring. I wait until Act Three to start cubing jewelry, when they're no longer a major source of income.

Oh yeah, I decided to join this tournament! I'll have an update tomorrow.
Good luck!

Psylocke - lvl 6
Area - Cold Plains
Quest - Sisters' Burial Grounds

Playing slowly. This is my first time in hardcore.

Picked up a rare Hand Axe which I'm using, along with a Buckler of Blocking and a load of junk...

Question: I know I'm not allowed a bow - is my merc allowed one?

Yes sir, she is.

How do you people (those of you who play on /players 8) decide what to keep before you have the Horadric Cube?

Do you have an SOP for this situation? I find it very frustrating having to waste anything...

In a word, ATMA. At convenient stopping points I just exit the game and dump unnecessary items. In this case, since we're not allowed to mule back, Hermione will just be a source of gems for my HC stash. Of course, since I almost never use the stash (I generally just go with what I find) I'll end up with a huge pile of never used gems and such. Or, as someone else said, I will sell things to make space for specific items. Gold is never a waste and takes no space.

I don't worry about waste. I'd rather have the improved chance of finding what I want (like all those nice topazes).

Would anybody be interested in mping?

Update

Typhoon
lvl 20
Area-Sewers
Quest-Radament

Mone
Lvl 19
Area: Dry Hills

I've played her like she was going with a two-handed weapon but I am questioning if I should start putting stats into Dex so that I can use a shield. I'll just have to see how she does through Act II.

I need the horadric cube fast because my stash and inventory is full (4 open slots in inventory left) of chipped gems and one Topaz (Andy). I probably should take tragor's approach and not consider it wasting the gems but I am more like jiansonz and do consider it a waste.

Would anybody be interested in mping?

Update

Typhoon
lvl 20
Area-Sewers
Quest-Radament

I sent you a private message saying this so c'mon Ive been waiting.
SupremeTankazon
lvl 20
Area-Rocky Waste
Quest-Horadric Staff

I have defeated Radament with ease, and I have created another Steel Runeword but this time it's on a Claymore. my damage *without poison is incredible* 32 - 65. I am going to get all the peices for the Horadric Staff and that will be the end of my Session.

*note: I can't count how many times Slow Missiles saved me in the Sewers :uhhuh:

Ok barbarian game is up

IP ***

Come all if u want to!

Update

Typhoon
lvl-21
Area-Far Oasis
Quest-Horadric Staff

Me and Barbarian are attempting to get the staff...we will see how that works out

Oooh I am a little late but I will enter this =) Starting right now she will be named Chunkalicious and I will be playing at players 8. :lady:

SupremeTankazon
lvl-22
Area-Lost City
Quest-Horadric Staff

Good Game get_instAAled, actually great game.

Edit: 50th Post!

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #61-80 from the original thread.

Update

Hermione
Level - 15
Area - Black Moor WP
Quest - Countess

Well, the /p8 gem drop rate is as expected and my stash is almost completely full . . . of chipped amethysts. :rant: Can't get a topaz for my life. So much for the increased chance of finding what I want. Maybe Jiansonz is right. Her stash right now truly is a waste of space.

She's gone two-handed for now. Don't know if she'll stay that way. Depends what she finds that can make the first Steel weapon. Naturally, that assumes that Tir and El are among those finds.

Edit: 647th post! (Sorry, couldn't resist )

Update from me:

Kremena
lvl 14
Area-Black Marsh
Quest-Countess

fighting with a Crystal swor right now. I'll run the countess once I reach Act II to make a Stealth armor and Steel Flail.

I'll allow myself to post an update of the current standings
----------------------------------------------------------------
1. TheUltimateBarbarian - SupremeTankazon, lvl 22, Norm, act2 - Lost City

2. get_inSTAALed - Typhoon, lvl 21, Norm, act2 - Far Oasis

3. SuperSavage - Xenia, lvl 21, Norm, act2 - Rocky Waste

4. Freekje - Royal_Guardian, lvl 20, Norm, act2 - Arcane Sanctuary

5. Resipsa - Mone, lvl 19, Norm, act2 - Dry Hills

6. jiansonz - Brynhide, lvl 16, Norm, act1 - Tamoe Highland

7. tragor - Hermione, lvl 15, Norm, act1 - Black Marsh

8. a_shikoff - Kremena, lvl 14, Norm, act1 - Black Marsh

9. Saucy - FoulKrack, lvl 13, Norm, act1 - Dark Wood

10. Sint Nikolaas - Granny, lvl 10, Norm, act1 - Stony Field

11. CheekyJez - Psylocke, lvl 6, Norm, act1 - Cold Plains

12. loverat - Chunkalicious, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

13. Manwe - Manwe-Tankazon, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

14. Couvi - Vixen, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

15. Kool69 - La-Zgurl, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

--------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are some mistakes pls point them

I'll allow myself to post an update of the current standings
----------------------------------------------------------------
<snip-o-rama>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are some mistakes pls point them

Thanks, an update is good for the overview. My heroine has her name spelled wrong, though.



To avoid wasting any more resources, I decided to do something drastic: play the second half of act 1 and Halls of the Dead in a single session. Now that you can store stuff on the ground again, that means I get to keep everything I want.

I took on Andariel´s floor on /players 3, otherwise I used /players 8 the whole way.
For most of the fight, Brynhilde and Floria fought Andariel by running away and using ranged weapons (Brynhilde used some Throwing Axes (Ethereal)). When she ran out of antidotes, she just charged in with her sword and finished off the Demon Queen surprisingly quickly, drinking a couple of rejuves when necessary.

When Brynhilde got to act 2, she ran to Halls of the Dead. She was lucky, the exit from Rocky Waste was as close as it can possibly get and she found the Halls quickly, too.

Time to recruit a new mercenary: Kasim the Defiance warrior. He uses a rather crappy Spetum of Frost at the moment. He gained two levels in the Halls and I hope that he can gain four more levels quickly. There is a +79% damage Savage Halberd waiting for him (not hard to guess where that came from!) at level 19. I think his strength will be high enough by then.

Brynhilde now uses a Two-Handed Sword with two +3 min damage jewels and a +4 max damage jewel with lightning resistance. She wants to make a 'Steel' Claymore but has only found Eld x2 so far.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 21
Next area: Lut Gholein Sewers
Total MF: +119% for Brynhilde´s kills and when opening containers, +164% for Kasim´s kills.

I can always count on Charsi for the occasional 3-socket ring mail.

And don't we just LOVE her for those armors! Three-socketed armors for sale at CLVL 6!



Folks, Wayne has entered an amazon HC tourney (with non-amazonian weapons) where he can actually choose where all the skill points will go and where he has complete item freedom. Be afraid. Be very afraid... :scared:

I have a Q.. does Impale/Fend work with normal weapons? I think they do but i'm not sure; would like some guidelines about what to pump skill wise if ya people don't mind

I have a Q.. does Impale/Fend work with normal weapons? I think they do but i'm not sure; would like some guidelines about what to pump skill wise if ya people don't mind

No, they do not work. I have tried that myself.

Please welcome Coral_Far (translation = "flower") to the tourney. I have to tip my cap to the "random character names" website for another wacky name.
I started Coral a couple days ago and played three long sessions with her. I had fun using staves and clubs for a while before settling on dagger-class weapons. I've used the players8 setting exclusively so far, thanks to some excellent early charm drops that provided all sorts of elemental damage. That more than compensated for the complete lack of jewel drops with min or max damage.

Coral is level 29 now, Act 3 Swampy Pit. Gameplay has been steady without too much excitement yet. I at least managed to get into a couple tense situations. First, I was mobbed by an Aura Enchanted Creeping Feature + cronies + beetles. Later I was mobbed by Fangskin's pack. Both times, the greatest danger was all the stray lightning. Luckily I was able to Tankazon them.

Here is something weird... Despite having between 50 - 100 MF and players8 throughout, I didn't find one set or unique until the True Tomb, almost two full Acts. I don't think I've ever seen that before. I made up for that in Act 3 however, with several uniques and a few sets so far.

Skills / Stats update: 50 Str, 80 Dex, 75 Vit (329 life), 19 Energy

1 Inner Sight
4 Critical Strike
6 Dodge
1 Slow Missiles
6 Avoid
3 Penetrate
6 Decoy
3 Evade

Character update:

Coral Far, level 29, Act 3 Normal, Swampy Pit
Deadly Blade of Measure
Rare Bone Shield 65% block
Rare Balanced Knife
Rare Bone Shield 55% block
Gemmed Breast Plate 48% MF
Rare Circlet +50 Poison damage, cold resist 26, 4% LL, 16% MF
Ocher Chain Gloves of Fortune 19% MF
Hsarus' Iron Stay Belt
Vidala's Fetlock Light Plated Boots
Fortuitous Amulet of Frost Shield 14% MF
Rare Ring
Ocher Ring of Craftsmanship
Charms providing 3-18 lightning damage, 2-4 fire damage, 15 poison damage, ligtning resist 6, cold resist 29, fire resist 17, +38 life.

Narphet, level 25 cold Iron Wolf
Skewer of Krintiz Sabre
Ocher Bone Shield
Garnet Full Helm of Frost Shield
Gemmed Ring Mail 27% MF

In stash:
Runes: Eth, Ith (2)
Crushflange Mace
Arctic Binding Light Belt

Folks, Wayne has entered an amazon HC tourney (with non-amazonian weapons) where he can actually choose where all the skill points will go and where he has complete item freedom. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

Ha ha, I admit it! I have a renewed appreciation for zon variants thanks to the last couple tourneys (especially yours). This looks like an appropriate build to avenge Sun's sudden FE death a few months ago...

Tyhoon
lvl-22
area-lost city
quest-staff

Update Please

Char: Royal_Guardian
lvl: 21
Area: Spider Forest
Quest: all act 3 quests...

Update please

(OKOK i admit it: i copied get_inSTAALed's reply (lazy me)

From first in this Tournament I am 2nd or 3rd, so I'm doing to do as much playing as possible or until get_inSTAAled replies. Wish me luck :cheesy:

UPDATE:
SupremeTankazon
lvl-23
area-Arcane Sancuary
quest-Horazons Journal

Managed to find a Unique Spiked Shield (Not using shields though)
I'm still using a Steel Claymore, until I find a better 2 socket sword and put another steel in it.

I have finally learned my lesson... I had 2hp left in the tombs and I save and exited before I died. But now I think I will go switch back to shields because I focus more and str and dex then vit. Right now I have 232 Life :lol: I will make a Steel Flail and then with my other Unique I will have 100% Open Wounds. It will make up for my lost damage. Great Job to all those in Act 3!

barbarian game up

IP ***

I'm upto lvl 16 now.. just finished the tower in the black march

didn't have alot of time to play but I'll get to it this weekend

:dirnk: sint :drink:

barbarian game up

IP ***

Im coming It's not there?

Check out the new tourney I made and get ready for a butt WHOOPIN' of a lifetime!

ima join the tourney dawgs
my chars name is: pimpin_kerbet


pimpin_kerbet
lvl-1
area-blood moor
quest-den of evil

I have been playing for many hours now and I have somehow found a Rare Cleaver! I have gambled almost 800k gold now and haven't really found anything. The Cleaver's Required lvl is 22 and has -30% req I can;t beleive that it dropped.

I looked on ATMA and it's item lvl is 63 ...WTF? It dropped in Act 3 norm

I have been playing for many hours now and I have somehow found a Rare Cleaver! I have gambled almost 800k gold now and haven't really found anything. The Cleaver's Required lvl is 22 and has -30% req I can;t beleive that it dropped.

I looked on ATMA and it's item lvl is 63 ...WTF? It dropped in Act 3 norm

HEy barbarian game is up again i had to go on short notice sorry bout that...

IP ***

hope to see u there!

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #81-100 from the original thread.

HEy barbarian game is up again i had to go on short notice sorry bout that...

IP ***

hope to see u there!

its up again

Brynhilde and Kasim have now full cleared up to and including Claw Viper Temple. Kasim actually needed to reach level 20 before he could equip the Savage Halberd (he lacked 1 point in STR at level 19). Brynhilde has managed to make a 'Steel' Claymore. She´s a useful fighter but pales in comparison to the complete OWNAGE Kasim is doing, especially with this new toy I gambled:

Glyph Visor
Circlet
Defense 27
+5 Light/+5% bonus to AR
+7 Strength
Adds 1-100 Lightning Damage
Resist Fire +14%
+25% Magic Find

He will use this beauty for a long time to come...


Name: Brynhilde
Level: 25
Next area: Harem
Total MF: +154% for Brynhilde´s kills and when opening containers, +206% for Kasim´s kills (which are >95% of the kills).

Typhoon
lvl-23
Area-Arcane Sanctuary
Quest-Arcane Sancuary

ShabaDai:

Lvl 2
Location: Bloodmoor (alt tabbed at the moment)
Quest: Working on Den
She's on multiplayer, but I'll probably play alone, as people on bnet are starting to annoy me.
Status: Extremely annoyed. The first weapon I found (the third monster in the bloodmoor) was a short staff. Grr. I'm considering going back to her fists until I find something faster.

Nera

A little late, considering people are in their twenties already, but oh well.

Finally an UPDATE:


SupremeTankazon
lvl-24
Area-Spider Forest
Quest-Khalims Eye

After hours of Cubing Gems and Runes I have finally have a setup of some Decent items. Ive been playing Act 1 and 2 so much for chippies and stuff that I made 5 Perfects :lol: I'm going to try and get all the parts for today. If my comp doesnt mess up. :grrr:

EDIT: I just put some leftover lasagna in the Microwave and it blew up. :lol: (the microwave blew up not the Lasagna)

Update

Hermione
Level - 17
Location - Black Marsh WP
Quest - Malus

Seems like Hermione is falling behind due to lack of playing time. The weekend won't be any better as I'm gonna try the MFO. Nevertheless, she continues to wreak what havoc she can, still /players 8. Had to run the Countess 6 times before she dropped an El. :scratch: Happily, the most common drop was Tir so she'll be able to create a more Steels if the first socketed weapon isn't what I really want.

Cheers :drink:

Update

FoulKrack
Level - 18
Location - About to do the Dry Hills
Quest - Cube is next

Foul got though act 1 and did the sewers and Ramdaddyo. Really need to get the cube. She still has all her Juevs and a bunch of gems. Her stash is full.

She's using a rare Kriss now. Best item is still The Hand of Broc. She also found the artic furs. Thats it for tonight.

Ahhh Chunkalicious is flying along quite well with Act 1 all quests done at players 8 - I am level 19 and just hit Act 2. I have not found one set item or unique but I have gambled a couple of sexy little rares - best being some gloves with 15% mf 10% chance to cast frosty ring also which is nice for slowing down mobs. My rings are both mf and I also have 2 socket armor with chipped topaz - so much for that! I love act 2 so I will be kickin its dry desert butt after dinner =)

No NDE's as yet but I have had to run away a few times while mashing potions =P

Tonight is friday and I am having some vodka's so please expect my death notice tomorrow! :lady:

Well heres another update

Typhoon
lvl 23
Area-Canyon of the Magi
Quest-Duriel

Im trying to get a game with barbarian...we didnt get to play at all yesterday...

I euj.. died :lol:

I wasn't paying attention and then a fana pack of those goatguys slapped me to the ground.. oh well..

:drink: sint :drink:

ps. lvl 17 malus quest.

R.I.P Sints Character....you lived to be ignored...

and died to be remembered?? well forget it :lol: this wasn't my best project hehe.. good luck to those remaining!

^*Sint*^

Well that sucked. I stayed up to around midnight trying to catch up to everyone else and wasn't exactly paying attention when I started to lag. Sarina the Battlemaid, her band of cronies, and her evil, vampiric, flamethrowing litlte penguin-like friends, took care of the rest. At least I assume they did, as all I saw once the lag was over was my corpse, covered in flames, being viciously stomped into the ground by Sarina and her friends. Grrr... :rant: That was a fun character though, I think I'll rebuild her after I get over her fiery doom. And now I'm here to post her memorial. Never died in hc before.

Shabadai, lvl 26
Died in the Ruined Temple to Sarina and Co. + lag
Quest: Lam Essen's Tome

Well, at least I didn't lose anything good, as I didn't find anything.

Nera

UPDATE:

SupremeTankazon
lvl 26
Area-Lower Kurast
Quest-Khalims Heart

EDIT: Please update the Rankings... How many people are left?

Royal Guardian
lvl 25
River of Flame
Hellforge quest

Found Griswold's Edge off Mephisto! It was a good alternative for Steel'ed broad sword. Another great find is a grand charm: +9 to all resistances... i think it will prove it's worth later...

Typhoon
lvl-23
Area-Spider Forest
Quest-All of act 3

get_inSTAAled make a game... that was some freaky lag back there. I so glad you didn't die

Mone
Level 27
Normal-Great Marsh

Things are only a little quicker now that I gambled a magical "Deadly Circlet of Luck". 30%ED and 29%MF. Although, I have only found one set item with the additional MF. Life is around 269 and Max damage is around 80.

UPDATE:

SupremeTankazon
lvl-27
Area-Pandemonion Fortress
Quest-Izuals Spirit

Mephisto had some pretty nice drops, he dropped a Griswolds Edge and a Gleamscythe. Well if I have more time today I might beat Izual too. So glad I survived all the way here.

Current standings:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Freekje - Royal_Guardian, lvl 25, Norm, act4 - River of Flame

TheUltimateBarbarian - SupremeTankazon, lvl 27, Norm, act4 - Pandemonium Fortress

NeraMornit - Shabadai, lvl 26, Norm act3 - Ruined Temple, R.I.P. (Sarina & Co. + lag)

Insane Wayne - Coral Far, lvl 29, Norm, act3, Swampy Pit

Resipsa - Mone, lvl 27, Norm, act3 - Great Marsh

get_inSTAALed - Typhoon, lvl 23, Norm, act3 - Spider Forest

jiansonz - Brynhilde, lvl 26, Norm, act2 - Canyon of the Magi

SuperSavage - Xenia, lvl 21, Norm, act2 - Rocky Waste

Saucy - FoulKrack, lvl 18, Norm, act2 - Dry Hills

loverat - Chunkalicious, lvl 19, Norm, act2 - Lut Gholein

Sint Nikolaas - Granny, lvl 17, Norm, act1 - Barracks, R.I.P. (Goat pack with Fanaticism)

tragor - Hermione, lvl 17, Norm, act1 - Black Marsh

a_shikoff - Kremena, lvl 14, Norm, act1 - Black Marsh

CheekyJez - Psylocke, lvl 6, Norm, act1 - Cold Plains

Manwe - Manwe-Tankazon, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

Couvi - Vixen, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

Kool69 - La-Zgurl, lvl 1, Norm, act1 - Rogue Camp

the_unholy_kerbet - pimpin_kerbet, lvl1, Norm act1, Blood Moor

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #101-120 from the original thread.

I have been making a Tankazon just for the hell of it, but you guys would be a little upset if I told you what and where she is....

Typhoon
lvl-25
Area-Kurast Bazaar
Quest-Khalims Heart

i finally figured out how to do act 3...its so easy now...

the eye was so easy to get it was laughable...the brain posed a bit more of a problem but not much...

i had one nde in the flyer jungle...i got surrounded by 2 champion groups of flayers and barely escaped...if i wouldnt have gotten a level i wouldve died (thank god for the full life from a lvl :worship: )

Fun tourny hope to join more like it!

Barbarian, MP?

Edit: Update

Typhoon
lvl-25
area-travincal
quest-Compelling orb

(i just made khalims will)


Edit: Update

Typhoon
lvl-25
area-durance of hate
quest-Mephisto

Finally i got to mephisto it took me 30 minutes...my zon owns!!!!

AdunaCCDanimoth: Please tell us :scratch:

Level 62: NM Act 4 Hellforge

HaHa, you must have begun with that one before announcing the tournament, or otherwise, you're very addicted, or of course, option number three, both :surprise:

Option 2 is correct. I have insomnia as of late so I may as well do something....

Holy Crap, what do you do in daily life if you can reach that lvl in exactly one week?!?!? you must have played full time or something!

I'll think i will make it to that level also, but definately not as fast as you! I hope for you you won't die, cause i am on your heels.

NOT! :cheesy:

SupremeTankazon
lvl-29
area-Harrogath
quest-Shenk Quest or Something

HC = One Life to Live.
One Life to Live = Live life to the fullest.
Live life to the fullest = Stomp the hell out of whatever you can.

Live the Creed of HC.

SupremeTankazon
lvl-31
area-arreat plateau
quest-prison of ice

Wow on the Plateau I found Inferno Stride Unique Demonhide Boots .
Aduna good job on how far you are wish you luck against nm Diablo. You need lots o fire resist to survive the fight. I have also made Stealth in a Plate Mail. Oh and ive never had my resists so high untwinked before. 85/43/75/75

Brynhilde and Kasim have slain the big bad slug and moved on to act 3.

I forgot to take it down to /players 3 against Duriel (as I had intended). That didn´t matter much. We beat the crap out of him anyway. The level 5 Decoy was actually quite durable (not that surprising, because it has almost 500 life!) and a good distraction. No town trips were needed and I only used 3 light healing potions and 3 full rejuves.

I have totally changed plans for the STR/DEX goals I set earlier. I did the change just in time, before I invested too much in them. I figured that no matter how good equpiment Brynhilde will get her hands on, she´s still only going to be the third best tank and source of physical damage in my gang. So she will act more like a Caster Amazon than a Tankazon most of the time.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 28
Next area: Spider Forest
Total MF: +190% when opening containers, +249% for Kasim´s kills.

Coral is preparing for a battle with the Ancients, but first, she'll take a tour of the Icy Cellar. I have bittersweet memories of the Cellar, having found some awesome items there but also suffering Gloam lightning death of a high level HC character. I'm not too worried about Normal difficulty Cellar, this should be an exciting little trip.

My valk is steadily chopping through the demon ranks. With the p8 setting, my leveling has allowed me to pump up the valk beyond what Normal monsters can handle. With her and the decoy, I'm free to lend my attack while wearing maximum MF and poor resists.

Unfortunately, I've had very poor luck in finding topazes and gambling MF gear and jewelry. Best I can manage is about 150 MF on my kills. I should mention that I'm a very impatient shopper, I rarely browse for MF gear that way. Despite lagging a bit on the MF, Coral has a tendency to find unique weapons, including Griswold's Edge, Shadowfang, Crushflange, Bloodrise, Skull Splitter, Skewer of Krintiz, Goreshovel, Raven's Claw, Ichorsting, Hellcast, Razortine, and Maelstrom. I enjoyed using Shadowfang and for a few levels. It was very amusing, she sure swings a mean two-hander, and the cold damage helped. But I had to be practical and return to the dagger/shield combo when I found a boring ol' Static Blade of Carnage.

One serious NDE on the Arreat Plateau, when three Crush Beasts simultaneously torched me. I went down to about 60 life. Also, Diablo nailed me with his bone prison before I could even take a shot at him. Luckily he attacked the valk while I escaped. I noticed that I could instantly control who Diablo attacked, simply by activating my weapon switch. Melee = attack me. Throwing knives = attack valk/decoy. Cool.

Skills / Stats update: 60 Str, 89 Dex, 121 Vit (507 life), 15 Energy

1+1 Inner Sight
4+1 Critical Strike
6+1 Dodge
1+1 Slow Missiles
6+1 Avoid
3+1 Penetrate
6+1 Decoy
3+1 Evade
15+1 Valkyrie
2+1 Pierce

Character update:

Coral Far, level 44, Act 5 Normal, Icy Cellar
Static Blade of Carnage
Rare Bone Shield 65% block
Rare Battle Dart
Rare Bone Shield 55% block
Gemmed Breast Plate 48% MF
Rare Circlet +1 Zon skills, 18-44 fire damage, +57 mana, a few other mods
Rare Chain Gloves 5% Frost Nova, lightning resist 20, 17% MF
Sigon's Wrap Plated Belt
Vidala's Fetlock Light Plated Boots
Fortuitous Amulet of Frost Shield 14% MF
Fortuitous Ring of Thawing 15% MF
Fortuitous Ring 15% MF
Charms providing 2-12 lightning damage, 1-2 fire damage, 15 poison damage, 4-8 cold damage, ligtning resist 13, cold resist 29, fire resist 5, +28 life.

Narphet, level 44 cold Iron Wolf
Rare Sabre 2 unused sockets
Rare Bone Shield
Circlet of the Magus
Gemmed Ring Mail 27% MF

In stash:
Runes: Shael, Amn, Thul, Ort (2), Ral (3), Eth (2)
Crushflange Mace
Sigon's Shelter
Peasant Crown War Hat
Skewer of Krintiz Sabre
Cathan's Seal Ring

Due to my over-tiredness and my lack of attention, one of my favourite projects of late has ended in a tragic way.

Death comes for all, and for some earlier then others... (Click to see!)

One last toast for Royal_Guardian, kingslayer! :drink: (Click to see!)

Diablo slayed me with the Spray of Purple Lightning, Diablo was almost killed

A new project is started at the moment, so i'll be back in the tournament! This time with Royal_Queen

Taking on Diablo at lvl 25? You shouldn'ta done that...

Well it seems I am way behind on finding: uniques, set items, decent rares and runes above ral! I guess the Diablo god must also be a guy =D!

Anyway....Chunkalicious is currently level 31 and about to tackle the Big D - luckily the one thing I have managed to find are a lot of fire resist charms. I have completed every quest and even managed to kill Duriel (what a looooooooong fight) on players 8 - I reallly hate Duriel btw and always have

I managed an ITH rune out of the Hellforge whoopeee! Seeing as I had already found 3 of them I didn't get too excited.

Finds of note: there aren't any!

I shouldn't have done that? well, i was playing players 1, and normally it isn't a problem, but it's obvious that you are right! :lol: this was my first HC char, but i like it so i definately will build more, and hope to come further than Big D normal

BTW, my hellforge-drop was Eld, so don't complain about an Ith!!!

I shouldn't have done that? well, i was playing players 1, and normally it isn't a problem, but it's obvious that you are right! :lol: this was my first HC char, but i like it so i definately will build more, and hope to come further than Big D normal

I usually reach Diablo at level 26-27 if I do full clears on /players 1 and you are right, that is normally not a problem. If the character is melee and too underpowered/frail to safely take on Diablo, I buy some throwing weapons and just make many town trips to repair them and to buy potions.

You being tired is what killed your amazon, not her level.


Good luck with your next character!

Typhoon
lvl-25
Area-all of act 4
Quest-Izual

no levels and tons of things done....o well

Hey barbarian if u want to mp with me just pm me up...

Mone
Lvl 31
Starting Act IV

I've been playing at /p8 so I have not progressed as far in the game. Mephisto was surprisingly easy with a 25% crushing blow. Since I've never played an Amazon this far I've some questions. When the Valk is dressed all in blue is that to signify a special armor or just one of her special skills? Does she ever have any MF of her own?

When the Valk is dressed all in blue is that to signify a special armor or just one of her special skills? Does she ever have any MF of her own?

IIRC her armor color indicates mods like those you'd see while shopping. I've noticed Blue sometimes results in Frost Nova. Red = plus life, White = plus defense, etc...
I noticed her rare weapon may also spawn Knockback, Amp Damage, and Elemental Damage.
At a high enough level (20+), I think she acquires the mods of a rare belt. If she also gets a bonus of rare gloves/boots, she might get a MF boost, but I'm not sure.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #121-140 from the original thread.

Well I was running around the Arreat Plateau to full clear it for Training and I couldnt believe my Eyes. Serpentskin Armor dropped! Since I have The Jade Tan Do my Resists are... 85/67/75/95 Get InSTAAled let's Mp.

I couldn't edit my post so I will tell you that I just found a Kuko Shakuka Cedar Bow in the Frozen River. I will now soon make a Bowazon. This tourney has made me find some great stuff.

I couldn't edit my post so I will tell you that I just found a Kuko Shakuka Cedar Bow in the Frozen River. I will now soon make a Bowazon. This tourney has made me find some great stuff.

Why don't you get your amazon a Kuko Shakaku-shooting Rogue companion instead?

Why don't you get your amazon a Kuko Shakaku-shooting Rogue companion instead?

Thx Good Idea... hows Gabrielle doing? Ive ben wating for the next part of the story.

Ahhh I finally found a unique - Sparkling Mail ho hum =) Still no decent runes for runewords and so far I have found 4, count them yes thats right, 4 Clegaws Long Swords! If only I could quad wield!

But anyhow, I am now level 37 I have just rescued Anya and I am about to go and give NIhli Exploding Bum the spanking of his life. Well actually my valk and merc will do that - I will just run in and hit things until the amp damage on my sword goes off

I survived the scotch drinking session but tonight its red wine - hmmmm this could be baaaaaaaaaaad.

Typhoon
lvl-26
area-Horragath
quest-socket

I havent started doing act 5 yet...i have to lvl up in the river of flame for awhile...lvl 30 should be good...

I'm a bit late but here go's
Unknown
lvl9
inner sight - 1
critical strike - 7

I won't make much progress because of work :grrr: but I hope I'll play more on the weekend.

SupremeTankazon
lvl-34 (87% to lv 35)
area-Nihlathaks Temple
quest-Nihlathak thingamagig

Well all I found now was Tearhaunch's which I put in my stash. Me and my Valkrye own all. I have a question... Is 1650 AR alot for where I am? It still says I have like 78% chance to hit :cheesy:

Well all I found now was Tearhaunch's which I put in my stash. Me and my Valkrye own all. I have a question... Is 1650 AR alot for where I am? It still says I have like 78% chance to hit :cheesy:

Sure, that's plenty, especially with a fast weapon. Drop at least one point in Penetrate if you haven't already, for a 35% AR boost. I'm considering maxing Penetrate when I attempt Nightmare Difficulty.

Sure, that's plenty, especially with a fast weapon. Drop at least one point in Penetrate if you haven't already, for a 35% AR boost. I'm considering maxing Penetrate when I attempt Nightmare Difficulty.

.....I have 14 in Penetrate with +2 to skills :cheesy:

Destroyer SupremeTankazon
lvl-38
area-Cold Plains (nm)
quest-Blood Raven (nm)

No recent updates for typhoon other than i found an ort rune finnaly...(only barbarian will get this one )

Barbarian looking forward to the next game we play

Well since I beat normal difficulty I will post a picture of my Stats and my weapons. If any one else can post pictures please do... I wanna see your stuff.

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/tankazonsstats.jpg

Well since I beat normal difficulty I will post a picture of my Stats and my weapons. If any one else can post pictures please do... I wanna see your stuff.

Okay, here's a screenie of Coral's gear/stats:

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/Coral_Far.jpg

I found an sweet rare Kris from Baal, and upgraded it to a Cinquedeas:

+11 Max Damage
+38 Max Damage based on char level
+125% Damage to demons
+180 AR against demons
1-60 Lightning Damage
Monster Flee 100%
Requirements - 20%

I can dice up the baddies that my merc freezes in place, and repel any mobbers with a quick hit guaranteed Monster Flee. I can also direct enemies towards the valk/decoy. Very good for defensive and offensive monster management.

Found some decent boots too:

20% Faster Run/Walk
10% Faster Hit Recovery
74% Enhanced Defense
Heal Stamina +25%
Fire Resist 30%
Magic Find 17%

Coral Far, level 51, Act 1 Nightmare, Dark Wood

I played a marathon session yesterday. /players 8 full clears are tiring, because of the mind-boggling number of town visits you need to do to sell stuff.

I managed to cube a pretty good merc weapon: a Savage Bill of the Icicle.


Name: Brynhilde
Level: 32
Next area: Outer Steppes

I played a marathon session yesterday. /players 8 full clears are tiring, because of the mind-boggling number of town visits you need to do to sell stuff.

I'm addicted to the p8 drop count... but I try to keep my town trips to a minimum.

I'm curious, where do you draw the line on what to sell? By Act 4 Normal, I only pick up items maybe worth about $15,000, like a magical field plate or gothic plate.

In Nightmare/Hell my minimum is about $5,000 per unit space of inventory, for example a $10,000 wand or $30,000 armor. For the most part I only keep wands, orbs, staves, scepters, etc... with + skills. I burn through the ID scrolls like mad, but those are easy to replenish in the field with p8 drops.

I know I miss out on some money but I guess I'm too impatient.

Insane wayne wow you put insane points into vitality... is it that important to have that much? Oh yeah and a Wormskull dropped for me in Normal cows.

Insane wayne wow you put insane points into vitality...

That looks pretty normal to me. Actually, I think Wayne has made a substantial investment in Dexterity so far...

That looks pretty normal to me. Actually, I think Wayne has made a substantial investment in Dexterity so far...

At Lv 43 in the Dark Woods with 105 in Vitality im doing fine. Nothings even touching me. Now I have alot of points in STr and Dex. I still think its not enough though :lol:

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #141-160 from the original thread.

50 gold per inventory space!

Wow! Now I understand the town trip delays you spoke of. It's possible you make 10 - 20 times more town trips than I make. You sure know how to crush an area. Did you get Griswold's gold tooth? :lol:

I know that we can "run" areas in this tournament but I can´t bring myself to do that either.

I know what you mean. I'm not a fan of running areas either. I did permit myself three Baal runs for the sheer delight of crushing his Minions. One time I managed to kill all but one while under an experience shrine effect, still on the p8 setting. Usually, though, I like to move on with the game.

Insane wayne wow you put insane points into vitality... is it that important to have that much?

I believe so, yes. You can never go wrong with Vitality in HC.

Actually, I think Wayne has made a substantial investment in Dexterity so far...

I needed 97 to equip a War Dart. That might be my last point in Dex.

One word.... SupremeTankazon will be Remembered or Whatever. Well I hope this tourny turns out to be great. I can't remember how I died. It was something like this... #1 I'm Running around #2 Dead from from a normal Fallen

May SupremeTankazon RIP

I shall avenge you!!!

Brynhilde and Kasim have reached Harrogath.

I just found out how good a tank the Valkyrie is. I summoned my first 1.10 Valkyrie ever against Mephisto (and then another when she died). Here in act 4 I had one out pretty much the whole time. Izual hit her the whole fight we had with him. She didn´t lose any visible life at all (and I don´t even have a Prayer merc...). Amazing.

Diablo could kill the Valkyrie, but he had to work hard for it. Kasim died so quickly three times in a row, I stopped resurrecting him until Big D was slivered.

I took on Diablo on /players 3. I have to give him a nod of respect for a truly great battle. At first, his Lightning Inferno hurt a LOT. I thought 59% lightning resistance would be enough. Apparently not. Since Brynhilde was going two-handed, she could not block the Lightning Inferno segments and only Avoided some of them.

I only had one good lightning resist ring and no such amulet. But wait! Wasn´t there a LR rare Circlet in Brynhilde´s huge "worth-more-than-20000-gold" Pile o´Junk™? Oh yes, 36% lightning resist and also +20% damage. Not bad...

I think Open Wounds did most of the damage in the fight. I got better at dodging Diablo´s attacks and I had one column of Thawing Potions at hand. Decoy wasn´t much help but the Valkyrie definately was.

Diablo jailed Brynhilde a total of three times. The sight of a non-teleporting character stuck in that cage always gives me a scare. It was no problem, the "Evil Force" only had /players 3 life and collapsed after two sword hits, but still...


Name: Brynhilde
Level: 35
Next area: Bloody Easy Foothills...(yawn)


I think Act 5 Normal is like some of the food your parents gave you when you were a kid. You may not always like it, it can be tasteless, dull and boring but you need it to grow up and be strong.

Typhoon
lvl-28
Area-Horragath
Quest-Socket

Im still leveling up but i did find a very nice nokazen relic in upper Kurast

Best find of my life

Ok People, It's time to put an end to this tourney. You have until Saturday, July 3rd at Noon EST to wrap up your Tankazons. The winner will be declared there. Hope you make these last couple of days count so we can move on to the next tourney!

- Aduna

Ending so soon?

this was fun...ill keep my tankazon forever even if she dies

Heres some pics i took over the course of the time ive played her so far (no shes not dead)

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/TyphoonStatsItems.jpg

^this is her most recent stats and items update^

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/TankazonTwins.jpg

^this is from one of the mp games me and ultimatebarbarian played (memories )^

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/TyphoonCiverbs.jpg

^and this is the civerbs cudgel i found...i also have a pic of darkglow that i dont have hosted right now^

Im definatly not going to win from lack of time to play but i hope that the winners enjoy themselves

@Aduna -- I like the ideas you have for tournaments and I have not lived long enough in one of your previous tournaments to know that they end so quickly. But as a suggestion for your next tournament (which I hope you have and which I hope I play in), please tell the participants in the rules when your tournaments will end. Most of my play comes on the weekends and there is no way I can compete with my character with a deadline of approx. 48 hours notice. Especially, since I will not be home as this is a holiday weekend for me.

I am not upset with the quick deadline because I will continue my tankazon on my own. Afterall, without this tournament I might never have gotten to know the benefits of a Valk. I am just offering the suggestion of making a deadline known at the beginning of the tournament.

Congratulations to the winners. I am impressed with your play.

Yes, I should have mentioned the end at the beginning and I am sorry for that. But I have more Tourney ideas that I would like to run through before I have to redirect my attention back towards a couple college classes I am taking in about 3 weeks. To everyone that can only play on weekends, I offer my deepest apologies to for the quick kill to the tourney.

Anyway, the next tourney is still in the air for what I want to do for it. It's either going to be a Non-Dagger Meleemancer, a Level Dash, or a Psion (Non-MA, Non-Trap Assassin.)

- Aduna

@Aduna --- I agree with Resipsa's comments. Of course, you're free to start all the tourneys you want, and I wish you the best of luck.

I very rarely play more than one character at a time, and I play my HC characters to the death. No disrespect to my fallen tourney-mates, but I consider myself an advanced player with a reasonable chance to take my Tankazon into Hell Difficulty, but it will take time. I might spend another 4 - 6 weeks on this character.

I would not have joined any tournament if I knew it would be so brief. I accept your apology that this was an oversight on your part, however, I hope you will not be offended when I continue with this character beyond your cut-off date.

@Barbarian --- Sorry your character died. From what you described, you may have run past a group of Fallen and taken a rapid series of hits from several of them. Good luck with your next character!

@Barbarian --- Sorry your character died. From what you described, you may have run past a group of Fallen and taken a rapid series of hits from several of them. Good luck with your next character!

It's ok I was in nightmare and I was seeing what it would be like on /players8 Yeah my next character is a Blizzard Sorc since I started D2 from scratch.

Psion!

Do the psion assassin one! I've wanted to make a "hammersin" for awhile now Although I'd probably just end up maxing venom, shadow master, and mind blast anyways, since psychic hammer really is that bad No synergies either. What were they thinking?

I am with Wayne on this. I would never have participated here if I knew there was a time limit. I have nothing against time limits for signing up in a tournament but I do not like to be rushed when I´m playing. I also like to see how far my HC characters can make it.


My young amazon is just starting to grow up. I will continue to post her progress here and I will try to catch up on those ahead of me. In time...




Anyway, on to the next update!

Brynhilde and Kasim have cleared up to and including Arreat Plateau and the two bonus dungeons. Progress is steady and very safe. Whenever it gets a little dicey, I can just bring out the Valkyrie. In Abbadon, she was attacked by no less than three Champion Hell Lords and still didn´t lose any visible life! They probably missed a lot. A rare Ornate Plate, +60% Defense and Kasim´s Defiance on top of that provides a massive Defense for her. Add 1400+ life with excellent regeneration and you have an awesome tank. I think I will keep her at level 7 well into nightmare. That way, she gets no rare Lance, just a Spear, which means she is very unlikely to "steal" kills from Kasim. I want to use the MF on him for (almost) every kill, of course.

In areas with the Enslaved/Lasher combinations, I found it best to not use any Valkyrie. That made it easier to have less suicide bombers form.

Kasim kills everything (except the very few suicide bombers which Brynhilde managed to nail with her Glowing Balanced Knives). I am now going almost all-out-MF-crazy with her for a while. I have been able to make a juicy Rhyme Bone Shield and I have even bought a socketed Kris where I have put two Emerald Jewels (gives +13% MF). Sort of a poor woman´s Gull. Heh.

Since Diablo, she has fought very little. I am beginning to really emphasize the Passive part in the term "Passive Amazon". :lol: It´s amazing what you can do just with movement, Slow Missiles and Decoy.

Kasim now uses a somewhat slow but quite powerful weapon: a Savage Partizan (gotta love that recipe!). He still needs 4 of the +7 STR that is on his Circlet to be able to wield it.

Before I saved, I shopped Malah and Larzuk for quite some time. They were stingy, but finally provided:

* Larzuk sold an Artisan´s Great Helm of the Wolf (for near-future MF use) :yep:
* Malah sold Balanced Knives with Terror charges. Now that I enter the ice caves, I want Brynhilde to be able to survive if an Evil Urn should spawn a Fanaticism frenzytaur pack right where she is standing. You never know...


Looking forward to the next level-up where I can start seeing Buzzing throwing weapons.


Name: Brynhilde
Level: 40
Next area: Crystalline Passage
Total MF: +216% when opening containers, +275% for Kasim´s kills. :flip:

Well Chunkalicious has been a busy little Tankazon =) Currently at level 61 and have just found the Upper Kurast wp in NM - running NM at /players 6. After finding nothing useful for a very long time - my luck has continued Well I did get a 25% Nagelwhich was great - but the only unique weapons I have found are 3 bows so far lol. And 2 pairs of Gorefeets and of course the ubiquitious Venom Ward and Sparkling Mail

Chunkalicious currently has around 190% mf including a very delicious 5% + 9% fire res small charm. I now have a might merc who is wearing a 3 socketed russet with 3 perfect rubies and has a decent rare pole with 7% life leech. Its really all about the Valk and strategic placement of decoy for me tho. I tend not to get hit very often (aside from standing away from minion packs or swarms) I have 9 each in dodge and evade and decent blocking. I am still sporting a level 13 weapon with 5% amp damage which I run in and swing, especially on physical immune bosses.

Just a little while ago while diligently opening everything I could in lower kurast I found Szabi's Helmand Tal's Maskone after the other - very handy indeed.

I have been lucky to have a few cancelled meetings and a good deal of insomnia the last few days and I am really enjoying this tournament :lady:

No major updates other than Typhoon is almost lvl 29

(OMG im so freaking far behind :cheesy: )

I was looking forward to spending two days off work with parents & friends at our summer house. Then I got struck with a major cold than almost left me totally knocked out both days and I had to stay home. Almost knocked out. I did get to finish Act 5 with Brynhilde.

I have found a great little tool for certain situations: Hwanin´s Blessing, a belt with Prevent Monster Heal. I used that together with the Glowing Balanced Knives to stop the regeneration of Baal´s Minions of Destruction. Valkyrie tanked and Kasim took them down slowly.

The fight with Baal was one of the most fun I´ve ever had. He dropped Hellplague, ethereal Venom Grip, Sigon´s Visor and Whitstan´s Guard.

I upgraded Hellplague to a Rune Sword and said goodbye to Kasim. Say hello to Ulric the Barbarian. I tried to make him equip the sword, and:

says Ulric: "I can´t use that."

It requires DEX 79 and Ulric only has 68! Idiot... :bonk:
What to do? I could shop at Fara´s for a socketed Breast Plate and stuff in a couple of emeralds. Then I remembered I had kept Greyform and it has +10 DEX. One lousy DEX point missing. Hmm....

I bought Urlic a Merciless Flamberge and sent him out on the Bloody Foothills. He only needed to clear about 30% of it until he levelled up. I hope (and think) he will be a good killer/tank in the Cow Level and in Act 1 NM.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 48
Next area: The not-so-Secret Cow Level

Brynhilde and Ulric are marching on in Act 1 NM.

Ulric the Barbarian is an even better killer than I had hoped he would be. I really like the combination of fast running + fast attacks of the barbarian mercs. The level 7 Valkyrie is an invincible tank. If Ulric takes too much damage too fast, I just back off a few steps. The monsters gather around the valkyrie and Ulric takes a breather, drinks a potion, then returns to the mob and kills them with ease since they all are attacking the valkyrie.


The only troublesome foes are the Fallen Shamen. I have several ways to deal with them:

1. Run up to one (or maybe a bit past it) so Ulric follows and starts to attack it while the valkyrie occupies most of the warriors. It works well most of the time but sometimes Ulric just refuses to cooperate.

2. Occupy the shaman with a Decoy. If I can get it to spawn right beside the shaman, he will be busy attacking and firebolting the Decoy, thus resurrecting warriors a lot less.

3. Attack it with my 'Steel' Flamberge. I only need to get Open Wounds to trigger twice to kill it (or, if no other monsters are near, I just hack it to death).

Often I have to combine all three methods to make progress when multiple shamen are involved.


While I was clearing the Cow Level, the game decided to play a really cruel joke on me: it erased all my ground-stored items! Even the set items, just like in the 1.10 beta. WTF? I had been returning to town very often to sell stuff and that had worked very well during whole game up to this. Sigh...

I lost Sigon´s boots, helm and gloves, Hwanin´s Blessing, a nice rare Heavy Belt with good resists, my Glowing Balanced Knives, my Terror dagger, some nice crafted Blood gloves with lightning resist, half a dozen jewels I had kept for crafting and some minor gems.


I have found Goldwrap, so now all ten of Brynhilde´s items in the standard setup have MF.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 49
Next Area: Black Marsh
Total MF: +302% when opening containers, +361% for Ulric´s kills.

Ahhh an interesting day in playing Chunkalicious. I am very impressed with a high level Valk (never really made one before just put a point in and use +skills) she really is a tank and can easily take on 2 bosses and minions with no trouble.

I continued playing NM at /players 6, using strategic decoy and valk placement and of course the ever handy merc. Act 5 was both fun and a pain in the butt, Arreat Plateau was ALL mobs that run away lol. Then the most exciting thing ever and my best ever find in a HC game. I was running Halls of Anguish prior to killing Nihli. I am a compulsive box/chest/stash/jar opener and kicker. I opened one of the tombs and out pops Russet Armour!! OMG!! Just before that I had found a small charm with 7% mf and a heap of set items. So of course it has now been personalised as Chunkalicious' Skullders Ire. The worst thing is, since I moved from Sydney - I had noone in the house who cared or understood what a find it was and I could only celebrate with the dog :scratch:

Anyway, after taking a break at sometime heh, I started up again and decided to get Act 5 over and done with. No real problems with the Ancients and they never once came near me - hooray for decoys! The mages on the way to the throne room, combined with black souls, were really painful and I hid around a LOT of corners. The valk even died a few times with that combo.

Baal's Minions were ok apart from Lister and his mob so I used decoy and running away to split them up and take them down one by one. Baal was ok but it took a bloody long time and he dropped me Ginthers Rift which looks kinda sexy!

BUT...of course now I am in Hell - and I mean that quite literally. Den of Evil was alright but my merc isn't hacking it too well lol. And about an hour ago I attempted to kill Bloodraven - absolutely IMPOSSIBLE and there were around 30+ undead mooning around in a huge pack GAH! Bloodraven doesn't stand still long enough for the valk to get more than two hits in and I am as useless as the proverbials on a bull. And the merc runs into the pack and goes "WTF am I doing here?" and dies :lol:

Oh yeah...I can see Hell being about as much fun as major dental surgery!

Great progress for Brynhilde today. She went all the way through the Catacombs. No major hiccups but I have to be careful to not let Ulric be hit by too many enemies at a time. One or two is OK but not more.

Ulric was out for most of the Andariel fight. He died too quickly. I decided to use Crushflange in this fight. I let the valkyrie engage the Demon Queen, then I ran around her and attacked. Progress was quite slow, even with 33% Crushing Blow. I switched to my new 'Malice' Espandon. At least it´s encouraging to see the enemy bleed...

To my surprise, that -100 monster defense per hit worked like a charm for the following Crushflange attacks. Every time Andariel stopped bleeding, I hit her with the sword a couple of times. Near the end of the fight, Brynhilde almost couldn´t miss with Crushflange! I brought in Ulric for the kill, to maximize the MF value. Andariel´s drop included a dream item!

You see, Ulric has done a great job in Act 1 NM, but it is time to move on to Brynhilde´s fourth and final mercenary. I had found a couple of promising weapons in this last session. I had them all stored on the ground. First I had found The Battlebranch (Poleaxe), then a Pike with +48% damage, 6% life steal and a socket and finally The Grim Reaper (War Scythe). All of those weapons would need to be upgraded to exceptional to be of any real use. Especially The Battlebranch looked really nice with good +% damage, built-in life steal and very quick attack speed. However, I had neither a Ral nor a Sol rune left and I have not seen a single Amn yet. I used my only Sol to upgrade Hellplague and the Rals had been used for crafting amulets. So I had not solved the merc weapon situation yet. And what does lovely Andariel give me? Kelpie Snare!

If I was ever in doubt about switching to an act 2 merc, those doubts instantly disappeared. Enter Razan, the Holy Freeze merc. OMG, the enemies he hits will be CRAWLING from the slowing weapon and from his aura! If I ever get to Hell, I will give Razan Iceblink as well.

I don´t know if I should socket Kelpie Snare with a Shael. I think I will wait, because my HC tournament characters seem to have an uncanny ability to find Hone Sundan somewhere in Nightmare.

After I saved, I started a Normal game, bought a 3-socketed Flail and made 'Black' in it. Now Brynhilde has a faster weapon than Crushflange with more Crushing Blow and even 12 Corpse Explosion charges.


Name: Brynhilde
Level: 53
Next area: Lut Gholein Sewers
Total MF: +333% when opening containers, +406% for Razan´s kills (and there is still room for one more topaz in his armor!).

Even though she is sporting some massive MF, Brynhilde´s resists are not that bad (50 fire, ~25 cold, 40-something lightning) and she is rapidly nearing 800 life.

The future looks bright indeed...

said:
Total MF: +333% when opening containers, +406% for Razan´s kills (and there is still room for one more topaz in his armor!).

Nice work! You are the master of MF.


Coral's MF is a meager 185% - 215%, depending on setup. Progress through Nightmare so far has been steady and fairly safe. I'm still slugging it out on the p8 setting. I team up with Narphet for spot killing and crowd control while my over-powered valk tanks. Not even the most fearsome pack of Extra Strong monsters has been able to take more than a sliver of life from my valk. Duriel managed to take off a fifth of her life once, and that's as low as she got. If I make it to Hell, I'm going to need the most powerful tanks possible, so I decided to max both Valk and Decoy.

The valk's invincibility has made me a bit reckless at times. So far in Act 3 I've been mobbed by the quicker enemies a few times because I charged ahead too quickly. When that happens I count on my Monster Flee gear to rescue me. My rare Cinquedeas has 100% Monster Flee. My rare War Darts have 100% Flee + Prevent Monster Heal. And my rare Bone Shield has Terror charges. Coral is scaring the crap out of everyone and everything in her path.

Here is a typical battle sequence:

A mob of enemies engages the valk / decoy, the more the merrier.
I spray Prevent Monster Heal War Darts everywhere ( level 2 Pierce and 40% Increase Attack Speed help a lot here...).
Monsters go running off, but always return shortly.
I reposition the decoy, not for safety, but to corral the monsters in. This is especially useful for monsters that like to run and who escape Narphet's freezing.
The valk steadily chews up the pack.
I attack whichever enemy Narphet is freezing. Frozen monsters can't Flee, and I dice them up, although some of them take 20+ hits. I gave Narphet +2 skills on his gear, so his freezing attack is respectable on its own.
If any enemies decide to sneak up on me, I send them scurrying with a quick dagger poke. I try to direct their Fleeing right into the Valk.
Mop up, rinse and repeat.

My confidence was taken down a notch is the Kurast Sewers. There, I encountered 3 packs of Extra Strong Undead Doll-type creatures. One good mobbing is all it takes with them, because a 2-hit death is possible. I was lucky to escape from an Extra Strong Cursed pack, one hit took more than half my life! Definitely rattled my nerves...

Skills / Stats update: 80 Str, 110 Dex, 213 Vit (836 life), 15 Energy. Resists: Fire=75, Cold=49, Lightning=38, Poison=20

1 Inner Sight
4 Critical Strike
6 Dodge
1 Slow Missiles
6 Avoid
4 Penetrate
20 Decoy
3 Evade
20 Valkyrie
2 Pierce

Character update:

Coral Far, level 62, Act 3 Nightmare, Upper Kurast
Rare Cinquedeas
"Rhyme" Bone Shield
Rare War Dart
Rare Bone Shield 55% block, Terror charges
Gemmed Gothic Plate 80% MF, +52 AR
Prismatic Circlet pf Precision
Sigon's Gage Gauntlets
Sigon's Wrap Plated Belt
Rare Boots 17% MF
Amulet of Luck 31% MF
Rare Ring 10% MF
Nagelring Ring 18% MF
Charms providing 1-6 lightning damage, 1-2 fire damage, 15 poison damage, ligtning resist 23, cold resist 34, fire resist 21, +8 life, 4% MF.

Narphet, level 61 cold Iron Wolf
Rare Sabre Fire Resist +24, Lightning Resist +11
Sigon's Guard Tower Shield +1 skills
Peasant Crown War Hat +1 skills
Sigon's Shelter Gothic Plate

In stash:
Runes: Io, Dol, Sol (2), Shael, Amn, Thul (3), Ort (3), Ral (3),
Crushflange Mace
Cathan's Seal Ring
Assorted Rare gloves and belts

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #161-177 from the original thread.

@Insane Wayne:

Cool shield! I had no idea they could get Terror charges. Hmm, I wonder what more items can get them...

(goes to check d2data.net)

OK, so wands, daggers, throwing daggers and all sorts of shield gear (normal shields, Necromancer Shrunken Heads and Paladin Shields) can get Terror charges.




Brynhilde and her posse are marching on, steadily most of the time. The Valkyrie is still at level 7. She is not invincible anymore but nearly so. It takes a strong poison and many, many hits to even threaten her. I am very satisfied with my MF tactics of not letting her get a Lance (which she would do at spell level 8). I have 13 saved skill points. If I manage to reach NM Ancients, I will pour those points into Valkyrie right before that fight. The extra skill points that I earn right now are going into Penetrate and Decoy, at about equal pace.

Typical battle sequence: Brynhilde or Razan wakes up a pack of enemies. If Razan is ahead, he starts fighting them. If Brynhilde is ahead, she retreats past Razan and he starts fighting the following monsters. If I see that he can´t handle the mob, I pull him back a bit. By now, the valkyrie has usually caught up with us (she moves slowly). Since Razan has a stronger "follow Bryhilde" urge than the valkyrie, he will move away from the fight. Valkyrie tanks the mob, Razan returns and kills them. If there are ranged attackers, I first cast Slow Missiles, then Decoy at a strategic place. Recast if necessary.

Against resurrectors (Hollow Ones so far), I occupy one with a Decoy, cast Slow Missiles and start to pound another with my 'Black' Flail. After a while, I usually try to pull Razan to the fight. If there are single annoying lesser undead that distracts Razan when I want him to fight a Hollow One, I may use Corpse Explosion on it the next time Razan takes it down, to remove the corpse.


The combination of Holy Freeze and a weapon with Hit Slows Target by 75% really makes fights against single bosses very safe. It took Radament over 10 seconds to strike a blow. Lesser bosses won´t even get an attack off since Razan interrupts their attacks and put the boss into hit recovery.


I think it´s about time I list the current gear, eh?

Brynhilde
Artisan´s Great Helm of the Wolf with perfect topaz x3
Rugged Amulet of Luck (35)
Kris (13% MF)
Breast Plate with perfect topaz x3
Rhyme Bone Shield
Coral Heavy Gloves of Fortune (27/23, still looking for that perfect 30/25...)
Ring (16% MF, ~100 AR, 5% life steal, some minor bonuses)
Goldwrap
Ring (21% MF, resist fire 8)
Ocher Chain Boots of Luck (19/32)

Weapon Switch:
Black Flail
Rhyme Bone Shield (yes, another one)

Charms are two Grand ones with 20+ fire resist each and several Small ones with various resists and +life.


Razan the Holy Freeze Desert Guard
Kelpie Snare
Circlet (5% AR bonus, +5 light, 14 resist fire, 1-100 lightning damage, +25% MF; you´ve seen this one before...)
Breast Plate with perfect topaz x2, one empty socket

Other notable stuff:
Iceblink, Sigon´s Sabot, Heavy Gloves with fire resist, Plated Belt with resists, Boots with fire + cold resist, a couple of runes (Tal, Dol, Hel).



Name: Brynhilde
Level: 54
Next area: Far Oasis in NM

Coral cruised into Act 5 NM today. The valk is doing everything except carry Coral on her back. If Larzuk could repair one of those busted wagons that litter Act 5, Coral could hitch it to the valk and ride in style. Narphet could make iced tea. When Coral gets sleepy, I'd craft her some bunny slippers and pajamas and a Cosmo. While she napped, the valk would drag her up Mount Arreat and skewer every monster in her way.

Coral: "Wake me up when you sliver Baal, so I can change into my MF gear!"
Valk: "Sure thing princess! But are these blinders and harness really necessary? After all, I am a Norse goddess...not an ox!"
Coral: "This again? Listen...while I was under attack by a dozen Burning Archers, not to mention cold enchanted Slinger javelins, you stupidly beat on a pile of rocks and a wooden gate you could've just WALKED AROUND! On top of that, I'm wasting MY skillpoints to pump YOUR synergies, and still you complain?
Valk: "Okay! Okay! Enough! Dammit, I'm sorry I even brought it up...your highness!"
Coral: "Less lip! More zip! Giddyap!" Narphet! Did you finish that bumper sticker yet?"
Narphet: "Yes ma'am! 'Will brake for Sigon's Greaves'"
Coral: "Very nice... time for a nap. My feet hurt!"


Okay, I got a little carried away there. Flew off on a tangent. It hasn't been quite that easy, because the valk certainly tends to do stupid things a lot, like walk out of a fight for no apparent reason, leaving me exposed. But the Monster Flee keeps me pretty safe, and I still get my share of kills. Seriously though, the valk is unstoppable. There seems to be some type of resistances bonus for her synergies, because elemental damage hardly bothers her any more, not even poison. I took on Diablo at players8. Big D ignored me and went right at the valk. Neither moved a step while they slugged it out. He got her down to the yellow life-range once. I couldn't believe it. She steadily kicked his ***. I switched to the throwing weapon, to see if he'd attack me. Nothing. For 10 or 15 minutes I watched Coral's ponytail bob as the valk took Diablo down by herself. As long as I keep on my toes, (for when the valk gets stupid) I'm safe.

Coral has a nice collection of maces as she contemplates the upcoming Hell Difficulty.

I have Crushflange, my only source of Crushing Blow, Knockback, plus good Fire Resistance.
I have Moonfall Jagged Star, which has 60 charges of Level 11 Meteor. This sounds very handy for all those Hell Physical Immune packs of ghosts and the like. I'll throw some Prevent Monster Heal darts and rain meteors as the valk tanks.
I also found Aldur's Rhythm Jagged Star. Very fast swing speed, decent damage, massive dual leech, and three sockets! Hmmm.....

Here's another nice new find:

Carrion Veil Coronet
+1 Amazon Skills
78% Enhanced Defense
+19 Strength
All Resists +19
Magic Find 9%

Well I guess I'll see how much longer this valk rules Nightmare. I have a feeling she'll met her match in Hell Difficulty. In my limited experience with high-level Valks in Hell, I remember her getting killed all the time, but that valk's synergies were not as high as this one's. We'll see...

In case you're wondering, here's the recipe for crafting pajamas and bunny slippers:

Ethereal dusk shroud socketed with gem color of choice, cracked spiderweb sash, two live wild rabbits from Arreat Plateau (the kind you always step on "accidently"), and Mephisto's Soulstone.

Skills / Stats update: 99 Str, 108 Dex, 223 Vit (884 life), 15 Energy. Resists: Fire=75, Cold=49, Lightning=40, Poison=16

1+1 Inner Sight
4+1 Critical Strike
6+1 Dodge
1+1 Slow Missiles
6+1 Avoid
12+1 Penetrate
20+1 Decoy
3+1 Evade
20+1 Valkyrie
2+1 Pierce

Character update:

Coral Far, level 68, Act 5 Nightmare, Crystalline Passage

All that gloom in Tal Rasha´s Tomb
The best way to get through, lure out and kill a few
Then go back to some other spot
fight a bit, the corpses rot

Without the help from restorable troops
without the cover offered by groups
you spin their demise one on one
The battle ends in victory, what glorious fun!

/Sirian, Astra´s adventures


This sums up the situation for Brynhilde´s gang in the final act 2 NM session very well. It really was a marathon session. I started by the Canyon of the Magi waypoint around 18.30 Friday evening and I only took one long dinner break. The act was finished at 3.05 in the morning. The True Tomb alone (with beetles, Burning Dead and Unravelers) took 2 hours and 35 minutes of intense playing!

One reason it takes so long is that Razan is about to get underpowered and that I am on a treasure hunt. Adding Iceblink and/or pumping Valkyrie would have greatly improved the killing speed.
The other reason it takes so long: so much treasure! I think I collected something like 3 million in cash this session. I gamble it all on rings, since I still have not seen one single (add decent resistance prefix) Ring of Fortune yet.

I have grown to LOVE the 'Black' Flail. The amazing attack speed, the Knockback, the Crushing Blow, the Corpse Explosion charges. A really useful weapon. I actually have the runes to make another one. I hope to find a suitable Knout for it.

Good finds in the second half of act 2: TWO Jewels of Fervor, Twitchthroe, Angelic Wings, A perfect (40%) Amber Amulet of the Fox, some Amber (37%) boots of Acceleration (from Fara).


I took on Duriel on /players 3. Maybe I shouldn´t have...

...turned the players setting down, I mean. My, what a joke he was! Razan slowed him a lot, the Valk tanked almost the whole battle (Razan needed a total of four potions since he became the target when the valk was knocked back) and Brynhilde´s quick 40% Crushing Blow attacks just stomped the big slug.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 60
Next area: Spider Forest

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 62
Next area: Kurast Bazaar in NM

The first part of act 3 was much easier than last session. No real danger, steady progress.

I did find a 3-socketed Knout! I had also found another Io rune, which meant I had two. I had saved a flawed topaz, just in case I would find yet one more Io (so I could make a Lum, which is an awesome rune for several reasons). I didn´t know if I wanted to use up an Io (and a Thul) but I finally decided to do it. I figured that it would take a while to find an Io and I could just as well simply find a Lum anyway.

And what happens? I swear, no more than twenty killed monsters later, another Io rune drops! Isn´t that just charming? Now I still need one more to make that rune upgrade...

I have taken STR to 82 (to be able to use that Knout) and DEX to 97 (for War Darts). Those stats will probably not be raised much higher. Oh, and Brynhilde has broken the 800 life barrier.


I found anonther Shael and used it to upgrade Iceblink to a Russet Armor. It still sits in the stash. If I get to Hell, Iceblink will be the merc armor of choice, at least in act 1. I´ve seen what it can do there.


Today Brynhilde met her first PI monster with a good amount of life: a Stone Skin Drowned Carcass in Great Marsh. Razan could still kill it with his cold damage from HF and the 1-100 lightning damage from the circlet but it sure took a while.

Lower Kurast provided a nice little gift: Sureshrill Frost (unique Flanged Mace). It has Hit Freezes Target, good damage and cold damage and finally 50 charges of level 9 Frozen Orb. Looks like a useful weapon, if a bit on the slow side.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 64
Next area: Outer Steppes
Total MF: +347% when opening containers, +468% for the kills (<-- That is just nuts...)


I am really starting to get the hang of this character. I get better and better at keeping Razan (and Brynhilde too, for that matter!) safe with movement and with strategic placing of Valkyrie and Decoy. I think I have discovered another benefit of holding back the 13 skill points reserved for Valkyrie: good practice for the playing situation in Hell.

Nevertheless, there were a few hairy moments in some of the six temples. I actually felt a need to make my first portal parking in one of them.

Mephisto was a pushover, even on players 8.


Brynhilde found her fourth unique ring today. It was a Manald Heal, just like the other three... :rant:


I decided to check out the status of the "survival" gear I have. Here is the situation for the 15 item slots, as I see it:

Hell viable and excellent gear:
Weapon 1, both shields, gloves, belt, ring 1 and merc. armor

I have Hell viable gear but it can easily improve:
Ring 2, amulet, boots and merc. weapon

For these slots I lack Hell viable gear:
Weapon 2, armor, headgear and merc. headgear

Coral and Co. powered their way to the Worldstone Keep today. I started off at Nihlathak's Temple (still doing the p8). The zombie garden welcoming committee provided the scariest moment yet for this character. The Decoy, valk, and then Coral all took a rapid series of knockback blows. My front-line collapsed so quickly that I panicked. I slammed a rejuv and miscast a decoy, then misclicked and almost ran towards certain death. I recovered from my running error and a few more zombies charged me. Just in time, Narphet froze them, in full charge, with their weapons poised comically to strike. I regained control quickly after that, but it was humbling. I will need to do better than that in the future.

Nihlathak's lackeys were a boring bunch, including poison dart flayers and death brawlers mostly. At least I found some scarabs on level 2 to liven things up a bit. I took advantage of the high exp. there, ensuring full clears instead of my usual 99% clears. Monsters were giving about 40K experience. I didn't want to miss any. Nihlathak's level had bone mages and hell temptresses. No problems there. I tried out my new "Moonfall" Meteor charges on Nihli. They worked well and were a lot of fun to watch, if a little expensive to repair.

I had a fantastic monster draw on the Frozen Tundra, with goats, skeleton mages, and succubi. I encountered tons of boss packs, especially goats. Not too much gained on the exp. though. I was happy to find a truncheon in the bonus area. I wanted to steal a page from jiansonz's book and make a "Black" weapon. Compared to knouts, truncheons swing just as fast, do more damage, and take up half the inventory space. Too bad they can't get three sockets.:bonk: Good thing I double-checked the stats before I rolled for the sockets. Then I quickly found a knout. I thought "what the heck" and tried to get a lucky roll for the 3 sockets and ended up with 5. So ended that unpleasant experiment. I will have to wait patiently for a 3-socket mace. I think the best thing about "Black" is the corpse explosion charges. I will desperately need body disposal for Hell Difficulty cold-immune resurrecting monsters like the skellies in the Viper Temple and Tal's Tombs.

The Icy Cellar gave me a tough monster roll with Afflicted, Ghosts and Death Lords. The valk met her match with a pack of Extra Strong Death Lords and got butchered. I had to break the pack up and almost retreated back to the entrance before gaining control.

The Ancients spawned with the wussiest attributes I've ever seen. All three had Teleportation. What a joke, I was able to hack them with my dagger and leech enough not to need potions. I ran around a bit and they turned their attention to the valk and decoy, so I rained Meteors on them, lighting up the whole battle field. I used all 60 charges (cost about 200K to repair) but I couldn't resist the fun.

Worldstone Keep had vampires, gloams, melee flayers (knives and spears), and flayer shaman. Yes! A draw like that certainly will keep you on your toes. It was a lot of tense gaming. Good practice for Hell. During one battle, Coral's dagger broke and she ran out of war darts, so she had to finish off a couple shamen with her fists. What can I say?, she's got anger issues...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to improve my equipment much in any of these areas, even with +250 MF. I did find a rare dual leech ring, which I didn't think was possible anymore, but I found it...

+59 AR
2% Mana Leech
5% Life Leech
+21 Life
Lighning Resist 15%
Fire Resist 16%


Skills / Stats update: 99 Str, 108 Dex, 248 Vit (975 life), 15 Energy. Resists: Fire=75, Cold=63, Lightning=50, Poison=26

1+1 Inner Sight
4+1 Critical Strike
6+1 Dodge
1+1 Slow Missiles
6+1 Avoid
17+1 Penetrate
20+1 Decoy
3+1 Evade
20+1 Valkyrie
2+1 Pierce


Character update:

Coral Far, level 73, Act 5 Nightmare, Worldstone Keep
Narphet, level 73 cold Iron Wolf

Brynhilde´s gang have slugged their way through act 4. They are slow but unstoppable, like a giant slug devouring everything in its path.

I must say I had terrible luck with the monster rolls in this act.

Outer Steppes: Flesh Spawners, Corpulents and Cliff Lurkers. What a mess that was! The spawners were the worst. Since Razan is the one that kills, I want him to attack the spawning mothers and just not care about the babies until last. But as we all know, mercs always attack the nearest target. The leapers did their best to distract him as well. And then there were the Corpulents that have several metric tons of life and just when I think one will finally get killed, it either 1.) moves away so Razan switches targets and it can heal over time or 2.) eats a corpse and heals up to 40% of its maximum life, depending on the size of the "meal". I had to deal with six boss packs (three of them were Spawners) on the Steppes.

Plains of Despair: Flesh Spawners, Corpulents and Burning Souls. Oh goody, my favourites again, with the added bonus of Burning Souls who will shoot 4351887139904 lightning streams before Razan finally has mopped up a large pack of the other monsters and starts to attack them. All the while, Brynhilde does not know where to stand to avoid the penetrating lightning. It actually became dangerous a couple of times (Brynilde has less than 50% resist). I found out how to reduce the danger a lot, a Decoy to the "side" of where the majority of the Burning Souls were hanging out was the way to go. Gotta love these durable extra Brynhildes with over a minute´s duration...

I lured Izual back to the Outer Steepes so I could gain 50% more experience for killing him (XP shrine).

There was a really nasty boss on the Plains: Fanaticism Flesh Spawner. I managed to meet it with only one minion but that was still a major struggle.


City of the Damned: Stygian Hags, Corpse Spitters and...Damned. Sound familiar? At least there were more Damned than anything else, and they die quickly. I had a fabulous "%chance-to-cast-Amplify"-Valkyrie for a long time here.

I had planned to play the whole act but I had to stop. Bedtime was long overdue.



I continued today. I thought about what would be the worst possible monster roll on the River and came up with this:
* Grotesques
* Blood Maggots
* Either Maw Fiends or Urdar.

What did I get? Let´s put it this way: I didn´t get any maggots...

I had improved the tactics a lot against the spawners. Brynhilde got more into the action, knocking Grotesques into Razan, forcing him to attack them. She used her "Black" weapon quite a bit, both with hitting and the CE charges. I also made an important discovery. There is a "rule" about the spawners that I never saw violated:

"If there are a total of 6 spawns on the screen, the spawners won´t produce more of them"

Once I figured this out, progress was much easier. I had the valk engage a few and a decoy the others. Sometimes Brynhilde herself occupied one of the little disgusting critters. She has 40% blocking and even higher chance to Dodge and even if it hits, it doesn´t hurt much. The plan was always to get as many as possible out of Razan´s way, so he could focus on the mothers, Urdars and Maw Fiends.


It may sound like I am complaining. I am not, really. I like a challenge and I have made the choice of major treasure hunting (at the expense of killing speed and more safety) in NM.


I may have had bad luck with monsters in the act but certainly not with items. Hellforge produced a Lum rune. Very nice.
Halbu sold a +45 life Artisan´s Light Plate of the Colossus. Thanks!

Then it happened again. History repeats itself. Third SPF tournament I use an act 2 merc, third Hone Sundan in Nightmare! It was dropped by a boss Venom Lord on the way through Lord De Seis´ wing.

I admit it was a lucky find. Still, I felt a bit like I had deserved it. All that running around with an ugly goofy yellow helmet, boots without extra speed, holding a dagger in that "Psycho" pose (a dagger which she can´t even kill a Flesh Beast with, by the way), relying on the merc to do all the killing, etc.

And you know what? A few minutes later, De Seis dropped a Kelpie Snare! (slightly less +% damage than the current one.)


I gave Razan Hone Sundan and sold Kelpie Snare. The slowing is very useful but the damage is not really up to the task anymore. I put in an Amn rune but held off adding another. I need to do some research about IAS breakpoints, both for Razan and Brynhilde. I want my Jewels of Fervor to be used in the best possible way.


I shopped Ormus for a Teleporting staff. I had no idea how long it would take for Brynhilde to break through a /players 3 Evil Force and I felt a need for insurance against that evil prison trick by Big D.

I packed on all my charms (the items, that is ) and Sigon´s boots and prepared for the fight.

Razan died immediately. The fight was on. Contrary to Wayne´s situation, Diablo always attacked Brynhilde rather than the valk, if both were next to him. I think Diablo attacks the creature that does the most damage. A +120% damage Knout may not do devastating damage but it is definately more than the rare Spear of the valkyrie...

Cannot Be Frozen really is excellent to have against Diablo. You are never slowed when it´s time to avoid Firestorms or Lightning Infernos. No real danger during the fight. As usual, I brought in Razan for the kill. Two uniques dropped: Venom Ward and Undead Crown.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 67
Next area: Bloody Foothills

Then I quickly found a knout. I thought "what the heck" and tried to get a lucky roll for the 3 sockets and ended up with 5. So ended that unpleasant experiment. I will have to wait patiently for a 3-socket mace.

If you want to make another try (when you have the runes to burn), use a Crude Knout (if you can find one) that you make normal with Eld + chippie. That "fixing" recipe sets the item level to 1.
ILVL 1 Knouts can have a maximum of 3 sockets, giving you 2/3 chance to get that with the socketing recipe.

The same principle can be used to push the odds in your favour when you need 3-socketed elite armors, Phase Blades or Elite polearms/spears.

There is actually a use (besides selling them) for some of those crappy quality items.

If you want to make another try (when you have the runes to burn), use a Crude Knout (if you can find one) that you make normal with Eld + chippie. That "fixing" recipe sets the item level to 1.
ILVL 1 Knouts can have a maximum of 3 sockets, giving you 2/3 chance to get that with the socketing recipe.

The same principle can be used to push the odds in your favour when you need 3-socketed elite armors, Phase Blades or Elite polearms/spears.

I'm really glad you mentioned that, for more than one reason. I was keeping an El and a chip in case I found a low quality dusk shroud or wyrmhide, so that I could normal it and go for 4 sockets (I have 6 extra Thuls to burn). You saved me some disappointment. Thanks!

Coral Far is now a Conqueror!

All I had to do was beat Baal on players16 setting! Yes you read that correctly, players16!

Here's what happened...

I made my way through Baal's throne room, with a fun monster roll of Oblivion Knights, Ice Serpents, and Hell Temptresses. Lister's pack was tough because the valk was in constant stun-lock, so I hit them each with a Prevent Heal War Dart and stabbed them to death one at a time. After dispatching a few, my dagger broke, and I ran out of war darts, so I used junk off the floor to kill one more. By then the valk was able to jab more frequently and finish Lister.

I TP'd out and set up my strongest boss gear. Whenever I start a Baal battle, I run around and up into the "T" area right away, before Baal comes out. If I can bottle him up at the top of the T strip, he rarely spawns tentacles or teleports. Luck was with me this time and I had him in the corner of the "T" within 30 seconds. All he did was stomp a bit and do his "Three Stooges" Eye Poke, with an occasional ice or fire blast. We were pounding on him. The Crushing Blow from Crushflange was working well. I was drinking plenty of red but no real danger. Within minutes, I had a players8 Baal slivered. I Tp'd out to change to MF gear.

When I got back, Baal had left the T strip. No big deal, that happens sometimes. I found him right outside it, and to my absolute horror I saw he had full life! Now, I know for a fact that I was fighting Baal and not his clone, because it's easy to tell the difference. He never even had a chance to clone in the first place. I was flat-out screwed.

Worse than that, the newly rejuvenated Baal was vengeful, spamming tentacles, teleporting like mad, and cloning himself within seconds of every return from town.
My 5-minute lethal strike had just turned into a 40-minute ordeal...
Baal refused to be lured back into the T for long, so most of the fight was in the open area. Crushflange is not a good weapon for this, because of the poor hit recovery. I wasted a dozen rejuvs running from tentacle swarms.
Finally, though, Baal seemed to settle down after he had a quarter life remaining. I got him slivered, changed into MF gear (which I carried with me), and finished it.
So the way I figured it, I beat a players16 Baal. And I got a players16 drop too... 2 uniques, 2 sets, and a rare or two; but nothing I could use...

Nightmare Cows next...

Coral Far is now a Conqueror!

Here's to Conqueror Coral! :drink:


I can't believe that loverat managed to reach Hell 11 days earlier than you did... She is one fast player.




I came home late yesterday, so I only had time to play through the Bloody Foothills. Wussy enemies: Foul Crows and Quill Rats. Now that Razan does so much damage while having 7% life steal, I don't need to look after him so much anymore.

I've been testing the waters a little bit in Hell Difficulty. I did some mix and match with my gear and I think I found a good balance.

I can equip +160% MF and still keep my resists at: Fire=63, Cold=45, Lightning=50, Poison=-34. If I need to I can go with +130% MF and max my Fire and Cold resists.

Coral's Strengths:
My rare Cinquedeas has 100% Monster Flee, very fast attack (boosted by other gear), and massive boost to AR (amplified by lvl 21 Penetrate). Coral's AR is 6500!!!! For example, I'm at 92% to hit a Hell Fallen.
My rare war darts have 100% Monster Flee, Prevent Monster Heal, AR boost, and IAS.
With these weapons it will be very difficult for enemies to mob me or the valk. I can direct enemies anywhere I want. Hurling these war darts at a mob with 49% Pierce has the same effect as Terror Charges. A ranged Prevent Monster Heal attack is a godsend and very safe to apply.
I was able to make a "Black" Knout. I found a Cracked Knout, normaled it, and luckily I got my 3 sockets with the cube recipe. Big Crushing Blow + Corpse Removal. Sweet.
I have the Meteor charges on the Moonfall mace. Hell Blood Raven was the latest victim to feel the burn with this weapon. I slow-cooked her while she danced in her zombie pack. Repeatedly casting valk on top of her didn't help her either...
I have Cannot Be Frozen on the "Rhyme" grim shield. Always a big plus.
I have a nearly unstoppable tank. lvl 21 Valk with maxed Decoy and Penetrate. She only needs occasional protection.
Last but not least, I have all my Socket Quests. I have a couple fervor jewels and/or a nice rare one when the time comes.

Coral's weaknesses:
Very low damage. It takes me 10 seconds to kill a players 3 Fallen with Narphet's help.
Poor hit recovery using the mace weapons.
The valk is stupid. She needs a lot of babysitting.

Hell has been manageable so far. Stony Field coming up, after I find ColdCrow's cave.

A very short update; I will be away at least until wednesday.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 69
Next area: Crystalline Passage in NM

Very easy progress in the latest areas. I got Slingers on both the above-ground areas. For me, it´s more a rule than an exception that these act 5 Slingers can´t hit merc or minions, the javelins pass through them without doing damage. As long as Brynhilde don´t stand in their way, it is very safe.

Somewhat of a drought, item drop wise. Only S/U item was another Warlord´s Trust. Most useful item that dropped was a Thul.


If Brynhilde makes it to Hell, I am confident she has a good chance of making good progress there. Lucky (my random tourney amazon) has a Might merc with Iceblink + Hone Sundan. The same setup with Holy Freeze should be even safer. Plus, more importantly, Lucky has only level 5 Decoy and no Valkyrie and she has made it to Lost City in Hell!

Name: Conqueror Brynhilde
Level: 74
Next area: Secret Cow Level in NM

The battle with the Ancients was awesome, cool, nerve-wrecking and tiresome at the same time.

I maxed Valkyrie right before the battle. I turned down the setting to /players 1. Good thing I did...

I cast a Decoy, activated and rushed away from the altar, frantically looking for FE. Found none. The fight was on. My battling trio was up against:

Madawc: Spectral Hit
Talic: Teleportation
Korlic: Stone Skin (Immune to Physical)

Korlic was extremely stubborn. He relentlessly chased Razan all over the Summit. I could not get him off his back. Since Razan could not steal any life from Korlic, I had not enough potions with me to keep him alive through such a fight, not by a long shot.

After a while, I didn´t want to waste more potions to save Razan and more or less let him die. Meanwhile, the valkyrie had been damaging Madawc a lot. I recast her so she could occupy Talic, then I pushed Madawc up against the edge of the summit and finished him, while drinking a couple of potions. Then came Korlic, and he was just as stubborn as before, this time he had Brynhilde in sight. I kept the distance from him and emptied the 50 Frozen Orb charges on Sureshrill Frost (250k repair cost. Ouch!). That got him down to about 55%. I switched to my Arcing Balanced Knives. That was very ineffective. Brynhilde missed a lot, mostly because he was jumping so much but also because of his high defense from the Stone Skin. I decided to give Sureshrill Frost a chance in melee. That was a bad idea. Not enough damage and bad block recovery. No way my potions would last like this. What to do?

Then I got a bright idea: why not just stab him with the Arcing knife? He´s not that dangerous in melee (no nasty ability, no cold damage on the weapon I had noticed). It worked a lot better. You could actually see him take damage when Brynhilde hit. She has decent Dodge but only 36% blocking. When Brynhilde drank her final rejuve, Korlic was down to less than 10% life. I started running and throwing the knives again. Still 80 knives in the pack. I continued until there were 10 left. I got back to melee and Brynhilde did something amazing. I think she hit about a dozen times without being hit once.

All this time, I always made sure the valk and Talic had their own private battle. Just when I was about to realize that Korlic was about to die, Talic got killed by the valkyrie. She barely managed to come over to Brynhilde before Korlic joined the other two. Victory!


Looking back on it, I probably should have rerolled away the PI Korlic. But I was so scared of FE that I did everything I could to work with this first setup that didn´t have it. I should probably practice Ancients battles in softcore a lot more...


Baal couldn´t threaten the valk or Brynhilde at all.


I have now sold most of the MF gear. I have learned the hard way that town storage while you play Cows is not to be trusted. Still, the Artisan´s Light Plate of the Colossus gives 68% MF at the moment. When I start in Hell, I can remove those topazes, as I found a second Hel rune yesterday.

Name: Conqueror Brynhilde

Nice work! :drink: Welcome to Hell!

PI Ancients suck... I tried to fight one once with minimal elemental damage,
and I broke both my weapons and ran out of potions. Had to recast and start from scratch.

Coral and her gang have battled through Hell Act 2 and are ready to tackle Tal Rasha's Tombs. I've never really been able to settle into a groove because Hell has a way of surprising you around every corner. But I guess that's what I love about this game. My streak of non-stop players8 came to an end, and now I'm doing mostly p1, sometimes p3 in a small area.

My closest NDE yet came in the Pit Level 1. I barged ahead into an open area a little too quickly. Ahead of me, I heard the faint sound of a Paladin Aura activating. Above me on an overhang, a pack of Extra Fast archers ran up and a volley of arrows rained in. Narphet went down instantly and we became Cursed. Then came the lovely popping sound of Holy Freeze from a pack of archers below us. Dark Rangers from the first pack strolled in and I saw they had Might.

It was a rare triple boss pack intersection, and I ran as fast as Holy Freeze would allow. The Decoy was popped and I took a couple arrows as I retreated that cost me almost half my life. The valk tanked for a few seconds but was quickly killed. I recast her, and that's when I almost bit it. A bunch of archers, including the Holy Freeze boss, streamed in and ran past me. I took the Freeze again, and the arrows poured in. The valk died again and the Rangers ran at me as I dodged between the archers. Three times, I went down to less than half life until I broke free. Thankfully, I escaped the range of the Freeze and gained enough ground to recast Decoy, then Valk. The fight was on.

The enemies were too fast to break up, and I was running out of room to retreat until I was forced back out of the cave. Every time we gained a foothold, the Holy Freeze boss would wander in. I repelled the cronies, but eventually had to fall back to escape the bosses.

Then something very lucky happened. One of the archers dropped "The Scalper" Francisca. This was high on my wishlist! I now had a strong ranged attack with 33% Open Wounds, perfect for spamming into a crowd already hit with Prevent Monster Heal. I wasted no time and ID'd and equipped it during the battle. Rogue blood starting squirting everywhere and the tide was turned. I yelled triumphant curses at the computer screen as I scalped the Holy Freeze boss and she fell. I know it's silly for an adult but sometimes I get a little crazy.

Without the Freeze nuisance, I was able to breathe easier, and we slowly beat back the archers and rangers.
Strewn about the cave floor were three more excellent finds:

1. Near perfect Ruby Light Plated Boots of Luck (40 Fire Resist, 34 MF)!!
2. Lum rune, which I promptly used in a Superior Trellised armor to make a "Smoke"
3. A powerful rare fanged knife. Wow! A dagger with damage: http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/fangedknife.jpg

With the Smoke armor, I was able to dump some resist charms and recover inventory space. Also, I stashed my high-resist rings and instead used lesser-resist rings with other mods.

The rest of Act 1 was more or less under control. I found a Ranger boss with an interesting name in the Underground Passage: http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/funnyname.jpg

Pit Level 2 was a major disappointment. I think there was the minimum number of monsters possible. No yellows, greens, or golds. Andariel's chamber was also a let-down; no monsters in the first room, and only shamans and fallen in the blood room. Andariel was absolutely destroyed. The valk tanked and I rained meteors on her.

On to Act Two. Everything was fine until I fought a Beetle boss pack in the Dry Hills. I hacked up one of the minions that Narphet was freezing. Boom! FE bug... and I lost about 500 life. From that point on I refused to melee-kill anything from an FE pack.

In the Maggot Level 2, a beetle charged me as the valk speared it. Boom! This time I lost 600 life. Damn FE bug again! When I got to Coldworm, I cast the valk in the center of the room, then I spammed 150 PMH war darts. Narphet plugged up the passage with his freezing, and I was free to rain meteors on the blanket of maggots. What a time-saver! I don't even want to think about what a hundred burning maggots must smell like...

I cleared the Stony Tomb, Halls of the Dead, and the Ancient Tunnels, which brings me to the dreaded Claw Viper Temple. Armed with my "Black" Knout, I advanced very slowly. The cold-immune skeletons came pouring in, and I used CE charges on every kill before they could be revived. It cost ~$40K to repair 12 charges, but I was recovering even more in treasure.

As expected, the snakes were very dangerous. The stunning and knockback quickly disrupted my formations. Some snakes tend to wander a bit and I had to beat them off me several times. They are all cold immune, so my merc was mostly useless (a walking decoy). Usually, the valk wound up against the wall and got stun-locked. She almost died several times, but I managed to stay in control and recast her as needed before the mob could turn on me.

The Scalper was used with great success against the snakes, along with a little CE. I was very lucky in choosing the right path and I found the entrance to Level 2 before hitting any dead ends. I unsummoned the valk before entering. I crept along the wall. No skeletons. I cast the valk deep towards Fangskin's area and put a decoy behind her, hoping to hold the valk in. It didn't work, and both Decoy and valk were knocked back towards me.
The valk ended up against the wall, leaving me with little breathing room. Snakes kept harassing me and I poked them away with the Monster Flee dagger. I cast Weaken on the pack, triggered PMH with some war darts and switched to the Scalper. When the first snake died I switched to the Knout and CE'd the corpse.

A beautiful chain reaction of CE's followed and it was suddenly very quiet. I didn't even notice when Fangskin died. All that was left were a couple snakeskins and a pool of bloody snakemeat. There were no additional monsters. Wow! CE rocks.

Arcane Sanctuary was next. Not to much trouble here. I had a scary moment when an Extra Fast Aura Pack of ghosts flew in at me. I was in the portal-chain wing and ghosts are hard to flee from in that area. I barely beat them to a couple portals before the valk intercepted them. Here again, Meteor charges justified their expensive repair cost, as I was able to save a lot of time by cooking them instead of waiting for Naphet to freeze-kill them.

I've never used so many weapons in a regular rotation as I have with this character. I use 6 weapons: "Black" Knout, The Scalper, Moonfall, rare War Darts with PMH/Flee, a high damage rare Fang Knife, and a so-so damage rare Cinquedeas with massive AR and 100% Flee. I use them all often enough that I carry them with me and have sacrificed inventory charm space so I can equip them readily.

I found two pairs of Magic Vampirebone gloves in the treasure sections of the Arcane Sanctuary. I'd been waiting patiently for a pair so I could try some crafting. The first pair was a dud, but I struck gold on the second pair: http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/gloves.jpg

Sweet! IAS, perfect on the CB, extra Life Leech beyond what the formula yields, and the perfect boost of Lightning Resist that I needed so I could stash 2 more small charms. Very lucky indeed.

Skills / Stats update: 96 Str, 120 Dex, 278 Vit (1107 life), 25 Energy. Resists: Fire=75, Cold=75, Lightning=75, Poison=25

1+1 Inner Sight
6+1 Critical Strike
6+1 Dodge
1+1 Slow Missiles
6+1 Avoid
20+1 Penetrate
20+1 Decoy
5+1 Evade
20+1 Valkyrie
3+1 Pierce

Character update:

Coral Far, level 79, Act 2 Hell, Canyon of the Magi
Rare Cinquedeas
"Rhyme" Grim Shield 25% MF
Rare War Dart
"Rhyme" Bone Shield 25% MF
"Smoke" Trellised Armor
Rare Coronet
Crafted Vampirebone Gloves
Rare Demonhide Sash
Ruby Light Plated Boots of Luck 34% MF
Fortuitous Amulet of Fortune 37% MF
Rare Ring
Rare Ring
Charms providing 1-2 cold damage, 6 poison damage, ligtning resist 11, cold resist 21, fire resist 8, +17 life, 4% MF, +1 Dex, +22 AR.

Narphet, level 79 cold Iron Wolf
Rare Sabre, Fire Resist +24, Lightning Resist +11
Sigon's Guard Tower Shield +1 skills
Peasant Crown War Hat +1 skills
Gemmed Gothic Plate, 80% MF, +52 AR

In stash:
Runes: Ko, Dol (2), Hel, Sol (2), Amn (2), Ort (2), Tal (2),
The Scalper Francisca
Moonfall Jagged Star
Rare Fanged Knife
"Black" Knout
Nagelring Ring 18% MF

I applaud an excellent update, Wayne!
Now stay away from any and all FE + LE Unraveler bosses in Tal´s tombs, OK...
I think you will, now that you even avoid FE minions (at least if they´re bugs).



I´m a bit too tired right now to match such a well-written update, so I will do a slightly shorter version.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 77
Next area: Black Marsh, Hell


You know, this Hell stuff isn´t so bad (this far at least)... I am making good (sometimes even fast) progress on /players 3. Out of the four characters I have taken to Hell in 1.10, this is by far the strongest. Not even boss packs have been able to hurt the valkyrie much. She is a decent killer if I recast her until she gets a good weapon. However, Razan always kills faster. Against single (non-FE!) bosses, all three of us attack. Razan has 45% Crushing Blow and Brynhilde has 50%. Works very well unless they are PI.

All the Fallen type critters get owned (they die from 2-3 Jabs) by Razan, and they shatter more than half the time (from the freezing effect on Iceblink, or from the HF), making the shamen nearly useless. It´s a level vs. level thing that determines whether they freeze when he hits them. I know it will be a bit harder in the Pit...

I have used one of my socketing rewards, to stick an Ort rune in Iceblink. Razan likes his 67% resistance when he and the valk take down LE bosses.

I recently crafted some very good Sharkskin Gloves: 8% CB, +20% IAS and +1 Amazon Passive & Magic Skills! I need about 20 more fire resistance to be willing to use them. I have a +1 amazon skills circlet (that also has 28% cold resist, along with good plusses to STR & ENE) and an Acrobatic Grand Charm. Too bad the +2 Amazon P&M skills amulet I gambled today lacked resists. If I had been willing to use that amulet, I would (with the help of a Skill Shine) have been able to cast a level 27 Valkyrie. That is the maxed version (gear wise) who gets a rare amulet and rare Tiara. In retrospective, I should have kept that amulet. Oh well, I can probably gamble something similar later.

The item that is highest on my wish list is a Fal rune. If I find one, I have the runes to make 'Lionheart', which would be awesome indeed. Let´s see what the Countess has in store. I know the odds are not in my favour, but you never know... Pul wouldn´t exactly suck either. Then I could upgrade Hone Sundan to a Ghost Spear. Hmm, maybe not. 160 DEX required? That´s insane...


I don't use quite as many weapons as you, Wayne. Only 5:

* 'Black' Knout. My favourite. The killing blow against Blood Raven was a Corpse Explosion of one of the zombie corpses. Talk about turning the strength of the enemy against her...

* Balanced Knife with Terror charges.

These two are the main setup and it allows for some flexible tactics. When I start a new session, I run to "new" territory, using Terror and Decoys to clear a path in a reasonably safe manner. Against PI monsters, I have three more tools:

* Sureshrill Frost with its Frozen Orb charges. I´m thinking about selling this one. If a boss isn´t cold immune, Razan can kill it if I stop the boss from regenerating.

* Rare Balanced Knives with Prevent Monster Heal and the "Fool´s" prefix (insane AR boost when you factor in maxed Penetrate).

* Rare Balanced Knives with the Shocking prefix (low-end value, but still) and replenishing. Repair cost: 1 gold.



I hate the FE bug. Hell is troublesome enough anyway. I had a teleporting FE boss that scared the crap out of me when it teleported to a spot clearly within CE range. The world froze for almost a second, before I got my wits back and ran away.

 

[Grisu]

Note: these are posts #178-194 from the original thread.

Well, that was a nice little act!

Yep, Hell Andariel has been defeated. Surprisingly, I could stay with /players 3 and still have decent killing speed.
There was only one tough part in the entire act. It happened near the stairs on the final floor in the Forgotten Tower.

No stairs trap, but as soon as I peeked around the corner, I got scared. I saw lots of monsters with Fanaticism. Hmm, I usaully let the valkyrie advance in such a situation. She hadn´t even lost half her life in Hell yet, even when she has been surrounded by boss packs. But this was different. I saw her get hit with Conviction, I heard the hissing from many Ghosts attacking and there was bam, bam, bam from lots of arrows with fire damage. The valkyrie died in less than 3 seconds. WTF??! Whatever happened to her, I did NOT want to be where she was standing!!

I pulled back and recast the valkyrie. The Ghost pack came floating. The boss had Conviction + Teleportation + Spectral Hit. Some regular Ghosts were also in the pack. I manged to arrange it so the valk tanked them all. That was no problem for her. Looks like we were in a temporary stable situation.

Razan attacked a regular Ghost and could slowly work it down with his cold- and slight lightning damage. After that, he turned to a minion. He could not overcome its regeneration speed. I have tools for these situations but I didn´t have them with me. I DARED not move, because:
1.) it may be hard to arrange this safe situation again because there was very little room available
2.) the archers could show up at any time if I moved.

I hovered the mouse pointer over the boss. It had been damaged about 10%! The valkyrie very clearly dealt fire damage (I could hear it) and she was working on the boss and it didn´t seem to regenerate. Maybe her War Pike had PMH? Or maybe this boss didn´t regenerate. Sometimes they just don´t (just like it was in 1.09).

This was taking an awfully long time. I pondered the possibilty of just leaving the computer. Then I thought of the Teleporting boss and gave up on such stupid thoughts...

20 minutes later, boss down to 25% life, and it Teleported next to Razan and attacked him. He could not handle that in the long run. New teleport, this time closer to Brynhilde. She backed off two steps and pulled Razan with her. The two of them took down the boss in the lower right corner. An archer minion harassed Brynhilde. She Terrored it away about 10 times. After this fight, I know for a fact that Open Wounds DOES work on PI monsters.

Since no more than one archer seemed to get to us, I portalled out and brought my anti-PI daggers. One with PMH and one with fat lightning damage. With those, the rest of the Ghosts were easy pickings.

Now for those archers. I wanted to see if the boss was FE. I crept a few steps forward and cast a Decoy and a Valkyrie as far away as I could. I stepped out, located the boss, ran back and up the stairs. Decoy dead in 1 second, valk still alive but hurt.

OMG! FE + Fanaticism + Extra Strong boss!

Whatever I do, stay away from that boss! I don´t know how, but I managed to lure a couple of minions back to our position, where Razan and valk speared them. Then the boss came over and I fled the other way, using Decoys and Valks to keep me safe from the minions. One at a time, we defeated them. The boss was still by the stairs. I used Slow Missiles to keep track of her. Archers are unpredictable and I had a devil of a time to get Razan and valk to attack her when I didn´t dare to go near her. After a few more hectic minutes, she finally exploded (at a safe distance!).


The rest of the act, no problem at all.

Although I still have 80% MF for the stuff Razan kills, I notice that I find much fewer S/U items than on my treasure hunt in NM. Only five uniques and four set items (including the armor from a set I haven´t seen before, Heaven´s Brethren) in the entire act. What is cool though, is the high TC drops. I collect the 'Grail' (observations only, not the items per se) for the basic item types as well. I could count in my first ever Crusader Gauntlets, Fury Visor, Cryptic Axe and Lacquered Plate. Also, a TC 87 item, my first Colossus Blade. None of those items were even magical, though.

I´m having trouble finding a suitable elite armor. All I have found reqiure too much strength. Two Boneweaves, a Diamond Mail, a Lacquered Plate, a Kraken Shell and a Great Hauberk... Is it too much to ask for a Crude version of one of the four lightest types (or an Archon Plate)?


I decided to give a full update on my situation, as it looks at the start of Hell Act 2:


Champion Razan, Holy Freeze Guard of Lut Gholein
Level: 79
Life: 1527
Resist Fire 57, Cold 73, Lightning 73, Poison 43
Listed damage (without Holy Freeze): 411-810

* Rare Circlet (5% bonus to AR, adds 1-100 lightning damage, +7 STR, Resist Fire +14%, +25% MF)
* Hone Sundan unique Yari, socketed with AmnAmn, one empty socket (waiting for a Shael); 95-194 damage, 14% life steal, 45% Crushing Blow
* Iceblink unique Spint Mail, upgraded to Russet Armor and socketed with an Ort rune; Hit Freezes Target, Resist Cold and Lightning +30%


Conqueror Brynhilde the Passive Amazon
Level: 79
(All stats with primary gear)
STR 82+26, DEX 110, VIT 268+10, ENE 15+19 (5 stat points saved)
Life 1230, Mana 160, Defense 397
Resist Fire 65, Cold 71, Lightning 74, Poison -30

Skills:
Inner Sight 1+3
Slow Missiles 2+3
Decoy 20+3
Valkyrie 20+3
Dodge 10+3
Avoid 8+3
Evade 1+3
Critical Strike 4+3
Penetrate 20+3
Pierce 1+3
Corpse Explosion 4 (up to 12 charges)
Terror 5 (up to 97 charges)

Primary Gear:
* Rare Circlet (+1 Amazon skills, +12 STR, +19 ENE, Resist Cold +28%
* Amber Amulet of the Fox (40/10)
* 'Black' Knout
* Artisan´s Light Plate of the Colossus (+45 life) socketed with a Resist All +14% jewel, an Ort rune and a perfect topaz
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield
* Crafted Sharkskin Gloves (+1 P&M skills, +20% IAS, 8% Crushing Blow, 2% life steal, 3% mana steal +16 life)
* Rare Ring (+5% bonus to AR, +5 light, +85 AR, 6% life steal, Resist Fire +26%, Resist Lightning +19%, Half Freeze) :yep:
* Crafted Mesh Belt (3% life steal, 8% Open Wounds, Resist Cold +27%, Resist Lightning +19%, +12 life) :yep:
* Cobalt Ring of the Giant (30/14)
* Infernostride unique Demonhide Boots (Defense 102, 20% Faster Run, Resist Fire +30% (and the possibility to raise it to 85% maximum), 52% extra gold, adds 12-33 fire damage, 5% chance to cast level 8 Blaze when struck)

Weapon Switch:
* Balanced Knife of Terror
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield

* Charms taking up a total of 21 inventory spaces giving +1 P&M skills, Resist Fire +50%, Resist Cold +27%, Resist Lightning +7%, Resist Poison +11%, +6% MF and +127 life


Alternate Gear:
* Rare Balanced Knife (Prevent Monster Heal, 10% IAS, +1303 AR based on level, Resist Lightning +14%)
* Rare Balanced Knife (1-382 lightning damage, replenish quantity)
* Artisan´s Gothic Plate of the Squid (+80 life)
* Crafted Heavy Gloves (10% Crushing Blow, Resist Fire +24%)
* Amber (37%) Light Plated Boots of Acceleration
* Ruby Amulet (31%)
* Rare Amulet (Resist Cold +33%, Resist Fire/Lightning/Poison +11%)
* Rare Amulet (Resist Cold +20%, 25 charges of Teleport)

Also in stash:
* 2x Jewel of Fervor
* Ruby Jewel of Spirit (+32% damage, +6 life)
* Runes: El, Nef (x3), Ith (x2), Tal, Ral (x2), Thul, Amn, Sol (x2), Hel, Io (x2), Lum
* Various gems including 12 perfect, 7 Flawless, 7 regular, 1 flawed topaz (to be used if I find another Io rune) and 2 chipped
* About 2,5 million in Gold

Now stay away from any and all FE + LE Unraveler bosses in Tal´s tombs, OK...

I did stay far away, so far away that I never even saw one! That's because I found the staff room after only 25 rooms or so. My recent luck with path-selection in the Viper Temple carried over to the True Tomb. Once again, I reached my destination before hitting any dead ends.

Ordinarily, I like to achieve at least an 80-90% clear of the Tombs, but after three tough battles with Boss Gorebellies and unraveler packs, I decided to move on.

I was confident I could remain safe through a long battle with Duriel, so I took a risk and raised the player setting to 8. I know there are greatly diminishing returns beyond p3 setting with bosses, but I thought I may as well squeeze out every drop of MF chances.

I avoided Duriel's initial charge and he went right after the valk. He knocked her against a wall started pounding on her. She tanked OK, but I could see that she was going to die soon. I aided her with my "Black" Knout, pounding on Duriel's slug body. Despite my melee attack, he still continued to hit the valk, which I was grateful for. I repeatedly cast decoy and he would immediately attack it, which gave the valk time to heal. However, the decoys lasted only a few shots. Also, they would spawn in unpredictable places and get knocked back, disrupting our positions so that Duriel would turn and attack me.

Then it hit me. Duh! The "Weaken" charges on the Smoke armor! Duriel was unable to take more than half the valk's life while Weakened. I swung freely with the 50% Crushing Blow and sometimes with the Scalper to trigger "Open Wounds". After many weaken charges, Duriel was slivered and I switched to the 80% MF armor I let Narphet wear. (Long ago I decided Narphet's armor was mostly irrelevant for protecting him. So he's the perfect armor mule for me now.)

Duriel left me a nice drop, including Blackhorn's Face Death Mask:
Prevent Monster Heal
Slows Target by 20%
Enhanced Defense (246 total)
Lightning Resist 15
Lightning Absorb +20
Attacker Takes 25 lightning damage

Except for the last mod, those are all useful attributes for Coral, so I will definitely work this into my primary gear. Looks like I can get rid of my PMH war darts, and use the Scalper full-time. Hmmm, on second thought, I'll just stash them. You never know...

Duriel also left me the Spineripper Poignard. That would be an excellent find--- 50 LEVELS AGO!!! :rant:

Too bad the +2 Amazon P&M skills amulet I gambled today lacked resists. If I had been willing to use that amulet, I would (with the help of a Skill Shine) have been able to cast a level 27 Valkyrie. That is the maxed version (gear wise) who gets a rare amulet and rare Tiara. In retrospective, I should have kept that amulet.

Would you believe, I actually cubed away a +3 P&M ammy, and sold some +3 athletic gloves? Storage space was beyond critical when I did that, so I didn't have much choice; but with those items I could have cast lvl 28 valks without a skill shrine (using Narphet's shield temporarily). What a shame.

The item that is highest on my wish list is a Fal rune. If I find one, I have the runes to make 'Lionheart', which would be awesome indeed.

Why Lionheart instead of Smoke?
When I debated between the two, I decided Smoke's bigger resists, FHR, level 6 Weaken, (and to a lesser extent, enhanced def +Missile Defense) outweighed Lionheart's + life/str/dex. But it was close.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 81
Next area: Harem

Half of act 2 done, and nothing seems to be able to stop my trio...

Claw Viper Temple provided a lot of undead but very few snakes. I had always lots of space to work with and the fighting situations weren´t hard anyway.

I had enough respect for Fangskin´s lair to turn the game down to /players 1 there (only second time in Brynhilde´s career I have used that setting, actually). As it turned out, that wasn´t necessary.

I had equipped my teleporting amulet (and switched boots to keep lightning resist at near max). I advanced towards the altar, saw no monsters on it, and teleported up there. Ha!

Now I could just recast Valkyrie and she proceeded to wipe out all the enemies. Razan provided his slowing aura and kept Fangy and a couple of minions occupied by being closer to them than the valk was. They stared angrily at each other across the rocks. :lol:

Why Lionheart instead of Smoke?
When I debated between the two, I decided Smoke's bigger resists, FHR, level 6 Weaken, (and to a lesser extent, enhanced def +Missile Defense) outweighed Lionheart's + life/str/dex. But it was close.

I agree, it is close between them. Right now I don´t need more resists than Lionheart would give and that +110 life looks very tempting. I have managed to find a Crude Dusk Shroud, fixed it and made three sockets in it.
But if a Fal never shows up, I will probably go with Smoke, especially if a 2-socketed elite armor with a STR requirement of 118 or less shows up.

Very entertaining reading, guys. Keep it up!

--SB

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 83 (just a sliver (less than 700k) of XP from level 84)
Next area: Spider Forest

The final two sessions of Act 2 really showed the strengths and weaknesses of my team. The Specters in Arcane Sanctuary took a long while to kill (being immune to physical). I used Corpse Explosion a lot. The Specters seem to have Cannot Be Frozen, which means that they always leave a corpse. The best bombs were the Ghoul Lords, though. One such explosion took a Specter down to less than half life. I usually placed a Decoy on a Ghoul Lord corpse, then lured a large number of Specters to it, exploded and started the fight. With her good piercing, Brynhilde could hit the entire pack with her Prevent Monster Heal daggers. The poison damage from her charm told me which ones had been hit. Every dead Specter led to another explosion, where all the rest got damaged. After a few more kills, I could kill the rest of the pack with a final explosion.

Not surprisingly, Apparitions were the nightmare enemies in the tombs. Over the first the two tombs, I encountered SEVEN boss packs of them! Lots and lots of hard work with PMH daggers, lightning daggers and Corpse Explosions. Boss Unraveler corpses are great bombs...

Some of the smaller tombs seemed to have almost nothing but boss packs. Good grief...

The hardest "enemies" to defeat were the Mummy Sarcophagi, especially if an Unraveler was standing next to it. It got dangerous a few times when Brynhilde tried to block the sarcophagus. I failed to destroy two of them. They collapsed after having produced a very large number of mummies. It was too dangerous to try to defeat those two.

Luckily, there were no Apparitions in the last four tombs (including the two large ones). The Burning Dead + Unraveler packs were actually my favourite enemies down there. That´s a first for me, I think. The skellies are weak and pop easily when Razan kills them. The Unravelers fell quickly to a barrage of Crushing Blows while the Valkyrie and/or Decoy tanked.


Duriel killed Razan quickly, then went for the valkyrie.



Weird. Duriel couldn´t get my valkyrie down to less than 90% life. Maybe she got a Godly armor? This was a very good valkyrie that I had in the three last tombs. She attacked fast, did major damage with some fire damage on top. No life steal that I noticed, though.
The fight was extremely easy. He only attacked Brynhilde when the valkyrie got knocked back. I simply took two steps back and quaffed a healing potion. Then Duriel went after the valk again. Piece of cake.

I avoided Duriel's initial charge and he went right after the valk. He knocked her against a wall started pounding on her. She tanked OK, but I could see that she was going to die soon.

I can´t bring myself to make such decisions. I would never know where to play in a given situation. Deciding what to wear, how to spend stat- and and skill points and how to fight enemy groups are enough decisions for me. Therefore, I can´t do anything less than 100% clears (without repeats). My characters kill everything, or die trying...

Ordinarily, I like to achieve at least an 80-90% clear of the Tombs, but after three tough battles with Boss Gorebellies and unraveler packs, I decided to move on.

Equipment update: I have finally found a Shael for Hone Sundan. The improvement was phenomenal.

I also found an interesting rare Mancatcher. 40% IAS and Cruel damage. I let Razan try it out against a boss pack of Crushers in the Canyon. Not bad, but it has no life steal and the fat Crushing Blow is too good to let go of.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 84
Next area: Kurast Bazaar, Hell


The "stroll" through the jungle was mostly uneventful. I skipped the Swampy Pit until last in the session. I had a valkyrie who did fire damage and also had a chance to cast Amplify Damage on striking. I figured that would be good if there were any PI Dark Shapes down in the Pit.
Alas, I "lost" her (she just vanished) during the short run from waypoint to Swampy Pit. That happens sometimes. Very annoying if you have a good valkyrie.

On the other hand, there was only one PI monster down there: a Drowned Carcass boss who wasn´t that dangerous. I had to be very careful down there anyway. Lots of undead fetish and several FE bosses.

Next session, I will face what I feel is the greatest challenge before The Ancients: the Kurast temples. I feel a need to have maxed resists there. Also, I want to wear my teleporting amulet. Since no Fal rune had been found, I decided to go for a 'Smoke' armor to cover the resistance needs. However, I had not had enough space to save any 2-socketed exceptional armors along the way, so I didn´t have any suitable armor to make the runeword in. I though I had to settle for a friggin´ BREAST PLATE from Normal Fara. As luck would have it, that would not be necessary...

I made my way down to the last floor in the gaming session: Swampy Pit level 3. That must be the wussiest place in the game on NM and Hell! There are never any boss packs, only Fetish Shamen, warriors and blowdarters. Anyway, I got the layout that sprials outwards and starts with a room with five other entrances. I cleared my way to the second "corridor nexus". Took the passage down to the lower right room which always has two shamen and often a river hydra. In this room, the second to last I would clear before giving up and making Smoke in a Breast Plate, what drops? A 2-SOCKETED WYRMHIDE!!

I could not believe my luck. First 2-socketed elite armor Brynhilde has seen. She´s found one with 1 socket and a few with 4 sockets. I have burned FOUR sets of perfect topaz + Tal + Thul and I have received three 4-socketed ones and one with 3 sockets (the Dusk Shroud that had 3 as max, because of the "item level trick").

When Brynhilde equips her teleporting amulet, she now has 85% fire resistance, 75% cold and 40% lightning. I cubed myself a 27% Coral Ring of the Fox (with the topaz recipe) so I can get 85/75/67 if I give up some MF.

Now Brynhilde has more resists than she needs: 46% cold and 14% fire. Her circlet has cold resist and the first priority is to gamble one with lightning resist instead, and (hopefully) with +life and/or +skills. I burned 2.6 million at Alkor´s and got only crap. A 'Lore' helm would be a decent option, I guess. I have the runes for it.

All this equipment fiddling made me realize that Brynhilde is not in desperate need of her remaining socketing reward. Therefore, I burned it on Razan´s circlet. Yes, the very circlet that I didn´t think was Hell material. I have come to appreciate that lightning damage against PI monsters. I added a Realgar Jewel of Thunder: +30% damage and 1-83 lightning damage. Circlet now provides 2-183 lightning damage. With those fast Jabs of his, it´s not completely useless.

Bryhilde is now quite a spell caster. She has access to Slow Missiles, Decoy, Valkyrie, Terror, Corpse Explosion, Teleport and Weaken!

She is confused about the talk about "melee characters", "ranged characters" and "caster characters". She has traits of all three, and so far she does it very well. We´ll see how far it will take her...

Coral has defeated Mephisto and is camping out at the Pandemonium Fortress. Act 3 presented many dangers but with a little luck and grit I was able to make it through.

My first concern was for Szark, but I lucked out. He was the first red spider of his pack to fly out at us, but he became comically entangled in a carpet of baby maggots. He did a crazy "rebound dance" (like when a monster occasionally gets in a stuck position and runs back and forth frantically) while I hit him with a few dozen Scalpers. When the valk got to him, she took him down one-on-one, so I never had to worry about his minions joining in (they were scurrying just off-screen behind the maggot horde).

The rest of the jungle was OK. In the open areas, I like to use the Knout. With it, I have a total of 50% Crushing Blow, and I started to notch up kills on an equal pace with the valk, and sometimes even quicker.

My one and only NDE in Act 3 was in the Flayer Dungeon. I was in a narrow hallway corner and several Might-enchanted flayers broke off from the valk and swarmed me. My own decoy became part of the problem holding me in, but it protected my flank and the wall protected my back, so only 3 flayers could attack me at once. I killed a couple, drank plenty of potions, and used the Monster Flee dagger to free myself. All's well that ends well.

I raised the player setting to 4 in Kurast, but failed to find anything useful in the chests. Before I entered Sewer Level 2, I raised it to p8. I had to work hard for those prizes, as I was met by a Conviction enchanted unraveler + skeletons and some mummies for good measure. The aura took my C,L,&F resists from 75 to single digit negatives. Nasty. On top of that they were slow to die thanks to p8. After that battle, the chests coughed up tons of valuable treasure, nothing I could use, but many items sold for max 35K gold. One super-chest gave up 9 rares! :surprise: including 1 elite, 3 exceptionals, and 5 normals. There were no blues; just yellows and some gold/potions. That's a personal record for me.

I used some money to gamble rings/amulets. I didn't get anything useful but I did gamble my 2nd 1.10 unique, the Nagelring, with a paltry 19% MF.

I went 5 for 5 with the Kurast Temples, on the p3 setting, no good finds but I made good money and lots of XP. The sixth Temple was a stair trap, with Holy Freeze snakes flying at me. I barely managed to run back out in time. Hmmm... decision time. Go back in???
I'm reckless but not totally reckless. To re-enter would be pure folly. I've done it against a lesser aura, but not HF. So for now, the 6th temple retry is on my to-do list.

The Travincal area presented no real threat, but was very frustrating to clear. I had to lead several packs of Faithful beyond the range of Heirophants so we could freeze and kill them. Three times, I ran into dense packs of 3 of more heirophants which healed one another. The worst was a champion pack of heiros + boss heiro. The only way to deal with it is to position yourself next to one so you can use Knockback to push it a couple screens away. Then kill it before it randomly teleports back to its home base.

The Durance contained only one type of monster I was worried about, those little Undead Dolls. I turned the volume up and listened for the little pitter-patter of their footsteps. There were several boss packs of them and also boss mummies (fun to CE) and boss vampires. The valk was killed several times. I had to fall back a lot and regroup against the speedy dolls, but in the end we kicked their bony butts. Here again, I mostly used the Knout and did a large amount of killing while the valk tanked.

I did Meph's level at p8, and was very unlucky in drawing 2 boss packs of vampires which took forever to kill. I had to repair the Knout twice before I could move on. Bremm's pack was off to one side and I bypassed it entirely and saved his wing for later.

Mephisto managed to kill the valk 3 times, twice in the first 20 seconds and once at the very end. I aided with the Knout and we soundly beat him down. I used Weaken liberally but probably didn't need it. I got a fat drop but no uniques, even with 180 MF worn for the killing blow. Oh well, if this is to be my end gear, that's fine by me.

Bremm can sometimes be nasty, and this was no exception. But I had a trick up my sleeve! Whenever I needed some healing, I sat in his lightning stream! That's right, thanks to Blackhorn, the lightning healed me as I fought. Nice.

Here's something cool. Check out this Durance level 2 map:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/meph_runner.jpg

Meph runs anyone? Even better, the room between the waypoint and the level 3 entrance is a super treasure room, with racks as well, and IIRC that type of room usually has few monsters if any. What a shame this character is poor for Meph runs; in any case, I'll lose this map when I claim a socket quest.

Weird. Duriel couldn´t get my valkyrie down to less than 90% life. Maybe she got a Godly armor? This was a very good valkyrie that I had in the three last tombs. She attacked fast, did major damage with some fire damage on top. No life steal that I noticed, though.

I would bet the IAS made the difference. Duriel's Holy Freeze + slow weapon caused my valk to have her attack interrupted often and go into hit recovery.

I can´t bring myself to make such decisions. I would never know where to play in a given situation. Deciding what to wear, how to spend stat- and and skill points and how to fight enemy groups are enough decisions for me. Therefore, I can´t do anything less than 100% clears (without repeats). My characters kill everything, or die trying...

Well, I have to admit I don't quite understand your statement, but I admire your compulsion for doing full clears! In fact, you inspired me to return to the False Tombs and wipe them out. There's a certain satisfying feeling of finality when completing a clear, and you know you can run freely though the area without worry, having exterminated/cleansed the site. Besides, I passed up valuable XP and I don't want to miss out.

Character update:

Coral Far, level 83, Act 4 Hell, Pandemonium Fortress
Narphet, level 83 cold Iron Wolf

I went 5 for 5 with the Kurast Temples, on the p3 setting, no good finds but I made good money and lots of XP. The sixth Temple was a stair trap, with Holy Freeze snakes flying at me. I barely managed to run back out in time. Hmmm... decision time. Go back in???
I'm reckless but not totally reckless. To re-enter would be pure folly. I've done it against a lesser aura, but not HF. So for now, the 6th temple retry is on my to-do list.

Wuss...

Nah, seriously, that sounds like a solid decision. And you did get revenge on that temple later.



I was a bit of a wuss myself, as I did all the temples on /players 1. I figured that if it got really dangerous, I would probably be able to simply Corpse Explode my way out of trouble on that setting.
The fastest enemies in the temples (rogues, snakes) are cold immune, so they have a good chance of leaving corpses.

The rest of the act, I did on /players 3. That seems to be a good compromise for me. I don´t find so many items that I have to go to town every 10 seconds (usually) but the no-drop chance is still greatly reduced. Double the amount of XP is nice, as my team has no trouble killing critters with 2x base life.


I got a couple of less severe stairs traps, none of them involving bosses. Sarina´s pack was fearsome indeed: Cursed + Fanaticism! The valkyrie was in trouble and I had to retreat to a waiting portal in one of those small rooms to the side of the entrance (I drew the T-formation). When I reentered, there was a lone minion who had no aura help. After we killed her, the valkyrie found Sarina and four of her minions. That small pack could not bring her down and she defeated them all by herself while Brynhilde and Razan cowered in that small room, ready to leave through a portal. :lol:


Two really cool finds in Durance of Hate:

* I had killed everything on the enormous level 2 and I was cleaning up among the chests, etc. when one chest coughed up Gimmershred unique Flying Axe! Not only an elite unique, but a very useful one that Brynhilde can actually equip (even though she depends on her circlet for some +STR (she needs 4 more points in "raw" strength otherwise)). Extra speed, good physical damage and MASSIVE elemental damage of three kinds, much more than you can possibly get on a perfect rare! I tried it out against the PI Stone Skin Maffer Dragonhand. Even though it has extra speed, it´s slower than her daggers, and she must suffer the sucky hit recovery if she uses it in melee. Still, it was no contest. I sold the lightning daggers...

* One of Bremm´s minions dropped Immortal King´s Stone Crusher. That is a mighty name for a mighty item, eh?


Mephisto got so "pwned" it was just laughable. I recast the Decoy a lot, to make tanking easier for the valkyrie. Neither her nor the merc got killed. I only needed a total of four healing potions (2 for Brynhilde, 2 for Razan) to heal damage from his poison clouds.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 85 (levelling has slowed down a lot. She got her last level-up in the Kurast Sewers and she has just reached halfway to the next level over the entire rest of the act)
Next area: Outer Steppes

I have been so busy my poor D2 SP life got put on hold =/ Nice to see you guys trucking along so well =)

Chunkalicious is still at Level 75 and has completed everything in Act 1 Hell except killing Blood Raven would you believe. I am not sure if I will get much time to play her but I do have a stash ready for the winner still!

Chunkalicious is still at Level 75 and has completed everything in Act 1 Hell except killing Blood Raven would you believe.

It´s good to see that you are still in this.





Not much to say about the events in act 4. I was luckier with the monsters this time and only had to fight spawners on the Plains of Despair. Main critter type in the City were the measly Dark Familiars. Yay!

It´s funny how Crushing Blow works. It hardly matters how much life a monster has. Brynhilde kills a Flesh Beast only slightly quicker than she kills Izual. :lol:


To defeat the Oblivion Knights in Chaos Sanctuary, I "herded" them, one at a time, up against a wall, using Decoy to completely trap it between our four bodies. If it´s trapped, an Oblivion Knight always uses Decrepify. In this situation, Razan + valk could easily kill it.

Lord De Seis showed me a new trick: he changed auras. He spawned with his usual Fanaticism. After I had portalled out and returned from waypoint, he had switched to Holy Freeze. I had to stop his regeneration, otherwise Razan would not have been able to kill him while being Holy Frozen and Decrepified. Brynhilde "helped out" (read: did more than 60% of the damage) with Gimmershred throws.

Diablo killed Razan very quickly, then went for Brynhilde. He completely ignored the valk. I recast her a couple of times. No change. I guess my theory of "highest damage gets the attention" does not apply when it comes to Hell Diablo.

Oh well, she´s not a participant in a Tankazon tourney for nothing, right? She has CBF, 85% fire resist, 52% Dodge, 40% blocking and 1329 life. C´mon, you oversized lizard, let´s have at it!

The Lightning Inferno started so far away from Diablo, that he couldn´t hit her with it. There was really nothing devastating Diablo could do to Brynhilde, as long as she moved to the side when the Firestorms rolled out of him. 48% Crushing Blow on /players 3 is very effective.
Diablo also dropped an Immortal King´s Stone Crusher. Heh.

Name: Brynhilde
Level: 85 (still no level-up since the Sewers, but it´s close now...)
Next area: Bloody Foothills

Wow! I did it! Coral Far became a Guardian after a marathon Sunday playing session! I have a massive update to compose, to provide all the details, but I have an early schedule tomorrow so it will have to wait for a day or two.

But I was really pumped up after defeating Baal so I had to share my excitement here with a quick post. Coral is my eighth serious HC character and the first to make guardian. I surely did not expect to do it with a variant build like this. However, I grew to respect the Tankazon's power as I advanced through Hell, and felt OK about my chances!

Go jiansonz! I think you have a great chance to make it, but watch out for that Worldstone Keep, it was an absolutely nerve-wracking ordeal; the most tense D2 gameplay for me ever. Friggin' Grotesques, Knife Flayers, Death Lords, Hell Sirens (they scatter all over like Dart Blowers!) Double Boss Packs + Champions...sheesh!

You'll play those hot-keys like a piano!

Here's a quick little group photo with Tyrael. Yes that's a Poison Creeper! It bacame our new mascot during Act 4 and needed only a few recasts during the entire fight with Baal. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/worldstone.jpg

Next up: Hell Cows, and I have to redo Icy Cellar (ridiculous stair trap, almost died there)

@loverat: good to see you're still around. welcome back!

Congratulations, Wayne! I look forward to reading the full report.

--SB

OMG, you made it!!! :worship: :worship:

but watch out for that Worldstone Keep, it was an absolutely nerve-wracking ordeal; the most tense D2 gameplay for me ever. Friggin' Grotesques, Knife Flayers, Death Lords, Hell Sirens (they scatter all over like Dart Blowers!) Double Boss Packs + Champions...sheesh!

You'll play those hot-keys like a piano!

Got it. It will be /players 1 there, then. I sense a lot of Terror and Corpse Explosion coming up. If I get there, that is...


Oh how embarrassing it will be for me if I fail to do it, as my merc (Razan) seems to be way more powerful than Narphet the cold mage. No matter how good equipment my Valkyrie gets, she never reaches even half of his killing speed. The only problem is his vulnerability. I always try to rearrange it so that Valk + Decoy take all the damage, or at least leave Razan to fight only single enemies.


I already have a plan (that I really like) for the Ancients. Let´s see if it works and if I get there.

My vacation is over, so it´ll be shorter gaming sessions again.

I played Bloody Foothills yesterday and got a jackpot on the enemy draw: Demon Imps and Death Maulers (the latter are LI in 1.10, not PI like before).



By the way, what item makes Coral able to cast a Poison Creeper?

It could be the Carrion Wind ring, gives 15 charges for a lvl 21 Poison creeper.

I'll also have to add that this thread has been an interesting one to follow, kudos to each of you that got this far .

It could be the Carrion Wind ring, gives 15 charges for a lvl 21 Poison creeper.

Very good C-Rex, you got it! And thanks for the congrats guys :thanks:

I found the Carrion Wind ring from a boss Venom Lord, right outside the gates of the Pandemonium Fortress. The ring gives an 8% Chance lvl 13 Twister on Striking. This proved to be somewhat useful because Coral swings a lot and the twisters (3 per cast) pierce the crowd and cause mini-stuns, taking heat off the valk. Other useful attributes include 7% life steal, +147 Missile Defense, Poison Resist 55%, and lvl 21 Poison Creeper charges.

The Creeper's poison damage was negligible. If nothing else, it served as a constant distraction to the enemy mobs as it popped out of the earth to strike. Monsters often swung at it and missed. Against some monster types it would last through several battles, but against others it would instantly die. It cost about 4500 per charge, so I was OK with it. Besides, it was nice to have a little pet.

After equipping the ring, I had maxed my resists. I took some time to browse my skills, stats, and gear; and I came to a conclusion--- I had everything I needed to make a push towards Guardian. I had big resists, Hell viable gear, 50% Crushing Blow, Prevent Monster Heal with any weapon, 33% Open Wounds on melee and ranged attack, high blocking %, a powerful tank, an assortment of non-Zon spells, and the means to deal with any monster immunity. Finishing Nightmare on p8 had paid off nicely. Chances were, I would not be able to improve my character too much. Future skill points would get me 1% Dodge, 1% Critical Strike, 2% Avoid...etc. Helpful, but not much of an improvement.

So I decided to stay on players 1 from then on (except Diablo which I switched to p3.) My gear still had a respectable 66% MF, so I wasn't totally giving up on uber-finds, but I was ready to roll.

We destroyed the Outer Steppes. I almost full-cleared it before finding the exit. The Plains were much tougher, with corpulents, gloams, and spawners. Nasty! I really hate those spawners! Izual was a pushover, and I put my two free points in Dodge. I had a very easy monster roll in the City of the Damned: Afflicted, Venom Lords, and Knights. None of these were cold-immune, and Narphet and I combined to easily outpace the valk on kills.

Trouble began on the River of Flame, with Spawners and Maggots!!! Also there were urdars which caused a lot of valk-stunning, wasting even more time! When we finally defeated Hephasto, I was rewarded with a Gul rune. I was hoping for a Mal rune so I could make a Sanctuary shield, but Gul is a very rare find so it's cool.

Outside the Chaos Sanctuary were Oblivion Knights and Corpse Spitters, and Spawners! Did I mention that I hate spawners? Inside the CS was no picnic either, but I was slow and careful. De Seis didn't change auras on me (although I've seen him do that before) because I didn't have to TP. His pack broke up coming around the corner and it was easy. I chased him down myself and finished it.

The best defense against Hell Diablo is a good offense. I agree with jiansonz, it's much safer to melee than run around in circles. Contrary to his experience, Hell Diablo ignored my weapon switch attack, regardless of my weapon selection or proximity, as long as the valk was striking. My own theory about Diablo attack patterns is that he spawns with random attack priorities based on primary/secondary weapons and/or melee/ranged weapons; because I've seen just about every combination. Weird and unpredictable. In conclusion, I kicked his @$$ with the Knout.

Act 5! Bloody Foothills. Slingers, boars, and mages. The javelins hurt me a lot, so I was dodging around quite a bit, but otherwise it was manageable.

Shenk sprang a new trap on us from afar and the victim was the valk. She was steadily chopping away when he catapulted a barrel and it landed on her head! A blinding attack no doubt inspired by the Three Stooges! Don't believe me? Check this out: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/barrel_valk.jpg
The valk pretended like it didn't bother her, but I could tell her ego was bruised more than her skull. She was especially vicious in her retaliation against Shenk, but later we all had a laugh about it. For my part, I was lucky to get the screenie just in time...

I had a very scary sequence in the Frigid Highlands. I was over-aggressive in my search for the barb prisoners, and my pack was separated. An Extra Fast Cursed pack of Urdar came flying from off-screen, and I had to run blindly. I got trapped behind a door and had to squeeze back out the way I came, through the pack, dodging like a running back! No time even to cast a decoy because they were almost as fast as me. Finally I made a couple cutting moves around some walls and bought myself a couple seconds to cast a valk/decoy. Phew!

The Crystalline Passage and Frozen River were a mixed bag, with Snakes, Mages, Death Lords, Gloams, Rogues, and Succubi, among others which I can't recall. Plenty of tense encounters with Gloam packs and Death Lords. I ran into a new type of fast Siren (Hell Temptress-type monster) which would scatter and surround you and move about like mad. They and the Gloams made things difficult. Anya rewarded me with a nice Grand Matron Bow. I hope she wasn't offended when I sold it back to her.

Nihlathak's Zombie Playground kept me on my toes. In Hell they are Cold Immune. Narphet's freezing would not help me this time if they charged me en masse. Just as they were resurrecting, I cast the decoy and valk in the center of the pack. It worked, and they formed a mob around them. I also Weakened them to buy more time. Two zombies came at me but I could handle them easily. I CE'd a zombie in the middle of the pack and started a CE chain which wiped them out. Nice.

Level One was a very easy monster draw, and I cleared the whole map to replenish my gold stash. Level Two was a nightmare, with poison dart flayers, and Grotesques (spawners)! I thought I'd left Spawners behind me in Act 4 for good! Spawners suck. Nihlathak's level had the poison snakes and a new type of creature, Night Marauders, which are like Act 3 Doom Apes, but they're PI and almost transparent. Pretty cool, but not much of a threat. Nihlathak must have been disappointed when I CE'd the corpses before he could. He was owned, that old fart.

I can usually count on Bonesaw Breaker for a good drop. He's a good luck charm for me, and he came through in a big way. I found him early on in the Glacial Trail. He dropped Whitstan's Guard Round Shield! I used my last Socketing Quest and inserted a P-Diamond. The 75% block improved my blocking% from 48 to 68. Wow! I gave Narphet the "Rhyme" Bone Shield and put the Rhyme Grim Shield on my switch. I will miss the Cannot Be Frozen with my primary attack, but the extra block is more important. Besides, I can always switch the shields around when needed.

The Drifter Cavern was a stair trap, opening into the center island. A boss pack of Mages was waiting for me, but they weren't very powerful. After clearing the area, I opened an evil urn near the entrance. Hmmm... a cracked bone knife! Thanks a lot! Uh-oh... what's that sound? Extra Fast Multiple Shot Mage Pack. Cool. I love evil urns. They offset my hatred of spawners.

Well, it's getting late again so I'll have to post part 2 tomorrow. I have some more screenshots too, and I'll post a full equipment/stat list.

Wow congrats! I got to Hell Act 1 and then real life reared its ugly head - but I know how hard it was so you guys have done amazingly well!

Short session today, as I was too tired to continue after I found the Arreat Plateau waypoint shortly behind the first defense line. I cleared up to the second defensive line. Since I could just walk around it on one side, I´ll run to that spot at the start of the next session.


I had another nice streak of wussy monster combinations:

Frigid Highlands: Slayers (without their masters), Vile Archers, Burning Dead Archers.

Well, the BD archers were not that wussy, but there were no bosses of them and the very durable Decoy made fightning them easy. Razan´s Holy Freeze and Valk´s tanking helped, too.


Abbadon: Imps, Hell Spawn (look like Fire Boars) and Hell Temptresses. Easy, with the sole exception of a double boss pack of the demon ladies. They were powerful enough to kill the valkyrie. I felt a need for quite a lot of Terror against those packs. Scatter the minions, lure back and finish off the Cursed boss, TP to heal the curse. Then it was no problem.


Arreat Plateau (at least the first 40% of it): Bone Mages, goats and imps. Allow me to laugh. Muahaha!!
It´s a crying shame I was too tired to take advantage of such a good draw. Maybe I should have left the computer running...

I can usually count on Bonesaw Breaker for a good drop. He's a good luck charm for me, and he came through in a big way. I found him early on in the Glacial Trail. He dropped Whitstan's Guard Round Shield! I used my last Socketing Quest and inserted a P-Diamond. The 75% block improved my blocking% from 48 to 68. Wow! I gave Narphet the "Rhyme" Bone Shield and put the Rhyme Grim Shield on my switch. I will miss the Cannot Be Frozen with my primary attack, but the extra block is more important. Besides, I can always switch the shields around when needed.

Brynhilde has also found this shield. In Normal!! I didn´t want to use it by then and I had too little space to save it. Having an act 3 merc allows for better shield storage capacity, I can see that.

 

[Grisu]

Note: These are posts #195-206 (final post) from the original thread.

Part 2 of my update:

Frozen Tundra-- Goats, Mages, and Vulture Demons. Puh-leeeeze! I expected more of a challenge, but I sure wasn't complaining. I was still amused about the display bug that caused the barrel to impose over the valk's body, when I encountered a vulture boss pack. Now I had something new to laugh at: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/black_widow2.jpg
For the second time with this character, a boss spawned with that name. Crazy.

The Ancient's Way was tough, but not too tough, with speedy Rogue Spearwomen, Snakes, and snow beasts IIRC. I was grateful nothing got out of hand there, because mentally I was thinking ahead a bit to the Ancients.

I found the Icy Cellar and jumped right in. Upon entering, I was hit immediately with a Conviction Aura. I noticed on the map I was in the center island formation, which I don't think I ever had before in the Icy Cellar. The Conviction boss Siren came flapping in, and a bolt of Gloam Lightning hit Narphet and caused an instant Curse on all of us. And I wasn't even 5 steps into the map yet! Conviction + Curse + Gloam Lightning = Adios! I consider myself lucky that several bolts didn't pour in (which I'm sure would be instant death). Coral is practically immune to lightning, in fact, it even heals her in some situations, but I heard that Gloam Lightning is bugged and causes physical damage, so there was no way I was going back in. The Icy Cellar was added to my to-do list.

How I defeated Hell Ancients ----------------------------

To begin with, I was mildly distressed that I'd failed to gamble a teleport amulet, despite dozens of attempts. I had hoped to use decoy + teleport (without valk) and try to break up the Ancients, so I could take them one or two at a time. I wasn't even sure it would work, but anyway it was a moot point because I couldn't teleport.

So instead, I commited myself to a frenzied run-and-gun shoot-out with all my weapons and spells. I've battled the Ancients many times (under less intense curcumstances), so I had plenty of experience to draw on.

I started by casting a decoy in the center of the altar. After releasing them, I made a frantic dash backwards and tried to ID their attributes. It was the only time I ever permitted a TP in the belt. The thrower was Cursed and Cold Enchanted. Hmm.. that could be big trouble. Korlic and Talic were Lightning Enchanted, Spectral Hit, Extra Strong, and Extra Fast.

The good news: No FE bug! No Physical Immunes either.

The bad news: The Thrower was Cursed, which caused the other's Extra Stong attacks to hurt a LOT! Narphet went down like a ton of bricks. I had to pop a couple rejuvs just running around and trying to get an opportunity to attack. For a few seconds, the valk tanked all three attacks and died instantly. With Madawc's Cursed attack, this just was not going to work. Too dangerous. The decoy was not drawing much attention either.

I resisted the urge to TP and reset for another attempt, because I was fearful of a FE disaster. And I still had an idea to try, for neutralizing Madawc. Madawc moves around a lot in response to your movements, and tries to set up for his throw attack, like any ranged attacker. If you can get your positioning just right, he'll stupidly throw right into an obstruction (like a pillar). Usually it's a temporary circumstance because of course you need to move/attack. I couldn't just stand there like an idiot! Or could I?...

As I was running laps around the summit and thinking, Madawc was chasing me. He couldn't hit me, so the Curse eventually wore off. I cast a new valk and Talic and Korlic battled her while Madawc continued to chase me. Uncursed, the valk managed to score about 20 hits before they killed her. I also managed to Weaken them which helped her out a lot. However, the pattern quickly broke up because the leap barb came at me, Madawc hit me while I cast a new valk, we were Cursed, my stamina was low, and it all fell apart.

Within the next few laps, I had an idea, so I ducked behind a pillar when I saw a favorable formation, and the solution revealed itself. First look at this pic: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/ancients.jpg

As I'd hoped, Madawc's brain vacated his skull, and when he set up an attack position aimed at me, he threw straight into the pillar in his face. Meanwhile, the valk tanked the other two, just offscreen. Every now and then, Talic's whirling route brought him into the lower right corner of my screen. When that happened, I was barely able to reach him with a Weaken charge, which spread to Madawc, and (I assume) to Korlic offscreen. I saved the valk many times with the Weakening.

Other than casting Weaken, I did not move a muscle. The minutes crawled by, and then suddenly the valk took a lot of quick blows and she died. I instantly recast her as far towards the bottom-right as possible. I didn't expect it to work, but incredibly, the formation held. This valk was less powerful, and I soon had to recast again. I ended up casting 4 or 5 more times, with the same result. Then I heard one of the Ancients go down. The valk had killed Korlic! I predicted Talic would soon follow. But the formation finally broke and Madawc moved and Cursed the valk, so I ran out ready to rumble.

Sweet! Talic was slivered! We finished him in seconds! Madawc still had full life (except for what the Poison Creeper did to him with several poisonings. You can see him mid-strike in the screenshot). No matter, I knew I could take down one Ancient easily. I knocked him back and we boxed him into a corner. I pounded on him and rained Meteors on his head. Easy finish.

The Worldstone Keep -------------------------

I totally jinxed myself. Before entering, I considered the dreadful possibility of hitting a stair trap, retreating, failing to reach the waypoint, and having to fight the Ancients all over again!

Sure enough, within half a screen of entering, I was greeted by TWO boss packs of Sirens. They already have a built-in Curse, making them that much more dangerous. Narphet went down, but not before straying a tad and awakening a champion pack of Death Lords! WTF?!?! I jumped out of the frying pan, and into the fire! There was no way I was running out the door. So instead I ran blindly down a hallway for another screen-length.

Phew! No more monsters. I didn't dare venture out any further. What ensued was probably the craziest battle I ever fought in such a cramped area.

Run. Dodge. Weave. Cast Weaken. Run. Dodge. Stab 2 sirens. Monster Flee. Decoy. Run a figure-8. Evade a dozen red balls'o'cursing. Throw a few Scalpers. Valk dead. Recast. Weaken. Avoid red balls. Decoy. Decoy dead. Valk dead. Flee. Recast . CE. What, no corpses yet?

The Prevent Monster Heal saved me here. The Sirens don't have much life and a dozen isolated Scalper hits + Open Wounds was enough to kill one. It became exponentially less difficult with every death. I admit my heart was pounding. It doesn't take too many of those red balls to kill you, and though I dodged 95% of the hundreds of red balls, I still burned through more than half my potions.

The rest of the level was also extremely difficult. The valk died many times, but by then, I had enough cleared area to regroup and break up the packs.

Level 2 was a good draw, with slow monsters like Prowling Dead and Mages, but Level 3 was the worst yet. Knife flayers, Sirens, and SPAWNERS!!!!! I could not hand-select a worse combo. It took forever! I cleared the entire area, which drained me, and of course, the exit was in the last possible place I searched. Even worse, check out where it was: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/keep_level3.jpg
Hahaha. :lol: How fitting for me.

The Throne Room was a semi-stair trap, but at least I had the circular entrance area to run around. The monsters were Sirens and Death Lords (sigh) but also Horadrim Ancients (without skellies) which were easy. Baal's Minions were surprisingly easy. I had switched to the Knout full-time for these areas and finished off most of the monsters myself, including the Minions of Destruction which had stun-locked the valk.

Against Baal, I dodged his initial tentacles and engaged him inside the T-Strip, as I'd hoped. I lost the valk during the run and had to recast her. Baal rarely spawns his tentacles in the T-strip and we commenced pounding on him. However, he did clone. The valk completely occupied the clone in the corner while I attacked Baal. With the CB, I got him down to roughly 1/16 life, but I was almost out of potions. Then he blocked me from my portal with tentacles. Damn. I had to run out. Then something strange happened. Because the valk was now cornered by both Baals, she couldn't follow. I stayed along the wall so as not to cause her to teleport to me. Here's a picture: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/valk-baal.jpg

You can see the valk's blue "X" stuck inside the T-Strip. I remembered I had 5 reds in my cube, so I restocked my belt. I heard the valk and Baal striking each other, but couldn't see a thing. Could the valk really tank both Baals? Apparently yes! Although she was brought down to yellow many times, they couldn't kill her. Soon I heard the Baal death yell, the thumping, groaning, vomiting...etc...The dramatic music played, and then silence. No Tyrael's voice, no earthquakes, and then the normal Baal fight music started again. Hmmm.....

Fearing another Baal bug, like I had in Nightmare, I did not TP to town. Instead, I ran around back up the T-Strip, meeting the valk at the base. There was nothing up there. No body, no itamz, no red portal. WTF? Where are you Baal? When I ran out of the strip, tentacles appeared, and I found Baal in the corner, with 1/16th life just like I left him. With my remaining potions, I was able to outlast him and he died, for the second time(?), leaving me a drop and a Tyrael.

:lol: Whatever. Don't ask me to explain it! :scratch: Coral is now a Guardian! Woo-hoo!

Skills / Stats update: 93 Str, 140 Dex, 298 Vit (1222 life), 27 Energy. Resists: Fire=75, Cold=75, Lightning=75, Poison=75

1 Inner Sight
7 Critical Strike
10 Dodge
1 Slow Missiles
6 Avoid
20 Penetrate
20 Decoy
6 Evade
20 Valkyrie
4 Pierce

Character update:

Guardian Coral Far, level 85, Act 1 Hell, Hell Cows
"Black" Knout
Whitstan's Guard Round Shield, socketed with Perfect Diamond
The Scalper Francisca
"Rhyme" Grim Shield
"Smoke" Trellised Armor
Blackhorn's Face Death Mask, socketed with rare jewel (+4 max damage, +29 AR, +19 Defense, +26% Cold Resist)
Crafted Vampirebone Gloves, 20% IAS, 5% Life Steal, 10% Crushing Blow, +3 Dex, +11 life, +13% Lightning Resist
Rare Demonhide Sash, 24% FHR, +38 life, +4 mana, +12% Cold Resist, + 26% Lightning Resist
Ruby Light Plated Boots of Luck, 40% Fire Resist, 34% Magic Find
Rare Amulet, +2 Min Damage, +16 Strength, +2 Energy, +19% Cold Resist, +44% Lightning R, +25% Fire R, +19% Poison R
Ring of Perfection, +17 Dex
Carrion Wind Ring

Charms providing 1-2 cold damage, 1-31 lightning damage, 6 poison damage, ligtning resist 6, cold resist 13, fire resist 5, +63 life, 7% MF, +118 AR.

Guardian Narphet, level 79 cold Iron Wolf
Rare Sabre, Fire Resist +24, Lightning Resist +11
"Rhyme" Bone Shield
Peasant Crown War Hat
Rare Great Hauberk, 25% Enhanced Defense, +4 Strength, +50 life, +29% Cold Resist, Magic Damage Reduced by 3

In stash:
Runes: Gul, Ko (2), Dol (2), Hel, Sol (2), Amn (3), Thul(2), Ort (2)
Rare Cinquedeas, +1386 AR, 100% Monster Flee
Moonfall Jagged Star
Rare Fanged Knife
Nagelring Ring 18% MF
Nagelring Ring 19% MF

Well, Coral wrapped up her unfinished business today starting with the Hell Cows. I wasn't too worried about getting mobbed so I cleared them on players3. If enough cows surrounded the valk, they could occasionally kill her, even while Weakened. But after liberal use of CE, it was no big deal.

I didn't find any great itamz, but I sold many normal/magical elites and made a pile of gold. On a whim, I started a jewelry gambling session with Gheed. After two crappy rings and amulets, I scored my third 1.10 gambling unique, and the second for this character: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/raven_frost.jpg

Something about the neatness of the stats got me thinking, so I checked the database. Sure enough, I had found a PERFECT Raven Frost. There are 101 possible AR values, and 6 possible DEX values. So, only 1 out of every 606 Raven Frosts is perfect. Cool. Too bad I don't trade, this might be a collector's item.

Now I had a score to settle with Snapchip, whose lair almost killed me earlier with a stair trap. I cleared the way from the Waypoint to his cave and jumped right in. Crap. Another stair trap, with a champion pack of Death Lords and a boss pack of Gloams. Fortunately the boss pack was fairly weak, and I was able to sustain the mobbing. The entire area was filled with Gloams except for one more pack of Death Lords, a pack of Ghosts, and Snapchip's gang. There were two evil urns, both with packs of Gloams. No problems.

Snapchip's treasure chest was saved for last. I realized it would be the last chest in Coral's career. It was a total dud. Nothing but a few crappy blues and some gold. I ran around to check a couple small unexplored pockets for any more monsters. A gloam bolt shot out at us. It seems a teleporting boss gloam had escaped our reach earlier. It had very little life left and Narphet killed it quickly. What an awesome find to close out Coral's journey!!! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/eth_skullder.jpg

At first I was miffed that it was ethereal. Then I saw the stats change as the durability maxed out. I'd forgotten about the self-repair mod, so the Ethereal version is even better!

Two great finds within a half-hour, from unlikely sources, with a scant 50% MF! Then I thought "What the hell am I excited about? Coral is retiring. She's not suited for MF runs of any kind. I don't twink, mule, or trade between chars. These items are wasted!"

True enough, but I was still happy to find them anyway. They will stay in the stash indefinitely.

There was one last thing I wanted to do. I used my personalization quest and made this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/Gul_Dagger.jpg

:lol: A whole new type of "Gul" Dagger. What a colossal waste of a nice rune! Well, Coral had no use for it anyway.

Oh how embarrassing it will be for me if I fail to do it, as my merc (Razan) seems to be way more powerful than Narphet the cold mage. No matter how good equipment my Valkyrie gets, she never reaches even half of his killing speed. The only problem is his vulnerability. I always try to rearrange it so that Valk + Decoy take all the damage, or at least leave Razan to fight only single enemies.

No doubt about it, Razan is superior to Narphet. I only used a cold mage to create a team similar to the one I used in your tourney. I felt it was a fitting way to avenge my death there. Narphet did have a few advantages though. He rarely died, excelled at killing PIs like bug swarms and gloams/ghosts, and was an excellent mule for helms, armors, and shields. Plus he bailed me out of a couple sticky situations with his flash freezing. (NM Nihlathak zombie garden springs to mind)

Got it. It will be /players 1 there, then. I sense a lot of Terror and Corpse Explosion coming up. If I get there, that is...

Terror definitely. Great skill for when things are out of control. As for the CE, for me, its best use was offensively when I already had at least some control. Great time-saver too. But I would vote for Terror + Weaken as your best defense for when all hell breaks loose. Weaken was able to buy the valk precious seconds of tanking time while I fought to regain control.

What an awesome find to close out Coral's journey!!! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/eth_skullder.jpg

At first I was miffed that it was ethereal. Then I saw the stats change as the durability maxed out. I'd forgotten about the self-repair mod, so the Ethereal version is even better!

Two great finds within a half-hour, from unlikely sources, with a scant 50% MF! Then I thought "What the hell am I excited about? Coral is retiring. She's not suited for MF runs of any kind. I don't twink, mule, or trade between chars. These items are wasted!"

True enough, but I was still happy to find them anyway. They will stay in the stash indefinitely.

Good find! Too bad you didn´t find in in early NM instead. :lol:

There was one last thing I wanted to do. I used my personalization quest and made this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v341/insane-wayne/Gul_Dagger.jpg

:lol: A whole new type of "Gul" Dagger. What a colossal waste of a nice rune! Well, Coral had no use for it anyway.

Now THAT is how you should use a high-level rune! :lol:

I know the feeling. Hell Hellforge gave Brynhilde a freakin´ Mal rune! Prevent Monster Heal is nice, but Brynhilde´s main weapon is a runeword and her other weapons are all of the throwing kind (they lack socketing possibilties). What about runewords? Venom? No thanks. There were a couple of others but they require even rarer runes in additition to the Mal. Those high-end runewords are just a slap in the face for us untwinked players!
'Sanctuary' was the only reasonable option but I have no Ko rune, I don´t need the resists and I would still prefer the MF and CBF on 'Rhyme'. I ended up SELLING that Mal rune...

No doubt about it, Razan is superior to Narphet. I only used a cold mage to create a team similar to the one I used in your tourney. I felt it was a fitting way to avenge my death there. Narphet did have a few advantages though. He rarely died, excelled at killing PIs like bug swarms and gloams/ghosts, and was an excellent mule for helms, armors, and shields. Plus he bailed me out of a couple sticky situations with his flash freezing. (NM Nihlathak zombie garden springs to mind)

Vanji has been avenged in the most convincing manner possible, I´d say...

Terror definitely. Great skill for when things are out of control. As for the CE, for me, its best use was offensively when I already had at least some control. Great time-saver too. But I would vote for Terror + Weaken as your best defense for when all hell breaks loose. Weaken was able to buy the valk precious seconds of tanking time while I fought to regain control.

I don´t think I will need Weaken. As long as Razan is alive, the valk can tank anything except the biggest and baddest boss packs (more than one of the abilities Might/Fanaticism, Extra Strong and Cursed involved). That Holy Freeze more than halves the damage output over time the enemies deal. I´m very impressed by it.


Brynilde has cleaned up on the Plateau and in Pit of Acheron. Next playing session will probably happen on Saturday, as I need a lot of time. The plan is to clear Crystalline Passage, Glacial Trail, both ice river areas and parts of Frozen Tundra, up to the waypoint. I don´t feel like starting a session in a cramped ice cave more times than I need to!


I am still going with /players 3. Reasons:

1.) I am curious which level that will bring a character to in the end. If I defeat the Ancients, I will probably go down to /players 1 for the rest, though.

2.) I am not satisfied with Brynhilde´s headgear and because of that, I need gambling money. I want something with +skills, maybe a little lightning resist (unless I find a suitable charm).

I have the final socketing reward reserved for Brynhilde´s headgear. There is simply no other item slot in my setup that can have sockets added. An Athletic Circlet of Life Everlasting or 'of the Whale' would be awesome. There is even a chance to get TWO sockets in that, which I can fill with rubies for more life.

3.) I am a grailer and I want to have better chances at finding elite uniques, set items and high-end runes, now that I play in Hell for once.

I had a short day at work yesterday so I decided to play Brynhilde. I cleared the areas up to the exit into the Ancient´s Way. The waypoint was very close to this exit. Excellent!

This is new territory for me in 1.10. My Blaze Enchantress is in the same situation as Brynhilde was before this session (about to start Crystalline Passage).

It was actually an easy session. Sure Razan dies every now and then but that is mostly when I know it´s dangerous for him and I think/hope he will make it anyway. The only lively moments were provided by the fast, unpredictable and Amplify Damage-casting Sirens and Hell Witches. Glacial Trail had a few PI Blood Lords (minotaurs) but since the valkyrie could tank them without taking visible damage (not even from two Champs!), I just threw a PMH dagger at them and hacked them up slowly with Gimmershred. Razan helped with some cold damage.

Name: Brynhilde
Level 86.7 (there is probably one more level-up to be had before the Ancients)
Next area: Nihlathak´s Temple

said:
I don´t think I will need Weaken. As long as Razan is alive, the valk can tank anything except the biggest and baddest boss packs (more than one of the abilities Might/Fanaticism, Extra Strong and Cursed involved). That Holy Freeze more than halves the damage output over time the enemies deal. I´m very impressed by it.

Ah yes... I forgot to consider the HF Aura. It's far superior to the Weaken charges. The valk's insane regen should overcome the half-speed mobbings, even in the WSK. Very impressive.

Hell Nihlathak has been defeated. Woot!

I had the following monsters to deal with:

Halls of Anguish: Devilkin (+ Shamen), Night Lords (minotaurs, just like there is here in Normal) and Tomb Creepers (leapers)
Halls of Pain: Guardians (without skeletons), Razor Spines and Blood Maggots
Halls of Vaught: Wretched Defilers, Slayers and cold-shooting Bone Archers


No real trouble, but there were OCEANS of maggot babies to wade through for Razan and the valkyrie.


I really hoped that Nihlathak wouldn´t be FE. He wasn´t. Stone Skin + Mana Burn. Excellent. When I finally managed to lure out an annoying Defiler from his chamber, I started the final assult on the slimy necromancer. I teleported into his face, Brynhilde and Razan started CB-ing him. Every time he teleported away, Brynhilde teleported right next to him. Nihlathak got so distracted by this that he only managed to spawn a single helper during the final fight. I made sure to explode the corpse as fast as possible.

Pwned!!
:yep:

I played up to the Ancients yesterday.

Monsters:
Ancients´ Way: Spike Fiends, Bone Warriors and Bone Mages. Wussy draw, eh?
Icy Cellar: PI Hell Temptresses, Pit Vipers and Undead Stygian Dolls (including two boss packs of them!). A lot worse, but I drew a good layout of the place, allowing me to work on it methodically.


I forgot to mention that I found Peasant Crown (unique War Hat) in the Halls of Pain. Since I have not managed to gamble any circlet that is better than this, I used my final socketÃng reward on it and stuck a perfect ruby in there. It now gives +1 skills, 108 defense, +15% Faster Run and a whopping +98 life (+20 VIT translates into +60 life).

I forgot to mention that I found Peasant Crown (unique War Hat) in the Halls of Pain. Since I have not managed to gamble any circlet that is better than this, I used my final socketÃng reward on it and stuck a perfect ruby in there. It now gives +1 skills, 108 defense, +15% Faster Run and a whopping +98 life (+20 VIT translates into +60 life).

Not bad. I know you were hoping for better, but that's not bad at all. Kind of like a Maiden's Circlet of Whale, with extras. You must not need the lightning resist too badly if you favored the P Ruby over an Ort.

I was lucky to find that item in Act 4 Normal, but at that stage I was still MFing, so Narphet muled it for me. It became Narphet's end-game item after I found the Blackhorn's. The life boost saved him a few times. Definitely a keeper for untwinked chars.

I look forward to reading about your upcoming battle with the Ancients.

Not bad. I know you were hoping for better, but that's not bad at all. Kind of like a Maiden's Circlet of the Whale, with extras. You must not need the lightning resist too badly if you favored the P Ruby over an Ort.

True. Because I chose to make a 'Smoke' armor and with the help from Malah´s resist scroll, I can max lightning resist by replacing my 25% Nagelring with the Coral Ring of the Fox I cubed earlier.

I was lucky to find that item in Act 4 Normal, but at that stage I was still MFing, so Narphet muled it for me. It became Narphet's end-game item after I found the Blackhorn's. The life boost saved him a few times. Definitely a keeper for untwinked chars.

Brynhilde has found it once before, in mid-Nightmare. Back then I was also MF-ing (merc headgear included!) and later (for the larger part of Hell) I was too dependant on the 28% cold resist and the +STR on her rare circlet.

Yesterday, I played what turned out to be Brynhilde´s final session.

I used the passage through Ancient´s Way to get Razan´s Holy Freeze started, to practice hotkeys (I wanted to be able to get to all my available skills without having to think; this was needed because I played another D2 character on saturday) and to get a really good valkyrie. Also, I tried to get a feel for the radius and duration of the ace up my sleeve, the wand of Life Tap.


We arrived at the Arreat Summit. I was scared, but not too much. I had a plan, and I liked it.


Tries 1-4: We got Cursed immediately. TP!

Fifth try: Looked like I got a good start. Razan was tanking Korlic, who was Life Tapped. Valkyrie engaged the other two. Then I saw that Korlic was FE. Since the situation looked stable, I actually considered to go with this draw anyway. Then I saw that he also had Teleport! No thanks.

Sixth try: I misclicked the first Life Tap and Razan got killed very quickly. Uh, I think I´ll pass.

Seventh try: Cursed again.

Eigth try: I ran downwards and cast Life Tap through an arch and Razan seemed to survive well, even though his life bar went back and forth like it had spasms. All five fighters were at the edge or out of my visible range. More Life Taps and a couple of rejuves for Razan. Then he got killed anyway. Korlic was almost dead from all the Crushing Blows. I continued with the Life Taps, hoping they would help the valk survive, so the stable situation would continue. I think she tanked all three of them (I couldn´t really see). Who´s she attacking? Yes, it´s Korlic! He died. Here comes Madawc now. He has Spectral Hit Holy Shock. That should be doable.

I led him a bit to the right and ran around a pillar. He hit me once, then started to throw at the valk. I cast Slow Missiles and repositioned myself so Madawc shouldn´t be able to hit any more. I contined with the Slow Missiles to stay safe (Madawc loses most of his range in this case) and to help the valk.

I could just see Talic every now and then. Extra Strong Mana Burn. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we´re going to make it!

Shortly afterwards, Talic was dead and the valk started to chase Madawc. Two down, and she´s hungry for more! After some chasing, the valk managed to corner Madawc against the gate where we entered the Summit. OK, let´s kill the bugger!

Brynhilde placed herself directly behind the valk and started to swing. For some reason, Madawc preferred to attack her. Suddenly, Brynhilde took LOADS of damage. I panicked, drank a rejuve and got away. This was no situation to try to be a hero, that was obvious.

Brynhilde: "Sister, do you mind if I cower a bit behind this pillar? You seem to have the situation well in hand."

Valkyrie: "Go ahead. I have him, he won´t go anywhere."

This really was an a**-kicking valkyrie! Madawc´s life bar moved with every hit. Awesome.

:yep: Victory! :yep:


The chance was there. Now it was just a matter of bringing this home...

WSK 1: Flesh Spawners, Heirophants/Zealots and Vile Witches. Very challenging. The spawners kept my minions occupied so the witches could spam their nasty missiles and curse us. And you never knew when a healer would stand around a corner and prolong the fights. At one time, I was worried if my money would cover all the resurrections. Then I though about all my gems and runes and realized I had a decent buffer. Besides, valuable items drop even on /players 1.

WSK 2: Melee Soul Killers, Serpent Maguses and Frenzied Ice Spawns. This was actually quite easy. It got mildly dangerous once, when the midgets almost managed to surround Brynhilde. I got out without needing Terror, but it was close.

WSK 3: Demon Sprites, Rancid Defilers and Doom/Oblivion Knights. By now, I had more money and a couple of merc resurrections due to Iron Maiden was no problem. I lost the über valkyrie to Iron Maiden as well, which was a bit of a bummer.

Throne of Destruction: Burning Souls, Serpent Maguses and Death Lords. Not easy but thankfully there was nothing boss-like of the minotaurs. After reading about the dreaded Gloam type creatues in Hell act 5, I was a bit scared. Turns out they weren´t nearly as bad as I have feared. There are plenty of corners to hide behind and the damage wasn´t that terrible. I have never let those lightning streams hit my characters much anyway, not even in 1.09. The ultra-bugged poison-shooting Tomb Vipers in Halls of Vaught are worse by several orders of magnitude. The Nightmare ones! It´s a good thing I didn´t draw those here in Hell. THAT would have been scary!

Nothing particularly exciting happened against the five boss packs. Once again, Iceblink and the CE charges of the Knout proved their worth against resurrectors.

The Minions of Destruction can be frozen. Once I managed to separate them, it was no contest. I reached the most perfect positioning possible against Lister:

Valk tanks.
Razan is right behind her. He doesn´t get hit, she doesn´t get knocked back.
Brynhilde swings at Lister´s back. Valk stops Lister from being Knockbacked.

He got owned, plain and simple.


Baal lost most of his life very quickly. I had to work quite a bit to take down the last part of his life. He got, like, totally pissed off near the end and was quite a nuisance. But in the end, we defeated him.


Cows was a funny little distraction. CE rules!


So:

Name: Guardian Brynhilde
Level: 87
Status: Complete Game Clear :yep:


Final stats:

Patriarch Razan, Holy Freeze Guard of Lut Gholein
Level: 87
Life: 1847
Resist Fire 65, Cold 75, Lightning 75, Poison 51
Listed damage (with Holy Freeze): 627-1159

* Rare Circlet, socketed with a Realgar Jewel of Thunder: 5% bonus to AR, +30% enhanced Damage, adds 2-183 lightning damage, +7 STR, Resist Fire +14%, +25% MF
* Hone Sundan unique Yari, socketed with AmnAmnShael: 95-194 damage, 14% life steal, 45% Crushing Blow, +20% IAS
* Iceblink unique Splint Mail, upgraded to Russet Armor and socketed with an Ort rune: 399 Defense, Hit Freezes Target, Resist Cold and Lightning +30%


Guardian Brynhilde the Amazon
Level: 87
(All stats with primary gear)

STR: **
DEX: 123
VIT: 299+30
ENE: 15+30

Life: 1481
Mana: 189
Attack Rating: 3132 (73% chance to hit Hell Bovine)
Defense: 1014 (77% risk to get hit by Hell Bovine)
Chance to block: 40%

Resistances:
Fire: 85
Cold: 75
Lightning: 75
Poison: 12


Skills:
Inner Sight 1+3
Slow Missiles 2+3
Decoy 20+3
Valkyrie 20+3
Dodge 13+3
Avoid 11+3
Evade 1+3
Critical Strike 6+3
Penetrate 20+3
Pierce 4+3

Corpse Explosion 4 (up to 12 charges)
Terror 6 (up to 105 charges)
Weaken 6 (up to 18 charges)
Teleport 2 (up to 25 charges)

Primary Gear:
* Peasant Crown unique War Hat, socketed with a perfect ruby (108 Defense, +1 skills, 15% Faster Run, +20 ENE, +20 VIT, Replenish Life +7, +38 Life)
* Rare Amulet (+2 Sorceress Lightning skills, damage reduced by 2, Resist Cold 20, Level 2 Teleport (25 charges))
* 'Black', Brynhilde´s Knout (15% IAS, 40% Crushing Blow, Knockback, +10 VIT, level 4 Corpse Explosion (12 charges))
* 'Smoke', Brynhilde´s Wyrmhide (652 Defense, Resist All 50, 20% FHR, +280 Defense vs missiles, level 6 Weaken (18 charges))
* 'Rhyme', Brynhilde´s Bone Shield (28 Defense, CBF, Resist All 25, 65% chance to block, 50% extra gold, +25% MF)
* Crafted Sharkskin Gloves (44 Defense, +1 P&M skills, +20% IAS, 8% Crushing Blow, 2% life steal, 3% mana steal +16 life)
* Rare Ring (+5% bonus to AR, +5 light, +85 AR, 6% life steal, Resist Fire +26%, Resist Lightning +19%, Half Freeze)
* Crafted Mesh Belt (61 Defense, 3% life steal, 8% Open Wounds, Resist Cold +27%, Resist Lightning +19%, +12 life)
* Coral Ring of the Jackal (Resist Lightning 27, +4 Life)
* Infernostride unique Demonhide Boots (102 Defense, 20% Faster Run, Resist Fire +30% (and the possibility to raise it to 85% maximum), 52% extra gold, adds 12-33 fire damage, 5% chance to cast level 8 Blaze when struck)

Weapon Switch:
* Balanced Knife of Terror
* 'Rhyme' Bone Shield (17 Defense, CBF, Resist All 25, 65% chance to block, 50% extra gold, +25% MF)

* Charms taking up a total of 21 inventory spaces giving +1 P&M skills, Resist Fire +26%, Resist Cold +28%, Resist Lightning +7%, Resist Poison +7%, +6% MF and +202 Life.
Best single charm is probably the 10/19 Ruby Small Charm of Vita.


Alternate gear:
* Rare Balanced Knife (Prevent Monster Heal, 10% IAS, +1435 AR based on level, Resist Lightning +14%)
* Gimmershred unique Flying Axe (massive elemental damage of thee types)
The two items above form Brynhilde´s "Anti-PI Tool Kit".

* Grim Wand of Life Tap (only used against Hell Ancients)

Congrats on a superbly played Guardian! :winner:

--SB

Nice work! :flip: When I saw you had made it to the Throne Room level, I knew you had victory locked up.

Brynhilde: "Sister, do you mind if I cower a bit behind this pillar? You seem to have the situation well in hand."

So, I see that Coral is not the only Zon whose team benefited from the mighty pillar! :lol: I vote for the "pillar" as co-MVP against the Ancients (along with the valk of course). You may have noticed Coral's handprints on the pillar, as she clutched it for dear life. Or even her lipstick, where she kissed it. (Yep, zons wear lipstick)

WSK 1: Flesh Spawners, Heirophants/Zealots and Vile Witches. Very challenging. The spawners kept my minions occupied so the witches could spam their nasty missiles and curse us.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who had to deal with guest Spawners!

Cheers to Coral and Brynhilde! :winner: